TABLE OF CONTENTS
162 In the Merry Old Land of America: Immigrants’ Journies Home
Donna Marinkovich
165 Death, the Inevitable Crisis (for the Living) Susannah Moore
169 In a Vice Grip Ashley Smith
172 Black Noise: Something for Those Who Don’t Understand It
Seth Magnuson
175 Inspiration & the Gift of Writing from Audre Lorde Emily McCarron
179 All Woman: The Timeless Struggle Between Motherhood and
Career Julie Richardson
182 Cultural Landscapes of Haitian Life: Paradise Lost but Not
Forgotten Janet Thelen
186 Break the Rules! Hao Huang
189 The Dread of Analysis Imelda Jimenez
191 Fastest Leg in the West (Of Ireland) Vance Buckreus
194 I Found Myself Through Hairspray: And Other Interesting Ways to
Look At The World Sara Cunningham-Farish
197 Hitch-Hiking in Hollywood Maia Yepa
200 Is it Behaviour? or Behavior? Leah Quinn
203 In Search of the Golden Frog: A Practically Untarnished Book
Sandy Hager
206 Cryptic Philosophies Christina Mardirosian
211 History of Film: From Awake to Unconscious Shannon Drake
215 “Just See the Movie” Nigel Genthner
217 Mad Woman Ramblings Elinore Eaton
220 Madman’s Language Jay Weber
223 Mirror of Myths Lori Bravo
226 Movies Exposed Brenna Dunn
228 Reshaping Reality: Finding Meaning in Abstract Art Gabe Houston
231 Take a Read on the Wilde Side Rob Goldschmidt
234 The Greek Myth Angel Luna
238 Seeing Pittsburgh through one Author’s Eyes William Norteye
241 Emerging from “The Poet’s Cave of Syllables” David Sullivan
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In the Merry Old Land of America:
Immigrants’ Journies Home
Donna Marinkovich
“There’s no place like home…there’s no place like home…”
—Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
Upon finishing Geographies of Home by Loida Maritza Perez I
couldn’t help but to feel as if I had just traveled through a Latino version of
The Wizard of Oz. Perez’ debut novel is filled with terror, hope, magic and
self-discovery as is the film classic, yet Perez’ tale is even more twisted and
surreal.
Instead of settling on one protagonist, Perez weaves the experiences, memories, thoughts and yearnings of several members of a Dominican Republic family which has immigrated to New York City into one “Dorothy”, all of them questioning their place in their family and in their surrounding world. A passage from a chapter written in the perspective of the
mother, Aurelia, shows the struggle that each family member is faced with
– the concept of “home”:
In the presence of strangers like those she had sheltered
herself from since her arrival in the United States and in a
hospital worlds removed from the New York depicted on
postcards her eldest daughter had mailed to the Dominican Republic, Aurelia for the first time granted herself permission to sprout roots past concrete into soil. Throughout more than fifteen years of moving from apartment to
apartment, she had dreamed, not of returning, but of going home. Of going home to a place not located on any
map but nonetheless preventing her from settling in any
other. Only now did she understand that her soul yearned
not for a geographical site but for a frame of mind able to
accommodate any place as home. (137)
The title – Geographies of Home – suggests that “home” is a physical place.
But the content of the novel raises questions about what “home” really is.
Is it merely a residence? Is it a place of origin? Or is it an emotional or
mental state, as Dorothy discovers when she learns the secret of her ruby
slippers? I wish it was as simple as clicking our heels together and chanting a mantra to find out the answer.
Perez attempts to guide us toward answering the question for ourselves, urging us to explore possibilities through the minds and hearts of
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Iliana, Aurelia, Papito, Rebecca, and Marina--the strongest characters in
this family of fourteen. Undoubtedly, cultural heritage plays an important
role in one’s perceptions of family and home as in the Dominican family
members in this novel. However, by delving into issues which affect all of
us — religion, the roles of men and women in the family and in society,
mental illness, stereotypes based on skin color and domestic abuse — Perez
widens the context beyond the experiences of one particular family within
one particular culture.
Perez discusses this wider context in the Penguin Press Readers
Guide interview which appears at the end of the novel:
…I nonetheless believe that – regardless of the possibly
unique circumstances presented in Geographies – Dominicans and other Latinos will encounter familiar issues. But
are these issues specifically Latino? I don’t think so. Ultimately, these issues pertain to the human condition: our
need to belong and be accepted; the contradictions inherent in all of us; our attempts to do the best we can even in
the worst of circumstances; our desire to guide our children and the risk of making mistakes along the way; our
wondrous ability to sometimes understand and forgive;
and our faith in a force greater than ourselves.
Dorothy had to answer questions regarding similar issues for herself before she was given the key to her way home. In Perez’ “Land of Oz”
there are the familiar characters trying to utilize their strengths, or develop
their inadequacies to repair their own and their family’s situations: Iliana
supposes she can use her well-educated brain; Aurelia, her witch-like magical powers; Rebecca, her false sense of courage; Marina, her heart filled
with a manic devotion to God.
Unfortunately, all of the Geographies characters — working independently — fail to reach their goals and get caught up in the insanity. But
had they realized that if they worked together, embracing each other’s
strengths rather than placing blame and pointing out shortcomings, they
might have succeeded in finding the home they were all searching for. Dorothy and her counterparts were finally free to return home after Glenda
and the Wizard had enlightened them with a similar lesson.
I think of Santa Cruz, California as my home. I have lived here for
twelve years, and this is where I feel comfortable, accepted, and a part of
my community. Although my family is hundreds of miles away and in
various geographical locations, I think of them as a much broader definition of home. It wasn’t until I had done some intense soul searching, resulting from the long (and still continuing) process of drug addiction re-
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covery, did I feel comfortable with this second, personal definition of home.
Once I stopped blaming my family for my problems, criticizing them for
their actions and behaviors, and communicated honestly with them I realized I had finally “come home”.
That realization now defines my own personal concept of home–
it is a never--ending journey, not a destination. Yes, I am a born-and-raised
Californian, yet before this epiphany I may as well have been from another
country. Whether one is an immigrant in a strange land, like the characters
in Geographies, or a little girl and her dog traveling through a bizarre
fantasyland, this is one realization we all have to make for ourselves.
Works Cited
Perez, Loida Maritza. Geographies of Home. New York: Penguin
Press, 1999
Wizard of Oz, The. Dirs. Victor Fleming, Richard Thorpe. MGM, 1939
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Death, the Inevitable Crisis (for the
Living)
Susannah Moore
“ She was living in order to disappear…”(Williams 108).
When I was young, I was what you would call a wild child. I had
no regard for my health or personal safety; that is to say that I did much
more then just experiment with drugs. After having one too many close
calls I realized that this was not the way that I wanted to live my life and
instead turned to sobriety and school. In the past few years many of my
old friends have died due to their drug use. They, like me, had full knowledge of how the toxins introduced to their bodies could affect them, yet
they lived in a haze believing that it would never happen to them. No one
ever believes that they too can become a statistic.
Eli was found on the bathroom floor three weeks ago. He had died
of a heroin overdose two days prior.
I would like to say that his death had the same profound effect on
me as it did many others that I know— it did not. Through the last few
years with many friends falling to the same fate as Eli, I have learned that
this is the way things can end; there is nothing I can do to stop it. Sometimes you just need to let them disappear.
*
“What is the difference between being not yet born and having lived,
being now dead?” (Williams 3).
In the book The Quick and the Dead (published by Alfred A.Knopf /
Random House), the author Joy Williams gives us momentary glimpses
into the lives of many different characters all dealing with some form of
death. Whether it is the death of a parent, as in the case for the three main
female characters, the death of the soul, the death of the mind,as for our
hopeful stroke victim,or the refusal to die, the haunting of a man by his
dead wife. She spins her tale taking these many peoples’ lives and experiences and tells each of them with the detail of explaining color to the blind.
Each tale is unique as the colors of the world yet she is able to take them
and weave them into the rich tapestry that is the small southwestern town
that they all live or end up in. In this weaving, Williams makes the reader
realize that the all too common practice of looking at death as always something that comes “later” is not only not effective but leaves the living unprepared for the loss if and when it does occur.
*
“Remaining to you is any comfort available from dreams. We do not suggest attempting to dream of starting over”( 97).
One of the most intriguing stories to me was that of Ray Webb. We
jump into Webb’s life at the age of nineteen in Houston, Texas. Webb is a
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traveling man, no specific destination in mind, just “drifting across the
country, working and stealing now and then” (57). Webb, we learn in later
flashes of time, has had a hard childhood. After suffering many strokes as
a youth, leaving his face and body partially paralyzed, he has left home so
as not to trouble his mother any further with his condition. He is a dreamer,
often too much so, losing himself in his mind at the most inopportune times.
We travel with Webb across the southwest, joining him on his many adventures learning more of his good nature and mental anguish. Webb’s
journey ends in the small town inhabited by the other characters of the
book. Webb’s story ends as he walks out of the desert in the dark of night,
the path ahead of him illuminated by the headlights of a parked truck.
Tired and broken from yet another adventure, this time in the New Mexican desert, the characters of another plot shoot Webb as they fire their shotguns at the sugauro cacti. Ray had just come to the realization of his path
in life.
*
“Was the last breath of a thing relevant? Emily wondered. She couldn’t
imagine why it would be” (304).
My grandmother is eight-nine and lives in a nursing home. She
moved into the home five years ago after a severe heart attack left her unable to care for herself. My grandmother is the oldest member of my large
Italian family. She was always a gentle woman; the negotiator between her
eight brothers; patience and understanding were what she was known for.
She is now close to death, the doctors say, as her health rapidly declines.
Her quality of life has also declined, she is no longer able to walk and takes
handfuls of pills daily for her many ailments. She eats only enough to continue living-- now weighing only sixty-nine pounds. I believe that my grandmother has become tired of living. Her personality has become violent and
angry. She is angry that life has left her in the condition that she is in, yet
she fears death more than she hates life, so she continues on. For my grandmother death will be a relief. Her last breath will be my last physical memory
of her, but to her will that even matter?
*
“Over everything, a dimness that does not quite touch them, but hovers
instead like those angels who are unable to tell if they are the living or the dead.”
(Williams 198)
Williams reverses the roles of the dead and the living in another
plot of the book. The dead Ginger, has taken on the role of the mourner;
morning the loss of her own life while her late husband Carter seems to be
the one alleviated form suffering— almost. Ginger has become the mourner
by assuming the role, traditionally held by the living, by haunting her widowed husband in an attempt to keep her own memory alive in his new
home. Carter, on the other hand, would like nothing more then to move on
with his life in this new town and be rid of this burden of a memory that is
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the ghost of his wife. Carter’s attitude with the ghost of his wife leaves the
reader to muse whether he is friendly to her out of pure respect for the
dead, or if he is frightened of what she could possibly do to him in her
ghostly state. Can an angel cause bodily harm?
*
“This isn’t an intermission, unfortunately. It’s her final condition” ( 247).
My mother was diagnosed with AIDS four years ago, it is terminal. She was infected with HIV from a blood transfusion during a hysterectomy 15 years ago. The prognosis is a fifty- percent mortality rate within
five years of diagnosis. I have watched her health decline over the past
eight months as I have lived with her. Because I am the only child living
within a close proximity to her, I am responsible for telling my siblings the
truth of her daily health. She was always so young when I compared her to
her friends, the fun one. Now she is sick every other week and she has
become a shell of herself due the sudden reality of her physical condition.
I love my mother—she was the first person I knew as I came into the world—
she is my mom. She has always been there for me continues to do so in
spite of her condition. I always knew that she would die. We all die in the
end. I had hoped that the people in the world with sprits such as hers
would not have to end their lives in pain. So I watch her die as we go about
our lives. I never knew that death could be this bad. It is the only thing that
makes me cry.
*
They seem expectant still, though they have already
walked the Riddle, not this day but long before. They had
walked within the instant that is Death’s Riddle, and many
moments later were reconstituted here, placed in the hollow liturgical court of this black garden. They roam in no
wilderness. There is no wilderness. It preceded them into
the hands of man (197).
All of the characters in The Quick and the Dead gave me a reflection
into how I deal with the deaths and processes of dying around me. Each
story has a different perspective, each person shows a different character
specific pattern of response to the same underlying situation. From my
own life, I see three different deaths and three profoundly different responses from within myself. The fabric Williams weaves of these stories is
the fabric that makes up the psyche of a person, the town they all live in
symbolizing the body of that person. Within that body resides the many
different responses—courses of action if you will— to the problems that
we all face in life. Though everyone dies, we all die in a unique way. The
book teaches us that there is no right or wrong way to deal with death:
there is no right or wrong way to say goodbye. The important thing to
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remember is to not think of death as something that always comes later.
Before you know it, later is the present and those you love, including yourself, are gone. Accept death as an end, but remember you never know just
when that end is.
Works Cited
Willams, Joy The Quick and the Dead Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2000.
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In a Vice Grip
Ashley Smith
Did you ever feel so captured by a book of poetry that you couldn’t
let out of your hands for more then a few minutes, and didn’t want to give
it back to the person who loaned it to you? Were you totally entranced by
the words as they drizzled across the page and puddled intense imagery
right before your eyes? The poet Ai, pseudonym for Florence Anthony,
and Japanese for “love”, more then fulfilled all my expectations as a reader.
Within her book titled Vice she confronts issues of society and violence and
brings them to the attention of the public eye even more so then the evening
news and is way more effective. This work is a collection of new and selected poems from previous publishings. Ai is nothing short of a chameleon as she morphs her character voices from veterans with “battle fatigue”,
to a stalker, to a priest with sexual desires, to a rape victim, to a mother
who brutally beats her daughter, to Jimmy Hoffa and a husband with “Penis Envy”. These are not the only voices in this book but they are a perfect
example of her diverse skill level as a writer. Her newest book Vice is an
absolute gripping piece of literature that critiques our culture’s violence
through the voice of criminals and victims. Her work forces the reader to
confront and acknowledge the many faces of a violent society.
The cultural background of Ai plays a strong role in her life as a
woman as well as an author. Ai is her middle name. Her father is Japanese
and her mother is Choctaw Indian, Cheyenne, African American, Dutch
and Irish.
Ai is the only name by which I wish, and indeed, should be known.
Since I am the child of a scandalous affair my mother had with a
Japanese man she met at a streetcar stop, and I was forced to live a
lie for so many years, while my mother concealed my father’s natu
ral identity from me, I feel that I should not have to be identified
with a man, who was only my stepfather, for all eternity (English).
After being engulfed by her work, I feel that Ai is a person who
has developed a very distinct and impressive style. Her dramatic monologues through the first person voice are a clear example of her gift for
writing.
When you read each piece in this book you get a sense of unease
due to the reality of its context. It’s as if you are in the character’s head and
hearing their thoughts echo within their skull. After reading certain pieces
like “Stalking Memory” and “Child Beater” I felt uncomfortable due to the
chills running down my spine.
From the work “Child Beater”:
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I lay the belt on the chair
And get her dinner bowl.
I hit the spoon against it, set it down
And watch her crawl to it,
Pausing after each forward thrust of her legs
And when she takes her first bite,
I grab the belt and beat her across the back
Until her tears, beads of salt filled glass, falling
Shatter on the floor (Ai 16).
Within these few lines that I selected you can see that her use of
language is eloquent and clearly written. The little girl in this poem is dehumanized, with canine like images. “I hit the spoon against it, set it down/
And watch her crawl to it”. The little girl knows what’s going to happen
and is hesitant but is over whelmed by hunger and decides to eat even
though she knows the consequences, “pausing after each forward thrust of
her legs”. These few lines don’t have any extremely complex vocabulary;
it’s her way with the words that is so intriguing about her style. She molds
the words like clay, letting them manipulate the reader and structuring
each piece of work.
Ai does not only invent character voices she becomes actual people.
The work “Charisma” is about Waco, Texas and David Karesh,
They prayed with me,
They lay facedown in Waco, Texas,
to await death and resurrection,
as it came from all directions, all in flames (Ai 199).
Ai is Police Officer Terry Yeakey, who committed suicide four days
before he was going to receive a metal of honor for rescuing people after
the Oklahoma City Bombing in the piece “The Antihero”. She is Richard
Nixon in “Knock, Knock,” and she is an unidentified president (although
we know who she is implying) who has had a presidential affair with a
“sweet, big-haired” girl in the piece “Blood In The Water”.
The majority of works in this book have violence as a main subject.
When questioned on this in an interview she responded, “ I think violence
is an integral part of American culture, and I set out to deal with it” (PBS).
I believe that due to its confrontational subject matter it is extremely powerful. Ai looks at violence and some of our greatest fears directly in the face
and doesn’t allow us to look away as a reader. She is allowing society to see
the reality of what it is made up of. For example, according to the web site
of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice statistics, in 1999 “white”
people had a much higher rate of being the offender of a victim/offender
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relationship homicide then any other ethnicity. As a society we need to
question our culture and its violent tendencies. We also need to question
our source of information to where we inquire. Perhaps people don’t want
to see the truth and would therefore not be able to read this book. Ai’s
work is vital to literature and society. I’ve never been so mesmerized by a
book of poetry then with Vice. I would whole heartedly recommend this
book to anyone who can look reality in the face for what it truly is and
learn from it, not ignore it.
Works Cited
Ai. Vice. W.W. Norton and Company, New York and London. 1999
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/ai/about.htm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/poems/july-dec—/nba_11-18.html
Works Consulted
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gove/bjs/homicide/race.htm#typesrace
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Black Noise: Something for Those
Who Don’t Understand It
Seth Magnuson
“Can violent images incite violent action, can music set the stage
for political mobilization, do sexually explicit lyrics contribute to the moral
‘breakdown’ of society, and finally, is this really music anyway” (Rose 1)?
In the late 1970’s rap music began to form a structure that consists of not
only all of the artistic aspects—including graffiti, break dancing, music videos and the lyrics—but also the music—from both the voice of the MC and
the mix of the DJ—contribute to the creation of hip hop. Tricia Rose closely
breaks apart these elements in her book titled Black Noise: Rap Music and
Black Culture in Contemporary America. When most, generally older, white
people listen to rap music, they are turned off because of its loud bass and
the offensive language that can be degrading to women. Perhaps this could
also be from the lack of understanding of the culture that is behind hip
hop.
The author takes a birds eye perspective of the entire hip hop culture and fills her book with all of the detailed information that she has
gathered over the past ten years of studies. She begins with the struggles
of rap when it was just beginning. In the 1970’s a very powerful city planner by the name of Robert Moses came up with a plan to put in the Cross
Bronx Expressway. This project was named “Moses’s Title I Slum Clearance program [and] forced the relocation of 170,000 people” (31) which
mainly took place in the south Bronx, the original home of hip hop. After
the relocation roots of hip hop were scattered all over New York, which set
back the progression of hip hop because of the chaos that came with it.
Rose takes a systematic approach beginning with the importance of independent record labels and the introduction of music videos. During the
mid seventies six major companies controlled the music industry—which
were not necessarily interested in rap music—and rap artists were also
turned away from the mainstream radio, which forced them to find new
ways to promote their music. In the early 1980’s the success of MTV quickly
gave not only national exposure, but it also “created an environment in
which the reception and marketing of music is almost synonymous with
the production of music videos”(8). Although rap has only been around a
little over twenty years it has made huge advances within the style and is
now widely accepted worldwide by the younger generations that have
grown up with it.
The graffiti that litters the city walls, trucks and train cars, Rose
points out, is just another form of advertising, which aided to the breakthrough of rap music. However, graffiti writing is not as respected, in fact
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it is much like the urine of a dog, used to mark and claim territory and is
not exactly a pleasant sight. There are gifted artists who create elaborate
multiple train car murals that are astonishing pieces of art, but still they are
despised by the masses. This kind of artwork is always personalized, often
with reference to their crew, which also serves as their visual icon. However, to be a writer “requires detailed knowledge of the train schedules”(42)
along with the will to risk a lot for a little respect among their peers. Trucks
and trains are common targets instead of buildings because they are mobile. Rose goes on to say that a “freshly painted train would be followed all
day and when it reached its designated storage yard (the ‘layup’) at night,
writers were ready to ‘bomb’ it”(43). This shows the dedication to this art
form. Graffiti is the visual representation of the individuals behind the
music while break dancing is the physical portrayal of the music.
Breaking is another important aspect of hip hop, which was “originally [referred] only to a particular group of dance moves executed during
the break beat in a Dj’s rap,” (47) the brief pause while the DJ is switching
music. Break dancing is a combination of a number of different dances to
imitate the music in a physical form. The dancers respond to the DJ’s personal mix of samples.
In the earliest stages, DJs were the central figures in hip hop; they
supplied the break beats for breakdancers and the soundtrack for
graffiti crew socializing. Early DJs would connect their turntables
and speakers to any available electrical source, including street
lights, turning public parks and streets into impromtu parties and
community centers (51).
The music is still the central base of hip hop. Rose uses a number of
quotes from DJ’s explaining their selections of music and the process of
layering and mixing the samples together. The music that is produced simulates the surrounding noise of the city. This also brings with it the chaos
and turmoil, which the lyrics help to amplify.
“Rapping, the last element to emerge in hip hop, has become its
most prominent facet”(51). Rose provides detailed analysis of the artists’
lyrics to show the use of their personal experiences to draw connections
with the surrounding environment of rap music. The harsh language is
used to express the anger of the artists in response to the racism and oppression that they deal with every day. A large portion of this book focuses
on the lyrics and the differences of rap styles and flow between numerous
artists of both genders. “Rap music brings together a tangle of some of the
most complex social, cultural, and political issues in contemporary American society”(2). The issues in hip hop directly reflect the street life and the
constant wars between both the police and drugs. East and west coast rap
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hold on to similar themes, but in the east rap has a longer history, which
brings with it more culture and a style that is more refined. On the other
hand, the style of language used turns many people away from the sounds
of hip hop, but the majority of the T.V. shows and movies are just as bad if
not worse.
Hip hop, like many other forms of black music have surpassed
many hardships throughout its development due to issues of racism and
lack of acceptance. Each step in this culture’s development has been thoroughly examined, all of the information that is packed into this book is full
of historical significance in regards to each individual facet of the hip hop
style and culture. The way that Rose arranges her arguments and descriptions is very realistic. This is enhanced by all of the personal input from
individuals in the hip hop culture. After reading Black Noise you have much
more insight into the hip hop culture, which allows you to make a much
stronger judgment toward the hip hop culture.
Graphics from Black Noise
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Inspiration & the Gift of Writing from
Emily McCarron
Audre Lorde
My whole life I have tried to be a writer. Throughout my writing
career, I feel I have had many shortcomings. After reading The Collected
Poems of Audre Lorde, I was inspired to continue my endeavors. Though I
would never compare my talents in writing to her skill with the written
word, she has inspired me to strive to write for the pure expression it allows me. The Collected Poems paints a vivid picture of over thirty years of
history. Unlike Audre, I don’t want other people to read my poems but I
am inspired to give the gift of history to myself according to her example.
My writing style is similar to Audre Lorde; we both write with
extensive use of metaphors and straightforwardness. I think everyone
should read this book because she has a strong voice that needs to be heard.
It was a touching journey through her life; her personal life, her political
opinions, her racial issues, her spiritual life, her feminist issues, and her
bisexuality. Some of her poems seem to express the deepest parts of her
soul while others seem to be random thoughts reeling in her head. The
book captures’ a plethora of emotions, and expressions which personify
her. So much of her essence is in it. She even writes about being a writer in
“After a first book”
All the poems I have written
are historical reviews of a now absorbed country
a small judgement
hawking and coughing them up
I have ejected them not unlike children
now my throat is clear
perhaps I shall speak again (36).
I felt like I could see her life unfold before my eyes. Hearing about her
insecurities, fears, angers, anxieties, lusts, pleasure, and so on, reminds me
of how life is one big random wave so you might as well write down what
is going on with you along the way.
When I read Audre’s book it made me wish that there had been
more information on her somewhere in the book, but there is something to
be said for the mystery and she did indeed share and expose a lot of her
self in her poems. I got the impression from a number of different poems
that she is spiritual.
One of my favorite poems was ”Call”:
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Adio Hwedo is calling
Calling
Your daughters are named
And conceiving
My mother loosen my tongue
Or adorn me
With a lighter burden
Adio Hwedo is coming.
“Adio Hwedo: The Rainbow Serpent”; is a representation of all ancient
divinities who must be worshipped but whose names and faces have been lost in
time (417).
This poem especially inspired me because it means something.
Something that is bigger then all of us but also the core of us all.
This book gave me a somewhat foggy insight into her life, which
allows me to make isolated connections with her. Audre Lorde is so wise
and her poems are full of important wisdom. “Generation II” helped me
to sympathize with my own mother’s struggles of raising a daughter.
A Black girl
going
into the women
her mother
desired
and prayed for
walks alone
and afraid
of both
their angers ( 81).
This poem also makes me wish my mom had used writing to deal
with her fears while inspiring me to write out my fears.
I enjoyed all of her poems but the blatant political statement in
“Now” struck me on an unparalleled level. It voices the tireless adage of
“Question Authority”, which has been prevalent in my life.
Woman power
is
Black power
is
Human power
is
always feeling
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my heart beats
as my eyes open
as my hands move
as my mouth speaks
I am
are you
Ready (121).
Her statement is so simple and, yet, so strong. I think the shortness of the
lines added to the bluntness of how seemingly intrusive and important
this message is.
There were many poems about race in the book and ‘Between
Ourselves’ gave me a point of few that I have not experienced, nor have a
lot of people. But I will let her words speak for themselves.
“Between Ourselves”
Once when I walked into a room
My eyes would seek out the one or two black faces
For contact or reassurance or a sign
I was not alone (223).
This poem made me want to smile at people more; it made me want to
write more of my thoughts on paper so I can be free to smile at people. The
poem seems to crave a sense of diversity. It makes me hope for a solution
to all the separation.
One thing that kept me thirsty for more was her cry for justice.
She lobbies for justice, and feels the most injured are women. Few want to
hear or talk about the brutality of the way women are treated. A lot of
political and social circles hesitate to include the feminist voice. A feminist
is exactly what she is and does not hide it in “Need: A Choral Of Black
Women’s Voices”:
All: And how many of her deaths
do we live through daily
pretending
we are alive?
BJG: Do you need me submitting to a terror at nightfall
to chop into bits and stuff warm into plastic bags
near the neck of the Harlem River
and they found me there
swollen with you need
do you need me to rape in my 7th year
till blood breaks the corners of my child’s mouth
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and you explain I was being seductive (349).
Bobbie Jean Graham, 34, beaten to death in Boston, 1979. One of 12
black women murdered within a 3-month period in that city.
She wants to speak out for herself; she wants to speak out for everyone. I just wish I were inspired enough to follow her lead and speak
out.
Since we are on the topic of speaking out, I would like to say I am
proud of her for publishing her poems about her bisexuality. This is an
area which has largely been undocumented, and even so unpublished.
Therefore she can be largely considered a pioneer.
And I knew when I entered her I was
high wind in her forests hollow (127).
This poem was a passionate expression of experience that captures intense
emotions.
Descriptive and creative writing can be used not only in a fictional
sense, but can also be used to provide an insightful narrative into pressing
historical, political, and social matters. On more then one occasion, Audre
Lorde’s poems provided historical insight. For esample, in “Viet-Nam Addenda” for/Clifford, she writes:
Genocide doesn’t only mean bombs
at high noon and the cameras
panning in on the ruptured stomach
of somebody else’s pubescent daughter (147).
She knows how to force you to imagine different realities. I loved her poems because they always spoke the truth no matter how vivid or depressing it might be.
To make it a full sample I have to include one of the mystical poems she wrote. One of my favorite poems I am not sure if I fully get her
meaning behind it. In spite of its mystery, “The Black Unicorn” gave me a
meaning and a strong feeling.
I think that every one should read this book because it is historical,
beautiful, and wisdom-filled in an eloquent yet necessary style. This book
has convinced me to fill blank pages with my poems so maybe someday I
will know who I am. She knows who she is, as shewaysin “Jessehelms”:
I am a Black woman
Writing my way to the future
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Off garbage scow knit from moral fiber (447.)
Do you know who you are?
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All Woman: The Timeless Struggle
Between Motherhood and Career
Julie Richardson
“Live as domestic a life as far as possible,” (quoted in The Forerunner, 1913) was the suggestion of a specialist regarding the depression of feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman — the year was 1887.
Leading up to her depression, Gilman was contemplating the
very issue women of the 21st century are still struggling with – she was
torn between work and marriage. After years of debating whether to
marry or not to marry, she consented, and to the best of her abilities
assumed the traditional roles of wife and mother.
Shortly after her first child was born though, Gilman suffered a
debilitating nervous breakdown (De Simone). The “rest cure” was suggested to Gilman as a way of dealing with her nervous breakdown. As a
result, she plunged even deeper into the world of emotional instability.
Gilman uses this moment in her life to later write the powerful short
fiction story titled The Yellow Wallpaper (The Feminist Press) as a reminder
to everyone that women need to be treated as equals and given the same
opportunities in life as men.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, originally published in 1899, Gilman
presents the internal dialogue of a woman diagnosed with hysteria and
for whom total rest has been prescribed. In the short fiction, the patient
is slowly driven mad by her cure which cuts her off from any intellectual pursuits whatsoever. Although The Yellow Wallpaper is a work of
fiction, it is partially based on Gilman’s own experience.
At the time of her depression, the specialist told Gilman such
things as, “have but two hours intellectual life a day” and for her to
“never touch pen, brush, or pencil again” as long as she lived (The Forerunner, 1913). Desperate for some relief from her melancholia, she obeyed
those directions for three months, and came so near the borderline of
utter mental ruin that she could see no end. Then with the help of a wise
friend, Gilman cast the noted specialist’s advice to the wind and went
to work again.
“Work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is
joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite” (quoted by Gilman in The Forerunner, 1913). Ultimately Gilman recovered some measure of power.
This experience led her to leave her husband and her newborn
child and relocate across the country. These bold actions were practically unheard of during this time, particularly for women. She then began to engage in and write about the social movements of the day. She
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became a prominent turn-of-the-century intellectual leader, writing such
works as The Man-Made World, Herland, and Women and Economics
(Schwartz).
Gilman was at the forefront of a movement to allow women to
be both mother and career-orientated intellectuals. She went to the extreme in her life to gain such independence by leaving her family behind and pursuing her career goals. We have progressed into a new era
where it is acceptable for women to have both–yet the struggle still remains. Today’s woman is encouraged by some to be independent and
career-oriented. While it is true that more women are developing careers, it is also true that many have a long way to go to catch up with
men. Although women are no longer bound to a life of domestic tranquility, the guilt of having a career while raising a family can be discouragement enough to make women avoid it altogether. Yet many studies prove that women who work hard at a challenging job are doing
something positive for their mental health (McChristie).
How do women find that precious balance between work and
family? For many females, timing is a problem. The phase of life devoted to forming relationships and establishing families is also the period of life when career-oriented individuals devote almost exclusive
attention to developing their careers. Since many women in the workplace also carry the primary responsibility for children, this responsibility is often a time-and-energy restriction to career development
(McChristie). Because often women are still expected to be homemakers, they find it difficult to take the time necessary to acquire job skills.
So goes the age-long debate between the sexes of equal-rights
and equal-responsibility. Gilman redefined womanhood, declaring
women the equal of men in all spheres of life. This “new woman” was
to be an intelligent, well-informed, and well-educated free thinker, the
creator and expresser of her own ideas. She was to be economically selfsufficient, socially independent, and politically active. She would share
the opportunities, duties, and responsibilities of the workplace with men,
and together they would share the solitude of the hearth (Welter 151).
This image carries over to the modern woman, yet that delicate
balance remains elusive. Are we far enough away from the days of the
yellow wallpaper, when women went mad from lack of intellectual
stimulus in their lives? Deep-rooted oppression is hard to change.
The Yellow Wallpaper was written as a warning to women in the
late 19th century, and Gilman knew her shocking account of mental anguish would open up dialogue on the subject matter. “I did not intend
to drive people crazy by writing The Yellow Wallpaper, but to save people
from being driven crazy, and it worked (quoted by Gilman, The Forerunner, 1913).
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Works Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper?” The
Forerunner Oct. 1913.
De Simone, Deborah M. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Feminization
of Education.” WILLA, Volume 4, 13-17. (1995)
Schwartz, Lynne Sharon. “The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings By
Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” New York: Bantam Books, 1989.
McChristie, Pat. “Women Need to Work.” CyberWoman (April 2001).
http://www.cyberparent.com/women/needwork.htm
A small country market on the Jacmel road, Pierre Verger
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Cultural Landscapes of Haitian Life:
Paradise Lost but Not Forgotten
Janet Thelen
“You can take the [woman] out of the country
but you can’t take the country out of a [woman].”
—Common Folklore, Author Unknown
Marilene Phipps uses poetry to paint a vivid picture of the struggles
and social issues of Haitian island living. Through her words she leads the
reader on a journey; woven in and out of the lives of family, friends, and
acquaintances which have which have influenced Phipps’ writing. She is
an accomplished poet and painter from Haiti. Crossroads and Unholy Water
(published jointly by Southern Illinois Press and Crab Orchard Review), her
first book, includes acclaimed published poems such as: “Haitian Masks”—
International Quarterly, “Marassa Spirits of Haiti”—Crab Orchard Review, and
“Pink”—The Beacon Best of 1999: Creative Writing by Women and Men of All
Colors. There is a contrast of life by the casual traveler to Haiti and the
writing of Marilene Phipps. She offers an inside view of Haitian survival.
The author’s outlook of life in Haiti seems to me very different
than from our American perspective of abject poverty, medical, educational,
and economic crisis. Phipps describes the people as full of life “queen of
the coal kitchen/…beaming/ the yellow kernels of her smile” with a fond
remembrance (3). Her poems reflect on the surroundings of her childhood
and remind the reader of conditions in Haiti today:
The clock outside the church of Sacred Heart,
downtown Port-au Prince, has shown ten of six for years.
No one cares. Time cannot be read. Here people
know what time it is by feeling each other’s faces. (30)
Her poetry gives the reader a vision—“she sighed as she sat/ on a low
straw chair, the heat-lacquered/ columns of her black legs folded in a squat/
her soiled apron caught between her knees”—taking us to a time and place
in her mind with detailed descriptions (3).
I believe the current U.S.-Haitian relations have encouraged, supported, and promoted talented artists and poets like Phipps to come to
America to study and earn a living. Dan Seiters of News from… Southern
Illinois University Press writes, “Marilene Phipps…was born and grew up
in Haiti. The 1993 Grolier Poetry Prize winner, she has been both a
Guggenheim and Harvard University Bunting Institute fellow. She has won
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fellowships for the year 1999-2000 at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute and the
Center for the Study of World Religions, both at Harvard” <www.siu.edu>.
The fact that Phipps is Haitian—living in the U. S. with a long list of credentials—is not unusual. According to Radin of The Boston Globe, “Haitians occupy a special place in the United States, in two ways. They are
black, but they are not American blacks; they look at American blacks across
deep historical and cultural divides. And they are immigrants, sharing many
characteristics with the Irish, Italians, and Jews who preceded them: the
work ethic, fervent religious commitment, strong emphasis on family and
education” <infoweb.newsbank.com>.
Phipps’ poetry makes me realize the harshness of everyday life in
Haiti and how much we, as Americans, need to be more thankful for what
we have. It seems that only when we have something taken away—we
reveal a true appreciation—or regret. My thought, on some Americans living in the U.S., is how much is taken for granted in our daily lives. Phipps
shares her life experiences with us the reader:
We are dirt/ poor in Nerèt.
No running water in these slums,
most people over there will kill
over water in the ravine: it’s a trickle
and getting some is not like in America—
you get a ticket and wait in line. (24)
Phipps offers an up close and personal view of Haitians living in
their island nation “the lushness of the black river women/…who travel
down from sun-scorched hills/…to wash soiled, worn clothes” with honor
and respect (15). The island once described as “one of the richest colonies
in the 18th century French empire—pearl of the Antilles” is now a poverty
stricken country; “a legal minimum wage of 36 gourds a day (about U. S.
$1.80) applies to most workers in the legal sector.” That is probably why
“about one of every six Haitians live abroad” <ehostvgw17.epnet.com>.
An article on May 7, 2001 by Tim Padgett/Port-Au-Prince for TIME Magazine informs us that “the country suffers 80% unemployment and Colombian drug traffickers have begun using the island as a transit lounge”
<www.time.com>.
Like a puzzle, the pieces of Phipps’ past form an image “the house
was green and white/ coconut trees fanned themselves/ over the termitehollowed balcony” (22). Each memory—like a piece of her life—fall into
place “I am an object/ in her private graveyard of muscular men/ whose
photographs are like inscribed headstones” (24). With a thoughtful voice
she recalls her mother’s relationships “each man has enlarged the emptiness in her/ she has been mined like a great hill” (24). Phipps shows the
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reader that she misses her mother by recalling her mother’s words “you
grew in me/ now you have gone/ too far for me to imagine you” (25). She
offers a tribute to her parents’ memory in Crossroads and Unholy Water;
“without them there is no life” (Special Acknowledgments). The average life
expectancy is 54 years according to a “Republic of Haiti” report
<ehostvgw17.epnet.com>.
Just like Phipps’ painting on the cover of her book, her poetry adds
color and dimension to the Haitian cultural landscape. Her poems reflect
the people of Haiti with compassion and dignity; bringing their stories to
life. The reader discovers a little more about the world we live in—events
and people that have shaped Phipps’ writing and her life. Crossroads and
Unholy Water “make me see the world from [her] eyes” (25).
Works Cited
Métraux, Alfred. Haiti:Black Peasants and Voodoo. “A small country
market on the Jacmel road”. New York: Universe Books, 1960.
Phipps, Marilene. Crossroads and Unholy Water. Carbondale and
Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Press and Crab Orchard Review, 2000.
Padgett, Tim. TIME Magazine. “The Once and Current President”.
May 17, 2001 Vol., 157. 18. Online. 16 May 2001
<www.time.com/>
Radin, Charles A. “From Haiti to Boston…” The Boston Globe.
Sunday Magazine, p18. 15 Dec. 1996 Online. Newsbank.
Cabrillo Coll. Lib., Aptos. 12 May 2001
<http:infoweb.newsbank.com/>
Seiters, Dan. News from… Southern Illinois University Press.
12 May 2001 <http://www.siu.edu/>
“Republic of Haiti.” Background Notes on Countries of the World,
Apr. 2001 Haiti, pl. Online. EBSCOhost. Cabrillo Coll. Lib., Aptos.
8 May 2001 <http://ehostvgw17.epnet.com/>
Haitian Pastorale, from
bookjacket of Crossroads
and Unholy Water, painted
by Marilene Phipps
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Break the Rules!
Hao Huang
Are you sick of typical Hollywood films like Dude, Where is My
Car? or that film which contains thousands of bullets but zero plots called
3000 Miles to Graceland? Yeah, me too. So you want to make your own film
that touches the human heart, the kind, which we can barely find now.
However, you have a zero budget and don’t know how? When people like
you want to become filmmakers they should read: Feature Filmmaking at
Used-Car Prices. According to Eduardo Sanchez, co-writer and co-director
of The Blair Witch Project—it is “A must-have for no-budget filmmaking. A
most valuable resource, just in case you…aren’t one of Spielberg’s kids”.
Can this book help you to make an original, independent film? It is true
that Rick Schmidt will teach you the ABC’s of preparing, filming and editing in his book; moreover, it is based on his own experience. But there is
more to it than that; it is a book that teaches you how to break the rules of
filmmaking.
The author tells you almost everything you need to know about
filmmaking, and while he is doing that, he also reminds people that those
rules can be broken. The most recent edition, 2000, covers even more digital filmmaking which almost missing in the 1998 edition. The book is useful and most importantly, inspirational and critical of the Hollywood filmmaking industry.
In 1913 Jesse Lasky, Samuel Goldwyn, and Cecil B. DeMille made
the first full-length feature movie in Hollywood in that barn, “The Squaw
Man.” When they formed a studio and named it Paramount, they moved
that barn to another location. Ever since then, filmmaking has become synonymous with Hollywood. It became the heaven of filmmaking. Among
the thousands of great movies produced in Hollywood, Citizen Kane (1941)
and Dr. Strangelove (1964)…were only two examples. Hollywood had its
time. However while in the 80s commercial box office success completely
dominated artistic success. It is true that Hollywood films are formulaic—
from the earlier Cowboy movies to today’s Arnold Schwarzenegger action
movies and it is getting worse. Hollywood has become a huge advertise
machine. While it is violence world we are living in today; Hollywood
packages the violence and make it beautiful, and the only way to become a
success in this society—Gladiator. While the love is complicated and it contains not only just beautiful romantic sharing of life but also selfishness
and jealousy. The loves in Hollywood’s romantic movies are thinner than
Titanic. In the foreword Schmidt summarizes his view of these formula
films. “The shortcoming of Hollywood is that its confections are whipped
up from recipes (you know: a dash of romance blended into a cup of suspense with a dollop of social relevance thrown on top to create the perfect
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post-dinner entertainment)” (Schmidt 6). Attacking Hollywood filmmaking is the very first thing he puts in his book and he let his readers know
why. His ten “anti-rule” rules are exactly what new filmmakers need to
consider. He is telling us to stop worrying too much about sets, props,
locations, costumes and plot. Shoot something that is about life, about
people. You will feel that the writer is encouraging you to do it. “But when
you write for a feature that you will produce, the only one you have to
satisfy is yourself.” (Schmidt 41)
Any prospective investor should be reminded that filmmaking
is…a gamble. There is no way to know ahead of time…a more
important point is that…you create a unique film that may help
expand the understanding of people on this planet (Schmidt 67).
It may sound impossible at first but there are many filmmakers
that have tried this method and succeeded. Wim Wenders, director of Wings
of Desire and Paris, Texas is one of them. “He came away with the conviction that the original concept for the film should remain open so that during the filmmaking the director can discover and incorporate into the film
new images and ways of seeing.” Roger F. Cook, wrote in his essay, “Angles,
Fiction, and History in Berlin: Wings of desire”. Wim Wenders was named the
Best Director of the 1987 Cannes Film Festival for Wings of Desire. Hollywood filmmakers spend too much time on the look of the films and forget
the essential thing of filmmaking—life and humanity. Those “anti-rule”
rules are elements the Hollywood films are missing. He keeps reminding
us of these rules through his teaching of how to make a no-budget film.
One of the reasons that it is easier and cheaper now to make a
movie is because of the Internet. It is an oasis, where people can gain and
give away their own information. Today, people can simply list their film
on the Internet without going through the monstrous Hollywood promotion and distribution system. In the book, Schmidt really connects the reader
to the Internet. All the tools, videos and organizations he introduces to
readers have their Internet addresses next to the their names. There includes Websites such as Dogme 95, places that people can get information
and connections to the independent filmmakers and watch their films. There
are also price lists and phone numbers you should call for more help for
the things you need to do while you decide to make a film. His book also
includes an array of checklists, sample budgets and contracts. He will show
you ways to make films out of nothing or almost out of nothing. He introduces the readers to a whole new world of filmmaking.
However, I was disappointed with the part on film editing. Schmidt
only shows us how to edit the film shot by 35mm. These days, Digital Video
(DV) filmmaking is so much easier and cheaper with higher quality. Last
summer, David Sullivan of Cabrillo College led an independent study group
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that made a fifteen-minute long film call Strange Flesh; I was at the opening. The film’s quality was so good that I couldn’t believe they had done
the whole thing on one DV camera and an Apple G4 computer. Even
Schmidt admits that “Video that looks like top-end film! That’s why the
DV format deserves attention beyond the previous “video chapter”.” He
adds chapter 11 for the digital video workstation, but I don’t think that it is
enough. DV filmmaking is revolutionary because it gives us the power to
make films that have almost the same quality as Hollywood’s. Rick used
too little space to describe this most powerful tool for future filmmakers
(The new 2000 Edition is greatly upgraded).
Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices is like a gateway to an alternate universe of artistic creation. It is time for filmmakers to break the rules
of Hollywood and setup their own rules, and show them to the audiences.
The digital revolution, that is, disinter mediation, make it possible for independent filmmakers to publish their work without huge money support
from Hollywood or any other major cooperation. Low budget digital filmmaking changes not only the meaning of production but also the ownership. The aesthetic it espouses returns production to people and to a human scale. It is time for us to be free from Hollywood at last.
Fear of female sexuality in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula
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The Dread of Analysis
Imelda Jimenez
“The monstrous figures from our dreams are our images of our
repressed selves, and thus Transylvania, by extension, becomes the land of
the unconscious, an interpretation which is thoroughly confirmed by
Stoker’s imagery” (Wood 369). I had never viewed the imagery in Bram
Stoker’s Dracula in such a provocative way. This is a quote by Robin Wood
in an essay called “Burying the Undead: The Use and Obsolescence of Count
Dracula”, which takes a closer look at who “Dracula” is and how he is
portrayed in different films.
When I flipped through the book The Dread of Difference: Gender
and the Horror Film (Texas Press; $24.95), edited by Barry Keith Grant, I
thought it might be interesting to read and to learn more about the genre of
horror. The book had some playfully entitled essays such as “’Beyond the
Veil of the Flesh’: Cronenberg and the Disembodiment of Horror”, and
“King Kong: The Beast in the Boudoir—or, ‘You Can’t Marry That Girl, You’re
a Gorilla!’” making the book seem appealing.
There are 21 essays in the book, each by a different author; the
majority of them are college professors, with backgrounds ranging from
cinematography to literature to psychology. As I read the essays, I found
them very analytical and too descriptive. At times I was guided so far into
descriptions, I would forget what was supposedly being discussed and
need to check the title of the essay.
For the most part, the in-depth look at films and portrayals of characters were well written, such as in an essay by Linda Williams called “When
the Woman Looks”. “The vampiric act of sucking blood, sapping the life
fluid of a victim so that the victim in turn becomes a vampire, is similar to
the female role of milking the sperm of the male during intercourse” (Williams 23). Examples like this help the reader understand and look at the
films from a different perspective.
I was personally interested in the essays about Dracula. In an essay by Vera Dika, entitled “from Dracula—with Love”, she discusses his
portrayal in films throughout the years:
But in [Francis Ford Copolla’s 1992] Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the
monster is also a handsome young man, played by Gary Oldman.
Although Badham’s [1979] Dracula, starring Frank Langella, presents a devastatingly attractive Count who seduces his willing
victims, he is never a lover in the real sense. In Bram Stoker’s
Dracula, the monster is now rendered as an ardent lover who is
passionately loved in return by the beautiful Mina. (Dika 390)
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Some of the more profound, symbolic meanings behind “blood”
and the woman’s sexual role and influence in the movie were a little difficult to understand. Dika attempts to give a profound explanation about
blood and women in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
First she begins discussing women and menstrual blood, arguing
women can be seen as “evil” by society. “The female is associated with filth
and defilement, that which must be cast away from the symbolic system.
For this reason, woman can become synonymous with evil” (Dika 391).
This is pretty clear. But, in the next sentence she states:
In literature, this fear of the wound—of female genitalia and female genital function—has been incorporated, according to another theory, now by Sidmund Freud, in stories that inspire dread,
fear, and loathing. In his essay “The Uncanny,” Freud argues that
this emotion has its source in things once familiar to us, to what
was ‘homey’ or heimlich, but is now suppressed. (Dika 392)
Then she talks about castration and a mother’s womb:
He [Freud] claims that within this familiarity, this comfort, lurks
the opposite emotion, the unheimlich, or “uncanny,” the dread of
our first home, of the womb, of our mother’s genitalia. And for
the male, it also includes the fear of the mother’s imagined castration and, potentially, his own. (Dika 392)
And then in the next paragraph, she leaps into this idea of the blood
of life, “The blood that Dracula craves, and from which we recoil, the ‘blood
of life,’ derives its power from the ancient fear of menstrual blood”(Dika
392). This line is clear.
In Stoker’s story, the female “wound” is displaced upward, from
the genital area to the neck, and the act of sucking is at once a
perversion of sexual intercourse and of lactation as well. Mother’s
milk and menstrual blood, as corporeal excrement, are the abject. (Dika 392)
Despite the so-called “philosophical” explanations of symbolism
and metaphors in the book, which is often not easy to follow, the book gets
you to view what is really, according to the authors, being portrayed in
horror movies.
The authors point out that we are accountable for what is exposed
in movies. Horror movies tend to always have a passive female running
away from the terrible monster in search of her strong, masculine boy-
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friend to save her from being killed. Going back to Williams’ essay, she
discusses women having to “cover their eyes … [and] hide behind the shoulders of their dates”, when viewing scary movies. She tells us the reason
why women do this is because a woman is “asked to bear witness to her
own powerlessness in the face of rape, mutilation, and murder” (Williams
15).
Women are still seen in today’s culture as male dependent and
weak and this is strongly reflected in every type of media. If issues of gender role, sexuality, violence, and adolescence and other topics are suppressed, then media will jump in and find some way to get us to see it up
close. That’s why issues like this cause such debates between the media
and parents…how much sex and violence should a child see? It’s up to us
to change what the media exposes to us. As Robin Wood said, “The true
subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our
civilization represses or oppresses” (Intro 4).
Cover for A Star Called Henry
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Fastest Leg in the West (Of Ireland)
Vance Buckreus
Henry Smart: easily played by Matt Damon on the big screen, is an
Irish Revolutionary hero. The charismatic overly handsome main character loves his way into the midst of the Easter Rising, though it was a battle
lost and took the lives of many important revolutionaries, “was critical in
the growth of Ireland into a free republic” (O’Brien 240). Henry Smart carries on the family trade: murder by wooden leg. His infamous father was
known for being able to whip the leg off his stump, and whack his victim
on the head, a lot like an old-west gunfight. The books hero is soon on his
own, with many exciting exploits to fill the pages. Doyle entertains us by
giving us a romanticized history of Ireland, while simultaneously going
past mere entertainment to inform as well.
A STAR CALLED HENRY is a good example of Doyle’s street talking
poetry, and a tale of love thrown in. The early novels of Roddy Doyle were
recognizable simply by the way they were laid out in type: long strings of
descriptions running down the pages; one and two-word bursts of speech
set off by dashes. His book Paddy Clarke received the Booker Prize in 1993,
this established him as a legitimately literary contributor.
A Star Called Henry takes place during the founding of the Irish
Republic; this historical novel begins with a prehistory set in Victorian
Dublin. The fist view of Doyle’s history lesson details his image of the conditions for the average early 1900’s Irish person. Henry the hero is born
successfully while other Henrys had died at birth in the slums of Dublin
amidst the “pools of stagnant water, rats on the scent of baby milk…death
in every breath” (11).
Baby Henry Smart is destined to help save Ireland from the British
tyranny. The young hero named Henry Smart is destined for greatness; his
father, also Henry Smart, teaches his son the family business at an early
age. Henry tells us he watches his father “balanced without needing to
hop and brought the leg down on the cap of a man who was standing next
to me. I heard bones breaking and screams”(60). Doyle’s slant on the mayhem is comical, reading much like a mini-series movie.
Henry has few tender moments with his parents, fortunately he is
able to recall all memories since birth. He remembers they would sit on the
front steps and look up at the sky. Those memories will have to last a lifetime for soon his parents would be taken. Henry Sr. is caught in the middle
of an underworld double-crossing and disappears “Who was he and where
did he come from? I know nothing real about my father; I do not even
know if his name was real” (61). Poor Henry and Victor are left with their
only possession, a mahogany prosthetic leg, to fend off the world. Now
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Henry must take care of his brother, Victor, as they are orphaned and alone.
Henry and Victor are out traipsing around on their own, with their
desperate circumstances depicted as comic adventures. They find ways to
entertain the crowd by grasping rats barehanded to earn spare change. It
was a little too farcical when the writer has them sneaking into school only
to be thrown out again for being too poor. They are characters on the margins excessively entertaining as iconoclastic dissenters. “You will beat the
English because your drinks are better” (273). The story is a typical “historical” revolt story, it has everything needed to create an entertaining and
informing experience, true love in the midst of war, from rags to a position
of respect in wartime. Roddy Doyle has inserted his likable character into
one of the most important events of Irish history The Easter Rising.
The story is artfully told, line for line, the prose is vivid, sensual,
and gripping, although the story line itself is not very original. One of the
best historically based scenes is “The Easter Rising”. This was an armed
assault by Irish rebels on the Dublin General Post Office and other parts of
the city on Easter Monday, the 24th of April, 1916. The Irish revolutionaries
run out into the street and briång back a bed with casters, they put the
wounded commanding officer on “a brass bed on good true casters, so
Connolly could continue to run the show…`I took one bed knob and, his
body guard took the other, we shoved that bed all over the post office”’(146).
Even though they lost, the rebels succeeded in bringing greater
world and national attention to the oppressive ways with which England
ruled over Ireland. It is believed that this was the real reason for the rebels
following through with the assault. They knew that they were going into a
battle which they probably would not win, but they also knew that they
had to send a message to England saying that Ireland was no longer satisfied with broken promises and political games.
Works Cited
Doyle, Roddy. A Star Called Henry: volume one
of the last roundup.
New York: Penguin Books, 1999.
O’Brien, William. 04/05/01 “History Of The
Easter Rising”. (www.irish revolt.com)
Accessed 1 May 7, 2001
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I Found Myself Through Hairspray:
And Other Interesting Ways to Look At
Sara Cunningham-Farish
The World
“I’ve been around and seen the Taj Mahal and the Grand Canyon
and Marilyn Monroe’s footprints outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater, but
I’ve never seen my mother wash her own hair” (39). And so begins Marcia
Aldrich’s essay entitled “Hair” (Best American Essays, Houghton Mifflin).
With wit and imagination she tells us the story of the women in her family
and their hair, using it as a metaphor to expose the underlying expressions
of the self. Through her personal experience and thought, she does what
most of the essays in this book do; they ask us to look at the world in a new
way, with new eyes, and understand the many layers of meaning in ordinary things.
Aldrich seems to say, “Be afraid of a woman who dares to cut her
hair”. When women change their hair, many times it reflects a deeper change
in their lives; “sometimes they create a look that startles in its own originality and suggests a future not yet realized” (44) that rests on the brink of
possibility. What is that “future not yet realized”? A change: I’m leaving,
I’m going back to school, I like myself. Perhaps the ancient myth of Sampson
and Delilah has changed form—since so few men have long hair anymore—
and now rather than the long hair being the strength of Sampson, taking
off the weight of long locks is the power of Delilah.
There are of course women who ask the question that Aldrich’s
sister does, “Don’t women have better things to think about than their hair?”
Yes they do, but if they choose to think of their hair as the wings of their
imagination, I think it is as worthy of thought as a uterus. Hair seems to
embody notions of power and femininity but it can also display the flexibility of the soul. The mystical and mysterious hairdresser Rhonda who
Aldrich finds in the end of her piece, explains it this way:
I see hair…as an extension of the head and therefore I try to do
hair with a lot of thought…Nothing is permanent, nothing is forever. Don’t feel hampered or hemmed in by the shape of your
face or the shape of your past. Hair is vital, sustains mistakes,
can be born again. You don’t have to marry it. Now tip back and
put you head in my hands (45).
When I read Annie Dillard’s essay “Stunt Pilot” I felt I had slipped
into the short pageboy haircut I had as a kid. I remember standing next to
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my father who towered high above me, and for the first time seeing a plane
do magical, fantastic things in the sky. Dillard shares how she “stood among
dandelions between two asphalt runways in Bellingham, Washington, and
began learning about beauty” (138). She transports us to the air show—to
an event that I would not expect to show this—but does: the simple, fierce
grace that every artist wishes to reveal.
His was pure energy and naked spirit. I have thought about
it for years. Rahm’s line unrolled in time. Like music, it
split the bulging rim of the future along its seam. It pried
out the present. We watchers waited for the split-second
curve of beauty in the present to reveal itself. The human
pilot, Dave Rahm, worked in the cockpit right at the plane’s
nose; his very body tore into the future for us and reeled it
down upon us like a curling peel…Who could breathe, in
a world where rhythm itself had no periods? (138)
She seems to dare us to define what is beautiful, what is art. Who
are we who have not noticed the daring arc of the human pilot as he risks
his life to carve art out of sky? Her description could be of painting, of
dancing, music; in fact her writing has this same graceful arc, allowing us
to experience the air show as she did. She could also be describing the
finesse of making others laugh, as Ann Hodgman does in her essay “No
Wonder They Call Me a Bitch”.
Hodgman uses humor as a sword to explore the world in relation
to the self. With wit and the matter-of-fact explanation of a soap commercial, she shares her experience in answering the questions “Is a GainesBurger really like a hamburger? Does dog ‘cheese’ taste like real cheese?
Does Gravy Train actually make gravy in a dog’s bowl, or is that brown
liquid just dissolved crumbs? And what exactly are by-products?” So she
gives herself over to the bizarre task of sampling both dry and wet varieties of “bitch” food.
Although we are led on the jocular journey of actually frying a
Gaines-Burger and sampling Purina O.N.E. (Optimal Nutritional Effectiveness), the deeper commentary is about herself as a woman, and the criticism she has received: “bitch”! The Oxford dictionary defines a bitch as a
“female dog or other canine animal; a spiteful woman; a very unpleasant
or difficult thing” (Oxford 72). She is very subversive in this essay, denying
their slang use of word—a spiteful woman, and addressing the literal use—
female dog. She may eat the food, but she also uses humor and an almost
mocking tone to laugh at the criticism, even going so far as to imply that
she claims this word; “No Wonder” she says in the title. Her work shows
us a new way to look at criticism: maybe there’s truth in it, and maybe
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that’s not so bad, just funny.
I try to imagine I am all of these things: moved to transform myself
through my hair, the human pilot creating art out of thin air, courageous
and curious enough to pursue something so fervently that I would eat dog
food. But I also try to absorb the way these different writers used their
writing and thought to explore and push me to explore, the way I looked
at the world. The writing is both the vehicle for new thought, as well as
being a savory destination. In all three pieces—and in the many more to be
found in the Great American Essays—the sense of exploration, honesty, and
critical thought remind the reader that “nothing is more gladdening than
knowing we must roll up our sleeves and move back the boundaries of the
humanely possible once more”(xi).
Robert Rauschenberg’s All Abordello Doze 2 (Japanese Recreational Clayworks)
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Hitch-Hiking in Hollywood
Maia Yepa
So, young Americans are the unfortunate ones, “weaned on MTV,”
and unable to comprehend the beauty of a Hitchcock film, brought up in
an era of artistic ignorance and cinematic sacrilege. David Freeman has no
faith in the appreciative abilities of the modern audience, as he makes clear
in the introduction to his The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock. The book, a memoir of Freeman’s collaboration with the director who birthed such films as
Dial M for Murder (1954), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963),
is more of an ego boost for a scriptwriter who hasn’t been recognized on a
celebrity level. Freeman wants a piece of the pie. Unfortunately for him,
Hitchcock ate it.
The introduction, a critical, opinionated evaluation of modern society in relation to Hitchcock films, is better left for last, or perhaps not
read at all. As a reader who enjoys forming opinions on my own, I didn’t
appreciate Freeman’s idea that a young, post-Hitchcock audience member
is incapable of true understanding of Hitchcock’s genius. Freeman also attacks modern filmmaking, and presupposes that Hitchcock, if he were alive
today, would share his opinions. “I doubt that he would have much liked
the slam-bang style that has now all but overwhelmed American movies,
but he would have seen it for the irritating fad that it is” (Freeman ix). Yes,
movies have changed, entertainment has changed, but who is Freeman to
decide for millions that cinema of today is worthless, that contemporary
audiences have dry tastes?
Freeman has a point, that credit for deserving movies is often stolen by flashy effects and “the din of the multiplex.” Reference this year’s
Academy Awards: the movie of the year was Gladiator, a film not to be
completely disregarded, but certainly to be questioned in its superiority
over other nominations. It is fairly clear that this business isn’t about quality over quantity, but looking at modern films and audiences, it can be seen
that, beneath the Cheese-Glam surface of Hollywood filmmaking, there is
still talent and taste to be found. Although we are of a culture in which
instant gratification sells, there are still those who look for a slightly more
stimulating (intellectually, that is) form of cinema.
Freeman accuses today’s audience members of distorting
Hitchcock’s influence. He claims that we have forgotten to look for the
underlying psychological statements that are hidden in the gore and guts
of Hitchcock’s films. In other words, where there was deep meaning for
viewers of Hitchcock’s era, “what remains for a modern audience is only
the grisly murder” (Freeman x).
To contradict Freeman’s opinion I asked a twenty-year-old college
student if she had an opinion about Vertigo. In response, she said that she
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“was impressed with the cinematography and the suspense it created…
was constantly noticing potential stills, and…was impressed by
[Hitchcock’s] ability to keep me hanging on… keep me interested till it
was through” (personal interview). Perhaps not every youth of today is
going to be in awe of Hitchcock’s direction; still, not everyone is in search
of mindless entertainment.
The memoir portion of Freeman’s book is full of interesting facts
about Hitchcock’s movies and personality. For an avid Hitchcock follower,
this section might be the icing on the cake; Freeman mentions the little
things that one might not spot on their own and answers questions about
strange occurrences in Hitchcock’s directing. For instance, why, in Vertigo,
is there a strange cut from Madeleine (Kim Novak) running across the field,
to Madeleine and Scottie (James Stewart) standing next to the bell tower?
Who would have thought that it was Hitchcock’s wife, Alma, who suggested the scene be cut because of the appearance of Novak’s legs? Some
of Hitchcock’s reasoning proves bizarre, but “the result is the finished
print… Kim Novak’s heavy legs protected and all logic left on the cutting
room floor” (Freeman 19).
For those who are not regular critics of Hitchcock movies, Freeman says too much. He seems eager to share his secret Hitchcock facts, but
in the process, he is not cautious about sacrificing the plot of the screenplays he refers to, and, in fact, does so liberally. I suppose if he does the
film justice while giving it away, one might be inspired to hold a Hitchcock
marathon. Otherwise, Freeman may as well be talking through the movie.
The Short Night, which was never produced, is a bit of a change
from the typical “film noir” style Hitchcock movies take on. The script,
which still needs some polishing according to Freeman, is fairly lighthearted
and easy to follow. Only a few moments provided suspense: most were
teetering on the edge of comedy.
Reading a Hitchcock script is not a terribly fulfilling accomplishment. The man is known for his suspenseful cinematography and his ability to lure the viewers to the edge of their seats with the mere angle at
which he pans. Since the script on paper, no matter how detailed, can never
parallel the final product film, reading a movie—well, it’s just not the same.
This particular screenplay reached nowhere near the range of complexity that other Hitchcock films have. Truthfully, it felt like I was scanning an old Hardy Boys novel with the addition of a few PG13 scenes. What
saved it was the build up that Freeman gives in his memoir of his collaboration on the project. If it weren’t for his explanations in the previous section of the book, the screenplay would have lost the appeal that being a
Hitchcock product gives it. (Freeman gives a preview of the cinematographic choices Hitchcock was working on.) What spoiled it was the build
up that Freeman gives himself for being a part of the process. Yes, the man
deserves credit, but he often seems to turn the spotlight onto himself for no
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reason other than to remind his readers that he was Hitchcock’s last collaborator.
The character development in The Short Night is shallow in comparison to earlier Hitchcock pieces. In Vertigo, for example, Scottie and Judy/
Madeleine are intensely fascinating people. Freeman does touch on this in
his summarization of the film. Vertigo “is a puzzle within a puzzle that
proceeds both by logic and by dreams” (Freeman 30). But try to apply this
statement to The Short Night and Freeman would be paddling up river.
There simply isn’t the same abundance of thought-provoking information,
complexity of plot, or stimulation of curiosity that older Hitchcock films
are known for.
What I can appreciate about Freeman is his background in writing. I have become wary of memoirs written by authors who have no knowledge of language, who wish to convey an idea through non-captivating
words. Freeman was a journalist and a scriptwriter, and it shows in the
quality of his work. In describing Hitchcock’s storytelling, Freeman gives
a perfect example of his own book: “It was an odd mixture of an obsession
with detail and a slow, meandering style” (6). Freeman certainly exhibits
these characteristics. He shows immense attention to the details, and his
work entertains at a legible pace.
Clearly, Freeman has an immense amount of respect and admiration for Hitchcock, as he places him on a pedestal that no director since has
been able to reach. “If God couldn’t get it right the first time around, Hitch
was going to have a go at it and see what he could do” (Freeman 53). The
fact that Hitchcock is dead does not effect Freeman’s opinion. Hitchcock is
a poster child for our obsession with celebrity, those unusual characters
that never die in our heads. Hitchcock wasn’t assassinated. He didn’t die
of a drug overdose or car accident. But that doesn’t change the fact that he
is a legend in his genre, a character that Freeman won’t let us forget, who is
embedded in our culture through a medium that was, in Hithcock’s day, a
genre fairly unexplored. Although Freeman says too much in relation to
his own career, in regards to Hitchcock’s, he says it all. “Today…many directors are well known and admired though they usually seem more like businessmen or politicians than artists whose ghosts can live in the collective
unconscious of the nation” (Freeman xi).
Works Cited
Freeman, David. The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock. Woodstock, New York:
The Overlook Press, 1999. 281 pp. $16.95
Anonymous. Personal Interview. May 5, 2001
Works Consulted
Vertigo. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. James Stewart, Kim Novak. Paramount,
1958.
PGR 199
Is it Behaviour? or Behavior?
Leah Quinn
Words, gotta love ‘em! They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes,
textures and tones. Some words are full mouthed, big and round, others
scrunched and plugged. Or perhaps you fancy the liquid smooth ones that
slide from your lips, or the sharp ones that slice and bite? They can pop,
click and bounce too and how about the words coughed up like phlegm
and spit from your tongue like acid? Not me you say? Well then you can’t
deny that words are down right useful now can you. If you’re not smitten
with the sound and feel of words, don’t worry The Story of English by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert Macneil, has something for you
too. Behind each word there’s a little story, and if English happens to be
your mother tongue then you’re in luck! The English language has over
500, 000 words to choose from and chances are at least a few will appeal to
you (1). People use language to describe just about everything we possibly
can about the human experience. Whatever it is that is important and meaningful to you, can most definitely be described using words. The study of
language is essentially a study of people. Historic events and the process
by which cultural identity is formed are contained within a language. Words
are marked; they bear the past like a scar upon a smooth face the product
of living, of chance and purpose. Upon inspection, words will reveal important cultural truths and fascinating insight into the character of the
people who create them.
I’ll tell you right off, this book is jam packed with information—
important mind you, just not always, well let’s say...exciting. If you can sift
through the desert of information, which admittedly is tedious at times,
you will be rewarded. Buried in this desert are many tasty nuggets that
will satisfy the curious mind and tickle even the most apathetic of verbal
communicators.
The Story of English tells the history of the English language. It taps
its roots and explores its birth and its evolution over time and oceans. The
book does this thoroughly and with attention to minute idiosyncratic subtleties that both surprise and delight the reader.
The book keys in on the forces that have shaped English and provides us with logical explanations for its form today. The authors effectively win the readers interest by covering a broad spectrum of influences
on English. This includes areas such as, Politics, Historical events, Culture,
Immigration and the Arts to mention a few. Through many of these different outlets we find a subject that is interesting to us and are provoked to
read on. As we follow the evolution of English we are made aware of the
motivations behind certain changes and more fully able to appreciate and
understand why they came about.
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Because I am an American, naturally the section in the book about
“American English” appealed to me. Why is it that we speak differently
than the British? Much of the changes English has undergone in this country can be traced to early nationalism. “ The American Revolution marked
the turning point in the making of this new, American kind of English. The
rebels wanted to announce their separation from the old country in every
department of life” (226). The authors make their explanations complete
with specific example of spelling changes the English in America underwent from the British traditions. To name a few of the most prominent we
have the famous lexicographer Noah Webster to thank for things like colour
to “color,” theatre to “theater” and defence to “defense”(232).
The reader is also dipped into the melting pot of American culture
and is satisfied with explanations on the regional differences of American
English that are characterized by accents and subtle differences is word
usage. We are taken to the South where the African slave population was
most dense and see the influence it had on speech there. “The Southern
accent of the United States would almost certainly been quite different
without the influence of the Blacks. The influence of Black English was felt
in the fields (where slave and overseer would mix), in the house (where
master and mistress used plantation Creole to communicate with their
slaves. But above all, it was found in the nursery...furthermore all nursing
–as any reader of Southern literature knows was done by Blacks (204).
If you’re still not impressed, don’t fret, there’s tons of fun, less serious material for those of us who don’t have a ravishing appetite for the
subtleties of language itself. The authors dedicate ample pages to the origins of odd words, slang and common expressions in the English language.
Can you guess what these words from “low Dutch”—fokkinge, kunte, and
krappe—became? (77). Or how about the origins of the popular slang word
“cool”? Turns out, “ Early Jazz was hot (frenetic), but when this word was
over exploited by the Whites, it was considered best to develop cool (which
may ironically, have come from white West Coast Jazz bands of the
1950s)”(209). Ever wondered how the American name for a mixed drink
“Cocktail” got its name? Me either, but it was neat to find out. “...Like
some other Americanisms it may have an African pedigree. In the Krio of
Sierra Leon, kaktel means “scorpion”—a creature with a sting in the tail”
(241). How appropriate, don’t you think?
The richness of the English language is staggering and diverse as
“English is used by at least 750 million people, and barely half of those
speak it as a mother tongue” (1). I’d say that it is pretty obvious that it’s
probably the most useful language to know, and the leader in the modern
world. English reaches far and wide and it lives and breathes the people
who speak it. Following the laws of nature it evolves with us from day to
day, babbling into the future, carrying our history with it. The Story of En-
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glish is impressive and relevant reading material and if you’re into languages in a big way, watch out! It just might leave you speechless...
Works Cited
Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English.
Penguin Books: 394 pp.
Giant Monkey frog perched on shower faucet, from The Golden Frog
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In Search of the Golden Frog:
A Practically Untarnished Book
Sandy Hager
When invited on an expedition by the world’s expert on tropical
tree frogs to survey amphibians and reptiles at a remote field site in the
tropical forest of Amazonian Ecuador, the twenty-one-year-old senior biology student replied enthusiastically: “Yes! Take me with you!”(1). And
thus begins and sets the pace for Marty Crump’s book entitled In Search of
the Golden Frog. This real life field journal includes thirty years of invaluable research on habitat and wildlife while adapting to many different cultures. In addition, Marty raised two children while still continuing her work
in the fields, making herself the first female biologist to ever do this. Although a lot of negative human impact has occurred in the past thirty years,
she has worked hard to teach conservation and awareness. Overall, her
descriptions of animals, plants and fungi are incredibly helpful with great
color descriptions and size references. While her approach to biology is
refreshingly human, being full of humor and understanding, the only
critism I have is that from a scientific standpoint, she periodically anthropomorphizes animals she is observing and therefore may be doing them a
great disservice.
I’ll never forget going on one of my first biology field trips and
experiencing first hand a bitter researcher and expert on dolphins do his
best to completely destroy any ideas we may have about these wonderful
creatures possessing any magical qualities. He said, “I want you all to
erase any notions you have about them being telepathic or healing people
because these creatures range from being dumber than dirt to no more
smart than your household dog.” This extreme view and arrogance about
something that can probably never be proven is completely wrong in terms
of accurately and objectively observing animals. As human beings, we
may also have the tendency to think as if all other forms of life think in the
same patterns and have the same limitations that we have. This viewpoint
is also limiting. Objective observation is one of the hardest tasks to master,
but it can make all the difference in being the voice for the animals. While
observing the physical combat of poison dart frogs, Marty writes, “The
resident male, looking very self-important and pleased with himself, returns to his log and resumes his calling” (64). For a frog that sits poised
and normally defending his territory, although he would likely be showing facial characteristics if he had human musculature in his face, this is
just not an objective observation. While this kind of writing can work well
for other kinds of literature, scientific research needs to remain open to all
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possibilities in order to best understand the animals.
Young and far away in a field that is predominantly male, Marty
manages to hold her own and establish herself. Her honesty and openness
in communicating her feelings is refreshing and insightful. At the end of
her first expedition she explains:
After the first few weeks, I settled comfortably into how I
wanted to be treated by my male companions. Through
an unspoken series of compromises, the issue of “independence” versus “helpless female” became a non-issue.
The guys gave me more credit, but offered a hand when
they sensed it would be appreciated (27).
On another expedition she recalls a humorous incident in which
no attempts seem to be made to make her look more dignified. This is
about a mysterious scary animal they encounter in the dark that turns out
to be a bull. She writes:
…tired and apprehensive about retracing our steps past the Asthmatic Monster. Sure enough, in the same place along the trail, we
hear the heavy breathing. “Run!” I gasp. Three minutes later I’m
tangled in a tree root and fall face down in the mud. John wheels
around, thinking the creature is about to swallow me. He yanks
me back onto my feet and off we gallop in an utter panic (78).
Marty always seemed to try whatever was offered to her to eat or
drink. From chicken feet soup to a ceremonial wedding saliva fermented
drink, she is there for the complete experience. Here is a description of the
process of making banana wine, of which she obligingly sampled:
Ilde began by hanging several bunches of black rotting
bananas from the rafters. These bananas were so far gone
you wouldn’t even dream of using them for banana bread.
He placed several wide buckets underneath. Over the next
few days, juices from the rotting bananas dripped down
into the buckets, where they continued to ferment. Ilde
eventually strained the juice to eliminate the dead flies and
rat turds (89).
Teaching proper fieldwork to other cultures is so important to insure the future of tropical forests, but knowing how the other cultures do
their fieldwork is so important to know how to begin. While collaborating
with some biologists from Ecuador, she was not sure why they were look-
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ing at her strangely and not taking her seriously. She later found out that
their fieldwork was predominantly accomplished not through field study
and observing of an animal in its environment, but hiring people with less
training to go into the field and bring back specimens. In addition to their
difference in research styles, the fact that she was a female also confused
them about her role on the expedition. She writes, “The crowning blow
came when I wandered into camp last night clasping onto a large viper.
Holding onto the last vestige of machismo, they’d exclaimed to Dave, ‘No
es una mujer! Tiene Conjones!’ (‘She’s not a woman! She has balls!’)” (111).
Whether she is dealing with the corruption of the Maxus corporation exploiting the land and its people, the Texaco company or the Army,
she bravely carries out her duties collecting data and educating people to
insure future generations will have the opportunity to enjoy tadpoles. As
the years progress, with increasing information about amphibians, more
positive attitudes have been adopted. The journal entries made by Marty’s
daughter, Karen, as she is just beginning to learn to write are a wonderful
accompaniment to her writing. How much richer our culture would be if
all children were taught from such an early age the importance and joy
that could be found doing fieldwork! For a broader audience to be able to
understand and appreciate her observations, simplifying the interactions
of animals in their environments may seem necessary; however, staying
objective is the way to best help our understanding. She ends the book by
saying, “Your search for the golden frog may lead you along many a different trail. No matter what the trail is, may your search be richly rewarding,
and may you hold onto the golden frog once you’ve found it”.
From Predicaments
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Cryptic Philosophies
Christina Mardirosian
Heather McHugh’s Father of the Predicaments (Wesleyan University Press, University Press of New England, Hanover and London, 1999)
is a short book of poetry in which she plays with words, their syntaxes,
contexts and meanings. This book shows McHugh’s mastery in wit, neologism and philosophy. She takes after Aristotle, who wrote, “the father of
predicaments is being” (Jacket Cover), and she proves to us that being is
very closely bound to our use of language, because being is existing, and
in existing, our communication shapes itself in various forms. McHugh
practically plays with her words and her use of language in every line,
forcing us to submit ourselves to her style of writing. McHugh’s claims
show how our culture is repressed in the way that we choose to communicate. The language she chooses to use is so technical and often difficult to
understand that when read, it contradicts the very thing that she wants us
to understand-which is that the breakdown of communication happens in
every sentence and thought one expresses.
Often cryptic, one must examine this collection of poems closer in
order to understand their greater meaning. McHugh has successfully executed the use of neologism. Certain words she has invented range from
half-consternatious, undertakerly, speech-quilt, namish, lackish and fastish.
When you read into each poem, you can understand the concepts McHugh
is trying to express with these neological words. She integrates these new
words into several poems along with several words and phrases in French,
Russian, German and Greek. She also responds to verses from the Bible
and quotes from writers and philosophers such as Aristotle, Freud, Cioran
and Thomas Mann.
Her form, although at times baffling to the mind, often repeats
whole lines or phrases: it seems that McHugh wants to express her concepts to the readers by doing so. The book begins with a short narrative
poem entitled, “Not a Prayer.” This poem sets the stage on a personal note,
speaking of a mother who is incoherent and slowly losing grips with reality as she comes closer to death. This poem is then followed by a series of
shorter poems that respond to occurrences and situations, which may be
observed in everyday life.
To delve further into McHugh’s style of writing, let us take a closer
glimpse of several stanzas from her narrative poem, “Not a Prayer.” This
poem demonstrates McHugh’s use of neologism, wit and repetitive phrasing. In the sixth stanza, she writes:
Throughout the daylong night, the nightlong day, the live
long time that’s left, we mean to be her mates, go any
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where she drifts-we’d follow every surge of language, ev
ery scrap and flotsam-give up every tillerwork for her, if
she required. But what does she require? Theplace has no
coordinates-or else it’s we who don’t-who fall asleep to j
erk awake at her every “Are you there?” or “What are we?”
or, now and then, her half-polite, half-consternatious Rus
sian-French “Pardon?”
◊
“Malheureusement, pour être mort,
il faut mourir...”
[Unfortunately, in order to be dead, one has to die] (3-4)
Here, McHugh plays with the words in the first line of this stanza. What
“we mean to be her mates” refers to is not quite clear, but I would consider
that she is speaking of earth here, or nature, which usually is referred to in
the feminine. She also may be speaking of language itself, which would
also make sense. It may also be referring to her friends and family. As mates,
it connotes that they are on board a ship, in this case, that ship is slowly
sinking because the mother is dying.
In the beginning of this poem, McHugh quotes a verse from the
Bible: “...she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the
face of a serpent. / -Revelations 12:14” (3). Later on in this poem she writes,
“And then she tried another. (Now the happy family / smiled.) A third,
and I could breathe again. And then the snake of / speech was stirred”
(10). As McHugh plays with her words as she writes them, she also lets us,
the readers, see that she is definitely playing a game with the snake that is
speech.
In the thirteenth stanza, McHugh philosophizes. She is saying that
even though a person may be incoherent they may still be more intelligent
than those surrounding that person may.
To put some sense together, she takes
time: ten minutes, twenty, half an hour.
The others come and go.
Each thinks her thinking
incoherent. But if anybody
listens long enough he hears
(among the many dozings)
something terribly intelligible. (5)
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Following this stanza is the incoherent speech that comes from the mother
who is slowly losing grips with reality. McHugh repeats lines and phrases
over and over again as if speech is indeed a snake that twists and turns in
all directions.
“Yesterday yesterday I was [and here she falls asleep for
seven minutes] yesterday I was full of new [she falls asleep
for three] new life new life but today but today new life
but today [she falls asleep for eleven minutes] I am full of
full of yesterday I was [she falls asleep] was full of new
life but today I am full of full of of [come back, come back
I tell one of her sons, the sentence has a structure, when
she falls asleep she’s not forgetting] but today [she falls
asleep, he can’t believe me] I am full of but today I’m full
of [somebody is calling him from somewhere else and then
he’s gone] but today I am full of... [now she’ll tell me, now
I’ll know]...I’m full of finished...”
[Full of finished? is that the last word AFTER the ellipsis?
should it be attached to how, instead of what, she meant?
which parts were talking about talking, should I put some
quotes in quotes? some kind of mind inside the mind, some
time inside, or out? or what? This bracket
is the writer’s. Who
are you? are you? are you?] (5)
This fragment, from “Not a Prayer,” is a good example of McHugh’s cryptic ideas. Here she is pondering on what to write next in the second part of
this quote. She questions how language should be communicated and understood. It is interesting to actually see her thoughts as she is writing them.
This confusing style of writing is what makes Father of the Predicaments so
alluring.
In “Mens in the West,” McHugh writes about observing an insane
man. She ponders about every detail of the situation.
“Mind! Mind!
Mocking in mind!”
the madman said
who strode one then another
way about the parking lot.
He carried some infernal kind
of metal cone (was this
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a weapon or a shield?
was it a metaphor?) which came
to its point in a bright red bulb.
From there a wire
ran to one ear (his right).
What couldn’t such
an apparatus hear?
He was so bright, the passersby
averted all their gazes.
I hadn’t for weeks been able to tell, in these parts,
two things apart-the homes from heliports,
the churches from the luncheonettesso subtle was the architecture of
a California distinction (humans having come
west, after all, to be blessed
with the absence of opposites).
Here, however, was this one near-human
spending not a moment’s time on understatement.
Glaring, indiscreet, he was a form of nature,
sure as any hill-face
blackened to the whiskers,
sure as any wildfire hot for fame, sure as any
far-off star’s reminding. Even, in the evening, sure as pure
Pacific: set upon, it’s blinding. (46)
She remarks that this man, although insane, is still a part of nature as a
whole. He is merely a thread in the great tapestry that is the human race.
In “Streaming Audio,” McHugh responds to an age-old quote from
Thomas Mann; “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult
than it is for other people” (48). We can see this is true in many of the
poems. As you follow McHugh’s thought processes she allows us to see
that there is great difficulty that comes in writing. McHugh is at battle with
herself to search the correct words that express exactly what she feels.
In “Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun,” she responds to Cioran’s quote,
“A book is a suicide postponed. (39)” She battles here with the judgments
her critics have passed over her, but she does not admit defeat. She writes,
“Too volatile, am I? too voluble? too much a word-person? / I blame the
soup: I’m a primordially / stirred person...McHugh, you’ll be the death of
me-each self and second studied! / Addressing you like this, I’m halfway
to the / third person” (39).
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McHugh’s combination of wit, cryptic wording and philosophies
make Father of the Predicaments a wonderfully interesting poetic expression. She lets the readers see every battle with communication and the snake
that is speech and she questions how we should express ourselves.
McHugh’s intense language, although hard to follow, (due to her confusing style of writing) is still interesting and alluring. She shows us how our
culture is repressed within the barriers of language. This book will keep
you interested, and allow you to look inside at how every thought is as
important as the next when it comes to communication.
Heather McHugh
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History of Film: From Awake to
Unconscious
Shannon Drake
To be quite honest the only reason why I picked up this book in the
first place was because of the glossy pictures it had to offer, and it turns out
that they were the only things keeping my interest for approximately 300
pages of text. Perhaps I should have read the book’s sleeve to get a better
feel for the History of Film written by David Parkinson, but those descriptions can’t be trusted, considering it’s written by one of the publishers, in
the attempt to sell a copy and make a profit.
In this lively, informative and up-to-date new analysis,
David Parkinson traces the evolution of the moving image the earliest shadow shows to the movies of today.
(Cover Jacket)
Did the publishers even read this book? In the end this guide to the history
of film was written like a textbook, a history book at that, only it tried to
cover too much information at once. This is not a book I would sit down
and relax with, I can’t see it being of much use to any one who isn’t a film
major cramming for a big test.
What I was expecting was probably based on the judgments I made
from the pictures inside. I thought that it would be written so that a layman who is just an appreciator of film and movies would be able to understand and enjoy what the author, David Parkinson, had to say. I was wrong.
Perhaps I was expecting more personal interests than brief technical language. The main claim that the author seems to be making is that his version of the history of the film industry doesn’t involve any particular style
or method that a director, producer, or inventor had of doing things, but
just that they did something. Another requirement to make it into this particular book seemed to be that they had to have a memorable name, or at
one time had a reputation of being visionary—not that the author ever
explains how the people he chose were different from every one else. This
book never really captured my attention, at any time. As any writer knows,
or should know, you have to hook your reader from the very beginning, or
at least make the attempt to do this—this book however did just the opposite. The first chapter, From “Science to Cinema”, explains, in the most painfully boring fashion, how and why moving photography was made. However this subject material seemed to be what really captured the author’s
passion, he focused more on these inventors and inventions then he spent
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time explaining anything or writing about anything else. The author skips
from one major movie icon to the next within a single page with only a
skin deep analysis of how that particular person helped strengthen the
film industry.
Sound certainly accounted for the decline of both Harry
Langdon (1884-1944) and Harold Lloyd (1893-1971). Joining Sennett in 1924, Langdon, a baby faced innocent
trapped in a cruel world, enjoyed brief fame thanks to his
collaborations with Frank Capra (1897-1992). (37)
Four names are thrown at the reader with barely a reference to know who
they are (Director? Producer? Actor? Etc.), except for the years they were
alive—not even the years they were involved in the movie business. I suppose the writer just assumes that the reader would have a great knowledge
about this subject matter before even glancing at his book. Over and over
again this same textbook writing tactic is used, which not only kept me
from enjoying or learning, but it also kept me from staying awake. Even
though this claims to be a “history of film” it seems to paint the picture that
during the years that film and moving pictures were being discovered and
developed as an art form, nothing in the outside would happened, or in
any way influenced the industry. History books should cover all angles
without bias, but this book has only one interest which makes it difficult to
follow what the author is talking about and referring to.
Cinema going had been an American pastime for some
thirty years. But, as the wartime emotional dependence
on it receded, and as urban populations began to drift into
the suburbs away from the downtown and neighborhood
theaters, it became increasingly obvious that the habit was
now just one of many leisure options competing for consumers’ dollars. (55)
This is one of the rare occasions that the author relates his history lesson to
the history of the real world. This example also shows how briefly he will
touch on important subject matter that not only has importance to cinema,
but to the rest of us as well. Earlier he briefly wrote about the lack of female involvement behind the camera, but breezed over it in only six lines
of text. Personally I find this subject far more important, seeing how there
are still fewer women then men involved in directing and producing.
The title gives no indication that the main focus would be on only
the inventing, directing, and producing. I thought this text would hit on
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every aspect of making a movie: acting, script, cinematography, publicizing, sound track, special effects, etc. Even though the focus was mainly on
directing, there is more then enough material to keep the reader involved
in. However, the manner in which this book is written there is so much
repetitive technical language that the text becomes stale very quickly.
However, his films had a compositional depth and density that exploited the artificiality of their interiors to intensify mystery and excitement. Managing to convey both
naturalism and fantasy the atmospheric beauty of each
episode derived form Feuillade’s poetic imagination and
his emphasis on the creative use of movement and space
within shots, rather that on their juxtaposition. (52)
By using this type of language the author avoids telling us exactly how
director Louis Feullade makes this happen and also leaves me wondering
if he has actually seen any of his films. A great deal of the book is like this;
I’m not sure if it’s the writer’s lack of knowledge in how to show us his
arguments through his writing, or if it’s the fact that he either has not seen
the movies he writes about, or does not appreciate their contribution to the
film world.
David Parkinson may have written this book, but very rarely does
he truly share his opinions or views on the different occurrences he reports
to us in his book.
Von Stroheim’s obsession with symbolic naturalism chillingly exposed the cruelty and ugliness of the worlds he
satirized, but the intricacy of his detailed realism was dismissed as extravagance by the studio head. (44)
Here he really expresses himself, and shows that he has done more than
just listened to what others said were the influential and brilliant artists,
but that he really does know what he’s talking about and has assessed the
facts for himself.
This book is written in a way that suggest that if you have not seen
the movies the author writes about, or do not have a precise understanding of the technical language he uses that you will be lost, or taking a nap.
I would not recommend this book to some one who just wants to get the
feeling of what it was like to be involved in the movie magic in it’s beginning, which is what I was looking for, because it doesn’t put you there. It
doesn’t help you imagine what it was like to walk into a theater in the
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1930s and be amazed by what you saw there, be astonished at the sight of
the first colored moving images, or be enthralled by the voices you heard
for the first time by your favorite actors on the big screen. This book is just
a guide to names and dates, but definitely not to the heart and soul of this
still very new and unpredictable art form.
Works Cited
Parkinson, David. History of Film. New York, New York: Thames and
Hudson, 1995.
Robert Rauschenberg’s Overdraw, 1963
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“Just See the Movie”
Nigel Genthner
I have never uttered those words to a single person. After all, the
book is always better than the movie . . . Right? Wrong! Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein is a piece of classical literature, which was amazing for its time
and for its author, however, is this book applicable and enjoyable reading
for those of us in the twenty-first century? The answer is both yes and no.
I believe these are very different questions with very different answers.
Frankenstein is very applicable to today’s society and deals with some very
real issues we face today. However, I believe Frankenstein is not a very
enjoyable book to read for today’s generation. I found myself dreading the
very thought of reading one more chapter, even one more word. The movies have been entertaining, but the book leaves much to be desired.
Let us first deal with the question of whether or not this book is
applicable to today’s society. This book amazingly deals with some of the
same questions we deal with today. Dr. Frankenstein creates a being by
taking an inanimate object and giving it the spark of life. At first this idea
consumes him, but when faced with his hideous creation he is mortified
by what he has done.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or
how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains
and care I had endeavored to form. (39)
Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that continence.
A mummy again endued with animation could not be so
hideous as that wretch. (40)
In this chapter Dr. Frankenstein begins to realize he has tampered with
some of the fundamentals of nature – life and death. And now he must
find a way to deal with that realization. This is a now common theme in
our news and so it is very amazing that a book written 200 years ago could
shed light on a subject in today’s scientific world. This is the strength of the
book and what I find appealing about it. There has been a lot of news recently about the role of science in nature. Cloning is one of the most controversial of these new boundaries being crossed. However the ability to genetically manipulate a fetus is also a controversial boundary which is being explored. This is known as the “genome project” which identifies genes
in the fetus and identifies what those genes will affect. For example a gene
that causes cancer could be identified, and in the future scientists may be
able to replace that gene with a healthy one. It seems as though science is
in such a rush to do what it can do, that it is not stopping to think what it
should do. This very issue is discussed in Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein is
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so caught up in trying to find out what causes life to begin and what causes
it to end, that when he discovers the secret to life he rushes to create a
being of his own. He is so consumed by this desire to cross a boundary
never before crossed by mankind that he doesn’t realize the horror of what
he has created until it is too late. This is when the book finally becomes
engaging for me. Finally 1/4 of the way through the book I find relevance.
Unfortunately I find this relevance comes much too late to save the book
for me.
This brings us to the issue of whether or not this book is enjoyable
to read for today’s generation. I believe it is not. This book takes an immense amount of time to get going. Shelley takes too long a time in getting
at the heart of the story and by the time she does, I am exhausted and tired
of reading this book. I will however concede that the way the story is told
is interesting. It is told from the narrative of a person relaying the story as
it is being told to him by Dr. Frankenstein after the events have already
taken place. It is a very intriguing way to tell the story and leaves me wondering why Shelley would have chosen to tell the story this way and not
simply in the present tense.
The weakness I believe is in the writing itself. This book is fraught
with verbigeration, which I believe causes the book to drag a little. Mary
Shelley uses to many words and takes far to much time in setting the stage
for the story to be told. This makes it hard for the reader to really get into
the book. It may have been the style of writing for the times, but it does not
work for me now. I also found that Shelley had a difficult time writing
from a male perspective. She tends to engender the males in the book with
feminine qualities. This again, as a male reader, makes the book very hard
for me to relate to.
This book has at its heart an incredible idea for a story. Especially
when you consider the time it was written and the fact that it was written
by a woman during a time when men dominated the arts. However, that it
is where it ends. The story is not particularly well written, and were it not
such a unique idea for the time, I doubt this book would be held in such
high regard today. Although the book does address some issues we are
facing today I do not believe that is enough for me to recommend this book
to anyone.
I say, “just see the movie,” although the movies are not very true to
the book you will probably enjoy them more. I was told this book was born
out of a ghost story made up by Shelley. It’s a great idea, but the book
would have been better without the endless amount of words used to tell
it. I probably would have really enjoyed the ghost story, but it is a shame I
didn’t enjoy the book.
Works Cited:
Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein. New York: Oxford Press, 1993.
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Mad Woman Ramblings
Elinore Eaton
Suddenly I too see
why everybody hates it—
the manifestos of metaphor, the mad
voice that mumbles all night
in the dark: this is like that, that
is this, the phosphorescent
flares of vision, the busyness
of words sweeping up
after all that sputter... (77)
Poetry comes from the fingers of a woman who would tear the
hair from the life of its scalp if it wasn’t for the pen that occupied her hand.
She whispers and screams all the hurt and joy and beauty and ugliness
that fills the eyes and head of a woman, so that she may speak plainly what
needs to be spoken of being a woman. Pages and pages of words navigate
through the long, dark, stare into the soul of women through the eyes of
Sandra Gilbert, in Kissing the Bread.
Sometimes our lovers are not perfect. They do not always have a
caring ear to lend to our mad ramblings and explosions of manic metaphors. Paper, on the other hand, lies blank with anticipation. The computer screen glows empty of its own expressions. These are objects devoted to the words of others, the infinite listener. These listeners give poets, such as Sandra Gilbert, a chance to write the most heavenly accounts
of, say... turnips (from Turnips pg. 270), Connecticut (from Going to Connecticut—for J.R. pg. 28), or even the ending of a book (from Ending the Book
pg. 61). Expressions are then accounted for, that would very likely be lost
in Sandra’s memory if it were not for her the infinite listeners.
What is a woman without her mad ramblings? And who has not
tired of listening to the mad ramblings of a woman? This very question
may have prompted women to go against such ways of thinking and to
have fought to earn the vote, to have fought for a voice in equality, and
perhaps for Sandra Gilbert to express her experiences and thoughts in
words.
There has been many ways that this society has been which has
belittled a woman’s voice. The presence of the many feminist movements
is enough to back such a claim up. The offerings of a major in “women’s
studies” in colleges across America also says something about the wars
that women have fought to gain strength in their voices (“U.S. History”
appears to me a history of wars, and it is required at just about every American college). So, it is with such a book as Kissing the Bread that we have
reason to rejoice for the use of a full range of expression given to us from
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the voice of a woman.
With tenderness and sometimes anger, Kissing the Bread shows us
the world through a woman’s eyes—Sandra Gilbert’s eyes. As she writes
of many of the experiences she has had through out her life we cry, laugh
and love with her. She writes of past travels and her observations of “feeling like voyeurs, like trespassers”(30) in “Going to Connecticut”. Gilbert
speaks of the female stereotypes in “The One He Loves”:
She’s the figure skater you’ve always hated,
the princess of the spelling bee, the ice queen
in velvet and fur
with muscles tough as tusks
and hair the color of charm bracelet. (211)
She jokes coyly of a blind date where “Nobody drank too much, nobody
told any interesting stories” (21) in “About the Beginning”. These, along
with every other infinite experience of life that means either everything,
nothing, or what was once nothing but is now everything, is tip-toed or
trampled over in Sandra Gilbert’s Kissing the Bread.
In the aforementioned piece, “The One He Loves” Gilbert teaches
us the real woman’s perspective of society’s vision of feminine beauty. Perhaps brought on by jealousy, we watch with second-hand eyes the author
observing a perfect “she”. Sandra observes the way she captures the attention of a man (could he be all the men?) and sits with her disappointments
of her own body and sensuality:
Next to her you’re flabby and noisy, something
made of jelly instead of sinew,
something that shivers and whimpers
and passes out in the dark, a princess of pain
with weak ankles and a head full of misspelled sentences. (211)
We take a look through a woman’s eyes, the sorrows that sometimes come
with imperfection as a female. I, as well as many of my female friends,
have suffered the wrath of super models, and of the girl that captures the
attention of all the boys at a party, of the obsession of perfection and thinness. I have two girlfriends that have suffered from anorexia and continue
to be obsessed with thinness: never achieving that perfect skinny, little,
body. Women spend billions of dollars a year on make-up, boob jobs, manicures, personal trainers, diet plans, dermatologists, hair stylists, plastic
surgery, lingerie, tanning booths, and organic-nonfat-sugar-free-sodiumfree-protein-pumped-meals-in-a-can. Gilbert shares such struggles to the
rest of the world in a poetic language that everyone can understand from
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some emotional stance. All can connect with suffering, as it is a part of
human nature, through the glorious words of poetry.
Through her medium of luscious poetry, Gilbert takes us through
the dark and sometimes enchanting world of the mad ramblings of a
woman. This collection of poetry is so helpful in relating anyone to the
world of a woman through the eyes of a woman. The writings contained
within Kissing the Bread are an honest, opening up of how a woman’s world
is from Sandra Gilbert’s perspective. Anyone who takes the time to sit with
this collection of poetry is opening the doors to a better understanding of a
woman or even themselves as a woman. Beautifully composed, she places
the language within anyone’s reach, so that the overeducated do not get
bored, the under educated do not lose its meaning, and all acquire a pinch
of a woman’s mind.
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Madman’s Language
Jay Weber
Individuals have beliefs instilled upon them through early social
interaction, which in turn, defines them within the society. These set ideologies hold back societies from making a greater movement forward; they
prevent social change. Individuals who are defined as unequal are not allowed to give a full contribution to society so they are put at a great social
disadvantage. The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester, (New
York, Harper Colling, 1998) takes a look at this and the way society treats
individuals who are considered unequal. The novel has a textbook style
and does a nice job of shedding light on an individual who is plagued by
demons, but is able to still contribute to society. The way that society defines individuals is like writing in stone, which makes it impossible for
them to change; however, this needs to change or else society will never be
able to face its social problems.
The book tells the wonderful story of an individual, Dr. William
Minnor, who is writing definitions for the Oxford English Dictionary (OED),
and is slowly going mad. In a way he is defining society’s standards by
working on the OED, yet he is also being rejected by society because he is
becoming more and more unequal as his madness grows. Through the development of Dr. William Minnor’s character, The Professor and the Madman, reveals the great points and secrets of the OED but also shows the
weakness that are present within the novel.
From the beginning, Dr. William Minnor is shown to be normal by
the facts, and facts that are presented early on in the novel. The normal Dr.
Minnor was a well-respected individual in society until he went mad, causing him to be rejected and looked down upon as an unequal. Once he reaches
this state, he contributes the most to society by helping with the lexicography work on the OED. A man, who is mad, is the one individual that the
rest of the English world listens and respects without any idea. If the main
population of his time had known they would have rejected any thought
of listening to a madman, which certainly still holds for today. Dr. Minnor’s
insaneness is revealed through his dreams and actions, take for example,
this horrendous act:
He tied a thin cord tightly around the base of his member to act as
a ligature and to pressure – cauterize the blood vessels, he waited
for ten minutes or so until the vein and artery walls had become
properly compressed – and then, in one swift movement that most
would prefer not to imagine, he sliced off his organ about one inch
from its base. (193)
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Truly this is the peak of Dr. Minnor’s madness, but yet, Dr. Minnor was the
one of the few individual that was able to control the definitions in the
OED; he had the power to change the stereotypes, however he choose instead to reinforced them. The insanity that possesses him and the fact that
he even gives more reason for society to imbed these stereotypes is certainly sad for such individual with a chance to let the world know that
these stereotypes do not let individuals prove themselves.
Dr. Minnor’s dementia was unique in the way he went mad, allowing society to believe that he was a special individual, he was then able
to reach a state were he was a great asset to the English world. The fact that
Minnor was a madman before he became a recognized influence on the
OED allowed him to contribute to society instead of taking away from it.
Dr. Minnor’s illness was caused by dementia praecox which caused great
paranoia in his life this: “… early-flowering failure of the mental powers,
and was used to distinguish a condition in which a person begins to lose
touch with reality, as Minnor had done, early on in his life – – in his teens,
his twenties, or his thirties” (209). The onset of this disease occurred later
in his lifetime. Dementia praecox is now known as schizophrenia in which
“a person is likely to have positive symptoms (hallucination, delusions),
periods of negative symptoms (lack of motivation, social isolation), and
periods of both. A person may be socially adjusted but unable to work or
vice versa” (Allen). Dr. Minnor’s version of this illness allowed him to work
while, on the other hand, he was socially plagued. If it had been the other
way around neither the OED nor Dr. William Minnor would have been as
successful in the world. Minnor’s illness was a gift for him – without this
illness he would never have been the individual he was.
Individuals in society who are plagued by illnesses that makes them
mad should not be look down upon and rejected from society. People come
to this world in all different forms, which enriches humankind. Who has
the right to consider someone mad and push him or her away from the rest
of society? There are obviously some social standards that call for the locking away of individuals such as those who commit murder or rape, but to
put someone away because they are mentally unstable is unjust. This is a
form of prejudice. Just because they scare the rest of society. Society punishes them and locks them up, or treats them as unequal. It is an illness like
any other – society does not lock someone up if they have cancer or if they
become infected with AIDS, which seems to cause more harm than mentally unstable people. Society needs to lose this fear and allow these individuals to grow to their full potential – doing this would benefit both subcultures. Today we are locking away one subculture, mental ill individuals, and are treating them with very little respect, because, they have been
born with an illness that makes them socially unacceptable. All individu-
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als have the right to live a free life until they forfeit that right; until then
society should not lock them up.
The story of Dr. Minnor’s life is a good one, however, the textbook
style does a great disadvantage to the novel. First of all, Dr. Minnor’s character is developed by facts that seem to keep on repeating themselves. With
the first seventy-three pages we get the whole life story of Dr. William
Minnor and it could end there, but then the piece goes on with facts that
seem useless in telling a story about a man who contributed so much to the
OED. The novel goes on telling, “ If the language that so inspired
Shakespeare had limits, if its words had definable, origins, spellings, pronunciations, meaning – then no single book existed that established them,
defined them, and set them down” (83). This fact was given by the author
to prove that the OED was setting out to do something that never had been
done before – which seems to only be a mistake because it sets a feeling
early on that this piece is going to be stiff and boring. The OED would be
exactly like this novel if it were written into a story. While the OED might
be a great accomplishment for the English language, the telling of the story
does not need to follow the same style as the OED, boring the reader with
facts.
The reason the OED is such a great piece of work is because it
gives the facts of the word; the reason the novel is so bland is because it to
gives the facts in the same style, which is only fitting for a dictionary. Just
imagine reading two hundred and forty two pages on the definition of art.
Now imagine reading two hundred and forty two pages on the definition
of Dr. William Minnor’s life – same quality same boredom. Novels and
dictionaries have different styles for a reason and should not be mixed.
Dictionaries need facts. Novels need style.
However, the book is able to raise some significant social issues on
how society should treat mentally ill individuals and the bias that most
people have against them. As long as society classifies people there will
always be a problem of how to treat minorities in society from race, social
class, to mental illness. Mentally ill people have the right to be treated with
respect within our society. Social change only comes when individuals stop
defining each other – until then society is missing out on a great resource
that it has within it. The Professor and the Madman reminds us of way the
stereotypes must be changed.
Works Cited
Allen, PhD, Jon G. “Schizophrenia” April, 24, 2001. http://
www.menninger.edu.
Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman. New York: Harper
Collings, 1998.
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Mirror of Myths
Lori Bravo
At the age of three I caught a glimpse of unseen beauty. A broken
abalone shell. The image in the rainbow looking glass reflected awareness
of connection as I held it as I would a mirror. In mythology, high gods and
human beings alike emerged from rocks, an indication that early people
regarded them as a source of life. This myth stirred excitement and interest
in me immediately. I was drawn to this particular myth because of my own
connection with rocks and stones. This gift of direct spiritual connection
with stones inhabits my spirit just as they do in certain myths. For example,
the North American tribe’s beliefs were solid with my experiences with
stones. (163). They claimed that they descended from stones. It appeared
that in their way of thinking, if human beings could become stones, then
stones, in turn, could become human beings. A number of rock gods and
goddesses were given, but lacked sufficient information that one may need
for research.
This sparked my curiosity and I was inclined to uncover references
that interest me in order to gather a deeper understanding of what was not
available in full definition. There was however, information offered by the
cross-references at the end of each entry, which was helpful, but only in
provision of the book’s definitions. Categories of cross-cultural entries, as
well as related gods and goddesses were also provided for outside sources.
Although I am familiar with some cultures and their spiritual preferences,
I have undoubtedly found explanations for questions I’ve asked in wonderment of the universe, and have learned the differences between what
each ancient culture believed to be true the purpose of their gods and goddesses.
Envision the sky as it darkens. For one to know nothing of astronomical phenomena would easily believe the light to be stolen. For the
ancients, and people across the globe from the most ancient times, the realization of the power of the sun made survival possible. In return, their
myths reflected their reverence. The power of the sun was recognized
throughout the myths of solar movement, and reaffirmed the sun god’s
role as creator. Crowned king of the sky and sustainer of life, the sun, like a
god, died and returned, proving resurrection which made survival possible.
Tamra Andrews, author of Nature Myths links to my beliefs of nature and the significance of myths, through her book. Let’s put it this way;
the book had me hooked. I was eager to explore more of the book and
impressed with the numerous myths given in reference to each culture and
their differences.
With experience and imagination as tools, people created myths to
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solve mysteries. The book allows one who may not identify with, or may
want to learn why the ancients stood firm in their belief that “all forms of
natural phenomena acted by will.” (12). “The myths of ancient thinkers are
so full of metaphors that it’s easy to interpret them as we would the modern poem or abstract painting.” (13). But while artists use the abstract to
explain the concrete, is it not true ancient mythmakers used the concrete to
explain the abstract?
In our modern day life we refer to clouds as protection from the
sun’s rays, or indicators of potential upcoming weather changes. In myth,
as described by Andrews, the clouds take on a supernatural quality. Like
celestial gods, they can create patterns and shapes, and help predict nature’s
moods. As mentioned in Polynesian myth, the clouds formed when Hina,
the moon goddess, stretched her white tapa cloth across the heavens. The
Chinese believed that dragons brought rain, so coincidentally they also
believed dragons materialized as clouds that assumed odd shapes or floated
through the sky with serpentine tails. The book of Nature Myths presents a
wide spectrum of natural phenomena that are explained today by science,
but in the ancient world, they were simply mysteries.
This way of thinking supports my belief in nature as my form of
faith. I believe we are the fabricators of the depth of our grave. We weave
our undivided fibers (consciously or unconsciously) into the roots that bind
our substance. How much do we appreciate the gift of life? In other words,
How far are we willing to illuminate the cosmic process back to our design? In reference to the example of the sun gods I interpreted previously,
I discovered that one who may choose to explore this book of myths might
feel they are scanning the surface of myths. Andrews provides significant
details of ancient myths that are easily approachable by the reader due to
simple and effective definitions. Andrews chose a wide history of context,
which caused me to question certain definitions of myth gods and goddesses.
I feel that Andrews provides a source of information needed in
Nature Myths for quick references. The context is helpful in giving information in a style assembled to summarize rather than to deeply analyze each
definition. This book is a starting point for people who are interested in
spiritual explanations of natural occurrences.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Hill and Wang, New York 1987.
Young, Jonathan, Campbell, Joseph Saga—Best New Writings On
Mythology White Cloud Press Ashland, Oregon 1996.
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Walsh, P.G. Apuleius The Golden Ass. New York: Oxford University Press
Inc. 1994
Eliade’s, Mircea. Encyclopedia of Religion
http://www.cybercom.com/~grandpa/classical_links.html
http://navisite.collegeclub.com/servlet/search.HandlePostServlet
http://home.netscape.com/
Robert Rauschenberg’s The Ancient Incident (Kabal American Zephyr) 1981
PGR 225
Movies Exposed
Brenna Dunn
Popcorn, soda, and a candy bar. When you hear of these things
what do you think of? I think of taking a trip to the movie theater. These
are the necessities of watching a movie. Whenever I go to the movies I
think about how much money these movie people are making and how
easy it must be to make a movie. But is it really easy to make a movie? The
answer would definitely be no. Have you ever wondered what goes into
making a movie? I know I have and I’m pretty sure you probably have as
well. There is so much more than just writing a story and having some
actors act it out while filming. An intriguing book to read would be The Art
of Movie Making, Script to Screen by Richard Beck Peacock (Prentice Hall).
From the screenplay to the casting to the editing to the final marketing of
films, this book has it all. From the little guys to the big head honchos, you
will learn what important role every crewmember has.
One of the “little guys” who is extremely important to making a
movie, but is often overlooked is the person it all begins with. This person
is the writer.
It starts with the writer-it’s a familiar dictum, but somehow it keeps
getting forgotten along the way. No filmmaker, irrespective of his
electronic bag of tricks, can ever afford to forget his commitment
to the written word. (61)
This quote by Steven Spielberg says it all. Every movie starts with written
words, the base of it all, and is then developed into something more. When
you go see movies or hear about a movie, it is always “who’s in it?” and
the response is usually Julia Roberts or another famous actor/actress. The
question is never “who wrote the screenplay?”
There are many more quotes like the one above. Peacock did a
wonderful job of tying in many interesting quotes by directors, writers,
actors, etc. Like the quote by Steven Spielberg, other quotes help us to better understand exactly what is being explained and how it applies to the
movie business. It also shows that he is very much in-tune with the movie
world and he really does know what he is talking about. This is important
because it shows that the author of the book has experience with the subject he is writing about.
I have been talking a lot about movies but what exactly is a movie?
Most people would probably say a two-hour long film. When in fact a film
can be anything from thirty seconds to ten hours. As long as it is on film it
is considered a movie. A good example of a short movie would be Spike and
Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation. This is a collection of a series of
short movies, each one is only about thirty seconds to a few minutes long
PGR 226
but each can be considered a movie within itself because it is on film. Peacock goes into the in-depth details of this aspect of movies, a very interesting insight on what a movie is.
“Movies are mirrors of the culture.” I always thought movies represented fairy tale lives that we never can have. It is an interesting point to
see that many movies do reflect on the culture we live in. This is true when
perhaps seeing a French film and comparing it to an American film, the
culture in the movie will be drastically different. Movies reflect how our
culture has changed over the years. If you look at Mary Poppins it represents a fairy tale life, having a nanny staring in it any kid would love to
have as a caretaker. Compared to a more recent film like Traffic, which shows
us the reality of the drug world and just how bad it is today, it is amazing
how different our culture has become and it is very alive and portrayed in
the movies we see.
In the same way that movies have changed with the changing of
our culture, special effects have also gotten much more elaborate over the
years. How in the world do these movie people make some of these elaborate sets and special effects? From an ordinary hospital room to a castlethese people can do it all. Would you believe that it is easier to make a
castle than an ordinary hospital room? This is because it is difficult to make
a realistic hospital room that we haven’t seen a hundred times before. Special effects can range from being very simple to very elaborate, like the
ones done in many movies today. If you look at the movie Matrix, you see
some amazing special effects that could not have been done when movies
first came out. It takes a lot of careful planning and talent to pull of some of
these magnificent effects we see in the movies today.
Did you know that a hairstyle could mean so many different things?
This is especially true for actors and actresses. The hairdresser can change
the mood and the personality of the character by changing even a simple
thing like the length of the hair. A hairstyle can be a very important thing
in a movie. Like in the movie Used People one character plays a women
with three different hairstyles, constantly changing them throughout the
movie. This shows the three different personalities the character has. Changing the hairstyle is a very effective way of understanding exactly which
personality the character is currently following.
Overall this is a very effective book and it is most definitely worth
reading. If you love movies and would like to learn the details of movie
making this is the book for you. On almost every page there is a blurb
about a movie, Peacock quotes movies from the early 1900’s to current
movies. Maybe after you read this book you will have a little more compassion for the movies you see, knowing what hard work it requires to
create such a work of art.
PGR 227
Reshaping Reality: Finding Meaning
Gabe Houston
in Abstract Art
Is it the scene of a bloody murder,
or is it a safe resting-place? The location of an unspeakable crime, or a
soft, warm place to find comfort?
While these questions seem to have
nothing in common, these are interpretations, coming from different
people, of the same painting. How
could opinions about the same piece
of art be so completely different?
Particularly with modern and abstract art, the viewer can interpret a
piece in a number of different ways.
One definition of art is: “Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or
counteract the work of nature”
(dictionary.com). Abstract art presents an altered reality or unreality.
As a springboard for imagination,
art can change one’s perception of
the everyday objects of our lives –
familiar objects that are habitually
overlooked. Seeing mundane objects in art and as art elevates these
objects out of the realm of the ordinary, thus altering one’s view of
what is ordinary.
Encounters with Rauschenberg, by Leo Steinberg, is a lecture published as a book. The book includes anecdotes, the author’s opinion of pieces
of art, and numerous quotes of other critic’s opinions regarding the work
of Robert Rauschenberg. What makes the book unique is the author’s pointof-view, that of a “rare art historian who has known the pressures implicit
in reviewing the work of living [emphasis mine] artists” (Steinberg back
cover). Steinberg gives insightful analysis of various pieces of art, most of
which are the works of Rauschenberg.
Robert Rauschenberg is an American painter who played an important role in the transition from abstract expressionism to pop art. He
was born in 1925 in Port Arthur, Texas. Rauschenberg studied art in Paris
and at several schools in the United States.
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During the early 1950s, he produced collage paintings in which
freely brushed expressionist canvases were overlaid with bits and
pieces of actual textiles, photographs, and torn newspaper clip
pings. In 1955, he made his first ‘combines’, three-dimensional
assemblages in which paintings were combined with found im
ages, such as photographs, and objects of popular culture — traf
fic signs, light bulbs, Coca-Cola bottles, radios — to create ironic
or ridiculous effects (Encarta)
Steinberg begins the book with a disclaimer: “I have left this lecture largely as delivered and have not purged it of quips and by-blows
which listeners to a live speaker are more likely to tolerate than readers of
cold print” (Steinberg iv). The book starts off slowly, and I often lost interest in the early parts of Steinberg’s lecture. However, I found the author’s
wittiness and subtle humor enjoyable; I think they made the book easier to
read. The author’s personal acquaintance with Rauschenberg adds another
dimension to the book by including several conversations between the
author and the artist.
Perhaps the best aspect of the book is the abundance of full-color
images. The pictures greatly enhance the reader’s understanding of the
author’s opinion on various paintings. In many cases, the book would
struggle to survive without the images. Without the accompanying photo,
the reader, unless an art historian, would not know what Steinberg is talking about when he writes: “My first piece was a rave review of [Willem] de
Kooning’s Woman paintings – and Hilton [Kramer] was dismayed to see
me take that stuff seriously” (Steinberg 2). I had never heard of Willem de
Kooning, let alone known what his Woman paintings looked like; but as I
look to the page opposite the statement, I see a picture of an abstract painting of two women, and immediately understand the author.
I don’t particularly care for or understand abstract art, and I’ve
always wondered what’s so great about it, thinking to myself “Hey, I could
do that.” In Rauschenberg’s work, he used ordinary objects — chairs, a
chicken, a stuffed goat, a T-shirt, a clock – strangely juxtaposed in startlingly unexpected ways. While the meaning of his work is subject to interpretation, I found most of his work intriguing. In his work, the ordinary
becomes extraordinary.
One of Rauschenberg’s most famous pieces, Bed, is a perfect example of how a piece of art that seems simple can create many different
opinions and controversy. Bed is a combine painting made up of a real quilt,
sheet, and pillow, heavily splattered with paint (75_ x 31_ x 8 in). When I
first saw the combine, I thought to myself, “OK, a bed — with paint splattered on it?”
When Rauschenberg entered the combine at the Venice Biennale,
and ended up winning the grand prize, it started a firestorm of controversy in Europe. “The award brought forth European headlines of TREAPGR 229
SON AT VENICE and blasts at the American’s ‘grotesque pieces of junk
and trash cans…’ The Patriarch of Venice ordered Catholics to stay away
from the show because works like Rauschenberg’s ‘offended human dignity.’ The artist himself calmly accepted the $3,200 prize. He had already
explained his Bed: ‘I think of it as one of the friendliest pictures I’ve ever
painted. My fear has always been that someone would want to crawl into
it’ ” (Steinberg 47).
One common interpretation is that Bed implies a scene of a rape or
a grisly murder. Rauschenberg’s dealer, Leo Castelli, described it in a 1984
interview: “A real pillow and quilt heavily splattered with paint, in which
some horrible act – a rape or murder – seemed to have occurred” (Steinberg
48). Other critics/commentators also see a deep, dark meaning; a commentary on the violence and nihilism of modern culture. Steinberg has a
different opinion of Bed: “…the smears and drips work here pretty much
as they do elsewhere in Rauschenberg. They are what you see – drips and
smears. Red paint reeks no more of blood-shed than white invites crying
over spilled milk” (Steinberg 49). I find it interesting that Steinberg, with
his personal knowledge of Rauschenberg, doesn’t interpret this combine
in lurid terms. Steinberg implies that Rauschenberg is manipulating media, form, shape, color, and texture in his work. One could say Rauschenberg
is just having fun transforming ordinary objects into anomalies.
I would like to thank Leo Steinberg for introducing me to the work
of Robert Rauschenberg in an entertaining and comprehensible manner.
The combine paintings are interesting and unconventional, sometimes grotesque; not necessarily my taste in art. Yet, I appreciated Steinberg’s perspective on contemporary analysis of Rauschenberg’s work. “Steinberg
warns against the modish interpretations that now load Rauschenberg’s
work with murderous symbolism or same-sex iconography. He argues that
meaning in the artist’s work is almost unspeakable…” (Steinberg back
cover). What is the message of modern, abstract, and pop art? The objects
that have been so familiar are no longer ordinary.
Works Cited
“Rauschenberg, Robert”, Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2001.
<http://encarta.msn.com>
Steinberg, Leo. Encounters with Rauschenberg. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 2000.
Dictionary.com. 5-03-01. <http://www.dictionary.com>
Works Consulted
“Rauschenberg Links”. Robert Rauschenberg Links. 12-20-01 <http:/
home.talkcity.com/InfiniteLoop/razamataz rauschenberg.html>
PGR 230
Take a Read on the Wilde Side
Rob Goldschmidt
Even after a hundred and fifty years, Oscar Wilde tickles the funny
bone, cultivates the imagination, and challenges the integrity and intentions of our dysfunctional society. True, this was a guy writing from a Victorian Age perspective, but Oscar was a very different kind of guy. A Playwright, novelist, poet, critic, professed hedonist, practicing aesthetic, and
convicted homosexual, Oscar had a unique interpretation of human interaction. In a broad sense, his writings elaborate on the darker side of intolerance in society and the struggles of personal morality. Wilde’s book, Complete Shorter Fiction (published by Oxford University Press, $8.95), is a veritable smorgasbord of his imaginative and critical perspective on humanity
and his disdain for aristocratic society and ruling classes. Though less obvious, we live in a world dominated by new economic elites just as exploitative as yesterday’s aristocracy.
Born Oscar Fingan O’Flaherte Wills Wilde on October 16th, 1854 in
Dublin, Ireland, he enjoyed the benefits of a prosperous family. His mother,
Jane Francisca Elgee, was a poet under the pen name Speranza, and his
father Sir William Wilde was a successful eye and ear surgeon. Young Oscar was able to obtain an excellent education, including a scholarship to
Magdalen College at Oxford University. It was during his studies at Oxford the John Ruskin influenced Oscar about the ideas of hedonism and
aestheticism (biochan). Hedonism—the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life—and aestheticism—the cultivation of
art for art’s sake and the refusal to take oneself too seriously—became fundamental characters of his writings, no matter the issue he was addressing.
While he was touring Italy in 1875, Oscar began writing his first
poetry, and in 1878, he was awarded a Newgate Prize for his poem
“Ravenna”. Then, in 1881, he spent a year touring the United States and
lecturing. The American women adored him, but the press berated and
ridiculed him fervently; it is little wonder that American society was on his
short list of targets. Oscar married Constance Lloyd in 1884 and fathered
two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. It was his 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Grey
(a look at narcissism), and his 1895 play “The Importance of Being Earnest “
(a parody about role playing and mistaken identity) that finally brought
fame and fortune (biochan). In 1895, after an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas (and an ensuing legal battle with Douglas’ father The Marques of
Queensbury), Oscar was sentenced to two years of hard labor at Reading
Gaol Prison. The experience would profoundly impact the remainder of
his life. Upon his release from incarceration, Oscar’s marriage was dis-
PGR 231
solved and he ended up dying in poverty three years later, in 1900. During
this later period, he wrote De Profundis (love letters from prison) and The
Ballad of Reading Gaol Prison (his personal reflections on imprisonment),
considered to be his most morose and intense works (bibliomania).
Understanding a little bit about Oscar enables us to better understand his context and intention in the fantastic scenarios he sometimes
portrays. Complete Shorter Fiction is a compilation of stories and poetry from
his happier days-1887 to 1891. “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” takes a farcical
look at predestination, and the lengths to which people will go in their
pursuit of that destiny. A young man of good standing, after having his
palm read, is convinced that he must murder someone—anyone really—
before he can fulfill his marriage vows to his beloved Sybil. Lord Arthur’s
most serious crime—aside from attempted and accomplished murder—
was his complete detachment and lack of humanity. Through his character, Wilde portrays a society “lacking in all harmony…amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism of the day, and the real facts of existence”(29). In it, Arthur regards friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers more as experimental subjects than human beings. The murder plans
are conceived with laboratory-like efficiency and minimal fuss. At one point,
the main character decides upon the use of a poison for his next victim as,
“it was safe, sure, and quiet, and did away with any necessity for painful
scenes, to which, like most Englishmen, he had a rooted objection”(35)—a
jab at aristocratic pretentiousness and callous indifference in the face of
misery and suffering.
Another story, “The Remarkable Rocket” uses pyrotechnic devices
and animals as subjects in a study of social stratification and the evils of
arrogance. Wilde gives the powerful elite another poke when the rocket
replies as to its tangible usefulness, “A person of my position is never useful. Indeed, I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the
refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do”(135). Wilde explores
the issues of socio-economic disparity as well as personal morality. In “The
Fisherman and His Soul,” the implications of a soul and the lengths to which
we will go to for love is the subject at hand. In order to be with his love—a
mermaid—the fisherman must cast out his soul (which proceeds on a bloody
rampage) and sacrifice going to Heaven. Feeling that “love is better than
wisdom, and more precious than riches, and fairer than the feet of the
daughters of men”(234), our hero forsakes God and unleashes his remorseless shadow. In the end, the fisherman finally becomes aware of the nature
to his darker side, and the tragic consequences of denying proper morality.
He looses the girl—mermaid—and burdens himself with controlling his
demonic shadow-displaying self-sacrifice-a theme that resonates in many
of Oscar’s other stories as well.
No subject, including William Shakespeare, is off limits to Wilde.
PGR 232
In “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.” a storyline is devised around the hypothesis
that Shakespeare’s Sonnets were dedicated not to Lord Pembroke (as most
scholars agree), but to a male actor in his theatrical company. A young,
delicately handsome, male actor of female roles named Willie Hughes, to
be precise. The theory alleges that the innate beauty, eloquence and feminine acting ability of Willie inspired the play “Romeo and Juliet”, as well as
the author’s famous sonnets. Evidence is even fabricated to add credence
to the claim, a portrait of young Willie, yet by the end I wanted to believe
in the theory as well. I suppose that is what Oscar had in mind when he
wrote it, though. To show that naiveté, compulsion and irrationality can be
troublesome combination.
Ready to express his views with his pen, Oscar enjoyed ridiculing,
or at least parodying, contemporary society, moral frailty, and intolerance
alike. We may not have the rigid aristocratic classes of Victorian England
and its social problems, but we do have economic disparity and social stratification. Our society has numerous problems of intolerance and injustice,
discrimination and persecution, to name a few, that were in some respects
similar to those over a century and a half ago. Somehow though, by conveying his message in often-humorous form, Oscar humanizes our problems and makes them more fathomable, as well as fun. He once said that
“Imagination is a quality given a man to compensate him for what he is
not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he
is”(biographychannel), and his stories have plenty of both. The relevance
of his message remains intact, but it is his wry, rebellious humor and imaginative style that mark Oscar Wilde as one of the preeminent authors of the
19th century, and well worth reading today.
Works Cited
Wilde, Oscar. 4/21/01. <Gaol/
Complete.htmp” http://biblio
mania. com/Fiction/wilde/
Reading Gaol/Complete.htmp>
Wilde, Oscar. 4/20/01. <http://
biographychannel.com/cgibin/biomain.cgi>
Wilde, Oscar. Complete Shorter Fiction.
New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998.
PGR 233
The Greek Myth
Angel Luna
In order to uhave a better idea of what Greek drama is we need
to have a basic background and knowledge about Greek mythology.
Greek drama and plays have been examining the fundamentals
and principals of the elements that create life in all moving things in the
universe. Most of Greek drama and its characters have been surrounded
by mythological thought; the universe they body forth and the gods they
show represent all human creatures.
Myths, and especially the Greek Myths, refer to manifestations of
the cosmos since its formation; they concern the principal components of
creation. The myth emerges out from the creation; Eros originally symbolizes that. If it were not for the research that I conducted, it would be difficult to understand Aristophanes’ play. Even then the play turned out to be
difficult to read; some of its terms were unknown to me. If it were not for
other books and web sites I would not be able to have a clue about Greek
drama and its myth.
Greek drama and its myth in modern times seem to be the continuity of ancient facets of drama. Perhaps in modern times, as well in
Greek times, we are trying to make the world comprehensible through
myths. Throughout the years, the myths have been introduced to the
action comedy drama; that is to say, Aristophanes’ Plays play on contemporarily times by following the rules of action comedy drama of ancient times.
In contemporarily plays it is worth noting the sarcasm and ironies which almost always accompany serious issues; the method that
has been used in Greek drama as well. But there is something different
in the way they implement those variations between ancient and modern times. In modern times the play writers use the sarcasm in order to
examine tragedy in two different ways.
On the other hand, in ancient times there were more references
toward the myths, implementing names of creatures such as bird. Speaking about the Aristophanes’ play, most of his plays are surrounded by
these mythical metamorphosed characters are represented as a form of
bird that characterized the daily issues of that time.
That is to say, both ancient and modern times use daily issues
such as socially life politically, morals, and economics. The bird, therefore represent in a sarcastic way the daily problems that affect the laborers people in society.
Of the origin of tragedy it is not the purpose of this work to
speak. Its beginnings are fairly elear. Of comedy the same cannot be said
Even the great Aristophes was somewhat in doubt (See page 4 lines 8-12
PGR 234
Our Debt to Greece and Rome).
Once again, what he is revealing here is not only the purpose of
speaking about tragedy throughout the comedy; therefore he is in doubt
of what can be relevant. It is to be hoped that drama as well as tragedies
have been played in a way that it is worth seeing as a protest; against the
way of life people in authority would give on during those times to the
slaves and in modern times to the laborers.
Considering man in its own individual sphere, limited by a cycle
time and the corporal Material; representing to a determinant character
in this Grand Drama or cosmic action. That needs every sense in one
deeply conscious of the actor, remembering at the Moment when hi is
acting his role of a character; memorizing how the souls did before
Incarnating, and then enter into the scene. (See the Myths of Er of Panfilia:
Plato in Republic).
Once you are up on stage interpreting a character, the actor needs
to concentrate on projecting his line vividly. Time is short on a theatrical
stage, so whatever needs to be done needs to be squarely done; otherwise
it means that no one was prepared for his role on the set of stage. What I
mean is that time during live plays goes more quickly then in rehearsal.
And the more the actor is prepared the better his acting will be. Also, the
concentration helps the actor to express his character as if he or she were
the one in the story literally.
The bird characters in the play are unique. Aristophanes used the
metamorphosis of birds, to interpret daily human issues sarcastically that
reveal social problems. Like in ancient times as well in modern times, laughing, crying, and the sarcasm of tragic comedy make us feel fine. Perhaps is
just the irony that reflects back to us, as the essence of our self-steam.
In Birds, there is a dialogue between Peisetairos and Hoopoe that
grabs my attention by emphasizing the duality between what is right and
what is wrong.
Peisetairos: You use to be a man—just like us two. And owed
the the city money—just like us two. And liked not paying your
Debts —just like us two. But then you changed your nature for
Bird’s, and flew across the land and over the sea. Your mind
Contains the thoughts of man and bird. That’s why we’ve come
As suppliants to your door, to ask if you know a city that’s
Warm and woolly—a place to curl up in, like a big soft blanket.
Hoopoe. Your want a greater city than rugged Athens?
Peisetairos: Not greater—just more comfortable for us.
Hoopoe: You obviously want to live as an aristocrat.
Peisetairos: What, me? Not at all. I hate Aristokrates.
Hoopoe: Then what’s the sort of city you’d like to live in?
Peisetairos. One where life’s greatest problems would be like
PGR 235
This.
The posture of Peisetairos is to propose the duality in the dialogue
keeps going and going, and therefore Hoopoe stops questioning about what
the sort of city you’d like to live in. Before the last two lines in their dialogue, Peisetarios sarcastically denies his purposes of what he really wants
to obtain from Hoopoe.
In other words, put into modern times, what Peisetairos means is
that he and Hoopoe are running a way because of his debt with their creditors. Therefore, at the beginning of the dialogue, Peisetairos mentions the
metamorphoses that Hoopoe suffers in order to fly away crossing seas and
lands to get where he is now.
It is a way to represent two worlds by using duality. The Greek in
this case, Aristophanes used this method to project properly and on ironic
way toward things. Rightly so [the myth speak to the man that understand
and they are receptors of an actualized ritual throughout themselves.] Therefore the manifestation of myths and the duality toward all moving things
in the universe, that makes life possible for these characters in birds.
What we see in Aristophanes play, it is just the ancient drama that
implies the myth by using the duality of being and its metamorphoses of
characters; therefore understanding Aristophanes play is like comprehending Greek mythology at the same time.
The understanding and interpretation of duality as well the characterization of metamorphoses characters make Aristophanes play more
comprehendible.
In other words, no matter what the subject is, without having basic background one way or the other will be difficult to understand the
subject we might read.
Works Cited
http://www.geocites.com/symbolos/nota03.ht
Aristophanes, His Plays and His Influence
Lord, Louise. E. Our Debt to Grecee and Rome. Cooper Square Publishers,
New York, 1963
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Seeing Pittsburgh Through One Author’s
Eyes
William Norteye
I sit here in twilight zone scheming through leaves bagged in a hard cover.
I am wondering what this author is talking about. What exactly is he saying? To what audience is he speaking to? I am overwhelmed to discover,
after several rounds of research, that there is no information pertaining to
this winner of the 1997 poetry series—Robert Gibb. However, some of his
poems have previously appeared in the Cincinnati poetry review the Illinois review, the Kenyon review, the laurels review and a whole host of
other books and reviews. So, with very little knowledge of this author and
his works, I am going to embark on a journey to dissect a few of his metaphorical lines. I hope that when I finish dissecting, I will know what The
Origin of Evening—the title of Gibb’s book—is all about. However, before I
do that I will like to clearly state that after reading it once, I noticed that
Gibb’s book is not one that you can read and understand in a sitting. It falls
short of having the reader experience the reality of his words easily.
Having read a few of Gibb’s poems, I am of the view that he is
reintroducing his childhood life to the reader. So it is some sort of a true
story, a dive into a certain time period in an attempt to bring to life again
what used to exist. Gibb courageously begins his trip into the past with a
historical landmark (Carnegie). He provokes the readers’ thoughts with
befitting imagery and commendable metaphors. However, his attempt to
open the eyes of the readers mind to see at first hand the horrible and
depressing events that occurred at a time when he was growing up somehow opens a door to a big flaw. In a way, I feel Gibb tries too much to
involve the reader using enriched metaphors and broken lines that his attempt to recapture his childhood days is more or less lost. He seizes to
fully express and proceeds to impress the reader with amassed metaphors
and quite too many broken lines. If his ultimate aim of this book was to
introduce the general reader to new metaphors and the use of broken lines,
then I will say, he did an excellent job. Otherwise, he succeeds only fifty
percent of the time in allowing the reader to see his life sometime ago.
Whilst some of his metaphor filled lines is easy to digest, others
are hard nuts to crack. “In the Carnegie museum” for instance, Gibb takes
a journey back to his childhood days with his stepmother, he gives the
impression that their destination was not a place to dwell. The image he
bestows on the reader makes you feel his urgency to leave the museum. At
that is what it seems like to me when I read this line…“Through the leaves
in their vein…/ there must be some way to enter the world/ and keep on
moving into leaving the old life, / rug by rattles, lying there in the dark”,
Gibb uses thoughtful broken lines to describe situations and events he simply detest and those he like to welcome. But the excessive use of such broPGR 238
ken lines can prompt readers to translate the metaphors in several ways.
Then again, the general reader may find it difficult digest such a complicated piece.
In the “Moths”, he speaks of change, of transformation to another
life.
I like the leaf ones best,
For whom the ends of transformation
Are resemblance
He dives into two worlds and makes a comparison of what was and what
is. Moreover, he makes this very apparent in the concluding part of the
“Moth”.
Change was a rending.
Even the saints, we learned,
Had first to shed the chrysalis
Which blocked the sight,
Feeling themselves bleed outward
Into their wings
Before lifting from the bark
Once again, I used my intuition to make sense out of yet another complicated piece. Certainly, any reader in the right frame of mind can easily
make a general assumption as to what the above quoted piece means. However, not all the assumptions made will be right. In a case where a reader
misinterprets a piece in the poem, the whole sense of portraying a true
story will be lost.
As if on purpose, Gibb deliberately transports the reader back to
when he was a kid, this time he re-lives a moment with his father and how
the harshness of that time laid his toll on him. In “father and sons”, we
witness the fall of tree in a stormy weather.
Those days my father would collapse.
Go down, stricken on all fours.
We’d find him, massive shadows.
On the floor, face down.
In a cold atmosphere, we see a father crumble; we see desperation written
on the face of a son. The above-mentioned quote is one that is easy to translate. In a way, the piece is self explanatory on its own. If Gibb could write
more straightforward like that, I am sure the general reader without much
sweat will see the harshness of his past and maybe experience at first hand
the cruelties of that time period instead of simply being overwhelmed with
new metaphors.
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In “Seeing Pittsburgh”, the reader gets a chance to see through the
author’s eyes. It is at this point that I begin to hear what Robert Gibb was
saying. Seeing Pittsburgh through Gibbs eyes, I feel the fear that grabbed
him when his father was down. I can see the horrors he encountered daily
in his life. I see the sweat and exhaustion pile up on his face as he traveled
up the carban and back. I smell the air and I hate the scent—it is stale. I can
clearly see the darkness “of 1938”. However, think of Einstein traveling at
the speed of light, that is a remarkable sight and a long ways from the
dark. Nevertheless, this is the light Gibb saw; this is what he was talking
about—that nothing is impossible. He is motivated by the ironies of the
dark to keep on moving, reaching for that light. Now I feel his need to
transform, to change, to leave that old life behind, to live life after the dark.
Having seen and felt Gibb’s world, back when he was a kid, I remain adamant on my view that “The Origins of Evening”—Robert Gibb’s
book requires previous knowledge, maybe a brief history of Pittsburgh
before the general reader can understand and see the meanings of his metaphors.
I saw and I felt the darkness of Pittsburgh sometime ago, but not
once throughout the whole book did I find myself in the author’s shoes.
The vision was clear, the touch was rough, but I did not experience either.
So, how come Robert Gibb was able to make me see and feel his life but
failed to give that experience a reader yearns for? Well except for the poem—
“Seeing Pittsburgh”—which gives a picture perfect image of a time period
and a clue that he was talking about Pittsburgh, all the other poems talks
about his childhood and the need for change and transformation. His extravagant use of metaphors is difficult to crack. Furthermore, his excessive
use of broken lines makes it a pain for the general reader to follow and
understand his writing. In a nutshell and as it is well put by Ernest Becker
in his confrontation of Otto Rank’s works, Gibb “is very diffuse, very hard
to read, so rich that he is almost inaccessible to the general reader”.
From Graham McGrew’s let’s switch
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Emerging from “The Poet’s Cave of
Syllables”
David Sullivan
You may have heard the analogy about our condition on earth being like chained men trapped in a cave who can only see the shadows of
images being paraded behind them in front of a fire. This analogy can be
found in Plato’s Republic. Plato’s parable of the cave describes a man, a
clear stand in for the philosopher, who seeks to enlighten his companions
by wrenching them free of their fetters, then marching past the illusioncreating fire and up through the tunnel to the sunlit surface. They promptly
curse him, rubbing their sun-blinded eyes, until they slowly adjust to the
new sights, which are all the more compelling because of their long tenure
in the half-lit darkness of their uncomfortable “home”. Soon, however, they
begin to praise their rescuer who has expanded their world view by introducing them to a world beyond anything they had known (Republic).
It would be over-ambitious to claim that Graham McGrew performs a similar feat in his books of poetry b/w and let’s switch (both published by Emerick, Bell, Brown, which, with the falacious and funny back
cover quotations suggests this is a desktop publication), yet there is something analogous to the magical transformation of our seeing that occurs as
one reads these poems. If one willingly succumbs to their odd changes of
direction, their mix of neologisms and slang, and the way their meditations on someone’s eyelashes can suddenly become specuations on nuclear
destruction, then these poems’ undercurrent will pull you into deep oceanic valleys where unusual flora and fauna gambol in the wave.
In the first poem of Graham McGrew’s quirky, thin black book,
Let’s Switch, we encounter a speaker who is meditating on the fluids that
flow-out of his own body. “Yes, it’s awful, sealed in the meat husk, curdled
/ Reeking of yesterday’s come” (1). The voice is at once lyric, with its “meat
husk,” casual in its address, and discusses what most of us would shun to
mention in public. Yet McGrew’s strange poem has a haunting resonance,
because the writing touches on what few of us would say, and, like a man
at a bar who has grown loquacious after his second highball, he speaks
eloquently of what the mind usually meditates on only in private. After
chronicling the excesses of the body that one exudes, the speaker switches
tactics, and starts to imagine a body devoid of such unpleasant functions.
How bouyant
released from this carcass: bones extracted, organs
dispersed,
fat boiled away, into the stratosphere: mind, drifting,
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casts a rushing shadow, pale, faint, less than a cloud’s. (1)
Suddenly all the dead weight of the opening lines, and their intentionally repellant language, falls away, and the poem, like the body, is lifted
up. It rises on the thermal of the words; up past what we are stuck in, the
sentinent world of weights. It is “up there silently pasing / through Plato’s
justice, horse, and chair” (1).
It is as if the speaker has become so euphoric that Plato’s idea of
Forms is now made manifest, and he rises past that imagined realm where
the ideal copies of things are made. But he reverses directions again at this
point, because he imagines never smelling: “Never the lustral aroma of old
pages” (1). It is the page itself, its tactile qualities, that, even as he writes,
pull him back down. “Never / your eyes to drink the black ink. Not to
tremble as the needle / traverses ‘Volver’s vast grooves” (1). At first the
reader might think the name is some strange Italian songsmith, but then
the nickname clicks: Revolver, the Beatles breakthrough album which exploded pop music and created a new art form. By reducing the title to
‘Volver we’re left to puzzle over the nature of myriad re-volutions.
McGrew then makes the images even more material with the lines:
The glow among the trees as the light leaves the Earth
and never again
to touch jennifer’s skin. (1)
Such moments of clarity are not found often in McGrew’s torturous, language-rich poems, and the inattentive reader is apt to exclaim: “finally a
clear thought and a real image!” but these dense packages do unravel with
a little worrying. Like John Ashbery’s work they sometimes feel overfilagreed and impossible, but when then do fall into place the effect can be
magical.
Watch these images play off each other in a poem from the volume
b/w:
seal the shores between
your fingers
over the flashlight’s eyes
glow the living orange of rust,
the pink of veiled blood. (11)
The simple image of childish delight at the way the hand is revealed, its
veins accentuated, even as it veils the flashlight’s “eye” is marvelous to
behold.
Again and again these poems encounter, and attempt to render,
the simplest of moments. And language itself is often a subject around which
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they pívot. Let me end with a small miracle of a poem, which resembles a
John Donne meditation in the flow of images, and ends with a paeon to the
power of poetry to appear to lift us into Plato’s realm of ideals.
What holds up the vault of the sky?
Is it the arches of the swallows’ flight?
Is it the steam with rises from afterlimbs of lovers?
Is it the once living, in their columns of ask?
Is it the burnt chocolate
bacon odor of outshorted amps, climbing in spirals
from woodpanelled recrooms and cool cinderblock
basements
of veloursleeved teenage rockers, bouncing in Vans
on shag, on cement?
Or is the empty blue dome merely the reflection
of the poet’s cave of syllables? (17)
Works Cited
Plato’s Republic. Translated by G. M. A Grube. Indiana: Hackett Pub. 1974.
From Graham McGrew’s let’s switch
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