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[mangel-wurzels]

the “hack” was successful mwahahahaha

-p

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https://youtu.be/002bZUUWuIY

[mangel-wurzels]

Hi this is Mae. I’m currently at Elmwood woooo

[mangel-wurzels]

strange days . . .

so, you guys need to decide on what “mirrored” version of the universe you’d like to find “convenient” to share our ideas / posts, and remember how / why we do critical thinking!!

Every “Quest / hero” story begins with “the call”. If we choose to believe we are capable of some small version of “heroism” in our lives, what / how (do we?) recognize / heed this call, and thereafter, what do we DO??!!! “Vocation” is a word I once upon a time shared with a certain administrator, and i believe we had the same notion of what the word meant, but the “praxis” of how we go about it is “dimensions” away (not sure how to spell “Dormamu”, but the dark lord will suffice). Strange begins his journey via personal loss and accident; it is only until pushed to heed the direction “lose your sense of ‘self’ “ that he can begin his true “calling”, become worthy of the mantle (”cloak” is another word for a vastly different “weight” conceptually!). 

Semiotically, symbolically, the last look at his ruined (”runed”!!) hands hearkens a reflection ‘pon the pragmatic “necessity” of actions opposed to his former “choice” of whether an action would promote his reputation / name further. It is our hands’ “work” (and i use the Romantics’ sense of this word) that truly shapes our intentions.

. . . so, summa -- time to make your strange-days count in this “space”, and con-tinue the continuum, and put aside your in-CON-veniences . . .

mr t

[mangel-wurzels]

westworld

so, finally, time to .. . 

things you need to see / read before you start the series: a couple of Philip K Dick stories / novellas; the film adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep -- Bladerunner; Battlestar Galactica; The Truman Show.

The show is loosely derived from Chricton’s novel and the 70′s film. What the extended series is able to though is so much more ambitious. The narrative tricks of re-looping the same story, then altered by new “guests” (the “real” people-players) (the world is a narrative role-playing game), then altered by the growing self-awareness of the “hosts” (the “robots”) is hermeneutically beguiling, without the foreshadowed hints of telcos (we’ll have to watch it again when it’s done to see the teleological snares). The acting is subtle, despite the non-subtlety of the western typologies. And the semiotic layering -- the opening credits are a masterful tracing of this; the embedded songs coming out of the roller piano (the first episode pays Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun and the Stone Red Door Painted Black) -- wow. So much more herein.

Let me know if you get the chance to begin, and we’ll meet up somewhere-when to talk about it!

Miss you lot-least-lost-romantics!

[mangel-wurzels]

ah, but when you’re an essay jedi, you may not need edit!

when you finish a paper just before the deadline and have no time to edit

[mangel-wurzels]

re-begin-again

i believe i mentioned how sister was the longest tenure of anywhere i’ve lingered in my sojourns (the former access course the only reason) so perhaps i’m unpracticed at the “lighting out” (Twain’s Huck Finn) once more. The Elm-woods are spacious and relaxed (perhaps too relaxed?) so the transition has been calm; paradoxically this makes me edgy -- used to the quicksilver pace of things. Making a connection without a reputation to herald the process has been interesting; not sure how long it will take to get through to some of the less eager students, but the ones willing to learn are already beginning to quicken i think. There’s a bad / good(?) old song lyric “every new beginning is an old beginning’s end” that pops into my head often (songs / lyrics tend to do that) and it seems apt.

I look forward to hearing from ALL of you and your impressions of this your final year of high school (”childhood’s end” is Clarke’s title) and seeing you when we can catch up. look for an upcoming film before x-mas (the new Bladerunner should be out this year) and when is the next Guardians out? “Keep thirsty my friends” (for knowledge and poetics!). Until next we meet, adieu.

[mangel-wurzels]

catharsis (and you lot need to start posting stuff again!)

so, caught the tragically hip’s last performance interspersed between olympics on cbc. Have listened to them since their beginnings in the 80′s, seen them in concert in smaller venues twice (bloody cathartic in different ways!), so the personal subtext for this context was loaded with temporal vagaries of memory and nostalgia and this was their LAST performance as a band so the philosophical “always already” was already loaded with paradox . . . so -- Derrida speaks of “acts of literature” in the sense that reading is an experience of being / re-making, something akin to reader-response theory but in a deeper intersection of text and self, writer - reader invoked dialectically in an exchange of something nigh mystical; to me this has always been harkened by “catharsis”, the moving through emotions that binds audience and performer (you have all felt some of this I hope in our time together, and certainly in the slams). The Hip’s last “act” (and Gord Downie’s last chance to scream through the ravage of his illness) was an “act” of catharsis, of willfully impelling the audience to bear witness / co-create the terrible beauty (Keats if not Yeats here) of singing these long familiar songs together, willing Downie himself to re-call his own words held tenuously in his diminished mind, while tears shed from the deepest wells of our spirits and eyes, and that old familiar lump in our throat rendered hoarse and raw our screaming singing together . . . we need to learn to accept the howling that sometimes id necessary to sound out our grief and the loss of our love. We need to laugh cathartically thereafter and fall into each others’ arms in the communal spirit of our breaths and of of our words -- use, it is the lyrics that thrum more deeply then even the most raw of guitars and sax and harmonicas wailing their tremolo keening (”the high lonesome sound” -- Tim Scott). Youtube some moments if you have the time. “Whitings”, “Grace Too”, and I’m not Cordelia” (always Shakespearean ironies in Downie’s lyrics) ring most truly and deeply and madly for me.

adieu

[mangel-wurzels]

into the woods

no, not the sappy musical, but a sonf from The Call (great 80′s band of course) -- the Romantics wrote glorifying poetics about the grandeur of the european landscape and a mystical bond with nature and God; early canadian poets transferred this tradition belatedly, but only the american romantics came close to the odd feelings evoked by just being in the boreal woods and watching, listening, breathing the trees the breeze the birds the bugs the random animal sounds that fill the quiet. So this is your challenge: get out to sioux narrows park next year and spend some time re-forging not only your bonds of fellowship but perhaps trying to represent what it means to be “canadian” in the original, primal sense. A poetic “retreat” of sorts. Read some Purdy and some Thorouow and some Whitman before then too.

“twas grand seeing those of you who found the time to meet up today; for those that missed, another time. Stay close. I will be able to tumble when I return again on the 26th or so. Look for Ken Lieu’s “Paper Menagerie” to!!

a bientôt

[mangel-wurzels]

le bachelor finale

so, damned if i could tell any profound revelations in body language / gesture that differed ‘tween ben and jo jo or lauren, until . . . the final choice. When jo jo was declaring her feelings ben was stalwart, stoic, resigned to what he knew he had to say thereafter; when lauren was declaring her feelings he was rocking to and fro, like a little vessel on a gentle sea, “rolling” with the tides of his barely contained feelings. 

Jo jo’s obvious calm when she was brought in to reflect on her feelings after she had lost ben was a clear giveaway that she was going to be the next bachelorette -- a nice “consolation”; she has already “moved on”, and perhaps this experience will enable her to “grow into” the “readiness” required to choose a life partner . . . 

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and yet he chose Lauren . . . 

Bachelor: Comparing and Contrasting Dialectics

IF YOU DIDN’T WATCH DO NOT READ BC SPOILERS (KINDA BUT JUST TO BE SAFE)

There were differences between Jojo’s & Ben’s interactions vs. Lauren B.’s & Ben’s interactions that contrast the two relationships. Jojo and Ben are definitely best friends and they genuinely care about each other. After meeting Ben’s parents, Jojo and Ben sit on a bench and speak to each other so affectionately with their foreheads against each others intimately. The genuineness of Ben’s feelings was clear when he looked worried after Jojo left. Ben’s gaze on Jojo as she spoke did not waver, and Ben went to far lengths to speak to Jojo privately and honestly by talking in the bathroom with the door completely closed. Jojo was completely open to Ben as she spoke with all her heart, and in return Ben did the same. However, with Lauren B., Ben was behaving differently. Ben was always physically close to Lauren B., holding her hand when they were speaking right after Lauren’s meeting with his parents. Unlike what happened with Jojo, Ben’s gaze on Lauren B. was wavering/unsteady, which can signify many things – confusion? hesitation? or something else entirely? A lot of the interactions between Lauren B. and Ben were physical; they do not exactly see past the idea and fluttering feelings of being in love with someone. On the other hand, Jojo’s and Ben’s in-depth conversations indicated how Jojo actually WAS in love with Ben for who he really was and not the idea of being in love with someone itself. Lauren B.’s relationship with Ben leans more towards physical attraction, which is more shallow than Jojo’s relationship with Ben because Jojo genuinely worried about her relationship with Ben and was seriously preparing for their possible future. It was clear from the beginning of the episode who Ben was going to choose… and also who he should have chosen.

ok I may be biased as hell but pls cmon PLS WHY

[mangel-wurzels]

Nadine’s Q

so, the q was this: “how does Willy’s ideology of dying a “death of a salesman” affect Linda, Biff, happy? 

As per our persistent reminders regarding phrasing / L.C., a better way of stating the question might be: how does W’s flawed interpretation glorifying the death of Dave Singleman, contribute to his decision to kill himself in one last desperate act to attain “success”? How is his act further interpreted by L., B., and H.?

This extension of the question leads one to the formation of a TH (the flawed conception of sentimental regard for a salesman) AND the Arg’s that must follow the opening Arg explaining W’s reading of Singleman’s final days -- the impact on his family. From least to most sig., how would you organize this? Happy blindly following this delusion; Linda’s ignorant disbelief; Biff’s crestfallen awareness of its flaws? Would you add Charly’s grave-side comment as part of the Concl, as an reminder to the family (and the audience): “Nobody dost blame this man” -- this “seems” to be the crux of what we are left with to speculate; “modern” tragedy claims that at the end, the protaganist comes to only a partial sense of self-awareness at best (oft flawed or absent entirely). As Willy interprets Dave Singleman’s life / death as a “salesman” (so many “man” suffixes in these symbolic names) so are we to “read” Willy’s life / death.

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dialectics a la bachelor!

the dialectics between Ben and (insert name / girl of your choice here) should get clearer as time / “dates” go by, so here’s a go at Ben / Oli (a perhaps more suitable appelation for the craz’d news-girl) . . .  obviously (if you had to watch as i did last night) her response to Ben’s announcement that he was in a solemn mood after the loss of some familial friends should have been, finally, the cliche “red flag” (an Oprah term no-less) to rouse him from his first-impression delusion (yes, one should gauge many impressions beyond the first “boom-of-the-rose” glamour!). Her sudden revelation regarding the rvuls’d state of her toes (nay, “everything below the knees” [and this requires some further geographical deconstruction i fear!] ) should set them on a footfall of descending compatibility. Her deranged “reading” of the subtle “signs” that Ben is sending her through ANY possible gesture / incidental body contact is also an indicator of her desperate attempt to create a fantasy of developing dialectics that does not really exist. Watch things eventually derail and her shocked refusal to perceive the “reason(s)” her ego / s.e. fashion to reconcile her deflated id’s dreamy desires . . . . 

[mangel-wurzels]

Norraine’s Crit theory query

The query essentially had to do with how to apply psychic zones to Gatsby’s char. The id is the release of desires without regard to ego’s reason or the superego’s subconscious restraints (”morality principle” is far too general a phrase -- one of Freud’s problems). Gatsby’s pursuit of his “plotic conception of himself” is an attempt to surpass the conditions of his origins; this in itself may be embarked upon with the cognizance of his ego and s.e. It is the illogical “transference” of this goal to Daisy that “unbridles” his id and subsumes his other zones. He disregards any sensible awareness of Daisy herself as a person, let alone the social conventions that his wealth alone can never “gloss” over. His blatant disregard of any practical laws / social morality also reflects this. 

Arguably, you could apply Freud’s theory to any character / person. Your apparent procrastinating to begin / finish your recent essay (whomsoever this applies to . . .) would be a great “case study” -- was it your id telling you to laze about and indulge in other past-times? Was it your guilt crippling your will / ability to dredge up some resolve? Was it your ego telling you that there were more pressing / important concerns (though I of course could not imagine what such an instance could be outside of severe personal trauma!!)? 

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dialectics: riddles of “meaning” what is said be-tween the words and the “looks” that link the “gaze”

so, having read your notes on Bachelor dialectics  -- again, USE a concept / idea as your focus for your Dev. of the piece. We will use this “approach” when we look at Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse” and explore the rhetorical “poses” used to represent a romantic persona. The “speaking subject” of a poem chooses HOW they will present themselves / their feelings within their discourse; within a conversation between two people, the dialectics of how BOTH speaking subjects construct / reconstruct / “navigate” their representations of themselves IN language (the french term for personal discourse is “parole”) somehow needs to be synthesized -- this is what / why we attempt to begin with a concept / idea that focuses our reading of the “significances” within the dialectics. (”Titles” should do this, to varying degrees.) 

[mangel-wurzels]

!!!!!!!!

Christmas Party food list thing?

Here are the people who have told me what they’re planning on bringing for the class party.

Mr. Tulner- Stew (Beer stew…?)

Kimmy- Fried rice

Bianca- Chicken

Rica Mae- Cheese & Ham rolls

Prerna- Cookies

Gabe- Drinks

Hannah- Chips

Justine- Shumai (Dumplings!)

Christian- Banana Bread

Derong- Chow mein

Fatima-Custard cake

Nadine- Fruits

Raj- Indian sweets

Mae- Eggrolls

Norainne- Pizza

Aaron- Pasta dish

Syd- Short bread cookies

Jp- Spring rolls

Allaine-

Kaleigh- Pizza or baked goods

Alain- Doughnuts

Larizza- Veggie Platter

Nina- 

[mangel-wurzels]

nicely metaphor!

cyrano's saturday

Set 12 years since Roxane joined the nunnery, 13 years since Christian’s death

(The Nun escorts Cyrano into the garden. Roxane is sitting upon a ledge admiring the garden)

Roxane: Your colours so bright, yet so- (Cyrano clears his throat to get Roxane’s attention, she immediately turns to his direction, a distant smile upon her face) My dear cousin! You are quite early today.

Cyrano: Hello, dearest Roxane! Did the garden call to you today?

Roxane: I could not resist,

(Together they spend an hour in peaceful silence embracing the nature around them)

Cyrano: Nature holds magnificent beauty but this garden is overgrown with weeds.

Roxane: Hmm…indeed you are correct.

Cyrano: Perhaps you should remove these weeds-

Roxane: A garden so beautiful, one touch and it may fall into peril. (Roxane caresses a weed between her fingers, her grip everlasting, as Cyrano nervously rubs his hands behind his back)

Cyrano: But to leave the weeds behind would bring upon the sweetest of flowers, don’t you agree my darling cousin?

Roxane: You are a fool to believe such a thing.

Cyrano: I? A fool? A poet does not write about the flowing weeds, bees do not come to them for their sweet honey, why should I be a fool to think this weed (Cyrano grabs a weed and crushes in within his grip) could be as important as the sweetest jasmine?

Roxane: These weeds have done you no harm.

Cyrano: One day, you will realize, my sweet plume.

(random thought: an aporia is just a fancy word for fanfiction)