Drew’s Blog

While we weren’t promoted to blog on Jimmy’s performance i felt compelled to comment on his rendition of the national anthem. After Revisiting my Kesey blog i would like to say that i am not opposed to all forms of governmental and societal criticism. I like to think that i have learned to appreciate innovation and inventiveness when it comes to criticism. Sure Kesey weaved his criticism throughout an excellent novel about life in a mental institution but his stance and message seem all to familiar for me. On the other hand Jimmy Hendrix simply plays the national anthem and offers no commentary (from my understanding) and leaves it all up to personal interpretation. I like to believe his message was relevant and poignant as well, differing from a “the government is making us robots” monotonous statement.

Sherman Alexie seems to have a firm grasp on the idea of what constitutes one being a “trickster.” The best example of a trickster in its purest form was the mouse who ran up Victor’s aunts pants. The mouse acted as a catalyst to her getting mad at her husband and son and going for a swim when she didn’t even know how to swim. Thats the role of a trickster. Its not just a simple trouble maker such as someone who goofs off during class or makes practical jokes. Its more intellectual and discreet. Trickster’s are sly individuals who bear similarities to ninjas, mental ninjas if you will! The only thing i didn’t completely like about this particular depiction of the trickster is that it had a positive outcome in a sense. The mother realized that she does to much for her husband and son and kind of has a moment of realization or an epiphany. The standard, most official, representation of the trickster is easily the devil himself though. I’m not one hundred percent sure on this but i believe that was the role the devil played in classic religion and even in some non-Christian religions today. Not necessarily all things evil, rather a sly foe. If you think about classic Bible Literature you can see the devil as a trickster in the story of Adam and Eve. He appeared as a snake and tricked Eve into biting the apple and we all know what happens from there. The point is the devil did this in typical trickster fashion, incurring no physical harm or overpowering will, yet planting the seeds of insubordination. You can almost stretch the Trickster into the phrase “playing devil’s advocate.” By presenting the other side of the argument ala Devil’s Advocate a lot of times you can “trick” the other person into conceding. By any means the trickster definitely is prominent character in all forms of literature and Sherman Alexie firm grasp on it shows how the trickster played a large role in Native American lore.

I obviously can only speak for myself, but aren’t we all tired of the “government is out to get me,” we are all nameless products of a huge machine garbage? I read Babbit, i took American History, i know about the industrial revolution and we all know about the less then pristine history of the United States. The whole idea of McMurphy vs. Ratchet and the idea that the mental hospital is a microcosm of the entire Country/World is absolutely absurd and makes me yawn. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book to an extent. There is nothing wrong with a stick it to the man story but Kesey’s hippie-esque hallucinogenic view of modern society is just a little to blaze and cliche for me to stomach. I’m sure Kesey typed the original book on a nice new typewriter and his book was mass produced in a dark gloomy factory, with workers who struggled to maintain their identity and slaved eight hour days with no gratification. I’m sure us here in American have it so bad sometimes. We slave the 9-5 for a company and a boss who doesn’t even know we exist. We are nameless entities of a nameless corporation and the government and ceos reap the benefits of our slavery. Right, but everyone of those factory workers has food on the table. We all have clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. Thats more then tons of people in this world can say. If Kesey really thinks the combine is going to tear him down he can go spend some time in a third world country and see how quick he wants to come back to the States and watch TV, play on his computer, and enjoy all the modern ammentities of the “combine.”

The reason i say don’t call the cliche police is because i almost feel bad by making a point about arranged marriage but i really can’t help myself. While there are plenty of other prevalent themes in the novel, sometimes it just seems to easy to point out typical American ethnocentrism. It just amazes me how people react to the idea of arranged marriage in our society. Lorca’s Blood Wedding’s main conflict stemmed from a marriage that was setup for the welfare of the entire family as opposed to love between the bride and groom. Obviously if you are writing a play love is far more appealing then the prospect of successfully continuing a family legacy so the story ended up being about love and romance, but the biggest issue i saw while discussing Lorca was some of my classmates inability to wrap their minds around the theory behind an arranged marriage. Even while reading some of the blogs people still maintain that “most people” embrace romance and love, and the attitude is that arranged marriages are archaic and will slowly be phased out. How can practicality be phased out? Arrainged marriages are practical in alot of places. (mainly Asia and western Europe) The mindset in those places is not personal gratification, its the gratification and progression of the family. Don’t get me wrong, I have had a girlfriend for several years and i happen to think we are in love and i wouldn’t have it any other way. That does not make me better or more sophisticated than anyone else though. We are the ones with the astronomical divorce rates, and definitely not the epitome of marital success.

The idea of Darwinian Capitalism vs. Communism in the book unearths an age old debate that boils down to how a country should be operated. The notion that one has to work for his riches and should not be considered equal to a mere peasent is a definitaly a fair and noteworthy one. If someone tried to say a person like Bill Gates did not deserve to be rich they are insane. Does he need to be so rich that people calculate how many hundred million he would have to spend daily in a 65 year life to go broke? No, he does not. On the other side of the coin though, should a guy who invented the structure for the organization of the world be on the same finnancial field as a landscaper? Esteban is the one who seems to be articulating his opinion on the matter. Which isn’t far off from what I would expect. He is upper class and he wants it to stay that way. My arguement to the entire passage would be is that the arguement is looking from both extremes. Unbridled Capitalism vs. absolute communism and neither are close to a successful practice. Doctors shouldn’t be equal to janitors, but CEOs shouldn’t have a salary equal to 150 doctors. I do not disagree with Estaban he makes OK points, but he is a little to myopic in his approach for me to appreciate his opinion (i know he’s just character!). In reference to the title, thats my slogan of the week to promote Capitalism in the US.

First of all let me say the concept behind Lies is totally awesome, genuis if you will. You have this site where random people are posting lies and its turning into some form of abstract prose or poetry. But i was not particularly satisfied with the method of display. The whole clicking and it switching is nice, but a novelty sure to wear off. I would have made it randomly generate lies in the form of a poem. So everytime you hit this random button you’re getting a completely random set of lies waiting to be interpreted by for possible meaning and connection. Is this set boring? Have a random button that generates a new stanza. As for the Asteroids i wasn’t a huge fan. And i do not want to be condescending in the least bit. The people who created these sites deserve alot of respect for the mere innovation. I just cannot bring myself to considerate it literature. People in class commented that it is maybe a new trend of literature and i could not disagree more. That guy who made the Asteroids sight (or girl!) could be a hack of a poet for all we know who uses a game to mask his lack of writing ability. To be honest I really do not know exaclty how to classify this, but I can say with confidence that it is definitaly not literature. Its like the opposite of a veggie berger. Instead of looking like the real thing and tasting like a cardboard box, it looks like some crazy new foray but its really just the same old burger.

The veggie burger analogy might be pretty off base, but Its really hard to decide what it is we are dealing with.

Cortez and all his Corrido’s are a very simple for of literature. Just like a fairy tail, a novel, a movie script or even a poem, all the narrarator/author wants to do is tell a story. A story of triupmth for their culture where misconception is the norm. The world is littered with stories about Americans ruling the west and winning various encounters along the border against groups of mexicans who were depicted in a not so smart light. Now you have these corridos that depict the triumpth of Cortez, a mexican, over americans in ridiculous quantities. It seems different because its in the form of a song or a ballad, but the Story of Cortez is very similar to the stories of the alamoand various john wayne movies. Just swap the roles of the mexicans and americans and grap yourself a banjo and your ready to go.

My interpretation of the stories throughout Ceremony is fairly simple. The stories are psuedo-outline for the course of the plot progression throughout the book and throughout Tayo’s journey. Tayo is struggling to find the relation of himself to everyone and thing around him due to his hybrid nature. While all along a huge theme of the stories is of how everything is interelated and intertwined to everything and everyone, the ultimate karma if you will. By the rememberance and the re-eanactment of these stories Tayo enables himself to reconnect with the community, gets over his post war stress and brings rain back to the land. The stories also go to show Tayo that people before him have been through similar sturggles and journeys. The stories also serve as a heartbeat for the laguna culture. As long as they have stories they have meaning and they have history.

“The drones will slave away,
they’re working overtime,
They serve a faceless queen,
they never question why.
Disciples of a God,
they neither live nor breathe,
But we have bills to pay,
yeah we have mouths to feed!”

- Rise Against, Drones

This is just a sample lyric from a current song on my playlist. The song is called Drones and is written about the bands hometown which is built to sustain a steel plant and where most are devout religous, but alot of them are getting finnacially unstabler by the day. So here we have a person who is using music as an outlet to express his feelings and thoughts about a particular situation he has been exposed to. This particular quote is pretty self explanatory, but one thing i love to do is get a good song and try to bring out the meaning and symbolism of the lyrics. I absoluetly think song lyrics are a part of literature and a great part. I also think that lyrics are going to be huge for the future of literature. If you think about poetry its really not as abundant as it once was in the past. The literature of our this particular time frame is deep rooted in song lyrics. From the emergence of an urban culture that was basically sprung from the civil rights movement to songs that give insight to the current political situation of our country (i.e. Billy Joel). Artists like Tupac Shakur, B.I.G., and others could very well be topics for classes and lessons 10-20 years from now.

It seems almost fitting that fairy tales were a little more risque when they started just like the popular trend in “children’s” movies lately. Which is seemingly what I understood movies like Shrek and Nemo to be. A modern inception of the Fairy Tale, filled with all kinds of crazy animation. But in the end your still getting some semblence of a moral or atleast a heartwarming story. It was almost naive to think that way in retrospect. Adults have been telling children stories in some form most likely since the dawn of civilization, its only fair they get something out of it too. Take little red riding hood for example. The toned down version most of us were exposed to is much different the the ones in grimms tales. But is it really? Moral of the story remains the same, albeit a little bit more mature but in essence its the same. But you have this added element now where the adult gets a little bit from the story too. So now we don’t have to feel childish next time we tell a little one a fairy tale, because we know that there is a little more to it.