Test Time: Questions

Real Quick class announcements:
- recitation of the passages we've memorized, three classes total
-Read Christina's blog
-google, "I'll go on" first result, read the article.....one man performance of Three Novels
-we listened to audio of the last couple minutes of the Unnameable

TEST QUESTIONS from class:
*read Sam's Class Notes blog entries for a review of the classes we've had...that is, this blog.
1. Translation of Dolce Domum: Home Sweet Home (to arrive where we started)
2. Plerosis - filling up - comedy romance - Joyce
3. What does mama lujo refer to in Finnegans Wake? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John(bless this bed I lie on).....four bed posts
4. Good safe firelamp! = God save Ireland
5. HCE, ALP, Shem, Shaun, Issy - 5 main characters in Finnegans Wake
6. Name 2 of the 4 imaginary lands in the acrostic poem in the beginning in Haroun and the Sea of Stories: Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu, Zafar(Rushdie's son's name)

*know the terms from the Haroun glossary!!!

7. How does Molloy communicate with his mother? knocking on her skull
8. What happens to Moran's son? we don't know
9. How much $ did Moran give is son? 4 pound 10 shillings, however that was unclear because the father insisted that he gave him 5 pounds......
10. Memorize the first 3 lines from East Coker
11. German philosopher, Nietzsche - Eternal return, from Ben Leubner lecture, closest approximation to coming to being
12. portmanteau
13. Metathesis - corpse +crops = cropse - combine the meaning with the words
14. Sabina, rape of the Sabine women
15. 4 elements of the Four Quartets: BN = air, EC = earth, DS = water, LG = fire
16. Who is Maggie (from the Skin of Our Teeth) paired with from Finnegans Wake? ALP
17. Henry = Shem and Shaun, also Cain, an archetypal character
18. Demotic language, dud language, colloquial
19. what happens in the space between the and riverrun in Finnegans Wake?
20. What does P2C2E mean? Process too complicated to explain
21. Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a profoundly referential piece.....What 4 digit number in Haroun and FW seem to be very concerned with? 1001
22. Ballad of Tim Finnegan
23. What is wrong with this title: Finnegan's Wake
(there shouldn't be an apostrophe)

Samual Beckett

So looking around on the Internet for Samuel Beckett articles and snippets I found something I found interesting. At the end of class on Monday Dr. Sexson said that Beckett experiments with going silent, rhythmic ebbing and flowing of language, which made me think of music. Even, though I'm not done with Beckett's Three Novels, I haven't been reminded of rhythm or music yet. But I found a place where "there have been several works of music inspired by the works of Beckett, particularly works of contemporary classical."


I found this site The Modern Word, Samuel Beckett Apmonia
The main website is here http://www.themodernword.com/

It also has links to it's other major pages about
Samuel Beckett: Apmonia
Jorge Luis Borges: The Garden of Forking Paths
Umberto Eco: Porta Ludovica
Gabriel García Márquez: Macondo
James Joyce: The Brazen Head
Franz Kafka: Das Schloss
Thomas Pynchon: Spermatikos Logos

Samuel Beckett, who coined the term "Apmonia,'' meaning the irrational heart, from Murphy

One small part of the site on Samuel Beckett looks at music inspired by Beckett, one composer, Luciano Berio, Italy's master of the avant-garde, Berio utilized fragments of Beckett's The Unnamable in his postmodern masterpiece. I downloaded a song from Berio: Sinfonia, an album inspired by Beckett, and in listening I figured out why. It is dark, empty, but compelling. (HELP Rio, I can't figure our how to get it from itunes to my blog)


"The libretto is just as complex as the music. Using the self-reflexive monologue from Beckett's The Unnamable as a basic pattern, dozens of other textual threads are shuttled through the narrative loom to form a dazzling tapestry of language in all its forms. Fragments of German, Yuletide solfège, snippets of song, radical slogans, clichés from the classical music crowd, gobbles and grunts, and perhaps most striking of all, the insistent command to "Keep going!" -- all rise and fall in a babelogue carried along by the music, punctuated by orchestral gestures that just as often provide ironic counterpoint as they do illustration."


***just as I finished typing this up I thought the website sounded really familiar, and appearantly Dr. Sexson had already alerted it to my attention about the second week of class, I had just forgotten, here was the link originally in my post titled, "interesting and helpful links":http://www.themodernword.com/Joyce/joyce_works_fw.html

Class Notes 2/22

Notes...
Wednesday, is our last day for Beckett, and we must all come with a question foe the Exam....multiple choice....simple

Sources for blogs on Wikipedia.......
Finnegans Wake, Grade: B
Beckett, Grade: C
Four Quartets: F

First page of Molloy, How long do we read until we see this guy is being written?

pg. 7 writing is the subject matter

he's getting paid to write

Read the Rat's blog, Language as Fiction

Molloy's method of communicating with his mother......knocking on her head

Moran turning into Molloy, mirror images of each other

Malone Dies........Travels in the Scriptorium, by Auster.....(I have the book if anyone wishes to borrow it...it is really short and a good read! just let me know!)

pigsticker

see Christina's blog for the stone sucking you tube

see Justin's blog, business classes

Waiting for Godot
first performance, San Quintin Penitentiary, no women in the play so it was allowed, two tramps waiting for Godot by a tree with one leaf left, inmates at penitentiary LOVED the play because there were also waiting, they understood, they identified with what was going on.

See Jennifer's blog! Molloy Milleu
See Shelby's blog, stair counting business, it is a must read if you were not in class

Malone Dies, has a character to kill off other characters
Beckett, minimalness, silence has not been conspicuous

leaf on tree (Waiting for Godot) -------> "I'll go on"

even if you have not finished Beckett's Three Novels, read the whole thing when you get a chance (anytime even after this semester), but read the whole thing to get the reward....the last line.

pages 287-8

power of words!

Unnamable, no pencil, no body, disembodied voice, man trying to get home

Connection between King Lear and Beckett's Three Novels
There is a man(father) authoritative, abusing children
Lear starts as King, Moran starts in charge, both end as nothing

LEAR:
O reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is as cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady:
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need--
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need.
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age, wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women's weapons, water drops,
Stain my man's cheeks. No, you unnatural hags!
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall--I will do such things--
What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep.
No, I'll not weep.I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep. O Fool, I shall go mad!
(Lear to his daughters Goneril and Regan, "King Lear," Act 2, Scene 4,
lines 263-285)

What do we really need???
in the course of the play Lear realizes he needs nothing.....exposes himself to the elements....

Beckett and Lear.....increment by increment, to get to the zero point, reduce to nothing.....

The Jerk...That's all I need
NOTHING.....except.......ashtray, paddle game, remote control, matches, lamp, chair
the point - lowbrow material reduced to a Beckett figure attached to things

Happy Days play, woman with her purse, taking stuff out, till it is up to her neck.....still enormously interested in tedious stuff

Beckett experiments with going silent, rhythmic ebbing & flowing of language

Class Notes 2/19

Class Notes...

Book of the Dead.........Beckett, at the end of things, seemingly empty glass, the last couple drops

Rio's blog, giggling of people being tortured

asbergers.....Moran has symptoms...

Jon Orsi, has become obsessed with Beckett, causing him to be dysfunctional

Look at Lissa's blog for a discovery! 7 Brides for 7 Brothers. Sobbin' women. Sabine women.


See Bizz Browing's blog, "A little dog followed him, a pomeraian I think, but I don't think so." everything you need to know about Beckett is in this sentence.

fiction to arrive at truth, fiction's mechanisms, self revealed
understand mechanisms that create illusions.

The Expelled - counting steps

Beckett is telling us the truth, that it's all a lie

Dr. Sexson's favorite part of Molloy, stones in the pockets, sucking the stones. He read that aloud to us. It was so good.

We also listened to the audio of the bicycle description....rewrite it in the pluperfect...another rug out from under us. See James the Rat's blog.

Don't forget to research Samuel Beckett and put what you've discovered on your blog. Sarah did it, and it is still an assignment over the weekend.

Class Notes 2/17

Class Notes

FW meeting Sundays at 7pm at the Bacchus Pub. The meeting on Monday was a success, 18 people, and good conversation. I got to meet some new people, or rather people I knew, but hadn't really talked to before. So much fun at Finnegans Wake.

Homework assignments:
-Blog 5 places where Beckett pulls the rug out & reminds the reader it is fiction

Which reminded me of dinner the other night with my boyfriend, Sutter. I
made him dinner because I'm a nice girlfriend. After dinner I asked him if he
wanted dessert.
He said I'd like ice cream.
I said we have strawberry or vanilla.
Sutter said, I want chocolate.
I said, Well we have strawberry or vanilla and I'd be
happy to get either of those for you.
He says again, I want chocolate. (These here are some breaking up words.)
Again I ask, well we only have starwberry or vanilla so would you like one
of those.
Sutter says could you go to the store and get me chocolate?
So I said, spell the "van" in vanilla, and because Sutter is advanced
for his age he says, v-a-n.
I said, Okay can you spell the "straw" in strawberry? he does.
Now I say, can you spell the "fuck" in chocolate? And he says there
aint no fuck in chocolate.
I said, you got it!

This joke is funnier when you think it is true, but that conversation has
never happened between me and Sutter, but in order for it to be funny we tell it
like it's really happened just the other night. Sutter likes people to continue
thinking that it's real, however I always like to say, "that was a joke" or they
might walk away with the wrong idea.

-Blog about some research you've done regarding Samuel Beckett. http://www.samuel-beckett.net/ is a good place. But find something interesting online or at a library, and blog about it. Harold Pinter said about Beckett's writing, "His work is beautiful." How do we get to there? to where Pinter is?
-also be reading the blogs of other and be in conversation with them
-also read Jon Orsi's blog and see the picture he posted of Beckett

Jon Orsi gave an introduction/testimonial to Beckett's three novels saying that it is all worth it, and while it may seem like it is about tedious things, or masturbation or defecation, there is so much more to Beckett's three novels. I will say that he inspired me to read more vigorously, and I hope people noticed all the tabs he had on his book, talk about some work. See pages 43 &44, also mentioned. I like how he referenced, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the quote he pulled out of his head and the ideas seemed to fit perfectly. the fire. the ash. the phoenix. Thank you Jon.


We spent the rest of class talking about Beckett and the novels, as sort of an introduction.
My notes are a bit choppy, but things were being said so fast,

Dr. Sexson mentioned he had been hesitant to teach Beckett in class because of the alienating effect it has and the pessimism.

Beckett: compassionate, but also pessimistic
a hero in WWII, lived in the French Resistance
friend to James Joyce

Vico influenced Joyce, Frye, and Beckett

Beckett went to a lecture from Jung and had an epiphany, he decided to write to take everything out, exploring the impotence and uncertainty.

Spring- comedy, celebrates life, sexual intercourse/procreation, comedies end in marriage, getting together
Summer- romance, myth, celebration of the triumph of order over chaos
Fall- tragedy, anti-sex, Hamlet, Oedipus......three roads meet...
Winter - satire, irony
Beckett - the end of things

About deterioration of people, mythic writing, Ovid's gold, silver, bronze, iron.......the mythic pattern, initiation, separation, return.

Beckett is interested in paucity.
paucity is 1. Smallness of number; fewness.
2. Scarcity; dearth: a paucity of natural resources

Beckett interested in Deterioration
Alzheimer's
Iris Murdoch, 26 novels (Dr. Sexson has read each twice)
Movie, Iris with Judi Dench, here is a clip from the movie



Gaber.................think of Gabriel, Gaber announcing mission to Moran to find Molloy.......
Yahweh

See page 92 and 176 from Becketts Three Novels
Page 92 - "It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows"
Page 176 - "It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining"
It's all made up! Beckett wants us to understand the subject matter.....the business of writing a story.

Page 31 of Beckett's Three Novels

"I had been living so far from words so long, you understand, that it was enough
for me to see my town, since we're talking of my town, to be unable, you
understand. It's too difficult to say, for me. And even my sense of identity was
wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate, as we have just seen I
think. And so on for all the other things which made merry my senses. Yes, even
then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things
but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but
after all what do I know now about then, now when the icy words hail down upon
me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named. All I know is
what the words know, and the dead things, and that makes a handsome little
sum, with a beginning, a middle and an end as in the well-built phrase and
the long sonata of the dead."

Dr. Sexson said this is a beautiful/attractive piece of writing to make us understand something about writing, the mechanisms.

theme: our life in fiction, the limits of our language are limits of our world, we are made up of words and language.

Class Notes 2/12

Homework
Our homework is to be reading Samuel Beckett.
Don't be turned off by him, it is a story about a man trying to write a story about a man treating his son despicably. We have to get past it.
Also we should blog instances when Beckett destroys (destories) the illusion of the story and intrudes on the narrative to expose that the story is made up.

-------

'the only thing you have in life is your time,' make everything count

See Shelby's Blog, and page 14 of Beckett
an inventory of possessions
Shelby's remuneration of her fridge contents is time spent in an extremely useful way.

_..~''Story Time"~.._ (continued)
Anyone who missed Dr. Sexson's story, or any part of it, is truly missing out. I refuse to recap the story because I love it so much and the way it was told to the class. Even though I heard this story four years ago, it did not mean nearly the same thing to me as it does now, and of course I had forgotten large chunks of the story. In fact it was like hearing the story for the very first time. I can't believe this story because it seems too perfect, too fitting, and unnatural. But I must believe it.
Dr. Sexson told us he was left trying to find words about his experience, but as it seems to me it is nearly ineffable. An epiphanic experience?

It seems the class, collectively, lived a 20 minute lifetime through Dr. Sexson's story. How long was class? 50 minutes? it felt like 10 minutes. We were seduced and absorbed, and I think we learned something that maybe we can't quite put into words.

stories seduce the gullible, and we are all prone to seduction, used the word seduce because it has something to do with our bodies along with the mind. After we are seduced we forget about the 'springs,' the mechanisms of the story, but then after the seduction we are abandoned, the rug is pulled from underneath us, it is all a lie! fiction! Instead of connecting to the story, connect to the writer/storyteller.

Class Notes 2/10

What Qualifies Star Trek as low brow?
cheesy....bad acting, but it still works, we are still moved by the plot and sentimentality.
Lower the bar to include more people.
High brow needs the low brow, feeds off of the low brow.
Low brow passively engages us, but we should be engaged, made to think, but no one likes that, they'd rather watch Dumb and Dumber.
We all need low brow, can't be engaged 24/7, but not so much low brow
No question Ayn Rand and Steven King are lowbrow, but everyone reads it. Their books are enormously popular, and we're not making fun of it, because we like it. We just need more highbrow.
(This is all paraphrased from lecture/Dr. Sexson by the way)
Nothing wrong with low brow, but the satisfaction and payoff are not as great as high brow. We need the low brow though, so let's try not to knock it.

Read Generosity by Richard Powers. I have a copy if anyone is desperately searching for it.
Joyce is generous for writing Finnegans wake for us, dedicating 17 years of his life to it. Our book of the dead.

Dead Man with Johnny Depp is high brow. (In class I was wondering if the movie Sixth Sense was the low brow version)

Where is the 20 minute lifetime in the Four Quartets?
Listed in class was, page 44, page 31, page 16 - see people's blogs

Lowbrow people are living in time, to become conscious is to live out of time, by living in time a person is unconsciously living. We have to be in time, then be out of time reflecting on it, page 32 of Four Quartets, "We must be still and still moving."

Words inadequate to express what we need to express - via negativa, describing something by what it is not. (the via negativa is a way the Upanishads and the Dao de Jing function)

Story Time: Since this class is so elite and so cool Dr. Sexson decided to tell a personal story in class. He only got through part of it and will continue on Friday.
I don't want to summerize any of it because that would be doing an injustice to the story. However I will tell you that Dr. Sexson is on a plane and a white haired woman is telling him a story.

recontour
The Beggar King
Sheherezade
The King and the Corpse

****Also, now is the time to be responding to other people's blogs. James the Rat has made an interesting comment/response to my blog below this one (20 minute lifetime in Four Quartets on Feb 10th), to which of course I responded, and hope he responds back. The idea is that we are in conversation with eachother. And also, someone else's blog may inspire you to respond to theirs with one of your own with a different view or taking it even further! Happy reading and blogging.

20 minute lifetime in Four Quartets

While working on our group project and talking about East Coker, it hit me! The 20 minute lifetime in the Four Quartets is on page 13 of my book at the end of East Coker. Although it was brought to my attention that other people have blogged this passage, it is what I discovered as well: "Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered."

Class Notes 2/8 and Chuang Zu

MOVIE DAY: Today we watched a Star Trek episode where Picard is rendered unconsious by a beam and lives an entire lifetime on the expired planet of Kataan in 20 minutes.

This episode reminded me of Chuang Zu and his Butterfly Dream. I think it goes something like this, Chuang Zu dreamt he was a butterfly, but after the dream he wasn't sure if he was Chuang Zu dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was a Chuang Zu. And at first in the Star Trek episode it seemed like a similar situation. Was Picard, from the Enterprise dreaming he was Kamin, or was he Kamin, from Kataan dreaming he was Picard? Even though this episode focuses heavily on the 20 minute lifetime, there is a play with another theme we have for the class, The World as Myth and Dream.

Assignments:
-Blog the notion of the 20 minute lifetime in another context.
I wrote this in an earlier blog about my experience with the 20 minute lifetime, however I will be open to the 20 minute lifetime in other contexts: The only 20 minute lifetime experience I can think of having is in the morning. When the alarm rings I think about getting up, but the warm body next to me anda peaceful Oly curled at my feet encourages me to hit the snooze and sink intomy pillow. I usually have the longest, most vivid dreams for the 5 minutes ofsnooze time. When my alarm goes off again I frantically look at the time becauseit feels as though I have been sleeping for days and days, but it has only been 5minutes.
-Blog on passage in the Four Quartets that relates to the 20 minute lifetime. There are already several people who have blogged on this and each one seems right on.

Class Notes 2/5

Lecture Notes

Skin of Our Teeth is middlebrow, it won a Pulitzer Prize. It doesn't have the complexity of Finnegans Wake. Wilder was trying to make a Finnegans Wake version for the masses.
Campbell's Letter: message in a bottle. The letter in the bottle, Mrs. Antrobus's bottle, perhaps Finnegans Wake? Page 85 of the play, "Before I go I have a letter....I have a message..."
Campbell was impressed by the letter.

By the way, while reading The Skin of Our Teeth there were some lines that may have sounded familiar to us, like on page 104 Sabina says, "You'll die when you hear," and on page 196 of Finnegans Wake the washerwoman says, "You'll die when you hear." What are the chances that page 196 of FW is the page we will be looking at on Monday the 15th at the Bacchus at 7:30?!

Read Sarah's Blog: Listlessness

We looked at Umberto Eco's book, The Infinity of Lists. FW was in there a guess what pages were quoted??? Started with page 196 a list of places, rivers!!! What are the chances now?! Page 196. Almost serendipitous. I suppose we have to make some 'mysterious mental maneuver' to appreciate lists and the ordinary everyday things.

James the Rat found a good list in Finnegans Wake page 433.

March 12!! Deadline. Have your FW passage memorized so you can recite it without thinking about it.

We see now some blogs are getting some style with the Water Genie excess style. Keep it up.

Rabelais - Medieval Monk - reminds us of James Joyce
Wikipedia: François Rabelais (c. 1494 – April 9, 1553) was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor and Renaissance humanist. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, and both bawdy jokes and songs.

**The greatest list ever?! in Frog and Toad Together - a list of things to do today, Dr. Sexson's daughter reminded him of this. There is a post modern twist in the book. Here's a youtube clip for fun with the list (however it is not quite on par with Dr. Sexson's reading, maybe there is just something good and comforting about being read to.):

My Ground Hog's Day, Feb. 2

My Feb. 2nd, Ground Hog's Day was an ordinary day. Not a day I would have recalled a few years from now. However. I will try to recreate just one part of my day to immortalize:

We pulled into the car wash (Suds and Duds) on 25th. We had to cross something off of the note card list. Item 2. Thank God he keeps a list otherwise nothing would ever get done. I could never keep a list like that. List list list. Maybe I should, but it wouldn't be for my sake. Pull in. Do we have enough cash. Oh I have a dollar here. It is his, from this morning in the coffee shop. I wonder if he knows that.
-Stay inside with the dogs, I'll be just a minute, choose a song to listen to.
The ipod is playing. Going through the list of songs. List list list. Can't choose so I put it on shuffle. Be Good Tanyas. They always be good.
mrgchssschwub-schuwbmrgchssschwubwubwub.
The high pressure water on the soon to be white again Tundy rocks the vehicle with deafening static. Copper crawls onto my lap, shaking, shivering, trembling, damn near coming out of his skin. Shit Sutter hurry up. Copper tucks his worried head into my armpit, then looks around, then moves around. Shit he should not be moving around like this his knee is getting banged around. Fuck Sutter, don't worry about this side of the car, can't you see he's scared and it's bad for his knee? It's silly, he's a dog. In fact I know he wont even remember this in 20 minutes. I'm sure his knee is fine. But it feels traumatizing for both of us. Done. Whew. Coffee. Oh, Copper sat on my coffee cup. Hair on the sip hole. Damn! I wasn't going to drink it anyway, I'm tired of the same 8oz soy latte with honey and cinnamon.
Door opens Sutter hops in.
- Thanks Sut.
- Yup.
Should I tell Sutter about the coffee cup. I begin to, but something else comes up. Not sure what. But it isn't that important to him anyway I'm sure. I just can't believe the amount of hair on the lid. But it doesn't matter, I'm not drinking it. Wasteful? maybe. There are Haitians going hungry and I ordered a latte (I'm not going to drink) out of habit rather than desire. pffarg.
We drive away and wouldn't you know there is a deep mud puddle where the parking lot meets the road. Seems useless to wash a car in the winter, but it must be done. Ease through the puddle. It is much deeper than it looks, but we have to drive through anyway. On to Item 3.

Class Notes 2/3

Feb 3rd Notes

Joyce is not interested in the external, but the internal, stream of consiousness, we think in fragments.

stepping in a puddle on Ground Hog's Day, life imitating art.

Sarah hates waking up in the morning. Which made me think of when I'm trying to sleep in Sutter has these things he says to try and wake me up, "wakey wakey eggs and bakey" or "up an atom said the little molecule" neither help me in the morning.

same four old men......I think I saw them at the Kountry Korner Kafe in Four Corners.

Basin is the first piece of furniture in Finnegans Wake.
Dr. Sexson explained the bedroom picture from Gordon. It was one of those explanations that is near impossible to recreate on this blog. Can't step in the same river twice.

The Earwickers are the nighttime version of the daytime people, the Porters.

commode - held the chamber pot

paintings in privy, Aubrey Beardsley

Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, bless this bed I lie on.

Interesting the association that the nighttime makes with ordinary things of the daytime.

museum - place where the muses live, muse room, stuff where we find the mystery of furniture.

We watched clips from The Skin of Our Teeth.
Fortuneteller emulating Mae West - archetypal seductress figure.
Character Lily, life and death
This play, by calling attention to itself as a play is post modern.

Did you find what you were looking for?
I'm looking for an honest man....have you seen one?

The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder

I just finished watching The Skin of Our Teeth, this DVD copy was a play that had been recorded I think, with Rue Mclanahan from Golden Girls as the Fortune Teller, and Jeff Combs as Cain/Henry. It was good. The Dinosaur and Mammouth were ugly but cute. The actors were great! I followed along in the text I bought for class and it was nearly word for word!!! Long play though, but good. I watched it with a couple friends (Jennie Lynn and Abby) and some wine. Even better.



Here are some links to Finnegans Wake that we discussed as we watched the DVD:

-First off, the Antrobus family mirrors the Earwicker family in a few ways, but probably more. First there is a Dad, Mom, two Sons, and a Daughter in each family. And both are the 'Every family' or 'Everyman' idea.

-Also, we talked about Sabina in class, but she has an affair with Mr Antrobus, and pretty sure Mr. Earwicker has an affair in Finnegans Wake.

-Also at the end of Act III, on the DVD, Mr Antrobus picks up a book his wife passes to him from the trap door and says, 'ah Finnegans Wake' , however that was not in the script I was following along with.

-Sabina called herself Lily for a while when she was pursuing an affair with Mr. Antrobus. I notice Joyce uses the name Lily in his books (The Dead, Ulysses) however I haven't quite found it in FW.

-Also Sabina's first lines start with "Oh, oh, oh! Six o'clock and the master not home yet...." and Sabina's last lines begin with that.

-It seems that the Antrobus family is ending and beginning again. They end the ice age and begin the flood, end the flood, begin in war. Sabina is always back to the kitchen.

-the play seemed dream-like in many ways, the way it was difficult to differentiate at times between fiction and reality. The way they would stop the play because 7 people were sick, but really that was part of the play. At least while watching it the effect is interesting.

-It seemed that other works of literature were woven within the play. Based in the play, and in the lives of the Antrobus family.

We finished it kind of late, but I just wanted to get some thoughts out there that we had talked about while enjoying the movie.

Happy Groundhog Day and Class Notes 2/1

Happy Groundhog Day!!! Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and we have 6 more weeks of winter. We can't blame Phil, he's a very cute groundhog.
A special day as you all know: Aztec New Year, Cassie Clampitt's Birthday, James Joyce's Birthday, Purification of the Virgin, Copper's first day at K9 Aqua balance, and Dr. Sexson's Wedding Anniversary! (Congratulations Dr. Sexson, most people can barely last 46 minutes with one person!)
Groundhog Day Links and Metalinks....fun site for celebrating Groundhog Day

READ for the theme of The Eternal Return
a story told by J. Campbell
http://www.wisdomportal.com/Enlightenment/IndraUniverses.html

Class Notes:
Watched GroundHog Day with Bill Murray

BLOG:
Special Feb. 2nd assignment: pay special attention to your day. The details. right action, what we do, how we do it. We will write about our Feb 2nd experience and immortalize it as Joyce immortalized the day he spent with his wife on June 16, 1904. Also echoing the movie Groundhogs Day where Phil Conners (Bill Murray) relived the same day until he learned to be a better person. Phile was a self centered, contemptable man, but learned that a life worth living is a life lived in service of others, and he learned how to love.
listen to the static, static is the noise of daily life.....but it is important.

BLOG: a blog entry of a list, and inventory

READ & BLOG: The Skin of Our Teeth, and 3 links/connections to Finnegans Wake

metathesis = crops+corpse=cropse

TS Eliot, Four Quartets, Dry Salvages
"Men's curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts."