Class Notes

New assignment: Need a 3 minute creation story for next class.

-visual boosters
-books:  techniques of consolation

Justin: the moon and the origin of death

To expect in Chapter 2 of Eliade's Primitives to Zen:

(can be found here: www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/index.html )
Io/ Maori cosmology
Earthdiver creation myth
myth of beginnings of endings
Scandinavian creation story

3 parts to story we tell in this class:
Aristotle: 3 things of all good literature beginning, middle, and an end
sublimely simple/ great truths
The 3 Big Things

never a duplicate in storytelling....
part of requirement for this class is to become 3 years old again
"tell me the same story"

Luddites: Robert Ludd- took a hammer and destroyed all industry because he hated technology....

visit Daniel's blog for technical info:  www.danielleawoken.blogspot.com

Tree hugging assignment:  Jenny Thornburg's blog
Diamon----Demon
Diamon's like tutelary spirit
Genie/Genius....  altar ego/ other self who is there for you if you look for him or her


suffering: not always a bad thing-menas you are paying attention
Calasso:  page 93-94 "whenever their lives were set aflame through desire or suffering or even reflection, the homeric heroes knew that a god was at work. they endured god, but...
thus disposed of their emotion their shame..

...to me you are not the cause, only the gods can be causes"
Hamlet: the player kings description of the death of old Priam

opposite of today's response...."take responsibility for your own actions"

"no psychology since has ever gone beyond this...all we have done is invent for those powers...
(oedipus complex, etc.)
what god is present in your life that makes this happen?
these gods may be projections of our own imaginations, but what isn't?
 the homeric heroes knew nothing of that word, responsibility
....such infirmity meant that the gods were present and at work....
 ate:  infatuation, where you are no longer in control of a situation, something has possessed you
enthusiasm: (enthus) (en-thus) (theos-god)  in god....
 (theodore) one beloved of god
micha-el one who is like god
the gods are all there ersting in our names, our reflections, our desire and suffering

venus/aphrodite/ eros/ gods of desire

athena/odysseus (wily odysseus) loved liars
 infatuation....twitterpated
enthusiasm-possessed by the gods....most oft refers to dionysus  "cmon, have another"

so cute...

the things we call modern and contemporary are actually quite ancient.
 My Chemical Romance....alchemy... lead into gold... alchemy is about the perfection of the human spirit
what rock concert do you wish you could go to?
it's Michael Sexton's birthday! wants to go to the first music concert ever...

the lyre... the Homeric Hymns- a group of songs sung to various divinities: to Demeter, Apollo, etc.

Hesiod- Theogany
GOMY= birth
Cupid- eros...venus...
Hermes: Maya/Zeus  like baby Stuey...stole cattle from Apollo, a trickster...would play tricks during the day and jump back in his crib. "Born Yesterday" movie. Hermes kills a turtle and uses cat gut to make the lyre... to make up for his mischeif for Apollo. invention of music....

Arachne--Minerva- Spiders...

"you bitch"...
Charlotte... Wilbur never forgot, Charlotte.

think about ETIOLOGIES: how did it all begin?

....Some things never change

I created my blog at about 8 this morning while waiting on a friend at ICT, and at the time I hadn't really come up with the right strategy to break ground on this thing....afterall, the first blog entries are always the worst. Thankfully my lack of inspiration was short-lived. I've been out of the country since early June, so as my friend and I drove to Sypes Canyon to pick up his truck we naturally caught up about our similarly crazy summers; his stories centered on the usual subject: the pursuit of women.  Jim, as I'll call him, spent his summer working for a non-profit, traveling from town to town through the wilds of Montana, and this situation afforded him what seemed to be the perfect framework for chasing lots and lots of girls, as he told me, this summer "it was practically raining *****"

now, you might be asking yourself what this could possibly have to do with mythology or really anything at all, for that matter, but just wait. I was particularly captured by one story that Jim told me, and I intend to re-tell it here.

While riding in the truck next to Jim, I discovered a small silver bangle lying on the floorboard, and asking who it belonged to, Jim looked shocked.  He responded:
"There was the girl in Prairie." and that's where our story begins....
One evening Jim's company rolled into this particularly small Montana town, and after getting situated with a place to stay and an early dinner, Jim set out to smoke a bowl.  Jim had been to Prairie a few times before, and being an avid pot smoker, had already lined out a good place to smoke in private, just under a bridge near a local park. However, instead of the privacy he had intended on finding there, he discovered a girl who was all alone, thin, waifish, standing at the riverside with her back to him, fishing. She had headphones in and a Miller Lite in hand.  "I just stood there watching her for five, maybe ten minutes....it was like seeing a ghost....or a water-nymph or something....she had no idea I was there."
Then, after awhile Jim got his courage up and walked right up to her. She took her headphones out, and as he told me, without saying a word he just started kissing this girl.... eventually they decided to go back to Jim's hotel, and we all know how the story goes from here....

He told me that that night he got her number, but woke up in the morning and she was gone from his bed without a trace.  he tried calling but "the thing just rang and rang....not even a real number...typical"

Now if that ain't mythological, then I don't know what is....Reminds me of the short story we talked about in class the other day...an adaptaiton of the abduction of Persephone by Hades. I just thought this was such a perfect example of those mythological footprints...two people who just inherently know how to follow the blueprints provided them...they didn't even need to talk...so many things are at play there, the idea of the nymph unaware of her seducer...Jim, her dusky, cynical "demon lover"...
there's the "siren" imagery too...only twisted...the siren literally "luring" someone in...but also a fisherman herself....a woman capable of the role as the victim (as a virgin nymph) and as the predator, literally fishing on the side of the river...(sea-wary fisherman being a favorite quarry of the mythic steamy songstresses)

also, the tale of the maiden who disappears with not a trace but some kind of token belonging  (glass slipper, anyone?)
this and all the cliches of courting...the "lines" the "typical female" all the lore of the night stand... (maybe she even came down the fire escape!) ...the whole thing was just brimming with mythology...and I just thought it was brilliant. 'Til next time

L

Testing....testing 1, 2, 3....

See you in a few.