Courtney's Corner

I listened to the first hour and a half of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Each week tops my favorite thing that I looked at for that week. Although it's a fun listen, it does touch on some political topics in a satirical way. Right of the bat, the protagonist is having an issue with his city officials because they are trying to take his house down to build a new road. This bit is taken even further when the protagonist says the only way he found out was by going into a dungeon with a torch, that had all kinds of "beware" signs just to get to the file that would alert him of the change. This is something that commonly happens in our world today. The want for progress and new things that are supposed to better our world are often hidden from us, do not better the world, and actually inconvenience us all. The icing on the cake with this example is when they go as far as to explode the planet Earth because in space they are building a new space way ...

"The Aquatic Uncle" "The Aquatic Uncle" is a strange story in that it doesn't really write in genre and more takes some elements from genre, but does stay mostly literary. When I first read the story I found it to be more of a folk tale. While the message in the beginning was hard to distinguish, rereading and talking about it in class gave me a better understanding of the story. While the story has fantastical elements, it takes a scientific idea and weaves it throughout --evolution. The story delves into things that come on land and go back into the ocean, like whales. It was interesting because there was a family reunion twist on the story that was also explored. The entire time I read this story I was imagining a cat and a frog being together. The author relates out knowledge of humans and we try to put it together in our head and he uses animals as stand-ins like most tales. This story is not dark or grim, but rather amusing and charming. She finds ...

Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” is probably one of my favorite things that we have read this semester. This story focuses on an alien race that allows humans to live on their planet while also relying on them to reproduces, so a symbiotic relationship. This story explores majoritarian culture in the way certain characters accepted their fate, while others didn’t. Gan is unsure as to whether or not he wished to have T'Gatoi's child, while his sister is fine with it and would happily do it. The humans have no choice, but to carry the Tlic's children. Something I love about this story is the perception of love. Does T'Gatoi love Gan? Does Gan love T’Gatoi, or has he just been conditioned to? It’s also a part of majoritarian culture to become a host for the Tlic. I found it interesting how Qui found the entire scenario to be disgusting. Even though T’Gatoi is an alien species, she never seems truly alien to Gan until she is lickin...

For the week of cyber and steampunk, I watched Paprika. I liked this movie so much that I watched other films by Satoshi Kon and realized that he uses a lot of surrealism, weird, and horror motifs in his films. For Paprika alone, Kon creates altered realities through the device that is in the film. The device allows for people's dream to be seen by others, but a woman who works for the company is able to travel into other's dreams. By having their dreams infiltrated, people begin to go insane. We are able to get a glimpse into people's minds after going insane and there is a juxtaposition of the environment where this strange parade happens, and the characters, vehicles, and absurd things that parade through the desert. While this film is a bit chaotic and confusing, the blending between the surreal dream-world and the real world is interesting and well done. Even through the multiple realities of sorts make the film a bit confusing, the way that dreams and reality be...

"Fragments of a Hologram Rose" is a story that just makes you think. There's a constant switch between points of view, yet at the same time it's not switching. By listening to these cassette tapes we're able to gather a sense of what a person has done. The time of this story is a bit confusing, as well. We constantly bounce between present day, the past, and a completely different place in what could be the present day or the future. I found it neat how there is really only one character in this story (Parker,) but we are able to get other characters through the holograms. There's a great contrast between the rotting United States (in the future of course) and his dreams through these sensory tapes. The structure of this story was very confusing at first, but upon a second read it's a bit easier to understand. The setting is pretty great as well. This dystopian future where people use sensory holograms as a form of escape and a drug and the rain is a...

“Babel-17” is a really cool book that was also ahead of its time. The story focuses on a female poet Rydra Wong, who is trying to decode a language that can shape the future. This story was really progressive due to the fact that people could modify themselves and seemed to be of different species. Someone on the ship is a hybrid tiger-like creature that Wong gets involved with. This story is very close to a space opera because of its themes of space travel, a female lead, romance, and espionage. An aspect of this story that I found amazing was the building of the crew. The story really focuses on communication as a weapon and it explores this thoroughly. I love how characters have to strip to be able to fully understand each other and break “class” amongst each other. I love the part where they have to have a couple of three to properly navigate the trip. The whole sense of being honest, communicating, and understanding is outstandingly done. With today’s age, ...