Cannery Row (F2)

This is my cover:

This is my explanation:

Novel Alternative Cover

Jeremy Luu

The overall design of the cover is a broken vinyl record. This is important in the book because one of the main characters, Doc, listens to music. In fact, music can even be considered a motif in the book as Steinbeck describes Doc as a person who hears music echoing in his brain constantly. In fact, the music changes when traumatizing events occur to Doc. For example, while finding a dead body, Doc “sat there hearing the music, while the sea crept in again over the bouldery flat. His hand tapped out the rhymm, and the terrifying flute played in his brain” (74). This idea of music as a emotion control mechanism can be seen in Doc throughout the book

Another thing is, because Music holds such value in Doc’s life, when other characters accidentally break his records, he is in pain. Doc “bent down quickly and picked up a smashed phonograph record and looked at its title” (87) and proceeded to punch the person who did it. This is important because it is an important point for the relationship between Doc and another main character, Mack.

In my cover, Mack is the silhouette on the top of the vinyl record and Doc is the one on the bottom. Throughout the book, Mack and the boys want to do good for Doc but have the curse of bad luck. Everything they do turns rotten, until one day it goes too far and the friendship between the two characters becomes awkward. Mack and the boys become social outcasts although Doc is very willing to forgive them. In fact, my cover is greatly influenced by the quote, “Doc didn’t know the pain and self-destructive criticism in the Palace Flophouse or he might have tried to do something about it. And Mack and the boys did not know how he felt or they would have held up their heads again” (98).

I feel as though the crack in the vinyl can symbolize the miscommunication and the general unknowingness that characters have for each other in this book.

Also, there’s a beer bottle next to Mack. Alcohol is a big factor in the book because I feel like literally everyone is taking swigs every single moment of the book. Even Doc, one of the most high regarded characters said, “There’s nothing like that first taste of beer” (98). All of the characters drink alcohol on a daily bases and I think that just adds to the feel of the setting. The laid back sort of you can do whatever you want feel you get from Cannery Row.

I chose the color tan as a background because I thought that also helped towards the calm and loose setting of Cannery Row.

Cannery Row (MB 4)

Hello blog, long time no see.
Due to corona, I have had a lot of free time.
However, none of it was spent well.

Video games are one hell of a drug, I must tell you. I would sit there for hours just playing and only playing. Finishing my book was at the back on my head, the last thing I would do on this coronacation.

So finally, online school came. We had our first day today and one of the assignments was to read for 20 minutes. I thought to myself, F it, I'm finishing the goddamn book. I sat down and chugged through my book, which in hindsight wasn't too bad, I should do that more often.

I found myself getting distracted often though, even though I was literally in bed with no distractions around. My mind would just wander and I think it's because of my lame excuse of an attention span.

Another thing I've noticed when I'm reading is that my heart rate starts to pick up towards the end of books. It's quite funny actually because I'm trying to focus on how the author is wrapping up the book but then in my mind, I'm like holy crap I made it.

So, in conclusion, I SHOULD start reading more often, but guess what? That's what I said at the beginning of Coronacation and look at what happened, no reading. I would say oh well but to be honest if I say oh well that's dismissing my sins and I should try to work on my habits.

Cannery Row (F1)

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Character Interview: Mack

Interviewer: Hello Mack, I understand that you are representing the area of Cannery Row here today. We will be asking you questions on the quality of life and what it’s like to live in Cannery Row.

Mack: Yes, and how are you Mr…

Interviewer: Please, call me Todd, I am well.

Mack: Aight, Todd, well you said somethin’ about our experience or whatnot of being in Cannery Row. I think that it’s a delightful place. It’s quite an extravagant place, it’s quiet, peaceful, and the people there are a close nit community. Take me n’ the boys for example, we do almost everything together and always got each other’s backs. In fact, the other day, me n’ the boys went down to get our good friend Doc some frogs. We don’t know what he does with ‘em but he probably sends them to get researched by some fancy cancer machine. We also get paid 5 cents per each frog we get so we got hundreds upon hundreds, upwards to around eight hundred! You wana’ know what we gonna’ do wit’ all that dough?

Todd: What?

Mack: Well, don’t tell Doc this but we’re actually planning on giving him a surprise party

Todd: Really? That’s so nice of you.

Mack: Yeah, “Doc is a fine fellow. We ought to do something for him” (12). He’s just that sort of guy you feel always in debt to. He’s such a good man. An intellectual as well. He’s just… Well… Doc… You’d know what I mean if you’ve met him. He’s such a great guy. Although, there is one thing pretty weird about him: He doesn’t like to get his head wet. It’s pretty weird, he wears hats all the time because the tiniest of droplets will scare him senseless.

Todd: Ah… Odd indeed. Doc does seem to be one good man.

Mack: Oh and the other day, the guy we got most of our frogs from, he gave me a dog.

Todd: A dog?

Mack: Yes a dog. We named her Darling.

Todd: Ah, anyways, Mack, please tell us more about your role in Cannery row. How do you think you contribute to the community.

Mack: Well, “we got good reputations and we don’t want to spoil them” (41). We’re good workers around the town and every single one of the boys could fix any jiggabobber in about an hour. I’ve warned my boys that we don’t wana be known for only holdin’ a job for a couple of days. No one would want to hire us then.

Todd: Well from our sources, we have some quotes, would you like to hear them

Mack: Yessir. Can’t wait

Todd: Well we’ve heard that Hazel, one of your boys, said “I bet Mack could have been president of the U.S. if he wanted” (76)…

Mack: Well he’s darn well right. I love my people. My people love me. I’m just such a down to earth type of guy you know? By God, I can’t wait for our party. Doc is going to be so surprised and happy…

Todd: Whoa, whoa, whoa, before we move on, can you give us your ideas of Jones saying “What could he do with it if he had it?” (76) in response to Hazel.

Mack: Oh well, he’s also damn right too. Being president would be boring as hell. I wouldn’t know what to do half of my time and all that agenda stuff bores me. I like to keep it simple, you know just hang out with the boys and have a good time.

Todd: Would you say that you’re the leader of the group?

Mack: I think all of the boys bring something to the table. For instance, Gay, he’s the best mechanic out of the whole bunch of us. Eddie gets us free alcohol because he fills in as a bartender. We all have put in our respective efforts into The Palace Flophouse, which is our home.

Todd: Ahh, tell me more about this Palace Flophouse?

Mack: Well, we used to live in the empty lot by Lee Chong’s store, but then one day we heard that Lee Chong had acquired a warehouse. With further inspection, we noticed that Lee Chong barely upkept the warehouse, so we proposed to him that we could maintain it for him. He technically charges us five dollars a week but we’re good friends with him, he knows we’re sometimes low on dough.

Todd: Is there anything else I should know about The Palace Flophouse?

Mack: Well, yeah, it’s a wonderful place and me and the boys love it. It’s almost like the representation of the American Dream. Not only that, it’s our dream. We sit outside in the mornings together watching the sunrise. The Palace Flophouse is everything to us.

Todd: Ah, thank you Mack, that’s all I have for today. It was a pleasure talking to you!

Mack: A pleasure talking to you too, Todd.

Cannery Row (MB 3)

Wazzup my readers! It's fiction book time! F i n a l l y, the nonfiction book is out of the way... Just kidding Mr. Perlman, I actually thought that Homage to Catalonia was a good book.

Anyways, I'm currently reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Now, Cannery Row is turning out to be a pretty good book. Like, you know how before I said how I was reading super slow, well I feel like I'm reading at a pretty good pace now. For instance, before in a nonfiction book it would take me around 4-5 minutes per page just to digest the information but with Cannery row it takes 1-2 minutes per page.

Also, John Steinbeck is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good at being descriptive, you'd have to try to NOT imagine what he writes about.

Speaking of reading habits, lately I've had a cough (it's not Corona) and I also like to read at night and in the morning. This puts me in a predicament.

To understand this predicament, you must also know that to read Cannery Row, I stole my brother's kindle and bought the book lol. I don't think he misses it... hopefully.

So, with the Kindle, I am able to read late at night, however, my parents don't know I'm awake reading... I mean, to be honest, I'm pretty sure they would be fine with me reading at that time because it's being productive and reading is supposed to be good for you, but I rather not find out...

Anyways, it's late at night, like 12-1 AM and I'm reading but this darn corona cough is so loud that I'm pretty sure my parents can hear it from the other room. However, I'm pretty (like 99%) sure I don't cough in my sleep because I don't wake up with a sore throat or anything, so I'm pretty sure my parents can reason that if I cough, then I'm awake. Oh well...

The nighttime is very peaceful anyways so I think it's worth it.

The book so far has been going well. I looked up some characters because I thought that I recognized some of them from other John Steinbeck books such as Lee from East of Eden, and I ended up finding out that there are people who believe that John Steinbeck wrote his books based off of real people. Now, I like to think that is true because in Cannery Row, a man is either blissful or will commit suicide in a couple of chapters. Now I'm not saying suicide is good or anything, but most of the book so far has been about the happy guys and like their adventures are just so playful and fun and their personalities are so genuine. I mean, in reality, John Steinbeck probably had a little bit of inspiration, but the characters are probably not exact parallels to real people.

Well, that's my mini-blog, see you at the main one.

Homage to Catalonia (NF 2)

Homage to Catalonia (MB 2)

Hey guys! So you know how Mr. Perlman is always telling us to use our time wisely. Well during our class reading periods I'm reading my book and I look over and Johnny's reading at twice the speed that I am. In my defense, the section I was reading was a very slow and painful section of the book - it was on politics (ew... sorry Mr. McDaniels).

Now, Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War. This means that he writes about his time on the front fighting for the P.O.U.M. militia (people who are Marxist but are still on the side of democracy) against the Nationalists (the people who are with the dictator Francisco Franco).

This also means that George Orwell had put sections in his book that go over the political turmoil happening in Spain during the time... and because there was a lot of propaganda happening during the time, there was a lot of misinformation going around. So through Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell repeatedly states that he wants to be as objective as possible and set some of the misinformation straight.

However, as a consequence of this, there were some chapters that were so. damn. confusing... agh!!... I don't think I've ever been more grateful for Google, helping me learn all of those darn acronyms for the political parties. There's the P.O.U.M., the P.S.U.C., the C.N.T., the U.G.T. and so many confusing conflicts between those parties.

Just figuring out each party's beliefs was hard and then I had to understand why the Stalinists didn't like the Trotskyists and all that yada yada. In the end, I do think it was worth it because the Spanish Civil war is a VERY interesting topic. It was a very cool insight into war and everyone's motives around it and it really did open my eyes to make me realize that war isn't just this side versus that side. For example, there was an internal conflict on the democratic side of the civil war that caused street fights in Barcelona.

That chapter about Barcelona was probably the slowest... thing... ever... literally. Like I would read a sentence then realize I didn't understand it then read it two more times only to realize I had forgotten what happened beforehand and so to understand the significance of the sentence I had to go back and reread the sentences before it and it was just a mess also because I had to look things up every 5 seconds.

After that chapter though the book got really good... I mean it was already really good in the first place like George Orwell's style of writing is just so good I love it (just that one chapter killed me).  Orwell begins to talk about his time on the front again and there was this one part where he talked about getting shot in the neck. I swear, I think throughout that chapter I was shriveling my own neck because it was so weird imagining the words that Orwell had written.

Anyways, so TL;DR for this mini update is that politics is why I read so slow and getting shot in the neck is a very sensational thing to read about.

Homage to Catalonia (NF 1)

Retell a Moment from Another POV

The fascist’s POV from when Orwell’s squad attacked their parapet
               Almost nothing ever happened during the war. However, tonight I was especially alert. P.O.U.M. had already previously attacked our position and we had to shoot five of our own sentries for negligence. There were also previous rumors of a possible attack by the P.O.U.M. militia. The night was still and the tiniest of noise jolted my drooping eyelids back up. I was bored. During the day time there was nothing to do except smoke, think, and listen to stray bullets fly overhead. This carried over to the night, except there wasn’t the occasional sound of bullets. It was so much easier to stop thinking, to stop caring, and to just sit there at my post. I counted to five to keep myself conscious.
               I was stationed at a machine gun, which was something that P.O.U.M. didn’t have. During the day, sometimes I could see tiny men move across the hillside. Watching them scramble to cover as I fired at them would provide me with something to do. Throughout my time on duty, I never actually managed to hit any of them. It didn’t make a difference to me though, as I found it funny watching the enemy. Although, I guess it wasn’t as comedic to them.
               It was so cold in the trenches. The enemy sometimes seemed irrelevant when having to face mother nature. Though, it also seemed that P.O.U.M. militia was suffering through the same thing, as through our telescope I managed to catch how beaten up their soldier’s boots were. Our clothing was falling apart too and we were almost always hungry. Food was in shortage all the time and aside from the constant burning of our stomachs, lice was rampant in the trenches, stinging our testicles.
               I was daydreaming about our next issue of cigarettes would be when I was blinded by a red light. Soon after, I could hear a loud bang. Almost immediately there were shouts of “They’re attacking!”.
               Jolted awake, I sprayed the darkness with the machine gun. The light from the original hand grenade was still imprinted into my sight. The shouts where deafened out by the roar of bullets I was creating. Several more hand grenades went off, closer to our position this time. The shrapnel could be heard burying itself into the ground near us. Not knowing whether what I was doing was effective or not, I stopped to regain awareness of my surroundings. I could hear beside me my allies firing rifles. This was returned with fire from the enemy. Their rifles blinked like fireflies in the darkness. I sprayed the area from which I saw light.
               Another grenade went off inside our trench. I started to hear people call for us to retire. The enemy was advancing on us. There was no time to count our casualties as everyone started to scramble to get to safety. I was ordered to unscrew the machine gun and take it with us, I guess to prevent the enemy from gaining their first machine gun. In quick time, several more grenades went off and we had evacuated the area.
               Our commander had told us that reinforcements were on their way. In the meantime, we shot meaningless rifle volleys into our previous position. After a while of back and forth, we received extra troops and orders to advance. I started to set up the machine gun again and we slowly pushed back into the area. However, the enemy was smart, they started to barricade sand bags, making it impossible to reach them with our bullets. We were told to keep pushing. Eventually the enemy stopped returning fire and we charged in, only to find nothing but our dead men. They had escaped with some of our rifles and ammunition.
               This was to be probably some of the most action I will ever get in the Spanish Civil War. However, later on I learned it was only an aversion, meant to lure more troops so that the enemy could attack another lesser manned area. In the end, it was back to the usual waiting and watching.