Music

Music. Music. Music. There are thousands of different genres, so many that no one should be able to say that they don't like music. Granted, the majority of music on the radio is commercialized garbage. For me, I prefer bands that play their own instruments. Write or at least perform songs with their own personalities behind them. The songs should be have some meaning, some message, some story that relates to my life or an idea I can comprehend. They show a bit of charisma, and confidence in their art form and do not need to be digitally mastered to perfection. For the most part, I would say my favorite genre is Folk music.

Eve of Destruction performed by Barry McGuire.
This song was written by P.F. Sloan in 1965 and has been performed by many different musicians. Barry McGuire's version is probably the most popular, and the vocals really show the passion of the lyrics and their critique of society. Openly addressing social issues is a key element of folk music. The historical context of the song is crucial. It came out during the height of the Vietnam War. Threat from the Cold War and nuclear warfare was on everyone's mind as well. These are fears that are just as relevant today, although the names have changed. Now there is a War on Terror, and the nuclear threat has moved away from Soviet Russia. The song also touches on some of the ironies of the American policies. The voting age at that time was higher than the age needed to be drafted into the army, racism was rampant within our borders, and numerous other atrocities.

One idea of how to teach this song would be to have students get into groups. First, they would listen to the song, while they read through the lyrics. They would talk about the issues that the song mentions. They would then write a remix to the song, adding in more modern happenings that have the same type of social impact. Then the groups would share there song (hopefully willing to sing it) and then explain their choices in lyrics.

Analyzing a Music Video

Mumford and Son's Little Lion Man

The video starts out with an empty stage, then zooming in on the instruments. Flash to an empty auditorium. Shadowy faces playing the instruments, zooming towards stage but never too close on to the faces. Everyone is jamming to their instrument, really feeling energetic. In the middle of the song, you start to get close ups of faces, but no one is really playing to the camera. They still are focused on singing. Shot of ceiling leading down to the stage, front and back views. Flashing lights where a crowd would be during the crescendo of the song. It ends zooming up from the stage into darkness.

This all portrays what folk music is really about. It is about the music itself. The zoomed in shots of the instruments and the lack of focus on the musicians shows where it all comes from. The fact that they are playing to an empty audience shows that they are there for the love of making music, not the fame.

The lyrics to the song go along with this interpretation in a way. They deal with someone messing it all up all due to his own fault. Often artists lose what they have because they try to be something they are not and lose the mentality they had when they started.

Mumford and Sons are growing popular rapidly, so they must be doing something right. Their simplicity of their music is something that I really enjoy, and the video really highlights that. It is simply done, just the band playing music and loving it. It is what I feel when they play, just real enjoyment.

PRESENTATION

Documentaries

Recently, I watched the documentary Waiting for Superman, which has been nominated for an Oscar. The film had a pretty clear-cut message. The school system as it is set up now, in a macro-level view, is failing. It points to many reasons why schools are becoming these “failure factories”, but the main obstacle (read: cause) is lazy teachers, and their protective unions. Davis Guggenheim (the director) showcases various students, along with their caretakers, on their quest to join savior-esque charter schools. These charter schools are meant to be the super heroes in the quest to save public education.

The audience for this film is primarily parents and educators, but Guggenheim tries to make it reach everyone. Problems with education translates to problems with all of society. America has fallen of the pedestal of number one in the country, and being surpassed. If we want to get back, everyone needs to heed reforms to public education.

Guggenheim uses various sources and techniques in the documentary. His following of a few students and their families allows the viewer to relate to the struggle. In the end when the lotteries for the charter schools are being conducted, most viewers are hoping to hear these students be chosen. Along with this technique of putting a face to the statistics, there are of course the statistics. Graphs and various other research tactics are shown throughout the film to show the wasting of tax dollars, to the fall in the education system, and many other elements. The film presents the views of quite a few different perspectives. There is a white girl from a two parent household in a suburban school trying to get into a school, all the way to a single parent and her daughter who can no longer afford a private school in New York. Politicians, parents, school administrators and teachers are all given there chance to voice their opinions, but the opinions are usually in favor of what the film is promoting.

But how can’t they be. Everyone agrees that the school system is not working perfectly. The achievement gap is horrible, and growing worse and worse. However, the filmmakers are praising charter schools they neglect the fact that the majority of the schools fail. They are blaming teacher’s unions for slowing down progress, but not taking into consideration the reason behind its’ disapproval of merit pay.

Due to this lack of seeing all aspects of the situation (granted it is a near impossibility to do), I don’t think the film really captures the reality of the issue. It shows the problem and provides a solution to it, but I feel it isn’t hitting all sides of the issues. But I have also seen the argument against the film from Not Waiting for Superman. So it is probably pretty successful in reaching the audience of parents who are easy to look for someone to put the blame of their children’s failures.

Class Assignment:

I would probably not have the students watch this documentary. It would be a little too risky in causing students’ putting the blame on the system and letting them not put forth effort. They’d have a scapegoat. Instead, I would have them watch a documentary such as Food, Inc. We would then talk about the credibility of the film (who funded it, who is portrayed in it), the underlining message, and whether it will change their perspectives (change there eating habits, social change, etc.). I like the four-corners activity (with one corner strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree) and I would do a variation on that. Some questions would be: documentaries persuade the audience therefore have some element of bias, documentaries are entirely realistic, documentaries utilize fear tactics to form their audiences, and I believe in this film. After each topic, each corner would discuss their reasoning and then have a spokeperson state their corner’s case.

TV News Log

I streamed the November 8th Kare11 ten-o'clock newscast. Here is the log of the program:
Introductions (Oil prices hit highs, human sex-trafficking, and a car-deer collision) 30 seconds
Car-Deer Collision (Out-state news) 2:13
Sex Trafficking Arrests (Metro News) 2:17
Man released from jail, suing Toyota (Metro News) 0:27
Governor's Race (State News) 0:27
Gas Prices hit high (National News) 0:27
Coming up: Weather, Vikings win. 0:15
Also coming up as a Kare 11 Extra, a heart defect issue (Health) 0:13
Heart Defect, in anchor's family. (Health) 6:40
Weatherwoman thanking anchor for sharing the heart story 0:20
Weather 2:15
Tomorrow Night: Increased use at food shelf's 0:25
Coming up: Sports 0:15
Reminder: Phone number for heart clinic 0:10
Story on Vikings and Childress (Sports) 0:43
Gopher Basketball team finishes exhibition season (Sports) 0:29
Athletes of the Week (Sports) 2:00
Middle School football team does a trick play (Sports) 0:36
Before we go: Queen gets a Facebook (Entertainment) 0:37

News topics received 5:44. Out of these topics there was "news" from around the state and nation. But out of that news, only two stories (governor's race and gas prices) have an actually effect on myself or anyone else not personally involved in the story. They are there to entertain through emotional tactics (car-deer incident), crime (sex-trafficking) and also revenge (Toyota being sued). Sports topics got 5:13. The sports portion was all local/state sports with a range from professional all the way down to Middle School, with the largest allotment for prep sports which the majority of sports fans would not really care about. Weather got 2:15 seconds, it was mostly local weather with a little bit of a mention of other areas, with the reason being it will be coming our direction. Health Features took up the majority of the news cast at 6:40. This story was one of the most personally you will get on the news as the head anchor interviewed his wife and family about the illness. Intros, Coming ups and Tommorrows got 1:23 seconds. These didn't tell anything of any value but are used as a hook to get you to stay tuned or watch tomorrow. Entertainment came in with 37 seconds, thanks to the Queen of England getting a Facebook page.

As I do not have cable, I do not watch television news often. I get my news from reading online news sites and actually streaming The Daily Show. The nightly news is geared towards older people. The stories are never anything near breaking news. (I heard about the Queen getting a Facebook over a week ago. I didn't care then, and I still don't.) They are all moderate, relatively conservative minded. Show the police doing good work busting up the sex-trafficking, but then do not talk more about the man released from prison because his case was overruled. They do not want to anger anyone by pointing out a flaw like that in the judicial system, because people want to think that the system in place is always perfect. The health feature didn't really pertain to a very vast audience. The disease has no visible signs, so it does not cause any real warnings. You can get tested to see if you are at risk, but they do not make any mention of the high cost the testing must be because that would get to close to an issue of a lack of universal healthcare. As I mentioned before, the sports section showed a bit of all levels. But if you were a sports fan, you would have known the day before that the Vikings won, probably would not care too much about an exhibition basketball game against a Division 2 school. Since I watched the newscast online, I did not see any ads.

Teaching Activity: For my teaching activity, I would have students do a similar task. They would first watch and keep a log of a local nightly newscast. However, they would also watch a national news show from Fox News and one from MSNBC. The key would be to have all three shows air on the same day. After writing out what topics are covered, and the different stories in the topics, I would have the students engage in a dialogue about what stories are being covered by what stations. Is there any bias? Is there a reason for the different views given?

Food and Cooking Genres

Food and Cooking Genres

Food Network is my favorite channel. When nothing else is on, I will turn the television to whatever is cooking (or being shown). Why? Because I love food, I love cooking. Cooking reminds me of my mom, and of family. I am not unusual by any means in this regard. So what is it about this genre that makes it special? What does the Food Network bring to the table?

1. Identifiable Hosts

Each show has an audience in mind. Want some southern hospitality? Paula Dean demonstrates the classic southern belle who uses food to welcome you into her home, to accompany her family. She is outspoken to say the least. The Neeely's display similar traits of welcoming you to eat with their family. They also attempt to show the love that can come from cooking with their husband/wife combination and frequent displays of affection. More of a science-orientated viewer? Alton Brown's show Good Eats uses scientific explanations and slapstick humor to draw the audience in. If you are looking to bring more of an international flavor to your life there are numerous hosts that bring a taste of the world into your kitchen. Even more importantly in our time crunched society, there is every working mom's lifesaver, Rachel Ray. All of these hosts bring personal taste to their shows, but all demonstrate a love of food, that translates into easy to follow steps to create your own.

2. Settings

The settings for these shows of course is centered around the kitchen, and occasional into their own family's kitchen. Unlike most kitchens I have seen, they are always immaculately cleaned for of every appliance you can think of not to mention every ingredient imaginable. However, some go into grocery stores, markets, and butchers, to show viewers how and where to purchase ingredients.

3. Entertaining

Cooking is never dull when you are doing the work, but watching it can be. Especially due to lack of smell-o-vision technology. Luckily, hosts seems to have a pretty unique sense of humor that they use to keep audiences engaged. Another technique to keep the viewer engaged is adding a bit of a personal narrative such as the history of the dish or what it stirs in the host's memory.

4. Ease

While each host may warn of the varying difficulties involved in each dish, they go slowly. Each step is carefully detailed, allowing almost anyone who can follow directions to be able to cook. Recipes and videos are displayed on the website, allowing you to go back and make sure you know what you are doing. The main goal is to take the fear out of cooking, and bring the fun home made food can be.

5. Time

Each show, except for Rachel Ray's, is usually time-edited. It is rarely shot in real time as the cooking would take too long and dull the audience to sleep. This also allows for perfection, every time.

Critical Analyis

With the rise of obesity due to the over-consumption of fast-food and reliance on pre-made, processed foods, why are these shows that demonstrate home-cooking ideas and techniques so popular? Michael Pollen points out the obvious answer, time. The average American spends 27 minutes cooking a day. That is the same amount of time most of these shows run. But even some of the recipes shown on the shows can easily lead to obesity. (see Paula Dean) Thankfully, some food hosts address the issue head on. Jamie Oliver, for one, has started a crusade against processed foods, primarily in school lunch programs. Another critique could be the element of the all-mighty dollar. Few have the luxury to have access to appliances and ingredients. However, hosts provide alternatives quite often. Alton Brown shows how to make some tools at home, with common and cheap items. Some negative assumptions these all these shows display is the idea of community and family. Recipes are almost never meant for individual consumption, leading one to assume that everyone should have others to enjoy their food with. In addition, there is also the need to keep in mind that most of these hosts are also spokespeople for various food related advertisements. Many have their own line of pots and pans, and food stuffs.

Teaching Activity: The activity I would have my students do would involve them making their own cooking show based on satirizing one of the shows we discussed. (Paula Dean, the Neely’s, Alton Brown, and Rachel Ray). This assignment would involve aspects of research and filming. First, the students would break into groups, and decide on which show they’d like to satirize. Satire is very intelligent and therefore difficult humor to achieve. This means that the students will have to be able to firmly grasp what the show is attempting to do, and how it does it. The students would have to decide on a recipe. They can use one from the site, or bring one from home.  They would then watch clips from the various shows and take notes based on the characteristics of the show (thoughts on the host, setting, comedic elements, ease and time). Working together, each group would then discuss these elements and use their knowledge to create a satirized storyboard of the recipe they want to do, along with a script. They would then videotape their shows. They would then be posted to a class wiki, and students would be required to comment on other group’s work detailing what works and what could improve the clip.