Week Seven: The Novel of Spiritual Education

Growing up i was never allowed to read the Harry Potter series as under strict instructions it was very clear i was not allowed to.  I was always able to catch the films though, either at school or i would sneak them home from the library.  As I've grown older I've vicariously been living through my wife memories and her experience reading the Harry Potter series as it is her favorite.

I have noticed that the harry potter stories are essentially, mystery novels with a very rich world built around it to support the ideas and its characters.  I think this in part has to do with its success, obviously i would say the use of magic is a larger part of its success but never the less i have found all of the riddles and never having all the answers to be quit intriguing in the books.

Week Six: The Heroic Journey

I would be lying if i said the hobbit didn't lay down some kind of framework in my imagination as a child.  My mother often read the Hobbit to me during the day while the rest of the family was gone, actually she had read the hobbit to all of us kids at one point or another often times along side The chronicles of Narnia. At the time, my father was a fifth grade teacher at a christian school in Levittown, Puerto Rico, to which my sisters attended. It wasn't until sometime later that i discovered (a box full of paper back versions of the hobbit in my parents basement) that my father would have all his students read and discuss The Hobbit.

To be perfectly honest, i don't ever remember the stories the stories in hobbit until sometime later when we had moved back to Indiana and my father had brought home a VHS of The Hobbit the animated film.  It wasn't until i started to watch this that i began to remember some of the tales my mother once read to me.  It was weird because all i had remembered, really, was the cover of the hobbit because of how creepy/wierd it looked to me, and i often thought about that cover for years to come not knowing the relation it had to The Lord of The Rings and what great part it would have to play in my life.

So as far as fantasy fiction goes, J.R.R Tolkein and C.S. Lewis was pretty much the extent of it.  I wasn't "allowed" to read the Harry Potter series nor was i allowed anywhere near any Magic card sets and or anything with the name Dungeons and Dragons in it, which is a real shame.  The ignorance of the religious sometimes really makes me wonder sometimes, but i that another blog post i guess.

I enjoyed reading the hobbit again, its always good to go back the the book that started it all.  I must say i really do enjoy the style in writing of the book, as if its a tale being told, im drawn to stories like that.  It has a folk nature to it, in terms of telling a story to a person or group of people.  This along with other reasons is why i love The Princess Bride so much.

As a side note, i was very excited to see a collaboration between, Del Torro and Jackson because i felt like Del Toro would have brought the practical effects, that folky feel of practical effects to the film, but as fate would have it, it was not to be so.

Week five: Witches and Women in Genre

For this weeks post i read "Aunt Mariah" by Diana Wynee Jones. 

It is interesting to consider how women with power are represented in our fiction today based on culture models of women.  Especially when you pair that idea with how our culture use to view women.  Its really hard to say or to have an educated opinion on the subject for me, based on a couple of factors.  I havent read much in the past, so i don't really know what our culture has to say about women in power in fiction other than to pull ideas from the few books i have read. ie, Aunt Mariah, Wizard of Oz, Wicked, and the recently watched Kiki's Delivery Service.

I could talk about how its seems that in regards to women when it comes to power, it seems to come with some kind of price, their youth and beauty, as if they cant have power in any other way. I find the topic of women difficult to talk about because, one im not a woman, and two i grew up with two older sisters so luckily for the most part i would say i dont have chauvinist pigs view of things. And three, typically when i have a problem with someone or an ideal i just ignore it or move along because i know their wrong.  So unfortunately i feel like my view of things is a little different,  mean for the better. I know there seems to be a war going on right now in women's rights, but is their a problem in the way their depicted in fiction in terms of power?  I don't know. 

With books such as Harry Potter and films like Frozen, i would say i hope not.

Week 4: Old Weird and New Weird

"I before e, except after c, and except for weird, because weird is just weird."

I love weird be it old or new.  This past summer, i had an obsession (to be perfectly honest, i still do) over Weird Science comic covers.  Along with any pulp covers i could find, i love that shit.

Weird for me is the unexplained, once you start putting labels on it, it becomes a thing.  I don't want to get to deep on why things are weird because i genuinely don't know, but i love it. This week we watched under the skin, and it was AMAZING (had to run home and watch it), because of how "weird" to some say it was.  Im attracted to that so called "weird" stuff.

Weird has became sort of a thing now, kind of like people who call themselves "geeks."  Its like people want to be weird, want to be different and in that way because theres enough of them that becomes a cliche.

But again, the weird i like is the stuff that not only is hard to explain, or doesn't need an explanation, aside from that i think its the stuff thats just a little off, riding the border line between whats taboo and whats somewhat except able?

Its funny because as a somewhat new person to this world and not discovering pulp covers until late last year but only seeing them vaguely on films my parents use to let me watch as a child.  Im experiencing the "old weird" and for me "that" time is now although its been hear already and gone away.  So i think it runs along the lines of the creative, where all things have been done before and if you want to do it again you try to find a new way of spinning it, which i guess is what I'm trying to achieve with my art, without labeling it of corse.

Week Three: J-Horror: Asian Supernatural Narritaves

Good vs. evil is something i can relate to because in terms of stories its what i enjoyed as a kid, although its not something i experience on the day to day.  For this weeks blog post I read part of A Wild Sheep Chase, which i really enjoyed and hope to re read and finish on my own time. Its interesting to think about what western and eastern cultures find to be more interesting to focus on.

Its seems that in western culture we are more interested in terms of storytelling an in your face, black and white, good vs. evil,  wright vs. wrong, BIG vs small, rich vs poor, type of story.  It is a rarity for western society to have a story focus on the mundane, the unexplained, the taboo or to play in  a space that some would deem boring.  But its exciting for me, im new to basically anything outside of the states, so this is my first J-story (period).  

A Wild Sheep Chase has defiantly opened my eyes to what other cultures have to offer in terms of storytelling.  I was familiar with other cultures in terms of films but because im not a big reader i never thought to consider the reading material they would have to offer.  Its exciting because it gives more time for character development and just really good storytelling.

Week Two: Vampire: Love and Pain

In this weeks reading Interview with the vampire I have been asked a serious of questions.

Question #1. In your reading for the week what pairs of ideas or representations does the author place in opposition to one another? 

Answer #1.  I think one of the ideas the author has put in place is this idea morality. Often times in the book the vampire looks to what’s moral in making his decisions in his new or I guess old lifestyle. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence for why he’s choosing not to kill and for the majority of the time, to do the right thing.

Question #2. What set of values does the vampire represent?

Answer #2.  The vampire represents the good side of morality.  Its as if sometimes he’s not even a vampire, he’s turned into one but his appreciation for human life has not diminished.  He is still very human in that way in in that way he makes moral decisions instead of instinctual decisions or decisions based on an illusion that to be a vampire is to be at a higher standing, to being a predator, which is often the side (master) represents.

Question #3.  Are those the dominant or privileged ideas advanced in the work? How does the story you read embody larger arguments about values in human society? 

Answer #3.  I think yes this idea of being privileged i.e. being a vampire progresses through the book.  They have this idea that because there vampires they have this privilege to a ‘more important life’ that there needs are more important than others.  I mean this echo’s in so many ways in modern society.  You have the class system for one and then you just have ignorant people who are privileges and honestly sometime I feel like they don’t know better because that’s just how they were raised and no one ever told them anything different.

Week One: Beginning with Frankenstein

     I was watching American Psycho the other day and in the beginning scene Patrick Batmen (the main character) attends a dinner in which there is a couple of "Goths" sitting at the table and it made me think of the last time I saw anyone dressed in 'Goth' obviously it was once a really big thing back in the day, even to be represented in films and I’ve realized that it has been quiet long time, so long in fact that I wondered if it still existed...How naiveté.

     I really believe that my first exposure to any kind of gothic medium would be films, specifically vampire pictures such as Underworld or Queen of the damned I might even go as far as to say anything Tim Burton esque. Queen of the damned for sure, in a lot of ways. The costume design for one is very gothic heavy. Thinking back there was so much black leather laced in fishnets, topped with that hairstyle no mother could love.

     Tim Burton films are especially interesting in that way. You can really see what inspires him in his films. Practically all of his films have a gothic framework laid in surrounded by 'his style' that anyone who knows his work could say "that’s a Tim burton film,” Its gothic in nature coated in a whimsical fashion that I think appeals to most people. That’s what makes his films appealing, what draws in the crowd; I'm not going to say that’s what keeps the people in the theaters though because its definitely not his story telling…just saying. Tim Burton films are often dark with whimsy; the dark gothicness of his films brings out the mystery in his story. I believe in this way, the design, and dark over tones is what makes most of his work relatable to the term ‘gothic.’