TOW #13 - "A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails"

This glorious essay by Donald Hall highlights the life of Washington Woodward, a distant cousin of the author as described by his grandfather. To summarize the essay, the author talks about how much of a fulfilled life Woodward lived, but how little significance it had to anyone else. He often mentions that New Hampshire (where Woodward lived most of his life alone) was dying and in a constant of decay and being forgotten, which suggests that Woodward's simple way of life was common in New Hampshire, but it has lost popularity throughout the years. Hall describes Woodward most often as a hardworking and skillful man. “The best thing about him [Washington Woodward] was his pride in good work...I knew him to shoe a horse, install plumbing, dig a well, make a gun, build a road, lay a dry stone wall, do the foundation and frame of a house, invent a new kind of trap for beavers, manufacture his own shotgun shells, grind knives and turn a baseball bat on a lathe.” His brilliance and self-sufficiency led many to think of him as a miser, but the author tossed that idea to the wind in an amazing way. He said that a miser would leave a hundred thousand dollars behind a mirror for his family when he died, but Woodward left behind a hundred thousand straightened nails because "it was a sin to allow good material to go to waste”. This also highlights that 'old New Hampshire way of life' mentioned earlier. While a life of simplicity like Washington Woodward's is personally fulfilling; he told his story in pride over and over again before he died, but no one who listened seemed to care. I think that part of the essay shows the turning point where preferring his way of life is starting to die with him, hence tying together the essay with a full-circle ending.

TOW #12 - "A Man and His Cat"

I'll just come right out and say it...I only chose this essay because it had the word 'cat' in its title. (And yes I have accepted that my destiny is to become a crazy cat/horse/dog/every animal ever lady). However, I was pleasantly surprised by it. The author did a great job of weaving a humorous personal anecdote into the entirety of the piece. It was a longer essay compared to the past few essays I have read, but I had no attention-related problems when reading it because of how much I enjoyed it. The author writes about his cat whom with he lived for 19 years. One of my favorite lines was, "She appeared from underneath the porch, piteously mewling, and I gave her some cold white crab meat. I did not know then that feeding a stray cat is effectively adopting that cat." He had found the kitty as a stray while on a crabbing trip, and she became his companion for the rest of her life. Most of the essay revolves around how the author wrestles with the idea of being "that cat guy". He adores the cat, and she adores him, but she has a habit of preferring to be spoiled. She would only drink water from a glass, and her green eyes seemed to be outlined in "cat mascara". I found the author's such descriptive monologues about his cat to really emphasize his purpose and title. Tim Kreider wanted to subtly break the stigma attached to a man owning a cat being considered feminine, and I think he did a wonderful job. One of his reining overall arguments simply put it as man always needs companionship, and a cat provides that, so there is simply nothing wrong with a man owning and loving his cat. He also argues that loving a cat provides more than just companionship, and is actually beneficial to the psyche. I found this really interesting; he argued that loving a cat is much less complicated than loving a human being, because they cannot ruin our fantasies about them by speaking. Therefore, they receive the projections from their humans and provide an image of a perfect "insert desire here".

TOW #11 - Aftermath of Japan's 2011 earthquake

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

I chose to analyze a visual text this week because I stumbled upon this photograph while wasting time on the internet, and I wanted to know more about it. After some brief research, I found out this was taken shortly after the earthquake/tsunami that hit Japan in early 2011. Because the disaster led to a nuclear meltdown, the girl behind the glass is one of the many Japanese citizens who had to be isolated for radiation screening. There are many aspects to this photo I find interesting. The first thing that caught my eye was the the dog's tail--it's sort of blurry, which means he was wagging it when the photo was captured; he was happy to see his human, even though he was unaware of her situation. I think this highlights what I consider to be the eighth wonder of the world: how animals, especially dogs, can love so unconditionally. Another aspect I noticed was the fog on the glass. The screening facilities erected in the cities of Japan were makeshift enclosures, meaning they probably weren't very big. The foggy glass means there were most likely a lot of people inside, showing the extent of the disaster. Lastly, I wanted to talk about the fact that the person on the side of the glass with the dog is dressed like they would any other day they would take him/her for a walk. Despite the catastrophe around them, they are still intent on nurturing their dog in this way. I find that to be bittersweet because if you think about it, they might not have a home to walk back to anymore, and going for a walk with their dog is the only mundane thing left for him/her.