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