Mythology

For this upcoming week, our duties for class are to prepare ourselves for the presentation we are doing on Monday or Wednesday. I can say that I really enjoy my group thus far. We have all split up into pairs where we can still work together, but spend more time concentrating on certain aspects of the myth. I didn’t realize how complex our myth was until I started to read it. I had to read and reread the myth many times until I understood exactly what the story was about.

To be honest, I’m still not even sure if I fully understand this myth. There is a lot going on, but it touches on the basic myth themes. It explains why women menstruate and why childbirths are painful through Jackal’s attack against his mother in order to obtain the first word. It also explains why men are circumcised by showing the first two humans were both sexes and it was discovered such a combo was unhealthy. Since the soul of the woman happened to be located on the foreskin, they removed it at birth. This myth also tackles why it is necessary to combine faith and action by showing we need a mixture of faith and proper action to make our lives complete and make the people in heaven happy. And last, it explains why man has to die by saying that heaven is better than earth, and that we must allow our souls to go to heaven in order to make them happy. All of these things show major themes throughout creation mythology.

But anyways, my faith has been renewed in the realm of group projects, and I am excited to get it over and done with. My group has a neat little class activity to do, and I hope it runs smoothly.

Bond... James.. you know the rest.

This weeks readings were on none-other than the “phenomenon” known as the Bond Series by Ian Fleming. I, personally, never understood what the hype was about. With that being said, I have actually never even seen the movies, let alone read the books. I picked up the book we are to read for next week’s discussion, and I hate to say that I fell asleep by the time I was on the 4th page of the text. It could have been because I was tired.. or perhaps it was the context of what I was reading.

The first read we were assigned this week was called, “Dr. No: Bonding Britishness to racial sovereignty” written by Cynthia Baron. It was a pretty interesting read, comparing the sexuality represented by Fleming’s work to the Cold War. Clearly, without reading the book or seeing the film, I am unsure of the context of all of this, but the article refers to an interesting point. Baron states, “Imperialism and racism intersect in the opening moments of the film. As the title sequence ends, we begin to hear a ‘Jamaican’ version of ‘Three Blind Mice’….. Three (blind) black men making their way through Kingston”. The article continues to show the relationships between British and their subjects at this time, eventually showing how black men intimidate people in England at this time. This is news to me, I thought this whole series was about an oversexed spy who kicks a whole lot of ass. There is also an idea of ‘Britisness’ that is being dissected throughout this article, which correlate to the ideas of imperialist hero’s.

Then our readings bring us to “The moments of Bond” by Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott. This article started out by stating Fleming’s intention was to write as a distraction whilst he was going through a hard time – he had no intention of creating a pop-icon. He also felt as though he did not put enough time into the novel to result in the amount of popularity it got—therefore he decided to kill off the hero in the last book (thanks for ruining it!). In the end, this article defends a lot of arguments, but one of the most interesting is the idea of Bond being a political hero for the middle class. This phenomenon known as James Bond was approached to be branched out through many different avenues – and actually was. From the books, to TV adaptions, to cinema adaptions, and even to a comic strip, the name ‘Bond’ was becoming a household name. He was someone to look up to and to consider a true modern hero.

I think the heroism of Bond is what makes the story so popular. Bond was there as a distraction through many national issues, also growing its popularity. Ladies fantasized over him, and men fantasized to be him.

I mean look at this guy.. Ladies are crawling all over him.  Little boys were growing up to see him as a true hero for the greater good. I guess with all of this said, how could you not love James Bond? I guess I will find out my true feelings on the novel next week..

As We Move On...

Words cannot describe how happy I am to move on from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and onto the next subject. I think I am still bitter about the group work, but either way, it ruined the story for me. That's okay, I prefer The Glass Menagerie anyway. I feel as though if we did that play, maybe I would not be as bitter. But, as we move on..

The Pop-Culture class as a whole is not what I expected. I'm actually looking forward to exploring this concept of what the class is really about. We are looking at things in different avenues and with different concepts that I did not expect.

Anyways, since we had to read from the textbook this week for homework, I've decided that I'm not going to bore anybody and regurgitate everything they just read. Today I am going to discuss my younger brother and how addicted he is to pop-culture through the form of technology. My brother and I are 10 years apart, and I swear he lives a totally different life then I did when I was younger. If the boy is not playing Xbox all day, he is watching TV, on FaceBook, or he is on netflix. And I get that these are leisure activities that everyone should enjoy at times, but I swear he can use do all of these things at once! He will have be checking his Facebook on his phone, while playing video games on the computer, while the TV is on with cartoons blaring on it! I cannot believe how ridiculous he can be, I often question if we are really related.

What ever happened to the days the kids would go out and skateboard, or play baseball, or even go running around with their friends? Nowadays kids text all day instead of having personal interactions with people. They would rather spend hours playing in front of the TV, instead of losing track of time while playing outside. I can't help but think that these things such as FaceBook, or Spongebob, or Xbox are to blame for these children being so antisocial and lazy.

I just wish for once, my younger brother can indulge in the good parts of pop culture. I wish he would pick up a classic book and see what his imagination can do for him. I guarantee if he gave it a try he would be surprised at how fun it could be to just read! I guess my main grudge is held against the technology these days that these kids get a hold of and can't let go of. I wish they would run around instead of watch TV, and read instead of going on FaceBook, and play board games with friends and family instead of playing Xbox. Maybe one day it will happen.

Mythology.. namely "Creation"

We have finally come to the point in class where we are moving on from poetry. I am very glad about this because, not only do I hate analyzing it, I also do not particularly like to write it. I'm sure we discovered that with my lovely poems!

But anyways, with that being said, the class as a whole is venturing into the world of mythology. I'm excited to work with my group and explore the idea of creation. I am hoping that this group presentation runs smoother than the last one I partook in. I want to really dig into the different ideas of "cosmogony", as well as learn about all the different sorts of creations myths there are. So far based on my reading, I'm really looking forward to reading about the sacrifice stories, the earth-diver stories, and the stories of two creators.

A lot of the myths have common features, which I thought was interesting. Almost all of them start with the idea of birth. This could be for numerous reasons, but the most obvious reason is because birth represents a new beginning. They also frequently include supreme beings who set the worlds creation into motion. The theme of the loss of innocence is also present in mythology. It seems as though man and beast lived peacefully amongst each other, then man partakes in a mortal sin, causing the two creators to split up. It seems as though it is usually a God that takes away man's innocence.

I would like to just start off by stating how much I hate group work. Yes, I would rather give a group presentation than an individual presentation, but it is the most difficult thing to try and get everyone to meet up and pull his or her weight. I would rather not have to rely on other people for my grade; however, with this project I know that that is how it is going to be.
For starters, we decided the night that the project was assigned that we would meet the following Monday (a week before the day we would present) to gather our thoughts and to help form how we would discuss the text. Of course, not everyone showed up. It is inevitable with a group this size that everyone would be able to meet. Of the 7 of us, only 5 of us showed up. Brittany told us very early on that she could not make the meeting, and sent us with plenty of information that really dug into the text and brought very important issues to light. Needless to say, Brittany’s absence was forgiven. The same could not be said for Ken. I’m not sure if Ken remembers that this was a GROUP project or not, because he decided to only communicate to Bernie and no one else. He did not show up to the meeting and he did not contribute anything to the group, period. (Until the night of the actual presentation.. which is sad because it seems as though he really understood the text.. we could have used his brain from the start. Very unfortunate). We had a group document online that we would post to, he posted a 3-line paragraph that had nothing to do with our presentation at all, and upon asking him to elaborate, I got nothing in return. Everyone else did his or her part, if not more to try and pull everything together.
From the first meeting, we decided that we were going to do a game show. We were all to gather different information and share it on the document so everyone could see and decide what we would use. I volunteered to do my research and make the posters that we originally were going to use for the game show. I asked everyone to come together by Thursday and send me exactly what questions and answers I was going to put on the poster boards. I had a very busy weekend with work and dealing with identity theft issues, so Thursday would have given me more than enough time to figure everything out and make the posters. No one could come up with a conclusive decision and decided Saturday that we were all just going to split up and do different things. I had work both Saturday and I worked 14 hours on Sunday and was more than frustrated that I had literally no time to figure anything out. Holly decided that we could be partners and work on the gender issue that the text explores. She did more than her part to pull it together, and I contributed what I had, although it might have been too late since none of what I had to say made the cut (Kudos to Holly.. without her I'm not even sure we would have gotten as far as we did Monday.. she really was the person who pulled us all together and if anyone deserves the highest grade, it is her). We have a PowerPoint now and issues at hand to talk about, so as far as I am concerned, we have done our part. We are going to present ours first, and we have a couple of questions lined up to ask the class that really explores the ideas of gender. I am upset that at the last second everything was switched around. I feel as though we needed more time, since the majority of the time we could not agree on anything. As far as Leandro and Brittany, I have a clear idea of what they are doing and their part will flow right after Holly and myself present. With Ken and Bernie, I have absolutely no idea what they are doing. Bernie is the only one who connected with the group, stating that they were going to focus on “class” issues within the text. Ken still has not to this day sent a single e-mail or text to any of the group with what he contributed. You will find out when I do with what they decided to present. The same goes with Katie’s contribution, I have no idea what she is doing either.




AFTER PRESENTATION:

I am please with how things turned out.. However I wish things would have gone differently. I really just wish we had more time. Picking the first presentation date was originally for the convince of it not being tangled with other classes and class projects, however I wish I knew then what I know now.. I would have gone with a different date. I am glad it is over.. I learned a good lesson from all of this.

Poems 495

For my first poem, I decided to write about my maternal grandmother. She and my grandfather adopted my brothers and I about 12 years ago. She is honestly the greatest person I know:

I once knew a witty old lady named Mary,
Who was so strong, any burden she could carry.
I love her more than she could ever know,
For it is she my life I do owe;
My wonderful Mother, my beautiful Mary.


For my second poem, I decided to write about actually being adopted. It was a very difficult time in my life.. therefore I decided to share. Even something discouraging and difficult can turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

It is a terrible feeling to not be wanted.
How embarrassing to say you were adopted.
But who would have thought it would turn out like this!
Now I live my life in pure bliss!

Language: I don't understand.

This week’s pop-culture blog was supposed to be about applying one of the analysis’ we read for homework this week to a YouTube clip (either Beauvorian, Saussurean, or Derridean).  I chose to examine Saussure.  My attempt is as follows:

Ferdinand de Saussure was born on November 26^th of 1857, and passed away February 22^nd, 1913.  He was a Swiss linguist who was responsible for many significant changes in linguistics during the 20^th century.  It can also be noted that his ideas are what the fundamentals of Structuralism are based off of.  According to Saussure, language is not a function of the speaker; it is a product that is passively taken in by the individual.  He created the concept of Semiotics, which consists of sign, signifiers, and signified.  These three concepts show the study of signs and the processes that they associate with.  These can be defined as:

*Sign—appoints the subject under survey

*Signified—the concept of the ‘sign’

*Signifier—the sound, symbol, or word that represents the ‘sign’

So, to put these concepts into effect, we can use the example of a cactus.  The physicality of the cactus would be the ‘sign’.  The concept of a prickly plant that holds a large amount of water would be the ‘signified’; and the letters that spell C-A-C-T-U-S would be the ‘signifier’. 

So bottom line, Saussure feels that there is no semiotics -- no natural connection between words and symbols.  Saussure feels as though humans have no natural born association (or should not be) between the word cactus and a living organism that is prickly and holds water.  From when we are born and as we grow up, we learn how to associate words with symbols as a means of communication.  However, not just one word can be associated with a single symbol because there is more than one word per symbol (usually).  For example, plant and cactus – both words can be used for the same symbol.  Similar to this is the fact that many different languages will share the same word, such as the word ‘no’.  (Best word I could come up with while watching the Super Bowl ;] )

In closing, Saussure’s whole argument is that “language is a form, not a substance”.  Language is not a formula of words; instead language is influenced through the culture in which we live.

So this whole time, I have been trying to find a funny YouTube clip that would relate in anyway with Saussure’s concept.  I was not as successful as I wanted to be, but I was able to find this one:

This video shows how ridiculous the English language can be.  It does not quite show the connection between words and symbols, but it does show how words can be very similar yet different all at once.  A person would assume that words spelled similar would be similar (in both phonetics and meaning), however they are VERY different.  It is just weird to see how the English language works.. it is a good thing we all know it, or else it would be extremely hard to learn ;]

The Emperor of DEATH

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Wallace Stevens’ poem, “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”, was first published in the early eighteenth century.  The public immediately took to the poem, and the poem widely influenced many different outlets throughout popular culture.  There have been songs and even novels that have been influenced by this legendary poem.  Upon first glace of the poem, it is unclear what the true message Stevens’ is trying to get across.  Is this a poem about a cold, sweet dessert?  Could the poem have to do with a ruler of a land who was too sweet for his own good?  After reading the poem, it is even more unclear than it was previously as to what the true meaning of this poem is.  It is obvious that the meaning of the poem and the title of the poem have very little in common.  After several readings and deep analysis of form and language, a clearer meaning of “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” can be seen without difficulty.  The poem is discussing a funeral, but it is unclear whether the Emperor is the Emperor of life, or the Emperor of death.  In Wallace Stevens’ poem, “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”, the Emperor discussed in the poem could be looked at as both life and death.

            Before the meaning of the poem is explored, it is important to first look at the dynamics of the poetry so the audience can take note of anything substantially noticeable throughout the piece.  The first noticeable thing about the form of the poem is that it is written in two stanzas.  Each stanza is composed of eight lines each, and neither of the stanzas have a clear meter pattern.  Even though the rhyme scheme is irregular, the couplet that ends the first stanza and the two couplets ending the second stanza seem to rhyme.  This helps to put emphasis on these lines, which contain only 8 to 9 syllables apiece.  The feet of the poem differ noticeably, indicating no regular pattern of meter.

            In the article, “Wallace Stevens’ Ice-Cream” by Richard Ellmann, he states, “The last battlement before us is the line, ‘The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.’  There are two going interpretations of this line, one that the emperor is life, the other that he is death” (94).  When examining the poem, there are points that could be argued for both sides of the life or death battle.  However, after several readings of the poem, it becomes clear that the poem is to be perceived as a celebratory event-taking place.  It slowly becomes evident that the occasion of the poem is a funeral of some sort.  The poem makes two major references to funerals when Stevens states, “Let the wenches dawdle in such dress/As they are used to wear, and let the boys/Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers” (4-6), as well as “Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet/On which she embroidered fantails once/And spread it so as to cover her face” (10-12).  The boys bringing flowers and the sheet covering the woman’s face are common characteristics of funerals throughout time.  The way that these events are described in the poem is more celebratory than mourning, indicating that the “Emperor of Ice-Cream” is indicating life rather than death.  Not to mention that ice cream is generally a refreshing and delicious treat, one that a person would enjoy while in a good mood.  The call for the “roller of big cigars” would also be seen as a symbol for the celebration of life.

            More critics would argue that this poem is showing the emperor to be perceived as death.  Ellmann states, “I think we may reach a little nearer if we remember that the characteristics of ice cream are that it is tasty, transitory, and cold.  Life may be tasty and perishable, but it is not cold” (94).  The coldness of what the ice cream actually is shows how the emperor could very well be death.  In Karl P. Wentersdof’s article, “Wallace Stevens, Dante, Alighieri, and the Emperor”, he describes his first view of ice cream as being “a symbol for Epicureanism; on the second, it is an image both of the coldness of death and of the transience of hedonistic values” (200). There are obvious points in this poem of both positive and negative nature, however the negative outweighs the positive.  The women entering the funeral are wenches who “dawdle in such dress as they are used to wear” (4-5), and the flowers are brought in “last month’s newspapers” (7).  There is not much respect for the funeral in general.  The disrespect continues when the poem suggests the sheet used to cover the woman will not cover her feet, but no one seems to care about the poor dead woman and covering her body fully.  There is an overwhelming sense of coldness that comes with the handling of the body, and it is evident that no one really cared about this woman.  The negative undertones go hand in hand with the emperor of ice cream being death itself seeing as how death is generally a negative event.

            Although there are many ways the subject of this poem can be perceived, it is notorious that the ideas of both life and death are more than present throughout.  The references of negativity and positivity are pretty steady throughout the entire poem, sending mixed messages to the readers.  Stevens himself was vague about the poems exact meaning, in Elman’s article he states, “When Stevens was informed of this difference of critical opinion, he said, in effect, ‘So much the better!’ and refused to judge between them” (93).  The vagueness of this poem has influenced many different outlets throughout our culture, showing how widely popular this poem truly is.  In the end, it can be said that the true meaning of the poem lies within the reader and their personal views of life and death.

Works Cited

Ellmann, Richard. "Wallace Stevens' Ice-Cream." The Kenyon Review 19.1 (1957): 89-105.

Print.

Smith, Philip. 100 Best-Loved Poems. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. Print.

Wentersdorf, Karl P.. "Wallace Stevens, Dante Alighieri, and the Emperor." Twentieth Century

Literature 13.4 (1968): 197-204. Print. 

So upon researching this topic, I found this slightly disturbing tribute to Stevens poem.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.