The War Between Us

I meant to write a post on this ages ago but never got around to it because... well, because of reasons. But I saw this Facebook post from my friend and former flute instructor [Mickie] and felt that I should definitely get around to writing this:

Let me give the back story on this: last year, [Mickie] lost her job at the local middle school she'd been working at since I'd first met her (and long before that too). Despite tenure, despite her obvious skill and talent, she lost her job along with my high school band teacher and choir directors. Aside from hating to see such talented people unfairly lose their jobs and having some of the strongest bonds to my hometown cut through, it was another warning sign of what's happening to music programs in the US. One hidden blessing from my failed audition to the School of Music at my university is that I don't have to worry about the difficulties of finding a job in that field, which are scarce and far between, even for people with a lot of experience.

But fortunately for [Mickie], she was able to find another job at a middle school in a nearby town. Sadly, she also lost this job this year due to, what else, budget issues and staff cutbacks. Because the fine arts are "expensive" and reap less benefits to a school district than, say, football, fine arts programs are the first to go.

Also, articles like this don't help. As if "determined by science" could mean anything here.

I hate it when people play the "art vs. science" card. They've been designed to be opposites for ages, even though they got together like peanut butter and Nutella (this is the best thing on the planet. Trust me). Art can't function without science and science can't function without art. Need proof of this? Take a look at your common household plant. Aesthetically, they've very pleasing; artists have been painting still lifes of flowers and plants for many a century. But plants are also scientifically brilliant, with their photosynthesis and fertilization structure. And did you know they can get fevers? (I learned that from a Snapple cap). Point is, there is no reason for anyone to argue that art and science don't work together.

But somewhere, somehow, the philosophy behind these two fields found themselves apposed and now we're in a war between the two of them, staking claims between what can be known and what can't, what is real and what isn't, what can be created and what can't. Really, I think it's all a communication issue. Because I mean, look at this:

http://education.ezinemark.com/most-amazing-science-images-of-2010-77369ad98736.html

This is the gene map of a plant called Arabidopsis. Sweet, right?


Okay, okay, so it's easy to find art in science. But what about science in art? Harder, admittedly, because certain kinds of science have tried to firmly drawn the line between what is actual science and what is... well, not. This was something my research methods class really shoved down our throats, which I think is fascinating considering my favorite parts of psychology are admittedly very unscientific. But look at any painting and you can see how visual perception and geometry and balance play vital roles. Music of course is highly based on physics. And acting... God, acting is a science of itself, doing a case study to figure out how another human being lives and become them on stage or screen.

http://nerdnirvana.org

I could meander on about the importance of arts but there's already this brilliant post on it. So read that, because it's really really good. It's a shame that things like subjects listed on Newsweek's Tumblr are thought of as useless because they were never useless to me. What surprises me are things like philosophy and architecture and history, for God's sake, and political science being useless. Really? Are you kidding me? When we have a million nurses and but no one understands how to communicate with each other or understand where we're coming from, don't say I didn't warn you. We need nurses, yes, but we also need them to understand bedside manner and the way people think and why, sometimes, you just need to sit back and think, "Jesus, a century ago we couldn't remove limbs without being terrified that the patient was going to die of gangrene and now we can do heart transplants. DUDE."

In order to really appreciate science, you need art. In order to really appreciate art, you need science. They aren't art war; they're two sides of the same coin. So stop making them fight - they belong together more than I think we'll ever completely understand. Give our artists and writers and thespians and historians a chance - you never know if they'll win a Nobel prize for physics or find the cure for cancer. And you never know if your med student is going to win a Pulitzer or and Grammy.

http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/uploaded_images/Art-Science-773522.jpg

Singing Frenchmen and Buff Vampires

Somewhere, in the craziness that was midterms, finals and party planning, I never got around to talking about two rather stunning visual art forms I encountered. So, as a bit of post-holiday catch-up, here it goes:

http://upload.wikimedia.org

Les Miserable: I saw this at the Orpheum with [Львица], [The Question], and [save the panzer]. I'd been fortunate enough to see it when I was fourteen at the Ordway back on one of it's previous tours and totally feel in love with it. It's my favorite show, now tied with La Cage. I'm a total sucker for the music; I absolutely love it (especially "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" - someone once mentioned it in connection to Torchwood on Tumblr and I can't get it out of my head. I was totally thinking of Jack singing it after he's lost half the team during the actual show... God, I am way to devoted to this show; it's usurped the plot of a Tony-award winning musical!) The show was good - Valjean was great, Javert was wonderful, and Marius, who too often can be kind of wimpy, was PERFECT. I've never really liked his character but that night I realized he's the one I sympathize with most - the one who wants to change the world but doesn't want to get swept up into radicalism to do so. Cosette was typically weak, Fantine was a disappointment, but Eponine was wonderful. And Enjolras looked like Roger Daltrey. So win. It wasn't quite as stunning as it had been the first time - maybe because I knew what was coming and because I liked the staging of it at the Ordway just a little better - but it was still an excellent show.

http://upload.wikimedia.org

Fright Night: I had wanted to see this movie over the summer because it had Colin Farrell in it, and Anton Yelchin, also known as "that funny guy from Charlie Bartlett." I'm usually not into remakes but, having never seen the original and DESPERATELY WANTING a movie in which vampires are actually SCARY, I really wanted to see it. I didn't get the chance but then this winter I realized, with my new-found Doctor Who obsession that David Tennant was in it. So my longing to see it tripled.

I know what you're thinking - revamp (hah, pun intended) of an 80s horror movie? Probably going to be lame with gratuitous gore. NOPE. NOT AT ALL. I am not a big horror movie fan. I don't like gore. And they generally have shitty plots. I haven't seen the original - and apparently all fans of it hated the remake. SO I have nothing to compare it to (well, I do, but not plot-wise). That being said...

THIS MOVIE ROCKED. SERIOUSLY. I LOVED IT. Maybe I'm desensitized, but I didn't think it was that gory (have you seen CSI lately? Jesus, last time I saw it, it was WAY grosser than it was when I was thirteen). I liked the characters. I liked that it was humorous. And I liked the fact that Colin Farrell was hot and FUCKING SCARY. But not so scary that I felt like I would never sleep again.

http://moviesmedia.ign.com

Also, David Tennant was an epic win. I'm probably just saying that because of the leather pants. But seriously, I thought he was great.

WINNING

Fright Night has really become my favorite horror movie. Seriously. I'm not really a good person to judge on that, I suppose, since horror movies aren't really my favorite sort of film (too many years of watching bad Sci-Fi channel creations and having enough nightmares without watching horror movies, thank you very much).  But I really like the balance of humor with the horror elements. And I like that it used a teenager plot line without being totally campy or stereotypical about it.

So, yeah, if you want a something that's not super scary, not Twilight and mind-fuckingly gory, I recommend this. Also, you know, the Doctor Who connection doesn't hurt.

Sorry, had to use this damn gif. Blame Tumblr. Actually, what the hell am I apologizing for? I'm not sorry at all ;)

Inked

Well, I did it. After two years of flip-flopping. I finally got a tattoo.

HELL YES.

That is on my back. PERMANENTLY. And I couldn't be happier about it.

Somewhere, in between the madness that was the Christmas party drama and the beginning of finals, I thought about getting a tattoo again. I'd wanted to for my birthday, but I'd been doubting about what I wanted (a ship? something Celtic themed? something to remind me Scotland?). But I was doubtful of getting something Scottish, because I had the desire to actually get it done IN Scotland. But considering I won't be going back there any time soon and because I don't want to cause a conflict, being the odd American who wants something Scottish and seem like a dumb tourist, I just decided I should get what I want now. I'd been toying with a design like this, with the Celtic knots/ trinity theme (I wanted to get the Celtic trinity on it's own but couldn't decide on a style - there's like twenty different ways of drawing it). And I liked the English Tudor rose and thistle intertwined (the rose is a symbol of England, the thistle of Scotland, and they were combined together to represent the marriage of Margaret Tudor and James IV, I believe). However, when I saw this design, I knew it was it. It's not the Tudor rose, just a traditional rose - and also the national flower of the United States. Two birds with one stone there. Plus it's got the Celtic Trinity knot there. And it really represents a lot of things to me personally - the rugged, bristly, strong and confident attitude of the thistle and the sweet, elegant but thorny nature of the rose. And it's super cute.

The tattooing process itself wasn't as bad as I expected. It felt rather like a cat scratching a really bad sunburn. I didn't cry, surprisingly, and according to [Львица], I didn't even flinch. Although managing to fall on the ice and scraping/bruising my knee on the way to the parlor hurt far worse and distracted me somewhat from the tattooing pain.

Another major win was the price.[Львица] was telling me that a parlor on campus told her the tattoo she wanted would be around $300-$400 so I braced myself for a steep cost. But since the process took only about an hour and Uptown Tattoo only charges $150 per hour, it was only $150. One of [Львица]'s friends spent that much just to get one word tattooed on her. Did I get a hell of a deal from the best tattoo parlor in Minneapolis? I THINK YES :D

Despite the fact that [wolf woman] described my tattoo as  "cool how you combined the plants with the celtic knot" (plants? PLANTS?! THEY NATIONAL FLOWERS! R-E-S-P-E-C-T!) (and I also didn't actually "combine them" - I didn't make the design; that's giving me far too much credit) the reception has been really good. Even my dad likes the design and the placement of it. Although both my parents were totally cool with me getting a tattoo. Surprisingly cool. Though I suppose if I was getting it on my face it'd be a different story.


And I'm already thinking about getting another tattoo... some day. I had an offer from a friend in my Italian class to design something for me. And she does really cute cartoon-y type stuff so I'll have to take her up on that. I'm thinking something with teacups... or chipmunks. I think a chipmunk might be my spirit animal...

SOPA, or: If this is real, my blogging career is over

So I saw this on Tumblr like five minutes ago: If SOPA passes, the following sites could be blocked for US users.

WHAT. THE. HELL.

Here's an article about it.

A Minnesota senator, OUR AMY KLOBUCHAR, supports it.

Really, guys? REALLY?

I don't know if it would actually block Facebook and Twitter from US users. I can't seem to find any articles to support that. However, I can find a website about American Censorship Day, claiming that Facebook will be gone from my life. Along with Twitter, Tumblr, Megavideo - no more Doctor Who and Torchwood! :( - and no YouTube. Not to mention that it seems this blog will cease to exist. Did I make the gifs I put on here? Did I take the photos (some of them, yes). But overall, nada. Call me a pirate. Me and like 90 some percent of my generation.

If this is real, then my creative outlets, innovation sites and business tools are kaput. My hopes of finding an outlet to practice writing, create a web presence and beef up a resume are gone. The chance of aspiring musicians, actors, entertainers, etc to express themselves and post their work will be made far more difficult to attain. So we watch TV shows for free and we sing covers of our favorite songs - guess what? I bet for every song we sing and TV show we watch, we BUY something that compensates. Yes, I watch Torchwood on Megavideo. But I'm planning on buying the seasons and I buy other merch. So we consumers are still buying stuff, if that's your worry. We're not going to fuck you over, music/movie/media industries. We LIKE you. We buy stuff, we do. We respect what you do. We just don't like spending loads of money for single songs, TV seasons, cable. And if you haven't noticed, American TV is ridiculous and Netflix has decided to suck. So... can you really blame us?

I don't like censorship. Lemme just make that clear. I don't usually get super in-your-face political, but this is something I really care about. I love how accessible the internet is - anyone can post anything. Yes, that causes problems - LOTS of problems. But seriously, I think this is the least of your worries. Could you maybe work on catching people who post child porn or something? That seems a little more vital to the integrity of our country than, you know, the guy at the U of such-and-such downloading a Katy Perry song for free. IMHO.

So if you happen to be as outraged as me and worried just enough that this totally legitimate, visit the American Censorship Day website and sign their petition. Let's just hope this is just a lot of ruckus over something that won't pass, that we've overblown into a monstrosity. But these days - who knows?

I can't tell if I'm going more anarchist or more libertarian. God help us all if I become either one.

The Van Gogh Mystery

I saw something about this on TV the other night, but thought it was probably just speculation. Then I came across this article while waiting for my social psych class to start: Van Gogh Did Not Kill Himself, Authors Claim. According to these authors who spent 10 years studying documents, they believe Van Gogh might have been accidentally died by being shot by friends, not committing suidice.

Though this can't be proved 100%, this is... REALLY fascinating to me. I mean, Van Gogh is my favorite artist. How can you not love a guy who painted this?

I LOVE STARRY NIGHT. I can't tell you why. I just do. It's like it takes on some sort of special meaning I can't quite put into words.

Van Gogh is just a fascinating guy all around. He's psychology's go-to man for an example of bipolar disorder (thought it seems the authors want to bring that into questions... Interesting). Everyone knows him as the guy who cut his ear off and sent it to a girl he liked (he did not actually do that; he did cut his ear off but he didn't send it to a girl, and it's unlikely he even did it for a girl. One theory is that he had tinnitus and that, along with whatever personal/emotional/psychological problems he was having caused him to cut it off). And his art... my God, his art...

I saw this in London. LOVE.

I always got the feeling that he was a sort of tormented artist that no one understood until it was too late. And the fact that he supposedly committed suicide made it even sadder. Like I can't even look at the painting he did of the field where ended up dying. And I hated how psychology dealt with him (though I did read a book by Kay Redfield Jamison where she did a really good job of talking about how he might have been bipolar. But then again, Jamison is both actually bipolar and a genius. So she gets it).

But if Van Gogh didn't actually commit suicide... that would some how make me feel better. Like maybe his torment wasn't that extreme. Maybe it would help remind that there's more that just tragedy in his paintings - that there's also a bit of joy, a bit of pleasure. A bit of hope.

Renaissance Men and Byronic Heroes

I wonder if psych majors have a difficult managing their relationships.

I thought of this as I read a chapter of my social psychology book on "the self." It started after this section on self-awareness (the idea that when people focus on themselves, they compare themselves to... well, themselves; their own values and such. It seems obvious, but that way we're on the same page):

Even when we are self-aware and introspect to our heart's content, it can be difficult to know why we feel the way we do. Imagine trying to decide why you love someone. Being in love typically makes you feel giddy, euphoric, and preoccupied; in fact, the ancient Greeks thought love was a sickness. But why do you feel this way? Exactly what is it about your sweetheart that makes you fall in love? We know it is something about out loved one's looks, personality, values, and background. But precisely what? How can we possibly describe the special chemistry that exists between two people? A friend of ours once told us he was in love with a woman because she played the saxophone. Was this really the reason? The heart works in such mysterious ways that it is difficult to tell.  (pages 125-126, Aronson, Wilson, Akert - Social Psychology, 7th edition)

After this, they site an example from the "old" TV show Friends (seriously, they call it old. Thanks for making me feel ancient, textbook) when Ross makes a list of things he likes and doesn't like about Rachel. This is, according to the author's, a very bad idea.

Consider people like Ross who try to analyze why they feel the way they do about a romantic partner. When people list reasons in this manner, they often change their attitudes toward their partners, at least temporarily... Why? It is difficult to dissect the exact causes of our romantic feelings so we latch on to reasons that sound good and that happen to be on our minds (remember our friend who claimed he was in love with a woman because she played the saxophone?). (page 128, Aronson, Wilson, Akert)


This causes issues for us when we make lists and then list strange things about a person (the textbook mentions a partner annoyingly smacking their gum) instead of more complex things like good chemistry. Thus if we focus on things like gum smacking, we might suddenly decide we're not really in love with our partner and break up with them, then later regret it.

And to make matters even WORSE, the authors mention a study done where men and women are startled on a bridge and the men either immediately evaluated how attracted they were to the woman or asked to evaluate after they crossed the bridge. Those that were evaluated immediately while still startled rated the women as more attractive than those who had calmed down. This "misattribution of arousal" has been found to be true in both women and men. "The moral is this:" the authors say, "If you encounter an attractive man or woman and your heart is going thump-thump, think carefully about why you are aroused - you might fall in love for the wrong reasons!" (page 135, Aronson, Wilson, Akert)