Simple Times | Joshua Radin

                The album Simple Times is Joshua Radin’s second album, released in September of 2008. He is a singer/song-writer who sings acoustic and folk rock music; I consider his music to be very real and organic, both the style and the lyrics. The melodies are complex and catchy enough to be interesting, but simple enough to not feel over-thought or over-processed. The eleven tracks reveal a great variety of emotion and are very relatable to the listener. You grieve over the loss of love, you sympathize with the recipient of the difficult truth, you rejoice because of the birth of a new day, you revel in the beauty of true friendship, and you reflect on the past—all through simple and deep poetic lyrics.

                The most popular song, “I’d Rather Be With You” tells the story of a guy who realizes that his best friend is the girl he’s been looking for his whole life. This brings to light the beauty and excitement of finding love, a truly wonderful thing. God made humans who had a need for companionship, and when a bond is formed it is captivating and charming. On the other hand, there are 7 (out of 11) songs that talk about love— both finding and losing it. Our society is very romance-centric, we fixate on love and it affects the way see ourselves, each other, and the idea of love as a whole.

                The song from which the album title is taken is called “We Are Okay.” This song caught my interest for the first time because of its nods toward the themes we’ve been discussing in class. The first stanza says, “We are grown but cannot see/ Lost our world of make believe/ Simple Times now seem so far/ [The world] used to be in my backyard.” In his own way, Joshua Radin talks of being part of this system that the world operates by. They lost their sense of imagination and innocence; simple times faded away as they grew older and saw the reality of the world. He goes on, “But, we are okay, we are alright/ We sing very loud/ …/ Close our eyes, close our mouth/ Yeah, we shut our eyes though we're in doubt.” They are not going to let this get them down, even though they aren’t sure what happened or where they’re going. Their plan of subverting the lack of imagination is to sing, and he later mentions trying to do creative things again. They may not be able to gain back the time they lost, but they try to remain positive and transform their actions to bring about the change they long for.

A few questions that crossed my mind:

• Is our view of love distorted as a people? Are we too centered on romance that we cannot focus on anything else? Is this “romance” that society presents to us even a true representation of the beautiful process of two people finding each other and falling in love?
• Are simple times really so far in the past? Or have our eyes and minds just been opened to the pain and suffering in the world as we got older?

Culture Artifact 2 - What is society doing to black women?

Just like at a hair salon, I grab an old issue of ESSENCE magazine and flip through the pages. This magazine is targeted to black women, "Where Black Women Come First", the magazine says. Before I am confronted with any articles in the magazine, I see seventeen advertisements, SEVENTEEN. Going through the magazine, I find tons more advertisements for hair and beauty products, clothes, cars, and much more. A common theme I noticed in the advertisement and article pictures, is that about 80% of the women showed have long, straight, and relaxed hair. African-American woman are most commonly born with kinky, coily, textured hair, but in these pictures, they are sporting a long sleek look. You do not get to see any natural hair until the very last pages of the magazine. We live in a society that has built a solid frame around hair. Hair favoring the texture of White Americans and Asians are what are most commonly seen in advertisements, television, and anywhere else the media can support it. The empire has sucked in many black women making them think that their natural hair is not beautiful. These women go to extreme extents such as relaxers, weaves, wigs, and high-heat appliances to achieve what society sees as beautiful. These women need to understand that in the Kingdom, we are all made beautiful in God's image, and that "we" should embrace what he has given us. With black hair being so versatile, black women need to use their hair as a canvas to express the beauty of what God has created.

1.What ways have the media put frames around women? What about women of different races?

2.Women, what can you change in you daily routine to get closer to the kingdom?

The hope in the midst of imperfectness (Cultural Artifact 2)

The movie Mary and Max is a ‘claymation’ – animation made out of clay – film of Adam Eliot. The story was based on the true account of friendship between Adam and his pen pal, who lived in New York. For almost 20 years, Mary and Max had been exchanging letters each other, telling about their life stories, which sometime would made them encouraged, and sometime the letters would drive them to tragic depression and disappointment. One thing that they have in common is the fact that they are both social outcast. Mary Daisy Dinkle is a friendless eight year old girl, with her only ‘friend’ rooster Ethel. Her mother is an alcohol addict, and her father works in factory during most his day. She has brown eyes and birthmark on her forehead that looks like poo. Max is a 44 year old Jew, who has Asperger’s syndrome (sort of mental disorder), and his different way of perceiving the world around him puts him in socially disabled person. Max loves chocolate hotdog and attends Overeaters Anonymous, which is his only social interaction. He’s particularly frustrated with the people who litter on the streets. He believes that they should be heavily fined, but it’s only his thought that nobody cares.

 

In fact, there are no characters portrayed as ‘normal’ individuals, and the movie is filled with irony, depression, and human flaw. Adam, in his interview, says, “the reason my films are dark is because life is dark, my films are a reflection of life and if you don’t have the dark, the light has nothing to compare itself to, the light has no meaning.” He focuses on flawed human nature, and how imperfect we are – but we tend to judge the social out casts as if they were more imperfect.

However, it is love and forgiveness that give colors in the midst of Mary and Max’s monochromatic life. In the society, where disadvantaged and weakness are oppressed, they both find that the love is the true power that connect and sustain the relationship. The letters they exchange is the sign of hope that makes them yearn for true love and relationship with people. Max and Mary know that human beings are imperfect. Not all the letter gives them joy and happiness. Because humans are imperfect, some letters disappoints and hurt each other. However, we can forgive them. In the letter, which Max wrote to Mary, he said “I would have to accept myself, my warts and all, and that we don't get to choose our warts. They are part of us and we have to live with them. We can, however, choose our friends, and I am glad I have chosen you.” What Max meant by choosing friends meant that we always can choose to forgive and be friends, despite the imperfectness, which could hurt us.

There is a hope of relationships in love and forgiveness. And I believe this reveals one of the features of God’s Kingdom. The Kingdom is about embracing the imperfectness with forgiveness, and it is sustained by love, and this is what Jesus did. The society tells us that imperfectness must be discarded and separated. Yet, Mary and Max’s story tell us that we should embrace it with love and forgiveness in order to restore the relationships with each other. 

What does it mean to love your neighbors as yourself? Do love will eventually require self sacrificing? 

What is true forgiveness? What does it mean to forgive one another?

Imagine What?

             The artifact I chose for my second post is the album Night Visions by the band Imagine Dragons. This album came out in September of 2012 and is mostly alternative and indie based music with slight influences of dubstep and hip hop. Their most famous singles are Radioactive, It’s Time and Hear Me. Imagine Dragons is made up of four members, Dan Reynolds, the lead vocalist being the most well-known but also includes Wayne Sermon, Ben McKee, and Daniel Platzman. The band became increasingly famous when they started touring alongside AWOLNATION, which resulted in the selling of over 83,000 copies in the album’s first week alone. The story I think they are trying to tell is about the struggles we face every day of our lives. In every song there is always some sort of pain or heartbreak, but at the end it is transformed to be inspirational, and liberating. They use the hurt they have experienced to try and teach us something, that even though things get hard we can always change the way things will be by how we feel and what we do about it. I feel that their “goal” is to inspire us to get up, to get up even when we don’t think we can because we’ve been knocked down too many times. They instill in us the notion that we can do anything, if only we just try. I think this definitely says something about the empire we live in. Our society tells us that sometimes things get too hard and we should give up because there is nothing we can do. Imagine Dragons wants us to forget about this because they know getting up is what makes us stronger, and in the end is what will help us break the chains that this empire has enslaved us with. They use their imagination, and creativity to tell us that standing out and risking it all is the only way to make a difference in our world. We have to be different or no one will notice. Our lives aren’t supposed to make sense to un-believers, and if they do then something is wrong.

Discussion Questions:

  How does this album make you feel?

 Does it inspire you to live differently in the empire?

GOOD GUIDE - Cultural Artifact 2

Throughout this interim I have been trying to find out more information on what companies actually care about the people they work with, and the environment that they are working in. After a couple days of searching on the Internet I found this sweeeettttt website called www.goodguide.com. Above there is a short youtube video that explains in more detail what this company is trying to do. Basically this website was created by a bunch of business men and women along with scientists who test products and do research on products the companies that produce them. They test anything from makeup, clothes to food, appliances, and pet food. Then they rate each product based on numerous factors such as animal testing, organics, nutrition, fair trade, labor conditions, environmental impact etc. What is really cool about this site is that you can create a checklist of the factors I mentioned above that matter the most to you (or you can check all of them) then you can search for a product and the site will run it through your checklist and see if it passes or not. If it does not pass the website will post alternative brands that do fulfill the criteria you want your product to meet. The website has rated hundreds of brands from designer products to suave, old navy, gap, nike etc..The best part is you can sign up for free for the website's services, and they even have a free app called goodguide. The app for smart phones lets you scan barcodes when you shop and then, just like the website it will run it past your check list and tell you if the brand meets the standards you set, and if not it will show other choices that are better. I think this is a very good example of the use of creativity, and imagination. This way consumers can be conscious of their purchases, and know where their money is going. This artifact reveals the truth behind products of the empire and allows individuals the chance to make choices that are more socially responsible. I would encourage everyone in this class to check it out it is really really awesome! This artifact shows that human purpose does not have to be limited by lack of knowledge or ignorance it also shows that redemption can be found in unexpected places such as different companies that are taking a stand against the typical corporation economic viewpoint. What would happen if we all took a few minutes to check out the website, and found different products and companies to support? What are some other ways we can use our talents, and imagination to create innovative and apocalyptic cultural artifacts?

Princess Mononoke

The story of Princess Mononoke revolves around an exiled prince, named Ashitaka, who is searching a way to remove a curse of hatred that will spread and consume his life.   While he search for a way, he met many people with different rank and goals that they want to achieve for a better future for them, even though there methods or goals are wrong to some. When Ashitaka met the leader of the iron village, Eboshi, to seek some answers of his curse, he learns that Eboshi is trying to make the humans survive at all cost against the forest and their gods. She believes that the human’s purpose is to survive against the gods, destroy their lands, and make a prosperous city for the humans. This is a great goal for us humans to live happily, but methods are wrong. We all have different methods way to accomplish our goals in life, whether it is reasons, survivability, or simply emotions that drives us to our goals. Let me take hate as an example, to both sides of the war, both gods and humans have an immeasurable amount of hate towards each other. They are willing to kill any traitors to keep up the war. We are no different from them. We have wars and crimes in our world. We let our hate drives us easily to cause violence and destroy one another without knowing the damages that we cause around us. Even their all mighty forest god has some hatred towards both sides. Our God may have times that he will release his hate on us, but he is a forgiving God and we must be a forgiving community to each other. If we were to have hate consume us and war with each other, then we will be dancing in the empire’s hands, even though it for our sake.

What should we do when our lives are in danger, but we risk many things in the process?

How can we be a forgiving community when we have so many emotions that drive us away from it?

I Got an Apocalyptic View

For my second cultural artifact, I listened to the fourth album of Girls Generation. The alum came out on January 1^st. Girls Generation is a Korean pop idol that has taken the South Korea by storm ever since their debut. The group consists of nine members (all female) who are very beautiful and have slim bodies. Their new album is called ‘I Got a Boy’. Their main song ‘I got a Boy’ has been number one on Korean music charts for all of this month. I have liked this group since their debut and have never thought about what they might have been implying in their songs and the different concept of the albums. When the new album came out, I was able to notice things that I would have never noticed with this class. What this album says about women in society is to find the best looking man. Just like the title says, the song talks about how they have got a man who is handsome and fantasy like. I thought about this line and how it really undermines the role of women. In a society where women and men are equal is all aspects, you have young women who are singing that they are nothing without men. Why is it that men complete woman in society? I know that God made both a man and a woman to be in one union together but the empire has distorted that to something other. The bond and the relationship between a woman and a man has become business like. It is all about saying to one another, “you become what the empire portrays us to be or we cannot be together”. To be truthful, there is not portrayal of the kingdom of God in the album what so ever. I watched the music movie and it just emphasized what the empire thinks about women. First thing that every woman should be is slender. All nine members of Girls Generation are very slim and have “nice” figures. Second thins that all woman should have is nice clothes and clothes that are revealing. The music portrays the members in tight jeans or a shirt that does not cover their bellies (the t-shirts were so short that it made me wonder if they ran out of fabric while they were making the shirts). The third aspect is that they must be pretty. To tell you the truth, the beauty corporations are thriving in South Korea. From make up to plastic surgery, it is essential and almost a norm in South Korea. I see no aspects of the kingdom of God in the music video or the album. I am very patriotic, and even though I only lived in Korea for half of my life, I have always been proud of my country and the hardships that they have overcome after the Korean War. Industrially, Korea has climbed to the top but culturally we are degrading ourselves every time we produce these kinds of music. How do we see the world, with the glasses of apocalyptic or the empire? If we had the choice (which we do) do you think that we would get rid of these useless things the empire creates? Although I am embarrassed of myself for listening to these kinds of music for such a long time, I guess this is all part of growing up and realizing what is important and not.