Blackberry Tales

 For my first assignment, I elected to analyze the article entitled: "The Blackberry: Destroyer of Worlds -- and the New York Senate."  

It just so happens that this was the very last article I clicked on after reading all the others and feeling utterly uninspired, except maybe by the Hangover review.  I started reading the title and first paragraph, and truly enjoyed the deliberately overdramatic tone.  Then as I often do to quickly assess the overall quality of a text, I skipped to the end (I am sure your English teachers have told you before that a strong intro and conclusion will save a poor essay).

After what I imagined was a cautionary tale against Blackberry use, the article ends with an italicized comment indicating that the article was "Written on a blackberry wireless handheld device".  I just loved it.  Clever irony always gets me.  That final comment came like a critical stage direction in a Moliere play.

So based on the beginning and ending of that text, I chose to make it the topic of my first paper.  I have read it since and enjoyed it as a whole, although I do feel a bit concerned about doing my first rhetorical analysis of a non-literary text.  As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, I am made of pure literary nerdiness and am very much an academic used to dissecting the masterpieces of European literature and philosophy loaded with symbolism, figures of speech and other such stylistic devices.  I am having a hard time finding such richness in the way Jonathan Alter chose to write his otherwise very interesting article.  It might take some getting used to.