Record Scene from "Diner" (1982)

       The film "Diner" follows five guys- Eddie, Shrevie, Boogie, Billy, and Timothy, and the problems they encounter when facing adulthood. Diner is one of my favorite movies because of the way it's characters are portrayed by the writers; with a wide range of colors, and acceptance for their flaws. Many movies released at that time (Diner was made in 1982) were about how men and women in their 20s typically acted. Diner chose to show how difficult the process of growing up is, and how it changes everyone. I chose to closely read a scene where Shrevie, (played by Daniel Stern) and his recently married wife Beth  (played by Ellen Barkin), argue over their records.

      Beth and Shrevie are at home, engaged in separate activities. Beth is painting her nails in the kitchen, while Shrevie flips through records in his record cabinet. Shrevie angrily calls for Beth to come over, and he begins their argument. In these first few moments, you can see that they're both happier without each other. As soon as they come together, they start to argue.

      Shrevie asks if Beth's been messing up his detailed record filing procedure. Beth seems to think it isn't that big of a deal. This only makes Shrevie more angry, and he yells at Beth, telling her she completely misplaced his James Brown record. "It's too complicated, Shrevie... I just want to listen to the music," says Beth. "It's not that complicated, just follow my procedure!"He mentions a famous jazz musician, who Beth doesn't recognize. When Beth she doesn't recognize him, Shrevie gets even madder, telling her that he was the greatest jazz saxophone player of all time Beth seems like all she wants is for Shrevie not to yell at her. Shrevie ignores her attempts to make him let it go, signaling that they have bigger problems than just the records. "It's just music," she repeats.  "Don't you understand?!" he says. "This is important to me!"

        Beth asks why Shrevie always yells at her, and never at his friends. He ignores this and tells her to pick a record at random from the ones he's holding. He shows her that he knows the flips side of every record he owns- the label, the producer, the year it was made. "You never ask me stuff like that, do you? You never ask me what's on the flip side." She responds by asking him who cares what's on the flip side of a record? "I do!" he yells. There is a pause. Shrevie wants Beth to love the things that he does, and Beth doesn't understand what she's doing to make him so angry. You are able to sympathize for both characters, because you can see that they weren't prepared for what marriage would bring for them. They're both good people, but they misjudged the difficulties of getting married so early. Shrevie seems to think that Beth is supposed to care about all of his interests, but she can't. It isn't her job in their relationship. At the same time, Beth doesn't know what she's doing wrong, because her not caring as much as he does about records shouldn't make him angry. It's perfectly normal.

        He then explains to Beth that each of his records means something to him. They take him back to different points in his life. He leaves by telling her that when they first met, "Ain't That a Shame" was playing when he walked in the door. Beth is left behind, crying.

       In conclusion, the Record scene displayed the difficult and sudden transition between dating and marriage. Both characters wanted things from each other that they don't know how to provide. Beth wants him not to yell at her, and Shrevie wants her to be the wife he imagined she would be. They both want to be happy. They just don't know how to solve their problems. In an earlier scene, Shrevie tells his friend Eddie about his problem with their marriage. "I can sit here and talk all night with you," says Shrevie, "but I can't hold a five minute conversation with Beth." It was very interesting to deconstruct the Record scene, because there was so much behind it. I discovered a lot of new things that tie in to close reading; sequence of events, dialogue, pace, etc. I'll be thinking about these things more as I continue to analyze more extensively with both movies and books.

The Stolen Party by Liliana Heker

      "The Stolen Party" by Liliana Heker is a story that deals with social class, betrayal, and growing up.

        In the story, a young girl named Rosaura is invited to the birthday party of her friend Luciana. Rosaura's mother immediately opposes her going, as she is the family's maid. She says, "It's a rich people's party. ...You know what you are to them? The maid's daughter, that's what."Rosaura is angry that her mother doesn't understand their friendship. It seems to her that her mother doesn't trust her to make her own decisions.

       At the party, Rosaura has the time of her life, thinking that her mother was wrong about the family. In the meantime, Luciana's mother, Senora Ines, asks Rosaura to help her around the kitchen. She's very glad to help, feeling more special than the others. But then, when the party ends and the parents come to pick up their kids, Senora Ines offers Rosaura a gift. Not a pink gift bag for her attendance, but two bills as pay for her service. It is at this moment in the story when Rosaura realizes why her mother was so untrusting. It becomes clear to her that people really are as unforgiving and snobbish as she's heard. I think that when you are forced to deal with the evils of the world, you are also forced to mature from them. Rosaura has now seen that the social hierarchy her mother is so angered by is real.

        Although this is where the story ends, I think that Rosaura and her mother would have a closer relationship after the incident with Senora Ines. Rosaura would realize that her mother just wanted to protect her, and her mother would feel bad she didn't protect her well enough. And because Senora Ines was cruel to Rosaura, she will keep more caution when dealing with rich people like her. This is both good and bad, because Rosaura will most likely develop the notion that all rich people are like Luciana's family. The story "The Stolen Party" definitely illustrates a lot of society's social class issues and the distrust between them.

Favorite Books of 2013

      Over the course of 2013, I began to realize how little I read. And I love books, so I thought of a few that I wanted and asked for them for my birthday. When my family went to Maine over the summer, I read "Looking for Alaska" by John Green. I felt so connected to the characters and the world they lived in that I cried when I finally finished it. I think I read it at a time where I needed to feel connected to something, because I felt like I knew every character like they were a friend of mine. In the beginning of 8th grade, I read the book "The Fault in Our Stars", which was also by John Green, and again I was amazed by how great he was at writing books for teenagers. I find that sometimes adults are so embarrassed or confused by their teenage years that they try to forget what it felt like to be one. And then, when the time comes that they have to look down at a teenager and see them from this new, grown-up perspective; they see them as naive, dumb, confused, awkward, problematic, etc. John Green writes for young adults the way they need to be written about, without saying "I get that it's hard to deal with your first breakup..." or "It's difficult to understand that your parents want the best for you."  He acknowledges that teenagers are overly emotional and self destructive, but writes about feeling like you have no control over being that way.
        Besides Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, my favorite book of 2013 is "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. It's not a regular book in the way that it doesn't just follow a series of events that end in resolution to the conflict. Things happen throughout the novel, but the book is about Charlie. Charlie is a complicated person, and is described without being labeled, the way that many books I've read describe characters the way other people might see them.  "My name's Charlie and I'm an outcast." Or, "I'm different from the other kids." Because the book is told from Charlie's perspective, you see Charlie the way that people view themselves. People don't label themselves as one way or another, but as a whole, as an entire person with conflicting emotions and problems that they don't know how to solve.
         The Perks of Being a Wallflower  also talks about human nature without needing an entire storyline to prove it's point. For example, in one part of the book. Charlie visits a friend of his. "Bob goes part-time to the community college. He wants to be a chef. He is an only child, and his parents are never home. He says it used to bother him a lot when he was younger, but not so much anymore. The thing about Bob is that when you first meet him, he's really interesting because he knows about cigarette rules and pennies and Mary Tyler Moore. But after you've known him for a while, he starts to repeat these things. In the last few weeks, he hasn't said anything that I haven't heard from him before. That's what made it such a shock when he told me what happened." Bob is a very small character in the book. But still, I knew when I read that part that I had seen that kind of person before in real life. I've found that Bob's behavior was often connected to loneliness. I think sometimes, when people don't get out very much or have close friends, they revert to talking and reminiscing about the things they've already known for years. This seems to happen with people who are older and don't have an extravagant social life anymore, so they always talk about their youth.
       In conclusion, I've read a lot of YA books this year, and my favorites have been Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I hope to read a lot more, because it's exciting when a book captures the feelings of something as complicated as a teenager.