HAPPY HALLOWEEN

 

Grotesques

From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

adj.
a: fanciful, bizarre b: absurdly incongruous c: departing markedly from the natural, the expected, or the typical

n.
1 a: a style of decorative art characterized by fanciful or fantastic human and animal forms often interwoven with foliage or similar figures that may distort the natural into absurdity, ugliness, or caricature b: a piece of work in this style 2: one that is grotesque

Using the above definitions of grotesque, what passage in the novel comes to mind? There are numerous grotesques present in this novel--name one and using the above definition explain why this person is a grotesque.

For me, Harry Greener is a grotesque. And I'd like to add a bit more to the above definition, by saying, a grotesque is an exaggerated human--and what I mean, especially in the case of Harry, is that he performs the role of the clown on stage and he's unable to abandon the role because the role essentially becomes the man. Harry can't help but play the Vaudevillian performer with all his jokes and gags because the performer (and all his tricks and impressions) are all that is interesting about Harry. Harry the man, the human, no longer exists. He's been performing the same routine day in and day out that he isn't able to stop. If he stops performing, Harry the performer, no longer exists. Performance is his life--literally.

In chapter 11, we see how physically and mentally sick he is. He is 'like a mechanical toy that had been overwound, something snapped inside of him and he began to spin through his entire repertoire' (71). Harry, like so many others struggling in Hollywood, has finally 'snapped' from all the hard, unpaid for, unappreciated work. They're all tragic cases, but for me, Harry sticks out as the most tragic. As a youth, he aspired to 'play Hamlet, Lear, and Othello' (111), but ended up playing Vaudeville. At the end of his life, Harry starving for any sort of attention wanders into bars and drinks and recites poetry--or he goes door-to-door selling a product he made at home, but it isn't about the product, it's about the performance of selling the product. In both instances, even if he's boo-ed or thrown out of the bar or gets a door slammed in his face, he's performed. He has, even if it doesn't go over well, performed in front of an audience, and the audience even if it boos, gives him something.


I found this definition of grotesque (written by Lauren Gibson) on a website called A Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms:

1) This term originated from oddly shaped ornaments found within Roman dwellings, or grottoes, during the first century. From a literary standpoint, this term implies a mutation of the characters, plants and/or animals. This mutation transforms the normal features and/or behaviors into veritable extremes that are meant to be frightening and/or disturbingly comic (Cornwell 273). Example: An example of the term grotesque can be found within the short story "Rappaccini's Daughter." Within the tale, the flowers found within the garden of the inventor have been mutated into beautiful harbringers of death. While the physical features of the plants have grown more exquisite, their interior workings have become a frightening caricature of normal plant-life.
(2) The term grotesque also defines a work in which two separate modes, comedy and tragedy, are mixed. The result is a disturbing fiction wherein comic circumstances prelude horrific tragedy and vice versa.

How are characters, plants, and/or animals mutated in Day of the Locust? Are there instances where a character is mutated into a plant or animal? Can you see man as beast in this novel? Or any instances where plants or animals become characters or given human qualities? And how are these mutations seen? Are they frightening, or are they darkly comic?

Chapter 14 is loaded with the human/animal/nature mutations. The city and all that is corrupt and experienced follows Tod and crew out into the country. We get the beauty of nature and its technicolor extravagance--and we can assume this is the place set designers and decorators want to recreate over in the Hollywood lots (and it's safe to assume many representations of the canyon are buried alive in the 'dream dump'). The beauty of nature is real, but there are hints of the unreal and man-made present when a hummingbird is called a 'ruby bullet' or a flock of birds is referred to as 'metal confetti' (100). Even nature is tainted by the influence of man.

I've also included a photo of Shirley Temple, child star of the 30's and Jean Harlow, another star of the 30's, and many consider to be the first 'sex-pot' (influenced Marilyn Monroe). Being that this book was written in the 30's and came out in 1939, we know that Nathanael West was writing Faye as either a parody of Harlow, or a parody of the many women that now wanted to be Harlow. The character of Adore can be seen as a parody of Shirley Temple, or he could have been satirizing the exploitation of child stars of that time. What do you all think?

Sedaris

Choose a Sedaris essay (or story) and write a blog post about it. Like I said in class, I want more than a summarization of the essay or story. What is the purpose of the essay or story? What is he doing in the writing? He's been compared to Mark Twain and Nathanael West. Do you see similarities between his writing and the writing of Twain and West?

Blog post is due Friday, Nov. 2nd.

Tasteless

This Old House
In The Waiting Room

What I Learned

It's Catching

Turbulence
Old Faithful
The Girl Next Door

Our Perfect Summer
Who's the Chef?

Waugh's Pre-Loved One Essay (and a can of beans)

I found this photograph on Google images. "Two friends" travel around taking pictures of famous monuments and city attractions, but here's the kicker: They include a can of beans to every shot. Photo of the Great Wall of China and a can of beans. Photo of France and something Frenchy plus a can of beans. Forest Lawns Cemetery and you-guessed-it: a can of beans. Their website is cleverly titled Beans-Around-The-World.
Call it what you will. I won't say it's funny. Or satire. Or parody. Or anything really. Maybe a waste of time if you decide to visit their website.

Any way, here is Evelyn Waugh's essay Half in Love with Easeful Death. It was published in 1947. A year later came The Loved One.
How does the essay compare with the novel? How is it dramatized? What is missing?

Here is Forest Lawn today. And here is a history. It's funny how much Forest Lawn hasn't changed. It's still ridiculously over-the-top. Click on Memorial Property and you'll see what Waugh was making fun of when he writes about disposal options: "Normal disposal is by inhumement, entombment, inurnment or immurement, but many people just lately prefer insarcophagusment."
It's absurd, yes, but it's real as we can see by the list of Memorial Property Types.

Looking at the website, what else was Waugh commenting on? What has changed? What hasn't changed?

Wuh Waugh

Here's the New Partisan article I was referring to in class the other day about his son. He also apparently loved his booze and his opiates--which he'd give up for Lent. He may have been a drunk, drug abuser, and bad dad; but he sounds like a good Catholic.

More-y Gorey

I told you he had a thing for cats.

Here's a decent Salon article that came out around Gorey's death. I had no idea that he was buds with Frank O'Hara in college. They would dress up like Oscar Wilde and go about town and attack passers-by with their dandyisms. Sounds either really fun or really lame. I can't decide.

And here is a PBS interview where Gorey talks about Charles Addams (creator of Addams Family):

Does it bother you when people lump you together with people who do "horror" like Stephen King or Charles Addams?

Yes. Only very occasionally do I try to shock in a mild sort of way. I'm very squeamish really. As for Charles Addams, I knew him. We had the same agent. I occasionally would have lunch with him. I was told he envied me because I had a more highbrow reputation than he did. I love Charles Addams' stuff. I suppose there's always the possibility somebody will come along and want to do the equivalent of The Addams Family movie with my stuff. Well, I'm not that rich, so I'd probably say, "Go ahead."

Tomy y Daly - Scar Treak- The Next Lacertation

Tomy y Daly - Why Do Fools Fall In Lava

Chowderhead Bazoo--A blog you should check out

I've been checking out Chowderhead for awhile. It's a cool blog with some funny animation and writing. Here's a funny satire on the different types of people which he calls the Bane of My Existence series. The drawing above is called: A Prickly Paradox.

Favorite Simpsons Episode: Homer's Phobia

Okay, so it's not my favorite episode. But I do think it has its moments. And it has John Waters, who should have written this episode. Or maybe he could have made a few suggestions, like, I don't know, cut the hokey feel good ending. Any way, the show tries, and I believe it succeeds in bringing homosexuality into households that never would have dared to talk openly about such a subject with their children, or even to themselves.

The episode is about Homer Simpson and how he reacts when he finds out his friend is gay--thus the clever pun of a title "Homer's Phobia". As Andrew brought up in class, this isn't about gays, but about Homer's intolerance of gays. Like most homophobes, it's about not knowing or understanding homosexuals--the not knowing is what scares Homer. When Marge returns from her galavanting about town with John, Homer says to her "Did he give you gay?" To Homer, gay is something you catch. This fear becomes more pronounced when he notices Bart wearing a Hawaiian shirt. A horrified Homer tells Marge that "there's only two kind of guys who wear those shirts: gay guys and big, fat party animals. And Bart doesn't look like a big,fat party animal to me." After he catches his son dancing to "The Shoop Shoop Song" with a Hairspray-style bouffant, Homer freaks out and decides he has to do something.

I love the scene in the car. It represents male bonding between a father and his son. Homer's going to fix Bart and make him straight in a day or less. Homer has a plan (which involves so-called manly activities) and he assures Bart "by tomorrow morning, you'll be a regular Burt Reynolds"--who by Homer's standards is a representation of what a man should be: hairy and virile. It's a very real moment that turns into satire when Homer begins his internal monologue of how he should talk, act, and behave around his son. Homer shows his son that he loves him but doesn't love him because men shouldn't love each other. Homer cares, he just doesn't know any better. He himself has been raised (trained) to be a certain way. Like many fathers, he's unable to escape the 'norm' of being masculine. I believe that every man hates being called out on his masculine/macho-ness (or there lack of). It's threatening. To be called a sissie. Ok, I'll get back on track. I won't go off on gender roles and gender expectations (though it's there and perhaps even satirized).

Another great satirical moment is when Homer has Bart sit in a lawn chair in front of a Laramie Slims cigarette ad. The ad has two young scantily clad women having a pillow fight. The satire is directed at the cigarette advertising and how it is deceitful in its message: Young attractive people having fun and smoking. Cigarette advertising has been under attack for years--probably starting back in the mid-90's, so it was timely I'm sure to make a joke about it.

Situational irony: Two hours later, Homer returns and asks his son how he feels and Bart says: "I dunno. I kinda want a cigarette." Homer wants the boy to see half-naked women and fall in love; boy sees what is actually being advertised: smoking/Laramie Slims cigarettes.

I'd also like to point out a bit of dark comedy which happens while Lisa and Bart are walking around Cockamamie's (John's store). They come across the robot from the movie 'Clank Clank! You're Dead!'

Lisa: Ooh, think of how awful it would be for the poor midget inside.

Bart: Aw, boo hoo. That's what they get paid for.

They walk away and a door inside the robot's chest opens to reveal a tiny little person skeleton.

I'm surprised by Lisa in this scene. She says 'midget'. She's normally politically correct, so it catches me off guard when she says 'midget' instead of 'dwarf' or 'little person'. I'm also surprised by her not giving her dad a speech on tolerance. Lisa wasn't herself in this episode.



The gay steel mill was a great way to satirize gay stereotypes. I mean, I know John Waters was happy to see that even his cartoon self was a bit more butch than his real self--and he was very relieved that his animated self didn't resemble Richard Simmons. An average American household may actually believe that gays are limp-wristed, lispy femmes--i.e. Richard Simmons. So it's ironic, when the masculine steel workers turn out to have lisps and limp wrists. The audience doesn't see gay men as being big strong men. It's shocking, perhaps. This is pre-Brokeback Mountain and remember the reaction that movie had received. People were freaking out because the movie was about two masculine men falling in love with each other.

Again, let's look at when this episode premiered. It was February 1997. Ellen just came out to Oprah--and a few months later her character comes out on her television show. This is pre-Will and Grace. Pre-Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. This is Sunday night, network television, prime time family television. It's quite revolutionary. I thought it was great to hear what you all had to say, and I sometimes forget how young you all are (and how old I am), so telling me you were in junior high, that you were kids, really put it into perspective. Again, it shows the power of a show geared towards families. Jessie's comment on what gay meant prior to seeing the show was quite profound. The term 'gay' was thrown around as a derogatory: "You're gay" or "This is gay" were thrown around as insults meaning "you're dumb" or "this is stupid". Now gay had a face. A different meaning. The power of television, folks. Being exposed to something you weren't exposed to before. The more we see gay, the more normal it becomes.

The Simpsons may be geared for adults, but it's sold to kids. Maybe the show isn't what it used to be. But at least, we have the reruns in syndication to remind us of how good it once was.

David Sedaris on Letterman

Mark Twain Stories for Monday, Oct. 8th

Read The Story of the Good Little Boy and The Story of the Bad Little Boy for Monday, Oct. 8th.

"Deeply Superficial" Writing Exercise

I thought it'd be fun to see what happens if you give the superficial characters of The Importance of Being Earnest depth. What would change if the characters felt something? Cared about something real? How would they think? How would they interact with one another? What would happen to the comedy? How would it change? Would it change?

You may want to begin by free writing. Think about these characters in the play. Remember the qualities we wrote down on the board today. Keep them in the back of your mind while you write. When you're done writing, go back and look at what you wrote. How'd it play out? Comment on the comedy. Or lack of.

Here are your choices again. Choose one of the following:

-Write a diary entry using either Gwen or Cecily's perspective.

-Write a dialogue between Algy and Lane or a dialogue between Jack and Merriman.

-Write a letter to Dr. Chasuble from Miss Prism/or a letter to Miss Prism from Dr. Chasuble.

-Jack's Ernest and Algy's Ernest meet in a chat room. Write a dialogue between the two.

Choose one. Go ahead and post it in your blog. I'll count the exercise as a reader response. Keep in mind, this isn't required. If you don't wish to do it, don't do it. Your choice.

If you decide to do the exercise, keep it PG-13. I know it may be tempting to get a little racy, especially between the letter writing of Chasuble and Prism, and possibly in the chat room between the two alter-egos. Keep it clean. PG-13 clean.

Have fun and have a good week/end.

The Importance of Being Earnest part2

"Only the shallow know themselves"

We had a question today about what people considered to be trivial and what people considered serious back in the Victorian era? And how, if any, have those opinions changed or stayed the same, in today's society?

Heidi's surgery is trivial. I mean, she can die under the knife and that's rather serious, but if she doesn't wake up, that's okay because having a new nose and breasts are worth dying for.

Heidi Montag (from The Hills) is talking about her plastic surgery in new issue of US--it's a cover story! It's pretty amazing stuff. Spencer sounds like a supportive boyfriend. He tells her how proud he is. Proud of what exactly, I don't quite understand. It sounds good. Sounds supportive. But deep down he's like, oh good, she's going to look hot. That's really what he wants. If he were supportive, he'd be like, no Heidi, don't do that. I love you for who you are. For your mind, not for your body.

She made the right decision. She could have gone to school and bettered her mind, but she took the easy (and let's face it, realistic) way out and bettered her body. I'm proud of her, too.