Seeing #1 p. 127

There are many reasons Bush provides for giving objects their value. First she uses the example of the Antiques Roadshow to show the contrast between symbolic and monetary value, with people bringing in objects which they believe have value even if it turns out that they have no worth in terms of money. Then she brought up the difference between design and function, with each giving different objects different amounts of value. Another reason she brought up was the historical value of objects, referencing how the FBI and family members of 9/11 victims each gave different historical values to objects taken from the World Trade Center's ruins. The FBI saw it as just evidence to be used, while the family members saw the objects had deeper sentimental meaning to the memory of the victims.

I know for me personally that both the symbolic value and functional value reflect how I am with the objects I own. Nothing I own, except for a few newer things, has much monetary value. My room is full of old awards from band basketball and baseball made out of cheap metal and plastic, some things from my childhood like a few toys and Pokemon cards, and old books I've read. Other than the books, some of which I want to read again, none of them have any use and are definitely not worth any money. On the other hand the few objects I have that do have monetary value, my drum set laptop and phone, all have very functional value to me. None of them were bought because they were the most expensive or looked the nicest. I have an android phone and a P, and I picked my drum set based on which one sounded the best to me. I don't really have any other reason for the relationships I have with my objects, so I wouldn't say any have been omitted either.

Seeing 1 and 2 page 94

The first thing that I saw when I looked at this picture was the back wall of the room, with my attention first being grabbed by the poster.  As I looked closer though I noticed that the entire wall was covered in not only posters but hundreds of baseball cards.  After looking around some more I saw that on the other wall there were more sports posters.  I think its safe to assume that the teenager is into professional American sports, especially the NBA and the MLB.  Other interests seem to be Bruce Lee and biking.  Osorio's style seems to be using objects and arranging them in a creative fashion, such as the baseball cards, the basketball posters and the hands seen throughout the room.

I think Osorio did a good job for the most part of capturing a teenage boys bedroom, especially with the sports posters and the unkempt bed.  Two things that seemed more fantasy to me was the baseball posters on the back wall and the mirrored floor.  I don't know if any teenager I know would go through the trouble of putting their cards all up on a wall like that, more likely they would save them in some sort of box like me and some of my friends.  Also mirrored floors seem like they would be pretty impractical, and if other teenager's rooms are anything like mine you can barely see the floor anyways.

Magazine

Tuesday some of my classmates and I brought in two different magazines, Rolling Stone and Snob, and made observations of the two.  One of the first things I noticed was that while Rolling Stone was in English Snob was published in Russian.  Another visual observation I made was that the covers were very similar. Although the people were different, Rolling Stone had Paul McCartney and Snob had a woman I didn't recognize, they were in nearly identical poses, with one of the only differences between them being that Paul was holding a small harmonica in his left hand, while she had a camera in the other.  After seeing more of the magazines I saw that both featured the arts in some way, although the kind of art did seem to vary a bit between them.

Looking through Rolling Stone, I could tell that the magazine was really for anyone who enjoyed some sort of popular music. While some genres such as classical were clearly lacking there was still a decent variety, including classic rock like The Who, The Beatles, and Van Halen, pop artists like LMFAO and even The Chieftans, an Irish folk band.  With Snob, there wasn't really anything that I could gather from the text since it was all in Russian, although I was able to view the photographs which were much more artistic than the photos in Rolling Stone. There even were some images of paintings.

Although there were some obvious differences between the two magazines, both in the text and images, there were still many that were the same or similar between them.  While the kinds of people who read them might be different culturally, it was clear that both groups had some interest in the arts.

Page 91, Seeing #1 and 2

In "A Matter of Scale" the author Cole finds the differences between things on changing scales, from very large to microscopic, to be "magically seductive".  What the essay has pointed out to me that I had missed before was things such as a giant breaking its thighs every time it walked due to the differences in size and that a flea could pull over a hundred thousand times its own weight. A new fact that would change the way I think would be how different sized animals live at different rates, but perceive life to be near the same length through chemical reactions in the body.  I don't know how much knowing about how liquids stick to insects will change how I feel about flies landing in my soup, since although I will feel sorry for it, I still will feel that there should have been some sort of instinct warning it about what it was getting into.  A new fact that will not change the way that I think would be how clouds stay up, since that doesn't really seem to have an obvious affect on me or how I think right now.

I think that Cole finishes with another offer to add some more validity to her statements in the essay.  If she had just paraphrased Schrodinger instead it would not have done what it was meant to do, and would have blended in more with the rest of her essay.  I don't think that just footnoting Schrodinger would have had nearly the same effect as what she actually did with the essay.  She summarizes, quotes, and footnotes in other sections of the essay where it is not as important to have the context of the other authors, since they are to put her own work in context. Also putting in large quotes like she did at the end would ruin some of the flow of the essay.

Seeing #1 and 2

I would describe Peter Menzel's portraits of ordinary people's food throughout the world as an insightful look into the cultures and typical lives of various groups of people from different cultural backgrounds.  The details that stand out the most to me are the different kinds of food, both the kinds of foods themselves and the way they are packaged. The different foods like fish or grain showed what kind of food dominated their local diet, and the packaging showed the difference in wealth between the groups. It also helped to show where the family was from by displaying the local languages. In the photograph of the Ukita family of Japan, I can infer that both fruit and fish are a main staple in their diet. The story that the photo suggests to me is that they are part of or live near a fishing community, and that some of the fish had been recently caught and sold locally. My understanding of the photographs are enhanced by the summary by Faith D'Aluisio by showing exactly what was being displayed along with some items that weren't, showing the value of the food displayed, and by giving a short introduction of who the people in the photograph actually were.

The two photos I chose to compare were of the Fernandezes of Texas and the Aboubakars of Breidjing Camp.  One of the only similarities between the two photos is the families themselves, nearly everything else seems to be a stark contrast between their daily lives. The economic differences between the middle class American family and the impoverished Chad family are obvious. While the Aboubakars have barely enough to get by, the Fernandezes have a huge excess amount in comparison. The same amount of food would probably last the Aboubakars much longer. There are also distinct sociocultural differences between the families, which is shown in the differences between their clothes and homes for example.  I did find the text more insightful in that it pointed out that the Aboubakars are living in a refugee camp, and that they make $1.23 last an entire week for food, while the Fernandezes spend $242.48.