Chapter Annotation by Aina Reyes COM 12 G
This chapter is entitled The Dead Remember because of the segments found by anthropology students regarding four conversations they found that were believed to belong to Wingrove Pollard, a man whom they believed to be part of the thousands of people who died during the 911 attack.
The chapter starts off with Marina Chtcheglova, Damien’s girl friend and line producer, at his flat with Voytek and Fergal. Cayce arrives and feels that Marina is not the first of Damien’s girl fiends to dislike her because the same things happened with her encounters with his other girls. Cayce notices that Marina is wearing this season’s Prada exclusively, all black which somehow says of her elitism. Marina is labeled as the “BLAT” girl or someone connected to “juice” because her father was the head of an aluminum plant aside from the brewery and merchant bank that her family owns as well.
**The brewery which Marina's father owns looks like “somewhere between a three-month 1968 rock concert, mass public grave-robbing, and Apocalypse Now"
Voytek is an artist whom Cayce has left the keys with when she left for her trip to Tokyo. He is friendly and outgoing that he found a way to “fit in” at Damien’s flat even if they have not met prior to that first meeting of theirs. He was conversing with Marina because he was trying to get her to fund the ZX 81 project of Damien.
Fergal, another character present at the flat, works mainly in the music industry and represents the economic side of the ZX 81 project of Damien, Marina is in charge of the physical aspects of the set as a line producer and Damien represents the creative side of this said project. Damien is still unable to finish his film because Marina is there, serving as a distraction to him.
By the end of the night, Cayce tells Damien that she wanted to leave because she thinks her presence there was not okay with Marina. Damien refuses and tells her not to be silly and just go up to his bedroom. He continues by saying that he is only using Marina because he needs her for the project, no more no less. Finally, Cayce decides to spend the night at Damien’s. In the room she calls up Boone and confronts him about what the lying to Bigend was about. Boone then asks Cayce to send him the jpeg so that he can show it to people smarter than he is but Cayce feels unsure and paranoid about giving it to him but sends it anyway. She checks the next email from her mom regarding the segments some students have found about the probability that Win is alive. Cynthia, Cayce’s mother, is part of the ROTW or Rose Of The World, a group who believes in spirit voices.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Wh-lLRhmg
Wingrove Pollard is a man who has gone so thoroughly and discretely that it might be impossible to prove him dead. He is one of the thousands of people who have been believed to be a part of those whose lives were taken during the September 11 attack. This event was a topic discussed in this chapter and how it has affected the lives of the families of those victims who were part of this attack. Cayce sees the segments as sign that leave Win doubly undead. The reason behind this is because his body isn’t found and that she believes that without a body, there is no death. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fH7c8H6SNw&NR=1
The chapter ends with the memory of what Cynthia would always tell Cayce that, the dead remember. But Cayce does not exactly know what they remember and she never bothered to ask. Signifcantly, both Cayce and Cynthia still do not have the answer as to whether Win is dead or not but one thing they do know is that, the your dead loved ones make you feel their presence in different ways.
Additional Chapter Annotations
By Will Nelson Tan COM 12 A
Nostalgia
One notable idea in this chapter is the idea of nostalgia. This chapter awakens Win's character through the e-mail of Cayce's mother. Apparently, there are eerie evidences that suggests that Win has been calling Cayce's attention. Namely, the EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena). These series of events trigger why the title of this chapter is so: The Dead Remembers. And by saying that the dead remembers, we can conclude that it talks about memory (which is garnered from the past). When we do meddle with our past, we become nostalgic. Nostalgia is somehow, something that we see ourselves do. Most of the time, inevitably. We usually reminisce on our past experiences and somehow dwell on it temporarily. What makes nostalgia interesting is that we, being nostalgic, is wandering in the past as if it is just around the corner. And yet, in spite of these 'daydreamings', we do recognize that these events of the past is long before…gone.
A clip from YouTube shows that a girl is starting to compile her thoughts on what she will be remembering when the future comes.
She starts with the phrase,
"When I grow up, I will remember…"
This is similar to time capsules. Time capsules are things that we create that we would want to check out again in the mere future. Usually, it is in a form of chests, boxes and bottles. It is usual for its maker to bury it in the ground to preserve it and suggest it to be 'a thing from the past.' Such time capsules are made almost solely for sentimental and nostalgic values.
In this video, the girl made some sort of a time capsule…through technological means.
Maybe someday, she'll go back to this video and laugh at the past she has been in. I'm sure that some things that she said will be forgotten in due time. That would be ironic especially when she says: "When I grow up, I will remember…"
This video earned numerous video responses too. This only shows that people are really nostalgic in nature. These people share what they will be remembering from the past. They shared similar to the format as the first one.
Click this link to be directed to YouTube video responses
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The Damien-Marina Connection
Damien and Marina's relationship is like what we call in Filipino gamitan. (Due to a lack of a better term.) Gamitan is a kind of relationship in which two people use each other for their own advantage. It may be considered as a mutual relationship—you give and you take. Marina is Damien's line producer and because of her resources, she will have a vital role for the making of his film. Similarly, Marina is also Damien's girlfriend.
I quote1:
[Damien:] "I can't make this film without her."
[Cayce:] "Don't you think it might be easier if you weren't in a relationship as well?"
[Damien:] "No. In fact, it wouldn't be at all…"
This kind of relationship makes me remember how peer to peer file sharing works. Although it sounds far fetched, it seems to me that they have the similar main idea, you receive and you give. In this day and age, file sharing has been there to make life easier. It creates a space in which people will be able to share what they have and take what they need.
Below is an illustration on how peer-to-peer file sharing works:2
This, on the other hand, is the download process:
In a nutshell, the jargon is leeching:receiving::seeding:giving.
For thorough explanations on how this works, click the link below:
Click this link to be diverted to HowStuffWorks: "How BitTorrent Works"
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Keeping Track
One recurring idea from the novel is the idea of information theft through technology. The idea of hacking has been implied throughout the novel. In this chapter specifically, we can see the conversation of Cayce and Boone regarding this issue3:
[Boone:] "I need that jpeg" he tells her. "E-mail it to me."
[Cayce:] "Is that safe?"
[Boone:] "Taki's e-mailed it to your friend, and your friend e-mailed it to you. If anyone is keeping track of us that way, they already have it."
Hacking has been widespread starting years ago. Until now, it is still apparent. Hacking may be used for the good and for the bad depending on the person. It is a skill, like karate. Either you use it to defend or protect, or to assault and destroy.
Below is a video showing a demo of a software which can protect your computer by recording all activities that your keyboard makes. If other people uses your computer and types their password and usernames, you will be able to retrieve these private information.
Keylogger's website may be accessed here.
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**Note: This video is also directly connected with Cayce's Paranoia about hackers in Chapter 27: The Shape of Enthusiast
Click here to jump to Chapter 27's Chapter Annotation
This is another clip about hacking. (YouTube is really like SM, they've got it all.) Now, the software enables its users to connect a Flash Disk to a victim's computer. Afterwhich, all information will be transfered to the Flash Disk. This idea makes me remember a scene from Iron Man when Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) gets all information from a PC discreetly via a Flash Disk.
Click here if you want another interesting video about USB Hacking.4
Missing
When the September 11 (World Trade Center) terrorist attack happened, thousands of people died. Some went missing. This lead the people to post flyers about their lost relative or friends. Since no corpse are available that may be an evidence for the death of the missing people, they still didn't lose hope. Until there is no evidence negating what they believe in, there will still be hope.
In the novel, Cayce remembers putting posters of her missing dad. Win Pollard is a fictional character but his surroundings are based in reality. The events and illustrations are actually accurate. This made us feel that we have a connection to them. We seem to know the world they are living in. Somehow, we see it similar, if not exact. In this chapter, Cayce even remembers the fact that no two posters were placed on top of each other. Perhaps, it is a sign that people still haven't forgotten their ethics.
I quote5:
She had, while producing her own posters, watched the faces of other people's dead, emerging from adjacent copiers at Kinko's, to be mounted in the yearbook of the city's loss. She had never, while putting hers up, seen one face pasted over another, and that fact, finally, had allowed her to cry, hunched on a bench in Union Square, candles burning at the base of a statue of George Washington.
The picture below supports this claim:
Furthermore, there is a site in which its primary goal is to help advertise those who are missing. It is somewhat an 'online cork board' in which people can post the people who are gone missing after the event. The site also promotes their events and efforts to speed up the search. It promotes their exhibits of these flyers.
Check the site by clicking here.
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Wake Me Up or I'll Kill You
In this chapter, Cayce talks to Damien about where she will stay that night. Damien insists on letting her stay in his place. When Cayce is partially persuaded to do so, she said this line6:
"You've convinced me. I can't see straight. But if you go back to Russia without waking me, I'll kill you."
This line reminds me of a child insisting his mom not to leave the house just yet. I personally remember chasing and pulling my mom just so she wouldn't get away. But she managed to have a technique. She always leaves when I'm asleep. This idea also reminds me of a conversation I heard from the radio. It was a conversation in FM 93.1 The Morning Rush with Chicco and Delamar. There, they have a segment called The Daily Top Ten. On the episode Top Ten Quotes from your Family, I heard them talk about this quote:
A kid: Mommy, wake me up before you leave, okay?
Mom: Why?
A kid: So that I could cry.
So sweet. haha.
To download that segment from The Morning Rush with Chicco and Delamar, click this.
To check out other episodes of the Daily Top 10, click here.
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I guess that line (Cayce's line to Damien) really is consistent and truthful to reality.
While we're at it, on a lighter note, we can listen to Wham!'s Wake Me Up Before You Go Go. That quote made me remember this song. Hilarious.
Disclaimer: After watching this, I couldn't remove the song from my head. Watch at your own risk. Don't tell me I didn't warn you…
(Are you hearing the song now from your head? Wake me up before you go-go…)
Jitterbug.
News Watch
After the incident about Cayce's Father, she could not watch any television anymore. Most especially, the news.
I quote7:
And then she had walked home, all the way, to her silent cave with its blue-painted floors, and had trashed the software that had allowed her to watch CNN on her computer. She hadn't really watched television since, and never, if she could help it, the news.
Because of the rapid advancement of technology today, we can see that computers can now replace our televisions. There are programs that allows us to watch televisions through our own personal computer.
Click this link to be directed to an article on how to watch television shows through a software
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Conversely, you can also watch shows via video streaming. This feature (video streaming) is the same as YouTube's.
As seen below, you can watch CNN without downloading any software.
Click this to go directly to the site
