Curate Yourself

1) What is your reaction to the text you just read?
          I was not really interested in what I was reading. I am not a huge fan of Bob Dylan, so I had really no desire to really hold onto what I was reading. The history and story behind the song was a but interesting, but the overall short story could have been written shorter or more concise. I enjoy reading graphic novel or dialogue formatted stories, but I not a big reader more of a movie or audio book kind of person. I kept getting distracted when reading, it took too much effort to keep my attention on the text compared to other stories we have read in class, like the Goose Father, I found that story to be much more interesting. Same with some of the out of class reading, I enjoyed reading the Wonder Woman book the most, but also the graphic novels and Pride and Prejudice (that being my favorite movie to watch in class). I was not a fan of the fill that went with this reading either, maybe because I never listened to Bob Dylan, but I found movies like The East, Austin Land, the gamer one, Dead Man, and Amelia to be much more fascinating; I had also never seen or heard of most of those films and loved watching them in class.

2) What connections did you make with the story and discuss the elements of the work in which you were able to connect?
          I did not really connect with any of the story, but there was one line that stood out to me, "Every piece of gravel is unique, like snowflakes." I love snow, the cold, winter, and especially snowflakes. My senior year of high school, a family donated a couple of giant canvases, and being in AP Art I got to take one and make anything I wanted to be the center piece of the senior show. I took the saying, people are like snowflakes, each is unique, and for 2 months cut out over 100 paper snowflakes. I had to lay them all out and put books on them to make sure they are flat. I took removable adhesive spray and sprayed all the snowflakes, then meticulously laid them all over the canvas. I got a mixture of blues and purple spray paints and sprayed the entire canvas. Once dry I peeled of all the snowflakes and threw glitter all over. I titled the piece "You Are Unique" and it is still hanging in my home.

3) What changes would you make to adapt the story to another medium, what medium would you use, and what changes would you make?

          I would make it have either more dialogue and make it a movie portrayal or make is a more documentary styled piece. I would try to make it more about all of his music than one song and find out more about his life. I found the story to be boring and difficult to read, but I would not want to make the film fiction. I am a big fan of documentaries, and I love feeling like I learned something new by the end of one. Yet, I have also seen a lot of great movies that are non-fiction that are not in documentary form.

          Like the film 42, one of my favorite sport films of all time, I learned so much about the life and struggles of Jackie Robinson, but I was also entertaining and interesting to watch.I am not much of a reader but I always recommend films that reflect a true story, documentary or not. I love learning about events that have happened throughout history, about people who made a difference in the world, whether it is a bid or small difference. Saving Mr. Banks is another film I had re watched recently that fits into this genre. It is a beautiful film about the making of the Walt Disney film Mary Poppins, and I never knew how hard it was for Disney to convince the writer of the book to let him make the beloved film. I loved seeing what the studios, the merchandise and the technologies they had at that time, and I also love Tom Hanks and he played Walt Disney beautifully. There are many other films like this that I would recommend everyone see.