tomarrow
okay, well i wrote my little presentation fro tomarrow...here itis...tell me what you think.
describe for me, if you will, what makes the character of a city. is it simply the buildings and history? or could it be simpler? newer? according to Woolf, as we see in Mrs Dalloway, a cities character is made by it's people. can you imagine a new york with out it's hot dog vendors and police men walking the beat? how about a tokyo minus its teen aged j-popers and middle aged working men in business suits? even detroit would loose it's chacter if it didnt have its sports teams and its motown singers.
not so simply is a city made by its people, but by all of the decisions that thos people make. and let's face it, mostly they are selfish.
mostly our ideas of cities are impersonal, no one knows their neighbors and each person just scurries about thier day doing just what they can to get through. granted, this is hard enough, but our minds are constantly working, traveling to past, working through the present, and throwing us head first into the future. we spiral into our childhoods at the slightest provocation -- even if the result is only a smile. we are obsessed with how we are seen to others in our present time -- are we attractive? (clean and groomed and fresh to meet and greet?) do wee seem intelligent and focused to others? or do we seem as drifters with no purpose other that to be in the way? and so on. and even now i am filled with anticipation for tomarrow to be here with it's promise of a rob zombie concert at pine knob, even though i am terrified to be presenting in front of you all right now. still, while we are thinking and acting in the selffish manner (for this is our nature) we betray ourselves by allowing others into our private memories and thoughts. Mrs Dalloway's city, in this way, is a contradiction. while the archetecture and history or the city are played down to nonexistent, the people are paradoxically seffish while being consumed with others; peter with clarissa, septimus with his dead commrad, lucrezia with septimus, and miss kilman with elizabeth (just to name a few). but each thought or consern is endded in selffishness.
peter obsessis over clarissa and what could have been and what he wanted and wants now. septimus with his delusions and self pity (never mind how appropriet they are given his situation), lucreizia and her loneliness and miserable thoughts of not being home where she understands everything. and miss kilman at loosing elizabeth to the girls mother. but ultimatly, no matter how selffish or how badly they want, there is nothing that any of them can do about any of thier problems (contrived or otherwise). each action by each individual (remember that these miserable, obsessed, selfish people are the character of the city) is made to try to come to terms with what they want and what they think they need, but what they know they can never have. seeing how these things fall into place, it is amazing that we have cities and civilization at all being that(according to this) we are all miserable with our place.
for example, beginning on page 151, peter walsh receives a note from clarissa, and while it does not directly say that he is annoied by her selffishness at sending him this note and not leaving him to himself and the misery that she knows he is in, it alludes to it in his memories -- her rejections or him, past and present. he beleives her to be playing with him for her own amusement with everything she does ebing motivated by her selffish desires while it seems that she is the least selffish person in the book.
and i think i'll leave it off there. i;m gonna go over it again because this is only the second copy and i made some chages as iwas typing, but i think thats gonna be a bout it. gotta go pick up neal now. bai
describe for me, if you will, what makes the character of a city. is it simply the buildings and history? or could it be simpler? newer? according to Woolf, as we see in Mrs Dalloway, a cities character is made by it's people. can you imagine a new york with out it's hot dog vendors and police men walking the beat? how about a tokyo minus its teen aged j-popers and middle aged working men in business suits? even detroit would loose it's chacter if it didnt have its sports teams and its motown singers.
not so simply is a city made by its people, but by all of the decisions that thos people make. and let's face it, mostly they are selfish.
mostly our ideas of cities are impersonal, no one knows their neighbors and each person just scurries about thier day doing just what they can to get through. granted, this is hard enough, but our minds are constantly working, traveling to past, working through the present, and throwing us head first into the future. we spiral into our childhoods at the slightest provocation -- even if the result is only a smile. we are obsessed with how we are seen to others in our present time -- are we attractive? (clean and groomed and fresh to meet and greet?) do wee seem intelligent and focused to others? or do we seem as drifters with no purpose other that to be in the way? and so on. and even now i am filled with anticipation for tomarrow to be here with it's promise of a rob zombie concert at pine knob, even though i am terrified to be presenting in front of you all right now. still, while we are thinking and acting in the selffish manner (for this is our nature) we betray ourselves by allowing others into our private memories and thoughts. Mrs Dalloway's city, in this way, is a contradiction. while the archetecture and history or the city are played down to nonexistent, the people are paradoxically seffish while being consumed with others; peter with clarissa, septimus with his dead commrad, lucrezia with septimus, and miss kilman with elizabeth (just to name a few). but each thought or consern is endded in selffishness.
peter obsessis over clarissa and what could have been and what he wanted and wants now. septimus with his delusions and self pity (never mind how appropriet they are given his situation), lucreizia and her loneliness and miserable thoughts of not being home where she understands everything. and miss kilman at loosing elizabeth to the girls mother. but ultimatly, no matter how selffish or how badly they want, there is nothing that any of them can do about any of thier problems (contrived or otherwise). each action by each individual (remember that these miserable, obsessed, selfish people are the character of the city) is made to try to come to terms with what they want and what they think they need, but what they know they can never have. seeing how these things fall into place, it is amazing that we have cities and civilization at all being that(according to this) we are all miserable with our place.
for example, beginning on page 151, peter walsh receives a note from clarissa, and while it does not directly say that he is annoied by her selffishness at sending him this note and not leaving him to himself and the misery that she knows he is in, it alludes to it in his memories -- her rejections or him, past and present. he beleives her to be playing with him for her own amusement with everything she does ebing motivated by her selffish desires while it seems that she is the least selffish person in the book.
and i think i'll leave it off there. i;m gonna go over it again because this is only the second copy and i made some chages as iwas typing, but i think thats gonna be a bout it. gotta go pick up neal now. bai