Cell-fish-ness Assignment#10

It is “the distracting glow in a movie theatre…, the narcissistic multi-taskers holding up lineups [and the]…dinner companions obsessively checking messages” that is creating an epidemic of rudeness when referring to cell phones. The article "Public display of disaffection" by Anne Kingston and Alex Ballingall addresses the "cell-fish-ness" of using a cell phone in inappropriate public scenarios. The cell phone is referred to as "an addiction" and a distraction that many people are intolerant to and find disrespectful. The article illustrates how "we’re losing our one-on-one people skills".  It is also stated that texting at a public event is viewed as unprofessional and “rude period”.  “People are preoccupied [and] oblivious to “their anti-social behaviour” and the issue is only growing worse.

The idea of a cellphone is paradoxical, "it connects virtual communities and irritates the person standing next to you". The article “Public display of disaffection” by Anne Kingston and Alex Ballingall illustrates just how consequential cell phones can be. The authors of this article are indubitably correct. When graduates are "typing away on mobile devices themselves”, amid their own graduation, there is a predicament." People are so preoccupied they're oblivious” to how much of a nuisance their being and how they are risking their valued relationships.  Cellphones promote and “invite antisocial behaviour" and numerous people are fed up with being ignored. It is time for our society to push the boundaries, "ensuring the ringers are off, it’s a start".  

                      Silence

                                Of

                                   The

                                        Night

Megan Collier

December. 9.2011

They do not speak,

                              Dark peculiar figures materialize.

Evasive,

           They hold a vague secret,

        Concealed beneath their opaque coats.

They glare down at me as if I am a convict on lockdown,

And recoil as I close in.

They do not speak,

         Terror appears in their eyes.

I have breached their shield.

And they flee from the scene,

                     As if they have committed a heinous crime.

They do not speak,

                         They can not hear.

                                          They have disappeared,

         Gone,

Into the black veil,

              That is the night.

           They do not speak,

Because they are not here.

I am deserted.

       I feel forlorn,

                           Perplexed,   

                                         Daunted.

Leaving my prior knowledge,

                                             Scattered,     

                                                           

                                                            I walk away.

“No human relationship is friction-free.” The poem “puce fairy book” by Alice Major discusses the unfair stereotypes of a perfect fairytale woman. Similarly in the passage “Forget Prince Charming” by June Callwood a grandmother offers realistic advice to her granddaughters on the imperfection of relationships. Alice Major would agree with the honesty and realism of the grandmother’s advice.

A happily ever after is not filled with practicality. Alice Major expresses her doubt in perfect fairytale like relationships in the poem “puce fairy book.” She does not implore the thought of “Rapunzel waiting in a tower”. No woman has hair with such length or a mind with such patience. Bringing a woman a crystal slipper is “slightly passé.” The situation could result in injured egos, as a foot is tried to squeeze into a shoe, much too quaint for such a large foot. One can never confidently retain such information as a shoe size. She understands that a man expects and yearns for a “lady sleeping a garden… never been kissed” but the assumption is historic. Alice Major is equitable in deeming fairytales to be conceited and immature.

The “perfect mate [does not] exist”. June Callwood depicts the story of a grandmother prompting her granddaughters to not believe in the “freak of nature” that is a fairy tale relationship. In the poem "Forget Prince Charming" it made clear that partners are not always on the same page. The speaker advises her grandchildren  on how to find the right man to share their love and their lives with. She concludes that all relationships have their problems but it is only the sturdy relationships filled with compromise and some laughs that last an eternity. The grandmother is totally justified in her opinion on the daily battles of a committed relationship. 

Alice Major the speaker of “puce fairy book” would agree, generally speaking, with the grandmother in “Forget Prince Charming” and her admonition to her grandchildren in finding a suitable mate. The grandmother had been “saying since they were small ..that a successful mating has little to do with finding prince charming.” Alike to the grandmother’s statement Alice with “mature consideration [declines]… the honor of cutting of [her] toe” because she is aware that no prince charming is worth struggling to fit into a crystal slipper. Both Alice and the grandmother agree that the “totality [of a relationship] has to feel fair to both.” The couple would be unable to survive a long term relation without the “mutual ability to compromise.” Both speakers are justified are in their educated beliefs of being shamelessly cheated by men daily.