Författare: xikano_2

After incubation I came to more conclusions regarding this text. I realized there is a certain conflict here, she seldoms questions the validity of her emotions yet distrust to a degree as to how to proceed and record, as asuch, said emotions. She has trouble putting it in ink. The fear of going astray is always latent for she chastises other autobiographies for falling short of their aims, she complains that they often leave in the background the very person that they are supposed to be speaking of. She falls into that trap to, and I guess that she tried to circumvent it, this with a minor victory.

I would even venture so far as to say that VW is resistent to the whole idea of writing a Bio. I mean what gives impulse to write this Bio? Alas, it turns out to be just a mere side project for her.

Well, apart that I was proud that I could read the text in 4 hours I derived no more pleasure out of that than that. There a few instances were I found great delight in reading her, and that was when she got into a sort of attrition with her father in a boat, opinions were dished and Victoria took it for what it was. However, at other times I got the sense that she was like a drink that slowly intoxicates. In retrospect, I came to think that much of biographies at times resort to what we nowadays refer to as name dropping, at least that’s the case for this victorian period in which somehow I ended up in.

I have admired Virgina Woolf for a long time now, to the point of having gone to a theater play named Who’s of afraid of Virgina woolf? back in the early 90’s in San Diego, California, without understanding a iota of it and only going there because of the significance of the event. And then there is that line somewhere, I forget where, that has ever since haunted me, ” …you have to read a book twice, at least, to fully understand it …” something I never managed to do fully. Modern fiction was of course one of those text that parts water but at any rate, A Sketch of the Past was to my opinion at times very dull and at times only a few bubbles of joy did pop up now and then.

Hej!

Today, as I was walking to the computer room from my dorm, (sounds kind of childish considering my age) I couldn’t help noticing how Spring had set its foot on the landscape. Although the trees are still bare and snow remains yet unmelted, the ground is wet and the air fresh rather than cold. Then as I was walking through one of the pathways, the university let itself be seen, and all its wondrous Ralph Erskine arquitecture came into view. However, I was distracted from my thoughts by little rocks coming into my shoes as I walked. This type of gravel is strewn in the midst of winter so that people don’t slipp and fall down. By this time of the year there is so much that at times it is hard to notice the square cement blocks that make the walkway. Then it struck me! I had a great idea, I thought of a big vaccum cleaner, one that could easily be adapted to a medium size truck, say a small Toyota or whatever is in fashion and of medium size nowadays. This sort of truck would then vacuum the gravel. Of course, being the premises of the university big, this would indeed be a wise investment, according to me, since its my idea after all. When the premises would be free of the winter gravel then perhaps it could be rented out, so as to get the return of the investment back, whaddaya think? Its a great idea or what?!

Anyways, am doing fine, life here is at times nothing but body problems. I on the other hand couldn’t sleep last night due to a late dinner and woke up several times during the night with a sort of stomach pain, felt like something was stuck. Of course the thoughts that my mother died of stomach cancer didn’t make themselves wait and started to pester me so that now am considering a medical check up of sorts.

Now to Gertrude, which are things of a delicate nature and serious matters, and it should only be, as the french say, entre nous.

Of recently Gertrude has had several setbacks in her family. Her grandmother fell and broke a hip and since she is to be 90 this year those things aren’t taken lightly and they performed an operation on her. She made it quite well, so that we hope that she’ll be back in her old spirits again after a couple of months. That lady seems quite strong, and everybody now and then make comments about how amazing she is for being the age she is. She does a lot, like the booking for the shop Carl has and so on. I say it’s ’cause of all the preservetives that she takes in, she’s fond of cookies and pastries of all sorts I’ll have you know. Another big setback for that family, for I’ll let you know, I certainly don’t consider them my family, the father has been thrown in jail. He got busted buying cheap CD copies from a crooked salesman from one of the big competitors. The thing is that he is to spend two years in the can, although by any standards, jails here are a vacation compared to the harsh ones that exist back home. He will have a sort of leave permisson from jail after doing two months, and so every week we’ll find him home again. You know, it was one of his own who ratted on him, Gertrude’s sister husband. Its all been a terrible emotional ride for my poor Gertrude who now is suddenly been thrusted into the family business and so on.

Lots of hugs and kisses, take care and don’t forget that we miss you too over here.

PS:

Regarding Nick, he has still a lot to learn of family bondage. And am sure there is a lot of him we need to learn too, although am afraid that only time will tell us all.

Yours truly, Richard Dreyfus.

PS: I shall soon be taking a trip to New York, shall we have tea there?

Second half of the book.

Incredible, I went through the whole book in expectation of some sort of outrage from part of Graves in regards to the title. He just resolved not to return to England without much ado. What a jester.

It seems that this man’s greatest adventures were mere happenstances of his day. A man whose destiny was shaped by forces outside his power and his only response was to act nearly sangfroid and superstitiously to his surroundings.

His memory prowess baffles the mind. He has great memory for detail and because of that it tends to work up ones jealousy.

Describing life in war trenches, Graves makes it sound like a Sunday walk through the Parks of Hell.

Like I said before, this guy writes with a bellicose passivity that yanks grins out your mouth when you least expect it.

Its just one of those books that teaches to take life as it comes, grudge all you want, this is it. And make the best of it.

What struck me as amazing was the same parallels I drew from the voices of dissent coming out of Graves autobiography with the voices of dissent we here in the eve of the Irak-USA war.

I guess what I call homosexual writing is really nothing more than what the British call sensibility. He cares. There is a level of manly emotion that I never seen expressed, nearly feminine, to it. These days there is a look that is much praised amongst those in artistic circles, and which is an outward androgyny. I believe that Graves managed quite well to paint an inward androgyny that exist/ed/s within his writing.

Running Bit Mark Amerika

”… I sort of decided to let quality take care of itself – because how do you decide on the quality of something you don’t understand? …”

– Ronald Sukenick

This is the kind of conciousness in a text that I would like to explore more, mainly, the altercation between ego and superego.

First half of the book.

Language is difficult and almost alien to me. It depicts life in England as I never seen it pictured before. Rare names pop up now and then. The military traditions are all told in a manner that makes them look nearly silly. These traditions are built upon feuds between individuals and a hierarchy of bureaucrats who oppose them. Their successful efforts then become traditions.

The same goes for the time he spent in school, traditions are poked fun at and the whole system is made to look supercilious, except him of course. The relationships between boys are almost as if he had in mind homosexual relationships like those in ancient
Greece and Rome, this goes too for when he is in the trenches. Boys fall in love with each other.

There is a lot of research done in this text. Military history at its best.

If there ever was a homosexual voice in this writing I think I have found one. He has a manner of coming to conclusions that borders a flair of nonchalance. Almost light humor if you will. Although I like to think that his writing has a definite boxing style to it. One, two, and Pang! You get number three. He has a way of making witty remarks; by building up the narration with seriousness only to kill it off with charismatic wit. Quite enjoyable indeed.

For example: “… Although they could see we were officers, they [Welsch soldiers] did not jump to their feet and salute. I thought that this must be a convention of the trenches; and indeed it is laid down somewhere in the military text-books that the courtesy of the salute must be dispensed with in battle. But, no, it was just slackness.”

Bullying seems to be a central theme throughout. At times it felt as if I was in some Harry Potter dungeon.

The text runs with an amusing bellicose passivity.

For example: “Two young miners, in another company, disliked their sergeant who had a down on them and gave them all the most dirty and dangerous jobs. When they were in billets he crimed them for things they hadn’t done; so they decided to kill him.”

Yet another example: “Sergeant Dickens was a different case: a born fighter, and one of the best N.C.O.s in either batallion of the regiment. He had won the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Bar, the Military Medal, and the French Médaille Militaire; been two or three times promoted to sergeant’s rank, and each time reduced for drunkenness.” Ch 16

I have recently come to the awareness that the rainbow coalition, not to be confused with the failed Jesse Jackson presidential bid of the 90’s, is a hoax to smears us down.

Allow me to expand.

Colors are barrierless. If we keep to our current notions regarding colors, we in society shall always be that which we have decided to be. We are Brown and Proud. That’s our motto. When we accept our color, you see, we accept our place in society. Yet we demand equal treatment and aspire to be at the same level that whites are. It isn’t strange then that there are steps in Crayola boxes. Yet brown can never, in a lifetime, be white, nor red nor yellow. Brown is brown. Brown doesn’t puts us in the color charts of our society and identify us more Americans, than say, reds.

This comes to mind the huge African influx México had in its colonial past and that now Bobby Vaughn is trying to chart. Nobody knows what happened to this influx but theories indicate that because of the caste systems back then in place they thinned out their blood by interracially mixing in order to step up the ladder. That’s why we Mexicans always look for african features in our kids when they are born. ¡Qué blanquito salio! is the most joyful thing you can hear when a baby is born amongst us.

This process that our africanmexican brothers tried seems a little too long and besides, I like my permanent tan that whites so desperately try to get even at the risk of cancer. What to do? Simple, we can strive to come to the upper echelons by our own or other means. By who we are. The color ladder only offers a step at a time in a lifetime. We don’t have a lifetime. Nor is it guaranteed that by toning down our skin we can get were whites are, simply put we must do away with the color caste system.

Hideseek is a wonderful piece of internet poetry, I enjoyed it very much. The pictures blend in very well with the text. I like the light which reminds me of jellyfish that one can see off the coast near Bohusl?n, by Lysekyl. The notion that we are de-evolutionazing is tantalizingly chock-full of temptation.

I had a beer today
Angst down my throat
Seem only good
To join the support

Lives at stake
while flipping meat
Laying down
Votes in protest

Down the war machine!
Here here!
Have a beer!
Show your disgust
towards this warring industry

Text online: babysitter The Jack Derrida version, according to me, since I didn’t find a full integral text anywhere else.

Read Coover’s The babysitter online. It smacks of 1950’s, like the show Happy Days.

Except that this version is the violent form, insults and all. It could be that this is what all those goody-two-shoes characters really had underneath their conscious. Curiously enough, it also had some of that atmosphere one can find in Raymond Carver’s The Cathedral. Does this ever have a ring to Thomas Newman’s American Beauty or what! The type of suburbia such as the one described in Edward Scissor Hands comes to mind too. Well, I can see why this text is popular, there is a lot of sexual implications. It isn’t too strange then that this period (1969) also had the sexual revolution. I personally find all sexual commentary here a worst outbreak than the outness Victorian prudishness
had when it left those vestiges in the past.

Thought: This text is impregnated with Christian values. The sweetest reward is to have sex. Yet taboos run all throughout the text, impeding men to full fill their acts. Its only Christian moral values that hold them back. Mr. Tucker’s incessant need of an aspirin reminds me of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman with his need of new material things and his failure to see his reality and accept the present.

This also has some of Julio Cortazar’s fantasy style characteristics like those in La Isla a Mediodia (The Island in the afternoon). There is a lot of rave regarding the sentence structure on the net over this text.