Eye of the Story

The Evergreen State College

Category: Uncategorized (Page 4 of 5)

Isabella Pierson / “Traveling”

January 31, 2016 /

Reading the Rings of Saturn gave me a particular experience a book has never really given me before. It gave me a strange feeling; I felt as if I was exploring with the author, traveling the eastern coast of England, traveling through different periods of times. 

I have a deep longing to travel alone. It started when I was in 5th grade when my class went to a camp named Mountain School. We spent a week out in nature, hiking and having campfires. Near the end of our week we had a ‘nature walk’. I walked alone along a trail in the middle of the forest, passing by pieces of paper that had been left on the ground, things written on them like “enjoy the silence” or “look up”, simple prompts that heightened the experience. It was my favorite thing I did at Mountain School. Until then, I had never walked alone in nature, exploring a place I’d never been before. It was extremely liberating.

Since then I’ve been longing to travel on my own, to experience that freeing feeling again. So I’ve been planning on a trip to Valencia, Spain. I know I will stay there a month at least, with my boyfriend, but I intend to stay the entire summer. My mother’s side of the family is from Spain, and my Abuelita owns a cozy apartment in Valencia that I would stay at. I’ve never stayed so far from home on my own, so having some relatives there for support feels like a good baby step. 

I would like to take the opportunity of staying in Spain for several months to make a film. Rings of Saturn has shown me another route for how to tell a story. I fell in love with the stream of thought writing style Sebald used, and I’d like to create a film that emulates that form of storytelling; that dreamlike, lucid quality, seamlessly floating from one memory to another. The film would be about my wanderings in Spain-  finding my independence through traveling.

I would shoot footage constantly, capturing everything, not thinking about how it all will come together in editing. The real fun part would be post production, solving the puzzle of how I would organize the film; I want to let my mind wander and let the film flow as if the audience was witnessing my train of thought. Of course it will have structure to it, but I want that to remain hidden to whoever is watching. 

Lately that’s all I can think about: my trip to Spain, making a film, exploring, feeling things I’ve never felt before… So I couldn’t help but write an entry about it all. 

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In my journal I copied one of my favorite parts from Rings of Saturn and drew a little image of what was being described. 

The Drunk Cheryl Harai

January 28, 2016 /

His family, his children, siblings and his first wife got up to talk at his funeral. They described him as a drunk, someone who was lazy and didn’t accomplish much, he didn’t work enough, didn’t pay the bills, couldn’t love and deserved exactly what he got- erased from existence. They talked about how the only hope they had was that his children could do better then him.

I sat there wondering what kind of man he would have been if he had truly been given a chance. A chance to live without the drugs and alcohol he finally used to keep everyone away. If he had been able to go to school as a child, if he had been loved when he was young, if he could have known that, just a little, he had something to contribute to our world.

He couldn’t read and could only do basic math. In the 1980’s he was failed by the school system. His parents also, could only see what he couldn’t do and as a child was called worthless everyday. Refusing to go back to school after grade 6, He learned to build.

He was a dreamer, a philosopher and could talk for hours about a story he had heard and what it might mean to others, what it meant to him. When he was young and it was still OK to ask someone to read to you, he asked and loved the classic stories. Checking books out of the Library, just by their covers, he would find someone to read them, so he could hear the stories.

He had the eye of an artist and could find meaning in so many ordinary things. He could tell you how the trees grew and imagined how they felt when he had to cut them down. He couldn’t tell you how he did it, but he could figure angles and design complex buildings, as long as it was in wood. Wood talked to him. He could build a home, out of logs, from a pile of wood and a picture. Tell a story and he could build it, in wood.

He was also broken and spent his whole life feeling unloved and unwanted. He lived as if his live was only an accident, a mistake of nature and one that needed to be corrected.

To his children he was an occasional visitor, not always kind, usually confused. Most often they knew him as someone their mother cursed and accused of things. She often called him “ a sperm donor”.   He could barely look at his children without feeling that he was doing wrong, rubbing off on them somehow. He loved them though, from a distance, wishing he could get to know them. Afraid to contaminate them with his unworthiness, his inability to learn, his curse,and so he stayed away.

He stayed away from anyone he started to love and tried to drown all the bad about himself. He sought to bury the tenderness he felt for the world, the conversations he had with the trees and the animals. He tried to drown his dreams and his wish that he could learn to be good, that someone could love him back.

And when someone did, he couldn’t believe it. At his funeral it was heartbreaking to hear what the world thought of this man, this drunk, who they believed got what he deserved.

 

I wonder what the world would have been like, if he had been given a chance.

 

Seymour: An Introduction review

January 25, 2016 /

Watching and listening to Seymour: An Introduction is like going out to eat with a foodie. You might not know what’s best for you, but you’ll get there.

In a scene with two close friends, pianist Seymour Bernstein laments on the American narrative of the artist. People want to hear stories of stars born with talent, craft is boring. Bernstein gave up performance and concerts decades ago, it’s like if Shut Up and Play The Hits was made with an interview 50 years after the final concert. Now, he’s a teacher.

In other documentaries of creative genius, the subject is mined for wisdom. Bernstein is excited to share his own with director Ethan Hawke. “One of the most important things is to always have a pulse”, he says to his student Jiyang Chen. What sets Seymour: An Introduction apart is that many of the interviews are done people who know him well enough to disagree with him: his friends and pupils. They get quotes out of him we could never, we’re more like his pupils; we can learn to love him and the things he teaches.

One of the most tender moments captures Bernstein holding down one of his students shoulders, which have started to roll forward from their “knightly posture” during the moments of great musical passion.  Bernstein shows his pupils the great emotional depths of music, but it his profession to not let them drown in it.

Hawke and his friendship with Bernstein is very much part of the movie. As part of Hawke’s show, he teaches on stage before his concert, without pulling punches. The audience sees a vibrant, strong encouraging teacher. Some of us may groan hearing his merciless criticisms, but some of us will keep eating our popcorn. His other students watch with intent from backstage, sympathizing and knowing they are next.

Hawke thinks Bernstein’s lifestyle is a monk’s to the piano, as he shows us throughout the movie. We see his life at angles, times and shades. We see Bernstein’s precision in shape and time, when he makes his bed and his food. He’s authentic and deliberate through every note of his life and that is inspiring.

“The most important thing for music teachers is to inspire and encourage, not just in music but in all aspects of life,” Bernstein says. His father used to say he had three daughters and a pianist; Bernstein also wishes he could’ve been known as a son. His piano playing is a craft, but the feelings that come through are the product of a full life.

For Bernstein, music is zen, and he needs more of it to cushion old age. New York always looks overcast and far away. Days are getting long for Bernstein and he’s losing his perception of them. His curtains are always drawn, but his apartment looks homey. We only see him outdoors and on the New York streets once, when he stops to pet a dog. He puts his remaining life into his piano but that isn’t how we’ll learn about him best. That’s in the topography of his forehead and back, and the motions of his pedaling feet.

The narrative feels disjointed, but music ties the knots. In the final scenes, his piano playing makes up the whole movie you’re watching. The film builds up context to the final concert which makes an already emotional (in attendees’ shaking mouths) experience, personal too.

There’s nothing mystical or inaccessible about Bernstein. His bliss is because he is extraordinarily practical. A long time ago, his piano playing became his living, so it became his life. Eight hours a day. That’s not talent for music, that’s talent for work. You’ll stay through the credits just to hear a few more moments of Bernstein. You can hear Schumann at any time, but you might never hear Bernstein again.

Marilee G. Hyde Week 3 Journal Entry

January 24, 2016 /

My daughter left on Tuesday with her program "Evolutionary Ecology: Across Latitudes." About 30 of them went to study in Ecuador for the quarter. She sent pictures and emails and should be now on a bus to a different place"a
Spent my one weekend a month in Seattle where all my friends are. We do Dim Sum on Sunday and then watch movies all day. I told them about some of the movies we have been watching in class. It is nice they are all interested in what I am doing.
Almost done with the scholarships, they are due on the first of February so I want to turn them in this coming week. It will be a relief to get them over with and onto the next thing. I looked up the movie we are seeing in week four. That is the one I am writing about. Unfortunately the review I read didn't like it! So now I am looking forward to viewing it for myself!

I personally enjoyed Mr. Ransom on Friday. He was very honest and very amusing! I read the stuff that was on the canvas, and I have to say I found his stories very engaging. It's a good thing I have no intention of making writing my day job! It is really only this quarter that I have learned what the heck finding your "voice" is! That is NOT the way we were taught. When I was in K-12 they were trying to formalize your writing and take the informal and not very professional voice OUT of your writing.

Looking forward to Week 4!!!!!

rachel hatfield – She Must Assemble: The Inner Life in Mrs. Dalloway

January 19, 2016 /

(Close reading of the passage between pages 184-186, “What business had the Bradshaws to talk of death at her party? . . . She must assemble. She must find Sally and Peter. And she came in from the little room.”)

In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf explores themes like mortality, repression, and the richness and importance of the inner life. The brilliance of the novel is not the rise and fall of the action in the story, but the way Woolf uses a modern, descriptive internal narrative structure as a way to build insight into the motivations of each character, rather than relying on purely on character interaction and exposition. Since the characters tell the story to us through their internal monologue, and since each character has their own agenda, the reader is allowed the time to slowly build and change their perception of each player in the story. Nothing is objectively stated. The narration follows a cast of interconnected characters, hour by hour, over the course of a single day in post-World War I Britain, centering on the titular Mrs. Dalloway, an aging society wife, as she makes last-minute preparations for a party.

The climax of the novel, as I see it, takes place as the party finally comes together. Sometime after midnight, Clarissa overhears some of her guests discussing the tragic suicide of a young veteran earlier that afternoon, and she is incensed to have the specter of death descend on her meticulously planned party. She retreats to another part of the apartment to think, away from her guests. The fear of mortality has been troubling Clarissa for a while, having recently recovered from a bout of ill health. During the course of the story, the constant tolling of Big Ben follows Clarissa and other characters as they go about their day, representing the constant flow of time and often inspiring reflection. Her daughter is nearly grown and the relics of her past at Bourton are just memories—Sally is now the picture of a wife and mother, Peter is in town purely to arrange his girlfriend’s divorce, and her relationship with Richard is seemingly successful but notably distant. Though she tries to deny it, Clarissa is a woman with regrets. Her internal monologues are extensive and she clearly has an active mind, a fact of which she is aware, and her self-consciousness about aging and the passing of time is amplified by it. She is a woman defined by her passions and her subsequent attempts to suppress them, and she finds it hard to believe all that activity will end at her death. Early in the novel, she allays her fear of death with the thought that a piece of her would go on living in her home, the streets she walked, in her relationships with her friends and family. But Clarissa is also aware that every day, something in her becomes more “obscured” in her efforts to conform to society life—she “lets drop” the thing that most matters, her own self.

Septimus Smith, however, sees death in another way. Very much a parallel character to Clarissa, his shell-shock and inability to communicate with those around him fuels his isolation. He sees death as the ultimate act of self-determination, especially when faced with Doctor Holmes’ and Bradshaw’s plans for his treatment. Clarissa also sees the autonomy in his suicide; she compares it to her own most defiant moment—throwing a shilling into a lake (184). While Clarissa is so scared of death that she would continue living in a society where her identity is stunted daily, Septimus chooses death rather than life in this “wicked” place. Clarissa feels ashamed; she sees much of the same corruption and wickedness as Septimus, but she chooses to continue her life of comfort rather than dying on principle.

As Clarissa leaves her party guests to think in solitude, the metaphor of the room comes to prominence. In Mrs. Dalloway, the “room” is representative of the inner self. Throughout the novel, Clarissa’s drive to properly socialize is often at odds with a desire for solitude and quiet, and the points when she is alone in a room are points at which her internal monologues become even more personal, like when she retreats to the attic room she stayed in during her sickness. Other characters, like Mrs. Kilman, also emphasize the “room” as a personal, introspective space. Sir Bradshaw invokes the room metaphor when confronted with Septimus’ madness; he is offended by Septimus’ disregard for order and distrust of doctors. Bradshaw twice mentions that action must be taken when someone “comes into your room” (99) and challenges your beliefs. Septimus, feeling trapped by the expectations of a society he doesn’t respect, throws himself from a window to escape the room, representing his freedom from the frustration he feels at his surroundings. He states he didn’t want to die; it was other humans, not life itself, which troubled him.

Clarissa looks out the window across the way and is startled to finally see her neighbor looking back at her. For a minute, Clarissa watches this other old woman in her own bedroom go about her nightly routine. There’s a loud party going on outside in Clarissa’s apartment, but this other individual is quietly going to sleep. Clarissa feels more at ease and she notes the beauty of the late sky, like she had always done at Bourton and Manchester. The clock strikes three and for the first time Clarissa is unconcerned with what time it is, instead refocusing on her earlier conclusion that she lives her life because she enjoys the act of living, regardless of her regrets. She refuses to pity Septimus as she still sees the merit in his act, but Clarissa makes a different choice. She leaves her little room to return to her party.

Writing American Cultures Essay .. Celestine Ames

January 17, 2016 /

 

In reading Melanie Curran’s essay entitled “Lived-In Experiences of Architecture in New Orleans”, I was struck not only by Curran’s stunning use of language, but also by her ability to personify and give meaning to the various forms of architecture in New Orleans. Before reading this essay, I hadn’t really thought of the buildings that I’ve lived, worked, and learned in as significant aspects of my life. I didn’t have much of an interest in the history of these buildings, or the small details that make them unique. Curran, on the other hand, seems to view the buildings in her life almost as living, breathing entities. She places quite a bit of importance on the stories of the buildings that she encounters.

            Curran’s writing style is breathtaking and artistic, even when describing something as matter-of-fact as architecture. Her poetic language gives the essay a certain amount of color and depth that it might not have had otherwise. I was struck by lines like “Conversations melted into walls and doors” (pg. 224), “The back door swung at the mercy of the wind” (pg. 227), “I grew permeable to the feeling of living in living buildings” (pg. 227), and “a dreamy fictionalization of a real place” (pg. 227). In her essay, Curran displays her very special talent of writing in a poetic state of mind. In addition to the writing style, I absolutely loved the structure of the piece. It seems to me that the essay came together in the same way that a collage might. The piece isn’t very organized, which I actually appreciated quite a bit.  A few pages are devoted to each architectural structure that Curran lived in or had experiences with while she was in New Orleans. But other than that, there isn’t much structure to the piece. It almost feels like a series of vignettes, each tied together by the common theme of New Orleans architecture. This gives the essay a nice contrast with the rest of the pieces in the collection, most of which were told in a more traditional way. I was amazed by Curran’s ability to piece together what felt like fragments of memories and experiences, into a cohesive and enjoyable essay.  

            While the majority of the essay centers on Curran’s personal experience, she also takes a few opportunities to comment on the way that architecture can reflect the state of a culture as a whole, and how this relates to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. On page 223, Curran relays her belief that “by rebuilding structures, [volunteers] were helping to give back to the city the very structure of its culture”. Evidently, Curran places quite a bit of importance on the buildings that hold a place in our lives and hearts. And she has found a way to help with the rebuilding of New Orleans culture in her own way. “I realized that I want not so much to rebuild houses, but to build the stories of houses through the lens of architectural ethnography” (pg. 224).

 A good illustration of Curran’s writing style, as well as an overview of what her essay is focused on, can be found in this passage on page 225:

 

“A Mathematical Approach to Determining the Lived-In Character of Architectural

Experience

 

For every building, there is an equal and opposite abundance of life being lived. Washers, dryers, ceiling fans, and air conditioning units are all whirling at speeds relative to the pace of personalities. Cracks, creaks, leaks, and bends are all dismantling at ratios determined by a factor of X. The value of X derives from usage of material amenities by tenant, multiplied by intensity of light bursting through south facing windows, supplemented by forces of nature encroaching on said building, divided by occupancy and sanded down to the wood grain and number of children brought up under the roof before it was patched in 1997.

Using such calculations, it is understandable that the amount of passion, dreaming, sexual desire and routine dwelling within the physical walls of buildings leads to “lived-in” characteristics that take effect in the architectural context. I will be exploring such characteristics of vernacular forms of architecture in New Orleans unearthed during my fieldwork from February to May 2012.”

When reading this passage, I was especially struck by the first line in the second paragraph (“Using such calculations, it is understandable that the amount of passion, dreaming, sexual desire and routine dwelling within the physical walls of buildings leads to ‘lived in’ characteristics that take effect in the architectural context”). I thought that this was an incredibly beautiful and inspiring line, and it gave me a new appreciation for all of the buildings that I’ve lived in, worked in, learned in, or had any sort of connection with. It’s fascinating to think of the history of these buildings, the connections that others have had with them, and the stories that can be told about them. I think it’s important to preserve these stories, and Melanie Curran does a wonderful job of preserving a bit of the history of buildings in New Orleans, as well as her own personal experiences in them. 

Writing: Practice, Theory, Process; Benjamin Boyce

January 15, 2016 /

In the writer’s practicum on Friday we generated a number of methods seemily aimed at getting us into the practice of writing. What ended up on the blackboard was what I think of as “writer advice.” This stuff is good, even necessary—for we can’t produce writing without figuring out how to go about writing.

I myself am more interested in what come after writer advice, the discussions that begin at the questions “What does a story do?” and “How is a story put together?”

From the second question follows a discussion on all the moving parts in a story: its characters, plots, settings, and the styles by which it is conveyed.

The first question leads to a discussion on the ways in which a story gains value in the audience. I think it does this, basically, by grabbing, maintaining, and manipulating the attention of the reader, and subsequently her feelings, interest, and imagination. 

The difficulty with such discussions is that they require a somewhat extensive critical apparatus, simply for organizational concerns. I’ve taken stabs in the last two quarters at laying out such an apparatus, which I’d be happy to share if anyone is interested.

But this quarter I’m here to produce a story. The form I’m working with is the novel, set in the genre of Speculative Fiction. Due to its length, I must develop a structure that is both solid enough to support the attention of the reader, and deft enough to continually engage her insides. Also, because it is a novel, I’m more or less stuck inside it while building it–I must maintain a certain headspace in order to not “lose the thread.” For this reason I might seem at times slightly removed, even pissy—and I apologize about that.

However, my real journal entries, then, are basically self-reflective babble—not about my self, but about my project. As I’ve progressed as an author I’ve found it helpful to hash out my ideas aloud. Since we’re being encouraged to expose our underbellies to eachother, I’ve gone ahead and recorded one such thought-session.

(The volumes shown in this video are all of my own composition. None have been officially published, and all are in process. It’s the nature of my project that I’ve had to write and rewrite its volumes several times in order to get them to do what I want them to.)

 

Class Struggles on the School Checkerboard

January 10, 2016 /

Class Struggles on the School Checkerboard

Some Kind of Wonderful

 

Some Kind of Wonderful is John Hughes’ redux on his hit Pretty in Pink, with the sexes switched. In Hughes’ sight of American high school, the world’s a playground. The lack of responsibility made to future and to parents sets the small midwest town as a sandbox where identities are found or created.

For anyone who’s felt socializing like a life or death situation, John Hughes sets the Saturday night of Amanda Jones and Keith Nelson as such. The tension is like a war room and when it finally bursts, Keith demands his thought be paid attention. “At least I have friends,” she shouts at him. “Are you sure?” he asks. Earlier that day, Amanda’s friend Shane was pretending she didn’t exist because she was going through with Keith’s date; his beliefs are valid.

There’s not much different in classism as Hughes sees it, if you’re sixteen or forty. Public school society brings a divided globe together, sports cars and jalopies.. At the scene of Keith pumping gas into Hardy’s black Corvette, Amanda only scowls at her boyfriend’s quips and feels natural sympathy for someone she has trouble relating to. Reluctantly, the rich boy holds out a tip in singles for his mechanic, but drops it on the wet asphalt for Keith to pick it up: who does unflinchingly.

Keith’s a painter and his best friend is a punk drummer named Watts. Keith lives with his anxious dad, his exhausted mom and his two whip-smart baby sisters, Laura and Candace. All he wants to do is paint, but his father expects him to start applying to colleges, the straight route away from working-class life. Instead he starts plotting a romantic date night with the popular and wealthy Amanda Jones, who is in a shaky relationship with rich boy Hardy Jenns. Their bond cements a higher status, but Amanda is open to someone like Keith. Once she accepts his invitation to go out in public together, his idea unfolds. It spoils the plot, but he takes out the college money he’s saved working at a gas station and buys a diamond earring, one of Amanda’s guilty pleasures. The artist archetype arrests power from the ruling caste, with his own priceless and unstoppable role. Only the hopeless has nothing to lose.

Future is bleak, but why does it brighten by Keith giving the diamond earring to Amanda? All that money, his whole college fund blown in one night on a first date gift. It’s a long-term commitment to the infiltration of the upper caste of high school society. Of course, the bonus is that the plot leaves Amanda on Keith’s side later that night.

He’s not looking for them to become a couple, he’s not just raising his own status, but he appeals to her moral standards by turning the other cheek. Laura intercepted Hardy’s own attack plot, but rather than turn to defense, Keith continues his own moves, ready to lose everything if it means taking away the crown. Looking at that diamond, Amanda has to question herself the value in upper social status of wealthy students, the friends which come with it and all related expectations.

When Duncan kicks Hardy’s door open, the tough guys behind him suspend their smiles, acting as a backup plan. Hardy wont win this time. Only in a million years could Keith succeed; “a historical fact” is made that night as Duncan declares.

The fact is that Hardy’s path is no longer given the same kind of respect. The revolution is not tonight, his parents’ house isn’t destroyed or anything crude like that. With support from all those below the line of scrimmage, Keith plays the part of the artist to the fullest yelling to all partygoers that their emperor has no clothes. “You’re over,” that’s Keith’s succinct truth to Hardy. Amanda can never allow him the same fair weather again.

The movie is almost over. Amanda and Keith leave the party. She’s shocked by their own slap and asks if Keith saw “the look on his face,” speechless. Keith just laughs it off. “Remind me never to get you mad.”

The major difference between Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink reveals itself at this point. Keith ends the night with Watts in his arms. He yelled after her, running away from Amanda and the party and Duncan and his new friends for his closest mate. She leaps to his chest for the big golden finale kiss with a 360 degree pan-around shot. In Pretty in Pink, Duckie finds his own girl, but in Some Kind of Wonderful the secret admirer beats out the rich romantic intrigue.

Is high school in Hughes mind a classist reflection of society or are Some Kind of Wonderful and his other teen comedies dramatic satires on the depths social standings play? The drama in Hughes vision could be to highlight the anxiety he felt in his school days, which he now laughs at looking back. It’s hard to believe a talented artist like Keith faces social isolation. Losers like Keith are neither to be seen nor heard, which is why he turns to painting and plotting beneath the surface to succeed in life and love. He and Hardy wouldn’t know each other away from the pump if it weren’t for public school, but successes like Hardy still refuse to address those with dirt on their hands, though less exaggerated. Keith becomes a child in that interaction.  Refusing to acknowledge someone’s value outside of their wealth is like asking them to lick your boots clean.

 

 

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