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"I like that the Mall serves as our national Tupperware, reliable and empty, waiting to be filled with potluck or whatever." (p. 248)

RHETORIC-With Vowell's metaphors, they are mostly hit or miss. Some are universal enough that just about anyone can understand them, and others require a little more background information to fully understand. This is one of the better ones. Comparing the Mall to Tupperware shows Vowell's creative side as a writer. I mean, I would never have come up with that in a million years. Its her figurative language and rhetoric that make me respect her as a writer. Other than that, I can't really give her much credit.

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"There is one thing that the assassinated Americans have in common." (p.211)

INTERPRETATION- Finally, I am starting to see an end to this novel. Before this sentence, I was clueless as to how she might finally wrap up the book. It just seemed like it could quite possibly go on forever. This sentence will probably end up being the beginning of the end as Vowell now seems to be trying to tie the novel's contents together.

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"Then I nod at Gandhi, whose bronze statue stands on the square's western edge. They shot him too."(p. 255)

EVALUATION- Luckily for Vowell, she seems to end her novel with a writing choice that could have been a lot worse. If I had read this book when it first came out, I would've believed that she intended to make a sequel. However, seeing as I am reading this 13 years after it was published and there doesn't appear to be a sequel, this closure seems to act as an opportunity for the reader to do their own research. We've been given all of this information on presidential assassinations by Vowell and, almost like a teacher giving her students an assignment, she is giving us a topic, Gandhi, to research for ourselves. She probably assumes that only those interested enough in history to do their own research could read her book beginning to end anyway.

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"For William McKinley, it was a day trip to Niagara Falls...Thomas Edison's company filmed the Pan-American Exposition... And all that beauty was made possible because George Westinghouse of Buffalo harnessed Niagara Falls into his alternating current, the same current that would soon be used to fry Leon Czolgosz in the electric chair. Edison filmed a reenactment of the Czolgosz execution too, but then he would ." (p. 212)

BASIC-Why is it typical for Vowell to praise the actions of these killers and applaud the series of events that occurred prior and immediately following the crime itself? Especially with the dark humor, it is easy for one to wonder what sparked the author's deep compulsion to these heinous acts of malice. I would be very intrigued to learn why and how this woman connected herself to the assassination of the leaders of our great nation.

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"So that's what I do to cheer myself on. At the halfway point-- those Korean restaurants on Thirty-Second-- I know I'll make it to the top." (p. 226)

REFLECTION- I can relate to what Vowell is saying here on two completely different levels. One of which is that I have been to a Korean restaurant on Thirty-Second and let me tell you, I will never forget it. I have not eaten there in over 5 years, but no Korean restaurant in Knoxville can ever compare to the dumplings or the lo mein that I ate there. On a deeper level, I also measure my goals in weird units. She is measuring her hiking distance with walking blocks, which is something I'd totally do. For example, if I am waiting to be seated at a restaurant and the server tells me my wait will be about 25 minutes, I would convince myself its not a long way by comparing it to the length of an episode of The Office, which I can sit through dozens of at a time.

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"Normally, my sister has bottomless patience for looking at things having to do with dead people and extinct dinosaurs Owen and I are interested in, but its been a long day." (p. 191)

REFLECTION- In this situation, I see Sarah Vowell as my sister. When I went to South Dakota with my sister and my dad, my sister had taken up an extreme interest in astronomy. This was when I was about 13, so I just did not appreciate it the same way she did. One night, I remember sitting in our rental car in the Badlands for 2 and a half hours as my sister laid on the pavement just gazing at the stars. As it got later and later, I began to lose patience and begged her to stop, so I completely relate to Vowell's sister in this scenario.

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"I wonder how many times the dog walker has allowed his pet to pee on it. McKinley's death is a part of this neighborhood life." (p.194)

EVALUATION- There are very few paragraphs that stand out to me in this book, but this is one of them. I cant exactly put my finger on why, but I love how she chose to write about the plaque. Something I commonly find myself doing is wondering the history of people and things and what they've gone through and this whole paragraph just captures this perfectly.

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"My favorite, though, is Martin Luther King Jr., who had a pillow fight with his brother and his friends at the Lorraine Motel. I very much enjoy picturing that, and when I do, I see it in slow motion, in black and white. A room full of men in neckties horse around laughing, bonking heads, feathers floating in the air."   (p. 211)

RANT/RAVE-This woman seriously should have became a writer of Criminal Minds, not a writer of New York Times Bestsellers. She writes of Dr. King as if he was a next door neighbor whom she has known for years; however, the fact that she enjoys reminiscing in the life of this dead man is utterly insidious, and thus, I am repulsed at her satisfaction.

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"We had of course won the Revolutionary War against the British, but no one was certain if that marked our beginning as an international force to be reckoned with, or if it was a fluke victory inspired by our willingness to die before we'll pay too many taxes." (p. 199)

INTERPRETATION- Something I've noticed about Vowell's style of writing is that she likes to include a little dash of humor when her writing is becoming extremely factual; I think its what stops her writing from becoming a textbook. The last part of this quote actually made me laugh because I found it rather relatable. I believe she included it to break up the matter-of-fact tone that had been brewing and lighten up the tone.

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"Mr. Loner McBookworm, on the other hand, stands up and breaks it to his audience, the future achievers of America, that the price of the supposedly fulfilling attainment one's personal and professional dream is the irritating way it cuts into one's free time." (p. 134)

REFLECTION- I can completely relate to the message that Garfield was trying to convey in his speech. I try to maintain good grades, but with that comes the struggle of also maintaining a social life and having downtime at the end of the day. Its pretty much impossible to juggle. I could just forget about my goals and have endless amount leisure, but then I would have no direction to go in the future. If I completely devote my life to achieving my goals, I'd drive myself crazy constantly working.

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"I am pro-plaque." (p.159)

INTERPRETATION-Sarah Vowell included this simple sentence for an important reason. Up until I read that sentence, I never would've even thought that plaques would really cause a controversy. However, after reading that, I decided to take up my own opinion, which made reading about hers all the more interesting. It was an ingenious way to engage her audience.

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"That's nice you could get something from a genocidal monster..." (p. 184)

RANT/RAVE- I can understand making this kind of joke around friends and such, but considering she said this to someone she had just met, I think it was quite uncalled for. I'd say I am a pretty sarcastic person, but I know much better than to say something so snarky to someone who could possibly take it the wrong way. Vowell had literally no idea if the woman had any sense of humor at all and could've given herself an incredibly bad first impression with this sentence. However, based on Vowell's writing, I am not surprised at all that she would just come right out and say something like this to just anyone.

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"It actually took the assassin a couple of weeks to summon the nerve to pull the trigger, and al tat time he tracked the movements of the president and his friends and family, hunting him." (p. 170)

RHETORIC- The very last part of this sentence completely dehumanizes Garfield. It's basically comparing him to an animal being hunted down for a game. To me, this makes Guiteau seem even more mentally ill for killing the president because he was able to murder him as if he was just an animal.

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"Thankfully, we Americans have evolved, our hearts made larger, our minds more open. welcoming compassion and respect." (p.130)

BASIC- I cannot tell if this is supposed to be sarcasm or not. Don't get me wrong, America has definitely come a long way since 1880, but this quote makes it seem like America is full of open-minded people. Considering how split our country is regarding politics, I would say that if Vowell was not being sarcastic here, then it is an example of a bad writing choice. She even contradicts her own sentence right after by calling the Republican victory in the 2000 presidential election tragic. That doesn't seem very respectful or open-minded, does it?

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"... a tree planted in a cemetery at Queens (it died)" (p. 153)

RHETORIC- I am not entirely sure if she included the parentheses because she did not want her audience to go try to find the tree or because she thought it would be a good source of irony. I'm leaning toward the irony side because I want to have faith that Vowell put more thought into it, but I am not entirely sure. Regardless, this little bit of information seemed to actually help her writing. Her figurative language and sarcasm is quite frankly the only thing keeping this book alive for me at this point.

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"Garfield would be trapped in the middle of two fraction, an Archie forever whiplashed between the Veronica of Conkling and the Betty of Blaine." (p. 132)

EVALUATION- Vowell got really lucky with this metaphor. At the time she wrote this book, she never would've known that the Archie comics would be made into a popular TV show among teenagers. Honestly, if it weren't for the TV show, I wouldn't have been able to fully understand this metaphor, but it's still an example of one of the better figurative language choices Vowell has made.

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“So for the good of the party, he swallows his pride and reserved a room at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The Fifth Avenue Hotel, on the corner of Twenty-third, housed the New York Republican Party headquarters. It was there Chester Alan Arthur kept his office...”

RANT/RAVE— I just don’t understand why any of this information is relevant. I can not keep up with Vowell’s writing. Honestly, I feel like I am on one Wikipedia page and just keep clicking the blue links to other pages in an endless vicious cycle. It’s like she starts off with James Garfield and never finishes because everytime she thinks of something else she knows too much about, she just has to include it. Even after this quote, she continues to spit out even more completely irrelevant facts about a Hotel Garfield stayed at for no apparent reason.

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" ‘What was it like when these people were born in that generation of Americans?’ he wondered, continuing, ‘So at that point I came across Jonathan Edwards and his sermon “Sinners in the Hands if an Angry God.” Do you know it?’“ (p. 150)

REFLECTION— Again, I was completely lost and wasn’t processing anything Vowell was saying. But, once she mentioned Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, I actually understood one of her references. This allowed me to finally acknowledge what she was saying and I wasn’t totally bored with the book for once. Unfortunately, this was short-lived. Once she began to describe this sermon in an unnecessary amount of detail that I already knew, I was once again lost. :(

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"I bring up the following story for one reason and it has nothing to do with fairness, I'm in it for the mummy." (p.91)

EVALUATION- I loved the story that she told after this sentence. Somehow, she included enough information that I probably couldn't have learned more from a textbook; however, I didn't feel bored reading it. Throughout her book, I haven't particularly enjoyed her writing style as I find it rather fidgety, but in this context, it helps her writing. I believe it's because she keeps her story pretty short and doesn't add a bunch of unnecessary fluff that I wouldn't remember anyway.

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"She sighs, murmuring, 'I really feel sorry for John Wilkes... God knows he was not the only one who would have shot Lincoln." (p.96)

EVALUATION- Initially, I wanted to say that this was an incredibly bad writing choice. However, as I thought it through, I realized that its always good to look at the other side of things no matter how one-sided they may seem. Referring to the beginning of the book, Booth identified Lincoln as a tyrant. Now, I am not saying that Booth's actions were justifiable in any way, but I have to say that no one deserves to get shot, not even Booth. I am not really a believer in an eye for an eye in most cases, including this one. Booth definitely should not have been a free man, but maybe he didn't deserve to be murdered. At first glance, I believed it was wrong for Vowell to include this in the book, but considering one of her main goals is to shed light on assassins, this sentence was powerful.

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"You know Jeremy Bentham... he had his body mummified with the stipulation in his will that he shall attend all of the annual meetings. So they keep his body in the closet and then they have to wheel him out." (p.97)

INTERPRETATION- I'm hoping Vowell included this to make her seem slightly more normal. Like, this is next level crazy. After reading this, I got a newfound respect for Vowell because at least she hasn't reached this point of insanity yet. I now realize Vowell could be much worse and I am grateful that I am reading her words and not Benthams, although I think it would be interesting to understand his reasoning behind being so extra as to force people to haul his corpse into meetings.

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"The plot to murder Abraham Lincoln started out as a plot to kidnap him, or rather it was one of several such kidnapping schemes." (p. 29)

RANT/RAVE- It could be just me, but this sentence made me look forward to the rest of the book. For whatever reason, I've always been fascinated with the Civil War time period, which includes Abraham Lincoln's assassination. As early as third grade, I remember most of my favorite books related back to topics relevant to the Civil War. I also personally love mysteries and this sentence set up the following passage as though it would be like unraveling the mysteries/ uncommon facts of Lincoln's murder. To say the least, I was slightly disappointed with the sentences that followed. There were too many tangents for my taste and I felt like I had to try so hard just to follow along.

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"I mention that I was disappointed that the Mutter's Booth and Guiteau specimens don't show up on FindAGrave.com. Worden has never heard of my favorite website." (p.95)

Basic- Was Vowell seriously surprised that Worden had never heard of this website? This makes me question how Vowell views her audience. Does she believe that her obsession isn't abnormal? You'd think that if she acknowledged the fact that she seems slightly insane due to her obsession with death then she'd also just expect most people to not know of websites like FindAGrave.com. I must say, out of curiosity, I visited that website just now and as much as I want to be creeped out by it, it's not a bad idea. However, I do think that for it to be someone's favorite website, they much be a little too fixated with death.

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"Though it's hard to blame a kid for wanting more out of life than holding back his father's hair every ight as he vomited up his Shakespearean pay..." (p. 101)

RHETORIC- This is a very strong example of pathos. It evoked a sense of pity in me that I hadn't experienced before while reading this book. For a split second, I almost felt bad for John Wilkes Booth. It made me question, had he had a better upbringing, if Lincoln might not have been assassinated by Booth. I believe that everyone is a product of their conditioning. If Booth had a loving family, he might not have felt so much anger that inevitably led to assassination Lincoln.

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"I ask how the museum came into possession of its Booth specimen."(p.94)

RANT/RAVE- I was honestly taken aback that there was something that Vowell did not know about Booth. Actually, I was even more surprised that she admitted to asking a question. Throughout basically the whole book, I've noticed she makes it seem like she was just born knowing every detail, no matter how small, regarding presidential assassinations. This made her seem less like an encyclopedia and more of a real human because even she has to ask questions.

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"After all, if no one had hated Lincoln, there would be no Lincoln Memorial to love." (p. 17)

RHETORIC- This almost acts as a paradox that shows the reader that Lincoln's present poularity can be traced back to how he died. When i first read this, I had to really think about it because at first, it seemed contradictory, but as it processed, I realized there was a deeper, genuine meaning behind it. It points out to the reader that part of Lincoln's legacy revolves around his assassination.

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"Now a person with sharper social skills than I might have noticed that as these folks are their freshly baked blueberry muffins and admired the bed-and- breakfast’s teapot collection, they probably didn’t want to think about the presidents gunshot wounds.” (p. 3-4)

BASIC- The awkward exchange between Vowell and the three people at breakfast serves as a way to visualize how people react to Vowell in the real world. This prompts the reader to start forming a bias opinion of Vowell based on her obsession with death. I’m not sure why she would want the reader to see her as crazy, but it definitely made me curious as to what the book will really have in store. She might include it as a way to prove that herself and her opinions are reliable.

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"Well I can come up with at least that many assassinations off the top of my head from the last two years alone as if playing some particularly geopolitical game of Clue.” (p. 8)

INTERPRETATION- This truly proves to the reader how obsessed with death Sarah Vowell is. After the quote, she lists off 7 specific assassinations and where they took place--none of which I knew about. It’s almost like she wants the reader to think she's obsessed with death to a point where she's become insane.

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"The fall damaged Booth's leg but not his flair for drama. Sic semper tyrannis!' he shouted." (p. 52)

INTERPRETATION- I think that Vowell was trying to shed some light on Booth when she highlights the fact that he calls Lincoln a tyrant. Killing a tyrant seems less evil than killing a president does. Although I believe its weird to defend any murderer, it does make her come across as less biased in my eyes.

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"Lincoln was late for his own assassination." (p. 46)

RHETORIC- Sarah Vowell's use of rhetorical language is one of the few things about her writing that draws me in. The use of irony in this sense was a nice touch to her writing. If it weren't for statements like these, I would completely despise her way of writing.

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"I'm not sure  which story I believe..." (p. 37)

BASIC- Sarah Vowell is seemingly one of the most opinionated authors I've ever read so it surprises me that she actually does not have a strong opinion on something for once. It leaves me wondering why she cannot make up her mind.

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"We proceeded to remove the entire brain... Think about that. I know I have. For the first few days after i read that, every time I took a five dollar bill out of my wallet I looked at the engraving of Lincoln's head and couldn't get the image of his detached brain out of my head." (p. 51)

EVALUATION- I think this was very clever of Vowell to incorporate into her text. I didn't really think much about how they had to remove Lincoln's entire brain until she went into gruesome detail and even related it to the $5 bill. Unfortunately, I, too, will now think of Lincoln with his detached brain every time I see a $5 bill now. Nevertheless, I am glad she included this part because I was starting to lose focus while reading but this, by catching me completely off guard, got me back on track.

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"But I paused on the balcony stairs for a second, thinking about how these were the very stairs that Booth climbed to shoot at Lincoln..." (p. 22)

REFLECTION- As someone who loves travelling to historic sites, one of my favorite reasons for travelling so much is the fact that I can stand on such historic grounds. I could finally put some of my otherwise useless knowledge to use when I stood feet away from where Caesar was stabbed. I related to Sarah Vowell in this moment because I understood how great it feels to be able to apply otherwise futile facts to the real world.

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"Hanging above a doorway is a replica of a sign Mudd knew well, reading, 'whoso entereth her leaveth all hopes behind.' " (p. 73)

RANT/RAVE- I think including this sentence was one of the best things Vowell has done in the whole book. Alluding to Dante's Inferno really sets the atmosphere of how dreary the cell. It was a great way of describing the cell without actually describing it if that makes any sense. Almost her whole book is just detail and explanation so it was nice to read a description that was more of a comparison than a description.

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"If I were to travel back in time and confront my great-grandfather the terrorist..."(p. 64)

REFLECTION- While I relate to Sarah Vowell in the sense that I, too, wish I could go back in time to talk to my ancestors, our motives for doing so are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I wouldn't exactly want to travel back in time to meet any ancestors that were horrible people (or terrorists in this case). I would much rather talk to my ancestors about their accomplishments and learn more about my family tree. I believe this also reflects in our personalities because while I am reading her book, I feel like I am in the mind of my polar opposite.

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"The mention of the black vomit cheers me up. It makes the pale green yogurt I threw up this morning on the boat seem comparatively festive..." (p.74)

BASIC- Okay why was any of this necessary? It adds nothing of importance to the book and all it did was kind of gross me out. I've caught on that she likes to add in completely arbitrary statements that I assume is to liven up a historical book, but this is just weird. I don't particularly like nor care about her connection with the black vomit and why it cheers her up. I just find it rather odd.