Expressions of a Treehugger

To most people the unknown is strange.  When we hear of events or practices of other cultures we automatically judge those people as being weird or what they are doing is wrong.  Tony in “Brown Girl in the Ring” is no different.  He believed that Mami was a witch doctor and that she used vodoo to perform “evil-doings”.  However, we know that she used her powers to help people and it payed off for her and her family.

I did a little research into the history of voodoo (official name being Vodun) and apparently it is one of the oldest religions/practices in the world.  Voodoo made its way over to America when they brought the slaves from Africa and has since been a popular practice among the people in the New Orleans area. There are the two different forms of voodoo, both of which are exhibited in “Brown Girl in the RIng”.  The first form is the considered “good”.  It is used for healing and summing the spirits to wish good graces unto other people, as used by Mami and TiJeanne.  The other form is used for evil, the believers and people who practice this form use it to summon evil spirits to cause trouble or hurt others.  Both forms have their priest or priestess who conduct the ceremonies that contact the spirits.  Just as in the book, they go into trance like states and the spirits apparently speak throught the host; and it is said that if you touch the host while they are in the trance-like state that you could potentially kill them.  People who practice voodoo do sacrifice items such as animals and make shrunken heads that may be purchased or passed from person to bless or heal a person.

This religion seems quite interesting, other religions intrigue me.  Although there are different forms of religion, there does seem to be the common factor that they all believe in some sort of great creator or “God” figure.  It just makes a person wonder what is the common religion between us all?  Life itself is so interesting.  Perhaps this is why I am a Biology student, there are so many things about the world I want to know, and life just interests me.  If I were to make a SUPER religion it would be a combination of all religions.  Speaking of making up religions, did everyone know that Scientology only began in the 1950s.  Some guy (Ron Hubbard) wrote this book (about Dianetics) which made people think about humanity and the followers of the book created Scientology.  Some of the aspects of Scientology are similar to other religions but then there is the whole alien thing…..Apparently they believe that some how we all have reminents of aliens inside of us…….crazy! I really don’t know what to believe about the whole thing.  I feel that any religion that demands that a person to donate hundreds…thousands…millions (cough cough Tom Cruise) of dollars in order to achieve greater status is ludacris.  Anyways enough about that, because I just don’t know what to believe.

Either way religion or no religion, I loved this book!!! It was by far my favorite reading of the semester.  It offers so much and makes you want to keep reading and not put it down.  I actually had to finish it in a few hours because I could not get away from it! 

“America”-Orson Scott Card (1987)

One of my favorite stories thus far.  It gives us a little history, fantasy, and who doesn’t love a little passion.  I love how this story is titled “America”, it suits the egocentirstic view of Americans and their need to conquer and control everything.  Don’t get me wrong, some Americans are nice people, however Orson Scott Card makes a good point in this story about how we are all Europeans and how they came in and destroyed the Indian’s land, but one day they would recapture their land via a new “saviour” like person.  This story made me laugh at the fact that this Anamari woman performed statutory rape by dreaming?  Sam pretty much sleepwalked into her bed and planted the seed that was to become the “saviour” of the land for the Indian people.  Once the deed had been done and their dreams had stopped, Quetzal returned the land to his people and completed the dream.  I picture him travelling around with a huge entourage, like Napoleon, conquering every piece of land in sight and returning the land back to its natural state.

“Kirinyaga”-Mike Resnick (1988)

Living on top of a mountain with a controlled climate and detatched from the modern world makes me think that the Kikuyu live in a biodome.  Wouldn’t it be an amzing thing if we could control climate, especially with the threat of global warming.  Maintain the areas that are meant to be cold and vice versa for the warmer.  They call this Kirinyaga a Utopian society, however is anyone ever truley happy all the time?  Even the inhabitants of Kirinyaga long to experience the European society, although Koriba continues to persaude them to maintain their traditional lifestyle and convinces them otherwise.  The Europeans continue to interfer with the Kikuyu people’s traditions, intervening when a newborne baby is born feet first and contacting Koriba via computer to inform them of their arrival to deal with the situation.  Would this not make Koriba somewhat a hippocrit?  Using a computer, when the rest of his civilization lives without electricity, or so this is what I picture.  I am really not too sure what else to say about this story except that I did not quites understand the ending.  I got the point that in Koriba’s last attempt to save the Kikuyu people, he was going to ”train” Ndemi and company to be his successors, but what about the rest of the Europeans, and their attempts to change Kirinyaga?  I would also like to say that Mike Resnick wrote a series to go with ”Kirinyaga” and it continues to tell Koriba’s story.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Group powerpoint presentation with Jennifer Jewer, Amanda Henry, and Holly Mott.

Enjoy!

dk2.pdf

     As I sat reading this story, bundled up by the fire, scribbling notes, I thought “Am I not like these characters in this story?”.  Am I not better then they are, trying to escape the real world reading a story and depicting/creating images of the characters in my mind and making them speak?  Anytime we are creating a piece of art work, writing a story, or playing make believe we allow our minds to wander and create things that may be transferred onto an a canvas or sheet of paper.  Human beings are blessed with the gift of an active imagination, however, in childhood we seem to maximize the gift. 

     Heinie imagines that he is in outterspace flying a rocket and becomes lost and begins to scream.  The image of this boy in his rocket ship reminded me of Katerine Patterson’s Bridge to Terabithia.  I’m not sure if anyone else has read this novel or seen the movie, but you can connect the two main characters Jess and Leslie with Heinie.  They essentially create an alternate world where they feel safe and can escape the harsh realities of their lives, which is somewhat the idea of Winter Flies. 

     Speaking of winter flies, I was surfing the net and decided to look up the definition of winter flies, they are essentially “unwanted house guests”, as one person put it.  Pair this with the deifinition and you have a good explaination of Mr. Adler’s creations.  However, the first time I read over this story I took Gott for a schziophrenic who was having an episode, or him and the rest of his family were experiencing cabin fever. 

     Each member of the Adler family seemed to be somewhat dissatisfied with aspects of their lives: Gott, lack of sexual pleasure and attention from his wife, Jane, failure to connect with her husband and provide adequate care for her son and be a good role model, and Heinie, a child who felt alienated in the world and felt detatched from his parents.  All of them made up for this by creating their own versions of satisfaction.  However, I think that Gott took it too far and lost control of his creations.

     This story still leave me lost, although I did somewhat enjoy it and it was a good introduction into the short stories that we will be reading throughout the term.  What is the deal with the talking appliances?????

I know these is a pic of the Addams faimly, however picturing Gott’s creations reminded me of them!

WARNING:  Religious views expressed in the following blog may be considered offensive to some readers and are solely those of the writer!

     Let me start with saying that I really enjoyed reading this book.  This was my second time doing so, the first being in high school and unfortunately I didn’t get too much from it, however, this time around it was much more pleasant! Anyways on with the ranting:

     To begin, I would like to know the following: how did the Bible survive Tribulation and no other “Old People” books managed to do the same?, did such “Tribulation” only occur in North America?, would there not be reminents of cars and other luxuries, besides parts of houses, spread about the land?.  There are so many questions I had with this novel, for me, it was just a little too small. 

     I was quite fascinated with the citizens of Waknuk and their commitment to the Bible.  They seem to follow every aspect of the Bible to the “T”, however I quite disagree with their interruptations from certain passages.  When they speak of when God was making man he made him with all of these features…..although this was in the “beginning”.  When He created the divine image of man, would He have not made all progeny of man identical?  Also, aren’t all creatures on Earth creations of God, therefore should be accepted by all society?  One could see these mutations not only as a product of possible radiation exposure, but as a product of incestual relationships, therefore their own society may be creating such deviants. 

     We may also compare societies of the post Apocolyptic world to today’s, in that each culture/society around the globe have their own beliefs and practices.  However, I believe that in this book these “S[Z]ealanders” were at fault to come in to the Waknuk area and kill all of those people, 2 wrongs do not make a right!  As well, I believe that they do not care about he rest of civilization in the area as long as Petra remained unharmed.

     On that note, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel, however it did leave me wanting more.  I found that it left me asking too many questions and left many things unresolved.  Sorry for posting this so late, I thought that I had done so after class last Thursday!