a music blog

Here's my weekly art post, inspired by "Dulce et Decorum est"by Wilfred Owen. I read the poem as part of rememberance for veteran's day. I'm totally anti-war and weapons, ever. I don't care what that makes me, I just... can't stand them. Although I do enjoy reading about past wars and history quite a lot.

I'm not sure how to write about music and what it is supposed to be like, but I've decided to try it.

There's nothing wrong with any kind of music. I love classical music the most. The plangent notes and stunning arousal of the orchestra arouse in myself emotions which I cannot describe. If I must choose a more modern genre, it would be ambient music. Vague, complex, and emotional. I have strange tastes and when I do listen to bands, I prefer those with original and interesting lyrics and ideas.

I was scared and appalled when I heard they were going to include Claude Debussy's Claire de Lune from the Suite Bergamasque in the Twilight soundtrack. I see it as blatant abuse of a well-known masterpiece, an insult to Debussy in his genius and a deciding confirmation of my hatred for the Twilight trilogy and its' franchise. I don't think there is anything likable about Twilight whatsoever. The empty, poorly written characters, the uninteresting and obscure setting (the place of action, a small, rainy town in Washington state, is hardly ever used. It is more of an excuse for the bleakness of the events within the book), the blatant self-insert mary-sue POV, the harem-type relationships between most of the characters, and the lack of definable plot make the book an atrocity, a pool of shit in the world of literature. While Debussy, a fantastic inspiration and incredible composer, is paired with the impossibly dull fiction of Twilight, I cannot sleep or dream peacefully.

I don't know if I like this. I frankly don't have much to say about music. Most of my blogs are just me complaining. In fact, I've gone on to complain already. At least I expressed my opinion.

Oh, I'll complain some more. There was a song I heard on the radio, "Whatcha Say." It used excerpts from "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. I don't know how to express it, but it really angered me. I've liked Imogen Heap/Frou Frou for a long time, before or at least since "Hide and Seek" was used in the popular television series "The OC" (which undoubtably was the trigger for the fame of the song and its' composer in the United States.) I think "Whatcha Say" is a depressing bastardization of her music, and it totally fails to even work with the elements in the song. It just takes part of the song and "raps" around it or whatever is called music these days. I don't even think he used a recording of her track, he just re-recorded it and ill-placed it in his "song."

My sister and I share this opinion. She was with her friend when "Whatcha Say" started playing on the radio. The friend had never heard of Imogen Heap, and when my sister showed her, her friend thought it was weird.

I know there's a million tastes for music out there, but this kind of maybe enrages me a bit. I'm just one of those frumpy people who doesn't like rap? No, because I like "A Tribe Called Quest" and I love listening to their songs. It's just stuff like this, horrendous excuses for music that plague me.

a little bit of culture

This is my weekly art post for my blog! I fell in love with this picture. I think it shows my progress.

I was talking to my psychotherapist yesterday and I mentioned how annoyed I get when people can't identify Spain on a world map, or other instances of geographical ignorance. This year I've met people who couldn't identify North America, let alone Europe. Is it appalling? She told me that everyone values different subjects as being important, and I agree that geography is perhaps not totally essential to life.

For instance, not many American kids I've met know that the UK is made up of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In fact, UK is used interchangeably with England most of the time. And I guess it's expecting too much for people to know that people who live in the UK usually only refer to the English as being British.

I'm not trying to be condescending because I took it upon myself to learn all the countries in Europe, (of course I would, having lived there,) but I think it matters that kids know where countries are because their geography affects their culture. To say that Italy would be no different if it were inland is preposterous. And it doesn't all have to be Europe, either. I am just a Europhile.

To a lot of people I've met, culture matters more than geography and I think that's true. There are a lot of different cultures in South America. Even though they're close together, people get offended if you mix them up. And there is a great deal of cultural differences between these countries. Here in America, if you're white it doesn't matter where your ancestors were from. Croatia, Estonia, Belgium, Hungary, Spain, it's all the same, even though the cultures and are totally different. The "white" culture idea is distributed thoroughly as "one way of life all European Americans identify with."

I'm kind of offended. Oh well.

on CENSORSHIP

In order to better identify my opinion on censorship, I decided to find the source of censorship, since it certainly hasn't been around forever.

Censorship, although now divided and widespread, was at first simply the filtering of ideas. Greeks and Romans as well as the Chinese censored public opinions and transcripts in order to maintain order in their people. The job of censoring these things was considered honourable for that reason. So, as the efficiency of type improved and authors were able to distribute their works more freely, censorship laws cracked down. Especially the Catholic Church did not want anything to do with ideas they deemed heretic. The more complex and connected a society, the more the authorities wanted to regulate the flow of ideas and thus, we get lots of different kinds of censorship.

Obviously, it all goes downhill from there. It took the whole renaissance to halt the laws spread by the church regarding nudity. Michealangelo's Sistine Chapel cieling even revolted some church officials due to its' "lude" depictions of the human body. And that wasn't even a total reformation, as shortly afterwards people decided to "artfully censor" "distasteful areas" of the human body with leaves and such. People seem to be really conflicted with genitalia and what it means. In my honest opinion, it means nothing if depicted in a tasteful and understated manner. Even that's a conservative opinion considering genitalia and even a woman's breasts are part of the human body and there's absoltuley no reason why people should try to eliminate such "taboo" parts of the body from public society.

"'Taboo' parts of the body" sounds ridiculous anyway, because it is. Americans in particular are very touchy about censorship of the human body, and it is thus considerably rare to find a nude or topless beach here, compared to in Europe. Frankly I'm appalled at the way Americans deal with censorship. They censor everything, from exposure to tobacco, drug and alcohol use in films and television to very minor nudity such as exposed buttocks. It's even a bit sexist as to what is considered the most unnaceptable here, since female nudity is considered less severe than male nudity.

What's in nudity that's so bad anyway? It's not like we're showing people "in the act" if we allow a little bit here and there. Women's breasts are just like mens' only fuller, and they certainly aren't just sex symbols. Hell, some men have larger breasts than some women. There's no reason why we should censor them just because they belong to a woman. In fact, I refuse to associate breasts with sexual intercourse whatsoever. They feed babies, of all things. Many times I've been appalled at the reaction my fellow students take to the exposure of breasts in classical art. It shouldn't be such a big deal. It just shouldn't.

A lot of times when you're trying to maintain order,  you don't need to be so strict. It's probably this country's refusal to deal with safe sex and human sexuality (which are HUGE parts of society whether we like it or not, even if not especially in teens,) that gives it unacceptable percentages in STDs, pregnancy, and sexuality-related suicide amoung teens. The same thing goes for alchohol abuse.

Anyone can have their beleifs and play by their own rules, but the thing we need to understand is one group's ideals should not, should NEVER play into the lives of others. I have a lot to write about censorship especially the extreme and subtle varieties of censorship which this country has developed regarding gay couples and gay marriage. Most appaling is the censorship of current events, but, I will save that for another day.

I'd really appreciate it if you commented and told me your own opinions about censorship, if and why you agree or disagree with me, etc. I am truly and passionately interested in anything any of you might have to say.

resolved statement of purpose

• What impressions do you get of the writing you've done so far?

It's apparent that my writing changes with my mood. I write a lot, more than required, so I should learn to break apart my subjects and put down only specifics and things I find to be most important. I'll begin tearing the leaves off the strawberries before I serve them.

• How did your original writing goals work out?

They worked out somewhat well. As a person, I'm not good at following goals. My goals are always mutable and thus I'm not disappointed in myself even though I strayed from my original expectations.

• How have your goals changed for the second quarter?

My new goals are surely not as strict-perhaps more predictions than goals-and they're also more broadly distributed. At first I didn't know how hard blogging was going to be for me-I'm used to writing often, but I wasn't sure how I was going to write about something I chose every week. As I've found, it's a lot easier than I expected. There are plenty of things to write about and plenty of ways to write about them.

I've become a lot more comfortable with the concept of a blog by doing these weekly assignments and I'm having a lot of fun reading everyone's blogs and hoping people have gotten something from reading mine.

This repulsive keyboard is cramping my style so I'll add more when I get home.

(cont.)

I've also decided to post a bit of art every week to cite my progress and also so that I can be consistent for once. Another thing about this blog which I love: consistency. It's forced me to be somewhat consistent and I will attempt to help it to force me to be consistent by posting art.

So, this is a bit I drew on Tegaki E!

This took me almost an hour to draw and I'm not all the way satisfied with it. I could have worked on it more, but I was somewhat satisfied with the way it came out so I left it the way it was. I think it looks nice, but that the shading at its' deepest points was a little too dark and reddish for the overall light and blue-yellow toned picture. Recently I've been infatuated with classical and renaissance art and I think that shows here.

Once again I ask for critique, etc... for now, all this planning has exhausted my brain. I'm not looking forward to Thursday because I start my day with PE and end it with Geometry, two classes I'm not so fond of..