Beats That Defy Boxes By Reggie Watts

Throughout the past couple of months my fellow peers and I have been studying the topic ‘challenge’ and how it affects our lives and people around us. In our everyday lives we are confronting challenges, some are as small as walking up a few steps, and some are larger and more challenging that could be life or death circumstances.

“Basketball Rule #1, In this game of life your family is the court and the ball is your heart. No matter how

I believe that out of the four essays that we have read, the essay that presents the best and most powerful argument is presented by Mike Rose "Blue Collar Brilliance" (Rose, 2015). First Rose describes how his mother who work as a waitress in a restaurant. He defines his mother's, Rose Meraglio (Rosie) ability, “Rosie took customers’ orders, pencil poised over pad, while fielding questions about the food. She walked full tilt through the room with plates stretching up her left arm and two cups of coffee somehow cradled in her right hand. She stood at a table or booth and removed a plate from this person, another for that person, then another, remembering who had the hamburger, who had the fried shrimp, almost always getting it right….she’d

In the book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, by Seth Holmes he mentioned the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his philosophy “Bad Faith”. Holmes explains “The phrase “bad faith” was introduced by Jean-Paul Sartre to describe the ways in which individuals knowingly deceive themselves to avoid acknowledging realities disturbing to them(Holmes86). The phrase explains us, when something bad is happening in our lives, we lie to ourselves to escape the truth that we don’t have to face them. This happens to everyone when we commit a really bad mistake and we don’t want to accept it. Another way this may happen is when you’re in a bad situation and you try to replace it with something else to get your mind off of it. Basically it’s a distraction, so we don’t think about what’s actually going on.

Throughout history, many different cultures illustrate their history and their beliefs through various artistic objects that they create. These artifacts allow historians to better gage their lifestyle, their beliefs, and how their society operated. One example of this is the “Drum Beater” sculpting created by Karoo Ashevak that is especially famous for its illustrations of the shamans and the spirits. In this research paper, Karoo Ashevak’s “drum beater” will be dissected and analysed; from the Inuit culture itself, to the physical features of the sculpting, as well as the significance and symbolism of the sculpting as it relates to the Inuit culture.

Essayist and novelist, Brent Staples, in his essay "Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space" describes the accusatory altering effects of racial profiling and stereotyping occurring within the cities of Chicago. Staples purpose is to express to the reader the shift of the atmosphere when a black man enters a room. He creates an accusatory tone to show that he's an innocent man incriminated of committing crimes due to his ethnicity. Staples states “the ability to alter public space in ugly ways” he builds credibility by allowing readers to speculate on racial profiling through his personal experiences and appealing his readers with both logic and emotion to support his viewpoint.

In her undertaking of a novel with an unusual topic, Mary Roach balances her book, Stiff, with the perfect amount of sarcasm and sincerity. Due to the overall themes of the book being death and cadavers, it would be hard to consider completely digesting the book without a little bit of satirical dialogue. After all, the entire book would seem kind of morbid without it. Her tongue-in-cheek writing style kept me constantly engaged in the reading and wanting more. She was blunt at times and also knew when it was necessary to be subtle. It is a fairly informal and easy-going style of writing.

Jimmy Cross, a college student, is carrying a great burden being the lieutenant of his group of soldiers. A chapter from The Things They Carried titled “In the Field” states, “Jimmy Cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men. He had never wanted it … he had signed up for the Reserve Officer Training Corps … because it seemed preferable to letting the draft take him” (160). The use of the word “never” to describe Cross’s want for being a lieutenant displays that at no point in his life had he ever desired to lead a band of men in the war. Even though Cross in no way wanted to direct this group of men, it seemed like a better option than being drafted in the war. To him, being drafted in the war sounded even less desirable than

The main character that the book is based on is Drew Robinson. Drew, also known as True, is a sophomore in high school in Queens, NY and loves the game of basketball. He is arguably the best high school basketball player in the area. True’s best friend, Lee Atkins, is a senior at the school. Since he is in his last year of high school basketball, all Lee wants is to make a run in the playoffs and win the championship game. True’s mother is Darlene Robinson. Darlene got a job in California, thanks to a man named Mr. Seth Gilbert, who saw True playing an AAU basketball tournament. Mr. Gilbert wanted him to attend Oakley High School in CA to play for Coach DiGregorio. Mr. Gilbert believes True is the best player and that he will make it into the NBA. So, Mr. Gilbert helps True meet some people who can help him become sponsored. When True goes to play basketball by himself at Morrison Court, he keeps seeing a ghost man. He finds out that the ghost man is Urban Sellers, a basketball player who ruined his career before he was even out of high school. Seeing him made True not want to make the same mistakes. Callie Mason is on the girls’ basketball team and True has a crush on her. He even sneaks into the gym to watch the girl’s team practice from time to time.

During Mr. Rosenberg’s leave we learned different dramatic elements such as script analysis, stasis and intrusion, dramatic conflict, etc. This helps us to understand the different elements so one day when we have to apply the elements we will already be mindful of them. Additionally, we also learned about the beginning of theater dating back to ancient Greece and their different ways of displaying theater.

When Tricia Rose speaks to the concept of “hip hop wars” in her writing, she is referring to a broad range of different conflicts that are taking place in all areas of hip hop. In the introduction to her book, she begins to explain her multitude of concerns surrounding certain topics in hip hop. She begins by saying that the most financially successful hip hop has become a way of caricaturing “black gangstas, pimps and hoes” (p. 1). She goes on to explain that homophobia, hypersexism, antisocial behavior, and violent tendancies seem to have become defining characteristics of hip hop as a whole. Essentially, Tricia Rose’s definition of hip hop wars can be summarized as: the pushing and pulling between the forces of good and evil within a movement that has begun to develop undesirable qualities. She offers an array of critical analyzations in support and in opposition of hip hop.

With the 3 TED talks I have collected, they all contain something that captures my attention and pulls me in better than most.

Teju Cole’s phenomenally written original novel majorly takes place in New York City. Cole character was easy to relate to because of his Nigerian American decent being that I am a Ghanaian American. Cole is a Nigerian American. He was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria and came to the United States in 1992 at the age of seventeen. Cole is also well educated and is a graduate student at Columbia University. I found it insightful how in the novel Cole met several various types of people, including other immigrants. He met and shared stories with a Haitian shoe shiner, at work in Penn Station; a Liberian, imprisoned for over two years in a dentition center in Queens; and a Moroccan student working at an Internet café. I enjoyed the fact that the narrator was well stocked minded. He touched on the topics of art, music, and interesting books. He had a very eclectic set of interest.

Listening is ‘Not an attempt to understand something that is being said’ but ‘Just an attention to the activity of sounds’

“The Blacker the Berry” by Kendrick Lamar was released February 9th, 2015. This incredibly racially motivated song has created controversy throughout America because it tackles racism, hypocrisy, and hatred head on. Although Stephen Best argues that the past defines the present without question, and Hartman believes that many important African American stories have been silenced due to lack of evidence, Kendrick Lamar’s song “The Blacker the Berry” complicates and adds to their arguments by introducing a certain level of hypocrisy that forces the listener to understand a much more complicated moral position than is generally allowed, perhaps an inevitable one.