My paper

NOTE: This is my work and not yours anyone who wants to reference make sure you cite properly because I did this not you. Pain and death awaits all who steal from my sack of goodies. (This paper was not the final one that I turned in. I made many last minute changes that were not on my computer.)

There hasn't been a day this month where I haven't been completely overwhelmed. I'm trying to write this paper, but I'm throughly burnt out. The harder I try to think of some amazing topic to write about the further I am from starting. I don't want to settle on the generic topic of what I have learned and how it has changed me, but I can't seem to find a single original idea. But if I think about it, that generic topic isn't so generic after all. It allows me to find a coherent thought so I can run with it. Then what have I learned? It doesn't seem like I've learned anything except for a few names, numbers, and facts that are in the books and movies I've encountered. No, it's more than that. It's taking segments and clips and applying them to everything I've learned and using them for understanding other situations I will encounter. The more I know the more I can get out of life.

I have begun to play the connection game. It's trying to take passages and names that are in a text and connecting them with other passages and names. Sometimes I find what the author intended and sometimes I find more. I do this because when I start to read deeper than the surface those little gifts of enjoyment the writer adds for my pleasure appear. Its these references that bring a new aspect to everything. Each time we read a book we can catch those hidden details. The imagination will make the connections when we let it. Even when writing, if we follow a stream of thoughts soon our minds will be making connections we never realized were possible. It's the imagination that allow the statement, “trust the tale not the teller,” to be true because of it's supreme truth. When a writer has made a work, everybody can use it for their own connections in life. It could be for connections within the work or with other events in history. It is limitless.

Connections are difficult because my mind is pretty generic and anything other than the obvious connections are painstakingly difficult for me to make. In high school the best connections I could make would be works by the same author or settings that are the same. Deeper meaning and the triangle of hierarchy didn't exist for me. My high school literature teacher, Mr. Voigt, started me on the right path of interpretations, unfortunately I didn't spend more time with him. He gave me some advice that I've been trying to use in every project I do. “When you realize that you're digging a hole, stop digging.” (I hope I'm not letting you down.) How is it possible that everything we've read and seen connects? Since nothing is original anymore and everything we do is a spin off of someone else's experiences an overlap is bound to happen. In a South Park episode, one kid, Butters, aka Professor Chaos, wanted to do something terrible to the town of South Park, but ever idea he had had already been done by the Simpsons. He wanted to come up with an original idea so badly, but there wasn't any left.

So here I kneel trying to make a connection of this semesters class, but all I can do is think about tv shows and past classes. To bad everything we've read has been by different authors and they have different topics. No resorting to my old ways. Overall the book Lolita seems to have many roads traveling out of it. Nabokov was the king of wordplay. He left little hints and treasures for the reader (if I truly found any of them, let me boast now). There was so much more to Lolita than the subject matter. That is to say, more than the idea of being carried away. I believe this book could be the focal point of the class and within every line there was a link to some other place, world, and/or idea. Nabokov did this very subtly so I missed many of the treats, for I am not an attuned reader.

Nabokov is the king of the connection. No, Elvis is the king, but another word for king could be master. Until this class I didn't know the title of “the master” was already taken by to Henry James. When the name Henry James comes across I think of two things. One is Daisy Miller. Not the book itself, but the image of her. There she is, in an all white dress with a white parasol, but she's at the railing of a fairy boat as described by Bernstein in Citizen Kane. Charles Foster Kane who died in his Xanadu (pre net days of course), whispering his last word “rosebud.” Nary a sound was made, but quite a ruckus was caused with his final breath. The words rose and rosebud caught my attention when I was reading Lolita.

The next thought in reference to Henry James is him being “the nicest old lady I ever met.” Not that I ever met him, or understand why he's the nicest old lady, but William Faulkner said this and it was one of the many test questions I got wrong. I guess that people can learn from their mistakes. The idea of Faulkner and his unbearably long sentences which stretch for pages and paragraphs again and again making me lose all thought and comprehension as I pay attention to his punctuation instead of his words only confused and aggravated me.

I have seen his elaborate descriptions referenced on the Simpsons. During one episode, Moe, the bartender, told about his days being a child actor on the Little Rascals. It was his job to get laughs by looking into a car's exhaust pipe and receiving a face full of soot. The comment was made about how difficult it must have been to find reasons for looking into an exhaust pipe. Moe informed his friends that they had good writers like Faulkner to come up with elaborate reasons. It has always been lost on me, but now I find the humor. We need to know everything to understand anything and everything. Faulkner can easily exhaust me so I must go to the opposite end of the writing style spectrum which leads to Hemingway. I see the old man, Santiago, struggling to save his fish from the ravaging sharks. Ironically I bought that book in Butte along with Moby Dick.

I purchased The Old Man and the Sea because I remembered reading it in a literature class with Mr. Voigt and I purchased Moby Dick because my favorite epic story, Bone, has many references to Moby Dick. Another reason for choosing Moby Dick is because my advisor, Amy Thomas, has so many copies in her office. I thought I had better find out why she likes it so much. The first class I had with Dr. Thomas was purely fate. I changed from one section to hers because I had a friend in that class. Changing sections is something I never do. Some books we read were great and some were not so great. The first book was The complete history of new mexico. 11 year old Charlemagne J. Belter had written a few research papers on New Mexico for class, but the history was all wrong. Charles (name sound familiar) or Chum (the name of Humbert's gun) as he preferred to be called collected his stories from people he knew and met.

This collection of stories remind me of the folklore in Mules and Men. Not a particularly good book, but one that twists at the end with her learning voodoo. It's a rejection of the Christian faith. Which is so contrary to the picture of America. Wallace Stevens was a secular humanism. Free to create and be god with his imagery. I too like it under the leaves in autumn. Hazel Motes was also against Christianity with his church without Christ. He too, like Humbert, hand a rather young girl. Finding his doppelganger and killing him with his Essex was a bold and necessary move that many character eventually do.. Humbert Humbert got Clare Quilty. Why do you have to kill the other part of you? Is it to be truly free? Free to go on the open road away from your home like the road movies? Dorthy took the yellow brick road to Emerald City while Bill Blake took the #29 train to Machine. Both journeys are packed with interpretations. Many about The Wizard of Oz are equally as disturbing as the subject matter of Lolita. Oz should be left for the children like minded people. Bill Blake, even though he becomes William Blake, still has child qualities at the end. He was a wonderful reincarnation of poetry being a destructive force. Poetry is so much more than cute. Cute like a little girl, Lolita.

So that was my feeble attempt at playing the connection game. I now realize that I've learned more than I originally thought, but what difference does it make? It doesn't really matters. I don't foresee a job interview involving me comparing Lolita to (fill in the blank)________. The real difference is the game itself. The game is fun. The game is smart. The more you know the better you become at playing and isn't that the real reason for everything? The enjoyment of life. People play this connection game all the time. It's the backbone. Like the Six Degrees of Seperation with Kevin Bacon. Just the other day I received a myspace bulletin where you name an actor and a movie they starred in then someone will add to the bulletin the name of a different actor in that movie with a different movie they played in. The purpose is enjoyment and a test of knowledge. The only way to lose is not to play. That's the difference this class has made. To enjoy the finer things in life. To celebrate knowledge and the ability to exist. All in all it was hard, it was challenging, and it was stressful, but it was worth it and I enjoyed it.

Works Cited

Citizen Kane. Dir. Orson Wells. Perf. Orson Wells. Warner Bros., 2001.

Dead Man. Dir. Jim Jarmusch. Perf. Johnny Deep, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, Robert Mitchum. Miramax, 1995

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Random House, Inc, 1994.

Faulkner, William. The Portable Faulkner. Ed. Malcolm Cowley. Kingsport: Penguin, 1983.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Mules and Men. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.

James, Henry. Daisy Miller. New York: Drover Publications, 1995.

McIlvoy, Kevin. The complete history of new mexico. Saint Paul: Graywolf, 2005.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Bantam, 1986.

Nabokov, Vladimir. The Annotated Lolita. Ed. Alfred Appel, Jr. New York: Vintage, 1991.

O'Connor, Flannery. Wise Blood. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

“Radioactive Man.” The Simpsons. 20^th Century Fox. 24 Sept. 1995.

“The Simpsons Already Did It.” South Park. Comedy Central. 26 June 2002.

Smith, Jeff. Bone. Columbus: Cartoon Books, 2004.

Stevens, Wallace. Stevens Poems. Ed. Helen Vendler. New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1993.

The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming. Perf. Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton. Warner Bros., 1998.

My grandparents

This subject about age differences is interesting to me. My grandparents on my moms side were 13 years apart. That means when my grandfather was graduating high school my grandma was just starting school. Can you picture a senior with a kindergartener? But here is the kicker, my grandma's name (on the dotted line of course) is Dolores. I don't believe that there was any abduction in their story but there was the age difference and the name. Just an interesting fact.

Tuesday november 21

Clare Quilty is HH doppleganger
Debroha has links to notes by Sexon
p.270
when reading a novel you need to be supernaturally receptive-everything is kind of sign/pointer to something else (to coincidents in the 7 things in a novel)
p272
In Lolita
Preface written by real person
Foreward by jonh ray jr-not real person (h.h, k.k, jr.jr)
p125 for the look of lust... @ enchanted huner
a novel about lust
fate something planned out in advance
Aubrey Beardsley: an artist of gross material
p62 chap. 14 conjurer- sourcer/wizard
curisoity, tenderness, (something else i didn't get), and ectacy.
footnotes are part of the text.
p.165 top- love of all body parts including the insides
p284- Dumbert didn't know Lo
Hopkins-invented
p17
p307 HH has stolen Lo. childhood.

class notes november 16th?

Papers on anything, 4pg. cite sources. Startle/suprise Sexon.
Lolita- draw a square around a passage that you liked based on style.
The name Delores means sorrow
Lolita is style not dirty
In Chess -abduct the queen.
other writers who do abduction- Poe, photographer jerry lee lewis, wiki Lewis Carrol-Alice in wonderland
7 aspects of a book- parody, coincidence, patterning, allusio, the work withing the work, staging of the novel authorial voice.
The final 90% lolita, 10% on presentations.
nymphet:immature, sexual attractive girl.
Lolita: a sexually attractive young woman.
Psyche: mind but originally means soul. associated wit the image of a butterfly
Quote Nabokov when applying to Grad. School.
change, transformation key terms in Nabokov.
p.213-Casbin Barber
It's sorrowful because everybody is dead.
p.253
his wife vira-means beauty and that is truth.
The Echo Maker: a man with a brain injury by Richard Powers.
Aesthetic: felt or preceived the study of beauty.
bliss
metamorphises-catipiller into a butterfly.
p.314-art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy)
Madeleinea lolita and Pseudolucia humber are butterflies named after book

Myth, lie, fiction.

So there I was, sitting in my Mysteries of the Sky class talking about dinosaurs being wiped out by a meteor millions, billions of years ago. I get sick of hearing the teacher say what happened to X, Y many years ago and the small amounts of evidence they have to make these statements. Then it occured to me that it's not a lie it's a myth. There is no real way of knowing what happened and how old the earth is but creating some end all story was the only real solution. Looking at that class with the myth perspective creates a new light for me. Who cares if what they say maybe wrong it's a neat and almost beautiful story. Since no one knows and it can never be proven one way or the other it's fiction. And people believe in this fiction that is known to be fiction for the sake of the myth. Just as people believe in the Bible. It's the myth that makes it what it is. Interesting how an english class can relate to an astronomy class, but is this an one way street?

Test/Exam 2

According to W.S a change of style is a change of SUBJECT.
What is below myth on the pyramid? Music
In Dead Man wha is Nobody's real name and meaning? Xeveche, he who talks loud and says nothing.
Which poem of W.S is linked to the movie D.M? The Prologues to what is Possible (Man out in a boat)
Fry is uncomfortable with what prefixes? De- decreative, ...
Bill Blake takes the blood of a dead FAWN and puts it in his wound.
Dr. Sexton thinks students should undergo: Physical Mutalation.
Three W.S phrases used to view Dead Man: Poetry is the subject of the poem, all things resemble on another, poetry is a destructive force.
In Invisible Man a verbal combat of wit is called: Playing the Dozens
Ellison: Democracy is inspired by democracy (?)
Names of the 2 sheriffs Blake killed with poetry? Lee & Marvin
What are the 3 things Mike McKaslin(?) has to leave behind inorder to find the bear? Watch, Rifle, Compass.
2 forms of imaginatino in W.S.: creative, decreative.
The speech concerning Tod Cliftons death resembles: The Book of Judges, and Julius Ceasar.
"Trust the tale not the teller" who said it? D.H. Lawrence.
Intentional Fallacy: What the author intends it to mean.
Reinhart represents: the trickster.
What started the Race Riot in I.M. ? TOD Clifton's eulogue(?).
What song opens I.M.? What did I do to be so black and blue-Louise Armstrong.
The unnamed poem read in The Bear? The ode to a Grecian Urn- by John Keats.
Who did Santa Clause Rape? Sybil-an oricle in mythology who leads heros into the underworld.
I.M is an anti- HORATIO ALGER novel.
2 Hindu pharses: tat tvam asi "you are it, that thou are, you are god (creative)" and neti neti "not this not that (decreative)"
I.M. as a dream novel (naturalistic).
Define parataxis: the linking of things together with the conjunction "and, but,..." each part holds its own weight.
The Demon Master of initiation in Dead Man" Cole Wilson the cannibal bounty hunter.
What does synaesthesa mean? Blurring/mixing of the senses.
What is an ephebe? a young boy/student prepared for initiation.

Who is the Man behind this Myth?

"REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, THE GUNPOWDER TREASON AND PLOT. I KNOW OF NO REASON WHY THE GUNPOWDER TREASON SHOULD EVER BE FORGOT." -V (comic and movie)

A popular British rhyme is often quoted on Guy Fawkes Night, in memory of the Gunpowder Plot:

Remember, remember, the 5th of November

The Gunpowder Treason and plot ;

I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,

'Twas his intent.

To blow up the King and the Parliament.

Three score barrels of powder below.

Poor old England to overthrow.

By God's providence he was catch'd,

With a dark lantern and burning match

Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring

Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip Hoorah !

Hip hip Hoorah !

A penny loaf to feed ol'Pope,

A farthing cheese to choke him.

A pint of beer to rinse it down,

A faggot of sticks to burn him.

Burn him in a tub of tar,'

Burn him like a blazing star.

Burn his body from his head,

Then we'll say: ol'Pope is dead.

DPS

This is a wonderful movie and I recomend that you watch this in the spirit of the lines:
"Poety is a destructive force"
"It can kill a man"
Do yourself a favor and watch or rewatch this movie.

Thursday 2nd November

We did the Podcast, and we suck as recalling The Idea of Order at Key West
Wallace Stevens speaking to the muse

You are not the same person you were yesterday
The imperfect is our paradise

Watch Lolita at Marlow's this Sunday

Tuesday 31st October

Convaluted
Luke and the Bear "Best book this semester"
3 things must be left behind
Rifle, Compass, Watch (metal)

a change of style is a change of subject- Wallace Stevens

These are not instructions
incantations, find words to recreate the experience

Listen to books on tape/ipod

Words have power

Imagination = integration
hinduism
tat tvam asi "thou art that"-integratin
neti neti- "not this not that"- deconstructive/ disciminate

Homework Read Lolita don't read notes, read Lolita again with the notes

Kitchen sink person- putting in- James Joyce
Samuel Beckett- took everything out, trying to say as little as possible

trust the tale and not the teller

The greates danger could be your own stupidity- fortune cookie

Imaginatino has two forms
1. creative , sees things that aren't there
2 decreative, strips everything else away
even the absense of imagination is imagined
It's never the worst until you can't say it's the worst.
The American story ia a failed mythological track

Benenthe Myth is Music
Walter Pater- Music improv. traditional materials to riff on

Invisible Man P.536
triple hatted trickster

google lyrics by the police(sting) Don't stand to close to me

Thursday 26th October

Prepare for pod cast
Memorize first lines of poem
Find a few amazing things to say about your poem
Come dressed up like the first line of your poem

Quiz is moved to the 14th of Nov.

Wallace Stevens poetry questions imagination

Invisible man
P. 564 third paragraph, mind, wallace stevens, p.103

Myth- epic of Gilgamesh-weeping over a friend-tod clifton-odyesse- cyclopes-brother Jack
aeneid-sibyl- woman oricle-p.520-523, He's on a quest

Wiki/Google Sibyl
Below myth is music

Picaresque of Invisible Man
Battle Royal
Trueblood(incest)
Golden Day(Mr. Norton, Vets, bar brothel like insane isylum)
Homer Barbie
Bledsoe Expulsion( from garden of eden)
Bus(Vet, something about games)
emerson
paint
electroshock, identity lost
Mary
Eviction
Brotherhood(Commi)
History
-
-
Clifton p.449
speech-shakespear, Bible
Judges 5:27
Rinehart
apocalypse(sybil)

Sacrifice the means for the ends
Creation, revolution, law, wisdom, prophecy, gospe, apocalypse

Flyting-

Tuesday 24th Oct.

The Blues
Bessie Smith: A good man is hard to find
Louis Armstrong: What did I do to be so Black and Blue

Dead Man
1. Stretch
2. Wisdom= wisdom of death

Bill Blake compared to Daisy Miller
-naive, innocent, underline wisdom


Dead Man as a pyramid
account (?)
capitalism
road movie
journey
quest
abduction -Bill Blake abducted by William Blake

Learns "Poetry is a Destructive Force" It can kill a man.

W.S.
Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu
To Be ones singualr self
Of Modern Poetry

Is Dead Man full of things because it's detailed or simple?

The story of Rachel and Jacob-playing out his namesake

Parallel
The Bear
Primal Rythms
Lion-the dog trained, by Boone, to get the bear

White race destroyes Bear and Nature
The only truth that matters is the truth of the heart

Oct. 2nd 1856 Ike McKasin Freed

Invisible Man
pgs. 264-266
Old people getting evicted
Marcus Garvey real person, jamacian, black nationalist

6th Aug. 1856 Freed Primus Proud

Picaresque, spanish
Rogues, rascals, episodics
series of set pieces that are their way (?)
Battle Royal


Horatio Algers - work hard and you will successed=wealth
The Erie Train Boy

Inivisible- Not an alger style
keeps having injustic, sinical, inhibernation like the bear

"Who are you"
Rinhart, the trickster, doppleganer, brer rabbit
p. 474

Invisible is becoming Rinehart
Bill Blake is becoming William Blake

p. 490 at the top

Cultural Pluralism- end of novel
Diversity- one and many, out of many one

p. 238 verbal combat: flyting
can't be angery, The Dirty Dozen
for class on thursday reproduce one in your life.

Somewhere over the rainbow

I have questions. In class we discussed The Wizard of Oz and all the creepy interpertations people come up with. So my question is what is the meaning of the song "Somewhere over the rainbow?" I think it is just a nice song for kids to sing about imagination and endless possiblities. But I have found this song in a disturbing online cartoon. It was in eposide two of Salad Fingers http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/saladfingers.html this cartoon maybe only for those who are already corrupted, use you judgement. I don't know what the purpose of the song is in this cartoon.

On a different note but yet still the same one, a favorite movie of mine is Finding Forrester http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Forrester for a briefing on it. The ending credits have this song playing. It is very sad to listen to. However there is a neat coincidence. Sean Connery plays a writer named William Forrester and Rob Brown plays the young writer who is learning from Forrster and his name is Jamal Wallace. Maybe I am letting my mind make connection that are not intended but could William Forrester was named for William Blake and Jamal Wallace named for Wallace Stevens? If any of you have time to watch it, because I know your busy just like me, let me know what you think. If you can find any other connections let me know.

The Bear

Yes I have read The Bear, but if you ask me questions about it I couldn't answer. This is what I know. The book starts off in the middle of something. Then it becomes a boys trial in learning how to be a hunter. It is a wonderful tale about a bear with missing toes who is wise and the training of a dog to be used in hunting. Even now the names escape me. The group hunts down the bear and kill it. Right about here, chapter four I think, the novel is as uncomprehendable as my Wallace Stevens poem. I was never quite sure of what was happening except that Faulkner wasn't using aeriods. Pages and paragraphes went by without the use of a period. I am as confused as ever but confused on a higher level.

Thursday 19th October

KEEP UP WITH YOUR BLOGS!

Is what we see real?
"The World As Meditation" Wallace Stevens
Who is Ulysses- Roman word for Odesius from th Odyessy 10yrs at war 10yrs to come home to Penelopey.

We need to cleanse what we see
original and origins

William Blake- If the doors of perception are cleansed everything appears as it is.
inspired Brave New World, The Doors of Perception, The Doors

p. 157 (W.S.) Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction

Initiation- mens talked about; womens are not- taboo
imagine the absense of imagination
suffering of boys to men-painful
More Primal-Dead Man and the Bear. Wiki is in the Primal
symbolism of Death and Rebirth
1. Mystery begins with SEPERATION OF INDIVIDUAL FROM FAMILY
swallowed by a monster
Tribes- 11yr old boys with mom in semi circle
ABoriginal
circumcision painful
Invisible Man is an initiation story

Poetry is a Destructive force
Are you William Blake
Yess I am do you know my poetry

He became WB


Later in initiation your given new names

Tuesday 17th October

Truth is beauty and beauty is the truth-John Keets: The ode to the Greecian Urn
Quoted on the simpsons and the theme of The Bear.
The peom read to Faulkner by his father
its about some girl a guy can't have buth that doesn't matter
Its about truth

Exodus 24:9 The land mirrors the sky
Dead Man
-People get shot in the chest
-Thel from the book of Thel by William Blake

Wiki
-initiation, William Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, Dead Man

Nobdy Speaks in Dialect no subtitles
this is rude on surface but a gift only to those who know the language
Stepping on the head-What do you want to make it mean

Dead Man- world of the Dead
train #29- track 29 to heaven or hell

Other movies to see: Coffee and Cigaretts, Pow wow highway, Ghost Dog

Invisible Man compared to Nobody in Dead Man and Noman from Odyssey

Tobacco- in The Bear Sam is dying and buried with packet of tobacco

Prostyles of writing
Heminway- simple, direct, to point, economical. Like the book of Mark. Parataacic- lots of things held together by "and" like deep focus

Faulkner- Long, old testament

Thursday 12th of October

We watched parts of Dead Man keeping in mind these quotes by Wallace Stevens

"Poetry is a destructive force"
"All things resemble each other"
"Poetry is the subject of the poem"

Also English Club meets Monday at 7:30 at Leaf n Bean downtown

Very Abstract Class Notes from Tuesday Oct. 10th

Accuracy
All things resemble each other
Each man resembles all other men. Same for woman, year, begining
POETRY IS THE SUBJECT OF THE POEM-think about this for upcoming podcast!
Dead Man (Johnny Depp) -(william (18th century poet))Bill Blake from Cleveland Ohio innocence to experience
Poet fond of Imagination-the eternal energy. and a romantic
Started connecting the begining of Wise Blood with Dead Man.
In Wallace Stevens poems look for the word poetry.
-Poetry is a destructive force
-Primitive like an orb
-Of modern poetry
-Domination of Black
-Man with the blue guitar

everything compared to black

The poem doesn't necessarily create order of experience
Poetry is in any part of life

Wallace Stevens and Mathew Arnold
Arnold: Man has to turn to the poet to find satisfaction in belief

Wallace Stevens Poem and Birthday Idea

My poem is a selection from "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven." Dr. Sexon told me to analize this poem is impossible. It's good to know that my impending doom is expected.

So how is poetry the subject of this poem? Well I got to reading and certain subjects stood out to me. Stevens mentions the eyes and his vision. Often poetry is about what we see and things we don't but that is the backbone. And maybe, since Emerson was a major influence, eyes and vision is referring to the poem where Emerson is an eyeball.

His questioning Reality and the Imaginary are also reacurring. Maybe Stevens knew that I would have difficulty understanding what those concepts. "A larger poem for a larger audience." We dont know what is real and what is not." I can't say this show poetry as the subject but it echos my confusion.

Stevens also brings religion in this poem. Like vision, reality, imagintion, the topic of religion is focused on as well.

But then good ol' Wallace gives me answers to the question. " The poet speads the the poem as it is" and " Thsi endlessly elaborating poem Displays the theory of poetry, As the life of poetry."

There is my evidence backed by Stevenses words. More will be coming in other entries but I can't go pulling my hair out over understanding what cannot be understood.

On a lighter note if I had the time and camera I would have mimiced a line from my poem. I wont tell you cause that half the fun. But I would lie down on the ground and I would arrange fallen leaves in the shape of a thought bubble, the kind you see in comics. That what I would do for Wallace Stevenses birthday. Happy Birthday!

Innocence in Oz

I googled Wizard of Oz and got 14,500,000 results. A lot can be said about such a classic. It funny though, the childrens movie seems to have so much myth and death behind it. The tin mans paint causing lung problems, the myth of a man hanging his self in the background, the deeper meaning behind the movie almost turns this movie into one of those "cursed" movies. I am having a hard time remembering all the details of what happened in the movie so I asked people I thought would know. My mom forgot the details, my sister was no help, and my friends gave me strange stares. But then I asked my dad. What an answer he gave. I can hardly describe the way he spoke. If you were in class when we summerized The Wizard of Oz then you have a grasp of the retelling I received. "... the color changed as she entered into Oz... The scarecrow, he wanted a brain. Next she met the tin man and he, he only wanted a heart. And the lion lacked courage... And Dorthy was told that she has always had the ability to go home..." My dad's voice was soft, gentle, loving, most importantly innocent. I couldn't believe what I just heard. I was carried away with his pure words. My dad could have told me all the deep sick meanings and myths but no. That's not what mattered. I wish I could share with the class the exact retelling but unfortunatly I can't.
And I had to told to me falling directly into the format of Mules and Men. In class we got to feel the words as if we were there. Southern drawl and all. Stories have always been told and passed on in such a manner. I got to experience to themes of the class: oral tradition and the voice of innocence. Not a bad experience if I may say so.

Citizen Kane

This was my first time seeing Citizen Kane. In one word it was riveting. Being a movie of such proportion I had heard or seen parts before, but I was not prepared for this experience.
The areas in which I ponder is, of coures, rosebud and Xanadu. Wikipedia explained that the term is now used for people was spend money unwisely. The example was Michael Jackson and his Neverland Ranch. I think this meaning is important for disecting "rosebud." A rich old man dies in his Xanadu thinking about his childhood sled. NO AMOUNT OF MONEY COULD GIVE HIM BACK HIS CHILDHOOD, HIS INNOCENSE! Am I right? Probably not but I can justify it. The first time he says rosebud, cronologically, is when his "singer" leaves him. Nobody really loved him and the one person he believes he loves, or pretends, is gone. Where do we go when everything falls apart.....mom. She sold him. Ouch! The seld was a security blanket. I think that rosebud was his innocense and all he wanted was a life with love. Maybe I'm close to the meaning or maybe I'm off my rocker, but thats what I saw. Anyways, there is no denying how beautiful Citizen Kane is.

Ninja Scroll

Everywhere you go is the same. The sky is up, the ground is down, and there's people.
-Jubei

Daisy Miller by Henry James

I became deeply envolved in this book. Why? because I feel I know Daisy Miller.
Strange that is her book but Winterbourne is the followed character. Is this so we take sides and feel hhis pain and betrayal? As we discussed in class about looking down the pryamid I was seeing the characters as representations or stereotypes of individuals and their countries. The European is old fashioned and very set in their ways. The older one is the wiser they are. Any misbehaving is grounds for excommuntication. On the other coast we see a family of Americans. At first their english is sloppy and they act however they want to act. Randolph, a boy, is unable to hold still and disobeys simple orders like "go to bed". Mrs. Miller seems to have no control on her wild daughter while appearing to be confused in her head. And Daisy Miller is young, full of life, also disobeys requests, and completly innocent. Therefore ignorant to advice she is given. Even a hundred and thiry plus years ago the characters still hold true to their stereotypes.

"To indeed be a god!"

How about this. Even computarded people like myself can figure things out every once and awhile. Ha in your face technology.