mules and men

I really enjoyed reading this book. I love the language, the stories, and the interplay between the characters. I loved the story about the flood, where John is telling everyone about how horrible the flood was, and then he tells Moses. I love the dry, sarcastic sense of humor in all of their 'tales'. It also challenges your knowledge of the bible as well. Sometimes I had to think hard to remember who some of the characters were that they were talking about. Zora did a wonderful job setting the scene in which they were telling the story as well. It added a lot to the stories when she explained where they all were, and a little of the back stories behind the people who were telling the stories. Although it took me a little while to understand some of the translations, which made it a little difficult to follow the stories at first, afterwards I found myself knowing exactly what they were talking about, and being 'carried away' to the south, and the places that she was talking about.

"I had known about the capers Brer Rabbit is apt to cut and what the Squinch Owl says from the house top. But it was fitting me like a tight chemise. I couldn't see if for wearing it. It was only when I was off in college, away from my native surroundings, that I could see myself like somebody else and stand off and look at my garment" (pg xvii). When I first read this I didn't really think anything of it, but after reading it again, and really thinking about what she said, I completely understand what she was saying. Moving from Washington to Montana didn't really seem like a very big deal, until my family left me, and I had to start meeting new people. It didn't seem like there would really be any difference between myself and the local Bozemanites, until I realized that it is a completely different place over here. So many things are different, and I truly started to see the way in which I was raised, and the things that were important to me and my family. From small things like growing up watch The Muppets, to bigger things like traditions and daily routines, everything is different over here. I can truly appreciate what Zora was saying. When you live something everyday, you tend to take it for granted, but once it is taken away from you, you start to really see it for what it is, and appreciate it. Taking this knowledge into my reading of the novel, it added so much more than just the stories. I feel a close connection to this novel, and I think that it may be one of the best that I've ever read.

We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz

I have to admit that I'd never seen this movie. Never in my childhood, not even in my teens. So watching it, especially while taking this class was very interesting. Because even though I'd never seen it, not even parts of it, I knew the entire story. The dialogue, the plot, and even all of the character's names. So I started to ask myself why? Why do I know all of these things when I'd never actually experienced them?

First I will start with the dialogue. So many lines from this movie have been used in numerous other movies and shows. For example the lines like: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too," the song "Somewhere over the rainbow," the song "we're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz," the song 'Ding, dong the witch is dead," "Follow the yellow brick road," "lions and tigers and bears, oh my," "tap your heels together, 3 times," and so much more. I honestly found myself singing along, and reciting the words that I've never heard in that context before. It was surreal, to have never seen something, but know all about it, almost like deja You.

There are also certain scenes that from other movies, that now that I've seen 'the Wiz' make so much more sense. For example, the little Wizard having a huge voice is found in Disney's Chicken Little. At the end of that movie, after the town has been taken over by aliens, you find out that the alien with the huge voice (from the alien who was trying to find his son) was actually a tiny little alien, whose wife even made fun of him for using his 'big voice.' Another specific example, is in the new Peter Pan film released by Columbia Pictures, has a scene in which Peter is trying to bring Tinkerbell back to life and he chants: "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do!" which is very similar to the scene in "The Wizard" where the lion chants "I do believe in spooks, I do, I do!" There is also the hourglass in Aladdin where Jasmine's 'time is running up', like Dorothy's. Another (though not as strong) example is in Mel Brook's Robin Hood, Men in tights when Robin is trying to save them from the knights, and he cuts the rope to make the chandelier fall. At first he cuts the wrong one "wrong rope," but then he cuts the right one "right rope." This is similar, although a satire of the scene in the 'The Wizard' when the scarecrow cuts the rope to make the chandelier fall on the evil monkeys.

I found these similarities, and the lines I knew without seeing this movie before striking, and so very interesting that I had to comment on them. I'm sure that there are a ton more things that I will actually understand now after seeing this movie, and I might even have to watch it again.

My Wallace Stevens poem

THE RIVER OF RIVERS IN CONNECTICUT

There is a great river this side of Stygia,
Before one comes to the first black cataracts
And trees that lack the intelligence of trees.

In the river, far this side of Stygia,
The mere flowing of the water is a gayety,
Flashing and flashing in the sun. On its banks,

No shadow walks. The river is fateful,
Like the last one. But there is no ferryman.
He could not bend against its propelling force.

It is not to be seen beneath the appearances
That tell of it. The steeple at Farmington
Stands glistening and Haddam shines and sways.

It is the third commonness with light and air,
A curriculum, a vigor, a local abstraction...
Call it, once more, a river, an unnamed flowing,

Space-filled, reflecting the seasons, the folk-lore
Of each of the senses; call it, again and again,
The river that flows nowhere, like a sea.

A commonplace...

"Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book."

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice


THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there was never a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of sea
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

~ Wallace Stevens

"Folks ain't ready for souls yet. De clay ain't dry. It's de
strongest thing Ah ever made. Don't aim to waste none
thru loose cracks. And then men got to grow strong
enough to stand it. De way things is now, if Ah give it out
it would tear them shackly bodies to pieces. Bimeby, Ah
give it out now."

~ Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men


"Compare the silent rose of the sun And rain,
the blood-rose living in its smell, With this paper,
this dust. That states the point."

~ Wallace Stevens

"The hair of my blonde
Is dazzling,
As the spittle of cows
threading the wind."

~ Wallace Stevens, Depression Before Spring

"They were trying to write down the heart's truth you of the heart's driving complexity, for all the complex and troubled hearts which would beat after them. What they were trying to tell, what He wanted said, was too simple. Those for whom they transcribed His words could not have believed them. It had to be expounded in the everyday terms which they were familiar with and could comprehend, not only those who listened but those who told it too, because if they who were that near to Him as to have been elected from among all who breathed and spoke language to transcribe and relay His words, could comprehend truth only through this complexity of passion and lust and hate and fear which drives the heart, what distance back to truth must they traverse whom truth could only reach by word-of-mouth?"

~William Faulkner, The Bear

"'Two things I can't stand,' Haze said, '-a man that ain't true and one that mocks what is. You shouldn't ever have tampered with me if you didn't want what you got."'

"'Do you think, Mr. Motes, ' she said hoarsely, 'that when you're dead, you're blind?' 'I hope so,' he said after a minute. 'Why?' she asked, staring at him. After a while he said, 'If there's no bottom in your eyes, they hold more.'"

~Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

"When we understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we already understand the essence of love. Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own being."

~Ernest Becker

"You see I loved her, it was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever site"
~Lolita

Rosebud

'Citizen Kane' is a story about a journalist who tries to find the secret of a man's life in his dying word: rosebud. Throughout the process of uncovering his past to try to understand his life, they uncover a complex and twisted web of selfishness and pride. Charles Foster Kane was a man, whom deserted by his family at a young age, was sent to live with a man he neither liked nor respected. All his life he had a ton of money, but didn't find happiness until he decided to loose his money, and run a paper: the New York Inquirer. But if he was truly happy even then, can be debated. Because the journalist was so intent on finding out what he was searching for, he completely missed what was really important to Kane. He missed the relationship between Kane and his friends, and manager. Also the significance of his failed marriages, especially the second one. This one seemed more important, and tragic, because he begged for her to stay, and she refused. I think that this really had a negative effect on the rest of his life.

At the very end, the journalist hasn't found what Rosebud means, and feels that he has failed his readers, and will never discover the true Charles Kane. Unfortunately he didn't realize how important all the information he uncovered truly was. That one word cannot sum up a mans life, and how tragic and lonely he lived. He never truly let anyone love him, and wasn't able to truly love anyone, not even his wife or child. At the very end of the movie, just before the credits, the viewers, and no one else discovers the true meaning of Rosebud. That is was his childhood sleigh, which represents his childhood. That was before all the heartbreak that he caused, and suffered from. Before his parents deserted him for what they believed was right, and before he lived a lonely life with two failed marriages, and many failed friendships. Back when life was easy, and all he had to think about was finding the highest hill to sled down.

I think that his dying word represents his happiest times in life, and like Mr. Bernstein said: "A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl." As insignificant as that sleigh seems, it could have meant something so personal, that even his closest friends wouldn't have understood it. I think that shows the true meaning of the movie, that what means everything to one person probably means nothing to another. The journalist was playing a game he could never win.

OH Daisy

Daisy Miller is your average, run of the mill American teenager. I say this with the deepest regard for teenagers, but thus is she. Her manner and enthusiasm reminds me of many other supporting characters, from other works of literature. For instance, Lydia, from Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice.' Both of these women love the opposite sex, and are willing to ignore what is best for them, and for everyone around them to fulfill their wants. Both ruin their reputations and those of their families, by running loose and flirting horribly, but also both characters end tragically. For Daisy it is death, and for Lydia it is an unhappy, loveless marriage.

Why is this? I ask myself, why do both authors chose to have tragic endings for both of these poor, 'innocent' girls? Is it to show that going against societies norms is bad? To show that these women are truly evil? Or something else? Do these girls, who, by today's standards aren't doing anything wrong, forward thinkers, or simply wild children that need restraint. I think that in Henry James case, he is using Daisy to show the bold difference of herself and Winterborne. Or, more specifically, the difference between a European and an American.

Winterborne, although born in America, has taken the views, and outlook on life of an European. He is polite, refined, conservative, and gentlemanly. Daisy is loud, flirtatious, uncouth, and liberal. Although she is a polar opposite to him, he still is taken by her. Why is this? Perhaps it is the American within that is calling him back to the land of his birth, or perhaps it is just that she is different and charming. Whatever his reasons for liking her, he feels it is his duty to protect her from the evils of the European society. And especially from the enchanting Italian: Mr. Giovanelli. Winterborne, even in the end, when she is rude and brash towards him, feels a strong need to protect her from the harm that she keeps throwing herself into. He feels that she is 'innocent' and doesn't know what she is doing to herself, and her family's reputations.

As an outsider looking in, however it is much easier to believe that she knows exactly what she is doing, and is only surprised by Mrs. Walker's reaction to her because she feels that because she is so charming, that everyone should like her.

American gothic

The painting ‘American Gothic’ by Grant Wood shows a very unhappy couple that has been married for a very long time. It seems that they may even think that it has been longer than it actually has been. They are standing in front of their farm house, by the looks of it they have taken good care of the house. It has flowers and cute curtains, which show that she is probably a good housekeeper, and wife. It looks as if she is looking somewhere off to their left, maybe she is distracted by something or someone. Her eyes are cold and calculating, and look as if they either hold secrets, or could do great evil. Her hair is very neat and tidy, except for one hair, which is loose and falls at her neck. This could symbolize that she once had a happy countenance, and that her practical husband squashed her dreams and joy. The couple looks worn, as if they have had to work very hard for what they earned, as if they have lived a life full of hardship. Overall, they don’t look happy, or warm. I definitely wouldn’t want to spend any time with them.