kainscalia
-
Posts
479 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by kainscalia
-
-
You were speeding and putting other people at risk. You know that, so why do you want to contest this ticket?
-
If there was a way to identify the owner- her ID card- and they returned the wallet after having extracted the money, yes, it was definitely stealing.
Of course, the $30 could have become separated from the wallet in the fall and someone else may have picked the money up after someone else took the wallet, but that's really just speculating.
-
Right, you can call that sexually suggestive maybe if displayed in a certain way, but is it sex?
The tone of that argument sounds very Bill Clinton circa Lewinskygate. You are attempting to be obtusely naive, or otherwise you are trying to pretend that the suggestion and the act have nothing in common, which is honestly quite disingenuous. You are trying to say that the subject and the object are divorced and unlinked--- while at the same time agreeing to a certain contextual connection. There is either a context or there isn't, you can't have it both ways. Lady Gaga is vulgar and sensationalist, and she embodies and uses a view of sexuality and sex that is unhealthy and sensationalist, this is the fact you cannot escape.
People who admire and respect the beauty of the human body don't toss off their clothes to shock an audience into silence anymore than the Regietrash directors who use nudity in the middle of an opera in a vulgar and superfluous fashion to cause a rise out of the audience for purely shock's sake. Rather, they turn both the human body and sexuality into a mockery by thrusting it into a context in which it clashes and becomes discordant, distorted and objectified, bereft of all deep romantic meaning. I have heard a lot in this argument about context, well here's the gist of it- what they do is contextually incoherent and therefore seeks to reduce the object to an object of mockery, and therein lies the depravity of these so-called artists.
-
Sex does not occur in a vacuum.
It can, though I imagine it would be very uncomfortable
-
I'm not sure why class is necessarily important. It's just one way of behaving that isn't inherently superior to any other way of behaving.
Class, as defined within the context of an artist's behavior, is possessing elegance, the attribute of being tasteful, maintaining refined grace and a dignified state. In other words, to take oneself and what one does seriously enough to respect it-- and to have enough respect for one's audience.
So yes, I am sorry, but it is a superior way of behaving insofar as artists go. It marks the difference between Lady Gaga and an actual artist- be they popular or otherwise. By saying that 'it isn't superior to any other way of behaving' you are essentially saying that behavior is relativistic. If there are standards of ideas, thoughts, and interactions, there must necessarily exist a standard of behavior that corresponds to the best possible and a standard of behavior that corresponds to the worst possible, you can't escape that classification. People like Lady Gaga fall squarely in the second category. The manner in which you treat others
I do not think shock is the intention as I said before, since I do not think there is any evidence to suggest that.Then you need to do your research more thoroughly.
"At 18, thereabouts, you started working in clubs, yes?" said Walters.
"Yes," said Lady Gaga.
"And at one point when you were performing, some of the customers did something you didn't like, and you did what?"
"Well, the name of the club was The Bitter End, and I played there all the time, but I had been gone for a while and it was my first time playing my new glam-inspired music," explained Gaga. "And nobody would be quiet. I walked into the room and before I even opened my mouth they were yelling and chatting and drinking and slamming their glasses, And I, I kept [saying], 'Excuse me, hello,' and nobody would stop. So, um, something just came over me and I, I took my clothes off."
"You took all your clothes off?" asked Walters.
"Not all of them..."
"But most of your clothing."
"I left my bra and underwear on."
"You take your clothes off a lot."
"I do."
And the girl, of course, did this out of no desire to shock. The poor thing was suffering from heatstroke.
Indeed.
I'm not even sure how sex is a metaphorical calling card of Gaga's. Does she show too much skin? Clothing too tight? Sexually suggestive in lyrics a lot of the time? Explain what you mean. None of that is bad, since really it isn't even sex at all. Your quote is fine, but are we really even talking about sex here?
By this strange definition, then, what a stripper does has nothing to do with sex, since she never engages in sexual intercourse. This is a willing dissociation of related concepts in an attempt to try to salvage a fixation from an association. What Madonna did wasn't "performance art", it was using sex to shock- the same thing Gaga does.
-
Let's call a spade a spade here: You're applying rationalization in order to justify your admiration for a slattern and somehow present this as a healthy view of sexuality.
A cheap, classless woman who uses shock and sex as her calling cards because her musical gifts are nothing spectacular and -as it has been pointed out- her eccentric persona consists of a grand number of plagiarized ideas. If this is who you wish to hold up as a representation of your values, sia, I prefer to admire artists who make good money and are successful whilst maintaining a modicum of class and decorum that respects the art they are performing - for the Gesamtkunstwerk- as opposed to (as the song in Chicago says) Girls who'll touch your privates for a deuce. No class, no sprezzatura.
-
In none of these quotes does Rand say that sex must only be a response to ones highest values and never otherwise. Clearly Rand made the case that sex is good, and made the case against platonic love. In this sense we could say that if two people are really in love romantically, she would say that sex must be a part of it (exceptional contexts excepted). While Rand is saying that sex ought to follow when hero meets heroine, it does not follow that sex must only be a response to meeting some ideal hero/heroine.
I'm not denying that Rand might have implied what folks are saying. However, I'm asking for some references so that people can be clear that there is no misreading going on.
Sex is one of the most important aspects of man’s life and, therefore, must never be approached lightly or casually. A sexual relationship is proper only on the ground of the highest values one can find in a human being. Sex must not be anything other than a response to values. And that is why I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good and too important . . . .
[sex should] involve . . . a very serious relationship. Whether that relationship should or should not become a marriage is a question which depends on the circumstances and the context of the two persons’ lives. I consider marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two people have found the person with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives—a question of which no man or woman can be automatically certain. When one is certain that one’s choice is final, then marriage is, of course, a desirable state. But this does not mean that any relationship based on less than total certainty is improper. I think the question of an affair or a marriage depends on the knowledge and the position of the two persons involved and should be left up to them. Either is moral, provided only that both parties take the relationship seriously and that it is based on values.
-“Playboy’s Interview with Ayn Rand,” March 1964.
-
"I have personally observed a larger degree of individuality in people who still (by all appearances) were rationally happier than Objectivism allows."
That's an interesting turn of phrase. I have observed many mystical christians who, by all appearances, were rationally happier than 'Objectivism allows'-- but that's because they were refuting reality and clinging to a feel-good set of non-standards that served as an escapist balm. Anyone is apparently happy if you would like to equivocate the unconsciousness of avoidance or inconsistency with happiness.
If I went by appearances alone, the hollowed-eyed mystics who throw themselves away to the pursuits of a religion are 'happier' than people who see the world, judge it and must deal with its pleasant and unpleasant sides.
-
Not that anyone would have an individual view with consideration for phrases like "to whom" and "for what purpose" like other values.
So you are in disagreement that sex is one of the most important aspects of man’s life and, therefore, must never be approached lightly or casually? Rand's position was that sex must not be anything other than a response to values. I made my above statement with the assumption that this was common knowledge. If you disagree, then please explain where you diverge from this, and how Gaga's statement is anything but the antithesis of romantic love and sexuality.
-
That requires a level of sophistication she lacks.
Furthermore, an objectivist asked here why is it wrong to have her sexuality on display: The question is this, what exactly is she displaying? As objectivists you know precisely of what sexuality is an expression, and to what ends it is used. Do you see Lady Gaga being an embodiment of romantic love and sexuality? Hardly. Her personification is actually the opposite, with a heavy dose of anti-intellectualism thrown into the mix. If anything, Gaga's 'artistic statement' (and here I am being very generous in calling what she does that) is essentially the cult of hedonism and the cultivation of image over substance. Who is lady Gaga without the blatant vulgarity and her plagiarized costumes? When examined without her persona, her 'artistic identity' stripped from these gimmicks leaves a body of work that is indistinguishable from the majority of mediocre poppers out there. By popular opus alone, Monique Serf (
), Juliette Noureddine () and Mika ()'s works display a more coherent and original artistic personality, and far more positive bodies of work than Gaga's self-glorified hedonism. -
This parody nails the essence of Lady Gaga. As far as her brand of sensationalism, you can have an artistic statement being sensational because it is new and creative, or you can have the cheap and tawdry sensationalism that tabloids and yellow press aim for-- shock, vulgarity and an unhealthy desire to portray a base and degraded nature. Lady Gaga's sensationalism belongs to the yellow press' desire to shock. If you listen to the lyrics of her "Bad Romance", you won't have to go very far to be appalled at how un-intellectual they are. They are almost the utterances of a pre-literate savage.
-
Making money is not an indicator of virtue-- money can be made dishonestly (see Francisco's Speech). Gaga is a non-value who plies entertainment not based on positive statements but on tawdry sensationalism and outrageousness. She is to popular music what Christo is to art: trash.
The beginning of her career started when an audience started booing an early performance of hers, her reply? She took off all of her clothes. She's not a woman who could still be, but rather a woman who never was.
-
You say that a collective mind exists.
I have thought of one word. Since we collectively share the same mind- if I get your gist- then please, furnish me with the word I have set aside for this exercise.
-
When do we get to declare his death?
-
Then you have to reconcile the 'proper purpose of government,' which is to protect individuals from the initiation of force against them, with the initiation of force. Any extraction of your property against your will is an initiation of force, specially when the party doing it threatens to send you to jail or worse if you don't comply.
"Voluntary Taxation" isn't taxation: It's called Donations.
-
Well, it seems to me that the issue here is a bit of the cherished zombie habit-- the zombie in question being tradition.
What is tradition? What makes it so important? To put it bluntly, a tradition is a social or religious ritual that dictates the certain manner in which things ought to be done. The reason? Because it has always been done that way. The entire weight of the argument is supported not by how right it is or proof, but merely by how long it has been done. That’s pretty much it: anyone arguing from a traditionalist perspective has to be informed that attempting to establish a moral stance through the perspective of tradition does not have a foothold- morality must be constructed from logic and reason, structured through the incorporation of principles- Traditional imposition is no different than Moral Commandment as far unsuitability to formulate an actual moral code.
An appropriate fable that shows an application of the shortcomings of traditional imposition (though its origins are forgotten, unfortunately, by me) is that of a school teacher in antiquity and his pupils. The teacher had several gifted pupils whom he instructed at an amphitheater, and it happened that a certain local cat came to the assembly every day out of curiosity. This cat eventually became a distraction to the students and so the teacher finally tied the cat to a nearby tree and continued with the lesson. This continued for many years every day, and eventually the students grew and new students came in and eventually a new teacher replaced the elderly one when he died— but what started happening was that, when the cat finally died, a student started bringing a cat for the teacher to tie up! Neither the new teacher nor the newer students knew precisely why a cat was tied at the beginning of class, but all they knew that that was the way things had been done from the beginning, and no-one dared to question this, it became a commandment.
The issue of tradition versus principle is a serious one. To examine one concrete example, If it were not for the intellectual integrity of some individuals to not only defy but destroy ‘tradition’ for tradition’s sake, we would still be living in a world in which things are not questioned and no progress is made. Tradition demands the lives of individuals to be bound and dictated by nothing more than “How Things Have Always Been” in favor of a community or collective, while the path of the individual calls for no other dictum than the judgment and free will of the parties involved.
You said there were no alternatives-- is it because you live in a country where secular burial is not an option? I come from a Latin American country where that wasn't well-received.
The other important question is why do you care how you are buried after you die? What is the specific reason?
If it is because there is some leftover Catholic ideology in you that you are trying to salvage but leave unexamined, knowing full well that it is incompatible with the philosophy you are recognizing as right, then you are willingly performing an evasion and essentially denying the very philosophy you are recognizing as valid.
If it is because you wish to provide some level of closure for your family after you die-- then why must it be a Catholic burial, if you are not Catholic? The burial ceremony of closure is supposed to be a fond remembrance of the individual who has died, so what is the purpose of having said remembrance be a false one? If your family can't value you enough to honestly give homage to you as you truly were, then I think you shouldn't be wasting time trying to anticipate closure for your family: they obviously would rather value a false image of you than a true one.
I personally don't give much of a damn about how I am buried- whether someone wants to put me in a statue or dump me in the ocean in a bottle that reads 'Drink Me.' At that point I'll have ceased to exist and I won't be around to worry. If at all possible, the easiest way of disposing of the body would be a cheap pine box and the incinerator- and that's all. If I've made any significant money I'd rather my significant other and whatever family I value have access to that money than to have to throw it away on ridiculous things (hermetically-sealed 1000-year-oak coffins with velvet lining and a sunroof that plays 'Quando M'En Vo' whenever it opens) simply to satisfy some absurd notion of death rituals grounded in witchcraft and superstition.
-
I think the best way, if they're not willing to accept a "We're Through", is to cut off all contact: don't talk to them, be to-the-point and short if you meet them on the street, don't answer their calls or e-mails. Eventually, they will get the point. It seems to me that any benefit derived from this relationship won't outweigh the negatives you have enumerated here. In fact, you've only brought up the negatives and not once really said something positive about her. It seems to me you already know what your choice should be, you're just not very happy about making it--- it is understandable, though, but you must realize your attachment is not to HER, but to whom you thought she was. That person, as you can tell, never existed. So, let her go.
-
Dear Imogen: What you want is not a vocal coach, but a voice teacher. Coaches are often used by singers who have already achieved a high level of technical proficiency and usually only as repertoire, style, interpretation or language guides. Trusting your vocal development to a coach is not what you want- seek out a voice teacher who has a firm grasp on technique AND has a good pair of ears. I would advice against ANY kind of coaching online, and lean heavily on a dedicated voice teacher- while the principles of technique are universal, each singer feels things differently in their bodies, and it is the role of the teacher to come to know how each student 'works' and how to suggest a sensory approach to the technical principles that works for each student. Online learning is discouraged because you will not receive the individualized attention you require.
-
Here's another example of effortless-looking singing. If it *looks* effortless and the sound is top notch, they're doing it right. If the singer looks like he's trying to lift 500 pounds with their privates, they're doing it wrong.
-
I'd stay away from Manning. Speech-tone singing is a harmful approach. Observe him as he demonstrates how to sing the i italian vowel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pxC6c2td-I
Keep a close eye on his throat as he demonstrates. At one point his neck itself seems to start to wobble. That's a sign of sub-glottic pressure. Your cords should be the ones vibrating, not your larynx to the point of showing visibly.
I don't have any recent videos, only this recent recording.
-
The main point, JASKN, is that if this girl were to choose -later in life- to pursue a classical/operatic career as her passion and vocation, it is most likely she would not be able to do so due to the cumulative damage done to her voice if these technical tendencies continue unchecked. Should she win, it is most likely that that would be the case.
As far as Mariah Carey is concerned, her deterioration is due solely to improper technique caused by a high laryngeal position. Anytime you see a singer spreading their mouth when singing and they are not in their uppermost high register (For the tenor this being the high B natural, high C, and in rare cases C sharp and D- for the soprano we're talking high D, E and F over soprano high C) it is often a reflection of high laryngeal position and a collapsed soft palate. In order to access their upper middle and high register (what singer call traversing the passaggio) singers with high larynxes often end up pushing immense amounts of breath pressure through their vocal cords.
Now, keep in mind that your vocal cords are extremely vulnerable and sensitive little bits of mucous membrane no larger than your thumbnail. A correct classical technique -which is ALSO excellent for singing popular music (in fact some of the best and most long-lived voices in popular music had classical technique as a background)- causes a gentle oscillation of the vocal cords where they adduct (come together) at regular oscillating intervals without causing too much stress upon them. This level of healthy production can allow a singer - if they choose their repertoire wisely and exercise their healthy vocalism regularly- to sing for decades with more or less the same quality of voice (a good example: Alfredo Kraus whose voice at 72 was almost exactly the same vocal quality he had at 30). Instead, what Mariah Carey and other popular singers who are woefully ignorant of techniques that can preserve their voices do is, essentially, raise their larynxes (putting stress on the vocal cords) and then proceed to shove terrifying amounts of breath pressure through these vulnerable folds.
A good example is Mariah Carey's once-famous "high notes".
Carey's natural upper extension was what colorattura sopranos call their 'whistle tone'. Carey, completely ignorant of how to approach this register properly, essentially *shoved* her vocal cords together and exerted roughly twice the the amount of pressure (or more) that she used for her regular singing, bruising the vocal folds in the process.
You can tell this is happening because of the 'breathy' quality of these upper notes. You can hear air escaping (listen carefully and you'll hear the hiss) and that is caused by the vocal cords not vibrating at all but being under extreme pressure- like a kettle.
The result? She lost this upper register in a short time (compared to colorattura sopranos) and the rest of her register has followed.
The healthy approach to the whistle tone where the vocal cords are vibrating (at a higher frequency, but still healthily) can be heard in these recordings of the German soprano Erna Sack and the french Mado Robin, two legendary colorattura sopranos. As you will notice, the upper whistle tone maintains healthy vibrato throughout--- these two women had careers that spanned decades.
-
As a professional opera singer and someone who has acquired a certain level of knowledge of technique -acquired the hard way after some years under the hands of bad teachers- I see something horrible being done here. The young girl's voice is truly exceptional, it has an unusual beauty --- and in some years' time it will be completely, utterly ruined.
The lip tremble and chin wobble that is evident in several of her videos, as well as the unsteady and fluttery nature of her vibrato denote a *large* amount of sub-glottic pressure. These are things that aren't simply aesthetic problems, they are indicators of things that destroy voices and ruin careers.
The presence of the jaw shake this early is extremely worrysome. Technician David Jones explains the consequences of this in this fashion:
When I search my memory for singers who suffer this vocal problem, one large-voiced soprano comes to mind whose career was supported early on by Luciano Pavarotti. She has a beautiful instrument with fullness of color and beauty of timbre. However, this singer suffers chronically with a shaking jaw and tongue. The focus of the voice is sacrificed and over time, a large wide vibrato (wobble) developed in her voice. Tragically, this singer who once had a mainstream career hardly sings.
The chronically shaking jaw is merely the external symptom of a serious internal problem that is a combination of one or more of these elements:
*Breath pressure: When breath and support are not low enough, it causes a lot of problems for the onset of sound or what some singers call the "attack".
When the breath is not 'low' enough (diaphragmatic) , it is essentially a clavicular breath (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPITHzdUUDk you can see it in the closeup here at 2:27 where the camera changes angle and you can see her shoulders moving up with her breath-- this is the indication of a clavicular or shallow breath) and you ennd up having too much breath pressure blasting upwards through the larynx. The result of this is that tension ends up accumulating in the shoulders, neck, jaw and tongue. The reason for diaphragmatic breathing is that it allows the singer to control the pressure using the lower body muscles-- with shallow breaths, you don't have these muscles working towards a regulated air pressure and the result is that, as vibrato occurs, the back of the tongue begins to shake uncontrollably. The result of this amount of tension is the shake in the jaw. Instead of creating a steady vibrato, this causes vibrato to become fast (the warbly 'Snow White' vibrato, which this poor child has started to develop) and often irregular.
*Incorrect Attack: When the singer hasn't been taught how to properly initiate the sound (what Joan Sutherland called the 'feathered touch', which is essentially a tone that is initiated in a gentle fashion from which vibrato occurs occassionally, versus the 'hooked' approach), the vocal cords do not come together properly after inhalation and the jaw and tongue try to control the sound. Because too much breath pressure has come through the cords at the attack (the 'onset of sound'), the tongue then tries to regulate the excessive breath pressure. At this point the vocal cords are not vibrating healthily and the singer essentially resorts to 'fabricating' the vibrato by shaking the jaw and the tongue. Although this often fools many listeners, this isn't true vibrato and it causes severe damage in the long run. The use of the tongue and jaw cause the eventual rising of the larynx-- which sets the singer up for potential vocal damage, as the larynx must remain in a naturally lowered and relaxed position.
*The High Larynx: Phonating with a high larynx can cause many bad things to happen. The vocal cords don't vibrate correctly (because they don't approximate the way they should), the soft palate (the 'vellum') collapses and the jaw tenses--- this is extremely dangerous and it robs the throat of the protection that technique grants the singer. This approach only causes problems as the singer's voice matures.
Unfortunately her high breaths create too much breath pressure under the larynx, therefore setting the stage for the "shaking jaw and tongue". When the breath is clavicular, the body often attempts to compensate by applying a downward pressure to fuel the breath (often attempting to depress the tongue). The result of this is that it 'overblows' the vocal cords, the jaw and tongue respond to too much breath pressure and shake uncontrollably. The long-term result of overblowing the cords can result in bowed vocal cords, nodules and polyps on the vocal cords- and the long long-term effects are, in sequence, loss of roundness of the voice, a 'lightening' and 'thinning out' of the singer's sound, loss of brilliance, the development of an exceedingly slow vibrato or 'wobble', and eventually the loss of most of the singer's register and a 'white' voice stripped of most of its attractive qualities (such is the state of another once famous 'girl singer,' Charlotte Church, whose voice has essentially been reduced to a colorless pinched sound
, she is now incapable of singing the classical repertoire with which she started)The truth of the matter is that the girl's parents either have no brains whatsoever or they are too blinded with the promise of celebrity to think of her long-term interest--- but even worse, the girl's voice teacher -who SHOULD know better- is an absolute criminal for 1) Allowing her to do this AND 2) for having given her such an atrocious and damaging technique. I can assure you that I know that your objections to this will be "But she sounds great!"--- and indeed, she does, BECAUSE she has a naturally gorgeous voice. Voices that have a naturally ready beauty (as opposed to voices that eventually come into a beautiful quality after years of working them) are very deceptive- their lovely quality often overcomes technical problems at the very beginning. Young bodies can, for a time, compensate for bad techniques- but only for a time.
My own voice was one of those cases: I have an unusual instrument which most who heard me found naturally beautiful--- I had many technical deficiencies, but the pleasant nature of the instrument camouflaged most of those issues and I was essentially coasting on my youth. I was fortunate in time to find an amazing voice teacher who warned me of the incoming crisis (and, indeed, I had started to experience some of the early symptoms of problems during my then recent performance as Nemorino in Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love") and with whom I have been working towards attaining a solid technique and an intimate knowledge of the principles of singing and its physiology. Having said this, I am very much afraid for this young girl precisely because she has such a beautiful voice. The wobbling chin is a HUGE warning sign to anyone who knows anything of vocal technique -most female classical vocalists have to re-tool their approach to breath support after menopause due to physiological changes in the body. When they fail to do so, the chin wobble immediately appears and it indicates that the proper adjustment for breath support (or appoggio as the italian school calls it) has not taken place and that the singer is running the danger of ruining their voices. When a ten year-old girl is displaying this so early in her career, it is even a worse sign.
What disturbs me the most is that people don't see the truth for what it is: A potentially gorgeous instrument is in the hands of butchers, the people who should be watching out so that she should come to no harm are the blindest, but the only thing people seem to notice is how pretty she is and how lovely she sounds like. Sorry, Rationalbiker, this is something for the horror files. Whomever her voice teacher is, they should be punched squarely across the face for this. Repeatedly.
-
¿Que para ser arte no tiene que tener valor ludico?. La musica entonces, ¿no tiene valor ludico? o ¿resulta que no es un arte?.
Must it not have ludic value in order to be considered art? Music, therefore, has no ludic value? Then, is it not an art?
Cual es el estandard por medio del cual diferencias? O es entonces "Oops, I did it Again" de Britney Spears arte, ya que Le Nozze Di Figaro o Der GroBe Fugue Op 13 lo son? Es toda música arte, simplemente por el heco de ser música? Tienes que diferenciar entre ejemplos que sólo tienen metas lúdicas como objetivo, y ejemplos que buscan una meta artística, con el beneficio adquirido de valor lúdico.
What is the standard by which you are differencing hre? Is therefore "Oops, I did it again" by Britney Spears art, since Le Nozze Di Figaro or Der GroBe Fugue Op 13 are art? Is all music art, simply because it is music? You need to differentiate between examples that only have ludic value as its goal, and examples that seek an artistic statement with the added benefit of ludic value in the equation.
Note: I seem to be unable to edit previous posts to add translations. Not sure if this is a browser issue or a forum issue.
-
I believe it's against board policy to post in languages other than English. Kainscalia, you promised a translation?
They're coming, I think I should be able to append them to each post by tonight at latest.
Help put an end to the TSA madness
in Current Events
Posted
Soth:
"It's for safety! It's for safety!"
Think about how much you can get away for the sake of 'it's for safety!'- it's not whether it is safe, but whether it is appropriate and constitutional.
No warrant. No probable cause. Paul is dead right- this is a violation.