Caleb's Myth-Folklore Assignments

Runaway Tales (Photo by Gavin Clarke , 2009)       Story      Once upon a time, there was a real seedy New York dive bar. In this bar sat a scrawny little man. He couldn't have weighed more than 140 pounds. His arms were like toothpicks and his glasses were most definitely tortoise shell. Needless to say, he looked a bit out of place. Naturally, when a guy looks that out of place, he gathers some attention. A couple of real tough looking dudes gathered around the man as he drank his drink. These guys were big. They easily topped 200 to 250 pounds and it was all muscle. They crack their knuckles and ask the gentleman what he thinks he's doing here. So, the gentleman with the tortoise shell glasses addressed the big men in leather jackets and offered to tell them a story. They were curious as to what made this kid think he could hang here. Being the ever understanding men that they were, they sat down for a listen. "Alright yous guys. Here it goes," said the ...

      In the second part of this week's reading, I read the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. It was a much different tale from the Disney version. Although, it did still make me want to watch the original Disney Aladdin.  (Illustration by H.J. Ford, 1898) Plot     This was a long story. So, I'm going to try to summarize the major plot points very briefly.      Aladdin is a lazy son of a poor tailor. He's so lazy that his father dies from the grief of it. One day, while Aladdin is playing outside, a magician approaches him and says he is his uncle. Aladdin runs home and tells his mom and the magician woos the family. He takes Aladdin under his wing. Eventually, he takes Aladdin to this spot between two mountains. He throws some magic powder on a fire and a door appears from the earth. He gives Aladdin a ring. Aladdin is made to open it and descend down to retrieve the lamp for the magician. He picks some special fruit along the way. Wh...

The Merchant and the Genie        The Merchant and the Genie ( Illustrated by H.J. Ford, 1898 )      Wow! Turns out Christopher Nolan is an amateur. I really liked reading the story within the story within th story. I kept anticipating the  Inception "drop" in each tale that would kick back to the one before it. It definitely helped hold my interest. My only wish is that there was a bit more information about  Scheherazade and the sultan as the stories were being told. The reality of her stalling with the stories gets a bit lost. That may just be because of the way I'm reading them as separate stories.      My favorite one of  Scheherazade's tales was the very first, the genie and the four men. I'm choosing to tie all of the men's stories and Scheherazade's into one story for my writing assignment. This is for the sake of simplicity, although I'm sure that's not the right word, when rewriting.  Plot    ...