ALIDA ALLISON

Professor, Dept. of English and Comparative Literature, San Diego State University

 

My yellow paper quote for 2006, placed randomly around Ouray, Colorado:

 

 

 

One wakes up in the morning and puts on oneself. Everyone has experienced this: the self must be put on before any garment, and there is inevitably a pause as it were a caesure in the going forward of things before the self is put on. Why is this? It is because our mortal identity is not the primary one, not the profound, not the deep one. No, what wakes up from sleep is not Tiglath-Pileser or Peter Schlemiel or Pilgermann; it is simpy raw undifferentiated being, brute being with nothing driving it but the forward motion imparted to it by the original explosion of being into the universe. For a fraction of a moment it is itself only; then it must with joy or terror put on that identity taken on with mortal birth, that identity that each morning is the cumulative total of its mortal days and nights, that self old or young, sick or well, brave or cowardly, beautiful or ugly, whole or mutilated, that is one's lot.

 

from Pilgermann

  

 

 

 

Bes',

alida
 

 

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

 

 

 

HAPPY 80th birthday, RUSSELL HOBAN


Feb. 4, 2005

Quotes from two of his many books:

 

 

Sometimes I am astonished that there should be buildings built and institutions maintained to string out the brevity of human life over successive generations; trees don't do that, they just hold on to the darkness and accept the light night after night and day after day without pretensions to permanence.

 

from The Bat Tattoo, London: Bloomsbury, 2002, p. 60

  

 

 

~ ~ ~ ~
 

 

The almost-full moon rises and looks down on the banks and ditches of the hill-fort, the labial configurations at either end meant to baffle invaders or possibly honour the white goddess. Despite the paling of the sky the stars are clearly visible, brighter than in London. Burning and flickering, they send their light down from before the age of dinosaurs, the Babylonian exile, the fall of Rome, the sack of Jerusalem."

from Her Name Was Lola, London: Bloomsbury, 2003, p. 91
 

  


Here are the photos of strategic yellow paper placements. Only one needs a bit of explanation - Feb. 4 we had a big Children's Theater Festival on my campus at which children's books were being sold. You can see some Frances titles--I had great fun slipping yellow paper into the books as a surprise for those wise enough to buy Hoban books. The other sites are on campus, too.

 

 

 

 

Best, alida

 

 

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

 

 

Alida's 2003 quotes

 

What's below
Is what goes
All around
My campus--

 

                                     Feb. 4, 2003

 

Happy Birthday, Russell Hoban!

 

Quotes from Russell Hoban's Children's Books

from La Corona and the Tin Frog (1979)


La Corona was the name of the beautiful lady in the picture on the inside of the cigar box lid. She wore a scarlet robe and a golden crown. Beyond her was a calm blue bay on which a paddle-wheel steamer floated. A locomotive trailed a faint plume of smoke across the pink and distant plain past shadowy palms and pyramids. Far off in the printed sky sailed a balloon.

        But the lady never looked at any of those things. She sat among wheels and anvils, sheaves of wheat, hammers, toppled pedestals and garden urns, and she pointed to a globe that stood beside her while she looked steadfastly out past the left-hand side of the picture.

        Inside the cigar box lived a tin frog, a seashell, a yellow cloth tape measure, and a magnifying glass. The tin frog was bright green and yellow, with two perfectly round eyes that were like yellow-and-black bullseyes. He had cost five shillings when new and hopped when wound up. He had fallen in love with La Corona, and he was wound up all the time because of it. He kept trying to hop into the picture with her, but he only bumped his nose against it and fell back into the box.

        "I love you," he told her. But she said nothing, didn't even look at him.

        "For heaven's sake!" said the tin frog. "Look at me, won't you? What do you expect to see out there beyond the left-hand side of the picture?"

        "Perhaps a handsome prince," said La Corona.

        "Maybe I'm a handsome prince," said the tin frog. "You know, an enchanted one."

        "Not likely," said La Corona. "You're not even a very handsome frog."

 

 

 

 

from The Sea-Thing Child (1972)

 

The wind was howling, the sea was wild, and the night was black when the storm flung the sea-thing child up on the beach. In the morning the sky was fresh and clean, the beach was littered with seaweed, and there he lay--a little black heap of scales and feathers, all alone. All alone he was, and behind him the ocean roared and shook its fist. He lay there, howling not very loud, Ow, ow, ow! Ai-ee!" while the foam washed over him and went hissing away. He was too little to swim very well and he hadn't learned to fly yet. He was nothing but a little draggled heap of fright.
        After a while, when the tide went out and the day grew warm, he crawled up on the beach, leaving a wide and messy track behind him in the smooth sand. He crawled up among the big old seaweed-bearded rocks by a tide-pool, and he went to sleep, cheeping softly to himself.

 

 

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