In English we've been talking ecocritical. We recently had to reflect on our relationship with nature. At the time, my relationship with nature was going through a rough patch. April was windy and cloudy and forty or fifty degrees, which is completely unfair after one glorious week of sunny seventies in mid-March. Thus, in my reflection, I had decided that I was not very close with nature.
But wait! Yesterday, after my silk training (*cough*shamelesspromotion*cough*goseeCHICAGO*cough*) yesterday, I noticed that it was in the high seventies; It was sunny; It was breezy. I went for a short walk outside before driving home, and even after the thirty-minute drive back home and the lunch I ate indoors, I went back out to my yard to relax (instead of hide in my air-conditioned house like I normally would). Now, my relationship with nature is in a honeymoon period. The weather is being very good to me, so it's easier for me to love the weather.
In our class discussion of relationships with nature, I figured out that I'm not driven away from nature out of fear of giant animals or fear of dangerous people hiding in the landscape. Instead, my biggest problem is adverse weather... specifically... the cold (i lived in 95-degree, sunny, humid, muggy Italy for three weeks this summer and it honestly hardly bothered me!). If my feelings toward nature strongly depend on the temperature, then where does my role with the great outdoors stand? I believe that I'm not the only one who has a constantly morphing, fluctuating relationship with nature. I bet yours changes frequently, too. What's the factor that affects how you feel toward nature? Weather? Terrain? Bugs?
Finally... earthy song recommendations... it's almost Earth Day, and I think there's no better way to celebrate (anything, not just Earth Day) than with a lovely playlist. Enjoy!
•"Down to Earth" by Peter Gabriel
•"Sprout and the Bean" by Joanna Newsom
•"Woods" by Bon Iver
•"Thistled Spring" by Horse Feathers
(if you have song recommendations, GIVE THEM TO ME =] !!)
Showing posts with label Evaluate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evaluate. Show all posts
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Understanding Gertrude (Plus, a Musical Study Guide!)
In English we've been reading Hamlet, but we've also been analyzing scenes from different critical approaches. It's eye-opening. We see that certain lines can mean different things, or certain characters can serve entirely different purposes depending on what perspective you take when reading Hamlet. In a previous post, I wondered what makes Hamlet such an influential piece, and I think this is it. This play can be taken a thousand ways.
Rather than just assume you'll believe me saying "You can look at Hamlet from so many perspectives" over and over again, I'm gonna prove it to you. Here's the case of Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, from just a few approaches:
1. The Feminist Approach: Gertrude's okay! Feminists could argue that Gertrude is innocent because there is no concrete text that proves Gertrude knew that Claudius was her husband's killer. She may have married Claudius only as a way to keep herself close to power and able to continue to serve her kingdom.
2. The Mythical Approach: Gertrude is a bad mother. She betrayed her son, Hamlet, by marrying Claudius. She also represents an archetype of an evil woman: sensuous, eager to stay close to power, incestuous, and unfaithful.
3. The Psychoanalytic Approach: Ever heard of an Oedipus complex? Hamlet could have tamed his animosity toward his father for having Gertrude, but when his father dies and Claudius takes her hand, Hamlet gets all worked up again. His hatred for Claudius is fed by the fact that someone besides Hamlet Junior or Senior (in the prince's mind, the only two people he could accept being with Gertrude), married Gertrude.
Believe me now? Hamlet's mother could be an unfaithful and selfish mother, an innocent and responsible woman, or a character to show off Hamlet's psychological problems, all depending on what approach you take when reading Hamlet. What other approaches could you take when reading this play, and how would Gertrude's role in the story change?
SONG RECOMMENDATION: Hey There, Ophelia by MC Lars. Who needs SparkNotes when you can just listen to a 4-minute rap summary? (I wouldn't call it the finest piece of audial artwork, but it is entertaining.) Enjoy :)
Rather than just assume you'll believe me saying "You can look at Hamlet from so many perspectives" over and over again, I'm gonna prove it to you. Here's the case of Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, from just a few approaches:
1. The Feminist Approach: Gertrude's okay! Feminists could argue that Gertrude is innocent because there is no concrete text that proves Gertrude knew that Claudius was her husband's killer. She may have married Claudius only as a way to keep herself close to power and able to continue to serve her kingdom.
2. The Mythical Approach: Gertrude is a bad mother. She betrayed her son, Hamlet, by marrying Claudius. She also represents an archetype of an evil woman: sensuous, eager to stay close to power, incestuous, and unfaithful.
3. The Psychoanalytic Approach: Ever heard of an Oedipus complex? Hamlet could have tamed his animosity toward his father for having Gertrude, but when his father dies and Claudius takes her hand, Hamlet gets all worked up again. His hatred for Claudius is fed by the fact that someone besides Hamlet Junior or Senior (in the prince's mind, the only two people he could accept being with Gertrude), married Gertrude.
Believe me now? Hamlet's mother could be an unfaithful and selfish mother, an innocent and responsible woman, or a character to show off Hamlet's psychological problems, all depending on what approach you take when reading Hamlet. What other approaches could you take when reading this play, and how would Gertrude's role in the story change?
SONG RECOMMENDATION: Hey There, Ophelia by MC Lars. Who needs SparkNotes when you can just listen to a 4-minute rap summary? (I wouldn't call it the finest piece of audial artwork, but it is entertaining.) Enjoy :)
Monday, February 7, 2011
Hamlet in Disguise
I really like writing these list-format posts... Anyway, I'm reading Shakespeare's Hamlet for English right now. On Day 1 of this unit, my teacher informed the class of a few instances where this plot has inspired other works of art, so instead of talk about a play you might not have read, I thought it would be fun (yeah, this is what I consider "fun") to find popular movies, songs, or just anything you've probably encountered that are actually based on the famous tragedy.
1. Tchaikovsky wrote an Overture in F minor, called (drumroll, please) Hamlet Fantasy Overture. If you're not a classical music buff, you may have still heard this song if you've ever seen A Christmas Story.
2. More in the vein of classical music... Hamlet is an opera!!! Actually, Wikipedia told me there are seven operas based on Hamlet. In Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, all of Act 4 is Ophelia's "Mad Scene," and Maria Callas, the queen of opera, sings it incredibly.
3. If you're a Disney fan, or have experienced any sort of childhood at all, you've probably seen The Lion King. Guess what. It's Hamlet! Simba is Hamlet, sans insanity. Scar is Claudius, the evil uncle who kills his brother to take the throne, and then grossly abuses his power and tries to take the queen's hand. Timon and Pumba? They could be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, encouraging a responsibility-free lifestyle.
4. Then there's Sons of Anarchy, yes, a whole television series based on Hamlet. Clay is Claudius, Gemma is Gertrude, and Jax, who communicates with his dead father, is (you guessed it) Hamlet. This is not speculation... The show's creator, Kurt Sutter, has admitted that there is Shakespearean inspiration at work, and the storyline will probably follow Hamlet until the end of the series. (Oh, spoiler alert... oops...)
5. The Second City explores the possibility that Ophelia's suicide could have been avoided in this short scene.
6. Now for (not even close to) everything that's not based on Hamlet, but just couldn't keep its hands off the play:
• Calvin of the Calvin and Hobbes recites the "to Be or not to Be" soliloquy to a bowl of green mush. Then the mush starts singing and Calvin eats it...
• Legally Blonde the Musical quotes "This above all: to thine own self be true,/And it must follow, as the night the day,/Thou cans't not be false to any man" in its finale (1:30).
• Find the Hamlet quote or reference in these 2 T.S. Eliot poems! "Wasteland" "The Lovesong of Mr. J. Alfred Prufrock"
• An episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus is called "Hamlet."
• Okay I'm getting kinda sick of looking for all these... Last one! Lines from the play are quoted in movies: (500) Days of Summer, Clueless, and Shakespeare in Love, to name a few.
So, what does this mean? Hamlet is everywhere now, even though it's 400 years old. So far I've only read Act I, but this piece is just so influential. I want to do a good job reading it. Have you read Hamlet? Do you have any tips for me that could help me get the most out of reading? Finally, have you found any Hamlets in disguise that I haven't mentioned?
1. Tchaikovsky wrote an Overture in F minor, called (drumroll, please) Hamlet Fantasy Overture. If you're not a classical music buff, you may have still heard this song if you've ever seen A Christmas Story.
2. More in the vein of classical music... Hamlet is an opera!!! Actually, Wikipedia told me there are seven operas based on Hamlet. In Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, all of Act 4 is Ophelia's "Mad Scene," and Maria Callas, the queen of opera, sings it incredibly.
3. If you're a Disney fan, or have experienced any sort of childhood at all, you've probably seen The Lion King. Guess what. It's Hamlet! Simba is Hamlet, sans insanity. Scar is Claudius, the evil uncle who kills his brother to take the throne, and then grossly abuses his power and tries to take the queen's hand. Timon and Pumba? They could be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, encouraging a responsibility-free lifestyle.
4. Then there's Sons of Anarchy, yes, a whole television series based on Hamlet. Clay is Claudius, Gemma is Gertrude, and Jax, who communicates with his dead father, is (you guessed it) Hamlet. This is not speculation... The show's creator, Kurt Sutter, has admitted that there is Shakespearean inspiration at work, and the storyline will probably follow Hamlet until the end of the series. (Oh, spoiler alert... oops...)
5. The Second City explores the possibility that Ophelia's suicide could have been avoided in this short scene.
6. Now for (not even close to) everything that's not based on Hamlet, but just couldn't keep its hands off the play:
• Calvin of the Calvin and Hobbes recites the "to Be or not to Be" soliloquy to a bowl of green mush. Then the mush starts singing and Calvin eats it...
• Legally Blonde the Musical quotes "This above all: to thine own self be true,/And it must follow, as the night the day,/Thou cans't not be false to any man" in its finale (1:30).
• Find the Hamlet quote or reference in these 2 T.S. Eliot poems! "Wasteland" "The Lovesong of Mr. J. Alfred Prufrock"
• An episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus is called "Hamlet."
• Okay I'm getting kinda sick of looking for all these... Last one! Lines from the play are quoted in movies: (500) Days of Summer, Clueless, and Shakespeare in Love, to name a few.
So, what does this mean? Hamlet is everywhere now, even though it's 400 years old. So far I've only read Act I, but this piece is just so influential. I want to do a good job reading it. Have you read Hamlet? Do you have any tips for me that could help me get the most out of reading? Finally, have you found any Hamlets in disguise that I haven't mentioned?
Thursday, December 2, 2010
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
I'm reading some great literature in English, but that is something I can usually count on having around. Instead, I'd like to take a festive break.
So I've been listening to a whole lot of Christmas music lately. No, I'm not one of those people who prepares for Christmas the second Halloween ends... I'm worse. I was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for Halloween. I'm not sorry.
Annually, I'm faced with a very serious problem. Because I listen to Christmas music nonstop for two months straight each year, I'm always desperate for something new. I can only tolerate hearing Jingle Bell Rock so many times before, well, I start doubting it's really such a swell time to go riding in a one-horse sleigh.
Anyway, I went on a hunt. First I felt disappointed in Bob Dylan. Then I studied for AP Psych (which helped me get a 95% on that chapter test!). Then I turned off the iPod and did some homework...
I've begun to pay much more attention to perspective lately. In class today, we touched on Otherism. In Reading Lolita in Tehran, there's a scene where a stereotypical Muslim girl is compared to a stereotypical Christian girl. The professor says that one of these girls is a virgin, and the other is not. You might ask, "Which girl is which?" or you might say, "Huh, why would he point out that girls of his own religion are not virgins?" (like I'll admit I did. I went to Catholic school for nine years. According to all the teachers, nuns, priests, and fellow parishioners, a Christian woman better be a virgin, unless, of course, she's married.) According to Yassi's professor, because the Muslim girl is a virgin and the Christian girl was the "other," then the Christian girl must not be a virgin. I made the same mistake, but reversed the roles. Unsurprisingly, we each named the girl who is "one of us" as the virgin.
Then I began to think about other layers of otherism... What about people you categorize as "us," who don't actually fit every characteristic on the checklist of "us"-ness? This is how my post is all related to Christmas. From the point of view of us Christmas-celebrators who have heard the story time and time again, the "joy to the world," "glory to the newborn king," and "tidings of comfort and joy," make us believe that everyone's happy with Jesus arriving. The lyrics from this song, from Joseph's perspective, offer the possibility that someone wasn't overjoyed by this situation, or rather, that this poor guy felt pretty insecure about it all. Joseph's wife-to-be was expecting a baby, and all he knew for sure was that it wasn't because of him. Rather than assume that Joseph believed Mary easily and "heaven and nature sang" and "all was calm and all was bright," "Joseph, Who Understood" made me stop and think that it might be more difficult to believe that the son of God is being born when, from your point of view, it just looks like your girlfriend is unfaithful. Just like it's hard to believe that a girl of a different religion, whether it's Islam of Christianity, values abstinence as much as you do, because she's "the other."
So I'm ready for the holidays. I found new music, I analyzed it more than any normal listener should, and then I made these and brought them to my Express concert last night! I replaced all the butter with applesauce, poured the batter in a brownie pan instead of formed cookies, and baked for 20 min instead. Yummy and fat-free cookie bars! I hope you've all had or are having great holidays!
So I've been listening to a whole lot of Christmas music lately. No, I'm not one of those people who prepares for Christmas the second Halloween ends... I'm worse. I was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for Halloween. I'm not sorry.
Annually, I'm faced with a very serious problem. Because I listen to Christmas music nonstop for two months straight each year, I'm always desperate for something new. I can only tolerate hearing Jingle Bell Rock so many times before, well, I start doubting it's really such a swell time to go riding in a one-horse sleigh.
Anyway, I went on a hunt. First I felt disappointed in Bob Dylan. Then I studied for AP Psych (which helped me get a 95% on that chapter test!). Then I turned off the iPod and did some homework...
I've begun to pay much more attention to perspective lately. In class today, we touched on Otherism. In Reading Lolita in Tehran, there's a scene where a stereotypical Muslim girl is compared to a stereotypical Christian girl. The professor says that one of these girls is a virgin, and the other is not. You might ask, "Which girl is which?" or you might say, "Huh, why would he point out that girls of his own religion are not virgins?" (like I'll admit I did. I went to Catholic school for nine years. According to all the teachers, nuns, priests, and fellow parishioners, a Christian woman better be a virgin, unless, of course, she's married.) According to Yassi's professor, because the Muslim girl is a virgin and the Christian girl was the "other," then the Christian girl must not be a virgin. I made the same mistake, but reversed the roles. Unsurprisingly, we each named the girl who is "one of us" as the virgin.
Then I began to think about other layers of otherism... What about people you categorize as "us," who don't actually fit every characteristic on the checklist of "us"-ness? This is how my post is all related to Christmas. From the point of view of us Christmas-celebrators who have heard the story time and time again, the "joy to the world," "glory to the newborn king," and "tidings of comfort and joy," make us believe that everyone's happy with Jesus arriving. The lyrics from this song, from Joseph's perspective, offer the possibility that someone wasn't overjoyed by this situation, or rather, that this poor guy felt pretty insecure about it all. Joseph's wife-to-be was expecting a baby, and all he knew for sure was that it wasn't because of him. Rather than assume that Joseph believed Mary easily and "heaven and nature sang" and "all was calm and all was bright," "Joseph, Who Understood" made me stop and think that it might be more difficult to believe that the son of God is being born when, from your point of view, it just looks like your girlfriend is unfaithful. Just like it's hard to believe that a girl of a different religion, whether it's Islam of Christianity, values abstinence as much as you do, because she's "the other."
So I'm ready for the holidays. I found new music, I analyzed it more than any normal listener should, and then I made these and brought them to my Express concert last night! I replaced all the butter with applesauce, poured the batter in a brownie pan instead of formed cookies, and baked for 20 min instead. Yummy and fat-free cookie bars! I hope you've all had or are having great holidays!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Managing Lately
Last week Carl Wilkens came to speak to my class. Before his visit, I had a very basic understanding of the Rwandan genocide -- just dates, rough numbers, definitions of Hutu and Tutsi -- so, in all honesty, I hardly considered it important. But this genocide happened in my own lifetime; the years I associate with my early childhood, others will associate with that. Wilkens really did open my eyes to that piece of history, and I'm thankful for my new appreciation of this history.
You may wonder why Wilkens's visit resonated with me so much. Think of what he has done, and then compare my own experiences. I've never set foot in Rwanda. I've never lived the midst of a genocide. I've never taken on responsibility for an orphanage. On that level, I guess I can't relate to his stories. But I have looked at a situation with positive eyes, and seeing someone else do just that and succeed comforted me. I have had doubts about my optimism. Maybe I'm just stupid and naïve. Especially this week (Warning: Next five sentences may follow "irritating rant" format!) I've been pretty swamped. Yes, I finally got my first batch of college applications turned in, but the next deadline (November 15 for CC, for anyone who's curious) is creeping up fast, and school has not relented in the least. The end of the quarter was just a time for me to find out my current grades and feel the pressure of what marks I have to maintain. Express, one of the choirs I sing in, is starting Christmas Season, so I have 2-and-a-half-hour reheasals every day after school. On top of that, Variety Show auditions are Monday, and with so many different numbers (such as the ones I've just linked) to rehearse I haven't gotten home before 8 p.m. yet this week.
I was just going through blogs on my reader account, and I came across this one. Emily reminded me of Mr. Wilkens's visit, and how inspired I felt after listening to him. I'm gonna emulate Wilkens (very consciously this week, though it wouldn't be such a bad thing to do all the time). I'm going to accept some things that I cannot change and trust that I will reap the best possible results if I work hard. My schedule this week isn't gonna change, but I can get through it, and I can enjoy it if I look at the situation the right way. Thanks, Carl Wilkens, for making this all manageable.
You may wonder why Wilkens's visit resonated with me so much. Think of what he has done, and then compare my own experiences. I've never set foot in Rwanda. I've never lived the midst of a genocide. I've never taken on responsibility for an orphanage. On that level, I guess I can't relate to his stories. But I have looked at a situation with positive eyes, and seeing someone else do just that and succeed comforted me. I have had doubts about my optimism. Maybe I'm just stupid and naïve. Especially this week (Warning: Next five sentences may follow "irritating rant" format!) I've been pretty swamped. Yes, I finally got my first batch of college applications turned in, but the next deadline (November 15 for CC, for anyone who's curious) is creeping up fast, and school has not relented in the least. The end of the quarter was just a time for me to find out my current grades and feel the pressure of what marks I have to maintain. Express, one of the choirs I sing in, is starting Christmas Season, so I have 2-and-a-half-hour reheasals every day after school. On top of that, Variety Show auditions are Monday, and with so many different numbers (such as the ones I've just linked) to rehearse I haven't gotten home before 8 p.m. yet this week.
I was just going through blogs on my reader account, and I came across this one. Emily reminded me of Mr. Wilkens's visit, and how inspired I felt after listening to him. I'm gonna emulate Wilkens (very consciously this week, though it wouldn't be such a bad thing to do all the time). I'm going to accept some things that I cannot change and trust that I will reap the best possible results if I work hard. My schedule this week isn't gonna change, but I can get through it, and I can enjoy it if I look at the situation the right way. Thanks, Carl Wilkens, for making this all manageable.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Not Alone!
In English class we are reading The Poisonwood Bible. This story has multiple narrators - all the female members of the Price family (if you need more information on the story, go here). Each girl has a distinct voice, and the way they narrate events reveals their varying personal outlooks on the world. The oldest daughter Rachel often pities herself, while Ruth May is too young to abstractly think and simply tells what she hears. Leah yearns to please her father, but her twin sister Adah prefers to develop independent opinions. Orleanna, the mother, feels trapped in her role as Reverend Nathan's wife. We readers receive so many opinions from these authors, but we also see Nathan's beliefs and the values of the Congolese people living among the Prices. One of the most crucial things for readers of The Poisonwood Bible to recognize is all the different viewpoints that are presented. While reading I've felt a faint curiosity to know what the author actually believes.
Today I had a speech team meeting. My coach had told me she had a few pieces picked out that she'd like me to read, and the first one she handed to me was the commencement address to Duke University's graduating class of 2008. The original speaker? None other than Barbara Kingsolver, the author of The Poisonwood Bible. Early in her speech, Kingsolver gives the traditional definition of success: "having boatloads of money." She goes on to name a large house, nice car, and spacious office as things that can be acquired with success. Later, she brings up happiness and its correlation to financial success, saying, "In the last 30 yeas our material wealth has increased in this country, but our self-described happiness has steadily declined. Elsewhere, the people who consider themselves very happy are... Mexico, Ireland, Puerto Rico, the kinds of places we identify with extended family, noist villages, a lot of dancing. The happiest people are the ones with the most community." To my gleeful surprise, I found that Ms. Kingsolver is an optimist like me! Her idea that financial security has no personal meaning, that it cannot bring happiness like a community can, resonated with me.
So how does this relate to The Poisonwood Bible? I now notice ways in which Kingsolver's optimism come out in her writing. Rachel is the most unhappy and most materialistic. When Ruth May falls ill, Leah and Anatole converse. Leah states, "Children should never die," and Anatole responds, "No. But if they never did, children would not be so precious... Also, if everyone lived to be old, then old age would not be such a treasure" (Kingsolver 231). Anatole does not have the power to prevent deaths, and rather than take sorrow in the helplessness, he cherishes children who survive - optimism! I'm very glad to have been introduced to Kingsolver's commencement speech. Analyzing Poisonwood as I continue to read it won't be as daunting as I previously saw it, because I've learned that the author and I are looking out the same window.
Today I had a speech team meeting. My coach had told me she had a few pieces picked out that she'd like me to read, and the first one she handed to me was the commencement address to Duke University's graduating class of 2008. The original speaker? None other than Barbara Kingsolver, the author of The Poisonwood Bible. Early in her speech, Kingsolver gives the traditional definition of success: "having boatloads of money." She goes on to name a large house, nice car, and spacious office as things that can be acquired with success. Later, she brings up happiness and its correlation to financial success, saying, "In the last 30 yeas our material wealth has increased in this country, but our self-described happiness has steadily declined. Elsewhere, the people who consider themselves very happy are... Mexico, Ireland, Puerto Rico, the kinds of places we identify with extended family, noist villages, a lot of dancing. The happiest people are the ones with the most community." To my gleeful surprise, I found that Ms. Kingsolver is an optimist like me! Her idea that financial security has no personal meaning, that it cannot bring happiness like a community can, resonated with me.
So how does this relate to The Poisonwood Bible? I now notice ways in which Kingsolver's optimism come out in her writing. Rachel is the most unhappy and most materialistic. When Ruth May falls ill, Leah and Anatole converse. Leah states, "Children should never die," and Anatole responds, "No. But if they never did, children would not be so precious... Also, if everyone lived to be old, then old age would not be such a treasure" (Kingsolver 231). Anatole does not have the power to prevent deaths, and rather than take sorrow in the helplessness, he cherishes children who survive - optimism! I'm very glad to have been introduced to Kingsolver's commencement speech. Analyzing Poisonwood as I continue to read it won't be as daunting as I previously saw it, because I've learned that the author and I are looking out the same window.
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