1. I do have siblings, two older brothers one being thirty-two and another twenty-four. Luckily so far no one has been seriously hurt but my older brother Jeff dropped a big cabinet on his big toe while working at bed bath and beyond. He ended up shattering his toe nail in half and breaking his toe he couldn’t go back to work till three or four weeks later. My other brother ended up in the hospital for feeling light headed. They did a bunch of tests and three days later we found out the right side of his brain is underdeveloped and has to be careful not to over work himself. I’m not sure if I see an unreliable narrator or not. Sure we see a younger kid seeing his brother and father figure in the hospital practically dead. He might be making these occurrences up to help deal with this serious event he has just witnessed. “My father and I kept notes, neither of us aware that the other was doing it, trying to get down all of worth’s little disclosures before they faded” (Sullivan 49). By recording conversations he is having with his brother that also leads me to believe in a reliable narrator.
2. The two quotes that ended up standing out to me were “The upper one was still above the waterline” (81). “Gone” (82). It’s hard to image the water line being in your house. Your place of comfort and shelter just taking form you or from the other quote gone. Gives me chills just reading it, gone once something was there and now it’s not. The situation at the end is what I think is the problem with people. No one is nice to strangers and helping someone is hardly ever returned. Now I could be an asshole and say he shouldn’t have tried to “help” the women out because who cares. But I am glad he did try what he could to get her out of traffic. Now the come coming from the back of the line to confront him about cutting the line is totally ok in my opinion. But he is not approaching the situation right by coming in all heated and upset. Even though I understand where the frustrating is coming from. The wait for gas and the situation around him can put all people on edge, but I believe the man made a wrong choice when he decided to become aggressive. As we always heard two rights don’t make a left. But what really pisses me off is that the women sold him out. For whatever reason she had whether it was being scared or just a grumpy person she could have turned that situation deadly in a matter of seconds. But luckily that did not happen. I believe the cause of their behaver is the state of their city and the long waiting for an item that never had this kind of problems before can make a person go stir crazy.
3. Michael was a hard story for me to read and understand. I think what happened is I started reading about real life and not about a made up story and because of that fact, it made it harder to read. But while reading I could see that Jackson was a very motivated boy dedicated to his craft. But he had a big weakness, very self-conscious. He wasn’t happy with the way he looked and sought after ways to change his appearance. “It comes from Michaels habit of constantly touching and covering his nose with the fingers of his left hand, a tic that becomes pronounced in news clips from this time” (116). He was embarrassed of his nose and wanted to change the color of his skin. Let’s not forget that his voice wasn’t deepening like it should be so he would do vocal exercises to get to the right range. That must of been extremely time consuming and a lot of pressure to put on a young man. My opinion has not changed of him still pretty indifferent. From the beginning of the story to end just indifferent not really caring but I have enjoyed a couple of his songs. I will say I was surprised about him being self-conscious about his nose. That was not known to me, I always assumed that his he kept touching his nose to make sure it was still there because of all the surgeries I was told that it kept falling off his face.
Works cited
Sullivan. Jeremiah, John. “FEET IN SMOKE.” Pulphead Essays. New York, 2011. 43-53. Print.
Sullivan. Jeremiah, John. “AT A SHELTER (AFTER KATRINA).” Pulphead Essays. New York, 2011. 79-88. Print.
Sullivan. Jeremiah, John. “MICHAEL.” Pulphead Essays. New York, 2011. 109-126. Print.