Saturday, April 9, 2011

"What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for all eternity. A pity I should have to give tongue at the same time, it prevents it from bleeding in peace, licking the lips."


The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett (1956)


Here, in the Shade





He runs a finger across her waxy, frigid smile.
Cold, yes, and just as biting.
Didn’t they ever warn you
child who plays in the woods? There are
bad things in there
things that will chase you eat you kill you
little girls little whores who don’t listen to their mothers
you think I don’t know
never knew what it felt to be a mother the
warm, soft dependency. Another being hopelessly
attached to you
wrapped in you bonded to you sacred and whole like
God’s love. Waiting for you
every morning before the dawn I’d 
wait for you here, in the shade
On us the rain bleeds, we’d huddle in the dingy dark
sink into the rotting leaves. Make ourselves invisible
Like spires beneath the earth, pushing up and up
teeth from beneath from hell biting
breaking the skin of heaven, drawing thick swells of air
we’d be gasping by the end of it
drenched in sweat like dogs like
God’s love. Waiting for you
every summer before the moon I’d
wait for you here, in the shade
Nothing cleans now nothing breaks this dingy dark 
I am cold, yes, and just as biting
as she was when we first met those 
eyes that loved me feared me hungered me
are pools of glass now frozen
skin that warmed me
burned & fed me cannot tremble at my touch
see? I can kiss you give you now my love
God’s love. little whores who don’t
listen to their fathers you think I didn’t know
don’t know what it felt like to be wasted
wanted. Hunted like an animal loved like a 
spire, I sink my teeth into your thigh 
you don’t move or scream just lay there
with a cold, soft dependency. Hopelessly
attached to me
wrapped in me bonded to me sacred and whole. Like
God’s love.

Friday, April 8, 2011

The Devil's Grievances

Voice Shift Assignment
THE DEVIL'S GRIEVANCES
Jessica Tracy


Dramatic Storytelling:
From Dialogue to Dialogic
Lisa Leaverton
AD-464 M
College of the Atlantic







Jessica Tracy
College of the Atlantic
105 Eden Street
Bar Harbor, ME




Edinburgh, Scotland. 1656. 
Told in the comedic style of a Punch and Judy show, puppets optional.

Characters
(D:)Doctor Paulitious
(Boy)Bread-seller's Son


  1. Doctor Paulitious walks slowly across the stage, cane thumping in time with his words. He is cloaked in layers of tattered brown fabric, spotted with questionable stains. His hands and head are shielded by gloves and a mask shaped from heavy leather, studded with silver clasps. His unseen face is distorted by the frightening beak of a plague doctor’s mask, giving him an almost comical appearance if his job were not so terrible. 
II. Light focuses both on the Doctor and The third booth, made of hacked-together lumber painted a worn-looking red. There are two crates in front of the stand, one turned on its side displaying loaves of bread, sweet rolls, and various mystical-looking trinkets. A young man leans against the crate eagerly chatting with 
Doctor: Sick.
D: Sick.
[At stage right there are some booths were people are buying and selling various goods. At seeing the plague doctor most go quiet, but the haggling still continues in some corners.]
D: Sick. [he wheezes a cough which causes many to depart, flocking from the stage. Only a few shopkeepers remain, who stare at the doctor with grumbled contempt. The plague doctor stops at the first booth, where a young man is selling bread and pocket various charmed ornaments and talismans.]

Boy: Those were paying customers, you know. Every time..I was this close.
D: I..apologize. Have you--
Boy: She’s beautiful, isn’t she?
D: ...Who?
Boy: Her! Jesus, you ain’t blind, yet, right? The girl your beak face scared away. 
D: [pauses]

D: Have you the bread?

Boy: Oh, bread. Yes. One peice a loaf.
D: Fine, fine. I’ve got nine. 
Boy: Three, then.
D: [voice raises slightly in grievance]You’ve just raised it trifold!
[pauses]I refuse. One is one, and this is one. One for this, no more, no less. 
Boy: Aw, come now, Doctor. Don’t think death clouds your heavy pockets. You’ve silver fixtures on a that hideous mask, I’m not as blind as you.
D: They’re for the spirits, silver repels--
Boy: Repels customers, that’s what you do. Had two ladies here fixing to buy two pans of rolls until your sorry cough sent ‘em away. Surely, you can spare a couple of bucks to give charity, at least.
D:...Who’s Charity?
Boy: Me girlfriend. It’s her birthday, see, and I haven’t gotten ‘er a present.
D: You’ve got bread.
Boy: A lady don’t want bread. ‘Sides, she’s the baker’s daughter so I think she’s enough bread as it is. 

D: What...have I got to do with this Charity girl…? [coughs again, almost threateningly causing the other shopkeepers to flinch.]
Boy: ‘Ey, you watch who you’re calling a girl, you dingy old bat. I’d be smart to raise it four with a mouth like yours!
D: Ah--! Better watch the clouds, child. The gods look stormy. You’ll bargain the daylight rays keeping on like this. 
Boy: Yes, and your nice hat will get all damp and smell of skin. 
D: Your bread soggy... 
Boy: a nice vase of roses-- 
D: Best settle for daisies. 
Boy: You’ve no heart, death. 
D: Was that thunder?
Boy: Two and a half and you’ll have your bread! [snarls] If not roses, I’ll ‘ave a warm bed at least.
D: [hands him the money] I wouldn’t be so sure of that. You have forgotten her birthday and all…[voice rises slightly in excitement, seemingly on a roll] Your..friend was ...she the baker’s daughter?
Boy: Mmmhm. [a trickle of young women walk by, his eyes follow them wolfishly] What of it?
D: That one... over there? With the pretty eyes? [pointing offstage]
Boy: Yeah, that’s ‘er. 
D: [begins to walk away, bread in hand. Many of the other shopkeepers, seeing the rain clouds, have packed up and left. Only the bread-seller and the plague doctor remain on stage.] My...dearest sympathies.
Boy: What? She’s gorgeous! 
D: Hmmm, pretty indeed. Taken, I fear...
Boy: What, Doctor, are you telling me she’s betrothed?!
D:...in a way.
Boy: [exasperated, running a hand through his hair as if he knew it to be so already] Oh, god! That lying bitch! [comes out from behind the counter to sit on a bench, head in hands]
Boy: It’s one of the O'Reilly boys, isn’t it? The tall, older one? 
D: ...No. No. [sits down beside him on the bench, the boy edges a bit away, as if he smells bad. The doctor stares straight ahead, not noticing.]
Boy: The blacksmith’s son? With the drinking problem?
  
D: No! I mean Death, you fool! She’s cursed, fated! Marked with the plague.
Boy:[darkly] Well now you tell me. Could ‘a said something last week before I bought that larkey broach for ‘er. She had to have copper, the thing nearly cost me my left tooth. 
D: [clobs him over the head with a club] Oh, you--! [hits him again in the head with a club
Boy is beneath the stage now. The stage is silent for a moment before PRETTY CHARITY pops up, coming to the Bread-seller's booth gesturing she’d like to buy a loaf. D looks rather stiff (stunned, but there’s a mask there) and slowly hands her a loaf without saying anything]
PRETTY POLLY: [annoyed and a bit off-put] How many pieces, then? 
D: Three.
PRETTY POLLY: That’s bats if you ask me. 
Fin



Friday, January 14, 2011

Re-imaging Truth Through Holistic Epistemology

Jessica Tracy
Collective Constellations: How The Seven Myths Re-images Truth Through Holistic Epistemology

“Historians today are priests of a cult of truth, called to the service of a god whose existence they are doomed to doubt.”
-Matthew Restall
Within the context of the Spanish Conquest, Matthew Restall brings to the surface questions on the value of absolute truth, advocating the reader to instead examine history as multifaceted and composed of various perspectives, ideas, and dimensions. Over the course of his work, Restall deconstructs seven cultural misconceptions about the Conquest, targeting the source of the “myths” as well as aiming to determine their effect on our understanding of history and formation of roles within the greater context of events. He supports his argument by defending the value of subjectivity to the interpretation of history and observing the insight differing perspectives offer to our greater understanding of an event. In the interest of accuracy, we must remain cognisant that like the present, the past is an infinitely complex constellation of collective experiences in which cultures and individuals simultaneously create and validate varying conceptions of reality.  In the face of such complexity, it is clear the idea of absolute truth is one that’s best abandoned. Restall claims that, “We can compare the truths of the conquistadors to our truths about them, and as a result achieve a better understanding of the conquest--- even if that understanding does not pretend to be the truth in an absolute sense.” (Restall, xvii) He further elaborates that while it is the aim of a good historian to seek out the most accurate and unbiased information, accuracy does not imply absolute truth. Rather, in examining situations from a more macroscopic lens, the historian reduces the risk of misconceptions deriving from cultural differences, while also widening the intellectual arena to incorporate multiplicities of varying accounts, each offering shades of truth to further enrich our understanding of the human narrative. 
Restall’s point resonates with many other contemporary scholars, whose work can be interpreted as a holistic approach to epistemology, moving towards a reunification of experience, knowledge, and meaning. The reappearance of holism in western thought seems to signal the approach of a paradigm shift; pulling away from the mechanized state of being and reestablishing the significance of interconnected resonance. The demystification began during the Eighteenth century, when the western world experienced a pivotal shift in consciousness as the sciences replaced religious doctrines as the dominant philosophical authority. With the scientific revolution, reason became the new dogma and with the emergence of mechanical philosophy, all behaviors of tangible bodies could be explained through examination of the relationships of their parts. The concept of the whole was delegitimatized, instead an object’s actuality was derivative of the sum of parts. The best way to know about the world was to look deep within, to pry loose the esoteric stitches binding truth and knowledge to religious authority and continue the deconstruction in search of truth itself. It was from here the quest for absolute certainty set forth to free knowledge from the deceptions of the senses to incite reconstruction of a new epistemological framework upon a solid foundation of a inarguable and universal truth. 
This cultural paradigm transcended into all forms of academia, though Restall questions the overall effectiveness of absolute certainty in the realm of history, for it attempts to sterilize a group or culture’s experience of an event of subjectivity. This eradication is not only an impossible aim, but doing so results in the creation of more distorted misconceptions. The other issue is one purely of translation. When history is read and recorded it is told from a singular voice, as if seen by one set of eyes omnipresent, and the result is the flattening a multidimensional object---time--- into a single story; one protagonist, one plot line, one image. Restall uses the example of CuauhtĂ©moc’s capture and assassination to illustrate the conflicts historians face when trying to translate an experience of the collective into the language of singularity. Here the author is faced with four accounts of the events, from varying cultural backgrounds and motivations from which he aims first to establish common grounds between the stories before comparing the conflicting details. He finds that, “the dialogues seem clear within the context of each individual account, but that clarity breaks down when the texts are compared.” (Restall 155) This statement is not surprising when interpreted literally, as each account is not so simply a record, but an interpretation of events. If one chooses to examine the statement as a metaphor, it reflects the integrated relationship between truth and context, a symbiotic relationship that renders the individual as both an island and atom in the larger culture, influenced by both personal and collective experiences. 
The resolution Restall provides is a more phenomenological approach to truth, accepting subjectivity as integral to the human experience and of value when struggling to derive meaning from cultural phenomena. While it would be nice to observe the events of history from an omnipresent state, our individual interpretations will always remain altered and imprisoned by our cultural conditioning and individual experiences. Although a concrete idea of what really happened evanesces when you compare the accounts of CuauhtĂ©moc’s death, unintentional information reveals itself about the affiliations and values of each witness and opens the doorway for further dialogue on the cultural and political implications of perceptual differences between major actors within the Spanish Conquest. Likewise, the way historians choose to present this story can also be examined as a reflection of cultural consciousness. As opposed to reducing the Conquest to bits of facts and evidence rearranged mosaic-like in loose cohesion, Restall’s method for best deconstructing the mythos and preventing harmful misconceptions is to approach the past in search of clarification through understanding instead of certainty. The Conquest of the Americas remains one episode in history where “The concepts of a particular culture, the way they are expressed, and the relationship between those words and reality, can lead to genuine insight into a historical phenomenon.” (Restall xv) Further, meaning can derive not just from the alinement of common information, but also from conflicting accounts there is born a peripheral truth which speaks to a more holistic understanding of the relationship between past histories and current situations. He concludes in musing that, “our purpose as readers of history is to explore [the] metaphors, to journey behind them into the motive, methods, and mundane patterns of human behavior.” (Restall 157) In this we draw connections between cultures and movements across the transcendent terrain of space and time, a galaxy of tapestries in complete truth interwoven, conveying the story of life. 

Works Cited:
Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford UP, 2003. Print.