Author Archives: Mina Park

My poem is “The Rotting Symbol” by Eileen Myles. As I mentioned before, this poem struck me when I first read it and it took me a while to understand it as well. I had to write it in paragraph form and read it about a hundred time until I came up with my thesis.

What I’ve done with the video is a clouge with a several other videos from youtube that has the theme of “change.” I used the youtube downloader that we’ve discussed in class and solved my music problem by using a korean song. I thought that most of you won’t understand korean, it will be easier to deliver the tone change within the song. The mood of the song changes often and I thought that would make the video more stronger. Also, to further deliver the message, I selected certain sentences from my essay and have added them.  Hope you enjoy them 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJXV2YPsZoc

My poem is “Rotting Symbols” by Eileen Myles.

The first time I looked at the title, I thought “Everything turns into waste” and as I read more and more I felt strongly about it. Rotting symbols, everything around us, people, food, building, cultures, idea, they all change after certain time period. Change is inevitable. However, for that moment of time we strive and give our best to achieve something that will “rot” after we do achieve it. This got me to thinking what are we living for? What outcomes are there if we become successful? Will true happiness rot after a while?

These are some questions that popped up when I read this poem so, I’m thinking I’ll just have to clarify more and try to get a thesis out this. But, I can’t really decide. So, if anyone has any suggestion or answer to my question please do reply.

And as for the digital essay, I think I’ll be creating a motion picture film showing the process of these rotting ideas and changes around us. However, since I was absent on April 27th, I really do need help from anyone who is offering…So please help me out!

Digital essay… about a poem…

It sounds really confusing, and at the same time interesting. I’ve never done something called digital essay before. I AM REALLY EXCITED. I’m looking through all the resources to find MY poem. I want this to be something that has a “click” to myself but, this is difficult than I thought.

When we were looking at the examples in class the other day, motion picture(?) caught my attention. I’m thinking I’ll do something like that. But, I wonder who I’ll be working with since we’ll probably have different ideas by the time we meet in class.

Until this point, I’m still in the position of debating with myself of what to do what to do what to do but I hope all works out well and I find the perfect partners that will help me further prove my point.

OPTION #3

When reading the first paragraph of Cathedral, I immediately, I do not know why,  thought about Gerry and Cookie’s visit to her ex-boyfriends house. I said to myself, “uh-  oh” and imagined something like a hidden love line between his wife and the blind man.  I guess because I had this perception of  their relationship, I have no clue what went on  and how he ended up understanding the blind man but, the blind man’s visit really made  me think of Gerry’s attitude when they visited I believe, Mark’s house.

I remember how Gerry did NOT like the idea of the visit and the narrator pretty much had  the same idea. He did not like the idea at all. They were very pessimistic about it and very  very jealous. One thing different about the husband and wife’s relationship between these  two couples is that Cookie comforts Gerry while the wife in the story does not. When  Gerry expressed his feelings towards the visit, Cookie replied something like “he’s the  past and who’s my future? you are” while the narrator’s wife’s response seems to be like  “you can’t do this for me? how could you? don’t you love me?” I don’t feel the love of the  wife towards her husband, all I see is how excited she is for her “friend’s” visit and all her  focus is on that.

However, one thing very similar in both situation is that only the wife and “long time boy-friend” gets along and is involved in the conversation. No matter how much Gerry and the narrator try to say something once in a while, it only makes the situation more awkward and uncomfortable. They both feel intimidated by their opponents thus very negative in their thinking and critical towards them. The narrator is consistently judging and stereotyping what the blind man is doing by using words like “pathetic, creepy, spiffy.” I felt that he was not a happy person and he was going to stay that way for a while until the blind man leaves the house but, I guess that’s not what happened because something about the cathedral conversation changed him and he now understands the blind man. Is life like that? One moment we are not happy and the weirdest and most random things make us happy the next moment?

As conclusion, honestly, I didn’t understand what happened or what kind of connection the blind man and the husband had when drawing the cathedral but, I’m pretty positive that the husband’s first feeling towards this situation was very like Gerry’s feelings when walking into his wife, Cookie’s ex-boyfriend’s house and I found this very interesting.

option #1

Throughout watching the film “Best in Show”, all I was thinking about was what is it with reward that people try so hard to obtain it? These people were all obsessed with the blue ribbon that they would spend each moment of their life thinking about it. What was more interesting was that this blue ribbon does not reflect anything about themselves but only about how good, expensive, original their dog is, yet it brings them happiness. Would it be like since they are the owner if their dog is rewarded with the blue ribbon, it makes a statement like “he is my dog and since I raised him in such way that he is so good”?

Then I realized it was not only these people in the movie that strive for rewards to obtain happiness but also every single person in this world including myself. Everyone has their own blue ribbon they want to receive in different forms. Whether they are in forms of material, idea, reputation or in some cases like students, grades, we all want to be rewarded with something after our action has been taken and we think that is the only way that will make anything worth doing and if it brings us positive results, we are happy.

But as I was watching the ending of the movie, my mind kind of changed. When the contest was over and Gerry and Cookie won, it still seemed like everyone has received something and they were satisfied and happy. Even though their blue ribbon has found its way to another person’s arms, they did not lose happiness. Then my question has changed from is it reward that makes everyone happy to is experience of what they love to do that brings happiness at the end? Not a single person in this movie became depressed nor gave up anything. All found a new way to brings themselves joy and happiness. The gay couple now creates a calendar of Shih Tzus, the yelling couple changed their depressed dog for an energetic pug, Christy and Sherrie-Ann did not give up and published a magazine called “American Bitch” dedicated to lesbian dog owners and finally the fishing guy found his new dream to improve his ventriloquism. Every single character found a new way to continue on with their lives.

As a conclusion to my response, which question do you think is the right question? Are they still striving for a new reward to bring themselves happiness? or do they obtain happiness while doing something they enjoy doing? Which question is the right question about how we, all human beings, obtain happiness?

RESPONSE PAPER #2

In Chapter 2 of Freud’s text, he carefully investigates “children’s play,” specifically a game of “disappearance and return” which becomes known as “fort da.” Why do you think this game is so important to Freud’s ideas? How does this compare to Plato’s “allegory of the cave”? And, of course, what does any of this tell us about happiness?

In my opinion, this game is important to Freud’s ideas because it is a clear example of the pleasure principle without any economic aspect. The eighteen months old child knows nothing about money and the economic world thus, in his search of pleasure, it is purely pleasure-seeking. In his game of “fort da”, he makes a wooden reel disappear into his little draped cot by throwing to that side and pulls the string attached back to make it reappear. The one thing that fascinated me was that the child would actually make sounds according to which move he is doing, saying ‘o-o-o-oh’ when throwing the reel and saying ‘da’ to greet its reappearance. The child knew what he was doing. Also, to think that the eighteen months old knew that something has to be gone in order to return blew me away. Freud makes the connection of the reel symbolically being his mother’s departure which then I realized how sad the baby was. No child in that age is happy to say bye-bye to his or her mommy and have fun without her. Thus, it seems clear that the baby was waiting for his mother’s return and the game was in replacement till the actual return of something significant.
Moreover, this passage is similar to Plato’s allegory of the cave because once again we are drawn into the child’s world, observing the baby as Freud did. We have never seen the child but yet, here we are understanding how it feels and sharing his emotions. Also, the eighteen months old baby is similar to the man in the cave because they both are not fully aware of the world around them and is only in the learning mode. This whole not knowing what’s around them led me to think is true happiness in not knowing what’s around us? Are people just to busy trying to calculate the benefits and the non-benefits that they complicate themselves in simple situations? It’s just my opinion but, I learned in my religion that people were created as simple beings but it is us who complicate our minds and choose whether our situation is happy for us or not. I believe this to be correct because happiness is all in the mind. We people are too complicated. We should think simply and look on to the bright side and wait for good things to happen just like the baby. I think Freud in another sense is saying that not knowing is the best because since the baby does not know about other things like what the mother is going through, the economic hardships that his family is suffering, he is just simply sitting there repeating his game thinking nothing else but his mother’s return.