Oedipus

Title: Oedipus Rex
Summary
It is prophesied that a king's baby boy will kill him and marry his wife. The child, Oedipus is sent to be killed by a shepherd, but he merely abandons him on the mountainside. Another royal family finds him and takes the child in. Oedipus grows up to learn of the prophecy and in an attempt to avoid it, he leaves who he believes to be his parents. On his journey he kills a king who is actually his true father, and reaches the city of Thebes, which is being terrorized by the sphinx. Oedipus correctly answers the Sphinx's riddle and saves the city. He then marries the queen (his mother) and begins having children. He later tries to who killed the city's king, not knowing it was his own doing. Consulting the prophet and shepherd he learns that he has actually fulfilled the prophecy. His wife and mother hangs herself, and Oedipus gouges his eyes out with her amulet, and dooms himself to a life of exile.

Quotes:
Fear? What should a man fear? It's all chance, chance rules our lives. Not a man on earth can see a day ahead, groping through the dark. Better to live at random, best we can. And as for this marriage with your mother—have no fear. Many a man before you, in his dreams, has shared his mother's bed. Take such things for shadows, nothing at all— Live, Oedipus, as if there's no tomorrow!

People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus. He solved the famous riddle with his brilliance, he rose to power, a man beyond all power. Who could behold his greatness without envy? Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.

Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud,Wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.Ah me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot,What pangs of agonizing memory?

Though I cannot behold you, I must weep In thinking of the evil days to come,The slights and wrongs that men will put upon you.Where'er ye go to feast or festival,No merrymaking will it prove for you,But oft abashed in tears ye will return.And when ye come to marriageable years,Where's the bold wooers who will jeopardize To take unto himself such disrepute As to my children's children still must cling,For what of infamy is lacking here?

I go, but first will tell thee why I came.Thy frown I dread not, for thou canst not harm me.Hear then: this man whom thou hast sought to arrest With threats and warrants this long while, the wretch Who murdered Laius--that man is here.He passes for an alien in the land But soon shall prove a Theban, native born.And yet his fortune brings him little joy;For blind of seeing, clad in beggar's weeds,For purple robes, and leaning on his staff,To a strange land he soon shall grope his way.

Vehicles:
Poetic Justice: It is only after Oedipus has blinded himself that he may truly see.
Irony: Oedipus in all his great intelligence and wit could not put the pieces together to reveal his true identity before it is too late.
Symbolism: Light is used to represent knowledge or enlightenment, often unwanted.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: In an attempt to avoid his destiny, Oedipus actually helps to fulfill the fate that was passed on to him.

Conflicts:
Fate vs Free Will
Blindness vs True Sight (Knowledge)
Mortals vs Divine Plan

Subjects:
Fate
Knowledge
Blindness

Characters:
Oedipus
Priest
Creon
Tiresias
Jocasta
Messenger
Shepherd

Themes:
Sometimes the blind man is the only one who can see the truth.
Limits of human free will.

The Stranger

Title: The Stranger by Albert Camus

Summary: Meursault's, a clerk before the Second World War in Algiers, France learns of his mothers death. He attends her funeral, but is unable to view her body. He returns home and helps his friend Raymond by writing a break-up letter to his supposedly unfaithful Moorish girlfriend. Later on a beach, the two find the ex-girlfriend's brother and an Arab friend. Raymond is wounded by a knife, and Meursault returns later with Raymond's gun when the sun gets in his eyes and he accidentally kills the Arab, but he later shoots his body again. Meursault is arrested, and shows no remorse whilst on trial, so he is seen as an unemotional killer. Sentenced to execution by beheading, Meursault is sent a chaplain in an attempt to get him to ask for forgiveness but Meursault sees God as a waste of his time.

Quotes:
She said, “If you go slowly, you risk getting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work up a sweat and then catch a chill inside the church.” She was right. There was no way out.

A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so.

I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn't dissatisfied with mine here at all.

As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.” That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.

Vehicles:
Understatement: Meursault is constantly grossly under emphasizing many dramatic points in his life (i.e. his appears relatively calm about the death of his mother).

Symbolism: The sun can be seen as some type of symbol for society's expectations or judgments of an individual, constantly bearing down on a person sometimes causing them to do foolish or unlikely things (such as shooting an individual)

Pathos: Meursault's emotion of lack thereof can be used to dry an instill some form of frustration or anger in the audience at his utter lack of concern for seemingly anything.

Irony: Meursault's unorthodox look on like can drastically differ from what we expect (when Marie takes the stand, he immoderately ponders on how wonderful her chest looks at that moment).

Conflicts:
The need for emotion vs The simple desire to exist
Society's expectations of how an individual should be vs How that person simply desires to exist
The desire to pursue an afterlife vs the desire to concentrate on what is real and at hand

Subjects:
Death
God
Remorse/Grief

Characters:
Meursault
Marie Cardona
Raymond Sintes
Chaplain
Magistrate
Salamano
Celeste
Prosecutor
Arab

Themes:
The importance of the material, physical world
The absurdity of the universe and human society

Make Nike, not War

In the words of TEAM USA TRACK Olympic coach, Bill Bowerman, "there is more honor in outrunning a man than in killing him." He delivered this statement to his team (which Steve Prefontaine, pictured in the commercial, was a part of) upon the killing of Jewish athletes during the Munich Summer Olympics. He urged his runners not to think their events frivolous in the face of such hateful violence, but to approach them with a renewed vigour and sense of purpose. In the same spirit in the uniting, human nature of sport Nike has employed pathos to connect with the human side of athletics.

Trying to sell all of their products, Nike has shown clips from nearly every sport imaginable, from Michael Jordan's basketball highlights, to Olympic hurdling. The song chosen is, "All These Things that I've Done," by The Killers. The energized track emphasizes the qualities admired in a soldier, specifically courage is emphasized, but the athletes are shown to be courageous in their nonviolence. Athletics is shown to be a uniting force to humanity across all cultures in its pain, displayed by Lance Armstrong lying in the hospital alongside gored bullfighters, and its glory. Sport is made to be a celebration of life and what makes us all people is that desire to hunt, to conquer, and to achieve without the bloodshed made in war. The montage of animal imagery reminds us of ancient times when finding dinner often meant running it into the ground. Many sub-four minute milers claim to experience the same type of exhilaration as flying through the jungle, chasing prey. Lifes a game so don't just sit there! Get up and go do it, and don't forget to buy NIKE!

The Road I call Home

Feet pound down on the road
Soes fly up through dirt
Toes dig into sharp gravel
Spikes taste the sting of battle through grass
My shoes have traveled the world for miles
Always leading to the road I call home

I sprint down, banking left to home
Feet flaking off bits of dirt
My other hands have taken me miles
Through the frost-bitten grass
Kicking, spraying bits of gravel
Hearing the mad crash of my feet on road

Pain blurs the road
The digs and cuts blood drawn from gravel
Sweating body caked with dirt
Faces bleed together after miles
Longing to see the open arms of home
Like paint, I mark the grass.

In forest, carve way through grass
Passion needs no road
No crackle of Puma shoes on gravel
Just the animal's paws on soft dirt
The trickle of waterfalls bringing man home
No cars screeching by for miles

Five-fifty per pace, I count the miles
Ten miles to the hour, almost home
Breakneck speeds reached down asphalt road
No inertia lost over loose, cheap gravel
No records broken in slippery, tall grass
No speed can be found in this dirt

Only nature is found in this dirt
The Run is Church with the grass
Communion with the open road
Hymns drag on for miles and miles
With altars of leaves and carpets of gravel
Always leading to the road I call home.

Like Johnny and June

Staring high luminous moon,
Something blue, she always wears blue
Hit with voodoo, she stands under the dark lights
Heartbeat scurries in constant motion
Beat in beat out, lock and load, reload
Scared outta my mind
"She thinks I'm only a runner!"
"Is this real?"
"Is this taxi really taking us to the cafe?"
Was the boquet enough
One dozen red velvet roses...
Oh God she looks great in blue
She looks great in anything
Please be my wild thing
Love her, know it, don't feel wrong
I'm so stupid she can't feel this strong!
What if I never see her again...?

Oh God I hope he likes blue
I heard he likes black
The ferrari black suit and tie proves it
Hugo Boss I think
Johnny Cash, June Carter
The black and the blue,
modern day Romeo and Juliet
What if he isn't this serious?
Just two people passing in motion
What if this isn't some book
With ten kids and sterling silver rose
Ready for the couple at happy end?
I'm so stupid. he can't think I'm pretty
"He thinks I'm only a brain!"
What if I never see him again...?

Please God let her like the roses
Please God let him like blue

Please God let her love me
Please God let him love me

Port Richmond Block Party

Maculate - adj - stained or spotted
Malaprop - N - The nonsensical misuse of a word.
Malapert - adj - unbecomingly bold or saucy.
Dulcet - adj - Pleasant to the ear.
Dunderhead - N - A dunce.
Hootenanny - N - A community's social gathering.
Nexus - N - A means of connection.
Plebian - adj - Of the common people.
Raconteur - N - A person skilled in speech.
Stultify - V - Making to appear foolish or ineffectual.

Port Richmond Block Party

Bibs and shirts lay maticulated with Italian meat sauce
Spaghetti entwined thickly across the plate.
The Polacks hold a hootenanny across the street.
The dulcet sounds of the polka seeps through the asphalt slate.
The old Irish raconteurs tell of VE day with glee.
Talk of bouncing dunderhead Germans
Abounds with every "last" glass of whisky

Crass malapert accents fill the air.
Their words begin to slur and fill with malaprop
This neighborhood nexus has seen no shift
The plebians haven't lost their style.
The blue bloods and suburb kids
See our drunken songs and lazy fights

The acts stultify our lot in life.
It's VE day all over again
Bath Streets gonna howl all night.

Dropkick: Urban Folk

It all started with a group of buddies trying to have some fun. In a friend's downtown Boston barbershop basement during the summer of 1996, the group of seven tried to blend the genres of music the guys had grown up with, including, punk rock, Irish folk, and classic rock. With Al Barr on lead vocals, Ken Casey with lead vocals and bass, Matt Kelly takes the drums, bodhran, and vocals, James Lynch holds down the guitar, Tim Brennanguitar as the accordion, Jeff DaRosamondolin on the banjo, bouzouki, whistle, acoustic guitar, keyboard, and vocals, and finally Scruffy Wallace makes the bagpipes a constant reminder of Dropkick Murphy's celtic roots.

Dropkick Murhpys, more commonly known as Dropkick, can best be described as the folksy Bruce Springsteen... if Brucie toted around a set of bagpipes, sang with a scrappy Southie Boston accent, and could wail on an electric guitar like something out of a Velvet Revolver concert. Many of their songs are simply ancient Irish barsongs with an electric guitar thrown in, such as the timeless classic, "Captain Kelley's Kitchen," which includes the opening line, "Come single guy and gal, unto me pay attention, don't ever fall in love, it's the devil's own invention."

The boys cite the Irish punks, Flogging Molly as their main inspiration. Flogging Molly's songs consist of ancient gaelic traditions, mixed with modern European punk. Dropkick can be seen as an Americanization of Molly's own hybrid genre. The Boys from Boston are really just out there to get the audience to sing along, and generally have a good time. Dropkick sees the band and the audience as one in the same. In addition to bringing some more fun to the world the group hopes to share their experiences and beliefs in working class solidarity, friendship, loyalty and self-improvement as a means to bettering society. The guys are very careful not to be too preachy as they state, "You can preach till you’re blue in the face but if you’re lying inthe gutter no one’s gonna listen. If you pick yourself up by the bootstraps and live your life to the best of your ability you may set an example that others will follow."

The blue collar boys with their working class roots definitley bring energy into the room with every howling, off-key chorus. Their blue-collar message also permeates through every story of youthful fist-fights in the streets as, "The nuns and priests they grabbed their rosaries as they pulled our bodies apart. That day at school you may have lost the fight but you gained my respect. You fight with so much heart." and working-class family dynamics with, "Daddy lay drunk on the lawn, yelling and screamin' like he do, but sometimes my old man he spoke with his feelings, sometimes my old Mr. MacKay he spoke the truth." Work hard and scream your lungs out every time you get a chance to have some fun.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s51Vn4tjS0U