An Angry sidenote

GE has made 28 billion dollars since 2005 yet has not paid any taxes on their income because they have hired ex-IRS employees and government officers to make sure they don't owe anything. So, how does this make the 10% of those of us who are unemployed feel, or the reportedly one in six Americans who suffer from hunger? What about the fact that those who were responsible for not properly monitoring banks and predatory lenders have walked away scott free and sometimes with billions of dollars in booty. I don't want to say anymore because I feel too upset right now.

The Odyssey

I have never read the Iliad or the Odyssey, so I figured it was about time. It is structured in different frames; sometimes we are focused on Odysseus, sometimes on his son. I was surprised at how much the story takes place at his home. I thought the majority of the Odyssey was an adventurous journey, but it is instead a revenge tale. I was also interested in the strange role of Pallas Athene. She takes on various roles of men and women in Odysseus' journey and at his home. It not entirely clear if she is just inspiring these people or actually possessing their bodies. The ending is quite violent but I was not surprised when I recalled ancient was customs I remebered from history courses. 

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

I was not just pleased with this book because its protagonist shares my surname, though that is why I picked it up in the first place. It is a romance in the tradition of Austen, but in modern England populated by people of different races, religious beliefs, and traditions. It is funny, insightful and never cheap in its sentiment. Highly recommended.

The Sound and the Fury

I wasn't sure I was going to last for the duration of this work. It starts off from the viewpoint of a handicapped man; most of his insights are based on sensation. I wasn't sure I wanted to stick with that for 300 some odd pages. But three other perspectives are also offered all written in different styles. This is my first Faulkner besides a short story we read of his in my American lit course at BYU. It seems that those who are labeled postmodernist aren't really doing anything new when you encounter these types of works.

American's sense of self worth

This idea was certainly informed by my readings of Benjamin Franklin and Fredrick Douglass in American Lit classes at BYU, and surely almost every American film or book I have read since, but Americans tend to have a high regard for the Horatio Alger myth and they hold any one who is assisted in a lower esteem. I think this is also reinforced by a feeling of superiority this gives to those who feel like they have achieved everything by themselves. Finally it remains unchallenged because we live so far apart from one another in anywhere outside of the major urban areas. I know these seem like simplistic readings, but they are all true. While I lived in England and Italy, people maintained much healthier social lives, often leading to a greater sense of community. This sense leads to the belief that community is fundamental to everyone's success. I may feel more self-concious now about this at this moment, but as I am a PhD student I have needed to rely on the help of my family and friends to assist me at times. This wasn't something I planned, but none of us really know how our lives will turn out even if we are successful chasing after our goals. At times I feel this has led certain individuals to feel like I am not responsible because I don't have a real job. I tried to get a crap job. It didn't work. It was easier for me to get into a PhD program than to get a Christmas job at Toys R us.  I am also too sensitive. 

Nietzsche's The Antichrist

This is the first book I have read on my kindle. And it was free! So this is the first work of Nietzsche's that I have ever read and I find him to be an interesting though self-loathing cat. His dislike of Christianity seems to spring from a need to self-deprecate. Every chance he gets he takes a swipe at the Germans and of course Christianity, and most of his reason seem rather emotional to me instead of well-reasoned. He praises every other major world religion in comparison with Christianity. He also says some interesting things from my perspective. Nietzsche seems interested in the priority of experience as a defining characteristic. He seems however to dislike Christianity so much, that he can't believe that Christians can have religious experience as well. 

A Christmas Tale

A Christmas Tale feels like a Truffaut film, but with a lighter view of the tragedies involved in relationships. Its been about a wekk since I watched this so the film is not fresh in my mind. It seems quite at home with the awkwardness of families getting together when their members have antagonistic feelings towards one another.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

I had never heard of this book before but as I was glancing through a used book store in England, the image of the raven caught my eye and I thought "That looks like something that is both rewarding and immediately entertaining". And it was, though it took me forever to read it. I think it was certainly assisted in being published by the success of Harry Potter, though this is not a children's book and its tone, allusions, and ideas are all quite different from Rowling's series.
I certainly did not know what to expect through its duration and found myself being glad that I had a bit of English culture to help decode some of the book's themes. I'd like to discuss it with others but I haven't met anyone else who has read it yet.

Bleak House

I have decided that I am going to use this blog to record my reading experiences and the first entry will be Bleak House. I was looking at the packaging for the BBC DVD version of the text and I noticed how several blurbs mentioned Bleak House as a kind of soap opera. It is but but its melodrama is not entrenched in relying on quick reactions to good and evil because many characters are not so easily defined. Inspector Bucket for example completes some actions that are deemed praiseworthy in the eyes of Miss Esther Summerson and others which are damning. At the end I found myself moved by the principles that are conveyed by suggestion of love as a transcending factor in understanding the relationships and situations of the plot. There are large metaphors: Chancery as a metaphor for death; bilical allusions abound in Dicken's condemnation of showy charity.

Nothing new to add...

Nothing new to add. I'm excited to finish my term essays and begin my dissertation. I wish I could change the way things are going with my dad but I can't. Instead I always feel like I have a dead elephant chained around my neck. I mean I just feel weighted down. But at the same time I'm doing al right with it. It bothers me but in the end I still have people who I love and care about in my life and I have lots of things I love doing and things I'm interested in and I always have my faith.

Orpheus

Hey ya

Bagpipe and Kilt Land

Well these are some pictures from Scotland I added for non-facebook users. Don't feel bad. Its just a bunch of social posing anyways. I don't really feel like commenting on these now but maybe I'll edit it later and add some nifty fartsy comments.

Scotland and Raunchy Rosie

Probably on Sunday I will put up my pictures from Scotland and tell some stories: some funny, some sad, some dirty (including the legendary Raunchy Rosie). Anyways I hope everyone is well. I am just working on some papers at the moment before I go back to school in a week and a half. I am always happy to see my wonderful cousins and friends and their children and their experiences. I am really glad that I have people in my life that I admire and love.

Amy Winehouse

Its sad that someone so beautiful and so talented has fallen victim to celebrity culture and prying eyes. Hopefully she recovers. I'm a bit slow on this one.

Rap music

I've picked up listening to rap music again and I am struck at how positive a lot of it feels. Mos Def, Common, even a lot of the Wu Tang stuff is kind of soulful interactions with simplicity, pop culture, even the meaning of life. A lot of Wu Tang stuff consistently references a branch of thought that identifies us as co-creators with God. There's some sex and violence but then there are these thoughtful reflections on mans relationship with God. Its almost as if there are these swings from one extreme to another. I also like the identity adopting stuff the Wu Tang does. Its almost like this Andy Kaufman type performance where the act leaves the stage and becomes part of what most us consider the real world. Some of it is gratuitous, and I don't even recommend most of the Wu Tang stuff unless you take it at a distance,but I find it kind of happy and free and sometimes even wise.

1974

A lot more violent the TV series that was inspired by 1974, the original text is somewhat disturbing. This underground pit where children are allowed to be harmed is not so difficult to imagine after the guy in Austria. There had to be people that were involved and in some way everyone is involved in the sense that a society is capable of producing and protecting such monstrous individuals. Society can never be blamed for all of humanity's ills,; some of it is down to people who are disturbed and go undetected for a long period.
But the hero of the novel tries to change the world because he can't stand himself or the world that surrounds him. A good noir but really heavy.

Barack Obama

I think he's great.

Horrible things

Tonight I felt like I heard of something so horrible that when I realized what was being said I could not think of anything but how incomprehensibly evil some men can be. Apparently a man in Austria raped his daughter repeatedly over 24 years and had 7 children by her which he has kept locked up in a dungeon in his house, never even letting them see the light of day. I thought of how I and others have joked about incest before and I just felt ashamed. I could almost feel myself making a pledge never to feel sorry for myself again. I guess everyone has their own troubles and the measure of their emotions are only comparable to what they know through their own experiences. But I can't imagine that these children thought that they had normal lives. The way the world naturally works and operates in every relationship from one thing to another, ying to yang, hard to soft, suggests that this is not right in any way. How can society deal with something that troubling? We don't even want to immagine that a human is capable of that but it hurts to understand that they are.

Roommates Stepping on Cats and Hey Ya

So four of us stepped out from my house on Tuesday night to go over to the super huge tesco's nearby. My roommate Seanybaby yawned, stretched his arms, closed his eyes and kept on walking right to the point when he stepped on an unsuspecting cat on the sidewalk. The cat shrieked and Seanybaby jumped up and ran backwards afriad that he had woken up a furry monster. That was funny but I felt bad for the cat becuase it only has one eye.

I think the song Hey Ya was inspired by the way English people say hi to one another. If you think about the music video Andre 3000 is refrencing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. Its like hes trying to bring something British over to America. Everytime I hear Hey Ya I feel like dancing and singing 'Shake it like a polaroid picture. Shake it, shakeit'.

Biographies and Federico Fellini

This probably goes without saying, but every time I read a biography I find myself identifying with the subject and am saddened at the end when they end up dying. Tonight as I finished Fellini's Biography by Tulio Kezich I teared up a little bit, perhaps because I found myself using my experience in Italy with one of the most visible icons of Italian culture of the twentieth century. Though many men who lead extraordinary lives seem to always be unfaithful, they are also almost always portrayed as being a philanthropist, and you find these expressions in their work and their sins seem easily forgivable, but of course this is made from the sideline and not from the experience of lives. Though Giulietta Masina loved her husband, she knew he was unfaithful and their relationship suffered from it probably in ways that are undocumented as so many experiences are.