music.testimonial.
I wouldn’t say that I’m obsessed with music like some people say, but I do think that it’s definitely a huge part of my life and huge part of the person that I have become. What music has been for me has changed over the years and has changed with me as I have grown up. Like when I was younger I used to listen to all the pop music (backstreet boys, spice girls, etc.), but I also used to listen to my mom’s music which was more folk-like music (James Taylor, Carly Simon, etc.) and that’s the direction I eventually went in. I’ve grown into the music that I now listen to, like when I was younger I never would have listened to the indie or rock music that I listen to now because it’s too mature for someone who was so young, but now that I’ve grown up it’s perfect for me. I feel like the music I have always fits every mood that I’m in and can always fix every problem that I have. If I’m sad I just go listen to something to help me get through it, and it’s nice to know that at least I’ll always have my music to help me get through the more emotional times in life. And as Dr. Campbell asked in class if we always have music in our heads, I do constantly. Songs always get stuck in my head, there is rarely a time when I don’t have music playing in my brain. So yes, music is a huge part of my life, I think more than I actually ever realized.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (2)high.fidelity.
So I started reading High Fidelity last night and I absoluetly love it! It is my favorite book out of all the books that we have read so far for the class. I think it’s because it’s so entertaining and because it’s acutally a real novel like The Committments was instead of the other books and them just telling facts. High Fidelity hasn’t acutally gotten into telling any facts yet about bands, but it does mention musicians or records and I find myself being like “yay I have that” or whatever. I’m just happy to be reading something that mentions things that I love so much and something that I can relate to instead of just reading something with just facts about bands. I also love how Rob owns a record shop and I love the characters that are involved with the story, and I love how the whole story doesn’t just revolve around his shop and his music, but it involves how the music fits into his world and how it helps him through his life in hard times. It’s awesome.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (1)eric.clapton.
In the same issue of Vanity Fair as I found the story on The Twist I found an article on Eric Clapton that was acutally an excerpt from his autobiography that I found to be very interesting. It was from the time period in his life where he was going through some really rough times that I really had no clue about. Like I knew he had a son that had died and that was what the song “Tears in Heaven” was about but I never really knew the background about it or anything like that. Apparently his son Conor wasn’t from his relationship with his wife, instead he was born to Clapton’s mistress/girlfriend at the time who he met in Italy that he eventually left his wife for. The actual story of how his son died is incredibly tragic though, he was just playing hide and seek in his mom’s condo and the window’s were the ones that reach all the way to the floor and the janitor had been cleaning them and left them open and Conor not knowing what he was doing just ran out the window and ended up falling 49 stories to his death. It’s such a sad story that I had never known before. Another thing that Clapton talked about heavily during this was his recovery from alcohol addiction. He went to rehab after Conor was born and he realized that he needed to get help again so he could be there for his son, and he also says that he found spirituality that helped him get through the rest of his life while he was in rehab. So overall this was a very interesting article.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (1)the.twist.
I bought the November issue of Vanity Fair recently and was just reading through it yesterday when I stumbled upon an article about The Twist both the song and dance and I thought that I would write a blog about what the article said because I found it to be very interesting. The article said that though the song and dance were performed on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand they did not become popular until they were seen and heard in The Peppermint Lounge in New York City. Apparently, Marilyn Monroe, Shelley Winters, Elsa Maxwell, Greta Garbo and even Tennessee Williams were seen doing the twist and were the main reason the dance became so popular. Another reason the dance was such a popular dance was that it was so easy to learn and was not complicated like the other dances of the time. The Twist wasn’t only popular in New York though, it also soon spread to Hollywood and L.A and even to the White House where Jackie Kennedy was seen dancing The Twist. However, The Twist soon went out of style due to the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Ernest Hemingway, and the hard times during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today The Twist is still somewhat popular and can be seen in the movie Pulp Fiction, and of course we still all know what the twist is and how to do it.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (2)the.commitments.
So I started reading The Commitments yesterday, and I have to say that so far it is my favorite book that we have read for this class. I think it’s so much better than the others because it’s fiction and is telling a story as opposed to just listing information for us to read. It’s also pretty funny and enjoyable, so I’m looking forward to reading the rest of it.
Also today we finished our second presentations…yay. I think I did a lot better on this one because I dug a lot deeper for the information since I chose to do the not obvious choice of progressive for the song and I think it went well. So now we just have one left, but I’m excited about this one because we actually get to pick our own songs to analyze so that should be interesting.
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