First Dinner Service

I'm going to skip over the last few days because they were pretty unexciting. It was mostly just sitting listening to the same rules and regulations again and again for about 6 hours and then eating in the cafeteria and going to the employee pub at about 9 or so for a tall boy of PBR. I also learned that either I suck at pool or the people here are really good at it. I met a ton of people, it feels like freshman year of college except that I do have to "hey mister" somebody for a beer. 

But today was the first time I was actually doing my job "for real". Tonight was the "shakedown" which is like a trial run for the Food and Beverage staff. Essentially, we split into two groups and the first serves while the second dines, and then we switch. As a server assistant, my job is to keep h2o's filled and buss tables, which might seem kinda easy, but I have a million little things to do as well like garbage and restocking plates and glasses and settings. Additionally, I suck at folding napkins. Despite all this dinner service went off without a hitch. I didn't spill or drop a glass. Also, I made $6 even though tipping wasn't required. I have tomorrow off, so I'm going to celebrate at the pub with a Rye Old Fashioned!

I don't expect this blog to be as regular as Old Faithful...

I've never been a contentious blogger. Even when I had to do this blog for school I tried my damnedest to ignore this thing. But I guess a story needs recording, so here follows a record of my year working at the Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone National Park.

Really, I felt very melancholy the last few days in Bozeman. It was a weird feeling being happy for my friends that graduated or moved on to better things while at the same time wishing that they had all failed so they could hang around with me another year. Additionally, packing all of my stuff into a car seemed way too familiar to be completely healthy. The night before I left I didn't get a very good nights sleep. I tossed and turned and ended up watching some Whose Line Is It Anyway? until about 2am at which point I fell into a dreamless sleep for about 5 hours. I hit the road at about half past seven. The scenery flew past my windows on a two lane highway for about 50 minutes until I spied Gardiner and a whole busload of people in line for employee check in. I waited in a warehouse for 2 hours until I got my papers even checked, and another hour and a half before I was actually done with the process. but I was meeting some people, a couple of them turned out to be my roommates but I didn't know that at the time. It was honestly pretty awful though, a myriad of lines and my photo being taken for the ID. I managed to get some reading in while I waited. Then I grabbed a Sub sandwich and motored to Mammoth, where I was subjected to the first of many orientation torture sessions. All I remember from that particular one is that employees have been boiled to death in thermal springs, and that I could be killed by a Bison, Bear, Elk, Wolf, or even a weasel if I got within 75 feet of them. Then I drove south to Old Faithful, and checked in at the housing office. Room 131. thats all I got in me for the moment, more later.

Jekyll and Hyde Fiction: An Analysis of Duality in Speculative Fiction Rhetoric

Jekyll and Hyde Fiction: An Analysis of Duality in Speculative Fiction Rhetoric

“Thus I drew steadily nearer the that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two...If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that is unbearable.”

                                        -Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Speculative Fiction (SF) is without a doubt, one of the most popular genres of the twenty-first century. SF creates an eventuality of existence based on the world that the reader experiences every day. SF has the unique ability to transport the reader to a place where their imaginative capability is limitless. It is possible while reading SF to experience a space scape through a porthole in the Omega Nebula, or walk the tattered remains of post-apocalyptic America. However, the reader, with their human concerns and problems, remains a proactive part in the interpretation of the events presented by the author. SF, though it has the potential to illustrate completely alien situations, is one of the most effective storytelling techniques because readers are at once thrilled by the unknown and the imaginative, but ultimately contemplate what this eventuality means for their own existence. Therefore, the power of SF is dual; it has both communicative and influential capability. In the forward of the first edition of Wayne C. Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction, the author describes two different types of rhetoric that are found in fiction: didactic fiction, or “fiction used for propaganda or instruction,” and non-didactic fiction, or “the art of communicating with readers”(Booth, xiii). This necessarily brings this essay to a crossroad in the very onset of it's existence; which is more worthy of focus? However, in contemplation of the two varieties of rhetoric in line with the values presented in the course, it is veritably impossible to separate the two, as Dr. Jekyll discovered so horrifyingly in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Looking at Douglas Ehninger's definition of rhetoric found in On Systems of Rhetoric, this becomes apparent.

“[Rhetoric is] that discipline which studies all of the ways in which men may influence each other's thinking and behavior through the strategic use of symbols.”(Ehninger, 1972)

It is imperative that initially, rhetoric must be also defined as every act of human interaction, echoing Andrea Lunsford's definition of rhetoric in Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse; “Rhetoric is the art, practice, and study of human communication”(Lunsford, 1980). The first part of this definition, about influencing thinking and behavior, is a reflection of didactic fiction, as propaganda and instruction seek to ultimately influence the reader. The second statement, the “strategic use of symbols,” clearly reflects non-didactic rhetoric, or the ability of the author to communicate with the reader, because rhetorical strategy can serve to boost the effectiveness of communication. With an enhancement of communication, necessarily the ability of the author to influence behavior and subsequently “reality,” as Lloyd Bitzer proposes in The Rhetorical Situation is also affected. In this way, the two enter a symbiotic relationship; human interaction serves to influence one's peers, and the ability or inability to communicate effectively dictates the speaker's sway over their audience. Therefore, this essay will be wrought in two parts, the first being a discussion of non-didactic rhetoric and the efficiency of storytelling and communication, focusing primarily on Part I of Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction. The second part will tie this to didactic rhetoric in fiction, mostly a discussion of the idea of heterotopian rhetoric as an effective means to influence thought, behavior, and “reality.”

Part I:

General Rules, I-IV: Balancing Subjectivity and Objectivity For Communicative Efficiency

Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction is one of the most popular textbooks for a course centered on the art of fiction writing. It has become the center for discussions of how a fictional text works. Primarily, this discussion will center around how authors make novels accessible to the reader. The focus of the a majority of the first part of The Rhetoric of Fiction describes the difference of authorial presence using the common concept of “showing versus telling.” In the second chapter of Part I, Booth engages the reader in a discussion about the role that the objective author plays in a novel. Booth argues that although a objective author is in most respects more desirable that a subjective one, the author can never quite sever all ties from the text. Instead, he proposes several different techniques that an author can use to widen the divide. A big part of this is the author's duty to create a reliable narrator. One of the most important part of this is harnessing their personal voice. The author needs to be aware of what he asks of his readers regarding sympathy and disdain. Optimally, the author should never ask for one or the other without giving reason for it, or invoking the reader's own logos. If all readers feel strongly towards one character or another, there is a fault with the author's ability to remain objective and “impartial.” Impartiality plays a large role in creating a reliable narrator. Booth states that an author can use a stance of indifference, in pointing out both the commendable and the flawed traits that characters display, to engage readers more thoroughly in the text. This is accomplished because the reader gains more pleasure in being able to reserve judgment for themselves. Above all, the author should try to maintain a stance of neutrality towards values present in their work. Complete neutrality, of course, is impossible, as a central part of reader involvement in a piece of literature is preferring one character over another. However, if the author is too subjective, it can put the reader off the novel. Style, tone, and technique are all methods used to describe different aspects which the reader glimpses from the impartial author; commentary, however, betrays subjectivity.(Booth, 37) Here again, the duality of fiction is present; there must be a balance between the reader using his or her own logic to determine their character preference and the author's own authority. Ultimately, the fewer biases the author utilizes, the more his readers are likely to find his work agreeable.(Booth, 40) Booth notes that an author who tells important elements of the story shows the power of ethos of the author over their audience.

`“One of the most artificial of devices of the storyteller is the trick of going beneath the surface of the action to obtain an reliable view of a character's mind and heart.”(Booth, 3)

Booth goes on to say that telling an audience critical knowledge essentially gives them hoop to jump through; in order to grasp the story to follow, the reader must accept the information without question. In the case of character traits, such as personal mantra, identity, or morality, this kind of information is almost never obtained even by the closest of friends or relatives. In the case of clarity and concision, there is no real parallel, but the reader is given no empirical evidence to base this information on. Yet, because it is a story, in order to continue their relationship to the text, the reader suspends this lack of objectivity in favor of the author's authority and ethos. From this, it is clear to the reader what they should hope for. In general, that the moral and righteous prevail, and the wicked and evil are vanquished, and a clear and effortless communication between author and audience is established. Booth states that this sort of rhetoric can never vanish completely from a work of fiction, but that it has been more present in the past. The opposite, of course is a dramatic, objective, “showing” narrator. This has been argued to be a more “artistic” form of storytelling by modern authors. Booth quotes Mark Harris' essay, Easy Does It Not to illustrate this:

“I shall not tell you anything, I shall allow you to eavesdrop on my people, and sometimes they will tell the truth and sometimes they will lie, and you must determine for yourself when they are doing which. You do this every day. Your butcher says 'This is the best,' and you reply, 'That's you saying it.'”(Harris, 117)

This more dynamic form of storytelling promotes the theories of literary critics such as Robert Scholes, Wolfgang Iser, and Jean-Paul Sartre. These three state that the pleasure to be gained by literature is the active engagement of the reader with the text. With this in mind, the rhetoric behind an objective story-shower can be established. Because the reader is forced to figure out what they think is true and untrue, the audience's logic is forced to work in order to determine who they want to ultimately succeed, based on their own beliefs and “truths.” This can also be compared to the ideas in Bitzer's The Rhetorical Situation. Bitzer argues in this essay that the author varies their rhetoric based on an issue, the audience, and a set of constraints. Objective story-showing gives a greater breadth to loosen the constraints of the situation and appeal to a greater number of issues and a larger audience, enhancing the efficiency of communication.

Part II: Heterotopian Rhetoric: Entelechy, Estrangement, and The CESH Proof

Science Fiction and Fantasy are quickly becoming one of the most read genres, if not the most read genre, of the 21^st century. However, this genre is continually neglected as a form of “high” art. Most people, if asked what their conception of Science Fiction is, will reply with the common stigma of the the cable channel SciFi, Star Trek, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and other examples of B-grade film. What they don't realize is that SciFi fiction is different from what is known as Speculative Fiction(SF). Speculative Fiction is different from those titles listed above because, unlike its fantastical brethren, SF has roots based on contemporary society. There is a philosophical term that describes how SF acheives this feat. "Science Fiction and a Rhetorical Analysis of the 'Literature Myth'" by Kris Rutten, Ronald Soetaert, and Geert Vandermeersche. The trio contemplates how the the term coined by Kenneth Burke, entelechy applies to Speculative Fiction. Entelechy is described as “...the tendency of a potential to realize itself. … for example the way a seed contains in itself the tree that it will eventually become.”(R,S&V, 4). “Based on this definition of entelechy, Burke argues that entelectical satire is a very valid method of problematizing the development of society. This form of satire has a three step process. The first is to locate a archetype that is quickly beginning to paralyze culture. Next, define that archetype in specific terms, and finally describe what the eventuality of what will happen if this definition is applied to society by hunting down all possible outcomes of the archetype. What Rutten, Soetaert, and Vandermeersche claim is that science fiction fits what Burke calls entelechtical satire because science fiction dramatizes technological developments and trends and follows them "to the end of the line."(R, S, &V, 4).

In his his doctoral thesis, “The Art of Heterotopian Rhetoric: A Theory of Science Fiction as Rhetorical Discourse,” Robert Christopher Jason Graves connects this to several much larger theories of rhetoric. The first is the idea of Heterotopia. The term heterotopia can be defined as an “other” place: a utopia, eutopia, or dystopia, with many variations of each. This “other” place is initially alien to the reader; indeed that “estrangement” is it's very definition. As Darko Suvin argues in his 1972 essay, On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre, “In SF, the attitude of estrangement[. . .]has grown into the formal framework of the genre”(Suvin, 375). Even so, SF authors operate within the bounds of entelechy. Stories that include estrangement are only able to defamiliarize the reader in a way that is possible or probable in the continuation of societal archetypes, that is, a heterotopia. Graves proposes that by blending these two ideas into one proof, a heterotopian work of SF can begin to take shape as a form of didactic rhetoric, that is also a seamless meld with the ideas of efficiency of communication described in part I of this essay.

Graves calls his rhetorical device the Cognitive Estrangement of a Scientific Heterotopia, or from now on the “CESH” proof. First, the three steps regarding Burkeian term, entelechtical satire, must be observed. A archetype is identified and established, and then taken “to the end of the line.” In Graves' CESH proof, this is the creation of what he calls a “Scientific Heterotopia” In describing their heterotopia, a SF author uses both entelechy and Wayne Booth's suggestion of objectivity. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, is a beautiful example of how a SF writer uses objectivity. In the opening chapter, Ender has his “monitor” removed. This “monitor” is implanted into his central nervous system, and it transmits physical change, hormonal change, and actually records what his ocular nerves pick up. This example immediately invokes cognitive estrangement. Children today do not have an implant in their neck. Additionally, a “monitor” models entelechtical satire as children in our society go through serious standardized tests in order to survey intelligence level in many different disciplines. Realizing the “seed” in vigorous testing that children endure in the present day, a possible endpoint that appeals to the reader's logos is to have each child's brain activity tested at literally every moment. Furthermore, Card does not come right out and say that the monitor is hooked up to the subjects central nervous system; instead, he shows the reader by describing how Ender has a grand mal seizure when his doctor attempts to remove it from the base of his skull, and how his removing the monitor had the potential to have “switched him off”(Card, 15) enhancing his non-didactic rhetoric. Because the reader can see that the monitor has the potential to gravely harm the subject, however, Card imposes his values on the reader, violating Booth's idea of the “impartial” narrator. Given that fact, Graves can demonstrate how an example such as this one, that is, an objectively described but clearly biased segment, forms a base for the CESH model as a didactic rhetorical proof:

“...heterotopian readers are less likely to resist these criticisms because they are projected in a heterotopia that is estranged from the “real space” of the audience[...] Heterotopian Rhetoric seeks to provide a form of psychological projection that allows the audience safe passage to cognitively explore critiques of themselves, their societies, and, most importantly, their privileged paradigms.”(Graves, 55-56)

Essentially, the cognitive estrangement of an objective and imaginative heterotopia provide the reader with a space where he or she can reserve their judgment of a practice like a central nervous system implantation, evoking an efficiency in communication for a wide audience, however the author is also able to impose their own biases because the space is a hypothetical one. With these two elements joined, it can be postulated that Heterotopian Rhetoric could be even more powerful than Aristotle's pillar logos because it goes beyond reason as the reader knows it, and enters the realm of reason as it could be; an appeal to what is possible(Graves, 59)

Without a doubt, the theory behind mimetic fiction as a form of rhetoric is complicated enough, without adding the speculative element of what is possible. Still, even with the confusion added by the genre of Speculative Fiction, the Jekyll and Hyde analogy still holds in many respects. In order to appeal to a large audience, the non-didactic efficiency of communication must be observed in the first two steps of Burke's entelechy. But in order to make a work of Speculative Fiction more than a B-grade movie that plays in loops on the SciFi channel, it must also a cognitive element that suggests the ramifications of a social archetype. An author must be objective in order to for a reader to reserve judgment for their own pleasure, and conversely can use that same objectivity and CESH to impose a greater number of biases on the reader. And overarching all of this, the author's ability to use non-didactic rhetoric dictates how well their didactic rhetoric influences the thought, action, and reality of their readers. These theories applied to Science Fiction can have the most profound impact, and as one of the writers that helped the literary critics open their eyes to the genre said:

“The result can be extremely fantastic in content, but it is not fantasy; it is legitimate—and often very tightly reasoned: it is speculation about the possibilities of the real world.” (Robert Heinlein)

Bibliography

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric Of Fiction. 2nd ed. Chicago, London: University Of Chicago Press, 1983. Print.

Rutten, Kris, Ronald Soetaert, and Geert Vandermeersche. "Science Fiction and a Rhetorical Analysis of the ."CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2012. <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1709&context=clcweb>

Graves, Robert Christopher Jason. "The Art of Heterotopian Rhetoric: A Theory of Science Fiction as Rhetorical Discourse." Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy, Bowling Green University. (2009): Web. <http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Graves Robert Christopher.pdf? bgsu1245638686>.

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric Of Motives. 1^st ed. London: University of California Press, 1969. eBook.

Suvin, Darko. "On The Poetics Of The Science Fiction Genre." College English. Vol. 34 No.3 (1972): Web. 12 Dec. 2012.<http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/375141uid=3739768&uid=2&uid =4&uid=3739256&sid=21101482313101>.

Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. New York, NY: Tor Books, 2004. Print.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Jenny Davidson. The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde And Other Stories. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. Print.

Does this NEED to be said? Does this NEED to be said by ME? Does this NEED to be said by ME, NOW?

Davis Zarefsky says visual imagery "stands in for a more complex reality."
Well, Zarefsky, great job in your adaption of "A picture is worth a thousand words" mantra that I've heard about a 57 thousand times since I was ten. Yes, we all agree that this is the case, so why is Sonja Foss quoting this elaborate rewording of a overworked idea?
The truth is, this "thousand words" concept goes deeper than the stereotypical phrase to which it is associated. It's complicated, and yet it is almost... obvious? A thousand words cannot describe one picture, so how can a thousand words describe the concept of a picture describing a thousand words? Instead, what Foss argues in her article is this-
"The cognitive processing of images is less conscious and critical than the processing that occurs with verbal discourse."
That makes sense. Looking at one picture does not only take less time than reading an essay, it also gives pleasure, something that can, ahem, muddle our focus. The above ad for example.
In contemporary culture, the verbal speech is a thing of the past, Foss argues. It's easy to see why. TV, the internet, they all rely on bright colors, and attractive people(take another look at the woman above) and visual stimulation(yes this is purposeful).Possibly because, as humans are primarily visually oriented, as opposed to many other beings, Foss' thinking that "Human experiences that are spatially oriented, nonlinear, multidimensional, and dynamic often can be only communicated only through visual imagery or other non-discursive materials." makes too much sense, just as Zarefsky's adaption makes too much sense to be ignored, even if it is a little overworked. Acknowledging this Foss, breaks visual rhetoric into three requirements:
Symbolic action
Human intervention
Presence of an audience
The article above really exemplifies this.
This next bit may not be for the squeamish....

Symbolic Action:
"Does this NEED to be said? Does this NEED to be said by ME? Does this NEED to be said by ME, NOW?"- Craig Ferguson

Well, I guess I'll just have to own up to the fact that, you all know what I'm getting at, but there's no real getting around it. The Ice Cream Cone.... well. It's supposed to stand in for a cock. The Symbolic action that Foss says needs to be in visual rhetoric is indeed, well... the licking of a penis by a beautiful girl. Guys think about that kind of thing when they see this ad (at least I do-wait for the feminists to stop yelling- ok continue). It's not helped by large amounts of testosterone that cloud our judgement by making us think about sex every fourteen seconds or whatever- I'm not trying to make excuses, ladies, but my brain is wired that way.

This comes to the second requirement of Foss' article, human intervention. The human intervention in this case is the taking of the Ice Cream Cone and replacing it with one's own cock. I mean, it's not that hard to do (pun intended).

The Audience here is at once, simple and complicated. Initially, the audience is guys. They do the first two things and are like "Heh, sweet" and then they see Old Spice and whistle the theme song as they go to the grocery store to pick up a new stick of deodorant because they want a girl to lick thier ice cream cone and Old Spice promises to deliver. But the clever bit is that the discourse plays on the first two stereotypical aspects of Foss' requirements and turns it on it's head. It says, "You're the dicks, not the damn Ice Cream cone for thinking that she enjoys greasing poles rather than frozen milk and sugar on a hot day." Hell, I enjoy Ice cream. I even eat it that way some times, one big ol' lick savoring the cold sweet taste of vanilla cream while the sweat beads on my brow. But I like mine out of the cup rather than the cone. mmmmm.... a  double scoop where Let my tongue slip between the two, slowly, relishing every brainfreeze inducing second.

If sex is a weapon then smash-boom-pow! Well, get your mind out of the gutter you goddamned sexist pigs! You womanizers! You maneaters! It's not sexual, it's fucking Ice Cream!

A very non-visual visual rhetoric post.

This Article is by Sonja K Foss,  a Professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. it is taken as an excerpt of a larger work titled Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media.

Foss, Sonja K. "Theory of visual rhetoric." Handbook of visual communication: Theory, methods, and media (2005): 141-152.

link:http://www.sonjafoss.com/html/Foss41.pdf

WE HAVE A SITUATION!

"Tim, it's 2am, and as I walked past your room on the way to the bathroom, I noticed that your light is on. As I went to turn it off, I noticed that your bed is empty. As I walked to the living room, I also noticed you were not sleeping on the couch. I also noticed that you are not making a midnight snack in the kitchen. But what disturbs me the most is that the car seems to have driven itself down the driveway. This all leads me to believe it was indeed not stolen, but that YOU did the driving. So, Tim, tell me, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU AT TWO IN THE MORNING?"

This is an approximation of what the phone speaker blared at me in my father's voice one summer night as I was  rapidly rushing out the door of my friend Matt's house, slipping on by boots and stumbling towards my car. About two hours before, I had received a call from Matt, telling me that he needed my urgent help. That was, he needed my urgent help to eat a crave case that he had impulsively bought during that time of the night where hunger precedes wisdom, and, truth be told, I was hungry for tiny little burgers and not very sleepy at all.

The rhetorical situation according to Blitzer is thus: The exigence is, of course, that my Dad would likely murder me. The audience would certainly be both of my parents, as I'm sure that my dad's yelling would have woke up the entirety of the house as well as the neighbors across the street. The constraints were that I needed him to believe that I was not out smoking dope, drinking moonshine, or having copious amounts of unprotected pre-marital sex.

My very rhetorical reply was, of course, "ummm..."

His was,"GET HOME RIGHT NOW. DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200 DOLLARS."

As I was already out the door, I was certainly abandoning the theoretical game of monopoly that my Dad so frequently references in times that haste is of the essence. I quickly mumbled something about being already en route, and hung up. As I open the car door, I had a realization. I quickly ran inside and grabbed four burgers and rushed back out the door. As I pulled in the driveway, I saw the porch light was on and the chair was occupied by a very angry father with a bristly mustache and a glass of whiskey in his hand. As my father does not normally drink, I new the rhetorical situation was very grave indeed. as I pulled open the screen door, the mouth underneath the angrily jutting lip hair said, "Well. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Do you want a burger?"

"IN THE BLUE CORNER! WEIGHING IN AT APPROXIMATELY 180 LBS..."

I think that the defining thing about this debate is the change in the demeanor between the two candidates since Denver, especially the President's. This debate was still rather painful to watch because of the amount of avoidance that both candidates did, but I also think that the gloves really came off. Both of them we're really on the attack tonight, I was waiting for microphone to come down at the end and Candy to walk out and say "IN THE BLUE CORNER..." and then they would touch gloves and beat the hell out of one another. There was so much animosity in that room, it was palpable. I want to say that it made me more excited, but I just couldn't get into the two men at each other's throats all night. This is what I will say. I think the President really stepped up his game, and I think the moderator did a much better job. I will also say I was quite mad at Romney for suggesting that the President didn't care about the people who died in Libya, I think that was extremely distasteful, whether or not Obama did call the murders an "Act of Terror"(I looked up the transcript on a Fox site, they say he used "terror" in a generic sense, despite in being in very close proximity to the word "act," as in "acts of terror" versus that he should have said "This was a deliberate Act of Terror on the United States of America" and that is totally the same damn thing when you consider that the whole speech was concerning the attacks on Libya and not on Terrorism as a whole.)