Streetlight Manifesto - Somewhere in the Between free essay sample

This album has been a long time coming. Streetlight Manifesto is known for its  ­perfectionism, which explains why this 10-track disk took four years to make. While a bit on the short side, it’s one of the best albums ever made, certainly the best that ska fans have heard in years. Ska bands are known to be generic; 90 percent of them sound almost identical, with offbeat  ­guitar parts (similar to those of  ­reggae), fast tempos, and horn sections with short interjections. Streetlight Manifesto transcends this mold with a rare combination of ska/punk and Eastern European genres like nothing listeners have heard  ­before. The only features that tie this band to the ska scene are its fan base and horn section. Featuring Matt Stewart on trumpet, Mike Soprano on trombone, and Jim Conti on  ­alto and tenor saxophone, the group is one of the best ever  ­assembled in a non-jazz environment. We will write a custom essay sample on Streetlight Manifesto Somewhere in the Between or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page And these guys can play; the horns are the driving force. Much of the credit also belongs to Tomas Kalnoky, the madman at the controls of this musical freight train. He writes the lyrics and composes the majority of the instrumentation on an acoustic guitar at odd hours of the night. As Kalnoky has said in album liner notes and interviews, he writes a chord progression on the guitar and hums a melody, which he then gives to the horn section to flesh out. While this may seem like a strange way to write  ­music, it certainly is effective. There is never a dull moment on this album. I have noticed that the average musician struggles with the art of transition. When changing tempo, key, or dynamic (or all three at once), most musicians tend to run astray. This is not the case with Streetlight Manifesto. Their tightness can be attributed to the band’s four years of touring. On â€Å"Somewhere in the Between,† every transition is executed perfectly. In fact, most listeners barely notice the changes. Even more impressive, their transitions are just as perfect live, a feat that few bands can boast. While every track is strong, the highlights are â€Å"Would You Be Impressed?† and â€Å"What a Wicked Gang Are We.† The hypnotic breakdown in the  ­former keeps the listener  ­entranced as the tension builds from barely audible guitar riffs and quiet vocals to wailing horn lines and screaming  ­vocals that declare, â€Å"I looked around, I stood alone, I knew what I had to say, I said it’s all my fault!† In the other song, the contemplative lyrics inspired by Shakespeare and soulful melodies of the horn section draw the album to a beautiful conclusion, leaving listeners wanting more. This is one of the most  ­talented groups out there. It is nearly impossible to find a weakness in this album. It is the modern equivalent of Pink Floyd’s â€Å"Dark Side of the Moon,† a masterpiece filled with subtle intricacies that  ­become more apparent with each listen. The best word to describe this music is â€Å"intense.† It is by no means easy listening, and it may seem loud and annoying at first, but I promise, once you get into Streetlight Manifesto, you will never get out.

DBQ #1 essays

DBQ #1 essays Although New England and the Chesapeake region were both settled largely by people of English origin, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two distinct societies. In 1607 when the New England and the Chesapeake region colonies planted was intended originally for the same purpose, becoming independent of Spain. So exactly why did this difference in development occur? The three major factors were location, attitudes, and beliefs. With a difference in location, attitudes and beliefs where one is from seems to be of little or no importance! Which factor played the biggest part is almost impossible to decide. The locations of the two colonies are in and of itself were completely opposite. The New England Colony's growing season was shorter than that of the Chesapeake regions was. The New England Colony's land was poor and you could not collect furs or even fish very easily, making life difficult. The local Indians taught the settlers how to grow maize. The Chesapeake region settlers did not know how to make the best of the areas wildlife and fish. In addition, one could not depend on supplies from England. The attitude made a big difference also. The New England colony had a positive attitude for the most part. The Chesapeake region had several problems with people's attitude. When the settlers started to plant and farm the well to do adventurers did not like the idea of manual labor. They came here for different reasons (money) not to make a farm settlement. Beliefs were incredibly different. The New England Colonies John Winthrop wrote the famous sermon A model of Christian Charity aboard the Arbella on the Atlantic Ocean. It deals with primarily with equality. It also recognized the fact that there were different conditions of humankind, That God in his holy and wise ways had decided. Someone else's problems were your problems and vise versa. It also acknowledged the importance of working together i ...

Romanticism in Art History From 1800-1880

Romanticism in Art History From 1800-1880 Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth, but in a way of feeling. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) Right there, courtesy of Baudelaire, you have the first and largest problem with Romanticism: it is nearly impossible to concisely define what it was. When we talk about Romanticism the Movement, we arent using the root word romance in the sense of hearts and flowers or infatuation. Instead, we use romance in the sense of glorification. Romantic visual and literary artists glorified things ... which takes us to thorny problem number two: the things they glorified were hardly ever physical. They glorified huge, complex concepts such as liberty, survival, ideals, hope, awe, heroism, despair, and the various sensations that nature evokes in humans. All of these are felt- and felt on an individual, highly subjective level. Aside from promoting intangible ideas, Romanticism may also be loosely defined by what it stood against. The movement championed spiritualism over science, instinct over deliberation, nature over industry, democracy over subjugation, and the rusticity over the aristocracy. Again, these are all concepts open to extremely personalized interpretation. How Long Was the Movement? Keep in mind that Romanticism affected literature and music, as well as visual art. The German Sturm und Drang movement (the late 1760s to early 1780s) was predominantly revenge-driven literary and minor-key musically but led to a handful of visual artists painting terrifying scenes. Romantic art truly got underway at the turn of the century and had its greatest number of practitioners for the next 40 years. If you are taking notes, that is an 1800 to 1840 heyday. As with any other movement, though, there were artists who were young when Romanticism was old. Some of them stuck with the movement until their respective ends, while others retained aspects of Romanticism as they moved in new directions. It is not really too much of a stretch to say 1800-1880 and cover all of the hold-outs like Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873). After that point Romantic painting was definitely stone cold dead, even though the movement brought about lasting changes going forward. Emotional Emphasis The paintings of the Romantic period were emotional powder kegs. Artists expressed as much feeling and passion as could be loaded on to a canvas. A landscape had to evoke a mood, a crowd scene had to show expressions on every face, an animal painting had to depict some, preferably majestic, trait of that animal. Even portraits were not totally straightforward representations the sitter would be given eyes meant to be mirrors of the soul, a smile, a grimace, or a certain tilt of the head. With little touches, the artist could portray his subject surrounded by an atmosphere of innocence, madness, virtue, loneliness, altruism or greed. Current Events In addition to the emotionally-charged feelings one got from looking at Romantic paintings, contemporary viewers were usually quite knowledgeable of the story behind the subject matter. Why? Because the artists frequently took their inspiration from current events. For example, when Thà ©odore Gà ©ricault unveiled his gigantic masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19), the French public was already well acquainted with the gory details following the 1816 shipwreck of the naval frigate Mà ©duse. Similarly, Eugà ¨ne Delacroix painted Liberty Leading the People (1830) fully aware that every adult in France was already familiar with the July Revolution of 1830. Of course, not every Romantic work related to current events. For those that did, however, the benefits were a receptive, informed viewership, and increased name recognition for their creators. Lack of Unifying Style, Technique, or Subject Matter Romanticism wasnt like Rococo art, in which fashionable, attractive people engaged in fashionable, attractive pastimes while courtly love lurked around every corner and all of these goings-on were captured in a light-hearted, whimsical style. Instead, Romanticism included William Blakes disquieting apparition The Ghost of a Flea (1819-20), sitting in close chronological proximity to John Constables comfortably rural landscape The Hay Wain (1821). Pick a mood, any mood, and there was some Romantic artist that conveyed it on canvas. Romanticism wasnt like Impressionism, where everyone concentrated on painting the effects of light using loose brushwork. Romantic art ranged from the smooth-as-glass, highly-detailed, monumental canvas Death of Sardanapalus (1827) by Eugà ¨ne Delacroix, to J. M. W. Turners indistinct watercolor washes in The Lake of Zug (1843), and everything in between. The technique was all over the map; execution was completely up to the artist. Romanticism wasnt like Dada, whose artists were making specific statements about WWI and/or the pretentious absurdities of the Art World. Romantic artists were apt to make statements about anything (or nothing), dependent on how an individual artist felt about any given topic on any given day. Francisco de Goyas work explored madness and oppression, while Caspar David Friedrich found endless inspiration in moonlight and fog. The will of the Romantic artist had the final say on the subject matter. Influences of Romanticism The most direct influence of Romanticism was Neoclassicism, but there is a twist to this. Romanticism was a type of reaction to Neoclassicism, in that Romantic artists found the rational, mathematical, reasoned elements of classical art (i.e.: the art of Ancient Greece and Rome, by way of the Renaissance) too confining. Not that they didnt borrow heavily from it when it came to things like perspective, proportions, and symmetry. No, the Romantics kept those parts. It was just that they ventured beyond the prevailing Neoclassic sense of calm rationalism to inject a heaping helping of drama. Movements Romanticism Influenced The best example is the American Hudson River School, which got underway in the 1850s. Founder Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Frederic Edwin Church, et. al., were directly influenced by European Romantic landscapes. Luminism, an offshoot of the Hudson River School, also focused on Romantic landscapes. The Dà ¼sseldorf School, which concentrated on imaginative and allegorical landscapes, was a direct descendant of German Romanticism. Certain Romantic artists made innovations that later movements incorporated as crucial elements. John Constable (1776-1837) had a tendency to use tiny brushstrokes of pure pigments to emphasize dappled light in his landscapes. He discovered that, when viewed from a distance, his dots of color merged. This development was taken up with great enthusiasm by the Barbizon School, the Impressionists, and the Pointillists. Constable and, to a much greater degree, J. M. W. Turner often produced studies and finished works that were abstract art in everything but name. They heavily influenced the first practitioners of modern art beginning with Impressionism which in turn influenced nearly every modernist movement that followed it. Visual Artists Associated With Romanticism Antoine-Louis BaryeWilliam BlakeThà ©odore Chassà ©riauJohn ConstableJohn Sell CotmanJohn Robert CozensEugà ¨ne DelacroixPaul DelarocheAsher Brown DurandCaspar David FriedrichThà ©odore Gà ©ricaultAnne-Louis GirodetThomas GirtinFrancisco de GoyaWilliam Morris HuntEdwin LandseerThomas LawrenceSamuel PalmerPierre-Paul PrudhonFranà §ois RudeJohn RuskinJ. M. W. TurnerHorace VernetFranz Xaver Winterhalter Sources Brown, David Blaney. Romanticism.New York: Phaidon, 2001.Engell, James. The Creative Imagination: Enlightenment to Romanticism.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.Honour, Hugh. Romanticism.New York: Fleming Honour Ltd, 1979.Ives, Colta, with Elizabeth E. Barker. Romanticism the School of Nature (exh. cat.).New Haven and New York: Yale University Press and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.

Introduction to Economics Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Introduction to Economics Assignment - Essay Example Free Market Economy is also characterized by the rights of individuals to buy and hold private property (Lipsey & Chrystal 2003). This characteristic is an incentive for both buyers and producers. It allows both buyers and producers to make bold and brave decisions. Since producer knows that he can own land, capital and other factors of production, he invests money into the system. Buyers also know that they can acquire goods, property or other thing of value now and can either consume it or store it for future consumptions. This moves the wheels of the economy and leads to equilibrium quantity demand and quantity supplied in the market. It also leads to price adjustments in the economy at a point where the motives of the buyers meets the motives of the sellers or producers. This is also called market creation or market searching. Market searching is the process when the market is trying to adopt or settle at the equilibrium price. Eventually market settles down at equilibrium becaus e in over priced market supply is greater than demand which eventually leads to price going down. If the market is under priced demand is going to be higher than supply and this will result in price hike and eventually equilibrium will be reached. Free Market Economies encourage the process of market searching through market forces working without any intervention from government or other control factors. (Brue & McConnell 2006) Adam Smith also pointed out an interesting phenomenon in the system. He laid the foundations for the concept of â€Å"Invisible Hand† in the free market economy. He was referring to the fact that everything changes in response to the movement in prices. In essence, he was telling the world that in order to achieve their own motives, buyers and producers end up doing good for the system. This interesting fact can be explained in the following example. When a person earns income in this system, he spends it on his necessities, needs and wants. The money spent in the economy changes hand and transfers from the hand of the person spending the money to the producers of goods and services wanted by that person. This encourages producers of these goods and services to employ more resources and produce more goods and services. This leads to employment generation in the economy and when people are employed they tend to invest and save more. This leads to further employment generation and the cycle continues. The focus in this example is on the trickledown effect in the Free Market Economy. Many countries where the socialism dominated previously have realized the importance of Free Market Economic System and are opening up themselves for more private investment and encouraging the development of private entrepreneurs that will provide the impetus for high economic growth rates. The debate here is not about how good or bad the free market system, but it is more about why aren’t countries adopting the model of free market economy in its perfect sense. Even USA is not a totally Free Market Economy. Government controls and regulates the economy in the United States of America as well. The reason for this is simple. Extremism in any system is bad. If a system is totally dominated by private sector without any government regulation of the economy, then there are chances that private businesses might exploit the resources, consumers and the environment. This would lead

Grant proposal for skagit conty to prepare Flood awareness brochure in Essay

Grant proposal for skagit conty to prepare Flood awareness brochure in Spanish - Essay Example The project plan helps in sensitizing the people on the response to an emergency and the steps necessary to ensure that they are safe. The plan is expected to capture the audience that mostly do not understand English and feel let put on the local authority disaster management plan due to language barrier. The projects objectives include the Hispanic and Latino community living in Skagit County, Washington for flood disaster that looms in their neighborhood. To achieve the goal, there is a need for the community to understand the sub objectives that supplement the main goal. Identify the warning systems. The warning systems are the media of communication that is accessible to many people. The systems include the radio stations weather channels and warnings from people in the authority. Identify members of the Hispanic and Latino community and create a community directory. Discuss the evacuation procedures in place with the community in regard of what to carry like medicines and clean water. The procedures should be encouraged to be on family levels where the head of the family is to ensure that if an alert is given all the family members are together and leave as a family (Veenema, 2003). The community level involves familiarizing the Hispanic and Latino community on the roles of the police during an evacuation. To discuss the precautions to take during and after a flood in order to avert waterborne diseases. The community will be advised on how the best practices to avert water bone diseases that are common during and after floods in the area. Community resilience is essential and critical in any community. It ensures that when disaster strikes the community recovery and restoration be fast tracked in terms of essential services (OLeary 2004). Community resilience involves identifying and evacuation route in Skagit County. This is done in collaboration with the residents and the authority that best know the area. The process of community

Modern Art of Glass Bottles Essays -- Artwork

Did you hear about the two little boys who found themselves in a modern art gallery by mistake? "Quick," said one, "Run! Before they say we did it!" Although this may be a hilarious slap your knee joke, I believe this depicts how society feels about modern art. As a popular saying goes â€Å"’Modern art’ is produced by incompetents, sold by charlatans, and bought by ignoramuses!† Why such the skepticism towards current art? Why do art historians and renowned scholars set new art aside in favor of a Monet or Rembrandt? Is the importance of modern art so infinitesimal that it is reduced to child’s play? Or, better yet, is contemporary art worthy enough to be art? Meandering through the Lowe Art Museum, I constantly find myself attracted to the Modern Art section of the museum like a magnet to a refrigerator. More specifically, I am attracted to the piece entitled Shattered Illusions. Shattered Illusions consists of five glass bottles: glass bottles that looked as if they have been around for centuries and endured extensive use by multiple people. The bottles have a yellow tint symptomatic of aging and rigid holes that suggest previous use. Inside of each of these average-sized bottles are figures that represent humans. Each bottle has a different figure; for instance, two of the bottles contain what seem to be females and the other three males. Each figure is tangled helplessly in this relentless coil that protrudes from every direction imaginable like there is no end or hope in sight. The coil wraps around the figures’ extremities, midsection, and neck wanting to choke the life right out of them. In each bottle the figures are struggling with the desire to escape, but not everyone is set free. The center bottle has... ...and mysterious but as Gladwell states â€Å"It is one thing to acknowledge the enormous power of snap judgments and thin slices but quite another to place our trust in something so seemingly mysterious† (51). Art has no set characterization so therefore no one could declare whether or not something is art. Art is left up to perception of the viewer and not the opinion of the critic; in quintessence art is indefinable—that is the beauty! Works Cited Esaak, Shelley. â€Å"What Is Art?† Art History. About .com. 29 Sept. 2006 Read, Herbert. Art Now. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1968. Requadt, Water E. â€Å"Modern Sculpture: Art or Incompetence?† What Is Art? 2006. 29 Sept. 2006 Richardson, Tony and Nikos Stangos. Concepts of Art. New York: Penguin Books, 1974.

Human Resource Is the Most Important Assest in an Organization Essay

Human resources are the set of individuals who makes up the workforce of an organization, business sector or an economy. This resource resides in the skill, knowledge and motivation of people and under the right condition it improves in age and experience which no other resources can do. It is therefore considered the most productive resources that can create the longest advantages for an organization. For an organization to sustain and grow they do not only rely on advanced technology, good marketing strategy and other factors etc. In fact, they have to rely on their employee performance, contribution and image. As in most organization, they are mainly human orientated. Thus, without their support and contribution to the business operation, the organization daily business operation will not be functioning well. Christina. P (2009) mentioned that organizational psychology holds that successful organizations do not owe their success solely to market realities and sustainable competitive advantages. Actually, there is a lot more. Successful companies are those that consider their human capital as their most important asset. Facts and figures are the quantitative elements of successful management, yet the qualitative, i.e. the cognitive aspects, are those that actually make or break an organization Here are a few factors that explain how human resource can contribute to an organization to help them meet their future goals and expectations. Firstly, having strategic human resource planning. It is a process that identifies current and future human resources needs for an organization to achieve its goals. Reilly (2003) define human resource planning as: ‘A process in which an organization attempts to estimate the demand for labour and evaluate the size, nature and sources of supply which will be required to meet the demand.’ Without human resource planning, an organization may not be ready and well prepared for the future challenges ahead. Secondly, by having a positive working environment. In order to allow employees to contribute to the organization it is important to create a positive environment for the employees so as to ensure the smooth running of business of an organization. For instance, encouraging employee to go for lunch break on time, taking short breaks in between during working hours if there is too much stress, minimal overtime work. Such work practice will actually motivates employees to contributes more to the organization as they are not overwork or over stress. As mentioned by David.I (2009), â€Å"work environment, employee satisfaction and employee turnover are three distinct concepts that are inseparably linked; workplace environments greatly influence employee satisfaction, which in turn directly affects employee turnover rates. Knowing how to use a positive work environment to increase employee satisfaction and reduce turnover is a key to developing a high-performance workforce.† Thirdly, continuous learning within an organization. It is important for an organization to promote and send their employees of different level to attend workshops and courses. This is to allow employees to have an opportunity to learn new skills and to continue to upgrade themselves regardless of their age. Without the right knowledge or skill in a certain organization, employees may not be able to contribute to the organization more effectively. As mentioned by Robert J.V (2006), â€Å"a learning organization embraces a culture of lifelong learning, enabling all employees to continually acquire and share knowledge. Improvements in product or service quality do not stop when proper training is provided to the employees. Employees need to have the financial, time and content resources available to increase their knowledge.â€Å" Lastly, by having attractive benefits and compensation. Pay and benefits are the most important incentives that organization can offer to employees in exchange for a more productivity and quality contribution to the organization. Employees should also be rewarded when they have accomplished a big assignment for their hard work and efforts to the organization as this attractive benefits and compensation will also help booze the employee morale. At the same time, they will feel appreciated by the organization where they may contribute more to the organization in future. If employees are not satisfied with the level of compensation or benefit, they may not be motivated to work and the level of standard for quality and productivity will definitely be low. As mentioned by Rebecca. L (2012),† when your workers feel you’re looking out for them, they’ll look out for you, too, by producing higher quality work and staying in their jobs longer. Providing good benefits packages—which might include retirement, health care or dental plans—is a tangible way to show employees that you value them and their quality of life. Sure, the rising cost of benefits has made offering an attractive package more difficult for small businesses, but there are still ways to offer competitive packages to recruit and retain the best workers while staying within your budget.† In conclusion, â€Å"Human Resource† is the most important asset of an organization as it plays an important role in every aspect .It is the backbone of an organization, without human resource the organization will not be able to function well and may not succeed in the future challenges.