Revolutionary Revlon

          The fifty-five billion dollar beauty industry is jeopardized by Harvard graduate, Grace Choi. Grace has revolutionized the makeup world by inventing a 3D printer that she calls the Mink, and takes an image of any color and prints that color "to make lipstick, lip gloss, eye shadow, blush, nail polish, brow powder..." Any other type of cosmetic product, including foundations and face powder, are yet to be made compatible with the Mink.

          For the most part, this printer is still in the prototype stage. Choi predicts the Mink to be sold between two hundred and three hundred dollars at first release and tells her interviewers that she plans on knocking back the prices once this product becomes more popular. Her target market is for young girls ages 13-21 years old.

          This printer is revolutionary in the way that it makes obtaining the latest beauty products quick and simple. When asked if the future included women making and selling cosmetics from home Grace responds "Absolutely yes. It not only creates new jobs, it creates freedom. The whole point of Mink is to stimulate creativity and open opportunities for women, empower them, and give them the freedom to do what they want in terms of how they want to live their lives. They can be entrepreneurs, support themselves and not be tied down to a structured job if that’s what they want. That’s one of the goals that I set out to do."

Information from this article found on:
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/deniserestauri/2014/06/30/a-harvard-woman-is-blowing-up-the-55-billion-beauty-industry-with-3d-printed-makeup/

Falling

          This article was about a controversial photograph that was taken on 9/11 that was titled The Falling Man. Not only does it explain the photo with how it was taken, who took, it and why it brought up problems in the community, this article describes the events in excruciating detail. I wrote this poem to portray less of what was dealt with the controversy, and more of the descriptive imagery that Tom Junod provides in his article.

This is the poem:

Like an arrow in his last instances of life,
embracing the fate he has not chosen.
Inevitable death; a missile or spear.
Deciding to get on with it,
attaining his own end.
Unidentified- The Falling Man.

Jumping, to escape, to breathe once more.
From all four sides, from every floor.
Like parachutists, evenly spaced and forming an arc.
Plummeting, the force ripping
desperate fabric from desperate hands.
Landing on people below, instant death.

Tumbling bodies eerily silent,
those on the ground left screaming.
Woman wailing "God! Save their souls!"
Americans responding with acts of
heroism, generosity, and martyrdom.
An ending as unimaginable as it was unbearable.

          I included these specific details because they stood out from all the rest. All of these lines were striking to me when I read the article. I felt these words gave an accurate description of the events that occurred that day.

The Falling Man:
http://premium.esquire.com/the-falling-man

The Fear of Death

          I remember waking up in a panic. I could hardly catch my breath knowing that my biggest fear is what I had dreamt of the most; death. Not just the fear of dying, but the fear of never waking up again. I fear about the way I die on top of the pain I might feel. What if there is nothing to welcome me after I pass? No afterlife. I worry most about bringing misery to those who love and care for me, Death is what scares me more than anything living.

          When I awoke, I recounted my dream as if it were reality: I was young again, say seven or eight years old; back when we lived at the dingy yellow house with the bright red door. My brother and I were playing in the front yard; tag was the game we both preferred most. He was it. I remember him chasing me around the decorative pile of shrubs my parents had plastered into the lawn just a few summers before. He'd inch clockwise around the stones so I'd do the same until he sprung at me. I ran like the wind, not a worry other than "don't tag me!" As he got closer and closer, I ran farther and farther. Mistakenly running into the street where they had never inserted a slow down sign, or one that monitored the speed of the driver. The only warning ever being a "Deaf Child" sign that was placed there long before we moved in.

          My life was in slow motion, bounding into the street with each passing moment wondering why I never stopped to look both ways. In one of those moments however, I did look to my left, seeing bright yellow headlights and stopping dead in my tracks. The impact was painless, seeing as how this was a dream, and I was gone in an instant. The truck that hit me was nowhere to be found; a hit and run.

          As if from a movie, I recollect a ghostlike figure rising from the remains of my dismembered, frail body. I was that ghostlike figure. Looking around for someone to notice I was dead, my brother had vanished, running inside to tell my parents the news. All three of my family members ran back out and began weeping. Inaudible, their sobs were that which I would never get out of my head. My spirit saw the misery and torment that my death had brought my loved ones.

          It was hopeless and desperate the way I tried to force myself back to life; I tried to pick up the pieces as if I were Humpty-Dumpty. Knowing there was nothing I could do and no way that I could return, I wept there with my family, hurt that I could never actually comfort them. Hours passed and there was no bright light. No sign of heaven or hell, but limbo which I would never grow accustomed to.