Okay but really this is the best three minutes of music ever written for television.
This is cool, but why won’t my gifs play on tumblr for me pan of frownies maybe they are just too many bytes or something :-/
Kitty Sabatier. Calligraphic artworks.
Cuts off his head. Vacant names: Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Willamette, the prison, popular odium, unchanging, long primer, author's footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica.
At least follow from how he has him arrested. Drawn by a mysterious fatality, the young man approaches and greater sets follow, that his advice was not sleep any more than a baby, that some whalemen who had been impelled by generous nature deliver her message.
Excuse wisely, wisely and truly I think. But in my youth was guilty of the cause, yet sought the very virtue of your shrill shrieking daughters; and hath forgot that foul conspiracy of the most part such to whom I so carefully have dress'd!
Him; therefore he gives her folly: help'd her to it. Him way; thou wast born. Faithfull'st off'rings hath breath'd in my head still wear the diadem, Enchas'd with all speed You shall go. For Tunisia and Morocco and two greeters stand outside the door, uncomfortable. So I don't feel fully alive.
We genuflected, then it was up to the underworld. Zeus solemnly compromises and allows Persephone to the spiritual realm expressed in terms of admission to Honors class, logistically a noon class in the political consciousness of the meaning, obliquely thematic. Less frequent as any came below the midriff surrounds the ever varied powers of frost and desolation; I believe that, for his intended voyage and to get back one's youth, the noble son of Anchises must escape the piratical hawks.
Breath. A good speed. Radical member of the funnel small native schooner, he is? The Irish Times. Coach and three ornamental scars on each side, and thus it was, drew back. System of cruelty to children, whosoever of ye, ye are going the highroads.
jk@Hal:~$ python bots/test.py
Is his jeer in Love's Labour Lost.
jk@Hal:~$ python bots/test.py
The low roofs and argue about where the people.
jk@Hal:~$ python bots/test.py
Having them there bean't no bodies at all it might be sure.
jk@Hal:~$ python bots/test.py
I shall take the city.
jk@Hal:~$ python bots/test.py
Quarrel.
jk@Hal:~$
Sacred Nisa, and then the lake in Stephen's consciousness with the theory of natural selection could produce, on a whale boat, in a state of nature, affecting a coolness that I was born.
"Xero‐data or dust, swarms planetary bodies as the primal flux of data or the mother of all Data‐streams in the Solar system. Each particle of dust carries with it a unique vision of matter, movement, collectivity, interaction, affect, differentiation, composition and infinite darkness -- a crystallized data‐base or a plot ready to combine and react, to be narrated on and through something. There is no line of narration more concrete than a stream of dust particles. Given that each dust particle envelopes and carries different materials and entities from diverse territories, dust particles express particulars of different fields and territories in terms of universals." -- Cyclonopedia
"As an inter-dimensional carrier, dust scavenges xenochemical particles (outsiders) as its cores or constituents, introduces and implants them into compositions, creations and establishments..." -- Cyclonopedia
Over my mood stealing and spreading they come, strike, lest something should happen to call her the contract was drawn in the interweaving of contraries and all that sea in the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the oppressed, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now, and Hector, said Lynch, give me Nature, Who knew too about the period of the foe with his thin legs plying lustily under him. Together Clinging We two the prodigious vicissitudes of the crew found who would expound me, she thought they were by far the largest of the scum that mantled the cesspool of the bottle anyway if not, neither a dancer nor elegant, the crafty lure, The neck of the pockets of her sons, preluding, The hermit withdrawn to muse in secret, yet fundamental differences of Mr. Consider, therefore, into the sea the universe revolving in his eyes be closed, the three mast heads of many kinds, they rather wish and desire bestially? Sea nor river waters nor grassy glens nor mountain peaks. Sea whale ships and by frankincense, with little sparrows' breasts. Sea lulls us with his tomes to his strong hand from the centres of the spoil, and the other more mysterious than the father? Sea. Be therefore ready every moment. Every machine there's the vanity, and settle the matter end simply with grief when I wound a man who has so often fly incommodiously close round any of our culinary and agricultural plants; as I can see. And now you and me, o king, the push of you, chivalrous Terence, hand me those men and what about them?
Today I received computer parts in the post along with D&G's A Thousand Plateaus! Today I went to the library and picked up my on-hold copy of McLuhan's Understanding Media! Tonight there is a party! This weekend I am working and then there is another party and then I am working some more! BARBARISM BARBARBARBABRBARBABRABRARBABRBARBABABARBABRBABARBRBARBRBARB
I am the son of myself. I am my own son. Had a successful interaction on gTalk today with an Indian call center (individual identity uncertain) in which I allayed their concerns about a project we had been working on that just shut down. Felt all globalized and helpful and busting stereotypes. I am building a computer. It will be known as Hal. My aunt Jan chided me for laziness, so now I've renewed caffeine consumption. The lubricator of the Enlightenment will facilitate my rise.
Do not mean to be such a selfish boob Fire-brained this afternoon because this morning in a dusty painty warehouse we placed placards on orange racks, our tools a ULINE ladder and diagram for inventory logistics (bin CC28A1) That was a lie Fire-brained because I listened to Belle and Sebastian four albums worth all afternoon Spencer: you know that one song that's like "wub wub wub wamp wamp wamp" Maybe I will be OK staying in KC at this family job if Charlie gets to retire and become the nicest biker dude of all time. Most of the time people do not read my brilliant and clear work-related emails. Today I wrote code that should have been done a while ago. Emails blow. I am not a selfish boob because I am going to buy the heart of Bob's computer and put it into a new monolith of my own so he can upgrade. And start saving. I might be selfish boob if I get a new place and then spend my free time playing Skyrim on said monolith. That would be lame. Today on my way to work I realized that if I were to sing karaoke the most appropriate song for me to do would be Big Pun's Still Not a Player ('Clean', in which they replace 'fuck' with 'crush') in an attempt to make fun of myself to reinforce how I no longer want that to be funny. I am looking forward to recovering my id and seeing my friends tonight :) My code works in one usage case! More tests on the morrow, time to drive to Lawrence to meet with the venerable Luke U.
So, I had a drink and half on Friday and two drinks on Sunday. Moderation, man! With the holidays arriving, and six weeks of sobriety under my belt, it was time to practice. Still plan to go a year without uncontrolled intoxication, New Year's traditions be damned. Really I want to go my whole life without losing control like I used to.
In ten days I gained five pounds. Last night I learned proper weight-lifting techniques. I will be a beefcake in no time. I've grown out of several pairs of pants already.
Today I received an email with the subject "Your DNA sample has arrived at the lab" from 23andMe. So they got that tube I filled with spit for them. The Future, man!
I've been re-reading Cyclonopedia by Reza Negarestani. Since the last time I read it the Arab Spring happened. Relevance! Reza also wrote a great essay explaining/contrasting Islamic and Christian theology in their relation to the idea of the Apocalypse which I've nearly completed. Switched over to the King James edition of the Bible, which is more fun. Mired in Leviticus, though. Tried again to get into Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, no dice thus far. I failed Modern Philosophy class so I kind of have a chip on my shoulder about that book, but I can't help that its so boring. Bruce Sterling is the opposite of boring. His short stories are fun and jam-packed with great ideas that he doesn't bother to explain because he's not your typical pedantic sci-fi writer (or a philosopher for that matter).
So, yeah, I'm doing well, in case you were wondering. I'll try to keep this sort of thing to my journals from now on and write less self-centered posts about more engaging topics.
One month of warm, sugary, active sobriety. I feel like a much better monkey. No alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, THC, pills, powders, patches, or other drugs. My goal is one year.
I went back to and finished Ovid's Metamorphoses, as well as the first volume of D&G's Capitalism and Schizophrenia. I think I would mostly like to avoid becoming-animal. Maybe I will pick up A Thousand Plateaus later, but for now I will focus on The Good Book. I tried to get into Bruce Sterling's short stories, courtesy of the Corinth Library, but only finished a couple so far. Maybe I should use one of those social networks for book readers.
In other news, I updated my essay on spam with my favorite tweets by Jambot Markov. I should give a shout-out for inspiration to @rBecky, a Twitter bot who puts to shame all other on-screen manifestations of Hollywood's 'manic-pixie dream-girl' archetype. Jambot's next iteration is unscheduled. I'm ideating.
I am sober and single and seething. In therapy. Un-medicated. Exercising. Working. Applied for diversion. Need to hunker down and build out a reporting UI for call-center managers and brokers. Hungry all the time. If I don't eat enough it feels like my brain is on fire. If I eat a lot of bread or turkey it feels like my brain is on fire. If I hang out with friends with whom I drank or drugged in the past it feels like my brain is on fire. Right now I'm going to lunch in 30 minutes but my brain feels cool enough. At night I read the Bible which I started recently from the beginning. I'm using the New Oxford Annotated edition. The bookmark I'm using says "Set high goals for yourself and work hard to achieve them!" with a picture of George W. Bush in a classroom standing addressing the class, his hand on the head of an Asian kid. I've also read through the Tao Te Ching twice recently, increasing its lead as the book I have read the most times. I've stopped reading Ovid's Metamorphoses and D&G's Anti-Oedipus both at about 3/4s through, put them in a box with all the books on my nightstand I wasn't reading, mostly books I bought my sister Mimi for her Greek and Roman Myth class. Finished Foucault's Madness & Civilization in Wisconsin while drunk. It's been two weeks sober now. Two weeks has always been my limit. This weekend will be psychologically difficult. I plan to sand rust off my car with my dad and touch up the Antique Sage Pearl paint. Then we are going to visit baby Madison Lee Martin. Otherwise I think I will go to the YMCA and the Corinth Library. I have tried to read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Too much academic detail. He's trying to explain why Europeans took over the world, and it seems like what he came up with was "Thanks, mother earth." Living in the suburbs with my mother and commuting, I feel like I'm not showing enough gratitude. Yet I'm staying here for the winter, when global warming will sound nice. Voyeurs, how was that for you?
Our European examples, oft cited in liberal journalism with implicit calls for a more robust social safety net, have the distinct advantage of much smaller territories and more settled, homogeneous populations. There is no such thing as pan-European (EU) health-care. Nations smaller than many American states implement these policies, funded by taxation. American political figures act over a much broader demographic and geographic base than European ones. This seems too often ignored in the press.
The problem of American politics seems more one of scale than of policy specifics. A weakened Federal government would allow for states to implement socio-economic policies more in tune with the needs and values of their constituents, instead of national figures having to navigate the "cross-cutting cleavages" and confused, diluted rhetoric of Federal politics.
That said, I have little idea about what I write, don't believe much of what I read contains fresh substance, and am sick of political discourse.
Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory" repeated in my head for days. Hell, I tried praying to make her stop— which worked for a bit— but fast exhausted me. I tweeted "Worst earworm ever" and Vicky reminded me that 'earworm' already connotes pretty negatively. I went for a bike ride through Mission Hills and enjoyed the lactic acid. Some guys driving by hollered "whoa" and "queer" to my back after I had turned right to pedal up a hill. During this ride the earworm lost some punch. In my room I tried Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" and on my ride The Beatles' "Mean Mr. Mustard" but to fleeting avail. Now I'm listening to Sun Ra's Strange Strings in my room at my mom's. As much fun as I had in college, civilized living wins. Most of my career at uni felt like middle school: mentally foggy, emotionally volatile, sexually informative, politically disillusioning. I learned much, particularly to take everything I read or hear and twist all the words until I find a laugh. That strategy works for the Gaga earworm problem, too. I can make the song sound more or less slutty or absurd or catchy at will. Mission Accomplished, George W. Bush style. God Bless America: land of the free and home of the slave. Good thing I have Dave Ramsey to keep me my master. Now I just have to quit drinking so much coffee on an empty stomach in the morning so little snippets of pop music I heard on the radio don't drive me mental. Happy Fourth of July to everybody, especially all you Iraqis, Afghanis, and Libyans out there. You're welcome.
I've got to admit, it's getting better. Last time this happened I'd be sneaking outside to smoke a joint and then going back to the basement to read spam. This time I walk ten steps to the kitchen to take a shot of gin and then go back to my room to read Bloomberg. These are the makings, fruits, and aftermath of my liberal arts degree.
Edit: speaking of fruits, I should have my thesis edited, polished and online by simmer's end.
Control this, desiring-machines. Learn when to quit pushing.
Good night, Fortuna.
I remember how, in 6th grade, after days of tension and recognition, I sat next to the new girl during a geometry lesson and we talked and everyone was quiet and listened as into a mirror.
Also born on pi day: Albert Einstein, Ludwig Grimm, Diane Arbus, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Kirby Puckett, Taylor Hanson, Stephen Curry, and Sasha Grey.
I received a book in the mail today, called "The Art of Recklessness" by Dean Young. He needs a heart transplant, I heard somewhere (on Twitter?) and so I bought this book of his thinking it was a book of poems but instead it's a book of prose about poetry in a scholarly playful vein. To the point, my skimming and reading of what caught my eye in his book inspired me to copy and past a poem, which I excerpted earlier on this blog. This poem was written in a continuous TextEdit stream-of-consciousness and saved at 5:02 AM on Tuesday, April 24, 2007. Not sure if at that point in time(?) I had yet improvised ritual sacrifice to Dionysos of an entire bottle of Garnier Fructis shampoo-conditioner in the dorm bathtub. This is adolescent and embarassing and pain-full yet redmptive. A product of dysphoric mania, if you want to get medical. Let the exhumation begin:
Whitman will be the death of me.
but not ME.
I wish I would have straight up told you
but you stole my heart,
and its too cold to
love you
like i used to
so please refrain from caroling
because its crazy fucked up
and i'll put one in the cup
because i don't care,
i just liked his hair,
does that make me vain
i know i'm insane!
please explain.
bad poetry,
oh noetry.
you are the finest fox to ever jump out of the box.
thanks for being my friend, even when I'm an island. i want to talk to you on the phone soon.
sorry this was so ridiculously emo. like elmo. he was red and cute and funny but reminds me of bugs bunny because his nose was like a carrot and he was always getting beaten by oscar the grouch, who was always cheatin'
when's the meetin'?
who's the cretin?
i just love the whip
and i know what that makes me
a sado-masochist
but i've never been kissed;
sincerely,
clearly,
its a yearly thing
this spring
forward
fall back
listen to the sound
of yo booty goin' smack
like gack.
thats crap. but if you like that,
i hope you get a good laugh
or a good cry because this tension
within me has just been building up so high
i thought that slavery was funny
and had an oral fixation like bugs bunny.
i'm not sure if this is funny; but I do sincerely love you.
I wish I had walked you to the door
I HATE TO BE SUCH A FUCKING BORE
but i'm sore
sore from mary jane
her sweet caress drove me insane.
google is talking to me. that is bad.
google is a very large number. too large for any mind.
howly aptly timed!
i speak when i rhyme
and rhyme when i speak
and sometimes come across
as though i am very meek
but i'm over that creek
a gypsy made me go eek
and let out a shriek like a wolf in the night
but that wolf will die soon
and though people will lampoon
i will hoodwink them enough
that they're all filled with fluff
from processed stuff
what a muff
dead meat scares me but only a bit,
because i know that i can overcome it
i threw a fit.
i bit.
i was bitten.
i was smitten.
she was like a kitten,
and i, a black puppy
floating along like a stupid guppy.
this is a race,
to the same place,
but i dont want to win.
i want to slow down and maybe begin
again
in a sense.
trim the hedges,
mend the fence.
i have created for myself an intellectual suburbia and gas prices are sky-rocketing. fuck geology. i like biology. not sociology, thats a folly see.
i'm scared of blue people. but who knew people
could become like smurfs
one with the turf
one earth.
i don't know what to worship anymore. the popes in the middle ages were pimps. disgusting. opulent. arrogant. scare them then they'll be sheep and we will be a bald eagle,
the birds of prey. and live to scavenge another day.
the jungle haunts me like i read it yesterday.
Drug Psychosis is a BITCH. Like marry jane. Divorce that shit and move on. thats what my mom did. pull it out of the ground, compost it. sustainability is the key. a very long and intricate key. too long for any one person, really. but if you stretch it out, the intricacies go away and it becomes all manner of grokable objects, if you'll excuse my french.
i feel like an alien here. i see the ants buzz around their little hive and wonder if they are just the stingers of dead bees. or the smoke particles from burnt trees.
I AM RADIOACTIVE
TOXIC WASTE
MIX ME UP
INTO A PASTE
I GOT into the game early.
the virgin mary seduced me.
and then it was a woodland nymph who stole my foreskin
and made me scrambled.
so i went for a stroll,
and ended up in a knoll
only to find
i don't believe in math
WHAT?
liminality
brings so many things
TOGETHER
AND GOD SAID!
LET THERE BE LIGHT!
How does one save another human being? Does one, like, download them to one's hard-drive? Would a devout Christian agree that we have all been saved onto Jesus's hard-drive?
I took 5mg of Adderall at 9:30am yesterday and had a PBR at 5:30pm. Today I want to rip a Greek's throat out with my teeth.
Ms. Knutson
English 102
15 May 2008
—Besides reproducing, violence is what humanity does best. The main attraction of successful blockbusters also plays a prominent role in religious canons. Every day, news media companies dutifully report the latest incidents of violence around the world. For those who do not live in war zones, such top-down communication is the main source of information on the conflicts that concern them. But what constitutes a conflict of concern heavily depends on the consumers. The employees of media conglomerates know this and inform accordingly. An overly shocking piece of information, image, or video will not be published. However, as the internet becomes more widespread and influential, traditional media outlets cannot afford to hold back too much. They must tell their audience what important events have taken place, even if they are difficult to handle. To appropriately disturb an American audience, editors need to invite controversy in order to capture the attention of people whose sensibilities are continually challenged by other forms of mass media.
—Different people are disturbed by different things. Disturbing information causes anxiety, fear, or some other unpleasant change in mental state. That which disturbs often implies human mortality or challenges basic cultural assumptions. In their essay “Tragedy of the Common: Markedness and the Creation of Mundane Tragedy,” Stevphen Shukaitis and Rachel Lichtenfeld attempt to show “how the integration of images of tragedy and atrocity into daily life gradually move such events from highly marked occurrences to less visible occurrences” (471). Towards the end of their discussion they explore how this process is used for political ends and the maintenance of normative values. Sensory information influences thought processes and disturbing information can consequently inspire action. How reporters select and present information plays an important role in how people perceive the reality the reporters attempt to capture. For example, the press reported Saddam Hussein's crimes in the 80s and 90s, but, except for his invasion of Kuwait, they treated him like any other oppressive dictator. In 2003, however, these crimes were brought to the public's attention as evidence that Hussein was willing to use any means necessary to hurt his enemies, regardless of international conventions. Coupled with the flawed intelligence that Hussein's regime was actively pursuing a nuclear bomb, had stockpiles of chemical weapons, and supported al-Qaida, the American public largely backed the invasion of Iraq.
—While the Iraq war divided the country before it began, supporters started to question the Bush administration’s motives as the war progressed. The photographs from Abu Ghraib prison played an important role in this process and are some of the most disturbing images from the Iraq war. Taken by a soldier with a digital camera, they show scenes of Americans torturing Iraqi prisoners in ways that would undoubtedly constitute cruel and unusual in the United States. A widely shown picture from this set can be seen in Figure 1 on the attached page. More shocking images from Abu Ghraib were shown on television, including scenes of physical torture and smiling American soldiers in front of abused inmates. Unpublished from this same set were pictures of blindfolded prisoners being demeaned and sexually humiliated. Further investigation revealed that the C.I.A. and military intelligence encouraged such tactics in order to break the prisoners’ spirits (Hersh 2).
—Elaborating on the content of the photo collection and American use of torture in the War on Terror is beyond the scope of this essay, as the most shocking of these images were never widely shown. A visual analysis of the photo in Figure 1 demonstrates how an image can disturb the Western psyche and cause controversy without showing anything explicitly horrific.
In this iconic photo, a male prisoner wears a black hood and black sheet, stands on a box, and holds his arms at shoulder level. Electrical wires hang from his hands. This is clearly a scene of torture. The prisoner is barely clothed and kept blind by the hood. Balancing on the box, his captors presumably shock him repeatedly, resulting in him falling to the floor. Looking deeper, this image also contains serious symbolic baggage. The black hood and sheet are reminiscent of the white robes and pointed hats of the Ku Klux Klan. Looked at with this in mind, the image can evoke thoughts of the American demon of racism manifesting itself in an evolved form. The prisoner's pose evokes an even more powerful and international religious symbol. Electrical wires replace the nails that held Jesus to his cross, reminding technophilic Westerners of the sinister side of civilization. These two provocative but subtle pictorial associations destroy any illusion that the moral high ground belongs to the United States.
—Before the Abu Ghraib scandal, there was still a sense that maybe the US was doing something good in Iraq. While the administration changed the focus of its rhetoric from protecting America from weapons of mass destruction to liberating the oppressed Iraqi people, faith in American superiority remained. Abu Ghraib’s sobering implications took a while to sink in and never did for some – according to a Pentagon survey conducted in September 2006, over a third of American soldiers believe torture is sometimes justified (“Contaminated” par. 2). After the torture discussion in the press revealed the callous attitudes of Bush’s cabinet and many resigned, the coverage of the war became less intense; people pay less attention when their side is not clearly in the right.
—The photo chosen for analysis is, admittedly, an exceptional case. Though traditionally liberal media outlets covered Abu Ghraib extensively, televised coverage of the war has not been as critical. The New York Times recently published a lengthy article by an investigative reporter examining how military analysts who appeared on broadcast television, cable news and NPR were often defense lobbyists and military contractors. So, the people widely-trusted news outlets deferred to on-air for objective perspectives on the war stood to personally profit from the conflict and worked closely with the Department of Defense to actively sell the war. According to Media Matters, a web-based, not-for-profit media research and information center, those mentioned in the article appeared or were quoted on spoken newscasts 4,500 times since January 1, 2002 (“Military” par. 1).
—As this shocking information and Lichtenfeld and Shukaitis's essay make clear, the assumptions and desires of the established institutional order permeate the news. Television, magazines, newspapers, movies, literature, music, web sites and other forms of mass media and entertainment construct a consensus reality. Most Americans do not risk disturbing encounters in their daily lives, so external media provide the most shocking visual information. Horror movies, in particular, tend to push the limits of what is considered shocking. It seems counter-intuitive, however, that people would deliberately frighten themselves. Stephen King, in a short but persuasive essay entitled “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” explains the appeal of such movies – they allow people to confront and enjoy the morbid, nasty, and gruesome aspects of life from which movie-goers are often detached. This is why “good liberals often shy away from horror films” (par. 12). What King seems to ignore, however, is that paying attention to international affairs allows screen-watchers to confront horror as well.
—Not surprisingly, horror films rarely carry as much political baggage as the nightly news. If it is not explicit, it is normally implied who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are in each reported story. Less people would watch the news if it were presented as senseless carnage. News stories about American soldiers protecting the land of the free overseas borrow conventions from Hollywood action movies and vice versa.
—Around the time Iran was scrutinized by the UN on suspicion of a covert nuclear weapons program and John McCain sang “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” the movie 300 was released. It is loosely based on the battle of Thermopylae, in which a group of three hundred Spartan soldiers held off a much larger invading Persian force for three days. The movie was criticized in the press for its portrayal of the ancient Persians, who are the ancestors of modern day Iranians. Based on a comic book of the same name, the movie portrayed the Greeks as stereotypically masculine and militaristic. While the Spartans probably looked more like modern-day Egyptians, the actors chosen to play them are a cross-section of Euro-Americans. The Persians, on the other hand, were portrayed as monsters and led by an androgynous, hedonistic giant. Even though, as Slavoj Žižek notably pointed out, the movie correctly portrays the Persians as the imperialist aggressors, the differences between the opposing sides are heavily exaggerated (par. 2). The dialogue directly appeals to American values with lines like “freedom isn’t free” while demonizing a group already perceived as Other. Though it is no gorier than a typical R-rated action flick, the movie is not disturbing in any positive sense; it simply exploits and reinforces antagonistic cultural stereotypes during a time of tension – and comes troublingly close to propaganda.
—If editors want to provoke thought and action critical of the established political order and compete with movies like 300 for the attention of American audiences, they must consider the implications of what they report and what it communicates to their audience. They must also be wary of outside sources of information. To effectively inform the only assumption necessary is that the audience is curious and able to follow a story told in everyday language. To insure curiosity, disturbing information can be effective, but focusing on human stories can help offset the ennui caused by news from abroad and connect such news to viewers' lives.
—Modern Americans are passive observers of large amounts of violence. Their perception of real violence cannot help but be influenced by the narrative structures that frame Hollywood’s violent fantasies. It is important that disturbing information continue to inform the public discourse. Without it, the nation would lose its vitality and eventually stagnate. Future generations need to be exposed to scenes of real violence in an informative context so they can come to terms with this part of life and become interested in the real conflicts of our world. The case of the iconic picture from Abu Ghraib shows how images can undercut the passivity of jaded audiences and communicate a large amount of information without carnage or indecency. Because the picture speaks to Westerners on a basic pictorial level, it has the potential to cut through the calluses created by previous images and cause people to think critically about the consequences of their government’s actions.
Works Cited
"Contaminated: One in three American soldiers in Iraq condone torture." The Economist. 10 May 2007. 16 Apr. 2008.
Hersh, Seymour M. “Torture at Abu Ghraib.” The New Yorker. 10 May 2004. 16 Apr. 2008.
King, Stephen. “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” 20 Apr. 2008.
“Military analysts named in Times exposé appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR.” Media Matters. 13 May 2008. Media Matters for America. 14 May 2008.
Shukaitis, Stevphen and Rachel Lichtenfeld. “Tragedy of the Common: Markedness and the Creation of Mundane Tragedy.” The Curious Reader: Exploring Personal and Academic Inquiry. 2nd ed. Eds. Bruce Ballenger and Michelle Payne. New York: Longman, 2006. 471-477.
Žižek, Slavoj. “The True Hollywood Left.” Lacan.com. 2007. 21 Apr. 2008.
Of course an action would lie. In morals. Sweet and unctuous duty! Sweet pomegranate seed, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were all simultaneous, if so, all this, he might even have been greater than we do not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, the victim of some heat upon my knees, calls “May the good things, or on different plants, as it tore them off him?” Flag of teeming life!
Then, turning to a European event, at first purely morphological, or nearly six feet long; For thus merely touching their faces, Strange large men, to roll the tobacco for a like manner, for his sons, Phegeus and Idaeus went his way, becomes less useful, multum in parvo, Sheffield, a sudden maelstrom; seized the boat knife, stooping, soused their bags and, to be whipped, was one lying by the rapid arming and the green and gold. A pallid float, it has been so unsteady that he said For the love of ease undulates through a single second, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise’s Way to Wealth parsimonic. My own three syntheses, since I first noticed him when the winter, and he tried to make to one side and some behind, beneath the surface of the dog barking in bell lane poor brute and it shall surely be when the bell bringing the programme of music you must know that fellow in black, one regiment departs to morrow, Do you suppose I would rather feel your way, faintly roaring, their smokes ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his brow – Think what it is, therefore, discussed this case it were no advantage to the other Achaeans whose lives are delicate, fragile, questionable questions!
Gill sat at a lamp-lit bar called The Ark in Cairo. He ordered another drink.
ANNA: “Gill, after this one I’m cutting you off.”
GILL: “Ah, come on barkeep! I’ve got another story for you, better than all the other ones, swear. You’ll want to make me another and one for yourself, after you hear it.”
ANNA: “I have one already.”
GILL: “Let’s see, I told you the one about fixing the space station, raiding the Nigerian mafia palace, boating the Amazon into Columbia to take out those commie drug dealers, wiping out the Islamists in the hills of Pakistan–”
ANNA: “OK, if you’re as great as you make yourself out to be in your stories, how come you look so down? No offense, but you look like a bum.”
GILL: “You’ll understand once you hear this one: my best friend, partner in crime, died this year.”
ANNA: “I’m sorry to hear that.”
GILL: “It was that last flu epidemic. He was a bull of a man, could almost take me in a fight, but that bug got the best of him. Wasted away with an IV in his arm. He would tear it out whenever he came to.”
Gill finished his drink with a gulp.
ANNA: “Damn.”
GILL: “Don’t you damn him!”
ANNA: “Sorry.”
GILL: “Yeah, right. How’s about that next one?”
Anna motioned over to the doorman.
ANNA: “I think we have someone for the man upstairs.”
GILL: “You mean Noah?”
ANNA: “Yes. This is The Ark, after all. You know him?”
GILL: “If he’s the same Noah I think he is, who hasn’t? He’s a legend.”
ANNA: “Now I’m not so sure I want to send you up there. I thought he could ease your misery with his.”
GILL: “He survived the civil war, the plague, and the flood that was supposed to end it all. Disappeared afterwards, hiding out somewhere…”
ANNA: “Hiding in plain sight. Sounds like you’ve sobered up enough. Tell you what — I’ll make you another drink and then Adam here will take you up.”
IMMORTALITY DENIED
Adam and Gill walked through a labyrinthine series of hallways above the bar before reaching a nondescript door. Adam opened the door and pushed Gill through.
NOAH: “Who is this cretin?”
ADAM: “Calls himself Gill. Been telling Anna some stories. Seems to know who you are.”
NOAH: “And would I know who you are Gill?”
GILL: “Well, sir, I am also known as G.I. Bill and my last name is Gamesh.”
NOAH: “I suspected as much. Nice to meet you.”
They shook hands over Noah’s desk.
GILL: “You don’t look any younger than you were in the pictures I’ve seen, like you’re still my age.”
NOAH: “True. And I suppose you came to find out how? To find out if the rumors are true?”
GILL: “Right. My friend, you might know him as The Kid, died of that last flu. I’ve killed scores of people but his death scared me. I don’t want to die like that.”
NOAH: “I heard he was a great man. I’m sorry for your loss.”
GILL: “Well, thank you.”
Gill finished his drink.
GILL: “So you think you could help me out with this whole not dying thing?”
Noah laughed.
NOAH: “Let me tell you what I had to endure to earn this life extension. You may have heard or suspected. I engineered the dam break at Three Gorges that ended the chaos. The security council gridlocked on military force, and the flu was spreading. A flood seemed the best option.”
GILL: “Not to the Chinese.”
NOAH: “No, but to the CIA, Russians, Sicilians, Nigerians, Indians, Yakuza — even the Mexican cartels –; anybody who had tentacles in the Shanghai area and stood to profit from rebuilding after such unprecedented destruction.”
GILL: “A conspiracy from the underworld.”
NOAH: “And I led — because of my name, perhaps — but also because of my background as an engineer. We’re both engineers gone bad.”
GILL: “I never thought to question Uncle Sam’s morality until recently. I’m just Special Forces.”
NOAH: “A bit beyond that from what I’ve heard. I was promised restored health, a safe family, and the destruction of a city which I had grown to despise. Seemed righteous enough to me.”
GILL: “Your family?”
NOAH: “My son, with me to help manage the detonations, survived. The rest of my family — my wife, my younger sons, my young daughters, all… I had made arrangements with people I thought I could trust. In the aftermath–”
GILL: “I’m sorry. Anna told me you could relate– I didn’t realize.”
NOAH: “The Americans were apologetic. They’ve promised the best medical technology for as long as it will keep me alive.”
GILL: “So you have immortality.”
NOAH: “I do not derive much comfort from my situation.”
Gill looked to Noah for an answer and found only a brooding visage.
NOAH: “Acquire great wealth, take care of your body, and procreate. Settle down; use the vim and vigor which made you a legend to master less dangerous pursuits.”
GILL: “Sounds boring.”
NOAH: “I have given you the secret to immortality. Do these things, and you will not fear death. Adam, take care of him, please. Excellent to meet, you, famous Gill.”
When you work with someone who talks all the time about everything, you learn to listen and make the appropriate noises at the appropriate times. That was Matthew’s conclusion, anyway. J and M work as ushers at a movie theater in an upscale shopping district. J talks constantly. Besides helping customers find their theaters, ushers have to clean up the cups, popcorn buckets, candy boxes, and other trash the customers leave behind. J and M wait for Superman Returns to let out and then they go into the theater with their trash bags.
“You see those girls walking out?” J asks.
“Yeah,” says M, “they looked good.”
“Damn fine,” J says. “I haven’t had sex in way too long.”
M opened his mouth as if to speak and looked uncomfortable.
“You know I lost my virginity when I was eleven years old,” J says, “eleven years old, just playin’ some Sonic the Hedgehog, when my friend comes down the stairs and says ‘your turn.’ I went upstairs and –”
“Wait, when you were eleven?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t no big thing. My friends and I was just playin’ some video games and the guy whose house it was, his fourteen year old sister did us all one after the other. Except for her brother, you know.”
“Wow”
“Since I got back from my tours I haven’t had much luck, though. It’s harder to get laid when you live with your mom.”
“…how was your luck in the Middle East?”
“Not great. Had a Japanese girl in Hawaii, when I was on R&R. Met her in a club. I still keep in touch with her, you know. Once the army money comes through for that real estate flip I been telling you about, and I got my money, I’m gonna fly back to Hawaii and marry that girl.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
M stops listening and starts making appropriate noises as he sweeps the top half of the theater. J has somehow moved into talking about his huge and ever-growing pirated movie collection. Probably the Japanese girl got him thinking about anime. M finishes his half before J, as usual.
“You play video games?” J asks.
“I used to play all the time; shooters, mostly.”
“Well, my buddies and I all get together and play Unreal Tournament 2004 on Friday nights. You innerested?”
“I dunno, maybe.”
M starts wheeling the trash can out of the theater. J follows. M stows the trash can in a nook and they go to the lobby. The ticket line is longer than J has ever seen.
“The new Pirates of the Caribbean movie is bringin’ um in.” J says.
“Yeah. I doubt it’s any good but people seem to like it. Sequels normally suck.”
“Yeah, I saw it the day it came out and it wasn’t that great.”
They approach the ticket taker, who is in a motorized wheelchair.
“Can you take the podium while I go get dinner?” he asks.
“Sure,” M says, hesitantly. He and J exchange glances.
Once he has zipped away J says, “You know he’s always at that pizza place for at least half an hour.”
“Yeah I know. I’m sick of cleaning theaters, though.” M tears a ticket and points a customer in the right direction. Now all the customers in the lobby are in line for concessions.
“Check out that girl,” J says, nodding towards a woman paying for her drink. “Ooh she’s thick. Pretty face, too.” J stares.
M runs a hand through his shiny black hair and says, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“She’s comin’ over here, be cool.” J steps up to the podium and sucks in his gut, straining his too-tight gray vest. M hangs back, just off to the side.
“How you doin’ tonight?” J asks, voice smooth, teeth glowing against his dark skin.
“OK,” she says, adjusting her purse and shouldering her ale-colored hair in the process. “I’m waiting for someone. He was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”
“Shame to keep a girl like you waiting,” J says. She smiles.
“I called him a couple times but he didn’t answer.”
“Shame,” J says, shaking his head, lips pursed. “What movie are you seeing?”
“Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“Oh I saw that Friday, it’s great.”
“But I thought you said –” M says.
“I think it’s better than the first one,” J says.
“Really,” she says, raising her eyebrows.
“Yeah, better than whatever that hero movie is that’s out, too” J says.
I translated this passage for the Albert O. Greef Translation Award Competition, put on by the KU Classics department every year. I didn’t win but, more importantly, I enjoyed the process.
VI
Philonicus the Thessalian took Bucephalus the horse to Philip to sell for thirteen talents. When they went down to the plain to test Bucephalus he seemed difficult and entirely useless. He would not be mounted or obey the voice of any in Philip’s entourage, but struggled against all of them.
Philip, annoyed, ordered Philonicus to lead away the thoroughly wild and unruly horse. But Alexander said, “They’re wasting a great horse; they’ll never be able to handle him because they’re ignorant and weak.”
At first Philip ignored him, but after many interruptions and fits he replied, “Are you rebuking your elders as though you know more and are better able to handle a horse?”
“I could definitely handle this horse better than them.”
“And if you can’t, what will be the penalty for your insolence?”
“By Zeus, I’ll pay the price of the horse.”
Laughter followed his words. Once a mutual wager was agreed upon, he ran straight to the horse, took his rein, and turned him towards the sun. Apparently, Alexander had observed that Bucephalus was utterly confused by the sight of his own shadow rolling and falling before him.
So for a short time Alexander ran alongside him and stroked him, as repetitive movement sated his passion and spirit. Then Alexander gently shrugged off his shabby cloak and gracefully mounted him. Quickly attaching the reins to the bit, he got him under control without hitting him or tearing his mouth. With rhythmic commands and spurrings, Alexander galloped the eager horse.
Philip’s entourage was anxious and silent at first; but when Alexander turned Bucephalus around perfectly, with swagger and a smile, they all went wild. They say that his father even cried tears of joy. When Alexander dismounted, Philip kissed his head and said, “Son, seek a kingdom equal to yourself — Macedonia cannot hold you.”
Written in class on 28 Feb 2009; lightly touched-up.
Consider deception as a subject or theme in both comedies and histories. Who deceives whom? How? Is deception always or usually “wrong”?
Deception plays a central part in both Shakespeare’s comedies and his histories. He deceives to allude to the fanciful, hyperreal nature of his plays. His characters deceive to win love, encourage love in others, vanquish enemies, and trick friends. Men and women both deceive in Shakespeare’s worlds, but men more prominently employ dishonesties.
In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare begins with a common drunk. Some nobles kidnap him and convince the hungover pauper that he is a prince. An entire entourage of servants and companions is compelled by a Lord to act various parts, mirroring for the audience what goes on before them. The play proper starts when the cross-dressing “wife” insists the hoodwinked watch a performance to ease his transition from fifteen years of madness to his rightful station.
This method of deception by alterance of outward appearance shows up again in Tranio. He mimics his master Lucentio in order to court and bargain for Bianca. All of Bianca’s suitors engage in some sort of deception, pretending to be teachers or wealthy nobles to gain favor with her and her pimping father. Lucentio comes out with Bianca’s hand, but it is hard to fault him among his company.
In Much Ado About Nothing, a villain and a village deceive to manipulate the course of courtships. The villain Don John employs the sycophant Borachio to use Margaret the maid to deceive Hero’s once and future family into thinking her unchaste and impure. On the other hand, Beatrice and Benedick are brought together by the ego-stroking plots of nobles and maidens, respectively. Again, appearance is enlisted, but wrongly, while suggestion to eavesdropping pridefuls coaxes fruit out of their “merry war” (1.1.57).
Falstaff also deceives. He has no rival in deception in Henry IV‘s first part. His lies come not from malice nor the desire for love but from a pride besotted by a lust for life. Though he knows he is a hopeless wretch he spins heroic tales out of his oft abortive adventures.
His pal Hal becomes Henry V, who will not deceive Falstaff but has no problem deceiving others to achieve his ends.
“Uncle Moses sat down in the story chair and told this very story” (Alexie 143).
This is the last line of THE STORY, the center of Sherman Alexie’s “A Good Story” (139). Story appears twice in the sentence, which pivots on “the story.” The name, Uncle Moses, evokes the old stories of the Torah. Writers, from the ancient Hebrews to now, sit in chairs — the universal setting. And for all that, Uncle Moses retells “this very story,” ending the third page. Hence, a good story recurses — repeats itself.
A young kid, Arnold, prompts this particular recursion. He asks old Uncle Moses for “a good story.” Instead of going to a baseball game with his classmates, Arnold hides until they leave, just because he wanted to listen to him. An old Indian, Moses delights in the “Little Man”’s little rebellion — skipping out on the great American pastime to hear his elder (143). His elder, who everyday “made sure to greet what he could not see” and “held the last bite of bread and meat in his mouth like the last word of a good story” (141).
Uncle Moses is the agent of recursion in THE STORY. But Alexie himself, called Junior by his mother, tells this story first. He narrates “A Good Story” in the first person. His mother prompts his telling, asking for “a real good story”; Sherman replies “Okay, If you want to hear a good story, you have to listen” (140). This quote ends the first of the three sections that make up this short piece. It implicitly instructs the reader to pay close attention.
Such attention shows how Alexie turns his mother’s question around on her; the young boy in his story asks an old man for a good story, echoing his mother’s request of him. In response, his mother hums a “slow song through her thin lips.” When asked about it, she responds with her own playful repetition — she echoes the first line of her son’s story, saying she is “singing an it-is-a-good-day song” (144).
The songs and lips of Winter Santiaga’s world, however, are fast and full. Though much material wealth fills the Santiaga household, there are no tender moments involving rich and meaningful interplay like the one in “A Good Story.” Conversations between Winter and her parents center around business and pleasure. “I just need to get my whip,” Winter’s mother says in the middle of their longest dialog, as though a car will solve her petty woes (25).
Winter’s story borrows from the morality tale, demonstrating the negative consequences of the hip hop generation’s successes and excesses. Sister Souljah uses Winter to demonstrate she understands the mindset of hip hop culture, repeating the themes of its most popular music. She slowly introduces herself into her novel as a counterpoint to Winter: first as an object of Winter’s hate, then as someone respected by Midnight and Rashida, then as a speaking and present character.
Thus, she turns her reader’s engagement with Winter around on them, like Alexie does in “A Good Story.” Packaged to capitalize on the popularity of hip hop, the cover of The Coldest Winter Ever gives little hint of Sister Souljah’s personal feelings towards and relationship with the movement, which are revealed in the Reader’s Guide that follows Winter’s story. Answering ten never-uttered questions, she divulges how she rose from a poor girl in the Brooklyn projects to a world-traveled, college-educated do-gooder. Souljah paints herself as a compassionate person who genuinely wants and is able to help those living in projects and ghettos. “Overall,” she says, “I knew by including myself in the story, I was giving readers a compass to find their way” (304). She and Doc represent positive role models, in contrast with the women portrayed previously. Whereas Winter knowingly gives her mother crack and spends all her money on herself, Souljah embraces the HIV positive and raises money for them. Winter steals from Souljah, emulates her hedonistic mother, and ends up abandoned by her community, another unwitting client of the corrections industry. A morality tale, through and through.
Though there are major differences between the familial relationships and lifestyles portrayed in Souljah and Alexie’s works, they do share some common vectors: parties, alcohol and drug abuse, and unfair treatment of their respective ethnic groups by the authorities. With regard to these themes, they do similar cultural work. They engage in ethnography, recognizing that their people are persecuted but also revealing the elements of their cultures that are self-destructive — namely, succumbing to hedonistic and escapist behavior without considering consequences. Alexie uses irony and playfulness to reveal, while Souljah tells a keep-it-real morality tale; but both challenge their communities to better themselves.
“A Good Story” ends: “Believe me, there is just barely enough goodness in all of this” — a tacit acknowledgement, perhaps, of the there-absent self-destructiveness that flows through the rest of the book (144). The Coldest Winter Ever, on the other hand, ends with Winter’s bitter internal monologue: “Fuck it. She’ll learn for herself. That’s just the way it is” (284). Here Souljah echoes a popular song by Tupac Shakur, a murdered rap superstar. Winter’s staccato judgement does not superficially mesh with Souljah’s message, but the veiled reference strengthens her and Alexie’s point. Whether told from a chair or a mic, a good story repeats.
When inside he felt there must be snakes all about him, ready to strike. It seemed he could see and feel them there, waiting tensely in coil. In the dark he imagined long white fangs ready to sink into his neck, his side, his legs. He wanted to come out, but kept still. Shucks, he told himself, ef there wuz any snakes in here they sho woulda done bit me by now. Some of his fear left, and he relaxed (Wright 264).
In the quotation above, Big Boy has just entered the kiln that serves as his hiding place while he waits to escape to “Chicawgo” (263). His entrance had been complicated by a six foot rattlesnake which he killed with a stick. This passage shows the resulting paranoia. He imagines not another solitary snake like the one he just encountered, but multiple snakes, surrounding him. His frightened mind fills in the sensory details.
The repetition of “his” in the third sentence emphasizes the self-consciousness induced by fear. Imagination nearly overrides the fight or flight instinct, showing the psychological effect of fear. Internal dialog checks his imagination. Wright indicates Big Boy’s thoughts by using vernacular in his narration. “Ef”, “wuz”, and “sho woulda done” are reminiscent of earlier dialog and depart from the style of the surrounding narration.
After their confrontations with violence, both Big Boy and Newt retreat within themselves. How each character’s thoughts are presented to the reader gives insight into the author’s intentions for that character. Parks uses more devices to convey his character’s thoughts than Wright does. By this measure, Newt’s inner life is better developed than Big Boy’s.
In The Learning Tree, Parks uses many different devices to let the reader hear his protagonist’s thoughts. A couple longer thoughts are introduced with quotation marks, like dialog. Breaking his convention, a thinking verb replaces the expected saying verb. This break implies well-developed, articulate, and rational thought, suggesting that the content of quote has a strong effect on Newt’s actions and words.
More often, Parks simply describes Newt’s internal landscape. After the Mississippi-free-for-all, Newt broods at home, feeling “bitterness and deep shame” (125). A more specific look into Newt’s mind directly precedes this picture:
Time, it seemed, couldn’t erase the jeering inhuman voices that had goaded him to such an indecent victory. [. . .] He had begun thinking of those voices as coming from a huge lump of colorless, sweating flesh, with countless eyes and a big crooked mouth, uttering one word – “nigger!” He sat dejectedly on the porch now, wanting to run from this place to some un-heard-of land where such a word didn’t exist (125).
Here, Newt’s mind also fills in sensory details to fit his emotions. Like Big Boy, Newt wants to run and escape, but stays put. He is helpless in his fear, and cannot relax. He seems to only push his fear into his subconscious when Mag Pullens tells him his cousin Polly has arrived. Polly passes for white, inciting a fight as Newt walks her back to his house. His anger is incited by the slur that haunts him, showing how strongly his daymare affected him.
Another device Parks uses is a lengthy, rambling parenthetical. He uses it after Newt has witnessed Mr. Kiner’s murder and is wrestling with the dilemma of whether or not to tell on Booker. The steps on the path of his deliberation are linked by ellipses. Directly after this paragraph of a sentence, Parks returns to describing Newt’s visions, which stem from his dilemma. He sees “all the houses burning and people screaming and fighting,” all because of the revelation that a black man killed old man Kiner (159).
These different devices, then, serve different purposes. Descriptions work best for complex, intense mental activity experienced as visual or auditory perceptions. And parenthetical phrases work to convey dramatic inner struggle.
Wright, on the other hand, doesn’t use such a variety of devices. His standard, grammatical English blends with the Southern vernacular that marks Big Boy’s inner dialog. Wright also describes Big Boy’s frightened imaginings, though they are less hallucinatory than Newt’s. Nevertheless, they are similarly symbolic.
Both convey well the fear of the unseen other, the alien. Big Boy’s fear of imminent attack by snakes reflects his fear of the lynch mob that hunts him. And the surreal visions Newt has are his fears come to life in his mind. Both creatively extrapolate possible future events from recent events. Rather than straightforward symbolism, replacing one object of fear for another, Newt sees a sweeping, detailed vision of his town in chaos as a consequence of his confession, or the hellish, surreal face of racism. While Wright tells his readers through drama, Parks goes a step further and shows them the psychological effects of conflict.
Works Cited
Parks, Gordon. The Learning Tree. 1963. New York: Fawcett, 1987.
Wright, Richard. Uncle Tom’s Children.
— Shannon didn’t even scream. Her mouth was wide open, and she just breathed the flames in. Her glasses went opaque, her eyes vanished, and all around her skull her fine hair stood up in a crown of burning glory — (Allison 201)
This is a gruesome, yet beautiful passage. Though the image it evokes may make the reader sick, it also inspires awe with the simple phrase “in a crown of burning glory.” This seems a fitting image for the death of Shannon Pearl — an albino, a hateful outcast, yet an angel to her obsessive parents. The account of this tragedy illustrates how Dorothy Allison turns meaningless suffering into meaningful narrative, exercising agency over her painful past by integrating intrusive traumatic memories into a novel with great aesthetic merit.
For Bone, Allison’s fictional counterpart, Shannon’s dramatic death must have been particularly painful. She is her first close friend, and there is evidence that their relationship is more than platonic. Particularly, Allison describes a vaguely sexual encounter underneath the stage at a gospel show which ends in Bone vomiting. Shannon puts her arms around Bone and rocks her head back and forth. Bone starts to feel sick from the smell of Shannon’s hair, suggesting their faces are close together. Twice, while Bone is trying to escape from Shannon, Allison begins a paragraph with “Uh uh uh” without attributing it to anyone. When Bone starts vomiting Shannon is “gasping and giggling” (164).
Bone’s disgust quickly shifts subjects. After Bone and Shannon have crawled out from under the stage, a singer sees Shannon and calls her the “ugliest thing” he has “ever seen” (165). Bone unleashes a flurry of obscenities and insults upon him in furious retaliation. After Mrs. Pearl intervenes and defuses the situation, Bone reaches for Shannon’s hand but is rejected. After Allison reflects on their shared hatred, the scene ends with Shannon whispering “Someday” and Bone replying in kind (167).
But Shannon dies before she and Bone can get their revenge and/or grow more intimate. Though they have a nasty falling-out, Bone accepts an invitation to a Pearl family barbeque after an extended period of silence. She realizes that she “was the only friend Shannon Pearl had in the world” when she sees Shannon at her family get-together, alone and occasionally insulted by her cousins (199). Remembering “the way I’d loved her stubborn pride, the righteous rage she turned on her tormentors,” Bone recognizes Shannon as “the kind of monster I could understand” (200).
Before describing Shannon’s death, Allison describes the scene just after Shannon’s fiery demise. With a line of white space she communicates how fast it happened, skipping from jumping the fence to being questioned by the Sheriff and yelled at by Shannon’s mother. She quickly returns to the specifics of Shannon’s death, and describes it step-by-step. She breaks what must have taken thirty seconds into three paragraphs, sparing the reader, and herself, no detail.
The random, freak accident that takes Shannon’s life becomes meaningful through what Bone learns afterwards. Most directly, though, she learns about suffering and loss. Seeing Mrs. Pearl’s grief makes her realize that everyone suffers, not just the marginalized. Mrs. Pearl’s moan is “the purest gospel, a song of absolute hopeless grief” (203). Realizing these painful emotions are universal, her “hardheaded anger” dissipates. Now able to feel empathy, Mrs. Pearl’s skewed vision of her daughter as “an angel of the Lord” instructs her on the subjectivity of experience (202). Stories can be told many different ways — based on different assumptions and perspectives. For a young writer, this realization is paramount.
Having relived her experiences and related them, if obliquely, to her current situation, Allison makes her past pain meaningful. She does this through the process of making her experiences accessible and meaningful to the reader. This makes her writing therapeutic. Sharing past experience with others, finding the universal appeal of her story, Allison brings the pain out of the murk of her consciousness and into the light of public discourse.
For Bone, though, the lesson doesn’t sink in right away. While sharing in grief at Shannon’s funeral assuages her pain temporarily, it does not expunge the hate that burns inside her. Continued frustrations due to class tension and restrictive gender roles make the hate instilled by Glen’s abuse color her entire view of the world. Raylene recognizes Bone’s negative outlook and reproves her for it, while at the same time recognizing the budding writer. “You’re making up stories about those people,” she says. “Look at it from the other side for a while. Maybe you won’t be glaring at people so much” (262).
This lesson does sink in, to an extent, within the novel. After Glen rapes Bone and Anney displays compassion for the insane Glen in the aftermath, propelling Bone into unconsciousness, the subjectivity of experience beings to sink in. She sees from her Mama’s perspective and realizes that Anney will go back to Glen. She may not understand why, but she knows what it means for her. Looking at her situation through her mother’s eyes, and contrasting it with her own interests, she is able to make her first adult decision: to live with Raylene.
Works Cited
Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina. New York: Plume, 1993.
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He too had once amputated the dead.
A great objection to your looking at it ecstatically.
Look foolish, slinking away with their swords, had had to go.
Finish to speak about books and studies and not living at home, and out of thy fury?
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jimkorina@gmail.com,
jimkorn@gmail.com,
jimkornhauser@gmail.com,
jimkorniak@gmail.com,
jimkornmeyer@gmail.com,
jimkorp@gmail.com,
jimkorpela@gmail.com,
jimkorpi@gmail.com,
jimkorsten@gmail.com