Sample Essays

Sometimes it can be very helpful to read another essay on the same topic that you have chosen. Below is a list of essays written in response to the "Writing Picks," from The Decisive Writer. We have sorted them by category, so you can find what you need quickly:

 

Writing to Share a Personal Experience

Thanksgiving September 13, 2005

by Kristen K. Polster

My husband cannot stand to throw anything away. This is a habit that borders on the pathological. Our garage fills with empty soda bottles, beer cans, boxes, spray bottles, and other domestic debris once every six weeks or so, and then we spend a sweaty, angry Saturday in the mandatory cleaning process to make room for the inevitable rebirth of the pile six weeks later. We are pretty sure our house has begun generating the junk independently of our own efforts. It is a miracle of science and nature.

A related habit that emerged fairly early in our marriage was the stockpiling of bottle caps and-as soon as we could afford decent bottles of wine-wine corks in the kitchen drawer next to the refrigerator. For three or four years I would faithfully clear these abundant piles from around my measuring spoons and spatulas as soon as they began to obstruct kitchen business. I thought this was perhaps one of the most annoying habits any husband could have, and I gritted my teeth just a little each time I emptied the drawer of its happy remains. Looking back, it was such a trivial complaint, the sort of toothpaste-tube/toilet-seat-type of argument that married people are supposed to have. But at the time it really mattered.

I hated the drawer, and I wasn't sure I liked being married all that much either. My husband is from Ohio, and was suffering culture shock here in Dallas. He didn't understand my family or my friends. He couldn't relate to any of them, so he drank a little too much instead. I was too young and selfish to feel anything but embarrassment about this. He saved these scraps just like his dad always had, to try and exercise some control over his surroundings. He couldn't let anything go. I was twenty-five years old, and he was twenty-seven. We had been married for three years. We lived in an apartment five minutes from the house where I grew up. I taught English at a nearby suburban high school. I loved my husband, but did not think my life was interesting. That drawer of corks was just more domestic clutter.

My friends had done things after college. Some moved to Los Angeles; some moved to New York; some traveled to Europe and Asia. None of them got married. Only one wanted to, my childhood friend Cristy. She only wanted to get married, and felt like an old maid at twenty-four. When she married John at age twenty-five, she wanted to live a few blocks from her parents, have babies, and stay at home to raise them. I thought she was crazy. Her husband-to-be was good-looking, and he fit in perfectly with her family. He had met her father at a water-skiing tournament, and her father actually set them up. John was also rich. He was a real-estate developer from a real-estate family. They were not rolling quarters for gas like we were.

Her family was a little too proud of the perfection they saw in both of them. They were conservative, Religious Right types, and they were smug that Cristy, even at the ripe old age of 25, had found the kind of man they would have picked for her. This was the ambition that Cristy's parents had for her, and she aimed to please. I was just a little bitter about their happiness, if not hers.

She is the sort of person for whom you can still stand to be happy even when her life seems unbearably perfect. They got married in July, 1998. The other bridesmaids and I wore nauseating Pepto-pink gowns in her wedding. Only television photography could have added more weight to the bridal party. We joked about the dresses behind her back, and we called her and John "Barbie and Ken" to her face. She didn't mind. We gave her hell at the bachelorette party-the world's last virtuous woman-and it was funny. And that was that-I went home to the conventional life for which I was so ungrateful, and Cristy and John went on with theirs.

John died on Thanksgiving Day, 1999. Fifteen months after the wedding, the bridal party had to return to Houston for John's funeral. It was at the same church where they had gotten married. No pink dresses this time. No jokes. No justice in the world. So there we were, in our mid- twenties, watching a friend bury her husband. There had been an accident.
He took his brother's new motorcycle for a quick spin around the block and never came back. She held his dead body in her lap by the curb for half an hour before the ambulance arrived. We didn't know what to do for her, about this, about anything.

Cristy's birthday is almost always the week of Thanksgiving, and this year it had been the day before. The flowers John gave her for her birthday were still alive almost a week after the funeral. She couldn't bear to throw them away. She couldn't erase his voice from the answering machine, or empty his trash, or throw away the rotting groceries from the last trip they had made to the store. She sought to preserve everything- particularly the things that had already begun to drive her nuts so early in the marriage-the disorganized piles of papers in his office, the unbalanced checkbooks from three different business accounts, the unpaid speeding tickets on the floorboard of his car.

For about a month, I talked to Cristy every day. We spent a weekend in Galveston watching happy movies, drinking margaritas. We discovered that films without weddings or funerals are hard to find. For about a month, I woke up in the middle of the night and checked to make sure my (perfectly healthy) husband was still breathing. For about a month, I forgot about everything in the garage and everyone in more exciting places. Then, as tends to happen, everything fell back into its old patterns. Our garage is cluttered again. The cork drawer (that's all it is now-no room for anything else) in our kitchen has overflowed into the cabinets of pots and pans beneath the stove, and every time I try to close it, I hear a small avalanche pelting the dusty wok and unused fondue pot we got as wedding gifts over a decade ago. I used to pretend I was going to make a bulletin board out of those corks, but now I just save them because I know who put them there. And I'm glad.

 

 

Naïve Trust

by Kristie Riley

The long awaited day arrived at last; I was finally moving out of my mother's house and into a dorm room. For years I yearned to be out of my overprotective mother's reach, and at last my independence day had come. My room was being converted into a study, and everything I was not taking to the university had to be pared down and relocated. After working together all week, my mom asked me to sort through my crowded closet and move anything that I wanted to the attic; I was more than happy to oblige her final request.

My room is the perfect shade of sky, painted that beautiful color as a present for my fifteenth birthday. The walls look odd and lonely without their familiar pictures and posters. The carpet is dingy and brown, obviously cleaner in the square my bed covered just days ago. A sigh escapes my lips as I face the jam-packed closet; digging through my childhood will be no easy task. Stuffed creatures long forgotten smile their yarny smiles at me, begging to be saved from the Salvation Army box. Jenga and Guess Who have missing pieces and therefore must go. Carnival bears and quarter machine toys join the dilapidated games. Eager to be finished, my furious pace spares few relics. Finally, I pull the last trash bag of toys from the closet. Ten pounds of cotton and plastic are all that stand between me and a fun night out with my boyfriend. I tear open the dust-covered bag and stop: stop moving, stop blinking, stop breathing. My mind melts, and I am no longer a confident and independent woman; I am a little girl of six, and this is my best friend Cindy Sparkles.

The phone rings. Through my room's thin white walls, I hear my mother come out of the bathroom to answer it. My mouth tastes of mint and my Cabbage Patch nightgown smells like clean laundry. The house is chilly, and I am eager to climb into my bed. As I pull back the Strawberry Shortcake comforter, my mom's voice calls me into her room. Her hands are shaking a little, and her eyes are full of tears. "There is someone on the phone who wants to talk to you," she says with a trembling voice.

The receiver is heavy in my small hand.

"Hello?"

"Hi Kristie. Do you know who this is?" The man's voice is unfamiliar to me. "This is your Daddy."

"Hi!" I immediately exclaim. Excitedly, a flurry of questions spill from my lips. "Where are you? What are you doing? Are you coming to see me? Guess what? We went to Grandma's today and I helped make eggs!"

"So...it sounds like you had a good Thanksgiving. Christmas is coming soon, you know. Are you excited about Christmas?"

"I can't wait!" Turning to my mother I ask "Mommy, how many days until Christmas?" She did not answer my question; tears still lingered in her eyes.

"Well, Kristie, I can't be there to see you on Christmas, but I'm going to send you a present. What would you like more than anything else this year?"

"Oh, Daddy! I want a Cindy Sparkles doll. She's so pretty. She has glitter in her hair and her dress is pink and she lights up! And she..."

"She sounds real nice. I'll find one and mail it out just for you. Now let me talk to your mom."
"Ok, Daddy. Bye!" I hand the phone to my mom and skip to my room, repeating merrily in my head "I'm getting Cindy Sparkles...I'm getting Cindy Sparkles." My mother is there soon after to bring me back to reality.

"Kristie, that man on the phone was your Daddy. Do you remember him?" Her voice is quiet and her eyes are serious.

"Um..." Thinking back, I find one lone memory of the man who abandoned us three years prior. "Yeah, I remember. He's gonna send me Cindy Sparkles, Mommy! She's coming in the mail! When will she get here?"

"Kristie...I don't know." She sits on my bed, thinking. I don't know why she is so sad; Cindy Sparkles is coming! I hop on the bed with her and lean in close. "She's coming, Mommy," I whisper. She says nothing as she hugs me tight.

Days, then weeks, slowly go by. Every day I run to our mailbox, searching in vain for that little slip of paper telling me that Cindy Sparkles has arrived safely and is waiting for me at the post office; that important little piece of paper never comes. On Christmas Eve, I ask my mom where Cindy could be.

"Well, Kristie, you can't believe everything that people tell you. I'm sorry, but your Daddy lied. He's not a very good man." She looks away, hiding her face from my view.

Her words are confusing.

My next question is obvious: "Why? Why did he lie? Is he mad at me? Doesn't he like me?"

"I like you, Kristie. You are a very special girl, and I love you so very much. You can always trust me."

The next morning, Cindy Sparkles is waiting for me underneath the Christmas tree; her tag reads "To: Kristie, From: Mom." My excitement builds as Uncle Don scours the house for "AA" batteries. When I finally hold her in my hands and see her light up, she is everything I thought she would be. As I run from person to person proudly displaying my new friend, my weeks of disappointment fade away.

Holding the dusty doll in my hands, Cindy Sparkles becomes so much more to me than an outgrown Christmas gift; she is a lesson learned about who I can really trust in this world. I smooth down her rumpled dress and gather back her still sparkly blond hair. She smiles back at me as I gently place her in the keep box. She is one toy I will keep forever.

 

 

Rent to Own

by Ash Bowen

Rent-to-Own In 1991, after two lackluster semesters of bong studies at the
University of Arkansas, my father thought I needed a gentle reminder about an agreement we'd made. During the long lecture, he made several key points, all of which he emphasized by whapping a cigarette against his gold lighter.

"See this lighter?" he began. I nodded. "They don't just give out gold lighters, you know."

Whap.

The management of the iron works plant where he had worked for over 20 years had given him the lighter in an informal gathering during his last shift, and over time, the lighter became a metaphor for personal responsibility--his favorite topic whose application was seemingly limitless. If I didn't take out the garbage, I got to see the gold lighter. If I wrecked the car, I got to see the gold lighter. This time the gold lighter was about my grades.

Our agreement had been that my father would fork over the dough for my college education as long as I performed to his expectations. Based on the number of times he had whipped out that lighter in my lifetime, I suspected his expectations weren't very high. But I was wrong.

That afternoon my grades had arrived, and he held my freshly delivered disappointment card and brought down his cigarette on the edge of the lighter. I jumped.

"These sure are some piss-poor grades," he said. I winced when I thought of the D's and F's I knew he was seeing.

"CVR. You did manage to get a C in that one," he muttered. He continued to study my grades. "What kind of class is CVR anyway?"

I shrugged. "It's kind of like a P.E. class." He lowered the report card and stared at me. "You mean I dropped three grand so you could make a C in kickball?"

What could I say? The class hadn't involved kicking any balls, only that I lift weights and walk on a treadmill, neither of which I had done. The heaviest thing I had lifted all year was the road-kill coyote I found and lugged back to my dorm where I tied one end of a rope around its neck and the other end around the doorknob of my best friend's door. With the coyote in place, I pounded on his door and shouted, "Open, up! I'm going to kick your ass!" When he yanked open the door, the coyote went sliding into his room. This went on all night, this knocking and coyote-sliding, as I, with each successive victim in tow, continued from dorm room to dorm room.

My father's whapping continued but to my surprise, he finally lighted the cigarette he'd been pounding into submission. Usually this meant the lecture was over. This time, however, things were different. He talked. He talked some more, and then he explained that he'd gotten me a job as a delivery boy/repo man for the local rent-to-own business his friend Al owned.

"If you're going to be a dumbass," he told me, "you're going to have a dumbass's job and quit wasting everyone's time and my money."

He reached into this shirt pocket and tossed me a slip of paper. Written on it was my first week's schedule as an employee of Al's Al-right Rentals.

My first day on the job was like a step back in time. Al walked around the store with an icy glass of bourbon in his hand. I followed him upstairs to his office where he introduced me to his "girls," the women who answered the phones and took care of renting the appliances and furniture.

"And back here is where you'll be working," he said as he led me into a curtained-off back room where I met Dudley, the man who was to be my supervisor.

Al made a production of introducing us, saying Dudley was his "man in the field" and clapping him on his slightly curved back.

"More like a mule in the field," Dudley said when Al breezed back through the curtains toward the showroom.

Dudley gave me the once-over. "So you that college boy Al bringing on to try and straighten out?" I shrugged and suddenly felt embarrassed. "Al says you studying P.E. up there at college." He squinted. "You look kind of sturdy for a boy studying P.E. No offense."

"I guess," I said because I couldn't think of anything else to say. A few hours later I followed Dudley out to the white delivery van. On the side was a caricature of Al winking and holding up the okay fingers. Written underneath in bold letters was, We treat you better than all right. We treat you Al-right! As Dudley drove us around the city, he made clear my job duties, which were basically to do whatever he said and to not tell Al what we did when we left the store to deliver or repossess furniture. On occasion we collected overdue payments, and Dudley made me responsible for scribbling out the receipt when we did.

"College boy like you ought to be able to handle that," he said, handing over the giant receipt book that he kept under the driver's seat.

Over the next few days, I discovered that Dudley was a quirky man. He ate Wolf brand chili exclusively for lunch and used saltine crackers as a spoon when doing so. Every food he hated was white-eggs, mayonnaise, bread, sour cream, yogurt, popcorn-and that he was a practicing Jew even though he believed in Jesus.

"Doesn't that make you a Christian then?" I asked.

"Naw. I'm mostly an Old Testament person," he said as though he were comparing two soft drinks.

Equally interesting, I found, was that he referred to customers by what appliance they were renting. One morning he explained that the large console TV in apartment 1058 of the city's public housing complex was three weeks behind on its payments, and we needed to collect $85 from it, otherwise we had to drag it back to Al's, clean it up, and put it back in the showroom.

"And we don't want to do that," he said. "Know why?" I shrugged. "Person could break a sweat doing that. And sweat's the last thing we need in this operation here."

Once inside the housing complex, Dudley slowed the van and leaned down on the steering wheel. I looked out the window and tried to see what had Dudley's attention. I realized he was staring toward the console TV's apartment.

"Naw," he finally said and gassed the van. "Ain't nobody home right now."

We circled through the housing complex a few times before Dudley said we'd done enough for one morning.

"You hungry?" he asked a few minutes later. He gave me the once-over again. "Look at you. Sure you're hungry. No offense."

Over the next few weeks, Dudley and I collected only enough money to keep us out of the store's back room. When business was slow Al would have Dudley and I assemble pressboard entertainment centers or set off roach bombs inside refrigerators and stoves that had been repossessed by Dudley's predecessor, an apparent go-getter from the looks of the back room, which was stuffed with greasy, roach-infested stoves and refrigerators.

"Get hepatitis messing with bugs," Dudley warned one afternoon when we were, for all intents and purposes, hiding in the back room from Al. "You ever see anybody with hepatitis?"

I shook my head. "Face gets all swole up. Eyes look like they floating in piss. See
your liver poking through your skin. Goddam freak show is what it is." He shivered and screwed up his face.

Shortly after, Al charged through the curtains, gripping in his fist a wad of the yellow tickets his "girls" produced each Wednesday when they checked the books for payments in arrears.
"What are you boys doing back here?" Al asked, hitching his pants. "Killing bugs," Dudley said quickly. He slapped his hand against the top of a stove as if to prove it.

"You boys come here," Al said and walked us over to the mesh wire- covered window. He draped his arm around Dudley's neck and pointed with his scotch. "You see out there?"
Dudley nodded. "Good," Al said. "Out there is where all my stuff is that ain't none
of these people paying for." He held up the yellow slips of paper. "You boys get out there and bring it all back. Them bugs'll still be here when you get back."

A little girl opened the door to the washing machine's house. It was the first home I'd seen that leaned to one side. The house reminded me of an illustration of the home where an impoverished family lived in a book of nursery rhymes my father had read to me when I was a child. The girl stared at Dudley and me, blinked three times, and ran back into the house. From the creaking porch we heard her yell, "Mama, there's a white man and a regular man at the door."

The mother appeared from the dark of the house and frowned when she saw us.

"Y'all may as well come on and get it. I ain't got no twenty-five dollars."

I followed Dudley inside. I couldn't place the smell that permeated the house until I looked down. It was earth I smelled. The home's floor was dirt.

"What is this?" I whispered to Dudley.

"It like a grave turned upside down," he said, not bothering to whisper. "All the dirt's on bottom instead of up top."

The woman led us through a succession of rooms separated only by threadbare quilts someone had nailed to the door facings. Once inside the kitchen, Dudley grabbed the corner of the washing machine and yanked it away from the wall. A garden hose had been run from outside the house, through the window, and connected to the inlet valve on the back of the washer. I stuck my head through the open window. The washer's drain hose was draped over the window sill where the washer dumped its dirty water directly onto the ground below. The dirt under the washer was soft and damp from the soapy water seeping into the soil under the house. Each step we took made deep tracks in the water-softened kitchen floor.

As Dudley disconnected the hose with a crescent wrench he'd brought along, his shirt came untucked, and I noticed a large scar, round as a quarter, on his back.

When we lifted the washer into the back of the van, the woman thanked Dudley. "I know you done what you could," she said.

Although I didn't know it, I felt confident that, in the past, Dudley had driven past this woman's house, leaned down on the van's steering wheel, and said to himself, "Naw. Ain't nobody home today" and pulled away.

"God," I said when we'd pulled away from the house. "How do people live like that?"

In retrospect, I'm sure my tone was more of judgment rather than the one of wonder that I had intended to express. Dudley didn't pull the van to a dramatic or screeching halt when I said this. Instead, he kept driving but did say, "She ain't had an opportunity for a college education.

She got to make do with what she can make do with. Everybody can't study P.E. on their daddy's pension fund."

We rode in silence the rest of the way back into town. Dudley stopped at the Sack-N-Save, and though I was underage, he handed me a beer when he returned from inside the store. We drank in silence. At the time, I didn't understand exactly why we were drinking; most likely, I believed that we were drinking because we'd just driven away with a poor woman's washing machine, and we were sad about it.

By the end of the summer, my father felt my stint as a repo man had taught me the lesson that he had intended. When I did return to school in the fall, my grades improved dramatically. To this day my father loves to boast of the summer he set me on the path to success. But in reality, my summer spent as a laborer had little impact on me in the way that my father suspects.

Three years later, just as I was preparing to receive my Bachelor's degree, I returned to my father's home for a short visit. Above the fold of the newspaper was the story of a local man named Dudley Washington who had been stabbed in the neck when he tried to repossess a man's VCR. A 12- year-old girl riding her bicycle discovered his body in a drainage ditch behind the city park. My old boss Al was quoted in the newspaper article.

He said Dudley had been shot through his kidney four years before when he tried to repossess someone's TV. "He was my man in the field," Al was quoted as saying.

In a television movie-of-the-week, Dudley's funeral would have been filled to capacity with all of the people he had helped hang on to their rent-to-own furniture and appliances for a week or two longer until they could scrape together their overdue payments. In truth, aside from three family members and an Army buddy, no one came to Dudley's funeral. He was buried in a pauper's grave administered by the state in a no-frills ceremony that lasted no longer than three minutes.

It would be disingenuous to say that I think of Dudley every day and reflect on the ineffable lesson I learned in our short three months together. But I do think of him from time to time. Usually it's whenever I see someone open a door for someone carrying an armload of books, but more often than not, it's when I see one of the ubiquitous rent-to-own delivery trucks pulling away from a home, the family gathered on the porch, blank-faced and alone.

 

 

Writing to Share to Information

The Twenty-Seven Club September 26, 2005

by Katrina Wilkins

Though I'm twenty-seven myself, I'd rather not join The 27 Club, mainly because you have to die to get in. You also have to be an at least quasi-famous musician. Since I'm neither dead nor musically inclined, and my twenty-eighth birthday is only a month a way, the chances of me joining are slim, but it's a pretty exclusive club: so far, only Robert Johnson, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain have been admitted.

Music listeners probably began to note the phenomenon of rock stars dying at 27 after Janis Joplin's death on October 4, 1970, reportedly from a heroin overdose, though some fans site 'heart complications,' which, albeit technically accurate, seems an attempt to euphemize the situation. About two weeks earlier, on September 18, Jimi Hendrix had taken a large quantity of barbiturates and then asphyxiated on his own vomit--a more difficult situation to spin positively. Though the proximity of Hendrix's and Joplin's deaths likely prompted fans and the industry to take notice, these two musicians joined both Delta Blues great Robert Johnson, who died three days after a mysterious incident in a Mississippi bar on August 13, 1938, and Rolling Stones founder and guitarist Brian Jones, who drowned in his home swimming pool on July 3, 1969. The death of Jim Morrison on July 3, 1971, exactly two years after Jones's death, sealed the deal, as it were. The message became clear: to make their marks, rock legends should die at 27.

Though the exact point that The 27 Club received its name remains unknown, it certainly had enough cultural salience by the early 1990s that Kurt Cobain was well aware of it. Cobain's friends recall him saying that he planned to join, and after he committed suicide on or about April 5, 1994, by injecting a considerable dose of heroin and then shooting himself, his wish came true. Cobain's mother, Wendy O'Connor, even stated afterward, 'Now he's gone and joined that stupid club. I told him not to join that stupid club,' (quoted in 'The 27 Club,? BBC).

Thus book-ended by Johnson's and Cobain's deaths, fans began to notice other similarities beyond mere age: for example, almost all died of drug-related causes, and most were considered to be at the height of their careers; certainly all six lived excessively. The Astrolodge website even tracks the apparently astonishing similarities in their astrological charts. Though recording parallels between members may seem a simple form of solidifying these musicians as a group, it also sheds light on their popularity, both as individuals and as a phenomenon. While musical prowess may garner them initial attention, their excesses draw attention to their lives. Fans who focus solely on music will likely be disappointed merely because they won't produce any more music, but fans who are interested in the stars as people will see them as models, heroes, or lessons, and those fans will go on create the personal legend, as opposed to the musical legend, of a rocker.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then The 27 Club receives flattery in spades. For example, online encyclopedia Wikipedia's entry for 'Copycat Suicide' includes only two people commonly emulated in that manner, and Kurt Cobain is one of them (Japanese guitarist 'hide' is the other). Cobain, though, like most of the club members, was just as imitated in life. As Bomani Jones notes, 'Cobain made depression and introspection vogue in a way that no singer-songwriter had previously done.? Cobain turned angst into a life choice. On a different end of the same extreme, though most fans don't have the opportunity ape Morrison's sexual excesses, his drugs of choice, hallucinogens, are cheap and easy to procure, and many fans still attempt to replicate the Lizard King's experience. In Morrison's case, however, fans more often do this in order to see the world as he saw it than out of pure desire to be like him. Most 27-clubbers are still being mimicked today (with Robert Johnson as the primary exception), despite the fact that many have been dead for thirty-plus years, and that most of the copycats hadn't even been born when the rockers died (here, Cobain is the exception; still, many of his current listeners were young children at the time of his death). Fans may emulate stars for a variety of reasons, but the result is the same: the stars' lifestyles live on.

Thus, members of The 27 Club have earned their legends by living fast and dying young; their youth factors in equally with their ways of life. Their audiences want to know how this could happen to such talented musicians, and to understand how they achieved so much at such a young age. Also, considering suicide is the third leading cause of death among youth and teens age 10 to 19, teenagers identify with them through both the avenues of age and self-destruction; rockers who die early remain forever youthful and forever of the same ideas and opinions.

Which brings me back to my own interest in the situation. As I said at the beginning, I'm twenty-seven now, and I was sixteen when Kurt Cobain killed himself. Strangely enough (or perhaps not so strangely at all), I identified with Cobain more readily at sixteen than I do now, and that has nothing to do with remoteness in time. Rather, I am closed off from The 27 Club by possibility--I have made radically different life choices, and who I am at twenty-seven will never be anything like who Kurt Cobain was at twenty-seven. For a sixteen-year-old, the world is open and frightening, and I, at the time, was only just beginning to see how our choices shape us more than our fate. Today, I can look back at 27-clubbers' lives with pity, and perhaps some envy for their talent, but nothing more.

Sources

"The 27 Club.?" Eleven Magazine, 26 Apr 2004. http://www.elevenmagazine.com/ special/nirvana_1.html 20 Sept 2005.

 

"The 27 Club?" BBC Radio 2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/documentaries/ nirvana_27.shtml 20 Sept 2005.

 

"Brian Jones." http://www.classicrockpage.com/rrheaven/jones.htm 21 Sept 2005.

 

"Club of 27?" Astrolodge. http://www.astrolodge.co.uk/astro/newsandevents/
autumn2004/club27/clubof27.html 21 Sept 2005.

"Copycat Suicide," Wikipedia. http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/ Copycat_suicide 21 Sept 2005. Jones, Bomani.

"Oh Please GAWD I Can't Handle the Success." Salon.com, October 23, 2002 http://www.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2002/10/23/cobain/ 26 Sept 2005.

"Robert Johnson." http://www.answers.com/topic/robert-johnson 21 Sept 2005.

 

"Suicide." KidsHealth.org http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/mental_health/suicide.html

 

 

The Development of Cinematic Music in Video Game

by Ryan Cornelius

As computer technology has improved over the decades, the quality of video gaming has improved in direct proportion. From games played on personal computers, capable of processing gigabytes of information in minutes, to television console games such as Playstation 2, electronic gaming has risen from its modest roots in the early 1970s to a multibillion dollar-a-year industry. Design studios invest millions of dollars during the production of a video game, a process that may take over a year. The video game industry is rapidly becoming the new Hollywood. In their desire to make bigger, better, more engrossing games, design studios take advantage of all the cinematic elements that would make up a Hollywood feature, music being one of these.

In the beginning, video games were nothing more than simple devices that connected to the television antenna input. Some were even so rudimentary as to require cellophane overlays be taped to the television screen. Because of these rough origins, games were limited to the sound quality of the television analog speakers. Game designers were also limited in designing analog sound over an electronic media. The first video game, Magnavox's Odyssey, could manage simple blips and buzzers to mimic the sound of a ball passing from one paddle to the next. There was no music playing in the background. With the development of 8-bit technology in the mid 1970s, game companies such as ATARI and Mattel Intelevision were able to produce basic music at certain points during the game, but as for an overall cinematic score, game players would have to wait until the invention of 16-bit technology in the early 1980s before they could enjoy constant music playing while they gamed, most notably would be the music to Super Mario Bros, by Nintendo.

Sadly, 8-bit technology did not provide a strong enough environment to produce complete scores that would play for as long as the players were engaged in gaming. The music would begin with the beginning of the game, and then fade out after a few minutes, leaving the players with just simple sound effects.

These particular models of television console games still relied on the analog quality of the television to carry sound to the gamer. As television stereo sound came into homes in the late 1970s, video game sound followed. As television viewers began installing home theater systems in the 1990s, video games took advantage of that too. With the inventions of 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit sound quality, the music in console games rose significantly, finally rivaling that of theater quality sound. In 1999, the Sony Corporation released news to the press that the then new Playstation 2, a 128-bit system, would incorporate DVD quality sound and animation with the old Playstation console, revolutionizing the way in which video games were designed (Thomas).

In the area of computer games, as the PC rose in prominence in the late 1980s, inroads to develop better quality sound necessitated the development of several different items of computer hardware. In 1987, Creative Technology developed the Creative Music System which was a 12- voice stereo music synthesizer card. The drawback to this device was that it required a software suite to operate it, and so was only used by the music industry (Thomas). In May 1993, Creative Technology developed the first "Sound Blaster 16," a 16-bit PCI card that computer owners could slot into the motherboard of their machines to bypass the computer's analog speaker (Thomas). The computer industry had designed a device capable of mimicking the tones of human speech. Finally, vocals in songs could be played over the computer without the voices sounding robotized.

Since then, computer gaming design companies have worked to meticulously design musical scores that compliment the game for which they are written-even going as far as to hire well-known composers such as John Williams and Danny Elfman. Sony invested over 166 million dollars on the development of the Playstation 2 console alone (Thomas). The quality of the music, today, is judged in numerous contests as games are compared against one another-some receiving awards and national acclaim.

It is impressive to see the effort spent on designing music for these games. In an industry that is still in its infancy, being only thirty or so years old, the video game industry has honestly done well for itself, making massive advances in technology and science. In the same vane, they have increased the quality of music and culture as well, providing a more entertaining, and fulfilling, experience for their customers. It will be intriguing to see just where they take it in the next millennium. Frankly, the sky is the limit.

Source

Thomas, Donald A. Jr.. "The Whens of the Integrated Circuit." Thomas Solutions, Inc.
January, 24 2003. http://www.icwhen.com/book/index.shtml.

 

 

 

Chapter Six: Writer's Pick (Option Three)

by Brad Isaacs

Reggaeton is "[L]atino party music" that is like no Latino party music that has come before it (Pull Up.. par. 2). Unlike salsa, merenge, or pop, reggaeton borrows heavily from the sound of 1980s American hip-hop and from the riddims of late 80s-early 90s Jamaican dancehall (Pull Up... par. 2). These riddims are the instrumental backing to dancehall-reggae songs, and are often composed of what Wayne Marshall-a music educator and musician who records under the name Wayne and Wax-refers to as the "boom-ch-boom- chick-boom-ch-boom-chick" beat that characterizes so much of the music that comes out of the Caribbean: mento, soca, son, calypso, etc. (We Use... par. 9) In reggaeton, bits of bomba, plena, and merenge, not to mention countless different snare sounds, flesh out the instrumental track over which the reggaetonero, who fills a similar role as the rapper or the Jamaican deejay, sings, raps, or toasts.

The history of reggaeton, like that of so many other genres of music, is a history of musical, national, and racial cross-pollination. I will begin looking at this history in Panama.

By the 1970s, Jamaican music had become popular in Panama, so much so that artists like El General, Nando Boom, and Black Apache began recording dancehall tracks, becoming the first generation of Panamanian/Latin deejays (Reggaeton par. 11). These early Latin deejays were, for the most part, not recording original songs, but rather re-recording versions of popular Jamaican dancehall tracks with the lyrics translated nearly word-for-word into Spanish-El General's "Pu Tun Tun" was a translation of Little Lenny's "Punaany Tegereg" (We use... par. 17).

In the early-to-mid 80s a similar re-working of a genre was taking place in Puerto Rico. American hip-hop had made it to Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rican artists began putting their own signatures on the genre. In 1985 a 16 year-old Puerto Rican who recorded under the name Vico C released one of the first Spanish-language hip-hop records, and with that, reggaeton's two main influences were in place (Reggaeton par. 7).

The scenes in Panama and Puerto Rico developed quietly during the last half of the 80s, but as the 90s began, the music that was being created by the people in these scenes was changing. Panamanian artists were no longer happy doing vocals over riddims that had been imported from Jamaica, and because of that these artists began producing riddims that were unique the country and its culture(s) (Reggaeton par. 9). At the same time, Jamaican ragga-a style of dancehall characterized by its use of drum programming-was becoming popular in Puerto Rico (Reggaeton 9). As this music became more popular, Puerto Rican producers and rappers began experimenting with making their own kind of dancehall. Though some Puerto Rican musicians were wary of such experimentation-it was an imitation, dancehall was done by Jamaicans-they found themselves in the minority as their country became the center of activity for this genre that was finally going to get a name (Houghton 90).

Like the Panamanian artists, Puerto Rican artists began getting serious about original productions, and began making their own riddims in the mid-90s (Reggaeton par. 18). They called the music that was created using these riddims "under," short for "underground," but as "under" became more popular, and the Puerto Rican style became more popular than the Panamanian style, the name changed. At one point it was called melaza (molasses), but the name soon changed to Dem Bow (Reggaeton. pars. 5 and 6). "Dem Bow" was a riddim created by Jamaican producer Bobby "Digital" Dixion that was made popular when it was used on dancehall deejay Shabba Ranks's song "Dem Bow" in the early-90s (We Use... par 19). It was from this riddim that reggaeton got its aforementioned "boom-ch-boom-chick-boom- ch-boom-chick" beat, and it was the appropriation of this beat, and the way that subsequen t artists would manipulate it, that helped make reggaeton a genre of its own. The "Dem Bow" riddim "overlayed rather nicely with salsa and meringue," getting reggaeton artists that much closer to the "fusion of salsa piano vamps and toy-robot snares knocking on the afterbeat like disrupted clockwork" that makes reggaeton reggaeton and not just Spanish dancehall or Latin hip-hop (We Use... par. 19, Houghton 90).

By the mid-90s, reggaeton had both a name and a sound that would stick, and with that, it was time for the music to conquer the world, or at least many Caribbean and Latin American countries. As the year 2000 approached, reggaeton's pan-Latin appeal was making it more and more popular among Spanish speaking populations outside of the Caribbean and Latin-America (Reggaeton par. 8). Among other places, it had a foothold in urban centers of the U.S., where it found a ready audience of younger Latino listeners who had grown up listening to traditional Latin music and American hip-hop, and were ready for something that they could call their own.

The timing could not have been better. As reggaeton was gaining popularity in the U.S. on a small scale, the genre that helped to give it its sound, Jamaican dancehall, was all over music video channels and hip- hop/r & b radio stations. Artists and groups like No Doubt, Missy Elliot, and Lumidee were either collaborating with dancehall deejays, or using popular dancehall riddims as their backing tracks. This set the stage for Jamaican artists like Beenie Man, Sean Paul, and Elephant Man to make their own hit songs and albums.

As 2003 ended and 2004 began, the sound of dancehall was in people's ears and minds. In the summer of 2004 two Latino sisters performing under the name Nina Sky rode the dancehall sound to success by writing "Move ya Body," a song that they performed and recorded over the wildly popular "Coolie Dance" riddim. Their use of the dancehall sound helped make for a smooth transition into reggaeton. As the year ended the genre had made great strides. Producers like Noriega and Luny Tunes had gained reputations as reggaeton star-makers, and Cuban-American rapper Pitbull-whose mere presence helped to gain acceptance for many other Latino rappers and reggatoneros-was collaborating with a number of American rappers and producers.

As with reggae artists in 2003, 2005 has seen reggaeton artists like N.O.R.E., Daddy Yankee, and Pitbull have their songs become popular enough to make the move from specialty stations-106.7 KZZA out of Dallas is an example of this type of station-to mainstream hip-hop and r & b stations. That said, reggaeton is not, and may never be, as popular in the U.S. as rock and roll or hip-hop, but with reggaeton remixes of popular rap songs becoming mandatory if a rapper wants to appeal to a Latino audience, and the development of English-language reggaeton, it is clear that reggaeton is a genre unto itself, and that this genre's sound-a sound that does its part to represent the thoughts and feelings of a vibrant culture-will be heard.

Sources
Houghton, Edwin. "The Year Dancehall Ate the City." Fader. Aug. 2004: 88- 95.

 

"Pull Up Our Pants: Reggaeton Breakdown." Mudd Up!. 21 Dec. 2004. 16 Sept. 2005.
http://negrophonic.com/words/pivot/entry.php?id=14

 

"Reggaeton." Wikipedia . 16 Sept. 2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggaeton

 

"We Use So Many Snares." wayne&wax. 4 Aug. 2005. 16 Sept. 2005.
http://wayneandwax.blogspot.com/2005/08/we-use-so-many-snares.html

 

 

Writing to Solve a Problem

Lessons Learned from Stacy and Clinton

Stacy and Clinton would be proud.

Fashion has never been my strong suit. Most of my life, I have been content to throw on a decently clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt. It was only a few years ago that I began to appreciate the thrill of finding a shoe that actually makes me want to look at my feet, or a shirt that emphasizes all the right curves and none of the wrong ones. It was also about this time that I discovered a new love on television: "What Not to Wear," hosted by fashions gurus Stacy London and Clinton Kelly.

The concept of the show is simple: fashion dweebs are given $5,000 and tutorials from Stacy and Clinton for use in making over their wardrobe. But the underlying message is deeper: our clothes reflect our personality. In fact, Stacy and Clinton are fond of pointing out on the show that whether we like it or not, people judge us by our appearance. It might not be fair, and sometimes it gets us into trouble, but it's a simple fact of human nature. People judge us by our appearance. That being the case, say Stacy and Clinton, why not work to make our appearance one that we want to be judged by? In fact, that is exactly what we do, whether consciously or not.

One of the fascinating things about the show is watching those people who claim they do not think that appearance is important inadvertently prove just how important they really do think it is. You can always spot them; they're usually the hippies, artists, and musicians wearing baggy sweat pants, old hand-me-downs, and clothing from the local second-hand store. Even while declaring the unimportance of appearance, they all arrange their appearance in such a way as to portray that very message. Interesting that you never see women in coordinated pant-suits and high heels claiming that appearance doesn't matter.

Now don't get me wrong, here. I'm not a style snob; fashion still isn't a strong suit, I frequently shop for clothes at Wal-Mart, and most days a pair of pants and a t-shirt still satisfy me. But I'm willing to admit the impact that my appearance has on others and the messages I send with the clothing I wear.

For instance, I recently had a job interview with a woman I had never met before. That day I chose nice slacks and a dressy shirt, and I was almost meticulous with my make-up. I wanted my prospective employer to know that I understood professionalism, and my appearance was intended to be an outward reflection of that internal knowledge.

Apparently it worked: I got the job offer. Every Sunday I attend church, and there I am always careful to wear a skirt or dress with ... well, dressy shoes. My appearance at these times is an expression of respect for the reasons I am at church, for the sacred nature of the activities and discussions that take place there. On the other hand, my outfit of choice when attending university classes is the above-mentioned jeans and t-shirt ensemble, with little make-up, if any. Here, I mostly just want people to know that I am an intelligent person who cares enough about personal hygiene to wash my clothes and face. While I don't dress to impress at these times, I do aim to avoid offensive odors.

On the flip side of this argument is another fascinating observation from "What Not to Wear." By the time these folks get done re-vamping their wardrobes, they project a very different self-image. It isn't that their personalities have changed, but it is apparent that they feel more confident about who they are and their ability to make a mark in the world.

Just as appearance tells others something about us, it also tells us something about ourselves. How often have you had a bad hair day that turned in to a good old-fashioned bad day? Thinking (or knowing?) that you don't look your best makes you feel less than confident about everything you do; conversely, knowing that you look great makes you feel that you can conquer anything the world has to throw at you. Perhaps that's why I got the job offer - not so much because I impressed the interviewer, but because I impressed myself.

The point is simply this: our appearance has much farther-reaching effects than we often realize. Is this the sign of a disproportionately image-driven society? Should we as a society work to ignore the outer appearances of things, both people and objects, in an effort to understand what lies beneath it? Perhaps so, but I think it is largely a part of human nature to want to explain things by their surface features. While I would certainly advocate learning to look beyond what is immediately visible, I don't know that it is possible or even desirable to entirely ignore appearance. Indeed, the very fact that we are able to look beyond the surface is one of the defining characteristics of human beings, one of the features that distinguishes us from lower animal forms. Nonetheless, the fact remains that we are animals, and as such it is inevitable that we attempt to understand what is around us based largely on its appearance.

Thanks, Stacy and Clinton. Who knew you could learn so much from a fashion show?

 

A Discrete Judgment

by Christian D Worlow

A woman sits at a nearby table with long dark red hair braided into a ponytail reading a paperback novel. She wears a black t-shirt with dark red letters spelling "Force" on the front, blue jeans, and black leather boots. At her side on the table is a backpack bulging from its contents, while across the street is a university. Sitting nearby, a vague pressure and heat rises in my chest as I discretely watch her, feeling the first signs of physical attraction. I examine the visual signs - dress, color, stylings, and context - trying to understand who she is. I try to interpret and judge her based upon her appearance. What kind of woman is she based upon only the most cursory of evidence? How should I approach her?

I assume she is a college student based upon the visual context: a restaurant across from a university campus. I take her backpack as a further sign that she is a student there, and most likely she is taking a break between classes. Her clothing is casual enough to imply that she is certainly not in the neighborhood for business, as well.

I glance at the book she reads: a fantasy novel I do not immediately recognize, Anasi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I am more familiar with the author than with the title, and her choice of genre in this scene suggests to me that she at least casually reads fantasy. The cover art - a fusion of a lightning bolt and a spider web on a night sky - leads me to interpret the book as having a serious, dramatic, and certainly mythic style. I use these judgments to form more of an interpretation of her personality.

I look at her t-shirt now, unsure of the significance of the word "Force." The phrase is certainly not "The Force" (which would instantly associate it with Star Wars in my mind). The shirt's style, however, reminds me of a souvenir concert t-shirt, the kind one would buy at a concert where the band Force had played. I don't know if such a band exists, however, but I assume it is something similar. The dark red sans serif lettering on a black background is the only sign I have to guess at her musical tastes. "Maybe she listens to hard rock or something similar," I think.

Considering the bright summer days that have persisted the last several weeks, her lack of a tan suggests she prefers to stay indoors. I interpret her choice of jeans and boots as implying that she avoided shorts and tennis shoes purposefully, even considering the sun and heat. "Maybe she doesn't like to show off her legs," I wonder. This thought, of course, leads me to imagine what her legs might look like. The only signs I have to work with are their shape in her jeans, as well as the skin tone and texture I can see on her face and bare forearms.

I like red hair, but her hair is darker than normal. I steal quick glances at it. Most people associate red hair with a lively personality, and I suppose that her dark red hair signifies a more earthy and grounded version of that lively personality. The ponytail is practical - the ponytail keeps her hair out of her eyes - but the fact that she has braided it into a ponytail leads me to think that this is an aesthetic choice for her: she braids her hair as a way of expressing herself even while being pragmatic.

I find myself wanting to interpret her complexion, cheekbones, and hair color as demonstrating that she is of Irish or similar ancestry. This idea is one that appeals to me, even if I assume she is American, because I have my own Romantic idealizations of Ireland. At the very least, I assume she has some Irish blood, and this prospect influences my other interpretations of who she is.

I think that her clothing signifies that she's not from an affluent family, so I hope and reason that she's probably roughly on par with my own economic background. I hope that if I do talk to her class shouldn't be an issue at some point.

By now I've formed an idea of who she is: an attractive American college student probably from a lower middle class background, perhaps of Irish or Western European ancestry, with an interest in fantasy. She seems to be fairly down to earth while also willing to express herself artistically in a manner that doesn't invite spectacle, considering her braid. Our musical tastes are probably compatible. Having interpreted the signs of her appearance, hoping that these signs are not anomalous and that they point to who she really is, I conclude that she's probably someone with whom I could speak and not feel foolish.

Now all I have to do is talk to her and interrupt her reading. All I have to do is convince myself to actually interact with her instead of reading her. How do I judge when the moment is right to speak?

 

Body Problems

by Jess Hobbs

In the summer of 2002, shortly after I graduated college, I applied for employment at a medical office. At the interview, I discovered the clinic dealt exclusively in cosmetic surgery. A woman with short, black hair led me to a dim room. I sat in a leather chair, my posture artificially erect. She read over my resume' quickly.

"I'm pleased to see you have experience working in medical reception," she said, "but this practice demands a bit more in terms of client interaction." I nodded even though I wasn't sure what she meant.

"You job's to be the face clients first see when they come in," she said, and looked me over, "You'll need to wear appealing clothes." I dropped my eyes to my flat dress shoes, knee-length khaki skirt, and oxford button-up shirt.

"Alright," I replied.

My prospective employer raised her eyebrows at me, and looked away. I knew my appearance influenced the interview when nobody called about the job. My interviewer stressed, in detail, that to gain employment at her clinic I needed to be more "appealing" than I was. Clearly, I was to comply with some standard of "appealing" if I wanted to advance my career. This interview was my first experience with appearance discrimination in employment, though I've had others since. Unfortunately, my experience is not uncommon; in fact, it is common among American women.

In 21st century America, women seem to have greater independence than at any point in the history of the United States. Women occupy key positions in government, business, education, and the sciences; however, as Naomi Wolf claims in The Beauty Myth, women's increased independence economically and socially is curtailed by the perpetuation of unrealistic standards of beauty, which restrict every part of the female body. Though dress, hair, and adornment with make-up involve some level of artistic expression, social norms severely limit the ways in which women can attain beauty, and, thus, value in a visual economy. As a result, women starve, over-work, and mutilate their bodies in an effort to succeed economically. If the new millennium is to usher in freedom, as president George W. Bush so often claims, a new generation of women must undertake to liberate themselves from standards of beauty and make their bodies their own.

Perhaps the foremost text of the 1990s regarding beauty, Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth addresses the problematic relationship between feminism and beauty. Wolf regards the struggle between the two as unnecessary because, she claims, women "deserve the choice to do whatever [they] want with [their] faces and bodies," whether or not they identify themselves as feminists (1). For Wolf, standards, or myths, of beauty emerged in conjunction with women's gradual liberation as a means for male-dominated society to maintain control over the female body (16). Since the Industrial Revolution, women in Western societies experienced small gains in economic and political freedom; in reaction to this, male-dominated institutions conflated myths of domesticity, motherhood, and virginity into an encompassing myth of "beauty" (Wolf 16). Thus, though women in the West appeared to be more independent, it was through standards of appearance that their subjugation endured.

Furthermore, the "beauty myth" Wolf describes does not merely establish codes of appropriate dress and behavior. It also describes feminists as masculine and ugly, and so without value (Wolf 19). Because beauty functions like "a currency system [such as] the gold standard," the description of feminists as ugly destroys their value, and encourages women to shum feminism lest they too become "ugly" (19). Such practices divide women politically and diminish their collective power (18). In this way, the "beauty myth" ensures the power of male-dominated institutions by thwarting activism among women.

The "beauty myth" owes its pervasiveness to the rise of technology and mass media (Wolf 15). After all, the "beauty myth" is not singularly produced, but arises cumulatively through "a dissemination of millions of images of the current ideal" (16). Moreover, contemporary culture uses the "beauty myth" to control men by dictating what they ought, and ought not, to find attractive. Recent years have proven women are not the sole sufferers of eating disorders, and such cases demonstrate the application of the "beauty myth" to male and female members of society.

Although the "beauty myth" poses a myriad of problems for Western society, contemporary literature may foster a movement to move beyond unrealistic standards. In her novels, Toni Morrison demonstrates the disastrous consequences of "white" standards of beauty on the African- American community, and suggests a new beauty based on utility and racial identity (Walther 776). For example, Song of Solomon follows Milkman Dead from birth to a full realization of his identity as an African-American. Key to Milkman's development is his choice between two female characters, Hagar and Pilate (Ashe 589). Morrison employs hair to describe the reactions of African-American women to "white" standards of beauty. Specifically, Morrison describes Hagar's hair as wild, out of control, and in need (or so Hagar thinks) of chemical treatment (587). In contrast, Pilate keeps her hair cut short, like a man's, and retains control of her life (587). Milkman's decision to side with Pilate resounds because, as Bertram Ashe notes, Milkman "opts for a woman who lives outside of the expectations of the white cultural norm" (589). Here, Morrison suggests women who do not comply with the "beauty myth" lead independent, fulfilling lives, and men who choose them as mates are similarly rewarded. Such a suggestion enables African-American women to transcend "white" standards and rediscover a beauty grounded in the world of racial experience.

Morrison's definition of beauty appeals most directly to the African- American community, but her use of art to liberate her audience from unrealistic standards of beauty ought to be adopted by all of Western society. The West could remedy the catastrophic wake left by the "beauty myth" through localized, grass-roots resistance. Modes of artistic expression could foster an era in which women and men control their own notions of beauty. Perhaps, artistic expression could bridge the gaps between people of different races, classes, and religions, and so promote dialogue, empathy, and mutual respect.

Sources

Ashe, Bertram D. "'Why Don't he Like My Hair?': Constructing African-
American Standards of Beauty in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Zora Neale
Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God." African- American Review, 29(4), Winter
1995, 579-592.

 

Walther, Malin LaVon. "Out of Sight: Toni Morrison's Revision of Beauty."
Black American Literature Form, 24(4), Women Writers Issue, Winter 1990, 775- 789.

 

Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1991.

 

 

Writing to Evaluate

My Computer Doesn't Want to Kill Your Mama

by Ash Bowen

The latest blockbuster sci-fi movie, Stealth, blends the better (?) elements of Top Gun with 2001: A Space Odyssey. The unlikely premise of the movie is that the United States' latest super top-secret weapon, that just happens to be a computer capable of learning from its own mistakes, is struck by a pesky bolt of lightning. The result (gasp!) is that the computer rewires itself and becomes an evil rogue computer determined to launch a nuclear attack against Russia. The U.S. Military brass decide that the weapon has to be destroyed and send a super-sexy crew of hot shot fighter pilots to take the computer out. Sound fantastical? Too hard to swallow? Leave it to Hollywood to create the fantastical-and ludicrous.

This whole movie reminded me of how in 1985, my father's state-of-the- art, fancy smancy washing machine, replete with Hollywood sound effects and other electronic do-dads, became the victim of a random bolt of lightning. When the serviceman arrived to repair the washer, he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the butter yellow Kenmore in our laundry room. He pushed his cap back and shook his head.

"That's got one of those electronic brain gizmos in it," he said and whistled. "That's gonna set you back some."

All that resulted from that bolt of lightning, however, was a summer spent lugging our undies back and forth to the Soap Opera Laundromat while the service man waited for a replacement electronic brain gizmo to be shipped from the Kenmore plant. But what if the surge of electricity had empowered that Kenmore with the will to usurp my father's authority and take it upon itself to employ an optional rinse cycle? What if the Kenmore just up and decided that my cable-knit sweaters needed to be washed on the industrial cycle? What then? The horror, the horror.

That brings up the question of artificial intelligence. Like the movie Stealth, A.I. seems like science fiction because, well, it is. For artificial intelligence to become a reality, it would require computer programmers to understand their own thought processes-not just comprehend their meanings but how they're generated, transmitted, encoded, and activated-and then create a processor capable of mimicking those same processes. Furthermore, those same programmers would have to breathe wills into the "lives" of these machines, or otherwise they would sit motionless and collect dust in the corner while waiting for someone to give them a task to complete. In essence, these machines would have to develop desire in order to become more than machinery. Desire delves into ontology, and ontology insists on self-conceptualization. Is machinery aware of itself?

To put this into perspective, modern science has not yet begun to unlock the biological mechanisms that result in cancer-and that is a phenomenon that arises from a single cell. The brain is composed of millions, if not billions, of cells that form the brain's delicate tissue. How many computer programmers out there are receiving fellowships to perform research in brain wave patterns and hemispheric anomalies that account for psychoses or even the normal impulses the brain receives and converts into sight, sound, taste, touch, and those hard-to-define emotions? None, I hope.

National Public Radio recently reported that Google and Yahoo are in an "arms race" of sorts to produce the first intuitive search engine, but experts interviewed for the broadcast were quick to brush off suggestions that the product would be anything approximating, or even approaching, artificial intelligence. The intuitive search engine would simply record recent Web searches and perform behind-the-scene exploration for sites one might be interested in but of which one might be unaware. Even if Google and Yahoo do manage to make this search engine work as they hope, a computer with such ability is still a far cry from anything like intelligence.

In 1983, Hunter S. Thompson wrote that mankind was a few generations away from developing the type of robots that we're talking about here. Like other things, Thompson was wrong about this too. Perhaps he had in mind another book-Fear and Loathing in the Robot Factory. But at any rate, for the time being, Americans should worry more about Hollywood taking our hard-earned money than about computers rising up and cutting and pasting us into their evil plots.

 

Surviving

by Kelly Clasen

Americans have long been fascinated by primitive cultures. As our society advances technologically, the idea of living without technology is increasingly romanticized. For example, millions of Americans tune in to the CBS reality series Survivor each year as voluntary castaways try to outlast one another in some uninhabited locale-building their own shelters; scavenging, hunting, and cooking their own food; and adapting to life in general without the luxuries of modern technology. Although Survivor viewers delight in the participants' struggles to acclimate to "tribal" culture, this program's depiction of a technology-free society is far from realistic. Recent natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina have proven that the sudden elimination of innovations such as electricity and modern medicine would be much more dire for our population than is depicted by shows like Survivor.

Without a doubt, much of Survivor's allure has to do with the players' responses to the difficulties posed by life without modern amenities. There is something perversely entertaining about witnessing their desperate attempts to start fires using only sticks and brush and knowing that they will spend a long night shivering if they are unsuccessful. It suddenly takes skill to possess food and shelter, and harsh words flow freely under the stress of providing. Backstabbing abounds as the players strive for dominance over one another. Each season, at least one player, usually a parent, buckles under the stress-weeping into the camera because he or she misses loved ones and is simply tired of the game. Thus, the contestants' mental hardiness becomes key when they must repeatedly deal with the physical discomfort of thirst, hunger, exhaustion, extreme heat or cold, and filth. Women who in the first episode looked as though they walked straight off the pages of a fashion magazine eventually appear on television in little more than sweat-stained rags. Their hair is no longer straight-ironed; their bodies are sometimes covered with insect bites.

The drama of this downward spiral in appearance and temper is nothing short of fascinating when experienced from the safety of a living room. The contestants' gradually thinning bodies illustrate that the hunger they are constantly complaining about is actually quite severe. Real tears of physical and emotional frustration streak their dirty faces. And as the game progresses, it becomes clear that each player's individual response to uncivilized life has not been scripted-and therein lies the beauty of reality television. Survivor feeds Americans' fascination with uncivilized society by stripping its players of the amenities they take for granted- heat and air-conditioning, readily available food, clean water, antibiotics, automobiles, and communication devices such as cellphones and computers-and sharing their widely varied responses to this lifestyle with the rest of America.

When New Orleans residents suddenly found themselves in a similar living situation after Hurricane Katrina, cameras also were there to capture their responses. And again, millions of viewers around the country watched the events unfold on their televisions. However, during news coverage of Katrina, the general reaction by the public was anger, rather than bemusement, as it is with Survivor. There was nothing pleasant about witnessing thousands of dangerously dehydrated residents wait for rescue in the sweltering Louisiana heat. As floodwaters filled the city, it soon became clear that New Orleans was poorly equipped to handle devastation of such magnitude. In fact, the absence of electricity brought chaos to the city. Without telephones and cellphones, family members became separated during the race to find shelter. With alarm systems down, looters ran rampant in abandoned stores, stealing items such as diapers and clothing that they would normally just go out and buy. Necessities such as food and water were suddenly scarce, as were medications. Even treatable illnesses such as diabetes posed grave danger for people without access to their local pharmacies, and the fate was worse for some of those whose lives rested on the availability of dialysis and breathing machines. In short, Katrina highlighted the hard-to-swallow reality that many Americans' lives depend on technologies available today.
Like on Survivor, the physical toll experienced by those stranded in New Orleans spurred emotionally charged behavior. Mothers holding listless babies in their arms begged police and other officials for food and water. People searching for lost loved ones and pets wept and displayed photos for the crews recording their stories. With police unable to communicate with one another via phones, criminals terrorized the streets and the darkened Superdome. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, two New Orleans police officers committed suicide in the midst of the suffering.

Clearly, the misery of reality television stars competing for a million dollars and that of the people displaced by a natural disaster are not of the same magnitude. Yet the hardships imposed on Survivor contestants and those faced by New Orleans residents share undeniable characteristics. Nevertheless, when Survivor participants find themselves without access to modern amenities, death and violence do not follow. They do not plead into the cameras to be rescued; tribal dominance does not spiral into criminal behavior. The key difference in these situations lies within the highly controlled environment of the reality program.

Although survivor attempts to portray 21st century Americans' immersion into an uncivilized, technology-free environment, the entire process, paradoxically, becomes relative to our culture only through the high-tech audio and video equipment present to record each contestant's every move. If something potentially life-threatening were to happen, there would be another person there recording the drama and ultimately able to assist the player. The crewmember would simply whip out his or her cellphone and alert the nearest medical officials. Soon, an air- conditioned vehicle of some sort would be on the scene to transport the injured player to the nearest hospital. There, he or she would undergo diagnostic tests and receive advanced medical treatment. Then, the patient would likely spend his or her recovery period lounging in an electronically adjustable bed, watching television, and updating friends and relatives on his condition over the phone. (Recall the episode of Survivor: The Australian Outback in which a player fainted into a fire, badly burning his hands, and was quickly air-lifted out of the boondocks and to a hospital.)

The victims of Hurricane Katrina did not have these safety nets. The recent tragedy illustrates that few Americans realize the tragic consequences that a sudden removal of modern technology would bring. As residents of a highly technological society, most of us have no idea what it truly means to be in need. Through cellphones and the internet, we can connect with one another almost instantaneously. We can have food, water, prescriptions, medical aid-virtually anything-delivered to our doorsteps through a phone call or a few keystrokes. What Americans witnessed on television following Katrina was traumatizing not only because of the suffering, but also because it highlighted this ignorance and ignited fears: What would I do if I suddenly found myself without access to the technologies I am accustomed to? Would I be able to protect my family? Would I survive?