French to English

Hölderlin à la tour

Les oiseaux intermittents
Les champs toujours là en face
Les mots voltigent, reviennent
Le touchent, il tend la main
Et les pose doucement
Les uns à côté des autres
Ils disent des choses très simples
Comme la musique
L’eau est calme
L’ombre de l’oiseau surprend
Les jours sont longs
Comme au début de la vie

À partir d’un moment d’une extrême simpilicité
il ne faut plus espérer

Hölderlin in the tower

Birds    sometimes
the fields    still over there
words go away    come back
touch    he holds out his hand
and puts them down softly
side by side
they say simple things
like music
the water is calm
a bird’s shadow    surprises
the days are long
as once they were

After a moment of extreme simplicity
hope is no longer needed

Man's Best Friend

As I walk out the garage door I say to myself,
"It's frigid out here!" But they're waiting for  me anyway.
And as my foot hits the gravel I see their fluffy soft ears pop up.
They're happy, I can tell.
Tails wagging, eyes glowing.
I reach out to unlock the latch
And Moxie lets out a friendly bark.
They just can't get out fast enough.
Zoe jumps over Moxie as they exit
Through the gate that has just barely opened
And in all the excitement,
They run right past me.
Moxie makes the turn with no problem.
Zoe is clumsy.
She falls, but just as usual
She pops right back up with a wagging tail.
Trying to pet them is useless.
All I can see are streaks of brown
Darting around at knee-height.
Why do they love me so much?
Just cause I'm a human.
That's what dogs do
And I'm gonna start taking notes.

The Most Interesting Conversation in the World

              x     /      x     x     /

Hailey: "Yep. I called the shots."

              /   x   /      x  

Ryan: "Not in my town!"

               /    x   /   /     x   /

Hailey: "Oh but I did sweetie."

           x      /    x  /    x      /          x     /   x     x    /  x

Ryan: It's ON! I run this town. They call me the mayor."

                               x       /    x  x     x   /    x / x      x      /      x

Hailey: (Winks) "You're not gonna get re-elected when I'm there."

              x     /   x    x / x        x     /    x      /

Ryan: "There is no election cause I'm in charge!"

              /    x    /       x      /

Hailey: "I'll impeach your ass."

             /   x    /      /      x     /   x/x     /      x        /   x       x

Ryan: "Get it girl. You have no idea who you're dealing with!"

                            x    /  x       /

Hailey: (Laughs) "A goody-good!"

            x   /  x       /       x       /           x      /   /   x    /    x     /    x   /

Ryan: "A goody good who knows what's up! I got people everywhere."

             /     x   /

Hailey: "So do I!!!"

              /   x       x       /    x        /      x        x   /   x    /  x     x   /   x

Ryan: "People where you are... right now. And I got people in Parma."

                /     x  x  /  x     x     x x / x     x      /   x     x      /  x  x     x     /  x /   x    x     /  x      /        x  /

Hailey: "And Mississippi and Alabama and Florida and Germany and California and all the towns around 

  /       x   x    /    x

here and in Moscow."

            /    x    /      /     x     /    x   x   /   x     x       x       /     x        x     /       x  /      x    /

Ryan: "No I mean I've got people in Parma and where you are... and they're aware of you!"

              x      /

Hailey: "Oh yeah?"

            /       x      x  /    x    / x   x    x     /     x     /     /  x  /  x     x     /        x /    x

Ryan: "Oh yeah! If you do anything as small as pick up a pencil, I'll know about it."

A Dark Dorm Room on a Late Night

Sports Center accompanies my delayed homework
Repeating like clockwork

An Ode to my Fridge By Ryan Rehberg

Plastered with
stickers
of various red
and green.

You represent the
Boise Hawks and
good ol' LC.

Sometimes
you're full.
Water, grapes,
hot pockets and
such.

You definitely
portray my college
lifestyle.
Not too much,
but sometimes
too much of one
thing.

Filled with water
bottles
that I don't even
drink.

You're definitely
not my fridge
from home,
but that's ok.
I don't like all
the food in that
one anyway.

The microwave
sits on top
of you
and it's not
even
plugged in!
Is it comfortable?
I don't know.

Ouch!
You're pretty
hot in the back.
I thought fridges
were supposed
to be cold.

Oh well.
I don't use you much.
But you hold
my Hot Pockets,
and that's what a
college
kid needs.

A & P vs. Bartleby

Herman's Bartleby the Scrivener and John Updike's A & P both portray the relationship between managers and employees differently. For example, it can be seen in A & P that the main character leaves the hard work of telling the girls that they are not appropriately dressed to his manager. This illustrates the way employees within a company care more and more about their jobs the further they move up on the work chain. "Then everybody's luck begins to run out. Lengel comes in from haggling with a truck full of cabbages on the lot and is about to scuttle into that door marked MANAGER behind which he hides all day when the girls touch his eye." He doesn't care and he's not about to do anything about the girls until the manager comes around. He just enjoys the fact that some girls came in in bikinis. Bartleby the Scrivener portrays more of a relationship of mutual respect (although the employees don't always respect their boss). He is much more involved and keeps an eye out on the group while doing his own work rather than having to step up and do the tough work for them. This is most likely the case because his employees are not 19 year old kids as in A & P. I think this shows the difference between a temporary workplace vs. a workplace for adults who are trying to support themselves.

Bartleby the Scrivener and A & P both involve different kinds of ideas of productivity. Both have laid-back approaches, but they do show differences. Bartleby is laid-back in the way that the workers are most likely there for longer than a temporary period of time and there isn't much of a rush in the profession. "This appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly to be resisted. At all events, I saw that go he would not. So I made up my mind to let him stay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it, that during the afternoon he had to do with my less important papers." The manager here instead of getting angry decides to take a creative approach and rearrange the workload. A & P doesn't show much productivity at all, especially from the lower employees. The manager has to actually leave his current task to go tell the girls what the deal is. He doesn't expect the workers, who are both around the age of 19 and most likely don't care much about their job, to do anything beyond what's in the job description. The ideas portrayed of productivity show the different expectations at different kinds of jobs.

Going along with what was said above, the different kinds of work in Bartleby and A & P are valued differently by the individuals involved. For example, as stated before, the boys working in the store in A & P don't seem to value the image of the company much. This is evident in the fact that they don't do anything regarding the situation other than stare at the girls involved. The manager " is about to scuttle into that door marked MANAGER behind which he hides all day when the girls touch his eye" and he has to come over and deal with it himself. Had he not been there at that very moment most likely nothing would have been done. Bartleby, on the other hand, shows that the individuals involved in the company value their work and what goes on at the workplace. Nippers and Turkey are quite offended by Bartleby's unwillingness to help out and go out of their way to express this displeasure. Granted, this may have only been the case because his unproductivity was causing them more work, but that's a different story. The values of individuals in each workplace can be seen in who steps up for what when the stories are compared.

(I read both of these stories online so I have no page numbers)

A & P

The first thing I would examine as a feminist criticism of “A & P” is the incredibly small amount of words that the females actually say. The entire story is basically one male’s thoughts about the situation (which mainly consists of ogling, but I’ll cover that more later). Even when the time comes for the girls to speak up they talk very little compared to the other males who speak. The conversation is basically a one-sided argument with the male character asserting himself in a way that gives little leeway to the females’ argument.

The second thing is the Sammy’s thinking on the situation. Basically the only thing he does is judge how they look and stare at them the whole time. He does offer some compliments on Queene’s body, but even then the attitude is still a disdainful one in that it demeans the worth of women to nothing more than how they look.

The statement that really irked me the most was what he said about “women with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs.” This is basically Sammy saying that it is ok for young, pretty girls to walk around in clothes that cover nothing but their privates but other women should have to put on clothes because we don’t want to see that. If I had to pick out the most belittling comment in the whole entire story this would be it hands-down.

Sammy’s attitude is clearly one that says women are worth nothing except their bodies. He never, at any point, regards the female mind as part of a woman’s worth other than when he says, “Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn’t help it.” This is Sammy inferring that the girls can’t even understand why everybody is reacting. He doesn’t see that maybe the girls realize the situation they’re in but have certain circumstances that made them have to walk into the store in their bikinis.