Final Review

I did my last review here:

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Boss-BR1600CD-Multitrack-Digital-Recorder?sku=241064

You should be able to sort reviews by newest first.

New WIKI, this one will stay. Hopefully.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Meadows

I pretty much wrote the entire article on Butch Walker's new album Sycamore Meadows. There's no reason this should be taken down - I linked to all the interviews and websites the information was garnered from.

In case you didn't catch my Ethnography location: http://homerecording.com/bbs/

Wiki on Mountain

I did my Wiki on the town of Mountain located in northern Wisconsin. I don't know why. I'm not from there and don't spend much time there, but I know something about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain,_Wisconsin

Why Girls Fall in Love With Me.

It's not my coy, chivalrous personality. It's not my devilish good looks.

Its my ability to drive a stick shift and simultaneously hold hands combined with my ability to conquer Super Buster Brothers on panic mode.

Take that, Casanova.

you'll never be the same...

literally, this is the most epic song ever and will change your entire outlook on life. and ass-kicking.

I don't know the title, but i'm tentatively calling it "bite thru ya jugula' vein".

My ethography location, yo.

It's a message board on recording.

http://homerecording.com/bbs/

Tim, You'll Like This

I did an analytical essay on Social Discourse Roles in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales for English 215. Enjoy. Critique. Whatever. It's unedited as it's due tomorrow and I started it a couple hours ago, so don't be too terribly harsh.

Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales with an extended prologue, in which he painstakingly introduces his motley cast of characters. He wrote The Canterbury Tales as a frame narrative, which gave him liberty to use an unreliable narrator. This narrator is a naïve young man obsessed with physical appearance and social status, as is readily apparent throughout the general prologue. In the bulk of the general prologue, Chaucer allows his narrator to skew his description of the characters to conform to archetypes, and, seemingly, to supply many details about each one from personal inference. Through these filtered, stereotyped characters, Chaucer explores the relationship and interplay between superficial, societal discourse roles, social expectation, and personal character.
Chaucer fills The Canterbury Tales with examples of characters whose superficial discourse appears incongruous with their real character. In cases such as the knight, the incongruity is more observational than critical. Though his deeds, if one assumes the narrator reports them faithfully, puts him among the most genuine and noble of the company, his apparel is noticeably unremarkable (73-78). Unlike subsequent characters, whose fineness of attire far exceeds fineness of character, Chaucer is sure to paint the knight as a humble, modest man. Chaucer plays with the reader’s expectation of the archetypical knight, which is, however cliché, the chivalrous ‘knight in shining armor’. Chaucer concedes the knight his chivalry, but markedly leaves his shining armor out, effectually warning the reader to be wary of discourse expectation throughout the remainder of the prologue.
By refusing the knight his stereotypical ‘shining armor’, Chaucer leaves out only the superficial aspect of the knight’s archetype. The chivalry and substance remain. Chaucer includes other intimations about the nature of the knight’s combat exploits, suggesting he may have worked as a mercenary (Reames) under several different rulers. While Chaucer does not seem to judge this behavior explicitly (this is not biting satire but subtle nuance), this is definitely not the behavior of a knight pledging loyalty to his king. Again, Chaucer breaks down the archetype and plays with, and ultimately disappoints, reader expectation. By clearly separating the knight’s character from his archetypal discourse role, he shows how social expectation can stifle the individual. The narrator actively twists his portrayal of the knight, turning him simply into a knight. All nuance and shades of character and personality is lost under conformance to discourse role.
Chaucer’s portrayal of the Friar, on the other hand, is much more critical and is reciprocal to the knight. Though the Friar wears fashionable, almost glamorous attire, Chaucer very deliberately challenges his moral grounding. The argument here is different. The Friar very noticeably ignores the responsibilities his social discourse role and, instead, chooses only to reap the benefits. Here, social expectation is not stifling the individual; the individual is exploiting the advantages of fulfilled social expectation without actually doing the fulfilling.
While the Friar’s exploitation certainly indicates a lack of developed personal morality, Chaucer is perhaps more viciously attacking the nature of social discourse role expectation. The Friar is able to take advantage of his station, and therefore make a mockery of Christianity, precisely because social expectation allows him to do so. The title ‘friar’ and association with the church give the Friar room to hide his character behind the physical appearance of his discourse role. Chaucer reiterates this push-and-pull relationship between nobility of character and nobility of appearance throughout the entire prologue. His attached social critique is obvious: society is more concerned with superficial characteristics than with substance.
Chaucer, however, elaborates on this social critique and poses a much more constructive question: How and why do people assume social discourse roles, and how do these archetypal ideas both define and confine them? Chaucer, again, plays with our social expectations, most notably with the Wife of Bath. The Wife of Bath takes great delight in using then-contemporary stereotypes of women and twisting them for her own designs. She actively assumes the discourse role of the very manner of woman the church was seeking to censure (Reames).
The balance she strikes is a delicate one. By assuming the role and outwardly admitting the archetype truth of sexist church slander, the Wife of Bath poses a puzzling contradiction. She manages to, much like the narrator twists his description of the cast in the general prologue, twist the sexist stereotype into a discourse role that works to her advantage. In the prologue to her tale, she presents herself as a cunning, formidable woman. She seizes power using the very means meant to deny it to her. Though she allows herself be defined by her social discourse role, she refuses to be confined by it.
The interplay between the Wife of Bath’s superficial and interior character is elaborate, and seemingly a bundle of contradictions. The Wife of Bath is nearly impossible to figure out, and certainly impossible to predict. The Wife of Bath presents the story of her first two husbands, and sets up a pattern that she begins following with the third. However, just when the reader begins to predict and complete the pattern, the Wife of Bath defies all expectation. Almost in spite of herself, she becomes a good wife. She argues in favor of sexist church slander, but in doing so somehow argues against it. That Chaucer deliberately makes her impossible to pigeonhole is perhaps one of his strongest statements against stereotyping. Chaucer wants the reader to question the nature of social expectation and discourse role as he/she questions the Wife of Bath.
Chaucer deliberately chooses the tavern owner, an incredibly incompetent host, to judge the tales of the characters. The host uses the word ‘rekeninge’ to describe the bill the company owes to the tavern. One of the original meanings of the word ‘rekeninge’ is ‘the action of rendering to another on account of one’s self or one’s conduct’ (OED). The characters willingly agree to render themselves unto the host for judgment. More importantly, though implicitly and arguably not willingly (or at least knowingly), the characters render themselves unto the narrator for judgment. They allow the narrator to filter their character. While this seems petty, in reality, the narrator is immortalizing them according to his perception – and he chooses to do so according to their social discourse roles. Chaucer is exploring the idea of perception of character, and social expectation alters and biases character. Aside from the religious connotation of ‘reckoning’, there is a very real and secular fear that one society only perceives individuals by the social role they happen to play.
Throughout the end of the general prologue, Chaucer repeatedly uses the word ‘juggement’. Though in immediate context is quite evident and unremarkable, that he repeats the word four times in under a hundred lines suggests that Chaucer has deeper intentions. One of the original meanings of the word is ‘The pronouncing of a deliberate opinion upon a person or thing, or the opinion pronounced; criticism; censure’ (OED). Chaucer links this form of judgment to the stereotypical judgment the narrator and, presumably, the readers force upon the characters. He invites the reader to juxtapose the relationship between superficiality and the profundity of true character, and to investigate the significance of their differences. By allowing this skewed perception of character to dominate his prologue, Chaucer shows the dangers of social expectation and their stifling effect on individual recognition. Chaucer wants the reader to be the judge and to form his/her own opinion.

Review #1 - The Selfish Gene

should show up HERE shortly


The Wrecking Machine, an undergrad, October 2, 2008,

Real Science for a Secular Crowd

When the Selfish Gene was first published in the 70s, Dawkins redefined not only scientific thinking about evolution, but also the entirety of scientific literature. While some of the langauge and metaphor is, indeed, daunting, Dawkins does a phenomanal job keeping his work layman-friendly. The Selfish Gene has been lauded since its publication as a masterpiece... rightly so. The ideas are insightful and the language inviting. The new Anniversary Edition sees the Selfish Gene regain its relevance and reinforces its place in the scientific pantheon. Though Dawkins intended only to flesh out evolution in more cohesive turns and replace the level of selection with the gene, he managed to change how evolution is understood. Ideally, everybody SHOULD read this book. Rudimentary knowledge of science is becoming increasingly important, and this book provides all the tools and insights necassary to arm one with scientific literacy, a trait lacking in a truly devastating amount of Americans. The application is far-reaching, extending well into mathematics and philosophy. The Selfish Gene is an intellectually stimulating, yet less-than-rigourous read.

"We've been attacked," he says, "by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture."

If you wish to become a true man (or, I suppose, a woman), there are two things you simply must read during your young adulthood. One is the book "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do" by Peter McWilliams. The other is the following:

Greetings From Idiot America
Creationism. Intelligent Design. Faith-based this. Trust-your-gut that. There's never been a better time to espouse, profit from, and believe in utter, unadulterated bullshit. And the bullshit is rising so high, it's getting dangerous.
by Charles P. Pierce, as originally published in Esquire Magazine, 11/1/05

The essay itself is a somewhat daunting read. However, the rewards are many and the risks few. Take the time. Become a man: CLICK HERE

Read this before you die or, at the very least, vote.

The Importance of the Sharpie

When people talk about the most important invention in the history of the universe, you'll undoubtedly get a lot of 'the internet', or 'fire', or 'the wheel', or some equally nonsensicle retort. I mostly think of the Sharpie.

Theres not much you can't do with a Sharpie. Think about it.