Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Remembering Childhood

Latin Fest hosted by Alana
Food
Brazilian dancers mexican dancers, traditional costumes, brazilian dancers danced with people
the bells and chimes sung
trivia about different countries
games
photo booth

This past Friday I went to hangout with one of my roommates at the Latin festival dancing, games, and even some trivia.  However, it wasn't these things that threw me back to my childhood but rather the food that I found there.  One of my best friends growing up was from Bolivia and his mother was a fantastic cook.  I was reminded of the great times that we had together playing soccer and playing video games.  I hadn't thought of him in years but it was the taste of the food that sent me back in time.  These times were perfect and effortless, with no stress or concern or responsibility, and a loving lack of knowledge that left me oblivious.

These same feelings are what let me relate back to "My Papa's Waltz", I've never danced with any of my family but I can understand the feeling of being comforted in the hands of a parent, I can imagine to this day the feeling of being carried to my room when I was too tired to move my own legs, letting my own father carry me forward.

"Cincinnati" takes a drastic turn from this child like whimsy, creating a poetic realization of discrimination.  The poem begins with an immigrant moving to  Cincinnati and having a wonder as to what the new place would be like and believing it would be great, with nobody knowing who he is essentially giving him a new identity.  This is soon turned on its head with a passerby spitting on our speaker, and calling him a dirty jap.  The speaker realizes how little some other people care, saying they pass by likes spokes on a cart.  The speaker begins to cry fumbling for a hankie to clean his face and coming to the realization that nobody knows him but everybody thinks that they already do.

The hopelessness and senseless anger continues in Edgar Allen Poes novel "The Cask of Amontillado", where the anger simply takes control of Montresor for an unknown reason and comes up with a tedious yet totally Poe esque way of burying the man he hates alive.  Fortunato is tricked while drunk and sobers up to the fact that he would soon be completely buried alive.

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