stepping stones to wisdom

Here is a picture of my "Alice in Wonderland" I felt so connected to the Tartar book of fairytales, a feeling that you get from a book that delights and lets you in on all the minute details that may or may not matter to the book as a whole is nice, they are there for the taking yet aren't an integral part to the story; they remind me of the Tidbits. The Tidbits is a news column that has little 'tidbits' of information in them which is why, in the end I decided to buy The Annotated Alice. This fascination with tidbits, small facts of such minute information how could they hardly help or be interesting? Well I will tell you... they seem to open up your mind to endless possibilities. I feel myself scanning over them after I have read and interpreted a passage in whatever way my mind put the pieces together and the tidbits are almost a stepping stone to keep my thoughts, my ideas moving, sometimes they help and sometimes they hinder. These 'stepping stones' also remind me of Alice In Sunderland. Yet I have only made it a few short pages into this book it feels to take the same structure as this idea of 'stepping stones.' Except with Sunderland the 'stepping stones' are right in the text, no sidebar needed. It is like the idea of six degrees of seperation where the degrees are plotted for us and all it takes on our part are the 'steps.'

My Book and Heart Shall Never Part response

The most interesting thing of My Book and Heart Shall never Part for me was the cap the small child was made to wear that had a message on each of the three sides; one side said "It is fifty to one but you are," another said " I'll consider it," and the last said "I may be wrong." These sayings, usually put on a type of thinking cap was most notably written down in The History of Little Goody Two Shoes which is why it seems so relevent to the class. A cap and saying like this was eluded to in some Sherlock Holmes books I used to read as a child where Sherlock would settle down in his smoking jacket to consider difficult 'three-pipe' problems. It is fascinating to see a connection like this, where in my child hood I used to religiously read all of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, I grow up to settle them in the back of my mind to collect dust, I take a class involved with children's literature wherein the professor of this course makes a movie that has a cap that Sherlock Holmes used or was used as a type of model for his and other peoples ways of figuring out problems.

notes for October 27th

Notes:
-chello music
--the serenity of music and how this serenity is often used as the music during the playing time. What types of music were used in the play of fairy tales?
-where words are impossible to describe?
=what world...
=What did she mean by that? Absolutely nothing, its music...

-Isaac Watts How doth the busy little bee
^-"Idleness was the devil's playground"
-- "How doth the Little Bee" is one of Isaac Watts's didactic poems for children that Lewis Carroll parodies in Alice in Wonderland:

How doth the little busy Bee
Improve each shining Hour,
And gather Honey all the day
From every opening Flower!

How skilfully she builds her Cell!
How neat she spreads the Wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet Food she makes.

In Works of Labour or of Skill
I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some Mischief still
For idle Hands to do.

In Books, or Work, or healthful Play
Let my first Years be past,
That I may give for every Day
Some good Account at last. [1715]

-Matrix is based on Alice in Wonderland
--make you be moral and busy
--eviscerate/disembowel
-My Book and Heart shall never part
--Plato's allegory of the cave
-if it can't be seen; deceive
--misplaced concreteness
--inadequate responses; questions still need to be asked
--wolf mask- boy behind mask- girl steals mask from boy
-- Children's lit. goes beyond the what is needful; all stories are portal stories...The subersion of child's lit.
--ironic- "a movie that teaches us that books aren't for teaching"

The real 'morals'

Cinderella

The beautiful woman should take hast,
for coming upon them only hell will create.
Yet they believe beauty is the right path,
I am sorry to say, I only see rath.

The tale that is to be spun and pondered,
is tainted by the people who forever wonder.
Searching for beauty with sight only,
they will find this path very lonely.

And for the women who believe this,
who beautify themselves with out amiss.
You will find one day, the man with you,
is not a man, but only part of a selfish few.


Bluebeard
Oh, ye, with curiousness and charm,
you do no good, but only harm.
If this is a moral, then listen well,
since curiousity came from hell.

Your multi-tracked mind shouldn't wander,
for your husband is all you should ponder.
Through fire and brimstone, look ahead,
if you stray, I only see dread.

So to all you newly married wives,
I hope you have enjoyed your lives,
since now has the time come
for you to be content with dumb.

Linda Sexson lecture

Dr. Linda Sexson was gracious enough to come speak to our class today. The following contains some brief notes that I took on this day:
Fairtales: Didactic-god, morals, etiquette, pragmatic, nature.
-begin to become speculative
--literacy
-when child starts to become literate- lose childhood
--nature - bird hatching- writers hope kids relate/think God

Charles Dickens is re-defining himself...

I was struck by a question on this quiz, where someone in the class
came up with; What author wanted to marry Little Red Riding Hood and
the answer Charles Dickens. I feel that this is a regression of the
Oedipus Complex. This, where instead of having the boy love/obsess over
the mother, the father is now reversing the roles wanting to marry the
innocent child- L.R.R.H. Through Dickens obvious ties withchildrens
literature I feel that he had become what he did, he became so engulfed
in his work that he became the child in his work, loving another
(child) in what he himself was so deeply submersed in. He not only
loved L.R.R.H. because first off, how could you not love her, but also
in that he felt like a child again, re-defining his lines of gender,
realizing that this object in front of him is slightly different; now I
am not implying that this relationship is sexual in anyway (if you look at an early post of mine on the oedipus complex you will see why).

I mean who wouldn't want to marry that:

Oct. 10th, QUIZ NOTES FOR MONDAY

List of items on quiz...
-L.R.R.H.
-Cindy vanity
Hanzel and Gretel
The Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White
Rapunzel
East of the Sun West of the Moon
Juniper Tree
Bluebeard

Test Questions:
What is archetypal lady-Prank Queen
Portmanteau-multi-level word; many levels of meaning.
privelaged #'s in Fairy Tales: 3, 7
What is misplaced concretness?
Type 333-Little Red
collective unconscious manifests itself as archetypes
"If your really crafty you will get both."
What are the three parts of the universal quest? seperation, initiation, myth
Triple Goddess: mother maiden crone
Why is there no original? All lit. is displaced myth
bow-recognition of the devine
Aladdin, genie-"I'm not history..."
Grimm's Cinderella-Ashgirl
motif index- Hans, B&B, East of Sun..., what motif? Searching for missing husband/beast groom
mother daughter duo; Demeter and Persephone
Fairytale haikue of moral...
What is the significance of Blue in Bluebeard?
B&B-transformation by love
Archetype for talking animal- the goldan ass
Why did Cupid wake up? Hot oil
Spoonerism- 'flop moor'
Which romanitc poet believed? Already know everything there is to know... Wordsworth
What mythical story is B&B come from? Cupid and Psyche
Bluebeards-against 'female curiousity'
Which Grimm story has a witch? Hansel and Gretal
What author wanted to marry Little Red? Charles Dickens
What phrase begins most fairy tales? Once upon a time
Keltic version of cinderella- her mother was a ewe/sheep

Fairy Tale Displacement

bOZEMAN dAILY cHRONICLE, Friday, September 19, 2008 Records/Regions

Police Reports

The Bozeman Police Department reports for Friday include the following:

Early Friday morning, an officer responded to an alarm at Party On, located on N. 19^th. When the officer arrived on the scene he found that one of the large glass windows was broken and several items appeared to be missing.

Officers responding to a report of a loud party observed numerous underage drinkers entering and exiting the residence. The police also noted that there were piles of dead bird and fish carcasses outside the residents. When the officers knocked on the door the male renter locked the door and turned the music up. The officers were discouraged and left.

Just after midnight, an officer assisted the fire department in extinguishing a burning mattress in the middle of Bozeman Trail Road. A young man was arrested in association with the fire for urinating on the flames. He claims he had been at a weeklong party and felt that his larger than normal intake of fluids would be beneficial to the fire department.

A Bozeman man was severely injured Friday afternoon when a stampede of camera carrying citizens ran him over near Bluebird Ln. off of Bozeman Trail Road. The large herd of people was not found, but a statewide search party has been established to find the hit and run offenders.

Notice: All Bozeman citizens should be aware that today law 1697 section B has been put into effect. This law states that the “consequences of curiosity,” will be strictly and readily enforced only by the Bozeman Police Department and Gallatin County Sheriff’s Department.

911 dispatchers reported a fake phone call from a woman claiming she was going to die from fright. Police passed on the opportunity to deal with the troubled woman.

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Department responded to a noise ordinance complaint near Three Forks at a place called the Meadows. The noise turned out to be a meeting of the secret society, The Pentavirate. All members of the society were arrested except Colonel Sanders who somehow escaped.

A herd of sheep was rounded up by the Bozeman Animal Control division that had somehow gotten loose and was creating a large dust storm in the southeast end of the valley. No sheep were injured in this rescue attempt.

Two men, waving guns out of the windows of their 1984 DeLorean escaped three patrol cars in a high speed pursuit Friday.

A domestic disturbance was reported at 1341 Bozeman Trail Road late Friday night. When the police approached the residents of Colonel Sanders they found him dead. He had been shot and run over, which appeared to have been done by a 1984 DeLorean. In related news, the police officers had also found a hideous costume on the man, which turned out to be the same costume stolen from PartyOn that morning. The costume was returned.

By John Nehring

I feel like I need to clarify some things about this displacement. In class, before my presentation, I said that all of these reports were true. I was saying that more for the effect than the actual factual basis behind these police reports. That doesn't mean that these aren't true, but rather that most of these police reports are based, some more loosely than others, on real police reports that I found. For example, the male urinating on the mattress, that did actually happen, and in fact it happened right outside of my house awhile ago. I took real life police reports from the past and changed them to fit my fairytale.

Looking for the Oedipus complex

When I came across this idea in class, the Oedipus complex I felt that I would look a little deeper into it. In the Oedipus complex a child is fixated on the parent of opposite sex and competes with the same sex parent for attention of the opposite sex parent. During childhood he/she starts to gain gender by realizing a difference between his/her parents and a similiarity to one and not the other therefore acquiring gender. Also, a possible erotic attachment to the opposite sex parent is common where a full on sexual act isn't implied but more of a deep primitive physical sensation felt when thinking about the opposite sex parent.
Along with this attraction comes along something I think everyone can relate to in one way or another, jealousy. If a deep desire like this is felt an obvious reaction to the other parent would probably take place and in this case it takes the form of jealousy. In this instance, lets take a boy for example, a critical point of awakening is where the child realizes that the mother has affections for others besides itself. This leads into a type of loosening of ties with the mother of vulnerability, dependence, and intimacy. The Oedipal move blocks the routes of sexual and identification love back to the mother. She becomes a separate object, removed from his ideal self. Thus she can be the subject of object love. This separation and externalization of love allows a transition away from narcissism of earlier stages. The boy thus returns to the mother as a separate individual. That separation may be emphasized with scorn and a sense of mastery over women. Women become separated reminders of lost and forbidden unity. Their unique attributes, from softness to general femininity are, in consequence, also lost and must be given up as a part of the distancing process. Women become thus both desired and feared. The symbolic phallus becomes a means of protection for the boy and the rituals of mastery used to cover up feelings of loss. Separation leads to unavailability and hence the scarcity principle takes effect, increasing desire. Women thus create a tension in boys between a lost paradise and dangerous sirens.
This complex is seen in so many fairy tales throughout the Tartar book, "Little Red Riding Hood," "Hansel and Gretel" all consciously or not show the child in this situation.

What is?

What is a child?
A child consists of a person that is void of responsibility and care free. They are a social group that lives life to its purest form; just to have fun.

What is a book?
A book is any work, fiction or non-fiction, that is made up of at least a couple pages.

What is nature?
I look at nature as anything that isn't man-made.

October 1st: Notes on Hans my Hedgehog

creator: Jim Henson
-motifs:
-East of the Sun; West of the Moon; Beauty and the Beast
-Book of Judges; Jeptha's daughter (sacrificial child)
-rash promises
-transformation/beautiful the way you are
-3 iron shoes, 3 days wait, the #3
-passing of property from one man to another (marriage and abdubction)
--part of patriarchal family given to another pat. family.
-No kids; the Monster baby; the Inner Monster; Oedpial complex
--Freud puts the Oedipal stage as occurring between 3-5 years. He considers it a stage where the child experiences an erotic attachment to one parent and hostility toward the other parent. The ensuing triangular tension is seen as being the root of most mental disorders. Freud cites the incest taboo as as at the root of many other prohibitions. He sees the struggle against this as a core part of this development period with transgressions in practice and phantasy. 'We cannot get away from the assumption that man's sense of guilt springs from the Oedipus complex and was acquired at the killing of the father by the brothers banned together'. (Freud, 1930) Freud links the Oedipus complex with development the superego, which uses guilt to prevent continuation of incestuously oriented relationships. Failure to get past this trigger point and into the symbolic order is considered to be a classic cause of lasting neurosis.

-Year and a day
-formulas (language)
-starting with hello ending with 'goodbye'
-isolation (black sheep)
-beast marriage and folklore studies
--Chaucer's Canturbury Tales- women is the beast