Ginsberg Reading

Here is Allen Ginsberg EMOTING a poem called “America:”

You can find more excited readings on youtube. Search for your favorite poets!

Good luck with your papers.

Ludlow St. Jail

Luis sent me this Wikipedia entry:

Ludlow Street Jail
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ludlow Street Jail was New York City’s federal prison, located on Ludlow Street and Broome Street in Manhattan. Some prisoners, such as soldiers, were held there temporarily awaiting extradition to other jurisdictions, but most of the inmates were debtors imprisoned by their creditors. The two most famous inmates of the Ludlow Street Jail were Victoria Woodhull and Boss Tweed. Seward Park High School now sits on the site of the jail.

You can read the entire entry here- or, why not? visit it. Thanks to Luis for the find.

The Other Paper: Literary Analysis

Put Simply:

Select a theme, character, conflict, or concept in one of the stories or poems read in class, and write a 4 page analysis of that idea. Use quotes to support your ideas, including at least one quote from a critic or scholar of the piece you chose.

In Detail:

We’ve spoken at length about many passages from Henry James’ Washington Square, and have identified a number of themes within James’ subtle, almost coy, and–as described by critics in James’ time–”clever” scenes. We’ve looked at how a text can be “unpacked”: that is, closely read from sentence to sentence, breaking down these moments bit by bit and examining them for the greater elements of narrative that they speak to.

As readers and scholars, your assignment is to engage a story or poem discussed in class on a deeper level. You are not simply proving that there is a theme in Washington Square, or that symbolism exists in “The Jolly Corner”- that is granted. You are going further and examining the impact of the symbolism, the impact of the theme. You are carefully analyzing the subtleties within a text. Also, as scholars, your assignment is to be familiar with some of the scholarship on the author you chose to write about. For our purposes you will not need to be a professional historian on your author. You will, however, be required to quote a scholarly work on your author.

Where to start:

The introduction to our edition of Washington Square is meant to serve as an introduction to new readers of James, and to provide those more acquainted with James with a general understanding of the scholarship surrounding Washington Square. It also includes some in-depth analysis of various themes within the book. This is an example of superior writing on literature, and a great place to search for ideas and inspiration.

Example prompts:

1) How does Catherine Sloper’s relationship with her father evolve, and what are the implications in the novel?

2) How does the classic theme of romance get treated by James?

3) Morris Townsend’s relationship with Aunt Penniman seems a sketch of Morris’ relationship to women. Explain this.

4) The Doctor’s meeting with Mrs. Montgomery illustrates the Doctor’s relationship to Catherine and perhaps the world at large. How does the scene create this impact?

5) How do long paragraphs in James resolve?

6) How does H.P. Lovecraft incite fear in his readers?

7) Why does Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” remain an important poem today?

Identify a theme in Whitman’s poems and expand on it.

So…requirements:

1) Formatting
Your paper should include, in the following order:

Title Page

Content of the Paper (4 pages).

References Page

The paper should be written in APA formatting (page numbers, title page, etc.) with APA-style documentation of sources. It should be in 12 pt, Times New Roman font, with 1” margins on all sides, and double-spaced. The body of your paper should be no less than 4 pages (not including title and reference page).

2) At LEAST three quotes from the text that support your thesis.

a) Remember, you are selecting longer quotes to unpack piece by piece. Do not, as I have warned against, quote and move on. Take your time writing about your quotes.

3) At LEAST one quote from some literary scholarship or critical text on the piece you have selected.

c) You MAY NOT use Wikipedia as a source.

Late Papers

Late papers will be marked down for each meeting that they are late, as discussed on the first day of class. If your paper is going to be late for good reason then please e-mail me to let me know BEFORE the due date to discuss an extension. Explanations on the day the paper is due, or the day after, are not needed. Simply hand in the paper at the next class meeting.

EMAILED PAPERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED – NO EXCEPTIONS

Tips

-Take your time. This is your last paper, and counts for a large portion of your grade.

BE SPECIFIC. Select a specific idea (a specific relationship between characters, a specific character, a specific setting or scene) and create a concrete thesis.

REVISE! Egregious errors in spelling and grammar will effect a paper’s grade.

USE APA properly. At this point much attention has been given to this format, and it will effect your grade if you are way off format.

GOOD LUCK.

Read H.P. Lovecraft for Monday

This is the story in its entirety, to be read for Monday April 27th. Please print it out and bring it in with you if you can.

He

by
H. P. Lovecraft

Written on August 11, 1925

Published in September 1926
in
Weird Tales

He

I saw him on a sleepless night when I was walking desperately to save my soul and my vision. My coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration in the teeming labyrinths of ancient streets that twist endlessly from forgotten courts and squares and waterfronts to courts and squares and waterfronts equally forgotten, and in the Cyclopean modern towers and pinnacles that rise blackly Babylonian under waning moons, I had found instead only a sense of horror and oppression which threatened to master, paralyze, and annihilate me.

The disillusion had been gradual. Coming for the first time upon the town, I had seen it in the sunset from a bridge, majestic above its waters, its incredible peaks and pyramids rising flowerlike and delicate from pools of violet mist to play with the flaming clouds and the first stars of evening. Then it had lighted up window by window above the shimmering tides where lanterns nodded and glided and deep horns bayed weird harmonies, and had itself become a starry firmament of dream, redolent of faery music, and one with the marvels of Carcassonne and Samarcand and El Dorado and all glorious and half-fabulous cities. Shortly afterward I was taken through those antique ways so dear to my fancy-narrow, curving alleys and passages where rows of red Georgian brick blinked with small-paned dormers above pillared doorways that had looked on gilded sedans and paneled coaches – and in the first flush of realization of these long-wished things I thought I had indeed achieved such treasures as would make me in time a poet.

But success and happiness were not to be. Garish daylight showed only squalor and alienage and the noxious elephantiasis of climbing, spreading stone where the moon had hinted of loveliness and elder magic; and the throngs of people that seethed through the flume-like streets were squat, swarthy strangers with hardened faces and narrow eyes, shrewd strangers without dreams and without kinship to the scenes about them, who could never mean aught to a blue-eyed man of the old folk, with the love of fair green lanes and white New England village steeples in his heart.

So instead of the poems I had hoped for, there came only a shuddering blackness and ineffable loneliness; and I saw at last a fearful truth which no one had ever dared to breathe before – the unwhisperable secret of secrets – the fact that this city of stone and stridor is not a sentient perpetuation of Old New York as London is of Old London and Paris of Old Paris, but that it is in fact quite dead, its sprawling body imperfectly embalmed and infested with queer animate things which have nothing to do with it as it was in life. Upon making this discovery I ceased to sleep comfortably; though something of resigned tranquillity came back as I gradually formed the habit of keeping off the streets by day and venturing abroad only at night, when darkness calls forth what little of the past still hovers wraith-like about, and old white doorways remember the stalwart forms that once passed through them. With this mode of relief I even wrote a few poems, and still refrained from going home to my people lest I seem to crawl back ignobly in defeat.

Then, on a sleepless night’s walk, I met the man. It was in a grotesque hidden courtyard of the Greenwich section, for there in my ignorance I had settled, having heard of the place as the natural home of poets and artists. The archaic lanes and houses and unexpected bits of square and court had indeed delighted me, and when I found the poets and artists to be loud-voiced pretenders whose quaintness is tinsel and whose lives are a denial of all that pure beauty which is poetry and art, I stayed on for love of these venerable things. I fancied them as they were in their prime, when Greenwich was a placid village not yet engulfed by the town; and in the hours before dawn, when all the revellers had slunk away, I used to wander alone among their cryptical windings and brood upon the curious arcana which generations must have deposited there. This kept my soul alive, and gave me a few of those dreams and visions for which the poet far within me cried out.

The man came upon me at about two one cloudy August morning, as I was threading a series of detached courtyards; now accessible only through the unlighted hallways of intervening buildings, but once forming parts of a continuous network of picturesque alleys. I had heard of them by vague rumor, and realized that they could not be upon any map of today; but the fact that they were forgotten only endeared them to me, so that I had sought them with twice my usual eagerness. Now that I had found them, my eagerness was again redoubled; for something in their arrangement dimly hinted that they might be only a few of many such, with dark, dumb counterparts wedged obscurely betwixt high blank walls and deserted rear tenements, or lurking lamplessly behind archways unbetrayed by hordes of the foreign-speaking or guarded by furtive and uncommunicative artists whose practises do not invite publicity or the light of day.

He spoke to me without invitation, noting my mood and glances as I studied certain knockered doorways above iron-railed steps, the pallid glow of traceried transoms feebly lighting my face. His own face was in shadow, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat which somehow blended perfectly with the out-of-date cloak he affected; but I was subtly disquieted even before he addressed me. His form was very slight; thin almost to cadaverousness; and his voice proved phenomenally soft and hollow, though not particularly deep. He had, he said, noticed me several times at my wanderings; and inferred that I resembled him in loving the vestiges of former years. Would I not like the guidance of one long practised in these explorations, and possessed of local information profoundly deeper than any which an obvious newcomer could possibly have gained?

As he spoke, I caught a glimpse of his face in the yellow beam from a solitary attic window. It was a noble, even a handsome elderly countenance; and bore the marks of a lineage and refinement unusual for the age and place. Yet some quality about it disturbed me almost as much as its features pleased me – perhaps it was too white, or too expressionless, or too much out of keeping with the locality, to make me feel easy or comfortable. Nevertheless I followed him; for in those dreary days my quest for antique beauty and mystery was all that I had to keep my soul alive, and I reckoned it a rare favor of Fate to fall in with one whose kindred seekings seemed to have penetrated so much farther than mine.

Something in the night constrained the cloaked man to silence and for a long hour he led me forward without needless words; making only the briefest of comments concerning ancient names and dates and changes, and directing my progress very largely by gestures as we squeezed through interstices, tiptoed through corridors clambered over brick walls, and once crawled on hands and knees through a low, arched passage of stone whose immense length and tortuous twistings effaced at last every hint of geographical location I had managed to preserve. The things we saw were very old and marvelous, or at least they seemed so in the few straggling rays of light by which I viewed them, and I shall never forget the tottering Ionic columns and fluted pilasters and urn-headed iron fenceposts and flaring-linteled windows and decorative fanlights that appeared to grow quainter and stranger the deeper we advanced into this inexhaustible maze of unknown antiquity.

We met no person, and as time passed the lighted windows became fewer and fewer. The streetlights we first encountered had been of oil, and of the ancient lozenge pattern. Later I noticed some with candles; and at last, after traversing a horrible unlighted court where my guide had to lead with his gloved hand through total blackness to a narrow wooded gate in a high wall, we came upon a fragment of alley lit only by lanterns in front of every seventh house – unbelievably Colonial tin lanterns with conical tops and holes punched in the sides. This alley led steeply uphill – more steeply than I thought possible in this part of New York – and the upper end was blocked squarely by the ivy-clad wall of a private estate, beyond which I could see a pale cupola, and the tops of trees waving against a vague lightness in the sky. In this wall was a small, low-arched gate of nail-studded black oak, which the man proceeded to unlock with a ponderous key. Leading me within, he steered a course in utter blackness over what seemed to be a gravel path, and finally up a flight of stone steps to the door of the house, which he unlocked and opened for me.

We entered, and as we did so I grew faint from a reek of infinite mustiness which welled out to meet us, and which must have been the fruit of unwholesome centuries of decay. My host appeared not to notice this, and in courtesy I kept silent as he piloted me up a curving stairway, across a hall, and into a room whose door I heard him lock behind us. Then I saw him pull the curtains of the three small-paned windows that barely showed themselves against the lightening sky; after which he crossed to the mantel, struck flint and steel, lighted two candles of a candelabrum of twelve sconces, and made a gesture enjoining soft-toned speech.

In this feeble radiance I saw that we were in a spacious, well-furnished and paneled library dating from the first quarter of the Eighteenth Century, with splendid doorway pediments, a delightful Doric cornice, and a magnificently carved overmantel with scroll-and-urn top. Above the crowded bookshelves at intervals along the walls were well-wrought family portraits; all tarnished to an enigmatical dimness, and bearing an unmistakable likeness to the man who now motioned me to a chair beside the graceful Chippendale table. Before seating himself across the tahle from me, my host paused for a moment as if in embarrassment; then, tardily removing his gloves, wide-brimmed hat, and cloak, stood theatrically revealed in full mid-Georgian costume from queued hair and neck ruffles to knee-breeches, silk hose, and the buckled shoes I had not previously noticed. Now slowly sinking into a lyre-back chair, he commenced to eye me intently.

Without his hat he took on an aspect of extreme age which was scarcely visible before, and I wondered if this unperceived mark of singular longevity were not one of the sources of my disquiet. When he spoke at length, his soft, hollow, and carefully muffled voice not infrequently quavered; and now and then I had great difficulty in following him as I listened with a thrill of amazement and half-disavowed alarm which grew each instant.

“You behold, Sir,” my host began, “a man of very eccentrical habits for whose costume no apology need be offered to one with your wit and inclinations. Reflecting upon better times, I have not scrupled to ascertain their ways, and adopt their dress and manners; an indulgence which offends none if practised without ostentation. It hath been my good fortune to retain the rural seat of my ancestors, swallowed though it was by two towns, first Greenwich, which built up hither after 1800, then New York, which joined on near 1830. There were many reasons for the close keeping of this place in my family, and I have not been remiss in discharging such obligations. The squire who succeeded to it in 1768 studied sartain arts and made sartain discoveries, all connected with influences residing in this particular plot of ground, and eminently desarving of the strongest guarding. Some curious effects of these arts and discoveries I now purpose to show you, under the strictest secrecy; and I believe I may rely on my judgement of men enough to have no distrust of either your interest or your fidelity.”

He paused, but I could only nod my head. I have said that I was alarmed, yet to my soul nothing was more deadly than the material daylight world of New York, and whether this man were a harmless eccentric or a wielder of dangerous arts, I had no choice save to follow him and slake my sense of wonder on whatever he might have to offer. So I listened.

“To – my ancestor,” he softly continued, “there appeared to reside some very remarkable qualities in the will of mankind; qualities having a little-suspected dominance not only over the acts of one’s self and of others, but over every variety of force and substance in Nature, and over many elements and dimensions deemed more universal than Nature herself. May I say that he flouted the sanctity of things as great as space and time and that he put to strange uses the rites of sartain half-breed red Indians once encamped upon this hill? These Indians showed choler when the place was built, and were plaguey pestilent in asking to visit the grounds at the full of the moon. For years they stole over the wall each month when they could, and by stealth performed sartain acts. Then, in ‘68, the new squire catched them at their doings, and stood still at what he saw. Thereafter he bargained with them and exchanged the free access of his grounds for the exact inwardness of what they did, larning that their grandfathers got part of their custom from red ancestors and part from an old Dutchman in the time of the States-General. Arid pox on him, I’m afeared the squire must have sarved them monstrous bad rum – whether or not by intent – for a week after he larnt the secret he was the only man living that knew it. You, Sir, are the first outsider to be told there is a secret, and split me if I’d have risked tampering that much with – the powers – had ye not been so hot after bygone things.”

I shuddered as the man grew colloquial – and with the familiar speech of another day. He went on.

“But you must know, Sir, that what – the squire – got from those mongrel savages was but a small part of the larning he came to have. He had not been at Oxford for nothing, nor talked to no account with an ancient chymist and astrologer in Paris. He was, in fine, made sensible that all the world is but the smoke of our intellects; past the bidding of the vulgar, but by the wise to be puffed out and drawn in like any cloud of prime Virginia tobacco. What we want, we may make about us; and what we don’t want, we may sweep away. I won’t say that all this is wholly true in body, but ’tis sufficient true to furnish a very pretty spectacle now and then. You, I conceive, would be tickled hy a better sight of sartain other years than your fancy affords you; so be pleased to hold back any fright at what I design to show. Come to the window and be quiet.”

My host now took my hand to draw me to one of the two windows on the long side of the malodorous room, and at the first touch of his ungloved fingers I turned cold. His flesh, though dry and firm, was of the quality of ice; and I almost shrank away from his pulling. But again I thought of the emptiness and horror of reality, and boldly prepared to follow whithersoever I might be led. Once at the window, the man drew apart the yellow silk curtains and directed my stare into the blackness outside. For a moment I saw nothing save a myriad of tiny dancing lights, far, far before me. Then, as if in response to an insidious motion of my host’s hand, a flash of heat-lightning played over the scene, and I looked out upon a sea of luxuriant foliage – foliage unpolluted, and not the sea of roofs to be expected by any normal mind. On my right the Hudson glittered wickedly, and in the distance ahead I saw the unhealthy shimmer of a vast salt marsh constellated with nervous fireflies. The flash died, and an evil smile illumined the waxy face of the aged necromancer.

“That was before my time – before the new squire’s time. Pray let us try again.”

I was faint, even fainter than the hateful modernity of that accursed city had made me.

“Good God!” I whispered, “can you do that for any time?” And as he nodded, and bared the black stumps of what had once been yellow fangs, I clutched at the curtains to prevent myself from falling. But he steadied me with that terrible, ice-cold claw, and once more made his insidious gesture.

Again the lightning flashed – but this time upon a scene not wholly strange. It was Greenwich, the Greenwich that used to be, with here and there a roof or row of houses as we see it now, yet with lovely green lanes and fields and bits of grassy common. The marsh still glittered beyond, but in the farther distance I saw the steeples of what was then all of New York; Trinity and St. Paul’s and the Brick Church dominating their sisters, and a faint haze of wood smoke hovering over the whole. I breathed hard, hut not so much from the sight itself as from the possibilities my imagination terrifiedly conjured up.

“Can you – dare you – go far?” I spoke with awe and I think he shared it for a second, but the evil grin returned.

“Far? What I have seen would blast ye to a mad statue of stone! Back, back – forward, forward – look ye puling lackwit!”

And as he snarled the phrase under his breath he gestured anew bringing to the sky a flash more blinding than either which had come before. For full three seconds I could glimpse that pandemoniac sight, and in those seconds I saw a vista which will ever afterward torment me in dreams. I saw the heavens verminous with strange flying things, and beneath them a hellish black city of giant stone terraces with impious pyramids flung savagely to the moon, and devil-lights burning from unnumbered windows. And swarming loathsomely on aerial galleries I saw the yellow, squint-eyed people of that city, robed horribly in orange and red, and dancing insanely to the pounding of fevered kettle-drums, the clatter of obscene crotala, and the maniacal moaning of muted horns whose ceaseless dirges rose and fell undulantly like the wave of an unhallowed ocean of bitumen.

I saw this vista, I say, and heard as with the mind’s ear the blasphemous domdaniel of cacophony which companioned it. It was the shrieking fulfilment of all the horror which that corpse-city had ever stirred in my soul, and forgetting every injunction to silence I screamed and screamed and screamed as my nerves gave way and the walls quivered about me.

Then, as the flash subsided, I saw that my host was trembling too; a look of shocking fear half-blotting from his face the serpent distortion of rage which my screams had excited. He tottered, clutched at the curtains as I had done before, and wriggled his head wildly, like a hunted animal. God knows he had cause, for as the echoes of my screaming died away there came another sound so hellishly suggestive that only numbed emotion kept me sane and conscious. It was the steady, stealthy creaking of the stairs beyond the locked door, as with the ascent of a barefoot or skin-shod horde; and at last the cautious, purposeful rattling of the brass latch that glowed in the feeble candlelight. The old man clawed and spat at me through the moldy air, and barked things in his throat as he swayed with the yellow curtain he clutched.

“The full moon – damn ye – ye… ye yelping dog – ye called ‘em, and they’ve come for me! Moccasined feet – dead men – Gad sink ye, ye red devils, but I poisoned no rum o’ yours – han’t I kept your pox-rotted magic safe – ye swilled yourselves sick, curse ye, and yet must needs blame the squire – let go, you! Unhand that latch – I’ve naught for ye here – ”

At this point three slow and very deliberate raps shook the panels of the door, and a white foam gathered at the mouth of the frantic magician. His fright, turning to steely despair, left room for a resurgence of his rage against me; and he staggered a step toward the table on whose edge I was steadying myself. The curtains, still clutched in his right hand as his left clawed out at me, grew taut and finally crashed down from their lofty fastenings; admitting to the room a flood of that full moonlight which the brightening of the sky had presaged. In those greenish beams the candles paled, and a new semblance of decay spread over the musk-reeking room with its wormy paneling, sagging floor, battered mantel, rickety furniture, and ragged draperies. It spread over the old man, too, whether from the same source or because of his fear and vehemence, and I saw him shrivel and blacken as he lurched near and strove to rend me with vulturine talons. Only his eyes stayed whole, and they glared with a propulsive, dilated incandescence which grew as the face around them charred and dwindled.

The rapping was now repeated with greater insistence, and this time bore a hint of metal. The black thing facing me had become only a head with eyes, impotently trying to wriggle across the sinking floor in my direction, and occasionally emitting feeble little spits of immortal malice. Now swift and splintering blows assailed the sickly panels, and I saw the gleam of a tomahawk as it cleft the rending wood. I did not move, for I could not; but watched dazedly as the door fell in pieces to admit a colossal, shapeless influx of inky substance starred with shining, malevolent eyes. It poured thickly, like a flood of oil bursting a rotten bulkhead, overturned a chair as it spread, and finally flowed under the table and across the room to where the blackened head with the eyes still glared at me. Around that head it closed, totally swallowing it up, and in another moment it had begun to recede; bearing away its invisible burden without touching me, and flowing again out that black doorway and down the unseen stairs, which creaked as before, though in reverse order.

Then the floor gave way at last, and I slid gaspingly down into the nighted chamber below, choking with cobwebs and half-swooning with terror. The green moon, shining through broken windows, showed me the hall door half open; and as I rose from the plaster-strewn floor and twisted myself free from the sagged ceiling, I saw sweep past it an awful torrent of blackness, with scores of baleful eyes glowing in it. It was seeking the door to the cellar, and when it found it, vanished therein. I now felt the floor of this lower room giving as that of the upper chamber had done, and once a crashing above had been followed by the fall past the west window of some thing which must have been the cupola. Now liberated for the instant from the wreckage, I rushed through the hall to the front door and finding myself unable to open it, seized a chair and broke a window, climbing frenziedly out upon the unkempt lawn where moon light danced over yard-high grass and weeds. The wall was high and all the gates were locked but moving a pile of boxes in a corner I managed to gain the top and cling to the great stone urn set there.

About me in my exhaustion I could see only strange walls and windows and old gambrel roofs. The steep street of my approach was nowhere visible, and the little I did see succumbed rapidly to a mist that rolled in from the river despite the glaring moonlight. Suddenly the urn to which I clung began to tremble, as if sharing my own lethal dizziness; and in another instant my body was plunging downward to I knew not what fate.

The man who found me said that I must have crawled a long way despite my broken bones, for a trail of blood stretched off as far as he dared look. The gathering rain soon effaced this link with the scene of my ordeal, and reports could state no more than that I had appeared from a place unknown, at the entrance to a little black court off Perry Street.

I never sought to return to those tenebrous labyrinths, nor would I direct any sane man thither if I could. Of who or what that ancient creature was, I have no idea; but I repeat that the city is dead and full of unsuspected horrors. Whither he has gone, I do not know; but I have gone home to the pure New England lanes up which fragrant sea-winds sweep at evening.

Gangs of New York – And John Jay Professors

Maria Castillo submitted this interesting article she found online at streetgangs.com. I noticed that this article was actually syndicated from New York Magazine, which features Ric Curtis, a John Jay professor, speaking about gangs and gang history. The article, “Gangbusters” (Donaldson, 02) talks about where the gangs of New York have gone, as the face of the gangs have changed considerably over time.

The Bloods and Crips have been able to maintain L.A.’s status as the drive-by-shooting capital of the world, and the mega-street gangs of Chicago like the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords continue to flourish. So where have all the New York gangs gone? Ric Curtis, an anthropology professor at John Jay College, suggests that urban renewal has helped speed the demise of the ethnic gang in New York: “So many neighborhoods were destroyed, there was nothing left to fight over.” Curtis points out that West Side Story was about a battle over land that is now Lincoln Center. He also notes that this has been compounded by the fact that many new arrivals are too savvy to move into the notorious inner-city neighborhoods that have traditionally served as immigrant portals: “You simply couldn’t sell the South Bronx to the Eastern Europeans.”    (para. 4)

A little late for a reference for your paper- but definitely exciting to see other Professors in our school talking and thinking about similar topics, but from a different angle- that of Anthropology. Thanks Maria for finding this excellent source!

Reading For Wednesday – “The Screwfly Solution”

You can find the reading due for class Wednesday, April 29th, on the Sci-Fi Channel’s Website.

Click this link to read Raccoona Sheldon’s classic short story: “The Screwfly Solution.”

For Monday, March 30th

DUE:

Read Washington Square, through Chapter XXV.

Write (you can handwrite) a robust paragraph to hand in on Monday as well.

What does Europe reveal about Dr. Austin Sloper and Catherine? Use one citation in your response. (Written out of class).

UPCOMING PAPER: DUE: 4/22 The second class meeting after spring break.

Info about the paper can be found here.

Good luck!

John Singer Sargent Portrait of Henry James:

Critical Paper Assignment: Historical Perspective/Analysis

POST YOUR THESIS AS A COMMENT ON THIS ENTRY.

For the first paper your goal is to consider Old New York from a variety of perspectives. Just as Sante uses Dickens’ account of his travels through the Five Points in his Low Life to tell his readers about this neighborhood as well as tales from Asbury’s Gangs of New York and Jacob Riis’ photos, you will select a time, person, place, or event, and use multiple sources to write a historical account of it. You will be expected to use at least one text (and/or film) from class in your investigation, and to find at least two sources from your own research as well. At the due date for this paper, we will have read, written and discussed a variety of historical texts, fiction and even poetry. From Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” to Burrows and Wallace’s Gotham, and the novel Washington Square we have examined multiple perspectives of history and human themes- specifically the lifestyles of those living in Old New York (roughly 1840-1900).
You are welcome to use contemporary New York as a place of comparison, as well as current fiction and poetry to inform your paper (i.e. comparing current housing issues with those of Old New York, current gang activity with gang activity of the past).

Example prompts:

1) Does Whitman’s seemingly clairvoyant view from his view on the Brooklyn Ferry really relate to our current world? How? Talk about the poem and the world it was written in, then talk about today’s world.

2) How do our modern living condition issues compare to Old New York’s? (Riis, Gangs of New York, Low Life)

3) Describe, in the best accuracy, a typical night out for an Old New Yorker. That is, what were the leisure activities of the time? (Gotham, Low Life)

4) How do gangs (or gang life) in Old New York compare to today’s? (Gangs, Low Life, Gotham)

5) How did Old New York put out her fires? (This is a big, interesting question, as hinted at in Gangs of New York and spoken about at length in Sante’s Low Life).

6) Compare two or more writers’ perspectives of New York. How do they differ? Why? How could their lives and personal histories have affected their views?

Formatting
Your paper should include, in the following order:

1. Title Page

2. Content of the Paper

3. References Page

The paper should be written in APA formatting (page numbers, title page, etc.) with APA-style documentation of sources. It should be in 12 pt, Times New Roman font, with 1” margins on all sides, and double-spaced. The paper should be no less than 5 pages (including title and reference page).

Late Papers

Late papers will be reduced by one letter grade per class meeting after the paper is due.

Tips

- Sante’s Low Life and Burrows and Wallace’s Gotham are giant books of reference, and at least tangentially refer to multiple historical issues- they also include bibliographies that offer other places to look…

- BE SPECIFIC. Select a specific idea (fire-fighting, gang violence, housing, transportation) and create a concrete thesis.

- You can use any number of paper-structures to write this paper: Comparison/Contrast, Process Analysis, Literary Criticism, to write this paper. Consider which best suits the information you want to convey, and remember that these various approaches may be mixed, as in Sante and GOTHAM- where the writers analyze bits of literature (including plays, films, photographs, poems, stories) as well as historical narratives and other sources to create a total image.

- REVISE! Egregious errors in spelling and grammar will effect a paper’s grade.

Reading and the E-Reserve

For Monday, March 16th. We’re reading:

SECTION IV Burrows, Edwin G. & Wallace, Mike. (1999). GOTHAM: A History Of New York City To 1898. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. - “Life Above Bleecker”

E-Reserve Instructions:

1) Access the John Jay Library E-Reserve Website: http://eres.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/eres/courseindex.aspx?&page=instr

2) Search by Instructor, “Smith”

3) Select: ENG201/Composition II /English/Smith/

4) You will be prompted to enter a password. The password: newyork

5) A list of the scanned readings will appear. Use the syllabus to guide you to the proper reading.

6) You are strongly encouraged to print a copy of the reading. Printing out copies will allow you to follow along in class.

Also, the Syllabus is updated. Also, I added the question I’m going to ask you to write on in class for Monday. I’ve thought of it now, and figured I would disclose it to you now.

Thanks for a strong class today, in which you made many great comments on Gangs of New York. See you Monday!

Scorsese on Scorsese

In Editors Ian Christie and David Thompson’s introduction to Scorsese on Scorsese (Faber and Faber, London, 2003) they state that, “With Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese has fulfilled the second long-delayed promise of his career, after The Last Temptation of Christ.” (pg. XIX) They go on to explain that Scorsese read Herbert Asbury’s collection of true crime writing–on which Gangs was based –in 1972. He announced the project some years later but, all told, the project was germinating for around thirty years. That’s a long time to have a plan. Scorsese on Scorsese is a collection of Scorsese’s lectures and interviews where the director speaks candidly, tangential references to unmade films standing, about his struggles to make the movies he wants, and to get people to like them. (George Lucas, a friend of Scorsese’s, makes several appearances in these anecdotes, mainly as a shrewd businessman who seems to have his finger on what Americans want, and how to make more money satiating them).

What’s fundamentally interesting about Scorsese, and what links these interviews and comments together nicely, is his artistic intent- sometimes ambitious and long-reaching to the point of hubris, sometimes almost quaint and pet-project-like. Scorsese sometimes seems, as Copolla once said of his own films, a hobbyist- and this is a compelling and attractive place for a career filmmaker to be. Scorsese’s ambitions trails him throughout the book: Christie and Thompson make sure we understand this from the get-go: “Most film-makers’ careers include many more projects than can ever be realized, but these are often airbrushed from the record.” (pg. XXV). But Scorsese’s plans—even those lost to history—seem to inform who he is as a filmmaker. When these plans “pan out” we are gifted to see just how much thought and craftsmanship emerges, as in Gangs of New York.

On a macro level the director speaks broadly of projects and deals floating around him as he hunkers down to shoot films like Raging Bull and Kundun. On a smaller, more craft-oriented level, Scorsese reveals his intent, his plans, his artistry, in his films. And, as stated above: these are some big, long waiting ideas hanging in the rafters while he eats. As scholars we come across a scene, or a sentence, and are asked: Did the artist/writer mean to do this? The scripted answer is always “yes.” And yet we don’t really know what the artist/writer/director was actually thinking when they painted/wrote/directed that scene. Well Scorsese on Scorsese serves as a vivid account of the pathos of an artist. And it is quite illuminating to see how Scorsese’s plans play out in his films.

Where are the Five Points? Why are they so interesting?

The streets’ names have changed over the years according to Sante, but the fascination with this infamous neighborhood in Manhattan has remained the same. In LOW LIFE, Sante tells us that,

The Old Brewery [which is a major set in Scorsese's Gangs of New York, if you remember, where Leonardo Dicaprio's character Amsterdam recovers from near-death, and before which many a battle was fought] was the magnetic center of the area called the Five Points, the intersection of Orange (now Baxter), Cross (now Park), and Anthony (also known as Cat Hollow, no Worth) Streets, the immediate area also bounded by Ryndert (now Mulberry) and Little Water (also known as Dandy Lane and since built over).    pg. 28

In his review of the Gangs of New York film Gregory J. Christiano expands on the area: “This was the Sixth Ward and became notorious for its crime-ridden streets, colorful gangs, prostitutes, petty thieves and gamblers.  There was all manner of vice, debauchery and corruption.  Even the police and fire brigades were part of this lawless environment not to mention the politicians.  (para.1)”

The Sixth Ward

I’m borrowing the above images from Mr. Christiano’s excellent essay on Urbanography called “The Five Points,” in which he comments on the Sixth Ward/Five Points area, then goes on to show us some fabulous news articles from the time (you can read it here). He begins his essay by explaining that

The name Five Points evokes images of poverty, rampant crime, decadence and despair. That’s true. The Five Points was a lurid geographical cancer filled with dilapidated and unlivable tenement houses, gang extortion, corrupt politicians, houses of ill-repute and drunkenness and gambling.  This was a place where all manner of crime flourished, the residents terrorized and squalor prevailed.      para. 1

On thing that Scorsese does in Gangs of New York is to depict the myriad tales of the New York low life. His city is filled brimful with tiny micro-stories, each played out on the streets, sometimes taking place a block off in the background of the main action. We feel the woeful living of these people as we watch them limping about, or staring out at us from their windows. Why is Scorsese fascinated with it? Why did Sante write about it?

This is open to discussion. I, for one, think it fascinating to see such a different America, yet so much like our own. I find it easy to relate to the goings on of this time period, as if it were happening only yesterday, and yet I’m removed from it enough to look at it from a critical perspective. And this goes especially for things related to New York, a city that may have changed vastly in some ways, but has remained the same in so many others.

As students, studying a place like the Five Points can show us numerous things- but I’ll start by quoting Ms. Vargas, who quoted Jacob Riis when she wrote: “The slum is the measure of civilization.” And perhaps we measure ourselves when we experience the narratives of those who lived in the Five Points. This is all just the start of such a discussion, of course. The question, again: Why do we find the Five Points so fascinating?

Snow Day

There were a lot of absences on Monday. It was snowing, but class was not cancelled.

I won’t mark any one absent for the class- as it was awful out- and I know some of us have intense commutes. However- those who did attend Monday’s class had an opportunity to do some un-make-up-able work in class.

See everyone Wednesday, when we will  continue Gangs of New York.

Daniel Day-Lewis (D-Day) and Scorsese’s Gangs

D-Day has won his Oscar for his role as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, and I think none of us can argue with the sometimes erroneous desicions of the Academy. In our class, watching Scorsese’s Gangs of New York comes with it two distinct pleasures. The first being a glimpse into more of D-Day’s acting chops. The second pleasure of viewing would have to be the new knowledge I have of Old New York, the time period in which this film is set (during the Civil War).

D-Day is reportedly a method actor- meaning that he seeks his role from within himself, and plays that role on–and off–camera. As such, he is notoriously difficult on set, often aloof and in-character at moments that could easily make his fellow actors a little uncomfortable. His role in Gangs is that of Bill the Butcher (a real character from Herbert Asbury’s non-fiction novel of the same name as the film named Bill Poole, here named Bill Cutting). He is a ruthless Nativist who can throw a knife with great accuracy, and he can be very scary in the role (much like his role as Plainview in Blood), and I can imagine that his fellow players didn’t much enjoy being around the guy while he sat in his chair awaiting his cue to film, if he did in fact continue acting like a killer even when he wasn’t supposed to.

D-Day’s performance in Gangs holds up: he is electric in the film, and although Dicaprio does well to stand and face Bill the Butcher as both a man seeking revenge and a young actor looking to define himself as a tough guy, D-Day steals the show. He was nominated for Best Actor by the Academy, and for good reason. When he utters his final line: “I die a true American,” it is quite magical, if a bit stolid. Though his performance in no way measures to that of the nuanced and sometimes rather broad, breathtaking performance of Plainview, D-Day remains a pleasure to watch.

But perhaps even more pleasing than D-Day is Scorsese and his photographer’s shots of this magnificent set, one that the director, I believe, said may be “the last great set” or something of that sort. Here are built-in views of Jacob Riis’ 19th century photography of the streets in Old New York. One can literally pick out Riis’ “Bandit’s Roost” as Scorsese moves his camera through the Five Points–the central neighborhood where the events of this drama played out–because Scorsese asked his award-winning set designer Dante Ferretti to include them. Ferretti himself speaks in the special features of the DVD about how Scorsese shipped him all of his research: and Ferretti went to work building an entire neighborhood from the ground up. When asked whether Scorsese enjoyed shooting outside of Rome (where the film’s giant set was), Scorsese often replied: “I’m not in Rome. I’m in New York.” DiCaprio concurs in his interviews. As a passive viewer I must say it is a transporting experience. Scorsese takes liberties with his treatment of the historical material–and he is taking liberties from research like Sante’s Low Life and Asbury’s Gangs of New York, two books that most agree were taking liberties as well–but this is part of his mythos, and he speaks in Scorsese on Scorsese about such things, finally, and how he is trying to weave an American Epic, not just a period piece.

When I saw Gangs of New York in the theaters so many years ago, I was not “blown away.” Rather, I felt the script was sensational and a bit overwrought. Cameron Diaz was no choice for a leading role of such proportions, and D-Day, I thought, was pushing his accent and his character out the window. But watching the film again is a rewarding experience. It is always delightful to have a new knowledge to inform a viewing experience, and walking into such a film equipped with a new appreciation of both the actors of the film and the history that the film is based on certainly ups the ante, so to speak, in pushing on the power of Gangs of New York.

Writing About the Image – Jacob Riis Assignment

We’ve spoken at some length now about writing about an image. I’ve compared our approach to a Reader Response (only of your response to a painting, photograph, or film, not a reading). I’ve also asked you to write about a Jacob Riis image to bring in for our next meeting. (Click the link to look at the “Fire escape” image).  Remember, I’ve asked that you quote from Sante’s Low Life in your writing. This elevates your response- you become less of a passive spectator and more of an active analyst, able to bring meaning, information, and thoughtful analysis to your response- which increases your scholarly authority, and makes you sound smarter (if they’re not one and the same).

A couple other (more detailed) things about writing on the image:

It can be empowering to write about an image. In the world we live in, the depth and power of an image can be taken for granted by those who do not study and learn an appreciation of it. As audience members- passive spectators enjoying a film purely for the experience, not seeking greater comprehension, we may say “We liked it” or “It was boring”. As SCHOLARS, however, we seek a greater understanding of the work, and bring our outside knowledge and understanding of things like context, theme, intention to bear on our writing. This empowers us, and allows us more confidence in studying the world.

Images are intimidating. As I’ve made mention (too) many times, I’m a writer myself, and remember vividly my first attempts at writing about images. Writing about images intimidated me. Why? Because I was not confident in my immediate emotional response to them- I thought that that instinctive, reader-response-style reaction was limited and uneducated. Because of the great, extensive histories of art that I was only vaguely familiar with, and because of the people around me who seemed so eerily capable of taking it all in and spitting it back out with ease (I went to an art school.) But that instinctive response that we first have, whether it be our excitement at the fantasy of a painting or disgust at the brutality of a journalistic image, is intended by the artist (whether the artists wishes for your specific response is left to be questioned, but the artist is certainly soliciting a response, or they wouldn’t have shown you the work- they would have burned it), and therefore that instinctive response is useful to how we write about the image.

Describing an Image is an Opportunity to show what you think of an image.

Let me show you: The following is a sculpture of an HP Lovecraft monster.

Dagon from SOTA TOYS

The grotesque, brutally shaped maw of the beast seems fashioned of exposed flesh tightly wrapped over black bone- as if the creature might be in constant pain, and the tentacles, shiny and reptilian on the tops and translucent and fatty on the bottom, curl and slither upon themselves to chilling effect.

The points of articulation are well-hidden beneath the expertly-rendered joints of this awesome model. The open-faced maw and beady eyes effectively capture Lovecraft’s uniquely weird take on monsters. The painting of the model- from the effect of translucency on the skin to the pink, bony, crab-like hands, reflects only the most expert in craftsmanship.

See? I took each description as an opportunity to evoke a similar response in my reader that I had- this is what writing is all about.

Start with the image. It may seem simple, but what do you see? What is in the foreground, the background? How does the artist compose the image, color the image, and why? Note that you start by taking in the image passively, as a spectator, then ask the scholarly question, Why? And this takes you into the realm of speculation, of research, and of writing, hopefully.