I went to hear Montana's Poe Laureate Sheryl Noethe talk and read poems tonight at the Museum of the Rockies.  I don't really know much about poetry, the only poet I've read a lot is Baudelaire.  Noethe's poetry is "free verse" I believe they call it and is entertaining while she reads it aloud.  She says poetry is meant to be read aloud and I agree.  She said something though that quite frankly pissed me off, well two things.  She said she doesn't memorize anything and why when poetry is to be read aloud.  Ancient Greek used to memorize all of Homer and thought it was only a challenge to recite it backwards.  The few things I've put to memory have been worth all the time in the world putting the words into my head.
The kicker though was that if a poem is read aloud or read by an individual and does not get it the first time, then the author of the poem is a bad poet.  I'm rather curious what Dr. Sexon and everyone else in the class thinks about this.  But talk about dumbing the whole fucking populace down to a level or rather dumb playing field.  Every reader brings something different to the table when reading a text, but to all get it the first time seem a little...communistic in a George Bush's perception.
I've read a fair amount of Marx and Marxism does not call for a bunch of sheep marching in a herd saying, "I fucking get it."
Again I don't know much about poetry, but I know a little about literature and if everyone got "it" then there would only be tabula rasa and no point to read.

The past possesses the present in Symbols and Signs using myth, including the bible, and in a way shows that there is no new future.  Nothing can be done today that has not already happened in the past.  Only different agents of agency, but the same actions are done as it has been done ad infitnium. 

            In a lazy first reason the reader would see only a story about two parents whose son commits suicide, perhaps.  The first clue is the “ten” different fruit jellies and we can think of the Ten Commandments.  The mother wears cheap black dresses, like a nun does, and lives next to Mrs. Sol (sun) who gets dolled up everyday and is not pious.  The father’s now dependent on Isaac, his brother. This refers back to the Old Testament.  The father had to leave Europe for the anti-Semitism as the Old Testament tells of the Israelites searching for a homeland, or reclaiming one.

            Every thing that the mother sees, she turns it into a memory from the past so not to live in the present.  As Elliot writes, going forward is going backwards and vice versa, the mother is trying to go back in the present.

             With tracing of religion, I believe the son was waiting for the apocalypse in myth terms.  The doctor gave the parents an article describing his illness, which spoke of a “veiled” reference to his personality and existence.  The son was waiting for the apocalypse or unveiling so he could find his freedom and escape his pain.

            The references to religion, and religion coming from Latin meaning superstation, and super meaning “higher.”  The images of flying and a injured bird twitching in a puddle starts to seem more important and relevant clues.  The son had already tried jumping to his salvation but another patient interrupted the attempt because he thought the son had learned to fly according to the doctor.

            The mother looks at pictures from the past and stops at three pictures of the son.  She remembers how the past was better and the past still clings on to her.  The three pictures show that a myth is playing out now in the present.  Then as the mother recounts all of the pain that she and her husband have endured over the years, we cannot but think of Job.

            The past possessed the present in this piece because the son’s desire to fly has already happened as Icarus did.  The parents are going through countless trial and tribulations as Job did in the bible.  Nabokov happens to be a clever plagiarizer and writes a good story of the past.

            If I was on a deserted island and had two books, The Bible and Ovid’s Metamorphoses at least I’d have all the books in the world and there would be no time.  

I thought that I was somewhat well read but now I'm realizing that I'm going to have to go back and reread a lot of books.  I wish Frye's Secular Scripture was the text for my literary criticism class.  Even though I'm an English major, I don't really care for much English lit.  I prefer the Romans, French and the Russians.
However, as Frye is pointing out that no matter how great we think a writer is at telling stories, he/she is simply retelling a myth or heaven forbid displacing something out of the bible.  Reading the bible isn't high on my list, though I see how it is necessary to understand ALL literature.
This past summer I did an internship at a paper in North Dakota.  I thought of it as more as telling stories rather than the cold hard facts.  I stuck it to the oil companies on a couple of stories and really watched my language.  Frye says, "The development of writing throws a heavy emphasis on the descriptive aspect of words, and consequently a writing culture tends to identify truth more and more completely with truth of verbal correspondence."
My first thought to this was what's the truth then and who's doing the talking.  When I took mythologies from Prospero I thought being a mythic detective was a clever catch phrase.  Yet in everyone's displacement stories myth is clearly alive and well today.  So as I think Gerrit said in class going back is going forward.  Only perhaps we don't have to go anywhere at all.
I think Campbell said that what was considered virtuous hundreds of years ago is now considered vice.  Frye talks about sex and violence as a part of romance but not romance in itself, I think I get that.  Frye defines literature as an aspect of the human compulsion to create in the face of chaos.
For whatever reason, this makes me think of Voltaire's Candide.  The first time I read it, I thought well that's kind of funny.  Then when I read a little bit about what was going on in 18th century France and reread Candide, I quickly realized why he was exiled from France.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that in life we have a choice to enter chaos and do physical destruction, or we can read or write about so we don't do fucked up things and experience true pain.

Breaking News

Bozeman Comical-

Yesterday, a woman reported being attacked while looking at an open house.  According to Detective Javert, Bozeman police responded to the scene at 3 o'clock p.m.  Molly Brown was house shopping for her grandmother and was following the Parade of Homes.
Driving her yellow Volkswagen Bug, she decided to go off the map and check out some cottages up Hylite.  She noticed a black Mercedes with a bumper sticker "Where's John Galt" following her and thought it was just another prospective home-buyer.
At a house on Sth CottonWood, the woman approached Miss Molly Brown, 24, and asked several seemingly harmless questions.  She allegedly parted and said, "See you around dear."  The woman has now been identified as Sarah Johnsrud.
Molly Brown entered a house on Stucky Ave and noticed the next door neighbor picking apples.  She waved to the small man.  While she was in the house, she heard footsteps and then Mrs. Johnsrud took Mrs. Brown to the ground and kept trying to bite her mouth.
Mr. Valjean, a retired French teacher heard screaming and ran over to the house.  He pulled Mrs. Johnsrud off of Mrs. Brown and sat on her until police arrived.  When police arrived, they could not subdue Mrs. Johnsrud and subsequently tasered  her.
Mrs. Brown told Detective Javert that she was eternally grateful to Mr. Valjean and that she would stay to the map next time while house hunting.
Mrs. Johnsrud was taking to Bozeman Deaconess and was treated from being tasered.  She will be arraigned on Friday and is currently being held on $50,000 bail for Felony Assault.

I tried the "air quotes" a couple of times and got no response.  But in another class I have with Jerrod, Jerrod was making a point in class and used the quotes and got a chuckle out of me.
I finished The Magus yesterday, and like Anna I could not put it down.  I found myself putting off other things and focusing on the book.  I'm really curious on what everyone else in the class thinks about the book.  I reckon that I have several misreadings and have read into many things as well. 
Nicholas Urfe reminds of the main character in Camus's The Stranger.  Open to the idea of love, but not sure how to love.
I'll stop for now.  However, it's not very often that when I finish a book that I want to start reading it again or keep thinking about the book.  At least I know why in this case.

 

On Saturday I was working on siding a house and our air hose blew out on us.  I had received T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" on Friday so I thought it would be a good time to take a gander at Burnt Norton.
I read aloud and my dog Athena looked at me and then started running around again after a page or so, but I was stuck on the line "If all time is eternally present-All time is unredeemable."
I'm not sure if this means that time doesn't matter or if one is simply to live in the moment.
"There would be no dance, and there is only the dance."  Now when I read this I'm starting to think that the rose garden is the place to be.  Page 18, the descend lower part reminded me of Karl Marx and I like Marx.
The line "but that which is only living can only die" stopped me.  I've often thought that I want to truly live and experience life, not just become a slave to consumerism and work a boring 9-5 job.  That  decision probably explains a lot of why I made a lot of bad decisions when I was younger.
Maybe it's because I'm a hopeless romantic and two or three of my favorite books "Les Miserables, War and Peace, and Lost Illusions," I disagree that love is itself unmoving.  But what do I know?
I was going to reread the quartet, but Scott made it back with the hose.  I thought about the quartet, but my buddy Scott is an engineer and not real big on literature.  So I was left to my wondering thoughts.
On Sunday we're going to town and somehow Scott shoots himself with the nail gun in his leg.  He tells me to take it out and he's not bleeding so instead of taking the nail out, I take him to the ER.  Scott is a big boy and the nurses are telling him to quit walking and he's simply really pissed off that this has happened.
I think back to the quartet and where somewhere Eliot says, "Only through time time is conquered."  Time will heal Scott's leg, but time will also multiply his frustration after the summer he's had.  Once they pull the nail, Scott says, "Let's go home Zacharoney."
For the "time being" I'm hoping that construction will continue to pay for school and get me to the rose garden.  I also hope that the laughter of the children in the foliage were laughter of joy and not laughter of two idiots siding on the weekend when they should have been home.