"Inspiration Information" Shuggie Otis

- The mood of the song is happy and positive. The singer seems content.

- There are many musical elements that create this "vibe". The singer is singing in a major key which automatically makes the listener feel more comfortable and positive. Also, the guitar and drums accompany the singer with an upbeat tune and rhythm. The tempo is not too fast, but it also isn't dragging, it's at a comfortable pace.

- The major key made the mood more positive and bright. The keyboard, guitar, and drums in the background helped to keep the music flowing without rushing it too much. Overall, the song sets a positive mood for the listener.

"Semeadores" Diego Rivera

- SOAPSTone
Subject: the workers
Occasion: Mexican Revolution
Audience: working class
Purpose: to show the hardships of the working class
Speaker: artist
Tone: dreary, artist shows that the lives of workers are hard and not pleasant

- In the painting "Semeadores", Diego Rivera wanted to show the stress of the workers. He expresses this through many ways. Firstly, he shows the difficulty of the guy on the right's work. He shows this through the arch in his back. It looks almost as if he's pushing with all his body's weight on the shovel. Also, the colors in the painting are very neutral and muddy looking. This expresses that the workers aren't very high-spirited, they don't have much brightness in their lives, and that their work causes their lives to be difficult and a bit depressing. Lastly, the way that the two figures' bodies seem to flow into the field could emphasize the fact that this is where they belong and they can't leave their work.

Wilco's Writing Process

- Wilco and his band have an interesting process of song writing. For them, they start by working together to form a basic melody for the song. Then they add in all the other parts. When it seems like (to us) the song's complete, they then deconstruct the whole song and work with the parts. They meddle with each of the individual components of the song, until they are satisfied with ALL the parts. Then they reconstruct the song, and depending on how satisfied they are with the song, the song is complete.

- My writing process is very simple and generic. Before I start writing at all, I take a moment to gather my thoughts and think of the highlighting points that I would like to cover in my piece. Then, I take out a scratch paper and write up an outline of my paper. After this is finished, I write out the whole essay. Since I know that there's no way my piece will be perfect in one draft, I wait a couple hours, or even days, before re-reading the piece and editing it.

- For the outline of my piece, I make sure that I identify the thesis (if one's needed) and all the body paragraphs. For each of the body paragraphs, I write a quick summary covering the main argument of that paragraph and list details, quotes, examples, etc. that I could include. In the last paragraph, or conclusion, I make sure to identify a connection back to the introduction or to the thesis. After I've written my entire paper based on my outline and have waited a couple hours, I go back and read the piece from the first sentence to the last. While doing this, I mark places that seem to sound weird or have a funny wording. When I've finished reading the piece, I look back on the places I've marked and fix the word choices. Finally, I proof-read once more for grammatical errors.

Nostalgia

- Nostalgia is a feeling of remembrance. It's the feeling you get when you look back on a memory and all your senses suddenly reflect what it was like to be back there.

- When I hear this kind of music I think of an old movie. In the scenes, there are lots of children who live in a small, homely town. The children are laughing and running up and down a street, there also some other kids sitting outside their favorite ice cream parlor. I think of this because the song sounds as if it's been taken back to an old memory of childhood. Usually, memories of childhood involve special moments, or even just simple moments shared with the people you love in your favorite places.

- When I think of my childhood I always think of going to Cave Run Lake with my friends. Each year our parents would drive us out there, have a cookout, and then we'd go out on boat ride. Usually what triggers these memories is just the sight of kids running around in a big field or seeing kids with their parents gathered around a picnic table. Aside from this, whenever I think of my childhood, I also think of the time my parents took me and my sister to watch Disney On Ice. I remember trying to navigate through the big crowds of people while grabbing tightly onto my dad's hand before finally reaching our seats. For this memory, every time I see a mug/cup shaped in the form of an animal or a Disney character, I'm immediately reminded of this show. At this show, my parents bought me a plastic mug in the shape of Mufasa's head and my sister a mug in the shape of Mickey's head. Those two mugs were to be my favorite cups for a very long time! These are the two memories that stick out to me every time I think of my childhood.

A Pinch Of Poverty

- Major contributing factors to poverty include the economy, population size (over populated areas are likely to have a high rate of unemployment, unemployment can easily lead to poverty), health (those who are disabled may be incapable of finding work), and education.

- The artists portrays poverty in a helpless, sad, and gloomy way. The majority of the image uses darker and grayish colors. In the picture, the mother seems to be staring off into space with sort of a hopeless look on her face, the boy seems a bit sick, and only the young girl seems to have still have faith.

- The artist is trying to show that poverty is a very serious issue. There are entire families out on the streets and even though they are "innocent victims" of poverty, they seemed to be trapped (shown by the iron fence behind them) and in their dreary lifestyle.

- The artist paints the entire scene in a very realistic way, his style is the opposite of an abstract artist, this shows that the problem of poverty is very real and not a matter of imagination or creativity. The artist also uses a bright yellow to paint the flowers in the girl's hand to contrast the gray and gloomy surroundings, this emphasizes the somber mood of the family's lifestyle.

Poverty Response

In the articles "Live Free and Starve" and "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" both authors discuss the same issue, however they voice very different opinions. The author of the first article, Chitra Divakaruni, states that the United States' role in helping starving and poor children, "although well intentioned, are nonetheless misguided." Divakaruni argues that by trying to interfere too much with the poverty of other nations, we could actually harm their citizens more than help them. Divakaruni supports her argument by bringing up a bill that the House passed which forbade the import of goods from factories using forced or indentured child labor. Divakaruni stresses that although this idea may seem like a huge step towards abolishing forced/indentured labor, it also brings about a string of new problems, such as drastically higher rates of unemployment, then leading to more starvation, thievery, violence, ect. By bringing up this point, Divakaruni emphasizes that our nation does not fully understand the issues of another country and also that what may seem beneficial in our eyes, could actually be disastrous for others. Divakaruni's opinion is that the United States should not interfere unless fully willing to take on the responsibilities of the results. Singer's opinion is quite the opposite. In his eyes, every single person in the United States should, and needs to do everything in his/her power to help the children living in poverty. Singer conveys his ideas by giving scenarios and then comparing them back to an average life. Singer also uses rhetorical questions to get his readers to re-consider their morals, such as "what is one mounth's dining out compared to a child's life?" and "now you too have the information you need to save a child's life. How should you judge yourself if you don't do it?" These questions are intended to push readers into thinking about the amount of impact they could have on bettering an unfortunate child's life. Singer is trying to sway his readers (unlike Divakaruni) to making the decision of interfering and helping the poor as much as possible. In my opinion, both authors' opinions are too extreme. It should be our goal and priority to help those in need (in the ways that they would prefer) however it is also extremely unreasonable to ask any person (not to mention EVERY person) to hand over all their savings. It is true that U.S. citizens spend a lot on luxuries, and whereas most people can cut back, it shouldn't be asked of them to donate every cent not spent on necessities.

"Round & Round"

When the song first started, my initial thought was that the tone of the voices was very haunting, this idea was caused by the echoing noises. I tried to keep my bias aside (which was that haunting is creepy and bad) however now that the song's over I still find that I don't particularly like it. The main reason is probably because of the echoing voices, not only do they create a creepy mood, they also distract from the actual lyrics of the song and make it very difficult to understand what the artist is to trying to convey. Because I could not easily make out the words of the song, my mind tended to drift off to the background instrumentals and in particular, the bass guitar. The bass guitar kept a constant and repeating pattern throughout the song, and whereas this may help the artist to keep tempo, for the listener, it becomes a little too repetitive. I think the main reason that I didn't enjoy the song as much as I could have is because the song did not make it easy to focus on the lyrics. By the end, I realize that I don't know what the song's about and all I can remember is the repeating notes of the bass guitar.