You are still one of my favourite lyricists.
I appreciate your use of rhetorical devices, now and then.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
A short story I wrote. It is still untitled.
1
Laying on the sterile mattress I feel that this is all that is left for me. Walls painted in colours which are supposed to be soothing. Lapis blue, seafoam green, lavender. All I see is blood red oozing from the unsealed cracks of this ceiling. The Woman beside me is gurgling, gurgling, gurgling. I take more pills that scratch their way down my throat. It’s real, tangible, a feeling that I have grown accustomed to. ______ and ______ have stopped visiting. It’s okay. I didn’t like their hands on my shoulder. Weighing me down, down, down, down. If this bed could sink any further I would be in hell already. The last thing I have is my mind but it’s failing me. You fail me. My reference wasn't obscure enough. I’m telling you these things you already know and when you read this you will feel sorry, so sorry. And will you put this book on a dusty shelf where nobody would ever check for it? That’s what everything else is. A book is someone’s dying words. They want to be remembered, they want to live on. We all just want to be remembered for being greater than we ever were.
2
Some days are better than others. Today they changed the artifical tree for a potted plant. It will soon dry up like me. Placed on the edge of my table, I push it over. I want to see it crumble. Like Ghiza and Stonehenge, it is only great because it has survived. They are remarkable for simply existing, still. We all want to be remembered. I can’t remember the book where I read that. I know I read it somewhere. “I read somewhere.” As if that gives you any validation. Talking out of our asses we just want to be remembered. The scholars we read are rolling over in laughter in their graves. Being revered, deifyied, even, for something they became only in death. Get over it.
3
Last day in this pit. They said they would cut the cord if I didn’t come back. I’m back, you know…I never left. I just don’t want to speak anymore. You all failed me, and I would be failing myself if I fought for it. What’s so precious about all this anyway? It’s always raining, or when it’s not raining it rained yesterday, or it’s going to rain tomorrow. What’s so miraculous about it? You come out, scream, don’t know where you are. When you leave it’s the same thing. Come out, scream, don’t know where you are.
4
Where is ____?
Where is ________?
With _______?
They are blanks to me. I don’t want to fill them in. Why must blanks always be filled in? Can’t you just be damned satisfied with not knowing? That’s why you have to read about it. Be your own expert, be your own technocrat. Write your own eulogy. Your death will sell you out.
5
My biggest Fear is not dying on these sheets, but being remembered as something greater than I was. My biggest Fear is not dying on these sheets but dying as someone I never was.
Laying on the sterile mattress I feel that this is all that is left for me. Walls painted in colours which are supposed to be soothing. Lapis blue, seafoam green, lavender. All I see is blood red oozing from the unsealed cracks of this ceiling. The Woman beside me is gurgling, gurgling, gurgling. I take more pills that scratch their way down my throat. It’s real, tangible, a feeling that I have grown accustomed to. ______ and ______ have stopped visiting. It’s okay. I didn’t like their hands on my shoulder. Weighing me down, down, down, down. If this bed could sink any further I would be in hell already. The last thing I have is my mind but it’s failing me. You fail me. My reference wasn't obscure enough. I’m telling you these things you already know and when you read this you will feel sorry, so sorry. And will you put this book on a dusty shelf where nobody would ever check for it? That’s what everything else is. A book is someone’s dying words. They want to be remembered, they want to live on. We all just want to be remembered for being greater than we ever were.
2
Some days are better than others. Today they changed the artifical tree for a potted plant. It will soon dry up like me. Placed on the edge of my table, I push it over. I want to see it crumble. Like Ghiza and Stonehenge, it is only great because it has survived. They are remarkable for simply existing, still. We all want to be remembered. I can’t remember the book where I read that. I know I read it somewhere. “I read somewhere.” As if that gives you any validation. Talking out of our asses we just want to be remembered. The scholars we read are rolling over in laughter in their graves. Being revered, deifyied, even, for something they became only in death. Get over it.
3
Last day in this pit. They said they would cut the cord if I didn’t come back. I’m back, you know…I never left. I just don’t want to speak anymore. You all failed me, and I would be failing myself if I fought for it. What’s so precious about all this anyway? It’s always raining, or when it’s not raining it rained yesterday, or it’s going to rain tomorrow. What’s so miraculous about it? You come out, scream, don’t know where you are. When you leave it’s the same thing. Come out, scream, don’t know where you are.
4
Where is ____?
Where is ________?
With _______?
They are blanks to me. I don’t want to fill them in. Why must blanks always be filled in? Can’t you just be damned satisfied with not knowing? That’s why you have to read about it. Be your own expert, be your own technocrat. Write your own eulogy. Your death will sell you out.
5
My biggest Fear is not dying on these sheets, but being remembered as something greater than I was. My biggest Fear is not dying on these sheets but dying as someone I never was.
Blast from the Past
I wrote the following editorial in 2007, when I was an editor at McMaster University's arts & entertainment magazine, Andy. It seemed fitting to dig this up and post it...
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The internet has changed life as we know it. Everything is so much more accessible than it used to be, from finding new music, to meeting new people, to buying virtually anything you want from anywhere you want.
In a way, the Internet is at the forefront of globalization, as it seems to be making our world smaller and smaller (at least for those who are privileged enough to have it). But apart from how the internet is changing our global context, it is changing the way in which we seek information. In the past few years, blogs have started to consume our souls.
Perhaps most noticeable in the young adult age demographic, it seems like everyone I know has a blog, or at least wants to start one but doesn’t want to be following what has become an online trend. To keep in line with my previous editorials, I usually need to be ranting or complaining about something, so here are some of my favourite reasons to hate your blog. First reason—it makes anyone an expert, and if you have read anything by Theodore Roszak, you will understand why the term “expert” makes me feel completely unsettled. Blogs are entirely unregulated, and just because you claim to be the “King of Vinyl” doesn’t mean you know shit about the value or importance of records.
Even worse are the gossip bloggers, who strangely enough want to be experts about things that have absolutely no relevance to your life. Do you really care if Lindsay Lohan is a lesbian? I hope not, but even if you do, are you really going to trust what someone who has never even met her has to say. I just feel that so many blogs reek of desperation and loneliness.
Second reason that blogs suck is that it is entirely killing off the pen to paper means of writing. Remember when you had a real journal, and not a “live” one? I still own my Barbie diary, fully equipped with a padlock and key, and I only wish I still had the time and care to update a journal where I could physically write down my thoughts. To many people, an online journal is more convienant—especially if you are at a computer quite often, but I think that it is beneficial to take your eyes away from the glowing light of your screen after eight hours of being glued to it. Oh, and just so I cover all my bases, if you’re concerned about the “waste” of paper, then go ahead and buy a journal made of recycled paper.
The next gripe I hold is when people use their blogs as shameless self promotion. Your blog should not be your “company” website, because like I mentioned before, blogs can not be taken as credible sites. It’s one thing if you use your blog for fun or to show your friends something funny, but please stop plugging your URL every chance you get. If you are really writing a blog for yourself, then should you really care how many people are lurking it? It’s bad enough having Facebook and Myspace as personal advertisements of the self you want to portray, so do we really need another site that is doing the exact same thing?
Lastly, blogs suck because I can’t escape them. I hate them because by the default of simply having one too, I am adhering to all the things that I just said I hated. The more people who get them, the more I wonder why we are all so gravitated towards them. Somehow, I feel like everyone wants to be famous for something. Whether or not we admit it, everyone wants people to know their name.
If you strip down everything about a personal blog, then isn’t it just another way of letting people get to know you? Maybe we are all just trying to convince ourselves that we know who we really are.
Sarah El-Hamzawi
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The internet has changed life as we know it. Everything is so much more accessible than it used to be, from finding new music, to meeting new people, to buying virtually anything you want from anywhere you want.
In a way, the Internet is at the forefront of globalization, as it seems to be making our world smaller and smaller (at least for those who are privileged enough to have it). But apart from how the internet is changing our global context, it is changing the way in which we seek information. In the past few years, blogs have started to consume our souls.
Perhaps most noticeable in the young adult age demographic, it seems like everyone I know has a blog, or at least wants to start one but doesn’t want to be following what has become an online trend. To keep in line with my previous editorials, I usually need to be ranting or complaining about something, so here are some of my favourite reasons to hate your blog. First reason—it makes anyone an expert, and if you have read anything by Theodore Roszak, you will understand why the term “expert” makes me feel completely unsettled. Blogs are entirely unregulated, and just because you claim to be the “King of Vinyl” doesn’t mean you know shit about the value or importance of records.
Even worse are the gossip bloggers, who strangely enough want to be experts about things that have absolutely no relevance to your life. Do you really care if Lindsay Lohan is a lesbian? I hope not, but even if you do, are you really going to trust what someone who has never even met her has to say. I just feel that so many blogs reek of desperation and loneliness.
Second reason that blogs suck is that it is entirely killing off the pen to paper means of writing. Remember when you had a real journal, and not a “live” one? I still own my Barbie diary, fully equipped with a padlock and key, and I only wish I still had the time and care to update a journal where I could physically write down my thoughts. To many people, an online journal is more convienant—especially if you are at a computer quite often, but I think that it is beneficial to take your eyes away from the glowing light of your screen after eight hours of being glued to it. Oh, and just so I cover all my bases, if you’re concerned about the “waste” of paper, then go ahead and buy a journal made of recycled paper.
The next gripe I hold is when people use their blogs as shameless self promotion. Your blog should not be your “company” website, because like I mentioned before, blogs can not be taken as credible sites. It’s one thing if you use your blog for fun or to show your friends something funny, but please stop plugging your URL every chance you get. If you are really writing a blog for yourself, then should you really care how many people are lurking it? It’s bad enough having Facebook and Myspace as personal advertisements of the self you want to portray, so do we really need another site that is doing the exact same thing?
Lastly, blogs suck because I can’t escape them. I hate them because by the default of simply having one too, I am adhering to all the things that I just said I hated. The more people who get them, the more I wonder why we are all so gravitated towards them. Somehow, I feel like everyone wants to be famous for something. Whether or not we admit it, everyone wants people to know their name.
If you strip down everything about a personal blog, then isn’t it just another way of letting people get to know you? Maybe we are all just trying to convince ourselves that we know who we really are.
Sarah El-Hamzawi
Literature Appreciation: Incest in the English Novel
The taboo of incest in the physical, emotional, and moral senses, especially in father-daughter and brother-sister relationships, was a familiar and persistent theme in literature during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early-twentieth centuries, and consequently has been a popular focus of modern critical discussion. From the inadvertent marriage of a brother and sister in Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders," to the sexually charged intrafamilial relationships in Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park", a remarkable number of English novels predicate their plots on the tabooed possibility of incest. The complex human reaction to incest and its prohibition have taken a central position in psychological and sociological scholarship.
Due to its existence in novels, anthropologists and psychologists focused heavily on the study of incest in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Considered a prohibited act by most Victorians, it entered the spotlight when Sigmund Freud spoke of sexual repression, and the subconscious playing a central role in human psychological growth and development. To Freud, our inner, sexual drives were our primary motivations; unsurprisingly, this extends to themes within literature.
While the incest theme dates back to classical literature, there is a lack of agreement among sociologists and anthropologists regarding the incest taboo and its origins. This has led many scholars to believe that the taboo derives not from some inherent moral code, but from our self-imposed need to separate ourselves from the animal world where all sexual activity is indeterminate. The origin of the word “incest,” which means incestum or “unchaste” in Latin, supports this interpretation. Incest has been treated as both a taboo and a special privilege in different eras.
The Adam and Eve story, arguably the world's first account of fictional literature, posits incest as the very foundation of humankind and reproduction. Furthermore, the incest taboo is a representation of our most fundamental attempt at social order. According to this theory, the family unit is the most basic representation of social order. Incest represents a serious violation of that order and is therefore disruptive or "animalistic."
What is consistent between life and literature, however, is that the most common incestuous relationship occurs between fathers and daughters. Critics also agree that most literature of incest presents a patriarchal culture, where feminine desire for masculine approval is both cultivated and promoted. With the development of Freudian analysis in the early twentieth-century, discussion of incest and its emotional, moral impetus was brought out in the open. The fundamental components of psychoanalytic literary criticism were in place and all literature could now be analyzed in light of incestuous relationships, real or fictional.
Freud aside, there is no denying of the theme of incest in the English novel. That said, there is certainly a lack of discourse surrounding it. If we push aside our sense of discomfort, there is a rich topic to be explored in terms of power relations, gendered oppression, and basic socialization. After all, an exploration of literature is ultimately a search for a deeper understanding of ourselves.
S.
Suggested Readings:
“The Dumb Virgin” by Aphra Behn
“The Force of Nature” by Eliza Haywood
“Burney Criticism: Family Romance, Psychobiography, and Social History” by Julia Epstein
"The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend:Fundamentals of a Psychology of Literary Creation" by Otto Rank
Due to its existence in novels, anthropologists and psychologists focused heavily on the study of incest in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Considered a prohibited act by most Victorians, it entered the spotlight when Sigmund Freud spoke of sexual repression, and the subconscious playing a central role in human psychological growth and development. To Freud, our inner, sexual drives were our primary motivations; unsurprisingly, this extends to themes within literature.
While the incest theme dates back to classical literature, there is a lack of agreement among sociologists and anthropologists regarding the incest taboo and its origins. This has led many scholars to believe that the taboo derives not from some inherent moral code, but from our self-imposed need to separate ourselves from the animal world where all sexual activity is indeterminate. The origin of the word “incest,” which means incestum or “unchaste” in Latin, supports this interpretation. Incest has been treated as both a taboo and a special privilege in different eras.
The Adam and Eve story, arguably the world's first account of fictional literature, posits incest as the very foundation of humankind and reproduction. Furthermore, the incest taboo is a representation of our most fundamental attempt at social order. According to this theory, the family unit is the most basic representation of social order. Incest represents a serious violation of that order and is therefore disruptive or "animalistic."
What is consistent between life and literature, however, is that the most common incestuous relationship occurs between fathers and daughters. Critics also agree that most literature of incest presents a patriarchal culture, where feminine desire for masculine approval is both cultivated and promoted. With the development of Freudian analysis in the early twentieth-century, discussion of incest and its emotional, moral impetus was brought out in the open. The fundamental components of psychoanalytic literary criticism were in place and all literature could now be analyzed in light of incestuous relationships, real or fictional.
Freud aside, there is no denying of the theme of incest in the English novel. That said, there is certainly a lack of discourse surrounding it. If we push aside our sense of discomfort, there is a rich topic to be explored in terms of power relations, gendered oppression, and basic socialization. After all, an exploration of literature is ultimately a search for a deeper understanding of ourselves.
S.
Suggested Readings:
“The Dumb Virgin” by Aphra Behn
“The Force of Nature” by Eliza Haywood
“Burney Criticism: Family Romance, Psychobiography, and Social History” by Julia Epstein
"The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend:Fundamentals of a Psychology of Literary Creation" by Otto Rank
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Lasts.
It is my last night in this apartment. It's interesting how inanimate objects hold such weight, emotion, and experience within their fibres.
I don't know whether I would say it was a good year here, or a bad one. All I can say is that it was eventful. This was my first home living on my own, out of school. Sure, it was humble, but I should be proud that I could do that.
I would never have imagined that in this year alone, I would have been in love, been heart broken, worked a shitty retail job, worked at a private school, strengthened beautiful friendships, cut out toxic ones, survived what I feltto be a quarter life crisis, and ultimately, landed my dream job.
I can literally FEEL the changes happening in my life. I have said this to some people, and not gotten the response I wanted. Perhaps they have never felt this way.
I can feel my pulse quickening when I wonder what changes will happen next year in my lovely new place.
I am happy. I have gained a sense of perspective that I needed, and I am eager to keep becoming wiser and more experienced.
On that note, goodnight.
I don't know whether I would say it was a good year here, or a bad one. All I can say is that it was eventful. This was my first home living on my own, out of school. Sure, it was humble, but I should be proud that I could do that.
I would never have imagined that in this year alone, I would have been in love, been heart broken, worked a shitty retail job, worked at a private school, strengthened beautiful friendships, cut out toxic ones, survived what I feltto be a quarter life crisis, and ultimately, landed my dream job.
I can literally FEEL the changes happening in my life. I have said this to some people, and not gotten the response I wanted. Perhaps they have never felt this way.
I can feel my pulse quickening when I wonder what changes will happen next year in my lovely new place.
I am happy. I have gained a sense of perspective that I needed, and I am eager to keep becoming wiser and more experienced.
On that note, goodnight.
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