The Gashlycrumb Tinies

The Gashlycrumb by Edward Gorgey immediately make me think of a misfit child who was bullied from the first day he walked into his kindergarden classroom until his last day of college. His alphabet book shows many different emotions and is a very dark story. 

As I read, I couldn't help but think about his childhood and what drove him to write such a story. Was he trying to tell us that children need to be more careful because the world is dangerous? Were these names of former classmates that he had a built up hatred for? Does he hate children so much that he laughs when bad things come to them? Was Edward Gorgey an accident prone child? Maybe he could simply be telling us about his own personal childhood memories.  "F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leach," could be Edward explaining his first encounter with a blood sucking leach. At the time, the leach was attached to him, he might have felt like he was going to be sucked dry if he did not detach the leach from his body fast enough. 

Overall, Edward Gorgey's  message is unclear to me, as I'm sure it is to many of others. The gashlycrumb tinies is very disturbing story. I cant thinking of the writers mental state at the time he wrote this story. What was his purpose and what was the true message that he was trying to get across? Personally, Edward Gorgey is my least favorite writer compaired to the others we have become familiar with this semester.

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Entropy

Entropy, by Thomas Pynchon is a very busy story. There is a lot going on throughout the entire story making it difficult to understand. Meatball through a breaking the lease part and several people came. The author said, "the kitchen floor, amid a litter of empty champagne fifths" makes the story very relatable. Everyone has been to that party where they either drank too,uh or watched someone else make a fool of themselves. The story made you feel as if you were living during the time. It made you feel as if you were sitting on the floor playing the music ourself or walking into the bathroom where the girl is pasted out in the sink. 

Callisto seems like a very insightful, knowledgeable, and interesting individual. Although, I wasn't clear of his exact message, he seems like a very organized man, and he is much more orderly than meatball. 

Entropy, is a story that makes you feel as if you are living in then scene. Did you feel the same way? I really enjoyed this author.

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Death is Pervasive

I found the title of this story quite funny since currently we are testing over Entropy, Thermodynamics, and Energy (ATP) in my biology course so somethings others might not pick up on like a law of thermodynamics being that energy can not be created or destroyed of entropy in essences being the measure of chaos in a system most likely in molecular biology. Hence when atoms or molecules split and are less ordered and more chaotic entropy goes up, just some fun fact. But this connection was important to me as the connection between both readings, this story was complex. I had to reread portions because the sheer genius of Pynchon is a lot to take in especially for someone who's never read anything by him before (but plans to read more). "He was aware of the dangers of the reductive fallacy and, he hoped, strong enough not to drift into the graceful decadence of an enervated fatalism" (3026). That's one of those I had to reread to fully understand. But this complex line is exactly what this story and Gorey's children's alphabet book are about...DEATH. The uncontrollable, ever impending idea of death. Entropy is always increasing in our cosmos, because things are constantly falling apart including ourselves. This concept must be accepted, it's something Gorey expressed to children and it's something Callisto is and has accepted for himself. 

This story is incredibly deep and there is so much more to it, the music for instance. There is a clear difference between upstairs and downstairs music and how it relates to what's happening to the, a level of education and the idea of what's happening outside of themselves. Never once do the people downstairs have a thought for their neighbors and how they must be disrupting them and yet the noise intrusion isn't something the upstairs neighbors can easily ignore. I enjoyed this story and it's depth but this is definitely something I will need to reread a few times to fully absorb and this author is most certainly someone that I would enjoy looking into for more of their work. 

ps. I loved that their was a Navy Boatswain mate in this story since that's what my husband does for a living and most people can't even pronounce his job much less spell it correctly and understand what it is. Just a cool little blurb I thought neat. 

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Gorey Gashlycrumb Tinies

The story this week, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies", was creepy, but I enjoyed it.  I liked how Gorey takes the traditional themed childrens book and made it macabre. Even with the first panel where Death is standing behind the children, the children look so sweet and angelic.  It seemed to me that it would have been very shocking in 1963 to have this published, but maybe Gorey was making a statement about the children of the time.   Gorey seems to be making fun of the ways that parents scare their young kids into behaving properly.  The actual violence is never shown just the implication of what is come.  Just as parents always seem to be overprotective and worried about all kinds of things that could happen, but usually don't.

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death by alphbetical order

I know that this blog will probably not meet the length criteria because even though I read through the whole alphabet I don’t know what I think about it.  It was quite strange and I understand about graphic novel and the idea for an alphabet book with stories about young children who perish is kind of extreme.  I think the graphic stark black, white and gray gives them a chillingly touch of reality. It makes me think that a child could have actually illustrated the book.  The drawings are rather simplistic and look like something someone would doodle in their notebooks while listening to a boring class.  The names used in the book reminded me of English names. For example, Yorick (Shakespeare character). Maud is another old fashioned name and Neville who died of ennui. I am sure that some people would have to brush up on their vocabulary to understand the nuances of the book.   I think this graphic piece of work was a page turner though because I couldn’t wait to read how everyone was dying in a new and novel way.  

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Death Happens

I love creepy things, I even just bought an amazing copy of Alice in Wonderland illustrated by a tattoo artist and it gives me the creeps. Well not as much as my Ralph Steadman illustrated copy but I love it. And I loved Edward Gorey's "The Gashlycrumb Tinies". The story made me laugh and thoroughly made me uncomfortable which it's intended to do. I would read something like this to my child because honestly I'm not afraid to expose them to a book. If they didn't like it I wouldn't read it again but who's to say they aren't like me. I was in love with creepy things since I was a baby, Edward Scissor hands was a childhood favorite movie along with "the Nightmare Before Christmas" and my parents didn't ever try and change my preference away from dark humor. I think that's all this story really is to kids, as adults we can read into anything and see beyond the surface or something. This book is riddled with Death, literally images of death and dying and Death himself. I think that's something relevant to all historical period. People die, it's going to happen, as the Tropic of Cancer references in the beginning of the story Entropy with weather all way happening and can't be stopped, that's the same explanation of death. He's coming, it grows nearer and Gorey doesn't shy away from the subject instead he exposes it to children. He breaks a barrier that shelters a child from reality and shows them death is apart of life, it's as simple as the ABC's and is shouldn't be something we are afraid of, it's just something to accept and move on from.  

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Callisto

I've been wondering why Pynchon chose the same 'Callisto' for one of his protagonists.  From what I could remember on my own (and then looked up to confirm) Callisto was a woman who, after being tricked by Zeus, was turned into a bear for getting pregnant, and gave birth to her son (Arcas).  Years later her son was hunting and came upon the bear, not knowing her to be his mother, he almost killed the bear but just before he could Zeus intervened and made them both into the constellations of Ursa Minor and Major.
Applying this to "entropy", where the amount of heat causes the system to lose useful energy, we see the connection.  There is a lead up to something big and then the momentum doesn't stop itself, it just ends, it is cut off.  Aubade suddenly breaks the glass open with her hands, she's allowing the heat from inside to escape and the cold air outside to enter.  We don't know what this will bring the two characters, but the death of the bird and Aubade's sudden action after so much stagnation leads us to believe that it will change the course of things.  We as readers just have no idea what it will be, for the action ends.  Arcas never kills his mother but is forever in the motion of doing so, he is immortalized in the stars as "the little bear".  While he was born human, he will for eternity be the son of a bear, the child of a raped and mistreated woman, and always about to kill her.
Does Arcas seem like a better name for Pynchon's Callisto?  After all, he has the least action in Entropy, and is what cause's Aubade's pain and (seemingly) momentary lack of senses.  She is the catalyst, whereas Callisto just is.  Aubade is the one being taking advantage of, being stuck in this room taking notes with a man so caught up in his own thoughts; like Zeus using Callisto to satisfy himself. Our Callisto seems to have a lack of energy, heat, and action right from the beginning, Aubade never loses hers.  

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Gorey, Dahl, and Creepy Kids

Why is it so hard to understand that some kids love creepy stories too?  One of the reasons Roald Dahl is so popular with adults and children is because of his colorful characters.  I stories like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we see that children can too be the villains in a story.  In Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, the stories start with the three nice Baudelaire children's parents dying in a fire and they are sent to live with their horrible distant relative, Count Olaf.  Throughout the 13 book series, they are relentlessly pursued by Olaf and are surround by sorrow, death, and humor.   These books are as funny and witty as they are dark and mournful.  Children are no strangers to darkness and violence, many of there playtime is spent acting our scenes far more deadly than they even realize, slaying dragons and fighting wars with action figures.  When they can see something potentially frightening, like the death in a Gorey drawing or Augustus Gloop almost drowning in chocolate - seeing the humor allows them to realize it's not real and overcome their fears.  It helps them in future unsettling situations to look past what scares them and decide what is really happening.  They are not being desensitized, for they know (thanks to how sensational the stories are) that these are stories, fantasy, fiction.  In my opinion, as long as you are not forcing something you know for a fact scares your child, you are doing them a service by exposing them to the comedic creeps like Dahl, Gorey, Snicket, Tim Burton, and R.L. Stine.  Their imaginations expand and they learn ways of dealing with their own fears.
Do you agree?  If not, why?

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Death: "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"

Gorey reflects upon a childish delusion entwined with morbidity and despair in his rhyming didactic couplets found amongst the pages of the “Gashleycrumb Tinies.” The children within the story can be found encompassed by the likelihood of Death, himself. The tribulations and demise of the children entrance the reader creating movement amidst the ever-flowing ode. Gorey begins in saying “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs”(Gorey). With each letter of the Alphabet a depiction of death is made. Never is death directly stated though. The cessation of life is eminent in the circumstances, but only ever alluded. Gorey does so to bring forth a sense of light heartedness. It is less horrific if verification is not made of the child’s death. The alphabetic nature also brings forth a sense of childlike creativity. How else to depict death, than to bring it to the simplest state of being, deriving from the basic function of language. The rhyming didactic couplets also create an easy dialect to comprehend. The work, itself, reads very smoothly. “Gashleycrumb Tinies” is a necessity for the elemental depiction of intrinsic morbidity.

In the year of 1963 many great men succumbed to the inevitability of the darkness surrounding death. Gorey released his work in a relevant manner, as death was a commonality of the year. Robert Frost as well as the President, Jonh F. Kennedy sparked a fear of the eventuality of death. It was a topic of much discussion. The social and historical content of the year 1963 defines Gorey’s work

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Entropy

This weeks story, Entropy, by Thomas Pynchon was very difficult for me to understand.  There is so much going on throughout the story.  One theme that was constant was that of chaos and order.  In Meatball Mulligan's apartment is the chaos of the party.  There is Duke, Vincent, Krinkles and Paco listening to music another group are in the kitchen playing a game a woman in the bathroom sink, passed out.  Then Saul comes in through the window.  Meatball has utter chaos that he has to deal with, "So he decided to try and keep his lease-breaking party from deteriorating into total chaos:..." (Pynchon 3031) And he sets about doing that. The feeling I get, even in the midst of all the chaos and noise of the party, is dynamic and vibrant and alive.  The direct contrast is the apartment above which is Callisto and Aubade's , "Hermetically sealed, it was a tiny enclave of regularity in the city's chaos,..." (Pynchon 3023).  They are so integral to the world they have created they can no longer leave it.  Both of them live in the past and have ceased to create anything new.  Callisto "envisioned a heatdeath for his culture in which ideas, like heat-energy, would no longer be transferred, since each point in it would ultimately have the same quantity of energy; and intellectual motion would,accordingly, cease." (Pynchon 3026)  Callisto seems to be at that point where his world is coming to an end.  He is trapped in the past instead of living in the present and being part of world around him.  Callisto has created his own "heatdeath" by sealing himself off and not being apart of the energy and noise and chaos in the world.

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Entropy

Pynchon is one of my favorite authors for a reason. The man is absolutely genius, and Entropy is a fantastic read. Pynchon was my first real read into postmodernism (after I had learned of the movement), and he definitely fits the criteria. Certain aspects of Entropy that demonstrate this are plentiful in this story. One such thing Pynchon has a certain way with is his use of a mixture of languages. In this story specifically he uses some Italian and French. He always subtly rolls little bits of foreign language through a deal of his works. One such aspect, which I feel might confuse or frustrate many readers, is Pynchon's way of switching between the scenes of the party and Callisto in his apartment with the bird. Pynchon does this in an almost stream of consciousness way, with no warning when the story will change. Many might call this switching of scenes lazy, as it just sort of happens. This story, as many other of Pynchon's, uses many symbols, including music, physics, communication theory. Pynchon always uses an array of symbols. For those who did not enjoy it, I urge you to read it again. And if still nothing, try reading V. or Crying of Lot 49. I promise, Pynchon is amazing. Also, entropy is discussed in V. as well. Pynchon draws a lot of the ideas in this story out throughout his body of work. 

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Gorey

In the beginning of the article Maria Popova claims that Gorey's alphabet book "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" inspired kids to learn and took a genre to a new level.  I only wish this kind of thing made it to my school because I'm sure I'm not the only one who could have used the laugh or a little change of pace.  While it is a little grim, I bet the kids found humor in other things in the works and that helped make it acceptable.  there should probably be more strategies like this used considering it actually made kids enjoy learning.

He uses dark humor the whole way through the work, by showing kids fall down steps or get thrown out of a sleigh.  Kids reading this can relate to that because surely most of them have had both happen to them,  All of the ideas he uses for each letter are closely related to common accidents that happen to kids, and kids will laugh at anything, especially accidents.  It is part of their innocence. The visual technique he used put me off at first, but later I enjoyed it because the shading and coloring he used kept it in a dark mood, so that it was a little spooky, but there is still humor to be found in the situations for each letter. I really liked this piece because it said the kids enjoyed it and it is not a traditional way of teaching. I don't have kids so I don't have an answer, but for people who do have kids, would this be something your kids would enjoy? 

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Entropy: Arbitrarily Random Nature of the World

Is transition requisite to perpetrate the change of velocity per unit of time(dictionary.com)? Does one have to necessitate the rudiment drumming to forebode the introduction of the ensemble? Life does not require a prelude. Pynchon renders life in its rawest form: ever flowing. Humans do not stop beat by beat to interpret every moment of continuous manifestation of growth. Entropy is bluntly named to entail the arbitrarily random nature of the world. “‘Never the less,’ continued Callisto, “he found in entropy or the measure of disorganization for a closed system an adequate metaphor to apply to certain phenomena in his own world”(Pynchon3026). Chaos defines the reality of human nature. Phenomena is not simply a nonpareil happening, but rather a casualty within an unconfined, rhythmic journey. Pynchon’s lack of transition defines the distinction between reality and fallacy in which all is an existence of regularity. 

As Aubade “tore away the drapes and smashed out the glass with two exquisite hands which came away bleeding and glistening with splinters; and turned to face the man on the bed and wait with him until the moment of equilibrium was reached when 37 degrees Fahrenheit should prevail both outside and inside, and forever, and the hovering curious dominant of their separate lives should resolve into a tonic of darkness and the final absence of all motion”(Pynchon3032). The fate of the universe unfolds. All matter becomes homogeneous; temperature defines the fate of humanity(dictionary.com). Parallel worlds collide resulting in a doomed fate of darkness. Pynchon concludes “Entropy” in depicting the providence of mankind’s assured collapse. The congruency of the nature world simply defines the end of free thought. Are we doomed if humanity continues to fight the entropies within our own lives? Are transitions necessary to define our thought and existence?        

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Entropy

Entropy was definitely not one of my favorite stories of the semester, as I was waiting for it to pick up but it never did.  Out of Meatball, Saul, and Callisto, I don't know who I side with most because I side with each of them a little.  I like Saul's passion, Callisto's drive for knowledge, even though I believe he is crazy, or at least a little nutty, and I like Meatball's dry humor.  That being said, all of them have their major flaws as well.  I don't think this story was based on good characterization because we never get to know any of the characters in my opinion.  We get to see a little piece of a short time frame where they all happen to be near.  Never do we get to fully understand the real Meatball, Saul, or Callisto.  We are able to judge and make our assumptions of them, but I don't even know if that is what was meant.  When Meatball says the people who got their tongues ripped out was because of a "Language barrier", that was the closest I felt to any of them, not for the grotesque way he joked, but because I see he is an easy going guy.  The way the story transitioned from Meatball's apartment to Callisto's was strange to me for such a short story, because in order to transition like that I feel we need more time or information on the characters or at least a better picture of the setting to get a little more comfortable.  Is it just me, or did this story need more substance?

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