Open for Interpretation

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
                                                                               Ansel Adams






The film Memento and the short story Tamara both explore the topic of images and their meanings. In both works, numerous images are interpreted through the eyes of the protagonists and while that may seem liberating it also has its downsides.






In Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Marco Polo visits Tamara, a city where the streets are full of images, signs, and statues. In the film, Memento, the lead character Leonard Shelby, like Tamara, also uses images. Being that Leonard has short term memory loss, he snaps photographs of images so he can remember them in the future. 

Tamara, like Leonard, is using images to define itself. When travelers leave the city, they take away only their interpretation of the images and not the images themselves. In a way, Tamara has no identity. Each and every traveler who goes to Tamara can have a completely different experience and a different interpretation of what he or she saw there. 


In Memento, Leonard's pictures are not the past. They are images of the past that he can interpret in any way he so chooses. In a way, memory is the same thing. One's memory contains images of the past in one's mind that one can interpret in various ways. This begs the question does a person remember an exact image of his or her past or the interpretation of the image more?

In Marco Polo's case, it's the latter. He feels like he has not discovered the city of Tamara at all. He can't get past all the images to see what's really there. Leonard has the same problem. He also can't see what's really going on just by looking at his photos, which has dire consequences. Both the film and the short story show that sometimes we see what we want to see and that may be to our disadvantage. 

More Questions Than Answers

After reading the story of Adelma, two things about the story intrigued me.  One thing that interested me was that the story doesn't fully let the reader know what is going on, which leads the reader to think about the answers to questions the story brings up. Another thing about Adelma that I found intriguing is that while it is fantastical, it is also grounded in reality. Everyone has had the feeling when meeting someone for the first time that they have met them before.

One thing I don’t understand about Adelma is that while Marco Polo is visiting the city of Adelma, he doesn’t know if he is dead or alive. But since he is telling this story to the emperor at a later time, does that mean the emperor is dead too or does that mean Marco Polo  visited the afterlife for a while and came back to this life to tell his story to the emperor? 

One thought Marco Polo has while he is in Adelma is that maybe you arrive at Adelma already dead. This brings up the question do we all die and arrive at a city where we see others who have passed while at the same time not remembering our own death? 

Another thought he has, which is much more plausible, is that he has reached a point where you know more people who have died then are still living and since the mind cannot take in any more faces it puts the faces of people you knew in the past on new people you meet in the present.  This brings up the question, when we meet who we think are new people, are they really new or are have we known them before?

Basically after reading Adelma, I was left with more questions than answers. The story of Adelma definitely made me want to read the entire book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.  I want to read the rest of the book not only because Adelma is so well-written, but because maybe after reading other stories in the book, I can come to a better understanding of what the underlining meaning of Adelma is.

A Little About Me

First I thought I'd share my history with you and how I came to have this blog...

I've wanted to be a writer since I was seven-years-old. I still have short stories I wrote as a child in a big keepsake box in my closet. Back then my stories were written in pencil and full of misspelled words. Needless to say, my writing has changed a lot since then.

In high school I was a big sports fan and decided I wanted to be a sports journalist. Traveling with a sports team, interviewing players, getting to write about games was my ultimate dream. But sadly, not all dreams were meant to come true.

In college it seemed as if I faced one obstacle after another. I attended a local school that was all wrong for me from the start. Classes were so large that in order to receive personal attention from my teachers, I had to make the initial contact. Being the shy, insecure girl I was, I found it hard to ask anyone for help. As a result, I began to languish like a grape on a vine that shrivels into itself. I became so discouraged I just decided one day to never go back.

Fast forward a couple years later to college number two. I was again in a local school, but this one was much different. This one had small classes and tons of personal attention from teachers who saw potential in me that I couldn't see in myself. And most importantly, since I loved the school, I put my all into it. Not unlike most students in this country, there was one HUGE roadblock when it came to college, and that roadblock was—you guessed it—money. I was not allowed to register for any more classes until I paid off my tuition balance, which I am currently paying off monthly.

Fast forward to yet another school, but this time I changed my major. I decided to become a different kind of reporter. I decided to become a court reporter. The idea of my work being an official record for years to come, long after I was gone, intrigued me. Also, not unlike a journalist, I would report on the happenings of the day.  I've always been interested in reporting.  Even as a child, when we would act out a story in class, I would always choose to be the narrator.  I enjoy in giving the story straight to readers and have them form their own opinions.  With court reporting I can still do that. 

 In the summer of 2011, when I was between jobs, I attended an open house for the only court reporting school in the five boroughs. At the time I was unemployed, but I decided to get a job before I would start classes. Luckily I answered an ad online and got a job in a field somewhat related to court reporting. I began my job as a hearing recorder in November of 2011, where I still work today. I audio record Department of Ed. hearings to be transcribed later by a transcriptionist. My job helps with my court reporting classes because I get used to listening to hours of testimony and I think of ways to write new words on my sten machine. I started school the following January.

All of my teachers are currently working court reporters. One teacher in particular used to travel to press conferences for sporting events such as the Masters and the Olympics, and transcribed the entire press conference for sports reporters. When I found that I could still work in sports as a court reporter, I was over the moon. I thought, this profession is exactly what I'm looking for; it combines two of my interests, sports and traveling.

In addition to stenography classes at night, I also take academic courses. This semester it's a writing and speaking class called Oral and Written Communications. The writing part of the class I definitely won't have a problem with. It's the speaking part that concerns me. I was never comfortable speaking in front of a crowd. Good thing blogs allow me to do just that. I can get my message across to a big audience without actually having to face them.

The first night of class I created this wonderful blog you see before you. I am no stranger to blogs. I used to have one about the Yankees, until I became too busy with work and school to update it. I also have expeience writing for different websites.With this blog, I'll make the time to update as often as I can. I look forward to sharing my writing with all of you in the future.