For my second paper, I would be writing about either a jazz club i worked at for 3 years or about how hip-hop and the blackout of 1977 in New York City correlate. The jazz club essay would most likely incorporate how my boss was obsessed with noise and signals. He wanted the music to be perfect which sometimes brought predicaments between band players and the sound booth. I think the episode “Noise” and “Power” would be great for that essay. I think im leaning towards the Hip-Hop essay because i love learning something new and i have a lot more to work with. The need for new equipment was crucial in the the beginning of the hip-hop era. The episodes, “Space” and “Money” would be great to incorporate into it.

One of my mother’s friends, who was a kind quirky lady, had a collection of cool books and gave me one about meditation. What made it fun were these exercises that relaxed you without having to meditate in a quiet room, with your eyes closed sitting indie style! i read a few pages and chose an exercise that seemed like a challenge, one about using the noises around you to come together and make a song, your own personal song.

In other words, listen to my surroundings and accept them instead of hearing individual noises as nuisances. At first, i honestly thought it was stupid. i didn’t enjoy meditating when there was people around or if the lights were not off or even with a candle flickering was pretty distracting. Silence and a pitch black room was a must when i wanted to meditate. I cant remember where i was but i remember what i heard. I was standing in a room and i hear the noise from outside, instantly feeling like this wont work. Cars were beeping and i remember a baby  crying but the sound of the wind blowing through trees was soothing. I chose to start with that. It took a while but once i accepted the noisy cars and the baby’s cry it wasn’t distracting. It became relaxing, the cars beeping were consistent so it became a melody and the baby’s cry was almost an ad lib. It wasn’t until the noisy cars stopped, that i was instantly out of my deep thought. Weird how things that would normally distract me during meditation became essential. It was a unique experience and i use that exercise now every time i hear a nuisance. 

                 Kehinde Wiley’s image of a black man depicting Napoleon is pretty cool!

Kehinde Wiley should be viewed as a revolutionary artist in America. 

Kehinde Wiley should be viewed as a revolutionary artist because his art elicits a glimpse of black and brown American culture in such an amazing and qualitative way, which empowers. 

Although his art may sometimes be misunderstood and controversial, it inspires many minorities and gives them a voice to be heard. 

Wiley’s image of a black man depicting Napoleon is pretty dope, but he’s recently famous for drawing a portrait of Barack Obama. Skepticism started when one of his earlier works, showed a black woman beheading a white woman which started an uproar. Certain people criticized Obama for choosing an artist that embodied racism. This infamy inspired his art to be subject to greater scrutiny and brought some people to become uneasy about what Wiley represents. 

Napoleon

President Barack Obama

Judith and Holofernes

OBEY <3

One of my favorite kinds of art is Street art. Im not a big fan of defacing a nice new building but when it expresses corporate greed or awareness ,its pretty cool. In street art, individuals want to inform the public of who the wealthy really are and what kind of power they posses. The streets have become a canvas for self expression and often inspired by the ugly truth of the rich and powerful. Today, wealthy people are depicted as greedy, ugly , spoiled and selfish which is quite the opposite of Berger’s 3rd episode of Ways of Seeing. In the episode, the main focus was how wealthy people glorified themselves and how their oil paintings expressed confidence and power. Wealth to them was defined by their luxurious life style, big properties , expensive belongings and the abundance of food. The majority of people today, depict the meaning of wealth by their freedom, integrity, importance of family and health and street art is a great platform to express that real and humble reality. Unlike the episode, some street art is used to expose those in power and show what damage they have done outside of their glorified images. It doesn’t glorify their wealth but brings to light the global issues that are neglected and the impact these greedy individuals have on the rest of the world. 

In Berger’s second episode of “ Ways of Seeing”, he said “Shame is not in relation to one another, it is the spectator looking which shames them.” Society has molded women to focus more on what they should look like in the eyes of others and more specifically in the eyes of men, and at what cost? Even though it shouldn’t matter, men believe hairy legs and hairy armpits on a woman is gross. Which I think is also why woman hate their body hair and are very insecure about it. In this day and age, women are taking a stance and believe they could do whatever they want with their appearance and choose if they want to shave or not. More and more women are rebelling against this norm. Modanna for instance, showed a picture with her armpit hair. Julia Roberts showed up at a premier in 1999 with unshaved armpits. Little by little, women are making it their choice to shave when they want and if they want. They are taking their power back ! Women are teaching women that their body hair is not gross and that their decisions shouldn’t be based on opinions of men. So thank you to the fearless women that are brave enough to walk out with hairy legs and sticking their middle fingers up showing off armpit hair!