Notes from 10/31
In order to see the bear Ike must give up his rifle, compass, and watch.
All of these are metal, mechanicals
He must remove the trappings of civilization

"A Change of style is a change of subject." Stevens

Incantation- language used in the service of the experience.
This is similar to the say in which Faulkner writes. His description of the experience is the only way to realize the actual experience.
It could not be written in the Hemmingway style of parataxis ex) "We saw the bear and he was large and brown and he smelled of the wilderness and we were frightened.
In order to get the true experience we must suffer through Faulkner's difficult syntax.
If we read enough of Faulkner and our minds and imaginations are the the correct state we may be able to enter "the zone" of reading. This is similar to how Mick sometimes feels when he pulls off a great skateboarding trick simply because his mind is in the perfect state of focus. "The zone" does not have to be related to sports, or chess, or a great mathematical problem. There is a "zone" for literature when it seems as though the language no longer presents a challenge and the work just melts away as you read it.

Stevens has two notions of imagination:
1. Our definition, integrative: this imagination uses the connective powers of our mind to see how one thing is like another.
2. Decreative, discriminative: Things are not connected.
There is a Hindu phrase that exemplifies both types of imagination
Tat Tvam Asi- That thou art. Thou art that
Neti Neti- Not this. Not that
An example of an integrative author who puts everything in- Joyce
An example of a discriminative author who takes everything out- Beckett
"Even the absence of imagination has itself to be imagined."

A particularly good fortune cookie was read during this class. The message was:
"The greatest danger could be your own stupidity."