Hippity-Hop
If tricksters are consumately artists, it stands to reason that they should be found in all areas of artistry. In a text about the rise of the Hip-Hop Generation entitled,
Can't Stop Won't Stop, The roots are traced in part to the Jamaican music scene. An anecdote related about a "mistake" (a portal to discovery) struck me as particularly tricksterish in spirit. It is as follows:
In 1967, a sound system head affiliated with Duke Reid named Ruddy Redwood stumbled onto Jamaican music's next great innovation. One afternoon Redwood was cutting dubplates when engineer Byron Smith forgot to pan up the vocals on The Paragons' hit, "On the Beach." Redwood took the uncorrected acetate to the dance that night anyway, and mixing between the vocal and the dub, sent the crowd into a frenzy during his midnight set. Rather than apologize for his
mistake (emphasis mine) the next day, Redwood emphasized to Reid that the vocal-less riddim could be used as a B-side on the commercial release of the singles...A single band session with a harmony trio could be recycled as a DJ version for a rapper to rock
patwa rhymes over, and a dub version in which the mixing engineer himself became the central performer - experimenting with levels, equalization and effects to alter the feel of the riddim, and break free of the constraints of the standard song. Dub's birth was accidental...A space had been pried open for the break, for possibility."
Isn't this the work of the Trickster, to pry open spaces/places of creative potential?
Comments on "Tall Tales"
What happens when one (or three) trickster(s) meet another? The three brothers are practiced liars. They tell their tales and use it to trick others. The community at large knows that they are liars but is unable to stop them. Along come the prince (charming, dont' you think?). He is the ultimate trickster. The three brothers tell their tales in attempt to trick the prince right out of his costly socks...and shoes...and robes. Each story is more fantastic than the last but the prince "did not doubt a word of it."
Perhaps this was an elaborate ruse by the prince to win the contest. Perhaps, as a trickster himself, he recognized the potential for it to be true. The trickster does not abide by the rules of conventions, the rules that bind "normal" people. The prince may honestly exhibit no doubt because it could be true. Isn't that where a lie becomes the most effective? where its shades are so close to the truth it is impossible to distinguish as a lie?
This is the method the prince uses in his tale. Perhaps it is true he seeks three runaway slaves. He does abide by all the rules the brothers have set and all the rules of the "normal" world. There is nothing fantastic about his story; it is deceptively believable.
Caught in a web of their own making, the brothers must bow to the superior trickster. In true trickster fashion, the prince, instead of enslaving them which is his right, he allows them to return to their village with the promise to cease their lying. I am reminded to the stealing to only return again motif in some trickster stories. It also reinforces the position of trickster as a (re)inforcer of moral codes. Perhaps the prince does not do it in the way Hynes would define it (the setting of a negative example to emphasize the right), but the effect is the same. The three brothers return to their community no longer disrupters of social standards.
The Tall Tales - Burma
There once lived three brothers who were known throughout the land for the tall tales they told. They would travel from place to place telling their strange stories to whoever would listen. No one ever believed their tales and all who heard them would cry out with exclamations of disbelief.
One day while traveling very far from home the three brothers came upon a wealthy prince. The prince was dressed very elegantly and bedecked in jewels such as the three men had never seen in their lives. They thought how wonderful it would be to have such possessions so they devised a plan whereby they could use their storytelling ability to trick the prince out of his belongings.
They said to the prince: "Let's tell each other stories of past adventures and if anyone should doubt the truth of what the other is saying then that person must become a slave to the others." Now the brothers had no use for a slave but if they could make the prince their slave then they could take his clothes because they would then belong to them. (Appetite/desire for wealth?)
The prince agreed to their plan. The brothers were sure they would win because no one had ever heard their stories without uttering cries of disbelief. And so they found a passer-by and asked him to act as judge in the matter. All sat down under the shade of a tree and the storytelling began.
The first brother stood up to tell his tale. With a smile on his face he began to speak: "When I was a young boy I thought it would be fun to hide from my brothers so I climbed the tallest tree in our village and remained there all day while my brothers searched high and low for me. When night fell my brothers gave up the search and returned home. It was then that I realized that I was unable to climb down the tree. But I knew I could get down with the help of a rope, so I went to the nearest cottage and borrowed a rope and was then able to climb down the tree and return home." When the prince heard this ridiculous story he did not make a comment but merely stood and waited for the next story to begin. The three brothers were quite surprised but were sure that the second story would not be believed by the prince. And so the second brother began his tale: "That day when my brother hid from us I was searching for him in the forest. I saw something run into the bushes and thinking it was my brother I ran in after it. When I got into the bushes I saw that it was not my brother but a huge hungry tiger. He opened his mouth to devour me and I jumped inside and crawled into his belly before he could chew me up. When inside I started jumping up and down and making loud, fierce noises. The beast did not know what was happening and became so frightened that he spit me out with such force that I traveled several hundred feet through the air and landed back in the middle of our village. And so though I was but a young lad I saved our whole village from the fearful tiger, because never again did the beast come near our village."
After this story the prince once again made no comment. He merely asked that the third story begin. The three brothers were quite upset by this and as the last brother began his tale he had quite a frown upon his face. But he was still quite determined to make up a story so absurd that the prince could not this time help but doubt its truthfulness. And so he began his tale: "One day as I was walking along the banks of the river I saw that all the fishermen seemed quite unhappy. I inquired as to why they seemed so sad. They therefore informed me that they had not caught one fish in a week and their families were going hungry as a result. I told them that I would try and help them. So I dove into the water and was immediately transformed into a fish. I swam around until I saw the source of the problem. A giant fish had eaten all the smaller fish and was himself avoiding the fishermen's nets. When this giant saw me he came toward me and was about to devour me, but I changed back to human form and slashed the fish open with my sword. The fish inside his belly were then able to escape. Many swam right into the waiting nets. When I returned to shore many of the fish were so thankful that I had saved them that they returned with me. When the fishermen saw all these fish jumping onto shore after me they were indeed pleased and rewarded me abundantly."
When this story was finished
the prince did not doubt a word of it. The three brothers were quite upset, but at least they knew that they would not doubt the words of the prince. And so the prince began his tale: "I am a prince of great wealth and property. I am on the road in search of three slaves who have escaped from me. I have searched high and low for them as they were very valuable property. I was about to give up the search when I met you three fellows. But now my search is ended because I have found my missing slaves, because you gentlemen are they."
When the brothers heard these words they were shocked. If they agreed to the prince's story then they were admitting that they were his slaves, but if they doubted what he said then they lost the bet and became his slaves anyway. The brothers were so upset by the cleverness of the prince that they said not a word. The passer-by who was judging the contest nevertheless declared that the prince had won the wager.
The prince did not make slaves of these men but instead allowed them to return to their village with the promise that they would never tell tall tales again. And the three brothers were thereafter known throughout the land for their honesty and truthfulness.
My Life as a Fake - Trickster motif
The function of the trickster is singular - to slip the surly bonds of earth (culture, time, propriety) and in doing so, open doors of possibility and unanswered answers. To follow after the trickster requires intrepidness for one must venture out into the thin air of broken rules without the comforting restraints of societal norms or conventions. The trickster is the creator of memory as his tricks frequently inform notions of origin and destination. The guardian of the cross roads, trickster watches over all that passes form present to memory and back again. This enter-play of the trickster and memory is integral in Carey’s “My Life as a Fake.” Led down the convoluted paths of memory, each character encounters the tricksters who appear time and again in differing guises. Each time boundaries are crossed, redrawn, or destroyed altogether in the process of rewriting memory.
Sarah Wode-Douglass is in search of herself as a composite of the memories she both harbors and seeks. Much of this revolves around the writer John Slater and the complex intertwining of his loud, distracting, and what she perceives as destructive nature with that of her parents, specifically her mother. Sarah’s job is not one of creation (life), but one of judgment (death) that rarely attains, at its pinnacle, a vicarious sort of living through the authors she allows to live in the public realm. In a striking parallel, her memory is also dominated by death. Her memories of her mother’s death are scant but for most of the novel, unquestionably concrete. Her construction of memory is rooted in faint impressions from the past and her forceful hatred of Slater in the present.
It is this construct that the work of the trickster is most suited to destroy and rebuild. By accompanying Slater to Malaysia and thereby leaving the familiarity of her native land and culture, Sarah acknowledges her search for identity, her attempt, “to understand my own unhappy family a little better” (7). If she can understand her family, grasp a solid memory of the past she will also be able to construct her present, her identity. Despite her desire, Slater persistently evades her presence and her questions until the middle of the novel when the answers are, perhaps, the least important. Evasion, the refusal to follow conventions or fulfill an expectation for definition is the stock and trade of the trickster.
In further keeping with the trickster demolition and restructuring, Slater does eventually walk Sarah back down the path of memory, accompanies her along the edge of past and present until even the future has been reworked. After Sarah is forced to re-member a dissected past she says, “I went to bed with the disconcerting knowledge that almost everything I had assumed about my life was incorrect, that I had been baptized in blood and raised on secrets and misconstructions which had, obviously, made me who I was” (133). The misconstructions of Sarah’s past are nothing more than the cultural constructions enforced by a society. A homosexual father and a mother who commits a violent suicide are not things one speaks of in “proper” circles of society. Slater violates this taboo, which allows Sarah to see the entire construction of her past, her own construction of her identity.
Freed by the barrier-reducing act of Slater’s action, Sarah is loosed to reconstruct her identity. She comes to terms with her own homosexuality and records the simple, yet monumental, task in one sentence: “Finally I dealt with myself, and then I slept” (137). The peace that descends when Sarah finally shakes off the constructions of her past allow her to embrace the present and even face the future with a new identity. Her identity is not one of certainty and the story does not end with peaceful resolution. She continues a desperate search for the truth of McCorkle, “the body of truth…dismembered and scattered” (265). The trickster’s work begun in her remembrances continues into the memory being continually constructed in the present. It would seem that the trickster never truly completes…
Class notes 19 September
Lewd - Doty explains as church origins: from the laity/lay person - not on the inside like the priests
Vulgar = common
Trickster is always lewd, obscene, vulgar, shameless
Ch 3 - Ellen "Mapping the Characteristics of Mythic Tricksters: A Heuristic Guide" 1. ambiguous/anamalous 2. deceiver/trick player 3. shape shifter - "Odyssey" - Menelaus & Proteus 4. Situation inverter - but always moving towards beneficent 5. messenger/imitator of gods 6. Sacred & lewd bricoleur - i.e. When life gives you a bunch of penises... (pg. 37)
Hedgehog and the Fox: Hedgehog as a unified whole (Plato), Fox as multiplier (Aristotle) - other foxes - Shakespeare, John Keats (negative capability), James Joyce (Finnegans Wake as "huge arena of illuminated particulars"
Trickster hates to be domesticated - not homely, always moving away from the home
Inversions of sacred in Middle Ages - Saturnalia, Feast of Fools, Abbeys of Misrule, Charivaris, Mass of the Ass
Desecrate: de-sacre-tize (laughter disempowers)
Ch 12 - Kory "Inhabiting the Space between discourse & story in Trickster narratives" - how tricksters are deconstructors but how does one define a trickster as being undefinable?
Coyote and Road Runner: "pass-through mechanism" Roadrunner as artist paints a tunnel on the canyon wall. He can "pass-through" but the Coyote cannot. The artist is beyond the physical laws that restrain/define the common.
Can a Hedgehog ever read a Fox text and "pass-through" unscathed?
homo ludens - men at play
Oscar Wilde as trickster - decay of the art of lying
forget "leth" - to tell the truth is to be a-lethes
My brother's trickster
I think that I am my brother's trickster. The more I think about our younger years, the more I remember all the hideous things I used to do to him. Since we are living together now after an eight year hiatus, I have the opportunity to ask him about things and he has kindly reminded me of certain episodes.
I don't know that my ideas were ever consciously malicious. Maybe a couple were...like the time I put duct tape in his hair. I really just wanted to see how much it would stick. I would have used packing tape but I couldn't find any (I really did look for some). He cried.
A lot of it could be classified as idle curiosity...something that still gets me into trouble occasionally. I was always thinking of crazy things to try and do but he was always the conservative one and insisted we ask Mom first. Of course I knew what she would say; I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't. It was always a struggle to get him to agree. I would argue and wheedle and attempt to convince him, but it seemed as if I always resorted to the water/air/logic-tight reason, "Come on, it'll be fun!"
Isn't that what it's all about...having a little fun?
Sample:
- Hey, Brother, crawl into this oversized toolbox!
- No way! You'll lock it when I get in.
- What lock? .....Oh, that one. I didn't even see that.
- Yeah, right.
- Really, I didn't even know it was there. That's really cool. You're pretty observant.
- Whatever. I'm not getting in.
- Why not? It's not even dirty. You can pretend it's a spaceship.
- I better ask Mom.
- Why would you ask Mom if you can sit in a box? I thought you were big enough to make up your own mind. It's just a stupid box.
- Then why don't you get in it?
- I won't fit. I used to fit, but then I grew up. Only cool little people get to go in this box.
- You promise not to lock it?
- Why would I do that?
- I dunno.
- COME ON, IT'LL BE FUN!!
- Alright, alright, I'll do it.
I'm sure you can imagine what follows. Brother gets in box. I convince him it's much cooler with the lid down. I "happen" to flip the handle. Brother freaks out. I don't know where the key is. Have to find Mom. Have to tell Mom. Piercing screams of agony. Cries of desperation. Rocking and banging. Key is found. Brother is released. Attacks me in rage. Brother get a spanking for fighting. I get a time out on my bed with my favorite book.
I was right; that really was fun!
Class notes 12 September
Most important aspect of a Trickster is his disgustingness
Tricksters make life more interesting - introduce elements of uncertainty, disruption, even horror, irreverent, unpalatable
Falstaff - "Henry V" not a nice person, dirty
Obscene - Lat. for "off-stage" where audience doesn't quite see what is going on
Alchemy as trickster activity
Random thoughts/questions: trickster exists in the space of interaction, trickster for kids: Amelia Bedelia, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
Giordiano Bruno as trickster, When are we faking it? all the time? Does articulation imply tricks? riddles vs. catechism
What would the Trickster look like from the perspective of the unorganized? Can the Trickster exist within a mythological framework that doesn't have any other figures? Does the Trickster ever NOT have parents? Is language the ultimate form of trickstering? Wouldn't this make Jesus/the Logos incarnate the ultimate?
Presentations:
Ch 6 - Wayne - "The Shaman and the Trickster" - opposite poles of spirituality = "realm of unseen powers" Trickster is outside realm - primal humanism in defiance of gods, Shaman is an initiate through a series of dream sequences, sacrifice who returns with power. The Trickster tries to imitate the powers of the Shaman. Shaman in is the spirit, Trickster the body. The Shaman works inside the culture/society and reinforces the process of the sacred.
Ch 5 - David - "Breaker of Taboos" - taboos must be broken to gain control of magical powers. Taboos: incest, rape, murder - all involve blood = magical/manna. T. characterized by the pronounced phallic and overwhelming appetite
Ch 8 - Brita - study of 4 tribes (African) and respective tricksters. More melding of Shaman and Trickster. T. as liminal - creating/destroying thresholds. Trickster brings out the truly impossible, mediator between human and divine.
Ch 9 - Bill - "A Japanese Mythic Trickster Figure: Susa-no-o" - swift, impetuous male - flicks feces everywhere. Enshrined and has festivals that include ritual flyting (yo mama...)
Ch 10 - Erin - "St. Peter: Apostle Transfigured into Trickster" Peter as defender and denyer of Christ - appropriated by Latin Catholicism, combined with other elements, lies to Christ. Dialogism & monologism
Ch 7 - Mike - "Exception who proves the rule: Ananse" - individuals define selves as part of Akan people, trickster brings wisdom, debt, problems, and serves as a negative (counter) example
