aseidman's blog

Presentation piece for Julia’s Cake Project

By Arielle Seidman

I would like to thank Julia for absolutely and irrevocably spoiling my diet.

No, really, I’m serious. Thank you! It has been a delicious experience.

But to get to the point,

Julia has been presenting her cakes in both of the classes she and I share. So far I think there have been four or five cakes, and each one of them has been legitimately better than the last. Much as I’ve enjoyed scarfing the cakes without thinking too much about their literary significance, the project did (and does) have a very interesting and controversial point.

Are recipes actually literature?

Persepolis – A Radio Play

Story and Dialogue by Marjane Sartrapi

Reinterpreted for Radio by Arielle Seidman

This scene includes the following characters, all of whom are carefully voiced by different actors;

SARTRAPI – the narrator. She is a confident-sounding, middle-aged alto.

MARJI – The young protagonist. She is an eager-voiced child.

FATHER – Marji’s father. He is a middle-aged man with a versatile baritone speaking voice, able to portray both sharpness and gentleness without losing coherency.

Vigil

The Death (or Life) of Alice James

By Arielle Seidman

April 29, 2010

House of Wits

Cast of Characters

ALICE – A dying diarist, who has spent most of her life in bed.

HENRY – Her brother, an unmarried novelist.

WILLIAM – Their brother, a conflicted philosopher, and teacher.

AUTHOR’S DISCLAIMER

It’s another depressing piece. I apologize. Next time, I’ll give you an example of my comedic writing. That stuff is much better.

Script Piece for House of Wits Performance

By Arielle Seidman

The following is a scene in which Alice James discusses her brother, William. This is a piece of fiction, based on the opinions, theories, and personalities of these two, and what I have learned about them in this class.

WARNING: This is depressing! (You probably expected that…Alice and William weren’t exactly comedic types.)

The other two pieces used in this presentation are not featured here. They were written and performed in class by Marina Morrison, and Alex Marrerro.

Believe You Me

By Arielle Seidman

Preface and Explanation

The following paper originally included photographs of pages from Marjane Sartrapi’s graphic novel “Persepolis.” I used these images to demonstrate my points to the reader. Upon glancing over the images, however, it occurred to me that I might make an even more effective point by attempting to describe the images in prose, rather than to demonstrate them in their original form.

For this project, I took one of what Gertrude Stein calls her “plays,” and considered what would happen if I were to try to stage and direct it. After reading through it, I attempted to break it down into characters, lines, and to imagine a setting in which it would logically take place.

But first, let’s look at “Captain Walter Arnold” just the way Gertrude Stein wrote it, without any additional directions from me.

Captain Walter Arnold

By Gertrude Stein

Do you mean to please me.

I do.

Do you have any doubt of the value of food and water.

I have not.

Can you recollect any example of easy repetition.

In order for this to work properly, you'll have to do the following.

Click on each link on this page.

When you arrive at the page to which that link sends you, download the file available on that page.

I recognize that the downloads are slow, but they do work! I am in the process of trying to make the downloads faster as we speak.

After you have downloaded all four files, open the filed called "reading experience.wav" and follow the instructions that you hear. It'll be fun!

www.4shared.com/file/250126267/edbebfa0/readingexperience.html

Let's start with the good. I really do love this course, and the openness and freedom of the discussions is to be appreciated. We do have a good rapport in this class, despite the fact that there are so very many of us, and I think every single person in the class has valuable, intelligent, well-thought-out things to say.

In class on Tuesday, May 2, 2010, we discussed the fact that Henry James, particularly in his novel The Portrait of a Lady, leaves a great deal unsaid. He chooses not to include in the novel several scenes in which his characters make important decisions, but instead references those decisions later, never having explored the nature of how they came about. Some of my classmates were very much against this idea, or felt cheated by the fact that James did not feel it necessary to provide them with all of the information pertaining to his story. Other classmates were intrigued, or even pleased by the fact that he left such a great deal up to the imagination of the reader.

Intellectual Property P2P – Fanfiction as Emerging Genre