Operas

  Of all the opera links, I enjoyed The Magic Flute the most. We are a very visual generation and I think the colors and dancing and more "acting" that went on is what appealed to me. It seemed more of a play than an opera but that may be what is blurring the lines between operas and plays these days. I think producers of operas have this 21st century challenge of needing to stay relevant and keep the attention of a generation that in general can only keep their mind on something for like 30 minutes at a time before getting their attention taken from something else. Even now on YouTube, something that is a very current phenomenon has this same challenge. If someone watches a video it's rare that they get through the whole thing before they see something more interesting on the side bar and go to watch that.
    And with operas, with being in my opinion a dying art form, they have an even bigger predicament in this. They have to stay relevant and entertaining. The magic flute was the only "opera" that I watched the whole way through. The others I only watched 1-2 minutes of and I got the general idea. Magic flute had dancing and modern extravagant costumes and a more digitized background, which kept me wanting to watch it the whole way through, even though it was only 4 minutes long.
 

Madame Butterfly

Madame Butterfly was probably the strangest video I've ever seen...I understood some parts but was mostly saying "what the hell" (excuse my french) most of the time. I guessing this was some sort of love story that went horrible wrong? Apparently this sailor went around pretending to love all these women, spends a night with them to get them pregnant. He then goes back once the women once he thinks the babies are born and grown, then takes them for himself with his actual wife? Perhaps him and his wife couldn't have children of their own so this was the next best thing? This wouldn't've been as strange of a story if it weren't for some of the very very odd details. Not sure why the child had to stay attached to the umbilical chord...or why the mom had to be flung like a kite by it..or why she had to dismantle herself and then become a butterfly? Not sure if this is supposed to be some really messed up love cycle? The ONLY underlying life moral I could perhaps see from this is the cycle of abuse. Man pretends to love woman, turns out to have another life, woman becomes depressed but get's herself back out of it, then just finds another man and continues the same thing over again.

Regarding the Paradise cover, it seems to me that A Capella is becoming more popular with 1: the popularity of Pitch Perfect and 2: reality shows like The Sing Off. I am actually a big fan of one of the winners of that show, Pentatonix, who has also made A Capella popular. Even with the rise of technology for altering voices and sounds, there is still a market for very talented people, and I think the general public is really enjoying this, as sort of fresh air from the computer made sounds and voices of this century.
This is one of my favorite videos of theirs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPWPa-HMpj8

9/11

My memory of 9/11 is slightly vague but specific as well, no matter how odd that sounds. I remember being in my neighbors house, an old woman me and my nana would visit occasionally. At this time she still had her dog so I liked to go over and play with it. I remember nana came in to bring me home, I was sitting on the floor with her dog Honey. Then the news came on her old TV, with the images of the first tower smoking. Nana rushed me home and that's all I remember. I do remember having the 11 minutes of silence in school the next day. Everyone in the school stood out in the hallway. I didn't understand at the time why all the teachers were crying.

Early history of multimedia, VideoGames and Paris

  Like most Roman and Greek architecture, the Colosseum has the basic principles of Large scale, and for the public. Although we are baffled nowadays on how these huge structures came to be in relatively a short amount of time given their technology, it is still one of the grandest ancient structures today, in line with the pyramids. Like the Parthenon, the Colosseum of Rome had an immense amount of detail and consideration in it's placement and design. The Romans took a lot of pride in their architecture and art, and it shows. A lot of the realistic and ornate detail of the Roman empire's creations was lost after the beginning of the middle ages. It is astounding that these structures have stood the test of time and be in relatively good condition. I'm amazed on how much planning must have gone in to this arena of public spectacle. If it took them 10 years to build it, I wonder how long it took them to plan it out! From consideration to the statues in each of the arches, to the underground pulley system, it's amazing how the Romans of the first century did this with only a minimal amount of technology.

  Along these lines, lets talk about Notre Dame and the church of St. Ignatius in Rome. It seems to me that in painting, artist of the time really enjoyed the idea of making a structure or canvas larger than it seems. In St. Ignatius' church, we have a similar motif on the ceiling as the Sistine chapel, in where a large scene is depicted, but with an incredible amount of detail in making that space look infinite. My guess is that these churches didn't have the money or space to create monuments like the Notre Dame, so in order for it to look grander, they made the illusion of a bigger space instead.

   As for the Notre Dame, I don't believe there is a more incredible and more well preserved piece of architecture anywhere in Europe. I recently played a game called Assassins creed: Unity, in where you play in a to-scale replica of Paris during the 10 year period of the french revolution. Now it is an amazing game for several reasons, but my favorite is that every building is exactly how it is in real life. So in this game, I have had the opportunity to climb to the top of Notre Dame, simple district homes, other churches of the time, and see paris in the late 1700's. Every stone, every minaret and window is an exact replica. It's hard to explain so the link below is actual gameplay of the main character climbing to the top of this famous church.  In my eyes this is a perfect example of Art and Technology in play.

(if you skip to 1:00 that's where he starts to climb)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1KPOEtoISE

hw1

WWE wrestling is that of a spectacle, however I disagree with this article saying actual regulation is just a show and rigged as well. It takes a tremendous amount of strength physically and mentally to be a wrestler.

Technology is something very different from science my opinion. It requires a much different thinking pattern than that of science. They are in the same field yes but the ideas, principles and knowledge needed is very different. A biologist is not going to be able to build a computer from scratch an on the other side of that a programmer is not going to be able to identify the proboscis of a Platyhelminthes under a microscope. A lot of science fields deal with the natural world: Geography, biology, chemistry physics etc. Technology is basically the complete opposite as it deals with the enhancement and production of inanimate objects. The only connection I could see between the two is in art. There are ways to create amazing types of "art" in science as well as with technology.