A Poem: The Music of Life

In Walt Whitman´s Leaves of Grass, he talks about America. He says that the country is made up of a lot of people from every culture and the diversity that there is. Whitman continues talking about the potential that every person has for poetic expression, and that America is an enormous poem. However, I couldn´t see how regular people have potential for poems, and what essence Whitman can see on them.

Reading the 14th poem of Leaves of Grass, Whitman adds to his thought by saying, “What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easier, is Me; Me going on for my chances, spending for vast returns; Adoring myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me; Not asking the sky to come down to my good will; Scattering it freely forever.” (Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman. 250-254) This first call my attention, because Whitman doesn´t take his time to answer of even put a question mark on the question he starts the paragraph with. Also, he capitalizes the word “Me”, and he answers his own question with the “Me”, therefore since the first line he is making an emphasis in the Me.

Reading, I understood that everyone cares a lot about themselves, and everything they do has a reason that feed their ego. Therefore, this self confident person is the poetic side of each individual. Their passion they have for themselves is what makes them make an effort every single day, and that’s the poem. A poem doesn´t have to be written, because it is made out of the feelings and a thought of the author, so just by having those emotions, a poem is made.

Cliche, Make My Life Easier

When I started to take my french classes I started to notice how hard it is to explain the simple things in our lives. In Walt Whitman's poem Leaves of Grass he states the same by saying, "A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;/How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he." (Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. 6.92). I mean, how can you explain to a child what is water without using any scientific terms?

Anyways, I really understood Whitman in this part of the poem, but it was his use of words that made me get the hang of him faster. Using the "stuff" (93) and "I guess"(94) break the ice that the name Walt Whitman and a poem creates. A poem tends to be a very complex text that requires a lot of close reading and analysis to understand, but the words he used make a poem fun. Also, he is doing what he is saying, by choosing simple words to talk about a simple matter, and trying to express a simple literal feeling.

However, I see most of the word choice as a cliche, since the word or expression has been over used. Nevertheless, I recognize that by the time that Whitman wrote the poem, the words weren't misused yet. Whitman was able to pull of expressions that were interesting enough to be instilled in a great number of people, and still be easy enough to use in the daily life and common language.

HOW TO GET WHITMAN'S STYLE

This master of style, breaks the roads of literature, wearing bright colors on the shoes and hats, but calming the neon with some simple shirts. He starts the look with bright ideas that come from his head and introduces. Later, calm the colors with some pastel colors, and use designs that everyone can wear and understand at all times. Finish the look, with more powerful colors in the high heel shoes, but remember it must make a smooth transition with a big statement.

Felicite, Relay on Yourself

Felicite, Flaubert’s character in A Simple Soul, is a very timid girl, living a life as monotony as her. Nevertheless, this character knows what love is and had a experience, though it didn’t go that well, and attaches to things that make her feel secure and won’t let her down, such as her religion and Loulou.

After some chapters in the book, Loulou is a parrot that was left behind in the moving of some neighbors. Gustave introduces Loulou starting by his name, “He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of his wings were pink and his breast was golden.” His description about this character stands out, first of all because the author invests an entire paragraph on his physical description. Also, he had mentioned before he came from America, therefore, the reader can assume the description of the bird, and yet the author takes the time to do it.
“Loulou” is the repetition of “lou” twice, representing how the parrot would imitate Felicite, that both souls are leftovers from others, and that the parrot is mirroring Felicite. “The breast is golden” represents the golden heart the animal had since the beginning, and explains why this parrot meant so much to the servant girl. Also, Flaubert says “his head blue”, as well as he said that at Felicite’s deathbed blue smoke came out. The author is using blue to demonstrate the tranquility of the animal, and how he transferred it to the girl, leaving her only with that at the end of her days.

Felicite didn’t love herself or the live she was living. Therefore, she tended to rely on things that made her feel secure and promised never to leave, such as the religion. By the time Loulou arrives, starts looking like her: with his commitment to the job and the people they work for, the heart and mind they own, and how they were never wanted by anyone and were left behind. At the end Felicite starts to relay in the bird, and since then she starts living, because she started to relay on herself.

Chesse as your Weapon

Felicite is the character that Flaubert uses to narrate his story of this poor servant’s life. She is a very timid person that only takes care of her job without getting into her mistresses’ business and she is recognized and envied for her work ethic.
However, reading the book, the reader gets the impression that Flaubert doesn’t even like this girl, since she lacks character and a strong personality. We can deduce this from the style that he uses to refer to her and how he rushes listing her description without giving her much importance. In the first chapter Flaubert writes, “She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary in her hand.” (A Simple Soul. Gustave Flaubert). To describe this girl, Gustave lists all her daily routine, in a fast and simple way. With this he is making emphasis in the monotony in her life, and how insignificant her work is, but yet she puts all her effort to it. Also, he adds a “rosary” when she falls asleep, to demonstrate that this girl only bares her life thanks to the religion she is faithfully following, and it is the only thing that she feels comfortable sleeping and resting with.
For this unlikeness towards the servant, I was impressed to see why the author added a scene were Felicite is a hero in her life. Gustave, mentions the family’s trip to the country, were the kids, Virginia and Paul mess with a bull and how “Felicite continued to back before the bull,
blinding him with dirt, while she shouted to them to make haste.” (A Simple Soul. Gustave Flaubert). In this scene Felicite saved the life of the family she worked for. However, it is an outbreak since Gustave made an emphasis to this moment, by inverting an entire paragraph. Nevertheless, the turning point that supports the idea that Felicite is a girl that lost a great part of her soul, is that she wasn’t happy about saving this three life’s. Felicite, only smiled but didn’t really care, because she is torturing herself every single moment and no longer lets herself feel joy or be proud of herself.

Felicite is a very insipid girl, and yet the author is able to use her, and make a strong statement about the monotony and miserable life’s of many. With the use of his style, he can pull of the statement, even though he is using a very common and simple character. Also, with his use of words we can deduce many hidden ideas that make the reader understand Flaubert.

In My Case

For me there are two types of writing: the literature writing and the simple essay writing. The easy writing is a job that can be done at any time with no inspiration, as a line of facts grabbed together by words. But in the case of literature writing, there are a lot of complications.

I am not a child that is unknown to words. In my case, most of the walls in my house are filled with books and all the members of my family are known for knowing a lot. Also literature and art, hasn’t been an unknown filed in my house and education. Every vacation we learn about the customs, art, and literature from the place, and since our last summers have been around Greece, Italy, England, Spain and France, our time was filled with information rather than shopping.
However, I am intimidated by literature, and this ends up being my struggle for writing.
Unlike my family, grabbing a book wasn’t my idea of fun. However, I have been influenced my customs, and slowly introduced literature in my life. When it comes to reading, it is amazing when I understand otherwise; I hate it, but that doesn’t tend to happen. I love the way authors are able to not only gather those ideas, but also write them in a “Page is it flat and undensified” (The Sentence is a Lonely Place” Gary Lutz). However, I must admit that this amazement has grown into a huge intimidation.

When you are forced or expected to write something good of your own, I get stuck. I haven’t bee able to write with a constant style, making my writing inconsistent. Also, there are a lot of thoughts in my head that contradict and connect in a way that is very hard to explain. Therefore, I end up having the “temptation for the writer to get out of one sentence as soon as possible” (Lutz) and rushing through thoughts. This is what has made my writing a very lonely place.

However, once in my life I was really inspired. This Wednesday night I was so tired, that I can’t even remember writing what I wrote. I believe the Sara that is not scared of writing, wrote that night, but I have certainly haven’t had the chance to take her out again.

I don’t know what is wrong with me, and I really don’t want to talk about it. I just hope to find my own style and get things straight. But most of all, I want that excellent writer to come back.

Not Again

What do books, stories, songs, films, music, and everything the human being does, have in common? The four lettered word, LOVE. To be honest, I can’t believe the amount of issues and things we have to say because of love. Also, how is possible that people don’t get tired of it? Songs can loose popularity and new ideas can come, but its guaranteed that no matter the time period, love will always invade our mind. And when I talk about love, I’m also including the absences of love, all the kinds of love, and just everything related to it.

I was relieved with The Crying of Lot 49 because it had laughed and used disgusting love in the first chapters. It was horrible the intercourse between Metzger and Oedipa, and very bitter and funny the way Nefastis had proposed her sexual intercourse to her while watching a Chinese program.
I know that the book is not an exception when talking about love, but at least it is not romantic and it doesn’t cry for any love repair.

Nevertheless, I was destroyed in page 91 when Thomas Psychon had to ruin the anti-romance environment by saying one single deep phrase of love. As a reader, I noticed that Thomas lost track of the rhythm he had used throughout the book, but at least he gave the line to a random tourist instead of a principal character.
Here it goes, a bomb, a flub, a great slice of cheese: “The pin I’m wearing means I’m a member of the IA. That’s Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That’s the worst addiction of all.” (The Crying of Lot 49. Pg.91)

Reader, throwing that phrase after 90 pages of a great book is bad idea #1. Don’t do it, and contact me if you find anything that frees me for a moment about love.

Getting the Hang

After class discussion, I was reading being aware of the paranoid moments. I didn’t expect to understand more the satire in the book, and be able to enjoy more Thomas’s dark humor. Having clear what is a joke and what is not, as a reader you can enjoy more the unbelievable scenes there are, and how the characters worry about everything. In the moment the reader gets the hang of it, it’s a complete joke, and you can relax and enjoy the most hilarious story.

It was when I read, “ ‘Yes,” lied Oedipa, to see where it would take them.” (The Crying of Lot 49. Pg.67) That I noticed how the author uses an enormous amount of details that have nothing to do with the plot. “ Nobody paid any attention to them: the air conditioning hummed on, IBM typewriters chiggered away, swivel chairs squeaked, fat reference manuals were slammed shut, rattling blueprints folded and refolded, while high overhead the long silent fluorescent bulbs glared merrily; all with Yoyodyne was normal.” (69) Demonstrates how the scared characters look at everything in a suspicious way even though everything is normal.

This writing technique can be transferred to film by taking shots of a great deal of normal thoughts, followed with a suspicious facial expression or silence from the characters. In the movie, Burn After Reading, a lot of the plot is similar to the book, since the movie is based on a small problem, and every character assumes is a governmental topic secret issue. Again, in the movie normal movements are taken as a persecution by the characters, so the film focuses a lot in normal scenarios.

Having the hang of The Crying of Lot 49 I can tell future readers to take this book as a joke. Enjoy it instead of looking a meaning for everything. In my case, I’m understanding it more by imagining everything as a movie that focuses in normal things.

Falling into Place

Talking about paranoia in class, we said that we get something into our heads and we try to fit everything into place according to what we think. But what happens if we can modify what we think, and then everything will fall into place?
There is a book about contemporary philosophy called The Secret, that has grown so much that they have several documentaries. Part of what the book suggests is to desire what you want so bad, that eventually everything will fall into place. Nevertheless, is this technique functional because we are paranoiac and make everything fall into place, or does the World really modify to please us?

I have the same feeling when people talk about fortunetellers and horoscopes, and say that they really work. However, in the movie of Queen Elizabeth, is shown how she consulted Dr.Dee, an astrologist that could predict the path of the future. Even though, she was insecure of the future because of the present, I believe she gathered a lot of strength from what Dr.Dee told her, and with her strength she was able to make everything fall into place.

Finally, no matter if it is a silly paranoia or accuracy of what he hear, listening to something that gets into our heads, will happen our will find our strength to make it happen. Now start thinking of what you want.

The Princess Secret

When I was reading Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, I thought it was very interesting how he used Cinderella in his book, to represent Billy. However, in The Crying of Lot 49, I was impressed to see that Thomas Pychon uses Rapunzel.

Oedipa thinks of herself as “Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among to say hey, let down your hair.” (The Crying of Lot 49.pg10) In the case of Pychon, I think he just uses Rapunzel to laugh about the shallow Californians, and the characters in Hollywood. Later on, in chapter 3, Oedipa thinks she is going to “Bring to an end her encapsulation in her tower, then that night’s infidelity with Metzger would logically be the starting point for it; logically.” (31) It is very interesting to see how the author is able to join the chapters with Rapunzel, but my guess is that Oedipa will grow and change, and so will Rapunzel. However, I keep on thinking that Rapunzel is Oedipa’s paranoid feeling towards the mystery of Pierce. In that case, I don’t expect Rapunzel to change, and probably the princess will be the one to gather the book together.

I had some curiosity and went on and read the Brother Grimm’s story about Rapunzel (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm/rapunzel.html). I thought it was very similar to the Bible, where Abraham and his wife are struggling to have a baby, and when they do, they must scarify him. I can’t think of a reason why Thomas Pychon would use this part of the story as food for a satire, but I’m guessing that he is using the fairy tale as a joke.

Harder than Counting the Sand Grains in a Beach

One of us, Tomas Pynchon or me, is mentally ill. If it’s me, I’m going crazy and have lost my ability to understand text, but if he is the crazy one, and what he wrote is completely incomprehensible. And I’m pretty sure that my understandment is not an issue.

Reading the first chapter of The Crying of Lot 49, I understood some strange comments that I imagine they are supposed to be jokes, like the fondue or the KCUF, but rather than that, I’m blank. However, I have some information floating around in my head, like a blurry dream, but I can’t put the pieces together. I have no idea how to organize them or make up a sentence with them, so I prefer to list them, and you decide how to paste them together. Here they go:

- Oedipa is getting a promotion.
- She is trying to get drunk.
- A very rich man was murdered a long time ago, and they found his will that gave everything to Oedipa.
- Oedipa doesn’t know if she is mentally well.
- This happens in California.
- There is a radio station called the KCUF.
-The doctor, Dr.Hilarious, calls very early.
-A lawyer, wants to runaway anywhere with Oedipa.

I guess I could make up a weird story that can attach all of the clues together, but I’m not in the mood for starting up the creative part of my brain or trying to fool my teacher. Then you figure it out, and incase you are thinking, “Well, that is easy to figure out”, it’s not. When you read the chapter there is a lot of things going on with unfinished ideas, I made all the dirty work for you, so don’t take all the credit.

However, before I give up on the text I have something to tell Mr.Psychon, what were you thinking? And, if you get your ideas and jokes clearer you will make my life so much easier. Consider an easier second chapter. Thank you.

Oh! And for Dr.Hilarious and Roseman, help the situation, but Roseman, don't try to run away with Oedipa. What kind of lawyer and friend are you?

The Battle of Sexes Diagram

Selfish Gene Keyterms

-Selfishness-- Any gene that acts in such a way to increase it's own survival chances in the gene pool at the expense of others.

-Alturism--Any gene that acts in such a way to decrease it's own survival chances in the gene pool at the expense of others.

-Survival Machine--Container created by a replicator.

-Replicator-- Molecule that can repeat itself.

-P.I.-- PARENTAL INVESTMENT- How a parent invests on the offspring.

-E.S.S.-- EVOLUTIONARY STABLE STRATEGY- A ratio of sexes that is perfect for a balance in evolution.