Ceetothethirdpower's Blog

Research Journal #17 | October 23, 2009

I’ve greatly enjoyed the events I’ve been taking notes on, especially at Cowhill. These events opened up my mind towards personal histories and the importance of apprenticeship and sponsorship in people’s individual stories.

What surprised me? I was surprised at such a large range of styles and talents. Each person’s style is so different and yet each are unique in that their life stories have affected how their style comes out. If I may make a reference to one of the speakers at the graduate students presentation, the man who’s life is centered on writing is a prime example of this. The events of his life caused him to be consumed with reading and writing, making him a “nerd”… a better writer, a master student. His life events shaped his style, and his way of living.

What intrigued me? I was intrigued by the way that these many forms of writing and songwriting captured the attention of the audience. Given, it is always a special audience filled with people who desire to be there, but nonetheless the talent of the performers caught their complete attention. These different genres combined to one – Heartfelt music – because each song, despite the style, form, or whether it was words or music, touched the hearts of those who were listening, affecting emotion. Funny, scary, sad, or happy – each changed the person’s reaction according to the emotion created. This is what I found so intriguing.

What disgusted me? I was disgusted amidst my feelings of awe and amazement when I thought about how most of these amazing, talented artists would never be recognized by the world’s standards. It takes luck to catch the attention of society – who one knows, how committed one is, etc… but some people who work equally hard and have endless amounts of talent will not “make it” because they are not up to society’s standards. They have talent but not sparkle. However, my disgust is partially appeased when I reason that these artists can affect their community around them in a huge way, even if they never make it to the media. It’s events like Cowhill Songwriter’s night that allow artists to affect their immediate community in big ways that might not affect them if the artist were a “popular artist” in the media. The amount of influence someone has on a life does not depend on how largely popular they are, in my opinion.

Box 30: Since my project is a little different, I haven’t gone through boxes of archives looking for interesting things because all of the interesting things related to my project are hanging on the walls of Cowhill Express. I love this about the coffee shop because of the sense of timelessness and history it arouses in me. I’ve come up with a possible title for my whole research project that I think is catchy and meaningful – “Heartfelt and Timeless.” I think this ties the meaningfulness of my project all together in that one little title. It references the genre of music I’m studying and how it effects emotion and also the timelessness of the cafe in connection with the timelessness that words possess. I think tying the personal histories of these talented artists to the history of Cowhill songwriter’s night will create a meaningful project that people will enjoy reading: I’m hoping that it will attract more people to this event.  The archives I will be focusing on, though there are many interesting pieces in Cowhill, are the clocks. In my interview with the owner of Cowhill that I will have on Saturday morning will hopefully shed some light on the background of these pieces as well as some other pieces at Cowhill. I’m excited to find out more about these archival objects and their significance to my project. Wish me luck!!