Response to Joe Kowan: How I beat stage fright

http://www.ted.com/talks/joe_kowan_how_i_beat_stage_fright.html

This speech was really interesting to me and popped out to me because the credibility that inherently came with the topic. His topic was that he had incredibly terrible stage fright and he found this way to get over it; his credibility stemmed from his confidence when speaking as well as his conclusion of singing this song he wrote that emphasized the points of getting over stage fright. The method he spoke of involved admitting your fear to it and learning to make it work for you rather than against you; in a sense, don't let your body control your mind.

He really stood out among the rest because you could tell he was being honest, he looked like he would be awkward person in front of a crowd and he used that trait to give the speech a comical aspect. It also helped that his awkwardness and lack there off contributed to the main idea of the speech, which was how he overcame stage fright.

There was one part that didn't really feel right is when he asked someone on the side of the stage for water, it felt awkward and strange; especially seeing him drink it, it was uncomfortable and took away from the main idea.

What I liked most however occurred directly after and that was his "Stage Fright" song, he alludes to this song the whole speech and said its how he got over his stage fright and he finishes off his speech by singing it. This was the main reason that I chose this speech is because he does an amazing job of tying everything together and it contributes to the ethos as well; this song that he talks about isn't just some made up story, it is actually how he got over his stage fright.

Response to: Rembert Explains America: Detroit vs. Everybody

Remberts' article sent me a sort of mixed message. He leads of his article by kind of misleading the reader into thinking that Detroit is really this awful place but then changes the readers mind by revealing his misconceptions and biases. This leaves me thinking, Detroit can probably be saved, it has lots of potential to be a great city, however he ends on a bad note and shares his experience of finding this horrific area that read "this is a whore house, no fags allowed" and then he just cuts off. Though he does end saying he wants to come back and help. To me it seemed like it didn't necessarily fit in properly. I think his conclusion should have been a little bit larger so the ending wouldn't be so abrupt.

This being said he does use very good examples of the key features of the city and ties in the emptiness of the park to the lack of faith in the town. He does a good job of relating his experiences with Detroit to his overall view and shows the growth of his attitude towards the city. This I feel was the most powerful aspect to the article, showing that he grew from his prejudice and that we should also take a second glance at something before we label it and store it in the back of our brains.

Rembert touches on how you shouldn't prejudge but he also shows through Detroit that some parts of prejudice may be wrong, however some of them can be right. Even though Detroit isn't this horrible wasteland that people think it is, there are dangerous and despicable parts too it.

This article reminded me of a previous article that I have read about detroit and that is Rebecca Solnits' Detroit Arcadia http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07/detroit-arcadia/. Solnit describes the ruined areas of Detroit not to necessarily be a bad thing, but a thing of the past and she goes very in-depth into the history of the city.

In response too Morris' "Bodies of the Year"

Morris's arguments explain how people use and overuse there body in todays social media. Throughout the article he criticizes the importance of the body both the physically appealing nature of a beautiful body as well as the less attractive side of the spectrum. The body is an incredibly important part of society today and has always been, all be it never in the same fashion. I whole heartedly believe this to be true because no person can be explained without using there body; no one is going to be describing someone and say "Oh, she's the one with the mediocre ideas and talks about as much as an average person". its not going to happen because a persons body matters.A body tells a story; how you take care of your self, what kind of person you are, and the way you share or don't share your body can describe you as well.  

When I was reading this and noting all of the examples of how bodies were used throughout the current year, I thought of one other example however potentially a little out of date, Fat Amy. Fat Amy is a refreshing change of pace in that she isn't the stereotypical "Hot" actress and doesn't rely mainly on how she looks to get her role. She provides a genuinely funny attribute to a movie using her body as a sort of catalyst.

Towards the end he touches on how "Her" moved him because it used only a voice as an actor and the fact that they didn't overuse someones body as he seems to insinuate throughout his article, however I don't think it is 100% percent clear of this "overuse". In the movie they show the main actor having phone sex with some random women and they put a face to it, then later in the movie the OS and the main actor have "phone sex" and although it doesn't show this over use of the body, using something like sex forces your mind to wander, even if a body wasn't physically there the fact that they used sex is a use of the body.