Class and Food

We have been discussing class and issues surrounding class a lot in American Studies recently. We have talked about class indicators like career prestige and education, as well as power and the amount of influence on the government. There is one thing that we haven't touched on, and is a big indicator of class in parts of our country: food. An article in The Daily Beast about the issue states that "17 percent of Americans—more than 50 million people—live in households that are 'food insecure'", meaning that they struggle to put food on the table on a weekly basis. On the other hand, there are so-called 'foodies' who spend hours preparing locally grown and organic foods. The amount of money that a family can afford to spend on food and what kind of food choices they make are definite indicators of class. Take a look around our community. The number of sit-down restaurants is much closer to (if not exceeds) the number of fast food places in lower class areas.
While watching the documentary Food, Inc., one personal story gave this issue a face and gave me a perspective as to how fortunate I am. The camera crew interviewed a lower class family who frequented fast food restaurants. The mother explained that in order to pay for the father's diabetes medication, they had to cut down on the cost of their food. She said that they had the choice between meals for the whole family of a few fruits and vegetables to share, and the bottom line was that the fast food was cheaper and it kept the family full. She wished that she and her family could eat healthier, but they were forced to make a choice.
Do you think that food is a factor of class? Are there any indicators that you've noticed in our community vs. other communities regarding food?

Don DeLillo vs. Los Campesinos!

A few days ago, the song "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed" by the band Los Campesinos! came up on shuffle on my iPod, and as I listened to the lyrics, they reminded me of White Noise (and that I had not yet written a blog post about it, so here it is). The song begins with the singer describing his relationship with a love interest, and the line, "We both know your heart's not in it" sung in the first stanza is what made me make the connection between the song and the book. Jack is the equivalent of the singer and his 'love interest' is Babette. The similarities became more eerie the more I listened to the song.

The chorus, repeated twice in the song, introduces a new character who the love interest has been seeing. The singer threatens the other man by claiming that he's going to break the other man's newly-fixed teeth. This other man plays the same roll that the person Babette was cheating with does. You may be thinking, "Isn't every single song on the radio today about this kind of thing?". Well, yes. But the sixth stanza is the strongest connection to White Noise in my opinion. It digs deeper into the meaning of life and the "necessity of dying" (Los Campesinos!). In chapter 4 of the book, Jack is watching Babatte work out at the local high school and asks the looming question: "Who will die first?" (15). And in the song the singer "Hopes [his] heart goes first". These quotes compare the amount of commitment they feel towards their partners and the pain they would feel if they outlasted them.
Further down on the same page, Jack states that, "[Dying] cures us of our innocence of the future. Simple things are doomed..." By saying this, Jack means that the death makes the future seem more realistic and closer, that it's coming no matter what we do. And we're "doomed" to be effected my death no matter what we do. In "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed", the singer says. "We kid ourselves there's future..but there is no f------future." In a way, Jack and the singer's minds are working in the same way. They both think that without their loved one, their is no future.

The last similarity I noticed was how the singer/Jack felt about the amount of love they had to give their partner. The line in the song is: "I taught myself the only way to vaguely get along in love is to like the other slightly less than you get in return,", and I think it's interesting that Jack actually feels the opposite way about Babette. 

I highly recommend the song and the album (of the same name) by Los Campesinos! I'm sure there are a ton more connections and similarities between the two that I have failed to spot. Here's the song and the lyrics.

Google Doodles

Today, I scrolled down to the Google Chrome web browser logo and clicked on it with the intention of searching The New York Times or Chicago Tribune for a blog topic. Instead, I would up clicking on the Google logo, which was a picture of a man in what seemed like an archive of ancient items. It directed me to a Google search of Howard Carter, who is famous for discovering Tutankhamun's tomb. I'm sure you've seen one of these at some point in your internet experience, a change in the Google logo that represents a holiday or occasion. They are what Google calls "Google Doodles"

According to Google, the first Google Doodle was made in 1998. It was a stick figure behind one of the 'o's that told the viewers that the Google show-runners were out of town for the weekend. Now, there's a new Doodle almost every day. In fact, there is an entire team of artists whose job it is to create these Doodles based on their own ideas or suggestions submitted by e-mail. (You can submit one to proposals@google.com). In the past few years they have become interactive, you can play Pac-Man or even strum a Les Paul.
The Doodles can also vary by country depending on national holidays and differing cultures. I think that it is an awesome and easy way to teach people something new every day, with just the click of a mouse. I didn't even have to click on any of the links for Howard Carter in order to know what he was well known for. Americans tend to not have much patience, we want information quickly and we don't want to work that hard to find it. So being able to keep people entertained as well as informed and knowledgeable is an accomplishment. Thanks Google, and keep the Doodles coming!
If you want to see an archive of Google Doodles, you can go to http://www.google.com/doodles.

SXSW Comedy Lineup

South By Southwest is a music, comedy, film, and interactive festival held annually in Austin, Texas. Each year since the festival was founded, the comedy sect has grown larger and larger, especially in stand up. But when the lineup for last year was announced, there were 31 stand ups booked, and only one of them was a woman.
The sole female stand up, Tig Notaro said this about the festival's lineup in an article for The Denver Post: "I just assumed that it was thoughtless, which I guess could equal sexism in some people's minds." She makes a good point in that purposely booking women solely to avoid complaints could be considered sexism as well.
After the lineup was announced, SXSW did add three additional female stand ups: Amy Schumer, Chelsea Peretti, and Jena Friedman. But the damage was already done in the minds of female comedians.
Thankfully, the situation did improve for the 2012 festival. There were nine female performers, but then again, the total amount of performers topped sixty. This raises the question, is there discrimination against female stand ups, or are there just simply not as many talented ones?