Designer toys

Toys, the word brings up so much memories of my childhood. I remember crying to my parents in Walmart when I pass a toy I want. My parents would always complain saying that I had too much toys, but I wanted more. The more cool gadgets, accessories, and actions it did, the more I wanted. However, as I started to get older my love of toys died down. At the age of 16 I started collecting spawn “collectible figures.” They looked so cool, but they were quite expensive and not having a job made it hard to buy . Eventually, in 12^th grade I donated all my toys to goodwill. I had no use for them. However, one day I was shocked. During my art class my teacher handed me a magazine with a bunch of toys on it. But these toys were different, they were meant to be artwork. It was like the canvas was the toy. They were called “Designer Toys” There was an array of art styles: graffiti, surrealism, even abstract. I eventually wanted to partake in this art movement, but when I looked at how the figures cost it blew my mind, $600 dollars for a 10 inch figurine.  Anyways, here’s a link to the site if you want to see some http://www.myplasticheart.com/

Influences

There are many street artists that influenced my art work. However, there is one person that has influenced me by his technique and his name is Futura2000. I remember drawing pictures in my sketchbook and trying to emulate his style off my lap top. I was introduced to him by the PS2 video game getting up. He was one of the first artists you meet.  Futura 2000 was one of the pioneers of street art as he was doing it in the 70’s. He used to do graffiti pieces back in the day by spray painting on anything he can see. Presently, he stopped vandalizing subways, walls and does very surreal and abstract pieces on canvases or sculptures. He owns a clothing company Futura Laboratories, which is located in Japan. This clothing caters towards the street fashion style with graffiti designs on the clothing. He also designed a Hennessy bottle in 2012.  His style is very unique, his earlier stuff was straight up graffiti style; bubble letters and the distinct color way. Presently, all you see is abstract pieces, robots/aliens with squiggles around them, weird looking isotopes. Me personally, his earlier stuff was better. Click here to see him in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp7EgQwsfEI

My Relationship with Street Art

In high school I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my spare time. I tried working out every lunch time in the school gym. However, I started to get very bored of it; just the same thing every day. Then I tried playing guitar, which was really fun. But then, I had this strange feeling that I should explore my creativity. I was well acquainted with drawing cartoons, but I felt that I needed to further my drawing and find a style that I can relate with. One day my brother brought home a PS2 video-game called Getting-Up. It was about a graffiti artist trying to get known around the New York area. I watch my brother play and realized that some of the art work that was drawn looked similar to mine. Eventually, I started playing it and tried to copy each of the graffiti drawing styles in my art book. I drew quite a bit of characters. I got confident enough and started showing my drawings to my friends and asking them to critique it. I gained mainly positive reviews from my drawings. Here are some of my drawings from my art book when I was in high school.

PS

These look very bad now that I look at it. 

Writing This Felt Pretty Weird

I normally write every day. I write my class notes, an outline for an essay, or brain storming ideas. However, I never wrote a whole essay. I mean, it feels so strange. I often would write my essays out on word. Writing on a piece of paper is quite puzzling as well. I do agree with Helen Keller that writing is like putting a Chinese puzzle together. We have the pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit in the spaces…But we keep on trying because we know others have succeeded.

                

As I am looking at the previous paragraph I notice that my penmanship is really bad. I have professors complain about my writing. I try to improve it but it doesn't feel right. I think my experience with writing is somewhat different with Hele

n Keller’s. She had problems expressing herself in math because her typewriter would not let her write some math symbols. I do have a hard time with math but I think writing math out (formulas, etc.) would not be as hard for me. 

Internet, The Protector of Identities

Growing up the internet was a gateway for information. I learned a lot about subjects, things or people I was interested in. As I got older I started joining internet forums. I was happy at the fact that my identity could be protected when I posted things; I don’t want people to know my name, where I live or my cell number. Nobody can figure out who the poster was.  But then I had seen one post on the George Zimmerman case. The poster talked about Trayvon Martin deserved to be dead and added a bunch of racial slurs. I was quite surprised at this comment and thought the administrators would do something about it. But the only action they did was deleting the comment. The poster probably didn't suffer any ramifications of being racists as well. 

According to Mike Beall, from the Daily Iowan, people on the internet who are racist hide because they are either so ashamed of their racism…afraid of societal repercussions, or just seeking attention.  This statement is quite true. People who are racist on the internet don’t want their identity to be associated with a racist remark. It can lead to them being physically and emotionally hurt and can lead to hate crime charges on them. Nevertheless, internet anonymity protects people who post racist comments on the internet.

I believe using the internet as shield is cowardly thing to do. People should suffer the consequences for what they say. With this protection, racist groups would increase on the internet and racism would be on the rise. Michelle Lhooq, from Vice Magazine, actually found a site that targets the black community through news stories and makes fun of them by making pictures or just saying racist remarks.  Reading this article I was surprised that no one was trying to stop this site. I believe the only thing the government can do is just monitor it, which doesn't solve the problem. The thing I don’t get is why the government can’t do anything about racism on the internet.

According to Mark Potok, a senior at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the reason why government or police can’t do anything of racist comments or sites is because of the freedom of speech. It’s quite hard to place a law around what posters post if it infringes of the freedom of their speech. I believe the only way people can get charged over the internet is if there identity is exposed, in most cases rarely happens and defeats the purpose of internet anonymity.

Internet anonymity is a privilege for people. It gives them the freedom to speak their mind on topics. Though, people can use this anonymity as a way to vent out their hatred towards other racial groups and use the internet as a shield. With the rise of internet use there will be more racism out there and stopping it is hard. Trying to control what people say on the internet is invades their freedom of speech. So in the end, until the government finds a hole in internet anonymity, we have to deal with it.

Sources:

http://www.vice.com/read/heres-whats-happening-on-the-internets-most-racist-forums

http://www.dailyiowan.com/2013/07/18/Opinions/33995.html

This Post Has No Swag

There are many things that really bother me:  people scratching chalkboards, a slow computer, or people who are arrogant. However, these things I can easily ignore. The one thing that really bothers me is people who dress up in the swag fashion style.

The thing I don’t get is the fashion sense of swag. First, you must spend 200 and above dollars on hi-top sneakers. The sneakers must be: Vans, Nike, Jordan and many more. The colour way of the sneaker must attract the public as well. Next, your pants have to be really tight; this can apply to male and female. I have nothing wrong with males or females wearing skinny jeans. However, I've seen males wearing skinny jeans and having a hard time walking. I ask them why they wear it and most of the answers are for swag. I would never purposely obstruct my walking for the sake of swag, it’s just rash. The tops are fine, but some are quite expensive. My friend had a t-shirt of a Rottweiler’s face. I questioned him on where he got the shirt and how much. He said online for 350 dollars. I was surprised; with that kind of money you can buy a whole month’s grocery for a family of three.

The final piece of the swag ensemble is the snap back. For people who do not know what the snap back is. It looks like a normal baseball hat, but there is a plastic strap on the back of it. What this strap does is help the wearer get the most comfortable fit. Nevertheless, these snap back hats don’t serve the main purpose of covering your head in the swag fashion world. I've seen males have at least have 6 snap back hats that have the same baseball team, but different colour way. I asked them, why 6 hats with the same team, can’t one suffice? They answer by saying the team logo represents something else.  Mainly represents the first initial of their name. Or extends on a group there associated with which has the same initial as the baseball team on the hat. As for the colour way, it matches with their outfit. These hats run for 40-150 dollars. Thus, 6 hats can range from 240-900 dollars. Again, this money can be used for more important things in life instead of showing off how matching you are.

Overall, The fashion sense of swag, I think, is a way to cry out for attention. A way to say to the world you spend half your pay cheque on overly priced clothing items. But in the end of the day shirt is just a shirt. Not a method to attract friends or live a happy life.

Grade Three Blues

When I was in grade three, during religion class, the teacher was telling the story of  a person who helped the unfortunate. Everybody in the classroom was captivated by the story, but not me. All I did during that story was draw cartoons. One thing she liked to do during her lectures was walk up and down the rows. She did it to see who was listening.  I was about done drawing the cartoon until  my name was called. I raised my head and in front of my desk was the teacher. She looked quite upset. She asked me if cartoons were more important than God. I didn't reply. I just kept staring at her. She eventually told the class that I was an example of a poor listener. I felt embarrassed and angry. She continued the story. After the story she announced that a play was happening next school mass. I hated these things. She asked who wanted to be part of the play. Many people were chosen to play as the sick and the poor. When she asked who wanted to play the main role, no one raised their hands. She waited for a response until she looked and pointed at me. "You can play the main role." I was shocked and angry. But I accepted the challenge. When school was done all the actors went up to the teacher and collected their scripts. She told us we had a week to remember our lines.

It was the day of the play. I had been rehearsing my lines every day so that I wouldn't make a mistake. Every scene flowed well until the last scene. I was handing out food to the poor. I was saying my lines perfectly until I stared at my teacher. She started mouthing off random words. The weird thing was I was trying to make sense of it. I Lost my focus. In the middle of my line I say the words "what?" into the mic. The whole school was laughing. My teacher handed me the script and we finished the play. As I analyze the event now, my teacher was sabotaging my performance.