Art, Lies, Whatevs

For this post I choose to again disregard the assignment (and accept whatever penelty that comes with this action) and instead respond to a peer's.

Hello Sarah Parman, en gaurde!

This section of Art and Lies seems to be focused on the family and the lies that are a part of each family's history. The narrator talks about how her family, especially her mother, seems to value the lies and artificial history over the truth of what has happened to them as a family.

The following is my favorite selection from the chapter. It's located on page 42 of our edition:

"I have tried to follow her as she passes from room to room. I have tried to remember the things she sees with self-justifying power.

At Christmas, when all my family line up for the annual guided tour of the house, I try to keep up, but I fall further and further behind. When they gather on the bottom step of family life, to weep a few tears over the babies they used to be and the mother and father they used to be and the dinners cooked and squabbles mended, it's easy to be drawn in. They do dray me in, they scribble me in all their pictures, then lose their temper when I don't recognize myself.

'Wasn't she pretty?' (my mother again). 'Of course in those days she had long hair.'"

A room for each memory. But the rooms are different from mother to child. I know that feeling. I try to "walk down memory lane" with my mother, but I never seem to recognize the history she tells. It is frustrating and confounding. I don't understand where she gets her stories, her memories of the past. I am placed inside them, but like the narrator it is an image that is not the real me, a painting.

Well I recognize that my interpretation may not be accurate, I think my mother and I have often reached a decent consensus on various issues of both our lives and, in cases of shared history (such as my upbringing) have managed to shift one way or another...usually with her to my side of things. In many ways I have shattered her image or me and done my best to replace it with the "actual" me.

The family has built an elaborate web of memories, false memories according to the narrator. The memories make up a whole house, a whole history of the family that is nothing but lies. They look back on this fake family and pride themselves on how normal they were. The phrase "squabbles mended" reminds me of a sitcom. It's like Full House. There was never an episode that ended with the family still fighting. All squabbles had to be mended before the half hour is up.

But life is not like this.

The fake memories take their toll. The narrator suffers. I suffer. Everyone suffers. The only variable is if one acknowledges the pain of the past or pretends it never happened. When the family, more specifically Matthew, calls the doctor it is like they are trying to cover up their past. They refuse to accept that they have made their daughter/sister like this. They have forced her to live her life through her art, in her own reality apart from their lies. Since she refuses to play by their rules, they have to silence her. Having her declared crazy by the doctor will allow them to act like she is the one lying about their past. By making her the liar their own lies are made truths. It's a genius act, but it is also cold and cruel.

But is it unnatural? I don't approve, of course, but are you surprised? I'm not saying you are or aren't, (in fact, I don't believe you are) but this still speaks towards a negative view point of people in general (not necessarily your view point, but the author's). Perhaps that is the real issue...wouldn't someone outside the family see the same things you do? This is also, perhaps, where the story fails due to a perspective on humanity that leans to the lower.

I have discovered in my own life there is no point in talking about the past. Each person has their own version, and disagreeing about it accomplishes nothing. Telling my mother I was unhappy as a child will not change it. She will never admit she was less than perfect in her parenting. She doesn't see the times she left me alone, when I dont have any memories of her being there. So why open the doors? Why go near the house? I'm a few blocks down, staying at a hotel. I know the pain in my past, but I'm keeping the house locked up. I can't change it, so the only affect it has anymore is to make me (or my family) sad.

Oh dear...I must absolutely disagree. We are where we've been at least as much as where we're going. While there are great things to be said for non-linear storytelling/thinking/processing, the truth is that we, as humans, live in a linear process of perception, time keeps on ticking as it were.

To claim there is "no point" in talking about the past, even in relation to "the accomplishment of nothing" as it relates to hopeful concessions between people - of agreed perception of situations - , is to give up on humanity in my opinion!

If there was "no point" then why be here? Why do anything? Why write a word? We must TRY despite the past and because of it. Otherwise, the future is just the past waiting for us to walk through it. The pain of the past may seem unpleasant but the pleasure of the possibilities is made by them.

Victor and the Veil

Does Victor's advice to Walton change by the end of the novel?

I don't think so. It's just that the motivations and circumstances for the intial advice are explained and thus, seem less callous.

Does Latimer resemble Victor?

Resemble? Absolutely. Their obsessive personalities and general hubris are easy to parallel. The choose their goals and pursue them despite the consqeuences and, rather than view them as such - consequences that is - , they regard the effects as the problem of society and "fixable" once they change things. The reality hits them like a break and, boo hoo, they are merely mortal.

3-27-08

1. Is the meaning of the poem the same/different between versions?
Does the format effect meaning??

I don't believe the format effects meaning...at least between these poems...although, depending on how sentimental or - depending on who you ask -...belligerent (?) you want to be, the format could be insulting; while the work behind the permanence (or impermanence? It's far easier to "save" something digital) behind a physical writing is respected.

But the EFFECT, I'm sorry but I far prefer the physical version, digitized or not. This is not because I dislike digital poetry, I tend to work online more than anything else, but because I have a respect for original intention. It's all well and good for something to go beyond the author's intentions...but it bothers me to disregard them completely. The "effect" of seeing, say, the coded version with tags everywhere is one of confusion and unnecessary addition rather than a simple admission, a clear submission of work.

2. What difference (if any) will digitizing make to our understanding of poems?

What do you consider "understanding?"

3. How are each of these versions made (doesn't have to be a techy answer)?

One through the fuel of the author...another from the passion of a historian, haha.

4. What does digitization/ the visual have to do w/this content of the poem?

See number 1?

5. What other questions should we ask?

Is it worth digitizing? Really?

(The answer is yes. :p )

Cloudy

So all of our tag clouds have "Friend," and - to a lesser extent - "friendship," but vary slightly in tone. The earlier letters have a lighter tone of hope despite despair while the later letter is significantly more...uh...depressing.

The Juxta thing is cool in some ways but really I'd rather just print them off and analyze them myself...

1. Did M.S. write 3 different noels?

Yes...technically, as the editing and such is different...but so far as the interpretation and intention match then perhaps they are not so different.

2. What is the difference in those 3 passages, what is agreed to?
The tone is a bit different in each but each recognizes a desire for friendship.

3. How does digitizing those texts help us think about the different versions? (Hint: Visualization.)

They don't effect me too much but that's because I prefer just reading them all myself. I do like the "quick/easy" visual assistance though. I just can't absorb it as deeply unless I do it myself.

A.L. P.H.D.A. T.A. DAY

"If there’s a purpose for poets (which I believe there is), it is to represent their age…Roland and his people, however, are fools (and perhaps poets are too)…such things as politics are uninteresting to the writers

So don’t stop, ever

Strive for the phrase that makes your blood pump

So that the next life may start impressed

With a record of truth"

^A quick interpretation of passage 5 from Book 5 of "Aurora Leigh."

Define "Epic Art"

For me, not as a take on the book, but merely as a reaction, Epic Art is the kind that takes your breath away...which is entirely up to the person percieving "it," "it" being whatever that person considers art.

I suppose the next jump there, one conceding my self-absorption to others, is to say "epic art" is the work that the vast majority of people agree is astounding work.

But what do they know?

Define "Modern Life"

Ugh, all life is "modern." To be alive is to live and thus the time in which you live will always be the latest as far as we perceive it. The next second is the modern. Perhaps the only way to not live a modern life is to live in the past...although there I possibly falter, my melancholy nature betraying a fondness for regret in some regard (but certainly not on the whole). Still, if someone chooses to live in an "old way" I can not call them "old-fashioned" unless their motivations for doing so include an irrational disdain for the "new" rather than an honest appreciation for the "old."

Can there be heros in modern life?

You're reading the writing of one. Be your own hero baby!

Who are the modern day equivalents of the poets that A.L. is writing about?

(In your opinion)

Who's opinion would it belong to otherwise?

I think the modern day equivalents of the poets A.L. is writing about are just those, the poets. Perhaps this is simple and the desired answer more specific (cite a specific writer? Okay, ME.) but there it is.

I hate the phrase "living historian."

For now, I choose not to explain why.

:p

Pronouns (3-18-09)

lulz, of course people are things.

Especially women.

(SARCASM, DON'T KILL ME!)
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Close Reading

Passage 4: Book III, 302-12

And, being but poor, I was constrained, for life,
To work with one hand for the booksellers,
While working with the other for myself
And art. You swim with feet as well as hands
Or make small way. I apprehended this,–
In England, no one lives by verse that lives;
And, apprehending, I resolved by prose
To make a space to sphere my living verse.
I wrote for cyclopædias, magazines,
And weekly papers, holding up my name
To keep it from the mud.

1. At this point in the narrative, Aurora is working and writing London. Although she's working toward her goal of being a poet, what does this passage suggest about the journey to becoming a poet?

It's one filled with compromise, doing things other than poetry to get by.

2. This passage seems to posit prose and poetry as unequal forms of writing. How does Aurora present them as different?

Prose is something she does to get by while poetry is clearly her passion as she does it without pay despite the trouble it causes.

3. Also, take note of the fact that Elizabeth Barrett Browning chooses to write this narrative in poetry, as opposed to prose. How does this further suggest that poetry is preferable to prose? (In short, talk about the function of woman-artist writing a poem in which there is a woman-artist.)

"It's layer after layer to stress how important the medium is." ~ Bess

Fairly surface to me, my group was overthinking this question at first thinking it was searching for something deeper.

Novels = Free Indirect Discourse

Does this exist in games? (Laura.)

Does it exist at all? (My question.)

Movies use voice overs for interior monologue but this fails often, close-ups, images are more common and successful. ~ Laura

Plays use the monologue. ~ Laura

Games have their own set for developing interiority. ~ Laura

"The Hero's interiority is your interiority and vice versa." ~ Laura

What of the silent hero Laura?

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is a wonderful example of an incredibly expressive silent protagonist in a game with limited graphic capabilities.

The protagonist, Super Mario, never says a word, instead the writing of the script implies an understanding on the part of the characters around him combined with hilarious play-mime sequences in which Mario acts out, in a quick and humerous way, the various plot points relevant to explain how the party (the characters you control) arrived at whatever circumstance.

Link from The Legend Zelda: The Windwaker is the same but the graphic are far beyond SMRPG: LotSS. Here you are familiar Laura, with his wide eyes and stylized movements Link is very expressive despite not "speaking" or "thinking" aloud. Instead, his motivations and thoughts are either givin to us implicetly or placed upon him by our own mind...perhaps both.

I feel like that cuts directly to your "movie tools." Rather than wahtever mechanics you seem to espouse in novels, these game have more in common with the various cuts, visual tricks, in film to express deliberation on the part of the characters.

The issue then is, perhaps, that I "don't care?"

Which is to say, there ARE established and effective ways to do things from one genre to another...I just belive that, while they method may differ, if the end result is the same, why the distinction?

Although the second I wrote that I felt awkward...because I do value the power of medium so highly. Hmm...

Continuing from editing...

What about more explicit, direct characters?

Sora's development is upfront in Kingdom Hearts, granted I haven't played enough of the series (although I have played quite a bit). He starts off as what appears to be a care free boy on an island with little to worry about. As the story progresses he is confronted with the concepts of fate, heroism, opposing (but valued) perspectives, the meaning of friendship and/vs duty, but - although he does speak for himself, even giving a monologue or two I believe - the vast majority of this is up for us to draw from and judge upon. I don't think this actaully differes from a text though. As you've touched on in class, reading is an interpretation of symbols...just as playing a game is the same + manipulation of said symbols to progress rather than a mere turning of the page.

Drawing "this character is young and immature" from a scene of a boy on beach building a raft and play fighting is no different than reading a description of a boy on a beach building a raft and play fighting provided you look at the goal of the scene in terms of characterization.

Even in other goals they are simliar. If opening scenes of fiction are meant to establish a contract between the author and the reader of the world and people they will be reading about then the opening scene in Kingdom Hearts is the same, one where the universe is established and the controls introduced, a contract between the designer and the player that states rules of interaction and intention.

Continuing

Okay, Marche Radiuju from Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced goes through an excellent character arc and often questions his actions, his circumstances, the people around him, etc..

In the game Marche, his friends and the people around them, are sucked into a magical book that constructs a world not-unlike the games from the Final Fantasy series (which the characters are aware of, a hilarious and awesome reference of self-awareness very common in video games, which itself is interesting as I think it is something they've always done rather than something that, in writing, has developed over time). Initially this is "cool" and various characters embrace the new world as their own, supposedly forsaking the "real" world.

Meanwhile, Marche is concerned with survival first and returning to the "real" world at a very, very close second...but when confronted with his friends, their perspectives and opinions on whether to return, Marche's resolve comes into question.

He asks himself whether to return is the best thing for him/them. This is not something implicetly drawn from the "text" but something Marche absolutely wonders via dialogue and monologue...which I use to say "personal thinking," he is not addressing an audience but debating with himself.

Is it right to force his younger brother, Doned, into a world where he can walk no longer? (His brother is a cripple in the real world but in Ivalice, the "fictional" world, he is "normal.")

Is it his place to send his friend Ritz back to a world where she feels alone? She has found a place in society unique to her, one in which she is highly valued and appreciated...can he take that away and live with himself?

And what of his friend Mewt? Whose father is the highest knight in the land...but on "earth" is a jobless, alcoholic widower. In fact, in Ivalice, his mother is alive and he is a prince. Why take that away?

Through the course of the story we see deeper motivations and admissions about life and perception, disillusionment and reality, on the part of numerous characters (some "real," some "fictional" !!!) and Marche also finds his resolve.




I feel like you're searching for a difference that is inconsequential, splitting hairs across already split genres. Why not recognize the shared goal?

I'm just not clear on what you're looking for I guess.

Frakenstein

Well I wouldn't call her a hero, when tasked with creating a character from Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, I found the "Hero Creator" woefully inadequate, I couldn't stop thinking of A.B.A. from the excellent fighting game series, "Guilty Gear."

From her sparse Wikipedia article:

A.B.A

* First Appearance: Guilty Gear Isuka

Created atop a mountain home named "Frasco", A.B.A is an artificial life-form, the creation of a scientist who lived within Frasco. However, before her 'birth', the aforementioned scientist was taken away by the military, which was planning to use his skills for unknown reasons. When her eyes opened for the first time, A.B.A found herself alone within Frasco, and lived the first 10 years of her life in total isolation.

Escape from Frasco was not impossible. Nevertheless, A.B.A quickly realized that she had no knowledge of how to exist outside of her home. To find relief from her sadness, she began to collect keys of all kinds, as they represented the opening of a bold new world and an escape from imprisonment.

While roaming outside one day, still tired of her isolated life, A.B.A stumbled upon an ancient relic known as "Flament Nagel". It was love at first sight, as the war relic was shaped like a key, A.B.A decided to keep it as her partner; she renamed it "Paracelsus". Her new goal was to acquire an artificial body for her newfound partner.

Not quite the "paragon of humanity" that The Monster was meant to be but, a created humanoid regardless, who woke up without guidance and seeked meaning. I find her fixation on keys to be particular well done, a powerful symbol indeed.

More interesting though is at the heart of Guilty Gear itself, "Gears" are man-made creations, far superior to us, but at the same time considered less than. I wonder what A.B.A. would think of the Gears? What would they think of her? Hmm...

Wuthering Heights, the Failing (the Movie...and in some ways, the book)

What did _____ do to improve scene _____?

To be honest, I can't answer that.

Because I don't think the film really improved anything except perhaps "simplify" some of the complexity in the method or relaying the story. If you've read the post previous to this one you'll note that, near the end, I complain about the way the story is told through an increasingly complex chain of people/methods. This is superfluous and, I suppose, a sign of the times, what with the novel still in fledgling form and Bronte playing with a "direct" method of telling thoughts. *shrug*

So, the film does away with a bit of that, presenting things in the visual and skipping a few unnecessary narrative loops.

Too bad everything else is terrible...at least, in comparison to the novel.

Okay, that's harsh...it's more like that shouldn't be compared as opposites or parallels. They are simply too different...I'll ignore the question of whether that is a good thing or not.

Instead, I'll point out one scene as an example of irrevocable change.

In the novel, a major point of tension is that Heathcliffe and Catherine, while very open to themselves and us as readers, and in many ways to each other, never actually come straight out and say how they feel until AFTER Catherine marries Edgar. In this way, the actions of both characters, while sad or frustrating, are also understandable and - to the reader and possibly between the two - even forgivable, with or without apology.

Meanwhile, in the film, in a similar scene to one of their confrontations (about halfway through the each version), Heathcliffe PHYSICALLY STRIKES CATHERINE.

This is INSANELY changing to me. Maybe I am recalling the novel differently (it's been a few weeks, haha) but I'm pretty sure this never happened...but in the movie, there it is. This is an action that is entirely inappropriate for Heathcliffe, would give Catherine a VERY real reason to marry Edgar and, essentially, removes all tension or apprehension that exists in the novel with a mere playing out of events.

I've no clue why they made such a change and utterly disapprove.

Emphasizing the Digital - A bit of me on Bronte

Her: i get involved in things and stay up later sometimes

Me: The same for me, except it happens all the time.

Me: "My past haunts me, if I do not distract myself until the very moment I slip into unconsciousness it will consume me, of this I have no doubt and have experienced many a time." ~ This is how I talk to my sister and other people I favor. hahahaha

Her: you wax poetic

Me: indeed m'lady

Me: although, the BritLit course I'm currently reading for may have something to do with my diction as of late.

Me: bloody Wuthering Heights

Her: hahaha

Me: have you read it?

Me: or perhaps seen the film?

Her: i've read it, haven't seen the movie

Me: Please, bestow upon me your thoughts of it.

Her: it was interesting

Her): not my favorite, but pretty good

Her: heathcliff was a pretty sweet character too

Me: hmmm

Me: I am, perhaps, halfway through the novel

Me: I found the beginning rather entertaining, taking delight in the misanthropy and general peevishness of many a character

Me: soon their actions grew weary though

Me: each of them irredeemable

Me: Catherine's death and Heathcliff's admissions of emotion have kept me turning the pages but I recognize my sympathy has been manipulated and that actual actions of Heathcliff are not to be accepted

Me: still, pages to go

Her: oh there are good times to be had

Her: actually i don't remember, it has been a long time

Me: well know that to my fresh eyes Heathcliff, who I so wanted to like, what with devilish nature, has done little to appear worthy of the words printed for him.

Her: he's flawed

Me: the only quality I've left to likr him for is his love for Catherine which he mars via deplorable action. The depiction suggests that even for his time period his choices are unacceptable. I've no clue what greater message Bronte wishes to impart nor the motivation to seek it. She has failed this reader.

Her: :(

Me: Well am I to do? Blame Catherine? Oh yes, blame the woman, that's all fine and dandy but even he sees his terrible fault. I don't want him to be some shining saint but to treat the various others around him as he does rather than brood alone...he is not pure in anything nor does he try to be! There's no honor in a thing he does yet!

Her: i like him because he's kind of an asshole

Her: good characters are boring

Me: he doesn't have to be "good"

Me: I love the "bad" characters

Me: but he is, so far, a villian without merit at all!

Me: and yet can't embrace that either

Me: he tries to come off as a gentleman in some ways still!

Me: bah

Her: yeah he's a pretty ambiguous character
Me: in class I will complain of Bronte's writing
Me: the various deliveries of the story are stressing

Her: haha

Me: I can not believe that such a thing would be delivered naturally as so it is printed. Not when it begins as tale from Lockwood's perspective than to a book of Catherine's and then to Nelly retelling what she was told from Heathcliff and then from there others telling Nelly telling it to Heathcliff and then from Heathcliff telling us from Nelly telling him from others BUT ALL IN RIDICULOUS PROSE

Me: that is NOT how stories are relayed

Me): stories are made of significant detail and in such a transference these various bits would not survive!

Me: ARGH

Her: i can see that you are very passionate about this

Me: it merely bothers me and as it is an assignment I can't walk away which leads to frustration
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I do not like this book. I desperately WANT to like it, I even DID, but right now I do not.

Heathcliff

As far as I know him, he's a boy involved entirely with himself, his interests to others only as it concerns himself. He lived a hard life and his misanthropy is no surprise. He desperately wants the world to be a good place but has long since accepted it is not. With the death of Catherine, and what may have lead to it that I've yet to read, he is broken, possibly beyond repair. I've yet to finish chapter 10 though but I look forward to some sort of arc or conclusion.

On Notes

Note for Laura: You asked whether or not we could review and rewrite our class notes, to make them into thoughts in a way rather than...whatever they are.

I answered that I would not because, "they are for me, not for you."

In truth I was, at that moment, being more troublesome than serious and fear my reply may have been sharp or dismissive.

But I've a clearer, perhaps more acceptable reason.

My "class notes," are not my thoughts. They are literally bits of what others have said in class to remind me of what occurred that day. I can not make these into sentences because they do not belong to me. It would become only a detailed rendition of events rather than any deliberation on my part.

It is not as if I do "not" provide my own opinion, I do, just later and separately from my notes.

In a way, I doubt you were speaking to me when expressing your desire for rewritten notes, but perhaps I'm self-absorbed.

A(nother) Rape In Cyberspace

So, I've read this before...like, three times. I'm running out of energy to give it.

There's surely things to talk about, but compared to my other obligations talking the same thing to death isn't very energizing.

HOWEVER, because I simply can't let my professor down, I did pick up on something I don't think I've talked about before.

Would this instance have been more or less traumatic if it had occurred in something more visual?

I'm going to use World of Warcraft as an example, not because I like it (I don't), but because there is a good chance everyone can relate.

So, what I'm personally debating, is whether this woman would have been more or less hurt had she been accosted in an engine that provides a distinct avatar rather than one wholly constructed in her mind.

In my experience as a writer, well, as a person really, the ability to distance the self from events is considered a good coping mechanism. In video games, many people have debated which is more effective for the player of a shooting game, first or third person. Do you feel more for the character you can see or the player you are supposed to "see through?"

I empathize with the victim with consideration towards the mental energy, the time put forth into constructing a persona within the MOO and feel that, maybe, it would not have hurt so much if she had been working, instead of with a purely mental construct, with a more visible avatar like a WoW character.

Granted, she would still have been "the player," but maybe a jump would have been easier to "my character" rather than "me."

Then again, maybe visibly seeing it would have been that much worse.

I just think it's easier to say "something terrible happened to my character" than "something terrible happened to me" if you can actually see said character rather than view them in your head.

*shrug*
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Con't Notes for the Day:

Emotional Investment...impact via a made-up place.

There is investment in watching a character...is there a different one in "being" a character?

Wollstonecraft

"What nonsense!"

Indeed.

Cuntry Boys & City Girls

I bet you thought I was going to do a video game.

"Cuntry Boys & City Girls"
by The Fratellis

I said I don't get out too much I said
She said you said I said two times instead
I said oh please please please no, your just not funny ya know
So stick around here for a week or three or four
I passed out one time by your door
It was twenty to four but I just can't be sure

Cinderella Cinderella she's my very kind of fella
Part right half wrong oh you know it won't be too long
And oh you know we country boys are only after sex and noise
Take me shake me I'm a real mess oh yes
I love the way you city girls dress even though your head's in a mess

Well it was some kind of house by some kind of road
With some kind of peculiar dress code
All the boys had no style not one girl did she smile
I said your making me itch she said don't
I said I'll try my best she said I know that you won't
Now it's time to go home while I was chewing her bone

Baby doll baby doll climbing on the bedroom wall
Got no real friends at all maybe she's a mother or two
But I think she's into you
Take me home take me home call my mother on the phone
Ella was her name when I left but now she is Rose
Got no fingers or toe's lost them everywhere that she goes , now

Lost them everywhere that she goes now
Lost them everywhere that she goes now
Lost them everywhere that she goes now
Lost them everywhere that she goes now

Cinderella Cinderella she's my very kind of fella
Part right half wrong oh you know it won't be too long
And oh you know we country boys are only after sex and noise
Take me shake me I'm a real mess oh yes
I love the way you city girls dress even though your head's in a mess

Baby doll baby doll climbing on the bedroom wall
Got no real friends at all maybe she's a mother or two
But I think she's into you
Take me home take me home call my mother on the phone
Ella was her name when I left but now she is Rose
Got no fingers or toe's lost them everywhere that she goes, now

There's actually a few fairy tales worked in here if you ask me. There's Rose for Briar Rose, also known as Sleeping Beauty, the wall reminds me of Rapunzel and then the blatant use of "Cinderella." For those only accustom to the Disney version (I.E. Children), the bit with fingers and toes wouldn't click but we know better. ;)


I'm personally pleased with the links to the various Angela Carter stories I see. The call to mother? Country Boys only wanting sex and noise? Generic, yes, but The Fratellis are an English band...

Jan, 22, 2009 - Carter and such

It's not Oprah Winfry...but it is still personal.

This is a hard line to walk I think...one I've most likely crossed more than once, I'm not sure I ever went back.
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"It's about 'What it means to be human, a parable, something that corresponds to the real...distorts it so that we can see it, enlarges it so that we have to look at it. Mr. Lyon is any young man coming of age and facing his manhood in or out of a relationship, what it means to be a man; a young woman facing what it means to be a young woman in a relationship with a man.'" ~ Paraphrased from Laura Mandell.

I was speaking with Howe the other day (did I write about the following already?). I wanted to know why his class was only a 100 level course despite the hefty reading, more than even my 200/300 level IMS/ENG/WMS course or my 200 level Short Story course.

His answer?

"There are people above me who consider Scifi to be 'fluff.''

And yet one of the core parts of most SciFi, which we discussed in said class and I've found true throughout my life, is the very same question, 'What's it mean to be human?"
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"I'm intensely afraid of the potential of violence in men...and I think they are too." ~ Paraphrased from Laura Mandell.

I agree. I have a friend who studies Jujitsu, which is a grappling form of martial arts, which means in a fight his goal is to literally break your limbs so that you can't fight anymore. He considers this incredibly interesting...and frightening. He once dislocated a partner's shoulder. It wasn't really his fault, he merely held the arm bar while the other person did the exact wrong thing and then *pop* goes the arm. To this day it bothers him...it was nearly 10 years ago.
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"The Bloody Chamber"

"Blue Beard" - Based on a real pirate?

The female potential for "corruption..." would such corruption happen without a male's violence to corrupt them? What is the female parallel? Is there one?

Does it work in reverse?

There is no anger like that which springs in a man from the frustrations of a woman...

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned," William Congreve, The Mourning Bride.

Why does that only count for women? I call shenanigans.

The Cinderella Complex

While reading page 16 of "The Cinderella Complex" the supposed split between women and men, their training, caught my eye. I had just been discussing this sort of thing with a resident of mine. We were closer to the concept of same-sex friendships and how the sexes might grow into them. I offered that men had fewer close friends because they were taught not to open up but at the same time they were hurt less by each other. Women are supposedly taught to rely on others, to open up and expect reciprocation. They also get hurt far more often.

The issue, then, becomes one of depth.

I've seen many a female friend recover well, and swiftly, from various daggers in the back.

My male friends however, take true slights deeply and let go slowly, if ever.

This is connected to the topic via "love" of course, the sharpest of double-edged blades.

Page 17 doesn't seem so bad to me.

And that isn't "so bad for a woman," but that it doesn't seem so bad for anyone.

Maybe that's because I appreciate the work it takes to keep a home. I recognize the loss in terms of "career" but also what's gained in the trade.

I'd love to be a stay-at-home dad. I'm the oldest of three and the primary parent in my life was my mother, I'm as much a parental figure to my siblings than either "parent" if not more so.




I've never believed someone could "save me."

Not because I was trained to "save myself" but because it's ridiculous. There are too many things in this world for any one person to simply change it all.

I do believe, though, that "another," can give you the energy, the motivation to save yourself.



I believe I'm a better person when with someone. It's easier to get up in the morning, I want to be a better person for her. I can't keep slipping or just "getting by." I have to improve, to strive.

Which is terrible.

Not only is that sad, speaking of my own failures more than anything, but it's hypocritical.

That would be because I self-report as being attracted to confident, strong women who have control of their lives, the ones that don't need me but want me.

It's a small distinction but an important one.



It's nice to be needed...it is better to be wanted.

A woman who has her life under-control, doesn't "need" me to be happy but wants me anyway, is far more attractive to me than a person who only keeps it together because of me.

Of course, such a relationship waxes and wanes in that department. I've been through them both multiple times.

Sorry if this is confusing, I'm still figuring things out.
__________________________________________

Turning now to "Weight."

"In the artistic retelling of fairy tales, does art help counteract 'ideology,' the wounds of wishes, the bits that structure the way we live."

I highlighted one line from the "Weight," it's not particularly unique, I've written it before, but just as Winterson places it within a context of "recognition" I too saw something familiar.

"There is no other way."

I don't think there is a counteraction to the construction of ideology, only the construction, perhaps reconstruction but no true counteraction because you do not live without ideology. It's always there. It should, however, always be questioned, changed, adapted, grown, reinforced.

In the same way I consider most things art, I look for meaning in anything and everything, so "it" is all art, life is art and it all contributes to who I am, even if it takes away, even if it wounds me.

You learn more from mistakes than successes "they" say.

After all, there is no other way.

Retelling, reshaping, a story, a fairy tale, is about seeing someone's ideology and recognizing some of it in your own and then going beyond that and integrating it within your own.

Nothing is perfect (except perhaps imperfection)...but you can make it personal.

And in that step, maybe you'll bring it closer to someone else's ideology, making it that much easier for them to do the same.

By "idealogy," I mean one's worldview. Do things happen to you or because of you? Do you think you have control of your life or does the world have control of you? If something "bad" happens to you, do you blame others or yourself? Do you believe the world should change before you should? How do you view yourself? Do you consider yourself a good person? Hard-working? Lazy? WHY? Is it accurate? Would others agree or disagree with you?

When you meet someone new, and get to know them, you get to see a little of how they see the world, themselves, and you. Maybe you respect their position, maybe you don't, but either way it throws your own perspective into a new light. In this way, I do not believe there is any true "reconstruction" of self, merely construction. Large parts might need to be renovated but if a true reconstruction happened, an absolute ripping out of "who you are and how you view the world," then I'd question if you believed or considered any part of yourself and the world around in a serious manner before.

I have had my worldview shattered, I've seen it happen to other people - helped them through it in fact - and the best way I've found to keep going is not to simply restart, but to shift through the pieces worth keeping.

The more we connect, the more lights we set up on the stage, the brighter the picture, the closer we get to each other. I don't know if, and honestly don't believe, anyone can truly know someone else as well as they can know themselves...but that shouldn't stop any one of us from trying.

“Cinderella” Searches and Notes

The Grimm version was tame when it came to vocabulary. My right hand, so dutifully clutching a highlighter, quickly relaxed while the story was told. I did appreciate the darker tale as well as the clearly “magical” nature of the aid provided our girl. That said the ending seemed out of place, rushed even, but I know that it isn’t so odd for stories of the age. Delightful.

The Anne Sexton bit though, that was rather entertaining. There is some definite humor there…and with it a few things to look up.

The first word that got to me was “Dior.” Google threw various links to clothing, jewelry, and fashion in general. Wikipedia confirmed this via one Christian Dior, an apparently famous French fashion designer who died around 50 years ago.

The next was “Bonwit Teller,” which, according to the first hit given by Google –Wikipedia – was a high-class department store in New York City opened over 100 years ago by Paul Bonwit. So far I’m really only caught by the “specific” words I wouldn’t come across in normal reading for today, I assume mentions of these brands would be more common while the bit was written.

The third word that made me pause was “Al Jolson.” After hitting up Google and, subsequently, Wikipedia, I’m a bit embarrassed. Apparently, I should know this man, “the world’s greatest entertainer.” An accomplished musician who starred in the first “talkies,” Jolson was a blues, jazz, comedy and acting star.

Last, “the Bobbsy Twins,” which are apparently fictional characters in popular children’s books. Appropriate given the creepy doll simile Sexton uses at the end. Really creepy.

A one, a two, a one-two...many.

How am I supposed to drop this class when you've already got me digitally investing?

I've closed too many blogs to merely drop this one beside the course...it's done.

I guess I'll stay...