I have to admit that when I read the first few pages of Gertrude Stein's The Geographical History of America I was thinking that it was a lot of nonsense. That was the point, it didn't really make sense. Who would write a book where Chapter One is repeated several times and appears as Chapter 1 or Chapter I or Chapter one. It was like a series of riddles in which I was desperately trying to find the answer, but IS there really an answer? The statements made about the human mind and human nature were dismantled and retold in a series of ways. Sometimes it seemed to fold in on itself and then somehow straightened back out - only not completely.
What I realized after reading more of it was there was a play with the words as expressed in "The human mind. The human mind at play." or a Play, as in "Play I...Play II" (431). I think Stein's ability to play with the language showed us some things about our language. She addressed the human mind and human nature over and over again. At times they have something to do with the other but more often than not the have nothing to do with the other. And all of this talking about the human mind and human nature seems as an exploration to find out if they really have anything to do with the other.
So while I was not initially impressed by the first third of the piece, I realized that she is actually doing something with the writing. She is showing it fresh, from different perspectives and it means something different and somehow makes more sense as she goes on. For instance, in the earlier part of the piece she writes, "What is the use of being a little boy if he is going to grow up and be a man." She writes this statement a few times throughout the piece. Then later she writes, "But what is the use of being a little boy if he is going to grow up to be a man., Do you see what a mistake it is to say that." (431). That's the main point that I see throughout the piece - change. Change affects language and the way we use it, change affects us as individuals and our identity, change affects the world around us and the geography of America. Change shapes everything and molds the future into what it has yet to be.
So now, I don't think of it as nonsense at all. To me this makes a lot of sense. It makes me think and I like that. It reminds me of a statement my husband said a friend made to him a long time ago, "You know, there are times I really worry about you and when I don't, I worry about myself." I think this just may apply here.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Loop de loop and tornados
I don't know where to begin or where to end and maybe that is the beauty of Stein's work in The Geographical History of America. Within this piece the gentle breeze of "Human nature does not know this. Human nature cannot know this" (p 367) starts a funnel cloud of thoughts. Within the cloud is the human mind and little dogs and pieces of the American landscape. Peppered here and there other things are introduced that either do or don't have to do with the human mind or human nature of both or neither because at times they do and they do not have anything to do with another.
At times when reading I would begin to think that things were starting to make sense only to find that I was completely lost again. Maybe that's the point - that we never do know and everything is always changing like ourselves, the landscape, our identities, the size of dogs, our writing, how we tell those stories.
Our heritages in America have been handed down by stories. Some were written down and others were spoken. How does that impact our stories and how those stories are told in the future? How does that affect us and who we are? How will that affect our children and their children? The America we experience today will not be the America we experience 10 years from now.
And even still how are we affected as individuals (if you can call us that) because it seems that is what we are striving for. To be individuals yet somehow have community and a common bond. Yet we live in a world that is free but how free are we really? We live based in a starting point just like today it's a starting point. But tomorrow's point is totally different. Maybe that's the whole point and maybe it's not the point because maybe the do or do not have to do with human nature or the human mind. Because "all the human mind can do is to say yes." (p 417).
At times when reading I would begin to think that things were starting to make sense only to find that I was completely lost again. Maybe that's the point - that we never do know and everything is always changing like ourselves, the landscape, our identities, the size of dogs, our writing, how we tell those stories.
Our heritages in America have been handed down by stories. Some were written down and others were spoken. How does that impact our stories and how those stories are told in the future? How does that affect us and who we are? How will that affect our children and their children? The America we experience today will not be the America we experience 10 years from now.
And even still how are we affected as individuals (if you can call us that) because it seems that is what we are striving for. To be individuals yet somehow have community and a common bond. Yet we live in a world that is free but how free are we really? We live based in a starting point just like today it's a starting point. But tomorrow's point is totally different. Maybe that's the whole point and maybe it's not the point because maybe the do or do not have to do with human nature or the human mind. Because "all the human mind can do is to say yes." (p 417).
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Social Conditions and Violence
In Judith Butler's Giving an Account of Oneself she states "Whereas one might reserve ethics for the broad contours of these rules and maxims, or for the relation between selves that is implied by such rules, Adorno insists that an ethical norm that fails to offer a way to live or that turns out, within existing social conditions, to be impossible to appropriate has to become subject to critical revision (PMP, 19). If it ignores the existing social conditions, which are also the conditions under which any ethics might be appropriated, that ethos becomes violent (Butler, 5-6).
I find this piece interesting in the fact that anything we do, say, think, feel, etc. is largely based on the ethics, morals, or norms we are brought up with. If we, say, lived in a different country where ethics, morals, and norms were different we would grow up with those as the basis of our being. Even in this country, an older person can see the shifts that our country has had with the feminist movement, sexuality, education, etc. but these shifts are still based on the foundation for which these shifts occurred. We could in fact say that the foundation changes for each generation based on the changes that happened prior to a persons birth.
I was brought up in a time where talking about ones sexuality was looked down on. My mother and I had "the talk" and she provided me some books with more information, but it wasn't something discussed openly. Nowadays we see magazine covers that cover these topics and I have overheard people openly discuss sexual issues right in the open, not privately behind closed doors. I have seen shifts in graduating high school and marrying your high school sweetheart move towards getting an education before "settling down". Yet, there was still a foundation on which these changes occurred.
If we threw out our foundation instead of making changes to the ethics/morals/norms we have now, our world be in utter chaos and turmoil. Without ethics, rules, and laws all manner of violence would erupt. So while change is good, we cannot forget where the change started from.
I think this can not only be applied to oneself but to writing as a whole. If you think of a piece you have written, you start off with perhaps a few notes, then a first draft, and then revision upon revision. The final piece may be in fact different than the original version, but the original version is still there, lurking. And as I know, a piece never feels quite finalized. Somewhere it always feels like it could be perfected even more.
As far as an account of oneself, it evolves as well. Who I am today, will not be the person I am tomorrow, and is not the person I was in the past. Memory plays a part in this, as well as ways I have changed, may also impact those memories based on what I now know because I am today different than I was when these things actually happened. So how do we really account for ourself if we ourselves are constantly changing?
I find this piece interesting in the fact that anything we do, say, think, feel, etc. is largely based on the ethics, morals, or norms we are brought up with. If we, say, lived in a different country where ethics, morals, and norms were different we would grow up with those as the basis of our being. Even in this country, an older person can see the shifts that our country has had with the feminist movement, sexuality, education, etc. but these shifts are still based on the foundation for which these shifts occurred. We could in fact say that the foundation changes for each generation based on the changes that happened prior to a persons birth.
I was brought up in a time where talking about ones sexuality was looked down on. My mother and I had "the talk" and she provided me some books with more information, but it wasn't something discussed openly. Nowadays we see magazine covers that cover these topics and I have overheard people openly discuss sexual issues right in the open, not privately behind closed doors. I have seen shifts in graduating high school and marrying your high school sweetheart move towards getting an education before "settling down". Yet, there was still a foundation on which these changes occurred.
If we threw out our foundation instead of making changes to the ethics/morals/norms we have now, our world be in utter chaos and turmoil. Without ethics, rules, and laws all manner of violence would erupt. So while change is good, we cannot forget where the change started from.
I think this can not only be applied to oneself but to writing as a whole. If you think of a piece you have written, you start off with perhaps a few notes, then a first draft, and then revision upon revision. The final piece may be in fact different than the original version, but the original version is still there, lurking. And as I know, a piece never feels quite finalized. Somewhere it always feels like it could be perfected even more.
As far as an account of oneself, it evolves as well. Who I am today, will not be the person I am tomorrow, and is not the person I was in the past. Memory plays a part in this, as well as ways I have changed, may also impact those memories based on what I now know because I am today different than I was when these things actually happened. So how do we really account for ourself if we ourselves are constantly changing?
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Can the page perform enough?
I had previously taken a Writing for Performance class in which we able to experiment with language and words and how they appeared on the page but also how they were performed. This increased what I had learned in an earlier class - the sense of words on a page being much more than that. Spacing and breaks allowing for words unspoken - to create a feeling within the work which was unable to perhaps be expressed in other ways. But now the words became the performance or as much of a performance as was possible for ink on the page.
This week we focused on reading the BathHouse guests work, Tisa Bryant and Douglas Kearney. Again, both these works allowed for expansion on my knowledge of what it means to explore the page and stretch it. When I went to the lecture on Wednesday it was a different experience because it brought performance into their work. Hearing them read and articulate things written added another element to the words. "Textual Orality" is what they called it and it took the work to another level.
Before the lecture I saw some of Douglas Kearney's book and it was more different than anything I had seen before - similar but different. It had a loudness to it. Perhaps it was the bold fonts, the larger than life brackets, the compilation of words in one area that one was unable to decipher. On Wednesday, the work came to life more so than it had on the page. How does one read his work? It is all over the page. Some nuggets here and there, some more linear, some angled and somewhat broken off. To hear about some of his processes, the layering, all added that much more to the work itself.
While Kearney's was a visual feast, Bryant's was more like a typical book that had words on the page. BEWARE - you cannot judge this book by it's initial flip though. When you read her work you find that she writes a picture or a movie. She pulls from what is unfocused and brings it to the front. They say "A picture can say a thousand words." Well, Bryant's work are those words and more. First off, I think it is very challenging to look at a picture or movie and literally write what you see. What do you start with first? Top to bottom, left to right, right to left, bottom to top. Second, she focuses in a way or on things within the picture that you might not see. It's like watching your favorite movie several times and then all of a sudden you see something new. She brings the new forward and speaks to that.
In some ways Kearney's and Bryant's works are similar. Where do you start? On one hand the where do you start is the reader's decision for Kearney's book. In Bryant's work she decides where it will start. After hearing them both in person, I realized that while the page does "perform" seeing it articulated is quite another. There is attitude and cadences that cannot be seen easily in the way it is written. Maybe some, but not as much as when you see it "live". So it makes me wonder - can the page perform enough?
This week we focused on reading the BathHouse guests work, Tisa Bryant and Douglas Kearney. Again, both these works allowed for expansion on my knowledge of what it means to explore the page and stretch it. When I went to the lecture on Wednesday it was a different experience because it brought performance into their work. Hearing them read and articulate things written added another element to the words. "Textual Orality" is what they called it and it took the work to another level.
Before the lecture I saw some of Douglas Kearney's book and it was more different than anything I had seen before - similar but different. It had a loudness to it. Perhaps it was the bold fonts, the larger than life brackets, the compilation of words in one area that one was unable to decipher. On Wednesday, the work came to life more so than it had on the page. How does one read his work? It is all over the page. Some nuggets here and there, some more linear, some angled and somewhat broken off. To hear about some of his processes, the layering, all added that much more to the work itself.
While Kearney's was a visual feast, Bryant's was more like a typical book that had words on the page. BEWARE - you cannot judge this book by it's initial flip though. When you read her work you find that she writes a picture or a movie. She pulls from what is unfocused and brings it to the front. They say "A picture can say a thousand words." Well, Bryant's work are those words and more. First off, I think it is very challenging to look at a picture or movie and literally write what you see. What do you start with first? Top to bottom, left to right, right to left, bottom to top. Second, she focuses in a way or on things within the picture that you might not see. It's like watching your favorite movie several times and then all of a sudden you see something new. She brings the new forward and speaks to that.
In some ways Kearney's and Bryant's works are similar. Where do you start? On one hand the where do you start is the reader's decision for Kearney's book. In Bryant's work she decides where it will start. After hearing them both in person, I realized that while the page does "perform" seeing it articulated is quite another. There is attitude and cadences that cannot be seen easily in the way it is written. Maybe some, but not as much as when you see it "live". So it makes me wonder - can the page perform enough?
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