In 2009, a huge hubbub arose when a Danish comic artist portrayed the Muslim prophet Mohammed with a bomb on his head in place of a turban.  Muslims, whose Islamic law forbid any visual representations of their God (to avoid idolatry), became extremely offended by this obvious suggestion of Mohammed as a terrorist.  Thousands of Muslims worldwide protested the posting of this drawing in all forms and many threatened the artist and any involved members of Danish newspapers that printed this image.

A Saudi Arabian law firm filed a suit against all of the Danish newspapers that published this cartoon.  The letter stated that the drawing was offensive and insulted the many ancestors of Mohammed, as well as his followers and demanded an apology and removal of any offensive material.  Recently, one newspaper organization, Politiken, apologized for the reprinting of the cartoon and stated that it was never an expression of the newspaper’s beliefs or opinions, but a mere transmission of regular news content.

Upon hearing about this incident when it first broke out, I could see both sides of the issue.  On one hand, yes, to be a Muslim and to see this kind of image would be very offensive to me, especially because it presented a negative view of a part of my belief and culture that was highly integral to me and my life; and should this comic have depicted something or someone as important to me as Mohammed is to Muslims, I, too, would pissed off.

However, as an art historian, I believe that a drawing like this is acceptable.  It is not pleasant, to be certain, and it is certainly not flattering, but in its essence, it is art.  Art throughout the ages has always been inflammatory and highly contentious; from the “Castration of nudes” in the Vatican (i.e. removing penises and putting fig leaves on the genital regions of statues) to increasingly sexualized images in photography during the 1980’s, art has proven to provoke debate and incite wrath upon itself.

Everyday, I see images that intrigue, infuriate, and entice me.  Some images evoke more emotions than others and lead me to ponder about the issues presented and others pique my interest only to die down immediately after.  Theoretically speaking, if art, as many say, is just a means of self-expression and as human beings we have the right to express ourselves, then why shouldn’t someone have the freedom to draw and say what they wish?

Yet this kind of thinking is reserved for the purely ideological realm; in the real world, everything is mired by politics and bogged down by personal motivations that often the lines of freedom get blurred and the definition becomes hazy.  We all want to be politically correct so we censor ourselves and hide our real thoughts and intentions.  We realize that it is not appropriate to say or do certain things in various contexts, but we are cognizant of the fact that even these norms change with time and cultural shifts.  Right now, in this time, the world is not prepared for this kind of drawing and perhaps it will never be.  But I don’t think that means one should not create such things; merely that one should be more careful about the avenues by which they display their work and more considerate about the people it may affect.

Sometimes the best way to be introduced to something new is by accident. I arrived at the Dude early for a meeting today, and on my way to the escalators, with twenty minutes to spare, I walked past the Dude’s gallery. Seeing bright colors and walls full of pictures, I of course had to walk in. “Affinity of Form,” Stanford Lipsey’s exhibit of forty-five digital images is currently on display in the gallery at the Dude, and it is an eye catching mix of nature and architecture juxtaposed against each other to create a unique sense of the similarities between the shapes and colors found in nature and man-made constructions.

The thing that I found most fascinating about Lipsey’s photography was the way he made photographs of the natural world and architecture compliment each other so well. The way he finds similarities and highlights them in his photography is very cleverly done. One image in the gallery that particularly exhibited his eye for natural elements in architecture is entitled “Like an Eagle.” In this photo Lipsey captures an image of the Milwaukee Art Museum, which has large wing-like structures on the sides of the building. In “Like an Eagle,” Lipsey captured one of these structures from the base of the building so it looks like the wing of an eagle. He took a man-made architectural element and highlighted its similarity to natural shapes by capturing the image from a specific angle. In another image, “Spokes of a Tropical Circle,” Lipsey does the opposite – takes a natural object and makes it appear manmade. In this image, Lipsey took a picture of a palm tree from the base, and made the trees canopy look almost like some sort of ceiling. Specifically, it reminded me of a ceiling in a cathedral. Lipsey’s color combinations are very appealing to the eye as well. Some of his images are very bright, while some are lacking in color. The contrasting colors create a striking visual interest in his exhibit.

Lipsey’s “Affinity of Form” exhibit will be open through Tuesday, November 2, 2010 in the gallery in the Duderstadt Center. It’s a beautiful exhibit, and I encourage you to stop in and look around.

When I say I hate Winter, I need to add the disclaimer that it’s not the bitter cold temperatures or the layer of clothes that really makes me sad; what it comes down to is that I hate winter’s confinements to the indoors.  As my Women Studies roommates would say, “Winter is oppressive!”  So, what I really dislike about winter is that it holds me captive to the indoors for far too long.

The stem of this hate, I realized only recently.  As winter fast approaches, and jackets begin to emerge from the bowels of homes, I have become increasingly aware of my fate.  No longer can I wear shorts or tang tops, exposing my skin to the warmth and comfort of the sun.  Soon the sun must pass through layer upon layer of clothing in order to warm my body; and that’s only when it decides to show itself.  Being October 20^th, I am extremely content with the way the weather is fairing.  I have seen the sun everyday for the past 10 days and I want nature to progress in this manner, although as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.

Before the Earth tilts any further, and we are all restricted to the indoors, I see to it that it is my earthling duty to call upon your attention to one of the most magical places in Ann Arbor; the Arboretum.  I recommend you walk to the Arb after an early morning at the Farmer’s Market in Kerrytown where you fill your morning void with coffee or cider and donuts.  Then I direct you to take your happy full tummies on a lovely stroll to the Arb.  Depending on what Saturday you go, you may find pleasure in passing far too many drunken students before 10 am getting rowdy for one of the most valued events in our country…Football.  Passing these students will make you smile based on the pure absurdity of it all.

As you continue to walk out of the crazy zone, you will find screams and loud music replaced by crunchy leaves and howling winds.  If you catch the morning just right, the sun will gleam on the changing trees, making you think you suddenly stepped into a fairytale.  You will pass a cemetery on your left as you approach the Arb that will put any fear of death out of mind due to the serenity and peacefulness of the crowded leafy ground and sunlight peering through the thinning trees.

By the time you come to the Arb your morning activities have prepped you for the right frame of mind to appreciate nature and the calmness you feel within.  Bring a date, a friend or go alone, and make sure to make a fall memory before time slips away and into winter.

I have a thing for soundtrack music. Soundtracks, particularly of the film score variety, that are big, symphonic, powerful.

The thing is, soundtrack music hardly if ever exists outside of a soundtrack, and not all the music on a soundtrack is automatically what shall be henceforth referred to as soundtrack music.

Music written for film, by nature, must have the ability to convey and induce emotion. It was, after all, composed to fit a story. Where there danger, the music must foreshadow it. Where there is longing, the music must draw it out. Where there is a sense of urgency, the music must make it all the more urgent. If something new and brilliant and breathtaking appears, so must the music take it, reflect it, draw it up and magnify it, and project it across the heavens. It is simply the nature of soundtrack music.

There is something about the way the combined powers of choral and orchestral interlace to create something entirely new and wholesome. Sometimes individual strands of voice or instrument breathe alone, floating along an ethereal and invisible membrane, or they may cut and dart among the others in playful jest. Other times, the music may be composed of vertical blocks, of solid chords built with the strength of a thousand voices. Air rushes through tubes of metal and flesh. The vibrations of strings and skins reverberate through the walls, the ground, through bone. They cut and pound. It is an army on the march, an evil on the loose, a world on the brink of destruction.

But by far the most powerful sort of piece is the sort that begins as a small, steady tune but sweeps upward as it goes. It begins to grow. There is a destination, but we do not yet see it. Slowly, as a rumbling below the surface, the music grows. It builds and builds, churning, working, expanding. A new melody emerges- but is it really new? They intertwine and separate and intertwine again. Something disappears. It reappears. And everything crescendos, crescendos, drawing up elements never noticed from below, expanding, rising, until there! The crest, the summit, the peak! Light breaks out from the darkness, and the barrier has been breached, and from there the music pans out (as might the camera), drifting unobtrusively back down.

And that? That is the magic of the music of film. Soundtracks are no mere background music. Imagine a particularly poignant scene from a movie, any movie. Now cut out the music. Chances are, it’ll not achieve half the effect it had before. Music in film often remains unnoticed, but its function is integral.

Now excuse me while I toddle back to my Lord of the Rings Pandora station.

Hi, my name is Neethi and I have TSS. What is TSS you ask? Well, it stands for Taylor Swift Syndrome. Unfortunately, with the impending release of her third studio album Speak Now, this condition has worsened and I have taken to my blog to find support during these difficult times.

To be more specific, TSS is officially defined (by my friend Sarina) as the delusion that results from listening to TSwizzle’s music. The symptoms of the syndrome include feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside and becoming unreasonably optimistic about love and life. As a self-proclaimed pessimist, I find my status as a victim of TSS to be extremely disturbing.

Though I had hoped that my condition would be temporary and that the poor quality of Speak Now would help ease my troubles, it seems that the exact opposite has occurred. If you thought that the songs on Fearless were insanely catchy, then be ready to have Speak Now on repeat. Here is a breakdown of a few of the songs from the album:
– Permanent Marker: Has a Should’ve Said No vibe to it, but this time she’s singing to the dude’s ex instead of being the ex.
– Mine: “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter” – Perfect.
– Innocent: So-so song about Kanyegate 09. West’s song (Runaway) was better in my opinion.
– Back to December: Allegedly about Tay-Tay’s relationship with Taylor Lautner. Out of all the tracks released thus far, this one leaves a lot to be desired. The verses and the chorus are pretty weak.
– Speak Now (aka My guilty pleasure track): Girl tries to stop boy from getting married. They live happily ever after. Cheesy? I think not.

Clearly, I’ll be counting down the minutes till the album is released on October 25th. Will you? Post your thoughts below 🙂

Emerson, for instance, left his sick wife, Lidian, and their young children in Thoreau’s care to go to Europe in 1847, writing coldly to Lidian, ‘I foresee plainly that the trick of solitariness never can leave me.’

As suggested two posts ago here, it seems that companionship, or what the biopsychologists like to term as “peer-bonding,” has been cognitively advantageous. Our evolved intellect is bound to our sociality. Memory and the logical proceedings that come with attempting to troubleshoot relationships are augmented with every flex of the social muscle. It has been empirically shown that those older adults who engage in conversation, who are prompted to climb out into the world and sense it like their younger counterparts do, create themselves a sort of buffer against mental decline. And what are we if we do not hold our minds intact? (An entirely separate question to address on another date.)

While this is all well and good, you might be asking yourself, “So you’re saying I should join in with the bacchanals rather than lock myself in this room and in a gust of solitary spirit, finish this essay?” Well, you are talking to one of those curious people who have been wooed by the inexplicable allure of solitude — who desperately defends her own autonomy in spite of her acknowledgment of the inevitable importance of communities. I’d like to explore the other side of the coin in this post (completely contrary to what I had spoke of two weeks ago) and articulate the dichotomy that exists between individualism and social participation, and how this might begin to be reconciled.

Quotes that follow strike a note deep within my reclusive marrow.

In Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins, it is astutely said that it is “funny how we think of romance as always involving two, when the romance of solitude can be ever so much more delicious and intense. Alone, the world offers itself freely to us.” I nod in emphatic agreement. “Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better,” says Henry Rollins. Rollins brings up a good point: loneliness is charged with an entirely different sentiment, a sort of indignation with your rupture with the web society, a twinge of misery in accompaniment with your self-imposed isolation. Replace “loneliness” with “solitude” and I would be more apt to agree, although I am a proponent of exposing oneself to feeling a wide, wondrous spectrum of emotions. I merely enjoy hanging in existence between all the action, attempting to get to the bottom of things rather than bother, at critical moments, with the often frivolous requisites that waver at the surface of most civilized interactions. Now, you might be wondering what has happened in my biographical past that has made me so jaded, and perhaps even so selfish? Perhaps I deserve an end as miserable as Christopher McCandless, the youth that had passed in an abandoned bus in the novel-turned-movie, Into the Wild, in a stint that emblemized his distaste with civilization. “Didn’t you know that the tragedy was that he realized too late that true joy lay in the relationships that we cultivate?!” No, I think the tragedy was that he had foolishly eaten mold. That may be an extreme case, and I must clarify that I argue from the standpoint of the artist, the tinkerer with life, the one who capitalizes on consciousness in order to synthesize. Every great writer, scientist, musician needed to shut the door to their companions in order to fully, and hungrily take in the world from the vantage point of an outsider. The mark of a genius within any field is his or her innate devotion to the subject – their willingness to engage in investigative learning, and this often occurs on time away from others. The great physicist Richard Feynman, as a child, would watch a ball move in a wagon and found himself plagued with an unabating curiosity to know why it would move like that. He built radios and tuned them to programs, not because this was his part-time job and that money was the incentive, but because he wanted to understand how things worked and what would result if he played with the world out there. These people had that moment of peace within their minds that facilitated their noticing of a pattern, and oftentimes, this required at least a brief disentanglement with social relationships. Einstein said, “I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

Like everything else that we know and do, the best results seem to come from abiding with the rule of moderation. It’s a delicate balance between understanding that we will ultimately have some dependence on others by virtue of the fact that we are human beings, by virtue of the fact that we need other people to register something as sophisticated and momentous as empathy — and embracing that other half of ourselves that rises to meet the world alone, to level our eyes with it in our own, solitary bodies, and to investigate it. Then, the next step is to take what we discover and present it to others in whatever manner we deem fit. Feynman became a renowned lecturer and teacher at the height of his career. Emerson’s influence had been felt by Thoreau and we all feel his presence in literature classrooms and libraries today. In all these situations, the key initial stimulus however was a moment of solitude — an aside and a breath on one’s own terms.

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