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english litblog: monica. |
| Monday, June 13th, 2005 |
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I know that the project is over but I just wanted to state a couple songs that are Poe related: Tell-Tale Heart by New Found Glory My Bloody Valentine by Good Charlotte The Casket of Roderick Usher by Finch |
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| Wednesday, June 8th, 2005 |
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I found this report here about "Poe Coincidences" and I just had to share. (c) to the website... I've quoted word-for-word, link-for-link here! "Poe Coincidences" There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them. Edgar Allan Poe October 28, 1884 The Times of London reported that in a life boat on the open sea, a cabin boy named Richard Parker had been cannibalised by the three surviving crew members of the wrecked yawl Mignonette. In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe had published a story called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym which told of a parallel set of circumstances to the Mignonette’s misfortune, in which a sailor was also eaten. His name was Richard Parker. Craig Hamilton-Parker writes: "In the summer of 1993, my parents took in three Spanish language students. My father told them about Richard Parker one evening over supper. All conversation stopped when a local programme started talking about the remarkable story. Dad went on to break the silence by saying how weird coincidences always occur whenever Richard's tale is mentioned. He told them about Edgar Allan Poe. "Two of the girls went white. ‘Look what I bought today’ said one. She reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of the Poe story. 'So have I!' said the other girl. Both had gone shopping that day and independently bought the very same book containing the Richard Parker story. And as if events are trying make my story totally unbelievable my father told the same story to his language class the following year. Again one of the girls pulled a copy of the Poe book from out of her bag!" Craig Hamilton-Parker’s grandfather’s cousin was the real-life Richard Parker More.  Postscript: Another coincidence I noticed another remarkable coincidence as I read Mr Hamilton-Parker's interesting tale (above). As a background to his site, he has a design that features the ouroboros - an ancient symbol of a snake in a circle, biting its own tail. Remarkably, the ouroboros is clearly seen as the printer's mark on the first edition of Poe's collected works. I emailed Mr Hamilton-Parker asking whether he had deliberately used the ouroboros symbol on his page. He answered that he had not; it was just another coincidence, one of many in this episode that would have Edgar himself chuckling, I'm sure. Ouroboros at Wikipedia |
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| Tuesday, June 7th, 2005 |
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Now this is the kind of Poe I'm talking about!! The Fall of the House of Usher I have been thinking about this for a while, what is the appeal of Edgar? Yes, he was a macabre poet etc. etc. But what I personally really enjoy are the descriptions. Not only the language and the words, but just the pictures it paints in your mind. Quote: "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher."  That's actually the opening sentence of "The Fall of the House of Usher". It really just draws you in immediately, the story, the main character and the imagery. I think that the fact that Edgar wrote it in first person really makes it such a personal account. It's almost like a story told from one friend to another. image credit.There are some low bits, some unnecessary drawl. This is mainly in historical titles of books that the two childhood friends read together. And also when the main character reads an excerpt from a book, Edgar actually included it. There is one part that seems like drone that I actually kind of enjoyed - it's when the main character remembers a poem that Roderick Usher (his childhood friend) wrote. The synopsis of the short story is this man gets a letter from his boyhood friend. He returns to spend time with him because the friend (Roderick Usher) is dying. He spends time with him and learns about the disease that ails his friend. Usher's sister passes away during the time of his visit and he learns that they were twins... and the story progresses from there. If I tell anymore, I'd give it away. What I really want to stress is the amazing imagery: Quote: "The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all." I really suggest reading "The Fall of the House of Usher" for yourself! |
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| Monday, June 6th, 2005 |
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"The Balloon-Hoax" (1844) by Edgar Allan Poe I do not recommend reading this. It is boring; over half of the actual 'short story' is technical explaination. If you actually want to understand how the balloon works, this is good. But for the general public... whoosh!  Insert Snap Judgement Here: I'd like to say that the format it was in was interesting enough to make me keep reading... it was like a news broadcast. Don't even get me started on the title! I thought it would have a twist ending... but One of the semi-interesting things was regarding the actual history of the story. Quote from the Introduction by Stephen Marlowe: "'The Balloon-Hoax' melds adventure with science fiction - one of the genres Poe can be strongly argued to have invented. His was an era when poet and scientist might yet exist in the same skin, and Edgar Poe, acknowledged innovator in the writing of fiction, aspired also to recognition as a serious thinker." The Whole Story: Edgar had the story published in the New York Sun on April 13, 1844. He wrote it as a fake news event to be printed in the paper, I'm guessing in hopes that people would think it was real and freak. Monck Mason was an actual European balloonist. information link and image credit If you want to read "The Balloon-Hoax" online, go here |
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| Sunday, June 5th, 2005 |
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I want to link to Eka's litblog because she's kind of doing a theme thing like I've decided to do. She's doing the Romantics. It's more than worth a look - check it out. Similar to Anna's, I really like the historical look and aspect to each post. Eka's Blog |
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| Saturday, June 4th, 2005 |
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I want to post this link to Anna's blog because 1. No one else has attempted this unique form of litblogging among us - music files. and 2. Because I helped her with her HTML and her linkage. Unfortunately we can't find any place that lets her direct link from their site thus using bandwidth. To most of you that probably sounded like the teacher from Charlie Brown droning off about somethingorother. Anyway, enjoy! Anna's Blog |
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| Friday, June 3rd, 2005 |
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Everybody wants a Poe in their livingroom! Liven up the room with Edgar, conversational piece and conversationalist! Talk to him.... you won't sound crazy... it's actually quite therapeutic! source |
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| Thursday, June 2nd, 2005 |
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 Hey, diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle. "Diddling" (1850) by Edgar Allan Poe  Quote: "Diddling -- or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle -- is sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing diddling, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however, at a tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by defining- not the thing, diddling, in itself -- but man, as an animal that diddles." My initial feelings of this was general interest. I'd never heard the term 'diddling' before. Once I realized it was from that Mother Goose rhyme I read on. 'hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle. the cow jumped over the moon. the little dog laughed to see such a sight. and the dish ran away with the spoon.' (see the link at the very bottom) Quote: "Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the ingredients are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin." End quote. The first half of the 'essay' explained the meaning and importance of each adjective stated above. I actually found this fairly interesting; I read on wanting to know where Edgar (I think we're on a first name basis here) was going with it. Crazy References 101
Edgar proceeded to show some examples of Diddlers. I believe I had the wrong impression of who or what a diddler was. I had the understanding that diddlers were ingenious businessmen of a small magnitude. I was partially right in that assumption; but diddlers are crooks. My favourite example was the man (the diddler) was rushing to the port to catch a boat. The diddler stopped to pick up a pocket book he'd found on the ground. He found a thick wad of notes in it and was trying to find the owner. The captain told the diddler that the boat was leaving and he had to get on now or they'd leave without him. The man turned to another man at the docks and called him an honest gentleman, and asked him to find the owner of the pocket book. He said that the owner would offer a reward, so he should take his reward now. The diddler looked in the pocket book and said that all the notes were hundreds and much too big for a reward. He said only fifty would be sufficient but he didn't have change. The honest gentleman gave the diddler fifty from his own pocket book and took the lost pocket book. It wasn't until after the diddler had sailed away that the honest gentleman realized all the notes in the lost pocket book were counterfeit. If you would like to read "Diddling" yourself, it can be found online here Image credit before alteration: here... turn on your speakers! |
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| Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 |
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 Everyone has heard of "The Raven" and "The Tell-Tale Heart". And everyone also knows that Poe wrote tons of other stuff. But how much of it have you read? Do you even know the names of it? Well for Christmas last year, my friend gave me this fabulous book of Poe. It's a collection of tales written by Edgar Allan and has an Introduction by Stephen Marlowe. Why are you telling us about Stephen Marlowe? Well for one, the book with the tales which I'm basing my litblog on has an intro by him, and also, there seem to be many Stephen Marlowe's. I have found guys from Law Firms, authors, authoris with pseudonyms, and guys who are already dead. But from the book there is a small paragraph that reads:  "Stephen Marlowe is the author of the internationally acclaimed Memoirs of Christopher Columbus, which was awarded the French Prix Gutenburg du Livre in 1988. His most recent novel, The Lighthouse at the End of the World, revolves around the real and imagined life of Edgar Allan Poe."The reason why I want to base my litblog on Poe is because he's one of the dark poets that I've always liked and that everyone knows. Regrettably, I have not taken the time to fully appreciate all of the tales I've read of his. So here we go! |
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Bookninja "An irreverent daily newslog covering book news from around the wolrd and a book review site that conducts "reverse omnibus" reviews (ie, reviews where two to four reviewers examine one book." http://www.bookninja.com I chose this blog because not only does it review literature, it reviews news events. It's more of a commentary than an actual literary blog. Not in the sense that it ignores literature, but that it focuses on current day-to-day literature. In fact, not only are there some interesting commentaries, but there are some great links. Such as this link to Google Print!! http://print.google.com/ Lit Blog Rating: Very Good I like that this isn't like typical LitBlogs. It's about current events as opposed to over-talked about novels.
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| Tuesday, May 31st, 2005 |
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Book Filter "We discuss books, magazines, authors, publishers and the like." http://www.bookfilter.com/link.php/394 It was straightforward and a simple layout. I think that this is more of a reader trying to send their thoughts into cyberspace in hopes of getting some good comments and a lot of hits. They are reviewing novels and so many of the comments are just too short. They are more like summaries than reviews. There is next to no critisism, constructive or destructive. And the worst part is that they try to pass it off as a forum, you have to sign up and login to post comments. LitBlog rating: Underdeveloped. Definitely needs some work, revision, and strong attention to making posts that are actually interesting with content.
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| Monday, May 30th, 2005 |
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Has anyone ever seen the blog "Reading Lord of the Rings: A Final Attempt"? I love it! It's by this woman named Debbie Ridpath Ohi who also writes a blog called Blatherings and wrote a webcomic called Waiting For Frodo. Her other webcomic is on-going and it's called My Life in a Nutshell. But I digress, "Reading LOTR: A Final Attempt" was basically started because Debbie has tried before to read all of Lord of the Rings but failed. So now she's reading a chapter at a time and she's posting as she goes. (It's all over now. She finished.) She posted her thoughts, her opinions on each chapter, what she thought was going to happen, all that kinda stuff. It was like a step-by-step book review. I want to do that but with what? Some random book I find off the shelf that no body will want to follow with me? No - I decided to use a poet that everyone has heard of, but the majority of people haven't read more than the popular poems. |
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| Sunday, May 29th, 2005 |
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.kathryn koromilas. A blog just like any other blog, by a bookish person, so a lit blog then, just like any other lit blog, though this one is being blogged at a computer in Greece, so maybe it'll have a different flavour?" http://kathrynkoromilas.blogspot.com I like that she not only talks about books she has read, is looking forward to, but also translates and explains obscure books for those that are not fluent in Greek. Like her post about the Greek surrealist poet Miltos Sahtouris; the post was about a newspaper article on Miltos' death and his poetry, she aided in translating. LitBlog rating: Good. It's an interesting site and a nice read but not quite captivating. It's a little too safe.
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| Friday, May 27th, 2005 |
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Our first assignment with these LitBlogs was to
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| Wednesday, May 25th, 2005 |
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This date and time marks the beginning of a great new friendship. The friendship between my litblog and myself. This is an English Project that may develop further even after completed. The name "mynameisjonas" is from the Weezer song of the same title. If you really want to, you can call me Jonas but most people call me Monica. Yes the layout is Weezer. Yes everything in this journal has been styled after Weezer. I had no inspiration when I was creating this account and thus picked whatever I was listening to. If I had been listening to Particle Man by They Might Be Giants at the time, you'd have been in for a treat. (By the way I suggest you go listen to that song.) So that is the brief history of the English LitBlog. Stay tuned for more after these messages. |
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Monica's links: classmates litblogs |
stressed.
irritated.
bored.
accomplished.
crazy.
curious.
hungry.
tired.
blank.
aggravated.