Invitation to a Beheading?

Every Dr. Sexson class I have ever taken fosters a growing comradery amongst the students, I've met some of the greatest people in my life through these classes. I've seen an engagement (congratulation Sutter and Sam)  flourish from the beauty and connectivity that these classes inspire and initiate. But blogs and lecture alone leave little room for the infinite expandability that can come from this class. That is why, I'd like to extend an invitation to any and all to form a semi-informal, semi infamous following of our own school of night. I'm pretty flexible as to when and what we do, but to start Id say that every Sunday around 8:30 ish meet at the Bacchus pub. Have a few highbrews, attempt to stay somewhat academic in our efforts, but just a friendly forum to toast and talk. Anyone is welcome, I'm going to try and have a few "guest speakers" from time to time. I'm open to suggestions, if anyone perhaps wants to focus on a particular book, or play I'd love that. (I'm thinking about Ulysses but perhaps we start small(er) maybe The Tin Drum? or maybe nothing is better)
anyways let me know, but I'll be down there. reading a book or the bottom of a beer glass.

The secular Sacred

I often have a hard time maintaining the "assignments" presented in class, this is due in part to my avoidance of taking notes. Long years I have devoted to the art of note taking. I have endured cramped hands on harem a pens and pencils only to walk away with a half-heard lecture and labyrinth of unplanned and unremembered cryptic abbreviations and indecipherable misspellings. So I stoped dictating and started listening instead but alas, memory fails. However, I did remember this particular assignment because fits my philosophy of life and literature.
That is: that all things are sacred, just frequently overlooked.

For my veteran peers, you'll probably groan and roll your eyes (once again) to hear me speak about my particular sacred literature. I hadn't realized that my taste have become hackneyed until last semester, when asked why I chose to focus on Waiting for Godot  for and assignment, Zach Morris, a former fellow student called out in monotonous grievance, "Because Jon is obsessed with Samuel Beckett"
But, I don't care. I am obsessed, and Zach isn't here anymore.

I have many "sacred texts" but there is one that rises above all the rest, or perhaps it is better said it sinks below all the rest, plunging to depths that no other writer can take you, such dark and deep abysmal recesses that you have no other choice than to find you self elated and higher than you thought literarily possible. This monolith (triolith?) of exalting and almost asphyxiating power would have to be Samuel Beckett's The Three Novels. I have read the book twice, well once honestly, the second time I couldn't finish The Unameable. There is no other work I have come across that is nearly as moving. I pined over this work, it nearly consumed me and to this day still haunts my psyche. But I welcome the apparitions, none are more colorful than the black and gray ghosts that still swim in my mind.

In response to Nathan Phillips.

I'd like to just quickly respond to one of the question you proposed to Dr. Sexson. Though I cannot answer for him or for anyone else in the class directly, I can submit a surrogate response: Yes, what you are doing with your blogs is not only on the right track, but it "sets the bar" as Sexson might put it. I've taken quite a few classes with Dr. Sexson (this being my 7th)  and I can tell you that even thought the lectures are by far the greatest I have ever had (even though I am absent today), and that there is really is little more I would rather do than sit and be affected by the cascading cistern of knowledge that Dr. Sexson dispense in a deluge, that the Blogs really are the foundation of these classes.
I can add, that though i've only been treated to a few of your posts, I can see that your insight will be one of the many pillars of thought that I and I'd assume the rest of this class will rest upon.
German Lit? I'm actually about to read a book by Gutner Grass, If you've read any of his work I'd like to hear what you think.

Stability through Style.

A few questions have been prompted so far in this course, and to begin the semester I have a few opinion or personal responses to these questions. The first being: Why Shakespeare? and the second pertains to the repetition of stories from mythology to Shakespeare and so on.

To begin with the latter, and to be brief- There is an inescapable rhythm and cycle to things. This cycle is represented in all facets of life and the natural world. The seasons ceremoniously rise and fall. Petals bloom from   black boughs and are blown asunder within a breath of wind. We see waning moons effaced out our windows where reflections of waxwings  live on in ashen fluff. We come and go. Our lives, our stories are lunar, not linear.

In borrowing fashion, I recently watched a documentary on The Buddha because last semester a fellow and inspiring student (Ashley) spoke about the film and the effect it had on her. I can't recall if she brought up these particular points of the movie, if she did this is perhaps why they stuck out to me amidst this films intricate tapestry. I feel these points both illustrate the beauty of revisiting literature, the power of originality.

The first being story of Siddhartha; After years of self torture and self deprivation Siddhartha sits under a tree and a young peasant approaches him and gives him a bowl of rice pudding. After years of eating nothing but a grain of rice a day, Siddhartha indulges in this rice pudding. The flood of senorsy stimulation washes over him, the first taste takes him back to childhood where his mother would feed him rice pudding, he sees his life as a web of interconnectivity between all moments and all people. This is his epiphanic moment.

For anyone who has persevered through In Search of Lost Time, or for any of you who like me have attempted but only made it about twenty pages, you will resoundingly recall the inaugural scene. Siddhartha's story is re-presented in Proust with the vehicle of a petite madeline instead of rice pudding.

for full effect, please read Proust here. http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/proust.html

By simply reading this, you will understand my first question. Why Shakespeare? you will also save me sometime on this blog because if I start going, I won't be able to stop. And class begisn in an hour. Read Proust and you will understand though. It comes down to one thing: Your style. Anyone can tell a story, but how you do it, that is the question.