May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor

Well...besides the horrible critical reading flashbacks, I really liked the mimesis reading that went along with The Hunger Games this week. The first time I read the series, I never saw it that way: as a commentary on our society and it's pitfalls. But reading the first novel again, and then reading that article, I can see it clearly now.

Our society has always been an entertainment society. Right from the beginning, with minstrel shows and wild west shows, up through today where reality TV is the norm. We as human beings are always seeking out a form of entertainment--something that we can use to escape from our own existence and instead immerse ourselves into the lives of someone else. I won't lie--I do this too, especially with shows like Castle. But I feel like there's a big difference between immersing myself in the lives of fictional characters and immersing myself into the lives of real people. Living, breathing human beings whose lives are on display for the entire world to see. People watch shows like Jersey Shore to make themselves feel better about the lives they lead--watching other people live outrageous lives makes you stop and go "hmm...well at least I'm not like that. At least I don't do that. My life is actually pretty normal, thank goodness."

I feel like to some degree, The Hunger Games comments on this big brother "let's watch the lives of people 24/7" phenomenon pretty well--but with a twist. Like we discussed, Collins was inspired to write this series by flipping back and forth between reality TV and war coverage. It makes me think about the way war has been media-tized...is that a word?... made media-centric in recent history. War was not always covered in the media the way it is today. It used to be just newspaper reports, and for a long time, war photography wasn't shown to the public. But now, almost every news broadcast on every channel is featuring video of war. watching war news coverage is different than, say, watching a war movie. These are real people, real soldiers, fighting and dying on our television screens. This, coupled with the reality TV cameras following around real people for entertainment, is really what makes up the underlying theme of The Hunger Games. All the people in the Capitol--and the districts--are gathered around the television, watching these people--REAL kids--kill each other. And for the Capitol (and probably the career districts too) this is for entertainment. What does this say about our society today, that we are willing to sit around the television and watch the lives of real people fall apart just because it's "entertaining?" It's really kind of dismal when you think about it.

I mean, I doubt that watching war coverage is at all entertaining for anyone, but it's the same general idea--these aren't made up characters pretending to fight in a war. They are real people fighting a real war, while we are safe at home watching coverage on TV.

I hope this makes sense. I'm kind of sitting here, typing this out, trying to make sense of these thoughts myself. I'm not sure if it's working.

Insert Sound Effects Here

I am so glad I got the opportunity to hear Marc Baird speak. Literally...I didn't know that live action movies use storyboards. I thought they were only used in animated movies and television cartoons. But after the presentation he gave, I can understand why. Visual cues make it so much easier to imagine the direction a movie is going to go.

Marc Baird is hilarious. Hands down one of the funniest people I've ever heard. It was obvious at the beginning of both presentations he gave us that he was a little nervous and unsure where to start, but give him a few minutes and he turns into a stand-up comedian who also happens to draw things.

I loved the way he discussed the transition from pen and paper to digital art. "Does it make it faster? Yes and no." Which is really true of all technology. when computers took off, everyone said that they worked so fast and they would make our lives easier and our work faster to produce. And by and large that is true. But just like Marc said, the technology also means it's possible to do more things--and so we take more time doing all those little extras that couldn't be done before. He also expressed a bit of nostalgia toward the old way of doing things--getting ink all over his hands. I think that can probably be said for a lot of things in our culture today too. Sure, being able to download books and newspapers digitally is great, but it's easy to miss the smell of a brand-new (or a very old) book when you first open it...and washing newsprint off my fingers was kind of a satisfying feeling.

I feel this way about television today too. We live in an age of DVR and internet TV, where the shows we want are literally a mouse click or button push away, 24/7. This is FANTASTIC. Trust me. But I still make it a point to park myself in front of the television at 9:59 every Monday night for Castle, just like I did as a kid, when my favorite shows would be on. There is something about that anticipation every week, that makes it important for me to experience the show right when it first airs, rather than downloading it or watching it on hulu later.

I loved the part of the presentation where he showed up the animated version of the 21 Jump Street freeway scene, and then compared it with the actual live-action sequence. It was really cool to watch the way a concept can evolve from "the page" so to speak, to the big screen. It makes me wonder what the original concept of some of my favorite Castle scenes looked like before they were filmed. also, I really desperately need to see the rest of 21 Jump Street now. so thanks for that.

All and all, I'm really glad I got to go to this shindig. Marc Baird was interesting, entertaining, and beyond funny, and being in the same room as someone who has been in the presence of some of the greatest directors in Hollywood is nothing to sneeze at. Plus, I always appreciate a good Sweeney Todd reference.

This is the moment I've been waiting for all semester...A Recap of Castle's "Cuffed" (4x10)

(I am apologizing in advance for the length of this. I had oh so very much to say, and everything seemed important. :D I just had to pick the episode laden with symbolism.)

TVLine Photo 12

Every fangirl in the Castle universe was screaming with delight and/or fainting when episode 4x10 "Cuffed" opened. The camera panned over the face of Kate Beckett, waking up with a smile next to her ruggedly handsome partner, Richard Castle. But her smile soon turned to a look of confusion as she realized that she was not "basking in the afterglow" in her partner's bed, but rather handcuffed to him in a dirty, dingy, dark basement. She rouses her partner and the two quickly realize that they've been drugged "and not the good kind," and kidnapped. Poring through their hazy memories, they recall that they had been investigating a dead body at a seedy motel.

Here, the episode flashes back to that investigation, which opens on a bickering match between ex-lovers, Medical Examiner Lanie Parish, and Detective Javier Esposito. Beckett interrupts, and the group goes over the basic information. A man, who paid for the room in cash under the name "Jack Sparrow" as been found dead in the bed, his fingerprints burned off, with signs of suffocation and a needle mark in his arm. Throughout the discussion of possible COD and the victim's identity, there is an obvious tension between Lanie and Esposito, and everyone in the room picks up on it. Espo tells the group that the camera in the lobby "is a dummy." Lanie quips under her breath: "It's not the only one." Can I just mention that Tamela and Jon have perfect facial expressions and comedic timing in this scene? Brilliant. The scene closes as Lanie agrees to try to recover the prints from the victim's fingers, and Espo heads off to help Detective Ryan run the victim's face through missing persons.

Cut back to Beckett and Castle discussing the case in the half-lit basement. While trying to figure out how they got from the case to this basement, it's obvious that the two haven't figured out their groove. Handcuffed together, they each struggle to go their own way--two opposite forces trying desperately to figure out the balance in the relationship. At this point, it's obvious that they need each other in order to function and figure a way out of this. But so far, it's not going so well. "Are you always like this in the morning?' But the bickering leads them to remember their next step: they went to the morgue to see a man about a horse...erm...to see Lanie about a dead man.

Flash back to the morgue. Castle is pestering Lanie about what she and Espo were fighting about, to which she and Beckett both respond "none of your business." Changing the subject, Lanie tells the pair that there are signs that their victim showed signs of manual labor, and that while the outer skin of his fingers was too damaged to get a print, she could try to get one from the underside. She’s also found a scrap of paper in the victim's pocket: 147 W. 97th St, 4pm. Ooh, a clue. It turns out to be the address of a cafe, and Beckett sends Ryan and Espo to check it out, and see if anyone saw their victim there. Meanwhile, Castle discovers that the address was written on the back of a scrap of envelope, and the two use the postal bar code fragment to trace the address it was sent to--a house in Queens.

On the way to check out this lead, the two have an interesting conversation about Lanie and Esposito.

Beckett: "They both want to be together, but neither of them wants to admit to it."
Castle: "Why do people do that to themselves?"
Beckett: "Maybe they just don't see it."
Castle: "How can they not? It's so obvious."

Hmm...this sounds like someone else we know. A certain detective and her ruggedly handsome partner, perhaps?

Anyway, the two enter this house in Queens to find...an empty house. Except for the crazy creepy old woman in a cage. As Beckett tries to free the woman from the cage, the creepy lady smiles, and everything goes black. It cuts back to our dynamic duo in the basement, who are realizing that this is the last thing they remember. Castle says the one line that sums my thoughts up quite nicely: "What the hell is going on?" Cue title card. Good Lord, all of this in the first 10 minutes.

Ryan and Espo are in the break room at the 12th Precinct, discussing Ryan and his fiancée Jenny's holiday plans. Ryan mentions how Jenny suggested a road trip to Florida, for quality time together. Espo scoffs at that and says it's a relationship test. "Just watch out if she wants to take you canoeing," he says.

Esposito: "It’s all about power, direction. Like a marriage. If the canoe goes straight, it shows her that you can compromise, work together, find a rhythm, move forward in the same direction. But, if it’s going around in circles? So is your relationship."

Cut back to Castle and Beckett, handcuffed together and walking around in circles, bickering. Clever. It's just another reflection of the power struggle the two are having. Each wants to take control--Beckett, because she's the cop; it's her job to go in first because she's the one with the gun. And Castle, because he is the man, and it is his job as a man to protect the woman from harm. We see this all throughout the fourth season, as he works to protect Beckett from the man who is behind her mother's murder and her subsequent sniper shooting. It's such an interesting dynamic, watching a fiercely independent female in a role versus a slightly more submissive man who wants to take the lead sometimes. In a funny display, Beckett allows Castle to lead. "Thank you...where did you want to go?" The two find a light switch and discover a giant freezer in the corner, locked with a combination lock, and a giant hatch in the ceiling.

Meanwhile, the boys are back at the precinct, and now know that their victim had been sedated with animal tranquilizers. They also have a sketch of a bearded man that a waitress saw meeting with the victim. But the two have become concerned over the whereabouts of the other half of their team, so they hit up dispatch to trace Beckett's car.

Back in the basement, Castle and Beckett attempt to move the freezer so they can climb on it and escape through the hatch, but the find it too heavy to move. So Castle, who "studied with one of the best safe crackers in the biz" while writing one of his Derrick Storm novels, decides to crack the combo lock so they can empty the freezer.

The boys discover that Beckett's car was ditched, and it wasn't by Beckett or Castle, but by a man who was then picked up in a black F-150. Captain Gates is not amused by this, and in her no-nonsense sort of way, she says to "Do whatever it takes to get an ID on that victim. And find out what in the hell he was into. If Beckett and Castle are still out there, then they’re running out of time." Dun dun dun.

Our lock breaker is having no luck opening the freezer's lock, and Beckett is getting frustrated. She asks Castle if he's got a story to explain all of this, like he always has, but he doesn't have one that ends well. He tries to cheer her up by telling her that by now, someone is looking for them, and appreciating his efforts, she smiles and gives him back her hand so he can keep trying to open the lock. Awww.

In the morgue, Espo is pressuring Lanie into getting an ID on their victim, and Lanie is frustrated by his insistence. She’s worried about Castle and Beckett too, but she doesn’t have an answer on the ID. Things get heated, and Ryan steps in to cool down the situation, and asks Lanie if there is any way she could try and get the print from the victim now, even though it hasn’t been long enough to get a good one without much damage. Lanie agrees to try.

We cut back to the basement, where Castle has finally had some success in his lock breaking—it finally opened! The two stand, and hesitate only slightly before opening the lid. “We’ve seen dead bodies before, right?” What’s inside is much worse than a dead body: it’s a freezer full of bloody knives and chains.

Beckett: “Yeah, looks like your crazed, sadistic, psycho killer theory might not be far off, Castle.”
Castle: “I don’t know whether to be smug or horrified.”
Beckett: “I vote for motivated.”
Castle: “Right there with you. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Back in the morgue, Lanie is attempting to retrieve a print, but Espo is breathing down her neck.

Lanie: “Javi, I can feel your impatience all over my backside. And rushing me is never a good idea.”
Esposito: “You’re talking about that print, right?”

Ooh, I smell some subtext here. Maybe this is why they broke up: Espo was ready to take that next step…or at least talk about it. But Lanie wasn’t quite ready for things to be too serious. In a way, this can also reflect the relationship between Castle and Beckett: Beckett isn't ready for a real relationship with anyone, let alone Castle. But unlike Espo, who has seemingly been impatient and pressuring Lanie for that more serious step, he has been patiently waiting, biding his time until she's ready to let him in.

The tension is high in the morgue, and in a split second, Lanie accidentally tears the print. But they manage to put together enough “print pieces” to match them to Hank Spooner, a truck driver who was bringing a delivery from Del Rio, Texas to Queens. They go to notify Gates, and put out an APB on his truck, and they are interrupted by the bearded man from the sketch. He is Chuck Martinez, a DEA agent investigating Spooner because he suspects he is trafficking drugs from Mexico, and wants to catch the people Spooner is working for. He was meeting with Spooner because he wanted out of whatever it was he was doing, and so Martinez had promised him safety in exchange for information. The group is then notified that his truck was found by troopers at a truck stop north of the city. They leave to investigate, and find the trailer of Spooner’s truck empty, save for a large crate with what looks like air holes in it, some hair, and a pool of blood. They are trying to figure out just what in the world Spooner was carrying in his truck, and they find weigh bills indicating that he delivered to a lower Manhattan furniture store two days prior.

Back in the basement, Castle and Beckett have moved the freezer and positioned it beneath the hatch, but it’s still too high to reach and escape through. So Beckett decides to climb onto Castle’s shoulders…while still handcuffed together. Probably not the brightest plan, but hey, they are desperate. She gets Castle to pull off her boots, so she can stand on his shoulders, and he makes a joke about how “in normal circumstances, [he’d] like where this is heading.” Beckett smirks. “Shut up and pull.” They get her boots off, and she tries to climb onto Castle’s shoulders in a humorous sequence of contorting and grunting that results in Castle suggesting that when they get out of there, they should join the circus. But she manages to get onto his shoulders, and after a quip from Castle about “getting kind of tired of [her] walking all over [him],” just manages to push the hatch open a crack. She decides to try and pull herself up, but before she can, a creepy looking dude appears and the two fall down off the freezer and onto the gross old mattress. They lay there, yelling at him to let them out, but Creepy Dude just grins evilly and slams the hatch shut again. What is with all the creepy smiling people in this episode? And seriously, what the hell is going on?

Back at the 12^th, the team has discovered that Spooner has been making legitimate deliveries in order to cover up whatever his real cargo is. The man at the furniture store said that when Spooner made the delivery to him, he could have sworn he heard breathing coming from behind some empties that Spooner claimed he had put in to fill some space. Knowing this, Gates still can’t figure out where Castle and Beckett could have gone to, seeing as how the only evidence they had at the time was the scrap of paper with the address on it. That’s when Ryan notices the postal barcode, and they realize what Castle and Beckett were on to. So they trace the address as well, and take off to find their missing partners. Ryan and Espo, along with a SWAT team, pull up to that house in Queens, but find it empty…for real, this time. But they also discover a hatch in the floor, and open it to find…nothing but a broken chair. What the…?

And we’re back to Caskett in the basement. Castle is trying to break the handcuffs apart with one of the creepy tools from the freezer (creepy is really a theme of this episode), and Beckett shakes her head, reminding him that these are police cuffs, made from hard-cased steel. Nothing but a key is going to open these. Castle suggests that there is another way: “we don’t go through the cuffs.” Of course, when he suggests cutting off a hand, he means hers, not his, because he’s a writer after all. That was a LOL moment for me. I almost would have taken this seriously, had I not found it so absurd, but maybe in desperation it’s possible they could have gone through with it. -shudders- Then, they hear voices coming from outside the basement. Two men are talking about whatever is in the next room, saying that “She’s beautiful…just like you asked.” The duo concludes that they are working in human trafficking, and are holding a girl hostage in another room. That’s when Beckett hears breathing coming from the other side of a wall made of stucco tile.

Quickly, the two begin to break through the wall, hoping that this will lead them—and whoever else is on the other side—to safety. This is a great use of symbolism in regards to Detective Beckett’s character, and probably my favorite scene of the episode. She has declared in the past that she has a wall built up inside of her, which comes from her mother being murdered and her quest for justice in the case. She said that she won't be able to let anyone in or have the kind of relationship she wants until that wall comes down. This scene is a great reflection of the effort that both she and Castle are going through in order to bring this wall down and allow the two of them to pursue what they want: a relationship with each other. However, like that metaphoric wall, this physical wall is holding a big secret. When the pair manages to break through to the other side, they find themselves in deeper trouble—it is not a victim of human trafficking, but a very hungry-looking tiger waiting on the other side. This could symbolize the danger of bringing down Beckett’s wall too soon, before the secrets both Castle and Beckett are keeping from each other are resolved.

We revisit Ryan and Espo, who uncover that the house in Queens was owned by National Bank, and whoever was behind this mess had been using properties owned by this bank to conduct their business. They manage to narrow down the properties, and head off to rescue their teammates.

Well, Castle and Beckett have discovered that it’s not human trafficking ring they’ve stumbled into, but a tiger trafficking ring. Oh so very illegal. But they have a much bigger problem on their hands. This tiger is going to break through this wall and eat them..and they have nowhere to run. Somehow, they manage to stand the freezer on end beneath the hatch, and climb up on it. But this won’t stall the tiger for long—tigers are known for jumping higher than a freezer.

But outside, Ryan and Espo have shown up, and hear the cries for help coming from a hatch in the floor of the garage they are in. Swinging the hatch open, they find Castle and Beckett, standing handcuffed together on top of a freezer, while a tiger circles them hungrily. But before they can rescue their partners, the boys are confronted by the creepy cage woman brandishing a shotgun, and her two dopey, creepy counterparts--also with guns. The hatch slams closed again, and Castle and Beckett are left calling for help, while the boys figure their way out of this mess.

Creepy Cage Lady (whose name is Ruth): “You New Yorkers ain’t nearly as scary as a Texas lawman. That being said, I’m betting more of you gonna be here soon. Let me tell you what’s going to happen. Me and my boys are gonna back on outta here. You either get yourselves killed trying to stop us or you can forget all about us and you can go save your friends. That’s your choice.”

Obviously, the boys let Creepy Cage Lady and her cohorts go, but when they open the hatch…Castle and Beckett are gone. Detective Ryan looks stricken.“Oh God. It ate ‘em.” Seamus Dever’s delivery here was flawless. So funny. I just want to squeeze the stuffing out of him. But don’t worry, our dynamic duo is just fine…they're just simply hanging around. Literally. They’re hanging from a pole running along the basement’s ceiling. Ryan and Espo haul them out off-screen, and the fab four are reunited once again.

Meanwhile, Creepy Cage Lady and her bros are in a pickup truck, pulling out to escape—only they come face to face with a whole team of NYPD officers ready to take them down. Reluctantly, they surrender. Score for the cavalry.

Cut back to our hostages and their rescuers. Espo is unlocking the cuffs, and freeing Castle and Beckett from their bond, and the four have an interesting conversation:

Ryan: “Handcuffed together that long? I’m surprised you two didn’t kill each other.”
Beckett: “Yeah well, there were a couple of moments.”
Castle: “Until we found our rhythm.”
Ryan: “…I think we’ll fly to Florida.”

And it all comes full-circle.
The episode ends back at the 12^th, with a sum-up of Creepy Cage Lady’s operation. Turns out, her cohorts were actually her sons, and they were tiger suppliers to clients all over the world. Tiger trafficking is illegal…practically everywhere but Texas, so Ruth and her sons paid Spooner to smuggle the tigers out of Texas and into New York. But when they found out he was talking to the DEA and wanted out, they killed him to cover up the secret. That’s why when Castle and Beckett showed up, she played the victim to get the drop on them, so that they couldn’t uncover the truth. Martinez says that while he’s turning over the trafficking case to the FBI, he’ll leave the murder charge to the NYPD. Satisfied, the team calls it a day. In the final exchange of the episode, Castle makes a Freudian slip:

Beckett: “That has got to be the strangest brush with death that I’ve ever had.”
Castle: “Me too. But I’ll tell ya. After that experience, if I ever have to be hitched to someone, it would be you.”
Beckett: “Hitched?”

Oops.

Castle: “Hitched? No, I didn’t say hitched. I said cuffed. Handcuffed, not hitched, the colloquial or any connotation or meaning.”
Beckett: “It’s okay, Castle. I understood what you meant. And for what it’s worth, if I have to spend another night handcuffed to someone again, I wouldn’t mind if it was you, either.”
Castle: “Really?”
Beckett: “But next time, let’s do it without the tiger.”
Castle: “Next time?”

Thus giving all the fangirls out there hope that someday…possibly soon…the Caskett ship will finally sail. ^.~

This entire episode was symbolic of what it takes to make a partnership—or relationship—work. Really, it was meant to move along the Castle/Beckett relationship subplot in a fun, subtextual way. Everything about this plot screamed subtext. From the mirroring of the Lanie/Espo relationship and the Ryan/Jenny relationship against the Castle/Beckett relationship, right down to the way that Castle and Beckett were handcuffed together: left hand to left hand—could it be foreshadowing of wedding rings in the future? One can only hope. Big props to Andrew W. Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller, the real-life husband and wife team who brought this episode to life. I don’t know how you do it.


---
I don't tend to read a lot of Castle recaps done on professional websites, because I prefer to read the liveblogging and recaps done by people I interact with daily in the Castle fandom. The official recaps on the ABC site are kind of...stale, so when I do want to read a professional recap, I usually turn to the ones that Matt Webb Mitovich does on TVLine. (This link is to his recap of the season 5 premiere, "After the Storm") I love TVLine. anything that Michael Ausiello is involved with is fantastic, and TVLine is his site. (Michael, if you're reading this, I'd love a job working for you!). Matt's aren't usually as in-depth as the ones that we saw on TelevisionWithoutPity for Mad Men, but he usually hits the key points pretty well. Another recap I found that I really liked was this one on EW's PopWatch by Sandra Gonzalez (she is reviewing Season 4's finale, "Always"). I really liked hers because it had a real conversational flare to it, like I was just chatting with one of my fandom friends. Hers went a little more in-depth than Matt's, but still not as detailed as TWP. Honestly...the ones that my friends do in the fandom are more detailed and in-depth than the professional ones I've found. (Of course, I can't find a link to any of those when I'm looking--it isn't Castle Recovery Tuesday, after all. That's when they all come out haha.)

One thing is for sure: I have SO MUCH more respect for recappers who do this every week for their shows. I didn't expect this to take as long as it did, and it was so much harder than I expected it to be. I don't know how they do it, but to all the recappers out there: I salute you.


I think I'll stick to liveblogging.

Country isn't country anymore...or is it?

Please pardon this blog post: I've been sick this past week, and only now starting to feel a little more like myself and able to catch up on the things I've missed in classes. So this blog is...not exactly the best writing ever. haha. But, it's most definitely one of my favorite topics. Instead of delving into the world of comic culture, I think I'm gonna stick with a topic I actually know something...anything about--music.

I am preparing myself for the merciless mocking that will abound when I admit to you, dear readers, that I am a country music fan. Always have been, always will be. I always used to get a lot of grief for loving me some fiddle and some steel guitar, and ignoring whatever hip-hop noise that was coming from KISS 98.5. Like most fans of a particular genre, I have my favorites, but I have found that my favorites seem to span multiple time periods in country. I like my Patsy Cline, my Johnny Cash, my George Strait, my Reba, Garth and Trisha. There's Tim McGraw and Martina McBride and Faith Hill. And then of course you have your Jason (Aldean), Carrie (Underwood), Lady Antebellum, Miranda (Lambert) and Taylor (Swift).

What's funny to me is reading comments from older generation country fans who blast today's country stars for not being country. "Why is she being played on country radio," one commenter on a WYRK Facebook post stated. "She isn't even country!" You could insert any artist's name in that statement, because someone is always complaining about how today's country artists are too "pop" for country radio. But what makes country music country? Is it a certain combination of instruments or a certain lyrical content?

I find this funny because music--in any genre--is always changing and evolving. If you choose any genre, (let's just use R&B, for lack of a better example) and you play the number one song of the year one right after another spanning 10 years (or more, if you feel ambitious) you will hear a definite change in sound, in style, in lyrical content. This happened in the realm of classical composers as they moved through eras from Renaissance, to Baroque, to Classical, then Romantic and into the 20th century. Listen to a piece by Josquin des Prez (Renaissance), and then a piece by Vivaldi (Baroque), and then follow it up with some Bach and Mozart (Classical), Beethoven (Classical/Romantic), Brahms (Romantic) and Schoenberg (20th century). You will hear a definite shift in the sound and the content of each work.

Why? Because of changes in society, changes in Philosophical ideas, and changes in art itself. No matter what art form you look at, be it visual and fine arts, music, literature or what have you, it will evolve and change--not to mention the ways in which art tends to crossover/merge with other "genres" or "eras" of art.

How is this any different that what has happened in pop music--particularly country? Country music started in the early 1900s with a bluegrass sound, and became popular in the 50s and 60s with a honky-tonk sound dubbed "the Nashville sound"--the sound that Patsy Cline and Hank Williams were known for. But there were also artists like Elvis Presley and The Everly Brothers who were performing with a "rockabilly" sound. Both sounds were covered under the umbrella of "country," but (almost predictably) one sound had more "popular" crossover success. In the 60s, there was also a development of folk music, which was a more politically driven branch-genre--there was a lot of country in it, but the lyrical content was different. This developed out of the cultural and political turmoil of the time.

There were also changes, evolutions and branch-offs of country in the 70s and 80s, with "outlaw country" artists like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Hank Williams Jr. I'm sure that the country artists and fans of the 50s and 60s looked at these new outlaws as rebellious, both to society and to the genre itself. I'd even bet that statements like "they aren't country" were made about these artists. But it was just another evolution of the music--in response to the climate of society and the dying-out of the folk movement. In the 90s, we had our first real "country-pop" crossover successes, with artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain.This wasn't a new genre; it was simply an evolution of country music, following the pattern of continuous evolution that came before it. This evolution has continued into the 2000s and to today, with new country artists continuing to top the charts and evolve their sound.

Has country music gotten more "poppy?" Well...yeah, it has. If you listen to a Patsy Cline record, and follow it up with a Taylor Swift track, you'll hear definite differences. But this is true of any genre. So does that make today's country not country anymore? I'd argue no: that country music's sound has changed and evolved, but just because it doesn't sound the same as it did in the 60s--or even the same as it did 10 years ago--doesn't mean it isn't still country. We've seen this same evolution in art, in poetry, in literature--even in comic books. (How's that for a connection, huh?)

I want to end this blog post with a fantastic video I just found that shows an evolution of women in country music from the 1950s to today. I think it depicts this evolution of this one genre really well--and does it by focusing on the female artists. Plus, it has some of my favorite songs/artists in it. Yay!

The 80s freak me out.

Not kidding. I think I've unconsciously avoided the 80s in my study of popular music history. I've hit the 50s, 60s and 70s pretty hard, and then I skipped to the 90s (with the exception of Guns 'N Roses. "November Rain" is my all-time favorite song. Maybe. That's actually not a safe statement to make, because I have a new favorite song every day). I don't know a lot about 80s music or 80s culture for that matter, so this was really eye-opening for me.

I've seen the big hair and the brightly colored leggings and sweatbands. But other than that, I've seen very little of the 80s. Oh, and acid-washed jeans and Farrah Fawcett hair, as seen here on my father and mother, respectively:

(To be fair, this was Christmas 1990, but still 80s accurate. My mother will kill me for this. :D)

Just in general, all of these music videos had a really futuristic look to them. Tom Petty's 'spaceship car thing,' and the crazy weird test-tube lady in "Video Killed the Radio Star" are just two examples. Even in terms of the sound, it was all really futuristic...a lot of synthesizer versus other traditional pop music instruments. In thinking about other 80s pop culture happenings, they too, were futuristic: the Back to the Future trilogy (one of the few 80s things that doesn't freak me out entirely), and even Star Wars (which granted, started in 1977, but the trilogy concluded in the early 80s).

I think a lot of this futurist focus is coming unconsciously from the rise and development of postmodernism. A lot of the artificiality of the 80s style seems to be a projection of what people imagined the world becoming. The site about postmodernism states that postmodernism was "an intentional movement...to subvert what is seen as dominant in modernism." One of the dominant ideas in the era of modernism was that of "progress through science and technology." America was fighting to become more technologically advanced than some of our international rivals, particularly the Soviet Union, as this was smack-dab in the middle of the Cold War era. Thus, if postmodernism was attempting to subvert this dominant idea, then a criticism and skepticism of technology was to be expected in the postmodernism movement. I think this skepticism was depicted nicely in a lot of the music videos we were given as examples of the 80s. A lot of the futuristic details presented in these videos were exaggerated--depicting just how skeptical people were about the rise of technology.

Specifically focusing on "Video Killed the Radio Star," the lyrics were actually supposed to be about the technological changes occurring starting in the 60s, and nostalgia for the past. It was about the way in which the development of television had completely changed the face of entertainment, and had "killed" the old-timey radio shows, because now people could watch the action instead of just listening and imagining it.

"I heard you on the wireless back in '52 / Lying awake intent at tuning in on you / If I was young it didn't stop you coming through....They took the credit for your second symphony / Rewritten by machine and new technology / and now I understand the problems you can see...Video killed the radio star / Pictures came and broke your heart...In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone too far / Pictures came and broke your heart, put the blame on VTR."

(VTR is the abbreviation for video tape recorder)

I think that the development of MTV and the music video was another facet to this change: a focus on the visual rather than on the audible. Before music videos, people could listen to a song, and imagine their own story or scenario in their minds. But music videos brought with them visual interpretations of songs, which in a way, dictated the way people could view the "story" behind a song.

For me, this idea connected to a lecture from my Romanticism and Music class. We discussed how in the romantic era, there was a huge debate about program music vs absolute music. If you don't know anything about music history, basically program music was music that told a story through the instrumental music--and then the composer would add a "program," or a description of what was going on and what the audience should listen for. This got all the neo-Classicist composers up in arms because they thought that it was always supposed to be up to the audience as to what they "saw" or felt through the music. In absolute music, the instrumental music may or may not actually represent anything, and what it did convey certainly wasn't dictated to the audience through a program. These neo-Classicist staunch supporters of absolute music felt that adding a program to the compositions was giving the composer too much control over what their audience was going to think about.

As I was reading about postmodernism and the 80s, and watching these videos, I started to see music videos as the modern-day equivalent to program music. It's like people can listen to a song on the radio, and the music will evoke certain thoughts or feelings or scenes in their minds. But then they watch the music video, and see the artist's interpretation of the song--and suddenly, every time they hear that song, they are seeing the music video, the artist's interpretation, instead of their own.

I find it really ironic that the video for this song--a commentary on the effect of television--was one of the first videos to be broadcast on MTV. I don't know that the Buggles were trying to comment on music videos as all with the release of this one, because I know the focus of the song was about television in the 60s (and especially since they didn't write the song or record it first), but I think that the message of the song can be applied to the development of music videos. I also think that the amount of "futuristic technology" depicted in the video was a great illustration of the postmodern skepticism about the rise of technology, and what would happen to the future of this country if we kept moving forward technologically.

Although...I'm still disappointed we don't have any of those cool things people thought we'd have, like hoverboards or hovercrafts or crazy spaceship houses like on The Jetsons (which was created in the 60s, but was further produced for syndication in the 80s). But it's not 2062 yet, so we can still hold out hope!

Can I get an Amen?

I was having another sleepless night a few nights ago, and HGTV was not showing my usual sleepy-time fare. E! didn't even have anything good on worth mocking. So in my late-night stupor, I flipped through channel after channel of late night talk shows, old reruns, and paid advertisements until...I saw it. The televangelist channel! Actually, I don't think it's actually a whole channel devoted to televangelists, but at that moment in time, someone was on my screen, excitedly stomping and screaming about salvation.

I grew up in a Christian household. We went to church most every Sunday, and I learned all the old bible stories about Noah and Jonah and Daniel and David. I knew about God, and the birth of Christ, and His crucifixion and resurrection. But I went to a community church in middle of nowhere Stockton: non-denominational, filled with a bunch of old ladies, an out-of-tune choir, and a service that would put you to sleep on Sunday morning. This a complete contrast to the fire and brimstone preaching style of televangelists.

In class, the description of Tent Revivals reminded me a lot of this late-night televangelist I saw. At these tent revivals, the preacher would pour all his energy and emotion into his message, and make bold declarations about the state of your soul if you did not listen to him and heed his advice, which had come directly from a divine being. Both the preacher, and those in the audience would be overwhelmed with emotion, and many times claim to see divine visions. There were times even when audience members present at these revivals would be overcome with the presence of the Lord, and faint. In many ways, these tent revivals were less like church services and more like over-the-top performances. Isn't that what many of these televangelists are doing, putting on a performance to make a buck? I have no doubt that many of these television preachers are believers in what they preach, but by putting themselves on television and in front of an audience, it seems to take away some of the authenticity of the message and turn it more into a public spectacle.

And then, of course, are the "magic cure-alls" that according to the reading, peddlers would sell at these Tent Revivals (as well as at medicine shows) that they claim would solve all your problems. They relied on influence over the spectators at these shows, in order to convince them that their products would work and provide a "magical transformation"...much in the same way that the revival preachers relied on their influence over the crowd to gain followers of their teachings. In this way, both peddlers are revivalist preachers were the gatekeepers between reality and the supernatural world, and they held the key that would unlock that passageway for the spectators.

Today, televangelists claim to have the same answers, preaching through the television set and then attempting usually to sell something--a book or a video, or even audio recordings--which offers spiritual advice, and which they claim hold the answer to salvation. (Somehow, I think televangelists have forgotten that the answer to salvation is in the Bible, but I digress...) They use their influence over their audience in order to sell their own "magical cure-all" product and make money off of desperate people searching for answers.

In this article, an episode of Richard Roberts' "The Place for Miracles" is being described where Roberts is asking his viewers to "plant a $1,000 seed" ...by buying a prayer cloth he prayed over that is meant to fix all your problems. It also links to a funny YouTube video that cuts this episode's clips with reaction shots from Star Trek. (Side note: Roberts was convicted of DWI in January 2012).

Here are some other crazy televangelist clips:


And sometimes...they use free offers to rope you in.



It is evident that the Tent Revival phenomenon has not died out, but has instead just moved to a different medium--television. These broadcasts, as well as shows like The 700 Club are, in my opinion, offensive to the religion. I feel like these so-called preachers aren't teaching anything, or inspiring people to become Christians--they are simply scamming people who have fallen for their schemes in hopes that they will find some magical fix for whatever problems they may be having.

I don't really know how to end this blog, so I'll leave you with this fantastic video of a preacher with his foot wayyy in his mouth:


...I love the internet.

Blackface and Whiteface. Why, Bob Dylan?

I just gotta write this down so I don't forget. Maybe I'll come back to these thoughts at some point.

Today in my Romanticism and Music class, we were discussing Bob Dylan, and his 1970s "Love and Theft" project. Prof. Brady brought up Blackface minstrelsy and the reasons behind it. Besides being racially motivated and mockingly prejudiced, she also talked about the way that these minstrels, a lot of the time, tended to be some of the lowest of the low on the totem pole. And what is the way to make yourself better when you are at the low end of the food chain? Make fun of anyone who might be lower: in this case, the African Americans, both freed and slaves.

This discussion led into a video clip of Bob Dylan performing circa 1975 on his Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Revue? That sounds more like a carnival or variety show, not a tour. In this clip, Bob Dylan was singing "Tangled Up in Blue," complete with different lyrics, and he had put on Whiteface. Yes...Whiteface. What kind of statement could "The Dylan" have been making by putting on Whiteface in a show that came 10 or so years after he was booed off stage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival for going electric? Also, keeping in mind that after his 3 song electric set in '65, he returned alone and played acoustic in order to appease the crowd.

Hmm...I have a whole mess of thoughts on this, none of which are organized enough for a blog post. I'll have to think on this and come back in a few days to make some connections.

So many of the concepts between these two classes are overlapping. I was pulling them together on Tuesday when we discussed spirit photography, the mysterious and a fascination with death. Oy.

Anyway, my assigned blog post is to come. Stay tuned. ^_^

In the meantime, have some Dylan. 

Howdy, Partner...

I didn't really know what to expect in going to Bill's Gun and Saddle Shop. My mother knew exactly the place I was talking about when I mentioned the place, although she had never been there. When I mentioned it to my best friend, she excitedly told me that Bill's shop was the place she bought her first pistol. I, however, had no idea that the place even existed, even after living in this town for 22 years, and going to the Rodeo several summers in my childhood.

It was a cute little western town, although I suppose the towns in Buffalo Bill Cody's day were a little bigger...but what impressed me most was that saddle collection that Bill showed us. To think that there is a chance that one of those saddles was actually used in a Buffalo Bill show, maybe even by Annie Oakley...who knows what kinds of stories those other saddles could tell, if they could talk. I noticed the one I was standing in front of was dated 1870, and labeled "The Oldest Saddle I Have." There is over 140 years of history in that room of 100+ saddles.

I've always been kind of a local history geek, so when Lucile led us into her little western bank and told us that the wall behind her had been a part of the old Sinclairville bank, I felt my geek-alert going off. She showed us the old doctor's bag from Cassadaga, and I had heart palpitations. I know it sounds a little silly, but this place is home for me.

I thought the stagecoach was really neat, and the craftsmanship was really incredible. Lucile pointed out that their stagecoach was an Eastern style one, so I got curious about the difference between Eastern and Western style stagecoaches. Simply put, Eastern style stagecoaches were more structured, with hard sides, windows and usually a hard top. Western style stagecoaches were like the ones you see when playing the Oregon Trail (in which every member of my virtual family usually dies of diphtheria or smallpox before we reach our destination): they are more like the "covered wagon" style. There are many more distinctions depending on the job of the stagecoach or the type of terrain being traversed. There were several pictures, and some information here.

I only wish I'd had the opportunity to see them back in their hey-day when I was a kid. I like to imagine it being like a live episode of Bonanza, although Bill commented that Hollywood had really blown the western and cowboy culture way out of proportion, so their show was probably more historically accurate than Bonanza was. It was obvious that Bill and Lucile put a lot of thought and a lot of work into their little western town, and that above all, they really enjoyed the hobby and sharing information about the Wild West and Cowboy Culture with anyone who wanted to know.

I found a nice little write-up about Bill and Lucile, and their last show on the Observer's website.

My Secret Love Affair with E!

I'm the kind of person who has a hard time falling asleep at night. I always have been. And it's on those nights when insomnia takes control and my pillow has that one lump that hits in just the wrong spot, that I click the television remote and watch that blue glow brighten my bedroom. Really, this late at night there are only two choices of programming that turn my brain to -off- mode. One is HGTV: Property Brothers, House Hunters, Property Virgins, Holmes on Homes...I lay there and fantasize about finally moving out, escaping from my parents, buying a house, decorating it and filling it with overstuffed armchairs--and cats. (But not like on Animal Hoarders because that's just...not humane. And kind of really gross). Pretty soon, I find myself in peaceful slumber.

But on nights when I'm seeking something a little more edgy, a little more raw and filled with something besides crown molding and granite, I head straight for the network named after entertainment...E!. Pretty soon, I'm lost in a world of tabloids and affluent stupidity, people like the Kardashians and the Jonas Brothers, and the subsequent mocking of people like the Kardashians and the Jonas Brothers, and it fills me with a guilty sort of glee. For a little while, I get to watch the lives of crazy people unfold, experience their drama, and their humor--and for a little while, step out of my own life. And then, I get to watch other people pick these people's lives apart, find humor in some of the stupidity and turn the real lives of real people into some sort of laughing-stock. And I find it funny, even when sometimes, it's really not.

I think it's some sort of guilty pleasure we as human beings have: this need to take the focus off our own lives and hone in on the lives of someone else, someone who has, by choice or by force, thrown themselves into the spotlight. And I feel like maybe that is where pop culture came from--a need for escapism from our own day-to-day lives, by turning the lives of others into entertainment.

It's not to say that these people featured in the tabloids deserve to have their lives made into a mockery, because no one actually deserves to be made fun of. But those in the celebrity spotlight have chosen this sort of life; they've chosen to put their lives on display, by choosing to live life within the scope of a camera lens. By allowing cameras to film your every move on a reality show, or by becoming some sort of entertainer, you are opening up your every move to criticism by the public--and the public can be cruel.

This sort of mockery is different from what came out of minstrel shows and blackface. With this form of entertainment, white performers were making a mockery of a whole race of people: a race of people who did not choose this lifestyle for themselves.  It's not as if African American slaves said "hey, look at me! Why don't you white folks dress up like me and paint your faces black and make fun of me all across the country!" They didn't agree to being in the public eye, or sign a contract to a reality show--they were simply living their lives, as best as they could in an oppressive, racist environment, and white men decided that making fun of them was a fantastic way to entertain themselves. And seeing the way some celebrities respond to negative, mocking tabloid articles about them today, I can only imagine how African Americans may have felt about the mockery back then.

When it comes to shows like Chelsea Lately and The Soup, buttons are pushed and boundaries are sometimes overstepped, but I don't think it is done with any sort of real malicious intent. Hosts of these shows don't ever set out to purposely hurt someone. But I feel like the motivations behind blackface minstrel shows were very different. The mockery of African Americans came directly from racism and bigotry, and were meant as hatred first and entertainment second.

The Soup will still probably be a late-night guilty indulgence, because, let's face it: some people do some really stupid, funny things. But it is important to remember that celebrities or not, these are real people, with real human emotions, and still deserve basic respect--a kind of respect that an entire race of people never got, when they were being mocked for simply being who they were.