#artifact 4

[callingonblueskies]

What Blue October Album You Should Listen to Based on your Zodiac:

Aries: History for Sale

The up-tempo rock is great for a high energy Aries personality.

Taurus: The Answers

The smooth and sweet and soft tones of this album are perfect for Taurus’ to relax to.

Gemini: Foiled

The vast difference between the style of tracks on this album is great for the diverse minds of Geminis.

Cancer: Consent to Treatment

The physical and emotional aspects of this album would be wonderful for the intuitive nature of Cancers.

Leo: Sway

The moving songs on this album are great for the passion of a Leo personality.

Virgo: Home

The soft and well natured mood of this album are great for a Virgo’s personality.

Libra: I Hope You’re Happy

The carefree and yet intentional feeling from this album is great for Libra’s desire for balance.

Scorpio: Any Man in America

The raw emotion poured out in this album is perfect for the emotionally-oriented Scorpio to connect with.

Sagittarius: Approaching Normal

The character study-esque feeling to the album is great for the knowledge-seeking Sagittarius.

Capricorn: Songs from an Open Book

This is one of the most emotional albums and thus is great for the emotional nature of Capricorns.

Aquarius: Things We Do at Night

The mash-up of songs on this album is great for the humanitarian side of the Aquarius personality

Pisces: Argue with a Tree

The childlike idea of arguing with a tree appeals to the fantasy seeking personality of a Pisces.

[whatofthechildren-blog]

“I Want A Dyke For President” (1992) Zoe Leonard recited by Mykki Blanco

[whatofthechildren-blog]

“I Want A Dyke For President” (1992) Zoe Leonard

I want a dyke for president. I want a person with AIDS for president and I want a fag for vice president and I want someone with no health insurance and I want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that they didn’t have a choice about getting leukemia. I want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn’t the lesser of two evils and I want a president who lost their last lover to AIDS, who still sees that in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying. I want a president with no air-conditioning, a president who has stood in line at the clinic, at the DMV, at the welfare office, and has been unemployed and laid off and sexually harassed and gay-bashed and deported. I want someone who has spent the night in the tombs and had a cross burned on their lawn and survived rape. I want someone who has been in love and been hurt, who respects sex, who has made mistakes and learned from them. I want a Black woman for president. I want someone with bad teeth and an attitude, someone who has eaten that nasty hospital food, someone who cross-dresses and has done drugs and been in therapy. I want someone who has committed civil disobedience. And I want to know why this isn’t possible. I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown. Always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker. Always a liar, always a thief, and never caught.

POEM

[ctothebell-blog]

Generations of fans that follow The Beatles and their work often recreate scenes from their history. Usually only people that have experienced The Beatles will understand its reference.  Above you will notice a T-Shirt with the characters from Disney’s “Frozen”.  The movie itself has been extremely successful and has its own cult following/fandom. You will notice characters such as Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Olaf the happy snowman.  To the untrained eye, they are just in 4 boxes placed on top of each other, two by two.  In fact, this t-shirt is a recreation of The Beatles, Let It Be album.  In the original album cover, John Lennon and Paul McCartney are on top and Ringo Starr is on the bottom.  You will notice that the two main characters and probably the most popular are on top.  

[doyoueventumbll-blog-blog]

Artifact # 4 and commentary

For my fourth and final artifact, I have chosen a part of a history essay I had done in October to use in comparison. After I read though the essay, I chose a part where I noticed there was something lacking that could have been useful, a citation package!

This is the section I chose, “Europeans, the things they brought with them, and the rumors that spread about them throughout native communities had important effects as they enter the framework of North American history.” These rumors caused the Indians to become afraid and rather dislike the Europeans that sought out to take of the Native American’s land. Not only was that the extent of the disputes between the two different people, but it would occasionally cause small wars that would kill many Natives due to the lack that they were not caught up on the times and did not have the same resources, training or weapons that the Europeans had and so the skirmishes were more one sided.”

In this particular part of the essay, it just begins with a quote and doesn’t have any kind of lead in. after the quote there is not really any explanation as to what that quote is trying to say, it just kind of picks up. It just grazes by the coming to terms part. But, it also does a brief job of relating it back to the main idea, which was how Europeans were changing the land but it could of gone a lot more into detail.

I can now look back on my earlier writings and see what I was missing. I feel like this in comparison with my other artifact will show how much I have grown as a writer. This was my first college essay I had written and compared to my last college essay, my presentation essay, shows how much stronger my skills have become.

[represent-women]

In publishing, women have faced serious obstacles. As Mic points out, women have to face being labeled “Chick Lit,” must deal with review and online biases (such as Wikipedia deeming them soft reads), and issues as banal as “girly” or not serious cover art and design. It should come as no surprise, then, that J.K. Rowling initially published the Harry Potter series under her initials, preventing critics from seeing her feminine first name and writing her off as incapable of writing fantasy. But hope is closer on the horizon these days, as women have made several huge literary advancements in the past year. A woman, Pamela Paul, was named editor of the New York Times Book Review, Alice Munro became the thirteenth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1909, and women are writing more respected, epic-length novels than ever before. A lot more improvement can happen, but women writers are making headway.   

http://mic.com/articles/78711/8-historic-moments-for-women-in-literature-from-the-past-year

[artifactsofarecentnature]

Analysis

Often criticized for writing about her emotions, catharctic songwriting is one of Taylor Swift's specialties. She has even stated herself "People haven't always been there for me, but music always has." As a middle schooler, Taylor was unpopular and had very few friends and to cope with these feelings of exclusion she turned to song writing. This same approach has carried over to her wider spectrum of experiences as she has aged and here, even to an experience that was not hers directly, but some one else's. 

Though catharsis can take many forms (poetry, painting, dance, to name a few) musical expression for emotion is a timeless one. When Taylor first played this song for Maya, they were both brought to tears by the experience but Maya that they were "happy tears"; happy because her son's story was being told and memory was able to live on.

And catharsis need not serve only it's creators. By expelling such powerful emotions into a song, it is cleansing for those who made it but also for the listeners who may find solace in knowing they are not alone in what they face and feel. Obviously, song writing is not necessarily able to deplete the grief that comes with the loss of a life. But it can rationalize it, and it can start the healing process by being wholly raw in what is felt, as well as by potentially reaching out to others and forging a bond between them in the shared experience of the music or alternative art form. 

Though it will not always be the case, in these circumstances the creation that came to be through this grieving process was also actively able to make a difference. Since funds from the song's sales went towards charities that work to fight back against cancer there is solace to be found in the idea that something is being down preemptively to help protect others from having to experience the same type of tragedy, and that is an amazing comfort 

[artifactsofarecentnature]

Summary

Ronan Thompson was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that primarily affects children and infants, at three years of age. His mother, Maya, began keeping a blog to chronicle his fight against the disease in which she detailed the periods of hope and hopelessness that invariably come with any child fighting a terminal illness. Just around the time of his fourth birthday, Ronan passed away.

Taylor Swift, who had been following Maya Thompson's blog throughout the development of the story, used the words from it to write this song 'Ronan'. Because the words were taken directly from the blog itself and reworked to be lyrics, Maya Thompson is credited as one of it's co-writers. After she had written it, Taylor contacted Maya and told her about the song she had written. The two of them together made the decision for the song to go out into the world and do some good by being performed in honor of the Ronan Thompson Foundation at the Stand Up To Cancer Live Event that aired in Fall of 2012. All proceeds from the songs sales on iTunes would go directly to helping in the fight against the disease.