Rhizome

One of the classes I would like to teach would be Science Fiction literature. Some of the books I would like to include would be:

Asimov, "I, Robot," Foundation
Heinlein, "The Green Hills of Earth," Stranger in a Strange Land
Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Huxley, Brave New World
Herbert, Dune
Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Man in the High Castle, Ubik, A Scanner Darkly
LeGuin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, The Telling
Delany, Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Babel-17
Gibson, Neuromancer
Ballard, Stories
Niven, Ringworld
Butler, Lilith's Brood, Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents, Wild Seed
Robinson, Years of Rice and Salt, Red Mars
Willis, Doomsday Book

Possible Movies:
Star Wars
Star Trek (I'm partial to IV and VIII)
The Matrix
Pleasantville
The Truman Show
Jurassic Park
ET
AI: Artifical Intelligence
Minority Report
2001: A Space Odyssey
Logan's Run
Planet of the Apes
Silent Running
Andromeda Strain
Soylent Green
Alien
Blade Runner
Terminator
Altered States

Possible Criticism:
Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction
Freedman, Critical Theory and Science Fiction
Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto"

Yet another Beatles compilation CD I burned lately . . .

Here Comes the Sun
Yellow Submarine
All Together Now
Till There Was You
Birthday
In My Life
Blackbird
Tomorrow Never Knows
Eleanor Rigby
Hey Jude
Honey Pie
I Am the Walrus
Rocky Raccoon
Only a Northern Song
Penny Lane
Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
Julia
Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Magical Mystery Tour
Strawberry Fields Forever
Octopus's Garden
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Let It Be
Across the Universe

If I were to re-burn a similar CD I would make certain changes. I would probably subtract some of these:
Only a Northern Song
I Am the Walrus
Hey Jude
Let It Be

I would probably try to figure out a way to add other songs, such as:
Golden Slumbers
Good Night
You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)
Martha My Dear
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da
Fool on the Hill

Hello Goodbye sort of fits with this theme, too, but I can't stand that song!

This academic quarter I was planning to write essays along with my students in order both to give them one possible model on how to write papers and to jumpstart my own writing output, which has suffered greatly from writer's block in recent years. Well, it didn't quite work out that way as I had many distractions, such as buying a house and moving in, commenting on and grading the students' papers themselves, and having a one-year-old daughter who is a much larger priority in my life than work, even if I hope to build my writing more so that it becomes my life's work. I did, however, happen to write the first paragraph of a paper that I liked, and it's been a long time since I really liked something I wrote. So before it disappeared into the ether of my accumulating unfinished writing projects, I thought I would post it here. The paper was to have been about the movie Pleasantville, specifically the music in it. I was inspired to begin writing this essay because I had been so moved by the music in the movie. Maybe next quarter, I can get it together to write the entire essay, or maybe I'll have moved on to other interests. Either way, here it is:

“Nothing’s gonna change my world.” So goes the chorus of the song “Across the Universe” written by John Lennon but sung by Fiona Apple at the conclusion of Pleasantville, a 1998 film written and directed by Gary Ross and starring Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. Considering that the Beatles are often cited as part of the dramatic cultural changes that happened during the 1960s, along with the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, and feminism, such a lyric is rather odd. The song seems tinged with two contradictory ideas: first, a sense of melancholy at the seeming inability of the world to change in a substantial way (desperation with “the more things change, the more they stay the same” reality of the world); second, perhaps a more positive feeling of acceptance of the world (this goes along with the “waves of joy” and the “limitless undying love” in other parts of the song). Likewise, the use of the song at the end of the movie all about the transformation of a fictional town stuck in the 1950s into a more contemporary way of life seems strange. Throughout Pleasantville we’re reminded of the way music can serve as a force for cultural change.

An outline for the rest of the paper looks like this:

II. Paragraph Two: Music that the characters can themselves hear (“Interdiegetic”)
A. Juke box
1. “Take Five” performed by the Dave Brubeck quartet plays when residents of Pleasantville begin to question Bud/David about what is outside their town, a question that had never occurred to them before; “cool” drumming synchronizes with the significant pauses between the questions and the halting attempts at answers
2. Buddy Holly’s “Rave On” that plays when the juke box is plugged back in after the mob destroys the maltshop. At first a nervous young woman yells at them to stop the music, but Bud/David resists this. (“rave on” indeed!)
B. Radio
a. Etta James’s “At Last” plays as Bud/David and Margaret drive to Lovers’ Lane; the beauty of the performance matches the beauty of their surroundings—falling cherry blossoms
(This might end up being broken up into two or three separate paragraphs)
III. Paragraph Three: Period Music that the characters cannot hear (“Extradiegetic”)
A. “(I Want To Be Your) Teddy Bear” sung by Elvis after Bud/David has asked out Margaret and runs home with an infectious enthusiasm, jumping over neighbor’s fence
IV. Paragraph Four: Orchestral Music
1. the swelling heroic theme that plays when Bud/David gives Mr. Johnson the art book

Concluding Paragraph
In the final paragraph of my essay I was going to incorporate a quotation that I like: “Artworks provide new ways of structuring our experience. . . . Works of art provide . . . new coherences. From the experientialist point of view, art is, in general, a matter of imaginative rationality and a means of creating new realities.” From Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. I was going to say music does this too, as evidenced by the movie’s use of music.

I had another idea for a Beatles compilation album. This would be a collection of songs that spoke in a more meditation/philosophical/mystical vein than just the generic love song or rocker song. Here are some possible songs in this collection:

Can't Buy Me Love
Till There Was You
A Hard Day's Night
Help!
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
It's Only Love
Yesterday
We Can Work It Out
Drive My Car
Nowhere Man
The Word
In My Life
Rain
Taxman
I'm Only Sleeping
Love You Too
Yellow Submarine
Eleanor Rigby
She Said She Said
Good Day Sunshine
Tomorrow Never Knows
Penny Lane
Strawberry Fields Forever
With a Little Help from My Friends
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Getting Better
Fixing a Hole
Within You Without You
Good Morning Good Morning
A Day in the Life
Magical Mystery Tour
Fool on the Hill
All You Need Is Love
Baby, You're a Rich Man
I Am the Walrus
Lady Madonna
The Inner Light
Dear Prudence
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
I'm So Tired
Blackbird
Julia
Yer Blues
Mother Nature's Son
Good Night
Hey Jude
Revolution
Get Back
The Ballad of John and Yoko
Let It Be
Across the Universe
I Dig a Pony
Two of Us
I've Got a Feeling
The Long and Winding Road
Come Together
Something
Octopus's Garden
Here Comes the Sun
Because
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window/Golden Slumbers/Carry the Weight/The End
All Things Must Pass
Imagine

Hmmm . . . This is getting to be a very long list.

As a frequent listener to talk radio, I often hear conservative callers challenge Democrats for being obstructionists. They say that Democrats are merely against Republicans and don't have a positive agenda of their own. Well, I think it's quite clear what Democrats are for. It can be stated fairly simply: Generally, Democrats favor social policies brought about by the New Deal which helped usher in middle-class prosperity and economic opportunities for the broad majority of people in this country for the past 60 years; they tend to support basic civil and human rights that afford people a basic dignity in their lives—such items in this category include rights to an education, assistance in housing, support for medical insurance, bankruptcy protections, and basic rights against a potentially invasive government, like free speech, freedom of/from religion, and protection of privacy; Democrats generally support the rights of workers to organize themselves into unions (unions helped create the basic 40 hour work week, helped workers with pensions and medical insurance, and bargained for safe working conditions); Democrats generally support measures that help insure a long-term healthy environment—clean water and air acts, tax credits for efficiency in energy usage, wanting to do something about global warming. A member of the current administration summed it up nicely: this is a reality-based community (he was being contemptuous of this idea).

As far as I can tell, Republicans support corporate cronyist corruption. They’ve never met a defense contractor they didn’t like. They say they support the military, while at the same time they’re eager to cut veterans' benefits, extend national guard and reserve deployments beyond reasonable time limits, and cut hazard pay. They generally advance a very narrow fundamentalist religious point of view in social issues (“love the fetus, hate the child”; Schiavo case; don’t follow a science-based world view on solving problems; etc.) Representatives of the current administration present a very arrogant, bullying, and unapologetic tone to the world in acknowledging problems (I thought we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq). They kow-tow to petroleum and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. They’re so vigilantly against any tax increases that they severely hamper the ability of government to carry out basic functions such as education and law enforcement—and they make themselves look incredibly greedy in not wanting to share anything for the common good. If the classic liberal is “tax and spend” then Republicans tend to be “borrow and spend” since their large tax cuts for the rich are creating large budget deficits that will need to be repaid eventually. They support one civil right: the right to own a gun (which is a questionable interpretation of the 2nd constitutional amendment), and they’re unwilling to allow any measures to infringe on this right even if it helps lower crime rates, such as background checks or waiting periods or limiting purchase of semi-automatic weapons (I’m not a hunter myself, but I would guess that an AK-47 would make an ineffective way to hunt deer or elk).

This may sound one-sided, but I’m not even a Democrat! I’m a member of the Green Party because I don’t think the Democrats are aggressive enough in promoting a progressive vision for the country’s future.