Soundtrack of Josh Swenson

Coldplay- Speed of Sound
Ever since I was five, we kept in our basement a piano, which no one knows how to play. However, despite the fact that no one knows how to play it, the piano still was used. Every once in a while, it was poked at or the keys were played with, as if one knew a song in their head but sounded like nothing when played. It sat in that basement for a very long time, and still does. Granted, the piano itself is taken care of and is used for mostly decoration, I found myself fascinated by the world of creation that can be displayed through music. Being one of the people who cannot play, the piano still was used a lot. It descended from my mothers parents where in a move form Chicago to Milwaukee, they offered it to us. To most, it may seem like a waste of space, but it provides the question of, "What can I create?". And still, the brown wooden piano sits underneath a house full of life and undiscovered creativity. Everyday i look for something new to create, whether it be a drawing, music, idea, words, anything. Sometimes, plucking keys on a piano helps process this creativity and express it, often times sparking new ideas for creativeness.




Red Hot Chili Peppers: Can't Stop

“Can’t Stop” by the red Hot Chili Peppers, contains many objects throughout the video. Most importantly it contains water bottles. Water bottles play a very important role in my life as well as many others. Water is the drink of choice for me and I will have a glass of water with every meal I have. Water, in its natural form, is elegant yet so abused by mankind. It is often polluted upon when really it is such a needed part of everyone's everyday life. In Wisconsin, where I live, we have one of the Great Lakes on our backdoor, Lake Michigan. The beauty of the lake is portrayed everyday through it’s constant use and appreciation. Lake Michigan is a place to walk along side of, listening to the waves crash against the rocks, and distracts the mind from daily troubles. Something so precious as the water of a lake, such as Lake Michigan, get’s bottled up and shared with the world. Often times we spend time on a boat, enjoying each and every wave in the water. Summer time is when the Lake water gets used the most, but that is because it becomes frozen over in the winter time, which is spectacular itself.




Matchbox 20: Real World

In this video, we see a camel in the begging. When I see camels, it makes me think of Egypt. I am a well traveled person. I have been too England, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria and many more places. However, I have never been to Egypt. Ever since middle school, studying pictures of Egypt and looking at the camels, used not only for transportation, but races, I have always been fascinated in making my way to Egypt. A camel is an image of hot and dry desert sand. Though the animal may not be the most polite of the bunch, it still serves as a common ground of desire to travel. The camel filled the dreams of young minds that maybe one day they will be riding a camel through Cairo, and searching tombs of buried Pharaohs.




OkGo: Invincible

In this video, the audience sees a series of explosions within the different items the band uses to produce the complimenting music. The explosions in this video are what make the video a very entertaining flick for many to watch. While watching this video, each explosion reminded me of fireworks or some sort of pyrotechnics. During the summer season, around fourth of July, it is a habitual event of my friends and I to celebrate the day of Independence together. In doing so, we all buy our own lot of fireworks, sometimes we share the cost, and we get together up north in Wisconsin and let it all off and celebrate. A celebration through the explosions of fireworks gives one the amazing spectacle view of many lighting effects. Each pop of a firework spawns some new observation and response, whether it being the finding of what it looks like, or a verbal response of, “Ooh, ahh”. Since my freshman year of high school, we have done this and made it a tradition extended both to our friends, but our family as well as our community. Well, on second though, our town really doesn’t have a choice. The sky is going to be filled the illuminated light. Half the thrill of lighting off fireworks is avoiding getting in trouble with the police and what not.



Flobots: Handlebars

“Handlebars” by Flobots is a video that starts off with two people riding bikes. In the video, the people are enjoying every moment of riding. The freedom of riding a bike and your own pace is one great way to escape reality for a moment and just enjoy life. As a child, I use to ride my bike up and down the street over and over again, back and forth, until I grew tired and would run into my house and just lay down. Later on I would continue this process over again. Even today, I will bike for miles. The farthest I made was halfway from Milwaukee to Chicago, riding along Lake Michigan and enjoying the splendor of the outdoors as I floated south on two wheels. One of the greatest feelings is the push of both your legs to make a structure like a bike to move towards the direction you intend. Riding always served as an escape. That is to say, it may have actually been used to physically escape somewhere, or just escape stress and burn off a hard days work. I rode form the day I was a child until today, and ride just as much, if not more today.
Not only the enjoyment of riding the bike was satisfying, but working on a bike, like a treasured car, was always a hobby. Whether it was to adjust a tire or break, or to spray down dirt that was kicked up form hitting a puddle, the bike was worked on like a car. It was clean and ran just as well as its rider.





Kenny Chesney: When the Sun Goes Down
“When the Sun Goes Down” takes place on a beach with a bunch of friends. They are all celebrating the warm summer air and the time to be lazy and relax. Since I was young, probably around four years old, my family took us three kids, me and my two sister, on vacation and we always went to the beach. Whether the beach was along the ocean or the gulf, one thing was constant about it. There always miles upon miles of endless sand that traced the outline of the country of America. Sand is wonderful to play with as well as create with. Sometimes, there would be sand castle building contests where artists would come out and create life like creations with only the use of the salt water and the sand. Of course, they would have a bucket to transport both things form place to another. I use to try to create large sand castles but they could never compete to the artistic flail that was built on the beach during the contests. After going to the beach, whether traveling in a care or just walking to a place, the sand continues to follow. It would be stuck to skin and ride for the whole trip home and fall in the car, in the house, in the hotel, or wherever and start a new adventure based on where it was dropped off.



Explosions In the Sky: Collapse the Light Into Earth

Weather is an important part of everybody’s lives. It determines everything from travel to weather or not someone has a home the next day. My mother and I were always fascinated by changes in the sky. Any time a cloud would cover the sunlight and shine darkness among our town, we would observe it and try to predict what was going to happen.. every time there was a storm, we stood watching the clouds roll in and we would feel the wind push us back with the front of the storm and shortly followed by rain or thunder. The naturalness and majesticness of a storm, whether it is rain, snow, ice, lighnting, tornadic, hurricane and so forth, would always leave me in awe. It all grabs my interest with a formation of a cloud. And form that cloud, the whole afternoon may become planned out. Just a year ago, I spent one evening chasing a storm because of how the sky hung low and was constantly changing in rolling motions. When there is a storm approaching, it is best to receive it by surprise rather than prediction. I never enjoyed checking the weather from the news or any other sources.

Self Reflection of this Course

Throughout this course my writing itself has not changed much. However, my understanding for different writing has. The different examples we covered such as observational, rhetorical, and autobiographical told through and object all opened my eyes to a more descriptive way to way an essay. Before taking this course, I was very one minded about writing essays. That is, I thought of an essay as a statement followed by back up. Through this course we explored what is a piece of writing and through some ways we concluded that for some pieces of writing it isn't about the text, but rather the image and relation to the author and the reader that it creates. Though, this image is still told through the text, but it is still something that sometimes we can mentally see or feel. I learned that an essay can lead a reader to get more in depth with creative senses through interpretation and understanding of the argument or goal of the writer.

I still am not a fan about writing but that may be something that won't ever change. One of the reasons I don't write that well is because I can't sit down in one place and focus on an assignment with a set length requirement. The whole time I do that, I think about, "Well, where am I at right now in the paper." It's not just this class but any class. I enjoyed doing the free writes thought. One reason is that it could be anything. As long as we were writing. Its exercises like those that I believe will help me break my habit of being less focused on a writing assignment with a required length.

What I discovered about my writing though, other than I can't focus, is that the moments I do put my whole attention into it, I find I can't stop writing about something. For instance, there may be a moment where I begin to think about a certain thing and when I start writing about it, everything just sort of comes out naturally, and I begin typing everything I think. I find this to be beneficial. Though, these random thoughts may not serve as productive tools for my writing, they may lead to examples or subjects that I may want to discuss or elaborate on.

What helped me a lot through this course was the discussion with the other students in the class. I always found those to be the more productive of the days of class that I went to. This is because it gives us a chance to discuss different opinions and views rather than getting a lecture on something. We were able to share ideas and formulate a mutual understanding for a topic and share it with the rest of the class. If anything, there should have been more of that going on in the class, more interaction between the students themselves.

I did grow through this class though. As much as I don’t see it, my writing on the posts reflects it. Take the first blog post for instance, Ian Frazier. If one was to compare that to the Writing Project One and notice how much more detail is put into my wiring within that essay, you can see it. That’s kind of a vague example but it gets my point across. My writing is more opening minded.

Viva la Vida

I did not get this email till Sunday when i came back to my computer so I have a bit of catching up to do.

The video I chose was of Coldplay's music video of Viva la Vida, which is one of their newest hit songs. This video, or song even, I can listen to and watch so many times more without it becoming too dried out in my mind. One of the reasons for this is because Coldplay took rock and formulated a orchestral surrounding around it which makes the whole song almost overwhelming with musical diversion. As for the video itself, it is solely a video full of spectacle. there is no real time let alone, real space seen within the video. The way the camera goes also focuses mainly on the performance. Its a video presentation of a virtual concert, one that is not really happening yet is being performed knowing it has an audience. It holds a very warm burnt orange filter through the color of the whole video which ads to the mood of the song. Towards the end of the video you begin to see the lead singer act if if flying through the clouds that surround him. This is help illustrated by not only the lyrics and music, but the lighting changes from the burnt orange filter to a more exploratory color such and light blue bordering purple. The video leaves them in a moment of movement through this which is filled by orchestrated music. the band then returns to telling the story leading the lights back to the orange look. At the very end of the video you see each band member being torn away in pieces as the song and movement end through the clouds.

WP 2

Often times, people tend to overlook the consequences of global warming. This includes the causes as well. We continually point fingers at something to blame when in all reality we should think about our own actions and how we can help prove our points. This is especially true in the above picture. Steve Beem, illustrator and author of this political cartoon, demonstrates this idea of support what we are arguing. Within the context of this image, rhetorical appeals will be found, telling the truth of meaning of the illustration.




At first glance, this cartoon illustrates a politician standing on a gas guzzling vehicle stating, “We need to get serious about global warming” and a second person stating, “interesting campaign platform.” However, there is more that just the image we see as an audience, that the author wants to convey. One of the great things about political cartoons is that they make the truths in government a little more evident. This illustration makes it clear to us that our government and leaders acknowledge global warming, but especially those addressing it are not properly addressing it. The face that leaders address something doesn’t always ensure that they will follow through with neutralizing it.

Steve Beem uses the rhetorical appeal of ethos to convey this idea. Because authorities figures will say something about a topic, such as global warming, the average American citizen will believe their word for it. However they have to set the example for everyone to abide by. As well as taking on a leadership role, the politician’s appearance also demonstrates ethos. We expect a world leader or representative to be dressed in a suit or nice clothing and appear professional before their audience. The politician in this case is dressed up, even though it is scorching hot outside, as told by the illustration of the sun and heat waves in the background of the picture. He is also a fellow of decent size. To some, size can appeal to the amount of power one has. That is, the bigger the person, the stronger. It makes one more intimidating and it is also easier to be persuaded by a man larger than us than it is by a man smaller.



The use of logos is also evident within this illustration. For instance, Steve Beem uses the line, “We need to get serious about global warming”. He is stating a logical argument in which everyone needs to address. However, semantics would prove that by using the word “need” instead of a word such as “will” cannot guarantee the following through of addressing this topic. Our logic would also tell us that he is not serious about global warming at all considering his argument about it is being presented on top of a four door sports utility vehicle, quite possibly a hummer.

Lastly, Steve beem appeals to pathos within his work. The appeal to pathos comes through very modestly and outside of the picture. For every campaign, it is the job of the politician to gain support from their audience. This goes about by means of addressing arguments, which target many different kinds of people. By addressing global warming, in a sense he appeals to everyone, but in a narrow view, people who truly care about the world and climate and resources and what not, will be moved by his acknowledgement of the situation. Granted, the text does not support his interest in the topic. That is to say, the expression for which Steve Beem gives the politician comes across to the audience as sarcastic and as if he doesn’t really care about global warming, yet alone, know what it even involves.

Steve Beem definitely provided the example of this happening within this text. Providing an example is only one of Beem’s strategies of conveying his idea across to the audience. Along with providing the example of the politician, one could view this as an example of cause and effect. With the given circumstances of global warming and the shape of earth and the atmosphere these days, causes the government to intervene and focus on this hot topic. The effect is a failure. The politicians are still driving around cars that pollute the world, However, This helps with campaigning. Bringing up hot topics such as global warming will get people listening to someone. They may have similar thoughts or beliefs. His description and presentation of the argument are what is going to ultimately sell what the illustration is aiming for.



Political cartoons are excellent ways to find logical fallacies and cartoonists such as Steve Beem does very well at presenting these. Whether they are modest or hard to find in an image or text, constructive analysis will lead you to what an author intends the audience’s interpretation of the artwork or text to be. Though many say political cartoons are not a form of art. But what is it that constitutes art? According to http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=art , art is "the products of human creativity; works of art collectively. This is definitely a product of creativity in both humor and visual aspects.

To understand this illustration, one would have to understand the situation of global warming in our world today. The irony in this picture is that a hummer, the car being stood on, is a gas guzzling vehicle which pollutes the air every day. As Americans, one of the things we have been trying to do is save on energy costs and preserve more of earth. Though, each yea, more and more complain about the ever growing risk of global warming. We all complain about it, but what is being done to help it? Perhaps driving cheap gas saving cars that don't pollute the earth as much, or finding alternate forms of transportation, such as riding a bike which is beneficial to health and wellness, or car polling with other people going to the same destination. When we address an issue such as global warming, we should follow through with under going procedures that ensure the path to our goal.

This shows us the general idea of leadership in our country, or the world for instance. We find a problem and address it, but we still tend to abuse what feeds the problem. The leader, in this case, drives the gas guzzling vehicle, while at the same time he states, "we need to seriously address global warming". How would anyone take him seriously when right below his feet lies a hummer, or some sort of truck or S.U.V. This demonstrates how our culture is. We can't take a leader seriously if they don't practice what they preach.

This is also a show of arrogance, especially with the way gas prices are. Arnold is driving around in a car that probably costs close to a hundred dollars to fill up.