Manny Scott & Dr. Frankenstein

Post Written By: Chris Stein

     This week Dunbar had an assembly for guest speaker Manny Scott and in our AP Lit class, we started reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. As a result, this week was very focused on life and death and gave us time to think critically about ourselves. As a matter of opinion, there were a few things I personally disliked about his speech. Keep in mind, this is me being very critical and I do, in fact, think Mr. Scott is an amazing speaker as well as an inspirational person, and he conveyed his message in a powerful way. But frankly, I have a problem with the way people talk about suicide. Call it lack of sympathy or tolerance or whatever you may, but where I'm from, suicide is the biggest f*** you to your family, your friends, to your community and to God. It's you telling everyone around you that you're too good for the life you were given, so as opposed to putting in the effort to change it, you're just giving up. There are people out there who would give anything to be in the position you are in right now. As a matter of personal integrity, suicide is the biggest display of weakness a person can have. Seeing as the only person you're smart enough to kill is yourself, suicide is not a strength. If you want to be strong, reach out for the help you need, or better yet, become an example of how other people can overcome the situations they are in. Where I'm from, people don't die from suicide, they die because life was taken away from them. Glendale, my old highschool had the mascot of a falcon and our student body was often referred to as "the flock" and when tragic events occurred, the flock flew together. As a smaller school, we were all family. Just before I moved here, I lost a classmate and very close friend of mine Grayson in a plane crash. Grayson Lambert star soccer player, Josh Lambert 10 years old, McKinley Lambert 15, along with parents John and Robin were all killed on their way back from a baseball game. Their small 6-seater Piper didn't make it back from the game that Saturday morning.

A few months later, another tennis partner and close friend of mine, Paul Nahon, Glendale graduate, died in a climbing accident Long's Peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Paul was attending Richmond University and planned to go pro in tennis after college. 

When news of the deaths reached Glendale, our remaining 1198 students wore orange and held a vigil around the flagpole in memory of our lost students. That day was different because the flock was missing a few, and it hurt. 

Where I'm from, life isn't something we give away freely. We cherish our lives and the lives of others around us. For me, this only strengthens Mary Shelly's message that life is not ours to give or take. 

the flock flies together

Marshall Bruce Mathers III

Post Written By: Chris Stein

     In class this week we watched a movie about Long Beach students who, with the help of a teacher Erin Gruwell, achieved something they could've never achieved before. The students of Woodrow Wilson High School transitioned from disobedient gang members to loquacious erudite students who journaled and documented their life on the streets in order to give themselves a better chance at success in life. In America, we have seen a parallel to this in the modern music culture, most prominently in hip-hop and rap. I personally see the movie 8 Mile as a relative parallel to Freedom Writers. Mathers's home life as a high schooler was seldom stable, and he wrote his own lyrics to rap songs on the radio while spending three years in ninth grade due to truancy and poor grades even though he was extremely interested in English.

Taking to the streets, Marshall Bruce Mathers III showed off his rap skills in open mic contests in a west 8 Mile hip-hop shop and caught the attention of various rap groups. Eventually after gaining a reputation in the underground rap world, Eminem went official, signing with the Bass brothers, recording his debut album Infinite. Following this, Eminem released his debut EP, the Slim Shady EP, which fought the attention of Dr. Dre, one of the most prominent figures in music at the time. Just like Erin Gruwell helped her students become the "Freedom Writers," Dr. Dre took in white rapper Eminem, helping him produce his first major-label album The Slim Shady LP, which went triple platinum by the end of the year. Gaining momentum, Eminem released The Marshall Mathers LP and the Eminem Show, both of which have been certified 10x platinum since their release.

Finishing Wuthering Heights

Post Written By: Chris Stein

     In class this week, we have finally finished reading Wuthering Heights and now we're moving on to (hopefully) better things. It's similar to sitting in a car and listing to someone else's horrible music because you're too nice to tell them they have poor taste in music. I'm neither implying that Wuthering Heights is only chosen by people with poor taste, nor that we shouldn't have read it. Reading different novels outside your typical genre only makes you more experienced and more intelligent in the world of literature. The same can be said of music. People have different tastes in music and although music beings up together, it also can set us apart. One could, for example, be a folk music aficionado yet the only reason they may or may not like other genres is because they have listened to them before. Fortunately, music is much easier to judge. We can often times listen to a few seconds of a song before we find out that we really done enjoy that type of music. Brontë's novel is heavily layered into the sub-genre of gothic romance yet it draws people out from their typical genre to read. This is because of the quality and artistic merit the book demands. It isn't a book you read then don't have an opinion about. If you actually read Wuthering Heights, you will have some type of feeling about it, and chances are, it's a rather strongly opinionated one. It is the factor of provoking emotion that earns this book the title of a classic. Similarly, music needs to have some describable quality to be considered "good." Classic music, like classic literature, has a quality that provokes feeling or some type of thought. Classical music is called "classic" music for a reason. Sure, it's boring and it's old but thats not what makes it a classic. In the same way literature speaks to us personally through the letters of a novel or the pages of text in a biography, classical music reaches out from the strings of the violin, deep within our mental self to provoke some kind of thought that speaks to, and relates to us personally.

Parodies and Qualities of Entertaining Art. Versace.

Post Written By: Chris Stein

     We haven't done much in class this week that could be "re-framed" but we are still reading Wuthering Heights and now we've added another book to the list plus an extra book for Reading Extravaganza. Wuthering Heights and the books on our AP Lit reading list vary greatly from the books on the Reading Extravaganza book list. For example, the books we read in class are typically considered to contain artistic use of language. In the same way, if we want to consider music art, it must contain artful use of either spoken language or artistic use of instruments and sound. We could say that Emily Brontë wrote a cleverly worded novel, and even though it may or may not be a slow read, it is still given merit because of it's artistic use of language. In a way, this is true of music. The song "Versace" by Migos has no artistic use of language and no outstanding instrumental background. Therefore, the song deserves no merit and as real music. 

     Illuminati. Versace Versace Versace. Versace Versace. You are now dumber for having watched this. The point is that music and literature alike must have some quality deserving of merit in order for them to succeed. People don't want to read a boring book and people don't to listen to boring music. We are entertained and challenged by artistic use of language and all the other qualities that make up our favorite book or our favorite song. Literature and music can have various qualities that make them entertaining, such as humor. Humor in literature is often subtle and expressed in the form of satire or a character's poor choices and unfortunate consequences. We find humor in a situation at the expense of the character. This technique is applied to music and music videos known as "spoofs". 

Wuthering Heights

Post Written By: Chris Stein

     In class this week, we've been reading Emily Brontë's 1874 novel Wuthering Heights and analyzing it section by section. The book itself has many parallels to music, but most obviously the theme of love and life struggle. For your convenience, I have included a family tree that includes the two major families in the book. You're Welcome

     In Wuthering Heights, Brontë portrays the struggle of two young children as life and "growing up" changes their feelings for one another. In the early stages of their childhood, Catherine and Heathcliff are the best of friends and stick together against the will of the abusive, patriarchal Mr. Earnshaw. As the two children mature, their friendship becomes an unspoken -or seemingly unspoken- love for each other. But when Edgar proposes to Catherine, Heathcliff is emotionally destroyed by her decision to accept and follow through with the marriage. Catherine admits to a servant that she loves Heathcliff but cannot marry him because of his low social status and lack of formal education, so she resorts to marrying a wealthy, well educated man she does not love (a perfect example of what Kanye would call "a woman so heartless").

 

     To get even, Heathcliff marries Isabella, who he has no feelings for whatsoever and now the whole world is being heartless. Kanye would approve. To take the connection further than just a single mediocre hip-hop song, many artists -particularly in the hip-hop/rap world- have recorded songs about love and breakup and life struggles. Songs such as this portray the struggle of the singer's childhood and how they were constantly disappointed and let down. Often times this is entirely false, they did not start at the bottom and now they are not here. Even outside of hip-hop, love and struggle plays a key role in the music and lyrics of many artists, for example Taylor Swift. Known as the queen of breakups, T. Swizzle has more than her fair share of experience in the relationship department and it certainly shows in her songs. Her song "Dear John" about her 2010 plaything John Mayer not so discretely tells how she felt about him in the lyrics "Don't you think I was too young to be messed with? The girl in the dress cried the whole way home. I should've known." Two years, and 4 boyfriends later, Swift comes out with a song on her album RED called I Knew You Were Trouble about One Direction's Harry Styles.

     Obviously, T Swizzle is one promiscuous tramp, but she's attractive and she can sing so we'll let her do whatever she wants. Unfortunately, this book isn't quite the same. Wuthering Heights is the epitome of all the unfortunate things that could happen in life. It takes themes from 4th grade relationships, Romeo and Juliet, the greedy nature of society and all Russian novels that begin with struggle, elaborate on the agony of the struggle and end in death, surely causing depression and lasting unhappiness.

Inquiry Into Literature

Post Written By: Chris Stein

     In class this week, we worked on our "Inquiry Into Literature" essay  in which we explained our view on what literature is. Personally, in my traditional thinking, I believe literature to be mostly limited to purpose written books and according to my thesis statement, something that "incorporates the artistic use of written language into a story, the portrayal of a message, or the presentation of an observation on life as well as a purpose greater than pure entertainment of the reader." Literature is a rather abstract term to describe, one that we typically don't simply because of its variability and complex uncertainty. To contrast this, music is a very generic term that applies to almost any vocal or instrumental sound purposefully created as art. Music and literature share many defining characteristics, chiefly in regards to artistic merit. But what counts as artistic and what doesn't? Some (including me) say screamo doesn't count as art or music. (My apologies to those of you who enjoy screamo. I guess I'm just not that intense of a person. Chill.) The same goes with literature. Some people (again, including myself) believe that Nicholas Sparks novels are fictional stories or books, but not literature. Personal bias and whether we "like" a certain genre or style can often be confused the denotation of literature or the denotation of music. Although, there are pieces from both forms in black and white that are clearly and universally recognized. For instance, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is not literature while Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" is literature. In music, one could say someone whistling a tune in the men's  restroom is not music. You wouldn't tell this person to turn down the music. You would simply tell them to stop because its just weird. On the other end of the spectrum, one would call Beethoven's Fifth Symphony music because thats what it clearly is. It has timeless artistic merit among other textbook classic musical qualities allow us to call it music.

Please take the poll below:

Structure

Post Written By: Chris Stein

     There are many structure forms in literature, the most common being exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This is similar to a musical structure for songs which tends to be verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus in most forms of music produced in America. 

     An exposition sets the scene, introduces the characters - especially the main character- and gives background. Rising action builds tension within the reader, and leads to the peak action known as the climax. The climax of a story is the point of greatest tension and often times a turning point - an epic battle scene, a face-off between two superheros or the point where the protagonist ultimately accomplishes or doesn't accomplish their goal. Following the climax is falling action, where a multitude of events can occur, all with less tension or importance than the climax. To tie up all loose ends and leave the reader in a state of satisfaction, the story concludes with a resolution. This structure is common and perhaps overused in commercial fiction, making most of its books predictable and, in the mind of most scholars, completely useless in the realm of literature (ex. Steven King novels). Although, plots can deviate from this traditional structure in experimantal literature such as stream of consciousness. 

     In a similar way, music has structure and form among its many defining elements. Most music follows a general pattern of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus with minor deviations to make the song more pleasing or displeasing to the ear. This is called the ABC pattern. 

     Structures within art forms such as literary fiction and music help define and unify the work. Sometimes rigid, overused structures make the work predictable and easily forgettable which is why, over the years, authors and artists alike have broken the tradition and branched out in form and structure to make a more memorable and interesting work. As an audience, we live for the deviation. Occasionally we enjoy traditional literature and music, but just as nobody wants to read the same book over and over for the rest of their life, no one would want to listen to the same song over and over on repeat, and therefore structure and form must deviate in order to keep interest and gain or maintain reputation.

Quotations

Post Written By: Chris Stein

     Quotations have a place our lives more than just in literature we read for fun or for class. Quotes can also be found in music whether they are a "quote" of the melody, such as a remade song or a remix, or actual words taken from another song. Regardless of whether we find these quotes in literature or in music there are complications to both applications. In literature, the author must make an intuitive decision on the type of integration used in these quotes. In music, the producer must make sure they stay within the "fair use" policy if they don't want to run into copyright infringement and other legal issues. Plagiarism is also a relatively big issue within the world of music. Producers copy other songs and claim to take credit for the brilliance of the original artist. This is made blatantly obvious through songs that sound almost identical. For example, in 1963, Brian Wilson composed a song for the Beach Boys called "Surfin' U.S.A." claiming it to be an original work when in fact, five years earlier in 1958, a song called "Sweet Little Sixteen" was written and performed by African American singer/songwriter Chuck Berry. The two songs are identical.

     Besides people stealing melodies from previous artists and composers, quotes in music can also be found in the form of lyrics. For example, in Giacomo Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" he quotes the United States National Anthem in the very beginning. Quotations can be used in almost any media, from operas to hip-top to classic literature. Regardless of the application, when used correctly, quotations add diversity and support to a work. If a quote is powerful, moving and thought provoking, it will often catch the eye of an artist or writer looking to add depth to their otherwise dull work. Quotations are an extremely useful tool that are used by authors and artists alike.




More examples of songs that sound the same:

The Police- "Message In A Bottle"          vs.          Rihanna- "Love Without Tragedy"

Steely Dan- "Reelin' In The Years"          vs.          The Strokes- "Gratification"

Symbolism

Post Written by Chris Stein

     There are many obscurities in Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants, but there is also symbolism and an underlying theme. Given the overly vague nature of the story, the reader could interpret this story in many different ways, possibly even missing the theme completely. This reenactment is almost as awkward as me trying to read it and decipher the true meaning. Only watch if you're willing to waste 9:46 of your life on assessing the awkwardness of both my struggle and a rather comedic attempt to recreate the world's most vague story.

     What makes the short story so difficult is that Hemingway never explicitly mentions abortion. This quality employed by Hemingway creates more thought provoking literature as well as a challenge to correctly interpret the author's true thoughts. In a similar way, music and songs that don't explicitly state their meaning or purpose often elude the typical listener in understanding, but if you slow down and purposefully analyze a song to come up with the sometimes hidden theme, you will have a better appreciation for not only the song but the artist as well. The song "Slide" by the Goo Goo Dolls is a perfect example of this. Many of us probably enjoy music from the Goo Goo Dolls, but have we ever once stopped to think about the lyrics? "Slide" is a song about a pregnant teenage girl living in a strict Catholic environment who, along with her boyfriend, debate on whether or not to keep the child or have an abortion. Probably the most obvious link to abortion is found in the verse "don't you love the life you killed." Never in the song does lead singer John Rzeznik say the word abortion, upon further analysis of the song, it becomes clear that the main theme, laced into a Billboard ranked #9 song for 20 years, is the theme of abortion.

Two more songs that you may or may not know are about abortion: