Memories of a Myth-Teller

Walter, I beg to differ . . .

2005-05-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

ONG'S WRONG!

2005-05-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

In Orality and Literacy, Walter Ong makes the argument, “You can immerse yourself in hearing, in sound. There is no way to immerse yourself similarly in sight” (71). He refers to sight here as the ability to communicate through reading and writing, proclaiming it as the communicative tool of the literate culture. The argument continues that, although writing has allowed us to advance as a culture, the “primal” sense of speech allows the largest depth of interpersonal communication. Upon reading this, however, a startling contradiction arises when considering 28 pages earlier Ong argues that in “primal” oral cultures, “Trades were learned by apprenticeship . . . which means from observation and practice with only minimal verbalized explanation” (43). With these two viewpoints established, one regarding sound as the noblest sense of communication and the other which proves entire bundles of cultural knowledge were passed down without the use of sound, one must ask: what came first, gestures or speech? Are we ‘naturally’ inclined towards verbal communication, or do we share basic gestural instincts with other primates? Furthermore, in terms of culture and language, what method of communication best exemplifies their inheritance? To broach a subject this vast, this essay will take a journey through anthropology, neurology, sociology, and even technology to provide possible answers to the Ong paradox.

Neanderthal Language?

2005-05-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

Did Neanderthals Have PRIMITIVE or CULTURAL Sign Language?

2005-05-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

Two schools of thought struggle to prove the origins of human communication. The first examines the wide use of vocal communication and language development, attempting to prove, from a sociological viewpoint, that because modern cultures are so intricately linked to their vocal language, the origins of human society and civilization must have roots in the spoken word. The second school embraces the ‘gestural theory’, which claims, from an anthropological viewpoint, that humans existed with rich culture long before they could fully develop a communicable vocal language. This particular field of study, visual anthropology, is relatively new and focuses on pictures, artifacts, dancing, and gestures to provide insight to cultural history. The gestural theory, more so than the vocal, tends to scan history as far back as possible to theorize communication’s origins – whether genetic or learned. Jane Goodall, while studying the communication patterns of primates, made the startling discovery:
"If we survey the whole range of the postural and gestural communication signals
of chimpanzees on the one hand and humans on the other, we find striking similarities in many instances. It would appear, then, that man and chimp either have evolved gestures and postures along a most remarkable parallel or that we share with the chimpanzees an ancestor in the dim and very distant past; an ancestor, moreover, who communicated with his kind by means of kissing and embracing, touching and patting and holding hands." (Goodall 247-8)

With this in mind, it appears that communication, in its most basic form, relies heavily on gestural communication as a predecessor to vocal communication.

Aside from Jane Goodall, however, can most people connect any sort of culture to chimpanzees? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines culture as, “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations,” - hardly applicable to any known group of primates. Remembering Ong’s discussion on apprenticeships, on the other hand, the passage of beliefs and behaviors to future generations is entirely relevant to the cultural legacy of gestures. Furthermore, we can trace evidence of culture further than we can trace human speech development:

"[Lieberman’s] experiments suggest that Neanderthal vocal tracts could not have produced all of the sounds required by languages of the kind that Homo sapiens uses (particularly {i} and {a}), yet Neanderthal burials strongly suggest human culture. Neanderthals may have been unable to manage fully a spoken language because of their vocal tract physiology, but if they had a system of visible signs for making works and could also form sentences from them - and there is no evidence that they could not - they would, by definition, have had a language and a culture with genuinely human characteristics." (Armstrong 175)

Increased Neanderthal Brain Size

2005-05-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

Broca's Area

2005-05-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

Broca's Area

2005-05-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

What makes this period of gestural communication so fascinating is how short-lived it is. This is not to imply that there was a need for further communicative methods, but rather that with the combination of visual and vocal communication, the evolution of spoken language became neurologically possible. Within the past half-century, scientists have discovered a part of the brain known as ‘Broca’s area.’ This area, contradicting previous theories, is “as intimately connected with timing and sequencing complex arm and hand and facial activity as with vocal activity” (175). Therefore, while gestural communication preceded vocal, they both are neurologically linked and, furthermore, co-dependent:

If visible gestures were early and for long periods used as words, the same enormously expanded interconnections between perceptual and central processing and motor networks could have – just as much as the use of spoken words –led to increase in brain size and required the evolution of the timing and sequencing functions in Broca’s area. (175)

The increase in brain size mentioned by Armstrong is something that has long puzzled anthropological neurologists. At the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic era, rapid developments of technologies and the first traces of vocal language occur, seemingly without cause. The study of Broca’s area, however, presents an astonishing answer: the inseparable connection between gestural and spoken communication increases thought processing.

2005-04-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

2005-04-29T18:29:00.001-07:00

Do animals actually communicate?

2005-04-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

Or, are they just clueless?

2005-04-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

Do Dogs Have Thier Own Language?

A-B: Neutral to alert attentive positions

C: Play-soliciting bow

D-E: Active and passive submissive greeting -- tail wags, ears fold back, weight is transferred to hind legs

F-H: Gradual shift from aggressive display to ambivalent fear/defensive/aggressive posture

I: Passive submission

J: Rolling over and showing belly

Lana, the sign-speaking chimp

2005-04-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

"A further telling, if oblique, bit of evidence for this claim comes from Gill and Rumbaugh (1974), who report that it took Lana 1,600 trials to learn the names for banana and M&M, but that the next five items were acquired in less than five trials each -- two of them in two only" (236).

Bickerton, D. Roots of Language. Karoma Publishers: Ann Arbor.

Look at the entire context (in which the trainer Tim is holding an orange):

Tim: What color of this ?

Lana: Color of this orange

Tim: Yes

Lana: Tim give cup which-is red

Tim: Yes

Lana: Tim give which-is shut ?Shelley give ?

Tim: No Shelley

Lana: EyeTim give which-is orange?

Tim: What which-is orange

Lana: Tim give apple which-is green ?

Tim: No apple which-is green

Lana: Tim give apple which-is orange ?

Tim: Yes

Reconnecting Audio and Visual

2005-04-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Audio Visual Culture

2005-04-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

In regards to this research, Ong’s “hearing immersion” theory proves quite inaccurate, while his statements regarding non-vocal apprenticeships take on significant meaning. But, aside from integrating gestural and vocal communication, can modern society link these two fundamental senses in such a way as to perpetuate this cerebral development? Ong, probably unintentionally, alludes to this possibility in his brief discussion of ‘secondary orality’ (see pages 133-5). Unfortunately, his bias against visual communication does not permit him to realize the anthropological and neurological significance of secondary orality: for the first time in thousands of years, it allows all cultures to fully embrace the fusion of physical (gestural) and vocal (spoken) communication! Indeed, we are living in an age where every educational community perks its ears at the words ‘audio/visual.’ Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has opened the world’s minds to the possibilities of combining all the senses to make learning and communication as dynamic as possible. And, it is modern-technology that makes this fusion of multiple cognitions possible in a world evolving towards secondary orality. D. N. Rodowick, in his essay “Audiovisual Culture and Interdisciplinary Knowledge” comments on the increased stimulus to Broca’s area by claiming:

“The digital creation, recording, manipulation, and transmission of signs also drives the semiotic convergence of film, video, computer-imaging and word processing that in turn encourages the intermixing of visual, verbal, written, musical, and acoustic forms” (2).

In the latter part of his book, Walter Ong argues, “Our complacency in thinking of words as signs is due to the tendency, perhaps incipient in oral cultures but clearly marked in chirographic cultures and far more marked in typographic and electronic cultures, to reduce all sensation and indeed all human experience to visual analogues” (75). However, visual analogues are, in no way, a ‘reduction’ of human experience. Indeed, we have seen that the very basic elements of human experience are deeply rooted in gestures and the visual. And, it is the combination of the senses, most vividly displayed in modern telecommunication and the electronic appeal in education, which historically has resulted in the eruption of cognitive and cultural development. Truly, children are learning at a faster rate as they are immersed in the multiple intelligence revolution. And, for the first time since the cross-cultural unity of Plains Sign Language, the world unites as education and communication launch the audio/visual 21st century.

2005-04-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Group Presentations

2005-04-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

MY DAUGHTER!!!

2005-04-21T17:55:00.000-07:00

Pinch thier heads!

2005-04-21T17:51:00.001-07:00

What a cute couple!

2005-04-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Talkin' about the cattle-driving bandit!

2005-04-21T17:50:00.001-07:00

Epithets galore!

2005-04-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

Sight, at last!

2005-04-21T17:49:00.002-07:00

The secret inner-workings

2005-04-21T17:49:00.001-07:00

Lord, please protect the blind . . .

2005-04-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

Nikole watches with intensity

2005-04-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

Pouring into the cauldron

2005-04-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

Group Presentations

Here's My Memory Palace

2005-02-20T20:59:00.000-07:00

#1-25. Granted, many of these picture associations will mean nothing to you!

2005-02-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

#26-50

2005-02-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

51-69

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70-87

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88-100

2005-02-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

Hesoid and the Muses

Test Questions and Class Randomness . . .

2005-02-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

Class Questions

1. Singing is referred to as a text (Sing in me, Muse . . .)

2. How are words defined in an oral culture?
Gestures, vocal inflections, facial expressions, and the entire human existential setting in which the real, spoken word always occurs.

3. What activities put us in contest with nature?
Agriculture – to build a fence around a field or pasture, to tether an animal, to harbor seeds and plant them at just the right time – these activities put humanity in a state of contest with nature.

4. Chirographic – All evidence of writing

5. Typographic – Writing with print Oral-Chirographic-Typographic-Electronic

6. Loci – Latin for ‘place’, where you store memory palace images

7. Anima – Latin for ‘soul/sprit’

8. Rhapsode – Greek for ‘weave’

9. Text – to ‘weave’, pulling strands together

10. Gesang ist dasein – ‘song is existence’

11. Paratactic – additive/ Syntactic – subordinate

12. White berries = practical wisdom

13. Primary vs. 2ndary Orality (literary residue)

14. There is no such thing as a story, only the idea of a story – it only exists while being told

15. “How do you know what you think until you see what you say?” W.H. Auden

16. Agon – Greek for ‘battle’, having to do with Ong’s flyting

17. Mnemosyne – mother of muses

18. Epithet’s importance as a memory device and grab-bag for rhyming possibilities

19. Milman Perry – within a text there are complexes, themes, and formulas

20. What virtue is memory a part of? Prudence

21. Tabula Rossa, ‘blank slate’ – as we age more of our knowledge is erased

22. Aristotilian – induction/ Platonic – recollection

23. Mnemotechnics – Ram’s testicles

24. Define and give an example of flyting

25. Natural and Artificial memory

Ong’s 9 ideas:

1. Additive rather than subordinate
Biblical ‘ands’

2. Aggregative rather than analytic
Epithets and clichés in their grab-bag of formulas

3. Redundant or ‘copious’
Say the same thing, slightly different, many times, acoustical practicality

4. Conservative or traditionalist
Formulas are reshuffled rather than supplemented with new material

5. Close to the human lifeworld
Only lists or facts are those associated with humans (list of ships)

6. Agonistically toned
Verbal tongue-lashing, praising, keeps conflict external, not internal

7. Empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced
Writing involves personal disengagement and objectivity

8. Homeostatic
Live in the present, discarding memories that are no longer relevant
Do keep some words that no longer have meaning in ceremony
Integrity of the past is subordinate to integrity of the present
Oral traditions reflect a society’s present cultural values rather than idle curiosity about the past

9. Situational rather than abstract
Hammer, saw, log, hatchet – see a moon/plate rather than a circle
A moderate degree of literacy drastically affects thought processes

9 Muses and Functions

Calliope (Epic Poetry)
Clio (History )
Erato (Love Poetry)
Euterpe (Music)
Melpomene (Tragedy)
Polyhymnia (Sacred Poetry)
Terpsichore (Dancing)
Thalia (Comedy)
Urania (Astronomy)

Random Class Notes

Ecolalia – “baby talk”

Written signature is held as law – “m” baby legal case

“The medium is the message.” ~ Marshall McCullan

“A change of style is a change of subject.” ~ Wallace Stevens

“In error only is their truth.” ~ Fredrick von Shiller

Icon –‘picture’, clastic-‘break’ Iconoclastic-‘Breaking the pictures”

Anamnesis – ‘recollection’, Plato’s Phaedrus
Anrathia – ‘forgetfulness’

Hieroglyphic – “sacred pictures”

Luddite: against new technology (Robert Ludd)

Memorable Passages in "Wisdom of the Mythtellers"

2005-02-20T17:29:00.000-07:00

Here are some passages that we found memorable in Wisdom of the Mytellers.

1. “The terms for a definition of mythtelling involve a concept of ecological patterns which elude, or should elude, human manipulation, and are therefore coded as sacred” (45).

2. “The original mythtelling in which relationships in nature were encoded has dwindled down to the kind of superstition that now fills the pages of The Farmer’s Almanac. Myth has been reduced to anecdote in our time” (43).

3. “It is sometimes better not to know the precise why of the natural powers; the meaning is lost in the secondary mechanics of controlling it. Often it is better that something remain a mystery” (40).

4. “For diarrhea, you chew the step of this plant. To repel bees, you burn this leaf. To reduce fever, you place the inner bark of this tree on your forehead. You can fold this broad leaf into a drinking cup. This rough leaf polishes blowpipes. This makes loincloths” (38).

5. The Book of Genesis, written by agriculturalists out of older myths about a snake-being who teaches nature’s secrets, remembers this transition from a time when humans knew the speech of the animals to a time of domestication when humans feared them” (19).

Top Insults of All Time

2005-02-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

Chris Rock - one of my favorite "flyters"

http://www.momma-joke.com/

Yo’ Momma jokes broken into categories of fat, ugly, old, stupid, and dirty!

http://www.webweaving.org/

Every time you go here you receive a new Shakespearean insult!

http://www.insult-o-matic.com/

Like the ones above, this site lets you create personalized insults within categories of: Combined, Classic, Evil Fortune Cookie, Pirate, Psychiatric, Redneck, Shakespearean, Simple, or Yo Mamma insults! Pretty cool stuff!

http://www.disstron.com/generate/

This generates new insults, some of which are pretty creative. *CAUTION* Most of these insults are at least R rated . . . not for the innocent!

http://www.edgecity.net/swearmaster/

Only for the crude and obscene – generates multi-syllabic insults on demand!

2005-02-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

Baudolino

Umberto Eco's "Baudolino"

2005-02-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

As we have been discussing Orality and Literacy, along with Umberto Eco, I would like to discuss a book by Mr. Eco which I have just finished that I feel is especially relevant to this class.

The book is called "Baudolino." It is set in Italy during the close of the 12th century, a time where the pursuit of power among monarchs was only matched by the pursuit or RELICS by towns, churches, and capitals. Becasue of this, cities strove to find splinters of the "true cross", the shrunken head of John the Baptist, and any or all of the body parts of either a saint or apostle. In this pursuit, what could be stiven for more than the holy grail?

But, I am getting ahead of myself. The story is told by Baudolino, with the story beginning with him as young boy with a miraculous power for language. Truly, it takes him a matter of hours immersed in a new language and he is able to engage in discourse with them. King Frederick, who later will rule all of Italy, stumbles upon this amazing young peasant and adopts him as a sort of son. Soon, it is discovered that Baudolino is a liar. Not only a liar, but a liar of the best sorts - eveyone believes him and forgives him when they discover the falsness of his tales. To improve his education, and to make him a better resource, King Frederick sends Baudolino to Paris to LEARN TO READ AND WRITE. There, in books he discovers some of the best lies he has ever seen in stories, histories, and . . . wait, is there a difference between ficiton and history? Baudolino soon finds this out. The rest of the story revolves around the idea of history and fiction, and how it is created orally and written.

Baudolino stumbles upon a document that discusses Prestor John, a mythical ruler who lives in a mystical land somewhere "east." Also, there are cryptically vague references to the grail - is it a cup, a bowl, a tablet, a chest? Baudolino decides to start inventing history. As he is a great oral liar, he realizes that to better the king and his reputation, he will have to become a LITERATE liar. Hence, he begins to forge letters from this mythical King to King Frederick, calling him blessed.

Soon, mythtelling, orality, literacy, and history become intertwined. Baudolino decides there is going to have to be a physical gift from the mythical King to King Frederick, to legitimize his claims, so Baudolino takes an earthen cup from his dying father and - TaDa - the grail appears!

What really turns this story upside down, is that Baudolino begins to loose concept of his lies and reality. Soon, he and a caravan of the King's men set out to meet Prestor John, the mythic man Baudolino further created. And . . . THEY DO! Soon the distinction between truth and lie, myth and history, written and oral, dissapears. And, Baudolino and his crew find themself in a fantasy world which surpasses any of their imaginations . . . indeed, every imagination except Umberto Eco's!

I encorage anyone who is interested in history, myth, fantasy, adventure, or any of the above to read this. First, Umberto Eco is one of the great writers of the 20th century - anything of his you have the chance to read I encorage. Second, this book gives us a sort of hopefullness about our past - don't disregard things as fact, fiction, history, or myth. For, really, what is the difference?

Umberto Eco

2005-02-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS

2005-02-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have located an article which gives excerpts from Umberto Eco's article, "La bustina di Minerva", in the Italian news weekly Espresso, September 30, 1994. Here is the link:

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html

Here are pieces from that article, translated into English:

"Friends, Italians, countrymen, I ask that a Committee for Public Health be set up, whose task would be to censor (by violent means, if necessary) discussion of the following topics in the Italian press. Each censored topic is followed by an alternative in brackets which is just as futile, but rich with the potential for polemic. Whether Joyce is boring (whether reading Thomas Mann gives one erections). Whether Heidegger is responsible for the crisis of the Left (whether Ariosto provoked the revocation of the Edict of Nantes). Whether semiotics has blurred the difference between Walt Disney and Dante (whether De Agostini does the right thing in putting Vimercate and the Sahara in the same atlas). Whether Italy boycotted quantum physics (whether France plots against the subjunctive). Whether new technologies kill books and cinemas (whether zeppelins made bicycles redundant). Whether computers kill inspiration (whether fountain pens are Protestant).

One can continue with: whether Moses was anti-semitic; whether Leon Bloy liked Calasso; whether Rousseau was responsible for the atomic bomb; whether Homer approved of investments in Treasury stocks; whether the Sacred Heart is monarchist or republican.

I asked above whether fountain pens were Protestant. Insufficient consideration has been given to the new underground religious war which is modifying the modern world. It's an old idea of mine, but I find that whenever I tell people about it they immediately agree with me.

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.
Naturally, the Catholicism and Protestantism of the two systems have nothing to do with the cultural and religious positions of their users. One may wonder whether, as time goes by, the use of one system rather than another leads to profound inner changes. Can you use DOS and be a Vande supporter? And more: Would Celine have written using Word, WordPerfect, or Wordstar? Would Descartes have programmed in Pascal?

And machine code, which lies beneath and decides the destiny of both systems (or environments, if you prefer)? Ah, that belongs to the Old Testament, and is talmudic and cabalistic. The Jewish lobby, as always...."

Walter Ong

2005-02-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

Walter Ong

Memorable Passages in "Orality and Literacy"

2005-02-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here are four passages that we "dogeared" as shocking, intruiging, and noteworthy in class:

1. As late as the Europan Renaissance, quite literate alchemists using labels for their vials and boxes tended to put on the labels not a written name, but iconographic signs, such as various signs of the zodiac, and the shopkeepers identified their shops not with lettered words but with iconographic symbols such as the ivy bush for a tavern, the barber's pole, the pawnbroker's three spheres. (75)

2. Of course, all expression and all thought is to a degree formulaic in the sense that every word and every concept conveyed in a word is a kind of formula, a fixed way of processing the data of experience, determining the way experience and reflection are intellectually organized, and acting as a mnemonic device of sorts. Putting experience into any words (which means transforming it at least a litle bit - not the same as falsifying it) can implement its recall. The formulas characterizing orality are more elaborate, however, than are individual words, though some may be relatively simple: the Beowulf-poet's 'whale road' is a formula (metaphorical) for the sea in a sense in which the term 'sea' is not. (36)

*Note: This struck Wayne as connected to T.S. Eliot's "The Four Quartets", relating to the passage:

It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness. I have said before
That the past experience revived in the meaning
Is not the experience of one life only
But of many generations—not forgetting
Something that is probably quite ineffable:
The backward look behind the assurance
Of recorded history, the backward half-look
Over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror.
Now, we come to discover that the moments of agony
(Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,
Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
Is not in question) are likewise permanent
With such permanence as time has. We appreciate this better
In the agony of others, nearly experienced,
Involving ourselves, than in our own.
For our own past is covered by the currents of action,
But the torment of others remains an experience
Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.
People change, and smile: but the agony abides.
Time the destroyer is time the preserver,
Like the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops,
The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.

3. Trades were learned by apprenticeship (as they still largely are even in high-technology cultures), which means from observation and practice with only minimal verbalized explanation (43).

4. Fortunately, literacy, though it consumes its own oral antecedents and, unless it is carefully monitered, even destroys their memory, is also infinitely adaptable. It can restore their memory, too. Literacy can be used to reconstruct for ourselves the pristine human consciousness which was not literate at all - at least to reconstruct this consciousness pretty well, though not perfectly (we can never forget enough of our familiar present to reconstitute in our minds any past in its full integrity) (15).

5. Writing and print and the computer are all ways of technologizing the word. Once the word is technologized, ther is no effetive way to criticize what technology has done with it without the aid of the hightest technology available (79).

6. An oral culture has no texts (33).

7. There is hardly an oral culture or a predominantly oral culture left in the world today that is not somehow aware of the vast complex of powers forever inaccessible without literacy (15)

8. All conceptual thinking is to a degree abstract.

9. Words are not signs (74).

My sister (Jill) and me

2005-02-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

My Pre-literate Life

2005-02-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

My first words, unsurprisingly, were "Mom", "No", and "Yes".

However, it was one word inparticular which never ceased to escape my lips as I first began to indulge in orality, and that was "Jill."

Jill was, in a sense, my primary myth-teller. My elder by one year, my sister was my connection to the world, its inhabitants, and all its wonderful secrets. Beyond being a simple play-mate (it is noted in my baby book that my favorite game for my first few years was "follow the leader", with Jill ALWAYS being the leader), Jill was, and still is, a masterful story teller. Beyond that, her desire to always have an answer and to be right made her a terrifically fabulous liar. The explanations for things that she would come up with! Why is it called "ground beef"? Why, it comes from the ground, of course! (This was actually a line used by my father on my aunt - it is not hard to see where my sister inherited her fibbing abilities).

While my parents were, above all, sources of wisdom, who as a child would be bothered to run into the house and ask Mom a question when the all-knowing Jill is sitting right next to you, just waiting for the next opportunity to make up some fantastical solution to your quandry. Hence, much of my first few years of life were not firmly planted in what one in a literate culture calls "reality." The power of the word had inherent force on its meaning. Butterflys HAD to be related to butter in some way . . . maybe they created butter much like bees create honey!

I remember in the fiercest moments of my sister's anger she would clench up her fist, cower her normally large and glowing eyes, and scream, "I'm going to SUE you!" "Oh dear, " thought the 5-year old version of me, "that sounds RATHER unpleasant! I should never like to be sued!" (of course, I like to refere to my inner dialogue with a bit of British pompousness). I had not idea of what "to sue" meant, and more than likely neither did my big fat liar of a sister, but we knew it was something terrible, unpleasant, and more than likely involving some sort of bodily torture. What a power this word had for us! It was not until later, when we began to read, that we discovered it was short for "suit", from "lawsuit". Immediately it lost all its power. Honestly, who would take a 7-year-old child to court?

BOOM! ZAM! Zippity-KAZAA! All the magic that that word held for us, the mortal fear it instilled in each of us once the curse "you will be sued!" was uttered, was gone! Of course, we never followed through with this "suing", as we would have had no idea of how to carry out that idle threat. But, the fact remains, and my myth-teller and I still remember the days when the power of "the sue" was in our lives, when she made up heaps of malarky every day and I downed it with a spoon, and when books were nothing more than extra coloring paper.

Movies and Books in this Class

2005-02-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

Student Links

2005-02-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

Allison: http://oraltraditions.blogspot.com

Cara: http://dineenc.blogspot.com

Cindy: http://spaditions.blogspot.com

Courtney: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wilsoncourt/

Debbie: http://oraltraditionsdeb.blogspot.com

Kristi : http://saffiatu.blogspot.com

Jennie: http://buttersickle-la-la.blogspot.com

Jennifer: http://jst-oraltraditions.blogspot.com

Jeremy: http://www.adamlamb.com/webPages/

Juliet: http://julietno.blogspot.com

Justin: http://oraltraditionsengl337.blogspot.com

Opai: http://www.geocities.com/apabritabasu

Shauna: http://ideasandramblings.blog.com

Sophie: http://oraltradsophie.blogspot.com

Stephanie: http://stephurban.blogspot.com

Valerie: http://thefirebird2005.blogspot.com

Welcome, Greetings, Saluatations

2005-02-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks,

Welcome one and all to my online journal. For those of you simply browsin the internet, this journal is a collection of notes, responses, links, and general, from out-of-nowhere thoughts, ramblins, and musings. Should you feel so inclined to comment to any of said entries - Thanks! I appreciate any thought you have to add or criticism you have to share. All in all, I'm exited for this class, Oral Traditions, for a number of reasons. First, I want to have a superhuman-like ability to harness memory powers . . . not so much to use for the bettering of mankind or to save innocents, but rather to impress hot chicks at parties - that sort of thing.

Also, I suppose it would be helpful as an English major if I had 1/100 of the amount of memorized written word in my cranium that Dr. Sexon has! Secondly, I'm exited for the book "Wisdom of the Mythtellers." Oral cultures facinate me in that they place so much emphasis on spoken stories, word-magic, and the power of the scop. Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Native Americans, Vikings . . . these are but a few of the cultures which I'm drawn to, and I hope to gain a greater insight towards thier method of communication.

So, if anything in this humble website "tickles your fancy" or "blows your hairback" - then groovy! I look forward to checking out all the cool online-components of this course!

Hasta Lasagna,

Sir Brian C. Johnsrud

2005-02-02T11:48:00.000-07:00

Nice to meetja!