Sometimes a start is all we ever get. - Susan

My mother always used to tell me, "If you start something, make sure to finish it".  Being the kind of teenager that never listened to such "frivolous" advice, I rarely followed this rule.  There have been books, too many for me to count, that I've started to read, and never made to page 90 (which according to my high school English teacher, is the golden page number where it finally starts to get interesting).  However, with the case of my mother, he would not only start things for me, she would also nag me along the way; telling me to see it all through.  As I grew taller, the nagging grew shorter.  Soon, my mother only suggested things for me to do, and she finally let me do things the way I saw it.  Now, as a college freshman, I realize that I have fully transitioned from my mother's hold, into my own independence.  I get to decide for myself whether I want to commit to something, build something, create something.  When I made the decision to attend NYU, y mother was proud that I made the choice alone, free of any external influences.  Even though I no longer have my mother pestering me to finish things, I am not lost.  I find myself becoming responsible by my own accord and completing the tasks that I know my mother would want me to do.  I guess that's what my mother had wanted all along; for her to stop being the anchor in my life and for me to start becoming my own anchor.  Maybe that's what she wanted and maybe that's the only thing she ever really started for me in the first place. 

Whose Life are you Living Through?

Parents, especially immigrant parents, often attempt to live through the lives of their children. It’s understandable because they want their sacrifices to count for something, to transcend their deaths by continuing to live through the success of their children. But life is hard and young people don’t really know what they want to do with their lives right away. Every mother wishes she could could say “my daughter, she works at Goldman Sachs and has two beautiful children.” But her daughter is still living with roommates and has the generic internship of every college graduate who has no idea what to do with his or her degree yet. Richard Williams was the same way as the parents of such college graduates because he wanted his training lessons to come into life and his pride was validated through the success of Serena and Venus. But did he ever ask them what they wanted? Did they want space from their insisting father? Did they want to attend college and be regular people? I bet he never asked them these types of questions because he lived, and continues to live, off of his daughters’ lives since he dedicated most of his time to developing their athletic talent.

-Bremda A. 

Photograph

            That little boy is really pulling off the high-waisted pants with the suspenders. The overgrown vine in the upper right hand corner creates a nice juxtaposition to a staged photo. The bushes are trimmed immaculately. Family photos are the biggest family myths. These photos only emit the values and characteristics the family pretends to possess. This girl is going to grow up and become a drug addict. The mother is an alcoholic. The father a pedophile. The boy may just escape the tight noose that his childhood put around his neck, but when he has a family of his own he will commit a murder suicide in this very house. The one unruly vine will take over the whole façade and the next photo that will be taken will be by the crime scene investigators. Or perhaps I have just been watching too much CSI. The father is a mathematician who coaches his son’s baseball team. The mother owns a real estate agency and inspires her son to follow in her footsteps. The daughter goes on to become valedictorian. Or perhaps I am just an optimist.

Scout Sabo

Hey Nixon, Listen to the Hunters

       I could not help but realize that Nixon insisted he was helping the nation by putting his personal judgements of just security or (also known as) "spying" into the context of protecting the American people. His Anglo-American jurisprudence proves to cement itself within his beliefs, never mentioning any line of regret or even remorse, for America or for his own personal core values which stand slighted, at best... yet this makes sense in the scheme of the 1970s.
       Hunter S. Thompson might be crazy, but at least he is rational in the sense that he is not overly paranoid of competition because he trusts his obscene journalistic "Gonzo" style. I have studied the Watergate incident thoroughly and many of the names that Thompson mentions are familiar and true to their descriptions, with a little bit of overly nationalistic angst sprinkled on top. But, ultimately I agree- no matter who you are, over-confidence is vice. It would be better for everyone if the whole population had a sense of self evaluation and double checking of their in"sanity", but hopefully not in an obtrusive way. Stay safe within your personal wishes, vendettas, and aspirations- be loud when you're called for.

Art Thoughtz

To be honest, I missed the beginning of this video because I was too focused on his Spiderman hat. It is just odd to see a pair of eyes on top of another pair of eyes. Eventually I was able to follow the meaning of the video and comprehend the powerful message, however, my eyes kept looking at the hat. I do not know if it is the red shirt with the red hat or it is the shape of the hat that makes it seem the front is padded. I understand the point he is trying to get across about the struggles of being successful in the art world, which seems to be a white dominated area. But then I become confused as to which eyes to look at, so I choose the large white eyes that seem angry because they contrast more with the color of the hat. Ambiguity is something that can be appreciated in the art world, but it should not be the only thing that is treasured. Art is important because it is different, therefore all art should be different from one another. While a blank canvas is intriguing art, so is a speaker that yells a direct message on repeat. I think I figured it out. This video only has three colors in it: white, black, and red. I feel like this is a difficult thing to pull of, but that may be why it is distracting.

Scout Sabo 

Mania: Is it Real?

March 26, 2015- "The edge, there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who know where it is are the ones who have gone over it."


There are a lot of people in the world, whether they be characterised by "normality" in the clinical sense or "mania" in the Greek etymological sense. Going over the "edge" can mean anything, but mostly it is losing your grip on reality within the context you choose to live your life in. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith start to lose reality and go over the edge as soon as paranoia regarding their rendezvous sets in. But when does the paranoia start, or even end? Their lives have been disassociated and disoriented for years now, hopping between towns and states and cities, Alaska to Kansas, Kansas to Alaska. Never have they seen so many strangers, will they come back, the people- themselves and the victims (whomever that may be defined as legally or literally by definition)? But you cant just explain the events and expect everyone to understand. No one will understand.


But is that bad?


no.


It's always okay to go past the points or reality, whatever that may mean for your sense of mind and circle of self-awareness, but you always have to come back. The best guidance and reference for reality is our dependency on family values, but more generally familiar values. Without the familiarity in our lives, there is no relativity, there is no reference to a reality. The best guidance and reference is our dependency. Without familiarity we are nothing. Without social, even propagandised, structure we are nothing. Let's hope we all become something.


Stay at the edge, but don't bury yourself in it.


Rushing Freedoms

February 10, 2015- "For where does one run when he's already in the promised land?"

I was walking from my dorm on 3rd avenue and 11th street this afternoon before my writing class at 2:00 and my pop micro-econ quiz at 3:30 and my cultural foundations (or as my professor likes to call it "Shifting Cultural Geographies" class) at 4:55PM.

My day was long but my time was short.

I kept up the pace, my mind was rushing. I could feel. I could feel the chemicals in my brain swirling and synapsing to create my "healthy" self. I finally began to feel focused for the first time in weeks, and when I say weeks, i mean maybe 8 of those long moments in time.

I hit the corner at University Place, coming from the busy streets of Broadway but throwing myself into the homey-welcoming feeling that arises when nearing Washington Square Park. In my unchartered sense of rushing, I almost run into a man and his dog who is in front of a wooden restaurant column painted red with a base of black. The small white furred pet was merely looking down, sniffing out a place to pee.

I reach down to pet the dog and quickly relinquish my thought of appreciative or acknowledgeable touch towards the "pet". I kept up my pace and apologised to myself for stopping in the first place.

There's no promise land, I keep running, running to learn, running to reach my promise land.