Artistic Expression

I really loved the idea behind artistic expression in this story. That sometimes artists draw upon their own misfortune and their own turmoil to produce such artful work. I was just talking to someone about that the other day. They said that they knew a man who was able to make great films that had a great story and all the technical aspects were great but in order for him to write the proper story he needed to take time to wallow in his own sadness about the way that life treated him. His stories then reflected the way that he chose to view life in the fact that every movie he made had a sad ending. A good example would be that in a movie about a guy falling in love with a girl, the guy gets the short end of the stick when the girl says she doesn't love him back. Then at the end of the movie he has the chance to choose to be with her and then the screen fades to black. Throughout the movie you can see periods of what the filmmaker may have gone through in his life and it becomes a movie that is a projection of the pain that the filmmaker feels. Like music in its artistry it is true that most of the good stuff comes from the creator being in some form of pain. Its also funny that drugs are so closely associated with those who participate in the arts. The more I think about it the more I realize why. It is because the arts are made to free everyday people from their chains and to allow them to experience life to the fullest. That is what most artists believe that drugs do for them, because they stimulate the mind into places that they are unable to reach on their own. Overall I loved the whole portrayal of a struggling artist.

Serenity

At first I was a little apprehensive about going to a cemetery to read a book about grief. It was an awkward concept to go to a place where people who have walked the earth before you are currently underneath you. Then I decided to deviate from the book for a little and try to take in my atmosphere first. I looked around at the different tombstones examining the life instead of the death. A lot is contained on a tombstone that is there for one to discover about the life that was that is currently underneath. One example would be a tombstone that was very ornate. It was well polished making it shine and glimmer. It was massive and on the front was a picture of the man who lay beneath. This man's life was marked with wealth and success. It was evident in the tombstone that was erected in his honor. Then there were a couple that told of a tragic story. There was a family ploy where all the family was buried together and off to one side there were two tombstones that looked as if they were cradles and they contained the remains of two children who had died at the same time since their graves were marked with the date of the deaths of the two children. See the picture that is attached. The more I looked at the history of all the people the more I began to connect with the book that we are required to read. It made the words leap off the pages and the depth of all his pain became more real to me. In the story his words have begun to take on a life of its own. This man as he unloads his pain in the form of writing I am able to now feel it with both my mind and my heart and it makes sense to me.

A little late

This I posted late because when I first read this story I knew there was a lot to it but I didn't catch on but the more time I took to dwell on this passage the more I realized that this story is as deep as I thought it was and I related it to the onion story. The onion story is this short explanation of the history of the onion and where it came from and based solely upon the observations of one person who writes a poem about something that they realized about a fact of life that they decided to share with the world. Then when it was shared with all the world they found that there is more to the story than they let on. When we discussed the story of the onion in class in a dialogical manner everyone had a different viewpoint on it. Some thought it delve into the nature of humanity, others found a deep spirituality, and the select few found absolutely nothing. Just like C.S. Lewis decided to dialogue with himself on the essence of grief and at times he gets nothing out of his situation and at other times he is diving deep into the recesses of humanity and connecting it with spirituality. So the time I took to look at this story other than jumping in right away in a haste to be outright against this story allowed for me to take a chance on this story and fully understand what I was reading and one my response has been one of an open mind to what this story means on a deeper level and on a more surface level. That is how I was able to draw a connection between the poem of the history of the onion and the story by C.S. Lewis a grief observed.

Vivid Imagery

Some of the vivid imagery I get from the first page begins to remind me of a time lapse camera. As ignore someone set a camera there for a long period of time and got footage of the life power of this once lush land that turned into a desolate wasteland that is void of life and happy colors. Now it is a land of grays and washed out earth tones that create a sense of depression in the viewer. Than not too much later there is a massive fire that engulfs all the land. So since everything has dried up and begun to wither away, the screen, which is where I envision the existence of the images in my head, is now lit up brightly with vibrant reds, oranges, yellows and tinges of blue on the tips to signify a bright powerful flame that encompasses a vast area. The next thing I see is a line of trumpets creating a path gore they are standing on either side with their trumpets raised and the flag hanging far below. They are blasting for the return of the king almost like in the end scene of the third installment of the Lord Of the Rings series. The king returns and all are fearful for they know their misdeeds. Then the next part of darkness is almost like a thick blanket of a deep dense fog that covers the ensure land and slowly reps over a mountain side to begin to enshroud the town. Now the next part is exactly like the battle scene from the third installment of The Lord Of The Rings. The battle scene where the army of The undead swarm over the battlefield and slowly decimate the opposing army in a fast and overpowering manner. Its almost as if this is sort of parallel to the book of Joel. Another reason to back it up is that there is a passage that talks about the armies that come front the different cardinal directions and fight in a battle scene where the army of the supernatural, which is the undead, come and wipe out. This is almost mind boggling to come across such a cool parallel in something that I found boring the first time I read it. But now I am able to see the action unfold and relayed it to something I am deeply fond of. The Lord of The Rings.

Book of Joel

When I read this aloud a few lines popped into my head as being especially beautiful. The first of which is "Awake, drunkards, and weep; and wail all you wine drinkers, on account of the sweet wine that is cut off from your mouth." The alliteration of all the w's inside and outside of each word adds a flow to the poem that makes it leap off the page and feels very smooth. The next one that I thought was great was "The vine dries up and the fig tree fails; The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree, all the trees of the field dry up." That one just paints such a morbid and desolate picture in my head that I can vividly see and I love words that form images in a person's mind. A few more good ones that pain great pictures in my head are "As the dawn is spread over the mountains." "A fire consumes before them and behind them a flame burns the land is like the garden of Eden before them but a desolate wilderness behind them." I especially like the beauty of the reference to the garden of Eden because it places in your mind the image of a garden of perfection and the contrast to a great wilderness behind gives this great image of you standing on the border and seeing that this is the rift between two worlds that you are standing on. "Return to me with all your heart, and with fasting weeping and mourning." That is just the epitome of being humble. The way that God straigh up says that He wants us to make ourselves less and to repent and come back its like a lover would say to one who has left them. That they would want an outward show of an inward change in their heart for what they have done and the manner in which they left.

Pain in the Brain

I had to read this story a few more than three times to even try to begin to understand what The Colonel meant in any way at all. So upon the fourth or fifth tine reading this story I worked up the courage to begin to take apart the layers that this story has. The first part that I wanna take a stab at is the line that is "The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house". That line in my opinion means that the man had a belief in a higher being than himself but one that he did not fully understand so he said that it was swung bare on its black cord to portray that or it could be imagery of a very chilling night. It seems as though the house was fortified as well because he speaks of the glass shards that are in the walls and the bars that are over the windows. It seems as though he is in some sort of house that is on the frontlines of a battle. I also want to point out that some thing that I noticed was the tv was in English on one of the shows and that wouldn’t have been pointed out unless the writer had a purpose for it. Though I am unable to find any other purpose other than to show that this is not somewhere where they would normally be watching an English tv show. The further I got the more it sounded as if this was the story of a man who was taken captive somewhere because of the reference to his friend saying to him “with his eyes” to not say anything, and the only instance where this would occur is when one is captured and they are in front of an opposing Colonel. That also began to click together all the imagery. The pistol, the English tv show, the dark imagery of the moon, and the reference to the rights of the people.

A Page

“No.” said Paige, “That stuff can’t be believed by any rational thought.”

“But what I have been saying is that it is faith. It’s not about knowing for sure or even throwing logic out the window.” Elijah said with a sort of passion he had never felt before.

“You can’t expect me to really believe that there is a world we can’t see,” she laughed, “I really think those movies are getting to your head.”

Elijah and Paige were on a date in a coffee shop. They had been dating for two years while every month they ran into another large argument. It was always around the basis of religion and things that were more than the two of them could explain alone.

“Well since you don’t believe in angels do you believe in God?” asked Elijah.

“I acknowledge the fact that it is a higher being but I wouldn’t say God necessarily.” Paige replied.

“Then if there is no God what is morality, or better yet truth based on. Wouldn’t the negligence of a God mean the relative morality and truth of each individual?” Elijah said with a bout of confidence.

After a few years of teaching from one of Elijah’s mentors he had brought it upon himself to be the new savior of the world. He had plans that would make Billy Graham feel like he had done an inadequate job. Elijah’s whole life was laid before him and he knew that God had chosen him to become someone great in this world and Elijah had every intention of sending that glory back to the one that had endowed him with his gifts. After all, his name meant “My God is the Lord”.

“Yes that makes truth relative and it is essentially up to the person to choose the morality of their decision.” Paige replied.

“Then where would that place absolute truth? I mean seeing as truth is relative absolute truth must be known by someone?” Elijah retorted.

“I don’t think there are absolutes.” Paige said slowly as her gears began to turn.

“Let me get this straight,” said Elijah, “you don’t believe there are absolutes?”

“Well I don’t think anyone can know the absolute truth.” Paige said as her usually happy demeanor began to change to one that was not so enthused.

“Then there is no truth if there is nothing to base it off of.” Elijah said matter of factly.

Paige said back, with a hint of anger, “No I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that there might be absolute truth but no one is able to know it.”

Nick sat staring at his iced vanilla latte. He never was one for coffee but it had always been Paige’s favorite thing. He knew that because they had been best friends ever since they could remember, but it wasn’t until two years ago that Paige had gotten the guts to ask Elijah out. He was the lead scorer on the soccer team and she was the brightest in the quiz bowl club. They decided to give it a go since the feeling was mutual and they have been dating ever since.

“There is no absolute truth is what you are saying?”He asked.

“No I’m saying that there might be absolute truth. I don’t deal in absolutes because I don’t believe in absolutes.” She replied.

“That is ridiculous,” he chuckled, “that means that there is no truth.”

“Truth is relative to who you are. I literally just said that.” She said almost as if there were a chip on her shoulder.

In fact there was. She was raised with Christian beliefs and probably knew the Bible better than Elijah could ever hope to. Yet the simple fact that she was born a logical person and one with an I.Q. equivalent to most of the Ivy League honors students she couldn’t bring herself to believe the things her grandmother read to her as a child. So to sit here listening to Elijah rant about what she should think made her begin to lose her patience with this man.

Elijah stared into her eyes. Slowly working up the courage to take things a step further, as his mouth opened Paige knew this wasn’t going to be good. “So if truth is relative and there are no absolutes…”

“There may be absolutes” Paige said “saying there are no absolutes, is an absolute.”

“Okay there may be no absolutes” Elijah paused slightly “then do you love me?”

The moment it left his mouth Elijah felt the power shift. Paige looked as if Elijah had physically hit her. There was silence for almost two straight minutes. It was almost as if that question took the noise right out of the already quiet coffee shop.

“Yes I love you.” She said knowing that she was cornered.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Elijah retorted with a smug grin.

She looked around to try and find a reason to leave the table. He had made logical sense since the first word he had spoken about God six years ago. Even when he didn’t he took the time to make sure that he did and would come back to present what he found. That’s what she loved about him, his will to persevere and to succeed no matter what the circumstances. He was her dream but right now he was making her hate him. That made her think, since she felt hatred towards him now does that make love not an absolute but yet another emotion?

“Love can’t be an absolute.” Paige said.

Elijah seemed thrown off. “Why not?” he asked not ready for what he was about to hear next.

“Because right now I don’t feel love towards you, because the questions you are asking are not that of love but out of a heart that only has pride and wants to be right more than it wants to be understanding.”

The tables had turned so quickly. It caused Elijah to regret not praying for the Lord’s help before he put himself into this conversation with Paige.

“So your love is based on how you feel and not what love is.” Elijah said almost zombielike.

“I’m not saying I don’t love you but that right now I don’t feel any towards you.” Paige said not realizing the impact that sentence had on the heart of the man seated across from her.

“Wow. I don’t know what to say.” Elijah spoke slowly with a glazed look in his eyes as he stared out the window.

“Wait that came out wrong it’s not that I don’t love you but-” she stopped cut off by Elijah’s raised hand.

“Tell me now what is love?” Elijah asked.

A slight pause as Paige looked into Elijah’s eyes seeing the hurt that she had apparently caused.

“I don’t know.” Paige said.

Elijah looked at her as one tear fell down his face. He slowly grabbed his coat and walked past her squeezing her shoulder as he always does when he goes home. Started his car and drove away.

Sanjeev

Sanjeev is definitely of the business personality. He makes sure that he has everything in place. On page 137 it says "Sanjeev was organizing his engineering texts from MIT in alphabetical order on a bookshelf." That shows that he is very particular about the things in his life and he knows where each of them belong. Then there is the passage that further expounds upon his oddity. "he would walk each evening across the Mass. Avenue bridge to order Mughlai chicken with spinach from his favorite Indian restaurant on the other side of the Charles and return to his dorm to write out clean copies of his problem sheets." Yet another example of his need to have order in his life and a sense of control over the many areas that he lives in. He tries to keep everything in order and neat.

He also tries to box people into categories that in his mind keep them to something easy and explainable. The quote "he was further puzzled that Twinkle, who normally displayed good taste, was so charmed." This was taken after the fact that Twinkle had began to take a liking to the many different Christian objects that they found throughout the house. Sanjeev, and his categorization of her as a Hindu who did not like Christian paraphernalia, was unable to find a reason as to why she broke the mold. He was unable to control her thoughts and actions and therefore began to question the situation he was in. Later on the author goes into what Sanjeev looks like and they talk about the plumpness of his cheeks and the length of his eyelashes and he was worried because he thought that the many things that were odd on his face would detract from his distinguished looks. So all in all I would say that he is a man of control. Yet not to fall in the same situation as Sanjeev I know that people have the ability to change and he showed that occasionally throughout the text.