Self-awareness in "Veronica"

What I like most about David Foster Wallace and Mary Gaitskill’s writing is how self-aware they are about either themselves or the world around them. When we heard Wallace read aloud the story of the baton twirlers at the Illinois state fair, my mind was indulged in his words and the vivid imagery he created. I find it amazing how he can get so much out of a simple event such as a baton twirling contest, and how he could make so many comparisons to things in his memory and things that he has seen outside of the event. For example, when he analyzes the makeup of the hard rubber ends of the batons and relates it to the batons police men use as weapons. Wallace makes me think of the kind of person who gets enjoyment out of sitting on a bench in the mall all day observing people as they walk by and listening to the conversations they have with each other. Like Mary Gaitskill, they both can see emotions in people just by looking at them, even in the ones who hide it well. Mary Gaitskill writes about Allison and her encounters with the German model. Allison could tell she was lonely and depressed inside even though she has such as “beautiful” face to hide it. Mary Gaitskill also presents Allison as being very self-aware and she can recognize parts of herself such as when she talks about her definition of beauty and how it is different than the definition some of the people she lived with give. The German model saw this and felt comfortable talking to her because Allison was able to look at her and not only her “beautiful” exterior. I am enjoying reading Veronica because I feel like I can relate to it, mostly because the author lets us and allows us to get inside of the main character, and how she views herself the people around her.

My Backwards Progression of Music

Since childhood I have been surrounded by my parent’s generation of music. My dad always played Janis Joplin, The Beatles, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan around the house, amongst many other musical groups. This was the type of music I listened to before I really began to define my own interest in music. I definitely went through phases of musical genres throughout middle school and high school trying to figure out where my niche was. Many times I tried to conform my interests to what my friends and peers were interested in, but as I got older I began to get back to my roots which were the legendary artists of the 1960’s and 70’s that I grew up around. I find myself moving backward in time in terms of music rather then forward and it is only recently within the past few years that this began to happen. I still like many of the artists I experimented with, but I find myself more likely to purchase a Bob Dylan CDs then one of the current popular artist’s. It’s a very atypical way of progressing through music, but that’s where I have found my niche, and I enjoy trying to relate to my parent’s generation in order to better understand what they were all about at my age.