Wednesday, March 31, 2010
From Class
Science Fiction Forbidden Planet and Shakespeare's The Tempest
Science Fiction Forbidden Planet and Shakespeare s the Tempest
Science Fiction Forbidden Planet and Shakespeare s the Tempest
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Following Story
Yet again I love this book. I was surprised at how much I had forgotten though. It is amazingly dense for a 113 page story. There were notes I took but I would like to follow Sam's lead and blog about something I did not take notes on. So this morning I read without my pen. It took me a while to become alright with it but once I was it was amazingly liberating. Another version of the mysterious mental maneuver, or eternal recurrence, etc... I had to learn how to read again. How to get lost in a story and soar along the pages as if I were being carried by a phoenix over a landscape unfamiliar to me. Safely separate but very close to the story. I read instead of analyzed and it was liberating.
The Following Story, yet again tugged at my heart and stretched my mind. The Myth of the Eternal Return, or Eternal Recurrence theme is painted throughout, several scenes he relives as he is dying throughout the book, the entirety of the novel teaching him how to die and that he will return. His story is not complete, his body through metamorphoses and his soul through continuance, remembrance and forgetfulness. It is the most vibrant part of life, death, as fiction and literature. It is Dolce Domum, as he, by Plato's theory of anamnesis, returns home to "heaven." It is, being only 113 pages long, a 20 minute lifetime. And as we discussed in class, the secret of Immortality is to read, we have had a lifetime in the reading of this book. And finally, The World as Myth and Dream, Socrates had simply dreamt his life. He was so sure there was no afterlife, or immortality of the soul, as he discusses with Lisa d'India, his Creto, on page 91, but in the end he is awakened to his error and moves on to the next world. Poetry.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Today In Class
Here are the links for things from class and the Smartpen recording.
Anima mundi (spirit)
Shirt of Nessus
Ereshkigal
The Dead by James Joyce
Rose in Alchemy
Wallace Stevens - The Idea of Order at Key West
and the image of David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth
and the class smartpen recording.
I am also going to post here, while my smartpen uploads, that the blog that truly acted as my stimuli, stimulus, and stimulation was Jon Orsi's. It seemed that at very specific times throughout the semester when I was reaching a sort of mental burnout or idle, seeing as how so many things are cyclical, life and death, high and low brow, and now over-stimulation and idleness both causing a sort of pause in the mental workings, Jon Orsi's blog would slap me in the face, make me laugh out loud and absolutely kick start the cogs in my head. I would have to blog, there just weren't any other options. Of course, there aren't any other options, because the past is the past, but it is present, and foreseeable in the future as well.
Now to work on a paper thesis, we've covered so much that I'm actually having troubles coming up with anything, or maybe it's that I can't remember what it was like, what I was like, at the beginning of the semester. Either way I can't seem to focus in again. Jon? Any blogs of brilliance to set me on my way? Anyone else?
And a Post Script.
Thanks for the endorsement Christina! It's nice to hear that you enjoy what we're doing! If any of you were wondering why Dr. Sexson addressed this quote so pointedly to me, it's because I am interviewing for the McNair Scholarship on Wednesday and am pitching what we do in the classroom as my research project for the scholarship.
And a Post Post Script.
Congratulations Erin! I never thought two people in the class would make it through Finnegans Wake! And thanks for finding me, it was scary being lost down the rabbit hole of all those pages!
Rosicrucianism
Gnosticism
Emerald Tablet
Anima mundi (spirit)
Shirt of NessusEreshkigal
Rose in Alchemy
Wallace Stevens - The Idea of Order at Key West
and the image of David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth
03.29.2010 11:01:34 AM
brought to you by Livescribe
brought to you by Livescribe
I am also going to post here, while my smartpen uploads, that the blog that truly acted as my stimuli, stimulus, and stimulation was Jon Orsi's. It seemed that at very specific times throughout the semester when I was reaching a sort of mental burnout or idle, seeing as how so many things are cyclical, life and death, high and low brow, and now over-stimulation and idleness both causing a sort of pause in the mental workings, Jon Orsi's blog would slap me in the face, make me laugh out loud and absolutely kick start the cogs in my head. I would have to blog, there just weren't any other options. Of course, there aren't any other options, because the past is the past, but it is present, and foreseeable in the future as well.
Now to work on a paper thesis, we've covered so much that I'm actually having troubles coming up with anything, or maybe it's that I can't remember what it was like, what I was like, at the beginning of the semester. Either way I can't seem to focus in again. Jon? Any blogs of brilliance to set me on my way? Anyone else?
And a Post Script.
Thanks for the endorsement Christina! It's nice to hear that you enjoy what we're doing! If any of you were wondering why Dr. Sexson addressed this quote so pointedly to me, it's because I am interviewing for the McNair Scholarship on Wednesday and am pitching what we do in the classroom as my research project for the scholarship.
And a Post Post Script.
Congratulations Erin! I never thought two people in the class would make it through Finnegans Wake! And thanks for finding me, it was scary being lost down the rabbit hole of all those pages!
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Qwill
Friday, March 26, 2010
3/26 Smartpen and The Wizard of Oz Clip from class.
Ha ha! They had all kinds of downloading restrictions on this but I PREVAILED! I'm feeling very victorious. 'twas vexing this vicissitude to vanguard or vault the videos, so with a vengeance I vehemently ventured a variable vent and, from vantage, vanquished the vain and vamoosed with my vainglory. In other words, it's not often I am thwarted on my first attempt at stealing something from the internet, but I won. :)
And here's the Smartpen recording from today 3/26:
And here's the Smartpen recording from today 3/26:
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Alchemist Pt. II
So, I wanted to elaborate slightly on why I liked the Alchemist but unfortunately I'm not going to be able to put much effort into it. My cat has been missing for about 16 hours and I'm a little stressed. Regardless I wanted to offer this:
Santiago had to leave. Regardless of how stereotypical the plot is. He had to go. If he'd stayed he would not have found the treasure at home, and the real story is right, his wanderlust is what would have ruined his potential future with the merchant's daughter. If he didn't have wanderlust, a yearning for adventure, then he wouldn't have left.
Still, putting that logic aside, had he not left he would not have been able to return to the same field he started in and known it for the first time. He learned something new about it from when he'd left. He also learned that he truly did not want to be there. And that he truly did not want to be with the woman he had intentionally fawned over.
Here's the real kicker about this book. I'm generalizing so I know there will be those of you who didn't have this experience but, my experience was this. We came into this class to discover something about high brow and low brow literature, some of us with knowledge of highbrow and some without. We all learned a thing or two and some of us converted to a great appreciation of highbrow works. The Alchemist was painful for me initially for similar reasons, and in retrospect I'm laughing, it was TOO LOWBROW! I had returned to where i had started and had to get to know the place for the first time. I had to teach myself, using a similar mysterious mental maneuver to learning to enjoy highbrow literature and the bible, to enjoy lowbrow literature again!
Bah, I'm burning my dinner...
Santiago had to leave. Regardless of how stereotypical the plot is. He had to go. If he'd stayed he would not have found the treasure at home, and the real story is right, his wanderlust is what would have ruined his potential future with the merchant's daughter. If he didn't have wanderlust, a yearning for adventure, then he wouldn't have left.
Still, putting that logic aside, had he not left he would not have been able to return to the same field he started in and known it for the first time. He learned something new about it from when he'd left. He also learned that he truly did not want to be there. And that he truly did not want to be with the woman he had intentionally fawned over.
Here's the real kicker about this book. I'm generalizing so I know there will be those of you who didn't have this experience but, my experience was this. We came into this class to discover something about high brow and low brow literature, some of us with knowledge of highbrow and some without. We all learned a thing or two and some of us converted to a great appreciation of highbrow works. The Alchemist was painful for me initially for similar reasons, and in retrospect I'm laughing, it was TOO LOWBROW! I had returned to where i had started and had to get to know the place for the first time. I had to teach myself, using a similar mysterious mental maneuver to learning to enjoy highbrow literature and the bible, to enjoy lowbrow literature again!
Bah, I'm burning my dinner...
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Alchemist
Alright, new favorite book. I loved The Alchemist! Of course I guess that's about par for the course.
p. 3 "He told himself that he would have to start reading thicker books: they lasted longer, and made more comfortable pillows." I clicked with this, right off the bat I'm being shown that my lust for more books and "thicker" (meaning denser, or high brow for me) books.
p.4 recognizing that he might not have accustomed himself to the sheep's schedule but that he might have accustomed himself to theirs. Cool perspective!
p.7 Sexson/Socrates knows "how to find the best pastures in Andalusia," and as long as he does, we will be his friends. Or rather, we will be his students.
p. 12 "recurrent dream" Wake up Neo.
p.15 "I told you that your dream was a difficult one. It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them." Dr. Sexson is trying to teach us all to be wise.
p.16 Maybe it's just me but I had a moment of Beckettesque deja vous. I spotted a place where I fell out of the narrative. "If he ever wrote a book, he thought, he would present one person at a time, so that the reader wouldn't have to worry about memorizing a lot of names." Which is exactly how The Alchemist is written.
p. 18 Personal Legends? Which story are we in again? What story am I in? Aw jees...
p. 24 Think like a child. Remember Dr. Sexson said something about this at the beginning of the semester? Every day i wish I'd been in one of his Oral Traditions classes so that I would have tricks for remembering things better.
p. 30 Urim and Thummim, I wonder if Alecia remembers these little guys from Bible as Literature class and has any more info on them?
I love the little story between 30 and 32. What a great parable.
p. 43 "There must be a language that doesn't depend on words." Indeed. This is elaborated on on p. 62
p. 64 "He had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute was becoming less important. Maybe because that wasn't really his dream." Sometimes the path is the treasure, not the goal's realization.
p. 74 "Maktub" Plato's anamnesis, or Jung's Collective Unconscious?
p.75 The realization that the book the boy got from the library was Finnegan's Wake. "... the boy had developed a superstition that each time he opened the book he would learn something important,"
p.77 and 78 Is research or action more important? This is a struggle I've had with myself for a long time. I have a deep and powerful wanderlust which sometimes drives me to simply pack a backpack and walk across the US for a month or so. Right now I've exhausted it after several years of travel and I'm enjoying having a home base and a purpose while I'm rooted. We'll see how long it takes to kick back up but when it does, will I go? Will I listen to my heart and heed my Personal Legend? Or will I stay and attempt to put off the travel until I accomplish my goals of obtaining my bachelors and moving on for a Doctorate of English Lit? I suppose only time and my heart will tell. "The Englishman said, 'I'd better pay more attention to the caravan.' 'And I'd better read your books,' said the boy." p. 79
p. 84 and 85 live in the now. It is so easy to say and so hard to do.
p.88 A Thousand and One Nights, I really have to read this...
p. 115 A favorite quote: "'It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil,' said the alchemist. 'It's what comes out of their mouths that is.'"
p. 127 - 131 The language of the heart. I love these pages. Hmm :)
p.134 "stimulus"
The names of the wind: "sirocco" p. 146, "levanter" p. 146, "simum" p. 148.
p. 156 This is something I used to say, better worded but the same concept! "Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time."
I actually have almost as much highlighting in The Alchemist as I do in Finnegans Wake!
p. 3 "He told himself that he would have to start reading thicker books: they lasted longer, and made more comfortable pillows." I clicked with this, right off the bat I'm being shown that my lust for more books and "thicker" (meaning denser, or high brow for me) books.
p.4 recognizing that he might not have accustomed himself to the sheep's schedule but that he might have accustomed himself to theirs. Cool perspective!
p.7 Sexson/Socrates knows "how to find the best pastures in Andalusia," and as long as he does, we will be his friends. Or rather, we will be his students.
p. 12 "recurrent dream" Wake up Neo.
p.15 "I told you that your dream was a difficult one. It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them." Dr. Sexson is trying to teach us all to be wise.
p.16 Maybe it's just me but I had a moment of Beckettesque deja vous. I spotted a place where I fell out of the narrative. "If he ever wrote a book, he thought, he would present one person at a time, so that the reader wouldn't have to worry about memorizing a lot of names." Which is exactly how The Alchemist is written.
p. 18 Personal Legends? Which story are we in again? What story am I in? Aw jees...
p. 24 Think like a child. Remember Dr. Sexson said something about this at the beginning of the semester? Every day i wish I'd been in one of his Oral Traditions classes so that I would have tricks for remembering things better.
p. 30 Urim and Thummim, I wonder if Alecia remembers these little guys from Bible as Literature class and has any more info on them?
I love the little story between 30 and 32. What a great parable.
p. 43 "There must be a language that doesn't depend on words." Indeed. This is elaborated on on p. 62
p. 64 "He had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute was becoming less important. Maybe because that wasn't really his dream." Sometimes the path is the treasure, not the goal's realization.
p. 74 "Maktub" Plato's anamnesis, or Jung's Collective Unconscious?
p.75 The realization that the book the boy got from the library was Finnegan's Wake. "... the boy had developed a superstition that each time he opened the book he would learn something important,"
p.77 and 78 Is research or action more important? This is a struggle I've had with myself for a long time. I have a deep and powerful wanderlust which sometimes drives me to simply pack a backpack and walk across the US for a month or so. Right now I've exhausted it after several years of travel and I'm enjoying having a home base and a purpose while I'm rooted. We'll see how long it takes to kick back up but when it does, will I go? Will I listen to my heart and heed my Personal Legend? Or will I stay and attempt to put off the travel until I accomplish my goals of obtaining my bachelors and moving on for a Doctorate of English Lit? I suppose only time and my heart will tell. "The Englishman said, 'I'd better pay more attention to the caravan.' 'And I'd better read your books,' said the boy." p. 79
p. 84 and 85 live in the now. It is so easy to say and so hard to do.
p.88 A Thousand and One Nights, I really have to read this...
p. 115 A favorite quote: "'It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil,' said the alchemist. 'It's what comes out of their mouths that is.'"
p. 127 - 131 The language of the heart. I love these pages. Hmm :)
p.134 "stimulus"
The names of the wind: "sirocco" p. 146, "levanter" p. 146, "simum" p. 148.
p. 156 This is something I used to say, better worded but the same concept! "Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time."
I actually have almost as much highlighting in The Alchemist as I do in Finnegans Wake!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The 4 Conflicts
Reading Rachel's Blog I was inspired to recall the conflicts she was talking about.
According to George Steiner the 4 conflicts are:
1) Age and youth
2) Individual and State
3) Gods and mortals
4) The living and the dead
If you're interested in reading a large excerpt from George Steiner's Antigone's I uploaded them to my blog for Classical Foundations back in 09 and they're still up, just click here to begin!
PS Rachel I love the fish on your blog!
According to George Steiner the 4 conflicts are:
1) Age and youth
2) Individual and State
3) Gods and mortals
4) The living and the dead
If you're interested in reading a large excerpt from George Steiner's Antigone's I uploaded them to my blog for Classical Foundations back in 09 and they're still up, just click here to begin!
PS Rachel I love the fish on your blog!
Thomas
Personal response to Thomas' blog.
I am not a Cyper, but I do agree with Thomas for the most part. Here's my logic.
I believe that neither the dream world or the real world make much of a difference. That's not the point for me. Whether I'm "stuck in a dream world, Neo" or being welcomed to the "desert of the real." isn't the exciting thing. The difference between a bowl of snot and a steak is what? From Cypher's perspective it's ignorance being bliss so that he can forget his hardships and simply enjoy life's little luxuries. My problem is that I believe that all knowledge is worth having and that the more worth knowledge has, the heavier a burden it is to carry. I know what it's like to be in sove hard places and so I can truly commiserate and connect with people in those places. This may not seem like a good thing but it is a connection that can run deep and lead to the greatest of bonds. More than that I'll learn from the people I commiserate with and they'll be better off for their lightened burden, even if it's just having someone to talk to. Helping people seems to be a calling of mine and I find very little that makes me feel as alive. Also, like Dr. Sexson said "the more you know, the more you know." My reasoning for agreeing with Thomas is this: Life needs to be lived, not sat through and viewed as it passes. It's a ride with no safety net and the people that sit behind the window and view those of us who live life are only getting a half life.They're reading about the life I'm living every time I step through the door, whether I'm late or not. The trick is to live life and to study it simultaneously to suck the very most out of your stones, turn and turn about.
I am not a Cyper, but I do agree with Thomas for the most part. Here's my logic.
I believe that neither the dream world or the real world make much of a difference. That's not the point for me. Whether I'm "stuck in a dream world, Neo" or being welcomed to the "desert of the real." isn't the exciting thing. The difference between a bowl of snot and a steak is what? From Cypher's perspective it's ignorance being bliss so that he can forget his hardships and simply enjoy life's little luxuries. My problem is that I believe that all knowledge is worth having and that the more worth knowledge has, the heavier a burden it is to carry. I know what it's like to be in sove hard places and so I can truly commiserate and connect with people in those places. This may not seem like a good thing but it is a connection that can run deep and lead to the greatest of bonds. More than that I'll learn from the people I commiserate with and they'll be better off for their lightened burden, even if it's just having someone to talk to. Helping people seems to be a calling of mine and I find very little that makes me feel as alive. Also, like Dr. Sexson said "the more you know, the more you know." My reasoning for agreeing with Thomas is this: Life needs to be lived, not sat through and viewed as it passes. It's a ride with no safety net and the people that sit behind the window and view those of us who live life are only getting a half life.They're reading about the life I'm living every time I step through the door, whether I'm late or not. The trick is to live life and to study it simultaneously to suck the very most out of your stones, turn and turn about.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Ketchup Blog
I've been having a rough time with the Tempest. It seems too all encompassing. I suppose I just need to grab a single thread and follow it for a while. The connections are all over it to many of our other readings but they have either been discussed more fully than I could have already or are a stretch or are too obvious and not really of any great intrigue. Of course, like Dr. Sexson said at the beginning of the semester, sometimes we need to state the obvious. Since I have little recent blog activity other than smartpen posts I'll have to do just that.
The Tempest:
1) Connecting The Tempest to Finnegans Wake
a) Both are magical, the Tempest has illusion written into it and Finnegans Wake is basically a spell book which shows you whatever you're looking for.
b) Both are bound by water, Finnegans Wake has a river which cuts through it and keeps our attentions fixed and the Tempest is a fixed focal point because it's an island adventure.
c) The characters are template characters for all the potential characters that could have been in their position. Prospero is the All-Father kind of persona and HCE is the everyman.
2) Stranger than Fiction and Beckett
a) Kind of a weak link but both Molloy and Harold are in bad shape and either don't know it, or ignore it and continue onward regardless.
b) Molloy is in the process of living his life, following his every desire so long as it holds his attentions then dropping it and moving on to the next thing with no real recollections, simply now and Harold spends the beginning of the movie preparing to live his life and begins doing so only at the end.
3) Life as Fiction and Beckett
a) This one's pretty obvious. Beckett keeps showing the machinery behind his work in an attempt to show us that life is fiction. We are blinded by our "daily lives" and need to wake up and live.
4) What is the Matrix?
a) Monotony. Getting in a rut of living every day like Harold Crick. We need to break free from the bondage of a 9-5 and become people again. As broken as Molloy was, he (obviously my favorite character of Becketts) lived in the now, or in the real, even when he was retrospect. That fictional character was somehow more alive than some of the fictional characters I know as flesh and blood instead of paper and ink. People dead to their lives as they run through without joy and simply process the life that is fed to them like some prescribed formula which will eventually lead them to a goal which will set them free. What goal? Now is when you're free, if you just take the red pill and dive down the rabbit hole, eat a Bavarian sugar cookie or suck on a stone. Free your mind and join the window washer who gets to jam out on his music and feel the wind on his face from a dozen stories off the ground suspended from a few cables while you get-a-talkin-to for being 5 minutes late Mr. Anderson.
Alright, off my soapbox now. See you all tomorrow.
The Tempest:
1) Connecting The Tempest to Finnegans Wake
a) Both are magical, the Tempest has illusion written into it and Finnegans Wake is basically a spell book which shows you whatever you're looking for.
b) Both are bound by water, Finnegans Wake has a river which cuts through it and keeps our attentions fixed and the Tempest is a fixed focal point because it's an island adventure.
c) The characters are template characters for all the potential characters that could have been in their position. Prospero is the All-Father kind of persona and HCE is the everyman.
2) Stranger than Fiction and Beckett
a) Kind of a weak link but both Molloy and Harold are in bad shape and either don't know it, or ignore it and continue onward regardless.
b) Molloy is in the process of living his life, following his every desire so long as it holds his attentions then dropping it and moving on to the next thing with no real recollections, simply now and Harold spends the beginning of the movie preparing to live his life and begins doing so only at the end.
3) Life as Fiction and Beckett
a) This one's pretty obvious. Beckett keeps showing the machinery behind his work in an attempt to show us that life is fiction. We are blinded by our "daily lives" and need to wake up and live.
4) What is the Matrix?
a) Monotony. Getting in a rut of living every day like Harold Crick. We need to break free from the bondage of a 9-5 and become people again. As broken as Molloy was, he (obviously my favorite character of Becketts) lived in the now, or in the real, even when he was retrospect. That fictional character was somehow more alive than some of the fictional characters I know as flesh and blood instead of paper and ink. People dead to their lives as they run through without joy and simply process the life that is fed to them like some prescribed formula which will eventually lead them to a goal which will set them free. What goal? Now is when you're free, if you just take the red pill and dive down the rabbit hole, eat a Bavarian sugar cookie or suck on a stone. Free your mind and join the window washer who gets to jam out on his music and feel the wind on his face from a dozen stories off the ground suspended from a few cables while you get-a-talkin-to for being 5 minutes late Mr. Anderson.
Alright, off my soapbox now. See you all tomorrow.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Muses
Calliope was the muse of epic poetry.
Clio was the muse of history.
Erato was the muse of love poetry.
Euterpe was the muse of music.
Melpomene was the muse of tragedy.
Polyhymnia was the muse of sacred poetry.
Terpsichore was the muse of dance.
Thalia was the muse of comedy.
Urania was the muse of astronomy.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Site and Pic from Today
Simulacra and Simulations
Christina may be working on a better image for us. Thanks if you do Christina!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Stranger Than Fiction
Our Life As Fiction and Stranger Than Fiction.
He's a fictional character in real life. So are we. Professor Hilbert is tries to get Harold Crick to figure out what kind of story he's in and Dr. Sexson wants us to do the same. We're all part of a story, characters in each others lives.
Stranger Than Fiction and Beckett.
The number of characters killed was striking to me. Eight by Karen Eiffel and the same by Beckett. The idea that Stranger Than Fiction summons up is that our lives are stories. The movie is all about breaking through stories. If it was a normal movie about Harold Crick going through his life and then dying, or living, it would be a normal movie. But continually throughout, the character tries to break through to the narrator, author or real world. He is real to himself but to Karen he is just a character. The same way that you're all real to me but if you told me a story about one of your friends they're just a character in a story. One day they might break through from the story into the real world for me but until I meet them they're stuck in a that tale I was told. Beckett continually tries to break through his stories to show us the machinery behind it as well. We see the writers tricks he uses but have we yet thought about how we are really all stories until we are physically present to the people who've heard about us? Like being an urban legend where people tell stories about you that spread like wildfire but only a very few people actually know you. Now it's not what story are you in from the grand scheme of your life but what stories are you in in your every day life. What novellas or shorts? What poems, riddles, bedtime stories or warning parables are you in? What is your life as fiction?
He's a fictional character in real life. So are we. Professor Hilbert is tries to get Harold Crick to figure out what kind of story he's in and Dr. Sexson wants us to do the same. We're all part of a story, characters in each others lives.
Stranger Than Fiction and Beckett.
The number of characters killed was striking to me. Eight by Karen Eiffel and the same by Beckett. The idea that Stranger Than Fiction summons up is that our lives are stories. The movie is all about breaking through stories. If it was a normal movie about Harold Crick going through his life and then dying, or living, it would be a normal movie. But continually throughout, the character tries to break through to the narrator, author or real world. He is real to himself but to Karen he is just a character. The same way that you're all real to me but if you told me a story about one of your friends they're just a character in a story. One day they might break through from the story into the real world for me but until I meet them they're stuck in a that tale I was told. Beckett continually tries to break through his stories to show us the machinery behind it as well. We see the writers tricks he uses but have we yet thought about how we are really all stories until we are physically present to the people who've heard about us? Like being an urban legend where people tell stories about you that spread like wildfire but only a very few people actually know you. Now it's not what story are you in from the grand scheme of your life but what stories are you in in your every day life. What novellas or shorts? What poems, riddles, bedtime stories or warning parables are you in? What is your life as fiction?
The Tempest
Well, I found Joyce and Beckett in The Tempest. Line 165:
Our revels now ended. These our actors,Maybe I'm just seeing things but I couldn't stop myself from breaking out my highlighter again while reading. All these references to the play within itself breaking the story line. The mention of the Globe. Damned if it doesn't scream Beckett at me. Our little life being rounded with sleep. This all Joyce. It's Finnegans Wake. Or I'm completely off my rocker, either way, it doesn't matter because I like it!
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which is inert, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
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