Category: Uncategorized

Is any one else disappointed about the seemingly lack of original movies these days?

Sherlock Holmes and The Lovely Bones are both recent releases based off of books, and who can forget the popularity of the movie adaptations of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings?  I’ll admit, I’ve seen the last two HP movies at the midnight release, complete with costume. And cult movies like Blade Runner? You can thank Philip K. Dick for writing the story it’s based on.

Graphic novels are also a primary source.  V for Vendetta was based off one, as was 300.  And let’s not get into the movies that come from superhero comics.  Those have been produced by Hollywood since the late 70s.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing (I love Ironman, LotR will always be dear to my heart, and we’ll just skip over my obsession for Transformers, shall we?) but I’m simply saying I would love originality.  What’s next, movies based on RPGs?

Actually, Prince of Persia is in the works.

I’ve never actually played Prince of Persia, so I can’t say anything about the game, but since we’re on a kick of bringing old school things into a new light, such as Star Trek, why can’t we do the same with games?  Why not re-version classic arcade games, like Frogger?

Why not Pac-Man?

It’s got action, romance, guns, mystery, and a hip new look for a favorite figure from our childhood. What’s not to like? My roomie would be the first in line for this movie if it was real.

But me? I want a little more drama, a little more angst. Tetris seems to satisfy that for me.

And if none of these suit you, you can always chose Minesweeper.

But would these be amazing to watch? They would be able to reach out to the older generation, hoping to remind them of their childhood and draw in a new and younger audience. And it’s this timelessness that makes a movie a classic. Watch, in five years one of these will actually be made and land an Oscar nomination.

You arcade loitering blogger,

Jenny

As far back as we have records, heroes have existed.  It’s not just all about Superman, but about Hercules, Aeschylus, Odysseus.  It’s about Joseph and Jesus and Abraham and Mohammed.  About Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Neil Armstrong, Martin Luther King, Jr.  In the 21st century, it’s about Arnold Shwarzenegger, Barack Obama, soldiers in the Middle East, Tiger Woods.  Etc etc etc.  Heroes are everywhere.  With them comes this great image about them that is cast far and wide, projecting a perspective of awe and admiration, fear and respect, intimacy and personality.

Back up… Tiger Woods?  He who has had countless mistresses and who apparently has a sham of a marriage that was alleged to have been a mere media ploy?  Hmm…

I’m not one who is interested in celebrity news.  Like anyone else, I will admit that yeah, maybe it can be kind of interesting, but typically I don’t even glance at Perez or read the People magazine cover in the grocery line.  I’m just not that into it.  But taking a class on journalism has made me become aware of something: the media is a powerful, powerful tool.  And Tiger Woods is someone who knows just how to use it.

The thing with Tiger is that everyone is up in arms about him right now.  But why?  Because he was Tiger, the untouchable, the unbreakable, undefeatable.  Oh la la, and lookie here, now he’s the baddd mannn Mommy always warned us about.  Mmm… maybe.  People are always drawn to drama, especially celebrity drama, so the hubbub about  the straying hubby isn’t all that surprising.  What is surprising, however, is how long this scandal has been kept wrapped up.  According to my instructor, a journalist herself, the news of Tiger’s busy hands has mostly likely been long known.  He has so many journalists on his tail everyday, there were countless rumors about certain bars and rooms he frequented for questionable purposes.  But no one ever reported it.  Why?  Because Tiger had essentially built up an empire controlling the sports media– if anyone ever wanted to be in Tiger’s circle, they would never write anything bad about him.  Once an enemy, always on the blacklist for life.  And because Tiger was such a big name and thus drew in tons of revenue, no high-aspiring sports journalist would ever report anything negative about the heroic Tiger Woods.  He had developed a myth about him that created around him an untouchable aura.  His PR team was gooood.

Achilles didn’t have a PR Team, neither did Jesus.  Jackie Robinson rose to fame on his own and Martin Luther King was a preacher.  Yet, these people all became heroes and mythical figures (in the sense of their power, not that they never existed) and still retain some power in the media today.  Achilles is in countless translations and editions of The Iliad, Jesus has the Bible, Babe and Jackie still lived in a time where media was used to broadcast sports and thus spread their names to the national listeners of baseball.  Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermons and speeches were reported in newspapers and televised.  Perhaps they didn’t all have a PR team that possessed the same kind of imperial hold over media, but the fact is that they live today because of and through the media.  This is how powerful the concept of media, especially mass media, is.  Isn’t it crazy to think about the fact that people who work in and with the media have such a tremendous power over its audience?  How every choice they make determines the scope of the knowledge received and understood by the public?  It’s a double-edged sword, the media…

(To be continued next week…)

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Gabby Park is a thinker who is fascinated by the concept of communication in society and who aspires to one day be someone who actively pursues the acquisition of hidden knowledge.

What a vast, terribly uncertain abyss perception is. It is through some flurry of processes, interacting in a lurid convection akin to the turbulence of a particularly belligerent sea, that we produce, in our mind’s eye, something coherent and meaningful. Objective physical sensations (a squiggly sound wave, a playful touch on the wrist) converge and pinch together into a holistic image, an abstraction which is then projected on to the screen stretched taut and pinned within the architecture of lobes and cortexes. It is this pictoral representation, shaded in with our singular experiences and memories, that we incline our heads toward in acknowledgment. Hundreds of editions of a hundred separate, independent textbooks carefully delineate the precise mechanics of impulse transmission in nerves… and yet…

And yet, in spite of our understanding of how the nervous system’s minute electrons, leaping haphazardly about to culminate in what we call, “chemical activity”, we seem to have run against some sticky impenetrable darkness if we yearn to look further onwards. That is to say, nobody knows (yet) how these alterations of chemical activity relate to psychological states. The entire procedure indeed occurs, but there’s a gaping, palpable absence of a bridge of sorts that elegantly arches to render a connection between the quantifiable ocean of ion channel openings to the wonder of consciousness — to the mystery of perception and of interpretation. And surely, when we engage with art, we perceive and interpret seamlessly, while the systematic processes that are unbeknownst to even ourselves murmurs quietly and opaquely on. Regardless of how introspective we feel, we cannot reveal to ourselves what fantastical things are happening behind this black curtain.

Cognitive psychologists try to work this out, to sketch to their best ability a sort of crude functional bridge, by assessing at how automatic processes we take for granted operate and sometimes “malfunction”, producing what we know to be optical illusions. Psychologists call the “real world out there” the distal stimulus (a horizon), while the image projected upside-down on our retinas is termed as the proximal stimulus (a tiny, two-dimensional, rotated by 180° image of a horizon). The percept is that coalescence of the rather impersonal sensations (proximal stimulus) with the quiet whirrings of our cognitions, drawing in recollections and logical procedures to capture the most sense we can of this little upside-down universe, this universe beyond our seemingly disembodied mind.

What’s noteworthy is the observation that we are mostly ineffective, in recollection or in recreation, in seizing the entirety of what we perceive. Something, or rather, a dazzling cavalcade of things occur between the step of the proximal stimulus and the percept. We sometimes recognize what is actually absent while other times don’t see certain things that are there — things that are mightily exerting their existence in the corporeal world.

Automatically, like doting parents, our minds assign depth to the two-dimensional, maintain size constancy, and fill in blind spots with a surreptitious flourish. The mind does this by means of monocular and binocular cues, like relative size and linear perspective (artists have exploited these methods) to transform that image, pricking our retinas, to a more faithful description of the three-dimensional world outside. It is when these “cues” are mixed and used contradictorily, that we see optical illusions.

And this is simply visual perception. What about the embarrassing gaps of other perceptive mediums? What about more complex abstractions like thought and emotion?

Interesting musings, no?

Perhaps, as time trudges onwards, we’ll understand better. For now, the battalion of psychologists and neuroscientists continue to work in their labs, trying to answer smaller questions in hopes that one day, these collective little advances give rise to a fuller view on this front of knowledge.

Sue majors in Neuroscience & English and tends to lurk in bookstores.

I was discussing this matter with my Father over lunch one day.  He loves to quote a speaker at one commencement speech he attended saying, “It’s not who you know, but what who you know knows.”  Wow, say that 10 times fast!

I contest him on this topic every time he brings it up, and if you know anyone over the age of 50 you will know their repetitions are far from few.

His argument is that people who you know often know the same people you do, so they are not great resources for you and thus do not get your name ‘out there.’ Whatever this infinite abyss is.

I argue that those you know are more than likely to know an outside group you do not, and therefore will hope to introduce you to them.

As a college student the relationships with the people around us seem to determine a great deal about our present and future lives.  From your best friends to your boyfriends, or your ‘potential’ love lives for those of us out there still waiting to be paired up; every person you interact with determines something about your life.

So if my Dad’s philosophy on relationships is correct, then it seems as if in order to go far you must know a wide range of people.  This seems perfect in theory, but in practice it sounds terrifyingly daunting.  Maybe that’s the part I’m not understanding or blocking myself from understanding.

I am trying to facilitate relationships in the art field, specifically in the museum world, so that I will get letters of recommendations and hopefully secure a job after this magical world of college.

Maybe like many things in life, I should have a backup plan.  Who knows who I will run into or what opportunities may come my way.  In that case, maybe having a connection with many people in an array of fields will open more doors than simply knowing everyone at UMMA, in my case.

So maybe the goal is not who you know, but how many people you know and what can they offer you.  Choose wisely about the relationships you want to foster.  Make sure they better you as a human.

Keep all of your options open and I am sure those ‘right’ people will come your way.

Sara Studies Art History and Enjoys Long Walks

Before I begin, I would like to preface this entry with the following: Yes, I am from New Jersey, and no, I have never encountered (for better or for worse) the “Situation.”

I guess my obsession with the MTV hit “Jersey Shore” was a long time coming. Everywhere I went people were talking about the “shore” and these self proclaimed “guidos” and “guidettes.” Even my friends (both from New Jersey and elsewhere) were completely hooked. “Is that what Jersey is like,” my friends from Michigan would ask, to which I would have to calmly respond, “No. It’s not.” For my friends back home, the intrigue of the show was the fact that it presented them with a new perspective of their home state. The places, roads, and landmarks that are shown throughout the show were the backdrops of some of our fondest memories. In fact, most of my friends spent the weekend after prom frolicking about in what has now been made infamous by MTV, Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

For those of who have read thus far and still don’t know what the hell “Jersey Shore” is let me quickly explain. “Jersey Shore” follows the lives of eight twenty- somethings living and partying together for one summer on the shore. Part “Real World” and part “The Hills” (except instead of Dior we have to settle for DEB) “Jersey Shore” is truly a whirlwind of fake tans, big boobs, and even bigger hair.

 The fakery, however, is not exclusive to the outward appearance of the “cast.” In fact, the entire notion that this show is an authentic portrayal of the Jerseyites (yes, I just made up a word!) is truly ludicrous. The truth is that only one of the eight cast members is actually from New Jersey, while most of the cast hails from New York (while one guy is from the great state of Rhode Island)- oh the joys of “reality” television!

Ultimately, “Jersey Shore” is truly just another caricature of the Garden State, founded upon stereotypes rather than reality (an albeit addictive and “so bad that it’s good” type of caricature!). My only hope is that you, the viewer, will be able to discern the truth from the reality. Trust me, New Jersey is more than theTurnpike, malls, and annoying accents. Take a chance and find out… I can give you first hand accounts if you’d like 🙂

Have a great MLK day/ FOUR-day week and be sure to leave your comments below!

I am a person who loves to eat food.  There are those who eat to live and who live to eat; clearly, I am the latter.  One of the foods I enjoy eating is sushi.  Those balls of delectable rice-y goodness, covered by clean slices of fresh, chewy raw fish, those rolls of seaweed wrapped rice melded with morsels of fish and vegetables– with the slightly stinging pickled gingers and nose-pinching wasabi laden soy sauce… It’s totally delicious.  No doubt about it.

Eating, I realized in Paris, is as much of an art as cooking is.  In all the cultures around the world, there is a certain kind of etiquette that is considered to be proper during meal times– in European societies, it is to begin with the outer utensils (in total of which there are like 10.. -___-), in America, it is to refrain from burping or picking noses at the table, etc.  Recently, I came upon a random website that taught the basics of eating sushi.  That was when I realized that… I HAD BEEN EATING SUSHI WRONGLY ALL MY LIFE!  Horror of horrors.

Okay, not that I care, really, because no matter how I eat it, it will always taste sooo goood and it all jumbles up in my stomach anyway.  But, it was a gain of new knowledge to me and reading about the different ways to “properly” eat sushi showed a lot of the logic and values of Japanese food culture.  In the case that anyone goes to Japan or a culturally Japanese restaurant in the future, here are some of the basic tips.

1. Do not rub the chopsticks together. I know, this is a hard one; we just really want to get all those little bitty splinters out– after all, who wants to be stabbed in the mouth while enjoying this deliciousness?  Yet, it does make sense that doing so would be a bit gauche: not only do we seem like OCD freaks, but also it could pose an insult to the owners, like their chopsticks are high quality enough (this is pure speculation).

2. Do not put wasabi into the soy sauce. Eeps– but how are we supposed to eat it, then?  In all of its mustard-y, spicy, salty soy sauce-y goodness?  Well, apparently, the thing is that sushi chefs have already placed dabs of wasabi under the fish, determining what he deems to be the correct proportion of wasabi.  However, if more kick is wanted, then we always have the choice to add more.

3. It is acceptable to eat nigiri (rice + fish) with hands. *gasp*  The only thing is, sashimi (raw fish slices) must always be eaten with chopsticks.

4. When eating nigiri, pick up the fish and dip it into the soy sauce, not the rice; otherwise, the rice will soak up too much soy sauce and overwhelm the flavor of the nigiri.

5. The pickeled ginger is meant to be a palate cleanser, eaten between bites or different types of sushi.  It should not be eaten together with the sushi.  Aw…sad.  I love the combination of the sour ginger with the slightly sweetness and saltiness of my sushi!

6. Eat nigiri sushi in one bite. It sounds hard, but nigiri should be easier to eat than rolls.  I don’t know what we’re supposed to do when we eat a giant spider roll the size of a baseball… Force it in?  It can be quite fun to do that, actually, and hold competitions with friends to see who can eat it all in one bite.  But I’m sure that that would not be considered “proper etiquette”.  Haha.

7. When handling food not our own, use the unused end of the chopsticks, not the end we put in our mouths, so as not to be unclean and rude.

Art doesn’t have to be limited to just the canvas or theatre stage.  It can be found everywhere.  It is the birth of an idea, the process of creation, and the result in creativity.  Even the way we eat our food in our daily lives is an art.  Each different method, each different utensil we choose to eat with, each decision to mix and match– all of these are personal, individual choices that affect the final outcome of the taste and experience of eating.  These processes are creative in itself, not to mention the final combinations of taste that are diverse and thus, very creative as well.

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Gabby Park is a triple concentrator in Communication Studies, French, and History of Art.  In her spare time, she looks up restaurant menus that make her hungry and consequently dream about eating all the great food in the world one day.