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!)
________________________

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.