Disney movies are excellent. Watching them again now that I'm older I'm realizing just how good they are. I'm catching jokes and references I never did before and even more wonderful, I'm noticing beautiful and complex themes and messages I totally missed out on before. I was watching Hunchback Of Notre Dame tonight and there was a beautiful song I wanted to share. The video of it is here. These are the lyrics:
Esmeralda
I don't know if You can hear me
Or if You're even there
I don't know if You would listen
To a Gypsy's prayer
Yes, I know I'm just an outcast
I shouldn't speak to you
Still I see Your face and wonder...
Were You once an outcast too?
God help the outcasts
Hungry from birth
Show them the mercy
They don't find on earth
God help my people
We look to You still
God help the outcasts
Or nobody will
Parishioners
I ask for wealth
I ask for fame
I ask for glory to shine on my name
I ask for love I can posses
I ask for God and His angels to bless me
Esmeralda
I ask for nothing
I can get by
But I know so many
Less lucky than I
Please help my people
The poor and downtrod
I thought we all were
The children of God
God help the outcasts
Children of God
I just think those lyrics are so beautiful. We should not be praying for selfish things, things we don't need. We should instead be praying for others, and working to Mak sure they have what they need. I love that the people who appear to be Christians (the parishioners in this scene) are the ones being selfish and unchristian while Esmeralda, accused of heathenism and such and not the picture of a so called 'good christian girl' (she is a gypsy after all) is the one being selfless and displaying the true heart of Christianity. I guess saying I like this is less the truth than I like that it shows that faith and Christianity is not about appearances or what's on the outside but rather what is on the inside, what is in someones heart. We should not judge people. Even Jesus didn't judge He said "I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. (John 12:47) if Jesus, the only sinless man to ever walk the earth, does not judge people then who are we as sinful, fallible humans to judge each other. We should instead follow in his footsteps and try to help, love and save each other.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Terminating the Soloist
I'm kind of a movie nerd. I like movies, what can I say? And recently I've seen some movies that have had moments that really touched me. I wanted to share a few.
First off, a few weeks ago i went and saw The Soloist. It was an excellent movie, one of the best I've seen in a while. There was one scene in particular that I really loved. I don;t want to ruin the movie, but in this scene Jamie Foxx's character is sleeping on the streets in an area jam packed with homeless people. As he drifts of to sleep he recites the Lords Prayer. As he speaks the words most of us have heard and spoken a million times the camera pans over the homeless, the impoverish, the hurting and the broken. The contradiction between the words being spoken and the all too true images on the screen stuck out to me and really tore at my heart.
Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen.
How are we following God's will when we allow this kind of poverty and brokenness to run rampant not only in our country but around the world. We should be loving these people, giving whatever we can to aide them, living simply so that they may simply live. A lot of us, myself included, live with far more than we could ever begin to actually need, while millions of people are starving and freezing to death every day. Millions have diseases they will die from because they can't afford medical attention. They are left alone to die because we are to comfortable in our lives to make sacrifices to show them love and support. It is blatant hypocrisy to speak the words 'Thy Kingdom come thy will be done' when we sit and do nothing about the gross injustices happening all over our war torn, poverty and sickness stricken world and i am as guilty of it as anyone.
The trespasses we ask forgiveness for have two meanings in this scene. One, we should ask forgiveness for the sin of allowing such injustice to happen to our fellow human beings, for not loving the poor and the homeless, the broken and the destitute, for living lives of comfort and luxury while others suffer and die with basically nothing to call their own. We should ask forgiveness for our hatred and violence, for giving into the myth that revenge solves problems and redemptive violence works. We should ask forgiveness for not loving the world actively and unconditionally as we should. Again, I am guilty of this. The second trespasses being asked forgiveness for are the sins that the poor and broken are driven to in order to survive, when they feel like they have no other choice left, and as they ask forgiveness for this they are also asking for forgiveness for those who have put them in that possition, those of us who are not loving them as we should.
The words give us this day our daily bread remind me of my favorite proverb: "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD ?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God." - Proverbs 30:8-9. Give me only my daily bread. Give me only what I need to survive, to truely live, no more and no less. I feel that alot of the sins in the world come from having to much or to little, the tention between have's and havenots and the desire to always have more-more wealth, more power, more than we need. As Gandhi once said, "There is enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed."
This scene was beautifully done and shows how much more we need to start loving people. We need to let go of greed and comfort and make sacrifices for other people. Which brings me to my next movie.
Last night I went with some friends to see Terminator Salvation. I didn't actually know if I wanted to see it or not. I haven't seen any of the others and I didn't know that I would like it. I found it, however, to be a very well done movie. There were a couple things I really liked about it. Again, while attempting to not give away to much of the plot, there is a scene in the movie where two of the characters talk about whether or not people deserve second chances. Later in the film one of those characters decides to give up their life to save John Connor, the main character for those who don't know the movie. When asked why he is willing to die for Connor the character (I wont say his name and ruin the movie) says something along the lines of "I'm taking my second chance." His second chance at life is not to live, per say, but to die so someone else can live. In this way he is truly living in that he his dedicating his life (quite literally) to showing love to someone else. I absolutely loved this part because in dying this character truly lived his life. He had a second chance at life and took it, using it in the best way possible, at least in my opinion. After all, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for another. Someone pretty smart said that once. :)
There is another part in the movie where John Connor makes a speech (that i can't remember all of or find anywhere on the Internet. fail.) about how the difference between humans and the machines is that the machines can make cold calculated decisions about sacrificing this many people to save that many and so one, where as humans should not. we are to fallible to be able to make a decision like that. We can not look at the situation objectively enough, we are too human, and therefore, John says, We should try to dot he human thing and do our best to save everyone, not sacrifice some for 'the greater good.' Who are we as humans to place that kind of value on human life? Instead we need to love people. All people.
Also, baseball players should wear their socks up to their knees, none of this long pants craziness. Just a thought.
First off, a few weeks ago i went and saw The Soloist. It was an excellent movie, one of the best I've seen in a while. There was one scene in particular that I really loved. I don;t want to ruin the movie, but in this scene Jamie Foxx's character is sleeping on the streets in an area jam packed with homeless people. As he drifts of to sleep he recites the Lords Prayer. As he speaks the words most of us have heard and spoken a million times the camera pans over the homeless, the impoverish, the hurting and the broken. The contradiction between the words being spoken and the all too true images on the screen stuck out to me and really tore at my heart.
Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen.
How are we following God's will when we allow this kind of poverty and brokenness to run rampant not only in our country but around the world. We should be loving these people, giving whatever we can to aide them, living simply so that they may simply live. A lot of us, myself included, live with far more than we could ever begin to actually need, while millions of people are starving and freezing to death every day. Millions have diseases they will die from because they can't afford medical attention. They are left alone to die because we are to comfortable in our lives to make sacrifices to show them love and support. It is blatant hypocrisy to speak the words 'Thy Kingdom come thy will be done' when we sit and do nothing about the gross injustices happening all over our war torn, poverty and sickness stricken world and i am as guilty of it as anyone.
The trespasses we ask forgiveness for have two meanings in this scene. One, we should ask forgiveness for the sin of allowing such injustice to happen to our fellow human beings, for not loving the poor and the homeless, the broken and the destitute, for living lives of comfort and luxury while others suffer and die with basically nothing to call their own. We should ask forgiveness for our hatred and violence, for giving into the myth that revenge solves problems and redemptive violence works. We should ask forgiveness for not loving the world actively and unconditionally as we should. Again, I am guilty of this. The second trespasses being asked forgiveness for are the sins that the poor and broken are driven to in order to survive, when they feel like they have no other choice left, and as they ask forgiveness for this they are also asking for forgiveness for those who have put them in that possition, those of us who are not loving them as we should.
The words give us this day our daily bread remind me of my favorite proverb: "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD ?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God." - Proverbs 30:8-9. Give me only my daily bread. Give me only what I need to survive, to truely live, no more and no less. I feel that alot of the sins in the world come from having to much or to little, the tention between have's and havenots and the desire to always have more-more wealth, more power, more than we need. As Gandhi once said, "There is enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed."
This scene was beautifully done and shows how much more we need to start loving people. We need to let go of greed and comfort and make sacrifices for other people. Which brings me to my next movie.
Last night I went with some friends to see Terminator Salvation. I didn't actually know if I wanted to see it or not. I haven't seen any of the others and I didn't know that I would like it. I found it, however, to be a very well done movie. There were a couple things I really liked about it. Again, while attempting to not give away to much of the plot, there is a scene in the movie where two of the characters talk about whether or not people deserve second chances. Later in the film one of those characters decides to give up their life to save John Connor, the main character for those who don't know the movie. When asked why he is willing to die for Connor the character (I wont say his name and ruin the movie) says something along the lines of "I'm taking my second chance." His second chance at life is not to live, per say, but to die so someone else can live. In this way he is truly living in that he his dedicating his life (quite literally) to showing love to someone else. I absolutely loved this part because in dying this character truly lived his life. He had a second chance at life and took it, using it in the best way possible, at least in my opinion. After all, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for another. Someone pretty smart said that once. :)
There is another part in the movie where John Connor makes a speech (that i can't remember all of or find anywhere on the Internet. fail.) about how the difference between humans and the machines is that the machines can make cold calculated decisions about sacrificing this many people to save that many and so one, where as humans should not. we are to fallible to be able to make a decision like that. We can not look at the situation objectively enough, we are too human, and therefore, John says, We should try to dot he human thing and do our best to save everyone, not sacrifice some for 'the greater good.' Who are we as humans to place that kind of value on human life? Instead we need to love people. All people.
Also, baseball players should wear their socks up to their knees, none of this long pants craziness. Just a thought.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Beauty and the Beast
So this morning I was watching Beauty and the Beast (yes by my self. Leave me alone, Disney movies are great) and I was thinking about haw great of a film it really is. Seriously. It's all about grace and forgiveness and love. It reminded me of 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.
"1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
The prince has everything the world can give, he can do basically anything he wants, but without love he really has nothing. He is an ugly beast inside and eventually that ugliness shows itself on the outside too (though i submit that the beast looks better as a beast than a prince, but this is really irrelevant). His ugly selfishness and hate, his sin if you will, keep him angry and alone until he learns to both love and be loved. both are important and I liked that Disney showed the importance of both. We are relational beings, we were created that way because our God is a relational God (the trinity, the very essence of God, has three parts. Love and relationship has existed since before time). Loving others is quite obviously very important and we are meant to act on that love (after all, love is a verb, not a feeling). But we also need to find people who love us, people we can count on and who can build us up and cheer us on. We are not meant to live this life alone. The beast falls in love with Belle, but it is not enough to break the spell. She must love him in return. And she does, the spell is broken and in true Disney fashion they live happily ever after together. Key word, together.
I also really like that the beast doesn't kill Gaston at the end. He easily could. He has GGaston at his mercy, hanging over the edge. But he chooses to save him instead. The beast does not give into the myth of redemptive violence the world tries to feed us. He saves his enemy, showing love and empathy rather than anger and hate. Of course, Disney kind of cops out about 30 seconds later when Gaston falls (of his own fault) and goes plummeting off the edge of the castle into a huge pit that I'm pretty sure did not exist in the movie before this moment. So the 'bad guy' probably dies. But then Disney characters have been known to survive such impossibly high falls before, so you never know. Perhaps Gaston survived, saw the error of his ways and learned to love himself less and others more.
...erm...maybe not.
Anyway. Just some things I've been thinking. Thought I'd share them.
"1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
The prince has everything the world can give, he can do basically anything he wants, but without love he really has nothing. He is an ugly beast inside and eventually that ugliness shows itself on the outside too (though i submit that the beast looks better as a beast than a prince, but this is really irrelevant). His ugly selfishness and hate, his sin if you will, keep him angry and alone until he learns to both love and be loved. both are important and I liked that Disney showed the importance of both. We are relational beings, we were created that way because our God is a relational God (the trinity, the very essence of God, has three parts. Love and relationship has existed since before time). Loving others is quite obviously very important and we are meant to act on that love (after all, love is a verb, not a feeling). But we also need to find people who love us, people we can count on and who can build us up and cheer us on. We are not meant to live this life alone. The beast falls in love with Belle, but it is not enough to break the spell. She must love him in return. And she does, the spell is broken and in true Disney fashion they live happily ever after together. Key word, together.
I also really like that the beast doesn't kill Gaston at the end. He easily could. He has GGaston at his mercy, hanging over the edge. But he chooses to save him instead. The beast does not give into the myth of redemptive violence the world tries to feed us. He saves his enemy, showing love and empathy rather than anger and hate. Of course, Disney kind of cops out about 30 seconds later when Gaston falls (of his own fault) and goes plummeting off the edge of the castle into a huge pit that I'm pretty sure did not exist in the movie before this moment. So the 'bad guy' probably dies. But then Disney characters have been known to survive such impossibly high falls before, so you never know. Perhaps Gaston survived, saw the error of his ways and learned to love himself less and others more.
...erm...maybe not.
Anyway. Just some things I've been thinking. Thought I'd share them.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Thoughts to chew on
So I started this blog as an assignment for my Literary Theory class (hence the title) and I loved blogging so much that I think I'm going to have to keep it going. You see I have a lot of opinions, on almost everything, and i enjoy the idea of putting them out there where anyone could read them, even if no one ever does. Right now I just wanted to let anyone who might read this know who I am and what I stand for, and also leave you with a few quotes I've been chewing on lately.
I believe in love. I believe in hope and healing and relationships.And I believe that when you believe strongly in something you have to fight for it. I want to change the world, to help and love people who are hurting and broken, to spread God's love and be the hands and feet of Christ. I want to always remember the simple beauty of a sunset and to help remind people that even the darkest of nights must eventually give way to the dawn. I want to help create a world full of the beautiful products of love rather than the ugly carnage of war. I believe that peace is possible, but that it takes courage. Hate is easy, but love is painful and scary. I believe that letting go, not holding on, takes the most strength and courage. I believe in the hope for a better tomorrow and that we must be the change we wish to see in the world. I believe the world is full of mystery and wonder and beauty, and that laughter is the best medicine. I believe there is true good and beauty in every person and that hate, violence and war will never solve things the way love, forgiveness and patience can. That is where my heart is and that is what I'm living for.
"But what had lasting significance were not the miracles themselves but Jesus’ love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but eventually they caught some other disease. He fed the five thousands, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember his love. It wasn’t that Jesus healed a leper but that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers." -Shane Claiborne
"Preach the gospel always. And use words if necessary.” -St. Francis of Assisi
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
-CS Lewis
"Love thy neighbor" is not a piece of advice but a command. That means in the global village we're gonna have to start loving a whole lot more people. His truth is marching on....Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die [...] God has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house, God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered. God is with the mother who has infected her child with a virus that will take both their lives, God is under the rubble in the cries we hear during wartime. God, my friends, is with the poor and God is with us if we are with them. This is not a burden, this is an adventure. Dont let anyone tell it cannot be done."
-Bono
So anyway, thats all for now!
~Aimee
I believe in love. I believe in hope and healing and relationships.And I believe that when you believe strongly in something you have to fight for it. I want to change the world, to help and love people who are hurting and broken, to spread God's love and be the hands and feet of Christ. I want to always remember the simple beauty of a sunset and to help remind people that even the darkest of nights must eventually give way to the dawn. I want to help create a world full of the beautiful products of love rather than the ugly carnage of war. I believe that peace is possible, but that it takes courage. Hate is easy, but love is painful and scary. I believe that letting go, not holding on, takes the most strength and courage. I believe in the hope for a better tomorrow and that we must be the change we wish to see in the world. I believe the world is full of mystery and wonder and beauty, and that laughter is the best medicine. I believe there is true good and beauty in every person and that hate, violence and war will never solve things the way love, forgiveness and patience can. That is where my heart is and that is what I'm living for.
"But what had lasting significance were not the miracles themselves but Jesus’ love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but eventually they caught some other disease. He fed the five thousands, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember his love. It wasn’t that Jesus healed a leper but that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers." -Shane Claiborne
"Preach the gospel always. And use words if necessary.” -St. Francis of Assisi
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
-CS Lewis
"Love thy neighbor" is not a piece of advice but a command. That means in the global village we're gonna have to start loving a whole lot more people. His truth is marching on....Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die [...] God has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house, God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered. God is with the mother who has infected her child with a virus that will take both their lives, God is under the rubble in the cries we hear during wartime. God, my friends, is with the poor and God is with us if we are with them. This is not a burden, this is an adventure. Dont let anyone tell it cannot be done."
-Bono
So anyway, thats all for now!
~Aimee
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Holder of Slaughterhouse - Five
So this week, while reading Holder of the World (and writing an 18 page research paper) I was also reading Slaughterhouse – Five for FYS. It struck me how very similar they were at times, especially on the issue of time. If you haven’t read Slaughterhouse – Five I suggest you do so because it’s super good. Really, it’s quite genius. I won’t give away too much of the plot because I think you should all go read it for yourself but the story is about a man named Billy Pilgrim who has “come unstuck in time.” Basically he time travels (seemingly both at will and at random) back and forward through different times of his life.
Billy’s time travelling was what first struck me in comparison to Holder of the World. Obviously, Venn is working on a time machine in the novel, and while Billy’s time traveling is not done with the aide of a machine the Tralfamadorians (aliens Billy is convinced he was abducted by) say that all things (plants, animals, people, etc) are machines because we have no free will. So in that sense they are both time traveling by means of machine—one a man made machine, the other a man machine. The other part of the time traveling that was similar in both books was the jumping between present and past (and in Slaughterhouse – Five’s case the future as well). Holder of the World jumps between Beigh’s story and Hannah Easton Fitch Legge’s (haha) story and they become interconnected. In slaughterhouse - Five there is a quasi base story of Billy going to fight in World War II, and then it jumps around all over the place from his birth to his death to his wedding night, etc. I see this jumping between times technique as a very post-modern style of writing. There is a story within a story within a story and there are back stories and side stories and seemingly random and jumbled up stories. This is very unlike books from before post-modernism in which there was a story and you followed it from start to finish.
The concept of time is also examined in both books (both with time travel and with out). In Holder of the World Venn says Hannah married Gabriel Legge because it was her time to get married—a very determinist way to look at life. If Hannah got married because it was her time then this displays a belief that everything is predetermined and things happen when they do because that is when they were supposed to happen (determinism). In Slaughterhouse – Five the Tralfamadorians teach Billy that we are all machines and have no free will or ability to make decisions. They also show Billy that time is kind of a concept of the human mind and all time exists at once. So it’s kind of like you die, but you are still living in every other moment of your life. This is also in its own way determinism. Just as Venn looks at Hannah getting married as her ‘time’, Billy is living ‘times’ of his life—his time to go to war, his time to get married, his time to die. This even affects the way the tralfamadorians (and Billy) look at death. Any time someone dies in the novel (be it thousands of people, a horse or a glass of Champaign) the description of the death always ends with ‘so it goes.’ It is as if they are saying ‘it was there time, nothing you could do about it.’ Hannah get’s married: so it goes, it was her time. Thousands die in the bombing of Dresden: so it goes, it was there time.
The books also examine agency in similar ways. In Holder of the World Gabriel Legge is described as having no equal in Salem. He get’s this agency from his experiences, from the places he has been, things he has done. These are places and things the rest of Salem has not seen or done. So Gabriel get’s higher agency. When I was reading Slaughterhouse – Five I was wondering why Billy was so quick to believe everything the tralfamadorians told him. And then I realized that they, like Gabriel, had agency from experience. They had been places and seen and done things Billy couldn’t even imagine. And so it follows that he assumed they had superior intelligence from their experiences. Experience = knowledge = agency.
Basically it worked out quite nicely that I ended up reading both of these books at the same time because they were both very good and they complemented each other well. I found it rather handy. Go read Slaughterhouse – Five if you have not and good luck on finals everyone!!
Billy’s time travelling was what first struck me in comparison to Holder of the World. Obviously, Venn is working on a time machine in the novel, and while Billy’s time traveling is not done with the aide of a machine the Tralfamadorians (aliens Billy is convinced he was abducted by) say that all things (plants, animals, people, etc) are machines because we have no free will. So in that sense they are both time traveling by means of machine—one a man made machine, the other a man machine. The other part of the time traveling that was similar in both books was the jumping between present and past (and in Slaughterhouse – Five’s case the future as well). Holder of the World jumps between Beigh’s story and Hannah Easton Fitch Legge’s (haha) story and they become interconnected. In slaughterhouse - Five there is a quasi base story of Billy going to fight in World War II, and then it jumps around all over the place from his birth to his death to his wedding night, etc. I see this jumping between times technique as a very post-modern style of writing. There is a story within a story within a story and there are back stories and side stories and seemingly random and jumbled up stories. This is very unlike books from before post-modernism in which there was a story and you followed it from start to finish.
The concept of time is also examined in both books (both with time travel and with out). In Holder of the World Venn says Hannah married Gabriel Legge because it was her time to get married—a very determinist way to look at life. If Hannah got married because it was her time then this displays a belief that everything is predetermined and things happen when they do because that is when they were supposed to happen (determinism). In Slaughterhouse – Five the Tralfamadorians teach Billy that we are all machines and have no free will or ability to make decisions. They also show Billy that time is kind of a concept of the human mind and all time exists at once. So it’s kind of like you die, but you are still living in every other moment of your life. This is also in its own way determinism. Just as Venn looks at Hannah getting married as her ‘time’, Billy is living ‘times’ of his life—his time to go to war, his time to get married, his time to die. This even affects the way the tralfamadorians (and Billy) look at death. Any time someone dies in the novel (be it thousands of people, a horse or a glass of Champaign) the description of the death always ends with ‘so it goes.’ It is as if they are saying ‘it was there time, nothing you could do about it.’ Hannah get’s married: so it goes, it was her time. Thousands die in the bombing of Dresden: so it goes, it was there time.
The books also examine agency in similar ways. In Holder of the World Gabriel Legge is described as having no equal in Salem. He get’s this agency from his experiences, from the places he has been, things he has done. These are places and things the rest of Salem has not seen or done. So Gabriel get’s higher agency. When I was reading Slaughterhouse – Five I was wondering why Billy was so quick to believe everything the tralfamadorians told him. And then I realized that they, like Gabriel, had agency from experience. They had been places and seen and done things Billy couldn’t even imagine. And so it follows that he assumed they had superior intelligence from their experiences. Experience = knowledge = agency.
Basically it worked out quite nicely that I ended up reading both of these books at the same time because they were both very good and they complemented each other well. I found it rather handy. Go read Slaughterhouse – Five if you have not and good luck on finals everyone!!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
"What You Want"
So this evening I was in my car, racing back to campus to try (alas, in vain) to be on time for a floor meeting, and I had my IPod on shuffle (a tactic to keep my eyes on the road and off the IPod screen that has proven to be rather difficult for me because I tend to want to skip songs I’m not in the mood for. It’s frustrating because I can’t; I’m driving). The song “What You Want” from Legally Blonde the musical came up. As I was singing along (another car habit) I realized that it (both song and the musical itself) totally pertained to strategies and tactics. Eureka: a blog topic!
Wednesday morning we decided as a group that a goal is what you want to accomplish (duh), a strategy is a generally idea of how you want to go about accomplishing the goal and a tactic is an actual action that you act out in order to achieve the goal. So basically a tactic is a more specific, acted upon part of a strategy. For example we looked at the tea bagging protests that happened Wednesday. The goal was (if I am not mistaken) to lower taxes. The strategy was to rise up the people and inspire and spark protest. The tactic was, well, tea bagging. The twitter, facebook and TV promotions could also be called tactics.
But how does Legally Blonde fit in? Elle Woods, the stories protagonist, has a clear goal, a strategy and tactics that are shown within the play. For those of you who haven’t seen the musical, it basically follows the same plot of the 2001 movie version. If you haven’t seen the movie version, go shoot yourself in the foot. Everyone has seen that movie, get with it. But for now, here is a plot synopsis.
Elle’s goal is fairly simply. She’s been dumped by the man she believes to be ‘the one’ – Warner - because she’s not serious enough for the future Harvard Law student. Elle’s goal is to get Warner back and to make I'm realize that he still loves her. Her strategy is to prove she is serious. She has several tactics to accomplish this. One tactic is to get into Harvard law. This in itself is also another goal with its own strategy and tactics. Elle’s strategy to get in is “What [Harvard] Wants”. Her tactics to prove this are as follows. First Elle must get her parents to agree to pay for the expensive education (technically also a goal, but really this could go on all day so we won’t go there). After this she must get a good enough LSAT score (“of more than 174”) to be even considered by Harvard, which she accomplishes by studying rather than going to parties. To top it off she’ll “need a killer essay” to even be able to hope to get accepted. Rather than writing an essay (because after all “an essay’s so boring and so much does not fit”) Elle and the entire UCLA marching band descend upon the office of the Harvard acceptance committee and insists that she is exactly what they want.
I suppose all of these tactics are also in their way minor tactics to reach the major goal: operation ‘get Warner back’. They are like tactics to accomplish a tactic. Once Elle’s first major tactic to get Warner back (get into Harvard) is accomplished, she must then succeed in getting his attention. For this she tries several friend suggested methods including “shaking her junk” and “getting a chip on her shoulder”. Eventually Elle realizes that she must actually get serious in order to prove to Warner that she is serious. Her tactic is to actually study. Do homework and try in her classes. Elle’s final tactic is to win an actual court case that no one believes she can win (which she does using a finely tuned ‘gay-dar’, the always handy ‘bend and snap’ and her knowledge of hair care). Her strategy, and the tactics that puts it into action, succeeds because in one of the last scenes of the show Warner proposes to Elle. Unfortunately for him Elle’s journey of strategies and tactics has led her to discover that she deserves better and she doesn’t need him and her answer is “Thank you, but no.” Denied.
But despite the fact that Elle’s original goal was not the same as what she realized at the end she wanted, her series of strategy and tactics clearly worked. Elle, along with a group of trusted friends, planned out (and admittedly fumbled through) a strategic plan of action (tactics) and in the end achieved their goal (Elle does in fact find love, though it’s not Warner). Like Klein and Juffer show, it is all good and fine to have a goal, but without effective strategy and tactic that goal goes nowhere.
Wednesday morning we decided as a group that a goal is what you want to accomplish (duh), a strategy is a generally idea of how you want to go about accomplishing the goal and a tactic is an actual action that you act out in order to achieve the goal. So basically a tactic is a more specific, acted upon part of a strategy. For example we looked at the tea bagging protests that happened Wednesday. The goal was (if I am not mistaken) to lower taxes. The strategy was to rise up the people and inspire and spark protest. The tactic was, well, tea bagging. The twitter, facebook and TV promotions could also be called tactics.
But how does Legally Blonde fit in? Elle Woods, the stories protagonist, has a clear goal, a strategy and tactics that are shown within the play. For those of you who haven’t seen the musical, it basically follows the same plot of the 2001 movie version. If you haven’t seen the movie version, go shoot yourself in the foot. Everyone has seen that movie, get with it. But for now, here is a plot synopsis.
Elle’s goal is fairly simply. She’s been dumped by the man she believes to be ‘the one’ – Warner - because she’s not serious enough for the future Harvard Law student. Elle’s goal is to get Warner back and to make I'm realize that he still loves her. Her strategy is to prove she is serious. She has several tactics to accomplish this. One tactic is to get into Harvard law. This in itself is also another goal with its own strategy and tactics. Elle’s strategy to get in is “What [Harvard] Wants”. Her tactics to prove this are as follows. First Elle must get her parents to agree to pay for the expensive education (technically also a goal, but really this could go on all day so we won’t go there). After this she must get a good enough LSAT score (“of more than 174”) to be even considered by Harvard, which she accomplishes by studying rather than going to parties. To top it off she’ll “need a killer essay” to even be able to hope to get accepted. Rather than writing an essay (because after all “an essay’s so boring and so much does not fit”) Elle and the entire UCLA marching band descend upon the office of the Harvard acceptance committee and insists that she is exactly what they want.
I suppose all of these tactics are also in their way minor tactics to reach the major goal: operation ‘get Warner back’. They are like tactics to accomplish a tactic. Once Elle’s first major tactic to get Warner back (get into Harvard) is accomplished, she must then succeed in getting his attention. For this she tries several friend suggested methods including “shaking her junk” and “getting a chip on her shoulder”. Eventually Elle realizes that she must actually get serious in order to prove to Warner that she is serious. Her tactic is to actually study. Do homework and try in her classes. Elle’s final tactic is to win an actual court case that no one believes she can win (which she does using a finely tuned ‘gay-dar’, the always handy ‘bend and snap’ and her knowledge of hair care). Her strategy, and the tactics that puts it into action, succeeds because in one of the last scenes of the show Warner proposes to Elle. Unfortunately for him Elle’s journey of strategies and tactics has led her to discover that she deserves better and she doesn’t need him and her answer is “Thank you, but no.” Denied.
But despite the fact that Elle’s original goal was not the same as what she realized at the end she wanted, her series of strategy and tactics clearly worked. Elle, along with a group of trusted friends, planned out (and admittedly fumbled through) a strategic plan of action (tactics) and in the end achieved their goal (Elle does in fact find love, though it’s not Warner). Like Klein and Juffer show, it is all good and fine to have a goal, but without effective strategy and tactic that goal goes nowhere.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Anging Backwards
“While, everyone else was aging, I was getting younger... all alone.”- Benjamin Button, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This weekend I went and saw Benjamin Button on campus. While there I ran into Amy, who jokingly told me to blog about the movie. But funny story by half way through the movie we both realized that blogging about it was actually a legitimate option this unit. I know. I know I’m blogging about another movie. So shoot me, they’re good examples. For anyone who does not know the movie is about a man who is born an old man and gets younger as he grows older. His body is getting progressively younger while his mind is growing as a normal mind would. This is a perfect example of time and space and how people’s circumstances and so on can drastically change the way they relate to and think about time and space. Throughout the movie there are many instances where this relationship is displayed and examined.
The movie opens with the story of a clockmaker who was commissioned to make a clock for the new train station. Before the clock is finished his son dies in the World War 1, devastating the clockmaker. On the day the new clock is unveiled we find out that he made it so that the hands move backwards. The clockmaker says that he did this on purpose, that his hope is that time will move backwards and bring his son, and all the other young men lost at war back home safely. This brings up the movies first interesting point. When we have suffered a loss we tend to dwell in the past, wishing we could go back and change things or not take people for granted. Rather than moving forward we. Like the clockmaker, will time to move backwards instead. We fight a losing battle against time because it will never do what we so wish at those times that it would. Sometimes we are like the clockmaker and let that battle consume us, becoming almost unable to function because of our anger, frustration and pain caused by time trudging forward no matter what happens to us, no matter how much we wish to stop it or make it go back.
Later in the movie we meet Benjamin, who was born shortly after the clock was unveiled. We are left to assume that his backward aging is somehow connected to the clock. As Benjamin grows up he has to start facing the truth that he is different, that time and space mean something different to him than they do to others and that his relationship with other people. When Benjamin is about 10 or 12 he meets a little girl about the same age named Daisy. They become close friends because despite what Benjamin looks like on the outside, they are both children. It is clear that Benjamin is able to relate more to her than to the older people he lives with and looks like. One night the two sneak downstairs when they should be sleeping and sit under the table and talk, like a fort. Daisy’s grandmother catches them and harshly scolds Benjamin for getting so close to a girl Daisy’s age. Benjamin’s mother comes to console him and explains that people don’t understand because he is a ‘man-child’. Benjamin’s outward appearance and the way time is moving for him (backwards) is affecting where he can go and what he can do. His space is limited and different from everyone else’s.
Benjamin’s relationship with Daisy is severely impacted by his growing younger. It is fairly easy to tell that they are in love for most of the movie. But a relationship at the beginning of the movie when they meet is not exactly socially acceptable because of the apparent (though false) age difference and at the end of the movie it becomes impractical as Benjamin becomes a teenager, then toddler, then baby. So in order to have the relationship they desire they must meet in the middle for the few years there ages are close both in appearance and actuality. There time together is limited. Unlike a normal couple they cannot grow old together, nor can they raise children together. When Daisy becomes pregnant Benjamin feels forced to leave because he wants his child to have a father, not a playmate and as he says, Daisy cannot raise both of them. Daisy eventually marries someone else and they agree it is for the best. Benjamin’s time with the woman he loves and with his child are both limited because of his reverse aging.
Time itself is a completely different thing for Benjamin than it is for us. Most of us don’t know when we are going to die and could live to be very very old. But Benjamin, being born in the body of a man in his 80’s has a limited time. He is almost like a ticking clock. He can only live until he becomes a baby, and in that way his entire life is limited to a certain possible time span. The quote I opened with makes a big point. He was going through all of this alone. Benjamin was the only one growing younger, the only person whose time and space is affected in that. This puts him in a different space than everyone else. He is alone. Kind of a bummer. But it shows how just one factor can totally change how someone relate to time and space. Like Juffer and Klein both point out, time and space are by no means constant or universal. They are different for everyone. And yet at the same time they never really change. Only our relationship to them changes. That being said, I’ll leave you with a quote from the trailer (you know, one of those things they show in the trailer but you realize later was never in the movie…):
“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.”
The movie opens with the story of a clockmaker who was commissioned to make a clock for the new train station. Before the clock is finished his son dies in the World War 1, devastating the clockmaker. On the day the new clock is unveiled we find out that he made it so that the hands move backwards. The clockmaker says that he did this on purpose, that his hope is that time will move backwards and bring his son, and all the other young men lost at war back home safely. This brings up the movies first interesting point. When we have suffered a loss we tend to dwell in the past, wishing we could go back and change things or not take people for granted. Rather than moving forward we. Like the clockmaker, will time to move backwards instead. We fight a losing battle against time because it will never do what we so wish at those times that it would. Sometimes we are like the clockmaker and let that battle consume us, becoming almost unable to function because of our anger, frustration and pain caused by time trudging forward no matter what happens to us, no matter how much we wish to stop it or make it go back.
Later in the movie we meet Benjamin, who was born shortly after the clock was unveiled. We are left to assume that his backward aging is somehow connected to the clock. As Benjamin grows up he has to start facing the truth that he is different, that time and space mean something different to him than they do to others and that his relationship with other people. When Benjamin is about 10 or 12 he meets a little girl about the same age named Daisy. They become close friends because despite what Benjamin looks like on the outside, they are both children. It is clear that Benjamin is able to relate more to her than to the older people he lives with and looks like. One night the two sneak downstairs when they should be sleeping and sit under the table and talk, like a fort. Daisy’s grandmother catches them and harshly scolds Benjamin for getting so close to a girl Daisy’s age. Benjamin’s mother comes to console him and explains that people don’t understand because he is a ‘man-child’. Benjamin’s outward appearance and the way time is moving for him (backwards) is affecting where he can go and what he can do. His space is limited and different from everyone else’s.
Benjamin’s relationship with Daisy is severely impacted by his growing younger. It is fairly easy to tell that they are in love for most of the movie. But a relationship at the beginning of the movie when they meet is not exactly socially acceptable because of the apparent (though false) age difference and at the end of the movie it becomes impractical as Benjamin becomes a teenager, then toddler, then baby. So in order to have the relationship they desire they must meet in the middle for the few years there ages are close both in appearance and actuality. There time together is limited. Unlike a normal couple they cannot grow old together, nor can they raise children together. When Daisy becomes pregnant Benjamin feels forced to leave because he wants his child to have a father, not a playmate and as he says, Daisy cannot raise both of them. Daisy eventually marries someone else and they agree it is for the best. Benjamin’s time with the woman he loves and with his child are both limited because of his reverse aging.
Time itself is a completely different thing for Benjamin than it is for us. Most of us don’t know when we are going to die and could live to be very very old. But Benjamin, being born in the body of a man in his 80’s has a limited time. He is almost like a ticking clock. He can only live until he becomes a baby, and in that way his entire life is limited to a certain possible time span. The quote I opened with makes a big point. He was going through all of this alone. Benjamin was the only one growing younger, the only person whose time and space is affected in that. This puts him in a different space than everyone else. He is alone. Kind of a bummer. But it shows how just one factor can totally change how someone relate to time and space. Like Juffer and Klein both point out, time and space are by no means constant or universal. They are different for everyone. And yet at the same time they never really change. Only our relationship to them changes. That being said, I’ll leave you with a quote from the trailer (you know, one of those things they show in the trailer but you realize later was never in the movie…):
“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.”
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