The Soundtrack of My Life

There is no way that my musical tastes can be summed up into just a few key genres or bands or who i think has the best voice. I quite literally listen to everything. I think, however, that the most disappointing thing in life is music with no substance. Music is art and serves a purpose, whether that's to send a message, make you cry, make you smile, or just make you dance and have fun, but the point, I think, is the emotion.I don't mean a song has to be sad or sappy to be good, it just needs passion. For example, in almost every Prince song you can feel the sexual intensity he is creating, Journey's Don't Stop Believin' makes you never ever want to give up on your dreams (I have yet to met a person that doesn't at least smile when they hear that song), and in Devotchka's song In the End, which I know you've had to have heard on a commercial at one point, the beginning makes you really really depressed and keeps bringing you more down until the big loud part when you want to just finally cry already, each of those songs displays fantastic passion.
Being a singer myself, another thing I can totally appreciate is an amazing voice, that you know just from hearing it has that person's whole heart and soul and story and life in it. Janis Joplin and Billie Holiday are the greatest examples of this that I know. Along with using your voice as an instrument, using actual instruments in a creative and new way can be so beautiful. Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes uses whole orchestras, old folk sounds, and electronic beats along with his amazingly poetic lyrics and honest voice to make fantastic songs like "Make a Plan to Love Me," "First Day of My Life," and "Easy, Lucky, Free". I also grew up with the legendary mad guitar skills of Santana playing all through my house so I love listening to just instrumental music too. Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Bob Marley are all like family to me with how much I listen to them, I can't explain it but I should have lived in their time.
If you know me at all you know that I love to dance, everywhere, anytime. I too can respect an awesome beat even if it doesn't have deep lyrics or isn't sung beautifully. I love "booty music", funk, salsa, etc., I see dance and music as freeing experiences. M.I.A's "Paper Planes" makes me feel so cool dancing in the car to and "Bust A Move" by Young MC will always make me walk away from whatever I'm doing just to do the running man, and everyone knows that I'm always down for Sir MixAlot's "Baby Got Back". And as random as it is, I really like listening to songs from my favorite Disney movies.
I think my selections reflect the notion of boundaries because my tastes can cross so many boundaries, culturally, beyond cliques, for every emotion and any event. Music is something that both divides us and brings us together; for example: cliques form with the types of music people like but we can meet new people that we get along with at concerts of our favorite artists. The music you listen to says a lot about who you are and I think the bigger the variety you have in your MP3 player, the more fun you'll have and the more you'll learn.

http://www.dailymotion.com/virtualmatter/video/x14xwu_miamirain

Veterans Day

This article was so touching; I feel terrible that this man came back to America to make something of himself by serving in the military and ended up almost losing his life and had to live the rest of his life with a burden of guilt and sadness that he couldn't ever vent about. I think that was probably a ridiculous amount of pressure for Anthony Acevedo, as a medic, to take care of everyone else. Acevedo "spoke the unspeakable" by voicing the atrocities that he saw even though he wasn't supposed to because it was the right thing to do.

MAUS

I don't know that I fully understood the message of the MAUS comic. I think that Spiegelman depicted Jewish people as mice because back in the time when there was a lot of open Jewish hate during the Holocaust, many newspapers would draw cartoons in them making fun of the way Jews looked and because they had characteristically larger noses people drew them as long nosed rats or mice. I think Spiegelman depicted Jews that way as sort of a play on that idea.I think things that uses visuals have more of an immediate impact on the reader and i think that's how the use of the comic influenced the text.

After reading this I don't think I've changed my ideas about the purpose of art. I don't think that art has an "obligation" to improve the human condition but i think it makes it better if it does, but even just making the human condition know through art is something that's good.

Theo Jensen Kinetic Sculptures

After watching sculptor Theo Jensen's presentation I didn't quite know what to make of it. I thought it was an interesting engineering feat. It worked and looked so oddly but was so innovative. I thought the concept of a "new wheel" and that these sculptures were wind powered was so fantastic. There could be potential for seriously different and much needed clean technological advances. I thought it was funny that Jensen referred to the structures as "life forms"; it would be really weird to see if, as he said, they eventually "survived" on their own. I don't really understand what he set out to make, if that was his goal or if he just stumbled on it; if it was his goal then I truly admire his creative imagination. I'm not sure if I'd right away call this "art" though. I believe art is supposed to portray a message about the world/culture and make you feel and think and imagine the concept(s) of that message in a whole new way. Jensen's pieces are very imaginative and make you think about the future of technology and they give a message of "clean" advances.

Election '08 a Win for America!

I’m so happy with the results of the election! I voted for Obama because after eight years of ridiculousness from the republican run government we need a change. Not only will this change the face of our country as a more tolerant people, it shows that the American people are not ignorant and can realize when they need to stand up and make a change. I honestly was more than worried about the prospect of having John McCain and Sarah Palin, two extremely conservative people, leading our nation when many of the things that I support such as the fight against global warming, the pro-choice agenda, and ending the war, do not correspond with most conservative views. I think internationally as well Barak Obama will give the United States a whole new image something that has hurt our nation when trying to deal with many foreign issues. Finally, I believe the victory for Obama gives great hope to the youth of our nation not only to the minorities that are now assured that they can be anything they want to be, but also seeing as 80 percent of youth voters voted for Obama, that the voice of the next generation does matter.
Obama is going into this position with a mountain of issues to sort through and figure out. I think he said it best in his acceptance speech, he was honest in saying that it will be a long hard road that may not even end in one term, but I in my heart feel that he will help turn our country in the right direction. The only thing that I keep thinking about in the back of my mind, that I know many people are trying not to think about, is the fear that someone will do something really stupid and try to hurt our future president because while we know this is a monumental step, there are still those that hold hate and I sincerely hope that nothing like that happens. Something like that could tear our country apart even more and from there I have little hope for this nation.