Project-in-process Reflection

My goals for this project starting out are basically to describe how Identity fluctuates, how culture influences one’s decisions and thoughts (his culture, the immortal culture) how it connects you to those before you and will continue to live through those in the future. All of our experiences are the same, one does not go through a situation that is completely unique to themselves. There is always someone, somewhere in the world who has experienced the same thing.

Now it’s developed into more of a reflection of identity and what defines identity, how it changes, what it means to this immortal man, his opinion on his own identity and it’s necessity compared to that of humans. I want to include epigraphs at the beginning of the different parts, which will be labeled “part ____” and so on, from some of the different things we’ve read if I can find ones that fit. Using the different P.O.V. such as third and first person, I want to kind of mix up identity in that sense as well.

I am having trouble developing the actual story, I don’t know if I want to include more of his background or just focus on specific instances of his life. I also don’t know if I want it to be more of his reflections in first person or more of the story, I think it’ll be more of his reflections because the concentration is on identity and his reaction and thoughts on his own identity. I feel like this doesn’t make sense, and that’s probably because I’m having trouble with the execution because I just can’t get inspired by anything. We’ll see how this goes…

Stein Response

I do not plan on summarizing or even explaining the whole of Stein’s the “Geographical History of America” simply because I cannot, but I can, however, try to explain the small sections of the small sections that make up this whole. Starting off on page 427, in the section “After number I” it seems as though humans, although they do “it” so well (let others read what they write, write what they tell, write with human nature?) they do “it” with human nature, that is, they write through remembering and forgetting. But only once in a few generations does one write with the human mind, that is, it does not have a beginning to remember, nor middle or an end.

Human nature occupies. What does it occupy? The mind, with memories and emotions? I feel as though Stein thinks that human nature is like an old person’s yard sale, it is filled with things from their lives, and many things are spread out on tables but as you survey their goods you realize that there is nothing of use to buy. It occupies the space, but what good is it? At least when it comes to writing. Memories are not interesting because they only occupy and to the human mind, they are not useful. Writing with human nature creates a whole, a beginning and an end point. This, Stein says, is not interesting because having those things means you need to remember what happens and then inevitably you forget the details of those happenings. Perhaps that is why this work has so much repetition and no clear explanations because if there were we would have to remember them instead of keep plowing ahead, no ending in sight.

“Writing is neither remembering nor forgetting neither beginning or ending.” Writing is the human mind. One thing that I found very interesting is the sentence that follows this on page 428, the fact that being dead is in fact, something. When one dies, one does not simply vanish and one is still labeled as a state. They are dead. Even though they are not living they can still be something and that is such an impossible concept because if they are still something, are they not still alive? On 429, Stein explains that a whole is not interesting but one at a time is. This seems highly reminiscent to what she’s been doing. One section at a time, always changing, not meant to be read as a whole (but inevitably so). Each word is connecting the next word, one by one. This is action, the language and words are creating action and as long as they are acting they are not static.

Next is the relationship between the words identity and identical. Stein says “No one is identical but any one can have identity.” Identical is being exactly alike. Humans are not exactly alike but they are alike in that they all have identity. Identity would mean to be unalike, each person has their own identity that “defines” them but if everyone has an identity then that is an identical likeness. Skipping to page 437, “now at any time that there is a universe anything is very near.” I believe that this means that although the universe is impossibly large and for the most part unknown (because what are theories anyways?) the fact that it has a name, a classification, an “identity” it makes it manageable. We give names to unknown things because if they are unknown no one knows them and if no one knows them can we, as a people, say they exist? Because obviously if one does not know about something then that thing does not exist (sarcasm).

Romance makes landscape and America does not have romance because America is a flat land. Why is America flat? Well, because we can wander around it so easily. America is a whole, our states are connected to create this whole and it can only be a whole if the pieces connect which is easily done because our land is a flat land. My view of why America is flat is that there is no change. Just like if you lay something flat on a table and look at it from a horizontal point of view that thing is just a straight line. Without change or fluctuation, America keeps going like a repeating record, doing the same things, saying the same things and handling them in the same manner. But of course that is entirely my opinion and I have no idea if Stein would agree. And even if she did I doubt I would be able to understand it as an agreement because of how confusing she would make her reply.

Again, skipping to page 440, “Does it make any difference if a dog does not know the difference between a rubber ball and a piece of paper. No not any why he does…No not any only he does.” It should not make a difference because it is only the dog’s thoughts that matter to the dog and therefore it should only make a difference to him. But it still makes a different to him, does it not? Or is it only the dog that can determine that difference because he is the only one that can ask why he doesn’t know the difference. But of course we can’t know that because we cannot read a dog’s mind any more than we can read a human’s. This course of action, the determining of a difference, has entirely to do with identity. And here I will end my response because from here on in Stein begins to make even less sense than usual.

Spahr, The Transformation Response

Without hesitation, Spahr sets up her short story with the perfect introduction paragraph describing a flower, which, for the purpose of analogy I am only choosing one of the names introduced, is called huehue haole by the native people of the island. Huehue is “the name of a climber native to the islands” and haole is used to describe those that come from a different land. This name in itself is a contradiction, the first part of the name is native to the island while the other is foreign. But, as it goes on to say, in botany, it’s a name that describes a “particularly noxious and invasive species”. Could this perhaps be in reference to colonization or just foreigners in general or could it mean system and categorization? People conquer a land, establish their own systems of categorization and try to eradicate the existing customs and assimilate their own ways into the culture until the only remnants of the past are in the facial features of the natives which are also slowly being diluted as they mate with their oppressors. Though that isn’t really the entire point of this piece. 

The threesome, who for all purposes are the main characters of this story, are lovers and yet they do not know exactly how to act as a threesome since lovers are only supposed to come in pairs. Part of the problem is that they can’t find words to describe their relationship, however, they hear that on this island (which actually is Hawaii…right?) there was a word used in the native tongue to describe them. Of course, they don’t speak this language nor are they native to the land. Although these things are true, the island made them realize what they were, they gave them a name and they realized that this name is a name that belonged to them and to the other them, the they of the past. And I think that I will continue this discussion at a later time because I’d like to read it more in-depth before jumping to any more conclusions.

Kearney and Bryant

Well, last Tuesday I was only able to make it for the last few performances of Kearney’s poetry so unfortunately I did not get to see Tisa Bryant read any of her works but thankfully she did do a little bit of reading on that Wednesday. Based on those moments, I found performance poetry intriguing and saw the difference between Kearney’s written poems and how they are actually supposed to be read. Even though his poems have arrows and brackets meant to guide I don’t think I would’ve been able to follow it in the way that they were meant to be read. I’m amazed that he can even perform them that fluently with how they are arranged on page, though I guess he’s done it so often that I doubt he even reads it when he sees it on the page and it’s just purely through memorization. 

I also found the topic of Oral Texuality and the tension between the oral and textual sides of literature. Connecting it back to Africa and the oral traditions the native people used in the past and still use today was also interesting and the fact that Africa as a nation (the tribal nation) values oral over literature. While, at the same time, the western world values literature over spoken words. This duality creates tension and from the tension new things, new technique are born. I hadn’t really thought of performance poetry as being transgenre, though now that I think on it, it is so obviously clear that it is.

There is so much opportunity within this sphere for growth and production, but I feel like it is also a difficult line of concentration. How can you make the words on the page become synonymous with the feeling in which you spoke them? Kearney had tried (maybe succeeded?) with his Black Automaton and although it is indeed visually rich, does it really communicate the enthusiasm with which he performs? I can’t be so sure, actually I’m quite doubtful that it can ever be done. This makes me want to explore this new form (not personally, I’m horrible at performing things, especially my own work) and think that maybe it will gain in popularity and spread to  new genres. And although I just said new form, isn’t theatre the same thing or is it different? Maybe not, because while actors act out characters, poets act out words. 

 

Project 2 Reflection

For our second project I knew I wanted to do something about social media just because lately I’ve been seeing it used in various different ways. For example, on every news station, no matter if it’s the weather or Fox 2’s Let It Rip section they keep showing the responses of the people that either follow them on twitter or have commented on their facebook page. I just find it ridiculous and a bit offensive, even though I know it’s meant to make the news more approachable, to make the people feel like they have a say or they matter but most of the time I feel like their comments just take away from the discussion. Anyways, I wanted to play around with this in my work and I took actual facebook posts from a number of my ‘friends’ and incorporated them into the text. 

The content itself discusses communication and the problems that we still have even though using social media is so accessible now. The narrator, although it seems ‘his’ (I say ‘his’ but I never specifically address him as a male in the short series of narrations) words have no meaning, and actually to him they don’t, it appears that his struggles are with ‘his’ interactions with others.  He is influenced by other’s opinions easily and feels pressure to keep up this facade of a social life yet, although he takes his lack of social interaction into account, he doesn’t want to go on an date with his girlfriend, he doesn’t want to go to work and he becomes suspicious of the new intern that keeps smiling at him. 

The organization of the content also follows this disconnect between reality and this social sphere, it’s jumbled together and sometimes confusing, it’s up to the reader to follow the stories and connect them on their own. Also, the fact that I never address the narrator by name or pronoun asserts this question of identity that people seem to always be searching for and now turn to social media to express this desire. I also try to deal with societies attitude towards things that don’t necessarily concern them and their lack of interest in anything that doesn’t directly benefit them. I don’t know if anyone would really get these things from my work but at least that was what I had intended when I started on it. And so, that is the summary.

Gaga Feminism/f-words

For Monday’s ‘creative’ response I looked to “Gaga Feminism” for my topic and responded to various things concerning that and, I had meant to bring up a passage in class to look at but just never got around to actually saying it so what better time to do it than now? On page 84 there is a sentence that says, “…when a woman stops dating other female-bodied people and takes up with a biological male, people then refer to her as “going back to heterosexuality,” as if she had been on a short vacation, strayed away from her regular life but was now back on track.” And again, the sentence after; “…lesbianism can never be either an origin or a destination – in other words, it can never be a primary mode of identification, nor can it be the goal a woman might shoot for.” This suggests that lesbians only choose female partners because they have run out of options and must be desperate which is actually what various doctors, lawyers and priests thought about lesbianism in late 19th early 20th centuries. Although, for the masculine women they thought it was just something congenital or inherent. Because apparently, if a good-looking “normal” women chooses to go lesbian she is only doing it because of “certain dire circumstances”. 

This is find highly interesting and wonder if the same thing was thought about men being gay. Do men only turn gay because they are unable to find someone that will love them? And what about the women that were mentioned earlier who, by the time they are in their 40’s and are still single end up choosing some undesirable older man because their pool of potential marriageable candidates has gone down. But, notice that they did not choose to go with a woman even though their situations would, under normal circumstances, be considered ‘dire’. People are always trying to define and find an origin to homosexuality like it’s a strange disease that has a cure if only we could find the cause of it all.  

As for Duplerris’ “f-words” I can say that it is extremely dense and it took me half an hour just to get through half of it. Although I have to say I was actually able to somewhat read it this morning as opposed to before class on Monday when my brain was obviously at a low-functioning point. I won’t attempt to try to connect or find some revelation about the text but one thing that is obvious from it is that essay’s are a form of their own, completely separate from other literature and apparently unable to be categorized. It was interesting to see examples of the first few forms of essays (which didn’t seem like essays at all) transform into how the modern essay came to be. I never did think before just how complicated and complex the essay could be by just being a writing about a reading which is to say a wreading/writing text. Hopefully if I read the next half it will make more sense to me…hopefully, but doubtfully. 

“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely” (1pg Response)

By the title of Claudia Rankine’s book “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric,” I wasn’t sure exactly what I was expecting. Will it be a sad story addressing the lonely life of the “me” mentioned in the title or perhaps the general state of the American people; a state of loneliness? What I found was the adjective lonely, a word that seemed to act as an undercurrent throughout the entire text. Claudia’s style is at once technical yet extremely personal and relatable. Relatability is exactly one of the reasons that I chose this text. The first line of the first page of the story is “There was a time where I could say no one I knew well had died,” and yet as I moved through the text there was the constant questioning of death and the subtle and un-subtle expressions of depression (5).

Rankine includes various stories of death and her own personal struggles with depression as well as the people that are close beside her. She takes a position outside of herself with which to see the world and society that surrounds us all. America’s desensitization of death and our incapability to deal with our own traumas makes us all lonely because we do not know the means to express ourselves. Before the story even begins Rankine starts off with a quote from Aime Cesaire that I believe accurately describes the meaning of her American Lyric. “And Most of all beware, even in thought, of assuming the steriles attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of grief is not a proscenium, a man who wails is not a dancing bear….”

In terms of transgenre, this text certainly does it credit. Beginning with format, each page varies in length and content of its words; from one paragraph inserts to strategically placed pictures of static televisions, when you skim through the pages it does not look like a normal novel. It does not move chronologically nor does it only tell of her experiences but the experiences of many whose stories may have or may not have mattered. A six-year-old beaten to death to millions of HIV-positive South Africans, Rankine makes the point that these lives do not matter. She also questions this statement and at one point writes that this expression of grief or physical pain over a loss “is not something an “I” discusses socially.” (57).

She is constantly questioning her own lack of emotion over this fact that millions of lives never mattered. Why is she sad? She writes about these deaths without experiencing some sort of grief or pain and thinks that maybe that is the reason for her sadness. Claudia Rankine does not like the news. Another theme that I got out of this text is that the American people are all trapped by the same apathy and treatment of death. Our media and government bombard us with death each day and by the time we are grown we have this detached notion of death, as if it is not important, as if it doesn’t directly concern us. But, although we are lonely because of this inability to express ourselves over one of the most important events of our mortal lives in a social atmosphere, this combined loneliness is the thing that connects the people in this nation.

To say that this text has influenced me to write differently, well, I cannot determine that yet, but I can say that it made me think. It made me think of my thoughts on death and the various stories covered in the book and it also made me think of how a writer can use other people’s stories to enhance their own. A creative writer must not only be able to come up with fictional events but factual ones that can give the reader a true connection to their story. Images also play an important role in Rankine’s book, the photographs being able to invoke strong emotion out of the reader even when the writer is not using words to do so. A writer’s tools include so many things, and this book has taught me how to use a variety of them effectively. Although I’m sure I’ve barely touched the surface of this book, I’ve been able to connect with it and because of that I believe that this was a successful interaction.

“Dictee”

Cha’s “Dictee” is a very interesting and innovative novel and I find that, although I do not understand all that is going into the work and the message behind that effort, I can connect with it in a way that other books do not make me. I enjoy the cultural aspects of the work, which is more interesting to me because I have an interest in the Asian cultures but also because it gives emotion to the work. It is an unusual combination of prose and almost like poetry written into it although not made obvious. There is a lot of repetition as well as fragmented sentences that make you stop frequently while reading. Family, religion, culture…it deals with a lot of topics and I am looking forward to understanding the meaning behind her words. 

Project #1 Reflection

When I first started thinking about how I wanted to do my project it was in the form of an essay that would attempt to explore the nature of my relationship with both English and Japanese and how they function in my mind. I think I would have continued with that idea if time would allow it but I couldn’t organize my thoughts fast enough and in the end I tried to do a story that would touch the surface of these thoughts as well as others. 
I can’t say that I’m completely pleased with the result, although I may write prose most of the time, this style as well as the length is not what I am used to. Even though I don’t feel fully connected to my work the project has at least invoked my curiosity about these topics. Writing transgenre is hard and easy at the same time and Rob’s class we wrote in accordance to other author’s and their form but writing my own transgenre piece is different because there are absolutely no guidelines to follow. We’ll see how the next piece turns out. 

Anzaldia Response Post 2

Gloria Anzaldua’s book (book of prose and poetry) resembles Rimbaud along with Aime Cesar and their connections with their own countries and ethnicity. Both struggled to find their identity within their own cultures and both rebelled against the image the outsider, as well as people of their own background, forced upon them. It is autobiographical as well as historical and fictional as Anzaldua describes her process of growing into the person she is now along with the prejudice she’s had to face along the way from not only people outside of her own race but those within it as well.

Having to read so much in such a short amount of time I’m afraid I haven’t given it the processing it deserves but the inflow of information is certainly rich in detail and full of feminist protest. Just as the last two authors we read on Monday, she also wants to call attention to the lack of space Chicana (Spanish, Mexican, etc.) have had in the literary world. Another theme is, as I’ve mentioned, the power struggle within the patriarchal structure and the symbol of the female in Mexican culture. Structurally, the book, I find, reads like a normal book. It is written in a way that the story keeps progressing in an organized way but with different quirks like the input of quotes, poems, prose written in Spanish and so on. It makes you think what your identity is and to whom or what do you attribute your personal being to.