Brain Vomit, Someone Hold My Brainstem Back Whilst I Punish The Porcelain Shine Of This Page.

Whoo! So we all got assigned this keeping with your own writing/blogging journal page and i figured why not just bust it out as an aside to my other posts?
Then you say: "Why not Riley? That sounds like and efficient idea of the highest order."
Then I say: "Why of course it is, friend who writes exactly like me and knows how to log into my blog!"
Then you say: "I just thought you were meta-prosaical, why would you treat me (your internal dialogue) like a newcomer in your writing world?"
Then I say: "Shut the fuck up and run for your life! This is my blog, I will murder any trespasser with cavalier relish! Also, 'meta-prosaical' is a made up word! Perish for your arrogance"-Katana Slice, another would be benign voice is wiped from the cosmos like so much waste from a galactic baby's ass. Gnarly.

So I completed some writing today and yesterday for my writing group, The Drinklings, and was swept up by my own self-indulgent genius. One page became five and I feel a lot better. Writing for this and other free-range projects keeps me loose and provides a peaceful catharsis in lieu of the academic truncheon. That's about it, more to come, you wayward philological bandits. THE END!

This Is Not What Kenny Loggins Meant.

More photo talk, yes. This is a capture from the only existing recording of a live giant squid. The video itself captured by Japanese scientists in water far too deep for sunlight to penetrate is the first actual record of any giant squid behavior. Pretty sweet if you ask me, real live sea monsters. The ocean has been a constant source of bewilderment and danger to mankind, and the otherworldly appearance and behavior of such an elusive beasty does naught but remind those of us without gills that there is much we do not know. The image itself is grainy and pixelated, poorly lit and moving only to the eyes of the scientifically analytical. The quality of the photo cannot be improved and if we miss that failure, we miss much of the gravity.  The reason that a better, more artistic image could not be captured is that the rarity and exclusive habitat of Architeuthis makes the fact that there was even a camera around when it showed up an extremely rare occurrence. Most images associated with the giant squid are mythic, secondhand accounts of something so fearsome and bizarre that an entire folklore has swum up around it. We have all seen the paintings and old art prints derived from sailor's accounts that describe the giant kraken munching adventurers and lurking below every schooner. This is that same monster, but actually recorded alive for the first time. This is humanity's first glimpse at a rare species and the equipment on hand is indicative of the scientific nature of the image. The squid came into frame to feed upon a baited line and was soon gone after several minutes of tugging, leaving behind a tentacle. Such an ominous and bizarre creature has been haunting the minds of landlubbers for generations and we finally capture it on film and it hardly tried to eat us. What a let down, it even revealed itself as fragile and timid, go figure. To me this image and the concepts it evokes speak not so much of the animal itself, as in reality this "sea monster" is no threat to people, but  of our human relation to the idea and image of a myth. All we need to do is see an image that says: "Giant Squid" and our mind goes crazy building fear of the natural world beyond our perception, while the only way to really get close to the squid is to travel hundreds of feet below the surface in a tiny robot submarine and wait around with a baited hook for weeks.

The image itself is not a photograph, though technique is not entirely gone, the importance of the image is not how it was taken but that it was taken for the first time. When or if deep sea photography improves enough to fully capture Architeuthis, some discussion of technique might prove useful. Until then, grainy snippets of a rare find will have to do. Science!

Run For Your Fucking Life. Four Images You Should Fear.

Photo Analysis, Of A Picture!

The first thing I notice about this photo is the setting: blue collar, Southern, midday or early afternoon. The balance of organizational power is obviously in the presence of the two white gentlemen in closer frame. It would be far too easy to imagine the southern drawl and delicately constructed pejorative slights that are exchanged between the two in obvious interaction. The field hands sit behind the overseer as if waiting to be driven or moved into more labor by a snap or command. I assume that the overseer is the portly white fellow with his foot on the bumper in the global "I am a man with sweaty balls" posture. He looks just as we would expect him in his contrast to his lean yet idle workers, this character illustrates itself with an almost cookie-cutter efficiency into the imagination of anyone familiar with the villains of Mississippi Burning, The Color Purple or (Gasp!) Deliverance.  Even the style of clothes worn by the two white men in contrast to the field hands just clobbers one with a racist two-by-four.
Being myself raised in a stagnant, suburban community established by Alabaster Whitey McGenocide The Third, I associate a man in this fellow's posture with the disapproving father of temporary girlfriend number seventy-five as he watches me approach, but this connection is irrelevant.
This photo simply and eloquently demonstrates the emotive nature of a shaky and difficult time in American history where the wounds of slavery were still the scars of segregation and the South exemplified every bit the term "situated unrest." Imagination beyond the frame of the photo would show vast fields of cotton or hemp in a sweltering southern sun. The title chosen for this photo could be misleading as well so I have crafted my own to enhance the experience:

Alternate Photo Titles

1)-Plantation Overseer Takes Everyone Out For Ice Cream and Cigarettes!

2)-Atticus Confronts Bob Ewell In Front Of Tom Robinson's House.

3)-Finally! We Locked The Keys Inside Hours Ago.
4)-Plantation Overseer And His Field Hands Wait For Little Stevie's Birthday Party To Finish So They Can Get A Turn With The Newfangled Southern Lazer-Tag Arena.

In all seriousness, this photo is indicative of some serious social inequality that is still present in the American Psyche.

Why I Write?

Well well, it would appear this class is asking me a dangerous and far too open-ended question. I write when I am anxious. I have always been anxious and therefore have always written. I guess a more satisfying scab to pick is what makes me anxious and thus makes me write? Well let me tell you my little wayward leaf upon the electronic epistolary winds of the internet, there are far too many things to be listed in such a brief post. Let us cover the basics:
1) The overuse of the word "Like"- I don't mean to be a dick, but there it is. If anyone wants to be taken seriously, especially in an English class, the use of this word should be kept within the boundaries of grammatical reason (a.k.a. not every other word.) If one is trying to express a thought of intellectual value, best leave the linguistic-battering simile abuse on Skype. I can and will be counting the number of times "Like" is abused for no one but myself.
2) "Best Selling" Writers-Stephnie Meyer is a bestselling author. That is fucked up. This wretched harpy has spent decades twisting her dark-ages perception of feminine "presence" or "importance" into the books and cinemas aimed directly at young women. I understand that humanity has large problems concerning its ability to treat women fairly and shave off the bristly trappings of chauvinism in its institutionalized state, this ridiculous excuse for a fantasy series is an insidious and indoctrinating catalog of steaming prose (intentionally detrimental or not.) I guess my anxiety is not necessarily aimed specifically at Mrs. Meyer, but at the festering trough of mediocrity in which her fascist propaganda bathes and from which the young readers of this world suckle.
3) Pet Peeve- Ironically enough, I just hate those two words together.

I hope this post displays to you, dear classmate, why I enjoy writing. I write because the selective bludgeoning of the intellectual war-criminals on this planet is out of my reach. I write because it is more socially acceptable than screaming and flinging Molotov cocktails into the air. I write because if i did not, all of this crazy would go somewhere potentially less benign than a page.