Month: March 2018

Today’s good read will be On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder.

Form
This book is a quick read, it’s only 126 short pages and it’s form factor makes it great as both coffee table literature or something to read in the bathroom. The book is comprised of twenty short lessons, all focusing on a specific aspect of society that we should participate in or watch out for to prevent Tyranny in America. The language is not hard to understand. It is written so anyone can pick it up and read it. Overall I need to complement this book’s style. It does a great job of walking the line between coffee table literature and serious political commentary while making the book itself accessible to anyone who wants to read it. Coupled with the book’s $6.39 price on Amazon for the paperback, there isn’t a reason people shouldn’t get this book.

Content
This is where Timothy Snyder’s opinions and mine differ. I think that everyone should read this book as a way to start conversations with others about the book’s content. With each chapter being comparatively few pages, even if Snyder Wanted to, he couldn’t fully articulate his claims in that space. This is why Snyder has chosen to give brief little overviews in each lesson. Evey lesson has some supporting evidence, but not much. The book is great as a stepping stone into a conversation. After quickly reading a lesson people should have an idea of where to start a conversation with someone about that lesson. They will not have a list of facts for which to use in that conversation.

Facts and Opinions
This book is highly opinionated. The first two chapters start out simple enough. They tell people to reflect on their actions as to not obey in advance and defend institutions. By the end of the third chapter, it would be possible to interpret some of Snyders words as an attack on the Republican party. This theme continues to various degrees throughout the book. Snyder becomes very critical and makes it apparent that he loves to “throw shade” at the Republicans, but especially Trump.

Because this book does not have space to fully support the claims it makes, coupled with the fact that nothing is cited in this book. Makes it rather frustrating to read regardless of if you like or dislike the state of the white house.

It’s still worth it
This book is not perfect, and not very good at some things. However, this book has significant value because it is good at starting a conversation. People who read this book regardless of if they agree or not will be in a better place to comment and even make counter-arguments. That is why I think the book is indispensable.

Do yourself a favor and leave this book on your coffee table. Trust me. Your afternoon hangouts with your friends might become the slightest bit more political. Many people might not want that, but I do. That is why you will find On Tyranny present on my coffee table.

When I was little the very first thing to truly get me invested in reading was Calvin and Hobbes. In fact, my investment with this comic strip is to the point where I think of both characters as old freinds rather than any fictional character.

In many ways, the comic could be the single defining literature of my childhood. I own the vast majority of the collections that were released, and the crown jewel of my collection is the thick three release hardback “Master Collection” that contains every single comic ever penned during its syndication from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. Countless hours have been spent in bed pouring over this newspaper strip. All of them were worth it.

Calvin and Hobbes is the brainchild of the now legendary comic artist Bill Watterson. Bill had experimented in political cartoons before Calvin, but Calvin and Hobbes was what made him famous.

I have intense respect for Bill Waterson as a man of morals and character. He is a firm believer in maintaining creative integrity within his brand. In fact, the only reason Calvin and Hobbes came to a close was commercialism. Bill had gotten to a point where the strip was so famous that if he was going to be forced to commercialize it if the comic continued. A great example of this commercialization is Dilbert, Peanuts, and Garfield. They all were respectable comics in their time but now can be found on everything from calendars, mugs, and TV ads. Bill believed that when you commercialize you “Sell Out” and your brand losses integrity.

He never wanted his comic to become merely a tool for marketers to make money, so rather than “sell out.” He just stopped writing. To this day he still maintains full creative control over his content. This means that every time you see a Calvin and Hobbes bumper sticker of Calvin peeing on a logo, it is used without permission and the company making it could receive legal action. Watterson is the only person I know of that killed his product, over the intrinsic value it contains, in the face of significant personal financial gain.

For this reason, I have immense personal respect for Watterson and his work continues to live on in the hearts and minds of its readers, like me!

As far as the actual work itself is concerned. It goes without saying, the comic is some funny stuff. Calvin is a rambunctious 6-year-old with an intense vocabulary and an unending desire to explore, hit girls with water balloons, and spend time with his best friend and stuffed tiger, Hobbes.

What I think Calvin and Hobbes so timeless, is its ability to take someone back to their childhood regardless of your current age. Calvin is the perfect embodiment of just what a crazy kid I was and in some ways I think my childhood lives on inside of this comic too.

I would recommend this comic to literally anyone who is fluent in English and honestly, even to those who aren’t literate with English. Like I said before, this comic got me into reading, and for many strips, the pictures tell a far more humous story than the text ever would. So regardless of if you are literate, or if you like comics or not, do yourself a favor and pick up one of these collections. In fact, if you are in RCL and reading this come up to me after class one day and I will let you borrow one of mine for free. (I have extras, it’s not a problem in the slightest.)

 

 

I recently finished the book Learn Photography in a Weekend by Michael Langford. By reading the book, I wanted to get a better handle on my sense of photos, and because I enjoyed the book so much I hope I can convey some of that knowledge to you. Of course, seeing as this is a public blog post with people of all different skill types I will start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. I will briefly go over The Rule of Thirds, Perspective, and Lighting.

Rule of Thirds

One of the single most important things you can do to improve your photography is to follow the rule of thirds. Have you ever wondered why your camera has an option to display a grid? This is why.

The Rule of Thirds says that one of the ways to make your pictures more effective is to divide your photo into thirds horizontally and vertically and then place the subject or interesting parts of the photo either on those lines or close to them. Ideally, it should be where they intersect. These points of intersection are called Crash Points.

Pro Tip: When taking a headshot it’s not the head but the eyes that should line up with one of the thirds. The eyes are a focal point for the rest of the head.

Perspective
Taking photos is something that everyone does at some point in their lives, and everyone has viewed 10s of thousands of photos. In general, each person knows what a good and bad photo looks like even if we cant put it into words. A great way to improve your photography is to show your audience a new perspective. As humans, we see from normal viewing distances at eye level. When viewing photos, people want to see something new! Get up close! Back up! Change your height! Anything you can do to make your photo stand out in a novel way will generally be good.

Lighting
Photography is quite literally capturing light. So of course, the type and availability of light extremely important. In general, prefer outside natural light to indoor light as natural light provides the full spectrum of light and is much brighter. Artifical light is poor for photography and can be very harsh. Open windows or take photos outside. By the same token, outside mid-day photography can also be poor because of the harsh sun. The best type of lighting is a more ambient, diffuse light.

Pro Tip: Dusk and Dawn are called the Golden Hours of photography because of the diffuse light that they provide. Overcast days are great too as the clouds break up the harsh direct mid-day sunlight.

Have Fun/Experimenting
As I mentioned before in the perspective section, people want to see new things. Try out new stuff, and if it doesn’t work, you can always delete the photo!

Remember the Rule of Thirds. Think about your photo’s perspective. Choose appropriate lighting conditions. But most of all, try to have fun. Without fun, photography has no point for me. Enjoy taking your photos, build memories, and hopefully, you will have a good shot to remember them by.