Kinky Books

Dr. Sexson was talking about all the kinky things we do with books, all the touching, etc. While I've never intentionally done anything kinky with a book, I thought the discussion of touching and speaking (oaths, spells, etc.) was interesting. Words when combined with physical contact some how seem to have more impact.

Case in point: I was about thirteen when I joined my church group on a trip to Tacoma for a confrence. One night in Seattle (we stayed various places on the trip to and from) a fellow eighth grader, Molly, apparently was wandering around incoherent and hallucinating. Which according to her friend was something that happened "occasionally". Molly was/is a drama queen, so I regarded her preformance with a grain of salt. In any event, we also had three Costa Rican students with us who preformed a laying on of hands to purge Molly from the evil spirits. I don't know if it worked or not, but Molly has not had any more episodes (to my knowledge) since.

Placing a hand on the Bible when giving testimony, laying on of hands, the power of contact in casting a spell, even rubbing the lamp to release the jinn- contact when combined with words creates a powerful bond to enlighten and inform.

Classmate Journal

kmvHere is a quick listing of the journals so far, alphabetized because I'm hopelessly enmeshed in our literary culture. I'll keep updating as more people get up and running:

Brian D: www.geocities.com/fenwayfan80
Brian J: http://rememory.blogspot.com
Cara: http://dineenc.blogspot.com
Cindy: http://spaditions.blogspot.com
Courtney: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wilsoncourt/
Dustin: http//:dythonoraltradition.blogspot.com
Debbie: http://oraltraditionsdeb.blogspot.com
Ed: http://trex2.oscs.montana.edu/~eshanley/index2.html
Hanna: http://precontamination.blogspot.com
Hanna's Notes: http://killernotes.blogspot.com
Kelly: http://galacticgerbil.blogspot.com
Kristi : http://saffiatu.blogspot.com
Jennie: http://buttersickle-la-la.blogspot.com
Jennie's Class Notes: http://oraltraditionsnotes.blogspot.com
Jennifer: http://jst-oraltraditions.blogspot.com
Jeremiah: http://guywiththecowboyhat.blogspot.com/"
Jeremy: http://www.adamlamb.com/webPages/
Josh: http://www.livejournal.com/users/jgerdes
Juliet: http://julietno.blogspot.com
Justin: http://oraltraditionsengl337.blogspot.com
Lauren: http://oraltraditions337.blogspot.com
Mick: http://msuenglish337.blogspot.com
Nikole: http://www.geocities.com/nikoledidier/index2.html
Opai: http://www.geocities.com/apabritabasu
Ryon: http://RyonSR15.blogspot.com
Samantha: http://originaldrivel.blogspot.com
Shauna: http://ideasandramblings.blog.com
Sophie: http://oraltradsophie.blogspot.com
Stephanie: http://stephurban.blogspot.com
Tracy: http://assignedjournal.blogdrive.com
Valerie: http://thefirebird2005.blogspot.com
Wayne: http://www.wayne.blog-city.com
Zac: http://zaxoraltradjournal.blogspot.com

My First Words

I don't have any pre-oral memories. My earliest memory is of me and my parents sitting around a lake with a pebble shore and broken cinder blocks. I'm wearing my pink windbreaker and we're eating green grapes from a big bag. The reason I'm fairly certain this is a "genuine" memory is because my parents identify this as the trip to Mystic Lake in Wisconsin, and although I have pictures of the pink windbreaker which may influence that, I'm certain they were green grapes. Positive about it in fact. This is important because my mom doesn't like green grapes. So while we certainly might have grapes on a trip, they would most likely have been red grapes, and if the story had been told to me the detail would probably have been skipped or they would have been red grapes. This was before my sister was born, so I'm probably about two and a half.

All the same, the memories include me being able to communicate more or less satisfactorily with my parents. According to my parents, my first word was book. I don't remember this, but I don't know why'd they make that up. I don't have any pre-oral memories although I do have a number of pre-literate memories since I didn't really read on my own until I was five or six. One of my other earliest memories is hearing my mom reading my Cinderella book to herself after I went to bed. The next day, Mom gave me a casette of her reading the book complete with "Now it's time to turn the page" notices. I don't really remember, but I must have run her ragged asking her to read me this book. That or she wanted to be able to make dinner without me bugging her to read to me. I have very few memories before my sister was born, but a wealth of memories before I could read.

Dog, grapefruit, bottle of wine...

Toothpaste, left shoe, eyebrow. Today's class was really interesting, and furthermore, very varied in its topics. Talking about literate and oral societies seems to pull in facets from all kinds of disciplines. I'm really intrigued by Yates' text too. I like the idea of training my brain to act as a giant filo fax. I'm not really sure what to expect from this class yet, but I look forward to learning!

The Oral Tradition

This is just my first post. I'll edit it soon with a more thoughtful and complete examination of the Ong text.