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~SB1 can’t stop me from being bi at work lol~ 🩷💜💙 ~ 🖤🩶🤍💜
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Summer reads I’ve started: theology, intersectionality, phenomenology, patriarchal systems, and deconstruction. Let’s gooooooo!
think that everyone has their own personal theme in life
every nolan film is about time. it winds its way through his filmography; it is fractured in memento, distorted in inception, expanded in interstellar, reversed in tenet.
every hopper painting is about stillness. it is found in every brushstroke; at dusk in automat, at dawn in morning sun, at noon in office in a small city, at night in nighthawks.
i have a friend who orbits ideas of power, another who delights in the prosaic and the plain. one weaves around systems and structures, another returns always to wonder at the sea.
there are other elements of course - our lives cannot be measured by single concepts no matter how large they may be - but time and again i think we return to the things that fascinate, the things that intrigue, the things we cannot quite tear ourselves away from. the themes of our lives.
Victorian Fantasies: The Lost World
I found this read very fun by the end. I will admit I thought it was very slow to begin with, and the sudden disappearance of Gladys from all relevance for many many chapters confused me, but I thought the ending was hilarious.
(Extreme amounts of casual racism aside-----and there's so so much of it my word) It read much like it had flipped the more modern trope of girl loves a boy/job/best friend who holds her back in ways she doesn't recognize, goes on adventure, learns there's more to life and all she needed to do was love herself and follow her heart and leave the boy/job/best friend who's holding her back. Some examples off the top of my head include The Devil Wears Prada as well as pieces of both Princess Diaries movies. Now that I think about it Captain Marvel also suits this trope. with this in mind, I thought the ending was absolutely hilarious, especially with the end point of "Idk bro, she just doesn't like you that much." from Gladys' new husband.
For a book that is both casually racist and sexist (such as how our narrator seems offended by a woman who talks to him on his own level), this flipping of what is today a commonly feminine trope added another layer of humor to this story for me.
(Holy cow that racism though. Seriously. Ow)
Victorian Fantasies: Peter Pan and Wendy
First thoughts: I've never actually seen the Disney movie, but I enjoyed how much the play with Cathy Rigby took from the book itself. It was a significant part of my childhood (recorded as a tv special on VCR with all the ads including peter pan peanut butter and a sweepstakes event?). But even though i haven't watched it in years, I could basically hear all the dialogue in their voices which was cool.
Anyways on to the book itself. Please tell me this is making fun of men. If so it's hilarious. The scene where all three women are just completely pissed at Peter (160) because they want romance and he wants a mother is so real when you consider how often it seemed like the role of wife and mother were one and the same thing (both in this book and in toxic relationships today). Add in the fact that Peter, Hook, and Mr. Darling all need mothering, and also all have doglike imagery attached to either them or their followers is very interesting to me. (80 - Hook's team, 233-Peter's team, and basically the entire last two chapters for Mr Darling - although I suppose the implication here is that Mr. Darling is the dog, not the captain here. Not sure what to make of that)
If this is a satire piece about manchildren it is hilarious, otherwise it is infuriating to read both in how the men act and how the girls all have nothing but motherhood for them, even in play.
This does leave me with one question though. If even in this half-make-belive world of Neverland, Wendy's fate is to be mother at all times, how does Tiger Lilly escape this fate? she desires peter romantically, but never wants anything to do with mothering him. She is described as cold and beautiful. (82)What does she represent here? Is she the only one who gets to be free of the system this book seems to be mocking?
All in all a fascinating read, extremely frustrating at many points, and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.
Victorian Fantasies: The Time Machine Week 2
I just wanted to talk about Meena more, because she deserves so much better. Like I said in class, I think Youngs treats Weena's role in the novel too lightly. To him, she is the feminine side of humanity, easily tossed aside for the sake of science, but I think that's only almost correct.
Meena is one of very few named characters in this book. The others are named only by their roles. They are things, professions, nothing more than a breathing setpiece. The same can somewhat be said about the other Eloi and morlocks, mostly due to the fact that our Traveler tells us very little about them.
But in both worlds, both times, and both races, there are one or two people who are named, who get to be more than their roles: Weena, Mrs Wachett, and Mr Richardson among them. These are all characters the narrative treats so flippantly...other than the use of their names. This leads me to believe this is a narrative of the blind leading the blind. We see a Traveler seeking the future of humanity, and watch him tell this story of what he has seen to A Man of Medicine, an Editor, and others the narrator does not even bother to give a title. Meanwhile, in his search he has not even let Mrs Watchett do her very job, our narrator was late for meeting Mr. Richardson, and Weena herself was lost in a fire, her fate assumed but unknown. In his search for Humanity, this Traveler has lost it completely, and, as Youngs points out, become (or more accurately displays traits of) the very Morlocks and Eloi he feared. When faced with danger, he tossed humanity aside and set the world on fire....and so would have anyone else unnamed in that room.
Victorian Fantasies: The Time Machine
What about Weena?
Alright. This one confused me a lot. One article, written by Youngs, explained a lot, but I found the author had an unsatisfactory answer to what Weena's purpose might be in the story. Not that I have a better answer of course, I just thought it might be interesting to explore.
Is she representative of colonialism's savior complex? one of "the good ones" as so often appears when imperialism faces an exception to their self-imposed rules of savagery? I agree with Youngs that she does provide a further lack of trust in the Time Traveler's interpretation of the world around him, and Youngs does claim that her death shows how easily the human traits of gentleness get dismissed in favor of logic. This is well supported, as we see the only post-travel acknowledgement of her death, the flowers, quickly get lost in a flurry of excited biologists. Her loss seems so flippant, as though she never really mattered to begin with. However, I don't see that her traits of gentleness are better represented in her compared to any of the other Eloi. Much as the Time Traveler tries to convince us of the fact, I see little evidence that she is any different from her kin. I don't find Young's idea that Weena represents the feminine traits of humanity to be particularly strong.
To wrap up my rambling, I do agree her death is meant to be brushed off, humanity lost for the sake of science and the very progress that brought this future into being. I just find Youngs' definition of what she represents slightly too shallow/generalized.
Victorian Fantasies: Dorian Gray and Mannon Lescaut
We read that Gray begins to read one of Henry's books, a french work called Mannon Lescaut. This story, (According to Wikipedia), tells a story of a nobleman who chooses to live with a common woman by the name of Mannon Lescaut. The man, simply called the Chevalier des Grieux gives up his dream of becoming a priest for her. After years of moral decline and the pair committing various crimes, they attempt to marry, but are not allowed to, so they run off together. as a tragic conclusion, Mannon dies of exposure in the wilderness.
This book, which Wilde describes as "elaborately illustrated" (66) appears just before Dorian announces his infatuation with his own doomed "love", Sibyl Vane. Of course, Gray begins along the nobleman's path, claiming "I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry, I am too much in love." (69) of course, he very quickly changes his mind, announcing his engagement to the girl only a few pages later (87). Following the story, at least somewhat (so long as we choose to be flexible with the terms involved), we see Sybil exposed (in the metaphorical sense), and then dead as a result of that exposure.
We see a second book appear later, a yellow one sent by Harry after Sybil's death and Inquest. This one goes unnamed, but it is another french novel, or at least follows a young Parisian, yet is "without a plot"(186), of a man who (at least by my reading of the summary) gets very lost in philosophy and the chasing of virtue. Here again, we see Gray's future, just this time, a negative of it. Instead of chasing virtue, he chases the senses, unleashed by the scapegoat portrait. And his life looses the plot. His life has no meaning, just as he and Henry intended.
Both of these books are a very interesting vignette through which we can examine the life of Dorian Gray, and I am excited to dig in further.
idk who needs to hear this but if you have been putting something off bc it doesn't need to be done until the end of the month. we are almost done with the teens we are approaching the big numbers (the twenties). that date shall dawn upon you swiftly and without mercy before you know it. psa for everyone except me i got plany off time
Looks at the paper proposal date looming in the first week of April………
Victorian Fantasies
I absolutely loved this read, and I'm finding it quite hard to narrow this post down to one singular topic.
For me one of the fascinating pieces were the repeating motifs of paint, makeup, and color.
For paint, obviously this is where the story begins and ends, but this and makeup come up much more philosophically throughout, such as when Henry is describing his 'recent study of women',(70) in which he explains that they "paint" their faces to appear younger, and in the previous generation to appear smarter. No one is who they are, not really, and this is often described as being for the best. (Much like when we talked about Jekyll and Hyde, it is the appearances that make a gentleman, or a lady. And in this story we add that it is the art that makes something valuable, more so than the soul behind it).
Instead they play a new role every night, as is described of Sybil Vane. "Tonight she is Imogen, and tomorrow night she will be Juliet."
"And when is she Sibyl Vane?"
"Never." (80)
She is painted, and never herself, and it is this painting, this acting, this art that Gray loves, not Sibyl Vane. This same playing of roles also applies to how Basil saw Gray, painting him as "Paris...and as Adonis" but it is only when he paints Gray as himself that he becomes afraid that it is idolatry, and he feels as though he cannot share it anymore, as though hes has gone too far somehow. We cannot have reality here. Either way, this painting, whether of canvas or of faces, proves to be deadly in the end.
This appears of course when Gray kills Basil, while briefly absolving himself by pointing to the painting's influence "as though it had been suggested to him by the canvas" (235). And again, when he kills himself at the end. But the painting's fatal draw also appears in Sibyl's death.
According to Henry, Sibyl died after ingesting something with, "I don't know what it was, but it had either Prussic Acid or White Lead in it." (145). I thought these two weapons were absolutely fascinating, and immediately had to do some research. The second, Lead, was often used in makeup to make one pale (a trait Gray often praises in Sibyl), so there we connect to the "painted faces" mentioned earlier. But the first compound, the one Henry deems more likely, is Prussic acid, which is derived from the pigments used for Prussian Blue paint. She is our story's first victim of the mask painted by Victorian Society, and even that only matters when it comes to appearances. Her death is ignored by the gentlemen, with their only worries being that of Gray having a scandal too young.
I would also love to dive into the use of color, such as how Henry says "Sin is the only real color element left in modern life" (I couldn't find the page, sorry) and how the colors of red, green, yellow, and white show so prominently in most of the pointed descriptions throughout the novel (especially the mental breakdown Grey seems to have around the color red in chapter 11 (216). I have neither the time nor the knowledge to dig into that here, but it is something I find extremely interesting.
Being demisexual and bi is funny to me. Anyone can hit it but you must suffer The Gauntlet first
You must answer me my riddles three
You must jingle your little jester hat in a tone that doth please me
It's silly, but the term "media literacy" is starting to bother me a bit because "media" is a word originally more about the form of text rather than the content of it (if it's used to refer to text at all). I would prefer something more like "textual literacy," but it's a pretty pedantic thing that overall probably doesn't matter; I'd just like for the meaning to be more "baked-in" than slightly ambiguous
"but the text never explicitly stated it!!!" hey, so that's actually what they tried to teach you in those english classes you barely passed 😁
[Image description: Tweet reading: "it's not canon it's implied" do you think they implied it for shit and giggles /.End ID]
And thus is the life of a grad student—spending pages upon pages of words and peer reviewed sources trying to convince you that the stories that are about things are actually about those things. 🙃😒 (I’ve had a classmate who I had to fight over things like whether or not the Venetians are racist in Othello, so even the explicitly stated things are…. Difficult for some to grasp.)
Victorian Fantasies: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
I really enjoyed our conversation we had in class on Wednesday about why it had to be London, and I wanted to elaborate on the themes attached to the London weather as well.
According to this paper (London Fog: A Century of Pollution and Mortality,
1866-1965) by W. Walker Hanlon, London experienced some of the highest sustained levels of air pollution in the world between the second half the 1800's and 1960. This of course would result in the fog events that we see in Jekyll and Hyde.
"A great chocolate coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continuously charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterso beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up , and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths."(39)
While described as simply the first fog of the season, this seems far thicker than a normal evening mist, and the brown color implies this may not be a fog caused by differing temps so much as massive amounts of pollution as was common at the time.
These fogs (as they are mentioned later as well - page 50) not only add a mysterious, veiled feeling to the story, but also can be drawn to Dr. Jekyll's plight as well. Both the city and the man have been polluted, and both claim innocence, either in simply calling it "part of the season" or by claiming the concentrated pollution found in Hyde is not part of the first body at all.
Annother interesting point is where these descriptions appear. The first fog of the season shows as Mr. Utterson is investigating Carew's murder, the point at which the evil is thickest within Jekyll's personality. I say this is when evil is thickest as it is the point that he is most allowing his Hyde persona to run wild, and is even enjoying the cruelty.
In contrast, we see both Hyde and Jekyll waning at the very end. Neither is free, and neither is enjoying any state of their existance. At this point the veil around our mystery is thinnest, and the truth is about to come out -- like a rushing wind.
"It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and a flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture." (68)
Just before the truth is unveiled, we have a night that is cold and vicious, but also clear. The moon shines brightly. The truth will be told. The brown pollution is swept away, leaving an empty street/corpse. If the people are the lifeblood of London, then the empty streets under a moonlit sky can only mean one thing: this truth will result in death.
Let’s take a break from the Victorian Fantasies for a little bit. I read Man Made Monsters in class last semester and fell in love with Rogers’ writing. Now I’m picking up her book The Art Thieves just for my own enjoyment!
Initial thoughts: this is concerningly believable to be our world considering its pre-mid apocalyptic setting. “If I started talking, the detectives would assume I’m lying or insane. At least until September 8th. The plague starts then, and then the civil wars. Boarder skirmishes by Christmas. Ho Ho Ho bring out your dead.” (5). There’s graduation ceremonies held in places smogged by wildfire—it’s only a little more than is already familiar. Fantastic writing, slightly difficult to read at a point or two.
Second: it’s about colonialism. Of course it is! It’s about environmentalism, about people as both a blight and a piece that belongs in an ecosystem, if only they’d treat it right. About identity and language. So many of my favorite themes from Man Made Monsters are already popping up. Oh and also time shenanigans. So far I imagine The Art Thieves as in the same world perhaps.
I’m starting chapter 5 now, and absolutely loving the read
Colonialism side note: I’ve been researching my own personal history, because White is not a nationality, and found out the Scottish line, the one that gave me my maiden name, was forcibly moved to the U.S.. we were prisoners of war against the British, then brought here and forced to work off the cost of our own unwilling travel. Colonialism harms us all.
And the fight against it belongs to all of us. Reads like this are so very important to expanding our view of what lives others have lived, seeing what makes us different, and taking note of what makes us the same. Cherokee and Galic were both banned in their lands for a time. Both are now mourned losses as descendants try to re learn a culture lost to both time and location. Both are so deeply tied to identity.
Her story is not mine, but there is so much that unites us. I hope that, (referencing Anzaldua) stories like these allow us to engage in radical empathy, take on those stories for a while, and come back shifted into a new, broader version of ourselves.
Sláinte!
Also: in a single page she said
- Art is about conversation and connection
- poverty is not a failure of the person
- institutional racism is real
- ACAB