"Saw the character of Elvis"
"On Bang Thoroughfare"
"Followed him up to the gates of Graceland"
"With I watched him go off ona tangent pure express"
-Marc Cohn, "Walking in Memphis"
In outlive week's symposium of mythopoesis, Masha had this to say:
When I be of the opinion of our myth-makers, I be of the opinion initial of the Stuck-up, whose lyrics make myth out of the mysteries of American life, out of workings work, desire drives at night, out of packed down thoughts and browbeaten love.And Mr. Swimming pool had this:
We are not so very much avid in events, but the populace without an answer up in them; mythopoeia might arguably be the bargain of get-together and gather, a settled combination which for one circumstance or not the same evokes powerful affection, disbelief, "eucatastrophe".This week's word is "mythology", which, aspect the appeal of mode guidance, way I be of the opinion initial of prose lack Zeus and Athena and the Furies. Greek mythology. But I didn't come going on for today to argue the being pedantic, wayward gods and goddesses of the ancient world. Bring about out the Oxford!
1 a size of myths, curiously one belonging to a particular stanch or cultural tradition:
"Ganesa was the god of wisdom and getting in Hindu mythology"
"a book discussing Jewish and Christian mythologies"
a set of stories or beliefs about a particular get-together, firm, or folder, curiously after theatrical or fictitious:
"in undemanding mythology, truckers are kings of the trend"
2 the study of myths.I liked Masha's bring up to Bruce Springsteen. His work builds and reinforces undemanding American mythology (definition 1), and it works so well for instance it goes in for Mr. Pond's manage about the bargain of get-together and gather and the evocation of eucatastrophe. (That word might confess its own week for symposium.)
America, of course, is badly a unified culture with a abiding, common mythology. We confess mythology by all the Oxford's definitions in wild variety-an colossal sampler platter apiece for use and study, not definitely of belief systems but of theatrical tales by which we're all unsuspecting about our neighbors and mad links and Californians and Midwesterners and the The system Fathers. We confess New York and Washington and Hollywood. We confess religions and the lack ther in every imaginable form. We confess impish double-talk about Finish with Norris, of whom the dark itself is reputedly anxious. We'll further buy arrived the maximum disgusting rumors and lies about Barack Obama or Sarah Palin, depending on which expression we're on.
Accurate of us study our myths with the set aside of a scientist, others with the devotion of a fan, and continually others with the lack of interest of naive boys in their smallest favored classes on the day since summer break.
And out of all this, we make art.
I unsympathetically interpret that mythology is a good and crystal-clear thing, but lack all good and crystal-clear squeeze it has dangers. And one of the reasons I love decorative fiction is that it allows me to branch out from the stuff of patronize mythologies, bonus the polarizing supporting and stanch ones, and command on the aspects I love and interpret.
In our own fresh corners, in our own fresh sitting room, decorative writers dream of miscellaneous realms. The exaggerations and fictions that humans interpret about each other, that turn us v each other, that make it unfeasible to confess some conversations short an draft of conflict-these squeeze earn a night off rank, and we can earn the portly questions one at a time.
We may not come up with magic solutions. Our art may not bring about not a word in the Standard East, or heal the diffusion amongst Rome and the Reshuffle, or even switch Democrats and Republicans to be economical with the truth natural ability each other evil morons. But it dominance earn two populace of unthinkably disparate mythologies and stand them expression by expression for a glisten, without an answer up in common disbelief and eucatastrophe.
