"Near the windows of La Virgen de Toledo Federation, next to the shrine for the Madonna, there is a Jimi Hendrix video game machine."

This is the modern ironic picture of the mexican tight rope. They are conflicted on whether to join modern american culture or stay with their culture. Their religious standards and ethics are represented by the shrine, while the Jimi Hendrix video game is representative of the change.

"A martial art technique that numbs your opponent's sense of color awareness.
-Hispa-ratee!"

This whole poem pokes fun at stereotypes, how it is perceived mexicans do everything differently, but when you look closer at the answer it's the same thing with 'Hispa' in the beginnning.

"The machine waits for you too, the tubing, the ancestral mezzo mump transformer interpreter translator of your self in birth form."
This quote is how people lose their personality in society, and just become part of the machine. The machine of capitalism of manufacturing, producing, selling, and buying. It calls everyone, and silently directs them to become part of the machine.

"We run parallel lives, someone says.
Parallels of exile
Parallels of desire boiling underwater."

This quote is about how people live their lives without showing their feelings with others or without interacting with others. People live in solitude, deeply wanting to feel but too involved with completeing their lives working towards success priorities are now in success in stead of interaction and people live in exile.

106-130 Chile Verde

"For years, in that wild shadow, she smoked and kissed a stray that crossed our window"
After he husband has died she has lost everything stable, and for the years that she lived in the memory of him she was free through the darkness she kissed a stray and smoked. She did the unheard of after her husband died now she was free in the, "sweet darkness."

"sometimes from a small envelope
she pulls out his broken bones," pg, 142

This is representing how his death comes back to haunt her. Through everday activites years later she still can't let go.

106-130 Chile Verde

"For years, in that wild shadow, she smoked and kissed a stray that crossed our window"
After he husband has died she has lost everything stable, and for the years that she lived in the memory of him she was free through the darkness she kissed a stray and smoked. She did the unheard of after her husband died now she was free in the, "sweet darkness."

"sometimes from a small envelope
she pulls out his broken bones," pg, 142

This is representing how his death comes back to haunt her. Through everday activites years later she still can't let go.

Chile verde smuggler #3

"A $twenty at the foot of the Budddha." pg. 73

This is ironic because money is so against the core of buddhist beliefs. And that someone would find that putting a twenty dollar bill as respect is ridiculous. There are many things that can be interpreted, that either society is so ignorant and decides to show respect when they know nothing of the beliefs. Or that they are so caught up in money, they question how could a twenty not be respectful?

"I noticed she gazed over the sink into the yard, I didnt know if she was watching for Tex, the mixed dog, to eat the laundery or if she was going higher up, over hte houses, the moving sky, torn clouds going west away from all the chavitos with peanut butter on their faces, far from the clap of dust, trastes, pink erasers, a kitchen table, beaten with hours, with pencils."pg.66

This quote symbolizes what he sees as he watches a woman, she could be just looking for the dog, or could be looking at more. The one moment she gets away from the daily slum of her life by looking out, daydreaming, enjoying the far away from the daily life of her kitchen. Away from somethign she cannot escape.

chile verde smuggler #2

"When he can identify footsteps by gender.
When the words are actually connected to him."

These two lines are associated with when a man becomes a woman. Most of the lines seem to show that as a man matures and becomes more mature he becomes closer to a woman. Both in work and home a man notices things like whether the footsteps are a man or a woman, and speaks his actual feeelings. Women tend to notice things more and speak their feelings and the poem is about how men mature to be more like a woman.

"Years later, Guajardo got shot in the face. So did Hall."

The poem is about his elementary school kids, their faces, and personalities, the bullies and the bullied. But in the end it has a harsh result. This marks the blunt end to an average elementary school. The tough bullies reach their early death.

Chile Verde Smuggler

"Your papi's brand new gillette. It's not brand new, Mama. 'S OK, the hot water and salt will burn the germs. You ready, Juan?"

I find this quote particularly moving because it shows his strength and his rough childhood in the first few lines of the book without even having to tell his struggle. His mom is trying to make the situation better by saying it's brand new, when it is not, also showing they are probobly not very economically stable. And her cutting off his finger with nothing but a razor blade and a bucket of water, shows his rough childhood. Without saying so his strength shines through the lines of a simple story that does not even explain the pain of cutting off his finger, you just know.

"I see you looking at yourself putting letters on paper.' You said. All my illusions of being a poet shrank."

The one thing to avoid as a poet is the act of writing. everything is supposed to come from the heart, but when you watch yourself write, its coming from the brain. Everything is supposed to be true and sincere, but if your not completely caught up in the words instead of the action you are not a true poet as he feels in that moment.

CCC Interview TREE-SITTERS

Email of person I am interviewing, shunka_wakan@northcoastearthfirst.org

10 questions.

How long have you been an enviromental activist, and what got you started?

When sitting in the trees, do you depend entirely on others to bring food, if so, do you ever go hungry?

What are some of/all the items you bring with you while tree sitting?

Do you feel that what you are doing is not only helping the redwoods, but making a statement that is important for american culture to address?

Are there times when you just want to give up?

Has anyone ever tried to remove you or anyone you know from a tree, if so, how did you or them react?

How long did you spend tree-sitting, and are you still?

What is the longest you have ever stayed in one tree?

How do you find American Culture reacts to what you do, interested, confused, shocked, supportive?

Is there a general community of tree-sitters?

Sandra Cisneros, "The House on Mango Street."

"This was the house Papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket, and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the stories she told us before we went to bed." pg747
This shows the american dream of always working your way up in the world striving for that better house. With a private lawn, and multible bathrooms. As the father buys arbitrary lottery tickets that will inevitably be nothing but the pursuit of a dream, and the mother dreams as she tells her children of a better home, they are indeed just going to stay on their path, moving from house to house one sometimes a little nicer than the last.

"Temporarily, says Papa. But I know how those things go." pg. 748
She has been falsely encouraged her whole life, that things will get better their lives will get better. Until she knows not to believe any of the comfort her parent's words used to give her. They will continue to move from one low-income house to another, and she has more acceptance than her parents. Her parents are almost trying to convince themselves as they encourage the family. But the young girl quietly accepts this routine.

MORE Seeing By Anne Dillard (first part, sorry tom switch them)

pg. 1
"But if you cultivate a healthy poverty amd simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted with pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days."
I like this quote because it portrays how if you live simply every gift will make your day. Every penny and simple thing that the world has rejected as under them will be the equivilant to gold to the person. If we live like beggers every simple thing life throws at us will make every day a gift. The impoverished are the ones who know the true meaning of appreciation, so says the author.

pg. 7

"When I walk witha camera, I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see the second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer."

I liked this quote because I never thought of it this way until reading this, but it is true that when I have a camera in my hand there are a myriad of things I don't notice that I would have without. I walk trying to get a good group picture, or a monument, or a steriotypical facebook album. I look for smiles, poses, picturesque flowers in rows. Without my camera I note peoples expressions, the rolling candy wrapper that brings on a thought process of responsibility. A couple with their first date expressions, confused parents who are too young to have children. With my camera I see only what I should, or what I can share with others with my camera, pictures of my family and friends smiling or playing, but there is so much more to be seen than the smiles.

Seeing by Annie Dillard

"While he was blind he was indifferent to objects unless they were edible; now, "a sifting of values in...his thoughts and wishes mightily stirred and some gew of the patients are thereby led into dissimulation, envy, theft and fraud." pg. 702
This quote fascinated me, because it is interesting how many values are lost in appearance. What people see, the first impression, became very important to a newly sighted person who used to care for nothing material except food. And that is the way it should be. And yet we get so carried away with the colors and beauty and richness of our appearances that it becomes a competitve unspoken game to have the nicest furnishings and the best High-Definition TV. One would wonder if it was human nature to be this competitve and mark your status, or it was just our sight and appearance awareness. And this quote proves that to this man sight changed his whole view not only on the world but on himself.

"But shadows spread, and deepened, and stayed. After thousands of years we're still strangers to darkness, fearful aliens in an enemy camp wiht out arms crossed over our chests."pg. 697
This quote was my favorite because I am afraid of the dark and question why every night. In biology we learned that there is believed to be a trigger in everyone that either triggered by a small experience and stays for the rest of your life or is never triggered, and certain genes hold fears to be triggered like that of the dark or spiders etc. Is it still that thousands of years ago humans found the dark less apt for survival and therefor we shall forever be strangers to the dark? Or is it the lack of something we become so dependent on, seeing, that frightens us. I have found that over the years it has become harder for me to constantly close my eyes or walk in the dark. Is it because a gene has been triggered? Or because I have become so dependent on my sight that I am terrified to function without it. Or perhaps as she puts it, it is a simple human nature that humans use their sight as survival and to the darkness we are aliens, strangers in a new land. Fearful of something unknown to us.

END

"...and turned and went back down to this world."

I found this quote interesting almost singly because he said, "this" world. He is going back to life, not the whole world like he was on another planet, but the stereotypical suburban world that is. He is returning to the generic life. He is leaving the mountains the and the sweet no worries life.

"Firs on steep banks you could barely see on the lake shore were like ranged ghosts in the mist. It was the real northwest grim and bitter misery."

This quote is just simply beautifully written. It describes the feeling along with the picture. I really feel as if I am there in the desolate mysts of the northwest.

Dharma Bums to page 223

"I dunno-out of the way we feel about life. You and I ain't out to bust anybody's skull, or cut someone's throat in an economic way, we've dedicated ourselves to prayer..."

I found this quote interesting because it shows the very passive calm attitude they have towards people. So much so that it becomes abnormally kind. But if you look at it from a different perspective they are being quite hypocritical because throught the book all they do is speak of the ignorance of the common american, and suburban lifestyle. They are also speaking of how their way of life is superior to all others and they should sometime be rewarded for it.

Alvah said, "It all ends in tears anyway."

This is the first quote that is remarkably true and common yet I had never heard it said before. It is a grim but honest look at things. Most things do end in tears. From graduations to farewells, to the end of lives, tears are usually present. It is a distant way to look at sorrow, just as the emotion of the end of things. Alvah's six word line summed up the whole scene of Japhy leaving.

"Across the evening valley the old mule went with his broken "Hee haw" Broken like a yodel in the wind: like a horn blown by some terribly sad angel: like a reminder to people digesting dinners at home that all was not as well as they thought. yet is was just a love cry for another mule. But that was why..."

This quote is about the sad mating call of a deer. In a field that used to be full of deer, but is now an empty field, his call is sad because there is no anumal to receive it. As people eat their meals at home, the deer is wandering alone. The call is a forlorn sadness.

"I began to notice that the uppermost twigs and leaves were lyrical happy dancers glad that they had been apportioned on the top, with all that rumbling experience of the whole tree swaying beneath them."

This is a descriptive and picturesque quote. As he lies under the tree and watches the branches, it symbolizes his general happiness at the time. The scene is happy, with dancing leaves. The quote is a blissful fairytale in a book of realistic stories.

Dharma Bums to page 171

"I figured if it was my destiny to die on the midnight ghost it was my destiny."

I found this quote interesting because he had yet to speak of death in the book, and when he does he seems to have a very relaxed viewpoint. Perhaps because he is a buddhist and believes in reincarnation. Or because he has had that revelation of what he is here to do, to teach, to enjoy, and to fill his empty pages. He is walking on clouds. Nothing can being him to the realities of his hitch hiking.

"Suddenly I exhilerated to realize I was completely alone and safe, and nobody was going to wake me up all night long."

I really liked this quote, because I realized that it is so rare for someone to be completely alone, and know nobody was going to disturb them. Only a few times in my life have I come to this realization. It is an exciting and a bit frightening realization, "exhilierating" being his word. I also thought about how society forms itself in this way. We live close to each other in our houses and normally everyone can see another house from theirs. From our houses most people are only a three-number digit from help if there is trouble. But Ray is living a moment that many do not.

Dharma Bums

"Your mind makes out the orange by seeing it, hearing it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it and thinking about it but without this mind, you call it, the orange would not seen or hear or smelled or tasted or even mentally noticed, it's actually that orange, depednging on your mind to exist!"

This is such a fascinating quote I had to put it in. It it a thought that the only reason things exist as they do is because of our senses, and without these senses nothing would exist. If humans had never been able to hear we would never know that sound exists. This quote exemplifies how much Ray really does know after all of his blabber of small poems and radical thinking.


"I'm going to die!' because there was nothing else to do in the cold loneliness of this harsh inhospitable earth,"

This quote is singly interesting because it comes at this time in the book. He has returned home. Where everyone works and sits infront of the television at night. He has returned to the mainstream culture. He is offered a sleeping place infront of the wood stove. And yet this is where he is the most unhappy he has been in the book. He has this breakdown of momentary depression. This is just another example of how the mainstream culture does anything but bring happiness to many.

TREE SITTERS.

DEDICATION. PROTESTING SKI TRAILS. http://www.mindfully.org/Heritage/2003/Wachusett-Tree-Sitters10sep03.htm

TREE SITTER DIED FROM FALLING FROM A TREEE! http://www.peacenews.info/news/article/70

ARRESTED FOR TRESPASSING.http://clog.dailycal.org/314/tree-sitter-arrested-oakgate-refuses-to-die

"Was I talking to dumb after all? Are my ideas about what to do so silly and stupid and childlike? Isn't this the time now to start following what I know to be true?"

After Ray finally uses his thoughts to something that matters, the life of a girl. It fails miserably, and he begins to question the truth in his beliefs. He did not know enough to sway the girl. And in the end it is the ultimate consequence. He is questioning whether he is following what he truly believes and knows to be true.

"I am now on the road to Heaven. Suddenly it became clear to me that htere was a lot of teaching for me to do in my lifetime."

This is a revelation of Ray's. He learns the hard way that he must teach what he knows. He must teach not what he has heard and memorized byt what he himself has discovered. He is on the road now. He has discovered what he needs to do before he dies.

"He dos'nt need any money, all he needs is his rucksack with those little plastic bags of dried fruit and a good pair of shoes and off he goes abd enjoys the privilages of a milionaire in surroundings like this."

To everyone else being a millionaire would create the perfect life. In Ray's observation Japhy is living his life to the ultimate fullest. With the happiness that all millionaires are supposed to have. All he needs is a few belongings and himself to make his life enjoyable. It is Japhy's own view on the world that makes his life so enjoyable, an accepting blissful view that makes anything that goes wrong an obsticle, and anything right a blessing. Climbing the mountain is hard and dangerous, but ultimately more enjoyable than the luxeries of a millionaire.

"Oh what a life this is, why fo we habe to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,"

Here he is questioning life's obstacles. What is the point of being born at all to undergo trials like this? Why must we survive to suffer? At this moment everything is an obstacle, with no reward in end. While Japhy jogs up to the top to meet his goal, Ray questions the meaning. Why hurt himself further? Why must humans undure what they do?

Dharma Bums 49-72

"Japhy put things in my knapsack and told me I had to carry it or jump in the lake. He was being very serious and leaderly, and it pleased me more than anything else. Then with the same boyish gravity he went over to the dust of the road with the pickax and drew a big circle and began drawing things in the circle."

This quote shows two important things. The first of which is how much he looks up to Japhy. He is proud to be told what to do from Japhy. The second of which is the adventure they are finding in this. Japhy is pretending it is very serious in his boyish way, and Ray Smith is happy to play along. They are looking at this like it was so much more than just climbing a mountain they are creating the adventure before it has begun, making themselves excited. Japhy is anxious to see himself as an important leader, and Ray is happy to follow him.


"Comparisons are odious, Smith."

This is one of the lines of advise Japhy gave. I found it very interesting because I've never thought of a religion as Buddhism apparently does, as disregarding comparisons. Many other religions rely on comparisons, Hell to Heaven, Good to Bad, people live their lives with comparisons even when not religious. A large house versus a small house, a marriage or being single for life. It is hard to imagine living life without comparisons. Our lives would be far more enjoyable if we wer'nt always comparing, but he uses this word of wisdom for another reason. To him All of life is just a void, space, the prerequisite to something more. He is just filling in time, so comparisons are odious.

Dharma #2

"Colleges being nothing but grooming schoools for the middle-class non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each livinv room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing."

He is describing suburban life. For the first time we catch a glimpse of what most of the population is doing while these, "Dharma Bums" live life on their own accord. They lose touch with material longings as the rest of the population gains them. It is black and white between these free-living poets and the growing conformity of the suburbans all around them but worlds away.

"By the time I went to bed I wasn't taken in by no Princess or no desire for no Princess and nobody's dissaproval and I felt Glad and slept well."

He has returned to his normal state of aloofness towards lust. He finds that it disrupts his meditative constant happiness, and has broken his own rules, but is now settling down to forget. He was hesitant and nervous about the wild spontanaiety, but joined for his respect for Japhy, and curiousity for the Princess. He is now letting the thoughts of the night leave him.

Dharma #1

"'Fuck you! sang Coyote, and ran away!' Read JAphy to the dinstiguished audience, making them howl with joym it was so pure, fuck being a dirty word that comes out clean."

In the poetry reading they are all yearning for something completely free, the word fuck being something normally too harsh for people to hear in poetry, and that is exactly what they want. They want truth, and individuality. Fuck being incredebly truthful and clean of smoothed over pretty words.

"He wore mountain climbing boots, expensive ones, his pride and joy, Italian make."

He is describing Japhy, and ironically this amazing poet is the only one not dressing as a stereotypical poet. To Japhy Poetry and freedom are a way of life. He lives his poetry. He climbs the mountains he describes with his climbing boots. It is not a group of words he struggles on, and scribbles onto a page in order to be read at this reading. It is simply what he sees.

Extra Credit:

I find this quote exceptionally true. Something I often think about is how far some people are willing to step out of their lives to follow something they believe in. Many people care for the environment to an extent, some people have recycle bins, some vote for environmental representatives in congress, but few are willing to change their lives for what they believe in. In this situation we seem to be so caught up in our cookie cutter lives it is nearly impossible to dig ourselves out. All or nothing seems to be the way. The next part may seem completely hypocritical as I do not follow these values, but they are solutions I think we should follow. Donating money, and recycling will take away the guilt but to truly sweep off our footprints we must dramatically change the conception of success. But how can we sustain ourselves while not aiding this web we are caught in of conformity and jobs that is killing the environment and basic values. The best thought I could come up with is to create an environment as self-sustainable as possible. It is totally radical, but again, all or nothing. Some steps to creating a self-sustainable environment would be to have your own garden and farm, not all your food can be produced here but aiding the super markets is aiding, “The web.” In my experience many people have far too many clothes. This is completely hypocritical again, but we can happily enjoy our clothing and fashion without having thirty shirts. Drinking water from a water bottle may seem like a small thing, but the amount of plastic and aluminum sodas and drinks I see sold amaze me this would not only reduce your footprint, but would help your health. : ) In the world we live in it is far too tempting to live a self-sustainable life unless we were to pretend we lived three hundred years ago. But these steps are still dramatic for many, including myself. What marvels me is that these steps are so hard to perform. Once we live a certain way like most of us do, it seems that America in itself has become something of a conformed suburban land. We cannot dig ourselves out. But we show our environmental side through small tasks that don’t draw too much attention. He ends by saying we are not ready…yet. We will perhaps be forced to be ready in the future through depleting of our energy sources and dramatic environmental changes, we will be forced to change in the future, but hopefully future generation will see the obscurity in the situation and step out of the cookie cutter before we are forced. But for now, nothing is affecting us directing enough to make any changes in our comfort zone. The “sense of grounding.” We find in our jobs.

Are these Actual Miles? By Raymond Carver

Page 584.

“ ‘Kiss kiss. Here.’ She says and points to the corner of her mouth.”
Their marriage is very robotic, and suburban style. She cares more that her lipstick looks good for the sale, than that he can kiss her. She cares more for the money, and the sale than kissing her husband goodbye. The perfect lipstick seems stereotypical of the 1950’s woman. Their appearance being just as important as what they say. Their marriage seems empty.

Page 584.

“Fog lifted, Ernest Williams stared, then slapped the paper against his leg, hard. Leo recalls the slap hunches his shoulders…”

Ernest Williams is the neighbor who can see much from his window across the street., more even than the wife of Leo. Leo cheated on his wife, but has not told her. The guilt however is always there. There is always something in the room with them, a huge secret that he hunched his shoulders with the weight of. This is another example of the hidden secrets of suburban life. On the outside everything looks like a fine marriage, but on the inside is a man cheating on his wife.

The Persistence of Desire, by JOHN UPDIKE.

Page 568.

“I am, I am; but” the rest was so purely inspired its utterances only grazed his lips-“happiness isn’t everything.”
He is happy, he is successful, but Janet represents his youth, and carefree life that he can no longer have. She is a love a long time forgone and yet, she represents more to him then loves. She is his childhood, his adventure, his old town; she is simply a nostalgia that he longs to bring back.

Page 569.

“The neutral ominous, ‘he’ opened wide a conspiracy Clyde instantly entered. He stayed behind a minute, to give her time to get away. Ringed by the judging eyes of the young and old, he felt like an actor snug behind the blinding protection of the footlights;”

He realizes that the love between him and Janet is a time gone by. He is no longer the man in her life, and he must let go of their love. As all the other people in the waiting room are judging him, he realizes he is a smaller player in her life. He is in the background of her past.

My 1950's topic is the birth of chain stores/fast food.

The Swimmer by JOHN CLEEVER

Page 1490, or page 2 on the handout.

“He had been swimming and now he was breathing deeply, stertorously as if he could gulp into his lungs the components of that moment, the heat of the sun, the intenseness of his pleasure. It all seemed to flow into his chest.”

This quote takes place in the beginning of his journey, and Cleever describes his unfathomable happiness. He is described as young and joyful. It is a beautiful day and he decides he will do something spontaneous. The moment while he swims through his pool, is one that he wishes to appreciate completely, and to soak it all in. In the beginning of the story he begins with sublime happiness.

Page 1497, or page 9 on the handout.

“He shouted, pounded on the door, tried to force it with his shoulder, and then, looking in at the windows, saw that the place was empty.”

This quote shows both the feel of the ending, and the realization of the reader at the end. He has finished his journey, he is exhausted, sad for the rude treatment of some of his neighbors, and it is dark outside. He is much more desperate and despairing than the beginning and the beginning and end show quite a contrast. It also shows that he has indeed lost his memory. He no longer lives there, and as his neighbors hinted in the story, his children are gone from him.

The Death of Justina, by JOHN CLEEVER

Page 545.

“I stand, figuratively, with one wet foot on Plymouth Rock, looking with some delicacy, not into a formidable and challenging wilderness but onto a half-finished civilization embracing glass towers, oil derricks, suburban continents and abandoned movie houses and wondering why, in this most prosperous, equitable and accomplished world-where even the cleaning women practice Chopin preludes in their spare time-everyone should seem to be so disappointed.”

John Cleever writes about improving our lives through materialistic aids. From the time men arrived on Plymouth Rock the wilderness has been transformed into towering buildings, and suburban houses. Oil derricks and old movie houses are also symbols of the desperate work we do to improve our lives, when in the end, he observes that everyone still seems to sad and desperate. Disappointed that these materialistic efforts are bringing them little happiness in their lives. He pokes fun at the way Americans live in the most, “Prosperous, equitable and accomplished world-“ according to luxuries, and yet the overall happiness of people has not changed.


Page 548.


“ ‘I know, Moses, I know,’ he said. I understand that. But it’s just that it happened in the wrong zone and if I make an exception for you I’ll have to make an exception for everyone, and this kind of morbidity, when it gets out of hand, can be very depressing. People don’t like to live in a neighborhood where this sort of this goes on all the time.’ ”

Cleever is sardonically criticizing the suburban life. The seemingly flawless lifestyle, where people keep their abnormal traits secret, so that everyone thinks that everyone else is flawless. The death of Justina is to be kept secret because it might affect the neighbors. Ironically Moses’ boss speaks about the depressing part others would have to share, with very little recognition of Moses’ personal grief and situation. The neighborhood is made to look pristine, without something even as normal as death.

HELLO STINKIES. Welcome to my BLOGGGGGGG.