The Columbus Myth: Power and Ideology in Picturebooks About Christopher Columbus
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10583-014-9216-0
Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline
Once upon a Genocide: Christopher Columbus in Children’s Literature: Christopher Columbus and His Voyage to the New World
https://www.jstor.org/stable/29766680?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Zoran Zivkovic
To be completely honest, I originally chose this writer because he has the same surname as the composer that wrote the vibraphone solo I played a few years ago, and there was a small part of me that thought “maybe it’s the same guy?” I quickly realized that he was not in fact the same man, but as I read more about him, the more intrigued I became.
Zivkovic was born on October 5, 1948, in Belgrade, Serbia. He fell in love with literature at a very young age, and in 1979 he received his master’s degree from the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade. Three years later he received his doctorate from the same school, and then went on to become a full time professor at the school, were he still teaches Creative Writing to this day. Zivkovic has been awarded nine different literary awards since 1994, and has written over thirty works, becoming one of the most translated European authors to date. Most information on Zivkovic can be found on his personal wordpress page, zoranzivkovic.com.
The thing that drew me into to Zivkovic, was an interview between him and Ana Lucic. In this interview, he described his struggles with translating his works during the beginning of his carrier. Living in Serbia, Zivkovic had very limited means of getting his writing to the people, as only a very small population of the world speaks Serbian, and Serbian to English translators are very scarce and very expensive. Zivkovic preserved though, and has now become a very successful European author and translator.
Works:
Questions:
I think if I were to conduct a short interview with Zivkovic, the first thing I would want to know is why he never gave up when the language gap between Serbian and the rest of the world was so significant. I believe it is safe to assume that he preserved because of his love for writing, and he wasn’t going to let any language barriers stand in his way. Zivkovic is one of those writers that doesn’t do it for the fame or the money, he does it because he wants everybody to have access to all literature imaginable. I would also ask him what got him into the subject of science fiction and speculative fiction. I believe his response would highlight the fact that he doesn’t really enjoy the limitations that genre prefixes entail, that he just writes what he feels and what he perceives, and it just so happens to fall under that category.
Reviews:
Title: “A Conversation with Zoran Zivkovic By Ana Lucic”
Format: Interview
Author: Ana Lucic
Rating: 9/10, very comprehensive with well thought out questions and responses
Source: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/a-conversation-with-by-ana-lucic/
Title: “Zoran Živković: A Biographical Sketch”
Format: Biographical Article
Author: Michael A. Morrison
Rating: 7/10, provided quality information but it was a little impersonal and failed to provide a comprehensive list of works
Source: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2011/november/zoran-zivkovic-biographical-sketch
Works Cited
Europa SF. “Writing In Languages Other Than English – Zoran Živković.” Europa SF The European Speculative Fiction Portal. WordPress, 24 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
Lucic, Ana. “Interviews.” Dalkey Archive Press. Dalkey Archive Press, n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
Morrison, Michael A. “Zoran Živković: A Biographical Sketch.” World Literature Today. World
Literature Today, 15 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
“Zoran Zivkovic.” Zoran Zivkovic. WordPress, n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
Despite the fact that Dilsey does not speak a word, the reader can determine, through her actions, that she passes judgement. When she “opened the door of the cabin and emerged,” she exhibited a force of habit as “she stood in the door for awhile with her myriad and sunken face lifted to the weather” (Faulkner, 330). Her judgement came when she then “examined the bosom of her gown” and then with “a child’s astonished disappointment” she “entered the house again and closed the door” (Faulkner, 331). Through this evidence as well as her old age, we can make the assumption that this was a routine judgement that she had made many times before.
When most people think of pool lifeguards, they probably think of a bunch of lazy teenagers and young college kids that just want a job where they can sit around and tan. Parents may think of lifeguards as an excuse to not watch their kids, a sort of poolside babysitter. Very few people see them for who they actually are: highly trained individuals that are constantly aware of their surroundings, ready for anything and everything to go wrong.
Lifeguards begin their training with three in-water tasks. They must first swim 300 yards continuously, then they must tread water for 2 minutes using only their legs, and then they must perform an underwater brick retrieval, starting 20 yards away, diving to a depth of ten feet or more, and then swimming back to the start and exiting the pool, all under a minute and a half. An aspiring lifeguard must finish these tasks in order to even complete their training, failure to do so results in having to retake the course until they can complete these physical tasks. Following this portion, is the actual training process. Lifeguards must complete about twenty hours of skills training, both in water and in a classroom setting. They learn to perform CPR on adults, children and infants, how to use an automated external defibrillator to restart someone’s heart, how to perform multiple first aid tasks, and they learn over ten different water rescues and ways of entry. Despite their intensive training, lifeguards are often quick to be judged as lazy freeloaders that are nothing but glorified babysitters.
As a lifeguard, I speak first hand when I say that we are not there to babysit your kids while you sit and chat with your friends. We are there to make sure that all patrons remain safe, and to perform rescues only if absolutely necessary. Countless times I have had to pull toddlers off the slides because they thought it would be a fantastic idea to climb up them, instead of sliding down them, the way they were intended to be used. Countless times I have had to blow my whistle at a group of eight-year-olds that think it’s hilarious to race each other to the big slide, where they launch themselves headfirst into the shallow pool below. Countless times I have had to reprimand kids for trying to do backflips off the side of the pool into the “deep” end, having a mini heart attack every time I watch their heads barely miss the edge. While some kids do listen to my authority, most of them just ignore me until they injure themselves (and some of them don’t even stop there), or I inform my head guard and take away their pool privileges. In the end, this whole ordeal just makes me the enemy in their eyes, when all I want is for them to have fun, while staying safe.
In all simplicity, this hostility could be avoided if the parents of these children could just do their job and parent their children. If Anne could just keep an eye on her one-year-old, I wouldn’t have to be distracted with pulling him off the slide, while another child could be going a bit too quick and slip off the play structure, needing my immediate help. If John and Linda could just inform their three rambunctious rug rats to not run on the pool deck, and to listen to the lifeguard’s rules, I wouldn’t have to worry about them slipping and falling, or hitting their heads at the bottom of the pool. If Stacy could simply just tell her ten-year-old to not play stupid dunking games with his three-year-old sister, then I wouldn’t have to jump in and pull her out when he goes too far, and she can no longer stay afloat.
I am trained to identify the signs of stroke and diabetic shock. I am trained to remove a seizing, face down victim from the water without causing them any harm. I am trained to rescue a victim with a spinal injury from ten feet below the surface, strap them to a spinal board while in the water, and remove them from the pool without further injuring their spine, all under five minutes. I am trained to be the first responder in an emergency, not to parent your kids for you.
In the end, my job mostly consists of being prepared for anything to go wrong, even though the chances of the worst possible injuries are quite slim. Despite this, I always have to be aware of everything going on around me, and I have to be prepared for surprise skills checks at any given time. Overall, I just want all patrons to enjoy their time at the facility, while also being safe and smart in their actions.
I see him sitting there on the park bench, alone, quiet, unmoving. I start to wonder if he’s even a man at all, maybe I’m just staring at an incredibly believable statue. His white suit and blue button up seem too immaculately clean, but his shoes tell a different story. Tattered and mud stained, his once white sneakers tell the story of a man who has seen and experienced enough to fill ten lifetimes.
His face is long, and he has a sort of downcast, contemplative expression. His receding hairline reveals him to be a man of about forty or so, and the close shave and rigid posture of his upper body suggest that maybe he was a military man at some point in time. Even from a distance, I can tell that his sunken eyes are those of a man that has a lot on his mind. When he opens his small suitcase, as if to double check that everything hasn’t magically disappeared, I conclude that he must be troubled by somewhere he is going. This confuses me. Why would a man who’s seen so much be so concerned about another adventure?
He suddenly looks up into the blue sky, still scattered with residual clouds from the recent shower. His gaze is piercing something unknown to me, but it must be important if it is demanding the attention of such a focused man. As the object comes into view, I only become more confused. Why has such an insignificant thing as a feather garnered the scrutiny of the weathered man?
As the feather finally makes contact with the earth, the man just stares at it for a moment before he picks it up with his thumb and forefinger and brings it up to his gaze for inspection. He then opens his suitcase once again, and pulls out what appears to be an old children’s book. He opens the aged copy of Curious George and places the feather between the cover and the first page, leaving it secure for some future purpose unknown to me.
I then see an elderly woman walk up and sit down next to him on the bench. Despite her age, she doesn’t seem to have seen as much life as the man opposite her. The man then turns his head and utters a greeting: “Hello. My name is Forrest, Forrest Gump.”
“The Lost Thing” is a curious narrative about a strange creature described as being just, lost, and a young man’s need to figure out where it belongs. While some may think it is a heartwarming story of a lost soul finally finding its niche, I perceive it a little differently. After watching this short film, I of course thought the same, but I was also a bit hung up on one particular question: Why must everything have a reason for being?
As a society we are quite often caught up in the same ideas. Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Why did things happen the way they did? I too have often felt the icy grip of these questions on my mind, but the more and more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that not everything has to have a meaning. This may seem strange to those who know me just beyond my surface, as I have always been a scientist at heart. I have always wanted to know how everything worked, constantly asking questions and conducting my own research when the people around me didn’t know. Despite this, in recent years I have started to develop a laxer view on big picture ideas. While I am still a scientist, and I still want to know how autoimmune disorders work, and how we could feasibly travel to Jupiter and back, I don’t like to keep myself caught up on those big “meaning of life” questions.
Watching “The Lost Thing” has kind of helped me realize this idea more than I have in the past. While watching the film, I was incredibly intrigued by this young man’s desire to solve the mystery of the thing he had found. Everyone around him ignored things that seemed out of place, choosing instead to just go about their monotonous lives and ignore the unnatural, while he could not seem to rest until he found out the big “why” question. To me, it seemed that he was so caught up on answering the big question, that he didn’t quite know how to live, sort of becoming a “lost thing” himself. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, he was too caught up with finding the answer, and not on the question itself. As a result, when he did find the answer to the big question, there was nothing else left to do but join the monotony he had previously been so intent on avoiding.
In the end, I like to come to the conclusion that sometimes, we don’t need to answer certain questions at all, just muse and wonder. Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Why did things happen the way they did? I don’t know; maybe we were created by a god, maybe we’re one of many parallel universes in the infinite cosmos of everything, or maybe we’re just in a video game, and we’re nothing but lines of code and electrical impulses. Either way, we are here and we are capable of conscience thought (or are we?) and we should just go about the life that we are living. Are we even living? I don’t know.