[ the gentle senescence of me ]

senri — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 07:30:20 GMT

On Dreamwidth with the username Sushiflop. It works pretty much like LJ used to. I'm always happy to reconnect with old friends if you decide to start up an account there.

senri — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 10:44:00 GMT

Hi everyone!

It's been a long time since I posted here. That's because I've mostly switched to dreamwidth now - lj's new layout just doesn't do it for me. If you like, friend me at Sushiflop.

Happy new year, anyway, to everybody. I had the busiest, most stressful year and a half... working one year in Korea teaching kids kindergarten-aged to middle school all kinds of subjects, all in English. What's up next? I'm slated to head off for Chile at the end of Feburary to spend 10 months there teaching English to adult students.

It's gonna be an adventure, hopefully a happier one than Korea was. I don't want to dwell too much, but this year had some HELLA lows.

Hope to see you at dreamwidth! I'd like to try and get crossposting set up, so you might see updates from there here even if I'm not posting... here.

senri — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 09:15:08 GMT

I just really need to set up cross-posting from dreamwidth I think.

Hey guys. What's up ducks?

Writer's Block: Multiple Personalities

senri — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:48:04 GMT

yeah good choices lj

this isn't gross in any way at all

senri — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 23:42:58 GMT

FOR ANYONE WHO IS PERCHANCE INTERESTED IN MAKING A DW ACCOUNT AND DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT THIS:

dreamwidth.org is doing a promotion for the rest of the month, where they will permit people to make accounts without an invite code! usually a code is required, so if you're interested in setting up an account over there then this is a good time to make one up :)

dw doesn't use ads, and they generally seem to care more about their userbase (so far at least) WAY more than lj does! plus, I'm over there too, if you would like to be friends. ;D username sushiflop. if you decide to make an account - LOOK ME UP.

WRITES THIS SHIT

senri — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:52:17 GMT

The Changing Role of Women Artists Over Time
For millennium in regions around the world, egalitarian cultures developed, where division of labor was prevalently based on gender and age, with status accompanying the expertise that followed experience. The situation in the arctic was no different: women did crafts work distinct from men, and status was in large part achieved through wisdom and demonstrated skill, which was acquired through experience, which accompanied age. Study of indigenous Alaskan cultures reveals that the social roles of the genders developed so that men and women worked complimentary to each other, while being guided by their elders. In large part, men served as the hunters, venturing to harvest sea mammals or large game inland to feed their families, while women served as the support for their men. Women prepared the specialized garments needed to survive in the severe arctic environment, helped to make the kayaks that allowed their men to venture forth as effective hunters, and processed the game men collected.
What this division of labor also entailed, on an apparently widescale cross-cultural basis across Alaska, was that women did not work with ivory, wood, or “hard” materials, instead specializing in making textiles and woven items. Men, on the other hand, did not specialize in sewing, and did not make textile crafts in general, though there was some crossing of skill sets for survival purposes. However, as times have progressed, women have moved into the fields of craftsmanship where once men were predominant. In some ways, the role of women artists has changed as they take on tasks that once were coded masculine. In other ways, women artists play the same roles as they always did: as people who support their families and work to ensure their survival, in the past and in the present day.
Though men and women worked in complimentary roles for centuries, in “The Social Role of Technology in Coastal Alaska,” Frink writes that “to accept an unflinching symmetrical status through time to these productive divisions is to deny the tensions and negotiations between women and men and their sometimes different economic and social strategies” (289). What this says is that although the roles of men and women were complimentary, they could also have competitive elements where either gender strove to maintain control (in the form of expertise). Frink writes that “identity is performed, parlayed, and reinforced through tool, task, and expertise” (Social Role 289). This says that the separate areas of expertise occupied by men and women were not merely because one gender had a greater aptitude for a certain task than another. Rather, as men and women began to specialize in different tasks, these tasks became more and more the metaphorical 'property' of the gender that owned them, with authority stemming from expertise granted to that gender in a specific area. As the craftsmanship native peoples worked on various items became ever more sophisticated over time, a group went on to 'own' various tasks even more thoroughly, though some crossing-over of expertise was also possible. However, the dominance of a particular gender in a particular task explains some of the difficulty modern Alaskan native women artists have had being accepted when they work in traditionally male materials such as walrus ivory.
The importance of age and experience leading to authority in tribal cultures shows in many aspects of Alaskan native life. Even chores that westerners consider to be simple call for a knowledge that runs deeper than the superficial to be done well, for instance, cleaning and preparing fish for drying. Frink observed native women at a fish camp, braiding fish on strands of grass to be hung over a rack and dried. In “The Identity Division of Labor in Native Alaska” Frink writes that “braiding is a skill that is much admired among women and a real point of pride to those who have mastered its labor-intensive and subtle technique demands” (25). In this technique, the cut fish are woven onto strings of grass including easily forty to over sixty fish, and middle-aged women still sometimes have to consult their mothers to successfully finish a braided strand without the weave breaking. In this case, the knowledge of the older women (and the fact that women run the cleaning of the catch) grants them authority in these areas. The men do the catching of the fish, but the two genders must negotiate and discuss how a family will allocate time over a fishing season, because both genders contribute to the final product. The men strive to catch fish at the best time so they will be easiest to prepare and so that the women will not be overwhelmed by the sheer number of fish that they must go through, and the women must work with the men as well, preparing the catch that the men bring in. This interrelation grants power to both parties.
The role of experience and artistry in braiding fish to be dried hints at two other interesting aspects of Alaskan native culture and life, as well. For one is the inversion that gender roles can undergo as people age. For instance, in the Inupiaq culture, in earlier stages of life the men are the predominant authority. They are the hunters and providers, and the women are the maintainers, and the providing activity grants the men more authority than the women in general matters of life. However, as the years pass, the power dynamics can shift in the opposite direction. Older women have been sewing and preparing materials to support their men and families all of their lives, and have a wealth of experience which they can still put to use with a needle and thread or in whatever task they are capable of keeping up with. Their skills only become honed with age. Men, on the other hand, played their major role as hunters during their younger years, and as they age become less able to venture out into the dangerous wilderness to bring down game. The most significant contribution an elderly man can make to the continued welfare of the group and family is passing on his hunting expertise through advice. Women can still contribute materially to the welfare of their people, so their authority increases while the authority of men diminishes, in this case, and in this particular culture.
Another aspect of Alaskan native culture that is hinted at in the sophisticated dynamics included in herring braiding and preparing fish is the complexity contained within the utilitarian that characterizes the material culture as well. In cultures across Alaska, items that westerners might dismiss as utilitarian were carefully made and decorated by craftsmen and women, and utilitarian items had another layer of purpose attached to them, be it on a spiritual or prestige level, than being 'mere' tools. For instance, Yup'ik women were potters, though the craft mostly disappeared once the copper cooking pot was introduced. Their pottery vessels, while used for cooking, also served a ritual purpose, and it was known throughout the group which of the elder Yup'ik women were the most skilled potters. Skill in pottery granted respect through recognition of expertise.
Prestige items varied cross-culturally, of course, taking on a variety of different forms. Both men and women could contribute to making prestige objects, or objects which had a dual utilitarian and other purpose. For instance, T'lingit men made the paddles for cedar log canoes were carved and painted with designs that would be visible as rowers moved their paddles through the water. These designs were signifiers of identity. In the Aleut culture, on the other hand, to signify prestige and who was the senior hunter or chief, men carved visors which became more elongated as the wearer's status became greater. How did women contribute to making prestige items? In both the Aleut and the Athapaskan cultures, the clothing made by women was a telling marker of identity and prestige.
Aleut women sewed some of the finest clothing for waterfaring hunters that the world had ever seen. The clothing was warm, water-resistant by dint of the material it was made of, and the fine stitches laid in by Aleutian women allowed men to venture to hunt the icy waters not with impunity, but with a fighting chance. Women also sewed the covers of the ingenious Aleutian kayak, again using waterproof stitches that would preserve the flexible vessel and the man inside from falling prey to the oceans. Aleutian sewing was recognized as being so fine that upon contact, whalers would actually commission clothing from the women, and Aleut crafts became vaunted items of prestige for Russians in turn. Jackets changed form according to the pressures and demands of contact as well, with the outer layer changing form from the traditional coat for an Aleut man to being sewn in the appearance of a Russian greatcoat. Finer stitches and sewing meant that the man wearing whatever article of clothing sewn was better protected against the cold and wet, but skill in sewing could also be a feather in the cap of the woman who played the role of seamstress. Overall, skill at sewing offered a woman a chance to improve the lot of her family and to be acknowledged as an expert, which would increase respect for her in her community. Thus, a woman had much to gain grooming her sewing expertise to be the best it could be.
As for the Athapaskans, these inland-dwelling people led mostly nomadic lifestyles and could never settle in one place for long. Their habitat was less rich in subsistence foods than many of the living places enjoyed by other peoples of Alaska. Thus, the Athapaskans could not afford to carry many extraneous objects. Their camps had to be broken down quickly and easily carried so the people could expend as little energy as possible for maximum gain. However, they did develop a material culture, largely expressed through their clothing, which was of course made by sewing: women's work. Athapaskan women also prepared the hides that they used to make clothing. When beads were introduced through contact and trade with Europeans,

Writer's Block: B.Y.O.B. Holidays

senri — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:23:19 GMT

It used to be a family ritual to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas together before Christmas...

Maybe I'll watch it when I get home.

Writer's Block: B.Y.O.B. Holidays

senri — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:26:15 GMT

My swingset back. Because I miss it. :/

Other than that, just money, I guess... and some books. Not a fancy Christmas.

finished translation final! any commentary is welcome.

senri — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:00:25 GMT

Delita wanted to fly. She dreamed of flying. And she was very beautiful. If you could see the photo. Afterward, if you want, I'll show it to you. I'll pass it underneath the door. But only if you promise me that you won't get it dirty or tear it, it is the only one I have. She was gorgeous, Delita, everyone who knew her said that. And so young.

Delita, my mother.

No, please.

I listened to you shout for a very long while, without interrupting you, from the kitchen table, and now I've hardly started and you go back to interrupting. I believed we had reached an agreement.

It's fine. It's not as though it were an agreement. But at least I thought that you had understood me, that after your tantrum letting out shouts and pounding against the door, which you tortured me with while I had my tea, I was going to tell you about my mother.

Yes, of course.

Listen to me, learn, and that's it.

Good. Well then. I told you that Delita wanted to fly. And that she was very pretty, extraordinarily pretty. And I did not say this because I am her daughter. No. I never knew her. That was what everyone in her circle said, everyone who knew her. Not me. I had bad luck. I was born fairly ugly. Just like my father, the poor dear. You know, I hardly knew my father either. I grew up with an aunt. Aunt Alcira. My father died right away after Delita died. That I told you he was ugly, and I took after him, is from what those who outlived him told me. And I only have the one photo. If you want, afterward I will pass it below the door too. But only if you promise me that you will not dirty them or tear them, neither of them.

No. I'm not going to beat around the brush again. My father's picture, you have to see. He died of shame.

Yes, of shame.

For what happened to my mother.

Don't laugh, those were different times, all of the people had honor and could suffer from shame to their limits, and finally die. And this, precisely, was what happened to my father. A great man. They broke the mold with him. A gentleman of the type that we don't have around now. He went and died of shame when what happened to my mother happened.

It's fine. You don't believe me. But it was like that, nevertheless: the man died of shame. He locked himself in his room, he got in bed, he pulled the blanket up to his ears, he cried all day and he didn't want to eat a bit nor talk with anybody. Nor did he want to see me, his only daughter, the light of his eyes.

He died barely a few weeks after Delita. Because you've seen yourself how things are. It's quite certain that the matter of my mother was kept quiet, that it didn't appear in the magazines nor was there any judicial investigation, but in Belgrano, the neighborhood where we lived, all of the people or, at least, all of the people who mattered, the friends of the family, those that were in our circle, those of our same social station, knew perfectly well what had happened in Longchamps and did not quit talking about the matter. On the sly, I suppose. What they did was they gossiped. And as for my father they watched him as if they watched a young bull that they prodded into the truck that was going to carry him to the matador. They made it so he felt like an absolute disgrace, they treated him poorly, they made him into a nothing. And you see, my father was not sufficiently strong so as to endure it. Underneath it all, he was still a man. I don't know if you understand me, a man like you, a boy, a weak one. He wasn't a woman, like Delita and like me, I want to say.

Excuse me, but you don't have to do that.

Where you shout and beat on the door as if you were an orangutang.

I'm not referring to that kind of weakness: everybody knows that a man is physically stronger than a woman.

You don't have to prove anything to me.

Nevertheless, here we have it, it ends up reliably demonstrated that I have the right in what I've ended up saying to you: the beastliness with which you flaunt does nothing more for you than express your complete weakness in front of me, who, though I am old, have ascended as the queen of the story. I am referring to this weakness. That of character. To the absolute weakness that men display when they must confront the world in general or a woman in particular.

Good, now you're fine.

Let me continue, please, so that this won't go on so interminably.

Here I'd like you to see that, although you're a man, you're rather less weak than my father was in those autumn days of nineteen hundred and seventeen. You're much stronger.

I am not pulling your leg. Why would I do something like that? I'm telling you the truth.

Best if you calm yourself and let me go on.

We were on how my father died of shame because of what happened with my mother or because of how the people in his circle reacted to what happened with my mother, you know you never know, what is more important to a person, what happened or what people say about what happened. But. What was the thing that happened to Delita? This is the story I want to tell you.

Patience. I'm getting there.

senri — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:31:33 GMT

I had a dream about my cat last night too. She's been dead... almost two years now. She was my baby.

In the dream she talked to me. I was sleeping in bed and she jumped on it like she used to and woke me up, and told me, "I like the bed. Can I be on it?" Even though we'd really trained her out of getting on the bed.

"Only if you clean the kitty litter off your butt," I mumbled back, sleepy. She had these furry pantaloons, and sometimes she'd have bits of litter stuck in them. Gross kitty.

She had a cute little voice.

God I miss that cat.

senri — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:55:31 GMT

So how's life lately, Sen?

I watched a group of people fill a plastic cast of half a brain with scrambled eggs yesterday. I got in touch with an old friend again, and I'm so happy I did. I haven't been writing a lot, unfortunately. Graduating this semester fell through. I'm three out of five pages done with this dumb extra credit paper for communications where I have the highest grade in the class and will still have to do the extra credit to get an A (and I busted my ass in this class)...

... that's all that immediately comes to mind.

I'm turning 22 on the 29th. Wow.

Read this and this (strip 11 in there is disturbing a maybe triggering, jsyk) recently (okay, like tonight), and found them both really telling.

It's been so long since I've made two livejournal posts in the same day.

Writer's Block: B.Y.O.B. Holidays

senri — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:24:50 GMT

Christmas is our family's winter holiday of choice. We aren't particularly Christian, I admit, and often our celebrations are fairly low-key, but my parents were raised Christian even if they aren't serious about the faith now and haven't pushed it much on me. Personally I'm fairly Atheistic, and I don't mind a laid back celebration. :|b

Writer's Block: Tearjerkers

senri — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:26:39 GMT

Motherfucking All Dogs Go to Heaven. ;_;

translation.

senri — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:30:33 GMT

Delita wanted to fly. She dreamed of flying. And she was very beautiful. If you could see the photo. Afterward, if you want, I'll show it to you. I'll pass it underneath the door. But only if you promise me that you won't get it dirty or tear it, it is the only one I have. She was gorgeous, Delita, everyone who knew her said that. And so young.
Delita, my mother.
No, please.
I listened to you shout for a very long while, without bothering you, from the kitchen table, and now I've hardly started and you go back to interrupting. I believed we had reached an agreement.
It's fine. It's not as though it were an agreement. But at least I thought that you had understood me, that after your tantrum (desahogo) letting out shouts and pounding against the door, which you tortured me with while I had my tea, I was going to tell you about my mother.
Yes, of course.
Listen to me, learn, and ready, here we are.
Good. Well then. I told you that Delita wanted to fly. And that she was very pretty, extraordinarily pretty. And I did not say this because I am her daughter. No. I never knew her. This was what everyone in her circle said, everyone who knew her. I, no. I had bad luck. I was born ugly enough. (bien fea) Just like my father, the poor dear. You know, I hardly knew my father either. I grew up with an aunt. Aunt Alcira. My father died right away after Delita died. That I told you he was ugly, and I took after him, is for the commentary that those who survived him gave me. And I only have the one photo. If you want, afterward I will pass it below the door too. But only if you promise me that you will not dirty them or tear them, neither of the two.
No. I'm not going (yendo) me to beat around the brush again. My father's picture, you have to see. He died of shame.
Yes, of shame.
For what happened to my mother.
Don't laugh, those were different times, all of the people had honor and could suffer from shame to the limit, and finally die. And this, precisely, was what happened to my father. A great man. Of only one part. A gentleman of the type that we don't have around now. He went and died of shame when what happened to my mother happened.
It's fine. You don't believe me. But it was like that, nevertheless: the man died of shame. He locked himself in his room, he got in bed, he blocked up his ears (se tapó hasta las orejas), he cried all day and he didn't want to eat a bit nor talk with anybody. Nor did he want to see me, his only daughter, the light of his eyes.
He died barely a few weeks after Delita. Because you've seen yourself how things are. It's quite certain that the matter of my mother was kept quiet (se tapó), that it didn't appear in the magazines nor was there any judicial investigation (causa judicial), in Belgrano, the neighborhood where we lived, all of the people or, at least, all of the people as one (toda la gente como uno), the friends of the family, those that were in our circle, those of our same social station, knew perfectly well what had happened in Longchamps and did not quit talking about the matter. (p19) On the sly (por lo bajo), I suppose. Lo que se dice, chusmeaban. And for my father they watched as if they watched a young bull that they finished (que acaban) to enter the truck that was going to carry him to the matador. They made it so he felt like an absolute disgrace, they treated him poorly, they treated him like dirt (they made him into a nothing) (lo ninguneaban). And you see, my father was not sufficiently strong so as to endure it. In the past (en el fondo), they treated him like a man. I don't know if you understand me, a man like you, a boy, a weak one. He wasn't a woman, like Delita and like me, I want to say.
Excuse me, but you don't have to do that.
That where you shout and beat on the door as if you were an orangutang.
I'm not referring to that kind of weakness: everybody knows that a man is physically stronger than a woman.
You don't have to prove anything to me.
Nevertheless, here we have it, it ends up that demonstrated reliably (fehacientemente) that I have the right in what I've ended up saying to you: the beastliness with which you finish flaunting does nothing more for you than express your complete weakness in front of me, who, though I am old, in this case has arrived to be the queen of the story. (bottom of page 19) I am referring to this weakness. That of the character. To the absolute weakness that men display (muestrar?) when they must confront the world in general or a woman in particular.
Good, now you're fine.

Writer's Block: Starstruck

senri — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:32:36 GMT

Sarah Palin

if she counts =A=

JAYZUS if you get through all this commendations!!!

senri — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:22:01 GMT

5 December 2011
ENGL 211x
Lesson 14: Literary Analysis Research Paper
The Carnal City
Czeslaw Milosz states in his essay “The Captive Mind” that “a poet does not merely arrange words in beautiful order. Tradition demands that he be a 'bard,' that his songs linger on many lips, that he speak in his poems of subjects of interest to all the citizens” (qtd. in Cavanagh 16). At least, it is the province of the poets of Central and Eastern Europe that they write with an eye to the social movements of the time, especially in the case of Poland, where poets often speak as a kind of “second government” (Cavanagh 16) for the people. They observe the actions of those in power and provide salient commentary and response with a humanitarian bent to whatever actions are taken. In this case, Polish poets write keeping a social consciousness in mind, and keeping a careful eye on the actions of their government.
Adam Zagajewski is one such Polish poet and social commentator, who, through contemplative lyrics, offers commentary on events of the wider world. His poem “To Go to Lvov” takes a stance against the hard-lined, dehumanizing forces of history to write a paean to the power of the imagination, which creates a luscious and humanized 'safe space' that allows for regeneration from the, at times, oppressive review of history's deprivations and cruelties.
Zagajewski, one of the Polish poets born in the generation at the end of World War II, took his responsibility as one of Poland's lyrical watchdogs seriously in his essays and poetry. However, in the eyes of some observers, as his poetic voice matured, he withdrew from his role as a moral guide and voice for the dissatisfied people of Poland and retreated into abstract contemplation and lyricism. “He has brought the world to a standstill in order to commune with mute material,” (qtd. in Cavanagh 17) writes one critic, asserting that Zagajewski has withdrawn from the pressing, omnipresent concerns of corruption and injustice around him to simply observe the world. In this light, the poem “To Go to Lvov,” though beautiful, would stand as a withdrawal from the demands of the world into a poetic dreamland. Some critics conceive that this withdrawal creates poetry that is nostalgic and self-indulgent, in the sense that such poetry ceased to deal with the political and moral struggles Polish citizens faced, instead becoming self-centered and merely a vehicle which the poet could use to navel-gaze. Such individualism would seem a betrayal of the general movement of Polish poetry where poets comment on society, call citizens to action, and criticize problems.
Does Zagajewski's movement away from more direct social commentary via his poetry remove moral imperative from his works? According to Zagajewski himself, “The aesthetic value of an apt description becomes in some imperceptible way an ethical value as well” (qtd. in Cavanagh 17). We may gather that, at least from his own perspective, his later works that outwardly concentrate more on luscious representations of places and moments in time do not eschew moral stands at all.
How is morality represented in “To Go to Lvov,” and where does it appear? Essentially, “To Go to Lvov” is a poem written to praise and celebrate a lost homeland, or at least a homeland which has changed form: even in its translation into English, the town changed form, from being written as Lwow to being written as Lvov. This chance occurred because Polish has no “v.” Either way, Zagajewski builds a dream of Lvov, writing of the city as it once existed. Then he tears it down, before reviving the town once again at the end of the poem. Though Zagajewski writes of experiences that are clearly painful, he never really condemns the people enacting that pain. His focus is always on the town itself, the experiences of its inhabitants, and the constant assertion that Lvov exists, even after its destruction, and, in fact, that Lvov “is everywhere” (Zagajewski 81). The tone exhibited in “To Go to Lvov” is not one of condemnation. Rather, the poem is relentless in its efforts to praise the town and bring it back to life. In essence, the poem wishes to revive all of the aspects of Lvov that were forgotten in the history books but which made living in the town a pleasure. Magdalena Kay writes that “history is an imperialist force” (20). In this interpretation, the events of history interpreted in the history books can become dehumanizing, as they remove characteristics we can relate to from events. Human experience of resettlement, for instance, is reduced to accounts of shifting borders; the deaths within a concentration camp become a statistic so terrible as to be incomprehensible. “To Go to Lvov” insists on forcing a human, personal space that celebrates beauty and joy into the crushing loss of loved ones and homeland. The poem asserts that in spite of the transience of beauty and the struggle to maintain identity, that beauty can be found without fail, universally, and a homeland can never be wholly lost, though it might be changed or damaged. “To Go to Lvov” is a fierce effort of praise in a world where it is sometimes difficult to see what is still good.
The poem itself heavily relies on different kinds of imagery. Zagajewski presents aspects of Lvov as if they are snapshots taken one after another, using sentences with many clauses, often with the different clauses containing images that do not seem to relate to each other. The poem at times reads like a written game of poetic free association, where one image leads to another in a way that can seem random to observers. “To Go to Lvov” has no strict rhyme scheme, written rather in free verse. It is also not separated into stanzas. Rather, eighty-three lines come out in one long rush of a stanza, with the lack of breaks contributing to the eager pace of the poem. The tone of the poem changes twice: the beginning of the poem is jubilant and eager, celebrating the existence of Lvov. At line 58, the tone changes to become sorrowful and longing as the speaker describes the destruction of Lvov, and then at line 79 the tone changes again to offer a glimpse of hope at a Lvov that rises from the destruction to assert its presence.
An example of Zagajewski's use of visual imagery within the poem appears straightaway. We are informed that the poem begins at dawn, a time of fresh starts and new beginnings, and dew “gleams on a suitcase,” offering an image associated with travel, light, and bright, reflective surfaces, as things that gleam are usually polished (79). In another instance of visual imagery employed in the poem, Zagajewski writes of “white napkins and a bucket / full of raspberries standing on the floor,” (79) where the white of the napkins contrasts with the red and gold raspberries we imagine piled in a bucket. The sheer mention of raspberries also provides substance for imagery utilizing taste and smell, as many readers are likely familiar with the flavor and scent of raspberries. Zagajewski mentions color often in this first part of the poem, first in the “green armies of burdocks,” then in the “white” napkins, the implied color of the raspberries, the “amber” of cherries, and the “yellowed” forsythia that grows next to the window (79-80). Color never appears again as a descriptor for the rest of the poem, but the accumulated images Zagajewski presents to us of Lvov give the readers an idea of a town rich with color and life.
Zagajewski also makes good use of auditory imagery within this early part of the poem,
In discussing his own poetry with Lance Larsen, Zagajewski states, “I think the basso continuo for poetry is praising, but it is a complicated praising. This world has probably always been mutilated, not clean or innocent” (4). He admits that this is one of the central themes of his poetry: “this combination of praising the world, but also feeling that the world as I have known it has always been mutilated” (4). In these lines he might address, particularly, his well-known poem “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” but “To Go to Lvov” also exhibits both a deep appreciation for the beauty humans can create as well as a keen awareness of the pain that occurs as borders change and humans are crushed beneath the front lines of progress. Still, Zagajewski writes to recreate the moments of beauty, where humans reach enlightenment and experience an ideal. In keeping with this theme, “To Go to Lvov” is a poem that contrasts both the ugliness that history encloses and the beauty that humans can create in spite of that ugliness. To this end, the poem sets up a journey, allowing the reader to accompany the speaker to Lvov.
The speaker in “To Go to Lvov” is probably very close to Zagajewski, although not a direct transplant of his authorial voice. Zagajewski held a great deal of nostalgia for Lvov, imparted to him by his family. He was born there and yet the family was forced to move away before he could form any solid memories of the place, and his life afterward was shaped by the intense nostalgia his family felt for the town. Benjamin Paloff states that to Zagajewski, Lvov represents the lost homeland, which one always travels towards but can never reach. The speaker in “To Go to Lvov” reflects a sense of yearning, so much that he even reaches backwards into the past when he “wasn't born yet” (Zagajewski ) to return to the lost town.
Kay writes that the poem “shows the prehistory of the self” (21). The speaker may adopt many of Zagajewski's characteristics, including his longing for Lvov, but said speaker also exists on an imaginary plane. The speaker moves freely through time and space using his imagination, drinking in the sights of Lvov and exploring scenes he could never actually have seen. An instance of this imaginary construction of the past appears within the lines “my aunts couldn't have known / yet that I'd resurrect them, / and lived so trustfully; so singly” (Zagajewski ). Here, we see that though the speaker reaches for Lvov, he is not fully present: the aunts do not know him; they must be resurrected through his poetry.
This is one instance of many in which we may observe that though the speaker is imaginative and makes a fierce effort to assert the existence of Lvov against a forbidding world, he is not all-powerful. Kay states that “he cannot dominate even his own imaginative space, as history intrudes on the present and the quotidian intrudes on the exalted” (21). She points out that two of the images that complete the destructive arc in the poem are of a forest and a church both in danger: “trees / fell soundlessly, as in a jungle, / and the cathedral trembled” (Zagajewski 81). In this case, both the pristine forest and the holy cathedral are threatened by the destruction of Lvov. The speaker's voice becomes more desperate as Lvov is threatened further over the course of the poem, but it only echoes how at the beginning, Lvov's existence was not certain either. Zagajewski employs two infinitive phrases at the beginning of the poem: “to go to Lvov” and “to leave in haste for Lvov” (79). Kay writes that these infinitives create “an abstract, postulated world, neither proven to exist nor decisively experienced,” carrying on to clarify that “the infinitive looks forward to what could happen, to the future” (20). From the start, then, the poem begins with the possibility of a journey, the hopeful existence of Lvov, and not with any certainties.
Thus, the poem begins with a sense of motion. However, even the moment when the trip shall actually be taken is uncertain, as the journey may start during “night or day, in September / or in March” (Zagajewski 79). Indeed, Lvov might not be extant at all: the trip can take place “only if Lvov exists, / if it is to be found within the frontiers and not just / in my new passport,” (Zagajewski 79). This quality of Lvov's being real and not real, there and not there, persists throughout the poem to the very end, where the speaker reconciles Lvov's destruction with its rebirth and concludes that Lvov “is everywhere” (Zagajewski 81). Yet, throughout the beginning of the poem, Lvov is constructed as a town dreamlike but possessing elements of the universal.
One dreamlike element is in how Lvov's borders expand, first hinted at through Zagajewski's use of implied metaphors near the beginning of the piece. In this case, the features the speaker passes on the way to Lvov are not simple objects. They have elements from the wider world. For instance, the trees passed are not merely trees, but living things, which “breathe aloud like Indians.” (Zagajewski 79). Likewise, streams “mumble their dark Esperanto,” (Zagajewski 79) and snakes are “like soft signs in the Russian language” (Zagajewski 79). These international images contained within the country of Poland, where Lvov is situated, indicate how during the years after World War II, the boundaries of Poland were redrawn. Lvov and surrounding eastern Polish lands were given over to the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Ukraine, while parts of Germany were given to Poland, and inhabitants of previously Polish Lvov were forced to move onto new lands that had once been German. The move was not a happy one, and Lvov became, in the works of Zagajewski and his contemporaries, “the crucial role in defining homeland” (Stanczyk 59). Poems and essays idealized the town and fought to symbolically reclaim it, and Lvov became a symbol for the suffering experienced by the displaced Polish people.
The lines “To pack and set off, to leave / without a trace, at noon, to vanish / like fainting maidens. And burdocks, green armies of burdocks,” serve as an apt example of the fragmented style that characterizes the poem (Zagajewski 79). Rather than making the piece choppy, the short verses that offer brief snippets of impression contribute to the pacing of the poem: when read aloud, the fragments urge the reader to hurry along, leaping eagerly from phrase to phrase like someone breaking into a run as he or she has seen his or her goal at last. The fragmented observations contribute to a sensation that the speaker is hurried, catching brief impressions of many different things, and though there is seemingly only one speaker, the brief sentences offer a multitude of different observations and perspectives. This multiplicity is appropriate given the worldly scope of the poem and Zagajewski's oeuvre: Clare Cavanagh writes, “Zagajewski invites us to see all history, whether past or passing, not as a matter of data and vast, unfathomable numbers but as a fabric woven of countless other unique, irreplaceable human beings” (Cavanagh 19). Thus, Zagajewski uses a stylistic device that seems to shift the perspective and impressions of the poem as though it collected images from a number of people in “To Go to Lvov.” The device blends the boundaries of imagination and reality, and makes it seem as though a town encompasses a world.
“To Go to Lvov” shifts the borders of Lvov beyond the forced changes politics inflicted in the mid-twentieth century to bring the wider world into the lands surrounding Lvov and to extend Lvov into the world. The poem redefines the loss of the town, making Lvov universal and in this way leading the reader to realize that Lvov was not actually lost at all. We can see this universalizing of the town taking place in these lines: “There was so much of the world that / it had to do encores over and over, / the audience was in a frenzy and didn't want / to leave the house” (Zagajewski 80).
The love for the town is exemplified in these lines, as they refer to the enthusiasm of the audience, in love with the world, demanding repetition “over and over” again. The word “world” can also be conflated with the use of the word “house,” implying that the greater world is the home. However, simultaneously, this home is centered in the town of Lvov; Lvov is where people reach these raptures of joy. These lines serve as an example of how Zagajewski expands Lvov's boundaries within the poem, the same way in which the boundaries of Poland originally shifted. The universality of Lvov is implied throughout the poem, using implied metaphors. That Lvov is everywhere in the world is hinted at throughout the poem, and explicitly stated in the last lines. However, to arrive in Lvov, one must still journey, and, in the first part of his poem, Zagajewski takes us through Lvov in a rush of brief, contrasting images, using short sentences.
The poem is not all happiness, however. Before the resolution at the end of the poem, where the speaker seems to attain peace with himself and the world, Lvov is destroyed, its destruction beginning with the line “there was too much of Lvov, and now / there isn't any” (Zagajewski 80). The loss of Lvov culminates in a sorrowful proclamation that again brings in international elements to the poem: “people bade goodbye / without handkerchiefs, no tears, such a dry / mouth, I won't see you anymore, so much death / awaits you, why must every city / become Jerusalem and every man a Jew” (Zagajewski 81). The statement that “every city” becomes Jerusalem makes an indirect comparison of Jerusalem with Lvov, playing off both the importance that Lvov had for the Polish people as well as making Lvov alike to an element from the outside world once more. However, this comparison also makes the destruction Lvov experienced alike to the destruction Jerusalem experienced, and states that eventually, every city will experience that suffering. The suffering contained within Lvov's history is unique in its particulars, as are the joys experienced by those inhabitants of Lvov. However, the suffering felt by the citizens of Lvov is also something held in common with people around the world: people in every city, everywhere, have experienced pain or will come to experience pain, eventually. Only the particulars of the situations are different.
The painful contrast between the suffering that comes along with the passage of time and the beauty that once existed is what the speaker must reconcile within the poem. The second turning point within the poem, at line 79, marks where Lvov's destruction reverses, seemingly instantaneously. The transition is swift: from equating Lvov to Jerusalem, Zagajewski leaps to writing “now in a hurry just / pack, always, each day, / and go breathless, go to Lvov, after all / it exists, quiet and pure as / a peach. It is everywhere” (Zagajewski 81) The development leading to this point of the poem, where Lvov rises from destruction like a phoenix and comes back into being, seems a complete surprise until we recognize all the hints of universality that appeared earlier in the poem. The simile comparing Lvov to a peach implies that the town is sweet and fresh, as well as explicitly stated to be pure. At this point, the city cannot actually be lost, nor is it difficult to reach. The speaker can go to Lvov “each day.” Reality, which was plunged into a state of being “obscure and chaotic,” has been realigned so that the speaker has an “impression of harmony” (Shallcross 236). Of note is that “tailors, gardeners and censors” were the ones who destroyed the wild beauty of Lvov (Zagajewski 80). The most unfamiliar of these three is the censor, who has the job of examining books, plays, news reports, and so on, so that pieces with morally or politically lacking content can be suppressed. In this case, the censor erases the voice of Lvov, cutting off the town's identity as what once was a Polish city is given to the Soviet Union. In the context of the poem, gardeners, tailors and censors all become destroyers, who prune, trim, erase, and redirect Lvov until the way in which people there once lived and the identity the town formerly held have disappeared. To recover Lvov, the town must have freedom again to grow into the sprawl of impressions and sensations that Zagajewski presented to the reader at the beginning of the poem.
Zagajewski makes Lvov the site of a struggle between the forces of history, which seek to create explanations and rationalize interpretations of events, against the forces of the imagination, which can break free from the bounds of time and reinterpret historical facts which seemed inescapable. Lvov is a space of contact between cultures as well as a source of contention for Polish poets who long for their lost homeland. Through writing, poets and essayists fight to reclaim their town; they attempt to “domesticate” the home they once knew, which creates a power struggle between the forces which seek to remove humanity from history by divorcing historical facts from their emotional import, and those forces who seek to explore history using emotionalism (Stanczyk 62).
Throughout the beginning of the poem, religious presence is evident in Lvov: the cathedral rises as “straight / as Sunday;” churches have a unique silence; Jesuit priests bless even the flora; an uncle writes a poem “dedicated to the Almighty,” and Lvov as a whole seems to “read the new Testament” (Zagajewski 80). God is present, fluid, and powerful within the town, but the divine only reappears after the town is revived once more.
The repeated references to divinity and holy presence are important within the poem, for although Zagajewski is not an overtly religious poet, the presence of a spiritual force within the town invigorates it with something eternal. Lvov is shown to be transient in some regards: it is possible for it to be mutilated, after all. Yet ultimately, the town and the ideal home it offers both persist. According to Kay, the concept of Lvov that can be found everywhere means that it is “both transient and eternal. It is the site of momentary delight and it dwells in the realm of eternal ideas” (21). The town connects to a specific location but then loses influence to have a universal power. It is through the vitalizing power of imagination that Lvov lives again beyond the finite site it originally claimed.
Baron Wormser writes that “imagination creates history as much as history creates imagination” (417). By this statement he means that human interpretation (imagination) can create trends and make predictions from history that were not evident at the time, and that history can have an influence on how people think and what conclusions they draw in return. In the case of human interpretation creating history, a historian can select certain items of evidence to create trends that were not necessarily evident at the time, and these trends are printed into textbooks to influence schools of thought into a vision of the past which is, at times, misleading: because although historians strive to be unbiased, the causes and repercussions of events can be interpreted differently from historian to historian. Movements did not necessarily exist consciously, and revolutions might have been lucky breaks coinciding at once. In this way history creates imagination. However, imagination has its own power to reinterpret history, which may allow a victory to be wrung out of the grasp of defeat, or turn the common interpretation of a course of events in an entirely new direction. In this way, Zagajewski grasps the revival of Lvov: “wait till warm June / comes with soft ferns,” he urges, “boundless fields of summer, i.e. the reality” (Zagajewski 80). Summer, a time of warmth and growth, is the reality, not the harsh deprivations of winter, and in spite of its suffering, Lvov is still as “pure as / a peach,” a luscious, ripe fruit, pristine and tempting (Zagajewski 81). He spits in the face of history books that declared Lvov as belonging to the Soviet Union and forced Polish citizens to relocate from their homeland, though he does not cry out that Lvov should be reclaimed by force. He insists that it exists and is available to be appreciated everywhere already, in spite of the years of loss suffered by those forced out of the town. In fact, the time of pain, perhaps, is what makes the reclamation of Lvov all the sweeter.
Andrew Krivak writes that “what we learn from Zagajewski's poetry is the dynamic of harmony and struggle, beauty and pain.” (14) “To Go to Lvov” is not a poem that makes condemnations of any particular group of people, though it expresses pain at the actions taken by some. Nor does Zagajewski seek to prescribe a course of action that people should take. Rather, the poem constructs a safe space, where the reader can share some of the pain of the dispossession of the Polish people, a pain shared by other displaced refugees, perhaps shared by anyone who has lost something precious and feels it is beyond his or her grasp forever, but the reader can also feel hope in tandem with realizing the negative parts of history. Krivak writes that Zagajewski's poetry often ends “with a sense of not so much the ambiguity between what is done and what is yet to be done, as the simple reality that, in spite of ambiguity, we endure” (14). Zagajewski acknowledges pain but insists that hope still exists; as Cavanagh puts it, he “invites us to join in his efforts to confront the world's large-scale sufferings and – more difficult still – to praise its small, ephemeral joys.” Kay writes that Zagajewski presents a “form of idealism that does not crystallize an ideal in a single image but allows for movement and change” (22).
Essentially, what Zagajewski rejects in “To Go to Lvov” is the concept that historical events have only one interpretation, that there is no power of imagination or freedom of interpretation that an individual can bring to events, and that humanity is enslaved to the course of events as they have passed. Combating this idea of an already-determined and interpreted past, Zagajewski plays with the passage of time and space in his poem and makes equivalent one lost city to the entire world. Then, he turns the statement around, insisting that what made Lvov special was not lost after all: that, indeed, it can be found everywhere.
“To Go to Lvov” reminds us of the human element of history: that everywhere, there are people. Zagajewski is, in a sense, humanitarian in his poetry, in that he always demands empathy from the reader by removing the events of history from being simply abstract facts to human lived experience. The massive numbers that tell of those victimized by historical processes become incomprehensible in their vastness; we might understand that we should feel pain for those numbers, but it is difficult to empathize with no point to make an individual connection. Zagajewski's poetry creates a powerful individual voice and places emphasis on the value of human experience. If creating empathy and facilitating understanding through sharing words and experience can be described as a moral stance, then “To Go to Lvov,” which places paramount value on individual experience of a place, takes a moral stance, reminding the reader of the pains and hopes that accompany the events that eventually become history.

Works Cited
Cavanagh, Clare. “Lyric and Public: The Case of Adam Zagajewski.” World Literature Today 79.2 (2005): 16-19.
Kay, Magdalena. “Place and Imagination in the Poetry of Adam Zagajewski.” World Literature Today: A Literary Quarterly of the University of Oklahoma 79.2 (2005): 20-22.
Krivak, Andrew. “The Language of Redemption: The Catholic Poets Adam Zagajewski, Marie Ponsot & Lawrence Joseph.” Commonweal 130.9 (2003): 12-16.
Larsen, Lance. “Interview with Adam Zagajewski, 24 January 2003.” Literature and Belief 26.2 (2006): 1-10.
Paloff, Benjamin. Personal interview. 3 October 2011.
Shallcross, Bozena. “The Divining Moment: Adam Zagajewski's Aesthetics of Epiphany.” The Slavic and East European Journal 44.2 (2000): 234-52.
Stanczyk, Ewa. “Polish Contact Zones: Silesia in the Works of Adam Zagajewski and Tomasz Rozycki.” Slovo 21.2 (2009): 50-63.
Wormser, Baron. “Meeting the Agony: Three Poems of the Twentieth Century.” Sewanee Review 116.3 (2008): 411-427.
Zagajewski, Adam. “To Go to Lvov.” Without End: New and Selected Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. 79-81.

senri — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:09:46 GMT

wanting to slap kishimoto so hard rn

icon relevant :|

senri — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 07:45:26 GMT

stuck up a permanent anon contact post here, just in case.

http://senri.livejournal.com/341531.html

senri — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:15:02 GMT

Marluxia keeps his gardens exactly as he keeps all his other possessions: well-coiffed. His ornamental cherry trees are groomed like poodles, his gravel paths neatly raked and free from weeds or invasive flora, falling water clinks gently in the air – there are no birds, no sonorous bugs. His is an insulated, a channeled place, not unlike Marluxia himself in that respect. In its sterility there is poetry, in its stillness and meticulous care a lightly written story that takes patience and time to decode.

Taking tea with him and Naminé in that garden is a terrible ordeal for Larxene. She always feels as though she's been sucked into Candyland, or Wonderland, without noticing, condemned to sip her drink with aching slowness, mumble surly compliments about Marluxia's thin cookies, and cross her ankles like a lady.

The graceful assassin is terribly good at faking graciousness. He is solicitous and cloying in his lengths to inquire as to the heat of Larxene's beverage, whether Naminé is comfortable, whether either of them requires a refill or a lump of sugar. The small circular table upon which he lays out refreshments crams them close together, nearly elbow to elbow, Naminé conspicuous as a Lotus floating over a black pond but trying to play down her, Larxene would say, glaring obviousness with a bowed head and whispered replies.

All in all it drives Larxene crazy, to sit wiling endless hours with Marluxia who vibrates with private amusement and the girl who could be her washed-out shadow, if Nobodys had nobodys. If it were possible, Naminé would be Larxene's nobody, and that would be the better place for her, as the dreary twin of a vibrant original. Which is what she is but Larxene has so much more somebody in her than Naminé does. It's almost ridiculous to count them as the same rank of being. Ridiculous. Unreal.

thug lyfe

senri — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:24:23 GMT

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senri — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:23:11 GMT

the great wave off kanagawa
driftwood
stones by the sea

I miss the days when everyone used lj a lot. :/ but I guess I've contributed to the drought as well.

senri — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:10:17 GMT

For Yup'ik material culture author Ann Fienup-Riordan has volumes of publication on the subject. If you go with women's work, probably focusing on one or two cultural groups, would be good to focus on in traditional arts. If you look at contemporary artist it would probably good to go with a broad view of Alaska Native Artists.
Erica Lord, Kathleen Carlo, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Susie Silook, Denise Wallace, Lena Amason, and Tanis S'eiltin are a few I can think of right now.

senri — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 01:52:41 GMT

fuck lj's lj login breaking update ways :/

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/167/442889624_b26b309bb1.jpg

senri — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:46:37 GMT

Czeslaw Milosz states in his essay “The Captive Mind” that “a poet does not merely arrange words in beautiful order. Tradition demands that he be a 'bard,' that his songs linger on many lips, that he speak in his poems of subjects of interest to all the citizens” (qtd. in Cavanagh 16) – at least, it is the province of the poets of Central and Eastern Europe that they write with an eye to the social movements of the time, especially in the case of Poland, where poets often speak as a kind of “second government” (Cavanagh 16) for the people of Poland. In this case, Polish poets write keeping a social consciousness in mind, and keeping a careful eye on the actions of their government. Adam Zagajewski, one of the Polish poets born in the generation after World War II, took his responsibility as one of Poland's lyrical watchdogs seriously in his essays and poetry, but as decades pass, to the eyes of some observers, he has withdrawn from his role as a guideline of morality and voice for the dissatisfied people of Poland and withdrawn into abstract thinking and lyricism alone. “He has brought the world to a standstill in order to commune with mute material,” (qtd. in Cavanagh 17) writes one critic, asserting that Zagajewski has withdrawn from the pressing, omnipresent concerns of corruption and injustice around him to simply observe the world around him. Thus, for instance, Zagajewski's poem “To Go to Lvov,” though beautiful, would stand apparently as a withdrawal from the concrete world which demands to be addressed, into a poetic dreamland that celebrates beauty and indulges in nostalgia.

Yet, does Zagajewski's movement away from more direct social commentary via his poetry remove moral imperative from his works? “The aesthetic value of an apt description becomes in some imperceptible way an ethical value as well,” (qtd. in Cavanagh 17) writes Zagajewski, so that we may gather that at least from his own perspective, his later poetic works which outwardly concentrate more on luscious and loving writings of places and moments in time do not eschew moral stands at all. How is morality represented in “To Go to Lvov” and where does it appear? Essentially, “To Go to Lvov” is a poem written in celebration and praise to a homeland which is lost. Zagajewski builds a beautiful dream of Lvov, writing of the city as it was, tears it down, and then revives the town once again at the end of the poem. Though Zagajewski writes of experiences that are clearly painful, he never explicitly condemns the people enacting that pain. His focus is always on the town itself, the experience of its inhabitants, and the constant focus on asserting that Lvov exists, that even after destruction it still exists, and in fact that Lvov “is everywhere” (Zagajewski 83). The moral stance exhibited in “To Go to Lvov” is not one that condemns any group or particular person, but rather, one that makes praise an exercise even in the face of pain and the destructive, dehumanizing progression of history that reduces the beauty of human experience to statistics and dry accounts of resettlement figures. “To Go to Lvov” also asserts that in spite of the disappearance of beauty and the struggle to maintain identity, beauty still remains universal, and a yearned-for homeland can never be wholly lost.

In discussing his own poetry with Lance Larsen, Zagajewski states “I think the basso continuo for poetry is praising, but it is a complicated praising. This world has probably always been mutilated, not clean or innocent.” He admits that this is one of the central themes of his poetry: “this combination of praising the world, but also feeling that the world as I have known it has always been mutilated.” In these lines he might address more particularly his well-known poem “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” but “To Go to Lvov” also exhibits both a deep appreciation for the beauty humans can create, as well as a keen awareness of the pain as borders and nations change and humans are crushed before the front lines of progress.

senri — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:41:13 GMT

What is an eyelash?
What is ornithology?
What is a breeze?
What is migration?
What is a breath?