A
seductive hallucination member writes in with a Jared Leto/REQUIEM FOR
A DREAM/30 SECONDS TO MARS fusion!
From:
"Gabriela Reyes" <gabbers35 at hotmail.com> To:
bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu Professor
Nerricio, I
am currently watching fuse on television. In case you are unfamiliar with
channel 357, they play music videos 24/7, with a few countdown shows.
As I was flipping through these music channels, I heard a song I like and
guess who was singing!? It was Jared Leto with his band 30
Seconds to Mars .
I went onto MTV.com to make sure it was him and also listened to a live
version where he says that the song "The Kill" is about "losing your mind."
I started doing research not so much to see that it was him, but because
the video itself shows a hallucination of people having death inside themselves
and having doubles who portray a happier self than they truly are.
One
similarity I found with
Requiem for a Dream was
that in the video time changes with titles. I believe the video says "Hotel"
and "Two weeks later" whereas in the movie major sequences change with
the seasons--fall, winter etc.
It
doesn't play such a large roll in the video, but still struck me as I watched.
See
you Monday, Gaby
Reyes Section 220.4
A
link
to
CHRIS MARKER (LA JETEE) resources on the WWW.
Literature--the
skeleton key for the human psyche. moses
juarez, 1979 laredo,
texas
Required
new reading for WEDNESDAY October 4, 2006! Click
HERE
for a very lucid gloss of the poem and its origins!
Carlos
Zambrano writes in to suggest that this
site cheology
of the seductive hallucination--what do you think?
Very
difficult and
very cool piece of cutting edge critical film theory by a complit prof!
Look
what amazing GTA Cathy Miller found! Very cool!
Two
of my genius GTAs pointed out to me the connections between the work of
Jorge Luis Borges and MC Escher, the Dutch artist--it is funny how literature
works: I threw Borges into the mix to help many students who had a problem
making their way through Chris Marker's LA JETEE; NOW Escher turns up to
help readers make their way through Borges. On and on and on we go!
Here's
a good ESCHER archive:
Three
very useful guides/interviews for Los Bros Hernandez
and Love and Rockets...
...an
older
interview
...a
newer profile
...and
a cool character
guide for Jaime's short stories
Titles
in Literature and Cinema are key! Read the image here carefully and
be able to answer the following challenge: Why did Hubert Selby, Jr (the
writer of the original novel) and Darren Aronofsky (the co-screenwriter
and director of the film) entitle this film, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM?
The
main themes of this semester's adventure are beginning to reveal themselves:
alienation, desire, loneliness, literature as narcotic, narcotics as literature,
and psychology seem to lurk around every corner--this will become even
more acute with our introduction to the cinematic vision of Darren Aronofsky;
here, however, in anticipation of Aronofsky, the work of another seductive
hallucination artist: Paul Blow. (Give
it time to load, it is a broadband friendly site!)
An
Eye for Annai--see it! share it!
The
Borges short story that is now REQUIRED reading for the class!
Another
colleague weighs in with links and tips:
A
colleague of yours holds forth on ANDY from EIGHTBALL.
Date:
Tue, 19 Sep 2006 16:47:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject:
professor! A new hope From:
"Carlos Zambrano" <czambran@rohan.sdsu.edu> To:
"Bill Nericcio" <memo@sdsu.edu> Professor!
Something
I dearly secretly enjoyed keeping to myself has to be liberated!
For the sake of my peers that is. A few of my observations:
1.
Andy's girlfriend--her name is Dusty. Huh? What's dusty? Usually
something that is left on a shelf--abandoned. And near the
end of the reading she is just that. Dusty is dusty. (pg. 39)
2.
Notice his friends. Oh wait, he has none. Louie is gone, and Sonny is only
his friend because of a "favor". He has none!
3.
Peter
Parker-- I mean Andy from the looks of things, committed the greatest
sin of all. The most tragic story to be told. His existence is in doubt.
Somewhere in the story I could swear I heard "Great Power comes With
Great Responsibility". It's like the Spider-Man what-IF scenario, what
if a boy and his powers were never actually used to defend crime...or destroy?
It goes both ways for Andy, he never used his gift to do ANYTHING productive
OR destructive. The greatest sin of them all: NOTHING
And
that's what Andy ended up with at the end of the story. Nothing.
Aronofsky
Interview, hit the image; more interviews here !
Terribly
useful ARONOFSKY SITE for REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
Superb
NYTIMES peruser Lauren Kersen sends us the following link
exploring
the origins of American superheroes!
A
motivated reader writes in on how CLOWES incorporated a Spiderman origin
element in Andy's peculiar tale:
Date:
Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:16:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject:
Re: Dan Clowes Resource Links now available! From:
"Ryan Moore" <rmoore@rohan.sdsu.edu> To:
bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu Hi-
I did not want to miss an opportunity to be in on the seductive hallucination's
hall o' fame so....
Go
to p.18 of Eigthball...the scene in blue:
Enter
Andy (aka, here, Peter Parker) and sees a crowd gathered. Police
tell him, but he doesn't believe it--his grandfather is broken and dying,
helpless. "Pappy!"he
exclaims, "Who did this to you?" The
answer? "Andy..."
File
under: american pop-culture reference/foreshadow(?) --Ryan
Moore, 220.14:the mental marauders
Useful
critical review of EIGHTBALL 23
Cool
critical blurb on Dan Clowes's EIGHTBALL 23 from the Village Voice
Interview
with Clowes!
Clowes
Profile Video
A
Hallucinator writes in with a link and a query:
Date:
Sun, 10 Sep 2006 18:01:06 -0700 (PDT) From:
Liz Minnix <lizziann6@yahoo.com> To:
bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu Hi
Professor,
I
am attaching a link in this e-mail of a new gap ad featuring Audrey Hepburn.
Intriguing, it exudes the dynamics of the seductive hallucination by adapting
classic beauty and revamping it to be modernly hip. I would love
to know what you think. Elizabeth Minnix
Another
Sage Professor Writes In!
Date:
Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:55:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject:
Of Mice and Men! Corruption! From:
"Carlos Zambrano" <czambran@rohan.sdsu.edu> To:
bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu Hi
professor, remember when I was trying to explain that I saw a few parts of
the reading that were "dirty" or "corrupted". Here are some examples of what
I meant!
1.
pg 3. "I ain't sure it's good water"- George 2.
pg 5. The dead mouse! and Pg 84. The dead puppy! (Death) 3.
pg 11. "Why, I could stay in a cat house all night" - George 4.
This one's big! PG.18 The entire scene where Curly
is explaining to George that everything is clean and ok, after seeing the
yellow flea can on his bed. (Everything about that work place was messed
up and George and Lennie knew i! ) 5.
Pg. 24 The entire paragraph of the description of Curly's Dog 6.
Curly himself! Got used to the smell of the dog, old, stumped hand, swamper 7.Pg.
27 "Well, that glove is fulla vaseline" Curly 8.
Crooks! He thinks himself as a simple "nigger", living with a pile of manure
outside his window, dirty magazines on his shelf (self neglect) 9.
Curly's wife is a "tart" 10.
Ultimately George disposing of his friend (betrayal)
The
entire book is filled with grief, "i wish"'s, and loneliness! Steinback
isn't just writing these things to make his book more interesting,
I believe he is trying to make a point. He wouldn't get out of
his way to explain how Lennie and George always felt uneasy working there
or how Curly's wife was always looking around. In this case, like you
have said in your lectures, he is trying to reach out to us. To let us see
a side of things we tend to put aside because it isn't pretty. To become
aware. That we all have a little bit of corruption.
Editorial
Protocols for When you Author an Essay for the Seductive Hallucination--aka,
essay cheat-sheet!
A
Seductive Hallucination Citizen Writes in With Wisdom
From:
Bill Nericcio <memo@sdsu.edu> To:
"Michael Haider" <michael_haider@hotmail.com> Subject:
Re: mice and men passage Date:
Mon, 11 Sep 2006 14:18:00 -0700 Hi
Bill, I
am writing to share one of my favorite pieces of symbolism from the beginning
of the book which i did not bring up in class today for fear of ruining
the end of the story for those who had not read it before:
Lennie dabbled his big paw in the water and wiggled his fingers so the
water arose in little splashes; rings widened across the pool to the other
side and came back again. Lennie watched them go.
"Look, George.Look what I done."
Steinbeck
wraps up the core elements of the story in this seemingly unimportant passage;
he is indeed always "up to something". We have Lennie's innocent, childlike
splashing of the water with his paw (animal imagery)"stirring the pond"
(a foreshadowing of the trouble his presence will cause on the farm), and
having the rings come back to him, (foreshadowing the tragic repercussions
his actions cause).
Every time i read this novel i am amazed at how Steinbeck managed to pack
such powerful, symbolic, and touching work into so tiny a book, thanks
for making us re-read it.
What
NOT to do when we ask you to write an essay!
Trippy
ALICE IN WONDERLAND illustrations by John Tenniel
Review
your short course on Comedy and Onanism
while
also boning up on your Spanish!
Geoffrey
Chaucer's REEVE's TALE
Charlotte
Perkins Gilman supplement by Jaime Hernandez
How
to sign your name and fold your
sheet of paper for an in-class quiz