3/5- Men are from mars, women are from venus

Of course women already know everything and men have to be taught.  It's how we came into this world, learning everything from a woman.  In all fairness though, women may already know everything but haven't we all forgotten everything already?  Don't we all spend every day relearning what we've forgotten that we know?  So anyways......What was I saying?

2/8-Antpilot

Don't be an ant.  Enough said.

3/19- I'm a Lowbrow Reader

Why can't we enjoy some highbrow reading mixed in with the low stuff.  I'm not ashamed to say that I've read War and Peace in the same week as I've read a $2.00 romance paperback ( mostly I just like pirates). And maybe it was more Jane Austen then War and Peace but the premise remains the same!  All literature moves us in some way or form, so why not be able to read the low and the high.  Why even be so elitist as to say that something is low and not high.  How about judging on how fast you want to turn the page, or it's ability to move you out of your head space.  After all, it's unlikely you'd have to reread the same sentence in a dime store romance like you have to in some of these high brows.

3/21- Place of the Muses

In this class today, one of the most intriguing subjects I've ever heard of has been introduced.  I had no notion that the term Museum came from the Muses.  Not a clue.  It totally changes my minds' perspective on these edifices.  Museums have always taken the place of church for me.  They are holy places, where the creation is worshipped.  And these creations have always inspired me, I just never imagined that they were created to inspire.

4/11- Polly wants a cracker

I really enjoyed this bird story.  As everyone will see in my final paper, I am fascinated by all things bird.  Even the ugly birds.  And this story is sort of a Scheherazade tale that had the story telling portion transcribed onto the bird.  Well not sort of, it is.  So what's the use of stories that aren't even true? Well they'll prevent you from eating poisoned food and being ravished by the neigbors.  That's good enough reason for me!

2/6- Daphis and Chloe

My very favorite moment of Daphnis and Chloe:  Of course its the consummation at the end.  I still want to know what trick he used. And here is my favorite image.

3/30- Hey! What's so funny?

Ahh the ecstasy of pure laughter.  That moment where there are no more defenses.  When there is absolutely nothing more you can do.  Except Laugh.
I recently had one of those
moments myself.  Like so many marriages, the time of for better has turned into worse for my own parents.  Every
occasion that involves the family is usually quite stressfull, we are all waiting for that
           upcoming, terrifying
moment when enough is enough and it's over and done with.  And we all walk on eggshells trying not to be the one who opens that doomsday door.  But I credit this very class for teaching me how to laugh.  Now I normally try to avoid spending time with my parents together, but last night was a birthday dinner.  A six course, four hour dinner.  In the past I would have mostly likely drank myself into liver failure at the stress caused by eggshell walking, but something finally broke and all I could do was laugh.  Every argument was hilarious, every uncomfortable moment turned into a chance to giggle.  I survived by laughing.  Definitely a life lesson.

4/9- The answer is ..........now what's the question?

Thank you king and the corpse.  I loved every bit of you I've read, and I'm sure i'll love every bit I've yet to read.  The story I did enjoy most is the king and the corpse.  here is yet another story where I wish I was an artist.  The imagery that this story created in my mind is magnificent.  And the the answer to the riddle?
                                         
Silence is golden.  Nothing pleases me like an answer that isn't spoken.  Maybe it's because as a teenager I was queen of the silent treatment.  Nothing annoyed my parents more than when I answered a questions with eye rolls and silence.  It rarely helped my case, but I did it anyways.  To this day I still ponder how I can get away with using silence to my advantage....

1/27: Naivete is for me

An Ephesian Tale- the naive reading

What a totally awesome story!  OK, so I can't accomplish that level of naivete but I will try a reading of this story without my skin of sarcasm and skepticism. In my mind this story is what Romeo and Juliet would look like with a happy ending.  In fact while reading this entire piece with my post-Shakespearean concept of true love I was constantly on the edge of my seat waiting for the death shoe to drop.  Waiting and waiting, until the story was done, finito, and they didn't die.  Horror of horrors they lived happily ever after.  And I was shocked.  We all have become so ready for disappointment that when it doesn't happen we're surprised.  And isn't nice to be surprised by something?  I assumed that all these stories would be so predictable that I would know the ending by page 2 and yet it surprises me every time.  I like love stories, both kinds.  I'm naive and I like it!
                                                              

1/25 Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Why can't we simply enjoy stories without analyzing them to death?
- Because it's human nature.  We all want to know who's behind the curtain.  Stories are our OZ and authors are our Wizards.  And we can never be satisfied with what's given to us.  No. We must know what is behind that curtain.  Who is the author?  What's his story and how has his past affected his writing?  What did he intend? How?Why?  Questions, questions and yet more questions.  But why must we know?  Why must we disillusion ourselves, the world will do that plenty.  Perhaps we question so that we are never taken unawares, untrusting, and unwilling to believe in something because everything is too good to be true.
Or maybe, just maybe, within each of or breasts beats the heart of an author, longing to have her/his words live forever.  Perhaps we are just looking for the way, always looking for the path that leads to greatness and  we hope that by seeing how others have done this finding how we might accomplish this ourselves.



























*Thanks Breanna for writing down all these blog topics and taking fantastic notes!

2/1- Sex Sells

Hello and welcome to the worst movie of all time.  In fact as soon as the film was mentioned in class there was a quite audible groan that emanated from every corner of the room.  We have quite a diverse class, with students of wide varying ages who come from a wide variety of hometowns with a wide ranging variety of taste.  And yet we all, or at least all who were vocal in class, unanimously disliked this film, including me.  But yet we all still have such vivid memories of it.  I don't know about everyone else, but I have a tendency to block out things like this and yet I've never been able to block out this film.  And no one else has been able to either.  So what does that imply?  Is it possible that there is a good element to be found in this celluloid disaster?  Or perhaps we all are just attracted to the excess of sex?  And is that a bad thing?



It certainly worked in Daphnis and Chloe.  And ever since reading Daphni and Chloe I can't help but see the myriad of connections that are played out between the story and the movie.  Young lovers exploring their sexuality, facing trials and tribulations, pirates (my personal favorite element of every story.  Thanks Johnny Depp!).  So it's obviously an age old truth: Sex Sells.

1/25 Topic- What did you like in stories when you were six

     

Thanks Breanna for writing down all these blog topics!

      Ok, truth be told,when I was six I loved oddities.  The book that stands out most clearly in my mind is Mrs. Piggeywiggles something or other.  I remember that my mother used to use the as a threat to what would happen if I didn't listen.  In one story in particular, there is a young girl who doesn't like to bath.  Infact she simply won't.  So the dirt piles up on her skin so deep that seeds actually start to sprout.  I'm sure the story was meant to encourage bathing but I thought it was fabulous that you could get that! dirty. so dirty that you could grow something on your skin and I'm fairly certain I did try to plant something.  Didn't work though.
                                                           

My favorite story though was actually a movie.  It was called the Last Unicorn.   In it the heroine is the very last of her kind because the evil bull loves the sight of unicorns so much that he is completely unwilling to share with the world so he captures them.  While the unicorn wanders around the woods she is captured by an evil witches caravan who puts her in her traveling zoo.  Then, when there is a threat of the bull coming, the evil witch transforms the unicorn into a women.  Some kindly zoo keeper lets her escape and she returns to the woods. Thus begins her quest to find the rest of her kind.  Along the way she meets the handsome prince.  They fall madly in love, maybe he more than she, and they continue together to find the rest of the unicorns.  They do find them, and defeat the red bull.  Then comes the ultimate choice for her return to her own form and own kind to save the unicorns or choose love.  So she sacrifices her desires for the love of something greater.  I loved the music, and the adventure.  I loved that it was a girl who was the hero and made the choices for herself.



                          

And there we have it.  My all time childhood favorite stories.

Catching up Blogs

Thank goodness for Breanna and Rio taking notes for all of us.  Since I've been a monumental procrastinator as far as blogging goes I've been reading their blogs to remind of the myriad of blog topics and class topics that we've had over the semester.  So with those two wonderfull sources, my multiple scraps of papers portraying themselves as notes and my quircky but sometimes helpful memory I'll be catching up on these blogs.  Today.  Right Now.

Kubla Khan

Once upon a fevered dream, Kubla Khan did appear it seems.  This poem was destined for greatness,and if it wasn't for an untimely visitor it would give up more than the scene staging.  But alas that is really all that we have- a great beginning.  We start with the introduction of Mr. Khan, or Kubla for I prefer to be on a first name basis with the characters.  And in his Eden-like kingdom he creates a pleasure dome.  It has a river and caverns running through it, with lots of gardens and hills.  But below the dome lies the great chasm, a savage place, with a woman moaning for her demon lover, while the echoes scream war.  But in the dome there is also an alabaster lady who enchants Kubla with her beauty, and then...nothing.  The End.
So what makes this one of the ideal romances?  I think it must be not only the poem, but also the circumstances surrounding it's creation.  I myself have had many a fantastical dream, though I only remember fragments.  But to have such a clear picture in ones mind, to actually be able to put it into words,and then to be interrupted just at the beginning of the good stuff!  Or worse, to be forever known as the one who did the interrupting and prevented the story from being fully told.  Oh the agony.  But perhaps that is what makes this story truly great is that like any amazing romance, you come to the end wanting more.  More adventures with the characters you have come to know and love.  Or in my anti-romantical case- characters that you want to see descend into the depths of darkness and chaos.  There is light and darkness, the lady on the hilltop and the one in the chasm.  You have the chance to encounter a demon lover, who just screams of death.  Now if only there were pirates this would be my choice for Ideal Romance.  Pirates and cross-dressing.

Displaced FairyTale

In 1999, in Minneapolis, Minnesota there lived a boy named Prince.  And all Prince wanted was a girl to call his princess and wear his raspberry beret.  He traveled all around the world in search of his pop rock princess.  He searched and searched and always came up empty handed- but all his possible princess' turned out to be cross dressers stuck in the 80's with rock hair.  Finally he went so crazy he actually lost his name.  Then one night, the artist formally known as Prince was auditioning opening acts.  He got a little tired and left the auditions to the club manager.  All that night it was lightning and pouring a purple rain. Just as the auditions were coming to a close the door slammed open and in walked a young lady dripping from head to toe.  The old queen, for that's what the manager was called, knew from the second he saw the girl in soaking wet pink cashmere that this was the one.  The pop princess that Prince was looking for- the girl to give him back his sanity and his name.  But just to be sure, he devised a test for her.  On the night of the big show the old queen went into the girls dressing room and placed a small pill under the couch cushions.  Then came twenty layers of crushed velvet and black leather pillows.  The singer soon came in to take her customary nap before she went on.  As she stood there at the edge of the stage the old singer came over and asked how she had slept.  Well, she said, I tossed and turned for a good long time, until I found the reason.  Someone had put a strange pill under the cushions.  Well, what did you do then? asked the old queen.  I took it of course! Said the girl.  And with that the old queen knew that this was the real thing- a real pop princess for Prince.

Xembla, Zenda, Xanadu

Alas, google has failed me.  It did not have the answer to the question of what these three words refer to.  I did learn that if you put the first letter of each line together it spells out the name of the author's son, but as for the words themselves the mystery lingers.  I believe Xembla has something to do with Vladimir Nabokov and his novel Pale Fire, at least there's an entire site dedicated to Xembla, but it never does define it.  And poor wikipedia tells us that it's a dutch television site.  Zenda was a little easier to find.  It refers to the novel The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope- which IMdb describes as a swashbuckling romance (it was made into a film in 1937), incidentally the entire novel is available as an ebook for free at project gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/95.  This leaves me with Xanadu and all I can think of is the classic film by that same name and starring Olivia Newton John which I know that we all love to hate, but I have a feeling that it might be related to Samual Taylor Coleridges poem which begins: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree."  So there we have it, the answer is: these three words are three fictional lands from three different authors.

Haroun in Wonderland

What a fabulous story!  Throughout the entire novel I felt as though I had fallen through the rabbit hole.  Images of Alice in Wonderland kept popping in my mind and it's novels like this that make me wish I was a painter.  Alas I am just a humble reader trying to answer that ever present question: "What's the use of stories that aren't even true?"  In Haroun's case it was the loss of his father's storytelling abilities that started him on his journey and propelled him to succeed in returning inspiration to said father.  The loss of stories created not only despair but an eternal night, while the reintroduction of stories created a psychedelic world of color and light.  Which coincedentaly is the point of stories that aren't even true.  They bring color to our imagination and light our way in the darkest of times.