The Act of Symbolic Interpretation

Cottonwood Tree Bark

Black Walnut Bark

Birch Bark

One of the most peaceful ways I've found to spend my time is this: gazing at tree bark, mosses, ferns, trout--all sorts of living organisms--and seeing the ways that their growth has created patterns.  The funny thing, however, is that there's never any easily identifiable pattern.  Sure, you can use a dichotomous key to classify said organism, but is it really as simple as this?

Where does this address the beautiful patterns and textures I find myself feeling and seeing on a daily basis?  Observe:


Reading "The Sacred Tree" has helped me ease out of this quest for immediate pattern identification and take time instead to look at all things as being a part of one large pattern.  My conclusion on this matter is that the Sacred Tree is meant to stand as an infinite source of symbolic content.  All the patterns of nature are apparent in it, and since we are a part of that same nature, similar processes manifest themselves in us as humans.  The act of seeking out these similarities is both enlightening and a form of self-reflection, serving as a personalized fountain of wisdom to guide one's existence.

The values I claimed to hold dear in class were truth, self-awareness, accountability, responsibility, and flexibility.  But I don't view truth as an achievable value--only as a guiding force that is itself reliant on self-awareness, accountability, responsibility, and flexibility.  The values I gleaned from "The Sacred Tree" include duality (or, better yet, balance), reflection, momentary existence, change, symbolic interpretation, respect, and activeness.

Of these, I realized that I had not incorporated respect and balance into my chart of values.  I was sort of saddened by those omissions, but then I realized that, in language's infinite symbolic connectivity, I had still managed to touch upon them.  Respect is related to responsibility--it's simply projected responsibility.  It's an outward acknowledgment of carbon-based similarity and connectivity.  And balance is related to accountability.  Accountability stems from cognates of terms used to express calculation and reckoning.  It's like trying not to bounce any moral checks, maintaining a karmic bank "in the black".

As far as my integration of the "Sacred Tree's" values go, the seed of potential has been sown and through this form of secular spirituality, the power of the world lies not in some unknowable God, but in the act of interpreting the patterns that have come into existence naturally.  I will continue to feel the bark and see the moss.

On the Subject of "Good" and "Bad"

A simple medicine wheel, capable of multifaceted symbolic projection while maintaining a unified structure.

It's obvious our class is perceiving much of the content in our course in vastly different ways. Some have developed a sort of micro-to-macro lens where the singular instances that Alexie (or other authors) narrate into story become symbolic of a larger struggle. I've heard opinions that are critical of both Alexie's appropriation of western literary forms and his poor use thereof.

All these responses make sense to their respective believers, but I would be ashamed if someone assumed that because of cultural similarities I had the same beliefs as those of my peers. It cannot be denied that there is "good" art and "bad" art, and I'm sure many people go to school for years so they can effectively nip artists existing outside the framework of "good" in the bud. But might I remind you that even our mechanisms for determining "good" and "bad" are a product of our culture--a culture not necessarily shared with all of human-kind, though based in a similar desire for effective expression.

How does a story impart its message? Is it through well-developed characters, structured plot events, historical accuracy, subversive disregard for reality, time, or meaning itself?

There's no simple answer, and I would have to say it's probably a combination of all of the above for Mr. Alexie. It's funny that it's such a "modern" form to strip linearity away from a story, but one cannot deny that in the process of telling a story, new details are remembered and added as needed and stories themselves are fluid, even after they've been printed. The act of interpretation is an important aspect of reading and with work ladened with symbolic content (such as that of Alexie's), it is the reader's decision to bring meaning into the equation.

Disheartened by the polarizing and marginalizing abilities of "good" and "bad", I'd like to beg those still struggling with the ease of immediate dismissal to reflect upon their value structures and all the thoughts that go into creating a framework for "good". I believe this is a battle we are all struggling with, and there's no definite winning strategy, but by analyzing one's own act of interpretation a greater work of art will appear in front of you. Or maybe not. Take a look at the wiki article on Bertolt Brecht's theories on drama as an explicitly defined representation of reality.

Normally I wouldn't be so direct, but "The Business of Fancydancing" did something to me emotionally, but it didn't quite finish.  The tears started slowly during Mouse's funeral then stopped again.  One or two drops, maybe.  I don't know what to be sad about yet, and I'm sick of crying about infinity--though I fear that that's the underlying cause.

 All this being said, do not be afraid to have an opinion; simply believe in it and back it up and understand your place in relation to the object studied.  Denial of any reference when interpreting art is a means of dismissing its value.  Sure, it saves you time, but time is not money, thank god.

To quote Seymour Polatkin's lover:

"I hate the poems that keep me awake, and I hate you because you wrote the poems that keep me awake."

Let's embrace insomnia.

I'd like to cast my vote for classifying Sherman Alexie as a "Post-Boringist"

Captivated by its beauty, Sherman Alexie speaks about the game of basketball.  He calls it jazz.  He talks about its improvisational choreography.  See for yourself:

"All you need is something resembling a ball and something resembling a hoop."

I bring this up because in class today I was completely baffled that the subject of classification was brought up.  In order for any piece of art to meet anyone's expectations of what that art should be, it should be viewed in a singular light.  We can acknowledge the "accretion" (to use the snappy word from today's class) of influence but if our goal is to see beauty we must focus on the beauty in front of us and not validity gained through the association of genre or style.

Post-genre, post-style, post-boring.

I say "post-boring" because to me Sherman Alexie is engaging the structure of the universe--of time, space, souls, memories, everything he can get his hands on.  Page 184 of "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven:

"Give me a Cherry Slushie, too."

"What size?" he asked, relieved.

"Large," I said, and he turned his back to me to make the drink.  He realized his mistake but it was too late.  He stiffened, ready for the gunshot or the blow behind the ear.  When it didn't come, he turned back to me.

"I'm sorry," he said.  "What size did you say?" 

"Small," I said and changed the story.

"But I thought you said large."

"If you knew I wanted a large, then why did you ask me again?" I asked him and laughed.

This entire scene in the 7/11 is fantastic.  And I say "scene" deliberately--there is very much a visual and spatial dimension to Alexie's prose that helps to provide stability among the time shifts.  What do you think Alexie's trying to say about memory and security and paranoia... or slushies?  Personally, I think he's just allowing the accretion of mundanities to slowly weave themselves into a story.  I recall a Mark Twain quote:

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't."

Through the act of defining an object, you create a framework of possibilities for said object to stick to.  I feel as if this might be the reason as to why many "post-modern" authors don't proclaim themselves as such.  I'll end with a little slow-motion b-ball:

Apocalyptic Fantasy vs. Stable Flux

• In humanity's quest for salvation, many arguments have been posed regarding how we inhabit this planet.  Some foresee a rapture and seek affirmation of a perilous end of life on Earth, as evidenced by the existence of such organizations as Rapture Ready News.  Paul Maltby, in an essay discussing these topics, makes note of the popular Left Behind series and their depiction of ecological destruction as being synonymous with the righteous' ascension into heaven (121).  Maltby goes on to explain the rationale for certain "Bible-approved", anti-environmental dominionist theories: he outlines the stance of E. Calvin Beisner which incorporates statements found in Genesis proclaiming, "Man was not made for the Earth, but Earth for man." (122).
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Though there are outliers in both camps--those that encourage the environmental stewardship of God's creations and those that deny any involvement of God in Earthly affairs whatsoever--for the purpose of argument I'd like to point out these two interpretations of human entitlement:
Dominionism and what Maltby calls "Postmodern Ecology"

Since it seems we have all had some sort of contact with and/or knowledge of fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible, I'd like to talk more about this concept of "Postmodern Ecology" and its application in Native American Literature.

The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire, from Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven"

Thomas, during his trial, recites many stories, from the perspective of different characters:

"I was a young pony..."
"My name was Qualchan..."
"My name was Wild Coyote..."

All of these stories exist in a vacuum of linearity.  In this sense, Alexie's prose allows us to explore a broader range of human awareness and timelessness.  Though not particularly addressing the subject of ecology, the destructive nature of some of the battle scenes described by Thomas point to the destructive capabilities of mankind.

Bringing Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" back from my last post, I'll end with a couple points about some aboriginal art that I found beautiful and astounding.  1) this art was traditionally viewed by dancing flame, thus giving the painted animals the illusion (or reality) of movement and 2) some of these paintings were collective efforts by peoples existing thousands of years apart.
 

There is no depiction of apocalyptic doom.

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• 1.
• Title: Fundamentalist Dominion, Postmodern Ecology
• Author(s): Paul Maltby
• Source: Ethics and the Environment, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Fall, 2008), pp. 119-141
• Publisher(s): Indiana University Press
• Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339162
• Abstract: Christian fundamentalist dominionism is susceptible to a conventional ecological critique; that is to say, one framed in scientific-environmentalist terms of its unsustainability as a practice, given nature's finite resources and the fragility of ecosystems. Alternatively, a postmodern ecological critique has the conceptual tools to contest dominionism at the level of its discursive transactions, that is to say, the narrative frames and interpretive methods through which fundamentalists have constructed their understanding of the natural world. I shall suggest how postmodernism enables critical standpoints which, collectively, open a second front in an engagement with the dominionist model of humanity's relationship to nature.