Subjective Reports of MDMA Use :: Ecstasy Illegal Drugs Hallucinogens Essays

Abstract Reports of MDMA Use In perusing a few reports of people who have explored different avenues regarding MDMA a few normal encounters can be found, in any case, no encounters can be thought of as all inclusive. One of the most regularly announced encounters is an inclination of harmony. A few clients arrange this experience as a sentiment of serious quiet. They essentially can't envision unfriendly or forceful sentiments towards some other individual. This inclination dispassionately can be seen in the general sedation of those encountering a 'high'. In one individual's understanding, when the MDMA had started to influence their body decisively, they felt no longing to move or do anything other at that point stay sitting where they were. They didn't report so much a failure to move as much as a powerlessness to envision a circumstance better then their present circumstance. As confirm by the quantity of move clubs wherein MDMA is utilized regularly, MDMA unmistakably doesn't square physical action. A few experienced clients report that they have a concise window of opportunity in the wake of ingesting MDMA to participate in a functioning conduct (for example, move). After this window is finished, they become as well spellbound they would say to transform anything. I! f they figure out how to get dynamic during this time, they feel very empowered and report the quiet just like an increasingly outside inclination. This remotely showed quiet can be portrayed be such terms as adoration, unity, harmony, satisfaction, trust and other such expansive positive terms. MDMA clients who have experience MDMA use at clubs or moves frequently remark on gatherings of clients who gathering together. Reports from clients engaged with these gatherings express a synergistic impact of being around other people who are utilizing MDMA. Numerous clients who came to social circumstances alone detailed their endeavors in finding different clients with which to mingle. One client depicted the nestle puddles in which a few clients would sit together. These regions would have pads and water accessible for the clients. The client detailed that they would sit, talk and portray their sensations to one another. One of the essential sensations shared was their material sensations. An ordinarily depicted impact of MDMA is an expanded satisfaction in sensation. All sensations are depicted as being additional intriguing, or extreme. One regular sight portrayed at a few raves (underground move parties) is the careful cover spread with mentholated oil. Regularly, clients will pulverize MDMA also, dust within the veil with it, or will take MDMA

Drilling vs Solar Power Free Essays

I pick sun powered control over penetrating oil. I picked this â€Å"side† in light of the fact that boring oil is unsafe to the earth. Sun oriented vitality is from vitality legitimately from the sun’s radiation and Drilling is originating from underneath the sea floor. We will compose a custom exposition test on Penetrating versus Solar Power or then again any comparable theme just for you Request Now The oil slick in the bay 2010 was obliterating to nature is as yet being taken a gander at as one of the most exceedingly awful ecological catastrophes ever. Sunlight based force is better for the earth and we can utilize it for quite a long time to come. The key propensities for ruining my reasoning when taking a gander at the contradicting view, was generalizing that oil boring isn't sheltered and causes a great deal of issues for nature on account of what I heard in the news. I was additionally was protection from transform, I don’t like change however with regards to the earth I accept we need to go to bat for what we put stock in. I additionally utilized the â€Å"mine is better habit† where I thought my conclusion was the correct one until I explored the subject. In the wake of inquiring about I discovered that oil slicks can be crushing to natural life. Boring oil makes employments which is powerful for the economy. Consequently sun oriented force is better for the earth since it utilizes regular procedure for vitality. All together for sun oriented vitality to work you should have temperature, it is a significant factor that may influence the exhibition of sun powered force. I despite everything accept that sun oriented force is increasingly gainful in light of the fact that we are securing our untamed life and condition. What I can do to beat my propensities upsetting my believing is to not be impervious to change. Attempt and not accept that my assessment is the correct one, I need to do my exploration so I can back up what I am stating. Make an effort not to generalization that all penetrating is terrible. I have to analyze my initial introduction of the issues and issues. I have to look into all perspectives on the circumstance and afterward figure out what is ideal. I researched advantages of sun powered force and penetrating and afterward investigated the weaknesses of both I remain by my decision that on the off chance that I needed to pick between the two I would in any case pick sun oriented force. I saw the two themes as interesting and enlightening. The most effective method to refer to Drilling versus Solar Power, Essay models

Intersectional Feminist Nonfiction for Your Reading List

Intersectional Feminist Nonfiction for Your Reading List A really great request popped up in my Facebook feed last week from author Jessica Spotswood: she wanted recommendations for intersectional feminist nonfiction for a holiday wish list. The responses to her request were excellent, and I asked permission to round them up into a post to share here with anyone else looking for some great reading. The titles span old and new, on a variety of topics and interests to feminists, both budding and seasoned. If you have more titles you add to this list, please drop em in the comments. Itll be nice to have a big, thick list of solid intersectional feminist reads. Please note: Ive pulled the recommended titles, so some of these may be less about/feature less intersectionality than others. Rather, they may be more on the foundational texts side of feminist nonfiction which is why theyve been included. Anything We Love Can Be Saved  by Alice Walker The passion of lyricism that Alice Walker put to such good use in her novel The Color Purple is here in this collection of essays Fay Weldon, Mail on Sunday In a world where cynicism and political apathy is commonplace, it is refreshing and inspiring to read the words of Alice Walker. For she believes that the things we treasure, and the world we live in, can all be saved if only we will act. Beginning with an autobiographical essay about the roots of her own activism, Alice Walker then goes on to explore diverse public issues such as single parenthood, freedom of the press, civil rights and religion. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of autotheory offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the authors relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelsons account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, offers a firsthand account of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making. Writing in the spirit of public intellectuals such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Nelson binds her personal experience to a rigorous exploration of what iconic theorists have said about sexuality, gender, and the vexed institutions of marriage and child-rearing. Nelsons insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry of this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman of color while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years and commenting on the state of feminism today. The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better. This Bridge Called My Back by  Cherríe L. Moraga  and  Gloria E. Anzaldúa Originally released in 1981, This Bridge Called My Back is a testimony to women of color feminism as it emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as coeditor Cherríe Moraga writes, “the complex confluence of identitiesâ€"race, class, gender, and sexualityâ€"systemic to women of color oppression and liberation.” Reissued here, nearly thirty-five years after its inception, the fourth edition contains an extensive new introduction by Moraga, along with a previously unpublished statement by Gloria Anzaldúa. The new edition also includes visual artists whose work was produced during the same period as Bridge, including Betye Saar, Ana Mendieta, and Yolanda López, as well as current contributor biographies. Bridge continues to reflect an evolving definition of feminism, one that can effectively adapt to, and help inform an understanding of the changing economic and social conditions of women of color in the United States and throughout the world. Come As You Are  by Emily Nagoski An essential exploration of why and how women’s sexuality worksâ€"based on groundbreaking research and brain scienceâ€"that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy. Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a “pink pill” for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never existâ€"but as a result of the research that’s gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women’s sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all. The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others’ experiences. Because women vary, and that’s normal. Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm. Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it. Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible. Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine It’s the twenty-first century, and although we tried to rear unisex childrenboys who play with dolls and girls who like truckswe failed. Even though the glass ceiling is cracked, most women stay comfortably beneath it, and everywhere we hear about vitally important “hardwired” differences between male and female brains. The neuroscience we read about in magazines, newspaper articles, books, and sometimes even scientific journals increasingly tells a tale of two brains, and the result is more often than not a validation of the status quo. Women, it seems, are just too intuitive for math, men too focused for housework. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, Cordelia Fine debunks the myth of hardwired differences between men’s and women’s brains, unraveling the evidence behind such claims as men’s brains aren’t wired for empathy, and women’s brains aren’t made to fix cars. She then goes one step further, offering a very different explanation of the dissimilarities between men’s and women’s behavior. Instead of a “male brain” and a “female brain,” Fine gives us a glimpse of plastic, mutable minds that are continuously influenced by cultural assumptions about gender. Delusions of Gender provides us with a much-needed corrective to the belief that men’s and women’s brains are intrinsically differenta belief that, as Fine shows with insight and humorall too often works to the detriment of ourselves and our society. Everyday Sexism by  Laura Bates In 2012 after being sexually harassed on London public transport Laura Bates, a young journalist, started a project called Everyday Sexism to collect stories for a piece she was writing on the issue. Astounded by the response she received and the wide range of stories that came pouring in from all over the world, she quickly realised that the situation was far worse than shed initially thought. Enough was enough. From being leered at and wolf-whistled on the street, to aggravation in the work place and serious sexual assault, it was clear that sexism had been normalised. Bates decided it was time for change. This bold, jaunty and ultimately intelligent book is the first to give a collective online voice to the protest against sexism. This game changing book is a juggernaut of stories, often shocking, sometimes amusing and always poignant it is a must read for every inquisitive, no-nonsense modern woman. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan Landmark, groundbreaking, classicâ€"these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of “the problem that has no name”: the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women’s confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, The Feminine Mystique is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire. This 50thâ€"anniversary edition features an afterword by best-selling author Anna Quindlen as well as a new introduction by Gail Collins. Feminism Is for Everybody by bell hooks What is feminism? In this short, accessible primer, bell hooks explores the nature of feminism and its positive promise to eliminate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. With her characteristic clarity and directness, hooks encourages readers to see how feminism can touch and change their livesâ€"to see that feminism is for everybody. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law by Catharine MacKinnon Catharine A. MacKinnon, noted feminist and legal scholar, explores and develops her original theories and practical proposals on sexual politics and law. These discourses, originally delivered as speeches, have been brilliantly woven into a book that retains all the spontaneity and accessibility of a live presentation. MacKinnon offers a unique retrospective on the law of sexual harassment, which she designed and has worked for a decade to establish, and a prospectus on the law of pornography, which she proposes to change in the next ten years. Authentic in voice, sweeping in scope, startling in clarity, urgent, never compromised and often visionary, these discourses advance a new theory of sex inequality and imagine new possibilities for social change. Through these engaged works on issues such as rape, abortion, athletics, sexual harassment, and pornography, MacKinnon seeks feminism on its own terms, unconstrained by the limits of prior traditions. She argues that viewing gender as a matter of sameness and differenceas virtually all existing theory and law have donecovers up the reality of gender, which is a system of social hierarchy, an imposed inequality of power. She reveals a political system of male dominance and female subordination that sexualizes power for men and powerlessness for women. She analyzes the failure of organized feminism, particularly legal feminism, to alter this condition, exposing the way male supremacy gives women a survival stake in the system that destroys them. The Feminist Memoir Project edited by  Ann Barr Snitow The women of The Feminist Memoir Project give voice to the spirit, the drive, and the claims of the Womens Liberation Movement they helped shape, beginning in the late 1960s. These thirty-two writers were among the thousands to jump-start feminism in the late twentieth century. Here, in pieces that are passionate, personal, critical, and witty, they describe what it felt like to make history, to live through and contribute to the massive social movement that transformed the nation. What made these particular women rebel? And what experiences, ideas, feelings, and beliefs shaped their activism? How did they maintain the will and energy to keep such a struggle going for so long, and continuing still? Memoirs and responses by Kate Millett, Vivian Gornick, Michele Wallace, Alix Kates Shulman, Joan Nestle, Jo Freeman, Yvonne Rainer, Barbara Smith, Ellen Willis, Eve Ensler, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Roxanne Dunbar, Naomi Weisstein, Alice Wolfson and many more embody the excitement that fueled the movement and the conflicts that threatened it from within. Their stories trace the ways the world has changed. Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti Feminism isnt dead. It just isnt very cool anymore. Enter Full Frontal Feminism, a book that embodies the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagated as founder of the popular website, Feministing.com. This revised edition includes a new foreword by Valenti, reflecting upon what’s happened in the five years since Full Frontal Feminism was originally published. With new openers from Valenti in every chapter, the book covers a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more. Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley The Geek Feminist Revolution is a collection of essays by double Hugo Award-winning essayist and science fiction and fantasy novelist Kameron Hurley. The book collects dozens of Hurley’s essays on feminism, geek culture, and her experiences and insights as a genre writer, including “We Have Always Fought,” which won the 2014 Hugo for Best Related Work. The Geek Feminist Revolution will also feature several entirely new essays written specifically for this volume. Gender Trouble by  Judith Butler Since its publication in 1990, Gender Trouble has become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the politics of sexuality in culture. This is the text where Judith Butler began to advance the ideas that would go on to take life as performativity theory, as well as some of the first articulations of the possibility for subversive gender practices, and she writes in her preface to the 10th anniversary edition released in 1999 that one point of Gender Trouble was not to prescribe a new gendered way of life [] but to open up the field of possibility for gender [] Widely taught, and widely debated, Gender Trouble continues to offer a powerful critique of heteronormativity and of the function of gender in the modern world. How to Be a Woman by  Caitlin Moran Though they have the vote and the Pill and havent been burned as witches since 1727, life isnt exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them? Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on womens lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from the riot of adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother. With rapier wit, Moran slices right to the truthâ€"whether its about the workplace, strip clubs, love, fat, abortion, popular entertainment, or childrenâ€"to jump-start a new conversation about feminism. With humor, insight, and verve, How to Be a Woman lays bare the reasons why female rights and empowerment are essential issues not only for women today but also for society itself. How to Suppress Womens Writing by Joanna Russ By the author of The Female Man, a provocative survey of the forces that work against women who dare to write. She didnt write it. She wrote it but she shouldnt have. She wrote it but look what she wrote about. She wrote it but she isnt really an artist, and it isnt really art. She wrote it but she had help. She wrote it but shes an anomaly. She wrote it BUT How to Suppress Womens Writing is a meticulously researched and humorously written guidebook to the many ways women and other minorities have been barred from producing written art. In chapters entitled Prohibitions, Bad Faith, Denial of Agency, Pollution of Agency, The Double Standard of Content, False Categorization, Isolation, Anomalousness, Lack of Models, Responses, and Aesthetics Joanna Russ names, defines, and illustrates those barriers to art-making we may have felt but which tend to remain unnamed and thus insolvable. I Love Myself When I Am Laughing, and Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive by Zora Neale Hurston The most prolific African-American woman author from 1920 to 1950, Hurston was praised for her writing and condemned for her independence, arrogance, and audaciousness. This unique anthology, with fourteen superb examples of her fiction, journalism, folklore, and autobiography, rightfully establishes her as the intellectual and spiritual leader of the next generation of black writers. The original commentary by Alice Walker and Mary Helen Washington, two African-American writers in the forefront of the Hurston revival, provide illuminating insights into Hurstonâ€"the writer, and the personâ€"as well as into American social and cultural history. Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit In her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. She ends on a serious noteâ€" because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!” This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf ’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women. My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem Gloria Steinemâ€"writer, activist, organizer, and one of the most inspiring leaders in the worldâ€"now tells a story she has never told before, a candid account of how her early years led her to live an on-the-road kind of life, traveling, listening to people, learning, and creating change. She reveals the story of her own growth in tandem with the growth of an ongoing movement for equality. This is the story at the heart of My Life on the Road. (Note: Steinem isnt very good when it comes to body politics and it shows through here a few cringe-worthy fat comments undermine some of what she hopes to be saying). Negroland by Margo Jefferson At once incendiary and icy, mischievous and provocative, celebratory and elegiacâ€"here is a deeply felt meditation on race, sex, and American culture through the prism of the author’s rarefied upbringing and education among a black elite concerned with distancing itself from whites and the black generality while tirelessly measuring itself against both. Born in upper-crust black Chicagoâ€"her father was for years head of pediatrics at Provident, at the time the nation’s oldest black hospital; her mother was a socialiteâ€"Margo Jefferson has spent most of her life among (call them what you will) the colored aristocracy, the colored elite, the blue-vein society. Since the nineteenth century they have stood apart, these inhabitants of Negroland, “a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty.” Reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical momentsâ€"the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the fallacy of postracial Americaâ€"Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions. Aware as it is of heart-wrenching despair and depression, this book is a triumphant paean to the grace of perseverance. Pastrix by Nadia Bolz Weber Foul-mouthed and heavily tattooed, former standup comic-turned-Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber weaves hilarious rants and stunning theological insight into her personal narrative of a flawed, beautiful, and unlikely life of faith. Bizarre, rich, and remarkable, PASTRIX turns spiritual memoir on its ear in a sardonically irreverent and beautifully honest page-turner that readers will never forget. Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term pastrix (a negative term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize women as pastors) in this wildly entertaining and deeply resonant memoir about an outrageous, unlikely life of faith. From a commune of haggard-but-hopeful slackers to the wobbly chairs and war stories of Alcoholic Anonymous, from a funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club to an unexpected revelation during the Haitian stations of the cross, PASTRIX is a journey of cranky spirituality that intersects religion with real life, weaving incredible narrative, hilarious rants, and poignant honesty to portray a life deeply flawed and deeply faithful-giving hope to the rest of us. The Second Sex by  Simone de Beauvoir Newly translated and unabridged in English for the first time, Simone de Beauvoir’s masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of “woman,” and a groundbreaking exploration of inequality and otherness.  This long-awaited new edition reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains pertinent today. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by  Jill Lepore A riveting work of historical detection revealing that the origin of one of the world’s most iconic superheroes hides within it a fascinating family storyâ€"and a crucial history of twentieth-century feminism Wonder Woman, created in 1941, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, no superhero has lasted as long or commanded so vast and wildly passionate a following. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also has a secret history. Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman’s creator. Beginning in his undergraduate years at Harvard, Marston was influenced by early suffragists and feminists, starting with Emmeline Pankhurst, who was banned from speaking on campus in 1911, when Marston was a freshman. In the 1920s, Marston and his wife, Sadie Elizabeth Holloway, brought into their home Olive Byrne, the niece of Margaret Sanger, one of the most influential feminists of the twentieth century. The Marston family story is a tale of drama, intrigue, and irony. In the 1930s, Marston and Byrne wrote a regular column for Family Circle celebrating conventional family life, even as they themselves pursued lives of extraordinary nonconformity. Marston, internationally known as an expert on truthâ€"he invented the lie detector testâ€"lived a life of secrets, only to spill t hem on the pages of Wonder Woman. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, forty years after its first publication, the essential portrait of Americaâ€" particularly Californiaâ€"in the sixties. It focuses on such subjects as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up a girl in California, ruminating on the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture. Shrill by Lindy West Coming of age in a culture that demands women be as small, quiet, and compliant as possiblelike a porcelain dove that will also have sex with youwriter and humorist Lindy West quickly discovered that she was anything but. From a painfully shy childhood in which she tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her big body and even bigger opinions; to her public war with stand-up comedians over rape jokes; to her struggle to convince herself, and then the world, that fat people have value; to her accidental activism and never-ending battle royale with Internet trolls, Lindy narrates her life with a blend of humor and pathos that manages to make a trip to the abortion clinic funny and wring tears out of a story about diarrhea. With inimitable good humor, vulnerability, and boundless charm, Lindy boldly shares how to survive in a world where not all stories are created equal and not all bodies are treated with equal respect, and how to weather hatred, loneliness, harassment, and lossand walk away laughing. Shrillprovocatively dissects what it means to become self-aware the hard way, to go from wanting to be silent and invisible to earning a living defending the silenced in all caps. Stiffed by  Susan Faludi Now in Stiffed, the author turns her attention to the masculinity crisis plaguing our culture at the end of the 90s, an era of massive layoffs, Angry White Male politics, and Million Man marches. As much as the culture wants to proclaim that men are made miserableâ€"or brutal or violent or irresponsibleâ€"by their inner nature and their hormones, Faludi finds that even in the world they supposedly own and run, men are at the mercy of cultural forces that disfigure their lives and destroy their chance at happiness. As traditional masculinity continues to collapse, the once-valued male attributes of craft, loyalty, and social utility are no longer honored, much less rewarded. Faludis journey through the modern masculine landscape takes her into the lives of individual men whose accounts reveal the heart of the male dilemma. Stiffed brings us into the world of industrial workers, sports fans, combat veterans, evangelical husbands, militiamen, astronauts, and troubled bad boysâ€"whose sense that theyve lost their skills, jobs, civic roles, wives, teams, and a secure future is only one symptom of a larger and historic betrayal. (Note: the description makes me believe that the book is STILL relevant today in our political climate) Trainwreck by Sady Doyle She’s everywhere once you start looking for her: the trainwreck. She’s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying, “crack is whack,” and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself. From Mary Wollstonecraftâ€"who, for decades after her death, was more famous for her illegitimate child and suicide attempts than for A Vindication of the Rights of Womanâ€"to Charlotte Brontë, Billie Holiday, Sylvia Plath, and even Hillary Clinton, Sady Doyle’s Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to “behave.” Where did these women come from? What are their crimes? And what does it mean for the rest of us? For an age when any form of self-expression can be the one that ends you, Sady Doyle’s book is as fierce and intelligent as it is funny and compassionateâ€"an essential, timely, feminist anatomy of the female trainwreck. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first centuryâ€"one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics. Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiencesâ€"in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroadâ€"offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike. Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Adichie a bestselling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman todayâ€"and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists. We Were Feminists Once by Andi Zeisler Feminism has hit the big time. Once a dirty word brushed away with a grimace, “feminist” has been rebranded as a shiny label sported by movie and pop stars, fashion designers, and multi-hyphenate powerhouses like Beyoncé. It drives advertising and marketing campaigns for everything from wireless plans to underwear to perfume, presenting what’s long been a movement for social justice as just another consumer choice in a vast market. Individual self-actualization is the goal, shopping more often than not the means, and celebrities the mouthpieces. But what does it mean when social change becomes a brand identity? Feminism’s splashy arrival at the center of today’s media and pop-culture marketplace, after all, hasn’t offered solutions to the movement’s unfinished business. Planned Parenthood is under sustained attack, women are still paid 77 percentâ€"or lessâ€"of the man’s dollar, and vicious attacks on women, both on- and offline, are utterly routine. Andi Zeisler, a founding editor of Bitch Media, draws on more than twenty years’ experience interpreting popular culture in this biting history of how feminism has been co-opted, watered down, and turned into a gyratory media trend. Surveying movies, television, advertising, fashion, and more, Zeisler reveals a media landscape brimming with the language of empowerment, but offering little in the way of transformational change. Witty, fearless, and unflinching, We Were Feminists Onceis the story of how we let this happen, and how we can amplify feminism’s real purpose and power. You Cant Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson Phoebe Robinson is a stand-up comic, which means that, often, her everyday experiences become points of comedic fodder. And as a black woman in America, she maintains, sometimes you need to have a sense of humor to deal with the absurdity you are handed on the daily. Robinson has experienced her fair share over the years: shes been unceremoniously relegated to the role of the black friend, as if she is somehow the authority on all things racial; shes been questioned about her love of U2 and Billy Joel (isn t that . . . white people music?); shes been called uppity for having an opinion in the workplace; shes been followed around stores by security guards; and yes, people do ask her whether they can touch her hair all. the. time. Now, shes ready to take these topics to the page and she s going to make you laugh as she s doing it. Using her trademark wit alongside pop-culture references galore, Robinson explores everything from why Lisa Bonet is Queen. Bae. Jesus, to breaking down the terrible nature of casting calls, to giving her less-than-traditional advice to the future female president, and demanding that the NFL clean up its act, all told in the same conversational voice that launched her podcast, 2 Dope Queens, to the top spot on iTunes. As personal as it is political, You Cant Touch My Hair examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases with humor and heart, announcing Robinson as a writer on the rise. You Dont Have To Like Me by Alida Nugent Alida Nugent’s first book, Don’t Worry It Gets Worse, received terrific reviews, and her self-deprecating “everygirl” approach continues to win the Internet-savvy writer and blogger new fans. Now, she takes on one of today’s hottest cultural topics: feminism. Nugent is a proud feministâ€"and she’s not afraid to say it. From the “scarlet F” thrust upon you if you declare yourself a feminist at a party to how to handle judgmental store clerks when you buy Plan B, You Don’t Have to Like Me skewers a range of cultural issues, and confirms Nugent as a star on the rise.

How to Compose a Top Essay

If you need to deal with the essay writing, make sure to begin as early as you can, thus, you won’t have to get through all the stress usually associated with the project. To say more, you, as the author, should always stay honest and be yourself. Take a day or two to find out what is really interesting for you, what makes you to put everything behind and sit in front of TV if it’s mentioned right there. Do not try to write about what the other people wish to hear! When considering the essay topic ideas, make sure to be honest in every sentence. College and university tutors can easily detect any sign of plagiarism, so purchasing an essay from the web may cause a lot of troubles. Keep in Focus When Dealing with the Essay Writing! If you want to know how to write a top-notch essay and to handle this assignment successfully, you must be honest. Let’s say, you’re assigned with the task to compose an admission essay. A lot of students begin to list all the academic records they’re proud of, their athletic successes, their extracurricular activities – EVERY single reason why they should take no one else but you. If you do the same way, don’t be surprised when you find out that your paper looks like to-buy list. Thus, you must be concentrated on what is important, never moving away from the key topic of the essay. If the project has only suggested minimum of 400 words, your tutor won’t be happy to spend an hour on reading over 1000 words generated by the author. Instead, make sure to read the essay requirements from A to Z and then jot down several catchy ideas. Pick the most hooking one and write your project about it. Essay Topic Ideas: Write Rewrite! If you hope to write a real masterpiece on the very first try – don’t. It is not possible and, what is more, the time pressure you should work under, will definitely give you the writing block. When working on the first draft, make sure to write anything that appears in your mind on the essay topic. No need to worry about the punctuation and grammar errors or spelling. When you’re done, put it aside for a day or two. When you get back to the draft, make certain to search for certain ways to polish it up. Do not hesitate to make major corrections. Is there any info that doesn’t really link to the essay topic? Delete it. Do you need to replace it with some other details? Do that. Here are two points to take into consideration at this stage: Get rid of the intro and concluding essay segments, and then make sure your project looks stronger. The point is that these essay parts, as a rule, involve unnecessary details. Re-read the essay and remove all the â€Å"many† and â€Å"very† words. The thing is that these words a pretty blurred and make your writing look weaker. Proofreading is the Right Way to a Top Essay! How to write a top-notch essay? Proofread it! When you feel like you are ready to submit your essay, read it once again and try to find the smallest errors. In case you work on your PC, make use of a spell check. Read your essay out loud to catch every mistake or have someone else read it and proofread for you. One of the most popular strategies in checking the essays for typos – to read the paper backward, from Z to A! Thus, even the minor misspellings will stand out.

Gendered Pathways Into Crime = Gendered Pathways Out of Crime

Programs in prisons that are tailored to women’s unparalleled needs would benefit society in the grand scheme of things. On an individual level it could break the cycle of abuse, victimization, and self-loathing. It is essential that the double damage done to female offenders be repaired because they deserve an unbiased chance at a good life. After all, they could represent your mother, aunt, sister, niece, wife and girlfriend. In her book, A woman doing life: Notes from a prison for women, Erin George did a fine job in depicting the life of women during the time they were incarcerated. She also included a light reflection of what life was like before prison and what life could be like after prison. This book included vivid passages of how†¦show more content†¦38). Furthermore, they claimed that female criminals were â€Å"monsters† (as cited in DeKeseredy, 2009, p. 38). These false images painted all female offenders with the same brush and served to dehumaniz e their characters. Furthermore, these theories negatively impacted the media and the public’s conception of female offenders. As a result female offenders were treated poorly, to say the least. To make matters worse, research in this area was conducted by males, dedicated for males, and served only to benefit males. For example, theoretical authors of this era were men who studied characteristics of males with respect to criminality. Women were thrown into the mixture of the alleged gender-neutral research, when what they needed was gender-sensitive studies. Even though these early theories inspired more accurate research, they served as a double edge sword to the female offender profiles. Noted originally in Belknap’s studies (as cited in Covington, 2007, p. 2) â€Å"research confirms that women offenders differ significantly from their male counterparts in terms of their personal histories and how they enter into crime.† For example, in the US they are more likely to be a young, undereducated, single parent who is a racialShow MoreRelatedFemale Crime Rate And Demographics Of Female Offenders2122 Words   |  9 Pageswhich examined the growing crime rate and demographics of female offenders. Using a government survey from the National Crime Victimization Center and the National Judicial Reporting Program of the nations population, researchers analyzed female crime rates on a large scale. According to the results, there were an estimated 3.2 million arrests of women accounting for about 22% of all arrests that year. Women were about 17% of those arrested for the Part I violent crimes (murder, rape, robbery, andRead More Exploring Girls Participation in Violence Essay3609 Words   |  15 PagesExploring Girls Participation in Violence Introduction Youth violence, and particularly violence carried out by girls, has been the subject of intense media attention recently, with an ever-increasing number of girls portrayed as carrying guns in their mouths and participating in violent crime. Although the percentage of girls involvement in delinquency and crime has increased in the last two decades, it is still far below the level of boys involvement, and it differs quite significantlyRead MoreThe Creation Of Mobile Imaginaries2004 Words   |  9 Pagesdefinition of slavery, I will argue that processes of globalization redefine the idea of slavery as â€Å"the situation of people who out of economic necessity enter into work relationships that either limit their freedom of choice or their mobility† (Degorge, 2006). An example of migrant workers restricted mobility is through spousal relationships and Preventive Pathway Switching policies, which I will shorten to PPS. Regardless on how much money a wife in Dubai makes, she is in charge of her ownRead More12 Social Determinants of Health3971 Words   |  16 Pagesdiscretion to act are the key influences. Higher income and status generally results in more control and discretion. And the biological pathways for how this could happen are becoming better understood. A number of recent studies show that limited options and poor coping skills for dealing with stress increase vulnerability to a range of diseases through pathways that involve the immune and hormonal systems. There is strong and growing evidence that higher social and economic status is associatedRead MoreEssay Domestic Violence2426 Words   |  10 Pagesfamilies and homes have been and are being destroyed every year because of domestic violence. There are many forms of domestic violence such as violence against spouses, women, men, children or the elderly (Koenig et al., 2003). Although violence is gendered since men are considered to be the major perpetrators of violence against women (VAW), not all men are violent and both men and women have the equal potential to be perpetrators or victims. Amnesty International describes VAW as a torture and violation

Fashion A Cultural Context Free Essays

string(42) " on a visible label became all-important\." ‘Fashion’ is multi-faceted- a multiple choice- depending on your budget and attitude you can dress ‘in fashion’ and yet be totally individual thanks to the available choice, and the liberal dress codes that exists. Only 40 years ago things were very different- discuss the social and cultural changes that have taken place since the 60’s that has allowed this phenomenal change to happen, using quotes from authors and academics to underpin your ideas. Introduction As we approach the year 2003, we find a vastly different fashion industry from that which existed only 40 years ago. We will write a custom essay sample on Fashion: A Cultural Context or any similar topic only for you Order Now Although the fashion sector is known for its apid change, we see an industry today that has been dramatically transformed by such new things as new technology, globalisation, and changing consumer values. Every segment of the industry has been required to change to meet new competitive challenges. As a result, we find a fashion industry that has restructured its self to respond to global competition. The industry is faster, is geographically more wide spread and can focus on understanding and serving the consumer more effectively than ever before. Though transportation and communication advances, the industry has become a orldwide production and distribution network. At the same time, new technologies allow close examination of consumer needs and have reduced the time it takes to respond to those needs. One of the most enduring images of the 1960’s is undoubtedly the mini skirt. Not merely a new fashion trend but a true icon of the sixties, the mini skirt epitomised the attitudes of the era. The name synonymous with the fame of the mini skirt is of course Mary Quant. Not only was she responsible for creating the infamous mini, but she also led the way for the radical changes in the fashion industry hat made London such a celebrated centre through out the decade. Like most new fashion trends, the mini skirt was an innovative idea sparked off by a series of unique social and cultural changes. Hemlines had been dramatically shortened at other times before the sixties, also in times of great social change, after and during World War 1and World War 2. This fashion revolution happened at the same time as another big cultural change of the century- pop music. Music has and always will be a major influence on fashion and sub-culture. Another huge cultural change of the decade was ‘the pill’. The younger generation was becoming less inhibited, and more sexually promiscuous because of the invention of the contraceptive pill, and clothes became more overtly sexual and revealing. Along the street of Haight Ashbury, hippies could be seen wandering along, wearing their multi-coloured kaftans or afghan coats over fringed tasseled dresses, flat leather sandals, a headband copied straight from the American Indians or a pair of scruffy flared jeans. What had started off for many as an ethical movement by a few die-hard individuals in America soon became a world ide phenomenon influencing lifestyles and creating the main stream fashion of the late sixties. This was a form of anti-fashion as revolt. It was untidy and spontaneous and radically different from the chirpy neatness of the earlier years of the decade and the futuristic fashions of the previous few years. Boutiques such As ‘I was Lord Kitchener’s Valet’ or ‘Granny Takes a Trip’ in London, both reflected the sartorial anarchy of the times with their bright riotous designs. Hippie women reacted against the dolly bird image of the early sixties that with he arrival of the mini skirt had been designed to free the young woman from sexual stereotyping. With its thigh revealing length it confined her in a look, which aimed directly at the male’s libido. Although the late sixties have been criticised for its naive belief that free love and marijuana would solve the worlds problems, there was a lot of creative activity which led to permanent social change. People felt free to break down taboos. The woman’s, civil and gay rights movements all started in this decade. Sexual stereotypes were being broken down and ‘free love’ was on the agenda. Men and woman began to look alike with unisex jeans and long hair, the older generation felt increasingly alienated from the young. Experimenting with gender was part of the revolution. As woman took up the banner for sexual equality, men began to reject the fifties ideal of muscular machismo. The old mores of what constituted male dress were broken down and men experimented with less obviously masculine looks. Much of the late sixties was, for many spent in a haze of drug induced euphoria. The use of LSD was a powerful influence on ideas and dress. People xperimented with their lifestyles in the belief that they were somehow on the road to a greater awareness and under standing, fuelled by the sensory experience of acid and its ability to distort the senses, creates hallucinations and vivid colours. Fashion has always had it’s social conscience and can be the perfect vehicle for powerful political messages, from the iconisation of Che Guevara’s portrait to the anti- war slogans of Katherine Hamnett’s T-shirts. But the truly unexpected that flies in the face of fashion its self can carry as powerful a signal as the blatantly written message. Anti-fashion by definition is the opposite of fashion, so if it exists, it should be different every time fashion changes. But its rules stay the same because what it all represents is all negative- anarchy, destruction of order and instigation of chaos. By the mid 1970’s woman had discovered that that trousers gave them a sexual neutrality that allowed them to compete in the work place. The 1980’s career girl was now an executive who had business lunches and held boardroom meetings. She was confident, independent and more liberated than ever. Designers created outfits especially for these woman. Denim jeans were re-designed to fit woman, and the designer’s name on a visible label became all-important. You read "Fashion: A Cultural Context" in category "Papers" This period launched ‘power dressing’. Women’s trousers have always reflected social change and women’s growing confidence in their place in society. This was especially true during the seventies. Now every woman has a pair of trousers of some kind in her wardrobe, whether part of a suit or a pair of faded denim jeans. This continues to illustrate women’s increasing sense of equality and freedom of choice in society, of which women’s trousers have been a constant measure. Alongside this licence to choose from a range of styles regardless of the context a more serious fashion aesthetic existed. The androgynous clothes many women choose to wear expressed the growing women’s movement and their desire to be taken more seriously they entered the work force on a more equal footing. The seventies represented the twilight of an era of sexual liberation, over indulgence and decadence. The sexual revolution may have been discussed at length in the sixties, but it could be argued that it actually happened and exploded in the seventies, especially in increasingly jaded ways. The chic new sexual conventions of the day denied that a person’s sexuality could be neatly classified. During the 1980’s, fashion became integral to the newly emerging concept of the lifestyle. The new wealth and prosperity hyped in the media were ever more evident throughout the decade. In this decade there was a deregulation of the stock market and an explosion in property prices. This helped establish the culture of the yuppie. There was enormous wealth around, but it was spent with a corporate mentality, so that even the most exotic trophy wife appeared to be dressing not only for her an, but for boardroom approval. Power dressing- dressing to show your importance and bank balance, dressing for success, was in. Even if you were a supermarket shelf stacker, you would still wear your impressive power suit in Your spare time. In the 1990’s Princess Diana of Wales, was a major influence. She had the rare gift of combining aristocrat grace with the stature of a catwalk model. She championed the interests of British fashion at home and abroad and had her own unique international stage. Her style emerged over the years into a more sophisticated and confidently intuitive one. Having Diana wear your outfit was a priceless piece of publicity, but even for those who copied, she was a strong influence and a tonic to the industry. She gave hope to a whole new generation of couturiers and mainstream designers, and a new out look to many girls who could now wear such clothes without having to be debutante. To understand the constant changes in fashion, it is important to understand that fashions are always in harmony with their era. As a famous designer expressed it â€Å"Fashion is a social phenomenon which reflects the same continuing change that rides through any given age. Changes in fashion, he emphasised â€Å"Correspond with the subtle and often hidden networks of forces that operate on society†¦ In this sense, fashion is a symbol†. Different views exist on how fashion changes are started. Sprole Burns categorised these views into two groups as follows- * Because the fashion industry thrives on change, this idea suggests that different segments of the industry force change on the consumer by dictating new trends. Traditionally, European fashion houses exerted a powerful influence; the trade media such as women’s wear daily, shaped the industries choices. Therefore, consumer’s choices and retailers dictated what would be worn by what they carried. Although all these forces are important, Sproles noted â€Å"Changing fashion is a far more complex phenomenon that those with the industry- centred views may wish to believe†. In recent years, many consumers have become increasingly resistant to having new fashions forced on them. Often consumers now exert a spirit of independence in their dress by wearing what they feel is right for them, regardless of what the industry promotes. * Others who study fashion change, believe consumers are responsible for hat becomes fashionable. Given an array of products from which to chose certain trends develop because a group of consumers establish that these fashions are right. Four major theories suggest how consumers determine the course of new trends; some trends may begin with the upper socioeconomic consumers. Others may occur within all socioeconomic groups. Sometimes fashions rise from subculture groups such as urban African- Americans, youth, blue collar workers and ethnic minorities such as Native American. Nearly any creative or initiative individual can launch fashion trends if they are consistent ith the social climate and lifestyles of the times (Sproles 1981). Men and women are complex creatures whose actions are seldom governed by reason alone. Change comes about for psychological reasons. People grow bored of what they have, the eye wearies of the same colours, lines, and textures after a time. What is new and different appears refreshing, and what has been on the scene for a while appears dull and unattractive. Changes for such psychological reasons occur also in the fashions for products other than clothing. Auto manufacturers introduce new colours and shapes because potential buyers ire of the same colours an shape. Changes in fashion are also caused by rational reasons, such as environmental factors that create knew needs. A classic example of social change that brought about drastic change in fashions occurred in the early decades of the twentieth century, when women sort, gained and enjoyed new political and economic freedom. Their altered activities and concepts of them selves encouraged them to discard the constricting garments that had been in fashion for centuries and to adopt shorter skirts like those of Mary Quants, relaxed waistlines, bobbed hair nd other fashions more appropriate to their more active lives. Generations later, as women moved into top executive positions in the business world, the tailored suit, soft blouses and attachi bags became the ‘dressing for success’ fashion of young career women in the late seventies and eighties. The physical fitness movement in the 1970’s and 1980’s brought about the need for exercise clothing, and as the interest in jogging, hiking, tennis and aerobics grew, also did the need for new and different fashions appropriate to each of these active sports. Casual Fridays and a shift towards working at home have hanged the way many people dressed for work in the 1990’s. Even environmental concerns influenced fashion by avoiding the use of certain dyes and finishes harmful to nature. Conclusion Although fashions change constantly and new ones appear almost every season, a full-scale change over is never completed at any one time. In studying the pattern in change in fashions, scholars have observed that changes in fash ion are evolutionary in nature, rather than revolutionary. It is only in retrospect that fashion changes seem marked or sudden. Actually they come about as a result f a series of gradual shifts from one season to the next. For example, when women’s skirts became inching up from the mid calf in the 1960’s this gradual shortening was not particularly noticeable at first. It was only when skirts moved thigh high, in the form of minis and micro minis, that people took notice of the approaching extreme. Even today, when the rate of fashion change has execrated sharply, the pace of change is really slower than it appears to the unskilled observer who has failed to notice the early evolutionary movements in a new direction. The evolutionary ature of fashion change is a fundamental principle that is recognised by fashion practitioners, it provides them with a solid, factual foundation for forecasting and identifying in-coming fashions. When planning and developing new styling ideas, they always keep the current fashions and evolving directions in mind. Therefore the expectance of a particular coat or dress fashion during a current season becomes a straw in the wind for experts to search for clues to next seasons trends. The degree of it’s acceptance provides needed clues as to what will or will not be welcomed by the consumer in the next season. Knowing that people do not respond well to sudden changes, the fashion experts build gradually, not abruptly, towards new ideas. Even the slowest most gradual of evolutionary changes in fashion, do change eventually. Examples of this can be found in history and recent times. For example when the mini skirts of the 1960’s moved up to the micro mini skirts of the1970’s, hems began inching downward. Whether it be skirt lengths, suit lapels, silhouettes or general fashion looks, all fashions tend to move steadily towards an extreme, at which point a new direction develops. How to cite Fashion: A Cultural Context, Papers

Wings Essay Example For Students

Wings Essay Its wonderful, just as you saidbeautiful music, beautifully performed, beautifully produced, said a friend of mine who had gone to see the musical Wings at my urging. But she hesitatedsomething kept nagging at me. Its well why would a woman with a stroke sing? Fair question Wings, which premiered in October at the Goodman Studio Theatre in Chicagoand which heads, on the basis of nearly unanimous rave reviews, to New Yorks Joseph Papp Public Theater for a run March 9-April 18 is a musical about a woman who suffers a cerebral accident that robs her of the ability to speak. Based on a 1978 one-act by Arthur Kopit, Wings is a work of remarkable contrastscompact and intimate in scope yet sweeping and ambitious in its implications; funny and touching and tragic and transcendent all at the same time. It features a lustrous quasi-operatic score by Jeffrey Lunden that reflects such influences as Stephen Sondheim, Samuel Barber and minimalist Steve Reich, yet ultimately speaks in its own distinctive musical vocabulary; a libretto by Arthur Perlman thats a model of lean grace infused with torrential subtext; and, in Michael Maggios staging, a fusion of emotive, technically precise performance and darkly dazzling visual and aural design. Yet for all its craft, the key to Wings lies in a simple question: Why would a woman with a stroke sing? Its a given in musical theatre that people speak and sing with equal ease. No, let me amend that: In musical theatre, people speak with ease but sing with urgency, because the cadences of spoken language are no longer rich enough to communicate their intense emotions. In Wings, the intensity is at a life-and-death level. The heroine, Emily Stilson, is a 70-ish woman unexpectedly hit by a stroke. In her youth a daredevil aerialist who walked on the wings of biplanes, Emily is suddenly robbed of the normal perceptions of time and space with which we gauge our place on this earth. Her prim little living room, furnished with just an old chair and an even older record player, is transformed into a void in which Emily floats as if gliding on air (the actress playing Emily represents her spirit, while her body, unseen by the audience, lies immobile). In the first, entirely musical, portion of the work, Emily sings as she describes her sensations of being transported from a concretely physical world to an ethereal one. Later, as she partially recovers from the strokes effects, she and the other characters (including a doctor, a nurse, a therapist and several patients) speak and sing; the dramas climax, in which Emily suffers a second stroke and dies, is again entirely sung. Poetic license aside, the music in Wings adds a dimension of rapture that mutes the potential horror of Emilys battle with illness and death, exposing the spiritual concerns inherent in Arthur Kopits original play. In the introduction to his script, Kopit writes that his Wings is essentially about language disorder and its aberrations. But the focus on the strange verbal patterns exhibited by his aphasic heroine is relegated to secondary status in the musical. Passages that fascinate with their quirkiness when spoken are inevitably made lyrical when refitted with rhyme, meter and melody; and the sung sequences are so beautiful that the dialogue between Emily and the people trying to help her is rather flat by comparison. Inner and outer worlds   We will write a custom essay on Wings specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now In the Goodman production, the opening sequence depicting Emilys stroke is genuinely, terrifyingly disorienting due largely to Richard Woodburys quadrophenic sound design, which enveloped the intimate, 135-seat studio, and to Linda Buchanans surrealistic set, a darkly luminous compression of the co-existing inner and outer worlds Emily inhabits. (A sense of almost unbearable tension is added by a simple device elastic bands stretching at odd angles across the front of the stage.) But after the disturbing opening, the score communicates such a sense of peace and quiet rapture that Emilys final farewell seems less a tragic loss than a transformative victory. Wings seems less about medicine than metaphysics. But the music has a more earthly function as well. As they researched the subject of aphasia treatment, Lunden and Perlman observed stroke victims at Beth Israel Hospital in the Bronx. There they met a music therapist named Connie Tomaino, whose work inspired them to make the character of Amy, a therapist in Kopits play, into a music therapist. Amy plays the accordion and leads the patients in such songs as Let Me Call You Sweetheart and When the Saints Go Marching Intunes Connie Tomaino really played, sometimes with the breakthrough results of triggering memories and physical action in silent, inert patients. Because music resides in a different part of the brain from speech, patients who cant talk can often sing, explains Lunden. A music-therapy session in Wings prompts Emily to sing a Charleston number that was her theme song as a wing-walker, Daredevils in the Airwhich, in a touch that gives the musical subliminal power, contains most of the thematic material heard in the rest of the score. .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd , .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .postImageUrl , .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd , .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd:hover , .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd:visited , .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd:active { border:0!important; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd:active , .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u4da84dd35bafea43d29dc8e08c7523dd:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: The opening Scenes of Dracula Essay Groping for words   The challenge was to find a way to structure it as musical theatre and yet retain the sense of a woman groping for words, says Perlman, who first saw Kopits play more than a decade ago at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. prior to its Broadway run. The solutions include the compositional technique of fragmentation, in which the elements of a fully developed song can be shattered just as Emilys perceptions are, and the use of an electronic sampler, into which Lunden fed taped phrases of vocal and instrumental music that would later be played back in altered form. Linda Stephens, a Chicago actress who had played Emily in Kopits Wings in Atlanta a dozen years earlier, conveys just the right blend of fragility and tensile strength for Emily who responds to her illness with the almost exultant sentiment, What a strange adventure I am having! Stephens is also an accomplished instrumentalist who easily sight-read the score, allowing her and director Maggio to embark quickly on the process of creating a densely textured characterization. Maggio responded personally to the story of a person struggling against medical adversity: at the time he first encountered Wings, the director was recuperating from a risky double-lung transplant whose success ended his life-long battle with cystic fibrosis. Maggios staging of Wings displays a profound sense of energy and mobility which reinforces the sense that Emilys real life is the one being lived by her free-floating spirit apart from her immobile body. One reason Perlman and Lunden turned to Wings as a source was purely pragmatic: These days, says Perlman, you have to be concerned with keeping your pieces small. Intended for an intimate playing space, with just a five-person cast and a small band augmented by synthesizer, Wings surely fit the budgetary bill. But this work, so diminutive in scope, is filled with enormous implications the musical theatre seldom dares address.