In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to the story.

A few readings and videos we’ve been required to cover discuss the dichotomy between the oral and written. In the second blog assignment, many students wrote about the pros and cons between the two but the consensus seemed to be that there is no superior form. After reading Thomas King’s 2004 article “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial”, I don’t know which the course favors or where it stands in regards to oral vs. written. Perhaps it favors neither or even has a stance at all. Both forms have their advantages and disadvantages, but the sentiment I gather is that the two work well together and are better “interfused”, as King would say. King’s article, however, looks suspect and makes me doubt that he believes that thought.

In “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial”, King discusses the powerful storytelling voice in Harry Robinson’s stories and Robinson’s ingenious use of “oral syntax” which “defeats readers’ efforts to read the stories silently to themselves” (186). According to King, Robinson’s method “encourages readers to read the stories out loud” (186). King appears to be fixed on the idea that something so inherently profound is lost when oral stories are translated into English; he uses the word “metamorphosis” when describing Robinson’s method of translating the written into the oral as if something so inherently valuable comes out of that translation (187). I ask, then, is there something so inherently profound and advantageous the audience or listeners can extract of a storyteller’s “performance” that readers can’t when reading silently to themselves?

It’s obvious that the voice, gestures, and overall interaction between the storyteller and the audience is lost but is that really so significant? These questions led me into discussions about literary theory concerned with the death of the author (DOA). DOA is a post-structuralist view that disregards the importance of an author’s biography on their work; the birth of the reader is what follows, as it is the reader’s “language and culture [that] attribute meaning to the text”, rather than the author (Lee et al. 191). Steve Denning, an award-winning author known for organizational storytelling, backs this idea and claims that authorship is dead in written documents because it is the text the readers have before them and the interpretation the readers make out is independent than that of the author’s; conversely, in oral performance, he argues, the author himself stands before the audience therefore the author is not just “available for study” but the meaning(s) drawn are associational between “the speaker and listeners… [and] [n]either author nor audience can claim sole authorship of the meaning”.

But I would argue that the author is as dead as ever even when read aloud in Robinson’s story “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England”. My mom read it to me on my third and last run through and I’m certain that the way in which Robinson would’ve wanted it read (or performed) differs; my oral reading of the story compared to my mom’s contrasted already—we put emphasis in different words, phrases, stanzas, etc. An emphasis on a certain word or phrase over another may be significant enough to generate a different interpretation from one person to the next. After all, we have the means to think independently and are unique enough to have differing opinions. Oral story telling (compared to silently reading) may limit our ability to interpret stories differently, but in the end an individual has enough agency to accept or reject whatever it was they consumed.

In any case, I found the story a lot more enjoyable when read out loud. It features a character named Coyote who travels to England in order to settle territory issues between the colonizers and the Indians. It is written in broken English and is filled with “oral syntax”. It’s almost meant to be read like a conversation. You know when you read old text messages between you and your bestfriend? Exactly like that. It’s vague in many areas like,

“They just about the same distance all the time.
And they follow ‘em around.
Go for a long ways and maybe circle and …
chasin’ him around for a long time.”

But I found myself using my imagination in these ambiguous bits to kind of fill in the blanks. I would argue that such vague descriptions (read either silently or out loud) allow for more open-ended interpretations; the agency of the reader/listener is greater as it forces them to use their imagination as to how far or close that “same distance” was “all the time” or how long they would chase Coyote.

I went over the story three times. First time I read it silently to myself, second time I read it aloud, and the third time I had my mom read it to me because I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to find something profound after orally reading it out. I’ll admit I obtained a clearer understanding of the story each time I ran through it but I think it’s more so the fact that I went over it more than once. Had I reversed the order I “read” the story (that is, having my mom read it to me, me reading it aloud, and me reading it silently), I think I would’ve still came away with the same level of understanding. Again, I’ll admit that I enjoyed the storyteller-listener performance more than I did silently reading, but to say that I uncovered some sort of profoundness when I read it aloud and/or when it was read aloud to me, I would be lying.

Works Cited

“Death of the Author.” The Electronic Labryinth. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jun 2015.

King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Mississauga, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190. Web. 20 Jun 2015.

“Oral versus written stories.” Steve Denning. Steve Denning, n.d. Web. 20 Jun 2015.

Robinson, Harry. “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England.” Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. 64-85.

Yow, Valerie Raleigh. “Biography and Oral History.” Thinking about Oral History: Theories and Applications. Ed. Thomas L. Charlton, Lois E. Myers, and Rebecca Sharpless. Plymouth: Baylor University, 2008. 183-222.

First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. “The Earth Diver” story reflects a world created through collaboration, the “Genesis” story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation – right? That’s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?

I couldn’t quite put a finger on what I was irritated at after having read King’s take on the Native creation story, “The Earth Diver” and the Christian creation story, “Genesis”, but I think I’ve finally figured out what bugged me so much. It was how he dumbed down both versions and pinned them side by side for comparison. There’s so much more beyond “Genesis” that Christianity has to offer and there are so many positive things one can take away from the many stories found in the bible. Christianity isn’t solely all about “Genesis”… Noah’s Ark? Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ? There’s a lot of good morales to be taken out of such stories. Selflessness especially.

I do agree with King that maybe the world would be a better place if there were only one story that started with chaos and moved towards harmony, like “The Earth Diver”. It helps when everyone believes in a single cause; the human experience would be a lot more unified, collective, and orderly. But unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Obviously King creates the dichotomy between “Genesis” and “The Earth Diver” to compare the two. It helps him get his point across. As much as he pokes at the Christian doctrine for having the binary of good and evil play such a large role in its teachings, he creates the very same binary when he implies that one story is better, or good, (“The Earth Diver”), while the other is bad (“Genesis”).

I think King’s use of dichotomies and binary thinking isn’t as problematic as the question seems to imply. I believe that it’s simply in our nature to categorize things and people, think in binary, and create dichotomies; Lisa MP Munoz, the public information officer for the Cognitive Neuroscience Society and the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, in her 2014 blog post “We See Race – and Create Social Categories – Quickly” discusses exactly this, but in relation to race. Munoz reports that “our brains recognize race and categorize social groups” into “stereotypic and prejudicial associations”. In other words, when we see or meet someone, we sort them into their racial category and the stereotypical and prejudicial assumptions attached to those categories are then applied to the person. This is also called the social identity theory and the process goes as social categorization, social identification, and finally, social comparison. We categorize things/people so we can identify and learn about it/them, then we compare in order to see what is good/bad, better/worse, etc. The same thing can be said about what King is trying to do. He believes that if the world got off to a story about cooperation instead of competition, it would be a better place, but the only way he can make such a bold claim is the create the dichotomy between cooperation and competition. By creating this dichotomy, he can explain why one story is good and the other is bad, or why one is better than the other. We wouldn’t know what bad meant if we had no sense of good, and vice-versa.

Works Cited

McLeod, Saul. “Social Identity Theory.” Simply Psychology. Simply Psychology, 2008. Web. 9 Jul 2015.

Munoz, Lisa MP.  “We See Race – and Create Social Categories – Quickly.” Cognitive Neuroscience Society. Cognitive Neuroscience Society, 15 Mar 2014. Web. 9 Jul 2015.

Write a short story (600 – 1000 words max) that describes your sense of home and the values and stories that you use to connect yourself to your home and respond to all comments on your blog.

Read at least 3 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find. Post this list on your blog with some commentary about what you discovered.

This one’s overdue cause I spent too much time reminiscing and being nostalgic.

Just kidding. Kinda.

I was trying to remember all the houses I’ve lived in throughout my life and came up with 7 different ones. During this writing process I figured the words house and home can’t always be used interchangeably and that home can be a moment too.

I’m writing this blog past its due date so I’ve had the chance to read a handful of other ones and have noticed a list of the common shared assumptions, values and stories. According to Mattias Martens, in a very personal blog post that tells a brief story of his childhood in Saskatchewan, adolescence in Yukon, and latter bits in Vancouver, home “is a habit that builds up around you”; additionally, it can be “small and scattered”. Kathryn Cardoso, in her blog about home being difficult to find due to the constant relocation she faced early on, argues that home is “a complete sense of nothing”; this nothing for Kathryn is the wilderness as it draws out the sublime. In Jeff Malo’s blog about end-of-semester-visits from Kelowna to Coquitlam, home is “familiarity and comfort”; Jeff believes that home is where there are stories one can attach to landmarks and where one’s friends and family reside.

I think this list of mutually shared assumptions is spot on. When I think about home I think about all of the different places, “however small and scattered”, I’ve lived in (Martens) from my grandparent’s place in a small province in the Philippines to the big city in Manila; followed by my family’s move to Vancouver and the multiple basements and apartments we rented before finding our first house; my summer-long stays at my grandma’s in Honolulu; and my (temporary?) move to Kelowna for post-secondary. Home is the door I unlock at the end of the day, the shoe rack I put my kicks on, the drawer where all the keys are supposed to be in, the love seat I lay on, the TV that runs idle in the background playing local news or sports highlights missed during the day, and the phone I use to browse social media. This is the ritual I go through at the end of a work/school day in my house. Or the habit, as Mattias might say.

Furthermore, home is a place that’s intrusive-thought-resistant. Kathryn states that “it’s a complete sense of nothing”. I agree with this idea and relate it to my room.  My room is very minimal. Books, memorabilia, and photos are all organized and tucked somewhere in my closet free from plain sight. My bed, dresser, hamper, and clothing rack are the only things immediately visible. Clutter stresses me out so I try to keep everything neat and tidy. I don’t want to have to think about anything so any school work, mail, and technology are kept out as much as possible. A festival wristband or a concert ticket I recently attended will probably be the only thing on top of my dresser that can be considered clutter. But even then it’d trigger positive thoughts and not negative ones. When you’re an English and Cultural Studies student reading wordy academic articles all day long that talk about how much this world sucks, the last thing you want to do is read (or think) some more. As students we spend so much time trying to decipher what’s being said that the little energy left can only be used to think about the basic things. I want to be able to lay on my bed on a dead Sunday afternoon and think about nothing, or be able to lay on the floor doing back stretches on a dead Tuesday evening and think about nothing. Home is a place of nothingness, where if Buddhist monks were to watch me, they would be jealous of my attainment of Nirvana.

Home is a place I feel comfortable and am familiar with. It’s the small province of San Manuel, Pangasinan I was born in where everyone knew each other and seemed to genuinely care for one another. It’s the little duplex I lived in in Manila where if my neighbors heard me dribbling a basketball outside they would come out and shoot hoops with me as well. I remember as a kid, my friends and I would stop by the corner store just at the end of our street to get soda in a plastic bag after biking around the neighborhood. Home is predictable. It’s knowing the lady behind the counter of that corner store and her knowing our exact order before we even placed it. It’s a place you just know.

It’s also a place we attach stories to. Home is the boba joint everyone in high school took their first girlfriends to because no one could afford anything more than two four-dollar boba drinks. It’s the skate park by the rec center we spent evenings and weekends on because we were too broke to do anything else. Or the caged basketball courts we sprained our ankles, fell on the pavement, and hit some crazy game winners in.

Whatever home is, I think it’s ultimately a place where we can be ourselves. It may be our room in our house, the outdoors, church, or an arena. I have so many different ideas of home. I think of all the places I feel comfortable and familiar in. Places where I’m surrounded by likeminded people. Home to me isn’t bound to a physical place—I don’t think it’s limited to that. Home is also a moment of bliss. Home was when Zedd dropped “Clarity” at Contact Music Festival 2014 and had to tune out the sound just to let the crowd sing the lyrics:

‘Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn’t need
Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don’t know why
If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?
If our love’s insanity, why are you my clarity?

Essentially, home is a place we can be ourselves.

Works Cited

Cardoso, Kathryn. “Where Is Home?” ENGL 470A. UBC Blogs. 5 Jun 2015. Web. 13 Jun 2015.

Chow, Kevin. “Thailand – Coke in a Bag.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 17 May 2010. Web. 8 Jun 2015.

Martens, Mattias. “The Sense of Placelessness.” ENGL 470A. UBC Blogs. 4 Jun 2015. Web. 13 Jun 2015.

Malo, Jeff. “Short Story Post #4.” ENGL 470A. UBC Blogs. 5 Jun 2015. Web. 14 Jun 2015.

ZeddVevo. “Zedd – Clarity (Official Video) ft. Foxes.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 11 Jan 2013. Web. 8 Jun 2015.

Your task is to take the story that Kings tells about how evil comes into the world — and change the story any way you want as long as the end remains the same: once you have told a story, you can never take it back.

Once upon a time a tribe of great apes existed. This tribe of great apes lived freely in the rainforest, jumping from tree to tree, swinging from branch to branch, and eating whatever they pleased. They kept to themselves and didn’t much interact with the other animals unless they hunted.

These apes were observant, always watching how other animals behaved. They knew where the birds would migrate when dry season hit and what time of day the rats would scavenge for food. They even knew when plants would bring about new crop and which parts of specific slow-growing ones were to be left untouched if they wanted to maintain a balanced environment.

One dry season, however, the temperature was unusually warmer. Some weeks were so hot that forest fires would occur. This would happen continuously until acres and acres of trees and plants were destroyed. The sun eventually found its way onto the forest floor, reaching the cracks and crevices that were once covered by the shade the leaves provided. As a result, the apes and all the other animals that shared the rainforest with them were deprived of the nutrition that came from fruits and vegetables.

Many animals became malnourished. A lot became ill and died after some time. The tribe’s population declined as a large number of old and young died. Parents mourned the death of their children, and children mourned the death of their parents. Afraid of the consequences of death and no longer existing, the apes tried to relocate and find new food sources. They rummaged through the jungle in search of an area unaffected by the heat. In a region they had never seen before, they found these strange plants that had fleshy stems propping up off the ground and supporting a cap which drenched downward. They covered a vast area of the rainforest, growing from miles on end. Some were as big and as tall as trees, but some hung around the bottom of the forest floor accompanying the grass and little pebbles.

Being cautious animals, the apes decided to wait and see how other species would be affected after consuming these strange things. They camped at the top of the trees to watch. Each day a different horde of animals would come by to feast on these strange plants. First there were horses that ate what seemed to be too many; they got aggressive, but ran faster than usual after devouring the plant. Second were a pack of wolves that ate and ate until they started fighting with one another. Third were a group of boars that bit off a mouthful and were rejuvenated. They ran off with a newfound energy.

The apes, having watched how the strange plant, in different increments, affected different animals, chose to eat the amount the boars ate. They didn’t feel satiated but were afraid to eat too much. The onset of effects was slow, but the effects got there. They felt something go off within them that increased their senses. Their vision, hearing, sense of touch and smell were heightened and they were now bursting with energy.

They made use of these new found powers to trek further into the rainforest, searching for more things to eat. They hunted all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and animals but made sure they didn’t eat too many. They knew overhunting would make an unbalanced environment, and they needed a balanced one to ensure their children’s survival in the future. How could you eat more pork in the future if you eat all the pigs now? They spared most of the young and the female animals and only ate what was enough. The effects of the plant would plummet after a few hours until they reached baseline again, so the apes would make back-and-forth trips, each time eating just a little more of the strange plant and delving further into the jungle.

Eventually, the forest-fire-causing-sun-rays caught up to their journeys and burnt the part of the jungle they had relocated to. The apes faced the same problem: starving and malnourished once more, but this time lost deep in the jungle. Mustering up the last bit of will power they had, the remaining members of the tribe trudged through the now barren landscape in search for the area that housed the strange plants. They retraced their steps and miraculously found the plants again. The tribe wanted its effects to last a long time so they decided to eat twice as much more than before.

But they didn’t get the powers they were so used to getting after having eaten the plant; instead they started to feel ill and vomit. They thought that they were going to die, that this was it for their species. They were only half right. After some time they recovered from the nausea and began to see their surroundings differently. They could see things they hadn’t seen before, hear sounds they hadn’t heard before, and felt the gentlest touch. The dried grass on the ground started to breathe and draw out geometric patterns that filled the floor, the remaining trees around them started to look alive, and the sun’s rays beamed out rainbows. They were overwhelmed by the visuals—colors, geometric patterns, and fractals continued to build on top of each other until the apes found themselves in an unfamiliar environment. They forgot everything: what they did to get to this state, what they were trying to accomplish before, who they were, who their friends were, and who their family was. Each ape was sure they were dead

It was a confusing and scary experience but after some time they returned back to the forest and back to being apes. For what felt like eternity, the apes were shown the secret of the cosmos. They no longer feared death and not existing, they knew a life after death existed for they had just experienced it.

Having conquered their ultimate fear, they decided they would just enjoy the left over luxuries available in the forest. They gathered the remaining strange plants and occasionally ate a mouthful for energy. The apes travelled through the jungle eating more than necessary and leaving nothing behind for other animals. They no longer cared for a balanced environment so they ate and ate until nothing existed but the long trail of scraps and corpses they left behind.

I read through Genesis before writing this one and didn’t know exactly what to write. I had a mini existential crisis when trying to directly answer how evil came into this world because questions about our existence is tied into the prompt as well. The story is based on Terrence McKenna’s “Stoned Ape Theory”–that our ancestors consumed magic mushrooms through which they developed self-awareness and a new level of consciousness.

I told this story to my mom and at the end she asked what the point of this was to which I explained that it was for a class and the idea was to tell a story about how evil came into this world. She was confused about how evil came into my story for the sun was one source, and the strange plant was another. I’ll leave that up to the rest of you to decide though, because I don’t even know myself. Ultimately, I think evil is just an idea; what one person may find right, another may find wrong. Therefore, I don’t think evil existed until we developed a conscience. In general Buddhist teachings, for example, suffering is evil and the point is to escape suffering; one can do so by reaching Nirvana in order to escape the cycle of death and rebirth. So essentially, in this perspective, evil comes into the world right when one enters it.

Works Cited

Arnold, Lee. “Stoned Ape Theory Might be More than Just Stoner Logic.” Mysterious Universe. 8th Kind Pty Ltd, 3 Jan 2014. Web. 5 Jun 2015.

Red. “You Do Not Exist: A Look Inside Ego Death.” Ascensium. Ascensium, 19 Feb 2013. Web. 11 Jun 2015.