Monday, December 25, 2006

The Myth of Elvis: Part One, the paper may be done but my obsession is not.



So Blogger decided to give me back the power to upload images, which is the reason why I haven't posted in a month, also because i've been crazy with school finals and papers, one of which was for my class Elvis as Anthology, which has been one of the most influential classes i have taken thus far in my college career. No other class has taught me more useful information about American popular culture, our society, politics, and it even tickled my conspiracy bone often. It is a class taught by the amazing Peter Nazareth whose own lust to learn more about Elvis and everything in addition to spreading his own knowledge to everyone who can made this one of the most enjoyable classes ever. However, being the celestial schmuck i am, i failed in completing the only paper assigned to me, a 25 paged paper, on time and thus made me feel terrible that i could disrespect the class and the teacher which have given me so much. I plan on repeating the course if i am here next year, most likely i will, and will start work on a project at the beginning of the semester. But to allieviate some of the guilt that i feel within me, i'm going to do a few blog posts describing what i was trying to get accross in the paper and just to get this kind of craziness out. there's high hoodoo at work, ladies and gents, some already fills me with doubt and strain. odd.


Anyways, let's get to it. The above pictures are of Elvis Aron (Aaron to some) Presley from the 'Aloha from Hawaii' concert (1973) and a depiction of the Memphite god, Ptah. Yes, Memphis, the one in Egypt, the one that the American one is named after. According to Nazareth there's a story that the wife of the founder of Memphis, TN, was of local American Indian descent and told her husband a tribal story of persons of darker skin coming from accross the sea and dictated that the land where the city was to be built, would be called Memphis. So that's craziness number one. A really brief story of Ptah: apparently, he was the ultimate badass head honcho for the Memphis people, he created everything by what i think was through self-felatio (there was no one else he could have sex with right?). He created the universe out of love, a very strong self love. I could be full of crap and that this is a story of Atun, one of his creations, but stories are meant to be retold and reorganized to keep things interesting, so stay with me.


There's only a couple of things that i really wanted to compare the King with Ptah: 1) Ptah is always depicted with a high collar, later-year jumpsuit Elvis always incorporated a high collar into his suits. Elvis was an incredibly well read guy, he 'knew' (it's in quotes because some of it may have come from his own research and some of it may have been channeled into him by higher forces, which i'll get back to later) that the high collar was a status symbol reserved for royalty. The other is the staff which Ptah always held, here it is close to his mouth, much like Elvis' microphone. Ptah wore a skull cap however, compared to Elvis' hair...which could be talked about as well.


Brief note about the 'Aloha' jumpsuit: many think that it is the American eagle he has sequined onto the suit, however I believe that it is actually a depiction of the Phoenix, the mythological bird of fire and rebirth.



So from this, there now leads a few trails of thought i may take: more signs of Elvis as royalty, Elvis as a Pheonix, and more 'gods' he takes his image from...
but there must be a better way to explain all of this to people, more connections, but it might take years, Elvis the image, the myth, is sooooo huge, infinate connections and subtleties he places everywhere...he left behind so much for us to unravel to discover. much magic in his story his history for those who go searching. the question is, do i follow?
for now, be content that i am back to blogging i suppose. merry christmas, hanukkah, kwanza, or whatever it is you people do these days. enjoy yourselves.