Diario

Another story in Spanish, from my Introduction to Spanish Literature course. This is loosely based on Elena Poniatowska's story "El recado". Don't ask me how this ends. It's not autobiographical (though my teacher refused to believe that), so there's no "ending". It's intentionally ambiguous.

Mis amigas me dijeron que no lo llamara a él. “Ya tiene novia,” me dijeron, “Deja de pensar en él.” Pero no puedo. No sólo me acuerdo de él en los pensamientos, sino también en los sueños. Me dijeron, “Chiquilla necia. No se puede encontrar el amor verdadero cuando apenas tienes quince años.” Yo sé que piensan que dicen la verdad, pero me parece que no es tan simple. Hay muchos tipos de amor. Tal vez no puedo encontrar el amor permanente—el amor que quiero mantener por toda la vida—a esta edad, pero ¿no hay otros tipos de amor, que también son verdaderos y profundos? No sé. No soy sabia como mi mamá. Sólo sé que lo que siento no puede ser mentira. Y siento con toda el alma que lo amo.

A Friendly Reminder to Poets

These metrical feet are useful to know in the writing, reading, or discussing of poetry. You'll feel really smart when talking over poems with your friends if you can accurately pull this vocabulary out of your hat. Capitalized syllables are stressed.

IAMB: alas (a-LAS)
TROCHEE: outlast (OUT-last)
SPONDEE: well-loved (WELL-LOVED)
ANAPEST: indirect (in-dir-ECT)
DACTYL: ludicrous (LUD-i-crous)
AMPHIBRACH: imposter (im-POS-ter)
CRETIC (or AMPHIMACER): what a dump (WHAT a DUMP)
CHORIAMB: how to survive (HOW to sur-VIVE)
PYYRHIC: and the (and the)

Famous or original lines containing these feet are welcomed in the comments. Iambs, at least, ought to be easy--jot down almost any of Shakespeare's verses. Trochees, anapests, and dactyls are also pretty common.

On Existentialism and Ethics

I was too tired to write tonight, but wanted to post. Here are excerpts from my side of an old e-mail debate with a friend. The topic was Sartre's essay "Existentialism is a Humanism", particularly as it relates to ethics or the lack thereof.

"The responsibility part of existentialism is also tied up with ethics. Say I kill you. From an existentialist perspective, no one has a monopoly on absolute truth and can condemn that as absolutely bad. But I have chosen to give value to killing through my action, and existentialism says the responsibility is wholly mine. I can't blame it on societal influences or religious fanaticism or anything else. Sure, that doesn't stop the fact that it's not absolutely wrong, but few people want to accept that kind of responsibility. And you can't be a half-existentialist. If you want a philosophy of freedom, you have to take the consequences.
. . .
There is also the existentialist idea of good faith and bad faith, which is sort of ethics-related. Good faith is recognizing your freedom and making your own decisions (actively determining your essence), not blindly following society or a religious dogma, or trying to delay the moment of choice on a matter. Because of this, existentialists tend to place a lot of value on courage, not as something objectively valuable (because that would be inconsistent), but as an important quality for living an honest ("good faith") life. This is where you're really allowed to judge others' actions. You can't condemn something as "bad" based on objective values, but you can condemn it as dishonest. A lot of existentialist literature touches on this--exposing the cowardice of people who try to fake their way through the preset paths of life.
. . .
You can also be heroic and magnanimous as an existentialist. Perhaps the reason people think existentialists are gloomy is because many of them point out that there is always a choice--death. (This means you can also never shirk responsibility by saying you were forced to do something. Even if someone is holding a gun to your head and telling you to do x, you are responsible for the consequences of x if you do it.) In most cases, death is an absurd choice. But in some cases, it is the only honest choice. To be a "good faith" existentialist generally involves performing actions that give value to freedom, and in some cases that may mean making the choice to die for it."

Ayn Rand and Victor Hugo

After reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shurgged, I was disgusted by Ayn Rand's philosophy. Imagine my surprise, then, when Web surfing revealed Rand's admiration of my favorite author--Victor Hugo. She mentions his works frequently in her Romantic Manifesto, even devoting a chapter to her introduction of Ninety-Three. Her comments reveal that she had read even some of his most obscure works. Admittedly, the two share a couple superficial elements of Romantic prose. Both paint exaggerated characters, headstrong and independent. Both often write about people with near-absurd commitments to their values. However, the substance of their prose--their social aims--are profoundly different. I don't think Hugo would approve of Objectivism. Nor does Rand approve of the liberal goals Hugo professed.

Hugo writes, in his introduction to Cromwell (often called his "Romantic Manifesto") that "Romanticism is liberalism in literature". Hugo means liberalism as we know it: advancement of the awareness of and help for poverty, equalization of opportunity, and socioeconomic progress of every sort--hardly Rand's ideal. Independent of political aims, their ethical philosophies could not have been more distinct. The intensity of Hugo's heroes' commitment to duty and self-sacrafice is only equalled by that of Rand's characters' rejection of the same ideals! In Les Miserables,  Hugo writes, "It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How all-sufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty." Compare this to the following excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, "You have sacraficed happiness to duty... Happiness is the proof of your moral integrity". Rand's further objection to duty as a moral standard is evidenced by her statement, "Immanual Kant is the real villain of our age".

Great Quote

"The lemonade is weak, like your soul."
from a rather odd translation of Schiller's play Intrigue and Love.

Comedy Tonight

In recent years, I've dreamed of being a theater and opera critic. Even if the salary is small, the perks (free tickets!) more than compensate. But there's one flaw in my critical apparaisal of shows: I cannot stand comedy. It's inexplicable. Charles Isherwood recently wrote a New York Times article about feeling like the only one in the theater who's not laughing. It's happened to me--at just about every comedy I've ever attended.

I try to enjoy myself, I really do. I'll walk into A Behanding in Spokane after reading a rave review, expecting the best. I'll even force a little chuckle near the beginning to warm up. But at some point, dousing teenagers with oil and threatening to light them on fire fails to be funny (even though the rest of the audience is in hysterics).

Truth (a poetical essay)

Stop for a moment. Think. Where are you going? Why are you walking?

You think there's an end, don't you? Maybe you're right. There is a limit to endurance, a furthest point to which anyone can travel. Well, I've been there. I've reached the end.

I know what's there. I know that--

They lied. They tricked us.

They told us we could rest at the end of this journey. Life is over, heaven awaits. Bliss, calm, nirvana--simple rest.

They lied. They tricked us.

Do you know what's there, at the end? We finish the journey and find--

Nothing.

Inspired by a quote from an article by Larra, who was really just being cynical about Romanticism in general and Dumas' brilliant drama Antony in particular.

El carrusel

A gothic short story from my junior year of high school, notable for its use of apostrophe.

Tengo treinta años, y todavía no me he casado. Mi madre – que descanse en paz – me dijo que el matrimonio es sólo una desilusión. Melva, después de conocerte, yo sé que de verdad me decepcionaría cualquier otra. Entonces me quedo soltero. Te espero cada agosto en el sitio del carrusel viejo. Te espero aunque sé que nunca vendrás.

Te conocí hace trece años. Cada verano, mi familia iba a la playa para que descansáramos y esperásemos el comienzo de la escuela. En la última semana de nuestras cuartas vacaciones así, vinieron los camiones. Trajeron muebles y ropa y ollas a la casa vacía al lado de la nuestra. ¡Me emocioné tanto! Sin decirle a nadie adónde iba, corrí hacia el camión. Y te vi por primera vez.

Antígona

A Spanish-style sonnet (different rhyme and rhythm scheme than the Shakespearean style most of us are accustomed to) from my junior year of high school. Inspired by Griselda Gambaro's play Antígona Furiosa. The third sonnet I wrote. The first two have never been seen by anyone, because they're even darker and probably not a good reflection on the mental health of my fourteen-year-old self.

Me llevan a la cueva, al fin brutal,
A mi sepulcro de piedra tallada.
Soy terca; mi muerte es adelantada,
Y esa prisa ha llegado a ser fatal.

Ya me dejan—moriré, soy mortal;
Me dan de vivir un día, una nada.
Sin ni agua ni comida sobrada,
Sedienta y hambrienta espero el final.

Rechazo el suplicio que sufriré;
Rechazo ser botada, ser desecho.
¡No! Con orgullo a mi muerte iré.

Del vestido soga hago, la ato al techo.
Con mi mano, la vida extinguiré,
Atrevida y orgullosa de lo que he hecho.

The Temptation of the Impossible

Mario Vargas Llosa's book of commentary on Les Misérables is titled The Temptation of the Impossible. Llosa's title refers to the improbability of Hugo's world, where coincidental meetings are the crux of climactic scenes and characters are superhuman. These days, though, the impossibility for many teens seems to lie in the length of the novel.

A typical conversation with someone asking me for a book suggestion might go like this:
“Ilana, what’s your favorite book?”
“Les Misérables.”
“OK, maybe I’ll read it. Do you know where I can get it?”
“I think Powell’s has it unabridged. Be careful; don’t get an abridged version.”
“Abridged? How long is this book anyway?”
“Oh, two thousand pages…”
“Do you have any shorter books to recommend?”
At that point I sigh and recommend another Hugo book, usually Ninety-Three.

Atheism

This is an unpolished essay I dug up from a high-school debate. The question: Is man the creation of God, or is God the creation of man? It assumes some prior philosophical knowledge, but nothing Google won't quickly provide.

Descartes wrote in his famous Meditations, “There are only two ways of proving the existence of God, one by means of his effects, and the other by means of his nature or essence.” While I can’t prove this premise, I’m going to work from it. After all, the best atheists can do is refute traditional arguments for the existence of God. As many failed attempts (most notably and convincingly, the argument from evil) have proved, it’s hard—if not impossible—to demonstrate absence. I cannot prove to you that no unicorns exist, though I can demonstrate that there is no logical necessity for the existence of unicorns and no evidence of their existence. Similarly, I will try here to prove the lack of logical necessity for the existence of God and refute the two ways Descartes provides “evidence” of his existence.