Close Your Eyes to Open Your Soul.

To the question of "Would you rather be blind or deaf?" I have always said blind. Because then I would know true beauty. I mean preferably, I'd be neither, but still. I found it ironic that the husband's internal eyes weren't truly opened until he had closed his external eyes.

Carver's Cathedral was simply amazing. The story of a person opening up to another. Opening up to experiences completely different from any he's ever felt before. Human's are not good at coping with experiences very different from those of our day to day lives. We don't know what to do, what to say. We get anxious. It's a part of our nature to fear an hide that which is different. It's the reason so many people get stuck in their lives, jobs they don't like, relationships that are hurtful, places we've never been, bla bla bla. We're afraid of the unknown--duh. It's how we survive.

However, I've heard it said that people in the arts and especially in theater (who do not participate in destructive activities like drugs, alcohol, etc) live longer then people who are not artistic. It's because artists and actors open themselves up to experiences and characters that they would not experience in their regular day to day lives. They know how to cope. I have also heard this said of people who travel.

Funny, huh?

Also in the Cathedral, I was not sure whether I sympathized more with the wife or the husband. But maybe that wasn't Carver's intention. Maybe he was pulling an Alienation Effect with his simplistic minimalist writing style?

From the Surgical Tower Waiting Room

I made the mistake of reading Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" in the waiting room of Sanford Surgical Tower while my dad was in surgery. Take the peaceful spiritual emotions I felt reading "The Waking" and twist them up, snap them in two, and throw them across the equator. That is how this text made me feel. Hopeless, hurt, and alone (not the kind of feelings you want while in a waiting room). I literally got goosebumps and felt like the shit would never end. The depths to which humanity can sink.

One thing I didn't quite catch. This was NOT a true story, right? There was too much symbolism to make it be a true story, right? I just don't think I could cope with that right now if it were true. However, if it was, at least Ellison has the balls to write about it. I couldn't help thinking of Picasso's painting, "Guernica" after reflecting on the reading. It's art like that and "The Invisible Man" that will change the world. I hope.

Wake Up.

So I realize these blog posts are gonna be pretty wishy washy out of order. Don't judge me.



Roethke's poem "The Waking" is one of my all time favorites. It is a poem that everyone can relate to because it's core is an observation of life. All good art is one that holds up a mirror to life for people to see. Things always look different in a mirror then we think they look in reality.

The image of the lowly worm climbing up a winding stair is very striking. It is the only part of the poem I don't have some sort of understanding of. Is he comparing the worm to man and the stair to life? Or is it rather just an observation of how sometimes worms seem to just go and go with no real destination? What does the worm represent?

When I read this poem, I get the impression that I am praying. "The Waking" leaves me with a spiritual connection that feels like meditation and reflection. The repetition of the poem feels ritualistic and reading it feels like it should be a part of my daily wake up rituals. If I ever find another poem or piece of art that makes me feel like this one does, I will be a happier girl. "The Waking" is, in the words of Zora Neale Hurston, "a glimpse from God."

Beat It

I was very inspired by Ginsberg's "Howl." Its actually the first piece of beat poetry I've ever read. It was exciting to read even when I didn't understand all of the references the first time I read through it. However, from a theatrical perspective, I was very disappointed by Ginsberg's reading of it. He was obviously made for the page.

I also enjoyed reading about his life. He was a hippie before it was cool.

A couple of my favorite passages:

"who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade"

"I'm with you in Rockland
where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs al night and won't let us sleep"

I appreciate that in his poem, he references EVERYthing that he believes to be a cause of the pain of the poets. It's very Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and La Vie Boheme from RENT.

It's groovy. What can I say?

Mount Kill-a-man-tomorrow

Hemingway's tale is only made more disconcerting by its autobiographical elements. As I was reading, I couldn't help continually repeating that old track in my head, the one that plays in all humans' heads at a some point of trivial enlightenment: "What if I died tomorrow?"

"He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would."

Many people live life recklessly, thinking "YOLO! Gotta take advantage of this world while I can." But as is said, you won't regret the things you did as much as the things you didn't do. The Snows of Kilimanjaro was a bit scary to read with my own life in perspective. Have I done and not done all the things that make me feel best? Hemingway certainly expresses his uniquely Hemingway-blunt outlook for his readers. Its so honest, it cuts right to the core of being human and gives the reader a perspective of himself... whenever this self-reflection happens, there is hope. Though granted Hemingway's character died in the end, he died with hope and leaves us to the promise of our own lives.

I loved it.

Getting Frosty

"But he is far less affirmative about the universe then [the Transcendentalists]; for where they, looking at nature, discerned a benign creator, he saw 'no expression, nothing to express.'"

Now Robert, what is that supposed to mean?

For your education, here's what Spark Notes has to say about The Road Not Taken:

"The speaker stands in the woods, considering a fork in the road. Both ways are equally worn and equally overlaid with un-trodden leaves. The speaker chooses one, telling himself that he will take the other another day. Yet he knows it is unlikely that he will have the opportunity to do so. And he admits that someday in the future he will recreate the scene with a slight twist: He will claim that he took the less-traveled road."

That's an interesting take, wouldn't you say? Especially considering that most people consider this poem to be a story of a man who didn't conform. I remember hearing in a class at some point that this poem is often misunderstood, but I can never remember what it's actual jist is supposed to be. The writer of this particular Spark Notes page feels very strongly about it:

"Cursed with a perfect marriage of form and content, arresting phrase wrought from simple words, and resonant metaphor, it seems as if “The Road Not Taken” gets memorized without really being read. For this it has died the cliché’s un-death of trivial immortality."

I appreciate this enlightenment, though I will miss the bliss of ignorance in my former interpretation of Frost.