L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E

A rectangular concoction of synthetic fibers, molded plastic and rubber. Divided in half but no longer in the horizontal sense, and as certain in its destination as its contents’ desires to get somewhere. Carpeted with highfructosecornsyrup and now this niggahs Taco Bell that didn’t graduate past his lips. I’m on my way from somewhere to nowhere-trying-to-Be. Odd when you think about the concept of your body in movement without conscious thought. Being propelled through space with nothing less than casual courage. This one has a freckle above the muscle of her right thumb – a favourite part of the human body; literally what separates us from many. “animals”, she says. “I dunno, but something to do with animals”. In Long Island. Or Rhode Island. Not Ithaca, that’s what matters, ain’t it? Regression. That’s the side effect of this travel, a loss of Being; apart, alert, alive. My first optical scene this morning was of Matthew: wide-gray-eyed; as baffled by silence as by sound. Yes, sound – always, now. Ten percent natural, if you’re lucky. That thumb sure made us ambitious. We all nod slightly, up or down, acknowledge the human in you, in us, letting our eyes judge before our brains. I love you and still despise the humanity of us all – creators and creatures of waste and want. But dreams, if only they were edible might cure us of reckless companionship. Everyone has one. One has everyone. I wonder if the boy in the hat that’s more brim-than-skin despises the neurotic photography of his valley-girl princess-in-woolen-woven-blanket. Perhaps the taffy is enough. Perhaps we should reconsider sex. This? No, just the sex, the rest will be cross-examined later. Aren’t they intrinsically alike? The neurons show no signs of slowing down despite the illegal inhibitors. Nonsense is delightfully unfamiliar and the rest is merely heavy obligation. A scene with the title “Why Not To Trust Menkind” plays itself out before our eyes. More sound than sight. And I think, “There’re enough rings on delicious black fingers for us to take on our sisters’ foe,” and defend ourselves against terror. Mayhaps my facial scars are a blessing in disguise for wounds suggest trust and sacrifice. We raise the golden arches alongside state banners and the apathetic stripes with stars hangs limply – overshadowed. We want to know what words she says to make him kiss her on impulse and whether the little red phone mediates strife. Before we knew our parents also had privates (a word that betrays its secret with its last consonant) we laid our features to rest upon their laps and woke up feeling protected. She was, is, the same, only heavier and wiser. The elation of being seen beside her by strangers hasn’t died. For a leader, I have a weakness for strong-will women. They demand obedience, reliability, caution. Loving them whole with the skin they’re in. How did my delight travel from the nape to the collarbone to the thumb? Perhaps as my mild stream became a tamed, redirected, unmotivated resource stuffed with synthetic fibers, molded plastics and rubber.

Thank Goodness for an Introduction: Lyn Hejinian

Normally I avoid introductions, thinking that I don't need a strangers opinion on this literary persons creation; that the work should speak its essence to me without any meddling mediator. However, in regards to Lyn Hejinian, I'm so glad that I was presented with a set of loose guidelines with which to navigate her writing. It allowed me to be prepared to pay attention. And I paid attention, I drew lines between words that seemed similar to me, which helped me find the odd one out. I wondered at her animation of inanimte object and denial of the motion of other things. She might not make a whole lot of sense in her writing, but the writing itself is interesting, the use of certain phrases, the challenging of assumptions, the creation of images that are innovative but perhaps not all together unfamiliar, made me grow to have a great deal of respect for her. I wondered at the meaning or purpose of the little italicized side notes which accompanied 'from My Life', perhaps they're moral guidelines, or a bit of a voice from the author to help us feel that we're not all together alone with this matter, or simply words of wisdom similar to a daily quote to be pondered on. This elusiveness is intriguing but not off-putting to me. Why should everything be easy?

T.B.W (To Be Written)

I had the time this morning to write on White Noise but didn't feel I could structure my discussion of it in anything other than personal experience and I feel as though I do that far too often so I am going to do this one after class so that I have a better literary structure within which to frame my blog.

What is most interesting about reading this work would be the fact that I'm not a terribly modern person and I've been called an 'old soul' at least three times. I didn't grow up watching television, in fact it informs my life in a very limited way. How is someone like that supposed to understand this book? Does it even affect my reading? Or is it a work more about the American consciousness as a whole? How we work towards convenience of living life and our ultimate death? With shopping malls to pass the time and remind us of how money is as futile as the rest of it, with cars to easily transport our spoiled and pampered skins....

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Although the work seems clearly to present images of childhood, such as toys and curiosity in everything and steadfast opinions and descriptions of milestones in the year such as Halloween, I don't think that it was ever presented in such a way that I was brought to a particular event but perhaps just a feeling from a certain experience which is much more reasonable to ask of my limited memory. In terms of stimulation I find it interesting how the author doesn't ever identify the providers of such stimulation either by referring to the speaker or narrator of the news or by talking about cable companies and "they". I think that the post-Cold War atmosphere is very dominant in Jack's actions and thoughts, the number of questions, the attempt to find meaning without disrupting routine, and at the same time to some degree being ready for sudden disruptive events because he grew up with that panic and paranoia. I don't think that my lack of experience in regards to directly relating with television for lengthy period of times affects my reading of this work because there is such a plethora of experience and world views I don't feel alienated. I would only feel alienated if there were references to particular actors and actresses from a certain show or what have you.

Sula

I've read Toni Morrison's Beloved before, but Sula has a different quality to it. It has less terror and haunting and abuse or perhaps just has all of these qualities in a more subtle way. I found her introduction to her novel very insightful and assisted my interest in what was to come. I do think that the context of the inception of the work is as important as its contents. And the inception of this work is very conscious of its potential ignorant audience, the whites, who will not be approaching this work with the appropriate guards up if they have any at all. The "buffer zone" of the foreword manages to create this guard for them, to establish very clearly the misunderstanding of her communities activities, joy and general livelihood. The story itself is again conveniently encapsulated for those sensitive to or ignorant of the content shes is about to present by the presentation of this town as a historical fact and not something which any longer 'taints' the present. It could be suggested that this is a fact of her youth as an author at this point in her career, and consequently her anxiety about getting favorable reviews. The description of war by Shadluck is very similar to presentation of war in A Red Badge of Courage. The fact that we learn of his racial identity at the same time he rediscovers it in the toilet bowl, a place of filth and unwanted contents, is an interesting linguistic turn.

Gloria, Hallelujah!

Gloria Anzaldua is another fabulous insightful moving pained and productive writer that we've read this semester. I'll certainly be holding onto this one. Although the preface was very dense in sociological, socio-political and other academic concepts, I found it was very important information which helped me to approach the material she was presenting me with which was very far from my own bubble. As a third generation American, living comfortably off the successful mobility of those before me, with a past dominated by experiences in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts - I at first can't relate. But how about the fact that I've lived a life of crossing borders, of tireless and seemingly endless travel to over twenty countries? Isn't my desire to be somewhat settled, or at least to have roots, while not being nailed down, similar to her distress over not having a home or not being able to return to it or claim it? And although shes a lesbian and I'm a bisexual, we share the process of rejection and acceptance which comes as a result of that identity. What we don't share with in that regard, however, is perhaps a sense of community. Very early on I found others like me, I was affirmed and reaffirmed, whereas she had to affirm herself in the face of direct confrontation and perhaps or probably only recently in her academic world found "the community".
I feel very thankful that I studied Spanish for three years and even though failed horribly at it as a class because of being intimidated out of my ability to speak it I still enjoy listening to it, reading it out loud and speaking the little I do know in casual conversation. Tenses I know not at all, and my vocabulary is limited, so my translation is always rather poor, but there is something about the pronunciation of the language that lends itself to feeling being expressed. That is why I read her work aloud and reacted particularly strongly to words such as "authentic" which were expressed in regards to it.

Frank O'Hara

After reading the introduction to the Collected Poesm of Frank O'Hara, I was ready to thoroughly enjoy his work because of his "anti-literary and anti-artistic" as well as "unrevised" style which "ignored the rules" -- similar to the way I plunged into poetry in eighth grade. Although I know that we're perhaps supposed to be approaching our school work in a more objective frame of mind, I would be doing myself a disservice to approach another poets work without the question, "What can I learn from here?". However, I discovered it was very...distanced somehow, and I read it but wasn't 'moved'. I can't quite find what it was about his work that wasn't touching to me. Perhaps its because I've become too accustomed to my generations angsty angry frustrated underdeveloped poetry and my aesthetic taste for poetry hasn't been established. However, the poem 'Poem', dedicated to Gertrude Stein, had a flow that I found attractive. That flow, the way that it lends itself to you reading it silently the same way that you would read it aloud. Perhaps because its the most bodily poem we read of his. Perhaps because he used the word 'you'.

Giovanni's Room

I think this book is by far one of the best ones I have read since...perhaps ever. I may have been as excited about another book, say, Doris Lessing's Marriage of Zones Three, Four and Five or Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things, but I haven't had the same experience that I've had with Giovanni's Room. Not only was the prose sharp and quick and observant, but it was also invasive.
Invasive.
Yeah, invasive. It got under my skin, and at some points that felt really nice, but there were certainly times when I had to put it down and walk as far away as I could. I am nothing like that character, and yet I still identified with him. During the second part, the sickness spread to my mind. I found myself reading eagerly, or perhaps hesitantly waiting to see just how hard things are going to fall, and at the same time thinking about things totally outside this book, questioning my life in the same way, at the same time. That means my brain was processing two different scenarios parallel to one another. It was a bewildering experience.
Perhaps it also helped that for no particular reason whatsoever, I happened to have skimmed my Strunk & White's Elements of Style: illustrated this morning and had a sense of E.B.White's fanaticism for unwasted words. I remember thinking that it's a lot easier to not waste words when you are free to write as much or as little as you want, but college students don't have that leisure. Baldwin adheres to this rule, intentionally or not, and does so brilliantly.