Posted on 08/19/2011 12:04:05 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Reporting from Vineyard Haven, Mass.—
President Obama made his first foray out of his vacation compound Friday with a trip to the legendary Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Vineyard Haven.
Bystanders who had been browsing upstairs at the two-story bookstore rushed to the windows as crowds gathered on the street outside.
Obama, in a blue polo shirt, jeans and sneakers, wandered in with his daughters. After telling some customers that Sasha was going to browse, he wandered the store with a staff member while discussing his choices with one of the employees.
In a stack of at least four books, Obama had Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," "Room," by Emma Donoghue and "The Bayou Trilogy," by Daniel Woodrell, the author of "Winter's Bone." Sasha had a book called "Frost."
The bookstore appears to be a first family favorite: Obama and his daughters stopped at Bunch of Grapes on their first full day of vacation in Martha's Vineyard in 2010.
It was unclear which books Obama ultimately purchased at Bunch of Grapes, but “Brave New World” was most likely for his 13-year-old daughter, Malia. The book is required reading for entering 8th grade students at Sidwell Friends School, which she attends.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
It never really made an impression on me like other negative utopia books 1984, Animal Farm etc. . I think the only thing that I can still remember is the last page or so which was pretty good.
Now I see the problem with looking for his birth certificate; we need a certificate of decantation from his hatchery.
Research for jobs plan ?
From “Brave New World”, from what is described, how would we characterize this sort of movie?
************************************************
The house lights went down; fiery letters stood out solid and as though self-supported in the darkness. THREE WEEKS IN A HELICOPTER . AN ALL-SUPER-SINGING, SYNTHETIC-TALK1NG, COLOURED, STEREOSCOPIC FEELY. WITH SYNCHRONIZED SCENT-ORGAN ACCOMPANIMENT.
“Take hold of those metal knobs on the arms of your chair,” whispered Lenina. “Otherwise you won’t get any of the feely effects.”
The Savage did as he was told.
Those fiery letters, meanwhile, had disappeared; there were ten seconds of complete darkness; then suddenly, dazzling and incomparably more solid-looking than they would have seemed in actual flesh and blood, far more real than reality, there stood the stereoscopic images, locked in one another’s arms, of a gigantic negro and a golden-haired young brachycephalic Beta-Plus female.
The Savage started. That sensation on his lips! He lifted a hand to his mouth; the titillation ceased; let his hand fall back on the metal knob; it began again. The scent organ, meanwhile, breathed pure musk. Expiringly, a sound-track super-dove cooed “Oo-ooh”; and vibrating only thirty-two times a second, a deeper than African bass made answer: “Aa-aah.” “Ooh-ah! Ooh-ah!” the stereoscopic lips came together again, and once more the facial erogenous zones of the six thousand spectators in the Alhambra tingled with almost intolerable galvanic pleasure. “Ooh …”
The plot of the film was extremely simple. A few minutes after the first Oohs and Aahs (a duet having been sung and a little love made on that famous bearskin, every hair of which–the Assistant Predestinator was perfectly right–could be separately and distinctly felt), the negro had a helicopter accident, fell on his head. Thump! what a twinge through the forehead! A chorus of ow’s and aie’s went up from the audience.
The concussion knocked all the negro’s conditioning into a cocked hat. He developed for the Beta blonde an exclusive and maniacal passion. She protested. He persisted. There were struggles, pursuits, an assault on a rival, finally a sensational kidnapping. The Beta blond was ravished away into the sky and kept there, hovering, for three weeks in a wildly anti-social tête-à-tête with the black madman. Finally, after a whole series of adventures and much aerial acrobacy three handsome young Alphas succeeded in rescuing her. The negro was packed off to an Adult Re-conditioning Centre and the film ended happily and decorously, with the Beta blonde becoming the mistress of all her three rescuers. They interrupted themselves for a moment to sing a synthetic quartet, with full super-orchestral accompaniment and gardenias on the scent organ. Then the bearskin made a final appearance and, amid a blare of saxophones, the last stereoscopic kiss faded into darkness, the last electric titillation died on the lips like a dying moth that quivers, quivers, ever more feebly, ever more faintly, and at last is quiet, quite still.
I don't know except "coming soon to a theater near you" probably.
Campaign stunt; we’re supposed to be impressed with his choice of “intellectual stimulation” while he’s on vacation. I’ll bet a staffer was told to call ahead and make sure it was in stock. More specifically, I’ll bet it’s on loan and headed back to the store after he leaves!
Not for a moment do I believe he is going to read it.
Does it contain a plan for creating jobs?
The story said it was required reading for Sasha in school.
And you HOPE the sticky floors are from spilled sodas!
“When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins...”
I wonder which group the government will put me in?
I hope I’ll be chosen to be an ‘Alpha’!
On the contraire, I think it will be WAY over his head
Jobs plan: “A gramme is better than a damn.”
They didn't ‘improve’ humanity at all - they hatched them in artificial wombs (which I maintain will NOT produce as robust an offspring as a natural womb) - and induced various degrees of ‘fetal alcohol syndrome’ on all those who were to be less than “Alpha”.
I have seen some “Betas” and even “Deltas” - cursed to a life of stupidity by their mom being a heavy drinker during pregnancy. She probably didn't pass on (or chose in her partner) very good genes either.
I remember there was a song by the Vapors called Lenina that I had just heard for the first time when I read that book.
I bet he read his kids bedtime stories using a teleprompter. OR maybe since they don't give their kids presents, maybe they didn't read bedtime stories either.
“The story said it was required reading for Sasha in
school.”
Isn’t she 13? A little bit young to be reading it. But then again if she’s as smart as her parents she won’t get it.
The English program in 7th and 8th grades concentrates on developing skills of close textual analysis, written expression, grammar, and vocabulary. Students are introduced to the genres of the short story, the novel, poetry, and drama. Major texts in the 7th grade currently include To Kill a Mockingbird, The Miracle Worker, A Raisin in the Sun,Twelve Angry Men, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as works by Edgar Allan Poe, O.Henry, Langston Hughes, and others. In eighth grade students currently read Brave New World, The Tempest, Things Fall Apart, Lord of the Flies, and The Odyssey, among other works.
http://www.sidwell.edu/middle_school/78curriculum/index.aspx
My kids had to read some of the same books but in high school, not middle.
Me too. I read most of them in high school. I read ‘Mockingbird’ in 8th.
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