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.