The Zebra Storyteller by Spencer Holst and A Fable by Mark Twain Martian sends a postcard home A Little Fable by Franz Kafka

AIM: Without stories and storytellers, how would we know what might happen next?

 10 Minutes of Silent Writing 

1. What is the difference between something just happening next and something that happens next is related to or caused by what had happened before?

2. As a general rule, are things that happen next related to or caused by things that had happened before? 

3. Can stories create the future, predict the future, or are they unrelated to the future? 

Do Now: Please look over the vocabulary before reading the story so you enjoy the story more...

Vocabulary

• Siamese cat  
• Zebraic
• “Fit to be tied” -  meaning that you are so furious you might need to be physically restrained - like the way they do to people who can't control themselves
• Decadent - luxuriously self-indulgent, overly selfish
• Filet mignon—Yummers!  the most expensive and tenderest cut of meat
• Superstitious — believing in ghosts, or being scared monsters who are lurking in the dark....
• Function— purpose, in the sense of how things relate to each other, as the storyteller relates to the society by sharing imaginative stories with them.
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THE ZEBRA STORYTELLER by Spencer Holst

Once upon a time there was a Siamese cat who pretended to be a lion and spoke inappropriate Zebraic.

That language is whinnied by the race of striped horses in Africa.

Here now: An innocent zebra is walking in a jungle and approaching from another direction is the little cat; they meet.

"Hello there!" says the Siamese cat in perfectly pronounced Zebraic, "It certainly is a pleasant day, isn't it? The sun is shining, the birds are singing, isn't the world a lovely place to live today!"

The zebra is so astonished at hearing Siamese cat speaking like a zebra, why---he's just fit to be tied.

So the little cat quickly ties him up, kills him, and drags the better parts of the carcass back to his den.

The cat successfully hunted zebras many months in this manner, dining on filet mignon of zebra every night, and from the better hides he made bow neckties and wide belts after the fashion of the decadent princes of the Old Siamese court.

He began boasting to his friends he was a lion, and he gave them as proof the fact he hunted zebras.

The delicate noses of the zebras told them there was really no lion in the neighborhood. The zebra deaths caused many to avoid the region. Superstitious, they decided the woods were haunted by the ghost of a lion.

One day the storyteller of the zebras was ambling, and through his mind ran plots for stories to amuse the other zebras, when suddenly his eyes brightened, and he said, "That's it! I'll tell a story about a Siamese cat who learns to speak our language! What an idea! That'll make 'em laugh!"

Just then the Siamese cat appeared before him, and said, "Hello there! Pleasant day today, isn't it!"

The zebra storyteller wasn't fit to be tied at hearing a cat speaking his language, because he'd been thinking about that very thing.

He took a good look at the cat, and he didn't know why, but there was something about his looks he didn't like, so he kicked him with a hoof and killed him.

That is the function of the storyteller

A Little Fable

by Franz Kafka

"Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."      "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up. by Franz Kafka

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Click : Read More for Mark Twain's "A Fable

A Poem: "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home" by Craig Raine and "A Fable (A short story) by Mark Twain

Vocabulary: Caxton: book, Model T a car

"Do Now"

Essential Questions:

1. Does your mind hold a miniature picture of the world you see?
2. Is your memory a sort of very sophisticated recording machine that accurately stores sensory experiences?
3. Does what you see and what you remember change, depending on other factors?
4. Do you "see" the world or do you interpret the world through the senses?
5. Did you ever think, I should get to be friends with person, he/she always goes to the better parties.
6. Did you ever consider meeting someone so your acquaintanceship had a purpose, a function? 
7. Does seeing something or someone with function or purpose in mind change the way you see that person, or that chore, or that object?

AIM: What is both Mark Twain and Craig Raine trying to say about how we use our eyes and our brains as we strive to understand both the world and a work of art?


While you are Reading and Listening Questions:

1. Where did the artist place the mirror?

2. Was the cat's explanation of what a mirror is an honest explanation?

3. Have you ever seen a dog bark at it's own reflection in a mirror?  Why do they do that?

4. According to the cat, how can our unexamined "assumptions" get in the way of seeing what's been there, all the time? 

A FABLE by Mark Twain

Once upon a time an artist who had painted a small and very beautiful picture placed it so that he could see it in the mirror. He said, "This doubles the distance and softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was before."

The animals out in the woods heard of this through the housecat, who was greatly admired by them because he was so learned, and so refined and civilized, and so polite and high-bred, and could tell them so much which they didn't know before, and were not certain about afterward. They were much excited about this new piece of gossip, and they asked questions, so as to get at a full understanding of it. They asked what a picture was, and the cat explained.

"It is a flat thing," he said; "wonderfully flat, marvelously flat, enchantingly flat and elegant. And, oh, so beautiful!"

That excited them almost to a frenzy, and they said they would give the world to see it. Then the bear asked:

"What is it that makes it so beautiful?"

"It is the looks of it," said the cat.

This filled them with admiration and uncertainty, and they were more excited than ever. Then the cow asked:

"What is a mirror?"

"It is a hole in the wall," said the cat. "You look in it, and there you see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy."

The ass had not said anything as yet; he now began to throw doubts. He said there had never been anything as beautiful as this before, and probably wasn't now. He said that when it took a whole basketful of sesquipedalian adjectives to whoop up a thing of beauty, it was time for suspicion.

It was easy to see that these doubts were having an effect upon the animals, so the cat went off offended. The subject was dropped for a couple of days, but in the meantime curiosity was taking a fresh start, and there was a revival of interest perceptible. Then the animals assailed the ass for spoiling what could possibly have been a pleasure to them, on a mere suspicion that the picture was not beautiful, without any evidence that such was the case. The ass was not troubled; he was calm, and said there was one way to find out who was in the right, himself or the cat: he would go and look in that hole, and come back and tell what he found there. The animals felt relieved and grateful, and asked him to go at once—which he did.

But he did not know where he ought to stand; and so, through error, he stood between the picture and the mirror. The result was that the picture had no chance, and didn't show up. He returned home and said:

"The cat lied. There was nothing in that hole but an ass. There wasn't a sign of a flat thing visible. It was a handsome ass, and friendly, but just an ass, and nothing more."

The elephant asked:

"Did you see it good and clear? Were you close to it?"

"I saw it good and clear, O Hathi, King of Beasts. I was so close that I touched noses with it."

"This is very strange," said the elephant; "the cat was always truthful before—as far as we could make out. Let another witness try. Go, Baloo, look in the hole, and come and report."

So the bear went. When he came back, he said:

"Both the cat and the ass have lied; there was nothing in the hole but a bear."

Great was the surprise and puzzlement of the animals. Each was now anxious to make the test himself and get at the straight truth. The elephant sent them one at a time.

First, the cow. She found nothing in the hole but a cow.

The tiger found nothing in it but a tiger.

The lion found nothing in it but a lion.

The leopard found nothing in it but a leopard.

The camel found a camel, and nothing more.

Then Hathi was wroth, and said he would have the truth, if he had to go and fetch it himself. When he returned, he abused his whole subjectry for liars, and was in an unappeasable fury with the moral and mental blindness of the cat. He said that anybody but a near-sighted fool could see that there was nothing in the hole but an elephant.

        MORAL, BY THE CAT

You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination. You may not see your ears, but they will be there.

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A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979)

Craig Raine

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings –

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside –
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet, they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone’s pain has a different smell.

At night, when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves –
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

Question son the poem

What details shows that the Martian sees the same objects that we do, but sees them in different ways?

Why does he see them differently?  

How does he relate the function of the objects he sees to his description of them?

(We saw that word, 'function' in "The Zebra Storyteller" - How does function or ideas we have about function, change how we see things in the world, things in books, art, and even other people?"

Let's list some of the familiar objects the Martian describes in such different ways and try to identify the way he reassigns each object a different purpose.

How does he see books?

What effect holding the mechanical birds have on people who hold them?

Why does the sky get tired and what does it do when it does?

How is 'time' tied down?

Why is the world turned into the experience of Television when it rains?