Singing the Song of a Trickster

Singing The Song of a Trickster



A ‘trickster’, by a simple definition, speaks a double message with their words and/or actions. The general audience is oblivious to these messages that are hidden ‘between the lines.’ Only certain ones are privy to this information.


Tricksterism, is nothing new, it goes way back to the antebellum era when the slaves had to be tricky in what they were saying, in fear of a beating or even death. But tricksterism did not end there. In fact, it is still among us today.


Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Joel Chandler were a few of the earlier ‘tricksters.’ Richard Pryor, Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali and even Eminem are a few that make the list of modern day tricksters. There is one, however, that I feel should be put at the top of this modern day list.

He was the 42nd President of the Untied States. For those of you who haven’t kept track of our presidents or who really couldn’t give a shit, his name is none other than William Jefferson Clinton, otherwise know as ‘Bill’

Yes, I am talking about the ‘beloved’ sax-playing, non-inhaling, whitewater ‘rafting’ lover, very ‘faithful’, Hillary- whipped, President Bill Clinton. A modern day trickster.

So why would I consider this fundraising, hostage negotiating, humanitarian to be a modern trickster, when he has done such wonderful things post-office?

Well lets take a trip down memory lane for a few moments…… during office.

Does a little black dress, red tie, and “I didn’t have sexual relations…” ring a bell for you?

Yes, I am really going there.

In true trickster form, ‘Mr. President’ had double meanings in his speeches, and his attire. He made sure that certain words or phrases were put into his speeches, and he wore his red tie as a message to the one I will not name (ML)

The general public, wife included, were completely oblivious to the ‘hidden meaning’ in these actions. Then, the time of reckoning came when the ‘can of worms’ were opened, due to a little black, stained, dress.

A trickster works in the grey areas of the moral certainties; no explanation needed here. Celebrates chaos; wow did this have a lot of coverage! He uses ingenuity to win; apparently it worked because Hillary is still with him and ‘we‘ still like him. Crosses boundaries while undermining them; oral sex is apparently not having sex, so therefore it’s OK.

This is probably not ‘politically correct’ in calling Bill Clinton a trickster, but the truth is the truth in my eyes. He just happened to be the one caught in being a trickster.

Perfection of Imperfection

The Perfection of Imperfection



Leland calls the qualities of the Beat generation artists an “aesthetic of imperfection” and a “license of living in the present” In essence, a symbiotic relationship.

The earlier Beat generation viewed their past as something never to be revisited or to conform to the so called perfection of the past. However, the future was just as useless to them as was the past. It was “trivial and exhausting”. You don’t know what it holds, so don’t waste your time.

The present is the only place to exist. The only place that has the ‘no holds bar’ mentality. The present was “unreasonable, and celebrated as the jagged moment of experience until reason catches up.” (Leland)

This Beat generation wanted to experience life at the same time as there peers, not from the rose colored glasses of the past, or the blindness of the future. Their audience is what mattered; their feelings and beliefs at that particular time is what drove them.

As Kerouac put it, “wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better, releasing unspeakable visions of the individual.” Unfortunately, living in this generation, these artists did not fair well, and met early deaths.

The next generation of the Beat artists, also lived in the present. However, they viewed their past as over and done with, it can’t change so move on and who cares about the future because its not here yet, they’ll deal with it when it becomes their present.

Being ‘hip’ is being ‘imperfect, uncombed and unpolished.” (Leland) For this generation, mistakes were OK and viewed as totally expected and acceptable. Everyone makes mistakes, they are forgiven. Tomorrow is a day in the future, so don’t worry about it.

Both of these generations lived in the present, they never looked in the past and didn’t care about the future. They may have had different reasons, but if it wasn’t for the first Beat group, the second would not have existed as did.

Yes, there would have been change, but it would not have been the same. Then again, maybe it would have been better. Maybe, instead of living only in the present and striving to stand out and be whomever you feel like being, no matter at what cost, some artists would still be alive. Maybe we would not have the infamous and dreaded ‘27 Club’ or the child stars that have met an early demise.

Being ‘hip’ does not make one stupid or unaccountable for their actions. If we do not look toward the future, then the present can be wasted.

Californication

Californication of Pulp Fiction

Bright lights, big city, nothing is as it seems. Why wouldn’t people think that California is the ‘hip’ place to be, for is it not just that?

High fashions, big money, and the perfect ‘image’ of fake boobs and collagen.

It is were a person can go to be ‘made’ into whatever they desire. The everlasting dream of Los Angeles; the American dream of fame and fortune, to see and to be seen.

They can pretend to be whomever they want, and no one will care because they, too, wear a mask of deception. It’s where a person can go to ‘reinvent’ themselves.

This reinvention is driven by what some people would call the dark power of fame, fortune, and greed.

California is the driver, the monster of ‘look at who I am, not at what I am. I will chew you up and spit you out” if I so desire.

People from all over the world has vied to go to California for over a hundred years. They have desired to change the life they have been given into something bigger, better, and what they perceive, to be brighter. But is this dream just an ideological falsehood?

You get what you pay for. No wonder pulp fiction and film noire thrive in Los Angeles! Unless you have a lineage connected to L.A. or you are ‘the one in a million’ this place is cheap and dark!

It is filled with poverty, knock-offs, and broken dreams. When you walk down the street, you don’t see what California calls what is ‘hip’! You see the ones that it has chewed up and spit out!

This is not hip! This is pretentious, false, and quite frankly, bullshit! Hip is not shouting to the world “Look at me and what I have!” It is not the Paris Hiltons or Kim Kardashians fame for being famous!

Hip is being real, and not caring what others think. You go with the flow! It does not start in California, it ends in California!

Ralph Ellison, "Invisible Man" pg 2298

I have to confess something. I bawled my eyes out with this story! The Prologue was what got me started. The feeling of loneliness and anger was so tangible that I felt and sympathized with every word. It was a relief though when he snuck in little hints of humor to lighten the mood. Like his comment about Poe when he referred to Poe’s mental health, how he was screwing the power company and how he was a ‘tinker thinker’.

For the most part, I could identify with this character on such a basic level during the Prologue that it was uncanny. It was like looking in a timeless mirror and seeing my own circumstances laid out in front of me, “You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world…I did not come alive until I discovered my invisibility.” The worth of one’s self comes from one’s self. But at what cost does it take to realize this?

Then, when the story actually started, I was taken in a different direction. To circumstances that I can not even put into perspective. To think that that kind of stuff really happed is just so unreal to me! How could anyone treat another human being in this way? To laugh and enjoy the pain and humility of another person is so inhumane.

I felt so bad for this character when all he could think about was going ahead and giving his speech he had prepared, even after what those men had done to him. I understand the time period, but even then, if it was me, I would have had a few not lady like words to say to them and possibly a few hand jesters to go along with them!

It wasn’t only the White people that did injustice to this young man. His own Grandfather did harm to him also! He did harm to the whole family for that matter! How dare he say the things he did on his death bed? Talk about laying a guilt trip! How could this boy go throughout life from then on without self hate. He was bound to be messed up when no matter what he did was wrong in someone’s eyes. “And whenever things went well for me I remember my grandfather and felt guilty and uncomfortable.” This character had no chance, and it was a shame. He got it from both directions just because of his skin color. There was one good thing though, his tenacity. I don’t think I could have been so tenacious.

I’m not sure how this story ends, but I hope Ellison lets this character have something good happen in his life, he deserves it. I am definitely going to have to get the full story and find out!

Robert Hayden 'Those Winter Sundays' pg 2264

I was struck with a sadness when I read Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”. Though it was one of the shorter poems we have read this semester, it was one of the more saddening ones. One that talked of regret, mixed with admiration and the missed opportunity to show and teach love.

The father was clearly a very hard working man that showed his love by deeds; making sure the house was warm in the winter, and even polishing his son’s shoes. However, by working so hard, he missed the opportunity to teach his son how to love. Actions speak louder than words, including the actions of giving a hug, or just spending time with a person.

I felt the father lacked in expressing this kind of love and in doing so, his son did not learn what love is about and how to express it, as he says so himself at the end of the poem, “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?”. This is very sad as children grow up so fast and learn what they see. Love should never be lonely nor should it be a job to express it.

But the responsibility does not only lay with the father. The son also has missed opportunities to acknowledge what the father does, not out of duty, but out of love. Maybe this was how the father was taught to love, in turn, teaching the son these very things. However, the son could have gotten up to help split wood, or taken time to polish his father’s shoes for once, as his own gestures of love and appreciation.

As it seems, these opportunities have passed and the time to say ‘thank you’ is gone. It sounds as if the father has passed away and now the son is reflecting on these missed opportunities. Reflecting upon the indifference that he had toward his father and the anger that was in the house. I think that maybe he was wishing that things would have been different, that he should have said thank you and acknowledged what his father had done for him. To simply tell his father that he loved him. Something that he did not know how to do as a child.

This poem has almost a pleading tone in the son’s voice as if to say that he was sorry for not appreciating his father when it would have counted to do so. It is sad to think that these memories, memories that he clearly cherished, that he held of his father were mixed with one’s of regret.

As I have learned the hard way, living with regret is no way to live. One shouldn’t wait until it is too late to acknowledge something before they say or act to change it. It’s sad that this son has done this very thing. Because of this, maybe the son has learned how to finally love and appreciate. Unfortunately it is the hard way to learn.

Essay #2 Pitch

I have chosen to go with pitch #3, Text and Context, for my final essay. I will attempt to write a chapter on Imagism in a really hip textbook. I do not own a corduroy jacket, but hopefully it will turn out just as well. I shall keep my fingers crossed.

I chose Imagism because I think it was a very important step forward in all literary work since its conception. Though this movement was short lived, it held a lasting impact on future writers and poets.

With imagism, there is no confusion on what you are reading, the images are clear. This is apposed to the earlier eras where the words were complicated and sometimes felt disjointed from the image. This is if you could even find an image from having to stop and decipher all the words.

Imagism is the ‘the bare bones and punk rock of poetry’. (Scott Weaver) With imagism, you have the image of what is being said as soon as you read it. It may not make since at first, but the image is clear. Then, when reread and pondered upon what you have read, you get this ‘ah ha’ moment and the image suddenly expands.

This is important, for me at least, because you are not lost in the words, but the image itself, thus allowing a reader to go back and analyze their own interpretation. For me, when I read something, I try to imagine what I am reading while I am reading it. I try to ‘see’ and understand at that precise moment of what is being said. Then, when I ponder on that image I have in my head, suddenly this one image explodes into many.

Ezra Pound and his ’cohorts’ may have been revolting against the Romantic era optimism and they may have just been trying to get their ’circle’ of friends published, but the fact remains that the literary world was changed forever.

Imagism may not be easy to interpret and it may sometimes make a person say ‘OK, that’s different’, but the fact remains, imagism was a very important movement that apparently was, and is here to stay.

I will try to write this chapter so that these undergraduate students can appreciate the value of an era that was short lived, but had a lasting impact on the world.

T.S. Eliot 'The Hollow Men' pg.1599

Oh, man! T.S. Eliot, to what planet is your mind on? I have discovered that the High Modernism is way out there!

I read ‘The Hollow Men’ before I read ‘The Waste Land’, and I am truly glad I did! If I would have read it last, I would not have been able analyze it as my brain could not function after ‘The Waste Land’. At least with ‘The Hollow Men’, I could get a small semblance of what Eliot was talking about in this poem, whereas with ‘The Waste Land’ I was only able to add on to my vocabulary.

The whole poem ‘The Hollow Men’ centers around the title itself. A hollow man is like a puppet or a robot that does what it is told to do and only when is it is told. They do not think for themselves; they do not have a mind of their own, they see what they are told to see. They are forgettable.

However, Eliot cautions not to forget the hollow men, as they are just as human as the rest of humanity. They may be controlled by the puppeteer, but they are not ‘nothing’; they are someone. Though their ’dried voices, when we whisper together, Are quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass’, they do have a voice. They are not just ‘lost violent souls’, but hollow men that are controlled by their puppet masters. As we all are at some point in our life. Does that make us forgettable and hollow? No, it does not, for everyone is someone.

Eliot goes on to discuss how even hollow men will have to face the ‘cactus land’ of thorns and barrenness to get to the ‘twilight kingdom’. They too will face death. And in death, they too will face their judgment accordingly.

I thought it was interesting that Eliot referred to the Lords Prayer right after he quoted a revised children’s song. However, with that being said, to use the term ‘prickly pear’ instead of ‘mulberry berry bush’ is indicative to the meaning that everyone will have a long, thorny journey to reach their goal of their own sweetness. This being heaven for some, and for others, it my be something totally different and even tangible in some cases.

Not every person fits into the same mold. Just because they may seem different, like Eliot himself ( on offense), or even indifferent, does not mean that they are ‘hollow men‘, and that they have no meaning. No one should be forgettable.

“ This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper”. Seems to me that T.S. Eliot needs to take his own advise. Whimpers are forgettable, bangs are heard around the world and never forgotten.