Blindside

It's Your Ride from Cinecycle on Vimeo. There's a bike scene in Richmond that is prevalent among college students. I wanted to pay homage to the culture by showing this beautifully shot video. I think this video was made for a certain bike tire company. Anyways I would rather would walk than bike, I have a sense of control (I power walk a lot because i want to think i could stop time), there's a so much time to gaze (take in things, absorb), and people watching is sometimes fun depending on how interesting the situation presents itself.

Women writers have always been dominated by European white males in American literature. But it wasn't only women who were cut short, also minorities. Since the 1970s, Jewish, Latin American, Asian American, women writers of all cultural backgrounds, gay and lesbian writers started to emerge. During the 1950s, the jazz age was taking over mainstream America, African American authors were on center stage. This short story is about the love of music and how it can be a healing motivation to overcome obstacles.

James Baldwin sets the story of “Sonny’s Blues” in an urban neighborhood in Harlem. In the beginning, the narrator is being portrayed as someone who is successful and a stable family man. In contrast, his brother, Sonny, was the stereotype of a black man during those days. He was a jazz musician and also a heroin addict. These character analyses show the barriers of black people who assimilated into white culture and others who were less accepting to the status quo. For those who did not give into the dominant culture, they found their cultural identity through music.

In one pivotal point of the story, the narrator sees Sonny play the piano at a nightclub in Greenwich Village. Sonny’s music gets a hold of him, and then hits a chord within him. The music is soothing and self-reflective. In that moment, the two brothers temporarily escape the troubles of their reality. Finally, the narrator reaches to a conclusion that Sonny was the one saving him. Ironically, the narrator tries doing the right things in life, but ends up suffering from all his rigid ways. He thought that Sonny needed to be saved because of his addiction. But at the end, the narrator finally understands how music can help Sonny endure his struggles.

After reading "The Body Politic" by Abra Fortune Chernik, being anorexic gave her a sense of empowerment over her body. Her body just betrayed her. Everyone was going on with their lives, and she was till trapped and lost. She finally recovered from her illness after years of therapy and when she discovered feminism it sparked her to be active in the movement. Just like "The Body Politic", the narrator was fooled by Sonny's erratic ways. He thought Sonny wasn't going through a destructive path, but at the only person who could restore his life was himself. The narrator was quick to fix his broken brother, but music cured him which is an unlikely catalyst at the end of the story.

A Day That Will Never Be Forgotten

When the 9/11 attack happened I was in an english class. My teacher stepped out of the class, we were writing and doing work. Then she opened the door and told us that a plane just crashed into one of the twin towers. We didn't know what to say, we were at loss. She said it casually without remorse or a sense of sadness. It felt cold and stoic, I sense that she didn't want to alarm anyone.

I think we were reading Fahrenheit 451 and that book was very political. It was all about how America was going out of control and at the end of the book there was a war. Some themes that came up from the book were chaos, loss of values, betrayal, and many of the lead characters dying. My teacher at that time said it was ironic how the terrible event was happening. We didn't know at the time that it was a terrorist attack. Some details weren't mentioned to us, she didn't know exactly what was happening since she still had to teach class. I don't recall seeing it on television. But everyone in class was shocked and there was a long silent pause. I didn't want to believe it until I saw it. After school, that's when we were glued on the television. Our family watched the whole thing, and at that time I didn't know what to think. I was still in the state of shock since some of the images were too overwhelming. I just couldn't believe that it was happening.

Our country was at a stand still. We never knew that this was coming to us. It would never occur to us that America could be so vulnerable. After this event, I saw a lot of patriotism on the media outlets. Phones were ringing for celebrities to answer and collect money. George Bush told us to go shopping to help boost the economy. He said that we shouldn't be afraid of terrorist attacks. It was ironic how something so tragic was suppose to be bring us back united. During that time I was skeptical at our government. The news made the tragedy sensationalized and I didn't know what to believe anymore.

Focusing on Lee Smith

This blog might get dry at times and I'm a big fan of image bookmarking websites. I actually discovered Adam Lowe when I was waiting to get my food ready at a local Quiznos. The Barnes and Nobles near our campus is a great resource for design magazine and you get to read for free. Adam Lowe's illustrations reminds me of Egon Schiele's raw drawings. I love the lifeless muted colors and how you can see the energy with every stroke. His server is down as of now, but definitely check him out here.

I've been reading a lot of short stories on Social Realism. It was mentioned in class once, but the portraits that was taken that period got me interested. “Bubba Stories” by Lee Smith shows the narrator, Charlene, making up a fictional brother named Bubba in order to impress her girlfriends. She hopes to be accepted by her friends since they were very popular in school. The narrator which is Charlene tends to avoid a lot of things in her life such as her family due to her insecurities. Charlene uses Bubba as a decoy to get attention and avoid talking about her family. She already has a mother who has been confined to a mental institution, an uncle with Down syndrome who is referred to as a Mongolian idiot and an Aunt Dee, who wore her yellow hair in a beehive and smoked Pall Mall cigarettes. She was a dismal failure in her writing class since her teacher always tells her to write what she knows. But she had no intention of writing a word about her family. Also her lack of self-esteem has led her to have peculiar mishaps in college with the opposite sex and an affair with a married man. Even though she goes through many obstacles, she finally matures at the end of the story.

When I first read this story I felt that the character was very pathetic, but as the story progressed I found myself rooting for her. At times, she would have this sense of self sabotage. At times I feel like I do have these tendencies. I try to hide when some things in my life tends to be too good to be true. This might have to do sometimes with being jaded or having no grounds of complacency. Things would be going fine in Charlene's life, then she ruins it by telling little white lies. Usually the things she does blows up in her face, I admire her innocence and naivete ways. But she always falls victim due to a lack of confidence. The moral of the story for me was about self discovery by embracing failure. Most people always say failure is not an option. I believe you have to fail in order to learn from mistakes. Also it makes you appreciate what is in front of you.

Private and Public

This picture was taken at a family vacation in Nags Head, North Carolina. It was a neighboring house, we actually rented a three story house with a couple of family friends. Thinking of ways to document work without exploiting someone can be a challenging thing. There are still grey areas when you ask people questions from a certain period of time that are repressed. I have a feeling that it will be a daunting task trying to open people up. I want to display and uncover a piece of myself without letting the whole world know everything. Sharing some secrets are fine, but some secrets are meant to be kept so you could be sane. Having to show this documentary work to class and making something so private public might take a toll on me. I'm still in this stage where I want to interview my mom and dad without asking too many private questions. I have a feeling that some of their replies will be biased and they'll be expected to say something that i would want to hear.

My doting mother, especially, will feel uncomfortable asking her about the choices she made when she reunited with my father. She took a health care course profession in midwifery and helped out many underprivileged women. I used to remember her telling me stories about how she and other students would help out women who lived in slums give natural birth. The most unexpected child birth that she told me was this lady who was seventy (or somehow older) years old. I'm hoping this would be a start for me to ask her these questions working with women. I don't recall much on the years while she studying for her profession since I was about five or six years old. But I do remember countless books she had to read, I think she might have one in our attic. Also I want to know if she enjoyed what she was doing and if she could go back to school, would she have done it all over again. As for my dad, I'm thinking of either starting at the time he left to join the Navy or his years here in America alone without his family to support him.

May Day

May Day celebrations was a pagan ritual celebrated with the festival of Flora the Roman Goddess of flowers. People normally dressed in red and white. They also danced around the May Pole and crowned a May Queen. This image made me think about the narrative of the five women. They're white dresses has that distorted appeal of purity. I believed the flowers in front of them were May baskets, these were small baskets of sweets or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbours' doorsteps. Their somber faces has that effective look of longing. It has that glazed look especially on the young girl which makes you arrested in motion. Also it has that eeriness since they look lifeless in the photograph. There's no sense of play in these children. Their poses raises a lot of questions. Is that their mother in the background? Why aren't they smiling? Why are the two only other girls wearing hats and oversize robes?