Over the years

Over the years, since the dawn of chirography, as a people brought up within this tradition which we well know as literacy. Although it's only been this way for a rather relatively short amount of time, and since this certain time as a people our perception of the world as we know it has been ill-perceived. This certain time supposedly came around the time of first stories of the Bible, a symbol for the beginning of 'life as we know it' and the creation of the world. It's interesting to look at the Bible from this perspective because it makes it easy to believe that there were people before this chirographic 'beginning of time' because, as Kane says in his prologue, "the ancestors of human species evolved a new organ, called culture: it allowed patterns of behavior to be transmitted variably in stories" (15-16). This idea of culture is a man-made creation and separation from nature which eventually, over the millenia, brings us to the first (and second!) book in the Bible which is "written by agriculturalists" (19). Once we moved "from a forager to a producer economy" (18), that's when culture became valued so highly that people became believers in classism. Being able to stake a claim and having rights over that property led others to believe, let's say those without property, that they had to work, what Kane refers to as "a state of contest," their way up in society. If there's classism then there are those looking up (the lower class), those looking down (the upper class), and those contented (the middle class). Here's something to mull over, with agriculture comes the idea of property; I'll let Kane continue because his words are too clear to best: "A class system arises out of the necessities of agriculture. For agriculture to work, you need to have a concept of property. For a concept of property to work, you need to have a state. For a state to work, you to have armies to defend it. Consequently, developed agricultural societies evolve a new mythology featuring three classes of deities - deities who stand respectively for the functions of priest, farmer, and warrior" (21-22). If and only if you have agriculture then you have property which belongs to your stately ownership, employment, and management. It's hard to think that agriculture, containing idea of property which transformed into this aggregate idea of 'intellectual property' as well, has brought about most of the ills of men, that primitive ill being a 'defense mechanism'. A king must defend his territory, I suppose, or so it seems it must be that way. Then again, I don't want people stealing/using my stuff, physical or intellectual (I mean, at least until I'm finished with it and I've made [or attempted to make] a pretty penny from it!).

So, with that said, here's one more thing to think about concerning the preliterate and literary developments and revolutions of the world:

Oral tradition-->chirography (written word)-->printing press (mass production of written word)-->typography (typed word)-->internet (exponential availability of mass produced -graphics)

Also, do visual aids or pictures belong anywhere in these developments?

Ramon Lull & Giulio Camillo

Camillo was a genius. I never knew the guy personally, but what I do know is that his idea of making his master loci an actual theatre is ingenious idea because he flips the entire idea of a theatre around up on it's head. It seems that his role, being the subject and performer, stays the same but the focus isn't upon him, the lights aren't shining. You know that feeling when you're on stage and the lights are too bright for the actors to see the audience (forcing them to focus on the on-stage scene they're recreating), well that feeling isn't there; it's flipped and foiled. He's the audience, although he's the the one on stage. He can see it all and recall it all. In Camillo's memory theatre he's able to see all of his levels (from the peasant's ground to the press boxes), those compartments of collected and registered knowledge, with clarity because he's designed the lights in his theatre to shine on what should be the 'audience'. Typically, the performer should tell the audience a story, but in this case the audience is telling the performer a story. I think Camillo thought that the stories of those filling his [seemingly limitless, because the memory is a void,] seats are much more vastly variable than the subject[s] participating on stage. Camillo thinks that his theatre [beyond the stage], signifying what his imagination has imprinted on his memory, is far superior to himself [the occupant of the stage]. It's a brilliant reversal.

As for the latter, that being Lull, I'm going to attempt to focus on it's "philosophical tradition" and it's opposition being the "rhetoric tradition" (175). What interests me is his neglecting "effort to excite the memory by emotional and dramatic corporeal similitudes" (176) which avoids the "visual arts" altogether creating a disconnect from the utilization of grotesque imagination, a foundation based on arguably heretical rhetoric imagery, and practice of classical artificial memory-making (I hope I'm reading and analyzing this correctly, please right me if I'm wrong...). Simply, I believe his method is more deductive than inductive if we speak in philosophical terms. His method relies on "visual arts" but in a less disfiguring and purely creational sense, but rather a integrative and strictly recreational sense.

In my next blog I'm going to talk about the four classical liberal arts, those being: number, geometry, music, and cosmology; Altogether called the Quadrivium, and why Lull may have used them to his advantage.

For now we'll preemptively investigate a basic attribute of Lullism; being geometry. In Yates' book she says that Lull was interested in capitalizing on this idea of the Trinity, "three powers of the soul which Augustine defined as the reflection of the Trinity in man. As intellectus, it was an art of knowing or finding out truth; as voluntas it was an art of training the will towards loving truth; as memoria, it was an art of memory for remembering truth" (174) leaving out only one part of Prudence, the utmost necessity for artificial memory, being providentia. This is very interesting because we start with a triangle (as opposed to a sqare?), and then the geometric figures develop thereforth within his system of concentric circles which nevertheless potentially provide an infinite amount of combinations (call it a "revolutionary...movement in the psyche" (176)). Beyond the geometrical, Trinitarian starting point he uses what Yates calls a "derivation from cosmological 'rotae' of the wheels of Art" (178).

I can't make much more of the geometric Art, although the picture above may interest others furthermore. Take a look at the geometric figures within a circle, there are too many possibilities, then check the letters on the outside circles which tie into what's said on page 177-78...

Next we'll investigate further into the already quoted or stated geometry, cosmology, and Art [or what I'll assume is Liberal Art].

The Initial Palace Concluded [for now]

Answers are at the bottom. I'm going to attempt excluding the exact items and put into words my imagination creation by describing characters in accordance with their loci and actions. It's a coming-home narrative.

"What's happened to the house?!"

I've pulled into the driveway behind a jar car whose door is ajar. A muse has scored a touchdown in the front lawn. A large block of cheese carrying holding a sixer steps out of the car. The car has smoking coming out, but then a fish steps out of the car on the other side. They must be celebrating. Claudia Schiffer is cheering for the winner from the dug-out gravel pit which has been replaced a large bowl of curds. She's trying to tug at the winner's dancing feet. Also on the opposite end of the yard is a teary muse showing signs ofmelancholy after that TD (Terpsichore Dance..fyi). It's tragic so her mother comes down from the front stairs wrapping around the southside of the yellow house to console her tearful daughter and welcome me. She says, "Now come on up, I'll introduce you to everyone." We see Simeon Rice in a Lexus eating a sandwich from Schlotzsky's deli at the front of the cars. He says there are more inside through the open garage, so we go that way and see his two brothers grabbing orange juice. In the garage before we head in they tell us to make sure not to let the dogs or the ADHD kid out; that's Dan, Odie, and Flash. At the inside-garage door I'm greeted by a maid carrying some laundry. Straight ahead in the basement my brother Graham who has four eyes is jamming on his gospel-influenced guitar for four others to my left in the den telling poetic tales to his music. Alison Krauss is singing lyrics from a thick book, Newt Gingrich is playing flute, and the last is laying out on the couch is a one of the storytellers with McNulty. The television is on a static channel 3. Behind scanning the bookshelf is Leonardo Dicaprio. To the right surprisingly is Cedric Daniels playing pool with my Dad ashing it his cigar. Cedric's aggravated and trying to not think too hard about his next shot. I know how he feels. From there I move into my room to get situated. I see my maroon bible on the bookshelf knowing I've never read it. McNulty bursts through the open door barely holding his being of particles together with a tie made of the confederate flag. Also, he's always drunk but he's recovering from a failed marriage and has to cope how he knows. I can't change him but I appreciate the realness of the role he purports and the relative world he comes from. Then I think the best thing to do would be to get an actual door in this room making it a true bunker. I tell McNulty to get out or find a lawyer because I know how he acts in front of the judge. It would be better that he go play pool with his boss so he frowns and leaves pouting. I head out after then go upstairs. On the stairs is a circular hop-scotch pattern, but on the last flight I'm greeted by a maid who gives me facial protection for the large machine emitting a cold fog. A tall Lea Michele in tan spandex with some pointy ears jumps at me as I enter the kitchen. She's sauteing a smart phone and scaring people for amusement. A balding Ryan Murphy in a director's chair with a megaphone telling her do it again, except better. Paul Newman is next to our 'weather station' looking up out the octagonal window with a girl pointing at the sky. There's an elk [which is usually a moose] out the window which isn't moving, and I don't know why it's not moving. So I break the window in front of them and ask for the climbing gear so I can get down to safely investigate what's happened with our live pet moose.

(Running list: Terpsichore, pickled garlic, 6 white wines, smoked salmon, cottage cheese, Melpomene, Megan Mother of the Muses, Simeon, Reuben, Levi, Judah, Joseph, Zebulun, Issachore, Dan, Polyhymnia, Benjamin, Euterpe, Erato, Calliope, homeostatic, Clio, Gad, Asher, additive not subordinate, aggregative not analytic, empathetic, situated, agonistic, participatory, redundant, conservative, copious, conceptualized, relative to real world, justice, fortitude, prudence, temperance, hula hoops, 3 pairs of socks, snorkel, dry ice machine, Thalia, skin toned cat suit, email Sophia, director's chair and megaphone, Somebody up there likes me, barometer, Urania, elk sausages, harness and ropes)

A Concise Capitalization in three paragraphs

One evening in my room there was buxom cupid/cherubim thing and a precocious Churly Brown have a tinge drinking competition. The onlookers are quelled in disbelief. Ace Ventura is gnashing his chops and his quail is belching from eating Ace's guano. Insidious Odysseus is behind them and approaches me and offers to take me on a journey. I see the famous poster of Obama with his opal (hopeful) look and it gives me the feeling that this journey is ineluctable. Odysseus says with ardor that we must depart into the sea of carpet because we must not be room addicts, we must sojourn and should feel instead rather rheumatic by the end of it. The only thing stopping us is the timorous doorman who Odysseus must mitigate with because the doorman is so emotional about his banal job. I feel bad for him then feel bad myself, filled with malaise as I head for the bathroom.

There I find a promissory Brett Favre pouring an amicable Peyton Manning a cup of tea from the samovar. They're telling one another jokes while playing with the beads of an abacus. Favre calls one of his jokes an aphorism or an 'a-four-ism' obviously referencing his jersey number, and Manning laughs then jeers at his old age. They briefly bicker at one another's alleged ingenuousness looking , and ask for one another's wisdom. Manning makes a metaphor to the man behind the shower curtain then opens it to find two seemingly amiable brothers, Cane and Abel, in a bathtub full of gold lucre. Everyone's face physiognomy contorts in surprise thinking that it's a ruse, but then the rooster-cuckoo clock goes off above the toilet signaling two WWII comrades. One is holding a lorgnette and impetuously asks for from powder to treat a rash while the other considerably more venerable soldier is wearing a derisive face while carrying many hammers and sickles. The first tells us to join the soiree, 'They're calling it the Axiom of Evil ball' he adds before he walks off with the medicine. I follow him out of the bathroom and see several vaudeville girls dressed in dalmatian outfits going into my brother's room receiving some sort of emanation or receipt from an oversize, wheedling caterpillar. I pass by reluctantly to go into the living room and feel pangs in my feet, a homeopathic doctor is there to greet me, welcoming me to the party by stamping my hand with an expatiating passage in the form of a parenthetic ink citation.

This allows me to be admitted into the living room where I find the Queen of England and a large coin who will recompense her at the end of the evening. Over on the fireplace are Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles who are apropos playing the improvisation game 'Props'. Over their heads is a tapestry which I feel trepidation for mistaking where it was made, with casuistry I'd think probably New Mexico. On the couch is a super-sized squash quashing the cushions while next to him is a bleeding briefcase stinking of carrion. Coming out of the kitchen is the Lucky Charms mascot meeting the Wendy's mascot near the iridescent balustrade. Leaving the laundry room is a walking calico wearing a Towelie shirt with a heavyset, inveterate Miles Veater in a frock eating a burger. My next precipitous task is to follow the mascots downstairs...

On Fertility

Writing, the recording of language, has restructured the way we think and with its invention our learning processes along with our internal grasp of memories have reconfigured revolutionizing our conscience as a species. It seems that externalizing our thoughts has advanced aspects of our species, but rather we've emphasized in class as Ong insists that, 'literacy brought about the ills of mankind, not illiteracy' and it has inhibited our mindsets. The carryover of beliefs embedded in chirography from, in the big scheme of things, rather recent, previous centuries has caused much conflict amongst those who dig deeper into matters, such as critics. Last semester in Literary Criticism class we read an article about Claude Levi-Strauss (at least I believe it was him or another linguistic scholar) who proposed that the advent of language precedes our existence as humans or, in other words, that language is already somehow a part of our being before we come into the world. I believe Walter Ong is referring to something of this nature when he says "there are many scripts but only one alphabet." His proposal makes sense, but to take this further we have to go back to Phoenicians who first invented the alphabet. In linguistics they call it the International Phonetic Alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet), and with proper understanding of the letters audible articulations we may translate one language into any other. I took a linguistics course a couple semesters ago and we learned to translate Japanese, French, and a few other languages into English by knowing how to pronounce the word without knowing what it means. The tricky part is that not all languages contain every sound, or should I say phoneme, specified in the IPA.

Along with these matters, in class we've briefly discussed another paradigm shift which greatly affected us as a people--the revolutionary discovery of agriculturally-based means of subsistence--which transitioned us from our initial hunter-and-gatherer livelihood, an alteration of seeking out our needs into the learning how to have control over nature and cultivating it. Taking this further, when we were hunters and gatherers the real world must've seemed absolutely fantastic because the creatures and plants which we're being found all around would seem to 'magically' appear because there was no explanation for it, but then once we discovered how to harness fertilization that's when we began to lose this sense of wonder--an answer passed on from previous generations. This gets me thinking about the nature of art of storytelling in the oral tradition. It's quite amazing that each person in our class went up in front of the class, and even if they were nervous (like myself) they still managed to pluck each and every piece of information from their imagination and prove it in speech. It's simply amazing because even though the random items weren't necessarily stories to the audience we in the audience knew with absolution that the presenters' creations were structured as a theatrical narrative even if it wasn't communicated as so.

At last I'm going to discuss the presence of alchemy in the art of storytelling and memory. I'll call this 'mnemonic alchemy'--the art and science of turning experience (something raw) into knowledge (something of value) als ob it was turning lead into gold. We all know it's impossible to turn lead into gold, but mnemotechnics capture the concept of alchemy. Our imaginations allow us to, without consequence, inflate the value of something (being an experience or piece of knowledge) by means of metamorphosis.

For example, if I want to remember the word 'buxom', which is descriptive and qualitative, not a concrete thing, then I must use its definition to my advantage by attaching it or incorporating it with another element which will change its essence. Thus, for 'buxom' in my memory theatre I saw a floating pudgy cherub, a winged cupid-like boy ['Cherub' initially was on the list but was removed]. This process is alchemical because you have a new piece of knowledge (or worthy experience) becoming locked in our memories after having been remade into something else richer by substituting, aggregating, altering, etc. their essence.

Or if I want to remember that Phoenicians are pioneers of the one and only alphabet then I'll think of them as, say, artists of language cultivation who are finished harvesting the A's and moving onto the B's, a description which carries all the components of articulation.

The Richest House on Earth

One evening in my bedroom there was a pudgy cherub hovering over my head, then I look over and there's a mini, yet grown up Charlie Brown as if he's aged past his better days in the cartoons business. The two are binge drinking paint, and the audience is astonished causing Ace Ventura to grind his Mask-esque teeth. There's a quail belching on his shoulder from eating Ace's plate of guano. I pivot my legs off the bed and stand up. Clever Odysseus is standing next to Ace, approaches me for a handshake, and offers to bring me on a tour through the rest of the house. I see Obama's famous ruby and blue 'Hope' poster and think about how at one point he was inelectable. But I also understand that I have to follow Odysseus who wants to leave the room's harbor into a sea of carpet. I'm a room addict and it's a painful habit, but in order to get out Odysseus has to negotiate with the door man who thinks he's landlord of the tenement. His emotion is coming from the stress on his life as a door man, the boring reputation the position carries. Odysseus empathizes with him but I feel bad for him, so bad that I have to blaze past them out of the room to the bathroom, which is the first door on the right.

There I see Brett Favre and Peyton Manning having a tea party, telling jokes, and playing with one of toys with wooden balls, the one you play only while waiting for the doctor. Brett Favre has come up an epithet for his jokes, 'A-four-ism' he calls it as he points at his jersey. 'Get it?' Peyton calls him an old man and makes fun of counterpart's gray neard. They exchange more knowledge and deny each's credibility in their art until Manning makes a metaphor referencing the man behind the curtain. 'He'll know, he's the one with all the answers.' Manning grabs the shower curtain and opens it to find Cain and Abel in a tub of gold coins. You should've seen our faces, we were stunned to the point that our eyes pop out of their sockets. I couldn't see straight, we all thought we were being tricked or dreaming, but but then we hear a rooster coming from the cuckoo clock over the toilet. Then two WWII Russian comrades come to the bathroom door. One has carnival glasses attached to a chop stick and asks if there is any arm-and-hammer for his rash. I impulsively find some, give it to him, he obliges, and then tells us to come out because we're missing the party, they're calling it the 'Axiom of Evil' which will show that our spirits aren't down because of the war. 'What war?''Come, we'll help you remember.' There's another older comrade standing behind him holding many hammers and sickles, like a vendor, with the look of a deer-in-the-headlights. Next I follow them out of the bathroom to find several girls dressed as dalmatians in outfits receiving receipts from a fat and charming caterpillar as they enter my brother's room on the right. I reluctantly pass by and shout out 'Dang!' as I stub my toe on the wall.

Sure enough, there's the George Clooney from ER welcoming me to the living room as if I were his patient without and stamps my hand with a excerpt from the Bible, it's too small to read because the passage is quite long and the ink letters small. Anyways, I'm admitted into my own living room. The first person I see is the The Queen of England with a large coin for her date. Colin and Ryan are performing props the improv game. There is a large decrepit New Mexican tapestry, I may not like it but it's an antique. On the couch is a squash pressing the cushions, he has a briefcase which appears to be bleeding. Leaving the kitchen is a Lucky Charms mascot going downstairs. Waiting for him next to the side banister has polls painted as rainbows is a Wendy's mascot. Then coming out of the laundry room is a heavyset Miles Veater eating a burger with Towelie who's wearing a Towelie tee shirt under a robe.

The End - There's plenty of space left in this palace. My next task is steep, to follow the mascots descending the steps and attempt to take they're masks off.

buxom, churl, precocity, tinge, gnash, quell, insidious, opal, ineluctable, ardor, rheumatic, timorous, banal, mitigate, malaise,

promissory, amicable, samovar, abacus, aphorism, jeer, ingenuous, amiable, lucre, ruse, physiognomy, impetuous, lorgnette, venerable, derisive, soiree, axiom,

vaudeville, emanation, wheedle, pangs, homeopath, parenthetic, expatiate, recompense, apropos, casuistry, trepidation, quash, carrion, iridescent, balustrade, inveterate, frock, calico,

precipitous

The List

We'll talk about humor in the last part of the blog, but first I'm going to engage a point made in Frances Yates book: "[Albertus'] allusion to the melancholy temperament and memory. According to the normal theory of humours, melancholy, which is dry and cold, was held to produce good memories, because the melancholic received the impressions of images more firmly and retained them longer than persons of other temperaments." (69)

This gets me thinking about the idea of rational thinking because once someone told me that, and I'll paraphrase, people with depression think more truthfully and rationally than those who are happier. It's hard to confirm this point, but there's a character from a novel, a tragedy, whose argument against the existence of God is honest to bone-chilling core and irrefutably honest. So, you ask, how does this have to memory? Well, I don't know although this book fittingly came into my memory today in class. I remember that from about page 300 in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov I start to highlight words in the novel, there are simply too many words I don't know, so then I finish the book and write down the highlights in a notebook on a plane flight back home at the beginning of summer. Below you'll see the majority of what I've found in the notebook. The vocabulary is of two sorts, as in there is one of two reasons that I chose highlight a particular word: 1) It's completely unfamiliar and unknown. 2) It's recognizable, but its definition or concept isn't confidently understood.

So here you have it, 51 vocab words:

-Precocity, tinge, churl, gnash, insidious, free mason, magnanimous, amiable, ineluctable, ardent, ardor, rheumatic, timorous, mitigate, samovar, banal, amicable, abacus, promissory, troika, aphorism, ingenuous, lucre, physiognomy, lorgnette, impetuous, soiree, derisive, venerable, wheedle, talisman, apropos, homeopath, marquis, expatiate, parenthetic, inscrutable, arbiter, casuistry, buxom, trepidation, carrion, commiseration, partition, calico, inveterate, impudent, hetaera, iridescent, frock, balustrade

*Here you have the rest it, another 26:

-foisting, iota, promissory, titular, inexorable, appellation, pettifoggery, admonish, prattle, denouement, tumbler, rostrum, palatial, diocesan, besmirched, tatter, extenuation, repudiate, pensive, quash, emaciate, perspicacity, immolation, peony, liturgy, rending

On a different note, a while back in one of the first several classes Professor Sexson brought up the idea of an inside joke. Not everyone "gets it" because the joke is not an inside joke the first time or in other words "there are no inside jokes told once." This struck me and immediately this got me thinking about one of the most memorable vocabulary words I've ever been taught. From what I've already learned, an "enthymeme" is another way to say "inside joke," and it's only possible to understand an enthymeme the second time around. I remember it this way, even if what I've read online indicates otherwise, because my best friend introduced me to the word in high school. You know how it is with a best friend, you go through much together, many experiences, many stories, and many rememberings of those times which you laugh about later. These are the source your inside jokes, enthymemes of our memories which we are only able laugh at after the fact. So I'll conclude with a joke we'll get in the form of an Ong one-liner: "Memory is mother to amusement."