If I was stuck on a desert isle....

This is my 5 lines that I take with me to a desert island. They are located in the story of Pythagoras (pg 522) and the person speaking is Helen.

...and she asks how she
could ever have been sought and carried off
as prize--not once, but twice. You, Time, as well
as envious Old Age, devour all;
with gnawing teeth, with slow and lingering
demise, you two destroy, consume all things.

Favorite Metamorphose: Galatea & Acis

Galatea and Acis
pg. 460

This is the story of a bit perverse love triangle between three “people.” A goddess named Galatea falls in love with a young man named Acis. However, the love of those two is interrupted by the love of Polymethus (the Cyclops) for Galatea. The problem is with Galatea, who loves Acis in a a traditional sense, but also has just as powerful feelings of hate for the Cyclops. Even though she hated him, she still was possessed by him (mentally). While Galatea and Acis run off into the woods and hide under the shelter of a rock to fondle one another, Polymethus decides to climb to a tall peak and to sing a love song to his reluctant Galatea. All the world below him can hear his bellowing voice and his 100 reed flute, and that includes the fornicating Galatea and Acis. The Cyclops surprisingly sings not only of his immense love for the goddess, but also of his dislike of her. He promises her that she will regret not loving him and tells her that if he ever sees Acis he will rip him apart to demonstrate his strength in muscle and in heart. Just as Fates would have it, after the Cyclops finishes his song and goes blundering through the wilderness, he discovers the nest of the two lovers. Galatea dives into the sea, and Acis turns to run. His last words are a prayer to the gods to make him cross over from man to water. The Cyclops in a fit of rage lifts a chunk of rock from the earth and heaves it at Acis. He barely caught Acis but the weight of even that little bit was enough to bury Acis and diminish him to a pool of crimson blood. However that blood didn’t stay crimson for long and soon the blood turned to water. The rock burst in half and out came a reed plant. Acis then appeared out of the river, his top half much like his former self only much larger and his legs were transformed into waves. On his forehead rested two newly formed horns. He had become a river-god and the river retained his former name.

I like this story because it seems to be about the conflict of beauty v. sublime. In Galatea, the beautiful is represented by the young man Acis and of course the fearful Cyclops plays the sublime. This story seems to take the “beautiful v. sublime” a little too literal as the purposed sublime character destroys the beautiful character. If we closer at the Cyclops song though we see him address his ugliness and say that he has more to offer than that. He defends his looks by comparing them to both average men and to the Gods, “the sun has but one eye and he is a God.” I read this story as proof that even the most horrible people are capable of love, and that ugly/horrible people have feelings too.

Deucalion and Pyrrha

Deucalion and Pyrrha

(15-19)

This story stuck out at me because of how similar it seemed to the biblical story of Noah. Jove, disturbed by the human race which he describes as a “malady which can’t be cured,” decides to destroy the sacrilegious human race. As he winds up to throw his mighty thunderbolts, he remembers a prophecy that states if the land and water are set ablaze then the heavens too will go up in flames. Since he worried about losing his kingdom, Jove decides instead to drown the human race in a massive flood. Jove with the help of his brother Neptune kills off all of humanity except for Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. If one doesn’t count the massive arc and the animals counted two by two then one can see the direct similarity of the Noah story. In the Bible version, God is upset about the sinning and idol worship occurring all over the world (sacrilegious) and God tells Noah to build a boat and to collect all the animals on Earth (two of each--male and female), so when the Earth is flooded Noah, his wife, and all the beasts of Earth will be saved.
Deucalion is saved mainly because he lived near the peak of a high mountain and he was Prometheus’s son (divine blood=chosen by God). After grieving for the death of EVERYONE, Deucalion and Pyrrha pray for some way to revive humanity. The gods are touched by her piety and tell her to “drop the bones of the great mother.” Pyrrha refuses to scatter the bones of her dead mother but Deucalion convinces her that the gods meant mother as in Mother Earth and bones as in stones. This seems to be an archetype for human beings being formed from clay, as what happens in the bible when God makes Adam. Anyways, the rocks are magically formed into new human beings (also happens in the story of Cadmus and the story Medea & Jason). This Ovid explains is why the new human beings is tough and tenacious because of our “stony ancestry.”

Iphis and Ianthe

Iphis and Ianthe

(page 316-321)

In this story, Iphis is born to a poor woman, who under orders from her husband must only allow a boy to live, if she gives birth to a girl then that girl must be destroyed. However, Telethusa (Iphis’ mother) has a vision which asks her to spare the child. Telethusa listens to the Gods and lies to her husband, telling him that she gave birth to a boy and then she gave the girl the name Iphis which could be a name for either sex. Iphis turns 13 and falls in love with Ianthe, a woman. “among the animals, no female wants a female!” Iphis pleads to the Gods in her confusion. Telethusa prays for Iphis on the dawn of her wedding and miraculously Iphis is turned into a man.
Does the story sound familiar? I’ll through out some recent generation translations Juwannah Man, The Hot Chick, Mrs. Doubtfire, among many others I forget, but the point I am trying to get across is what all these themes have in common, a dramatic gender role switch. We discussed Greek Comedy as a complete upheaval of society and as in Lysistrata with the powerful women, these characters assume roles not customary to their gender. Not a big surprise that all the movies that I listed were considered comedies. In fact, I could not think of a single title in which a gender role was switched and the situation wasn’t comical. However, Iphis and Ianthe does not go into the specifics of a gender role switch like the others; instead, it seems to give fuel more to the question of homosexuality. Iphis herself recognizes her love for Ianthe as unnatural, but it is not clear whether or not Iphis wishes to be a man. I wonder if the Greeks used this story as an explanation to same sex feelings or maybe they just had a fascination with unnatural love (the story before was of a brother/sister love relationship)

Young VS Old...In a Cage Match!

So I just finished the reading from Steiner. Thank God not the whole book. Don't get me wrong, I thought the book was interesting; it's just that reading Steiner and not spacing out is completely impossible. It seemed I had to read the same paragraph again and again. Regardless, I got through the reading unscathed and decided to write my blog on the conflict between young and old. I suppose this goes unsaid but I will be playing the part of young...

and I will be versus Old...

An artist's depiction....of course.


So I know this kid who used to work at the Mall movie theater...Gallatin Theaters maybe, anyways he would routinely get me into movies for free. Most of the time he would just walk us in, but sometimes we had to check in with someone in management. This story occured on one of those occasions.
I walked into the theater just as I had many times before, but my friend stopped me before I advanced "too far." He brought me over to the cashier to be checked in. On this movie trip, I had about three of my other friends and they had also never been checked in before. At time I thought it was weird to be checked into a FREE movie, but I digress from the point. The lady behind the cashier, sporting her manager badge or whatever, looks us up and down...searching for what I dont know...maybe she thought we were sneaking in candy. She wrinkled her face and looked suspicously at us. "So what movie you boys going to?" she asks. "Superman Returns." we answered. It seemed like an open and shut case, but then she said, "I'm gonna need to see some ID."
At first I laughed, once to myself and then again audibly. "What is Superman an R-Rated movie?" I remember thinking to myself. I asked her why she needed to see an ID. She responded, "Someone is going to need to be 21." It was lucky for us that indeed one of my friends was 22, which 1 year more than 21 which I proudly stated with sass to the manager. She chuckled, not yet annoyed by my presence, and it is then that the thought occurred to me, "Why the hell do you need to be 21 in order to see a FREE movie!" It bothered me so much that I asked her...of course, she didn't know the answer. She just looked at me blankly like the thought had not once occurred to her. I grilled her.

"So I can buy cigarettes which kill ya. I can go to war. I can have reconstructive surgery. If I was a woman, I could have an abortion or buy birth control. I can go to jail...I can be legally executed by the state. For God's sake, I can vote on the very things that I can be ALLOWED TO DO! I can do all this, but I can't get into a FREE movie!"

She once again looked confused. I saw her glance at the growing line behind me. I wonder if the people behind me were literally behind me in my agism accusation or were they just pissed 'cause i was holding up the line AND getting in free.
I left the counter, more or less dragged away, and went to the free movie. The only thoughts going through my head were, "When did someone take time out of there day to designate a certain age that people can get into movies for free?" I think about it now and realize that maybe because most of the theater workers were adolescents in high school, a theater big-wig decided that young people don't get free movies or that they would abuse it. (not a big deal when you can literally walk into that theater unnoticed and watch any movie you want...trust me). I use the same argument when I speak of drinking. I'm for the drinking age being changed not because I am some kind of drunk or am feeling left out from the bar scene, but simply because I believe I am responsible enough to have the legal right to drink alcohol.
So the argument goes...we can't be like Germany or England, which drinking age is almost directly linked to if you can see over the table and have money, because neither country has the advanced traffic that the U.S. does... Well, I was wondering, what about Canada? Canada is the closest thing in the world to the United States in nearly every societal way. Except, and some of you may already know, that Canada has a drinking age of 18 (19 in some provinces) AND they can legally smoke marijuana (to an extent). So i looked up some driving fatality numbers on the infamous MADD site, obviously if they are right then the Candadian fatality rate (in driver impaired cases) per person should be much higher than the U.S. rate.
However, the percentage of Canadians killed in drunk driving accidents is .0046% (annually) and the U.S. rate is .0056%. Maybe one can atest that to the population difference or some other social difference. But maybe MADD is wrong.

Close Reading Of Steiner

I chose to look at page 99 for my close reading...simply because 9 is my favorite number (times two). If there was a 1000 words in this book, I would have probably picked 999.

On this fated page, Steiner quotes a German academic named Holderlin saying, "To him, the tragic dramas of Sophocles were indeed 'rediscoverd holy books.'" This stuck out to me. For quite a while I have wondered how such a short piece that Antigone is, how it could be considered a cornerstone or atleast a foundation for the reading of all tragic drama and stories of human conflict? Steiner himself addresses this (somewhere between 231-277) when he writes of how much longer the common known tragedies like Hamlet are compared to Antigone. It certainly suprises me that I had never heard of Antigone before this class and that the work seems so essential to an academic library. Maybe it's just cause I went to high school in Montana. Who knows?
Anyhow, I was shocked when people were quoted as saying this play rivals the holy bible, even as far to call it "rediscovered holy books." Once again, just hold ten copies of the bible in one hand (and I dont mean the pocket variety) and ten Antigones in the other, and see which one ya drop first. But then again, I suppose that something (other than the bible) is needed to be considered the foundation of tragic drama....even if it was simply ok in Greek times. When does a work become a classic? I'm sure students in Greece weren't studying Antigone as it was on the scene...that wouldn't make much sense at all. It would be the equivalent silliness of kids today studying Titanic or Rocky.

Although Rocky is bad ass, in case you didn't know. And this is not considering MTA majors. I'm thinking on more of a high school basis...movies today like plays of yesterday were for entertainment and not for study.

A Man Spying

I was amazed in class today when I heard of Mr. Sexson's profound encounter in Cooper Park. Not because of how much character Mr. Sexson most likely imagined the Man Reading to have, but because I have been the subject to a situation of almost identical events.

A Man Spying

I too like to go on walks intermittently, usually can be tracked by weather, I am always drawn to walks when its raining or misty outside. But unlike Sexson, I do not walk on a schedule or with companion; instead, I walk by myself, usually contemplating my life, my goals, my dreams. It is difficult for me to place an and or an or because my walks usually contain all, or two, or one, or none sometimes. I call the weather related walks, opportunity walks, while the thinking related are called situational walks, but almost always those too also embody one another. Getting back to the story, one spring ago in March I was walking to Cooper Park. I liked to sit on the bench there in solitude and think to myself. I usually did not walk to the park until late at night, but this time was different because I was in a situation where I had just quickly gotten off the phone with a good friend. We weren't always good friends however, no more than a week earlier we had been quite nearly the opposite. We had had an altercation that pushed out our eternal companionship to a mere acquaintance. I say eternal because that is what I perceived our relationship to be; however, she perceived things differently. And our contradiction led to accusation which led to isolation. Although our seemingly star-crushed relationship seemed to reach the end, we somehow came to our wits and decided to try and reestablish our previous connection. I explained my changed thoughts that had not really changed, and turned off that idea that we could be eternal, or even temporary. It was at this moment that I was walking to Cooper Park, my thoughts quite nearly encompassing my complete being, the act of being overwhelmed. My mental prison enclosed me nearly to the brink of my life when I realized that she had quite clearly had found someone else, although she never spoke it directly. I felt helpless and hurt, and in a deep depressive state was I when I walked to the dog Park that day. I remember the thoughtful street light that almost nearly seemed aware of my presence. I had observed this from my many walks before that almost instinctively the light would turn off or on (depending on its previous disposition) every time I was under its gaze. This time was no different, but I was worried for the light for whatever reason, was a second or so late. For that moment, I wondered if I had imagined it or even that because of my change of heart, it was often customary for me to be thinking of my friend when on my walks, that the light had forgotten me, or worse ignored me. But my thoughts were cooled, when that light brightened the damp city street. The treacherous ice was revealed beneath my feet, and for a moment I was no longer alone.
I crossed the street with suspicion. Would the trees still tower over me as they always had? Would the park be empty as it always was? And most importantly, would the bench still give me that moment of solitude to divulge all those thoughts and ideas that until this moment did not exist? I walked precariously towards the lonesome structure, as it seemed to call out to me affectionately. The trail that I had always taken was carpeted with snow and I grazed my fingers across the trees as I walked by, as I could imagine a blind person might do against the wall in light of a redecoration of a familiar room. The feet brushed the snow up as I noticed for the first time that I was not alone. Across the park, very near where the sacred earth met the the border of civilization, there stood one boy joined by three others on bikes. I could not quite decipher what they were doing at the other end of the park because of the distance multiplied by my blurry vision, but they seemed to be engaged in something taboo out of their very aware actions. As I edged closer, unwilling to be noticed, I saw to my disgustion that the one boy standing was indeed urinating on one of the park trees. During my frequent trips to the park, I have much admired the trees and often wondered how long they had stood watch over the park. To me, the trees seemed to represent the watch guards or the historians of the park. How dare he defile these trees, I thought to myself, as I slipped closer and still unseen. It was not until I neared the bench that I realized that I had been noticed, and I was at once abashed with suspicious looks and looks of wondering as the boys ponder how I had gotten so close without catching their attention. Needless to say, the boy soon finished his "business" and him and the rest were on their way, much to my satisfaction. I now had the entire park to myself.
I scooted to the bench in silent exuberance. The bench welcomed me and almost at once wrenched me free from my mental prison and into complete solitude. Everything left me, and this is my only walk where I thought of nothing, almost how a sunset can end even the most famous and important days, no one realizes that that same sun also ends the most mundane and uninteresting ones too. It was then that I realized that I owned time, in a sense. For every minute of every hour that I spent on that blessed bench, the time was mine and could not be claimed for any one else under any circumstance. I breathed in every second and watched the world for a moment remained still and unchanged under my power. I smiled victoriously as I found peace in the solitude. Maybe that is why people pay so much for exquisite paintings, I wondered, how much would I pay to own a moment of perfection.
My thoughts were interrupted by a man's cough. At first, I had heard it distinctly, but almost immediately it vanished. For a minute, I questioned whether or not it even happened. I had searched 360 degrees around me, but to no satisfaction. Unfortunately, I had no physical property to attribute the sound. It was then that I purposed to question my own sanity, apparently it is only seeing that is believing and not at all for hearing. The instant that joke appeared and disappeared in my head, and a faint smile could be witnessed imposing itself across my lips, and a click-click noise could be audibly distinguished. However, this sound would not disappear as it repeated itself again and again. I traced the sound to the base of the tree behind me and at moved methodically up the tree searching for the sound source as it repeated itself click-click every few seconds. It was near the brim of the tree that I decided that the click-clicker was almost positively positioned. I stared into the darkness of the tree, attempting to mash the blackness into some sort of shape that I could identify...be it a bird, a bear, or an angel, I was determined to find the source of the destruction of my solitude. As my eyes burned bleakly into the depths of the pine, I was shocked to see a light emerge. A small flame, no more than an inch long was all at once displayed to me and in that moment I had realized that I had all along been watched. Maybe from the moment I entered the park, he watched me pause under the streetlight and he most assuredly stared at me as I spied on the mischievous boys and absolutely he watched me find peace on the bench. It was obvious to me now that indeed the click-clicker had all along been a man.
I hurried out of the park. I rushed past the lit street light that absolutely intentional went dim after I had passed. I ran back to my car in the parking lot, unlocking the door faster than I ever have before determined to be somewhere safe where I could think. My story ends here and begins here, for it was not for another month that I actually tried to place the man in the tree. It was on another day, it had rained, and I had wished to walk and I always got my wish. My walk had changed directly because of the strange man and also my perception changed of tall pine trees as I glared at every single one as I walked by. It was on this fateful, rainy night that I again seeked solitude. Unfortunately, my walk changes have not delivered a place as peaceful and likewise pleasing as the dog park had been. I tried the walkway I reached on Willson, and the vacant bench on the high trail, but no the place never appeased me. However, it was on this night where I walked in search of my next English 221 paper that a thought occurred to me. Is it possible that the tree spy and I had so much in common? My eyebrows furrowed as my mind perplexed the concept. What is was that I was searching for, I pondered, was...solitude. Is it possible that this man and I search for the same? The thought rushed over me and every part of my body from my feet to my hands seemed to tingle with the answer, YES OF COURSE!! they cried. As I had successfully reversed my thought, I physically reversed my direction, to go back to the bench, and back to the park. The ground seemed to push my feet faster forward and my breath quickened with my pace. What if he is there?, I thought as blocks of sidewalks passed swiftly behind me. Even the cars and people seemed to get out of my way, as the streets before me were immediately evacuated and were barren as I tread upon them. Even the light seemed to understand my expedition, as it solemnly went dark as I jotted underneath it. It was then that I stood before the bench, whom I had missed terribly, and I stared with defiance and sympathy at the tall pine in front of me. The tree towered, as all the others did, over me and reached ominously into the starless sky. I looked at the place where the man had been, the spy, and smiled. I then lowered my head and bowed to him and the tree that was his home, and then I sat down on the bench that was mine.
It is quite possible that the man wasn't there, or would ever be again, but I like to think to myself that he was there. And I like to think that when he saw me and saw what I did, he smiled back at me and returned the bow.