Books, Memories and Dog-eared finds...
Looking at dictionary meanings for the expression “dog-eared” comes back with a range of information from “turned down pages of a book or magazine” to “mangy” and “neglected”. Far be it from me to disagree with the dictionary powers that be, but I do not think of “dog-eared” as mangy or neglected. In fact, I feel just the opposite. When a book is “dog-eared” to me, it is well regarded and worn from use. Perhaps that’s why another search, just a standard search on the term “dog-eared books”, returned 827,000 results. What were these results? Almost all were names of bookstores located from coast to coast. In analyzing these results my conclusion is that the name “dog-eared” is more about a comfortable, well-used favorite book, not one that is “neglected”! A book that creates new memories or brings back old ones. Thus, this column is about books discovered in favorite bookstores on backroads or shopping malls that add to my memories of life. I hope you enjoy!
Things go better...Story of Coca-Cola
The Assignment: Watch each of the Coke-Cola commercials below. There is one commercial for each decade starting from the 1950s through today. As you are watching, take notes on the impact each has on you as a viewer. Think about the “story”, design elements, length, and anything else that stands out. What rhetorical appeals are represented in each? What claims are being made in each? What assumptions? How do these fit the “cause and effect” narrative that we have discussed on the impact of advertising on pop culture?
The Dunsmuir Saga
July 1995 – Picture this – a beautiful night in July 1995. A business trip had taken me to Vancouver Island in British Columbia. By my third day, the meetings were over and I had three days of pure vacation left to explore Victoria and its surrounding island. After a quiet dinner on that first night of ‘R & R’ time, I just wanted to relax and read a book for pure pleasure…I was burned out on the ‘technical reading & writing’ that had dominated the trip thus far! Unfortunately, I realized I hadn’t packed a pleasure read…how did I mess that up!
Dante The Divine Comedy
Update: I wrote this piece five years ago never dreaming I would have the opportunity to visit the Piazza Dante in Verona, Italy. But, in the summer of 2021, I did. It was amazing to see the city in all its beauty, where Dante drew his inspiration for The Divine Comedy.
“Midway upon the journey of our life I found that I was in a dusky wood; For the right path, whence I had strayed, was lost.”
This is a poignant line in which many who have reached the mid-point of life can identify. This is the opening line from Dante’s Inferno. He, Dante, comes to mind today for two reasons. First, because this past week marked the 750th anniversary of his birth. And why is this significant? For those who don’t know, Dante is considered a major philosopher, scholar, and poet of the late middle ages. His most famous work, The Divine Comedy, of which the Inferno is the opening book, is an epic poem about a middle-aged man’s journey through hell up to heaven. And this leads to the second reason. Dante’s work – the Divine Comedy – became entwined this past week with a major happening in the Roman Catholic Church, The Year of Mercy.