Newspapers

To wrap up my blog, I'll go back near the beginning of the semester when we talked about reading the Eternities and not the Times. To be honest, I'm not much of a newspaper reader. I prefer to hear the scoop, rather than scan the paper. However, while I was at work the other day (I work at the library in the AV room) stacking the day's papers on the racks, I couldn't help perusing some of the "articles." Mainly, I checked out comics, classifieds, and little blurbs about the high school. It was slightly addictive, like watching soaps. Throughout the year, I noticed my friends had little articles they had to go through on a daily basis- the police reports, the opinions page, and for some, the obituaries. While at work, I watched a family go through newspaper microfilm from the 1940s looking for nothing in particular, but just little snippets of interesting information. One girl printed out an article because she thought the clothes they wore were funny looking. Another girl was looking for household articles- which is the best recipe for. . . just really weird everyday stuff; and I guess, after pondering this awhile, that's where the appeal lies. It's the everyday that lasts forever. The common themes. Newspapers immortalize the mundane that we see each day, but evolves over time. Like the lists and lists of men who died in the Iliad. It's not about the individual who dies today or who died fifty years ago. It's that their lives are forever remembered and recorded. And in writing in our blogs, and taking pictures, and using facebook even, trying to do the same thing. We want to be remembered.

Ind. Presentations review 1

So, I've been going through my notes on the individual presentations, trying to review and keep track of them all. I won't lie, I didn't take the best notes on these, but I tried to write down a key phrase or a word that would remind me of the person and hopefully, their topic. However, some are a little difficult to differentiate from the pack. I think I have "anemnesis" written down four or five times all over my notebook, and at first it means nothing to me. But then, if I concentrate hard enough it's all like mnemonic devices where the word brings to mind the person, and the person, a story. I wrote the word "laughter" next to Jennie Lynn's name on my notepad and I can see her smiling and talking and then I remember her telling us about a girl who scrapes her knee. Or something like that. How we can all relate to this. Zach Morris is a song writer, just like his mother, and the songs evoke memories and feelings. "Music is what allows the soul to travel up to the heavens." paraphrasing from a movie called "Mansfield Park," Zach's paper and his blog flow like music and make my shoulder blades itch. Anamnesis, Brittany wrote on it to talk about what it would be like to live in 460 BC. We've all lived it before. It reminded me of a book called, "The Devil's Arithmetic," where a Jewish girl finds herself transported back to WWII and experiences life in a concentration camp with members of her family. That's a little grim, but the book was all about how traditions carry us through difficult times as well as properous. Brittany's paper reminded me about how rituals from long ago still carry weight today. Misaki's is pretty easy to remember because I love the movie, "Spirited Away." It definitely gives off a myth/mystical vibe, and it makes me never want to eat god food. Nope.

The Process Within the Cocoon

In His Dark Materials, animals represent the spirit and power of the soul. When a person is a child, his soul constantly changes shape, trying on different forms to eventually find his true identity. However, even when an identity reveals itself, a person still may not realize who it is they have become until outwardly confronted by it. Lucius, from the Golden Ass, and Gregor Samsa from Kafka’s Metamorphosis, both undergo physical transformations which at first glance, seem to be simply the result of unfortunate, magical circumstances; but pushing aside supernatural causes, their metamorphoses are really extended metaphors outlining how their true selves have manifested in animal forms, how they have externally reflected the more animalistic qualities (the spirit and drive) buried in their psyches; but although both Lucius and Gregor learn more about themselves and others from their experiences, Lucius ends up moving away from what he’s become, while Gregor becomes consumed by it.
Lucius’ and Gregor’s transformations have been building up over time. Lucius’ behavior prior to his change exuded ass-like qualities: seducing his host’s housemaid, drunkenly attacking wine skins, fabricating stories to justify his attack, and sulking when his antics provoke laughter. In the beginning, he gives off a feeling of supposed superiority and pride. After talking to his host, Milo, he rudely thinks, “How glad I was to escape from the smelly old bore” (p. 25). He complains and complains about the frugality of his host’s dinners, but Milo isn’t necessarily rich and Lucius gave no indication of his arrival. He seems to expect his host to immediately satisfy his desires, because he is the guest. While Lucius’ ego isn’t uncommon, the thing that pushes him over the line of propriety is his greed in stimulating the mind. He prides himself on his intellect and how he constantly strives to learn more, but when he convinces his housemaid lover to help him steal her mistress’s magic, his ambition to gain power over the secrets of witchcraft leads to his downfall. Morphing into the donkey shape, Lucius is reprimanded for his arrogance, and like any kid who commits a crime, he must humble himself, as well as allow others to humble him, in order to grow out of his juvenile behaviors and mature into a truly wise and rational human being.
While it is easy to keep track of Lucius’ transformation, with Gregor, it is hard to determine where exactly his change begins. However, his reaction on his first day as an insect illustrates how his metamorphosis truly exposes his nature. “What has happened to me? . . .What if I went back to sleep for a while and forgot all this foolishness?. . .for the time being, however, I must get up because my train leaves at five” (p. 7,8). Gregor’s thoughts rapidly flit from a mild, “Oh, why am I a bug?” to a more worried, “I’m going to be late for work.” Gregor wasn’t expecting to find himself turned into a bug, but he doesn’t show any surprise at it because he’s too consumed by his familial expectations. “. . . as soon as I have saved the money to pay off the debt my parents owe him—it might still be another five or six years—I’ll definitely do it. Then I’ll cut myself free” (p. 8). Longing to leave salesman work and still have his family in good financial shape, Gregor pushes his desires down deep, ignoring them for the ”tomorrow” that will never come. His soul is crushed by what he thinks others want, causing the poor psyche to be unattended and weak. In transforming into the insect, then, Gregor’s subconscious cries out to be recognized; however, the appearance of Gregor’s neglected needs simply appalls his family instead of galvanizing them into active action to save him.
Although it ultimately comes down to Lucius and Gregor to change their fortunes, outside help and experiences offer some guidance along the way. Handed back and forth amongst various owners, Lucius sees in many of his owners the same types of faults in character that he had had: the bandits had the willingness to steal and manipulate, the women, from Psyche to the baker’s wife, were all either easily tricked or unfaithful (promiscuous) to their word, and the wood gatherer boy was a little malicious demon; but in the end, unless they did something to repent for their actions, they suffered the consequences. The bandits were all chopped up, the baker’s wife and her lover were humiliated, and the nasty little boy was sporagmosed by a bear. Again and again, Lucius finds himself witness to tales of mischief turned to tales of woe, impressing on him the terrible justice inflicted upon those who do wrong. Humbled by these lessons, as well as physically humbled by his masters, Lucius learns the importance of tempering self-importance and arrogance. Acknowledging a higher power, he modestly begins his search for wisdom again; but this time, under the goddess, Isis, he bears in mind that he cannot expect to know everything or be more powerful than the man he is—he has learned humility.
Gregor, on the other hand, has the opposite problem in that he is too submissive. He needs to assert himself, grow a backbone, and learn to do things more selfishly; but as he watches his family struggle to survive without him, he grows more and more depressed, thinking his family’s predicament is his fault. “. . .whenever the conversation turned to the need to earn money, Gregor let go of the door and threw himself onto the cool leather sofa nearby, he felt so flushed with shame and grief” (p. 27). Gregor had worked hard to give his family a comfortable life, but what he didn’t notice, regardless of the conversations around him, was how his parents and sister didn’t need or even want the luxuries he provided. Near the end, they even suffer, because they can’t afford to live in the big house he rented for him. They want a smaller house to live in, but because of Gregor, they can’t. Gregor was blinded by his own generosity, and if he had just stepped back long ago, he might have prevented his going above and beyond what was asked of him. Now, as he watches his family toil and grow weary from their hard work, he further isolates and berates himself, falling deeper into depression until one day, (sadly to the delight of his parents and sister) he dies .
It has been said that a person cannot change unless he wishes to change himself, but without outside help to catalyze the action, nothing is likely to happen. Gregor lived a confined and quiet life. He never had a voice outside of what he spoke in his head. Instead, he allowed his parents and his boss to dictate who he was and what he had to do. He was dependent on them. So, when his lifestyle became a problem, he couldn’t help himself because he didn’t know how to be a strong person separate from his family. Although they isolated him (and had been isolating him for some time), he still felt connected and more responsible for their wellbeing over his own. Lucius, who was likewise cut off from society, eventually thrived, because unlike Gregor who had always received this kind of treatment, Lucius just needed to be ignored and maltreated. Just like a spoiled child needs something to shock him into reality, so did Lucius need this character building experience in order to tone down his self-importance; and it worked wonders for him. He learned gratitude for the smallest of things and he kept his ego in check by humbling his appearance, “making no attempt to disguise his baldness by wearing a wig or any other covering,” proudly displaying it for all to see.
Anybody who has gone through puberty or an identity crisis, or any type of crisis, can claim to have undergone the same metaphorical transformations of Lucius and Gregor. Every moment of human life is spent trying to become whoever it was destined to be; and every so often, those moments will build up until one crystallizes, allowing the mind to see the soul as it is right then. Whether it’s an adolescent ass, a naïve puppy, or an insignificant bug, the soul gives a progress report to offer room for change and growth, because whatever the destination is for our lives, whatever people we are meant to be, the most important element of our identities rest in how we got there. We will become many things in our lifetimes (our souls will change shape many times), from the stage of childhood through death. Some forms will be more embarrassing or even more shameful than others; but just as a caterpillar has to work to earn its beauty, so must we work and learn from our transformations, until one day, we can step back and see our souls shining back at us, glowing from the natural beauty we have struggled to find since the beginning of time.

Stream of Consciousness. . .my brain is random

So, thinking about how curiosity almost destroys Psyche, I was reminded of other stories where a woman's curiosity leads to disaster, like Eve and the forbidden fruit and Pandora and her box. Because of these women, the world has sin, greed, evil etc. But if they hadn't done this, where we would be? Curiosity is the key component to knowledge and learning. It motivates us to explore and discover new things-- it's all about the questions.
These stories make women's education sound so bad (Getting kicked out of Eden), but they are the first and only real stories about knowledge to begin with that I'm aware of. Men are always assumed wise, but they are not the ones who test the boundaries of their knowledge. Their ambition follows that of women, or at least it seems that way in Adam and Eve. Not that that is really a bad thing though. Letting someone else test something before you is kind of self-preserving. And taking on new knowledge or awareness can be burdensome.
Whenever I think of the story of Adam and Eve, I think of children and their innocent and unassuming nature. It's like when you're under or around the age of 10 and from afar, you see this person, an athlete or someone who just looks fabulous, untouchable and all you can think is "wow." And for years, when you think of something beautiful, you think of this person and that moment, until one day, you find the facts about that person. You see them do something and all of a sudden you see them in a new light and everything about that person is dull and ordinary or even just despicable.
In history class when I was in 10th grade, we began the year with Christopher Columbus traveling to the Americas. I was pretty stoked. . .I liked Columbus- the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria and all that jazz, but then I read about how he wasn't the friendly face who discovered America. A liar, a slave trader, this is the man I celebrated when I was in elementary school. Rock on.
I'm not trying to bash on learning stuff, or promote women or anything. I don't have a point. I'm just tired and thinking, spring cleaning in my head.

The Festival of Laughter/ Swedish Basketball

Reading about how a whole city conspired together to play a trick on a guy, I was reminded of something I did in 7th grade. My mom had taught me the day before a game called Swedish Basketball. What you did was take a quarter and a pencil and a piece of paper. Using the quarter, you would trace three dark circles in random places on the paper and then mark each circle with a number of points. You'd place the paper on a table, and sitting up straight in a chair, you'd roll the quarter off your nose without bending your head and try to get it to land on one of those circles; but when a person rolled the quarter down their nose, (if he did it right) he would leave a long black line from the top of the forehead down the to the tip of the nose. Anyway, my best friend and I decided to have some fun with our friends. One at a time, we'd pull a girl aside and say, "Hey, have you ever played Swedish Basketball?" We'd make it sound really awesome and we'd let her roll the quarter again and again until we couldn't hold laughing anymore and she figured it out. This may sound really mean, and we were called "meanies" often, but the part that made me laugh the hardest is how each girl reacted in the same way. First, she'd be red in the face, angry at us, calling us names and whatnot. But once we said, "Let's go do it to someone else," her attitude would change in a split second. With a giant smile on her face, she'd giggle and say, "Oh yeah, definitely." There was no malice in her expression, and none of us really meant to hurt anybody's feelings. In fact, we only played this "game" with the friends we hung out with daily and with the boys we liked. It wasn't about humiliation or being mean. We were just out to have a good time. I did feel a little bad when this boy named Jason thought we were laughing because he couldn't get the quarter in the circle, and he ended up trying so many times, he had a marker thick (and dark) line down his forehead. He didn't realize it was there for at least a half an hour. He was really goodnatured about it though, and he laughed about it a lot.

Curiosity and Advice

What's with these people and not taking advice? Everytime a god tells a mortal not to do something, they do it anyway, regardless of the fact that the god actually cares for them and the other people who pressure them do not. Take Cupid and Psyche. He was supposed to make her life miserable but instead, he risks his mom's anger and makes Psyche his wife. He absolutely adores her, but although he tells her what will happen if she asks her sisters for a visit and although he tells her what will happen if she sees his true form, she does it anyway. It just kills me on the inside! Looking at it over and over again though, I think Apuleius points out a pretty valid point about human nature. Maybe deep down, everybody would have trouble living in a mystery. People are naturally curious, and the sisters only brought Psyche's doubt to the surface. Undoubtedly, if left alone, she would eventually have done the same thing by herself. Humans aren't meant to live in the unknowing and whenever someone tells us we will never understand something, we rebel because we're so full of our own intelligence and curiosity that we just can't believe that. It's like when we're kids and our parents tell us not to do something and we do it anyway and then find out why we were forbidden to do it in the first place. But maybe that's something we had to do for ourselves to experience first hand the bad consequences to knowing something. I don't think we should be afraid to do that, but I suppose we should be smart about it? We'll see.

Initial thoughts on Golden Ass

Erotique. We've talked about this word a lot in class, and I'm not sure if it's definition works here, but the Golden Ass is where this word really fits for me. I got about halfway through it, and a friend asked me to describe what I was reading and that's the only thing I could say about it. Erotic. Passionate. Beautiful. It was all so human, I think. The way the people loved, yearned, desired, plotted, hated, and lived; the jealousy in Psyche's sisters, Psyche's curiosity, Lucius' ambition, many characters' lusty thoughts. We've all experienced these things to some degree. Sometimes, I thought characters were exaggerated and extreme, but then I realized they, along with everyone else, were true to human nature; and I just thought "Wow, what a rush," because this book makes you feel and relate to so many emotions. And it's all human. We yearn for human contact and kindness and burn with itching, sometimes destructive curiosity. We cannot help ourselves; it's just erotique. To me anyway.
So. . . moving to Lucius, I liked the scene where he is the butt of a huge practical joke, because I think everyone's been in that chair before. While he thinks he's on trial, he fabricates an elaborate fight scene with the inanimate enemies, talking up their evil intent and playing up his heroic, drunken good intentions. I loved that he acted that way, because I would do exactly the same thing if my mom alluded to my breaking a rule. I would exaggerate my good character and explain a situation where I wouldn't really be at fault because it was all an unavoidable accident- wrong time wrong place situations.
I think it's funny when someone accuses or alludes to something, and we automatically feel guilty and try to come up with excuses to defend ourselves for something we might not have done. Maybe it's our sense of self preservation or justice tweaked in that direction. It doesn't do a lot for us though, which is kind of ironic. Oh, Jiminy Cricket.
Well, there was a lot more I liked about this book, but it'll have to wait. I'm tired.