The End is the Beginning is the End

My favorite living poet:  Dax Riggs

If the beginning is the end is the beginning and the end is the beginning is the end,  then it is more than appropriate that we end our journey where it began Dr. Sexson; in the Fall of 2011 with the poetry of Dax Riggs and the spirit of Dionysus.

Graveflower

Stoned I awoke in your temple To blackness above you And death beside me Where kitchen knives conspire Razor blades make bloodless Love Like Murder The ghost of a pale girl is solemnly following me Will she follow me Into the sea I feel the flowers screaming To consume you Like Murder Earth and sky your cradle Earth and sky entomb you and death beside me I burrow through the dust In your skull But I cannot seem to find your soul Bloodless and numb we orbit the sun Hungry will this pale thing follow me into the sea On the cold side of her face The reptiles awake Locust swarm from open mouths That sing thy kingdom come While blackness hums Nothing is true and I'm tired of your sad today You're screaming because There's nothing left for you to say.
---Dax Riggs

I have drowned in the Sea of Stories and been reborn in the image of Dionysus, the god that has been both beside me and within me on this journey.

My final argument, the completion of the circle, and my favorite discovery; a hidden poem.  I truly do study song lyrics as a scholar would poems and in the last few months I have become obsessed with vinyl records.  I noticed on the inner jacket of the album version of "When the Kite String Pops" (Acid Bath) that the lyrics where formatted in continuous prose with several words in bold.  I wrote it out and it proves the validity of my paper presentation and legitimizes my inclusion of Dax Riggs poetry in my study of mythology and romance. The following poem in my opinion is the entwining of mythology and romance through the eyes of a Dionysian consciousness:

Laughing into forever

Acid party under the sun

Slow motion tranquilized

Stop confusion

Taste the bullet

Suck away the pain

A soft rope and dirty needles whisper suicide

Whisper escape

Handcuffed the king blue sun

Ripples inside the insect circles the dead

I’m bored

Bone the innocence love, pain, suck!

Kill the queen and whisper we want freedom

Let’s rape again

Nowhere avenue slowly fade trippin’ free

Trip with the sun

Hum the whisper of screaming anti-freedom

---Dax Riggs

Loose Ends

David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth

I actually watched this movie at the beginning of the semester when is was mentioned and failed to work it into a blog until now.  I had to get over that the movie is almost three hours of David Bowie's scrawny naked white ass and intellectually evaluate the imagery in the film.  Overall, the film is a good representation of descent if you can sit through it. I'm a big Bowie fan. More of his music than his films, but since I watched this movie and my group ripped off The Labyrinth in our presentation I am compelled to discuss it, briefly.  The film depicts a physical descent to Earth and a psychological descent after the initial descent.  The film is a love story, but does not have a happy ending.  It was an interesting choice of film by Dr. Sexson and I can see why he mentioned it. Another film recommended by Sexson in mythologies class was Dead Man, an acid western starring Johnny Depp.  Every English Major should watch this film.

I had hoped to write about Alice In Wonderland, a story I have very deep and special connection to.  I had also hoped to write about the Princess Bride, a story that makes me feel sane. Unfortunately, due to time and other commitments I was unable to address these stories that I feel act as lakes with the streams of the ocean of stories.  As the streams of stories flow together to the ocean of stories along the way there are stories so complex and important they form lakes that the streams of stories pass through on their way to becoming part of the ocean.  

I could have written a 20 page term paper, but in papers I believe in getting to the point so I kept it short.  I could have further explored the whole Dionysus-music-wine-earth-intoxication-consciousness thing, but I feel I pretty much covered it in my blog. My discussions of TOOL, Acid Bath, wine, concerts, and breaks with consciousness in my blog hopefully built up to my term paper making it unnecessary to go into great detail in my paper concerning those subjects.

Special Thanks to: Rio, Jennifer Cooley, and of course Dr. Sexson

La la la la la la la Lie

What is the point of stories that aren't even true?  When first posed, I found the question to be quite absurd.  Of course there is meaning in fiction. Profound meaning.  We are all merely a collection of stories, some of us are even illustrated.  As we are all living books filled with poetry, adventure, romance, tragedy, comedy, and irony; it is the stories that are not true that binds all of us living books into a great anthology.  Without fiction it would be exceedingly difficult to relate to one another, music has this power as well, we would have a hard time understanding each other at all without the humanities.  The universality of fiction is the great connection, the stories about stories within stories, that harmoniously links us all as human beings.  What is the point of stories that aren't even true? That is like asking:  what is the meaning of existence? and for that reason it is a valid question.  When we study literature we are really studying ourselves, our history, our origins, our place in the world and in the cosmos.  I find those who study literature are usually seeking a greater understanding that science and religion have failed to  explain.
It occurs to me that much of my understanding is rooted in 'the lies of poets'.  I would not be the person I am today without these stories.  From this class I have learned that it is perfectly okay to be a hopeless and incurable romantic and perhaps that piece of leftover naivety will help keep me young; or at least keep me searching and learning.  I discovered during the course of the semester that Romance is not what I thought it was, it is in fact much more complex and universal than I had imagined.  Furthermore, Romance is like Mythology in that it is everywhere.  We are surrounded by Romance in the same way that we encounter Mythology in our daily lives.
It can be said that Mythology is all lies, yet these lies influence culture and humanity; the same can be said for religion.  Our origins and belief systems are rooted in stories, some are dismissed as lies and others rarely have their integrity questioned.  Regardless, it is the 'lies of poets' that make up our collective consciousness.  We use mythology, religion, fairy tales, and folklore to explain our origins, to teach our children morality, and to reconcile our very existence.  That is the point of stories that aren't even true.
I also discovered over the course of the semester that if you rattle off song lyrics in poetic form people will accept them as profound poetry instead of dismissing them as mere songs.  I understand that not everyone approaches music and literature in the same way that I do, but I found this concept amusing and hope to test it further in other classes.  For example, when my group was writing our presentation  Jill wanted the journey to take three days.  I immediately rattled off "shadows of the morning light, shadows of the evening sun, til the shadows and the light were one" which are the lyrics to Three Days by Jane's Addiction, which she liked and we then used.  For my term paper I used the words of Dax Riggs, "the kite string pops, I'm swallowed whole by the sky" from the Acid Bath song Bones of Baby Dolls to illustrate the break with and recovery of consciousness.  One of the students asked me 'who said that?' which cemented my belief in lyrical poetry.  Music, literature, and art bleed into each other flawlessly and are rightly named the humanities for they teach us what it means to be human.
The title of this blog comes from a song I've been listening to a lots since I returned from Arizona.  I think it relates to the class and my blog especially in dealing with the more violent aspects of literature and human nature.

Vicarious 
Eye on the TV. 'cause tragedy thrills me. Whatever flavor it happens to be
 Like:
"Killed by the husband" ...
"Drowned by the ocean" ...
"Shot by his own son" ...
"She used a poison in his tea,
Then kissed him goodbye"
That's my kind of story
It's no fun til someone dies.
Don't look at me like I am a monster. Frown out your one face, but with the other
Stare like a junkie into the TV.Stare like a zombie while the mother holds her child,
Watches him die, Hands to the sky cryin "why, oh why?"
Cause I need to watch things die from a distance. Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies
You all need it too - don't lie.
Why can't we just admit it?
Why can't we just admit it?
We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'
Neither the brave nor bold. Nor brightest of stories told. We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'
I need to watch things die from a good safe distance. Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies
You all feel the same so why can't we just admit it?
Blood like rain fallin' down. Drum on grave and ground
Part vampire, part warrior, Carnivore and voyeur. Stare at the transmittal. Sing to the death rattle.
La, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie (x4)
Credulous at best. Your desire to believe in. Angels in the hearts of men.
But pull your head on out (of) your hippie haze. And give a listen. Shouldn't have to say it all again
The universe is hostile. So impersonal. Devour to survive. So it is, so it's always been ...We all feed on tragedy.  It's like blood to a vampire.Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I.
--Maynard James Keenan

The Call to Adventure

I hear the call to adventure every morning.  Either the alarm goes off or the kitties go off or sometimes both simultaneously.  I do not always answer the call to adventure. There has been many a day when I renounced life, ignored the world, and stayed in bed. But most days I do get out of bed and my adventure begins with a ritual.  Most days pass seeming to be the same as the one before, but no two days are ever truly

the same.  The music, stories, art, poetry, ideas, and epiphanies that enhance my intellectual and emotional development on a daily basis, guard against true monotony.  I am always on a grand adventure in my mind and have occasion to have adventures in the traditional sense.  Last semester, I had an amazing journey of the mind and self discovery in Dr. Sexson's mythologies class.  I blogged about music, concert experiences, and documentaries that seemed to take place on another planet.  I read stories, wrote stories, heard stories, told stories.  I began to understand why I have always been so very 'in to'

Arizona.  January 16, 2012

all the things that I am 'in to'.

The call to adventure came in the form of a text message.  At the beginning of this semester I had the extreme pleasure of traveling to Arizona to see TOOL in concert and visiting Caduceus Cellars tasting room, while visiting a very dear old friend I had not seen in several years.  We shared stories that had happened since we last saw each other, we laughed at stories from our youth, we talked about stories we had read; all while living and creating a story neither one of us would ever forget.

The call to adventure came in the form of an actual phone call--imagine that!  I was recently contacted by my High School English teacher to return to the Alternative Program and speak to the students about my adventures since high school.  What are the odds of this? 1 in 3.  It was during my time at the Bridger Program that I realized, under the guidance of Dave Swingle,  that life is like a choose your own adventure novel. What will I tell these kids about my adventure that may aid in their adventure?  Perhaps I will tell them about stories within stories. Adventures within adventures.  This is not my first time returning to the Program,  I am honored that I have had the opportunity on a few occasions to share my stories with kids that are very much like myself at that age.  Some of these kids have shared their stories with me and the experience has moved me to tears.  I'll never forget the teenage girl that came up to me after my last talk at the school and told me that she had hope after hearing my stories and that she was not going to give up on her father because she now believed that people can change.  I remember thinking to myself 'it was just a story, my story and who the fuck am I?, Nobody.  But in that moment I was somebody to that girl and my honesty, my story touched her life in some way.  That is the power of our stories, the meaning of our adventure; to lean and to teach.  A life well lived is one in which the learning never ends, by continuing to learn we continue the adventure.  Everyday is an adventure because this life is an adventure.  Perhaps that is what I will tell those eager young minds, to live their adventure the best they can, to learn from the adventures of others, and when called upon to teach others based on their adventure.

Term Paper

                              Dionysus: The Architect of Romance


Dionysus is the architect of romance in that he personifies one of the required elements, the remembrance/revelation; as the god of epiphany, Dionysus is known as the 'the god that comes'.  Additionally, Dionysus is present in numerous peripheral aspects of romance securing his place as the divine architect of Romance.  Dionysus is present in both the descent and the ascent themes of romance literature.  Dionysus, the 'twice born' is a male fertility god associated with nature and the seasonal cycle.  He is known to intoxicate and destroy as well as to arrive unexpectedly and possess.  As the god of wine and other intoxicants, such as music and dance; Dionysus is also the god of celebration, music, and ecstasy. He is known as a patron of the arts and the origins of theater are contributed to this multifaceted god of the harvest, wine, ritual madness, and ecstasy.  His role in the peripherals of romance include:  seasonal cycles, violence, Eros, sparagmos, and doubling.  Furthermore, Dionysus is the god of deconstruction and one of the goals of this course has been deconstruct romance in search of the elements that make for good story telling.  Dionysus is the 'beast-god within' and is thought to represent the unconscious mind.  His followers have traditionally been on the margins of society.  Classical romance is heavily linked to the aristocracy and the notion that 'blood will tell' without the marginalized followers of Dionysus (women, slaves, foreigners) and their contributions to these stories, the genre would not exist.
Dionysus, as the god of deconstruction has influenced the overall theme of the course.  As swimmers in the sea of stories, it has been pivotal to deconstruct these tales in search of their connection to one another and their connection to the reader over time.  Perhaps Dionysus is best known for his contribution to the peripheral aspects of the descent.  Doubling or twining is an element of descent that occurs so often it should almost be a required element.  Dionysus, “the twice born” is not only a symbol of rebirth but an example of this doubling.  The stories of Dionysus’ origins suggest that he is essentially his own twin.  The prevailing myths of the origin of Dionysus are that he is the serpent offspring of a union between Zeus and Persephone.  In her jealousy, Hera sent the Titans to destroy the baby.  Baiting him with toys the Titans tore the child to pieces and consumed all but his heart which was rescued by Athena.  Some versions state that Zeus then sewed the heart into his thigh and resurrected Dionysus, while other versions suggest that Zeus used the heart to impregnate Semele.  The myth of Zeus and Semele is the other prevalent version of the origin of Dionysus, in which Zeus rescues the fetus from his destroyed lover Semele and sews it into his thigh until he is ready to be born.  From the stories of Dionysus’ births the concepts of doubling, restoration, and duality are realized.  After all, Dionysus is very dualistic; he invented wine and the art of tending grapes; the nature of wine is that it has two sides.  One side brings joy and divine ecstasy while the other brings brutality and unthinking rage.  If he chooses, Dionysus can either drive a man mad or restore his sanity as is seen in the story of King Midas.      
Furthermore, the tales of Dionysus’ origins introduce the concept of sparagmos, which is deeply linked to the deity and lends itself to the peripheral elements of romance literature.  Sparagmos, or tearing of flesh, is not only present in Dionysus’ origins but follows both Dionysus and his followers throughout mythology.  Sparagmos often appears during the descent in romance literature.  Humans or animals are regularly torn apart or are slated to be torn apart, often by dogs or wild creatures in many romantic tales.  In Lucius or the Ass, the donkey’s carcass is to act as a prison for a young maiden so that she may be torn apart by vultures.  In this tale the donkey and the girl escape sparagmos but in Dahnis and Chloe, Dorcon is not so lucky and is torn to pieces by dogs.  This is not the only type violence portrayed in romance literature and Dionysus is known to have a violent nature.  In many tales of Dionysus he destroys those who resist and oppose him.  This is the goal of most villains in classical romance and mythology.  Dionysus is also an expert in seduction, “to seduce also means ‘to destroy’ in Greek (Calasso, 20).”  Dionysus is said to not only be outside his followers but within them as well.  He represents gratification and libido which are both heavily tied to violence, such as sparagmos and rape which are prevalent themes mythology and romance.  Due to the pervasive duality of Dionysus, he not only lends himself to violence but love as well.  “They desired something, they did not know what they desired.  This only they knew, that the kiss had destroyed him and the bath had destroyed her (D&C, 149).”  In Daphnis and Chloe, the lovers experience a ‘sickness’ that arrives unexpectedly and possesses them completely.  It is in this way that Dionysus acts in concert with Eros.  Dionysus connects the act of ‘falling in love’ to the theme of descent, in addition to bridging the gap between humans and the great god Eros.
In both Lucius and Daphnis and Chloe, wine is present as not only as an intoxicant, but as a medicine.  Wine includes herbal, floral and resinous ingredients that add to not only its flavor but its presumed medicinal qualities.  Whether by being used to calm, sedated, or heal; wine is present in most of the storylines in the required readings for the course further cementing Dionysus’ role as the architect of romance literature.  Additionally, wine itself is tied to celebration and ecstasy due to its powers of intoxication.  Music and dancing are likewise associated with celebration and ecstasy as ways of achieving intoxication without imbibing substances.  Celebration normally takes place in romance literature at weddings, funerals, and harvest time.  Thus illustrating the role of wine, music, and dancing in both the seasonal cycle and the life cycle.  In the pastoral setting of most romance, agriculture and fertility are paramount to the rejuvenation of the cycle of life and love.  Whereas fertility is often attributed to a female deity, Dionysus is the male representation or animus of a single concept of natural fertility which must contain both masculine and feminine elements to achieve balance.  Dionysus preserves the balance of nature.
Aside from his task of preserving the balance of nature, Dionysus preserves the balance of romance literature.  He is the embodiment of the remembrance/revelation aspect of the ascent.  “Self-recognition, or attaining one’s original identity, reverses all the Narcissus and twin and doppelganger themes that occur in the descent (Frye, 152).”  As the god of epiphany, Dionysus is responsible for recognition associated with the revelation aspect of ascent themes in romantic literature.  “In the nineteenth century, theories about an unconscious mind that never really forgets anything were starting to be developed, and such a mind supplies a possible setting for the recovery of a lost memory (Frye, 145).”  The Dionysian mysteries suggests that through the powers of intoxication and spirit possession that Dionysus is the ‘beast god’ within and is an early representation of what modern psychology refers to as the unconscious mind.  Dionysus is master of both the remembrance and revelation themes which signal the first level of ascent in romance literature.  Perhaps Dionysus’ most important role as a deity is his rule over the marginalized.  Whereas “Naïve romance confines itself largely to royal families; sentimental romance gives us patterns of aristocratic courage and courtesy, and much of it adopts a ‘blood will tell’ convention (Frye, 161),” Dionysus and his marginalized followers; women, slaves, and foreigners provide the setting in which most romance takes place.  Even though characters are revealed to be of noble birth, the story itself takes place among the marginalized.  Without the devotees of Dionysus there would be no setting in which the story unfolds.
Duality and cyclical movement are no doubt operating within the confines of romance literature.  Intoxication, celebration, violence, and Eros have their place within the genre.  The unconscious mind containing the remembrance and the revelation or epiphany is necessary to move toward a conclusion.  Dionysus is all of these things and as a result, he is the architect of romance.

Prospectus

Paper Title.  Dionysus: The Architect of Romance

Dionysus is the architect of romance in that he personifies one of the required elements, the remembrance/revelation; as the god of epiphany, Dionysus is known as the 'the god that comes'.  Additionally, Dionysus is present in numerous peripheral aspects of romance securing his place as the divine architect of Romance.  Dionysus is present in both the descent and the ascent themes of romance literature.  Dionysus, the 'twice born' is a male fertility god associated with nature and the seasonal cycle.  He is known to intoxicate and destroy as well as to arrive unexpectedly and possess.  As the god of wine and other intoxicants, such as music and dance, Dionysus is also the god of celebration and ecstasy. He is known as a patron of the arts and the origins of theater are contributed to this multifaceted god of the harvest, wine, ritual madness, and ecstasy.  His role in the peripherals of romance include:  seasonal cycles, violence, Eros, sparagmos, and coupling.  Furthermore, Dionysus is the god of deconstruction and in this course we have been deconstructing romance in search of the elements that make for good story telling.  Dionysus is the 'beast-god within' and is thought to represent the unconscious mind.  His follows have traditionally been on the  margins of society.  Even though classical romance is heavily linked to the aristocracy and the notion that 'blood will tell' without the marginalized followers of Dionysus (women, slaves, foreigners) and their contributions to these stories, the genre would not exist.

When she first laid eyes on him, she became instantly enraged. 'Who in the hell does this guy think he is? She had  always been the weird one, the alternative one, the one with the most flesh paintings; but no longer--she had met her match. They worked at night, in the hours when most of the world fell into slumber they labored so that the Daywalkers would have their supplies when they wiped the sleep from their eyes. The nights were long, at times they seemed unending, and she saw him often. At first their stations were next to one another and she would insult him, or at least try to insult him, every opportunity she had. As the weeks passed, she noticed their was something pure about him; something beautiful. The insults became conversation peppered with insults and he always took it in stride.
She was moved to another station and did not see him as often, but as unexpectedly as he had arrived he now possessed her. He was in the shadows of her every thought. She found every excuse to be see him, to be near him.  More weeks passed and they often laughed at one another and sometimes together. They played together like children whenever they could, or rather when ever she could trick him into being a part of whatever childish game she had devised to pass the time. She loved him like a third grader on the playground, a punch to the shoulder or the ego, she loved him like a child; intense and naive.
One night she began to laugh an uncontrollable laugh from deep within what was left of her soul, for the plague  of zombie dust had ravaged the town and she had been a victim, the laugh was pure joy and carried over to his station. When he heard the laugh he began to laugh loud and strong. She heard his laugh and continued hers from the joy of his. Before they were even aware of it they had wandered towards the laughter, towards each other. When their as met hers widened,--she knew him, she had always known him. They had been together in almost every life they had lived, they had been lovers and fraternal twins, he was her animus and when they were united they were one with each other and one with all things. In a flash she relived their entire past since the time of the gods and he looked away.
It tortured her as the night turned to day and then to night again. She never slept. She hadn't for years, the zombie dust made sure of that. She knew she was ugly. Blackened were her teeth, eyes, and soul. 'Its is this ugliness, this selfish indulgence that his soul doesn't recognize' she thought. She fell into deep despair, she fell deeper into the dust. She had no idea how to make his soul recognize her and she began to go mad. Her behavior around him became erratic and often mean. Several months passed and the light of his beauty was so bright it hurt to look at him. When she could bear it no longer, she left to become a Daywalker. She hoped she could cure herself him, of the dust or die, she didn't care which. It occurred to her that the life she had been living was no life at all.
Her quest for a life, any life at all was long. There was so much to do and healing takes time. Years passed and every time things seemed hopeless, she would hear his laugh. After a time he became a Daywalker too, whenever she was about to give up the fates would bring them together for but a moment; just enough for her to remember that she loves therefore she is alive, just enough to keep going. She tried to forget him. There were even times that months would pass with barely a thought of him, but he always crept in eventually. She would hear a song or have a dream, he was always there in the shadows of her thoughts and in the joy of her soul. She overcame her sickness, she breathed new life into her own soul, she fed her intellect. If she had been a disgusting Caterpillar when they had met, then now she was indeed a beautiful Butterfly. She wonder if his soul would now recognize her. Then she did not see him for a very long time, she wondered if he had moved on or gone home. He was not a native and had not been affected by the plague, he was free and could be anywhere.  She asked the humming bird to find her man. If he was around there would be no hiding from the energetic little flyer.
One day the humming bird returned with news....Ah! but I see the sun is rising and there is still much to tell, I will have to continue the story another night.

Suggested listening: "Vicarious" and "Jambi" by TOOL, "Southern Cross" by Crosby, Stills, and Nash,
                                "Amie" by Pure Prairie League

Viddy This My Brothers

Malcolm McDowell and Rob Zombie as Alex

I've been thinking about A Clockwork Orange since the beginning of the semester. The language of this novel has always been an interest of mine. I wasn't going to go there, but Frye started it. "Yet synthetic languages, however absurd they often sound, do seem to belong to romantic decorum: two very different contemporary examples are the Nigerian story of The Palm Wine Drunkard and Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (Frye, 110)." Clockwork, it seems is never far from my mind. It was one of my father's favorite movies and I saw it for the first time when I was very young. After seeing the film several times I checked out the book from the public library when I was 12 or 13, this version contained a glossary of terms which I remember being quite frustrating. It is much easier to dive right in and learn to swim.
In addition to my personal experience with the film and novel, this work is so totally ingrained into popular culture that it enters my consciousness on almost a daily basis. In the mid 90's Acid Bath used an audio sample from the film for the intro to "Cassie Eats Cockroaches" and at the turn of the century Rob Zombie wrote a song in Nadsat, the language used in Clockwork. The language of a novel published in 1962 showing up in a 21st century metal song. The image of Alex has also appeared in The Simpsons and Eminem appeared on a magazine cover as Alex, the list goes on and on. Awhile back I was at a book sale and picked up a copy of Clockwork, the back cover boasted that this edition includes "the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition", intrigued I had to have it and resolved to read it when I had time to read the novel in its entirety. Well after reading Frye, even though I really didn't have the time, the desire to read the book controlled me and had to be satiated.
In the Introduction, A Clockwork Orange Resucked, by Anthony Burgess he states "the book I wrote is divided into three sections of seven chapters. Take out your pocket calculators and you will find that these add up to a total of twenty-one chapters. 21 is the symbol of human maturity, or used to be...there is a profound difference between A Clockwork Orange as Great Britain knows it and the somewhat the slimmer volume that bears the same name in the United States of America...the rest of the world was sold the book out of Great Britain, and so most versions have the original twenty-one chapters. Now when Stanley Kubrick made his film--though he made it in England--he followed the American version and, so it seemed to his audiences outside America, ended the story somewhat prematurely (Burgess, v-vii)."
SPOILER ALERT!: the following will discuss the novel including the 21st chapter left out of the original American version of the novel.
 When it comes to great fiction, "it is logical for it to begin its series of adventures with some kind of break in consciousness (Frye, 102)", the language in Clockwork does just that. The reader must dive into this world and struggle with the language in order to ride this ride; and what a ride it is. After the readers initial descent into the world of violence in part one. The reader plunges further into the depths with Alex during his incarceration in part two. The events in part three are mirror images of the events in part one and Your Humble Narrator experiences a doubling. He discovers the name of the man who has taken him in, the writer of A Clockwork Orange, is named F. Alexander: "Good Bog, I thought, he is another Alex (Burgess, 158)." Additionally, I noticed a theme within the work of the beast. Dim is often described as in animalistic terms by Alex, "roaring like some animal" and " which he did in a beasty snorty howly sort of way (Burgess, 21&23)." Alex describes himself as an animal and is called 'beast' and 'beastly' by others. He describes his fellow prisoners as animals and the prison is a 'human zoo'. The concept of the beast and its relationship to romance led me back to Heinrich Zimmer. "Evil has to be accepted and assimilated, not avoided (Zimmer, 49)." That, O my brothers, best sums up Clockwork when read in its original version. For little Alex matures in the 21st chapter: "He grows bored with violence and recognizes that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction. Senseless violence is the prerogative of youth, which has much energy but little talent for the constructive...There comes a time, however, when violence is seen as juvenile and boring. It is the repartee of the stupid and ignorant...comes to the revelation that he needs to get something done in life--to marry, beget children, to keep the oranges of the world turning in the rookers of Bog, or hands of God, and perhaps even create something--music, say (Burgess, vii)." Whereas the State was conditioning Alex to avoid violence, that he readily returned to once deprogrammed, the point of Clockwork is that "evil has to be accepted and assimilated, not avoided." Instead of being innocent and facing evil to grow and face a world of inherent duality like we saw in A Pagan Hero and A Christian Saint, Alex must move from being violent (ignorant) to being good (mature). Conn-eda experiences a second birth, "His eyes having been washed in death (Zimmer, 38), these stories are mirror images of each other proclaiming "youth must go. But youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal (Burgess, 190)."  Clockwork is not a romance, it is a very human coming of age story dealing with politics and morality, but it is still very influenced by romantic structure and even lends its storytelling to approach to romance literature.
What is the give and take, the ebb and flow, within the sea of stories, that is the relationship between romance and other types of literature? I've been thinking about Frye's possible reasons for mentioning this novel (although the mention was brief, I believe it to be deliberate) and for some reason it got me thinking about the Bodies exhibit I stopped at on the way to Mayhem Fest last summer, for those of you that are not familiar with this traveling museum exhibit I have borrowed a brief summary from the official website: "BODIES...The Exhibition offers an intimate and informative view into the human body. Using an innovative preservation process, the Exhibition allows visitors to see the human body's inner beauty in educational and awe-inspiring ways. Our Exhibitions have over 200 actual human bodies and specimens meticulously dissected and respectfully displayed, offering an unprecedented and wholly unique view into the amazing body. Specimens in the Exhibition are prepared through a revolutionary process called polymer preservation, in which human tissue is permanently preserved using liquid silicone rubber. This process creates a specimen that will not decay."
Most of the specimens are bodies 'stripped down' like athletes without skin, but there is one specimen that is cut into sections, like round sections of a tree and laid out with spaces between so the encased specimen is eight feet tall. If we think in terms of literature being human, from humans and about the human experience, then this comparison of the skinless athlete and the human tree is a model for the relationship between romance and the sea of stories. Clockwork is like the skinless athlete powerful, beautiful. A look into the depths of human nature and the depravity of those who hope to control the more bestial aspects of the human animal. Romance as a genre is the human tree it grows, changes and even though it is sectioned off into clusters of ideas and formulas there is room within those spaces for growth and interpretation. There is also room for interpretation in the structure of the skinned athlete. Even though there are many interpretations of the meaning of the title A Clockwork Orange, Burgess explains "I meant it to stand for the application of a mechanistic morality to a living organism oozing with juice and sweetness (x)." Perhaps this is why Frye recognizes that non romantic literature contains aspects that do have their place in romance literature; reminding us that literature is liquid. I'd like to think that Frye chose Clockwork very deliberately to point out that even though we are analyzing literature we cannot impose rigid or mechanical requirements on these stories that are 'a living organism oozing with juice and sweetness'.
Suggested listening: "Never Gonna Stop Me" Rob Zombie

Displaced

The Willful Child
"Once upon a time there was a child who was willful, and would not do what her mother wished.  For this reason God had no pleasure in her, and let her become ill, and no doctor could do her any good, and in a short time she lay on her death-bed. When she had been lowered into her grave, and the earth was spread over her, all at once her arm came out again, and stretched upwards, and when they had put it in and spread fresh earth over it, it was all to no purpose, for the arm always came out again.  Then the mother herself was obliged to go to the grave, and strike the arm with a rod, and when she had done that, it was drawn in, and then at last the child had rest beneath the ground." Brothers Grimm

Hi! I’m Anabelle. I’m practicing my reading. Moma says reading is very important. Like my nails? I painted 'em myself, moma says it’s important to look pretty cuz that’s what being a lady is. You wana know what else moma says? Moma says when she was a little girl about my age her neighbors had a kid too and he was a BRAT!! He never would mind his moma or any other grown person. Moma says God doesn’t much care for bratty children and he turned his face away and let the boy get real sick. So sick no doctor could help and after he died, when they put him in the ground he was such a little brat that he popped his leg out. Well they’d push it down and push it down but the he wouldn’t even obey death, till finally his moma marched right on down to that cemetery and hit the leg with a switch! Too little too late moma says. You wana know what else? Everything moma says is true.

Mid-term presentations went very well. Thanks for making them fun and interesting!
I had a hard time with this assignment and admittedly my fairy tale was not very well displaced. I really wanted to tell a story a child might tell, so I could dress up and run around like a little kid.
On the subject of displaced fairy tales, one of my favorites is the movie Freeway starring Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, and Brooke Shields. If you haven't seen it check it out or wikki the plot, but I highly recommend this film.

Last semester I started a side project tracing the influence of mythology and literature in heavy metal music lyrics. Although the focus of my independent research is on heavy metal, I often come across gems like this one from other genres. There is a great video for this song on youtube. Enjoy!


Fairytale
Cinderella's on her bedroom floor
She's got a
Crush on the guy at the liquor store
Cause Mr. Charming don't come home anymore
And she forgets why she came here
Sleeping Beauty's in a foul mood
For shame she says
None for you dear prince, I'm tired today
I'd rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming
[Chorus:]
'cause I don't care for your fairytales
You're so worried about the maiden though you know
She's only waiting on the next best thing
Snow White is doing dishes again cause
What else can you do
With seven itty-bitty men?
Sends them to bed and calls up a friend
Says will you meet me at midnight?
The tall blonde lets out a cry of despair says
Would have cut it myself if I knew men could climb hair
I'll have to find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows
[Chorus]
Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom
Man made up a story said that I should believe him
Go and tell your white knight that he's handsome in hindsight
But I don't want the next best thing
So I sing and hold my head down and I break these walls round me
Can't take no more of your fairytale love
[Chorus]
I don't care
I don't care
Worry bout the maiden though you know
She's only waiting spent the whole life being graded on the sanctity of patience and a dumb
Appreciation
But the story needs some mending and a better happy ending
Cause I don't want the next best thing
No no I don't want the next best thing"
by Sara Bareilles

Further suggested listening: "White Rabbit" Jefferson Airplane
"A boy Named Sue" Johnny Cash (This not a fairy tale, but a great story song. Who doesn't love a great story song?)

Istra

"They and it are all part of the same web, which is called Nature, or the Whole. That southwest wind came over a thousand miles of sea and land. The weather of the whole world would have to have been different from the beginning if that wind was not to blow. It's all one web; you can't pick threads out nor put them in (C.S. Lewis)."
About a week ago, I was tearing through my book shelves looking for my anthology of children's literature and I paused for a long moment when I came upon C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. I love this book and have read it a couple times. I always identified with the narrator, Orual, her isolation due to her lack of femininity and anger at the gods. A few days later, I was chatting with Oranda and she mentioned the book to me (I had lent it to her years ago, because I had loved it so) and that was my undoing. When one is on a quest it is dangerous to ignore signs such as these. I decided to read the novel again and upon entering my home I could here the book calling to me from deep within my stacks. I took it from its home on a high shelf and upon examining the cover realized there was much about this book that I had forgotten or possibly never noticed before. Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold is the full title and the back cover boasts: "this timeless tale of two princesses--one beautiful and one unattractive--and of the struggle between sacred and profane love is C.S. Lewis's reworking of the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche."  The first few times I read the novel I had a very limited knowledge of mythology and the structure of romance. Excited to see how the story would read with my new eyes, I curled up with my kitty, and took to lovingly defacing the book with my trusty blue highlighter.
How does this story fit into the genre of romance? Does it belong there? Aside from Orual's anger at the gods this story reads like a fairy tale. Once there were two sisters, their mother died and their father was a cruel and violent king who purchased a Greek taken in battle to educate his future son. Because of his red hair the Greek was called the Fox and he taught the girls reason and philosophy while the King remarried in anticipation of a successor. (The Fox is Orual's most trusted companion and even though he is not literally an animal, he functions as a metaphorical animal companion for Orual.) The Kings second wife dies in childbirth, enraged by the sex of the child, the King bellows "Girls, girls, girls and now one girl more. Is there no end to it? Is there a plague of girls in heaven that the gods send me a flood of them? (Lewis, 16)" The child was named Istra, which translates to  Psyche in Greek and was "Prettier than Andromeda, prettier than Helen, prettier than Aphrodite herself (Lewis, 23)." With her mother dead and her father completely indifferent; she is an orphan. Orual takes to finding her a proper nurse and raising her as her own. Now there were three: Orual the ugly, Redival the pretty, and Psyche the beautiful. I think we find that three is a very important number in fairy tales.
Redival plays the role of the harlot and a young man she seduces is castrated for his attempt on her virginity. Orual and the Fox become Redival's jailers, warned by the King not to let Redival out of their sight for "if she  loses her maidenhead before I find her a husband, you will yell louder for it than she (Lewis, 26)". As Psyche grows her beauty remains beyond comparison and the King's people begin to worship her like a goddess, they even believe she can heal the sick. The meddling and jealous Redival informs the priest at the temple of Ungit, the principal goddess of the region, of Istra's growing reputation. When Psyche is unable to heal the sick, they turn on her and, with the growing drought and sickness, on the King.
In the land of Glome there are two great powers, the King and the Temple of Ungit. With the people positioned behind the house of Ungit the priest councils the King on what must be done to restore the land and satisfy the goddess. The people are convinced that the Accursed is among them. "We were overthrown long before your day by the King of Essur; and that was because there was a man in your grandfather's army who had lain with his sister and killed the child. He was the Accursed. We found him out and expiated his sin..for we all knew (and you may hold it for certain) that there will be no mending of our ills till the land is purged. Ungit will be avenged. It's not a bull or ram that will quiet her now...we must find the Accursed. And she (or he) must by the rite of the Great Offering (Lewis,46)."
"In the Great Offering, the victim must be perfect. For, in holy language, a man so offered is said to be Ungit's husband, and a woman so offered is said to be the bride of Ungit's son. And both are called the Brute's Supper. And when the Brute is Ungit it lies with the man, and when it is her son it lies with the woman. And either way there is a devouring...many different things are said...many great mysteries. Some say that loving and devouring are all the same thing. For in sacred language we say that a woman who lies with a man devours the man (Lewis, 49)."
"The lot fell on your youngest daughter, King. She is the Accursed. The Princess Istra must be the Great Offering (Lewis, 55)." As a result of Redival's meddling, Psyche must be sacrificed to the Brute at the Holy Tree the very next day. It is believed that the Brute tears apart the offering (sparagmos) and then eats it (omophagia). Orual visits Psyche in prison to comfort the child, but it is Orual that needs comforting. For as much as Orual believes that Psyche will be devoured by a monster, Psyche believes that she has been betrothed to a god. Psyche assures Orual that there is "little difference between dying and being married. To leave your home, to loose one's maidenhead, to bear a child--they are all deaths (Lewis, 73)." Despite Orual's best efforts, Psyche is taken and sacrificed at the Holy Tree. Believing her dead, Orual resolves to journey up the mountain to the tree and bury the lovely bones. She enlists the help of Bardia, a trusted soldier and rustic, to aid her in her journey.
When Orual finds Psyche alive, everything becomes dream-like and reality is split. There is no indication as to whose version of reality is correct--Orual or Psyche. This section of the novel mainly consists of the details of the Eros and Psyche myth. Later when Psyche agrees to Orual's demand that she shine a light on her phantom lover she tells Orual "it is like looking into a deep pit..to take my love for you...and make of it a tool, a weapon, a thing of policy and mastery, and instrument of torcher (Lewis,165)." Once the details of the myth have played out the god appears to Orual, "You also shall be Psyche" is his prophecy. This is the reinforcement of a doubling or mirroring that had been touched upon earlier in the novel when the hot tempered King made Orual look at herself in a large mirror.
The story continues and Bardia trains Orual to fight; they eventually become brothers in battle (as Orual kills what little femininity she possess). It is around this time that Orual veils herself and begins her metamorphosis into the Queen. Behind her veil she is a ghastly and mysterious creature, set to the task of suffocating Orual. The abusive King dies and Orual's first act as Queen is to fight to the death and win. "Yet I felt of a sudden very weak and my legs were shaking; and I felt myself change too, as if something had been taken from me. I have often wondered if women feel like that when they lose their virginity (Lewis, 220)." The Queen/Orual remains a virgin throughout the tale but metaphorically loses her virginity and is metaphorically with child. On a later journey she stumbles upon a temple to a young goddess named Istra, when the priest tells her the story of the goddess (the myth of Eros and Psyche) she becomes enraged at her portrayal in the tale. "It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child (Lewis, 247)."
For those who have not been keeping track, the peripheral elements of romance evident in this tale are: violence, oracles, Eros, exposed infant/adoption, rustics, pastoral setting, doubling/mirrors, actual death, incest, sparagmos/omophagia, harlot, animal companions, and castration. There is both literal and metaphorical castration at work in this novel; there is the literal castration of Tarin and the Kings inability to produce a male heir can be seen as a metaphorical castration or a form of impotence. Even though I have not discussed it the seasonal cycle is a recurring theme in the novel. As far as required elements there is an apparent death and a quest; both the blanket quest of her complaint against the gods and several mini-quests.
Orual's remembrance/revelation comes when she removes her veil. At this point she is an old woman and Tarin sneaks back into the story and informs her of Redival's extreme hurt of being abandoned by Orual for the Fox and Psyche. "She used to say, 'First Orual loved me much, then came the Fox and she loved me little; then the baby came and sh loved me not at all' (Lewis, 255)." She realizes that she had cast Redival aside and herself devoured Psyche with her selfish love. This brings about a fall in which everything Orual had accepted as fact comes into question. In her dreams and visions Orual is tortured by hidden truths as she falls (she is told she is Ungit); she digs a pit and is told by her father's ghost to throw herself in. Then she must dig another pit and descend further and further until she reaches the below world; where the truth is revealed to her through a series of paintings. What is a great romance without a painting? While we are on the subject; what is a great romance without music? (There are several instances where either the situation or a person is compared to song.) All becomes clear; the gods plan for Psyche, the effect of Orual's actions on others, and the answer to the riddle You also shall be Psyche. As Orual watched Psyche complete her tasks so that she might be reunited with her husband it occurred to her that "she was all but unscathed. She was almost happy." Her guide informed her that this was true because "another bore nearly all the anguish (Lewis, 300)." She was also Psyche and she was also Ungit; it's all one web.
Happy ending? This is debatable but I believe it is a happy ending. Orual dies while feverishly trying to right the conclusion to the amendment to her book. She is a very old woman and knows she is dying; she dies at the end of writing her book which is a metaphorical death in itself. It is necessary that she die. Furthermore, the general feel of the book, especially towards the end, is that Death is no different from the lesser deaths (marriage, childbirth), it merely signifies a change. In addition, the really real end of the book is a note from the  man that discovered her corpse pleading for anyone that should read it and be heading to Greece to carry it there, "for that is what she seems mostly to have desired (Lewis, 309)." Perhaps my most important argument that this is a happy ending is that every time I have read this book I close it with a light heart and clear head.
Reading this novel in my naivety was a joy and with my new consciousness it was a pleasure. I believe this little side track has brought me a step further on my own personal quest, one I've been on for quite some time now. My quest, in the words of Maynard Keenan, is "to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human." I am convinced the only way to accomplish this is through literature, art, and music.

Eros Lives!!!!!!!!

Today we honor Eros and let us not forget to tip our hats to Dionysus , for he too has his part in these matters. I really like the simple naive tales we've been reading because I believe in this stuff. I don't know if it was too much T.V., too many fairy tales, folktales, cartoons, or Motown music growing up but I believe in love; improbable possibilities, dreams, happy endings, chastity, and desire. The whole sappy mess. My happy ending will be the day that Eros fixes his arrow upon me.
An interpretation of the myth of Eros and Psyche is to trust in love. Psych did not trust her heart or her lover and she let herself be swayed by her sisters. She betrayed her lover and lost him.
Since today we celebrate Eros I invite you all to trust in love. For those of you that Eros has found, praise him and his gift. For those of you that he has not found, praise him and fear not, he is on his way.
Suggest holiday listening: "Hotel Yorba" The White Stripes

Screaming convulsing my eyes are bleeding

Obsession/Possession. I am truly afflicted. I read. I listen. In the last year due to my study of literature and Sam Dunn documentaries I have been studying lyrics and lit in my off time. It has also come to my attention that for the better part of my life I have been possessed by Dionysus, I have been doing a lot of research to try and explain this unconscious obsession.
As Dr. Sexson already knows, I am obsessed with music especially the band Acid Bath. The combination of Sammy Duet's music and Dax Riggs' lyrics has consumed me for a many years. It is through music, which I am very familiar with, that I organize concepts and ideas. I was able to categorize and understand mythology by putting it in terms of music and found Acid Bath to be highly mythological. In order to fully understand new material I often have to internalize it and relate it to my existing knowledge base. As a result I live in a world where art, music, and literature collide; in this place these mediums are unified and form my understanding and knowledge. By embracing my obsessions and obsessive tendencies I've found that everything else simply falls into place.
In James' blog he wrote:  "I cannot help but find the tendrils of romance in every existing story I see." Similarly I cannot help but see mythology and romance in everything I hear, read, and see. I think that once we realize that literature is not just about books and poems, but the interweaving of music, mythology, psychology, and art (just to name a few), we finally begin to understand literature, especially romance, as well as ourselves both individually and culturally.
There are two gods we will not escape: Eros and Hades. Even though there is no actual death in romance the connection between Love and Death and Sex and Death weaves itself in and out of romance. On the topic of love, sex, and death my go to guy is again the lyrics of Dax Riggs:

Jezebel
Her throat is soft
Her lips are red
Her thighs are white
Her heart is dead
Jezebel
Red rope
Burns around her wrists
Her blood is cold..like a serpents kiss
Do you love your whore?
I like to hear you beg
She crouched down in the corner with her head between her legs
Jezebel
Broken glass and dirty needles
Soul erosion truth
Electric god
Our superman found dead in a telephone booth
Shards of teeth
Ice pick abortions
Orgasmic death so warm
Lets die screamin'
Black goat semen
I can't hear you whisper "conform"
Hearts will stop and brain cells pop
Apocalyptic high
She screams bloody murder as they chop off her fingers
So this is how it feels to die
But it's ok
Yeah everything's ok
She was screaming about conspiracy
Talkin' about taking sides
I was masturbating, just contimplating
The cold love of suicide
Hearts will stop and brain cells pop
Apocalyptic high
She was screaming bloody murder as they chop off her fingers...
So this is how it feels to die

When it comes to Acid Bath the lyrics are only a portion of the experience. The music ranges from some of the heaviest fastest metal riffs you can imagine to soft acoustic ballads that at times have moved me to tears. Throughout it all Dax uses his voice as an instrument. His juxtaposition of beautiful melody and guttural screams blended with Sammy Duet's unmistakable nightmarish growl takes the initiate into the underworld, the above world, and all streams of consciousness in between. 

The Bones of Baby Dolls

Flower girls play lover

Grave games in the courtyard

I heard her screaming like a radio

Mary lou left marks on you

She just screams at the moon

The kite string pops

I'm swallowed whole by the sky

We smoke the bones of baby dolls

Techno-liquid screaming meat

Heaven's cold beneath my feet

Cyber love the anti-man we make love... because we can

Virgins play where the bayou's blue

Barefoot (and bloody) eatin' mushroom stew

Work for pay and pay for freedom

Fuck 'em all, we don't need 'em

We smoke the bones of baby dolls

 Love, sex, death, blood, the mother, the cycle, the virgin, the whore, the rapist, the goat, the hero, mythology; it's all there along with modern cynicism. At times Dax's lyrics seem anti-romantic, in this I see the same disdain that many of my classmates have expressed toward the genre of romance and the simplistic tales we are reading. I find the supposed condemnation of love (in the lyrics) to really be a celebration of romance. The clear connections between love, sex, and death move these images beyond the mythological and into the realm of the fantastic; the realm of romance.

Venus Blue
Creeping like frost
As slow as grave moss
Like drowning in dry oceans of bone dust
I taste the wreckage of crumbling faces
I know the pale thing in the darkest of places
I remember blood from the thighs of the mother
As everything is eaten by another
How much more must we bleed her
I cut their throats while they slept
I wept
I peel back my skull for you
Yes I do
Slow desolation like a funeral procession
The lovely one screams like she's caught between stations
I eat the razor, a mouthful of God's flesh
Sweating this blackness,
I am shitting this cold death
Love is rotting on the vine
Crumbling in God's sunshine
I am dying all the time
Point me at the sky... sky
How much more must we bleed her
I cut their throats while they slept
I wept
I peel back my skull for you
Yes I do
DEAD VENUS BLUE
I taste the wreckage of crumbling faces
I know the pale thing in the darkest of places


Mythology, folktales, fairy tales and archetypal imagery. I believe that Dax Riggs understood more about literature in his early twenties than many college graduates ever will and certainly more than I ever will. Even though in his later works, post-Acid Bath, Dax failed as a poet (in my opinion); it is the imagery of this poet and his band the continues to deepen my understanding of literature and myself.


New Corpse
The pagan flames burn through the night
Everything's mine
Blackness my whore I bleed the light
Everything's mine
I know my time is coming soon
Everything's mine
Miles of bone lay on the ground
It's all mine
In remembrance of warmth would you shit on me?
I am the new corpse paling beneath the shade tree
You can't give me what I need
Picking at scabs with ambition to bleed
You're mine
The war machine moves forward lifeless
Everything's mine
We feed larvae with the blood of our martyrs
Everything's mine
We burn the flames of the funeral carnival
Everything's mine
I am death walking up in a coffin
It's all mine
I eat the eyes and pray to see
the emptiness inside of me
I eat the brain and pray to know
anarchy of fallen angels
I want to be the enemy
The hero is dead
I put the newest hole in his head
I want to be the enemy
The hero is dead
I put the newest hole in his head
Bleed for me, we were born dead
Falling chunks of flesh
Ejaculating sickness
Everything's mine
Your new corpse is beauty
Dying on the inside

The ocean, the sea, and the dead shore are all recurring themes in Acid Bath lyrics. It occurs to me that I threw myself into 'an ocean of alien mystery' when I was a teenager and it is only now that I approach 30 that I am beginning to understand what that means.
Yesterday I read a chapter and a half of Frye. In addition I read James, Oranda, Jennifer, and Aaron's blogs. These are all great blogs and those of you who haven't read them I courage you to do so. While getting my long awaited Acid Bath tattoo (not my first band tattoo, I already have TOOL and Megadeth), I read most of Grimm, parts of Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know, and thumbed through my anthology of children's literature feverishly trying to find a story to displace (and thanks to my tattoo artist find myself on track with that assignment).  As I lay there reading and periodically discussing what I was reading, music, art, and life with my artist and others in the shop, I found myself in that place--where worlds collide and bleed into one another--and very much at peace.
The tattoo is a reworking of an old Acid Bath t-shirt logo for a song called Dr. Suess is Dead, it features a rather frightening depiction of a Grinch-like figure holding the skull of the Cat in the Hat by the spinal cord in one hand and the flower seen above in the other. It was all just so damn perfect I had to write about it, because....

"The dream sea has been poisoned

Stoplight flashes me red

Innocence sufficated in it's sleep

Dr. Suess is dead"

The Art of Manipulation: Time as a Weapon

"The Kiss" by Cam de Leon

This is my favorite image of Daphnis and Chloe. "When the lovers saw each other, they almost collapsed to the ground, but finding the strength to stand upright, they greeted and kissed each other, which is what supported them and kept them from falling down (pg. 176)." Once Daphnis and Chloe realize they are in love they continually kiss each other. Before they are married and Chloe is bedded, kissing is the physical manifestation of their love. In their innocence they kiss and kiss and kiss. This painting, by Cam de Leon, does not show up on an image search for Daphnis and Chloe, but to me it is Daphnis and Chloe; two lovers stripped down to their basic human structure become one in a kiss.

"The heroine of romance is supposed to carry out her tactics in low profile, that is, behave with due modesty (Frye, 79)." In order for the heroine of romance to arrange the plot she must often be manipulative. I find that manipulation by a woman of either the hero or the events is present in the peripheral aspects of romance and when manipulating, time is everything. Women in romance often use time as a weapon, whether it is waiting til the right time to act or planting seeds at the right moment, I say women because it is not always the heroine that employs time as weapon. Sometimes it is another female character employing manipulation and time as a weapon to either join the hero with the heroine or keep them apart.

"The hero goes through various adventures about which there is a good deal of mystery, with a female fluttering in and out of his quarters. Eventually this proves to be Rose Bradwardine, arranging the plot in typical heroine fashion, until the hero is ready to know which woman he ought to be marrying (Frye, 84)." Since women are expected to be chaste their power is limited, the promise of a fine time later on is not enough to ensure that she will accomplish her goals. Manipulating people and situations by using an innate knowledge of time (when to act, when and how to plant thoughts, how to change the situation subtly and undetected) is the female's best weapon. The skilled manipulation of female characters allows the plot to move forward and allows the female to remain modest by subtly controlling the action. 

In Daphnis and Chloe Lycaenion, through her selfish manipulation of Daphnis, not only continues the action of the narrative, she inadvertently preserves Chloe's modesty. By tricking Daphnis into learning the art of love making she fulfills her agenda and contributes to the happy ending of Daphnis and Chloe. Her warning to Daphnis about the difference between married women and virgins serves as a plausible reason for Chloe to remain a virgin until the two are wed. 

I can think of countless examples of women and heroines in literature using the art of manipulation and time as a weapon. Whether it be utilizing 'perfect timing' or exercising extreme patience. 

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The award for the archetype of pastoral innocence goes to...Betty White's character Rose on the Golden Girls. Even though the Golden Girls is a comedy, the character Rose is a romantic archetype. She is naive, simple, from a rural farm community, and was a virgin until marriage. She is forever telling wonderful and bizarre stories about her hometown that is so very pastoral it's often hard to tell where the animals end and the  people begin. 

Sass Christian

Hieronymus Bosch

"At the center of the length and breadth of the garden was a temple and altar of Dionysus,the altar wreathed in ivy, the temple in shoots of vine. Inside the temple were paintings of Dionysus and of stories involving him: Semele giving birth, Ariadne sleeping, Lycurgus in chains, Pentheus being torn apart. There were Indians in defeat and Tyrrhenians being turned into dolphins and Satyrs treading everywhere and bacchants dancing. Nor was Pan forgotten, but he, too, sat there on a rock, playing his pipes, as if he were providing the music for the treading and the dancing." Daphnis and Chloe, 192

Jasmine Becket-Griffith

I love this passage. Art, music, and literature having an orgy on page 192.  Before the written word there was oral tradition, music, and painting. Of these three mediums, painting is the most closely linked to literature and romance. Daphnis and Chloe begins with painting that is so moving it must be repainted in words. And in book 4 of D&C more paintings and music and mythology; stories upon stories within stories about stories.  Art, music, and literature weaving in and out of each other. I know a lot about music and have a working knowledge of great painters but I became curious about more contemporary painters.
 In music greatness is generally measured by relevancy. Is this music, band, or song still relevant or contain elements that are continually reused and built upon? Both Frye and D&C explore the relationship between painting and literature so I felt the need to explore painting to see if literature was still present and vice versa. Since I don't know much about painters I went to the tattoo shop to do some research.  I asked all the artists to name some of their favorite painters. First they asked 'why' and I refused to tell them until the list was compiled. After I had my list I told them why and one of the artists remarked that he didn't think most of the painters listed would be very helpful since he couldn't see any connection between their paintings and romance. I assured him the list would most likely be helpful and it was. I found art and literature fornicating in books, on walls, and all over the internet; their bastard children dancing on canvas. I really like Bosch (The Bosch painting shown is very light and dream-like, almost fairy tale. It reminds me of Daphnis and Chloe. Most Bosch is very dark and contains strange creatures) so I was excited to find Jasmine Becket-Griffith's Alice and the Bosch monsters.
When I started thinking about all of this I had a few ideas, then I started researching contemporary painters and even more ideas joined the mix. As I'm writing I realize that their are so many ideas and so much communication between these mediums that I'm really not sure where to begin. With so much to be said would it ever end?
There are as many stories in these paintings as there are in the passage I quoted above. Perhaps the best thing is to let the paintings tell their own stories.

Todd Schorr

Mark Ryden

A Naturally Perfect Romance

"We said that in romance as a whole neither the waking world or the dream world is the real one, but that reality and illusion are both mixtures of the two (Frye, 55)."
"The decline of realism in our day has gone along with the rise of the film,with its unprecedented power of presenting symbolic action (Frye, 56)."
If the question is what is the greatest romance ever told and not the greatest romance ever written, then the answer is simply Natural Born Killers. This film was released in 1994 and its underlying theme is the tendency of modern culture to romanticize criminals, like Bonnie and Clyde, celebrating them as folk heroes instead of condemning their actions. In this film, writer Quentin Tarantino and director Oliver Stone utilize many of the elements discussed in Frye's Sacred  to the Secular as well as other techniques that make up the structure of romance.
From its opening scene the viewer descends (with the story itself) into a world of adventure, violence, chaos and love.  While warding off advances from a man who is not her lover Mallory incites a violent encounter in an effort to be chaste to her lover.  In order to bring about an end to the blood shed in the diner, Mickey and Mallory play a game with the remaining survivors to determine which one they will leave alive. Once the decision is rendered the lovers embrace and the wild ride through the trials of a great romance really begins.  "Now we notice that one recurring theme in romance is the theme of incest, very often of father and daughter(Frye, 44)." This is true of NBK, after the opening scene we are confronted with this concept, Mallory's father played by Rodney Dangerfield has carried on an incestuous relationship with Mallory for years.  Enter Mickey, the hero, sent by fate to rescue Mallory from her abusive home.  In their first encounter he asks Mallory if she believes in Fate; which is important to the romantic structure, as we saw in Abu Kasim's Slippers, and will be a recurring theme throughout the film. The two lovers run away but are soon caught and separated by Mickey's incarceration for auto theft. While visiting Mickey in jail Mallory reveals her father's plans to keep the lovers separated and his threats to kill Mickey.  The lovers swear oaths to one another and Mickey vows to again come rescue her and reassures her that they are "fate, and you can't stop fate, nobody can (NBK)."  Mickey's escape from prison is convenient and spectacular, everything we have come to expect from a great romance. Mickey keeps his promise and returns to Mallory, they kill her parents but let her brother go because "it would be perpetrating an infamous crime in killing...who was guilty of no wrong (Xenophon, 23)."  Now the lovers are free to shed the past and embark on their murderous journey as "fates messenger", they wed in a ritualistic, mythological way.  As they murder their way across the American southwest it is hard to determine who has more blood lust as these killers become folk heroes and the public and the media can't get enough of the murderous couple.
In the desert there is a brief summary of events when Mallory asks her lover "why'd you pick me up and take me out of my house and killed my parents with me? and you committed to me (NBK)." While in the desert they are taken in by an Indian. It is my opinion that, in relation to 20th century tales as well as stories taking place in North America, the Indian is the literary equivalent of the pirate. For modern and inland culture it is the Indian who takes captives and evokes separation; the Indian is the embodiment of freedom and fear. Rituals, visions, dreams, and the mixing of reality with illusion color the next few scenes which are indescribable; for they are pure visual art and raw energy culminating in Mickey killing the Indian as he wakes from a nightmare.  As the Indian, played by Russell Means, lay dying his last words are "twenty years ago, I saw a demon in my dreams. I was waiting for you (NBK)." The lovers are beside themselves. They did not want to kill the Indian and are frightened by what fate now has in store for them, they wander blindly out among the serpents and feel the very fear they had imposed on others. This and their arrest signal not only a turn in the action but the continuing of the story.  Again separated the lovers long for one another and Mallory again has to fight off advances to remain chaste for her lover.
"Even in the most realistic stories there is usually some trace of a plunge downward at the beginning and bounce upward at the end. This means that most romances exhibit a cyclical movement of descent into a night world and a return to the idyllic world, or some symbol of it (Frye, 54)."  If this plunge did not occur at the beginning of the story it begins now with M&M's incarceration. All of the scenes in the prison illustrate this descent and it is here that a "probable impossibility" occurs or what Mickey calls fate. There is a brief discussion of mutual suicide when things look their darkest but the lovers make their escape despite the odds. In the end M&M are free and start a family together, for all its darkness this film has the ideal and required happy ending of a great romance.  In the additional scenes of the directors cut there is an alternate ending in which M&M are murdered after their escape but Oliver Stone explains that he thought that this ending disrupted the films narrative qualities.
Natural Born Killers is a depiction of "the improbable, desiring, erotic, violent world of romance (Frye, 61),"   its use of classic literary romance structure and imagery is what, in my opinion, makes it the greatest romance ever told.

Fairies Wear Boots

Painted fall of 1999 in the science room at the Bridger Alternative Program.
Picture taken several years later after some light vandalism.

"The improbable, desiring, erotic, and violent world of romance reminds us that we are not awake when we have abolished the dream world:  we are awake only when we have absorbed it again (Frye, 61)."
We (my sister and I) were not allowed to be children. It wasn't really our parents fault, they weren't allowed to be children either so they lacked the skills to provide a healthy childhood to their offspring. The only time we were ever even referred to as children was when we were being reminded that 'children are seen and not heard'. My parents did not read us stories. When I was growing up all the great gatherings happened at our house.  Holidays, reunions, family and friends passing through town; our house was the center of all the goings on.  There was music, so much music from the radio, the tape deck, and even Mom's old 8track; country, soul, funk, and rock.  We had a pinball machine, billiard table, dart board, and even an arcade game.  Ah visitors would arrive and there would be food and games, but the most important part for me was the stories.  Even though my parents did not read us stories; they along with family and friends told stories all night, sometimes for days on end.  While the music played telling its stories, the adults told their stories and often a song would play and it would remind someone of another story.  The stories and the music flowed in and out of one another, which is probable why the two are forever linked in my head. Songs of naivety include the Supremes "Can't Hurry Love" and "Come See About Me", The Beach Boys "Little Deuce Coupe", and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band "Fishin' in the Dark".  Many of the stories were true, some were the lies of drunk bikers.  Where are you going? Where have you been? Do you remember the time? What ever happened to? Great, wonderful, alive stories of travel, nature, growing up, partying--the stories of life (lives).  I listened with whatever naivety I possessed, I believed the lies and they fed my imagination.  I learned how to tell stories and what the elements of a good story are in both content and delivery.
At school I rarely had friends and those I did make always moved away. I was fat and everyone hated me. In the late 80's childhood obesity was a rarity and not the norm we see today. I was picked on relentlessly and learned rather young to not to trust people and how cruel the world can be when you just don't fit in.  My teachers and librarians introduced my to the wonderful world of books (have you hugged a librarian today or thanked a teacher?). Books were not an escape but they, much like the oral tradition I experienced at home, fed my imagination and created the off kilter world in which I still reside.  I also found that the other kids did't bother me when I was reading quietly by myself, it was as if it wasn't really my existence that bothered them so much as my trying to become a part of their existence that did. I loved the story of the ugly duckling and could not wait to be revealed as the swan.
My mother read silly modern Romance novels with Fabio on the cover and would always buy me books (Judy Blume, Roald Dahl, R.L. Stein, Garfield comics) when we went to Hastings. It was through these books that my imagination grew as my intellect developed.  I loved all stories true and false, light-hearted and frightening. I watched cartoons to the point of obsession and the only thing I remember truly despising was children's movies with real actors (this is still true today, what they did to the Smurfs is unforgivable). They were too real even when they dealt with the fantastic. Cartoons fed my imagination and love for happy endings (even though I do not require a happy ending, I love them), I remember all cartoons having a happy ending.  I mean, even though the Wile E. Coyote did not catch the Road Runner this was still a happy ending because the story continued.  You always knew who the evil characters were like Dick Dastardly and who the innocents were like the Smurfs. I loved and still do love the simplicity of it all. I remember playing by myself and talking to myself out loud, "and then" I would say during my fanciful monologues, (oh the friends of my imagination I must remember write them someday) my sister would yell at me to stop talking to myself.  She said I was weird and crazy, that I should grow up (I was 8).  Although I was never far from the harshness of reality, I kept my imagination, my romantic vision of being a hero or an undercover princess even closer than I kept Reality.
 When I was about 12 my rebel pride swelled to the point that it oozed out of my pores. Even though I was intellectually mature (and physically), I was tired of all the pressure to mature into what society said was proper. I had had enough. I didn't dress in the fashion I was supposed to and embrace the feminine roles I was being taught, I knew how the world really worked and the nature of humans. Why was it so important to cover up  blemishes and wear uncomfortable shoes? This had nothing to do with stories where beauty is natural and the foot wear fits the journey. All of the sudden everything was supposed to have a deeper meaning and it was immature to enjoy stories and to explore their influences, instead X+Y=Z.  I became angry that people were trying to shove their version of reality and maturity down my throat.  By this point I had discovered the beauty and in your face honesty of the darker aspects of life, literature, music, and art.  I wore pigtails and black make up, I dyed my hair blue,  I wore jeans that I wrote on and drew cartoons on rolled up to the knee to reveal my super awesome brightly colored striped socks of doom, it was 1994 and I swear I was the first person in Bozeman to have a Marilyn Manson t-shirt. Another dimension had been added to my imagination and I went back to explore it and ultimately live there.  Many people were afraid of me which I did not fully understand because I was merely an over grown child playing dress up and painting cartoon characters on the walls.
As an adult, despite my cynicism towards reality and love of the dark side, I am still very naive in my approach to literature, art, and sometimes life.  I am heavily tattooed and only 2 of them mean anything, the rest are just stories.  The only reason any of them mean anything at all is I knew those two in particular would be asked about quite often and that is what people want to know; what does it mean?  As if one can only illustrate their own personal story if it has profound depth or that body art is a way of wearing your soul on your skin. I hate this approach to the visual arts and to literature, I get pissed off on a deeper level when profundity is expected or exhaustively searched for.  I despise professors and intellectuals who again think that X+Y=Z, that stories are only great if they are revealing great truths, that a poem or a song has one fixed meaning, that feel it is silly and stupid to love or expect happy endings, or people who think that anything is truly 'new' (its all been done).
I loved An Ephesian Tale.  It is one of the most beautiful and deeply moving stories I have read in a long time.  I greatly appreciated the lovers vows of chastity and the great struggles they endured to keep their promises to one another, even when they feared the other might be dead.  This story of great adventure and unconditional love is a testament to the romantic nature of the human soul and the struggle that is love.  In our contemporary society we may scoff at these notions but I believe in this kind of love.  Real love, true love. The kind of love that world makes difficult and ultimately tries to destroy.  This story, with all its naivety, must have influenced many great tales of love. "He reflected that he would be perpetrating an infamous crime in killing a girl who was guilty of no wrong, and one so fair. Though he laid hold of the girl he could not kill her (Xenophon, 23)."  I saw Snow White forming from this tale, the jealousy over a young girl's great beauty and the girl being taken to the forest to be murdered as well as the would be murderer taking pity on the girl because of her great beauty.  Anthia herself is an amazing and pure character, even though her ego is being fed with advances and at times her heart believes her beloved to be dead she will not betray her vows.  It is this mixture of beauty and chastity; this purity of mind, heart, body, and soul that defines fairy tales. I think we all strive for a great love, a pure love like that of Habrocomes and Anthia.  I think in many ways this story speaks to us on a primal level, Habrocomes searching for his beloved thinking of her and no other, traveling far and wide take possession of his great treasure that has been taken from him.  Two lovers believing in nothing other than each other and love and death. If it is naive to love this story than I am guilty of being exceedingly naive.  If loving this story gets me kicked out of the intellectuals club and  brands me as silly or even stupid then so be it.  This story is my story, my ideal story of love.  I don't want  a love that comes easy, I never have, and maybe that is because of fairy tales. I want adventure and trials, for that is what all the great love stories are about and in the end I hope my life is a great story and that whatever love I am blessed with is real and has been proven real because it has been tested like the love of Habrocomes and Anthia.
"I am consecrated to two deities, Love and Death:  leave me free for my devotion to them (Xenophon, 31)."  These are two inevitable things in life and in stories.  You will always find Love and Death or is it Love and Death that always find you?  Although this story may seem to some highly sophisticated readers like a silly story that is trying to fit all the elements of a romantic tale (even the cheesey  and convenient elements) into one story.  I see it as a blue print for many great stories.  It takes me back to the oral tradition of my youth. It is similar to my dreams and fantasies not only as a child but as an adult. I guess you could say that instead of having and inner child, I am still very much a child.  Dreaming and remembering.  Having wild fantasies and seizing opportunities both in life and creativity to live them out.  I'm almost 30 now and 85% of my t.v. viewing is still cartoons.  I love stories, I love how stories flow in and out of all the humanities, how stories flow in and out of culture, and ourselves. At times in my life the magic of romance may have hid itself from my sight, but i have never lost it. Would you believe Ozzy if he told you that fairies wear boots?  Well I did and I still do.
"Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me
Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies
Yeah Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me
I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes"
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A NOTE TO MY FELLOW SWIMMERS IN THE SEA OF STORIES:
Please stop apologizing for yourselves. Your thoughts, feelings, dreams, memories and stories are valid.  I don't think anyone here is judging you and if they are then they can fuck right off.  Bleed me an ocean 438 I want to read about it all.