...BLOOD-BURNING MOON by Jean Toomer 1 Up from the skeleton stone walls, up from the rotting floor boards and the solid hand-hewn beams of oak of the pre- war cotton factory, dusk came. Up from the dusk the full moon came. Glowing like a fired pine-knot, it illumined the great door and soft showered the Negro shanties aligned along the single street of factory town. The full moon in the great door was an omen. Negro women improvised songs against its spell. Louisa sang as she came over the crest of the hill from the white folks' kitchen. Her skin was the color of oak leaves on young trees in fall. Her breasts, firm and up-pointed like ripe acorns. And her singing had the low murmur of winds in fig trees. Bob Stone, younger son of the people she worked for, loved her. By the way the world reckons things, he had won her. By measure of that warm glow which came into her mind at thought of him, he had won her. Tom Burwell, whom the whole town called Big Boy, also loved her. But working in the fields all day, and far away from her, gave him no chance to show it. Though often enough of evenings he had tried to. Somehow, he never got along. Strong as he was with hands upon the ax or plow, he found it difficult to hold her. Or so he thought. But the fact was that he held her to factory town more firmly than he thought for. His black balanced, and pulled against, the white of Stone, when she thought of them. And her mind was vaguely upon them as she came over the crest of the hill...
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...Toomer’s short story “Blood Burning Moon,” the moon plays a central role in the resolution of a love triangle. Toomer indicates the moon in a negative way with just the title of the story, underscoring its wickedness: perhaps the moon runs on blood, lusts for it. It also foreshadows the nights events: “The full moon in the great door was an omen.” It “soft showere[s] the negro shanties,” contrary to our initial impression of it, perhaps lulling the people below into a false sense of security. The role of the moon is seen most vividly in the love triangle between Bob Stone, Tom Burwell and Louisa. Their interactions with each other closely parallel the behaviors of celestial bodies in orbit, much like the moon. Louisa’s mind floats between her two callers, Bob Stone who loves her and Tom Burwell, who also loves her, but “working in the fields all day, and far away from her, gave him no chance to show it.” Burwell is unaware of how much he holds Louisa to factory town, however, as “his black balanced, and pulled against, the white of Stone, when she thought of them.” The balancing act of the triangle mimics that of the moon in orbit in relation to surrounding bodies. As Louisa contemplates Bob and Tom, she comes over the crest of the hill, singing at the “evil face of the moon.” Tom, Bob and Louisa all perceive a stirring in nature, but in different ways. Louisa experiences it internally, blaming it on either of her callers, but ultimately indicating the moon as its cause: “they...
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...Family Blood Ties Goutier 1 Your Family Blood Ties What Ties Me to Me? Ginette Goutier Professor Vance Psychology 231 C 20 February 2013 What Ties Me to Me? Goutier 2 Abstract This paper will address whether characteristics, traits, and talents are genetically passed down to offspring; are they each the colored individual pieces that make up a puzzle? Or are they something more like the blended elements that fuse together to make a cake; something there with purpose but not really enjoyed until after the hard work is done. Poetry is an art form. It can be used as a method to relate and inspire others, or it can be used as an outlet for words unspoken. Poetry is not something that can be learned, it is something that can only be felt, put together, and solidified. The branches of poetry run deep in my family’s roots. I have cousins who write short stories for play to be used in Holiday Cards, and other’s who use their words to uplift the spirits of the saddened and hopeless. My cousin Rain Eerili, and my aunt Moon Ilis are both favored poets in our family. Each possess a wide range of talents and gifts but each have an uncommon background. One has a parental figure, who also wrote poetry, and the other grew up with no role model or interest in poetry, yet she writes with a style so unique to people of her age group. Raw talent is in everyone, whether it is genetically engineered or ignited through practice and dedication. Your Family Blood Ties ...
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...vision GIRLS: I could not turn form their revel in derision BOYS: THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. ALL: Then along that river-bank A thousand miles Tattoed cannibals danced in files Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong OOhhhhh3x (Creepy low voice) ALL: And "BLOOD" GIRLS: screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, ALL: BLOOD! GIRLS: screamed the skull-faced, lean witch doctors NIGEL: "Whirl ye the deadly voodoo rattle, Harry the uplands, Steal all the cattle, Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, Bing! ALL: BOOMLAY..BOOMLAY..BOOMLAY…BOOM!! A roaring, epic rag-time tune. From the mouth of the Congo... to the mountains of the moon OOOOhhh3x (creepy low voice) HANNAH: Death is an elephant DOROTHY: Torch-eyed and horrible NICA: Foam-flanked and terrible ALL: BOOM! CHEVI: Steal the Pygmies ALL: BOOM! CHING BEE: kill the Arabs ALL: BOOM! DORCAS: Kill the white men ALL: Like the wind… hooo..hooo..hoooo CHING BEE: Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost NIGEL: Burning in hell for his hand-maimed ghost HANNAH: Hear how the demons chuckle and yell ASDOLO: Cutting his hands off, down in hell NICA: Listen to the creepy...
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...Air was still, night starry with the moon sending silvery streaks of light. Sweat was trickling along my body as a I lay there in the terrace counting stars. I was all uneasy and disturbed. The humming of mosquitoes in my ears added to my irritation. They were busy sucking blood. The night watchman came on regular rounds. He would bang his stick hard and wake me up. How could I be expected to sleep in such circumstances. I felt that my blood was boiling. It was indeed very hot. rolled about in my bed and decided to take my shirt off. No sooner had I done this the mosquitoes attacked me and pierced their sharp needles ruthlessly in my body. All this was becoming terrible and no longer bearable. The street dogs were up to their antics roaming here and there causing disturbance. I got up from my bed and saw the streets. All seemed to be asleep except me. I was badly suffering from the stings of summer. Every time I jumped to my bed with the decision to go off to sleep but I failed. Time was passing at snail's pace I took turns in my bed. I sprinkled water over it but it seemed to change into stream having a burning effect on my body. With an effort I closed my eyes but something frightened me to open my eyes. The ghosts seems to be coming out of the darkness of the night. I could not wake up my sisters and brothers because I feared that they would laugh at me. I felt like Ancient Mariner who saw his friends lying dead on the deck and bore the loneliness and frustration. How did...
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...(Except his lungs, weak from the Black family inbreeding, can't handle it and he's coughing like a taxi in New York honks — often and loud and irritatingly.) Remus halves his calorie intake and continues as normal. (Except he's weak and woozy and dizzy.) Regulus doubles his smoke breaks and continues as normal. (Except for the smoke cloud that follows him everywhere and the way his coughing sounds like he's hacking up one of his weak lungs.) Remus refuses pain-relieving potions after the moon and continues as normal. (Except for the blood that seeps through his white shirt in the middle of Transfiguration.) Regulus burns himself with his cigarettes and continues as normal. (Except for the dark circles on his skin and the way he jumps when someone even barely touches his forearms.) Remus eats every other day and continues as normal. (Except for that time when he fainted in potions... and that time during the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff Quidditch match, and that time during Transfiguration, and that time during a Hogsmeade trip, and that time, and that time, and that time...) Regulus disobeys right in front of his family and continues as normal. (Except now he knows what Crucio is...
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...Leda and the Swan By: William Butler Yeats A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? Leda and the Swan Ever since the introduction of mythology in the early centuries of our worlds existence, people have been intrigued by the concept of Gods and Goddesses of Rome and ancient Greece. In William Butler Yeats’ sonnet, Leda and the Swan, he writes about Leda having sexual intercourse with the almighty god, Zeus whom in which has taken the form of a Swan. While Yeats’ sonnet is a traditional Shakespearean piece of history, the concept of God and humans interacting is anything but traditional. The title of the sonnet is...
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...as I squared up to my watch waiting for the tedious hand to reach the number 12. I preferred it when I could see the distance from me to my house, but right now I wasn’t close enough to tell. The tall branches penetrated the foggy indigo sky like daggers, robbing me of my senses and replacing them with fear. The jet black sky crept above me and teased my vision. Columns upon columns of trees postured like a battalion of soldiers, as the wind battled its way through the gaps. My feet trekked over the moist blanket of leaves that had coated the earthy ground. They seemed to take me nowhere. Suspicion hung over my shoulder. The bleak moon beamed down on the broken roof of my isolated house. A full moon. Tales of inhuman activity played games with my conscience. ‘Only one howls in the woods by night.’ A distinctive stench of stale alcohol and burning cigarettes stole my breath and strangled my lungs as soon as I entered the door of my abandoned house, as I watched my Dad forcing himself into oblivion. My stomach clenched as I took a heavy gulp, my head span and cheeks ripened. Imaginary smoke charged furiously out of my ears. “Dad, have you cooked dinner?” “N-n-n-o, I asked to pick it up from Nan’s on the way...
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...The Origin of the Vampire Vampires, are they a mythical creature that was created by superstition and folklore or did they begin from someone’s fantastic imagination based on a real live person? Or maybe it was created to explain a cluster of misunderstood medical conditions that began before the medical world had advanced science and knowledge on the body and its psyche. It’s a word that inspires awe, fear, and romanticism all at once. Vampires are known in every culture and have been kept alive through stories that have been told throughout the generations. When someone utters the word “vampire” most people’s mind jump to Dracula from the great love story written by Bram Stoker. Dracula was created because Stoker was inspired by a real live man, the infamous, Vlad Tepes from Romania. That story is where love and vampires were intertwined and a kind of admiration was born. Only till recently they have become these seductive beautiful men and women in movies like ‘Twilight’ and ‘The Lost Boys’. So we are going to embark on the journey of where vampires began and explore the different aspects and origins of vampires. How these creatures were created was recorded in European folklore, Greek Mythology, found in medical conditions, and even taken from an excluded book of the bible. What is a vampire? Where did they come from? Well to get some answers we must first start at the beginning. First we must look at the word vampire. It is also spelled “vampir” or “vampyre”...
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...queen tell “Shiva the the best way to defeat someone that uses dark magic is to fight them in the day since they are weaker in day and grow stronger in the night receiving power from the moon”. Shiva ask the queen “ what if you can't defeat them in the the day and they are just strong as you”. The queen tell Shiva...
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...It was night. The moon shined through a thousand stars. The sound of galloping horses rang through the land, pounded into the black dirt of Earth. He breathed heavily towards the group, his head hung, his body broken and aching. Smoke billowed upward from the giant fire, poisoning the air. Footsteps echoed in the background, muffled, silenced. Dusty, sandy, dirt-ridden circle of a red blazing fire. His eyes fluttered open, laying vision on eight shadowy figures dressed in red and black tar. They stood before him, eyes dark and empty from all emotion other than rage. (bloodlust.) One, a woman with (brown) eyes stepped forward, holding a decorated spear with a golden point his way. “Wait…” he mumbled through bloody teeth. “Wait….” The woman lunged the sharpened weapon at him. She stuck him in the abdomen, deeply twisting his skin around the cut edges of the blade. He cried out, a surge of (sharp pain) striking through him. Cringing with the last (round) of anguish, his head collapsed against the board that propped him forward....
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...The Rime of the Ancient Mariner BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Argument How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country. PART I It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din.' He holds him with his skinny hand, 'There was a ship,' quoth he. 'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' Eftsoons his hand dropt he. He holds him with his glittering eye— The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child: The Mariner hath his will. The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. 'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top. The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea. Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon—' The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose...
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...Mesoamerica Notes * The moon is normally represented as female * Lots of rulers in the Olmec period were expressed with gender ambiguity * Shamanism is basically the representation of trance state through art * All the Mesoamerican peoples were using the same ingredients in their cooking because there was interaction over distance Reading Notes 1/31/16 * Traits of Mesoamerica * Food via cultivation * Basic crops * Corn * Beans * Squash * Avocado * Papaya * Animals * Fattened voiceless dog (I cry everytime) * Duck * Economic Practices and Materials * Industries and tools * Construction of stone or clay * Ceramics * Stonepolishing of obsidian * Metallurgy * Textiles and basketry * Exchange * Markets * Transport * Hanging bridges * Gourd rafts * Military organization and gear * Wars for purpose of sacrifice victims * Ritual Practices and Materials * Deities: a series of divinities, ie “Tlaloc” * Sacrifice-related practices * Human sacrifice * Removing the heart form living persons * Head trophies * Canabalism * Some kinds of self-sacrifice * Ritual use of paper and...
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...The Murder of Oetzi An unexpected visit in the night led to the devastating destruction of the Italian Alps village. The wind gusted across the entire village as it took with it clumps of orange, red, and yellow crunchy leaves which spread the smells of decomposed leaves. While the hooting owls softly accompanied the soothing sounds of the winds. The trees that surrounded the village stood eerily still where most of them were naked and barren with only a few lonely leaves attached to their arms. The pitch black sky was illuminated by the full moon and many stars. The hundred villagers slept soundlessly in their mud worn huts. Particularly, a well-respected man with the name of Acca, chief of the village, who should have been awake to watch over the village alerting his villagers if intruders were to attack. Unfortunately, a woman’s agonizing cry served as the warning bell instead. A blood-curdling scream awoke Acca from his peaceful dream. “Wh-what was that?” growled the sleepy man slurring his speech. He yawned and rubbed his eyes with his rough hands out of habit. As he sat up on the ground he wondered whether the scream was merely an aspect of his bizarre dream. The side of his prominent, hooked nose twitched involuntarily which signaled that danger is near. He rotated his body slightly to the left trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of something that could prove whether the scream was real or not. While doing so the moonlight that beamed through the window revealed...
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...The night was cold and windy. The moon was a full moon tonight. The trees looked haunted and scary with their big shadows. The sky was completely pitch black. There was a haunted house. It had a purplish-blackish roof. The house was painted completely pitch black. The door was an indigo color. The lights were out, but the chimney was puffing out black puffy smoke. On the roof there were some very scary looking bats. They even looked real. On the front door there was a skeleton, and it kept on repeating, "Don't enter! Save Your Soul!" There were vines and plants growing over the haunted house. On a windowsill there was even a fake Chucky. When I started walking up to the door I felt like I was going to explode! I was so freaked out. I started sweating and started to shake. I was there, all alone. I wanted to scream, but it wouldn't come out. I was getting more freaked out by every step. I actually felt like I should turn back and run. But, the haunted house made me feel sort of drawn to it. A bat flew overhead and shrieked "eek!" I went to the doorknob and reached for it. It felt slimy and gooey. I looked and saw it had red stuff on it. I took the red stuff off my hand and then the doorknob. I felt the doorknob and it felt like soft wood. It was a dark maroon color and looked big compared to my little hand. When I opened the door it creaked louder and louder until I finally opened it the whole way. In the inside I smelled something burning. I saw spiders and cobwebs and dust...
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