Whistling is one of my favorite pass times. When I’m bored, doing work, or even in the shower, I make time to whistle. Made with my ever so strong embouchure, I pucker my lips togethter to whistle quick and easy tunes. I’m not as good now as I was in 7th grade, but I am slowly building up my endurance and my register as a whistler. People may think that whistling is stupid and ridiculous, but whistling, when done on the spot really shows the true emotions of the whistler. Like when I’m angry, it’s harder to whistle because I am more tense. When I’m happy, I’m more relaxed and my whistling flows. When whistling the articulations also change depending on their emotions. If your happy, then the notes are more bouncy, but if your angry, the notes are more heavy. So when your bored one day, then just whistle as you work!
Family Guy- The King is Dead
This clip reminded me of our discussion in class today! It’s family guy and it’s hilarious. I would watch the whole episode! It follows Peter Griffin and his family through the production of, The King and I. Skip to the last 5-10 minutes to see the final result, if you’re in a hurry.
(Source: megavideo.com)
How could I write a section on Graphic Novels with out mentioning Death Note! Death Note follows the anti-hero Light Yagami, a genious high school student, and later college student, through his very interesting life. One day he stumbles upon a book called: Death Note. This book allows the owner to kill anyone they want when the owner writes the victims name in the book, as long as they follow a set number of rules. Light, being bored with his life, takes this challenge to rid the world of all the evil and become a sort of God to the people. He develops the code name Kira, which translates into killer. The twist is that he is followed by shinigami, the real owner of the Death Note. He acts as abystandard in all this, only promising to kill Light when things have gotten to far. There is also L, the young dectective who tries to thwart Kira and his ambitions. This complex plot, not only creates philisophical issues, but also keeps the reader at the edge of their seats.
This is a page from Death Note. Immediately you should notice the dark aura on the page. You should also notice the strange tick marks, these are actually sound affects to go with the novel. Reading from right to left, look at each panel carefully and notice the fine intricate detail of the shinigami and Light. The panel that affected me most is in the bottom right. Ryuk, the shinigami, creates this intense dark aura that gets me shivering, while you notice our poor anti-hero Light, who is panting, dirty and surprised. This is truly a mix of the dionysian and apolline. The dionysian aspect is definately the plot and characters, while the style of art and design is apolline. This makes for one tragic block!
This series it titled The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg. It follows a group of girls all with the name Jane through their lives and their want to express themselves. The way they decide to do this is to form a group called P.L.A.I.N, People Loving Art in Neighborhoods. These girls go around turn ordinary streets and parks in to magical wonders. The drawing is fantastic! You can truly see the differences between all the Janes and each of their dramatic characters. I also feel the plot is very well constructed, because each one of the Janes has some sort of emotional issue that they need to resolve or overcome. This graphic novel is truly one of my favorite American Comics!
Graphic Novels
It’s true, I enjoy reading and looking at graphic novels. There is just something so simple and yet true to them. Graphic novels, I feel, have some sort of mimetic quality to them. By that I mean, that they try to make it so that you are in real time while reading the comic. Take manga, they have sound effects in the novel to reiterate the intensity of the moment. Regular comics have very detailed and intricate facial exppressions. This very simple idea of taking a book and putting it to pictures is one of the most complex and frankly most interesting takes on art and literature that I have ever seen. I have an aesthetic experience each time I read a graphic novel, even if I don’t like the story. It’s the fine detail and outlook of the novel that speaks to me.
If you didn’t believe me, here it is… an Americanized Nesting Doll. I don’t remember where I got this, but this is not authentic. First, it doesn’t follow the “at least 5 rule,” that typical nesting dolls have. Second it’s a giraffe. Third, this set is starting to decay with paint chips etc., while my other set is still in mint condition. Everything about this set annoys me from their creepily long eylashes to their carefully placed freckles, to that hideous egg shape, (which also does not follow nesting doll regulations). This set is a prime example of destruction of a culture!
This is just another look at the dolls. The baby doll is lying in the center while the tops of the dolls are on the side.
So this is my personal stacking doll that my friend bought me when she was in Russia. If you can see the details are very intricate from the eyelashes to the drapery of the paint. Even the smallest doll has this sort of detail that makes it exquisite!
When Cynthia mentioned Cultural Art in this latest chapter, my mind immediately thought of Stacking Dolls (aka Matryoshka Dolls or Russian Nesting Dolls). These dolls come in a set of decreasing size that are placed in inside each other. Created with theme and number in mind, Nest Dolls are an intricate part of Russian art and culture. Typically, the first doll is a female and the last doll is a baby, while all the other dolls can be anything. Since the USSR fell though, nesting dolls have been subject to the market, by using non-traditional designs, like animals or political figures. This is destroying the authenticity of these carefully detailed dolls, because the culture behind it is getting thrashed! What do you think?
