Joanah Eresechima - My Personal Twilight Zone

 During class today, Professor Redick talked about his time on the Camino de Santiago and showed us some pictures from it. One series of pictures that caught my interest were of this modern-looking town that was in the middle of nowhere. He said going through this town was like going through the Twilight Zone because it was so out of place. I can definitely say I’ve felt that before. The first thing I thought of when he was talking about this was actually in my hometown. When I was in middle school, my mom would pick me up from school every day and we would drive down this one street. It wasn’t anything special, just a street with houses and a few businesses. The only thing was that it was on a busy intersection. My town is kind of old, and the infrastructure reflect that so everything on that street was pretty run down. Of course, this was what I was used to so nothing ever stood out to me during that time. However, right around the time I was leaving for college, someone decided to build a house on that street. It wasn’t until I came back during winter break that I saw what the house looked like.

My sister decided to go to the same middle school as me so one day, I was riding with my mom to pick her up and right when we turned down that street, I saw it. In the middle of a bunch of one-story brick houses was a 3-story family home that looked like it belonged in the suburbs, equipped with solar panels and a massive truck in the driveway. Now, it wasn’t like we didn’t have houses like this in the area, but it was so weird for one to be placed there. Honestly, I was confused about what the homeowners were thinking. Remember, this is a busy street, so cars were always zooming by. Their driveway led right into the street so I’m sure it was a hassle to wait for the many cars that usually barreled down the street. It just seemed like a strange decision to build a big house and put it in such an inconvenient place. Maybe the homeowners wanted it to stick out like that? So, they could be different from the other houses down that street and show off. If that were true, it definitely worked because to this day, whenever I go home for break, I like joining my mom just so that I can gawk at that house. I know Dr. Redick later explained that the town has a golf resort so that was why it looked so modern but, in my case, I still don’t have an explanation and probably never will get one. So, it’s a bit of an exaggeration but I guess that house is my Twilight Zone.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kip Redick Example of a Blog Post

 Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds, movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.” It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into mere words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of. Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experience of ...
Read more

Rose Baker - Herbert's "Dune" and Martyrs

  In class, we talked about Jesus and Christianity as an example of myth. Myths and martyrs are dangerous to systems of control because even if they’re suppressed, they can survive and grow stronger. They last because they’re tied to belief, memory, and emotion---things you can’t fully erase. That’s what makes them more powerful than systems built on forced order or control. Even though much of the early church died gruesome deaths, and were consistently ordered to stop spreading the gospel, the "myth" of Jesus has continued for over 2000 years.      In Frank Herbert's  Dune , we see something similar. The Bene Gesserit know how powerful myths can be, and instead of waiting for one to form naturally, they build one on purpose. Through the Missionaria Protectiva , they plant stories and prophecies across different cultures, preparing the world for someone to fulfill the one part they can't fabricate, the living, breathing "savior" who must be visible and prov...
Read more

Joanah Eresechima - Blue Lock's Exploration of Flow

In the sixth chapter of American Camino , the concept of flow is extensively explained in the context of spiritual walking. It is described as unification of action and awareness to create a state in which thoughts are non-existent. The hiker just moves through the world, extremely aware and focused on the wilderness around them but unable to thoroughly reflect on it in that moment. It is only afterwards that the hiker is able to recall the memories from their flow state. Flow can occur in different types of people like artists, scientists and athletes (Redick 249). I was actually very surprised to see this term in the book because it becomes one of the central components in a manga I read called Blue Lock. The story followed a boy named Isagi Yoichi, a high school soccer player who got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a soccer program called Blue Lock meant to create the greatest striker in the world. Out of 300 players, he was ranked 299 th , making him one of the weakest p...
Read more