Good always beats Evil. But is it Right?

Good and Evil, Light and Dark, Pure and Impure, we’ve heard them all before, it is the basic plot of almost every book and story. You have the good pure protagonist what every that might be against the evil and hateful antagonist, and always good comes out on top. But why? Why does good always have to win? Why can’t the bad guy get his happy ending? Well I think there is a few reasons for this.

One reason why I think authors don’t usually step outside this idea of good always wins, is because it’s what everyone knows. I say usually here because not every author does stay inside this boundary. See everyone believes that no matter how hard evil tries the good guy will always come out on top, they will always win, but I think that it doesn’t always have to be this way. Imagine a book where through the entire story the good guy always won, but at the end he was defeated and he lost. Imagine the backlash and hate that author would get. But see I think we should use the idea of good not always winning, because it makes people think.

My second reason why I believe that authors usually stay in this idea of good always wins is because it sells. Most of the popular books follow the idea of good always wins. And back to my first point the amount of hate and backlash the book that steps outside that idea would get would be insane. There would be people upon people bashing on it just because it changed the way a story is supposed to work. But that is why I think it the idea of good always wins needs to be broken more often.

See I personally think that books need to stop sticking to the overused idea of good always winning, because that isn’t was always happens. Sometimes the guy doesn’t get the girl, sometimes the bad guys should be able to win. But now should this happen every time? No. I still do feel that the good guys should save the day, triumph over whatever evil they faced, and maybe even get that girl. But I still do feel that authors should from time to time change up that old idea of good always wins. Or maybe even change it so that it is a neutral ending. But that is for another blog.  

How Children plays effect children

The Heartless Giant, like I said a few blogs ago I kind of bashed on the musical a little but I thought about it some more and then, I read a blog on Musical Theater and Other Things (the author was one of the cast in the show), and she wrote about her experience with the musical and watching how kids were connected to the show, so I thought I would put my own to sense in.

So personally I did not enjoy the story of The Heartless Giant, but I did see a lot of kids who did. Being a musician and being in the pit gives you the opportunity to actually see the kids in the audience and how they react to certain things. See kids are very weird and they will do some pretty weird things when it comes to children’s theater. They will laugh at things that you would never expect, and they won’t laugh at things you thought they would, so when you do a children’s theater you have to be careful of the jokes you make.  

Another thing in children’s theater you are allowed to break the 4^th wall, a lot. And when you really get the kids involved and it is really cool to see. It really makes them feel like they are in the story, it makes them feel like they are helping move the plot along, or helping solve a major problem, even if they are thinking they are just helping answer a simple question. But there is a down side to doing too much 4^th wall breaking because if you overload the kids with too many questions then they won’t be interested any more.

Finally I am going to kind of steal something from the blog post by Musical Theater and Other things, and that is the kid’s reaction after the show. See at my school after every play we go out and do autographs for the kids and ask them really basic questions like, favorite character, or favorite part of the play. But there are some kids that it gives them ideas. Like personally I was talking to one of my fellow actors and he told me that a little kid had come up and told him that after watching our play she wanted to become and actor herself, which being an actor is one of the best compliments you can give.

So that is how I think Children plays effect children.       

Political Ad Campinas

Oh it’s that time of year isn’t, the time when every Politician starts trying to trash talk every other Politician just to get into congress or even become the President of the United States of America. Now when voting comes around I sadly will not be able to vote which I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing still but none the less I still hate ad campaigns but for a couple of my own personal reasons.

The first reason I hate political ad campaigns is because of what they tell you. Presidential candidates and they team of ad developers will seriously pour millions upon millions of dollars into creating ads. Now this is not me saying that advertising your message and what you see for the country is wrong, on the contrary that I am mostly fine with. It’s when they are pouring all of that money into ads bashing on all of their other opponents. Now again if there is a few ads explaining why the other opponents would not make a good president, and what you would do better is fine. But a lot of those ads are just they saying “they are wrong and vote for me” and that is basically it.

The second thing I hate about political ad campaigns is how much you see them, now like I said early advertising your message is fine but I don’t want an ad bashing another candidate every other commercial. Now don’t get me wrong shaving people see your message is very important when it comes too wining a presidential campaign, but please don’t shove it down our throats. We get that you want to help the country, but we don’t have to hear it every 60 seconds over and over again.

Finally the last reason I hate ad campaigns and where the literature part comes in is how affective they are. Seriously with how much money the pour into making these ads it is shouldn’t be a major shock to people but to me it is kind of scary just how effective these things are. Even though in the last ad I said I hate ad analysis, just looking at a political ad and not even doing an in depth analysis, what they do is very effective.

So yes I hate ad campaigns. Even though they are very hateful and very constant, they are very effective at what they are supposed to do. So that is why I hate ad campaigns.      

Ad Analyses

I hate doing ad Analysis. So in my advanced placement language we just finished up doing ad analysis for a grade, and I literally hated almost every second thing, and that is not an understatement. So for those lucky enough not to have ever had to do an ad analysis I will briefly give you definition of what it is. So basically you pick out a single ad take a bunch of terms from sentence structure, imagery, tone, etc. and you try to find examples of it in the ad and then find how the ad is trying to sell you the product. And let me tell you it is one of the most soul wrenching, most boring I have ever done. Three major reasons, it’s boring, it’s long and it’s over complicated.

See ad analysis is not one of the most boring things I have ever done. I would rather watch paint dry, because I have actually done it and it was more fun. Ad analysis is you basically staring at an hour for four hours and then trying to figure out what it all means. I feel like Jason trying to figure out “what do the numbers mean”. (If you don’t get that joke don’t worry it is a video game reference from call of duty black ops so if you don’t know that game do not worry).

And like I said early a major reason why ad analysis is so boring is because it is so long. If I had to spend maybe thirty minutes on it I might enjoy or just be ok with doing it. But like I said, I am pretty sure I clocked in at over 4 hours minimum of ad analysis, and that was just from analyzing one advertisement and I didn’t even get in everything I wanted to get in because I was already at two page paper and I didn’t want to write anymore, I am also pretty sure I fried my by brain doing it.

And ad analysis wouldn’t be so bad and so long if it wasn’t so complicated. With how many terms and examples and how long the paper had to be it was just stupid complicated. I did 4-5 drafts of that paper, now I know that doesn’t sound like a lot but for me I usually only need one or two drafts before I am ready to write my.

So yes I hate ad analysis, and I feel bad for anyone who had to go through this. If you haven’t had to go through this, one you’re lucky, two I hate you. And if you are an L.A. teacher (besides my own) please tell me why you make your students go through this torture. So there is my rant about why I hate ad analysis.        

Musicians V.S. Writers

  Oh I am going to lose all respect from my music and writing friends after this piece. So yes I personally believe that you can connect the idea of music and writing in same category. Now would I consider them both literature? No. Music isn’t a form of writing, but they use very similar ideas in what they say, how they say it, and how they musicians and writes create their pieces.

First off writers and musicians in my personal opinion create art in very similar ways. They both start off thought, an idea, a spark, something that makes them think I can create something from this.  

After they get piece a paper or a computer and they write. Now I know that sounds stupid and like a really obvious connection but trust is still is one.

On what they write. Now what they write seems like you can’t connect them one is notes and one is words, but trust me you can connect them. Both music and writing tell the same story, they tell stories of love, and action, adventure, sadness, mystery, everything. They both create emotion, beautifully portrayed stories, of amazingness.

Even the one thing you think would separate musicians and writes is how they write their stories, how one uses words and the other uses notes there are still almost the same. You just have to think about it outside the box. One is with specifically crafted words, hand-picked just to make sure they story is portrayed just right. The other is told with specifically pick notes, beautifully crafted to tell the exact story the musician wants. So even though one uses words and the other notes musicians and writers still write their stories in the same way.

So do I still believe that I will probably lose all respect from my writer and musician friends? Yeah probably. But do I still think I am right? Absolutely. See even though you may think that musicians and writers are completely different people, they aren’t. They create their craft in almost the same way. So yes I do believe that writers and musicians are basically the same people.               

Play Review: The Heartless Giant

This week was show week for me at my high school, and we did a very interesting play. See my High school every year puts on a winter show for little kids, and this year we did a played called The Heartless Giant, and was written by one of our teachers Mike Moran. See the show the good, the acting was great, the music was phenomenal (and that is being a little bias because I was the percussion for the show), but it was the story itself that was very interesting. See The Heartless Giant is based off of a Norwegian folk tale, which is weird in itself but it gets weirder. But before I do go any further I do want to say that this play is still great, but I feel that there was a few things that could be changed.

               

Another reason this play is weird is just because of the tittle itself, The Heartless Giant. The reason I personally think this is because the tittle can have two meanings. The first meaning, that it could have possibly been and that I thought it was when I first saw the script was supposed to be a giant that was mean and didn’t care for anything, and that the play was supposed to be about teaching a giant how not to be heartless and care, I was totally wrong. The other meaning that was used in the play was that the giant truly had not heart in its body. Which for a kid watching makes sense, but for someone like me being in high school and reading and preforming this play I personally felt that it was a huge missed opportunity by the author to make the tittle could show a little more of the story.

                

The other thing I found weird was that there really wasn’t a lot of adult humor. Now don’t get me wrong this is not me condoning the practice of kids watching adult humor, but when you see anything kid oriented most of the time there is at least a little bit of adult humor that the kids aren’t supposed to get but everyone in high school gets. But in the heartless giant there really wasn’t any, now don’t get me wrong the play was fine without it but again I feel it was a missed opportunity.

                

So there was my take on what could have gone better in the musical I was just in, and mister Moran if you do read this please take these as constructive criticism and not me bashing on your script.