Themes and Frames

I am reading articles on framing right now, which is what a majority of my research is in this summer. Framing is actually kind of interesting in a nerdy com major sort of way, anyone else would just wonder what the hell is the point of this research. It is analyzing any form of media, in my case newspaper articles, and breaking down the coverage into one main topic, a couple of subtopics and then down to the frames of the article. For example, my main topic is AIDS in Africa, a few subtopics would be Money, Access to Care, Social Education and the Stigma of AIDS. We still need to discuss the frames but for example if a certain statistic or paragraph keeps popping up in each article, the author may be trying to frame the article in a certain direction by using that paragraph or statistic. It is a little abstract and I am almost certain you have fallen asleep by the time I finish this sentence. You have haven't you? Well wake up. No? SEXY FEZ WEARING MONKEY! Didn't work did it...I'll give you five bucks to wake up, I promise not to talk about framing anymore. There we go, welcome back.

So to pay my bills and rent I have picked up a job at Hallmark greeting cards, which has the most insane personality test I have ever taken. I don't know if psychos have a history of applying at hallmark but this test was absurd. 180 questions on your personality, including about 50 on if you steal all the time or get high at work. One question actually asked if you had ever lied in your entire life...OF COURSE I FUCKING HAVE. I have already lied 4 times on this test before that question! I actually didn't though...it was the first personality test I took where I was honest the whole time and I still came out with flying colors. It is amazing some people actually fail this test and are barred from working at Hallmark. They get high at work so often or steal all the time to the point where it prevents them from putting away cards and asking cusotmers for their gold crown card.

The job isn't bad though, it is your basic retail job. Stocking, inventory and working the register. I am still trying to get returns down but to be honest, they are a little more tricky than just pressing the amount and giving people their change. I was trained in about 20 minutes and have needed very little training since, except for figuring out how to do gift cards. Just a note people, don't get gift cards at any hallmark I work at or I will be forced to punch you in the face and/or crotch. I hate doing them that much.

Just a random thought: I am listening to "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners and after discovering the lead singer became a transexual techo singer later in his life I realize that I like the song just as much. It is a lot like Gary Glitter being a huge pedophile but stadiums still blasting the Hey! Song all the time anyways. Does the way a musician conduct himself in public or how radically they change their image effect their previous work? I tend to think not for a few reasons, the first being the role of the listener. With any artform people tend to make certain songs, movies or paintings and link them to personal feelings, moments or even day dreams. When we hear a song we link, we link to a time, place and feeling, and no matter how ridiculous the artist may be after that time period we still hold the song above the artist. The song is not a reflection of the artists whole life, just a time and place. You can enjoy a song even if it was done by a psycho, bathroom camera lovin chuck berry or tortured elliott smith. My second point is that music tends to last longer than those that created the music. Look at the man who epitomizes classical music: Beethoven. Beethoven was an asshole who was downright mean to many people, only went after married women and contemplated suicide constantly because of his deafness. Regardless of this reputation though he is held as a musical genuis whose work has been constantly imitated, played, revered and loved for hundreds of years. The fact that his personality and demeanor was absolutely vile had no effect on his musical work. Long after he was dead his music was re-discovered generation after generation, there was no longer any memory of beethoven's life, just his musical legacy. The music eventually overcomes the way a person lived their life and that facinates me. The music lives on even as the creator is slowly forgotten.

That's it for today folks, later.