Wasteland Of Drugs

The other day Anastasia brought up the idea of a drug addict's wasteland. This reminded me of that book I previously blogged about called A Million Little Pieces. James Frey (the author) said that his life between ages of about 16-23 he was entirely blacked out. That is definitely a sense of a wasteland in itself. By continuously abusing these substances, he lived in his own sort of wasteland. However, this wasteland is very different from the typical dump we described.

Holy Grail JAY-Z

When I hear "holy grail," one of the things that pops into my mind is Jay-Z's song "Holy Grail." I didn't actually know this, but his whole album, released in 2013, was called "Magna Carta Holy Grail." These are obviously two very important terms in history, so I looked up why he decided to name his album this. This is the consensus that the internet seems to come to:

The whole point of the Magna Carta was to usher power back to the people of England and away from King John in 1215. It was kind of a revolutionary document that changed the whole meaning of the monarch. Jay-Z thought that this album of his would completely revise the way of hip-hop/rap. When he referenced the holy grail, he apparently did not mean for it to encompass any religious meaning. Rather, the word "grail" literally means "an object or goal that is sought after for its great significance." Jay-Z's goal was to successfully impact the music through his album.

I just thought this was pretty cool to be able to relate the actual history to such a modern concept.

Fragmentation

I thought it was interesting that this poem was so fragmented. For me, personally, it was hard to follow. It reminded me of a book I read one time titled Identitical. This book constantly switched between two twins' perspectives of life. It was fragmented and the reader didn't realize the perspective changed until halfway through the new twin. When I read the Wasteland I thought it was weird my mind went straight to identical but that is how I got through understanding the reading. 

A Sick Sensation

I too find "strange synthetic perfumes" deathly. I am sure that most of you have witnessed one of my sneezing fits during the school. Most of my sneezes are reactions to a strong odor, usually a synthetic one from lotion or perfume, maybe cologne, but my nose just gets so irritated that I find is hard to focus and do any activities, I become useless and my life force dwindles. The scent of modernism is killing my air ways. What I am trying to get at here is that in Eliot's second section, "A Game of Chess," talks about how these scents block out authentic/natural smells and how modern form of these smells is coming at a price.
-I guess if I want to smell good I will have to suffer a little bit.

My House

After reading section three of the Waste Land, The Fire Sermon, and how the nymphs had departed from the lifeless Thames river, it reminded me of my own street called Dryades, which is like a nymph, but they live in trees. If you have heard of the uptown construction, maybe you saw it during Mardi Gras, you should know what I'm about to talk about. The construction has been blocking my street for four years now and has been done for two. The area is now used to store the machines used to dig up the neutral grounds and whatever else those machines do. There are never any workers and less and less cars pass by now since it is a construction zone. The scenery of my street has turned from a lively short cut, to get away from Newman school traffic, to a lifeless, desolate place were the dryads have departed from, like in Eliot's poem. The construction waste land is taking over New Orleans.

HOLY GRAIL IN HOLLYWOOD

Recently we read The Grail. Our discussion about the grail triggered a memory of a movie I recently watched. It was "The da Vinci Code," where Tom Hanks has to protect the Holy Grail. However, the grail was not a challace... IT WAS THE BLOODLINE OF JESUS CHRIST!!!! (DUN DUN DUUUUNNNN).  In the beginning of the movie, the grail was believed to be the cup from the last supper, however through analyzation of "The Last Supper" and "Madonna on the Rocks," Hanks was able to figure out that the actual grail was the living decendent of Jesus Christ. It's really cool and has some action scenes, and maybe we could watch it in class @msking... 

Daaang Saul, back at it again with savagery

Breaking Bad reference part 2!! I just watched the last episode of season 1 of Better Call Saul. He is emotional (I won't tell you about what) but he literally says as he calls bingo at a nursing home, "B as Belize, beautiful place so I've heard. I would love to go there. But let's face it that's never gonna happen...none of us is ever leaving this god-forsaken wasteland." DANG SAUL! Being savage with these poor old people. This made me start thinking about Waste lands in general. For the old people, it is the retirement home. For Saul, it is his dead-end practice. For each individual, their wasteland is basically what the detest and cannot avoid most in the world.