More Darkness :P April 14, 2010

 I wanted to further investigate darkness, and this time not informational, it was something I was curious about. Why are people so afraid of the dark? Almost everyone is afraid of darkness to some extent. Even when we know our way around that place, when it’s dark we seem to think we are in a place full of danger. To investigate further, I got in my room, closed the door and curtains, turned off the light, and to create more darkness, I went inside my closet and closed that door. I was scared at first but then I started wondering why am I scared? I thought hard for a few minutes, then it hit me, we are not afraid of darkness, we are afraid of the unknown. The fact that we can’t see anything around us, so we don’t know what might be coming our way, or that we hear sounds, but we don’t know what is making the sounds. While trying to figure out what is making those sounds and what could be around us, we start thinking and our minds start racing so we think of the worst possible scenario. I would like to further explore the reason why we are afraid of darkness, because knowing what we are afraid of might help in overcoming our fear. I also what to investigate more on the art of darkness because it is more complex than I thought it was. I am an amateur artist myself, I’m always looking for ways to improve. To me it is important to understand how darkness is related to colour, in order to understand my own art, because it is more complex then I thought it was.

I would like point out that just because i like darkness sometimes, doesnt mean im emo lol =P

Darkness April 14, 2010

We are in the presence of darkness everyday of our lives and everywhere, but I don’t think anyone has thought about darkness as something they can learn about or elaborate on. I love darkness and I love the night, it gives me a sense of calmness and peace. It’s also very romantic, as all good conversations occur at night, there is something about it that makes you want to open up and be free. Now, before this investigation I did not know there were so many explanations and meanings of darkness, I just assumed that there is a definition for it and that’s it. But darkness is viewed in so many different ways, for example scientific, poetic, artistic, and also cultural. Darkness is defined as a state of lacking visible light. 1) It is proven that complete darkness does not exist and is scientifically impossible because all objects give out heat in the form of infrared light and gamma rays, extremely high frequency of light, can go through even thick materials. I found that very interesting that objects actually give out light. So even in the darkest place, it is not complete darkness. That made me wonder, so can complete darkness occur in other parts of the universe where there are no objects around? Like the black whole. 2) In poetry and literature darkness represents evil, presence of shadow or depression.  3) In many cultures, wearing dark colours is a way of showing grief, like my own culture for instance. 4) I also found it interesting that Satan is referred to as the Prince of Darkness, he is viewed as the king of evil. 5) In art, darkness is used to emphasize light or contrast with light. When we are mixing two colours together, we believe we are creating a new colour or a different colour, yes, that’s true, but in reality we are actually creating darkness, because every colour absorbs certain frequencies of light. When we mix the three primary colours or secondary colours together, it absorbs all the visible light and creates black. Artists use darkness and shadows to add perspective to their art.

Author Investigation April 14, 2010

The author I chose for my investigation is Carla Hartsfield. When Ms Parrish was giving away books in class, I came across a book of poetry and it automatically caught my attention because the book’s name is called ‘Your Last Day on Earth’. A few days prior to that, I had written a poem like writing piece about what you would do if tomorrow was your last day on earth in my journal, so once I saw her book I was interested to see what her poems would be about and if all of hers poems in her book are about last days. I was also curious to see her inspiration behind the title of the book because every time we write something, we have a reason behind it, I know I do. It turned out that all of hers poems did in fact have something to do with death and last days on earth. Some if her inspirations I found interesting was that Towering Hibiscus” was written because hibiscus bloom rarely lives for more than 24 hours, therefore, their only day is their last day. “Flowering”, she wrote because a Georgian poet, Edward Thomas was tragically killed serving England during world war I and “Lights Out”, was written while he was waiting to go into battle, and not only his last day on earth but how well he spent it. I love that she used real life stories and events as an inspiration to write her poems. A poem has so much more meaning when you know the reason behind it. It brings the poem to life.

I couldn’t find too much information on Carla Hartsfield but this is the best I could do. She was born and raised in Waxahachie Texas before she immigrated to Canada. She has both a bachelors and masters degree in Piano Performance from the University of Texas at Austen. She taught piano at a community school for 14 years and she currently teaches at Bishop Strachan, a private school in Toronto. She is a singer, song writer, recording artist, painter and a music teacher.

Poem Style: Iambic Pentameter April 14, 2010

While I was researching different types of poems and I came across a few that were very interesting. At first I decided to investigate on ‘shape’ poetry because I didn’t know there was such thing. I started my investigation but then it entered my mind that this is an interesting type of poetry and I’m sure someone might have already done their investigation on it. I looked through everyone’s blog and yup, I was right. So I decided to go with the next type of poetry that I actually did not know was a form of poetry. Iambic pentameter. I always thought iambic pentameter was only used in plays or that it was a form of writing, not poetry.  We’ve been studying Shakespearean plays for years now and I had heard my teacher mention that Shakespeare writes his lines in Iambic pentameter. That is one of the reasons why I did my investigation on it. Also because I love the way it sounds. This was the hardest type of poetry I researched, because it involves rythem, math, writing and probably more as you get into it. I know exactly what it is now but I would never be able to write one if I had to. This gave me a better appreciation for Shakespeare because most of lines are written in this form.

Iambic Pentameter is a particular rhythm in each line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables, the groups of syllables are called feet.  The word ‘iambic’ describes the type of foot that is used

Iambic Pentameter has:

*Ten syllables in each line

*Five pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables

*The rhythm in each line sounds like:
ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM (‘ba’ is unstressed and ‘BUM’ is stressed)

Most of Shakespeare’s famous lines and quotes are in the form of Iambic pentameter

Example:

If mu- / -sic be / the food / of love, / play on

Is this / a dag- / -ger I / see be- / fore me?

Or

Lady Macbeth says to Macbeth after Duncan’s murder:

“And wash this filthy witness from your hand.”

When you divide the verse into iambic feet, the line will look something like this:

And wash | this fil | thy wit | ness from |your hand

Sound is Everything February 24, 2010

It’s quite interesting how we hardly pay attention to certain things until we are educated about it. The word sound has so much more to it than just what we mull over and I sure did not ever think of sound to be such an interesting topic until now. For instance John Cage points out that when we listen to music, it’s just sound, and as we know sound is a form of energy. It is made when air molecules move in a pattern that creates waves, and after hearing certain waves a few times, we become familiar with it and we recognize what that sound belongs to. And when we listen to music, it’s just sound waves and “it doesn’t mean anything.” It got me thinking about all the great feelings we get while listening to music. Some even define music as a type of drug, but now we know that it’s all sound, or to make it more futile, its sound waves. So all those incredible feelings we get are not from this magical thing called music, but from plain old ‘sound’. It also got me wondering that, do certain types of sound waves have the power to make you feel better or alive? Or that it could be like drugs? That may not sound as good or deep as we thought it was, but it sure as hell gives you a new appreciation for sound. John Cage’s love for sound, in a way, I believe has diminished the love for other things such as music, or laughter because he believes that to him music is not a type of emotion, it’s just sound. “I have no need for them to be anything more then what they are and I don’t want them to be psychological, …or that it’s a president or that it’s in love with another sound, I just want it to be a sound.” He says. While we enjoy ourselves so much with music and how it makes us feel, he deleted that part of his life, but I’m assuming he makes up for those emotions with his love for sound and all the different types of sounds that he experiments with, ones we have probably eliminated from our lives, but without the intention of doing so, course.

By the way, i absolutely love how he laughs in the video. =D

Revenge of Love February 19, 2010

Revenge of Love

Do not take advantage of love and its power,

It will hurt like being crushed by a tower.

Love is the meaning of a life that’s timeless,

As it leaves the lovers nothing but mindless.

But when lovers turn to haters, it becomes all soundless,

Love is that element, the reach of which is boundless.

But don’t take it from me,

Go try it and see.

If you’re left heartbroken; remember

There’s a million fish in the sea.

Ultimately, love for a dishonest person is way out of reach,

For an honest individual will…

“Hath given countenance to his speech.”

Hello world! February 19, 2010

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