Crazy Randomness

So I was surfing Amanda Palmer's blog the other day, and I came across this article she referenced:

http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/305143974/if-you-want-to-get-rich-and-screw-start-shooting

I think it's a very well thought out statement, and I agree with it on most of it's oppinions, but I can't help feeling that it contradicts itself in some ways.

The writer states, and I quote, that: "If you want to be a musician, you must flush image down the toilet." And then, it states that  "That’s how you grow your audience, by having a personality, just like them." and "you must make yourself available on the internet and social media". But isn't that a form of creating an image? Thing is, if you want to be a famous musician, image is necessary. If you don't have a strong image, people will eventually get tired of you, even if your music is amazing. After all, having an image is like exaggerating your personality. And the writer here thinks that you must have a personality, but you must flush image down the toilet?!

PLus, I hate the phrase "having a personality". EVERYONE has a personality. Oh, you mean a "defined personality?" Or, in terms of what that really means, an "exaggerated personality"? Because, again, THAT'S IMAGE!

"A “rock star” today is someone who’s winning in the commercial world, which is the opposite of art." So someone who's winning in the commercial world isn't a true artist? That's generalizing. John Mayer is winning in the commercial world. Taylor Swift sold over a million copies of her last album; I would say she is definitely winning in the commercial world. This article praises them both for being true artists, and imo that's true, but they're also both winning in the commercial world!

 "Right now, Mariah Carey might be parading around Aspen, but she’s not staying there based on her new album’s sales, they stink, she’s living off the past.  Even Alicia Keys.  All these heavily-hyped artists, the Cliveisms, they’re built for stardom, but today stardom doesn’t permeate every nook and cranny, and so many are turned off by the hype, and music sales suck." In that case, Michael Jackson was also living off the past when he was alive. So is Paul McCartney. So is Madonna, lets be fair. Are they heavily hyped artists? Maybe so, but they're still ARTISTS. They're not just about the image. if they're living off the past, it's for a reason. It's because they were GOOD artists, and they are still being credited for their hard work. That isn't a bad thing.  

Music is art, and art is subjective. I might hate a musician, and other people think he/she's the greatest artist in the world. Wether it be about music or image. Even some of the pop stuff that you listen to nowadays and you think "god, this sucks, she/he didn't even WRITE this song" IS art, in a way. The actual SINGER might not be really an artist, but within the actual team, there are artists behind it all; artists who write the songs, artists who produce the music, artists who play instruments.
I think it has a lot of good points, but I just wanted to say this because I think a few issues being stated here aren't entirely fair.

"Loving the music does not equate with loving the fame. Is a reclusive artist less of an artist than a social one? No. But they may well be a less popular one or a less respected one, or the one everyone calls an asshole for not appreciating the people who put her or him there." This is a comment from one of Amanda's fans, which I think is a very good point.

So what do you think?

Hi! so here's my second story for the Maths and Literature Olympics. As I mentioned in the post before this one, the Olympics consist in the following: you're handed an exam with three maths problems in it. From those three, you have to choose one, solve it, and then write a story that contains the problem within it. The problem I chose was actually not a maths one, but a logical problem. It was like this:

"If John runs faster than Peter, and David runs faster than Lou, but David is slower than John, who is the fastest runner and who is the slowest?"

I changed the names of people to names of birds, and I changed running to flying (you're allowed to do that). So here's the story. It's called "Icarus":



"Rose? Are you paying attention?" asked a voice.
The teenager did not answer. She was observing the cold and white corridor located just outside the equally cold and white room where she was in. She pressed her hand to the unbreakable glass window, longing to break through it.

When the voice spoke again, she turned around slowly and came face to face with a tall, serious looking man. This man was no stranger; he was called Doctor Smith, so she had been told, and visited her daily.

"Have you listened to anything I've said?"

When he got no answer, Doctor Smith sighed and repeated his question.
"Rose, if a hummingbird flies faster than the nightingale, and the blackbird flies faster than the Toucan, but at the same time the blackbird is slower than the hummingbird; which of these birds is the fastest flier and which is the slowest?"

There was a long silence. Then:
"Icarus flew."

"That was not my question."

"If Icarus could fly, he surely flew faster than any bird. And if they would let me fly, I'd fly faster than any of them."

Doctor Smith looked at the poor, crazed girl. She had been brought into this mental asylum when she had tried to jump off the top of a tall building, assuring that she would be able to fly. After several psychological exams, it was discovered that Rose suffered from severe hallucinations.

Anyone could see that Rose had sometime been a very pretty girl, with her long golden hair and her big blue eyes, but these had lost their youthful spark. Now she was thin, too thin, and she had dark shadows under her lovely eyes. But dispite her extreme thinness and paleness, to Doctor Smith Rose was the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes upon. Something about her attracted him to her…her aroma. Yes, that was it. She smelt like apples. Apples as sweet and red as her lips…but no. He couldn't think of a patient that way, especially a seventeen year old.

He smiled and gently said: "Icarus is only a mythology, Rose. Humans cannot fly."
Before leaving, he gave the answer to the question he had asked her.
"The fastest bird, in this case, is the hummingbird. The slowest would be the Toucan."
And with that, Doctor Smith left.


Rose stayed completely still, watching Doctor Smith's figure becoming smaller and smaller as he walked down the corridor, and then disappearing behind the main door. Then, she took a page out of her notebook and started folding it. In a few minutes she had made a paper bird. Inside her head, the bird spoke to her.

"If you want to fly, you can fly" said the bird. "You just have to get out of here. When the nurse comes in, escape."

It was easier than she thought it would be. She hit the nurse on the head with her notebook, making her fall unconscious. Then she started running without looking back. Ignoring the panicky voices of the Doctors and nurses behind her, she opened the main door and kept on running.

At last, she came to a river. She contemplated the scenery with her insane eyes. She saw clear, blue water, green hills and a tall, beautiful waterfall.

I have to get to the top of the waterfall, she thought. It's the only way I will fly faster than the hummingbird.

With strong determination, she entered the fierce currents. She felt cold, very cold. After much effort, she managed to get to the waterfall. Panting, she started to climb the large, slippery rocks, trying to get to the top. The rocks hurt her feet and her hands; nevertheless, she continued climbing.

She had reached halfway up the waterfall, when she finally gave in to exhaustion. Her foot slipped, her hand lost grip, and the current won the game. Looking at the sky for the last time, she smiled as a blue blanket wrapped around her body, with a feeling of extreme happiness. How wonderful! How exciting! This was just the beginning of a great, new adventure. And though her body stayed, wrapped in this great blanket protecting her from the cold, her spirit flew, soaring freer and faster than any hummingbird.


Days later, the body of a poor, demented girl with the identity of "Rose Woods" was found in the contaminated waters of the small river.
"Poor girl," a man muttered. "She really must have been absolutely crazy to go into this dirty, dangerous water…"
Doctor Smith went over to the body and kissed its face. Her lips were no longer red, but white, and she smelt of cigarettes and putrid earth. For the first time, he wept, because he couldn't smell the apples.




So...what d'ya think? I'm sorry if the grammar is a bit weird, I wrote it in Spanish originally and it's really hard to translate it XD

Hope you like it! Please feel free to comment :)

XXX

xsabrix

I had the maths and literature olimpics today, and I think I might have passed!
OK, first things first. My school organizes with other schools a maths and writing contest that consists in writing a story based on one of the three optional maths problems that are handed out to you. For ex., the problem I chose was actually a logical one. It said: "If John runs faster than Peter, and David runs faster that Lou, and David runs slower that Peter, who is the fastest runner and who is the slowest runner?" Then you solve the problem (John is the fastest and Lou is the slowest) and you write a story with that. I changed the people to birds, and running to flying (you are allowed to do that) and I wrote this story about a girl in an asylum (I'll post the whole story later, I have to translate it to english!).

Anyway, if the judges like your story, and if you've solved the problem right, you go to the next level and you take another test. I had already passed the first level (I'll try to translate that story too!) so I'm hoping I'll make it to third. The kids who participate in the Olympics are really nice. I laugh so much with them. For instance, today I had to take the exam for the Olympics in another school, which is in the city centre, so I went in a cab with two guys who are also in. One of them hadn't had lunch, and it was still half an hour untill the exam started, so we dumped our rucksacks in the classroom and went off. One problem: none of us knew exactly how to get there. So we walked around the entire city centre, and then Marco, who is the same guy who hadn't eaten, realized he had forgotten the money he needed to pay for the food AND the authorization to do the exam. So he had to ask a friend of his dad's to lend him some money, and call his mom to give him the authorization. When he he called his mom to ask her to bring it, it was really hilarious, because he didn't know where he had left it, and was like: "I don't know, it must be inside one of my trousers". And when the friend of his dad's showed up, we didn't know him, and he was just walking past and said: "hey, do you want some money?" and me and the Valentin (the other guy), we were both like: 'huh? a stranger is offering us money? oookaaay...if you insist' Valentin had a REALLY baffled face which sent me into peals of laughter and people looked at me really really strangely, including Marco's dad's friend. Which made me laugh even more. You know when you really should stop laughing, but you literally can't? Well, I had that. Then, to make my hysteria even MORE hysterical, Marco turned around and was said: "Give me a rational explanation of why that seems so hillarious" or something like that. LOL.

In the classroom, so many funny things happened I loose track. First, the teacher was absolutely INSANE. She would make these really weird noises with her mouth while pouring coke into a glass for some reason and she wouold speaking on the cell phone all the time. Then, some girl started singing the Football World Cup song really loudly in the hallways. And the same guy who had forgotten his authorization and his money forgot his DNI under the desk. He was hysterical because he couldn't find it. I was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

So, all in all it was a very very very funny day :)

 ( Songs under cut )

 Oh. My. God. You have GOT to watch this: www.youtube.com/watch It is the funniest thing I have ever seen. Amanda Palmer goes around lip-synchyng "Hell" by Tegan & Sara in the streets. People seriously freak out. LMAO!!!.

...

I'm going to bed now :)

love,

xsabrix

 Let me introduce myself. I forgot. I'm xsabrix, also known Sabrina, a 15 year old Argentine girl. 

I love writing, as you've maybe seen in my last post. Stories, songs, anything. I also love playing the guitar and listening to music. Genre? Any kind. I can listen to pretty much anything, from jazz to hard rock. My current obsession right now is Jason Webley and also the Dresden Dolls. I also like pop music, like Britney Spears (don't kill me!) and bands from back in the 60s and 70s like the Beatles, Pink Floyd. I LOVE country music - Chely Wright, Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift are my current favourites. Like I said, pretty much anyhting.
I love reading all kind of books, except maybe science fiction. I get pretty bored with that style. My favourite authors would have to be J.K. Rowling (I ADORE Harry Potter!), Louise Reminson (her Georgia Nicholson books are a classic!), Neil Gaiman (STARDUST!!!), Philip Pullman, and lots of others.

I travel to England every two years to visit relatives (my dad's Brittish). I love England. I really do. I'm probably going to live there once I've finished university (I'm going to study either psychology or tourism. I don't know yet. Or maybe music XD)

I am also a total dork :D  And I love it. I'm also really, really, REALLY shy. Especially at school. The weird thing is, I'm not that shy with people I know I won't see them again. Like, on some days I go singing down the street (just ask my sis elen_nare) and I love freaking people out (but I don't always have the courage to do it).

So basically that's me. Feel free to ask me anything. :D So who are you guys?