foodforthought

Crazy Horse Gentlemen’s club from the outside looks like a pretty standard strip club.

There are bright lights and big posters with proactively dressed and posed women. Several big, burly dudes guard the entrance.

The room is actually smaller than you would imagine with a single large stage in the back of it and a bar to the right as you walk in. 

I’ve never been to a strip club before but I don’t feel as uncomfortable as I thought I would.

The first girl comes out and she is completely nude. She is beautifully ebony, toned and flexible looking.

She immediately gets on the pole and slithers up it like it is the easiest thing to do in the world.

She wraps her body around the poll with her breasts outwards.

She is in complete control, her arms behind and above her head as she slowly idles down the pole.

The first thing I think is, “wow this is beautiful.” The second thing I think is, “why don’t these girls get more credit?”

Another ebony woman comes on stage. She does a bit on the pole but lacks the grace of the previous dancer.

I am beginning to realize not all strippers are created equal.

Another girl comes on stage. She is white with long, brownish-red hair. She seems like she is under the influence of something powerful.

She stumbles and her eyes are askew. She tries to dance but it seems like she doesn’t know where she is or what she is doing.

I feel like it was she (not the first ebony acrobat) that I was expecting to see at a strip club. 

I see a Pilipino girl in a floral print bikini walking around amongst the crowd. I smile at her. She is pretty.

She goes up to the pole in front of me and starts dancing. She gyrates her butt up and down in front of my face.

My friend gives me some dollar bills.

As she bends down and is about to bend back up I wedge a dollar bill between her butt cheeks and it gets lodged there.

She perks up and pulls the dollar bill out, turns around and realizes it was me who did the deed.

She smiles and laughs and I can tell she is a bit surprised. I thought that is what you were supposed to do.

I smile back and I hope she is not mad at me.

I think when people think of a strip club they just think of dirty, old, perverted men and trashy-looking women dancing around naked but it was actually not like that at all.

There was a definitely a hierarchy of skill varying from dancer to dancer but a lot of the women I saw there were legit dancers and athletes.

I think that what strip club you go to, which night you go and which dancers are performing that night contributes a lot to what your experience is going to be like at a strip club.

Strip clubs are not for everyone but given the right place and time a visit to a strip club doesn’t have to be a horror story even for a person who isn’t sexually attracted to women.

  [vi-tree-uhl]  Show IPA noun, verb, vit·ri·oled, vit·ri·ol·ing or ( especially British )vit·ri·olled, vit·ri·ol·ling.

noun

1.

Chemistry . any of certain metallic sulfates of glassy appearance, as copper sulfate or blue vitriol, ironsulfate or green vitriol, zinc sulfate or white vitriol, etc.

2.

oil of vitriol; sulfuric acid.

3.

something highly caustic or severe in effect, as criticism.

verb (used with object)

4.

My hair is red and it is always parted to the right covering half of my face but revealing one of my painfully seductive eyes.

My eyelashes are long, my lids are always painted in a hue of blue or purple and my eyes always seem half-closed in sexual ecstasy.

In effect, it seems like I’m trying to seduce you, which I probably am even if I don’t mean to.

My dress matches my hair, it is red and has a slit which exposes one of my pleasantly plump and sensuous thighs.

I wear long gloves which cover my arms up to my elbows but my dress always exposes my shoulders and my exceptionally large breasts.

My breasts, as well as the rest of my body, defy physical laws of nature.

My breasts are colossal, my waste is miniscule and my hips and thighs are thundering in the best possible way.

My posture is graceful but seems lop-sided at the same time from all the sex appeal protruding from my body.

I don’t really walk, I glide and saunter and my hips are always swooning to-and-fro.

My voice is thick laden with sex appeal.

The voice that comes out of me is almost as seductive as the package itself.

In fact, if a voice could walk, mine would glide and saunter just like my body does.

I speak slowly, almost as if my energy has been exasperated and stimulated at the same time, like a woman who just spent a night giving and receiving sexual favors.

pru·ri·ent

  [proor-ee-uhnt]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

having, inclined to have, or characterized by lascivious or lustful thoughts, desires, etc.

2.

causing lasciviousness or lust.

3.

having a restless desire or longing.

  a·vun·cu·lar

  [uh-vuhng-kyuh-ler]  Show IPA

adjective

of, pertaining to, or characteristic of an uncle: avuncular affection.

  im·pinge

  [im-pinj]  Show IPA verb, im·pinged, im·ping·ing.

verb (used without object)

1.

to make an impression; have an effect or impact (usually followed by on  or upon  ): to impinge uponthe imagination; social pressures that impinge upon one's daily life.

2.

to encroach; infringe (usually followed by on  or upon  ): to impinge on another's rights.

3.

to strike; dash; collide (usually followed by on, upon,  or against  ): rays of light impinging on the eye.

verb (used with object)

4.

Obsolete . to come into violent contact with.

  All words found in The New York Times Reader: Arts & Culture 

Young adults waited in long lines flooding out of the event center for SJSU’s annual career fair yesterday.

The men were decked out in suits and ties, the women in slacks and elegant blouses.

They had official-looking folders holding portfolios and resumes at their sides, anticipating the potential employers on the other side of the double doors.

Although every person attending the job fair dresses the part, each person has their own interpretation about what the fair really means for employee-hopefuls.

Each person has their own dreams, fears and intentions.

Mayra, 18, and Brenda, 17, are two SJSU freshman experiencing the job fair for the first time.

Both young women did not know “exactly what to expect” while they waited in line.

“I imagine a lot of booths and people giving you a kind of feel for what the company is about,” says Brenda, a San Diego native, “kind of like an expo.”

She is an undeclared major and hopes that the job fair will give her an idea for the future: “I have ideas of what I want but I’m curious to know what major and minor would help me out,” she says.

Mayra, an international business major from Modesto said “I’m here to get a feel for what’s going on.”

Both freshmen heard about the job fair from the on-campus club Destino, a Christian group geared towards Latinos of which both women are a members of.

A more experienced group of students with computer science backgrounds seemed a bit more pessimistic than the other incoming freshman girls.

This year marks their third year coming to the fair.

Jeremy, 23, says that the job fair is about “hopes and dreams,” and Kevin, 23, adds “dreams that are slowly getting squashed.”

Jeremy explains that “for business majors it’s great” but that a lot of the tech companies “just don’t send enough hiring managers” that know what they’re doing.

Kevin advises that everyone going to the job fair should “take your resumes for everything.”

in·let

  [n. in-let, -lit; v. in-let, in-let]  Show IPA noun, verb, in·let, in·let·ting.

noun

1.

an indentation of a shoreline, usually long and narrow; small bay or arm.

2.

a narrow passage between islands.

3.

a place of admission; entrance.

4.

something put in or inserted.

  definition from http://www.dictionary.com

Sonata of Whispers

I am sweating.

Hot from the day and steps which took me here.

My body is clean but my underarms have dampened the long sleeved sheer that envelops me.

The dew cools as I lift my arm.

A faint and familiar smell (my smell) hits my nostrils like the sweet and pungent flow of a Louisiana lagoon.

I lower my arm and let the scent of a thousand books caress me.

The secrets of a million pages turned, read and loved brings their seeming staleness alive.

I don’t smell ink and paper, rather life and meaning transcribed by the many who have read them.

I smell history.

I sense humanity.

The heat vibrates about me.

The table is plastic hardness, the carpet without texture.

Their hostility scares my gaze into the outside above and below.   

Outside the wind bends a palm tree, a wig of glimmer upon its crown.

It swings above the urban mountains juxtaposed with its green brothers and sisters.

Clouds hover and wait above the plain like feathers from a down blanket shredded into the translucent pool of blue.

Small beings glide below on the pavement haven slithered out and cut around the green expanse.

Lovers hold hands, a friend salutes another and the rest don’t bother with unfamiliar acknowledgements.

My attention returns to the stuffy, carpet-laden ecosystem in which I sit.

A symphony of incomprehensible whispers fills the room with its song.

The music shifts: the turning of a page slices the air, the nervous laughing of potential lovers anticipating a memory not yet made takes the stage, an excited voice becomes hollowed “oh you have class,” his plans ruined by an inconvenient responsibility.

Each serenade rises above the mumbled melody for a solo which lasts but a moment.

I stub my foot on a garbage can. Its metal emptiness resounds as I curse it under my breath: “Shit!”

I too have my moment amongst the quasi-silence.

ca·coph·o·ny

  [kuh-kof-uh-nee]  

noun, plural ca·coph·o·nies.

1.

harsh discordance of sound; dissonance: a cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails.

2.

a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds: the cacophony produced by city traffic at midday.

3.

Music. frequent use of discords of a harshness and relationship difficult to understand.

  Word discovered during the reading of a review about a particularly awful piece of music 

An armed gunman shot and killed 13 people on September 16, 2013 at a Navy complex in Washington.

This story has been the leading story on all news outlets and Medias since it occurred.

On the PBS Newshour which aired on the evening on September 18th, the story was allotted four minutes and 27 seconds during the one hour duration of the show.

The piece was essentially an interview conducted with Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel.

The interview ran 12 minutes and addressed such topics as the Syrian conflict and Iran’s denouncement of nuclear weapon production.

The four minute slot that addressed the Washington shooting basically covered how the shooting could have possibly occurred in a “military installation” and what the government was doing to address these security issues.

Hagel avoided answering some questions, repeated himself and further in-depth analysis was not provided about the case like it was in the online news and radio news coverage.

At the end of the show, a 12 second sentence was provided as a part of a sum up of what the Newshour was about.

No other sources aside from Chuck Hagel’s commentary were provided.

NPR’s Morning Edition which aired the morning of September 18th dedicated 15 minutes and 38 seconds of its 79 minute 47 second show to the story.

These 15 minutes were spread out amongst five different segments related to the story.

Of all five pieces a total of 15 different sources were directly quoted ranging from Navy vets, the shooter’s former employer and to citizens effected by the tragedy.

The radio media coverage was much more thorough and went into an extensive amount of issues surrounding the incident.

Background noise occurred only during quotes from interviews, clippings from Obama’s speeches regarding the story and during the set up of a visual for the listener.

A visual occurred only once and featured loud organs and religious chanting to describe a church which held services for the families of the victims of the shooting.

The radio portion went extensively into who the shooter was including analysis of surveillance videos and police reports filed before the shooting occurred.

Police reports were provided as evidence of the man’s deteriorating mental health before the incident.

The radio show also talked about the political and social issues surrounding the event including gun control laws and funding for the mentally ill.

It was extremely extensive and not very similar to the television coverage shown in the PBS Newshour.

The television portion did not even mention other issues aside from security overlooks at the facility where the shooting occurred.

The online news report addressed other issues but focused mostly on the shooter’s mental health and how it stands as another example of the gun violence crisis in America.  

The Al Jazeera online news coverage was less detailed than NPR’s radio show but more detailed than PBS Newshours’ coverage.

The specific story I read was 1,149 words long but the site also had two other “related stories” one which listed relevant statistics and another which was 604 words.

The specific story I read was titled “DC tragedy renews debate: Gun laws or mental health to blame?”

The story had seven different quoted sources mostly from professionals or from government officials.

Underneath the title of the article was a picture of a mobile device displaying a picture of the shooter apparently sent to a friend before the shooting occurred.

The article commented mostly on how this tragedy is a part of a slew of others like it which have created a major controversy in the U.S regarding gun control laws and lack of mental health funding.

It also compared the United States to other western civilizations who do not have the same issues because of the way their governments are run.

In my comparison and analysis of these three different types of media I would say that television should be the most open to diversity out of the three but PBS Newshour failed to use the outlet to its advantage and fell beneath the mark.

The radio and television outlets have the freedom to feature “normal” people on their shows more than written news like the Al Jazeera article does (since Al Jazeera’s article did not include a video or podcast portion).

Al Jazeera is an extremely new development in my reading habits.

A lot of my life is spent absorbing reading materials of all different types: poetry, novels, newspapers, magazines... Even something as abstract as the occasional blog post on my favorite website, Tumblr, often makes the cut for my daily reading rituals.

 I recently started taking a class called Global Communications where the  main reading material for the class is a book about the relatively new world news platform called "Al Jazeera." 

After realizing what Al Jazeera was, I was extremely disappointed in myself for not knowing about its existence sooner. 

Al Jazeera, in essence, is a news platform created by individuals with the goal of providing news to the People which is uncut, unbiased and not influenced by corporal motives, a goal which nowadays in almost unheard of in American news media. 

Al Jazeera is a new breed of journalism that I believe has the potential to bring original, hard journalism back from the dead. 

Al Jazeera was first known for its coverage on news in the Middle East (its funding comes from the small but wealthy country of Quatar) but now has affiliates from all over the world. 

The best news yet is that they have opened an English sector, complete with an Al Jazeera English app, which makes their superior reporting skills accessible to English speakers like myself. 

Al Jazeera not only brings a different perspective on conflicts in the Middle East but is also rapidly changing how people, especially Americans, absorb news media.

 Al Jazeera is currently my favorite writing because it is important. 

Their ideas are new and they are changing the future.  

We share the same mission. 

They remind me that my dreams and standards for journalism are not that unreachable.

oc·el·lat·ed

  [os-uh-ley-tid, oh-sel-ey-tid]  

adjective

1. (of a spot or marking) eyelike.

2. having ocelli, or eyelike spots.

  ef·fi·ca·cious

  [ef-i-key-shuhs] 

adjective

capable of having the desired result or effect; effective as a means, measure, remedy, etc.: The medicine is efficacious in stopping a cough.

  mit·i·gate

  [mit-i-geyt]  verb, mit·i·gat·ed, mit·i·gat·ing.

verb (used with object)

1. to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate.

2. to make less severe: to mitigate a punishment.

3. to make (a person, one's state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.

verb (used without object)

4. to become milder; lessen in severity.

con·found

  [kon-found, kuhn-; for 6 usually kon-found]  

verb (used with object)

1. to perplex or amaze, especially by a sudden disturbance or surprise; bewilder; confuse: Thecomplicated directions confounded him.

2. to throw into confusion or disorder: The revolution confounded the people.

3. to throw into increased confusion or disorder.

4. to treat or regard erroneously as identical; mix or associate by mistake: truth confounded with error.

5. to mingle so that the elements cannot be distinguished or separated.

All words taken from Dr. Karpf's course on Human Sexuality at SJSU 

Twitter:

Syd aspiring journalist comes from Santa Barbara but prefers the city life. She hopes to write for nutritional magazines someday. 

Facebook: 

Sydney, 21 Journalism major and aspiring novelist, comes from Santa Barbara but prefers the city life. This is her fourth year living in San Jose, however she thinks San Jose lacks some of the "urban atmosphere" she thinks exists more in cities like New York City. Both of her parents are novelists and nutritionists. Their lifestyles influenced her career path, organic way of life and writing aspirations. She also has an older brother, Kellen, who she considers one of her best friends. She is ethnically mulatto and hopes someday to travel to Europe with particular interest in France and Italy. She is a waitress at Santana Row's Italian restaurant "Pasta Pomodoro" which suits her since Italian food is her favorite. She has a particular affinity for soup and because her parents are nutritionists, processed or non-organic foods are not in her diet. 

300 words:

A 17-year-old merwoman, Ariel, sold her soul to seawitch, Ursula, last Saturday essentially trading her fins for legs. (hard) 

I grew up in the foothills in a town where less than 8,000 other people live called Valley Springs.

The pride and joy my hometown is the 4-way stop which lies in it's center (putting in a stop light was once debated but the town council soon shot the bill down in fears of making the town too "citified") and the annual Frog Jump Jubilee.

Locally known as the "Frog Jump", the fair is held every year in mid may and gets it's name from Mark Twain's short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."

Aside from a surplus of thrift stores, the local Mar-Val supermarket and acres upon acres of cows, Valley Springs does not seem to offer a lot.

It is not somewhere where you go to find a career if your dreams reach farther than being barefoot in the kitchen and pregnant or living at home with Ma and Pa until you're 40.

But it is home to some of the most beautiful lakes and forests in California and it is special to me because I grew up climbing its trees and exploring its hills and riverbeds.

Calling Valley Springs "home" has profoundly effected the kind of person I am today. 

There are two types of people that come small towns like Valley Springs.

There are those who remain there for their whole lives and follow its comfortably small-minded traditional way of life and then there are those who tired of small-town confines, yearn for something more.

I am of the second sort. I've always had a borderline obsessive lust for travel and knowledge of the outside world.  

After years of planning and saving I finally had the opportunity to study abroad my third year of university.

This dream had been mine for nearly my entire life and when I actually made it happen it was seemingly unbelievable and incredibly real at the same time. 

That is another part of who I am: I am generally open to any changes in my life but there are those few things that I want, that I need to achieve, where change is not an option. 

When I decide I can't let something be open to change and that its non existence in my life is unacceptable, I will do absolutely anything to get it. 

Living in Italy was one of these non-negotiable dreams. I wouldn't take no for answer. 

There are some things, even as a writer, that you cannot explain in words. 

My experience abroad in Italy was one of them. 

I will say only that in diving deep into the Italian world, literally into the Italian soul, helped me take the first breath of my own identity I always knew I had but never could understand until I was there. 

Who I am? What defines me? I am always confused by this question, I never know exactly how to answer it. 

 I am determined and ambitious.

I am strong and independent.

I am fascinated by people, languages and cultures that are different than mine.

I am spiritual on a deep and philosophical level.

I am obsessive and compulsive. I am anxious. I am a dreamer.

I think too much and I am rarely fully present because I am always in my mind.

I am as stubborn as an ox. I am passionate. I am painfully sarcastic.

I have the temper of middle aged Sicilian man and the capacity to love of a Spanish mother.

I chose life when difficult experiences in my life almost made me give up.

I am a survivor. 

I laugh often. I want to learn everyday. I never pass up the opportunity to smell a flower. 

My heart is big and I am a hopeless romantic even if my ego doesn't allow me to show it.

I have never been in love.  

I would not think twice before sacrificing my life for a friend. 

I am wild. I am the most happy deep inside nature. 

I am an animal lover who will probably never get that chance to study elephants and primates Kenya, but I will daydream about it until the day I die.

I am a writer who wants to make a difference. I am an artist. 

Who I am?