Dr. Linda Sexson's Guest Lecture

Dr. L Sexson's lectures this past week on morality in Children's lit were really fascinating. I enjoyed myself on both days and felt that I really learned something about the nature of "text" for children's lit.

Firstly, attempting to define "child" was more difficult than I had expected. I really thought that I could do it, but the more I thought about the limitations of each definition, the more I decided that "child" is one of those indefinite terms. Similarly, so is "adult." "Adolescent." "Young Adult." Do these have to do with maturity? Age? Experience? I don't really know what I think about that, but, it seems that we should at least know "child" to know the literature associated with it? Right? Secondly, how do we define literature? Is it imaginative or informative? True or false? These are big questions and I don't know...Just thinking things through. :O)

Our discussion of the Religions of the Books' views on children were quite interesting. Dr. Sexson argued that:
1. Children fulfill the patriarchal promise: I can see this. Men, especially it seems of certain ethnic backgrounds, view the conception of a son as a comment on masculinity. I think that men more often than women seem to be disappointed by the lack of a son. They want their sons to be able to continue on as rulers of the society (patriarchy).
2. Children are the pleasure of one's old age: I agree here in a way. The children are more like caretakers than joys. I think grandchildren are the joys. What if one has no children though? I suppose this speaks to why children were so valued and, arguably, necessary to these societies.
3. Children are a risk: DEFINITELY! What if parents invest thousands of dollars into their child's college education and he decides he wants to be a struggling artist. That's, potentially, a lot of money lost. But, I think that the potential joys would outweigh the potential risks of parenthood in most cases.

The history of the early Primers was also really intriguing. The Protestant Reformation lesson brought me way back to AP European History in 10th grade. That was exciting. But it's interesting to see the progression from pre-printing press onward with all of the integral steps in the birth of a literature for children.

More on this later.

Modern Fairy Tale Assignment

I decided that I would evaluate and explicate Allison's fairy tale because Allison rocks my socks and cracks me up.

As far as the level of displacement in her "Brass Ring" story, I think she did quite well. Using a cellphone instead of the golden ball was a great way to bring the story into modernity. Not only do cellphones provide entertainment if one enjoys gabbing for hours and playing little video games, they are also incredibly important for storing information. I don't keep my formal address book updated, but I do keep my cellphone loaded with recent numbers. I would forget some birthdays without my little reminder screen that pops up. Sometimes the phone even tells me what day it is if it's been an especially long week. :O) So in that way, the cellphone really worked well for Sarah to lose because what would she do without it? A golden ball?...Just entertainment compared to the necessity of the phone.

Allison has also definitely brought in our modern superficiality and celebrity obsession. The merger is described as "a gala affair, all B list celebrities, minor society folk, and recent reality TV expatriates". That is a perfect description of the people that we see in the pages of weekly entertainment gossip magazines and on "The Surreal Life." Sarah's big break is on "Oprah". Allison places Sarah in a situation with the Pepin family in which she must fake them out to make herself look good. She ends up being like those minor celebrity folk whose identities are tied up in the marketability of themselves. I think that Allison is commenting, whether consciously or not, on the personas that we perform to the public compared to the people we really are and our true motivations.

Allison's tale is definitely literary. She is an excellent writer. Her description of people and places in engaging and makes the scene appear in my mind. She also does an excellent job of tying past with present in the form of Sarah's attempted business ventures. There is a clear explanation as to why this guy is so important to her future. However, Amir's importance to Sarah is not in his ability to support, love, and provide for her like it would be in a traditional fairy tale relationship. No, Amir is, for Sarah, a key to her own success as a business woman. I love that twist. Give the lady some independence outside of love. The ladies of "Sex and the City" would be pleased.

The names Allison uses are perfect, of course, for these characters. Sarah is the Hebrew for "princess" while Amir means "prince". The names themselves put the characters on a higher level once we read beyond the literal level. I must admit, Allison told me the significance of the name Amir. I knew Sarah, but, Allison explained her name choice to me prior to my reading the text.

Now, I may be "reading in" too much, but, because I had just watched "Space Balls" before sitting down to do this...Is the name Schwartz in the text an allusion to "Use the Schwartz"? How is it even spelled in the movie? Just trying to make a connection.

Allison's story rocks. I enjoyed reading it. I also enjoyed reading Michelle's story and Bridgett's and Lindsey's and Fallon's....everyone did a great job. We have some future authors in our midst, I believe. :O)

Displaced Fairy Tales

Bravo! So far, all the fairy tales that I have read and heard are wonderful! I'm still deciding whether or not I want to put mine up online. Not because I'm afriad someone will steal it, just because I don't know if I want you all to laugh at how goofy it is. We'll see what happens in class tomorrow, but, for now, it's not up.

The Internet is being dumb so I'm not going to write any more for fear it will kick me off and I'll have to do it all over again. More later.

Coincidence

Ha! My ittle sister Melissa, a 9th grader, just had a short story test in her English class and what did they have to read? "The Princess and the Tin Box" the story that we talked about in class as a signature not and archetype. It's totally weird because this semester is the first time I've ever heard that story and in the same semester my sister gets it, too. After she told me the story I gave her a lesson on archetype and signature. I think she was unimpressed, but, I had fun. :O)

Alice in Wonderland

The exam is now over. I have to say, I thought that the test was fair and that we were well prepared for it. I think that every course should have review sessions like we had on Tuesday. That was helpful in weeding out the most "important" ideas for us.

I started reading Alice in Wonderland on Monday evening. I have never read the book before, however, I haeve seen two or three movie versions; some more faithful than others. Initial impression : fun! It's a really fast read but I'm enjoying it. I chuckle at least once every few pages.

Alice is an interesting character. It seems that most of her time in her "real" life is occupied by studying lessons, or I suppose listening to lessons. Oddly, enough, she's not very bright. Alice is the queen of the logocentric. I think that Carroll, through making Alice a very black and white/ wrong and right person, is commenting on what his society was teaching kids. As we see with the Duchess in during the croquet match, morals abound but they are of no use or real meaning. What's the point of teaching them then? Isn't the experience much more interesting.

I also love Alice's honesty. On page twelve Alice decides that she gives herself very good advice, though she very seldom follows it. She also puinshes herself when she does something that she knows was "wrong". That's not a very healthy message to send to children. "Dwell on your faults; it will serve you well".

There's much more to say about Alice. Unfortunately, it will have to wait for another day. But, in the meantime.... Here's a good site for some interpretations and basic info on the text and its pictures, etc. http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net There's some interesting stuff there so check it out.

Remembering

In last Thursday's class we were asked what in everyday life has the power to take us back to another time in our minds. I think a lot about this because I tend to be a nostalgic person. I think a lot about the past, mostly, I think, because I haven't been able to keep my childhood with me in a sense. My mom was in the military for 23 years and, as a result, we were never in the same place for too long. I wasn't able to keep those relationships with old friends and fun places like I could have had I stayed in Hawaii or Tennessee or Alaska.

Music is hugely important in my life now as it was in my childhood. My parents are music lovers and I grew up listening to their favorite music mostly. Most anything by The Beatles, Queen, George Throughgood, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Elton John, or John Hartford has the ability to take me back to my childhood. I remember once when my little sister Melissa was about 2 we were in the car on the way to a birthday dinner at Red Lobster when Queen's song "We are the Champions" came on. In the song there's a part where they sing "No time for losers, cause we are the champions, of the world." My sister sang the line as "beluga, beluga, we are the champions" and I laughed hysterically. Every time I hear that song, that moment in the car is the one I think of.

One of my proudest moments, musically at least, was when I, along with my high school choir, got to sing J.S. Bach's "Magnificat" and Montiverdi's "Gloria" in NYC's Carnegie Hall. There was a song within the "Magnificat" called "Si Cut Locutus Est". We got the part in the song where finally, all 7 voices are singing together and the conductor got taken over by the power of our voices in that historic space and just went nuts. Jumping and waving his arms. My feeling at that moment is one that I am able to recall just by hearing the song.

Also, for some reason, smells can really bring me back to a time or place. I was visiting a friend in Alabama this summer after not being in the south for 9 years and immediately the smell brought me back to when I lived in Tennessee. The smell of spray paint reminds me of working on Homecoming floats at my high school in Alaska. And the smell of Victoria's Secret perfume "Love Spell" reminds me of my friend Sally Ann.

I've had moments when, like Mole, I catch a smell of something that I recognize but I can't put my finger on why I recognize it. Is it from an old school? An old house? I don't know. But the power of our memory when reminded by external stimuli is pretty amazing. Sometimes just the power of those recollections is enough to make me get teary-eyed in my nostalgia.

General Feelings about this class...

Does anyone else feel way behind in the reading? I finished Wind in the Willows but I haven't even started Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass. I am beginning to stress. I haven't started to ponder exam questions quite yet. I will definitely think about it tonight though and come up with something brilliant, I hope.

I will write more later regarding the material but I just needed to vent for a second. I feel better now. :O)

More Wind in the Willows

This class is really giving me problems with the rest of my classes...I keep getting distracted by it when I should be doing other things. :O( Example, today I was in the library to write a paper for my History 313 course. What did I end up doing? Reading a book about Wind in the Willows. Why? Because I am really engaging this stuff and it has made its way into my life in all kinds of ways. I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I suppose good for me, bad for my grades in other courses. Ah, well...the scarifices we make for really good stories. :O)

I was looking for a place for you guys to hear the Van Morrison interpretation of "Piper at the Gates of Dawn." I could only find little thirty-second clips of the song. If you'd like to listen to those, slightly different portions you can go to this site http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000005ILN/qid=1097119552/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl15/103-8555556-9530269?v=glance&s=music&n=507846 or this one http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?userid=so4qQFw9Lb&EAN=731453710122&ITM=2 . The song is number 5 on the album. I was looking for other artistic renderings of this great chapter of The Wind in the Willows and I found another piece of music that I would like to hear. It's a piano suite compsoed by a woman named Wendy Hiscocks. I couldn't find any way to listen to a sample of it, but, I love piano music to begin with and I would be quite interested to hear her interpretation of the experience that Rat and Mole had on that special morning. The whole four pages leading up to the actual meeting of Mole, Rat, and Pan are full of descriptions of the heavenly music that they hear. How does one begin to create that? How do you create a melody that has people saying, as Rat does, "the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of...the music and the call must be for us." (132) That's quite a lot to live up to. Still, I'd love to hear it. There are actually quite a lot of examples of musical influence of Wind in the Willows. Sadly, not much of it is accessible for free. :O(

I found a few visual artistic representations of "The Piper", too. You can find them at the following addresses (I apologize for my lack of skill at putting pictures up on this thing, it's really much easier on a real website) http://www.globalgallery.com/enlarge/007-17204/ http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/23/dominic_shepherd.asp
http://www.classicpreservation.com/paintings3.html
Check them out. I wish I could paint. Tristan should give the class his rendering of this scene. :O)