Open Letter to Charles Bukowski, brilliant author of "Dinosauria, We"

Dear Charles Bukowski,

I'd like to thank you for writing "Dinosauria, We". The poem is so inspirational, and so intense, and so true. I absolutely loved it. I felt really empowered by what you were saying and I agree wholeheartedly.  Then I found out that you wrote it in the 70s and I was shocked. It all made sense for the 70s too, not just now. Our world is still struggling with the same things we've been struggling with. The 70s seem so long ago and so disconnected from now but reading the poem made me realize that in the grand scheme of things, 40 years is not that long, and not that much has changed. Technology has changed and social norms have changed, but the root of our society has shifted only slightly. Things you point out seem so specific to our time now that I was certain it had been written only a few years ago. It impressed upon me how little progress we have made on a lot of fronts, how much work there is to be done.

Your words are so powerful and flow so seamlessly, how long did it take you to write this? I also wonder, if you had lived long enough, what you would think about our society. Who would you be voting for?

Anyways, Mr. Bukowski thank-you so much for this poem. "Dinosauria, We" will be one of those things pinned up to my wall at college. You've been an inspiration.

Love,
Gianna Clark.

Father and Son

In The Road the element of parent-child relationship is isolated and becomes a major theme of the book. The Father and Son are in this drastic situation where they are completely reliant on each other. They're both reliant on each other to keep them alive. The situation is extremely horrible and stressful and would wear on any relationship. The Son is so young and knows so much about the world, but at the same time so little. The Father is trying to shelter his son and keep his life as normal as possible, and in doing so doesn't tell him whole truths, which the boy picks up on immediately. Things like this seem to be pushing them apart. I think the Son senses this a lot, where as the Father doesn't as much. The Son is growing up in this ridiculously horrible situation and if he lives long enough to understand just how much his Father did for him he will be grateful. However, now it feels like there's this growing resentment towards his Father. In his eyes his Father is the one who makes them constantly travel and move from place to place. There's no way for the Son to completely understand what's going on. Despite this there is an undeniable amount of love between them, but it seems that it's just love. They love each other so much and are so focused on survival that they don't seem to actually like each other, or enjoy the others company. But then again can you really enjoy someone when you're trying so desperately to survive?


I'm definitely not a parenting expert and I won't pretend to be. I'm lucky enough to have great parents, but frankly I find parent-child relationships weird and hard to define. Every parental relationship is different across the board. I'm also not a kid person, which may have something to do with it.

Thanks for reading.
Gianna

John Proctor, Hero or Stooge?

What is a hero? A hero is someone who saves the day, who does good in the world, rescues a few damsels in distress, an overall good guy. Or is he? Maybe a hero is just a guy who was in the right place at the right time. A guy who’s rich, handsome, influential, etc. A hero can be so many things, but when it comes down to it, he does something good, right?

What is a stooge? A fool. No one really expects anything of the stooge, he just sort of runs around and everyone rolls their eyes and dismisses him. No one thinks of themselves as the stooge, but I think everyone’s been a stooge at one point or another. Plus stooges are the most lovable, everyone likes an underdog.

So what’s the difference between a hero and a stooge? I’d argue a lot less than one would think. Little things differentiate the two; circumstance, money, good looks. There’s always that part in a super hero’s tale when nobody believes him or the general public downright hate him, much like they would a stooge. Never the less, something happens allowing him to switch over from stooge to hero.

In John Proctor’s case, he was able to become a hero. First, he had influence in the town. People looked up to John before the witch trials started. He also is rather good looking, making him the perfect fit to play the hero. We can all view John Proctor as the hero because we look back on the times and people of Salem as being extreme and misguided. They persecuted innocent people, which we are naturally against as Americans (the government seems to forget that from time to time, but that’s another story…), so John Proctor can only be thought of as the hero. He went against this crazed society and stuck up for people who couldn’t stick up for themselves.  So he’s a hero in our eyes, of course. But then, we are the society that prevailed. The winners write the history books. If the Puritan ideal had prevailed, we’d all think John Proctor worse than a stooge, more like a crazy lunatic getting in the way of God’s will. The label, hero or stooge, depends less upon what he actually did but which society prevails to think of him as a hero or a stooge.

In other, more ‘normal’ circumstances John would not have been the hero. He cheated on his wife with the Reverend’s niece, who was still a girl. John would have been the sorry loser caught on ‘Cheaters’ by his wife in a crappy motel with his face blurred out and would run around cursing the camera in the parking lot. We love to hate cheaters. It all comes back to circumstance. Only the craziness of the witch trials could save John from such reality television defamation and catapult him into heroics. It could also be argued that if John hadn’t cheated with Abby the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. Abby wouldn’t have been so drawn into the whole witch craft thing and wouldn’t have urged the girls to participate in the rituals and she wouldn’t have drunk blood, etc. The whole thing could have been avoided. But we say “It’s okay that you inadvertently caused all the madness, John. You tried to save everybody with some less than fool proof evidence. That’s all that really matters. Thanks a bunch.”

To answer the question; John Proctor is a hero, at least in this story. But the point is that the term hero or stooge can’t be viewed as a simple thing. People are weird and complex and beautiful and ugly all at the same time. So maybe no one’s a hero, maybe we’re all just people, and what we are depends on perspective. Except for Superman and Chuck Norris, they’re definitely heroes.

Maybe my take on this was a little bit…cynical...or maybe its more critical? Not sure. Thanks for reading anyways,

Gianna