So I think that the perfect song by Modest Mouse that depicts suffering is "Cowboy Dan". Sally I am terribly sorry but I will have to go ahead and prove you wrong. Here is the link. This song is prior to Job not snapping...this is the version where Job snaps and loses his mind utterly. He wages war on God..."He goes to the desert, fires his rifle at the sky and says, "God if I have to die you will have to die." Then the intensity of the song picks up and desperation creeps in... "He can't do it not even if sober. Can't get that engine turned over." This is just like the moment when Job can't bring himself to rise up from that dung heap, the moment beyond zero...Then comes solitude, a slowing of the music, a revelation, an epiphany..."Standing in the tall grass, thinking nothing, You know, we need oxygen to breathe, oxygen to breathe. Every time you think you're walking you're just moving the ground. Every time talking you're just moving your mouth. Every time you think you're looking, you're just looking down." This solace, this epiphanic moment comes in the realization that nothing is changeable, all is nothing. The man is finally accepting of his fate in oblivion; his fate in the world of the suffering. Trying to move, breathe, speak, he finds himself inadequate. No worse than inadequate, meaningless. But that is simply not enough. He comes back from the solitude and wages war yet again. The suffering and desperation is too great. This is a man who can not rationalize theodicy. This is a man who breaks for the suffering is too great. So how, after listening to the suffering put to music, reading suffering in the form of the book of Job, and experiencing suffering on a daily basis are we supposed to handle it? What is the proper way and why in the hell? I think blaming it on Satan is a cop out and I will continue to try to find an answer, but there is no way I can possibly answer a question of that magnitude at this point. One thing I must say, though, is that music helps. As Sexson was talking about in class today, "I sang because if I hadn't I surely would have died." I cry and laugh simultaneously because there is nothing else...there is only the laughter and the tears and the raw human emotion that makes everything real and saves us from the nothing. And now on sublimity...
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Modest Mouse...Bring it on Sally
So I think that the perfect song by Modest Mouse that depicts suffering is "Cowboy Dan". Sally I am terribly sorry but I will have to go ahead and prove you wrong. Here is the link. This song is prior to Job not snapping...this is the version where Job snaps and loses his mind utterly. He wages war on God..."He goes to the desert, fires his rifle at the sky and says, "God if I have to die you will have to die." Then the intensity of the song picks up and desperation creeps in... "He can't do it not even if sober. Can't get that engine turned over." This is just like the moment when Job can't bring himself to rise up from that dung heap, the moment beyond zero...Then comes solitude, a slowing of the music, a revelation, an epiphany..."Standing in the tall grass, thinking nothing, You know, we need oxygen to breathe, oxygen to breathe. Every time you think you're walking you're just moving the ground. Every time talking you're just moving your mouth. Every time you think you're looking, you're just looking down." This solace, this epiphanic moment comes in the realization that nothing is changeable, all is nothing. The man is finally accepting of his fate in oblivion; his fate in the world of the suffering. Trying to move, breathe, speak, he finds himself inadequate. No worse than inadequate, meaningless. But that is simply not enough. He comes back from the solitude and wages war yet again. The suffering and desperation is too great. This is a man who can not rationalize theodicy. This is a man who breaks for the suffering is too great. So how, after listening to the suffering put to music, reading suffering in the form of the book of Job, and experiencing suffering on a daily basis are we supposed to handle it? What is the proper way and why in the hell? I think blaming it on Satan is a cop out and I will continue to try to find an answer, but there is no way I can possibly answer a question of that magnitude at this point. One thing I must say, though, is that music helps. As Sexson was talking about in class today, "I sang because if I hadn't I surely would have died." I cry and laugh simultaneously because there is nothing else...there is only the laughter and the tears and the raw human emotion that makes everything real and saves us from the nothing. And now on sublimity...
Monday, October 18, 2010
Bad Bad Days
"The man-god must be killed as soon as he shows symptoms that his powers are beginning to fail, and his soul must be transferred to a vigourous successor before it has been seriously impaired by the threatened decay." James G. Frazer p. 309
I think that king's day, when his people deem him unfit to rule, would be much worse than anything I can bring to the table, but I suppose I'll give it a whirl. This is just one of those irritating things... I finally bought a car of my own. A white Buick Park Avenue, and I paid for it myself, with money I had worked really hard to earn. I had owned this car one week, I repeat one week. Driving to a town in which I was working, at 5:30 in the morning, a deer decided to komikaze out in front of me and sacrifice itself for the sake of beginning my a terrible day. It completely destroyed my grill guard and knocked one of my headlights out. I also did not have washer fluid at the time and...this is where it gets graphic...the deer had been scattered across my windshield, to put it gently. I had to drive the rest of the way with deer smear across my window and barely no visibility...luckily no more deer were up for sacrifice that day. When I finally reached my destination, I had to go directly to work. The horse I was riding bucked with me twice, and I had to deal with him being chargy all day. When I finally was done, I came back to where I was staying and discovered that my employer's horses had escaped, ran directly to my car, and chewed ALL of the weather stripping from around the windows. So much for a new car...
I think that king's day, when his people deem him unfit to rule, would be much worse than anything I can bring to the table, but I suppose I'll give it a whirl. This is just one of those irritating things... I finally bought a car of my own. A white Buick Park Avenue, and I paid for it myself, with money I had worked really hard to earn. I had owned this car one week, I repeat one week. Driving to a town in which I was working, at 5:30 in the morning, a deer decided to komikaze out in front of me and sacrifice itself for the sake of beginning my a terrible day. It completely destroyed my grill guard and knocked one of my headlights out. I also did not have washer fluid at the time and...this is where it gets graphic...the deer had been scattered across my windshield, to put it gently. I had to drive the rest of the way with deer smear across my window and barely no visibility...luckily no more deer were up for sacrifice that day. When I finally reached my destination, I had to go directly to work. The horse I was riding bucked with me twice, and I had to deal with him being chargy all day. When I finally was done, I came back to where I was staying and discovered that my employer's horses had escaped, ran directly to my car, and chewed ALL of the weather stripping from around the windows. So much for a new car...
My Mythological Life
"In the preceding chapters we saw that in atiquity the civilised nations of Western Asian and Egypt pictured to themselves the changes of the seasons, and particularly the annual growth and decay of vegetation, as episodes in the life of gods, whose mournful death and happy resurrection they celebrated with dramatic rites of alternate lamentation and rejoicing." James G. Frazer p. 448
Hint #1:
My family grows crops, vegetation as above mentioned, and are truly joyful when it yeilds large amounts. Not that we are celebrating for the sake of the gods, but we do thank God when a hail storm doesn't wipe out our entire cr
op. We are definitely distraught when our yeild is poor and it is a tense situation around the house, as I imagine it would be around the village in Western Asia and/or Egypt. I believe that the desire for crops to grow and be healthy has been a constant throughout history. Although agriculture came somewhat later, it is important to note that people have always lived from the land and animals which inhabit it. If the earth yielded nothing, people died. If our crops are poor, we have to live modestly. Mythologically speaking, it is interesting how we rely on the rain and sometimes even pray and curse the heavens when it is withholding its necessary presence. When it does come we say, "Thank God for that." It is notable how humans naturally seek to attribute forces of nature to God or the gods.
op. We are definitely distraught when our yeild is poor and it is a tense situation around the house, as I imagine it would be around the village in Western Asia and/or Egypt. I believe that the desire for crops to grow and be healthy has been a constant throughout history. Although agriculture came somewhat later, it is important to note that people have always lived from the land and animals which inhabit it. If the earth yielded nothing, people died. If our crops are poor, we have to live modestly. Mythologically speaking, it is interesting how we rely on the rain and sometimes even pray and curse the heavens when it is withholding its necessary presence. When it does come we say, "Thank God for that." It is notable how humans naturally seek to attribute forces of nature to God or the gods. "At Eisenach on the fourth Sunday in Lent young people used to fasten a straw-man, representing Death, to a wheel, which they trundled to the top of a hill. Then setting fire to the figure they allowed it and the wheel to roll down the slope." James G. Frazer p. 362
Hint #2:
In my home town we have a hill on which we used to party called "The Knob". This is where the young people gather and burn whatever happens to be handy. We have burned straw in the form of a wicker chair, but most often it is pallets that light the beacon. I am not sure we have burned a dummy in representation of Death, per say, but we have burned pallets in direct defiance of our local co-op owner. I think that any instance of people gathering to stand around a fire is somewhat mythological. I have done this since I can remember whether it be while camping, drinking with friends on a hill, having a barbeque in my front yard, etc. It has forever been ritualistic to stand around a fire in order to conjure a spiritual situation or to call upon dieties in times of need or celebration and I think it is equally mythological to gather around fire to "socialize".
"As might have been expected, the superstitions of the savage cluster thick about the subject of food; and he abstains from eating many animals and plants, wholesome enough in themselves, which for one reason or another he fancies would prove dangerous or fatal to the eater." James G. Frazer pg. 277
Hint #3:
I realize that in some cultures, it is OK to eat horse, but I absolutely refuse, no matter how wholesome it may be. I have had horses as companions for entirely too long to find it acceptable to use them for culinary purposes. The same goes for dogs, I feel my guilt would be too much to handle. Although my reasons for not eating these animals are moral and not out of fear of divine retribution, I beleive similarites m
ay be drawn from my experiences and those of the savages. I am somewhat superstitious, I have to admit. If I were to eat a horse or a dog, I just know that every other animal of that species I met with would detest me. I have always heard that both of these animals are sensitive to human emotions and my disgust at my own actions would be undoubtedly detectable.
ay be drawn from my experiences and those of the savages. I am somewhat superstitious, I have to admit. If I were to eat a horse or a dog, I just know that every other animal of that species I met with would detest me. I have always heard that both of these animals are sensitive to human emotions and my disgust at my own actions would be undoubtedly detectable. How terrible would you feel? Just look at them.
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