How Spelunking and Friends Do Not Mix

Sam Carignan Comic Spirit

           

One day while camping, I and two of my friends decided to go on a camping trip in Vermont, so we packed up our gear and drove up to a secluded area that I knew of.  Once there, we set up our tents and quickly fell asleep.  That following morning, we started on the long hike up through the mountains not expecting to see much but just to hike for the sake of having fun.  Although, near the end of the day, we did see an interesting cave system.  The opening was deep but the rest of it seemed easy enough to climb, or spelunk, in.  Being the most adventures of us, I was the only one to go into the cave.  Thus, I quickly tied a knot to myself and a rock in the opening and climbed down into the abyss.  As soon as I hit the bottom I took out my flashlight and yelled to my friends to set up camp and watch the rope.  If I pulled on the rope twice that would mean I’m in trouble and they should come running.  So off I went, into the dark unknown with a whole new world to be discovered and claimed for by the first Eagle Scout to be there.  After almost an hour of searching, I heard a light flutter sound to my right and as I turned suddenly a bat screeched at me and knocked me backwards, breaking the glass on my flashlight.  Luckily, the light itself still worked so I decided to work my way back to the opening of the cave system.  Up barely above my head I once again suddenly saw another animal, but this was no bat, this was a COYOTE!  I screamed and jumped backwards, dropping my flashlight, taking out my pocketknife and slashing in the dark all within a few seconds of each other.  As I had expected, it was now incredibly dark and I was waiting for the heavenly light.  But there was no light, so I concluded that I was still very much alive and lighted a match.  In fact I did see a coyote, but it was merely a skeleton.  Imagine my frustration and utter humiliation.  At this time I figured I was in trouble so I pulled on the rope twice, but instead of feeling the tightening of the rope, it stayed loose.  So, I did what anybody would do, keep lighting matched until I made my way back to the entrance.  Upon my arrival I noticed that it was night time and the rope had untied from the top of the cave.  I was now entirely stuck so I decided to wait for my friends and set up a little shelter and slept the whole night.

           

The next morning I awoke to still no friends who I expected to come to the rescue.  So I performed a risky maneuver, tie a rock to the rope and throw it until it became stuck on an object and pray that it will support my weight.  After a few throws I got the rock to stick and barely scrambled out of the cave.  A few meters a way I saw smoke and smelled food so I ran over expecting to see my two friends wondering what to do about me.  Instead I saw them eating bacon, eggs and drinking all of MY coffee!  The first things to come out of their mouths, besides bits of bacon and eggs, was “Where have you been, we have been waiting for you since last night?

Sam Carignan

Comic Spirit Modern Family

3/30/12

Put Title Here

In the hit series Modern Family

Samuel Carignan

Comic Spirit: “A Modest Proposal Analysis”

How to Teach an Ignorant Country

In “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift, he uses situational irony, satirical humor and methods of convincing an audience to convey a solution that is not to be taken literally.  These tools are what help emphasize the meaning of the proposal.

                Situational irony is the first device used to convey the meaning of “A Modest Proposal” to the people of Ireland.  One example is how the author describes the town that he lives in.  “Who walk through this great town” is ironic because the town that he lives in is actually poverty ridden and overall disgusting, not great in even the slightest degree.  Also, Swift believes that if anyone is able to come up with a solution should “have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation”.  This is ironic because such a person that suggests eating babies should be punished not praised.  Finally, the author says that the consumption of infants will be beneficial.  He says that “it will prevent those voluntary abortions and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children.”  Ironically, this could not be ethnically beneficial despite what the author says. 

                Satirical humor is also present within the passage.  It is first shown when Swift says “they have already devoured most of the parents, so they seem to have the best title to the children”.  The previous quote describes the treatment of the landlords to their poorer countrymen.  This is satirical humor because it is meant to be funny, but is not found humorous because it is so disgusting that most people are shocked instead of humored by the author’s reference.     

By seeing the interactions between Isabel and her parents, the boyfriend provides a specific point of view of the altercation by using exaggerated characterization to show that the characters are viewed as abnormal. When Isabel first sees her parents, she knows exactly what they will be talking about an just how embarrassing they will be. This is shown when she says “he'll just get flustered because he'll just have dropped it in a bin by mistake.” This later is shown to be true in the novel and it caused Isabel to be embarrassed. Her embarrassment is shown when she tries to avoid her parents. She remains unseen for the moment, but “Isabel smiled feebly, turned a beetroot shade and repeated in panicked diction”. Finally, the way that her mother talks to her shows how abnormal the family is. When commenting on Isabel's dress, she says “pity you don't have more cleavage for it, but that's your fathers fault.” This is viewed as abnormal because most people do not talk about their daughter like that in front of her boyfriend, and even more uncommonly blame it on her husband. The characterization of Isabel's abnormal father, mother and herself by the boyfriend provides a unique point of view because he is a third party and is unaffected by past events.

Taking advantage of the situation in "Suburban", John Ciard utilizes both contextual comedy and the overarching theme of sacrifice to present an anecdote on the transcendence of rabblerousing. 

By conveying the humor of an imperffect relationship in "Naked Lunch", Michael Hollinger uses direct personification and cntroversial issues of lifestyles to show that all couples fight but each in their own special way.

That Awkward Moment 
Everyone has an awkward moment.  Comedians when their joke is not funny, a soldier who could not follow orders or a police officier who is trying to arrest someone when he dropped his handcuffs.  These things happen all the time and you quickly forget them, but no one forgets THE awkward moment of their lives.  That is teh type of embarassment that will be with you you're entire life.  My awkward moment happened over the summer when me and my friends were on a nroad trip down the East Coast.  After a few hours of driving, nature was calling for me but my freinds wanted to get some food as quick as possible.  So, they dropped me off and told me to go on the nearby fence and drove off towards their quest for food.  I went to teh fence, but instantly i wa feeling an intense amount of pain.  So much so that i was rolling on the ground back and forth.  Aparently, I was too stupid to notice the sign that said "Danger: Electrical Fence" and too ignorant to notice that what i was rolling in was poison ivy "exposed" as much as i was.  The awkward moment came for me not from teh action itself, but having to tell the story to my friends.  This goes to show that awkward moments can be embarassing, but can make a great story which is a lesson I think we should all learn.