Thoughts on Curb Your Enthusiasm

I first came across the show Curb Your Enthusiasm a few months ago when I heard about it from a friend. I didn't even know who Larry David was at first, but when I found out he wrote Seinfeld I was immediately interested. On a side note, I found out that the character George in Seinfeld was based on Larry David. Now every time I see Larry David  I feel like I'm witnessing the real George Costanza.

The show is comprised of a few main characters: Larry David, who plays himself, Cheryl David (his wife), and his manager Jeff Green. In every episode, Larry manages to make a fool of himself some how. Some would say that Larry is a complete selfish jerk, the stereotype of an old rich geezer, which he is. But it's hysterical. In one episode, his friend and comedian Richard Lewis needs a kidney. Larry knows he is a match and is one of the only possible donors, yet he does not want to give up his kidney and "end up on a dialysis machine." So what does he do? The only reasonable thing, of course-- he runs his car into the Orthodox Jewish president of the kidney foundation's car, leaves a note on the windshield, and has lunch with him in an attempt to befriend him and manipulate him into moving Richard Lewis up on the list for kidney donations. The whole episode involves a charade in which Larry has to pretend that he is an Orthodox Jew and go on a skiing trip with the president and his very religious daughter. It was hilarious, albeit cringe-inducing to watch. I kept half-covering my face, going, "Oh, no..." and then giggling at the awfulness. The episode ends with Larry and the daughter stuck in a ski lift near sundown. She jumps from the ski lift because it is against her religion to be with a man after the sun sets. After she jumps, Larry calls Richard and says, "that thing with the kidney isn't going to work out after all."


Larry David is a "social assassin." I appreciate his ability to tell it like it is. He is brutally honest, which makes him a real jerk. Some people really hate this show because of that. But I love it, and I get lots of good laughs from it. I grew up watching Seinfeld because my parents watched it.  I guess that's why I always liked the kind of humor that involves the strange situations we find ourselves in throughout every day life. Some people I've talked to about the show immediately cringed when I brought it up, because I guess this outrageous style of humor isn't for everyone. Curb Your Enthusiasm is full of these hilariously awkward moments and the characters often go way over the top on the ridiculous scale. If you liked Seinfeld, you'll at least be intrigued by Larry David's most recent sitcom, if not for the humor then for the reappearances of old characters from Seinfeld and other famous actors and comedians. 

Monet speech

 Claude Monet & Impressionism

What is impressionism? Impressionist paintings have a heavy emphasis on color and light. They are often comprised of ordinary subject matter and use visible brush strokes.  It is often described as “painting light”. The pioneers of this style of painting made their art by focusing on colors as opposed to using extreme detail of objects, which its predecessor realism was known for. Impressionists painted their first general impression of a scene or object, which would include techniques like broken color and rapid brush strokes. Broken color technique re-created the actual sensation of light by allowing strokes of color to remain separate instead of blending them. Detail was often not a priority-- In other words, the Impressionists broke the rules of traditional detail-oriented art known as realism. The critic Louis Leroy, in attempt to attack Claude Monet’s Impression-Sunrise painting, said that the painting looked like an impression in that it was like an unfinished sketch. He went on to say, “Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape!” The name, though it was intended an insult, stuck.

The Academie des Beaux-Arts was considered the authority on French realist painting at the time. They had very high standards and didn’t approve of the up-and-coming impressionist generation. The Academie’s exhibits were held at the Salon de Paris, and if painters could get their work accepted, it would mean their big break. But year after year, even as Impressionism was becoming more widely accepted, the Salon refused to accept paintings by who are now well-known and admired impressionists. Emperor Napoleon III was responsible for creating an exhibition called Salon of the Refused, or Salon des Refusees, which featured works of artists who had been rejected by the Academie. This was after the famous painter Edouard Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass” was rejected in 1863, causing the disbelief of his many admirers.

The Impressionist movement formally began in 1874 when a group of French artists including Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro held an exhibit at the studio of well-known photographer and journalist Felix Nadar. These were the same struggling artists whose works had been rejected numerous times by the Academie.

            Claude Monet is considered to be a founder of impressionist painting. He was born in Paris and shortly after his birth his family relocated to Le Havre, France. His father was a grocer who encouraged him to get into the family grocery business but Claude was not interested. His mother was a singer who was very supportive of his passion for drawing. At the age of fifteen, Monet had already become well-known locally for his pastel and charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for small amounts of francs.

            When Monet was eighteen he met Eugene Boudin. Boudin was a local landscape painter who became a major influence on Monet, showing him oil paints and teaching him techniques for “en plein air”, or outdoor painting. What he learned from Boudin would later become what he is most famous for now.

            Monet studied traditional art at the Acedemie Suisse in Paris, and later became a student of Charles Gleyre. It was at Gleyre's studio that he met and befriended other impressionists Pierre-August Renoir and Alfred Sisley. The friends often painted together and exchanged new ideas. Monet was becoming increasingly interested in natural light, color, and atmosphere.

           From 1870 to 1876 Monet lived in Argenteuil, France with his wife Camille and their two sons. In Argenteuil, he created many of his most famous paintings including Impression-Sunrise. After the death of his wife in 1879, he spent years devoting his time to several series of paintings, the first of which was a series of haystacks. Monet would paint the same subject over and over, each time capturing a different lighting and weather condition. By the end of his life, he was going blind-- but this did not stop him from painting. In the last years of his life he worked on his famous water lily paintings – a series of the many water lilies he saw in the gardens of his home in Giverny, France. He painted these on large mural-sized canvases and worked on them in his studio until his death in 1926. The water lily paintings were given to the state and can be found at Musee de l'Orangerie, an impressionist museum in Paris.

Comm 100 Bio

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Sophie Gault

Comm 100

Prof. Helfrich

Bio

My name is Sophie Gault. I write and perform songs. I guess that makes me a singer/songwriter-- though that's a term I don't particularly like, and I'll tell you why. When I hear the term “singer/songwriter”, I instantly think of that stereotypical guitar strummer that writes emotionally vague lyrics with very “deep” meaning, and the actual music behind the words is merely an afterthought. But in reality, saying you're a singer/songwriter doesn't really mean anything-- it's always being treated like a genre of music rather than a trade. People can't know what you mean when you say that, except for to assume that you belong to the stereotype. My favorites have always been entertainers who might happen to be great writers. Hank Williams. Robert Johnson. Lucinda Williams. Neko Case. Johnny Cash. These are people who stand out to me, because I don't think of them as “singer/songwriters”. They break the stereotype-- because while their songs are well-written and evoke great imagery, the music is equally as great. I aspire to do that.

I'm an only child. Until the age of 9, I attended Catholic school in Prince George's county—right outside of Washington, D.C. I was the only buck toothed, pony tailed, white girl that attended the school. Everyone else was black, with the exception of some of the nuns who taught there. I could be seen walking the halls in my plaid dress and drooping knee socks with a Harry Potter book tucked under my arm, or out in the parking lot at recess trying to trade Pokemon cards with the older, cooler kids. If I ever got made fun of, it wasn't because I was white and everyone else was black. It was because I was indisputably dorky. Looking back, this is where I learned that children, until they reach a certain age, genuinely don't care about things like race. They definitely notice a difference in skin color, but they aren't yet prejudiced enough to care or make any judgement about it.

I didn't really get into music until I was a teenager. My parents wanted to get away from the never ending traffic of D.C.'s suburbs, and it was always my mom's dream to own horses. I was around 15 when we moved to a small horse farm in Snow Hill, MD. Let me take a moment to describe Snow Hill. People in Snow Hill travel 20 minutes over to the next town if they want to go grocery shopping, because there is no supermarket. The closest thing to a supermarket is a dollar store. No one delivers pizza to Snow Hill residents. People in Snow Hill speak in a slow drawl, and move at an even slower pace. If you're a teenager, or anyone, there is nothing to do in Snow Hill. Needless to say, I had a lot of time on my hands. I hung out with my parents and the animals- three horses, two cats, two dogs. The fact that there wasn't much else to do was probably the reason I started playing the guitar.

I was first very into the blues. That started when I heard Bonnie Raitt sing “Love Me Like a Man” on a best-of compilation from my mom's CD collection. I put the song on repeat and listened over and over. It's just a twelve bar blues but it was one of the first ones I heard that made me want to play along. I dreamt about someday being as cool as she is. I fumbled with a slide around my ring finger made out of the neck of a wine bottle, like the kind she uses, and sang through my braces. Later on, I decided that I wanted to focus more on writing than becoming a great guitar player. By this time I was listening to a lot of country music.

I'm a junior here at SUNY Oneonta. The question I get most is, “Oh, you're from Maryland? That's not far, is it?” and when I reply that it's the state Maryland and not the town, they say in a surprised tone, “Oh, really? What brings you here?” It is pretty funny-- no one from my high school could even pronounce Oneonta, let alone know that it's a town. I found out about Oneonta when I heard about SUCO's Music Industry program. It offers a less expensive alternative to commercial music schools like Berklee and Belmont, which have similar programs. There are a lot of knowledgeable and talented people here that I've had the pleasure of meeting, and I've had a few great opportunities. I've opened up for some touring bands that come through town and had shows of my own at local venues. Recently, I got the opportunity to record some of my songs in the school's studio. I'm really happy I came here, although no one seemed to mention that it snows every day. I kind of hate cold weather. I'm in this class because it's a requirement for the major, but I know I could hugely benefit from learning public speaking skills, since my hands shake and my throat gets tight whenever I have to talk in front of people.

I just got a job bussing tables at the Autumn Cafe, so right now I'm doing that on the weekends. I'm playing shows a few times a month. As for what I will do when I graduate, I don't have a clue, much like a lot of students I've met. I've always loved a change of scenery, so maybe I'll move to a big city-- preferably whichever one can offer me a job. My band's name is Sophie Gault & Co-- We play good music. So if you see that we're playing somewhere, stop in and I'll buy you a drink!

For the class debates, I would be interested in debating anything music related. Maybe is singer/songwriter a deserved genre? However, I'm open to other ideas as well.