Speech bruce dawe Essay Example

Speech bruce dawe Essay The underdog. These concepts are all key to the Australian experience. These are only some of the values that define Australians. After the war, poets like Banjo Patterson, were trying to lift peoples spirits, as one of the best ways to escape from reality is through literature. This was one of the best times for Australian poets as people wanted a way out, some alternate universe where everything ends in a happily ever after. One of the later toes, Bruce Dade saw this and reflected this in his poems, Life-cycle and homogeneousness. He did this by portraying a man in homogeneousness, who retreats to his garden, taking all his worries with him. One constant in a world of variables, Dade writes. There are many reasons for a man to retreat to his garden one of these reasons is because the world is changing to fast, as it did when the war took place. This is also shown in Life-cycle as Dade writes, They will not grow old as those from more northern States grow old, for them it will always be three- quarter- mime with the scores level and the wind advantage in the final term. We will write a custom essay sample on Speech bruce dawe specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Speech bruce dawe specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Speech bruce dawe specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer By this I believe he is referring to the whole if you support this team you will not grow old, in other words sport is Just another way to cheat death. One of the main themes is the Australians see themselves as the Little Guy. The person who nobody expects to become anybody important in life. As depicted in The Man from Snowy River. A stripling on a small and weedy beast, a racehorse undersized. However the man from Snowy River does the unexpected When they reached the mountains summit, even Clan took a pull. The hidden ground was full of wombat holes, and any slip was death. But the man from Snowy River let the pony have its head. He raced down the mountain like a torrent down its bed. While the others stood and watched in very fear. And he ran him single- handedly. He turned their heads for home. Australia as a country is Just that, proven when Australia became independent of the United Kingdom in 1901. After that in 1931 they officially became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. These myths made it so. How well to quote Joseph Gobbles If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. Rarely in todays roll, would you see a situation where the under-dogs rises from the ashes of defeat, not backing down, till the final breath, where the people will undergo hardships to get the Job done. The reality of it all is much different; as most people will complain or procrastinate, do anything to delay the Job. These are however the story lines that inspire Australians to be more than they are. This is the main reason why these poems are important. Not because they remind people of their past. No, because they inspire our whole nation, to be the best they can be.

Alred Hitchcock essays

Alred Hitchcock essays Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in London on August 13, 1899. His father, William Hitchcock, a grocer, and his mother, Emma Whelan Hitchcock, brought him up. As a young boy he loved to travel, and by the time he was eight he had ridden every bus line in London and explored all of its docks and shipping terminals. His parents were devoted Catholics and made sure their son had a proper upbringing. He attended St. Ignatius College, a Jesuit preparatory school in London, where he started on a course that would prepare him to become an electrical engineer. He eventually was forced to give up his courses at the University of London to help support his family by working as a technical clerk in a cable-manufacturing company. Not to be deterred, he rose from the lowly job to the advertising department. But Alfred had a love for movies. He set out for a job in the filmmaking industry. In 1920, his first break came. With help from an actor, he was able to get a job as a title designer and before long he became head of the titling section of a newly organized American firm. By 1923, he was a scenario writer for Gainsborough Pictures in Islington, England, and that same year he saw his first credit as art director for a film called Woman to Woman. This came after he had tried his hand at directing a comedy about London low-life called Number Thirteen in 1922. The star of the picture, Clare Greet, put up some of the money for the project. However, it wasnt enough to sustain it and the film was never completed. He later became co-director on the film Always Tell Your Wife after the films original director became ill and could not complete shooting. He then acted as designer, script collaborator, and assistant director for two different films, The White Shadow (1923) and The Passionate Adventure (1924). A year later Hitchcock got his first break. He was asked to direct The Pleasure Garden, which would be his first c...

Culture Jamming - Definition and Examples

Culture Jamming s Culture jamming is the practice of disrupting the mundane nature of everyday life and the status quo with surprising, often comical or satirical acts or artworks. The practice was popularized by the anti-consumerist organization Adbusters, which often uses it to force those who encounter their work to question the presence and influence of advertising and consumerism in our lives. In particular, culture jamming often asks us to reflect on the pace and volume at which we consume and the unquestioned role that the consumption of goods plays in our lives, despite the many human and environmental costs of global mass production. Key Takeaways: Culture Jamming Culture jamming refers to the creation of images or practices that force viewers to question the status quo.Culture jamming disrupts social norms and is often used as a tool for social change. Activists have used culture jamming to raise awareness of issues including sweatshop labor, sexual assault on college campuses, and police brutality. The Critical Theory Behind Culture Jamming Culture jamming often involves the use of a meme that revises or plays off of a commonly recognized symbol of a corporate brand (such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Nike, and Apple, to name just a few). The meme is typically designed to call into question the brand image and values attached to the corporate logo, to question the consumer relationship to the brand, and to illuminate harmful actions on the part of the corporation. For example, when Apple launched the iPhone 6 in 2014, the Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) staged a protest at a Hong Kong Apple Store where they unfurled a large banner that featured the image of the new device sandwiched between the words, iSlave. Harsher than harsher. Still made in sweatshops. The practice of culture jamming is inspired by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, which focused on the power of mass media and advertising to shape and direct our norms, values, expectations, and behavior  through unconscious and subconscious tactics. By subverting the image and values attached to a corporate brand, the memes deployed in culture jamming aim to produce feelings of shock, shame, fear, and ultimately anger in the viewer, because it is these emotions that lead to social change and political action. Sometimes, culture jamming uses a meme or a public performance to critique the norms and practices of social institutions or to question political assumptions that lead to inequality or injustice. The artist Banksy is a notable example of this type of culture jamming. Here, well examine some recent cases that do the same. Emma Sulkowicz and Rape Culture Emma Sulkowicz launched her performance piece and senior thesis project Mattress Performance: Carry That Weight at Columbia University in New York City  in September  2014, as a way to draw critical attention to the universitys mishandling of disciplinary proceedings for her alleged rapist, and its mishandling of sexual assault cases in general. Speaking about her performance and her experience of rape, Emma told the Columbia Spectator that the piece is designed to take her private experience of rape and shame in the aftermath of her attack into the public sphere and  to physically evoke the psychological weight she has carried since the alleged attack.  Emma vowed to carry the weight in public until her alleged rapist was expelled or left campus. This never happened, so Emma and supporters of the cause carried her mattress throughout her graduation ceremony. Emmas daily performance not only brought  her alleged assault  into the public sphere, it also jammed the notion  that sexual assault and its consequences are private matters, and illuminated the reality that they are often  hidden from view by the shame and fear that survivors experience. Refusing to suffer in silence and in private, Emma made  her fellow students, faculty, administrators, and staff at Columbia face the reality of sexual assault on college campuses by making the matter visible with her performance. In sociological terms, Emmas performance served to vanish the taboo on acknowledging and discussing the widespread problem of sexual violence by disrupting the social norms of daily campus behavior. She brought rape culture into sharp focus on Columbias campus, and in society in general. Emma received a heap of media coverage for her culture jamming performance piece, and fellow students and alumni of Columbia joined her in carrying the weight on a daily basis. Of the social and political power of her work and the widespread media attention it received, Ben Davis of ArtNet, the leader in global news about the art world, wrote, I can hardly think of an artwork in recent memory that justifies the belief that art can still help  lead a conversation  in quite the way  Mattress Performance  already has. Black Lives Matter and Justice for Michael Brown At the same time that Emma was carrying that weight around Columbias campus, halfway across the country in St. Louis, Missouri, protesters creatively demanded  justice for 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed Black man  who was killed by a Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. Wilson had at that point yet to be charged with a crime, and since the killing occurred, Ferguson, a predominantly Black city  with a predominantly white police force and a history of police harassment and brutality,  had been raked by daily and nightly protests. Just as intermission concluded during a performance of  Requiem  by Johannes Brahms by the St. Louis Symphony on October 4, a racially diverse group of singers stood from their seats, one by one, singing the classic Civil Rights anthem, Which Side Are You On? In a beautiful and haunting performance, protesters addressed the predominantly white audience with the songs titular question, and implored, Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all. In a recorded video of the event, some audience members look on disapprovingly while many clapped for the singers. Protesters dropped banners  from the balcony commemorating Michael Browns life  during the performance  and chanted Black lives matter! as they peacefully exited the symphony hall at the conclusion of the song. The surprising, creative, and beautiful nature of this culture jamming protest made it particularly effective. The protesters capitalized on the presence of a quiet and attentive audience to disrupt the norm of audience  silence and stillness  and instead made  the audience the site of a politically engaged performance. When social norms are disrupted in spaces in which they are usually strictly obeyed, we tend to quickly take notice and focus on the disruption, which makes this form of culture jamming successful. Further, this performance disrupts the privileged comfort that members of a symphony audience enjoy, given that they are primarily white and wealthy, or at least middle class. The performance was an effective way of reminding people who are not burdened by racism that the community in which they live is currently under assault by it in physical, institutional, and ideological ways  and that, as members of that community, they have a responsibility to fight those for ces. Both of these performances, by Emma Sulkowicz and the St. Louis protesters, are examples of culture jamming at its best. They surprise those who bear witness to them with their disruption of social norms, and in doing so, call those very norms, and the validity of the institutions that organize them  into question. Each offers a timely and deeply important  commentary on troubling social problems  and forces us to confront that which is more conveniently swept aside. This matters because viscerally confronting the social problems of our day is an important step in the direction of meaningful social change.

Terminal Design Concept Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Terminal Design Concept - Essay Example d namely; pier satellite design, pier finger design, remote satellite design, transporter design, semicircular (curvilinear) design and linear design. Having analyzed the concepts mentioned above, the most appropriate and efficient design was a hybrid of linear and pier satellite design configurations. By description, the linear design concept involves a configuration with one building hosting both the ticketing and waiting area especially for small aircraft airports. The pier satellite terminal includes the same design as linear only that it involves more concourses connected to this main building thus creating several satellite structures. Considerations of best practices in modern airports influenced the hybrid selection decision. The need for short walking distances, for example, for passengers was assured by incorporating linear design to counter the excessive walking distances created by the rotunda-like pier satellite concept. A linear design concept guarantees a precise orientation where aircrafts park nose-in with respect to the terminal building. However, the orientation occasioned by the rotunda-like layout in the pier satellite design configuration is not a straight forward one. Simple construction of the main linear terminal building and the piers influenced the selection of the hybrid design configuration. The layout is simple and enables passengers to park their vehicles even right in front of the terminals before they enter through for boarding the aircraft. Adequate curb length is made possible by the pier satellite system since it is dependent on dwell time called so to mean the time has taken to remove passengers and their baggage. Thanks to the piers for decentralizing the clearing area and the no hub volume type of airport under consideration. In this case, there was enough area for terminal curb for through vehicles, baggage, and the passengers’ pickup. Small baggage system costs using decentralized system helps achieve pier satellite

Small Business Plan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Small Business Plan - Research Paper Example By using the online grant selector on: a total of 79 grants were identified. We are estimating that a grant or a combination of grants totaling 10 000 or less than 10% of start up costs would be possible2. The average cost of a lunch entree will be 10GBP, while the average cost of a dinner entree will be 15GBP. We expect the average lunch drink price to be 2GBP, with more lunch guests having coffee and tea than alcoholic beverages. During dinner we expect the average per person drink order to be 5GBP reflecting that the majority of guests will be having one or more alcoholic beverages. Thus the average per guest lunch ticket will be 12, and the average per guest dinner bill 20. The busiest month of the year is predicted to be December at 115% of average monthly revenue. The next busiest month will be November, bringing in 110% of the average monthly revenue. January is typically the slowest month (especially after holiday shoppers receive their December credit card statements. As such, we expect only 90% of the monthly revenue in January. February is also slow, but has one of the busiest evenings of the year in Valentines Day, so it will do a healthy 95% of average monthly revenue. Labour and food costs are tied to revenue, and will adjust up and down accordingly. For the first year we d... Sales forecasts SALES FORECAST Seating Capacity 30 Usable capacity 0.8 Lunch Turns 2 Customers served 48 Ave revenue/customer 12 Lunch Revenue 576 Dinner Turns 3 Customers served 72 Ave revenue/customer 20 Dinner Revenue 1440 Daily Revenue 2016 Yearly and seasonal fluctuations in Revenue The busiest month of the year is predicted to be December at 115% of average monthly revenue. The next busiest month will be November, bringing in 110% of the average monthly revenue. January is typically the slowest month (especially after holiday shoppers receive their December credit card statements. As such, we expect only 90% of the monthly revenue in January. February is also slow, but has one of the busiest evenings of the year in Valentines Day, so it will do a healthy 95% of average monthly revenue. Labour and food costs are tied to revenue, and will adjust up and down accordingly. For the first year we do not expect to make what will become our typical monthly revenues. It takes time to build up a steady clientele. As such, we have adjusted each month's revenue during the first year down to 85% of expected. This adjustment is done after the seasonal adjustments discussed immediately above. Details of Other costs Lease 30 000 Wages Manager (35 000 GBP/yr) 2916.66 Head Cook (25 000 GBP/yr) 2083.33 Assistant Cook (8.5 GBP/hr - 28hrs/day) 3570 Dishwasher (6.0GBP/hr - 14hrs/day) 2520 Servers (6.0GBP/hr - 28hrs/day) 5040 WAGES TOTAL 16129.99 WAGES ADJUSTED FOR USAGE LEVEL 14516.99 General Operating Costs Electricity 110 Heating 110 Telephone 60 Water 60 Office Supplies 40 Cleaning 300 Maintenance &

An analysis of the conventions the soap opera genre Essay Example for Free

An analysis of the conventions the soap opera genre Essay In this essay I intend to explore the genre of Soap Opera and some of the conventions that determine the genre. The Soap Opera genre is defined as A serialized drama usually dealing with domestic problems. Eastenders and Coronation Street are prime examples of the Genre. Soap Operas originated in America in the late 1950s and started being shown in England in the late 1960s. Soap Operas are named after the sponsors of the shows were Soap Products. These shows were a marketing strategy to sell the soap products. The ratings for the 2 Soap Operas mentioned are constantly at the top of the list. The ratings for particular episodes in which a story line is thickening have been up to 10 million viewers watching one episode. Increasing popularity in this genre has provided a phenomenon in spin-off products such as magazines devoted to the soaps. Actors and actresses are becoming celebrities and are appearing on talk shows because of their increasing popularity. The Soap Opera Genre has its own identifiable conventions, some of which will be explored. My particular soap that I will be analyzing is Eastenders. The episode that I will be analyzing is the episode on Monday 25th of November 2002. The time this episode was on TV was 8:00pm. Eastenders has a great slot in the channel schedule. Prime time t. v. is from 7-9pm and Eastenders popularity has also come from the time it is broadcast. The episode is half an hour long. This soap opera is shown before the watershed, which means there are certain things, which cannot be shown. There is never any swearing and hardly any violence used. I selected this soap because it has been going on for over 30 years and is one of the most popular soaps in England. The story lines that are used in this episode are: Phil Mitchell wants to find out what the postcard from Lisa says. Laura and the Doctor are having a meeting to find who wrote the poison pen letters. In the scenes that I will be focusing on the conventions of character will now be explored. There are mostly characters that have a history and meaning they are more rounded characters. There are 2 or 3 stereotype characters. Phil Mitchell is a very aggressive person that few people like. When people that he doesnt like tell him what to do he gets angry and threatens them and doesnt care what trouble he can get in. When he talked to someone about a postcard that had been sent from Lisa he was very aggressive and demanded to read it. The other man said no and told him to stop interfering with his life. Phil told him maybe he would maybe he wouldnt. He does what ever he wants and doesnt care who he tramples along the way. He loves his mother and protects her. He thinks that he can control everybody in the square. He has got into trouble with the police before and is a recovering alcoholic. He has 2 children and when with them he is made to look as if he such a soft character and a loving father rather than what he is everywhere else. Different camera shots are used when filming Phil to make him look powerful and menacing. He is filmed to look as if he is more powerful than anybody else in the same room. He is one of the main characters of Eastenders and is there to cause trouble and tension in the soap. I will now analyze my chosen 5 minutes where there is tension and many conventions used. The 5 minutes that I have chosen are where some of the people from the square are having a meeting to try and find who is writing poison pen letters. As the tension builds up the scene changes to the pub breaking the tension and prolonging you from knowing what was going to come if the scene hadnt been changed. The camera shots used only show 1 or 2 peoples faces to let the viewer see the facial expression of the person. When the scene changes to the pub the camera shots change and a panning shot is used to distinguish who is in the pub. The shot stops to people having conversations in the pub. When the scene changes you can see the lighting is different. It gets darker but there is enough light to see the people and their expressions. The camera focuses in on one of the people when they have something to say. The camera at the beginning of the scene turns around showing all the people in the room but from then on the camera doesnt turn but cuts from person to person. As the scene gets to the end someone is walking in to the room hearing something that shouldnt have been heard. The camera changes back and forth from the person speaking, to the person walking into the room. Eventually when the person walks into the room the camera angle is changed and shows the person who walked into the room taller than anybody else making the rest of the people in the room feel small. The camera cuts very quickly to all the different peoples faces showing their surprise and emotion. The camera stays on the person who walked in on the people until she has finished what she has to say. Then the camera cuts back to the peoples faces. This gives the effect of the people being caught out and the person who wouldnt normally be in this situation the person who caught them out. I think that Soap Operas will be an important part in the TV industry for many years because it has domestic issues and provides entertainment for a whole variety of people and for most age groups. It will also be popular because it opens up many conversations on suggested story lines and what will happen next in the next episode. The soap opera has become more than a marketing strategy for selling soaps.

Bertolt Brecht :: Drama

Bertolt Brecht. Brecht was born Augsburg, Germany in 1898. He then attended university in Munich in 1917. It was while he was at university that he witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution which was the first event to influence him. Brecht wanted what had occurred in Russia to repeat itself in Germany as he saw all there was to gain from a Revolution. This was the first influence that gave Brecht his voice in social and political issues. In 1918 Brecht was called up for World War 1 as a medical orderly. Here he witnessed some of the worst medical injuries created by the war. This experience made him an extreme pacifist. This was the second most influential event that took place which in turn caused him to be in opposition to those international opinionated political powers. He saw them as being capitalist populations, sending innocent men to be murdered meaninglessly, for their own efficient profitable gain. He felt misery as the human potential completely contradicted its entire meaning by the brute actions of humans around the world. Marxism was the influence that gave Brecht hope that there was good within humans although some needed re-awakening. He had seen the Russian Revolution and witnessed the collapse of Germany after World War 1 and the fall of the Royal Family of Europe. This all influenced Brecht to write his first play Baal in 1918. This raw play and episodic structure was the youth of Brecht’s later well-known work, which inhabited a more grotesque quality. His work looks at the incapability one has to have power over the lust and greed in the world. He uses the element of shock in his plays as he relates to his yearning for change and fury at his experiences. It was this yearning to bring change via the use of shock that bought us epic theatre. In 1922 Brecht went to Berlin and this experienced gave him the influence for all his later work. Here he observed real theatre and the cabaret, parts of theatre he never knew existed. This influence made him more culturally aware and gave him the knowledge to develop his work. Aesthetic theatre was influenced by expressionalism, the use of various scenes without any rational order. He discarded ‘Drawing room comedy’, realism and naturalism. Instead he took influences from Edwin Piscator whom considered theatre as a device for political education. Edwin Piscator used different means in which to convey his political message. He used news-real, projections and captions to portray the background knowledge of the play. He also used great chorus scenes, perceived in traditional Broadway or West- End performances, to demonstrate the significance of the play.

lightweight truss construction

The purpose of this paper is to discuss issues concerning the use of lightweight truss construction.   The use of this construction has increased greatly in recent years.   There are many benefits to using lightweight truss constructions.   However, there are also dangers, which will be presented. The main benefit of using lightweight truss wood construction is that it offers builders the opportunity to save lots of money (Pindelski, 2006).   Construction companies are in the business of making money, and therefore many of them prefer to use this new, cheaper construction.   This allows the builders to secure more contracts because they are able to offer lower prices.   Another benefit of using lightweight truss construction is that it makes it easier to install and run utilities and ventilation systems, it is also easy to assemble.   Moreover, this new construction is as strong as traditional structures under normal conditions (Pindelski, 2006). It is clear that there are indeed benefits to using lightweight truss construction, however, as with all types of construction, safety is a major concern.   Research has demonstrated that lightweight truss construction does measure up to desired safety standards.   For example, â€Å"Fire statistics suggest that there is an urgent need for improved performance of light-weight truss construction in fire scenarios,† (Ziemba, 2006, p.2). This creates a serious danger for firefighters and people who occupy buildings, which have caught on fire.   â€Å"Buildings that contain lightweight wood truss construction are susceptible to collapse from fire exposure in a very short amount of time,† (Pindelski, 2006).   This sentiment is further supported in the article Lightweight Truss May Cause Firefighter Death.   â€Å"Without training and building codes that specifically address the fire hazards and threats caused by lightweight truss construction, many civilian and firefighter lives may be lost due to early structural collapse during fire situations,† (Lightweight Truss May Cause Firefighter Death, 2005). Construction companies and builders are now left to decide if the benefits of using lightweight truss construction are worth the risks to human lives.   Firefighter argue that this construction is simply too dangerous, and has cause death for many firefighters.   Unfortunately, many builders to not agree and they assert that firefighters are simply misinformed and exaggerating the dangers of these construction materials.   This debate is likely to continue for years to come.   But there is no doubt that most people agree that saving lives is more important than saving money.   Using lightweight truss constructions is an unsafe practice and it is not worth the risk to human lives or safety. References Lightweight Truss May Cause Firefighter Death (2005).   Retrieved May 8, 2007, from http://singularity.pilsch.com/Squad514CasualArgument Pindelski, J. (2006).   Understanding the Dangers of Lightweight Truss Construction.   Retrieved May 8, 2007, from http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?id=46749§ionld=14 Ziemba, G. (2006).   Theoretical Analysis of Light-Weight Truss Construction in Fire Conditions, Including the Use of Fire Retardant Treated Wood.   Retrieved May 8, 2007, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/ETD/Available/etd-050506-114556/unrestricted/Gziemba.pdf   

The Wrestler by Dudley Talcott

Originally created in 1929 by Connecticut-born sculptor Dudley Talcott, The Wrestler is a testament to the power of the modern age. Nearly a century after its creation, its imposing presence is potent enough to earn itself the position as the symbol for the Florida International University Wolfsonian Art Museum. At nearly seven feet tall, the aluminum sculpture is oddly comforting. Its blend of a few key human features and a featureless facade gives it a quality of quiet strength, softening its powerful bulk. It seems only fitting that such an ominous figure of peaceful might would be displayed at the Olympic games in Los Angeles three years after its creation. This piece of art is one of subtle meaning, leaving it open to a variety of apt interpretations. Dudley Vail Talcott was born in 1899 into an artistic and encouraging family. He was supported in his artistic endeavors instead of being pushed to adopt a more commercial career. Talcott studied briefly at Yale University but never earned a degree. He opted instead to travel, attending open classes at Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris before traveling to Norway. Alcott spent his time in Norway exploring Norwegian fjords by canoe and working on a North Sea fishing boat. He later published two books documenting his experiences replete with his own drawings and photographs. By 1927, Talcott was exhibiting his work in New York and Chicago. He quickly gained repute as America’s premier sculpture, creating works in his own distinct style but still showing signs of more traditional approaches. By this point, Talcott was being commissioned for large-scale installations such as fountains while working on smaller pieces of a more personal nature. The Wrestler, one of his earlier works, already showed distinct signs of Talcott's style. The 1920s saw American artists being presented with competing mediums in which to express visual modernity. Modern applied arts of French influence were the modes of choice for architects and interior designers. Many sculptors chose to create works based on pre-classical Greek figures; this refers to the rendition of the human form in expressionless poses and facial features. Being born on the heels of the industrial revolution, Talcott was caught up with the rest of the country in the wave of awe and wonderment that came with experiencing such a radical change in the cultural and economic landscape. The advent of the automobile and the plane physically changed the American landscape. Jazz, considered to be one of the truly American art forms, was born shortly followed by the invention of the radio. Home refrigeration as well as penicillin, a cure-all antibiotic, was changing the way of life on the home front. Modernism, an artistic philosophy founded on the breaking of traditions and the abandonment of convention, was increasingly becoming less of a philosophy and more of a reality. Modernist art is characterized by sleek, minimalist design. It forgoes extravagance and ostentatious splendor for subtle elegance. A bloom in popularity of science fiction, introduced by films such as Metropolis, had introduced robots into popular culture and fueled an already rampant wonder of new technology. Talcott fused all these modernist ideas into The Wrestler. His faceless visage and geometric musculature are reminiscent of an automaton, yet the inclusion of ears, nipples, and male genitalia humanize what might have been an otherwise cold form. This humanization of his sculpture is evocative of nude Greek figures in the pre-classical eras. The use of aluminum as a medium allows Talcott to express a sense of futurism through material alone. Though it is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, it did not become commercially available until the early nineteenth century. It was initially isolated in 1845 but until the early 1900s was only used for small applications, most notably jewelry. Once techniques were developed to produce aluminum in industrial quantities, it becomes something of a wonder material for engineers. Its durability, relatively low density, and resistance to corrosion made aluminum ideal for architectural and aviation applications. Its resistance to corrosion and ductility in particular made it apt for public sculptures and architectural ornaments. Frank Lloyd Wright, acclaimed architect and modernist, is credited by some sources as being the first to use aluminum as a decorative medium in architecture in his design of the walkway of the Polk County Science Building of the Florida Southern College. The esplanade features tapered aluminum columns that give the appearance of mechanical function. Each column is divided into three sections that give the illusion that they can retract and extend. This esplanade reflects modernist appreciation for the aesthetic appeal of the machine. Combined with its robotic form that is only vaguely human, The Wrestler is a tribute to the power of progress. Talcott entered The Wrestler in the Sculpture division in the arts portion of the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Arts competitions based on sports-themed works were a part of the Olympic games from 1912 to 1948. This portion of the Games was discontinued due to concerns about amateurism and professionalism. The competition had divisions for music, literature, painting, architecture, and sculpture. In context of the Olympic games, The Wrestler can take on meaning in addition to the modernist ideals it embodies. It can be argued that in removing some of the distinguishing features of the form, this statue transcends humanity. In spirit with the Olympics, it is free from some of the unavoidable evils of the human experience such as political, religious, and racial prejudice. The choice of athletic event depicted also adds another layer of meaning. Wrestling is classically a sport of control, as opposed to outright dominance. This sense of control refers to more than just control over one’s opponent; it also refers to control oneself. An effective wrestler is equal parts brute and master strategist. A match can be said to resemble a game of chess played with the limbs. Many eastern cultures and the predecessors of our own western culture, the Greeks, valued wrestling as a means of transcendence and self-discovery. The Greek philosopher Plato, a wrestler himself, saw the sport as a means to keep the balance between intellect and brawn while simultaneously experiencing a microcosm of human existence. American anthropologist Clifford James Geertz noted in his study of Indian culture that they view wrestling as â€Å"a story they tell themselves about themselves†¦. When in the competitive pit, a wrestler stands alone as the distilled essence of his way of life. He stands alone with his own background, his own unique history of success and failure, his own strength and skill, and his own style and technique. † Indians collectively believed being a wrestler was as much a description as a title. They revere not only the competitor as a champion but as one who has â€Å"lived up to the ideals of a rigorous life,† implying that wrestling goes beyond the barrier of recreation and ventures into creed. It can be said it is viewed as a religion without a formal doctrine, something existent in all cultures in some form or another. Dr. Jospeh S. Alter, sociocultural anthropologist and professor of medical anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, stated in a similar study focusing on the symbolic meaning of the body in the practice of North Indian wrestling, â€Å"When in the competitive pit, a wrestler stands alone as the distilled essence of his way of life. He stands alone with his own background, his own unique history of success and failure, his own strength and skill, and his own style and technique. We find the paradoxical nature of life mirrored in wrestling: despite requiring the presence of an opponent and being a custom that spans across every culture, wrestling is a solitary practice. In light of this new meaning, The Wrestler can be seen as representing humankind’s control over its future through the balance of intellectual progress and unbridled force. Furthe rmore, The Wrestler is an icon of the solidarity of the modernist movement. Without centuries of precedence and influence to rely on, a subculture of artists devoted to testing preconceptions had charged themselves with creating things that until then had never been. One could argue that modernists influenced the establishment of existential philosophy for the very reason that they were the first to strip themselves of their preconceived notions and were completely free to create as they saw fit. The Wrestler can serve as an allegorical figure for the modernist movement as a whole. Modernists stand alone in the proverbial ring, alone with their opponent (convention and classical conformity) with nothing but their own skill, style, and technique. A similar ideal is embodied by the sculpture that took the silver that year. Wrestling, by Hungarian sculptor Miltiades Manno, depicts two wrestlers in the heat of combat. While The Wrestler is more of a stoic figure of progress and strength, Wrestling is extremely detailed. Each facial feature is carved into an expression of exertion and each muscle is anatomically accurate. This sculpture is an example of a neo-classical Greek figure. Historically, these figures are more expressive and much more anatomically correct due to a better understanding of the human body; the increasing realism of the sculptures coincide with medical advancements of the era. In contrast to Talcott’s piece, Manno’s statue is a more literal depiction of the sport it is based on. A portrayal that is more analogous in meaning to that of The Wrestler is the portrayal of Jacob’s wrestling match with God. In this rendering, the match is an allegory for the triumph of man (in this case) over a higher power. He is left permanently handicapped from the match implying that, though it is possible to prevail, there are severe consequences in wresting command from those above us; we are to allow ourselves to be controlled as opposed to taking control of our lives ourselves. The sentiment behind The Wrestler is that humankind is in control of itself. Though similar in the use of wrestling as a metaphor for control, the two depictions differ in their ultimate meaning. Another work of Talcott’s, his monument to renaissance astronomer Copernicus, is also closely related in significance to The Wrestler. The monument features a modernist representation of the heliocentric model, the sun symbolized by three interlocking discs and the Earth’s orbit symbolized by a sixteen-foot ring. At its time, Copernicus’ heliocentric model was innovative. It was a widely held belief that the Earth was the center of this solar system. It seems fitting that a modernist would be the one to commemorate Copernicus’ revolutionary concept. As with all things, ways of seeing The Wrestler have changed with time. Aluminum is no longer a new and futuristic material. Robots and advanced technology are now commonplace. Most people do not even leave their houses without a cell phone, a device that would have been more science fiction than nonfiction to people of the 1920s. Without the novelty of a new material and style, this statue is still a poignant testament to the enduring character of the human spirit. The Wrestler stands proud and resolute; his broad shoulders and intimidating musculature are symbolic of the force of willpower. It is this willpower that fueled the scientific and cultural progress that was so idolized by early nineteenth century modernists and subsequent artistic movement such as post-modernism. In regards to my personal reaction to this piece, to say that I was moved by this piece is a severe understatement. As a wrestler myself I have always found competition to be a exercise in both physical and mental faculties far surpassing the development of body and mind separately. In fact, I’m a firm believer that the most valuable gains from a life spent wrestling have nothing to do with athleticism. Once my body loses its ability to handle the demands of this sport, I will not miss it. When that day comes my mind will still retain its ability to strategize at the capacity I have trained it to do so. I will still have the iron will to turn my goals and aspirations into inevitabilities. I will still be able to grapple with the foes of peace and tranquility in my life and overcome them with ease. I will still be a wrestler. This is a sentiment shared by anyone that has ever defined him or herself through this sport. The fact that this piece uses wrestling to convey such a complex and layered message stirred up these emotions in me; I have been on a hiatus from actively competing due to several orthopedic injuries so these feelings have lay dormant until recently. Tascott’s use of wrestling to convey his point struck a chord in me, allowing me to relate to the concepts presented in his despite my birth being over sixty years after these ideas were relevant. I think it is his appeal to basic constituents of the human condition, though, that arrests the attention of what would be an otherwise oblivious passerby. I believe this is the reason it was selected to be the symbol of the Wolfsonian museum. It is intimidating yet approachable; it is simple yet alluring, cold yet inviting. To borrow a line form Winston Churchill, The Wrestler is â€Å"a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. †

Daniel Keyes Controversial Novel Questions for Study

Daniel Keyes Controversial Novel Questions for Study Flowers for Algernon is a famous 1966 novel by Daniel Keyes. It began as a short story, which Keyes later expanded into a full novel. Flowers for Algernon tells the story of a mentally challenged man, Charlie Gordon, who undergoes a surgical procedure that dramatically increases his IQ. Its the same procedure thats already been performed successfully on a mouse named Algernon. At first, Charlies life is improved by his expanded mental capacity, but he comes to realize people he thought were his friends were mocking him. He falls in love with his former teacher, Miss Kinnian, but soon surpasses her intellectually, leaving him feeling isolated. When Algernons intelligence begins to decline and he dies, Charlie sees the fate that awaits him, and soon he begins to regress as well. In his final letter, Charlie asks that someone leave flowers on Algernons grave, which is in Charlies backyard. Here are a few questions for study and discussion of Flowers for Algernon: What is important about the title? Is there a reference in the novel that explains the title?What statement does the novel make, directly or indirectly, about the treatment of the mentally challenged?Flowers for Algernon was published in the mid-1960s. Are Keyes views on mental disability and intelligence dated? Does he use terms to describe Charlie that are no longer considered appropriate?What passages could have been grounds for banning Flowers for Algernon (as it was several times)?Flowers for Algernon is whats known as an epistolary novel, told in letters and correspondence. Is this an effective technique for showing Charlies rise and decline? Why or why not? To whom do you think the letters and notes Charlie writes are written?Is Charlie consistent in his actions? What is unique about his situation?Consider the location and time period of the novel. Would changing one or both have changed the story significantly?How are women portrayed in Flowers for Algernon? What would have b een different about the story if Charlie had been a woman who underwent such a controversial surgery? Are the doctors who operate on Charlie acting in his best interests? Do you think Charlie would have gone through with the operation if he knew what the ultimate outcome would be?Several publishers rejected Flowers for Algernon, demanding Keyes rewrite it with a happier ending, with at least one suggesting Charlie should marry Alice Killian. Do you think that would have been a satisfying conclusion to the story? How would it have affected the integrity of the storys central theme?What is the central message of the novel? Is there more than one moral to the story of Charlies treatment?What does the novel suggest about the connection between intelligence and happiness?What genre do you think this novel belongs to: ​Science fiction or horror? Explain your answer. Here are some additional links to enhance your appreciation and understanding of Flowers for Algernon

Poetry Explication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Poetry Explication - Essay Example Thomas used words as a brick layer may use mortar, the words served to hold the meaning in place, â€Å"what the words stood for, symbolized, or meant, was of very secondary importance; what mattered was the sound of them as I heard them for the first time†(Ferris, pp. 25). It was not uncommon for Thomas to discuss the idea of death in his work. In one such poem, A Refusal to Mourn the Death, By Fire, of a Child in London, Thomas deals directly with the death of a child and the emotions that follow, â€Å"The majesty and burning of the childs death./I shall not murder† (Thomas, lines 13-14). Thomas seems to pull the idea of challenging the finality of death into this piece just as he does in Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night. Thomas deals with the reoccurring theme of death in several of his works in such a way as to challenge death itself and the aftermath felt by people who lose loved ones. This is an essential way in which to deal with the natural reality of deat h and Thomas does so through the use of language. Ultimately, Thomas wrote the piece entitled A Refusal to Mourn the Death of a Child, By Fire, in London as a way of illustrating his detest for the Nazi’s and their actions in World War II. Thomas was very in favor of the allied forces, and though he loved love intrinsically and saw the death of a child as the ultimate horror, he was not going to acknowledge the actions of the German forces in any way. This poem was his way of embracing life and refusing to be defeated by the hatred of the Nazi forces and what they stood for. The very first line of Thomas’ poem Do Not GO Gently into that Good Night, imposes instructions to the reader, â€Å"Do not go gently into that good night† (Thomas, line 1). This is the heart of the poem in that Thomas is essentially illustrating that there is an inevitable journey to be made but that one should not make this journey without resistance. The next line establishes the

Keeping Animals in Zoos and Aquaria Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Keeping Animals in Zoos and Aquaria - Essay Example This essay stresses that the vast majority of zoos across the globe offer breeding programs for some animals that may be either endangered or lacking the capability to find mates. From a conservationist approach, this move helps to restore the diversity of the wild by saving the endangered species. From an animal rights point of view, keeping animals in captivity for breeding purposes helps the animal to pass its genes to its offspring. Medical and ecological reasons may force zoologists to put some animals under captivity, especially if the animals suffer from treatable conditions. Some animals have inherent characteristics that may prevent them from mating and breeding naturally. This paper makes a conclusion that animals should not be kept in zoos and aquaria for any other purposes other than those that protect the lives of such animals. Modern zoos and aquaria focus on profit ate the expense of the animals’ enjoyment of their surroundings. Animal rights activists and some conservationists oppose strongly, the idea of holding animals in captivity. However, some cases warrant the keeping of animals in aquaria and zoos, especially circumstances that stand to benefit the animal in terms of protection, health, and food. In this respect, animals should not be kept in any zoo or aquarium except when the lives of such animals are in danger. The deciding factor should be the right and benefit to the animal rather than the interest of zoo and aquaria managers.