"The Runaway" Introduction

When thinking of the 1950's, many Americans think of pleasant, suburban families walking down tree-lined streets, however some Americans were disgruntled with this seemingly carefree lifestyle. The famed painter, Norman Rockwell, was not one of these individuals and he expressed his views of idealism through his popular work,"The Runaway." This 1950's counterculture, fighting idealists like Rockwell, strove to make America realise how things are and not how things were. Rockwell's,"The Runaway," overlooks the fundamental rift that was rising in America throughout the 1950's- an emerging counterculture that was not concerned with how things were in America, but how things are now.

"Across the Universe"

Images-
"Words are flying out like rain into a paper cup."
"Pools of sorrow and waves of joy"
"Limitless undying love, which shines like a million suns"

Possible Symbols-

The image of, "Pools of sorrow and waves of joy," represent the drastic emotions inside of one's head throughout their life.

The cross has always been a symbol to Christians. It symbolizes Christ's love for his people and his willingness to die for them.

"Inspiration Information"

The song has a very relaxed, but upbeat tone and it is the kind of song that would cheer me up on a sad day. The use of soft drums and the funky music of the electric guitar make the song sound the way it is, relaxed and enjoyable to listen to anytime of day. The artist, in my opinion, made many sacrifices in making this song. He had the choice of making the vocals louder and using harder drums, but he did not because he knew it would ruin the song's vibe of relaxation.

"Semeadores" by Diego Rivera

Subject- Planters on a farm
Occasion- 1910's-1920's during communist movements in Latin America.
Audience- Citizens of a Latin American nation.
Purpose- To educate citizens about the downsides of capitalism and to portray communism as the savior of the worker.
Speaker- Diego Rivera was an artist during this tumultuous time in Latin America who strongly endorsed communism.
Tone- Rivera is sympathetic towards the planters because he is trying to show their pain.

Diego Rivera portrays these planters as oppressed victims of capitalism amd wants his audience to believe that the planters are undervalued and work hard. He supports this idea by the color scheme and postition of the planters in the painting. The colors in the painting are bland showing the dullness of the planter's life, but specifically the lack of facial features shows the planters as workers, not people in the eyes of the capitalist government. The postition of the planter to the right shows how hard the man is working for such little pay.

Creative Process

When Wilco creates a song, they have three major steps in creating the final piece. Firstly, they get the general idea of how a song should sound. Secondly, they deconstruct the song and work on each individual section. Finallly, they bring all of the pieces of the song back together to see how it sounds. When I write anything, I have a specific process for creating my piece in the best possible manner. In order to make sure I address the prompt correctly, I create a thesis that incorporates relevant examples. How one uses vocabulary is important, so I make sure all my correctly and see if there is a more sophisticated word that works better for the sentence. At the end of drafting, revising, and editing I read through the final product many times to make sure it addresses the criteria of the assignment.

Soundtrack from American Grafitti

       Nostalgia is a yearning for the past and is typically associated with a good connotation.  When I first heard the song, I immediately thoughts of a dinner scene from the 1950s with clean cut kids and a mom with an apron on, all  living the American dream in the suburbs with primly trimmed lawns.  Images of stay at home moms loading kids into the large family station wagon all come to mind.  When I think of my own childhood, I remember all the family vacations that my parents have taken with us.  My whole family loves to travel and no historical site is too small for us to visit.  I associate one sound in particular with these images and that is the sound of a suitcase being zipped.

The Pinch of Poverty

Poverty is caused by many factors.  The major causes are substance abuse, corrupt governments, historical disadvantages, and the rising cost of living.  The artist portrays poverty in this painting as a depressing existence.  The artist’s message about poverty is that poverty can affect anyone, including women and young children instead of the typical stereotypes about the poor.  He uses color and background to reinforce his point.  The color of figures’ clothes is dark and they are standing in the rain which emphasizes the bleakness of the painting.  The little girl in the painting is wearing a white jacket which symbolizes hope.

Poverty-Reading Response

Peter Singer’s essay in which he provides us with his solution to ending world poverty poses some unique ethical dilemmas.  Singer’s perspective as an academic challenging his readers to think about the role their actions or inactions have on the world at large is different from Chitra Divakaruni who recounts her firsthand experience with child labor in India.  Singer gives us specific directives that we must implement in order to eliminate world poverty in the world.  He tells us that American households need only $30,000 annually for necessities, freeing many billions of dollars to solve global poverty.  I do not believe that Singer’s approach is feasible for several reasons.  First, the amount allotted for necessities would fluctuate depending upon the number of family members and the specific location where the family lives.  Raising a family in New York City is inherently more expensive than raising a family in Des Moines, Iowa.  Moreover, the definition of what is a necessity is open to ample interpretation.  Is providing a college education for your children a necessity or a luxury?  Singer himself seems to recognize this conflict where he challenges the readers “of this article with $200 to spare” to donate that money to an overseas aid agency.  Ask most Americans and I bet very few claim to have $200 to spare to give to charity.  Singer correctly points out that it is much easy to deny $200 to a child living in Bangladesh than the shoeless man panhandling in front of the bus station in your hometown.  “Out of sight, out of mind” is clearly alive and well in the United States.  Embarrassingly, Americans for all our wealth are hardly a generous nation.  Singer points out that we give less than .09% of our gross national product to charity, while Danes give almost 1% of their GNP.

            Chitra Divakaruni’s article “Live Free and Starve” provides a unique perspective of child labor in parts of the world that many Americans cannot even pronounce, much less locate on a map.  Divakaruni’s Indian family “employed” the services of Nimai, who started with her family at age 10, as a household servant because he was too sickly to work in the fields with the rest of his siblings.  Looking back from her current perspective in the United States, Divakaruni is somewhat embarrassed by her family relationship with Nimai as she recounts how Nimai “ate the same food that we children did and was given new cloths during Indian New Year, just as we     were.”  While I am sure that Divakaruni’s mother was kind to Nimai, it is disingenuous for Divakaruni to suggest that her mother lavished the same type of attention on him that she did on her own children.  However, she is correct that the type of legislation discussed in the article does anything more than make most Americans feel good about themselves.  The ultimate root of the problem, systemic poverty in some parts of the world, is not fixed simply by putting the children who labor out of work.  Then they are able to contribute to the basic food and shelter needs of their families.  Slavery and prostitution are real dangers for such children who cannot earn a “legitimate” wage.  Will Americans really pay the higher costs for goods coming from these impoverished nations that will be necessary to provide safe working environments with a living wage for these children?  I am not so sure.

Round and Round

Questions:  How do your musical facts influence your opinion?  What is the correlation between what you picked out and your opinion?  Do you have bias?  If so, explain.

Today in English we listened to the song," Round and Round," by Ariel Pink's haunted grafitti. To be perfectly honest I really disliked the song probably because of my own personal biases as well as one of the musical facts. The first musical fact I used was that there was a keyboard in the song, which would have no influence over my opinion. However, the second being that there were many vocalists in the piece really in my opinion did not work well for the song because of the many instuments being played already, which left me confused and feeling like I didn't want to listen to the song again. Nevertheless, the majority of why I dislike the song is because of my own personal bias. I don't listen to that type of music normally so I wouldn't really want to listen to it.