Totalitarianism Sublime in Argento's Susperia

This is a post I wrote for my International Horror class that I thought I would reproduce here for your reading pleasure. :) 

There is one scene in Dario Argento's Susperia that seems to be overwhelmingly disliked by the class, and it happens to be my favorite scene in the film. The scene in question falls at the end of a sequence which begins when the ballet school's blind piano player is kicked out by the fiercely German school master (whose sadistic grin during this scene has always disturbed me) because his dog allegedly bit the creepy little boy who hangs around the school. We follow him then to a traditional Bavarian drinking hall, and finally into a large neoclassical square where after several minutes of intense music and sweeping high angled shots, his dog attacks him and rips out his throat. Some people might have thought this was stupid, but I found the dog attack to be a tremendous and disturbing pay off to the intense sublimity leading up to the attack, and I would argue that this sublimity is achieved by Argento through his use of Nazi imagery combined with the several high and long distance shots taken from the perspective of lurking, swooping, and overwhelming entity of power.

 

It is this sequence that is the most heavy handed in portraying the sinister images of Nazism: the sadistically cruel Arian school master, the nationalistic "traditional" Bavarian drinking hall, dance, and costume, and the neoclassical architecture reminiscent of the Reichsparteitagsgelände, the Nazi party rally grounds, in Nuremburg.  The blind pianist passes two police officers who resemble Nazi soldiers, and he is killed by his own dog, a German shepherd, a breed who because of its use by the Nazi party was officially renamed the "Alastian Wolf Dog" until 1977 (thank you Wikipedia!).  The scene also contains close up of an eagle atop the neoclassical building, another symbol of the totalitarian Third Reich. What I find most compelling, however, is the intense sublimity of the last scene, and how Argento uses the Nazi references to create a heightened sense of sublime power, which for me made the scene extremely effective, especially when the blind pianist's own trustworthy companion turns on him.  This final scene of the sequence is nearly a full four minutes long, which may seem drawn out, but I see its length as highlighting the sadistic nature of the omnipotent power, who is not content merely to kill the blind man, but must also frighten and disturb him, thus demonstrating its sublime powers. The audience, in turn (or at least me), is also swept up in the sublimity of the moment, which finally is resolved in the highly disturbing attack.

Burke argues that whatever "is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger...whatever is in any sort terrible...or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime" (36). Terror is the key word here. I've always understood that terror is associated with the flight instinct and is caused by something overwhelmingly other and incomprehensible, not unlike Kant's understanding of the sublime as a pleasure in confronting that which overextends our capacity to reason.  Horror, on the other hand, is usually associated with abjection and disgust and is more of an inward disturbance. This particular scene in Susperiais more concerned with creating that overwhelming sense of power, the power which the witches possess, the power that creates the emotion of terror, of an outside force that confounds our reason. Argento ties this power to the totalitarian power of the Nazi party, using their symbols, and the cultural European memory of the war and its aftermath.  

homesickness and a bunny

I've been homesick for two years now. It all started when I graduated with my MA from BYU and decided on a whim that I would move to New York for an indeterminate amount of time, just to see if I could make it. The jobs I had set up for me before I went all fell through and I felt like the city was trying to eat me alive. So I came home.

By that time I knew the PhD program at the University of Louisville was an option for 2011, but I didn't know what I could possibly do for the year in between. I certainly didn't want to stay in Utah and work. So I applied on a whim for the London Consortium. They called me for an interview on an early July morning, I could hardly understand what they said, but I bullshat my way through it and the emailed me 3 hours later to say that I got in. I had 2 months to sort out my visa and get everything set to go. London was supposed to be my dream come true, but again I was far away from my family and alone in a big city and had even fewer friends than in New York. But at least it was London and that mostly made up for all of the loneliness and sadness.

I came home from London in the middle of last July and had one month before moving myself to Kentucky. It was a miserable month. Getting ready to move to Kentucky is not half as fun as preparing for a year in London. Plus I was reading The People's History of the United States and the last place I wanted to go to was a city where the major parks were named after native American tribes that were destroyed by the American government. There were some days when I just curled up on the floor and groaned because the world was so horrible and I didn't want to leave home again. My mom was infinitely patient with me on those days.

So I left home again on the 15th of August and came to yet another foreign city where I didn't know a soul. Fortunately every person I encountered on that first day and the following week was tremendously kind and helpful, and I'm certain that if they were not so lovely I would not still be here now. I fell into a pretty heavy depression that fall, always wishing I were back in Utah, and missing all of the people I love that are so far away, despite all of the people that I'm learning to love here. The pain was overwhelming and physical. I miss my mountains. I miss my people. I miss my desert.

To counter this depression and homesickness I made some goals at the beginning of the year. I decided to pick up some hobbies and I bought a little fish, something to take care of, and I decided that when I was in a bit more stable place and my own apartment I would get a bunny, which I've always wanted. So I just signed a lease for a new apartment and bought a bunny to celebrate. Even though this was part of the plan, I'm not sure if I was actually ready to take on an animal that needs so much attention and care, which I didn't realize how much attention and care when I got him. He needs 3 different kinds of food and space to run around which means I have to bunny proof the apartment and make sure he can get his exercise. I'm worried about him chewing on the walls and eating paint chips that might have lead in them because it's a really old house. I'm worried that the air conditioner will stop working and he'll over heat. I'm worried that he won't get enough of a variety of veggies. And most of all I'm worried about leaving him when I go home, which throws a wrench in my plans of going back for a month over Christmas and for all of next summer, which I desperately want to do. I'm sure I can find someone to watch him for the week I go back in August, but not for two or three months next summer.

I was telling this to a friend tonight and he said that that's what happens when you have to take care of another life. Your decisions mean more because that other life depends on you. Is it such a terrible thing to only go home for one or two week visits? Part of me wants to say definitely yes. I want to be home. Now. But then I realize that maybe I need to just knock this off and BE HERE. I can't be in Utah and I can't be pining and counting down the days to get there. I can't drop everything I'm doing here to go back home and play for three months. I have work to do here, and now I have a bunny to take care of.

So, in conclusion, for the first time in a while I don't feel homesick tonight. I don't feel that pain in my chest. Maybe some day I will go back to Utah, but I need to realize that I'm in this for the long haul. At least three more years. Maybe this bunny will give me the chance to make a home here as I settle into my new apartment and set up his space. Maybe I should have a little bit of faith and not always demand my needs and wants to be satisfied immediately. I was religious for a pretty long time, I should know something of faith. I have faith that I'll be able to spend time with my family and my friends and my mountains, so I don't need to have anxiety over the fact that it is not happening immediately. I am here doing a job and taking care of this sweet little life, and I think I can live up to those challenges. The goals I set at the beginning of the year were to help me grow up and enter into the adult world of responsibility. And this cheeky bunny might be a little guy, but he's kind of a big deal. He might live up to 10 years, which means he'll be with me for the three years I spend in Louisville, and hopefully he'll be able to move with me where ever I end up next.

Summer Reading: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I've been posting a lot on my research blog about the novels I've been reading this summer, but I realized that I actually should be doing those posts over here since they aren't really full of research thoughts. I just want to keep track of the books I've been reading. And I should be reserving that blog for my ruminations on abjection and subjectivity. (It's not published, well, publicly, but let me know if you want to read it and I can open it up to you).

I just finished a lovely novel called The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery who is a French philosophy professor. I loved how she took abstract philosophical ideas into real world lives and experiences in this novel. It's a much better way to talk about these issues, and I wish I could do something like that. I'm thinking I might try something similar in my paper on autobiography, but I doubt my skill could carry the concepts into a narrative like Barbery does.

I loved how the characters grapple with death, class struggles, and the meaning of art. And the take away point of the novel is to recognize that death is imminent, but to not be crippled by this knowledge or act in bad faith, but to be as authentic as possible. "The important thing, Paloma said one day, is not the fact of dying, it is what you are doing in the moment of your death." And being sincerely engaged in building, rather than destroying, something is the measure of a good life.

My favorite moment in the book is when Madame Michel, the autodidact consierge of a high-class apartment building, is thinking about the validity of education, especially higher graduate research.

Should you study Plato, Epicurus, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel or even Husserl? Esthetics, politics, morality, epistemology, metaphysics? Should you devote your time to teaching, to producing a body of work, to research, to Culture? It makes no difference. The only thing that matters is your intention: are you elevating thought and contributing to the common good, or rather joining the ranks in a field of study whose only purpose is its own perpetuation, and only function the self-reproduction of a sterile elite--for this turns the university into a sect. 

I've been struggling the last couple months to write a paper, mostly because, I realized, I want it to be new and different and brilliant to say something extremely complicated in an elegant way. And that's too much for me. It puts a tremendous roadblock up. But I'm realizing that I'm losing sight of what I've been doing and wanting to do all these years. I'm not that eloquent and my thoughts don't run as deeply and as abstractly as I'd like them to, but I desperately don't want to get caught up in the fan-boy masturbatory academic world whose only function is the "self-reproduction of a sterile elite." I want to engage in works that I love, that fascinate me, and try my hardest to elevate thought and contribute something.

The book is also about enjoying the small pleasures in life, which I have not done lately at all. "I have finally concluded," the 12 year old Paloma says, "maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had some to us, an always within never"

I used to have those moments more often, I would go out into the world and look for them. It was easy to find them in Russell Square or the British Museum in London, or in Central Park in New York, or in the immense silence of the Uintas while fishing with my mom. I even remember the delight I felt when I was in Provo and I could hear someone practice their bagpipes down the street. These moments of wonder don't happen in Louisville, but maybe I'm not looking for them. Maybe it's because there's a train yard outside my window and I live above a frat house. Or the dreadful and humid heat, the low-flying planes, the trains screaming and blocking my path out of the train yard where I live. I haven't had many little pleasures since I moved here last year, but maybe when I move into my own little apartment on a shady street I can relax a bit and be wondered by art and nature again. We'll see. For now at least I have the novels I've been devouring this summer.

And French films about awkward anxious people who fall in love. And the cute songs at the end of such movies.
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body art

Orlan

Jenny Saville 

Cindy Sherman

Summer Reading: The End of the Affair

I just finished listening to The End of the Affair by Graham Greene and it took me longer to read than any of the books from last week because I found the narrator to be such a self and detestable character that I didn't want to see what insensitive thing he would do next. In the end, I did pity him, and I had some hope for him. As frustrating as I found it, I couldn't help but like the book. The Regeneration series was interesting to me, but I had a hard time connecting to it because it had so many voices, so many goings on, and the drama of war wasn't as dramatic as it could have been. The End of the Affair is about an affair, but surprisingly it's also about the drama of religion, and not just religious sentiment but the pull toward, in Tillich's terms, the ultimate.

Thoughts on The Immoralist

I wrote this as a reading journal for my Modernism class last semester and thought it would fit well as a blog post. It might be something I'd like to come back to at some point.


In André Gide’s The Immoralist we encounter a man’s apparent descent into a world of darkness and immorality. The turning point in the framed narrative comes at the end of Michel’s long and painful sickness, after traveling throughout Northern Africa with his dutiful wife, and finally recovering his strength and health in Biskra. As Michel recovers he begins to see himself and the world around him in a different light:  “And I compared myself to a palimpsest.  I tasted the scholar’s joy when he discovers under more recent writing, and on the same paper, a very ancient and infinitely more precious text.  What was this occult text? In order to read it, was it not first of all necessary to efface the more recent one?” (43). A palimpsest is a piece of vellum, parchment, paper, or other writing surface which had been scraped of its original writings and reused.  In some cases portions of the original text can still be seen and read below the newer writing, and as Michel states, often the only way to investigate the underlying text is to efface the more recent one.  The most troubling aspect about this statement is not that there is a hidden “occult text” that must be revealed, or that what Michel plans to reveal is particularly disturbing, it is instead the violence implicit in Michel’s realization.

Summer Reading: The Ghost Road

Pat Barker's The Ghost Road is the third installment of the Regeneration trilogy. While the first two books focus on the immediate effects of war on British society (as the war continues in France) the last book spends more time outside of Britain. One of the main protagonists, Billy Prior, goes back to France and we follow his diary of the days leading up to his death, which poignantly takes place at the well known battle where Wilfred Owen died just a week before the Armistice. Paralleling Prior's diary is the memory of Dr. Rivers of his experience on an anthropological expedition to Melanesia.

Summer reading: The Eye in the Door

I'm trying to figure out what to write my autobiography paper on (still) and so I decided to get my brain back into World War One mode by listening to The Eye in the Door, the second installment of the Regeneration trilogy, a series of novels that takes place in England, on the "home-front", during the war. The books are about injured and "shell shocked" soldiers receiving psychological treatment from the neurologist and cultural anthropologist Dr. W.H.R Rivers. Nearly all of the characters are based on the lives of real men, including Dr. Rivers, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Robert Graves, except for our protagonist Billy Prior, a temperamental Northerner who'll unapologetically have sex with anyone (homosexuality features as a primary theme in the novels as a threat to national security and something which is frequently treated at the hospital in which Dr. Rivers works), who hates his father and seeks to replace Dr. Rivers as a father figure, and who is a fighter as well as a lover. Prior is a bit over the top, but I am absolutely in love with him.

Summer reading: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. Just part of one day. I listened to my book and cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen and worked on my knitting and had a very pleasant Saturday in the process.

Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a story about two young women who, along with their elderly uncle, have locked themselves away in their ancestral mansion for six years after their parents, brother, and aunt had all been murdered in the house with arsenic (mixed in with the sugar they sprinkled over blackberries). The older sister, Constance, had been tried for the murders but was acquitted and now takes care of her uncle and the younger sister, Mary Katherine (or Merricat), who was only 12 at the time of the deaths.

Summer reading: American Gods

I love books, I love studying literature, but I hate reading. This is the great contradiction of my life, and unfortunately it has kept me from being as well-read as I'd like to be. I just don't get as much pleasure from reading as a lot of people do. I'd much rather watch a tv show (or glance through blogs, watch youtube videos, or stare at a wall) than read a book. Reading is work and I am lazy. But, since these crazy people in this PhD program gave me a fellowship and I'm getting paid to read, it really is work and I am obligated to do it full time. So I'm trying to work on getting through as many novels as I can this summer. Not necessarily great works of literature, but books I've been meaning to read for some time, books I hope will be enjoyable, and most importantly books I can listen to so that I can push through them while I'm doing other things like cleaning my bathroom or walking to school. I'm going to try to keep track of them on the blog so I have a good record of what I've read.

I was feeling rather hateful towards my body tonight. It's an old familiar feeling, and it's incredibly cruel. I feel disgust and contempt and anger. It's this ugly body's fault that I am not happy, that I am not in a relationship, that I am shy and self-conscious. My poor body. I shouldn't be so abusive towards it.  Even after all of the work I have been putting in to not falling for those same old lies (that diets work, that thinness equals love and happiness, that fat is ugly, that I am worthless and unlovable because of my shapeless and ugly body), they still creep up on me. If I don't check them swiftly and often they'll take hold of me and choke me before I even realize what's happening. Sometimes the lies get so loud in my head that the only way to shut them up to start a new diet, obsess over everything I eat, force myself to exercise when I don't want to. Of course doing things you hate doing is unsustainable and I give up soon enough (usually feeling like a total failure). 

This is hard on me. I don't want to be like that. I want to call bullshit on the whole cycle, on all of the lies, and especially on how justified and righteous I feel when I bash myself for something that is so much not in my control. I'm pretty sure that perverse feeling of righteousness comes from when I was younger and I bought in to everyone's cruel remarks about my body. They would let up if I agreed with them. As long as they knew I despised myself as much as they did, my fatness was slightly more acceptable. Sometimes they would even be nice ("no, you're not that fat!"). Or maybe it's my Mormon habit of constant self examination, the constant comparison of myself with others to check my own standing before God, the constant struggle towards perfection (which I'm also learning to give up, or at least rethink, for the sake of my emotional health and sanity). In any case I firmly believe that no good comes from self-contempt, from guilt, or from comparison with other people. How can I be healthy physically if I hate my body? How can I be healthy spiritually if I get caught in guilt cycles? How can I be healthy emotionally if I compare myself with the fraction of what I know of other people's lives? 

Fortunately I caught it before I woke up tomorrow morning with a new diet in mind. I won't do it. I do not eat badly and I don't need to change any of my eating habits. I move my body every day, and I certainly could move it more, but I think that means I need to find things to get me out of the house and doing stuff. I want to live with a purpose and it's hard to be purposeful when I'm running as fast as I can on a machine going no where. My brain does not like that.

Also, this article helped a lot to remind me that diets are evil and that I don't have to hide my body. Also I bought some fantastic new clothes. I read an article the other day in Bitch Magazine about "fatshion" and how we fat ladies should not be hiding our bodies in shame. She talked about how using fashion to be visible is political, it's participating in fat activism. Visible bodies are powerful bodies; they are speaking bodies, and they demand to be seen and heard. That's why fashion in general is important for women, and why it is especially important for fat women to take seriously. (Seriously, there's this theory called "presence politics" that I plan on learning more about this summer). They want us to hate ourselves into dieting (they being the diet industry first and foremost, but also the people who buy into the cult of the body and the narrowly defined ideals of beauty that actually causes all but a small percentage of people to suffer for it). They want us to disappear, or to fulfill stereotypes and dress like lazy slobs so they can feel righteous and justified in their shaming. So instead of being committed to a diet, I'm going to be committed to finding and wearing loud clothes (which believe me can be very very difficult in a world where the only clothes I can fit into are either online or only found in one store at the mall. Clearly fatties are more profitable in the diet industry than in the fashion industry). So I bought four new patterned tops for my trip to New York next week (which is a big deal because I hardly ever wear patterned fabric). And I'm going to flaunt it.  I also bought a necklace, which is again a big deal because I never accessorize. 

So yeah, don't hate your body. It's beautiful. It's a freaking miracle. And I'll try to not hate mine. 

May

I feel like life has been pretty intense since school got out. Colors are bright in May. Food tastes better when it's humid and hot. Nothing gets done but I'm exhausted at the end of every day. I play video games now. I sing more often, and I sing louder than I ever have. I listen to simple songs over and over again. I play them on the ukulele until they annoy me. I plant flowers and the flowers distract me when I'm trying to study. How can I read when there are seven pots of plants next to me? Life exists in front of me and it is so vivid. So I can't help but stare and watch and nothing really happens, but all of it is happening. And it is all right there.

I planted these and they're still alive. 

T and I watch an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show (or two or three) every time we hang out. Now that is some solid comedy. I'm always surprised at how much I laugh and how much joy the show gives me. (And because it was aired in 1961 there are always some pretty problematic and sexist issues T and I can talk about). A great deal of my life right now revolves around television. I watched the latest episode of Parks and Recreation today and I sobbed because that show is about making sacrifices for the people you care about, helping them achieve their dreams, being there for them, building communities. It is such a positive show. It's always been a bright spot in my life when I spend a great deal of my days thinking about the possibilities of meaninglessness, the certainty of death. Thank goodness for tv, and for friends, and for steaks and cupcakes and karaoke. And the ukulele, and maybe even for Kentucky. (also, k is apparently the letter of the day).

Our favorite: steak, mashed potatoes, spinach salad, homemade boba tea, and Dick Van Dyke

Quinoa cupcakes with lavender frosting 

T and I.B. on the balcony. 

The most beautiful day

I.B. loves Fuchsia 

T and B (aka The Twins) are so cute

Tea party! 

And, as promised, here is the poem I wrote for my Renaissance/critical theory class (that sucked! did I mention that?) 

To his sweet still trembling tender youth I write

These feeble rhymes. To courage, to victory wrought

By a greater power, by Love, a force unsought

But known. His heart still racing from the fight,

From victory's drug his muscles twitch, alight

With life. And Love, her Holiness, has caught

My heart, ensnared with beauty every thought

Of him, his triumph, his sweet submissive might.

To my own still trembling heart I hold my prize:

A body lithe, a spirit blessed by Fate.

To him, his wisdom, beauty, grace, I sing, 

Upon his youthful slender frame my eyes

Like warm hands linger, trace, and consummate

His quest for glory. O my child, my king.  

Also, here's the adorable Brazilian song I've been listening to (and learning to sing and play on the uke) 

hats and boots

I had the plan to write a post at the end of the semester when I felt the familiar and tremendous sense of relief and accomplishment, when everything came together and I felt like I kicked the semester's butt. I wanted to sum up the papers I wrote and talk about my struggles, my successes, my travels, etc. But the end has been a little too anticlimactic for a big victory post.

And it's not really over, even though it is, technically. I still have a paper due tomorrow, but the thing is, I haven't really started it yet. And the other thing is, I am not about to stay up all night long writing furiously to finish it. Screw that. I don't believe in working that way anymore (did I ever? Maybe once in 2005). So I talked to my professor, and I'm taking an incomplete. I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks with my attention undivided and focused on researching a project that actually matters to me, a project I'd like to try to get published. She's cool with it. And so, with one email my semester came to an end.

Except not quite because I still have to do one more ridiculous project for the class that had so many massive assignments that I couldn't spend the time I needed to finish the class I actually cared about. I'm used to doing some small papers, maybe a midterm, and one final paper. This ridiculous class (the deformed and unwanted birth of the Renaissance and an introduction to contemporary critical theory) was one busy work assignment after another, and for the final assignment I am to do an ekphrasis. This is, according to wikipedia, a "graphic description of a visual art" and I've decided to do a highly eroticized Petrarchan sonnet about this guy:



I know..it's kind of creepy to write an erotic poem about a statue depicting someone who is clearly 12 years old. But I desperately want to do something that makes my class squirm when I read it out loud to them, especially over this statue. A few people did some poor readings of this guy that kind of pissed me off this semester.  One kid argued that Donatello's David is meant to secretly be a woman who is standing on the decapitated head of patriarchy. Why would you read a depiction of David from the Bible as a woman? Well, for one thing s(he) sure is sexy. Look at that hitched hip! S(he)'s like all of those sexy models we see everywhere. And you know, men are only attracted to sexy women. When my professor asked him to explain how the shepherd's hat and the boots fit into his reading he literally said, "Well, you know how much women love hats and boots." Yep. Bitches love accessories. Other people in the class kept saying that this sculpture was "homoerotic" and I think that meant that only gay men could possibly be attracted to young boys? Also, that's not what homoerotic even means. Homoeroticism is used as a way of understanding how men interact with each other. One single depiction of a sexy dude is not "homoerotic" it's just erotic. Therefore, I (a woman) will be writing an erotic poem describing this sexy (wo)man-child. I hope they think I'm being terrible inappropriate, because that's what I thought of their readings.  I'll post the poem when I'm done.

It does feel good to be (kind of) done with the semester. I can't wait to get back to life and laundry and cleaning my house and eating real food again. And maybe blogging more!

Dead Puppies Aren’t Much Fun, or How I Learned to Let a Fish Break My Heart

This is a little essay that I wrote for my Autobiographical Forms class. I thought it was kind of fun, even though it's about dead puppies... 

Tonight while cleaning out his bowl I nearly dropped my pet fish David Bowie down the garbage disposal. I screamed and tried to catch his little slippery body. He slipped onto the plastic cover over the disposal and I scooped him up and dropped him into a warm, safe cup of water. Tragedy averted. What would I have done if he had gone into the disposal? Would I mercy kill David Bowie by flipping that switch? Would I try to fish him out before giving up, even if that meant smashing him with my own fingers? Yes, probably. I wouldn't give up on him. I would fight for him. There is no doubt that if that fish dies because of me, I will be devastated.

As a child the death of a pet fish was nothing. When Gil died we flushed him without much thought. My mother came home and panicked. "Where is Gil?" "He died and we flushed him. We didn't want you to have to see him dead." She wailed. Gil was her fish and she had him for nearly five years. She loved him, and we were cruel to flush him.

But what's the death of a fish when you live on a farm and witness countless deaths over the years? I helped my dad slaughter rabbits and chickens and was never fazed when he used the crowbar to knock my pet rabbit senseless. I helped him pull the skin off, excited that I had come into possession of such a fine fur, and saddened when he told me I couldn't keep it and wear it as a hat. I gutted chickens, plucked turkeys, chased a headless duck into the bushes, and during one hunting season my older sister and I asked if we could keep the poor deer's brain. My grandparents said yes and we wrapped it carefully in tinfoil and put it in our refrigerator. I'm not sure if my mom realized what was in the tinfoil and got rid of it, but we soon forgot that the brain was even there.

We also had a lot of dogs, but living on a farm meant that no one dog was too cherished to shoot if he or she killed a beloved goose or peacock. I hated my grandparents for doing it, as if the life of a goose was worth that of a dog. But they had few qualms and would punish when necessary.

My parents once tried to breed Rottweilers, but failed when one of the dogs slept on her puppies to keep them warm one cold night and killed them all. My dad made my sister and me gather them up and put them in a large, empty dog food bag to take to the dump.

Dogs also knew no mercy from the farm vehicles. When six or seven or eight dogs are chasing after a truck, it was always possible for one to get caught under a wheel, especially if the truck is moving slowly. Sparky was the first that I can remember clearly, although I know there were many before her. She was a little, black, beloved toy poodle.  My mom hit her right in front of our driveway. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Rowdy was my dog. My parents saved him from the pound and claimed that he had once been a circus dog. He was little and stocky with curly white hair that would collect the snow in perfect golf balls around his feet. While slowly backing up her big red truck in a garage my grandma hit him and he died. I was crushed, but moved on rather quickly. There were ten other dogs to hold my attention.

Buster was another beloved. Short and long with rough black and brown hair, I don't remember where he came from but we got him as a puppy and had to save him from choking on his food on a nearly daily basis. One day we packed up our old yellow Jeep Cherokee with cages of chickens and headed out to the county fair where we would win best in show and countless other ribbons. It was a proud moment for all of us. When we got home we couldn't find Buster anywhere. I finally spotted him laying off the side of the road. We had probably hit him on our way to the fair without noticing. We should have brought him with us.

We buried Buster next to Sparky in a quiet little area between some trees, one of the many unexplained piles of red sandstone rocks that dotted the property. My mother again was the most distraught. When an animal died she performed her best. In some other part of the world she could have been a fantastic professional mourner. Her histrionics made me even more stoic and accepting of the fate of death. All I wanted was the mourning to end and to move on with our lives. When Sparky died I joined in on the wailings, but Buster hardened me, and I knew my heart wouldn't break again for a dog.

When I was eleven or twelve my dad brought home a puppy for my birthday. She was a brown border collie and Australian shepherd mix and I named her Bobbie Brown. She was not a well behaved dog and I didn't put the effort into training her because I was irresponsible and easily distracted, so she got into a fair amount trouble. We had to tie her up in the back yard and would bark and bark. I never gave her enough attention while she was young and troublesome, but she became a close companion to me when we both grew a bit older. She had spirit and personality and she was often the leader of the pack of our six or seven dogs that roamed the ranch. I'm almost certain she would lead them into the North Hills and go running with the coyotes. She wasn't afraid of anything, and she was sociable and kind. It wasn't too long before she had her first litter of puppies, and we had no idea who the father was.

About a week later another dog, Kylee, a little blue healer mix and who was barely a puppy herself, had a litter.  One cold dark morning in February my dad burst in the house with a puppy in his hand.  "Kylee's having puppies!" He told us how he had gone out to his truck and saw Kylee in the snow surrounded by blood. He thought she had been attacked.  Unlike Bobbie, Kylee was too young to be having puppies and we had never even suspected that she was pregnant.  We brought her in the house and Haley watched over her while she gave birth the rest of the litter.

I became the proud mama of twelve puppies: George, Macca, John, Cecelia, Yoko, Julia, Jake, Bart, Linda, Jude, Martha, and Lucy.

We made Bobbie a bed in our room and I watched as her pups grew fat and round. My favorites were Jake and Bart. Jake was the fattest puppy, the slowest and the laziest puppy I have ever seen. His fur was pale brown and I loved him. Bart had an old face and was the darkest. I was enchanted by his sweetness. Kylee's puppies lived in my sister's room and after they were all big enough we moved them into one of the empty chicken coops. Every morning I would get up and go out and play with the puppies, feed them and watch them grow. Babysitting twelve puppies was probably the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I was always a nurturer. My mom tells me that when I was five and my little sister was born I was very serious and excited about helping to take care of her. She was my baby. As she got bigger I took on the responsibility of bathing her, dressing her, and feeding her breakfast. I was just thinking of a home video I watched with my family last year. My mom had been recording Lindy playing with Xia, a Rottweiler who treated Lindy like a puppy. They were best friends, and Lindy would crawl all over that huge dog without a thought. At one point Haley and I came out into the kitchen. I was smiling and happy, indomitably cheerful. Without asking for permission I found myself a popsicle and then proceeded to fix Lindy her bowl of cereal. How many hours had my mom been up with Lindy and didn't make her breakfast? I asked her about this and she told me that I would have been disappointed if she had already fed her. I don't doubt this.

As my twelve puppies grew bigger my family decided it was time to try to find them homes. I don't remember feeling too broken up about giving them away. I would keep Bart, and my grandpa would take Jake, so I would have my favorites. We also decided to keep George. I could write a book about George. Not only did he become our beloved, but he stayed with us for fifteen years and was the best dog that anyone could ever ask for. When I was living in London last year I visited in April and was able to say goodbye to George. He lost his ability to walk, and my mother, ever patient and strong, would carry him outside and around the house and finally to the vet.  He never looked more like a puppy in those last weeks.

I didn't have Bart for long before my dad ran him over. He was just barely growing out of his puppy stage.

Bobbie had another litter a couple years later. This time they were all black and white. My dad and his friend went out one day and lopped all their tails off, except for the one we would keep: McCaffrey. He was the fluffiest, fattest, and sweetest of the litter. My mom got him with her little red Neon.

When I was fifteen we decided to move to California, and along with our house, our chicken coops and dog sheds, we had to leave four of our six dogs behind. We found homes for two of them, and my dad decided to take another two to the pound. They chose to keep George and Romeo, one of Bobbie's puppies, and take Bobbie away. I was stoic and accepted the decision, even though Romeo was not a very good dog and not one that I loved. They told me that keeping Romeo was just like keeping Bobbie because he was hers. They put her in the back of a pickup and I said goodbye. I didn't fight for her. I didn't cry or wail or hold on to her. It wasn't until years later that my stoicism, that my blithe acceptance of loss and death, finally broke down and I realized my complicity in the loss of that dog. I lost Bobbie but it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t necessary and it could have been helped. I so desperately wanted to forget and move on with my life that I forgot too soon, I forgot about her even while my dad lifted her into the back of the truck. I would now do everything in my power to save my fish, but I wasn’t willing to do so for Bobbie. I can only hope now that someone saw her beautiful face and her kind eyes and took her home, that she was able to have a second chance with a family, with children and a warm bed and plenty of space for her play. I have to believe it because the alternative would break my heart.