During this class, I have often wondered how oral traditions influenced my own culture. I know I had to read the Odyssey in high school, but I guess I didn't realize the impact it had on who I am until now.
While I was in Berlin, I visited the Pergammon, an ancient art, architecture and history museum. The first thing I saw when I entered the museum took my breath away. The museum creates the impressive gate that led to the ancient Greek city of Pergammon. Surrounding the gate, statues recount the ancient tale of the Greek Gods triumphing over the Giants. The museum has faithfully preserved many of the original statues on the gate, and the incredible detail in them, such as Zeus preparing to launch a lightning bolt at a Giant, or Athena wrenching the Giants wriggling snake arms off her, transport you almost into the story itself.
Inside the gate, the museum also presents the story of Telemachos, Hercules' son who founded the city.
I've always loved the Greek myths because I've always been a sword and sorcery kind of kid. But on this trip, probably thanks to the influence of this class, I realized these are more than just glorious tales of heroism. The oral tradition in which these tales were launched and perpetuated defines what is important to a culture. To the Greeks, it was their heritage, their relationship to divinity and their perseverance when faced with overwhelming odds. By seeing these fantastic works of art and history in a German museum, I realized that my culture, my forefathers valued the same thing. They may not be like Homer, faithfully retelling the epic tales over and over, but by painstakingly transporting these prized sculptures and columns across the continent and displaying them permanently in an almost as majestic structure, they are also denoting what they value.
Attending the museum made me glad that people before me saw fit to preserve these architectural traditions. It also made me glad that others are preserving these grand oral traditions, not just as texts, but as living performances that have the power to transport me to another place just as the statues did.

I'm sitting in the Berlin airport with less than 10 minutes of battery power and a flight home to catch in 30 minutes. So I decided to use the minute, and the remaining time I bought from a T-Mobile HotSpot, to read this week's reading. I find it serendipitous that it covered the difference between miming and mapping, but I felt like I've experienced both considerably the last few days. I learned firsthand how language is more than just words because you can get by pretty well even if you don't know them.
I traveled to Berlin for an academic conference that ended Friday, but to get a cheap ticket I had to stay over a weekend. That gave me two days to tour the city, and I tried to take full advantage. Berlin is a beautiful city with a unique mix of ancient and modern culture. As I tourist I like to hit all the standard traps, but as a budding social scientist, I also like to get off the beaten path a bit and experience a city like most of its residents do. I try to find little out-of-the-way places and talk to people as they eat, travel and work. I thought this would be a problem as my German is pretty rusty. Ok, it's nonexistent. I hate to admit it, growing up with two parents who immigrated to the States from Switzerland, but all the German I learned at home was a few swear words and the names of common things. Just to set the record straight, that wasn't my parents fault.
But even the few words I remember served me pretty well. I remembered the word for mustard (senf - actually my parents pronounced it closer to sampf, but that might be Schweitzerdeutsch) when I sat down for a bratwust. I could pronounce most of the names of train stations (except Kurfurstendamm, crazy!). I felt kind of dumb speaking in one-word sentences, but I got along OK. In other words, I knew enough of the language to communicate, but did I know enough of the context to really know what was going on?
I would equate what I was doing really to miming. I recognized and repeated the words I knew. The extent of my miming and my consternation that I didn't really have a map came up almost every day as I completed a transaction. My parents were very, almost overly, polite and did manage to teach me the way to say "thank you" - "danke filmal." When I said that, people looked at me a little funny. So I switched to "danke schoen" because that's what I initially heard people say. But I switched again when I heard a lot of people say a new word "tschues" (pronounced chuss). I assumed it must mean thanks informally. When I googled it to find out how to spell if for this blog, I learned it actually meant "bye."
Even as I write this now, I realize what a mess. I don't have to wonder anymore why I got such weird looks. It wasn't just for being an American. What I learned it that even in oral performances, you can only get so far with miming. Eventually you need to learn the rules or the map. Now I know that an oral performance is not "mapping" in the sense that it's not necessary to repeat it verbatim every time, but without knowing the rules - the framework, if you will - it's impossible to build an oral poem, just as impossible as for me to learn the art of German conversation in just two days in Berlin.

I've thought quite a bit about an e-mail my father-in-law, a man I respect greatly, forwarded me last week. I can understand why he did it. In our frustration and confusion, we all wish we could say the things it said sometimes. And it seemed like it came from a reliable source. Heck, it kind of sounded like Andy Rooney could have written it because the true author put all the "you knows" in the right places. What I didn't realize until this evening as I read the section in How to Read and Oral Poem about *proverbs* is that like proverbs, these forwarded e-mails rely on longstanding traditions, but unlike them, the only wisdom they aim to convey is divisiveness. To truly understand their power, however, it's vital to address how the Internet has become such an quick and effective way to disseminate them.

Ok, I've gotten a bit ahead of myself. Here's a link to the e-mail and it's explanation from a site that I enjoy visiting quite a bit, Snopes.com. The researchers at the site not only help me to identify the myths that abound online, but they also try to explain why these stories keep popping up. Like historic myths, urban legends, as a whole try to do the same thing: they try to apply man's limited understanding and address his often irrational fear to a complex problem. The alleged Rooney piece seems to tackle nearly every issue facing Americans today and make it seem that strong "damn-the-torpedos" talk will solve everything.

Maybe once again I'm stretching the definition of oral traditions too far, but I can't help but wonder if these new e-mails aren't distant cousins. They are filled with codes that readers must pick out. They rely upon traditions, such as patriotism and good old fashioned American values, such as freedom of speech. They even use oral devices, such as calling the audience to act or addressing them directly. But where they miss the boat is in the author's deception. If the person is truly concerned with addressing serious national problems, he should be willing to own up to his performance. He shouldn't need to hide behind a well-known person to make his opinions known.

Where I am most worried is that unlike truly oral traditions, the Internet is not limited in its scope. With one click of a mouse button, an otherwise compassionate man can distribute vitriol to a list of family and friends. I guess this is the one time in this class where I find myself wishing the Internet wasn't such a powerful tool.

The solution I think lies not in censoring this information, but in perpetuating the framework on which it relies. Like the people at Snopes or at the Museum of Hoaxes, intelligent Internet users need to attack this misinformation with the same fervor and the same artistry. Maybe instead of perpetuating traditions that discriminate, we can instead foster performances that support, sustain and enrich our lives. Oral poetry doesn't shy away from controversy. To be included in that grand tradition, however, we must do more than pervert its techniques. We should be able to stand proudly behind our poems and perform them openly for the world to see.

One reason it took me so long to start blogging regularly (without the compulsion of a class) is I worried about whether my entries were skilled enough. Would I have the time to edit them completely for spelling and grammatical errors? Would they even make sense? When readers noticed, would they dismiss what I had written off-hand because of its imperfections?

The more time I spent with the Internet, however, the more I realized these fears were unfounded. The Internet, in my experience, represents a more open arena, where imperfection is tolerated and often encouraged. What's more important online I have found is that you are sharing, not that you are the most eloquent writer or even public speaker or actor, in the online video and podcast context, ever.

As I read about immanent art, I began to worry once again about my online skill set. The theory, which encourages scholars to study the form, structure and repetition of oral epics that lack recorded performances, such as Beowulf or even the Odyssey and Iliad, to determine what the oral performance would have been like. Many of the aspects of written epics that novices like me find repetitive actually contained cues and hidden references to greater truths that enhance the audience's experience with the epic.

I like this idea. Every day in this class makes me think I really need to get out and see some live performance of something, even if I can't find Homer at the Missouri Theater. But it made me doubt my skill once again. Is what I'm writing here really worthwhile because I'm just coming up with it from the top of my head? I don't imagine that anyone will ever read my writings are historic epic poetry, but should I at least spend more time embedding deep meanings the in the few words I choose?

The point I missed from the Immanent Art chapter of How to Read an Oral Poem is not that capitalizing on these features takes skill, which it does, but also that they can serve as shortcuts for those learning the craft. From this inspiration, I was also able to envision a little bit about what it might have been like to learn this tradition. It must have been much like my introduction to the Internet. The budding oral poet probably spent a lot of time attending performances and noticing the repeated phrases and structures. He also noticed how the poet used the performance space and interacted with his audience.

I've resolved, as the budding blogger that I am, to spend more time learning the form and function of blogging. I especially need to find better ways to interact with my audience. This can be as simple as something I learned from my mentor, Dr. Clyde Bentley. If you want interaction, you have to ask some questions. So give me a day or so to ponder and prepare and I'll have a great question soon!

I wish I had something more profound to say about ethnopoetics, but really the best I can say is that I enjoyed the theory because it really seemed to make sense to me. I did some serious head-scratching about why it took ethnographers, anthropologists and linguists so long to come up with it. In fact, I also wondered why we don't see it used more often. It would be more interesting to read a book from a skilled stand-up comic, such as George Carlin and his Brain Droppings written in ethnopoetic style.

Thinking about Mr. Carlin, in fact, has made me think I already have a little experience with ethnopoetics. In high school, I enjoyed debate, focusing mainly on values-oriented or what we called Lincoln-Douglas debate because it gave me an excuse to read philosophy. One year, I wanted to enter a prestigious statewide tournament but I almost didn't because you couldn't just sign up for one event. You had to pair a more intellectual event like debate with a more dramatic and artistic event such as impromptu or expository speaking. I settled on dramatic interpretation, not because I was a budding actor, but mainly because it allowed me to do funny voices and accents. I lacked drama experience, so I selected a routine that I thought played to my strengths. I transcribed and performed "Ice Box Man," one of the bits on Carlin's "A Place for My Stuff" album. I thought just memorizing and reciting the material alone would get me through the first round and then allow me to focus on what I really cared about - the debate.

But what I didn't realize is how much I would enjoy my foray into stand-up comedy. Even though I didn't know it at the time (this was 1985, pre-Internet) I ended up glad I couldn't find a text of the routine, because I ended up transcribing it myself from the tape. I got to know Carlin's diction and performance tricks well. I began to understand why he'd use silly voices sometimes and long pauses in others. I even started to note them on my copy.

The moral to this story is I realized comedy is about a lot more than words. The nebulous concept of timing comedians talk about really does exist. In fact, much of what makes comedy funny is the interaction with the audience. But I wouldn't have realized this if I hadn't tried to perform Carlin's words myself.

I know George Carlin probably doesn't quality as an oral poet, but I think my experience performing his material has helped me to realize the power ethnopoetics has to make texts, even though long considered dead, come alive.

By the way, I did more than survive the first round in that tournament. I ended up making the finals. I skipped that competition because it was at the same time as the Lincoln-Douglas debate finals, but I did better with my dabbling in comedy than I thought I would.