As for what she did to tick me off…

She is always complaining about her fans and promoting Twilight. Granted, Twilight has gotten a lot more attention than anyone expected BUT it had HUGE cult status before the movie was even made. I can’t stand it when these actors say things such as “I had no idea that it would be this big”. It is an actors’ responsibility to do some research on what they’re reading for BEFORE they sign a contract. I’m not saying that actors should be expected to research this before auditioning, but if they land the role, I think that it becomes their responsibility to make sure that they know what they are signing up for.

Furthermore, she has signed on for the 12 MILLION dollars promised for New Moon. Either take your fans money and be grateful or stop bitching and quit. Yes your life has unpleasant aspects now, but honestly? 14 Million dollars in exchange for some questions about your co star? Screaming when you attend a PROMOTIONAL EVENT? Suck it up. Maybe it is a little loud for her precious ears but watching any premier, signing, etc fans scream. It’s a fact – watch some youtube.

She comes across as very hostile and condescending towards her fans who yes, some of them cross a line but most of us don’t. Regardless of what anyone says, I do not believe that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are the first people to face this kind of extreme fandom. Look at the Spice Girls or the POTC fans, even Supernatural has rabid fans but the actors take it in stride. They (seem to) appreciate their fans for what success they have brought them. Kristen Stewarts livelihood depends on these people whom she is out insulting. Look at what her dad stated to Access Hollywood (“[she will present at the Oscars] when it’s a great movie, not just one that makes a lot of money.”). Yes, that is her dad speaking, but the Oscars were almost two weeks ago and she has said nothing to retract that statement.

People LIKE these movies, they LIKE these books if you don’t, QUIT! I wish she would let an actress who will appreciate the fans and appreciate the story take the role. I hate that this surly actress is going to take away from the film each time I watch it now. I mean I feel like Robert Pattinson thinks the same way but at least he doesn’t shoot his mouth off in interviews and INSULT the people who have brought him the success that he WANTED. And they did want it. Any actor or actress our age knows full well what some fans are like. I understand that it is more than some bargain for, but take your millions and live in Switzerland for a year or two if you want out. Otherwise be nice to the people who just want to love your work.

LINKS:

Dad’s Comments to Access Hollywood

One example of KStew’s STELLAR attitude

Michael Buckley’s Rant : What the Buck

Misheard and or played with Lyrics:

Dragonstei di.. numa numa
Some indian song with english subtitles!

People singing along to and or dancing to music:
UBC Numa Numa
That kid who sang numa numa
Its the EVOLUTION of dance!
Mortal combat! MOOOORTAL COMBAT! by smosh
Transformers.. robots in disguise… again by smosh.

Commercials!
Budweiser
Magic Fridge… maaaagic fridge!
Real Men of Genius: Mr. Really Really Really Bad Dancer (in twice because its my favourite… )
Real Men of Genius: Mr. Nudist Colony Activity Co-ordinaer
Real Men of Genius Compilation of: Mr. Really Really Really Bad Dancer, Mr. Way Too Much Cologne Wearer, Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor

Mini Wheats
Vanilla!
Strawberry!

Others:
Don’t Put It In Your Mouth!!!!!!!
Best Wedding Dance EVER! (seriously watch this)
Prison Dance in the Philippines! Note the guy in drag… on a side note this will be my wedding dance! woohoo!
For any Shakespeare fans out there.
BRAVO!!!! (Blackadder and my all time favourite TV scene)

watch for more favourites later … and or post more in the comments!

The Faerie Queen – Book One

Book One (Holiness) – Cantos 1-12

Books 1-3 = Text “A” (1590) Published

Spenser – c.f. Sidney

-          Sidney: flashy, spy, soldier, famous for sonnets

-          Spenser: administrator, believes in hard work, seriousness, moral plays

Intro

-          deeply allegorical

-          many different reasons for writing it

-          why read it? Why is it so hard? It is supposed to read like the bible. Hard and dense but spiritually rewarding

-          all about Elizabeth and her image – had to be harsh, cruel, rigid to hold power (she kind of build her own “cult of the virgin queen”) – both internal and external

-          Elizabeth = Gloriana

-          Central figure of book one = red cross knight

-          King Arthur’s quest to find the queen (had a dream of her)
- assume at the end of the play they would marry but she never did  - Spenser only wrote 10 books of 12 – unfinished

-          Work is called the Faerie Queen but she never appears – except in dreams
- idea of the absent center – Elizabeth is in the center and everything else surrounds her. Idea of everyone constantly attempting to come closer to the center – think Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

-          Allegory ^ different levels of meaning (literal, national, religious debate) there are more but national and religious debate is the most important
- National – the work is writing the history of England or what could be the history of England. Narrative of what England might become.
- published right after the 1588 Tilbury speech
- So text “A” Books 1-3 – published 1590 but he had been writing it for 10 years
- New protestant England is open to all these ideas – new colonies (North America etc)
- Religious debate: investigating what it means to be protestant – anti catholic propaganda

Book One

-          very deliberate in describing how to read it from the start

-          (1-10) “Lo I the man” – The Enid (eneed) begins the same – epic poem of the beginning of Rome
- renaissance translated line
- sets up FQ = end of England
- being changed against his will (oaten reeds à trumpet / peasant àpoet)

-          Trumpet = representative of war epic/ shepherd – pastoral
- Spenser being translated unwillingly from pastoral to epic war poetry
- being called to national duty enforced labour – service

-          (10-19) appeal to the muse
- O holy Virgin – could be talking to Mary but really Elizabeth
- nine virtues

-          (19-27) asking Cupid’s help – get Mars’s help so love angled towards war

-          (27-36) great lady, greatest Ile

-          Grounds the poem with a specific purpose

-          Psychological landscape

-          Even his companions can be seen as repetitions of him

Canto One

1. - (30) screams archaism 0 didn’t like to associate with old but Spenser does
   - armour (shell, ID – SGGK) no pentangle- instead war wounds – not his armour – allegorical
   - doing his duty, like the peasent who is becoming nationalistic – a warrior
   - religious – wears armour of God – footnote (242) taking on suffering, armour of Christ
   - how can Christ be seen as a knight? Protects and dies for others
2. – marks him as RCK
   - Saint George
   - audience expects an adventure
3. – Beginning of what will be played our in Canto 12
   - all knights have a lady and a dwarf à tradition (not SGGK but that was weird)
4. – Una, whiter than Snow (Jesus) rides behind him – Jesus figure
   - mourning? If you didn’t get the first reference – lamb – Christ (ass) if you didn’t get the first you get second
5. – line of ancient Kings and Queens who ruled Rome – now dragon riles rome
   - dragon = pope
   - Pope = antichrist
   - 1600s search for original church in England “Catholic is a perversion – disease”
   - they look at old anglo-saxon lit because they were searching for legitimacy
   - idea that Una/Faith/True Christian belief is what should be at the center of Chritianity.
   - protestant crusade
6. – 3 enemies of the Christian soul : flesh, world, devil
   - dwarf = human – the real
   - one must drag their dwarf along with them
   - useful and necessary but not privileged at all
   - reminds him of what he doesn’t want to be
   - monstrous othering
   - storm mirrors psychological danger, turmoil think King Lear
7. – forest = place of adventure and challenge
   - forest in latin = silvos – also means chaos/doubt
   - Dante begins in a dark wood – confusion
   - crisis drives them into a state of confusion
   - (63) Seems to foreshadow deceptive problems with human perception – flowed
   (61) lots of paths leading in – easy path leads to hell (wide = well trodden)
8. /
9. /
10. - Red Knight should not try to follow his intuition but follow faith à Una
11. /

Mankind

• English Renaissance and the European Reformation
• 16^th Century
• Why do we move from literature like mankind to Shakespeare, Marlow, etc.
• Personified Virtues – morality play
• Mankind (character) taunted and teased – encouraged to do all sorts of things
• “Psychomachia” – externalized representation of an internal conflict
• Catholic – get to heaven by doing good deeds vs. Protestant – through faith
• Conflict between Protestant and Catholic = great dichotomy
• Mankind  always carries with him his one prop – a spade (648) – spade represents hard work “devil finds work for idle hands”
•  Adam and Eve – Eve spins and Adam digs – redemptive
• Metaphor for Christian work = digging
• Dichotomy between work and idle deeds
• Mankind leaves his spade when he goes with the worldlings
• (615) – 1^st time we see the worldlings they implicate the audience – they sing a line and the audience sings back – the song begins very innocent and gets more and more filthy as time goes on – the audience doesn’t really notice the metaphor – easy to lead into something à the ease at which one can be lead into something (sin)
• Later the worldlings get the audience to raise money but it ends up being used to raise something from hell – during that time it was not unusual for the audience to donate money during the play – they used to make it a part of the production rather than demanding payment before hand or passing a hat after
• Paying someone to raise the devil is obviously an idle and bad act – therefore the audience is sinning
• Literary trick to make the reader/ audience like a morally reprehensible character – think Lolita

RENAISANCE(S)

• Notes taken from overheads
• Means rebirth
• Definition- the great revival of art and letters, under the influence of classical models which began in Italy in the 14^th century and continued during the 15^th and 16^th
• 1^st renaissance was in the 12^th century, 2^nd really kicks off with Dante and the sculptors
• They rediscover and reinvent Greece and Rome (classical period) really a continental phenomenon
• Italians 200/ France 100 years before England – Shakespeare not really “new”
• People writing then did not put the name on the period
• Great characteristic of the 19^th century – industrialization and colonialization
• Victorians reconstruct the Renaissance as something much bigger than it was – has been built up as a great “monolithic beast” – it’s a myth a construction – product of the 19^th century
• Were aware that they were doing something new but the English renaissance has been very exaggerated
• Process of “othering” to give an identity – middle ages labeled in the 16^th century (called middle ages because between Rome and Renaissance) – always looking backwards
• C.S. Lewis – professor at Cambridge and Oxford – “‘discovered’ there was no English renaissance and if there was it had no effect what so ever”
• Humanism and revival of the classics
• What does humanist mean? – both secular and religious
• People went to the University to become priests – with rise of renaissance – education not just about God – about people too
  - rise of philosophy – revival 2
  - expansion of schooling to the rising middle class (eg. Christopher Marlow)
  - education = classical in basis
• Literacy = more widespread
  - loss of control of WHAT was read
  - spread of ideas- dangerous for those in power and the church
  - destabilizing
  à similar to the effects of the internet
• Change of technology has effected social/cultural practice à no one protests anymore

Religious Upheaval

• Luther 95 theses nailed to church door – mythologized again – Protestantism had been bubbling away for over 100 years
• Printing aided its dissemination
• Profound effects of this debate
  - leads to anger, frustration, doubt
  -creates instability

Economic Effects

• 1348 – 1349 and 1360s = Black death kills 1/3 Europe’s population
  - fewer farm workers – labour shortage 14^th century
  - move towards pastoral industries in England – sheep, cattle

Urbanization

• London: 1500 – 50,000/ 1600 – 200,00/ 1650 – 500,000
  - chocolate, coffee arrives
  - implications – wealth, printing, art, reading, literacy, education ideas.
• Social Issues – new sumptuary lands (honestly Jenna I have  no idea what that means)
• Overseas trade conquest
  - leads to banking institutions (Venice 1587, Amsterdam 1609)
  - beginning of colonization in the Americas

TIMELINE
1485 – Henry VII
1500
1509 – Henry VIII

1547 –Edward VI

1553 – Mary I

1558 – Elizabeth I

1625 – James I

• Henry and the Dissolution of the Monasteries (began in 1538)
• Reason = he is jealous of power and dominance in his Kingdom – the time point is when he wants to divorce but its not the whole reason
• Didn’t like protestants – “dirty rebels”
• Establishment of new “English Church” – albeit one similar in practices to the Catholic Church
• Also broke off because England was broke – 1530 = 60% of the land was owned by the Church – new middle class buys land to gain status/ rank/ placement in society – monasteries pillaged
• Political ramifications – Spain, France, ect. – New power blocks form
• Economic and cultural impacts
• Uncertainty in belief and thus in society

Mary and Return of Catholicism

·        Fluctuation of religion in the 16^th century – social impact

Elizabeth I and England’s Golden Age

·        Our understanding of her reign is somewhat at odds with the reality, especially in the early years
- continuing political danger
-question of marriage – she would lose power
- Spanish armada – 1588

·        Faerie Queen = Elizabeth

·        Tilbury Speech on the eve of the Armada – 1588

·        Writers / literature turns female focuses
- to flatter Elizabeth (get paid)
- England has a Queen now

·        Body Politic – to invade the country is like to invade the virgin queen

·        Read Pages 122 – 130  (intro), 450- 466 (Shakespeare sonnet)

·        Concentrate on how women are described

• Reading Week

Tuesday February 26^th February

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (486)

Medieval idea of the World

- Hereford Map: 5ft by 3ft – Still resides in Hereford Cathedral

- East at the Top

- Center is Jerusalem – center of Christianity – crucifixion (dream of the rood)

- Paradise in the far east – lost

- Based on Greek and Roman Maps (cross and circle maps) but informed by Christianity and other narratives

- Not so concerned with current locations etc. – more about landmarks and important events (vs. current thought where maps are updated constantly)

- Monstrous races found on edges

Crusades

- Not a western attack – contrary to popular belief

- Muslim world much more advanced than western Europe – pressing up

- “Europe under siege”

- Not colonialist – if anything defensive

Actual Crusades
1. 1096 -1099 – successful
2. 1147 – 1149 – successful
3. 1189 – 1192
4. 1201 -1204
5. 1218 – 1221
6. 1228 – 1229
7. 1248 – 1254
8. 1270

- The crusades end about 200 years before Mandeville

- History of failure

Mandeville

- Seems to be a fictional character

- Patchwork of other tales and invention

- Very important/ influential in it own time

- Columbus read it and took it with him

- Think of Mandeville like a travel book

Prologue

- Begins at Holy Land – focus of desire/ destination – land of promise

- Preaching to the choir – reinforcing that your place is our place

- (488) – 2^nd paragraph – Why can’t we do this? (take it back)

- Internal weakness, lack of purpose, lack of common purpose

- World seen through a Christian lense

- Idea that they thought the world was flat = not true (they knew it was a sphere from the Romans and from their own knowledge)

–Frozen climate–

——-Known Lands——

—Torrid Equatorial Climate—

———Antipodes———

—Frozen Climate—

- Idea climate = race, skin color

- Sense of distrust or the potential for degradation by traveling (going native)

- Story of the phoenix

- Tells us what it means ( like the green knight – but NOT like Chaucer)

- Makes story of phoenix an allegory for Christian belief

- God created the world and everything in it so everything has Christian meaning

- Part of the Christian’s task in life is to figure it out

- (Bananas bit) Why apples? To have a point of reference like when we go and find new food – describe a tomato – like an apple but with edible seeds like a cucumber and etc.

- Cant just go and say that this or that is Christian – you have to adapt the pre-standing myth

- Has to defeat other beliefs

- “othering” – process of identity creation in terms of labeling other groups

- For 200 years – demonization of the Saracens (holders of Jerusalem)

- Mandeville – of he can’t beat them join them – or at least get them to join him

- Finds points of sameness between Bible and Koran – Mary, Judgment Day

- “We are the same in how we are both different from someone else”

- Others = Jews

- Conversion = important part of conquest

- Identity anxiety –conversion: Captives in crusades forced to convert or die

- Marco Polo traveled to china in 14^th century

- Lamany = 1960s esque communal hippie land, Utopian society

- Mandeville: “sexual freedom makes you a cannibal”

- Has to make other seemingly great culture seem bad

- Preloading of expectations (so when travelers go to Egypt and don’t see all this weird crap they will want to see and think they saw it by renaming other things – like if you went and didn’t see the pyramids – you would see a big hill or a pyramid hotel and say Ah ha the pyramids…)

- 15 +16^th centuries lots of cannibal propaganda to dissuade explorers from going to different places.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzwOsIh7FDE&feature=related

Detective Harvey Bullock is again one of the few honest cops in Gotham City (even if he doesn’t always operate by the book). He works very closely with Commissioner Gordon but does not approve of Batman’s interference. He thinks that Batman shouldn’t be involved with police business and almost feels like he is being undermined. Despite these feelings, he eventually grows to respect the Dark Knight.

Bonus fact: he always appears to be chewing on a toothpick.

Voice: Robert Costanzo (Joey Tribbiani Sr., Die Hard 2)

Dick Grayson’s parents were part of a high wire circus act. When Dick was quite young however, a villain named Tony Zucco cut the wire that the Graysons were performing on. Bruce Wayne happened to be in the audience and witnessed the events. Since then Dick has been Bruce’s ward. Now he attends Gotham State University and is seldom featured on the show. Robin later evolves into Nightwing in an attempt to show his independence.

Voice: Loren Lester (best known for his work as Robin)

James Gordon is the Commissioner of Gotham city. He rose through the police ranks honestly and is one of the few non corrupt police figures in Gotham City. He is very close with Batman but does not know his secret identity. He also happens to be the father of Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. The share a very close relationship and she sees a side of him that most do not. Gordon is also the operator of the bat signal thus explaining how he and Batman are able to communicate so well. It resides on top of his house.

Voice: Bob Hastings