ENG 2150 Gimme Shelter: the spaces we live in

In this picture we can see many different aspects of life. Time is one of the biggest concerns we have in life, and something that always stays in our mind. Whether we are putting it to good use or thinking about what our future holds for us. Staying connected a big part of our lives too. We meet so many people throughout our lives, people we love, people who we think will be around forever but end up leaving, and family that are always there. A lot of thought is put into this matter because no one wants to be lonely, and keeping up with friends and family is something we all need to do in order to live a good life. Then there are things that can be trivial to some people, while being of the utmost importance to others. The beauty of life and nature might appeal to some, while others want to adventure and experience new things from far places, like food and views. Money might not be important to all, but to most it is in the plan to live the perfect life. WE spend so much time that we may not even realize thinking about our future jobs and how we can make money to live, and thinking about the future also takes us to family. Not family that we grew up with, but the family that we will create and that would be ours. Last but not least comes love, something that we can experience from the youngest age to the oldest. It is something that can take over the body and mind, and countless hours,, days, weeks, and years are spent thinking about our beloved, who we want, and maybe if we will even find that person.

This picture shows simple pictures of many different aspects of life, and that is what reminds me of the Stream of Consciousness. We learn that our thoughts can stay still, but are also always moving. The aspects of our life are tings that we may not even realize we are thinking about, but are things that aree bouncing off the walls inside of our head. WE always think about life, money, family, friends, love, money, and so many other things. Since life is non-stop and always is changing, it can relate to the idea of our Consciousness being a stream. Vast and always moving, just like us in real life, things always changing and unexpected.

“The Raven” Read by James Earl Jones

“The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe is the first work that crossed my mind in relation to William James’ “Stream of Consciousness”. The protagonist of the poem is first  shown to be on the cusp of sleep whilst studying ancient literature when he suddenly heres a noise at his door. In his dreary state, the tapping at his door reminds him of the sadness his heart held for his lost love. This memory strikes fear in the heart of the protagonist and he tries to calm his emotion through rationality that it must simply be a visitor. To support the rational thought he is trying to subdue his fears with he moves to answer the door, when upon doing so no one is there. He utters then his lost loves name and it is echoed back to him in the silence. This sends his emotions further into a frenzy because his rationality has failed him. He then hears the tapping again and then believes the noise is coming from his window. He tries to rationalize the noise as being the wind and not his lost love “Lenore” entreating him from the beyond. When he opens the window a raven flies in and perches itself above his door. The protagonist smiles to himself because reason has once again took hold and the cause of the noise was nothing more than the raven. He speaks to the bird voicing his previous ridiculous fears. To his surprise the utters “Nevermore”. This intrigues the protagonist and he marvels at this trying to combat his drifting mind. He reasons that this raven learned the words from a person whom was wrought with a grave countenance. The bird answers his thoughts with “Nevermore” and he is taken aback and begins to think that the raven was answering him. Upon further conversation with the raven the protagonist deems that the bird is not simply a beast but a demon. A demon or entity sent to further laden his heart with sadness for his lost love.

This poem relates to “Stream of Consciousness” because it exhibits the many points that James’ was detailing in his work. As explained consciousness is personal, which in “The Raven” is exhibited by the memories of “Lenore” that the tapping and raven reverberated to the protagonist. The idea of consciousness as being a “stream” or consistently moving is exhibited through the protagonists dialogue with himself and the raven. His thoughts are ever fluctuating, trying to reason with occurrences of the night. Lastly,  there is also the exhibition that thoughts are entwined with emotions, for the protagonist of “The Raven” feels sadness, fear, and loss throughout his reasoning with  what meaning the raven holds. He at first rationalizes it as being the cause of the noise and takes no other meaning which makes him joyous and light hearted towards his ridiculous thoughts that it could have been Lenore knocking at his door. However, the thought of Lenore as being the source of the sound was filled with the emotion of fear. His interaction with the raven  brings back this fear because he thinks it is sent from a unworldly entity.

Kanye West – The One ft. Big Sean, 2 Chainz, Marsha Ambrosius (Cruel Summer)

This has to be my favorite song off the album Cruel Summer by Kanye West. The piano in the instrumental along with the hook by Marsha Ambrosius really brings the song together in my opinion. I’ll only discuss some of the hook and the first verse by Kanye. The song starts out with some piano and goes directly into the hook with Ambrosius singing “The storm is on the horizon, I’m standing here alone.” This immediately refers to Kanye’s views on his position in the game of rap music. He feels as if he is alone at the top. Who is there to challenge him and his label G.O.O.D Music? As the hook continues,  it conveys messages of self-importance and being willing to rise to any challenge or challenger. Kanye’s verse in particular helps illustrate the stream of consciousness that I find in rap music. His verse contains allusions to the Bible, pop-culture, celebrities, the enslavement of debt. All of this is done through some slick wordplay and the wordplay shows how rap music is associative. To cite a few examples: Kanye says: “Yeah, I’m the one, baby since God gave his only begotten son, baby” this is a Biblical allusion as here Kanye seems to be referring to himself as the new or the next Jesus Christ. As he continues he says “You on a run, baby.” I think that this refers to the race of life that we all must run in. The rat race if you will. Many people are always chasing after their false idols or unreal goals. He goes on to say “You think you free but you a slave to the funds, baby.” This can easily refers to the trap and enslavement of debt. Kids take out 100,000 dollar loans to go to prestigious universities to be “free” as in, not under the rules and regulations of their parents but only to be enslaved to the debt that they incurred over the course of four years. It can also refer to credit card debt and people love the freedom to buy whatever they’d like, whenever they’d like but they they begin to drown in debt. His verse continues: “We on a galaxy that haters cannot visit, That’s my reality so get off my Scott Disick, If you ever held a title belt you would know how Michael felt, Tyson, Jackson, Jordan – Michael Phelps.” Here Kanye puts himself on a completely different level. He says that he is unreachable as he is on another galaxy. Perhaps this refers to the hook of the song? And in the rest of the quote the slick wordplay comes in once again. That’s my reality seems to refer to the reality show Keeping up with the Kardashians and since Kanye and Kim are dating, Kanye has been on the show multiple times with none other than Scott Disick. There’s also the saying “Get off my dick” which is commonly used in rap music and the play on the name Scott Disick helps keep common rap phraseology and introduce a new twist. Then he lists the Michaels or champions of the world.

The Stream of Consciousness refers to our conscious and how it is not static. Rather, our consciousness is dynamic and always moving and flowing like a stream, hence the name “Stream of Consciousness.” I believe this song is able to bring out how rap music represents the stream of consciousness. With all the wordplay and the associative nature of the song, it shows why our consciousness is in fact like that stream. Because we are able to understand all these allusions as they are presented to us, there are a ton of word associations we make in a matter of seconds. This illustrates how our conscious is dynamic. How could we understand  this song or songs like these if we could only be focused on one thing at any given time? It is the Stream of Consciousness and our collective memories and experiences that allow us to put all the pieces of the lyrical puzzle together and enjoy the music and all the wordplay that comes along with it.

Emotional, Soft, Memories
Turning it down low
Bobbling your head very slow
Feeling the beat
It’s getting hard to see
Closing my eyes
Thinking, “Was he putting on a disguise”
This song got me thinking
Should I still see him
It’s just so Emotional, Soft, Memories

The song’s almost over
The music is going lower
Still thinking hard
This song is killing me
I don’t love him
Just have strong feelings for him
Just got a phone call, “He is back with her”
The song is over

EMOTIONAL, SOFT, MEMORIES

Shanae’ Moore

When I first heard about this assignment I was not really sure what I wanted to compare to “The Stream of Consciousness” by William James.  At first I thought about finding a picture or a piece of artwork that represented “The Stream of Consciousness.”  I realized that what I really wanted to use was a short story or a poem.  As I was surfing the internet I stumbled on this poem by Shanae’ Moore that really caught my attention.  The poem titled “Emotional, Soft, Memories” captures what William James describes as “The Stream of Consciousness.”  The state of consciousness is like a stream.  We have infinite thoughts that are always in a constant state of change.  We also have different feelings and emotions attatched to these thoughts.

The poem opens by talking about how this girl is constantly thinking about this guy.  She cannot get the thought of this guy out of her head.  Not only does she sense her surroundings, but she feels them as well.  The song that is played reminds her of him to the point that the song is unbearable to listen to.  She is wrapped up in a myriad of emotions and is in perpetual thought.  This brings up the concetps of the subjective and the objective.  The noise and the music that she is listening to is objective because it can be proven by fact.  The feelings that she is having when she is listening to the song is subjective because that is her own feelings toward the song that no one else can feel.  Someone else might listen to the same song and have a completely different feeling towards it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4WJlLNIsyY&noredirect=1

I love the opening to this movie, which is overall an incredible film you should all take the time to watch at some point.  One of the things that makes this movie so remarkable is the way it uses film, a medium generally confined to representing objective, surface reality, to represent the inner-life of its protagonist.  We get a sense of how the director, Francis Ford Coppola, manages this feat in the opening here.  The film opens on a long shot of a jungle, which gets obscured by an orange mist and the rudders of a helicopter.  The viewer might think this is an establishing shot, and that the action of this first scene will take place in the jungle before us.  However, as the song “The End” by The Doors begins playing, and we see the jungle explode, something seems dream-like about the scene, since we cannot hear the explosions. In the next moment, we see the protagonist’s inverted face with the ceiling fan he is looking at superimposed over it, and we realize the first shot of the jungle represents the character’s imagination and that the ceiling fan reminded him of the helicopter blades we heard in the first moments of the film.  The exploding jungle is the image he associates with helicopters and the song represents the feelings these memories evoke.  The sense that the jungle images are the protagonist’s inner-thoughts is reinforced as the scene proceeds and we see his face superimposed over the jungle he is imagining.

Coppola’s representation of his character’s consciousness accords with several aspects of William James’ description in “The Stream of Consciousness.”  Consciousness is personal, since the memories evoked by the ceiling fan are the product of the character’s particular history.  It is also continuous, indicated by the superimposition of images–we don’t have a shot of the character thinking, followed by a break and then the images he is imagining, but rather we see the object that sparked his memory–the fan–simultaneously with the memories it evoked–the exploding jungle.  And the strong emotional content of the scene–represented through the music, the slow-panning of the camera and the actor’s unmoving face–invokes James’ contention that consciousness is always imbued with the emotions.  Finally, Coppola does a good job of representing the way we are conscious of several things on different levels at once–so here it is the ceiling fan, the character’s memories, and the mess in the hotel room around him.

This scene was the first thing that came to mind when I tried to think of a representation of consciousness.  What did you come up with?