Combo Post! – music, film, and then some crazy ideas.
The more I listen to Beach House, the more I know this is love. It’s not often that I “fall in love” with bands, though I’m sure it would help if I kept up the music game (no time for that at the moment!). Their new album, Bloom, is about to drop come May 15. In the meantime, I’ve been listening to their new singles on repeat as well as their previous album, Teen Dream. If you’re into dreamy, shoegazey pop, then I definitely recommend them.
New Singles–
In other news, I watched a movie last night called Submarine. It’s sobering, awkward, funny, quirky, witty, and intelligent. The tone of the movie is not-so-grand, mundane, in the same vein as many other indie films. It’s about an awkward and intelligent boy who is trying to get laid, fix his parents’ marriage, and figure out his identity. Basically, an indie coming-of-age story. The protagonist, Oliver Tate, makes it easy to keep watching since his inner dialogue is so alluring, especially when you see the contrast of him interacting with others. This contrast, between the inner and outer self of Oliver, is one that I personally find touching, especially at a key moment toward the end of the movie (which I will obviously not describe here) in which it becomes evident that he’s full of emotions even though he can’t express them properly in his everyday interactions (something I can relate to at times). He’s a precious boy. For some reason, I really liked his father. His father further drives home the metaphor of “being under water” as he is a marine biologist. Studying that which is under water, that which is submersed in your world of depression, is a lovely image. Anyways, I was able to check this out simply because I bumped into it on Netflix, so feel free to check it out.
Lastly, one of the many thoughts that has been on my mind concerns the ways in which we live in a society of domination and hegemony. I’ll probably go into this in more detail later, though I don’t have much to say to begin with. I feel like I’m starting to become more aware of the ways in which hierarchies are created. There are straightforwardly hierarchical things as “high fashion” and “high art,” but what are the less obvious hierarchies which exist in our culture? School grades, GPAs, awards and honors… Some of these things we can interpret as simply ways which one human being recognizes with admiration and appreciation the work of another human being. But when does this become distorted and inhuman? The answer, just as in things like stereotypes, sexism, etc., is not one that is defined by an objectively clear cut line.
Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous 20th century French existentialist philosopher, rejected the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to Wikipedia, he stated that, “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution.” And you know… he has a point. It makes me think of this book (which I cannot remember because a friend told me about it, so I’ll probably post about it sometime in a forth-coming post) which discusses the fact that colleges and universities are not in the business of education, but rather in the business of giving out degrees. When I graduate in three weeks, I know that many of my peers will go on to make immoral decisions in their lives, to live lives that they’ll hardly critically reflect upon, and to continue to spread the many inhumane values that so grossly pervade our society; yet, we’ll all have a “Bachelors Degree.”
My passion for poetry will lead me to, hopefully, publish my own collection. What if I won the Pulitzer Prize? What would I do? Do I take it? Do I reject it? I can’t deny that it would feel good to be recognized by the literary community as having written worthwhile art, and recognition isn’t a bad thing… Maybe the Pulitzer is too institutional? I don’t have an answer to that. I don’t think anyone really has a proper answer, even if that person does have an intricately thought-out philosophy on what it means to be “free” (Sartre). Hopefully, one day I’ll develop my own well thought-out personal philosophy on these topics.
Mint Trope 