Classical vs. New Age

In browsing music selections by artists Brian Crain and Ludovico Einaudi, I have read many comments of praise, and many of low rating and high criticism. These low ratings and criticism are due solely to the fact that the music is classified in iTunes as “classical,” and yet it should really be “new age.”

I, even after having listened to Crain for months now, was still in the dark, so I decided to pop the question into Google: What is the difference between classical and new age? Some inquirers on Yahoo! answers tentatively concluded that they can both be “classical” due to the instrumentation that they include. Answerers retorted strongly, saying that the genre has nothing to do with instrumentation, but rather the style in which a piece is composed. One responder even had the audacity to say that classical (or, “formal” classical music) has more melodic meaning, while new age is repetitive, simple, and has little to no meaning.

This statement really irked me. I don’t want to dog on classical music the same way these people dog on new age. However, I find it easier to connect to new age music. I can hear it, and later go to a piano and, after some trial and error, play the tune. Classical music is nice; I don’t want to lie or downgrade it. But I find it more difficult to connect to its complicated structures. Sure, sometimes I recognize a bit of a tune here or there, but I can never connect it to a composer or piece until somebody directly hands it to me. When I see people play classical music, I get this annoyed feeling. To me, “formal” or “professional” classical music can be extremely pretentious. I wasn’t one of those people who was force-sat in front of piano at four years old and scheduled to take lessons. I am self-taught; that doesn’t mean I’m good, but I can play a piece if I decide I want to play it and work at it. I can “compose” piano tunes by tapping around at different keys. I’m no Beethoven or Bach or Chopin. I don’t want to follow “laws” of classical music structure. I don’t think beauty and feeling and emotion should be fit into a box, into a structure, into a set of rules. I listen to simplistic, piano tunes (that might include other instruments) and I find meaning and joy in that. It doesn’t take effort to listen to, because there’s no deciphering involved. It’s relaxing, because your brain finds the melody and latches onto it and lulls itself to peace in the tune. At first, I will admit, many songs sound alike; but, spend some time with them, and later, I’ll find myself humming a little lick and instantly being able to label it with a title. I don’t want to suggest that classical has no meaning because it’s “fit into a box,” but I feel that, without that structure, there’s more mobility and artists have more chances to be expressive, instead of feeling an emotion, but having to fit into a certain time-scheme. I’m not saying the classical artists so many of us have grown up with and come to love have no emotion or feeling. They just preferred that order. “New age” artists are breaking from form, and trying out new paths, and I devotedly follow them.

To the Ladies: Keep Your Nails

Dear girls,

I am not speaking from the point of view of society when I say that you need to keep your long nails. This is not me stating how it is acceptable in society, or how it is feminine and how every girl should be.

Ladies, those long nails aren't just a pretty accessory. They are actually useful for many different purposes in our everyday lives. Without this evolutionary tool, life gets hard.

Don't ask me what nails are good for. You all should know by now:

• Tightening and/or loosening small screws
• Removing the battery cover on your phone
• Picking up or gripping very thin/small objects
• Scratching yourself/relieving itches
• Peeling off paper labels/stickers
• Effectively flipping/turning pages by sliding between them and isolating the desired page (instead of crumpling the corner with a stubby fingertip)
• Keeping your fingertips out of direct contact with potential dangers
• Being decorated and cutesy

While that's all I can think of right now, there are plenty of other uses that will pop up at some point. You might ask, why am I writing this? Why am I stating the obvious? It's a note to self as well as something I hope can save all of you some issues. Recently I just trimmed my nails, thinking it would be good for playing guitar and clarinet and because generally I find my long nails get ragged and caught on blankets and sweaters and are a nuisance. Well, I feel kind of like a declawed cat. I now try to do things I once was able to do with long nails, with no success. I feel like a bumbling caveman.

With this letter, I hope I can do my best to save all of us from feeling like bumbling cavemen and having painful and red fingertips and losing many of our natural evolutionary abilities by having long nails.

La Filosofía Española

Bueno; vamos a tener una introducción antes de empezar.

Just to tell you now, these posts will be in Spanish. And, to be honest, it's not really any sort of "philosophy;" mainly it's just me ranting about something in my life or a certain way of life, which could be construed as philosophy, in a sense.

Half of this is just me ranting, and in another language so it's not as (directly) offensive or controversial. However, it is also an opportunity for me to practice my Spanish in a more direct and personal context.

If you check out this blog in Chrome, it might want to automatically translate these posts for you, and that's cool. If you view the site in other browsers, you can pop the post into Google Translate and see how it comes out. If you don't trust that translation - don't worry; I don't blame you - you can always comment and request for me to give a rough translation.

Gracias, y espero que eso vaya a ser un éxito!

Sharknado Review

All right, since I just spent an hour and a half of my life watching Sharknado, I will do everyone the service of telling you all why you shouldn't watch it. Trust me. You'll save an hour and twenty-seven minutes of your life. Unless you want to watch a movie about sharks in a tornado over L.A. (Exactly. It sounds ridiculous.)

"Anyway. Don't ask why, but a while after I got home... I watched Sharknado, just for the hell of it. Well, it was believable enough, because I felt that instinctive pull in my gut that you feel when you want to persuade characters to do the right thing and when you feel like you know what to do in that situation. However, beyond generic horror-movie gut instinct, it was not believable at all.

Cinematographically, it was very poorly put together. The clips were all filmed in different qualities and totally different times, and most were ridiculously shaky, and the beach & flood shots seemed like something from another world, another lifetime, a news report on Katrina or something. The actors weren't really awful, but they were either super-exaggerated or completely emotionless when they should have been angry or scared or something. Also, the background plot lines about the characters had little relevance to the shark epidemic except when necessary (like Nova telling about the sharks taking her grandfather... "so I really hate sharks"). And, if it was a water storm in the Pacific, wouldn't it be a tsunami? And hasn't the name David already been used [for a hurricane]? Since when does California get tornadoes, or any kind of water storm? Why would the sharks target people? Seriously, no animal in the wild targets humans just 'cause (except maybe lions or something). For CGI, that was horrible - plus, they constantly reused animated clips of CGI sharks swimming underwater when it didn't fit the scene (shallow water in street, swimming pool). People made dumb jokes at inappropriate times. The dialogue was really fake and forced.

The one good part? The super-cute Australian surfer guy, but stupid Fin [main character] didn't bother to shoot the shark that was eating his [Australian guy's] leg off, and Aussie blew into the tornado 'cause [Fin] took too long to notice him. Besides that, things worked out too perfectly - the opportunity to save a bunch of children from a sinking school bus threatened by sharks? The fact that Fin just had ammo in his car for some reason? Nova knowing how to shoot a gun? Being able to easily steal a car? Not getting caught by the cops while speeding - because they had stolen a car off a movie-set lot, so it had Nitro? Yeah, right. And the fact that all of Fin's family - and Nova, too, so Fin's son Matt would have a girlfriend - survived the attack made it too good to be true.

Well, I watched it, and even if it was bad for a [supposedly] horror flick, it taught me about film and how to make a good one."

excerpt taken from journal; December 28, 2013

Why I Do (And Don't) Want to Have Kids

Today in health class, our topic was sex. Now, we've already had this talk plenty of times; pretty much every year they beat this into us so we never forget. However, I was a bit surprised at how our teacher decided to kick off the subject. It seemed almost entirely unrelated to me at the time, but she did tie it into sex.

She asked our small and completely not-talkative group how many of us wanted to have children. Out of the maybe twelve or thirteen of us, I was the only person who thought maybe, and there was probably only one or two people who didn't raise their hands at all. I was appalled that all these girls, with whom I talked and laughed and joked on a daily basis, were so decided about their future. Not only that, though, but at our age, I would assume we would all scoff and say, "Little kids are annoying and we definitely don't want to have to share a bed and house and paycheck with them; are you kidding?"

Even though not all of us did answer yes to her question, our teacher went around the room inquiring at about what age we would probably have our first kid. Mostly the answers were late-twenties to early- and mid-thirties, and my friend made everybody laugh when she perked right up and said "Twenty-six." I'm blown away at how these same people who barely do their homework most of the time and complain about school have motherhood on their checklist for the future.

I've been thinking about this subject seriously for the past couple months. (No, not the subject of being a teen mom, but having kids or not, and if I do, when I'm in and around thirty years old.) When I was little, I was pretty obsessed with it. Instead of playing "House," my brother and I played "Mom-Kid," where I was the perpetually-pregnant mom and he was my teenage son. My fantasy for the future was to live in a red-bricked house in Mexico with some guy named "Mhichlil (supposed to be Michael; I was also obsessed with that name)" and have two kids named Zella and Derek. That doesn't seem weird, but I wrote that all this would happen when I was a hundred years old. (Okay, so as kids we think we're going to live forever.) From the sulky age of thirteen till pretty recently, I swore to be single forever - or, at least, for the next eighty years. I wasn't up for a boyfriend, and certainly not a husband, and kids did seem incredibly obnoxious to me.

So, what made me sort of change my mind, you may ask? Not any specific thing, but I have written out stories where I am in my thirties with a child or two and I describe parenthood in terms of how awesomely-behaved the kid is. As I see it now, kids are never awesomely behaved, and they are quite the exact opposite when they're very young. I have gone through infancy and toddler-hood (which I don't remember), and childhood was the only memorable and likable time of my past so far. I am currently going through adolescence, and, let me refresh all y'all's memory: it's not the best time of your life. You thought it was but it most certainly is not.

Here are some recently-written journal entries that both support having kids and completely shoot it down.

Don't all the positive situations where you have three kids sound smashing? Just kidding, but cuddling on the couch to watch TV with three little ones piled on you sounds snuggly warm, and running around with two of them under your arms and one around your neck/on your back seems like the ultimate playtime. But three puking kids? (Any puking kids? Yuck.) Three kids screaming in tantrum at the store? Three sulky teenagers holding a grudge by slamming and locking bedroom doors?

excerpt taken from journal; written on October 7, 2013

Okay, on the one hand, [having kids] seems fun, right? And motherly love is probably the best kind out there. But I always put it this way - they eventually become teenagers. Also, they are crying, puking babies; then screaming, puking toddlers; then (the only good time period) they're wondering, inquisitive, imaginative, and curious kids (from 4/5 to 10-12); then they're awful, sulky, bitter, moody, hormonal teenagers who will probably do something reckless with drugs or in sex; then (if you're lucky), they go off to college and leave you home and alone by yourself; then after that (if you're SUPER lucky) they might call you up on the phone for depressing small-talk or visit you on important holidays with their spouses and kids, which makes you feel even older and sadder and more alone than ever; then (if you won the lottery or Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes; I'm serious, man, you're not going to get this lucky) they'll make some dreary speech at your boring-ass funeral that totally just makes you seem like a lame mother and an even lamer human being. So yeah. Why would anyone want to be subjected to that for the remainder of your life?

excerpt taken from journal; written on November 15, 2013

From my standpoint, which mostly focuses on all the negative, I completely don't understand why anyone would willingly jump into that shark tank. But, at the same time, I ponder the good aspects of it - being able to teach your child as much of the world as you can and watching their curiosity flower through the years. Well, as it is, I'm far too young to be definitively deciding on any of these things just yet. When I actually come or don't come to this bridge, I will likely have a much different perspective and have a more mature and better planned out answer.

Chile vs. Chili

If you're totally fine with reading a nice little rant on grammar/spelling by yours truly, continue. If not, I totally get that. Who wants to read about why some freak is getting ticked off by some English-class thing? I mean, really? But anyway.

Okay, I am a New Mexico kid, and therefore, I have, for one thing, an unfair advantage in this situation, but also an extreme bias. Chile is the lifeblood of this state. We have a state question that asks "red or green?" referring to chile peppers. Usually New Mexicans have a strong preference for either side - for me, it's green, though I kind of just chose it because it has more character and was pretty good in combination with a cheeseburger. Green chile season comes in late summer, and roasting turnstiles permeate the air with the distinct smell of roasting chile.

Even within this state, there are people who flub. "Chili peppers" is often seen written on signs when, obviously, it should be chile. The cafeteria will serve "green chili stew," when they could have said "green chile chili" if they had really wanted, or rather just changed that i to an e. I understand that this sort of mix-up goes on outside the state as well, probably with more frequent occurrences.

In this article and also on the Dictionary.com definition, "chile" and "chili" are seen as interchangeable. With the passing of time and the continuous mistakes, it has likely become acceptable for either of those spellings, and/or "chilli," to fit. Mostly, with the spellings all falling under the i ending, the exact meaning is gathered from context.

Personally, here's how I see it. (I will provide everyone with a handy little translation here, so they can at least understand what I mean if they don't ride on the "e" versus "i" bandwagon.)

chile = spicy variety of pepper, grown in New Mexico (and probably other places in the southwest and nearabouts; I didn't conduct intensive research for this opinion piece)

chili = variety of stew, usually containing meat and also has vegetables; sometimes spicy due to variety of spices used in cooking

My understanding is that "chilli" is the British spelling of "chili," but I'm not sure on that. I also understand that Chile, capitalized, is also a country on the western coast of South America. (You know, the long and skinny one by the ocean?) Not to be confused with the peppers, at all.

If somebody writes "chili peppers," I know what they mean, because there aren't really meat-stew peppers that just grow readily on trees, waiting for the fall harvest. I've never seen a mix-up where somebody writes "chile" for "chili," mostly because they probably don't know the e-ending one, or know when precisely to use it. (Refer to above guide for some usage suggestions.)

So, maybe I got a couple people scratching their heads in confusion, or pumping fists in agreement, but, either way, I hope this was a learning experience for all parties involved, including me. (Yeah, that green chile is awesome.)