.010 [ohhhh-thel-o]

In high school, after we read Othello, I thought I had absorbed all that I possibly could from the drama. Symbolism, prose v.s. regular dialogue, symbolism character analysis, and did I mention symbolism?

....honestly I thought I knew it all backwards and forwards....

HOWEVER

After discussing the drama with a whole new group of intelligent individuals, and watching a movie inspired by the Shakespeare classic, I am beginning to think that Othello can offer more each time it is read. Its interpretation only depends on the group to which it is passed off to. Needless to say, I am so interested in what Rose has to say about the movie "O" and its reference to Oden, the Norse God....

.009 [othello]

I was just thinking...

After our in-class discussion today I discovered that if I were to make my own version of Shakespeare's Othello as a movie, it would be justalittlebit different from the ones that are currently out.

First off, Othello's character would be played by a person who is literally painted black (like how Mickey Rourke was yellow in Sin City). Second, Desdemona's character would be played by dakota fanning and conversely painted white. Every character would have a slight tint to their skin and their wardrobe, depending on who they are. It would take place in Italy, as usual, but the setting would always be dark, and gloomy. Also, I think I would try to make it kind of macabre, like a Tim Burton or Quentin Tarantino Film. For example, in the scene where Othello tells Desdemona that her bed is a deathbed, I would have the bed be in the shape of a coffin, and when she is murdered, I would then cut to a view of the strawberries on the hankerchief bleeding off of the fabric.

.008 [omfg]

John Heartfeild.

Adolf, the Superman, Swallows Gold and Spouts Tin, 1932

John Heartfeild is a German artist, whose main work protested the Nazi army and its leader, Adolf Hitler. After looking at his work and researching his life, I found some interesting tidbits, like the fact that his name was really Helmut [just a slight change from John, right?], and the fact that he grew up in the aftermath of WWI. The Second World War, and the Nazi army inspired most of his photomontage work. Eventually, Heartfeild was kicked out of Germany for his controversial work, and he moved to England to continue to spread his message through art.

The first thing that interested me about my artist was all the titles of his photomontages. This particular piece is called, “Adof, the Superman, Swallows Gold and Spits Tin.” This title caught my eye, and when I looked at the work of art I was happy to find that I could make sense of it. I chose to analyze this particular piece because it really made me wonder about its meaning. The image of Hitler with his usual expression juxtaposed with an internal view of his ribs, swastika heart, and coins was really intriguing. The work is a depiction of Hitler, shown with an internal view of the “gold” he “swallowed”. I was then able to infer that the “spitting tin” part of the title meant that Hitler took all the good, and gave bad in return.

The positive/negative space relationship really works for this piece because it is so bold that it really draws the viewer in. The colors of the image are also really interesting. The image is a sepia tone, which makes it resemble a photograph even more. I also like how the title of the piece helps the viewer understand [possibly] the artist’s intent.

Just like Andy Warhol’s pop art, this piece shows a noted [notorious] character, with a different spin on his image.

This particular piece is so successful because it mixes a message that people can relate to with a really well-done art style that is both unique and interesting to look at. This piece encouraged me to look at the rest of John Heartfeild’s work, and hopefully it will inspire others to do the same.

<3>

.007 [literary anatomy]

All of our in-class discussions about a novel [is it a novel?] and its form/structure/wording/lettering/etc. made me ask the question: are the adjectives and flowery descriptions really the flesh of the text, or are they really the skeletal structure?

I mean, pure fact with no description does not usually make for an interesting read. So which came first, which is more important, which holds the other up?

Personally, I think that the two go hand in hand, and are really quite inseparable. In a good novel [and by this I mean a novel/book/essay/whatever that the reader ENJOYS or gets something out of] there needs to be the perfect mix of fact and fluff, just to keep the reader interested. The facts of the novel rely on the descriptions to draw the reader in, while adversely, the details rely on the facts for their reliability. One simply cannot exist in harmony without the other.

.006 [what if the game was "Kublai? Khan!"]

Personally, I love love love this book so far. I mean, not only do I like the structure of the book (it reminds me of star girl or this book I'm currently reading about zen), but I also like how it has some really profound statements in it. for example, on page 56 in the italicized portion of the text, Kublai Khan asks Marco Polo if such a place exists that matches his dream. Marco Polo responds,

"Forgive me, my lord, there is no doubt that sooner or later I shall set sail from that dock[...] but I shall not come back to tell you about it. The city exists and it has a simple secret: it knows only departures and not returns."

I automatically connected this with death, making the connection that the "departure" could be a metaphor for leaving this world, and of course "[no] returns" would be the finality of death.

As I read on in this novel, I have to keep stopping myself from reading ahead because once I get in the rhythm of reading Calvino's writing, it is as easy a read as twilight :]

.005 [hi, im a mac]

my mac died in 2d design :[
thus, no video with krista dancing in the background or me waving fanatically or hannah beth being a giraffe.
such a tragic loss.
really.

.004 [life, interrupted]

Yesterday was, quite possibly, the most stressful day that I have endured here on campus...So many papers were due, fifty sketches were to be turned in, and I also had to discuss a novel which I have discussed in great length all throughout high-school; a novel which deals with issues I would much prefer not to discuss. I was also tired [roommate issues] and annoyed at the post office for changing its hours to ones that are impossible for me to fit into my schedule.

One might think that a viewing of one of my favorite films might help to take the edge off, but it did not. Yes, I was able to take notes on the correlations between Girl, Interrupted andThe Yellow Wallpaper, but I was more distracted by my own life, so the whole film was frustrating to sit through. All personal drama aside, I found that Susanna Kayson's character is similar to the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper in a couple of ways. First, both women are writers. Second, both women are "trapped" in spaces which do not allow them the sort of freedom they need to thrive. This directly revolts against Virginia Woolf's idea that a woman must have a room of her own and money in order to write well; instead, it reinforces the idea of "a room of one's own" as a metaphor for power and freedom. Both Kayson and the narrator were locked in spaces against their wills, and both struggled to maintain a sense of self in each situation. In the case of Susanna Kayson, the writer began to become attached to her illness and her entrapment, causing her to lose some of her zeal for life and passion for writing. The narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper, likewise, begins to lose her firm hold on sanity as she is locked up in a space of her own in order to "cure" her.

As a side note, i thought it was an interesting choice to show the movie Girl, Interrupted in accompaniment with the novel instead of the movie that was created directly from the text. [Girl, Interrupted is actually a memoir written by Susanna Kayson]

This is an important element to me because it relates Charlotte Perkins Gilman's message to another, similar story. Since Susanna Kayson's story is much more modern than Gilman's, it also brings more relevance to the novel, and the reader/viewer is able to further understand how, in many cases, being forced to "rest" in seclusion, often times results in the loss of sanity.

Again, both made me realize that it is not physical space that really matters, but the attitudes about the space and the freedoms allowed there that truly make the space what it is.