love+connection.

Love plays a large part in the American Character in it's various forms: self-love, mutual love, material love, familial love, or, of course, unrequited love (the most unpleasant, but yet sadly the most common...or so it seems, at least). I chose the poem by Robert Hass because I felt like it connected so incredibly directly to __The Great Gatsby__, as I couldn't help but think of him every time I read the poem. A large chunk of Hass' poem talks about a guy losing the girl he loves, feeling that jealousy and anger knowing she's off somewhere, fucking another man, and the intense sadness he feels from all of this. This is what Gatsby felt. When Daisy said she did in fact love Tom, it ripped Gatsby apart. The Sam Cooke Song, "Tennessee Waltz" also relates to this, as it is about a guy who let's his girl dance with his friend, and while they were dancing, his friend steals his girl (ouch).

Beyond that, I felt like the quote from Holden Caulfield from __Catcher in the Rye__ (aka one of my favorite books) fit nicely as it states simply that girls can drive you crazy and stop you from thinking straight, no matter what they do, even when they're dumb or not much to look at. This also connects back to Gatsby as even when Daisy knocked him down and went home with Tom, Gatsby didn't stop loving her, almost as if Daisy had literally put him under a spell. Other than that, the picture of the heart at the top of the page fit nicely because...well...it's a heart (and all the pictures of other hearts were too cheesy).

In terms of the Allen Gisnberg piece and the quote from //The Wonder Years//, I just felt like they were nice ways to open and close the page.

And really, who //doesn't// like the //The Wonder Years//?

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