Saturday, March 1, 2014

Media for the soul

G r e e t i n g s. I come to you as a 21 year old English student with a music and visual addiction.

I like the point fast, I want it clear and I want style. I find when reading, take poetry par example, I don't quite enjoy the poem until I start to get some of the references and pick out the greater meaning of it. That's why your high school teachers made you read poems three times (which I'm sure you did, of course). With things too over my head, I become frustrated and put such authors in with Milton, lost, blind, and bitter. (Harsh, I know, but really? making a quicky one-line reference to Philomela after a packed line of muses, flower goddesses and allusions, then moving on to the next flower? Philomela has a GNARLY story, as we North County San Diegans say, that is not to be touched on lightly. So this story of Philomela encapsulated in one line - are we supposed to delve into the story like good little golden retrievers, do our homework then return to the poem? And suppose Milton just uses the story to do the work for him. "Those suckers are going to do the work while I'll just sit here in my bower, highness of intellect." Show off.) That was a long aside. The point I may or may not be transparent in relating to you is that as a contemporary young person interested in communication, arts, culture and language I, despite having the consciousness of some distant longer attention span, still fall into the category of "I want it NOW."

You want Art with a capital A? HERE. TAKE IT. JUST TAKE IT.

http://www.booooooom.com/

OH AND THIS. TAKE IT.

http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php/tag/collage

Ha! Now I've got you right where I want you. Once you take a look at these sites, you'll start to find art you might like to know more about. Well that's where google search comes in, and then you're looking at an artist's page, and you might look at artists they follow, or gain inspiration from. I spent a good chunk of my free time freshman year drowning myself in the SF art scene. Oh how things (don't) change.

And duh, I'm sure you already know this one:

http://pitchfork.com/

But here's one you may not know about. They're pretty quick, they get it done. They're informative and relevant to the Isla Vista, college community. If you like to be up on good music, they cater to all audiences, but are a little heavy on live-electronic. That said, in no way should "genre" of music limit you in discovery. Listen to it before you judge it, that's how I started to trust their music taste. I was an Elliott Smith girl before I listened to How to Dress Well. It's all done by SB kids, a small group of them. They're having a zine release down town March 6th. I'll have some art published in it as well! Their designers are really talented, and there's a gem in there called "Bruce Springsteen is an American Hero, God Dammit". This is not just a plug, but it's a site I actually use. They'll compile top 100 songs of 2013 and set up a playlist. Or, you can read about a local Sun Daes or Eastern Bakery show in IV.

Oh yeah, and they post free music.
http://speakvolumesmedia.com/

This stuff is short and sweet, gets to the point, fluffs it up a bit so the necessary plumage is flaunted, then tucks itself back away and you can move on with your life yielding the spoils of a very long music search.

Mutlimedia writing, people think, is mostly journalistic. But it's not. I would die to work here:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/

and

http://www.popshotpopshot.com/

oh and woah... they updated their site. Jerks. Yale... who are they again?

http://yalelitmag.com/


If you're bored and have abundant time, (ha!) I would love to hear your ideas for this satirical piece I'm writing for fun. I need ideas for the latter part, where you'll see some of the beginnings.

Here's a bit of fun I had last night, thinking about Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/modest.html

Dear Student & Family,

As a matter of upmost importance concerning the wellbeing of all University of California Santa Barbara students, it is with great necessity and fastidious nature I take on this disconcerting topic.

Hipsters.

Hipsters, both agent and affliction have spread (our sources suspect) originating from the Pacific North West, with almost identical traces found in the Portland area, and from SoCal: the LA and North County San Diego region, to our previously unaffected campus. Judging by the severity of this onset of symptoms, there is little time to waste. A growing number of twenty-something’s have not only taken on characteristics identical to the well known outbreak centers as previously stated, but it has been observed that recent victims have begun to hybridize, cross and regenerate new forms of the condition. While mirroring the open-relationship, unwashed, cigarette huffing , freeloading habits most commonly witnessed in Portland, there are no signs that the live-electronic storm brewing in the LA region will subside before completely engulfing the Isla Vista area. Yet, this particular breed stretching from Isla Vista to down town Santa Barbara, unlike Portlandians, the afflicted are significantly less resistant to cold; accounting for the significant migration from the Northern region of San Diego, and are weakened further, for they do not possess waterproof clothing or footwear. Regrettably, these students are increasingly caught in the clutches of adverse distraction, as many have been known to, in accordance with weather conditions, neglect their studies to examine what one called, referring to rain drops, “the silver snakes” running down the window, or, become otherwise removed from normative social behavioral patterns, such as the dissociative tendency to reside in the home on a sunny day, explore the beach in the fog, or gravitate toward a damp cigarette in the rain rather than a dry one. They, in addiction[1], appear to either have lost or deteriorated connections in the brain that associate self-preservation with health, and choose to, despite claiming a higher education, smoke tobacco related products.

Parents and sources have complained of the bottomless bank account syndrome: a semi-advanced stage of the condition. Due to the brevity of this message, I will only relay a small fragment of the extent of this stage. Despite openly acknowledging a sparsely equipped checking account, these unfortunates have been known to engage in the practice of one or more of the following: shopping for specialty food items at the Food Co-op, buying festival tickets which include accommodations and fare, paying admission for several music events sometimes per week, (and bartering what profit that otherwise might have been made through journalistic endeavors at these events for free admission), the weekly or by-weekly purchase of cigarettes from SOS, a bag full of thrift store items or a trade of old for new-old clothing with negative net cost, or finally a day’s pay spent on a weekend ski trip.

If your child, friend, or loved one is suffering from any if these symptoms it is best to seek help. The only way to change the early onset is by large numbers of people, otherwise, the young hipster’s ego may become too large to control by sheer numbers. When the ego has been enlarged, the semi-incurable mindset shift allows any hipster to transcend the majority, and therefore empowers the experienced hipster to further enable others to engage in the angsty pleasures of counter culture.

Because of our unfortunate location here in Santa Barbara, we, now fallen victim to the crossfire, are unable to hold the forces at the gate any longer. I call on you, members of our luminous Greek-affiliated groups, brothers and drunk-ass-bitches, your parents, and friends to help put a stop to this atrocity.  This, a horrid affliction threatening the very existence of well-to-do sons and daughters, must be put to a short drop and a sudden stop, beginning with the newest cases, which still might be reversed. The lost causes are those who brought this controversy here with them, or have experienced high involvement in literary, artistic, or musical activity, and they must simply be driven out. There is no hope for them here.

Continues to the Solution, Cures, and extermination procedures.

Ideas:
Bros band together: hold jam sessions on the beach, offer poison wine
Clothing
Pide-piper – draw hipsters out of town in crowds with ice cream trucks filled with marijuana, beer and whiskey playing [1 of fifty million artists I could say]
Bait and switch – concert tickets, Coachella tickets
Laugh at them – they don’t like it
Laugh at them especially when they are doing something intellectually stimulating or intellectually showboating
Tell them they haven’t seen the world




[1] Pun. Couldn’t not.

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