Because I love reading in bed, I bought a paperback copy of Arabian Nights at Barnes and Noble.  I thought that this text was especially appropriate to read in bed before sleeping.  I was with the king and the younger sister, a fellow listener.  The stories distracted me to the point of losing sleep or oversleeping the next morning.  The interlaced serial nature of the text was incredibly addictive.  I found myself craving another tale and another tale after that.  A like bites of a cake, each forkful delicious...

When I watched "Metropolis," I didn't see an overwhelming amount of connection between the film and "Persepolis," but there were a few noteworthy similarities that I picked up on.  The most significant similarity, I thought, was that both tell the story of revolutions against corrupt leaders put together by the people.  The revolutions were not at all the same, but they had a lot of the same elements (people coming together, copious amounts of violence, etc.).  I also noticed the similarity in the stylization of the images, as Anne mentioned in class on Tuesday.

I enjoyed the three stories that I read in A Thousand and One Nights-- I read the Electronic Literature Foundation's online selection of the stories, which were translated by Andrew Lang and Sir Richard Burton.  I love how the stories flow into each other, making a seemingly endless storyscape.

 So far I've read the first 9 stories of the Arabian Nights collection off of ELF. It's interesting coming back to read these again after years of not doing so. I read many of the Arabian Nights stories when I was younger. I owned the book, which was a gift, and I read several stories before bed every night. Now, I don't remember a lot of them. What's interesting is that the first time I read these stories they were in Turkish. I only wish I had a better memory for the times, or at least to book so that I could comment as to whether I had different experiences while reading the stories in different languages. 

 I read the first 5 Arabian Nights stories from the ELF website. I definitely see the connections between Scheherezade and Marjane, as they were both educated women who used story-telling in a freeing way - Scheherezade for her people and Marjane for herself and her beliefs. The 'story within a story' aspect of the Arabian Nights tales can be slightly confusing, but they're definitely simple to understand. The ELF source includes pictures along with the actual words, which relates to the graphic aspect of graphic narratives, but I really didn't pay close attention to them, much like what happened when I read the graphic novels.

the concept of holy moments in movies fascinated me, mainly because i had never thought about it like that before, and its true, movies do do that for me, as do tv serials - i remember me in high school and whenevr i was having a particularly bad day i would just sit in front of the tv and watch anything that was even midly interesting, simply because it distracted me. and thinking about it, obviously its a successful distraction - it takes over your sense of vision, sound and a good part of your mental cognitive ability, leaving little room for thought.

a book on the other hand needs more work, you need to read it, and sometimes, if your thoughts are too loud, you skim the book, because you can. and its easier.

the movie metropolis didnt remind me of persepolis at all.. while i could see a connection because both of them were in black and white and dealt with gruesome topics, persepolis was an autobiography - it was real, it had soul and layers and was something you could connect with.

metropolis on the other hand, seemed flat, almost 2D, it dealt with important concepts and did so in an intersting manner but there was nothing legitimate? im not sure, i just didnt see the connection in a relevant way.

we began class by taking a look at peoples responses to the movie Persepolis - the class seemed to have similar reactions in terms of concepts and things like the fact that the movie was in french, the soundtrack it had, the addition of movement, lack of borders and its play with colour.

what the class did not seem to agree on however was whether the role of an adaptation (the movie was one of the book)  was to preserve the original - a discusion which presented itself in bits and pieces throughout the class.

aybala50 enjoyed the music in the movie - she said it added a layer to the experience which the book couldnt do. she also thought that it gave the movie more direction because the film maker could control how we felt through this soundtrack.

I read the first 8 (or 9?) stories from the ELF online version, mostly because I didn't want to buy another textbook when I'm in the midst of packing my room up to move out.  I'd known the premise of the book, but I had never heard any of the individual tales.

I was surprised at how short some of the stories are.  Given the premise, I was expecting to hear longer stories, so that she was only telling one story at a time.  Instead, I was surprised to find out that she was telling many stories within the context of a much longer story, and we ourselves are reading both of those within a much longer, better known story.

For Thursday's assignment I chose to read The Story of the Envious Wezir and the Prince and the Ghuleh, The Story of the Husband and the Parrot, and the Story of the Porter and the Ladies of Baghdad, and the of Three Royal Mendicants, Etc. All of these were from the Harvard Online Collection.