This is my dream world

I'm blogging about a dream I had a few weeks ago. For the most part I have fairly vivid dreams and remember them often. This one was especially haunting for the topic matter. I was shopping in a sporting goods store for pants. I remember the pants I found had paint like graffiti all over them. I told the sales girl I liked them but I didn't think I could pull them off. We reasoned that I would just dye my hair purple and get a Mohawk. I remember feeling anxious while I talked to the sales girl and with pants in hand started to hurry out of the store. I walked by a mother and daughter and then looked up at the ceiling. A swarm of flies were flying counter clockwise. I thought about the fact that I heard animals behave strangely before something bad happens. I rushed to my car. The scene cut to my house. Well, not really my house it was my old house from when I lived in Virginia. I went to my parents bedroom and they were standing on opposite sides of their bed screaming at each other. I asked them to stop because something was going to happen and we needed to all love each other. The second I said it an asteroid came crashing through the ceiling on the bed. We looked at the sky and saw that thousands of asteroids were coming down.

Roommates and A Whole Lotta Green

Living in a sorority requires some compromises. Mainly, that you get the whole dorm experience another three years and get to live with a roommate. So mostly, when I wake up I see things that don't have any personal value to me. I see the walls that were painted purple and blue years before I lived here and haven't been painted since on account of changing rules. I see pictures of my roommate and her friends, some I know some I don't. I see her very green bed and our very green drapes hanging over our matching closets and I see a picture of Gandhi that quite frankly gives me the creeps. I see things I own and pictures of my friends, the things Kae Loni sees when she wakes up. I wonder if she has the same thoughts as I do. This room is mine, but it isn't really. I have to move every semester so I never really get an established ownership. But it's a place to sleep and its fairly comfortable so really who am I to complain?

Fun for All

According to Wikipedia: Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Vico or Vigo (23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist. A critic of modern rationalism and apologist of classical antiquity, Vico's magnum opus is titled "Principles/Origins of [re]New[ed] Science about the Common Nature of Nations" (Principi di Scienza Nuova d'intorno alla Comune Natura delle Nazioni). The work is explicitly presented as a "Science of reasoning" (Scienza di ragionare), and includes a dialectic between axioms and "reasonings" (ragionamenti) linking and clarifying the axioms. Vico is often claimed to have inaugurated modern philosophy of history, although the expression is alien from Vico's text (Vico speaks of a "history of philosophy narrated philosophically").[1] He is otherwise well-known for noting that verum esse ipsum factum ("true itself is fact" or "the true itself is made"), a proposition that has been read as an early instance of constructivist epistemology.[2][3] Overall, the contemporary interest in Vico has been driven by peculiarly historicist interests like Tagliacozzo.[4] and Hayden White.[5]

Now on to how my coffee partner reacted when I showed him Finnegans Wake.

"What is this?"
"The most highbrow piece of literature ever written encompassing everything that has ever been written, ever."
"Ok..."
(He takes the book.)
"Well this is utter nonsense."
"Well kind of, you just have to know what to do with it. These words are words you know they just look different, and see right here it's referencing Adam and Eve. It's like a puzzle."
"Did this man make money off this book? Maybe I should just write a whole bunch of letters in a row and call it art. This is gibberish."
(I take his business book.)
"Now this is utter nonsense."

Write Like Iff

Page 536 will be my page of Finnegans Wake chosen at complete random. Now on to a paragraph written like Iff. Because as Dr. Sexson put it why would one want to use just one word when you can use them all?

Why I would never in my life deliberately, intentionally, absolutely not on purpose, plan it to a T, intend without reason, make a premeditated decision, calculated or otherwise, without your highest input sir. For you see, this mistake was absolutely an unintentional, unintended, unable to be averted, really just happened by chance, kind of thing.

And here is the passage I hope to try to memorize from Finnegans Wake

"With us his nephos and his neberls, mest incensed and befogged by him and his smoke thereof. But he shall have his glad stein of our zober beerbest in Oscarshal's winetavern."

My Twenty Minute Lifetime

I wrote this for another class but I realized that it fits perfectly into the idea that we just keep repeating everything over and over.

I worked at Abercrombie and Fitch for a summer between my sophomore and junior year of college. For those of you unfamiliar with Abercrombie and Fitch it is a company that is consumed in aesthetic appeal. And though the fourteen year olds the store marketed to who bought the flimsy t-shirts with risque sayings would never notice, it was part of our job to take each size sticker and align it perfectly with the next, take each corner and make sure it had no wrinkles, take each pattern and make sure it folded the exact same way. It truly was hegemony at its finest.

I remember working one particular day before school would commence in the fall with the rush of tired mothers and whining daughters shuffling into the store. I would stand by helplessly as the duos would pick apart pile by pile everything I had worked so hard to perfect the hour before. And I would be forced to ask them with a plastered smile and pseudo enthusiasm, "Are you finding everything alright?" Knowing fully well my next hour would be filled with folding boards, size stickers and absolute mind numbing boredom. This was my twenty minute lifetime, my Bill Murray experience, destined to be repeated again and again and again.

But but but

This is a side note but I feel it must be mentioned. I find it absolutely fascinating that when asked to describe our coolest academic experience, in a class of about twelve, four of us chose to write about Dr. Sexson and those who did not chimed in with their praises. That was probably another of my coolest academic experiences. Now on to Haroun. I think for my first blog about this book I will dissect a few of my favorite quotes. I guess its almost stereotypical that almost all my favorite quotes deal with literature in a way but I don't think stereotypes are always a bad thing.

"O, Need's a funny fish: it makes people untruthful. They all suffer from it, but they will not always admit." (pg. 36)

I thought this was interesting because the ideas of need and want are generally intermixed with varying results. We may think we need something but in all actuality really we just want it and could go the rest of our lives without it. I think this quote is pointing out this disconnectedness to the word and the fact that many people in our society will not admit that they do not need, but want something.




"'Anybody can tell stories...liars, and cheats, and crooks, for example." (pg. 58)

Language is a powerful thing. What other thing on this earth can evoke such emotional responses, or transport the reader to a whole different place. Language is also accessible. Though it does take some skill to learn the art once it is "mastered" one may do with it as they please with no need to create anything worthwhile or truthful in the least. But, as the story points out, it takes a little more to create a story that is truly meaningful.

"...new stories are born from old-it is the new combination that make them new."(pg. 86)

This quote is so perfect because it reflects the idea that we explored so often in Classical Literature. Nothing is original. Everything has a predecessor and may only build upon but never create something original. But the building is like a creation in the way that though it is not entirely new, after all haven't we all written this same sentence before, the placement together does make a new thing entirely.

"'But but but what is the point of giving persons Freedom of Speech...if you then say they must not utilize same? And is it not the Power of Speech the greatest Power of all?" (pg. 119)

I won't comment on this quote because I could go on all night but I had to add it to make sure that everyone was afforded a second look. Enjoy.

Great Expectations

Quite honestly this is probably going to be the class I most enjoy this semester. It was the only class I actively sought out and made sure each day that it was not yet full. Why? Because I have never enjoyed an English class as much as Dr. Sexsons Classical Mythology. Most classes, and I would wager this is the same for all students, are quickly forgotten along with the material. However, I can still tell you why the movie Groundhog's Day is important, and am happy to see it has been incorporated into this class, and what memesis and catharsis mean.

I feel this class will be extremely stimulating given the topic ideas and the subject matter. I am, as Dr. Sexson pointed out, a bit intimidated by our "white elephant" though I think it will be a beneficial struggle. Now on to my views of high brow/low brow. I dealt with this idea often in Literary Criticism and I think it is quite intriguing. My understanding is that high brow is something that is deemed both culturally and intellectually rich and often is disliked by the general public. Usually it is something traditional, for example an excellent graphic novel would probably not be considered high brow no matter the content, and it is something with a tangible value. Low brow, on the other hand, is often something that is enjoyed by the general public for its escapist values and often the ability for one to "turn off" their brain when encountering it. Low brow art would be something consumed for pleasure not intellectual value and it is often considered easy to create.

Because of these ideas I think the exploration of this subject will be very interesting. I am already finding the class to be promising having started reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories. My hope that this class will exceed any expectations I come with, which I would bet it will.