tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2816694418804552962024-03-13T22:59:35.734-04:00Forest Dweller ThoughtsWelcome! I'm an academic interested in all facets of the human condition. Here you'll find ruminations, expostulations, and exaggerations (well, hopefully not so much of the last one) about history, culture, world religions, and much, much more.Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-42367460245467467642021-06-07T11:17:00.000-04:002021-06-07T11:17:56.750-04:00The Only Good Mosquito...?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span> </span><span> The coming of Spring and Summer for many Americans means the reinstatement of a hallowed cultural past-time: lawn maintenance. Companies that profit on these services or make it their full-time business are just as keyed into the calendar and have not lost any time advertising their services. Over the past month at my house alone we've gotten fliers and advertisements for fertilizer services, tree-pruning, and, of course, broadsides directed at Public Enemy #1: the Mosquito.</span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMuGtlK0_28-1k6mndp_2eMVR8ub2U8NMrhcv8-0r9gZaQD8mgT-jKywCvM5rNIpQmwfabUV_-pzTOQro5qR3Gt-QnI3q9GSr5mVgeOSh_G3zEAHAqXBxGX-tawRwL0ANeoy1sGOgXB5s/s1200/Mosquito.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="1200" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMuGtlK0_28-1k6mndp_2eMVR8ub2U8NMrhcv8-0r9gZaQD8mgT-jKywCvM5rNIpQmwfabUV_-pzTOQro5qR3Gt-QnI3q9GSr5mVgeOSh_G3zEAHAqXBxGX-tawRwL0ANeoy1sGOgXB5s/w400-h358/Mosquito.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span><span> </span><span> Out of the various promises to "blast away" mosquitoes (as well as other insects) and "take back your lawn," usually accompanied by pictures of people blissfully frolicking in a sea of tamed and monocultured grasses, one ad stood out from the rest. It was so eye-catching and thought-provoking that I had to take a break from my usual posts on popular culture to comment on it here. Alongside the picture of a blood-filled mosquito stood the following declaration: "the only good mosquito is a dead one." What a statement!</span><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span> Let me say early on that I really don't like mosquitoes. The buzzing in the ear makes me crazy, I have bad reactions to the bites, and I have one too many memories of a good hike being marred by clouds of mosquitoes. We also can't forget <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/stories/world-deadliest-animal.html" target="_blank">the global toll from mosquito-borne illnesses</a> like malaria and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/outdoor/mosquito-borne/default.html" target="_blank">the rise of new infectious agents, like Zika</a>. There are plenty of reasons not to like mosquitoes.<br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><span> However, the use of the phrase "the only good mosquito is a dead one" needs to be examined critically because that particular proverb has a history, and I think it's a revealing one for our current debate about the role of humans toward the environment. Although it might have first appeared even earlier during colonial days, the structure of that proverb was first coined in the late 1800s and, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/541345?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank">according to folklore researcher Wolfgang Meider in an article in the <i>Journal of American Folklore</i>, it might be attributed to General Philip Sheridan, future president Theodore Roosevelt, or various members of congress</a>. The object of the proverb in those days was native peoples and the original phrase was "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." The sentiment behind those words is racist, genocidal, and certainly political, owed to the disturbing but longstanding view in this country of natives as subhuman and an obstacle to the divinely ordained Manifest Destiny of westward expansion. One of the most succinct renderings of that mentality is John Gast's 1872 painting "American Progress," pictured below.<br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmP3xj05cj2VIjBOZrkJQhJxy2sEx6fezFdTctpk9DwbRfYAPywz4aAw18SozttEQBWZevzWmuLGd6ZVu6IlOL7C8ZiP0lnIj8DmhYP4WkUsbitC2yop9hWH72OfeyNAG5TJKC9GF6XfE/s900/gast-american-progress.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="900" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmP3xj05cj2VIjBOZrkJQhJxy2sEx6fezFdTctpk9DwbRfYAPywz4aAw18SozttEQBWZevzWmuLGd6ZVu6IlOL7C8ZiP0lnIj8DmhYP4WkUsbitC2yop9hWH72OfeyNAG5TJKC9GF6XfE/w400-h297/gast-american-progress.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> The painting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Progress" target="_blank">is rich in loaded imagery</a>. The spirit of the country is symbolized by "Lady Columbia," who is dressed in a pure, flowing white garment as she strings telegraph wires across the landscape. In her other hand, she carries a school book and on her head she wears the starred "crown of empire." Behind her, trains, settlers, and farmers push westward, all forging ahead in the enterprise of spreading their definition of "civilization." Before them, those regarded as figures of savagery and wilderness -- native peoples and undomesticated animals like bears, foxes, and wolves -- are pushed into the shadows. Behind this imagery stood a political and cultural rhetoric that led to the near extermination of native peoples and wildlife. All in the name of "civilization" and, as the painting's title attests, "progress."<p></p><p><span> </span><span> Over time, as Meider's research shows, the proverb was recycled regularly against whoever happened to be the enemy of the moment, losing none of its genocidal, racist heritage. During World War One, it was Germans; during World War Two, the Japanese; in the 1960s, the Vietnamese. Now, as my mailbox revealed not too long ago, we've reached the point that an insect has been plugged into "The Only Good X is a Dead X" equation. </span><br /></p><p> As stated earlier, I am well aware of the toll mosquitoes take on humans, primarily as a vector for disease. However, is extermination the answer? While the ad I received might just be a marketer's attempt at humor, there are real efforts underway to eradicate mosquitoes. <a href="https://time.com/6047051/genetically-modified-mosquitoes/" target="_blank">As recently reported in <i>Time </i>magazine</a>, an experiment currently being run in the Florida Keys by biotech firm Oxitec involves genetically-modified male mosquitoes passing faulty genes along to female mosquitoes. If everything goes according to Oxitec's plan, all the resulting female offspring will die, leading to a precipitous crash in the mosquito population.<br /></p><p> Even if a person hasn't read cautionary tales like<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z8w7mp3/revision/1" target="_blank"> </a><i><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z8w7mp3/revision/1" target="_blank">Frankenstein</a> </i>or <i><a href="https://study.com/academy/lesson/jurassic-park-summary.html" target="_blank">Jurassic Park</a></i>, it's hard to see how this sort of project won't unleash unintended consequences. For one, what about the dragonflies, salamanders, and other creatures who eat mosquitoes throughout their life cycle? Will there be a population crash among those insects and animals, too, and then on up the food chain? The same can be said for the fogging and chemical treatments carried out by those mosquito and insect control services. <a href="https://blog.nwf.org/2020/09/what-you-need-to-know-before-spraying-for-mosquitoes/" target="_blank">The same spray or fog that eliminates mosquitoes will also kill bees, moths, butterflies, and all manner of other wildlife.</a><br /></p><p><span> </span><span> In the end, I'm still amazed at the slogan: "The Only Good Mosquito is a Dead One." It harkens back to the perceived struggle to conquer the wilderness in the name of civilization, except that having reached the Pacific -- Manifest Destiny was successful, since America now rules "sea to shining sea" -- the war has turned inward, with the frontlines being our yards and lawns and the enemies are the buzzing insects that dare intrude on our domestic bliss. In fact, if we were to update Gast's "American Progress" for the modern Manifest Destiny, Lady Columbia might carry a fogger and a vast tank of chemicals, with mosquitoes and coyotes in flight as suburbs and big box stores spring up in her wake. Times and technologies may change, but cultural mentalities seem to be a lot harder to alter. If this is progress, go ahead and let me off at the next stop.</span><br /></p><p> Next time, I'll probably be back to form with a post on popular culture, maybe <i>The Mandalorian</i> as I have finally gotten a chance to watch it. As always, if you enjoyed this post, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Myth-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe/dp/1476681597" target="_blank">you might like some of my other writings, like my book <i>Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe</i>.</a> Until next time, take care.<br /></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-76667761812152340232021-05-03T11:06:00.002-04:002021-05-03T11:11:25.834-04:00The Falcon and the Winter Soldier<p> Now that <i>The Falcon and the Winter Soldier</i> has concluded and enough time may have passed for most people to view it, I wanted to offer some thoughts on the show, <a href="https://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/03/analyzing-wandavision.html" target="_blank">as I did previously with </a><i><a href="https://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/03/analyzing-wandavision.html" target="_blank">WandaVision</a>. </i><b>Warning: there are spoilers </b>and, as always, if you enjoy reading these reflections, you just might like my new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Myth-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe/dp/1476681597" target="_blank"><i>Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe</i>, available on Amazon</a> and <a href="https://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/03/my-second-book.html" target="_blank">discussed in detail in a previous post</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2VDrGABxY2NvKibTBVd1Fw5H4x5YgcNXowQRE0HWmCidXa8JvmP20AAh4aVC1NpuY3Vwqp1YBtI3J-W4P5SyjDmtCPvaqBd6-fF5q6jtdxAi4QlcdPbkDGH7hMISncF-ewfCetc2s2c0/s421/The_Falcon_and_the_Winter_Soldier_logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="421" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2VDrGABxY2NvKibTBVd1Fw5H4x5YgcNXowQRE0HWmCidXa8JvmP20AAh4aVC1NpuY3Vwqp1YBtI3J-W4P5SyjDmtCPvaqBd6-fF5q6jtdxAi4QlcdPbkDGH7hMISncF-ewfCetc2s2c0/w400-h224/The_Falcon_and_the_Winter_Soldier_logo.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> Overall, I enjoyed </span><i style="text-align: left;">The Falcon and the Winter Soldier </i><span style="text-align: left;">very much. </span><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/karltonjahmal/falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-black-stories-mcu?d_id=2142888&ref=bffbbuzzfeed&utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bffbbuzzfeed&fbclid=IwAR06yKlMRZW-ftu_ClNRlfAbts43eXFYZvSGCV5bsNTIjK6QjXXgpFzMDkA" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">As some other commenters have noted</a><span style="text-align: left;">, it brought a level of realism to the MCM that has arguably been missing. During the various episodes we saw the reality of systemic racism in the United States and the challenges and self-doubt an African American man would face assuming the mantle of "Captain America." </span><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/falcon-and-winter-soldier-episode-six-captain-america-disney-plus-133033258.html" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">Interestingly, at least one writer has argued that the series did not actually move the overall Marvel story forward</a><span style="text-align: left;">, since Sam Wilson ended up with the shield again, the Flag Smashers appeared then disappeared, Zemo is back in prison (again), and so on. </span></div><p><span> </span><span> </span>In contrast, I think a lot happened to mature the narrative and all its characters. We discovered the complicated and racially-charged history of the title "Captain America" through the story of Isaiah Bradley.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQXOzvXftlGLUQBB2OY4XOT7Hgof6Xgou38w7hCHT4NQgeWRvrp_acZiidJWEapszH8tyDc0E0EEJgGEuAgB2gkZrEv1m6JuPSJPxc0zr0WW4oB3tGb4VIUR1g98x1tK9UFozlDyvVv8/s1000/Bradley.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQXOzvXftlGLUQBB2OY4XOT7Hgof6Xgou38w7hCHT4NQgeWRvrp_acZiidJWEapszH8tyDc0E0EEJgGEuAgB2gkZrEv1m6JuPSJPxc0zr0WW4oB3tGb4VIUR1g98x1tK9UFozlDyvVv8/w400-h225/Bradley.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p> Bucky battled his Winter Soldier demons, providing a genuinely touching moment when we see him finally realize his mental Hydra programming has been eradicated.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxSUlN2rgA0fOHRafwVihXGqy4YcMtVcwz_PCwYjZQA-9lDq5K5PLxNi2W339OJQIa9SwG9rep1RzIazj2vjXVswqcpLDfZIWhZojjh7sblDCbGgjImn0aP2G1wzFQBDVHMb5CPRb7uQ0/s1280/Bucky.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="1280" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxSUlN2rgA0fOHRafwVihXGqy4YcMtVcwz_PCwYjZQA-9lDq5K5PLxNi2W339OJQIa9SwG9rep1RzIazj2vjXVswqcpLDfZIWhZojjh7sblDCbGgjImn0aP2G1wzFQBDVHMb5CPRb7uQ0/w400-h215/Bucky.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span> </span><p><span> </span><span> From an earlier discomfort and antagonism, Sam and Bucky developed a genuine chemistry that I enjoyed.</span><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKwabgQyqDXG0shW2a0XiFTum3TzHKu-9gjc8gybh0mL8hqYv67D5fGWXtqy46J2xGGj36VBFGSInM9no1qcvKwEwInOl27Aq8_ScsTwcygqpWfiSdRtLJI3ZCtpeHsEY30KwDIFz0Tro/s304/Sam+and+Bucky.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="304" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKwabgQyqDXG0shW2a0XiFTum3TzHKu-9gjc8gybh0mL8hqYv67D5fGWXtqy46J2xGGj36VBFGSInM9no1qcvKwEwInOl27Aq8_ScsTwcygqpWfiSdRtLJI3ZCtpeHsEY30KwDIFz0Tro/w400-h257/Sam+and+Bucky.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span> </span><span> Most of all, I thought that the entire point of the series was that Sam needed to go on the journey to claim the shield, that he could only become Captain America by taking the title, not just receiving it from Steve Rogers. When John Walker proves himself unworthy to possess the shield and Sam reclaims it, gingerly cleaning the blood away, the moment felt a little like Arthur taking Excalibur, the rightful owner of the object, the symbol, and the legacy finally inheriting his rightful due in full. Without that build up, struggle, and reckoning (which also involved the other episodes' investment in the racial over- and undercurrents), the last installment's revelation of Sam as the new Captain America would not have meant as much nor had the impact it did.</span><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHNopcxHrJQUNh6iKFaQnuYoBBbRVbMC0YwNr5Q9t39GUeijmXMz6YXRjxHAOcvmdiXtej_JWetWGH_61mcTJ9GngIJJ7TeNh1hicZ5rhBkGTU6-l5TQSPwO7XKAiCaxP_Amw8j1pSn4/s549/Cap.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="549" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHNopcxHrJQUNh6iKFaQnuYoBBbRVbMC0YwNr5Q9t39GUeijmXMz6YXRjxHAOcvmdiXtej_JWetWGH_61mcTJ9GngIJJ7TeNh1hicZ5rhBkGTU6-l5TQSPwO7XKAiCaxP_Amw8j1pSn4/w400-h225/Cap.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span><span> </span><span> This particular theme of transition and the </span>struggle of the successor to earn the mantle of the predecessor seems to be emerging as a defining characteristic of these Phase 4 installments. Spider-Man struggled with being Iron Man's de-facto heir in <i>Spider-Man: Far From Home</i>, temporarily relinquishing Stark's bequeathed technology when he believed he was not up to the task. Sam Wilson similarly gives up the shield at the beginning of <i>The Falcon and the Winter Soldier</i>, only to wrest it back from John Walker, with Bucky's help, of course. Will we see a similarly transition in <i>Thor: Love and Thunder</i> with Jane Foster becoming the new Thor?</span><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span> </span><span> Another obvious theme of <i>The Falcon and the Winter Soldier</i> was ambiguity. Due to the shameful past of abusing and erasing Isaiah Bradley from history (though Sam partly corrects the latter in the final episode), the role of Captain America itself is tainted. During the show's run, John Walker also occupies an ambiguous space. He is clearly not equal to the task of being Captain America and spectacularly buckles under its weight, committing a number of egregious infractions. Still, his eagerness to fulfill the role is sympathetic, and in the end he makes some of the right decisions. Similarly, Karli Morgenthau's aims with the Flag Smashers are relatable, as is Sharon Carter's decision to turn to crime.</span><br /><p></p><p> Perhaps the best example is the portrayal and reception of the character Zemo. Previously seen as the antagonist in <i>Captain America: Civil War, </i>Zemo plays a role as a kind of anti-hero in the series. Opposed to the existence of all superheroes and super-soldiers due to the inherent tendency toward supremacy, Zemo provides a ruthless cynicism to the show and, through his financial means and charm as a Baron, a suave James Bond-like air. By some accounts, he <a href="https://www.polygon.com/22352002/zemo-falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-explained" target="_blank">represents the best aspect of the show</a> and brief footage of him dancing in a Madripoor club went viral as a meme, leading to an extended hour-long mix you can watch here:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5nEzCv5u1O8" width="320" youtube-src-id="5nEzCv5u1O8"></iframe></div><p><span> </span><span> Despite the character's charm and, again, relatability of his motives, it shouldn't be forgotten that he has used whatever means necessary to achieve his ends, even killing innocents. With the impending release of a series on Loki, I have a feeling there will be even more ample opportunities to talk about this theme of ambiguity.</span></p><p> News was recently released about <a href="https://ew.com/movies/anthony-mackie-captain-america-4-reaction/" target="_blank">the possibility of a fourth Captain America film</a>, presumably involving most or all of the main characters of the television show, which ended by changing the title from <i>The Falcon and the Winter Soldier </i>to <i>Captain America and the Winter Soldier</i>. I, for one, anxiously await such a film to see Sam and Bucky's journey continue. <br /></p><p><span> </span><span> I hope you enjoyed these reflections! Until the next time, take care.</span></p><p></p></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-600079814736714702021-04-27T09:03:00.003-04:002021-04-27T09:03:36.709-04:00Book Sale and Signing!<p> This past Saturday I had the great honor to be part of a local author event at the Lebanon, Indiana bookstore <a href="https://betweenthepagesbookstore.com/" target="_blank">Between The Pages</a>. I got to meet seven other local authors, talk about the publishing business, and have conversations about my books with customers. It was a very nice event and several people even decided to take home copies of my books <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Myth-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe/dp/1476681597" target="_blank">Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Malleable-Mara-Transformations-Buddhist-Symbol-ebook/dp/B07P2G2XDL" target="_blank">Malleable Mara: Transformations of a Buddhist Symbol of Evil.</a> Here's a picture of me and my set up:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFaFp4RnW3XylF1rbHk6DkXh7TKmdRJTe1_ZhQu1gM3B0mTg7SE4AjcCK5d1mIvEAltqCjcmnK54R75GkUB3YrMgOlDYiBP2EnDWAi-mejEIP7qPu82nGydBkEfiEZmfAmWdqJ5pjqN4Q/s2048/20210424_111631.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFaFp4RnW3XylF1rbHk6DkXh7TKmdRJTe1_ZhQu1gM3B0mTg7SE4AjcCK5d1mIvEAltqCjcmnK54R75GkUB3YrMgOlDYiBP2EnDWAi-mejEIP7qPu82nGydBkEfiEZmfAmWdqJ5pjqN4Q/w400-h300/20210424_111631.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span> </span><span> My family even stopped in to say hello. (We're all masked up, but I'm pretty sure everyone's smiling.)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU2lbQL7fZaDIuVmq_zUYg5KfQ9hDMHoeTirLa-c7F5z-Bce_M-AamnFLtcZdQaV6Fxhk_HbEIC-BYRK50xkk-v2XCa6eSFZP3pULyeYnZWSJKePyjQiJRMqMFeIdqPKmniQaRnQB5wYE/s2048/20210424_111801.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU2lbQL7fZaDIuVmq_zUYg5KfQ9hDMHoeTirLa-c7F5z-Bce_M-AamnFLtcZdQaV6Fxhk_HbEIC-BYRK50xkk-v2XCa6eSFZP3pULyeYnZWSJKePyjQiJRMqMFeIdqPKmniQaRnQB5wYE/w400-h300/20210424_111801.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><span><span> </span><span> Two former students from Saint Joe's stopped by as well! It was great to see them.</span><br /></span></div><div><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span> </span><span> All in all, i</span>t was a very enjoyable event. It's true that big book sellers are able to offer more inventory and buying online enables you to order practically anything from anywhere (making it easier to acquire rarer and harder to find books). Admittedly, currently online sites like Amazon are still the best way to get copies of my books.<span> However,</span> events like Saturday's really bring home the importance of local, independent book shops. We were able to meet members of the public we otherwise wouldn't have met, spend time talking about local issues we otherwise might not have thought to commiserate about, and just generally create more social bonds than the average trip online or to a big book store would ever foster. Years ago, when I taught Core 1 at Saint Joe's, we read the book <a href="http://billmckibben.com/deep-economy.html" target="_blank"><i>Deep Economy </i>by Bill McKibben</a>. McKibben argues, in part, that our capitalistic economy has proven very adept at providing us with "more stuff" but "more stuff" is not better stuff. Ultimately, he says that we need to reinvest in those things that create human relationships, and the best way to do that is to go into your local community. This past Saturday was a sterling example.<p><span> </span><span> So, next time you have a chance, go visit your local independent bookstore!</span><br /></p></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-80581112836223707572021-04-19T10:03:00.001-04:002021-04-19T17:08:57.477-04:00Smith Cemetery<p><span> </span>How will we be remembered after we're gone? What will be left of our lives and our legacy once we're dead? Are there really any more quintessential questions to face? As you get older, you start to think about these things and there seem to be more and more occasions to dwell upon them.</p><p><span><span> </span><span> Behind our house is a farmer's field, at least for the time being. During the fallow season it's a place we sometimes go walking down, at least on the edge, to get some exercise and look at the huge retaining pond put in as a barrier between one of the large shipping warehouses in the area and our subdivision. There are at least four such warehouses clustered together, with docking bays to load up semis to hit the nearby interstate on-ramp.</span></span></p><p><span><span><span> </span><span> </span>When it was very snowy a few months ago, we went on one of these walks and I spotted some odd stones in the distance under a few lone, skeletal trees. Recently, when I had the time and the weather was better, I took a trip back and discovered, to my surprise, that the stones belonged to a small nineteenth century family grave. Here is a picture of the cemetery, where its proximity to the warehouse is apparent.</span><br /></span></p><p><span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTTNLrXmM8QxWyGy9hX1gZfgkJ7GoL_aQ0b7xEd1U6uzrCTsNOzGk-PcjfcHQKdBEVaOK737OPkNIZyRoNtRr9Uk_DWnl2xQ3rQ0qjHspoFAERhVQ033R3gWLTJJxUrk1L8YocvBUigng/s2048/20210313_141101.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTTNLrXmM8QxWyGy9hX1gZfgkJ7GoL_aQ0b7xEd1U6uzrCTsNOzGk-PcjfcHQKdBEVaOK737OPkNIZyRoNtRr9Uk_DWnl2xQ3rQ0qjHspoFAERhVQ033R3gWLTJJxUrk1L8YocvBUigng/w400-h300/20210313_141101.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span><br /></span><p></p><p><span> </span><span> </span>In this image, from further away, you can make out the warehouses bounding the cemetery on the south and east. You can just make out the monument stones in between the trees.</p><p><span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEAsZ9N8wQRZwsPZjxLhevY5BZIcqo1KDsenE6pRk218EZIKm8dLQ9xhI35iFuH4zELuODMwWeyNLEhzyYmrXzTYQXck9e8RC2ZFGl6r-PgOXOYPjVO1RavDV_O3ChIuWo125VlycslmM/s2048/20210404_152134.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEAsZ9N8wQRZwsPZjxLhevY5BZIcqo1KDsenE6pRk218EZIKm8dLQ9xhI35iFuH4zELuODMwWeyNLEhzyYmrXzTYQXck9e8RC2ZFGl6r-PgOXOYPjVO1RavDV_O3ChIuWo125VlycslmM/w400-h300/20210404_152134.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span><span> </span><span> Here is a close-up of the foreboding tree nearest the graves. It's rather a spooky place to be - even with another warehouse lurking in the background.</span><br /></span><p></p><p><span><span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmlEG5fBBJZnF_HQ_Znf7_AXQw51PAupk7ujjwnSj4zegQVR7Ja62FpqyJXraM2JncrLkHLhzeJERB6zqLrwRTIHLVEeKPcm5aPodnvh0SdB8YsS4_dv0R_V7_vcWdkAYz-S8dONHZ3wM/s2048/20210313_140840.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmlEG5fBBJZnF_HQ_Znf7_AXQw51PAupk7ujjwnSj4zegQVR7Ja62FpqyJXraM2JncrLkHLhzeJERB6zqLrwRTIHLVEeKPcm5aPodnvh0SdB8YsS4_dv0R_V7_vcWdkAYz-S8dONHZ3wM/w400-h300/20210313_140840.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span><span> </span><span> I began to wonder who the people buried in these plots were and I took photos of the stones where the inscriptions were still legible and had not yet been worn down by time and the elements.</span><br /></span><p></p><p><span><span><span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ9JwGP2X3PL0RSjdPC7nrb5NqxUOt5Mjye3Fx1reX_0YUE7r9ho2refb3umqNkLGYHZjL_MC8SKenRwYyBauzQNB8EfmCb9CQaaXkxV09FLjgW0BJj-Th_SqokCk-VkVu7R_ZnMpLfug/s2048/20210313_140815.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ9JwGP2X3PL0RSjdPC7nrb5NqxUOt5Mjye3Fx1reX_0YUE7r9ho2refb3umqNkLGYHZjL_MC8SKenRwYyBauzQNB8EfmCb9CQaaXkxV09FLjgW0BJj-Th_SqokCk-VkVu7R_ZnMpLfug/w400-h300/20210313_140815.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span><span><span><span> </span><span> Though I am a neophyte at this sort of research, after doing some internet sleuthing and delving into sources available through the kind help of the county historical society, I've been able to garner some information about those interred at this site. As the name on the stone in the picture above suggests, this very small site is usually known as "Smith Cemetery," but alternately as "Thornley Cemetery" based on the name of a small village that used to exist nearby. Twelve individuals (half from the Smith family) are buried there with the only information available pertaining to members of the Smith family, primarily the patriarch, William Warren Smith. It seems that Smith was originally born near Baltimore in November 1814. (For history buffs, that's just a couple of months after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baltimore" target="_blank">Battle of Baltimore</a>, the event during <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812" target="_blank">the War of 1812</a> that inspired the composition of the "Star Spangled Banner.") After living in Virginia for a time, Smith and his brother moved to Ohio, where he met and married Catharine Weaver - the Catharine Smith whose marker is pictured above. William and Catharine had two daughters in Ohio, with the oldest dying shortly after birth. In 1842, William and Catharine moved west to Boone County, Indiana, presumably to search out better prospects for land. According to the old record book <i>Early Life and </i><i>Times in Boone County </i>(1887):</span></span></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> [William and Catharine Smith] landed in the dismal swamps of Boone, where<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> frogs croaked, owls hooted, and wolves howled. In the midst of all this they </span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span><span> bought forty acres for a consideration of two hundred and twenty-five dollars.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> The next thing in order was to build a cabin and at this station pioneer life </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> began. In the midst of the forest, without money, without roads, and a long</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> way to market through mud and mire -- what was to be done? They had come</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> to stay and had brought their iron will with them (364-365).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span> Among other tidbits, William Smith was a "Predestinarian," a believer in the Calvinist Christian theology that everything is predetermined, including one's salvation or damnation. He was also a Democrat, which meant something quite different in the nineteenth century. Nothing remains of the cabin the Smiths built, but according to other records they went on to have five more children. Two of those children (Martha and Margaret) along with a daughter-in-law (Nancy) are buried with William and Catharine in the little cemetery. Interestingly, Basil Smith, the son who married Nancy, is not buried there. According to <i>A Portrait and Biographical Record of Boone County </i>(1895), another son, Warren J. Smith, born in 1849, took over the farm after William Smith died in 1884. Catharine lived with him until she died in 1898. Like his brother Basil, Warren Smith is not recorded as being buried in the family cemetery, but in the same book I was able to find a picture of him from 1895, when he would have been roughly my age:</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLCvP7JasV1Dlw_mgHkVcC2fHipPA-m9A9OkvPUsvz3sZGYpkt6fmQJLPMiYxZPrJ7aVr2to3D-RjMclANtmGd6NzC5e80URZujMT-pH-YtiWdJTolQHbvBkQU_s3MtP9BxRST2_K9YRo/s720/Warren+J.+Smith.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="554" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLCvP7JasV1Dlw_mgHkVcC2fHipPA-m9A9OkvPUsvz3sZGYpkt6fmQJLPMiYxZPrJ7aVr2to3D-RjMclANtmGd6NzC5e80URZujMT-pH-YtiWdJTolQHbvBkQU_s3MtP9BxRST2_K9YRo/w493-h640/Warren+J.+Smith.jpg" width="493" /></a></div><br /><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> Though there are still many gaps, not least of which being the history of the other six individuals buried in the cemetery, it is a thrilling and strangely humbling experience to discover these facts and even look upon a picture of a person related to the people who lived in that space.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><p><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span></span><span> </span><span> My feelings are tempered, though, by the future of the area. With the proximity and quantity of warehouses going in, the site will become increasingly closed off and inaccessible, even to the point of vanishing as so-called development encroaches on the cemetery. Right now, the north and west (shown below) is the only area of the cemetery not closed off by buildings.</span></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq_N-tQTkdBNghPxtMFox_WwcGY_itTE1Ycg3Ph0HhE9bBHXyNcUWIY4OWHpefwMN3As2R-uRhWt3lwGVLZaXISWCGZxlZHfRE_rfT4YIA_Z0ixizEQMp1262bIH3_pztTkfBCiSEf9uM/s2048/20210313_141106.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq_N-tQTkdBNghPxtMFox_WwcGY_itTE1Ycg3Ph0HhE9bBHXyNcUWIY4OWHpefwMN3As2R-uRhWt3lwGVLZaXISWCGZxlZHfRE_rfT4YIA_Z0ixizEQMp1262bIH3_pztTkfBCiSEf9uM/w400-h300/20210313_141106.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span> <span> <span>This will all change in a few months when the area pictured above will become the site of -- you guessed it -- yet another shipping warehouse, meaning the Smith Cemetery will have such structures surrounding it from all four directions. This small piece of history, the legacy of these individuals, will be ground under the wheels of the industrialized consumerist complex, sacrificed on the altar of capitalistic shipping efficiency, with nothing in sight but acres and acres of concrete. Is that how any of us would want to be remembered?</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> Iron wills or not, in the great gulf of space and time, we will all be forgotten. However, there's something about the way this cemetery is being symbolically erased that profoundly bothers me. Without being remembered, did we ever really live at all? </span></span></span></span></span>If we can at least remember these people, in a way it's a kind of resistance, like the plant that persists to burrow its way up through layers of asphalt and concrete. In a way, soon enough, that's rather like what this cemetery will be: a tiny oasis of human culture and memory attempting to persist amid the arid desert of commercialism.</p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-91272860873283108692021-04-13T09:37:00.000-04:002021-04-13T09:37:13.059-04:00The Incredible Shrinking Man<p> Around my house, our Saturday night routine is currently dominated by MeTV, starting with the weekly sci-fi horror film on<a href="https://svengoolie.com/" target="_blank"> <i>Svengoolie</i></a>, followed by an episode of <i>Star Trek </i>(the original series), and sometimes <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Rogers_in_the_25th_Century_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Buck Rogers in the 25th Century</a> </i>(though thank heavens the boys' interest in that has begun to wane - I can endure some pretty crappy stuff, but <i>Buck </i>is an atrocity). Usually the <i>Svengoolie </i>movie is something simply entertaining and diverting, which is what I expected with last Saturday's entry:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5mMXdlWxHZjR4PS_Kmp9gl8yj17uPF2kAtTHaPP075YwXQRx1PMJLaQ-DKKoqnkEzDuxAGXoD2gyUbLT7BEoI1Xe_fxr-AGLuYpkLgFZapqHN7W_Af5aC0G2uf7HKiDhieqP3X9bEaZM/s794/Shrinking.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="794" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5mMXdlWxHZjR4PS_Kmp9gl8yj17uPF2kAtTHaPP075YwXQRx1PMJLaQ-DKKoqnkEzDuxAGXoD2gyUbLT7BEoI1Xe_fxr-AGLuYpkLgFZapqHN7W_Af5aC0G2uf7HKiDhieqP3X9bEaZM/w400-h308/Shrinking.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div> To my surprise, there were some profound elements and examples of really incisive social commentary in the film. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shrinking_Man" target="_blank">Based on a novel</a> and released in 1957, the film tells the sad tale of Scott Carey, a man hit with a combination of insecticide and radioactive fallout that makes him begin to gradually shrink, with his entire body growing smaller and shorter. Carey's first symptoms are baggy clothes and being lighter at the scale, then he notices his wife no longer needs to stretch to kiss him. As time goes on, he becomes ever smaller and shorter, his shrinking briefly arrested by an antidote researchers develop. Even this only temporarily halts the process and Carey eventually shrinks to only inches in size, living in a dollhouse. When his wife leaves for an errand, he is pursued by the couple's cat and falls into the basement to face even greater challenges and terrors.<br /><p></p><div> In its themes of alienation and degradation, <i>The Incredible Shrinking Man </i>arguably treads some of the same territory as Kafka's <i>The Metamorphosis</i>: transformed into a medical and scientific curiosity, Carey is reduced (no pun intended) to an object of observation and is robbed of everything that once gave his life meaning. In reaction, he becomes taciturn and sullen, avoids going out, and is increasingly churlish and demanding with his wife. Writing on the novel and the book, Mark Jancovich has argued that the character's plight expresses the anxieties lurking beneath middle class white masculinity in the 1950s: without a job and physical superiority over his wife, Carey is no longer a "real man" (<i>Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s</i> 158-163). In fact, later in the film when Carey's height has temporarily stabilized in response to experimental treatment, he begins a relationship (presumably without his wife's knowledge) with another woman who works at a <a href="https://www.washington.edu/doit/how-are-terms-dwarf-little-person-and-person-short-stature-commonly-used" target="_blank">local carnival for little people</a>. He enjoys the fact that, even though he's only fifty-two inches tall at that point, she's still shorter than him. Soon though, his shrinking begins anew and when he notices this woman is also now taller than him, he angrily stalks off and abandons her, unwilling to be the diminutive partner. There's much to be said for this interpretation and I would only amend it to say that these cultural norms about masculinity are not necessarily limited to the 1950s and are still prevalent among many in the 2020s.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span><span> With Carey's descent into the basement, the film projects this theme of the entwinement of masculinity and power into an almost mythic dimension. As everyone assumes him dead, Carey is utterly marooned in the basement and left to his own miniscule devices. He proves resourceful, however, using a matchbox for shelter, pin needles and thread for climbing, and drops from a water heater for drinking. The greatest challenge comes in the form of a spider, which to Carey's continually lessening size, assumes enormous proportions. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3OG0ozaUrFZGPPtlXpb-gOfaw1M-O2HtEy9VEqBU2ng39mNt5YyrPdPvgHR4kH9I3KKxu5I8FXO1N30emAd5wTQZJV_aOq26V_A-9oxE0_EwXtHJfrHJxkE1QO4p9nYPLVzim9al_8IU/s484/shrink3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="484" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3OG0ozaUrFZGPPtlXpb-gOfaw1M-O2HtEy9VEqBU2ng39mNt5YyrPdPvgHR4kH9I3KKxu5I8FXO1N30emAd5wTQZJV_aOq26V_A-9oxE0_EwXtHJfrHJxkE1QO4p9nYPLVzim9al_8IU/w400-h206/shrink3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div><span><span> </span><span> </span>The spider begins to absorb Carey's attention, assuming in his mind the role of the classic quest-monster that must be slain to capture the treasure. In Carey's case, this is not gold or jewels, but a block of old cheese that is the only source of food in the basement and is quite inconveniently placed near the spider's web. He determines to kill the spider, climbing with great effort up to its web and slashing at it with his hooks and pins.</span><br /></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlOv9cw1AjNPA3_PxUyQ5fQOqJDdZUYCi7t2sRwZrVj9mNRg2ALykP0cgDyf_DBhELEu11AranOakcZkM7CliAQ_ChEJAXB6abFnIqcjZn9OSmpUk38ZiqOZix7_TW-S2EQpwjy0iYXhA/s807/Incredible-Shrinking-Man-photo-8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="807" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlOv9cw1AjNPA3_PxUyQ5fQOqJDdZUYCi7t2sRwZrVj9mNRg2ALykP0cgDyf_DBhELEu11AranOakcZkM7CliAQ_ChEJAXB6abFnIqcjZn9OSmpUk38ZiqOZix7_TW-S2EQpwjy0iYXhA/w400-h230/Incredible-Shrinking-Man-photo-8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span><span> </span><span> He succeeds in killing the spider, which is the culmination of a kind of catharsis: forced to survive on his own in the wild (to him) perils of the basement, Carey reasserts his masculinity through feats of strength and power available to him in his new, miniature world. </span></span></div><div><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span> </span><span> </span>Honestly, I thought the movie would conclude shortly thereafter with someone discovering Carey in the basement, telling him a cure had been found, and the audience would see him restored to his original size, his manliness saved to live happily ever after. Evidently, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Shrinking_Man#Reception" target="_blank">this was also the ending the studio at the time wanted, but the filmmakers had something else in mind</a>. Instead, shortly after killing the spider, Carey wanders to a grate on the wall of the basement and, since he has steadily grown smaller, he is able to walk out onto the lawn. As he further lessens in size, he stares up at the stars and moon, realizing that the infinity of micro-space might be just as wondrous as the infinity of outer space. No matter how small he gets and no matter who knows it or not, Carey declares, "I still exist," before vanishing into the microscopic world.<br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span><span> </span> This bolder, much less conventional ending seemed to move past the cultural critical elements of the rest of the film and even be a way to suggest a transcendence of infirmity or disability, a way to defy, reject, or redefine the limiting elements of one's altered life. Perhaps, after tyrannically raving against his loss of typical white male prestige, the trials in the basement have led to an imagination of a broader, more complicated self. From that view, the entire film would be a kind of hero's journey into the realization of inner self.</span><br /></span></div><div><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span><span> </span><span> Or maybe I'm reading too much into it all. Paradoxically, sometimes it takes looking at the fantastic to better appreciate the mundane. That's why Science Fiction has always been such a great cultural lens.</span><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span><span><span> And, as a reminder, if you like this kind of cultural analysis of movies, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Myth-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe/dp/1476681597" target="_blank">maybe you'll like my book.</a><br /></span></span></span></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-19471772055738225602021-03-11T09:09:00.003-05:002021-03-11T09:09:59.127-05:00Analyzing WandaVision<p> This past January, on the heels of thirteen years of record-breaking movie success and the industry-wide interruption of the pandemic, Marvel Studios released <i>WandaVision</i> a television mini-series that expanded its properties and Cinematic Universe onto the small screen. It's been getting <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/05/974102504/wandavision-proves-great-superhero-stories-are-just-great-stories-period?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&fbclid=IwAR1wAzFE16VBghmBonQspJIeXwo_TX5Eg-EZsHOqJBiLoWRHJgt_R-7N1NQ" target="_blank">some good reviews</a>, showing that Marvel may just be able to duplicate its previous success in this new medium. With its nine episode run concluded on March 5th, I feel able to do an analysis of the show from my point of view of Religious Studies and Philosophy. If you haven't seen it, be warned that <b>there are</b> <b>spoilers</b> below. Also, if you like this kind of analysis of the MCU, you might consider checking out my recently published book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Myth-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe/dp/1476681597" target="_blank"><i>Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe</i>.</a><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia7Lh9xHz1dqEnwIRklEM0qMCRw3JS7Ja53iDYCH5HPgpw7i3OdGOI0vJ7GbO5g9aMJq7ldo4o93Ks3pREygRAAlemwsNuqnOB_OqXqcZzi4Dbugju5_VBZA8ki8XNXbJkuHWMxpZk-b4/s477/wandavision.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="477" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia7Lh9xHz1dqEnwIRklEM0qMCRw3JS7Ja53iDYCH5HPgpw7i3OdGOI0vJ7GbO5g9aMJq7ldo4o93Ks3pREygRAAlemwsNuqnOB_OqXqcZzi4Dbugju5_VBZA8ki8XNXbJkuHWMxpZk-b4/w400-h225/wandavision.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span> </span><span> </span><br /><p><span> </span><span> <i>WandaVision </i>opens with the characters Wanda Maximoff and Vision settling in to the quiet New Jersey suburb of "Westview" to begin married life in the style of a black-and-white 1950s sitcom (a la the <i>Dick van Dyke Show</i>). Despite the hijinks and laugh track, questions arise from the beginning, most notably regarding Vision: how is he alive again after being killed by Thanos years ago in <i>Avengers: Infinity War</i>? As the show mimics sitcoms from later decades in following episodes (including <i>The Brady Bunch, Family Ties</i>, and <i>Malcolm in the Middle</i>), a sinister undercurrent slowly intensifies until the truth is revealed: Wanda has (unconsciously, to a degree) used her vast magical powers to mold the existing town into her own personal fantasy reality. Having been orphaned as a child, then suffering the death of her twin brother at the hands of Ultron, losing her lover Vision has proven too much for her to bear. Through her spell, Wanda creates an alternate reality bubble around Westview that brings Vision back to life, complete with twin children, where they can reenact all the sitcoms she loved as a child. Unfortunately, at the same time, the actual citizens of Westview who previously lived in the town are mentally enslaved to act out her fantasy and are trapped in the roles she creates for them to play.</span><br /></p><p><span> Some fans (particularly those invested in elaborate theories about potential villains and the portent of certain cameos) <a href="I found this to be a very creative premise and enjoyed watching the story unfold." target="_blank">ultimately voiced disappointment in the series</a>, but I found this to be a very creative premise and enjoyed watching the story unfold. In addition, the series engaged the philosophy of reality and identity in fascinating ways. For instance, by living in a world that is an orchestrated play, the people of Westview <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave" target="_blank">inhabit a version of Plato's Cave</a> where what is actually true and real is kept from them. Later in the series, when Vision begins to suspect that something is not quite right in Westview, he discovers the boundary of the spell Wanda has cast and attempts to leave, seeing the real world outside, paralleling Plato's allegory of the philosopher who exits the cave only to return in an attempt to free others. Later, the Wanda-constructed Vision encounters a Vision rebuilt from the android's original body parts and, rather than engage in a drawn-out battle, instead they invoke another ancient Greek thought experiment, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus" target="_blank">the Ship of Theseus</a>, to debate whether either of them can really be the "true Vision" if their component parts have been replaced over time. The series is also a triumph of post-modern storytelling with its homage to past television series, adoption of multiple genres, and tinkering with audience perspective, as portions of the series embrace a "show-within-a-show" approach.</span></p><p><span> Grimmer aspects of the series evoke incidents from world mythologies and religions. Wanda's reconstruction of her deceased husband's body, especially when she goes on to have children with him, reminded me of <a href="https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/isis-and-osiris-death-and-rebirth-in-ancient-egypt/" target="_blank">the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris</a>. After her husband Osiris is killed by his treacherous brother, Isis finds his body and pieces it back to together, allowing her to bear his son even after death.<br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik6yt0WC-NCh78qAYCDSB6aQpbwIGgOGT59jV6pTlcmrL3UKYFtrwlrfI-j490piFBZ9Gem_43yg66sEsd06kUReryAYzy3hanbfBanE1s2jf_oq88No1PkSIaZrgGqOBWZYvTPtJ_MWw/s271/isis.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="271" data-original-width="186" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik6yt0WC-NCh78qAYCDSB6aQpbwIGgOGT59jV6pTlcmrL3UKYFtrwlrfI-j490piFBZ9Gem_43yg66sEsd06kUReryAYzy3hanbfBanE1s2jf_oq88No1PkSIaZrgGqOBWZYvTPtJ_MWw/w275-h400/isis.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><span><br /></span><p></p><p><span> The series as a whole also seems informed by the Buddhist notion that attempting to avoid pain and grasp onto happiness ironically leads only to being more fully enmeshed in the cycle of pain and suffering. By creating her own fictional world encased in a bubble, Wanda attempts to insulate herself from sadness, age, disease, and death, but ultimately (as Buddhist principles would predict) this ends up only magnifying the suffering of herself and those around her. In a loose sense, by enforcing the boundaries of this mini-world, preventing the residents of Westview from escaping, and policing their minds to keep them compliant with their roles, Wanda plays an analogous role to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Malleable-Mara-Transformations-Buddhist-Symbol-ebook/dp/B07P2G2XDL" target="_blank">Mara, the deity of death and desire in Buddhist mythology</a> who holds all beings in his grasp. (Pictured below holding the wheel of death and rebirth.)<br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBt-St0qr1Xukn8viCcxEKDEr_YX2fF31XSapNs4Lpk3js4JnQr8bJG9H1vh0s6_3gp_4m-YkJIN7m7DrASCOa45xBdq12MM80reK9rsyz6IzwGVQjiOSymQ2DU5qQlzYYMu7iSCaulhk/s1593/bhavacakra.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1593" data-original-width="1115" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBt-St0qr1Xukn8viCcxEKDEr_YX2fF31XSapNs4Lpk3js4JnQr8bJG9H1vh0s6_3gp_4m-YkJIN7m7DrASCOa45xBdq12MM80reK9rsyz6IzwGVQjiOSymQ2DU5qQlzYYMu7iSCaulhk/w280-h400/bhavacakra.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p> At its heart, the series is a powerful metaphor for the way grief can splinter reality, both for the one experiencing it and those around them, as well as the incredible strength required to pull out of that spiral and begin to heal. Even if, <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2021/03/wandavision-finale-choked.html?sid=58e3bf56e9328b0c428c0231&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=Culture&utm_campaign=traffic&fbclid=IwAR3HsLR9P0-_uoHDz_DoY3r8ZLYKU5ekDpvmQrzQmvykgs3bcyZ2DhvyxKg" target="_blank">as some have argued</a>, the finale was a little rushed and <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/wandavision-team-talks-lack-justice-005652914.html" target="_blank">Wanda seems to escape too easily after all the pain she caused</a>, the series was still a very creative outing and resonated with me in ways I hadn't expected. Watching Wanda flee from her trauma to hole up in her fantasy world and relive old sitcom plots that comforted her as a child, I remembered a time when I was eleven and stayed home from school for a few months with chronic stomach pain. Looking back, I can recognize this as a symptom of anxiety, probably brought on by bullying and other school-related factors. My house became my bubble and I spent much of the day watching old sitcoms - rather than <i>Dick van Dyke</i>, <i> </i>for me it was <i>The Munsters</i>, <i>The Flinstones</i>, and the 1960s <i>Batman</i>. This is not an episode in my life that I care to think about much. Frankly, I've always been ashamed of it for how weak I thought I was. After watching the series, I found aspects of Wanda's behavior relatable, and I didn't feel quite so bad about that period in my past. </p><p> Hopefully the other shows from Marvel leading into its next phase of films will be just as rich and entertaining. And if you haven't had the chance yet, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Myth-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe/dp/1476681597" target="_blank">check out my book by getting a copy</a> or asking your local library to order one for their collection. If you liked this and my other blogs, there's a good chance you'll like the book too.<br /></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-87110006544447597062021-03-01T10:57:00.000-05:002021-05-15T08:34:05.196-04:00My Second Book! <p> This past Friday a package arrived at my front door containing something very exciting: copies of my second book! Behold, <i>Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe </i>is officially in print and available to purchase through <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/religion-and-myth-in-the-marvel-cinematic-universe/" target="_blank">McFarland Books</a> (the publisher), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Myth-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe/dp/1476681597/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3NTHRSUJFN027&keywords=religion+and+myth+in+the+marvel+cinematic+universe&qid=1614368695&s=books&sprefix=religion+and+myth%2Cstripbooks%2C215&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, and other major booksellers! A big thanks goes to McFarland Books for being a great press to work with. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXP863kGcS03jZeMjx0Qaq2VZGgmjscQe2wAMwdwKnXVgQ1F1zOHR_WHeKfMRDuJ7JK-NJGbUlWT04Y7Eos0Q_5Wk6brHRQtdXFugiW9l0iJJVD-TN7bWabdxDegB2JRKVs8GAN-lvUzM/s2048/IMG_4367.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1367" data-original-width="2048" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXP863kGcS03jZeMjx0Qaq2VZGgmjscQe2wAMwdwKnXVgQ1F1zOHR_WHeKfMRDuJ7JK-NJGbUlWT04Y7Eos0Q_5Wk6brHRQtdXFugiW9l0iJJVD-TN7bWabdxDegB2JRKVs8GAN-lvUzM/w400-h268/IMG_4367.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p> Back in the summer of 2019, after seeing <i>Avengers: Endgame, </i>which concluded more than ten years of Marvel movies, I knew I had to write this book. The ideas had been rattling around in my head for years prior as I saw the preceding films interconnecting and building on one another, all the while resonating with myths and religious narratives I had studied or knew about. While the parallels between superheroes and comics on the one hand and myth and religion on the other are not necessarily something new, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has expanded the popularity of these characters and storylines to an unprecedented level. From a narrative point of view, as a set of twenty-three films (at the point when I finished writing) with a determined beginning, middle, and end, it provided a discrete popular culture text that could be compared against other mythic narratives from the <i>Iliad</i>, to <i>Gilgamesh</i>, to the <i>Mahabharata</i>, and on and on. Working from that premise, and covering the Marvel films from <i>Iron Man </i>(2008) to <i>Avengers: Endgame </i>(2019), here are just a few of the topics and comparisons that I cover in the book:</p><p></p><p><span><span> </span><span> How do the Avengers' origin stories resemble rites of passage and shamanic initiation experiences found around the world?</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyPhhq7KLEJKW3cfV2ikWtpqzkae3d2cpzf6Rp6fk-FaNyGs0V3KXIN5PXzX5XovjND6osNPMDVV3CxG0IoH78-DXP-69BpDGmdHLKbYoQRZpOIhtNg4NnqkUjHYuY70H_DKE8u2i0MnI/s2048/Tony-Stark-Cave-Iron-Man-HQ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyPhhq7KLEJKW3cfV2ikWtpqzkae3d2cpzf6Rp6fk-FaNyGs0V3KXIN5PXzX5XovjND6osNPMDVV3CxG0IoH78-DXP-69BpDGmdHLKbYoQRZpOIhtNg4NnqkUjHYuY70H_DKE8u2i0MnI/w400-h266/Tony-Stark-Cave-Iron-Man-HQ.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span><span><span> </span><span> </span></span></span>How do the various villains in the MCU compare with monsters found throughout world mythology?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAw5ERhSvPzeYzbDNq77RQsuOo0mhLfzRq1nsqMcBZCgYEJbWDMTKfMszKzF5YZk8MkX4vCHhA_KupAQjKiv3FPzlX6riHPzTJbm-To5BXourfSXZDtXryUlZxfkbsHDk9i7Y9f6m1EKI/s1200/abomination.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAw5ERhSvPzeYzbDNq77RQsuOo0mhLfzRq1nsqMcBZCgYEJbWDMTKfMszKzF5YZk8MkX4vCHhA_KupAQjKiv3FPzlX6riHPzTJbm-To5BXourfSXZDtXryUlZxfkbsHDk9i7Y9f6m1EKI/w400-h200/abomination.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p> In what way do the various battles the Avengers fight with one another (as in <i>Captain America: Civil War</i>) or close family members (like <i>Black Panther, </i>or <i>Thor: Ragnarok, </i>or <i>Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2</i>) resemble battles in Persian, Chinese, Indian, and Greek mythologies?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSaMOjj8iZtO3DZOmVZ8RlWZPRtwSok08i117T6cl_vFI61xjBo59-54IXJ-NT1OC1lnBhA7WpaqUlbx1orTLSLjYHL2h_w0tFqjRR5CuCvl1i7RgPWObhSq01c9bi57g09wMK4AURFbc/s759/black-panther-killmonger-759.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="759" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSaMOjj8iZtO3DZOmVZ8RlWZPRtwSok08i117T6cl_vFI61xjBo59-54IXJ-NT1OC1lnBhA7WpaqUlbx1orTLSLjYHL2h_w0tFqjRR5CuCvl1i7RgPWObhSq01c9bi57g09wMK4AURFbc/w400-h223/black-panther-killmonger-759.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p> How does Thanos compare with other figures of death and destruction, such as Hades in ancient Greece, Yama in Hinduism, and Mara in Buddhism?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqzhCi_ke0JAX6OdrhG6NRNaevTkiJrf2VTpe0XlG8fWo3VxR9cy9DMH85AXORxUhGRXraVQAtVOqmzQIH5GYdx1T0kkDIgn_qktV1FRcItze_mjtx2bG4M0WOBTSUAVy3mVjG3Uby_BQ/s421/Thanos_in_Avengers_Infinity_War.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="421" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqzhCi_ke0JAX6OdrhG6NRNaevTkiJrf2VTpe0XlG8fWo3VxR9cy9DMH85AXORxUhGRXraVQAtVOqmzQIH5GYdx1T0kkDIgn_qktV1FRcItze_mjtx2bG4M0WOBTSUAVy3mVjG3Uby_BQ/w400-h224/Thanos_in_Avengers_Infinity_War.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p> What parallels does the final battle scene in <i>Avengers: Endgame </i>have with apocalyptic final battles in the Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Hindu traditions?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaearkBO4CZhDQKwLaPNj2JeH7GH0FKgzKzt6ZXJ5SzaAF_OolkhAVefWNFf04mn7j-EBlGFz7-narSaeDSvszE7aACdNZeS8SXBFnPXE64CpSW8Ys_xcPcSJ8TSJuDkbbHxsYVjnTBHA/s700/avengers-endgame-finabattle-charge-700x369.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="700" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaearkBO4CZhDQKwLaPNj2JeH7GH0FKgzKzt6ZXJ5SzaAF_OolkhAVefWNFf04mn7j-EBlGFz7-narSaeDSvszE7aACdNZeS8SXBFnPXE64CpSW8Ys_xcPcSJ8TSJuDkbbHxsYVjnTBHA/w400-h211/avengers-endgame-finabattle-charge-700x369.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p> If you're interested in picking up a copy, you can go to the <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/religion-and-myth-in-the-marvel-cinematic-universe/" target="_blank">Publisher's official website</a>, look for a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Myth-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe/dp/1476681597" target="_blank">copy on Amazon</a>, or check out <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/religion-and-myth-in-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-michael-d-nichols/1137529494" target="_blank">Barnes and Noble</a>. It's available in print and electronic form. </p><p><span> </span><span> </span>It's a thrilling feeling to have a moment of inspiration, dream of an idea, work on it feverishly, then see it assume an actual physical form you can hold in your hands, as I did Friday when the hard copies arrived at my doorstep. It's also a nice culmination in my life: a few of my very early memories are as a three or four year old playing with my Spider-Man action figure, making it swing from bookcase shelves using dental floss as webbing. The Marvel characters have been my heroes for a long time and its been a joy to live with them on an intellectual level now, too. For those of you who check out the book, let me know what you think of it. I hope you enjoy it and I'd really like to hear your thoughts.</p><p><span> </span><span> </span>As the title of this post suggests, this is my second book, coming after 2019's <i><a href="https://www.sunypress.edu/p-6700-malleable-mara.aspx" target="_blank">Malleable Mara: Transformations of a Buddhist Symbol of Evil.</a></i> That book has recently come out in paperback, meaning it's considerably reduced in price. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Malleable-Mara-Transformations-Buddhist-Symbol/dp/1438473214#customerReviews" target="_blank">Check it out here</a> and, along with <i>Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,</i> you can complete the whole Michael Nichols collection! 😁 At least until I write the next one.....<br /></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-86761182558686167682021-02-22T12:23:00.000-05:002021-02-22T12:23:17.023-05:00Conan the Texan: the Tension between Barbarism and Civilization<p> <span> </span>If you've been following the news at all over the past week, you've heard of the massive winter storms circulating across the country, wreaking havoc <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/texas-power-outages-winter-storm-devastation/">especially in southern states like Texas</a>, which are not at all acclimated to such events. Having lived in the Midwest my whole life (including several years up in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin), my heart goes out to those suffering through this extreme weather. Some of the stories (<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-winter-storms-2021/2021/02/19/969398810/a-katrina-scale-crisis-austin-is-desperate-for-help-in-weather-disaster?utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=nprnews&fbclid=IwAR16JGCbM9I3prMrUxceUoHFUvWYipG46ih5beOCmFR9xPp5udHoACwvXao">of the failure of electrical grids, water systems, and other infrastructures</a>) and the human cost have been absolutely appalling and frightful. With the weather starting to warm up, hopefully those devastated areas will be able to start the recovery process.</p><p> The political reaction to this state of affairs has also made the news lately. Texas governor Greg Abbott strangely (and incorrectly) <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Governor-Abbott-s-wind-turbine-15958637.php">blamed wind turbines</a> for the energy disruptions, Senator Ted Cruz <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/19/politics/ted-cruz-cancun-texas/index.html">checked out for Cancun</a>, and former Texas governor Rick Perry claimed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/18/rick-perry-texans-endure-blackouts-keep-government-out">Texans were happy to go without power</a> because it kept the federal government out of their business. Standing out amongst them all was (now former) <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/17/colorado-city-texas-mayor-tim-boyd-resigns-facebook-post-under-fire/6786899002/">Colorado City, Texas mayor Tim Boyd</a>, who railed on Facebook that his fellow citizens asking for help during the power and water outages were "looking for a handout," that "no one owes you are (sic) your family anything," and "only the strong will survive and the weak will parish (sic)."<br /></p><p> <span> Taking all of this in, my first reaction (o</span>ddly enough) was to think of Robert E. Howard's original pulp tales of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian">Conan the Barbarian</a>. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqgPL0MkiqhkbT_5vWHjo0qgIKGylkJ7xEl42mTpYid1jvyxv5Jcsu-dx3gRj9EiBZNuGQvk5otP7NkZ6y0LJNlLayHiwg4qbRt9uVgGdgUzO5nZl6C3LzJUcsuEnFmZ7S-rx9qAQGkY8/s500/Conan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="329" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqgPL0MkiqhkbT_5vWHjo0qgIKGylkJ7xEl42mTpYid1jvyxv5Jcsu-dx3gRj9EiBZNuGQvk5otP7NkZ6y0LJNlLayHiwg4qbRt9uVgGdgUzO5nZl6C3LzJUcsuEnFmZ7S-rx9qAQGkY8/w264-h400/Conan.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span> </span><span> </span>For those unfamiliar with the character of Conan, he is described in Howard's stories as a mostly amoral mercenary living in the deep, deep past of human history, somewhere between the sinking of Atlantis (which existed in this mythology) and the founding of the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Disdainful of human society and rules, Conan lives a mostly nomadic, solitary existence, surviving through his wits and strength by stealing, fighting, and killing his way out of problems. The god of Conan's people, named Crom, is portrayed as utterly indifferent to human affairs, leaving people to fend for themselves. Likewise unfeeling, Conan scoffs at all manner of altruism and social obligation, being much more likely to split a person's skull in half than explain himself.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><span> </span> Here's the connection to current events: Robert E. </span>Howard was himself a Texan and conceived of the character while travelling out in the state's vast and (at least in the 1930s) unsettled areas. Howard imbued Conan with his own Libertarian scorn of what he saw as the stifling, constricting force of civilization: living alone, taking what you needed, and making out your own rules was the way to go. In other words, to Howard being a barbarian was vastly better than the civilized life, hence his idealized character "Conan the Barbarian." (As an interesting aside, Howard maintained a voluminous letter correspondence with fellow pulp writer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft">H.P. Lovecraft</a>, creator of the famous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos">Cthulhu mythos</a>, which I've used from time to time in classes on symbols of evil. Lovecraft was of the opposite point of view: civilization needed to be protected from barbarism at all cost.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span> </span><span> Watching the news and having read some Conan tales, it seems to me that Howard's fellow Texans Mayor Boyd, Senator Cruz, and former governor Perry were advocating a very Conan-like, barbaric way of handling this current crisis. Only the strong will survive! (Boyd) We'd rather suffer than than ask for help, because then we can be on our own! (Perry) If you have the means, fend yourself and flee to a tropical climate! (Cruz) It has certainly highlighted a chasm in political philosophy: are we all in this together or are we all on our own? As you come to your own conclusion, maybe ask yourself this question: would you really want to live in a world where you and everyone around you has to act like Conan?</span></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-22871720580945150682021-02-15T13:25:00.001-05:002021-02-15T13:25:54.813-05:00The Pain Behind the Beauty<p> One of the books I've enjoyed reading the most with my sons is the early 20th century British classic <i>The Wind in the Willows</i>, the fantasy story by Kenneth Grahame about the adventures of several anthropomorphized (and quite civilized - in the British fashion) animals, who have their own village or settlement that somehow coexists alongside the human world. Each creature is archetypal in some respects, with their main overriding characteristic representing some facet found in human nature. At the same time, there are multiple sides to their personalities: Mole is perpetually enthusiastic and optimistic, but naive; Badger is gruff and irascible, but ultimately kind-hearted; Rat is usually eminently and reliably practical, but also given to daydreams; and Toad is profligate, arrogant, and obsessive, yet somehow still loveable. <br /></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuupzOapABMMPe_-IG5VLFZM-2JAP8ahFot623LJBqNrJMYtI-wYVRiTHtA4LyWNafatmuuwoHIyuVk-sHf1PBqa3B2nsS69vNdAT6Iss0JMYVgq9GMB078IZTo-wtZwEHOtjpmVvA88k/s700/windinthewillows-coverart-.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="700" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuupzOapABMMPe_-IG5VLFZM-2JAP8ahFot623LJBqNrJMYtI-wYVRiTHtA4LyWNafatmuuwoHIyuVk-sHf1PBqa3B2nsS69vNdAT6Iss0JMYVgq9GMB078IZTo-wtZwEHOtjpmVvA88k/w400-h186/windinthewillows-coverart-.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span> In a rhapsodic way that treats nature as a source of mystic revelry, the story primarily follows Mole's awakening to life and friendship aboveground after years of living only in his burrow. Of course, there's also Toad, a rich animal who gets himself into deep trouble by disregarding his friends' help and indulging in a mania for fast cars. With funny situations, relatable characters, and beautiful language, my sons and I have enjoyed reading it over and over again. </span></p><p><span> In the Signet Classics edition of the book, <a href="https://www.luannerice.net/luanne-blog-news/the-wind-in-the-willows">there is an essay by novelist Luanne Rice</a> about the life of the author </span>Kenneth Grahame (pictured below). </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMPYEtjKQzTtZdhrxg1ctsteLEdVNs7B3S-fA31eoYfbdH3qwolHiGjBE4QolAdGVAE5Z26h3oN_FEi_FZxYxzLONZhyphenhyphenUfSmhkr9wMf7IeRJE6RbLV5w7JByvjkLT3aAf49cUXmnfmoAY/s300/KennethGrahame.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="224" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMPYEtjKQzTtZdhrxg1ctsteLEdVNs7B3S-fA31eoYfbdH3qwolHiGjBE4QolAdGVAE5Z26h3oN_FEi_FZxYxzLONZhyphenhyphenUfSmhkr9wMf7IeRJE6RbLV5w7JByvjkLT3aAf49cUXmnfmoAY/w299-h400/KennethGrahame.jpg" width="299" /></a></div><br /> His life, I found out, was not a happy one. When he was only five years old, his mother died, leaving him and his three siblings alone with their alcoholic father. Realizing he could not care for his children, the father sent them to live with relatives in the countryside. Those relatives were described as "indifferent" and "emotionally distant" toward the children who, as a result, began to invent games and characters among themselves. The essay suggests it might have been in this context that the characters of <i>The Wind in the Willows </i>were created.<br /><p></p><p> Later, other events intervened for Grahame. At the age of nine he was sent to boarding school and developed a love of books and writing. He wanted to study at Oxford to become an author, but his caretakers would not allow it, forcing him instead to go to work at the Bank of England. He survived being shot during a bank robbery and then entered into a loveless, unhappy marriage. All along, however, he wrote stories during what free time he could muster and when his son Alastair was born (premature and nearly blind), he told him bedtime stories - about a mole, a toad, and a badger, among other creatures. These tales evolved into <i>The Wind in the Willows </i>and Alastair, despite chronic health problems, realized his father's dream by enrolling at Oxford. It seemed as though there might be a happy ending, until Alastair committed suicide at the age of twenty.<br /></p><p> In Bob Dylan's song <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZgBhyU4IvQ">Not Dark Yet</a></i>, he sings, "Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain." I feel that very keenly after reading about Grahame's life. It seems that we can see the scars of his trauma and the yearnings of his whole life throughout the tale: Toad disappearing on self-destructive joyrides (like the father on alcoholic benders?), remote and stern Badger who becomes more kindly (like the relatives Grahame hoped would relent?), and the myopic and shy Mole who comes out of his burrow and his shell to a whole new world of friends (like the sickly and near-sighted Alastair?). Grahame's life speaks to me of the healing power of writing, of trying to re-take ownership of a life spinning out of control by telling your own story, even when that feels most hopeless. Spinning a story can be like weaving the threads of a parachute, to protect against the impending crash.<br /></p> Learning about Grahame's story has definitely enhanced my appreciation of <i>The Wind in the Willows. </i>Just as there's a bit of the archetypal Toad, Badger, or Mole in us all, there's also a bit of Kenneth Grahame. Despite his own tragedies and moments of unbearable sadness, he left behind a treasure of literature to benefit the rest of us. I know it has benefitted my family, and learning of his story gives me hope for what we all can do, for the stories we all can tell, to break free of our circumstances.<p></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-18731961525785591352020-10-29T11:40:00.002-04:002020-10-29T11:40:50.777-04:00Freedom!<p> Jarvis Masters is a Buddhist on death row. He was not a Buddhist prior to incarceration, but rather discovered the practice during his time in prison at San Quentin in California. Meditation and mindfulness practice have helped him navigate his isolation, maintain peace in the face of the continuous aggression and suffering all around him, and deal with the anxiety of court proceedings surrounding the appeals of his conviction. <a href="https://www.freejarvis.org/" target="_blank">Masters maintains his innocence</a> and a great deal of other <a href="https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/2019/jarvis-jay-masters-accusers-description-of-masters-matched-inmate-who-confessed/" target="_blank">people agree with him</a>.</p><p><span> </span><span> I came across Masters' story in David Sheff's book <i><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Buddhist-on-Death-Row/David-Sheff/9781982128456" target="_blank">The Buddhist on Death Row</a></i>, which chronicles Masters' life, his imprisonment, and his efforts to gain freedom, paralleling each of these with his jailhouse conversion to and practice of Buddhism. The book maintains an interesting balance of presenting Masters' unflinching work to overcome his past and present trauma through meditation and mindfulness while also giving a clear introduction to Buddhist ideas. Aside from the engaging personal element of the story is the higher philosophical question of the nature of freedom. At one point, Masters remarks that the discipline and insight he has gained through meditation actually make him freer than people "on the outside." As he recounts to those who visit him in prison, "we can free ourselves without ever leaving our cells."</span><br /></p><p><span> It's an interesting question: what truly constitutes freedom? In a political climate where <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53477121" target="_blank">a certain segment of the population sees being required to wear a mask as an unacceptable infringement on personal liberty</a>, delving into what it might actually mean to be "free" feels like a worthwhile endeavor. Some behavioral psychologists, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers would contend that this is a nonsense question: no one is ever <i>really </i>free due to the overriding influences of genetics and culture. I don't expect to settle any of that here, but given the transformations people have been known to undergo (Jarvis Masters, for instance) saying we are completely without freewill seems like an overstatement. From that vantage, it might be more interesting to ask what freedom really is, whether it is something primarily internal (being able to control one's own actions or state of mind) or external (having as much choice of action or range of movement as possible).<br /></span></p><p><span> When I used to teach a class called "Eastern Thought," we'd start with an ancient text called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Sutras_of_Patanjali" target="_blank">the <i>Yoga Sutra</i> by a philosopher named Patanjali.</a> Those used to Yoga as primarily an exercise regimen might be surprised to learn that the practice, at least in its original Indian context, is about disciplining the mind first and foremost, and any bodily practices are aimed at reaching the mind through the body. One achieves release (<i>moksha</i>) by elevating the mind to be able to overcome all the mundane physical circumstances it might encounter. Masters' brand of Tibetan Buddhism is similar: freedom is judged by control of one's own reactions and inner state, and any negative outward environmental factors one finds are to be seen as opportunities to cultivate the inward practices.<br /></span></p><p><span><span> </span><span> Speaking broadly, Western culture (particularly American culture) has by far emphasized an external definition of freedom. (One former student in that Eastern Thought class even remarked, "In the U.S., we're big on choice, not so much on discipline.") By this analysis, regulation and external control are the enemy and the absence of those constrictions equals freedom. Hence, we see rebellions against kings and mask mandates alike.</span></span></p><p><span><span><span> </span><span> From the point of view of those, like Patanjali and Masters, who see freedom as an internal state, external freedom really isn't </span>freedom at all. If freedom is defined by unfettered action and choice and being able to do what I want, then conceivably I am more free if I have ten options to choose from as opposed to two. As befits a capitalist, consumerist society, we then perform our freedom by demanding more and more choices, amassing them like any other commodity. Freedom becomes something to consume and accumulate like an iPhone or a bigger house. The difficulty arises when, like other possessions, attachment ensues. If freedom is a possession to quantify, it can be taken away or reduced by something as simple as reducing my options from ten different iPhones to eight. One lives in constant fear of others regulating their choices, and the greater the number of choices, the greater the fear. The more "freedom" I have, the less free I am. French Existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre thought something like this, even arguing that we are "condemned" by freedom. (And if you haven't watched </span></span><a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2o8bhc" target="_blank">Monty Python's sketch on Jean Paul Sartre</a>, which touches on freedom, you really should.)</p><p> Is there a way to make these two notions of freedom work together? What if we see the internal freedom of discipline as a prerequisite for the external freedom of choice? It's a bit of a shift in topic (I'm known to make strange linkages at times), but I would argue that's what we see in the famous movie (and one of my favorites) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shawshank_Redemption" target="_blank"><i>The Shawshank Redemption</i>.</a><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNUSdfOnTnHH7bPgF5d7slpfzXUXlPx32yaZiDy__6QbkV8XBFe_WpatJ9FZI0WB7oaQ_lMImv7tpkkJf1itPgxYN_36sH_6e7ayaQWjzs1fGBLM1x7tMM8tSCGS3x2RfAfbETXfcE_DI/s2000/Shawshank.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNUSdfOnTnHH7bPgF5d7slpfzXUXlPx32yaZiDy__6QbkV8XBFe_WpatJ9FZI0WB7oaQ_lMImv7tpkkJf1itPgxYN_36sH_6e7ayaQWjzs1fGBLM1x7tMM8tSCGS3x2RfAfbETXfcE_DI/s320/Shawshank.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span> </span><span> The main character, Andy Dufresne, has been incarcerated for murders he didn't commit. Though the situation is certainly grim, he develops and maintains an incredible sense of equanimity, for instance helping another prisoner earn a GED and building a prison library, all the way chiseling through his cell wall a few grains at a time. Eventually, he tunnels his way out of the prison and makes his escape. During his time in prison he's developed and defended a robust internal freedom, which prepares him for the external freedom he achieves toward the end of the film. Perhaps partly due to these themes, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/09/shawshank-redemption-anniversary-story" target="_blank">the film has risen to much greater popularity</a> even than when it debuted in the mid-1990s.</span><br /></p><p><span><span> </span><span> So, perhaps the dichotomy between these types of freedom is the wrong question after all. Instead, maybe we should be asking if we'd all be more apt to enjoy and make the best use of our external freedom after developing the internal freedom of self-discipline. Jarvis Masters would say yes, and he's spent half a lifetime on the subject.</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span><span> </span><span> That's all for now. Until the next time, take care.</span><br /></span></span></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-68190049400593683652020-10-19T10:35:00.000-04:002020-10-19T10:35:01.394-04:00The Politics and Mythology of Godzilla<p> When I was four years old, my favorite movie was 1962's <i>King Kong versus Godzilla.</i> (Take a few minutes and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujvEqb8SwRs" target="_blank">watch the ending battle here.</a> If you like watching guys in monster costumes wrestle, you won't be disappointed!) I loved Godzilla and rooted for him to wallop all the beasts he faced, save the world, and smash as many buildings as he could along the way. There was even a green coat I would wear at that age when I wanted to pretend to be the big green guy!</p><p> Those childhood sentiments seem rather far away when placed against the most recent Japanese version of the beast, 2016's <i>Shin Gojira</i>.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDhxhR-Eb4mhOfo9pqpFl7ptB0sVYgB_4ABchSNdQjBeSCIjb6ppMIw_f2hh6W4yY82lHdHmOhptyl12UhJNu3Hctm2DoQpEzUkKOAd8AzIaIofTjl_Quf35lK4wb13Dcmp7gSWDXTXK8/s374/Godzilla_Resurgence_Theatrical_Poster.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="374" data-original-width="265" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDhxhR-Eb4mhOfo9pqpFl7ptB0sVYgB_4ABchSNdQjBeSCIjb6ppMIw_f2hh6W4yY82lHdHmOhptyl12UhJNu3Hctm2DoQpEzUkKOAd8AzIaIofTjl_Quf35lK4wb13Dcmp7gSWDXTXK8/s320/Godzilla_Resurgence_Theatrical_Poster.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div> As you can see from the promotional picture here, this is not exactly the cute and cuddly "Godzilla" of my youth. Its imagery is frightful and grotesque at times, while the film itself makes powerful political and moral statements. Far from a new turn for the figure, though, this representation returns it to its roots in the original 1954 <i>Gojira. </i>(A note about language: "Gojira" is the correct Japanese name for the creature. It is a portmanteau of the Japanese words for "ape" and "whale," showing something of the category-breaking quality frequent in monstrous figures. "Godzilla" is an anglicized rendering of the phonetics of "Gojira.") The original black-and-white <i>Gojira </i>was intended as a serious commentary on the atomic bomb and ongoing nuclear testing, particularly by the United States. As if the past history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not been enough fodder to inspire a film about a monster brought to life by nuclear weapons, contemporaneous to the film's inception and release, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daigo_Fukury%C5%AB_Maru#Media" target="_blank">a hydrogen bomb test by the United States (codenamed "Castle Bravo") produced fallout that irradiated a Japanese fishing boat</a>. With these incidents as a backdrop, the film depicts how atomic tests bring to life an ancient beast who wreaks havoc on Japan.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ZmnELrjvvQrUvLrNH3Xt2j41V3F6RnrFloy0zJyd7bq2lfN_6RtaFT05_jObcSjxoGCKTvMNClwVIpZvLloZSrqe3SiZqngDu-e0AF46MeU636qkx1ChxluulCw0dqMFInQupymomHo/s720/Godzilla.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ZmnELrjvvQrUvLrNH3Xt2j41V3F6RnrFloy0zJyd7bq2lfN_6RtaFT05_jObcSjxoGCKTvMNClwVIpZvLloZSrqe3SiZqngDu-e0AF46MeU636qkx1ChxluulCw0dqMFInQupymomHo/s320/Godzilla.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><span> </span><span> It is a grim, serious, and effective movie. The monster lays waste to stretches of Japan and is stopped only when another horrific weapon (an "oxygen destroyer") is employed to kill it. Even as the Japanese scientist who developed the oxygen destroyer shows his moral superiority to the United States by choosing to die along with Gojira rather than that risk his invention being misused, those present at the monster's defeat lament the prospect that future nuclear testing will produce even more unfathomable threats.</span><br /></div><div> 2016's <i>Shin Gojira </i>similarly occurs in the wake of a real-life disaster. In 2011, following an earthquake and tsunami, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster" target="_blank">the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan suffered an accident that released an enormous level of radiation into the environment, causing large-scale evacuations.</a> The Japanese government's handling of the accident and its aftermath was roundly criticized, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fukushima-tepco-power-japan-nuclear-meltdown-apologizes-cover-up/" target="_blank">up to and including accusations of active cover ups of the tragedy's severity.</a> As the monster comes ashore in this new version, the effects of the Fukushima accident are glaringly obvious: the government is shown as inept, mired in red tape, and primarily concerned with not losing face rather than truly protecting citizens. Perhaps even to a greater extent than the original <i>Gojira</i>, the film also tackles tensions with the United States, showing the Americans as overbearing diplomatically and even perfectly willing to subject Japan to a modern nuclear strike (whether the Japanese agree to it or not) in order to stop the monster. Ultimately, it is the younger, brasher, and more nationalistic elements of the government, in concert with the Japanese military (the "Strategic Defense Force") who emerge as the heroes, defeating the creature and reasserting Japan's might and sovereignty in the face of international overreach.</div><div> <i>Shin Gojira </i>and its 1954 predecessor are also remarkable for the ways in which they draw on ancient mythic themes. In the 2016 film, the beast is called a "god incarnate," as a nod to the divine and dangerous creatures of Shinto mythology. The Strategic Defense Forces assigned to combat Gojira are codenamed "Dragon Slayers," explicitly in honor of the storm god Susanoo, who destroyed the monster serpent Orochi in Shinto mythology. Stories of a storm or thunder deity killing a primordial dragon are frequent in world mythology, particularly in the Indo-European region. Zeus kills Typhon, Thor is locked in struggle with the Midgard Serpent, Perun perpetually battles Veles, Ra pursues Apophis, Marduk slays Tiamat, Indra smashes Vritra, and on and on. It is present in the biblical tradition as well, exemplified by Yahweh fighting Leviathan and the various monsters of <i>Revelation</i>, especially the beast from the sea and the many-headed dragon. Whereas the thunder gods in each instance are meant to represent order and divinity, the dragon from the sea stands for the chaos, darkness, and dissolution that must be conquered.<br /></div><div> Beneath the surface of these philosophical oppositions, though, there are layers and layers of political intentions, <a href="https://www.veryshortintroductions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780198724704.001.0001/actrade-9780198724704-chapter-9" target="_blank">as many scholars in Religious Studies will point out.</a> For instance, the Greek story of Zeus' defeat of Typhon (who is the champion of Gaia, Mother Earth) may be a polemic in favor of patriarchy's domination of women. Similarly, Indra was the warrior deity of the Vedic peoples, and Vritra was conceptualized as the various cultures they conquered. Despite many looney interpretations, the beasts of <i>Revelation </i>have the same kind of political origin, as stand-ins for the Roman Empire. In this same way, the original <i>Gojira </i>uses a monster out of the primordial sea to represent a contemporary horror: the atomic bomb. <i>Shin Gojira </i>updates this by adding a critique of the Japanese governmental structure and ratcheting up the anti-American sentiment. The notes may change slightly, but the song remains the same, right?</div><div> Well, yes and no. Myths have a tendency to get away from their authors. Besides the evolving friendliness of the character (its transition from fearsome "Gojira" to the funny "Godzilla") in the 1960-70s, there have been Hollywood interpretations in 1998, 2014, and 2019. One can even speculate that this is the reason why <i>Shin Gojira </i>has that particular title: "Shin" can be translated many ways, including "new" or "true," suggesting a deliberate contrast to the American films. Yet, for better or worse, Godzilla is now a multivalent figure, holding multiple, complicated meanings simultaneously. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/05/godzilla-movies-king-of-the-monsters-history/590545/" target="_blank">In a 2019 article for the <i>Atlantic, </i>Peter Bebergal masterfully points to these tensions.</a> This just proves that any mythic figure can mean a lot of different things, whether its to an ancient culture, a Hollywood film studio, or a four-year old in a green coat.</div><div><span> </span><span> The topic for next time is still up in the air, as there are a few topics I'm choosing between. At any rate, I'll be back in a week or so. Until then, take care.</span><br /></div><p><br /></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-34748975199069662402020-10-12T13:28:00.002-04:002020-10-12T13:28:46.716-04:00The Paradox of Empathy<p><span> </span> Post-apocalyptic settings and societal collapse are commonplace in a lot of science fiction, so it's no surprise I came across that theme in a recent leisure read. The way I cam across the book was a little roundabout, though. One of the faculty I work with is using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler" target="_blank">Octavia Butler</a>'s <i>Kindred </i>in a Literature class, which reminded me that I hadn't read the copy of her <i>Patternmaster </i>that I picked up for $0.50 several years ago at a library book sale. Well, try as I might, I couldn't find it, but I did find a copy of Butler's <i>Parable of the Sower</i>, so I dove into that one instead.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf2vWURrSSNIWmfQ1rp1mwRdi8apyVW36fvRXNXuyNBLZALsIXs8E_9X9SopLCGW_2YHfE5tb3uMfjuwFpzzl1DE4qFf4559WOuoYvJrljLo6gaPOwnVGQbSPyq5lIfiNbQVLJS-LZ-BY/s499/Butler.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="305" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf2vWURrSSNIWmfQ1rp1mwRdi8apyVW36fvRXNXuyNBLZALsIXs8E_9X9SopLCGW_2YHfE5tb3uMfjuwFpzzl1DE4qFf4559WOuoYvJrljLo6gaPOwnVGQbSPyq5lIfiNbQVLJS-LZ-BY/s320/Butler.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p> <span> </span>Published in the early 1990s, this is a tense, frightening work about the dystopic future (set in the 2020s!) where an enclave of people try to maintain a community in the face of the breakdown of society all around them. As the country around them descends into barbarism, this community is destroyed by roving gangs and the main character, Lauren Olamina, sets out with a few others to journey to what will hopefully be safer lands to the north. Lauren is a remarkable character for a couple of reasons. First, one of the themes of the book is Lauren's creation of a new religion, "Earthseed," based on the assertion "God is change, and change is God." Throughout the novel, Earthseed slowly but continually spreads, gaining followers. There are multiple discussions of the nature of religion, of what allows a religion to spread and appeal to followers, and so forth that make me wish I could offer a class on "Religions in Literature," where we could compare Earthseed to <a href="https://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/personal/bokonon.html" target="_blank">Vonnegut's "Bokonism"</a> or t<a href="https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Religion" target="_blank">he various belief systems in Herbert's <i>Dune.</i></a></p><p><i> <span> </span></i>Lauren is remarkable also for an inherited ability Butler terms "hyperempathy," where she feels all the pain, joy, and other emotions of others to the point where if she is around someone who is injured or worse, she will experience those same emotions or sensations. For most of the novel, it is hard to see this as anything but a liability in a world where, increasingly, one must either kill or be killed.<br /></p><p> <span> </span>Throughout, <i>Parable of the Sower </i>made me think of Cormac McCarthy's <i>The Road</i>, which taps into some of the same themes.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNiCXOIwgKDOw2wEyGang-x0DFaAWv4hLFZ4h2hDIxRpImXkUJgYFrydHMDopPiqwvSmgSJZfoxs5BRul9JWk57mNziyYSqv48dOsPw4JTqrZDxJVnXMWHrr0KIzV5k06rHpPo0awNSXo/s1529/The-road.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1529" data-original-width="931" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNiCXOIwgKDOw2wEyGang-x0DFaAWv4hLFZ4h2hDIxRpImXkUJgYFrydHMDopPiqwvSmgSJZfoxs5BRul9JWk57mNziyYSqv48dOsPw4JTqrZDxJVnXMWHrr0KIzV5k06rHpPo0awNSXo/s320/The-road.jpg" /></a></div><p><a href="https://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/02/fathers-and-sons.html" target="_blank"> <span> </span>In an earlier post on that work,</a> I wrote about how it's situation (a dying man tries, vainly it seems, to lead his young son to safety while they travel through the desolate, horror-filled wasteland left after some untold cataclysm has devastate the earth) that represents the ultimate encapsulation of every parent's unexpressed yet underlying nightmare: as much as we want to protect our children from a dangerous world, our efforts will always be insufficient, and one day, inevitably, we will be gone.</p><p> <span> </span>The primary connection between the two books, besides the post-apocalyptic context, is the complicated treatment of empathy, which both works raise almost to the level of paradox. Imagining the feelings of others and being able to connect with fellow humans on an emotional level is indispensable to the operation of society. As both novels point out, though, once the bonds break and society decays, empathy can become a liability. In <i>The Road, </i>the Man tells the Boy that they are keepers of the "fire," the spark of humanity and humaneness in a brutal world. Yet, time and again when the Boy wants to help others, the Man refuses, arguing that they need to hold back their resources or be wary to trust for fear of being attacked. In <i>Parable of the Sower, </i>Lauren uses her ability to forge bonds with fellow travelers, yet it makes her reluctant to make hard decisions and even incapacitates her when violence becomes necessary. In both novels, this is the paradox of empathy: feeling for others is the only thing that will rebuild society, but it is also the greatest impediment to personal survival.<br /></p><p><span> </span> In an atmosphere of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/04/far-more-americans-see-very-strong-partisan-conflicts-now-than-in-the-last-two-presidential-election-years/" target="_blank">growing polarization,</a> are these novels fiction or are they prophecy? <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-us-has-an-empathy-deficit/" target="_blank">A recent article in </a><i><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-us-has-an-empathy-deficit/" target="_blank">Scientific American</a> </i>discusses the increasing "empathy deficit" in the United States. Put simply, people in this country are caring less and less about the plights of others and are no longer willing to entertain how situations are affecting people besides themselves. It seems that, faced with the same paradox of empathy found in <i>The Road </i>and <i>Parable of the Sower</i>, Americans are choosing isolation and individualism. Frightening stuff!</p><p><span> </span><span> And yet, going back to those books, against all logic both works end on more or less positive notes. The characters in both those novels seem to have found ways to reconnect with other people and form mini-societies where it looks as if humanity and empathy will be the foundation. In both cases, the creation of those groups comes from pure, raw vulnerability and trust. Whether we have the same mettle in ourselves, outside the pages of the written world, remains to be seen.</span><br /></p><p><span> </span><span> Next time, we'll talk about an enormous, irradiated beast and the political and cultural meanings of his representation. We're going to talk about Godzilla, past and present! Until then, take care.</span><br /></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-87497597508923739092020-10-05T11:31:00.000-04:002020-10-05T11:31:06.254-04:00Coming Home<p> <span> </span>I've been thinking about home a lot lately. I don't necessarily mean <i>my</i> home, but rather the very idea of "home" - what it means to seek it, to idealize it, to lose it, even whether it ever can be an actual physical location. On the last point, I suppose my bias shows the most, as I've lived in many different places, including Ohio, Wisconsin (twice), Illinois, and Indiana (twice). In the latter, I suppose the most obvious candidate is the city of Rensselaer, the place I was born and raised, returned to after more than a decade away, then had to leave again a few years ago. Lately, though, perhaps as a function of getting older, watching my sons grow up, and wondering what form their reminisces of "when I was a kid" will take, I've come to see "home" not as a physical place but a state of mind. In that realm, it becomes a kind of myth not about any geographic location, but the revisionism of our individual pasts. </p><p><span> <span> <span> </span></span></span>It's pretty obvious that this was what author Thomas Wolfe was intimating when he famously said, "You can't go home again." That phrase neatly describes the trap of nostalgia, <a href="https://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/02/lost-worlds.html" target="_blank">something I've written about as well.</a> The part that he leaves out is that we are drawn inexorably toward these myths of "home," a place that does not exist and perhaps never did. In the introduction to <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/550170/we-were-eight-years-in-power-by-ta-nehisi-coates/" target="_blank">We Were Eight Years in Power</a></i>, Ta-Nehisi Coates completes Wolfe's thought, rightly (in my view) portraying the impulse to rediscover an idealized "home" or past in this way:</p><p> <span> </span>"I know now that that hunger is a retreat from the knotty present into myth and that what ultimately awaits those who retreat into fairy tales, who seek refuge in the made pursuit to be made great again, in the image of a greatness that never was, is tragedy" (10).</p><p><span> <span> As I often do, I turn to m</span>yth and literature as exemplars of any phenomenon, and they are replete with paradigms of this. Odysseus spends twenty years trying to return to Ithaca, only to find his home in shambles, overrun by suitors plotting to marry his wife and kill his son. This discovery is only the prelude to a gruesome orgy of bloody violence by which Odysseus satiates his desire for revenge. It is not exactly the epitome of a peaceful homecoming, and perhaps a timeless allegory for all those <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/30/odyssey-soldier-afghanistan-military-homer" target="_blank">who come back from war forever altered to find their home similarly changed.</a></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl8kh9hpVo3XjN5I1Pbfub7mdmlAVw1nCpjkr_Ruv6fCEsFTQbvxHhQlx5xwSBXSrlkfE11cuXG1IYtOuUVhG3pdI6Xs-UNP0iP-UN1Hjj9lGtaepa7pEGX9AsrpBasVm6Jbq-BTNB2uw/s1100/Odysseus-slaying-the-suitors.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="1100" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl8kh9hpVo3XjN5I1Pbfub7mdmlAVw1nCpjkr_Ruv6fCEsFTQbvxHhQlx5xwSBXSrlkfE11cuXG1IYtOuUVhG3pdI6Xs-UNP0iP-UN1Hjj9lGtaepa7pEGX9AsrpBasVm6Jbq-BTNB2uw/w456-h225/Odysseus-slaying-the-suitors.jpg" width="456" /></a></div><p> Frodo Baggins in <i>The Lord of the Rings </i>leaves the Shire rather reluctantly to take part in the quest to destroy the One Ring, and once this is done, returns home with his friends. Yet, the wounds he has suffered -- physical, mental, and spiritual -- torment him and he can never find peace. Achingly, he confides to his closest friend Sam that, "the Shire was saved, but not for me." </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXvOhbr6g6i5klrdk5X8Duy0t4MAHFcxap1YQCKgHZghP11TT1uKXCc7euTH7PhIOQwTQxCz8jHtbSksH2j7Aaa3fY5HcOu-Tm_YketUqPM2BxqMxRA6gqT5IaqKSdvomWeEgChw0hiQ/s1023/Frodo_Shire.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="1023" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXvOhbr6g6i5klrdk5X8Duy0t4MAHFcxap1YQCKgHZghP11TT1uKXCc7euTH7PhIOQwTQxCz8jHtbSksH2j7Aaa3fY5HcOu-Tm_YketUqPM2BxqMxRA6gqT5IaqKSdvomWeEgChw0hiQ/w358-h237/Frodo_Shire.jpg" width="358" /></a></div><p> <span> </span>Most recently, on a whim I read the novel <i>Silas Marner</i>, written by Mary Evans Cross under the pen name George Eliot. The book is predicated on these same themes, as the simple weaver Silas Marner is driven from his home after he is framed for a robbery and his good name is destroyed. Many years later, he resolves to return to that place with his adopted daughter, largely to see if the actual culprits had been caught and the truth had ever come out. It is not to be, however, for in the intervening time all the old landmarks of the town have been replaced or torn down and the people he once knew have either left or died. The place he knew no longer exists. "The old place is swep' away," he tells his daughter, "the old home's gone."<br /></p><p> These are nearly universal human experiences, and at times, they can even be seen as a blessing, if only in the moment. I recall about twenty-five years ago, as I graduated from high school (a place I found mind-numbing and soul-deadening) seeing the genuine distress on the faces of many of my classmates who did not want to leave what to them was a comfortable environment, a home they had enjoyed for four years. In those days of my youth, I was a far less understanding person and on my ride home after graduation I made sure to put my copy of Bob Dylan's <i>MTV Unplugged</i> set into my car's tape player (see, we still had cassettes back in the olden days), cued up to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwOfCgkyEj0" target="_blank">"Like a Rolling Stone,"</a> just to hear lyrics like these:</p><p><span> </span><span> "Princess on the steeple / And all them pretty people / Drinking and thinking that they got it made / Exchanging all precious gifts and things / But take your diamond rings / You better pawn them, babe. / 'Cause you used to be so amused / At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used / Go to him now, he calls you and you can't refuse / When you ain't got nothing left to lose. / You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal. / How does it feel? / To be without a home? / With no direction home, / Like a complete unknown, / Like a rolling stone."</span></p><p><span><span> </span><span> I recall shouting along with those lyrics, taking shameful joy in the sorrow that I knew others were experiencing in the closing of a chapter and the loss of a home that they had loved, but I had despised. </span><br /></span></p><p> <span> </span>Well, the wheels turned round, the years passed, I got older and I found places that I liked being a whole lot better and had, inevitably, to bid them good-bye. Somewhere along the line I lost that cassette tape but just a few months ago happened to see the CD version at the local library. While listening to "Like a Rolling Stone" again, I remembered the incident from above and I no longer experienced any vengeful emotions, only sadness for how I had lacked all perspective in that moment. Dylan was no longer singing along with me, as I had imagined him doing years ago like some kind of Greek chorus of Furies, but was now serenading <i>me, </i>challenging <i>me</i> to finally come to terms with what it means, and will mean, to all of us, to lose home.</p><p><span> </span><span> </span> Once again returning to the world of myth, I am struck by two almost polar opposite stories. First, there is the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden in <i>Genesis, </i>where the loss of the idealized home leads to enduring pain, suffering, and recrimination. Returning to Eden has animated a great deal of Jewish and then Christian thought, particularly apocalyptic speculation. On the other hand, there is <a href="https://www.inquiringmind.com/article/2402_12_bodhi_greatrenunciation/" target="_blank">the Great Renunciation in Buddhism</a>, where Siddhartha Gautama realizes as a young man that his father's palace, though filled with all imaginable sensual delights, is really a cage he must escape. He flees home of his own accord, realizes awakening, then travels untethered to any "home," geographic or mental. The <i>Genesis </i>narrative seems unhealthy: our personal Edens are gone and seeking after them is an act of obsession. The Buddhist story seems unrealistic: must a person abandon everything to escape, including not just house but also family?</p><p><span> </span><span> And on that point, t</span>hinking of my sons, I wonder how they will look back on this time when they were young. Some day, when they're my age, will they be struck by pangs of sadness that those days are gone? I want them to look back on it fondly, but not with the escapist fantasy that they long to return to it as their one true home. I think the moral of the story is that once one erects that monument, that idol of the idealized home, it will be like the horizon: forever in sight, but always out of reach.<br /></p><p><span> </span><span> Until the next time, take care.</span><br /></p> <p></p>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-59858206057546057362020-09-28T14:03:00.008-04:002020-09-28T14:50:26.401-04:00Famous Last Words<p><span> </span>In 1993, Billy Joel released <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_of_Dreams" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">The River of Dreams</a>, an album I listened to throughout my sophomore year in high school. I would still rank it as one of my all-time favorites for several reasons. For one, the songs are simultaneously catchy but also meaningful (check out <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duQIG2nKEH8" target="_blank">No Man's Land</a>, </i>a withering critique of urban sprawl, vacuous entertainment, and consumerism that is still frighteningly relevant twenty-seven years later). For another, the album as a whole, with the songs arranged in the order they were written, is a fascinating psychological journey of person moving from a place of profound anger at personal and societal issues to a state of acceptance and reflection. (Side note: As someone who spent a fair bit of his high school career feeling angry, seeing an example of a person capable of making that transition meant more than just listening to another set of tunes.) In the final song, <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEtcu-l9wDo" target="_blank">Famous Last Words</a></i>, Joel hints that he has reached the end of what he can say through the rock and roll medium: "And these are the last words I have to say / It's always hard to say goodbye / But now it's time to put this book away / Ain't that the story of my life?" While he continues to tour occasionally and has released the odd song here and there, for the most part it seems like <i>The River of Dreams </i>album really does represent the last words Joel has to say and he's remained true to his pledge.</p><p><span> </span>I can't.</p><p><span> About two years ago, I posted what I advertised as <a href="https://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/11/regeneration-my-last-post.html" target="_blank">my final blog.</a> I had just accepted a new job and my family and I were moving to a new city, so the prospect of finding time to continue the blog seemed difficult. Plus, for whatever reason, it just felt like I had reached a conclusion with what I wanted to say. I thought those were my last words.</span><br /></p><p><span><span> I was wrong.</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span> Over time, especially the last few months, I've felt a certain pressure building up. At first I couldn't really figure out how to conceptualize it, until very recently as I was reading Hemingway's short story "Fathers and Sons." In that story, Hemingway recounts some of the personal travails of Nick Adams, </span></span>a recurring character who is most likely a stand-in for the author himself. At one point, Hemingway writes about Adams and those travails in this way: "If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them." When I read those words, I had to close the book, set it down, and sit with my eyes closed for a moment. That was the answer. I have things to get rid of.</p><p><span> Now, I don't mean that in quite the same sense as Hemingway, but nevertheless, I've come to realize that what I've been missing is the outlet of writing. So, starting now, Forest Dweller Thoughts is back. To re-inaugurate the blog, here's the first photo I ever used for it, to symbolize our return into the woods, as it were.</span><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHy-m1BY60IxOqZPpziWfNoPdg977MGBo0KZOA4Cr4TMZY2qrwIN16IwzBLMUQ0JPUXgEvUWMlChON60CI88UM-X5h55AuUXSWsIS7Wdc2f-QKE_tvvLompRTDKLdRrN6TVkx5nSj5KQo/s752/IMG_4087.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="752" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHy-m1BY60IxOqZPpziWfNoPdg977MGBo0KZOA4Cr4TMZY2qrwIN16IwzBLMUQ0JPUXgEvUWMlChON60CI88UM-X5h55AuUXSWsIS7Wdc2f-QKE_tvvLompRTDKLdRrN6TVkx5nSj5KQo/s320/IMG_4087.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span><div><span><br /></span></div> In many ways, this post is much like my very first: a preamble (re)introducing my style and some of the upcoming topics I'll be covering. (And if you're curious about the origin of the title "Forest Dweller Thoughts," <a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/0/blog/post/edit/281669441880455296/2717642400497173290" target="_blank">that first post</a> will explain it all.) What's coming up? Musings on philosophy, literature, politics, religion, history, and the intersections in between. More specifically: the idea of "home," the end of the world as conceived in a few select sci-fi novels, and (the big green fellow himself) Godzilla. </span><br /><span> </span><div><span><span> </span>In <i>Famous Last Words</i>, Billy Joel does hint there might be a time when he'd return, despite his protests otherwise, hence the title. After all, he does say, "There might be other words some other day." For me, that day has come. If you're a prior reader, welcome back. If you're a new reader, welcome. I hope you'll enjoy what I have to share in the weeks to come. Until then, take care.<br /></span><p></p></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-904743891532478472018-11-18T17:03:00.001-05:002020-09-26T11:58:03.834-04:00Regeneration - My Last Post<br />
This will be my last blog post, at least for the foreseeable future. Why? I'm going to be pretty busy with <a href="http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/39491223/proven-leaders-to-head-saint-josephs-college-of-marian-university-indianapolis?fbclid=IwAR0mepoDA-nul3lqsyPycY_wLYb_B8lS300WORbiErbEd38cis3B-wb5VSw">the new post I just accepted.</a> If you don't care to go to the link, I'll be working as Associate Director and Dean of Saint Joseph's College of Marian University. Here's the professional picture of me they shared on the Marian press release.<br />
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When I started this site, Saint Joe had just suspended operations and I was asked to join the Phoenix Team, beginning an eighteen month period of radical uncertainty. While it's tempting to say -- not to mention believe! -- this ends my period as a "Forest Dweller," the last eighteen months has taught me this cannot be the case. Instability and uncertainty are a constant, lurking around and under every corner. We do well to make friends with them, to understand them, and embrace the fear they represent. In that spirit, while this move is incredibly exciting, it is also scary.<br />
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To think about what this change represents, not just for me personally but also for the work I've been doing at Saint Joseph's College, I want to use a concept from the science-fiction character Doctor Who: <b>regeneration</b>. "The Doctor," a time-traveling alien who uses his expansive knowledge and bravery to do good and battle evil, does not die when fatally sickened or wounded. Rather, he regenerates into an entirely new physical form with a slightly different personality. In the Doctor's most recent regeneration, <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2018-11-14/doctor-who-jodie-whittaker/">the character even changed genders, going from male to female.</a> Somewhat paradoxically, though the character is still the Doctor and aspects of his being carry over, he still changes quite radically, making the regeneration also a death of who he was. Sometimes the Doctor becomes attached to his form and the life he's built with it, making it difficult to undergo the regeneration. The most poignant of these is the Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant, who visits all his former companions to say goodbye, then, unable to hold back the regeneration process any longer due to the extreme radiation poisoning he's suffered, he goes through the painful changing process in the following scene.<br />
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The Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, shares some of this same ambivalence, but puts aside the angst to place his regeneration into broader perspective.<br />
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Some of the Doctor's words in this clip are worth repeating:<br />
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It all just disappears, doesn't it? Everything you are, gone in a moment like<br />
breath on a mirror...But times change and so must I. We all change, when<br />
you think about it. We are all different people all through our lives and that's<br />
okay, that's good, you've got to keep moving - so long as you remember all<br />
the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day,<br />
I swear.<br />
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These words, and the general concept of regeneration as a metaphor for change in our lives, strike me as incredibly profound. It is time for me, at least metaphorically, to regenerate. There will be aspects of continuity, but also radical change. I'm still working for a Saint Joseph's College, but a Saint Joseph's College that has (by necessity) also regenerated. I'm still going to teach, but I'm moving even further into administration. I'm still going to champion the Core program, but it will have to adapt to a new home and curricular model. Like David Tennant, and I suspect most people facing profound change in their lives, there's a part of me that doesn't want to go. While this new challenge calls for changing my outlook in many ways, I won't forget who I was or where I came from. I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear.<br />
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In the midst of the tumult of the last eighteen months, maybe the most important thing I learned was that there are whole other worlds and possibilities out there to explore, if you'll only look. We got into archery, hiked the Porcupine Mountains, went kayaking, tried growing tea plants, herded turkeys, wrote for the South Shore Convention and Visitor's Authority, and I got into blogging, which I had not even thought to do previously. After witnessing the announcement of Saint Joe's suspension in the Shen Auditorium on February 3rd, 2017, I looked around at all my students and colleagues who would be cut adrift. What would we all do? In a daze, I wandered up to my office, called Jeanette, and then sat there wondering, "Will I ever get to teach and write again? Will I ever get to be <i>me</i> again?" It turns out there were more ways of being "me" out there than I had ever considered, and I'm all the better for it.<br />
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Now, it's time to regenerate into another "me" in this role at Saint Joseph's of Marian. Like the Doctor, who's never quite sure what shape he might take (he's called regeneration "a bit dodgy" and "something of a lottery" on occasion), I'm not completely certain what this transformation holds in store. However, I'm looking forward to finding out. Building an educational experience to serve this population of students is too exciting an adventure to pass up.<br />
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Since this will be my last blog post for quite a while, I want to thank all those who took the time to read these pieces. It was fun to do, and I still have many ideas that I never put out there, so if, somehow, someday in the distant future, I get the time to blog again, you just might hear from me.<br />
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Until then, and throughout the days in between, take care. It's been a joy talking with you.Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-50880192689568904432018-10-31T12:12:00.000-04:002018-10-31T12:12:59.406-04:00The Glowing Ball: A (True) Halloween StoryHalloween was my favorite holiday as a child and the chilly autumn nights with the thought of ghosts and goblins roaming the land still hold a fascination for me. Originally, October 31st was celebrated by the Celts as the last day of the year since it signaled the end of harvest time. <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-burrows-grad/liminality-the-threshold-_b_13845666.html">As ritual Anthropologists have long argued,</a> the in-between (or "liminal") space between two structures -- such as the end of one year and the beginning of the next -- is often accompanied by rites of celebration, fear, and even disorder. Hence, ghosts and goblins. (When Christian groups moved into the Celtic area of Europe, they tried to take the focus away by naming November 1st " All Hallow's Day" and Samhain became "All Hallow's Eve" -- or "Halloween.")<br />
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The ritual history aside, this is a time for spooky stories, and there's a great (and true!) one in my family involving my wife Jeanette and her father, Ron. <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The story begins on a
clear, warm summer night in the early 1990s when Jeanette was just a teenager.
After her parents had gone to bed, she settled in to watch some late-night
television. With the darkness of the room and the lateness of the hour, she
felt as though she and the flickering screen were the only ones in the whole
house. Even so, Jeanette began to perceive that, despite the seeming emptiness
of the house, she was not alone. While the hair on the back of her neck stood
and her heartbeat thudded in her chest, she began to see a ball of light
hovering in the upper corner of the living room picture window. It was bright white,
to the point of having a cold, bluish tint. According to Jeanette, it looked something like this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">A slight glimmer shivered through
this sphere of light and it began to move, slowly and deliberately, across the
exterior of the window. As Jeanette watched in silent shock, questions rippled
through her mind. Could it be a car headlight from the distant road? Could it
be someone holding a flashlight, possibly looking for a way in? Instantly,
though, she knew the answers to each question: the light was too bright, close,
and slow-moving to come from a car, and too high in the air to be a flashlight
from a person. Seconds seemed to become an eternity as Jeanette sat on the
couch staring at the light until she began to feel as though it was staring at
her, almost as if it wanted to tell her something. As difficult as it was to
believe, she felt as though the glowing ball was intelligent and purposeful. It
wanted something.</span><br />
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Sheer terror finally imbued Jeanette’s limbs with strength and she overcame the paralysis of fear to race headlong back to her room and hide under the covers of her bed. Whether due to fear or disbelief, she said nothing the next morning of her experience, nor did she broach the subject for years afterward. The tale of what she saw that night did not surface until years later, when she was home from college visiting her family. After a night of reminiscing, she suddenly found herself describing the glowing ball, how deliberately and slowly it moved, of how it seemed purposeful, thoughtful, and, not least of all, frightening. She partly expected her parents to laugh or smile or perhaps make a joke. Instead, once the story was over, her father Ron looked a little pale. It turned out that he, too, had a tale to tell. <br />
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It happened when Ron was also a teenager. Alone in his room one night, he felt as though something was watching him, even staring at him. As he turned, there inside the room with him was a glowing ball of pure, white light. It hovered above, looking – he, too, felt as though it was looking – down at him like a beaming, glaring eye. After a moment of indecision, Ron ran from the room and raced outside to look up toward his window. He had been on the second floor and wondered if something outside was casting the light into his room. From below, though, he could see no source, no explanation for the sphere of light, nor could he think of any reason why it had appeared. By the time he returned up the stairs to peer cautiously into his room, it was dark inside. The glowing ball had gone. <br />
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As a teenager, Ron was also hesitant at first to talk about what he had seen. Would anyone believe him? Would his friends laugh at him? Could it all have just been his imagination? Time went by and Ron stopped thinking about his strange encounter. <br />
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A few years later, Ron and some of his friends were visiting an older man who claimed to possess psychic powers. Amid questions about the future, both in general and particular to each of the young, the supposed psychic suddenly turned to Ron and said, “You’ve been visited, haven’t you?” Taken aback, Ron could only furl his brow and squint at first. The psychic continued, “Something came to you, didn’t it?” Ron then related the story, about seeing the sphere of light floating in his room, the feeling of being watched, and the unlikelihood of an outside light creating the glowing ball. “That was a spirit,” the psychic concluded. “It came to you to tell you something. It has a message for you, and it will come back some day in the future.” After Ron was finished, he and Jeanette sat dumbfounded, wondering if, years apart, they had actually seen the same – well, they didn’t know what to call it. An entity? A spirit? An apparition? With so much unknown, they decided to label the experience and the story in a descriptive way, simply calling it “the glowing ball.”<br />
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There is a fair amount of paranormal literature out there on "glowing balls," or "orbs" as they are frequently called. One body of thought <a href="https://paranormal.lovetoknow.com/Ghost_Orbs_Different_Colors">claims they are spirits</a> and that the <a href="https://paranormal.lovetoknow.com/Spirit_Orb_Size_and_Color">size and color are significant to the identity and disposition of the entity.</a> Sometimes the orbs are enormous and fly through the air, as a sighting a year ago from Siberia claims in the video below.<br />
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Of course, there are plenty of potential non-paranormal explanations. For orbs that appear in photographs, <a href="https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4029">lens or camera problems can account for the images</a>. (Check out <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/spirit-orbs-4051993">these orbs caught in photos</a> to see if you agree.) In other cases, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-accidentally-record-ball-lightning-in-nature-for-first-time/">people have suggested that ball lightning could explain mysterious glowing orbs,</a> though in some ways ball lightning is just as mysterious.<br />
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Whatever you think accounts for such sightings, I'm still brought back to the shared experience of Jeanette and Ron. What could it have been? The spookiest part of the whole tale, to me anyway, is how the experience passed from father to daughter. I wonder sometimes, as I say good-night to our boys, will it come back and visit the next generation?<br />
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Happy Halloween!<br />
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<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-81081113793761513602018-10-15T13:52:00.001-04:002018-10-15T13:52:48.206-04:00The New Epics, Part 4: Iron MaidenWelcome to the last post in this series in which I have made arguments for various books to be considered "new epics." I stretched the usual definition a little by arguing for a fantasy series (<i>Lord of the Rings</i>), a children's series (<i>Harry Potter</i>), and a graphic novel (Marvel's <i>Civil War</i>). In this post, I stretch the bounds even further by arguing for the body of work of a musical act <a href="http://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/08/fear-of-dark.html">which I have mentioned in my blogs before</a>: Iron Maiden.<br />
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Though there are other acts I will briefly mention, I'm focusing on Iron Maiden for how well they fit the criteria set out in previous posts:<br />
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1.) The work(s) must possess scope, depth, and/or creative ambition.<br />
2.) There should be a persistent cultural influence on other creative works.<br />
3.) It should interact with and draw upon previous creative works.<br />
4.) The work(s) must comment on the dilemma of being human.<br />
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Some of the other acts or, specifically, musical albums that might fit this definition include the following. First, the Beatles' <i>Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band</i>, a concept album that -- in a very post-modern move -- has the band imagine themselves at the concert of another band, which is actually them playing other roles. (You can even see this on the album cover: the brightly colored quartet is the Beatles dressed as Sgt. Pepper's band, while directly to the left of them are..the Beatles.)<br />
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Second, in the early 1990s, Billy Joel released what would turn out to be his last album of original pop-rock material. What is unique about the album, called <i>River of Dreams</i>, is that the songs are arranged in the order they were written, showing the artist's evolution of thought during a difficult period in his life: The songs start out with anger and frustration and eventually become more thoughtful and accepting.<br />
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Finally, an even more recent album, the rock/punk opera <i>American Idiot </i>by Green Day deserve an honorable mention for taking the genre of punk to the next level.<br />
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When I think of "music" and "epic," Iron Maiden is the band that comes immediately to my mind.<br />
With songs like "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (13+ minutes in length), "Sign of the Cross"<i> </i>(11+ minutes), and "Empire of the Clouds" (18+ minutes), Iron Maiden's career has been defined largely by what you might call "heavy metal symphonies" - songs with multiple movements, melodies, and complex key changes. <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/most-epic-iron-maiden-songs">Among Iron Maiden fandom, these songs are even referred to as their "epics." </a>Led Zeppelin has "Stairway to Heaven<i>,"</i> Metallica has "Master of Puppets," and Green Day has "Jesus of Suburbia," but none have equaled Iron Maiden's ability at producing intricate, towering musical masterpieces. As such, their influence is undeniable.<br />
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The topics of their songs also display a fascinating commentary on a wide variety of cultural sources. They have based works on mythologies ("Powerslave"<i> </i>- Egypt; "The Isle of Avalon"<i> </i>- Celtic; "The Flight of Icarus"<i> </i>- Greek; "The Book of Souls" - Mayan), literature ("Murders in the Rue Morgue," "Stranger in a Strange Land<i>," "</i>Brave New World"), science fiction ("Out of the Silent Planet," "To Tame a Land"), World War II ("Aces High," "Where Eagles Dare"), World War I ("Paschendale"<i>), </i>the Crimean War ("The Trooper"), religious history ("Montsegur," "For the Greater Good of God") and the occult ("Dance of Death," "Revelations," "The Number of the Beast"). The diversity of topics there is perhaps owed to the band's richness of interests. Recently, I read Bruce Dickinson's (the lead singer) autobiography and learned that he nearly went to graduate school to study History, is a talented fencer, and has a commercial pilot's license. (He even flies the band's plane on tour.)<br />
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The lyrics and topics of the band's works consistently delve into the murky depths of the human condition, fulfilling the fourth criterion. As just a few examples, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu5LjnmYvp0">The Thin Line Between Love and Hate</a><i>," </i>the closing track from the album <i>Brave New World</i>, considers the duality present in all human psychology and how quickly one can turn from good to bad or vice versa. "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7LH__BPqSY">The Prisoner", though based on the BBC television program of the same name</a>, is a metaphor for anyone yearning for freedom or release from bad situations and circumstances. Finally, one of their most famous songs, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J51LPlP-s9o">Hallowed be thy Name</a><i>," </i>puts the listener in the place of someone being led to the gallows and you realize that, since mortality is universal, how that individual is facing that moment is instructive to how we all must someday face death.<br />
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My current favorite Iron Maiden epic (at 11 minutes in length) is "When the Wild Wind Blows," a parable (based on a British graphic novel) about how fear and suspicion can twist a person's outlook. A clip to the song is below, if you have a spare 11 minutes.<br />
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My all-time favorite Iron Maiden song, though, is "Powerslave<i>." </i>Rather like "Hallowed by thy Name," it deals with mortality, but from the perspective of an Egyptian Pharaoh who was once attended by innumerable slaves, but now at the end of his life must come to terms that he himself is a slave, to the power of death. The clip is below, and surely you can budget a little more than 7 minutes for that, can't you?<br />
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While considering any of these songs or the band itself as "epic" might seem like the most egregious abuse of the concept, let's recall the original traditional definition of the term: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epic">"a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero."</a> These were often sung, I'd add, meaning Iron Maiden's lyrics and musics about all of these topics might be the closest things to "epics" (according to the old-school definition) that I have considered over these many weeks.<br />
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As one last reflection on this subject after these many weeks, not long ago I was in my basement lifting weights, listening to <i>The Number of the Beast</i>. I first got that cd in the Fall of 1992, when I was having a very tough time as a freshman in high school. Those memories came back as I listened to the songs and remembered how they had motivated me to push through. Things did get better for me (and they've periodically gotten worse then better then worse then better, as is the way of life) and having the music as reference point was very comforting, even cathartic. I think that is what "epics" are meant to do.<br />
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Throughout these weeks, the works I've put out for consideration have been ones I connect with personally. In fact, someone could say, "Well, geez, Michael, you just self-indulgently chose to talk about stuff you liked!" To that I would reply, "Welcome to my blog." But seriously, I encourage every reader to sit and think about his/her own definition of "epic" and maybe write out a list, across genres, of what you would consider "epic." I'd be delighted to see what some of you think.<br />
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That's all for this series. I hope you enjoyed it! Next time, in honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, I will have a ghost story to share from my very own family. Spooky, huh?<br />
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Until then, take care.Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-25242585080435870662018-10-08T17:55:00.000-04:002018-10-08T17:55:37.812-04:00The New Epics, Part 3: Marvel's "Civil War"As the third part of my series on the "new epics," I'm going to focus on the graphic novel <i>Civil War</i> from Marvel.<br />
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<a href="http://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-new-epics-part-2-harry-potter.html">Last time, we looked at <i>Harry Potter.</i></a> To remind everyone, here is the criteria I've been using to set the parameters of "epic":<br />
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1.) The work(s) must possess scope, depth, and/or creative ambition.<br />
2.) There should be a persistent cultural influence on other creative works.<br />
3.) It should interact with and draw upon previous creative works.<br />
4.) The work(s) must comment on the dilemma of being human.<br />
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There are many graphic novels that could fit this definition, and I'm going to list some runners-up toward the end, but I'll highlight <i>Civil War </i>in this post due the complexity of its political message, the wide number of characters involved, and the depth of the philosophical issues it evokes. As a fairly obvious comment on the cultural climate of America immediately post-9/11, the series also makes a substantive -- and ambitious -- connection to real historical events.<br />
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<a href="http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Civil_War_II">There has been a sequel</a> - with which I am much less familiar -- and, of course, <a href="https://www.marvel.com/movies/captain-america-civil-war">the 2016 movie <i>Captain America: Civil War</i></a>, that has only a tenuous connection to the graphic novel. Other significant comic crossover events preceded <i>Civil War </i>(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Wars">such as 1984's <i>Secret Wars</i></a>) but those did not dip as deeply into the philosophical or political.<br />
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For those unfamiliar with the story, an accident involving rookie (and cavalier) superheroes results in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, especially schoolchildren, and the government demands that everyone with superpowers register and work for law enforcement. Heroes take sides for and against this registration act: Iron Man heads up the forces of law and order who support the act, while Captain America leads a group of rebels. Calamitous and bloody confrontations between the two groups become inevitable.<br />
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Though villains play a slight role in the story, the main conflict resides between characters otherwise classified as "heroes," making it plain that this is a tale of a society tearing itself apart from within. This is a perfect metaphor for the political climate that has obtained in the United States since (at least) September 11th. Broader than that, in their arguments for their beliefs, Iron Man and Captain America put classic philosophical schools into relief. By asserting that the Registration Act is just because it protects the greatest number of people at the lesser cost of civil liberties, Iron Man becomes a spokesperson for <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/">the ethical theory known as <i>utilitarianism</i></a>. Captain America, on the other hand, argues that the consequences are irrelevant and that Freedom is a good that should never be exchanged for any sort of perceived benefit, situating him firmly <a href="https://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/kantian%20ethics.htm">in the Kantian <i>deontological </i>camp</a>.<br />
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The tagline for the series was, "Whose side are you on?" Indeed, how one answers that question might suggest which philosophical school he/she most closely fits. The series admirably muddies the waters, though, as it progresses as heroes switch sides, both groups commit heinous acts, and there is compromise of respective codes of ethics. The epic is thus a parable not just for the tension between freedom and security in our society, but also how, as any conflict deepens, even those of good conscience can descend to barbarism. Thousands of years ago, Aeschylus is supposed to have said, "In war, the first casualty is truth." Marvel's <i>Civil War </i>may be a perfect illustration of that maxim.<br />
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Therefore, for its incisive political and philosophical commentary, I nominate Marvel's <i>Civil War</i> as a "new epic." Other graphic novels could have made the cut in my estimation, particularly two Batman stories. Frank Miller's <i>The Dark Knight Returns</i> was an epoch-changing contribution to the comic world, and gave us an unforgettable portrayal of a older (not to mention even more brutal) Batman. (Plus, the Batman/Superman fight in the last section makes infinitely more sense than what you get in the film <i>Batman vs. Superman</i>.)<br />
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For its fascinating exploration of the psychological contrasts and overlaps between Batman and his arch-villain the Joker, Alan Moore's <i>The Killing Joke </i>has to at least be mentioned. Students from my 2016 "Evil in the Myth and Literature of World Religions" might remember this book from the syllabus.<br />
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Finally, I want to mention a multi-part comic story that was originally printed in the 1960s. I first encountered it in the mid-1980s as part of a Marvel retrospective series called <i>Marvel Saga</i>. It is the tale of the Fantastic Four's first encounter with the space god "Galactus," who eats worlds for sustenance.<br />
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Spanning three issues, the Fantastic Four's bid to stop Galactus is only successful with an even heftier dose of their usual heroics, plus the intervention of the other demi-god like beings, the Watcher and the Silver Surfer. This rebellion against the will of a practically divine tyrant has shades of Prometheus against Zeus, or the Buddha against Mara, tapping into a timeless human impulse to test our mettle against even the most powerful entities and seemingly intractable boundaries.<br />
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Next time, in the last edition of this series, I stretch the discussion even further by entertaining if certain works of music, or even particular bands themselves, are worthy of the title "epic."<br />
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Until then, take care.Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-88438816579644970352018-10-01T17:14:00.000-04:002018-10-01T17:14:51.512-04:00The New Epics. Part 2: Harry PotterWelcome to part two of my series on "epics." For this entry, I submit that a certain wizarding saga from the last twenty-five years deserves to be called epic: Harry Potter.<br />
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My family have been fans of the books for a while. Which entry is my favorite? You'll find out below. Even if you are not a fan of these books, you must admit there is something special in the series. These qualities become even more evident with the use of the criteria I employed <a href="http://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-new-epics-part-1-lord-of-rings.html">in the last post (on <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>)</a><i> </i>for reassessing the category of "epic." Those points again were:<br />
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1.) The work(s) must possess scope, depth, and/or creative ambition.<br />
2.) There should be a persistent cultural influence on other creative works.<br />
3.) It should interact with and draw upon previous creative works.<br />
4.) The work(s) must comment on the dilemma of being human.<br />
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It is pretty clear that Harry Potter fits these criteria, but let's go through each of them. All seven books (totaling more than 4,200 pages) form an intricate sub-world of magic-endowed people and beings. The relationships between characters go back generations and the people themselves behave in convincingly three-dimensional ways. There is an entirely new sport ("quidditch"), a wizarding language, and a plot that takes seven books to come to fruition. This is certainly a saga of scope, depth, and ambition that author Rowling has composed.<br />
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One also need not look far for the book series'<a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2017/06/25/ways-harry-potter-has-changed-culture-since-first-book-was-published-years-ago/yXGL4pCa6eO1r6dB8yWJKL/story.html"> impact on popular culture</a>. Some have argued that, due to the fracturing of societies into "micro-niches," <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/10/16/why-the-harry-potter-books-are-so-influential-all-around-the-world/?utm_term=.92161ebe8f51">Harry Potter may be the last genuine global popular phenomenon</a>. That, of course, remains to be seen. For the time being, though, a writer at the <i>Stanford Daily </i>believes that <a href="https://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/10/24/the-cultural-phenomenon-of-harry-potter/">one day we will be reading Harry Potter alongside <i>Antigone</i>, <i>The Great Gatsby, </i>and <i>the Iliad.</i></a><br />
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Besides obvious cultural influence, the Harry Potter saga draws on cultural touchstones from the past. Rowling puts in references to classical mythology (the three-headed dog, centaurs) and other traditions of the world (the snake <i>nagini</i>). The most obvious corollary with other epics, though, is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey">the template of the "hero's journey</a>" (the schematic of which is often attributed to Joseph Campbell). The individual is called, unexpectedly, into an adventure, must assemble allies and friends, overcome challenges, and protect a community. It's a standard sort of plotline found across the world and Harry Potter is obviously far more complicated than this rendition, but the basic elements are there and connect the story to traditions from around the globe.<br />
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Where I find Harry Potter most compelling, though, is in its human element. The characters reflect classic archetypes (the hero on a quest, the old mentor, the zany sidekick, the ruthless villain, etc.) but each is a fully realized and, at times, unpredictable person. Even the good characters do things that frustrate and upset me, just as real people would. The series does not shy away from showing people as quite flawed.<br />
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<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2010/09/22/the-ultimate-harry-potter-and-philosophy-hogwarts-for-muggles-william-irwin-gregory-bassham/?utm_term=.281f7e833442">Entire books have been written on the ethical and philosophical themes of the series</a>. (Also, did you know that there's <a href="http://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/">a group that uses the Potter series as the basis for a modern <i>Lectio Divina </i>practice?</a>) Out of all the possible topics, one that has always stuck with me is the dynamic between Harry and Voldemort. Their lives parallel one another, becoming more and more entwined as time passes. Each is an orphan, each is recognized as the most powerful wizard of his generation, and after the events of <i>Goblet of Fire</i>, they share the same blood. Yet, Voldemort (whose name means "flight from death" in French, <a href="https://www.pottermore.com/features/etymology-behind-harry-potter-character-names">giving just one example of the fascinating name etymologies Rowling employs</a>) fixates on control and fear, both in others and, unbeknownst to himself, his own. Harry, on the other hand, chooses friendship, trust, and love. While Voldemort and his vision achieves ascendancy not once but twice, both times it falters, showing that while evil power may dominate for a time, due to its own inherent insecurity, it cannot persist.<br />
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I've loved Harry Potter for a long time, but over vacation we listened to <i>The Order of the Phoenix</i> on tape during the car ride.<br />
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This may be my favorite volume of the epic since it illustrates lessons I've taken to heart, and ones I hope my sons do, too. In this book of the series, we see how otherwise good people can make terrible, obstinate mistakes. Harry doesn't listen to his friends' counsel, with tragic consequences, though the entire situation is arguably set in motion by Dumbledore's paternalistic mistrust that Harry can't handle certain crucial pieces of information. Beyond that, there is the additional message of resilience: Harry knows irrefutably that Voldemort has returned, but the majority refuse to believe it and systematically harass, taunt, and smear him. Still, he persists, even at great cost, because he knows he's right. That is a lesson for any age.<br />
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Given its exquisite mastery of language (on multiple levels), connection to ancient mythic/religious themes, and central humanity, it's clear that <i>Harry Potter </i>deserves a place among the "new epics." Next time, I'll go even further beyond the usual understanding of "epic" to highlight some graphic novels that I believe also meet the criteria.<br />
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Until then, take care.Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-35844162778582520682018-09-17T15:53:00.000-04:002018-09-17T15:53:07.004-04:00The New Epics, Part 1: The Lord of the RingsThis is the first in a series of posts on the topic of what constitutes an "epic." Late August and the start of Fall has filled me with nostalgia for when I taught in Core. Due to the program's structure, certain works of literature were wedded to corresponding times of year. During this period, having spent several years in Core 3, I always think of <i>The Iliad, The Odyssey, </i>and<i> Gilgamesh. </i>(Come late winter it would be <i>Beowulf </i>and <i>Inferno</i>.)<i> </i>One of the things I always asked my students in those courses was, "what would you consider a modern-day 'epic'?" The question tended to elicit some good discussion (and some fascinating contenders) and expose the bias that something always needs to be very old to be considered an "epic" or a "classic."<br />
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<a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=epic">"Epic" has been an over-used word for many years</a>. (Lately, "iconic" has gotten just as bad. If people forgot that word altogether, I wouldn't mind.) <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epic">There is a very specific definition for "epic,</a>" though, as a literary genre. In that context, "epic" is primarily used to refer to long narrative poetry, as you would find in <i>Beowulf, </i>the <i>Iliad</i>, the <i>Odyssey, </i>or the <i>Mahabharata</i>. Leaving the definition at that seems very narrow and unsatisfying. On the other hand, resorting to a definition such as "long narrative involving a hero" seems a bit too broad, even though one can find <a href="http://librarydb.saintpeters.edu:8080/bitstream/123456789/28/1/JamesDriscollThesis.pdf">Senior theses</a>, <a href="https://prezi.com/mkrn989th-ts/harry-potter-an-epic-hero/">presentations</a>, and <a href="https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/ircl.2011.0004">peer-reviewed articles</a> along just those lines. (In some ways, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_k5CSYKhg">I prefer Faith No More's definition of "Epic,"</a> though we need not dwell on that here.)<br />
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In these posts, I'm going to offer some examples of what I believe to be more modern "epics." In some cases, this will stretch the usual understanding by going beyond literature. Though I don't think an epic needs to be old, it should be able to stand the test of time and remain relevant for a long period, at the least for what it says about the time it was made. Here are the rather loose criteria I plan to use:<br />
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1.) The work(s) must possess scope, depth, and/or creative ambition. It must be an attempt to accomplish something grand.<br />
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2.) There should be a persistent cultural influence on other creative works. How has it affected the literary, cinematic, and wider popular world we live in?<br />
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3.) It should interact with and draw upon previous creative works. (Homer drew on preexisting Greek stories and myths, the <i>Aeneid </i>plays off <i>The Odyssey, </i>the <i>Mahabharata </i>refashions Vedic stories, and so on.)<br />
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4.) The work(s) must comment on the dilemma of being human.<br />
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5.) For the purposes of these entries, I'll be selecting works that have great personal meaning. This will make the list idiosyncratic, but that's the point: take my ideas, change them, and come up with your own list.<br />
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This week's contender for the status of "New Epic": J.R.R. Tolkien's <i>The Lord of the Rings.</i><br />
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The ambition, depth, and creativity of these books is unmistakable. Tolkien created an entirely alternate world, <a href="http://lotrproject.com/map/#zoom=3&lat=-1315.5&lon=1500&layers=BTTTTT">complete with maps</a>, fully-formed languages of different races of beings (<a href="https://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/tengwar.htm">especially elvish</a>), long genealogies of important characters, and thousands of years of back story. Entering these books means engaging with a three-dimensional universe.<br />
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The ongoing influence of <i>The Lord of the Rings </i>is also indisputable,<a href="http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1122-the-lord-of-the-rings-book-influence.php"> whether it is music, movies, role-playing games, or literature</a>. The entire fantasy genre would look very, very different and other elements of popular culture (like <i>Dungeons and Dragons</i>) might not exist at all. This is just the tip of the iceberg, <a href="http://news.entertainmentearth.com/2017/01/03/jrr-tolkien-books-pop-culture/">as others have noted</a>.<br />
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Tolkien also drew upon the ages of mythology that preceded him, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/the-hobbit-80-jrr-tolkien-anniversary-published-lord-of-the-rings-middle-earth-fantasy-inspiration-a7957321.html">as well as his traumatic experiences in World War I</a>. From the former, he was especially influenced by <i>Beowulf </i>(<a href="http://producer.csi.edu/cdraney/2011/278/resources/Tolkien%20-%20The%20Monsters%20and%20the%20Critics.pdf">having written perhaps the most influential article ever on that tale</a>) and Norse legends, with their trolls, monsters, and magic rings. The Celtic heritage of elves, spirits, and fairies also makes an obvious contribution. Like an alchemist, Tolkien pulled in all these base sources, but transformed them into an entirely new substance.<br />
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That substance is alive throughout the mammoth work with comments on the human condition, even though many of the characters are not strictly "human." It is a world of polarities. Ethereal Elves are balanced out by barbaric Orcs, majestic Ents by dimwitted Trolls, soaring Eagles by foul dinosaur-like creatures. The same is found in the main characters: Gandalf is foiled by Saruman, Aragorn by Boromir, Theoden by Denethor, Frodo by Gollum. The first list, though, is of creatures defined by their natures. The second list of pairings finds the binaries separated by moral choices: Either gradually or by sudden urge, the likes of Gandaly, Aragorn, Theoden, and Frodo separate themselves from their structural opposites of Saruman, Boromir, Denethor, and Golloum by choosing hope, forgiveness, and fidelity over fear, vengeance, and selfishness. None of these "fallen" characters was irredeemable and none of the "heroic" characters was infallible. This is a story about how people are defined by their choices.<br />
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This is also, and much more centrally to me, a story about loss. Like many other epics, the centerpiece of the story is a journey, but this journey is unique in that the hero (Frodo) does not technically complete the quest and he is utterly broken by the experience. For me, the most wrenching line in the books' many pages comes when Frodo admits this fact to his friend Samwise: "The Shire is saved, but not for me."<br />
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I first read <i>The Lord of the Rings </i>when I was nine and I entered it as an adventure story, which it certainly is. Then, I rediscovered it during one of the best movie-going experiences of my life, seeing Peter Jackson's film version of <i>The Fellowship of the Ring </i>in 2001<i>.</i><br />
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Rereading it many years later with my own children, I have come to appreciate how much this epic is shot through with the sadness of loss, <a href="http://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/02/lost-worlds.html">a topic on which I have blogged before.</a>. This is a story about seeing the world you've known come to an end. Everyone in these books is losing almost everything they held dear: the Elves are leaving for the West, the dwarves are sinking deeper and deeper into their mines and obscurity, the power of wizards has vanished. The land is filled with ruins and fallen kingdoms. Not even the destruction of the evil Sauron can arrest the march of time and change.<br />
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Whenever I read the books, I hope for Frodo to be strong enough, just this once, to destroy the ring and live happily ever after, but the genius of this epic is that Tolkien realized the hero must always fail. To live happily ever after is to never change, to never admit the journey has damaged you and the world around is always taking away those things most precious. Though I have some criticisms of the film versions of these books, the conclusion of <i>Return of the King</i>, particularly the closing song "Into the West" by Annie Lennox, captures this mood perfectly. The end of the tale is not triumphant but mournful.<br />
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In the book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Middle-Earth-Writing-Tolkien-Pratchett/dp/0312275366">Meditations on Middle Earth</a></i>, a collection of essays on Tolkien's influence on current writers, Michael Swanwick contributed a piece which I believe has perhaps the most insightful summary of this theme in <i>The Lord of the Rings. </i>He writes that the books tell us, "Those who are willing to pay for all they have, to suffer and make sacrifices, to toil selflessly and honorably, and then to surrender their authority over what remains, ultimately gain the satisfaction of knowing that the world has a future worth passing on to their children. But it has no place for them anymore."<br />
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<i>Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Mahabharata</i>, and <i>Beowulf</i> all contain this same lament of familiar worlds passing away as new, uncertain futures are born. <i>The Lord of the Rings </i>poignantly communicates this same deeply human sorrow. This message has special meaning for me as, noted at the beginning, the origin of my interest in thinking anew about the epic genre is my nostalgia for the Core program and being part of its team. Worlds changing and passing away, indeed.<br />
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On another, more positive topic, an announcement: <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6700-malleable-mara.aspx">my book, <i>Malleable Mara: Transformations of a Buddhist Symbol of Evil</i> has a page and description on SUNY Press's website</a>. The book will be available in March, at which time I will post a link to that.<br />
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Next time, I contemplate how an even more recent wizard-related book series fits my new definition of "epic." Until then, take care.Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-78546394569703942182018-08-07T14:03:00.002-04:002018-08-07T14:03:32.403-04:00Fear of the DarkAs a scholar of comparative religion drawn primarily to the study of mythology, I've often wondered about the precise moment or apparatus in human development that led to our species' capacity for elaborate, abstract narrative. Paul Trout's <i>Deadly Powers: Animal Predators and the Mythic Imagination</i> (2011) broaches that very subject and takes an innovative, as well as perhaps controversial, stance on the question. Though not without its flaws, his approach is fascinating and it touches on two earlier blog posts. In this post, I'm going to summarize the book, give a critique, and show how it connects to some prominent narratives in popular culture.<br />
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The story begins with the fate suffered by many of our species' ancestors:<br />
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Put simply, as fossil evidence shows, millions of years ago, early hominids in the human line (<i>Homo ergaster, Homo habilis, Homo erectus</i>), easy prey for eagles, big cats, and so forth. The graphic, brutal image above is based on the perfect fit between sabertooth tiger teeth and holes found in early human skulls.<br />
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Trout argues that early human ancestors developed first mimetic, then vocal, then linguistic, then storytelling methods for evading predators. If these techniques would have aided hominids in escaping predation, natural selection would ensure that those behaviors increased over successive generations. Trout writes, "At the hearth fire, perhaps deep within a cave, our ancestors imitated predators to control and conquer their fear of them. By imitating, mimicking, simulating, and impersonating the very animals that frightened them, they were able to imbue themselves with greater resolve, more courage, heightened physical strength, and a more intense sense of group solidarity" (127). This, according to Trout, was the birth of human storytelling.<br />
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Over time, scenes like this:<br />
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Become scenes like this:<br />
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The imagination, elaboration, and mystification of predators was also the birth of another tell-tale narrative trope: the monster. Trout spends early chapters drawing interesting parallels between famous mythic monsters and the prehistoric beasts known to hunt human ancestors. The dragon, for instance, combines raptor, snake, and feline body parts, while eagles, snakes, and leopards are very likely candidates for animals that hunted early humans. Besides that, most monsters tend to have prominent teeth and claws, which ancient predators of humans would also have possessed. Thus, it's no wonder monsters frighten us: the monster template is based on predator-recognition alarms wired into our brains and genes. <a href="http://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/05/real-life-monsters.html">Having blogged previously about monsters</a>, I found Trout's discussion interesting. If he's right, he might not be far off in asserting that real-life "monsters" in the form of predators "spurred the development of the human imagination" and made humans the species we are, with the big, imaginative brains we possess (136).<br />
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Trout cites myths from around the world that talk about how, at the beginning of time, there was a monster that had to be defeated before humans could inhabit the earth. The Vedic Hinduism of India, Babylonian myth of Mesopotamia, the !Kung of Africa, Aborigines of Australia, and Cree of North America are just few examples, showing the presence of such a myth across the globe. Trout believes this wide dispersal of the narrative demonstrates it is fundamental to human storytelling and reflects a genetic memory of when our species overcame predators to become the dominant life-form on the planet.<br />
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Trout's insight reminded me of some popular culture media that make the same point. The most recent iterations of Godzilla and King Kong (as part of an attempted cinematic "monsterverse" to rival Marvel's movies) state that these beasts ruled the world long before humans and might be emerging to retake it.<br />
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(As a sidenote, that is a marked departure from the origin of Godzilla, who in the original Japanese <i>Gojira</i> (1954) is decidedly a creature of modern times, created by American atomic bomb testing. I'm also not a tremendous fan of Godzilla's look in these films.)<br />
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Those familiar with the <i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer </i>and <i>Angel </i>storylines know that in that mythology, demons ruled the world first and were expelled over time by the first humans. Monsters and vampires persist as the hybrid progeny of those first demons.<br />
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Behind all that is the mythology of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote many interconnected, intertextual tales of the horrible "Old Ones" who ruled the world before humans and will one day return to re-stake their claim. The most famous of these Old Ones is the cephalopodic Cthulhu.<br />
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Could it be that this line of narrative is re-enacting the ancient human triumph over predators?<br />
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As with other books purporting to trace an evolutionary origin in the deep past for a human behavior, Trout's claims are at best suggestive, but not definitive. Though he's convinced me that response to predation must have had something to do with the development of the human capacity and tendency for myth-making, it might be an overstatement to claim it is <i>the </i>reason for such a complex cognitive process. Also, selecting myths from here and there across the world, while interesting and certainly revealing, is also difficult to do without risking loss of context.<br />
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Those shortcomings aside, Trout does build on some solid foundations in evolutionary psychology, particularly speculations about the development of human cognition. <a href="http://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/06/blurry-lines-religion-and-paranormal.html">I have blogged about some of these points before, particularly in relation to the origin of religiosity.</a> Namely, those individuals who perceived the world around as made up of "agents" (i.e., anything that moves by itself) and further determines these agents to have "mind mechanisms" (i.e., desires and intentions) like themselves, will have an advantage in detecting and avoiding predators. Over-detection (for instance, getting spooked and running away from a falling rock, thinking it was a leopard) is far safer than under-detection. Over time, due to selection, these traits would be prevalent and would lead to our species perceiving agents and minds throughout the environment even when they do not exist. As a result of this evolution of abstract thinking, the argument goes, our minds create all kinds of fantastic fictional characters to populate the world, such as ghosts, giants, demons, gods, elves, vampires, etc. Scott Attan, author of <i><a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195178036.001.0001/acprof-9780195178036">In Gods We Trust: the Evolutionary Landscape of Religion</a></i>, calls the brain's tendency to generate so many "false positives" the "Tragedy of Cognition."<br />
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As I remarked earlier regarding the origin of myth-making, it seems rather simplistic to attribute something as complex as religious behavior to one natural selection factor. However, Trout's hypothesis does suggest reasons for why monsters and horror stories have persisted beyond the point when we are preyed upon regularly: they're still good for a jolt of endorphins and for social cohesion. It's also good, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/05/635052036/reading-horror-can-arm-us-against-a-horrifying-world?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180805">as a recent NPR article shows</a>, for dealing with the wide-range of fears and anxieties the modern world throws at us.<br />
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One of the things I suppose I enjoyed about Trout's book is that it reinforced a notion I've held for sometime: It's the dark things of the world and (more importantly) our reactions to them that make us who we are.<br />
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In conclusion, in 1992 British heavy metal act Iron Maiden came out with the song"Fear of the Dark," which could have been the soundtrack for Trout's book. It's linked below, for those who are interested.<br />
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Until next time, take care.<br />
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<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-90287415569815285622018-07-31T15:15:00.000-04:002018-07-31T15:15:56.433-04:00The Inner LightIn 1992, <i>Star Trek: the Next Generation </i>aired an episode entitled "The Inner Light." In that story, when the <i>Enterprise </i>encounters an alien probe, Captain Picard is struck by a beam and (seemingly) transported to an alien world where he lives for decades, marrying, having children, growing old, and seeing the planet begin to die. At the conclusion, he reawakens on the <i>Enterprise </i>bridge, with only minutes having passed in the real world while he lived an entire life on the alien world. The probe turns out to have been the alien world's way of ensuring that someone, somewhere will remember them after their planet dies. Picard is certainly impacted by the experience. A flute he'd learned to play during the mental journey is included in the probe and he keeps it for the rest of his days.<br />
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Reading a book of folklore and mythology the other day, I came across not one but two older stories of similar occurrences. In one, an Arabian chieftain is enticed by a sorcerer to look deeply into a pan of water. The image of a town begins to form and before he knows it, the chieftain has washed up on a beach in front of that settlement. A young woman greets him and before long they are married and having children, living prosperously in the town. Years pass, the man's wife dies, his children grow, and he wanders to the beach. The waters engulf him and in a flash he has returned to his chieftain throne, the sorcerer standing before him, with only seconds having elapsed.<br />
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Hebrew mythology contains a similar story of King Solomon.<br />
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We are told that one day Solomon was playing a game with Asmodeus, king of the demons. To make a point, Asmodeus weaves a spell around Solomon. transporting him to another land where he must live as a poor beggar. He meets a woman, gets married, and works his way back up in the world, but is eventually drawn back to his game with Asmodeus. Thinking he was gone for decades, he roars at the demon who demurs that the king had never gone anywhere and only a moment had passed.</div>
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In India, in the <i>Yogavasishtha</i>, there is the story of the sage who saw inside the mind of a hunter and got lost there, becoming the hunter, who then became a sage, while years and years seemed to pass, though little time had actually transpired at all.</div>
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Where do these stories from around the world come from? Is it from the experience of very vivid dreams that seem so real and so expansive, but are just passing moments in our slumbering minds, and we awake with a jolt to the world we know? Or, is the mind capable of creating a whole other world, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/oc7rc/have_you_ever_felt_a_deep_personal_connection_to/c3g4ot3/?context=3">as one man claimed happened when he suffered a concussion</a>? In that story, and in the thread on the <a href="http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/stories-of-people-living-different-lives-whilst-unconscious.61494/">Fortean Times website about the supposed incident</a>, a man claims to have been hit in the head and while unconscious accumulated years and years of memories of having married and started a family. It all evaporated when he was put into a squad car to go to the hospital to be treated for his injury.</div>
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Can such experiences really happen, or are these stories just mythic expressions of our attempts to deal with the fogginess of time, the gossamer-like quality of dreams, and our sometimes tenuous grasp of reality? Besides <i>Star Trek</i>'s "The Inner Light," there are other well-known popular culture treatments of these ideas, like the movies <i><a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inception/">Inception</a> </i>and <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/">The Matrix.</a> </i>Examples of humans considering these occurrences stretch back a long ways, but what does it all mean? The <i>Star Trek </i>episode's title, "The Inner Light," comes from a 1968 Beatles song written by George Harrison as a B-side to "Lady Madonna." Perhaps the song can lend a clue.</div>
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Though the instruments are meant to be evocative of Indian music, the lyrics are straight out of a chapter of the Chinese Daoist work <i>Dao De Ching</i>: "Without going out of my door / I can know all things of earth. / Without looking out of my window, / I could know the ways of heaven. / The farther one travels, / The less one knows."</div>
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These lines express the Daoist sensibility that all people, and all things for that matter, are perfect as they are and have no need of outside correction or development. The world within is all you need.</div>
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These stories across culture, time, and medium could be seen as reinforcing the Daoist idea that, despite the seeming smallness of our craniums, there are entire worlds and teeming dimensions to be found within us that stagger space and stretch mere minutes into lifetimes. Picard's interior experience of the passing of an entire life on another world opened him up to an existence (i.e., marriage, family) that he had not considered. One could argue that the greatest distance he ever traveled was without ever leaving the ship. All he really needed to do was look within himself. Perhaps that is a lesson for all of us. To quote from another Beatles song, "The movement you need is on your shoulder."</div>
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That's all for now. In upcoming blogs, you can expect a discussion on the Asian philosophical influences on Walt Whitman, the status of Harry Potter as an "epic" figure, and much, much more. </div>
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Until then, take care.</div>
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<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-62854305959644897322018-07-24T12:14:00.001-04:002018-07-24T12:14:51.405-04:00Family Vacation 2018<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Apologies, dear readers, for the gap in posting. I was away with my family on vacation. In this post, I'm going to share some stories and pictures from that experience, but also delve into the philosophical and cultural concept of the "vacation."</div>
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In short, this vacation was great fun. Not having fun is impossible with a group like this:</div>
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This year, as we have for the past two years, we traveled up to the coast of Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It's about an eight hour drive, which was fairly uneventful until we encountered this storm front in central Wisconsin.</div>
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While we were pulled off due to heavy rain and hail, we learned on the radio that the county was under a tornado warning. Given the cloud formations we saw, I think we came pretty close to seeing something.</div>
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At any rate, things settled down considerably once we arrived. We had a place in the town of Ontonagon near the beach, with a view of the Porcupine mountains in the distance.</div>
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During the day, we had some really fun times playing on the beach and swimming in the water, although the boys did much, much better with the chilly lake temps.</div>
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At night we had fires on the beach and truly spectacular sunsets over the lake.</div>
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The Porcupine Mountains have some fun hiking trails. One of our favorites is the Lake of the Clouds, where just a little walking takes you above the tree-line to see expanses of forest and the placid lake waters spanning out below. Pictures don't really do it justice.</div>
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We visited the Presque Isle water falls, and took other, similarly beautiful forays into the forest.<br />
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On this trip we tried kayaking for the first time and really enjoyed it.</div>
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Another experience of note was a close encounter with the meditating bear of the Porcupine Mountains (a.k.a., the "Porkies").</div>
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On a previous trip, I'd wanted to get a picture of this humorous mile-marker sign.</div>
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On a day trip, we traveled to the Chassell Strawberry Festival and stopped off at the Shrine of the Snowshoe priest, which commemorates the first Bishop of the area, who made his way from follower to follower on snowshoes. To me, it looks like he's suspended atop a giant iron spider, but I've been known to misinterpret these things.</div>
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On July 8th we spent the day in Ontonagon visiting the town's lighthouse for a tour. </div>
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That night before bed, I was reading a book about supernatural events associated with Lake Superior. Imagine my surprise when several pages covered supposed haunting events at that very lighthouse! To take it even further, on one night a year ghost lights are supposed to appear near the Ontonagon Lighthouse. Which night? Why, July 8th, the very night I was reading the book. Creepy!</div>
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To match our experience going through Wisconsin, we watched a squall line blow in across the lake, which really puts your own tiny existence into perspective.</div>
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That night, during the storm the front above produced, we played <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Asmodee-TAK01-Takenoko/dp/B0049H9NVW">Takenoko</a> </i>a new board-game acquired at a really unique toy store in Hancock, MI. As the waves crashed and thunder rumbled, we did what anyone who knows something about Lake Superior storms would do: we played "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" on Youtube.</div>
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Vacations teach you a lot about yourself. Growing up, I was always very fortunate to have parents who made visiting different parts of the country a priority. At the time, I had almost no appreciation for it - all I knew was that my lazy summertime routine was going to be disrupted and I would have to go hiking in the hot, insect-ridden wilderness. Though some of those hikes were pretty tough for a kid, now as an adult, my perception of those times has changed 180 degrees. They were invaluable experiences and, especially when I became a teenager, crucial times of self-reflection when I could be apart from my everyday circumstances to contemplate life and recharge mentally, physically, and spiritually.</div>
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<a href="https://www.travelex.com/travelex-hub/travel-inspiration/history-of-the-vacation">The concept of the "vacation" has been around for a very long time in Western history</a>. Interestingly, as an NPR interview from about ten years ago notes, <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105545388">the purpose of self-discovery has long been part of vacationing</a>. With widening income inequality in America, a shrinking middle class, and the continuous pressure for efficiency and productivity at the expense of leisure, <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-19/even-fewer-americans-are-taking-vacation">fewer and fewer people in this country are willing and able to take time off from work</a>. According to the subtitle in one article, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/23/vacation.in.america/index.html">"Americans are expected to work like robots."</a> </div>
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The part of me that is terribly cynical about our culture does not find this surprising: vacations are wonderful opportunities for contemplation, which gives one time to think, and our culture does not like to spend time thinking. American capitalism and consumerism encourage the busier, faster, more distracted lifestyle. We live in fast-forward when we need to hit "pause" far more often in order to get a really good look at ourselves. </div>
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Another part of me feels a mix of gratitude and guilt: I am extremely fortunate to be able to have been able to spend this time with my parents when I was younger and now with my wife and children. So many do not have that chance. Humans need space to figure out --- or perhaps more accurately, simply <i>remember </i>-- who they are. Vacations have always served that role for me. I remember one summer (1996, to be exact) when I did not really feel the greatest about life or who I was, looking out at the clear, star-filled Wyoming sky and thinking, "You know, it's not all bad." Hitting the "pause" button gives you a chance to figure out -- no, <i>remember </i>-- what's really important. There is no debate for me.</div>
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The Upper Peninsula, Lake Superior, the Porcupines, and Ontonagon have become special places for us. It was tough to say goodbye to them, but hopefully it will only be for a little while, and then we can go back to the spot where we remember ourselves.</div>
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<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-25288676645374295962018-06-26T16:36:00.001-04:002018-06-26T16:36:39.152-04:00Willy Wonka: A Comparative Religion Analysis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Last week I had the opportunity to see a children's production of <i>Willy Wonka</i>. I've always found the story interesting and read Roald Dahl's original novel <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory </i>(1964) to my sons years ago. The character of Willy Wonka has multiple layers, and in this post I want to analyze him, and by extension the story, through the lens of Comparative Religion.</div>
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Gene Wilder famously played the part in the 1971 version of the movie.</div>
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Johnny Depp took on the role in 2005, though with much less impact, as I will discuss below.</div>
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The story itself is an obvious morality play. The children who tour the faculty are all guilty of some sort of vice of excess. Augustus Gloop is gluttonous, Violet Beauregarde is obsessed with chewing gum, Veruca Salt is materialistic, and Mike Teavee watches too much, well, TV. On the other hand, Charlie Bucket, the impoverished and goodhearted child, is rewarded for his honesty and virtue. In this way, the story is a morality play, much like other famous works, such as <i>Everyman</i>, a Medieval play that espoused good deeds as the only thing that lives on after you die.</div>
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<i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory </i>also has similarities to that towering epic of Medieval poetry, Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i>. In that work, specifically <i>Inferno</i>, sinners dwell in Hell, embodying their sins with <i>contrapasso</i>s, punishments that act out the offense. The Lustful are blown about in violent winds, just as they allowed themselves to be blown around by passions; those who bred Schism and Discord are cut apart by blades, just as they cut apart society; and so on. </div>
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The vice-ridden children are unable to resist temptations in Wonka's factory that lead them to expose their latent flaws. Augustus Gloop, who cannot stop swallowing food, is swallowed up by chocolate.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTfOB_zFGjuVZOki3wmcM-UDTzao-IpPfahzr2NOQcorSg8TZUbpkVXDoFUc5VQSDwVlDBbDHzinxA8h8FWRG35-5CQCkhP82dbpAHMJOD2jexhij_gFK635IPKD7m7NwtJ0ceVRZ5x0/s1600/PAY-Augustus-Gloop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="615" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTfOB_zFGjuVZOki3wmcM-UDTzao-IpPfahzr2NOQcorSg8TZUbpkVXDoFUc5VQSDwVlDBbDHzinxA8h8FWRG35-5CQCkhP82dbpAHMJOD2jexhij_gFK635IPKD7m7NwtJ0ceVRZ5x0/s320/PAY-Augustus-Gloop.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Violet literally becomes the bubblegum she is chewing.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZyI9q7t20ibQmpshE1kZpeiJrRFrnaE302Pwh3Bqi11My5ptdJGwSIV8nMPZZXa7khlGnPLN9T2fLC5u39ER337Z9kQ_KTctUA0waKtswHyYxm65R1cmz_FKV75boi3JrynlTARXHdYw/s1600/violet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZyI9q7t20ibQmpshE1kZpeiJrRFrnaE302Pwh3Bqi11My5ptdJGwSIV8nMPZZXa7khlGnPLN9T2fLC5u39ER337Z9kQ_KTctUA0waKtswHyYxm65R1cmz_FKV75boi3JrynlTARXHdYw/s320/violet.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Only Charlie emerges from the journey unscathed. The fact that the story is a journey from spot to spot in the factory, each with its own lesson to impart, resembles not only Dante's journey through the levels of the tripartite Medieval Christian afterlife, but also some other religious works. In the Buddhist tradition, the <i>Gandavyuha Sutra </i>(just one chapter of the longer <i>Avatamsaka Sutra</i>) describes the disciple Sudhana's journey from teacher to teacher, learning one lesson at a time as he approaches awakening.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl10G7jG4c4HtqmQ1hvipt0EZ4pvNqPUpuNTqt2cYQHh8HlSihx92NIqGwYXPKp92Wxq_Gfru1hWLmMQNZFb53_S62vteDEBXWNmf_ahsRV779doV7-MFolG67gBxXrxa_n2Nlr0lNB_g/s1600/220px-Avatamsaka_Gandavyuha_Teaching_1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="220" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl10G7jG4c4HtqmQ1hvipt0EZ4pvNqPUpuNTqt2cYQHh8HlSihx92NIqGwYXPKp92Wxq_Gfru1hWLmMQNZFb53_S62vteDEBXWNmf_ahsRV779doV7-MFolG67gBxXrxa_n2Nlr0lNB_g/s320/220px-Avatamsaka_Gandavyuha_Teaching_1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Aside from the larger story, the character of Willy Wonka invites even more scrutiny. There is a reason why Gene Wilder succeeds in bringing Wonka to life where Johnny Depp failed: Wonka is both whimsical and sinister. He is a jester-like, trickster-like chastiser of wrongs as much as a rewarder of virtue. He rests on the border of dream and nightmare. Wilder captures this paradox while Depp just comes across as an emotionally-stunted eccentric. A figure that tests and punishes children has to have a touch of madness to him, and even revel in it. To see what I mean, check out how he delights in tormenting his guests during the boat trip scene:</div>
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Willy Wonka's costume also communicates his dangerous stature, especially, oddly enough, his trademark hat.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLgjv5ima9B0P5AdGepGu6fTakyw2zLWhvJYHYxlo0756wLuda3N1yDR90JZhPR_Csrk06XY8dbULFFdzW9mWCsWIq_jxlUgQVqkqhL-jCSA16tygPMFUVkn9etDiOn-_YV8dw6b6SGG4/s1600/gene-wilder-willy-wonka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLgjv5ima9B0P5AdGepGu6fTakyw2zLWhvJYHYxlo0756wLuda3N1yDR90JZhPR_Csrk06XY8dbULFFdzW9mWCsWIq_jxlUgQVqkqhL-jCSA16tygPMFUVkn9etDiOn-_YV8dw6b6SGG4/s400/gene-wilder-willy-wonka.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Far from standing for refinement or urbaneness, as one would suppose with a top-hat or bowler hat, such headwear often signifies its opposite, namely the intention to undermine the prevalent social order. <a href="http://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/05/this-blog-will-eat-your-brain-or.html">Think of Baron Samedi of Vodoun (discussed in an earlier blog).</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghCWtEmy-PByj21ieuZFY2GaNsNgV8VD_mHigDGsFhDuagNzVvIF-bL2KPdLGJq2DulDUDXu0zRune3iwYt19SQPtJ_nurkSSysP5Ks7i-YPqtercIMjvcK7dArSFCaJYrvU3uSJ7xD-4/s1600/baron_samedi_by_chronoperates-d5tdnpu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1095" data-original-width="730" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghCWtEmy-PByj21ieuZFY2GaNsNgV8VD_mHigDGsFhDuagNzVvIF-bL2KPdLGJq2DulDUDXu0zRune3iwYt19SQPtJ_nurkSSysP5Ks7i-YPqtercIMjvcK7dArSFCaJYrvU3uSJ7xD-4/s400/baron_samedi_by_chronoperates-d5tdnpu.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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Or Alex from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/"><i>A Clockwork Orange</i>.</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8rKdSj3Pj_OG144y-ExjPG7cFkD1AJk239_cMG3c9UJN8nXaVASrBKCbD3rTtQ3OpwL30UFW-szHwWGIkvnBwnOxiFndPPwLn0O0YGXhLTWSXDlG7KwHLxlFMI9jkClpewTOSR35M7Fc/s1600/A-Clockwork-Orange.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="965" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8rKdSj3Pj_OG144y-ExjPG7cFkD1AJk239_cMG3c9UJN8nXaVASrBKCbD3rTtQ3OpwL30UFW-szHwWGIkvnBwnOxiFndPPwLn0O0YGXhLTWSXDlG7KwHLxlFMI9jkClpewTOSR35M7Fc/s400/A-Clockwork-Orange.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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How top- and bowler hats became signifiers for rebellion and madness is not clear, although <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erethism">one promising hypothesis deals with "erethism," a nervous system disorder that can be caused by repeated exposure to mercury</a>. Erethism is sometimes known colloquially as "mad hatter's disease" as those who worked with hats back in the day used mercury to attach the felt.</div>
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Wonka is also set apart by his diminutive, orange-skinned, green-haired minions, the Oompa Loompas. They are curious creatures who do not fit into any set classification. They work for Wonka, do his bidding, and take turns announcing the moral failures of each respective child after he or she has been revealed as a glutton, television addict, and so on. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFL3BjXXb-K2iSPdJT9-qUp8lZfAyM8Kx-u35FoYP4IPsZ6l5OayJ1O2x-dhVJaSJOkK7oNFJE2KlQxhdKcZ8zWzvJUZ7hXPG7eJb8rY7M_-pFIAaFVY2EFTlXAqced_XEIH5AH0gaTWw/s1600/oompa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="730" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFL3BjXXb-K2iSPdJT9-qUp8lZfAyM8Kx-u35FoYP4IPsZ6l5OayJ1O2x-dhVJaSJOkK7oNFJE2KlQxhdKcZ8zWzvJUZ7hXPG7eJb8rY7M_-pFIAaFVY2EFTlXAqced_XEIH5AH0gaTWw/s400/oompa.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The Hindu god Shiva, also a category-breaker and challenger of the social status-quo, has a band of small-statured followers (called <i>gana</i>s) who form his entourage.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYtuv_RgW-oK6BC0JsiZ2JvOK3qhBSvSdd9JsDU-eskQ69ryVsmhRa9BDZG4Nw-WOjfPY102wZGgQVqZ3-4BRTv4sI2Y_9ul2RONebO30e0-jzqbr2mgsNgHyev-lVsXURAFCzDEeJIbE/s1600/Ganas-and-Bhutas-Lord-Shivas-Companions-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="648" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYtuv_RgW-oK6BC0JsiZ2JvOK3qhBSvSdd9JsDU-eskQ69ryVsmhRa9BDZG4Nw-WOjfPY102wZGgQVqZ3-4BRTv4sI2Y_9ul2RONebO30e0-jzqbr2mgsNgHyev-lVsXURAFCzDEeJIbE/s400/Ganas-and-Bhutas-Lord-Shivas-Companions-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Mara in Buddhism also has an army of misshapen beasts, primarily seen when he attacks Gautama at Bodh-Gaya. Here they are in a carving on a railing at the Sanchi Stupa in central India.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68NPrwbo-rhPtnLMsnZbyvjr5c_9-9UtH4to7VIkg7fDwLvhyphenhyphenqZn5rfxVdF19ohLYELUWhDuMztbnZ0xSms-DX31icDWq5yfXSqJV03h9cFoEqLH5xHNLmpCCkxCjz0nAL5fE_TCm-rE/s1600/Mara-army.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="309" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68NPrwbo-rhPtnLMsnZbyvjr5c_9-9UtH4to7VIkg7fDwLvhyphenhyphenqZn5rfxVdF19ohLYELUWhDuMztbnZ0xSms-DX31icDWq5yfXSqJV03h9cFoEqLH5xHNLmpCCkxCjz0nAL5fE_TCm-rE/s400/Mara-army.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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In at least one instance, Alan Moore's <i>The Killing Joke</i>, the Batman villain the Joker employs tiny, violent creatures to do his evil will, as seen in the excerpt from the comic below.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimt-VLz4CvYzZ1W0ilse23ycv1FDPjRWRn0LbEbNBJlgwK4hUF82jU4qLuqUNFUZTlmXhLeCup-lZ82ZWnVnSXSP3E-TJbDXk_d3NiKpFepDbmRrUuBTpbL_oopPxONmlECLzd4HmpP_I/s1600/joker.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="707" data-original-width="922" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimt-VLz4CvYzZ1W0ilse23ycv1FDPjRWRn0LbEbNBJlgwK4hUF82jU4qLuqUNFUZTlmXhLeCup-lZ82ZWnVnSXSP3E-TJbDXk_d3NiKpFepDbmRrUuBTpbL_oopPxONmlECLzd4HmpP_I/s640/joker.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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If you look in the bottom lower right of the image above, you'll see the Joker himself, wearing a purple suit, a hat, and holding a cane. To make the resemblance obvious, here again is Willy Wonka.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizsqmauL55hr628-Az0fF1scf86BgzqKYVC_f8IiS9ZdNPYbwY8U6u_Rb6vwJuJFrwZiavU5WSqIbdO9MAAuimnUa0CH0QBbZA5W8q1CzlvhFeMTtC6A0al5cGLVPFVvpTZtaK_dm1Tn4/s1600/wonka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="340" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizsqmauL55hr628-Az0fF1scf86BgzqKYVC_f8IiS9ZdNPYbwY8U6u_Rb6vwJuJFrwZiavU5WSqIbdO9MAAuimnUa0CH0QBbZA5W8q1CzlvhFeMTtC6A0al5cGLVPFVvpTZtaK_dm1Tn4/s640/wonka.jpg" width="356" /></a></div>
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What all the foregoing comparisons reveal is that Willy Wonka does not function as a benevolent children's character, but inhabits a space closer to the category-breaking trickster figures of religion and mythology who dish out pain and punishment far more than rewards. He is an embodiment of <a href="http://www.anthrobase.com/Links/cache/Ritual%20Anti-Structure%20Religion%20-%20Victor%20Turner%20symbolic%20analysis.htm">Victor Turner's concept of "liminality," also called "anti-structure."</a> Turner used those terms to describe how societies used ritual to move individuals through different life stages. Adolescents, for instance, exist in a liminal (i.e., uncategorized) state of not-child but not-adult, and are thus ritually moved to adulthood by coming of age ceremonies. The psychedelic world of the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa Loompas, and Wonka himself (in dress and behavior) exemplify the uncategorized nature of liminal anti-structure. </div>
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The book and the movie(s) follow Turner's ritual structure. In the beginning, the world is the inverse of what we would hope for: the bad people are prosperous (the "naughty" children) and the good (Charlie and his family) are poor. We enter the Chocolate Factory, the liminal space, and chaos reigns and the usual rules are suspended, allowing for unconventional means to punish vices of excess and affirm virtue, in the form of Charlie Bucket. Leaving Wonka's Factory, the world is now ordered much closer to our moral expectations. Wonka's anti-structure has actually been invoked to defend social structure: Madness has been employed in the service of sanity, and our guide has been Willy Wonka.</div>
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Such is my reading of the character and the story. What are your thoughts? Feel free to share.</div>
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Until the next time, take care. </div>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281669441880455296.post-47582609413086668662018-06-16T10:50:00.002-04:002018-06-16T10:50:51.434-04:00The Composite HeroAbout a year and a half ago, I had the chance to read Steven Rosen's <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ud9x63jUFu8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Jedi in the Lotus</a>, </i>a book about the Hindu symbolism and themes of the <i>Star Wars </i>films. Rosen makes <a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/movies/2005/05/yoda-and-yoga.aspx">some interesting points</a> in the book and the one I want to concentrate and expand upon in this post is the concept of the "composite hero." The term refers to a group of characters who each strongly exemplify a primary skill or personality trait needed to balance out the others in the group. The members of the group, on their own, are imbalanced or incomplete, but together, they form a unified whole or complete "hero."<br />
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The concept of the "composite hero" is a way to think about how narratives like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXZIJR39l-aZlH1nieuXhJzPMIyxDdlEF05L7FU61fXcrUy_N1ghLxtCGWTEg29dY7Lu2MvbeG9gxTqGzame7L69dCAmbBYxcB7rHb1ucmhrrgVgdG2ZLa54sRrlPvfMGFbYtsnSw40iA/s1600/star+wars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="600" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXZIJR39l-aZlH1nieuXhJzPMIyxDdlEF05L7FU61fXcrUy_N1ghLxtCGWTEg29dY7Lu2MvbeG9gxTqGzame7L69dCAmbBYxcB7rHb1ucmhrrgVgdG2ZLa54sRrlPvfMGFbYtsnSw40iA/s400/star+wars.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Can be compared to narratives like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFnpq5WRwzXvYNC68L6NtwyKC2Hhsc7GqN1lsT8rjcG3tlIYJKNClQl1dRC9H4iN43AAKniqlXt8zXbH7oe0tSoDg6wAlGqRwzztNYSXTPuV5bcVmTrkaNzBQtlrsiMmTC8i8o98KleVs/s1600/rama-sita-lakshmana-and-hanuman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="556" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFnpq5WRwzXvYNC68L6NtwyKC2Hhsc7GqN1lsT8rjcG3tlIYJKNClQl1dRC9H4iN43AAKniqlXt8zXbH7oe0tSoDg6wAlGqRwzztNYSXTPuV5bcVmTrkaNzBQtlrsiMmTC8i8o98KleVs/s400/rama-sita-lakshmana-and-hanuman.jpg" width="296" /></a></div>
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Rosen, probably drawing on the work of famed <i>Ramayana </i>scholar Robert Goldman, notes that in the Indian epic the characters of Rama, his brother Lakshmana, his wife Sita, and his follower Hanuman (pictured above), all complement and complete one another. (For a quick synopsis of the <i>Ramayana</i>, <a href="http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~vemuri/classes/freshman/RamayanaSynopsis.htm">read this link</a> or, better yet, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ramayana-Shortened-Version-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143039679">get this book</a>!) Rama is the paradigmatic leader and king, Lakshmana represents brotherly loyalty, Hanuman stands for strength and devotion, and Sita is the exemplar of faithful womanhood. (Sita's portrayal<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rhetoricraceandreligion/2012/06/can-sita-be-the-role-model-for-contemporary-women.html"> has been seen as problematic</a> and its cultural meaning is, at the least, <a href="https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/mellowdrama/there-s-something-about-sita/">debatable</a>.)<br />
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Rosen compares the interactions of these characters in the epic to the main heroic ensemble of the original <i>Star Wars. </i>Each of those characters also embodies an archetypal ideal: the maverick mercenary (Han), the enthusiastic youth (Luke), the idealist (Leia), the tough guy (Chewie), the wise mentor (Obi-Wan), and the sidekicks (Threepio and Artoo). Each has his/her own strengths, but when they come together, they create something much stronger than the sum of the parts.<br />
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The novel <i>Watership Down</i>, <a href="http://forestdwellerthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/06/childhood-chapters-favorite-books-with.html">which is one of my absolute favorites to have read with Xander</a>, has much the same dynamic.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0lUXRRPvGC42SalP6OokzkCSm8xPajdwRrOS1fW1MsX59qbB3sH-BQ59R7F0G4EBk1tyCmRXzehyphenhyphen-pAV5IOLdUn9kbz6xsRHoYP4pI43CYGezebMzyPVNyu6ZeDyhjbDWgQeGF8CFgDw/s1600/WatershipDown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="221" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0lUXRRPvGC42SalP6OokzkCSm8xPajdwRrOS1fW1MsX59qbB3sH-BQ59R7F0G4EBk1tyCmRXzehyphenhyphen-pAV5IOLdUn9kbz6xsRHoYP4pI43CYGezebMzyPVNyu6ZeDyhjbDWgQeGF8CFgDw/s400/WatershipDown.jpg" width="276" /></a></div>
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The book tells the story of a group of rabbits fleeing a disaster and trying to establish a new warren. For those who haven't read it, the book is remarkably erudite and is in many ways a version of the <i>Aeneid</i>, but for kids...and with rabbits. Hazel is a caring, natural leader, Bigwig is tough and resolute, Bluebell provides humor, Dandelion tells stories for the group, Fiver is a kind of prophet and seer, and so on. None of these rabbits would be able to make it as an individual, but by pooling their talents, they are able to survive and create a new home.<br />
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A currently popular mythic narrative speaks to the same sense of composite heroics.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdRnOsuTNz7HXep7dXIYwZtzqXmRuhdLvOZdPaX4UlVKCmtbMlota-BGuF9JD8rEIeS7A5T72JFyGPydT5Nv76vHCrF0Or7a9CmdCxlzVb07IHiD3hMgHtxE7Mb53Mk4d7SPKyNk3TXkY/s1600/Avengers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="920" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdRnOsuTNz7HXep7dXIYwZtzqXmRuhdLvOZdPaX4UlVKCmtbMlota-BGuF9JD8rEIeS7A5T72JFyGPydT5Nv76vHCrF0Or7a9CmdCxlzVb07IHiD3hMgHtxE7Mb53Mk4d7SPKyNk3TXkY/s400/Avengers.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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As Nick Fury says in the first Avengers (2012): "There was an idea...called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more." Over the course of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that's exactly what they do: come together to be something greater than they could be on their own.</div>
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Certainly there is no shortage of narratives starring a lone hero who, using only his/her own talents and resourcefulness, accomplishes a goal or succeeds in a quest. Those stories emphasize our desire to feel unique and powerful as individuals. The narrative of the composite hero speaks to a different need: the need to feel like part of a team, as an accepted member of a community. Paradoxically, in these narratives, the characters only find out how talented they are as individulas by discovering how much they need other people. Their uniqueness emerges primarily when they work together with those who contribute very different things.</div>
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It may be a stretch, but I wonder if the narrative of the composite hero will become even more popular in times where we experience more and more social alienation. Going back to our roots as a species, we most likely lived in small groups of hunter-gatherers who all contributed, each in their own way, to the survival of the community. In a vastly more aggregated, industrialized society, it can be difficult to see how one's contributions help the greater whole or how one truly stands out in a teeming, faceless crowd. </div>
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We all want to know that we matter and that we have something to offer. The myth of the composite hero offers a very basic, human truth about how to discover what that is: we truly find ourselves in our relationships to other people.</div>
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That's all for now. Until the next time, take care.</div>
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<i><br /></i>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523261884924100992noreply@blogger.com0