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Time is a consequence of subjectivity. Human consciousness, circumscribed from space and the cosmos, conceptualizes nature’s rhythms as elapsed time. If time is a subjective perception, then it follows that there are a several different ways to perceive time dependent on individual or cultural experiences.

Modernized western society, for example, sees time as teleological progression – as if time progresses towards an end goal. Eastern civilizations such as the Hindus of the Indus Valley society, on the other hand, have argued time is a cyclical process of creation, dissolution, and reformation.

 

You posses a preconceived notion of how time passes, but this isn’t something you picked up in grade school, was it? Far more likely that this perspectival interface with the environment was gradually internalized by the cultural milieu.

Take architecture, for example. Its very omnipresence, ironically, obscures the determined intention to physically erect the ideological underpinnings of dominant social structures. Exemplary architectural works such as the skyscrapers of Chicago illustrate the telos of reaching for the sky by focusing traversed space to a singular, upward zenith of progress.

We cannot experience a building without being it affecting our perception of time- the distance we stand from the skyscraper’s foot draws our attention to the upward goal that attracts, or inside the stairwells beckon us to move forward. The skyscraper is a beacon towards teleogical progress – every second is an opportunity to step onward and upward.

Film, often deemed a plastic art because of its ability to mould reality, recreates physical phenomena over elapsed time. Yet unlike the natural, film explodes time, offering opportunities to dilate, through slow motion, accelerate via elliptical editing, or synchronize through montage.

Film scholar Gilles Deleuze notes a paradigm shift in film technique after World War 2: an ontological response to the over-industrialization brought about by late capitalism, the excessive telos attached to technological idealism, all coalesce into the “time image” – rather than progress stories in real-time, many films pause to breathe for a moment and represent time itself as the object of the image.

Take Godrey Reggio’s film “Koyaanisqatsi”, for example – a film which combines long shots of cityscapes with rapid time-lapse effects over-simulating the frenetic pace of city life. Time imagism does not confine itself to a particular lens or strategy other than reflexivity – the self-conscious statement that imagery is secondary to the temporal means through which the imagery is being conveyed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirH8PADDgQ

Reggio’s film demonstrates that cultural paradigms can be challenged – he uses shots of skyscrapers and city life directed by telos, and through cinematic technique highlights the underlying cyclical essence within. Whether resistant, subversive, or hypothetical, “Koyaanisqatsi” is a film worthy of consideration because it breaks from standard cultural procedure into a new mode of experiencing time. This film is not just reflexive – referring to its own time-altering techniques, but meta-reflexive – highlighting a cultural logic of progress encoded through the art which the film depicts.

Last week I got the immense privilege of going to the Circus Bar on 1st street for an event I had never heard of called The Moth with my English class, and let me tell you it was a bit of a doozy.

But first let me explain what The Moth is, because I had never heard of it until my professor told our class about it a couple of weeks ago. The Moth is a program/segment on NPR which hosts storytellers: people who tell real stories about their lives in an exciting and heartfelt way. To find these storytellers, radio programs all across the country host their own live events, generally called story slams but specifically called The Moth. These events are competitions wherein the winner gets the chance to share their story on NPR. I’m not exactly sure how this happens, if the story is rerecorded at a later date or if they use the recording live from that night, but it gets put on NPR somehow which is pretty cool to me.

There’s also rules that accompany The Moth as well (it’s very structured):

1. Your story must be no longer than 5 minutes. There is a minute grace period, but you need to wrap it up, or else it could affect your score negatively

2. Your story must be true. This is not a fiction reading. This is REAL LIFE (bonus points if you get the reference I just made)

3. Your story must be high-risk. In other words, your story has got to matter in some way shape or form. In the fiction writing world we call this conflict and people eat it up.

4. Your story must follow the theme of the night. The night we went the theme was “adventure.”

The way it worked was you showed up at 6 (because if you didn’t you probably didn’t have a place – it sells out every week here in Ann Arbor), and if you want to share a story you put your name in the hat. The first person’s name gets drawn by the host, and then after that each person who goes up picks the next person to go from the hat. There’s no limit to how many names there are in the hat, but only 10 people go each night, so even if your name is in the hat you may end up just chilling and watching everyone else for the rest of the night.

These were the things I was told. The thing I wasn’t told was how much I would love this event.

Now, I should preface this by saying I’ve never been to the Circus Bar, and thus had no idea what to expect even concerning the space we were in. As soon as we arrived, though, I knew it was going to be a night to remember. The line was crazy long, almost stretching to the end of the block, even in -10 degree weather. Once inside, there were free buckets of popcorn all around, a perk I wasn’t expecting either. The din from conversation was so loud I could barely hear myself think, but it was that good kind of loud when you know everyone is relaxed and having fun. And this was all before the stories started.

The stories were absolutely phenomenal. I first off applaud everyone who went up there and spoke, because I sure as heck couldn’t do that. Maybe after going a few times and writing out and memorizing exactly what I’m going to say and how I’m going to say it, but that’s only a maybe still. It takes guts to go up there and talk about things that happened to you, whether it be when you stole some fish you caught on a fun family trip, or a story about how you thought of your mom as you hung on the side of the cliff, frozen in fear and not wanting to climb any further.

But the real question that was brought up, the one my class was trying to discover, was this question about storytelling. The famous theorist Walter Benjamin argues that storytelling is an art that’s now been lost, replaced by the solitary practice of reading the novel. For the sake of our class, we relied heavily on this second aspect, the idea that the novel is a replacement for storytelling, and how The Moth and the occurrence of other story slams fits into this perspective.

Even though this argument is interesting and compelling in its own right, I’m more interested in the first aspect, this labeling of storytelling as “art.” I had never really thought about storytelling as another form of art until it was brought up reading this piece. But I didn’t challenge it; sure, storytelling is art, right? But then why hadn’t I thought about it before?

To define storytelling as art, we must first define what art is, according to some philosophical law I forgot immediately after I took my Intro to Philosophy final two years ago. And yet, isn’t that the main struggle for artists? What is art, really, in the grand scheme of things? So then how can we in turn include or deny storytelling as art?

I’m sure everyone has their own personal definition of art that, collectively, comes somewhat close to a pure definition, but I’m going to refrain from sharing mine now. And it’s not because I think my definition is so good (or bad) that I don’t want to share it, but because I’m still trying to form my definition. It’s constantly shifting and changing, and I’m always getting new perspectives from students and professors who all have brilliant things to say about art.

Right now, I will say that storytelling does fit into my shape-shifter definition of art. Will it stay? Who knows.

If you wanna check out The Moth, it is seriously awesome and I highly recommend it. Get your tickets early; it sells out every week.

Drake and I have a complicated relationship.

I was impressed with his mixtape.

Annoyed by his singles.

Amused at some of his softer moments (and there are plenty)

Thrilled at the scenes from his Bar Mitzvah in his music video.

Disgusted with his first full length.

Awed by his guest verses.

And now, I’m coming around. Maybe his millions of fans have something right after all.

Drake’s newest effort, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, is a joy to listen to. The album stands out mostly because of its production; the beats and instrumentals are powerful, soothing, experimental and refreshing. And his voice, a voice I once criticized for sounding nasally and out of touch, feels correct and instinctive in these songs. The album deals mostly with his sense of place and belonging, which naturally involves not a small amount of talk regarding his home city, Toronto. This album is deeper than his previous works because he addresses a subject that has a lot of substance in it; his talk of fame and wealth and success (although present, here again) is overshadowed by his open contemplations about his life and his home. “It’s too late for my city” he claims on the opening track, “I’m the youngest n***a reppin.'”

Conscious lyrics, amazing sounds, and catchy hooks will have the Drake faithful and nay-sayers alike turning this album on repeat.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfIsscatymk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAU5QbIX_I4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZIc8EMv_CA

Having just finished reading Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon’s psychedelic noir that spins its yarn in a way that the story eludes you as it escapes into marijuana Haze that Doc seems to dwell in for the full length of the novel. But behind the amusing scenes that are a product of his stoner persona – for instance when he falls asleep on top of a roof while attempting to do a stakeout, a slumber, during which, the very woman he was supposed to be observing is found surrounded by the dead body of her husband and his ex-marital affair and the all too poignant fuzz finding Doc on top of the roof – is a vicious torrent that threatens an era and all it stood for, including a relationship that Doc still holds onto.

Time always proceeds forward; it is a force that cannot be stopped.

“…yet there is no avoiding time, the sea of time, the sea of memory and forgetfulness, the years of promise, gone and unrecoverable, of the land almost allowed to claim its better destiny, only to the claim jumped by evildoers known all too well, and taken instead and held hostage to the future we must live in now forever.”

I think this book is a fairly accessible Pynchon novel. It is very entertaining and although still scattered with contemporary cultural references, reaching to both high and low brow humor, it is still far less daunting than Gravity’s Rainbow (which I won’t even pretend to understand, at least not until I read it a second time, but even then…God…that fucking book, I can’t even map out the storyline, only a couple of parts).

I must admit that reading Pynchon puts me in a paranoid mood, or at least, reminds me of my paranoia that had been lying dormant within the recesses of my mind. The balance of power that seems oddly tipped towards a certain demographic that exists but also doesn’t seem to exist, at least not to those within the inner circle.

But even thinking about this novel, or Gravity’s Rainbow, a word trails into my mind, ‘pretentious’. I am not sure if it such a description is apt; for the Pynchon’s novels or even those who decide to read them. Most certainly, they are not the type of books to read on a beach or start talking about with someone you just met (unless interest from the other party is expressed of course, then by all means do so!). But they are so vividly interesting and so holistically invite you into the world that Pynchon has decided to explore. Pynchon’s use of his encyclopedic knowledge has a reason; it isn’t just to be pretentious (I mean would a pretentious person include so many low brow jokes?).

Inherent Vice has many moments where I laughed out loud, a incredibly rare occurrence for me when I am reading a novel. Other than the earlier scene I described, in the novel, the way Doc and Sauncho meet is when Sauncho, trying to buy a sifter for his marijuana has a sudden moment of paranoia and asks Doc, who is at the same supermarket late at night in order to satisfy a sudden chocolate craving, if he can put his sifter with Doc’s stuff at the checkout, to which Doc responds, “What about all this chocolate man?” So the two end up buying much more groceries than they ever needed. Then there is another scene where Sauncho calls up Doc. He had just watched The Wizard of Oz. So what he asks Doc is, when the movie starts out, the movie is black and white for us, but we imagine that Dorothy sees her own world as color, so when the movie shifts to Technicolor, what kind of psychedelic high-intensity color does she see?

Even if you feel reading Pynchon is pretentious, I think you need not worry about that that much. Just read this entertaining book, I guarantee it will make you laugh.

 

 

 

 

 

With the international success of Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ single Uptown Funk (for valid and obvious reasons–an incredible beat, catchy verses, hooks and a chorus) I was astonished that this genre was being praised as a newfound form of pop; a form of pop that rises far above our never-ending stream of blaseé singles. Good news kids: this genre has been around for more than half a century and was incredibly popular for its time. Groups like Funkadelic/Parliament pushed the boundaries of funk and music itself. Groovy yelps, general  noise, and colloquial dialogue superimposed over beats (think Uptown Funk but better) that make you bob your head relentlessly emanate from the only way to listen to this genre–vinyl.

My point? I love that the masses are eating up Uptown Funk, but what I’m asking of you is, while you appreciate Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars for their creativity and originality, remember that groups like Funkadelic and men like George Clinton (lol) then deserve excessive praise. Their outlandishness and fearlessness drove a culture that invented a form of dance, assisted disco, and brought a race together once again over their art form.

 

To prove my point, here are a few songs that will doubtlessly induce a copious amount of neck movements, shimmying, and a smile you can’t conceal as you strut across the Diag. Also, play some of these at a party and your friends will think you’re not only “super cool” but eclectic and hopefully a li’l jazzy too.

1. Dr. Funkenstein – Parliament
2. Funkentelechy – Parliament
3. Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off This Sucker) – Parliament
4. It’s Alright – Graham Central Station
5. So Goes The Story – Eddie Hazel
6. In The Stone – Earth Wind & Fire

Dixit is one of my favorite new board games that I have played recently. It is truly beautiful. If anyone reading this is interested in arts, games, and their intersection, then I highly recommend you pick up this game.

Dixit is a game designed by Jean-Louis Roubira in 2010. The games involves amazingly drawn cards and a scoring system that makes sure that everyone has a chance at any part of the game. In the game, every player has a hand of 6 cards with abstract pictures. The active player then chooses a card from their hand and says a clue about the card. The other players then choose a card from their hand that they think fits that clue. The clue that the active player says must be vague enough that not everyone will understand it, but clear enough that a few people could. Once all the cards are played, they are shuffled and revealed. Every player except the active player then uses a voting tile to try and choose which card is the active player’s card. If everyone gets the card right then they all move two spaces while the active player doesn’t move at all. The same is also true if no one gets the card right. If only some get it right, then those players and the active player move three spaces. It can be a bit difficult to understand when explained, but it is very easy to play in practice. Because of its beautiful cards and fun game play, it won the Spiel de Jahres, the top award for board game design, in 2010.

Let me just show some examples of the cards:

 

And my personal favorite card is:

 

These are just a few of the cards and there are many more that are just as beautiful. Because of these abstract drawings, the game becomes really fun as clues can mean anything and creativity abounds. If you want a wonderful game that inspires creativity, then this is definitely the game for you.