Understanding Sexual Addiction Essay - 1268 Words

The many personalities of this world are phenomenal because they are all so different. Not one individual is the same, and that is one thing that makes the human brain as fascinating as it is. The human brain is quite beautiful; unfortunately, biochemical or other brain changes can alter proper functioning of the human brain, leading to mental disorders or diseases. Sexual addiction, although not always recognized, is a severe condition which affects many. Sexual addiction should be widely acknowledged as a severe issue because of its impact on the addicts nervous system, the root of its development, and its relevance to human behavior. What is sex addiction? The term sexual addiction is used to explain the behavior of a person who†¦show more content†¦Rather, the pursuit of sex is in service of a different goal - to dispel feelings of inadequacy, depression, anxiety, rage or other feelings that the sex addict experiences as unbearable. Like a drug addict or alcoholic, the sex addict relentlessly seeks satisfaction from an external source to palliate internal pain (Praver, Francis Cohen, Ph.D). A continuous cycle of searching for comfort by engaging in sexual activity is a never ending battle because it is caused by factors which the addict had little control of as a child. Sexual addiction must be seen as a serious condition because of its affect on the nervous system and because of how it was developed in the first place. There is a close relation between adult sexual addiction and childhood abuse. Any unhealthy relationships that a child is exposed to can trigger the development of unusual sexual behavior which follows them into adulthood. These fragile victims at some point must come to the reality that they had no control over what they were exposed to. More likely than not, all sex addicts have admitted to being abused as children; 97 percent being emotional, 71 percent being physical, and 83 percent being sexual. Other factors that might assist in developing an unhealthy hunger for sex can be what is described as a needy mother. According to Frances Cohen Praver, Ph.D, the relationship between a child and mother who uses the child to soothe her own emotional problems can leave aShow MoreRelatedUnderstanding Sexual Addiction Essay890 Words   |  4 PagesBefore one can begin to understand the complexities of sexual addiction it must be adequately defined. The National Council on Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity has defined sexual addiction as â€Å"engaging in persistent and escalating patterns of sexual behavior acted out despite increasing negative consequences to self and others.† (Herkov) It is important to note that this means that sexual addiction isn’t just the desire to have sex more than normal but also that the addict engages in activitiesRead MoreReaction Paper To Healing The Wounds Of Sexual Addiction1638 Words   |  7 PagesHealing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction Tiffany Carthins Liberty University Abstract Dr. Laaser (2004) provides a detailed look into sexual addiction from a Christian viewpoint in Healing Wounds of Sexual Addiction. The focus of this assignment will be to gain knowledge of what sexual addiction is, how family dynamics are affected, treatment of sexual addiction, and lastly addressing sexual addiction in the church. Exploring the different areas of how sexual addiction and how it can affectRead MoreEssay on Critical Book Review1166 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿ Critical Book Review Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction Michelle Beel Liberty University Psych 307 Summary Dr. Mark Lasser’s book â€Å"Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction† gives insight to those who suffer from sexual addiction and to the families, friends and other people in their lives. Dr. Mark Lasser has chosen to write this book, to share with others his personal struggle and victory with sexual addiction. Dr. Lasser has written this book from a Christian view, toRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book Healing The Wounds Of Sexual Addiction By Dr. Mark R.1667 Words   |  7 PagesAbstract This critical review will attempt to summarize the book â€Å"Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction† written by, Dr. Mark R. Laaser, highlighting all the central themes and giving an in-depth analysis of Dr. Laaser’s work on the subject of sexual addiction. It will give his perspective and evidence to support it from the book and other sources. In this review, you will find that Dr. Laaser has added valuable insight to the subject on a personal level. It will also show how Dr. Laaser’s faithRead MoreEssay about Critical Book Review1170 Words   |  5 PagesCritical Book Review Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction Michelle Beel Liberty University Psych 307 Summary Dr. Mark Lasser’s book â€Å"Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction† gives insight to those who suffer from sexual addiction and to the families, friends and other people in their lives. Dr. Mark Lasser has chosen to write this book, to share with others his personal struggle and victory with sexual addiction. Dr. Lasser has written this book from a Christian view, to give other individualsRead MoreSexual Addiction Among Christians And Sexual Abuse1080 Words   |  5 Pagesbeing bombarded with sexual content. It is nearly impossible to surf the internet without coming across some kind of sexually explicit content. Sex is everywhere and it is no longer hard for anyone to get access to content that no one should be looking at. â€Å"Healing the wounds of Sexual Addiction is my attempt to examine and address the issue of sexual addiction among Christians. We will expose these secret sins to the light of the gospel and out best psychological understanding† (Laaser 2004, 15)Read MoreHyper Sexuality And Sex Addiction1655 Words   |  7 Pages Introduction Hyper sexual disorder/hyper sexuality , also commonly referred to as sexual addiction, is a condition diagnosed by psychiatrists and mental health researchers that plagues the addict with intensified and increased sexual impulses. These urges can lead to a significant increase in sexual activity.   Sex addiction is often thought to be synonymous with a high sex drive, but it is comparably as destructive and life altering as many other addictions. Research and studies show that thoseRead MoreSexual Addiction Essay1457 Words   |  6 PagesSexual Addition may be a common problem but it still remains a relatively understood condition characterized by strong sexual urges. In recent weeks, the issue has resurfaced. Last week, a Journalist Brian Alexander(2007), this psychological condition was once again questioned and the condition was described as such: Sexual addiction is defined as any sexually-related, compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stre ss on family, friends, loved ones and ones workRead MoreThe Management Of A Patient With Compulsive Sexual Behavior1077 Words   |  5 Pagespatient with compulsive sexual behavior requires an understanding of the complete profile of the sexually compulsive or addicted patient. This treatment plan will summarize the patients characteristics as revealed by Bill’s case (page 31 from Clinical Management of Sexual Addiction by Carnes and Adams) and their implications for treatment. Section I: DSM-V Diagnosis (Dx) With the help of greater awareness of sexual exploitation and sexual misconducts more cases of sexual compulsivity are broughtRead MoreAnnotated Bibliography on Infidelity968 Words   |  4 PagesShadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction† Minneapolis: CompCare, 1983. Patrick Carnes’ book offers a real life look at the problem of sexual addiction. He used the past experiences of others to write a book detailing the causes and effects of sexual addiction. Carnes explains how sexual addiction is a huge problem to all involved, not just the â€Å"offender†. He also explains how the addiction is a problem just like any other addictions. The book describes the danger of addictions to humans

Thomas Mores Utopia Essays - 1404 Words

Thomas More’s Utopia is a work of ambiguous dualities that forces the reader to question More’s real view on the concept of a utopian society. However, evidence throughout the novel suggests that More did intend Utopia to be the â€Å"best state of the commonwealth.† The detailed description of Utopia acts as Mores mode of expressing his humanistic views, commenting on the fundamentals of human nature and the importance of reason and natural law, while gracefully combining the two seemingly conflicting ideals of communism and liberalism. The presence of satirical irony and contradiction clearly defines Utopia as an unobtainable goal, though goal that all societies must pursue nonetheless. In essence, Utopia is a written manifestation of†¦show more content†¦Another facet of the Renaissance humanist values includes the importance of reason and intellectual exploration. More seems to specifically highlight this when describing his Utopian society. For example, More describes Utopians spending idle time participating in scholarly activities, such as attending public lectures and their natural enjoyment of learning. However, More clearly asserts the significance of reason when describing the religions of Utopia. In Utopia, each religion is fundamentally the same, each guided of nature and what is natural. Doing what nature intends, which is established through reason, is the true way of worshipping God, according to the Utopians (More, 2011, p. 2011). This is consistent with the humanist theory of a higher, absolute natural law created by God and thus must be followed by man. In order discover this natural law, one must use reason. With this in consideration, it apparent that More intentionally created Utopia to represent a society of humanists, one that is adheres to all aspects of Renaissance humanism without fault. However, one may argue that More’s pious Christian background seems to oppose the pagan ideas found in Utopia and the humanistic view of natural law in general. Yet More addresses this concern by implicitly stating that a religion guided by reason is essentially identical to Christianity: â€Å"after they had heard from us the name of Christ†¦you would notShow MoreRelatedThe Characteristics Of Thomas Mores Utopia913 Words   |  4 PagesIn 1516, Thomas More published the well-known book titled â€Å"Utopia,† where he defined the word as either â€Å"a good place† or â€Å"no place.† In the novel, More described an ideal communal society that was almost unheard of in his time. His â€Å"Utopia,† whose name was possibly derived from the Greek roots â€Å"ou not† and â€Å"tà ³p(os) a place† (â€Å"Utopia), can ultimately be considered a prototype of a modern welfare state (â€Å"Utopia (book)†). This, combined with a lack of private property and other characteristics,Read MoreThomas Mores Utopia Essay1115 Words   |  5 PagesThomas More’s Utopia is a work of ambiguous dualities that forces the reader to question More’s real view on the concept of a utopian society. However, evidence throughout the novel suggests that More did intend Utopia to be the â€Å"best state of the commonwealth.† The detailed description of Utopia acts as Mores mode of expressing his humanistic views, commenting on the fundamentals of human nature and the importance of reason and natural law while gracefully combining the two seemingly conflictingRead More Thomas Mores Utopia Essay example1441 Words   |  6 Pages Throughout Thomas Mores Utopia, he is able to successfully criticize many of the political, social, and economic ways of the time. His critique of feudalism and capitalism would eventually come back to haunt him, but would remain etched in stone forever. On July 6, 1535, by demand of King Henry VIII, More was beheaded for treason. His last words stood as his ultimate feeling about royalty in the 15th and 16th centuries, The Kings good servant, but Gods first. Throughout his life, More spokeRead MoreThe Paradox Of Thomas Mores Utopia As An Adjective?1441 Words   |  6 PagesWhen Thomas More penned Utopia in 1535, he not only created a new genre in fiction, he also created a new adjective.   Miriam-Webster defines Utopia as: a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions. An alternate definition given by the same dictionary is: an impractical scheme for social improvement.(Miriam-Webster) For the purpose of this essay we will be focusing on the latter; Utopia as an adjective. The paradox of the paradigm of Mores Utopia is that allRead MoreAnalysis of Thomas Mores Utopia Essay527 Words   |  3 PagesWhat is it about Thomas Mores Utopia that makes it as accessible and relevant to a 21st century westernized Catholic teenage boy as it did to an 18th century middle aged Jewish women? Utopia, a text written 500 odd years ago in differing country and language, is still a valid link to a contemporary understanding of society, human nature and morals. Through Mores Utopia, it becomes evident that the trans-historical and trans-cultural nature of the text emerges through Mores conscious and subconsciousRead More Socialism and Thomas Mores Utopia Essay2345 Words   |  10 PagesSocialism and Thomas Mores Utopia      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Socialist ideals have recurred throughout the history of literature; from Plato to Marx the elusive goal of a perfect state has occupied some of the best minds in political thought manifesting itself in literature. In the midst of this historic tradition is the Utopia of More, a work which links the utopias of the ancient with the utopias of the modern. Hythlodays fantasy island draws heavily on the Greek Republic and yet it influenced the revolutionaryRead MoreEducation in Thomas Mores Utopia Essay2638 Words   |  11 PagesThe goal of education is to learn, and in this process of learning and being educated there are some greater goals that are served. Education in Thomas More’s Utopia seems to cater to a larger goal, which is to create virtuous persons and citizens, as they are responsible for attaining a flourishing human community. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest there seems to be an underlying idea of a connection between education and a sense of social control. The idea of instilling among his subjects a sense ofRead More A Deconstruction Reading of Thomas Mores Utopia Essay1785 Words   |  8 PagesA Deconstruction Reading of Thomas Mores Utopia Thomas Mores Utopia is the bastard child of European conventions and humanist ideals. Inspired by Mores belief in the elevation of human manners, education, and morals, the text also concedes to the omnipresent traditions of European society. While More accepts parentage of the text, he distances himself from its radical notions and thinly veiled condemnation of Europes establishment. Through the use of a benign narrator, Raphael HythlodayRead MoreEssay on Thomas Mores Utopia and His Context3405 Words   |  14 PagesUtopia is Sir Thomas More’s seminal work, depicting a fictitious island and its religious, social, and political customs. Working as an advisor to King Henry VIII, More was aware of the issues of his time such as ridiculous inflation, corruption, wars for little or no purpose, courtly ostentation, the abuse of power by the absolute monarchs, and the maltreatment of the poor. Consequently, More used Utopia to contrast some unique and refreshing political ideas wit h the chaotic politics of his ownRead MoreThe Perfect Society In Sir Thomas Mores Utopia790 Words   |  4 Pages What is a Utopia? When people think of the term Utopia they think of an ideal or perfect Society. In Sir Thomas More’s â€Å"Utopia† we are introduced to such a society. However, today’s reader can see that the society More’s mention’s is filled with many underlying problems that make it seem less ideal or perfect, because it puts too much stress on the freedom’s and rights of its citizens. Such an act is detrimental in creating a utopia, because if the citizens are not happy with their freedom’s and

Workshop Exercise Week 5 Developing a Thesis Stat Essay Example For Students

Workshop Exercise Week 5: Developing a Thesis Stat Essay ement in Response to AnEssay TopicFor the mid-term essay, you have been given a list of topics to write aboutin relation to either Great Expectations or Jane Eyre. In university essays(unlike Leaving Cert essays, which are more like summaries or checklists ofeverything you know about a text or subject), you are expected to toformulate an argument in response to your chosen topic which isarticulated in a thesis statement in your introductory paragraph. Furthermore, you are expected to analyze both the content and the formof the text and base your argument on evidence (citation and analysis) fromthe primary text and from secondary sources of scholarly criticism. Complete the exercise on pages 3-5 (section II of this handout) and bringit to your Workshop in Week 5. This exercise is designed to help youdevelop a thesis statement which expresses the argument you will make aboutyour chosen topic and which includes of analysis of both the content andthe form of the text. Note: you may decide to change your thesisstatement, topic, or chosen text after this workshop. The exercise isdesigned to help start you thinking what you might write about, which mightchange as you work through it. Be prepared to peer-review your thesis statement in class. After theexercise is a list of peer-review questions (section III), followed by anappendix of materials (section IV) that can give you further guidance indeveloping a thesis statement. I What is a Thesis Statement?If your assignment asks you to take a position ordevelop a claim about a subject, you need to convey that position or claimin a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare andcontrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue,it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support itpersuasively. A thesis statement . Tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion. . Is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper. . Directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a topic or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be 19th-century gender roles or Alice in Wonderland; a thesis must then offer a way to understand gender roles or the novel. . Makes a claim-an argument- that others might dispute. . Is usually a single sentence near the end of your first paragraph that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation. The conclusion usually reiterates the thesis statement and summarizes how you have demonstrated its truth. Some Caveats and Examples:. An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. Reasons for the fall of communism is a topic. Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe is a fact known by educated people. The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe is an opinion. (Superlatives like the best almost always lead to trouble. Its impossible to weigh every thing that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldnt that be the best thing?). A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should telegraph how you plan to argue-that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay. . A thesis is never a question. Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question (Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?) is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water. . A thesis is never a list. For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe does a good job of telegraphing the reader what to expect in the essay-a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesnt advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important. . A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational. An ineffective thesis would be, Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil. This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading. . An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim. While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline is an effective thesis sentence that telegraphs, so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim.. A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible. Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elites inability to address the economic concerns of the people is more powerf ul than Communism collapsed due to societal discontent.. Anticipate the counter-arguments. Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that youll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counter-argument. If yours doesnt, then its not an argument-it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)|Michael Dukakis lost the 1988 presidential election||because he failed to campaign vigorously after the ||Democratic National Convention. |. This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counter- arguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a soft-on-crime image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counter-argument, youll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below. |While Dukakis soft-on-crime image hurt his||chances in the 1988 election, his failure to ||campaign vigorously after the Democratic National ||Convention bore a greater responsibility for his||defeat. |II WORKSHOP EXERCISE: UNDERSTANDING THE TOPIC AND DEVELOPING A THESISSTATEMENTWrite down your chosen topic and any questions you may have about it: Analyze the role, reliability, and impact of first person narration in the text. Write down a) which text you plan to use b) and loosely, how you mightrelate it to the topic:a) Jane Eyre b)Firstly, because its a first person narration (obviously)and secondly because it was published as an actual biography edited byBronte (hidden behind her pseudonym). Research: What other knowledge (context, formal analysis, secondarycriticism etc.) will you need to strengthen your argument? What sort ofscholarly criticism on what themes or areas or texts do you need to lookfor?Consulting Hazarding Confidences by Lisa Stornlieb and/or any other textconcerning narrative (and first persona narration) criticism could be agood source. Analyzing the text and critically evaluating what Jane saysshould be helpful too. Identify the two parts of the thesis:1) What do you plan to argue about the text:Is Jane a reliable narrator or is she omitting something/ altering thetruth? Was this done on purpose or did Bronte realize she put too much ofher own personality into the character?2) Telegraph how you will argue that in the essay (what evidence, whichchapters etc. will you look at? How will you organize the order ofevidence: represent this in your statement) How does the subject relate tothe form of the novel in what you are arguing?-The essay will analyze the way Jane tells the story of her life to thereader , carefully looking at particular sentences and phrases in chapters1, 14, 38, etc Nuclear Arms EssayWHAT IS A WORKING THESIS SENTENCE?Lets take a minute to define this term. A thesis sentence, as weve said,is a kind of contract between you and your reader. It asserts, controls,and structures your argument for your readers ease. A working thesissentence, on the other hand, is a sentence that you compose in order tomake the work of writing easier. Its a sentence that asserts, controls,and structures the argument for you. The working thesis need not be eloquent. In fact, it can be quiteclunky, declaring your argument and then clumsily listing your supportingpoints. Not to worry: youll be revising your thesis, and often more thanonce. Remember that, as you write, you are bound to come up with new ideasand observations that youd like to incorporate into your paper. Every timeyou make a new discovery, your thesis sentence will have to be revised. Sometimes youll find that youre stuck in your writing. You may need toreturn to your thesis. Perhaps you havent clearly defined an importantterm or condition in your thesis? Maybe thats why you find yourself unableto progress beyond a certain point in your argument?Revising your working thesis at this juncture could help you toclarify for yourself the direction of your argument. Dont be afraid torevise! In fact, the most important quality of a working thesis sentence isits flexibility. A working thesis needs to keep up with your thinking. Itneeds to accommodate what you learn as you go along. Revising the Working ThesisLets return now to our in-progress thesis: In Xs novel, the charactersseemingly insignificant use of lipstick in fact points to one of thenovels larger themes: the masking and unmasking of the self. Perhaps thisthesis served you well as you were writing the first couple of pages ofyour paper, but now that you are into the meat of the matter, you arestuck. How, exactly, is the writer using lipstick and masks to revealcharacter? And what, precisely, is his point in doing so?Its at this juncture that youll probably return to your thesis anddiscover a) what it doesnt say, and b) what it needs to say. Weve alreadydetermined that the sentence doesnt really address the most arguable andinteresting aspect of this argument. Now its time to ask yourself whythis hasnt been addressed. Perhaps you, the writer, havent yetarticulated this part of the argument for yourself? Is this why the thesis(and with it, the paper) seems to trail off?At this point you should stop dr afting the paper and return to thetext. Read a bit. Brainstorm a bit. Write another discovery draft. Read abit more. Here is something interesting. Youve found a passage in whichthe writer talks about how the lipstick left behind on a lovers shirtdrew a map for his wife into the dark lands of his infidelities. Andyouve found another passage in which the jilted lovers bright orangelipstick was like a road sign, guiding her betrayer to the heart of herpain. In these two passages you see the writer addressing another functionof lipstick: that women use it to draw a kind of map. You look for otherlipstick examples that might shed more light on the idea of mapping, andyou find them. Even better, you discover that all of these examples havesomething to do with betrayal, guilt, and shame. In the end, you concludethat lipstick is not being used in this novel just to mask and unmask. Women also use lipstick to map. The two are in fact linked:1. Lipstick masks by concealing real feelings (most often feelings of betrayal, guilt, and shame). 2. Lipstick masks, but in the process reveals or creates a new persona, one who overcomes the feelings of betrayal, guilt, and shame. 3. The author also uses the act of putting on lipstick as a metaphor for mapping. These maps might conceal that is, they might serve to detour the observer from discovering (or arriving at) the womans feelings of betrayal, or4. They might reveal. First, lipstick might draw a map to the truth about a betrayal, as they do for the betrayed wife in the novel. And second, lipstick might be seen as a tool with which a woman maps herself, drawing new borders, re-imagining her own inner landscapes, and re-routing her own destiny. This idea is very complicated. How do you make a thesis out of this?Your first try is bound to be clumsy. You need to find a way of puttingtogether all of your important ideas lipsticks, masks, maps, concealing,revealing, betrayal into one sentence. Lets try:While lipstick is used in Xs novel to conceal feelings of betrayal,it is also used to reveal the betrayal itself, in that lipstick bothmasks and maps betrayal, at first allowing women to hide themselves,but later providing them with the possibility to create new selves,and to re-route their lives. Does this sentence work?Revising Your Thesis For EloquenceClearly not. For one thing, it is simply too long. You are putting too muchinformation into one sentence. Sometimes writers fail to understand thattheir argument might best be expressed in a couple of sentences (with onesentence providing background information and the second serving as thethesis). Note the difference such a change would make:While lipstick is used in Xs novel to conceal feelings of betrayal, it isalso used to reveal the betrayal itself. Accordingly, lipstick both masksand maps betrayal in this novel, initially allowing women to hidethemselves, but later providing them with the possibility to create newselves, and to re-route their lives. Better? Sure, but it could be better still. You will, of course, wantto play with your thesis sentence until it is strong enough to present yourcomplex argument, and clear enough to guide your reader through your paper. But even more than this, you will want to write a thesis sentence thatevokes something in the reader. You will want to use language that has somepower; you will want to structure the sentence so that it has some oomph.Pay attention to diction, to syntax, to nuance, and to tone. Inshort, write a good sentence. Understand that you can revise the thesis sentence above in a number ofways. Ask yourself:. Is my argument clear?. Does it present the logic and the structure of my paper?. Does it emphasize the points I want to emphasize? Perhaps in the end you decide that the previous sentence seems to makemasking and mapping of equal importance to this paper. Youve decided thatmapping is the more original, stronger idea. So you revise once more, foremphasis. Consider this, then, our final thesis sentence (note how thecomplete argument now relies on the interaction between two introductorysentences and the thesis statement itself): While at first it might appear that lipstick is being used merely to hide the characters feelings of betrayal, a closer look reveals that its most essential use is actually to map the path to the betrayal itself. By using lipstick as the signposts, betrayal can be discovered and navigated. As a result, characters are able to re-draw the borders of their relationships, an d to re-route the course of their lives.

Music Industry Rappers free essay sample

VOLVO, which gets Jacked repeatedly while the Ford hurtles, happily, to the source of the noise. Not to the stations broadcast booth on a campus across the river, nor to its transmission towers in the suburbs, but rather to Raja Productions in North Dorchester, where black kids from Bosons now-integrated high schools-Latin, Madison Park, Jeremiah Burke, Manhattan-cut demos and dream of being bigger than even the radios new friend, a young man named School D who right now, at speaker-damaging volume, sounds darn big. Before we start this next record , Schools saying.The record In question Is called Slinging Rapper, a brief, bloody tale of ghetto retribution from Side 2 of Schools Smoke Some Kill. The black areas are cut away from the white areas a federal judge ruled in 74, and evidence is everywhere that nothings changed since then. On the southbound left of the Fitzgerald Expressway pass 20 blocks of grim Irish-Catholic housing projects, the western border of Belfast, complete with Sin Feint graffiti and murals depicting a glorious united Ireland, a neighborhood where the gadfly will get his fibula busted for praising the 74 court order that bused Them from wherever it is They live-theThird World fear carriages-into 97-percent-white South Boston. We will write a custom essay sample on Music Industry Rappers or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page On the Expressways right is the place the fibula-busters are talking about: the simultaneous northern border of Haiti, Jamaica and Georgia; a territory that maps of Boston call North Dorchester. Uniting the two sides of the Expressway is just about nothing. Both neighborhoods are tough and poor. Both hate the college world across the river, which, because of Bosons rotten public schools, they will never see as freshmen.And kids from both neighborhoods can do this hating to the beat of undergraduate radio, which this fine ironing features suburban kids with student debt broadcasting the art of a ghetto Philadelphia roughly their age, once much poorer than they, but now, on royalties from Smoke Some Kill, very much richer. Not that the shared digging of black street music Is news, or even new: twenty years ago, when Morgan v. Hennaing, Bosons newborn v. Board of Education, was Inching through the courts, and even dark-completed Italians were sometimes unwelcome In the Irish precincts east of the Expressway, kids In Bosons Little Belfast sang along with James Brown over the radio Im black and Im proud Say it loud Im black and Im proud! Except that halfway through the infectious funk, the crosscuts realize what theyre saying: Jesus Christ, Im proud to be black fear shortcakes, like when youre in the porno store, you know, and you get lost or something and you find yourself in the mens part, you know? To the part for men in the part thats about men, Jesus, and you get the hell auto there. And so they hum/mumble the suppressed parts Say it loud Im mom hum proud Mum hum hum proud! But rap isnt funk, rock or Jazz, and the vast crossover move, broadcasting ghetto music over college radios to ghettos of a different color, is no simple reenactment of past crossovers. How, for example, does the sing-along fan of Smoke Some Kill mumble his w ay through these lines: Black is beautiful Brown is sick? Slick? Stiff? Yellows K But white anti sit. Raja Productions, modestly headquartered in a mixed black/Hispanic Field, Corner section of North Dorchester, is as follows: * One (1) four-car garage fitted with dubbing and remaining gear worth more than most of the rest of the real estate on the block; * One (1) touch-tone telephone (leased); * Two (2) Chevy Blazers, vanity-plated RAJAH and RAJAH, each equipped with cellular phones and slick tape decks (also leased); * One (1) VS. with Kathleen Turners Body Heat cued up on the morning in question; * Most importantly, eight (8) promising acts under binding contract.If, as has happened to many local labels, Raja were liquidated to satisfy creditors, these would be the pieces. But there are stores of value in the converted garage beyond the reach of the auctioneers gavel. School D, the original Signifying Rapper, looms irresistibly from the pages of rap fanzines Hip-Hop and The Source; and Rajas prime, unmentionable asset is the consuming ambition of the artists in its stable to be the next School D. Or the next Ice T, or Cool Moe Dee, or L. L. Cool J. , or hovers the special hero of the kid cutting the demo.On this particular morning, Late vs.. Van White and 10% Ids-since today is Tam-Tams day and Tam-Tam is, at 16, a tough girl in the MS Late mold who, like MS Late, can dance, look good, and tell men to beat it, all at once. Or so claims Tam-Tams producer, promoter, and Dutch uncle, Gary Smith, who opened Raja on Martin Luther Kings birthday, 89, with his older brother Ante. Ante, the elder statesman, is 25. Gary, 22, runs the company while Ante travels with his boyhood-friend-turned-boss, quadruple-platinum, Prince-derived rapper/singer, Bobby Brown.Raja was founded in part with an investment from the 23-year-old multi-millionaire Brown, a native of Roxbury. Brown now lives in Los Angels. Ante and Gary Smith turn a healthy profit making demos at $500/tape, but the brothers arent in the health business. Their aim: to follow in the corporate footsteps of Defy Jam, a once similarly tiny production company run from a basement in Hollies, Queens, which since its basement days, has given America Public Enemy, L. L. Cool J. , the Beastie Boys, and much of the rest of that culture-quake called rap.Gary Smith doesnt compare Raja to Defy Jam, and, unlike Defy Jams Russell Simmons, Gary reduces pop, soul, and RB as well as straight rap, and actually prefers RB. But how many sophomores at nearby Jeremiah Burke can afford to dream in RB, to front music lessons and $500 for an nth-hand sound set-up, find three friends to learn drums, bass and keyboards, and then raise another $500 to make a demo at Raja? Anybody with a larynx can rap, however, and Rajas brisk business in rap demos pays the taxman, Boston Edison and the Chevrolet Motor Credit Corp.. Twenty minutes farther south on the Fitzgerald Expressway, across the Nipponese River and into the pricey suburbs, is the scene of John Achievers boyhood, more gently celebrated as Massachusetts Miracle country, where technology ventures are started at the rate of five per week, four of which will fail within 12 months. Rajas Gary Smith is secret brother to the men of the suburban Chambers of Commerce, sharing their worries about cash flow, overhead, and the enforceability of his contracts; but Garry world and theirs are as far apart as those of Ward and Eliding Cleaver.Worriers in suburbia fear that ballooning property values will hike taxes on computer executives seaside homes. In Agars neighborhood, property values are actually falling. Waiting less than patiently for Tam-Tam, Gary honks wick. A tall, grave girl with an angels heart-shaped face crosses the ghetto street and climbs into the back seat of RAJAH . She has, apparently, at least two voices, the cynical, sexy rant heard on tape this morning telling Pebbles men anti worth it, and the whisper in which she now says hello. As RAJAH re-crosses North Dorchester, heading back to the soundproof studios to get the days work started, Gary and DC Reese hash out production details. Tam-Tams a dignified island in the back seat, and a shiver accompanies the thought that this could be the Motor City in 63 with Berry Gorky and an eighty-pound teenage Diana Ross, Just voted Best Dressed at Sacs Technical High School, driving cross-town to Ask Tam-Tam about Diana Ross, and she gives a beatific smile.Shes 16; she can remember only with difficulty the first rap she ever listened to, when rap was new and she was 8; Run-DIM or somebody, she mumbles in response to what suddenly seems a foolish question about her influences. Like most of raps black audience (as distinct from raps white audience, which is usually a decade older), Tam-Tam has no first-hand recollection of James Brown except as a source for rap. She is too young to have attended segregated schools.She was in diapers during the violent first few months of des egregation in Boston and cant remember the awful day in 74 when pro-neighborhood marchers from Irish South Boston came upon a black pedestrian at City Hall and beat him with pole-mounted American flags. Tam-Tam has star presence, and like many who do, she seems to see very little of what goes on around her, the price of the stars intense focus on self. She reminds you of Senator Gary Hart. He, too, had star presence.In front of a crowd, Hart was riveting; in the elevator riding up to the auditorium, he was barely there. Being barely here in the neighborhood Tam-Tam calls home is probably not such a bad thing, and perhaps her drive to be star someday is an elaborate way to wall out the now and here. Ambition is, finally, a form of hope, a scarce commodity in North Dorchester. Back in Rajas control booth, DC Reese and producer Ralph Stacey are programming the rhythm track for what will be Ho, Youre Guilty. Drum parts are taken from a Roland TRY-909 Rhythm Composer, a synch which electronically reproduces programmed beats on the users choice of drum-matrix. The TRY-asss keys, on a console designed to resemble, vaguely, the familiar piano, are named after the sound ACH creates-bass, snare, mid-tom, hi-tom-and the sounds are named after the actual drums which, until the TRY-909, were required to make those sounds. The TRY-909 even sports a key named HAND CLAP, making it possible for the first time ever to clap hands with a single finger, rendering obsolete the Zen Joan about the sound of one hand clapping.The finished Ho, Youre Guilty will sound lush with percussion, melody, and instrumental breaks. Not one human musician will be employed in the recording process. Each percussion line is programmed onto the mixing board as a separate track: a snare track, a bass track, a clap track, etc. Reese has been studying the classics lately, too, biz: James Browns Dead on the Heavy Funk from shish, including the ageless groove, Funky President, in which James announces his third-party candidacy.Some of Bobby Bards Dead guitar, and a holy moment wh en James exhales rhythmically, have been isolated from a store-bought cassette of Dead, re-recorded on clean tape, then re-re-recorded onto a computer-readable memory diskette from which the sample is retrieved and altered by Ralph Stacey using a Roland D-50 linear synch. The guitar and the exhalation then go, as altered, from the synch to yet another of the UT of these 24 strands. As Reese and Ralph Stacey mix the 24 tracks onto one master tape, Tam-Tam sips lemonade in the corner of the booth.You ask her if she is interested someday in learning about the obscure digital technology the two men manipulate on her behalf. She doesnt seem to register the question. The other career besides rap Id like to pursue is modeling, she says. Im five-seven. Thats the perfect height for a model. Mixing takes the rest of the day. Producer Ralph Stacey at one late point corners you with a flinty stare and an uncomfortable question: Why do you want to write about AP, anyway? It is lucky that at that minute Reese is done mixing.Tomorrow the Raja staff will tape Tam-Tams vocal track and lay this over Reeces rhythm track. Then the sound will be fattened with stacks of horns, guitar hooks, bells, canned applause, and whatever else they decide to take from other tapes or work up on the Rolando. The final demo tape of Ho, Youre Guilty will then be shopped to the 20 major, minor, and tiny labels who might release the demo as a 12-inch single. Everyones ready to call it a day. Gary Smiths already huddled with some new want- be stars in Rajas reception area. Reese plays the mixed rhythm track once through over the big speakers in the control booth, and Tam-Tam immediately stands, modeling forgotten, utterly alert. Reese gestures to her with maestro hands. She raps at an absent Antoinette in the hard, sexy voice you havent heard since this morning, extemporaneous but on beat: Im a female Youre Just a fairytale. The small-w we here are two white Boston males: one native, one oft-transplanted; both residing in Cambridge, a dim, ethnic-Portuguese neighborhood whose gentrification we abet. M. Is an attorney with a taste for Jazz, Blues, funk; D. Radar student and would-be drifter who watches TV instead of sleeping. Our cultural tastes and interests are day and night. They converged only lately, when Ads stereo arrived UPS and we discovered we shared an uncomfortable, somewhat furtive, and distinctively white enthusiasm for a certain music called rap/hip-hop. * About our passions and discomforts we could determine only that they were vague distinct contexts and catheter brought to bear across the same ethnic distance on the same thing. For instance, we agreed that real or serious rap is not FAD or Tone Loc orBeasties, Egyptian Lover or Fat Boys, not experiments or foreshadows or current commercial crossover slush. Serious rap-a unique U. S. Inner-city fusion of funk, technician reggae, teen-to-teen hardcore rock, and the early ass poetry of the black experience of Nikkei Giovanni, the Last Poets, etc. -has, since its late-ass delivery at the record-scratching hands of Africa Bumboat and his Zulu Nation, Sugarbird Gang, Cool Here and his automated Hercules, and Grandmaster Flash, always had its real roots in the Neighborhood, the black gang-banger Underground. Black music,We concurred as to the wheres and when of raps begetting-mid-to-late ass South Bronx house parties; then, by decades end, block parties, with municipal electric lights tapped for a power source, literal dancing in the streets; by 82, regular rap- houses and then floating clubs-the Rosy every Sunday, The Borons Disco Fever HTH-everybody Breaking to a new musical antistatic being fashioned from records and turntables and an amateur Ads ad-lib banter; a very heavy reggae influence at the beginning; the more rhythmic pure rap an offshoot, its brisker, sparer, backseat signed for Breakneck, and the smooth-rapping portrayer who Just didnt want to shut up when others music was on.We agreed, too, on rough chronology: ama teur house-partiers giving way to professional Ads, pioneers; they, too, then overshadowed by new art-entrepreneurs, former Breakers, failed singers, gag-majorettes; then the rise of Indies, the tiny independent labels that keep most new music on life- support-Sugar Hill, Jive, Tommy Boy, Wild Pitch, Profile Records, Enjoy-then, after King Tim Ills Personality Joke and Sugarbird Gangs Rappers Delight, an entree into urban black radio; then to underground Mix radio; then corporate levels, digital technology, very big money, the early-ass talent that became an early Scenes cream- Spooning G. And Sequence, Eric Fresh, Unknown DC, Egyptian Lover and Run-DIM. Then, Spring 84, the extraordinary Midas touch of Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons Defy Jam label (now under contract to CBS) from which sprang a mid-ass stable of true stars, in the Underground-public Enemy, L. L. Cool J, Slick Rick, the still-unparalleled Eric B. And Racism-and L. A. s alternatives: Cool Moe Dee, L. A. Dream Team, and others.And now, at decades end, an absolute explosion of rap-as-pop, big business, MAT, special fashions, posters, merchandise, with only a few big, new, cutting-edge acts- L. A. s N. W. A. , Philadelphia School D, Imams 2 Live Crew, De La Souls House-blend of rap/funk/]jazz-remaining too esoteric or threatening or downright obscene to cross all the way over and cash in with big labels. By 89 rap is finally proving as important (read also lucrative) to an anemic shock-and rebellion-music industry as Punk was an exact decade ago. This was all Just data. We agreed on it, and on how it as curious that we both had such strange, distant facts down cold. Our point of departure, essay-wise, was always less what we know than what we felt, listening: less what we liked than why.For this attempt at an outside sampler we plunked down and listened to thousands of hours of rap, trying to summon a kind of objective, critical, purely aesthetic passion that the music itself made impossible. For outsiders, raps easy to move to, hard to dissect. The more we listened and thought and drank beers and argued, the more we felt that the stuffs appeal for two highbrow, upscale whites was Just plain incongruous. Because serious rap has, right from the start, presented itself as a closed show. Usually critical questions of culture, context, background and audience reduce quickly to vexed questions about prepositions. Not here. No question that serious rap is, and is very self-consciously, music by urban blacks about same tonal for same.To mainstream whites its a tight cohesion that cant but look, from outside the cultural window, like occlusion, clannishness (sic) and inbreeding, a kind of reverse snobbery about whats defy and And WASP-only country clubs. Serious rap is a musical movement that seems to revile whites as a group or Establishment, and simply to ignore their possibility as distinct individuals-the Great White Male is raps Grand Inquisitor, its idiot questioner-its Alien Other no less than Reds were for McCarthy. The musics paranoia, together with its hermetic racial context, helps explain why from the outside it appears to us Just as vibrant and impassioned as it does alien and scary. Other incongruities.Rap is a music essentially without melody, built instead around a digitally synthesized drum- and back-beat often about as complex as five idle fingers on a waiting-room table, enhanced by sa mpled (pirated) crush roves (licks or repetitive chord-series) conceived and recorded by pre-rap rock icons, the whole affair characterized by a distinctive, spare, noisy, clattering style whose obsessive if limited thematic revolve with the speed of low-I amperage around the affirmative circuit of the MS/rapper and his record-scratching, sound- mixing Ashcan Panda, the D]. The rapper (the guy in the cameo cut or Kananga hat, pricey warm-up, unlaced Aids, extra thick gold chain or oversized medallion) offers lyrics that are spoken or bellowed in straight, stressed, rhymed verse, the verses syntax and meter often ordered for rhythmic gain or the kind of limiting-for-rhyme we tend to associate with doggerel about men from Nantucket. The lyrics, nearly always self-referential, tend to be variations on about half a dozen basic themes, themes that at first listen can seem less alien or shocking than downright dull.Egg: Just how bad/cool/fresh/defy the rapper and his lyrics are; Just how equally UN-all-these his music rivals are; how troublesome, vacuous and acquisitive women are; how wonderful it is to be paid in full for rapping instead of stealing or dealing; how gangs are really families, canines constant bad news. And, in particular, how sex and violence and yuppie toys represent perfectly the urban black liveried to late-ass American glory. The masks are many, too many for anything really but direct aural inspection: rap personae can change frequently even within single albums, the rapper delivering Hard, violent Black Nationalist communique on one cut, dubbing against Trinitarian steel drums on another, basking in big label eclat on a third, cracking a head and then defy outwitting someone muscled and dumb, cooing to his pitch and then on the flip side, threatening to go get his gun again if she cant learn whos boss.Though any crew naturally wants its own distinctive game and face, the quintessential rap group is unsentimental, chameleons. This is either by weird design, or its a symptom and symbol of ass facelessness.. . Or most likely, its Just a good old venerable synecdoche of raps genre itself, one thats now moving so fast it cant quite fix on its own identity -? much less hold still for anything like cool, critical classification or assessment, from outside. The Macs Alice Toasts-queue DC hovers ever nearby over his buffet of connected turntables and the black Germans of a whole lot of digital editing playback rush groove, and the sound carpet, I. E. Kind of electric aural environment, a chaos behind the rappers rhymed order, a digitized blend of snippets, squeaks, screams, sirens, snatches from pop media, all mixed and splattered so that the listener cannot really listen but only feel the resultant mash of samples that results. The most recognizable of these samples range from staccato record-scratches to James Brown and Fungicidal licks, to M. L. K. s public Dream, to quotidian pop pap like The Theme from Shaft, Brady Bunch dialogue, and ass detergent commercials. We have now read every review and essay to do with serious underground hip-hop available in every single on-line periodical except for one or two underground newsletters (biz. The City Sun, Fresh-Est) circulated in parts of the Bronx demimonde where learning about rap is as hard for white outsiders as scoring fine China White or Asks.From the kind of sedulous bibliographical research to be expected of conscientious lawyers and PhD, the following has become clear. Outside England, where the Punk-weaned audience has developed a taste for spectacle-through- windows, for vicarious Rage and Protest against circumstances that have exactly 0% o do with them, most of what Rolling Stone calls devoted rock consumers (meaning we post-baby-boomers), plus almost all established rock critics, tend to regard non- crossover rap as essentially boring and simplistic, or swaggering a nd bellicose and dangerous-at all events, basically vapid and empty because of its obsessive self- referentially.. . N short, as closed to them, to us, as a music. Unrecognizable as what weve been trained and adverted to buy as pop. Great to dance to, of course, but then what might the white audience for todays mainstream expect? Rap, whether second or sterile, is todays pop musics lone cutting edge, the new, the unfamiliar, the brain-resisted-while-body-boogies. And that resisted, alien, exhilarating cutting edge has always been black. What have you left me? What have I got? Last night in cold blood my young brother got shot My homey got Jacked My mothers on crack My sister cant work cause her arms show tracks Madness, insanity Live in profanity Then some punk claim that they understanding me?Give me a break-what world do you live in? Death is my sex-guess my religion* What makes this stuff so much more disturbing, more real to outsiders than the Punk Rock even those of us who remember it could never quite take seriously? Maybe even a closed music has to have some kind of detente with received custom: I always found it tough to listen straight-faced to a nihilist lecture from someone with a chartreuse Mohawk and an earring in his eyelid who punctuates his delivery with vomit and spit. All doctrine and pronouncement, exclusively anti-, this Punk of a void, nothing human to grab onto. I have no idea what a Punk performer thinks, feels, is, da y-to-day N fact I always suspected he had no day, but Just retreated to his plush coffin at cockcrow. Can you imagine a Punk with four-foot hair and spiked jacket and nose-ring, say, eating a bologna sandwich? Replacing a light bulb? Putting a quarter in a meter? Not me, boy. And even Barnum, who knew fear sells, also knew that foreshadows arent frightening when the freakishness supplants all resemblance. 0% affinity = 0% empathy. And fear requires empathy as much as it does menace or threat. Public Enemy and N. W. A. , Ice T and School D discomfit us, our friends, the critics we read and cornered, because the Hard rappers lyrics are conscientious about being of/for the real lives and attitudes of recognizable, if alien, persons.Heres where its a level up from mere spectacle: ideology in Hard rap is always informed by incident or named condition. This makes rap not only better than Punk, but way scarier. Serious Hard raps afford white listeners genuine, horses-mouth access to the life-and-death plight and mood of an American community on the genuine edge of IM-/explosion, an ugly new sub-nation weve been heretofore conditioned to avoid, remand to the margins, not even see except through certain carefully abstract, attenuating filters. For outsiders, rap is hard to dissect, easy to move to. The command is: dance, dont understand; participate, dont manipulate. Rap is a fortress protected by the twin moats of talk and technology. The first is that nu style of speak-the dialect drug, De La Soul calls it-that rappers fashion from Jive and disseminate through record stores to all of us. Some in-words, like fly, meaning functioning, have been in coin since the beginning, now venerable as Old English because they turn up on Grandmaster Flash cuts from 82. Others, like dead presidents, rap for $$, are either coming into or going out of currency, depending on when you read this. Rap, a club language, has yard ways to describe ones own or others looks. Fly is how a man digs a woman. One would never describe oneself as fly, even when cataloguing ones own attractions (done more in rap than anyplace except perhaps Village Voice personals). Fresh means irresistibly stylish, oft-modified by funky, crazy, or stooped, predominantly used to convey the fly-news of things other than women, including oneself or ones rap, which two concepts rappers, like schizophrenics, cant always keep separate in their heads. Dope means defy, and defy means crazy funky stooped fresh. Synonyms include: the sit, the It, the cool, the than, the word, the grooviest, the categorical imperative, die hallucinates, the that-which-Potter- Stewart-would-know-if-he-saw. A defy rapper is so style-defining as to make the stylish mere copycats. To be defy is to rap to the beat of a different drum machine-not seeking solitude, but rather confident that others will follow. The defy rapper Macs a defy rap, which rap defy-lay tells of its own (and the rappers) defy-news-so defy, as MIMIC manager, entrepreneur Russell Rush Simmons brags, that it had to be on a label called Defy Jam.Rap celebrates power, equating strength with style, and style with the I in wrong; to bite is to thieve anothers dope beat. And only the ill would bite. Early remembered pop was the first fake music ever, since what the record buyer of 63 experienced as Aural Event on his turntable couldnt happen live. Rock began to become an Illusion of Event which technology made possible; rock became more like the movies, starting down a long road at the end of which was MAT. Not that this kept Phil Specter up nights. The gurus of the studio had fatter fish to clean, for the new freedom to shape sound had come at a price. With each magnetic jump from live, as tape was made of tapes which were themselves tapes of tapes, the hiss and crackle of interference multiplied.Dual high-bias media with 2 units each of sonic garbage per 10,000 units of Elvis Presley, retyped on similar 2-units-per-10,OOH tape, became 4 units of hiss; retyped, 8; then 16; then 32. As the sound got fuller, it decayed. The solution was a breakthrough called multi-tracking-using recorders that could capture and play back on 2 (as in stereo), 4 (as in ass then-ear-shattering Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band), 12, 16, and today 24 parallel tracks, eliminating he hiss of transference from one machine to the next. Rhythms, melodies, harmonies could all be captured on separate tracks, allowing the performer or producer to mix and listen and re-mix, adding vocals or lead instrument on yet another track. Rap Edison like Cool Here, Grandmaster Flash and Africa Bumboat began as party Ads, not musicians.Their wiring of twin turntables to a mixer, allowing them to stack the sound of two different records while rapping into a mike, was a kind of crude, extemporaneous multitasking. Technological loops like those in the NASA-queue studios of CBS and Polygraph were now in the hands of the homeboys. Carter was President. The Bee Gees, with five Top-Ten hits in twelve months, were king. Digital recording, the science dividing Rajas Tam-Tam on tape from Tam-Tam as heard live is a technology that converts music to codes or digits. The codes are read by a computer, one combining sophisticated sound-to-code translation hardware with a number-crunching COOS and a high-response synthesizer, at speeds of 40,000 digits per second and up.The recorded sounds, reduced to numbers, can be shaped, mangled, muffled, amplified, and even cannonaded. ** Hardware then translates the digits, as read and altered, back into sound, which can itself be recorded on multicultural and combined with yet more sounds. The result: hiss-free reproduction on an infinity of tracks, each of which can itself be manipulated infinitely. Digital recording, part of the ass sea-change in how pop gets made, divides the responsibility for the final song more or less equally between the performer, the engineer at the mixing board, the producer who coordinates the multi-tracking and mixing process, and the e lectronic hardware that actually makes the music we buy.