Professor Incognito Apologizes: Response

1. Are there any prominent symbols in the story? If so, what are they and how are they used?

There is a reoccurring character that is mentioned throughout the story, Doctor Kagan, who is a symbol of relationship struggles. He is clearly a couples' counselor and as a symbol he is used to show both the strife that was already prevalent in the couples' relationship and the efforts that Professor Incognito is making to make amends. The whole work is an 'itemized list' of apologies that sound like they would be drafted in a couples therapy session. Doctor Kagan could also symbolize, in some aspect, Professor Incognito's conscience. He believes in what he is doing in regards to everything else in his life, his relationship is the only thing where he has regrets and concerns and is the only thing he is trying to make amends for and change.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

I personally am currently in a relationship, so this work feels weirdly accurate and true to me. I don't believe that my boyfriend has a secret double life, but the way this text is written so personally makes me feel like I can share in some of the experiences and feelings that Professor Incognito is describing. When in a relationship, one always has a weird sense of closeness and distance to the person they're in a relationship with. At least that's my own personal experience. You're so close with another person that you want to know everything about them and what they think and do, but you also know that they are their own individual with their own lives and thoughts that you will never be privy to. It can be hard to let go of that desire to know someone better, and in a relationship you may know that someone better than anyone else, but you can't possibly know everything. Just like how you can't possibly share everything. And in many situations you shouldn't. People keep secrets and sometimes it's for the best, but there still exists some guilt in keeping secrets from someone you feel like you should be able to tell anything to. There is always a worry that some secrets or feelings are too much or won't be accepted by the other, because no one can know how someone else will react to something. In this way, the struggle Professor Incognito describes with keeping his secret identity and how he both wants to tell but worries about it is very real.

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

I think that something that makes this story incredibly personal and powerful is the way that Professor Incognito is talking directly to the viewer; we are Suzanne. If this were adapted simply into a movie or a graphic novel or a play we might lose that personal element of it. I would use virtual reality for this reason, because the story can then remain extremely personal. We can be virtually put into Suzanne's shoes, see the secret lab, and hear Professor Incognito's apology for ourselves. Then, it becomes all about performance. Because the story is told through Professor Incognito's hologram, which we are told is very life-like, the tone and performance of the hologram would be extremely important to push how personal this would feel to us. Eye-contact, so that it looks like the hologram is talking to us is important, as is the emotion behind specific different bits of his apology. Whenever he talks about being a villain, I would imagine he seems more distant and more emotionless, but when he talks specifically about Suzanne or his feelings about her or personal anecdotes about their relationship, he needs to feel like a real person; warm, nostalgic, and a tinge regretful. Those are the moments where the actor or animator (depending on how the VR would be constructed) really needs to convey strong emotion to make the text more powerful than it is on paper.

Ready Player One: A VR Experience

The user stands in an extremely dim, almost pitch black, room. Slowly the user’s eyes adjust to the darkness (light in the scene will be brought up slightly; just enough for the user to be able to see). The user is in an apartment. It is small and basically cubed shaped (ten meters by ten meters), with only one window that seems to have been painted over completely black. The door behind the user is a heavy-duty armor-plated door that is firmly shut and locked.

The user can explore the space, although there is not much to explore. The kitchen area on side of the room is sparse. Exploring the cabinets, drawers, and fridge will reveal only a few microwave meals and frozen dinners. There are no actual cooking utensils aside from the microwave. A clock on the microwave reads 7:18 PM.

There is also a bathroom unit that the user can look at. It is essentially a shower, a toilet, and a mirror, so it is also, not much to look at. If the user looks in the mirror, they will discover that they have the appearance of Max Headroom, a ‘virtual’ talk show host and the interface that Wade set up to be his system agent software. Near by the bathroom, there is a flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall. The monitor is off, but there is faint glowing arrow above it, indicating that the user must interact with it to start the interactive scene.

The main space is dominated by expensive VR equipment. There is a state of the art haptic chair, currently oriented into a bed, near the center of the room. There is a pale, bald figure, sleeping soundly in it. The rest of the set up is equally as state of the art and impressive and feels out of place in such a sparse, sad living space. There is a custom OASIS console by the chair and what is essentially a high-tech treadmill underneath the chair. In the corner of the room there is a smell-tower, and on the other side there is a spare haptic suit along with visor and gloves.

After the user has explored, they must go interact with the monitor, after which they will be placed in the monitor, looking out on the apartment. After a few moments of silence, the dark quietness is interrupted by the computer system integrated into the apartment blasting “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham from the impressive sound system.

COMPUTER:

Jitterbug.

Jitterbug.

Jitterbug.

Jitterbug.

You put the boom-boom into my heart

You send my soul sky high when your lovin’ starts

Jitterbug into my brain

Goes a bang-bang-bang ‘til my feet do the same

But something’s bugging you

Something ain’t right….

The figure in the haptic chair rouses, groaning.

WADE: [shouting] I’m up!

The haptic chair reorients from a bed to a chair and the lights in the apartment slowly come on. The figure, Wade, is now sitting position. He looks groggy and grouchy.

If the user says nothing, text will appear in their view telling them to interact with Wade. Wade will not move from the chair until the user greets him.

USER: G-g-good morning Wade! Rise and sh-sh-shine!

All dialogue said by the user is filtered to sound like Max Headroom and given an electronic stutter and distortion.

Wade will move from his chair to the bathroom module. The user can switch to any view where there is a screen in the apartment to follow Wade.

WADE: Good morning Max.

USER: I think you mean good evening Rumpelstiltskin. It’s 7:18 PM, OASIS Sta-sta-standard Time, Wednesday December thirtieth.

The rest of the scene in Wade’s apartment until he logs in to the OASIS is carried out in this way. The user receives prompts of what dialogue to say, and Wade will not continue his progression if some things aren’t said. The user can deviate a little bit from script and ask Wade personal questions, some of which he will answer, and some of which are too touchy and he will threaten to delete the user. All questions serve to build Wade’s character more for the user if they are jumping in to this scene with no prior knowledge of the story. The user can also tease and insult Wade and he will respond accordingly. Once Wade finishes his work out and logs on to the OASIS, the scene ends and goes to the next scene.

World Building

The world in which I grew up is bizarre and alien in the context of the rest of the world.

In the suburban Northeast, there is a place that has been scrutinized and satirized in media for a long time. Composed of similar, mansion-esque houses all with pristine green lawns long winding driveways. The atmosphere of the town is stuffy, much like the people who inhabit it. There is unspoken competition between all who live here, a competition to succeed. Everyone wants to be more successful (read wealthier) than their neighbor who has a three-car garage occupied by a hybrid, a BMW and a never touched Italian sports car.

This picturesque place full of stressed out workaholics who masquerade as well adjusted, happy nuclear families has often been likened to the fictional town of Stepford (and is actually where the most recent adaptation of the movie was filmed). It is Darien, Connecticut, and being a father here means you work on Wall Street or in some other high paying city job where you commute everyday. Being a mother here means you work from home or are a ‘homemaker’ and you spend your days drinking wine with your “gal-pals” and your evenings drinking wine at the Darien Social. Being a child here means you’re involved in at least one sport, generally field hockey or lacrosse, and a myriad of extra-curricular and you cope with all of this on top of school stress and pressure from your parents by partying, drinking, and experimenting with hard drugs. Or if you don’t do that you just hole yourself up with a computer or a game console and try some alternative way to escape this town and the expectations that come with it.

But you don’t get all this from looking at the surface. It’s hard to complain about a town that looks so lovely. That old colonial feel permeates the streets of Darien. Many buildings are brick and look like they’ve stood for a long time, even if they were just built last year. Many interiors are decorated with nautical themes, to appeal to the families who like to vacation to Martha’s Vineyard (which is most families). Pastels and polos are common fashion tends and all men have to own at least one pair of Nantucket Red shorts.

The town itself is clean; there is little crime here and it presents itself that way. The ‘Darien Bubble’ of safety and cleanliness has lasted many years, and many fight to keep it that way. Most ascribe this safety to Darien’s homogeneity. Darien is full of white people. The diversity in this town is extremely low, and most parents and grandparents who have lived here all their lives are determined to keep it that way. Vague racism and even anti-Semitism permeates the minds of the older generation, and they negatively influence their children thusly.

Darien is a strange place. Those who wish to leave never come back and those who wish to stay never seem to leave. To remain in Darien itself is a status of wealth, and those who subscribe to the values of the town always have likeminded people to compare cars with.

  

The Great American Western: American Mythology in True Grit

The Western is a genre that I think many would consider being strongly ‘American’. The mythology of the ‘Old West’ and what goes on there is all highly glorified in our culture. We all get excited about shootouts at high noon, cowboy and Indian chases, and many other stereotypical events of the genre because the whole tome and message of these kinds of texts touches upon what many feel is a sense of American identity.

Western expansion, overcoming the rugged terrain and “vicious natives”, and fulfilling our manifest destiny was the main goal of the time periods that Westerns portray. During those times, we thought what we were doing as a nation was not only necessary, but our divine right to so. As a result, there is a glorification and a glossing over of the more grizzly details of western expansion. We see gunfights and exciting chases but gloss over how Americans, in many cases, were the bad guys who forced people off of their land, destroyed that land, and killed many of our native animals (specifically American buffalo). But great Western texts aren’t about any of that. They’re usually about revenge and violence and getting “what we deserve”.

This is where True Grit comes in. True Grit fits perfectly into the mythology of Western texts. It glorifies men with “true grit” who are rough and tumble and who don’t always follow the rules; who are good with a gun but not with manners. This character, obviously, is Rooster Cogburn. We know Rooster isn’t a ‘good guy’, he’s self-interested and a drunkard, but still we see him as the hero. He is pardoned of all the bad things he does because he is a man of “true grit” and it’s men like him that “win the west” and that will help Mattie attain her goal. Mattie’s goal fits into the whole idea of getting revenge and achieving what she thinks she deserves (the opportunity to kill the man who shot her father).

When it comes to great western characters, they all tend to be very similar. The fact that every major western hero was played by John Wayne is probably a testament to this. John Wayne is Rooster Cogburn in the 1969 film version of True Grit, and the fact that he is played by John Wayne adds to the whole infallible, mystical quality of this rough and tough western man. It’s ‘American’ to us because this is how we saw ourselves during the time of western expansion. Even though we know better now, there is still this rose-tinted way we look back on manifest destiny and western expansion and all things having to do with it.  

Western texts are truly part of the American mythos. They show how we viewed ourselves during the time of western expansion and there are still many people who subscribe to the ideals portrayed in these texts. Guns are given a lot of importance; being able to fire one is a sign of a true western man. Now we look at guns much less favorably, but there are many who defend their usage for many different reasons, but I do think in some respects some of this defense might come from the glorifying of them in this very ‘American’ genre. The right to bare arms is an ‘American right’ and westerns are all about exercising that right. Westerns and their values are incredibly problematic, or at the very least, archaic. Many recognize the dated factor to these values but still look on these texts with favor because it speaks to the ‘inner Patriot’ on some level. Westerns are undoubtedly a major part of the American mythology.

In Class Writing: Most Important Values

1.     Hard work

2.     Loyalty

3.     Honesty/Being Genuine

4.     Understanding

5.     Treating others with respect and thoughtfulness

One of my favorite movies of all time is “How to Train Your Dragon”. I love that movie to pieces and I think that there are several of my core values embedded in that film. Throughout much of the film, Hiccup is dishonest with his family and friends about what he is doing. He not being genuine about being a 'Viking' in his father's sense, but he is being true to himself when he starts training and being friends with dragons rather than fighting them. A lot of that movie is also about understanding. The old adage, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ succinctly wraps up how the Vikings view the dragons. Hiccup is the only one willing to learn and understand the dragons. He treats them differently than any other Vikings do, with respect and thoughtfulness, and achieves friendship with them as a result.

Influence on Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson’s film, The Grand Budapest Hotel is clearly inspired and heavily influenced by the writings of Stefan Zweig. The setting of a Grand Hotel is something already that is a clear reference or similarity between the two texts.  The time period also feels very similar in the two texts, around the in-between war eras. But beyond the obvious and superficial, there is much that is similar between The Grand Budapest Hotel and the writings of Stefan Zweig, specifically the novella Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman.

Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman is several stories within a story. We must follow the main story of the narrator that we are introduced to, but then the narrator shifts to Mrs. C as she tells her story. The same thing happens in The Grand Budapest Hotel. We are introduced to a narrator, which then shifts to a different narrator. When Zero tells his story about his life and his interaction with Mr. Gustave, he becomes the narrator. This is a pretty common literary technique so it may night be a direct influence. I don’t know when Wes Anderson started reading Zweig’s works and I don’t know how that whole timeline of when he made these movies plays out so it could be a situation of finding a fellow artist or author who speaks to you because of your similarities.

Mr. Gustave as a character also feels like he fits in perfectly in the world of Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman. He could easily be the enchanting stranger who whisks away Henriette. He is an idealized man, something mysterious and perfect in every situation. Mr. Gustave is flawed but always exudes this mystery and sense of perfection, and perhaps this is because his personification is through the perception of Zero, who looked up to the man.

I think this idealization of characters and situations is also something that is a common thread between the two texts. Both of them have a surreal-ness to them. The language is not necessarily how people would talk. The situations and characters are exaggerated and theatrical in a way that is verging on not realistic. In fact, at least in Wes Anderson’s films, none of the places he uses are real. I mentioned that he uses a similar time period, where it’s in between wars. But in Grand Budapest Hotel, the soldiers that attack him aren’t “Nazis”. It’s nonspecific for a reason. It continues this sense of “story” that everything is falsified in a way or exaggerated.

I would have to read more of Zweig’s work, but I think that the influence on Wes Anderson stylistically is clear. They both create similar types of characters and characterize them in similar ways. They nest stories within stories and they place their texts in similar time periods and locations. Not to say that Wes Anderson isn’t original, because we are all a mix of our influences and every work is a melding of influences that came before it.