Sci-Fi sparks a renewed interest

This weeks readings were the Minority Report and Paycheck by Phillip Dick, both short science fiction stories.

The readings for this week have entirely renewed my interest in science fiction writing! I forgot all of the mystery and enjoyment I used to feel when I had time to read for pleasure (which was back before college). My favorite theme from science fiction novels is the essence of time. The future, the past, time-travel, time loops, precognition, interwoven destinies, potential outcomes/paths are the diversities of time which exist in many sci-fi novels/short stories.

The Minority Report is an awesome story. I love the elements of time which are woven into everything which occurs within the plot. Anderton's destiny changes with each bit of new information he receives. Unlike Jennings, from Paycheck, everything that he (the Jennings of the future) sees using the time scoop happens even when the current time Jennings discovers the path which was set forth by the time scoop. Although Jennings doesn't always know what is going to happen exactly as he predicted it to, he is still able to surmise the plan set forth using the trinkets he received from the company when he was set free.

One of the best parts about Sci-fi novels is the futuristic setting. In Paycheck we see the use of rockets as a mode of transportation, and in Minority Report the whole Pre-Crime set-up is based solely on the knowledge of the future. One of my favorite Sci-fi novels is Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, in it a young boy is trained to be a great fighter pilot, although he believes he is just playing games at what would be considered a space age boarding school. The elements of time which take place in this novel, the futuristic setting, as well as the planning for the future through by training from a young age is just one of the few positions of time in this novel. Although the movie is not actually in production, many Youtube videos exist creating a trailer for the movie (most are actually school projects). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AIz0UrxMtQ&feature=related (Ender's Game trailer) : D

Mercy, Justice, and Gotham as an Alternate Reality

Act 4 of The Crucible and "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Jorge Luis Borges

Mercifully the end of Act 4 of The Crucible finally came. The culmination of the work by Arthur Miller is one of the most depressing endings in which the common fairytale ending of some many works is left unachieved. The only justice which is finally served in the end is that Abigail is rumored to have become a prostitute, which seems fitting (and well deserved) for her promiscuous character. Our hero, John Proctor, is hung right along with the other well intentioned folks accused of witchcraft. The justice exacted by the so called "lawmaker" Danforth, is not carried out because of the guilt of the prisoners, but merely as a way to hoist his reputation from basement floor boards and back into the skylight.

"The Garden of Forking Paths" is a piece much more worthy of attention. Although the piece is a bit confusing I enjoyed it much more than the simplicity and thoughtlessness which was begged of my attention from The Crucible. The piece requires some semblance of coherent thought and not all of the information received is spoon-fed to our minds.

The idea of alternate realities is one of my favorite topics of philosophical discussion, which is one of the underlying notions in the story. It is a topic I have not been able to discuss in a philosophy course at the University, but one that I hope to. Many comic books use the theme of alternate realities or universes, and what I enjoy most about this is that comic books themselves could be considered alternate realities.

For instance, Batman's Gotham is considered an allegory for New York City and one can imagine, although the city of Gotham does not exist on any known map we have, it exists within the same time frame as New York. Gotham could be an alternate reality of New York, one where a masked vigilante runs around in a bat suit, putting away villains and saving lives of damsels in distress. Wouldn't that be exciting?

The Irony of Faith

Make-up blog post for the week of 4/15 on Act 2 and 3 of The Crucible.

Act 2 is an important Act for many characters. The scene which takes place in the Proctor's home is the main development of the plot for this play.

An interesting theme in this play is faithfulness, to another person and to God. John's initial adultery with Abigail and the promise which she believes he made to her is the guiding sin which sparks a lot of the trouble to be found in Salem. Abigail, in the hopes of procuring John for herself, turns from God and she in the other girls practice witchcraft in a field where they hope to receive help in disposing of Elizabeth Proctor. Though this plan fails, and they are caught in the act, they all claim to return to God's good graces and to accuse those which they saw while they were in service to the Devil. The initial accused are brought to court in the subsequent acts and are tried and convicted based on the theatrics which the girls are able to muster up. Each claiming the spirit of the accused would leave that body and attack their own.

When in Act 2 they come to John's home because Elizabeth is accused, he knows he must own up to his indiscretion with Abigail and remove her from the good graces of the court, the action which he attempts to carry out in Act 3. Instead when he finally confesses his infidelity they do not believe him, and call Elizabeth from her cell to beg from her the question of her husband's faithfulness.

Not knowing John had confessed and in a effort to save his good name to the court she lies, and they are both condemned for witches and sentenced to hang. The question of innocence is again and again revisited in hopes that those condemned for witchcraft will say they have participated in it and return to God's graces. Although those who are condemned will not give the court the lies it would take to set them free. If they did so they would be committing a sin against God with their lies, and so many of the residents of Salem accused of witchery are hung, because of their faithfulness to God. Ironic?

The Crucible - The fall of the good at the hands of evil.

Act two of the Crucible is the Act when John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth are in their home discussing all the events of the past few weeks and a less recent transgression on John's behalf.

Our classes underlying subject is satire, but I'm not exactly sure where it is to be found in this play. It is either too subtle to be able to speak on it, or as it seems to me, nonexistent at all. The only place where I hope to find satire is in the indulgence of the little girls by the court. I find it hard to believe, that a bunch of men, who call themselves justice, are able to so wholly convict people on the charades of the girls.

John Proctor seems to be the only man able to see through their guise. Although he is not the best example of a Christian, due to his adultery with Abigail, he is still the most upright and honest man we are confronted with from the whole of the Salem village. Arthur Miller even goes so far as to write it into many of the stage directions and in the dialog of his characters, excluding those who seem mischievous (Putnam who is in constant search of more land for himself, or Abigail who is a trollop).

Another example of those that are good but are convicted at the hands of the unrighteous is Rebecca Nurse. She is called out a witch by Mrs. Putnam who has lost six children at birth and blames her for sending her soul out on them. This claim is seem as completely absurd, no one would dare call witch on Rebecca Nurse because she is always so good hearted to everyone. It is just another instance of the Putnam's trying to blame someone else for retribution of God on their bad souls.

It seems that the satire of The Crucible lies in the good being punished by the wicked. But also in the show of the little girls being brought to the level of saints, when in fact, it was their wrong-doing (in the woods) that lead to the rise of the situation to begin with. The vengeance of Abigail on those who seemed to have wronged her is the cause of her wreaking havoc on Salem, and can be seen as the fall of the good at the hands of evil which the people of Salem were so hoping to alleviate with her.

The Crucible - Believing little

Inheritance and False Accusations

This is the last blog post on the Crying of Lot 49 and the first on Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

The ending of the Crying of Lot 49 left me wanting. What happens to Oedipa? Does she return to Mucho and her life as a boring housewife? The end of this novel is rushed. For the entire book Oedipa has been gathering evidence and more evidence, and everything is summed up in the final chapter. But we never actually find out any real truths. We learn the secrets of the Trystero and the history of disinheritance. The theme of disinheritance shouldn't really be a theme all that present within the novel, seeing as how it is never really said who will get what remains of Inverarity's estate and his shares. Although the mystery can be contrived to be understood as what Oedipa is receiving from his possessions. Was this mystery set up for her by Pierce? No, there are way too many common place occurrences which couldn't have been foreseen enough for Pierce to be able to rig them into some big joke. So what did Oedipa inherit from Inverarity? I would have to say that she inherits a sense of control over her life, which she wasn't able to grasp before the mystery was revealed. But in this way Pierce is able to maintain a hold on Oedipa's mind even after his death.

Act One of The Crucible is one that I have never ceased to hating, even since my first reading it as a freshman in high school. The constant bickering of the villagers reminds me of bugs that continue to fly in your face even after they have been swatted away. This is actually how I feel about most of the play as a whole. I have a lot of respect for Arthur Miller as a writer, especially in the case of Death of a Salesman, but though this may be one of his most popular works I would disagree against its entertainment value. Especially because of the naiveté of the Salem villagers in believing every case of accused witchcraft, and condemning innocent people to death. This first chapter, with the little girls calling out the names of those women they have "seen" with the devil, is especially frustrating. If I am meant to like it as a reader, I must claim it to be a character flaw on my behalf.

N.A.D.A

"Just this creaking metal sign that said nada, nada, against the blue sky (144).

N.A.D.A is an acronym for the National Automobile Dealers' Association and it is just one of the many acronyms Oedipa encounters throughout the novel. This particular one is presented when Mucho and Oedipa are talking about his reoccurring nightmare at the car lot. He just keeps seeing the initials, nada, which in Spanish means nothing. But it is just one of the nothings that Oedipa finds on her mini journey away from San Narciso.

Then there is the one that constantly hangs over Oedipa's head, which in Chapter 5 she still has no idea what the initials represent. WASTE. She first found this acronym on the stall wall at The Scope. Interesting, a scope, which is used to see things far away, close up, and yet she still has not been able to recover the meaning of WASTE. In fact it seems that The Scope just provides her with more of a mystery, than giving her more information. Or maybe it is a play on words, as in "widening her scope" or giving her a bigger perspective on life which she has not been able to find elsewhere.

LSD, KCUF, DEATH, FSM, YAF, VDC, IA, CIA, AC-DC, TWA. Pynchon's novel is so full of initials it can make ones head spin, and if fact, it drives Oedipa half crazy; driving her back to Kinneret to see her shrink. It seems that Pynchon was fond of acronyms, and embedded them in his novel. Poor Oedipa, if I was caught in this onslaught on initials I would probably go nuts too. But many Pynchon is trying to tell us something, perhaps, only that things have meaning if we force it on them, or else it's just a bunch of mixed up letters which no one is able to understand.

The interesting origins of Thurn and Taxis, Pierce Inverarity...just a name?

When Pierce Inverarity dies Oepida Maas is made one of the co-executors for his estate. Inverarity seemed to dable in many things, mostly real estate but we also find that he was involved in the creation of charcoal filters for cigarettes made from human bones. I decided to see if I could find a definiton for inverarity, and with dictionary was only given a link to a website titled inverarity trees (which had something to do with family trees. I dunno .) So when I came to this end where else did I have to turn but Urban Dictionary.com where I found that the definition they had for inverarity was this, "a large rolly polly male who has so much wisdom many refer to him as the Buda (ouch, spelling that incorrectly is painful). It is rumored that he has jedi powers, the ability to bring down a fully grown dragon, and can eat all the food in a banquet meal for 602 people." Whoa! What a man! Jedi powers, really? If Pierce really had these abilities it's a shame he's dead, moving on.
So what does Inverarity have to do with all of this? Well when Oedipa leaves her husband behind to arrive in San Narcisico, California which may or may not mean "Without Narcisism" in Spanish, she happens across many facts about Pierce that she hadn't known, and might explain the call she received at 3 a.m. from him about a year from this point. That he was making her excutor of his will, he may have been involved in some bad dealings with a man named Tony Jaguar, he created cigarette filters from GI bones, and on top of all this, there is a nagging intuition in the back of Oedipa's mind that he is involved with Thurn and Taxis, a postal system in place before the government regulated USPS, and is still surviving nearly underground.
When I did a google search for Thurn and Taxis I came up with a board game which set in Bavaria has players establish mail routes. This game can be found for purchase at www.boardgamegeek.com and also includes a brief game description. There are also many youtube videos, unfortunately most of them are in German. One of which was called Museum of Idiots 8 -Thurn and Taxis and had a large oversized chicken in it, and another video which is basically a movie about the game. Even now, why can we not find direct information about the elusive postal system?

Homonyms, Allegiance, and Really Bad Girl Scouts

The similarities between the poetry by Lee Ann Brown and Chapter A of Christian Bok's, Eunoia, have yet to dawn on me.Therefore I will focus on Brown's poetry of "Pledge" and try to elaborate in great detail.

To begin "Pledge" by Brown is entirely satirical. In using the first letter of the original word (in most cases, there is some deviating from the original)written in the Pledge of Allegiance and trading the ending with another word it makes the passage nonsensical; almost giving off a Lewis Carol vibe. For instance, "And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." is replaced with "And to the reproduction for which it stands, one naughtiness,under good, indivisible,with lick and juvenile for anatomy." I'm sure this is not what the forefathers had in mind when they composed the Pledge of Allegiance. Changing the words gives this pledge a completely different connotation, on that note, it seems to be in favor of pedofillia, which is illegal (and therefore almost hilariously ironic). This reminds me of a Robot Chicken sketch when there is a little girl satirizing Schoolhouse Rock and singing about homonyms, which are words that are spelled or pronounced the same, but mean different things. Word of caution: This link is not for the easily offended. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bLhL9EFMEQ Why this reminds me of the poem, if not blatantly obvious, is because of the play on words (and the slightly derogatory or risque language used) which is in each of the examples.

In the second pledge, which is a mimic of the Girl Scout pledge, I found a lot of humor. Mostly because I was kicked out of Girl Scouts in 5th grade and relish in any opportunity to make fun of the beliefs which such a corrupt troop pretended to adhere too. Although I guess that was some time ago now. I realized long ago that falsely attempting to use those guidelines in their lifestyles didn't make those girls into good people. Which I can see as a sort of underlying message in these poems. People will remember these pledges for many years, and sometimes not even realize what they really mean, and how they should model their behavior accordingly. So do these fancy sayings have any real effect on us or cause us to have any more allegiance than we would already carry? I wish I knew. For it would be easy to say, yes, that because these pledges are ingrained in my head they have caused me to be more patriotic. Although in the case of the Girl Scout pledge it actually seems to have the reverse effect. The pledge is hammered into the heads of young girls for rote memorization, and I'm not sure it was ever fully explained to us why we should actually care about what the words really mean. The same seems to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance as well, if we are not taught the meaning of what the pledge stands for then does it really do it's job of instilling patriotic behavior and allegiance to one's country? I say no.

Gulliver's Houhnhm master comments on the lifestyle of yahoos/humans.

The section I wanted to blog about is begins on page 218. This is was the particular time when Gulliver's master, hereafter referred to as Mr. Horse, told Gulliver just how he and the yahoos were indeed related.

Mr. Horse gets a lot of things right. His first few points in the similarities really seem to just be beating around the bush, but he really dives in once he begins to talk about the manner and reason which humans cover their bodies, and the way yahoos acquire food which isn't unlike our cut-throat society concerning wealth.

He says that the yahoos hate the "odiousness of their own shapes, which all could see in the rest and not in themselves (pg 219)." This exact passage reminds me of the narcissism and self-centeredness which we as humans at some point feel or experience. Mr. Horse continues on to say that this is the reason we cover our bodies with clothing, because we can't stand the sight of each other and our deformities. Which Gulliver says, "He therefore begun to think it not unwise to cover our bodies," which upon first learning of the reason for clothing Mr. Horse found against reason to cover what nature had provided. Gulliver later relates to the reader that upon his arrival in England he was unable to suffer the company of his family and was often unable to look in the mirror. Therefore he propagated the idea of being unable to sustain the company of those who he related to the yahoos.

Another point which Mr. Horse made which I found to be quite insightful was when he was speaking of the situation of greed among the yahoos. "For if you throw among five yahoos as much food as would be sufficient for fifty, they will, instead of eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, each single impatient to have all to itself (219)." This observation is completely applicable to the behavior of humans in just about everything that they do. This fact I am completely able to understand merely because at the place where I work I see it quite often. The hotel where I work often has buffets, in the restaurant, during special events, and sometimes meetings. People often scramble to be the first in line, as if they believed the food would soon run out. During these time people will often pile their plate full of food, which only a supreme glutton would be able to finish, and when their plate is still full after they have had their fill, they go back for dessert. Another instance on a much broader scale would be the constant fighting over land and riches. The gold rush in America, when everyone hurried out West because they believed they would find more riches than could sustain their lifetime. There is also the quest for land, which was often mentioned in Gulliver's conversations with the king in Brobdingnag.

Mr. Horse pin-pointed the two very key conceptions with just these illustrated points. His boundless insight lasted for 5 more pages until the end of the chapter where he again pointed out some major issues with humanity, through the personification of the yahoos.

The Finale of Gulliver's visit to Brobdingnag and Laputa

There are many interesting things that happen towards the end of Gulliver's time in Brobdingnag. The most interesting were possibly his "minor scrapes" with the wild life of the island's giant people. At one instance, he is taken captive by a most maternal monkey who forces already chewed food into his throat. The strangeness of the lack of maternal figures in this novel has struck me more than once before.

Although back in England he has a wife, we never hear more than a few words about her, or about any other affairs that Gulliver has had with women. Therefore striking out the "feminine touch/maternal notions" from the text. The fact that he finds a womanly form in an animal leads us in the direction of his views of women. Often the Brobdingnagian women are described as ugly, disgusting, and having offensive odors, not unlike our common conceptions of monkeys.

He also goes on to speak of a woman later, from Laputa, who begs the king for a pass to the metropolis, and not wanting to leave, reduces herself to the status of a beggar, pawning all her clothes just to remain. He then tells us that she was finally captured and returned to her home, where her ever-forgiving husband accepted her back with open arms, from which she proceeded to turn away from and run-off with another man.

Gulliver's stories of women cast us as animalistic, ugly whores, but does it in such a way that it seems our only folly is giving into the whimsy of our weak feminine minds. One does not hear of the Queen or Glumdalclitch's inquiries about his homeland, of the politics, music or mathematics, which both the king from Brobdingnag and Laputa ask of. There are no representations of women as sensible, rational beings in Gulliver's writings to speak of. I must therefore claim that Gulliver attempts to be discreet in his misogyny, but utterly fails.

A Modest Proposal/Marriage

This week's discussion:
Satire used in media
"Marriage" a poem by Gregory Corso
"A Modest Proposal" by Johnathan Swift

To begin:

The Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report use elements of satirical humor to reach their television audiences. For instance, on January 20th 2010, the Colbert Report decided to use the president's first year in office as his aim for the episode. Through the use of exaggeration, sarcasm, and parody the report relayed this message: Obama is not magic, and expecting him to solve all of our nation's problems was just idiocy.

"Marriage" a poem by Gregory Corso is a curious look at one's motivation for getting married. The author's interior monologue consists of his thoughts weighing the pro's and con's of what marriage would bring, namely love or lack of, the meeting of a companions family hoping to be deemed a worthy suitor, the honeymoon, followed by the trials of married life, such as getting along, whether or not to have children. The author's final discovery that he must marry if he is to not end up lonely in his old age, concluding his piece saying, "yet well know that were a woman possible, as I am possible then marriage would be possible," leads us to believe that his hunt for the perfect woman will most likely be fruitless, because everyone knows that women tend to be impossible creatures.

"A Modest Proposal" by Johnathan Swift is a piece written in the hopes of lifting some of the woes of the poor in Ireland. His entire essay possibly a work of creative insanity offers the suggestion of Cannibalism as a form of thinning out the population of those impoverished. His stimulus involves the breeding of children and then selling them as meat to those who are able to afford them. He claims they would become a new delicacy and that the world would respect the country for its resourcefulness.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich.

Though the idea of cannibalism is grotesque and awful, his plan would be nearly perfect except for a couple of minor details. Most importantly of all being the conscious thought and speech that human's are capable of would make it difficult for most people to even begin to think of this alternative food source. Although Swift would probably argue that since they are being taken from their mother's at just the age of one, the preparer wouldn't have to worry about carrying on a conversation with the infant. Even if the face of starvation I doubt I would be able to eat something that would one day have the same conscious thoughts and voice that I have. Especially because, though life has it's misfortunes, I'm glad to not have been spared the trouble and eaten at the age of one year.