Books and Music application Essay

Books and music

I am a voracious reader and my tastes are very broad as I am constantly exposed to new authors/artists and genres. That said, there are many peices that will always inspire my creativity and provide me with entertainment.

I had always heard of Jefferson Airplane as a sort of mysterious inaccessible vehicle of change from a lost era. When I saw their performance from the 1969 Woodstock movie, I found them to be both accessible and contemporary. Their folk inspired rock guides intelligent lyrics on subjects as diverse as the Coming of Christ in their album "Crown of Creation" or the role of propaganda in the political process as described affecting "Miranda" in their song of the same name. These lyrics were written before Dan Brown's Angels and Demons or Rupert Murdoch bought the lions share of America's consciousness. The critical message that their songs deliver is one that is also timeless.

Grace Slick, the lead singer for Jefferson Airplane was also a great reader and I find many of my favorite books among her inspirations. Alice in Wonderland is one of these stories. As a tenth and eleventh grader, I adapted the entire story into a sixty-page screenplay. The resonating themes for me were the notions of insanity in common sense and sanity in nonsense. The image of the walrus as a titan of industry preparing to feast on small clams representing the trusting masses is one that was needed in 19th century England, where Carroll perhaps had to look no further than the poorhouses to find concrete evidence of his whimsical scenario.

Where Lewis Carroll wrote fantastic stories filled with stylized personalities and extraordinary situations, Charles Dickens offers a very sober portrait of the same world. David Copperfield finds a spot with me because it covers a number of circumstances showing both the wretched conditions of the disenfranchised, as the abandoned David is, and the apathetic rich. It also offers a glimpse of the helpful lower and middle class in David's nurse and aunt as well as the blissfully ignorant Mr. Dick.

Despite my understanding of inherent friction between classes and my belief that the friction can be lessened through change and continued social mobility, my uncle and a series of libertarian professors and acquaintances helped me internalize certain aspects of the 19th century British movement, liberalism. I admire the work of JS Mill, specifically On Liberty, in which the role of government is discussed. During a recent Religion and Philosophy course with Richard Sugarman, I became aware that his work was essentially carried on in modern Phenomenology, as pioneered by John Wild.

Another writer people are surprised to find among my reading is Adam Smith. The Wealth Of Nations represents a philosophy our society has brazenly interpreted and followed for centuries. Unlike many of my friends, who believe the book has corrupted America, essentially creating a series of slave states throughout the third world, I see Wealth of Nations as a useful economic tool that has been misinterpreted. I could write forever about this, but allow me to just say that perhaps Adam Smith advocated increasingly vigilant monitering of the effects of our actions, not the devil-may-care attitude, hope the "invisible hand" solves all problems that people seem to read from the work.

While this is by no means comprehensive or complete, I hope it does fairly accurately portray the way I look at literature or art.