Naivety side two

So here I am in Whitefish with some fifty Canadiens who are all having a jolly good time. One of them is curious to know why I laugh so much, at what I myself actually say sometimes. He describes it as being completely awkward as well as the opposite, so you know what good that does. At this point we're eating, drinking, and merrying at the Bulldog Saloon before we bed down before our first go at the mountain.

The next morning the skiing wasn't too shabby considering this shatty winter, but there aren't as many stories going on around you when 'it's just you and the mountain,' as they say.

It was that evening which really opened my eyes to this whole concept of swirling and sharing and intertwining storylines. We got back to hotel, and I have to bathe before we have our night on the town. So I begin to collect what's left of my clothes in the weekend pack. There's one garment which I notice to be particularly fitting. It's a simple tee from a theatre company back home which puts on an annual improv comedy show. There's one team per high school who may compete, they play games, and it's open to the public. I was the public back then, and I even got a tee shirt from the competition. I know that my friend from the previous evening would appreciate it's content. I take my shower, dress to impress, and join the party headed to dinner.

"Hey Joe, wait up! Check this out. Haha! Look what it says, 'I Crack Me Up.' You get it?"

"You know what, that is pretty funny, just you don't laugh at it."

"I already did back a the room." And now we're headed to grab some Mexican food then things start to get extra odd. The Mexican place is neighboring the Bulldog, and there's another bar behind it. I'm excited to watch some football, but no one else is because they're not from the US. They could talk to me about hockey for some time, but not American football. I ask the waiter if we can turn on the game, but he jokes that they don't watch that-type-of-football here before going to grab the remote. The Broncos are getting whooped by the Patriots at this point once we turn on the game, and everyone knows there's little use in the television being on. What else will we do, is what we're thinking? We decide that we'll go around in a circle and tell jokes, but before the session starts Diana speaks up and points over at the window exclaiming, "Wave at the penguins!" What the hell is going on here? That's what I ask the waiter when he comes back. He tells me it's some local tradition for when the penguins came down from the north, invading the Yeti land, there was a huge upheaval and the Yeti kind has been on this say for the past hundreds of years out to extinguish the penguins from the their property. Later there was a king and queen which entered the picture and have tried to bring peace between the two peoples. Neither have taken kindly to the extra politics. I think this is ridiculous, but it's not out of the question. The waiter leaves, but five minutes later [of which were uselessly filled with watching a beating of the Broncos] I look to my right to find a Yeti staring right in the eyes. I said 'Hi' I think, but I was probably confused with what's really going on. There's Canadians. There's Skiers. There's penguins. There's Yetis. There's locals. There's king and queens. There's me.

Our group heads to back bar after dinner and finds photo-ops with two dressed as aristocrats, the king and queen for the evening. After one photo we leave and outside we find three more Yetis, each enjoying a beer and cigarette. There's a lot more to the story too if there was a discernible storyline but instead I'm still on the outside looking in. I can only think..Where did these stories come from, and how were they brought about?

Naivety is knowing not of ignorance

When you play it dumb you have to be somewhere you wouldn't typically sit through such nonsense. When I was reading Rushdie Iff the Genie breaks it down to Haroun and says 'Anybody can tell stories. Liars, and cheats, and Crooks, for example. But for stories with that Extra Ingredient, ah, for those, even the best storytellers need the Story Waters.'

It got me thinking that I may not be the best of storytellers, but I should and shall appreciate all of the stories around me. I get the feeling that I started the assignment earlier from being so naive. That weekend I take off, skipped Friday's classes and took off up north. There I'll meet a friend from high school whose coming down with some buddies from Edmonton. So it'll be like Diana and four of her friends or so. There's a first time for everything. It's a lengthy trip, from Butte to Missoula where there's a large strip of straight interstate road. Many are tempted to fire all their cylinders on a rather safe turf. I took advantage shooting up to 95-97 to pass one or three other cars. It's early, but the sun goes down early and I don't want to drive in the dark long. But I should probably slow down, and unfortunately that thought should have been thunk quicker. A Highpo off the Anaconda exit tracks me down and lights me up, his Charger badass, he caught me fair and square, roll down the window.

"You were going a little fast back there.

I was I'm sorry officer.

I snagged you at 84 so it's your lucky day, we start writing tickets at 85 so I'm going to run some paperwork and you'll be on your way.

Thank you Sir." After that I thought said to myself, 'It's going to be a beautiful trip up to Whitefish' knowing that I ain't speeding nor worrying about racing the sun no more. I get to see my brother when I come to Missoula, and I tell him that I'll be back through come Sunday, we can watch some football then. It's dark now and I have to drive three more hours. Fleeing believing to be back Sunday, but from there veering near Flathead Lake. When I come to Polson I finally can see the lake, and I'll take the one where I can see water. I can't see anything, but I love every minute of it thinking I'm going to live here someday. I may not be able to see much, but there are many houses right near the main road. Their evening lights are twofold reflecting off the water. There's one final pass before entering into Kalispell bounds. Whitefish is a small town fifteen minutes further north. There I find Diana having to be very discreet in my freeloading involvement. I'll stay in her hotel room for the weekend, assuming that I'll be on the floor. It turns out freeloading is easy, but anticipation is difficult to grasp. Diana has traveled down with around fifty people from her university. Our room is on the first floor where I bring my things. There are six girls and now a boy in this room alone. They tell me to brag, but I know that would be a bad idea given what I'm doing. Diana, her roommate Aliyah, and I begin the catch-up phase in the hallway full of mozying Canadians. Most of them are shitfaced. They've been drinking since the morning, like Saturday football games back home. They are also dressed like hipsters. The theme is to travel as a lumberjack, skier, mountain man, hunter, something of that nature. They're hilarious and they want to drink more because beer is so cheap in Montana! Many say 'they're starving, we want to eat food--in America.' I agree with them. Tonight they want more booze, so bar ho! We go out and mingle with some of the people we'll be skiing and eat and drink and be merry. I ask several where they're from, they answer with names I don't know of, usually small towns, suburbs of Edmonton or Calgary, or more rural towns. They ask me the same--from where I came--and I say from school down in Bozeman. All of them besides Diana don't know of the place. The time spent in this displaced perspective makes me feel like the foreigner here. Early the next morning we head up the hill, Big Mountain is how I know it but they renamed it. The foundation of snow was good, give or take. This is my third time skiing this month but hadn't gone two years before New years.

Whew. Think of all the things that are going on around, obvious and not. Those are stories, stories that we may have the fortune of figuring out. I'll finish this story in the morning. Out.

Random Passage Act

I'm going to make sure this scoop is from the first fifty pages of The Secular Scripture.

"Nineteenth century writers of romance, or of fiction which is close to romance in its technique, sometimes speak in their prefaces and elsewhere of the greater "liberty" that they feel entitled to take. By liberty I they mean a greater designing power, especially in their plot structures." (Frye 46).

Hmm, does this idea of liberty apply to such a specific group? Probably not.

I read somewhere that Rushdie's novel is a "censorship allegory" in that he's taking his utmost liberties against those who control, litigate, and police the real opinions of others. Persons' voice loses luster without it's insight and stripped-down, raw, sad-but-true belief in the realities of the world. Salman Rushdie is not a romance writer from what I've read all while grappling with the ideal structure and spectacle of a good romance. Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a coming-of-age tale, and there are small portions of romantic movement. Haroun gets a taste of bigger things in the big-boy world; the conflict, the powers and players, the . Of course there is a girl in it for Haroun, but there are larger matters on hand and Haroun's quite the naive youngun. This is a story of the hero where a journey has summoned his services and he proceeds to succeed, to save the world from being stripped of stories! The romance in the story doesn't fail so much as it acts as a cliffhanger. He reveals her beautiful black locks early, the big boys figure out her ploy midway, then she accepted and kisses the hero in the end. Then what happens? I don't know, it's kind of a tragic romance because there's no answer to the aftermath. So what can we say--Get it Haroun!

Rushdie's allegory is aimed at embodying other large orders in the world. The structure of his story has these larger orders, what we may also understand as Rushdie's liberties challenging his own contrived hierarchical design. The pirates who've poisoned the story streams are a symbolic complication and installment of censorship--their leader addresses the unnecessary nature of stories and believes they should become nothing. He attempts to permanently suppress the rich waters with a poor solution, but the structural foil fails to spoil. This is an small look into the larger order of Rushdie's design within this particular novel.

Furthermore, what other liberties does he take as an author and allegorical artist? Am I wrong, is this a good romance?

Stream 1: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

From page one of Solman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories and the discourse over happiness and unhappiness. I'm thinking of Samuel Johnson, the writer, critic, and lexicographer who had his fair share of struggles in understanding happiness. His last short novel, Rasselas, and the characters within discuss and interpret happiness, yet, like Johnson, never quite come to any conclusions. A tough subject, indeed.

With that said, the story takes an interesting turn when Iff the Water Genie explains that this story-water is real and has immense affect on the story and its teller, the water providing that extra Umph! Haroun at first is disappointed in the believability of his father's stories because they have no source. Then he comes to discover that there is a source, the story water, which we come to find later is polluted.

With all this said, Rushdie's story isn't polluted even though he's claiming that stories very might well be, it's definitely a page turner.

Let's backtrack, when the Genie explains to Haroun to anyone can be a storyteller, but only those with that extra fuel, that extra gear, are captivating and successful in their craft. It got me thinking about my abilities, or lack thereof. It's troublesome to think about, but don't let your insecurities get the best of you because there's plenty to tell even if you don't completely understand the story. Just Go! Tell, and let the story speak for itself.

I'm sure that plenty of my stories are good but I tell them ineffectively.

I'm sure that plenty of my stories are poor but I tell them effectively.

Some stories, both mine and of the sea, real and fictitious, contain that extra Umph!

Haroun surely does, thus far (I'm halfway).