Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Color Outside The Lines: A Comparison Between The Messages Of Calvino’s Invisible Cities And Linklater’s Waking Life
What is life? There is no way to know, or at least that is what we have been taught to believe. For centuries people have believed that the human mind is too small to understand the concept of life, or that mankind is scared to find out what life is all about because at the moment it does the whole purpose of living will be defeated. Are those true? Is the human mind, which discovered how to travel across the Atlantic, how to make a language, and many more things really too small to understand life? It makes no sense to say that this is true. What makes sense is to say that society has been teaching every person to believe the previous reasons. Why, though? Society has been shrinking the intellectual capability of the human mind for thousands of years, discouraging people from finding the truth about life, from understanding what it all is. Our minds and thoughts are being oppressed by society so we don’t discover the true essence of life and stray away from the path that the mass follows. Life is too vast, too expanse, too abstract too be understood the same way by any two people, and if each person understood it then each would go their way. Society as we know it― the system that controls our impulses, limits our individuality, makes one person jus another one in the masses― would crumble. People want to feel like they belong somewhere and the systems of community and culture have ensured that they will. Trying to maintain the survival of society to remain comfortable we protect society at all costs and renounce the great power of our minds. “But I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit…” (Calvino, pg. 69) Even Marco Polo has the restrictions imposed upon his mind by himself, and he denies the possibility of going any further thinking that there is wall that stops him. There are some people who are different: people who are not afraid to use their full potential even it makes them stand out as the black sheep in a herd of white ones. These people are willing to sacrifice the title of normal endowed upon them by the rest of society and let their minds loose, exploring the boundaries that have been set by the rest of humanity. Calvino and Linklater have both escaped the strict hold of society and use art as a way to get their ideas to many different audiences. They are telling us to ignore the oppression, to be ourselves, and to explore the meaning of life with individuality just as they did.
People regard them as weird because they are so different. The book Invisible Cities takes time to get adjusted too. The movie Waking Life also is hard to understand at first. Both of these pieces are very different form the common norm of books and films and for the minds of the oppressed it seems at first like the artists are crazy. As we let our minds go and are absorbed by the ideas presented we see that they are getting somewhere: that they are actually making a point. And it’s not just a point. It is a point that we can relate with in some way, in some far off corner of our mind that has been strong enough to find its way out of society’s firm grip. Ideas that before would be considered oddities and concepts that would make no sense ring as reasonable thoughts that could solve answers humanity has always been posing itself. The film Waking Life is filled with smart quips that serve the purpose of showing what the people who have traveled away from the oppression have discovered. “When it was over, all I could think about was how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. It was a time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, and I had been a part of that.” (Linklater) It oozes with philosophy, every minute the audience feels more and more awed by the enormous and intangible size of what is being presented. All through the film we are told to do the same, we are instructed to discover and to be ourselves. “I want FREEDOM! That's what I want, and that's what YOU should want! It's up to each and every one of us to turn loose of just some of the greed, the hatred, the envy, and yes, the insecurities, because that is the central mode of control, make us feel pathetic, small, so we'll willingly give up our sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny. We have GOT to realize we're being conditioned on a mass scale.” (Linklater) As the audience sees itself getting lost in the pieces things shoot from the page or the screen and find themselves embedded in our brains, ideas we cannot get rid of. Both the book and the film are very different, but they make similar points sometimes that help hold up the vivacity to ensure that the audience is getting the information they should.
Not only do they share what the discovery of the mind can lead too, they also criticize society. As every book in the course, there is critique to the manner of life we lead and to the way we undergo everyday’s life. Calvino and Linklater touched the same point in their critique of our culture: lack of communication between people. In Invisible Cities, Trading Cities 2, Calvino describes the city of Chloe. “In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.” (Calvino, pg. 51) Reading this makes the reader stop and think. Isn’t that what life is in any other city? Out of the millions of people one knows not that many, and the rest are faceless strangers who are a way to entertain yourself as you walk through the streets. The last sentence of the passage is a way to show the lack of depth of it all. It is a second that you devote to others, not any more, and then you move on. Here he might even be talking about the people one does know, but still never really listens to. Saying that it never stops is a way of asking if that is really the way we want it to be. In Waking Life the same issue is addressed. Two people are waking down some stairs on the street and they bump into one another. They quickly utter apologies without even diverting their eyes from the floor and move each their own way. Suddenly the girl turns back and says: “Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. ‘Here's your change.’ ‘Paper or plastic?' ‘Credit or debit?’ ‘You want ketchup with that?’ I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?” The shot is very interesting because it makes the viewer feel trapped, as the stairs are behind bars. Beyond the bars there is a dark street that gives one the feeling of emptiness, and farther away are some leafless, and thus lifeless, trees. What Linklater means by these trees is that many times the life people live is dead, not being used at all or enjoyed because we have been imprisoned by society’s ways.
Society has also managed to make worry and fear be a part of everyone’s life. There is not a moment that goes by in which one doesn’t remember something about the past or thinks about something in the future. This constant shift between times prevent people from focusing on the now, on the moment, and from enjoying life at that time. In Waking Life the main character gets onto a boat-car that is going to take him into the city. The driver is a man with an open mind and he believes that “every minute's a different show.” (Linklater) As he talks about life and why he believes this, cars zoom by in the highway behind and the viewer gets the message that as one thing is happening many others are going by, as the driver says the show changes and we have little time to enjoy it. In Invisible Cities, in Trading Cities 4, there is a description of the city of Eurtopia where there are many little cities, only one occupied at a time. When people get tired of their life the whole city shifts to a new place and the roles, families, couples, and feelings change too. “The city repeats its life, identical, shifting up and down on its empty chessboard.” (Calvino, pg. 64) A game board where very minute the game is a whole different one on a new level. The fact that both artists describe change and time in a way that makes it seem trivial because it goes so fast is evidence of the fact that they want to warn people who have not escaped yet that life goes by fast, and that it changes without warning. That while we are under the care of our over protective society we will never live half what we are meant to.
Although both works have a different narrative style, they also have some common fashions. Both are told in a dream-like manner that captures the audience’s attention and through which the message is passed along. They way in which things are thrown at the audience without explanations and one after the other leaving no room to breathe is a way to get many ideas into one’s minds. It might be overwhelming, but it is the only way to get enough ideals into a persons mind when they have so little in it and are missing so much. A very important part of the pieces is where we are being encouraged to understand and then later on do things. In Waking Life a man gets off a train and tells the main character to stay awake. “Well, I'm trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming, every day. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds. Our planet is facing the greatest problems it's ever faced, ever. So whatever you do, don't be bored, this is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting.” (Linklater) We are being told to examine the difference in life, to see what others don’t, and take a part in changing things because things can be changed if you are no longer being held back by society. Why are these artists trying to get us to understand life, though? What is it about more people roaming free that they like? They are looking for the system of repression and subjugation to fall to pieces. They want to see it collapse and see the revival of mankind as it is without limits, without restrictions.
Society is a futile attempt to hold back mankind’s thoughts. If no one was free from it and no one decided not to care, then we would be nowhere today. Columbus’s spent half his life arguing that the world was round and not flat, being called a crazy person. He discovered America. The Wright brothers where laughed at: the living joke of the decade. Now, we fly across the world every day. Einstein was a madman. No one could make two miniscule particles create such an amount of energy. Today, we cower at the thought of the atomic bomb. Earthquakes suddenly stopped being caused by angry Gods and became the result of movement in tectonic plates. Discovery. That’s what getting away from the constraints is good for. That’s why being called an outcast is worth it. That is why we should explore the boundaries of our minds and travel farther than we ever have before. We have been told time and time again to dare to be different, to dare to keep on going and keep on thinking. Why don’t we? Why do we let an antiquated system hold us back? Don’t we want to move on?
I could not put the titles in italics or the correct indents because of the format of the Blogger, but they are correctly placed in the actual essay. Thank you for eveything Mr. Tangen.
People regard them as weird because they are so different. The book Invisible Cities takes time to get adjusted too. The movie Waking Life also is hard to understand at first. Both of these pieces are very different form the common norm of books and films and for the minds of the oppressed it seems at first like the artists are crazy. As we let our minds go and are absorbed by the ideas presented we see that they are getting somewhere: that they are actually making a point. And it’s not just a point. It is a point that we can relate with in some way, in some far off corner of our mind that has been strong enough to find its way out of society’s firm grip. Ideas that before would be considered oddities and concepts that would make no sense ring as reasonable thoughts that could solve answers humanity has always been posing itself. The film Waking Life is filled with smart quips that serve the purpose of showing what the people who have traveled away from the oppression have discovered. “When it was over, all I could think about was how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. It was a time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, and I had been a part of that.” (Linklater) It oozes with philosophy, every minute the audience feels more and more awed by the enormous and intangible size of what is being presented. All through the film we are told to do the same, we are instructed to discover and to be ourselves. “I want FREEDOM! That's what I want, and that's what YOU should want! It's up to each and every one of us to turn loose of just some of the greed, the hatred, the envy, and yes, the insecurities, because that is the central mode of control, make us feel pathetic, small, so we'll willingly give up our sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny. We have GOT to realize we're being conditioned on a mass scale.” (Linklater) As the audience sees itself getting lost in the pieces things shoot from the page or the screen and find themselves embedded in our brains, ideas we cannot get rid of. Both the book and the film are very different, but they make similar points sometimes that help hold up the vivacity to ensure that the audience is getting the information they should.
Not only do they share what the discovery of the mind can lead too, they also criticize society. As every book in the course, there is critique to the manner of life we lead and to the way we undergo everyday’s life. Calvino and Linklater touched the same point in their critique of our culture: lack of communication between people. In Invisible Cities, Trading Cities 2, Calvino describes the city of Chloe. “In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.” (Calvino, pg. 51) Reading this makes the reader stop and think. Isn’t that what life is in any other city? Out of the millions of people one knows not that many, and the rest are faceless strangers who are a way to entertain yourself as you walk through the streets. The last sentence of the passage is a way to show the lack of depth of it all. It is a second that you devote to others, not any more, and then you move on. Here he might even be talking about the people one does know, but still never really listens to. Saying that it never stops is a way of asking if that is really the way we want it to be. In Waking Life the same issue is addressed. Two people are waking down some stairs on the street and they bump into one another. They quickly utter apologies without even diverting their eyes from the floor and move each their own way. Suddenly the girl turns back and says: “Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. ‘Here's your change.’ ‘Paper or plastic?' ‘Credit or debit?’ ‘You want ketchup with that?’ I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?” The shot is very interesting because it makes the viewer feel trapped, as the stairs are behind bars. Beyond the bars there is a dark street that gives one the feeling of emptiness, and farther away are some leafless, and thus lifeless, trees. What Linklater means by these trees is that many times the life people live is dead, not being used at all or enjoyed because we have been imprisoned by society’s ways.
Society has also managed to make worry and fear be a part of everyone’s life. There is not a moment that goes by in which one doesn’t remember something about the past or thinks about something in the future. This constant shift between times prevent people from focusing on the now, on the moment, and from enjoying life at that time. In Waking Life the main character gets onto a boat-car that is going to take him into the city. The driver is a man with an open mind and he believes that “every minute's a different show.” (Linklater) As he talks about life and why he believes this, cars zoom by in the highway behind and the viewer gets the message that as one thing is happening many others are going by, as the driver says the show changes and we have little time to enjoy it. In Invisible Cities, in Trading Cities 4, there is a description of the city of Eurtopia where there are many little cities, only one occupied at a time. When people get tired of their life the whole city shifts to a new place and the roles, families, couples, and feelings change too. “The city repeats its life, identical, shifting up and down on its empty chessboard.” (Calvino, pg. 64) A game board where very minute the game is a whole different one on a new level. The fact that both artists describe change and time in a way that makes it seem trivial because it goes so fast is evidence of the fact that they want to warn people who have not escaped yet that life goes by fast, and that it changes without warning. That while we are under the care of our over protective society we will never live half what we are meant to.
Although both works have a different narrative style, they also have some common fashions. Both are told in a dream-like manner that captures the audience’s attention and through which the message is passed along. They way in which things are thrown at the audience without explanations and one after the other leaving no room to breathe is a way to get many ideas into one’s minds. It might be overwhelming, but it is the only way to get enough ideals into a persons mind when they have so little in it and are missing so much. A very important part of the pieces is where we are being encouraged to understand and then later on do things. In Waking Life a man gets off a train and tells the main character to stay awake. “Well, I'm trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming, every day. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds. Our planet is facing the greatest problems it's ever faced, ever. So whatever you do, don't be bored, this is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting.” (Linklater) We are being told to examine the difference in life, to see what others don’t, and take a part in changing things because things can be changed if you are no longer being held back by society. Why are these artists trying to get us to understand life, though? What is it about more people roaming free that they like? They are looking for the system of repression and subjugation to fall to pieces. They want to see it collapse and see the revival of mankind as it is without limits, without restrictions.
Society is a futile attempt to hold back mankind’s thoughts. If no one was free from it and no one decided not to care, then we would be nowhere today. Columbus’s spent half his life arguing that the world was round and not flat, being called a crazy person. He discovered America. The Wright brothers where laughed at: the living joke of the decade. Now, we fly across the world every day. Einstein was a madman. No one could make two miniscule particles create such an amount of energy. Today, we cower at the thought of the atomic bomb. Earthquakes suddenly stopped being caused by angry Gods and became the result of movement in tectonic plates. Discovery. That’s what getting away from the constraints is good for. That’s why being called an outcast is worth it. That is why we should explore the boundaries of our minds and travel farther than we ever have before. We have been told time and time again to dare to be different, to dare to keep on going and keep on thinking. Why don’t we? Why do we let an antiquated system hold us back? Don’t we want to move on?
I could not put the titles in italics or the correct indents because of the format of the Blogger, but they are correctly placed in the actual essay. Thank you for eveything Mr. Tangen.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Yahoo v. Houyhnhnm
The debate today was very interesting, not so much because of the topic in my opinion because I thought that the topic had a decided position but because of the type of arguments that were made. I enjoyed how we went about the arguments in a scientific manner and how we would express out thoughts on the matter with out even letting it be seen that what we were debating was a fictional thing. When we talked about the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms we used a stern voice and terms that showed that there was no room for question: these creatures were real. I also really liked that one group in particular, the con-Yahoo, showed a picture that was not only funny but also illustrated the point they were trying to make. As someone said in class it might have been better if there was more text citation, but all in all I thought that it was a good debate that exceeded my expectations of it. Right before the last argument was presented by the con-Houyhnhnm I thought of a very good and what I think is a strong closing statement that showed a clear point and stated a hard truth: “The only thing the Houyhnhnms are better at is oppressing the people they feel threatened by as to maintain the higher position of their inferior selves.”
The Monster That Is War
“It is a very justifiable cause of war to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions amongst themselves. It is justifiable to enter a war against our nearest ally when one of his towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land, that would render our dominions round and compact.” (Swift, 185.) I would like to perform a close reading on this very ironical and sarcastic passage from the book. When Gulliver says that it is very justifiable, what is meant is that they have a sound and logical reason to do it, that the event has been caused because it will lead to a good effect. He talks about war meaning any type of fight with another country that includes violence, or with any other group that involves deaths and strategies. He says that war is justifiable when the people are starved meaning have been through a long period of suffering and are weak. He says destroyed by pestilence meaning that they are sick and that they have already lost a lot of their loved ones and energy to disease. He talks about factions meaning that they are already in some fights and so they must attack when the unity is weak. Then it talks about invading an ally if it means a benefit for them in territorial gains. Clearly, Swift does not agree with any of the things he is saying. I would even dare to go as far as to say that he thinks that when any of the above are the case they have no justification to go to war and going makes them the evil party. Probably Swift is saying this because many of the wars of the world have taken place due to or meanwhile any of the above described. I think that the events Swift describes are the basis of humanitarianism and that the governments and monarchies that have gone to war albeit them are here being portrayed as evil monsters, the same portrait that is painted of war here.
The Vices Of Mankind Through Satire
In chapters three and four of the fourth part of Gulliver’s Travels we are told about the manner in which Gulliver is being treated by the Houyhnhnms and how he dedicates his time to learning their language. We can also see a lot of criticism to the European society in these two chapters and I found that they were loaded with ironical descriptions of human’s actions that were meant as Swift to show people the absurdity of what we do with the tools we are given. In this respect I found Swift to think a lot like Kurt Vonnegut in what we do wrong, with the difference being that Vonnegut is trying to justify it while Swift is pointing it out as pathetic.
“After which like one whose imagination was struck with something never seen or heard before, he would lift up his eyes with amazement and indignation. Power, government, was, law, punishment, and a thousand other things…” (Swift, 183.) Here is just one of the passages where Gulliver uses all of his communication skills to try to explain to these noble creatures what the vices of mankind are. They do not understand what he says at first because in the “utopia” they live in they have no lies, no poverty, no need of laws or punishment, and no greed. Little by little though the creatures come to the understanding of the vices that are being described to them and as can be expected they are appalled by the behavior of such an advanced race. They do not understand, and I think that is exactly what Gulliver wants us to not understand and condemn too, how it is that people who can make huge building, organize themselves into a hierarchy, build weapons that function with fire, travel on water, etc. can use all these technologies and tools for wrong and destruction rather than for good and development. As was said in class at the time the book was written this applied to cannons and boats. Regardless of the time period we can see, though, that the principle holds true. Are we not threatened every day by the amazing power to extract giant amounts of energy from breaking atoms? DO we not fear that any moment a biological bomb developed by medical means will kill us all? Sadly that is the story of mankind: we develop and then use to oppress and kill. It is interesting to see how Swift does this without making any direct reference to it and we can catch on to it by the simple ways of satire.
“After which like one whose imagination was struck with something never seen or heard before, he would lift up his eyes with amazement and indignation. Power, government, was, law, punishment, and a thousand other things…” (Swift, 183.) Here is just one of the passages where Gulliver uses all of his communication skills to try to explain to these noble creatures what the vices of mankind are. They do not understand what he says at first because in the “utopia” they live in they have no lies, no poverty, no need of laws or punishment, and no greed. Little by little though the creatures come to the understanding of the vices that are being described to them and as can be expected they are appalled by the behavior of such an advanced race. They do not understand, and I think that is exactly what Gulliver wants us to not understand and condemn too, how it is that people who can make huge building, organize themselves into a hierarchy, build weapons that function with fire, travel on water, etc. can use all these technologies and tools for wrong and destruction rather than for good and development. As was said in class at the time the book was written this applied to cannons and boats. Regardless of the time period we can see, though, that the principle holds true. Are we not threatened every day by the amazing power to extract giant amounts of energy from breaking atoms? DO we not fear that any moment a biological bomb developed by medical means will kill us all? Sadly that is the story of mankind: we develop and then use to oppress and kill. It is interesting to see how Swift does this without making any direct reference to it and we can catch on to it by the simple ways of satire.
Monday, June 8, 2009
The Yahoo And The Houyhnhnms
I wanted to see what other people had
taken each of the species for and so I
looked for diagrams online.
taken each of the species for and so I
looked for diagrams online.
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