script

Script For Class:
Scrtpit——————First Scene: A high school English teacher walks into a classroom, and sits on a desk where he processds to take the contents out of his briefcase (a notebook, several other books, and an apple”—he gazes at one particular book, a book of myth in quite contemplation: he has just recently graduated from college, and is about to teach his first class—a freshman English class that is starting with the value of myth. Before the class begins he has a brief monologue to himself about what he is going to teach.

John’s Monologue:
“Well…let’s see” He says with a sigh
“This is it, I suppose, I hope all those education classes were worth it.”
“And I hope my kids like me.”: Huffing on his apple and polishing it with his shirt
“But…ummm…let me think, what should be our first lesson…
“ahh…Demeter and Persophne…that should be an excellent topic for are first class.”
“I remember it being very appropriate…Not like that other myth garbage; rape, incest and violence—just motherly love—if I remember correctly…survey of Myth ,section I, that’s was the class”
“Great class other than the professor…what was his name…oh yeah, Dr Sexson…He got way to into it, thought myth was a physical performance…there will be none of that in my class room…besides, who would ever thought an old man would be full of such dirty jokes…slutty Shannon, corporeal similutide’s…the nerve of him.”
“He even went so far as to suggests that this story was about handing down humanity’s secerets of sexuality form mother to daughter—and that phallic symbols would be raised in respect of the this tradition…awful”
“Besides, I know this story is not about fertility”…I fondel the book in an erotic way. “This copy of Myth’s for teens is excellent”
“Much better descriptions than he ever gave…see right at the begening of Demeter and Persophne, there is a summery …it says the Myth is about compromise.”
“Compromise…” I say stroking my chin.
Action: I proceed to go write compromise on the board
“Hmm…that’s another compromise that will have to made; these children will need to appreciate the value of a book”
“I may seem old fashonied…huh huh, but in a sense I dipise technology”
“Plus, look how wonderful the print is, and myyyy…(I stroke the book erotically)the pictures in this edition”.
“If they do not understand the theme of compromise as the sole context—which I hope they do—at least they will be able to look at these wonderful pictures…”
I hold the book up
“Hale the printing press”
“There is only one thing though…I wish these stories followed more of a plot…like those wonderful John Grisham, and Daniel Brown novels.”
“But oh well.”
“At least I can guide, and teach about what is up on the board”
Action: Underneath compromise, I write Demeter and Persophne: a story of a mother only being able to see her daughter for a brief part of the year.
“Much like when I first went off to college…I missed my mother so much”

“Mythical joint custody”
Scene 2:
Class walks in, I introduce myself:
“Hello students, my name is John Nay.”
“I will be your instructor this year, I just graduated college so take it easy on me alright guys…huh huh huh.”
The class is whispering, and passing notes.
“And what we will be learning in my class this year, is the succession of events from the greek myths, to the modern and perfected novel: namely, John Grishrams, The associate.”
“Now, what are your names.”
Kate:‘I am kate of the beutifual eyes.”
Chris: I am Chris of the laughing rates.”
Kelsey: I am Kelsey of the free rent.”
Jeff: “and I am deep sea fishing Jeff .”
John: “Alrigh…hmm” I say a little confused. “So let’s begin. First, find a place of quite solitude and open your Myth’s for teens to p. 145, and read the myth Of Demeter and Persophne, and then we will discuss these that themes that I have writin on the board”
They read for a minute.
Jeff’s Part
Teacher: So even though we all know that the myth of Demeter and Persephone cannot be true, it nevertheless teaches us the power and importance of a mother-daughter relationship.
Student (without raising hand): I think that 'In whatever way a myth is told, it is true to the people who believe it. The principle of contexts only insists that a myth cannot be, or should not be, true for all people in all time.'
Teacher (aggravated): You need to learn to raise your hand son. But do you see how the myth uses language to make its point clear?
Student: No. It seems to me that the myth employs language to describe poetry that already exists in nature. You are confusing two aspects of myth. The art of mythtelling and the content of the myth are two different things.
Teacher: But you do understand that a master storyteller develops his own style to help keep his audience interested?
Student: I still don't think you are right. A master storyteller recognizes the power of myth and conveys this to the listener through his style. He checks the power, however, by periodic detachment to break the spell of the myth. He recognizes the danger such power can lead to in human hands.
Teacher: How can so much power come from language? I'm speaking now and my words don't seem to be casting and sort of spell.
Student: It's not the words themselves that hold the power, it is what they represent. Language is simply another form of domestication, and can be used to take away from and give back to nature. It is a human construct designed to organize and describe the inexpressible into a system of sounds. The description of emotions such as love and fear proves as futile as trying to describe a color in words. The oral poet shapes his style to entrance his audience so they are no longer listening to his sounds, but experiencing their meaning. This explains master storytellers, say "wansuuga" at the end of his poetry. It does not mean, "it is said" but rather "far-away saying from hear-say", or "it is being said (without knowing for sure)". It is impossible to condense the complexity of nature into simple sounds.

Kates Part:
Jon: “alright, alright…enough you Jeff of the laughing rats
Chris: That’s me:
John: whatever what did you guys really think”… not giving them anytime to really think. “Can anyone guess why myths from the oral tradition were often put into verse?
Kate: Because the word was being domesticated.
Jon: Wrong. Words aren’t wild animals; you can’t just fence them in.
Kate: Actually, that’s exactly what Neolithic tribes did to their stories. They versified them to imitate human forms, like the stomping of feet or the beat of a hand on a drum.
Jon: First of all, you just made that word up. And let’s stick to what the textbook says.
Kate: You can’t just explain myth by reading from a textbook.
Jon: Well since you seem know everything, why don’t you explain it?
Kate: Okay. When Neolithic tribes began to move away from hunting and gathering to agriculture, their stories followed suit—
Jon: Farming has nothing to do with myth. Are you making this up?
Kate: Would you just listen? Domesticating a word is like taming a goat or putting up a fence; the stanzas that are created when words are versified act like the fences around farms. The storyteller’s voice becomes measured in a regular unit and conforms to the domestication of nature that is created within the fence. So now you see that just when people began to fence in wild animals and plants, they also fenced in their stories by way of verse.
Jon: You’re just showing off. Do you enjoy making me look bad?
Kate: It’s not hard.
Jon: Thinks about it. Hey, wait a—
Kate: Interrupting. I’m not done, actually. In addition to fences imposing on wilderness and verses imposing on speech, mythologies of agricultural societies imposed upon one another.
Jon: Looking confused, does the math in his head. Gives up.
Kate: You see, when one tribe conquered another and took over their land, they had to come up with a way to deal with their new environment. The old inhabitants usually had their own set of myths, so the conquerors adopted the stories and manipulated them to use to their advantage. These signs of imposition are signs of myth in a developed agricultural context.
Jon: Sounds like a load of crap. Suspiciously. Did Dr. Sexson put you to this?
Kate: Who’s Sexson?
Jon: Never mind. Gurgling
Kate: Well I’m not done explaining and it’s just about to get interesting.
Jon: Sighs. Great, I can hardly wait.
Kate: People created these myths to deal with their surroundings. As their societies became more advanced, they imagined and created a set of higher forces that were pitted against humanity.
Jon: What do you mean by “higher forces”?
Kate: I mean gods. It’s natural for humanity to personify the forces that are acting against them, as a coping mechanism. The gods became every unknown force in the universe, for both good and evil, creating an outlet from which the imprisoned human found release. But the agricultural condition could offer relief only through transcendence—in this case, the worship of one new God to the exclusion of all others. Christianity, Islam, Judaism—these religions are agriculturalist and point to the transcendence of a limiting physical existence in which the self is felt to be imprisoned by its very efforts.
Jon: What does any of this have to do with what we were talking about?
Kate: When societies become agriculturalist, the setting is complete for a myth of transcendence. Coincidentally, when myths of transcendence arise, myth itself is transcended.
Chris’s Part:
John: Well does anyone else have anything to say on the subject.
Chris: You're very socratic, you know that?”
John: “Oh, thanks.”
Chris: “No, that's a bad thing. Like 'oh, we can't be out in the country, it's scary out here and there are animals and they're having sex and stuff, and only the cities have things to teach us'... myth isn't domestic like that. Or it can be, but in this case it isn't. You're taking out the “close to the human life-way” thing by trying to clean it up and desexualize it – or maybe that IS close to your life-way. Taking the wild natural state and domesticating it to make it not dangerous... humanized and housebroken... that's selling out. You're selling out this myth.
And you're completely missing the idea that the whole Demeter thing is about domestication and the transition from farming gods to king-type gods. Hades, prince of the underworld, raping the agricultural daughter and holding her captive? Hello! The transition and the fact that everything is always changing ...myths help us cope with that. By domesticating it and approaching it from the idea that it's static is the antithesis of myth.
John: “Young lady that is not appropriate language for the class. Please let me…”
Interrupted by Chris
Chris: Taking the consciousness of wildness and breaking it down into discrete entities instead of implying that everyone knows that the words are poor subsitutes for the reality of nature is only possible if you domesticate consciousness itself. It's the illusion of individuality. It's kind of gained a new life with the globalization movement. Are you considering the Athenian philosophers, here?
John: “Er, no.”
“The idea that oral myth is crap compared with being able to write it down and objectify it in mental frames? Give it a nice beginning, middle, and end? The Neoplatonists – and you should probably know this – said there was a mysticism beyond all the writing and beyond the nice domestic sphere. Whereas being of the Aristotelian school of thought, which is positively medieval, you've just made it all boring. Freytag would be proud. People have taken the idea of mythology and superimposed this idea that order will prevail, when it actually doesn't. It turns it all into a lie.
Chris: And just on a basic level, you've killed this myth by selecting this fatuous text, which buys into the nice clean, Aristotelian ideology. No wonder there are only four people that signed up for this class, and Dr. Sexson is having to turn them away in droves.
The Greeks that told this story didn't have television. This was their entertainment. You've made it not even entertaining. They would probably have fired you from your job as “myth guy” and made you a janitor or something where you couldn't do any damage to the entertainment industry.
Chris: You're probably one of those people who likes to summarize movies for your friends, and you would tell them that Batman is this strange guy in a bat suit who has cool toys and eventually gets the bad guy, end of story.
John: Hey I like Batman
Chris: I guess I'm saying that even literature can do justice to myths, and there are domestic-type myths, and myths about the city, but you've missed the boat. I have some book title recommendations if you'd like to hear about them.”
Kelsey’s Part:
John: well thank you Chris of the free rent, or whaterver…Since we did not accomplish anything, because all but one student today, I expect you to come prepared to talk about trickster myths for next class. So, here ome common animals displayed as the tricksters…they are the raven and the killer whale?
Kelsey: How is the killer whale tricky?
John: I have no idea- look it up yourself. Anyway, Biblical stories for instance…the Book of Job gives us a look into the trickster world, and shows how change can take place by these characters.
Kelsey: Is the change also related to weather, the human race and their choices as well as gods themselves? How are these characters portrayed as the tricksters?
John: Yes and by being tricky.
Kelsey: Did you know that Apollo and Hermes actually shared the power of civilization. Do you know that the gift of civilization is the lyre? Hermes later ends up as the mouthpiece of Apollo, with the power of prophecy. What are the chances of that?
John: 1 out of 3
Kelsey: OK... Anyway, because you have already established you want TEXTUAL evidence here you go! Page 244- We could call this outcome a "compromise." Maybe that is what we should do- but it would not work. You are too stubborn.

John: What is this about compromise? That word is not in my vocabulary

Kelsey: Authority dwells outside the story altogether. The mediator of a structure of opposition, it keeps itself hidden from questioning, being little more than the idea that a certain kind of order, the order conveyed in the story, will prevail. If this is true, you would not ask for examples but just go along with the stories, the myths themselves.

John: Let's stick with textual evidence.

Kelsey: I am... Literature is the mirror in which humanity regards itself. At the center of that pride is a notion of fixed recurrence. As you said before, 1 out of 3?

John: yes

Kelsey: With the invention of writing, an act of mythtelling can become perfectly predictable- always that same ratio. It cannot vary from the authorized version. Writing assumes that a single mind is in control, and it reinforces that illusion by habits of phrasing that suggest a consistency of consciousness.

John: a single mind huh?

Kelsey: Literacy is not a skill- it is a mentality. Body language, musical accompaniment, the breathing of listeners, the sense of event, the background noises of nature- all these go silent when language becomes a set of visual marks marching across a page. These symbols invoke their own kind of consciousness and authority, subtly pressing the newly created reader to choose which of two worlds is closer to the truth- the world of oral or the world of silent thought.

John: I like the idea of literacy as a mentality. Anyway...

“all right, I have had simply enough…
Class Dismissed!!!!!!!!!!!
Action: Everyone walks out of the room giggling and having a good time
I get on me knee’s and yell
“Shaman Sexson!!!”