Alrighty then.

Final project has been handed in, forgot to number my pages but oh well.

I am glad I stayed in this class. I didn’t want to at first. I enjoyed writing the blog posts, I don’t normally get the chance to write. It helped me ingrain things I learned in class. It got harder towards the end of the semester.

This class helped me learn its okay to not have the answers about big issues. It also taught me to have an informed opinion, an opinion based on something other than just because. It’ can be difficult to have an opinion about race issues since I’m white, but it’s also important to realize that those issues are present.

I listen more closely to music, not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. I learned a bit more about music in general. I am more appreciative about how far certain forms of technology has traveled to wind up where we are today.

The internet is an impressive tool, to put it lightly.

Vannever Bush and Claude Shannon are awesome. Nicholas Carr, not so much. Nick Tosches is obsessive. Cats should never be used as phones. In my own opinion of course.

Looking forward to not being at GMU for a few weeks. in need of a vacation.

There are many ways, most of them slightly stalker-ish, that companies can utilize data to market to their customers or targeted customers. Everyone who goes online sees those personalized side ads while browsing the internet. Companies are getting smarter and smarter when it comes to using tracking of different trends. Companies can use what type of vehicle you drive, what magazine subscriptions you have, what your salary is, and if you have children as well as many more categories to sell their products and services to people who are most likely to buy what they offer. Advertising is expensive, modern companies don’t need to waste money advertising to people who probably won’t buy what they’re selling.

Amazon tracks what you buy, heck it tracks what everybody buys, and uses that data to try and sell you things they think you like. Bought an espresso machine lately? Amazon will probably try to sell you a frothing pitcher or a tamper (I didn’t know that’s what they call the thing that is used for compacting the espresso).

Music services, such as Pandora, Songza, or Spotify, try and cater to your tastes by playing the music you like and not the stuff you don’t, not always correctly. Music services bet that you will like the music they are offering you so much that you will buy the premium version, or click on their ads to make money.

All these ways that your spending habits and personal tastes can be tracked feels a bit like Big Brother is watching. Although with the demand for faster and more personalized service are these companies just giving us what we’re asking for?

My mom told me she has received no fewer than 12 Land’s End catalogs this month.

I am writing these words, typing away on a keyboard, and my thoughts appear as words on my screen. Technology can take my written/typed out thoughts and transfer them almost anywhere. It breaks my words up into small packets and delivers them to a destination, in this case some server that holds my blog posts, and enables them to be viewed by anyone with an internet connection and a desire to read obscure blog posts.

This is possible thanks to a lot of different people and inventions, one of the biggest contributors in all this was Claude Shannon. Shannon was able to turn messages into small packets, by simply asking yes or no questions, and therefore making it possible for information to be transmitted.  Shannon was radical in that he separated information from its context and messages from their meaning. Sorry I don’t understand it well enough to adequately write about it, moving on. I originally had some way to connect this to thoughts that I had about the meaning of a message being more than the physical message itself, it also has a lot to do with the source of message. My brain must be trying to make me look bad. Okay, no fancy segue into this, I think a large part of a messages importance is where the message comes from.

Most teachers won’t let students use Wikipedia as a reference source, but Wikipedia lists a lot of correct knowledge. A student can reference a quote from a book and it will be taken more seriously than if the student references a quote from Wikipedia.

The Bible also provides a good example of the source being an important factor of a message, do I have to explain why…? Fine, the Bible is taken as law to those who follow the Bible’s teachings whereas a book about how to follow the Bible is taken as a guide, even if it directly quotes the Bible.

Or take for example getting an email from your boss that says “Great job!” versus getting a spam email from some company that say, “Great job! You’ve earned enough points to buy more crap from our store!”

The source is important, also necessary.

I was going to try and write a poem but I didn’t get any farther than, “The source is of course…”

*This blog post is not under copyright*

I dislike when things don’t fit neatly into a category, like copyright. Why shouldn’t inventors get the credit, and the money, that comes with inventing stuff? Same thing goes for artists. Seems to be that most of the problems happen not because of an original copyright, but after the sale of a copyright to some big company. If a widow sells her husbands book rights to Big Company A to help her get by, is that any different than if she had sold her husbands car?

I wonder if instead of changing copyright laws, a new way of buying and selling copyrights could be established. I’m no expert in that area however, I have to leave that one up to the smart thinkers. Or the lawyers.

I am really glad that I don’t make a living through art or inventions.

Intellectual property being treated as physical property is both fair and not fair. If we compare living off of royalties from a song, to working in a “normal job, let’s say a doctor, things start to seem a little unfair. A musician wants to provide for his family, so he writes a song, it gets popular and earns that artist lots of money in royalties. Many years later the musician dies, his widow now collects his royalties, its almost as if that musician were still alive and earning money, well maybe not to his family… A doctor wants to provide for his family, works hard for many years, earns money for his family and dies many years later. When the doctor dies, that’s it, no more money being earned by the deceased. His family can invest his money but there is no new money coming in for the doctor. Is it fair for a dead ma to earn money? If we change the scenario to lets say a musicians royalties and a property investor, it may look a little different. Same basic story, musician makes music, earns royalties and eventually dies, only this tine his widow sells his music right to Large Company A, she sells her husbands property. Now Mr. Property Investor comes along, invests in property and dies, his widow sells his properties to make money, is there a big difference? I may have made that super confusing, and I may not totally grasp all the intricacies , but I hope the main point is coming across.

Copyright can be confusing, simply because there really isn’t anything like it. You can view it as property or not, but honestly it’s not 100% of either. I think viewing it as property makes it an easier concept to grasp, makes writing laws about it simpler and can help out those who are creative.

Short Story: I was reading Sterne’s “MP3” the other day, I began a new chapter and it started off talking about scientists performing experiments with “cat phones”, and my first reaction was, “Oh kitties talking to each other, how cute!”. Upon further reading though, these experimenters would remove most of the cats brains, hook them up to electrodes and watch how they reacted to sounds.

Not the same thing. Not at all.

Boogaloo, what is it and where did it come from? Spoiler alert, after researching it for an afternoon I am still far away from the answer. I could probably have a polite dinner conversation about it with someone who isn’t an expert, so that’s a positive I guess.

Here’s what I got:

First mention I came across is in a book about Australian peoples with the very interesting title of, “The Australian Race: Its Origin, Languages, Customs, Place of Landing in Australia, and the Routes by which it Spread Itself Over that Continent, Volume 2“. Doesn’t that just roll off the tongue? Apparently, for one group of Australian people located near Tolarno Station, “boogaloo” meant “death”. “Boogaloo” also appears to be the name of “a happy-go-lucky Negro” in vol. 34, page 6 of Time magazine.

There is a Chicago Tribune article from 1967 that states “The Boogaloo came from Florida. It first started in New York’s Puerto Rican districts. It came from Harlem, from Rush Street from Chicago’s south side, from Philadelphia… No one can agree on where or how it happened, but no one really cares. It’s here now!”.

Lots of other references to it on billboard charts in the ’60’s, but not many published mentions of it before the ’60’s. No references to it before it was popular and nobody cared where it came from. It is usually referred to as having a Latin flavor, it also appears alongside African American references. The Library of Congress was of no help to me in my search.  I had no choice, time to Google/Wiki it.

In my Googling a few sites threw out speculations that “Boogaloo” came from “boogie” or “boogie-woogie”.

There is a common thread among a lot of pop culture/ slang terms that their roots are difficult to uncover. Sometimes pop culture terms come about just because they sound cool, or sounded cool at the time, I’m looking at you “boogie-woogie”. Take the modern term “fleek”, are people in 100 years going to try and research it’s origins only to be frustrated by the fact that pop-culture terms don’t always make sense?

I am not sure how much the Latin culture aspect played into it being relatively unknown until suddenly it was popular. Or is it because of the different modes that pop-culture terms traveled around in the ’60’s? Pop culture terms now can travel around the world in 60 seconds. In the ’60’s the fastest way for pop-culture to spread was TV or radio. It would take awhile for a popular craze in New York to make it’s to Chicago. If a new popular form of dance was invented tomorrow it would be tweeted about on Twitter, a How-to  video would be posted on Youtube, viral videos of people doing it would be on Vine, SnapChat and Facebook and people on the street would get selfies with the creator to put on Instagram, all within a few days.

I wonder how much I miss out on popular culture because I am not Latino or African American? How much goes over my head because I don’t understand the culture? Would I understand more about the Boogaloo if I were Hispanic? Would it’s lack of an origin story make more sense?

I keep seeing connections that pop up in my different classes at GMU.  The most recent, and relative, one has to do with content ownership and distributing media to the masses.

In my Northern Renaissance art history class we discussed the invention of the printing press and how it enabled artistic content to reach large masses of people outside of where the artist lived. It was with the invention of the printing press that plagiarism became much more apparent. Before the printing press artists often copied other artists, or at least copied aspects of certain styles. Back then it wasn’t considered stealing, it was a way for the community of artists to learn from one another and build off of what the previous generation of artists had left behind. Things changed quite a bit when artists were able to create a printing plate that thousands of copies could be made from. The plate, made from copper, would eventually wear down enough that you couldn’t get any more clear copies from it and some were just thrown away. This gave artists the opportunity to steal plates, re-etch some of the worn down lines and make thousands of copies of another artists work. Plagiarism seems to have had a correlation with an invention that allows artistic content to be broadly distributed, handled by many, and that profits the distributing artist, not necessarily the creating artist.

The printing press has a lot in common with the inventions that led to music recording. The printing press and music recording techniques found a way to take an artists creativity and turn it into a commodity. When music started to be recorded, a lot more people could listen to an artists song. Being able to record music made it easier for that music to travel in different circles, and reach a different audience, as opposed to a single musician only being able to reach those he was in close proximity to. Without a way for an artist to have their music rapidly spread throughout a wide population, plagiarism was hard to pinpoint. I don’t think these inventions cause plagiarism, but it makes it more lucrative for plagiarizers and it makes it easier to find those who copy other peoples content.

My thoughts aren’t 100% formed on this subject yet, I think there is more to plagiarism and the correlation with mass media inventions, I am just having a hard time connecting it all right now. More processing and rolling thoughts around in my head is in order

In the meantime, here I am sitting in a Korean bakery, called “Tous les Jours”, that serves traditional French pastries, listening to Asian rap coming through the speakers.

Hopefully I can talk about how we know things, I mean really know things, without getting all, “What does it mean to really know something.” There are very few things that we can without a doubt 100% know. We have to take what evidence we are given and use that to figure out things, or there are beliefs that don’t require knowing, but believing.

People who work with numbers have it a bit easier, for instance a banker knows the terms they can offer for a home mortgage, and that is based off of interest rates and so forth, that are relatively knowable. As for historians, they have to rely on sources, primary and secondary sources. If you don’t know what those are then, click here. Even with first hand accounts of an event or subject, you can’t ever 100% be sure. What is the author’s motive, when was it recorded, very few accounts can occur without bias. Historians have to piece together information from sources and their years of expertise to come up with possibilities. Some things are fact, such as who were the kings and queens of England, although an actual king Arthur is debatable. It’s also usually the case that the history of the victors, and the wealthy/rulers, gets recorded more often. We usually miss a large chunk of what everyday life was like for the poor folk, or the losers of a war, entire peoples have been wiped out of existence that we will never learn about

Even with our modern technologies and ability to record, in video no less, events happening there can still be doubt. Can you always believe what your eyes see? Was it doctored? Context is very important for understanding events and why they happened, and that isn’t always available, in modern times and for the whole of history.

Thankfully, there are people who excel, or have excelled, in researching and collecting data to give us a pretty accurate picture of historical events, yay historians!

With such inventions as the internet, the non expert has access to vast amounts of historical data, and the history noob can peruse Wikipedia and come up with their own ideas about what happened during certain events. Is this a bad thing, to allow the uneducated, or somewhat educated, researcher to piece together internet findings to form a theory? I think it brings up new challenges for the world of history, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.

I can’t seem to ever decide if something is ever just “good” or “bad”. Good can come of bad, good things can be used for evil. Is it people that make things good or bad? I think so. I don’t think human beings make good or bad, or else nothing would be morally standard.

Run away brain. Choo Choo…

I have been having issues with this question for the past few weeks. This is outlet where I feel comfortable enough to even voice the question to be honest. I am a huge fan of cultural appreciation, I love learning about different cultures  and what makes them unique.  I am also a big supporter of sharing culture as well.

The best example I can use from my life is dance styles. I have taken many different kinds of dance styles, Bally Dance, Hip Hop and Bollywood. I love to dance and I enjoy researching different styles of dance. Most dances have some sort of culture or even race associated with them. It’s a common practice in dance to experiment with style fusion, like Flamenco and Belly dance, or ballet and hip hop *coughsavethelastdancecough*. It’s also common for dancers of different cultural backgrounds to want to share their culture through dance.

I just don’t know where the line is, my approach is just to avoid getting anywhere near where a line may be. Can I enjoy rap music? Can I dance to rap music in my house? What about dancing to rap music in my car? Or on a stage? Would I  cross the line If i wanted to rap myself? Is there a difference between rapping in my room and rapping on a stage for people? Does appropriation only happen when there is an audience? Or if there is profit involved? What about for people who are light skinned, but of African descent and they want to rap, would they be accused of appropriation? Or just accused until there lineage was proven? I can’t wear cornrows but I can wear my hair in a crown braid, which is a Swedish hairstyle and I am not Swedish. Aren’t they just both different kinds of braided hair styles? Why is speaking foreign languages not appropriation?

Like I said, I would never talk about this with anyone. I don’t want this to come across as “poor little white girl can’t have cornrows.”, I am just curious, as a lover of different cultures. This doesn’t cover celebrities who will do anything for an extra 15 minutes of news coverage and a twitter hashtag. I know there isn’t an answer, everyone probably has their own personal checklist for what is appropriation vs. appreciation.

Hopefully now that I have this down in ink, er… pixels, I can get rid of that uncomfortable feeling that come when one is dealing with race issues. As uncomfortable as these last few weeks has been with dealing with singing blackfaced white american men, I think asking ourselves difficult questions and bringing up crazy things people did in the past is beneficial in some way. I don’t know exactly in what way, but sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves that we aren’t better than they were, we just have different circumstances. If I was born in the late 19th century I probably would have been enjoying the minstrel shows along with everyone else.

Those scary, scary minstrel shows.

I was reading “Where Dead Voices Gather” while I waited for my first class to begin. This book discusses early american music, and the evolution of minstrel shows. The “n” (“N”?) word is used repeatedly  throughout the book, not from the author exactly, but from listing songs and other popular elements from early american music. I kept feeling self conscious as I was reading, hoping no one was reading over my shoulder or glancing at a page. I was worried because while I had context in which the word was used, onlookers would have no such context. I don’t mind reading Tosches book, it’s very informative about a large piece of american pop culture I never knew existed. Why does it bother me to be seen reading books with the “n” word but it doesn’t bother me to read it? Why do I choose to never use that word in speech or conversation but I can think about the word, and think the word, in my head without flinching? Does context make certain words and ideas less racist? If context can turn a racist word into just a historical term, what does that mean about the word itself? It’s way more complicated than just “this is racist” and “that’s not racist”, especially in a historical context. What I consider a terrible and derogatory term to be used in conversation can be extracted and studied in a historical light.

I am bothered about the fact that “blacking up” and humiliating an entire race was considered good american fun at one point, but I am also bothered about the fact that it isn’t often taught about, I think, for not wanting to bring up a sore subject.  I don’t mind learning about the minstrel show and all the performers that were in it, but it can be very uncomfortable discussing it outside of class. I think where you discuss these topics can be just as important as context when it comes to how they will be received.

Why can I read the “n” word, but not write it in my blog post? I think it’s a good thing, I just don’t fully understand the why.

I just started Nick Tosches “Where Dead Voices Gather”, I’m about 6 pages in. So far it appears to be about early american music history. Tosches mentions a few singers from the early beginnings of american music, Emmett Miller for one. I looked Miller up on Youtube to listen to some of his stuff. Wasn’t bad. In our partial class on Wednesday O’Malley mentioned some topics we would go over in class next week, and he talked about the Minstrel Show, in which american musicians would wear black face and perform musical numbers. I had never heard about this but I am thankful that I was informed of this phenomenon because when I was on Youtube listening to Emmett Miller there were pictures in the video of him wearing black face. When people talk about black face, or slavery for that matter, I get an uncomfortable feeling. It’s awkward and weird thinking that people 100 or even 60 years ago didn’t find it awkward and weird or insulting.  With all Youtube videos there is the much beloved comment section and in this particular comment section there were more than a few people who who said things along the line of “He’s racists, I can’t enjoy his music”. I think there are a lot of people who want to bury parts of the past since they can be rude, insensitive and offensive. I don’t think history lends itself particularly well to being edited in that fashion. Unfortunately there are a lot of terrible historical happenings that caused good things to happen later down the line. It can’t be so cut and dry as “this guy was a racist so his music shouldn’t be played.” can it? Would we lose a large part of our history if we glorified the racists less? Or those who caused genocides?

I am all for getting rid of Columbus day, that guy was a jerk, but I don’t want his name erased from history books. Thomas Jefferson has slaves, while he was vocally against slavery, even having an affair with a slave, not exactly the first man you would want as a role model, but he did a lot for our country. Does the sins or misdeeds of one man cancel out his good deeds?  I guess Hitler is one case of that, I don’t even know if he did anything good in his lifetime, was there a reason why so many people loved him while he came to power in the 1930’s? Would people be better off if Hitler and Columbus were never mentioned?

Wild tangent, back to Americans wearing black face. Should Emmett Miller be known more for his talent or for what he put on his face? I like finding out about the flaws of historical figures, Because I have flaws too, you won’t ever catch me owning slaves or painting my face black, but I’m not perfect.

Maybe I would have a whole different outlook if the color of my skin was darker or my ancestors came from the other side of the equator, I am open to being wrong. I mean the worst things people do to my race is call us “Crackers”, which doesn’t bother me.

I wish, that since African and Caribbean music influenced american music a lot in the early days, that the actual makers of that music could have been on stage performing, maybe not instead of but at least alongside, the other musicians of the Minstrel Show. Or maybe instead of, I don’t know. I am glad that we have records of those early musicians, Emmett Miller seems to have influenced a lot of later musicians.

Maybe the more I read the more of an established opinion I’ll have.

Is it more important to develop one set opinion about something, or to keep an open mind?