Juan Herrera, Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler
Pg. 175
“I say hello but no one listens except myself and you, of course. Maybe it’s my crazy two-tone Armani dance shoes, the fuchsia tights. Or maybe I just had Juantoomanys. Everywhere I look there is Juan, Can’t help it. It’s true. Can’t knock it, cant shake it. Everywhere I turn there’s Juan.
I find this quote interesting because he is saying how he wants to get away form himself that he cant shake himself, but why would you wan to get rid of yourself? Throughout the whole poem he add his name into words and then says that he cant get away form him self and he wants to stop obsessing over himself.
Pg. 186
“One quick flash of the hands. It was a mother thing. She blessed me one too many times. She crossed her tiny hands over my face so. I saw through the mountain furnace –this old road of lives and cross blossoms and unturned stones.”
This poem was the last of the book the title was How to Make a Chile Verde Smuggler. In this quote he is talking about his mother, and how no matter what he did whether he was right or wrong she would always forgive him and love him. He is also saying that even though he had made many mistakes she was always there to forgive him. He now was visiting his mother in a graveyard and telling how there are so many lives there that are blossoming to new places beyond.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Juan Herrera, Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler
Pg. 157
Wanna B: “how to use the fruit-of-the-loom T-shirt to divert attention from your bad credit.”
Sancho: contestant numero uno?
Contestant #1: Hispa-chute!
In the beginning of the chapter he shows a game show that is mixed between jeopardy and the wheel of fortune. While this is going on they are making fun of the Hispanics every answer to the questions starts with the word Hispa, when also in the game show they hit tacos instead of bells the whole setting of the stage is a cheap Mexican like taco curtains and etc. although he is making fun of Mexicans he is also making other realize that when the make racial slurs that more people realize them then you would think.
Pg. 166
“Of course chickens don’t talk – this is the first piece of common knowledge that had to be discarded. When Antoinne Saldivar Exclamado came back from Stanford, after a four year stint for a B.A in economics, the first thing he did was set the record straight for the rest of his familia.
This quote to me shows that someone who was close to them had left and gone to get a better education but while he was away from home for so long he had forgotten some things that to others, who deal with the same things all the time, are common sense. And they were just having a joke about it because to them its common knowledge.
Pg. 157
Wanna B: “how to use the fruit-of-the-loom T-shirt to divert attention from your bad credit.”
Sancho: contestant numero uno?
Contestant #1: Hispa-chute!
In the beginning of the chapter he shows a game show that is mixed between jeopardy and the wheel of fortune. While this is going on they are making fun of the Hispanics every answer to the questions starts with the word Hispa, when also in the game show they hit tacos instead of bells the whole setting of the stage is a cheap Mexican like taco curtains and etc. although he is making fun of Mexicans he is also making other realize that when the make racial slurs that more people realize them then you would think.
Pg. 166
“Of course chickens don’t talk – this is the first piece of common knowledge that had to be discarded. When Antoinne Saldivar Exclamado came back from Stanford, after a four year stint for a B.A in economics, the first thing he did was set the record straight for the rest of his familia.
This quote to me shows that someone who was close to them had left and gone to get a better education but while he was away from home for so long he had forgotten some things that to others, who deal with the same things all the time, are common sense. And they were just having a joke about it because to them its common knowledge.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Juan Herrera, Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler
Pg. 142
“How many make it out, brother? Out of the tile hallways, the paste-up rooms, into full meditations, into the upward mobile soul chew ladder of apocalypse or down into the plantation brown girl boy Spanish – speaking tunnel. So you gotta fight like the taxi driver from Poland, five years said you gotta make a little room.”
He had just came back form an elementary school where there were mixed races, Mexican, Italian, Latin Etc. there was going to be a name change but it was over ruled for there were different view from the different parents. He was asking which one of these children are actually going to make it out of that place alive and with their head on straight. Those children in order to get what they need they need to learn how to fight to get what is needed.
Pg. 144
“ I am that paper, I am those words now, the ink burns in every cell. When I look out to the trees, the long winding streets of Tortilla Flats, as they shoot to the hills and cut the electric rails of the Muni buses to the towers and Twin peaks, the fog and into the sky haze, I see your signs, I read your voice, now yes I do. Oyeme, Mamita, Oyeme- not that you are gone into the deep and silent luminous fallen side of the night. Oyeme.
He is more connected to his mother even though she has died he is feeling like she really is there for him and gives him more support. He now knows that she was also a writer and that even though she didn’t like him writing he thinks that could be because she wanted a better life for him than that. Even thought she is gone he can still feel her presence in different places such as the nature around him. He sees her hidden signs and becomes more connected with her.
Pg. 142
“How many make it out, brother? Out of the tile hallways, the paste-up rooms, into full meditations, into the upward mobile soul chew ladder of apocalypse or down into the plantation brown girl boy Spanish – speaking tunnel. So you gotta fight like the taxi driver from Poland, five years said you gotta make a little room.”
He had just came back form an elementary school where there were mixed races, Mexican, Italian, Latin Etc. there was going to be a name change but it was over ruled for there were different view from the different parents. He was asking which one of these children are actually going to make it out of that place alive and with their head on straight. Those children in order to get what they need they need to learn how to fight to get what is needed.
Pg. 144
“ I am that paper, I am those words now, the ink burns in every cell. When I look out to the trees, the long winding streets of Tortilla Flats, as they shoot to the hills and cut the electric rails of the Muni buses to the towers and Twin peaks, the fog and into the sky haze, I see your signs, I read your voice, now yes I do. Oyeme, Mamita, Oyeme- not that you are gone into the deep and silent luminous fallen side of the night. Oyeme.
He is more connected to his mother even though she has died he is feeling like she really is there for him and gives him more support. He now knows that she was also a writer and that even though she didn’t like him writing he thinks that could be because she wanted a better life for him than that. Even thought she is gone he can still feel her presence in different places such as the nature around him. He sees her hidden signs and becomes more connected with her.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Juan Herrera, Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler
Pg. 117
“Each one spoke in the narrow circle. Barlow read a poem & it was the first time I ever heard my tia Albina talk about my mother. When it was my turn, next to my mother’s ashes, at the open center believe me, camaradas, I began to cry. This was my beginning.”
His mother had been sick for a while but he had never really acted on it. He just went on with his daily life not paying attention to what could happen. Than when she finally died and the shock hit him like a wave. The sadness was more then he thought more because he didn’t cherish the time they had left and also she was the biggest influence on him and he loved her.
Pg. 119
“At sixteen, at midnight they came knocking. Said my father had died of complications. My mother shuddered. Fell. Something dropped inside of her and grew above us. A tiny flame of sweetness and black. For years, in that wild shadow, she smoked and kissed a stray that crossed our window.
When his father died there was sadness and confusion they didn’t know what had happen. His mother at first was more shocked then sad “my mother shuddered” and the special feeling inside her fell and was lost. The sadness had grown above them like a wave of darkness and sorrow. The sweetness was them noticing the love they had for him and the black was the morn of his loss.
Pg. 117
“Each one spoke in the narrow circle. Barlow read a poem & it was the first time I ever heard my tia Albina talk about my mother. When it was my turn, next to my mother’s ashes, at the open center believe me, camaradas, I began to cry. This was my beginning.”
His mother had been sick for a while but he had never really acted on it. He just went on with his daily life not paying attention to what could happen. Than when she finally died and the shock hit him like a wave. The sadness was more then he thought more because he didn’t cherish the time they had left and also she was the biggest influence on him and he loved her.
Pg. 119
“At sixteen, at midnight they came knocking. Said my father had died of complications. My mother shuddered. Fell. Something dropped inside of her and grew above us. A tiny flame of sweetness and black. For years, in that wild shadow, she smoked and kissed a stray that crossed our window.
When his father died there was sadness and confusion they didn’t know what had happen. His mother at first was more shocked then sad “my mother shuddered” and the special feeling inside her fell and was lost. The sadness had grown above them like a wave of darkness and sorrow. The sweetness was them noticing the love they had for him and the black was the morn of his loss.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Juan Herrera, Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler
Pg. 80
“What does he know? Knows nothing about my city of green winds and reddish skirt lust lights over market, reddish as in the fingers and rough elbows of the teen Latinas in search of a diamond, let me say it this way, in search of a kiss from the machine time-keeping unit. I stand-alone in the rubble ground of Tortilla Flats, warehouses of bound bedrooms. Fastened tongue prisons, only worker ants with an anteater noses live here in a tropical blast from inside saves us, at time saves our sexual wasp-shaped torsos from additional counts of suffering and loss and emptiness.”
I choose this quote because it is showing how he feels about being young. How the young girls are looking for some one to sweep them off their feet and take there had in marriage. That when you are young, you are curios wanting to explore all aspects of life and wanting to stay young forever. To stop time and stay in the young innocents of having fun with very little responsibility.
Pg. 89
“What is Mexico? Another fast stop for quasi-Beat U.S middle-class poets to photograph themselves on a literary burro on their way to a Managuan book fair and a backyard hut experience for 800$ so they can come back to their sanded-down desks somewhere overlooking the Bay area and write a feeble twenty-page stroke of masturbations and distortions? Believe it or not, this is what is going on. Look around.”
What he is saying is that when people from the united states, who have everything they want and a lot handed to them, come down to Mexico and try to look for the inner beauty they don’t know where to look because they haven’t had that experience before. When they come to Mexico to get inspirations on what to write about their poems but instead of fully embracing what they are experiencing they go to do what they need to and get out.
Pg. 80
“What does he know? Knows nothing about my city of green winds and reddish skirt lust lights over market, reddish as in the fingers and rough elbows of the teen Latinas in search of a diamond, let me say it this way, in search of a kiss from the machine time-keeping unit. I stand-alone in the rubble ground of Tortilla Flats, warehouses of bound bedrooms. Fastened tongue prisons, only worker ants with an anteater noses live here in a tropical blast from inside saves us, at time saves our sexual wasp-shaped torsos from additional counts of suffering and loss and emptiness.”
I choose this quote because it is showing how he feels about being young. How the young girls are looking for some one to sweep them off their feet and take there had in marriage. That when you are young, you are curios wanting to explore all aspects of life and wanting to stay young forever. To stop time and stay in the young innocents of having fun with very little responsibility.
Pg. 89
“What is Mexico? Another fast stop for quasi-Beat U.S middle-class poets to photograph themselves on a literary burro on their way to a Managuan book fair and a backyard hut experience for 800$ so they can come back to their sanded-down desks somewhere overlooking the Bay area and write a feeble twenty-page stroke of masturbations and distortions? Believe it or not, this is what is going on. Look around.”
What he is saying is that when people from the united states, who have everything they want and a lot handed to them, come down to Mexico and try to look for the inner beauty they don’t know where to look because they haven’t had that experience before. When they come to Mexico to get inspirations on what to write about their poems but instead of fully embracing what they are experiencing they go to do what they need to and get out.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Juan Herrera, Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler
Pg. 64
“My head is wet. Everyone is talking about growing the brain of age 1: grow the brain! I suppose the brain is the ultimate sale, product, frontier, capsule, coin, cow, chicken, river, horse, train, rubber, wheel, map, slope, over yonder there is a brain to plow to sell and sew, carry to the market! Who owns the market? That is the old .75 question. Bag it, baby.”
I chose this quote because I found it interesting how he uses brain as if it were a possession or something you can get anywhere, when really its part of you body, you are born with it and there is no way to get rid of it or to gain it. In a sense he could mean that a brain is just a useless brain until a person creates it to be their own by what they learn and how they act. Depending on the person and how they treat themselves the brain forms to many different ways.
Pg. 69
“Who did I read? I said, my mother. Lucha Quintana. Have you heard of that writer? The woman’s neck twisted. No, she wanted to know “what writers”! she wanted to ask the usual worn phrase. Ginsberg, Artaud, Nervo, Lorca, Neruda, Popa, hikmet, Rodnati, Walker. There are the shadows –I should have told her.”
I chose this quote because it shows how society has such an influence on us. When he said that his mother was his favorite writer the interviewer almost didn’t know how to respond for she was looking for him to say some great novelist. Society has changes us so that instead of saying what we want to say we say what they want to hear.
Pg. 64
“My head is wet. Everyone is talking about growing the brain of age 1: grow the brain! I suppose the brain is the ultimate sale, product, frontier, capsule, coin, cow, chicken, river, horse, train, rubber, wheel, map, slope, over yonder there is a brain to plow to sell and sew, carry to the market! Who owns the market? That is the old .75 question. Bag it, baby.”
I chose this quote because I found it interesting how he uses brain as if it were a possession or something you can get anywhere, when really its part of you body, you are born with it and there is no way to get rid of it or to gain it. In a sense he could mean that a brain is just a useless brain until a person creates it to be their own by what they learn and how they act. Depending on the person and how they treat themselves the brain forms to many different ways.
Pg. 69
“Who did I read? I said, my mother. Lucha Quintana. Have you heard of that writer? The woman’s neck twisted. No, she wanted to know “what writers”! she wanted to ask the usual worn phrase. Ginsberg, Artaud, Nervo, Lorca, Neruda, Popa, hikmet, Rodnati, Walker. There are the shadows –I should have told her.”
I chose this quote because it shows how society has such an influence on us. When he said that his mother was his favorite writer the interviewer almost didn’t know how to respond for she was looking for him to say some great novelist. Society has changes us so that instead of saying what we want to say we say what they want to hear.
Juan Herrera, Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler
Pg. 32
“And yet things and moments seem pliable, transformative, we move out into the open mix of coffee houses, homeless tenements, beaten down chartreuse movimiento rooms, past the old Victoria Restaurant, Gomez-Pena’s loft on Cesar Chavez Boulevard with velvet O.J. Simpson paintings on the walls, New Age gargoyle trilingual low riders, swamp art spaces, Kulingtan workshops & Pinay poetics, verse-riffs and performero doo-wop, mercados featuring papaya and jitomate sales, gentrified Victorians cutting through the old Irish, Mexicano, and Latino neighborhoods; things appear new, our poesy missions appear refurbished, then the fog from the Pacific rolls in again, homicide stats pile up on the curb, more death, then light, rain, more rain.”
This quote stood out for the fact that it explains from his prospective what the foreigners had when they came to America. In Mexico they would think of America as a better life a place where they can start over, but in reality when they came it was not like that at all they were the lower class had horrible jobs lived in the dumps, they did not have a good life style at all.
Pg. 50
“A writer must deal with big questions, big deepness, big heart, big fist. Big mind, how do we do it?
This quote brings up a good point, that to be a writer you must go big or don’t go at all. A writer has to compete with many different things; other books, movies, games etc. when writing a book you have to be careful that you don’t write the same thing as someone else and not to write a book that there are to many of. A book needs to grab some ones attention, be different from the rest, be bigger.
Pg. 32
“And yet things and moments seem pliable, transformative, we move out into the open mix of coffee houses, homeless tenements, beaten down chartreuse movimiento rooms, past the old Victoria Restaurant, Gomez-Pena’s loft on Cesar Chavez Boulevard with velvet O.J. Simpson paintings on the walls, New Age gargoyle trilingual low riders, swamp art spaces, Kulingtan workshops & Pinay poetics, verse-riffs and performero doo-wop, mercados featuring papaya and jitomate sales, gentrified Victorians cutting through the old Irish, Mexicano, and Latino neighborhoods; things appear new, our poesy missions appear refurbished, then the fog from the Pacific rolls in again, homicide stats pile up on the curb, more death, then light, rain, more rain.”
This quote stood out for the fact that it explains from his prospective what the foreigners had when they came to America. In Mexico they would think of America as a better life a place where they can start over, but in reality when they came it was not like that at all they were the lower class had horrible jobs lived in the dumps, they did not have a good life style at all.
Pg. 50
“A writer must deal with big questions, big deepness, big heart, big fist. Big mind, how do we do it?
This quote brings up a good point, that to be a writer you must go big or don’t go at all. A writer has to compete with many different things; other books, movies, games etc. when writing a book you have to be careful that you don’t write the same thing as someone else and not to write a book that there are to many of. A book needs to grab some ones attention, be different from the rest, be bigger.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Juan Herrera, Notebook of a Chile Verde Smuggler
Pg.5
“Show Mama my right big toe infected and swollen. Ven aqui, she says. Ok, mom. Just put your foot in this pan of hot water. Hold the toe up, Juan, come on. Ok, now, give me that razor. What razor? Your papi’s brand new Gillette. It’s not brand new, Mama. ‘S ok, the hot water and the salt will burn the germs. You ready, Juan?
This was an interesting and new way to set the scene. This raises many questions to what kind of life style this boy had. Most likely in poverty, also they are Mexican. I choose this quote for I thought it was unique how he started the book off with such little words but yet it shows a lot about what the person and the family was like, with out any description.
Pg. 20
“The Father guitar cuento song eternal
The mother no longer sacrificial, yet holy
The son, now walking, always walking
The house, gone up in tribal ashes, gone
South to emptiness
Gone to the earth sky river melody
No chain
No shame
No name. “
This was said after he was talking about his mother, being pregnant. This short quote shows the life of that family, how the relationships of the mother, father, son and house interrelated. As time progressed the family has grown up too and many things had changed, the son was on his own, the mother was no longer having children, the father found a hobby and the house had burned. The family had moved on to the rest of their lives.
Pg.5
“Show Mama my right big toe infected and swollen. Ven aqui, she says. Ok, mom. Just put your foot in this pan of hot water. Hold the toe up, Juan, come on. Ok, now, give me that razor. What razor? Your papi’s brand new Gillette. It’s not brand new, Mama. ‘S ok, the hot water and the salt will burn the germs. You ready, Juan?
This was an interesting and new way to set the scene. This raises many questions to what kind of life style this boy had. Most likely in poverty, also they are Mexican. I choose this quote for I thought it was unique how he started the book off with such little words but yet it shows a lot about what the person and the family was like, with out any description.
Pg. 20
“The Father guitar cuento song eternal
The mother no longer sacrificial, yet holy
The son, now walking, always walking
The house, gone up in tribal ashes, gone
South to emptiness
Gone to the earth sky river melody
No chain
No shame
No name. “
This was said after he was talking about his mother, being pregnant. This short quote shows the life of that family, how the relationships of the mother, father, son and house interrelated. As time progressed the family has grown up too and many things had changed, the son was on his own, the mother was no longer having children, the father found a hobby and the house had burned. The family had moved on to the rest of their lives.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
My questions:
1. What got you interested in Buddhism? Or how did you start
2. Is and was your religion always Buddhist?
3. What is your daily life like?
4. How much time in a day do you take to meditate?
5. How long have you been a Buddhist mediator?
6. What do other people (friends, family) think of your life style?
7. What is your opinion on the mainstream society? And why
8. Have you ever had doubts on what you do?
9. Who are the people who have had a great influence on you?
10. Do you think what you do is rewarding?
1. What got you interested in Buddhism? Or how did you start
2. Is and was your religion always Buddhist?
3. What is your daily life like?
4. How much time in a day do you take to meditate?
5. How long have you been a Buddhist mediator?
6. What do other people (friends, family) think of your life style?
7. What is your opinion on the mainstream society? And why
8. Have you ever had doubts on what you do?
9. Who are the people who have had a great influence on you?
10. Do you think what you do is rewarding?
Monday, May 7, 2007
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
Pg.747
“But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told at all. It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. Bricks were crumbling in pieces, and the frost door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side”
In her parents stories and dreams they described the house that they wanted to move into as an elegant white house, in a good neighbor hood, with many rooms and bathrooms and room so spare. But when it came down to moving at the last minute they had to settle with the house on Mango Street. The way she described the house with the swollen door and windows that cant breathe shows that the house is small and old a place where she feels trapped. Everything she says about the house makes it seem small and uncomfortable.
Pg. 745
“Once when we were living in Loomis, a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing out front. The Laundromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had been robbed two days before and the owner had painted on the wood YES WE’RE OPEN so as not to loose business.
Where do you live? She asked.
There, I said pointing up to the third floor.
You live there?
There. I had to look where she was pointed the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded.”
Since she had lived in this place for a while and if not other places that were similar to this situation, she hasn’t realized what living condition she is in. She’s not poor because she is not living on the street and she is not rich because she can’t afford her own house, but she is somewhere in-between. When the nun points out that where she lives in is a shameful place, not on purpose, but the tone of her voice makes her feel self-conscious. This is when she starts to realize that the house her parent’s talk of is just a dream and might never be reached.
Pg.747
“But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told at all. It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. Bricks were crumbling in pieces, and the frost door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side”
In her parents stories and dreams they described the house that they wanted to move into as an elegant white house, in a good neighbor hood, with many rooms and bathrooms and room so spare. But when it came down to moving at the last minute they had to settle with the house on Mango Street. The way she described the house with the swollen door and windows that cant breathe shows that the house is small and old a place where she feels trapped. Everything she says about the house makes it seem small and uncomfortable.
Pg. 745
“Once when we were living in Loomis, a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing out front. The Laundromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had been robbed two days before and the owner had painted on the wood YES WE’RE OPEN so as not to loose business.
Where do you live? She asked.
There, I said pointing up to the third floor.
You live there?
There. I had to look where she was pointed the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded.”
Since she had lived in this place for a while and if not other places that were similar to this situation, she hasn’t realized what living condition she is in. She’s not poor because she is not living on the street and she is not rich because she can’t afford her own house, but she is somewhere in-between. When the nun points out that where she lives in is a shameful place, not on purpose, but the tone of her voice makes her feel self-conscious. This is when she starts to realize that the house her parent’s talk of is just a dream and might never be reached.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Pg. 227
“Well I don’t care all I want is to be alone up there this summer. You’re saying that now but you’ll change your tune soon enough. They all talk brave. But then you get to talkin to yourself. That ain’t so bad but don’t start answerin yourself, son.
Ray is talking to Happy the muleskinner about his trip over the summer when he will be alone. Happy is telling him to go, take it all in but stop when necessary. For if Ray needs to stop and leave, not for him to stay out there just to prove he can. Go until you know the time for him is right to sop.
Pg. 235
“In fact I realized that they were upside down and I was upside down! There was nothing here to hide the fact of gravity holding us all intact upside down against a surface globe of earth in infinite empty space. And suddenly I realized I was truly alone and had nothing to do but feed myself and rest and amuse myself, and nobody could criticize. The little flowers grew everywhere around the rocks, and no one had asked them to grow or me to grow.”
Ray is on top of a mountain standing on his head looking at the other mountains realizing that he is entirely alone now, defending for himself. He was in complete serenity and enjoying it, he had come a long journey to get to this point where he was alone in total comfort. The mountains surrounding him were all the peaks that had alarming names, while he was upside down it seemed as he looked at the mountains the looked like “bubbles” they seemed harmless and new because they were in a different perspective.
Pg. 227
“Well I don’t care all I want is to be alone up there this summer. You’re saying that now but you’ll change your tune soon enough. They all talk brave. But then you get to talkin to yourself. That ain’t so bad but don’t start answerin yourself, son.
Ray is talking to Happy the muleskinner about his trip over the summer when he will be alone. Happy is telling him to go, take it all in but stop when necessary. For if Ray needs to stop and leave, not for him to stay out there just to prove he can. Go until you know the time for him is right to sop.
Pg. 235
“In fact I realized that they were upside down and I was upside down! There was nothing here to hide the fact of gravity holding us all intact upside down against a surface globe of earth in infinite empty space. And suddenly I realized I was truly alone and had nothing to do but feed myself and rest and amuse myself, and nobody could criticize. The little flowers grew everywhere around the rocks, and no one had asked them to grow or me to grow.”
Ray is on top of a mountain standing on his head looking at the other mountains realizing that he is entirely alone now, defending for himself. He was in complete serenity and enjoying it, he had come a long journey to get to this point where he was alone in total comfort. The mountains surrounding him were all the peaks that had alarming names, while he was upside down it seemed as he looked at the mountains the looked like “bubbles” they seemed harmless and new because they were in a different perspective.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Annie Dillard, Seeing
Pg. 693
“The world is fairly studded and strewed with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But -and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? ... It is poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigue that he wont stop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, than since the world is in fact planted with pennies, you have with your poverty bought lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.
When Annie is talking about is how the world has come to stop appreciating the little things in life such as pennies. As generations past money has become less valuable, there were days where saving pennies was a gift because you could buy “penny candy” and if you collected enough it would turn into bigger amounts of money. Now the penny to people is worthless, people now get rid of small change for it is useless to them. Items are more expensive and pennies have no meaning anymore. She is saying that the penny has lost its value to people, but the penny really hasn’t lost its value at all.
Pg. 694
“It’s all a matter of keeping my eyes open. Nature is like one of those line drawings of a tree that are puzzles for children: Can you find hidden in the leaves a duck, a house, a boy, a bucket, a zebra, and a boot?”
Nature has a way of changing, unlike the broad statement of the world nature has ways to manipulate what it looks like to the surrounding areas. When you look at something in nature such as a tree you can either see a tree as it stands or if you look closer you can make out different things, which make it unique. Nature is able to hide some of its interesting beauties like Annie was saying about with the puzzles of making something seem as it is but having another item hidden. Being able to find these items takes concentration and patients to look that long. When finding hidden items you are in the moment and taking everything one-step at a time to take in what is around you and what you are looking at. By putting yourself in the moment it helps to find those unique hidden figures.
Pg. 693
“The world is fairly studded and strewed with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But -and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? ... It is poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigue that he wont stop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, than since the world is in fact planted with pennies, you have with your poverty bought lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.
When Annie is talking about is how the world has come to stop appreciating the little things in life such as pennies. As generations past money has become less valuable, there were days where saving pennies was a gift because you could buy “penny candy” and if you collected enough it would turn into bigger amounts of money. Now the penny to people is worthless, people now get rid of small change for it is useless to them. Items are more expensive and pennies have no meaning anymore. She is saying that the penny has lost its value to people, but the penny really hasn’t lost its value at all.
Pg. 694
“It’s all a matter of keeping my eyes open. Nature is like one of those line drawings of a tree that are puzzles for children: Can you find hidden in the leaves a duck, a house, a boy, a bucket, a zebra, and a boot?”
Nature has a way of changing, unlike the broad statement of the world nature has ways to manipulate what it looks like to the surrounding areas. When you look at something in nature such as a tree you can either see a tree as it stands or if you look closer you can make out different things, which make it unique. Nature is able to hide some of its interesting beauties like Annie was saying about with the puzzles of making something seem as it is but having another item hidden. Being able to find these items takes concentration and patients to look that long. When finding hidden items you are in the moment and taking everything one-step at a time to take in what is around you and what you are looking at. By putting yourself in the moment it helps to find those unique hidden figures.
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