I memorized the first verse of “Cuti – réaction” (Skin Prick Reaction) by Serge Gainsbourg and then researched one line that makes no sense to me. He refers to Mongolians of the Satyricon after a line that tells "morons to come and be conned." There are no Mongolians in the original Satyricon nor do there seem to have been any in Fellini's film adaptation. The only thing in the movie that seems to me to relate to these lyrics that speak of a medical procedure is that people went to the Garden of Delights to have sex trade workers whip their behinds as an ineffectual cure for impotence.
I weighed 89.6 kilos before breakfast, which consisted of an apple and a few sips of coffee before I left for my tutorial.
After me, Paco is always the first to arrive. Like me, he only started the assignment that's due tomorrow, last night. He asked how good it has to be. I said it depends on the TA. Some TAs are trying to prove something and mark harder while others have more confidence and are fairer. I said in a passage analysis one could focus on one word and earn an A if the argument is good.
Our TA Daniel came and asked if anyone else had the problem of fogging glasses when talking with a mask on. It seems to be a common issue.
The attendance question was whether one is a cat or a dog person. It's split about half and half with a couple saying they are both. I said neither and both. I was raised on a farm where dogs are more prominent and cats live in the barn. I said that cats are better as urban pets. I added that crows are smarter than both and that none of the really interesting animals would work as pets.
I asked why Professor Morgenstern prefers the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass when Walt Whitman said he prefers the 1991 edition. Daniel said 1855 is shorter. Perhaps Whitman is expressing his core in the beginning. Maybe it's just so we are all on the same page. It was the first edition before his celebrity.
I said Whitman is universal while Dickinson is more contained.
I said Whitman is inspiring in how he reaches out and tries to love everything in the United States.
I said that the temporality seems to be that everything he mentions is taking place in one instant.
Dickinson is more interior.
I said Whitman is trying to unite the divided country.
Of the idea that "Leaves of grass" is a term for substandard literature, I said I think he chose the title partly as a joke but he's trying to transform and elevate the idea of grass to something higher. If it's substandard who's judging?
Grass is a fluid signifier.
We divided into two groups. Ours talked about Dickinson's Poem 199 - To be woman to be wife.
Frederick Douglas draws a hard line between child and adult but not Dickinson.
There is ambiguity and uncertainty. The speaker is insecure.
I said she's like Pearl in The Scarlet Letter when she writes to Higgenson.
Daniel said she was more outgoing in real life and hosted and entertained many famous authors.
I rode to Yonge and Bloor and then home.
I weighed 87.9 kilos before lunch.
I weighed 88.7 kilos at 18:15.
I finished reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self Reliance" a third time. I created a document for my passage analysis assignment. I put together all the notes I'd jotted down since the day before and then I sat down and wrote three pages of handwritten notes on paragraph seven from Emerson's essay.
I coated a beef sirloin with olive oil, salt, pepper, and chili powder and roasted it. I had a piece with a potato and gravy and ate it while typing my handwritten notes. I spent the rest of the night trying to organize them into an argument around Emerson's concept of the self as one's property using certain possessive and non-possessive words that he specifically uses. I didn't get a lot done because my brain was running slow at that hour and so I went to bed at 23:30. This is all I got so far. There are enough words but I just need to organize it better:
Emersonian Ownership
In Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self Reliance" he argues for everyone to claim and maintain their own internal and external property of selfhood without depending on that of others. In paragraph seven he erects several specific language signposts relating to property in order to drive his point home. He is possessive and not possessive. He gives "the" dollar but not his dollar even before he gives it and that pre-gifted dollar is also wicked. By using "the dollar" he denies owning it distances himself from it. He is bought and sold for his poor? He is a slave being auctioned. He gives one wicked dollar. Distanced and diminished to one singular monetary atom. he is bought and sold for the poor that he possesses, but who pays and who sells? His poor cannot buy and sell him so he relies on someone else to buy and sell him for his poor. It is a wicked dollar as if it is not his dollar. He does not say my dollar he says the dollar. He is bought and sold putting himself at the level of a slave but only for his poor.
The dollar that he gives is spoken of as if it were the objective singular dollar of United States currency or on the stock market as in "the dollar is up" or "the dollar is down." He has "the" dollar to give but not "my" dollar. He admits to giving "the" dollar but not "my" dollar. He does not possess the dollar but he does possess "my poor." He will not give to the poor that is not his poor. He is "bought and sold" for his poor. He will help Thoreau by letting him squat on his property or bail Thoreau out of jail.
He does give the dollar but is ashamed because it is wicked. The Oxford English Dictionary says that it probably comes from "wicca" to form "witch-ed" and now meaning "evil" or "morally wrong." A bewitched dollar is a possessed dollar.
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