Sunday, April 22, 2012


Joel Schwartz
4-21-2012
ENG 258

Armory Show of 1913



Oscar Bluemner’s landscape depicted in his 1911 painting Canal, Patterson, New Jersey parallels T.S. Eliot’s “Unreal City” and the modernist motifs of his poem The Wasteland.  Bluemner was an American and his painting’s setting a scene ten-years prior to Eliot’s description of post-World War One London, yet his bleak portrait and The Wasteland’s prose fit together like they were made for one another.  I see leafless and scrawny trees peeking out from behind simplistic structures and Eliot‘s words resound -“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?”  The world these artists were born into had re-invented itself through industrial revolution and would not be coming back.  Cities grew in size, nature’s place within them shrank accordingly and a modern landscape emerged to replace a more classical one.
Long before these men’s documentation of their changed surroundings, the American poet Henry Wadsworth noted his in saying that if a material revolution should radically change the nature of the items we interact with “the poet will sleep no more than at present” and I believe this brings up an interesting notion.  Modern times are no less beautiful than classic ones and the respective artwork of each must be held in the light of the values of the period which the artist attempted to reassure or challenge.  The classic masters painted the divine - religious or natural - and the modernists chose to portray human beings in all their gritty commonness.  Enlightenment thinking would lead to the commission of paintings to glorify and honor subject material greater than man while Modernists were spending their time documenting everyday life.



In 1912 the American painter Guy Pen du Bois creates a scene of two women reading books in their living room, titles it Interior and calls it art.  The notion is so familiar, so acceptable in its normality that it exists within the thin line separating bland reality from respected critique of it.  Painted 100 years ago, the piece shows women in what would have been seen then as in their place inside the home - inside of society’s limits placed upon them.  The women are domesticated, heads buried in their books, reading for leisure in a period where their role outside the home was minimal at best.  Emily Dickinson’s words compliment du Bois’s piece perfectly when she writes “They shut me up in Prose, as when a little girl - They put me in the Closet, because they liked me ‘still.’”  The women in du Bois’ piece are no more marginalized by society than Dickinson was but the depiction of them had become acceptable subject material for the visual arts - they had become a social landscape to replace the natural ones of the past.  The divinity and breathtaking qualities which ethereal works were praised for at once seemed pretentious and as if they were lying to their audiences about what being alive is all about.  It’s understandable to strive for perfection in life, yet repeated and never-ending scenes of perfection leave the art viewer feeling as if they’ve living palely by comparison to the beauty they look upon.  Conversely, we see the simplicity of human existence - of two women reading much as we have on long nights - and are re-affirmed of the divinity of the little things in life.  It’s spiritualism in the commonplace.   It’s artists who wandered from portraying subjects with inherent godlike qualities and rather began bestowing these characteristics upon what was previously the common rabble.



We gaze upon the French painter Paul Cézanne’s self-portrait completed in 1894.  The piece echoes Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself where he says “I resist anything better than my own diversity and breathe the air and leave plenty after me, and am not stuck up, and am in my place.”  Whitman’s prose is very humbling, much as Cézanne’s portraiture would have you believe of him as well.  The separate works each portray their creators without exalting them in the process - each man modestly acknowledges himself as an individual without boasting.  One characteristic of Modernist thinking is that of self-consciousness and focusing ones eyes upon one’s immediate surroundings, not striving to create something perfect but rather to create something human.  Whitman summarizes this concept best in saying “What is a man anyhow? What am I? and what are you? All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,  Else it were time lost listening to me.”


Monday, March 26, 2012

"The Revolt of Mother" & "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Each of these stories focus their attention upon women whose opinions are invalidated by their husbands.  In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's tale The Yellow Wallpaper, a woman is told how she must cure her nervous depression by her husband after he is the one who diagnoses her.  He is the one who makes the decision for where they will vacation to during this recovery period and even where exactly his wife will sleep once they arrive.  She is told to stay in a disheveled wallpapered-room which grows on her over time, eventually resulting in a complete mental breakdown and subsequent boost of willpower sufficient to challenge her husband's plans for her and assert her own.  While sane, the narrator adheres to the wishes of her husband and plays a docile, ignorant role in her own life, yet after a psychological breakdown, she values the wallpaper of her confined room over the wishes of her husband, and becomes independent, albeit insane.

In Mary. E Wilkin's tale The Revolt of Mother, a woman married forty-years to her husband confronts him over the importance of his life as a farmer outweighing his obligations as a married man.  His wife brings this up after he begins work on a lavish barn rather than a proper house to replace the meager one they've lived in since their marriage.  She says he values his animals more than his wife and children - a claim he seems unshaken by.  This woman's husband has not fulfilled his promise of a new house for forty-years and he has little interest in listening to her pleas now.  After the completion of the barn, he goes away on business and asks her to move new materials and animals he's ordered into the new barn when they arrive.  Rather than this, his wife chooses to reverse the roles of her current house and new barn, so she and her children move all their household items to the new structure.  Upon returning from his trip, the husband sees how important a new house is to his family, agrees with his wife's wishes and allows her this victory over his wishes.  This is different from The Yellow Wallpaper because his wife doesn't go insane during the process of doing something to please herself for once.  In The Yellow Wallpaper, the author draws back from society and her family and becomes a part of the wallpapered-nursery.  In The Revolt of Mother, the wife jumps out from her domesticated comfort-zone at home to create a new home in the newly constructed barn.  Both women get what they want, essentially, yet one curls up inside a single room and another moves everything she owns. It's all about relocation.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Dickinson, Emerson, Whitman & Douglass [Freedom Quotes]

Dickinson
"The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind"

I believe this to be an interesting statement Dickinson is trying to make about the overwhelming amount of shocking information we're blissfully unaware of.  We're not ignorant, per say, but if we were to be confronted with all the dramatic truths of the world, we'd be overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.  Freedom, to Dickinson, may be the status of a man who may gradually uncover the truth.  Staying in the dark or being exposed to the blinding light of omniscience each render men blind and thus, shackled.

Emerson
"In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking."
Here, Emerson introduces the interesting concept of intellectual slavery - that is, merely repeating the thoughts of others without adding to, modifying or expanding upon their conclusions.  Emerson defines a "proper" intellectual as "Man Thinking," or progressive.  He defines a degenerate state of pseudo-intellectualism as one in which a man becomes a mere parrot, repeating others thoughts verbatim.

Whitman
"You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself."
Emerson is clearly saying here that he does not wish his readers to take his opinions as their own.  He says he wants his readers to think for themselves, free of his minute involvement in their lives.  Emerson sounds very much like Emerson when he proposes the idea to his readers that their thoughts should neither begin or end with his - that they should think for themselves to truly be free (in thought).

Douglass
"The ties that ordinarily bind children to their homes were all suspended in my case. I found no severe trial in my departure. My home was charmless; it was not home to me; on parting from it, I could not feel that I was leaving any thing which I could have enjoyed by staying."
Frederick Douglass was a slave, so he more than anyone, should know exactly what freedom is and is not.  He writes of leaving his home, where he was raised and worked, and feeling no sadness during his departure.  This is the departure of a slave from an epicenter of slavery - a plantation - and freedom is leaving happily, without regret, even if it is only temporary.  Like a prisoner being transferred from one prison to another, the relative freedom between locations is a breath of fresh air.  Douglass won't know true freedom for quite some time, and until then, this is his silver lining.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Dickinson's Richest Word

In the poem which I had analyzed line by line last week, I believe the word "soul" is the most important.  Dickinson is writing about weather a soul (be that an individual or a literal spirit) chooses to allow other entities to associate with itself.  The word appears all capitalized at the beginning of the poem which strongly indicates its importance to the piece.  The soul is referred to as "her" throughout the poem and personified through figuratively shutting a door and noticing a chariot approaching a gate belonging to her as well.  Each time "she" is referred to, Dickinson is referring to the SOUL, but weather this is a person, mere idea, or divine figure is anyone's guess.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Dickenson, one line at a time

The SOUL selects her own society
Then shuts the door;   
On her divine majority   
Obtrude no more.   

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing   
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling   
Upon her mat.   

I ’ve known her from an ample nation   
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention   
Like stone.







The SOUL selects her own society 
Not the mind, not God 
The society is formed through selective souls

Then shuts the door;
As if to say no more
To let no more enter
To cut itself off through its own accord

On her divine majority 
The rest of the souls, the soulless and the rest Divinity attributed through selection
Selection attributed through triage of divinity
Divinity selected by the soul  


Obtrude no more.
Shut the door
This is not the time, nor the place, nor the company
Definitive



Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
Focused
One soul slows to near another  


At her low gate;
Humbly, one's soul has been approached
A gate sends a message
A low gate sends the same message, yet can be overcome with ease  


Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling 
A great soul has humbled itself
Humility is a dance for two Respect is mutual  


Upon her mat. 
Singled out, a second soul has come to the society 
It rests where the first lay itself down 
It's looked down upon no more than it has chosen to look up to another 


I've known her from an ample nation
Familiar and capable
The past is not forgotten

Choose one;
Like any other, why not
Ready for judgement
Ready for success as much as failure

Then close the valves of her attention
The soul has decided
It has closed a passage

Either in acceptance inside
Or rejection outside

Like stone.
Strong resolve
Heavily weighted in favor for or against
Not immovably, but decisively


Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Emerson, Whitman & Douglass on "Freedom"

In Emerson's 1837 speech The American Scholar, he alludes to freedom of thought in the sense of a thinker being independent from simply internalizing another thinker's words.  For example, a parrot who repeats words does not understand them or their concepts, they merely make the sounds which they have heard previously.  Likewise, a true intellectual thinker according to Emerson should not simply repeat thoughts they've come across exactly as they've heard them, but rather interject their own knowledge into the mixture.  Freedom, in the intellectual sense, means freedom to debate theories and add to them rather than accepting them as infallible and merely repeating them.  Enslavement, in the intellectual sense, would then be to accept other's words without question and to fall victim to logic that may be unjust or simply wrong.

To Walt Whitman, freedom is in a poet's ability to overcome their title as a poet and transcend the barrier between writer and reader.  He wants very much to be intimate with his readers and have them not consider him a distant, elite voice but rather their own voice embodied in poetry they can relate to.  In his 1855 poem Leaves of Grass he writes that "You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself," - a concept Emerson would certainly agree with from a scholarly point of view.  Whitman believes freedom lies in the ability to read poetry and separate the meaning of the words from the connotations readers associate with lofty writers - the ability to relate to poetry rather than relate to a poet.  Whitman wants his readers to be free from the mindset which keeps them from interpreting his words as their own thoughts - from using his prose to describe themselves rather than him.

Frederick Douglass has a very literal definition of freedom: the ability for someone to be free of the de-humanizing qualities imposed by another person.  He calls this out two-fold though, saying that as much as slaves are made so by their master's cruelty, their masters are also de-humanized through the cruelty they impose upon their slaves.  In chapter 7 of Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, he writes of a benevolent mistress whom he becomes the first slave of in Baltimore and how through becoming her slave, she becomes a slave of her own evils as well.  Through acquiring him as property, this moral woman becomes a cruel master and abuses her power over her new servants - through Douglass losing his freedom, she loses her human civility.  Freedom, to Douglass, is two-fold, and through enslavement, neither the master nor the slave retain their humanity.  Such is the nature of slavery.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The American Scholar



"Each philosopher, each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself."


This quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson's speech The American Scholar drew me directly to another of his quotes; that of "defer never to the popular cry." In context, both of these quotes exemplify his argument to see the world through your own eyes, not the eyes of another human, and to interpret all other knowledge through your own mind rather than taking it at face value. These are both integral components of a constructive thought processes which aims to achieve more than regurgitate past knowledge. In essence, I believe Emerson is also alluding to the belief that no matter how great the man promoting an idea, it will only be as well received as it is understood - ie: the proverb of a chain being only as strong as its weakest link. This spin on his quote then interprets it as meaning that no other human's knowledge can be absorbed without fully understanding the logic behind it - that some ideas cannot be absorbed by those who cannot fathom them - which I truly believe.

Emerson states how fragmented and independent society will forever be and attributes this to uniqueness of mind - of thought. Another man's thought does not resound with you unless you understand it - unless you can make meaning of it yourself.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Phone Booth (Narrative Structure & Synopsis)


Joel Schwartz
2-6-2012
English 258

Phone Booth
"Isn't it funny? You hear a phone ring, and it could be anybody
...but a ringing phone has to be answered, doesn't it?"

For me, what makes a plotline scary is weather the situations which arise are plausible, and thus, relevant in their foreboding for one’s own life.  Joel Schmacher’s 2002 film Phone Booth is scary in this sense.  A successful New York publicist played by Colin Farell is walking around town the same he would any other day when he enters a phone booth on the side of the street.  First, he calls a woman he’s considering cheating on his wife with and before he finishes his conversation, he’s interrupted by a pizza delivery man who wants to use the phone.  Colin Farrel’s character, Stu, rudely dismisses him.  After finishing his conversation and as he’s about to leave the phone booth, the phone rings again - he answers it.  The unidentified man on the other line says he’s set up men in situations like this before, which confuses Stu.
The man on the other end of the line tells Stu he’s watching him through a high powered rifle scope and that if he leaves the phone booth or hangs up, he will be shot.  He asks the man on the other line what he wants with him, and the caller responds that all he wants is the truth - for Stu to admit to his wife that he was about to cheat on her, and that after accomplishing this, he’ll be allowed to leave unharmed.
By this point, Stu has been in the phone booth for quite some time and a group of prostitutes yell at him to let them use the booth, then disappear.  Stu believes the man‘s bluffing at this point, but after the sniper shoots a toy on the sidewalk near the phone booth, Stu’s gripped by fear.  The women return with their pimp and the man begins to beat the glass on the phone booth in with a baseball bat.  In fear for his life yet simultaneously unwilling to put the phone down for fear of the sniper, Stu asks for help, which is when the unidentified man shoots the man assaulting the phone booth dead on the spot.  
At this time, police officers and reporters arrive on the scene and are told by the prostitutes that Stu has shot the man.  The sniper tells Stu to feel around in the glass enclosure above the photo booth, where he finds a pistol the sniper has planted there.  Forrest Whitaker arrives on scene as Police Detective Ramey who wants to get Stu out of whatever situation he’s found himself in, but police are unable to tap the phone line or remove him from the booth safely.  Stu’s wife and would-be mistress, Pam, arrive on scene, at which point he’s told he must tell them the truth right there, live on TV, which he does.
Stu uses his cell phone on speakerphone to alert his wife, and eventually Ramey, of the situation he’s found himself in, at which point they begin combing the surrounding skyscrapers looking for the sniper - unbeknownst to him.  The sniper tells Stu to confess his sins over the years to the crowd which includes his friends and television cameras, and after this, to use the hidden pistol to kill Detective Ramey or the unidentified man will shoot his wife or Pam.  Stu rushes out of the booth and exclaims “it’s me you want” before being shot in the shoulder by a rubber bullet from a police sniper covering the scene.  The police backwards trace the phone call the sniper made to Stu’s wife and break into a upper-story hotel room, discovering a high-powered rifle and a body.  As he’s recovering in an ambulance about to be sent to the hospital, Stu demands to see the body of the sniper, which turns out to be the pizza man who originally tried to use the phone booth hours earlier.  As Stu’s passing out, the sniper approaches him and compliments him on his shoes before warning him to stay a moral person or he’ll be visited again.  Stu passes out and another man answers a phone to talk to the sniper.  “Hello?”



This is such a great movie.  It’s scary because it’s plausible, yes, but it’s also so dramatic it’s amazing.  I picked this film as my narrative because the main character, once the action begins, moves less than 5 feet the entire movie - yet is clearly the protagonist.  The action all revolves around him, with his “original life” being before he enters the phone booth and his changed life being once he leaves it.  Stu’s transformation is one of selflessness, of first being a manipulative liar and ending the film as a man who will probably take nothing for granted ever again.
Upon entering the phone booth, the rising action of the film begins when the man on the other line names the woman Stu’s considering cheating on his wife with.  The true action begins after the pimp is shot dead by the sniper, and the climax of the film is likely when Stu grabs the hidden pistol and begins waving it around, endangering his life at the hands of the nearby police.  Due to the police department’s inability to tap into the phone line due to a measurement taken by the sniper, the conversations in this film occur between Stu and people on the phone with him separately than they occur between him and the world outside the phone booth - an interesting duality.  The journey Stu takes over the course of this film is introspective - it’s about revealing himself to others - rather than himself learning anything new the whole film.  The sniper is never caught and the audience walks away from the film thinking of how they would react with a similar situation.  That’s what great stories accomplish though, self-realization, not mere fantasy exposition.  Bravo.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Introduction

Hello.  My name's Joel Schwartz and I'm attending San Francisco State University currently majoring in the Humanities.  There's a joke in the major that the only occupation available to graduates is to teach humanities courses in the future, but I hope to disprove that.  If you're not sure what a humanities major entails, then you already understand the predicament.  In my free time, I enjoy urban photography and collecting music.  A few times a month, I DJ for friend's house parties with my favorite genre being 1990s underground hip-hop.  If you share any of these interests with me, please let me know so I'm not just that guy in the back of class who's assuming everyone else is an English or creative-writing major.  Cheers.