Jazz Music

Right now I am listening to Blue Trail. All there is playing is music. Josh just flipped out because it is a ten minute song. The saxophone just jumped into the song. The saxophone is very good. It makes me want to get up and dance. The sudden saxophone entering the song makes it cheerful. I think that Jazz music came around to give the blacks and other people in this genre some hope and something to do. Playing music is very fun. The saxophone is still playing. I can tell that the saxophone is a very important instrument to Jazz. The story I see withing this song is a couple is walking down the road and they are in Louisiana. Louisiana is the prime state for Jazz music. there is now a piano playing. It is very smooth. Now the symbols are playing. No the song is about to end and the music is very mellow. It kind of resembles the sadness they are going through. Black people had a lot of sadness through out their lives. They had to go through slavery. Now in the middle 19th century during the modernism period, they were going through the civil rights movement. This was a time when blacks were discriminated against. They were not allowed to use the same things as white were. Like Rosa Parks and not being able to sit in a seat labeled for a white man. She was arrested for it. The black culture was greatly influenced by Jazz because the black people needed something to take their minds off of their trouble. It was very interesting music to listen to. They express so much soul in their music. The modernism era brought out great jazz music. It was also a time of "beats". They were poets and novelist who had very bizarre thoughts and actions. The Jazz era defined greatness in our country by the blacks over coming their sorrows and finding something they are passionate about.

Modernism vs. Realism

Modernism is "inscribed a particular sense of radical rupture with the past and a perception of cultural crisis" (Modernism). This is a period of literature that came around a great time of change for America. The Great Depression hit America and many changes were happening. The Harlem Renisnesse was occurring. That is the black people coming together and celebrate music and their culture. There was also the "Roaring Twenties". It was a great time of economic growth for America. There was more leisure time and people had to find new ways to entertain themselves. They started playing baseball. That became a great American past time. There was also theater. Movies started coming out. That forms a great deal of literature in our culture. Scripts needed to be written and it gave room for a new era of literature. That sparked modernism. "The normative changes associated with modernity include a sense of cultural crisis brought on by World War I and the sense that the new 20th century put the world closer to the apocalypse; Western notions of progress and superiority were breaking down. Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud all offered so-called master narratives that helped to explain history and to produce a new historical self-consciousness. Well-held precepts and norms for religion, sexuality, gender, and the family of the past Victorian world were also collapsing. Conflicts over racial, gender, class, religious, and colonial systems of oppression were moving to the fore." (Modernism). That was a big change in society in America. It led to the development of authors like Ezra Pound and Ernst Hemingway. Hemingway was a great novelist that inspired many other authors to be a part in the modernism period.
"Realism is the attempt to depict life as it actually exists, not as the author wants it to be in the present or the future, or imagines it was in the past. A realist carefully chooses details that illustrate this vision, unlike the naturalist who tries to include all possible details." (Realism). I like realism writings. I like the facts that everything in the writings are real. I like the aspects of real life. I find that in my life, I am not exposed to real life experiences. I am stuck in school all day and I live at home. I do not have to pay bills. Realism talks about all of those items. Realism authors write about their real world experiences. It is similar to modernism because they are talking about the world, but modernist had a least gooder things to talk about. The times were hard. I feel like they are both the same type of writing. Realism and Modernism have the same types of feelings toward items in real life. I wonder what the realism period would have been like if they were during the Great Depression.l There would not be any hope like there was with the modernism period. I like modernism writings. I do not really like the poems because they are not written in normal poems. They do no have rhyme chemes.

Werlock, Abby H. P. "modernism." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CASS589&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 6, 2011).

Werlock, Abby H. P. "realism." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= Gamshrtsty0575&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 6, 2011).

Job Shadow

I went to the Guardianship and Advocacy agency. they were located in the Straton Building. I got there and the girl I was shadowing was no there. She was running some errands and I talked to a guy named Jeff. He was very nice. He talked a lot and let me know a lot about the agency and what they do. I learned that they take adult, disabled people and manage their money. They have to pay the bills and decide weather it is important for them to purchase items. They are there because people would take advantage of the people if they were managing their own money. They are like the parent of the peoples money. I do not know what I want to do in my life. It was neat to see the business side of life, but that is not what I want to do. I want to do something in business, but not that. It was a boring career. The girl, Carol, who I was following decides what the funding for the agency goes to. There is a lot of "paper pushing" as they put it. It means just signing things and stuff. It was kinda what I expected. I had no idea what they did there and what to expect. I would not want to do it. I want to do something that is more active and fun. It was interesting when Carol took me to the Capitol. We watched the House of Representatives in secession. It was very cool. I have never been there before. It was fun to see them arguing and passing bills. The job shadowing was an experiences. It was fun to see how the business life is. I would not like that specific job, but I do want to do something in business.