Wednesday, April 19, 2000

i found a really nice blog in my referral log. everybody check out mellifluous dot org.
posted by April Fraze 4/19/2000 11:07:49 PM| link

" 'to return to our subject...as you say, it took man a long, long time to tumble to the fact that he was meant for greater things than he could achieve living like a lion or a wombat. for some three million years he was just a part of the anarchy, was just one more creature rolling around in the slime.'

'right.'

'it was only about ten thousand years ago that he finally realized that his place was not in the slime. he had to lift himself out of the slime and take this place in hand and straighten it out.'

'right.'

'but the world didn't meekly submit to human rule, did it?

'no.'

'no, the world defied him. what man built up, the wind and rain tore down. the fields he cleared for his crops and his villages, the jungle fought to reclaim. the seeds he sowed, the birds snatched away. the shoots he nurtured, the insects nibbled. the harvest he stored, the mice plundered. the animals he bred and fed, the wolves and foxes stole away. the mountains, the rivers, and the oceans stood in their places and would not make way for him. the earthquake, the flood, the hurricane, the blizzard, and the drought would not disappear at his command.'

'true.'

'what do you mean?'

'if the king comes to the city that will not submit to his rule, what does he have to do?'

'he has to conquer it.'

of course. in order to make himself the ruler of the world, man first had to conquer it.'

'good lord,' i said-and nearly leaped up out of my chair while striking my brow and all the rest.

--ishmael, daniel quinn
posted by April Fraze 4/19/2000 10:54:38 PM| link

today is what?

(a) the anniversary of the oklahoma bombing;
(b) the anniversary of the waco disaster;
(c) the eve of the anniversary of the columbine shootings;
(d) all of the above

the answer is (d). so what is it about this week in april that turns people so ugly....i think i'll be staying away from public places.
posted by April Fraze 4/19/2000 05:45:55 PM| link

and so the student continues his story of how things came to be:

" 'the world was made for man, but it took him a long, long time to figure that out. for nearly three million years he lived as though the world had been made for jellyfish. that is, he lived as though he were just like any other creature, as though he were a lion or wombat.'

'what exactly does it mean to live like a lion or a wombat?'

'it means...to live at the mercy of the world. it means to live without having any control over your environment.'

'i see. go on.'

'okay. in this condition, man could not be truly man. he couldn't develop a truly human way of life-a way of life that was distinctively human. so, during the early part of his life-actually the greater part of his life-man just foozled along getting nowhere and doing nothing.

'as it happened, there was a key problem to be solved, and it was this that took me a long time to work out: what the problem was. man could get nowhere living like a lion or a wombat...in order to accomplish anything, man had to settle down in one place where he could get to work, so to speak. i mean that it was impossible for him to get beyond a certain point living out in the open as a hunter-gatherer, always moving from place to place in search of food. to get beyond that point, he had to settle down, had to have a permanent base from which he could begin to master his environment.

'okay. why not? i mean, well, what was stopping him from doing that? what was stopping him was the fact that if he settled down in one place for more than a few weeks, he'd starve. as a hunter-gatherer, he would simply clean the place out-there would be nothing left to hunt and gather. in order to achieve settlement, man had to learn one fundamental manipulation. he had to learn how to manipulate his environment so that this food-exhaustion didn't occur. he had to manipulate it so that it produced more human food. in other words, he had to become an agriculturalist.

'this was the turning point. the world had been made for man, but he was unable to take possession of it until this problem was cracked. and he finally cracked it about ten thousand years ago, back there in the fertile crescent. this was a very big moment-the biggest in human history up to this point. man was at last free of all those restraints that....the limitations of the hunting-gathering life had kept man in check for three million years. with agriculture, those limitations vanished, and his rise was meteoric. settlement gave rise to division of labor, division of labor gave rise to technology. with the rise of technology came trade and commerce. with trade and commerce came mathematics and literacy and science, and all the rest. the whole thing was under way at last, and the rest, as they say, is history.' "

--ishmael, daniel quinn

so, there you have it folks....how things came to be the way they are.....but this is only the middle of the student's story....stay tuned......
posted by April Fraze 4/19/2000 05:25:43 PM| link

ok....i lied yesterday when i said i wouldn't be updating. i got pretty far into ishmael last night and i've been very excited. the posts i have made and will be making today are initial conversations between a teacher and a pupil...enjoy.

" 'i told you yesterday that the story the people of your culture are enacting is about the meaning of the world, about divine intentions in the world, and about human destiny.'

'yes.'

'and according to this first part of the story, what is the meaning of the world?'

'along about the middle of your story, the focus of attention shifted from the universe at large to this one planet. why?'

'because this one planet was destined to be the birthplace of man.'

'of course. as you tell it, the birth of man was a central event-indeed the central event-in the history of the cosmos itself. from the birth of man on, the rest of the universe ceases to be of interest, ceases to participate in the unfolding drama. for this, the earth alone is sufficient; it is the birthplace and home of man, and that's its meaning. the takers regard the world as a sort of human life-support system, as a machine designed to produce and sustain human life.'

'yes, that's so.' "

--ishmael, daniel quinn

a good teacher questions his/her student and allows them to answer, then listens....a good teacher leads a student, but allows them to think. this is the process that begins in ishmael. ishmael asks the pupil to tell the story of how things came to be.....and the student began the story of creation...started with the big bang theory, led to the creation of planets, then oceans on earth, then amphibians and next on to land creatures......the final products of the story led to earth and on to man...that was the end....

we are really such an egocentric lot. wouldn't it be wonderful to see a full account of how everything came to be? it would certainly have many volumes and footnotes and there would likely be side stories....unfortunately, it will never happen...not in one complete source....
posted by April Fraze 4/19/2000 04:48:31 PM| link

" 'if mother culture were to give an account of human history using these terms, it would go something like this: 'the leavers were chapter one of human history-a long and uneventful chapter. their chapter of human history ended about ten thousand years ago with the birth of agriculture in the near east. this event marked the beginning of chapter two, the chapter of the takers. it's true there are still leavers living in the world, but these are achronisms, fossils-people living in the past, people who just don't realize that their chapter of human history is over.'

'right.'

'this is the general shape of human history as it's perceived in your culture.'

'i would say so.'

'as you'll come to see, what i'm saying is quite different from this. the leavers are not chapter one of a story in which the takers are chapter two.'

'say that again?'

'i'll say it differently. the leavers and the takers are enacting seperate stories, based on entirely different and contradictory premises. this is something we'll be looking at later, so you don't have to understand it right this second.'

'okay.' "

--ishmael, daniel quinn
posted by April Fraze 4/19/2000 04:10:28 PM| link

"'good. so henceforth i'm going to call the people of your culture takers and the people of all other cultures leavers.'

i hmm'ed a bit. 'i have a problem with that.'

'speak.'

'i don't see how you can lump everyone else in the world into one category like that.'

'this is the way it's done in your own culture, except that you use a pair of heavily loaded terms instead of these relatively neutral terms. you call yourselves civilized and all the rest primitive. you are universally agreed on these terms; i mean that the people of london and paris and baghdad and seoul and detroit and buenos aires and toronto all know that-whatever else separates them-they are united in being civilized and distinct from stone age peoples scattered all over the world; you consider or recognize that, whatever their differences, these stone age peoples are likewise united in being primitive.'

'yes, that's right.'

'would you be more comfortable if we used these terms, civilized and primitive?'

'yes, i suppose i would be, but only because i'm used to them, takers and leavers is fine with me.'

--ishmael, daniel quinn
posted by April Fraze 4/19/2000 03:50:06 PM| link

Tuesday, April 18, 2000

i have a short attention span. i used to worry about it, but now i know that mine by comparison is a lot healthier than others. typically i get involved in something....full throttle...then it sits awhile until i get back to it.

i guess that's what's happening to this weblog. i have gotten into genealogy. i was digging it a little over a month ago, but hit a wall. the book i bought last weekend has pointed me to a few very useful sites:rootsweb and the church of latter-day saints family search page. i've been on the phone a lot with my uncle and my granny's and i'm pleased to announce i've found names of ancestors several generations into england. it's really cool when you get it back to the 1500s. luckily for me someone else had posted info on my great-great grandmother. i also found the dates for parents of the first bullington settler in the united states. they were also from england. i do believe a majority of my family comes from britain or ireland. groovy.....

anyway, point is: i'll be back in full force later. i may update periodically, but i need a small break. ideas are not flourishing as they should. i've had a lot on my mind and work is getting ready to pick up......so i'm not in a position to free up my brain and let go. happy easter if i forget to mention it later!!!
posted by April Fraze 4/18/2000 07:34:27 PM| link

Monday, April 17, 2000

i like bobby. and i like paul. it's strange to consider really. to many people the grateful dead was jerry.....and to many others (and some of the same) john personified the beatles. me, i like bobby and paul.

i think it's the work ethic. singing and showmanship for jerry and john seems to be a natural ability. they croon with ease and the results are pure beauty....i love them, and i'm sad they're gone. they have my deepest respect, but....i like bobby and paul.

it's always been my nature to cheer on the second......especially when they work hard at what they do...bobby's showboating on stage....effort...his lyrical ups and downs...improvs...effort...he's giving us all he has...working to make us happy. i once read that paul walked around screaming for a few weeks so he could get the raspy sound he wanted when he recorded "oh darling" for abbey road.....effort.

there's something admirable about people who take their place so seriously.
posted by April Fraze 4/17/2000 12:23:42 PM| link

my new friend, lori, sent brad up this weekend with a brand new copy of daniel quinn's ishmael. i'm pretty excited to read it actually. lori is one of those people....you know the ones i mean...they radiate beauty...kind of like my friend, skye. it's wonderful to be around people like that. and lori is also a reader, like myself....so i'm excited about the posssibilities in our friendship.

yesterday we went to barnes and noble. i decided to pick up some new things....since i was there and all. ended up leaving with the story of b, also by quinn, half asleep in frog pajamas, robbins of course, and genealogy via the internet by ralph roberts. not a bad take really.

i also ordered a couple of books: the lazy man's guide to enlightenment by thaddeus golas and charles long's how to survive without a salary. i love book stores.

i sent the story of b home with brad for lori to read. it was suggested to me by a dear friend in indiana and i think lori will enjoy it. this weekend was weird. our dogs were consistently at each other's throats. kyra has to learn that she is less than half the size of teton....but damn, that little dog holds her own!! this was the first time with all 3 dogs (mine, brad's and my new roommate's) have been together. and it was the first time we've had all the bickering. very strange. perhaps the third dog threw off the balance....there was a lot .....i mean A LOT of blood shed.....that was horrible.

we did manage to watch a couple of good movies, including instinct which is somewhat suggested by ishmael. i have one thing to say....please, please, PLEASE watch this movie. it is absolutely heart-wrenching. anthony hopkins and cuba gooding, jr. were believable characters...i cried, A LOT, so if you are a sensitive type like me....have some kleenex available.

we also watched tombstone. i think it's one of my favorite movies...if not my favorite, so when brad said he hadn't seen it i decided he had to and went out and bought it. i know i'll watch it, so why not own it. "i'm your huckleberry."
posted by April Fraze 4/17/2000 12:00:46 PM| link