The Prophet

    There was a small grey man who sat pitched against a stone pillar on the subway platform. he had a rough silver beard and ashen clothes that clung to  his wiry frame. he was the subway’s lint trap, every piece of lint and fluff stuck to him, cast off thoughts tangled in his beard and feathers in his hair. He clutched a small cardboard sign reading “the end is nigh” in hasty black letters.

    Harold was nothing like the subway man. Harold walked sharply and with purpose, with each hurried step the heel of his shoe ground determined into the pavement, as though he needed it to know he was going somewhere. It would have been a surprise to anyone who knew Harold, when he stopped abruptly in his path to stare back at the grey man who had caught his eye. Harold read the man’s warning and glanced at an empty disposable coffee cup that rested at his feet. Harold sighed, reached into his coat pocket to fish out some change. When the coins had hit the bottom of the cup and Harold had turned to leave the grey man gave an audible “Pfft!” Harold pivoted around, insulted. “Excuse me” he said. “Big help that’ll be” said the grey man and shook his sign.

“Why then, do you have that sorry cup?”asked Harold.

“For courtesy” nodded the man.

“ How is it courteous if you reject the money?”

“I’ll show you, sit with me”

Harold sat, his charcoal suit wrinkling with his brow as he wondered what on earth he was doing.

    “Give me your hat,”

Harold did, marveling again at his own compliance.

“Now look” he said, shaking the small black hat, it had been a gift from Harold’s mother.

“All of this will be useless soon” this prophecy apparently queuing the hat which began producing dozens of quarters. They tumbled out of the hat and onto Harold’s lap, clinking as they found rest on the concrete.

Harold’s mouth hung open in a perfect “o,” the size of a dollar coin.

     Harold’s eyes emerged from his daze to see the grey man, he looked cleaner. He was wearing Harold’s hat.

     The grey man stood “I best be off, lots to do!”

“Wait!” said Harold "What is your name?" “Harold” smiled the grey man and walked away.

     Harold the First looked down at his tattered grey clothes and stroked his silver beard.

“What does he know?” He asked himself clutching the cardboard sign. “ None of his ‘lots to do’ matter.”

      Harold’s hurry slipped away slowly, replaced by a strong belief that the apocalypse loomed over. Things started to cling to him, bits of dirt, ticket stubs, dust and dread.

     There was a small grey man who sat pitched against a stone pillar on the subway platform. He had a rough silver beard and ashen clothes that clung to his wiry frame. He was the subway’s lint trap, every piece of lint and fluff stuck to him, cast off thoughts tangled in his beard and feathers in his hair. He clutched a small cardboard sign reading “the end is nigh” in hasty black letters.

Cardboard man III

Geovanni Casillas

(ft. Cannon and Vincent as a tasteful background)

Stringy

I have a friend who does not believe in gravity. Or as he calls it “gravitational theory”.

My friend believes what feels like gravity is accounted for by a web of strings attaching everything in the universe, the Sun is connected to the Earth is connected to the Moon and us and so on.

This is similar to what I see with literature. When I come across a character or theme in a book, when I find a layer that nods obviously to something I’ve read before. A small silver needle pierces the page and threads it along a delicate, nearly invisible, silver cord. I imagine an enormous web of books strung along by their pages. The web extends centuries back, some books have only one piercing and weigh heavily on a single string, some have so many they are suspended on thousands of taught threads. The strings and books are thickly interwoven like tunnels. Tunnels like the ones Foster mentions from Going After Cacciato (Which, after reading a description, I have the full intention of reading) only instead of travelling under Vietnam, this labyrinth connects the literary world. One book leads to another and another. The Web is created by the authors of now replying to authors of the past, a stretched conversation making the Great story richer. I pluck the strings saturated with pages and listen to them resonate through the centuries.The whispers of the world  spread across time and distance, they murmur along the threads. parallels of every writer’s and reader’s minds talking to each other, the originality layering, weaving, weaving.

   

 Foster compared the Vietnam tunnels in Going After Cacciato , or at least the entrance to them, to the rabbit hole from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland , he also ,near the end of the chapter compares the search for these connections, to foraging  for mushrooms. Now where have I seen mushrooms before?...perhaps Wonderland. If a book is a Rabbit hole, and the web Is a Wonderland, then we are all looking for mushrooms. The only problem is one side makes you grow, and the othern makes you shrink. I choose the grow side, I choose the one that leads me to more mushrooms. I choose to read more books and expand my view of the Web. It has always been my philosophy that the more books I read the more I will understand of the ones I have already read. The more I read the better off I will be.

    

May I also add that I was a bit miffed by Foster’s “...for beginning readers” assertion in the beginning and near the end of the chapter. I have not been a beginning reader for at least eight years.

** The Photo is a picture of a cat's nervous system that I took at the Perot museum last year, my talk about the feedback between authors and readers in my imaginary web reminded me of a nervous system, so i thought this picture appropriate. Plus i also just like the photo.

Eaten But Not Useless

        I have chosen chapter three for my second blog, and my first self-chosen chapter. Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires is a splendid read, at least for me. Chapter three brings up one of my favorite topics to discuss; purity.

    The way society is treating and has treated the idea of the supposed “purity” or virginity makes me at, the very least, a little sick and at the most outspokenly frustrated. Of course virginal purity is not the only kind of “purity” that people feel should be protected. It is merely the most scandalous, most talked about and the most widely relatable scenario.

    Victorian literature, which Thomas C. Foster brings up in this chapter, expresses the wrong doings of people who use others and pity for victims. He calls these people vampires. This is an alright theme for a book, but the real issue is old society’s (and modern cultures) willingness to think of non-virginal women like they do used cars.

    I haven’t even touched on the other half of this discussion. Vampires, leeches, those who place their own personal gain over the wellbeing of others. I don’t want to focus on the evilness of vampires, but the power that society has given them and that they have given themselves. Now obviously literal vampires, of the blood sucking variety, d

o have the power to damage a human beyond repair and doom them to pale and sickly eternity of their own. However, the archetype of the male who spoils some young maiden is given the power to spoil. As if the woman he “spoils” had no say in the matter (rape excluded). As if the woman is some helpless creature who cannot resist being charmed. The “vampire” in this scenario gives himself too much credit.

     In short the innocence of the heroine and the charisma of the “vampire” are both overestimated. Which brings me to my favorite point, sex or lack of purity does not make a woman (or man, or anyone, really) less valuable. This is a ludicrous notion. If worth were measured in such a way than the woman should already be counted as worthless, if the maiden is willing to have sex (in this sex/worth scenario) then it does not matter if she has or not. Her mind would already be too far gone for the physicality of it to matter. She is already, by these standards, impure. Or would be if it was thought of logically, which it isn’t.

    The point I’m trying to make is this particular type of vampire (the deflowering type) is only an idea. And it’s not even an idea that society places on the vampire. The power of the vampire is solely determined by the value or lack of value that society places on his “victim.”

    Even though the community I live in is mostly open-minded about a lack of “purity,” there is still a reluctance to do things that may be irreversible. For example, tattoos, piercings, relationships, even cutting off your long hair. There is too much worth placed on past actions, and not enough credit given to current present behavior. This classic human belief conflicts so deeply with another very human hope, redemption.

   Besides, I find that the definition of purity is wrong. To never have experienced is not innocence, it is ignorance, but to have experienced and then chosen a path is purity.

*disclaimer, sex and sexuality are not immoral, neither are piercings or tattoos, these are all things that humans do and unless done to harm others or themselves, are not things we need to be forgiven for.

--As for the images I have chosen, I found both of these postcards at an estate sale I was working at last week,the image to the left (a photo of a fellow named Antonin Artaud, by a photographer named Man Ray in 1926) I chose because he reminds me of Dracula. I chose Eleanor, 1947 by Harry Callhan,(above) because it depicts a woman who looks like she can handle herself but, she is depicted in a somewhat vulnerable position. I have selected both of them because they depict humans that should only be valued for their talent, humanity and present actions. 

When a Meal is Communion and a Movie is a Meal

 When I’m dealing with a word in unfamiliar context I find it necessary to have the textbook definition handy. (see below)

Communion- n. the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level

     I have several ideas about this topic, ranging from personal comparisons to literary ones. I will begin with personal, because frankly, it’s easier and I’m tired.

    My personal experience with actual Catholic communion was short, disappointing and ultimately not spiritual or intimate. I attended mass with my Catholic friend, when the cups and bread were passed around I was not allowed to partake of the fruit so to speak, because I lack confirmation. Thinking of this makes me realize how strange it is that, according to Christian mythology, consumption of food brought downfall of humanity, and now there is a ritual of consuming food in an attempt to get closer to God.

    I am a very food-centered person, and I appreciate the literary definition that Thomas C. Foster has brought up. The application of a spiritual experience to every-day activity is one of my favorite things. I believe in reveling in the ordinary. In a world where it is fashionable to be unique it is refreshing to focus on the things we share, things that keep us alive and human. Things like food.  Most planned activities with my friends involve food. It is common ground*; a meal is a catalyst for interaction. A conversation begins over food, but momentum from it can carry a conversation long after the meal is consumed. The commuters sedated by full bellies chat merrily into the night.

*The primary example Foster gives for the common ground meal scenario is Raymond Carver’s Cathedral, a story which I absolutely adore and first heard on NPR’s Selected Shorts. I found the irony of eating dinner with a blind man helping the main character overcome his own blindness, quite satisfying.

    Thinking about this got me wondering about activities that have the same effect. Among my favorite* non-nutritious examples is film; the viewing of a movie with another person. It is consumption of a story together. The ability to share in silence and ride the flow of a movie together can be very intimate. Emotional reactions to the film are synchronized without any other communication, this is a very powerful kind of communion, laugh together, cry (in varying degrees) together, silence together. After a movie people now have two hours of information to digest and converse about.

*I am bad at favorites, I chose movies because I thought it would be the most widely relatable idea. My other favorites are listening to music, and reading the same book.

   
      When I acquire new information that is applicable to literature, I automatically start evaluating the book I am currently reading. Right now I am reading George Orwell’s 1984 , there are two perfect examples of more than a meal in chapter one. Section V of chapter one on page 48, of my copy of 1984 begins a lengthy meal sequence that ends on page 63. This is a very dismal meal, where the main character, Winston, eats a thoroughly unappetizing meal with people that he does not like. Both the company and cuisine in this passage reinforce to the reader that Winston’s community is unnatural and in need of repair. The from the time Winston begins his meal with a pinkish lumpy stew and ends it with an anorexic cigarette, my brain was screaming for him to get out of the canteen. Meals are supposed to be comfortable or at the very least tolerable. But the hostile environment Orwell creates is worse than any cafeteria dynamic I have ever experienced. Winston’s lunch companion is a Party member who is bent on systematically removing everything good about language. Orwell portrays the rest of the cafeteria as a buzzing mass, like a colony of identical mindless insects. This meal serves as a small scale representation of 1984’s London; a fear inspiring, unstable, underfed mindless mass of faceless people, with those who want to change it scared into silence.

    Foster brings up the Sigmund Freud anecdote at the very beginning of the chapter. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a meal is just a meal, but when a meal is communion it can be, an epiphany, an equalizer, sex, war, death, life, or an empire, among many, many other things.

Bon appetit,
Francesca C. Bartos

As a visual arts student I thought it appropriate to use an applicable self-portrait

Strawberries

digital image