Illuminated Page:

Generation Z seems to be the recent wave of humans who rely most in the media and technology on their everyday life.  Basically, anyone that was born after 1995 is widely affected by the invention of the internet and mobile communication devices. This has come with a set of good and bad features. The good side of it is that technologically speaking, we are more advance. Tasks are done more efficiently and communication with anyone in this planet is more accessible. Medical, architectural, educational, and entertainment advances have been made with the new rise of technology. On the other hand however, this generation suffered greatly socially. After being raised during the time of terrorist attacks like 9/11 or wars in iraq, the youth have been known for being anti-social and fearing the outside world. A general preference became popular for hiding inside your own technological world through the internet for example. We also have become a pampered generation where things have been made a bit too easy for us, causing a population of useless narcissists. It is predicted that a vast majority of the humans of generation z will grow up to be obese, depressed adults that live in their parents house.

Look Out, The Saints Are Coming Through

Look Out, The Saints Are Coming Through

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

-My reaction to the text I just read was full of confusion. I was frustrated because the story was very long for what it was and I didn’t feel as if it was going anywhere. I didn’t see a purpose behind it for at least halfway in.

2. What connections did you make with the story?

Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

-I connected with the idea of leaving passion for later in life and measuring time as if it where an object. I often try to organize my plans in life in a visual form in an attempt to simplify it to make it easy to comprehend. I know that things usually go a different route, but to me I feel like I have an inner peace in my mind when I convince myself that I have everything figured out.

3. What changes would you make to adopt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

-The first changes I would make to turn this into any other medium would be  to shorten it plenty. All the philosofical rants can be summarized and compressed into smaller portions to get the idea across better. Film as a medium would be the best medium to capture the dialogue between the characters and the exchange of their views.

CURATE YOURSELF: Joe's Garage

Disc 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRN_mULAjkI
Disc 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_tKKncKO9k

     Joe's Garage is by far my favorite concept album created by my favorite musician, Frank Zappa. Frank was a self taught man who was ahead of his time and even ours, his views on life were cynical yet genius at the same time. His career took place from the mid to late 1900's and his work consisted mostly of humorous satirical criticisms on society followed by some unique "psychedelic" music and lyrics. He's considered an advocate for freedom of speech, self education, political participation, and the abolition of censorship. In simpler words, he was a funny, intelligent asshole who didn't care for the dumb things in life. He just wanted to make music for fun and criticize the hell out this stupid world while he's at it and I think that's awesome.

The story of this album is told through a character named the "Central Scrutinizer" who narrates the story of Joe, an average adolescent male who forms a garage rock band, has unsatysfiying relationships with women, gives all of his money to a government assisted and insincere religion, explores sexual activities with robots, and is imprisoned. After being released from prison into a dystopian society where music itself has become illegal, he lapses into insanity. "Joe realizes at last that imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the imagination of the imagener! And ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway. So he goes back to his ugly little room and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo".

Every song of this album has a different style to it and a different message behind it while continuing the story of Joe, our protagonist. To many people these songs may sound strange and nonsensical, but pay attention closely and you'll lose yourself to this unique, vivid masterpiece. Like Zappa once said, "A mind is like a parachute, it doesn't work if it is not open".

     Although not one of my favorite games, "Night in The Woods" is the most recent game I've played that can very much be considered literature. This video game is known as an adventure-puzzle-platformer where you play as a anthropomorphic female cat known as "Mae". The game starts you off returning home after Mae dropped out of college and had her Grandfather dies. In this video game, you take control of the cat and are granted the freedom to explore her hometown as well as interact with every character you see while you write notes on your own little journal.

The game has plenty of decision making moments which lets the player choose his or her path that affects what happens in the story. This element is very common in video games that are considered visual novels. One could argue this game is a visual novel in disguise due to its minigames that the player stumbles upon once in a while. The main plot of this game has to do with Mae experiencing astral projection during her dreams that foreshadow the end of the world.

However, the story isn't entirely focused on the conflict of the game and more often than not we are exposed to a variety of real life themes. Such themes include: mourning over the death of a loved one, sexuality, education, socialism, economic issues, family issues, murder, cults, religion, teenage drama, relationships, and more. I personally consider the game to be a book you can play, nonetheless I do have a couple of opinionated criticisms towards it.

I did mention that the decisions you make in this game  affects what happens in your story and though that is true, your decisions don't make that much of a difference. There were times in the game where I find myself choosing dialogue options that vary between "woah" or "no way". It seems to me like the developers at times wanted to create the illusion that you were affecting the story of the game when in reality it was a minuscule change. Another criticism is that the character you played as was very opinionated  and at times discussed subjective matters. The option to say what the player wanted was not there and instead we had to choose what the author of the game wanted to say. This ruined the immersion for me at times and made it so I couldn't quite relate to the protagonist who I was suppose to empathize with. The game also became boring at times due to the lack of difficulty and/or gameplay. There are three endings to the game and they are all anti climatic. With all that said, the game still holds up as a beautiful, comfy game that you'll enjoy playing every night right before going to bed.