Weird stuff i wonder about

Don't know why I felt compelled to post this but the package of Toilet paper said the TP was bleached white using non-chlorine bleach. Why the hell do the powers that be feel the need to bleach TP white. Why is white the standard color for TP? Does our culture have some issue with wiping with brown, blue or red TP? I don't know why this bothers me. Sorry for wasting your time if you actually read this.

Diamonds Are Forever, and a Palaver is a Bore

My diamond comes from comment made by the servant girl Lily.

"The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you."

Lily makes this remark to Gabriel when he asks about her romantic life. At this response, Gabriel becomes very uncomfortable. It is the first indication of a bit of a self esteem issue for Gabriel. It is a little oh in his Character. A chink in the armor of a person thus far built up to be the perfect man...or perfect angel as his name suggests.

What I find very interesting is Joyce's use of the singular helping "to be" verb with the plural subject "Men." She is both referring to the male species and a particular man...most likely Gabriel himself. I say this because Lily describes men as palavers which are people who speak idly or borishly, without any deep sensible meaning associated with genuine conversation. Gabriel is a well educated scholar and battles with himself about how smart he should sound in his speech. He contemplates the quotes to use to toast the night. As toasts at gatherings such as this are generally pretty shallow "here's to the hostess" sort of ordeals, using high faulted quotes makes the toast that much more insincere.

The bitterness in Lily's voice leads one to believe her comment is some sort of plea. Yet Gabriel overlooks this detail and for fear he has somehow offended her simply and shallowly offers her a tip to make up for his transgression. This further illustrates Gabriel's shallow nature and his concern with appearances. My guess is shallow and superficial actions were part of Joyce's view of the Irish paralysis, a trait carried over from "enlightened" England. Shallowness prevents true relationships and meaningful exchanges.

Echoing Burnt Norton

So i only managed to read the first section of Burnt Norton before having what I think is at least a little epiphany about epiphany. So in the spirit of the class and the blog I'm going to run this by all of you to see what ya'll think. Forgive me if my thoughts come out a little garbled

"Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future"

Eliot uses the word perhaps to pose a question of time and experience, both real and potential, may co-exist.

"What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present."

Eliot argues they do coexist in the present but if so where do all these "might have beens" exist.

In "Footfalls echo in the memory." Thus begins Eliot's facination in echos. What might have been exists as echos following us around. These echoes of "what might have been" are the "the unheard music hidden in the shrubbery" "Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves, In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air." Unheard echoes are the key to the rose garden, the source of enlightenment. All one must do is listen closely to these unheard echos to gain entrance into this rose garden. Our ear must find the proper pitch to match the silence and the echo is revealed. Once inside the garden, countless other echos, revelations of what might have been, hide in the underbrush and like the bird says we must "find them, find them."

Well thats all fine and dandy but how do we find the key to the mythical and enlightening rose garden? How do we discover all of these "dignified, invisible" echoes? While they are silent, elusive, even tricky, the echoes are sound and a very quiet sound needs only a megaphone to boost the volume. Or... perhaps a "drained pool, dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged" shaped perfectly to cause these silent echoes to reverberate and resonate back to us. A device, a sense, an emotion, an image, a yummy treat shaped perfectly to reflect silent stalking echoes of memory back to us in time present and back into our soul; thus creating epiphany.

For Eliot, a dry pool in the box circle garden creates this resonance. It finds the proper wavelength to boost the signal of the echoes and the pool "filled with water out of sunlight, And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly, The surface glittered out of the heart of light." He finds the key, the secret to the echo, the entrance to the rose garden, and in the ultimate connection of East and West this particular rose garden shows forth a single lotos. But that's not all, in that single moment of epiphany, that particular time present, the rose garden gives up all of it's secrets. "They were behind us, reflected in the pool." Everything reflected, resonating, the ultimate AWE! experience. As Douglas said "The entire ocean in a glass of water." But in this case all of the echoes of time past, present, and future are reflected in a pool tuned to a precise but indescribable pitch exposing it all. (On a side note this sounds oddly familier to Bruno's "Divine Mind" the ability to know all that ever is, was, and will be.)

Sadly the feeling is fleeting. The epiphany is momentary. "A cloud passed, and the pool was empty." And the bird tells us to "Go," forget, "Go, Go, Go...human kind Cannot bear very much reality." But the smart person, the person who paid attention, the person who's soul vibrated at the proper pitch to reflect that first echo remembers, even if only a tiny bit. As I've said before because the memory and the imagination and the soul cannot exist without each other then the astute observer and the profoundly affected, cannot forget completely. A glimmer of the echo remains or maybe even a general outline to harness the echo or, if one is really lucky, the bass note in the mysterious melody that resonates "Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present."

This first section seems to be an answer to the question of "how" in an epiphany. It certainly was one for me.

Another epiphany photograph

To further illustrate my point made in my last post, I wanted to share another picture of another epiphany not to dissimlar from the Austrian mountain. Taken just after dawn as a huge storm front passed over my families lake cabin in North Idaho. I get a chill just thinking about it. Definatly something not worth forgetting.

Forgetfulness and The Piper

"For this is the last best gift that the kindly demigod is careful to bestow on those whome he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness." (126)

Dr. S told me in class that the best thing to do in regards to my epiphany on the mountainside is to forget it and I have since read chapter 7 in WW yet somehow I find a bit of difficulty in this view of the epiphany. It doesn't quite jive.

The reason i find difficulty is because of another revelation (epiphany) that occurred in an English class last spring. Of course I'm speaking of Oral Traditions and my infatuation with the interconnected nature of the Memory, Imagination, and Soul.

It seems that an epiphany is a very soulful experience. It jerks at our souls, as I said before, It tells us "pay attention you idiot." As Taylor writes "Epiphany is a restlessness." For Mole, "A great Awe fell upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror--indeed he felt wonderfullly at peace and happy--but it was an awe taht smote and held him and, without seeing he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near." The connection felt by mole and by all who experience true Awe epiphanies comes not from the senses but from the soul. The "restlessness" and the jerking is ones soul reaching out to be completely apart of the experience. To paraphrase Nick and his wonderful definition of Epiphany the manifestation takes hold of the subject's soul, entrances it, prods it, pokes it, distorts it, breaks it down, builds it back up, forces it into a deep/divine contemplation, and finally creates such longing the soul yearns for it after it's gone.

I think this yearning may sometimes be misconstrued as an attempt to understand an epiphany, as I did, trying to ascribe some concrete sentence to explain the purpose for my experience on the mountainside above the glowing alpine valley. Because discovering purpose in epiphanies is a fruitless endeavor, as even Eliot finds difficulty putting purpose into words, it would seem that forgetfulness would be the best self-defense mechanism for epiphanies so you don't drive yourself mad trying to find purpose in them.

However, because an epiphany affects the soul it equally affects the memory and the imagination. As it put it in Oral traditions, "The imaginaiton is the one hour photo center of the memory," and memory shapes the soul. Or as Frances Yates writes "What then is memory? It is in the sensitive part of the soul which takes the images of sense impressions; it therefore belongs to the same part of the soul as imagination, but it also per accidens in the intellectual part since the abstracting intellect works in it on the phantasmata. (Yates Art of Memory 71)

Thus, epiphanies can't and shouldn't be forgotten as Dr. S put it. Simply they should be remembered for what they were not what they meant. I can use my imagination to remember every little event on that mountainside yet I couldn't begin to explain any sort of purpose, and it moves my soul in nearly the same way. I would bet Abby feels the same about her Oxtail Soup and fine wine in a hole in the wall cafe in Rome. Both our experiences unforgettably jared our souls thus are unforgettably lodged in our imagination and our memory. With an epiphany the "what happened" memory is the crucial part not the "why happened." Would christianity exist if Moses forgot the burning bush? I don't even think he had an explanation for his experience but he remembered the "what" of it. For centuries wise men and scholars have busied themselves with deciphering the "why," the concept that eventually became christianity.

Yes the demi god supposedly gave Rat and Mole the gift of forgetfulness however they both retain some memory. They remember even if its "nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it. The Beauty!" (127) or a voice whispering softly in the reeds (130). The lingering memory remains enough that I would be willing to bet Rat isn't dreaming of baseball and boating when he falls asleep in the prow, but rather of an unnamed melody played on a pan flute while the wind blows in the willows.

The "what happened" of an epiphany permanently imprints itself in the memory and imagination, shapes our souls, and in turn, shapes ourselves.

To best sumarize my aruguement I will once again rely on Frances Yates as I have throughout Oral Traditions and most likely the rest of my life. "Since the divine mind is universally present in the world of nature (continues Bruno in the Seal of Seals) the process of coming to know the divine mind must be through the reflection of the images of the world of sense within the mens (soul). Therefore the function of the imagination of ordering the images in memory is an absolutely vital one in the cognitive process. Vital and living images will reflect the vitality and life of the world." (Art of Memory 257)

Wind in the Willows and the English Epiphany

I was reading Nick's blog about epiphanies in the early chapters of "The Wind in the Willows" and I instantly realized how little about epiphanies I actually understood. I began the first pages to this book with a bit of an absent mind. It is the first novel I've read in an upper division english course since last spring. I kind of forgot how to read and what to look for thus I glazed right by that first epiphany Nick touched upon.

"Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by the animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air" (2).

I feel we each have small epiphanies on a near daily basis. Something drives us to act, something drives us to go to the gym, something tells us to make mac and cheese, something inspires us to complement someone else. These miniature epiphanies that inspire action are mostly inconsequential. I would even say they may not be epiphanies at all but for the sake of my argument, I believe they are no matter how tiny.

It's the most basic epiphany. A call to action. Something, though that something isn't revealed, drives Mole to emerge from his tunnel. And like Mole who digs out of his tunnel because of "something" to find a whole unbelievable world, sometimes these little epiphanies lead to something much bigger.

I remember sitting in my US 101 class first semester freshman year. I'd come to MSU for the skiing and the Mechanical Engineering program. A typical story for incoming freshman. I was in my own "underground" where "nothing can happen to you, and nothing can get at you. You're entirely your own master, and you don't have to consult anybody or mind what they say " (68) I hardly realized it but I was unhappy. I hated what I was doing. Yes, my parents loved what I was doing, preparing myself for some future high tech lab job. Yes I could keep telling myself and others that I was a freshman studying Mechanical Engineering and I was in such and such a design class and such and such a math class but I hated the sound of it. I hated the taste it left in my mouth.

I remember reading Paulo Coelho's book "The Alchemist" in that same US 101 class. I followed story of the boy in search of his "Personal Legend" with intense interest. I seemed to be following my own omens: apathy in my math classes, increasing curiosity in literature, right along with the boy.

"You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow." (Coelho 131) It was if the Alchemist was speaking to me and not to the boy... my heart wasn't in Mechanical Engineering.

"The Alchemist" was my English epiphany. I knew as soon as I read it I couldn't spend my life crunching numbers or staring at Auto CAD. I new my "Personal Legend" was in the "Language of the World." "[I] had not a cent in [my] pocket, but [I] had faith (Coelho 44)" and "Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World (Coelho 113)" I needed courage because to a 18 year old freshman, "job security" and "financially stable future" came from Mechanical Engineering and not English Literature. Never-the-less I chose English Literature, after a brief tryst into English Teaching, and I haven't regretted it since. And those concerns that plagued my 18 year old self have long faded.

"The Alchemist" was a catalyst, a call to action, and an epiphany much like Mole's. It was something simple that, according to Badger occurs "if your ideas get larger and you want to expand--why, dig and scrape, and there you are!" out of the underground, "and there the things are, waiting for you." (68).

I have to agree with Mole, it's an incredibly beautiful and exciting world up here...I can't wait to see the river.

New Semester, New Class, Same Old Song and Dance

To prevent the Web's growing Blog bog from past semesters of Dr. Sexson's classes. I have decided to continue on with the blog I began a short year ago for Oral Traditions.

Why you ask? We cause frankly I quite like the blog I wrote for that class and reading over some of my old posts helped me get back into the Thinking/Doing mindset required for a Sexson blog. Also, it seems from the first day of class that much of Oral Traditions will transmit over to this semester. And of course because there are so many familiar faces in this class from the previous one.

Funny thing about using blogger. It seems that each semester I figure out easier ways to streamline my blog. For instance, the "blog list" tool makes following all y'all from my own blog much easier. I like easy like Lt. Aldo Raine likes "killing Naatzis" (sorry had that movie stuck in my head all day). Second I figured out how to add a title picture to my blog another cool little feature.

Since this class is about "Epiphanies" I figured I better start the class off with my best early-semester, non Wikied definition of epiphany. The title picture to my blog best outlines my personal definition of "Epiphany." A moment of clarity to which the ultimate purpose remains a bit hazy. I can remember every last detail of the moment that picture was taken. I was standing on the north side of the Maurikopfle (a peak in Austria) just below the summit before the final pitch of our climb. I remember my breath dancing in a white haze in front of me with each exhalation. I remember the silence interrupted only by the crunch of snow under my feet. And I remember the prickly chill that ran up my spine, skipping across each vertebrate and spreading through my limbs to the tips of my fingers and toes. The chill subsided only in my mind as if to tell me "pay attention dummy, this exact moment is very important, don't forget it." And I haven't.

However, the peculiar thing is I couldn't tell you why that moment was so important in my life, I simply know it is. It could be telling me that I must never forget my love of mountains and snow and adventure and that I must pursue that love unwaveringly. It could be telling me to be conscious of some higher power that molded the scene before me. It could be a reminder of how lucky I was to have the things I'm thankful for. Or it could be something I haven't even thought of yet. What i do know is, that moment on that mountain remains deeply important to me, it was my epiphany, or at least one of them. So important, I can still look at my cheesy pose in that digital image and be ripped right back into the smells, the sounds, the sights, and the thoughts of that afternoon on the mountain side.

It was important...yes. It was an epiphany...I'm sure of it. What it meant...hell if I know. But maybe through the course of the semester i'll find out.