Going to a commercial art school, we were taught to think and draw w an editorial hat on, mixed w a fine art sensibility.
Books, comics, and movies were always being looked at for entertainment and inspiration.
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| ALEX- A Clockwork Orange. |
Alex, a teenager living in near-future England, leads his gang on nightly orgies of opportunistic, random "ultra-violence." Alex's friends ("droogs" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, Nadsat) are Dim, a slow-witted bruiser who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for ultra-violence. Characterized as a sociopath and a hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex is also intelligent and quick-witted, with sophisticated taste in music, being particularly fond of Beethoven, or "Lovely Ludwig Van."
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| Dark Tower |
Great first book. Stephen King really had a great novel here that went slowly south w each book. Sorry, but it's true.
The Graduate.
Ben and Elaine.
Benjamin Braddock, who will soon turn 21, returns to his parents'
home in Southern California after graduating from a college on the East
Coast. At his graduation party, all his parents' friends want to know
about Benjamin's upcoming plans for graduate school or a career,
something about which Benjamin is clearly uncomfortable and anxious. His
parents ignore his anxiety and are only interested in talking about his
academic and athletic successes and their plans for him to attend
graduate school.
Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's law partner, asks Benjamin to
drive her home from the party. She invites Benjamin inside and attempts
to seduce him, removing her clothes. She tells Benjamin, who becomes
increasingly nervous, that she finds him attractive and wants him to
know that she is available to him anytime. Mr. Robinson arrives home but
neither sees nor suspects anything. He advises Benjamin that he should
relax and enjoy his youth while he still can. A few days later, Benjamin
contacts Mrs. Robinson and clumsily organizes a tryst at a hotel, and
the two begin an affair.
Benjamin spends the summer floating in a pool by day and meeting Mrs.
Robinson at the hotel at night. Through their encounters, Benjamin
discovers that they have nothing in common but also learns that Mrs.
Robinson was forced to give up college and marry someone she did not
love when she became pregnant with her daughter, Elaine.
However, under increasing pressure from his parents to begin a career
or enroll in grad school, Benjamin is set up on a date with Elaine,
whom Benjamin last saw in high school, by his father and Mr. Robinson.
Although Mrs. Robinson has made it clear to Benjamin that he is to have
nothing to do with Elaine, Benjamin eventually succumbs to the pressure
and takes Elaine out on a date. During the course of their date,
Benjamin goes out of his way to mistreat and be rude to Elaine, even
going as far as taking her to a lewd strip joint, in order to sabotage
the evening. As Elaine begins to sob, Benjamin explains his motives and
that he only asked her out on a date as an obligation from each of their
fathers. The two reconcile and each discover that they are able to
discuss their current worries and their plans for future happiness.
