[Review] Wu-Massacre: The Return of Wu-Tang Clan

Wu-Massacre is a hip-hop album that was released on March 30th, 2010 by East Coast rappers Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon. These artists are the three central rappers of the legendary group the Wu-Tang Clan; hence the name of the album. All three rappers have already proved their incredible talent and were critically acclaimed both as a group and as individual artists. At the ripe ages of 39, 40, and 40, respectively, their impressive skills and techniques were gained through years of experience in the hip-hop game. Critics and casual fans, including myself, expected a lot from this album, and they probably were not too disappointed.



Track Listing (#.Song Title - Participating Artists)
1. Criminology 2.5 - Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man
2. Mef Vs. Chef 2 - Method Man, Raekwon
3. (Skit) Ya Moms - Method Man, Raekwon
4. Smooth Sailing [Remix] - Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Solomon Childs, Streetlife
5. Our Dreams - Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man
6. Gunshowers - Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, Sun God
7. Dangerous - Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man
8. Pimpin' Chipp - Ghostface Killah
9. (Skit) How to Pay Rent - feat. Tracy Morgan
10. Miranda - Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man
11. Youngstown Heist - Ghostface Killah, Trife, Sheek, Bully
12. It's That Wu Shit - Ghostface Killah, Method Man

1. First Glance: The Title & Overall Coherence
The album’s title, Wu-Massacre, itself presents a powerful image; the “Wu” of Wu-Tang Clan is set as a prefix to the word “Massacre” The production and lyrical content of many songs in the album do indeed display a powerful style. However, not all of the songs are hardcore and tough. Tracks such as “Our Dreams” or “Miranda” contain emotional or relaxed lyrics, and the two skits are humorous, creating a diverse listening experience. However, because of this and the fact that none of the songs really have the super-tough feeling of a “massacre”, the title doesn’t seem to fit the album itself very well.
★★★☆☆

2. Album Art The album’s cover art is a compilation of three separate pictures. They are comic super hero-styled caricatures of the three rappers. (From left to right, Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon) The cover was created by actual comic artists from Marvel and is very innovative. The artwork, combined with the “W” logo of Wu-Tang Clan and the raggedly stylized title, creates an overall powerful image
★★★★★

3. Music - Beats
The songs in the album are short, none of them being longer than 4 minutes. Also, despite the fact that the album is a cooperative project between three artists, 2 of the tracks are skits, leaving us with only 10, short, songs. Thus we must expect quality over quantity, and the quality is not at all poor. Most of the songs’ beats were produced by Wu-Tang Clan’s main producer, RZA. Some of the beats are experimental, with atypical drum sequences and melodies, initially creating a slightly incongruous feeling. While it is possible to get used to the beats after some listening, they may be a little annoying at first.
★★★☆☆

4. Music – Lyrics
Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon are all seasoned rappers with great lyrical prowess, and they show their skills freely in the album. With their respectively unique tones and styles, they display a diverse array of tightly-packed rhymes and flows. The fact that the rhyme patterns almost constantly stay above 2 syllables proves their advanced techniques. However, when looking at the beats, the length and composition of the songs and the lyrical content as a whole, the entire album looks like an experimental step. In other words, the purpose of the album seems to be to simply let people recognize the continuation of the rappers’ skills, rather than a “serious” album with a message or deep meaning.
★★★★☆

The Singles
Wu-Massacre has produced a total of 4 singles.
1. Our Dreams

Verse 1: Ghostface Killah
Verse 2: Method Man
Verse 3: Raekwon
The first single is the RZA-produced “Our Dreams.” The song sampled the song “We’re Almost There” by Michael Jackson as its chorus and is a typical East Coast style soft rap. Ghostface Killah’s punch-line, or wordplay, utilizing the word “together” (to get her) is notable.

2. Mef vs. Chef 2

Method Man, Raekwon
“Mef” and “Chef” and are the nicknames of Method Man and Raekwon respectively. On Method Man’s 1994 solo debut album “Tical,” there was a track titled “Meth vs. Chef” that featured a rap battle between the two rappers. This song is a continuation of it and it displays the diverse battle rhymes of both artists.

Method Man - Meth vs. Chef (feat. Raekwon)
The original song from Tical.

3. Miranda

Verse 1: Raekwon
Verse 2: Ghostface Killah
Verse 3: Method Man
The third single, “Miranda”, is a smooth song about a Hispanic woman named Miranda. Although the three artists are rapping about the same subject, the differences in their respective styles are evident.

4. Dangerous

Verse 1: Raekwon
Verse 2: Ghostface Killah
Verse 3: Method Man
Hook (Chorus): Ghostface Killah
The fourth single, “Dangerous”, is the only single out of the four that exhibit gangster-related lyrics by all three rappers.

5. Conclusion
Wu-Massacre, overall, is a decent album. While it may seem a bit unfinished or ambiguous, the pure skill of the three rappers almost entirely, if not completely, makes up for those shortcomings. As Method Man’s 5th solo album is rumored to be released soon, we can continue to expect great musical activity from Wu-Tang Clan.
★★★☆☆

Sloth. Noise. Colors.

Sloth. Noise. Colors. The sloth that lies within rests in absolute tranquility. It does not worry nor panic at the rapidity of the events in the world around him, but rather exerts a calming aura to all those around it. It emits a noise, but not one of chaos or discomfort; a disorganized yet entertaining noise is broadcast almost constantly. It sees and embraces all colors. It does not discriminate. It then accepts the colors as its own, adding to the symphony of noise.

The Lesson of Spring

           “Spring,” the first chapter of Kim Ki-deuk’s movie “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring,” is about a child monk and a lesson that he learns from his mentor. The boy, as a childish prank, ties a fish, a frog, and a snake to individual stones. He then watches, laughing, as they struggle to move. Later that night, while the boy is sleeping, his mentor, an older monk, ties the boy to a stone as the boy did to the animals. The next morning, the old monk tells the boy to find those animals that he harassed the day before and let them free. The boy finds the animals but, much to his grief, the fish and the snake had already died.

           The lesson that the old monk wished to teach the boy was probably one of humility. Humans, even a young boy like the child monk, obviously have an upper hand in terms of strength or intelligence compared to animals such as fish, frogs, and snakes. The boy, in a naïve joke, misused this power to treat the animals poorly, and made them go through sufferings that they did not deserve. While the action itself was not nearly an atrocious crime, the older monk saw that it would be necessary to teach the boy about this by letting the boy experience the hardships himself. Letting the boy experience the error in his ways personally would, the monk probably believed, would have a long-lasting impact on the boy and prevent any future incidents of similar structure but larger scale. This lesson is significant not only to the life-revering Buddhists, but to all people that are in a position of power compared to others.

Metafiction: A Superhero Story Gone Wrong

        “Uh, Boss? The Hollywood guys said that they just finished the video.”

           “Great. Tell them to send it over. Let me see it.”

           “Uh, sure Boss. But, uh, are you sure you wrote this? I mean, uh, is this the right story?”

           “Yeah, yeah, of course it is. Hand it over already.”

           As a comic book writer, Robert Gream had been creating all sorts of stories for quite a few years now. His main specialty was superhero comics, and the video that his assistant was talking about was a live-action film titled Particlo: Origins; it was a movie that showed the introduction—or, as Robert liked to say, “Call to Adventure,”—of Particlo, one of his superhero characters. Particlo, whose real identity is a man called William Irving, had the ability to dissolve himself into tiny particles and move them by his free will; he, as well as being pretty popular in general, was one of Robert’s favorites so he had great expectations for this movie.

           Unfortunately, not long after handing over the script to the director, Robert was involved in a traffic accident that hospitalized him for a very long time, so he wasn’t able to directly oversee the production of the movie. Nevertheless, Robert instructed the production team to take any suggestions from anyone in my workshop so he wasn’t too worried.

           “Well, here it is, Boss.”

           Robert, a smile on his face, leaned back and watched the video as the assistant left. The opening credits rolled and the actor who played the protagonist appeared.

           William Irving lived in the suburbs of Belmont Massachusetts. Apparently born without the ability to laugh, cry, or show emotion in any other way, the only time William had ever left his town was when a friend convinced him to watch a parade downtown 3 years ago. He had not enjoyed that experience very much.

           “So far so good,” Robert remarked out loud. The introductory part was slightly long, but the convincing acting of the actors, a great soundtrack, and the lack of a clichéd narrator made it enjoyable to watch.

           After one of his friends' suggestion, William decided to travel all over the world to find emotion and to learn how to show emotion. He first went to Japan.

           Robert hit the pause button. Japan? There was no mention of Japan in his original comic or the slightly changed scenario version that he sent to the production team. Robert raised an eyebrow, but, thinking that this might be a development that the movie makers made, pressed the play button to watch Irving board his plane.

           He saw some monkey shows but they were not fun at all. He then went to North Korea. He met a fat but small monster there. The monster was wearing sunglasses.  The monster, named Kim Jong-il…

           Robert abruptly spewed out the Pepsi he was drinking and hit the pause button a second time. He, completely dumbfounded, stared blankly for a few minutes at the short Asian actor apparently playing the part of the North Korean dictator. Thinking that this was beyond creative expansion, Robert rose from his seat with intensions to call the movie studio and demand an explanation. As he stood up, a note that he hadn’t noticed before slid out from the DVD case. Robert picked up and read it out loud.

“Dear, Mr. Gream, we received the message that one Mr. Marvin Gream sent, from your studio. As instructed, we picked up the new script from your desk and reflected it into the movie.”

           Robert slowly sat back down. Marvin was his 11 year old son, a rambunctious child with a wild imagination. In Robert’s absence, Marvin apparently had pulled a prank by somehow altering his script.

           Upon realizing this, a sense of deep dread creeping into him, Robert looked at the screen. Dictator Kim stared back, a sinister grin on his face. Robert pressed the play button again.

    ….started to make the cheapest jokes that William had ever heard in his life. But somehow, the other people around the monster seemed to be enjoying its strange sense of humor. Bravely, William said to the monster. "Excuse me, but your jokes are not funny." The next moment he woke up, and he found himself in a dark, confined cell.

           Robert, practically plastered into his seat, watched in stone cold silence as William somehow defeated the entire North Korean military armed with a teaspoon over the next 20 minutes. Suddenly…

                It was his home.

           “What?”

           It was just all a wild dream! He just dosed off while going to watch the parade.

           Robert sank deeper into his chair. The first 40 minutes or so of the movie had just instantly amounted to nothing.

           The parade in front of him was just spectacular! Giant dinosaurs walked by, the dinosaurs played with an even more giant set of Jenga, and nuclear missiles flew everywhere.

           Robert watched this catastrophic compilation of random things. Already half immune to such insanity, he was actually wondering how much money it would have taken to film the entire thing.

           It was just awesome, but William couldn't laugh or make an expression about it. So he made a very, very bold move to overcome his inability, a move which he would regret for the rest of his life!
           William, prior to that moment, had convinced himself that his situation was due to some trait in his genes; he thought that he needed a drastic genetic alteration in order to gain access to the human emotions that everyone else could summon so easily. Now, as he saw himself fail yet again to crack a simple smile, William decided to expose himself completely to the nuclear missiles flying overhead. Surely those missiles would contain enough energy and nuclear influence to affect his genes. He rapidly climbed up one of the oversized Jenga sets that the dinosaurs were enjoying and jumped straight into the path of one near-flying missile.
           In a miraculous coincidence of the quantum orbital of the atoms that constituted William and the missile, the impact did not cause William to explode into an infinite number of micro-particles. Instead, it gave William the uncanny ability of being able to control each and every one of those particles individually while maintaining a unified consciousness. That meant he could freely alter the shape or position of his body parts with a simple thought or even detach parts and have them move on their own.

           Robert felt a slimmer of hope. While it was altered out of proportion, this was somewhat similar to the way Particlo gained his powers in Robert’s original script. Perhaps now the story would return to normal.

           What the nuclear impact did not do was grant William human expressions.
           Feeling the closest he could manage to the emotion of disappointment, William was too preoccupied to notice his new ability. He walked back to his town and never left it again.

           With this abrupt conclusion, the DVD stopped.

                Robert remained seated for a very long time.

The Body Reading Response 1: Semi-Teens

           People generally say that the teenage years are the most turbulent of the entire life of a person. Teenagers, stuck somewhere between childhood and maturity, can indeed be a confused group of people in need of guidance. However, based on many things including my personal experience, the few years before teenage life can also be a period of inner conflict and instability.  Caught in the threshold between childhood and the teens, the “semi-teens” of ages around 11 to 14 find themselves without the degree of freedom or maturity that is allowed to teenagers, while slowly losing the innocence and naivety that they had as children. Thus the semi-teens, now on the verge of puberty, find themselves alone and difficult to fit in either physically or mentally with any other group in society.

           The Body, a novella by Stephen King features four such semi-teens. Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern are all boys slightly too old to be called children yet definitely younger than the tough teenagers around them. They all come from different families and backgrounds, and each has his own problems that continuously haunt him.

           The Body features Gordie narrating, in retrospect, an adventure the four boys had. Early parts of the novel show how this adventure—which involves walking into the woods in order to find the dead body of a boy—began; Vern secretly heard of the body’s existence from a conversation between his older, punk brother and one of his delinquent friends. When Vern tells his three friends, they almost immediately decide to set off on a journey to find it. The first 30 pages show the background to, and preparation for, this trip.

           So far, the story was enjoyable because of the simple fact that I could relate to the characters, however typical that may sound. The boys are all around the age of 12 or 13; an age that I myself was only a few years ago. The way the author develops the main characters, the way the characters think and act, seems very familiar because it is not that different from the way my friends and I used to think and act not a long time ago. The actions that the boys make, starting with the idea of spontaneously deciding to search for a dead body with the reward of local fame in mind, all are things that a younger me would not have hesitated to do also. Even the most minor or petty things, such as Vern’s never ending search for his penny jar, all contribute to making the characters more realistic and letting the readers reminisce their own life during that period.

           However, Stephen King also portrays the inner conflict in the boys well. The boys each have their own problems; Gordie, the narrator, especially, has to deal with the death of his older brother and the subsequent disregard for him of his parents. When dealing with such problems, Gordie and the other boys cannot enjoy the blind, innocent, optimism of childhood nor the mature calmness of an older person. Ambiguously stuck somewhere in the middle, they do their best to manage and deal with their problems within the limitations they have. Stephen King illustrates this process in a way that draws the sympathy and understanding of the readers.

           Stephen King stated in interviews that he drew from his own experience in his young years when writing the story. So far in the story, we can see that he did so in a way that enables the audience to go back to their own childhood to agree and sympathize with the characters, and to look forward to the rest of the book.

The Hero’s Journey in Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

The Hero’s Journey in Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

10b1 111034 Jonathan Hongsoon Kim

        

         Humans have always enjoyed telling tales. Starting from the dawn of the first civilizations on Earth or perhaps even earlier, societies have passed on stories and legends to later generations; this trend is still present in the modern era in the form of novels, movies, or even bedtime stories millions of parents tell their restless children every night. Within these diverse stories, we can find certain patterns. There are certain events or aspects that seem to appear in one form or another in these stories; there is a certain pattern that the heroes of these stories all seem to take. From Gilgamesh to Bruce Wayne, from Jesus Christ to Little Red Riding Hood, and from Beowulf to Luke Skywalker: these heroes, all in their individual worlds,` travel a path that is known as the Hero’s Journey.

           The hero of Stephen King’s novel Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is no exception. While, of course, there may be a few steps altered or missing from the traditional hero’s saga the overall flow is still observable.

           When trying to analyze the Hero’s Journey in Shawshank Redemption, we run into one initial problem: who is the Hero? There are two main protagonists, Red and Andy, and both of them, though from different perspectives, go through the events that make up the plot. At first glance, it may seem like Andy is the sole hero; Red’s narration is centered on Andy and his actions. However, I believe that the character that actually went through the Hero’s Journey is Red himself. Of course, physically speaking, Red hardly went anywhere; he was confined in Shawshank prison for decades before finally being paroled almost at the end of the novel. Yet we can see that Red has experienced certain changes, particularly in the way he views the world. Thus, I think that Red’s journey is not a physical one, but a process that changed the way he perceived the world and himself.

           The “Ordinary World” that Red lives in could mean many things. It could mean the outside world that Red lived in before coming to Shawshank, it could mean his life before Andy appeared, or it could mean Shawshank life in general. However, I think that the Ordinary World is not a physical world, but rather Red’s mentality of not having much hope. Red was a down-to-earth, slightly pessimistic man who avoided having any high hopes, should they lead to disappointment; this was the world that he lived in prior to meeting Andy. Even when some convicts around him attempted escapes or were paroled, Red did not expect much from his own chances of getting out of Shawshank. He was prepared to live his entire life in prison.

           After “Refusing the Call” of hope several times, Red meets his “Mentor” in the form of Andy Dufresne. Andy, in the eyes of Red, immediately distinguishes himself as “different” from the other convicts. Andy, quite unlike Red, is always hopeful and does not lose this hope. The two become friends and, over the decades they spend together in Shawshank, Red slowly begins to regain hope. The next few steps of the Hero’s Journey are not clearly defined in Red’s story, but eventually, after Andy’s climatic escape, Red starts to believe in the power of hope again.

           Thus Shawshank Redemption is a hero’s tale. It is not one of slaying dragons or saving mankind from alien invaders but of one man’s humble road to regaining hope that he had once lost. Red, after being paroled, completed his Hero’s Journey of regaining hope and used it to write a memoir, spreading his tale of hope to the rest of the world.

In Class Chain Writing

     William Irving lived in the suburbs of Belmont, Massechussetes. Apparntly born without the ability to laugh, cry, or show emotion in any other way, the only time William had ever left his town was when a friend convinced him to watch a parade downtown 3 years ago. He had not enjoyed that experience very much. This story is about that day. (by KHS)
     After one of his friends' suggestion, William decided to travel all over the world to find emotion and to learn how to show emotion. He first went to Japan. He saw some monkey shows but they were not fun at all. He then went to North Korea. He met a fat but small monster there. The monster was weraring sunglasses. (by LKB)
     The monster, named Kim Jung Il, started to make the cheapest jokes that William had ever heard in his life. But somehow, the other people around the monster seemed to be enjoying its strange sense of humor. Bravely, William said to the monster. "Excuse me, but your jokes are not funny." The next moment he woke up, and he found himslef in a dark, confined cell. (by KSM)
     It was his home. It was just all a wild dream! He just dosed off while going to watch the parade. (by KSJ)
     The parade in front of him was just spectacular! Giant dinosaurs waling by, the dinosours playing with an even more giant set of Jenga, and, also, nuclear missiles flying everywhere. It was just awesome, but William couldn't laugh or make an expression about it. So he made a very, very bold move to overcome his inability, a move which he would regret for the rest of his life! (by BSW)
     William, prior to that moment, had convinced himself that his situation was due to some trait in his genes; he thought that he needed a drastic genetic alteration in order to gain access to the human emotions that everyone else could summon so easily. Now, watching himself fail yet again to crack a simple smile, William decided to expose himself completely to the nulcear missiles flying overhead. Surely those missiles would contain enough energy and nulcear influence to affect his genes. He rapidly climbed up one of the oversized Jenga sets that the dinosaurs were enjoying and jumped straight into the path of one near-flying missile.
     In a miraculous coincidence of the quantum orbitals of the atoms that constituted William and the missile, the impact did not cause William to explode into an infinite number of micro-particles. Instead, it gave William the uncanny ability of being able to control each and every one of those particles individually while maintaing a unified consciousness. That meant he could freely alter the shape or position of his body parts with a simple thought or even detatch parts and have them move on their own.
     What the nuclear impact did not do was grant William human expressions.
     Feeling the closest he could manage to the emotion of disappointment, William was to preoccupied to notice his new ability. He walked back to his town and never left it again. (finished by KHS)