My Best "Average" Work

  Reading back over all of the blog posts that I've done over the last sixteen weeks I beleive that there are three which stand out as being superior to the rest.  The first is the "Aesthetic of Imperfection" that I did in week 7.  This blog post is about the glorification of the imperfections in art, music and literature and their being the ideal rather than something to avoid as in the past.  I go on to make a connection between the growth in popularity to the "Aesthetic of Imperfection" and the rebellion, as a nation, against the idea of Nazi perfection.  The second blog post I picked is "I am a Trickster" posted in week 8.  In this blog post I refer to myself as a Trickster by looking at my past and analyzing where I fit that description.  I also go into explaining some of the methods and reasons of a Trickster.  I even mention some famous Tricksters as well and go over what makes them such.  My third pick is "Trickster's are Not Uncontrolled" posted in week 9.  On this blog I analyze the movie "Bamboozled" and try to determine the Trickster figure in it.  I picked Pierre as one of the Trickster figures and went over why he fit that position.
  I decided to select these three blog posts for several reasons.  The first is that these three are among my most detail-oriented of my blog posts.  The reason that these particular blog posts are my most detail-oriented is because two of them, "I am a Trickster" and "Trickster's are Not Uncontrolled", are about the thing I know the most about, myself.  These blog posts also, in my opinion, have the most valid main points from a comparison to the rest of my posts.  In other words they made the most amount of sense and I wasn't just trying to put 300 words together.
  I have never paid much attention to American Pop Culture throughout my life.  I basically ignore what song is popular (I only like Classic Rock), what fashion is in (I have my own fashion), and who is the the representative of any particular generation.  That has not changed very much, I do not think hip needs American Pop Culture but I now have a little more awareness of said hip in a very specific sense.  I've accepted the Trickster into my individuality but still don't accept American Pop Culture as being very valid.
  If I had to do an evaluation on my performance in class then I would say that I did about average.  I did not try to do more than was required within the context of this class.  As a writer and thinker my strengths lie in my ability to tell a story and make expanded opinions and ideas from very little information.  I can make a page of notes into several pages of writing.  As a writer and thinker my weaknesses are with ending any peice of writing.  I've always had difficulties writing endings.
  As I said in the last paragraph I have only done what was expected of me this entire semester.  In recognition of this fact I would have given myself around a B.  Throughout my past semester I have procrastinated and done things last minute, I havesn't given anything my "all" as of yet as none of the assignments have required me to work extraordinarily hard.
  Once again, I believe these three blog posts are the best out of the semesters work.  "Tricksters are Not Uncontrolled", "I am a Trickster" and "Aesthetic of Imperfection" are the best "average work I have done this semester.

Evolution of Myself as a Trickster

  First when the school semester started I didn't even consider hip as being anything more than an element of the heirarchy and as such something that wasn't worth my time.  As the semester went on my resentment continued but changed format with my hatred going towards the hip idea as being the personification of cool.  By my first essay though my hatred had died down to a flickering flame of dislike and my first essay started to address the rebellion against the orthodoxy and opposition to the norm within fashion and social interactions.  By the second essay my hatred was completely gone within the context of hip being used within the social structure of any civilizations.  I expressed my new beleif in my own hipness within the form of the Trickster, what I call the epitome of hip.  Now, while I still do not believe it to be a valid topic for an english class, I do not hold any resentment to the complete rejection of the orthodoxy in purist hipness.

Annotated Bib #2

  Once again, as in my last essay, I will be emphasizing the Trickster figure.  The individual I will be representing this time is Bill Gates, the owner of Microsoft.  I will be using three points to determine Bill Gates' effect on hip in the future.  First, I will be be examining his past to determine and express what makes him a Trickster, and therefore hip.  I will use the same basic points as outlined in my second essay with some modifications that I have since thought of.  Then, I will look through his express philosophy to show whether or not he is truly hip as I have outlined.  And last, I will express what I think he will contribute to hip in the future and how he will affect it.

Biography.com
"Bill Gates"

  My first source is a biography of Bill Gates on biography.com.  In examining his past I will be able to make an educated guess about his future contributions to the hip ideal.  The source is mostly useful to my first point but it also has some relevance for my second point.  It rates as one of my highest ranked sources and is extremely useful in constructing my idea of hip's future course.

The Feminine Hip?

"That whole obsession with hip is like collecting records or whatever.  It's more of a male thing." (Gordon, 239)  John Leland asserts that women have a small role in the evolution of hip in his book, "Hip: The History".  He tells us that Hip is a sexist, misogynistic and male-dominated playground but also asserts that the Hip ethos is decidedly feminine.  Put simply, the realm of Hip, in Leland's mind, is within the population of feminine males.  "The chronicles of hip, as told by men, often play like T.E. Lawrence's adventures in Arabia, in which the only female characters were the camels, or like Miles Davis's autobiography, which could be a how-to manual for aspiring misogynists." (Leland, 240)  He further states that females either are the angels of stories or the demons or don't exist at all within Hip's literature.
After some thought I've concluded that he is not completely wrong in his assertion of a sexist Hip but that he is too generalized in that same assumtion.  Throughout the book he assumes that race is the sole factor in hip and "Once Upon a Time" that may have been true but I believe in the past 30 years or so females have taken on a greater role within the evolution of Hip's persona.
That said, it is a fact that the hip ideal is the ideal of the rebel and women have, in the past, been unable to rebel in almost any way.  Gregory Corso said, when asked about the male clubhouse, "There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock." (Leland, 242)  This treatment in the past obviously would have made the emergence of hip women difficult but that is definetly no longer the case and hasn't been for several years.
In short, I'd conclude that in the past hip has been extremely sexist.  However it has gotten better in recent years and will continue to do so at a faster rate than the main stream.

Irony at it's Best

I consider myself to be pretty prideful.  Usually I think of myself as being outside of the system and somehow better than it.  At the beginning of this semester I thought exactly that when our teacher asked us if we were hip or not.  I couldn't fathom that I'd be judged by someone else's measuring system.  It is therefore extremely ironic and humorous to me that I now consider myself to be a Trickster which is like the "God of Hip".  This opinion, while not neccessarily untrue because I actually fit almost all of the requirements, was formed due to my pride.  My subconscious thought was that if I can't be outside of the system I must be at the top of it.

"All This and Rabbit Stew"

I watched all of the cartoons posted in Week 10's folder and was stuck between the banned Betty Boop cartoon, "Making Stars", and the Bugs Bunny cartoon, "All This and Rabbit Stew".  I have decided to use the Bugs Bunny cartoon because it is more relevant and I enjoyed it more than the Betty Boop episode.  This cartoon had strong manifestations of the white idea of black racial identity.
The black hunter in this cartoon is portrayed as lazy in the beginning of the episode.  He is dragging his feet and his speech is slightly slurred as if to portray his inability to speak clearly.  Later the cartoon's theme changes to represent the stereotype of black ignorance when Bugs Bunny first misdirects him purposefully by literally pointing him in the wrong direction.  The poor trickee, the hunter, is then shown as a "sucker" to further cement his portrayed ignorance.  Later Bugs Bunny tricks him while running away by taking the same route over and over again, through a hollow log, then rotating the log so that the end point off a cliff.  Bugs Bunny does this several times until the point that the hunter actually does fall.  The episode ends with Bugs Bunny tricking him into a dice game and taking all of his possessions.
I beleive that there is some love in these cartoons due to the fact that they poke fun at all groups of individuals.  I would definetely agree with Check Jones assertion that, "You must love what you caricature."  The assertion of the racial descriptions in cartoons as being crude stereotypes of racist origins, while true to some extent, no longer holds as much validity as it did in the past.  The characters were just designed to be amusing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P5jyyxCgIo

Trickster's are NOT Uncontrolled!

When we were first asked to analyze the Spike Lee movie Bamboozled and determine who the trickster in the movie is I thought that the manager was it.  After I thought about it for a little bit I came to the conclusion that both the manager and Pierre, the main character, are tricksters.
Pierre is a trickster in the beginning because his intent with the creation of the show was to make something so racist and bad that he'd be fired which was the only way to escape his contract.  He even attempted to guide his boss into hating it and firing him.  As the movie progressed and he started to become proud of his acheivement he started using information and words to control Mantan, actually named Manray, into continuing to work on the show by giving him information with his own spin on it.  He starts out in a positive light as someone trying to escape and turns down a darker path by using his skills to control others.  On Pierre's part the trickster is sort of like a poison which starts out as benign and harmless but turns the infected person into a corrupted shell as it spreads.
The manager, represented as Pierres boss, is a trickster the entire movie.  He uses words to manipulate Pierre's opinions and actions until he eventually completely corrupts and controls Pierre's personality.  It doesn't seem that he wanted Pierre to fall to the metaphysical dark side but more like it was a sort of accident or unintended consequence.  The manager was portrayed as "out of control" he didn't seem able to control his manipulative personality and it was more impulsive than thought out.  He seemed caught up in the moment for lack of a better phrase.
Spike Lee was representing the trickster as a compulsive and uncontrolled individual even as they control the people around them.  I strongly disagree with that assumption and take great insult with it as I am in almost complete control myself.  It was a strong hit to my pride in other words.  If I identify with anyone in that movie however it would be the manager but it would be a very loose connection with very little grounding.