Woden's day the 30th.

So I get on this keyboard and I start typing, a few minutes later I look back and read what I have written. I see my spelling errors, my choppy fragmented sentences and my repetitive diary like speak. This you are reading is my third try at today's entry hopefully this one works. I feel compelled to say something but I don't really know what it is. I tried to go home today after class but I couldn't so I went to the book store. There I ran into Luke and his brother and we discussed books, and I purchased my very own copy of 1984 (underline eludes me today even though I had it yesterday). Instead of going home to read or continue my typical after class rituals I found myself meandering around campus deep in thought, I even tried to walk home. A not so long story short I ended up in the library on this blog, this celebrated tool of the modern age and began typing. Well since this blog is for our Engl 123 I will share some reflections on our class so far as its conclusion draws nigh. I enrolled in this class to help warm up for the fall semester, but it has primed me far more than I thought. I love English, I love books, and even for the first time in my life academics. This class, and more specifically Dr. Sexson has helped me connect those things and make them work for me. We discussed how subjects like English or philosophy will bake no bread, but I have realized that without English I would probably be in a straight jacket being spoon fed pudding by the nice man in white, that's to say it helps keep the reigns on the wild horses in my mind. I prefer the taste of pudding to bread but again I am not speaking in a literal sense, besides bread is very necessary because if you wanted to make a roast beef sandwich you could not do that with pudding. Anyways this class has opened my eyes and is helping to abate the fears that we discovered are present in my subconscious when I dreamt of third grade. So with that said I plan to see this thing out even if it takes me another four years. So in advance I thank you Dr. Sexson for re-awakening my inner English aficionado.

On to other things I realized today after seeing Jack and Gwen and "flirt" that Oedipus and Ernie share the incest theme. I don't know if maybe we already talked about this but I am just going to type on. Jack is really Algy's brother, and Gwen is Algernons cousin, ipso facto her and Jack are related and he totally wanted to marry his cousin, and even almost kissed her in the movie. While his transgression was not near as drastic or as "gnarly" for lack of a better word it still was a bit incestous. Although I am told in some parts of the rural southern states this is not that big a deal.

http://blue.utb.edu/mimosa/Handouts/T&C.htm -Rather than reword my notes on here I will just suggest you click that link it sums up what we learned the difference between comedy and tragedy are, with some additions.

I will say though the theme of the comedy containing a love story or ending in marriage is rampant. I started listing comedies with love or marriage themes in my head and found it was almost all, if not all of them. Wedding crashers, Dodge Ball, Hotrod, Freddy got fingered, Old School, Animal house, Wayne's World, Anchorman, Saving Silerman, etc etc. Since I am on the subject of movies, has anyone seen the Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon? That movie is creepy.

"When we are born we cry that we have come to this great stage of fools."-Shakespeare.

We remember everything. The shudder at birth is relived when we get frightened and things. Life I guess is kind of traumatic. We are created (sometimes selfishly) by our parents, forced from the womb kicking and screaming only to be slapped on the ass and learn that we have to become slaves of a society we knew nothing about oh yeah and then you die. Life, when you look at it that way is really a strange dynamic, and really does prove that all we have is the weather because the rest is just odd and fleeting and finite. Listen to your subconscious, because down there you remember everything even third grade and the paradise lost of the womb.

Trauma-An emotional wound or shock that creates substantial, lasting damage to the psychological development of a person, often leading to neurosis.

Recognition-An awareness that something perceived has been perceived before.

Anagnorisis-The greek word for recognition, also the unfolding or denouement

denouement-The events following the climax of a drama or novel in which such a resolution or clarification takes place.

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened. -Ernest Hemingway.

Ok and finally my outline of sorts for Mr Pip.

I apologize for not submitting my Pip idea yesterday but I hand wrote it and I would rather you have something semi legible. I will say though after hearing everyones wonderful ideas I am constantly unsure of which route to pursue.

The Great Expectations of Matilda-Open obviously introducing our characters of Pip and Matilda and put in perspective through a brief summary who they are, and how they are connected.

Page 24 Discuss the passage that refers to Matilda and other children being able to escape their unkind reality when ever they wanted, taking refuge in Pip's world. This obviously shows the profound impact Great Expectations had on her. This is pertinent to the story, and to the class because I would like to show the importance of fiction, to Matilda and in turn to ourselves. Als Ob.

page 216-Discuss Jaggers the log, discuss the implications of her saying he was her savior. Was literature Matildas salvation? Again this serves to illustrate the theme of the of the importance of fiction in Matilda's life, this time offering her comfort in almost a religious sense as instead of just the escape of a good story as the first passage indicates, and shows her intense connection to Pip.

page 191-Discuss passage comparing Mr. Watts belief in Pip and Matilda's mother's in Satan. This again shows the theme in a general sense of how important literature is. In more specific terms it shows that all stories contain truth pertinent to us. What works for some does not work for others. It also serves to show the difference between Matilda's Mom and Mr. Watts.

222-this passage is about Matilda leaving on her plane and coming to her expectations. It obviously is does not refer to the theme of the importance of the literature the way the others do, but I feel that it serves to bring a sort of closure, and also shows an important connection to Pip.

As I said up above I would like to essentially focus on how and why literature was important in Matilda's life, how specifically it was in her relation to a specific book, and also how this illustrates the importance of story to each and all. I am continually looking for more qoutes and examples this obviously is sort of a generalized outline.

Ok getting caught up like a carp in a net... Monday the 28th.

Pastiche-a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work that imitates the style of previous work; also : such stylistic imitation.

Anmnesis-Recalling to mind, a preliminary case history of a medical or psychiatric patient. Plato believed we are born knowing everything, when we learn it we are really just remembering. It may cause the shoulders to itch as the vestigal parts of our wings began to regrow.

Most endearing line of literature-I really like "By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes". I know it is spoken by the witch in Macbeth, this is not where I encountered it. It was from a Bradbury novel titled from the quote and it was the my first meeting with Mr. Ray Bradbury. When I read this novel and read the quote it gave me the chills, and for that reason it remains memorable, and in a sense very endeared to me. It still does give me a slight tingle even as I type this.

Our lives have been scripted, we are the ruled and often victimized by fate. I know that Ol' Oedipus had a hard lesson with this one. His mom tried to abandon him only for him to come back kill his dad, and then get that carnal knowledge of his mom fo sho. All the while he does not realize this until the end. He then, like most reasonable people who may have just been carnal with a relation he stabbed out his eye-balls.

Tiresias-The blind sayer of sooth. The kinda guy that makes you a bit leery of your friends around march 15th of every year. You must be blind to see. Anyways some would say this fellow was blinded by the gods for telling secrets (maybe like when joe pesci puts that guy's head in a vice in casino?), others say it is something to do with a naked god. Story states that T saw Athena naked as she was bathing, so to punish him for this she blinded him (hell hath no fury). T's mother pleaded with Athena to restore his eyesight. Athena declined but did clean out his ears to allow him to understand birdsong, and hence forth granting him a bird brained propensity for augury. What a dude.

Earnest-serious in intention, purpose, or effort; sincerely zealous: an earnest worker
The importance of Bieng Earnest, is a not so serious tale about two not so serious fellows who learn quite literally the importance of being Ernest. This play struck me about the importance about not being earnest, and I don't think Mr. Wilde was very keen on the idea of marriage.

The comedy and the tragedy-You can't have on with out the other. Comedy would not be funny if bad things didn't happen, and likewise if life were all misery and no good then misery would become the norm and in turn become business as usual. As the rapper 50 cent once said in his song "many men" (off the critically acclaimed album, get rich or die trying) "Some days wouldn't be special, if it wasn't for rain Joy wouldn't feel so good, if it wasn't for pain". I agree with Mr. Cent some days just wouldn't be special if it wasn't for rain.

For July 25 Fridays class...

So I seem a little back logged on the blog writing task... I will ask simply that you bear with me, for you see I had this laptop computer, but as fate would have it about two days after I decided to re-enroll in school it broke. Although the dollar is stronger than ever and China's mass purchase of raw materials is not raising the price of computers, I have to decided to do with out until a later date. This is not to say I don't like using the computer or internet it just means I have to be adaptive in my means to do so. Since quitting my job I have become what I like to call an "urban forager". This entails spending as little money as possible and finding the supplies I need and "procurring" them, or in the case of the computer "using them". Now I know what you are thinking and nobody needs to "forage" in this day and age to find a computer to use, what with libraries and friends and things. I just like to use the term because it lends a little sense of grandeur to my computer-less plight, and if we have learned one thing in this class it is try to live a life less ordinary even if it is in the slightest sense.

With that said I will speak about Ricky and my sonnet for Mr. Ricky. While I know of you may have thought upon hearing my sonnet for Rick that I was a member of peta or some other form of deviant, I assure you the love I feel towards Ricky is a pure and wholesome thing. I have not agreed to plight my troth to Ricky for all of eternity. My sonnet in a superficial sense was about what it says it's about, that little rapscallion Rick, but one could apply it really to anything unattainable in our lives.

Also this has nothing to do with class but I just realized that the word sprite, refers to either an elvish person or the disembodied spirit of a ghost. When I here the word sprite I first think of a delicious, crisp, and oh so refreshing lemon lime flavored soft drink. I also think of their ad campaign "for one to obey their thirst", now any time I drink sprite I am going to think of the ghastly implications of the name and not feel comfortable until I have had a young priest and an old priest perform the Roman Ritual over my beverage, casting the fascist spirits back into the maw of hell where they may belong. My mind wanders...

Three entries for Mr. Pip.
First one I chose was on page 24, at the bottom although through out the course of our discussion just about all of page 24 was selected. It refers to the ability of Matilda and the children to escape into the story and connect with Pip on a very intimate level.

page 191 is a passage that refers to the ability of Mr. Watts to accept Pip as real, and his in ability to accept Satan as such. This serves to illustrate the perception of truth one may have when dealing with fiction, it also serves to clearly contrast Mr. Watts against Matilda's mother who most certainly believes in Satan, a character from a book.

216-Matilda's salvation through Jaggers the log. This shows I guess the profound impact the book had on her, again her escaping into the world of the book to cope with disastrous occurrence
and also serves to show how her and Pip are intimately connected.

222- This passage is about Matilda flying in a plane and seeing her island from the air and it reminds me of Pip's carrage ride to london. While this passage is not as much of an abstraction as the othe one it still illustrates their connection. This is her travelling in a sense to meet her "great expectations".

page numbers and themes within as gleaned from the class discussion
64-fear, ok to appear stupid.
24-unknown, escape, curiosity
71-choice, free will the ability to create the self.
204-Daniels Grandma and her sacrifice
210-a gentleman
123-imagination
69-gain and loss
92-Mystery-"Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be experienced"
155-change. entrancement

"ALS OB" or as if-No I did not compile that information it is a cut and paste but you can view it in its original form at-http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/37587/philosophy-of-as-if#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=philosophy%20of%20as%20if%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia

the system espoused by Hans Vaihinger in his major philosophical work Die Philosophie des Als Ob (1911; The Philosophy of “As If”), which proposed that man willingly accept falsehoods or fictions in order to live peacefully in an irrational world. Vaihinger, who saw life as a maze of contradictions and philosophy as a search for means to make life livable, began by accepting Immanuel Kant’s view that knowledge is limited to phenomena and cannot reach to things-in-themselves. In order to survive, man must use his will to construct fictional explanations of phenomena “as if ” there were rational grounds for believing that such a method reflects reality. Logical contradictions were simply disregarded. Thus in physics, man must proceed “as if ” a material world exists independently of perceiving subjects; in behaviour, he must act “as if ” ethical certainty were possible; in religion, he must believe “as if ” there were a God.
Vaihinger denied that his philosophy was a form of skepticism. He pointed out that skepticism implies a doubting; but in his “as if ” philosophy there is nothing dubious about patently false fictions that, unlike ordinary hypotheses, are not subject to verification. Their acceptance is justified as nonrational solutions to problems that have no rational answers. Vaihinger’s “as if ” philosophy is interesting as a venture in the direction of pragmatism made quite independently of contemporary American developments.

The above mentioned philosphy ties in very well with the book Mr. Pip (yeah I got my underline skills back. NBD), and it relates to our class and our lives. It certainly reminds me of our discussion of Santa Claus, we willing accept fiction as truth because in this world we live in we desperately need it. In the absense of magic, we need to believe in fiction that can bring it into our lives. It also certainly was true of Matilda's life, and Mr. Watts's life.

intentional fallacies-Trust the tale, never the teller.

Imagination-the faculty of producing ideal creations consistent with reality, as in literature, as distinct from the power of creating illustrative or decorative imagery.

Heterocosm-A separate or alternative world. Let me use it in a sentence, "The rebel alliance was fortified on the ice planet hoth, in an attempt thwart imerial scrutiny, man what a bad ass heterocosm"


In my perfect heterocosm instead of police we would have unicorns fighting to keep our streets safe, and writing tickets, and um you know doing other cop stuff. Unicorns can't hold a gun with their hooves, but who'd shoot at one anyways?

oh and another thing..

I forgot in that last post I was going to share some of my thoughts on Mr Pip (used to know the underline button now it is giving me trouble). I won't spoil the ending for those of you still reading it, but I did finish it and I will say a few things. First off, it is very pertinent with our class and what we have been discussing. Not just because of the fact that it deals with Great Expectations (no underline I know) but it also focuses on life stories , individual knowledge, education and the rise of one who has "Great Expectations". As many of you have stated the book does not cast of very cheery light as you read it. I cannot say that as a whole the story cheers up much but it does end decently. I liked this book because it was entertaining, it held my focus, but was really easy to read, which was refreshing going from the real "Great Expectations" which was interesting but the language got a little hard to understand. Our main character in this book is a girl Matilda, Will she turn into a prig like Pip as she becomes more educated? We shall see. Enjoy the book.

A post for mondays class July 21

As of monday we have nine classes left till the end of the semester or term or session. We were instructed to assess our blogs, make sure that they contained thoughts or ideas pertinent to the class and also used the highly visual aspect made available to us by the internet.

Polymorphous perverse- Characterized by or displaying sexual tendencies that have no specific direction, as in an infant or young child, but that may evolve into acts that are regarded as perversions in adults.

Dialectic- The art or practice of arriving at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments.

Found poems turned out awesome. Mine was done wrong so expect a new one on here soon. They ranged every where from Kayak trips in Alaska to books about horses. The idea was to help us find the poetry of the mundane and the beauty in the plane. By doing this it opens us up to receive the hidden beauty of the world.

Repetition, was used in a lot of the found poem. This serves to put emphasis on certain ideas or themes.

End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousands thee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.-A quote from Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.

Simple, clear, and direct language is good, but is not always desired or needed.

I will end this by saying to make sure to do something you will remember in 28 years.

A sonnet for Ricky

I was not in class today to present this sonnet which is lame of me, but sometimes my allergies like to choke my lungs like a drunk uncle in a bar fight. Rather than rasp and wheeze I elected to stay home. Here however is my sonnet. I wrote it for my friends neighbors dog, Ricky. I love Ricky his is always hanging about in the street and we always chat, well I talk to him.

Damn Ricky you look so pretty for a dog.

Lazily, laying, lumping in the street.

Sweet canine prince in need of a jog,

When I arrive his jovial smile doth greet.

I wish I could hold you for all of time

Your owners, my allergies won’t permit.

Life without you is cold as winter’s rime

Dog-less, alone I live like a hermit.

When you are gone, I keep you in my heart.

If life were fair I’d have raised you from a pup.

Alas Rick when I leave, I hate to part

If you were my dog on steaks we would sup.

You can never be mine, our visits will sate

Because we are cruel victims of fate.

yeah it's not my best work but the iambic business kills me.

The found poem.

Here is the poem I found. I found it in a novel called Catcher in the Rye.
It's about Jean Gallagher, not to confused with a certain entertainer who likes to smash watermelons with a mallet.

Jane Gallagher,
She kept her kings in the back row.
Give her my regards.
Did you ask her if
She still keeps her kings in the back?
I knew something went funny,
But he didn't care where she kept her kings.
He was unscrupulous.
Jane Gallagher kept her kings in the back row.

Consider the motion of the maglev.

Here is a movie from the internet, about trains in the country of Japan, if you are looking for posts that relate to Stevens and class and what not check down below.

I just posted this I guess to use some of the visual stuff available, it is not directly related to class but I did find out that the word maglev is a combo of magnetic and levitation and apparently a maglev is a very fast train. They have them in Japan.

Scorn not the Sonnet

A sonnet is a 14 line poem. It has a set rhyme scheme, it generally is written in iambic pentameter. Five metric feet or ten syllables alternating between stressed and unstressed syllables. Iamb mimics natural speech.

Shakespearean Sonnet
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G--\These two lines called a couplet.
G--/They hold the resolution of the
conflict in the sonnet.

Petrarchan Sonnet
A
B
B
A
A
B
B
A
C
D
E
C
D
E

The sonnet has two parts, the problem and its resolution.
A twist in the plot of the sonnet is know as a "volta".

To write a sonnet you need a dictionary, thesarus, pencil, paper, box of chocolates, roses, a bottle of red wine, (age permitting) and of course a picture of the person or thing you want to write about.

Carpe Diem-Sieze the day. The day comes and goes, you must learn to grab the bull by the horns and say "listen here bull" as you shake his head to and fro to emphasize your speech. Thats what it means to me anyhow.

Greg and Medina will memorize Sonnet 73 and find a person of their choosing to recite it to.


Synesthesia-A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.

THE SNOWMAN

THE SNOWMAN-By Wallace Stevens.
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

As most of us know by now, Stevens talked a lot about perceptions and reality. I believe what he is trying to tell us in the Snowman is that one must have a mind of winter and be like the snowman to see the winter scenery as it is, not as we perceive it. He uses descriptive words that make us think of cold misery, and a barren winter landscape. Imagine what a snowman, with his mind of winter would see if he could actually see. We develop our minds of winter and set aside our notions and prejudices to the world. Stevens uses his themes of weather and seasons to do this. Without thoughts or perceptions what we view is nothing.
I think also one could interpret this poem (or at least I could) as a way of thinking about death. The winter is the dying season of the earth, and death is viewed by us mortals as misery, but if we had the mind of winter we could view it simply as it is. With a mind of winter we wouldn't need to be afraid or reassure ourselves, we who are "nothing" (at least compared to the planet) would be able to see the nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Don't Think and drive...

I have been told I think to much. Maybe I even have a thinking problem. When you become engrossed in thought it is hard to emerge from within yourself and devote your brain to what you are actually doing, like say riding a bike. The last two installments of class have given me much to think about. The poems by Wallace Stevens and his ideas of reality and perception, his focus on the magic of nature had me reeling after we left class on monday. The contemplation of the sonnet had a similiar effect on me. As I was leaving class today to find a computer to type this on I was riding my bike through campus as I oft do after class, I was however not thinking about the ride, I was thinking about poems and crazy stuff. I didn't notice the incongruous relationship between the concrete and the grass, after my tire found it I did. My feet slipped from the perch of my pedals, another part of my body did however make contact with the bike's frame. As this happened I very loudly yelled a monosyllabic profanity, catching the attention of a few bystanders who watched as I hung from the cross bar of my still moving bike only to be relieved from my misery as it, and I toppled down. I than dusted myself and rode on, this time paying more mind of what was in front of me. So remember don't think and drive, it's dangerous.

The Poet is the drunken sailor
The Poet is the pensive man
The Poet is the metaphysicist

"Death is the mother of Beauty"- Stevens had made us realize that the finite nature of life is what creates beauty, for if something is not permanent we learn to cling to it and cherish it, for we know that its beauty is fleeting.

"The exhilarations of changes the vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X"

"What is there here but the weather? What spirit have I except it that comes from the sun"

The pear is a pear. The pear is not a nude, bottle or viol. But if it were a nude it could be the Venus of Villendorf. We learned that in the Study of Two Pears, or a pare of pears.

Religion, god, culture has destroyed nature's importance to the daily experience of life. Through Stevens poetry we find the religion of nature. What is here but the weather?

Chaos theory-Basically a form of order we have yet to understand, nothing in the natural order of the universe is random.

Miss Alfred Urugauy- I percieved myself to be pretty fancy today, until that is I wracked myself on my own bike.

To an Old Philospher in Rome-"Two parallels one, perspective of which men are part both in the inch and the mile." A poem about the death of his old teacher in Rome.

More themes of seasons, more weather, and more birds.

Poetry is not trying to communicate a point, obscurity is ok. Stevens is a Poet not a philsopher and therefore not subject to absolutes. He has given us "a new knowledge of reality".

Weds... part duex

Heres thoughts as gleaned from the ol' notebook.

Etomology-The origin of words, not the study of insects.
Abulations-The washing or cleasing of the body as a religious rite. Jaggers who is constantly washing his hands. Like Pontious Pilate. He is washing the criminal taint from him.

Magwitch- Estella's true father, also Pips convict from the begining of the book and suprise benefactor. Very coincidental indeed.

Accovcheur- male midwife
Biled- who knows?
Mangle (noun)- a machine used to press and clean clothes
Ablutions- a washing or cleansing of the body especially as the religious right
Epiphany- a great realization, divine intervention
Trenchent- vigorous or insightful in sound
Rimy- covered with frost mainly in a literary way.

HEY PIP

Well this is sort of an informal post for todays class period, I will add another post with some of the vocab words and the stuff I usually overlook when I get on the keyboard.

A few thoughts on Pip. Love him hate him, he is still Pip.... He must always keep the name Pip, and so he shall. Pip was fixated with upward mobility, aspiring to be great, to be a soft handed white collar gentleman. Pip was alone in the world, yes there were people near him but he was still alone. Estella, sweet Estella how Pip longed for her...

Here is a poem by Charles Bukowski I believe Pip could have benefited from its message.

Oh Yes
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late.

The random, the preordained and the house cat.

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally un-related. In order to be 'synchronistic', the events must be related to one another temporally, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small.

Coincidence is the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection. The word is derived from the Latin co- ("in", "with", "together") and incidere ("to fall on").

A (young) man enters his neighbors house for a suprise birthday party. He assigns to himself a specific chair in the back corner facing the hallway so as to observe those who enter and leave so as not to be caught of guard. His initial observations of the room... two blonde girls... both wear black tops. Coincidence? Everyone is wearing shoes, save two girls. The two girls both shoeless are wearing blue socks. Everyone who is enjoying beverage holds either a red can or a blue can. The predominant colors present in the room, are red and blue. Coincidence?

The band GWAR, Marlboro cigarettes, and my exgirlfriend. All from Richmond Virginia.

A (young) man goes into the library at his local community college before his English class. He has two things on his mind, for some reason the number three, so much so that he began drawing it on his notebooks, and the state of Alaska, he begins to google colleges in Alaska wondering if he should leave this place far behind. He then goes to his class, the teacher begins to discuss the significance of the number three when present in mythology. She also begins to give examples of certain types of myths known as the hero myth wherin the hero must leave his people as an example she randomly says "suppose you move to Alaska" coincidence?

A (young) man on the eve of moving to Montana for school, who never has been to Montana is having trouble sleeping, he goes to a local 24hour Safeway to get some Totinos pizza bites as he walks through the store he sees a movie on sale for five dollars This movie is called "Legends of the Fall" he knows nothing of the movie except that Brad Pitt is on the cover. He buys this movie and takes it home. He watches this movie to discover that it is set in Montana. This gives him great comfort and he is able to sleep well. Coincidence?

While some of the above events are obvious and meaningless coincidences others of them suggest some sort of meaningful connection as described by Jung's theory of syncronicity. Depending on the anxiety levels present in my daily life the need to assign meaning and connection to random events comes and goes. This does not however mean that these connections are not present, it just means the urge in my brain to connect them is not. Our lives are stories, and like the stories written on the pages of books, they have reoccurring themes, characters, and ideas. Like Prof. Sexson says if a revolver is present in the first chapter, then at some point in the book it's going to be fired. Not a matter of if, but when. If this is true in literature then why not in our daily lives? We are characters in our own specific novels, our lives are wrought with tragedy, comedy, triumph and copious amounts of conflict. The conflict drives us to work, eat, sleep, and love. When the conflict ceases to exist, so do we.

Another conflicting theme in the human life is pain. Prof Sexson instructed us to recount our earliest memories of pain. As I type these very letters I am ransacking the disorginized files in the drawer of my earliest memories only to find one shining example. Hiedi the three legged mouse. She was it. My sister and I had a three legged mouse named Hiedi. Now this may not seem a big deal, but to a very young and very attached fellow her death was debilitating. Now let me tell you about Hiedi, though she was missing a limb she lived a very full life and was strong and capable. If she could have spoke I believe she would not have used the word "disabled" to describe herself. She loved to run on the wheel and drink from her little water bottle. Anyway Hiedi was not the only animal we had present in the house. Let me introduce to you the very moody and brooding cat... Hobbes! Hobbes was a prig, like Mr. Pip, Hobbes thought he was too good for our humble beginings, very upity indeed. One day while in the living room jumping on a very worn brown couch I heard a most resounding crash come from my sisters room, I knew almost at once what that miserable sound had been. I ran into my sisters room and looked to her desk where I knew Hiedi's cage to be, it was not there. I looked to the floor and there I saw the cage, looking very molested with none other than the villain Mr. Hobbes trying with vigor to get into the cage and destroy our mistress Hiedi. I swatted that evil cat away and righted the toppled cage. By this time my sister had entered the room as did my parents. They ushered me from the room and began to tend to Hiedi. Now I had faith that she would make a full recovery as she was a very stout mouse who ate well and knew the importance of regular exercise. As I sat in the living room awaiting the prognosis, my father came out to speak with me. I knew by the grim expression he wore on his normally jovial face that our young Hiedi was not going to make it. The pain I had felt was terrible. Death is a difficult thing to understand especially at a young age. As we get older, the notion of death does not become any more understandable but we get used to it, like a distant rain cloud on a summers day. Death looms permantly on the horizion. It watches us and skulkes in the shadows and like the cobra it rises and strikes only to claim another victim. Heidi was lost forever. We held a burial service for her in the yard, next to my mothers flowers. I believe she would have liked it that way. After Hiedi's death my young heart heavy with grief sought vengeance. My birthday was a few weeks later, I asked for a supersoaker 30 squirt gun and an RC monster truck. Using both tools I spent much of my free time tracking the dastardly Hobbes until it escalated into a full fledged boy vs cat fued that would have put even the Hatfield and Mccoy's to shame. It would not be until many years later on his death bed that Hobbes and I would reconcile and put to rest a fued that had stretched more than a decade. As the conflict between Hobbes and I ceased so did our story together, for the last chapter had been writ.

Wed, July the Second

After class on Wednesday the 2nd, I learned a hard lesson on the dangers of walking the line between facetiousness and sarcasm. If you will recall during the class Prof. Sexson told us to carry our Wallace Stevens books on our persons, while I doubt this was serious, I decided to oblige for fun. Things were going swimmingly for a while as I was driving around with my friend Hannah, until my jokes overstepped the boundry of jocularity and plummeted into the cutting world of sarcasm. With great authority she snatched my copy of Stevens and held it out of the window of my moving vehicle, daring me to repeat my comment. Now I have never been a good gambler so I called her bluff, and in a single instant my book was out the window. In a state of mixed horror and shock I pulled to the side of the road to retrieve my fallen comrade. As I walked cautiously up to the blue book I noticed the jacket flapping mangled in the breeze like the feathered body of a broken bird. Though the book itself remained fairly unscathed, the jacket serves to remind me of the dangers of sarcasm. I am also sure that if Hannah had read Ex Libris, more specifically "Never Do That To A Book" she would have understood my dismay and utter contempt for her actions. When Professor Sexson explained to us the meaning of Mythos and Logos meaning story and truth, I realized something, all stories while fiction still contain truth. To some of us myths are little more than archaic fairy tales written by lost people, and to others including the people that wrote them they are sacred texts full of truth. The Bible is a very popular collection of mythology, and I know to some that seems offensive to some but to me they are stories that contain within in them truths specific to the people who read them. As we began to read Arabian Nights a few more of these "truths" jumped out at me. Firstly the theme of infidelity and the anguish it causes is indeed truth. All of us at some time in our live's have been betrayed and understand the desire to chop someones head off with a sword. The next truth I observed was the fact that a brain trumps beauty in the long run nine times out of ten, in the story of Shaharazad, and how she kept herself alive using her cunning and wits. We then wrapped class up with a view of the convict scene from Great Expectations. All in all a good day minus a few small problems like the defiling of my book.