Video Essay

Before attempting to comment on these video essay.  I found a youtube informatonal page in which lectured me on what exactly it was.  Here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXKGNQg0M7c

 After watching it and seeing the few videos in class.  I became instantly interested in what they were.  Listening to a plain ole essay from someone in front of a class is becoming obsolete in our growing technological society.  The idea of having moving images, people speaking, words backed up by words draws our viewers/ listeners in stronger. 

Watching Reading by Delillo was compelling to my attention because it was exciting to know this family or friends of an astronaut was proud of their son's accomplishments, but it went down hill after the explosion.  Now having visuals and people crying in the background, to me, is stronger than having a person read off paragraphs.  It's stronger now because as we listen, we feel the emotion of the pain of what went on that day.  We probably would have never felt the same realism from reading it on paper.

Stein part 2

After revisiting Gertrude my relationship with her is still in major dislike.  There is a level of respect for someone who can have an entire book based off her own ideas and make their readers dig deep between the lines for a profound meaning, but there isn't much enjoyment, in which I personally receive from her work.  

I have an interesting theory that is probably wrong but I would like to express it.  I never understood what or who Lolo was in the work.  From my understanding it could have been that this Lolo character could have been like an alter ego of Stein's.  Although she changes its sex a few times I had a few questions about what this person or thing meant to her.  "there is some relation between romance and the human mind but no relation between human nature and romantic anything because human nature is not interesting but romance is."  435 and the next stanza says Lolo.  It makes me wonder she saying this as a connection or relation between her own mind, body, and ego.  If that is the case there is no relation between human nature and romances because her mind won't allow it.

"A masterpiece certainly has nothing to do with identity because if identity had an audience would not care to be a masterpiece."  Pg 459  Stood out to me saying a larger profound thing to me even if I understood it wrong.  It is saying a masterpiece can stand out without and identity, but a identity can't stand without a masterpiece.  Do we rely on our work speaking for us or do we strive for our work to stand alone without authorship?  If a work is great than it does not need an author's title on it yet he a quick to claim the masterpiece as our own.  It is a kind of tongue twisting mind bottling nursery rhyme which bounces around my mind.

Its so weird to me how she can write about several topics and keep them going on and on until the end.  Using money, romance, human nature, human mind, identity, etc for an entire book of her personal thoughts yet keep your interesting along with confused throughout the piece.  It is a very humorous piece with points where she expects the reader to keep up, even though for myself, I struggled to keep up and understand the humor in it.  Overall, I have learned through her para-tactic novel she was a profound yet crazy lady.

Stein

Geographical history

Stein writes complex language which most of the time rides over my understanding.  She has a way of asking questions without question marks.  Makes your wonder if language itself is a question.  Like chapter 2 of page 370.  The entire part is constant questions without punctuation.  But some answer the question within the same statement.  like "what is the use of being a boy if you are growing up to be a man."  It is interesting to think we do this in spoken language but not in written.

The chapters are confusing as well.  It's like the chapters are placed at random throughout the piece.  It feels like the chapters are connected to one another but in a total chaotic order.  It kind of makes the chapters in a paratactic order.  Can we read it if we organize in a different more linear way would the work be easier to understand?

This is a quote that stands out to me, "what is the difference between remembering what has been happening and remembering what has been as dreaming.  None.  therefore there is no relation between human nature and the human mind."  It is saying that in our mind our memory and dreams blend into one past thought?  It also answers by saying there isn't a difference in human mind and our human nature.  It makes me wonder why she ask questions if places the answer even though it still makes no sense to me.  It could be saying that our mind stores dreams and memories in the same bank and we bring them up when it is needed.

Speakers

Yesterday we were privileged to have two authors read their work to us.  Tisa Bryant and Douglas Kearney were both mind blowing speakers with confidence, intelligence, and insight which was inspirational, entertaining, and relaxing.  I say relaxing since they created a comfortable environment which was welcoming for any listener to enjoy. 

First, Tisa read from two prose pieces which were filled with concrete language which produced multiple strong images in my mind as she read.  Her words in prose, still have rhythm and prosody, which kept me wanting more.  The ideas of mixing film genre's work with picture but with only words and essays was original and appreciated.  I never knew an essay/story could be so interesting.  Also the after reading the Michael Jackson story, I really would like to purchase, read, and enjoy the story as an entirety.

Then, we heard Douglas Kearney, who instantly drew our attention full force by knocking us off of our guard.  He also told us that is a great stragety to gaining your crowds attention.  His words on the page seem so wild, all over, out of place, no order, just random, but as he reads, its so powerful.  Like the story about the man who was drugged across the ground face first.  I felt the pain of the man through the description, through his voice my heart sank knowing someone has gone through such as thing. 

overall, I had a great time.  Listening to their restrains, their editing processes, their writing processes, especially what Tisa has gone through writing the MJ story.  The questions, and answer part was great, hearing about the voices, practices, and ways of writing from both authors.  Afterward, I had an opportunity to talk with Tisa Bryant.  She was awesome and I didn't know much about her before yesterday but I hope to develop a connection with her since she was kind enough to allow me access to her Email. 

Gay is the new black, Creative project

Gay is the New Black

The bullying began yesterday, yet yesterday threats were inevitable.  Boys will be boys, every dog has his day, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  Times are more inceptive, but he who stands alone suffers before obtaining acceptance.

 

“Damn, look how tight those jeans are!  He wearing them nut huggers.  What the fuck, do he shop in the girls section?”

“Get fuck out of here.  We don’t want you near us.”

 

 “Why are you like that?                                 You’re going to hell!”

 “Its Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve,                 fag.”

He pursues the exit hoping the ignorant guys would leave him be.

“Why you running?  Them homos on TV always fighting for their rights and you’re being a punk.  So you not gone say shit?”

The ring leader presses against the victim blocking his departure.  Fear builds within the boy, afraid for his wellbeing, his rights, his life.  The bully grabs his backpack, turns it up, pouring, and revealing the boy’s coveted items.

“Look at his CD collection.  Beyoncé, Madonna, Taylor Swift, and Miley Cyrus.  You should listen to some real music instead of those bitches.”

The boy sinks onto the floor tiles reaching for his items scattered about.  After obtaining about half he looks up asking, “Why do you care, interested?”

 

The leader pulls away bursting laughs of hatred.  The side kick boasts forward with a forceful slap across the kneeling boy.  Tears of frustration form a congregation blurring his awareness.  The ring leader has an epiphany when tears convert into blood. 

“Yo, let’s get outta here before someone sees us!”  The gang disperses into banishment.

“Wash yo hands before you catch something, dog.”

The ring leader separates from the rest, rushing away, although guilt chases behind.  He follows his daily routine shoveling his iPhone buds into his ear blasting new rap hits.  Awaiting the bus to arrive he lights his black and mild irritating the studious crowd around.  He bobs his head back and forth feeling himself also attempting to forget.  Images of the poor defensive less boy deflects off of the wind stopper into his conscious.  Remorse overpowers his pores before they discharge with relieving smoke. 

The bus arrives downtown.  The drive collects the fare before allowing a fair departure.  The bus goes through the urban areas with crack heads steeling the population, crime boasting the weekly news, abandon homes substantially increasing, and where dreams cease to exist.  It stops a few times for the less fortunate to exit before entering the privileged suburban districts.  With greener grass, street pavements tamed, elegant homes, happier and brighter folk. 

The teenage boy enters a life in which he hides from his friends, who suffer poverty.  He goes to the local market aiming for another smoke to suppress.  Upon approaching the door he observes an alluring blonde who draws him in like a succubus.  Like any boy his age he yearns for her attention, her presence, her acceptance, her number.  After devouring a mint, he moves in for the kill, by dashing for the door.  He opens it for her allowing her in first. 

She smiles.

“Can I get a thank you?”

“Isn’t that your job?”

“Whoa, who was talking to you?”

“Her boyfriend, boy.”

 

The hefty male appears from the rear.  A group of boys shovel him from inside onto the street.  They shake their heads with pure content.  He struggles to keep his composure.  The boy desires to flee hoping for survival for hitting on the wrong girl.

“Why are you out here?  Shouldn’t you be in the jungle like the rest?”

“You got a little freedom now you feel the need to take our girls, too?”

 

The ring leader presses against the victim blocking his departure.  Fear builds within the boy, afraid for his wellbeing, his rights, his life.  The bully grabs his backpack, turns it up, pouring, and revealing the boy’s coveted items.

The boy struggles to grasp his items scattering around the parking lot.  Eerie how familiar this event seems.  The posse goes around exchanging chances for bodily blows onto the victim causing his jaw to bleed.

The posse splits into the street leaving physical wounds and pride scorching his eyes.  No one bothers to help, no one cares for his wellbeing, no calls the police, why should they since he is an outsider of their norms.  The tears and blood leave him paralyze in absent of surrealism in the severity.

A hand extend over him when a soft voice commands, “Here, get up.”

At last, yearning for the girl he risked his wellbeing for, has come to aid him.  However, that remain a fantasy beyond truth.  The boy with a blackened eye disguises humor with concern.  The newly wounded boy rises with the aid of his own victim.  He remains still dumbfound in questioning the motives of his support. 

“Why do you care, interested in helping me?”

“Karma was served.  What happened to you wasn’t much different from what you did to me.”

“Look man, I’m sorry for…”

“Save it.  We go through the same things, I don’t know why I’m your enemy when all I want to do is live my life, my way.”

“Understood.”

“Apology accepted.  Just tell your friends to back off.”

“Bet.”

Gaga’s Feminism

     We began to discuss this article Monday in class and the few quotes we found were very interesting which brought up more topics such as Disney’s characters.  How gender roles played a huge part in majority of their stories.  Jafar, in Aladdin, where he was considered the villain as he was feminine and how majority of women are hopeless and need to be saved by the all American prince.  We also discussed how gender roles identify our sex throughout our entire lives dealing with colors, dressing, and activities from early in our childhood. 

     “Children are different from adults in all kinds of meaningful ways.  They inhabit different understandings of time, and experience and the passing of time differently.  They also seamlessly transition between that adults would not ordinarily connect in conversation.” Pg xxiii

     “If some masculine women themselves as the penetrators rather than the penetrees, then we speak of terms of pathology and we name that category in terms of its resistance to norms.  We do not speak of men, but we do think in terms of ‘stone butch’; this allows for butches to be caricatured as rigid, or immobile or frozen.”  Pg 86.  That stands out to me because if a woman shows her masculine side then he world judges her as thousands of different things besides what is right.  It happens all the time especially dealing with women who play sports.   When guys go into fields such as hair and makeup they are categorized as gay.  There is a movie called beauty shop in which that really shows how people judge men in feminine considered jobs, who wasn’t gay, but the assumption was there.

Gay is the New Black weekend

Gay is the New Black

The Blacks

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region, when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Several nights later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam arrived at Till's great-uncle's house where they took Till, transported him to a barn, beat him and gouged out one of his eyes, before shooting him through the head and disposing of his body in the Tallahatchie River, weighting it with a 70-pound (32 kg) cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. His body was discovered and retrieved from the river three days later.

The Gays

Matthew Wayne Shepard (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998) was an American student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyoming in October 1998. He was attacked on the night of October 6–7, and died at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, on October 12 from severe head injuries.

The Blacks

The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman took place on the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States. Martin was a 17-year-old African American high school student. George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed-race Hispanic,[Note 1] was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Martin was temporarily staying and where the shooting took place.[4][5][6] Following an earlier call from Zimmerman, police arrived within two minutes of a gunshot during an altercation in which Zimmerman fatally shot Martin, who did not have any weapons. Zimmerman was taken into custody, treated for head injuries, then questioned for five hours. The police chief said that Zimmerman was released because there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman's claim of having acted in self-defense, and that under Florida's Stand Your Ground statute, the police were prohibited by law from making an arrest.[7] The police chief also said that Zimmerman had had a right to defend himself with lethal force.[8] As news of the case spread, thousands of protestors across the country called for Zimmerman's arrest and a full investigation.[9] Six weeks after the shooting, amid widespread, intense, and in some cases misleading media coverage,[10][11] Zimmerman was charged with murder by a special prosecutor appointed by Governor Rick Scott.[12][13]

The Gays

During the trial, it was widely reported that Shepard was targeted because he was gay; a Laramie police officer testified at a pretrial hearing that the violence against Shepard was due to how the attacker "[felt] about gays", per an interview of the attacker's girlfriend who said she received that explanation.[1] Shepard's murder brought national and international attention to hate crime legislation at the state and federal levels.[2]

Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen on Thursday shot dead a Yemeni man because they believed he was a homosexual, a security official told AFP.  “Armed Al-Qaeda suspects on a motorbike opened fire on 29-year-old Salem Ahmed Hasan in a market in Huta,” capital of the southern province of Lahj, the official said, adding the man died immediately.  He said the man was targeted because the attackers thought he was a homosexual.  Another four men have been killed in similar attacks on supposedly gay men in Huta this year.  The latest such attack was in July when suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen shot and wounded a man only days after they killed another in similar circumstances.  Al-Qaeda in Yemen is active mainly in the southern and eastern parts of the country.  The army, also backed by US drone attacks, managed to retake control of the country’s south, of which large swathes had been seized by Al-Qaeda militants.  Although weakened, the terror network still carries out hit-and-run attacks against army and police targets.  During their control of areas in southern Yemen, the Islamist militants imposed a strict version of Islamic law on residents, executing or lashing those they accused of various crimes. Those accused of theft had their hands severed.

The hatred cycles back and forth throughout time and our media, but what has it proven?  When reading the essay Gaga’s feminism it sparked an interest between my daily life of an EMU student observing the “National coming out Day” currently reading the Black Automaton by Douglas Kearney, learning about the death of Matthew Wayne Shepard.  It sucks that so much time has gone by since African American’s endure freedom along the war of gay rights and how people chose to live their lives yet these tragic events appear inevitable.  Either way it goes gay, straight, race, or cultural backgrounds we are all humans and the violence needs to stop.  Is death the only way reality of these problems can reach mass media? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/29/suspect-al-qaeda-gunmen-kill-yemeni-man-they-suspected-of-being-gay/

Weekend's assignment.