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!

Kudos to Rio

After writing the two last blog entries today, I realized I had forgotten to say something of vital importance.

Thank you Rio!

Your help with virtually all the group presentations and even with the individual presentations today, has been amazing. The class would not be the same without your technological powers. Thanks again! =)

Individual Presentations--Day One

Term paper presentations have begun! Today's presentations were all so good. I can't wait to see what the rest of the class does with their time. Here's a recap of today: (And I apologize in advance if I misspell anyone's names....)

Elissa--wrote about Beckett and his parrot joke, etc. There is happiness or humor in the negative as well

Maxton--will relate Haroun and The Following Story to his own journey through the class by relating his journey to that of Max in Where the Wild Things Are. He spoke about three major themes, separation, initiation, and return. Max read us the story just like storytime as a child, making sure everyone could see the pictures. Thank you Max! Dr. Sexson added that Max looks into the eyes of these wild things (in emergent literature) and learns to tame them.

Adam--Spoke about the Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis in which Christ lives an entire lifetime in his final moments on the cross. This is his last and greatest temptation. Adam says God and Satan use dreams as a language of communication and influence. Sexson adds, this is a gnostic fable or fantasy.

Bizz--drew a big X on the board just as Sexson did on "March 10th" =) then drew an inverted V next to it with the Big Bang being the point of the v and us being somewhere in the middle near the base. She said the universe is expanding downward. We seek the origin as a way of defining ourselves as individuals or as a race, but when we meet that origin we must only start over again. Does this mean our existence is meaningless? Bizz mentioned we are composed of hourglasses, tiny moments changing and repeating in differing orders and sequences. and It is not about redeeming past action through this return to origin but about choosing new actions. Our redemption is in our future not the past, which is always present.

Sarah Burke--wrote a short story based on the idea of "what I know now", relating that back to the themes in the class under the structure of an encounter in a coffee shop and Finnegans Wake. She says sometimes fiction is better than reality. Her story was.....honest. It was beautiful, full of feeling, smart in its construction....and there were layers of meaning. I loved it. Thank you Sarah for reading your beautiful story.

Brianne--did a rap! for the class. One of the themes I picked up on was the idea of divinity within the self. It was very brave of you Brianne, and we all enjoyed it immensely.

Jon Certo--related the 4 quartets to reggae music, specifically Bob Marley. He mentioned Marley's song "Exodus". He says he never realized the mysticism in the lyrics, never realized because he never truly listened.

Sam--wrote about Alchemy. She talked about an artist who transforms scrap metal into art. She mentioned another artist, Deborah Butterfield who uses driftwood to make sculptures and then casts them. Sam related this to Alchemy by talking about the transformation of "the rubbish of life into art" but one must not forget its origins. "ink and stink" from Finnegans Wake made an appearance in Sam's presentation. Alchemist turning his excrement into art by using it as ink (Shem-->Alshemist).

Zach Eggemeyer--wrote about Charlie Kaufman's films and the exploration of myths as paradigms to how we should live our lives. If our actions return and recur exactly as they did the first time, how much weightier are our actions? The plight of man and true weight of being is this. We must consider our actions as recurring eternally, giving our actions much more importance than we may immediately realize.

Alicia--wrote about Alchemy in relation to the 5 themes of the class. She did a lot of research into the history of Alchemy and presented some of us to that in her powerpoint presentation. One interesting idea: that we do not reincarnate into self-same physical beings but as energy forces on the same plane.

Doug--talked about tarot cards and the wheel of fortune. He mentioned a play, "Oh Fortuna" wherein each character is in a state of rising or falling much like the characters in the Tempest. Prospero is the only character that completes the circle and brings it back around. Doug explained the origin of the tarot cards and the major and minor arcana therein. He says each card is but a fragment in the story and each are dealing with an aspect of the human story of ascending and descending. The fool and the magician are one. Top and bottom (highbrow and lowbrow) are one.

Great job everyone on your presentations today! Good luck to everyone on Friday.

Group Presentations

Sadly, I have neglected this blog as of late.... I won't make excuses....too much. When everything in the world is due at once, time and commitments get reshuffled. I hope to make up for it this week if I can.

Well, we are through group presentations now. I thought I would recap some of the highlights.

On the first day of presentations, Groups 4 and 2 presented in that order. Group 4 had the theme of life as myth and dream as their focus. They performed a play involving most, if not all, of the elements discussed in class, a journey and a returning home. To recap this presentation would take ages, and I'm not sure I alone captured many vital details in my notes. Of note, however, was how this group used powerpoint and images, some moving and some still, to enhance their presentation, really embracing the hybrid nature of this class even in this, their final presentation.

Group 2 did an EXCELLENT job with their video presentation of the 2o minute lifetime. The movie was fluid, it was multidimensional, humorous and instructive. As of last week, one could find the video on Youtube under "copy of film", but I'm not sure if it is still posted. This group also incorporated other aspects of class, the dream, characters come to life, t.s. eliot, etc. in their video. Great job Group 2!!

On the subsequent class day, Groups 3 and 1 presented their creations. Group 3 presented the theme of life as fiction and language in a video about a fictional support group, "Characters Anonymous". Each of the group members embodied one character from one of the works we read, struggling to discover the nature of his reality. They have to come to terms with the fact that they are fictional. How does this concept translate into our "real" world?

Group 1 presented the myth of the eternal return. From gas we come and to gas we return. They illustrated this through methane gas and in the lowbrow sense, farts. I wrote down one line, "from goo to you by way of the zoo" in my notes. Of note was the distinguished "Al Chemist" presenting to a class of english majors. Of course this concept of return relates back to T.S. Eliot (from fire to fire).

On the last day of presentations, Groups 5 and 6 presented. (finally some order to this numeric chaos!! =) Group 5 used movie clips to illustrate quotes from each section of the Four Quartets in order to represent the theme of Dolce Domum. This group set the mood with a table spread with candles. One will remember these candles were red and white. Coincidence??

Group 6 was my group. We had the theme of the eternal return.....again. If the groups had gone in order, this may have been more profound as we truly would be returning to our starting point once again in a cycle of recurrence. Alas, this was not the case. We did a skit centered around the idea of the sun's recurrence as a means of illustrating this theme. We brought in Vico with the idea of the descent of language from the language of the gods, to heroes, to chaos. Our versions of this was the god (Aaron) and his poetic verses on the sun, to the heroes (Brianne and Sarah....complete with towel capes and heroic underpants) relating their impressions of the sun, to Sarah Burke and myself who were stoners philosophizing in our own way about the sun and its meaning. The play started over twice (the return), only the second time, each group's reflections of the sun were more meaningful or with more insight (although the stoners didn't even notice the sun's temporary disappearance). Here we illustrate the eternal return, but each cycle brings us closer and closer to true understanding. James played our sun. How can one ever forget his rising out of the dark (trashbags) light in hand? What an image. =)

Great job everyone with the group presentations! Now on to the individuals!