This is what I wrote, or rather, orally composed for class. My essay, when it is completed, will explain in full detail the relevance of this piece. Oh yeah, I am adding the songs that I drew inspiration from for this in the spots were I sung. The songs are italicized, and there will be youtube links.

Poem for class:
Erato:

What shall become of time lapping back forth—
counting damp minutes?

We are certainly not who we were
When we left cracking snow this morning,
And we are never who we are
when we arrived at crimson dusk;
What will we remember at the beggening, middle, and ending
if anything at all…
Will we encase an everlasting picture of this class
in some mystic never complete theater…

Or remember a song sung
In memory of song sung
Along the Nile
Through the coasts, and up Mark Twain’s Missipi…

Were my soul still swoons in green patterns, and falling raindrops,
were my father hitched the highway
with a promosing young thumb
headed west for the first time
eyes on that foliage littered road, misted over perfectly
Like the twang of a rabid Banjo.

Will I, or you, or anyone, arrive, or depart,
Ever in this world?
And Perhaps, there is a place,
Where time is cornerd
And forever still.
A place were physics never applied.

That place where I used to sit with my grandfather
And that damned, rusted radio, blurting folky verse,
In his fairytale parlour of war medals, and cracked picture frames…

With a quick smile in my direction, and a turn of a silver knob—we listned…

Verse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfXZ9J0VrJc
And one of these days—
Check Mark parker
Deep Sea Fishing Jeff, and Big Rich Are gonna come for you…
Ooooh ooooh

Walk a new road Crazy Coffe Carly…
Ooohh oooh
Your teaspoons, and caffeine pedelling created
Carasmatic Kari
Oooh oooh

And What will you remember
Kyle of the skinny jeans…
Ooooh oooh
Will it be these tight, uncomfortable years
Or Will it be Chris of the laughing Rats.
Oooh oooh

Red Damiselle Daniell
Will you remember…
Snake Haired Kayla Sneaking through the tall grass,
Oooh oooh
Or James the Rat contended with a bit of cheese.
Oooo ooh h oo

Click:
With a smile, and that familiar old purple veined hand, he would turn the knob again…
{The harder they come:}
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGE4dnrPPZQ&feature=relatedKelsey of the Free rent,
Enjoying the view of the sky
Yes Keen kening Ben will be right with her before he( flies)

For as sure as time contends
Sweet smiling Melissa
Will have her ends

And the harder Sutter sacker of cities
Sacks cities
the softer they glow
One and
Three…
Two Tounge Charlie

Well Willy Quiet Willy trying keep
Robert of the Worded limbs down
Yes Tautological Tai is redundant like a clown
And Lisa of the little legs thinks she has the battle one
I say forgive them Chris the Scribe they know not what they have done

Click:
He switched the station after he had enough—
His withered fingers told stories that were content with his age,
And his eyes were quite with the years…

Toots:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S78VlyZYpfcAlmost Nirvana, Hyalite Canyon
Za Zen Zack
Steven of the rivers.
All my classmates there
Bright Eyes Kevin
Fishing in the river
With Wise Wandering Shannon

Chorus:
Summer Breeze Kaylaaaaaa
Take us home
To that place where we belong
Hyalite Canyon My olll mamma
Take us home
Summer Breeze Kayla

We heard
Parker of the outback
in the morning cryin
Jared
of the open planes we need to leave these places
Yes we did

Kate of the beautiful eyes
Tell Helana of the 10,000 lakes
Of this wonderful ridge
and steven’s flowing river…

Click: and then, there was a fading crackling sound that subdued into an absence. I am sorry. I really do forget his hands, and all their kindness. But there is always a rebirth, and an arrival back along the shore…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFGgbT_VasI
Old Zack of the saving Bells
yes the rob we
Minutes after they took Joan Gossimer von goss
From the bottomless pit

And don’t worry Emo Erin,
Lisa the Luddite or Bearded Brandon…
All we have are these songs of freedom
Wont you help me sing…
.
Arriving we will never ask
where the begening will be—
nor the ending?
Certainly not in this class today, or the infinity of tomorrow,
But in a dream differend crunched in a butter
Crackling under this flame of phrase.
And Are you there
…. I am john of the stripid hat…
And song is
When we are together
In fleeting moments wiped clean
From unimagined books
In the last harmony of redemption
under the flouresent glow
of room 125.

Will you be there
Even after the last kick of dust on a brown, hot coral—
Were Jana the Tamar of horses will set us free
While Shaman Sexson sings
Mememorme…o please remember me.

I was just thinking about oral poems surviving in the contemporary world. This is a link to a Saul Williams Sha Clack Clack.

For this blog I will post the lyrics to the poem, and I will also post a link to Youtube with his live performance of the poem.

Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojDKI8JxfLs

If I could find the spot where truth echoes
I would stand there and whisper memories of my children's future
I would let their future dwell in my past
so that I might live a brighter now
Now is the essence of my domain and it contains
all that was and will be
And I am as I was and will be because I am and always will be
that nigga
I am that nigga
I am that nigga
I am that timeless nigga that swings on pendelums like vines
through mines of boobytrapped minds that are enslaved by time
I am the life that supersedes lifetimes, I am
It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless stare
that with immortal glare turned mortal fear into stone time capsules
They still exist as the walking dead, as I do
The original sulphurhead, symbol of life and matriarchy
severed head Medusa, I am
I am that nigga
I am that nigga!
I am that nigga!!
I am a negro! Yes negro, negro from _necro_ meaning death
I overcame it so they named me after it
And I be spitting at death from behind
and putting "Kick Me" signs on it's back
because I am not the son of Sha-Clack-Clack
I am before that, I am before
I am before before
Before death is eternity, after death is eternity
There is no death there's only eternity
And I be riding on the wings of eternity
like HYAH! HYAH! HYAH! Sha-Clack-Clack
but my flight doesn't go undisturbed
Because time makes dreams defer
And all of my time fears are turning my days into daymares
And I live daymares reliving nightmares
of what taunted my past
Sha-Clack-Clack, time is beatin my ass
And I be havin dreams of chocolate covered watermelons
Filled with fried chickens like pinatas
With little pickaninny sons and daughters
standing up under them with big sticks and aluminum foil
Hittin em, tryin to catch pieces of fallin fried chicken wings
And Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are standing in the corners
with rifles pointed at the heads of the little children
"Don't shoot the children," I shout, "don't shoot the children!"
but they say it's too late
They've already been infected by time
But that shit is before my time
I need more time
I need more time
But it's too late
They start shooting at children and killing them!
One by one, two by two, three by three, four by four
Five by five, six by six, but
my spirit is growing seven by seven
Faster than the speed of light
Cause light only penetrates the darkness that's already there
and I'm already there
I'm here at the end of the road
which is the beginning of the road beyond time, but
where my niggaz at? (Oh shit!)

Oh shit, don't tell me my niggaz got lost in time
My niggaz are dying before their time
My niggaz are serving unjust time
My niggaz are dying because of.. time
Just a brief synopsis:

Saul Williams is a slam poet, which means that his performances center around the emotion of the moment. For further enquiry into this style of performance, I suggest checking out some of his other performances of this poem and others. What I noticed: was that there was changes in his lyrics, flow, and interaction with his audience. Also check out the content of his lyrics—perhaps I will do a blog just on them.

Blog on Group:

So my group and I have just finished our project, and my, it is quite a relief. I would also like to compliment all the other groups on their work, and the entertainment they have provided. I look forward to seeing the final group’s perform on Monday.

The purpose of me writing this blog today is to explicate the script our group performed for class. I am sure all our group’s presentations will be on the test, so I hope this blog will be of some service to you in the not too distant future. I will also provide a copy of the script in this blog; feel free to read it. I am going to primarily focus on my role in the presentation—we broke our group down to individual areas of expertise—so I will not soil what my other group members might have to say on their subject. As you learned from the brief explanation provided at the end of class on Friday, my role was a teacher who was completely stuck in the literate tradition—and very stubborn about outside opinions. In the word of Chris of the laughing rats: “Freytag would be proud”. But to give some more depth to my character in perhaps the best way I know how, I shall attempt to round him in the form of literacy. My character is a man that has just recently graduated college, and is at bit of a loss in terms of finding an appropriate, and successful means of teaching his students. Other than the few (perhaps in poor taste) joke’s I made about bestseller authors(John Grishram, Dan Brown), Kane in his chapter on context—which I drew a character from—makes interesting observations on how myth is taught, particularly by none the wiser English teacher’s, in a poor way that stays completely removed from the human life world. There a few things that I tried directly to allude to from the text, but other things I incorporated in, from contrasts that had arisen out of the other books we had been reading. I noticed there was some confusion on what I was exactly doing while I was stroking the binding of a book. I was doing it in a supposedly erotic way; poking fun at what Dr Sexson has explained is an obsession of the literary tradition. Which brings me to a key point into what my character was supposed to represent, which is, the safety that many modern teachers find in textbook studies of myth—and I suppose this is supposed to be ironic, the book is erotic, yet we shun sexuality, which I made a point of doing when addressing the students.

Anyway, the reason that this is an inaccurate way to study myth, is that often times these textbooks will only give poor explanations about the meaning of the myth, with no sympathy towards the culture, and many of the contextual elements that made myths powerful and provocative when the oral poet spoke them. Instead as Kane demonstrates on the Myth of Demeter and Persephone, and the vague understanding textbooks provide, “[that] if these essentialist sentimentalities about human nature were all that mythtelling were about, myths would deserve their bad name”—which is a consequence perhaps, mostly of teachers not having any ability to expound upon anything other than that which the textbook provides.

Another point I made about a teachers inadequacy on teaching myth was—teachers often have a very difficult time explaining truly what these myths are about, and they will often rely on the books graphics, as a means of supplementing any deeper meaning. This is why when I was sitting down at the desk in the middle of the room, rubbing an apple I said, “My…look at these pictures”.

What I also tried to emphasis in this presentation was the political correctness that Kane explains has drawn out much of the meaning of these de-contextualized myths. For example, the myth of Demeter and Persephone is about fertility, and the contact between city dwelling cultures and rural cultures. Yet much of this context is absent in the text versions of these myths. Kane, in his research actually found this, “According to the sources of this myth (none of this in the high school anthology), she knows the secrets of the marriage-bed, and blesses couples on their wedding night.” Instead of including vital information such as he has provided, these anthology’s usually settle on abstract concepts such as compromise (which I wrote on the board)—which Kane explains is completely of myth a that should in fact “echo the knowledge of the agricultural seasonal cycles of the Mediterranean”.
There is much more to this subject, and perhaps a bit more explanation into what my group did, but since it is Saturday, and I am a bit de-contextualized myself in the written word, I think I will go enjoy the rest of the day.

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!!!”

Ecstatic Moments.

When i finished tristram shandy recently, i was asked to do an essay for Dr Lansverk's class. He offers a creative prompt, and I choose to emualte the style of tristram shandy in prose--actually it was an essay, but an essay in prose with the explcit purpose to digress from any specific subject matter. That is actually a lie, my last musing in the essay was what i found to be the most important subject matter of the book, and what I feel Dr Sexson might have been expressing as somethning to weep over when he talked abou this book in class--iknow i teared up a bit when i read this part, when young tirstram is travelling through france and he talks about young love, and then there was an external context i discoverd about the book and stenre--writing to the moment is impossible, and perhaps we need just remember our happiest memories to find that plane were beauty and immensity coincide--at least for a moment, and maybe i am too young to reall apreciate everything life has to offer, but this is what i did:

But it isn’t worth it after all to live, love and lust after morning dew, and then watch dawn’s haze roll through and reced and recollect moments past. To remember the dirt brown cannel’s of Holland, the purple-green fragrant blossoms spouting out of the concrete walls, and my yellow lab that ran along the shore of the beach with me—in the ocean’s gray haze, and cold breeze. And later, when I was teenager, in the old green wet hills near the lakes—New Hampshire, New England. The infinite long, and windy back roads through the fall’s yellow and red dropping leaves, the white churches, and the perfume from those first lips—the cascade of her blue eyes and that white dress, spring 2005. And the first time I really loved Montana’s mountains—when we were all still best friends playing catch outside—watching crimson-red fleeting-orange swirls—the last of days the sunlight, fluster in the clouds on the snowcapped mountains above the evergreen and aspen trees. For, in that final moment between light and dark, a coyote howled at 9 pm on the pastor, behind RJ’s fence, and that—that was my last best memory.
Conclusion:
“And what was all that about”, my proof reader said on finishing the essay. “A Cock and Bull essay” I said—“ ACock and Bull Essay, and the best I have ever wrote”.

So, while I was doing some research/work/thinking for my presentation today, I stumbled on a blog idea that I thought was interesting. It relates back to the Finnigans Wake article, and is a pretty odd topic. I suppose it is one of those 3/1, 1/3 topics of coincident’s, and admiration that relates to James Joyce, and the whole world for that matter. Alright to get to the topic, my presentation topic is on context, and how myths that have survived thousands of years in the form of literature are empty shells of their former selves. Which if we reflect on the nature of this class is very true. The abstractions of writing exists in an isolated plane of existence reserved for English majors—I think Dante mentions this in his inferno—we are right between Paul Newman as cool hand luke, and Ovid writing the metamorphosis. But to retain my train of thought, what Finnigans wake has done for the novel according Dr Sexson, is put a halt to the limit of artistic expression in that medium; for there is literally nothing else that can be written that reaches the achievement of Finnigan’s wake—for this novel has everything (and as it says in the introduction of my edition of the book) something for everyone in no matter what age group, or time for that matter.

The magus as Yates has defined, is a divine being—and Bruno thought he achieved this stature with his artificial memory. Has Joyce achieved this task with the Wake? Is every song that has ever been sung vibrating out of this novel when one reads it? Is all the pain, the glory, and the anguish brimming within it? I do not know, but if they are, then the myths that James Joyce was quite fond of—such as those in Ovid—would be the myths we have all read, but they would also be the myths Kane discusses in the his book with the context we lack in understanding them. This is pretty outstanding if one really thinks about it—a book, a form of technology, echoing every human experience. What one need to do to achieve this. For to embody a shamanistic poet one needs to, as Kane says: “push the meaning away from words, [and be-] aware that no human story can be the last word on anything”. Think of the beginning and ending of this book, a circle within a square. Maybe this seems like I am giving praise to Joyce too much; but does not the bible chant similar revelations. I actually think this would be an interesting idea for a novel: a post apocalyptic world that only has the surviving text of finnigans wake. But to get back to my discussion without rambling on too long about my ideas. Only the mind of the divine could produce such, and perhaps Joyce reached this pinnacle of human existence—the pinnacle that allowed him to remember that, that was forgotten.

The idea I had other than the novel was that: perhaps the internet could bring Myth that has lost its context back to life, in a way that would allow us to return to moments throughout all human existence. The internet is such an ambiguous, democratic, undefinable, loud, and never-ending thing which adapts daily—into a non stable entity, with no true beginning or ending. With something such as this, perhaps it is possible to find that fleeting feeling the shaman had thousands of years ago when the agriculturalists plundered his village, or that lone blogger has merely just reflecting on his excursion in Hyalite canyon—where he found a voice that breezed through the trees.

Dr Sexson in his article made the point that Finnigans Wake is like a live body; that works as a living being would. The internet seems so to, it is a deep dark well of thought that has everything to say, if, and when you look for it. So I believe it does not have myths forgotten, or perhaps they are not myths forgotten, but myths that still hold true in any medium or mind as long as one is willing to engage in that particular experience which the internet has to offer—or will one day have to offer when it’s completed, and divine.

Giordano Bruno actually attempted to create the universe in his mind. With a technology such as the internet, we have the ability to create the universe with in electronic space. Everyday more information is added, more experience, more feeling. And everyday perhaps we are creating another god, another immortal.

Music as a Matter of Discussion.

So it seems it’s time for a blog. Well to start, I would like to say that I actually have had a bunch of ideas for blogs recently, and so for the sake of making this one not to tedious to read, I am only going to expound on one idea. For a while now, I suppose, I have been trying to piece together the little pieces of humanity that have driven artistic/historical movements thus far. I realize that this is practically everyone’s conquest in life, and it is simply—pretentious of me to write a sentence like that—but for the sake of direction and a unified composition—let’s ride the crest that will define our generation, and what we do henceforth.

I was reading an article yesterday in a publication called (Addbussters). The premise of the magazine is essentially deconstructing typical capitalistic perspective’s, that one might find in a popular American magazine, by the use of imagery that mocks western over consumption, and the shallow materialism of the 21st century. In this magazine they had an article on the succession of events toward post-modern art, music, and literature. What this article was trying to express, other than the non-bias history lesson, was that in order for progressive steps to happen, people need to avoid the post-modern aesthetic for—it has manifested this sick, globalized playground for the rich, at the expense of so many—and in order for us to construct a new aesthetic, we need abandon life as we know it for a new genre, and a new perspective that will be felt in life and expressed through the arts.

Why I have mentioned this (other than I think it is extremely valuable for the survival of expression in the 21st century) is that this class—and the article I just mentioned—have essentially addressed this important question: what is the result of major paradigm shifts, and what have they done to their contemporary’s consciousness. To address this issue in a medium other than the typical examples we have been addressing in class, let us now think about how writing, and the 20th and 21st centuries technological innovations have restructured music. I am not a musician, nor a music scholar, so forgive me those of you who are reading this, who would like to know where my opinion is coming from—it is just simply my perspective. Reading a quick wikkipedia article on the subject of musical notation, and it’s emergence in the world; I found that a written form of music exists in most cultures that also had a written form of their language. Quoting the wiki article, “Al-Kindi (801–873 AD) was the first great theoretician of Arabic music. He proposed adding a fifth string to the 'ud and discussed the cosmological connotations of music”. Wow that sounds like someone we know, here’s a clue: the Magus. Anyway back to my discussion, which will focus on the evolution of music in the European world, and its roots in American music. Music like the visual artwork that was presented in catholic churches, was a means of propaganda of sorts—which really means just people trying to understand devout piousness as a means of making choices with prudence. Medieval scholar’s studying music, like medieval scholars studying writing and memory systems, struggled with an economic and practical way to organize such fleeting information. Along came, “Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from 995–1050” who created the earliest form of modern musical notation that would create this notion of a composer. This form of musical notation is now the dominant pervading form of recording music and is (get this) read from right to left, subordinating and encapsulating what was once fleeting.

I got the idea to write this blog from my friend’s dad who is one of the most well renowned professional jazz guitar player’s in New Hampshire. He is also a professor at a University. When I was last home we were talking about music, particularly jazz music and we got on the topic of classical musicians versus jazz musicians. What he told me about composers, and a joke that him and his fellow friends have about them is that—it is more of a just a tribute to the writer, and with in jazz, it is more to the moment and expression to the moment is something that is likely to happen. I feel like this all relates back to let’s see, at least 1 third of what we have been talking about. Writing isolates, jazz stimulates, and in terms of music—it begins to make sense that this music came from a primarily oral culture that had for its education: the streets, the people, religious re interpretation, and most importantly the ability to express anguish rebellion and mental freedom.

And this brings me to the end of my blog. The post-modern music-art industry has been corrupted by a false pretentious aesthetic that is vile, and quickly losing its value. I ask the reader, what kind of culture are we living in that values television shows that embrace snobbery, laziness, and overconsumption.

It is at least this, if not more: it is culture that gets bombarded with a medium of information that is coated in plutocratic ideology; the rich get richer, and the poor get numbed by prescription drugs, alcohol and a dying aesthetic that is on the verge burning out of contemporary existence for ever.