Speaking to your audience ...Arnold Friend Style

I need to note I wrote this blog after watching the movie clips in class from Smooth Talk. For me the actors were able to bring justice to the words that the written text could not.
Her age and presence at the local hangout, her "unsure of herself" behavior, signaled to Arnold Friend that "She was the one", a young girl who was at the edge of innocence. He knew he could push her over with Smooth Talk. Arnold Friend's talk goes from seductive to creepy, then gets friendly and self conscience. It's interesting to see that she wants to be seduced, but had not imagined it to be in this manner. Friendly then creepy. She knows he's crazy, but she sticks around to find out how crazy. Why is it so hard for her to call for help? Not until she met Arnold Friend did she realize how complicated coming of age, the loss of ones innocence could be. She's riddled with confusion. His creepiness and the graphic bits of insight into what will happen aren't enough for her to turn and run. Something about him is appealing. His erratic talk, quirky mannerisms and misplaced body language provided a scene that was wrapped in psychological manipulations, no physical force was needed. He forced her to confront and wrestle with herself, this awkward stage in her life. She was scared but willing to let her innocence go, not the innocence that is associated with sex, but the one that is attached to the heart. In Arnold Friend's world this is the only way to step out of your innocence... graphic, traumatic. Arnold Friend forces her to step out of her comfortable, soft world into his sharp, abrupt, emotional world. Arnold Friend took what he wanted, not her body, but her innocence. He was able to because he knew his audience.

Disillusionment at 10 o'clock

I read this poem prior to reading the short story Where have you been, where are you going?, so i did  not make the connection. Here are my notes on the poem directly after I read it : The poem I felt was told from the perspective of someone walking through a town, an outsider. The people in their homes wearing the same white ordinary, mundane nightgowns. No individual character to show, not even a wild dream in their heads. Their thoughts too cluttered with daily tasks and lifes happenings to allow for creative thoughts and expressions. In quite contrast a drunken sailor has plenty of time and no daily grind to allow for all sorts of fantasies to enter his dreams.The average person is so caught up in life even their dreams are cluttered with "normalsy". A drunk sailor over his prime maybe the best candidate to have enough empty thought to allow for fanciful dreams. After the class discussion, i still do not see the connection between the poem and short story.

What stuck

After browsing the text of Retellings the only thing that stands out is, my lack of complete knowledge. Yes I've heard of this movie, that song and know a bit about whats in those books, but I find I don't know the full story or all the lyrics to many songs, movies or stories. My knowledge has been developed through experiences rather than reading books and watching television. I feel a bit un "bookwise", I suppose I have allot of reading to do. I look forward to Oleanna, A Tin Butteryfly, A Story of Daedalus and Icarus, the casebook on Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as the poetry that dimples the pages of the book.

Chatter

I was fairly young when I moved to Italy some 10 years ago, my husband at the time was a bit anti social. Sitting at a restaurant one evening he commented on how nice it was to not to be forced to listen to others conversations, chatter he called it. We were the only Americans in the place and understood very little Italian at that point. The conversations were low and beautiful, they almost sang, Italian is considered a romantic language and at that moment I could hear why. We sat without a word for sometime enjoying the serenity of such an opportunity. Recently most of my days are spent in a North facing room in the SUB on campus, amongst a large number of engineering students.  The characteristics of the room does not afford for a private conversation. Most of their conversations revolve around their studies, lots of formulas and lab talk, steady and unenergized. Their conversations overlap, flowing from one table to the next in a very rhythmical way. You can always tell when a test is coming up, the talk is more lively and urgent, the tone along with the emotions heightens. Being able to understand the language does not hamper my experience, it offers  more detail to why the change in energy. There are definitely those students who are more organized and those who are stronger academically. They always have the problems worked out and seem to be able to comfort others with brief, concise explanations.  I value the insight of such conversations as well as the mood they set.

Conception

The conception of this blog was... a bit unexpected. Upon learning of the requirement through the class syllabus, I had visions of vast amounts of time wasted on the computer. For someone of my generation "The Atari Generation", I was in 6th grade when Atari hit mainstream, blogging came across as just another way to CHAT with people, without ever making eye contact. So the question I had was "How was "chatting" going to introduce me to Literature"? Now with a little more knowledge of what a blog actually is, I am looking forward to reading each of my classmates thoughts on the assigned reading.