POKE THE BEAR
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Guilt is what is wiped out by the myth.
It is not a personal act;
you are performing
The Work of Nature
For example, in Japan, in Hokkaido in northern Japan among the Ainu people, whose principal mountain deity is the bear, when it is killed there is a ceremony of feeding the bear a feast of its own flesh, as though he were present, and he is present.
He’s served his own meat for dinner, and there’s a conversation between the mountain god, the bear and the people.
They say,
“If you’ll give us the privilege of entertaining you again,
we’ll give you the privilege of another bear sacrifice. ”
“I regard the two major male archetypes in 20th Century literature as Leopold Bloom and Hannibal Lecter. M.D. Bloom, the perpetual victim, the kind and gentle fellow who finishes last, represented an astonishing breakthrough to new levels of realism in the novel, and also symbolized the view of humanity that hardly anybody could deny c. 1900-1950.
History, sociology, economics, psychology et al. confirmed Joyce’s view of Everyman as victim. Bloom, exploited and downtrodden by the Brits for being Irish and rejected by many of the Irish for being Jewish, does indeed epiphanize humanity in the first half of the 20th Century. And he remains a nice guy despite everything that happens...
Dr Lecter, my candidate for the male archetype of 1951-2000, will never win any Nice Guy awards, I fear, but he symbolizes our age as totally as Bloom symbolized his. Hannibal's wit, erudition, insight into others, artistic sensitivity, scientific knowledge etc. make him almost a walking one man encyclopedia of Western civilization.
As for his "hobbies" as he calls them — well, according to the World Game Institute, since the end of World War II, in which 60,000,000 human beings were murdered by other human beings, 193, 000,000 more humans have been murdered by other humans in brush wars, revolutions, insurrections etc. What better symbol of our age than a serial killer?
Hell, can you think of any recent U.S. President who doesn't belong in the Serial Killer Hall of Fame? And their motives make no more sense, and no less sense, than Dr Lecter's Darwinian one-man effort to rid the planet of those he finds outstandingly loutish and uncouth.”
"Previous Thoughts"
at rawilson.com
JUNIOR :
I like ‘Indiana’.
SENIOR :
We named the dog ‘Indiana’.
JUNIOR :
May we go home now, please?
SALLAH :
The Dog?
You are Named after The Dog?
JUNIOR :
I’ve got a lot of fond memories of that dog.
You May Not Undermine My Delight.
That I Will Not Allow
I Resist Your Biting, Gnawing Disquiet
I Defy Your Works of Mischief and Dischord
With Courage and Quiet, Inspirations and Strength.
UTNAPISHTIM:
Old Babylonian Utanapishtim,
Sumerian Ziusudra;
In The Sumerian poems he is a
Wise King and Priest of Shurrupak;
In the Akkadian sources he is
A Wise Citizen of Shurrupak.
He is the son of Ubara Tutu,
and his name is usually translated,
'He Who Saw Life'.
He is the protege of the god Ea,
by whose connivance
He Survives The Flood,
with His Family
and with
'The Seed of All Living Creatures';
Afterwards he is taken by The Gods
to live for ever at 'The Mouth of The Rivers'
and given the epithet 'Faraway';
or according to the Sumerians he lives in Dihnun where The Sun Rises.
