My Final Post.

This class has been a journey of sorts. It has been a movement from one place to another, though those places aren't necessarily different. It has also been a movement and journey from chaos to tranquility, and possibly back. To show you what I mean I would like to tell of the mid-semester oasis. This is, of course, spring break 2010.



We pulled into Vegas around three and sat with our bags in the lobby while Samantha waited to check in. The room was reserved under her name and we fully planned on fitting five more people in the room than the hotel knew about. A man in a wrinkled uniform sat next to the elevators, a sign told us to show him our hotel keys before going up to the room. A nerve shot through my stomach as I saw this until I looked at the man's face. Tired eyes sunk above a disenchanted nose, desensitized from the path of hookers and big women from the south, those who were either on their way to make money or lose it big. The poor man could barely care about six dirtbags using the hotel for a cheap place to crash during spring break, but not enough to say anything as we pass, loaded down with backpacks and sleeping bags.

A strange energy seemed to guide us south on I-15. We were at the crossroads of two powerful vectors, one coming from the red walls in the east and the other streaming through countless filaments on its path from the north. The actual intersection was probably somewhere in the west lobby or on the casino floor next to the blackjack tables. The tension was strong, more of a film that I wasn't quite willing to cross. I wasn't ready for the absurd labyrinth in the neuropathways of this place's collective cognition. The circuits were all loaded with a unique current that flowed through endless copper over countless miles of red sand and sagebrush. A straight shot to a dead end that eats anything that enters, only letting those out who have given all excesses of energy and money. The hotel itself was second rate, or maybe third or fourth. I know of the extravagance of suites and limos that sat so close. The difference, only the plastic hotel key. At some point, it seems, everything must die. The black summer days flood in through the heavy drapes, drawn until three in the afternoon.

We are not in summer though, it is only spring and the air is light with the breeze of chance, of fortune. We have not yet come to the hot and heavy days that crowd this place most of the year. We still have hope. I hope to find it in Red Rocks.

The city itself is strange in its contrast. The strip itself, which we sat on the north end, was fantastically mystical. What I found truly interesting was what is found directly on the other side of the strip. Vacant lots strewn with garbage and junky cars. Dust swirls up in the wind and obscures the endless desert. The price of a square inch just a block over? priceless. The price behind the huge casino? nothing.

Spring break has always been a time to rest the soul and take a much needed break from the academic setting and the hectic realities of life. In the city I wouldn't find it. We would have to drive fifteen miles west to the red sands and endless rock walls of Red Rocks Canyon.

We would climb during the day, drive back to the hotel, and go out on the strip at night. This wasn't anything like the seven day camping / climbing trip in Indian Creek that we took a couple years ago. I soon realized that I was not finding the tranquility and rest that I had so greatly desired. The city wouldn't allow it. The city is a dream, a fiction.

First of all, there are outdoor escalators. And needless to say, Samantha and I get really excited about outdoor escalators. Here we are, riding one.


The lights and massive scale appealed to my need for visual stimuli, and I was lost... not in myself but in a crazy story that never seemed to end.

We imagined that we held the key to a high level suite on the top floor of an expensive hotel. And then we would walk in and the difference was obvious. We didn't care about the things the people inside cared about. I don't think they were looking for tranquility in the night clubs and endless casino floors.

So much excess!





What I found very interesting was the ceiling in many of the casinos, here is a picture.



Nope, not real. One night I was completely exhausted, it was close to one o'clock and no one seemed to notice. We walked into the casino in Paris and suddenly it felt like it was the middle of the afternoon. It was strange, a complete shift in reality. Vegas is a dream, and it makes our normal lives feel like the completely concrete.

My soul did not find rest. Not until the fourth day when we went back into Black Velvet canyon was I able to find some solace. Here, about a mile from the wall we came upon a little pool. For a little reference, the wall on the left side of the photo is over 2000 feet tall. This place is absolutely surreal. And I was finally at rest. I took a breath, a true breath for the first time in months.




Then it was back to life in Bozeman. We drove back in one big push and arrived to bitter winds and snow. uggh. This class has been the same way. I have found solace and depth in a lot of the themes and texts of this class. But it started and ended with chaos and confusion. Our lives are surely dreams, sometimes it just takes a journey to realize that.

Thanks for the great semester everyone, and have a great, restful summer!

Favorite Text This Semester.

Okay, now to pick a favorite from the semester.

Skin of our Teeth, Finnegans Wake, The Alchemist... no, no, and no. (good just not favorite)

Beckett, Tempest, Haroun ... possibly, certainly great but all three of my literature classes are covering it, good as well and I'm very glad to be turned on to Salmon Rushdie.

The Following Story, Four Quartets? YES and YES! The Following Story is so well written and entertaining to the intellect. It is not something that you just fly through, and is very rewarding. I would like to add that when advising anyone to read this I would also include "Transparent Things" by Nabokov as a sort of sister text to this novel. The themes that are discussed are very similar in spirit and content, and the authors are both extremely creative and intelligent writers (though I'm still a bit partial to Nabokov).

The Four Quartets is SO intelligent, and caught my attention right away. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I have read through the quartets probably 9 or 10 times and certain sections countless times. The result: I have barely scratched the surface. There is so much going on that I find myself increasingly intrigued the more time I spend with it. Eliot is criticized for being such a modernist, and in many ways it is true. However, when passion exists behind creative philosophy, then a very strong piece is created, and continues to be created.

I want to mention again Beckett's three novels. I was also very intrigued by this and especially in relation to the concept of Kenosis. I'm quite curious as to what Bloom would have to say about this process in the context of this book. Great stuff, and I plan to read the last two of the novels over the summer.

Professor Sexson, thanks for exposing us to some really great material this semester!

Wordsworth and Eliot.

I make an allusion in my essay to Wordsworth's poem "A Slumber did my Spirit Seal" which follows the lead of Eliot in Burnt Norton Section III.

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.

It is the line "With slow rotation suggesting permanence" that reminded me of the Wordsworth poem. Here it is for any that have forgotten.

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
with rocks, and stones, and trees.

There is not a direct allusion here, but the correlation (at least in my mind) is pretty high. Wordsworth's poem deals with an existence that feels utterly out of time. "earth's diurnal course" sounds a lot like the metronome of the sea that Eliot speaks of in Dry Salvages. It is not the invention of man, but of an earth that exists outside of our petty mechanism of time. The secret to this ancient time can only be found in the rocks and the stones and the trees that cannot be deciphered. If only we could come into such close proximity with them that we could then understand their secrets. Maybe we could suck on them.

Interestingly, the phrase "no motion has she now, no force" fits very tightly into Eliot's philosophy, or is it the other way around? Eliot mentions that movement is time, so this "she" is obviously outside of it.

Eliot's words make this short poem very poignant. No darkness exists in the slumber with all of the accompanying physical matter, and surely the sensual is successfully drained out of this existence. That is another point that corresponds to Eliot, sensual desire is in time, true love is not.

This poem has always held a dark edge with me, and now seems to more than ever. But maybe it is really a poem of great transcendence and joy. The object of the poem is outside of time and has apparently made the jump into the next "reality." It is into this next world that love becomes a little more pure, a little bit stronger. In some sense, death has always contained an element of hope. We just don't know.

So many Blogs.

What I am going to say, has already been said, though to reiterate is important. There are a couple blogs that really pulled me through this semester, and I have surely needed to be pulled, sometimes dragged.

Sam - Thanks for putting so much time and effort into your blog. I think we all know that if we miss a day, no big deal, just go to the monster blog and see what happened. Also, great insights into the class and the themes as a whole.

Jon - Jon always has great posts with fresh perspectives. I really respect his depth of thought and creativity when it comes to literature. Also Jon, you've got a great writing style, keep up the good work.

Christina - Christina makes us all look real bad. Thanks a lot. Sarcasm aside, she always has cool ideas and is quite motivated to be creative. I always am impressed by the eloquence and clarity in her writing. Yeah, she is the good student. Dang over-achiever! :)

To everyone who has kept up with their blogging... I commend you. I respect you all very much.

Group Presentation.

I never got a chance to really offer an explanation of our group presentation. I would first like to mention that this was the best group I have ever worked with for these projects. We had a great time doing it, and best of all started meeting early so we had time to really develop our ideas. Thanks to Thomas for his mad editing skills and creativity (and access to the 7D!), Sam always came up with loads of great ideas, and Erin made a killer quiche.

Our group was in charge of the 20 minute lifetime. We decided to portray this through the structure of a dreamer. Shortly before we gave our presentation (and by shortly I mean 2 minutes) I realized how much overlap there is between our theme and that of Life as Fiction. Would some differentiation have helped? I don't really think so. It is important to understand that there is strong overlap between all of the themes of this class. And clarification doesn't always clarify.

So the dream idea was that a lifetime could exist within one of Professor Sexson's tangents during a lecture. As the student, I fell asleep and began to have a dream. As we mentioned after our presentation, if you found any element to be a bit strange than the easy explanation is: it is a dream, it is supposed to be weird! However, we did try to incorporate a whole bunch of elements and themes from this semester.

Some of those were: notions of Alchemy and purification of the soul, birth, growth, life and death, lists, memory, narration, deja vu, recurrence, circularity, chaos, and illogicality. There were plenty of references to the different texts and sources that we used this semester as well including: The Tempest, Four Quartets, Beckett, Vico, Stranger than Fiction, The Matrix, classmates' blogs and plenty of other familiar sources of influence.

My favorite part of the video was the sucking stones bit along with the recitations of Finnegans Wake. So cool... and in HD!

Thanks to all my group members for making this a fun project, I think we did a great job!

My List.

Here is a list, off the top of my head, of some of the musicians in my iTunes library. There are 31 GBs, so I'm obviously missing a lot, but here it is... what I can remember.


A-sides, Albert King, Alexi Murdoc, The Album Leaf, America, Amy Millan, Badly Drawn Boy, The Beatles (Abbey Road), DJ Dangermouse (grey album), Band of Horses, The Apples in Stereo, Arizona, Arrah and the Ferns, Ben Kweller, Beirut, Boston, Bill Evans, Bela Fleck, Andrew Bird, Fruit Bats, The Shins, Further Seems Forever, Blindside, Iron and Wine, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Belle and Sebastian, Seu George, Darjeeling Limited Soundtrack, Life Aquatic Soundtrack, Rushmore Soundtrack, Langhorne Slim, Miles Davis, Vince Guaraldi, Sufjan Stevens, Wilco, Loose Fur, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Los Lonely Boys, Buddy Guy, Elliot Smith, Coldplay, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Funky, Jay-Z, Grieves, TV on the Radio, MGMT, Girl Talk, That 1 Guy, Damien Jurado, Bees and Grass, The Bees, Glenn Miller, Fanfarlo, The Strokes, The Killers, Ben Gibbard, Rocky Votolato, Pedro the Lion, David Bazan, The Grand Archives, Grand Analog, Regina Spektor, Tom Waits, Beethoven, Bach, Modest Mouse, Okkerville River, Doobie Brothers, Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, Anya Marina, The Format, The Avett Brothers, The Felice Brothers, The Postal Service, Explosions in the Sky, Unwed Sailor, Trace Bundy, Ratatat, Dan Aurbach, Bon Iver, Radiohead, Red hot Chili Peppers, Manchester Orchestra, Right Away Good Captain, Nick Drake, Los Petersellers, Norah Jones, Stars, Horsefeathers, Great Lakes Swimmers, Headphones, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Headlights, Kings of Leon, King of Convenience, The Gypsy Kings, John Mayer Trio, Snowpatrol, My Morning Jacket, Liam Finn, M83, The Be Good Tanyas, Dntel, Daft Punk, Vampire Weekend, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Derek and the Dominoes, Eric Clapton, meWithoutYou, Fleet Foxes, The XX, Audrey Sessions, The Autumn Defense, Josh Ritter, Devandra Bernhardt, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Darkness, Black Gold, Black Keys, The Black Kids, Neutral Milk Hotel, Bright Eyes, Franz Ferdinand, George Thorogood, Muddy Water, Mute Math, Moby, Dispatch, Jack Johnson, Simon and Garfunkel, Jaoa Gilberto, Stan Getz, Mac Lethal, Mason Jennings, Marvin Gaye, Bowerbirds, The Tallest Man on Earth, The Mars Volta, Phantom Planet, Nirvana, K'naan, M Ward, M.I.A., Greatful Dead, Jimmy Eat World, Herbie Hancock, Broken Bells, Cake, Built to Spill, Buena Vista Social Club, Arthur and Yu, The Helio Sequence, P.O.S.

Falling Behind.

This happens all the time... unfortunately.
I start the semester out strong and decide to keep up on the blogging unlike the semester previous. I failed again. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. As for coming short on an assignment, I feel bad. I believe that as an upper division college student I should be held to a high standard. But in general, I am so sick of my computer. I hate how much visual stimulation I need to be satisfied, not only that, but to just hold my attention. Honestly, there have been a number of blog posts that some of you have done that I didn't bother reading because... well... there were no cool pictures. This depresses me greatly.

About halfway through this semester I read an article on NPR that explored the ways in which readership is changing. All of these changes were in the direction of needing more stimulation and less downtime, or plot development, or anything that isn't overly stimulating. Suddenly I realized that that article described me all to well...

...and then we started reading Beckett. His style caught my attention, but it was hard to read. Nothing happened! There were no overly saturated pictures! No poorly animated GIFS! How could I even think to read this!

I fear that in such an age of visual stimulation and loss of patience, Beckett will never be read. Nor will the millions of others that require a bit of work. We must keep literature alive. It does not seem so now, but at some point this will be a plea of desperation.

I don't really buy this sort of study that goes on to understand the arising language of texting and other modern technological mediums. All I see is a movement towards the demotic and a push towards chaos.

To be quite honest, this is how I felt about Finnegans Wake. I couldn't stand it. Sure, there are some very interesting, beautiful, flowing lines, and I can also appreciate the wholly aesthetic approach that one sometimes needs when handling the text, but I get the same feelings about FW as I do about texting and twitter, etc. I know, I'm being pessimistic and dark, but I can't do anything else. My soul bids me. I can't wait to forget about checking my email, and wasting time on cracked.com, and reading countless forums on rockclimbing.com. I can't wait to write something NOT in a word processor, or in this strange QWERTY system. My trained fingers can cruise along at blinding speeds and I don't even have to think about it. They must be betraying me! Even as I "write" this they are jumping around quickly, I just think, they do the rest. What else are they doing that I'm not aware of!!???!!

I can't wait to retrain myself to be patient, and to be able to focus and be truly introspective again. It has been too long. Deep breathes help.

Until then I will try to add some quality blogs before beginning the process.