TOW #13 - The Case for 'Hamilton' as Album of the Year

Hamilton Poster

     I got an early Christmas present this weekend: tickets to see Hamilton! Actually, it was more an overly obvious hint but TICKETS TO SEE HAMILTON, a Broadway show that is sold-out for months in advance! So, in honor of this awesome surprise, I’ve decided to read an article about this show. In his article, The Case for Hamilton as Album of the Year, Spencer Kornhaber pulls quotes from songs and compares Lin Miranda, the lead and writer of Hamilton, to other artists in order to argue for Hamilton as the album of the year by rhetorically analyzing it.
     Like any good piece of rhetorical analysis, quotes are absolutely necessary. He writes, “it probably took a month alone to figure out the right phrase to rhyme with 'revolutionary manumission abolitionists.' ” By implementing quotes into his writing as shown, he allows the reader to make decisions for themselves and see first-hand how Miranda used certain techniques to create certain effects. In this way, he can show the reader the intricacies of Miranda’s writing and musical technique, proving Hamilton to be the best album of the year.
     Kornhaber also includes comparisons to other artists, including hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar and Drake. He writes, “You can find this Hamiltonian idea of hip-hop refracted through rap’s other great works this year. You hear it in the verbosity, the craft, the daringness, the desperate idealism, and the death-obsessed drive of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. You hear Hamilton’s obsession with legacy, his unwillingness to back down when challenged, his profligacy—'why do you write as if you’re running out of time?'—in Drake’s multi-mixtape 2015 output.” In this way, Kornhaber proves the validity of rap as an expressive tool in musical theater, perhaps even more effective than just singing. This is seen in the song “Farmer Refuted,” in which “Hamilton tears Samuel Seabury’s words apart by literally speaking between them—basically, it’s Miranda proving the supremacy of rap as a form of expression.” Kornhaber argues that even though Miranda’s use of rap is unconventional, it’s wholly effective in musical theater.
     Kornhaber’s direct quotes from Miranda’s song and comparison of Miranda’s songs and other artist’s songs allows him to successfully rhetorically analyze Hamilton all while supporting his argument that Hamilton should be lauded as the album of the year. In this rather rare piece of rhetorical analysis in the “wild,” Kornhaber has made me even more excited to go see the show in New York!

TOW #12 - How to Listen to Great Music (IRB)

     How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to its History, Culture, and Heart by Robert Greenberg has been a great read--and listen--so far! As I mentioned in my intro post, the book goes along with a lecture on Audible.com that I’m listening to with my dad because how can you learn how to listen to great music if you don’t hear any music? I started listening to the lecture way before I started reading the book, but I’m now ahead in the book because my dad and I don’t have a lot of time to listen to the lecture. Either way, it’s been interesting to hear how similar Greenberg’s speaking and writing styles are. In his book, Greenberg writes how he speaks and uses an extended joke about a gerbil in order to help the reader understand just enough music theory to appreciate the complexities of great music.
     As soon as Greenberg opens his mouth, or puts a pen to the page (or is it finger to the keyboard?), his style is obvious: expressive, passionate, flowery, casual, and again passionate. Obviously, Greenberg really likes, and knows, what he’s talking about. On page 1, he writes “Music is an intensification, a crystallization, a celebration, a glorification, of that movement and those vibrations. Pretty heady stuff.” One can almost hear the crescendo of his voice as the list of nouns goes on in the rather formal and flowery first sentence. Then in the next sentence, which is really just a fragment, he drops the formal tone in order to better relate to the audience. He then continues: “one need not speak Ashanti in order to groove to West African drumming; or German in order to be emotionally flayed by Beethoven; or English to totally freak when listening to Bruce Springsteen. Say it with flowers? Nah. If you really want to get your expressive point across, say it with music.” His diction in this section, using words like “totally freak” and “nah,” show his casual style, which in turn makes him more relatable and credible in the audience’s eyes as he’s just one of us. This relaxed style allows the audience to in turn relax around the author, making it easier to explain harder technical concepts to an audience that doesn’t know much about music.

     Greenberg’s gerbil jokes also add to his relatability while simultaneously explaining or exemplifying a difficult technical concept. On page 14 he writes, “Try it at home! Sing in the shower. Your unaccompanied voice is singing in a monophonic texture. Having left the shower, grab your wife or husband, partner, children, cat, or gerbil (okay, maybe not the cat), and sing the same thing together. Despite the fact that there is more than one voice singing, the voices are singing the same single, unaccompanied melody at the same time. It’s still monophony.” This is the first time the gerbil character appears in this book, and it keeps the book light and funny while explaining the rather boring and technical concept of monophonic music. The gerbil joke comes up again and again while explaining types of polyphony and homophony. This method of keeping the book interesting while teaching has time and time proved itself to be very effective.

Singing Gerbil - Yuval Y

     Overall, Greenberg’s How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to its History, Culture, and Heart is a great read--and listen!--as the author writes colloquially and makes education fun through jokes in order to teach a wide audience of people how to listen to great music in an easily understandable way. Not only is Greenberg’s prose and writing style fun and unique--something that I want to emulate using my own personality in my own writing--but his book has also exposed me to a lot of great and interesting music and is a must-read for anyone into history and/or music!

TOW #11 - Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

    In light of the coming election and the end of the Obama administration, I have decided to take a look back at his 2008 campaign. Besides, it has been way too long since I have analyzed satire. In “Black Guy Asks Nation For Change” from the Onion, the author uses a humorous homonym and an obvious understatement in order to ridicule Americans that do not pay attention to politics by satirizing people’s view of Obama’s campaign.
     The most blatantly obvious and funniest strategy used to satirize is how the author takes advantage of the multiple meanings of the word “change.” An integral part of Obama’s campaign, here the word means “the act or instance of making or becoming different,” whereas in the Onion article the author uses the sense of the word that means “coins as opposed to paper currency.” The way the author takes advantage of this homonym allows him to make the article humorous and funny by making fun of the Americans that do not pay attention to politics and therefore do not understand Obama’s campaign.
     The author of “Black Guy Asks Nation For Change” also implements an understatement in order to mock those that do not pay attention to the news and politics. As seen in the title of the article, the author repeatedly calls Obama “the black guy” and “the black man.” This understatement exemplifies how out of the loop and blatantly ignorant some Americans are, since they do not even know who Obama is. By satirizing this ignorantness, the author achieves the effects of humor and therefore exposes the absurdity of those who do not know what is going on in the world.
     In “Black Guy Asks Nation for Change” from the Onion, the author of this article uses a funny homonym and a clear understatement in order to mock those who are out of the loop and do not pay attention to important things, like presidential elections, by satirizing the public’s reception of Obama’s 2008 campaign centered around “change.” This Onion article, an oldie but a goodie, has made this week’s TOW fun and educational! Nice one Onion, you did it again. :)

"The black guy is oddly comfortable demanding change from people he's never even met." - The Onion

TOW #10 - Paris’s Longest Night

     I’d like to apologize in advance for picking two TOW’s in a row on the same topic. I’ll try to justify it by saying that I’d like my TOW’s to reflect on what’s happening in the real world, and the ISIS attacks, especially the one on Paris, have been all over the news. This article from The New Yorker, written by Alexandra Schwartz, cleverly uses impactful imagery and quotes from people who actually were at the site of the attacks in order to show the reader what it really is like to be in France and French at this moment.
     It is immediately apparent that Schwartz is telling stories almost as soon as you start reading the article. Her imagery and descriptive language immerses the reader into the story, making him or her feel like he or she is really there. In her second paragraph, Schwartz describes Matthieu’s experience on that fateful night. “A car screeched to a stop a few feet from where Matthieu was sitting and a man jumped out, firing a Kalashnikov. For a moment, Matthieu thought he was watching a private settling of scores. Then the man fired a second burst; there was a tremendous shattering of windows and bottles. Matthieu leapt over the table and started running. At the top of the street, he stopped and listened. It was only then that he realized that a bullet had lodged in his left hand. His pinkie and ring fingers hung at a crooked angle.” Upon reading this, one can almost feel the surrealness of the situation and the adrenaline pumping through Matthieu’s veins, helping him ignore the pain and just keep moving. Fortunately uninjured enough to be mobile, Matthieu, and the reader in his shoes, watches the chaos around him as if he were just a spectator on the outside, not comprehending that this was actually happening. The ability of Schwartz to make the reader feel like he or she is in Matthieu’s place helps him or her to better understand how French people are feeling.
     Schwartz then quotes Matthieu directly. “‘I saw a lot of women dead on the ground,’ he said, his voice catching on the ‘f’ of ‘femmes.’ ‘It was mostly women that I saw’” (para. 5) This quotes, paired with a description of Matthieu’s delivery, further shows the fear and trauma that many victims and bystanders experienced. Schwartz also uses quotes to show another point of view: one of a Muslim in France who feels antagonized after the attacks. “‘Now [she is] désespéré’—despairing at the prospect of more terror.” Sonia Ferhani, the person who spoke this quote, grew up in the banlieues, the suburbs, but these suburbs are very different from American ones. “There is furious debate in France about the ways that the cultural separation of the banlieues may leave the young men who grow up there susceptible to recruitment by terrorist networks.” This other point of view, strengthened by quotes from people who know the isolation of the banlieues allows people from other countries to understand the existing tensions that existed with France before and leading up to the attacks, providing a better understanding of the social situation in France right now.
     Schwartz’s use of descriptive imagery and direct quotes immerse the reader in the terror that the French are feeling and expose the existing underlying tensions in France that will bubble over because of the attacks in order to create sympathy in the reader by showing him or her what it’s really like for the French people now. Even though it seems like France’s pre-existing factions will only become more divided, the ultimate outcome of the attacks is solidarity, which is just what we need.

TOW #9 - Peace for Paris

     Two TOW’s ago, I chose an article about rural France because I take French and am a bit of a francophile. In light of the attacks on Paris, I figured it was appropriate to pick a text relating to the recent events. This drawing, done immediately after hearing the news about the attacks and by Jean Jullien, alludes to famous symbols, is simplistic, and has rough brushstrokes. The artist incorporates all of these elements in order to gain sympathy for Paris and unite the people against terrorist attacks in a peaceful manner.
     Jullien’s most obvious rhetorical device is his allusions which cover the topic of the drawing and evoke sympathy in the reader. The artist combines a peace sign with the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of Paris, creating a relationship between them that is best summed up by the hashtag that the drawing inspired: #PeaceForParis. The use of the peace sign is very powerful, even more so than some of the speeches made by national leaders that talk about “acts of war.” The peace promoted by this drawing sharply contrasts the terrorism and violence that happened and the reactionary steps that countries are preparing to take. This appeals to the audience’s pathos because it shows that the people just want to live in peace and don’t need revenge, overall creating sympathy in the audience for the people of Paris.
     The drawing is also very obviously simplistic, with one object in the center, a plain background, and no color. This draws attention to the main focus by deleting all of the distractors, an approach which forces the viewer to recognize the artist’s point and focuses the viewer on the sentiment that Paris wants peace not war. This simplistic, single-mindedness unites the audience under one single cause: a peaceful fight against terrorism.
     The colorlessness that adds to the simplicity of the drawing also emphasizes the type of stroke that the artist uses: a thick, rough stroke that shows the audience the violence of the recent events along with the emotionally raw state the artist was in. The contrast between the peace sign and the violence communicated by the brushstroke creates sympathy in the audience similarly to how the notion of peace contrasts national leaders’ speeches. In addition, the artist’s emotional state is relayed to the audience, creating an emotional bond that again adds to the sympathy that the viewer has for Parisians.
     Jean Jullien’s allusions, simplistic style, and rough brushstrokes evokes sympathy in his audience and unites them against the terrorist attacks in a peaceful manner. As previously mentioned, this is even more effective than speeches that rally citizens against “acts of war” by reciprocating these acts. As proof, just go check Twitter. This drawing and the hashtag are everywhere.

#PeaceForParis - Jean Jullien

IRB Intro Post #2

This marking period, I’ve decided to read How to Listen to Great Music by Robert Greenberg. The title makes the content of the book pretty obvious. To spell it out, Greenberg teaches the reader how to appreciate classical, aka concert, music. This book is supplementary to a lecture that I’m listening to on Audible.com with my dad by the same author and with the same title. Since the book is on music, I would definitely be missing out if I just read the book and didn’t listen to the music that goes with it, which is why the lecture version is important. I’ve always been pretty into music, but I’m hoping to garner an appreciation for music that I usually don’t listen to.

TOW #8 - The Omnivore’s Dilemma (IRB)

     Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading my independent reading book: Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In his book, the Pollan uses insightful and humorous metaphors and addresses a counterargument in order to revolutionize the reader’s understanding of the food industry and the way we eat.
     As mentioned in my previous post on this book, Pollan has a gift for using metaphors in order to explain complicated phenomena and processes to the general public. In his second section, the one on organic food, Pollan says that Whole Foods has one of the largest collection of “grocery lit” (137) as he gives examples of the colorful--and most likely not completely truthful--stories of free-range chickens and organic milk on the labels of many products. This metaphor compares the information on the labels, which is supposed to be just that, to stories and literature. The audience, while chuckling at the comparison, also gets a better understanding of Pollan’s experience in reading all of the labels at Whole Foods.
      In the third and final section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan takes a chapter to write about the ethics of eating meat. In doing so, he addresses a counterargument that many vegetarians are likely to bring up against his decision to go hunting for his final meal (for the book, not for the rest of his life). In order to do so, Pollan actually becomes a vegetarian himself for awhile, trying to better understand those on the other side of the argument. This gives him incredible ethos by the time he gets to proposing his solution: a middle ground in which animals destined to be eaten are treated well and slaughtered humanely. This chapter as a whole makes a very strong and convincing argument, appealing to logos in the solution and ethos in becoming a vegetarian. Therefore, addressing this counterargument makes it easier for the reader to buy into Pollan’s revolutionary revelations about the food industry.
     All in all, Pollan does a great job in answering his question from the introduction: “What should we eat?” (1) In order to help the reader better attack this complex question, Pollan uses funny and eye-opening metaphors and addresses a counterargument throughout all three of the main sections of his book. And, now that I know so much more about where my food comes from, it’ll be so much easier to figure out what to eat for dinner tonight.