Monday
part 2
I see food as an abundance that many take for granted. Food is everywhere, in all shapes and forms – and is a significant part in human beings survival for the past million years. In great works of literature such as, Homer’s The Odyssey, The Book Of J, and Laura Esquivel’s Like Water For Chocolate, one is able to deduce the relation food and knowledge have with each other. Thereupon, one will note how food affects ones perception of knowledge when dealing with right versus wrong.
“No quantity of scholarly learning can prepare one for the experience of life, and no lack of background knowledge can prevent a reader from feeling the truth and vitality of Homer’s poetry. Homer’s Odyssey in particular is human existence come to life; it is the struggle of human emotions” (Intro, The Fitzgerald Translation}. The Odyssey in and of it self produced the very idea of food and knowledge’s relation. In books 9 through 12 we see Odysseus crew struggle with hunger, a hunger that Homer depicts as one that can only be quenched through putting their lives on the line. “They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus”(p.72). Food in this sense is used by Homer to convey a feeling of temptation, and ignorance towards knowledge.
For the characters that are Odysseus’s crew the ultimate temptation comes in the image of bread, wine, and meat, and is enough to lure them away from their indented course. One thing that struck out to me the most is Odysseus; his ultimate goal through all of his paradoxes is to return to Ithaca, his wife, and his country. The time Odysseus spent with Circe was no doubt filled with sexuality. This carnal knowledge implored Odysseus to remember that food cannot distract him from his ultimate goal. This leads me to believe that Homer communicated foods power in corrupting one’s train of thought. After returning to Aeaean island and heading Circe’s warning’s of the coming perils that lay ahead, Odysseus then was told to not harm the Sun God Hyperion’s herds of cattle and flocks of sheep on the Thrinacian island – “If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both on your ship and of your comrades; and even though you yourself may escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men” (p.102).
Upon reaching the Thrinacian island, Odysseus made his men swear that they would live upon the food provided by Circe, and under no circumstance where they to slaughter the cattle on the island. While praying to the gods in Olympus, Odysseus fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, and headed back to the ship where his men were, Odysseus then “began to smell hot roast meat” (p.106). Odysseus knowing better did not eat the meat at any point during the 6 days his men feasted. The forbearing that Circe gave Odysseus, and which Odysseus delivered to his men, came about. For when they departed Thrinacian, Zeus on the urging of Hyperion delivered upon them dark waters, and dark clouds filled with thunderbolts. Eventually, Odysseus’s ship was sent back towards the Charybdis, which swallowed his ship and spared only his life. If Odysseus’s men possessed any kind of knowledge they would have headed Circe’s warning, but there stomachs groan was much too loud for their voice of reason to reach there heads. One can say that through this experience Odysseus was better off with no crew, that only through holding onto knowledge could one in the era of The Odyssey withhold the temptation of food.
According to The Book Of J, man was created from the clay of the Earth, and women from the ribcage of man. The creator Yahweh said, “you can’t eat from it, you can’t touch-without death touching you” (p.63). That was the one rule given to man, by the creator. It was simple; do not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden - the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The context of food and knowledge literally go hand in hand here. The serpent, which through out history is represented as evil, shows Hava (Eve) temptation. A temptation to know what makes this fruit so special that it must not be eaten. If you interpret this as symbolism and therefore say that the qualities of evil and sin are traced back to that point, you should examine it in this sense. Most things today come with a manual; the purpose of the manual is to explain how that thing works. One can come to a conclusion that the mysteries of the universe are so infinite that even today we are no closer to solving them than we were millennia ago. One can also see that the religious works such as The Book Of J, the Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad-Gita, and many more are merely manuals written at various times in history to explain the questions that are still unsolved today. With an open mind one can also see that the snake from a perspective of an individual reading these works as a form of literature can comprehend the snake as a voice of reason, logic, and even science. For we see, death did not touch the two “sinners” as god had once said. One can also conclude that the food from the tree of knowledge of good and evil gave Adam and Eve the insight to question their given reality and in turn create the story of sin. Did Yahweh not “sin” when he said death was the punishment for eating or touching the fruit? By eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were endowed with knowledge – “Where are you?” Yahweh called to the man. “I heard your voice in the garden,” he answered. “I trembled, I knew I was smooth-skinned, I hid” (p.63). “Who told you naked is what you are?” he asked. “Did you touch the tree I desired you not to eat?” (p.62). The man and woman knew they were naked after eating the fruit, thus connecting food and knowledge.
Tita De La Garza, the protagonist in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water For Chocolate, had also gone through a phase where the relation of food and knowledge is shown. After she left the ranch in a stupor of rage following a fight with her mother, Dr. Brown took in Tita as opposed to sending her to a physic ward. She stayed with him for a whole until she could recover. Tita had gone through immense emotional hurdles with her mother, and it all started sinking in. She closed herself off from the world and never talked… Until one day Chencha brings a hot bowl of Ox-tail soup that shakes Tita to her core and rejuvenates her. “Ox-tail soup! She couldn’t believe it…with the first sip, Nacha appeared there at her side, stroking her hair as she ate, as she had done when she was little and was sick, kissing her forehead over and over…Christmas rolls…chocolate atole, cumin garlic, and onion. As always, throughout her life, with a whiff of onion, the tears began…Chencha and Tita laughed reliving those memories…at last Tita had been able to remember a recipe” (page 124). The ox-tail soup brought Tita the knowledge of her past life, her sanity. The soup created the emotional glue that eventually transformed into her desire to be happy again.
My question to you, readers, is – to continuously accept the given reality, how hard would it be to have a moment like Tita, Odysseus, even Eve, to move out of the normal, and into a new space of life? Through food, one can find a knowledge that can lead to an inner peace, or an inner battle. For Odysseus, food was never a temptation, as was the longing to return home. In the Book Of J, we encounter a tale of deception and the origin of sin, all through the avatar of food. We see temptation again, and how it is used to bring about the downfall of Adam and Eve. Not their death, but their down fall in the eyes of Yahweh. And Tita, who found the knowledge of how to be happy again, through food. One can differentiate between the causes of dilapidated situations in, but how many of us want to fix it.
Works Cited:
1- The Book Of J. Trans. David Rosenberg. Editor. Harold Bloom. New York : Grove, 1990.
2- Homer. The Odyssey. “Intro”. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Random House, 1961.
3- Homer. The Odyssey. Wilder Publications. Signet Classic editionhttp://books.google.com/books?id=cDP5ncX76uYC&lpg=PA72&ots=fEQeXsIo24&dq=I%20was%20driven%20thence%20by%20foul%20winds%20for%20a%20space%20of%20nine%20days%20upon%20the&pg=PA71#v=onepage&q=I%20was%20driven%20thence%20by%20foul%20winds%20for%20a%20space%20of%20nine%20days%20upon%20the&f=false. Web.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cDP5ncX76uYC&lpg=PA102&ots=fEQeXsIo24&dq=I%20was%20driven%20thence%20by%20foul%20winds%20for%20a%20space%20of%20nine%20days%20upon%20the&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q=If%20you%20leave%20these%20flocks%20unharmed&f=false. Web.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cDP5ncX76uYC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA106#v=onepage&q=began%20to%20smell%20hot%20roast%20meat&f=false. Web.
4- Esquivel, Laura. Like Water For Chocolate. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
“No quantity of scholarly learning can prepare one for the experience of life, and no lack of background knowledge can prevent a reader from feeling the truth and vitality of Homer’s poetry. Homer’s Odyssey in particular is human existence come to life; it is the struggle of human emotions” (Intro, The Fitzgerald Translation}. The Odyssey in and of it self produced the very idea of food and knowledge’s relation. In books 9 through 12 we see Odysseus crew struggle with hunger, a hunger that Homer depicts as one that can only be quenched through putting their lives on the line. “They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus”(p.72). Food in this sense is used by Homer to convey a feeling of temptation, and ignorance towards knowledge.
For the characters that are Odysseus’s crew the ultimate temptation comes in the image of bread, wine, and meat, and is enough to lure them away from their indented course. One thing that struck out to me the most is Odysseus; his ultimate goal through all of his paradoxes is to return to Ithaca, his wife, and his country. The time Odysseus spent with Circe was no doubt filled with sexuality. This carnal knowledge implored Odysseus to remember that food cannot distract him from his ultimate goal. This leads me to believe that Homer communicated foods power in corrupting one’s train of thought. After returning to Aeaean island and heading Circe’s warning’s of the coming perils that lay ahead, Odysseus then was told to not harm the Sun God Hyperion’s herds of cattle and flocks of sheep on the Thrinacian island – “If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both on your ship and of your comrades; and even though you yourself may escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men” (p.102).
Upon reaching the Thrinacian island, Odysseus made his men swear that they would live upon the food provided by Circe, and under no circumstance where they to slaughter the cattle on the island. While praying to the gods in Olympus, Odysseus fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, and headed back to the ship where his men were, Odysseus then “began to smell hot roast meat” (p.106). Odysseus knowing better did not eat the meat at any point during the 6 days his men feasted. The forbearing that Circe gave Odysseus, and which Odysseus delivered to his men, came about. For when they departed Thrinacian, Zeus on the urging of Hyperion delivered upon them dark waters, and dark clouds filled with thunderbolts. Eventually, Odysseus’s ship was sent back towards the Charybdis, which swallowed his ship and spared only his life. If Odysseus’s men possessed any kind of knowledge they would have headed Circe’s warning, but there stomachs groan was much too loud for their voice of reason to reach there heads. One can say that through this experience Odysseus was better off with no crew, that only through holding onto knowledge could one in the era of The Odyssey withhold the temptation of food.
According to The Book Of J, man was created from the clay of the Earth, and women from the ribcage of man. The creator Yahweh said, “you can’t eat from it, you can’t touch-without death touching you” (p.63). That was the one rule given to man, by the creator. It was simple; do not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden - the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The context of food and knowledge literally go hand in hand here. The serpent, which through out history is represented as evil, shows Hava (Eve) temptation. A temptation to know what makes this fruit so special that it must not be eaten. If you interpret this as symbolism and therefore say that the qualities of evil and sin are traced back to that point, you should examine it in this sense. Most things today come with a manual; the purpose of the manual is to explain how that thing works. One can come to a conclusion that the mysteries of the universe are so infinite that even today we are no closer to solving them than we were millennia ago. One can also see that the religious works such as The Book Of J, the Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad-Gita, and many more are merely manuals written at various times in history to explain the questions that are still unsolved today. With an open mind one can also see that the snake from a perspective of an individual reading these works as a form of literature can comprehend the snake as a voice of reason, logic, and even science. For we see, death did not touch the two “sinners” as god had once said. One can also conclude that the food from the tree of knowledge of good and evil gave Adam and Eve the insight to question their given reality and in turn create the story of sin. Did Yahweh not “sin” when he said death was the punishment for eating or touching the fruit? By eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were endowed with knowledge – “Where are you?” Yahweh called to the man. “I heard your voice in the garden,” he answered. “I trembled, I knew I was smooth-skinned, I hid” (p.63). “Who told you naked is what you are?” he asked. “Did you touch the tree I desired you not to eat?” (p.62). The man and woman knew they were naked after eating the fruit, thus connecting food and knowledge.
Tita De La Garza, the protagonist in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water For Chocolate, had also gone through a phase where the relation of food and knowledge is shown. After she left the ranch in a stupor of rage following a fight with her mother, Dr. Brown took in Tita as opposed to sending her to a physic ward. She stayed with him for a whole until she could recover. Tita had gone through immense emotional hurdles with her mother, and it all started sinking in. She closed herself off from the world and never talked… Until one day Chencha brings a hot bowl of Ox-tail soup that shakes Tita to her core and rejuvenates her. “Ox-tail soup! She couldn’t believe it…with the first sip, Nacha appeared there at her side, stroking her hair as she ate, as she had done when she was little and was sick, kissing her forehead over and over…Christmas rolls…chocolate atole, cumin garlic, and onion. As always, throughout her life, with a whiff of onion, the tears began…Chencha and Tita laughed reliving those memories…at last Tita had been able to remember a recipe” (page 124). The ox-tail soup brought Tita the knowledge of her past life, her sanity. The soup created the emotional glue that eventually transformed into her desire to be happy again.
My question to you, readers, is – to continuously accept the given reality, how hard would it be to have a moment like Tita, Odysseus, even Eve, to move out of the normal, and into a new space of life? Through food, one can find a knowledge that can lead to an inner peace, or an inner battle. For Odysseus, food was never a temptation, as was the longing to return home. In the Book Of J, we encounter a tale of deception and the origin of sin, all through the avatar of food. We see temptation again, and how it is used to bring about the downfall of Adam and Eve. Not their death, but their down fall in the eyes of Yahweh. And Tita, who found the knowledge of how to be happy again, through food. One can differentiate between the causes of dilapidated situations in, but how many of us want to fix it.
Works Cited:
1- The Book Of J. Trans. David Rosenberg. Editor. Harold Bloom. New York : Grove, 1990.
2- Homer. The Odyssey. “Intro”. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Random House, 1961.
3- Homer. The Odyssey. Wilder Publications. Signet Classic editionhttp://books.google.com/books?id=cDP5ncX76uYC&lpg=PA72&ots=fEQeXsIo24&dq=I%20was%20driven%20thence%20by%20foul%20winds%20for%20a%20space%20of%20nine%20days%20upon%20the&pg=PA71#v=onepage&q=I%20was%20driven%20thence%20by%20foul%20winds%20for%20a%20space%20of%20nine%20days%20upon%20the&f=false. Web.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cDP5ncX76uYC&lpg=PA102&ots=fEQeXsIo24&dq=I%20was%20driven%20thence%20by%20foul%20winds%20for%20a%20space%20of%20nine%20days%20upon%20the&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q=If%20you%20leave%20these%20flocks%20unharmed&f=false. Web.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cDP5ncX76uYC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA106#v=onepage&q=began%20to%20smell%20hot%20roast%20meat&f=false. Web.
4- Esquivel, Laura. Like Water For Chocolate. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
Wednesday
Tuesday
Monday
Saturday
red straws and coffee cups
It is at the dinner table we find the Naranjo family, who individually has yet to take a step forward to assume the responsibility of fixing their paradoxical lives. It is through characterization, we-the viewers, can readily tell what brought about the change witnessed in the end. One can say that Martin Naranjo is the typical Spanish father, who loves his daughters more than anything in the world. Martin is a master chef who at his current age, is beginning to loose his taste. He relies on others to taste his food to make sure the quality is above par. He is still in shape, and still has an active sex drive –depicted to us by his medical check up. He is a sensible man, who understands the comings and goings of everyday life, but there is something about him that told me he is waiting for his daughters to stop relying on him, before its too late. Something about his look, told me he did not want his daughters to make the same mistake he made.
Martin’s cooking is defining quality that he has used as a way to express his love. With his loss of taste, Martin is beginning to loose his sense of his current reality. Once can argue that the loosing of his sense, Martin eventually began to see what he really wants from life. He is a man of smoothness; his cooking techniques transfer to his calm, cool, collected self. When it comes to dancing, women, and children, Martin is a cool cat. Through out the movie I could not help but think that Martin himself did not know what he wanted. That is until I saw the look in his eyes when he was around Yolanda. After that, Martin was just a man in love, who was balancing family, pain, and love at the same time.
Martin’s cooking is defining quality that he has used as a way to express his love. With his loss of taste, Martin is beginning to loose his sense of his current reality. Once can argue that the loosing of his sense, Martin eventually began to see what he really wants from life. He is a man of smoothness; his cooking techniques transfer to his calm, cool, collected self. When it comes to dancing, women, and children, Martin is a cool cat. Through out the movie I could not help but think that Martin himself did not know what he wanted. That is until I saw the look in his eyes when he was around Yolanda. After that, Martin was just a man in love, who was balancing family, pain, and love at the same time.
Thursday
How about the people on TV go to the bathroom
This song definitely surprised me. It's like the girl you're talking to, that seems hopeless, with no fun in sight, then out of no where, she amazes you and it's perfect. It's a bit like the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Wednesday
Tuesday
.com/_a7AOROGoHuw/S8TwfOhrU7I/AAAAAAAAADo/g7Acy1r3C8M/s1600/tumblr_kpou1hNqRa1qz7l0a.jpg)
Sunday
Indispensable
I've been doing a lot of thinking and was curious to what you think about the idea of sin being created to instill a voice of control over us. Is to sin, to want?
How thick is the veil over your eyes
Wednesday
Earth day; stupid.
Why are only 5 days dedicated to the Earth? I've been thinking of it recently, and it sickens me in that people had the nerve to make a day dedicated to the Earth. Whereas as we should be thinking, "everyday should be dedicated to the Earth". Were we not taught from an early age that we were "created" from the Earth? People on Earth day, for those 5 days in the Beginning of April, are supposed to make the Earth relevant in their lives. WOW. For 5 days people, guess what!? The Earth is the only concern, so... turn off your lights, stay home, and do nothing. Just watch the news about how other "people" are enjoying it. Then you think, "hey, lets go out, I want to enjoy the earth", ah - but today are the days to protect it. We should be dedicated to the Earth everyday, all days of the year. We are humanity, we are mankind, presumably the only near intelligent species with technology their is. So think about it, why in the fuck are we taught to only put an effort for 5 days of the year, when the Earth deserves more attention than our habits, daily rituals, dogma's, obsessions,and desires are concerned. (hmm: maybe earthquakes, storms, etc.)
If you know anyone who has or had a Toyota Prius, tell them I said they are an idiot.
Fiji water is fucking disgusting.
If you know anyone who has or had a Toyota Prius, tell them I said they are an idiot.
Fiji water is fucking disgusting.
Audacity
The news has failed us again. Instead of reporting on the actual crime committed, they talk about "Independent War Journalism". WHAT THE FUCK. This is why people look over so many things, because the news slants the story and in the process, continues to help down the collected intelligence of America, and the world. Sounds nice, righT? Check these videos out.
WikiLeaks
Totalitarian government trying very hard to cover it up.
POLICE STATE
WikiLeaks
Totalitarian government trying very hard to cover it up.
POLICE STATE
Sunday
Saturday
A epitome of knowledge, temptaion, sin, food, and reality.
I see food as an abundance that most of us take for granted. Food is everywhere, in all forms and shapes – it can be used to relay tremendous messages like Jesus feeding thousands with a loaf of bread and fish, or it can be used to relay joys and inhibitions to slow down and take like day by day - as opposed to living and worrying about tomorrow. Food and knowledge will forever be tied in a constant string that time can never be displaced. In great literature, such as Homer's The Odyssey, The Book Of J, and Laura Esquivel's Like Water For Chocolate, it is possible for one to see the similarities that food and knowledge play in the continued struggle of understanding life.
“No quantity of scholarly learning can prepare one for the experience of life, and no lack of background knowledge can prevent a reader from feeling the truth and vitality of Homer’s poetry. Homer’s Odyssey in particular is human existence come to life; it is the struggle of human emotions” (The Odyssey: The Fitzgerald Translation}. In The Odyssey, food is presented as a luxury. In books 9 through 12 we see Odysseus crew struggle with hunger, a hunger that Homer depicts as one that can only be quenched through putting their lives on the line. Food in this sense is used by Homer to convey a feeling of temptation, and ignorance towards knowledge.
For the characters that are Odysseus’s crew the ultimate temptation comes in the image of bread, wine, and meat, and is enough to lure them away from their indented course. One thing that struck out to me the most is Odysseus; his goal through all of his paradoxes is to return to Ithaca, his wife, and his country. He possesses knowledge that food cannot take away. The issue that Homer’s epic shows me is how food can corrupt one’s train of thought. How lucky of Odysseus that the gods would show him favor, in the form of Hermes appearing to inform him how to usurp Circe. After returning to Aeaean island and heading Circe’s warning’s of the coming perils that lay ahead, Odysseus then was told to not harm the Sun God Hyperion’s herds of cattle and flocks of sheep on the Thrinacian island – “If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both on your ship and of your comrades; and even though you yourself may escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men” (The Odyssey, book 12).
Upon reaching the Thrinacian island, Odysseus made his men swear that they would live upon the food provided by Circe, and under no circumstance where they to slaughter the cattle on the island. While praying to the gods in Olympus, Odysseus fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, and headed back to the ship where his men were, Odysseus then “began to smell hot roast meat” (book 12). Odysseus knowing better did not eat the meat at any point during the 6 days his men feasted. The forbearing that Circe gave Odysseus, and which Odysseus delivered to his men, came about. For when they departed Thrinacian, Zeus on the urging of Hyperion delivered upon them dark waters, and dark clouds filled with thunderbolts. Eventually, Odysseus’s ship was sent back towards the Charybdis, which swallowed his ship and spared only his life. If Odysseus’s men possessed any kind of knowledge they would have headed Circe’s warning, but there stomachs groan was much too loud for their voice of reason to reach there heads. One can say that through this experience Odysseus was better off with no crew, that only through holding onto knowledge could one in the era of The Odyssey withhold the temptation of food.
According to The Book Of J, man was created from the clay of the Earth, and women from the ribcage of man. The creator Yahweh said, “you can’t eat from it, you can’t touch-without death touching you” (The Book of J, P.63). That was the one rule given to man, by the creator .It as simple, do not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden - the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The context of food and knowledge literally go hand in hand here. The serpent, which through out history is represented as evil, shows Hava (Eve) temptation. A temptation to know what makes this fruit so special that it must not be eaten. If you interpret this as symbolism and therefore say that the qualities of evil and sin are traced back to that point, you should examine it in this sense. Most things today come with a manual; the purpose of the manual is to explain how that thing works. One can come to a conclusion that the mysteries of the universe are so infinite that even today we are no closer to solving them than we were millennia ago. One can also see that these works, such as The Book Of J, the Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad-Gita, and many more are manuals that were written at various times in history to explain the question’s that are still unsolved today. With an open mind one can also see that the snake from a perspective of an individual reading these works as a form of literature can comprehend the snake as a voice of reason, logic, and even science. For we see, death did not touch the two “sinners” as god had once said. One can also conclude that the food from the tree of knowledge of good and evil gave Adam and Eve the insight to question their given reality and in turn create the story of sin. Did Yahweh not “sin” when he said death was the punishment for eating or touching the fruit?
Tita De La Garza, the protagonist in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water For Chocolate, had also gone through a phase where food and knowledge is exemplified. After she left the ranch in a stupor of rage following a fight with her mother, Dr. John Brown took in Tita as opposed to sending her to a physic ward. She stayed with him for a whole until she could recover. Tita had gone through immense emotional hurdles with her mother, and it all started sinking in, she closed her self off from the world and never talked… Until one day Chencha brings a hot bowl of Ox-tail soup that shakes Tita to her core and rejuvenates her. “Ox-tail soup! She couldn’t believe it…with the first sip, Nacha appeared there at her side, stroking her hair as she ate, as she had done when she was little and was sick, kissing her forehead over and over…Christmas rolls…chocolate atole, cumin garlic, and onion. As always, throughout her life, with a whiff of onion, the tears began…Chencha and Tita laughed reliving those memories…at last Tita had been able to remember a recipe” (page 124). The ox-tail soup brought Tita the knowledge of her past life, her sanity. The suffering of her human heart was eased with the memories and finally know-how on how to move past her current state with the first spoon of soup.
My question to you, readers, is – to continuously accept the given reality, how hard would it be to have a moment like Tita, Odysseus, even Eve, to move out of the normal, and into a new space of life? Through food, one can find a knowledge that can lead to an inner peace, or an inner battle. For Odysseus, food was never a temptation, as was the longing to return home. In the Book Of J, we encounter a tale of deception and the origin of sin, all through the avatar of food. We see temptation again, and how it is used to bring about the downfall of Adam and Eve. Not their death, but their down fall in the eyes of Yahweh. And Tita, who found the knowledge of how to be happy again, through food. One can differentiate between the causes of dilapidated situations in, but how many of us want to fix it.
Works Cited:
The Book Of J. Trans. David Rosenberg. Editor. Harold Bloom. New York : Grove, 1990.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Random House, 1961.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Samuel Butler. http://www.greekmythology.com/Books/Odyssey/O_Book_XII/o_book_xii.html
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water For Chocolate. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
“No quantity of scholarly learning can prepare one for the experience of life, and no lack of background knowledge can prevent a reader from feeling the truth and vitality of Homer’s poetry. Homer’s Odyssey in particular is human existence come to life; it is the struggle of human emotions” (The Odyssey: The Fitzgerald Translation}. In The Odyssey, food is presented as a luxury. In books 9 through 12 we see Odysseus crew struggle with hunger, a hunger that Homer depicts as one that can only be quenched through putting their lives on the line. Food in this sense is used by Homer to convey a feeling of temptation, and ignorance towards knowledge.
For the characters that are Odysseus’s crew the ultimate temptation comes in the image of bread, wine, and meat, and is enough to lure them away from their indented course. One thing that struck out to me the most is Odysseus; his goal through all of his paradoxes is to return to Ithaca, his wife, and his country. He possesses knowledge that food cannot take away. The issue that Homer’s epic shows me is how food can corrupt one’s train of thought. How lucky of Odysseus that the gods would show him favor, in the form of Hermes appearing to inform him how to usurp Circe. After returning to Aeaean island and heading Circe’s warning’s of the coming perils that lay ahead, Odysseus then was told to not harm the Sun God Hyperion’s herds of cattle and flocks of sheep on the Thrinacian island – “If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both on your ship and of your comrades; and even though you yourself may escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men” (The Odyssey, book 12).
Upon reaching the Thrinacian island, Odysseus made his men swear that they would live upon the food provided by Circe, and under no circumstance where they to slaughter the cattle on the island. While praying to the gods in Olympus, Odysseus fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, and headed back to the ship where his men were, Odysseus then “began to smell hot roast meat” (book 12). Odysseus knowing better did not eat the meat at any point during the 6 days his men feasted. The forbearing that Circe gave Odysseus, and which Odysseus delivered to his men, came about. For when they departed Thrinacian, Zeus on the urging of Hyperion delivered upon them dark waters, and dark clouds filled with thunderbolts. Eventually, Odysseus’s ship was sent back towards the Charybdis, which swallowed his ship and spared only his life. If Odysseus’s men possessed any kind of knowledge they would have headed Circe’s warning, but there stomachs groan was much too loud for their voice of reason to reach there heads. One can say that through this experience Odysseus was better off with no crew, that only through holding onto knowledge could one in the era of The Odyssey withhold the temptation of food.
According to The Book Of J, man was created from the clay of the Earth, and women from the ribcage of man. The creator Yahweh said, “you can’t eat from it, you can’t touch-without death touching you” (The Book of J, P.63). That was the one rule given to man, by the creator .It as simple, do not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden - the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The context of food and knowledge literally go hand in hand here. The serpent, which through out history is represented as evil, shows Hava (Eve) temptation. A temptation to know what makes this fruit so special that it must not be eaten. If you interpret this as symbolism and therefore say that the qualities of evil and sin are traced back to that point, you should examine it in this sense. Most things today come with a manual; the purpose of the manual is to explain how that thing works. One can come to a conclusion that the mysteries of the universe are so infinite that even today we are no closer to solving them than we were millennia ago. One can also see that these works, such as The Book Of J, the Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad-Gita, and many more are manuals that were written at various times in history to explain the question’s that are still unsolved today. With an open mind one can also see that the snake from a perspective of an individual reading these works as a form of literature can comprehend the snake as a voice of reason, logic, and even science. For we see, death did not touch the two “sinners” as god had once said. One can also conclude that the food from the tree of knowledge of good and evil gave Adam and Eve the insight to question their given reality and in turn create the story of sin. Did Yahweh not “sin” when he said death was the punishment for eating or touching the fruit?
Tita De La Garza, the protagonist in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water For Chocolate, had also gone through a phase where food and knowledge is exemplified. After she left the ranch in a stupor of rage following a fight with her mother, Dr. John Brown took in Tita as opposed to sending her to a physic ward. She stayed with him for a whole until she could recover. Tita had gone through immense emotional hurdles with her mother, and it all started sinking in, she closed her self off from the world and never talked… Until one day Chencha brings a hot bowl of Ox-tail soup that shakes Tita to her core and rejuvenates her. “Ox-tail soup! She couldn’t believe it…with the first sip, Nacha appeared there at her side, stroking her hair as she ate, as she had done when she was little and was sick, kissing her forehead over and over…Christmas rolls…chocolate atole, cumin garlic, and onion. As always, throughout her life, with a whiff of onion, the tears began…Chencha and Tita laughed reliving those memories…at last Tita had been able to remember a recipe” (page 124). The ox-tail soup brought Tita the knowledge of her past life, her sanity. The suffering of her human heart was eased with the memories and finally know-how on how to move past her current state with the first spoon of soup.
My question to you, readers, is – to continuously accept the given reality, how hard would it be to have a moment like Tita, Odysseus, even Eve, to move out of the normal, and into a new space of life? Through food, one can find a knowledge that can lead to an inner peace, or an inner battle. For Odysseus, food was never a temptation, as was the longing to return home. In the Book Of J, we encounter a tale of deception and the origin of sin, all through the avatar of food. We see temptation again, and how it is used to bring about the downfall of Adam and Eve. Not their death, but their down fall in the eyes of Yahweh. And Tita, who found the knowledge of how to be happy again, through food. One can differentiate between the causes of dilapidated situations in, but how many of us want to fix it.
Works Cited:
The Book Of J. Trans. David Rosenberg. Editor. Harold Bloom. New York : Grove, 1990.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Random House, 1961.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Samuel Butler. http://www.greekmythology.com/Books/Odyssey/O_Book_XII/o_book_xii.html
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water For Chocolate. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
Friday
Thursday
Questions that will free your mind
1. Which is worse, failing or never trying?
2. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
3. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
4. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
5. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
6. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?
7. Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?
8. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
9. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
10. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars?
11. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?
12. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
13. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
14. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
15. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
16. Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?
2. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
3. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
4. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
5. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
6. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?
7. Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?
8. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
9. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
10. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars?
11. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?
12. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
13. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
14. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
15. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
16. Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?
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