So i have decided to re-read Moods and this is what i thought about reading it a second time

So after finished Moods this week in class i have decided to re-read it to see if i understand what Yoel Hoffmann is saying and after doing that i can finally say that i still don't understand what he is trying to say. For some reason i got even more confused than i ever was because some stuff he is saying made zero sense or he jumped from saying one thing and talking about something completely different the next. But at the same time he is very different from what i read in the past. He use his imagination and i really like that about him but also he doesn't care about what he says or what people think about him. So to conclude on what i'm saying is that he is one interesting author.

Descriptio

What final thoughts do you have about Moods? What questions do you have?

My final thoughts about Moods is lost. Every time when he is writing, he brings up too many topics that lead me to not even understand what he he means. I found this book not as interesting because I don't like to read poetry and I don't have a interest in poetry. Questions that I have about this book is, did the author ever have a family of his own? Another question I have is, did the characters that he brought up in the book have an integral part in his life?

response to conclusion

After reading the conclusion of the book, I find what he wrote ends off the book. The reason why I say this is because he talks about how God created everything when there was nothing in the earth and was creating Heaven. I believe that God did create everything and events as well like Noah who created the ark to save everyone from the flood and Jesus who saved everyone from sin. I find that the conclusion also explains how everyone is just basically here now making books, films, living life and how things happen for a reason.

Muddy waters

When I was hearing this song, it sounded like country music. The sounds features a artist who has a country-like accent and in the background of the song there are sounds of horns and a guitar which gives me the idea that it is country music. Usually in different states they have a specific genre of music and type of ethnicity where people listen to this type of music in open land. This also sounds like music people would listen to in bars that are deserted because I remember when I was playing a cowboy game, the characters were in a deserted bar and this type of music was playing in the game.

George Phllip Telemann D major

As I was hearing the audio of the song, It sounded classical and old because in my generation we listen to more of urban and pop music which consists of beats and vocals.When i'm listening to the song, I am able to visualize where this type of music would be performed in, like a old school music hall with people wearing 17th century clothing. I feel this type of sound that this music has features a theatrical and calm feeling. I also feel that when listening to this sound, you are able to hear how the sounds are low and then increase in volume to capture the audience when hearing it.

mood reaction page 160

My reaction to page 160 is confused. I see that he may be using a reference of Telemann but then he talks about shelves in a supermarket and arrangement of boxes.He seems to always go off topic to different things that he is talking about. One thing from page 160 that actually got me to wonder about something was when he said 'whoever understands theses things can join the secret order whose members send one another signs by moving their pinkles ever so slightly". This quote was interesting to read because, I am trying to predict whether the author is trying to create some sort of sign, or just trying to fool with the readers since he is always writing different subjects.

moods responses

i think he was talking about how everyone loved this blues musician and how they were all over him when they saw him in Budapest and how they are in secret groups and they have more power than people think


He explains how he cant over explain something then he brings up a coffee mug and how you can visualize it in your mind and then how a old man gets his mug in the morning but to me it doesn't seem like much of a conclusion because just like this whole book its very confusing and everything written has a different meaning he also brought up how god was alone he created something sort of comparing it to himself

Moods 160 and Conclusion

What Hoffman was trying to said in segment 160 was that just as in music we are always have a different perspective over different situations, sometimes when someone tell you to describe what do you thing the music its about and there are not lyrics, we describe what we want to describe but that doesn't mean that what we describe its the real meaning. Its the same thing when it comes to situation in real life, everyone e has her or his own perspective over the situation, so when someone said something different than us we don't agree.

conclusion
The conclusion of Moods fro me its beautiful but strange, I would said beautiful because we known its the conclusion because its the last segment but what makes nice to me is that it ends with the beginning. He mention genesis which is the first book in the bible and talks about the beginning of God's creation, and the fact that he mention it on the last segment gave us a sense that the end its the beginning of something. and its interesting that he end with, "the only consolation was His name"that for me gave us a sense that he left something for us.

Moods [160] and the Conclusion

I couldn't really interpret what the author was trying to say but he does sounds very imaginative with his metaphors. Like when he compared when seeing cornflakes we think of the Siberian Tundra. I do relate to that part because I can look at everyday life things and think of something else. Like the shape of a leaf reminds me of the shape of a heart.

I still feel lost towards the end of the book in the conclusion and I do wonder why he chose to make this excerpt the conclusion. I do understand when he mentions, "Assume for a moment that the criminal code applied to writers as well. We would be sued for negligence and the incompletion of characters...." I think he's trying to say people don't like how the writer limits a character in the book.

I feel like he left this last excerpt a cliff hanger like what happens next.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Moods 160 & the conclusion

In the reading, Hoffman explains that when we hear music e have a different view on things. Imagery is important and is also a major key to knowing what the song to track entails. There is emotion that drives a listener into feeling a song. However, our views could be different from many. In terms of the part where he mentions the arrangement of cornflakes and boxes, what I understand is that even though one my look at the melody of the certain genres, people my interpret it in many different ways. Just like at first when we listened to the songs that were playing today. When we heard the first song the first thing that would come to mind is words such as "royalty" or "white skin". While on the other hand, the second song the two words we think about is "slavery" and "black skin".

In the conclusion of this book, i realized that hoffman was a believer of God(refers the word "Him" in the last paragraph in capital letters). I think although he is a strong believer, he somehow questions life itself, especially when he mentions the special care of certain people, with the use of God as an example. When he mentioned the part that was said about writing, however, with a criminal code, I may quite understand what he is saying. Let us use nations flags and symbols for an example. Certain countries would be penalized and prosecuted fro the abuse of their flags. Just like the symbol of Jesus and of a country was to break a cross  or to turn it upside down, they would be in serious trouble as well. To conclude, Hoffman want us to question "why life exists" and why being alone may have you think a lot.

Moods reaction (160)

I believe the author is talking about how music is used to express ones self and that people to try to look at it logically. For an examples, the blues is used to portray a type of image of a person's emotions and should be looked at in a sensible matter. Nothing to complex, just straight forward. This part seems a little complex and just all over the place



Conclusion: This is a conclusion but not A conclusion at the same time because he gives the readers the impression that he is going to wrap up this book. Then he talks about God and how lonely it must have been for Him. It sort of leaves the audience on edge,a type of cliffhanger.

Conculsion On Moods

    I  believe  this  a  final  thought  for  Hoffman  not  a conclusion I  think  he  has chosen  a  religion  in  a way  . Every  chapter  in  this  book  is  different  some characters  make it  to  different  chapters  but  majority of  them don't. I feel as if  this chapter could be the start of another book  like a  cliff hanger because  the  last  two  chapters are  unrepeatable to the other chapters .

Hoffman Conclusion

I feel  like in Hoffman's case, in his mind there is no ending nor a beginning. I feel like what he's trying to say is that no matter what he does it will be bad for him, when he has talking about the story of the girl. He's trying to say that if he continued to explain the story of the girl in depth he would get sued, if he didn't go in depth he would get sued. So he just wants to keep stuff open to interpretation so that people can fill in the rest of the gaps, and make their own opinion on how it should be. with him saying the coffee mug, and how that's what he'll give to the reader and that they can picture the person how they want. And then he talks about a lonely giant, and what should be his reason of living with not being with someone. i feel like it's a good ending but you feel sad for the giant living this terrible life being lonely, i think he compares himself to the giant. To try and make the readers have sympathy of the giant and that will make him feel not so lonely

moods conclusion

So I think Hoffmann realizes and signifies that it is a conclusion by the first sentence saying "we'd like to leave our readers with..." he knows he is ending the book however he ends it with yet another unfinished story. He relates his sections to the criminal code in the sense that he has many unfinished stories and thoughts. However there are no laws in reading and he can finish or not finish stories as he pleases. He then reflects on another woman and how he once knew everything about her and he cared about her but that is about all he writes about her and then the rest is up to our interpretation. He says "thats how much care we took with her character but if we were to do that now, our readers would sue for excessive particularity."So I think he is arguing in writing maybe nothing is every perfect or exactly how everyone wants it, you do too little and your criticized and you do too much and you're also criticized. the last section finishes the book offering the readers a coffee mug with the words Good Morning written on it, and I'm not sure what he means by saying this but he also offers readers a beautiful tale, a short story about God and how amazing he is but perhaps it's not so beautiful because he reflects how he is lonely. I think Hoffmann thrives off his randomness and when you truly spend time analyzing his stories you figure out some important and influential stories.

Moods Conclusion

I do not even know what to think of anymore after reading that conclusion, talking about god and the creation of earth all of a sudden threw me completely one eighty and confused me. Why at the conclusion, as a matter of fact I do not count that last part about god as a conclusion. A conclusion should be something that wraps up a story or wraps up all of the ideas that were put out before in a sort of summary. The part before where they talked about the mug and getting sued for their negligence is where they should have stopped the conclusion, would have made more sense because they were saying how that was all they can offer their readers.

160, 190,191 Moods

I think Hoffman speaks about how music can transmit different pictures to our heads and we associates the music with things we already know. Also he mentions about feeling involved in music and how those feelings help us to understand things easier. That is pretty impressive how Hoffman describe that music can change our mood and regular things can be related to uncommon things because that is how our head and imagination works. The last part is confusing, but what I understand is that if we pay attention to little details we will discover things that were always there.

What A understood from the "conclusion" is the fact that "they" are talking directly to us like they are trying to say that this book was a tool for our lives or some kind of teaching after all these ideas and excerpts reflected on this book. It is hard to understand because the part 190 is well explained, but the difficult part is the 191 when he starts talking about God and how he created earth. It is like Hoffman is giving a kind of explanation of being alone and that emptiness can affect even God.

Yoel Hoffmann conclusion thoughts

So now we have reached the conclusion for Yoel Hoffmann book Moods i feel like he left us with a open ending because they way he ended it sounds like its a open interpretation for whats people think the ending could be in there minds and option. they way he was talking about sounds like he was talking about himself i think but also it sounds like he wanted to leave us with an open ending so people can make how they wanted this book to end.

Above all this book was very interesting and also confusing at the same time because he was all over the place but also talk about different things at once so it took me times to understand what he was saying throughout the book. But he was a very unique and very imagination person and i really like that about someone because they don't care what they are talking about and writing too.

I think it is a conclusion because the author summed the entire world in a paragraph. He brought in god and how he created the world and how he was lonely. This concludes no matter what you have you will be lonely if you don't have someone to share things with. Hoffmann is a practical author and does not like boring things. That's why he gives random examples like example of a coffee cup he has given in his conclusion para 190. Also another reason that makes me believe this is conclusion because he started the paragraph saying "we look like to give our readers a gift before they move on to other books" it shows how he's starting to say his goodbye and then he ended his book talking about god because god knows everything and everyone.

Moods, 160 and the conclusion

 His writing here is very confusing. He jumps around from thought to thought, and it's really hard to follow. I think he could be talking about music as a language. I think this way because music is very hard to understand. Maybe I might be taking his words too literally, though. 

As for the conclusion, it is also hard to follow. But, it is very clear that it is a conclusion. It is pretty clear that it is a conclusion because it completely says so. I think he also calls himself out for his disorganization in writing. He says that he was neglectful to some of the characters that he has written, and I think that is true to an extent. He wraps up the story by talking about God. 

Hoffman Page 160

People can interpret things in many different of ways, I believe so because of the line "But we see cornflakes and think of the snowflakes falling on the Siberian Tundra, or we see soup mix and think of stardust". It is on the more difficult side to understand what Yoel is trying to say because of how random his sections are. When he talks about looking carefully and finding the secret members that ever so slightly move their pinkies. I can assume that what hes saying to do is to either be more aware of your surroundings or to focus not on whats far ahead but whats right in front of you.

moods 160

in 160 I think Hoffmann is using a couple different analogies here to convey a message about blues music and what he feels about it. He relates the order of a supermarket and how systematically they are packed to the genre of blues and how blues music doesn't look at things rationally and when people make them they get angry like Telemann. I think he is trying to say that he or they dont see the supermarket systematically and organized but rather see soup mix as stardust or cereal as snowflakes, just like blues music is not ordered or organized and doesn't have rights or wrongs. I'm not sure i understand this correctly but I think a lot of his sections are open to interpretation because clearly everyone is not going to understand what he means when he speaks so  randomly and abruptly but I'm sure he has a specific meaning to each section. I analyzed and understood it to the best of my abilities but he ends the section with "whoever understands these things can join the secret order whose members send one another signs by moving their pinkies ever so slightly." So I don't know what he was trying to get across exactly but from what I gathered he wanted to give his opinion on blues music in a different and random ish way.

Moods page 160

In my opinion, it seems like if anyone would tell them what's wrong and right for them; they won't listen, they will do what they like. In terms of not listening to the others, I think the author also stated in the text, first paragraph where it says "If someone tells us to look at something rationally, in a major key- as, for instance, Telemann did- we get angry."This quote and text from page 160 also shows that how much over confident they were when anyone would asks them for something or show them something else, but they would never pay attention to it. They would just walk and do whatever they want to do as they came to their own world. It also signifies that arrogant and childish way to deal with certain people. Instead of negotiating with others, they want others to negotiate and compromise with what they want to do if they want them to work for somebody.
 I think, the conclusion is everything exists for a reason just like god created the world.

Hoffman reply in 160

I think what Hoffman is writing about, is that when people are listening to music they should be thinking of the tone and everything. And let to music speak to you, in a way to be aware of your feelings of the music and there's your answer. and then later on he refers to seeing the "...packages systematically..." and brings up when " ...We see cornflakes and think of snowflakes falling on the Siberian tundra, or we see soup mix and think of stardust..." Which i'm interpreting as people who see other things from the sound/ name of something we relate it to something. For example we think of reindeer's and thing of Christmas, or when we hear a certain song and it brings us to a certain memory. i think what Hoffman is trying to say is that people who view things for what they really are, aren't the best. But people who feel/think something else from another key term or "trigger" are considered the best.

My thoughts on what Yoel Hoffmann said on P.160

My thoughts on what he said on page 160, was very confusing for me i didn't understand what he was talking about. Like i understand whats he was saying but once he was saying "But we see cornflakes and think of snowflakes falling on the Siberian tundra, we see soup mix and think of stardust"-Yoel Hoffman i got lost right after that part because it didn't make any sense whats so ever about what he is talking about in the beginning. When it comes to Hoffman it's very hard to understand on what he is saying because he talks about one thing and the next he says something completely different. This is my thought about page 160 because to tell you the truth i don't get what he trying to tell me or say even if i reread it so many time it's still so confusing for me.

Opinions On Mood Chapter 160

  I believe what hes talking about in Chapter 160 is there might be someone trying to control how we look and feel about our daily lives . But he then goes to say they cannot change our precipitation because we see through the mirage .

Music

In the last class, people talked about this music as being "elitist." I can see that. It's very controlled, very formal. Some talked about it being calming. Maybe. I'm not sure that classical music makes me feel calm though with its frills and bombast. It's rigid, the way that people in historical movies dance w/ their backs all straight.

This has a dirtier, rougher feel to it. It's less rigid, controlled. I imagine the first group of musicians in a concert hall, but this could be played on a porch or in a pool hall w/ beer on the floor.

I think it's interesting that Hoffmann juxtaposes the blues against classical. It might be true that it's "looser" than classical, but in some ways it's also very rigid. The rhythm section chugs along repeating the same rhythm over and over. Even the lyrics are pretty repetitive. Everything seems to be a backing track for the lead guitar (and harmonica). If Hoffmann wanted to talk about something looser and swingier, I would have thought he would liken his writing to jazz, a truly improvisational genre. Maybe he's not a fan of jazz.

Music

"concert suit in the D major"
Hearing the song I can imagine its about a love story like Romeo and Juliet. its a story where love succeed, where the characters are fighting against odds to be happy together. I think its around the twenties where there were a lot of nice things to do but its was a hard time too. the division between social classes was very strong in these moments ans times.
its like Moods very strange but at the same time you feel like  you know it.

" Baby please don't go'
when I heard the second song i felt it more loud than the first one, I heard  a story were the character was asking his love ones to no leave. its was a way to said what he wanted to said but not in a sad way, it shrouds to me almost a cheerful way. it had a lot more loud instruments then the first song. it sounds like jazz to me, happy moments, fun moments, everyone happy.

thoughts on both songs

I definitely agree that the first piece has a more classical and calming vibe where as this second song is more grungy and could be performed anywhere but in order for the first song to be played well you need a good location with all the proper instruments. the second song however sounded like the instruments were just used for the effects and background and wasn't quite as important as in the first song.

Thoughts on the Music

"concert suite in D Major"
When the music started playing it made me smile because I love listening to this kind of musical genre. It sounds like a happy tune as I'm picturing a story of this girl who always locked away in her room. I imagine her sitting by her window looking out beyond the horizon yearning for a life better than the one she is living.
There are parts of the music where as it plays I suddenly feel the emotion of loss and tragedy, the music wasn't rushed like playing  at a fast pace. I felt that this musical piece was going at a moderate pace. A lot of stories come to mind when I listen to classical music because the music sounds so expressive and emotional.

"Baby please don't go"
This music felt like Jazz. The kind of Jazz that would be played in a bar filled with men who smokes cigars and drink liquor during the 1950's.
It felt sad and not as joyful as the previous music we listened to.

Music reaction 2

Sounds very western and they got heavy use of the harmonica reminded me of like a movie from the 60's about cowboys it sounded upbeat. also the singing he sounded like he was singing about someone that was leaving and he didn't want them to go.

Muddy Waters

Sudden change in the genre of music, there is a hint of country in the background due to the harmonica. "Baby please don't go" seems to be a line that is significant to the song, could possibly be a song for someone or for people as a whole. Gives off an upbeat vibe that could attract people up form their chairs and make then want to dance or tap their feet if they want to keep sitting. The tempo of the song is more noticeable then the last one which pleases the musician in me. Big time difference from when both songs were created.

My thoughts on the orchestra.

From the beginning, the song sounds very melancholy. It sounds like a very sad song. Even though it sounds sad, it also sounds a bit peaceful. I think the violin and the cello really bring those emotions out of the song. But, towards the end, the song starts to sound a bit more cheerful. I think the higher notes of the song were mostly played towards the end, which is why the song gave out those vibes.


The second song gives out more upsetting vibes. From the lyrics, it sounds like a breakup song. Its about a man begging for his old lover to stay with him. However, the instrumentals for this song give out an optimistic vibe.

Muddy Waters Song

To me it was like expressing your feelings to and requesting someone that don't leave me, I love you. It was seemed to be both romantic and emotional at the same time. Because he was showing how much he love through the music, but there was so many instruments playing drums, piano, and many others. I think, the lyrics was kind a emotional or sad because you don't request someone not to go in a happy mood or something; a person actually says it when he/she believes that their loved one is going far away from them, but the singer made it enjoyable song with the help of instruments and composing the music.

Music in class

(First song) It is super "wealthy", like music for people of the upper class. I can just picture a sunny white day, wind moving curtains in a white marble room. With tall white marble pillars, and in the middle of the flapping curtains, there's a figure of a lady being fed grapes on a long couch. and a person in the corner playing with a violin. with little angels flying around playing their little instruments.

(second song) like music you tap your feet, and nod your head. I can picture people dancing in the middle like cowboys. i think it's about a man who's clearly sound desperately trying to get his significant other to not leave. Very Blues styled with western music with all the instruments.

My thoughts on Muddy Waters song

My thoughts on Muddy Waters it's has a meaning behind and it also has a story behind on whats going on. The instruments i'm hearing is a type guitar and a trumpet too. I also hearing a harmonic  noise in the background too. It also had a good beat too and i can confirm that it's a type of Jazz music because of the instruments i'm hearing in the background or it can be the blues too.

muddy waters reaction

The music sounds like a mixture of the blues and country music. This music also sounds like its from the 1950's. I hear the harmonica, horn, guitar, and drums. The artists talks about someone and is begging them not to leave their side. it sounds cheerful and constantly goes from a slow to a quick melody.

Muddy Waters

My opinions on Muddy Waters 

Rock is (guitar ) cooperated into it maybe more modern

Flow has a rhythm like the songs slaves sung in the fields 

It could have secret meaning 

Old School Blues 

It sounds like a upbeat and a faster  version of  Wade in the Water 

There is pain and passion in his voice

muddy waters baby please dont go

this song for the beginning sounds like something from the 1950s. it has some different elements which i can see make it fall into different genres of music. Maybe a little blues even a little rock but then it also has some instruments in the background it sounds like one is a guitar but im unsure. it is catchy and this instrument solo right now although I'm unsure what instrument this is was really good and the song incorporates instruments into a blue/country/rock music genre.

music reaction

It reminded of like church music with the piano or like a movie scene from a old ballroom. But overall it was very dramatic sounding with a calming effect in my opinion it was very medevil sounding

My thoughts on George Philips Telemann music

George Philips Telemann music sounds relaxing and calm but also have happiness sounds. while listening to the music i could hear mostly violins and the cello playing a big part of the music. While i'm  hearing this song i feel very calm and relax and love how high the instrument are increasing. i enjoyed listening to this song. It was also more of a harmony than melody song too because when i hear it all i could think of a harmony beat not melody beat.

D Major and Muddy Waters

The sound of this piece sounds had a variety of gradation. You can hear the feeling and emotion of the violin. If I was to visualize the song, it sound like there is a happy life at first and then there is a bit of conflict as the it gradually increases in volume. There is a form of serenity in this song, as it sound both calm and "rich", making the background feel like it is set in a room of white cloth and beautiful white dresses and suits. If somebody was to listen to this, it would make them feel comfortable. 

The next song sounds much like an individual than has been working a whole lot, it is as if labor is taking in place in this song. It also sounds as if there are slaves that have been captured and put into certain places to work. To tell the truth, it does sound like what a man of black race would listen to.

To compare these two songs, I think that the first song when we listen to it we could picture a much more upper class abckgroung, where majority of the community would only think about people that are of white skin.

George Philipp Telemann Music

this song takes me to the medieval times because its style is pretty slow and relax. It is like seeing a knight on his horse approaching to the kingdom. I like the style of the song because it is not like all the classic music it more like graphic, I mean when yo hear it you can imagine different things because the song does not follow a single metric or rhythm. It is curious how a song can make you imagine pictures and situations in your head. Also that peculiar style is what makes this song different and special for hearing.

When I hear to Muddy Water it reminds me to bar music or rodeo music. It is like more aggressive and faster rhythm. The harmonica gives that special feature to this song. Also, this song reminds me to all those movies in the old west where many people is gathered around and drinking. It is a pretty big change from the previous song, but they have something in common and it is that the remind us different situations and images that our head is able to project. 

Georg Philipp Teleman reaction

Based on the music, it reminds me of royalty. When the King and Queen are walking down the aisle to their throne. This also sounds classical and saddening in a way. As if something tragic has happened or some experiencing heartbreak. It sounds like there are a bunch of people at a wedding just watching the bride walk down the aisle. I like how relaxing this sounds, it is not too noisy and not too loud.

George Philipp Telemann Music

The music seems to be very dramatic, or like story telling in which plot is set up because the way it started with low scale then it suddenly goes to high pitch; it could represent that something sad and dramatic story is going on. How something was going smoothly then unfortunately something bad happens which you couldn't control. The way it sounds like is same as the movies when something leaves, fights, or died in some situations then as the background music they often play this type of music. By hearing this music, we can also visualize how some things would be moving or going while this music was playing in the background.

Georg Philipp Telemann

This music sounds nice and classical, it is calming and relaxing in a way. you can hear different instruments maybe a violin or a cello and also background instruments like some bells. It sounds like it could be played in a church, or even as some background music although it does have a bit of a saddening sound to it. It reminds me of classy people and nice classical things like royalty. It gets higher and lower and I feel like no two sounds are the same throughout the song. When it gets higher it feels more upbeat but when it goes lower it sounds almost mischievous like music played before something bad happens in a movie.

My thoughts on Concert suite in D major

My thoughts on Concert suite in D major

When the music first started to play I  instantly thought about
- the medieval renaissance 
-scenes from movies played in my mind about women with corsets and big dresses ballroom dancing with men with swallow tailed dress suits. 
-a dance scene in the little mermaid 
-music that would play in Europe during a royal ball or coronation ball 

Finishing Hoffmann

More than one of you has mentioned the "randomness" of Moods and I think it would be fair to say that Hoffmann is interested in the random moment. For instance, from 163:

"Once we knew a Russian man who, every morning (before the sun came up), would walk a white dog. We said good morning to him and he always answered (with a Russian accent) 'wolking.'"

This feels random. It doesn't refer to anything that came before or after. And yet, I feel that I could make arguments for why it's important as a scene in this book, which then suggests that it's not random but necessary and premeditated. Can you make either an argument for or against the necessity of this scene?

Also:

Remember, the theme of the class is "Voice." To me, voice, in writing, is what makes a writer's style unique, what sets it apart from other writers. How would you characterize Hoffmann's voice? How would you contrast (or compare) it to Malcolm X's?

I want to talk about the following in class, but if we don't get to it, then you might want to address it here:

Look at the conclusion of Hoffmann's book. How is this a conclusion? Now, reread the opening. How does the conclusion work w/ the opening?

What final thoughts do you have about Moods? What questions do you have?

What is Hoffmann's view on writers and boredom? Is his book boring? Does he think his book is boring?
He believes that writer write about a story and drags it to a point where it gets boring. like the storyline stays the same and no new discoveries are made. No, I don't think the book moods is boring. It keeps you really interested because the story line changes in one to two paragraphs. Also I think Hoffman is really interested in writing this book so therefore it is not boring. And I don't think that he thinks his book is boring because he wrote about his personal experiences in there.

Hoffman's perspective

I think Hoffman tries to reflect a middle point between atheism and theism. That is why his writings contradict themselves. I found his writings complex because he makes a lot of relations between objects and people. I think he does this to make clearer and express his point from a different perspective. I consider this concept very important because is a good intro for ENGL 102 and poetry in general.

atheism and thei

atheism and theism

atheism and theism

atheism and theism

atheism and theism

moods thoughts

In 79-81, to me i feel like it changes from one subject to another to another in each section. In 79, Hoffmann takes a common name, Jorge, and states the fact that it wouldn't matter if one person named Jorge takes the place of another. To me he is showing little importance between one another but I see how is trying to throw us off, yet maybe help us understand that perhaps this is sometimes the case. He also states "and to the woman who, in any event, everyone calls "Jorge's wife."" I think I have seen a few times in the book now that he doesn't take much account for women's name. a little further on i think he goes to say that women shouldn't have names at all, but other times he calls some beautiful. I think maybe he truly feels different emotions about women so he shares that all with his readers. While Hoffmann is trying to throw us off and the sections aren't continuous, he  consistently brings up characters like his stepmother Francesca and Uncle Laudilus and it is a feeling of familiarity.

95: Why does Hoffmann offer practical uses for the book here? 
I believe that Hoffmann offer practical uses for the book here because he wants to make it useful and interesting for people. I think he's bored of seeing people reading a book about a story and then forget about. He wants to make his book stand out and help people in a way. because he's really observant and he wants others to follow his lead and see things differently. This book for me is surely confusing but at the end it is funny and keeps your mind working because you are not trying to lose track of Hoffmann's stories which could take a turn at any point.

moods 79-81

On page 79-81, I think that the book is talking about how life changes because. situations occur and cause things to happen which can change your life. For example, the author brings up Jorge who is taking car of a woman who has a child and talks about how Jorge is getting adjusted with this role. As the author talks about Jorge, he also describes how people who go trough different movements in life and they look at it as a disappointment while they should look at the situations as a lesson to be learned. He describes that life keeps continuing and people should realize that instead of having so much worry.

Page 78 and 81 connects to 79 because the author talked about how it's better for a person to accept their fate because things can be much worse. The author feels that the man who broke his foot did not accept his fate. On 79, it shows Jorge accepting his role which is being with a woman and her child. Jorge is accepting his fate. Page 81 connects as well because the author seems to have accepted that his life was contained to a small life since he wasn't around factories and street lights.

response to page 83-84

The author thinks that the italicized story is considered a real story because people will be able to connect to this type of story and people have heard of this type of story where the woman is with a man and has a child. To call this a real story means that the woman has to choose her fate since in many stories it ends with choosing a fate and the author talks about choosing a fate in the book as well. The author doesn't finish the story so that he can get the readers to wonder what will happen which gets them to make all of this random predictions and to have excitement when the author writes what happens.

Page 103

I feel that Hoffman views some writers as boring because, at times writers over write about a topic which leads to have readers not entertained and the readers start to lose focus and skim through the book. I feel that his book isn't boring but confusing since he writes a new section of a topic and has a different mix of other sections throughout the book which somewhat looses my train of thought. I think that Hoffman doesn't look at his book as boring because, as a writer he wants to mix different topics in his book to get his writers to wonder what is going to happen and what do these sections lead to in the end. This gets the readers to make an observation.

Moods.

In 79, what i observe from the book is that people have different views on different scenarios when it comes to living life in the future. For example, one would already know how they're life would be due to what they see in the books and "hat is written" for them versus one that believes they must go through life and expect the unexpected. When he mentioned Adidas and Crocs, Hoffman tries to tell us that throughout life, we would have never thought of these brand names and that it had come through fate(his belief in my opinion) and other who think that it just came about simply because life goes on and people just come up with ideas on the way. In 80, he refers to written names and uses Jorge as an example. I would think that 79 and 80 are connected because the fact that he uses the name Jorge. We can all agree that many people on this earth has that name, but we leave with the question of how it came about. It was written and silent as said by Hoffman and it is an ancient name as well due to the fact that it is "very very old".

With the connection with 78 & 79, we are put in a specific scenario that when Hoffman was reading the newspaper, he saw that a man broke a glass at a wedding and was sent to the hospital and furthermore, he hired a lawyer to sue the owners of the banquet. He furthermore put in a scenario that if in this case Jesus was to be come back from heaven and hire a lawyer, history would have changed drastically. The transition from that to 79 is that many people can change their history depending on what they do on a regular basis. For example, you could be named Jorge that provides for their family and takes care of their kid, have a good job that may impact the world and, therefore, would change history. Then, you could have another individual with the same name being Jorge who became a political leader. it kind of opened my mind a bit and had me thinking about the Holocaust. Let us say that Jorge was a political leader and did negative thing that may impact the future, then history would change as well. That little experience that Yoel had went through at an early age, changed his life forever. It makes me think that if that historical event had not happened, this book would not have been made.

Moods response

I think that what he is trying to said is that there are two kind of people, those who has the believe that things happens because it’s the way they have to happen and we just have to get used to it but there are other who believes that there is something else that makes things happening. For example when he said “ movements like these... are scribbled in the stars” I thinks we can relate this to the fact that some people believe that the stars and the universe somehow they have something to do with our lives. But whatever we believe in there is something that doesn’t need religion or ideology in order to happen, we for sure death will sure came and he said after, “ so we shouldn’t worry so much” and i think he is right, we should enjoy more before we became into a stardust.

78-79
 The way I see connections between these excerpts from page 78 which is about a man who broke a glass at his own wedding and how this went into the sole of his foot and 79 where he is talking about these people named Jorge which in my belief is about everyone, the connection it’s about how we see things and how doe we react to them. Also through the sections his mood it’s what makes the difference between them.

Thoughts on 79 and 80 of Moods

In these excerpts I think the author is talking about the many paths and mysteries that are found in life. When he mentions the turns life takes when we're wearing Adidas sneakers or Crocs, I think he's trying to get the readers attention that where we want to go in life we can get there. Also in the beginning of 80 I felt like he was relating to astrological terms. Like we look for the stars for answers as if our destiny is up there. There are some people who would read their horoscopes to find answers to their problems. Hoffmann sounds like a really wise man who challenges our way of thinking through his metaphors.
Through excerpts 78-81 I think Hoffmann puts his readers through a transition on what he means. Through 78 I feel like he's talking about the possible of our consequences of our actions as if we were to do something. He's starting off with fate but then I feel like he makes us question our ideas about fate in 79 when he mentions "Jorge". His excerpts may seem randomly placed but I think they're all connected. To me all his ideas are connected or surrounded by the generic idea of fate and chaos. I think he questions fate and thinks about life experiences in a way of why not just letting things happen.                       

Moods 79 and 80

 I believe the author in pages 79-80 discusses coping mechanisms and self worth within someone. On page 79 he mentions clothing and shoe brands such as "Adidas" and "Crocs" and this gives me the impression that if someone is going through something, they need an outlet to deal with that problem. Some people may use shopping for materialistic items as a coping mechanism. I also thought about how when he says "These changes are easier by night, when outlines blur, and nearly every man is willing to take in nearly every woman and vice versa" (Hoffman) and how it stands out to me. People also look to others when they are going through something. Whether it being a male or female whoever responds to whom first is now that person's outlet. By outlet, in this case, I mean a sexual coping mechanism. Self-worth also comes into the matter because people tend to settle for less. Especially when it comes to their life. Some people settle for the regular life, or known as "return to their room-and-a-half" and some people settle for the best of the best, or known as beneath what's written in heaven." (Hoffman)


I believe that 78 and 81 relate to these pages as well because the author discusses how some people just want the love of their life to agree to being their spouse. To me, that implies wanting something great to happen to them. They want a drastic event to come into their lives to distract them from everything else.

Thoughts on pages 78 and 81

I believe that from 78 to 81 pages, the author talks more about the attraction in the last segment of  page 80 due to its way of expressing his transitioning from not caring about girls to the one who will do anything to find a girlfriend. It also shows how he cannot live without woman in his life because I believe he finds himself alone due to not being loved by someone.

79, 80 excerpts

Hoffman has this peculiar way to writing about perspective's life. He always do connections between people and objects. I thinks this is because give us a better sense of understanding and explanation. I think these two excerpts talk about how easy things change and people get used to it quickly. He connects this idea with the concept of 80 excerpt by saying that these events and things are meant to  happen and it is already written on a fate paper. What I think he is doing is a mix between Chaos and Fate. He does not choose any side, he shows us this middle point where reflects a reality. In this middle point the magic of fate is lost behind the raw reality of chaos. 

In the 78 part we could see how Hoffman talks about the results of going against the rules of fate. He basically talks if a man tried to avoid his destiny, bad thins can happen and there is just one way to carry this situation out. This solution is accept our destiny and live with it without complaining. in  the 81 I think Hoffman talks about how our perspective can change in second. He talks about a million stars, but this person only desire the acceptance to be his girlfriend. He establishes this perspective trough little situations where sometimes the world can be a very big place, but sometimes can be a very small place to be as well. I think this happens because all depend on our emotions and how things can affect us.

My thoughts on Moods 78-81

My thoughts on 78-81 is that it tells a story for each part of the pages it started with a guy going to the hospital to get broken glasses taken out if his foot and ended with talking about being with a girl to be there girlfriend. I had to re-read it to understand what was going on because each one talks about different stuff and i got confused for a bit. But i think that stuff happens for a reason and you can't do anything about it you juts have to move on or deal with the fact it happened. Even thought it's hard to comprehends what  Hoffmann is saying at times but he telling stuff as if he knows what is happening and going on. 

What i think about 78 and 79 is that a guy had to go to the hospital because a glass broke and it went inside his foot but the thing is why he had to go and sue the place he had his wedding because it wasn't the place fault the glass broke, like he could have moved on enjoy his wedding and go on his honeymoon but he din't because he wanted to make thing worse by suing that place for what reason i don't even know.

What i think about 80-81 I liked about what Hoffmann said because it talks about faith and what's written in the stars and what is set and stone on people future in a way, and it ended with going home to some girl who will end up being your girlfriend. i don't know why but i feel like Hoffmann is trying to say that the future is already made for us in a way with the whole faith and destiny stuff. Because you don;t know what your future holds for you until the times has come to know what it is. to me i love to live in the moment and not worry about what my future holds for me until i'm ready.

So far i really enjoy reading Hoffmann book in the begging i didn't know what was going on until i had to re-read it but now i slowly understanding what he is saying.

78 and 79

79 talks about how common people live their lives. to me, I think Yoel Hoffman is trying to show how similar people live their lives. Some people may have children, and some people may not. But overall, their lives are pretty much the same. He talks about how people should adapt to what they have. He talks about this as if it is human nature for people to adapt to different things like this. For example, he gives an example of a man named Jorge who ends up living in another Jorge's house.

78 transitions well to 79 because he also talks about adaptation in 78. Hoffman describes a man who stepped in broken glass on his wedding day. The man went to the hospital shortly after, and they removed the glass from his flesh. Hoffman disagrees with the man's actions, and he gives a biblical allusion to back this up. He tells readers to imagine if Jesus Christ came down from the cross, and tried to get help rather than accepting his fate. Hoffman says that the man should have spent his honeymoon night with his wife, and try to enjoy the moment.

From these two passages, it seems like Hoffman is the type of person to let nature take its course. or, he is the type of person who believes in living in the moment. he doesn't seem to like change very much.

Response 79-80 (Moods)

Response 79-80 (Moods)

When I started reading the this part of the book I didn't really realize where he was going into this section. But in my opinion I think he is trying to say that every person is different from each other.  People who believes something is happening because there's a reason why it should be happening and people who believes that it happens because just they way it is. I also like the section where he was talking about the stars because it makes me think that every persons live is connected somehow with the stars or universe as a whole. It's very confusing but it is interesting to read.

Moods Page 79 and 80 and how it transitions from 78 to 81

     My opinion on these two pages are that his description about Jorge and his wife are quite vague and complicated to a point for me. One part in Chapter 79 had me confused it was ''they are scattered not by chance but along the lines of  geometric patters ''I then went ahead and tried to break down maybe was he was saying was they could many individuals with that name but there could be a higher authority placing them in different places for a reason .For me certain parts of these chapter confused me a lot  because there are a lot of different thoughts in one place .In chapter 79 and 80 I believe Hoffman transitions the two pages clearly.

Moods, 78-81

Hoffmann seems to be interested in the tension between the general and the specific, the poetic and the banal, chaos and fate. He writes of the fact that if one Jorge replaces another, the new Jorge will grow accustomed to his new life. This refutes the idea that we are fated to be w/ one significant other. It doesn't seem to matter, either, whether we wear Adidas sneakers or Crocs to trace this path. This imagery is an example of how he takes the general/abstract (fate) and makes it specific/concrete: The person is tracing a real, physical path in this example.

Hoffmann likes to jar us. He reintroduces characters like Uncle Ladislaus at various times to both throw us off and also to give us a sense of continuity like in a real novel where characters reappear.

79 and 80 of Moods response

(79) It appears that the Author is saying "Jorge" as the same way we say "Joe" as the saying "average Joe." and that Jorge 's can take the place of other Jorge's and etc. i think what Yoel Hoffman is trying to say is that people tend to follows one's foot steps of other people. And then say's that men are more willing to take "...When outlines blur...nearly every woman..." due to it being dark, i think he's trying to say drunk men take home anything, no matter if they look "pretty" or not.

(80) I think what he's trying to say in this, is live life to the fullest because we have a plan that has been already written since we were born. I feel like he gives of the notion that we should do what we want since you can die at any moment.

(78-81) 78 and 81 I think they tie in good because he gives us different scenario's through the 4 different "poems." to ultimately say that when life gets really tough fight through it, and don't live an "average Jorge" and never settle for less. but if life does toss you down the horse not to worry since life (stars) has a plan already written for you. 

Mood Pages 79 and 80

Hard to interpret what the author is trying to say in both of 79 and 80. For page 79 I can sort of grasp the idea that humans are either the same or have similar traits. I assumed this because of when he said "in fact it makes little difference if one Jorge takes the place of another".         

Moods, Week 2

In Moods, Hoffmann writes about weighty subjects--history, philosophy, religion, death, life, and so on--by writing about everyday subjects: the stars in the sky, shopping, crushes, sex, etc. Can you pinpoint one of these moments? Why/how is he doing this?

Other questions:

• Read 83-84 again. How is the italicized section a "real story"? What does it mean to call it this? Why doesn't he finish this real story?
• 95: Why does Hoffmann offer practical uses for the book here? 
• 103: What is Hoffmann's view on writers and boredom? Is his book boring? Does he think his book is boring?
• 109-110: Why do you think Hoffmann writes about writing so much? Is this process writing like the writing I ask you to do (author's notes, cover letters) or is it something else?

What questions does this book raise for you?

My Thoughts On Moods

 My thoughts on Moods was skeptical at first because I didn't know which direction the book was going into. For me reading the book is quite complicated he talks about a lot about issues and matters surrounding him . This book is different for me because every chapter is different from the last .In a way for this books make me feel how i did when I first started watching Ganja&Hess.

My opinions about Assignment # 4

 My opinions on Assignment #4 are pretty straight forward . When starting this assignment I didn't know what to write about at first because there are so much to choose from . But as going through topics and seeing which ones were personal for me I decided . I choose a topic about Veterans and their health .

When we started doing the 4th assignment I was super confused. This is because it was such a big topic and covers a lot global problems. I didn't know what to choose for my topic. But going to library with the class really helped me out. We were given the choice to choose the topic that is interesting to us. Also we were given the websites which could help us to find the topic. I chose the topic child abuse because I am from a country where physical child abuse is considered normal. Though it shouldn't be because no one deserves to be abused mentally or physically. I will be try putting in personal interviews of the victims of the kids that have been abused,  hopefully I make a strong thesis.

My opinion about assigment#4

Since we started doing these assignments I have learned a lot. In the beginning, my first assignment was pretty weak, but after group critiques and individual meetings, I started to notice a great improvement in the following assignments. Until today, our last assignment which is a mix of elements of previous assignments such as personal and public research, etc. What I like about these assignments is the freedom we have when we are writing and the topics which are wider and interesting.

Thoghts on Moods

When I was reading primal vision by Adam Kirsch I could understand a little bit more about Hoffmann's writings. I could say he based his poetry on experiences of the past and family matters. I thinks he has a different and deeper point of view about the things surround him. That is why I found his book moods complex and hard to understand. Also, I think his writings have a specific interpretation which makes it even harder. Despite this, I think It will be an interesting book to read during this time because he had a lot to show trough his readings.

what i think about assignment #4

i really like this assignment we get to talk about the big problems in this country and i decided to talk about why mental health is important and why we need to take it serious. Once i started writing this essay i couldn't stop writing because i had so much to say about why this topic is important in this country and why we need to take it serious. Mental health affects so many people everyday especially in teen because they are affected more because of social media plays a part of it everyday. one thing i hope in the near future is that people take mental health are there number one priority because not a lot of people can afford it or there aren't a good therapist for them to see or its far away from where they live. One thing i hope is to see a change for mental health because it's important to get help right away.

my thoughts on the book Moods so far

As i started reading this book i didn't know it was going to be a poem book but once i did i like it because it's something different to what i read in general. So far this book is very interesting because to be honest i don't understand what he talking about, its like he talks about one thing and the next says something very different. its going to take me awhile to get use to a book like moods.

Thoughts on Moods

So far the book has probably surpassed what i would think the book would be about. His writing style is interesting, it's short little stories that are connected. At most times i would have to read a couple times because i would not believe what i was reading. It's different what he writes which makes him interesting, but i feel like he gives some quite odd description that makes me cringe.

When I saw the title of the book "moods" I thought it was going to be about people's moods changing and the reasons behind it. Then when I read primal vision I got to know it was poetry book written by Hoffman from early 1900's. I started reading moods and it really confused me because it talks about all sorts of things like it's all mixed up. He could Hoffman can be talking about a babygirl's birth then he talks about taking her clothes off. I've read the book till 76 but I still don't get what exactly the author is trying to reveal in his text. But I did figure that maybe the title "Moods" is related to the book because mood changes all the time and Hoffman's stories takes a new turn in every paragraph. I look forward to read this book and understand it.

thoughts on moods so far

When I was reading this book, it seems somewhat confusing. This is probably because I don't understand poetry and never really had an interest in reading poetry so I sometimes don't understand what the author is trying to convey at times. somethings I do understand in this book so far is, that the author talks about how he knew someone that had an Italian husband that passed away and there were rumors that he slept with another woman. The author also discussed how the woman he knew changed ever since her husband died. As I read this book, it seems as if he mixes things up when he writes. For example he talks about Mrs.Tuchner making soup and her having a child. Then he brings up physicists searching for tiny particles. It looks like this type of book will just have sections where it confuses the reader but at the same time have them wonder.

Continuing moods

So this is definitely different than any other book I've read before. I have read some poetry but not a continous type story so it is challenging but also interesting and something im glad im getting exposed to although i have trouble understanding it all. For instance, I noticed that up until 14 he used "I' but then in the second paragraph of 14 it say, "There's no longer any limit to the things that I (from here on in I'll say "we" out of embarrassment) are able to say." then he goes on to list many things that "we" do and for as far as I have read now, which is up to 50, is that the narrator uses "we" instead of "I" and I don't really understand why. I can see how some of the sections relate to one another directly, but it also veers in different directions spontaneously. For example, I cannot yet see the correlation between 43 and 44, if any. 43 starts off "we remember how beautiful uncle Zoltan was. and how beautiful our stepmother Francesca was. They too were precisely what they were, but then, when we were children, we only wanted solid forms. (solid forms??? like solid role models I wasn't sure about that) This is relevant to previous sections, like 36 that mentions uncle Zoltan and they have also mentioned the stepmother Francesca before. But 44 doesn't seem to have any connection "a certain sheikh from a sufi sect saw that the time to pray had come...but since a cat was sleeping on the sleeve of his cloak, he cut off his sleeve and went to pray with one arm covered and the other exposed." I can't see the relation of this section to the previous ones yet, but maybe it will come about in upcoming sections. I read 49, but I'm not exactly sure how Hoffmann is talking about the importance of the Holocaust in the book yet.

Beginning Moods thoughts

After only reading the essay by Adam Kirsch, I knew Yoel Hoffmanns book was going to be fragmented and broken down and unlike traditional books. After just the first couple pages I immediately noticed what he meant and how the paragraphs are numbered and perhaps they all relate in some way but it is not always clear. For instance, the book begins talking about a certain story about a woman in a basement apartment. Hoffmann describes her, describes the building, he reflects that he had once took steps down to a place where a woman had waited and maybe this was just a memory of his experience. While it is all put together and worded differently then I have seen, initially it does make sense and piece together. However when we get to 9, Hoffmann does relate a bit to the story, speaking about the bible that saved his life because the bullet went into the book of Nehemiah (the name of the man going down the steps in the story), but he ends 9 with "which is to say, a bona fide story with plot twists and intrigue and an ending cut off like salami (to keep it modern). books like those have at least 328 pages, and in the end mods of people running around you like holograms.
But I can't, because of the turquoise sunbirds." this is something I underlined because it doesn't directly relate to what he had spoken about so far, but as I continue reading maybe it will relate to something else or I will further understand the story and be able to go back and understand what he meant by that.

Beginning Moods

As Adam Kirsch's essay states, and you no doubt have realized, Moods is a fragmented book, in some ways as much like poetry as prose. Since you'll be reading poetry next semester in 102, I think it's good to develop some strategies about how to read complex texts. One good strategy in a text like this is to mark as you read specific sections that strike you as interesting, important, peculiar, puzzling, etc. and then return to those moments and try to make sense of them apart from the whole text. That way you learn to focus and be specific instead of making generalizations and vague statements unsupported by the text. Let's practice together:

45 begins:

      "Penina Tuchner we loved like the Twin Towers, especially when they were burning. If her bra were preserved in a museum, we'd go there and break the display-case glass.
      How she'd say 'Shalom,' ["peace" in Hebrew, used both in greeting and farewell] with that first syllable precisely placed between s and sh. Generally. She pronounced words like a swan sailing along on the Thames, next to the hotels..."

It's easy to see how 46 follows 45, esp. w/ this delightful statement:

     "We thought to ourselves then that they (which is to say, Mr. and Mrs. Tuchner) brought a baby girl into the world and waited until she grew up and now we take off all of her clothes."

However, how does 47 go w/ these two sections? A big part of reading Hoffmann seems to be the fluctuation between traditional transition and juxtaposition. Explore these three sections to see what the book is doing.

You might want to try this w/ some different sections in the reading. 


Also...

One question that I asked last week, which I feel we're only starting to explore, is the importance of the Holocaust to Hoffmann (we could just as well ask the importance of the Holocaust to all Jews). Neither Hoffmann nor his parents were put in a concentration camp, in fact, the reason they immigrated to Israel was to escape the Nazis. Still, the Holocaust seems to be a big part of Hoffmann's book, like it is for a lot of Jewish writers. Why do you think this is? How does he write about the Holocaust? (One good example is in section 49 where the narrator tries to see if the tattooed numbers on Mr. and Mrs. Hirsch's arms are in sequence. Jews were tattooed w/ numbers as they were being interred into the camps during WWII.)

Primal Vision

After reading primal vision, I think that book is gonna have a type of mood where it shows sadness, poetry and be conceptual. The reason why I say this is because, primal visions talked about how the author likes to have poetry when he is writing his books. The author writing poetry can possibly describe what makes him sad and why he feels a certain way. Primal vision also brought up how the author doesn't continue on what he writes. I feel that he is being mysterious when he is writing so he can capture the reader to wonder and to think of a prediction.

Yoel Hoffman

Yoel Hoffman's in his book "Moods", You can say his writing style and his connections are what you can say as "abstract". His writing reminds me of someone who is high trying to tell you a story. Even in the short essay on blackboard, Adam Kirsch says that Hoffman writes his stories but doesn't continue on them. That for Hoffman  books aren't meant for "inventing words" but about actually "...piercing through to the core of the actual world, discovering its mysterious essence..." his writing seems quite interesting and i hope it will be good.

what is voice on writing

voice in Moods is an important factor because the way he narrate his thoughts is through what his thinking. he doesn't write just to fulfill a page but to reflect what he is thinking, sometimes is very hard for us to say things but writing is a way of telling them without saying it loud. in most of the fragments he writes based them on his experiences, like the holocaust which he mention very little,  that makes us understand that it was hard for him to talk about it in details but the way he writes makes us understand that it was a hard time an somehow it has a lot of impact on his life, just like in his writing.

"More wonderful than the wonders people sit and talk about, is the fact that they sit and talk..."

I believe that this quote means what makes people wonderful is when they sit and talk to each other and express their feelings or perspective which opens up different ways of people believe about certain things. This way they get more intellectual and open up their views towards the world. 

what i think about Primal Visions

After reading Primal Visions it was very interesting to read because Adam Kirsch talks about what he thinks about Yoel and his book Moods. He also talks about whats he imagine and sees but one thing i like is that he adds two pictures one of a farm and the other picture of Yoel. He goes into depth a lot in this article and he was all over the place too.

Primal Visions

This extract was very interesting as Mr. Hoffman was very strange. I see him as being different from an average human being. His hallucinations put into writing impacted the world of poetry and literature, changing views on books. There were a series of events that had taken place in Hoffman's life that changed his life forever. One specific topic in his life was the holocaust, where Adolf Hitler was known as ruler of the kingdom of Germany. In this extract, he was called "Wolf", and to Hoffman, the thought that the period of the holocaust was the end of the world (followed by the bombing from the Italian Air Force, which was referred in many of his books). With his dreams and ions, that would therefore cause him to think. These dreams and theories of him leaned over then to Greek and Japanese mythology, from Zen mysticism to Philosophical musings. It then left him to being nihilistic, meaning that he rejected all religions, religious beliefs and moral principles; he only thought that life was meaningless. That is what led him to writing these surreal rhapsodies that changed the world of poetry.

Why is this essay called "Primal Visions"?
I believe this essay is called primal visions because it talks about the old times. Also it shows what the old aesthetic things means to Hoffmann. Hoffmann was born 1937 and the old times attract him. He talks about pure love and sex. As in he likes to talk about women body and poetry. He sees these things deeply not just sexually. He find beauty and depths in these things. On the other hand people in modern society think of poetry as a boring thing and use women body just for pleasure. Though Hoffmann admires the beauty of poetry and women which shows he thinks like people from 1900's who had pure intentions towards everything. 

Primal Visions Response

Question: Why is this essay called "Primal Visions"

Answers:

Its call Primal Vision because he talks about what he sees and its either a dream or he hallucinating something. He also talks about Yoel Hoffmann and what he thinks about him. but there a lot about images and what he sees and it shows an interesting picture on Page two of the article its shows people what i think its a farm with animals and i like how the person also add a picture of Yoel Hoffmann too at the end and what he looks like. So i think the title is call Primal Visions because it talks about images.

What significance does the Holocaust seem to have for Hoffman's writing?

The Holocaust is not mentioned all too frequently in Hoffman's writings, but when he does mention them, he describes it in a nihilistic tone as this event took place during his childhood. It was a very hard time for him and it has impacted his life for the rest of his years. He even describes in one of his writings, that life began with the  birth of Jesus Christ, and life ended with the birth of Hitler. Although this line is very short, I think that there is some significance to it. For starters, I think it shows how Hitler's reign of terror really harmed Jewish people. The Jewish people must have thought that life was ending for them during the Holocaust. It must have been very horrifying for Hoffman to go through that at the time.

After reading Primal Vision essay thoughts

After reading the essay by Adam Kirsch about Yoel Hoffmanns and his different books, I am intrigued and excited to begin reading Moods and see what kind of writing style Hoffmann has. It seems like it is going to be something like poetry but not exactly, but different than any story I have read before and I like poetry and short stories so I'm interested to see what the story is about and the difference in writing styles. In the first sentence of the essay Kirsch states
 In Moods, Hoffmann spoofs the kind of conventional realism he imagines the reader is used to. “Maybe we’ll write…a contemporary story,” he teases, and offers a paragraph about a woman named Zivit, who wakes up in the morning, sees her lover in bed next to her, wonders about their future together—the familiar motions of storytelling. “Some of our readers are no doubt saying to themselves: At last, a real story,” he writes, but the story breaks off and Hoffmann hasn’t the slightest interest in continuing it .
I believe this is something that might bother some people, a style of writing that doesn't exactly finish every thought and every story, but I am excited to see what it is gonna be about and how this book will turn out and how I will understand it. It is definitely not like anything I have read before, the fragmented poem like paragraphs that are numbered, but I'm open to interpretation and imagination and looking forward to reading the book.

response to the Hoffman question

What significance does the Holocaust seem to have for Hoffman's writing? 

The Holocaust has a huge significance to Hoffman's writing because, he had trauma when he heard the Italian air force bomb the Jewish settlement leading to many Jews dying. Hoffman describes how the world had torture when Adolf was born and how there was 1,889 years to live. He feels that the world was ending when Adolf was in reign controlling people and Germany. He also brings up the Holocaust as well because, he blended this situation to his mother, who died when he was a young child. 

Primal Visions response

The word fragment is used five times in the essay. What is a fragment and what do you think it has to do w/ Hoffmann's writing?

In the essay, it refers to Hoffmann as more a poet than an author, a lot of time poems are in more fragments than regular novels or books. a fragment is a small part broken off from something, the author of the essay directly relates Hoffmann's writing fragments to poems, stating "Formally, his books resemble collections of prose poems, usually half a page or a page long and presented in numbered sequence. Like poems, these fragments deal in surprising associations and moments of sudden insight; they often take the form of philosophical musings or unanswerable riddles." Things like riddles and half page poems are often just fragments of thoughts or opinions, rather than the whole story, i think that is why fragments will relate to Hoffmanns writing

Weekly blog post for Tuesday October 29

Today in class we finished up the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Truthfully this might be one of my favorite books I've ever read. The book describes Malcolm's whole life when he was a hustler in Brooklyn and in jail as a criminal to when he got out a huge part of the nation of islam then till his death while he was preaching for civil rights. I can tell at this time Malcolm was a very influential man and is very important to the history of America and his name is gonna disappear anytime soon

Weekly blog post for Thursday October 31

Today in class we did our weekly peer review for our project on subcultures. I am happy with the feed back that i have received from my class mates and i now know what i need to add to get a good grade on this assignment we also did something new where we passed around our paper through the class and had a checklist that some one else filled out to make sure our papers had everything necessary to have a good piece of work.

Primal Visions

Now that you've read this essay, what would you expect Yoel Hoffman's novel, Moods, to be like? (If you've started it already, how does the book align w/ what you've read here?) Adam Kirsch writes that "Voice and imagery do much more than narrative to make his work cohere, to the extent that he is interested in coherence..." Remember: the theme of this 101 class is "voice." What is voice in writing? What is coherence? Choose one of Kirsch's quotes of the six Hoffmann novels under discussion here and write about what you think the quote is doing. Other questions that I have:

• Why is this essay called "Primal Visions"?
• To me, one quote that Kirsch offers captures Hoffmann's philosophy, aesthetics, and style/voice (from the novel Bernhard): "More wonderful than the wonders people sit and talk about, is the fact that they sit and talk..." What does this quote mean to you?
• What significance does the Holocaust seem to have for Hoffman's writing? 
• The word fragment is used five times in the essay. What is a fragment and what do you think it has to do w/ Hoffmann's writing?
• Kirsch compares Hoffmann to the modern paintings of the Russian-Jewish artist, Marc Chagall (b. 1887, d. 1985). The following are some paintings by Chagall. What qualities do you notice about these artworks? 

To Russia, Asses and Others, 1911


Calvary (Golgotha), 1912

The Drunkard, 1912

As we start this new book, what question(s) do you have?

Hailey, when he first was interviewing Malcolm X, asked about his mother. Why does this make an impact on Malcolm X?
I believe it made a great impact on Malcolm X because all people cared about was about black and white controversy. No one really cared about Malcolm X's personal life or his emotions. When Hailey mentioned his mother it kind of triggered his old memories and the way people treated his mom because she stood for the right things too like Malcolm did. Malcolm also mentioned how he blocked his mother out of his mind because he was so busy dealing with everyday problems he had to face. Hailey mentioning his mom made him think emotionally and the interview turned into a conversation in which he could say things that won't be twisted and used against him.

I have decided to change my topic for assignment 3

the reason why i have decided to change my topic for assignment is because last week i found out that my religion is not a subculture even tho i thought it was but my family told me it wasn't. So after hours os trying to see what to do if i wanted to finish my essay or not, i have decided to change it because it was stressing me out so much. So i have decided to talk about being apart of the marvel fandom and the ups and downs being in one. it was so easy to write it because i'm apart of it. So i'm happy i decided to change it to something that i know.