Self Evaluation

I liked English 015 and i feel that i learned a lot about writing. I can't put my finger on how specifically but i just feel like a better writer. What helped the most was probably the practice from all the different assignments. About Penn State the only thing i learned was what was said in the podcast about being a party school. There were some things i didn't know like drunk kid in the house. About myself I realized that l like creative writing more than I thought. In fact I wish I was better at it. And this ties into the arts. I learned to appreciate the arts more (except poetry and obscure paintings) and it makes me wish I was more artistic as well, whether by being a better artist (drawing and painting) or by playing different instruments.

Some other things I learned are blogging. I never had a blog before and although its cool to speak your mind on topics I don't think I'm going to keep one in the future, its tedious. I also learned about different Arts and Cultural Events. I can safely say I wont attend them in the future, they bore me like day 3 of the NFL draft would bore some people. Besides being at 8 in the morning English 015 was a good and enjoyable class.

I finished my SRTEs and the links to my response are below:

 http://luketry.blogspot.com/2012/03/party-rocking.html#comment-form

http://kevinbeebie.blogspot.com/2012/04/babys-fifth-blog-post.html#comment-form

http://ajf5302.blogspot.com/2012/03/at-psu-we-know-how-to-party.html#comment-form

Cadbury Creme Eggs and Pottery

For my second art and cultural event I clicked on both the link to the cadbury eggs and the pottery. The cadbury eggs were interesting, someone made clay embryos and fetuses at different stages of embryonic development and placed them in the chocolate creme eggs. The pottery was not as interesting, it seemed crude to me. The pottery consisted of jugs, bowls and mugs and they all have some kind of face on them giving them an ancient barbaric look. It did not seem like very fine art.

The thing that stuck out to me the most was the small yellow embryo, second from the top. This stuck out to me because we did a experiment with chicken embryos in bio 240w lab. We had to extract embryos from the eggs and test the effect of caffeine on embryos. Although real embryos are read the shape is similar and the realness of those sculptures are impressive. I enjoyed the pictures and it was very interesting.

Art and Cultural Event 1

Yesterday i attended my first cultural event. I went to a poetry reading at Webster's Cafe on beaver ave. The reader was Dave Bonta and he read from a collection of poem books and had video readings as well. His first poem book was written by a bunch of poets but they all drew inspiration from obscure art paintings. His second poem book was poems describing wild flowers. Finally his video poem readings was a collaboration with another person, who did the "acting" and music.

I had never been to a poetry reading and it was worse than i could have expected, in my opinion. Everything was weird from the language used in the poems to the videos. The oddest thing had to be the first video though. Bonta was reading a poem in the background while there was a dark electronic music playing in the background. Then the actor started playing with a strip of bacon. Overall the whole thing was confusing and  just odd.

During the poetry reading Professor Squillante's 4 year old daughter started crying that she wanted to go home and that was exactly how i felt.

The Kite Runner

When most people here the word Afghanistan they think of terrorism and the war but The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini gives us a different perspective into the country. The story takes place in Kabul where the main character Amir is a well off pashtun child (a ethnic group) who's family lives in a big house and owns servants including a hazara child (another ethnic group that is discriminated against by the pashtuns). Amir and the hazara boy Hassan are close friends.

In an effort to win the approval of his father, Amir and Hassan enter the local kite flying competition in which the last kite flying wins and the objective is to cut down other kites with your kite line. After Amir cuts down the last kite, Hassan his kite runner goes to retrieve it so Amir can win his fathers approval. Amir follows Hassan out after a while and witnesses Hassan with the kite but being "bullied" by the local bullies in order to keep it and bring it back to Amir. However, Amir is too much of a coward to help and just watches. Later Hassan returns with the kite and gives it to Amir and his father is proud of him at last but it is an empty feeling for him. Disgusted at himself Amir eventually drives Hassan and his father out of their jobs and lives.

 Then the war came and Russia invaded Afghanistan. Since Amir and his father are well off they escaped as refugees to America and started a new life. Everything is dandy for Amir until he received a call from an old friend and his past and is given a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of Hassan.

The story is just amazing and it is suspenseful from the first page to the last. It is hard to put down the book after starting it. The book has a well written and complex storyline and is filled with suspense. Just when you think the story is slowing down Khaled Hosseini throws a curveball at the reader that shocks the hell out of you.

The Kite Runner gives readers a different perspective of Afghanistan but more importantly contains themes that transcends all cultures and applies to all human beings. It is a story about loyalty, friendship, love, approval seeking, cruelty, and ultimately redemption.

The one negative for the book is that it is not for children. That being said it is a best seller selling 10 million copies since 2003 and has been adapted into a movie. I don't usually read but i would recommend this book.

Penn St. Party

In my opinion, i thought the This American Life podcast was pretty funny and accurate. Everything they said was completely true even though it made us look like a bunch of douchebags. They covered a lot of what drunk kids did and the negative effects of alcohol and that was the more serious part. But they also emphasized with the kids with their views of tailgating and putting themselves in our shoes. The most memorable thing from the article for me was the drunk kid in the house. That just seemed pretty wild and one of my friends does it to a lesser degree.  However, the article did leave certain things out. Not all of the students at Penn State act like how they described. Some don't go out and study.

I can't judge the tailgating here because i did not get tickets this season but I can say a few things about partying. People do really burst in to song or We Are chants on the bus. Most of the songs are the ones from the football games. Downtown people really do pee where ever they can. And most of the beer is natural light, the vodka is vlad, and the rum is admiral. They are all cheap, crappy tasting alcohol and would be out of business without college kids. About the drunk kid in the house, one of my friends likes to fall asleep on other peoples beds in my dorm. Personally i don't go out too much but i understand why others do. This is probably the one time in a lot of students lives that they can have fun like this so they take advantage of it.

This American Life was accurate in what they said but they only showed the school in one light and the podcast was only slightly balanced. And a few things have changed since they did that podcast, such as a dry campus, and they should come back and do a more balanced update (which they did but I'm not sure if its anymore balanced).

What is Art?

In order for something to be considered art for me, an artist has to put certain things into making that work of art such as creativity, emotions, and meaning. Without creativity all art would be similar, without emotions art would be uninspired, and without meaning a painting would just be paint on canvas, songs would just be empty words to music (especially ones without instruments) , and books would just be ink on paper. However sometimes the meaning might be hard to spot or is open to interpretation and somethings can be considered art that doesn't need a meaning like architecture or fashion design. As far as the medium is concerned it can be anything. As long it fits my criteria anything creative is art from designing clothes to music to painting to writing.

An good example of what i think is art is a song by Kid Cudi called The Prayer. When i first heard it a couple years ago i was just taken back by how deep the song was. In it he talks about wanting to be remembered for writing meaningful music and not just mainstream songs. You can just feel the emotion and soul that Cudi puts into the song when you listen to it. In my eyes this is definitely art because it satisfies my criteria and is a much better rap song then most of what came out this past decade.

Kid Cudi - The Prayer

Palmer Art Museum

Earlier today i stopped by the Palmer Museum of Art. I didn't like most of the paintings, which are mainly European, American, or contemporary but one did catch my eye. That painting is World Beyond by Beverly Pepper. She painted this work in 1989 and its part of her The Odyssey Series. The painting is an oil painting with a white plain, mountains and the sky in the background. It's black at the front and engulfs part of the land creating islands and also zig-zags through the white plain. The description states that the black is water or the black streaks through the white plain are trails. It also says the plain is purposely blank to avoid revealing a specific time or location.

I personally think the painting is of a snowy plain in Alaska, and the black is an oil spill that's slowly engulfing the plain. I don't know the exact day of the painting but it was in the same year of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill which is an extremely strange coincidence if it was painted before, and if it was painted after that might have been her motive. The black is slowly engulfing the land which could be her warning people of the danger of oil consumption or abuse of the environment. The work could bring out emotions if you interpret the painting as an oil spill and are really against that. If you don't it seems like an nice landscape piece.

Beverly Pepper herself is a well known artist. She was born in 1924 in America and studied in New York, post war Paris and eventually moved to Italy. In addition to paintings she is also a well known sculptor. Her art is in famous museums all around the world in countries like the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and even Lithuania.

Overall i did not like the Palmer museum of art but i would be willing to try again in the future before making up my mind against it. The European and American paintings seemed old and boring while some of the contemporary works were strange, such as the picture of rocks.