Cultural Exhanges - Andy Lavender

My second Cultural Exchanges experience was held by Andy Lavender on the topic of ‘Cultivating the Hybrid: blended theatre and performance’, of which I had no pervious knowledge. In fact through out most if this Lecture I had almost no idea what Andy Lavender was talking about. I am not a drama student; neither do I have much of an interest in theatre or any performance art for that matter. I didn’t understand the terminology he used or the jokes he made using it. I was lost for half of the lecture, however I feel like the parts I did understand were the most interesting. This might have been because they were the only parts I actually heard, because although I was listening intently and trying to grasp reason and meaning from the words spilling out of Andy Lavender’s mouth I wasn’t truly hearing and understanding. I may feel like they were the most important parts of the lecture because they were the only parts I actually took away from the lecture and remember fully. These parts were the descriptions of the plays, or performance theatre acts, he was describing. They were interesting because it wasn’t just one media being used to make once piece of art, it was many being used to make one epic performance that tickled all five senses of it’s audience. There were smells and tastes and videos to watch as well as characters to act out so you were literally in the performance yourself. I found this part of the lecture interesting because it was as if every act from the performance was a piece of art on it’s own, and yet together it created something so original that can only be described as genius. On the other hand I suppose it could be described as pretentious but a bit of pretentiousness hurts no one and intrigues many. I would very much like to see one of these performances, I use the term ‘see’ loosely of course, and I would suggest that seeing a performance such as the two Andy Lavender described to us last week in that lecture for Cultural Exchange week would benefit us culturally more than the lecture did.

Rachael Byrne

Top Tip #1 - Don't Poke a Small Fish

Roughly defined by anyone who has studied it as ‘the book you will never fully understand’ The Book of Changes is a complicated and confusing thing to talk or even think about. Taking this into account I still marvel at how well Will Buckingham and Alan Baker managed to explain it to their audience last Friday afternoon as part of Cultural Exchange week. 

The Yi Jing, pronounced I Ching and also known as The Book of Changes, is made up of 64 chapters, each containing six lines, each line corresponds to the other and this creates a marvelous and individual hexagon of lines which reads from the bottom upwards. In order for it’s foreign audience to understand; these chapters need to be literally translated, and then translated further in order for them to make grammatical sense. Some quite bright and talented people have managed to do this and have used the Yi Jing for inspiration for their own writing and/or written about the Yi Jing itself. 

Will Buckingham and Alan Baker are but two of many writers who have used the The Book of Changes to inspire writing of their own and we got to hear a few of their pieces. One of the stories Will read out was particularly interesting to me because of the analogy he used to describe it. He said that the story was based on the principle that ‘you shouldn’t poke a small fish’, meaning in a political sense that you might not need to do a lot in order to keep everyone happy. This was an extremely vivid and dramatic story about peace which was based on chapter eleven of the Yi Jing, entitled ‘Peace’ ( roughly translated). Then Will read another story, a heart warming story about a little girl waiting for a delicious fruit to split, a story that teaches it's audience about patience and about sometimes having to wait for something until you can get the best out of it, like a fruit to ripen. This story was based on chapter 23 with a title roughly translated to ‘Peeling’ or ‘Splitting’. 

At the end of the talk, and after a breath taking translation read by Will of a chapter from The Yi Jing in its true language, there were a few questions asked by the audience. Understandably many of us took a couple of minutes to actually put those questions into words. The lad next to me was the first to ask a question, one which I had been wondering myself; “How do you consult the Yi Jing?” and having no knowledge of the Yi Jing I was a little confused when Will answered “with a coin or with sticks”. He explained that a number was assigned to each side of the coin so when you flipped it there were only a set few numbers the flips would add up to, these numbers would determine whether the line was a broken line or a unbroken line and the coin was flipped six times due to there only ever being six lines in each of the 64 chapters. This is how they read the book of changes and came up with such emotive and vivid pieces of writing, along with Google that Alan Barker admittedly pointed out a number of times.  

I have to say that I enjoyed this event the most out of the few I went to in Cultural Exchange Week, it was definitely the most interesting out of them all. It had me thinking about and questioning The Book of Changes for days. 

Rachael Byrne 

Cultural Exchanges - Jasper Carrott

When I walked into the lecture theatre to see 1989’s ITV personality of the year, Jasper Carrott, I panicked slightly because it seemed as if every seat was taken, no wonder the advertisement advised early booking. I found a seat at the back next to a friendly Indian man who enjoyed talking to me, as well as himself, and waited twenty long and awkward minutes for Jasper Carrott to appear.

At around twenty five minuets past seven we were graced with Mr Carrott’s presence, and after he had finished chit chatting to Geoff Rowe (Director of Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival) and checking the microphones he addressed us directly and hoped that he’d tell us something useful in the time we had together. To which a woman at the front responded “you’re late!” and the audience chuckled or looked at each other in approval, as did Jasper and Geoff although rather awkwardly. The talkative man next to me however, tutted and shook his head. At that moment I thought he was tuting because he too was upset the host of the event was so late and unapologetic, but after hearing him clap and mutter “hurrah!” and “here here!” to every modest thing Jasper Carrott said later on in the talk (there wasn’t many) I realised that he must have tutted in disapproval. He must have thought the woman was being rude or out of order. Which of course she was, but most of us, even perhaps Jasper himself, saw that it might have been justified.

Once Jasper and Geoff were well into conversing over Jasper’s life; how he started off in America traveling around comedy clubs and bars (which is where he saw Jay Leno ride into a bar on a motorcycle, do some stand up and ride straight back out again), how he used other comedian’s lines to write his own comedy script (which we learnt is not copy write and in fact if he were to rip off any comedian’s act fully he wouldn’t be in any trouble for doing so, except maybe losing fans and gaining hate mail) and how he went from a no body Birmingham City supporter to a legend of comedy; I started to see his head get bigger and bigger. Jasper Carrott was never rude but he was forward, he would say things like “I introduced that comedian, if it wasn’t for me he would have struggled to be heard” and he would politely boast about his Magic Roundabout single being “the only ever single in the chart that had no music content what so ever” and “it seemed like it was played by almost every DJ in the UK”. I know success is something to be proud of and the talk was so people could hear about Jasper’s career but he seemed all too pleased to tell us how well he had done and would interrupt Geoff when he tried to move the conversation on because he wanted to tell another anecdote about something else he did that was great. 

Once they had finished talking about Jasper’s past there were questions of the future that still needed answering. Geoff asked “I invite you to perform at Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival every year, why are you not interested?” Jasper’s reply was interesting, he said that he had already done everything he wanted to and was possible in comedy already and he thought that a younger fresher mind was needed to push the limits of comedy, or else it will be the same old jokes told over and over again. He said he was far too old to come up with such creativity and if he did he wouldn’t have the energy to perform it, it was the first modest thing I had heard him say all night. 

I would say that I didn't get much of out this talk, other than a new found patience, but that isn’t true. I learned about the troubles of writers and performers and I learned that even a nobody from Brum can be a somebody if they follow their passion. 

Rachael Byrne

There's something You Should Know

Before you read my blog I feel there's something about me I need to warn you about.
It's might come as a bit of a shock to some of you but I think you all should know.
Okay.
I'm ready.


Here it is: 
I've got two legs from my hips to the ground ,
And when I move them they walk around ,
And when I lift them they climb the stairs ,
And when I shave them they ain't got hairs. 

PHEW! Thank God I've finally got that off my chest!

Thanks for listening to Rach :)

I Just lost my blogging virginity

When I first thought about writing a blog I thought I would blog about my favorite things because it's easy to write about something you love. I wrote a review on Shinedown's new album first but this time I'm just going to list the things I like that make up me, as I have learnt that there are many things that make up a character in my Writing Identity course at DMU and one of those things is their preferences, the things they like and the things they hate. 

Firstly I love my family to bits:

Melissa my skinny mini twin sister,

James my arrogant, thinks he's funny, big brother, 

Mum, my mum, 

Dad, my dad, doesn't say much but when he does it's it's usually worth the wait, 

Grandma and Granddad Byrne, both going a bit do-lally but still awesome, 

And my aunt, uncle and cousin who  now live in China. God help them!

Secondly There Are The Things I Feel I could Not Live Without:

TV,

Tea,

Books,

My cats Meg and Mog,

Google,

Shoes,

Music,

And anything deep fried (I mean anything).

Then there are the things I Simply love:

Dave Grohl,
Burgers,

Pool,
Dave Grohl,
Writing,

BBQ sauce,

Instagram,
Dave Grohl,
Clothes,

Make-up,
Dave Grohl,
Socks,
Cherry Bake-well tarts,
Music magazines,
Parties, 
Dave Grohl,
Tattoo art,
Tattooed boys,
Stationary,
Dave Grohl,
Nail polish,
And the colour green. 


I feel I should list the things I hate now but because that list would be way too long I'll just do my top ten hates.

My Top Ten Pet Peeves:
1. Hypocrites 
2. Ridiculously long toe nails
3. Toe nails
4. Bullies 
5. When people wear flip flops and get dirty feet
6. Dirty feet
7.  Liars
8. Smelly feet
9. Dry skin on feet
10. Just anything to do with feet.
Unless they belong to Dave Grohl. Everything about Dave Grohl is awesome. I love Dave Grohl. 


Well that is everything I can remember I love and some of the things I hate. I hope it doesn't paint too much of a picture. 

Thanks for listening to Rach :) 

Absolutely Amazing Amaryllis Album Review

When I first heard Shinedown’s new album, Amaryllis, I thought it sounded almost cheesy. They weren’t singing about sex, drugs or rock ‘n’ roll, they were singing about friendship, love and broken hearts. But I love Shinedown so I gave them a second chance and they did not fail to deliver! It was then that I noticed the anger and passion the band put into Amaryllis. I realised that although they sounded a bit softer than usual it was obvious they felt strongly about every song they wrote and put a lot of effort into making this amazing album. 

Amaryllis, released March 27^th last year, is the fourth studio album by Shinedown. It follows Leave a Whisper, Us and Them and, my favourite, The Sound of Madness, which sold over a million copies in the US after it’s release. This latest addition to Shinedown’s discography is the softest album of the four. It sounds more like mainstream music than alternative rock and it’s singles have in fact been played on mainstream radio stations such as radio 1.
Shinedown’s previous albums have sounded a lot harder than Amaryllis which appeals to hard core rockers as well as mainstream listeners. In this respect it seems fair to compare Shinedown to Nickelback as both bands write a lot of songs that can be played anywhere, however Shinedown still have a unique hard core rock style. 

Brent Smith, Shinedown’s front man, prides himself on the fact that no two albums sound alike and although I agree to an extent I have to say that every album has a distinct Shinedown style or voice to it. This isn’t a bad thing in my eyes because it's what makes Shinedown so great, it's why they have so many loyal fans and it's what makes them distinctive and sets them apart from other bands.

Shinedown always include amazing guitar work and catchy melodies in their music which makes their sinking lyrics even more emotive. You honestly can’t help but get angry or excited with them and sing you lungs out! (Possibly while rocking out on your air guitar when no one’s looking as well) I strongly suggest that anyone and everyone listens to Amaryllis, it is a truly touching album. 

Thanks for listening to Rach :)