Category: Uncategorized

(Or, “In Which TChen Offers Excerpts/Thoughts From a Previous Paper In Lieu of the Rubbish Spawned by Late-night Attempts to Write.”)

Street photography is, I believe, integral as both a form of art and as a mode of documentary. It is not set up, premeditated, or manipulated in any fashion; what one sees at any particular moment is what is recorded. Simple, yes?

Unlike many types of photography, street photography is surprisingly personal in a way that other styles are not. Street photography is intended to be documentary, and is precisely what its name suggests: The subjects are captured in public, going about their everyday lives or whatever they happened to be doing at the moment someone hit the shutter button. It is candid in a way that makes an increasingly great number of people uncomfortable. When one takes into consideration more of the restraints on photography in public spaces is social rather than legal, it becomes evident that laws protecting security are not the sole or perhaps even greatest threat to street photography.

Unfortunately, it has become increasingly fraught with concerns from the general public, over reasons from personal privacy to matters of security. These are valid concerns, of course, public spaces, it seems, have grown to be less accepting environments for photography.

When everything is factored in, the greatest restrictions on public photography do not come from [laws and national security concerns], but from oppression through public perception. There is no use in an activity being legal, if societal pressures suggest otherwise. Were street photography to be viewed in a favorable light, public misconceptions must go.

It was an opinionated piece. I feel it comes off a tad strong now, as the atmosphere and the context in which I was addressing the issue have quietened down somewhat. But who am I to judge?

Hopefully, I shall have returned to full brain functionality and writing capacity by next week. Until then, this (relevant link) is fantastic.

We’re on a strict diet of finals and caffeine from here on out, and what better tribute to Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, Pierre Jean Robiquet, Pierre Joseph Pelletier, and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou, the chemists hailing from Germany, France, France, and France, respectively – a group of fellows who had each independently isolated the popular stimulant – than to raise a mug of steaming of joe in the name of academia. As we flood to the libraries, coffee shops, or any spread of table contained within the negligible hum of white noise, we do it with dour expressions etched on our faces. It’s common knowledge that we hold that dichotomous sensations of devotion and weariness; the eternal student condition. So we choose Starbucks, Espresso Royale, Café Ambrosia, Sweetwaters to get that kick of alertness from the warm roast of the coffee bean or from aromatic tea leaves, all the while we say our hurried hellos and goodbyes.

Soy chai lattes have always been my personal weakness, although brewed from these cafes they quickly burn a hole through the wallet. In lieu of handing half my paychecks to often, many of these larger corporations, I’ve tried my hand of constructing this drink from my own kitchen. All of the ingredients can be purchased at the People’s Food Co-op for under fifteen dollars, and of course, this method often pays for itself. At the risk of adding to the mass addiction, I have provided the recipe that I use here. Here’s to a week of productivity! Or rather, let’s just try and minimize the collateral damage.

You will need:
2 cups water
2 tea bags (I use earl grey, but you can experiment with different sorts)
¼ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cardamom
a couple whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbsp sugar (or to your liking)
1½-2 cups milk of choice (or to your liking)

Pour water in a reasonably sized pot or saucepan and place in tea bags and combination of ginger, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon stick and let boil. Once the water boils, allow tea bags to steep for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes have passed, add in sugar, stir, then add in milk or milk substitute. Boiling will cease after this step, but keep the heat on so the tea can reach a boiling state again. However, it is important to keep a diligent eye on the concoction at this point as milk is keen on boiling over and creating a volcanic mess. Once boiling begins once more, turn off and remove from heat. Using a spoon, carefully take out the tea bags, cinnamon stick and cloves. Often, the cinnamon stick can be dried and reused later. If you take a whiff of it and if it is still perceptibly cinnamon-y, it’d be good for another round.

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

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I love romantic comedies.  Okay… sometimes I am a bit embarrassed.  I shouldn’t be!  But… there is one reason that I am:  Every romantic comedy is exactly the same.

The plot line usually goes like this: Girl and boy don’t get along/hate each other –>forced in some situation to spend more time in each other’s presence –> begins to have feelings for each other –> one usually has another love interest that s/he begins to pursue –> makes the other person jealous and leads her/him to realize their feelings for her/him –> s/he goes after her/him –> begins a relationship.

It’s pretty much the same.  Pride & Prejudice (one of the best romantic comedies ever), 27 Dresses, 2 Weeks Notice, Knocked Up, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, The Ugly Truth, Letters to Juliet, The Proposal, Fools Rush In, Music & Lyrics, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Ten Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde… The list goes on.

Personally, I have never read a Nicholas Sparks book or seen any movie versions (except for A Walk to Remember), so I cannot testify to the truth of this claim, but I wouldn’t doubt it if it were true: All Nicholas Sparks books and movies are the same.

Case in point:

Have all the great love stories of this world already been written so that no new ideas can come from new authors?  Or is it that love is so universal that all the stories, though different in detail, still maintain the overarching themes that render it so similar to every other love story in the world?

This week one of my professors sent my class on an exploration through the art museum. Our assignment was to find a work of art that we felt represented the work of Emily Dickinson in some way, write about it, and then gather together and discuss our chosen piece of artwork. Walking through the UMMA’s collections with such a specific goal in mind was a very different experience from my usual wanderings through the museum. It forced me to really look at the art and try to see more in it than just something pretty hanging on a wall.  The assignment also took me in directions I didn’t expect to go.  I had anticipated finding something that I felt represented a tone or scene in one of Dickinson’s poems, but instead found in Simon Dybbroe Møller’s “BRAIN I” a physical representation of the process of working through a Dickinson poem.

When reading a Dickinson poem, it’s easy to try and oversimplify what’s happening in the poem – to simply give it a passing glance, recognize the obvious, and move on. But, slowing down and really examining the poetry nearly always reveals possibilities that were previously unapparent in that initial cursory glance. You’ll discover obstacles and nuance in the poetry that didn’t seem to exist before, because they were transparent or un-seeable in a superficial reading. This is the experience that Møller’s exhibit brought to life for me. When I first walked in to the exhibit, I didn’t feel that there was anything to see, but as I spent more time in the exhibit and really examined it, I began to notice details that weren’t initially obvious, for example, two paintings in the exhibit are identical (one a miniature of the other), the modeled layout on the television is actually an exact replica of the exhibit, and there is a painting hiding under a pile of boxes. Each of these details were hidden to me until I took the time to pause and really look around me. Even the clear walls in the exhibit held meaning for me in relation to Dickinson, because they felt like those hidden obstacles that one can discover in Dickinson’s poetry – though it’s difficult to see the walls, they’re just as impossible to walk through as an unmissable, solid plaster wall.

This project was such a unique experience that I would love to try it again with a different writer, or perhaps someone or something completely different, in mind. If you get a chance, you should give it a try.  You might be surprised at what unexpected comparisons you can draw.

This week, I have no words for you that could top the words of Marvelle, one of the students in my creative writing workshop at Gus Harrison Correctional Facility, to whom this post is dedicated. He’s a sweet guy with a good sense of humor; I’ve never seen him without a smile. And so, without further delay, I present you his inspirational piece, “This is a Story about My Everyday Life.”

“I enjoy life, no matter what my conditions are. I smile everyday, because some people did not wake up to smile. I am thankful; I love my life. Even though there’s not money, honeys or freedom right at the moment, prison is a part of my life and there is nothing I can do to change it. I will always remember what I done. I have did a lot of right out of life and some wrong; my right and wrong on a scale right now today is 75 percent right and 25 percent wrong, which is marvelous to me and millions of others.

I’m one of a kind, a person that is not forgotten. Every day I’m learning more about how to love instead of hate. Life is not easy, definitely when living in a city like Detroit. I see so much every day — people dying, crying, struggling — trouble just seems to find some people. Me, I think of millions of people every day. Why, I have no idea — it’s just something I do. It does not stress me out — it makes me happy, because I can think of millions of people, some people probably can’t think of a hundred people a day. This is unbelievable, what goes through my mind day to day.

I am somebody.”

If you have any comments or any questions for Marvelle, please don’t hesitate to reply — I will make sure to relay any feedback to him during our next class period.

– Molly Ann Blakowski

Yesterday I had the pleasure of getting up close and personal with one of UM’s most beloved a cappella groups – THE FRAIRS! The guys who are known for musically musing about North Face Girls and Seasons of Beer visited my dorm for a quick preview of their upcoming concert and it was fantastic! Not only did they perform some serious tunes (one was about how mundane life is – especially good to hear during preparations for finals), but they also sang one of my new favorite tunes, Facebook Me. However, in addition to displaying their vocal virtuosity, these boys showcased their smooth moves. Yep, they can sing AND dance (can’t you hear the girls of MCB swooning in the background?!) Suffice to say, it was a highly entertaining way to spend an evening and I definitely suggest that you all pencil in their concert this Friday night (8 pm at Rackham) into your busy schedules. Yeah it might cost a couple of bucks, but at least it will be more culturally satisfying than watching reruns of the Jersey Shore on TV.