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music & arts: how entertainment can be a window to our lives

LOST RETURNS!

This week Lost, and all of its cryptic yet elegant glory, returned to ABC for a 3 hour Season Premiere. If you haven’t watched it before, Lost is a show about a group of people who have crash-landed on an Island in the Pacific Ocean. It doesn’t take long for the survivors to realize they are embarking on an endeavor that will provide them with a renewed sense of self. Over the course of the last 4 seasons, they experience times of happiness, hopelessness and utter confusion.

LOST: THE UNIVERSE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION

Executive Producers, Carlton Cuse and David Lindelof, explain it best in a 1 hour Series Synopsis episode called “Destiny Calls” that aired prior to the 2 hour Season premiere.

“I think that the reason the [audience]  likes these characters is they see themselves in them. The show is about the same things life is about: it’s about love, it’s about forgiveness, it’s about redemption, it’s about pain, it’s about excitement. The idea that they have a chance at redemption, because of where they are on this mysterious island; that allows us to tell, I think, fairly universal stories about the human condition.” - Carlton Cuse, David Lindelof

Although my previous posts have solely focused on the music industry, I would also like to incorporate different types of art and entertainment. Analyzing literature, TV shows, movies and theatre is important part of my search for knowledge and reflects the importance of synthesis and cross training as mentioned in one of my earlier posts.

THE BIG PICTURE

Like fellow VanAmburg Group blog contributor Greg Pashke, I am beginning to find myself as a generalist. Searching for connections in order to explain the big picture is important to me. The TV show “Lost” is incredibly hard to follow because of the dozens of characters, sub-plots and convoluted directions the show takes. Because of this, viewers find it really hard to make out the big picture. Hundreds of forums and blogs have been dedicated to viewer theories and explanations.  Nevertheless, there is something to be learned from such a work of art.

COMPREHENSION THROUGH SLICING

When we try to look at our Universe and all its contents, we really can’t comprehend the whole thing as one entity, it is just too massive for us to understand.  We need to slice it in compartmental concepts and take them one or a few at a time.  Lost digs into this notion of an abstract representation of our Universe at the microcosmic level of character development.  Through the victories and defeats of the multiple characters, we can piece together some generalities about our own lives in terms of learning, hope, sharing, adapting and most importantly, growing.

BACK TO THE MUSIC

Music tends to do the same thing.  Music is a window into expression, storytelling, emotional empathy, sentimental meaning, anger, fear, redemption, rebirth, and hope.  Music explains and manifests things that we just can’t put into words, pictures or theories.  However, music doesn’t explain it all.  There is not one piece of music that is a comprehensive guidebook to our lives and the universe we live in.  With this said, we see different genres, songs, and compositions as slices that speak to different people or groups of people at different stages of their human existence.  Just like Lost fans connect to the characterizations of the show, everyone connects to different types of music in a multitude of contexts.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

For next week’s blog, I will speak about the mental and emotional aspects of music by talking about a book by Daniel Levitin called, “This is Your Brain on Music“, a fantastic read on music and how it interfaces with neuroscience.

Although a sound engineer by trade, and on the path to becoming a marketer, Nick’s appreciation of the analysis and synthesis varying types of artistic expression has always been important. Sometimes, seeing the connections in unexpected places is what will be the catalyst to new ideas and great thinking in other parts of your professional life.

Work Hard, Take It Easy

Nick Corsi

Tags: Consciousness, Emotion, Entertainment, Music, Nick Corsi, Synthesis

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 12:13 am and is filed under Consciousness, Inspiration, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.