Art as asymptotic function

For a period of so many centuries there was never a shortage of novelty in music. There was simply so much music that had yet to be discovered. Literature has behaved in very much the same way. True, every 100 year period has a few recurring trends, among them logic and balance one century, free form and Romantic ideals the next. Always something fresh off the hizzy. Same for theater, movies, and so on. But has anyone else not noticed how static things have been getting lately? And so suddenly, too, I mean wow, just look at the millions of genres and subgenres, with millions of generic bands occupying these foul recesses? Every form of harmony, scale, structure, and rhythm has been tried and applied ad naueseam. Literature , too. I'm getting really tired of all the James Pattersonesque novels receiving "NY TIMES #1 BESTSELLER" where it's clearly either biased or undeserved or both. Or look at Tom Clancy, and all his derivative drivel. Check out the Tom Clancy Plot Generator program on Maddox.xmission.com to get a humorous perspective on how uninspired the plots are. I really do feel an exponential expression of some sort in my head, when I think of this "time line" art novelty image in my head. Pretty soon there will be no novelty at all in any type of art. I guarantee people will catch on pretty soon, if not eventually. Then what will happen? Movie industries, Hollywood, Music industries, Motown, it will all fail and go bankrupt. Mass chaos will ensue in the streets. Hundreds of homeless people, once powerful, evil pawns of industries like MTV, will be starving to death on the street, receiving what they rightfully deserve. Then one day, art will be an obsolete concept altogether. A mass, collective automatonic breakdown. No art, no emotion in life, no emotions = robot. And that's all we'll ever be. A huge collective pile of festering reproducing robots.

Language

I was watching the City of God the other day. It is an intensely realistic portrayal of the grimy drug and crime-ridden slums of Rio de Jinero (sp) . It's so real, in fact, that even the majority of the actors are of the slums themselves, and had no prior acting experience. My beef is not with the actors, or with the movie in itself. I've no doubt that it's a masterpiece from start to finish, ridden of all the overdone acting and American cheesiness of films like Scarface. The problem is that it is in Portuguese. No matter how good the acting is, I just can't shake the periodic isolation factor off. The lips not lining up with themselves, the jumbled nature of prepositions and verb phrases, arrgh. The same goes for music that is spoken in another language. When I try to get into an opera, for example, it is already difficult enough to simultaneously integrate both the orchestral layers of sound and the melody line of the soloist. The extra conversion factor of having to strain my eyes for the English subtitles makes the listening experience all the more insurmountable a problem for me. And think of all the books written in other languages, especially the religious texts, in which its English equivalent does the prose and overall message little justice. I tried to read through the English translation of Les Miserables, and alas, being the purist that I am, could not come to grips with finishing the mammoth text. I reasoned to myself that it was probably a poor representation of the real thing, even though the numerous reviews that I've seen of the English version on amazon seem to indicate that it is I who is in the wrong. I really do want to learn German, at the very least.

First Memory of Significance

Well this isn't the first time I've had to do an assignment over a memory of some sort. But my very first memory? That would have to be when I was in preschool. It was Halloween, and everyone was dressed up as something, including my teacher, who was dressed as a giant crayon. I got mad at her for some reason, probably because of her terrible fashion sense, and ended up kicking her in the shin, which resulted in a send-home. But what may I ask is the point of writing about something as insignificant as that? I will thus choose to elaborate on my first memory of significance, in which I can clearly recall a wealth of feelings and information.

It was that ever fateful time of year again, and my parents had long since racked their brains in disgust as to what to get me this year. After a long, heralding search to find the one gift that would provide me with lasting happiness, they finally settled on getting me a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. They must have noticed me during all those visits to the mall. I always ventured to the video game section of the mall. There was a nintendo there encased in glass and hooked up to the television, in which another older recipient was always playing. I dared not ask for a turn. I instead watched idly in the corner, fascinated by this completely user-dominated domain. It was like TV, but better. I wanted one very badly, but never bothered to ask. In the days leading up to the 25th, I never could have anticipated the degree of happiness I would be in, nor was I able to perceive the beginning of something that would alter my life and interests in such a drastic way. In truth, I had been expecting the same mundane presents that I received every year. I figured they'd probably give me a new batch of action figures that would amount to little more than temporary indulgences ultimately to be cast alongside the rest of my long-forgotten toys. Or perhaps they would surprise me with an elliptical rather than rounded electric train set. Oh, the possibilities! Even though I was in a pessimistic state of mind, I continued to wonder if perhaps this year would be different. I recall how time would slow to a creeping dredge during the final few days, and how this dredge would crawl exponentially slower as the hour of Christmas drew nearer. The night before Christmas was all but unbearable. The anxiety was typical of a child. I knew that I had to be asleep when Santa came, otherwise he would shy away or something and skip my house. This state of mind always left me awake and bedridden for a large portion of the night, until I finally managed to doze off at around 12. When I woke up, I was greeted by an optimistic ray of sunshine, perhaps a ray of hope. It was snowing outside, too, another plus. I figured this year would therefore be special. I ran downstairs ridden with this very newfound optimism, and proceeded to stick to my tradition of opening the biggest present first. Silent anticipation was for the weak. I tore open the wrapping, and at this point I clearly remember being in a state of elation. The most amazing part though wasn't the gift itself. It was the fact that my parents had taken the effort to be observant enough of my wishes and disires. It's the sign and quality of a true parent.

Family Tradition

Well, my family (consisting of my Mom, Dad, and me) do not practice many unique, routine traditions per se, with the exception of typical things such as eating meals together. 'Can't say we didn't try, though. Family vacations were always a gas. We always tried to have fun on our annual visits to Destin/Gulf Shores, but in the end all our hopes and anticipations ended up falling flat. For one thing, there's nothing to do down there. In the words of Bill Hicks, it just happens to be a place where dirt meets water. If anyone would like to explain to me how making sand castles, floating in water, and getting sun burned can be fun, I'd really like to know. The subsidiary attractions never held my interest for very long either. The prices for attractions such as jet skiing, parasailing, and scuba diving were absurd, so each year the only thing my cousin and I had to look forward to was the water park and miniature golf land, and I must say, in the end we preferred the latter. Goofy goff was entertaining to us for a number of reasons: the endless slopes, hills, and arrays of traps, the silly themes, the general lack of skill required, but most importantly because we always played miniature golf at night, when it was cool and all the lights were glowing in radiant neon. It was a complete change for the better in comparison to the terribly hot and boring festivities that we were forced to traverse during the day. After our long, delightful round of eighteen holes, we would then retract completely from parents and authority into the inner sanctum of the arcade zone. Everything was there for the taking: skeeball, motorbike-simulation games, and a slew of notorious token munchers such as Time Crisis and Die Hard. The sad part was that all this was readily available back home. I will cut Destin some slack in one department though; the food. All of the restaurants were simply to die for, and I had a ball eating at Fudpuckers and secretely feeding the alligators down below. In the end though, it simply wasn't worth the money or effort it took to make and voyage come true. Next year came around, and we promised to never again go to Florida, and to this day, nearly six years later, we have held steadfast to that promise. I have a feeling that many families view vacations to Florida with a similar contempt, and yet they are too narrowminded and tied down to the opinions and insistence of others that Destin is the greatest place ever. I am proud of my family and me that we were able to take a step back and reflect on what a shitty time we had each year, and that we could have just as much fun kicking it back in Memphis all summer.

Another short-lived family tradition of ours was shooting fireworks off at our house on New Years. At one time we were the only family around our block that used fireworks, and we took a certain pride in this fact. As a young kid I remember always anticipating this day. I've never been a pyro by any stretch of the imagination, and yet I clearly remember marveling at the explosions and vibrant displays of color and energy. I would always gaze with content at the magnificent chemical reactions taking place before my eyes. It was this annual event that first sparked (Disregard it;yes you know what I'm talking about) my interest in science, and the phenomena behind fireworks intrigues me to this day. As the years went by, other people in the neighborhood slowly caught on and followed suit, and soon it became a trend to shoot fireworks, and after a while, our (or at least my) interest gradually waned.

So basically at one point we decided to stop trying to plan our own family traditions, and instead just stick to the classics such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving is always an important time in our family, and as I've grown older I've learned to enjoy both the quality time that I get to spend with my parents, grandparents, and cousins, and also the food, at which one point in time I was heavily biased towards, that is until I actually gave it a chance. I no longer cut up at the table either, nor do I say that I am bored and ready to excuse myself. I learned to just kick back at the table and bask in the effervescent glow of all my relatives happily chatting and musing about, as if at that moment of time, there wasn't a care in the world. So even though in essence I consider Thanksgiving a bullshit holiday (Remember those same Indians we befriended that day? Yeah, we killed them like what the day after?) I've learned to just go with it and enjoy the tradition, however irrational it may seem. The same thing goes for Christmas. I don't subscribe to the faith, but we all enjoy the same spirit of gathering around together for a large turkey dinner, and then opening presents under the tree.

Video games

Video games have been a staple of my life since childhood. And for good reason! All you snot-nosed moms and dads can look me in the eyes all you want when I say that video games are good for your kid. Let me them stay inside if they want to, by god. They inspire many positive things in a growing mind; increased motor skills, learning, and social interaction, to name a few. Who knew that improving your pac man chops could be fun and give you an edge on reflexes? As for the educational aspect, yes, there are many real-world things I have learned in games, such as the names of people and places, and the meaning of new words and phrases. I never again wanna hear a person say that video games rot your brain, unless you're talking about a bad video game, in which case I would say yes, avoid it like the plague. And what a great benefactor it is from a social perspective! I guarantee that interacting with others through a video game is much more socially stimulating than say, playing catch and staring idly at the trajectory of the ball's sullen path. So yeah, fuck sports, fuck fresh air, video games kick ass, so everybody go home and head for the great indoors. Video games are not only great from a technical perspective either. A good game, as nerdy as it sounds, represents for me true art, but a term so vague as that doesn't do it justice. It is a proper synthesis of all the aural and visual arts, in a similar manner as to how Wagner went about describing his operas (as an artistic synthesis). But being that the recipient of a video game is also a simultaneous participant, I feel that video games are a step above even the grandness of operas, which I personally loath. On a slightly side note, I should like to comment on an inane subculture of preps and jocks that went to my high school. Whenever we would get laptops, they would immediately put all their work on halt and start playing super nintendo games through emulator. An entire repertory of games, and they never once expanded their horizons past Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country. What a disgrace. But that isn't the worst part. The worst thing they did was abuse one of the emulator's key features; the save state command, which allows the user to press a button and save the game's progress at that exact fixture in time. It's a great feature for me when I otherwise can't save the game and I have to go soon, but what these faggots did was save the state literally every 10 seconds, so as to take away the thrill of being in the moment and desperately trying to stay alive entirely. Boss fights are so much insanely cooler when you're under pressure of getting a game over if you die, and being forced to start back at the beginning if you die.

jazz

In the entire conceivable history of music, there is hardly a blind spot for me, no period of time that was ever in short supply of music as inspired art. I listen to everything which I feel has some kind of musical merit, from the baroque era to the present. My late night internet/musical exploration journeys have taken me to quite foreign places aurally. You don't even wanna know the crazy shit I've listened to, and taken seriously. However, no form of major music, no matter how bizarre it is, has been as difficult and made me feel as diffident as that of jazz. Jazz music probably leaves behind the impression of soothing background music, when in fact jazz oftentimes achieves a great intelligence behind the songwriting along with a solo improvisation that some say approaches mystical contemplation and experience. I was looking through the liner notes of my specially remastered recording of Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue," when I came upon Bill Evan's invaluable analogy between jazz improvisation and an ancient form of Japanese painting. The canvas is specially designed, almost in the form of an etch a sketch. When the artist draws a line, for example, it cannot be erased, so he must instead draw by complete intuition rather than through analytical means. Supposedly a certain essence of the artist is revealed that cannot be seen in paintings that aren't of such a liberal, spontaneous form. And that is precisely what we have in Jazz. Herein lies my interpretive problem. I dig the "never-resolved" sound of the 7th-chord harmonies; in fact, I find almost every track off Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool to be memorable in its infectious yet mellow hook. But as soon as the soloist enters the foray and launches off into a barrage of hybrid phyrgian and mixolydian scales, (yes, jazz musicians know their theory, too) i lose connection with the flow of the music. My opinion is inert, confused. I feel that the more I listen to it, and the more I grow in musical knowledge, the more I'll understand the nature of Jazz.

Importance of knowledge

I'm getting tired of complacent people that desire neither knowledge nor the prospect that a great deal of knowledge is around the corner. I, like most everyone else, used to laugh and and sneer at the nerds on Jeopardy, flexing their vast array of useless facts and branches of knowledge. Or so I thought. What, may you ask, is so important about knowing the name of the biggest lake or peninsula in the world? Well, nothing in of itself, unless one wishes to pursue the path of geology. But what about in the context of conversation? Believe me, I've been in a lot of interesting, whirlwind conversations, in which the flux of topic flow is apt to give one vertigo and take one into the nether regions of strange, remote things to talk about. The participation of each person is required to keep the conversation going, almost like a ping pong match. I like to think of it as such. With imagination (which the Jeopardy nerds lack) and a knowledge of a particular event being discussed, the jokes and conversational possibilities are greatly expounded upon, well beyond the scope of most people. This is why the average person (especially girl) is of no interest to me. No taste for the weird, abstract, or the intellectual. Just sports and quotes from the latest episode of Family Guy. Uggh

Piano: the strength within

About three years ago I became obsessed in the piano, with the help of adderall XR, along with the desire to prove myself as supreme technician of the keys. I had first taken up the instrument at around the age of eight, but for the longest time I served as a mere chipper. Given my immaturity at the time, I couldn't bring myself to develop a steady practice routine. So when I discovered a newfound interest in the piano, I attempted to make up for lost time. Each day I would consume two 20 mg adderall XR capsules, and proceed to practice myself to death, beyond the point of reproach; the number of hours a day I cannot possibly mutter let alone fathom. I quickly lost the rust that had accumulated over time, and I hastily sought improvement. I missed out on one crucial but of importance though; the secret to playing the piano, to pull the passages off with bravado, is to attain the strength within the mind, rather than the physical strength. Even though I practiced in quantity, I failed to practice properly; slowly and carefully while working to maintain an ideal utilization and support system of and for the muscles. That I ignored this bit of advice from my old piano teacher was the cause of my temporary undoing. I placed a tremendous deal of unnecessary stress on my wrists and forearms, and my posture was very stiff. I continued to abuse my body until one day it caved in and I began receiving shooting pain in my forearms and upper neck and back. The pain was unpredictable; it could be burning pain one minute in the right arm, and dull pain the next minute in the upper left trapezius muscle. It rendered me incapable of playing for almost six months, all because I had overdone it, gone way too far. I was miserable indeed, and yet as I slowly began to recover through physical therapy and cessation of practice, the pain that was still present had diminished and yet was such that I was forced to practice in a manner in which the playing was relatively effortless. Now the wrist wasn't doing all the work; a perfect utopia had formed between fingers, wrists, arms, shoulder blades, and back. Ah, much better. Another good thing came out of the break. I was given a lot of time to reflect on the musical qualities of the repertoire I had previously learned, rather than study the piece mindlessly, without a sense of any sort of direction or lyricism. For these reasons, I feel that the injury that I sustained was almost a blessing, a learning lesson, rather than a curse.

Electronica

My love affair with electronic music began strangely enough the night my mom fell very ill, began throwing up violently, and ended up having to have an ambulance take her to the hospital. My dad was gone on a trip, and when they took her in the terrible, unconsolable state she was in, I was understandably very upset. And it was just going to be me alone at the house all night, not knowing if she was going to be ok. Well me, the dog, and an unlocked cabinet full of alcohol and hydrocodone that I was prescribed for from a past dental surgery. I knew not how my dear mother would turn out. I was really stressed, so I decided to a pop a few pills and listen to some chill music while relaxing on the couch. I decided to download some songs by Kraftwerk, the OG's of electronic pop. I double-clicked a song by them on the playlist, just as the effects of narcotic stupor were kicking in. The up-pace beat suggested liveliness, and induced a certain excited euphoria in me. But it was the sounds that most entranced me, the very carefully planned frequencies of the bleeps and the bloops. They suggested to me something that suggested a great deal of serenity. It's very hard to explain, but just know that at this time, all my fears and qualms were temporarily disposed of, and from that day on I promised myself to delve deeper into the world of electronica. Then one day I stumbled upon the rather limited genre of psychedelic trance. It is a dark-sounding, minimilistic soundscape of drum and bass style "techno," or whatever term the ignorant laymen call it these days. The melody or motif is introduced and drawn out over a large period of time, and the evolution of the song is there, but it's very gradual. The joy of listening to artists such as Infected Mushroom and Hallucinogen is the craftmanship of not only the work as a whole, but also the variety and remarkable contours of the digital sounds. Most of the melodies in this music would sound needlessly boring if it were played on an acoustic instrument such as a guitar or piano. But in the hands of a skilled DJ, even a simple ho-hum melody can become the stuff of psychonautic legends. So everyone, give this music a chance. You'll be surprised at the places it will take you if you just. let. go

Atonality: music stripped of its roots

No, I speak not of Blue's roots or Rock and Roll roots, or regressing to anything of the sort. Atonal music is in a league of its own amongst the classical music world in terms of being just plain weird. The music has no tonal anchor to weigh it down, to put every diatonic note and harmony in its proper place. This music is indeed stripped of its plant roots. It relies not on key signature to bring about unity, but rather the relationship between the intervals themselves. There are no regulations on accidentals; sharps and flats can be added at the composer's will. It is a music in which the key to understanding it is being able to detect its subtle structures and patterns, sorta like what everyone should be doing with tonal music, but they refuse not to for some reason. When I first listened to Schoenberg, aka the father of atonal music,'s music, I was bowled over, but not in a good way. I was as confused and womblike as a baby. The noise! was one of pure cacophony. Surely, I thought to myself, this wasn't being passed off as music? It's just so random, and I'm angry because I want the music to express elements of story, and this frankly wasn't delivering. My senses slowly caught up to me though, thankfully. Well, either that or a careful probing of the sheet music that caused me to second-guess and flat out reiterate my opinion. I saw patterns, and I heard them too. I shifted my brain's perspective as well, in which it interpreted "dissonances" not as such, but as pleasing to the ear as consonances, for atonality is almost zen-like, and the listener should adopt a purely objective approach when sampling any music of this type. A good introduction to this music would be Berg's Violin Concerto. It's interesting in that while it is 12-tone in layout, (a branch of atonality) it still has a faintly harmonic dependence, which can be heard especially well in key sections.

Losing Things

I've been losing things for as long as I can remember. Nothing seems to stay intact, for my mind is not intact either; lack of harmony with itself. It is instead a mess of unorganized priorities, each clung on to until the very last minute, causing the brain to topple over itself. The result is a leftover gap in my brain that fails to get noticed, such as leaving the car keys on the table rather than keep them clutched in my hand. Of all the things that I consistently lose and misplace, it is the car keys that evade me above all else. Two times now have I lost them and been forced to settle down for a new set. And let's not forget the dozens of mishappenings that took place before that. I honestly believe that I have a car key curse; the cellphone, wallet, and jacket all come natural, oddly enough. The guilt that I place on myself is immense, especially each time I am forced to look my parents in the eye and report them of my misfindings. Except that, once again, I just can't quite bring myself to believe that it's my fault. "Oh, but it's just that you don't care to keep up with things," they say. "You know we'll be the ones paying for it, again and again." Wow, shut up please. How can I help the fact that I was born with such poor memory retrieval? It's not that I don't care, it's that I never even think of it in the first place. They even tried to enforce the seven times rule, a stupid exercise in rote memory. They believe, for example, that if I practice putting my keys in my pocket for seven times in a row, I will have then formed a habit in which I will never forget them again. How preposterous! The message is there, but the context is out of place. It's ineffective because the action isn't being performed in the proper context, such as when I get out of my car. Oh well, I guess I'll have to live with this problem for the rest of my life; I've given it my all.

Procrastination is a disease

And I'm tired of it. I'm sick of delaying everything to the very last minute, but sometimes I just don't feel that I have the power to deny my brain that which it desires, which is to delay the assignment just that single moment longer . I would probably be best described as a class B procrastinator. It's not that what I do is entirely counterproductive, it's just always counterproductive to the task at hand. I start wanting to do chores. I start wanting to catch up on the events going on in today's world. I start wanting to catch up on the events going on 2000 years ago. Then later on in the day I'll finally decide to set some arbitrary time to begin devoting myself to school work, usually 6:00. It's just such a logically sound number to embark on, isn't it? When the time finally reaches the allotted hour, I bump it up to 7:00, or maybe even 7:30 if I want to increase the false sense of security a bit more. This process continues until sometime very late at night, in which I then proceed to struggle at a manic rate to finish everything from writing assignments to studying for exams. It feels as if my mind's gaze is always completely centered on the now, rather than other points at time, such as the consequences my future will hold if I don't get a grip on things. From what I gather, the majority of hard workers and self-described "go-getters" seem to be able to tell themselves: "Ok, if I get all of my assignments out of the way, I'll be able to pursue my recreational interests with a complete peace of mind." This self-inhibitive mechanism so readily employed to keep people on track seems to lie completely inert within me. Not only do I welcome distractions such as reading, watching TV, and random chores around the house, I seem to embrace and enjoy these activities twice as much as normal. I love the adrenaline of getting a paper done only hours or minutes before it's due, and likewise goes for test taking. Test cramming is such a rush, and I dare anyone to try to convince me otherwise. There's nothing like the feeling of struggling to retain and glue incongruous bits of information in my head by means of mnemonic devices that were just improvised on the spot. Those types of cram sessions generally turn out well. The same cannot be said about papers. I tend to be obsessant and perfectionist about word choices and insignificant details, when I should instead just focus on the whole and revolve everything around that.

Ok, so does anyone have any strategies for beating procrastination? If so, I would really be interested to hear them. I know I have the willpower in me, I just can't seem to go about finding it. Maybe I am just lazy by nature. Sigh, I just don't know anymore

Family tradition

Well, my family (consisting of my Mom, Dad, and me) do not practice many unique, routine traditions per se, with the exception of typical things such as eating meals together. 'Can't say we didn't try, though. Family vacations were always a gas. We always tried to have fun on our annual visits to Destin/Gulf Shores, but in the end all our hopes and anticipations ended up falling flat. For one thing, there's nothing to do down there. In the words of Bill Hicks, it just happens to be a place where dirt meets water. If anyone would like to explain to me how making sand castles, floating in water, and getting sun burned can be fun, I'd really like to know. The subsidiary attractions never held my interest for very long either. The prices for attractions such as jet skiing, parasailing, and scuba diving were absurd, so each year the only thing my cousin and I had to look forward to was the water park and miniature golf land, and I must say, in the end we preferred the latter. Goofy goff was entertaining to us for a number of reasons: the endless slopes, hills, and arrays of traps, the silly themes, the general lack of skill required, but most importantly because we always played miniature golf at night, when it was cool and all the lights were glowing in radiant neon. It was a complete change for the better in comparison to the terribly hot and boring festivities that we were forced to traverse during the day. After our long, delightful round of eighteen holes, we would then retract completely from parents and authority into the inner sanctum of the arcade zone. Everything was there for the taking: skeeball, motorbike-simulation games, and a slew of notorious token munchers such as Time Crisis and Die Hard. The sad part was that all this was readily available back home. I will cut Destin some slack in one department though; the food. All of the restaurants were simply to die for, and I had a ball eating at Fudpuckers and secretely feeding the alligators down below. In the end though, it simply wasn't worth the money or effort it took to make and voyage come true. Next year came around, and we promised to never again go to Florida, and to this day, nearly six years later, we have held steadfast to that promise. I have a feeling that many families view vacations to Florida with a similar contempt, and yet they are too narrowminded and tied down to the opinions and insistence of others that Destin is the greatest place ever. I am proud of my family and me that we were able to take a step back and reflect on what a shitty time we had each year, and that we could have just as much fun kicking it back in Memphis all summer.

Another short-lived family tradition of ours was shooting fireworks off at our house on New Years. At one time we were the only family around our block that used fireworks, and we took a certain pride in this fact. As a young kid I remember always anticipating this day. I've never been a pyro by any stretch of the imagination, and yet I clearly remember marveling at the explosions and vibrant displays of color and energy. I would always gaze with content at the magnificent chemical reactions taking place before my eyes. It was this annual event that first sparked (Disregard it;yes you know what I'm talking about) my interest in science, and the phenomena behind fireworks intrigues me to this day. As the years went by, other people in the neighborhood slowly caught on and followed suit, and soon it became a trend to shoot fireworks, and after a while, our (or at least my) interest gradually waned.

So basically at one point we decided to stop trying to plan our own family traditions, and instead just stick to the classics such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving is always an important time in our family, and as I've grown older I've learned to enjoy both the quality time that I get to spend with my parents, grandparents, and cousins, and also the food, at which one point in time I was heavily biased towards, that is until I actually gave it a chance. I no longer cut up at the table either, nor do I say that I am bored and ready to excuse myself. I learned to just kick back at the table and bask in the effervescent glow of all my relatives happily chatting and musing about, as if at that moment of time, there wasn't a care in the world. So even though in essence I consider Thanksgiving a bullshit holiday (Remember those same Indians we befriended that day? Yeah, we killed them like what the day after?) I've learned to just go with it and enjoy the tradition, however irrational it may seem. The same thing goes for Christmas. I don't subscribe to the faith, but we all enjoy the same spirit of gathering around together for a large turkey dinner, and then opening presents under the tree.

This is your dog on drugs

Up until about a year and a half ago, my dog had exhibited all the traits of a healthy and happy pet. His fur had once been a beautiful dark shade of black; it was now grey and wilted, and overrun by a colony of knots and cataphracts. The energy that had once so possessed him as a youth was now long gone, and to this day he has trouble with regards to seeing, hearing, and tacticle response.But most disheartening of all was his loss of appetite. It's funny how I had once regarded him as a nuisance at the dinner table; his sheer persistence at being present was enough to drive us off the wall. He would scour the leggings of the table over the course of every meal of every day, until one of us finally gave in and fed him something, and by then any chance we may have had at getting rid of him was gone. I missed those times. None of us could stand to see him in the state he was in, so one day my mom went to the store and decided to try out a new kind of dog food. When he began eating the new food, we almost immediately began to notice a change in his character, for the better. For the first time in ages he was active and playful, perhaps a little too playful . It was almost surreal seeing him in this state, like some sort of mirage that was too good to be true. He also regained his appetite...uh oh, could this be a sign that my dog was high? I looked carefully at the package of dogfood, and as I was greeted with the bearded face of Andrew Weil, my suspicions were pretty much all but confirmed. Most people know Andrew Weil as the dude on TV that stresses natural cures for everything. He's kind of like Kevin Tradeau, except unlike Tradeau, who has absolutely no credentials or educational backing to his claims, Andrew Weil is an affirmed authority figure on the stuff he talks about. I looked up Mr. Weil on the internet and found out that he had once been a
significant proponent of psychedelics. A ha! I then attempted to do some research on the dog food itself, to see if there were any special "ingredients" to the mixture, but alas, I couldn't find anything. However, it's still a significant thought to entertain.


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The Rake: concrete image

For my concrete image, I chose (what else?) the rake. It's a perfect symbol and representation for this story. The most obvious relationship between the rake and the story is, of course, the harshness of the rake. But as we read the title, "The Rake: A Few Scenes from My Childhood", we don't sense any harshness at all. It's funny how titles can be somewhat misleading. It would have made more immediate sense to call it something like " The Rake: A Story of my Harsh, Painful Childhood." Before I began reading, I was of the opinion that the story would be comprised of little more than a few amusing anecdotes about boyhood. I never expected to read a narrative capable of penetrating the skin/emotions in such a way. In addition to being harsh, another feature of the rake, of course, is its ability to both gather and separate. All families exhibit this two-sided quality, and it is the parents' choice as to whether the family will be brought together or torn apart. The fact that a literal rake ends up being responsible for the family's further estrangement at the end of the story leaves the reader with the bitter of taste of irony in his mouth, and also presents a sort of metaphysical depth to the content.

The Rake: Abuse

Even though i tend to view certain issues and themes as cliche, (such as family abuse)I can't help but laud and applaud the way this essay gave me such a personal and detailed look into family and spousal abuse. I for one have never suffered abuse of any sort from my parents, and I thank god every day for the wonderful and relatively serene upbringing I was privileged with. It's amazing how the two siblings in the story were placed in all the same situations I've been in growing up, minus the outright assault on the emotions and the spirit.

I decided to choose the scene where the sister refuses to eat the food before the opening night of the play. Even though I view this scene as the lesser of two evils, (The blood-eating part was pretty impressive and over-the-top, I gotta' admit) I connected with it quite well from experience, and since Wendy is stressing so much emphasis on the fact that when we read these essays, we're reading a part of ourselves, I think this scene would be a fitting choice. There have been many times when I was eating a meal right before a big event like a school music concert, and I somehow lacked any desire to eat whatsoever. As I read the part when the sister is denied the right to perform in the play, it was almost unfathomable to me. I'm so used to having parents that sympathize with my every word, especially when it comes to coping with common teenage problems like the stuff the girl is going through. Even if my parents had behaved similarly to the girl's parents, I wouldn't have let them exercise such cruel and strict control over me. I personally would have thrown an outright tantrum right then and there, and wouldn't regret it one bit, no matter how much grief they gave me.The mother is nothing more than a bully, and it's obvious that she's trying to vent her own feelings of estrangment on her kids, which is a very common and very selfish thing to do. I mean, tormenting a child to eat something is bad enough, but having the nerve to call the school and cancel her big night, right in front of the girl? She must still be traumatized to this day.

Textural Analysis

The story takes place the evening before Halloween, and as most people have probably mentioned, there is definite symbolism to be found for those that seek it. Despite having been desensitized to the notions of symbolism courtesy of sparknotes.com, I happened to really connect with the message that the story was trying to communicate. From the very beginning we see through the eyes of a man with complex issues, ideas, and dilemmas, all of which develop gradually over the course of the essay. The story is interesting in that both the true nature of Griffith and the theme of the narrative is given to the reader in small doses. By the time we learn of the narrator's guilty pleasure in regards to Abu Ghraib, the reader has somewhat learned of his character, and what may (or may not) have led to the shameless act of degradation that he committed. The scene placement is also interesting in its graduality. I view the story as being made up of three main scenes (the three Halloween parties) and a closing scene. (The scene where his friend and him scare kids on the porch) Each party is more boring, shallow, and degrading than the last, and it is at the last party, when our protagonist is at his most listless and weary, that he falls prey to the lustful inner-dwellings of his mind. The narrative closes with Griffith and his friend trying to scare some young kids, and I must say, the ending was surprisingly effective in terms of supporting the main idea and providing the reader with a vague sense of closure

Griffith is first portrayed as a lonely guy looking for a good time. The reader initially views him as a lonely, superstititious nerd. He seeks entertainment through role-playing, what with his "communicator" at his side and his flattered tone at being called "captain" by his friend. He sees Halloween as the perfect way to temporarily escape reality, and yet at the same time he sees Halloween as being "rife with omens," and secretely wishes for a blessing from the local Catholic priest. Perhaps this is the first hint that maybe it isn't some kind of literal demon or monster he's fearing; perhaps he's subconsciously afraid of his own personal demons that are lying repressed in his mind. His life is also quite boring. I like how he tried to make the best of his predicament by viewing his home in terms of some kind of artsy Japanese aesthetic. One can't help but pity Griffith as we see him living alone in a small apartment devoid of even the slightest decorations or accessories. There are several parts in the story that suggest that he is socially inept as well. He reminds me of myself during one of the low points in my life. When I read the part where he "inconspicuously" plays with his hair and cell phone, I couldn't help but reminisce on my earlier years of grade school, when I was a lonely guy desperately trying to make myself look cool through elusive actions and gestures such as the kinds Griffith makes. Deep down you know nobody's really paying attention to you, but it's still fun to delude your own self and pretend like they might be. As soon as I read that part, I thought to myself, "Yeah I feel for him, I've been in his place too." Another example of his low self esteem is seen when he is at the very first party. Each person is dressed completely different from one another, but they all share in common a love for everything pertaining to Star Trek. Everybody amuses themselves with inside jokes and helpings of vague, metaphorical claptrap, in which the entire room explodes in nerdish uproar, debating whether or not the Star Trek universe is a representation of our own. Another person suggests a series of parallels between Star Trek and the current war in Iraq, and it is here that we receive a vague hint of foreshadowing. Griffith finds it very odd that everyone is talking about the things such as the "one hundred thousand Iraqi civilian casualties," and the "no weapons of mass destruction," and yet nobody mentions the events at Abu Ghraib. At this point we begin to suspect that perhaps there's a sort of guilty or hypocritical reason why the people wish not to talk about it. It's later revealed that this assumption is true. Griffith feels even more out of place at the second party. Unlike the last party, which consisted of people in interesting costumes engaged in intelligent banter, the second one is by contrast a "lame" caricature of a present-generation party. There are some cliches on pop culture in this section, and they are casually mentioned over the course of a couple paragraphs. An example would be the part when Griffith describes the "Lolitas grinding to Outkast." The party seems to take a turn for the worst when the music switches to Chingy. If you don't know who Chingy is, please, avoid him like the plague. Even Outkast has its occasional moments of wit, but it's pretty safe to say that Chingy is at the top of the talentless hacks list.Griffith also begins to complain about being bored, and becomes very cynical of everything, such as the Catholic School Girls (in which he "expected more dark ingenuity from psychology students") and, of course, the loud rap music, which makes him think about the rut that today's pop culture is in. The content of modern rap videos bothers him as well. He begins to "weigh the blurred faces and genitalia of Abu Ghraib detainees against the near-naked, big-breasted, big-assed women gyrating on the subway." He then "weighs Charles Graner's look-what-I-caught smile and the pyramids of human bodies against the costumed psychologyPhDs grinding in the living room. " Upon reading this insight , we gradually begin to learn a little more about the character of Griffith. Though it hasn't been explicitly stated that Griffith actually enjoys seeing the Abu Ghraib pictures, by this point we know that the debacle of Abu Ghraib is really beginning to bother him for some reason. At this point I'm beginning to understand now why books, essays, etc. must be read at least twice, for the sake of context and understanding. It's very hard to catch bits of foreshadowing when something has only been read through a single time. The reader doesn't really know anything that's going on, kind of like when someone is reading through a mystery novel for the first time. Though it may seem counter-intuitive and strange, I would have to say that in my personal opinion, the mystery novel would be far more enjoyable to read the second time around, despite the fact that the ending has already been spoiled. Griffith now heads over to the final party, and it is here that we approach the true meat of the narrative. Griffith has had a rather uneventful night thus far, and it is at this party that he breaks down as a character and reveals his true emotions. He is very disappointed with the overall content of this party. He envisioned an entire gamut of pleasures awaiting him behind the party door, such as "orgies, maidens, fire shows, rollercoasters, and funhouses," but all of that is gone by the time he arrives. It is both significant and coincidental that his friend dressed up as Graner happens to befriend Griffith at this time. It's a classic instance of being in the wrong place in the wrong time, and it's reasonable to assume that if Griffith had been there in time for the beer and entertainment, he would have never been tempted to shamefully pose for the Abu Ghraib mock photograph. He was sucked in from the very moment he saw the pictures, and describes his friend's spectacle as being similar to "making a bomb from house-hold products. It isn't so much that it is wrong, it's that he thought to do it in the first place. He has actually gone through with it, gone beyond the point where people turn back, chicken out, and laugh it off." Even though he is sickened by it, he is exhilirated by it at the same time. I think everyone has been in a situation similar to this one. I mean, who doesn't enjoy a tastefully violent flick at one point or another? I also dare anyone to tell me that they didn't feel a burst of adrenaline upon first hearing about something as devastating as the attacks on the World Trade Centers. It certainly isn't a positive, healthy adrenaline, yet it's still exciting and intriguing all the same.
The next morning Griffith finds himself writhing in a puddle of his own shame. He wants to pretend like it never happened, yet nothing can divert him from reaching into his pocket and gazing at the polaroid of him smiling next to his masked friend. Desperate for comfort and solace, he calls his wife and speaks of the event in a sort of "I had a friend of a friend that did so-and-so..." fashion. This only aids in solidifying his guilt, as he unbearably listens to his wife speak of it in a horrifying manner. As he continues to contemplate the situation, he realizes that perhaps his friend was "showing what went on in Abu-Ghraib was not a case of a few bad apples, but a case of what we've all become, what we're all capable of." He finds it fascinating that the soldiers at Abu-Ghraib weren't depraved lunatics. They were educated and well-mannered people, just like us. He sarcastically states that "educated, metropolitan people could never do such things; we are too aware, too aware of the ways in which we must respect one another's differences; too aware that any amount of cruelty is uncivilized and culturally reprehensible.

The essay closes with an amusing anecdote in which Griffith and his friend put on masks to try to scare the neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Griffith tries to scare the kids by lying inert on the ground in some kind of "grim-reaper-like visage," but instead they go up to him and see if he's a real person by kicking him. This is probably the most powerful scene in the story, in my opinion, because the author is implicitly hinting at the fact that Griffith isn't a real person, at least not in the figurative sense. His actions have rendered him unworthy of being called a human. He is a victim of human nature, and the essay probably ends the way it does in order to tell us that we are all capable of doing what he did on that ominous Halloween night.

My first personal blog post

So yeah, it's a blog, so I guess I'm supposed to spill my guts on virtual paper, or at least something of the sort. Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the rest of the class, I've just been sick for the past week or so, and I tend to procrastinate heavily with matters such as these, but right now I happen to be in a good mood, so I'll tell you all a little about me and my various thoughts/aesthetics.

Well, to start off with, I love music more than anything in the world. I have mucho respect for all forms of art, but there's something about music's capability of expression through such an expansive medium as space and sound that makes it superior to everything else, at least in my opinion. For one thing, music requires you to use your imagination. I mean, I don't care how shallow and passive you are as a listener, organized sound demands a bit of the imagination if one hopes to derive any sort of pleasure or meaning at all. Another reason why music kicks so much ass is that, like all forms of art, it's so incredibly diverse. I mean, I know painting had its revolutionaries and evolutions in style, but it still seemed to have its limits. Also, when you view a painting, its entire meaning is already laid out before your eyes. Music truly puts the fourth dimension to good use, unlike painting or sculpture, which is little more than color confined to a sort of static field. I'm a pianist with a strong background in classical music, and I am always trying to find the inner meaning of a composition whenever I sit down at the keyboard to play. It's definitely not the only type of music I love; jazz, metal, and electronica also hold a special place in my heart. These various genres each display something very synonymous with one another; they tell a story. The plot, setting, drama, suspense, denoument, it's all there for anyone willing to invest some patience and effort to seek it out. Well that's about all I have to say for tonight. I'm about to take a swig of beer and nyquil to help lull me to sleep, so I guess I'll be signing out now. I wish everyone a good night.

Prime Directive

The story takes place the evening before Halloween, and as most people have probably mentioned, there is definite symbolism in this story concerning masks. Despite having been desensitized to the notions of symbolism courtesy of sparknotes.com, I happened to really connect with both the message of this story.

The main character is a lonely guy who desperately seeks a good, drunken time as a means to quell his unhappiness with life. From the very beginning, we sense a desire in him to roleplay as a means to escape reality and make friends. He ends up going to three different Halloween parties that night, each one varying in both character and mood. The first party is set in the spirit of a nerdy Star Trek Convention, which soon turns into a full-out philosophical discussion suggesting that the governing system of the Star Trek universe is a representation of our own. The second party is a typical portrayal of various members of generation X looking to drown their sorrows in cheap booze and corny music. The narrator considers doing a Captain Kirk impression in front of his friends, but ultimately lacks the confidence. It's clear that the narrator isn't enjoying this party any more than the last one, and begins to think of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and the black women in rap videos being portrayed as sex objects, and how both serve as models of American degradation. The final party is an untimely let-down. Like so many things in American culture, it sounds fantastic on the outside, but is ultimately a disappointment. It is at this party, however, that the narrator discovers a ghastly side of himself. His friend shows the narrator pictures of him posing with a guy wearing a sack over his head, and it becomes painfully obvious that both the narrator and his friend take great amusement in reinacting the various scenes of torture that took place at that prison.

The next day he snaps back to reality, and realizes the shameless act he had committed the night before. He realizes that although he was disgusted at reading about Abu Ghraib, he had no problem making fun of it and giving in to his carnal desires, just like the soldiers had done as well. The story effectively ends when he tries to scare the kids with his mask. One kid asks "Is that a real person?" and the other kid says "Kick him and find out." This is a prime example of the aforementioned symbolism towards masks, and how people tend to hide their true emotions and desires behind a mask in real life.

This is part 3 of our group story

Pebbles immediately took to us, and expressed a love that was truly unconditional. The human condition is so messed up in general; I think it's safe to say that a great deal of "love" is artificial. People often act nice only for personal gain, but dogs seem to express a very authentic love towards their owners. We fed her, played with her, picked up after her, and gave her a place she could call home, and that was it; what more does a simplistic animal need in life than the fulfillment of these very basic desires ? We tried to teach her tricks, but to no avail. She was too hyper and stubborn, or perhaps she realized somehow in her tiny dog brain that she was being degraded to some sort of object of amusement.We eventually quit trying , and no longer did we seek entertainment through the frivolous obediance of a pet. Besides, how would humans feel if they were forced to perform tricks for somebody? We let our dog do as she pleased, as long as it brought no harm to any of us. Her sweet and innocent face somehow managed to charm and delight even the most cold-hearted people. It is humorous to point out the fact that the single greatest thrill in Pebbles' life was her daily stroll around the neighborhood. It shows how little it takes to satisfy a dog, and how spoiled humans are for requiring such large doses of mass media and extravagant forms of entertainment to keep themselves happy. She was an integral part of the family, and her passing away left a large hole in our hearts for many weeks. We eventually got over it though. We smiled and knew that we had given her the best life a dog could ever have.

Meshuggah

My dog.. (free-write list)

-Isn't particularly special, at least not in the traditional sense. ( No fancy tricks)
-He's usually reserved and quite these days
-He's 10 years old
-He Fills an important spot in the family home.
-My house feels incomplete without him
-He loves my mom, dad, and me with unconditional love
-His favorite food is filet minot.

"Night Shift Nightmare"

This article is conveniently titled "Night Shift Nightmare," which immediately sets
the tone for what is to come. It's about how dangerous it is to visit the emergency room
late at night. The exposition begins with a scenario involving a fifteen year old boy named
Lewis recovering from surgery to correct a birth defect in his chest. The author explains
that the condition is completely non-life threatening, and then mentions how smart and
academically successful he was. From these words alone the reader can infer that the
outcome of this kid's fate will be tragic. There is an undeniable sense of
foreshadowing and implied guilt towards hospitals, one of the few places most people
place their full trust in. Next follows the steady downfall of Lewis. He begins exhibiting
abnormal symtpoms such as high heart rate and low temerature at around two in the
morning. The condition worsens when the understaffed ER is unable to give him the
attention he deserves. The author says that "His eyes are hollow, his skin is pale, and
he's sweating cold buckets." The reader is suddenly filled with fear of what is to come.
Just before the outcome is revealed, however, the author throws a cliffhanger that reeks
of tension. Lewis's mother screams for help, and a doctor finally comes to aid. He
screams the boy's name, but his shouts fall on deaf ears.

The second section helps to add both venom and plausibility to the writer's
ranting diatribe against the ER. It relies on statistics, empirical observation, and cold
hard facts rather than anecdotal evidence. No longer constrained to the narrative
perspective, the passive pessism exhibited by the author in the first section suddenly
becomes, well, quite active. He begins with a recent study that discovered that babies
born late at night at sixteen percent more likely to die than those born in the daytime,
showing that people of all ages are in danger. He then shifts his criticism to the
erroneous nature of these medical skeleton crews, showing that in a review of
pharmaceutical and patient records, there were more medication errors made at night.
The most chilling bit of proof, however, is shown when the author shifts to the
perspective of a nurse, who explains that a number of patiens have actually called
911 in their hospital beds due to a lack of any medical attention whatsoever. By the
end of the second segment, any reconciliations the reader might have had initially
have probably been all but destroyed.

The author finally reverts back to Lewis's hospital predicament. The medical
staff is depicted as "frantically trying to stabilize him," and at this point most readers
are probably strapped to their chair in a state of frantic anticipation as to whether or
not he will survive. The attempt fails, and an autopsy shows that Lewis had bled to
death from an ulcer caused by an excessive amount of Toradal, a painkiller he was
given post-surgery. Had there been doctors present, Lewis would have probably
survived.

Overall, the author's tone is shaped by the subject matter itself; it's negative
in that the writer places full blame on the emergency rooms for the cause of so
many preventable deaths. Although there are several places in the article that make
effective use of diction, there really isn't a specific voice that can be attributed
to the author, except that the material is presented in a manner that is very
straightforward and to the point. The structure is interesting in that it is in an "ABA"
format. The first section is the beginning of a story, the second section concerns
itself with facts, observations, and evidence, and the last section is the continuation
and conclusion of the story.