My Justin

When I think about tragedy and its association with comedy, and how you must understand them both to be truly appreciative of either, I think of Justin.

August 25, 2007. Just another day, the first week of school. It was hot out, but really dry at the same time. It was my best friend, Justin, sister's birthday. Lunch time rolls around and everyone gets in their cars and race down to the local IGA to get food. Justin hops in the car with his friend Clint and two other guys from our class. They head out of town.

I was sitting in Spanish class. Usually Justin met me by our lockers and we went to class together. He didn't show up, or to our next class. I was mad at him, he didn't show, and I expected him to. As I left class Justin's sister came up to me "Justin was in a car wreck" "I figured" was all I could reply, and walked away. He had broken his ribs, but the principle said he was fine.

I was worried but I went to volleyball practice anyway, my coach seemed indifferent. I was scared the rest of the evening, but i continued to the rodeo where I was to sing the National Anthem. I was walking with my friend Jackie, and her younger brother ran up and told me Clint had died. Complete shock, it is the only way to describe it, the blood drained from my limbs and I was completely numb. Jackie punched her little brother. What could I do, I just had to sing, Jackie came with me and held my hand.

I went home that night, I found out Justin was placed in intensive care in Billings, my mother promised to take me there the next day. I did not sleep that night.

The next day I had a volleyball tournament, I got on the bus and everyone was silent...until I sat down. Suddenly the rumors were flying Justin was in denver, his lung was punctured, they took out his spleen, he had been life flighted...there was nothing I could do. Finally I called my friend Myles who was there with Justin, where ever he was.

Justin was on a breathing machine, Myles said. He was in Billings, and he was fine. He had woken up and Justin's father and Myles had spent some time with him. He was weak, and the only thing he could do was move his hands. They said he would make an L with his finger then point to his face, and scribble things in the air. He did this over and over again. He was getting frustrated until finally they figured out what he was saying. L-I-Z. He wanted me to know he was okay, that he was alive, and he wanted me there. All I could do was cry in relief

We flew up to Billings as quickly as our car would take us. We rushed to the hospital, Myles, our friend Kim and I embraced as soon as we saw each other and just held on to one another. Finally I went up stairs. Justin's parents had not seen him that day because they wanted me to beable to see him.

The walk to his room was done as quickly as possible, but took forever, a sense of doom came upon me, up until I saw his face. We looked at each other and broke down. "Don't cry Liz, I'm fine, Please don't cry" which of course made me cry more. All i could do was hold his hand and stroke his hair.

A horrible tragedy, a young life was lost, just as the most horrible of all tragedies are, however if there is one thing that I learned from this, it is that love matters, platonic, lovers, it does not matter, as long as it is present, just as in the Symposium, love is all. To appreciate the good there must be bad, for me I know I love stronger, because of my justin and the tragedy that hit us both.

March 9 Class Notes

SORRY I WAS NOT HERE ON FRIDAY, MAGGIE'S BLOG HAS THE NOTES YOU NEED FOR LAST FRIDAY!!!!!

Aristophanes

• pg 22
• tear your balls off
• unpleasant flighting between the choruses
• Arostophanes shows himself as a masoganist
• pg 23
• flighting
• example The Sandlot
• old men and old women fighting = old hag, not your slave, you can't judge me, set fire to your hair
• women are victorious because they scueltch the men's fire
• commisioner comes in, the men want the women punished
• pg 27
• can't let women win
• Lysistrata says, the women will starve the war todeath, because the women take care of the money, they are the planners and managers
• the men protest it is not the same because women do not fight in wars
• men support more war like leaders
• the women dress the councelor up as a women and then as a corpse
• pg 34-35
• women use a wool metaphor,
• take something dirty and clean it until it is good and useful
• women fight war two times, they have sons and lose them as well as their husbands to the war
• men believe justice is up to them

Phallocentric

• understand the making fun of it
• not biological in the penis sense but in the symbolic sense as a male view of the world
• such as the Lewistown Canons

Lysistrata

• pg 40
• women no longer staunch in their vows, many are sneaking off
• lysistrata must change their mind
• one woman hides a helmet under her dress to give the illusion that she is having a baby
• REFERENCE TO OVID: Tarius goes to retreive sister in law, and falls in love and rapes her
• pg 48
• Ciresas is only interested in sex, not is son or anything else
• pg 57
• all men are depicted wearing cloaks, w/ erections
• Aristophanes insists things must work out in the end which is comedy in general

Reconciliation

• pg 61
• PARABASIS when chorus looks out at the audience and seaks as one
• sense of comeraderie and reconciliation with characters and the audience
• pg 64
• representation on cover of book is allegorically as the stuffed doll
• resolving Pelepenesian war
• absolutly necessary for comedy

Th Golden Ass

• the original mid summer's night dream

Dante

• ends happily

Moonstruck

• pg 72
• importance of reconciliation
• gives up hosility
• feast, weddings, and dancing are all in comedies
• comedy is about the community
• tragedy is about the individual

Ecstasy

• to stand outside yourself

Trojan Women

• melodramatic
• Aristophanies has the best sense of tragedy because he had a tragic sense of life
• Agamemnon comes home and it is not going to be good
• Ajax raped Cassandra
• Poseiden and Athena decide the Greeks must be punished for this mis deed
• Agamemnon killed his own daughter
• he is killed by his wife and her lover, because of his folly

March 4 Class Notes

Recent translations of ancient texts tend to be more blunt
Lysistrata especially uses Flying text which is conversation that leans on the side of crude and vulgar

The Symposium

• must be seen in context
• is a benign sort of Flying,
• everyone has a different view
• human situations

It is not important what you can DO with your degree, but it is important what you can LEARN from your degree.

Parent of Love= poverty and plenty

Love

• an intermediate spirit
• humans operate a different level
• in the end what we quest for is Beauty so it is a quest that starts there can in in a lover of wisdom and that of immortal and the good
• love is a part of the activity of loving
• using language is Erotic

Elcubiedies

• not a speech, it is a story, a narrative of love
• desires Socrates but it is never consummated
• his being a love should be valued
• addicted to Socrates because of his inner beauty
• (Plato understood the power of a Frame narrative)
• Similar to BBC movie Almost Strangers

Lysistrata

• most primitive comedy is Gross and Aggressive
• Translated by Sara Rooden who is a woman, and is making a name for herself as one of the foremost translators of classic literature

Burning of Library in Alexandria

• lost so many precious, and ancient texts
• was burned by anti-intellectuals

Lysistrata's Men

Wow what a book! I find it fascinating that in a world where women were little more than slaves that a tale so intricate, filled with feminine power was created, and by a man no less. The unity of women is quite fascinating to me.The women who by all odds should have been enemies as well managed to come together for a common good. Perhaps this is a further illustration of the difficulty of understanding the female mind.

These women especially the Sparta women come from a warrior culture, and by all means should be accustomed to war. This is after the Trojan war, so fighting is obviously a part of their history that is very important to them. One would assume that they would have followed their men and sons and supported them, fore the men were fighting for something they truly believed in so why weren't the women supportive? Maybe they understood that lives were not worth the cause, whatever it may have been.

By coming together the women managed to do something that few cultures had managed to do before or since them; they stopped a war with little to no violence. They suffered for the greater good. Though this book is quite light hearted there is some very serious subject matter, the women themselves face the possibility of being brutalized and of being raped for the sake of the men that are doing the very dastardly deeds to them.

Withholding sex was very smart of them, and they managed to control the men, even though they were denying themselves as well. Most humans, I would assume, enjoy sex and as such can be controlled through it. Essentially the act could be handled alone, however if we follow the belief of Aeristophanies that we are all meant to be with a single person, then the act of procreation does not have the same level of pleasure as if we were with our true loved one.

Truly these women were quite cunning, and did everything that men said they were: manipulative, cunning, and (in their mind) false. However, they did what was necessary to save these men, and perhaps they should have been more appreciative once it was all said and done, because these same manipulative, false women, saved their lives.

March 2 Class Notes

Lysistrata is obscene,
off stage, that which is not fit in front of an audience was considered obscene

Finnegan's Wake

• Anne Olivia is reflecting on her life
• she is turning back into the river
• wants one who understands her
• most famous unread book in the world
• motion of the words, holds a musicality and a sense of language and poetry
• most beautiful passage of literature in the English language
• Feminine principle at work, she is all women
• Read James Joyce!!!!!
• GOOD JOB JENNY LYNN!!!!!

Thee Skin of Our Teeth By Thorton Wilder

• interpretive Finnegan's Wake

Leave behind the notion that you must understand everything

Read Jennylynn's Blog on Symposium

• Teacher's guide
• can revisit her beautiful rendition

Symposium

• basic context of the speakers
• historical context ex: Socrates was killed because he was "corrupting the youth of Athens"
• Most enjoyable thing to do is recall Socrates

Althea

• Greek word for truth
• Look at Pullman's trilogy (the Golden Compass) will find "truth seekers"
• Letha means to forget
• A= not
• in consequence literally translated truth is to not forget or REMEMBER!!!
• we have forgotten everything

Phadrues

• love and sacrifice

Pausianus

• heavenly love vs. common love

Eyrximicous

• love harmonizes us

Aeristophanes

• we are tallies (coins broken apart and used for recognition)
• look for soul mates and are a part of a broken half and look for the other that completes us

Agathon

• Love is beautiful and perfect

Socrates

• love can't be beautiful because of desire
• love is desire, love is wanting loves meaning
• love is an intermediate stage
• love is looking for that which we doe not have
• he learned it from Diotima
• she said love is a great spirit between the gods and mortals
• it is the immortality of the human soul
• we must start at the bottom (rock) and work up to love that is more complicated
• love the notion of the GOOD

Elcubiedies

• praises Socrates
• he is the worst because he loves him so much

Frame

It has struck me within the last few days how important a Frame narrative is. The Symposium is one such piece, in which we do not really know what the true story could be, because it is so far removed, also Socrates's story in reference to Diotima is also a form of frame narrative. It seems like this could be an odd way of telling a story, or making a point, but is it really?

Our everyday lives are quite similar to a fram narrative. We are living our lives, with a set path, but perhaps every story we tell, or the stories of our friends and family are a story within our stoy. We could take a small chunk of our lives, the portion where we met our future spouse, or our years of high school, and use this small fragment to create an entire story. However, the point is that it is not the full story. There is more to it.

A Frame narrative can capture our imagination like few other things. How often when reading a book do you fall in love with a sub character, one that is seemingly of little importance, however you love the entire book for those two or three "inconsequential" individuals. These little parts can hold just as much drama, and excitement as any major part.

More than anything a frame narrative reiterates the point that there are truly no small parts. Every story is worth telling. Though this story of Socrates and his buddies could have only have been one of many stories, and though it is told through several individuals we can still learn much from it. Just think if this one little portion Socrates's nights out was not told, an entire enthralling novel would have been lost. Though it may have seemed just a bit of gossip at the time it influence a way of thinking far beyond their time.

To me it is comforting and frightening to think that nothing that I do is small, that it has potential to affect so many people. what if I mess it up!!?!??! What if it is detrimental to others, well at this point the only thing you can do is live your life and hope for the best, and that maybe someday we will be looked at as the next Socrates.

February 27 Class Notes

Tengents lead us back to the subject matter, ex. Groundhog's Day to The Myth of the Eternal Return

Alyssa's blog has What do we Talk About When We Talk About Love

Till we Have Faces
by C.S. Lewis
must get back to the basics

Nostos

• Homecoming
• related to nostalgia or loning for home

The Rock is our Communal Sacred Rock, and Stacey found it while walking with her dogs.

Neoplatonism

• philosophical phenomenon
• musical Plato "The Rock is the way to the ONE"

Check out Luke's blog!!!

• did assignment exactly and correctly
• when something is interesting tell who the speaker is, whose idea it belongs to
• background information
• talks about the links, between his thoughts and the text
• sets up a way for us to learn
• tells of the problem of reductionist version of the Symposium,.....you lose the musicality of the work

Aristophanes's:

• the writer of comedy and tragedy are the same!
• must be skilled in both
• must know both parts to understand love
• everyone wants to believe everything is good, but we must develop a tragic outlook on life
• there is both happiness and sadness but we must understand it all

Frame

• must know the speaker
• fifth removed story
• stories within stories....ex: The Wife Of Bath in the Canterbury Tales
• Who is telling the truth pg 15