Time and Culture

I was listening to the Radio Lab episode entitled "Beyond Time" and they were interviewing an artist who strives to live in the 1800s. This immediately reminded me of Chris McCandless. However there was one thing that the artist said that really struck me. "Every year... has music, manners, science, magic, culture, architecture. Every year has that!" I thought this: If we look back and live in this past. If we take advantage of the richness of history like David McDermott is doing, don't we stop creating music, manners, science, magic, culture, and architecture in the present and future. Similarly, if everyone "adopt[ed] a helter-skelter style of life" (57), there would be nothing interesting about it.

McCandless and Monk

Chris McCandless was known to be a very eccentric young man. Not many people understood him; much like the prolific twentieth century pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. Monk, like McCandless, "marched to a different drummer" (107). If you listen to the music player at the top left of the page, you can hear how Monk's music is rooted in tradition, yet has an adventurous element to it that had never been heard before. His music sounds playful in its nature. Similarly, McCandless had a childish feeling of invulnerability. Despite being well educated, he retained a certain naive state of mind that never left him. This is not to say that he was unintelligent; he just never seemed to have believed that the rules of the real world applied to him. Monk's music did not follow the conventional rules of composition in its time either.Any of Monk's great compositions would be a perfect soundtrack to the exploits of Mr. McCandless.

Beacon

While I was working on my perilous paper, I realized how much politicians contradict themselve more than anyone notices. On Sept. 11, 2001, the president said, “We're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.” I found this very interesting considering that he was very much behind the PATRIOT Act that restricted many of the freedoms and opportunities that make this country such a beacon. How has no one brought this up? The president is hypocritically ripping apart the constitution. Why isn't anyone stopping him?