Pardon the lull folks, but the studying has been thick. Having trouble completing an assignment actually.
Using Bernstein's West Side Story, Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, & An Experiment In Misery, Melville's Bartelby the Scrivener, and Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London... I'm being asked to construct an argument in favor of what it is about street life that is so "cool." Which of course most of us would have no problem doing. Only, these sources are wretched. With the exception of West Side Story, they all depict city-life as a rotten struggle. Needless to say my creative juices are spent, and my dissonance is through the roof. Every approach I have taken smacks of falsehood because to truly engage these texts, one cannot conclude that there is anything "cool" about urban living, within the realist context that these artists explore it.
If you are familiar with any of these works, let's chat, I'm in dire need of outside perspectives.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Urban Experience Is Less Than "Urbane"
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11 comments:
I read the Orwell one a long, long time ago. I thought there was kind of a coolness in the way he showed how things really work, underneath the pretense. So what really happened in restaurant kitchens, or how people handing out handbills got paid.
Sorry I'm so late. I can't imagine what "Bartelby the Scrivener" would have to offer to this assignment. Maybe it's the available of characters, many characters, in an urban living environment, no matter how dismal they or their lives seem to be, which make it cool.
That is always why I liked NYC, the sheer number of souls, many certainly rather destitute, and different some hopeless some not so much. Humanity, in all forms, seems more available.
I'm unfortunately not familiar with the sources though Bartelby the Scrivener is on my reading list. But I just wanted to ask, what are you studying?
Tom,
Was considering that, but can't take my mind off some of the things the cooks did to the food! Yuck!
So... maybe I should approach this from a perspective of "hey, it may be ugly, but it's REAL, and therein is the beauty, or 'coolness?'"
Cooper,
Yeah, the diversity, the cultural mingling. Maybe focus on the positives of pluralism... I could do that with West Side Story, but not sure how to extend the theme through the other pieces.
Like where you are going with the availability of characters, just not sure how to flesh that out.
Re: Bartelby, I can't figure out how to attribute a coolness factor to him. In a way, that character heralded the coming of Socialism, predating Hegel and Marx, almost representative of passive anarchy.. but how is that "cool" in terms of street life? Aghhh brain melting. :)
Alicia,
The course is called Metropolis: The Modern City in Perspective. The emphasis is on exploring the material through writing.
If you're asking me that in the broader sense, I'm pursuing a BA in Professional Writing with cognates in Psychology and Sociology.
I was asking in a broader sense :o) but thank you for both of the answers.
Read: The Black Insider
I see many people living on the street in Midtown Houston. It is not cool.
Hi Dave
Great to see you writing again!
Hope you complete your assignment. I am sure it will be great, you certainly have a way with with words.
all the best
janete
Unsane,
Will do.
Ole Blue,
I agree. Sure, some people choose that lifestyle, but by and large it's forced upon them.
Janete,
Thanks. Just wish that were true. Haven't written much in the last 2 or 3 weeks now, just so busy...
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