The Woman Behind Beach Bunny: Lili Trifilio

I first encountered Lili Trifilio, the lead singer and songwriter of Beach Bunny, when her band opened at a show I was attending a couple of years ago (for anyone curious, we were there to see Remo Drive). She and a friend of mine knew each other, so we got to talk with her before she went inside the venue to prepare. Amongst me and my friends in the music scene, it was a unanimous thought that if any local band made it big, it would be Beach Bunny.

Trifilio’s introduction to performing was in high school when she covered E.T. by Katy Perry for a variety show. The praise she received led her to pursue music as a hobby through the remainder of high school and into college, with Trifilio attending DePaul University to study journalism. She was part of a duo called Fingers Crossed for a short while before beginning a solo project on Bandcamp as Beach Bunny. She met the future members of her band, who were also students at DePaul, and they joined her. Beach Bunny was no longer a solo act.

Their big break came with the single Prom Queen, which went viral on TikTok. They were signed to a record label immediately after graduating, fulfilling the prophecy amongst local music fans that Beach Bunny was slated for success. Since then, the band has released the album Honeymoon, which Trifilio describes as a deeply personal project.

Trifilio describes her creative process as channeling her life experiences and emotions, along with other sources that she encounters over time. She describes using colors, non-music media, and overheard conversations as inspiration. She collects these experiences and channels them into lyrics, writing her feelings down and then shaping them into songs. Trifilio never wants to lose the magic of her perspective, and this is made clear in her lyrics. Below is a snippet of one of my favorite Beach Bunny songs that I feel encompasses the emotionality of her work.

“Let's break up, make out, make up

Just pretend we're fine

'Cause I know you miss me

And I'm always on your mind, mind

But if you want me, why can't we still be together?

You've got problems, but I promise they'll get better

We both know that I can't wait on you forever

I still wonder if we're meant to be together”

Little c creativity refers to problem-solving and personal discovery. I believe that Trifilio’s work is a perfect example of how little c creativity can still be on a large scale. In working through her personal struggles, she creates art that is widely enjoyed by millions. Her use of music as a personal diary has allowed her a platform to share her experiences and views of the world. Although she is still new to the international music scene, I am bursting with anticipation about what Beach Bunny will create next.

Sources:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/beach-bunny-honeymoon-interview-951999/

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/beach-bunny-interview/

https://www.nylon.com/beach-bunny-interview-honeymoon

Get Out, A-A-Ron! – Jordan Peele: Shaping a New Hollywood

Jordan Peele, along with Keegan Key, created a generation that pronounces names like Aaron and Blake as A-A-Ron and Ba-Lackey. He inspired individuals to find humor in the basic situations of life that we often overlook or try to forget. Even more, he helped place black comedians at the forefront of comedic creativity and versatility. He showed that black actors and comedians are not just placeholders for racial stereotypes but can offer so much more to the industry.

 

 

Jordan Peele became a prominent figure in Hollywood following his thriller film Get Out, for which was the first black person to win the Best-Original-Screenplay Oscar. Get Out is known for touching on racial and social issues in society without necessarily explicitly stating them. He was able to move the audience and terrify them all in one. He explained that “Many horror films go to the depths of dirty, seedy, filthy Gothic Horror. I’m much more drawn to films that explore a beautiful, disarmingly attractive aesthetic.” He brought the audience to a place of comfort, of hope, and creatively twisted it into a statement about the dangers of systematic and subconscious racism.

 

For those that might not have seen the film, here is a quick synopsis containing spoilers. Chris, a black photographer, is invited to join his white girlfriend, Rose, on her trip to her parent’s home. Right off the bat, the family seems to be suspicious. There are many instances where the family makes some microaggressions. Most notably, Rose’s father often stated how he would have “voted for Obama” another term or people would make comments about Chris’ innate physical capabilities because he is black. After Rose’s mother tries to hypnotize Chris and some other concerning and uneasy events, Chris decides to get out and leave, only to find out that he has been a pawn the whole time. This synopsis does not do the film justice in the slightest, but it is beyond worthwhile to see it and experience it for yourself.

(Here’s the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzfpyUB60YY)

 

 

Peele’s creative process when directing and producing Get Out was heavily influenced unconsciously by factors from his past. He explained that he studied puppetry in college, which later became shaped by his directing style. In his perspective, the human body is like a puppet. It can be forced to move and dragged around, but true puppetry involves following the rhythm of the puppet and using the puppets own strengths to further the story. This allowed him to prompt his actors, but ultimately allow them to enhance his work by telling the story in their unique way. He also used his experiences growing up as a black kid that “sounded white” and his interactions with white individuals, from other kids to police officers. These experiences are all hinted at in his film, creating a well-rounded and realistic story that is just as terrifying for its accuracy as it is for its horror. Peele also explained that one of his major influences was his fear of the unknown. While he did not realize it at first, the unknowns of the world are far scarier than that which is right in the open. He tied this back to an experience he had camping when he was alone in the dark woods by himself. During this experience, he found that he was not afraid of animals or even death on their own, but the idea that he did not know what could happen, anything was on the table. He later connected his fears to racism, explaining that he is less afraid of the individual that explicitly says racial slurs than “the person who is thinking it near me.” This unconscious fear and its development became the driving force for Get Out. He used his fear to shape the horror/thriller film that terrified an audience on various levels.

 

Ultimately, Jordan Peele would probably be considered a middle-C creative. While his work was groundbreaking in Get Out and he is a prominent force in Hollywood now, his work is more centered around American and Western racial matters. Still, his work is inspirational, entertaining, and moving. One thing is for sure, Peele is a big-C creative in prompting meme and video trends based on his work. The vibes are immaculate and hilarious.

 

 

Extra videos on the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBvcngHRTFg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNKSgdT1FQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf6OB34m-_A

 

 

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052448/plotsummary 

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/03/oscars-2018-jordan-peele-best-original-screenplay-get-out

https://time.com/5159850/jordan-peele-get-out-fears-and-cultural-hope/

My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying: The Lesser-Known Protest Music of Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie, though not a household name like many other protest singer-songwriters of the American folk music revival (1940s-1960s), has written some of the most powerful protest songs of her generation. Although songs such as “All My Trials” by Joan Baez, “Blowin’ in the Wind” by Bob Dylan, and “If I Had a Hammer” by Peter, Paul and Mary are much more well known than those of Sainte-Marie, what sets her apart from those stars is that her music stems from personal experience of oppression.

Sainte-Marie was born in the winter of 1941 on a Cree Native American reserve in Canada. At the time, what we would now call “white saviors” were invading the Canadian reserves to convince (trick) Native American parents into giving up their newborns. Although they believed that they were doing what was best for the children by sending them to white families in Canada and the United States, Sainte-Marie exposes that it robbed her and others of their culture and contributed to further destruction of the Native American populations.

Growing up in Massachusetts, Sainte-Marie was aware that she was different from her white family and schoolmates, but it wasn’t until she met by chance a Native American man in the neighboring town that she became aware of the culture which was robbed from her. This, on top of abuse she sustained as a child, contributed to her drive to write powerful songs exposing the invisible destruction of Native American populations occurring in the United States, ignored by the general population.

After graduating with a double degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sainte-Marie released her first album It’s My Way! (1965)  10 of 13 songs are original, but in the era of folk music one would not be able to tell the difference between Sainte-Marie’s lyrics and century-old ballads. Her word choice is spectacularly powerful, standing out on songs such as Now That the Buffalo’s Gone: 

But even when Germany fell to your hands

Consider dear lady, consider dear man

You left them their pride and you left them your land

And what have you done to these ones?

Sainte-Marie’s creative process stems from her personal experience and trauma as a Native American, as someone who has experienced trauma, and as an addict. She takes these experiences and transforms them into powerful songs as a sort of warning, or to raise great awareness in listeners. Sainte-Marie would be described as having a creative personality by the definition of Csikszentmihalyi, as she clearly internalized the creative process by intertwining it with her own traumas and pain, as well as her great ability to adapt. Sainte-Marie’s ability to adapt is cemented by her being unable to read a single note of music after she has written it, which she considers a form of dyslexia. Since the age of three, Sainte-Marie has written songs by ear, transcribed them for others to play, and then played solely from memory.

In Gehry’s definition of creative pillars, Sainte-Marie’s relation between child and adult creator is most significant. Sainte-Marie reaches back to the confusion she felt about her true identity as a child when writing songs. She gives warnings to her past self, on topics such as love (He Lived Alone in Town) and Drug addiction in the wrenching Cod’ine [codeine]:

Stay away from the cities, stay away from the town

Stay away from the man pushing the codeine around

Stay away from the stores where the remedy’s fine

For better your pain than be caught on cod’ine.

In this song and many others Sainte-Marie uses a simple modal tuning, which means that the chords tend to fall somewhere in between major and minor, only contributing to the power of the song.

Sainte-Marie has won an academy award for her music, earned honorary PhDs, and even appeared on Sesame Street breastfeeding and playing the mouthbow, a type of instrument used by indigenous populations worldwide.

If you have the time and are interested, check out these videos!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXkM11kp_tg

Rainbow Quest: Buffy Sainte-Marie - My Country Tis of Thy ...

www.youtube.com › watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v7LlS5Ajs4

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/29/652791230/buffy-sainte-maries-authorized-biography-serves-as-a-map-of-hope

https://www.vogue.com/article/buffy-sainte-marie

https://trnto.com/too-close-to-call-this-towns-merriest-misers/

Julia Child: The French Chef for Americans

 

Julia Child is known widely for bringing French cuisine to America. Before she was a chef she worked as a research assistant for the Secret Intelligence branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which was a predecessor of the CIA. In that position, she met her soon to be husband, Paul, and they were relocated to France together. 

Before she met her husband, Child relied mostly on frozen foods and hadn’t given food much thought. That changed when she attended Le Cordon Bleu in France. Middle class women in the 1940s typically had servants to do cooking and were expected to get married, have children, and be good mothers, not pursue careers such as being a chef. Julia Child changed that. 

After attending Le Cordon Bleu, she started her own cooking school with two of her French friends called The School of the Three Gourmands. Her and those same friends then went on to write Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which would be for Americans and the first French cookbook published in English. This made French cuisine accessible to Americans. 

The Childs eventually moved back to Cambridge, Massachusetts where she was soon approached to host a cooking show called The French Chef, which she won and Emmy and Peabody award for. American people fell in love with her passion for cooking, straightforward techniques, humor, and lighthearted and fun approach to cooking. 

Julia Child helped women feel less oppressed by breaking into the field of being a professional chef as a woman. Her cooking and inspiration to women caused a huge paradigm shift in American culture and attitude toward food. Julia Child was also a perfect example of intrinsic motivation because her passion for cooking was so powerful and inspired so many others. So, in the words of Julia Child, “bon appétit!”

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julia-Child

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/julia-childs-recipe-for-a-thoroughly-modern-marriage-86160745/

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/julia-child#:~:text=Born%20on%20August%2015%2C%201912,life%20of%20wealth%20and%20privilege.&text=Growing%20to%20a%20height%20of,the%20Vagabonds%2C%20a%20hiking%20club.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/us-news-blog/2012/aug/15/julia-child-100th-birthday-blog

The Pioneer of Gaming, Shigeru Miyamoto

Perhaps the most famous name in all of video game design is also the creator of some of the most prolific series in video gaming, such as Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong. This man is Shigeru Miyamoto, a frontrunner for gaming’s most prolific designer, having been in the business since the 1980’s, and still going strong as a lead designer at Nintendo.

As a child, Miyamoto spent a lot of his time drawing and exploring the nearby cave systems instead of dedicating time to his studies. Exploring these caves helped inspire one of gaming’s most famous series, The Legend of Zelda. In his spare time, he developed a love for art, and in particular, developed a taste for Manga, a type of Japanese comic; this description is not wholly accurate, but suffice to say it conveys the type of hobbies Miyamoto enjoyed. This love for manga, in particular, lead him to pursue a career in industrial arts during college; however, he aimlessly drifted around after college, unable to land a job with his industrial arts degree; he considered being a manga artist, but ultimately, it was through the efforts of his father he landed an interview with Hiroshi Yamauchi, a friend of Miyamoto’s father, and the CEO of a small toy company named Nintendo.

Miyamoto became the first design staff member of Nintendo, and his first job was to convert old cabinets of the game Radarscope, Nintendo’s failed attempt at breaking into the video game market, into a brand new game to get rid of the spare cabinets. Miyamoto began the process by first conceiving a story to build a game around, a novel process at the time; almost everyone else at the time built a game to try and exploit technology to its fullest, but Miyamoto brought the idea of building a game around a story into the mainstream. He initially fleshed out an idea involving Popeye, Bruno, and Olive Oyl, but Nintendo was not able to get the trademarks for those brands. Instead, Miyamoto made a game based upon a King Kongesque character who kidnapped a carpenter’s girlfriend, and decided the game would be playing as the carpenter to jump over barrels to go and save his girlfriend. He released the game Donkey Kong, and the game was a monumental success leading him to release Donkey Kong 2 and Donkey Kong 3. 

After creating these games, Miyamoto would move on to create Mario Bros, a game featuring the carpenter from Donkey Kong as the star of his own game, alongside his brother Luigi. However, it was the sequel to this game that would garner Nintendo worldwide acclaim and be a smash hit onto the world scene; Super Mario Bros. The game featured influences of Miyamoto’s childhood sliding in and out of doors and winding through various cave systems, and attempted to capture that same influence by featuring the player warping through various levels that lead to seemingly endless new directions. The game even had an original music score to accompany it throughout your adventure to set the mood, a first for video games at the time.

Other notable video games by Miyamoto include The Legend of Zelda series, which is more literally inspired by Miyamoto’s childhood of exploring caves, and attempting to do his best to convey the experience he felt when exploring those caves through how you progress through the Zelda games. Another game series, Nintendogs, was inspired by Miyamoto’s attempts to be a dog breeder. Pikmin, a game about controlling an army of tiny creatures to help you do tasks, was inspired by Miyamoto being fascinated by how a colony of ants functioned and wanting to translate it to a game.

Miyamoto’s design process is very unique compared to a lot of developers, and broke a lot of new ground for his games; he, as referenced in Csikszentmihalyi, oscillates between his real life and the fantasies he creates and creates something incredibly creative as a result; Mario is the wonder he felt in discovering new things as a child put into a video game that is all about following the new paths to new, exciting places. The Legend of Zelda was about him discovering caves in real life and exploring them, and creating a new world where the whole purpose was to systematically solve puzzles and go deeper into the rich, well thought out world. Pikmin was him taking an ant’s colony, and creating a place where utilizing their unique talents were the only way to get through the game unscathed. Miyamoto pioneered, and is still a master, of the technique of translating his real world experiences into a fantasy world that people can lose themselves in.

Another creative technique Miyamoto uses is focusing primarily on the user than on the vision he wishes to create. Many video game creators focus primarily on the message they want to deliver and the experience they want to convey; Miyamoto does do some of that, on account of believing motion controls help immerse people in the game better than regular controls, but he primarily focuses upon creating a game the user wants to play; he sits down, play his own game, and thinks about what he could do to make the game a better experience; his creativity comes from putting himself in another person’s shoes, and simply catering to delivering a wonderful, holistic, and polished experience. Almost every Mario game that has ever been released, in terms of ones developed by Miyamoto, have been met with critical acclaim and widespread praise, a testament to how successful Miyamoto’s methodology can be. Not all of Miyamoto’s works have the same level of success, but almost all of them have dedicated fans.

Miyamoto is definitely a Big-C creative when it comes to the impact he had; he is the first video game designer to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame, showing that he was the pioneer leading the way in the field, and has the most decorated video game collection that he has designed; it is impossible to find someone who has had an impact on the field is as storied as Miyamoto’s, a man whose single handedly created multiple storied video game franchises that almost all remain gaming mainstays to this day.

 

Matt Maltese Turns Cries to Comedy

Matt Maltese is the first and only musician to ever make me laugh out loud. And no, not in an ironic, it's so bad it's good kind of way.

I remember sitting in my dorm room last year listening to his song "Like a Fish." I was doing homework, or at least that was what I was supposed to be doing, and so I expected the song to simply fade into the background as I worked. My focus was steadfast until I heard the first lines of the song, "You said you use chocolate when you and him take off all your clothes. Why the f*ck you'd tell me that? Can't drink that image out of my head." From those lines forward, I tuned into the song. 

It was the line, "I wish that I could fill his shoes but I'm only a seven" that made me laugh out loud. I remember being surprised at my own reaction. I think it takes a great deal of musical talent to make people cry, dance, and laugh all at once. Matt Maltese has that talent. 

Maltese was born in England and released his first EP at age 19. While Maltese's music includes a variety of topics like apocalypses, pollution, and the Covid-19 pandemic, all his work is written through the lens of someone who is in love or recovering from lost love. Through all the heartbreak and turmoil, Maltese manages to find a way to laugh at himself and make light of his difficult situations. In his song "Rom-Com Gone Wrong," for instance, Maltese writes, "Long baths, podcasts, I'm crying when I'm smashed. Haha, welcome to grieving." Not only does Maltese give us a vivid look into his personal grieving process, but he adds in a sarcastic, "haha," to balance out the self-deprecatory sentiments. Additionally, these lines are sung with a certain bounce, allowing the listener to appreciate the heaviness of the lyrics without being completely torn down by them. 

Another one of my favorites is his song "Sweet 16." In this piece, Maltese questions the normalcy of thinking about a high school relationship years after its demise, and tries to determine whether he really misses his high school sweetheart or if he just craves a time in his life where he felt fulfilled. Maltese explains in this song how he received an automated "out-of-office reply" when he attempted to reach out to his old high school girlfriend. This rejection lead him to write, "I can always passively-aggressively put you in a song." It's Maltese's snarkiness and evocative imagery that make his music so addictive and unpackable. 

Over the summer Maltese's song "As the World Caves In" blew up on the app Tik-Tok. The song would play over videos depicting life in quarantine and thus caused the song to become an anthem for the world's new, almost apocalyptic-like normal. While many of his songs have ironic, bitter undertones, Maltese also has ballads that explore the beauty in intimate moments. This is evident in his songs "When You Wash Your Hair,"  "little person," and "Strange Time." (please listen to them)

One of my favorite things about Maltese's writing is his ability to make very specific, personal moments relatable to his vast audience. When I listen to his music it feels like I'm listening to scenes pulled from both his and my life. Even though I first listened to his song "Less and Less" last winter, it still has the ability to make me cry. I found solace in the lyrics of this song during a time when I was heartbroken and struggling to make someone who was once very important to me fade into my past. My ability to relate to someone's heartbreak experience so strongly both comforted and inspired me. 

Maltese's personal stories told through song make him a classic example of an artist who exhibits collecting. Although Maltese is definitely an artist on the rise, for now he is a middle-c creative. I believe he has the potential to one day become big-c. 

Resources: 

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/06/617284047/matt-maltese-writes-love-songs-for-the-end-of-the-world

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/discovery-matt-maltese

https://diymag.com/2018/06/07/matt-maltese-bad-contestant-interview-june-2018

https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/matt-maltese-bad-contestant-interview-2325132

David Chang: Chef, Restaurateur, Writer and Producer

  

David Chang never had a clear path in his life, yet each step along the way has helped him to become, according to Eater magazine, “one of the most influential restaurateurs of this century.”

As the son of Korean immigrants, Chang grew up with a lot of academic and athletic pressure placed on him. In his teens, he had the potential to become a professional golfer, which has given him a competitive edge and the mindset to never take things for granted. His parents were restaurant owners, so he was exposed to the industry at an early age, though he was discouraged by his parents from being a part of it.

    After studying theology in college, Chang moved to Japan to teach English. In an episode of the podcast Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Chang said, “I knew I was never going to fit in the corporate world no matter how hard I tried.” It was in Japan that Chang first had authentic, high quality ramen — and it was a fraction of the price of a cheap meal in America.

    Fast forward a number of years and odd jobs later, and Chang now owns and operates a number of successful restaurant chains (spanning New York City, Toronto, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia) — and it all started with Momofuku Noodle Bar. Chang’s collected memories and experiences — memories of his mother’s cooking, the ramen experience from Japan and some training in culinary school — combined in this culinary revolution. Chang invoked his lack of conventionality and openness to experience to take on the elitism of the New York food scene, telling Dax Shepard, “There’s got to be different ways to eat food than eating at a fancy place in Upper West Side.” Instead, Chang’s restaurants make eating well more accessible, offering high quality, innovative food at reasonable prices.

    From this economic revolution to fusing different cultures and dishes to creating their own spices and flavors, Chang’s restaurants “have gained world-wide recognition for their innovative take on cuisine, while supporting sustainable and responsible farmers and food purveyors.” When talking about the dishes he serves and the style of his restaurants, Chang told Eater magazine, “There were so many ideas on the menu that we’d never seen or tried before. The only unifying thread was that we were nervous about every single dish we served.”

Chang now takes on a more managerial role, allowing his head chefs to use their own creativity to establish their own culinary style at each restaurant. In addition to managing his restaurants, Chang has recently taken up writing and producing, authoring his memoir Eat a Peach and being a creative force behind the Netflix documentary series “Ugly Delicious.” Chang told Shepard that these projects “allow [him] to keep [his] brain engaged in other ways and continue to grow.”

    “Ugly Delicious” is also another tool in Chang’s revolt against culinary elitism and traditionalism. The docu-series looks at a variety of different foods and food traditions and highlights cooks that are going against the grain and creating delicious food in new and adaptive ways. The series is a shining example of Chang and other chefs’ perspicacity and ability to question norms as well as their drive for accomplishment. 

    From golf to teaching to cooking to writing to producing, Chang has certainly had a wide breadth of experiences in his life. And between his innovative dishes and strong personality, one thing is certain: there is no one quite like David Chang.

Photo sources:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60763-d1030684-Reviews-Momofuku_Noodle_Bar-New_York_City_New_York.html

https://www.eater.com/2020/9/9/21428012/eat-a-peach-memoir-quotes-mental-health