Blood

So for the past day or so I've bee walking around with the phrase "cleansing blood" written on my wrist so I'd remember to write this. I got a few funny looks from people who happened to see my little note, and had to explain to them that no, it's not what it looks like.

In any case, I wanted to discuss the concept of blood as a symbol of cleansing and purity. In Bynum's story of how he got his Binding Song, he had to rub himself down with the shiny man's blood. Similarly, Loomis slashes his own chest, out of some desperate need to prove that blood cannot heal him, and bathes in the blood. This leads to him regaining his song and being whole again.

Bynum also uses pigeon blood on what seems to be a regular basis. He kills the pigeon and buries it before pouring the blood over the grave. Given the symbolism of blood in this play, along with the symbolism of the dove, a bird very similar to the pigeon, one can assume that Bynum is blessing Seth and Bertha's home.

I was hoping to find other sources in which blood could be considered a purifyer, but apart from Christianity (which I assume is where this play's association with it came from), I could not find anything. I did, however, find a compelling essay on the various uses of blood in the play Macbeth: http://www.essaydepot.com/essayme/234/index.php

If anybody else knows of some sources with uses of blood, I'd love to see them.

Spinning into Butter

My first reaction to the play occurred when I first started reading it. With a title like "Spinning into Butter," I expected a play taking place one or two hundred years earlier, in a farm or rural atmosphere with family strife/bonding somehow being connected with the act of churning butter. Obviously, this illustrates two points: a.) that I did not read the back and b.) that I am not very imaginative when it comes to plays.

Being the protagonist, Sarah's character was the most intriguing to me - not because she was the protagonist, but because there were so many facets to her character. Being a white female, I could associate with some of the earlier points she made, such as with Patrick Chibas. Why would a person object so strongly to a title of race in exchange for a twelve thousand dollar scholarship? To me it seemed as though she was trying to help him out. Even when reading his motivations for the protest, I still can't claim to understand fully what goes on in his head.

Learning of her racist tendencies was both surprising and anticipated. I suspected that there were some misconceptions due to ignorance on her part, but never fathomed just how much she hated black people, and therefore the cruel irony at being hired for the sake of becoming a racial liason of sorts.

I don't understand the big deal about her dislike of Toni Morrison. Of course she won't like it; she is more accustomed to a different style of writing, no matter how many courses she took on the subject. And really, everyone's tastes run differently; would my dislike of Ernest Hemingway make me sexist against men, rather than simply being unable to enjoy his writing?

Upon reading her opinions of Morrison's Beloved, I sought out some criticisms of the work, and found one that addressed the very aspects Sarah disliked in it. The article states the following: "In a process of personal and social transformation, Beloved's spaces and times change through geographical and structural movement and through storytelling. Narrative processes are linked to spatial formations and communal configurations. Morrison's simultaneous working through of history and memory by describing bodies and social structures makes the novel useful not only for projects of remembrance and revision, but also for building new social configurations of family and kin." The rest of it can be found here.

I do have to agree that, in my experience at least, everyone does the picking and choosing on a train or a bus - not necessarily due to race, but individual criteria that everyone has. I, for example, will admit that I would rather sit next to a woman older than me (what I view as the least physically and socially threatening), preferably away from children of any kind. In fact, I am curious about this possibility; does anyone else have any criteria for a potential seat on a hypothetical bus?

Why theater? continued

Okay, so after reading Amadeus I came up with another reason why people still go to theaters: the method of character development. Movies can't usually get away with monologues and asides, and this prevents viewers from truly getting into the characters' heads. Would Amadeus really have been worth watching, reading or even writing if the audience were not privy to Salieri's innermost thoughts? Doubtful.