Religions > Bible > Looking for a Girl Whose Favorite Great Book is The Bible, Or Moby *****, or Shakespeare's Hamlet : Where or Where Can My Baby Be? The Good Lord Took Her Away From Me.
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Religions > Bible |
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26 Jun 2005 08:50:41 AM |
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Looking for a Girl Whose Favorite Great Book is The Bible, Or Moby *****, or Shakespeare's Hamlet : Where or Where Can My Baby Be? The Good Lord Took Her Away From Me. |
http://jollyroger.com/film
THE GREAT BOOKS RENAISSANCE
In Search of the White Whale
by Drake Raft
Call me Ishmael. Not so long ago I set out upon a voyage seeking the
White Whale--a girl whose favorite Great Book is Moby *****. I set sail
in Charlotte one windy spring night last April, with a digital video
camera in hand to document the perilous voyage. And ever since, I have
been haunting the streets of the Queen City, in-between voyaging to New
York and San Francisco on jollyroger.nbci.com business--perhaps you saw
me in the shadows at Mythos this summer, or up in RiRa's, standing
between George Bernard Shaw and James Joyce, or crawling the galleries
on North Davidson, looking for the girl who would let me know that the
renaissance has begun, that a classical context was again breaching the
surface, that Charlotte was leading the Great Books renaissance. But by
the time I got to Bar Charlotte, they said she'd headed to Fat City.
Tuto Mondo's: The techo-rave is thundering as I sit in-between two
young ladies on a plush couch. Now one can't just sit down next to a
girl and ask her what her favorite great book or classic is, unless one
has a video camera. If one has a camera, then one can ask a girl pretty
much anything. And the blonde on my left begins to lecture in detail
about her favorite great book, The Acts of Kama Sutra, which I had not
heard of before the advent of my voyage, but which I have found to be a
popular favorite. Another standard response to my "Great Books" query
is, "What do you mean by a Great Book or Classic?" And that's the
question the brunette on my right interjects, just as the Kama Sutra
conversation is getting under way. Mark Twain once said that the
classics are the books that everyone quotes and nobody reads, and I
must admit that the more I ponder the definition of a Great Book, the
more the answer eludes me, like the White Whale itself. But I try my
best to answer, and I tell her that the Great Books are those that
remind us of entities greater than ourselves, thus exalting while
entertaining, and bolstering our dreams while easing our burdens. The
classics place the most noble of heroes in tragic situations, thereby
silhouetting humanity's frailty and grandiosity against the backdrop of
an often indifferent universe, resulting in sublime comedy and tragedy,
depending upon if one chooses to laugh at or weep with reality's
embedded ironies. "Well then I'll go with the Kama Sutra too," the
brunette concludes.
The Charlotte Streets: The Great Books know no snobbery nor prejudice,
they speak the same truths to all equally, and their standard fare for
a first class passage to exotic lands is the opening of their covers.
They join us in all walks of life, and though commonly quoted in the
Senate and the ivied halls of academia, the words were often composed
by penniless poets and prophets. A homeless man overhears me
interviewing a group on North Tryon, and says, "Did I hear you say the
Great Books young man? Let me tell you this about that--Shakespeare and
Dante, Dante and Shakespeare, there are no others. The Divine Comedy,
young man. It's God's daily news."
Have a Nice Day Caf: It's college night, and I brave the dance floor
when Slim Shady comes on. It's one of those places where it seems
impolite to introduce yourself before you start grinding on someone,
and I'm not so sure I'm supposed to have a camera in there, or the copy
of Moby ***** I took out with me as an ice breaker, so I keep a low
profile and join a bridal party. They begin passing Moby ***** around,
and it is way funnier than it probably should be, but they're enjoying
it, and with the context set, I begin interviewing. Unfortunately none
of them have ever read it, except for one who keeps yelling at the
camera, "Call me Ishtar!" There's a fog rolling in, and popular answers
beneath the rotating disco globe include To Kill a Mockingbird, The
Great Gatsby, and The Catcher in the Rye, but when asked if they know
who wrote the tomes, about half the interviewees aren't sure,
suggesting that they had had to read the books for high school. How
many people can name a favorite song and not know the band? In Sync
comes on, and I break away to the girl behind me, and for a moment I
think I've found her. Some guy yells over "Bye Bye Bye" that her
favorite classic is Moby *****, but when I ask her who wrote it, she
shrugs and says, "Charles Dickens?"
RiRa's: Another school of thought generally answers To Kiss The Girls,
The Firm, Jurassic Park, and Harry Potter, and who can say that these
books won't become tomorrow's classics? I, for one, might, for I saw
James Joyce frowning up in RiRa's, as the suited gentleman sitting
before him began defending The Stand as a classic. He'd had a few
Guinnesses, and he was about ready to take the argument to the street,
so I said, "It's just not what James Joyce would say." "Who's that?"
"He's frowning right behind you." He briefly glances over his shoulder
at the portrait, then back at me. "Who the hell are you, and why are
you asking stupid questions?" "I'm looking for a girl whose favorite
great book is Moby *****. Do you know of one?" He wasn't going to tell
me, even if he did know one, so I bid him farewell. Like Joyce, deep
down in my subterranean soul, I know that works like Hamlet, and
Huckleberry Finn, and Moby ***** were written in greater contexts, and
though more concise than The Stand, the works are the finely chiseled
tips of far greater sculptures.
Some would argue that a more appropriate place to have begun shooting a
great books documentary would have been New York, the major port of the
publishing world, through whose hallowed gates virtually all books must
pass in order to be reviewed and read. But in Moby *****, Melville
states that the White Whale is ubiquitous. And in this information age,
where digitized classics flow freely into every corner of all distant
cities upon the internet, the cultural frontier is to be found wherever
one pauses to contemplate. William Blake saw a world within a grain of
sand, and with the advent of the World Wide Web, we are realizing
Melville's and Blake's visions, as silicon chips hold entire libraries
accessible from anywhere upon this watery globe.
And so it is that Charlotte has all the advantages when it comes to
being the stage for the first few acts of a classical renaissance. For
today New York and San Francisco are dominated by the postmodern
corporatization of literature, where the critics are held superior to
the temporal works which they hype. No lasting renaissance nor work of
art was ever conceived of nor launched by a committee of agents and
editors, who tend to adhere bureaucracy's conformity, but rather new
literature has always sought the open ocean, as far as way as possible
from the ballasted publishing houses, for it is in the White Whale's
nature to swim free. So it was no wonder that when I returned from
shooting in Times Square and gently glided down just to the West of
Charlotte one fine Autumn dusk, I glimpsed the White Whale behind the
Bank of America building. So after spending an hour finding my Jeep in
the third satellite parking lot, I headed out to AB&I.
Atlantic Beer and Ice: I join two young ladies eating dinner out in
front of AB&I, on a most magnificent October evening that is the
South's crown jewel. One of them says her favorite classic is Pride and
Prejudice, whereupon the other adds, "Me too! I never knew you liked
it!" It turns out they're best friends, and they both used to be
cheerleaders at UNCC--that's how they met, and this is their first year
working at First Union. And they're both surprised to find out how much
the other one liked Pride and Prejudice. Ahoy then matie! Think of all
the secret treasures and gems of conversation sail over on a daily
basis. Think of all the silent souls we pass in a day's work, our
friends and coworkers, parents and children, and when's the last time
we shared thoughts on our favorite book? It's a most intimate question,
and while good friends may seldom if ever discuss it, here I was,
asking people before I even knew their names. I was going after the
White Whale, and I knew the dire fate which it implied, but I had no
choice, for Ahab is Ahab. So I ask them if they might know of where I
might find a girl whose favorite great book is Moby *****. One of them
responds that she's never read it, and the other one agrees, adding, "I
think my x-boyfriend read it--that's what he called his p----."
And so it is that for now I'm fated to walk the Queen City's night
streets, until my quest is completed, or eternity runs out of time. And
although our nobler dreams often elude us, as sure as the classics
offer proof that Socrates never found the Truth, and Ahab never
apprehended the White Whale, and Einstein never realized the unified
theory he sought; look at the noble riches left in the wake of the
passionate pursuit of those eternal entities known as Truth and Beauty.
So how is this voyage to end? Join us next month for a screening of "In
Search of the White Whale" upstairs at Rira's. Check out
jollyroger.com/charlotte for details, and I'll see ye there! Avast! I'm
off to the Loew's Motor Speedway.
Join the renaissance!
http://jollyrogerwest.com
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| User: "Captain Ranger McCoy" |
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| Title: Re: Looking for a Girl Whose Favorite Great Book is The Bible, Or Moby *****, or Shakespeare's Hamlet : Where or Where Can My Baby Be? The Good Lord Took Her Away From Me. |
27 Jun 2005 11:55:31 AM |
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You'll find her at http://jollyrogerwest.com !!!
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Looking for a Girl Whose Favorite Great Book is The Bible, Or Moby *****, or Shakespeare's Hamlet : Where or Where Can My Baby Be? The Good Lord Took Her Away From Me. |
27 Jun 2005 03:59:32 PM |
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Or here! I love Moby *****!
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Looking for a Girl Whose Favorite Great Book is The Bible, Or Moby *****, or Shakespeare's Hamlet : Where or Where Can My Baby Be? The Good Lord Took Her Away From Me. |
29 Jun 2005 08:12:58 AM |
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Hello greatbooksclassics!! I do hope you join us at
http://jollyrogerwest.com for the renaissance.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Looking for a Girl Whose Favorite Great Book is The Bible, Or Moby *****, or Shakespeare's Hamlet : Where or Where Can My Baby Be? The Good Lord Took Her Away From Me. |
10 Jul 2005 09:10:26 AM |
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http://shakespeareforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
Join the Shakespearean/Biblical Renaissance!!!!!
A lot of people hate heroes," he continues. "I was criticized for
portraying people who are brave, honest, loving, intelligent. That was
called weak and sentimental. People who dismiss all real emotion as
sentimentality are cowards. They're afraid to commit themselves, and
so they remain 'cool' for the rest of their lives, until they're
dead-then they're really cool."
Literary creation, for Helprin, "always starts with something very
small," he explains. "I can sit down to write a story just by
thinking of the first two words of a Scott Fitzgerald story: 'This
Jonquil'-it's a woman's name. This always gets me in the mood
to write. We create nothing new-no one has ever imagined a new
color-so what you are doing is revitalizing. You are remembering,
then combining, altering. Artists who think they're creating new
worlds are simply creating tinny versions of this world.
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