Dave Matthews Band review

One of the greatest Dave Matthews Band albums of all time is their newest album, Big Whisky and the GrooGrux King. This album is different from the rest with more use of electric guitars than ever before along with some of the most unique lyrics he has ever came out with. The review mainly focuses on why these songs were written the way that they were given the time period, Hurricane Katrina. The review focuses on only a couple songs in the album that stand out and are different from what Dave usually cooks up within his songs. I agree with the evaluation for the most part, I would have liked to see more about the album as a whole then just a few individual songs. I would have definitely evaluated the album a little differently focusing on the entire album and why the Dave Matthews Band chose to switch up their song tempo from past years. I would have also talked about the awards that this album has received as well as how the Dave Matthews Band got chosen to play their new hit song, and one of my favorites, at the Grammy Awards. There are many reasons why this album is one of my favorite but the main reason is that this was the last album that Saxophonist and founding member LeRoi Moore was featured in. LeRoi was able to record a few songs on this album but half way through recording the entire album he passed away, a mark that would always stay with the band in years to come. This album features a different style of music, something out of the ordinary that stands out from albums in the past. I feel that the band worked the hardest to achieve what they wanted through this album. Dave Matthews once said in an interview, “If there is one album and one set of songs that I want us to be remembered for when the band is done I want it to be Big Whisky.”

Definition Proposal

“GDI” God Damn Independent

1)      1) The purpose of this paper is going to be to talk about the term GDI. A GDI is a person who is completely independent and does not conform to anything. These people are referred to in the Greek life as anyone who is not a member of a fraternity or sorority. I will give stories and examples of how this term is used and mainly how much it is used throughout the college life here at Penn State.

2)      2) I am defining this word to mainly inform other people on the word’s meaning and to show its humor. I did not know what the term meant before coming to Penn State. This is also the goal of the paper.

3)      3) The specific scenes and events that I will illustrate are mostly from my experiences with the Greek life at Penn State. This is where I first heard the term being used in most of the fraternities.

4)      4) The audience of this paper is mainly directed at college kids now and the groups of people who prefer to do things on their own. To the group of people who do things for themselves, what is best for them.

Geek and Supermarket Pastoral Culture

Oswalt defines the words geek, nerd, and otaku in almost the same way. He says that they mean you are not a conformist to the social norm or what is widely accepted by the society as a whole. He goes on to describe why people are so called “outcasts” and form their own cliques to have somewhat of a safe haven where they can all essentially be nerds together. He starts off defining these terms en route to get to the larger picture of the essay. As he states near the middle of the essay, everyone of this generation and generations to come are essentially “otaku,” we are all nerds in our own unique way even though we may not view it that way. He says that every show we routinely watch on TV no matter how popular or the music that we listen to over and over again puts us all into a category that back in the 80’s would have been classified as a nerd. Oswalt says that nerds are basically classified on a basis of activities and objects that make them happy and bring them joy. So just because I have seen Dave Matthews Band sixteen times in concert let alone ninety-three total bands live or the fact that I am obsessed with cars, does that make me a nerd? I strongly agree with his point that we are all nerd in some way shape or form. Just because people are into card games or video games doesn’t make them an outcast. These things are just something they like just as I like concerts and cars. I feel that “geekiness” has become somewhat normal in today’s society but no one actually realizes it. When we classify someone as a nerd we put them into a group based on what they like. Each and every one of us can be placed into a similar group based on our likes and interests. It is just a simple fact of life that this happens.

            Supermarket pastoral is a term given by Pollan that describes the market of organic foods today. Pollan describes the grocery store as a place where literacy is important in understanding where your food is coming from. He says it is much like a pastoral narrative, a type of narrative about animals that you would see in children’s books or movies. The labels on the food depict scenes of meadows and green pastures where the animals are free to roam to solidify the consumer’s expectations for the good. The reason these labels came about was due to the public’s growing concern of how “wholesome” the food was. Organic foods have been rapidly taking over the shelves in food markets and stores further expanding the availability of organic food to consumers. Organic agriculture is the world’s fastest growing food sector, competition in which producer’s use these scenes and images on the labels to compete for which good is of the highest quality so consumer’s buy their product. Today, the organic food industry is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United Sates. The culture of organic food started out small such as wheat pasta and things like that and expanded into a feeding frenzy of organic food. Organic foods of that past such as pasta have grown into a market that has a little of everything such as microwaveable organic TV dinners that Pollan mentioned. The growing concern of the public has made organic food take over the consumer market today. The organic food industry is only going to expand in the future with more “Supermarket Pastoral” and more and more organic foods being placed on the grocery store shelf.