Individual Presentations--Day Two

Once again, today we watched some great individual presentations and heard lots of great ideas. Here is a summary of sorts based on my notes:

Tyler--"On Liberation through Illusion" . Tyler referenced the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Molloy and Mussert. He mentioned a series of divine lights that we must come to accept and become part of. This is our liberation.

Lissa--(read Lissa's blog by the way) wrote about time and related it back to novels and movies. She says time was created by man and we obsess over it. Time is altered in the Tempest-->Prospero uses books as a means of altering time by bringing up the tempest. Lissa mentioned The Following Story, Twilight, Peter Pan, and other disney movies to illustrate these different aspects of time and it's effect on our lives.

Maggie--analyzed the last lines of Little Gidding specifically speaking of the fire and the rose becoming one. She says this is the "rebirth of life" (fire being rebirth, the rose standing for life) We are cycling through types of being but also cycling through worlds.

Rio--the phalanx (referenced a clip from Troy). Rio realized everything we've done in class has overlapped one another similar to a phalanx, so he couldn't find just one topic to talk about. He wrote his paper, "What I Gno," as a story of not knowing. He moved chronologically through the books talking about the major themes. In the end, these themes become a part of life and reflecting on them is a self-reflexive endeavor.

Joan--wrote about purifying the soul through alchemy. She spoke of the five stages or symbols of alchemy. She realized, however, that the soul does not need to be purified. It is already pure. It is the humanity that surrounds the soul that must be purified. This becomes an act of resurrection, but she says this resurrection cannot be done alone (see major characters in the novels we read) She connects all this back to the fire and the rose, the burning away of humanity. Sexson said this is the simplest way of talking about gnosticism: It is the soul descending into the material world where it gets "stuck in the muck". Now it needs purifying and cleansing to remove the muck of humanity and the physical.

Kevin--wrote about Lost as it relates to the themes of the class. He mentioned the eternal return, dolce domum, The Tempest, and the Four Quartets. In lost these themes translate into the characters' return to the island, déja vu, time and time travel (time present and time past in time future), and the act of them living on the island as a way in which there is no ecstasy.

Jessie--the themes of the class are affecting his music choices. Jessie connected dolce domum to Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", life as fiction and language to Lil Wayne (demotic language), 20 minute lifetime to the songs themselves (we live a lifetime in a mere 3 or 4 minute song), and quote from the Alchemist talking about love as the language of the world (the majority of songs are about love). One of the most interesting parts of Jessie's presentation was his talk about plerosis and kenosis in relation to the blues. He said the blues speak to the heartbreak of the soul, emptying you out, but there is a filling up with sorrow that occurs as well.

Kelsey--finding the beginning at one's end. She spoke about Haroun's dream in relation to the 20 minute lifetime. She also mentioned Finnegans Wake wherein the end of the dream is the beginning of one's day.

Kyle--wrote about "now" in the Four Quartets. He says he is more confused now than ever. =) He spoke of two different moments in the 4 quartets: the intense moment isolated containing all eternity (love occurs here, when time ceases, as does consciousness. He says as beings trapped in time, we are not conscious) and the moment of complicated pattern (lifetimes of all men exist here...old stones that cannot be deciphered). Kyle says that in the end, there can be no distinctions between the two. The patterns between the metaphysical and the physical are so complicated that they only get more so, and no clear distinctions can be found.

Sarah Knox--wrote a foreword and story. The girl becomes a rose petal. ?

Great job to everyone who went today! Good luck to all those Monday presenters!