chapter 28

Three great myths have come to be well known in our society today. They all have some type of single-minded pursuit of something. Faust is in pursuit of knowledge, Don Juan is in pursuit of women and Don Quixote is in pursuit of chivalric ideal. Robinson Crusoe was a main myth and his story was about the dignity of labor and getting back to nature. Being stranded on an island and relying on yourself to live and profit. These myths give heroes that people recognize and present themes found in our modern world.

chapter 48

Sontag argues that interpretation is "the revenge of intellect upon the world." I found this quote very interesting because to me, interpretation is what gives things life. Without interpretation, a work of art of almost any type could seem trite and simplistic. Of course interpretations cannot always be predicted or may not always be exactly as we intend. However, an interpretation is when people bring something they already have to the table to add to your work to make it mean something to them. Everyone brings something different therefore a work of art can mean something different to everyone. This is amazing to me, that something could affect so many people in so many ways through just one or a few creators and creations.

chapter 47

It interested me that Gowans said Art among other things can only be defined by its function. In previous chapters we discussed that everything can be defined in terms of its opposites or what it is not. Isn't this still true? In addition, what can't be defined by its function? I feel like most if not all things can be defined by their function as well as what they are not (or do not do I suppose).

 So one function of art is to provide an image for something so we can reference it in the future. Art could also be used to vividly tell stories. Art can persuade people too. Lastly, art is beautiful and pleases the eye.

I feel like if we can define what art does we can define what art is. This doesn't seem like much of a Gordian knot after all.

chapter 32

This chapter says the postmodern eye "gazes upon the world as if it were one vast variety show" but there is nothing wrong with that. The world is a variety show composed of many many talents, types of people, experiences and stories. Solomon goes on to say that the post modern eye perceives human events as being nonsensical. To say that the things that I do and accomplish and am currently working toward are nonsensical is not right. Not everything needs to be sorted into a perfectly pre-framed structure. I like a little chaos in my life. It says that narratives are to create meaning in the face of meaningless and to make sense of the senseless. This would be to say that what I'm doing is meaningless and senseless without being put into society's structure. This is completely wrong to me. I find sense and meaning in things in my own way. It goes on to say that in the postmodern eye "life is nothing more than a decentered, narrativeless course waiting for death-or for a nonexistent God who never comes." It's interesting to me that this was the end of Solomon's part of this chapter because that last line was I'm sure intended to gesture toward more modern people having no faith. However, this accusation does not get to me because I am an atheist and do not believe in God or a higher power anyway. So to say that my life is nothing and I'm just waiting to die and become nothing is ridiculous and depressing. I highly disagree because I can make a difference in this world that will matter even after I die.

chapter 31

This is another chapter that I feel took the most negative approach to a theory as well as what I would consider a closed-minded approach. This is not to say that they have something against postmodernism per se, but rather the chapter still manages to condescend and somewhat look down upon postmodern elements such as punk and fragmented style in architecture. Changes in style are good, they help us progress and make good use of our advances in technology. You can't say that people could have always done what we do now because we were never previously capable of most of what we're doing today.

chapter 46

The biggest comparison I see between Aristotle's theory of art as imitation and our current society is comedians' use of impressions. By doing in impersonation- or imitation- of someone, you find humor in something they just do naturally. In addition, there is humor in shared experiences. Something people have in common allows a comedian to replicate- or imitate- a situation where everyone is involved and understands the framework of the joke. Of course commercials do this as well, to get everyone paying attention to something they're all familiar with. It's interesting though, that one would so drastically separate comedy from tragedy. It seems to me that more and more in today's society we have what could almost be considered tragic comedy, and comedic tragedy for that matter. Consider the play Carthage recently did called "Dead Man's Cell Phone." The entire play was tragic and dark but yet I laughed (along with the rest of the audience) the entire way through. They made things like loneliness, death, not feeling loved and even black market sale of organs- FUNNY! And then comedians like Bo Burnham, Katt Williams and many others thrive on basing their comedy off of tragic events such as gay hate crimes, the KKK, the holocaust and in Katt's case- someone being attacked by a tiger. These are all not happily ending comedy events. They're hilarious in their presentation but unlike a comedy movie, they're not exactly happily ever after stories.

chapter 45

Throughout reading this chapter the main thought in my head was of the comedian Bo Burnham. He released a new cd recently and I've been listening to it lately. He is so incredibly witty and is so amazing at using homophones and puns. For example in his one song "Words words words" he says: "A boy, a girl, a middle aged bitch, botox in the third person. I give the perspective a switch and bo talks in the third person." The first time I heard this I was so amused by the play on words or whatever it is between botox and Bo talks. He has constant jokes like this and the more I listen to a song the more I found in it. I love that his music/comedy makes me think in a way that is still fun. It's true that you can't take things comedians say seriously. Almost everything Bo Burnham says (or any of the many comedians I love for that matter) is making fun of a person or group of people. But as he says in the beginning of his first song "the way I see it, if you're gonna make fun of one group of people ya gotta make fun of 'em all."