Visual Continuity in Prince’s Work

In the process of putting together our blog post “Untangling Sustainability,” the group I was a part of spent a good chunk of time finding a definition for sustainable/sustainability that wasn’t attached to a moral value. What we came to was “the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level,” which we were pointed towards by an online thesaurus that gave us synonyms for sustainable like continuous, continual, and unending. Briefly, we talked about how the concept of sustainability might visually manifest itself in Prince’s work, and while what we eventually wrote was a zoomed-out look at what his work might say or imply about sustainability in the world, I want to return in this post to what visual elements are literally sustained throughout Prince’s art.

Continue reading “Visual Continuity in Prince’s Work”

The Underlying Implications of Consent and its Relation to Identity

As graduation is approaching much quicker than anticipated, I’ve been reflecting upon my impact on campus and how much of my heart and soul I have devoted to Geneseo. When I first committed to Geneseo, I was thinking short term; four years and then I graduate. As time went on, I slowly started to realize how incorrect I was. Yes I did sign up to be a student for four years, but at the same time, I also signed up to a lifetime contract with SUNY Geneseo as I will be considered “alumni” starting next month. My G-Number is permanent as my transcripts can be accessed whenever I choose to need them. The college as an institution has power over their students…Does that take away a student’s agency and/or their right to consent?

Continue reading “The Underlying Implications of Consent and its Relation to Identity”

The Epigraph.

Similarly to what Courtney stated in her post, I personally walked away from Friday’s class with more questions about the novel than answers. After I read her post, I wanted to dive into one of the “unnoticed” parts of the novel myself; the epigraph.

When I was flipping through the novel at the beginning of the semester I had noticed the epigraph but thought nothing of it. Now, as we are two-thirds of the way through the reading I find myself looking for answers to questions I never thought would arise. That is when I remembered the epigraph, “Nobody trusts anybody now, and we’re all very tired” -from John Carpenter’s The Thing.
As I thought about this I realized how many times in the section from Friday we see just how must distrust Ricky truly has for the people around him, and we learn some reasons as to why he could be this way. Personally I think it all started with the Washerwomen and his parents, “It sounds insane, I know, but we refused to accept that they’d pull the triggers. Until they did…I never doubted that our parents could do this to us” (214-215). Ricky realized in this moment that there was truly no one he could trust. The people he had been told to follow his entire life were now criminals who just “committed mass murder” (216), and his parents were the reason he was in this situation, and “then Rose’s gun touched Daphne’s temple…It’s true that Rose squeezed the trigger, but I sacrificed my sister to save myself” (216). If there had been anyone left that he would trust it would have been Daphne, but now even she was gone, and Ricky is truly left with noone.

The mistrust Ricky learned at a young age has affected how he is in the present day of the novel, “Who was I kidding? That lady was gone. How could I have believed that nonsense about calling the Dean? She wasn’t off to deal with Claude. She abandoned me” (220). I read this as Ricky realizing that when he has needed someone in the past they have done the complete opposite of what he needs, and leave, whether that be by death, or imprisonment. Now that Ricky is in the hospital unsure as to what is wrong, his mind has been conditioned to only think one way, that Adele Henry is going to leave him there, “We passed through the waiting room quickly, less than five seconds, and I made one last sweep for the Gray Lady, but she wasn’t to be seen. That’s when I felt the deepest fear. That I was truly alone, penniless, had no one to stand with me” (221). Ricky (and myself honestly) were shocked when Adele Henry announced, “Ricky Rice! I’m back!” (221). All Ricky has known is people leaving him and I had my doubts that Adele would stay and be with him.

There are still so many questions that I have about Ricky, the library, and this crazy adventure Adele and him are on. But maybe now that I have done some unpacking with the epigraph I begin to notice the unnoticeable.

Acknowledging the Acknowledgments

In our group discussion of Big Machine yesterday, we were all left grasping for straws. How do we make heroin, monsters called, “The Devils of the Mash,” male pregnancy, and a suicide cult fit together? We all have our theories, but we were left with the feeling that even after we finish the novel, we won’t have the answers that we want.

Continue reading “Acknowledging the Acknowledgments”

Simultaneous Participation

The first time that we, as a class, read sections within The America Play book by Suzan Lori Parks, I had a very hard time as an observer and a listener comprehending everything that was being read during the parts where sections were read out loud at the same time. Last Friday, April 12th, I volunteered to read out loud the left-hand side of the page. I volunteered to do this mainly to see if I was able to have a better understanding of the significance of this strategy when I was actually on the other side of it. Unfortunately, it left me even more confused than before. I have been thinking about this a lot and I am still having a lot of trouble understanding the significance of reading a text simultaneously.

Continue reading “Simultaneous Participation”

The Theatre-Going Experience

In my previous blog post I wrote about making connections across the different classes I am taking. I had another one of those lightbulb moments as we were talking about the theatre and audience’s expectations. I’m currently taking Professor Blood’s Western Drama class in which we read and analyze plays and critical pieces on the theatre. In that class we are just wrapping up a unit on the avant-garde. In Elements of Style Suzan-Lori Parks describes artists of this time by saying, “most playwrights who consider themselves avant-garde spend a lot of time badmouthing the more traditional forms” (8). I find this statement to be accurate after having read Antonin Artaud’s manifesto, ”Theatre of Cruelty: First Manifesto”, specifically in regard to his thoughts on how an audience should consume a performance. Continue reading “The Theatre-Going Experience”

WHY write a play? (Capitalization intended!)

I’ve been sitting on some thoughts for a week now from class discussion on 4/15 revolving around how the stage can be used in different ways. I am always fascinated by the ability that staged performances have to convey messages in an intimate way. The structure of a play itself is potentially limitless, but in a traditional setting we expect to go to watch other people give a performance of sorts, independent of the audience itself. For me, why would I go to a play instead of viewing a movie? After all, a movie truly acts independently of the audience! Perhaps its authenticity? Living in the moment? For me, the power of the staged play is its ability to interact, perhaps against the original desire of the audience members. The reality that living people are looking at the audience makes theatre potentially unsettling for the audience, but as Parks says in The America Play and Other Works in the section From Elements of Style, “Why does this thing I’m writing have to be a play?” (7). The intentional of choice to write a play for the artists creation should effectively make use of the unique tools in the toolbox of the theatre, namely personal connections to the audience (despite audience members still not expecting this!) Continue reading “WHY write a play? (Capitalization intended!)”

What Wall Are You On?

Leaving home and being forced to play the game of college, I have noticed a lot about my peers and the campus as a whole. The other day, I was having a friendly discussion about the role media plays on our lives; it shapes us to be the perfect mold society wants us to be, based on a course available here, Comn 215, Mass Media and Society. Not only are our physical appearances molded, but our attitudes, actions, and reactions are shaped. I personally think I as an individual am being shaped by media, no matter how hard I resist it. A simple example: I watch HGTV a lot… like I am obsessed with it. More recently, I have been watching Queer Eye– if you don’t know what this show is, hit up Netflix after reading my blog post. Basically, Queer Eye is meant to teach an individual how to present themselves, how to become a member of society, how to design their home, and how to have a healthy lifestyle. Personally, these shows have shown me how to design my home, and of course, I listen because it seems to be the “best” way out there. Although Queer Eye is a positive way to get someone who is essentially “lost in life” back on the right track, they are pushing social norms onto them. They are telling the individual what is appropriate to fit into society, while also telling them to be their “true self”. How is someone supposed to be made over from the inside out, and still expected to be themselves? The individuals on the show are essentially being altered to fit into society instead of being an outcast, but at the same time, they are building their self-confidence and overall feeling of self-worth, which is definitely a positive. Where is the line of building self-confidence but changing who you are to be more accepted? They push the individual to be their “true self” but change everything about them to fit in. I haven’t truly figured it out yet…not sure if I ever will…

Continue reading “What Wall Are You On?”

Go Against The Grain

After scrolling through blog posts in hopes to find some inspiration to write, I came across Mikhayla‘s, where she mentioned the quote, “the last thing American theatre needs is another lame play” which came from Suzan-Lori Parks’, The American Play. Mikhalya mentioned how in her high school English classes, for the theatre portion of the class, she “did the stereotypical thing and read a Shakespeare play for every year of high school. I can definitely relate to Mikhayla because I became frustrated with constantly reading Shakespeare and never getting any exposure to any other writers. Since I want to be a teacher in the future, I want to make sure to provide my students with several types of texts from different writers so, they are not left with a single story.

Continue reading “Go Against The Grain”

Looking for Empathy

The following are some common examples of excuses I have heard or seen for being a casual observer of racism and other discrimination: as a person who has never experienced slavery, I don’t have the emotional range to sympathize with enslaved people or even their descendants. I will never be prejudiced against in ways that they have experienced their entire lives, so how can I possibly relate? Oh, that was a long time ago. I don’t care because I don’t know… Continue reading “Looking for Empathy”