ProfWeek10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F10tP5HIpaA

media type="youtube" key="0jTP7a9I0dU?fs=1" height="390" width="480" As indie music has evolved, would you consider artists such as Modest Mouse and Death Cab For Cutie as indie? It seems that most alternative music is branched out from indie music.

On reading the article by Luvaas one begins to wonder, what are the effects that updating ethnic music into this new age phenomena has on the message being transcribed. Ethnic music in most cultures transmits stories and tales that when mixed with sounds end up making one powerful experience. However, it looks like when ethnic music meets globalization we often get a cyclic repetition of words with little meaning and a contagious but empty beat. For instance, Shakira is not the most ethnic artist out there, but her lyrics in Spanish are pretty good, yet her English songs consist of empty and incompressible words. Has globalization or the cyclic repetitions created some kind of mutation on these music styles that has rendered them incapable of making any sense or has it created an unidentified mental condition on the audience? === Consider Mocca’s song “Secret Admirer” off their first album. “Oh. . . secret admirer,” Arina sings liltingly to a jazz flute and acoustic bass, “when you’re around the autumn feels like summer. How come you’re always messing up the weather? Just like you do to me. . . .” Brent Luvaas points out that the song describes seasons Indonesia does not even have. But must we only write about what we have or experienced before? For example, none of us know how heaven looks like, but people around the world like to use it to describe a pleasant situation. Brent Luvaas also says that this kind of music is not reminiscent of life in Bandung, maybe this is true, but what’s wrong with it? Music doesn’t need to be related to our lives all the time right? After reading the Dislocating Sounds: The Deterritorialization of Indonesian Indie Pop, I think that there is nothing wrong for the Indonesian indie band for trying to internationalize their music with the hope to gain a place in global market, but the main problem is their attitude. I feel that they actually disdain their own local music. For example, Fonso, of the Yogyakarta indie rock band Nervous answered the question of whether there was anything locally distinctive about his music with a brief “no” and added semua dari Barat (“it’s all from the West”). The foreign origin of his music is, in fact, a point of pride. Music is part of our culture. One who doesn’t appreciate one’s own music also means that one doesn’t appreciate his or her own culture, which is kind of dangerous. We can appreciate and even admire other cultures, but we shouldn’t disdain our own culture.

Can one track the "evolution" of a culture through the simultaneous evolution of art? Essentially is it possible to see art change that reflects cultural changes going on in that society? Can we see examples? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Demoiselles_d%27Avignon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Dylan_controversy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utpjQFBuQQM

I have heard Buddhism called an atheist religion. Presumably regarding those who do not believe Buddha to be a deity or support much of the dogma. According to the chapter 10 the atheist support a worldview by way of lacking belief in the spiritual powers governing a religion. Are these terms a misplaced pair, or is this an attempt to describe a thought that is to some more a religion and others a worldview?

Also, What are the defining criteria that differ a state recognized religion, a worldview or philosophy, or a cult?

In Chapter 10 Barbara Miller defined magic "as people's attempt to compel supernatural forces," however, is praying for safety or better health not a way of attempting to compel and or control supernatural forces? For example Christian Scientists use prayer as a substitute for medicine; would such acts count as magic and where is the fine line between religion and magic in this case?

I'm curious where the art of film fits into expressive culture. Is it something anthropologists study? I know film makers from different nations have very different ways of filming, for example many German films are much darker than American films would ever consider being. Is it a case of failing to study 'up' because many 'lower' cultures do not have access to the technology?

It might be a stretch, but I always wonder why travel isn't sought to be more integrated into our lives. "Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness" - for me - would have to include travel, and yet it's not a very accessible option. I wonder why [besides for economic reasons], we do not actively seek out ways to have more of an exchange between the world's people/cultures? Why do we not have some sort of "travel year" after high school in America? Or "traveling universities" for our growth as human beings?

In Dislocating Sounds, it is stated that cultures and traditions are constantly changing, or "living forces" (263). It also says that there is a divide between a "local" group and a "global" group. At what point does some aspect of culture go from a changing tradition, to something that resembles pidgin or creole that connects two cultures to accomplish a common goal, to a globalized society? Is there a definition that anthropologists work off of to determine when these shifts occur? And if so, do they state these changes as individual aspects of culture shift or do they wait for the entire culture to resemble another?

Link to "Cinema Encounters in Tehran": http://www.linktv.org/programs/Cinema-Encounters-in-Tehran