Thursday, December 8, 2011

Mythologies to an outsider: a poem

Some of you may have noticed that there was an extra person in class today. That was my friend Starly-Jazz Thoorsell, who asked if she could sit in on the class with me. I said sure, and this is what came of it. She requested that I change font colors to present it as it is written, sorry if some of you have a harder time reading this.

Look into my eyes see my soul see my hidden secrets
Discover what makes me tick  discover what sets me off
See me for who I truly am see me past my own worst enemy
Look past my self hatred and see me for who I truly am
I am not scared I am not evil I am not full of hate I am not
I am truly happy I am truly at peace in every wandering thoughts
I am truly at peace in my ever wandering heart in my ever wandering
I wander to understand life I wander to understand emotion
I wander to understand the many thoughts that pop into my mind
So look past my wall look past my defences look past what I allow show
Discover the beauty of my tears the beauty of my laugh as I let my
soul truly shine through the hate of this world
see the beauty of this hidden self see the beauty of this true person who I
never let out and learn to love the secrecy of this person who I only
let out when in love when I begin to trust whole heartedly
see me for me

Final Day of Classes

Presentations:
Abby: Conchis/Fowles, Nicholas/reader.
IMPORTANT QUOTE FROM THE MAGUS: "All that is past possesses our present."
"All answers are a form of death.", the story goes on because Nicholas lives at the end. We need to come to terms with not knowing. We are all stupid like Nicholas.

Jessica: The Monster and The Magus.
This started with a story about Jessica's tattoo, which was very interesting as she didn't know what she was getting until it was done. The underlying theme is Nicholas trying to find the monster in his maze, only to learn that that monster is himself. Now he can no longer be human, or beast, but a hybrid.

Jennifer: The Word Made Flesh.
This started out with a memory of bone hunting out by Fort Peck, with the ultimate prize being a complete buffalo skull. A baby starts with gurgling sounds, progresses to speech, and finally the written word. God went in reverse order: The Word groaned and man sprang from the dust. With the Eucharist we do not take power (which was typical of omophagia), but give grace. We wait for the voice singing in the darkness. This last part reminded me of the part in The Magician's Nephew where Aslan creates Narnia by singing in darkness.

Wena: The origins of the Olympics.
The original, or ancient, games were done so heroes could gain power and other material things, such as land. Each sport had a mythological story behind it. Wrestling was Zeus and Kronos fighting for control of the gods. Foot races come from Hermes, while horse racing came from Poseidon. There was much feasting, drinking, and ritual sacrifices. The athletes were fighting for their own honor, as well as the honor of their lands. There was a bit right at the beginning talking about the Olympic torch and flame, which in the modern games starts at the Temple of Hera, and goes around the world to the host city. Side note about the torch: When the winter games where held in Salt Lake City in 2002, the torch passed through Billings, I got to go out, freeze my butt off, and see it. It passed (for some reason) about three or four blocks from my house. The principal of my elementary school got to run it, but he wasn't the runner when I saw the torch.

Jill: Veering to the chathonic path.
Nicholas gets abducted into "the Underworld" and is supposed to accept death and be reborn, but of course he fails to understand what is going on, so he goes through the deed, but gets none of the benefits.

Danielle: Distorted view of reality.
Fale realities are created by not knowing who you are. Conchis tells Nicholas that he can't trust the reality around him, for he doesn't know who he is.

Mary Ann: Modern Myth and Ancient Myth.
Modern myth was covered by a disgusting picture of a "real" mermaid that washed up somewhere over in Asia. There was also mentioning of a girl who has been born with the entire lower half of her body fused. I'll mention here, that there may be two, the one she mentioned is not the one I watched the TLC special on a few years ago. Usually the legs can be separated like conjoined twins, but on occasion that cannot happen. Star Wars was apparently written to be a modern mythology because George Lucas realized that there was nothing for children to look up to. Last we have Andre the Giant who suffered from acromaglia (giantism), I may be wrong on the spelling for the medical term. There are various reports on his actual height. The Ancient myths were covered by a mythology newspaper that she created.








Review:
Have your blogs in by tomorrow morning (12/9/2012).
Logos = Word, specifically creative word.
Group Questions: 1) How many different versions of myth are there? infinite.
2) Who was Oprah compared to? Zeus.
3) Where did we get the name of our project "the shameful truth"? The silent film in The Magus.
4) Darrell had two great one liners, what were they? "That's all folks" and "here we go again"
5) What song was played during the credits in our presentation? "White Wedding" by Billy Idol.
6) Who were the characters at the funeral? Irish, pirate, Viking, cowboy, Chinese, and Egyptian. In that order.
"All that is past possesses our present."/ "Every answer is a form of death." from The Magus.
The succata
Adonis ritual: when someone dies too young.
sacrifice: to make something sacred.
masque: a form of theatre.
Chung Tzu and the Butterfly
The Magus = The God Game.
Orpheus and Eurydice (divine musician).
Bhagavagita.
The Swerve toward eternity.
Eschatology
Metapsychosis
parabola.
 NOTE: I may have missed a few of these things. I can only write so fast and we were going really fast. Juniper and Vittoria also have these on their blogs. Juniper said that she got all of it.

Make-up: Presentations Day 2

Jerrod: Parenting in Mythology.
Jerrod started with the relationship of Uranus and Kronos. Kronos (Saturn in Rome) ate his children, until Zeus came along and was hidden (on the island of Crete if I remember correctly) until aided by Metis (whom Zeus will later eat), killed Kronos with a poisoned drink. We moved on to Tantalus who cooked his own child (Pelops) to feed to the gods, just to see if they'd notice. Mothers are just as bad, Gaia and Hippodyla (Pelops's wife). Essentially there are few good parents in mythology (Zeus is a good parent, compared to Kronos and Uranus).

Lucy: The Magus and fate.
Greek ate, or divine infatuation. Nicholas gets possessed by Conchis in the book. There was also mentioning  of all the chess references that are made in the book, and how Conchis is a better player than Nicholas is. Nicholas and Oedipus are very similar in that they try to run away from their fate, but only manage to run into it. Conchis and his people only want to open peoples minds and reintroduce mystery.

Zach: Relationship appeals in The Magus.
Zach focused on three relationships: Nicholas and Allison (Psyche and Cupid) where Nicholas is Psyche, and doesn't realize what he has with Allison. Nicholas and Julie/Lily/Isis (Hades and Persephone) Julie is very complex, and Nicholas just wants to get away from Allison. Nicholas and Conchis (pawn and Zeus or Aptae) Conchis is a puppetteer who always tells half-truths to get Nicholas to do what Conchis deems necissary.

Sam: The Magus = The World (governed by our past).
Our society is focused on judgement. The labrinth is fed to us through Nicholas, and is always forming. We have forgotten that the gods are at work in the modern world. I also have written down the everlasting opinions of the people, which I remember as relating to myth.

Quentin: Hidden agendas and double lies in The Magus.
There is a veil covering the characters. Quentin compared Conchis to Hades because he is very deceptive in the book. Nicholas finally learns at the end, but not well enough. Life is a veil waiting to be lifted. This was inspired by the book Heart of Darkness.

Jeremy: Comparison with The Adjustment Bureau.
Nicholas has issues with his free will. In The Adjustment Bureau, a politician meets a woman, then sees her again on a bus and they exchange information and what-not. He arrives at his office, and people are there to "get him back on track" with the story that The Chairman has written for him, where he was never supposed to meet the woman again. The movie is spent trying to get away from the Adjustment Bureau. Free will is present in name only in both the book and the movie. We are all part of a huge game.

Sherwood: Beginnings, Middles, and Ends: The Magus.
Beginning- Nicholas is ready for an adventure, Allison could be his new mystery if only he'd see.
Middle- Nicholas doesn't know who he is when he's in the labrinth (or really at any other part of the book). Everyone is convincing in their lies that Nicholas is stuck in the middle. He comes face to face with his own demon.
Ends- "The beginning is included in the end" or "the end is included in the beginning" I don't remember exactly how that one went. Nicholas finds himself waiting for Allison after is massive, yet incomplete, transformation.

Andy: Predestination.
Nicholas is stuck in a fog trying to figure things out, though everything is before him. Nicholas fails at his hero story, because he is a stagnant character. Unless you do something drastic, you will just get pushed along.

Tori (Vittoria): Freedom and Determination.
1) 7
2) 63
3) 9
4) 4
5) D
6) Denmark
7) K
8) Kangaroo
9) O
10) Orange.
This is a statistics exercise concerning the first thing that pops into people's minds (Question 1, concerning a number 1-10). The rest of this comes from following the instructions for the questions, and the majority of people should end up with a kangaroo in Denmark eating an orange.  In the Bhagavagita Krishnu convinces Arguna to fight, but Krishnu already knew that the man would fight. For Krishnu is God, who is also compared ot Conchis, and Arguna to Nicholas.

Ashley: "Inferno": fraud and deceit are at the bottom of Hell.
Deceit is defined as the severing of bonds. Nicholas is deceitful to the women in his life. Boy meets girl. Boy pushes girl away. Boy learns. Boy begs girl back. This is a story we're all familiar with. We need to purify the cycle to start over.

Darrell: Here we go again.
Darrell compared Nicholas to many of the Greek heroes, all depending on what he was doing in the book at the time. Oedipus shows up three different times throughout the book. Only the minor details are our own, the story has been played out thousands of millions of times before. Deja vu.

Lauren: The three regimes of godly interaction with the world.
Conviviality, rape, indifference. Nicholas is an atheist, showing indifference. Adonis gets boared by a bull for rejecting Aphrodite, and Nicholas gets compared to that in the book. There is a lot of violence used against Nicholas, and he still tries to overcome divine power.

Matthew: 7 "eccentric" geniuses who were really just crazy.
Everyone in The Magus is insane. Nicholas is the most useless when he is sane. We have to embrace the insanity to be mythoogically inspired. Go check out the list of 7 "eccentric" geniuses, it was interesting.

Justin: I have noted down that he got extra credit for going ahead of his scheduled time.
Nicholas is the hero, in the mythological sense (I have noted above this that it means he does the deeds for sex and no higher purpose). Who encounters the deceitful female Julie/Lily/Isis/Rose, and the trickster Conchis. Mythological archetypes have carried over into modern literature.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Final Presentations Day 1

Christine: Disney, Grimm, and the myth behind it all.
Christine compared myth to a tree, with fairy tales being a vine that grows on said tree. She also stated that no culture has it's own stories. They are combinations of what they brought with them, and the stories that were there before.

I was next (darn my last name): Mythology in Star Trek.
I covered the season 2 episode from the original series called "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Now I do understand why I always wanted to misspell it as "Who Mourns for Adonis?", which Dr. Sexson brought up at the end of my presentation. I've already put my paper up here, basically I just go over the episodes that have mythological references in the original series and The Next Generation.

Megan: Women in The Magus.
Megan talked about how the women in The Magus are deceitful, and compared Allison to Helen in that she was absent throughout most of the book but kept haunting Nicholas. The other thing I have written down for this is that women need to show men that they are powerful.

Courtney: Feminine rolls in initiation.
Women force men to look at their inner demons through betrayal. Betrayal is woman's heroic action.

Juniper: Persephone and Hades in The Magus. Persephone is Lily, and Hades is Joe. This is indicated by the Eliza Pound passage. Lily's mother is already considered Demeter. Joe's early roles of guard and Anubis, indicate a Hades like character. The relationship is presented as "right and good". This all indicates that Nicholas's view of sex and relationships needs to change in order for him to have a relationship, this costs him Allison.

Maddie: A crossover between The Magus and Stranger than Fiction.
In The Magus Nicholas hears about Bourani, and it sucks him into his own separate reality, different from the world he actually occupies. He then learns that he was part of an experiment that was supposed to better him, but did not. In Stranger than Fiction, Harold Creek starts to hear his life being narrated, he then learns that he is a character in a book, and that this story line will move forward without him doing anything. He then seeks out the author, Karen Eiffel, and reads her book, discovering that it is his reality.

Eric: Comparison of The Magus to The Lesser Blessed.
Nicholas has bipolar thoughts about Allison which starts his initiation. The Lesser Blessed is a story about a Native American (Canadian) who has a rather horrible life, and kills his father, but knows the power of story telling. Through love, the dead can live. Be aware of your surroundings.

Rosemary: The Proscenium of The Magus revealed.
Rosemary essentially retold The Magus all while handing out cards to us that had words that she had to look up while she was reading The Magus.

Kevin: Death and trickery.
Kevin compared the rolling of the dice at Bourani to the creation of music by Hermes after annoying Apollo. He also mentioned the women of The Magus as being like the Sirens from the Iliad. He mentions how Persephone is tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds.

Bailey: Board game poster.
Bailey compared The Magus to a board game where you go around the board and end up where you started. Also stating that no matter how Nicholas might have done things, it all would have ended the same.

Parker: Nicholas Urfe's lack of development.
Nicholas's view of reality is very different from the reality of the situation, he also doesn't seem to be able to recognize this. He goes to Phraxos to free himself but truly confines himself more. Conchis shows Nicholas how unrealistic he is, and how destructive this is in relationships. Nicholas is truly trying to escape from his mind.

Stephanie: Mirrors and The Magus.
Stephanie brought a mirror with her to demonstrate her point. The mirror represented the future, where Nicholas's reflection is his "future self". We change, but the mirror does not. Cracking mirrors will give different patterns, but the result is always the same. The gods explained what we could not, and though they are gone, the cracks remain for us to follow.

NOTICE: Everyone- please come to class next week. There weren't many people there on Thursday, and it'll make it harder for our test review next Thursday if we have to spend the entire time on individual presentations. Just in case we don't have many people again, those who would have gone next Thursday may want to be ready in case we have room for you next Tuesday, that will keep things rolling along quite nicely and make everyone happy.  PLEASE COME TO CLASS FOR THE REST OF THE SEMESTER!!!!!!!!!!! ONLY TWO MORE CLASSES!!!!!!!