Part 1:
• The Big Valley by Mark Arax
Mark Arax lived in lived in an old fig orchard in northwest Fresno just off Forkner Avenue, a street named after the King of Figs. One afternoon he ventured too far in his bike and got lost. His grandpa bought his first vineyard in San Joaquin valley. His father grew up on the farm, left in 1950 to pursue a football scholarship at USC, and then came back. He said he was a backyard farmer with too little land for his dreams. He thought that even surrounded by all those figs, they lived a decidedly suburban life and it seemed they were neither rural nor urban but some fraudulent variant of the two. The bigness of valley agriculture only compounded the distance that separated suburbia from the farm. He talks a lot about agriculture in California. He talks about the dairy capital of the world which he refers as being in Tulare County. Arax also talks about the 2004 World Ag Expo that boat 2.5 million square feet of sold space. He also said that he likes to believe his father grew disillusioned with suburbia in the early 1970s. His dad turned his bar into a nightclub and brought in Chuck Berry and other big acts from the city, but it never seemed enough. When the first frost came and the green leaves withered and his father went to work one Sunday night, he was shot and killed by two men. He said that it would take the police more than thirty years to find one of them. His mother didn’t live to see that day. The trial left so many questions. And every year he plants something else in his backyard.
My favorite sentence was, “No such future awaits this field next to a Super K in the town of Kingsburg, which used to be quite content being known as “the little Swedish village.” The farmer has sold out to a development─hallelujah, say the wife and kids─so another big box might rise (22).” I think this is true and this has happen too much in the United States already.
This story made me think of California and more specifically the Napa Valley when he is talking about the vineyards. I imagine thousands of acres of grapes. Whenever I go to a mountain in the surrounding areas I can see many acres of grapes all around.
One thing that I did not know that I know now was that Tulare was the dairy capital of the world. And that decades ago, Portuguese farmers from the Azores turned Merle Haggard country into a milk-producing, alfalfa-growing marvel. And that Now they’ve been joined by the Dutch families from chino who sold out their dairies to South California builders.
• Transients in Paradise by Aimee Liu
In this essay Liu analyzes Beverly Hills and how there are rich and poor and that makes Beverly Hills the place it is. He lives in that city and the quote; “Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears…” troubles him as he through the city. Liu said that Desire sated reinvents itself up and down the food chain, transforming hunger into ambition, envy, lust and greed. Hummers and Porsche Cayennes now dwarf Mercedes as the vehicles du jour. Multimillion-dollar deals became measure of lunch at Spago. He said that the current between desire and fear runs hard through Beverly Hills. He talks about orthodox Jews, a husband and wife screaming bloody courses at each other, Persian fathers, and the antique ladies on Crescent Drive. He said that Beverly Hills was as variable as the traffic passing down Wilshire Boulevard. Then he goes on to talk about the hobos that wonder among the millionaires shopping at Prada, Armani, and Barneys who respond with selective blindness. They curl up to sleep in the doorways of day spas where society wives get dyed and waxed. They beg for change in front of restaurants where the average tab for two at lunch is more than a hundred dollars. He also said that, “We are all transients of one kind or another. On our way into or out of wealth, into or out of sanity, beauty, love, health, or death. And he closes with that thought.
My favorite paragraph was the last one which was: “The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what we already have, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many; accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space (35).” This was an interesting paragraph and it talks the truth.
When he talks about the expensive stores and restaurants in Beverly Hills he makes me think of a lot of celebrities that live in that place. I can see that many if not all chose to ignore the other side of Beverly Hills. They just want to see what they want and want to enjoy what they can.
One thing I know now that I didn’t know is some things about Richard’s life. And the kind of human being he was. Richard had a degenerative disease that was shrinking him inside that camouflage. When he stopped showing up outside Nate ‘n’ Al’s Liu wasn’t the only one who missed him. Within weeks an article appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Once, it seemed, Richard had been an aspiring screenwriter, actually had a script optioned. This sci-fi political thriller had made him a number of Hollywood connections, but lack of family and the progression of his disease disabled and distorted his fate.
• Showing off the Owens by T. Jefferson Parker
In his essay Parker writes about the chance he had of showing off California’s Lower Owens River to savvy New York angler and Novelist Brian Wiprud. They drove in Hayway 395. And he had to explain to Brian what an In-N-Out burger was. He explains briefly the topic of fly-fishing and how to this day fly-fishers bemoan a River Runs Through It for all the people it drew into the sport. Then Brian notices he has a rash in his hand and they didn’t know how it happened but they decided to think it was something in his food. Parker thought of something director Robert Alman recently said: “I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don’t know what’s on the other end. Your imagination is under there.” Which he said it was more than imagination, he said that the poetry of the actual, for starters. Then they went to the supermarket to get some remedy for the rash that had already spread to his shoulder. The clerk said to them that it didn’t look good. Then they met their guide, Tom Loe, next morning. He said that Tom is an affable but intense young man who has been a commercial fisherman all his adult life. He was fishing the Atlantic when the Perfect Storm hit, and lost one of his crew members in the fury of the storm. He has caught everything from huge sharks for restaurants that want them for wall-mounted decorations, to the swordfish they serve for dinner. And by the time they made Whiskey Creek Restaurant for martinis and dinner, Brian’s rash had stopped dead in its tracks.
My favorite sentence was, “The Owens was once a mighty river that held mighty fish. Now it is not. However, DWP does keep parts of the reduced Owens open for anglers, so I choose to be an optimist and tell myself that the river is half full (38).” I just thought this was something lots of people do. They just see what they want to see.
This story makes me think of a River I saw in television. It was a river down south where they were doing some fly-fishing. It seemed kind of crazy, and I see why some people see it as a sport. The fishes seem strong and at times they can be dangerous if they are too big and they can hit you in the face. They really know how to do some damage.
One thing I didn’t know was all about the Owens. I dint know anything about this River and I now know many things about it. What I thought was interesting was definitely the fly-fishing. I think that sounds like fun, even though it can be a dangerous activity.
• The Distant Cataract about Which We Do Not Speak by Mary Mackey
In this story Mackey writes about bird watching. She sneaks up on the ducks disguised as one of their own. She slips into the river with a baseball cap and sun glasses. The water from the river comes from Sierra snowmelt that has been held behind Folsom dam like a cache of liquid ice. Even in mid-July, it is still so cold, it would take her breath away, but over the years she has learned that, if she grits her teeth and keep swimming, her body will gradually acclimatize. After a while she has been seen by a mother duck with six tiny ducklings. She then gets out of the water when she finds herself alone only with a few feathers. And she talks about the herons that are too smart to be taken in; but once a green heron actually perched on her cap for a moment, perhaps mistaking her for a small, blue island. She said she has only seen a rattle snake one time in the seventeen-some years she’s been going to the river, but that was more than enough for her. She then went on to talk about the beaver that she was sharing the lagoon with. She said that beavers don’t usually come out during the day and that this one was out early. She also said that she has never heard of anyone getting attacked by a beaver but beaver teeth when seen up close are formidable. Then she is joined by her husband. They hear the sound of the Distant Cataract about Which We Do Not Speak. But of course, it is not really the sound of a cataract. It is the roar of rush-hour traffic, half of it crossing the Howe Avenue Bridge, half of them crossing the bridge at Watt. They sit on an island in the American river, right in the middle of Sacramento, the state capital. Her and her husband like to imagine that they are not a five-minute drive away from their house, and a twenty-minute walk from the university where they both teach at, but instead in some remote part of California where just out of sight a magnificent waterfall foams down into a green pool. Then she goes on to talk about the American River and all the different cultures they have come across there.
My favorite sentence was, “We sit, chatting, drinking tea, eating cold melons, and waiting for the sun to set; and in the distance, as always, we hear the sound of The Distant Cataract About Which We Do Not Speak (48).” I liked this sentence because that is why they go there because they imagine that they are in a remote place and they sit peacefully and relaxed with the sound they want to imagine is a cataract.
This story made me think of some really beautiful cataracts I‘ve seen in television. They are just so beautiful to look at and hear. I know that this cataracts where from all over the world but the best ones were in some really remote places away from the suburbs. And it would definitely be much better if there really was a cataract in that place rather than the traffic from the city.
What I know now is that there is this River in Sacramento just a few minutes away from the university and I also learned many things about the cultures that they encountered at that River. There were some congregations and different activities happening at that River.
The similarities of the stories are that they all, of course write about a place in California. Two of them write about Rivers in California. They have positive experiences with the rivers. The other two write about places. But there are more differences in terms of the context. One writes about agriculture. The second one writes about Beverly Hills and the people who make that place. The third one writes about fishing in the Owens. And the fourth one writes about the River in Sacramento which they want to imagine is in a remote place in California.
2) Valerie- I learned that the Pomos did not use money, but instead used beads as currency that were made out of clam shells from Bodega Bay
3) Tamika- I learned that the single most influential and representative of the French writers was Voltaire.
4) Stephen- I definetelly learned alot anout General Mariano Vallejo.
5) Sophia- I learned that ccording to the Gregorian calendar, the 20th century began on January 1, 1901 and ended December 31st of the year 2000. The 21st century began January 1, 2001 and will end December 31st of the year 2100. The 21st century is our current century
6) Raquel- I learned about Captain Jack (whose native name was Kintpuash) was the chief of the Modoc tribe and leader of the Modoc War; he was a great war tactician and is credited for the success of the Modoc over the U.S. Army in the battle of Lost River, where he utilized the many caves and trenches in the lava beds on what today is known as Captain Jack's Stronghold at the Lava Beds National Monumentum. He was eventually captured and hanged.
7) Michael- I learned that the Mexican congress created a law of expulsion for any one who was born in spain, would be declared an immigrant, and would be forced to leave the country. I also learned that Michael is very opiniated.
8) Megan- I learned that Obama has admitted to experimental drug use during his teenage years. And that social standards are more accepting and personal freedom is at an all time high.
9) Mario- I learned that Russian attempts at colonization in 1800's, to take advantage during the chaos between Mexican - Spanish war...
10) Laurel- I learned that she lives where the Miwoks used to live and she was facinated by them ever since she was little.
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