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No Amount of Candy in the World
Guess I slipped you. Bakhtin's the shizzle for rizzle, and a bigger champion of pagan mores than your or I could ever hope to be :)— October 14, 2009 12:07 a.m.
No Amount of Candy in the World
^Since Halloween descends from the Christianized Samhain, I feel Bakhtin's analogy is justified. Samhain was a harvest festival and, for the most part, harvest festivals were that time of year when the work paused for a brief bit when everybody got to stop being good little serfs and citizens for awhile and instead were allowed to party like kings.— October 14, 2009 12:04 a.m.
The Other Side Of California...Life In The San Joaquin Valley
OMG! Your dad was King of the Scots! I though I smelled awesome sauce! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_I_of_Scotland— October 14, 2009 12:01 a.m.
No Amount of Candy in the World
re #2: I defer to M. Bahktin who gives us the notion that all of the fabulous pagan holidays co-opted into Euro-Christian celebrations are born of the carnival spirit and the desire to mask oneself and let the world go mad for a little while.— October 13, 2009 11:58 p.m.
Columbus--The Man, The Myth...The Mercenary!
Apparently, there's a 3k word limit on comments. Here's the rest! ANYWAYS: The thing that I think isn't coming across, what no one seems to hear me saying, is that I'm really not talking about history at all. I'm talking about NOW. To clarify, my take on colonialism is pretty simple. It was awful, many people died. My family has trickled together from a lot of different places, there are colonial oppressors in there right alongside some highly oppressed Massachusett-speaking Indians. But I don't see the point in talking about that because we live in a world where things are awful NOW for lots of people, myself included since I'm incredibly, staggeringly indebted and living on a pittance. What I have been trying to communicate is that I see contemporary attitudes towards history--or ANYTHING--as wells of information ripe for explication. Why? I ask. Why? Why do we look with such anger towards the past? What does that tell us about US here NOW in the present? Am I wrong for thinking that there's perhaps something masked by that anger, something we refuse to admit about ourselves? I don't think so, I really don't. I think it's telling that there's so much anger wrapped up in issues like this. To me, it looks like the anger of political right-mindedness. To me, our view on history is steeped in dogma. It has become heretical to question the condemnation of the past just as it was once heresy to naysay its veneration. I personally, am for neither. I just want you all to hear me say one thing: the way we deal with history has nothing whatsoever to do with past events, instead, it tells us much about ourselves right here and now. Daniels asks a great question; "Why is Columbus Day even on the calendar?" This hits us in the now, lets us look at ourselves instead of a throwing invective at a scurvy-ridden pirate hundreds of years in the grave. To further complicate my standpoint: Of COURSE we should never attempt to deny the horrors of genocide! Denying that bad s**t happens is insanity. If I could prevent things like the "Death March of de Soto" through Florida, of course I would! I'm a little ashamed that my character isn't strongly enough represented to you that you would think I propose such a thing. Clearly, I'll have to write my blogs and comments better. Call me crazy, but I just think we can do better. Get beyond the rage and anger and pointed language. Turn that critical eye towards the here and now and face our own wrongs rather than condemn someone else. At the end of the day, Pike loves you and wants you all to lead happy lives. Hugs and :* for the bunch of you. Let's all be friends.— October 13, 2009 11:54 p.m.
Columbus--The Man, The Myth...The Mercenary!
Aw, jeez, I had to come back and try this thread once more after I saw this: http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/bks/1418753272… http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/bks/1418750300… http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/bks/1418746241… Hopefully the ironic levity will convince you all that Pike still wants to be your friends and engage you in meaningful dialogue :) *** Daniels, you're feeling under the weather and I don't want to pick on you, but: "Who are we to judge which is which? I truly believe that if you are to be a writer, you should force yourself to take something about which you tend wax judgemental, and write it from at least two different points of view, really exploring each protag's feelings and consciousness. This can be applied to any topic about which we want to learn more about basic humanity." If this is your take on things--which I do believe it is because everybody here is awesome and open-minded and I like you all a lot--I feel a little miffed as it rather seems like nobody wants to discuss this with me, or even listen to me at all. I cite the pithy wisdom of my very wise roommate: "If you're angry, you're probably not 100% right about something." That said, I catch way too much anger in this thread for us to actually discuss anything productively. I will try, once more, to clarify myself. I preface this with the caveat that I don't want you all to be getting mad at me and thinking I'm some sort of weird fascist who wants to wrap himself in a flag and claim history in the name of AMERICA. Not the case at all. If anything, I'm just trying to push an idea that I think is a little more radical, a little more progressive than the current fashions and idioms of historicity.— October 13, 2009 11:54 p.m.
Ballad Of Rio Balsas
That song is wicked cool, by the by.— October 13, 2009 10:31 p.m.
Ballad Of Rio Balsas
Gringo, my vision is made only better by the fact that this debate is being carried out in passionately inflected mexican spanish, natch. The Scorpions look VERY confused.— October 13, 2009 10:30 p.m.
Degrees
Fish, the words "never" and "always" definitely seem to preface untruths, in my experience.— October 13, 2009 10:27 p.m.
Ballad Of Rio Balsas
"I talked to her about her grandmother, the scorpions, her aunt, and the brother she had never met." In my mind, the extended family surrounds a befuddled German hair band and debates whether "Rock You Like a Hurricane" is a better song than "Wind of Change." It is truly an epic visual.— October 13, 2009 10:10 p.m.