Reading Journal 2, Week 4

There seems to be something compromised by Italy as the source of the supernatural here with the constant presence of the two Scottish sisters--not Italians, but Scots, and repeatedly described as such. I recognize that, despite accents, these two foreign(ish) sisters allow for linguistic communication, but for a great deal of the piece Italy doesn't function as anything other than a background of absolute, excruciating tourism. Well, I suppose that isn't true. There is, in fact, this idea of Italy as healing--a metaphorical womb, one might say, that is meant to rebirth the relationship between John and Laura, a sort of strange juxtaposition of motherhood, where Italy is to fix where Laura has "failed." How Italy is meant to return maternity to her, to restore her relationship with child-bearing despite the fact that she is clearly suffering from the loss of her child. What seems interesting in that idea is that it is not Italy, often feminized, that serves as the source of her repair, but those two Scottish women. I suppose the story is constantly trying to play on some left-field option, for example: John is in trouble, no the son is in trouble, no John is in trouble, SURPRISE, it's a midget lady! I suppose that the fact that, rather than the foreign, it is something more familiar to the British couple that provides the source of relief. Not to mention that the entire trip to Venice, rather than repairing their relationship, ends up destroying it--leaving John dead and hinting at the radical potency of the Italian setting.

Classmate Response 1, Week 3

I figure I am going to take it the one sentence at a time method, though I find this tidbit of memory adorable.

First, I like the idea of generations of family. I don't really have any great-anything in my family, so the idea of family at a distance seems unfamiliar and interesting, especially when one considers the connotations of family as familial closeness, bounded by blood.

There's always a possibility of addressing one as the head of the table--a place of authority. How have you established this authority in your family? I think this could tie in with what seems like a sort of grouping thing happening at the end, as you past notes to your mom, therefore alienating as well as condemning the others.

If the Thomaston balls are so famous, how come you've never seen them? Just something that I think would, in a story, need a brief sentence of elaboration.

I love the idea of using butter balls to quell the kids. That is just great, expand on that. As well as this sort of mock intimacy with the butter-ball smeared children and the dad, who has to put a napkin between him and child.

Memory 1, Week 3

Not finished. I think this will be a lot longer but for the sake of time I need to post what I have so far.

To enter the center of Perugia, one is always climbing. Rocking and surfing on the metrobus, one hand on the bright red railing above my head, the other looping through the headrest of some short-haired woman’s chair, the bus climbs up looping hills to the escalators. And even the escalators, located in the belly of some stone-walled castle, brick after brick creating a dimly lit tunnel of steps  and escalation, one climbs that tunnel-way until finally, Perugia bursts free, open and cool in the steady movement of its shop-infested streets. But before that, we have to make a stop first. There, in the tunnels, postered off by a large sign punctured with Superman legs—Perugia Comic Con, an opportunity to nerd away from home. Slipping past glass doors and a group of heaving cosplayers smattered on the stairwell, I first notice the heat, that seems, like another person, to also climb: up the stairs, through the bodies, existing everywhere at once. Once up the stairs, the heat breaks off into a tangible passion—embodied by the shuffle of people—shoppers, dealers (distinguishable only by their wary, suspicious glances) and the glossy array of colored comics, lined up on the shelves and taking the walls as if it was their own. We pay our fee and branch off to some less cluttered section of the con, a passageway dotted with frames of James Bond movie posters, that winds backwards until it empties into a tunnel, dark and shrinking, almost separate from the noise and tussle of the convention. We decide to turn back, but before we go we capture the moment: all of us, posed and smiling while some great darkness looped behind us, and we ignored it, unabashed and never fazed.

My first time entering a convention shook me, core-bound, until everything in me was displaced enough to refill with an indiscernible thrill. Unlike in Perugia, this was a large convention in America, lasting a span of three long days and offering a lot more than tunnel space and a small group of sweaty, satisfied cosplayers. 

Reading Journal 1, Week 4

I would argue that the Italian space functions, primarily in the first half of the work, within Daisy Miller. Italy, thus far, has been embodied as this place of the sensual and bodily. Daisy has obviously embraced something more physical about her self, not necessarily a sexual need, but obviously some inner tendency to gravitate towards gentleman callers. She's empowered in the sense that she is not inhibited by social constraints. Yes, Daisy might differ from Italy in that so far she has never been truly conquered, often wafting in and out of the grasp of man's interest, but do largely in part to the physicality and physical beauty of Daisy, and how repetitious it is, it's hard to ignore Daisy's potential to be Italy. Not to mention her misunderstood attraction to the ancient. In Vevey, she is the only one who wants to see the castle. Again, before her final demise, she wants, desperately, to see the coliseum by moonlight. Of course that brings one to the question that why her own beauty and stubbornness lead to her death? But I once again wonder that if maybe Daisy did not undergo a conquering by the end of the work--by two men. Winterbourne, who, it seems to suggest, had stolen her heart, and Giovanelli who I suspect might have brought her to the Roman Coliseum in an attempt to kill her, a sort of: if I can't have her, no one will effort, so to speak. For he admits to Winterbourne that he knew he'd never have Daisy, and it explains his peculiar, guilt-ridden disappearance as Daisy is slowly dying. But it seems that Daisy, as the false Italy, is incapable of taking on the real Italy and therefore suffers the consequences.

Original Prompt 1, Week 3

We rounded a corner, that's what Gubbio is--hills and corners, and we, exhausted, worked our way to the truck where the man chopped slices of pork for one of his customers. Taylor slipped in line behind her, asked for a pork sandwich, and I, tired of the salted smell of slivered ham, took a couple steps back to stare into the wide, cobbled hills of Gubbio sunshine. Taylor held her lunch up, the thin traces of pink darted in and out of the crispy promise of what I knew would be delicious bread. She asked me if I wanted a bite, but the prospect of eating another bite of a meat I never really cared for, even before coming to Italy, didn't settle well with my stomach. Instead I walked under a narrow archway where a small market worked in the Saturday wind. "Let's go there?" I suggested and we disappeared under the shadow of the marketplace. Fruit stands: small swells of peaches, the tempting mystery of pears that I recognized but knew so little that I wouldn't know if they were fresh enough to eat even if I wanted them. A farmer, grizzled and smelling like the grit and bite of dirt, a sort of layered brownness that clung to his skin and clothes, finished with another customer and approached me, sort of rushed and breathless in his Italian. I've learned, as a sort of pre-excuse for stupidity, to hold up my hands, vaguely waving the fingers as I tell them, sheepishly, "Non parlo Italiano." I still try, don't get me wrong, but that way, as I butcher the pronunciation and try desperately to pronounce foods (that, as I've learned, often euphemize some personal aspect of the body) they won't get offended or otherwise hate me for my queer, ever-present Americanness. He presses in closer and I'm grateful, despite the soil-smell sifting from his shoulder, that he has excused me from butchering his language at high volume. He points to fruits and in steady but solid Italian he names things I might be interested in: una mela, una pesca. I finally settle on bright red dots, rattled in a crate container and he points at the and repeats their name twice: ciliegia, ciliegia, cherry, cherry? I nod my head and he asks me how many I want. I stare at him strangely and look to Taylor, lost, afraid to say something stupid. He asks me if I want a kilo. I ask him how much? We keep our sentences short, to the barest, most successful punch. After a couple moments of back and forth debate, mostly between Taylor and me, because we are, at this point, inherently baffled but desperate for the taste of cherries, we decide on a mezzokilo, 3 euro and 50 cents. I do not even wait for lunch before I dip my hand into the brown paper bag and sink my teeth, ready and willing, around the ripe give of fruit and the hard, promise of pit.