Shhhh...it's not a library

Hopkins placed a significant emphasis on sound and its significance in the overall aura of a place. In particular, he advocated silence. He referred to Oxford’s ‘cloistral hush’ and how it created a sense of “closeness to nature” (617). The silence Hopkins describes coaxes the observer into a state of reverence, not only for nature but for past civilization. The stone structures surrounding the quadrangle echo only the “quiet footsteps of twenty generations” (615), heightening the silence. This overwhelming void of sound provides an environment conducive to meditation and clear thought, which is why so many write about the effects of the Oxford environment on the individual.


Our experience sitting outside of Sutton Hall provides an example of the power of sound (or lack thereof) in an environment. As Professor Bump remarked upon the intensity of our focus in connecting the architectural influences of Salamanca to our surroundings, Crystal noted the juxtaposition of our immediate environment with the city near by. Though the sound of traffic and horns honking was faint, distant, and muted by the nature around us, it reminded us of bustle of the world around us, the anxiety and haste of our everyday lives. Whichever environment we consider our reality, the presence of that one was inescapable, and tempted our thoughts away from our papers.

But it isn’t the sound that we attempt to escape in seeking a place conducive to our creativity, it’s the cacophony of the man-made world. The sounds that we respond well to, the sounds that we seek when creating an environment to study or to compose have soothing qualities. Rhythmic, soft, natural sounds bolster our creativity, such as the "cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmed, lark charmed" noises of nature that Hopkins refers to in his poetry (619). Our most beloved architecture, such as the buildings and stone walls that make up the campus of Oxford, always either places a frame around nature, taking a back seat to the natural environment, or heighten its soothing effects. The giant stone walls definitely draw the eye away from the grass and shrubbery, but as Hopkins noted, the walls make the silence more awesome. The way the wind rushes through, the way the tiniest whisper reverberates throughout the structure enforces a powerful “hush” on man. Surrounded by great stone walls, we feel the need to whisper whether we are alone or not.


http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/oxford/aj/exeter.htm
The great stone walls of Exeter College evoking a solemnity conducive to quiet reflection and meditation.


http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/oxford/aj/exeter.htm

Though we don’t live in Oxford, we students still seek the same meditative experiences when trying to study. This sense of hushed reverence, hearing at most the footsteps of the generations is something we look for in places like Waller Creek. Surrounded by urbanization, we are extremely limited in our selection of escapes. I imagine this is why students like Gypsy were willing to die for a place. In Jones’ history of the Waller Creek protests, he also acknowledges the effect of noise and how it reminds us of the “overcrowded…haste-harried, greed-ridden, indifferent-seeming society” in which we live (745). As this noise encroached further and further upon the students on campus, they felt a need to cling on to their last ties nature, which are almost nonexistent now. This lack of nature and current condition of Waller Creek proves the futility of their efforts against the onslaught of industry and urbanization.


http://www.austinparks.org/images/WallerCreekErosion.jpg
The erosion and pollution of Waller Creek due to increased impervious cover nullifies its soothing qualities.

A Life-Size Sita

My aunt successfully defended her dissertation last week before a panel. Her doctorate is pretty much in the bag. This event marks a cornerstone of not only her life, but of my father’s family. Allyson endured a struggle throughout her life, for which my father and his parents gave their unconditional support. In retrospect, her life most easily parallels that of an epic such as the Ramayana than any of the Bealls’ life stories.


My grandfather with Allyson, one of her pillars of support.

As a young girl, Allyson developed a strong love of horses. Her parents bought her first horse, Sunny, when she was twelve. She rode Sunny throughout high school, graduated, and went to college at the University of Washington. Sunny stayed at home. She nearly graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree, lacking only five credit hours, but she dropped out in order to pursue her equestrian interests. She packed up and moved across the country with her boyfriend to his estate in Florida. Together, they set up an equine training center, a business that did very well, considering the unlikelihood of success in the equine business. Taking care of horses is not the typical nine-to-five job. Rather, it involves hard, physical work seven days a week in any weather. This sort of work didn’t faze Allyson as a young woman, but as she aged, health problems exacerbated by the physical labor began to take their toll. She aged emotionally also as her relationship with her increasingly irate boyfriend decomposed, and eventually fell apart.
She left him. My father traveled to the estate in Florida where together they packed up Sunny (who had stayed with her all those years) and a few belongings, and trekked across the country back to Washington. She lived with her parents for a good year or so before she collected herself, found her new direction, and went back to the university.


Shortly after leaving Florida, the years of hard work and emotional stress are evident in her face.

By the end of this month, she will be the second of my grandparents’ two children to be called Dr. Beall.

The courage Allyson exhibited in her willingness leaving two decades of her life behind likens to that of Sita and her readiness to “walk through the fire” (1068). Though her life would never be the same again, Sita shows no hesitation in walking through the fire of fidelity for Rama. Allyson’s faith in herself helped her walk through fire, after which, she was reborn as an intellectual, a pioneer in the environmental sciences. Wiley mentioned this cycle, noting that he has already, “died and been reborn many times” at the university.

The two decades she spent as an equine professional parallel that time spent “on the other side of the hedge” (729). Though at first happy living her childhood dream, she later became disillusioned, realizing that she needed to get back to the “road”. So she did, literally and metaphorically.

Allyson’s journey from early adulthood to middle-age have been by no means treated her kindly. Adam, in Shakespeare’s As You Like It empathizes with those such as Allyson, having to start over late in life.

“From seventeen years till now almost fourscore / Here lived I, but now live here no more./ At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;/ But at fourscore it is too late a week” (1084).

Adam goes on to say that though he is aging and has not yet made his fortune, nothing would compensate for his pains better than to finally relieve himself of his debt to his master. In a like manner, Allyson finally relieved herself of an unhealthy life, though it took all the strength she had in her to do it.


In this picture, taken this summer, Allyson is clearly happier, though the marks of her journey on her body are unfortunately, permanent.

That old pony, Sunny, died last year after thirty five years with Allyson. Thirty five years. That's a remarkable age for a horse, but I'm almost glad that she died. It's as if Allyson's last tie to her past finally broke, allowing her to finally push off.

What's the Point?

The loose, baggy Dicken’s novel, the Greek myth, the medieval epic, the modern romance, the contemporary Objectivist saga----so different in their fundamental messages, yet so similar. A sense of familiarity strikes the well-seasoned reader as he or she opens a new book. This sensation induces predictions, which the author may, or may not satisfy. But the fact that the predictions are there, and that the author is conscious of them is a testament to the fact that there is a universal archetype, “the Voyage of the Hero.”



Joseph Campbell defined this concept in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. He devised a formula composed of several fundamental elements in a story. This formula proved to be the basis of nearly every story ever written, from ancient to contemporary times, east world or west world.
The reason that this formula proved to be so universally applicable seminated in its transcendence of cultural and time related barriers. Some human sentiments have existed since the dawn of human existence, such as the question, Why are we here?
This question has been the basis of many plays, stories, epics since the beginning of the written word. Shakespeare references this through Jacques’ monologue in As You Like It. Jacques states that all people, “…have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages” (1089). The “seven ages” directly parallel Campbell’s 12 step formula. Jacques tells the universal tale of a man’s life, through childhood, first love, adventure, aging, and finally, death. Each man ends the same way, “…Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” (1089), as if he never existed. Shakespeare seems to say What’s the point? Jaques’ monologue is a plea for purpose, for meaning in the continuous cycle in life.
The Ramayana also addresses this question, as it questions the boundaries between reality and eternity. Sita herself questions the boundaries of reality through her meditation and lucid dreams. “ ‘I have done far more than make a sky journey,’ she said. ‘Since last night I have lived near a whole life in another place’” (1070).
This train of thought is the basis of an entire genre of philosophy. The Existentialists question the purpose of existence, as does any philosopher, but they also question rationality. They believe that man makes decisions based on where he finds meaning and that he spends his life in search of meaning.

That "we must be born with an intuition of mortality" is one of the building blocks of Existentialism. This train of thought leads to the question, Who Are You? Where Are You Going? Why Are You Here?

And, more pertinent to an existentialist, What's The Point?

This kind of questioning is intrinsic to consciousness; it is what drives curiosity, induces motivation, passion, inspiration---Thus, the search of meaning is the Voyage of our lives.

Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead clip

That "we must be born with an intuition of mortality" is one of the building blocks of Existentialism. This train of thought leads to the question, Who Are You? Where Are You Going? Why Are You Here?

And, more pertinent to an existentialist, What's The Point?

Total Immersion

My roommate, my roommate’s family, my friends and acquaintances, the sea of unfamiliar faces I encounter every day as I walk around campus, the people singing and dancing in the West Mall, all of these sights and experiences have heightened my awareness of other cultures. For the first time in my life, I have had to accept people’s reasons for having certain beliefs without questioning them as part of respecting our differences.


Some of the friends I have made with completely different cultural backgrounds. Thanks to them, I have been exposed to Korean barbeque. However, none of my new cultural experiences have been as intense as those with my roommate.


Halloween shenanigans---We have all kinds of cultural traditions in common. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas...it is in other, more basic principles that we differ.

My roommate and one of my closest new friends is Kazak. Living with her as well as becoming close friends, I have witnessed and become involved in a series of conflicts and new challenges that at first, dumbfounded me. The Kazak culture stresses the importance of family so much that this concept is thoroughly embedded in its young. But no matter how many times my roommate reiterated this to me, I couldn’t really understand. There are some fundamental differences in our set of beliefs that cannot be resolved. I’ve learned to just accept these differences and move on.

The first time I attempted I struck the rock bottom of one of our differences occurred when I tried to help my roommate with a “boy problem”, listening to her lamenting her ending of some past relationship. She seemed so heartbroken, yet so resolute that the relationship must end. I inquired as to why she felt so strongly about the necessity of ending a relationship so dear to her, and she replied simply, “Well, I can’t disappoint my family.” It turns out that she must marry within her culture, a Kazak, and anytime she gets too close to a significant other in America, she ends the relationship in an attempt to spare both the inevitable pain of parting.

I feel now as though I shouldn’t have been surprised upon hearing this. Of course I had heard of arranged marriages and familiar obligations before. But in my American, individualistic, self-centered views, I immediately felt angry with her family, as though they enfringed upon her rights as a young woman to date or marry whomever she pleases. I naively came to the conclusion that she must eventually give up on her family in order to be happy. I was wrong.

My roommate explained to me that in her heart, family preceded anything else, friends, loves, accomplishment. She said that she could not ever find happiness knowing that she had disappointed her family, even if it meant giving up love.
As an American girl taught from birth the virtues of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, I cannot relate to this. For the first time, I had to accept the difference between us without trying to understand it. And now that I have accepted it, my sentiments have changed. There is something beautiful in achieving happiness by making your family happy.

This acceptance, all the while knowing I will never understand, has taught me the meaning of respecting differences. Reading Ramayana has enhanced this experience because it centers around a set of beliefs and virtues fundamentally different from my own.

At first I noticed a parallel between Swallow and my roommate in the emphasis on loyalty to family. Swallow dutifully respected her parent’s decision to sell her, and knew she could never return because, her parents, “…having taken the rice, would have no option but to hand her over” (1009). Yet further in the reading, I found a different kind of loyalty, that of a wife. Sita sees through all of Ravana’s trickery in her courageous rebuttals again and again.

“ ‘You speak of love, but it is not to love that you invite me but to debauch.’ “ (1045). Sita’s strength despite her husband’s absence exhibits the emphasis on wifely duty so valued in the middle eastern culture. However, my understanding of the Ramayana’s emphasis on loyalty muddied in the denouement, when Sita sees her parents after being reunited with Rama, and decides not to speak to them.
“After her experiences on Wu Shan and beyond, Swallow viewed her parents with fresh eyes. She had a revulsion of feeling. ‘I do not want to go in,’ she said” (1077).

During my first reading of this, I misinterpreted Sita’s revulsion as betrayal of her family. However, after reading it again, I came to a different conclusion. Sita was not truly born of this village family, she was born of divine descent, transcending the heavens and earth through meditation. She was put on earth for the sake of Rama, her husband, to whom she remained steadfast throughout incredible trials and challenges. Her loyalty is analogous to that of which the middle eastern culture values in its marriages, and to that of my roommate to her family. Thus, both cultures hold the family unit in much higher esteem than I, an American, have ever been exposed to. Again, I accept this difference and don’t try to understand it. I think it’s beautiful.

With No Direction Home

This scene doesn't show Dorothy as she enters the land of Oz for the first time, but you can get a sense of the simultaneous beauty and eerieness of Munchkinland. Of course, by this time in the movie the viewer is totally disillusioned with the magic of the place. The creepy Munchkin songs and mysterious mission the "good witch" assigned Dorothy (not to mention the Wicked Witch's threat) take care of that.

Reading “The Other Side of the Hedge” reminded me immediately of the feeling of misgiving I received watching The Wizard of Oz as a child. The beauty and vibrancy of the garden Dorothy stumbles into never eased my qualms about the place. I felt immediately disillusioned by the eeriness of its utter perfection, and the surreal, circus-like musical score heightened my suspicion. Even the voice of the good witch gave me the heebie jeebies. Nothing truly “good” ever sounds so drippingly sweet. She seemed almost insincere.
Forster echoed this sentiment in “The Other Side of the Hedge” with his character’s almost immediate disillusionment having discovered that perfection leads “nowhere”.
“ ‘But it must lead somewhere!’ I cried, too much surprised at his answer to thank him for saving my life” (730). This moment represents the characters realization of the catch-22 of perfection, that though the land “on the other side of the hedge” seems flawless, flawlessness is a flaw in itself. The character asks for “ ‘life, with its struggles and victories, with its failures and hatreds, with its deep moral meaning and unknown goal!’” (733).


I always imagine paradise to look something like this, my favorite part of Texas in Hunt along the Guadalupe River. I spent a couple of days here over the summer on a vacation. Initially, it was nice, but a sense of boredom and redundancy set in, and at the end of one weekend, I was ready to return to my "road". I wanted a challenge again as complacency gave way to anticipation of the coming school year.

The human sense of achievement seminates from struggle. Forster attempts to convey the necessity for hardship in life through the story with a metaphorical road. The character’s initial fatigue, exhaustion, and lack of will to continue down the road represents the common tendency to quit under pressure or trying times. The juxtaposition of the endless and dusty desert road with the green, fertile oasis portrays the human perception of perfection. At first glance perfection seems like paradise, but the human need for achievement overpowers the magic of perfection, and the struggles of the road suddenly become desirable.
The Bible addresses the struggles of life’s journey as if they are punishment for man’s curiosity. Yanweh God tells the first woman that she will have “pains in childbearing” for her sins and curses the man’s soil because he “ate from the tree of which [He] had forbidden [him] to eat” (741E). The Bible conveys these curses and punishments as the reason for the suffering in the world today. But are these curses really a punishment? We as humans would have no purpose without such suffering, we would be stuck again “on the other side of the hedge” with no direction. These “curses” are in fact necessary for happiness, which culminates in a man’s satisfaction with himself.

Wizard of Oz 1- Witch of the West and Glinda

This scene doesn't show Dorothy as she enters the land of Oz for the first time, but you can get a sense of the simultaneous beauty and eerieness of Munchkinland. Of course, by this time in the movie the viewer is totally disillusioned with the magic of the place. The creepy Munchkin songs and mysterious mission the "good witch" assigned Dorothy (not to mention the Wicked Witch's threat) take care of that.

Labors of Love

I found nothing more effective in communicating admirable character traits than the personal writings, correspondence, and diary entries of the First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson and Jackie Kennedy. Not only did the First Lady exhibit reveal their own grace, humility, and sincerity, it revealed the virtues of their husbands and relationships as a family. The kinship between the two families was remarkable as Jackie denotes in a letter to Lyndon B. Johnson, thanking him for his steadfast friendship throughout trying times.
Jackie notes the singularity of this close-knit relationship between a president and his vice president, in that it is usually more than tense. “But you were always Jack’s right arm…” She emphasizes his humility in working under John F Kennedy despite the fact that he himself was the more experienced senator and “taught Jack everything he knew.” This letter, meant for no audience other than Lyndon B Johnson, was a testament to their friendship. Jackie’s laboriously handwritten, several page letter emanates with sincerity and true appreciation. One can glean LBJ’s unique lack of hubris in his love of JFK and his family in such a letter. The correspondence exhibit in effect eliminates any skepticism of the legitimacy of their friendship.
Likewise, Lady Bird Johnson’s not to LBJ wipes away any doubt that the two had a warm, loving relationship. “In the name of tomorrow,” writes Lady Bird, “come eat, then sleep, and know that you are loved.” The perception the media gives us today of relationships in politics is so sensationalistic that a raw cynicism and mistrust of any government leader is now questioned. Notes such as these prove that there was a time of sincerity and companionship. Lady Bird and Lyndon B Johnson maintained a balance in their lives between work and more importantly, relationships. Lady Bird’s selflessness and genuineness as her husband’s friend was truly inspirational.

This montage not only portrays Lyndon B Johnson's love for his family, but the nature of his relationship with the Kennedy's. Jackie Kennedy gravely stands by his side as he is sworn in as president following JFK's murder.

The virtues of Lyndon B Johnson that surfaced in both the writings of Jackie Kennedy and Lady Bird arose again in each of the following exhibits. I was struck by his personability in the “sense of humor” exhibit, which played recordings of his hill country anecdotes. Lyndon B Johnson did not put on airs in the company of politicians. He related his past and lessons he learned growing up in the Texas hill country to his work. Johnson had a remarkable sense of place.
The actor portraying Johnson captured Johnson’s simultaneous humility and powerful presence. Entering the proscenium with a long stride, hearty Texan, “hello,” I immediately felt that this presence must be similar to the sense of the man in the flesh. The actor portraying Johnson said he had been called “an arm twister” as well as “a man of pure action”. These words communicate exactly the impression of Johnson I had after seeing the exhibits and then watching the performance. His stance, gestures, even the occasional chuckle throughout the performance impressed upon me his power as a speaker. I then made the connection between this powerful presence and his effectiveness with Congress. The Civil Rights Act could not have been passed without Johnson’s guiding hand.
Overall, the museum heavily impressed upon me the virtues of sincerity, friendship, humility, and sense of place. The Johnson’s and the Kennedy’s had a steadfast bond as both families valued these characteristics and found them in each other.