References To "Real World" Culture
The book contains several clever references to our world in the things that Fooley brings back from his balloon ride.
- The names of the periods are derived from common abbreviations (Ltd. means limited, Co. means county, Bros. means brothers, etc. (that's one too))
- Paintings are family trees and family trees are paintings. This is because Fooley brought back a painting of a tree in front of a house and when the villagers matched the list written in Fooley's book with the things he had brought back they thought it was a family tree and they called the family tree a painting because it was the last thing left.
- Fooley also brings back the poem Mary Had a Little Lamb and it is the prevailing opinion that something that doesn't follow its rhyme scheme and meter is not a poem but a scribble.
Read more about this topic: The Gammage Cup
Famous quotes containing the words real, world and/or culture:
“Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens—and real diseases are useful material.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“When the whole world is writing letters, it’s easy to lap into the quiet within, tell the story of an hour, keep alive the narrating inner life. To be alone in the presence of one’s thought is not a value, only a common practice.”
—Vivian Gornick (b. 1935)
“If mass communications blend together harmoniously, and often unnoticeably, art, politics, religion, and philosophy with commercials, they bring these realms of culture to their common denominator—the commodity form. The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value, counts.”
—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)