The Remainder of September mostly seemed to focus on the finalization of the Cold War. Along with this we seemed to talk quite a bit on Claude Shannon and his influence on the modern, technological world that we find ourselves in today. I’m glad that we spent a portion of time to discuss Claude Shannon, as I feel that American History classes in High School don’t cover this rather important historical figure. Furthermore we had a rather long discussion on the early processes of computing and the internet. This is the first time in class that it truly felt like the title ‘A digital past’, so I’d definitely make the argument that it’s indeed one of the most important topics we’ve held in this class so far. Thank you for providing your own account for what it was like to have an early computer, it sounded really similar to my Mum’s experience in the 80s.
Now I’, a big fan of American history. Having a chance to dive into the history of American music was/has been a pretty interesting experience, as I’ve been learning things that I never have been able to before. For instance, your points on how recorded media has the potential to erase the culture and meaning out of either a song or instrument is powerful, and I’m rather glad that a portion of wool has been removed from mine eyes. As I said, I’m a poet, and I can’t stand the idea of ‘Blackout poetry’ because it’s basically the same thing. I’ll post examples at the end for what terrible work can be created at the expense of someone else’s hard earned pages. Outside of this, I never knew that race and music had such a divide throughout the history of America. For instance, having a background in acting, I always knew about black face, but I never knew it was, in itself, a literal genre that focused outside of simply performing as someone who is black. The concept of a Minstrel Show was extremely new to me, and the branches that have spread across the musical landscape are astounding. For instance, I was very caught off guard the amount of country songs that are directly just ripped off from mistral songs. I had no problems with this portion of the class, and I felt that it opened up quite a bit of discussion.
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