Metaphors and Mythology
The Web History of AZ is a play on words about the subjective nature of man's recorded existence, the mythologies that emerge from the many interpretations or recollections of major events. The limited nature and existence of man becomes his enemy, he hates himself for it and the cunning power seeking individuals (the scared ones) convince the naive (a word created by the scared power hungry) that they are hated by God, they are not worthy and that they must submit to his will if they are to ascend to heaven and be limitless.
It begins with Adam, a veteran of the Iraq War who is cast out of the military, out of the University and out of the High Plains. Adam is a recent graduate of Texas Tech and makes his way to Austin to participate in a start up with his war buddy John Fryer (a.k.a. Google). When he gets there, John's fiancé greets him and informs him that he is no longer there and is always out of town to meet up with investors. Marisol says he can stay until John gets back and that night they sleep together, but she tells him that it was just physical and that she does not have any emotional feelings for him. She
Uncle Sam is God. Draw out the comparison. Research the image and find a similarity.
His aphasia represents the aphasia of history. We cannot record everything. We cannot save everything. Ideas get lost and so does our attempts to understand our existence. Content words are the record and the functional words are what we lose. The library burned in Alexandria. Languages that did not have a written form, or the opposite, those that were written without phonetics (like hieroglyphics). Technology can help us recover from this loss (use of paper, mathematics and the book) but it only complicates the problem because it allows us to record, save and analyze more events and information. We're only going deeper down the rabbit hole and not getting out.
Adam becomes a language coach to a group of students from the peripheries of the BRIC countries. Just like the biblical Adam, his story is global. After being cast off from the cap rock, he descends into the Texas Hill Country, the heart of Texas where he meets up with John Fryer, a fellow soldier from his battalion, nicknamed "Google". John is forming a startup and is trying to get the initial capital for the project. He wants to bring Adam in on the effort, but it is too soon. In the meantime, John's fiancé, Marisol offers Adam a job as a language coach at the Lingua Franca school, a school that tutors students trying to pass the TOEFL test. It sounded like a good idea since he needed money to stay in Austin and wait for the startup to take off.
One of her students, Amina Al-Zaman might be suffering from aphasia but she is not sure. Amina arrived at the Lingua Franca school with a doctor's note stating that she is recovering from a head injury in Egypt. The doctors and her father felt that it would be better for her recovery to continue with her goal of going to Graduate School at UT. Marisol didn't think Amina was ready for the TOEFL but she insisted. She felt bad for Amina, especially because of what was happening in Egypt, so she told her she could attend for free. She had a few extra students come at the last minute and realized she needed a new language coach.
How does aphasia tie into the field trips to Whole Foods, Sixth Street, Brackenridge Hospital, Zilker Park and rock climbing and eventually Enchanted Rock? Mythologies are early forms of moral history. Food mythology, such as the apple story in the garden of eden is a lesson in willpower, yield not to temptation.