"Memento"

For my next blog, I decided to watch and analyze Christopher Nolan’s movie, Memento, that he directed in 2000. Memento is a murder-mystery, psychological thriller film about a man, Leonard Shelby, hunting his wife’s murderer, however, Leonard has one problem preventing him from solving this mystery. Leonard has a rare condition called short-term memory loss. He can remember his whole life up until the point where he got in an accident resulting in the death of his wife. Not only is Leonard trying to find, and kill, his wife’s murderer, but in doing so he is also trying to overcome his short-term memory loss. Throughout the film, he leaves pictures and notes, containing clues on them, for his future self to remember. He even tattoos clues on his body to help him remember facts about his suspect and the various people he meets along the way, if he is able to trust them or not. Memento is different from most movies because Memento unfolds in a backwards manner. The movie begins with the lead actor, Guy Pierce, solving the mystery, and killing the man who is believed to have killed Leonard’s wife. As the movie unfolds, we see proof of how Leonard solved the mystery and the many people he has met along the way. 

Overall, on a scale from A to F, I would have to give Memento a B rating. It was an extraordinary movie with excellent stylistic elements. The reason that I did gave the movie a B and not an A was because I did find some scenes to be too slow and not living up to my expectations. Although I did enjoy the movie it is not my favorite and it is not something that I would want to see again. If the movie were not filmed in this backward style, it would not have been as successful if it were shot in a more traditional fashion. The whole point of filming Memento in this style was to make the audience feel how Leonard felt: to put us in his shoes, by making us feel as if we are suffering from memory loss ourselves. With Leonard’s short-term memory loss, the audience is given a taste of how having that condition would be like and how frustrating it can be at times. With the movie being shot in this backwards style, the audience is more engaged and interested in the movie. With Memento being shot in this style, we are engaged in it, and the movie makes us think about what will happen next as if we are playing detective along with Leonard. As a thriller movie, the audience is left hanging on the edge of their seats waiting for what will happen next. If the movie were shot in a more normal, traditional sequence, the film would not have been as successful, interesting or engaging. Great movies are supposed to make the viewers think about they just saw, and Memento hits the nail on the head straight on.

Dangerous Dancing

Between the 14th and 17th centuries in England, Germany, and the Netherlands a deadly, contagious illness broke out resulting in exhaustion, injuries, and sometimes even death. The cause of this illness is unknown, however numerous explanations have been hypothesized as to how thousands of people have been affected by this disease. Many philosophers, doctors, priests, and other experts have believed that either St. Vitus or St. John the Baptist have brought this curse and that praying to them was the only method of ridding this horrid disease. Other experts believed that folks were possessed by demons and the only way to relieve the curse was to be exorcised. Other conspiracies about the cause of this illness include ergot poisoning, stress from poverty and hardship, madness, and staged performances (which is the most plausible cause). 

The earliest known outbreak struck Bernburg, Germany during the 1020’s, at Christmas time, when 18 pheasants began singing and dancing around a church, while service was in progress. Since then, this illness has been best known as the dancing plague, or dancing mania to others. Other outbreaks include a similar tale of the famous children’s’ fairytale The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and the biggest outbreak occurred in Strasbourg, in 1518. During the Pied Piper-like incident, in 1237, a large group of children, travelling from Erfurt to Arnstadt, were inflicted with dancing mania. They started jumping and dancing all the way to Arnstadt. During the Strasbourg incident, one woman was reported dancing for a month with 400 other people joining her. Because of the non-stop, uncontrollable dancing, injuries resulted in chest pains, convulsions, and broken ribs. Many people simply stopped dancing and fell over due to exhaustion, while some people even died due to broken ribs. Many have even suffered from heart attacks, and died as a result. 

By means of terminating this illness, people had to guess how to stop the disease because they did not what caused dancing mania in the first place. Some people believed that music would cease the dancing so musicians were hired to play for folks who have been plagued by dancing mania, however the complete opposite would happen most of the time. The problem with hiring musicians is that the music would encourage more people to join in the plague in addition to the musicians who were hired. 

Having read this article for the first time, I learned a great deal of information. While reading this article, I found it fun and interesting. I also found it unbelievable that such a phenomenon actually occurred in medieval Europe. Upon reading “Dancing Mania” I did not even know that dancing mania was an actual event that occurred long ago in central Europe until reading this article. Even though I did find this article to be interesting, this information is not useful to me in any way. The only people that I can think of that this information could be useful to are (pre) medical students, history students, and psychology students. After all, dancing mania is a psychological disease. 

Because anyone can post anything to Wikipedia pages, most Wikipedia pages cannot be trusted because of fictitious content however after doing research about dancing mania, it can be concluded that this strange phenomena is true. After exploring more about this topic through both Google Scholar and the library’s database, I found that researching dancing mania is an easy subject to find and that numerous articles surround this subject. People can find just about anything on the Internet so naturally this topic would be an easy find, and because everything can be found on the Internet dancing mania has earned a Wikipedia page. One reason why this post earned a Wikipedia page is to educate people about this disease. In my opinion, I find this information to be untrue but the research that I have done points me towards the other direction, that dancing mania is true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania

Product Placement

“Friends” was, and still is, an exceptionally popular television show.  Because it is such a beloved show, product placement is extremely evident.  Product placement is the act of advertising brand names in the media, such as T.V. shows or movies.  The way that product placement works is when a product is show on T.V., for example, then people will recognize that product and, as a result, will want to buy it.  

     

“Friends” first aired in September of 1994 and continued for ten seasons, ending in May of 2004.  The comedic show, as a whole, is about a group of six, mid-twenty year old friends, who live in Manhattan, and their dilemmas pertaining to relationships and careers.  The episode that I viewed was the fourth episode of the first season.  Two separate problems arise among the group of friends.  The girls, Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe, discuss complications with their lives and where they see themselves in the future.  The boys, Ross, Chandler, and Joey, attend a hockey game that goes terribly awry.          

       

During the first scene, Rachel’s old friends enter the coffeehouse with large shopping bags, a Big Brown Bag from Bloomingdale’s, a Zabar’s bag from a food store, and a Balducci’s bag from another food store.  Even though these three bags are not mentioned, they are definitely product placement because they were arranged in a fashion that the audience can easily see.  The audience can tell that the women were shopping before meeting Rachel.  Later, when the girls are sitting at a small table, the camera is at a distance where the bags can be seen in a noticeable fashion.  Another obvious product placement is when Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe are at Rachel and Monica’s apartment.  The girls are having a slumber party.  Various games are seen, and even mentioned, in the background, such as Operation and Twister.  These games are not played with and are only seen once except until the end of the episode, where the six of them are playing Twister.  This is product placement because the friends seem so happy to be together and to be playing together.  When audiences see Twister on T.V., they will want to buy it and play with their friends because they want what Rachel has: bliss.  

While the boys are at the New York Rangers hockey game, Joey is seen wearing a Rangers hockey jersey and Chandler is wearing a New York Rangers hat.  These two products are not product placement however.  Neither the hat nor the jersey is mentioned, and when the three of them are at the game, other fans have Rangers apparel.  These products are only shown on T.V. so that they fit in with the setting of a Rangers hockey game.  At Madison Square Garden, various advertisements are shown around the hockey rink, such as MetLife, Amtrack, Delta Arilines, Sabrett, Snapple, and Budweiser.  These advertisements are also not product placement.  Ads like these are shown at all sporting event arenas; again, like the hat and jersey, the ads are merely part of the setting of a hockey game.      

       

Political Funnies

For my next blog, I watched and analyzed the Comedy Central television show “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”  The episode that I watched aired on Thursday, March 26^th of 2015.  This episode covered a wide variety of topics from the fight against ISIS, to the Ferguson shooting, to John Hargrove’s book titled Beneath the Surface, a book in regards to his experience with training killer whales and why they should no longer be held captive. 

During the discussion on ISIS, Stewart made a comment about whose side the United States is really on.  He found it confusing, and also amusing, that the United States is fighting with Iran against ISIS, but also at the same time the United States is fighting with Saudi Arabia against Iran.  In response to this situation Stewart stated, “It took decades but we finally figured out how to fight a proxy war against ourselves.”  Stewart’s foreign affair correspondent, Jason Jones, also contributed his input about the subject, saying that he was just as confused about the predicament.   

Another topic, which was briefly discussed on the show, pertained to the Ferguson shooting in Missouri.  Stewart talked about how FOX News is biased and how the news station was quick to judge the event.  Short clips were played containing FOX News covering the story.  What bothered me was Stewart calling FOX biased when he was doing the same; “The Daily Show” was acting as a gatekeeper when a reporter was alleged of saying, “We don’t care about them.”  The tone of her voice anticipated that she was not finished talking and had more to say on the topic, however she was cut off from what she was going to say.   

While watching “The Daily Show” I found it rather entertaining and informative.  I do believe that this show is beneficial to society.  The show sheds light on serious subject matters and gives us a chance to laugh at ourselves, such as the us being at war with ourselves due to the ISIS situation.  Another example of this politically funny news occurs early into the show, where short clips are being played recapping Jason Jones’ time on “The Daily Show.”  Most of the clips were stereotypical.  For  example when he was in Iran, he commented that he was scared because he was the only American in the room.  Later while interviewing an Iranian man, Jones asked the man if he hated Americans because it is a cliché for Iranians to hate Americans.  While in Denmark (the official language being Danish), Jones asked a woman if she could speak English.  After replying that she could, Jones acted as if he could not understand her, resulting in humor.              

Naturally you can’t just watch “The Daily Show” to get your news; you have to watch an actual news report, or read the paper, because “The Daily Show” only covers small portions of news stories and doesn't explain them thoroughly.  Even I was slightly lost as to what Stewart was talking about.  And as a result, I had to fill in the gaps by researching the subject matter on my own.      

All That Radio

For my next blog post, I decided to listen to the Allentown AM radio station 790 WAEB, and 95.1 WAYV, a FM station.  My goals were to compare and contrast these two radio stations, and to figure out the differences between these AM and FM stations.

One major comparison that I noticed was the ratio of commercials to the content of the radio stations.  Both stations had about the same percentage of commercials with only a 7.05 percent difference.  95.1 had the most commercial time, coming in at 38.5 percent, while 790 contained a 31.45 percent of commercial time.     

One major difference between the two radio stations that I noticed was how much time each commercial break was comprised of.  I found that as well as having more commercial time, 95.1 also had the most commercial break time.  The longest commercial break was seven minutes and forty seconds.  During the twenty minutes that I was listening to 95.1 there were a total of eight minutes and sixteen seconds of commercial time.  On the other hand, while listening to 790 for the same amount of time I found that the longest commercial break was only four minutes and twenty seconds.  And the total minutes of commercials for this station were six minutes and forty-eight seconds.           

While changing the radio stations, another thing I noticed was that the AM stations are all comprised of news and talk shows, while the FM stations play music.  790 WAEB was a more informative station than 95.1 WAYV.  I learned a lot by listening to this station.  The talk show hosts were discussing the ISIS attacks happening in Iraq and what President Obama had to say about this situation.  According to Obama, we should all be more knowledgeable about their religion in Iraq so that we can all make peace with each other.  While listening to 95.1 I found that station to be more entertaining, however the problem with this station was that there were more commercials than actual radio content.  This station played a total of three songs, all included in the rock genre which, unlike some people, I found to be entertaining.     

Below, I have included the URL's to both radio stations.  I encourage all of you to visit these sites and see for yourself which station you find more entertaining.                       

http://www.790waeb.com/main.html

http://www.951wayv.com

"Cinderella Story"

Shaer, M.  (February 2015).  Cinderella Story.  Smithsonian, 45(10), p. 32-41, 82.

Before I had read “Cinderella Story” I knew that tigers were endangered.  What I did not know, however, was how tigers were being helped to not becoming endangered any longer and who was helping tigers on their path to recovery.

I recently got my answers while conveniently reading “Cinderella Story” from the library’s issue of the Smithsonian.  Matthew Shaer’s “Cinderella Story” is about an orphaned Amur tiger cub that was rescued by a pair of hunters and then rehabilitated upon being released into the wild.      

Zolushka’s story started on a February afternoon in 2012.  Zolushka, Russian for Cinderella, was taken to a wildlife inspector where she was properly fed.  After receiving proper care, she was then relocated to a rehabilitation center for tigers and rare animals where she was introduced to surroundings familiar of that to the wild. There, she was given food that she had to hunt herself, to prepare her for the wild.  After about a year, Zolushka was released back into the wild with her new hunting skills.   

Having read the article, I was curious to see what advertisements surrounded the piece.  I found a traveling ad and an ad advertising a new television series on PBS, called “Earth a New Wild”, surrounding “Cinderella Story.”  As a whole, I found out that the magazine contained 26 total pages of ads out of 96 pages, which means 27 percent of the magazine is comprised of ads.  Some of the ads do relate to this piece and the magazine, such as the traveling ads and the new television series.  The reason why these particular advertisements are relatable to this magazine is because Smithsonian is an educational magazine and so are these two ads.     

One other thing I found interesting while reading the article was that “Cinderella Story” is cut off at page 41 and resumes at page 82.  One question entered my mind when this occurred – why is the article not continued on to the next page?  One possible answer came to mind as well – maybe to keep the reader engaged not only in the one article, but to keep the reader engaged with the magazine as a whole.  And while I was looking for page 82, I found that four other articles stood in my way.  I figured that as the reader is reading, he or she will stumble upon an ad, or another story, and is forced to look at it for at least a few seconds, and perhaps if the reader finds either that ad or story interesting then a few seconds may last for a few minutes.  As a result then, that ad will then have served its purpose of being encoded by its audience. 

Article Review

Recently, after reading The Keystone Newspaper, I came across an article on page 5 titled “Why students should learn Spanish.”  The article explained that the percentage of Latino/Hispanic people that live in Berks County is 18.1 percent, and that Spanish is a growing language, not only in Berks County, but also in the United States. 

I found the article clearly biased because of the fact that the author is trying to convince her audience to learn Spanish.  My question is, why does the author only want us to learn Spanish?  A more appropriate title for this article should be “Why students should consider being bilingual.”  In the article, the author explains that if we know another language then we will benefit from the following: gaining better understanding of other cultures, being able to find a job easier than the person who does not speak another language, helping the company expand internationally, and gaining a better pay rate, according to salary.com, between “5 to 20 percent hour more than the position’s base rate.”    

Although I do agree with the author’s reasoning, I do not agree with her conclusion of just learning Spanish.  Yes, Spanish is a growing language in America but the above is also true if you are able to speak any language.  For example, I am learning German, not only for the above reasons, but also because I want to gain better knowledge of my ancestors.  The author explains that if we know other languages besides English then we will be losing insight of our own culture here in America, when in reality that is the total opposite.  America wasn’t around forever.  America didn’t just come to be one day.  It took many people from other cultures to create America, and by knowing those cultures and their languages will we then be able to better understand our country.   

Another reason why this article is biased is because the author claims that we live in an English-speaking country, when in reality America does not have an official language.  To think that most Americans only speak English is ignorance.  The author also goes on explaining her shocked reaction about people in Spain not only speaking Spanish, but also speaking a good amount of English, German, and Latin.  Most countries in Europe teach their students different languages at young ages.  And some countries in Europe even have more than one official language.