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Essay on Influences and Reality

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Influences and Reality

As adults do we tend to read the styles we've grown up with? Do we find ourselves subscribing to and reaching for magazines in the checkout line that our parents read? I do. As I become more independent I see subtle changes in the styles around me but find myself grounded in what my parents, my brothers and my environment have familiarized me with.

Strewn around me are volumes of "Outdoor Life", "Prevention", "Better Homes and Gardens", "Midwest Living", "Vogue" and "Masonry Construction." A magazine to satisfy many interests, each containing pieces of my life. You will not find "Time" or "Forbes" in my hands unless I have research to do in them for school. I am not familiar with politics, big business or …show more content…

A great influence on the styles around me is attributed to where I live and intend to live. The first magazines I looked at as a child were "Masonry Construction" and "Popular Mechanics" because that is what my dad read. When my family moved up north to a resort from the Twin Cities suddenly my world at the age of six was changed and I loved it. I think I was too young to fully appreciate styles of writing at age six but as I got older I saw my way of life in other magazines such as "Country Living." A conservative, country life; simple and surrounded by beauty.

"Country Living" and "Better Homes and Gardens" have a small town, country style. The articles and information given have conversational tones, a sense that something is sincere and shared. Recipes are often given with a story to introduce their significance, perhaps a family memory; not just jotted down for another to copy. The writing involves me. I think "What a great memory" and as I look on I see that I could make the same dish with ease. I enjoy stories about other rural peoples' lives and how they cope with weeds in their vegetable garden or how they added a porch to their home and now enjoy "Eavesdropping on a wren's refrain and watching a game of squirrel tag in the treetops" (Nolan 90). The style is family and nature oriented and aesthetic.

"Midwest Living" sparks my interest because of my life on the resort. Articles address

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