User:Alex Edelsward

Bio
not really my bio, but i remembered this video from a long time ago and it reminded me of this class and writing with limitations.

http://vimeo.com/1535016?pg

Response
To John:

Good job on the Paul Bunyan piece, it was always one of my favorite stories. it was easy to read, even though you typed it through the accent. The style really shows in this writing, even though you didn't explain the character who was talking at all before you started. I immediately had the old miner/logger voice right from the start playing through my head, that is a hard thing to pull off because it can be a burden if it is overdone, like in My Jim for instance, the accents were strong and limited the reading to a tougher and slower read. I would have like My Jim if the author had tweaked the language to make it an easier read. it probably also helped that you had punctuation while she didn't, i could actually tell when people were talking in your piece.

as for the story, it is nice to have an actual person be recognized as Paul Bunyan, in the books he is always the size of a mountain, which is not realistic. i always wondered about why he was that big and found it saddening as a child since he was portrayed as an American hero that pretty much his only defining attribute was his size and that was impossible for me to recreate. Hearing a story where he is actually a real human is a nice change of pace. if kids were told this story i doubt he would be as interesting though, now he is just a really tall but nice lumberjack, where is the excitement in that. now that i think about it, Paul Bunyan comes off as a real bad character. i have no way to relate to him since most of the nice things he does is just because of his size, sure i could save a guy who was trapped in a landslide 10 miles away if all i had to do was take 4 steps and pickup a handful of dirt, but i cant. he is rewarded for his freakish size, which i guess can be a good moral, but he should be rewarded for his good deeds, he should actually work for his good deeds though. a good deed isn't really a good deed if you don't have to go out of your way to do it. its helpful but not commendable.

Style
This is a poem that i wrote in the same style as the book Runny Babbit, by Shel Silverstein. It's the same book i'm doing my memorization from, and it inspired me to write my own.

Runny found a flower,

a pretty flower it was.

when he sment over to bell it,

all he beard was huzz.

the flower broceeded to pite him,

right on the nip of the tose.

Runny's sace then started to fwell,

from his tead down to his hoes.

Now when Runny fee's a slower,

he joesn't dust jump in,

he always checks for fugs birst,

because if not you wever nin.

Other Media
http://alex-edelsward.deviantart.com/art/Spiderman-and-Batman-126226605

this is a drawing i did of Batman and Spiderman, i know it isn't from the in class reading and most people draw them all the time, but this is actually the first time I've drawn either. I started drawing Jim and decided it was boring, so i made these instead. I used a program called Alchemy which is meant for sketching and getting ideas across. it has no undo and uses the idea of chaos to add some cool features. it often feels like you have little control and with no undo you make lots of mistakes, hopefully they are happy mistakes, but it forces you to get over them. it is a fun program.

http://al.chemy.org/

That's the site for the program if you're interested.

Analysis
Shakespeare's Sonnet XX - 1. A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted

2. Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

3. A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

4. With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;

5. A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

6. Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

7. A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,

8. Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

9. And for a woman wert thou first created;

10. Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

11. And by addition me of thee defeated,

12. By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

13. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,

14. Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

---

When I first read this I couldn't tell what it was about, and was very confused. After reading it over a few times, from what I gathered, it was about the poet talking in first person about how he loves a beautiful woman. I thought the line, "A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted", was talking about her being kind-hearted and single, which would have been perfect for the poet. This is where i started getting confused, i figured line 6 was just something sexual that i didn't really look into to much. Line 7 was the one that really threw me, and it is the first talk of a man, "A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,". to speak of one man while talking about a women and how sexy and single she is, i could only think of one person it could be, God. With the backup of "all 'hues' in his controlling," who else could it be. But it didn't make much sense after that, from what i had up till there i figured God had come down to break apart the relationship which was soon to be between the women and the poet.

words i looked up:

Gilded - to give an attractive but often deceptive appearance to

Doting - to show excessive fondness or love

Little did i know, i had read the poem completely backwards right from the start. I never thought that talking about a woman's naturally beautiful face could mean that it was a guy who looked like a women. After switching perspective in the first line the rest of the poem came together. The second line, "Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;", is a confusing one since the two sources i had on this poem wrote it differently. The copy we got in class said "master mistress" and the one i found online had it hyphenated. When i see it as one word, i think of it as a master or mistress, instead of the mistress being the master. Thinking of it this new way really helps identify that it is about a man, but i do not know which way is correct, according to Shakespeare. Reading this further down where i got lost before starts to make sense now since i know it is about a man. in line 8 the poet speaks of how beautiful this man is, men and women alike will stare in amazement at his beauty. After that it talks about how this man was originaly going to be born as a women, "And for a woman wert thou first created; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,And by addition me of thee defeated,", but nature changed its mind and added one last thing on before finishing, and by doing this it has defeated all of the poets dreams. In the last two lines the poet starts of with a "but" meaning he has changed his mind from what he has been talking, he says that since nature gave him the body of a man, women should use it and be pleasured. Women can have the body, but i will take the love, is what i got from the last lines.

So going from thinking its about a woman's and man's love being torn apart by god, to a man in love with another beautiful man but cannot be with him because he has manly parts, it was quite a journey. I learned a lot about how to decipher old English poetry, this was really helpful for getting better at poetry and kind of fun, but I think I'll still stick to puzzles.

Ekphrastic
I wrote this when we went to the Olympic Sculpture Park to get ideas from the sculptures. This is on the fully metal tree by the road, the plaque said something about nature being overthrown and changed by man. so I wrote this story.

---

Evolution is dead. After the population explosion in the end of the 20th century and all through the 21st, the reign of man has come to and end. Human kind's inhibition to create a better, easier, and longer life has ultimately been its downfall. Humans, along with all other animals, had survived for thousands of years living off the land and using only what they had to. After engines, computers, and artificial intelligence were created the human species had become a monster, trying to find new ways to put themselves on top, even if it meant pushing the rest of the world down.

I write to you now as a survivor, an outlier on the dropping graph that is the human population. From the tens of billions of humans there used to be, we are estimated to be down into the hundred thousands, huddled up in colonies and ghettos in the underbelly of City. Pangea is where we all live, it is our home, and hell. with the expansion of the populations major cities grew and grew until they eventually just connected. Almost all of the land mass of the world is covered with city scape even parts of the ocean are encased with raised buildings on giant pillars and sky ways connecting it all. Almost all natural plant life is extinct, we have indoor safe zones where we grow plants and keep them alive artificially. Most plants and animals still alive on Earth are bred in captivity and harvested for food and byproducts.

With no more room to expand outwards Pangea was forced to build up, burying the old cities underneath, building a new ground and starting over for the richer people who needed more space. the multiple levels of Pangea became a hierarchy of not only wealth but power and pride. In the lower levels gangs formed from the rivalries, everyone wanted to be on top. The bottom fought for it, the middle tried to work for it, and the rich on top just had to make sure to keep the others from moving up, by any means necessary. You would hear stories about how major players in the upper levels would purposely start rumors and fights between the bottom tiers because while they were fighting they were leaving the top alone, but those telling the stories were soon shut up and the news just died away, just like the people.

Pangea eventually turned to anarchism and committed political and social suicide. with no order nobody could survive and it wasn't long before the inevitable happened. Nature finally caught up with mankind's technological evolution and put a stop to its reign, an epidemic hit. It started in Zone 32 in eastern Pangea and spread through the entire city in mere days. It killed almost everyone who got it. we called it Viridis Nex, or just Nex for short. Few people were immune and even fewer could survive on their own even if it didn't kill them. It did manage to bring most humans down to a animalistic level where we cast away our differences and ganged together for survival.

Style II
This was is a story i wrote in which i took on the classic "Fairy Tale" style, it doesn't follow a specific author or book but the whole genre in general. Although i love this style and have lots of fun with it, i took a darker twist to it just to mix it up. It doesn't have a "happily ever after" ending, and i like that.

-

Jack was hungry, he hadn't been able to find food this morning and had had hardly anything the day before. It had been very dry this season and with no ponds it meant it was a lot harder to find food. Jack's mother had always told him to stay still and sit on a lily pad like he was supposed to, but sitting still and croaking all day was boring. Jack made a wish every night that he would wake up and be someone different, maybe a bird so he could soar through the sky, or a cheetah so he could run as fast as he wanted. If he was a different animal he wouldn't have to sit on this lily pad and croak all day, waiting for food and the life he dreamed of that would never come.

The sun was high in the sky and warmed the ground. Jack's mother hopped through the bushes behind him and told him of the news that all the community had been speaking of. Earlier that morning a strange traveler had entered their neighborhood and had asked for water but they could not spare any because of the drought. Curious of this new traveler Jack went to investigate who he was. When Jack got to where the thirsty adventurer was sitting he was surprised to find it was an old women, although it was some kind of animal he had never seen before. She wasn't much larger than jack but she was wrapped in a long clock that hid most of her body and face. Jack wanted to learn more about her and were she came from but she was to thirsty to talk much. Jack gave her a small amount of his portion of water and learned she was a Gypsy who could use magic to see the future and cast spells, but she was too weak to do so. As soon as he found out about her magic skills the first thing that popped into Jacks head was his dream of becoming a mighty animal that was not as weak and useless as this tiny frog body.

Jack made a deal with the Gypsy that if he gave her his portion of water to save her life she would use her magic to turn him into his dream creature that could finally do everything he wanted. Jack figured that once he was a better creature he could easily find water. Using his eagle eyes to see it from the sky and mighty strength get lots of water not only for himself but also for his whole community and he would finally be recognized as the hero he knows he can be. It took two days for the Gypsy to gain her strength back enough to be able to cast the spell needed to change Jack, the whole time Jack working day and night to take care of her tending to to her every whim and need. Jack was exhausted and very thirsty, he had been drinking very little water the last two days as most of it was to help the Gypsy get better.

Finally the day came when the spell was to be cast. Not wanting the people who cared about him to be worried they went far away from his home. Finding a nice clearing they settled down and the Gypsy got out the materials to cast the spell. Jack was bouncing with excitement on the side, his dream was finally going to come true. The Gypsy drew a strange design in the dirt and told Jack to sit in the middle of it. She then asked him to explain exactly what he wanted, to the very last detail. Eager to get started he told her he wanted the wings and eyes of an eagle so he could fly high in the sky and see the world below him. He told her he wanted the legs of a cheetah so he could sprint across the plains with ease. He spoke of the mighty strength he would have, the strength of an elephant. And last, the gills of a fish so he could swim and make friends in the ocean too. She asked him if he was sure and when he said yes the Gypsy chanted the magic words and cast a mighty spell the enveloped the circle she drew on the ground. A purple tornado was spinning around Jack and his body was tingling as it began to change. When the magic wind died down around him he was a lot higher off the ground. A huge mighty body that towered over the Gypsy's. He tried to speak but only a wisping sound came out, it was hard to breath, with a straight face the Gypsy held up a mirror and Jack looked at his new body for the first time. He was in awe. He had the fat torso of an elephant, the weak legs of a cheetah. Small wings that could never pick up his large body, and gills on the side of his neck that were competing with his lungs making it hard to breath. The Gypsy told him his wish had been granted and thanked him for the water, then turned her back and walked away.

Jack started to cry, loudly and with no shame, what had he done. He dragged himself with much difficulty back to his home. His mother and friends would know what to do. But when he get there they took one look at him and ran. He was a freak and was truly useless, his dream had become a nightmare. Now that he was this insane hybrid animal he would give anything to be turned back to the boring frog he was before.

He stayed on the outskirts of his old home and watched as the happy animals played with each other. If only he hadn't been so greedy and had just been happy with what he had none of this would have happened. Nobody would talk to Jack and considered him a monster so he couldn't even explain who he was. A few days later he observed his own funeral. His mother and friends had thought him dead and given him a proper burial. That night jack dragged himself into town and stole a sheet hanging outside the house of an elephant, his old neighbor. He wrapped it around himself and covered his whole body except his beedy little unproportioned eyes. Jack then sets out on a new chapter in his life, he has to become a nomad. No name, no home, nothing to live for.

Memorization
2 pages from the book Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook by Shel Silverstein

intro:

Way down in the green woods

Where the animals all play,

They do things and they say things

In a different sort of way--

Instead of satin' "purple hat,"

They all say "Hurple Pat."

Instead of sayin' "feed the cat,"

They just say "ceed the fat."

So if you say, "Let's bead a rook

That's billy as can se,"

You're talkin' Runny Babbit talk,

Just like mim and he.

pg1

The Kungle Jing:

"Oh i am the jing of the kungle,"

Runny roared at one and all

When he wore his cion's lostume

To the Walloheen Bostume call.

But there he met a leal rion

Who said, "you'd best cake tare,

And do not start believin'

You're the costume that you wear."

pg55

Self Assessment
This has been a good quarter for me because i got a lot of fun classes, this definitely being one of them. But Literature wasn't just fun, because i learned a lot in this class. I found it a lot easier to learn and be interested in the topics we were discussing and learning about because i wasn't forced to do anything, it's a nice change to just have a relaxing class where we can talk and actually want to learn instead of being forced to. There were very few times in this class that i really thought i better do this, my grade depends on it, which is a good thing, at least every once in a while. As far as information i learned in this class, i would say some of the most important things were about the slaves in My Jim. That book really turned my thinking on the whole time of slavery, i always thought at the end of the civil war when slaves were freed they all just left and were happy, turns out that is wrong. i would have liked to do a few things better, one of which is reading My Jim again, we spent a few weeks on it and i read it through, but it was so confusingly written, reading it again would have really helped me grasp it.

I feel pretty prepared to continue my studies in literature, i learned some things about analyzing that i think can help me in the future. if we had another lit class i would definitely take it, but since we don't i will be reading and maybe looking online for other peoples interpretations and such of books that i read. I don't know exactly how much i contributed to the experiences of other, but i talked during discussions and hopefully brought up some points that made people think or at least that they hadn't considered. I hope i added to peoples experiences though, otherwise this whole class structure would have been a failure since it was a very group oriented discussion class, and i don't think it was.

I'd just like to say again, i really enjoyed this class and wish it could have gone on longer. Thanks for teaching it Arntson, i had a lot of fun and learned a lot.