To Put Aside the Serpents

The Woman and the Husband loved their son, though he was not their own. Conceived by an affair, and orphaned by the death of her sister, the boy came to be raised by the Woman and the Husband. The boy grew and prospered, and as he prospered so did they. His every success became theirs, the Woman talked of his accomplishments to all she saw. Thus the Woman and the Husband were satisfied with their wonderful life. There were those however that were not content. The Old Wife lived down the street, and she did not approve. Who were these people to raise a child of sin, the Old Wife felt slighted by their happiness, so she fumed and plotted.

There was a dark part of the town, that no one really entered willingly. This was one of those places where the shady people lived their lives in monotony. Always striving to leave, but inevitably never making any progress. It was in this place the Old Wife sought the instrument of her plotting. The Old Wife knew of an Angry One that lived here, who would undertake any sort of task, as long as the price was right. She strode under the streetlight, dogs barking in the night, as if she were the queen of the world. She pounded upon the Angry One's door until he answered. She bemoaned her fallen pride, and agreed to any price. The Angry One, whether moved by her story or her payment, agreed to avenge her. The Old Wife left, walking through a mist of rain, pleased to see her revenge unfold.

He could see them from where he stood in their backyard, light poured from their windows illuminating everything within. He could here there laughter, their happiness, even at a distance. No one else in the neighborhood seemed awake. His snake skin boots echoed on the concrete as he walked beside their pool. How could they not hear his coming? They only had to glance outside to see him, but the Woman and the Husband were blind to their fate. The Angry One bellowed as he kicked down their burnished oak door from its hinges. He stalked into their house, fire bursting from his hand as he shot with his pistol. The Woman screamed in terror, the Husband froze in fright. This fear would be his undoing, as he was the first to feel the bite of the Angry One's bullet. Pain blossomed in his mind like a searing madness. The Angry One fired again and again and again at the Husband, until only the walls held any semblance of the man he once was. The woman ran, mad with grief, fear aiding her feet, but it was all for naught. The Angry One opened fire once more, and then she too felt the bite of his bullets. She fell into the pool, it was so much warmer than she expected, its waters like a final, loving embrace. His work done the Angry One sank back into the night, his boots so quiet now as he walked away.

It was all anyone could talk about the next day. The housewives cried and shook as they called one another. Each one not so aghast at the tragedy, that they couldn't call everyone that they knew. Oh didn't you hear, the Woman next door, shot dead in her home. The whole town was so mortified by this cruel and senseless act. All except the Old Wife, she peered out her window as they wheeled the bodies away, and smiled inwardly at every conversation she overheard about the event. Such irrelevant women she thought, as they chattered away like gulls to the woman who had arranged it all.

Mythologies Theme Song

I heard this song listening to Pandora and it completely reminded me of Mythologies. Mythic Detective work strikes again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5sXSix359M

Signs and Symbols

I know its a little late for the Signs and Symbols discussion, but I tried my hardest not to listen to any of the discussion in class so as not to become biased.

As I was reading the story I jotted down notes and I'll just repost them and go from there

Everything went wrong
-The train, the bus, the walk. This seemed to me like the world telling them not to visit their son. The loss of life of the train was chance, the wait for the bus coincidence, and the rain on their walk is Design.

-Tiny unfledged bird in a puddle- This bird is a metaphor for their son, unfledged, meaning wings are not large enough for flight, therefore it crashes to the earth.This to me was one of the most powerful images linking the story to Daedalus and Icarus, and foreshadowing the son's possible death.

The names really jumped out at me, but I think I was looking to deep. Rebecca Borisovna- rebecca is biblical but the significance of the last name (which apparently means short/wolf) doesn't make sense, the father's brother Isaac "the Prince"-son of Abraham, biblical, so should we call the father Ishmael? also the mother talks of another family whose surname is Soloveichiks, which interestingly I learned (from epic google searching) means Nightingale in russian.

The other major allusion to Icarus,was when they describe the first time the child tried to kill himself "masterpiece of Inventiveness" (Daedalus-master inventor), learning to fly but wanted to tear a hole into his world. Much as Daedalus wanted to escape his world, so did the son wish to escape and fly away

Everything is a Cipher, and He is the Theme- This was profound to me because, you assume that the son is crazy, but how do we know this? The world shows him the symbols and he is the theme, they dont see them because they aren't about anyone but him, Like UPS, you notice thing when they are made apparent

I really liked when the illness was explained and how it kept building to a crescendo until it became that "great mountains of unbearable solidity and height sum up, in terms of granite and groaning firs [symbols only the son can decipher], the ultimate truth of his being"

the Parents' appartment is on the 3rd floor landing (threes again)

3 cards fall from the deck-- Knave(Jack) of hearts, 9 (3 sets of 3s) of spades, Ace of Spades
I thought the cards were significant so I googled all of them obsessively and was suprised by my results!!

So I plan on reading a bit deeply into this but These cards specifically foreshadow the death of the Son

Jack of Hearts A warm-hearted friend. A fair-haired youth; or a young person with Water signs predominating in his or her chart. ( most of this seems like gobbledy gook, but I took that jack of hearts means a young male)
9 of Spades Illness, accident, bad luck. The querent is at his/her personal low.
Ace of Spades Misfortune; sometimes associated with death or, more often, a difficult ending.
website where I got this rock solid information
http://www.cafeastrology.com/fortunetellingcards.html
Its pretty obvious that Nabokov was trying to tell us that the Son was going to die, and I've finally figured out that mystery.

More threes
The 3 colors in the jars: yellow, green, red
which according to color astrology...
Yellow- the most positive color, closest to light
Green- healing,life, and rebirth.
Red-passion, masculinity, danger
so you can read into those what you want, the cards were my masterpiece of intellect

My try at Art Appreciation

As I look at this painting I'm struck by all of the red, which seems to imbue a passion into the scene, and I really liked the interpretation that the curtains set a stage. I see the woman weaving at the forefront as Arachnae. She seems to have this look of haughtyness, the position of her head and hand bely a sense of arrogance, like she is telling the woman holding the curtain of how superior her weaving is. I also like the idea that although she is wrapped in clothing she bares her leg to the thigh, which shows her indecency/lack of respect, which is how she acts towards Athena. I think the ladder in the background is really a key transition between the two scenes(front/back). It represents reaching a higher place, as Arachnae reaches above her station to flaunt her skills to Athena, the shading has the ladder beginning in light and ending in darkness, like Arachnae has reached too far and ventured into a place she should not be, because you cannot see a God's form, she has reached into a place she should not see.
For the background you really again see Arachnae's arrogance, she stands the the middle as the center of attention her hands displayed in a show of exaltance at what she has done. Ovid gives the impression that Arachnae's weave was just as good if not better than Athena's, yet her weave isn't displayed in the painting. I believe the tapestry displayed is Athena's as it has a brightness to it and contains heavenly figures in good light. I like that Athena is fully clothed for battle with her spear upraised, as if this is the moment before she curses Arachnae. I'm also interested in what the woman on the far right is thinking, because she is the only one looking to the forefront, while the others stare towards Athena and Arachnae. Maybe she is bringing the two together in the sense that she is looking at what Arachnae did to be in this situation (gossiping to the woman holding the curtain?)

 

 

Also thought these close ups might be cool to look at, didnt know there was a cat in this picture, they're not just all over the internet, but Spanish Baroque art as well! 

 

Detective of Stories

As stated in my previous blog, I was in a void without inspiration, when suddenly inspiration was thrust upon me. Now like I've said before, one of my favorite hobbies is reading. Sometimes I will read 2-3 books at a time, bouncing back and forth between them, but lately I've fallen in love with audiobooks. I listen to them in my car, when I pick up my house, hell anytime you see me on campus with earbuds in, I'm most likely listening to a book on tape. Now this obsession with audiobooks actually began sometime over last summer due to the ending of my favorite book series, The Wheel of Time.
The first book in this series was released in 1991, and the final (14th) volume was just released this January. I first started this series in highschool, and I have reread it multiple times. My tradition usually involves me restarting the series everytime a new book is slated to be released (don't worry I've only had to do this three times). The author himself passed away in 2007 after the release of the 11th book, and they had a ghost writer finish the series from his notes and ideas that he left prior to his death. So needless to say the ending has been a long time coming, and I'm eager to finish it, but I'm still trying to finish my rereading before I can jump into book 14. This is where my audiobooks jump in, becaus my last rereads, have been on the audio version of the previous books.

this isn't even all of them...

 But since my last blog I have been trying to look at the stories in a way a mythic detective would, and it's been pretty enlightning. I was trying to break each book into where it would fit into the Seperation-Initiation-Return area, and I realized that the first 2-3 books are each of the Characters' seperation story, and that books 4-12 are all INITIATIONS! It slowly dawned on me that the bulk of story in each of these books is just pain, and pain, oh and more pain for the characters, it seems like every continuation is another trial by fire (in some cases literally). The thing about this is you see the change everytime they go throught these trials. the main characters in the first book are nothing like themselves in the 5th, hell even themselves in the 5th are changed by the time they reach the 6th.

So i've begun looking at the symbols within the books, and you have a faction that is represented by the snake eating its own tail as seen above(Ouroboros is the actual term), which is a symbol of continuation and immortality.
Another symbol which is described in the book is The Yin-Yang symbol. In the book it is the symbol of the ancient male and female users of the one power, and much like in real-life, it is used to symbolize the balace between the male and female halves of life.
I think my favorite mythological part of the writing though is the opening paragraph that is the same in each book, this is from the very first one
"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."

Stale Detective Work

So I have had an extremely hard time lately to find some sort of inspiration to blog about. I have been thinking that I must be the worst Mythic Detective alive. Nothing has really popped out at me that seems very mythic, or mythological in nature.

 So I am an avid reader and I was finishing a book last night and a line jumped out at me and made me think that maybe, I have just been passing by all these little clues and I should pay more attention.
The context of the line is that two characters are talking about stories, and one says that all stories intertwine, and that good and evil are more complex than a princess and a dragon, because the dragon has its own stories that make the dragon who it is. The other then counters that there must then be no simple stories, which led to this passage
"That is a complicated matter. The heart of the tale and the ideas behind it are simple. Time has altered and condensed their nuances, made them more than story, greater than the sums of their parts. But that requires time. The truest tales require time and familiarity to become what they are."

This was they book I finished if anyone is interested

This really hit me because I was thinking of Ovid and how I have read and reread these tales and they are so familiar, but that every time I read them again I learn new things and see new perspectives in the pages. The line about the truest tales (myths!) require time and familiarity to become what they are, was just what I needed to hear. This was the mythic universe telling me I needed time and familiarity to interpret the world around me as myth. So with that in mind I returned to my detective work. Which I will continue on another blog, because it has its own seperate kind of them.

Personal Initiation

Unfortunately, due to a very sick girlfriend, I will not be attending class today. But in spite of that I still have my computer, and she happens to be a part of my subject so I figured I would do a little blogging.

Now we were asked to do a modern day initiation rite that we have gone through in our lives and I immediately thought of the first time I met my girlfriends family. This to me is one of those things that we all experience at sometime or another. At some point in a relationship it becomes time to meet your significant others' family. They've heard about you, you've heard about them, and now you have to essentially bring these two worlds together. You each have to go through a sort of initiation where you're introduced and you kind of feel each other out, checking boundaries, and trying to find out where you fit in this new "tribe". Sometimes this is easy, yet it can be awkward and painful so to me that makes this the perfect modern day initiation rite.


Now the first time I met my girlfriend's family it was the 4th of July weekend, and we drove to her home to stay with them for the weekend. So she is the youngest daughter of 13 children, and I was a little nervous because in my head I knew that they thought I was essentially stealing their baby. Thankfully only a few siblings were going to be there this weekend, so I thought I might be able to get off lightly, little did I know that this was not going to be the case. As soon as we walked into the door I was met by one of the older sisters (refered to as R) and sister-in-law. The first thing they did was call me by my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's name (Zach) and things began to proceed down hill from there. I quickly learned that this was going to be a trial by fire, that even the Spanish Inquisition would have been proud of.

Her sister R, was one of those people that absolutely loved to push boundaries. Now my own family can be quite a handful, so thankfully I was prepared for some harsh blows. R spent much of our first afternoon drilling me with questions, who are you, where are you from, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? I handled much of this with ease, taking the occasional ex-boyfriend jokes in stride, while my girlfriend became increasingly annoyed at her sister (as sisters are wont to do) until eventually the straw that broke the camels back appeared. R noticing that my girlfriend had become increasingly perturbed, looked at me and Said "AJ, why can't you make her happy, Zach used to make her happy" at this point all activity ceased and my girlfriend exploded! (verbally not literally) She then ran out of the room and refused to speak to anyone except her mother. Which of course made R mad because now mom was mad at her. So we had to spend the rest of the evening in a mixture of awkward silences and angry stares accross the room.
Eventually things were patched up and it was time for bed, now up to this point there hadn't been much conversation between the Father and I, but to make up for that he arranged a pallet for me on the floor in front of his massive gun safe. I knew this would be a great weekend. The next morning I awoke and had some coffee with my girlfriend's brother and friend, which was great because we got along well. I just knew my luck was turning around and today would be awesome. Then the telephone rang, Mother and Father had just left to go to the store, and Father had backed his truck into a silver car in the driveway, He was in a hurry so he'd take care of it later... Of course the silver car was my car. Despite this and the many other things that occured over the weekend, I was able to pull through and not run away crying like a small child, this cemented my place in the family, because ties forged in battle are stronger than steel, and to this day I can't help but laugh at it all, because once you hit rock bottom there's no where to go but up!
(Disclaimer: I love my girlfriend's family, they're great and I wouldn't have them any other way, but they sure know how to give a guy Hell)

Thinking back on this now I see that this was definately a sort of initiation. While lacking in physical pain, there were definately some tense moments emotionally. These types of meetings are really like I said earlier, a kind of welcoming of someone into the tribe. The family really tests you to see if you are "worthy" of being with someone from within their circle, sure the test may be if you can take a joke, or what your intentions are for the future, but they really are trying to see if you can contribute to the overall "wealth" of the family. That fact is what makes this an initiation, because it still seems kind of primal a way, and you know that although we as a culture may have changed, there were still guys thousands of years ago that had to prove to a family that they were worth something in order to court a daughter.