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03 enero 纽约归来 上个星期去了纽约，第一次身临其境，却没有什么感觉。可能心里还是怀着对芝加哥的偏见，也 许，纽约本来就没有芝加哥爽。在纽约，我有强烈的不安全感，到处都是很诡异的人，来自全世界各地的人，说着不同语言的人。和芝加哥相比，这让我十分地不舒 服，可能我的精神境界还不够坚强，还不够在这种世界上最牛的城市里打拼，我依然喜欢学校那样清净的地方，依然喜欢和正常人交流。 我 们去了很多博物馆，我也因此上了很多课，艺术课，化学课。小蒋和小梦对自己的专业都很精通，所以我受益非浅。但当我们来到华尔街的时候，唉，那个冷清啊。 一条很普通的小巷，背后居然有这么多的故事，真是神奇。华尔街不远处就是世贸遗址，正在修新的楼，顿时感觉很强烈。特别是因为我看了那些纪实电影，7年前 的恐怖仍然在我眼前挥之不去。自由女神还不错，比想象的小很多，不过也算是很精致了。噢，我们还爬了帝国，上面的夜景和芝加哥的差不多，就是冷得着不住… 总之，姑娘对纽约很满意，癞头儿也觉得爽，我觉得还讲究，就是不如芝加哥清静。目前来看，这个地方不太适合我。唉，3个中国城也大多都是港式餐馆，我需要点地道的饭菜… sort of Final Paper for film study class  Bob Dylan The Beatles  Dr. King The Times They Are A-Changin' ---- Explore the mysterious relationships among rock stars, their fans and social impacts “All human volition is directed toward the satisfactory shaping of man’s relationship to the world…. The formative Kunstwollen regulates the relation of man to things as they appear to the senses: the manner in which man wishes to see each thing shaped or colored thereby comes to expression…. Man is, however, not solely a being who takes in impressions through the senses—he is not only passive—but also a desiring—that is, an active—being, who will interpret the world as it reveals itself to his desire which changes according to race, place, and time.” ---- Alois Riegl, Late Roman Art Industry From my progressive understanding of the Rock “n” Roll music and its evolution along with the historical decade called “The Sixties”, I have surprisingly realized that the interesting part of this phenomenon is actually the consequence of such reciprocal but inextricable influences among iconic rock stars, their fans, and all kinds of societal demands. Intuitively, I connect these elements together and try to exhibit dynamic and dramatic relationships in the midst of them through existing evidences. The 1960s have become synonymous with all the new, exciting, radical, and subversive events and trends of the period, in which the cultural revolution attempted to diverge the fabric of American society. As a growing portion of America's youth rejected the “establishment” (government) and created its own counterculture, the decade brought many defining moments. The Berlin Wall went up in 1961. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis evoked fear in all Americans. Lasting until 1975, the Vietnam War sparked controversy and civil unrest after the United States entered the military struggle in 1965. Woodstock rocked traditional values in 1969. The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy (1963), his brother Robert who was a senator and presidential hopeful (1968), and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1968) devastated the country. And in 1969, man walked on the moon and returned. As the 1960s progressed, widespread tensions developed in American society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the war, race relations, libertine attitudes, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, experimentation with psychedelic drugs and an interpretation of the American Dream based predominantly on consumerism. In the United States, "The Sixties" is used descriptively by historians, journalists, and other objective academics; nostalgically by those who participated in the counter-culture and social revolution; and pejoratively by those who perceive the era as one of irresponsible excess and flamboyance. During such a turbulent period, a great deal of influential people from various professional fields with extraordinary leadership had stood up and appeared to speak, sing, draw, perform, and echo with the protested sentiments and voices of the society. This was a time of freedom, marked with large gatherings and concerts. In a time of revolution and sadness, the counterculture looked into the future in hopes of finding a place where the madness could end. On the stage, the emergence of Dr. King, Bob Dylan, Betty Friedan , and The Beatles were extremely compelling and encouraging; these public figures were interrupting and stirring the atmosphere of the society with expectations and endorsement from the majorities. Particularly, rock stars started to write and sing songs embraced stories that ordinary people could not have the opportunity or audacity to speak up in the public, and therefore songwriters became the channel and bridge connected the gap between people’s frustration and their ideal world. The rise of rock stars in the 1960s meant that popular music would be treated differently afterward. Performers would never again be dismissed out of hand as mere purveyors of silly love songs. It was a defining moment where people’s desire had influenced rock star’s work and such intimacy between the musicians and their fans had become the tipping point of the countercultural movement among youngsters back then. Among those generational heroes, Bob Dylan was one of the most outstanding protested singers who has participated closely in the Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech as well as other protested movements. He started his first job as a floor sweeper and expected to learn some disciplines of hard work and merit of employment, but he didn’t feel that was a right place to stay. Then he moved to the NYC where he started to pursue and devote his career as a folk singer along with his heart and spirit, but the whole society was actually immersed in an unstably dangerous condition. “Back then, nobody liked the blues, country music or rhythm”, Bob recounted in an interview, “and the popular music was something like ‘How Much is that Doggie in the Window’ , which wasn’t the real image of the society”. “Instead”, Bob continued, “the reality was bleak to begin with; fear that at any moment; this black cloud would explode, where everybody would be dead.” After playing in relative obscurity, Bob Dylan released his second album “Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” in 1963 which contained the hit “Blowin’ in the Wind” a song with stunning and inspirational lyrics like “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” that immediately captured and touched the souls of the Vietnam War protestors. Later on, many more Bob’s songs were explicitly political and meaningful. Even though there were a lot of people arguing that Bob didn’t have an appealing voice or excited beats, his gifted poetic-lyrics-writing talent had indeed brought unprecedented impacts among people who were in deep frustrations but with ambitions. His next venture, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, established him as the premiere protest singer of the sixties. As Dylan’s stardom developed, it came to signify a politically impatient generation with a willingness to speak out against society’s ills. Dylan came to be see not only as a representation of this particular social group, as a symbol that “stood for” the group, but also as a representative of that group, someone speaking on their behalf. He was famously labeled as the “Spokesman of a Generation”. Bob’s words in that interview, which uncovered the real reaction of people to the disastrous situation undergoing in the society, had reminded us that we were not as happy as what those typical songs were saying about, and sort of implied that we needed a fresh but honest voice of people’s hearts. Politically, folk music fits many people’s beliefs because, as people’s music, folk music is belonging to communities, and folk singers wanted to write about people and for people. As the well known folk music star, Bob’s rise had successfully established an open mindset that sang what people saw; expressed what people thought; protested what people suffered. In the movie “Don’t look back”, we could also discover that Bob’s music along with his whimsical personality was a kind of transformational power that fueled with resentments as well as hopes and dreams. At that moment, people’s inner aspirations, the first time, had been conveyed to the outside world by rock stars. Inspired and influenced by Bob Dylan as well as Elvis Presley, another historical hit in Rock ‘n’ Roll The Beatles started to be the center of people’s attention, and they in turn became the societal engine that constantly changed people’s mindsets, life style, and even perception of the whole world. The cultural aspects that the Beatles were credited as having influenced ranged from films, hair styles, pop art, fashion, setting a precedent for large scale stadium concerts, conceiving popular music as an art form and the introduction of eastern philosophy into western society. Once in an interview, Paul McCartney admitted their role in destroying traditional convention: “There they were in America, all getting house-trained for adulthood with their indisputable principle of life: short hair equals men; long hair equals women. Well, we got rid of that small convention for them. And a few others, too.” According to cultural historian Steven Stark, Americans loved the Beatles because they were smart, funny and -- unlike other stars of rock and roll -- they represented the middle class. The Beatles' influence pushed all kinds of boundaries, not just of music and fashion, but the outlook of an entire generation. They had a universal message that appealed to young people everywhere. They represented freedom, the idea that one person can make a difference, that the whole is greater than some of its parts. If we look at the titles of their songs, Come Together, All You Need is Love, All Together Now, We Can Work it Out, there is an optimism, a philosophy of freedom there; personal freedom and political freedom. Steven Stark says that Elvis Presley was a truck driver, but the Beatles were not. They were middle class suburban kids; they knew who Beethoven was and that allowed them to influence the middle class in America in a way that had not been true with rock and roll groups until then. Another time, rock stars led the way of change with their unique social status that representing cool, fashionable and outstanding things that people would like to pursue. During the course of promoting civil rights, antiwar movement, Bob Dylan, as one of the most influential musicians in the Rock “n” Roll history, had not forgotten to keep trying out different music styles. Dylan’s Newport 1965 performance is often presented as a revolutionary break from folk music. Such claims, and the reifying of a specific performance serve a particular function in justifying broader claims of the revolutionary nature of rock music. The folk basis for rock music, like the communal claims of the folk revival, is delusional. Rock music is a folk music because it is a genuine expression of a specific community, but that community only exists through its use of rock music. What exists is not a community but an audience: a mass market that tries to reject the very thing that constitutes it. The audiences’ reactions could be dramatic and promiscuous, however, Bob kept his own understanding of rock music. This kind of transition could be deemed as a type of productive process that has avoided duplicating traditional path of folk music, and instead explored to express he himself in a way that people could also sense the coterminous perspectives toward temporal things. As what Benjamin has primarily articulated and argued in his essays, the qualities of the privileged status of the individual work of art were its uniqueness, authenticity, and authority, which were apparently threatened by its susceptible nature to the technological reproducibility. However, as a folk singer, Bob has suggestively used many existing instruments, such as keyboard, harmonica, and guitar, as well as traditional beats taken from blues, country and rhythms. Along with his biting, imagistic and often cryptic lyrics served to capture and define the mood of a generation, Bob Dylan has successfully brought us a fresh but meaningful style of Rock and Roll. Although has he barely confessed where the inspirations of his music were from or the reason he wrote these songs in lots of Bob’s interviews, it is not oblivious that all the subtle sentiments and purposes of his works were berried in those poetic lyrics, which were profoundly affected by what were going on around him. Standing in front of the tumultuous 1960s history of the Western world, as an international student from China, I intuitively start to compare what happened here with the situation back home. Due to various political reasons, in China, people’s mindsets are literally restrained and controlled by the central government, and we are prohibited to explicitly express the disgruntled sentiments toward either the government or the communism political party. Government’s slogan is “to establish and maintain a stabilized society, in which we are striving for sustainable development”. Thus anything that is disharmonized with these political “doctrines” would be deemed as going against the government. Such things are including political protest, parade, gathering and any kind of publishing with negative opinions. Nowadays, as the rampant usage of the Internet as a means of media, Chinese government is holding very tightly on this issue and starts to block many major “information intensive websites”, including Wikipedia, BBC, and some Blog websites. Therefore people’s reception of information from the Internet has dramatically limited and biased within China, which is funny and absurd. Consequently, it is natural for us to understand why many pop or folk music are mere paeans or carols of the government, or at most they are just some silly typical love stories like what people were doing in the US before Bob Dylan spoke out. Artists are unable to leave their footprints based on observation of things happening in such a blindly patriotic society, however people’s intrinsic feeling are regularly embraced with radical and negative attitudes regarding many aspects of the government. Unsurprisingly, as far as we can foresee, no one in China would be cynical enough to step up and explicitly challenge the current disciplines to write or sing some revolutionary songs that would stir the society in a democratic way without getting arrested by the government. Since what people in China would obtain from music, TV, newspapers, magazines and the Internet are all positive information and the prosperity, the whole society, comparing with US, is lacking of such fundamental motivation or aspiration for a better life or government. There is no way for a songwriter to contribute such profound work, like what Bob Dylan did in the US, to influence the whole generation and shift people’s mindset. The only feasible way to affect people’s life is top-down rather than bottom-up. Looking at the road map of such inextricable relationship amongst rock stars, their fans and related social impacts, I become clearer about when things happened, why things happened and how things happened. Bob Dylan, The Beatles, or Dr. King could be the “outliers”, because they were living in a period of time during which the society were not stable and people’s life were threatened and discomforted by various unethical traditions. Counterculture became the word of mouth that tied ambitious people together and fight for peace, love, fairness, and joy along with their common heroes, those generational artists, writers, novelists, and the most importantly rock stars. Rock stars therefore became the spokesmen of the majorities, and they led the way of challenging all kinds of traditions. Rock stars were cultural and political pioneers who were innovative as well as confident. Their leadership have been tested and demonstrated through all kinds of performances, lyrics, speeches and social activities. During the course of fighting for ordinary people, the rock stars had also gradually shaped the society in a way that people had expected, and people’s democratic power became musically transformational and politically meaningful at the same time. This circular and interrelated relationship has cultivated a historical moment of human’s cultural history, and I am pleased to be part of this journey and have the opportunity to explore it. Bibliography 1968 in America, By Charles Kaiser Age of Contradiction, By Howard Brick No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, by Martin Scorsese Bob Dylan, by Lee Marshall, p. 106 http://www.cyber-beatles.com/revolution.htm Beatlemania: Girls Just Wanted to Have Fun, Barbara Ehrenreich, The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, cited by Lisa Lewis, p. 102 Why Did the Beatles Take America by Storm 40 Years Ago, By Faiza Elmasry Bob Dylan, by Lee Marshall, p. 111 The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility, Walter Benjamin 28 diciembre "Outliers"  这是一本有趣的书，读之前，我怀着对其作者（Malcolm Gladwell) 前2本超级棒的书的无穷回味；但当我读到一半的时候，我发现，书中所讲的都是我们大家都很熟悉的“思想理念”，这并没有使我像读前2本书时觉得新颖和惊奇；现在我读完了，觉得也有些许收获，也许没有获得新的”知识“，但它让我把很多以前想过但没想明白的事情弄明白了点。 其实这书的目的是告诉人们为什么那些取得非凡成就的人会取得如此的成绩，从他们的出身背景，家庭环境，就读学校和一连串的细节分析，虽然我个人觉得书中有不少重复罗唆甚至前后缺乏逻辑的篇章。书中提到了Bill Gates, Bill Joy, 还有The Beatles等，其实这些看似不相关的人们也都有共同之处，那就是”勤奋刻苦”，而他们为什么就成功了呢，一句话就是“机会是给有准备的人的”，这，很多人都明白，这里作者只是做出了反复的强调而已。 Bill Gates和Bill Joy都是IT界的最牛的人，回顾下他们在童年时期以及学校生活，我们可以清晰的看到他们的共同之处：BG从初中就开始编程，通过各种关系一直保持着对计算机的迷恋，通过各种途径一直都在编写程序或者研究计算机相关的东西，抓住各种机会去和朋友借别人或者趁别人不在偷用别人的计算机，或者叫玩弄计算机，当他开始筹备微软的时候，他已经有几年（都不能用小时来衡量了）的编程经验了。BJ也是一样，再BERKELEY的时候，他呆在实验室里的时间是同学的很多很多倍，后来建立SUN和重新编写JAVA的时候，都已经是神一样的人了。同样，The Beatles，在他们名声赫赫以前，一直在利物浦的一些小酒吧里表演，每天晚上甚至表演8个小时，一个星期7天每天如此，在他们出名以前，就都比某些歌手整个职业生涯的演出时间都多了。 这些成功的例子，说白了，都是时间堆积起来的效果，就是通常说的“十年磨一剑”或者“台上1分钟，台下十年功”，但真正的道理还是人不仅要抓住机会，还要对其有所准备！书中还分析了一些特殊的社会问题，比如为什么亚洲学生的数学要比美国人好很多？这个对于大多数人来说是由于制度或者体制不同，这是很表面的看法。其实有多余一点的原因，首先用中文念的数字12345和用英文念12345用的时间是要少得多的，有个说法就是人一般能记住能再2秒钟内消化（阅读）的内容；很明显，用中文不到1秒就可以说完12345，但用英文，需要长很多的时间。还有比如，读数的方法，12的中英文是不对称的，中文是10+2，英文就是TWELVE；还有读分数的方法等等。这些很多细节上的东西确实造成了说英文的人学数学是要比说中文的人困难不少。还有一个很重要的因素就是投入时间问题（也可以说是态度问题），这个问题作者是回归到务农这个问题上的（我个人认为很牵强）。他说，中国的农民种大米，这个是很麻烦的务农，因为大米不是一般的东西，不能春天播种了，就等着秋天来丰收，这样是丰收不到的。其间，需要很多照料，施肥、松土、浇水等等，很多农民为了多种田多赚钱，一年要种3批。一句话就是，种大米的农民朋友是万分勤劳的，是很“刻苦的”。于是乎，作者就说，这些亚洲学生数学成绩好就是因为--态度问题--花在数学上的时间比美国学生多很多，并且十分刻苦，十分善于思考，而不是不上求助于别人。种种原因累计出来的效果就是：亚洲学生比美国学生数学好N倍。 这书中很多不同的例子都给了我一个相同的感觉，就是很多成功的事例背后都由一连串的因素造成的，是一环扣一环的，说白了，也就是我所说的，过程走好了，结果总不会坏的。还是那句话，道理都是非常简单的，成功的背后也都是有原因（我们也容易知道），但是真正实践起来，却不是这么简单。 水仙姑娘 在我走之前，我的小鱼和水仙姑娘都很健康。姑娘还特意地为我而绽放了花朵！ |
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