The wishful compulsion in the mixtape toward a collective musical totality is therefore perhaps fatally mixed with its tendency toward idealized versions of late twentieth-century history. The personal and cultural nostalgia that has come to characterize the mixtape and the restorative nostalgia that yearns to redeem earlier moments in individual and consumer history, are twin waves that erode the utopian potential of the mixtape, a form that otherwise counterpoises so provocatively the bought and the free, the personal and impersonal, the private and the collective, and the past and the future. Newer technological instantiations of the mixtape may only serve to seduce us through nostalgia into buying more deeply into capitalist phantasmagoria. …show more content…
Sheffield describes falling in love with Renée in language inextricable from the terminology and qualities of cassette technology. Describing his first night in Renée’s room, Sheffield writes, “Melting, touching something hot, something that warps you in drastic and irreversible ways you won’t get to take stock of until it’s too late. I felt myself melting in Renée’s room that night” (63), and “ I could already tell there were things happening deep inside me that were irreversible. Is there any scarier word than ‘irreversible’? It’s a hiss of a word, full of side effects and mutilations” (63). In the first passage, Sheffield goes on to liken his melting feeling to his childhood experience of touching matches to plastic six-pack holders and watching them shrivel and burn. In the second passage, the “hiss” of the word “irreversible” is related to severe tire damage. However, these signifiers slip from their local spindles and spool neatly around the cassette: tape hiss, reversibility, meltability, and even “side effects” are all proper to tapes. But cassette imagery functions most dramatically in Sheffield’s text when Renée dies: “It was irreversible” (144). If love and death are irreversible sides of a tape, then Sheffield wishes for a kind of reversibility that can be imagined through the technology of a reversible tape player: “I count on the music to bring me back—or, more precisely, to bring her forward” (12), he says as he listens to one of her old mixtapes. Sheffield’s wish dream, expressed through cassette technology, is that the living can go back to the past and that the dead can come forward to the present. He wishes that those on Side B could be brought back to Side A and that those who never made it past Side A could somehow be brought forward to Side B. The reversible cassette tape becomes the image of true paradise. The dramatic click of the tape’s volta
“Terminal Avenue” versus “We So Seldom Look on Love” Eden Robinson’s “Terminal Avenue” was published in the anthology or collection of fictional short stories called “So Long Been Dreaming” in 2004. Bose “Terminal Avenue” is a futuristic dystopian short story about a young aboriginal man named Wil, who is torn between his aboriginal community whose traditions are being punished for by the police and or being punished by his family if he becomes a peace officer to survive the adjustment. Barbara Gowdy’s “We So Seldom Look at Love” is a collection of fictional short stories and was published in 1992. (Broadview Press) “We So Seldom Look on Love” collections include a short story about a young woman that lives the life of necrophilia who grew up in a moderately normal childhood until the age of thirteen. Where one day she finds a forceful energy she gets from when life turns into death, and continues to experiment with dead animals and cadavers.
In Justin Pearson's memoir, From the Graveyard of the arousal Industry, he recounts the events that occured from his early years of adolesence to the latter years of his adulthood telling the story of his unforgiving and candid life. Set in the late 1970s "Punk" rock era, From the Graveyard of the Arousal Industry offers a valuable perspective about the role culture takes in our lives, how we interact with it and how it differs from ideology.
The article, “Measurement of Romantic Love” written by Zick Rubin, expresses the initial research aimed at presenting and validating the social-psychological construct of romantic love. The author assumed that love should be measured independently from liking. In this research, the romantic love was also conceptualized to three elements: affiliative and depend need, an orientation of exclusiveness and absorption, and finally a predisposition to help.
It is a day in the summer of 1974 on the block of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, NY. The grass is blazing, the air is fresh, and the kids are shrieking with joy. This is where it happened. DJ Kool Herc popped in his new record playing smooth rhythms of jazz and blues with the integration of Jamaican sound creating a new genre that would soon sweep the nation. He called it Hip-Hop. Some would call it “black noise”, but to urban African Americans it was music they could own; music they could learn to appreciate and adore. As they faced afflictions like racism, oppression, drugs, and much more, they used this new found hip- hop to express their thoughts and feelings. Today, we try to understand where this passion and substance in rap has escaped; if it was left to wither in the blazing grass, or blow away in the fresh air. Today, we try to understand what is hip hop, and why it’s becoming the “black noise” we once denied it to be. Ever since rap officially emerged in the 1970s, critics had a negative reaction; even when rap had meaning and substance and consisted of people telling their stories. Now that rap has become more contemptuous, critics have began to question what rap is really about. It is clear themes have changed: But at what point? And how? Furthermore, how has this impacted blacks and their image, who dominate the rap industry. Conclusively, while themes in mid 20th century rap have been known to revolve around aspects like politics and unity, currently rap has underwent a dramatic change now producing themes that promote violence, among many other things, and has ultimately painted a negative image of African Americans.
“Love in LA” is a short story written by Dagoberto Gilb. The story is written in third person point of view. The author is an American writer that writes extensively. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. His mother came from across the Mexican border, yet his father is from Kentucky. Gilb’s parents were also raised in parts of Los Angeles. His mother’s home was in Downtown, while his father resided in Boyle Heights. His parents’ careers were vastly different his mother was a model and later a dental assistant, while his father made a living off of an industrial laundry business. When he was a child, his parents divorced, and he remained living with his mother. After Gilb graduated high school he went to multiple community colleges, then he transferred to the University of California. He majored in Philosophy and Religious Studies. Before Dagoberto became the prominent writer he is now he worked in many construction-like jobs. His writing career began when he was inspired by Raymond Carver who was near his school teaching others.
In life, a man or boy may feel attracted towards a certain lady, sometimes before he knows what kind of person they are. This is most often called a crush, and is based almost solely off of looks. “Crush” in this context is a recent term, but the concept is not. In Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”, an example of this can be seen through the character of Claudio. After returning from the war, he is enamored by a young woman named Hero, who barely speaks yet seems to knock him senseless all the same. His display of affection is superficial and immature, and shows that although the term was not the same, the concept of a “crush” was prevalent even in Shakespeare’s day.
Karen Horney “Distrust between sexes” proceeds go into the different aspects of Love and Relationships. In this book Horney gives examples on how women deal with emotions which transitions from childhood to adult life. The fundamentals of documentation are displayed in unavoidable ways in most occurrences people run into. People are blind to the fact that love in relationships can be destroyed by overt or covert? In some cases lack of sympathy is then blamed, when relationships don’t work out between two individuals. Some couples fall into social, economic defaults which impacts the relationships. These are issues people never stop to think about, all they want to do is shift the blame to one another in a relationship. Self-preservation is a basic instinct for everyone and is present at birth. This can enhance the natural fear of losing ourselves in a relationship (Horney 1930). In Horney discussions I found that a person only feels despair because of the deep emotions of abundant from “Love” during childhood. That can develop more mixed emotions that turn into mistrust, which causes delusions that tell them they are not getting love from their partner (Horney 1930). With these types of feelings mistrust sips into relationships, starting from a child carries over into adult life. Reasons are when a child comes into the world learns everything it needs to know from its parent. If the child’s emotional needs are not taken care of when the family increases, the child will feel a need to compete for affection from the parents, which could turn into a painful situation. With this being said the child grows into an adult with suppressed aggression. If he/she has not learned how to deal with...
Tytell, John. "The Beat Generation and the Continuing American Revolution." in Ed. Holly George-Warren. The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and American Culture. New York: Hyperion, 1999. 55-67.
"Burn, burn, burn," says Kerouac, and that is what the Beats were all about. From the all-night, smoke-filled jazz clubs of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to the trendy bars of San Francisco, the artists known as the ‘Beats’ were interested in one thing, and only one thing: living. To them, life was a series of adventures to be lived. Going from one high to the next, in search of that thing that will, in the end, transform them into that "blue centerlight" about which everyone says "Awww!" But a few questions must be addressed regarding the Beats. Was theirs the correct choice? Was the fun they had worth the pain that they caused, and the pain that they had to endure? And ultimately, what impact did the Beats have on society as a whole, and was that impact, is that impact, positive or negative? Jack Kerouac, the most prominent of all Beat poets, and the gang hanging out at the famous 115th Street apartment helped to mold two generations of young Americans, and have made a permanent impression on the landscape of American culture through their literature, and most of all, through their lives, and their desire to live. This is the contribution of the Beats: a legacy of s...
Ninety percent of Americans marry by the time that they are fifty; however, forty to fifty percent of marriages end in divorce ("Marriage and Divorce"). Love and marriage are said to go hand in hand, so why does true love not persist? True, whole-hearted, and long-lasting love is as difficult to find as a black cat in a coal cellar. Loveless marriages are more common than ever, and the divorce rate reflects this. The forms of love seen between these many marriages is often fleeting. Raymond Carver explores these many forms of love, how they create happiness, sadness, and anything in between, and how they contrast from true love, through his characters in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". Four couples are presented: Mel and Terri, Nick and Laura, Ed and Terri, and, most importantly, an unnamed elderly couple; each couple exhibits a variation on the word love.
Oates’ novella is a love story between Officer Dromoor and the Maguire women, both Teena and Bethel. It is a tale that morphs a love for justice into one that represents a love for feeling supported. The Maguires are scorned by the people of Niagara Falls. Teena, even more so after the gang rape, is perceived as the town ‘whore,’ drug addict, and a bad parent. John Dromoor’s mere presence on the family creates a mutual respect, or love, amidst such difficult circumstances. Years after the events at the Rocky Point Park occurred and Dromoor is no longer in the Maguires’ lives, the story ends with Bethel’s husband telling her that she “looked so lonely, suddenly” (Oates 154) after
By carefully analyzing the synapses between the existential Negro and the Hipster, we can deduce the reflections on the wider umbrella of American popular culture. The elements of music, politics, language and general human characteristics resulting from American popular culture all worked together to create the “white negro”- a person who can be simply referred to as a white person with black or “negro”
In today’s evolving and changing society, many people do not appreciate how extraordinary music truly is. Since the birth of the vinyl record, there are less people who own and are interested in them. Even though vinyl records have recently been making a comeback, they are still not as popular as they once were. People take for granted how easily accessible music is today though in the past it was not as simple. Even though vinyl records may be costly and may not have a large quantity of songs, as time progresses and technology continues to develop, the way that people listen to music degrades their appreciation for music due to easier accessibility, weaker sound in terms of quality, and decaying genres.
To say that the Beat generation has affected modern culture seems at first to be no great revelation; it is inevitable that any period of history will affect the time that follows. The Beat generation is especially significant, though, because of its long lasting impact on American culture. Many aspects of modern American culture can be directly attributed to the Beat writers, primarily Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac. (Asher) Their influence has changed the American perception of obscenity, has had profound effects on American music and literature, and has modified the public’s views on such topics as sex and drug use.
“Love Poem” is a twenty-four-line poem in six stanzas. The generic tittle is an accurate description of the poem; it is a clue that this may not be a traditional example of love poetry. Both poems have the same rhyme scheme because the second and fourth line of every stanza rhyme. However, “Magic of Love’ speaks of a general love bringing happiness, joy and comfort. While “Love Poem” is much more personal. The speaker talks of memories with his clumsy love. Both poems have a different point of view when it comes to love. In Ferrier’s poem, she describes love as something perfect, that fixes everything. However, in Frederick’s poem, he doesn’t speak about what the love does right but rather he talks