Understanding Greek Theater

I will post here a paper I wrote about GREEK TRAGEDIES AND COMEDIES to a college course called "WESTERN HUMANITIES I" at Saint Petersburg College.

"Greek plays or dramas (tragedy and comedy) were a single performance in theaters (arenas) at Athens, spoken and acted by costumed actors and in part sung by a chorus of dancers to the music of a piper. The theaters were mostly located in places called AGORA. In this research paper, we are going to discuss the main elements of the Greek tragedy and comedy and its universality/contribution in arts and scholars of all times.

Theater as we know it in the West today was invented in Ancient Greece, in classical Athens more specifically. The zenith of the Greek Theater coincides with the great moment of its democracy and military power in the fifth century BC. After defeating the Persians in 460 BC approximately, the Greeks developed senses of competitiveness and rivalry.

In 534 BC, the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus founded the festival of the City Dionysia (or also called The Great Dionysia), one of the most popular events, whose main purpose was the presentation of plays and dithyrambs as a sacred competition. Competitive athletic sports and games were also Greek inventions at that time. The play-festivals served as a device for defining Athenian civic identity, which meant exploring, questioning and confirming what it was to be a citizen of a democracy.

The culture of Athens during the Classic period may be viewed as a “performance culture”. In the Dionysia and Lenea festivals there was competition both between the plays or rather groups of plays. Comedies as well as tragedies were performed publicly in local theaters. The Greek plays of the fifth century (BC) were very directly part of a rite, acts of worship offered to a mysterious power. The Greek god Dionysus was this power. He was evoked and even animals were sacrificed to his worship. In Greek mythology, Dionysus was the god of wild and uncontrolled ecstasy. He is too considered more specifically the God of wine. Perfection was the goal of classical Greek art.

Tragedy also reached its great moment in Greece. It was originated from Epic and Lyric poetry, dominant literary forms of artistic expressions from the late archaic age. With the rising of the democratic spirit and changes in the polis, epics were transferred to the stages, featuring the Greek tragic theater.

“The tragedies were primarily based on the legends of royal families – usually the dynasties of Thebes, Sparta and Argos – dating from the Age of Heroes of which Homer sang in his epics. Since the audience already knew these stories, their interest focused on the playwright’s treatment of a familiar tale, his ideas about its moral significance, and how his language shaped those ideas (Matthews, p. 62).”

The main plots in Greek tragedies constitute a grandiose set of variations on a relatively few legendary and formal themes that is not casually or occasionally intertextual, but always and inherently so. “The word tragedy in Greek means “goat song,” and this word may refer to a prehistoric religious ceremony in which competing male choruses sang and danced, while intoxicated, in homage, to the god of wine; the victory prize may been a sacrificial goat (Matthews, p.61).”

The essence of the tragedy was in telling stories about divine and/or humankind weaknesses, pains, sorrows, failures, and also acts of heroism. The conflicts in tragedies were mostly a consequence of fate. The Greek Tragedy passed through four distinct forms such as: the Thespian lyrical (the primary form which introduced the use of masks, with only one actor,) the early Aeschylean with two actors (also called the Old Tragedy,) the Sophoclean with three actors (also called the Middle Tragedy,) and the late-Euripidean drama (also called the New Tragedy).

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripedes are the best-known Greek tragedy play authors, explaining why the classical periods were named after them. Each of them wrote over ninety tragedies (although only few survived) and won several festivals in Athens.

Aeschylus (525–456 BC) was born at Eleusius, near Athens. He fought for Athens in the great Persian Wars. His first victory as a tragic dramatist was gained in 485 BC. He won twelve times more. He elaborated over ninety plays, his masterpiece, the Oresteia, is the only trilogy that has survived. In his drama, “Aeschylus confronts and resolves the opposition between several seemingly irreconcilable polarities – Olympian and chthonian gods, divine and human justice, religious cult and civic ritual, and fate and free will (Matthews, p. 63).”

Sophocles (496-406 BC) was born at Colonus Hippius. He wrote 123 plays, of which only seven survived, all written after his victory over Aeschylus in a dramatic contest in 468 BC: Ajax, Electra, Women of Trachis, Philoctetes, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. Sophocles inaugurated the Old Tragedy adding one more actor in scene. He sees not the simplicity but the complexity of life. The Sophoclean hero, because he is complex, not single-minded, must be seen from more than one point of view, so it is important the role of one more actor on stage.

Euripides (480-406 BC) was born in Athens. He abandoned painting for literature. He wrote about 80 dramas, of which 19 survived. Some of his masterpieces are Alcestis, Medea, Orestes, and Electra. His works became more popular in Athens after his death. The Euripidean tragedy got more involved by the Peloponnesian war and by the Sophist philosophy. He introduced what it is called the New Tragedy, a more intuitive work. His plays are reflections about human experiences, traditional mythology, and human consciousness. Macbeth of Shakespeare has a strong influence from Medea.

Drama was not necessarily an original feature of the festivals at which it was performed. Comedies were performed in the Dionisya Festival just as the tragedies were. Tragedy had first place, occupying the theater for three days, on each of which were performed three tragedies and followed by a satyr-play (presenting indecent behavior and strong language) or a comedy.

Aristophanes is a very important name of the classic Greek Comedy Theater. In his works, he attacked the Athenian system of law, ridiculed politicians of that time, and caricaturized the intellectual and ordinary men. Aristophanes helped creating what it was called later ‘the old comedy’. This term means comedy produced in Athens during the fifth century BC. Eupolis, Cratinus and Aristophanes are its main exponents, but had no doubt that Aristophanes was the greatest of the three. Here is the beginning of one of his great plays: “Lysistrata:”

“[A street in Athens before daylight]

LYSISTRATA – If anyone had asked them to a festival of Aphrodite or of Bacchus or of Pan, you couldn’t get through Athens for the tambourines, but now there’s not one solitary woman here. Except my next-door neighbor. Here she’s coming out. Hello, Kalonike.

ALONIKE – Hello, Lysistrata. What are you so upset about? Don’t scowl so, clear. You’re less attractive when you knit your brows and glare.

LYSISTRATA – I know, Kalonike, but I am smoldering with indignation at the way we women act. Men think we are so gifted for all sort of crime that we will stop at nothing –

KALONIKE – Well, we are, by Zeus!”

In Old Comedy, plays had a strong element of criticism, even though free speech had its limitations in Athens. In Lysistrata, Aristophanes points out the absurdity of the prolonged Peloponnesian war. “In the play, Lysistrata, an Athenian matron, persuades the women of Athens and Sparta to withhold sex from their husbands until they sign a peace treaty (Matthews, p65).”

How important is the Greek tragedy for later Western literature and thought? The production of plays such as Medea or Oedipus the King is made until recent times. The intellectual and aesthetic contributions of these works are infinite. Greek tragedies influenced not only plays (Shakespeare and Goethe) and operas, but also thinkers as varied as Freud, Sartre and Nietzche. A book on Greek tragedy may be a work of historical documentation or of literary criticism, although the relationship between anthropology and the Classics (tragedies), for instance, has brought more than that. The studies in tragedies have explained the idea of ritual and of, so called by anthropologists, “magic thoughts”. The critical understanding of Greek tragedy is extremely flexible. It is possible to explore them politically, historically, in psychoanalysis, in linguistics, in philology and so forth.

Plato and Aristotle developed extensive thoughts concerning tragedies. In Aristotle’s work called Poetics, he affirms that the essential thing in tragedy was not the characters but the events, the fable, the mythos, and the action compounded from it. For him the preeminent example, which he repeatedly cites as model tragedy, was Sophocle’s Oedipus, in which the action, the “destiny”, takes precedence over character. This is why the Greek drama perpetuates in History. The capacity of becoming modern lies in its actions. According to Aristotle, tragedy plays are eternal for conceiving and portraying man in his universal conflicts such as: surviving, death, human justice, humiliation, sexuality, power, free will, weakness, fears, and so on. It consists in the simple idea that it is no accident that the Greek tragedy survived as creative stimulus in the drama of later eras.

Bibliography

1. KITTO, H. D. F., “Greek Tragedy.” Barnes and Noble Inc., 1968.

2. MATTHEWS, T. Roy and PLATT, F. Dewitt, “The Western Humanities.” Michigan State University, 2000.

3. ARISTOPHANES, “Lysistrata.” Chandler Publishing Company, 1961.

4. RIDGEWAY, William, “The Origin of Tragedy.” Benjamin Blom Inc., 1966.

5. HAMBURGER, Kate, “From Sophocles to Sartre.” Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1969.

6. “Greek Tragedy.” Cambridge University Press, 1997

7. LATTIMORE, Richmond, “Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy.”

The University of Michigan Press, 1964.

8. SANDBACH, F. H., “The Comic Theater of Greece and Rome.” Norton and Company Inc., 1977.

9. ARISTOTELES, “Poeticas.” Editora Siciliano, 1985.

10. AYLEN, Leo, “The Greek Theater.” London and Toronto Associated Presses, 1985.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN MONTH

While reading an excellent novel named "The Color of Water" by James McBride, I felt needed to write about what this month represents to all African-Americans. I don't even know exactly where my roots come from. Every time someone asks my heritage, the only thing I can say is "I AM LATINA." For those who have eventually read my other post already know that I had spent 5 years in the USA (1998-2002). There, I had the unique chance to learn so much about their civil rights heroes, names such as: MALCOM X, PAUL ROBESON, JACKIE ROBINSON, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, THE BLACK PANTHERS. They were exquisite minds of the 50's who made the difference for the African-American people. The fact that touched me the most is the one known as The Montgomery Bus Boycott. I will paste here a summarized text about this brave black woman - ROSA PARKS - also a very important character for the 50's. To me, as being LATINA (once part of the USA minorities), I do believe I needed to mention this so interesting moment in the western history and especially in this month - FEBRUARY - when African-Americans celebrate proudly their heritage and origins.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

On the 1st of December 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for not standing and letting a white bus rider take her seat.

It was an "established rule" in the American south (at that time) that African-American riders had to sit at the back of the bus. African-American riders were also expected to surrender their seat to a white bus rider if it was needed.

When asked to move to let a white bus rider be seated Mrs. Parks refused. She did not argue and she did not move. The police were called and Mrs. Parks was arrested
Mrs. Parks was not the first African-American to be arrested for this "crime." But she was the first to be arrested who was well know in the Montgomery African-American community. She was once the secretary to the president of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. He and other African-American community leaders felt a protest of some kind was needed. A meeting was called and an overflowing crowd came to the church to hear his words. Dr. King told the crowd that the only way they could fight back would be to boycott the bus company.

On the morning of Dec. 5, the African-American residents of the city refused to use the buses. Most walked, those few with cars arranged rides for friends and strangers, some even rode mules. Only a very small number of African-Americans rode the bus that day.

Dr. King and the other African-American community leaders held another meeting to organize future action. They named their organization the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected Dr. King as its president.

As the boycott continued the white community fought back with terrorism and harassment. The car-pool drivers were arrested for picking up hitchhikers. African-Americans waiting on street corners for a ride were arrested for loitering.
On January 30, 1956 Dr. King's home was bombed. His wife and their baby daughter escaped without injury. When Dr. King arrived home he found an angry mob waiting. Dr. King told the crowd to go home.

"We must learn to meet hate with love" he said.

The boycott continued for over a year. It eventually took the United States Supreme Court to end the boycott. On November 13, 1956 the Court declared that Alabama's state and local laws requiring segregation on buses were illegal. On December 20th federal injunctions were served on the city and bus company officials forcing them to follow the Supreme Court's ruling. The following morning, December 21, 1956, Dr. King and Rev. Glen Smiley, a white minister, shared the front seat of a public bus. The boycott had lasted 381 days. The boycott was a success.

FROM: http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0214631/

Nine Inch Nails

I've never thought that I would add a song* into my blog. Don't know about you, but I can only listen to it when I navigate on Explorer browser. Any other browser isn't running the song I've chosen. Can't explain exactly why I chose "THE PERFECT DRUG", however NIN is one of my favorite bands. I don't really have a list of my all-time favorite musicians, even though I have added some of them in my blog profile. I am not into music mostly, so I am the type of person who sticks with a CD of any band and like listening to it countless times a day. That's not the case of this song frankly speaking. The words in that music are tantalizing, that is probably the reason I've decided to have a connection between my words and theirs (NIN). Finally, if anyone can explain to me why I am not able to listen to this song in other browsers, please contact me or post any comment - I'd really appreciate if you could do that!


"The Perfect Drug"
by NINE INCH NAILS

I got my head but my head is unraveling
cant keep control can't keep track of where it's traveling
I got my heart but my heart's no good
you're the only one that's understood

I come along but I don't know where you're taking me
I shouldn't go but you're wrenching dragging shaking me
turn off the sun pull the stars from the sky
the more I give to you the more I die

and I want you

you are the perfect drug
the perfect drug
the perfect drug
the perfect drug

you make me hard when i'm all soft inside
I see the truth when i'm all stupid-eyed
the arrow goes straight through my heart
without you everything just falls apart

my blood just wants to say hello to you
my fear is warm to get inside of you
my soul is so afraid to realize
how every little bit is left of me

take me with you
without you everything just falls apart
it's not as much fun to pick up the pieces

*Note - After having several problems with other browsers and poor quality at the music reproduction, I've decided to remove it either temporarily or permanently.

MY COMPLETE PROFILE

WRITING

ABOUT MY

SUPERFICIAL

ME...

ABOUT ME: PROFILES AREN'T GREAT TO DEFINE WHAT A PERSON IS OR ISN'T. ANYWAY, THEY ARE AT LEAST AN ORGANIZED MATERIAL TO POINT OUT WHAT IT MIGHT MATTER FOR THAT PERSON. I CARE FOR KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM, MY SISTERS, TEACHING, WRITING, READING, INTERNET, FOOD, DRINKING, MOVIES, CLOSE FRIENDS AND CONVERTING ACCOMPLISHMENTS PLUS DISAPPOINTMENTS INTO WORDS IN FREAKO POEMS.

MORE ABOUT ME: I TRY TO BE IN A GOOD MOOD ALL THE TIME BUT SOMETIMES I FAIL. I PROCRASTINATE DOING WHATEVER I HAVE TO. I DON'T USUALLY REMEMBER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAY THEREFORE I GET REALLY EMBARRASSED WHEN THEY REMEMBER MINE. I LOVE MY ENTIRE FAMILY ESPECIALLY BECAUSE WE TRADITIONALLY LIVE APART. I PRODUCE BETTER WHEN I'M ALONE, I GET THE BEST IDEAS WHEN I'M SURROUNDED. I DON'T LIKE ARGUMENTS AND MISSUNDERSTANDINGS. I DISLIKE THE SILENCE ALTHOUGH I DON'T LISTEN TO MUSIC VERY OFTEN. I DREAM OF HAVING A PUBLISHED NOVEL.FINALLY, I HAVE ALREADY HAD MOST OF MY GOALS TURNED INTO REAL PROJECTS, AND I AM ONLY 28 - THAT'S SOMETHING I AM PROUD OF.

NAME: LAILA CHRIS

MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED, NO CHILDREN

D. O. B.: JANUARY 29TH

BORN IN: BRAZIL, STATE OF SÃO PAULO

OCCUPATION: FULL-TIME ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGUE TEACHER

PASSIONS: *WRITING/ *Teaching English to kids and teenagers/ *Learning new words in English, Deutsch, Français, Español, and Português!/ *Meeting fun old friends / *Monty Python's Flying Circus / *Sleeping until late / *Having Bolla wine and bites of camembert cheese topped with roasted red bell pepper /

BOOKS: Torah/ Qur'an/ Tira-Teimas de Português, by J. Milton Gonçalves/ A Questão Judaica, by Jean Paul Sartre / The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong / The Arab Predicament / A Questão Alemã, Vamireh Chacon / The Future of an Illusion & The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud /

MUSIC: Polka, Indie Rock, and Quarashi (a kick-ass Icelandic BAND)

MOVIES: CECIL B. DEMENTED / AMARCORD / ED GEIN / ROPE / MEMENTO / FARGO / 8 1/2 / BICHO DE SETE CABEÇAS/ THE BIRTH OF A NATION / DONNIE DARKO / THE PAWNSHOP / DER HIMMEL ÜBER BERLIN /

HATE: SUMMER TIME AND ANY SORT OF WARM WEATHER, RACISM, LACK OF INTEREST IN THE WORLD AND IN PEOPLE, DISRESPECT, DRIVING, MANICURING MY NAILS, IGNORANCE, WAKING UP EARLY, LOOKING DOWN ON PEOPLE, OTHERS TELLING ME WHAT I HAVE TO DO, INSECT BITES, PHYSICHAL PAIN, BRAGGING AND VOMITING.

NAMES THAT HAVE INFLUENCED ME: J. M. GONÇALVES; FERNANDO PESSOA; GARCIA LORCA; LUIZA VALENZUELA; MAIAKOVYSKI; TOLSTOY; UMBERTO ECO; FRIDA KAHLO; FAULKNER; EDGAR A. POE; CHARLES SPENCER CHAPLIN; CLARICE LISPECTOR; ALLIGHIERI; FREUD; EDNA PURVIANCE; MARIO PRATA; ISAAC EPSTEIN; DAVID BOWIE; ALAIN TOURAINE; KUBRICK; NIETZCHE; JUDY DENCH; POLANSKI; HEMINGWAY; BEAUVOIR; SHAKESPEARE; JOHN CLEESE; PIERCE; BARTHES; SAUSSURE; DRUMMOND; SUSAN SONTAG; MARLON BRANDON; SAMUEL BECKETT; OSCAR WILDE; FRITZ LANG; NOAM CHOMSKY; GOYA; MUNCH; MIRO; BURROUGHS; BORTOLOTTO; MAGRITTE; KANDINSKY; NERUDA; POLLACK; DALI; CHICO SCIENCE & NAÇÃO ZUMBI/

My listening skills...

Untittled so far...

Fuck all the arguments for and against it
but I won’t give up seeking my inner self
my deeper beliefs
my own true personality
Love to relish the small domestic
details of life: obvious chores and
even sharing nightdreams
I like close-up shots of others' stories
I love observing beings out there
I care for helping and listening
However I don't recklessly do those
I don't randomly give out my attention to
those who can't add in me something intense,
emotional, fullfiling, and dazzling
I may say that I choose carefully
I handpick the ones who deserve my time
My time is only mine and not yours
So, don't mess with it
Because I don't.

Surrealism...

Surrealism, strategically at this point in my life, has fascinated me. In order to understand this style of art making, I decided to visit the Salvador Dali Museum back in 2001.

That museum is located in Saint Petersburg - USA, the city where I used to live in the USA. The Salvador Dali Museum is a fantastic place that everyone must visit. It has the world largest permanent collection of Dali’s paintings. It helps us understand how the surrealists depicted things from the artist personal life, historical facts or everyday situations and their connection with psychoanalysis studies.

Surrealism is an important movement in modern art and literature, which started between the wars, mainly in France. The idea was to free the artist from the demands of logic and to penetrate beyond everyday consciousness to the “super-reality” that lies behind. Dali was not alone in this movement. Magritte and Tanguy are also famous painters who used the distorted way to register the reality.
Surrealist artists wanted their work to be a link between the abstract spiritual realities and the real forms of the material world. To them, the object stood as a metaphor for an inner reality. Through their craft, whether it be painting, sculpting or drawing, artists could bring the inner realities of the subconscious to the conscious mind, so that their meaning could be deciphered through analysis.
Salvador Dali was born at Figueras in Spain. He studied in Madrid and moved to Paris later, where he joined the surrealists and became one of the principal figures of the movement. In 1940 he settled in the USA with his wife Gala, and devoted his art to symbolic religious paintings. Dali became also a wealthy man through commercial works in design and advertisement fields.

My visit at the Salvador Dali Museum made me realize how connected Freud’s theories and his paintings are. However, Dali experienced different genres and perspectives in his works, from impressionist to classical surrealist . The galleries of the museum are divided by these genres (or art periods): “portraite”, “landscape painting”, “the figure”, “still life”, “the grotesque”, and his huge “masterworks” – also known as the classic period.

The division in his works in these six categories allows us to visualize the full development and diversity of Dali’s creativity from 1914(age 10) to 1980.

His classic phase impressed me the most. It is located in time from 1948 to 1970. During this period, he executed eighteen large oil canvases that are now called the “masterworks”. Some of the titles are “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus”, “The Ecumenical Council”, and “The Hallucinogenic Toreador”. Dali became more interested in religion, history and modern science during that time. Diego Velazquez and Raphael had influenced him mainly.

As an artist, Dali was complete. He painted, sculpted, designed jewelry, clothes, accessories, furniture, and turned himself into an icon. He made his living with his inspiring artwork. He became famous when still alive. Salvador symbolizes the surrealist movement. His contribution to the modern visual arts is infinite.

Visiting the Salvador Dali Museum I could verify his excellence as a creative (almost crazy) painter that will influence art genres of artists still to come.

My personal impression about surrealism:>

Don't know yet whether I am influenced by this style. What I know so far is that artists such as Magritte and Dali have encountered power and madness through their strokes on their canvases that can modify people's deep concepts of life and the world. The thing is that I deal with language and I haven't learned how to give to it a surreal feature.

I haven't been able to declare to all men that that style is the only possible way of making art so that he/she may make a fully Surrealist use of it. To the extent that I am expect to make me understood, I try to offer in my writings an ability to the reader for speaking my poetry, as he/she would be reading a letter, or providing him/her written images to carry on a conversation (for the pleasure of conversing) with someone (with me)...

LONG LIVE SURREALISM!!!

Adrienne Rich

Love discussing literature with friends.

Having this talk to Andréa Martins, one of my long-term friends who happens to be a writer and an advertiser too, I had this insight to go back in writing in Portuguese as well. That made me conclude that a good thing would be to start a new blogg entirely in that language.

Don't know whether I can digress powerful texts in my own language as I used to. However, that is some kind of ability that we don't lose as it would be a material gain. It is a talent that is conquered, that can be modeled, remodeled, painted, vanished, polished. It's never gone. It just stays there asleep prostrated in some corner of our unconscious.

Gotta wake it up and it will come up as a brand-new force on me.

No, no, no. I won't give up writing in English. I will not kill this blogg. I am going to have to sort out my collectible vocabulary and previous learned writing skills for both languages. There will be another challenge to me. I love being dared. I was born to it.

Meanwhile, I have read a terrific female American poet called Adrienne Rich. She has done prose and poetry. To read and understand her, it is something that has to be appreciated as a continuous process, just like any other good famous writer. What I love most about her is that she shows us a clear poetic vision through powerful and simple words.

I try to write following the same style. Wait a minute there! I am not comparing her to my writings because that would be way too pedant. Quoting a book about her: " reading through her poems we may sometimes wish for more relaxation and playfulness, for a liberating comic sense of self almost never present in her work. What we find, however, is invaluable - a poet whose imagination confronts and resists the harsh necessities of our times and keeps alive a vision of what is possible."

Here it is my favorite of her poems...

PLANETARIUM

A woman in the shape of a monster

a monster in the shape of a woman

the skies are full of them



a woman 'in the snow

among the Clocks and instruments

or measuring the ground with poles'



in her 98 years to discover

8 comets



She whom the moon ruled

like us

levitating into the night sky

riding the polished lenses



Galaxies of women, there

doing penance for impetuousness

ribs chilled

in those spaces of the mind



An eye,

'virile, precise and absolutely certain'

from the mad webs of Uranusborg

encountering the NOVA

every impulse of light exploding

from the core

as life flies out of us



Tycho whispering at last

'Let me not seem to have lived in vain'



What we see, we see

and seeing is changing



the light that shrivels a mountain

and leaves a man alive



Heartbeat of the pulsar

heart sweating through my body



The radio impulse

pouring in from Taurus



I am bombarded yet I stand

I have been standing all my life in the

direct path of a battery of signals

the most accurately transmitted most

untranslatable language in the universe

I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-

luted that a light wave could take 15

years to travel through me And has

taken I am an instrument in the shape

of a woman trying to translate pulsations

into images for the relief of the body

and the reconstruction of the mind.

I LOVE THE WORLD

Today, while talking to some friend over the web, I discussed that when I truly appreciate some work of art, I tend to identify with it so much. My connection with the piece sometimes goes beyond admiration that I feel like having made it. I wonder how it'd be to walk on that artist's shoes or even better, how it'd be to be in that person's brain... This thing happens to me when I read those lyrics that I typed right below... It's one of the songs of New Model Army...


I LOVE THE WORLD


The roll of distant thunder breaks, the afternoon of silence wakes
They hurry through from Petergate as if they know this dance
In fury blind, I drive at night across the moors, the open roads
Beneath the freezing starry skies, racing in some trance
These cities are illusions of some triumph over Nature's laws
We've seen the iron carcass rust and buildings topple into dust
And as the waters rise, it seems we cling to all the rootless things
The Christian lies, technology, while spirits scream and sing
Oh God I love the world


Well I never said I was a clever man but I know enough to understand
That the endless leaps and forward plans will someday have to cease
You blind yourselves with comfort lies like lightning never strikes you twice
And we laugh at your amazed surprise as the Ark begins to sink
This temple that is built so well to separate us from ourselves
Is a power grown beyond control, a will without a face
And watching from outside
I wish that I could wash my hands of this
But we are locked together here, this bittersweet embrace
Oh God I love the world


And if one day the final fire explodes across the whitened sky
I know you've said you'd rather die and make it over fast
With courage from your bravest friends, waiting outside for the end
With no bitterness but an innocence that I can't seem to grasp
I know somehow I will survive - this fury just to stay alive
So drunk with sickness, weak with pain,
I can walk the hills one last time
Scared and smiling, dying slow,
I'll scream to no one left at all told you so, I told you so, I told you so . . .
Oh God I love the world

2005 Resolutions

Gosh... what a cliché topic!
Who cares? It's almost new year and it is important to set some goals for the next 12 months!

FITNESS
Work out and lose 3 pounds;

INTELLECTUALLY
Read more and organize my study notes;

WRITER
Post in this blog more often, write more poems in Portuguese and finish up my book;

FRIENDSHIP
Neither take offense and nor accept being offended easily;

PROFESSIONALLY
Catch up with all teacher's duty at my school;

HEALTH
Drink more water and less wine (that will be difficult!);

HOUSING
Take care of my place as it was a little spot of Heaven;

FUN
Listen to music more usually and see even more movies at theaters;

HYGIENE
Don't allow the dishes get pilled up on the sink (Hard one too!).

Collection of English Poems

It's been an interesting moment for my creative motor... I think this has been the time to teach others that we are all limited, fragile, and vulnerable! That means if WE keep taking those who love us for granted, we've just been wasting our time on this planet.

I will post here some of my latest poems in English. Have been taught this language and have been able to communicate using this code for such a long time that it's way much easier to me to generate verses using the yankees' phonems, spelling, and pictured sentence structures such as idiomatic expressions, idioms, and even slangs.

I am not excusing myself for having chosen English to write my posts and poems. I am trying to tell myself that being a writer (regardless it's for mere fun...) who writes in a language which is not his/her mother tongue isn't an easy task and it takes a great deal of responsibility. I guess I can handle the obstacle for its difficulties and I am filled with responsibilities...totally.

TIRED OF THE SUN…

COVERAGE IS MY AIM
FORCING THAT, IT WOULDN’T BE WORTHWHILE
NATURAL SHIELD
PURE PROTECTION POWERED BY AN ANGEL,
A FIGURE JUST LIKE YOU
BRILLIANT SCHEME
COVER ME UP, COVER IT ALL UP
TENDERLY, SWEEP MY DUST
ORGANIZE MY PICTURES
FOLD MY CLOTHES
HEAT MY BED
BRUSH MY HAIR

BEING TOUCHED IS MY ULTIMATE GOAL
WOULDN’T MANIPULATE THAT, IT’S JUST NOT THE CASE
SIMPLE STARE
STERLING SOUL FREE FROM SINS
EXQUISITE TRUST
DRINK MY MILK, WASH YOUR PALE FACE WITH IT
CHEERFULLY, CONDUCT MY HANDS
SEW ME WINGS
WASH MY WOUNDS
PLANT SOME DAISIES
AND LET THEM BLOSSOM ONLY IN JANUARY

A SOFT TEAR WIPER IS WHAT I WANT
JUST A DELICATE KISS WOULD DO
AN UNPRETENTIOUS BIRTHDAY PRESENT…
TO BLOCK THE SUNLIGHT TOO

FORTEEN YEARS

CAN’T STOP ME
CAN’T CHOKE ME TO DEATH
THEY MAY EVEN TRY
THEY MAY JUST WISH FOR

SIMPLY CAN’T
SIMPLY CANNOT
CONSEQUENCES WILL BE GREATER
SEDIMENT FALSE APPEALS

BUILT-UP STEREOTYPES
CAN’T CONTROL ME
CAN’T CONTROL MYSELF
HOLD ME AND DO IT FIRMLY
THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP ME OFF

SET DESIRES
ENHANCES MY CREATIVITY
MANAGES MY ANGER
CONSEQUENCES WILL BE AWFUL
CONTRADICTING THAT - IMPOSSIBLE

TERRIBLE HABIT
CAN’T POUR ME ANOTHER ONE?
OH, SAY! CANNOT, HEY!
THAT’S NOT THE WAY
THERE IS NO UMBIVALENCE
I’M IMPRESIONED
RECKLESSLY COMDEMNED

SOME SAY SORRY
OTHERS SAY NOTHING
ANYWAY
CAN’T JUST TAKE A BREAK
MY FEELINGS GET JUST FAKE
MORE THAN ANYONE CAN TAKE
THAT’S IS A BIG OLD MISTAKE

W-O-R-D-S (...to a friend)

WORDS ARE STROKES ON CANVAS, ARE NOTES IN MUSIC, ARE SHAPES IN OBJECTS, ARE BLOOD IN PEOPLE. WORDS CAN BE SHARP, AS SHARP AS RAZORS. CAN CUT DEEPER THAN A FAST STAB, AND A STABBED SKIN IS A MIND FILLED WITH TRUE THOUGHTS, WRITTEN THOUGHTS RHIMING ON A CHEAP BAR NAPKIN. NAPKIN PLACED ON A DIRTY MAN'S LAP. WORDS CAN BE POWERFUL AND PAINFUL TOO. CAN HIT HARDER THAN A FISTED PUNCH - PUNCH OF DRUNK WANDERERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. WORDS CAN KILL, CAN MURDER LOVERS AT DAWN, CAN HURT AS BAD AS DEADLY SHOT GUNS... AND ALL BECAUSE OF THE EVIL THAT LIES IN EVERYONE AND IT IS KEPT INSIDE. THAT EVIL THOUGHT WHICH CAN'T BE HIDDENCAN'T BE DISGUISED. WORDS CAN BE SPIT, CAN BE SAID AS IT WOULD WEIGH TONS. THEY OFFEND THE SPINAL CHORD OF THE PURE LISTENER. WORDS ARE MEANT TO DESTROY WHEN ONLY USED THAT WAY...

Polivox

Mind your business, I should say
Care about your own wounds, if that might help
See for yourself, in case you are not able to believe
Show me the money, since you are all that
Never stop the music, if your senses can handle
Surprise others sometimes, for crying out loud.
There are gaps among cultures, as you may have noticed
Relax and don’t insist
Cheering yourself up is easier than you might think
Force an entrance and be the spotlight
Divine is your soul and you know it
Take it, grab it, squeeze it, and burst it
Elevators won’t lift if you don’t press the button
Is he, she, it never there when you need the most?
Take a hike, dump a load and say “FUCK OFF”
Feel the breeze which fall has brought us
Check out your surroundings…
…and splash it all from your urethra
Serve as you wish you were served
It is simple care
With touchy chores
Absorb shyness from somewhere
Brilliant tactic without hurting a shadow
Turn false impressions into pure appreciation of beauty
Rustic Aesthetics Senses
Necessity of art making
Mood, sentiment, techniques, contemplation,
Manifest your greatest poisonous consumptions
Feel the need to do the real digging…

My ideas of teaching ESL and being PBF franchisee in Brazil

PBF is a dream that came true...

My love affair with PBF schools started way before I was even born. My parents have been English teachers, just like me, since they were really young. They first set up their own Pink and Blue English School in Presidente Venceslau in the beginning of the 70's.

I used to live in the school building itself and even being that young, my mind was just filled in with English stories, songs, grammar, etc. I can say that I was once the mascot of my parents' school.

I grew up and was raised in that little town. I studied English with my parents the entire time I spent there. I even had the chance to teach English every now and then my parents would need my help, either tutoring or actually lecturing full time. My first given lecture occurred when I was just 14.

After moving out of town, I continue taking English classes in other private school and even taught at another famous private school in Brazil. In 1998, when I finally moved abroad (US), I kept helping student friends when doing their compositions and preparing themselves for proficiency tests.

In January, 2005, Roberto and I are celebrating the 2nd year of our business - PBF ENGLISH/ESPAÑOL - Caxias do Sul Unity, RS. The first two years were not easy, however these were the times when things fell on the right places. We started with an excellent number of students and next year an even greater number will graduate.

Having the first graduates stimulate our will to become more and more successful.

Teaching English to all Ages...

Being an English teacher isn't an easy task, especially when that is not your first language. What I do sometimes is to pretend that I don't understand very well my students' native language. Whenever my pupils derail into Portuguese, I try to rephrase the ideas in English to bring them back on track.

I hardly ever translate words, and my students can get really mad at that. I'd rather explain words in simple English and illustrate their meanings with examples. It's nice to have them thinking in that language. My principle while teaching is to add a great deal of cultural facts along with the language.

I also like to talk about economics and politics acting as a businesswoman when teaching businessmen.

I appreciate talking about movies, music, sex, and even drugs to teenagers so we can have an open-minded communication.

I can even become a teenager when teaching teenagers and play and laugh like a child when teaching children. Love teaching students of all ages!
Link to the site of the best English School ever!

THE CITIES OF MY LIFE...

Definitely I've learned so much for having the chance to live in so many different places...
HOW LUCK I HAVE BEEN!!!
Shut the fuck up, Laila. It has been all a matter of choice... And you know it!!!

ME - My first name is Laila and my second is Christina... I don't appreciate sharing my last name because they are many. Teaching is my main activity, although I do other things such as translating, interpreting, reading, writing poems, posts in blogs and flogs or making up English quizzes for tests or practices. I also do the dishes, pay bills, comb my hair once in a while, and scratch my ear canals with soft cotton swabs after shower - a sensational blast. My favorite pastime is getting in touch with friends, that I've made throughout these 30 years I have lived, through the web.

HOME TOWN - Originally, I am from a small town located in Sao Paulo state - a state of Brazil. The town is called Presidente Venceslau. What? Are you surprised? Yes! I was really born in Brazil, one of the most beautiful countries in the world. This country is really huge, there are about 200,000,000 inhabitants, and all races and beliefs can be found here. On the other hand, my hometown is so small that people hardly believe that it exists.

São Paulo state is located in the Southest of this country, where the weather is enjoyable. But, unfortunately, my hometown is not the capital of the state. My town is located inland, something like eight hundred kilometers from the sea coast. It seems far, but Brazil is so big that those long distances are never amazing.

Presidente Venceslau is the name of the town where I got born (as I had mentioned before), a name that not everyone can easily pronounce. There are only 40 thousand people living in there. Its kind of boring place to me, since I enjoy living in bigger cities with more options for fun. Yet, my family still lives there. I left the city when I was very young, for obvious reason: that place was too small for me.

SÃO PAULO - By the age of 17, I had the chance to live in São Paulo city - the capital of the state with the same name. My parents sponsored my studies there. I used to live in a section of the city called Bela Vista. It's an area near downtown, very interesting although quite dangerous. It's hard for me to say whether I liked or not living in there. I just know that São Paulo city, with its 17,000,000 freaks all together, is more than just a city, it's an astonishingly vibrant spot on earth. I bet the astronauts from NASA may sense it from the outerspace.

LONDRINA - Later on, 1994, I had to move to another place. Why? College matters. Where? PARAN state. Be more specific please: Londrina. Just another city in Brazil whose name is a reverence of London. No! Not just another city in Brazil, that is completely wrong. Londrina is my second home. Londrina is magical. Little London, that's what the name means, is infused with great minds and free spirits, talented musicians and espectacular actors, theater actors. And I won't forget the views of that place which would elevate in me the wish to be hedonistic for a lifetime. Well, after saying all that, you may ask yourself, "Why aren't you living there, then?" I'll answer that question in a few paragraphs below.

I'd kept myself in Londrina until the end of 1997. I even got a bachelor's degree in MASS COMMUNICATION from the local state university named UEL. For all those years, my parents afforded my living and study expenses. I can say that I had an excellent education and received a great deal of love from them. I owe all my success to them with all my heart. At UEL, I ended up graduating in journalism, although I have never worked as journalist professionally.

SAINT PETERSBURG - In 1998... Well back then, I moved to Saint Petersburg - USA along with my sister Jennifer, and after Roberto arrived there. There, we lived together in an international student housing where we could make friends from different parts of the world. I still keep in touch with some of them and that helps me have clear in mind all the good memories from Saint Pete. Few months later in that year, Beto and I decided to move out to our own place. The day we officially got into our home was on October 31st - Halloween holiday. Our apartment was cozy but we didn't have much stuff in it, like television, VCR, etc. However, we wouldn't stay much time without stereo. In the very first week, Beto got ourselves a nice JVC stereo system which gave us some joy until we finally settled down. At that time, I started my Associated in Arts studies at a local school called Saint Petersbrug College. I graduated a few years later, meanwhile I could work and enjoy the "American Way of Life" which was unique and very helpful to my inner self: by going through all that gave me the chance to grow mature and become self-assured. I've learnt that the world up there resides within. I am here, on Earth, therefore I am everywhere.

Everywhere can be magical and dreadful simultaneously. Any place is soaked in good souls and evil spirits. We've got to learn how to manage with these contrasts!

My stay in Saint Pete can be defined as a REFRESHING "SICKENED" EXPERIENCE.Loved having known and lived in such a mixed cultural city...

NOW - I am 30 and now I live in Caxias do Sul, back in Brazil... I'll leave to talk about it later in another post... IT'S BEEN SO CALM THESE DAYS... Let's not mess with it!

Words for Thoughts about LOVE

DAY 1 -> Again... Don't want to get started as I always do, saying: " Oh my! It's been a long time I don't post in here." Despite the fact that I have already started doing that... I would like to say something else, something deeper and more delicate to talk or write about. At least, it's something very difficult for me to construct a trail which will take to a person's heart gate.

I normally don't write about love, unless it is my personal feeling, the love I feel regarding relatives, my sweet partner (Beto), my students (I'm a full-time teacher), arts, etc. I was assigned to write about it because of my own will. I have been discussing this issue with so many friends and they all complain about some of the things listed below:

• The person I love doesn't want to see me;
• I don't even know where this person is or whether this person exists;
• I possibly love someone who's already engaged and knows no bean about my feelings towards him/her;

Well, if love were hell of an easy topic to digress, there wouldn't be so much art work dedicated to it. That's the beauty of it - its complexity, mystery, fragility, and supernatural force to destroy people's mind and make people lose their interest in everything else. They just keep thinking about the significant other.

DAY 2 -> My second day trying to come up with something that may convince someone else that his/her love is closer than he/she might think of. It's a very difficult task indeed. I normally don't take that long to write poems or simple posts in this blog.

The thing is that this is not a simple post and the poem I first intended to write was dedicated to a person whom I don't know in person, haven't talked through MSN, ICQ, not even exchanged e-mails at all. This person's name is Sandy... This is to you! I am a Brazilian friend of someone who apparently cares a lot about you.

I feel that it's my duty to let you know that I appreciated your photographs and the imagery you explore is easy to be infatuated by, therefore I decided to write something about them. Besides that, there is someone who's trying to convince you that you and him are meant to be together... I've chosen to convince you of the same thing, but using a different strategy - Read this, please:

Thought of you as a bird
Or a little fragile cub
Thought of you as a cold breeze
Or blue as heavy rain
Thought of you as a fraction of a second
You are all that and more…

Thought of your pictures as masterpieces
Photographs with rhythms
Thought of your pale hands holding the camera
Never thought of you as being brighter than the flash
Though wrong thoughts cross our mind every now and then

Your fuzzy lines
They’re exquisite
You shine
You sign

Thought of you as a fresh loaf of bread
As soft as molten snow
You are the seed of an endangered flower
Something that doesn’t happen every day
Someone one simply doesn’t let go away

Your art is direct
Nobel yearning for affection
Acceptance

Thought of you as the trace of human existence
Clear calm thunderstorms
Silent smooth earthquakes
The lenses seemed to be place backwards
The furiousness isn’t detached from kindness

There is no boredom
There are only impressions
There are no vague linear images
There is only intelligible beauty

If I could see them that way,
That means someone else could too.
That means, his eyebrows would elevate in awe
Because no matter what you say or do
It’s being made! Love is there!

You must realize the other side
You must see through the other person’s eyes
You should know that there are more than photographs saying: “Register me”

About having vacation...

I know that I don't keep track on my daily routine on this blog. In fact, this is not what this blog is about. I am not interested in sharing with strangers my personal acitivities, because they all don't concern anyone, but me. I intend to always post whatever might bring the difference, an extra flavor to everybody's thoughts. I won't let you down in case you really wish to read this kind of writing. I am not a professional writer, therefore you will find mistakes, awkwardness, and blemishes in my words. Don't take them for granted. Report me! Let me know that you are willing to improve this ability in me...

My vacation is about to come, less than two weeks away. Isn't that unbelievable? To me it is. It's been almost a year that I do not relax, sleep in, rent a bunch of movies without worrying whether I must return them or not. It's a bliss, a bless, a blast.

There are revolutions on world television...

Reality TV is an international thing... This is my final paper which was written and orally presented so that I'd graduate at SAINT PETERSBURG JUNIOR COLLEGE.A brief discussion about the popularity of reality television shows

I. Reality Television

Photography has the main characteristic of freezing the moment (the present). The cinema has brought, for the very first time in mass media history, the illusion of movement of an actual frozen moment. Television will then go further. Along with videotapes and VCRs, television comes closer to the receptor. The reality shows will be discussed in this project as being an important section of this entire complexity – the media television.
The meaning of the word ‘real” found in the dictionary is: “existing as a thing or occurring as a fact; not imagined or supposed: real and imagined fears, illnesses, achievements”. Reality show or reality television is an old term, which refers to any television entertainment program made by images of real competition, true car accidents, rescue, challenges, and exposures, which evolves somehow real participants. They present a variety of contents and different forms to attract specific group of viewers.

The most famous reality shows seen on American TV are “Big Brother”, “Survivor”, “Fear Factor”, “Cops”, “Jackass”, “Temptation Island”, “Lost”, “Boot Camp”, “The Osbournes”, “Murder in Small Town X”, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, “The Chair”, “Weakest Link”, “America’s Most Wanted”, “60 Minutes”, “WWF Smackdown”, and many others. The list is endless and they are certainly not similar to each other. They differentiate in their language and veracity. Even though this mass media project will discuss them generally, there will be a categorization and individual explanation for didactic purposes.
This project intends to offer a simple comprehension of real television. This type of TV entertainment program will be seen as a serious trend in American media. Nonetheless it is not a new concept. It is being explored on TV since 1950s with quiz shows such as 21 and Jeopardy. There has been a revival of the idea. It seems to be produced by almost every network and cable channel. Reality television of our time has its own aesthetics, which differs from those of the early TV. Why have they become extremely popular? That is the subject of our research.

II.Television of 2000’s – Images of All Times

Television set brought to our household what used to be an outdoors habit – observation. Humans have practiced it since ancient history. To watch TV is directly related to this capacity of looking at the elements of nature, scenes of a theater play, or facts of distant cultures. Images are means to connect us to an imaginary world. Therefore television, photography, motion picture and computer screens are so attractive and extremely interesting. It is fun to watch it as well as to study about it.

This form of media is a development of the motion picture screen. Television has not only witnessed all changes of the society and transmitted facts of human history, but also it has influenced them. This is why is so important to discuss it as an instrument of communication, or more specifically, mass communication.
Due to advances in technology (production, edition, and others) and the search for greater audience, this type of media must change constantly. Television language has manifested today what it was not there fifteen years ago: reality TV. In general form, real television is the symbol of modernity. Its success is brought by its nature – INTERACTION. The 80s had produced the video games, which was the only way an audience could interact with television. Not anymore.

Quiz TV shows have had popularity since television was produced alive. Nevertheless, quiz shows of 2000s present different structure. It is more cruel, darker (the sets tend to be black, and the TV hosts usually dress in black). The so-called REALITY SHOWS are boosting higher rates of audience. To advertise during those shows has become almost as expensive as to advertise during the Superbowl (Rolling Stone Magazine).
It is unquestionable the popularity of shows as “Big Brother”, “Jackass”, “The Chair”, “Cops”, and many others. Marshall McLuhan said that television is a cool medium: “A cool or low literacy culture cannot accept hot media like movies or radio as entertainment. They are, at least, as radically upsetting for them as the cool TV medium has proved to be for our high literacy world”. McLuhan states that because TV requires not only the hearing and vision of the audience, but also the audience’s mind. Reality TV, consequently, requires that and the audience’s psychoses, fears, intelligence, anxiety, and curiosities. In this sense, it may be said that reality TV is an icebox.


III.From George Orwell’s “Big Brother” to Dave Carnie’s “Big Brother”

The rhythm of the capitalist life has accelerated television aesthetics. Television language is characterized by its pulsation. The time frame of an emission is counted by seconds. TV is constantly in a hurry because its time is expensive. There is also more violence in real life; therefore there is more violence in real TV.
It has said that television is the “window of the world”. But are we seeing the world through this window? Or the truth would be that this window is actually watching us, as Big Brother. Who has read the fiction book “1984” (also depicted in film) knows what Big Brother stands for. This expression brings in itself everything of what reality shows are: a concentration camp, full of rules, full of losers, that at the end throws to the audience the deepest feeling of emptiness.
For so many years television makers have preoccupied in constructing a simulation of reality. We are now seeing a new era of entertainment shows. We are having the opportunity to watch a type of television, which does not need sets or make-up. Think of “Cops”, which chases happen on the real streets and the blood is as warm as yours is. The reality show has the commitment of bringing the real life to your home, not a simulation of it. But let’s say the truth, no one in the western world eats bug or sleeps with snakes in the real life.
Television audience has been entertained by watching him or herself being suffocated, challenged, hurt, or humiliated. Reality shows present differences and similarities in their form and content. To understand them, it is going to be listed a categorization of reality shows:

A. Competition type of reality shows: Examples are “Temptation Island”, “Survivor”, “Big Brother”, “Fear Factor”, “Boot Camp”, “Bachelor”, etc. In this type of real TV, competitors are regular people, although most of them search career on television or celebrities are invited to attend the show. They learn and must follow the rules of the game, which usually consists in eliminating one or more competitor by the end of each presentation. These shows tend to last one or two seasons and its competitors normally become rich and famous after the show ends.
B. Quiz type of reality shows: “Who wants to be a millionaire,” “Weakest Link,” “The Chair,” “Jeopardy,” are few examples. This type is definitely the oldest. Shows like “The price is right” and “Hollywood Squares” also fit in this category. The home audience is directly interacted with these shows for trying to answer the questions along with the TV competitors. The prize is often cash and losers are important to emphasize the realism.
C. Violent type of reality shows: These are examples: “Maximum Exposure”, “Cops”, “Jackass”, and few others. Shows from this category don’t require competitors. It is based on violent scenes, either promoted by criminals, or promoted by curiosity of its hosts. Videos are presented showing real people (not doubles) being hurt, burned, beaten, or just practicing dangerous stunts. John Knoxville is one of the host, producers, and let’s say, victim of the MTV’s “Jackass”. In an interview for the Rolling Stone Magazine he explains the success of his show: “we’re working toward a common goal, doing what most people wish they could do, or wants to see someone else doing it.”
D. Curiosity type of reality shows: “The Osbournes”, “America’s Most Wanted”, “Dateline”, and talk shows comprise this type of reality TV. Their characteristic lies on creating and satisfying the audience’s curiosity, hence the name. These programs are popular for bringing to viewers a different routine or different lifestyle. It amazes to understand the mind of a criminal or to check how celebrity lives. Illnesses and rare diseases are also explored in these shows, as in the talk show “Maury”. This specific kind of reality television has been subject of good films such as “ED TV” and “The Truman Show”. Since this category presents a more opened definition, it may fit as well shows such as “Oprah”, “Montel”, “Crossing Over”, “Jerry Springer”, “Jenny Jones”, “Judge Judy” and so on.

The audience has never been so present in television. It is only you who decide what it is there to be seen. The remote control is the viewer weapon, but who pulls the trigger is the “numbers”. You may enjoy a specific TV program, but it is never certain how long it will be aired. Reality television, as we see it today, has dominated the scenario for over fifteen years. It may stay longer because it brings up “good numbers”.

IV. The answer of its popularity

The structure of television has always been based upon a dichotomy between reality and fiction. Umberto Eco was the first mass media critic to defend that television no longer raises a division between fiction and non-fiction. According to Ciro Marcondes Filho (a Brazilian television critic of a national newspaper), television still contains the classic duality real/non-real. But it is presented in a different level. He believes that in television, the focus is what locates in front of and behind the cameras.
The huge popularity of reality TV or reality shows is caused by its capacity of melting the screen, which separates the viewer from the show itself. A TV set must be part of everyone’s life, as well as TV shows must give a piece of someone else’s life. The “window of the world” is now literally throwing at our face what our world is made of; it is showing what we are capable to do to grab a great amount of cash.
TV had produced live shows for so many years, before videotapes became possible. Every line and detail of the set would be thought, studied, and practiced as many times as necessary to avoid embarrassments (with the audience, TV hosts, and sponsors). The audience was unquestionably seen and treated with tremendous respect. This project has no intention to underestimate the efforts, which may take to produce shows such as “Survivor”, or “Fear Factor”. But theses TV programs don’t seem to offer deeper thoughts of what reactions they might cause when they present people drinking cups of animal blood.

The success of reality television must be seen as phenomenon. Quiz shows of the 50s provedthat its power would expand and dominate the largest numbers of the television industry. Television set has been considered an indispensable home appliance. Our society cannot accept life without it. It is believed that TV helps relieving stress and it is an effective instrument of education. It calms down children and diminishes the solitude of retired seniors.
Obviously reality shows are not able to promote those aims. Therefore, the target audience of these programs is teenagers, young adults, and adults. The viewers firmly embrace this new approach, by watching it, and purchasing products that may sponsor the shows. The remote control and the need of interaction must have caused the fall of quality in television, as well as the rise of reality TV.
This media is not allowed to be tedious. It also can’t exist without financial support. Reality shows have become so lucrative because it is not tedious. Reality television has explored the idea of IMPACT. TV of 2000s has to shock and it has to invite the audience to be part of the bestiality.


V. LAST THOUGHTS

This project has tried to develop a critical discussion about the popularization of reality TV shows. Its main goal was to answer the question: why does everyone want to watch “Survivor”? I have faith that the answer is not only achieved, but also promoted something that I would call a study of American television of our times.
Few materials gave support to this research, such as magazines articles, and college mass media publications. Its author created the categorization of the reality shows. Since it is a rustic materialization of my own thoughts, I wish to develop this topic in a further research thesis. By separating them in categories, I gave a practical and easy form to present its similarities and differences.
Reality television must be seen as an old idea, which has returned, remodeled, and become the latest trend in American media. There was a need to define it, in order to comprehend the popularity of these shows. This project wants to be explanatory, not a negative description of this type of TV production. The discussion was purely based in what I have observed in those shows – in its aesthetics and contents.


IV. Works Cited and References

Books and Magazine Article

Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality. New York: Harcourt Brace &Company, 1999.

McLuhan, Marshall. Undestanding Media. London: The MIT Press, 6th Ed., 1997.

Serva, Lea. Babel: Midia Antes do Diluvio nos Ultimos Tempos. Sao Paulo: Editora Mandarin, 1997.

Filho, Ciro Marcondes. Televisao. Sao Paulo: Editora Scipione, 1994.

Hedeggar, Erik. “Jackasss: TV’s New Gross Out Hit.” Rolling Stone Magazine, issue 861, February, 2001.


Movies and Fiction:

“The Truman Show”
“ED TV”
“1984”


Television Programs:

“Survivor”, “Fear Factor”, “Jenny Jones”, “Jerry Springer Show”, “Oprah”, “Jackass”, “The Osbournes”, “Cops”, “60 Minutes”, “Dateline”, “Boot Camp”, “Who wants to be a millionaire?”, “The Chair”, “Weakest Link”, “Maury Show”, “Montel”, “Judge Judy”, “Murder in Small Town X”, “Bachelor”, “Temptation Island”, “Lost”, “The Osbournes”, “Amazing Races”, “Hollywood Squares”, “21”, “The Price is Right”, “Jeopardy”, and any other show, which evolves real competitors or participants.

This paper was developed for a course at Saint Petersburg College, where I got an Associate in Arts degree in Liberal Arts!

Humans: what a strange material

It's been a long time that I do not post anything relatively updated! I am a pretty busy person and time is precious to me! Besides, I'd rather write precisely what I've been feeling...

I've been feeling these days the need to digress a poem which would underline my bizarrre mind! People normally get me as being a freak individual. I don't wonder much about that; however there might be a slight possibility that they are right. Do I hurt anyone by being this weird? Guess not! So, my point is, am I taking advantage of being spacey? I sure am, 'cause I believe that I know perfectly how to distinguish the important matters from the fruitless issues. Hence, I stress over the only important subjects to me. I can say that I am a bit selfish then, too selfish sometimes.

I've been intellectually supported by a one of a kind partner, lucky me! He would die to read that poem which I had mentioned in the paragraph right above. Could I be able to do it at this exact moment? We never know. I guess writers never know when he/she is ready to create.

I consider my writings extensions of my mental footages. The scenes I invent are shot or taped especially before I fall asleep or mainly during my bedtime. I would make movies out of my imagination if I could. I might be able to write a book if I had spare time to develop intense characters though. Realistically speaking, I may need to acquire more writing talent to make something in English. This is a straight clue that I am a freak, 'cause I write in English and this language simply isn't my mother tongue. Well, for those whom English is their first language, they should have already noticed my lack of vocabulary or my excess of odd sentences.

And... What about the poem then?

I'll leave it for later. I am too tired, sleepy, and even hungry. It's six o'clock on a Sunday morning for crying out loud. Who on this planet would stay in front of a computer screen trying to come up with lyrics, metaphorical phrases, or just mere words to fit in short lines with rhymes and double meanings??? I would. See? Laila, you are a freak! Now I know it!

What about art making...

When I was once assigned to write about a book that I had read, or a movie that I had seen or even a concert that I had attended, which made a considerable difference in my life, I became thoughtless. I could not come up with any favorite work. Because every picture I see or fiction I read or concert I attend may touch me somehow and create in me at least a little difference.

I am attracted to beauty, knowledge, and entertainment. Every work of art, that implies beauty or helps me to escape from our everyday stressful life, creates a new section in my brain, metaphorically speaking. It is like creating a new folder in the Windows software.

When I have the opportunity to check a new movie, fiction book, CD, a art gallery and so forth, I learn more about the author’s talent, the protagonist’s life (especially in case of biographies) or simply the sense of aesthetics depicted in the work of art.

I aspire being an arts critic someday, although I have been practicing another profession which I truly love. Hence, I approach openly to all sorts of artwork. But that assignment had to be done about something more specific, so, I ended up writing about the last movie I had seen at that time.

The film is called “Before Night Falls” and it is directed by Julian Schnabel. This movie is a Cuban-American production based on the life of a Cuban writer, Reinaldo Arenas, who lived in his native country during the communist revolution, later left Cuba for being gay, and died for having the HIV virus.

“Before Night Falls” is well written and the actors have built a great sense of realism. It is also provocative because it does not hide every homosexual relationship the writer had. It illustrates the sad side of being a gay artist in the communist Cuba. The protagonist is arrested and remained in prison for not choosing to follow the “normal’ sexual life. Although homosexuality is a commonplace in the arts and entertainment fields, it was never well accepted in the 40’s and 50’s, especially in a Latin and early communist culture.

The plot of this movie is strong and touching. I definitely started a new folder in my "Windows Explorer" mind dedicated to it. This folder is yet not filled with lots of “k-bites” of memory because I still know little about this writer’s works.

Only great directors, actors, or even memorable scenes make me set a new folder for them, if they do not bring me new knowledge, beauty or do not entertain me, I send them to the garbage bin (metaphorically speaking).