Clear and Present Damon: Its the most wonderful time of the year?: Part 2

Didn't Thanksgiving go by fast? Oh well, now its time to break out the Christmas lights and deck the halls because Christmastime is here again.

But it seems like more and more as the years go by, this holiday becomes more and more commercial and less and less secular. So an appropriate place to begin this column is where it all began in the little town of Bethlehem. But how do we know that Jesus was actually born in December. Actually, nobody knows at what exact time of the year when he was born, but to adhere to pagan winter solstice celebrations across the world, the church decided it was the appropriate time to put the savoirs birthday at this time. After all, there were no other holidays in that timeslot yet(besides Chaunakah, but thats another story).

Christmas was a widely adopted as a secular holiday by the Catholic church, but not all Christmas festivities were religous. Christmas festivities across Europe involved drinking and dancing, a lot of citizens went about the streets drinking and the church thought it was getting out of hand. Surprisingly, this is where we get many of our festive Christmas carols from. And you thought Christmas wasn't a big drinking holiday.

When the puritans came to the new world, they banned Christmas saying that it was too pagan along with many beloved holidays of today. Of course we know how much of a killjoy the puritans were and America soon grew out of the whole anti-Christmas thing. And America would give birth to the defining character of the holiday. The jolly Santa Claus.

There was an actual guy called St. Nicholas who lived in what now is modern day Turkey. An old legend says that in order to save three impoverished girls from selling themselves into prostitution, St. Nicholas dropped three bags of gold down there chimney. In time Santa would downgrade from bags of gold due to budget cuts at the north pole. Hey, even he is feeling the effects of the economy. Another legend is that of Sinterklaas, a European variant of Santa. Sinterklaas also delivers toys but also has another person come with him that was lost in the American version of the Santa legend. A devil figure that comes with Sinterklaas to scare naughty children. Also due to budget cuts, the devil companion was laid off and Santa resorted giving coal to the naughty children. Don't worry about our devil friend here. I here he's open to doing the next Exorcist move.

The American version of Santa was epitomized in Clement Clarke Moores poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas." You know, the one that goes "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the etc..." Also new to the Santa legend is the reindeer. Actually their described as eight tiny reindeer, which is necessary, because regular sized reindeer are huge.

As Football is Thanksgivings must watch event, Christmas is packed with specials. As a kid I used to love these. Now there all sort of humdrum to me. The most sucessful special of them all is 1965's "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Why it is so sucessful i have no idea. It has no reindeer with a glowing nose, or a talking snowman. The Charlie Brown catoons normally have him taking a lot of verbal abuse and i'm surprised he is not in a mental institution as of today, I guess because it talks more about the secular part of Christmas more tha the commercial side is what has made this special last as long as it has.

As I spend my Christmas break relaxing at home and anticipating the "Doctor Who" Christmas special, by the way, this is the first time that it will be aired on Christmas in the U.S. Usually we have to wait till spring in order for the BBC to let us see it. Anyway I wish you a merry Christmas and try to avoid last minute shopping. It's a madhouse out there. I'll see you at New Years.

Clearly Claire: Taken advantage of by my childhood

My friends and I walked into the theatre, sat down and got ready to watch some inappropriate teen movie. We sat through the trailers and at the end, there was one for "Toy Story 3." I sat feeling a strange feeling, not sadness, not joy, but something different. My friend, Sarinna, whispered in my ear, "Don't you feel so nostalgic?" Nostalgic. That was the word. I was instantly brought back to childhood and my first time watching "Toy Story."

It had been a good ten years since I had last seen "Toy Story." I had long since reserved myself from all of that. Then my littlest cousin, Santiago wanted to see "Toy Story 3." He had been begging for months and even though it looked good, I didn't really want to see it. It looked like something that would further ruin the happy image I had of my favorite toys. There is nothing worst than watching a sequel to a movie you once loved and finding it awful.

Finally, a few days ago, I broke down and saw it. I have to say, I was almost in tears. Tears from the movie, yes, but also from remembering the good times I had watching the first two with my dad. This was all before the age of 3-D and super high-tech computer animation. It was all about the art. Yet, that day and days later when I rewatched the trailers, I realized that that is what Pixar does. They play on our heart strings. They remind us of simpler childhoods times when we all believed toys were real and that we would see them if we opened our doors and surprised them quickly. Or at least, that's what I believed.

Pixar has a way of making us feel like we are home. Even the new Pixars, the "WALL-E's" and "Ups" of the bunch, really hit our heart strings. I dare anyone to watch Up without crying. This is all part of a master plan that none of us can get out of. No matter how old we get, we still feel like we are kids. I look at my cousin's youthful innocence and realize that that was once me, sitting in the theatre cheering as Woody popped onto the screen with Jessie and Buzz.

But maybe being taken advantage of by these corporate executive who know how to get us isn't a bad thing. For an hour or two you get to escape to a simpler time, a younger time, when there were no deadlines, no jobs, no homework, no essays, and you were allowed to dream.

So I would recommend watching this movie, not because it is awesome, which it was. Not because it was funny, which it was. And not because it had heart, which it did. But because it will make you believe again, even if just for an hour. --Claire Scheffer

Its the most wonderful time of the year? Part 1

Now that were all done with our Halloween candy, it's time to celebrate holidays that revole around the time that most of us call the Holiday season.

We can't call it Christmas time any more because that would be offensive to other religions besides Christianity. The Holiday season has come to include many different celebrations. Thanksgiving, Chaunakah, Christmas, even Black Friday got into their somehow. Basically anything you can make a holiday special out of. Though I have no idea why "It's the great sale Charlie Brown" never caught on.

The first holiday that devotes itself to family, football and stuffing our faces is Thanksgiving. Could it be any more ironic that this name came from a religous day of fasting. The old grade school tale about how the pilgrims and indians came together after a bountiful harvest is also extemely sketchy. We know very little about what actually happened that first feast in Plymouth. The only surviving account of the first Thanksgiving is from a man named Edward Winslow. In it, our friend Eddie hints that fish was more likely the main staple of the dinner, not turkey. The Wampanoag indians helped out and brought deer and perhaps duck to the dinner. The Wampanoag themselves outnumbered the pilgrims, there were 90 of them. Afterward the pilgrim men played "guy games". Yeah, they called them that. Games like foot races and musket shooting. Even pumpkin pie was absent, since the pilgrims had no sugar left from England.

Today, the romanticism may overshado the actual story of the 1621 feast. But then again, we've created a lot of modern Thanksgiving traditions. I mostly spend my Thanksgiving break playing my PS3 and watching movies based on Tom Clancy novels("Patriot Games" is my favorite). The rest of the country likes to watch the Macys Thanksgiving Day parade. It was originally called the Macys Christmas parade, celebrating the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. I don't see why they changed the name because it's more of a Christmas celebration than anything else. I mean why do you think they save Santa for the very end. I always used to enjoy the big baloons of cartoon characters. They've been there since the parades founding. When the parade was over, they would simply release the baloons into the air. That all changed when one nearly caused an airplane to crash after it was flying over by. Can you imagine if they were to release Kermit the frog into the sky today. Besides the baloons it is a rather humdrum annual event. Without the baloons it would just be the years singer celebrities doing Christmas carols on festive floats(how much do you want to bet Justin Bieber will be on one of them. How much do you wanna bet!!!).

Another tradition is the playing, or more likely watching of the all-American sport of Football. An all-American holiday calls for an all-American institution like Football. Thanksgiving wihout foot ball wouldn't be the same. Ever since the Detriot Lions met the Chicago Bears on the gridiron many years ago, the Lions have played a Thanksgiving game since the 20's. The Dallas Cowboys have been playing Thanksgiving since the 60's. In recent years, NFL network has added a third game to the Thanksgiving lineup, this one played at the same time were going to be eating our turkey. The game was added probably because people got sick and tired of watching the Detroit Lions.

The traditions may very for everyone. But the most important part of the holiday is that we spend time with freinds, family and gear up for the madness that Black Friday holds for us. Remember comrades, eat, drink, and be merry!

Seyma Says: Music has no boundaries.

"Hey Seyma, what kind of music do you listen to?"

"Hmm, well I mostly listen to J-Pop (Japanese Pop)
and.."

"Wait, are you Japanese?"

"No."

"Do you understand it?"

"Not really, but I'm working on it..."

"Then why do you listen to it?"

Other very common questions are:

• "Are you ashamed of your culture?"
• "Do you want to be a different ethnicity?"

It angers me so when I encounter such an ignorant person like this one. Is it music's only purpose for us to be able to understand it completely? When I ask this question, the answer I usually get is: "No.. but what's the point of listening if you can't understand it?"

That's like asking, "What's the point of listening to a teacher's lesson when they're often saying things that we don't understand?"

The possible answers are the same:

1. I want to learn.
2. I like the challenge of having to piece things together.
3. I enjoy it.

Now who the hek enjoys listening to a teacher talking for hours without having a clue on what they're saying? Well, let's not get into that. This blog post is about music not teachers.

Music is art. Art is diverse and abstract. Drawings, writing, photography, and graphics are all forms of art.

Is it so easy to understand every single piece of art? Can we extract the meaning of every painting as easy as dissecting every single sentence in a book? Can we comprehend the structure of every photo as easy as finding the propaganda of an abstract graphic?

The answers are no, no, and no. It's impossible to understand every single piece of art. Therefore, it's impossible to understand every piece of music you hear.

We understand a piece of music because we, as people, are able to interpret it on our own.

May it be a different genre or a different language, the only barrier that prevents us from understanding music is ourselves.

Music does not speak to us through language. It speaks to us through sound. And so in this case, language does not act as a barrier. Instead, it is one of many instruments alongside vocals and various other mechanisms that help create it.

Is it so uncommon for someone to listen to music that they don't completely understand language-wise? Is it so unusual for someone to be listening to music that's not common in their area?

Just because I listen to music in a language other than my own doesn't mean that I'm ashamed of my culture or ethnicity. My reason is because I love being exposed to different languages and cultures. I can learn many things about them just by listening to their music.

So I hope you understand my points:

• Music does not have any boundaries.
  
• Language, culture, religion, and heritage should and does not matter.
  
• We should not judge others based on their music preference, no matter how 'unusual' and uncommon it may be.
  

That Religious Guy: All Hollows Evening

..... 'Tis the night of Halloween and unlike many ghouls and goblins, I'm busy at my aunt's house finishing home work. Quite glamorous I know. Regardless of whether you're trick or treating or attending one of the many parties tonight, there's one thing you can't escape: that overwhelming sensation of Halloween. There's just something in the air on this night of nights. Cob webs seem to be more decorative than usual instead of a constant nuisance to house keepers everywhere. Grave stones are back in style. On this October evening, we are allowed to dress up as whatever we want, provided our outfits inspire screams or giggles. All the negative hype about this holiday is really unfounded. Halloween is a positive experience, an activity that every kid should celebrate.

..... Halloween has always been a religious holiday. To the pagans it was Samhain and to Christians it remains All Hollows Evening, the night before All Hollows Day, which is more commonly known as All Saints' Day. To the millions of participants nowadays, however, the event which brings tricks or treats is simply called Halloween. Many individuals tend to denounce this holiday as an evil celebration of death, demons, and magic. Thumping their Bibles, they point to passages that attack such elements. Sadly, these people miss the point.

..... As I gave away candy this year dressed up as a headless man, an outfit which really frightened a lot of kids, I realized that rather than weakening the morality of children, Halloween strengthens them. By being able to point and laugh at the ridiculousness of things that go bump in the night, young people realize that fear shouldn't be an obstacle in their lives. While one might argue that certain components of the holiday are bad (e.g. inappropriate outfits, vandalism, etc.), Halloween is overall a good influence.

..... After all, on what other day can one knock on his neighbor's door and receive treats, all the while dressed in an awesome costume? Halloween is no longer a dark pagan extravaganza. It has become a unifying institution in American culture. Seeing people young and old walking to different houses and meeting neighbors (maybe for the first time) is always a good thing, especially in today's social climate.

..... So break out your cauldrons and count your sugary loot because the night is not over yet! Happy Halloween!

- Jeremy Dela Cruz, veteran trick-or-treater.

Thumbs Up Michy!: UK metal band, Bring Me the Horizon, reaches number one on the music charts in Australia

This blog post is a commentary on the above video. ^

Bring Me the Horizon, a hardcore metal band from the UK, reached number one on the music charts in Australia. Their recently released album, There Is a Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It, There Is a Heaven, Let's Keep It a Secret, sold over 3,600 copies.

"Now it's always impressive when an artist hits number one on the music charts, but a UK band's chart success last week showed just how easy it is to grab yourself number one in Australia."

So, just because Bring Me the Horizon surpassed those oh-so-catchy auto tuned, mainstream, pop and hip hop singles, the music industry is suddenly declining? BMTH is a unique band, that doesn't just sound similarly alike of other bands around them. This is a high achievement. Having BMTH reach first on the charts only proves that a song doesn't have to be one of those overplayed tracks on the radio that last about 5 seconds in your head. No, there is actually good music out there, and surprisingly enough, it can be recognized by a majority of people, as their fan base in Australia would agree.

Bring Me the Horizon may not be some famous and overplayed band that everyone knows, but look at what they achieved. They apparently are recognized around the world, mainstream or not.

"Is this alarming for the industry?"

Yeah, the music industry is obviously going downhill if a unique band -- that differs from the usual, same sounding, mainstream BS -- hits number one on the charts.

Short article

Read more at thumbsupmichyyy.blogspot.com

Mikeala AxToGrind: "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)"

"The future is bulletproof. The aftermath is secondary. It's time to do it now and do it loud. Killjoys, make some noise!" intones the character of Dr. Death Defying as the introduction to the new single "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)" from the alt-rocking My Chemical Romance.

That's right, MCR is back, and with a catchy vengeance.

Despite claims of "no more concept albums," (the band has at least two story-telling albums under their belt already) the single reads like a tale of danger, decadence, and detonations, featuring the fictional Dr. Death Defying as a new-age carnival barker, and a mention of the (for now) mysterious "Battery City" -- a likely backdrop for the new album "Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys," out Nov. 22, 2010.

The single is propelled by (yep, you guessed it) a spirited chant of the non-word "Na" in a quick succession, which serves as a combination battle cry/insanely catchy hook. In addition to this not-a-word, there is also not-a-chorus so much as sort of motifs in the song, which include a randomly placed repetition of words and phrases like "detonation," "eat plastic surgery," and "give us more."

The absence of a chorus actually works very well with the song's raw feel, an encapsulation of a feeling of righteous anger and rebellion against conformity and stagnation. The choppy flow of lyrics feels purposely haphazard, an illusion of sloppiness in what is actually a very precisely timed song. As for the vocals themselves, founder and frontman Gerard Way never disappoints, delivering an fittingly stylized performance, sprawling from verse to verse.

The guitar is satisfying as always, sometimes taking a backseat to the power of the vocals, but rearing it snarling head in a burst of a solo towards the end of the song, blazing in a Brian May-touched fashion, but still distinctively from the fingers of lead guitarist Ray Toro.

Sadly, and is the slight downfall of many My Chem songs, the bass gets somewhat buried beneath the chaos of the powerful vocals and two guitarists. But perhaps it lives best overshadowed, providing a unsung hero of a back-bone in aid of the drums.

And, oh, the drums. The fantastic drums of the song sound suspiciously like the masterful work of Bob Bryar, the band's former drummer, who left during the recording of this album after six fruitful years with the band. This loss understandably slowed the release of the long-awaited album, the follow up to the platinum-selling epic "The Black Parade."

Overall, "Na Na Na" sounds like a warped protest song. As the band (not) so cryptically put in a recent promo video, "Art is the weapon against life as a symptom. Defend yourself." The art that is "Na Na Na" does just that, beating down "life as a symptom" with vivacious charm.

Care to defend yourself? Below is a link to the band-made lyric video for "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)" I highly recommend it (obviously).

"Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)"