Okay The Crying Lot of 49 (hey, what do I do here underline?) it is just you and me now.
Anyways, I like this book. Stoked we are reading it. Here are some thoughts.
So, the girl who lent me this book told me that it was basically all about analyzing literature and I can see it, I can see it. Oedipus is looking for clues and trying to put together the pieces to the puzzle, she fears though that all she will be left with is, "compiled memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself, which must somehow each be too bright for her memory to hold; which must always blaze out, destroying its own message irreversible, leaving an overexposed blank when the ordinary world came back." I think there are several other times in this book so far were you get the feeling that no matter how hard you search and search and think and think you may never come to an exact answer. Once you think you have one thing figured out, another clue pops up and your whole perspective is changed, or seemingly heightened. Everything is open to interpretation and exploration. While reading it seems as though revelations tremble "just past the threshold of understanding." Her conversation with Driblette when he is in the shower seems like one giant metaphor for literary analysis. Take for example the names in the this story. No matter how many scholars have tried to figure out what exactly Pynchon meant by these names, no clear answers have been found. I heard about that last fact in this lecture from Yale University.

Another thing that I learned from this lecture, I started watching it before I read the book, is about why Oedipus is the perfect character for the job. The professor in this lecture mentions that although critics at the time thought of Oedipus as a lightweight, Oedipus is sort of a trickster, people may underestimate her as just a women, and she plays into this role to find specific clues. Take for example when she runs into Koteks and the conversation runs into trouble she bats her eyelashes, "figuring to coquette her way off this conversational hook." Later when she goes to Vesperhaven House she approaches Mr. Toth in a granddaughterly manor. She seems so innocent, perhaps people will give her details, thinking she is just a simple old housewife who won't be able to connect any dots, really. Also Oedipus takes on another role as motherly when she goes to see Cohen and finds him a mess. I'm also intrigued by the line "changeless salt hatchings of her identity."Also Oedipus is a smart lady. She is constantly looking for patterns from the battery on the radio to the houses of the Southern California landscape. She trusts her intuition in when clues may be important. Copying the bathroom message at The Scope and then at the play she senses something "peculiar, and a gentle chill, an ambiguity" beginning "to creep in among the words."

So, the clues we have so far: their is something going on with the postal service. We know that Thurn und Taxis is a underground mail carrying system who used the post horn as their "coat of arms." This single looped horn is found on stamps used by Thurn und Taxis. However, Oedipus has stumbled upon a double looped horn, the second loop suggesting the mute, trumpeters use to play quietly. This muted horn was on the ring that Mr. Toth had from his grandfather, who got it when he cut off someones finger, it was also the symbol Koteks was drawing and it was also in the ladies room at The Scope. We also know at this point in the story that we do not WASTE, we say W.A.S.T.E and bones are also a reoccurring thing. They were in the play, a cemetery has just been ripped up, also the false Indians, and bones is the whole reason that Di Presso is being followed. And we also know that perhaps the characters in the play know something about Trystero, because as Oedipus put it, "all those people, are so obviously onto something."

Things I would like to discuss, Trystero, I do not know what this means exactly? This also plays into the play which I would like to discuss more because it was hard for me to follow while reading? There has also been two references to kissing of feet. Does this mean anything.

Welp. Small group discussions are over. Thank goodness. One more grade in the old grade book. I was not very nervous about small group discussions until I sat down in class that day. I prepared more for small group discussion than I normally do for class. I went to the library, got some books, read 'um, marked 'um up, thought about each question, and then completely forgot everything intelligent I had wanted to say the moment we started talking. I always overestimate my memory.

I didn't particularly care for small group discussion. I really like discussing things in class and always walk away understanding what we read a lot better. I feel like with small group discussion we stayed pretty top-level. I think it is nice to have he instructor be part of the conversation because then he can kind of guide it. I feel like a lot of the questions got off topic and we kept going back to main ideas that had already been covered. It was kind of frustrating to have a time limit because when the discussion did get off base or someone was rambling I got really anxious feeling. Like I just wanted to move on to the next question. I feel like we didn't get to discuss some really interesting things. There was no time to compare and contrast Washington and Baldwin, which I think would have been a very interesting conversation. All in all I found the experience nerve racking. Maybe because I felt extra out of control. At least when the teacher is leading the class I can relax because we are in good hands, but left to our own student devices I don't think the experience was particularly rewarding. Okay, so here are my three things I learned from this discussion/experience:

1) My memory has and will probably fail me again. I need to take down more organized notes, for presenting my thoughts.
2) I learned that student lead discussion do need leaders, I feel like no one wants to take on this role because they are not sure if they will be stepping on anybody else's toes.
3) I leaned about the race riots and how perfectly they seemed to embody everything that was going on Baldwin's mind.

My Note on "Notes of a Native Son"

I am just going to use this blog post as an opportunity to get my answers to the question in class tomorrow sorted out. I read "Notes of a Native Son" last night and then read several different essays on it. I as hoping I would have crazy dreams that like connected dots and opened doors and I would be all like, oh, I get it. But my dreams weren't about "Notes of a Native Son"....

The thoughts below are just the beginning. I just want to make sure I have my basic footing under me for all the questions, so I can stop worrying about it...

1. Well the way the essay is structured in three parts also goes for the argument I plan to make for five as well. Baldwin structered this essay in three parts that could almost take on the title of the three parts from Wright's "Native Son," which are, "Fear," "Flight," and "Fate." Also Baldwin sets up this essay to mirror the story of the prodigal son. In the first section we read about the bitterness and fear that Baldwin's Father puts in him. His Father warns him of the dangers of white society, but Baldwin does not listen and moves to New Jersey where he experience extreme prejudice for the first time. In the second section Baldwin comes home, although he may be too stubborn to realize it at the time, he has realized the importance of what his Father has said. He realizes more and more about his father in the third section. Something interesting happens in the third section which, I plan to read more about later today, but he uses cinematic effects to draw the reader in.

I think the way it is written is to bring you on his journey. You learn the lesson as he learns the lesson. I also think the voice of wisdom that Baldwin brings to this piece, he was around thirty when he wrote this, gives it a nice feeling. Although the story is dealing with anger, it does not feel hostile to read. I think if he had structured the essay differently or maybe didn't tell it in first person it would have been more aggressive or had more tension. Even though bad things are happening, like the race riots, the extreme prejudice he faces in New Jersey, and his Fathers death you still feel safe because you are with Baldwin and its sort of like he is telling you it is going to be okay and were going to come out of this alive, and better people for it.

2. The biggest thing that the race riots and his Father's death that I see is that the race riots happened because of fear and bitterness and anger and Baldwin felt that his Father's own heart was filled with these things towards whites, and is actually the reason for his death. The riots are "Harlem's collective black rage monstrously personified" and in a way Baldwin's Father's death was his Father's own rage personified. Also the shambles that the riots leave Harlem in could also be signifying how Baldwin feels after his Father dies. Although one may argue that he is indeed free, just because you are free doesn't mean that there aren't shambles left behind that you have to pick up and make sense off. I think the race riots stand for his Father in a way, and the desperate things people can do when they are oppressed and how hateful the act of trying to free yourself can be. I wonder how the Father would have reacted to the riots. Like, I said before these are just baseline thoughts. I am excited to discuss these topics in class tomorrow.

3. Well right off the vat the three men have something in common because they are all men who project themselves onto their children. They are all men who seem to be driven from some kind of fear. They all come from underprivileged conditions. There was a passage in "Notes on a Native Son" that described the Father and sort of reminded me of the dad in "Barn Burning" it was, "He could be chilling in the pulpit and indescribably cruel in his personal life and he was certainly the most bitter man I have ever met; yet it must be said that there something else in him, buried in him, which lent him his tremendous power and, even, crushing charm." I just think that the Dad in "Barn Burning" would have been described by his son in the exact same way. I think that the Dad in "Barn Burning" is more similar. The Grandpa in " Invisible Man" didn't seem to have a sort of power that was asserted over many people, just his grandson and also the way the boys and sons reacted so differently. I feel like the kid in "Invisible Man" let his Grandpa words haunt him and they drove him in a more productive way, like he really wanted the acceptance of his Grandpa, where as the other boys, not that they didn't want the acceptance of their fathers but they had more anger towards them. I think all three men were driven by bitterness and anger and fear. I think all of these men left a sort of inheritance upon their children or grandchildren that can "cripple and destroy, particularly if that inheritance is defined by bitterness and rage." They left each one of these boys with a burden they are going to have to figure out on their own.

4. Yes. I think this is a modernist piece of literature. I wasn't sure if it was but then I looked up the definition of modernist literature and this just fit in so well. I really liked these words used to describe modernism on a blog,"Exile, loss of innocence, greed, violence, movement." The author of this blog then precedes to say something to the extent of these things are the ingredients in modernist writing. This essay has all of them, literally all of them.

5. Considering that "Notes of a Native Son" is pretty much a whole play on "Native Son" I am going to have to go with Richard Wright. There are a couple essays in this book I have to read that deal with this comparison, so I should know a lot more before the discussion tomorrow. Although earlier today I thought the comparison to Richard Wright was going to be an easy one to make because they write stories that are so seemingly similar. Just in the subject matter being about being black and oppression and the struggle and the rage. However, Baldwin was not that into Wright. I mean he was really into him, he sort of looked at Wright as a version of his father, Wright greatly influenced Baldwin, much as a dad would. Baldwin who was obviously really into his own father and being very open about all aspects of his being, was also very critical of Wright. Baldwin didn't want to be "just a black author" and he felt like Wright had put himself in that corner. I feel like much with his father Baldwin spent a lot of time trying not to be Wright, which is impossible because he loved Wright and admired him, so he would have some of his qualities.

6. I think this question goes hand in hand with question 9, considering what Baldwin writes after that sentence, "I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once the hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with the pain." With the hatred for his Father masking any sort of love or compassion or sadness he feel upon his death it is easier to shrug it off with a , "I hate that dude." I think everyone does this. All the time. Everything I hate is because I at some point loved it, and the loosing of it is something I would just rather not morn. I think hate is an easy emotion to have because it requires no accountability or understanding. Hate is black and dense. It is an empty void. Baldwin's views towards his father changed in the way that he almost felt sorry for the man for carrying around this hatred. He remembered a time when his Father wasn't cold or mean. He becomes much more empathetic towards his father. He understands how his Father must have felt so sad and frustrated because his own fear and hatred and bitterness got in the way of him loving his own children.

7. So, I read about this in one of the essays but I just didn't get what they were talking about. So what I can figure if that all the text and all the things his father taught him and left him, they were empty and completely up to Baldwin to do what he was going to do with him.

8. I think when he says no one is interested in the detail, he is almost talking about his own disinterest in realizing where his father is coming from. His father is mean, case and point. He does not care, I mean he does eventually care, to go back and explore, but at first he is hesitant. I think the narrative can leave things out when it chooses. It can also bring these things back into the light when the writer finds it appropriate. I think this essay almost beckons you to look deeper. The facts are not what they seem and facts are rarely so black and white. It is sort of like the hate thing though, if you dare challenge the facts what are you going to learn. Sticking to the facts of what you believed happened is very easy to do.

9.And I scratched all my notes for this on a piece of paper, and I'm kind of tired of typing. So I'm going to go ahead and end this long winded, poorly edited blog.

The villanelle.

And I've been working so hard on not having obsessive thoughts...
But right now, there is only one thing I care about and that is ending the semester and starting my summer! Writing a villanelle was pretty hard. All those rhyming words. Okay, so here's is my first attempt to write a villanelle knowingly.

Exciting things are close at hand
My very best friend lives overseas
Her skin glowingly tanned

I'm so ready to go to Thailand
Not one feeling of unease
Exciting things are close at hand

Horizons will surely expand
In thick sweet equator breeze
And my skin glowingly tanned

The language I won't understand
Air full of spicy food's potpourri
Exciting things are close at hand

We will go the beach, sit in the sand
Eat so many lemon icees
My skin all glowingly tanned

Negative thoughts surely banned
Spend lazy days as I please
Exciting things are close at hand
With my skin glowingly tanned

There. It's surely no "Mad Girl's Love Song" but it will do.

But it's not really a disaster...

So, I automatically liked Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art." For two reason, first it reminded me of my favorite Sleater-Kinney song "Good Things". Second I can relate to this poem. I feel like a lot of the poems and stories we have read this semester were important to read because they are historical or historically important. However, nothing beats reading poem and getting it, because it expresses feelings you have felt. And I'm really into feelings.

After reading Bishop's poem and deciding that I wanted to blog about it I logged onto Ebsco to see what other people were saying about "One Art." The first article I read titled, "Bishop's ONE ART" by Jonathan Sircy shed some light on how Bishop uses irony in this poem. So post-modernist, right?

In the fist stanza of the poem Bishop writes, "The art of loosing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster." This alone isn't ironic but when taken into account with the rest of the poem, this beginning thought that loosing things is easy, so many things just seem intent on being lost, it isn't earth shattering. Things leave, things go, and when they do you just pick yourself up by the boot straps and move on. After all it is no disaster.

The next two verses of the poem as Sircy suggest almost seem like a manual on how to loose things. Bishop writes, "Loose something everyday" (Step one), "Accept the fluster" (Step two), "Practice loosing farther, loosing faster" (Step three). See! It's easy to loose things, surely no disaster.

In these two verses as well, the tone of the poem shifted for me. The first two verses are almost cute. You just sort of read along thinking yeah loosing stuff isn't a disaster, especially when it is just some keys or an hour of your time. Those seem more like small inconveniences as opposed to disasters. Then in the third verse and with the introduction of "step three" the poem takes on a serious tone. That line, "Practice loosing farther, loosing faster" kind of breaks my heart in a good way. Especially when she adds, "places, and names and where it was you meant to travel." That's heavy. And sure loosing those things isn't a disaster like a tornado or an earthquake, but it still hurts. After listing off those things she once again states that "None of these will bring disaster."

At this point in the poem she switches over to first person. She begins to recount the things she has lost grouping her "mother's watch" and "three loved houses" as things that went. Of course the houses are not lost but like the "cities," "rivers," and "continent" of lines 13-15, she no longer owns claim over them. I have lived in a couple different cities, and I do feel like I have lost them. The street where you old work is, is no longer your street. Your old houses, are not your any more. New people have moved in, been hired, taken your spot and you lost it. You can go back and visit, you could even move to the same city again, but you can never have that time back. It is intact lost, and all that remains is memory.

Although she misses these places, loosing them was not a disaster.

In the last verse, Bishop is no longer addressing places and things, she talks about a person's memory. She seems to try to make light of the loss she feels towards this person by remembering a "joking voice" or beloved "gesture." In this verse she also admits that the "art of losing's not too hard to master thought it may look like (Write it!) like disaster." I think the use of the "(Write it!) makes this poem take on an even heavier feeling. People are the hardest thing to loose, and if she has been trying to associate small loss with big loss to downplay the importance of the big loss, perhaps realizing that a big loss is a disaster somehow makes all those smaller things disasters too.

I can't help but feel like the irony in this poem is sort of like forcing yourself to believe something as true. Like you so desperately don't want to care, don't want to hurt, don't want to miss and by just shrugging it off as something that happens, just like loosing your favorite t-shirt or hat, you can minimize just how disastrous it is. By lumping big loss with little loss it all becomes interchangeable.

Perhaps Bishop is being a little bit of a trickster as well. Trying to pretend like loss doesn't hurt, it is all small and easy to master. At the end of poem I think her true feelings are reveled, as it seems like it gets harder to write as she realizes intense feelings created by the collectiveness of everything every loss.

Disastrous is a big word, with lots of negative connotation, but it could just simply be when everything falls apart or ends. When you move, your previous life is gone. That is sort of scary. That could technically be disastrous, but I think the art of loosing is easy to master. The art of dealing with the loss is a whole nother story.

Really fast, is nother even a word? I say it all the time, but don't think I have ever typed it. Weird.

Now this poem kind of reminds me of this Vivian Girls song. I'm going to go head and make this comparison, because I feel like in this Vivian Girls song they are trying to convince themselves that they feel a certain way through loss. "I Believe in Nothing" and "One Art" both seem to take semi-casual approaches to the very heart breaking reality of loss.

And Then We Started Talking About Post Modernism.

After last weeks class I was very excited to tell my friend Tara that according to post modernism, when we visited a replica of Stonehenge in West Texas, it was just as real as seeing the real thing.

Whitney's blog this week was amazing as per usual. I loved how she seems to go into the reading so prepared. I feel like she embarks on this reading with a little guide, being like don't forget to look for the trickster, don't forget to look for irony.

I suppose there is a reason we learn about all these different themes in literature, because they are just that, themes!

I really appreciated her examination of the trickster in this story. I feel like the boy in this story and Grandison were almost the same. The grandfathers advice to yes them to death, sounds like the same strategy Grandison employed.

I guess there are several times in "Invisible Man" where the situation turns out different than one was expecting. First, he goes to the whole event just to give a speech, which he does not end up giving. Also, at the end you think he is just going to leave with some coins, but he ends up leaving with a scholarship.

Right? That's how it ends. Even though he dreams it is a sick joke, it isn't....

This little tasting of "Invisible Man" makes me want to read the whole novel.

Wasteland Reading Response.

What I really like about reading Whitney's and Dennis's blogs is how differently they perceive things from me. I really appreciate Whitney's eye for picking up on details. Sometimes when I read poems I just sort of read it at face value. I walk away with a pleasant sense of huh? and I never really questioned it before this class. I thought poetry was suppose to leave you feeling like you had just been hit over the head. Dissecting it is kind of fun, though. Fine literature, you won!

Back to Whitney's blog though, her observations about it having WW1 themes and the clashing of high and low culture. I feel like I missed both of these things! Sometimes I might get too caught on one thought when I am reading and do not explore any other ones. I get so fixed that a poem is about one idea, that I just miss the rest because I assume I already got it.

Wow, who would've thought that I would do so much self-reflection on my Week 10 blog 2? But I am starting to read things differently and in a way I hate it because it is a huge responsibility. It's easier when something seems big and scary to just tell yourself you never really wanted to understand it because it would probably be lame. Well, I kind of sort of care now and am starting to see how even literature that I wouldn't go out of my way to read, or read on vacation, can still be worth my time. And maybe I shouldn't corner myself by what I assume I like or don't like.

And this is what school is all about I suppose. Learning new ways to think and new things about yourself.........

Just Some Things I Thought About "The Invisible Man"

First of all, even since I watched, "They Shoot Horses Don't They?" last semester I have been obsessed with the idea of writing a paper about dance marathons. It is crazy to think about the things desperate people will do in desperate times for money. What is even crazier to think about is the people who will pay to see desperate people do desperate things. The boys in the Ellison's "The Invisible Man" were forced to put themselves in bodily harm when it comes to the Battle Royal. At what was all the battling for? The chance to grab money off of an electrified rug. It emends me of the scene in TSHDT when they have to run really fast around the dance floor after dancing for days on end and all the rich spectators will throw money or bet on who they think is going to win.

So, I am going to try to make this a point eventually in this blog, so bear with me. The men who have arranged for this evening of entertainment are powerful obviously. We are given little insight into the life of these men aside from their constant yelling and the fact that they are "the town's leading white citizens." So, who exactly are the town's leading white citizens? And what do they like to do? Eat cucumber sandwiches?

NO! They like to watch little boys fight and women dance. How powerful these men are, seeing as they are not women and they are not black.

It seems as though it is a common theme in life to define your power by amusing yourself with the less fortunate. Everything from the red light district in Bangkok to dog fights. Defining your power by capitalizing on the lack of power others posses is common not only in life but in literature as well. Remember "A Worn Path"? And how we talked about the white characters in the story were only defined when put up against a black character. A character who they considered at a disadvantage. The hunter in that story with the dog, totally got off on being all creepy and mean to that old lady. Without even knowing her, he tried to define himself by taking her power away.

A bigger question I have after reading this story is what kind of people do this and why is it socially acceptable?

I guess this is where my psychology class this semester is coming into play. First of all the powerful men in this story are indulging two of the four f's found in the hypothalamus, which is the pleasure center of the brain. No doubt, fighting and fornicating are very prevalent in this story and although the men are just watching from a distance, I'm sure they are pretty much turned on the whole time, which is super gross considering they are like all sweaty and packed really close to each other trying to feel like men. Ugh.

I also can't help but wonder how it came to be like a cool thing to do. Was it a collective consciousness one day between a bunch of humans when we figured out how much better we felt when we were taking advantage of the people were perceived as disadvantaged. I mean in a much more constructive sense, this is not really that much different from like missionary work. This may seem like a stretch but, it is just going around to people who we view as animalistic and help them so you can fee better about yourself.

So going back to why people oppress others...

I just watched a video on the Stanford Prison Experiment and I feel like maybe one of the "town leading white citizens" like thought it was a good idea to have that kind of fun and everyone else just sort of followed lead. Like Nazi Germany!

I guess the main question I still have is who are these sadistic creeps who throughout history and literature strive to define themselves through other people's disadvantages?