Lost in Translation

    

    Music makes us feel.  It can make us cry, it can give us a rush of adrenaline, it can make us nostalgic.  In Sherman Alexie's short story with a long title, "Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at Woodstock," the narrator Victor's, details his father's drift away from his family.  It portrays many themes and issues like alcohol and cultural identity, but it also shows the uncanny power of music.

    In the story, Victor only slowly started to understand his father's idolization of Jimi Hendrix.  Until he states "The first time I heard Robert Johnson sing I knew he understood what it meant to be Indian on the edge of the twenty-first century, even if he was black at the beginning I the twentieth.  That must have been how my father felt when he heard Jimi Hendrix."  How can someone understand your struggles, yet have no experience with them?  How does that sad song know exactly how you're feeling?  Sure scientifically there are components of a song that invoke complex reactions in your brain, but music is art, and the age old adage of art that lies somewhere along "art is how you interpret it" explains it.  Sure it may be a complex idea detailed by some French guy long ago in "The Death of the Author," but it makes sense.  You're the one listening to the music.   

    Whatever Jimi Hendrix and Robert Johnson put emotionally into their music wasn't the same thing that Victor and his father got out.  This "universal language" is a whole lot more complex and meaningful than any other language.

This is Milk

    In a commencement speech, David Foster Wallace, powerfully illustrates to graduating seniors how much life can be different depending on how you percieve it. In "This is Water," he tries to convince his audience to be more aware and empathetic of the people around you, being understanding instead of angry and frustrated. He claims that this way of thinking must be done consciously and must overcome the "natural hard-wired default setting" of self-centeredness. Are we all born with this self-centered point of view? I mean sure I was angry at the person who cut me off in traffic, but maybe they had somewhere to be, maybe their mom was about to die, or their son was in a horrible accident, or very likely, theyre just an asshole. Wallace's words are appreciated, and certainly very true: being miserable and angry at every person around you for no reason is unfair to them and unhealthy to yourself, but so is being to empathetic. 

       From my point of view, that guy trying to reach his dying mother was an idiot who I almost rear-ended. I had to hit the brakes and, to me, that's all that mattered. It didn't matter if it was a drunk neckbeard with no regard for other human life, or a fearful son on the way to visit his mother on her deathbed, to me they were the same. Yeah sure, right after the fact, i tried to think up a way to justify his actions but, like Wallace, do i need to give everyone the benefit of the doubt? Maybe I can do both, like a sort of Schrodinger's Cat. This'll be the Schrodinger's Car, until you know that persons story inside the car, they are both an asshole and a person deserving of empathy.  That fish that doesn't understand that he lives in water, has a very small chance of guessing that its called "water" and not something else like "milk." Until that fish learns for sure what it is, he acknowledges its existence, and that's all that's really needed. As much as we want to be aware and understand everything, we aren't omniscient.

 

The 9/11 Memorial. But not that one.

    Today is September 11th, 2022, the 21st anniversary of what many consider the pinnacle of American tragedy.  Events, tragedy or victory, that tend to be turning points in history around the world, likely have some sort of memorial or monument for it.  Chances are, if you’ve visited New York, you’ve seen or heard about the 9/11 memorial that is currently in place of the former World Trade Center.  However the two planes that crashed into the Twin Towers wasn’t the only catalyst for the loss of life on that day.  There where two other flights.  Flight 77 crashed into the pentagon and has its own memorial there, but one that is very likely less visited due to its secluded location, is the Flight 93 memorial

     Flight 93 was en route to Washington, D.C., likely targeting a federal building after being hijacked. But due to many phone calls that the passengers took with friends and family, they found out about the fate of the other three planes and voted to fight back against their hijackers.  The struggle resulted in the plane crashing in a common field in Pennsylvania.  The resting place of the crew and passengers was eventually transformed into a memorial site to remember the ones who sacrificed their lives to prevent the loss of others.

The "Tower of Voices," a part of the memorial

    There are a few parts to this memorial, including a tower of forty wind chimes which represent the forty lost voices.  There is also a wall of forty slabs of white marble each with the inscribed names of the dead.  The wall lies underneath the flight path of the plane, where visitors can read and contemplate each name when, 21 years ago, these people were just above struggling and fearing for their lives.  The people visiting are reminded that this is not just a memorial, this is the site of death for these passengers and crew.  It may be a common, empty field, but if not for their bravery, it may have been in the heart of D.C with many more names on that wall.

"Wall of Names" along the flight path of Flight 93