Hello everyone,
I almost shut Jesus in the garage today. Fortunately, he got out just in time.
The other day, my mom informed me that he had gotten in a fight in our neighborhood. He wasn’t too badly hurt, but he had some scratches around his mouth and, most alarmingly, a little piece of his tongue was missing. Jesus is usually known for his amicable nature, so this came as a bit of a shock.
Our neighbor named his cat Jesus because, as he explained, “Jesus is one of my heroes. Why wouldn’t I name my cat after him?” Fair enough. And the name isn’t as unsuitable as it could be. It’s not as though Jesus is a mean cat. He’s not power-hungry or bent on vengeance. In fact, with his frequent friendly visits to our house, one could even wonder if he has evangelistic intentions, though it may just be the belly-rubs he gets.
So although he may be more interested in scatology than in eschatology, and he’s certainly no messiah, I don’t have theological problems greeting Jesus by name when he comes to meet me in the driveway when I come home. That said, his name hasn’t quite become normalized yet, and my parents and I can’t talk about him without a giggle or two:
“Lucy [the neighbor’s dog] and Jesus are good friends.”
“Is Jesus looking a little plump to you?”
“I think Jesus has been pooping in the flowerbed again.”
Some figures become so well known that their names almost become definitions in and of themselves. We could hardly name a pet “Napoleon,” or “Hitler,” or “Aphrodite” without consciously referring to the characters the names evoke. Their names are so thoroughly integrated into our culture that using them to denote something other than their popular meaning catches us off guard.
A lot of humor comes from these kind of intentional misunderstandings. And I’m sure that my neighbor was certainly expecting, if not hoping for, comedic results by naming his cat after the leader one of the world’s major religions. But though this may not be intentional, I think that another part of what he is doing by calling his cat Jesus is making the name common again. Especially in English-speaking countries, we’ve put the name on such an altar that it almost always refers only to the figure in the Christian tradition. This isn’t always the case, though. In Spanish countries, for example, Jesús is a fairly common first name. In fact, part of the beauty of Jesus’ name is that it was so ordinary in the time and culture in which he was living. When God chose to become human, he came as a commoner, taking a common name.
I’m sure some highly religious folks might manage to summon up a fair amount of indignation regarding the cat’s appellation, but I expect his namesake wouldn’t mind at all. In fact, I imagine that they’d actually get on quite well together. I suspect that Jesus the god-human and Jesus the cat would have a nice chat, probably peppered with fish metaphors, followed by an afternoon nap.
If they do, though, I hope they keep out of the garage.
Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
What the World Needs Now is Like, Sweet Like
Hello Everyone,
I remember having a conversation about language with my host father when I was studying abroad my junior year of college. In typical postprandial, Merlot-imbibing French fashion, he submitted his proposition with little to no warning but ample conviction: French has more words than English and therefore is a more precise language. (Incidentally, his “petites théories” ranged from the ideal number of wristwatches a respectable man should own -- seven --, to how, precisely, to stack the dishwasher.) Depending on my energy and homework levels, I would choose to listen or to debate. This night, I had to debate. Only a few days earlier, I had heard the exact opposite claim from my grammar professor, a formidable woman who rejected abortive attempts at the subjunctive with a blank stare and a baffled, “Ben... non!”, unable to comprehend that we still hadn’t absorbed her mother tongue.
Armed with Madame de Pous’ authoritative evidence, I entered the lexical fray: “I heard,” I said, sipping my wine to demonstrate my investment in the conversation, “that English has more words than French. Many more words.” He would have none of it, and so cut himself some cheese and proceeded to tell me that the extra words my professor claimed that English boasted were merely those relating to business, computers or science. Before I could mention that he was a businessman who used a computer everyday and was very interested in science, he was off, expounding on the merits of French. I suspect it is always difficult to reason with French men after dinner, but when you already have a communicative handicap, it’s sometimes wise to just sit back and enjoy the show. He might have dominated the conversation, but he wasn’t a domineering man. Debate is one of the vehicles through which friendship develops in France.
I am often reminded of this conversation when I think of the huge variety in the English language. The Oxford English Dictionary website offers a conservative estimate of over a quarter of a million words in the English language. It seems strange, then, that out of all these words at our disposal, the word “love” presides over such a range of definitions. It is well known that the Greeks have four words for “love,” each describing a different aspect of the concept. There’s eros, sexual, romantic love; philia, the love in a friendship; storge, familial, affectionate love; and agape, sacrificial or unconditional love, often attributed to God. Surely, English, in all its diversity, could have at least come up with equivalents for these variations.
There’s “like,” of course, but that does not help much either, as it differs from “love” not in specificity but in intensity. Together, “like” and “love” have been responsible for conversational gems such as these:
First grader #1: “I love chocolate milk!”
First grader #2: “Well, why don’t you marry it?”
and
Third grader #1, whispering secretly: “Do you like Brent?”
Third grader #2, averting eyes: “Yeah, he’s ok.”
Third grader #1, persistent: “No, I mean, do you like Brent?”
Third grader #2, blushing: “You mean like-like?”
Third grader #1, her battle already won: “Yeah, like, do you like-like him?”
But part of what I, uh . . . like, about these words is that they force us to clarify what we mean each time we use them. Their very inexactness makes us realize that love looks different depending on the context. It’s clear that when I say “I love graham crackers,” “I love being outside,” and “I love my friends,” I mean different things. But because we understand that love’s definition is so flexible, when its usage is less clear, we must ask questions either of others or of ourselves. How many movies and novels portray the protagonist wrestling with what kind of love he or she feels for a friend? Like or like-like? When someone claims to love the environment, how many times do we subconsciously ask “How much? What does that look like for you? Do you love the environment in the sense that you’ll sign a petition to get curbside recycling in place in your county, or in the sense that you take a walk in the woods each day?”
This linguistic parsing is a lot of mental work, and can cause serious misunderstandings between people. “Love” can sometimes mean such different things, I wonder about its usefulness. But there is also clearly something that connects the different meanings, a reason for uniting them all under the one umbrella word. In The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis says, “Of course language is not an infallible guide, but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience.” It’s no mistake, then, that we can use the same verb when describing our feelings about a good song we’ve just heard as we do when describing our emotional connection to our family members. As Lewis says, “there is a continuity between our elementary likings for things and our loves for people.”
I can’t define the common denominator, and maybe no one can. Recently, though, I’ve found a metaphor that helps me see the situation more clearly. When pigment is mixed with a binder, it becomes paint. Depending on the kind of binder you use, the paint will be an entirely different medium. If you mix a yellow pigment with linseed oil, for example, you will get a yellow oil paint. If you mix that same yellow pigment with gum arabic, though, you will get a yellow watercolor paint. Oil and watercolor paintings are very different: they look different, smell different, have played different roles in the history of art -- they have different meanings. But they are united by the same pigments. I suspect that despite the various manifestations of the word “love” in the English language, there is an underlying commonality in the experiences we attempt to describe with it.
And now that I’ve offered my own “petite théorie,” I’ll go in search of some cheese and wine and ask for your thoughts. How helpful is the word “love”?
Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse
I remember having a conversation about language with my host father when I was studying abroad my junior year of college. In typical postprandial, Merlot-imbibing French fashion, he submitted his proposition with little to no warning but ample conviction: French has more words than English and therefore is a more precise language. (Incidentally, his “petites théories” ranged from the ideal number of wristwatches a respectable man should own -- seven --, to how, precisely, to stack the dishwasher.) Depending on my energy and homework levels, I would choose to listen or to debate. This night, I had to debate. Only a few days earlier, I had heard the exact opposite claim from my grammar professor, a formidable woman who rejected abortive attempts at the subjunctive with a blank stare and a baffled, “Ben... non!”, unable to comprehend that we still hadn’t absorbed her mother tongue.
Armed with Madame de Pous’ authoritative evidence, I entered the lexical fray: “I heard,” I said, sipping my wine to demonstrate my investment in the conversation, “that English has more words than French. Many more words.” He would have none of it, and so cut himself some cheese and proceeded to tell me that the extra words my professor claimed that English boasted were merely those relating to business, computers or science. Before I could mention that he was a businessman who used a computer everyday and was very interested in science, he was off, expounding on the merits of French. I suspect it is always difficult to reason with French men after dinner, but when you already have a communicative handicap, it’s sometimes wise to just sit back and enjoy the show. He might have dominated the conversation, but he wasn’t a domineering man. Debate is one of the vehicles through which friendship develops in France.
I am often reminded of this conversation when I think of the huge variety in the English language. The Oxford English Dictionary website offers a conservative estimate of over a quarter of a million words in the English language. It seems strange, then, that out of all these words at our disposal, the word “love” presides over such a range of definitions. It is well known that the Greeks have four words for “love,” each describing a different aspect of the concept. There’s eros, sexual, romantic love; philia, the love in a friendship; storge, familial, affectionate love; and agape, sacrificial or unconditional love, often attributed to God. Surely, English, in all its diversity, could have at least come up with equivalents for these variations.
There’s “like,” of course, but that does not help much either, as it differs from “love” not in specificity but in intensity. Together, “like” and “love” have been responsible for conversational gems such as these:
First grader #1: “I love chocolate milk!”
First grader #2: “Well, why don’t you marry it?”
and
Third grader #1, whispering secretly: “Do you like Brent?”
Third grader #2, averting eyes: “Yeah, he’s ok.”
Third grader #1, persistent: “No, I mean, do you like Brent?”
Third grader #2, blushing: “You mean like-like?”
Third grader #1, her battle already won: “Yeah, like, do you like-like him?”
But part of what I, uh . . . like, about these words is that they force us to clarify what we mean each time we use them. Their very inexactness makes us realize that love looks different depending on the context. It’s clear that when I say “I love graham crackers,” “I love being outside,” and “I love my friends,” I mean different things. But because we understand that love’s definition is so flexible, when its usage is less clear, we must ask questions either of others or of ourselves. How many movies and novels portray the protagonist wrestling with what kind of love he or she feels for a friend? Like or like-like? When someone claims to love the environment, how many times do we subconsciously ask “How much? What does that look like for you? Do you love the environment in the sense that you’ll sign a petition to get curbside recycling in place in your county, or in the sense that you take a walk in the woods each day?”
This linguistic parsing is a lot of mental work, and can cause serious misunderstandings between people. “Love” can sometimes mean such different things, I wonder about its usefulness. But there is also clearly something that connects the different meanings, a reason for uniting them all under the one umbrella word. In The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis says, “Of course language is not an infallible guide, but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience.” It’s no mistake, then, that we can use the same verb when describing our feelings about a good song we’ve just heard as we do when describing our emotional connection to our family members. As Lewis says, “there is a continuity between our elementary likings for things and our loves for people.”
I can’t define the common denominator, and maybe no one can. Recently, though, I’ve found a metaphor that helps me see the situation more clearly. When pigment is mixed with a binder, it becomes paint. Depending on the kind of binder you use, the paint will be an entirely different medium. If you mix a yellow pigment with linseed oil, for example, you will get a yellow oil paint. If you mix that same yellow pigment with gum arabic, though, you will get a yellow watercolor paint. Oil and watercolor paintings are very different: they look different, smell different, have played different roles in the history of art -- they have different meanings. But they are united by the same pigments. I suspect that despite the various manifestations of the word “love” in the English language, there is an underlying commonality in the experiences we attempt to describe with it.
And now that I’ve offered my own “petite théorie,” I’ll go in search of some cheese and wine and ask for your thoughts. How helpful is the word “love”?
Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Tuna and Tampons
Hello Everyone,
A few weeks ago, two copies of the July issue of Bay State Parent magazine arrived in my mailbox at Hollins. I have never been to the Bay State, nor am I a parent. Surely just one copy of a magazine that is totally irrelevant to my life experience would have sufficed?
Actually, on pages 28 and 29, accompanying an article entitled “Girl Talk Should Start Early,” my first ever published illustration was printed, and these were the two complimentary issues the art director had sent to me:
The illustration
The illustration in Bay State Parent magazine
If you had asked me five years ago, or even five months ago, what I thought the topic of my first professional foray into illustration would be, I probably would not have guessed “menstruation.” And if you had asked me what my second foray would be, I am pretty sure I would not have said, “tuna.” And yet, in the fall, What’s Up? Annapolis magazine will publish an article about canned tuna for which I did an illustration:
To be printed in What's Up? Annapolis magazine this fall
And that’s one of the 8493 reasons why I enjoy life so much. There is absolutely no predicting it, or at least a lot of it. And in many respects, that’s why I love illustration too. Because illustrators are often responding to a text or project assigned to them, rather than one that they create, there is a healthy degree of chance in their daily lives. All creation relies on some degree of spontaneity, but when your job is to make things on a regular basis, be they poems or pictures, how do you ensure your creative impulsiveness keeps its edge?
I read an Oswald Chambers quote a while ago that I found intriguing. “Love is spontaneous,” he says, “but it must be maintained by discipline.” This seems contradictory, I know. Spontaneity itself cannot be disciplined. Even the act of becoming conscious of it spoils it in the same way that self-awareness kills humility. But making sure that I have times when I allow myself to be spontaneous -- that can be regulated. If I don’t write periodically, or talk on the phone with my friends often, or pray consistently (all disciplined actions), then my art and my love won’t be as free or as voluntary.
I’ve come to see the above paradox in this way: If love is a river, then the emotional impulse driving it, that passion which dampens the eyes of a child’s parents at her first ballet recital, and which prompts a hitherto illiterate young lad to compose sonnets to his beloved swooning on the balcony above, is the water. Impetuous and enticing, it is the half of love we usually make art about. But the other half, less conspicuous but just as crucial, is the banks of the river: the discipline that must factor into the equation in any kind of longterm love. Whether this discipline takes the form of going on weekly date nights or writing regular letters to your grandmother, love is as dependent on our level of consistency as it is on the impulsive passion inspiring our actions. Without boundaries, a river cannot exist. It would be as un-sustaining and turbulent as an unmanned garden hose writhing about, spitting water violently into the air. The banks of a river give it both direction and definition. Without banks, the water would simply run into the surrounding countryside, dissipating rapidly. Without the water, though, the banks delineate only a dry bed. A river’s power power comes from the combination of the two.
My brother and I love to mock our father when we travel. (Of course, we treat him with due reverence and esteem when we’re not on holiday . . . ) Inevitably, after an interesting encounter or an unexpected conversation, my dad will say something along the lines of, “How serendipitous! When I woke up this morning, I certainly wasn’t expecting to __________.”
But though we ridicule the Jacksonian need to discuss and evaluate virtually every out of the ordinary experience, my dad’s assessment is valid. Going to new places fosters surprising encounters and activities. But anyone who has planned a trip knows how much work goes into making sure that there will be time and space for these moments of spontaneity to occur.
And so it was with my tampon and tuna illustrations. I was in a class -- a regulated environment -- which connected me to the art directors of each magazine. Within that context, I was able to bring my own spontaneity to a topic I certainly wasn’t able to predict. A prize for anyone who can correctly guess the topic of my next illustration. An even bigger prize for anyone who actually gets me my next illustration.
Have a good, serendipitous week,
Sarah/Mouse
To read the Bay State Parent magazine article in pdf form, go to http://www.baystateparent.com/find-a-copy/the-archives/July-2011-baystateparent-Magazine-124801439.html, scroll down and then jump ahead to pages 28 and 29.
To see my website, which I’ve updated with artwork from the spring quarter, go to my website at www.clearasmudillustration.com.
A few weeks ago, two copies of the July issue of Bay State Parent magazine arrived in my mailbox at Hollins. I have never been to the Bay State, nor am I a parent. Surely just one copy of a magazine that is totally irrelevant to my life experience would have sufficed?
Actually, on pages 28 and 29, accompanying an article entitled “Girl Talk Should Start Early,” my first ever published illustration was printed, and these were the two complimentary issues the art director had sent to me:
The illustration
The illustration in Bay State Parent magazineIf you had asked me five years ago, or even five months ago, what I thought the topic of my first professional foray into illustration would be, I probably would not have guessed “menstruation.” And if you had asked me what my second foray would be, I am pretty sure I would not have said, “tuna.” And yet, in the fall, What’s Up? Annapolis magazine will publish an article about canned tuna for which I did an illustration:
To be printed in What's Up? Annapolis magazine this fall
And that’s one of the 8493 reasons why I enjoy life so much. There is absolutely no predicting it, or at least a lot of it. And in many respects, that’s why I love illustration too. Because illustrators are often responding to a text or project assigned to them, rather than one that they create, there is a healthy degree of chance in their daily lives. All creation relies on some degree of spontaneity, but when your job is to make things on a regular basis, be they poems or pictures, how do you ensure your creative impulsiveness keeps its edge?
I read an Oswald Chambers quote a while ago that I found intriguing. “Love is spontaneous,” he says, “but it must be maintained by discipline.” This seems contradictory, I know. Spontaneity itself cannot be disciplined. Even the act of becoming conscious of it spoils it in the same way that self-awareness kills humility. But making sure that I have times when I allow myself to be spontaneous -- that can be regulated. If I don’t write periodically, or talk on the phone with my friends often, or pray consistently (all disciplined actions), then my art and my love won’t be as free or as voluntary.
I’ve come to see the above paradox in this way: If love is a river, then the emotional impulse driving it, that passion which dampens the eyes of a child’s parents at her first ballet recital, and which prompts a hitherto illiterate young lad to compose sonnets to his beloved swooning on the balcony above, is the water. Impetuous and enticing, it is the half of love we usually make art about. But the other half, less conspicuous but just as crucial, is the banks of the river: the discipline that must factor into the equation in any kind of longterm love. Whether this discipline takes the form of going on weekly date nights or writing regular letters to your grandmother, love is as dependent on our level of consistency as it is on the impulsive passion inspiring our actions. Without boundaries, a river cannot exist. It would be as un-sustaining and turbulent as an unmanned garden hose writhing about, spitting water violently into the air. The banks of a river give it both direction and definition. Without banks, the water would simply run into the surrounding countryside, dissipating rapidly. Without the water, though, the banks delineate only a dry bed. A river’s power power comes from the combination of the two.
My brother and I love to mock our father when we travel. (Of course, we treat him with due reverence and esteem when we’re not on holiday . . . ) Inevitably, after an interesting encounter or an unexpected conversation, my dad will say something along the lines of, “How serendipitous! When I woke up this morning, I certainly wasn’t expecting to __________.”
But though we ridicule the Jacksonian need to discuss and evaluate virtually every out of the ordinary experience, my dad’s assessment is valid. Going to new places fosters surprising encounters and activities. But anyone who has planned a trip knows how much work goes into making sure that there will be time and space for these moments of spontaneity to occur.
And so it was with my tampon and tuna illustrations. I was in a class -- a regulated environment -- which connected me to the art directors of each magazine. Within that context, I was able to bring my own spontaneity to a topic I certainly wasn’t able to predict. A prize for anyone who can correctly guess the topic of my next illustration. An even bigger prize for anyone who actually gets me my next illustration.
Have a good, serendipitous week,
Sarah/Mouse
To read the Bay State Parent magazine article in pdf form, go to http://www.baystateparent.com/find-a-copy/the-archives/July-2011-baystateparent-Magazine-124801439.html, scroll down and then jump ahead to pages 28 and 29.
To see my website, which I’ve updated with artwork from the spring quarter, go to my website at www.clearasmudillustration.com.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Hollins Highlights
Hi Everyone,
I hope you are all having a good summer or winter, depending on, well, which you’re having. I am having a fantastic summer so far, but it has been characteristically full.
I have just completed my second term at Hollins University, where I am getting my Masters in Children’s Literature. I skipped last year’s term so that I could go to South Africa. So it had been two years since I had been back in Roanoke having stimulating discussions about children’s books with my brilliant, crazy, hysterical friends and classmates. It was a grand reunion, and this summer, though more busy and stressful than the first, was even more thrilling. Rather than try to sum it up further, here are some highlights from the last six weeks:
Most enjoyable outdoors adventure: The night my friends and I arrived at Hollins, southwestern Virginia welcomed us with a torrential downpour. One of my friends (also, conveniently, named Sarah) came up to my room. “Do you want to go on a walk in the rain with me?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, and started out the door immediately. Then, remembering I was a responsible adult, I changed from tennis shoes to flip flops so that my sneakers wouldn’t get soaked. We walked for about an hour getting completely drenched, catching each other up with the deep and delightful parts of our lives since we’d seen each other last. At one point, when we were meandering down a slippery hillside, I was struck by how perfect this all was. I interrupted the conversation briefly to say “Sarah! We could drink off of our faces!” Thoroughly saturated, we went down the hillside and entered our summer.
Most interesting new literary theory: When writing a paper on post-colonialism in Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle books and Jean de Brunhoff’s Babar books, I was exposed to the ideas of Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin. Most interesting to me were his concepts of carnival, which occurs when the dominant hierarchy or assumptions are subverted through humor or a reversal of roles, and the dialogic, which describes various perspectives in a text creating a dialogue.
The aspect of the Hollins campus I was most excited to get back to: The fireflies! I have never lived in a place inhabited by lightning bugs, and for two years, I have been eager to return to these little harbingers of dusk. There is nothing like easing into evening as twilight winks gently around you. This is magic, pure and simple.
Favorite new picture book: A Sick Day for Amos McGee written by Philip Stead and illustrated by Erin Stead. I don’t always agree with the committee that awards the Caldecott medal, but this year, I definitely do. The book is a bit sentimental, but so am I, and I never pass up the opportunity to recommend a good book about friendship.
Favorite new Young Adult or chapter book: Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater. This book was for my Gender Identity and Dragons in Fantasy class. In my opinion, it was a complete anomaly, since it didn’t really have dragons in it, and didn’t have many gender issues, as far as I could see. It didn’t even have a cohesive or conclusive plot. But I thought it was brilliantly bizarre and out of all the books I read this summer, this one made me laugh out loud the most.
Some interesting topics my peers were discussing in class: One of the best things about being at Hollins is the people I get to be in class with. My peers were researching a wide range of fascinating topics: the role of sea monsters in fantasy literature, anthropomorphic companions of Disney princesses, semiotics in Charlotte’s Web. So cool!
Most exciting new Roanoke discovery: My friend Rachel, who lives in Roanoke year round, introduced us to Pop’s, the most amazing restaurant on the planet. The all-vegetarian menu consists mostly of many different kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches. Each sandwich is served with popcorn and a potato patty engraved with a smiley face. The prices are very reasonable, the owners are really nice, the food is delicious, AND AS IF THAT WEREN’T ENOUGH, they also serve AMAZING homemade ice cream. There were several moments when I suspected I might have been dreaming. But my dreams never taste this good.
Most content moment: There were many. But probably the best was when I was at Pop’s with my friends Rachel, Lindsey and Jamie. I was ordering my sandwich (“The Pesto,” if I remember correctly), when a banjo started playing. It turned out we were just in time for a free concert by a bluegrass band called the Wright Kids, consisting of a group of siblings who had been on America’s Got Talent. As I sat with some of my favorite people, listening to phenomenally talented children perform bluegrass covers of “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash and “ABC” by the Jackson 5, I thought I might actually explode with happiness. I didn’t, and that made me even more happy!
Most hilarious enterprise: For the last few years, the conference we put on at the end of the term has featured a short video made by some of the students. The theme of this year’s conference was “Secret Gardens, Secret Worlds,” so we decided to make an abridged version of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We had a budget of about $12 (which we spent on costumes at Goodwill), and filmed everything in about 3 hours. To view it, and to place your Oscar votes, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzDCGwa6t8s.
I am now back in Spokane and am thoroughly enjoying not getting eaten alive by mosquitoes every time I step outside, and being able to breathe deeply and not feel like I’m drowning because of the humidity. It’s good to be at home with my parents again, and I’m looking forward to seeing any of you Spokane folks soon!
Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse
I hope you are all having a good summer or winter, depending on, well, which you’re having. I am having a fantastic summer so far, but it has been characteristically full.
I have just completed my second term at Hollins University, where I am getting my Masters in Children’s Literature. I skipped last year’s term so that I could go to South Africa. So it had been two years since I had been back in Roanoke having stimulating discussions about children’s books with my brilliant, crazy, hysterical friends and classmates. It was a grand reunion, and this summer, though more busy and stressful than the first, was even more thrilling. Rather than try to sum it up further, here are some highlights from the last six weeks:
Most enjoyable outdoors adventure: The night my friends and I arrived at Hollins, southwestern Virginia welcomed us with a torrential downpour. One of my friends (also, conveniently, named Sarah) came up to my room. “Do you want to go on a walk in the rain with me?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, and started out the door immediately. Then, remembering I was a responsible adult, I changed from tennis shoes to flip flops so that my sneakers wouldn’t get soaked. We walked for about an hour getting completely drenched, catching each other up with the deep and delightful parts of our lives since we’d seen each other last. At one point, when we were meandering down a slippery hillside, I was struck by how perfect this all was. I interrupted the conversation briefly to say “Sarah! We could drink off of our faces!” Thoroughly saturated, we went down the hillside and entered our summer.
Most interesting new literary theory: When writing a paper on post-colonialism in Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle books and Jean de Brunhoff’s Babar books, I was exposed to the ideas of Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin. Most interesting to me were his concepts of carnival, which occurs when the dominant hierarchy or assumptions are subverted through humor or a reversal of roles, and the dialogic, which describes various perspectives in a text creating a dialogue.
The aspect of the Hollins campus I was most excited to get back to: The fireflies! I have never lived in a place inhabited by lightning bugs, and for two years, I have been eager to return to these little harbingers of dusk. There is nothing like easing into evening as twilight winks gently around you. This is magic, pure and simple.
Favorite new picture book: A Sick Day for Amos McGee written by Philip Stead and illustrated by Erin Stead. I don’t always agree with the committee that awards the Caldecott medal, but this year, I definitely do. The book is a bit sentimental, but so am I, and I never pass up the opportunity to recommend a good book about friendship.
Favorite new Young Adult or chapter book: Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater. This book was for my Gender Identity and Dragons in Fantasy class. In my opinion, it was a complete anomaly, since it didn’t really have dragons in it, and didn’t have many gender issues, as far as I could see. It didn’t even have a cohesive or conclusive plot. But I thought it was brilliantly bizarre and out of all the books I read this summer, this one made me laugh out loud the most.
Some interesting topics my peers were discussing in class: One of the best things about being at Hollins is the people I get to be in class with. My peers were researching a wide range of fascinating topics: the role of sea monsters in fantasy literature, anthropomorphic companions of Disney princesses, semiotics in Charlotte’s Web. So cool!
Most exciting new Roanoke discovery: My friend Rachel, who lives in Roanoke year round, introduced us to Pop’s, the most amazing restaurant on the planet. The all-vegetarian menu consists mostly of many different kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches. Each sandwich is served with popcorn and a potato patty engraved with a smiley face. The prices are very reasonable, the owners are really nice, the food is delicious, AND AS IF THAT WEREN’T ENOUGH, they also serve AMAZING homemade ice cream. There were several moments when I suspected I might have been dreaming. But my dreams never taste this good.
Most content moment: There were many. But probably the best was when I was at Pop’s with my friends Rachel, Lindsey and Jamie. I was ordering my sandwich (“The Pesto,” if I remember correctly), when a banjo started playing. It turned out we were just in time for a free concert by a bluegrass band called the Wright Kids, consisting of a group of siblings who had been on America’s Got Talent. As I sat with some of my favorite people, listening to phenomenally talented children perform bluegrass covers of “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash and “ABC” by the Jackson 5, I thought I might actually explode with happiness. I didn’t, and that made me even more happy!
Most hilarious enterprise: For the last few years, the conference we put on at the end of the term has featured a short video made by some of the students. The theme of this year’s conference was “Secret Gardens, Secret Worlds,” so we decided to make an abridged version of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We had a budget of about $12 (which we spent on costumes at Goodwill), and filmed everything in about 3 hours. To view it, and to place your Oscar votes, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzDCGwa6t8s.
I am now back in Spokane and am thoroughly enjoying not getting eaten alive by mosquitoes every time I step outside, and being able to breathe deeply and not feel like I’m drowning because of the humidity. It’s good to be at home with my parents again, and I’m looking forward to seeing any of you Spokane folks soon!
Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse
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