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Hissie's SNEEZE page - Best Posts of Fall Semester 2017

Best Posts of Fall Semester 2017

Dear Friends,

If you are reading this you've arrived upon my SNEEZE page.

What's a SNEEZE page?  Here I've devised an easy and effective way for you to enter deep into my blog.  For your convenience, I've created a series of links for my favorite posts.  

Take a look around and CLICK on the one you like best.

                                                             Con mucho carino,

                                                                                         Hissie                                                         

Janis Joplin - Queen of Psychodelic SoulSoundtrack of My BookshelvesAngelina: Compassion and DefianceThree Things You Probably Didn't Know about MeDolores Huerta - Soldadera of the Farmworkers MovementThe Death of Marilyn Monroe

Tragic Butterfly

Today I share a song from my favorite opera!  Actually it’s the only opera I know.  The song is called “Love Duet.” The opera is Puccinni’s Madama Butterfly. The story is brutal.  You’ll hear it in the song and see it in the video - a beautiful but naive Japanese teenager throws her life away for the love of a cynical American sailor.

In English 201, we read  M. Butterfly,  a crazy theatre piece based on a true-to-life love affair between a French diplomat and a Chinese opera singer. The action takes place during the sixties which I like because we learn about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Vietnam War.   We talk about cultural conflict both a personal and political levels. The protagonist of the play is a man named Rene Gallimard who is obsessed with the Asian Mystique: “I have a vision.  Of the Orient,” he says. “That, deep with its almond eyes there are still women.  Women willing to sacrifice themselves for the love of a man.  Even a man whose love is completely without worth.” 

The story goes like this: working as a French diplomat, Rene carries on a torrid love affair with a beautiful Chinese Opera singer only to find the women of his dreams is indeed a man.  How can that possibly happen?  They were friends, lovers and confidants – intimate the whole way – for TWENTY years!  Rene only learns of the deception much later when he is accused of treason by his own government.  In the courtroom, not the bedroom, he finds out that his Song (that’s her name) is an agent of the Chinese government.   Blinded by love, he’s been used – he’s passed on sensitive political information.    He’s thrown his life down a deep dark hole that he will never crawl out of.

Throughout  M. Butterfly Rene obsesses with the the story Madama Butterfly.  More than anything he’s always dreamt for a life of passion. Well, he got what he wished for….

Although the story is often difficult to follow, I’m happy to have read it for opening my eyes to an entire new world.  I’ve never read much before about Asian culture.  Mr. Lewenstein helped us see the parallels between the opera and the play.  Both end in horrible tragedy.  In class we our discussed Orientalism, Imperialism, Feminity and the Male Ego.  “Do you know why women’s roles in the Peking Opera are always played by men?” This is a line from the play.   I didn’t know, but I do now.  China was and probably still is an oppressive state.  The story teaches us an important lesson about gender equality:  Women should never allow themselves to become passive or submissive.

Their voices need to be heard. 

Irony in His Blood - Alanis Morisette in M. Butterfly

In English 201, we read about opera legend Maria Callas.  Many say she was the perfect singer to interpret the tragedy of the Madame Butterfly.  Here, I select Alanis Morisette to voice the irony. 

And Isn't it "Ironic..." Don't You Think?

The voice of Maria Callas may be perfect for Madama Butterfly. Here, the lyrics from Alanis Morisette's "Ironic" fit nicely to the text of M. Butterfly: “And isn’t it ironic…” Many people have criticized Alanis’ interpretation of irony in the song. Irony is the use of words to express the opposite of what is expected. They say her lines are weird or funny, but they are not ironic. For example, “like rain on your wedding day.” Stuff happens. The weather on you wedding day may be unfortunate, but it’s not ironic. Still, I like the song. You can’t say that the lyrics won’t make you think about possibility and expectation. What goes through the mind of a ninety-eight year old man who wins the lottery? How can he expect to spend his money? He’ll probably have a heart attack trying to figure it out. In M. Butterfly, Rene must have felt the same way for his relationship with Song. He had waited his whole life for her, and when he finally found her in his arms, he didn't know what to do with her. For Rene, Song gave him everything that he had ever wished for, and it killed him. That’s both funny and cruel.

Alanis Morissette Lyrics – “Ironic”	David Hwang Text – M. ButterflIy
It's the good advice that you just didn't take Who would've thought, it figures...	This is the ultimate cruelty, isn’t it? That I can talk and talk and to anyone listening, it’s only air — too rich a diet to be swallowed by a mundane world.Why can’t anyone understand? That in China, I once loved, and was loved by, the Perfect Woman. ( Act Two – Scene 11 )
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife It's meeting the man of my dreams	The love of a Butterfly can withstand many things — unfaithfulness, loss, even abandonment. But how can it face theone sin that implies all others? The devastating knowledge that,underneath it all,the object of her love was nothing more,nothing less than … a man. (Act Three – Scene Three)
He won the lottery and died the next day It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay	My mistakes were simple and absolute — the man I loved was a cad, a bounder. He deserved nothing but a kick in the behind and instead I gave him … all my love … ( Act Three – Scene Three)

“Over the Rainbow” : A Plea to Escape a Dreary Life

In Mr. Lewenstein's English 009 class, we read the memoir Girl, Interrupted.  It's about a young woman trying to navigate her way through her mental illness. When her parents commit her to a mental hospital, she has to look inside herself to find out who she really is.  I liked the book.  After finished it, Mr. Lewenstein asked us to contribute a song to our Girl, Interrupted Soundtrack.  We were supposed to connect our music with our reading.  I thought a lot about it and this is what I came up with:

When I read Girl, Interrupted, I hear Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow” in the film The Wizard of Oz. Here, Judy played Dorothy, a young girl yearning to escape her surroundings in Kansas. In the memoir Girl, Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen finds herself trapped in a parallel universe (see chapter one.) Both girls are depressed and frustrated teenagers. They’ll do anything to end their misery. Here is what is the most cool part of this selection: The real-life Judy Garland is basically Susanna Kaysen.

From a very early age, she was pressured and pushed and manipulated into doing things she didn’t want to do. Judy’s life became a pattern full of drugs, heartbreak and self-destruction. When she sings “Over the Rainbow,” she is basically foreshadowing both the story of her life, and the tragedy of Susanna Kaysen.  In both works – The Wizard of Oz; and Girl, Interrupted – the song could represent the road to freedom. Both girls need to find a way out of their depression. To do so, they have to learn once more to believe in themselves. 


I know Dorothy sang the song  before the tornado hit the farm.  It was early on in the movie.  She believes she’s all alone in her world and dreams of a better place.

That’s why I believe “Over the Rainbow” should appear early in Girl, Interrupted.  You should hear the song in the cab on the way to McLean– maybe it could be Judy singing on the radio – as Susanna sits silent in the backseat with her eyes closed. At this moment, Susanna doesn’t know what to believe or who to trust.  Her parents have turned her over to a psychiatrist.  He’s diagnosed her with Borderline Personality Disorder.  Now she finds herself on the way to a strange, new universe.  I’m not sure if Dorothy was crying when she sang this song. Or, if Susanna was tearing up in the backseat.  But clearly, it’s a sad, sad moment for both girls.  It deserves a sad, sad song. 

Judy Garland’s  “Over the Rainbow”	Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high There's a land that I've heard of once in a lullaby.	“Take her to McLean,” he said, “and don’t let her out till you get there.” I let my head fall back against the seat and shut my eyes   (“The Taxi”  9).
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue And the dreams that you dare to dream, Really do come true.	“In our parallel world, things happened that had not yet happened in the world we’d come from” (“Politics” 28)
Somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly Birds fly over the rainbow Why then, oh why can't I?	“In a strange way we were free.   We’d reach the end of the line.  We had nothing more to lose” (“Bare Bones”  94).

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is sad and depressed.  She’s trapped in a an adult world where she has no say.   In the movie, Dorothy sings the song in the middle of a bland and gray landscape.  There is no color.  No movement.  There is nothing there that would remotely resemble happiness for a young girl.  It’s a little bit crazy that the movie star singing this particular song is also fragile and depressed.   At the time, Judy must have felt she had no control over her life.  Her mother pushed her beyond her limits.  The studio made her every decision.  She was seventeen  and worked like sixteen hours hours per day.   No high school.  No friends.   Every time Judy sang this song, she said she cried. She couldn’t help herself.  

Girl, Interrupted MVP - The Vermeer

Life Interrupted

My MVP just may have come to me before I even opened the book.  It’s all in the title – Girl, Interrupted.  We all can sense how Susanna’s life was “interrupted” by her illness.  I mean, she was a energetic and talented young woman.  She must have been pretty.  The boys liked her, and so did the men.  For a teenager in her position, it must have been the saddest and loneliest taxi ride to McLean Hospital.   She was giving up the best years of her life, and she knew she wasn’t going to get them back.

But that “Girl, Interrupted” is not the most valuable part.  For me, it was the trip to the Frick Museum with her English teacher  to see the Vermeer paintings.  Of course, that scene made me nervous.  It made her nervous.  We both knew that something sick was about to happen. There she was, waiting for her English teacher to stop and kiss her.  It wasn’t if he was going to do it; it was when he was going to do it.  In anticipation,   she found herself escaping down a corridor when she  stops suddenly in front of “Girl, Interrupted At Her Music” by the Dutch painter Jan Vermeer.   The painting was of a young girl turning her face away from her music teacher.

It seemed to me that this was an important – if not mystical -  moment in Susanna’s life. As she stood there it was like the girl in the painting was speaking directly to her. “I looked into her brown eyes and I recoiled,” says Susanna.  “She was warning me of something – she looked up to warn me. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she had just drawn a breath in order to say to me, ‘Don’t!’ (166).  Oh man, I wanted to say the same thing, but how is an inexperienced 17-year-old to know of the implications?

Susanna must have regarded this experience so meaningful  that she returned to the scene 16 years later and wrote about it again:  It’s the second time around when Susanna shows real understanding for the way the world works.   She detects the sadness in the young girl’s eyes.  The music teacher is right on top of her, telling her something like, “This is the way it has to be…”  Susanna knows what the music student feels inside.  For Susanna, it wasn’t a momentary interruption; it would be a lifetime of sadness.

How many of us can recall those life-changing, self-discovery moments?  Could we write about them like Susanna did?  What she saw in the young girl’s eyes, that’s my MVP.