Field Site

1. What is going on in the field site?
At first I walked into my field site which is a place where hookah smoking is quite popular. This Middle Eastern restaurant named Divan, contained a lot of people, preferably family and friends all eating and dancing, listening to music and having a good smoke from what is known as a Hookah.

2. How do the members of the subculture interact with each other?
Their is Arab music playing and we have groups of people, usually family members and friends that get together and eat dinner at low to the ground tables and chairs. Afterwards they enjoy beverages such as wine and pull out the hookahs and begin smoking on them. Mostly the customers usually gather around the table and socialize, taking amongst themselves, enjoying the presents of their surroundings and dance with each other. Majority of customers that come to smoke hookah are Caucasians but occasionally you will see Middle Eastern and Indian people join in on the cultural festivities.

3. Make a list of terminology used at the field site with which you might be unfamiliar.
Star buzz
Argila
Nargila
Persian Galyoon
Sheesha
Harem

4. What details, behaviors, and surroundings did you have questions about?
I was wondering why there was so much paintings and artwork on the walls and I found out that the paintings were of the Middle Eastern Culture. Many different exotic styles were displayed all throughout the restaurant. I noticed that the water pipes had a long pipe coming out of the base of it and I wondered is that where the smoke will be coming out. When I was listening to the music that was playing in the background, I could not help but ask what kind of music was being played? I found out that it was Arab music and usually Divan mixes up with Persian and Spanish music.

5. Find at least one person at your field site you can speak to and ask them a question about something you observed that you didn't understand.
Actually I found a very helpful person that gave me great information about hookahs and the culture of it. Max Lofty is the manager of Divan. I asked him many questions regarding to my research paper and one question stood out from the rest. I asked him what the customers smoke from the hookahs, water pipes. He responded with the components that make up the flavorful smoke you either inhale or blow out. First off, the tobacco is mixed with molasses and fruit. The minimum amount of tobacco is .01% so they are not as harmful as cigarettes. On the top of the tobacco their will be a piece of charcoal. The water in the water pipe filters the smoke coming from the tobacco and charcoal into the opening with a thick smoke.

Act V

Questions:

1. What do the individuals in the subculture value?
The volunteered inmates value the theater arts. They are the individuals that re-an act the plays that are directed by volunteers such as Agnes. Other actors and PHD's come in and talk to them about acting and information regarding to the plays so that they can get some good advice. The inmates also value bringing out an inner self that is mostly covered by the society they are in, behind bars.

2. What do they disdain or what is taboo?
The taboo probably is refers to how criminals cannot understand art and theater because they only deserve punishment and time for their crimes. Basically, many people think of inmates as a lower society that should be kept locked up and excommunicated from the outside world. Other inmates may taunt the other inmates that participate with the plays because they may think it is a weak way to carry on them.

3. How do you attain group membership?
First off, you have to be an inmate to join Act V. This specific subculture is an cooperating operation for criminals to get a chance to experience theater and performance while they are incased in prisons and correction facilities. If you want to volunteer to help out with the plays and such then you can contact Prison Performing Arts on their website or by calling them.

4. What activities are important to the subculture?
Certain activites such as casting calls and read throughs are very important. The director should be aware of who they pick and how they can incorporate characters well for the play. When the inmates gather to practice lines and discuss comments, critiques, and such they are also joined with other actors and actresses. Performing the plays and theaterical works is a huge activity that shows off how much they have practice and how well they done in front of their audience.

5. What artifacts or behaviors are important to the subculture?
The criminals are in character so that they can relate the scenes with their actions done in order to get a feel in their part. They use psychological ways to incorporate the plays to exercise the minds and see society beyond what they usual see. The criminals see how they are in plays and practices and enjoy being a part of a group that will not discriminate them because they are doing time for crime. They are seen as human beings that are inspired by the arts and some discover who they are now, a changed person.

My Topic

Topic: Hookah Smokers


Sources:
Miller, Michael C., ed. “The hazards of hookah.” Harvard Mental Health Letter 24.9 (2008): 1-3 . Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Georgia’s virtual library. 14 Mar. 2008

Jaecks, Kelli Swanson. “Smoking the Hooka.” RDH. 28.1 (2008): 38-44 . Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Georgia’s virtual library. 14 Mar. 2008

Williams, Stephen. “No smoke without fire....” Middle East. 383 (2007): 60-61 . Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Georgia’s virtual library. 14 Mar. 2008 http://ezproxy.gsu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=27512716&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Mehta, Niti. "HOOKAH SMOKERS RULES LEARNT THE HARD WAY." Lexis Nexis Academic. 05 Jun. 2007. Galileo. 14 Mar 2008 .

O’Connor, Anahad. “Hookahs are safer than cigarettes.” New York Times on the Web 11 Sep. 2007. 14. Mar. 2008


Reflection:
My topic is over Hookah smokers and I briefly looked over one article I found online titled, Smoking the Hookah. The hookah is world wide and this trend of smoking has a major affect on the teenagers and college students. Hookah started off in the ancient days and recently started up again with places called Hookah Bars located in many college living communities. I have been exposed to information about Hookahs on the local news before but never did I realize how much information I have found that linked to certain topics within my own topic. Certain college students and friends that I know go to Hookah bars. For my research I already have my field site and how I would start off my rough draft by looking at some articles about Hookahs.

Shampoo Film

Shampoo is a film created in the March 13, 1975, directed by Hal Ashby also written by Robert Towne and Warren Beatty(www.imdb.com). From direct quote from a contemporary reviewer Don Druker he says, "A brilliant collaboration involving actor-writer Warren Beatty, co-author Robert Towne, director Hal Ashby, and co-stars Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant, and Jack Warden. Genuinely funny (in a terrifying, puzzling, tragic way) this tale of sexual/political hypocrisy in Beverly Hills (circa 1968) raises the inescapable issue of the Nixon era: how can we explain away our responsibility for the moral debacle of the last seven years when our private acts mirror our public postures so unerringly? Highly recommended (www.ejumpcut.org).
Warren Beatty, one of the most well known actors of the 70’s played his role as a hair stylist from Beverely Hills. His expectations were to become a great hair dresser and own his own salon. Other characters featured in this film are Carrie Fisher, Julie Christie, and Goldie Hawn. These specific roles these actors and actresses had to fill in were related to the main character Warren Beatty in a somewhat sexual relationship(www.imdb.com). Shampoo is a drama/romance movie. Winning many awards and being nominated for them such as the Oscars, Golden Globe, and WGA, this film was very significant during the 70’s. You must ask who is behind this film all the way. Well it is the director Hal Ashby, director and film editor. Growing up during his childhood years, he had to face his father’s suicide death and his personal traumas. As he became older, he married at the age of 21 and began his works as being an editor working with directors such as William Wyler. His film making career jump started after that, making other films, In the Heat of the Night in 1967(Katz, 56).

To look for...

Using the internet to find my resources, I typed in at google.com Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, to find many links to websites regarding to the artist. I found a lot of lyrics to songs and music video links. I had to search through out the found search results only to find wikipedia.org contain information on Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. That was my first website that I went into to look up their background in the music business. There was some other relevant websites prior to my search on google.com. One website was at billboard.com, where the same information found on wikipedia.com was also on this website as well. I then went back to google.com to search for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony background information. The results lead me to this one website named www.answers.com where I could find what their albums where and what made them successful. I went to their official website to find their bios of their releases of albums in their years.
I decided to look on the search engine google.com because it is a familiar website where I usually go to find information that I need on numerous topics. Even though google.com can be vague on the feedback I get, the many websites regarding to what I am looking for gives me more of a variety of the topic. I also use wikipedia.com because this website is used a lot by google users. Using yahoo.com I typed in Bone Thugs-N-Harmony to look for more background information. Another search website I went to was ask.com. I looked at these websites because I use them to look for information on other topics from the past and they helped a lot.
Some of the advantages of looking at google.com, yahoo.com, and ask.com are that they have many websites that links to the topic I was looking for. They brought up other search websites that helped me further with my search. I got a lot of the same information on these websites that made the information more legitimate. The disadvantage of using these websites are the time to find some of the information you need because if the topic is vague then the feed back will be great and some of them may not regard to what you are looking for. This process can be very time consuming, but for a better search on a short time, it is better to use a more specific search website such as Galileo.com or sirs.com. These websites will have specific questions or options that narrows down what you are looking for so that they can give you information or the links provided much more efficiently.

“Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur"

Michael Eric Dyson is a known hip hop intellectual as well as religion as a Baptist minister. He obtained his Ph D. in religion at Princeton University. Being a professor he has taught at some of the locations; Brown University, DePaul University, and also University of Pennsylvania. He then settles at Georgetown University teaching English, Theology, and African American studies. Dyson hosted a radio program during January 2006 to February 2007, The Michael Eric Dyson Show, as well as speaking on CNN, National Public Radio, and the HBO television show, Real Time with Bill Maher. He is well educated on the culture of hip-hop music and the roots of African and African-American cultures as long with the American cultures. Michael wrote “Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur” The reason why I choose this author and his book is because I have always liked to listen to Tupac Shakur’s music, even though what he raps about is something I really cannot relate to in a somewhat degree, it is because of his points he is trying to get out to the audience and I really adore his inspiration. He also did not care what the media thought of him and what the public said about his music as a menace and such. I believe this is his words of reality coming from the hood. Michael writes about Tupac Shakur in this book. He begins with the struggles of Tupac’s life growing up with a mother that helped black militancy through social rebellions with force and the president of one of the infamous street gang, Disciple Debs. He lived in a constant struggle between poverty and turning to the streets for a way to make money to survive. What he learned on the streets to all his life experiences along with his family encouraged him to rap in his songs. Since Michael Eric Dyson is well educated professor, wrote many books that influence the African-American culture is well qualified to write about Tupac Shakur.

Hip Hop- SHI 360

From the video of SHI 360, this Israeli Shai Haddad grew up in a town called Haifa, Israel. Only 11 eleven years old him and his family packed together their things only to seek a new home in Montreal, Canada. Shai had to overcome difficulties in a foreign home where language barrier and Anti-Semitism was current. Mostly he was influenced from the experiences of Canada that brought him to the music of the Hip-Hop culture. He started off as a DJ for a club and then graduated from Concordia University. Shai then lunged out with this career to be an artist with words to be spoken through music.
In his video, “Kmo Hayot” you can depict the streets of what seems to be in Israel. There are hustlers who steal to get money in their pockets to people who try to trick you into picking a card and losing your bets. The graffiti is well displayed all around the walls and bums that just sleep the day away. SHI 360 portrays what is Hip-Hop to him in his own style. He presents the graffiti art, the dirty money being trafficked illegally, and the people that struggle to support themselves and family. Hip-Hop in another significant way as to “streets” or “hoods” well fits this video. In the Hip-Hop culture these elements presented in “Kmo Hayot” gives off the troublesome days where bad communities and harsh livings all represent some of the genre of Hip Hop.
Also, SHI 360, in his song, is basically rapping about a story of the streets of Israel and their social and political needs of change. Their influence was mostly from Malcolm X and the African-American communities. Globally Hip-hop is a well known genre composed by rappers, mc, djs, and hip-hop artists. Majority of the rappers in Israel are Muslims and have their religion in parts of their songs to express how they feel about it as well.

Peer Review

I believe the peer review went decently. The reading of one another’s paper and filling out the peer review sheet worked well. We discussed briefly what we liked and disliked throughout the paper. What was making sense and what did not are a few examples. The peer review gave us a good opportunity to see how our paper went and what improvements we needed to get on. I believe what did not work out was the time we had only to discuss each other’s paper. As soon as we finished the reading and answering the questions on the peer review sheet it was already time to discuss. The time we had was not enough to my opinion to actually go well in depth of what we needed to fix. Next time we should have fewer questions to answer and have more time to discuss with each other. Then we can go more into what areas are the weakest and what needs to be more focused on changing to make the paper better. If we can as well, have another day to work on our paper in groups before we turn in our final draft just so we know we are still on the write path on writing the final paper.

PCU was a very interesting movie and also very funny. The movie based upon the college lives of groups that form from the college students. This movie had such groups as The Pit, which was a rebellious clique that did not care for work and loved to rock and party. Other groups also followed by the so called Jerrytowns to the sexists. Many fallacies where pointed out throughout the first 40-50 minutes of this film and one fallacy has caught my attention. This was a scene where a group of vegetarians that believed eating meat and killing animals such as cows were not right and disgusting. Their protest was blocking the entrance to what seems to be a cafeteria. This fallacy would be the straw man because one of the several protest signs someone was carrying contained words such as "Do not eat meat because meat is murder." Just because people like the taste for meat and consume it, this particular group is disrespecting the person that eats meat's and calls them murderers. The person that likes to eat meat would not agree being called a murderer would be the group of protestors refute their position to judge that they are really murderers.

"Death of an Innocent"

I believe that in today’s society you have two options. One option is to make money to survive in the economic world. The other option is to live amongst the ancestors back in the ancient days where hunting and gathering was the main source of food and resource to survive. This world for the most part, grown to an extremely large rate of industrialization and modern technology that we forget to acknowledge the past balances between mother nature and the ozone in our atmosphere. People do tend to forget that since we are here alive and well, there are no needs to help others that are less fortunate than us. Those who seek for help from others are left untouched for aid and are left to die in their suffering state.
McCandless was a young individual that discovered many great aspects of life by living to what instincts he contained out in the wild. His strength and knowledge carried him on through 113 day journey that lasted him experiences with nature and not human civilization. From his journals to his pictures, he seemed like he enjoyed for the most part, the life of independence from those who do not care for natural beauty.
After his graduation out of Emory University, he went on a voyage toward the west side of the United States to only land on an extreme hot desert in Arizona when his car broke down. From then on he realized that he will not use any source of money to help him through his strife. His travels around the western side, finding little jobs only to prepare him on a full scale adventure out in the open. This served a purpose to all that knew about him.
From these great stories untold by the man who overcame obstacles, the majority of mankind would not, gives out a message to others that life is not all about money and materialistic things, but to cherish the beauty of what was established in the very beginning, the natural world. On my behalf, McCandless was a great man with integrity to stumble upon his belief of living in a world where survival, great scenery, breathe taking moments can only be found in the great outdoors.
People in society these days are prone to keeping up with the economy and how they can develop ways to make money rather than explore the forests or live off the mountain terrains. A lot has changed from the past 15 years. Meaning, who really needs to catch fish straight from the waters of the ocean or lakes when they can drive or even walk to the market to find a fish already caught and packaged for them. Better yet, today’s societies among the foods we eat are now more composed of fast food restaurants to microwavable foods. So for my response to this blog entry is that, yes, society has changed from the past 15 years and their primary goals are based on the economy. People such as McCandless are very rare to find because we grow up in a world where everything is so much easier if you purchase food and not have to hunt for them, along with the life living out in the natural scenery with no air conditioning, gas heating, and electricity.

AIDS and Advertising

The fact that AIDS is a big issue throughout the world creates stirs around the people with this picture. The picture portrays a man that is lying in bed with pain and agony on his face while his family is grieving at the fact that they have to watch him suffer. The point of this ad is to recognize the horrific reality of the effects of AIDS can do to families and others. In such conditions this ad does appeal to the consumers so that they can attract them to their products, let the people know that United Colors of Benetton are acknowledging that AIDS is a difficult issue to overcome and let their brand be known world wide.
As a brand name clothing line, United Colors of Benetton creates this ad as an advertisement of their products. This picture will afflict on the image shown as a marketing strategy to attract customers into buying their products. If the consumers see that this brand supports the AIDS foundation then they are keener to purchase their items. When this certain brand distributes certain colors that will inspire the people to buy the products that correspond to that color then their sales can sky rocket with each on coming purchase.
This picture was once famous when it was first discovered, therefore United Colors of Benetton abstractedly distinguished the intensity of grief and mourn from families that under went a member of theirs with AIDS. Supporter of AIDS; United Colors of Benetton attempts to show their concerns with this massive killing disease that spreads with an alarming rate each day. They send out a message to the audience informing them that AIDS is a very serious matter that should not be pushed aside and or hidden from reality.
Who would recognize United Colors of Benetton with out advertisements and strategies to bring up their sales with out attractions such as this image? Before this picture was known, their might have been certain consumers that acknowledge this brand of clothes but the percentage might not be as great as other brands such as Louis Vuitton to even Abercrombie and Fitch in the United States by itself. That is why this representation of AIDS reflects most on their brand because of the way they present themselves through the advertisement and what appeals to the public’s eye. To get their brand out there and recognizable to the consumers; they would have to come up with a strategy to catch a lot of buyers attention. That is why they came up with this successful approach to the awareness of AIDS and how this virus can affect many if not well at caution.
When the public are not very aware of the affects of AIDS, then brand name corporations such as United Colors of Benetton steps in and basically allure them to their products. Once this shocking image was brought upon the consumers of the worlds through this brand, they come to realize that this brand name clothing line really do care about the issues of AIDS and reflect the horror it can bring through out families all around the world. These are called strategies where they would expand their brands globally, letting the public know that their concerns are the same as other customers would be, and most importantly increase in the amount of sales they produce.