This American Life, "Middle School"

"Middle School" aired October 28, 2011 on This American Life.

   This entire episode was dedicated to the middle school experience. The first act was interviews with some students and educators about their experience with middle school. The second act was about a dance. It was delightfully awkward with students discussing asking people out or dancing the "slow dance". This American Life  recorded teachers at the dance, capturing the moment when the teacher pulled a boy out of the dance for suggestive dancing. It was a hilarious moment that reminded me of my own middle school dance, where we all clumped on a circle, and were surrounded by chaperones, but none of us were actually dancing. The next act was an excerpt from The Boy Kings of Texas by Domingo Martinez. This section was about the manifestation of beautiful, suburban,white Americans that his sisters created call The Mimis. Each sister called themself Mimi, and became an inseparable duo, recouncing their culture and creating this air of . Everyone bought into their game, and were completely facinated. However, as the family faced fincial troubles, and sent the children to work in the fields of California. This illustrious dream of the Mimis disintegrated, as did the imiagination and creativity of childood.  The next act is about a boy named Leo. Leo recently changed schools, and is struggling to find his place. In his interviews it chronciles his decline into a depression where he can't seem to find any positives about his new life. The final act talks about how peer pressure was applied postively. It wasn;t exactly peer pressure, but rather the dissection of it. TA boy at a middle school was teased for his hygiene. He was from an extremely desolate situation, where his water and electricty would be turned off frequently, and he had to take care of his aging arguement. After


I loved this piece because it was absoultely true to the middle school experience. Not a lot is said about middle school in movies or other popular sources. The most I ever see or hear is about bullying. This piece accurately caputured this period. I can't say my experience was like the Mimis, or Leo, or the charter school boy. My middle school years went relatively smoothly. I think back to them fondly. However, boiled down, all of these stories touch on our desire to belong. All of these students talk about trying to understand their place and relationships. The dance is a great example of student's budding sexuality. They have crushes and feelings that they can now act on. Yet, the awakardness shows how little they know about romantic relationships. And the guarding chaperones give off the impression that something about what they do is wrong.
   Aside from these physical changes, the perception of the world changes. I see this is Leo's story the most.  Leo explains problem by saying that "The older you get, the more you judge people on their looks, their background, how they act, like what cool is for kids. Because in kindergarten, you could just walk up to someone and say, "Do you want to be my friend?" And that would be it. But it's harder. I just think people are more wary before they open up. Like in first grade, if I met someone, I wouldn't really care who they were. I would just care if they were nice or not."
  I can't agree more. Other people's perception of me suddenly became very important, and is a guiding factor of my life. And I think that's the most heartbreaking part of middle school. The innocence of childhood is gone, and studnets start preparing themselves for the rigors of adult life.

Spoken Word

After making my podcast, I realized that speaking is INCREDIBLY difficult! My first problem was speaking clearly! I realized that I frequently stumble on words. The hardest was when there was consonance. I would mush the sounds together to create this jumbled mess of words. Another habit I'm very conscious about is my mispronunciation of words. These aren't  words that require a quick look in the dictionary, rather I am known for mispronouncing everyday words.  In speech, I either slur or I  mis-emphasize parts of a word. It was getting extremely frustrating after having to rerecord my podcast after every take. I probably recorded the prologue of my podcast 40 times. It may seem a bit excessive, but I'm really glad I did. To give you an example, I just read the first two sentences aloud. I stumbled on "podcast", stuttering on the p, until finally ending up with "pordcas". The next word I had trouble with was the word "was". I said something that sounds like "warse". I know I may be complianing a lot. But the reason for this alarm is because I speak in public often. In high school, I gave tons of speeches  for ASB, and now I have to present all the time for my organizations and class.  I realize now that I may not be as clear as I may have thought I was. I hope that I can continue to work on this in order to improve my speaking in general.

Another point I want to bring up is the performance aspect of the podcast. Aside from just reading, you have add a bit personality to voice. But at the same time you have to control you breathing, remeber your lines, and stay calm. I cannot imagine performing. I'm used to the bad acting ( in Chinese class, we did skits every week), where it's forced, and the jokes come from the awkwardness of the situation. That's why I'm so amazed by the spoken word artist Beau Sia. I saw him last year for an art class. Not only is he reciting his hand crafted poetry, but infusing them with powerful emotion. He shouts, and bellows, and then will rap, and then speak conversationally. He uses his voice to explain the situation or add more meaing to it. Check out this sweet video!

Quick side note,  I went up to him after his performance and asked for a poem and a hug! I got both :]

The Britney Effect Week Five

"The Science of Hit Songs" Bjorn Carey

How could I resist? IT'S BRITNEY SPEARS! Britney Spears has been an icon for the last two decades. She defined 90's American culture. So it's only natural that she have her own "effect". :]



This  by Bjorn Cary that was published in Live Science online journal explains a study focused on explaining how music becomes popular. The study supports the claim that personal music preferences is based on the preferences of others. They did this by isolating partcipants from social influenece by providing them only with the basic song information as they listened to each song.  This helped "measure the quality of the songs and allowed us to see what outcome would result in the absence of social influence". Here lies my first problem with the article. It does not explain how to assess what good or bad music is. Cary begins his piece with " when Ashlee Simpson tops the charts while a critcally acclaimed ex-Beatles album fails to crack the top 200, eyebrows go up in the marketing world. Cary never adress why "bad" or lower quality music is good in the first place. The research reaffrims that notion that people reality on other's to formulate decisons. I think this is abvious. Of course if all of your friends abdore the new Ashlee Simpson hit, you'd want to give it a try. I think the more important question is why are these songs popular in the first place? I'd like to know why songs like these are hyped so much that people share them with others.

     One of the researchers, Salganik, says that " a desire for compatability with others would drive the choice, since much of the pleasure from listening to music and reading books stems from discussing them with friends...'If everyone is talking about Harry Potter , you want to read it too."

I think theres a difference between being curious, and actually liking the song. You may want to read Harry Potter, but it doesn't mean that you're going to like it. What I really want to know is why so many people fell in love with Harry Potter. How can all of this people have such a uniform taste?
I want to know what is this common thread. This would be a more interesting topic for the researchers to go into.

So, I guess I have problems Week Four

"Accounting for Taste" by Eric Gardner and " Some Exploratory Findings on the Development of Musical Tastes" by Morris B. Holbrook and Robert M.Schindler


In this article, Gardner breaks down people's music preference as a result of personality. He defines a few groups as "taste hunters", "thrill seekers" , "self-medicators" and "decorators".  He does also says that genetics and social instiutions may play a determining factor for our musical tastes, but overall this article serves to  prove that " we consume  books, movies, music, and visual art primarily to fulfill the internal emotional needs that are fundamental".
 
    Although this may be true, I feel his argument does not accurately convey this statement. My biggest concern is his  incomplete categorizing  of personalities. His major categories are for people who are "high in openness, the characteristic of creative, curious, and imaginative people" (taste hunters), "extroverts-lively active, social people"( thrill seekers), and "people high in neuroticism-less emotionally stable people people who are anxious, sensitive, and easily upset" ( self medicators). He does however manage to quickly define introverts as "reserved, thoughtful, self-reliant types". This paints a picture of the world being divided up by extroverts and introverts with a few depressed people or a few super open people added to the mix.

     Prior to this reading, I would have classified myself as an extroverted introvert. Per  descriptions, I identify with an extrovert’s “ the need to connect to others” and  an introvert’s “ reserved, thoughtful, self-reliant” personality type. However, this article’s example of a self-medicator also has many traits I possess. I love inspirational/moving posters which Gardner says “helps neurotic people manage their tendency to worry, and become blue”.  Therefore, as a single person, I embody many contradictory personality traits. Therefore it seems ridiculous that this simplifying of the human experience can possibly explain our music preference. Rather, I feel is it stereotyping people into music genres.

This whole article comes off as very critical of people’s music tastes. According to Gardner “neurotic people are more likely to enjoy rap and heavy metal”. With rap a mainstream mainstay, I highly doubt that the entire popular culture is filled with people with such profound psychological suffering. In the same way, Gardner sensationalizes his “taste hunters” and “thrill seekers”. His examples are a New York City fashion executive and a leader singer of a rock band. And his self-medicator who likes soulful music came a troubled childhood. So which type a person should we be like? What types of things should we like the, Gardner?

I don’t think it is fair to categorize the way people experience music in this way. I’m offended that he says a type of music my only reach out to a specific type of person. I think any music, painting, poem, novel or any other creative body can touch all types of people, and fulfill however they experience music. 

Smh! 

My emotion control for the week! "I'm  a Lady" by Santogold

Getting down and dirty Week Three

Exposure to Degrading versus Non-degrading Music Lyrics and Sexual Behavior Among Youth
Steven C. Martino PhD. et al

This article focuses on the music’s effect on adolescents’ sexual behavior. This study went over the course of three years, working with teenagers as they grew. In this study, they mapped music preferences, the content of this music, and how sexual experience/behavior grew over time. The major distinctions are that they divided music based on standards of degrading and non-degrading. Degrading music consists of “lyrics  are likely to promote the acceptance of women as sexual objects and men as pursuers of sexual conquest”. The non-degrading music simply had references to sex or to romance. The study found that “ adolescents who listen to a lot of music containing these objectifying and limiting characterizations of sexuality progress more quickly in their sexual behavior, regardless of their race or gender”.

I think this is funny, because I see some parallels to this and the first article “Classic Rockers- The First Generation: Just Give Me Some of that Rock and Roll Music”. This study only focused on mainstream artists. Of all genres that they worked with, their data shows rap as the biggest perpetrator of degrading sexual behavior. Their study worked to show that music with such influences will have negative societal impacts. Unlike music with just plain sexual content “ listening to music with degrading sexual content may have important public health and other societal consequences, because those who initiate sex early have more STDs and unplanned pregnancies”. This is humorous because this is the same rhetoric that was used to characterize the early rock and roll movement. Though this article is has some numerical backing, it still echoes this post-war fear of powerful, and predominantly black music. 

This isn’t to say that rap music doesn’t have songs that have unbelievable accounts of objectifying female and male sexual standards. Many songs and artists glorify prostitution, rape, infidelity, etc. However, this study is trying to turn this music into the perpetrator. It is almost like calling it devil’s music all over again.

In this era, we need to stop looking at symptoms and more at causes. Sex has always been a part of the adolescent story. Teenagers are going through tons of biological changes.  Earlier civilizations allowed their children to experiment with sex. 

Sex is not the issue at hand. The issue is poverty, lack of education, and societal inequality.  It’s not about censoring what people say, but rather changing the systems that are forcing them to speak that way. 

 "Words I Never Said" Lupe Fiasco

Week Two: Writing Topic

Hello Everyone,

I'm super confused about my topic!!  Lets start from the beginning. I've decided to write about my favorite song, " The Suburbs" by Arcade Fire. I chose this especially due to its relation to stories that early rockers spoke out about to teenagers.I feel they both comment on the conformity of their current society. Here's the video that served as my inspiration!

   I wrote this piece because I love Arcade Fire. I love them because I think the work hard to deviate from the shallow music that dominates the current music theme. Lots of songs I here talk about beauty, sex, drinking, money, and other superficial  aspects. I don't mean to bash love, but too many songs are croons about lost love, unrequited love, forgotten love, etc. I am a hopeless romantic, but sometimes it's just too much. Arcade Fire songs are usually talking about the struggles of living. Their debut album Funeral quite obviously focuses on death. But it wasn't about dying. It looks at the gradual shift in life. Death only sets the tone to talk about aging, unfinished dreams, betrayal and so much more. For me, Funeral is a performance novel or poetry since it is as complex as an form of literature I have ever read.
   My problem with the current music scene is that there aren't many powerful artists. The top song on iTunes today is " I'm Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO. Here's the video in case you're interested in why it's ridiculous that this  is our top music.

   I choose Chuck Berry because he seemed the least commercial. He was also treated as the poet laureate  of the 50's. And other artists like Elvis, did not make their fame on thought provoking lyrics. Barry seems like a step up since Paul Friedlander praises him as "a complete musician , who was not not only a vocal stylist like Elvis, but also a composer, instrumentalist, and bandleader." However, I know very little about 50's era music, so he still sounds a bit shallow. So this writing was a bit streched!
Wish me luck on my final portfolio!
 

Week 2: "The Last Days of Brother Ray" David Ritz

An extremely powerful article.  This was written by David Ritz, the man who worked with Ray Charles to write the autobiography, Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story . It begins as an ode to Charles. Ritz completely idolizes Charles. He begins this work protrayig a man without fear, who is willing to take life for all it is worth.
" ' As long as I am with this man', I said silently ' God will not dare touch me. God will  dare not touch Ray. Ray doesn't fear God. If anything, God fears Ray.'" Ritz clearly expresses Charles' strength and prowess.  But, his writing begins to shift as he experiences an aging Charles. No longer as arrogant and unrepentant , Charles begins to become introspective, and unloads to Ritz. we finally see a person behind the giant, a man facing mortality.

  This was a huge article for me to read. My first and only experience with Ray Charles is on  Sesame Street.I can remember being a little child sitting on my living room floor and watching this old man play the piano ( Little Richard was my favorite though. He played the piano in a bathtub!!!!! )
   It was interesting to see the different shades of a human. My impression of Ray Charles was a sweet old man who could play the piano. The first half of the article painted him as some arrogant jerk. with some higher power. I was really disgusted by his womanizing tendencies and the fact that " he wasn't even certain of how many children he had fathered". Charles is heralded as one of the great music masters and yet he seems to ignore key facets of the human experience.  I think that great music would both be dynamic and meaningful.  Honestly, I was disgusted at his behavior. How can someone like that move me? But then the narrative shifts, and I see the mortality of a person. Despite his exploits, he is still faced with his own death. " 'I'm weak,' he said, 'I'm getting stronger'". These were the same words uttered by my Grandpa a month before he passed.
 So I decided to listen to " Drown in my Own Tears". It my seem cliche, but I cried.
   Ray Charles was a human being, who surpassed insurmountable odds while carrying hurt, regret, and so much more.