Once Upon a Time: My first short paper assignment for Law & Disorder in Literature.

Currently a rough copy only, so no harsh jugements yet. It was hard to construct a strong argument under the limit of 1,000 words, but I'm trying.

When The Wild Things Were

Every social group has its own cultural codes; its own beliefs, customs, designations, and general way of life. However, after years of study and analysis, University of California anthropologist Donald Brown identified in his search for human universals that in every culture law, narrative, and socialization of the young by experienced kin are interconnected and play a significant role (Brown, Human Universals). This relationship is especially visible in the tool of the so-called “bed-time story” employed by many societies throughout history and the world today. These narratives expose children to law for the first time through a series of non-combative hypothetical scenarios; they do not “proscribe” behavior to children, but rather “inscribe” behavior. In a sense, they “lay down ways of being” (Manderson 90), acting as “the contemporary instrument of the subtle, loving, but relentless socialization by which the child becomes fitted out for adult life and law” (Manderson 95). Thus, stories offer societies a vehicle through which to socialize children not just to culture and customs, but to the very laws which govern and shape those entities. In his infamous children’s story Where The Wild Things Are, author Maurice Sendak explores the development of mankind’s initial relationship with the law and his eventual acceptance of his place under its yoke.

In the narrative’s exposition, Sendak introduces protagonist Max, a little boy who has just been banished without a meal by his mother for creating some ambiguous “mischief”. In this sense, Max’s plight simultaneously represents not just the plight all children, but the absolute power of the Law (in this case, Max’s mother) over the individual (Max). Sendal proposes through his deliberate omission of Max’s crime that what he has done is not worthy of examination under the eyes of the Law; as part of Society (in this case, the household) he must be willing to submit to the Law’s absolute power. The mother’s command as law-maker is in this situation so absolute it borders upon actual totalitarianism, and Max’s subsequent escape to the land where the wilds things are represents a desperate search for individual freedom of action and thought.

By the time Max reaches the distant shores of the fantastic beasts, however, the customs of his past have already begun their indelible work on his psyche. Max essentially arrives as a complete alien to the new world and yet immediately takes control, expelling commands as dictatorially and arbitrarily as his own mother had. He controls their means of entertainment, their sleep schedules, and even when they eat, allowing none of the creatures the opportunity to offer input and eventually even accepting the role of “king”, a reward that ultimately results from his exceptionally fearless tyranny. Though some of his edicts proclaim the existence of an absolute freedom (“Let the wild rumpus start!”) the freedom is only valid insofar as he decides it is, a mirror of his mother’s arbitrary sense of punishment that occurs at the closing of the work.

Despite having total control, Max is nonetheless dissatisfied with his orientation; against his will, he craves the presence of established rule and rejects the kingdom of chaos he has created, or, as Sendak puts it, “And Max the king of all the wilds things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all… so he gave up being king of where the wild things are”. He returns to his boat, callously ignoring the cries of the animals he’s tamed, and sails back to the society of his home and the law of his mother. He arrives back to the exact same society and household he escaped from, whereupon “he found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot”, a discovery that clearly illustrates the volatile and arbitrary nature of the law, because though Max has not reformed his behavior in any way that his mother is aware of, his punishment is nonetheless revoked and he is rewarded. By the work’s close, Sendak’s character has essentially undergone the full process of socialization as a child toward adulthood in his understand of and eventual recognition of the law and all its confining mandates; he has gone from following his individual whims to conforming to the rules of a collective society. What’s more, he does this willingly and eagerly; he now “hungers” to belong.

Sendak’s story is the ultimate example of a child’s education in law and acts in itself as a model for educating other children as readers. It is widely understood that children’s stories are both pedagogical and normative, and that they would in fact lose significant value if they were not (Manderson, 91). It is widely acknowledged by society that the socialization of children in relation to law and all other matters occurs not just to facilitate the eventual inclusion of the young in society, but to keep them from disrupting society’s already-established order and function with their lack of understanding and natural inclination toward individual whim. Sendak concludes the book with a new Max, a person who has already begun retreating from childhood and who no longer desires to be a wild thing, let alone escape in search of them. The author proves that the impulse to reject law in favor of indulging in one’s own whims is no more than a passing phase before the slow trudge toward adulthood and acceptance of law, a stage of life no more practical than constantly “playing pretend”.

Works Cited

Brown, D.E. Human Universals. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.

From Hunger to Love: Myths of the Source, Interpretation, and Constitution of Law in
Children's Literature. Manderson, Desmond. Law and Literature, Vol. 15, No. 1
(Spring, 2003), pp. 87-141.

And the stories that you've lived to tell, pass 'em down to me.

Tonight's title is a lyric from the incredible William Elliot Whitmore's "Dry". He’s an artist I’ve been listening to a lot these past few weeks, though I can’t really explain why, except perhaps to say that this season more than any other always drives me to minimalism, some visceral desire to mirror the starkness and practicality that winter necessitates. Like winter, nothing about Whitmore is flowery or pretentious; it’s just as easy to imagine him strumming away on some rickety cabin porch with a dog at his feet as it is on stage playing to adoring fans. His melodies are simple, and his words are as unhurried and swirling as the creeks and streams he writes about. Plus, his journal entries are kind of wonderful:

“July 13, 2009. I bought a dog from an Amish family over in Van Buren county. He's a mutt just like me. He acts Amish, not wanting anything to do with fancy store-bought toys. He'd rather chew a stick, and he does it with a certain dignity indicative of his roots. He works hard too. Why, just the other day, he worked his ass off chasing rabbits in my yard until damn near sundown.

December 28, 2009. Winter snows have buried the midwest and the birds are battling at the feeder. The blue jays are the mean bastards, the red headed woodpeckers give them a run for their money, and the finches do the best they can.” (http://www.williamelliottwhitmore.com/journal.php)

Anyway, yeah. Point being, check him out.

As usual, I haven’t really made use of this blog for any purpose whatsoever, let alone the ones I’d originally intended. But instead I got the idea of using it as a dumping ground for some of my more interesting assignments, so that way even if people aren’t being updated on what’s going on in my pretty much non-existent free time, they’ll at least know what’s going on in school. Yeah you heard me Mom. Feel free to tape this webpage on the fridge with all my A++ ‘port cards.

So far one of my favorite classes this semester has been my seminar class, entitled “Based on True Events: The Boundary Between Fact and Fiction in Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry”. With a curriculum based mostly around historical fiction, the class is grounded in the notion that not only should the reader constantly be searching for the truth in what he or she is reading, but that they must also determine whether or not what is true vs. what is untrue matters and, if so, why. Right now we’re reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, which is a pretty obvious but nonetheless perfect work to read when first employing this examination. In some ways, it’s been difficult, as this is probably my fourth time reading it, so I have to force myself to try and see it again through a new reader’s eyes instead of feeling my way comfortably through it with my lids half-closed (or instead of blatantly skipping parts… oh, that baby water buffalo) but nonetheless it’s been really exciting.

Last week we were given this assignment: Read “On the Rainy River” and “Why Study History?” Log 5: Tell two stories from your personal history: one that actually happened and one that is not-quite-true, but both of which make a similar point. Which one is more insightful about you? Why?

In the end, this is what I came up with. Very rough, but nonetheless:

Journal V: Two Tales
I.
Growing up, my brother and I went without a lot of things that, years later, we would realize were actually kind of standard in the lives of other families with kids. Rarely did we have candy. Never once was the beach or an amusement park considered a viable family vacation destination, as our parents opted instead to enlist us all in grueling cross-country hiking trips that sometimes spanned up to twelve or fifteen miles a day. But the most striking one of all was our lack of television, simply because in our household, it was never really deemed necessary.

While we did eventually get a TV set when I was about six, there were really only three forms of entertainment when we were kids until then: reading books, playing outside, and staring at the fish tank. The tank, a monolith that took up half of the living room wall and housed around twenty fish, was one of my greatest sources of pleasure in life. There was nothing better than coming home from school on a rainy or cold day and lying on the floor to gaze up at the darting flashes of rainbow zipping through the neon turquoise water. The tank was more than itself or the fish it contained; together, the entire combination was the highest form of art.

And then one bone-achingly cold day in January I ran into the house from the bus stop and was shocked to see the tank on its side, empty, on the ground. Letting out a scream that seemed yanked from the very tips of my toes, I ran around the houses looking for a parent, and adult, anyone at all to demand an explanation from. Finding no one, I ventured out into the backyard, and it was there, at last, I found my father, obscured by a stand of trees and kneeling next to the creek. Next to him was a giant bucket, and in that moment, though I didn’t know why, I knew who I had to blame.

He never really explained why he did what he had, past saying that fish "belonged in the water". But he told me that they were alright, of course they’d be fine, and that if I looked hard enough I’d be sure to see them. He moved out not long after that, and though his retreat wasn’t particularly surprising, the realization I came to months later that the tropical fish dumped in a frozen Pennsylvanian runoff stream were in no way still alive still was.

II.
Though I grew up without a lot of actual toys, I still considered myself luckier than almost any other kid I knew, because I had something even better: a gullible little brother. At barely a year younger than me, and with no other real playmates other than his sister in our home tucked in the boonies of northeastern Pennsylvania, my brother worshipped me the way only a disciple does: fully, and without thought. I could’ve told him to eat dirt and he would’ve done it. And then, one day, I did.

We’d been sitting in the front yard, digging around in the lilac trees my mother had just pruned, when the idea came to me. The soil was so rich, so thick, crackling and dark, it looked just like the creamy chocolate icing our grandmother slathered on her homemade black forest cakes. I could feel the drool pooling in the corners of my mouth, and yet I couldn’t quite bring myself to stoop down and scoop some into my mouth, afraid it wouldn’t meet my expectations. Instead, I turned to my steadfast sibling, all imperialism, and mandated the command.

At first he tried to disagree with me, telling me it was a bad idea to eat dirt and Mom would be mad. Even at five, he was cultivating his powers of reason, and yet at that point his adoration of me generally overpowered any hope his common sense ever had of prevailing. It didn’t take long to convince him that some days dirt tasted better than others, Mom would never have to find out, and the experience would be utterly worth it.

The look on his face when he took his first bite was fantastic; I was practically beside myself trying to keep from laughing at his prune-faced grimace. In that same instant I knew I couldn’t stop. I told him he just hadn’t taken a big enough bite; surely the next one would be better. Because he believed in me so much, he tried again, and again, and again, each time stepping up to my challenge with the understanding that if I were saying it to him, it must be true, that of course true things were the only kind people ever said to each other.

It wasn’t long after he stopped shoveling the damp earth down his throat that he began throwing up, and when he finally ended up in the ER and confessed the whole adventure to Mom, I got the worst spanking that I’d ever receive in my life. But even for all the punishment, I couldn’t help but think it was still a little bit worth it. If nothing else, I’d learned the extent of my powers.

***
The message of both stories? Be careful when lying to children, for they are rarely able to identify the truth, and therefore have that much more to lose.

***
The first of these stories is the true one; the second is based on a true event, but has an altered ending. I feel that each of these offers a possible insight about me in its own way; after all, I decided to tell both of them. However, I guess if I had to select one which offers more material for a psychological analysis, I would have to choose the second. The first is merely a retelling of events; it was a part of my life, and yet I had very little control over the actual situation itself. In the second story I had the opportunity to blatantly craft falsehoods, and I feel that the circumstances and story I deliberately chose to create of my own volition says much more about the inner workings of my mind than a simple recount of what has already occurred does.
***

So yeah. I love this class.

Not for all North Carolina. Not for all my little words.

Lost Boy
(For Falcon Heene, the Balloon Boy, who almost escaped, but not quite!)

In the end, he did not
Climb into the creaky basket, brown
And tempting as chocolate,
Or blow to bursting the sour metal bubble that would bob
In a slapdash dance away from the whispered growls in the kitchen
Where monsters stayed awake plotting
All night long…

He did not rise above the stale gingerbread houses
Scattered like forgotten crumbs between the mountains
And the valleys. He did not drink
The bright blue wind in with thirsty lungs,
Or laugh in cahoots with the conspiratorial stars.
He did not even turn to glance
At the ocean puddles in the corner of the parking lot,
Their ecosystems of tire-squashed worms,
Cigarette butts and bottle caps.

He kept his feet on the ground. When the long blades thrummed
Through the clouds; when a thousand suns exploded
And drove the monsters from their dark hiding places
He did not break their unspoken laws.

But if he had fled, bled
Into the night sky with the birds and the bats,
They would have welcomed him, the others,
Those dying young adventurers who are
So lost to the world, but who find
What remains to be found.

At the end of the longest day, I always end up in Roethke.

"I fear for my own joy;
I fear myself in the field,
For I would drown in fire.

Father, I'm far from home
And I have gone nowhere." -Excerpt from "Love's Progress"

Little Poem After A Deep Sleep

I’ve wasted many a starry dandelion eyelash waiting
Among the ripe abundance of summer, but now
Fall approaches with necessary cruelty, and I stop
To observe the last breaths of things, to take stock
Of what remains in the pantry, its meager tangibility.

Homesickness, or: A Slightly Less Tragic Variation on Donald Hall’s “Without”

I scrape myself into the corners of this place
Like the sighing black bear surrendering itself to its cave:
A cyclical empty necessary waiting room
I cannot breathe in without
Hills rising and falling and cradling
My home without storm symphonies or bird bands no
Horizons no blushing forests no polite coyotes no
Scent of wet fire curling down my throat reclining from
No beds of damp sweet leaves just

Glass gravel garbage ground
Into flat defeated grass without
Clover without rabbits without apple
Trees without water songs dripping after rain I am
Drowning without tomatoes pressing wine onto my tongue and
Blind without the sun in the morning
And the afternoon
And the evening and

No light no wingspans no thaw unbearable
Nomadic homeless monsters screaming
Smashed moonlight huddled into clogged gutters
No cinnamon no cattails no chicoree creeping
Sky blue against the willful river no fog rising
Away from the clouded quartz surface at dawn no
Frozen silence fragile as glass

This winter without mercy an imprisonment this hole
No seasons no sleeping no sound the wind it suffers
Without snow without sediment without space
Between my fingertips I longed for a garden wilted
Without thistle without milk without amen
Without warmth without footprints without nests

"We're all mad here."

If you are a person and you are reading these words, there's a very good chance that today is not your birthday.

As it turns out, today is not my birthday, either. In fact, there is an astonishingly high 99.7% chance that any random human being exposed to this website will not be experiencing his or her birthday, unless it the year 2012 (it isn't) or they are a Jehovah's Witness (who, lacking birthdays altogether, cease to count for a number of standard human characteristics entirely, such as love of piñatas). As I am enchanted by both stories and near-universal commonalities (due to their exceptional rarity), the title for this random collection of wanderings seemed only fitting.

So sit back and relax. Put that cake away- you have no reason to be celebrating and you'll just end up getting it all over the keyboard, you obesity-endangered hooligan. If you simply stumbled upon this place because you wanted to find out what you have in common with others, I suggest you go here. If not, well. Enjoy the insultingly small complementary bags of pretzels.