Sure Thing

I absolutely love this dialogue. I've heard quite a few like this before, but they're so enjoyable that they don't get old. It's funny and charming and well-written. I could imagine it all easily, and I actually had it "cast" in my head (I could definitely see a couple of my friends who I used to act with in high school doing this). The setting is perfect in a cafe; it's simple enough not to take the focus away from the characters, the development of whom is obviously the focal point of this play. Just get two thespians who can capture an audience's attention and who mesh well together and you have a production. The bell is the perfect way to change the direction of the dialogue because it's very obvious but wouldn't distract. I also love how Ives gave the characters the extremely generic names "Betty" and "Bill." It shows that these characters could be anyone, anywhere. It goes through several situations of how two normal people could end up either never giving one another a chance, or else hitting it off so well that they get married and raise a family together--two girls and a boy to be exact. The title is ironic because it shows that meeting someone new is never a sure thing. It is written with a lot of energy so it would be fun to watch, and it made me laugh just reading it so I'm sure it would funny seeing it performed.

Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter

I really like this poem because of the imagery, and because I can relate to it. I admire how Robert Bly and paint so vivid a scene in peoples' minds with only five lines. Everyone has been out on a night like this. A night where "the only things moving are swirls of snow." Personally, I enjoy the stillness and solitude of these nights ("There is a privacy I love in this snowy night"). It takes the focus off of everyday life, making things that seemed so important look so trivial in comparison. It gives you one of those moments where you feel you are so alive, and that life is so worth living. You know if you can get to the next moment in life where you feel like that, you will be okay. It's something no circumstance or person can take away from you. And, like the narrator, I have "wasted" time (depending on if you consider the time spent a waste) driving or walking around, simply to prolong the moment.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

One question for Howard Moss...why?

It seems like he knew he couldn't improve on the elegance of Shakespeare's language, so he decided to make it as unpoetic as possible. Yes, comparison to a day in summer is a unique idea in the subject of love poems, and a very good one at that. But the idea of it alone doesn't make good poetry. Moss' language is so plain and common that it makes it almost painful to read, especially having read the original version right before it.

As for Shakespeare's original version, I love his use of language...especially the end:
"so long as men can breathe or eyes can see
so long lives this, and this gives life to thee"
He makes everyday concepts elegant.

two in one!

I'm going to blog on two poems, because I can :]

from Peter Piper

I don't think I've ever read a "poem" or heard a rap that made me laugh harder than this one. I think it's hilarious that he's trying to come across as really tough and cool and better than all the other rappers, and at the same time he's comparing himself to fairy tale characters like Mother Goose, the little old lady who lived in a shoe, Pinocchio, Hansel and Gretel, and others. Yes, it's creative, but I don't think it fits in with the point he's trying to get across. It's easy to tell that this was written in the 80's (1986) because of the use of language, several of the phrases ("...not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good"), and how clean it is compared to most rap at the present. Although I did think it was a little creepy referring to himself as the "child educator." Overall, I still enjoyed this poem. Mainly cause it reminded me of the Fresh Prince of Bel-air for some reason.


Deathly

What I got from this poem is that the author wants to stay away from someone she just met because she doesn't want to fall in love with them when she knows that she won't really mean anything to them:

"Cause I'm just a problem
for you to solve and
watch dissolve in the heat of your charm.

She has probably been hurt like this before and doesn't want it to happen again because, as she says, "no one's got that much ego to spend"
First, she doesn't want to see him:

"Now that I've met you
would you object to
never seeing each other again"

then she wants to ignore him:

"so don't work your stuff
because I've got troubles enough
No, don't pick on me
when one act of kindness could be
deathly"

then she knows she's already falling for him, so she wants to put the responsibility of staying apart from each other on him:

"you're on your honor
cause I'm a goner
and you haven't even begun
so do me a favor
if I should waver
be my savior
and get out the gun"

I looked this song up and noticed that, unlike many of the songs we've heard in class, the music matches the mood the lyrics set. The song was slow, a little sad, and definitely fitting instead of contradictory.

the ones who walk away from omelas

I have to say this story caught me off guard. When I first started reading it, I thought the narrator was just describing a generic utopia to try to make some political point. But then I got to the part about the child in the dark, and why he/she is there. Wow. How do you decide something like that? "To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement; to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed." That one child is taking all the unhappiness and misery of the entire town upon itself without even knowing it. And if someone tries to help him/her, they would be responsible for any bit of misfortune or sadness that anyone experienced in that town from then on. I think that's what the author meant when they said that would be to let guilt in. So the question is, what would be right? To let that one child suffer endlessly for the sake of no one else in the town ever having to? Or to free the child from it's prison and let everyone fend for their own happiness themselves? Happiness would no longer be guaranteed, but it would be at their own cost and their own work, not that of a suffering child. Omelas is of the mentality that the whole is great than the part; that as long as the majority of the people in that town are completely happy, that's what matters. This story presents a very hard ethical question that no one will agree upon.
Being a christian, it's impossible for me not to see the parallels from this story to real life. Jesus, like this innocent child, took all our hurts, sadnesses, and sins upon himself so that we could all live without them. He became miserable so that we wouldn't have to. He died so we could truly live, and live well, like the people of omelas (except probably without the drugs and orgies and nude priestesses :]). But there are people who can't accept that. Like the ones who walk away from omelas, they walk away from salvation and the gift of life abundant.

Sorry, not meaning to preach or anything...it's just what I think of when I read it :]

edit (a section I forgot when I first wrote this): In a place like Omelas, people wouldn't truly know what happiness felt like, because they would have nothing to compare it to. As humans, we can't know the highest highs of happiness if we have never experienced hurt or sadness or anger. Our bad experiences that we go through in life only make the good ones so much better. To feel, you have to take the whole package.

"Repent, Harlequin!" (my new favorite phrase)

One of the first things I noticed about this story when I was reading it was the allusions to George Orwell’s 1984. So, of course, I was happy when the author mentioned it in the end: “It was just like they did to Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was a book none of them knew about, but the techniques are really quiet ancient…” There are many similarities between these two stories. The Ticktockman and Big Brother are very similar because they both seem to be the leader and figurehead of society. Also, both of them seem to keep their identities concealed; the Ticktockman by always wearing a mask, and Big Brother with the secrecy of whether or not he really exists as a person at all. In both stories society is highly regulated, and there are severe consequences (namely torture and death) for those who refuse to conform. And both stories are unique in the fact that the hero of the book is not the typical brave, good-looking guy with everything going for them. The thing that sets them apart from most other protagonists is their unwillingness to accept the standards forced on them by their government, and their commitment to fight and even die for their tiny bit of freedom. The main difference between these two books, though, is the contrasting silliness of the Ticktockman and the seriousness of 1984. The Ticktockman seems more to be a parody of the time restraints of western society and modern government regulations, while 1984 is an actual, earnest warning about the dangers of socialism and communism.
One of my favorite things about this story is the fact that the Harlequin had a personality despite all odds, when the government officials thought they had gotten rid of any such thing so long ago. This story is like so many others (1984, Equilibrium, etc.) where the qualities of personality, human emotion, and feeling triumph over too-strict rules of government and society, even though most of the time the effects of these qualities outlive the actual people themselves. It shows that people and institutions may be able to regulate what we do and say, but they cannot regulate who we really are inside.

Barn Burning

I have to say that, although it was written unconventionally and took longer to read than I expected, I really enjoyed this story. I admire the way Faulkner uses his imagery, but my favorite literary element was the characterization. Each and every character, no matter how pivotal or trivial to the story, had their own distinct character, personality, and (so it seemed) background story. Faulkner made me wonder why some of these characters are the way that they are.
Obviously, the father has been burning his employer's barns for quite some time now. Why has he made this his tradition? Is it out of spite or jealousy? Does he simply not like the idea of a man "owning me body and soul," as he puts it, and wants revenge? Or is there a deeper, psychological root? This could be evident by his complete lack of emotion, his voice "without heat or anger," likened to tin, his stiff, "clocklike" foot, his cold, gray eyes. The only physical feature that Faulker ascribes an emotion to is his "shaggy, graying, irascible brows." Yet, for all that lack of emotion, he seems to rule his family like a tyrant, as exampled by the phrase "...while the father stood over them in turn, implacable and grim, driving them though never raising his voice again." He uses cold violence, not emotion, as his driving factor, such as when he hits his younger son for being tempted to tell the truth, or when he throws his wife against the wall for begging him not to burn the de Spain's barn. All these attributes of the father Snopes make him a unique, unforgettable character.
I also wonder about the mother of the Snopes family, and her sister as well. They must be attached to each other, not only out of natural sisterly love, but also because they seem to serve everyone else in the family, and the rest of the family seems anywhere from oblivious to ungrateful. The women cook the dinner. They are the first to begin the work of unloading the entire wagon, furniture and all, before rest of the family, including the men, have even seemed to give it a thought. Even Sartoris, who seems to be the redeeming member of the family, brushes away his mother's attempts at helping clean his wounds with annoyance or impatience. There is a lack of respect for the women of the hosuehold; this is made clear by the fact that, although the wife is allowed to sleep on the bed with Abner, the aunt and and two sisters are made to sleep on the floor while the older son takes the second bed. And yet, though the older women of the Snopes family are wronged daily, and even abused, they do not leave. Is it because they want the safety of the other members? Or is it because belonging to this family, no matter how depraved of morals or manners, gives them a sense of belonging to something? Do they truly want to stay, or are they just afraid of what would happen if they left? Do they stay for the children's sake? Abner's? Or their own?
The children of the family also give cause to wonder. They vary so much in nature, even though, as far as the reader knows, they all grew up in the same environment. The older son seems to be an almost carbon copy of his father. It can be assumed he will eventually become just like his father, both in appearance and mannerisms. The two daughters seem to fit in with the other members of the family less than any of them. While they are dull, lazy, unintelligent, and seemingly as far from elegance as possible, they still seem to want to be
fashionable and dainty, though their attempts at it are depicted as poor: "The two sisters got down, big, bovine, in a flutter of cheap ribbons." How did they attain this desire to be cultured when it flowed against not only their circumstances, but also their natural appearances and dispositions?
In my opinion, the most complex character is the narrator, Sartorius Snopes, because he displays so much conflict. He is young enough to see that what his father and brother do is wrong, and doesn't want a part of it. But he still admires his father as any boy his age would, and wants to save him from his "enemies." He always seems to do the right thing from the very beginning (when he is going to tell the truth about the barn to the Justice of the Peace), to the very end, when he warns Mr. de Spain about his barn, but still grieves his father's death in the very act of violence. He never agrees with his father, but still obeys him, probably out of a mixture of fear and loyalty. Sartorius struggles with his feelings to do what is right, and he does what he knows he should do, but it is never without the bitter aftertaste of remorse for his father.