Descent of a Species: The Evolution of Godzilla

Fall 2014, Uncategorized

by Sasha Kohan

Earlier this summer, Gareth Edwards’ take on the classic Godzilla broke records for the best opening weekend of any disaster movie and creature feature, raking in $93.2 million in the United States alone. One wonders, however, how many of those millions of American viewers were aware that this film would not exist were it not for a critical moment in our nation’s history.

It was, of course, the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 that served as the inspiration for the saurian creature that has become the mascot of Japanese pop culture and the inspiration for multitudinous movies, books, comics, television shows, and video games. With songs dedicated to him and statues built in his honor, Godzilla has even won an MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, one of only three fictional characters to do so.  

In the sixty years since Godzilla’s conception, however, the meaning behind his story seems to have changed. Japan’s original 1954 Gojira is not what we see in Edwards’ most recent adaptation (although this may not be entirely bad – the CGI creature we see now has come a long way from the delightful campiness of the original monster-suit). How has Godzilla changed with time, and will he ever become irrelevant?

The allegorical journey of Godzilla began in spring 1954, when Tomoyuki Tanaka, producer for Toho Motion Picture Company, was challenged to make Japan’s first major monster movie and decided to work the film as a metaphor for the atomic bomb.

Japan is the only nation ever to have suffered a nuclear attack. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were killed instantly upon Little Boy’s detonation over Hiroshima in 1945, with some bodies vanishing completely from the heat of the explosion and thousands of others dying from long-term effects of radiation exposure. The death toll would eventually reach 135,000. Three days later, more than 40,000 were killed instantly in Nagasaki, with total casualties reaching upwards of 50,000. It is not difficult to understand why so much of Japanese culture has revolved around the nuclear theme.

The idea for Godzilla, however, was not inspired by these incidents alone. The opening scene of Ishiro Honda’s original Gojira, in which a fishing boat is suddenly struck by a beam of bright light, is based on the March 1954 incident when the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon 5 was exposed to severe radiation and nuclear fallout from the United States’ Castle Bravo device test on the Bikini Atoll. The explosion was more than twice as powerful as the bomb designers had expected and more than one thousand times as powerful as Little Boy. “Godzilla dramatizes nuclear horror unlike any other film of its period,” says film critic Steve Biodrowski, “because the fantasy element is clearly standing in for a reality too horrible to contemplate directly.” For audiences in America and around the world, Godzilla is and has always been a fantasy, an amusement, an entertainment; for the Japanese audiences of 1954, the film struck close to home.

In the 1956 American version of the film, significant alterations were made to Honda’s original. Along with the insertion of additional footage of actor Raymond Burr as an American reporter, these alterations included the cutting of several scenes that alluded to Godzilla’s connection with the bomb. Among the omitted sequences are references to the bomb being a threat to Japan and a realistic political debate over whether the public has the right to  know the truth about Godzilla, or whether they should be protected from it. The most significant reference cut from the 1956 version, however, is much smaller and more poignant, occurring when two strangers aboard a train are making small talk about the latest Godzilla news. One woman laments the headlines and the idea of confronting another tragedy. “Not after I survived Nagasaki,” she says. Another man joins in with a reference to the firebombing of Tokyo, saying, “We have to evacuate again?” Even in this fictitious universe, Godzilla is not a just an allegorical stand-in for the bomb; he is a supplement to its reality. American film editors in 1956, however, were not comfortable in this universe. Moments of truth were omitted, and Godzilla’s American legacy grew as mere fantasy.

In the half-century following the creation of Godzilla, the Toho company produced 27 sequels to Honda’s original, and a sense of patriotism eventually became associated with the giant monster. “Godzilla,” writes professor of Japanese literature Susan J. Napier, “began as the ultimate alien who, as the series continued, became a friend to Japan, an insider, ‘one of us.’” While the 1954 original depicted a Japan in panic, Godzilla showed a traumatized audience just how much they had managed to overcome. The film’s view of science, nature, and humanity remained grim and pessimistic, but the creature became a mascot for a nation devastated by war and the following period of uplift and hopes for peace. According to Napier, “The series’ reassuring subtext remains the same throughout: even if famous monuments such as Tokyo Tower or the new Tokyo City Hall get trampled on, they can always be rebuilt.”

Considering the enormous significance of Godzilla in Japanese popular culture, Gareth Edwards’ recent hit remake is all the more curious and, perhaps, problematic. Even the notion of America adapting a film and legacy which was only created because of the thousands of lives lost and despair caused by Americans is uncomfortable, to say the least. Although Japan-U.S. relations are currently stable and civil, it seems somewhat problematic for the superpower that crushed another nation to ask to borrow a most beloved icon for our own enjoyment. However, Roland Emmerich had crossed this line already with his widely criticized 1998 version, hated among critics and Godzilla fans alike, and even rebranded and essentially disowned as “Zilla” by its parent-company, Toho. In licensing the film to Legendary Pictures, Toho set certain conditions under which the film was to be made, including that Godzilla was created from a nuclear incident, and that the film be set in Japan. While these conditions were basically met, it is certainly questionable whether Toho’s expectations were. Although Godzilla’s radioactive past is often referenced in the movie, it can hardly be said that this Godzilla really has anything to do with nuclear anxiety. While the basic structure of any Godzilla film is there, it is so loose and ambiguous that it simply becomes another monster movie: huge, uncontrollable creatures suddenly wreak havoc on densely populated city and destroy cultural (American) landmarks while cookie-cutter human melodrama happens in between battle scenes. Throw in some radiation, don’t forget to mention Japan, and BOOM – Godzilla movie, done.

Prior to its release, writer Frank Darabont was asked whether the new version would uphold the original nuclear allegory or “represent a different kind of metaphor, something we’re dealing with as a culture,” only for Darabont to respond saying that, in film, there is always “a margin of interpretation.” While this is already clear to the majority of movie-watchers, Edwards’ Godzilla seems to have rather a large margin.

In a somewhat contrived effort to remind audiences that they are well aware of Godzilla’s background, the 2014 filmmakers mention the events that started it all in a quick somber scene with the lone Japanese character of Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe). Dr. Serizawa shares with a confidant (and the audience) a remnant of his traumatic past: a watch that survived Hiroshima and belonged to his father. Unfortunately, the scene is so quick and out of the blue that it feels more like a forced moment of silence before the big games starts than a sincere acknowledgment of the past.

In fact, Watanabe’s entire character appears to have been created to preserve some remnant of the true spirit of Godzilla and the culture in which he was created. By simply being Japanese, mentioning Hiroshima, and uttering the tag line, “The arrogance of man is in thinking nature is in his control, and not the other way around,” Watanabe’s role is essentially objectified and confined. The tag line is misleading, however, or at least ambiguous, in that it may delude viewers into thinking it refers to the more topical, less edgy issue of global climate change.

What stands out most in Edwards’ Godzilla, however, is the distinct Americanness in which the original Japanese story has been soaked. The only scenes set in Godzilla’s homeland occur in the first half of the film, most of which, rather ironically, take place at a nuclear plant (not to mention the opening recreation of the very same hydrogen bomb test which led to the Lucky Dragon incident, perhaps included for fans of the 1954 original. This change of emphasis also begs the question of how appropriate it would be for even Japan to produce a Godzilla remake at this time.  Beginning in the early 1970s, nuclear energy has been a national strategic priority of Japan and has come to provide a significant amount of the nation’s electricity. However, following the devastating tsunami in 2011, which killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japanese public opinion on nuclear energy has largely reverted back to what it was following Godzilla’s original release, with polls finding up to 80 percent of the Japanese population were in favor of discontinuing the use of all fifty-four of the country’s nuclear reactors.

With this in mind, it seems as though the remake of a significantly anti-nuclear-powered allegory like Godzilla might have been met with slight confusion and discomfort – no more, however, than the U.S. version we were given leaves us with. Not only does the remake cloud Godzilla’s enormous significance in a potentially offensive “Americanness,” but it also does so in a way that so strangely seems to criticize itself that one could easily read the film as ultimately un-American. The main theme of this version, as embodied by Bryan Cranston’s character and his mission, is government distrust.

It is difficult to come away from this film without questioning the politics behind it. Ideas of democracy, unity, and peace are tainted by doubt and distrust. As we watch this American version of the Godzilla story, we are only reminded of our nation’s shortcomings, historic moments of horror and regret. While at times the film seems to be an attempt to charge American audiences with pride in their nation (not unsubtly done with the recurring image of Godzilla destroying Chinatown – representative of another world superpower with which we seem to consistently compete), the movie actually instills a sense of guilt and shame for our past. The 1954 original’s sense of patriotism and reassurance is twisted by sixty years of history, and viewers walk away from the remake wondering what else we don’t know. The message is emphasized more than anything by the inclusion of an old Elvis song – and what could be more American? As “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise” plays in merry irony over the destruction of Las Vegas, suspicions that we should start being more suspicious arise, solidified by the ominous still-water ending.

While little else is clear, Godzilla viewers everywhere can at least be certain that the legacy and evolution of Japan’s beloved monster is far from complete.

A Fine Romance Writer

Fall 2014, Uncategorized

by Bansari Kamdar

Romance writer Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Romance writer Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Best-selling novelist Susan Elizabeth Phillips has been crafting funny and beautiful love stories with smart and sassy heroines, highly desirable heroes, and happy endings for more than a quarter of a century. Her latest novel is Heroes Are My Weakness.

 

You are considered among the top authors in the genre of contemporary romance novels. What draws you to this genre?

That is what my natural voice is. I think if you want to be successful you have to write into your own worldview and you have to work with your natural voice, and that’s mine.

How would you describe a romance novel, and how do you distinguish a love story from romance?

You can kind of distinguish in a way between a love story and a romance. I think a love story doesn’t have to end happily and the romance is going to have a satisfying ending. The hero and heroine will get together in the end and they will still both be alive. In a love story you can have a tragic ending like Romeo and Juliet. In romances, on the other hand, you don’t find that very often.

Many romance novels after a while can become clichéd; how do you overcome the stereotyping often associated with the genre?

[Stereotying] is associated with all kinds of genres in popular fiction. If you are writing a mystery, the mystery is going to be solved, and if you are writing a thriller, the serial killer will not be caught [right away]. Same way, if you are writing a romance, the hero and heroine will end up together. There is a sense of order in popular fiction that you don’t get with literary fiction. It is a sort of recipe and it wouldn’t be romance if the order weren’t followed.

There is also some bad publicity associated with romance novels. How do you respond to people who belittle the romance genre?

There is no bad PR about it anymore. That kind of went away with the popularity of the books. I haven’t had to defend the genre in a while. Not since the 80’s and early 90’s and not when you see the incredible success of so many romance writers. It’s difficult now to decide what romance is and what isn’t, because the genre is so flexible.

You have remarkably strong female protagonists in your novels from female presidents to owners of football teams and startup business owners to bestselling authors. The strength of conviction and character is often common in all these women, but what is often endearing is that they are not idealized and they also have their flaws. What is your thought process behind these characters?

You see, they achieve all this by the end of the book. My heroines since the beginning have strength of character, but are often at a low point of their lives. The process of my stories is the process of them becoming everything and the best they can be. This is an issue for a lot of women and one that interests a lot of women. [The] journey of my books is the journey of the heroine finding herself. If you look closely, the male protagonists in my novels are not perfect either. They have their flaws, and you often see them grow too, throughout the novel. If the hero is perfect and the heroine is perfect, you have no story. That is where the conflict will come from, the characters’ weakness and their needs and what they need to face about themselves.

How would you describe your ritual of writing?

I write almost every day unless I am travelling. I don’t like to take time off, even if I write just an hour a day; it keeps the work fresh. I work just like anyone works a job. I go to work in the morning and I write and I deal with all the social media things that come along. I follow a regular writing schedule.

Writers block is often a writer’s worst enemy. How do you overcome it?

Well, it’s a job. You just sit there and do it. I probably have writer’s block over twelve times a day, and so I just stay in my seat and keep working until I get through it. If it were easy we wouldn’t call it work.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

It’s hard work, and the only way you can get anything accomplished is by actually doing it. That’s the hard part. It is easy to go to workshop and meetings, but sitting down in the chair and doing the writing is when it actually happens. So my advice always is “Write, just write. “

What do you do in the time you are not weaving romances on paper?     

There is always hiking and travelling. We also have family close by so we do a lot of family gatherings. And of course I love to read.

So, what would you say would be your 3 favorite books?

No, I am not answering that question. It’s just too hard.

I just finished reading The Great Escape last month, and, as an ardent follower, I am wondering what is next in the books for Susan Elizabeth Phillips?

As you must have read on my blog, I am coming out with my new book Heroes Are My Weakness. A sneak peek of the novel is available on the author’s website.)

The Chicago Stars series, with its football-playing heroes and daring heroines who fall in love with them, is a public favorite, and two of my favorite books are also a part of these series. Are there going to be any more Chicago Stars books after Natural Born Charmer?

I have always said that I have written my last Stars book, but if I get an idea for another one I would definitely write it. I just have to be able to bring something fresh to it.

I remember reading It Had To Be You in high school and how motivated Phoebe made me feel, and I am sure a lot of women around the world associate themselves the same way with many of your characters. What would be your advice to these women who are still on the journey of seeking themselves?

My advice would just be that, keep testing yourself and keep growing.

 

Family Feud: The Three Cousins Who Led Europe Into the First World War

Fall 2014, Uncategorized

by Noah Keates

Imperial War Museum via Wikimedia Commons

Imperial War Museum via Wikimedia Commons

           

A century ago, on June 28th, 1914, Slav nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, and many historians would concur that this was the ember that was blown into the conflagration of the First World War.  But although the archdukes assassination may have been the catalyst for the subsequent war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, the eruption of war on a continental scale may have been caused by other factors. Decades of political distress and foreign alliances had set the stage for the behemoths of European military power–England, Germany, Russia– to take up arms.  And at the center of this stage stood three cousins, King George V of Great Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, whose complicated family relationships partly fueled the international animosity that led to the horrors of The Great War.

George and Wilhelm shared a common relation through their grandmother Queen Victoria, while George and Nicholas were bonded through their mothers, the two Danish princesses, Alexandra and Dagmar.  Nicholas and Wilhelm shared no blood relation, though they became cousins-in-law when Nicholas married Wilhelms first cousin, Alexandra of Germany.

The three cousins grew up under great pressure from the past, and the political leanings of their predecessors molded their opinions and ideas as they rose to power.  Though tension existed among the three nations in the decades preceding World War I, the young cousins remained in contact with each other, partially driven by the expectation of courtesy from their common relations, yet also due to a genuine interest in the lives of their social counterparts.  However, through the first decade of the 20th century, the bonds among George, Wilhelm, and Nicholas began to be strained.

Queen Victoria acted as one of the strongest influences on two of the young boys, as she grandmothered both George and Wilhelm.  Victoria ruled in Great Britain for 64 years from 1837-1901, and acquired the name The Mother of Europe due to the number of thrones occupied by her descendants.  A special bond quickly developed between the Queen and her first-born grandchild, Wilhelm, in whom Victoria keenly inculcated the appeal and successes of British culture and policy. Wilhelm would acquire great power in adulthood, and Victoria intended to capitalize on the mutual affection with her German grandson to influence German political policy in a direction favorable to Great Britain.  However, although the Queen guided Wilhelm towards British influence, she did not encourage the friendship between Wilhelm and the one person who could have cemented the Kaisers positive relationship with her island nation, her younger grandson, George, the future king.  Victoria disliked the idea of her grandchildren mingling together and kept a general policy to avoid having more than one set of grandchildren staying at any one time, according to historian Miranda Carter.  Consequently, Wilhelm and George did not form any real relationship as children, which might have induced a stronger bond between the two rulers as they rose to power.

Victoria was not the only one to discourage this friendship.  Georges mother, the Danish Princess Alexandra, still harbored resentment towards Germany stemming from the brutality of the Prussians towards her kingdom in the Dane-Prussian War of 1864. Otto Von Bismarck, the German chancellor, had orchestrated this conflict to aid in the unification of the German state and to cement a political alliance with Austria, who offered military support in the struggle.  Alexandra also fostered the bond between George and her sisters son, Nicholas II. Nicholas made the long trip across the continent with his Danish mother, Dagmar, to visit his British cousin, and the two quickly developed a strong bond that would persevere through the hostility between Russia and Great Britain in the final decades of the 19th century.

Through the Danish sisters and Queen Victoria, a social dynamic quickly formed among the three cousins, in which Wilhelm constantly found himself on the outside, isolated on both sides by anti-Prussian feelings.

From the early years of their reigns, a game of influence and power quickly developed among George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm, each looking to seize the political advantage over the other. Wilhelm grew to favor Russia over Great Britain, deeming it a necessity to form an alliance with one of these countries in order to prevent an alliance between Great Britain and Russia that would leave Germany flanked to the east and west by two of the strongest military forces in Europe.

 

Nicholas and George (via Wikimedia Commons)

Nicholas and George (via Wikimedia Commons)

Wilhelm (via Wikimedia Commons)

Wilhelm (via Wikimedia Commons)

Illustration by Noah Keates

Illustration by Noah Keates

Wilhelm, for his part, saw an opportunity to capitalize on younger Nicholas’s political inexperience and influence the recently crowned Tsar.  Although some hard feelings existed between the two young men due to their common romantic interest in Alexandra, who became Nicholas’s wife, the Kaiser overcame this envy in order to attain a Russian alliance.  Wilhelm aggressively forged a friendship Nicholas, soaking him in compliment and flattery, and tired to mold his political ideas, according to historian Robert K. Massie.  At first, Nicholas embraced the support of the older more experienced Wilhelm, seeing him as a mentor.  However, as the years passed, and the tsar accumulated experience in the political world, he began to find Wilhelm’s influence as more overbearing than helpful.  Nicholas had a greater interest in maintaining his relationship with his long-time friend George, a friendship that became increasingly difficult as Great Britain and Russia’s always tense relationship stretched thinner. However, guided by similar influences as children and similar interests as adults (each was extremely fond of his nation’s navy), the relationship between the two remained cordial.

While Nicholas and Wilhelm had obtained their thrones as young adults, Georges father, Edward VII, remained king until almost the eve of the War, meaning that the friendship between George and Nicholas did not factor into the politics of these rival powers. But when George ascended the throne, this bond became crucial in the arrangement of pre-war alliances. And as George and Nicholas forged a bond between Russia and Great Britain, Germany became more isolated.

By 1907 the Triple Entente had been formalized, officially forming the political alliance among Russia, Great Britain, and France.  Three years later, upon Edwards death, George at last acquired his throne and he and Nicholas could meld their life-long friendship into political reality.  At the same time, Nicholass growing annoyance at the Kaiser escalated to contempt.  Encouraged by Wilhelm, Nicholas had waged war with the Japanese in an effort to acquire a warm-water port on the pacific, but this military campaign ended in catastrophe, with Russias seemingly superior forces decimated by the smaller Japanese army. This was the final straw for the Tsar.

To make things worse, this defeat in the east along with a host of social and economic issues caused a growing animosity towards Nicholas in his own country. With the deterioration of this relationship between Tsar and Kaiser, tension emerged between the two nations.

There is no doubt that numerous factors contributed to the rising animosity among nations that erupted into World War I.  However, the social dynamics of Wilhelm finding himself the odd-one-out in the family from an early age and his struggling to join the previously existing friendship between George and Nicholas may also have played a part. It is amazing, and saddening, that the projection of a familys dynamics onto the global scene in the form of shifting national alliances could have consequences as global and as horrific as the First World War.


Noah Keates is a junior at the Bancroft School, Worcester, Massachusetts.  His interests are history and politics, especially concerning Europe, and he hopes to study political science in college.

 

 

0
0
1
30
171
WPI
1
1
200
14.0

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
JA
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

 

 

 

Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns: The Poetry of Andrea Gibson

Fall 2014, Uncategorized

0
0
1
820
4679
WPI
38
10
5489
14.0

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
JA
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

by Sarah Leidhold

 I heard the poetry of Andrea Gibson before I read it; and I’m not sure if that is considered cheating, like giving one’s eyes the pleasure of watching the movie before the more satisfying labor of earning the narrative through the exploration of reading. A crony of mine posted a link of her spoken word session on Facebook, making a bold statement about her brilliance. Because I respect the opinion of this friend, my fingertips instructed the mouse to click, and, as requested, I turned up the volume.

What I heard then was something I never forgot. It was Gibson’s piece, “Maybe I Need You,” about the prickling nostalgia of having your hands ache to hold someone who is entirely too gone to fathom. I myself wasn’t hurting at the time, but when heartbreak did befall my soul, I craved the sound of her rhythmic vocalizations and the piece’s exactly on point descriptions of the rollercoaster of human emotion.

I sought out her writing more and more, finding my own writing muse gaping at her creative insightfulness and begging that my words would try to mimic it. As cliché as it may sound, Gibson was my compass through a summer tangled with the dark disillusionment of love lost. And since then, I have made her my poetical goddess, referring to her when I need a wisp of inspiration or when my heart is feeling hollowed out or much too full. Last year I witnessed her reading live and I completely saturated the basins of my cheekbones with saline–crying for the incomprehensible beauty that I was witnessing.

Gibson’s book of poetry, Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns, was published in 2008 by Write Bloody Publishing. with  a new edition coming out in 2010. Featuring illustrations by Anis Mojgani, the book was awarded the DIY Book of the Year and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns contains 26 poems, most written in free verse, with some sporadic rhyming.

Within these texts, Gibson stares into the face of the forces of evil that are cloaked in propriety or tradition in our world and gives us the gory details: patriarchy, warfare that slaughters children on US dollars (“El Mozote”), the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that soldiers bring home from war, mental health issues, the horror of rape, the injustice of laws that do not allow gays to marry, the wrongful assumptions of sexism, the avarice inherently interlaced with our consumer culture, and more. She dexterously contrasts the stark blackness of these horrible truths with the saving grace of much more gentler forces like forgiveness, love that spans across boundaries of gender or race, the innocence of children, the unrelenting promise of pacifism, and, above all, the power of altruism as the guiding force for human harmony.

Gibson juxtaposes two opposing images of mankind: one as a monstrosity that employs indiscriminate violence to satisfy its bottomless greed under the guise of religious convictions, and the other a creature capable of breathtakingly profound descriptions of the specificity of things, both internal and external, that make the human race such a beautiful species, one that harbors more potential for compassion than it is capable of realizing.

Gibson fleshes out images/instances of both love and hate: personifying both empty clichés about romantic relations and stark facts about the horror of war. Her poems speak with the breath of human life by painting portraits of people, things, and emotions with a crafted realism. But Gibson also whispers into the reader’s ear idealistic ideas that fill one with hope that the world can be improved, as in “See Through”:

“And Jesse this

is not just a picture [of] our history,

not just a picture of our past.

We’ve been hundreds of years

Measuring the size of their hearts

By the size of our fists,

Erecting our bliss on the broken backs of dark skin.

The present is far from gift-wrapped”

Besides being a poet, Andrea is an activist who urges us not only to be aware but also to work for change. Again, from “See Through”:

“I don’t believe we’re hateful.

I think we’re just asleep.

But when we wake we can’t call up the dead and say,

‘Sorry, we were looking the other way.’

There are names and faces behind our apathy,

eulogies beneath our choices.

There are voices deep as roots

thundering unquestionable truth

through the white noise that pacifies our ears.

Don’t tell me we can’t hear.

Don’t tell me we don’t hear.

When the moon is slain,

when the constellations disperse like shrapnel,

don’t you think it’s time

something changed?”

The title of Gibson’s collection, Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns, suggests a rebellion against traditional principles and authorities, but not all of Gibson’s work focuses on extremes of human pain and injustice. She also has pieces that completely focus on the bliss of finding harmony in relationships, especially romantic ones, as in “Love Poem.” She also discusses the heartache of relinquished connection with another in writing that moves one’s heart.

Gibson’s writing often makes allusions to history, current events, and other literature, as well as employing metaphors and extended metaphors.

 Anyone who picks up this book should prepare to be moved, to heave open one’s heart. This writer’s words have become for me the poetic equivalent of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”—it’s a call to arms, a pamphlet that reminds me of the necessity to rebel against the thoughtlessness that keeps the veil over our eyes in this culture. 


Sarah Leidhold, an overzealous student at Worcester State University, harbors a pervasive addiction to both producing and absorbing poetry. She especially enjoys the uninhibited spilling out of inspired sentiments in the all-accepting form of free verse. More of her work can be found here.

Randumb and Dumber

Fall 2014, Uncategorized

by Warren Singh

 

J.D. Salinger once noted that a good book was one that made you wish you were friends with the author. By that measure, I’m reading a good book, even if Nassim Nicholas Taleb is coming off as a bit of an ass. Well, a lot of an ass. But that’s okay, because, apparently, so am I.

I’m just finishing up Fooled By Randomness, a 200-something page book published by Random House that Taleb describes as a personal essay, intended to be read for fun, about “the hidden role of chance in life and in the markets,” as the subtitle has it. Taleb weaves in threads from psychology, economics, philosophy, finance, history, classic literature, probability theory, and anecdotes. In short, the book is an unconstrained story, going wherever it pleases, sprawling out around a central theme like an aerial view of London at night.

What’s the theme? Taleb writes, “I have been periodically challenged to compress all this business of randomness into a few sentences … it is: we favor the visible, the embedded, the personal, the narrated, and the tangible; we scorn the abstract.”

It’s simultaneously discomfiting and liberating to consider Taleb’s central point is that randomness is fundamental in much of our lives. Throughout the book, he expounds on the idea that we are so much less in control of what events occur than we think – we correct our past predictions in hindsight to appear more correct to ourselves, we convince ourselves that we are solely responsible for the good things that happen to us due to our actions, and we become married to our first ideas and beliefs, defending them against any and all incoming evidence to the contrary.

Taleb doesn’t argue that life’s underlying randomness is good or bad per se, he argues for its deep-running nature and indelible impact on our lives, and expounds on this idea that we cannot see it because of our inborn psychological patterns and fallacies. We are, if I may use a neologism, randumb.

Writing in a distinctive, personal voice, Taleb spins out this idea into its many facets, from financial markets to our personal lives and decisions, ultimately musing on the bad (and good) aspects of being so inextricably bound to the vagaries of chance. In the end, Fooled By Randomness is a conversation with an uncle at a family gathering, one who is unashamedly opinionated and iconoclastic, bordering on overbearing – and yet, entertaining, thought-provoking, insightful and very much worth the time.

The Things That Live On

Fall 2014, Uncategorized

by Sean McCarthy

As I follow my grandfather into his garage, which is stuffed with old furniture gathering dust, gardening tools, kitchenware, and old board games, a musty smell reaches my nose. He grabs the short stepladder that I am too small to carry and motions me to follow him into the backyard. The sun has warmed the air on this pleasant June afternoon. We stop at the edge of the woods, and he sets up the ladder. With a basket in hand, I nervously climb up a few steps, grabbing onto his open-collared shirt. He places his hand on the small of my back, the face behind his wide-rimmed glasses full of calmness, a constant easiness. Assured, I let him guide me to the top step. I reach out and grab a fistful of blueberries.

                                                            ***

Some years pass. I’m in church. The priest begins his homily, turning my attention from the way the wood is stained on the pew before me. I lean back in my seat, eyes on Father Bill, the man of the hour, literally. All of his stories begin the same way, starting with some recent event that links to and illustrates the Gospel reading. I don’t really care how much is invented. It isn’t a lecture. He is sharing with us, teaching us what makes life so worthwhile. It is the same consciously peaceful, caring attitude of my grandfather. For the most part, it’s the little things, the things you don’t usually notice, that end up having the biggest impact on our life. These seven-minute tales pull me away from the monotonous bore of church, reminding me of the unspoken closeness I share with my grandfather. It may be that I took these stories for granted early on, but, as I age, I listen ever more attentively to the smallest details—and then one Sunday we are told that Father Bill is ill.

Bill is also my grandfather’s name.

                                                            ***

I’m sitting with my family in Norwood Hospital. My grandfather lies quietly in the bed. Flipping through the channels, my mother starts to ask if the Sox are playing today. He tells her which channel to turn to before she has finished asking the question. There’s nothing about baseball, and especially Red Sox baseball, that my grandfather doesn’t know. The Parkinson’s hasn’t take that away from him.

It’s been a long time since we picked those blueberries.

                                                             ***

Mom tells us kids that it’s time to leave the hospital. I take off my Red Sox hat as I approach his bedside and lean over, my grandfather looking up at me. With a kiss to his forehead, an “I love you,” and a squeeze of his hand, just to make sure he knew I was there, I turn towards the door. Dad wraps his arm around my shoulder as we walk out. But just as we are leaving, my grandfather’s new roommate is being rolled in.

“Father Bill?” Dad asks, turning around.

And so it is. His Bible sits at the end of his bed. He smiles and shakes our hands. I wonder if he recognizes me. Whatever nervousness I had begun to feel as I left my grandfather’s room dissipates. I had heard of how Father Bill was being moved in and out of different hospitals. And now he’s here, with my grandfather and with my family. And that’s just a funny thing.

    ***

 Since my grandparents’ move to Walpole from Falmouth—where we picked the blueberries–and, in turn, my grandfather’s passing, the only trips I make over the Bourne Bridge are to visit him at the Massachusetts National Cemetery. It’s the first anniversary of his death.

He has rubbed off on me. He even taught me how to care for my grandmother, cracking a joke at the perfect time, just so she knows I love her. I stand by the grave, my grandmother’s hand in mine, as I think back to his last year. As his nervous system deteriorated, and his walking slowed, and his back arched, my grandfather kept going. His stubbornness, that I know all too well in myself, kept him fighting that stupid disease. I knew he would never stop the fight. Even when walking to the end of the driveway to get the newspaper became a huge physical and mental test, each step a battle and the stairs a mountain, he always persevered.

                                                                  ***

 It’s a cool day on the Cape. My grandmother stands beside me. The wind dries the tears as quickly as they come. The moment feels surreal, to realize the impact of my grandfather’s life, as I recall times we shared. I look to my left, noticing blueberry bushes lining the woods.


Sean R. McCarthy attends Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, Massachusetts, pursuing a degree in Interactive Media and Game Development with minors in English and Entrepreneurship. He is influenced by the imaginations of Jim Henson and Walt Disney.