“Silence” lectures and writings by John Cage

Picked this one up at a quirky bookstore a while ago. You probably know John Cage as that guy who wrote 4’33” that song that only consists of silence. It’s a little more than that, it forces you to listen to all of the unintentional sounds around you instead of something prepared by the musician. And of course the end result is that all sounds become music of some sort. Go ahead, try it out, take all the time you need. I’ll wait right here.

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Anyways, whether you agree or not, you have to admit that sitting on stage for 4 minutes and 33 seconds without playing a single note is pretty balsy for a musician. So I thought that this book would help to get into his head a little more. Turns out that Cage is a pretty great storyteller. Most of them are very short, but they are quite clever and do usually give some insight, rather like a Zen koan.

The layout of the book is really cleverly done, the writings that are in a more typical format are put at the beginning to present this philosophy and train of thought, and the stranger ones are closer to the end. What I mean by the stranger or less typical ones are ones where elements of chance come into play. Such as this entire lecture where the spacing of words on the page are based on random imperfections                            so the                                                             entire lecture                   is written out                                 kind of like                  this. Makes it kind of                                                                hard to follow. There’s also another lecture where he set up 4 recordings of different lectures to play at once, so all of those lectures are printed out on top of each other. That one was impossible to follow, which was the point of course. Then often there are ones with less crazy formatting, but the content is largely this refrain about how we are discussing nothing at all, and anyone who feels sleepy should go to sleep. It can get annoying if you aren’t in the mood.

Anyways, if that doesn’t throw you off, the lectures do show his thoughts on several subjects. They can also get pretty repetitive, the story of him going into an anechoic chamber (a room with absolutely no sound in it) and discovering that he could in fact hear two noises, is repeated quite frequently. (The two noises were his nervous system and respiratory system, therefore we are never in complete silence and there are constantly unintentional noises going on. See kind of where the idea for 4’33” came from?)

Besides that though there’s also frequent demonstrations of his reliance on chance operations (like the imperfections in the paper) and training in Zen Buddhism. It’s quite an interesting read, as long as you keep your mind open to learning things in unconventional ways. Whether you hate or love his work, you have to admit that he had an incredible effect on music today and how we think about music and sounds.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as a postmodern piece

I only started playing the latest Zelda game recently, but it sure does align with quite a few postmodern ideas and techniques. Since I’ve only just started it, this will be a general overview, but I’m sure that the parallels carry deeper than this.

Nintendo takes the formula that they have been recycling over and over again for Zelda games and throws out at least half of it with this one. Weapons no longer last forever, they take on damage and eventually break (usually in the middle of a battle of course) causing Link to need to stock up and get ready to swap others in if necessary. Link himself is also more susceptible to the elements, if it gets too cold or hot he will start to take on damage fairly frequently. This can be combatted with clothes, as usual, or food, which is new. Link can now forage trees for apples or shoot wild game for meat, which can then be cooked or roasted over a fire. Elixirs can also be made, which give special power ups such as speed or stealth.

All of these various aspects present a hero whose main obstacle is the environment itself. Not to mention the fact that the world of this game is so freaking huge you’re going to spend half the time lost anyways. This is a video game where you need to learn the basics of survival if you want to get anywhere, and fast since you also have a kingdom to save. Postmodernism often seeks to find a new way to conceptualize the world, one that is not so human-centric. Humans are the ones destroying the world, so how can we view this world in light of our damage? How can we let nature reclaim what was rightfully theirs to begin with? Breath of the Wild answers this by turning the environment into a foe. Now the player must fight against decay, cold, and hunger as they travel through the world. Nature can still has some fight left in her.

Then there is the fact that Breath of the Wild takes place 100 years after Link failed to save Hyrule. It’s essentially a post-apocalyptic land that we are presented with, one where evil has already won. Postmodernism frequently uses the apocalypse to make a similar point, that man is not eternal and eventually the world will rebel against us. This is a fairly new concept for a Zelda game, most of them start out in a happy setting, but then it all goes wrong somehow. Here everything has already gone wrong, nowhere is safe, Link has already messed up big time. I don’t know what the ending is, but this is one hell of a way to start.

All of these various aspects make Breath of the Wild distinct, both as a new kind of Zelda game and as a postmodern work. I imagine the message it will send the player will be quite different, because the method of playing through it already feels quite different. I’m excited to see how this game progresses.

50th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper!

Plot twist: I'm sick so this is going to be short.

LET'S PARTY LIKE IT'S 1967!!!

The Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" came out this week, 50 years ago! I'm celebrating (or trying to).

This album has been dubbed the best of all time by Rolling Stones, and has won numerous other awards. Whether you're a longtime Beatles fan or not, give it a listen, it deserves that much. :)

HEY NOW

I graduated undergrad on Sunday so I'm not posting any more than this. Happy Memorial Day!

American Gods as a TV show

So I while ago I read American Gods and wrote a post about it, mostly praising it for the ingenious way it takes ancient gods and brings them into the modern era. In case you’ve been missing all the buzz, it’s now a tv show as well! Neil Gaiman, the author of the book, is the executive producer, so I had high hopes about this series.

There’s currently only 3 episodes out of this series (it’s 8 episodes total for this season so not even halfway), but so far I am a fan! They are sticking pretty strongly to the book which is lovely and really all that I wanted out of it. The cast is also very diverse with Shadow being cast as a black man. Which is great, it’s 2017 already, I am a fan of this choice. It also brings in more contemporary issues since Shadow just got out of prison and is now essentially Mr. Wednesday’s (a white man’s) assistant. Since I’ve read the book though, I know where his character goes, and I still think this is a great choice.

The first season apparently only includes about a third of the book, so hopefully there will be more to come. The show will also expand on the book itself, bringing in elements from Anansi Boys, which I haven’t personally read, but is a companion novel to American Gods.

To talk more definitively about the show itself, I really dig the music and the way that it is incorporated into what’s happening on screen. There’s almost always an undercurrent of sound, whether it’s an instrumental adding to tension, or an old love song during a montage. Some of the choices are ironic, such as the love song being played during Laura’s funeral, that add to the confusion and despair Shadow feels. It also adds another layer of contrast between the old and the new gods.

Right off the bat the old and new gods look different. The old gods are gritty and look weathered, while the new ones are sleek and shiny. The music is also different, the old gods are paired with rustic, older songs while the new gods are accompanied by sounds that are clearly synthesized and distorted. It’s great, tv show music always seems so under utilized.

Only the beginning of this show is currently out, but the set-up so far is marvelous. I look forward to the rest of it!

Blast from the Past

Today I was given a video of myself from four years ago, which I made as a sort of time capsule my freshman year. Watching it was strange, I knew that it was myself, but it also felt like this was my child in a strange way. I just wanted to tell past me that everything would be ok and give her a hug.

Funnily enough though, I think that she comforted me more and I could comfort her. Somehow in my wisdom I opened the message with “you did good, you have done a great job” and ended it with “if you’re happy, I’m happy” which nearly brought me to tears. I had no possible idea of what I was going to do then, but I was determined that it would be good.

And turns out that my plans didn’t change that much, I knew what I was going to major and minor in and my friends are mostly the same. You can tell though that I am also completely different now, just visually even. My glasses are different, my hair went from a ponytail to almost a pixie, and I had a necklace on in that video that my roommate gave me. So just the experience of seeing past me was a bit of a jolt, I forgot that was what I looked like.

Probably the most interesting part of the video though was when I was just talking about my day. Just getting a glimpse into my life was fascinating. That day I had class, then went to register my friend’s car, then had a meeting about an act I was working on (my first act, wow time flies), and after this I was going to talk to a professor about working in her lab. This professor is now my advisor, and I am still working in her lab! The progression of everything from then until now is incredible, because here I am as the finished project, while back then it was just the seeds.

There isn’t a big message or anything that I wanted to communicate with this post, other than the fact that it is fascinating to see yourself from years ago. And I wish I had the foresight to do that more often, because past me left a video about 10 minutes long but I could watch her for hours. It was a really pleasant surprise this morning. 😊

The problem with gay white men

I don't know what the hell it is about them, or why they do so many things that tick me off, but they need to develop some self-awareness fast.

Being gay does not make you immune to misogyny, racism, or classism. In fact, I would argue that it makes you even more likely to participate in misogyny since most gay men that I have met find me even more worthless (since I identify as female) since I am not a sexual object to them. As if people didn't have a purpose beyond being sexual objects. Degrading your friendship with someone because you aren't dating isn't making the other person feel any better. Overtly stating that you prefer one of your male friends isn't endearing.

Saying offensive stuff and then using the excuse "it's fine, I'm gay" doesn't help either. Straight men aren't the only ones who are offensive to women, other races, or anyone else. That also misses the point completely. Sexism and racism are unconscious biases that we ALL have, myself included. Whether you happen to be part of a minority population or not doesn't fix that. It can only be combated by educating yourself and realizing these biases that you possess and how you may be acting on them.

And this self-awareness is really incredible since they never seem to shut up about themselves. Everything is a direct attack on them as a homosexual, nothing faces the LGBTQIA community at large, it's all specifically directed at them. I mean, sure, they're included in that, but realize that there are people worse off out there. Not everyone is a northeastern hipster with a buttload of privilege that they couldn't even begin to unpack. Most of the time you cannot bring up the subject of other people's plight without some genius launching off into how he has been personally victimized and his own struggles and how horrible it is for him when what we're trying to discuss someone else entirely. Part of being an ally and helping others is knowing when to shut up and listen instead. Talking about yourself incessantly means that you are, knowingly or not, taking up time that someone else could use more effectively, and voice opinions that aren't usually heard.

Sure I understand why this is, as part of the LGBTQIA community I get it. I know that you were growing up with a lot of insecurities about who you are, and that part of being in the closet means hiding and not talking to others, and how great it can feel when you're finally out and can talk about this. But I also know my place in the conversation, and I know that my problems aren't the most severe out there. And I think that this is something that the gay community as a whole needs to grasp.