This passage came from one of the short memories written in the class exercise. Originally, the memory was from a specific episode. However, I ended up adapting it and simplifying the idea into a simple unnamed episode. Mr. Brown is meant to symbolize a dramatized version of loneliness. He finds solace in this TV series where the characters make jokes and live carefree lives. He sees this as what he wants in life, and it makes him smile. When the characters are in his ears, he does not feel so alone.

A Comparison of “The Taming of A Shrew” to “The Parent Trap, 1998”

All throughout “The Taming of the Shrew,” The scholar Lucentio uses a falsified identity in order to woo the beloved Bianca without her father’s interference. Several others characters of the play also change their name and status to either support Lucentio’s ruse or woo Bianca themselves. Although Lucentio lied to the others about his identity at first, he immediately told Bianca upon their first meeting, which resulted in successful courtship. Similarly, in the 1998 film “The Parent Trap,” reunited twin sisters Hallie and Annie, who have been unaware of each others' existence due to their divorced parents separating them since infancy, also switch identities secretly, but in order to meet the other parent for the first time. They also plan to use the switch in order to get their parents to meet face-to-face and fall in love, so they can be a family again. However, there is another more malignant false identity in this movie. When the twins’ father reveals that he wants to marry the gold digger and child-despiser Meredith, the girls must also work together to reveal her true identity to her fiancé. This play and movie reflect that although it was easy for audiences to accept that lying to win one's hand in Shakespeare's time was okay, by the time “The Parent Trap” came out in theaters, it became less effective in winning someone's heart.

"Love wrought these miracles. Bianca’s love

Made me exchange my state with Tranio,

While he did bear my countenance in the town,

And happily I have arrivèd at the last

Unto the wishèd haven of my bliss.

What Tranio did, myself enforced him to.

Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake."

(Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 127 - 133)

At this time in the play, Lucentio is apologizing to his father and Bianca’s father for marrying Bianca without his consent, in addition to explaining why Tranio had lied that Vincentio was a fake in order to preserve Lucentio and the Merchant’s fake cover stories. He stated that all his actions; dressing up as a schoolmaster, charging Tranio to pretend to be him, wooing Bianca without her family knowing, setting up a fake Vincentio to ensure that the Minola family would receive a dowry, and more was all in the name of love. This argument somehow meant his logic was irrefutably justified. The extreme reasoning for almost having his father sent to jail and ditching the education his father was paying for was naturally acceptable 430 years ago. Although Lucentio lied a lot in order to win Bianca’s hand, this play was written so the reader would perceive his reasoning as not only simple, but correct.

On the other hand, “The Parent Trap” makes a big deal out of making it obvious to the audience that pretending to be someone you’re not doesn’t usually work out for you. The movie looks down on the character Meredith Blake, as she is only marrying Nick Parker for his money and is not actually in love with him. This intention is confirmed in a scene where Meredith tells her father to behave because, “He’s everything you ever wanted for your little girl, plus millions more.” This sentence insinuated that Meredith is only interested in Nick for the millions he has.

Towards the end of the movie, Hallie and Annie have resorted to playing a series of pranks on Meredith in order to basically make her life miserable. The last trick that they played on Meredith was to drag her blow up mattress into the lake to float there all night. When she woke up the next morning, she was in the middle of the lake, confused and angry. When she managed to drag herself out of the water, she explained that once Nick and her were married, the twins would be sent off to Switzerland. She furiously demanded that Nick choose between the twins or her. This demand alerted Nick to her true nature, and he chose his daughters. Meredith threw her engagement ring at him and left town. This movie tells the audience that lying about your true nature to your partner isn’t the best choice in a relationship and that it will often go wrong for you as it did for Meredith.

“Fear not, Baptista, we will content you. Go

to! But I will be revenged for this villainy.”

(Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 138 and 139)

These two lines in Act 5 are spoken by Vincentio to Baptista, Bianca’s father when he finds out about Tranio and Lucentio’s plan to woo Bianca in disguise. He felt anger at Tranio because not moments before, in order to maintain cover on Lucentio himself, he called Vincentio fake and demanded that he be taken to jail. Thankfully, Lucentio came back in time to stop them, and the ruse was uncovered. This part of the play is one of the times when lying is not acceptable in the eyes of the play: when you are lying to those who employ you. In this play, any time one is lied to or does something wrong in the eyes of their superior, there is often major consequences on the servant. Vincentio did not take kindly to how Tranio lied to him and tried to sent him to jail, but there were often other times when the master Petruchio, husband of Katherine, sister of Bianca, rained down fury on his servants those employed to him, or those he sees as inferior when they lied to him. These actions suggest that although it is okay to lie to loved ones, it is absolutely unacceptable to betray your master or employer in the eyes of the play and most likely in the 1600s as well.

In “The Parent Trap,” there are literally no instances of when servants of the main characters are mistreated or punished during the entire movie. In fact, both servants in the movie, Chessy and Martin, are seen as close family friends that simply also work for the family, which is not the case at all in “The Taming of the Shrew.”

Elizabeth James had brought Hallie to the hotel where Nick, Meredith, and Annie were at in order to switch her back with Annie. Hallie had lied to Liz, saying that Nick knew they were coming to the hotel, when in fact he still didn’t know that the daughter he had was not Hallie. Liz and Nick catch sight of each other in the lobby as the elevators close before Nick. Liz realized that Nick had no idea she was coming, and reprimands the girls for lying to her. However, when she find out that Nick is marrying Meredith, and that everyone knew but her, she simply lets it go that the people that work for her lied to her about it. The movie seems to minimize the consequences of lying to those you are demanded to respect and honor as the Shakespeare play illustrates. Simply put, the play is validates lying to loved ones, but not to those superior to you. On the other hand, the movie is not validating lying to loved ones, but that when someone who works for you lies to you, as long as they have a great excuse or reason for it, there is no need for a large punishment.

“I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;

If wealthily, then happily in Padua.”

(Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 76 and 77)

This quote is when Petruchio, Katherine’s future husband, agrees to Gremio’s plans to have him marry Katherine only because she is wealthy, and not because he loves her or that she has a good temperament. Later in the story, we see that Petruchio uses many methods to tame Kate’s wild nature, all of which are forgiven and seen in a positive light by the end of the story, even though it is never clear whether or not they actually really love each other by the end of it all, or even if this matters. This reflects for the characters and the setting that in this time, money was actually an acceptable reason to marry someone, and they did not actually have to love you. In addition, since this play was looking at this behavior so positively, it can be inferred that the audience of this time was more agreeable to this behavior then as well. Such was the 1600s.

Contrasting Petruchio’s relationship with Katherine in “The Taming of the Shrew,” to Nick and Meredith in “The Parent Trap,” both relationships were quite similar. Both Petruchio and Meredith seemed well off, but were still only marrying each of their fiance's for money. In addition, both Nick and Katherine were wealthy as well. However, the play and the movie views Petruchio and Meredith in completely different ways. In the play, he is seen as the good guy, the beast tamer, who makes his wife obedient properly. In the movie, Meredith marrying Nick is a secret she keeps from him, and is looked down upon by the twins and Nick himself towards the end of the movie.

When Annie first arrives in Napa, she finds out about Meredith Blake, a publicist Nick hired to sell his wine. However, Chessy, Nick’s housekeeper, chef, and family friend speculates that Meredith is, “doing a better job at selling herself than the grapes,” because she is suspicious of why someone as young and beautiful as Meredith is hanging around an older, less in his prime man like Nick. She then stated, “then I realized there were about a million reasons that girl is giggling. All of them are at the Napa Valley Community Bank.” The movie is saying that the only reason someone of Meredith’s social level will go out with someone like Nick is because of their money or financial potential. Throughout the entire movie, this is seen as wrong. Therefore, Meredith is portrayed as the antagonist of the movie. This change reflects that modern entertainment is less open to gold diggers as the good guys, unlike 400 years ago. They paint them as shallow, manipulative, and evil. In this story, she does not marry Nick because as soon as he finds out her true nature, he dumps her. Modern entertainment trends toward lying to your partner of loved one as a very bad thing.

As we moved through each the play and the movie, we saw very similar relationships developing between each of the couples mentioned in both texts. However, the way that each author portrays their relationship is very different. Shakespeare was more open to marrying for love and not really caring if they lie to you, but looked down on insubordination. Disney, however, fiercely fought against marrying for money and a lying spouse, but were particularly lenient towards those who worked for them. Once again, these were very similar relationships, but viewed in opposing lights. The way Shakespeare wrote Petruchio suggested that it was more acceptable then to marry for money only, and that the rift between servant and master was much deeper then than now. The way Disney wrote Meredith suggested that marrying for love instead of money was better and more morally okay. Servant and master lines barely existed, and were looked down upon through the way that Meredith treated Chessy throughout the movie. To sum it all up, 400 years ago, lying to win someone’s heart had more chance of success then than in the modern era.

If human beings were not as averagely intelligent as we have evolved to become, then we would have gone extinct thousands of years ago. If one takes away the tools and the shelter and the clothes and we are so terrifyingly weak. This fact is no scarier for anyone other than us, and having faith in something larger than your existence was and still is the way people battle away a lot of this fear. Therefore, everyone on Earth holds some set of beliefs. If we feel that humans are here because we have some higher power that is more terrible than our predators and more awesome than the diseases, then our existence is justified and we are safe. Whether they be religious or not is up to them, but no one lives without them. My personal set of beliefs and religious practices was established over my entire lifetime and is still vulnerable to change even now.

Daddy was born to two genetically predisposed Methodists. His daddy fought in World War II, and survived three gunshots for his wife, not G-d. Granddaddy and Grandma did not really actively practice or believe in being a Methodist. They attended church occasionally, except for Dad, who threw a tantrum at age 8 and never had to go again. After enduring his service in the Korean War, he followed his father’s example in what to believe. He didn’t really stick to a religion growing up, and sired seven children and one half son.

When I was five years old, Mom became pregnant again. This was my father’s last child. She went into labor on Christmas Eve. I remember asking our nanny when the new baby, Aurora, was coming home. They managed to hide it from me for two weeks before they told me that Aurora died during labor. The umbilical cord had gotten wrapped around her neck and she had choked to death before they caught it. They were devastated, both of them. I was too young to understand the true gravity of what had happened. Daddy told me that in order to get him out of his depression, some of his closest friends took him on a road trip. They gave him a story called the Shack by William P. Young.

“Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his "Great Sadness," Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.”

The road trip and the book helped Dad to recover. He tells me that today he believes in the eagles, high cirrus clouds, coronas, deer, and that book that helped recover himself from his loss. This unique view on life makes my Dad an interesting person, but does not really affect my life that much anymore.

My mom, Beth R. Koenig, was born a reform Jew and was raised as a reform Jewish person. She attended Hebrew School until after her bat mitzvah or Jewish coming-of-age ceremony. After that, she attended the holidays and she did little events and services. Otherwise, she did not practice. I suspect that her religious choices have to do with her family. I used to visit and stay over, but now, only my brother talks to them. Over my lifetime, I have seen her grow into spiritualism. I am not completely sure on how this happened, or why it did, but her transition changes my life irrevocably. The rules of her life didn’t stop with her. My younger sibling and I were given gluten free and dairy free diets all the time for “a healthier lifestyle” even though we had no allergy. Homeopathic remedies are go-to medicinal routes. She nags me even now to visit the chiropractor every other week. The problem I have here is this: I am not a spiritualistic person. I do not believe even in half the ideas that she does. Unfortunately, I depend on this person to feed and nurture me. I live with her and see her everyday. I think that it is better for me not to fight with her about her beliefs every other day. I let a lot, and I do mean a lot of issues with her go. I often will nod my head along with her words, or give an empty agreement. Due to this relationship I have in my life, it is actually sort of difficult to slip a belief into my head. First, I will identify that it isn’t what I believe, and then I will tear it apart and find everything that is wrong with it. Finally, I will kick it to the curb. However, when surrounded by others who believe differently than I do, I am able to respect their ideas and do my best to tolerate and understand.

In sixth or seventh grade, I learned that later reports of the tragedy of a super eruption due to the majestic Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii suggested that Pompeii’s citizens believed that the Roman god of fire, Vulcan, was angry with them. On the day of this infamous catastrophe, it was said that about half the entire population actually tried to give offerings and prayers to the mountain. His name later gave fruit to the name for the never before seen erupting mountain, volcanoes. The decimation of an entire city that believed that if they could appease Vulcan, the sky would come back proves that every belief can evolve, fail, be challenged, and or change.

My first “official” religion was Reform Judaism. In second grade, I moved away from my best friend. That was not acceptable, and so I began attending the Rodeph Shalom Synagogue. That was not the only reason I became a member. My first and favorite part of the entire religion is Sunday morning services. The music and unity of this this ceremony was like nothing I had ever seen before. I felt out of place until I started singing along with everybody else. I felt a positive connection to everyone around me. I fell in love with that connection, and I graduated from Hebrew School last year. Zooming in on the more religious aspects of Judaism, I am a very loose practitioner myself. I attribute this to how I was raised and also my personal philosophies.

The highest power that I believe exists is the balance of the universe we exist in. To be more specific, I think that our entire world revolves on the balance of opposites. Life and death, good and bad, action and reaction. I believe that every single loss has an equal and opposite gain and vise versa. That is what I think drives the world. Everything has a price, everything. I can’t really believe in a god because I haven’t experienced anything that could make me believe in them. As to the contents of the Torah, the Jewish holy book, I agree with most of the philosophical content and think a lot of its history actually happened. However, there’s a lot of the Torah that’s disagreeable or looks to have- a covert reason of existence. I found most major religions to have this in common. So until my way of thinking is challenged on Vesuvius level proportions, I plan on maintaining this personalized set of beliefs.

The purpose of restaurant designers are to create a foundational design meant to draw in potential customers. The key to a successful restaurant is the use of subtle tricks and psychologically researched design choices made to attract clientele and keep them coming back. Restaurants have three main areas that the customer experiences and needs to be perfect. The most important is the menu, followed by the restaurant appearance, and finally the physical layout. Each of these three parts are vital to a restaurant's potential for success because they all work together to create the perfect image to draw in future customers.

The menu is perhaps the most important part of any restaurant. Every single restaurant has one and every visit includes one. The purpose of a menu is to tell the customer their food options and how much they cost as quickly as possible. Gregg Rapp, a professional menu engineer, has contributed to Janie Kliever’s article on the best hacks for menu design. “One of the biggest problems in menu design is that on average, a customer will only spend 1 minute and 49 seconds reading their menu (Kliever)”. For this reason, menu designers must analyze their target audience’s reading patterns. This means putting the best and most expensive dishes where the readers eyes will pass over the most. Menu designers have to understand the clients’ strongest menu choices and most expensive items, so they can place those choices at the tops and bottoms of food lists, because that is statistically where our eyes read the most. Another very important part of the design is the theme of the menu, which must adhere to the same concept as the restaurant for aesthetic purposes. Finally, the designers will sprinkle in some sneaky psychologically appealing tricks to keep the customer looking at the expensive menu items. One will notice almost every single good restaurant does this through arrows and ribbons, extremely appetizing images of the food, and highlighting the most or second most expensive thing on the menu to make is seem better than the others and worth the buy. Every feature of the menu designed in this fashion to promote the restaurant. All of these ingredients collage together for the ideal menu in any restaurant employing these methods.

The arguably second most important part of a successful restaurant is the restaurant appearance. This includes lighting, wallpaper, the materials, the color scheme, and more. According to Tom Strother, a co-founder of an established interior design firm, the most important aspect of restaurant appearance is the lighting. “...It has to be soft and flattering to make guests feel comfortable so that they are confident and relaxed and enjoy their stay in the restaurant. We tend to do this through soft ambient lighting to complement the more targeted architectural lighting and also to suit the time of day. (Gander).” Different basic lighting techniques have different psychological effects on any customer. This reaction can actually be tested and then applied in different settings through mass experimentation. What one does is test 100 volunteers with different stimuli and have them rate them. This creates a clear percentage of how popular the stimuli is. The psychological reaction to different stimulants works with wallpaper, furniture comfort level, testing restaurant impressions, etc. All of the restaurant appearance choices are considered when constructing the restaurant.

The last, but not least major aspect of restaurant design is the physical layout. This is how the tables, chairs, restroom, kitchen, host/hostess stand, and basically anything decorative are arranged. Chris LaBan, a professional restaurant critic, includes a description of one great example of a random restaurant showing how the physical layout influences a customer's perception. “With sleek glass walls folded up for al fresco dining and an airy dining room outfitted in woody Nordic chic, this ambitious corner restaurant-bar in West Philly's new Study boutique hotel gives University City a handsome all-purpose destination for a stylish New American meal.” The way that every part of the restaurant looks gives the restaurant something of a theme. In this case, the theme was New American or modern eating. This restaurant categorizing is very important for customers because they have options, and they like those options to be clear. Physical layout dictates the atmosphere of the restaurant.

Mi Declaración de Artista

Mi nombre es Leah Bradstreet, y vivo en la Área de Fairmount, Filadelfia. Mi vivido allí por más de un año. Por un lado, pienso en los parques, el río, los restaurantes, un específico restaurante Mexicano llamado “La Calaca Feliz”. Por otro lado, pienso en todas las personas que no tienen mi suerte. Me encanta mi barrio mucho. A causa del hecho que me gusta mi barrio, las razonas por esta son porque mi barrio es seguro, limpio, positivo, fresco, amplio, y energizado. Sin embargo, me gustaría un mejor sistema de iluminación en Fairmount para sentirse más seguro en la noche. Unos temos importantes en mi comunidad son los negocios pequeños, los parques vibrantes, y los vecinos simpáticos. Personas regulares viven en mi barrio, nadie especial. Fairmount es conocido también como el “Museo de Arte Área.” El famoso “Eastern State Penitentiary” está hay ubicado también.

Fairmount es muy hermosa. Hay muchos árboles, flores, y restaurantes. Hay un CVS, Whole Foods, y gasolineras. Es muy conectado, moderno, y divertido caminar en. En Fairmount, hay una prisión grande. Este nombre es el "Eastern Penitentiary Prison," pero está cerrado. Quiero poner mi mural en la pared en la foto. Este es en mi barrio, y voy a honrar los ciudadanos de Fairmount en alguna hora.

Mi mural es una pintura de el Museo de Arte bajo construcción con el tiempo, con caras que ayudaron a construir Fairmount y dos o tres caras que veo todos los días. Debido al hecho que el mural es sobre Fairmount, y el propósito de mi mural es dedicar algo a la gente de Fairmount. Quiero hacer este diseño porque solo quiero dibujar. No voy a incorporar imágenes de mi cerebro porque quiero ser este solo. Sin embargo, voy a incorporar las palabras, “Familia,” y posiblemente una cita porque palabras pequeñas puede hacer un impacto grande.

Una oda a Porfirio Díaz

Perezoso, codicioso, altanero

Cuando yo te veo pienso en la opresión, hambre, y tristeza.

Me haces enfermo a mi estómago

Mataste a gente inocente

Tú eres un extraño

Tú está la persona yo sueño a nunca se

Porfirio Díaz

Announcer (most energetic voice, voiceover): Leah Bradstreet

Filmer (One with the best phone): Imani’s phone, Chloe Hart

Female Model(s) (depends on who brings U.S. clothes): Imani Williams, Julia Furman (legs only), and Chloe Hart

Male Model (depends on who brings U.S. clothes): Eli Zimmerman

Editor (person/people who actually know how to edit videos): Leah Bradstreet / Chloe Hart

GUIÓN:

Announcer:

En Toda Americana Influencia, los productos están todas hechos en los Estados Unidos. Nosotros orgullosamente producimos ropa nunca hecha en maquilas. // In All American Influence the products are all made in the United States. We proudly produce clothes never made in sweatshops.

Invierno: Winter

Announcer:

¡Suéteres de niñas desde cuarenta y cinco y cincuenta y nueve dólares! ¡Suéteres de niños son cuarenta y nueve y noventa y nueve dólares!

// Models show off clothing

Female:: Un suéter negro y café hecho en los Estados Unidos con algodón y lana. Pantalones azul hecha en los Estados con la tela vaquera.

Male: Un suéter moreno y café hecho en los Estados con algodón. Pantalones azules oscuros hechos en los Estados con la tela vaquera.

Primavera: Spring

Announcer:

¡Puedes comprar vestidos para niñas por solo sesenta y nueve y noventa y nueve dólares! ¡Zapatos simples de niñas son treinta y nueve y noventa y nueve!

Female: Unas vestido y sandalias.

Verano: Summer

Announcer:

Camisetas de las niñas y los niños son solo treinta y cinco y noventa y nueve dólares.  Camisetas de mujeres y hombres desde setenta y nueve y noventa y nueve dólares. Pantalones cortos para niñas y niños son sesenta y nueve y noventa y nueve dólares. ¡Compra ahora!

Female: Una camiseta rosa y rojo, pantalones cortos negros, y chancletas negras todas hechas en los Estados Unidos.

Male: Una camiseta, pantalones cortos de baloncestos, y zapatos baloncestos.

Otoño: Autumn

Announcer:

Nuestras bufandas de moda son veinte y cuatro y cincuenta y nueve! ¡Tenis para mujeres y hombres son solo setenta y cuatro y noventa y nueve!

Female: Una bufanda gris, unos botas cafe, una camisa roja y blanca, y unas medias negras.

Male: Una camiseta graphica, tenis zapatos blancos, unos jeans azul

Announcer:

¡Tienda en Toda Americana Influencia para estas grandes ofertas! ¡Ten prisa, estas ofertas no duran mucho! Estamos en Uno Dos Tres Americano Forma de Sacramento, California, puedes ir al http://www.allamericaninfluence.com, o puedes llamar al (Dos Uno Cinco) Cuatro Cinco Seis - Siete Ocho Nueve Cero.

STORYLINE:

Leah: [voiceover] Presentar nuestro nuevo telenovela serie, Extraño Café: Un Documentario. Starring Julia Furman, Jason Lam, y Leah Bradstreet!

Julia: [walks up to Jason] ¡Hola! ¡Bienvenido el Dinero Café! Soy tú camarera, Julia. [pauses] ¿Qué le traigo? ¡También me gustaría mencionar que tenemos comida para perros para tú amigo adorable!

Jason: [looks at menu] No, gracias. Pero me gustaría agua, por favor.

Julia: Bueno, un momento. [walks away]

Julia: [returns with a cup of water] Aquí tiene.

Jason: Gracias.

Julia: ¿Algo más?

Leah: [walks in suspiciously, says nothing yet]

Jason: [notices her, but looks back down at menu] Sí. Quiero un pollo ensalada y salmón. Algo quiero helado de chocolate.

Julia [Suspiciously looking at Leah, but feels like she needs to look away and quickly does so. Wants to get out of there. Says quickly,] Bueno. Ya vengo. [begins to go quickly in fear]

Leah: [notices Julia just as she’s about to escape and takes out “gun” and fires into the air twice]

[Jason screams and the dog become alert and growls at Leah. Julia picks up her pace.]

Leah: [says creepily] Espera Señora.

Julia: [Stops and turns. Nervously and softly,] La la la la la la

Leah: ¡Dame todo, o voy a disparar! ¡Dame dinero, objetos de valor, quiero todo! ¡AHORA! [Fires another shot into the air, spurring everyone to scramble to strip themselves of their valuables]

Julia: [Falls down on the ground in surprise at the yell. Her glasses fall off. Jason´s dog sniffs at Julia, to make sure she's okay.]

Jason: [refuses to move, even speak. Dog is still in the same position, protecting his master]

Leah: [notices Jason and swerves the gun towards him]¡Tú! ¡Dame tu dinero!

[Dog growls and barks, and then jumps up on Leah]

Leah: ¡Aaaaahhhh! [Drops gun and runs out of the restaurant. The dog is still barking after her]

[The others cheer, the robbess is gone! Dog returns]

[Jason blushes from the attention and pets his dog on the head]

(End of Video)