Skateboard

Shepard Fairey has been subtly demanding obedience for decades. Unconscious stares meet the face of his ubiquitous image of the late professional wrestler Andre the Giant in the streets of nearly every major city worldwide. Stickered haphazardly onto street signs, plastered to overpasses and billboards, the graphic, propaganda-esque portrait of Andre stares through dark black eyes, silently commanding “OBEY.” Or is the command to dis-obey? Such are the sardonic messages behind much of street…

Tajfel (1979) states that due to reduced capacities in processing information we define categories and schemes to encode and decode messages. So if we see someone who dresses in a certain fashion and tend to be on skateboards we place those people into the “Skater” category because of their style and habits. Tajfel and Turner (1979) summarize: “Social categorizations are conceived here as cognitive tools that segment, classify, and order the social environment, and thus…

Newberry Award Winners: DiCamillo, Kate. Because of Winn-Dixie. Candlewick Press, 2000. Summary: Because of Winn-Dixie is a story of a young girl, Opal, who moved from one small town in Florida to another with her father who was a preacher. Her mother left them when Opal was very young and she struggles with this throughout the book. While in the supermarket, Winn-Dixie, Opal found a dog that was tearing apart the store. She claimed the dog as hers and she and her father took the dog home. She…

The Synchronized Complexity What is the most romantic encounter that could ever happen in the modern American society? Dan had constantly thought to himself as he struggled to find love. He didn't feel lonely or the urgent need to be validated by people around him, but rather he wished he could have someone to share his vulnerability with, someone who could understand and provide him some level of emotional comfort. Get the fuck out. Dan could still hear those words echoing loudly inside…

Surfing has grown exponentially over the past several decades and with it surf brands have exploded and surfing has become considerably more marketable. However, at one point in time, this did not seem like it would ever be possible. In the 1960’s there was a vast expansion of surf culture, but before that surfing was not seen as a popular activity. The counter-culture ways that were associated with the sport created a view that surfers were slackers and druggies as their time was largely spent…

Chapter Fifteen ‘One Last Call’ When Harper slouched into her Monday morning registration class after a mournful weekend lamenting her dismal display at the science exhibition, she wished the day was over already. As she waited for an unusually late Miss. Turncroft to take to her desk for the morning register, Harper turned her attention from the empty space at the front of the class, to the empty space out the window. The clear blue sky had turned a distraught grey, whilst a giant monstrosity…