What Is “The Mitochondria”?

Dear Followers,

Boy do I wish I had signed up for Science Bowl earlier in high school. Yesterday was my first and last Science Bowl competition ever.

Held within the Macalester University campus, yesterday’s competition featured many grueling round of head-to-head science trivia action. The topics consisted of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth & Space, and Energy, no doubt an inserted form of implicit propaganda from the Department of Energy to convince the future generation of the importance of alternative energy sources. Sigh. Regardless, each round featured a diverse spread of questions. I only found one or two similar questions across the approximately 10 rounds we participated in.

The reason why I joined Science Bowl is simple: it was fun. The competition was no different. With an added feeling of competitive play, yesterday’s competition was extremely fun, even if we lost quite a few rounds and sometimes the members of my team skirmished amongst each other unnecessarily. Yes, Team 2 is quite an eclectic combination of individuals, featuring Nathan, Jayant, Narupa, Clark, and myself. After a few rounds of figuring out how the game worked and losing rounds less by the skill of our opponents and more by the consequences of our mistakes, we began to click as a team.

In a surprising turn of events, Wayzata’s prestigious Team 1 was knocked out of the elimination rounds prematurely for one reason or another. While Team 2 made it to the next round afterwards, my inability to distinguish between 2πr and πr^2 cost us the match, or at the very least, the ability to send the round into a tie-breaker. Stupid geometry. Either way, I am extremely proud of all of my teammates for a great effort and for making it as far as we did.

Hopefully in college I will be able to get involved with such an intellectually stimulating and enjoyable activity before my senior year.

2πr Does Not Equal πr^2 For All Values Of r,
Noel

Kate Will Never Be A K Debater

Dear Followers,

It’s a weird feeling, walking away from what presumably is my last debate tournament. I had always imagined my last debate would be full of ridiculous shenanigans, with me having the freedom to run arguments as I pleased in one final round. But alas, the 2NR was the Security K. In a way, I guess that qualifies as ridiculous shenanigans. At least I gave a half decent 1AR for once. And hey, we picked up a ballot against a K.

I can remember when I first joined what had been described to me as Mrs. Sarff’s academic cult. I was a sophomore and I didn’t want anything to do with debate. All I wanted to do was put in some work, collect some awards, and apply to some Ivy League school. Thankfully, as a member of the debate team, I never really won any awards. No, instead I gained something much more valuable from debate which has helped me become the eccentric person I am today.

My first debate tournament was a doozie. It was the day after Homecoming, and after cheering my lungs out at the football gang, I spent the rest of my night frantically highlighting files with Cosette Haugen and Evan Chen. It’s no surprise that my habit of saving all of my prep until the day before the tournament never really changed. The next day was a messy affair. Our first round was against Blake HS and we picked up by adding a slew of environmental impacts to the Immigrant Magnet DA. The second round, after I confidently read through the 1AC, our opponents resigned. Finally, we won a round against a Food Stamps AFF for reasons I will probably never remember.

It’s surprising how much everything changed as I continued to debate. During novice year I remember debating Cupcake and Cole Johnson-Jensen and feeling like I had just met the two most annoying kids in the world. Fortunately, after a bit of MDAW love, I found myself hugging the jelly out of each one during the next season. I remember how I hit Jon Yang at Concordia, the round before I mavericked while Cosette was AFK, and just feeling like he was a big scrub. Look at Ian Young now. Too bad he didn’t see Red Spread coming.

I can’t say I don’t have any regrets. For instance, I never really found out if Eric Short had a girlfriend or not. Word on the street is that he is looking to get back together with Sox in the near future. Mere speculation if you ask me. I never even got to run H-Triv either, even after I put a full two hours into making a comprehensive file. I swear, Eden Prairie CL was so close to reading a “Patriarchy Is Worse Than A Nuclear Holocaust” card at Sections. That would have been some first class trifling.

I’m not going to lie; I am going to miss debate a lot. I am going to miss eating Sonic on a daily basis as we zip around the Midwest for national tournaments. I am going to miss my one night debate with Kelsey Maher. I am going to miss coming up with dumb ideas and having them shot down by Talon Powers or Eric Short. I am going to miss speed reading my textbooks for practice. I am going to miss Mrs. Sarff’s suggestions to go all in on inherency. I am going to miss seeing everybody in the debate community on weekends.

But, most of all, I’m going to miss being a debater. It’s been a good few years. Thank you.

Kate, Stop Lying To Yourself,
Noel

Vertigo: Falling As A Symbolic And Thematic Function

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 psychological rollercoaster, Vertigo, is one of many defining works of his career. Featuring James Steward as John “Scottie” Ferguson, a retired detective plagued by acrophobia, Vertigo is masterfully crafted, replete with subtle motifs in every frame. After Galvin Elster asks Scottie to shadow his wife, Madeleine Elster, whom he believes to be possessed, Scottie finds himself smack dab in the middle of an elaborate murder plot. With a bit of cinematographic magic, Hitchcock projects Scottie’s feelings of confusion onto the audience. Through the use of intentional symbolism, Hitchcock drives home messages concerning the instability of identity, reality, and infatuation with a connecting feeling of literal vertigo.

Many of Hitchcock’s films demonstrate an individual swamped with angst when dealing with a disordered world. To that end, Vertigo emphasizes the uncertainty of reality by evoking feelings of the supernatural. With the use of corridors, Hitchcock produces physical passages between the worlds of the living and the dead. For example, when Midge has lost faith in rekindling her romance with Scottie, she leaves down a sanatorium corridor which darkens around her. On the flipside, when Judy arrives back from the beauty salon, she enters the frame from the hallway as a resurrected Madeleine Elster. The color green, archetypically associated with ghostly apparitions, appears frequently in Vertigo, from Judy’s green dress worn when Scottie first notices her to Scottie’s green sweater worn when he is immersed in his dream world. Playing on Scottie’s deception concerning the identity of Judy/Madeleine, Hitchcock reinforces the message of appearance vs. reality elsewhere. Midge forcefully attempts to place herself into Scottie’s fantasy by painting herself into the “Portrait of Carlotta, while Scottie has hallucinations of Madeleine when he revisits her favorite places after his release from the sanatorium. As always, appearances are deceiving.

Spirals are showcased frequently in Vertigo, evoking an overwhelming feeling of dizziness. When Scottie relives the moment where his acrophobia prevented him from saving a fellow officer, his fallen colleague’s limbs are spiraled outward. Madeleine purchases a circular bouquet, sending several individual petals spiraling downward into the water before she jumps into San Francisco Bay. One of the more prevalent spirals, found in the hair bun of Carlotta and Madeleine, is indicative of the dizzying process of falling in love which Scottie will soon undergo. In fact, Scottie’s very relationship is circular: he falls in love with Madeleine, loses her to death, falls in love with Judy, and finally loses her to death as well. As Scottie follows Madeleine up the winding church bell tower stairs, he is left powerless as his lover falls to her death, his nauseating love having brought him to his knees. Hitchcock’s clever camera technique, zooming in on a subject while simultaneously moving away, perfectly emulates the physical feeling for the viewer. Love is a romantic delusion, and Scottie’s madness for Madeleine is what secures her fate at the end of the film.

Were it not for the level of explicit and implicit complexity delivered in each of his films, Hitchcock would not be remembered as the film genius he was. As a genuine “Master of Suspense,” Hitchcock draws his audiences into his films not with heavy-budget explosions but with narratives which demand our full attention. Indeed, an understanding of Vertigo’s central messages requires an understanding of Hitchcock’s subtle symbolism. Hitchcock’s use of thematic motifs helps audiences make headways into several diverse concepts including the delusion of romance and the uncertainty of reality via a central theme of disorder. Just as Scottie, all of us as viewers suffer from our own unique forms of vertigo, regardless of if that nauseating fear is related to acrophobia or not.

A-Music Week 8

Dear Followers,

When I began doing somewhat weekly (more like one every two weeks) A-Week posts, I never knew how handy the name I had selected would be. Indeed, the ambiguous A gives me the freedom of sharing not only my favorite Asian music, but my favorite American music as well. Although, in all honesty, it may be somewhat presumptuous to claim that some of the music which gets played in America is genuinely American. Perhaps songs in English would be a more appropriate category. Who knows.

Like another great band, The Script, the band I am sharing with you today hails from Ireland: Two Door Cinema Club. I first became acquainted with Two Door Cinema Club when I was searching the song selection iTunes had recommended for me a few months ago. After purchasing "What You Know" on my desktop, I had to pull up the song on YouTube a few weeks later when I was working on my laptop. Once again, YouTube worked its magic and soon connected me with a plethora of fantastic songs. The band's debut album "Tourist History (2010)" is pure magic.

How can you go wrong with having a Mac for a drummer?

Two Door Cinema Club brings exactly what I look in a band to the table. As somebody who often values sound over lyrics, Two Door Cinema Club's unique blend of electronic sound is very appealing. Two Door Cinema Club does not lack in the lyric department either, with songs like "Eat That Up It's Good For You" providing a dash of socially pragmatic advice. I find myself listening to Two Door Cinema Club over and over again, each song growing on me as I listen to it more and discover it's musical nuances. Below are a sampling of songs from the band which I found particularly enjoyable.

1. Eat That Up, It's Good For You

2. What You Know

3. Undercover Martyn

4. I Can Talk

5. You're Not Stubborn

Tourist History,
Noel

Spirited Away: The Insufficiency of Modern Capitalism Part III

CAPITALIST WEALTH AS AN INSUFFICIENT MEANS OF FINDING HAPPINESS

What is ironic about the Yuya, as a modern portrait of capitalist society, is how the vulnerability of the manager is exposed as much as the vulnerability of the workforce and consumers. Even with all of her power, Yubaba’s position is a fragile one, dependent on the labor of her lower class workers and the continuous function of the Yuya. Yubaba must assume a role of inferiority when she greets the flamboyant spirits who frequent the Yuya as well. Indeed, consumers represent the beginning point of power within capitalistic society. However, in Spirited Away, even consumers are not safe from the dangers of unchecked consumption. Chihiro’s parents serve as the film’s classic case. The capitalistic consumer often becomes drunk with the power that money can afford, confidently overstepping boundaries in a drunken stupor. Picking up a plate of succulent meat, Chihiro’s parents begin gorging on unpaid-for food, smiling as they exclaim “Don’t worry, you’ve got daddy here. He’s got credit cards and cash.” In a twist of irony, her parents soon literally become capitalist pigs.

Most visible in Spirited Away is Miyazaki’s message concerning the dangers of greed. No-Face, a formless black blob whom sneaks into the Yuya, is a perfect symbol for the vacuous association of wealth with happiness. Greed has completely eaten away all which once made No-Face an individual, and he wanders around the Yuya aimlessly during the first half of the film as a container without a soul. However, as the film progresses, No-Face demonstrates what makes greed so dangerous: it’s contagious. Producing gold spontaneously, No-Face feeds on the greed of individual workers, luring each on down an unsuspecting path of gold before consuming them whole. Just as capitalism grows and gorges itself on the suffering of the lower-class, No-Face becomes fatter and fatter as he consumes more workers. The only one who No-Face cannot trick is Chihiro whose heart seeks something more valuable than mere gold. No-Face can only lash out in anger as he realizes the insufficiency of wealth as a means of acquiring what he genuinely desires.

The ruling class in Spirited Away is living a life of damnation parading as paradise. The only character in the film who experiences Yubaba’s motherly affection is Bo, yet, her affection is merely a side consideration. Zeneba, Yubaba’s sister, punishes her for forcing Haku to steal her magical gold seal by placing a curse on Bo and Haku. After he is healed, Haku confronts Yubaba, asking “You haven’t noticed something precious to you which has been replaced?” Frantically grabbing for a piece of gold, Yubaba smirks when she confirms the intactness of her wealth, completely forgetting her son. Indeed, Zeneba is one of the few characters in Spirited Away with an awareness of the vanity of money, pleasure, and materialism. Chihiro finds herself journeying to Zeneba’s house in order to uplift the curse she placed on Haku and Bo near the end of the film. Zeneba’s house, unlike Yubaba’s, is simple and modest, representative of a pre-capitalistic society of agricultural sustainability. As Zeneba knits, she remarks “I can do it with magic, but it does not mean anything,” recognizing how unnecessary magic or “capital” really is.

So, why do we study film? Film is a gateway into the human condition, a specialized lens which reshapes our social reality, bringing both its beauty and horror center stage. Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, yearning to be analyzed via a Marxist lens, is as much a condemnation of modern capitalism as it is a promotion of human values. As Chihiro makes her way in the Wonderland-esque world of the Yuya, Miyazaki sheds light on the system of modern capitalism and how we interact with it as full-fledged participants, flushing out the lopsided power dynamic between Japan and the West, suffocating characteristic of social hierarchy, and depravity in associating capital as an end all for finding happiness. Ironically, Miyazaki makes use of a fictional dream world in order to snap viewers out of the dream of sustainable capitalism and to highlight the wounds festering beneath the surface in a world of overt commercialism and materialism. Miyazaki is showcasing his desire for a Japan of old, a way of living once embraced before our world was spirited away.

Spirited Away: The Insufficiency of Western Capitalism Part II

THE YUYA AS A MODERN CAPITALIST SOCIETY

The Yuya is a unique portrait of modern capitalist society. A reevaluation of the power dynamic described above between Yubaba and her workers reveals a heavily class-oriented hierarchy. Yubaba, a bourgeoisie manager of capital, hires low-class workers who are effectively her slaves in a rigid socioeconomic pyramid. While her workers labor in the floors below, Yubaba fills out paperwork and manages finances in her office, clad in a dress not suited for physical labor. Kamajii, a man who works the underground boiler system for the Yuya, even introduces himself to Chihiro in an early scene as “a slave to the boiler that heats the bath.” Surrounded by buzzing mechanical beasts, Kamajii, his six arms flailing around robotically, blends in with his underground workshop as a piece of valuable new “machinery.” While wealth is a sign of power in Spirited Away, Yubaba’s dominance over her workers is a product of her magical abilities. Indeed, when Chihiro helps a Susuwatari, or soot worker, she is reprimanded by Kamajii who explains how if a worker slacks off, Yubaba’s life-granting magic will expire.

While Yubaba was born with her magical abilities, much as members of the bourgeoisie are born into wealth, lower class workers in Spirited Away can only climb the socioeconomic ladder by following Yubaba’s word as law. Even amongst the lower class, a rigid hierarchy serves to suffocate individual characters. For example, the men who manage the bathhouse customers, appropriately portrayed with Frog-like features, do not shy away from exhibiting feelings of superiority towards the women who do the behind-the-scenes work of cleaning and cooking. Perhaps the character most suffocated by his role is Haku. Seeking to acquire Yubaba’s magic for himself, Haku subsumes himself to carrying out Yubaba’s dirty work. While a gentle and kind boy at heart, Haku becomes cold and calculated when he works, epitomizing what Marx describes as the “alienation of labor” and highlighting the consequences of pursuing power or wealth as a means to an end.

The fundamental focus of the movie features Chihiro seeking to climb the socioeconomic ladder of the Yuya in order to persuade Yubaba, via dedicated work, to change her parents back into humans. That Chihiro must fill the void when her parents are no longer able to function in the exchange between labor and money reminds us of the inescapable nature of the socioeconomic ladder. Indeed, Chihiro’s catapulted entrance into the labor force hastens her maturation; forever leaving behind her childish days, as a full member of the capitalist Yuya Chihiro’s work now the focus of her life. Ironically, even characters in positions of power are suffocated by class roles. Bo, Yubaba’s oversize baby child, is confined to his jewel-littered room by Yubaba, unable to speak with anybody in the Yuya and forced to associate his mother’s constant gifts as genuine love.

Spirited Away: The Insufficiency of Western Capitalism Part I

Contrary to popular opinion, animation is not limited to mind-numbing, simplistic narratives which only serve as a source of entertainment for young children. Indeed, animation can be an incredibly expressive artistic medium. Renowned Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s recent masterpiece, Spirited Away, is one such animated movie which showcases the medium’s hidden potential to subconsciously or consciously shape our epistemological outlooks. After all, the manipulation of the viewer’s thought process via a stylized experience is the apex of any artistic medium. Spirited Away follows a young ten year-old girl named Chihiro Ogino as her family moves to a new neighborhood. Chihiro soon finds herself abandoned in a world of spirits and monsters after she and her family venture into a seemingly abandoned amusement park where her parents are morphed into pigs by a witch named Yubaba. With some help, Chihiro begins working in Yubaba’s bathhouse in order to find a way to free herself and her parents before returning to the human world.

While marketed in America by Disney as a coming of age narrative, Spirited Away is much more valuable as a critical commentary on modern capitalism in Japan. This message comes as no surprise from director Hayao Miyazaki whose previous films, including “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,” often feature powerful messages about capitalist-driven ecocide. However, Spirited Away is unique, serving as Miyazaki’s first effort at exposing the power dynamic capitalism has forged between Japan and the West from a historical perspective. An analysis of Spirited Away via a Marxist lens is valuable insofar as it allows us as viewers to more comprehensively understand how the film depicts modern capitalism. Through such depictions, Spirited Away sheds light on how we as individuals should operate within a system of global capitalism, the dangers associated with monetary power hierarchies, and the insufficiency of capitalism as a sustainable and desirable framework.

THE DYNAMIC BETWEEN JAPAN AND THE WEST

Perhaps most of all, Spirited Away soberly exposes the consequences associated with Japan’s early integration into the web of global capital. Just as Chihiro and her family, the viewer is pulled back to an era of modernizing Japan, the Meiji era (1868-1912), by Miyazaki as the camera passes the gates into the spirit world. The warp is stylistic, becoming immediately noticeable as Chihiro and her family stumble into a run-down bazaar featuring a Meiji-characteristic mixture of Japanese and Western architecture. During the Meiji period, Western influence began to crack Japan’s national, political, and economic solidarity, occurrences spawned from Commodore Perry’s infamous “negotiations” in 1853. As Japan opened its economy to Western nations, global capitalism became invariably rooted within its borders. Beyond an economic level, Japanese social modesty began to give way to a new sense of industrial-driven greed and materialism.

For many, including Miyazaki, Japan’s integration with the West represented a significant loss of cultural identity, bestowing upon Japan a perpetual role of international dependence. In Spirited Away, Miyazaki heavily emphasizes the importance of having a proper name as a prerequisite for identity. When Chihiro approaches Yubaba looking for work, Yubaba agrees only after pillaging her name with her magic, replacing it with her own creation: Sen. Sen, meaning 1000 in Japanese, is indicative of how Chihiro’s individuality and intrinsic worth have been reduced to a monetary value by Yubaba. Name is the foundation of individuality, and indeed, we experience an omnipresent danger of losing our identity as members of modern capitalism. Just as Chihiro, Japan forever lost its cultural identity post-integration. Spirited Away showcases such loss, emphasizing a modern disinterest in ancient values in contemporary Japan and depicting previously noble Shinto spirits, yaoyorozuno kamigami, as mere consumers within the Yuya.

Within the Yuya, or spirit world bathhouse, Yubaba’s dominance over its inhabitants symbolizes the power dynamic between the West and Japan. There is a noticeable divide between Yubaba and her workers. Yubaba’s luxurious office, replete with jewels and gold, is decorated with Western décor, including Victorian wallpapers, exotic carpets, and European woodwork. Even Yubaba herself sports a blue, Western dress while her workers are clad in Japanese bathhouse uniforms and kimonos. The workers’ quarters are shockingly minimalist and humble, designed along the lines of Japanese architecture additionally. Not only does Yubaba dominate her workers monetarily, but her magic aids in her coercion. Apart from powerful spiritual patrons, representing wealthy nations whose patronage primarily benefits Yubaba, Yubaba has a monopoly on magic within the Yuya. This dominance is indicative of Japan’s powerless position in relation to the West; no matter how economically powerful Japan becomes, it will always psychologically be dominated by the West.