Finale

I'm actually pretty excited about how my creative project turned out.  I chose the "Trickster Tale" option, crafting a story from a Native American Indian perspective, incorporating the very essence of Trickster Tales into a longer, 9-page short story.  It's quite fantastic, and it was a lot of fun to write.  Of course, I'm in Chadwick's Horror-Writing workshop too, so it came out pretty terrifying.  But I'm sure that fits in well with Trickster Tales too.

Looking back at the semester, from here at the end, I think that'll be my favorite part of it:  the way it'll affect my stories.  I remember way back at the beginning, when we were watching "Reel Injun," I got inspired to create an awesome tribe story that has since evolved into an entire world mythology that I'll need to probably write some novels on at some point.  This class has given me a great insight into true tribal culture too, so I won't be an outsider writing about exotic cultures; I actually know quite a bit about how Native American Indian people lived before Contact (and a bit afterwards as well, thanks to that History collection of essays, as well as the Cherokee museum).  I'm always fond of learning "true" history, instead of that garbage they fed us in elementary school and high school.

Also as a final note directly to Dr. Hobby, you should know about a game coming out soon called Assassin's Creed III.  The series (Assassin's Creed, that is) is known to be historically accurate and include in-game history and characters from the time-periods they're set in.  The series has appeared in places such as ancient Masyaf and Renaissance Italy, and I've actually found a ton of parallels between the games and my Humanities classes.  Anyway, Assassin's Creed III is coming out soon, and for the first time, the series takes place in America.  In fact, it's during the American Revolution, and the main character is half-white, half-Indian.  I'm expecting to learn a ton of "true" history from the gameplay, and it might be worth you checking out.  As I said, they're known for their historical accuracy, so it'll be interesting to see the portrayal of Native people from an open perspective, as well as learn the truth behind how our country came to be founded.  Even from the little things I know about history, it's enough to say that most people probably  have no idea what really happened back then.  Maybe this game will help spread the knowledge. 

Pictured:  Why I love video-games

Now that all of that is out of the way, it's time to talk about Trickster Tales.  Tuesday's class was a bit of a blur, since I was focusing on my own performance and also trying to figure out the ending to my Creative Project while listening to the other performers.  I did learn that I'm good enough at being a performance-artist that when I mess up, I can shift it into a joke.  That's good to know, since I'm performing at the Asheville Poetry Slam this Monday.

Of course, one of the most memorable performances from Thursday was "The Talking Penis".  That story was one of my favorites while reading through the book, but it wasn't one I would've wanted to perform.  The story overshadows the performance no matter who tells it, I think. It's both a great example of the humor of Native American culture as well as an illustration of how our two cultures differ in the realm of openly mentioning sexuality and genitalia.  Modern Americans would likely not enjoy that story.  Oddly enough, the internet would probably take it pretty well, though.  Of course, the internet culture does tend to be a bit more...risque than main-stream.

Not a Trickster Tale

Another memorable performance was "Coyote and Eagle Visit the Land of the Dead".  Of course, any classroom event that involves throwing things at a teacher is bound to get a response from the crowd.  The tale focused on Coyote and Eagle, both of whom had recently been struck by a death in the family, and their decision to travel to the Land of the Dead in order to bring their loved-ones back.  In the process, involving dead boat-rides, blind-folds, moon-eating, from evisceration, and ghost-theft, the two heroes managed to completely destroy the circular process that once was:  that ghosts would return like flowers during certain parts of the year.  Now, however, thanks to their adventure, dead people can never return.  That story is really cool for me, mainly because of the weird kind of magic/physics that the story's originator came up with.  While dead people are ghosts, their bodies are weightless (Because they're just spirits, I guess [fun fact:  I originally put "souls", but I believe that is a Judeo-Christian-Muslim belief, where as "spirit" is more pantheistic and therefore more appropriate]).  While the ghost-people become more substantial however, and they return slowly to real life, their bodies become heavy.  There's nothing deep about me pointing this out; I just thought it was cool. The originator obviously put a lot of thought into this story, considering it from scientific as well as theological points of view.

So that's it for the class, I guess.  Now that it's over, what have I learned?

• that white people suck.
• that all people suck.
• that Native American culture is based on an oral-form of storytelling, which incorporates circular forms, rather than the written and linear forms that we're used to.
• That films boiled all Indian culture into one, simple, misrepresentation amalgamation of the many different, distinct, rich clans and histories that once were and still remain today
• Therefore, film people suck
• Sherman Alexie writes about Indian stereotypes that happen to be true for his family, and he'd rather not have people try and blame him for that
• Sherman Alexie should not direct ever again
• Cherokee people own us, and that's hilarious
• Humor was and is integral to all that is Native American Indian culture
• Possibly the worst holocaust in history occurred right here, and no one talks about it.  
• Which brings me back to my thesis:  all people suck.

And I still think 1000 words a week was a bit much.
But I'm glad I took this class.