Thursday, January 18, 2007
Reading Journal-Assignment 3
In Machiavelli’s “The Devil Who Took a Wife” the set up for the story includes the use of standard European “three context elements.” For example, the wife, Onesta, chosen by Roderigo (the devil) has three sisters and three brothers. Also, Machiavelli uses three possessed girls to propel the fable’s plot. In my opinion, the “turning point” in the story is when we read of Roderigo’s financial troubles (caused by the extravagant lifestyle he was living and his brothers-in-law who squandered his investments) that quickly compel him to run away. From that point, Roderigo makes a deal with a man, named Gianmatteo, which stimulates the rest of the story. Some general core “actions” of the main character consists of: Roderigo running away from his problem of his debt and his wife, who was making him mad; making a deal with Gianmatteo to make him a rich man in return for saving his life; Roderigo possessing two girls to fulfill his promise to Gianmatteo. Gianmatteo being forced to come exorcise the third girl and risking his life could most likely be considered the “reversal” in the story. The “resolution” is that Gianmatteo manages to save his own life by tricking Roderigo out of the third girl’s body. This happens because Roderigo returns to Hell in order to avoid the alternative of being forced to live with his wife again. As far as I can tell, the “moral” that Machiavelli is trying to convey is this: women do in facet make men’s lives miserable and everything will work out fine for the person who is upright and keep’s his vow. I particularly like the ending of Machiavelli’s piece because I think the way in which Gianmatteo succeeds over Roderigo is very humorous (scares him back to Hell with the thought of his wife). I thought the various twists in plot were entertaining and organized in a nice way for the reader. The one think I didn’t like is Machiavelli’s concept (if he’s being sincere) that women are responsible for the miserable qualities of men’s lives. However, I tend to think that this is more of a satire, rather than Machiavelli’s actual opinion of the relationship between men and women.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Writing Journal-Assignment 2
To preface, I wanted to disclose that I find myself thinking about my family, although not out of homesickness, since being in Rome. Thoughts of home (Seattle) and family tend to provide a lot of inspiration for my creative works. I think it’s the unique dynamic of being abroad for an extended amount of time. I chose to write about these specific characters or "gods" because they were all so diverse and they reminded me of people in my own family. I did find it very challenging to employ a metaphor in a myth. I could think of tons of present day truths that I might like to write about, but no characters that would fit the storyline. Then I would choose characters that I really wanted to write about, but then no present day truth was fitting enough. Having to convey a truth metaphorically felt like a real challenge to me. I expect the combination of dialogue and narrative to enable a sort of humor within this piece. I thought the dialogue was funny, simply because it might remind readers of an instance of bickering with a sibling. Starting the composition of my myth was by far the most difficult part of the assignment.
Writing Assignment #2
Family: Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Live Without Them
Once upon a present-day time there lived an average Greek family. There was a father, named Zeus, a mother, named Hera, a older son, named Ares, an older sister, named Aphrodite, a younger son, named Apollo, and a younger daughter, named Medusa. This family loved to take road trips together, however, family feuding always erupted in such close quarters due the drawn out periods of time in the mini van and sibling rivalry. Here is a story of one such trip...
The family was off to a great start on this particular road trip to Yellowstone, in the great state of Montana. They already had two hours of driving under way and John Travolta fans, Zeus and Hera were enthusiastically, but very poorly, belting their favorite “Grease Lighting” medley in the front seats of their rustic Toyota Chariot.
“Grease Lighting, Go Grease Lighting” sang Zeus and Hera.
“Are we there yet?” shouted Apollo frantically in attempt to get them to stop singing.
Apollo was always particularly offended by his parents’ ear cringing singing, being the god of music that he was.
Soon, the apparent tranquility of the family’s happy car ride would dissipate entirely once the real quarreling between the siblings was unleashed.
“What!” screeched Medusa. “I thought he was in love with me.”
Medusa had yet again found out that one of her boyfriends had betrayed her for the love of her sister, Aphrodite, the most beautiful girl at their high school.
“Oh my god, I didn’t know that the two of you were together,” Aphrodite claimed in her most angelic tone.
“Oh, when we get back Eros is going to be tasting some serious limestone.”
“Don’t turn him into stone, Medusa. You’re just jealous that all the boys like me, instead of you. Maybe they would like you better if you wore your hair differently, cause dreadlocks were so 1990’s.”
“Dad,” whined Medusa. “Why did Aphrodite have to be so beautiful? Couldn’t you have shared the wealth just a little?”
“Sweetie, don’t be upset, the other guys will be head over heels for you; when you’re older that is. If any of those boys lay a hand on you...I’ll strike them dead,” said declared doting father, Zeus.
“Stop it,” screamed Apollo, who was getting fed up with Ares trying to strike up a slapping fight, as usual. “Mom, dad, make him stop.”
“Ok, I think it’s time for a pit stop,” Hera, said as she gave her husband a very insistent nudge.
The family then pulled off at the next gas station to fuel up and grab some snacks, which would hopefully silence the kids for a while longer.
Being the curious younger brother, Apollo had wandering off into the rural forest that was just beyond the gas station. He was admiring the beautiful sunlight that was peering through the tall fir tress when a band of armed gypsies jumped out and began to encircle him. Fearing for his life and not wanting them to steal his delicious treats, Apollo cried out for help.
Medusa and Aphrodite were at Apollo’s rescue in the next split second. Medusa flashed her eyes at some of the men and they were immediately turned to stone. Some of the others merely saw Aphrodite’s beautiful face and were paralyzed.
Some of the gypsies persisted with their weapons, so Ares defeated them with one swing of his sword like a true warrior. But the ones that Ares didn’t manage to kill, were instantaneously burnt to a crisp when Zeus arrived with his thunderbolts for the rescue of his son.
Once all the gypsies had been conquered, the family safely reconvened at their mini van. Everyone embraced each other in a congratulatory hug. It was at this moment, that they individually pondered, as they had before, just how wonderful it was that they had one another should any of them have a need.
Once upon a present-day time there lived an average Greek family. There was a father, named Zeus, a mother, named Hera, a older son, named Ares, an older sister, named Aphrodite, a younger son, named Apollo, and a younger daughter, named Medusa. This family loved to take road trips together, however, family feuding always erupted in such close quarters due the drawn out periods of time in the mini van and sibling rivalry. Here is a story of one such trip...
The family was off to a great start on this particular road trip to Yellowstone, in the great state of Montana. They already had two hours of driving under way and John Travolta fans, Zeus and Hera were enthusiastically, but very poorly, belting their favorite “Grease Lighting” medley in the front seats of their rustic Toyota Chariot.
“Grease Lighting, Go Grease Lighting” sang Zeus and Hera.
“Are we there yet?” shouted Apollo frantically in attempt to get them to stop singing.
Apollo was always particularly offended by his parents’ ear cringing singing, being the god of music that he was.
Soon, the apparent tranquility of the family’s happy car ride would dissipate entirely once the real quarreling between the siblings was unleashed.
“What!” screeched Medusa. “I thought he was in love with me.”
Medusa had yet again found out that one of her boyfriends had betrayed her for the love of her sister, Aphrodite, the most beautiful girl at their high school.
“Oh my god, I didn’t know that the two of you were together,” Aphrodite claimed in her most angelic tone.
“Oh, when we get back Eros is going to be tasting some serious limestone.”
“Don’t turn him into stone, Medusa. You’re just jealous that all the boys like me, instead of you. Maybe they would like you better if you wore your hair differently, cause dreadlocks were so 1990’s.”
“Dad,” whined Medusa. “Why did Aphrodite have to be so beautiful? Couldn’t you have shared the wealth just a little?”
“Sweetie, don’t be upset, the other guys will be head over heels for you; when you’re older that is. If any of those boys lay a hand on you...I’ll strike them dead,” said declared doting father, Zeus.
“Stop it,” screamed Apollo, who was getting fed up with Ares trying to strike up a slapping fight, as usual. “Mom, dad, make him stop.”
“Ok, I think it’s time for a pit stop,” Hera, said as she gave her husband a very insistent nudge.
The family then pulled off at the next gas station to fuel up and grab some snacks, which would hopefully silence the kids for a while longer.
Being the curious younger brother, Apollo had wandering off into the rural forest that was just beyond the gas station. He was admiring the beautiful sunlight that was peering through the tall fir tress when a band of armed gypsies jumped out and began to encircle him. Fearing for his life and not wanting them to steal his delicious treats, Apollo cried out for help.
Medusa and Aphrodite were at Apollo’s rescue in the next split second. Medusa flashed her eyes at some of the men and they were immediately turned to stone. Some of the others merely saw Aphrodite’s beautiful face and were paralyzed.
Some of the gypsies persisted with their weapons, so Ares defeated them with one swing of his sword like a true warrior. But the ones that Ares didn’t manage to kill, were instantaneously burnt to a crisp when Zeus arrived with his thunderbolts for the rescue of his son.
Once all the gypsies had been conquered, the family safely reconvened at their mini van. Everyone embraced each other in a congratulatory hug. It was at this moment, that they individually pondered, as they had before, just how wonderful it was that they had one another should any of them have a need.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Reading Journal-Assignment 2
Ovid’s Metamorphoses has a very clear theme of transformation, in comparison to Calvino’s Invisible Cities. In Metamorphoses the dynamic on the heavens and earth is constantly changing, with a progressive decline to evil (Golden Age, Age of Silver, Age of Bronze, and Iron Age) that causes the gods to kill off almost all humans, to gods falling in love with people (Apollo and Daphne). In Invisible Cities transformation occurs more through the characters’ and readers’ perception. Usually when a person visits a city their thoughts and memories become confused and mixed, due to the contrasting characteristics of the city of the non-existence of the city. The intangibility of the city compels a certain transformation in thought, memory, or understanding.
All in all the gods seem to be really controlling and trouble me with their exploitive treatment of humans. The sentence that embodies what I disliked most about the god-human relationship was when Pyrrha “was still uncertain,/ And [Deucalion] by no means sure, and both distrustful/ Of that command from Heaven” (p. 971).
Metamorphoses seems to echo or resemble a lot of different mythical works to me. It immediately reminded me of Milton’s Paradise Lost because of the way they both retell or implement parts of the Bible’s creation story. I just recently took a course on the “Bible as Literature,” so I made a lot of connections with Ovid’s work and the Bible. Lines as subtle as “there were no judges,” are a nod to the judges that upheld justice and were figures of morality as written in the Bible’s book of Judges (p. 964). A more blatant connection that could be made between Metamorphoses and the Bible is the story of the flood. Not only is Ovid incorporating biblical elements, but there is also a close resemblance to Greek myths; which makes sense considering the epic Greek poems, like Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey would have been dominant influences for Ovid.
In general, Ovid’s tone is disconnected and almost aloof. It seems like he’s just recording stories that he knows, not ones he’s passionate about. Without fluid transitions between the stories, Metamorphoses lacks a cohesiveness that would, I think, illustrate the author’s personal attachment to the work’s creation.
The versions of the Demeter/Persephone myth are different because one is written as verse and one is written as prose. In one King Pluto is given a name and in the other he’s not. Also, Persephone is represented as younger and more naïve than in the other.
All in all the gods seem to be really controlling and trouble me with their exploitive treatment of humans. The sentence that embodies what I disliked most about the god-human relationship was when Pyrrha “was still uncertain,/ And [Deucalion] by no means sure, and both distrustful/ Of that command from Heaven” (p. 971).
Metamorphoses seems to echo or resemble a lot of different mythical works to me. It immediately reminded me of Milton’s Paradise Lost because of the way they both retell or implement parts of the Bible’s creation story. I just recently took a course on the “Bible as Literature,” so I made a lot of connections with Ovid’s work and the Bible. Lines as subtle as “there were no judges,” are a nod to the judges that upheld justice and were figures of morality as written in the Bible’s book of Judges (p. 964). A more blatant connection that could be made between Metamorphoses and the Bible is the story of the flood. Not only is Ovid incorporating biblical elements, but there is also a close resemblance to Greek myths; which makes sense considering the epic Greek poems, like Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey would have been dominant influences for Ovid.
In general, Ovid’s tone is disconnected and almost aloof. It seems like he’s just recording stories that he knows, not ones he’s passionate about. Without fluid transitions between the stories, Metamorphoses lacks a cohesiveness that would, I think, illustrate the author’s personal attachment to the work’s creation.
The versions of the Demeter/Persephone myth are different because one is written as verse and one is written as prose. In one King Pluto is given a name and in the other he’s not. Also, Persephone is represented as younger and more naïve than in the other.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Writing Journal-Assignment 1
The theme of the first city, “having faith is believing in something you cannot see,” was easiest for me to implement into a story. I think this is because of the way I personally think about a lot of things in life. I am not the kind of person who always has to see something or someone physically to believe in them. This is probably most exemplified in my belief in God, the supreme ruler of the universe and my creator.
It was definitely easier and more enjoyable for me to create an invisible city centralized around a specific theme. I tend to think of things in life in themes anyway and I’m a fairly organized person who likes to think of things categorically or in groupings. It just felt natural to compose a story that is trying to convey a central idea/theme.
The most difficult part of the assignment for me was making sure I used the right imagery and diction choices to accurately illustrate what I was thinking. I am a sort of a novice when it comes to purely creative writing and I tended to focus on the artistic/symbolic elements of the story which relies heavily on the best word choices.
Some of the time I enjoyed the way Calvino used language and sometimes I did not enjoy it. I did not like the he used language to throw off the reader’s linear reading of the story, but I did like how he would contradictory ideas within the same story.
When writing I just did whatever would get my stories’ point across. I did not really think of whether I was sounding like Calvino or not. However, I did notice myself using one of my favorite styles of his, which was the contrasting elements and ideas to convey one thought.
So far, Rome does seem like an imaginary city to me. That is because I will experience certain themes that I pulled from his “Invisible Cities.” I think Rome possesses themes and qualities such as “unforgettable imagery,” “constantly being inconstant,” “fellowship,” and elements of “contradictory enjoyment.” These are all feelings I’ve experienced in Rome during my first and they themes I citied from Calvino’s work. If I had to choose a theme to write about in regards to Rome it would probably be “mysticism.”
It was definitely easier and more enjoyable for me to create an invisible city centralized around a specific theme. I tend to think of things in life in themes anyway and I’m a fairly organized person who likes to think of things categorically or in groupings. It just felt natural to compose a story that is trying to convey a central idea/theme.
The most difficult part of the assignment for me was making sure I used the right imagery and diction choices to accurately illustrate what I was thinking. I am a sort of a novice when it comes to purely creative writing and I tended to focus on the artistic/symbolic elements of the story which relies heavily on the best word choices.
Some of the time I enjoyed the way Calvino used language and sometimes I did not enjoy it. I did not like the he used language to throw off the reader’s linear reading of the story, but I did like how he would contradictory ideas within the same story.
When writing I just did whatever would get my stories’ point across. I did not really think of whether I was sounding like Calvino or not. However, I did notice myself using one of my favorite styles of his, which was the contrasting elements and ideas to convey one thought.
So far, Rome does seem like an imaginary city to me. That is because I will experience certain themes that I pulled from his “Invisible Cities.” I think Rome possesses themes and qualities such as “unforgettable imagery,” “constantly being inconstant,” “fellowship,” and elements of “contradictory enjoyment.” These are all feelings I’ve experienced in Rome during my first and they themes I citied from Calvino’s work. If I had to choose a theme to write about in regards to Rome it would probably be “mysticism.”
Writing Assignment #1
Invisible City 1
Theme: Having faith is believing in something you cannot see
I know a city, the city of Revery. It is the “dreamed-of city” where “desires are already memories.” I visit this city because it resides in the deepest crevices of my mind, where memories are stored and visions of things I have yet to experience are conjured up. It is a place more real than any other area I have visited by placing one foot in front of the other upon its land of reality. Revery is a place I can see any time without having captured it as my own using camera lenses and memory cards. Some people tell me that they know this city of mine and have visited it for themselves, but I know that they could never know it as well myself, someone who has never been there in the flesh. My mind tells me of its beauties and wonders. I can smell the familiar, which are actually the unknown fragrances of my favorite flowers that grow in the fields by my favorite downtown promenade. I feel the warmth of family and friends as their love embraces me in a place I call home.
How can this place be my home if I have yet to step foot in it? It is real because I know this city within my memories. Did I visit it once upon a dream? I’m sure I did not. In a place that is dark to others who cannot or will not see, there is light that illuminates my cherished city. The utmost contentment derives from my city of Revery. My fire of desire burns brightly for me and me alone. However, your fire of contentment burns there too. One day you will fall in love with a place like that of the one I love. On that day you will not come to this place, but it will come to you. For arrival to the city of Revery is inevitable. Everyone finds it eventually and the darkness turns into an unimaginable light that comforts and guides you. It is here you will see the romantic and timeless bridges where I walk over the cooling waters of enjoyment. But when you get there the waters will not be water as you have imagined and desired it. They will be as they will be.
Invisible City 2
Theme: Where there is good, there is always bad
I once went to a city that I had been looking forward to visiting for quite some time. I can tell you what I went there to do, but I cannot remember when it was that I went and I will tell you why. The streets were lined with magnificent shops where the figures are courteous and even though I had just met these vessels, they each seemed like they were friends I had never remembered having before then. I guess this was because they were trying to pass on their most sensational objects of value, and in exchange I was to give them some small token of mine that was seen as valuable to everyone. I walked away from each store feeling more and more delighted with my new possessions. My native society had always taught me that I was suppose to obtain all the possessions I could, preferably the most expensive items I could get, and then I would be happy.
What happened next continues to perplex me even now. I saw up in the distance of the avenue of promised happiness, a cluster of purple, black, and green with rays of sunlight bouncing off it perimeters. As I continued to approach closer, I realized that this object was in fact another vessel like the ones who had helped me in the stores. But there was something different about this lumpy object that seemed to have placed itself on the pavement. I noticed that it wore a tattered purple cloth resembling something that was probably once a sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans that were so soiled that what I had seen as black was actually the color blue covered in the harshness of their city. Just as I was noticing its shredded blanket of green and grey, the vessel suddenly shot up from a lying down position. It looked startled that it had apparently neglected his task of holding out a dirty and worn paper cup.
Then something happened which has removed any sense of time during that visit to the city. Our eyes met and there was an exchange of “glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles.” Instantly I felt connected to this person. I wondered why he was lying on the ground, whether he had a home in this city, and if he didn’t why he had not yet left for somewhere better. “Did an outside not exist?” Did he find happiness in this city as I had, or did he just endure its elements of cruelty that were so evident in their eyes? By being in this place, would I just become another vessel, which ignores someone and their happiness in order to maintain my own happiness? I could no longer remember who I was, where I was headed, or when I existing at the moment that I truly saw this fallen vessel. I do, however, remember that this city was called Bifold.
Invisible City 3
Theme: Illusionary reality and identity
I have been to a city, called Bloom, where an area is inhabited solely by people of the same age. All these people are bright, glowy, eager, naïve, and knowledgeable, innovative, yet traditional. These people all conform to a predestined agenda of growing in their knowledge, but this usually makes them cling even more tightly to what they already know. When they are done with their day of expanding their minds, they expand their movement and flock to the youthful dancing of the midnight sanctuary.
Dancing with such vigor and grace, they get to believe that they are free from predestination and responsibility; however, this ideal can only be upheld temporarily through the cool, crisp dawn. As the moon settles in for bed and dusk approaches the city ambitiously, everyone re-establishes their mask, which they had removed for the night’s liberating festivities and are compelled to wear during the day. Why do these people wear the masks? No one can remember why, but rarely does anyone sincerely challenge the obligatory adornment of his or her mask.
All day they try to shine through their masks, while at the same time using their mask as a shield from the city and its inhabitants. For they know that they must either “erase the city or be erased by it.” Maybe they wear their mask so that the city does not wear down their true identity lurking behind this inanimate façade; or maybe the city has already won in erasing their identities by forcing them to wear a mask, causing the citizens to assume a foreign self. Are these people bright and eager because they wear the mask or are they that way no matter what they wear? The mask allows their youthfulness to sear through, but it denies the sincere relations they truly desire. They wish to be enlightened of one another’s identity during the daytime and not the darkness of the night, but they also wonder how things would be changed and/or worsened without the presence of their masks in Bloom.
Invisible City 4
No Theme
My favorite city in the world is called Home. It is there that I will find everything that I need. I seek my dearest Home when I am in need of the enrapturing company of my family. My family alone provides me with a necessary love and comfort, which every person longs for. They can also vex me to the utmost, but I find that no other city’s people are able to vex me more and still remain infinitely redeemable. Member of my family are the only people that I have met who can irritate and madden me the most, but be able to negate that entirely with our unique and unmatched bond. You may wonder who these people are that I call family and if they exist in any other city than that which I call Home. The answer is that they do not reside anywhere else except Home. For it is where my family is that Home exists, and where Home is that my family does as well.
I have known these people called family for as long as I have lived. I first visited Home during my first day of my life. Truly, throughout my lifetime I have been to many other cities outside of Home, but no matter where I go my cherished Home is always there for my return. Home is a city that can move just as readily as I move from city, but I never have a hard time finding my way back to this city. There is an invisible essence that makes it so I will never lose my way. I am endlessly connected to my given and chosen people, called family. I will go where they go and they will go where I go. Wherever I am, Home is there. Wherever they are, Home is there.
Theme: Having faith is believing in something you cannot see
I know a city, the city of Revery. It is the “dreamed-of city” where “desires are already memories.” I visit this city because it resides in the deepest crevices of my mind, where memories are stored and visions of things I have yet to experience are conjured up. It is a place more real than any other area I have visited by placing one foot in front of the other upon its land of reality. Revery is a place I can see any time without having captured it as my own using camera lenses and memory cards. Some people tell me that they know this city of mine and have visited it for themselves, but I know that they could never know it as well myself, someone who has never been there in the flesh. My mind tells me of its beauties and wonders. I can smell the familiar, which are actually the unknown fragrances of my favorite flowers that grow in the fields by my favorite downtown promenade. I feel the warmth of family and friends as their love embraces me in a place I call home.
How can this place be my home if I have yet to step foot in it? It is real because I know this city within my memories. Did I visit it once upon a dream? I’m sure I did not. In a place that is dark to others who cannot or will not see, there is light that illuminates my cherished city. The utmost contentment derives from my city of Revery. My fire of desire burns brightly for me and me alone. However, your fire of contentment burns there too. One day you will fall in love with a place like that of the one I love. On that day you will not come to this place, but it will come to you. For arrival to the city of Revery is inevitable. Everyone finds it eventually and the darkness turns into an unimaginable light that comforts and guides you. It is here you will see the romantic and timeless bridges where I walk over the cooling waters of enjoyment. But when you get there the waters will not be water as you have imagined and desired it. They will be as they will be.
Invisible City 2
Theme: Where there is good, there is always bad
I once went to a city that I had been looking forward to visiting for quite some time. I can tell you what I went there to do, but I cannot remember when it was that I went and I will tell you why. The streets were lined with magnificent shops where the figures are courteous and even though I had just met these vessels, they each seemed like they were friends I had never remembered having before then. I guess this was because they were trying to pass on their most sensational objects of value, and in exchange I was to give them some small token of mine that was seen as valuable to everyone. I walked away from each store feeling more and more delighted with my new possessions. My native society had always taught me that I was suppose to obtain all the possessions I could, preferably the most expensive items I could get, and then I would be happy.
What happened next continues to perplex me even now. I saw up in the distance of the avenue of promised happiness, a cluster of purple, black, and green with rays of sunlight bouncing off it perimeters. As I continued to approach closer, I realized that this object was in fact another vessel like the ones who had helped me in the stores. But there was something different about this lumpy object that seemed to have placed itself on the pavement. I noticed that it wore a tattered purple cloth resembling something that was probably once a sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans that were so soiled that what I had seen as black was actually the color blue covered in the harshness of their city. Just as I was noticing its shredded blanket of green and grey, the vessel suddenly shot up from a lying down position. It looked startled that it had apparently neglected his task of holding out a dirty and worn paper cup.
Then something happened which has removed any sense of time during that visit to the city. Our eyes met and there was an exchange of “glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles.” Instantly I felt connected to this person. I wondered why he was lying on the ground, whether he had a home in this city, and if he didn’t why he had not yet left for somewhere better. “Did an outside not exist?” Did he find happiness in this city as I had, or did he just endure its elements of cruelty that were so evident in their eyes? By being in this place, would I just become another vessel, which ignores someone and their happiness in order to maintain my own happiness? I could no longer remember who I was, where I was headed, or when I existing at the moment that I truly saw this fallen vessel. I do, however, remember that this city was called Bifold.
Invisible City 3
Theme: Illusionary reality and identity
I have been to a city, called Bloom, where an area is inhabited solely by people of the same age. All these people are bright, glowy, eager, naïve, and knowledgeable, innovative, yet traditional. These people all conform to a predestined agenda of growing in their knowledge, but this usually makes them cling even more tightly to what they already know. When they are done with their day of expanding their minds, they expand their movement and flock to the youthful dancing of the midnight sanctuary.
Dancing with such vigor and grace, they get to believe that they are free from predestination and responsibility; however, this ideal can only be upheld temporarily through the cool, crisp dawn. As the moon settles in for bed and dusk approaches the city ambitiously, everyone re-establishes their mask, which they had removed for the night’s liberating festivities and are compelled to wear during the day. Why do these people wear the masks? No one can remember why, but rarely does anyone sincerely challenge the obligatory adornment of his or her mask.
All day they try to shine through their masks, while at the same time using their mask as a shield from the city and its inhabitants. For they know that they must either “erase the city or be erased by it.” Maybe they wear their mask so that the city does not wear down their true identity lurking behind this inanimate façade; or maybe the city has already won in erasing their identities by forcing them to wear a mask, causing the citizens to assume a foreign self. Are these people bright and eager because they wear the mask or are they that way no matter what they wear? The mask allows their youthfulness to sear through, but it denies the sincere relations they truly desire. They wish to be enlightened of one another’s identity during the daytime and not the darkness of the night, but they also wonder how things would be changed and/or worsened without the presence of their masks in Bloom.
Invisible City 4
No Theme
My favorite city in the world is called Home. It is there that I will find everything that I need. I seek my dearest Home when I am in need of the enrapturing company of my family. My family alone provides me with a necessary love and comfort, which every person longs for. They can also vex me to the utmost, but I find that no other city’s people are able to vex me more and still remain infinitely redeemable. Member of my family are the only people that I have met who can irritate and madden me the most, but be able to negate that entirely with our unique and unmatched bond. You may wonder who these people are that I call family and if they exist in any other city than that which I call Home. The answer is that they do not reside anywhere else except Home. For it is where my family is that Home exists, and where Home is that my family does as well.
I have known these people called family for as long as I have lived. I first visited Home during my first day of my life. Truly, throughout my lifetime I have been to many other cities outside of Home, but no matter where I go my cherished Home is always there for my return. Home is a city that can move just as readily as I move from city, but I never have a hard time finding my way back to this city. There is an invisible essence that makes it so I will never lose my way. I am endlessly connected to my given and chosen people, called family. I will go where they go and they will go where I go. Wherever I am, Home is there. Wherever they are, Home is there.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Reading Journal-Assignment 1
Calvino’s Invisible Cities
Name of the city:
a. favorite phrases or passages from stories
b. theme/s I thought the city represented
1. Diomira:
a. “silver domes,” “crystal theater,” “multicolored lamps”
b. déjà vu and contentment
2. Isidora:
a. “wild regions,” “spiral staircases,” “spiral seashells,” “city of his dreams,” “dreamed-of city,” “desires are already memories”
b. reminiscent
3. Dorothea:
a. “girls of each quarter marry youths of other quarters”
b. logistics and realizing truths
4. Zaira:
a. “relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past”
b. concept of identity
5. Anastasia:
a. “one morning your desires waken all at once and surround you”
b. contradictory enjoyment
6. Tamara:
a. “In the shape that chance and wind give clouds, you are already intent on recognizing figures”
b. illusionary reality/identity
7. Zora:
a. “a city that no one, having seen it, can forget”
b. unforgettable imagery
8. Despina:
a. “already he sees himself at the head of a long caravan taking him away from the desert of the sea”
b. escapism
9. Zirma:
a. “Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist.”
b. mind over matter
10. Isaura:
a. “an invisible landscape conditions the visible one”
b. yin and yang
11. Maurilia:
a. “It is pointless to ask whether the new ones are better or worse than the old, since there is no connection between them, just as the old post cards do not depict Maurilia as it was, but a different city which, by chance, was called Maurilia, like this one.”
b. constantly inconstant
12. Fedora:
a. “every inhabitant visits it, chooses the city corresponds to his desires”
b. predestination and idealism
13. Zoe:
a. “The man who is traveling and does not yet know the city awaiting him...wonders what the palace will be like, the barracks, the mill, the theater, the bazaar.”
b. reality vs. make-believe
14. Zenobia:
a. “those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.”
b. subliminal messaging/brain washing
15. Euphemia:
a. “the city where memory is traded at every solstice and at every quinox.”
b. fellowship
16. Zobeide:
a. “the pursued woman”
b. trying to capture the unobtainable
17. Hypatia:
a. “the alphabetical order of vanished alphabets” “there is no language without deceit”
b. confusion and uncertainty
18. Armilla:
a. “it has nothing that makes it seem a city”
b. lacking according to criteria that constitutes a “city,” but not unfilled in being enjoyed and utilized
19. Chloe:
a. “seeking other eyes, never stopping” “an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles” “without a word exchanged”
b. the power of visual contact with one another
20. Valdrada:
a. “the one Valdrada...the other Valdrada” “inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image”
b. prevention through symmetry
21. Olivia:
a. “there is always someone who busts out laughing in the darkness” “Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.”
b. the power of speech and destruction of our commodities
22. Sophronia:
a. “two half-cities” “the half-Sophronia”
b. amusement is temporary
23. Eutropia:
a. “the traveler sees not one city but many”
b. all dynamics come together to make a whole
24. Zemrude:
a. “You cannot say that one aspect of the city is truer than the other”
b. wanting one and not the other counterpart
25. Agulaura:
a. “what was bizarre has become usual, what seemed normal is now an oddity”
b. stereotypes, false reputation, and identity
26. Octavia:
a. “the spider-web city”
b. the entangled design does not assure indefinite existence
27. Ersilia:
a. “relationship of blood”
b. manipulation of each other leads to our own destruction/downfall
28. Baucis:
a. “Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests”
b. alienation/solitude causes distain towards others
29. Leandra:
a. “unable to tell them apart”
b. dual, contradictory ownership
30. Melania:
a. “you find the same dialogue still going on”
b. perpetual tradition
31. Esmeralda:
a. “tortuous optional routes”
b. mix and matching with similar dynamics creates unique and diverse lives
32. Phyllis:
a. “at every point the city offers surprises to your view” “Your footsteps follow not what is outside the eyes, but what is within, buried, erased.”
b. false reality, not seeing what is actually there
33. Pyrrha:
a. “obviously the name means this and could mean nothing but this.” “names that bear with them a figure or a fragment or glimmer of an imagined figure”
b. does a label or imagined identity makes something real?
34. Adelma:
a. “If Adelma is a real city, inhabited by living people, I need only continue looking at them and the resemblances will dissolve”
b. the mind and imagination is more powerful and real than the truth of reality is
35. Eudoxia:
a. “all of Eudoxia’s confusion...is evident in the incomplete perspective you grasp” “It is easy to get lost in Eudoxia”
b. the city will corrupt the proper functions of your mind and the universe is confusing and alluring as this city is
36. Moriana:
a. “its alabaster gates transparent in the sunlight” “dancing girls with silvery scales swim beneath the medusa-shaped chandeliers.” “rusting sheet metal, sackcloth, planks bristling with spikes, pipes black with soot”
b. where there is absolute beauty there is disgusting monstrosities
37. Clarice:
a. “almost nothing was lost of Clarice’s former splendor; it was all there, merely arranged in a different order” “ancient Clarices, fragmentary and dead.”
b. change is necessary in order to achieve restoration to the original form
38. Eusapia:
a. “make the leap from life to death less abrupt”
b. everyone is connected because of one ideal
39. Beersheba:
a. “if the terrestrial Beersheba will take the celestial one as its model the two cities will become one.”
b. change/the city can only truly be itself by departing from itself
40. Leonia:
a. “The city of Leonia refashions itself every day”
b. full fledged materialism and consumer over-dose
41. Irene:
a. “they wonder if it would be pleasant or unpleasant to be in Irene that evening”
b. things look and are anticipated differently when they are far away or into the future, than they do in actuality
42. Argia:
a. “it has earth instead of air”
b. having faith is believing in something you cannot see
43. Thelka:
a. “So that its destruction cannot begin”
b. what is created is inevitably destroyed
44. Trude:
a. “but you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail”
b. every place/setting is essential the same
45. Olinda:
a. “you may find somewhere a point no bigger that the head of a pin”
b. retaining the same qualities that the original had and learning something new upon every examination
46. Laudomia:
a. “every city has as its side another city whose inhabitants are called by the same names”
b. every stage of life has to make room for the other
47. Perinthia:
a. “cripples, dwarfs, hunchbacks, obese men, bearded women”
b. seclusion from others and lack of diversity has consequences and produces the most negative of results
48. Procopia:
a. “Each year, as soon as I entered the room, I raised the curtain and counted more faces”
b. things are not always as they first appear
49. Raissa:
a. “life is not happy” “In the morning you wake from one bad dream and another begins” “the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence”
b. where there is good there is always bad
50. Andria:
a. “painstakingly regimented” “Each change implies a sequence of other changes”
b. planned change and uncontrollable change are both necessary
51. Cecilia:
a. “Cities have no name for me”
b. everything has some distinguishing quality
52. Mazoria:
a. “It is time for the century of the rat to end and the century of the swallow to begin”
b. there is harmony in relationship to one another, even throughout change
53. Penthesilea:
a. “city’s midst of still outside it” “vague spaces” “does an outside exist?”
b. are some things truly inescapable?
54. Theodora:
a. “gave birth to a tougher progeny”
b. changing who controls the power
55. Berenice:
a. “the unjust city” “the hidden Berenice, the city of the just”
b. good vs. evil
The narrator/s: Marco Polo (first person) and the author (third person)
Historical significance: Marco Polo was Venetian, who was very well traveled and introduced the Europeans to the Orient; he is someone who is see as a very well-traveled person. Contemporary author, Calvino makes a good choice by using this historical figure to tell these stories because Polo is a believable and credible source considering his background and knowledge of the world.
Person/point of view author uses to tell tales and why: Calvino creates a very dynamic and layered story by switching the book’s narrator from the omniscient author to Marco Polo. The reader gets a look into the Marco Polo’s and Kublai Khan’s take on the stories and their discussion in a much more engaged style.
Name of the city:
a. favorite phrases or passages from stories
b. theme/s I thought the city represented
1. Diomira:
a. “silver domes,” “crystal theater,” “multicolored lamps”
b. déjà vu and contentment
2. Isidora:
a. “wild regions,” “spiral staircases,” “spiral seashells,” “city of his dreams,” “dreamed-of city,” “desires are already memories”
b. reminiscent
3. Dorothea:
a. “girls of each quarter marry youths of other quarters”
b. logistics and realizing truths
4. Zaira:
a. “relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past”
b. concept of identity
5. Anastasia:
a. “one morning your desires waken all at once and surround you”
b. contradictory enjoyment
6. Tamara:
a. “In the shape that chance and wind give clouds, you are already intent on recognizing figures”
b. illusionary reality/identity
7. Zora:
a. “a city that no one, having seen it, can forget”
b. unforgettable imagery
8. Despina:
a. “already he sees himself at the head of a long caravan taking him away from the desert of the sea”
b. escapism
9. Zirma:
a. “Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist.”
b. mind over matter
10. Isaura:
a. “an invisible landscape conditions the visible one”
b. yin and yang
11. Maurilia:
a. “It is pointless to ask whether the new ones are better or worse than the old, since there is no connection between them, just as the old post cards do not depict Maurilia as it was, but a different city which, by chance, was called Maurilia, like this one.”
b. constantly inconstant
12. Fedora:
a. “every inhabitant visits it, chooses the city corresponds to his desires”
b. predestination and idealism
13. Zoe:
a. “The man who is traveling and does not yet know the city awaiting him...wonders what the palace will be like, the barracks, the mill, the theater, the bazaar.”
b. reality vs. make-believe
14. Zenobia:
a. “those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.”
b. subliminal messaging/brain washing
15. Euphemia:
a. “the city where memory is traded at every solstice and at every quinox.”
b. fellowship
16. Zobeide:
a. “the pursued woman”
b. trying to capture the unobtainable
17. Hypatia:
a. “the alphabetical order of vanished alphabets” “there is no language without deceit”
b. confusion and uncertainty
18. Armilla:
a. “it has nothing that makes it seem a city”
b. lacking according to criteria that constitutes a “city,” but not unfilled in being enjoyed and utilized
19. Chloe:
a. “seeking other eyes, never stopping” “an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles” “without a word exchanged”
b. the power of visual contact with one another
20. Valdrada:
a. “the one Valdrada...the other Valdrada” “inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image”
b. prevention through symmetry
21. Olivia:
a. “there is always someone who busts out laughing in the darkness” “Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.”
b. the power of speech and destruction of our commodities
22. Sophronia:
a. “two half-cities” “the half-Sophronia”
b. amusement is temporary
23. Eutropia:
a. “the traveler sees not one city but many”
b. all dynamics come together to make a whole
24. Zemrude:
a. “You cannot say that one aspect of the city is truer than the other”
b. wanting one and not the other counterpart
25. Agulaura:
a. “what was bizarre has become usual, what seemed normal is now an oddity”
b. stereotypes, false reputation, and identity
26. Octavia:
a. “the spider-web city”
b. the entangled design does not assure indefinite existence
27. Ersilia:
a. “relationship of blood”
b. manipulation of each other leads to our own destruction/downfall
28. Baucis:
a. “Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests”
b. alienation/solitude causes distain towards others
29. Leandra:
a. “unable to tell them apart”
b. dual, contradictory ownership
30. Melania:
a. “you find the same dialogue still going on”
b. perpetual tradition
31. Esmeralda:
a. “tortuous optional routes”
b. mix and matching with similar dynamics creates unique and diverse lives
32. Phyllis:
a. “at every point the city offers surprises to your view” “Your footsteps follow not what is outside the eyes, but what is within, buried, erased.”
b. false reality, not seeing what is actually there
33. Pyrrha:
a. “obviously the name means this and could mean nothing but this.” “names that bear with them a figure or a fragment or glimmer of an imagined figure”
b. does a label or imagined identity makes something real?
34. Adelma:
a. “If Adelma is a real city, inhabited by living people, I need only continue looking at them and the resemblances will dissolve”
b. the mind and imagination is more powerful and real than the truth of reality is
35. Eudoxia:
a. “all of Eudoxia’s confusion...is evident in the incomplete perspective you grasp” “It is easy to get lost in Eudoxia”
b. the city will corrupt the proper functions of your mind and the universe is confusing and alluring as this city is
36. Moriana:
a. “its alabaster gates transparent in the sunlight” “dancing girls with silvery scales swim beneath the medusa-shaped chandeliers.” “rusting sheet metal, sackcloth, planks bristling with spikes, pipes black with soot”
b. where there is absolute beauty there is disgusting monstrosities
37. Clarice:
a. “almost nothing was lost of Clarice’s former splendor; it was all there, merely arranged in a different order” “ancient Clarices, fragmentary and dead.”
b. change is necessary in order to achieve restoration to the original form
38. Eusapia:
a. “make the leap from life to death less abrupt”
b. everyone is connected because of one ideal
39. Beersheba:
a. “if the terrestrial Beersheba will take the celestial one as its model the two cities will become one.”
b. change/the city can only truly be itself by departing from itself
40. Leonia:
a. “The city of Leonia refashions itself every day”
b. full fledged materialism and consumer over-dose
41. Irene:
a. “they wonder if it would be pleasant or unpleasant to be in Irene that evening”
b. things look and are anticipated differently when they are far away or into the future, than they do in actuality
42. Argia:
a. “it has earth instead of air”
b. having faith is believing in something you cannot see
43. Thelka:
a. “So that its destruction cannot begin”
b. what is created is inevitably destroyed
44. Trude:
a. “but you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail”
b. every place/setting is essential the same
45. Olinda:
a. “you may find somewhere a point no bigger that the head of a pin”
b. retaining the same qualities that the original had and learning something new upon every examination
46. Laudomia:
a. “every city has as its side another city whose inhabitants are called by the same names”
b. every stage of life has to make room for the other
47. Perinthia:
a. “cripples, dwarfs, hunchbacks, obese men, bearded women”
b. seclusion from others and lack of diversity has consequences and produces the most negative of results
48. Procopia:
a. “Each year, as soon as I entered the room, I raised the curtain and counted more faces”
b. things are not always as they first appear
49. Raissa:
a. “life is not happy” “In the morning you wake from one bad dream and another begins” “the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence”
b. where there is good there is always bad
50. Andria:
a. “painstakingly regimented” “Each change implies a sequence of other changes”
b. planned change and uncontrollable change are both necessary
51. Cecilia:
a. “Cities have no name for me”
b. everything has some distinguishing quality
52. Mazoria:
a. “It is time for the century of the rat to end and the century of the swallow to begin”
b. there is harmony in relationship to one another, even throughout change
53. Penthesilea:
a. “city’s midst of still outside it” “vague spaces” “does an outside exist?”
b. are some things truly inescapable?
54. Theodora:
a. “gave birth to a tougher progeny”
b. changing who controls the power
55. Berenice:
a. “the unjust city” “the hidden Berenice, the city of the just”
b. good vs. evil
The narrator/s: Marco Polo (first person) and the author (third person)
Historical significance: Marco Polo was Venetian, who was very well traveled and introduced the Europeans to the Orient; he is someone who is see as a very well-traveled person. Contemporary author, Calvino makes a good choice by using this historical figure to tell these stories because Polo is a believable and credible source considering his background and knowledge of the world.
Person/point of view author uses to tell tales and why: Calvino creates a very dynamic and layered story by switching the book’s narrator from the omniscient author to Marco Polo. The reader gets a look into the Marco Polo’s and Kublai Khan’s take on the stories and their discussion in a much more engaged style.
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