When I think about Alice Walker, I have an urge to bow in reverence. Alice Walker is one of those authors who forces others to emote. If you've never read The Color Purple, can I please urge you to do so? It's an incredible piece of literature. Even if you're the opposite of the characters (poor African American girls), you will find yourself identifying and sympathizing (empathizing?) with them.
The short story we read this pod was published the year I was born. Everyday Use, from the In Love and Trouble collection, is one of several short stories published together that year. Even though the piece is forty years old (not that *I* am, of course, just this piece!), there's a timeless element to the characters. There's still quarrels in many families about who should inherit what. Everyone knows a family where one kid has decided to chuck their own identity in favor of what he/she thinks is a superior lifestyle.
I did find this little snippet that I think says a lot about the person of Alice Walker, and I love that it is in her own words...
"One with the whole organism of life." Wow. Alice Walker writes with her soul.
Here's another clip, where other people speak to those kinds of observations about Alice Walker, concluding in some thoughts about herself and her choices. (It's a trailer for a PBS special.)
Alice Walker has a daughter herself. Here is her daughter, Rebecca Walker, talking a little about being Alice Walker's daughter. However, she also seems to give credit to all the women who came before her.
Alice's daughter felt she had a "very rich life" in that clip. I think that you can see a similar expression, but in a very tragic way, in the fictional character of Dee (Wangero)...
One of the themes in A Streetcar Named Desire is music. Blanche has flashbacks to
a particular barn dance, complete with musical accompaniment...
the Varsouviana Polka. Let's give a nod to Weird Al and enjoy a little accordion music. You can give it a few seconds here...
But this is catchy little tune is NOT what has been stuck in my head
since watching the movie (thanks for the viewing schedule tip, Mrs. S.!) and reading the play. Nope!
Of course, some of you might be able to guess why I am partial to songs about "Moons." I bought a Natalie Cole album released right before my high school graduation, where Natalie sings the songs of her famous father, Nat King Cole. Now my daughter also loves the album, and though she is, in every way, a very modern thirteen year old with Facebook and texting and whatnot, she can also sing along every word to this classic song featured in our Tennessee Williams play...
Paper Moon.
Lyrically, it is pretty much Blanche's life anthem. The whole song is about fake sets of cardboard, and how the fake doesn't matter if the people in the relationship pretend it isn't fake! However, that is STILL not the song stuck in my head! (It is lovely though, isn't it?)
Nope... Blanche tries to pretend she is pure and innocent with lines like "What you are talking about is brutal desire—just—Desire! The name of that rattle-trap street-car that…brought me here!" (from scene four). We learn later what a sneaky little diva she really is, and nowhere is it more obvious that in scene six, when she graphically tries to seduce Mitch... but gets away with it because her words were in French and uneducated Mitch
(am I the only person who sees him more as Mr. Cellophane, from the musical Chicago?)
is not bilingual. Blanche says,
"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" (Literally, in English... "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?")
gasp! scandal! pearl clutching! Now I've never taken a French class. But I know a Patti LaBelle line when I read one! This may be most of the French words I know that are not about food! Because I love all things cheesy-musical related, I just have to share this clip from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, where Christina Aquilera, Lil' Kim, Mya, Pink, and Missy Elliot remake the LaBelle classic. (Quick warning- there's a lot of underwear in this video. But hey, that whole musical takes place in a brothel, ya know?)
So thanks, American Literature class.
I've been thinking about Ewan McGregor all week,
and that is not really a disappointment at all. Photo credit
(Dear God, please let there be a religious allegory left in this semester
so I can justify adding a bunch more Moulin Rouge links to my blog. Amen.)
I read the most delicious poem today. It was posted in a homeschool forum, and I wanted so much to share it with you. Technically, Edgar Guest was born in England... but I do think most people consider him an American poet.
A Book
by Edgar Guest
“Now” - said a good book unto me -
“Open my pages and you shall see
Jewels of wisdom and treasures fine,
Gold and silver in every line,
And you may claim them if you but will
Open my pages and take your fill.
“Open my pages and run them o’er,
Take what you choose of my golden store.
Be you greedy, I shall not care -
All that you seize I shall gladly spare;
There is never a lock on my treasure doors,
Come - here are my jewels, make them yours!
“I am just a book on your mantel shelf,
But I can be part of your living self;
If only you’ll travel my pages through,
Then I will travel the world with you.
As two wines blended make better wine,
Blend your mind with these truths of mine.
“I’ll make you fitter to talk with men,
I’ll touch with silver the lines you pen,
I’ll lead you nearer the truth you seek,
I’ll strengthen you when your faith grows weak -
This place on your shelf is a prison cell,
Let me come into your mind to dwell!”
I love that last couplet. Don't leave books on the shelf! I devour them... I eat them and the words on the page attach to the nodules like calories on my hips. The books become a part of me, and they influence my thinking. Even when I disagree, I find myself affected, understanding the opposite view at a deeper level, even if I reject it as false. I have a friend, a clever preacher who frequently says, "Let's not confuse "buying" books with "reading" books." It makes me wince every time, because I collect books like one of those episodes of Hoarders. There's never too many books!
Another meme that made me laugh. The real lyrics to Queen's megawatt hit, Bohemian Rhapsody, include the words,
"I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me He's just a poor boy, from a poor family."
I'm a fan of Poe. I'm also a fan of Queen. And even though the meme is a joke, there are some connections between Poe and Mercury.
Both Edgar Allen Poe and Freddie Mercury (the lead singer of Queen) were creative men whose lives were ended too young. Freddie Mercury died of complications with AIDS, while Poe's death seems to still be fodder for urban legends... no one is really sure what caused his death.
Despite these two artists being about a century and a half apart, Mercury found inspiration in the dark writer's poetry. Consider this song, from Queen's second album... (video link here)
Nevermore
There's no living in my life anymore
The seas have gone dry and the rain stopped falling
Please don't you cry anymore
Can't you see
Listen to the breeze, whisper to me please
Don't send me to the path of nevermore
Even the valleys below
Where the rays of the sun were so warn and tender
Now haven't anything to grow
Can't you see
Why did you have to leave me
Why did you deceive me
You send me to the path of nevermore
When you say you didn't love me anymore
Nevermore
Nevermore
My friends have been posting this picture on Facebook ad nauseam all semester. It's been a winter of particularly cruel proportions, and equally bad jokes... but this one keeps making me laugh.
Tonight, it finally occurred to me that we might be reading John Steinbeck (the guy whose book title, stolen from Shakespeare, is depicted in this meme) this semester, so I went to check it out... yes! Weeks twelve and thirteen. Woot!
Maybe I should've saved this picture for then, but today I'm thinking of the ridiculously blinding freak snowstorm I had to drive through, and by weeks twelve and thirteen of this semester, I'm demanding some sunshine. Some sunshine that hints of glorious summer by this sun! *wink*
Have I mentioned (in the list of modern computer based communication forms this blog is supposed to be about) how much I LOVE memes?
I post memes in most of the discussion boards in most of my classes. You know... because they are there. If there's anything we learned from the minimalist poems of the last pod, it's that sometimes a few well-placed words are more powerful than a plethora of phrases.
...and there's no way I would've waited all the way to Brit Lit in some future semester to post Richard III memes!
So... I'm trying NOT to hog all the extra credit points available in the picture banners on Blackboard. It's a little difficult, being the overachiever that I am. Instead, I am passive-aggressively tweeting about the current picture posted, hoping someone will snag the points so I will be able to rest because the task will be complete.
I love this poem by the mystery author...This is just to say...
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15535#sthash.8tLzPdWM.dpuf
I always wonder... he says he was sorry, but was he? He ate more than one. He even thought about how they were part of someone else's plans. Maybe he's the guy at work who ignores the names on the lunches in the fridge and just gets into everyone's food anyway.
I want to call him a jerk, and move on.
But... as I read... I can't help but think that he's saying... "Life is so sweet, life is so cold...forgive me, but I'm grabbing life where I need to grab it..."
Then I want to forgive him, even though he left me hungry.
In my house, it would be about mandarin oranges.
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15535#sthash.8tLzPdWM.dpuf
