number won

SO,

here we are...my first blog post...I feel that this is a way for Mohammad to embarrass us since we could do this exact same thing on blackboard and our postings wouldn't be public. Oh well. I like the format. Where to start where to start start to where start to wear air where too start to start and wear is where you start.

Reaction to Stein...

As I read more and more Stein it becomes easier to wrap my head around. Not easier to understand, but more like I understand that I am not going to understand it so it is easier to cope with. I love the way she plays with the sounds of words in instances like Susie Asado (using the repetition "sweet tea" to ring the sound of the word "sweetie"). In other cases she is still a mystery. In Tender Buttons there are four consecutive prose poems called Chicken where I am for the most part left in the dust. Save for the fourth one where it seems she is trying to imitate the sound a chicken makes, I am lost .

Reaction to Loy...

I had never met Mina Loy and although her words were somewhat eloquent, I didn't really enjoy the piece in our anthology from Songs To Joannes. It seemed to be very intimate, illustrating the passiopn and feelings between lovers, but with lines like "And it is in your eyes...something that I must not see" and "It is in my ears...something that you must not hear" seemed very cheesy (for lack of a better word) and perhaps when this was written they weren't. However, over time phrases like these have become staples of post-pubescent-emo-poetry an thats what this reminded me of.

Blast...

Very fitting title to a Journal that looked the way it looked. The words were bold and had different font sizes and the messages were random, short, and somewhat crisp. I did like the duality between the word "blast the _____" and "bless the _____" that are in the front of the piece and later in the piece respectively.

Loy Feminist Manifesto...

I almost skipped over this reading since it closely resembled the Blast journal. It has all of the typical topics one would expect to see from any document that was calling itself a Feminist Manifesto: it mentions the mother, equality (or lack thereof), male supremecy, women undertaking careers, etc.

Transatlantic Interview

It's all in the first sentence, finally an explanation: "Everything I have done has been influenced by Flaubert and Cezanne". The piece is interesting in that Stein dissects her own work and attempts to shed light on how or where she "dominated" (her words not mine) and where her work wasn't as strong. There is still a slight disconnect because her explanations still aren't as clear as she thinks they are. The most profound lines in the piece, when trying to figure out Stein, are the lines "You have got to accept a complete difference. It is hard to accept that, it is much easier to have one hand in the past" Stein's work is very different and if you try to figure it out using rationale that you have gained outside of her work than you will not be able to decipher it. If you approach it for what it is, different work that is previously uncaptured, you can approach it under better pretenses.