As 2017 quickly approaches I’ve started to see my friends post their #yearinreview2016 videos on Facebook or post their #2016bestnine collages on Instagram. I haven’t made my own versions of these, but I did start to think about this past year. I didn’t think I had a specific favorite memory of 2016, but when I looked at my Instagram profile today, I realized I did. Although this year was an exciting one- the end of senior year, graduating, traveling, starting college at UMich- my most fun and exciting memory is from the Bastille concert I went to in September. The concert is captured in photographs on my Instagram profile in three pictures, all of which capture the brief five minutes that the lead singer spent walking through the crowd near my seat, featuring my uncontrollable hysteria.

Chill on the Hill is an annual “alt-rock” music festival held in Sterling Heights by radio station 89x. When I first learned that Bastille, my favorite band, was going to headline the show only three weeks after releasing their latest album, Wild World, I knew I had to go. So I bought three tickets, told my friends they were coming with me, and started counting down the days.

As more information was released about the bands that were also performing I was pretty confused. Pierce the Veil? The Used? Good Charlotte? I had heard of these bands but had never listened to them. Bastille stood out in stark contrast to almost every other band on the lineup.

When we arrived at the venue it was immediately obvious that someone had made a mistake in booking Bastille for this festival. From the music to the people in the crowd, it was definitely not their usual scene. But that didn’t bother us. The small Bastille crowd, pouring rain, and freezing temperatures (it was crazy cold for September) made it easy to sneak a seat in the front row. It was a perfect view, and the general admission pit in front of us was almost entirely empty.

We remained seated while The Used performed, all the while trying to figure out a way into the pit, which had plenty of room for three more people. When we saw security aggressively remove several barricade jumpers, we decided it was best to be happy with the upgrade we already managed to get. And I was later so thankful that we did.

Bastille finally took the stage with the venue at approximately only 50% capacity. I didn’t mind, of course. I had a great view, room to dance, and was completely absorbed by their performance. When they started to play Flaws, a popular song from their first album, I forgot about the ritual that coincides with the song. At almost every Bastille concert, the lead singer, Dan Smith, walks into the crowd while singing Flaws. It couldn’t even process what was happening until my friend was shoving me towards the aisle. Had we been in the pit there would have been no way for me to reach him in the crowd. The usual gigantic mob that swarms around him while he makes his way through the venue did not appear, and I was able to stand right next to him. He stopped in the aisle and sang, allowing my friend to take several pictures of him, me with him and the background, and my favorite, a video of my reaction afterward. As he proceeded to walk back to the stage I went from hysterically screaming to hysterically sobbing in a matter of seconds. It was one of the funniest, most embarrassing, and most emotional moments of my life, and it took me several songs to recover.

I ended up with an insane cold the next day, a result of 3+ hours in the cold, rainy weather, but it was worth it. It was definitely one of my favorite moments of 2016, and I can’t wait until next year when I’ll be able to see them again.

Why do I bother analyzing anything? This isn’t a statement meant to suggest that I am jaded or questioning my choice in academic subjects. Instead, I’m genuinely curious about who the analysis is even for? Ostensibly, it’s first and foremost, for me. But the problem is that I don’t really care about the majority of content I analyze. I’ve read countless novels, excerpts, poems, magazine articles, short stories, essays, and have seen countless (well not really, I am still young after all) films, paintings, installations, buildings, photographs, sculptures, and on and on and on. But only a fraction, of this mass of creation I’ve been and continue to be exposed to, do I actually have any stake in. I can only be so emotionally and intellectually invested across a never-ending spectrum of art. Yet I still analyze.

Perhaps I do it for the grades. Good grades are important right? This semester, I took some pass-fail classes and found myself unable to just…sigh…let it go.

“I don’t really want to try in this class. I just want to pass…but I don’t want to turn in a shit paper…as like a self-standard.”

Is that what this is all about, the fiction that I’m smart? I don’t consider myself an intellectual. Instead, I classify myself as an ignoramus of many subjects, trained to be able to craft some sort of bullshit concoction in a reasonable amount of time so that I can at least extend the illusion for one more minute, hour, day, or paper. Maybe that is just what analysis is – an improvisational act meant to assure oneself of their perceived academic prowess. Then there is the argument that my self-critique, or self-analysis, acts as some vague form of the imposter syndrome, believing myself to be incomparable to great artists that preceded or proceed me. Of course there are my contemporaries as well. Students who I believe are genuine. Genuine what? I’m not sure; perhaps that is why they appear to be such fetishized versions of truth.

I know the truth I seek, or imagine, is nigh untouchable by mankind. But nonetheless I like to believe that there are people out there who get it. Perhaps not consciously, but in some inherent sense, whether they realize it or not, are free from the question of why do I do “x”. I think this freedom may exist. Nah.

Wow, isn’t this the best thing to be thinking about during finals week? Also, isn’t it great that this is not an original thought and my own perceptions aren’t enlightening in the slightest? Only adding to the mire of collegiate babble that suffocates every coffee shop and dorm. I imagine that everything I write now, academic papers included, is followed not by an empty “Oh, that is interesting!” but a candid, “Ya, I get it.” Perhaps I shouldn’t turn in my final paper. Maybe it will be liberating. But I probably won’t cause I’m a coward at heart. That is one thing I’m certain of.

Can you find all Christmas song titles and references in this real dialogue I had at the gas station today?

“Hey man, Happy Holidays. just the gas?”
“And a coffee, please.”

While waiting for the machine to give out the coffee:

“Are you driving home for Christmas?”
“Sure! I can’t wait to see those faces. What about you?”
“No, I won’t be home for Christmas.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, my Mom told me: ‘All I want for Christmas is you’, but stepping into last Christmas wasn’t too holly jolly for me.”
“Man, I wish it could be Christmas every day! How come you don’t like Christmas?”
“What Christmas means to me is: I must be Santa.”
“You must be Santa?”
“I must be Santa. For the kids in our community. Plus, the weather outside is frightful.”
“It is but that just makes the fire so much more delightful. Aren’t you dreaming of a white Christmas?”
“Yes but when I was Santa last Christmas one kid accidentally hit me in my jingles… If you know what I mean.”
“Right in your sleigh bells?”
“Yes, so the entire twelve days of Christmas my true love gave to me an ice pack under our Christmas tree.”
“Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ. That sounds intense.”
“It sure is. The only thing rocking around the Christmas tree for me was pain.”
“So it was a blue Christmas for parts of you?”
“Yes… Do you know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t know you… Why am I telling you this? I just bought some gas and a coffee off you and now I’m telling you one of my most intimate stories? Why?”
“I know why.”
“Tell me… why?”
“Do you know it’s Christmas time at all? This is the most special time of the year and thank god it’s Christmas, because that is when you miss your family most and that is why you had to tell a stranger about your feelings.”
“Wow… Christmas is coming…”
“Yep.”
“All through the night…”
“Yep.”
“I better go tell it to the mountain.”
“The mountain?”
“My roommate works out.”
“Oh, yes you should. Maybe he’ll even spend Christmas with you.”
“No, he’s spending his Christmas in Harlem.”
“Well, tell him anyway.”
“I will.”
“You can let your sleigh bells rock.”
“Ehm…”
“Go on a one man sleigh ride.”
“Ok, see you.”
“Merry Christmas!”

Next week we’ll see how well you can track Christmas movie titles and references.

PS: Remember to be the weirdest you can possibly be!

Let me introduce you to the three main styles of pole dancing: sport, exotic, and artistic. Sport typically requires the strongest dancers, as you may see them performing flag poles and other maneuvers that require ridiculous strength endurance. Exotic pole may be the first style that comes to mind when you think of pole dancing. It embodies an extravagent approach with a promiscious flare. Lastly, artistic pole describes a story delivered through graceful and elegant movements. This is the style a friend and I learned in the Intro to Pole offered at aUM Yoga.

Upon entering the studio, we removed our shoes out of respect and cleanliness and received a friendly greeting by two instructors. One of them named Sylvia, who has been practicing pole for three years, led a full class of beginners to understand the basics of artistic pole dancing. After a warm up, we tested our strength, creativity, and discipline once we came into contact with the pole. We applied wash clothes with alcohol solution and a sticky spray specifically for this sport to our hands to help fastened your grip to the pole. Besides keeping your hands in place, this dance requires an immense amount of strength smoothed with grace over the intensity, making the mastery of these moves in the first class nearly impossible. Overlooking the Ann Arbor nightlife on South University, the studio captured an atmosphere of both light and fun as well as expressive and determined.

Different types of music allowed various approaches to finding our rhythm as well as our voice through dance. Upbeat songs surged the energy through your muscles and encouraged you to harness your power with an fast paced tune. Slower songs seeped into your core and inspired you to discover a dormant art within yourself.

Her words “no two people dance the same” reinforces the concept that we all interpret the world in a unique way. What you may see as the color blue may differ from my perception of blue. Either way, it is still blue to both of us. Understanding this different can be a frustrating process. This is why there is conflict in relationships, government, and religion. No two people are the same. Even if they are genetically identical, the core being offers something that makes them special.

Please note that these images were taken after one class of experience.

I don’t remember the first moment I fell in love with sports. I certainly didn’t know what I was getting into. Being a sports fan is stressful, humiliating, and humbling. Sometimes, you think you can see pinpricks of hope in the distance, but it is all a mirage. If you’re lucky, your team will win, and you’ll get to bask in the glow of victory for a few months, before the next season begins, and the cycle of hope and despair begins all over again. It is an endless rollercoaster, where every high only promises a more terrifying descent. Some fans suffer for decades without the relief of a championship (Looking at you, Cubs fans). Some fans have had their hearts ripped out, one play away from euphoria. We are foolish a lot. Our obsession is almost always unrequited as we watch and suffer from afar. It is a strange abusive sort of love.

I am certainly not the first one to question our peculiar obsession. The goal of most sports is simple. Throw the ball. Catch the ball. Shoot the ball into the hoop. Actions so simple a child could understand them. This simplicity is often used as an excuse to deride fans. Why dedicate so much brainpower and time to athletics when the world is falling apart around you? But hasn’t it always been that way? There are surely great and terrible things that we could be doing with all that attention dedicated to maintaining a fantasy team, scanning daily headlines, or re-watching your favorite dunk of last night. But when I watch sports, I don’t need to question these things. Instead, I admire the grace and beauty that courses through every swing, every fluttering lob through the air. I admire the dedication that goes into every single movement, the hours of practices to execute one simple motion perfectly. I admire the extraordinary mixture of anger and euphoria on the athlete’s face.  When I watch as the ball go into the hoop, the simple action makes my heart pound. I cheer.

Most of these thoughts ran incoherently through my head after the result of the Ohio State-Michigan game. As I watched a red tide of fans swamp the field at the end of the game, I didn’t know what to think. All I felt was a pounding, sullen resentment towards all the fans draped in red. That happiness…it should have been mine, it should have been ours. It was certainly not the result I had imagined before kickoff or even the one that I had imagined two quarters ago. I was left sitting in the aftermath, quietly on the couch. My throat was sore from yelling. Before me sat an empty bowl. I had eaten half a bag of family size Lays. I only remember nervously grabbing, chewing, swallowing through every errant throw, every violent collision. It had been the fastest three hours of my life. By the end, I don’t remember feeling anything at all. Every effort, every scream of passion felt like it had been utterly useless. Every action had been as empty as my chip bowl. Instead, the entire game boiled down to a singular run and an unclear referee decision. I wasn’t very hungry that night.

So yes, sports are pointless endeavors that will inevitably lead to disappointment, failure, and the over-eating of chips. They are also endlessly enjoyable and relentlessly addictive. I’m not sure that sports are a necessity. What I do know is history. For nearly as long as the existence of humanity, there has been games and competition. They act as instinctive expressions of our need to compete and test our skills. They act as conduits of real passion and fervor. And on special nights, such as the cool November evening when the Chicago Cubs broke a 107 year championship drought, they can make grown men cry.  Sports may be just the smallest piece of a much larger picture. But the image would not feel complete without it.

Looking at Ronald Searle’s drawings makes you wonder, “What makes a line beautiful?” Is it the indication of a professional hand? Perhaps the line is perfectly symmetrical, never outstepping the very boundaries it has created. Perhaps the line is colorful, existing in vibrant shade of a rich reddish-brown, causing you to remember the Fall leaves all across the rows of trees along your childhood street. Or, perhaps the line isn’t perfect, starting and stopping – visible traces of where the ink ran dry. Perhaps the line is squiggly, childish, thick, thin, blotchy, clean, jagged, strong, or even nervous. A line, much like our own handwriting, is an incredibly expressive mark on the page. Well, as is any mark on a page. Of course, writing is a combination of lines, however, a singular line representing nothing is hard to consider as something worthy of any judgment because there is no tangible meaning attached to the line.

But if the variety of handwriting habits, or perhaps, even the variety of letters or words across the slew of languages is any indication of the range of beauty a line can take, then consider the fact that a line need not be restricted by the boundaries of language alone. Although art is itself a type of language, we can nonetheless perceive it as boundless.

Perhaps what makes Searle’s drawings so interesting to look at is because of his active use of variation. He was an artist that fully utilized the full spectrum of lines in each drawing, capturing the energy of a form effortlessly We can smell the wispy strands of grass, or hear the jagged creaking of the porch as a man plays the fiddle with a pitchfork, and in the background, can be heard, the scratching of an irritated dog.

But that is it, isn’t it? Why the line is beautiful I mean. It is because it is everything in a sense. Cities, people, animals, puffs of smoke, rain, water, intricate machines, and the words of a title card at the beginning of an animated film, all of these are composed of lines and Searle’s drawings remind us of the compositional endlessness of these deceptively simple forms. You can truly draw anything with just lines.

So, it is less about technical ability that makes a line beautiful, rather, it is about capturing the world it is depicting. It is about the potential an undrawn line has. I cannot help but feel, in an optimistic fashion, that drawing a beautiful line is les about making it perfect, but more about drawing it confidently.