Blog Post #7-Waiting for the Flop

“How Much Shall We Bet?” At first I thought the story by Italo Calvino was about gambling. How interesting could this possibly get? Yeah, ok, life’s a gamble or something like that. Then the first four words hit me. “The logic of cybernetics.” What does that have to do with gambling? Nothing, I soon found out. “How Much Shall We Bet” is not only complex within the word choice, but also within the concept. Why is the concept so complex?, I couldn’t tell you, because I don’t know what the concept is. Almost the entire story resists interpretation, and one has to look instead, for the parts that don’t resist interpretation. All the points one can possibly make about this story are speculation(which is ironic, seeing as the whole story is speculative in and of itself). One part that I felt I could possibly understand was when Qfwfq started losing bets, even though he hadn’t miscalculated. To me, this represented the uncalulable nature of humanity. No matter how many “components” are brought together to make a prediction, noone can predict anything about humanity, because humans are always logical, except when they are not. To me, Qfwfq got caught in a paradox. His words had more meaning than he knew when he said, “correct myself how? On the basis of what?” There isn’t a basis, there is no rationale behind the actions of humans, except when there is.

There are so many questions, this story leads to, but none of them are really answerable, which is why this story is so captivating. Anyone could bet anything about everything, but no matter the odds, there will never be a sure victory, because human nature crushes all reasoning.

Blog Post #6-Fated Violence-Paper

Peace is not peppered with moments of violence, rather violence is lightly salted with the taste of peace. Dodge, Duck. Run for cover. Wave that once-white flag of history. However passionately humanity gropes at peace, our fate is to succumb to the essential human tendency towards violence. These insubstantial wisps of peace signal a temporary shift in understanding that allows people to realize that the only free will they have is the ability to choose whether or not to accept their fate. The stories of “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” “Oedipus Rex,” “Othello,” and “The Dumb Waiter,” lay out these multi’faceted paths of understanding, and pave them with humanity’s different perceptions of reality, all ultimately ending in fated tragedy.



1. THEME-violence
a. Understanding/acceptance of fate signals essential human tendency towards violence
i. No separation between animals(Othello) except that we kill not out of necessity –worse than animals.
b. Ppl try to avoid or question their fate, but the shift in understanding/situation leads them to understand that they can’t avoid their fate.
i. Duality of understanding/different levels.
1. 1st-understanding of situation
2. 2nd-understanding that you can’t avoid your fate
a. one type of understanding leads to the other
c. relation to present day
i. wars
ii. ex:use “the dumb waiter”- more present day.
1. Shows today’s common mindset

Blog Post #5-Iago, living in the real reality

What I thought about as I read Othello, was that Iago just might have the right idea about how and why people tic. Maybe the fact that he had to meddle and not just understand makes him “a moral pyromaniac”, but I think that the rest of the characters were the ones living in an alternate reality. The reality even today is that in every aspect of human life, there is something to be exploited and someone willing to do it. In the case of Iago, he didn’t “set fire to all of reality,” just to the false one in which the rest of the characters lived.

Blog Post #4-Morrocan Oasis

Blog Post #3-Just Gimme Some Truth

I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, shortsighted,
narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

Blog post #2-My Opinion In Oedipus

Even though the story of Oedipus is interesting in and of itself(i mean. come on, marry your mother and kill your father-crazy), the story also raises some moral and ethical questions about fate and free will, and the subtle differences between right and wrong.
Throughout the story I really liked trying to find each place that Oedipus took a step closer to his fate that he was trying to avoid. He left his home to avoid his fate and ended up traveling down the road toward it. I also liked asking myself what would have happened, if say, Liaos didn't hear his fate, or Oedipus didn't hear his? Both Liaos and Oedipus did what they wanted along their journeys-free will-but ended up meeting their fate anyway. Does that mean that they didn't have free will? It's interesting to ponder upon.
I also found it interesting to notice how, while Oedipus tried to make the right choices, he ended up destroying himself, which in his eyes would mean that he made the wrong choices. The two were very closely intertwined between his two selves. I found this intriguing, because the character of Oedipus is easily relatable to the reader, which makes the reader struggle along with Oedipus, as if it were the reader's own fate unfolding.

Blog Post #1 Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come'
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.