What can I say?

I passed. It doesn't feel real, but I passed. And I passed. And now, what?
Wow, it doesn't feel like I passed yet, seriously, I think I still need to study.

Tomorrow is the day

So it's about time for me to stop learning new stuff, read over my notes quickly, and watch an episode of Chapelle Chow before going to sleep.

Cuando me paro a contemplar m'estado (mi estado)

Garcilaso de la Vega
SONETO I

Cuando me paro a contemplar mi’stado
y a ver los pasos por dó me han traído,
hallo, según por do anduve perdido,
que a mayor mal pudiera haber llegado;

mas cuando del camino’stó olvidado,
a tanto mal no sé por dó he venido;
sé que me acabo, y más he yo sentido
ver acabar comigo mi cuidado.

Yo acabaré, que me entregué sin arte
a quien sabrá perderme y acabarme
si quisiere, y aún sabrá querello;

que pues mi voluntad puede matarme,
la suya, que no es tanto de mi parte,
pudiendo, ¿qué hará sino hacello?



Lope de Vega
Rimas Sacras, Soneto I

Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado
y a ver los pasos por donde he venido,
me espanto de que un hombre tan perdido
a conocer su error haya llegado.

Cuando miro los años que he pasado,
la divina razón puesta en olvido,
conozco que piedad del cielo ha sido
no haberme en tanto mal precipitado.

Entré por laberinto tan extraño,
fiando al débil hilo de la vida
el tarde conocido desengaño;

mas de tu luz mi escuridad vencida,
el monstruo muerto de mi ciego engaño,
vuelve a la patria la razón perdida.

Psychological Torture

At Guantanamo, they used Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Eminem, Mr. Dre, Britney Spears as torture, after tying up prisoners for days and not letting them sleep. Metallica's first response was that we'd tortured our parents for many years with the music, why'd it be any different for a prisoner in Guantanamo...which takes me back to suburban days of heavy metal Marshall half-stacks in the garage that could be heard 15 houses down the street and left all the pictures on the wall hanging crooked.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/agenda/tortura/silencio/elpepugen/20081215elpepiage_2/Tes

Columpio - Gerardo Diego

God, forever I couldn't figure out this poem, playing yes and no, and then I got it, suddenly, when I realized it was included in love poems...pulling off the petals of flowers, shes loves me, she loves me not...duH!
-and I just got that last image, harlequin birds, the petals of the flowers are like clownish fluttering birds (I think)

A caballo en el quicio del mundo
un soñador jugaba al sí y al no

Las lluvias de colores
emigraban al país de los amores



Bandadas de flores


Flores de sí


Flores de no

Cuchillos en el aire
que le rasgan las carnes
forman un puente


Sí


No

Cabalgaba el soñador
Pájaros arlequines


cantan el sí


cantan el no

Realism

-Focus on daily life rather than the large adventures
-Characters usually typical of specific social class, social and personal contemporary problems
-Appear to be objective (really? wit al dese crazy ass naratos n shi?)
-Present all sides, positive and negative, of characters
-Reproduce exterior and interior reality in order to show the life of the individual in relation to society and the environment
-Focus on psychological forces that shape person

Gen 1898
Critical of Spanish decay, acknowledgment of need for modernization and liberalization of Spain, and crisis of identity (what does it mean to be Spanish?)

I'm bored

Don Juan Tenorio

In contrast, an example of a romantic Spanish text would be this play by Zorrilla, in which Don Juan is saved by the love of Dona Ines after repenting for his actions, and also, the final scene/act is outside of logic and reason, as the statues to commemorate dead figures come to life (el comandador sp?) and they have a grotesque last dinner. As for the form, this is also reflected in the verse used in the play and the passage of time; in Si de las ninas, very little time passes. In DJ, 5 years pass as DJ is exiled and then returns home.
---However, it is questionable if he is really saved, it is an open ending. His repentance seems to be so last minute as to be only to save his own ass, a death-bed confession that seems to lack any sense of real apology. His acts throughout the play do not fit with his final words; is he just playing us and Dona Ines?


Romanticism: Imagination over reason, emotion over logic, intuition over science. Focus on individual

Enlightenment

In one sentence, according to me and my friend (encarta): Arguments sustained by Science and Reason (rational thought). Also during this time (1700s) neoclassicism was in style, 3 act plays Greek/Roman style, Moratin example of una obra ilustrada (AND DEFINITELY NOT ROMANTIC!!!). Literature that teaches as it entertains.
El no de las ninas...viejo verde who was to marry much younger woman, who is the emblem of the perfect woman (modest, quiet, virgin), but is in love with his younger nephew. Using reason, the viejo verde deduces that it is better to remove himself from the marriage contract and allow the two lovers to get married.

Golden Age poets

and their titles:
Lope de Vega -- "No se atreve a pintar su dama muy hermosa por no mentir que es mucho para poeta"

Spanish Transition Dates

1955 Readmitted into the United Nations
1970 Economic accord with EC
1973 Spanish Prime Minister Carrero Blanco assassinated in a car bomb attack; concurrently, a trial was set to start only 15 minutes earlier for 10 anti-Francoists
1975 Franco dies; successor Juan Carlos takes over government
1976 Adolfo Suarez takes over as PM, many dismayed by his Francoist links, first partial amnesties for political prisoners
1977 Amnesty Laws passed; PCE is legalized; Pactos de la Moncloa (PM’s palace)
1978 Constitution passed
1981 Failed Gen. Tejero Coup
1982 Joins NATO
1986 (Jan 1st) Joins EC

Garrote

This is one form of execution. Looks like a really bad way to go...
http://www.usmilitaryknives.com/Garrote.JPG

Collective Memory

Collective Memory: “consists of the memory that a community possesses of its own history, as well as the lessons and learning which it more or less consciously extracts from that memory. This variable includes both the substance of that memory (recall of specific historical events) as well as values associated with their evocation (historical lessons and learning), which are modified, very often, by the vicissitudes of the present.”

-Individual memory and collective memory coexist. Personal experiences cannot diverge from the official history to the extent of an inability to coexist, if political stability is desired. huh? I think I mumbled these words while writing them.

• “Effects of amnesia are necessarily heightened over time.”

A brief synopsis of the two sides and their fears. Victorious fear that a return to party politics, return of exiles, granting of political amnesty would lead to the same chaos, violence, anarchy of before, or that they would have a desire for revenge and demands for justice. On the flip side, Left feared that the Francoists wouldn't cede power so easily, especially with a powerful army at command, and that a coup would be imminent (which they weren't too far off the mark, although it was not a strong coup).

• “Memories, due to the very passing of time, cannot always be maintained by individuals as personal experiences, which is why they end up being stored in social deposits (archives, monuments, museums), in numerous ‘sites of memory’”
-Is this a good reason for taking down Franco and Francoist monuments? As sites of memory, they shape "a tradition prior to the existence of individuals of subsequent historical periods". Which is also why I think Drunk History is such a great show.

Paloma Aguilar, Memory and Amnesia

Sleepy

If I had only one word to describe how I feel constantly this past week, it'd be this. WTF!?!?

?s I'm thinkin' on

-Why was the transition to democracy in Spain successful? How do we know it was successful (by what measurements)? What role did memory politics play?
-If I were to focus on two Golden Age poets and their poetic trajectory during their years, it'd probably be Garcilaso and Quevedo? What is that trajectory?
-Why did the testimonio have such influence and popularity in the 60s and died out by the 80s? Should I even know or guess as to why?
-WTF does the historicity of texts and the textuality of history even mean?
-Does anyone read La ciudad ausente by Piglia, or is his only novel La respiracion artificial?
This, and many more questions, tbc...
Oh yeah, should the Giants/will the Giants sign CC Sabathia?

But I guess I'm really not back to work yet

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/digital-short-j-in-my-pants/866262/

Back to Work

It is now time for me to come back to work, and review, study, read, and focus for another week and a half before my oral. I had a few days off of lazying, eating, drinking, sleeping, and am now forced back into action. Thanks again to Mesro and Dena for the signs, the lunch afterwards with Nati and Chem Mike too, thanks for the good words Voncookie, Selene, Dreadlock Dan, Chang, and others, my parents (are you guys reading the blog yet?), Jgill for sticking by me and everyone else who I've forgotten or can't mention because then my cover is blown (Heavy Metal crew).
This means that once again my blog will be active. Not good, but active.

Phd Exam

Today is the day...

La Regenta

Ana Ozores, La Regenta - beautiful, thoughtful, fear of abandonment, object of sexual desire in the pueblo Vetusta, poet, educated, a wife to be sold to the highest bidder
don Alvaro Mesia, El Tenorio - jefe del partido liberal, politician, smooth-talker, good-looking, wants to seduce Ana Ozores, dresses fashionably like in Paris, speaks foreign languages
Her father - librepensandor, leaves others to raise Ana, example of lazy liberal who doesn't know what he's talking about but relies on the ignorance of others to ignore his unintelligible comments, lives abroad, Romantic (bans Ana from reading modern literature)
El Magistral, De Pas - corrupt, sly, spiritual advisor to Ana, has a telescope that he uses to look over his city, powerful, likes to climb shit
Her Husband, Victor - older, like a father to her
Voyeurism of the confessions; it's a jewel all the priests desire
Digressions galore
The way the canonigos talk, vulgar, sexual, dirty dirty filthy filthy; they hate mass and yawn, clearly anti-clerical portrayal of the lazy unholy ones
Blend of Erotic/Church (Obdulia walking around with that short skirt of hers)