In “Playing the Changes,” we meet two men stranded in a small desert town in 1972, a time when their attraction to each other is still dangerous. Nile Walker is a jazz musician, running from a spurned lover and the law. Benji Garza is a once-devout Catholic, fixing cars and caring for his orphaned nephew, Hector. Walker and Garza’s affair will spin both lives and their heredity into sweeping tragedies that characters battle with lust and melody. Walker has a son he never meets, a drifter who finds connection with another lost soul at an airport in “La Petite Mort.” Hector is forced into early adulthood in “The Words,” when his ailing uncle’s health fails due to a mysterious disease not yet called AIDS. Later Tre—a young man struggling with the weight of his own lineage—meets him in “PHX.” These stories examine questions of death’s causes and its myriad effects, and offer this solution: Knowing that we cannot know everything, and living, loving, and singing anyway.
SYSTEMA NERVOSUM is an interdisciplinary personal narrative on design, music, and identity. The project is composed of eleven parts, each addressing the themes of interconnection, the power of the human body, internal and external misunderstanding, and fear. The goal of SYSTEMA NERVOSUM was to create a body of work that reflected the very essence of creative and interdisciplinary thinking.
Jane Austen’s depictions of musical performers and listeners in her novels suggest her belief that musical performances should strengthen intimacy between people, both between listeners and performers as well as among listeners. Austen commends music for its power to increase intimacy through honest expressions of taste, which more often arise in private performances, but she warns against its power to decrease intimacy through pretentious displays of taste, which more often arise in public performances. Austen’s belief that music allows for this healthy intimacy indicates that music has great significance in society. Austen suggests that music has a greater importance to everyday life than many may originally suppose, as it is a universal connection between people. Ultimately, Jane Austen’s perspective of music’s great power both to expose pretentiousness and to cultivate intimacy should lead all of her readers to recognize and respect music’s true power and to consider seriously the importance and role of music in their own lives.
The 70s in the UK were a time of social unrest that turned many youth onto an attitude of rebellion. In stark contrast with the love ethos of the 60s, the 70s economic downturn left many outraged and with the need to express their dismay. This “anti” attitude would bleed into many aspects of culture like the emerging fashion of the decade. Youth subcultures were a place for young adults to find solidarity. Punk trends including leather, safety pins, distressed clothing and denim. The Sex Pistols rocked the music industry leading way for other like The Clash and Joy Division to join the scene. With records such as ‘God Save the Queen’, the Pistols cemented the new culture movement as politicized. As the decade continued Punk became more intensified; becoming its own subculture of both street style and high couture.
Informed by Pope John Paul II’s life and writings, this project takes a faith-based, humanities approach to addressing the issue of homelessness. The thesis combines writing, music, and Catholicism to inspire audiences and motivate them to make tangible changes for those in need. Through poetry, creative nonfiction, and letters, the written portion of the thesis depicts true, individual encounters with people who are homeless. These stories are connected by themes of nature, simplicity, beauty, humility, and human dignity. The creative portion of this thesis is a music video with an original song called Unspoken Words. The song includes violin, ukulele, and vocal tracks, lyrics rooted in Pope John Paul II’s poetry, a strong emphasis on the importance of acknowledging and affirming human dignity, and a call to action at the end. The call to action invites audiences to, if possible, donate financially to organizations within the Diocese of Phoenix, which are linked in the video description. These organizations include the Office of Mental Health Ministry, the Humanitarian Aid Fund for Ukraine, and the Charity and Development Appeal. The video also invites all audience members to be kind with intention in order to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually brighten the lives of those around them.