The problem with Occupy could be easily solved. (I think)

Today, I was (am) reading NPR about the occupy rally in Charlotte, NC. Best statement: "The absence of a clear strategy hindered the Occupy movement for months." Dear god, Occupy, I think I have your solution.

Overall, if you broke out into separate groups of people who would specialize in a certain issue, maybe more changes would start rolling. Right now y'all are just a bunch of people standing around with a million different signs that all point in a million different directions. You know the cartoon that walks up to a sign post and never figures out which way to go? That's what you're doing.

Say, for example, you don't like how women are being treated. How their rights to their bodies are constantly fought over, taken away, given back, rinse and repeat. Get a leader who is well voiced in the problem, promote a group, and specialize in gathering people around and discussing changes to be made to that issue. NOTE: That group will only work on one issue: Women's rights. "The Women's Rights Branch of Occupy."
You want people to focus more on protecting the environment, you say? Again, find that leader who's willing to take on the issue, gather others who'd like to participate in effecting change on the issue, and only specialize in issues dealing with harm to the environment and ways to protect it. "Environmental Protection Branch of Occupy."

I'm not saying members (or even leaders) should be confined to one group. Take on two, three, four groups! But realize that you're going to need a chain of command in the one issue to get anything done with that certain issue. Standing around in a mix group of people who have no sense of direction, no overarching purpose, and thinking "something" is going to come out of that, is the exact wrong way to do anything. Occupy is losing participants, funding, and credibility with the rest of the world, because all we're seeing is people circlejerking around this word: Change. Sorry, but that word is way too arbitrary and superficial to base an entire world (or country, or city) innovation on. Remember how well "change" worked for President Obama? Oh wait, he's actually a huge disappointment. Just like you are becoming, Occupy.

In the 60s there were groups of African Americans working on one thing - more rights for African Americans. Some would educate others to broaden their minds, others would organize sit-ins, bus boycotts and the like, and they had a leader, MLK. Don't believe me? Read a book. Oh, and guess what? The blacks of this country succeeded. No longer are they (openly) segregated, no longer do they have to sit at the back of the bus, and no longer can they (openly) be denied a job. Yes, I realize people still discriminate and target the black community of the United States, but christ, we've come a long way from slavery and lynching, haven't we? And it was all because of the ORGANIZATION of the African American community.

Organize yourselves, Occupy.
Organize, or get the fuck out.


NPR: http://www.npr.org/2012/09/02/160393442/occupy-movement-targets-charlotte-for-resurgence

Final for Digital Composition..

My response to Colson Whitehead's article about New York. He states that everyone creates their own New York and I respond to the question "What is Digital Composition" by making this video. We all create our own digital composition. We might look at the same things, but it's all different to everyone behind their own screen.

Hey! This computer isn't broken!

Well, I finally got my lovely computer back and powered through my afternoon finishing up my music video. It's so overdue, but I just wouldn't have been satisfied if I hadn't finished it. It was a lot of fun to make.

Decided to gather clips of dubstep concerts and use an orchestral remix of Skrillex songs to make a music video. I love the orchestral piece so much that when I go back and listen to the originals, it just sounds like someone fucked up the violins with dubstep. Skrillex sucks as a dubstep artist... I mean, he's not as bad as Deadmau5, he's definitely worse than Pretty Lights and is certainly no Bassnectar or Glitch Mob, but I fell in love with the orchestral version and when you're in love with a song, what else is there? Ha.

So I'm waiting for this thing to process but, here's my reasoning.

As I mentioned, I heard this song and was like "fuck the original." Usually, I'm not that type of person. I don't even like live versions of songs 95% of the time (but I do love concerts). I heard this and it was just so well done and ... coming from a ballet background, I love violins, violas, cellos, bass. They're all so pretty. But I'm a fanatic for the electronic stuff. Have you ever heard an electric violin?! It's SO cool. I'm into music where they don't sing, but use sound clips as their "lyrics," and yes, I love dubstep. I fucking hate when someone just takes a sawtooth wave and screeches the hell out of it for 3 - 4 minutes, but a well done dubstep song that's actually worth my 3 - 4 minutes, makes me a very happy camper. So, inevitably, I've developed a liking for remixes.. Considering all Pretty Lights does is (in his words) "take soul tracks and make them hot." It's good stuff when the guy actually understands the fundamentals of what makes a good song and is daring enough to change it up.

I think I've digressed. My point here - when you hear a remix, you're hearing the song from another artist's perspective. Think of how fucking many versions of David Bowie's "Changes" there are. Most people don't even know it's Bowie's original. "Yesterday" by the Beatles is the most widely redone song in the entire world (please talk to the Beatles professor for the validity of this statement). Most people either take to or resist remixes because they liked their initial perspective of the song.. or like the new perspective they're presented with. I decided to lay the orchestral version over clips of actual dubstep concerts because the altered perspective it elicits. Seriously, you can't wait to see this video. ;]

Realized I uploaded a shitty resolution so I'm redoing everything. Will post the link ASAP.

Link, yo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH6qRdN7X1U

-Marisa

I've Been Neglecting You, Blogger.

Just watched some of my classmates' projects for this Digital Composition class and I really feel like now I'll have a better handle on where I'm going with my own project.

I watched Ben Williams' concept in 60 and it showed how some people eat and live so lavishly and they don't even realize the poor and decrepit right in the same streets. That was neat. It showed clips back and fourth of each life. I also watched Holly Stark's but I didn't really understand where it was going. At first all I heard were nature sounds over a city which I thought was going to be something along the lines of, "this used to be the nature you're hearing now" but when it flipped to nature, I still heard nature. Maybe I'm just not in her same mindset for this.

Then I decided to take on a music video. The first one was about a dog dying and it was kinda super depressing and since I have my own unlucky history with doggie-deaths, I decided not to watch that video after about 30 seconds. Especially when I had watched someone cry for almost 12 seconds. Soooo.. then I watched Laila Ammar's video featuring the Young the Giant song. Again, wasn't sure where exactly she was going with it because it's hard to understand their lyrics, but when I read her synopsis of it being something about a "transition," I kind of understood it better. Really cool music video though.


Also, I'm not doing my previous idea for the video at all now.

I'm supposed to be doing something here

Goddammit. God... dammit.

I'm going to do the place thing. I'm going to record scenes from my everyday life here in Cincinnati, here in this house I rent and think about what they all mean to me. Going to record my walk to school. Going to (try to) record my bike ride to school. Going to record the concert I'm having at my house. I'm going to....

Wish I could show you North Carolina. By god, I wish I could show you that place. I'd have too much to say about it though.

My home at the present shapes me because I fucking hate it. I can't stand it here even in the slightest but.. I'm trying to make the best of everything. I hold on to the friends I've picked up, I drive myself places.. I held a snake today. That was nice. Caught it and everything. Wish my childhood home was close enough for me to film.

Look, this is my "pitch" I suppose. I don't want to give away the whole premise of this video before I even make it. It's going to be about how the fact that i hate this place makes me who I am right now and all the elements within it that aid.

An Apartment for Women

Shitty title. Not sure where I'm going with that.

I want to tie the two readings together. The first by Whitehead describes how places know you better than humans ever will because you're always around them. The unfortunate thing is that they can't talk. I'd love to reminisce with the walls in my childhood home and ask it what my favorite toys were or who my friends were.. I can't remember at this point. Woolf talks about how women need a place of their own to write effectively. Combine these two. If a woman has a place of her own, spends time with the place, talks to the walls in her spare time, holds festivities within its confines, and reflects back on what she's done in that certain space, writing flourishes. She remembers what she said to whom and can use that information to write. Right now, I feel like the place and the experiences that take place around me strongly influence my writing. While sure, I hate where I live and can't wait to get the fuck outta here, knowing that this is where I am and this is where I'm going to be for a little bit longer, develops what I say. My education influences what I say. I feel creative and knowledgeable because I'm a journalism student, but I'm super cynical because sociology points out that everything is a construct of our minds and nothing really exists for a purpose. Ta da, my writing style. This outlook reminds me that at the end of the day no one is really thinking about the fact that I said "fuck" while on the clock at my part time job except for the fact that the social construct around the phonetics that make up the word "fuck" are deemed "bad."

Oh, the places you'll go. I haven't liked a place since my childhood home. We moved when I turned 11 so my brother and I wouldn't have to share a room, and I fucking hated that place. My parents got divorced in that place and after my dad got the hell out, my mom just let the walls around us deteriorate. I think they'd be crying if they could talk. I wrote with a fury when I was younger to get out the anger that I held for the place. I wrote in fictional text-based RPGs but when I realized my writing was very stagnant, I stopped for a while. Then I turned to college and after dicking around my entire freshman year, I started writing again. Hey, what's up?

To answer every question on the prompt, I wasn't really confused by anything I read. But this is certainly my analysis and what combining the two made me think about.

Biking instead of walking.

I walk everywhere. As long as I'm not going more than 5 - 10 miles out of the way, I'm walking. I try to drive as minimally as possible, and usually only get in the vehicle when I'm going to my job in Kenwood or riding down to North Carolina. I drive everywhere in NC and while I'd love to write about a walking trip there.. I'm not there. Living in the city makes walking so much easier, I'm going to walk the shit out of the mountains when I get home.

So, as the warmth of the season has picked up, I decided to bring my bike here to Cincinnati. On a walking day, I'm confident in my ability to get on campus in around 7 - 10 minutes and then into class in 3 - 5 minutes. Well, the bike makes the trip to campus around 4 minutes, then I still walk to where ever the class is simply because the hills and architecture of the place is completely un-biker-friendly. With that said, this bike riding thing was no easy task. While I bragged about the awesome condition my legs are in to anyone who'd listen, I didn't realize that walking legs do not equal biking legs. I had to figure out the route to campus like I'd never done it in my life.

The first morning I biked, I took an entirely wrong way. On a very chilly Monday morning at 9am, I decided to go up a hill around the EPA instead of just cutting through like I would had I been walking. Never, ever realized how steep that hill is. I can walk it and usually be slightly panting when I hit the top.... but with the bike.. I didn't even make it halfway. I have to reiterate: walking legs DO NOT EQUAL biking legs. I learned that quickly. So, I decided to resume my cutting through the EPA parking lot. While, yes, this worked out better, my legs still weren't conditioned and I had to figure out how to get across the street and ride up the sidewalk in the most courteous fashion possible. I realize riding a bike on the sidewalk is usually a no-no, but I decided to give the rules amiss for the sake of my trip.

After a while I learned about the most subtle differences of altitudes. I now know which ways to turn to find a downhill that will later serve to propel an uphill. Uphills don't even give me too much trouble anymore, but I take them as infrequently as possible. I ride mostly uphill to my campus job but that's simply because I know the trip back will be mostly downhill and the exhilaration of the wind whipping past my face is something I crave enough to struggle as much as I can before I give myself over to the evil exhaustion-gods. I've also discovered that my own street is a slight downhill when on the return home. It allows me to coast at a great speed so I can remove my feet from the pedals and stick them into the air.

I love that bike thing. It's been a passion of mine since I was young. Used to ride into town when I was 17 via the bike path. Didn't mean to, but lost around 12lbs in two weeks.. but I was in the best shape of my life... Well, maybe I shouldn't say that. I suppose there's always room to be that way again. My dad got me started on the bike when I could barely walk let alone ride a bike. He strapped a small plastic seat to the back of his large yellow bike and pedaled us down to the DQ where I was then spoon-fed an Oreo Blizzard. Still my favorite blizzard.


I'm always worried I missed the point. I didn't walk, sorry... but me and the bike have a cute little past and present.