Remix Culture

Awesome NPR article

My example of remix culture is Adrian Younge presents the Delfonics. Combining and remixing soul music and old 70's western with hip-hop.

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction and genre are like peanut butter and jelly. Pulp fiction is made up entirely of genre based literature. Stories have to follow a typical story arc and have defining characteristics of  that genre.

For example the Maltese Falcon which is a noir genre. It features a stone cold detective that is quick on his feet, and knows always what to say. There is always a beautiful woman who is in need of help, and falls for the detective. Trench coats and being followed are also always a must. There are always twists and betrayals as well.

Readers buy Pulp Fiction books expecting these elements to be in the book. They want their moneys worth of entertainment.

Howl

I believe the biggest characteristic of my generation is being connected and in the loop. Being connected is both an amazing and not so good thing. It's an incredible thing that everything is at our fingertips.
My generation has developed such a tight knit sense of community, and sharing. Everybody has to know what their friends are up to 24/7. Sharing is a huge part of my generation. We share everything, and also love to pirate things and get them for free. The idea of sharing also helps keep people up to date and in the loop if they do not have the traditional means. For example if somebody does not have a television, and wants to watch breaking bad. A friend can lend them a netflix password and they can binge on all the breaking bad they want.
On the downside there is always this sense of no privacy. Because we are always connected and it's impossible to be fully alone. You always get the feeling that you are being always observed. Plus with the NSA spying program you really don't feel alone. Disconnecting yourself becomes harder to do.

Girl In Landscape

My philosophy of coming of age stories is that stories of about girl characters will go through a sexual experience. Coming of age stories about boy will be through a traumatic event. Girl in Landscape is not an exception to this. The book does surprisingly mix genres pretty well. The book starts off with a science fiction feel. We are in a futuristic Brooklyn where the ozone layer is completely gone, and protective cones have to be worn at the beach to protect skin. The book quickly paints a portrait of the “typical family”.Then immediately destroys that idea, and sends them off to the planet of the Arch builders.

Once they settle on the Planet of the Arch Builders it immediately transforms into a western. The settlement on the planet of the Arch Builders just like the wild west represents a clean slate. The settlement is this lawless isolated place. Where the residents can mold the town into something great. All of the adults in the settlement are seen as failures on Earth. So this opportunity to attempt to leave a legacy is really attractive to the residents. Just like the west where people wanted to make money, and build legacies.

Then these very spiritual and supernatural events begin to happen when the Arch Builders come more into the picture. The Arch Builders are obviously the Indians in this western genre. Efram treats them like second class citizens on their own planet, just like common racism in the west. Pella soon gains the ability to see through the house deer while she sleeps. When she becomes part of the deer, Pella starts to have a sexual awakening. She becomes very voyeuristic, and develops this strange sexual tension and almost lust for Efram. Her lust quickly turns to total disgust when she realizes how terrible Efram really is. I’m happy that nothing really happened between Efram and Pella it would of been too crazy if it started to go in the Lolita direction. She does use her sexuality a bit to attempt to stop him.

The Great Gatsby

I've had a very hard time trying to define what I think a Literary Work is. I ended up googling it and the most popular answer was "The work of the writer expressed in the letters of the alphabet especially when considered the point of view of style and effect." This is really broad. After reading this I started to come up with my own interpretation of literary work. I feel that all literary works are setting out to make a point about a topic. 

For this week we read the Great Gatsby with the recent release of the movie The New Yorker reviewed the movie saying "Baz Luhrmann’s "The Great Gatsby" is lurid, shallow, glamorous, trashy, tasteless, seductive, sentimental, aloof, and artificial. It’s an excellent adaptation, in other words, of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s melodramatic American classic." I think this is the most perfect definition of the Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby just feels like a trashy reality tv show from the 1920's. The book glorifies the idea of the American Dream, and how incredibly unachievable it is. The environment of the West Egg is so artificial, and everything is done just to impress others. Gatsby who is the symbol for the American Dream who has created this bootleg empire. Is never totally accepted by the wealthy society. He tries to be even more opulent then the old money crowd by throwing extravagant parties every week. It is sad to see his struggle to try and have everything which in his circumstance is pretty impossible.

Even though I am not very fond of the book it still is a literary work. The point of the book seems to focus on the death of the American dream. It also touches on the giant gap between the rich and the poor. I think that these themes are still pretty relevant in todays society. The rich like in the Great Gatsby have no care or disregard for the poor. They are just stuck in their own little worlds of opulence and overindulgence.

Blurring the Lines

Comics are a great example of a lowbrow form of literature, and transformed into more of a highbrow form like the graphic novel. At first comics just seemed to be like a quick disposable form of entertainment, with enticing visuals. A perfect example would be Windsor McCay. His Little Nemo in Slumberland comic is incredibly well drawn, and makes use of color in a attention grabbing way. The comic never leaves off on a cliff hanger everything is always resolved by  Nemo waking up.

While the content of Little Nemo stayed pretty static, the Tin Tin series changed over the years. Tin Tin is a very dull flat character was well towards the beginning. He just seems to just show up and say the catch phrase and be the hero. Towards the early part of the Tin Tin series Herge was pretty racist. Tin Tin in the Congo is an incredibly racist colonial piece of propaganda literature. I call this piece of literature propaganda it targets children, and gives them false assumptions of black people. It makes kids believe they are superior and more sophisticated than "savages from Africa"
Later in Herges career with Tin Tin, the stories start to morph. Tin Tin becomes a more interesting character, he starts to develop a personality that isn't like a wall. I read Tin Tin in Tibet and felt myself caring more about him and the search for his friend. It's relieving to see Herge grow of the colonial racist attitude. All of the excitement and adventure really hooked me as a child. Reading the series again gives I still get the feeling when reading the later books.
Also the format of Tin Tin makes it a transitional piece from disposable comic to  sustainable literature. Most comics are usually printed on cheap newsprint which makes it easy to consume and dispose of. Tin Tin is a cardboard bound book which makes it more sturdier, and something a reader would want to put on their bookshelf.