Assignment 1-3: Journal Article Analysis

Important Places and Their Public Faces: 

Understanding Fenway Park as a Public Symbol

Written by: Michael Ian Borer

According to the article written by Michael Ian Borer, Fenway Park is short on comfort but long on character.  So, what makes this park so popular, a public symbol and one of those places you should visit in your lifetime?  The answer is history and the people of Boston.  Fenway was built in 1912 during the golden age of baseball parks.  Other parks built during this era were Philadelphia’s Shibe Park (1909), Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field (1909), Chicago’s Cominsky Park (1910) and Wrigley Field (1914).  Of these parks, only Wrigley Field and Fenway Park still standing.  The fact that such an old and uncomfortable park still exists with such fan devotion and fan-based historic preservationists says something about the strength of Fenway’s magnetism.

So how a place becomes a public symbol?  This happens when people give them meaning and value.  Fenway has become a public symbol because people, especially in Boston, elected the park to be so.  Fenway has shared its history with Bostonians for almost 100 years.  It is an old park which does not offer much for amenities such as a Hard Rock Café like the new Yankee stadium or a large seating capacity.  What Fenway has to offer are small seats, many with obstructed view and limited seating at about 39,000 capacity.  Why people keep coming back, seating in cramped quarters, buying expensive food and even more expensive tickets?  They feel a cultural connection with the place and you cannot put a price on nostalgia.  Generations of Red Sox faithful has passed down their season tickets through generations.  They will take to the streets on game day and stop traffic sending shock waves through the city announcing that is time to play ball.   

 

Fenway Park is a living artifact of an era when Americans were conscious of losing and eventually trying to preserve a piece of their past.  Before stadiums, there were ballparks that provided city folks with simple, beautiful and maintained green fields.  Fenway is painted all green especially the massive wall out on left field appropriately called the green monster.  This park remains one of the places that have historical, cultural and emotional value to a large number of people especially in Red Sox Nation.  

Reference: 

Borer, M. (2006)  Important Places and Their Public Faces: Understanding Fenway Park as a Public Symbol.  The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 39, Issue: 2, Date: April 2006, pp. 205-224.  Retrieved from Franklin University Library Database.

Assignment 5-1: The Governator cartoon

This might be old news but I found this article quite interesting.
Entertainment Weekly covered a story on Arnold Schwarzenegger. We all
had seeing him in movies such as Conan the Barbarian, Predator, three
Terminator movies and, my favorite, True Lies. I don't think anyone was
ready to see him as a politician but he became the governor of
California in 2003, was reelected for a second term in 2007 and left
office in January 2011. So, what is next for the
bodybuilder-turned-movie star-turned- governor-turned-civilian? A
cartoon of course appropriately called "The Governator" drawn to his
likeness. Arnold joined forces with superheroes creator Stan Lee to
bring the cartoon to life. The story has some of Arnold's real life
aspects such as having a beach house, his wife Maria, and even their
dog Foofi is a cartoon. The governator will have a control center right
underneath his beach house and a wide array of super suits, amazing
rides and weapons. But no superhero is complete without bad guys. Our
hero will be fighting Gangster, Imposters, Racketeers, Liars and
Irredeemable Ex-cons also known as G.I.R.L.I.E. Men. If the cartoon and
comic books become hits, Schwarzenegger and Lee's next step will be a
3-D animated governator and even a live version (who should play the
lead role?).  This project have all the characteristics to become part of pop culture.

Reference: 

Svetkey, B. (2011). Entertainment Weekly. The
Return of Arnold (pp.29- 35).

Assignment 4-1: ABC cancels long running soap operas

Soap operas had been part of popular culture since the beginning of time.  Some had run for over 40 years and are still popular.  Others are not so lucky.  ABC announced on April 14, 2011 that they were cancelling two long-running soaps: All My Children and One Life to Live.  Of these two, All My Children had received more attention due to Susan Lucci.  She had played Erica Kane since the soap’s debut in 1970.   Lucci was nominated 18 times for the Daytime Emmy award loosing 17 times.  She finally won in 1999.  That was enough drama in itself to write a novel.   Though soap operas might have being popular with mom and grandma, recent year ratings had shown a shift in audience tastes.  ABC is trying to revamp their programming which will be aimed to younger viewers.  They claimed the internet and cable TV networks had pulled the usual audiences away from watching soap operas.   

I grew up watching Spanish soap operas in Puerto Rico but they never lasted more than three years.  Though I enjoyed the Puerto Rican soaps, my favorites were from Mexico especially the ones with actress Libertad Lamarque.  There was a lot of drama which kept me at the edge of my seat.   Sadly, they do not write soap operas like they used to.

Reference:
http://abc.go.com/site/abcdaytimenews

Assignment 3-1 Weekly Analysis: Garageband app for iPad

The Apple Company had always amazed me with their products.  Their iPad and iPad 2 are no exceptions.  Even with market competitions such as Motorola’s Xoom, Sprint’s Samsung Galaxy Tab and HP’s Touch Pad, the company continues to reinvent itself.  GarageBand is a new app for iPad and iPad 2 that have a full recording studio, with multiple built-in instruments such as drums and smart guitars.  Whether you are an established musician or just love to create new sounds, this app provides all the tools you need to record music anywhere you go.  No experience required just the thrill of making your own music. You can play musical instruments that sound and play just like the real thing.  The app also includes an eight-track recording studio.  It is fun to be able to email your songs or music from your iPad or add them to your iTunes collection.  This app is aim at non-musicians so enjoy playing a full range instruments even if you have never played a note in your life. 

References:

Garageband (2011) Wanted: Rock’n’Roll heroes.  Retrieved April 11, 2011 from  http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/garageband.html

The Must List. (2011). Entertainment Weekly, (1147), 15-16. Retrieved April 11, 2011 from EBSCOhost.franklin.edu

Assignment 2-1 Weekly Analysis: Katy Perry's E.T. Video

When it comes to music, I am old school.  Give me 80’s and 90’s music and I am happy.  I really don’t care for new stuff until my daughters introduced me to Katy Perry’s “Extraterrestrial” song.  I have seeing her on TV and magazines which had made her a pop culture phenomenon but had never listened to any of her songs.  I have to say, I like her voice and when I saw the video, I was sold.  It is a colorful, five minute, Sci-Fi video that shows an alien (Katy Perry) swirling and floating out in space as if searching for something or someone.  She arrives to an apocalyptic looking Earth.  Among the devastation, she finds a human looking robot containing what appears to be a human inside.  She “resurrects” him and they both walk off into the sunset.  The video features Kanye West.  I am a visual person and I just loved this video packed with special effects.  She looks amazing with the make-up and costumes.  This is the only work I have seeing of her.  I am looking forward to her next project. 

Watch the video on Youtube.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Sd5c4o9UM

On this assignment I will be talking about three contemporary icons.  These there icons had left their mark in popular culture.  Salvador Dali was a very eccentric an often misunderstood artist with a unique personal and artistic style that set him apart from an early age.  I have a bunch of artists in my family each with unique styles.  That is why I chose this artist.  Princess Diana was a beautiful person gone too soon.  We will always wonder what changes she could had made in the world.  She most certainly influenced a lot of people.  I often do charity work but definitely not at her incredible level but she is still an inspiration.  Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, especially the movies, are such a part of our pop culture mostly because of his colorful characters especially Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow.  He is such a charmer.  Can't wait for the new Pirates' release this year.

Salvador Dalí

Artist, born on May 11, 1904, in Spain.  At an early age, Dalí was showing signs of a child genious producing highly sophisticated drawings.   In 1919, at the age of 15, Dalí had his first public exhibition.  While in art school, Dalí began exploring many forms of art including works by classical painters but was expelled due to his short temper and incredible ability to get into trouble.  Between 1926 and 1929, Dalí visited Paris, and met with influential painters and intellectuals including Pablo Picasso.  Around the same period, Dalí started to create collages of his dreams with strange, distorted characters.  In 1931 he created one of his most famous paintings called The Persistence of Memory also called the Soft Watches which shows pocket watches melting in a landscape setting.  In 1945, Dalí's art appeared in a dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Spellbound.  He became more notorious for his colorful personality than for his artwork often sporting a long mustache, cape, and walking stick.  Salvador Dalí was an often misunderstood character.  He died on January 1989 at the age of 84. 

http://www.3d-dali.com/DALI.htm

Princess Diana

The Lady Diana Frances Spencer was born on 1 July 1961 and was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales whom she married in 1981 and had two sons Prince William and Prince Harry.  The marriage was doomed almost from the beginning when suspicions of infidelity on both sides surfaced in the mid 80’s.  The Prince and Princess of Wales were separated in 1992 and the divorce was final in 1996.  Though no longer married to royalty, Princess Diana was a member of the Royal Family for being the mother of the second and third in line to the throne.  After the divorce Princess Diana, already an iconic presence worldwide, continue to be a daily presence in her sons lives and her charity work.  She surpassed the female celebrity status of her generation.  She was beautiful, a fashion icon, role model and adored for her simplicity and caring disposition.  In 1987, she was photographed touching a person infected with the HIV virus.  She helped educated the world that AIDS could not be contracted by casual touch and that AIDS patients should be treated as human beings without isolation.  Her presence and her influence were just amazing.  In 1997, she visited victims of landmines in Angola.  Children were the main victims of abandoned landmines.  I still remember seeing her picture wearing a helmet and a flak jacket.  Sadly, the Princess left this world way too soon.  All of us know where we were the day the news of her death hit the airwaves.  In 1997, Princess Diana was involved in a car accident in Paris and died as a result of her injuries.  It was a sad day in which the entire world mourned the loss of the often called The People’s Princess and the Princess of Hearts.  In 2007, Prince William and Prince Harry hosted a concert to raise money for the charities their mother loved so dearly.

http://www.biography.com/articles/Princess-Diana-9273782

Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Pirates of the Caribbean is a multi-billion dollar Walt Disney franchise that includes a theme park ride, films, novels and video games.  The movies alone had grossed over $2 billion worldwide.  The first movie in the franchise Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl released in 2003 was based on the Disneyland theme park attraction Pirates of the Caribbean.  This was the last theme ride to have Walt Disney’s personal touch.  It opened three months after his death in 1967.  The movie included numerous allusions to the ride, most notably the attack on the fort and the famous jail scene with the dog holding the jail cell’s keys.  Some of the characters in the park ride were translated into the film with one exception, Jack Sparrow.  The character of Jack Sparrow, made famous by actor Johnny Depp, was not part of the park ride and was introduced for the first time in the film.  Since then, Disneyland had made changes and the ride now includes a very tipsy Jack Sparrow recruiting shipmates or popping out of a barrel.  The success of the first movie spawn the sequels Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest released in 2006 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End released in 2007.  Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is in the works scheduled to be released on May 2011.  What makes this franchise so successful is Johnny Depp hands down.  He created a unique character.  The movies are packed with humor though the second movie had a darker undertone.  I like the fact that the main characters keep coming back which makes for great sequels.  The chemistry between Jeffrey Rush (Captain Barbosa) and Johnny Depp is amazing and Keith Richards as Jack’s dad was AWESOME!!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325980/

http://disneyparks.wikia.com/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean_%28Disneyland_Park%29