Alicia Keys - New York

By Frances Gallert and Lisa Gräning

We chose the song “New York” by Alicica Keys because we both have been to New York City and have been absolutely inspired by it. The thing which amazed us the most was its atmosphere. The most populous city of the US never sleeps, you can find millions of different people and stories and all kinds of noises. Walking down the Broadway seems a little kitschy with its big lights but left us amazed at the same time. In the middle of a busy and noisy city you will find a huge green grass area, the Central Park. People spend their time relaxing and escaping the stressful rhythm of the city life. We also enjoyed SOHO which is completely different to the rest parts of the city. There you can find little, cute streets with lovely cafés.

All these different parts inspired both of us as well as thousands of tourists everyday. However, there is also another dark side of New York. Most tourists won’t see this side during their short visit.

In her song “New York”, Alicia Keys, who grew up in New York City herself, pictures these two sides of NYC. She brings up the negative aspects and problems related to the City of New York. We would like to take a closer look at the song and analyze Keys’ view of her hometown.

On the one hand you have the dreams and it seems everybody is able to live the “American Dream”. In the chorus she sings “There ́s nothing you can ́t do...” which describes the endless possibilities which the city offers. Alicia names the sights of NY like the Broadway, the famous cabs, the Brooklyn Bridge and the urban disrict Harlem. Even people who haven’t been to NYC yet will also know those iconic sights because NY has often been the stage for various movie scenes.

Alicia Keys visualizes NY as a melting pot where you ́ll find all kind of people with different backgrouds, races, colors and religions. She points out the special spirit of life which “inspires you” and “make[s] you feel brand new”.

But on the other hand she brings up the negative parts of the city which we found really interesting. A lot of people who are in NY for a visit only experience it in a very superficial way. By taking a closer look you’ll see poorness and people who have no money to still their hunger. Alicia also points out the prostitutes and dealers which you can find on streets at the same time. She sings from a city which is “always loud” and which is not always a pleasure to live in. It is really hard to become famous, successful or something special which Alicia experienced by herself. In her song she describes that it’s hard business to get to the top by saying: “If I can make it here, I could make it anywhere”.

To sum up we can say that Alicia Keys sees a busy and noisy but at the same time a famous and beautiful city where everybody is able to realize their dream. It’s probably this image which motivates thousands of people to move to NY every year. In our opinion there is also this shortness of dreams where people realize the partly bad reality like they did on 9/11,
when NYC, usually glamorized and seen as metropolitan, gained worldwide attention as a setting for an act of terrorism and cruelness.

It seems to us that Alicia Keys loves her hometown, is proud of it and even says that you won  ́t find this city on earth again – it’s unique.

New York City is commonly seen as a symbol for the whole US and many foreigners ignore less popular regions. While it geographically is seen as a part of the North-East, we would distinguish the “Big Apple” as a separate part. Because of its unique flair and urban appeal it just stands out and it’s hard for us to integrate it into a region.

Lyrics:

Grew up in a town
That is famous as a place of movie scenes,
Noise is always loud
There are sirens all around,
And the streets are mean
If I can make it here,
I could make it anywhere,
That's what they say
Seeing my face in lights,
Or my name in marquees found down Broadway

Even if it ain't all it seems
I got a pocket full of dreams

Baby I'm from New York!
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can't do
Now you're in New York!
These streets will make you feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you,
Hear it for New York!

On the avenue,
There ain't never a curfew, ladies work so hard
Such a melting pot
On the corner selling rock
Preachers pray to God,
Hail a gypsy cab,
Takes me down from Harlem to the Brooklyn Bridge
Someone sleeps tonight
With a hunger for more than an empty fridge...

I'm going to make it by any means,
I got a pocket full of dreams,

Baby I'm from New York!
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can't do
Now you're in New York!
These streets will make you feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you,
Hear it for New York!

One hand in the air for the big city,
Street lights, big dreams, all looking pretty
No place in the world that can compare
Put your lighters in the air,
Everybody say Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can't do
Now you're in New York!
These streets will make you feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you,
Hear it for New York!

The Dallas series and its real life equivalent

By Larissa Bergolt, Magdalena Erdmann, and Benjamin Stramm

The series “Dallas” was published in the 1980's and gives insights to cultural living and industry, but what is true about the oil dominated farmer's state?

Dallas was founded in 1841 and it belongs to Texas. With its 1.2 million inhabitants it is the third biggest city of Texas. Dallas first relied on farming. Its special landscape and climate made it possible to grow cotton. By 1900 it became the largest cotton market in the world and 30 years later a hub of the petroleum market. Dallas was known for the following three things: Oil, cotton and its multiple rail lines. Then, after World War II, it changed.

Dallas now concentrated on telecommunication companies, engineering and became a real estate hotbed. Still today the city is shaped by skyscrapers, which were built for housing and working. Nowadays there is no more farming; oil and cotton became less important but there are a lot of shopping centers and companies placed in Dallas and it became the second biggest center of the U.S. computer game development branch. There is a lot of modern architecture and the fourth largest airport of the U.S.A. It became the third most popular destination for business traveling in the United States. It is still multicultural but it would be surprising to find big oil magnates or cowboys riding on their horses in this city.

In the series “Dallas” you do not find pretty much of the actual city of Dallas but the stories and plots are more focused on the Ewing family and their secrets, the sibling rivalry and betrayal among the family. Dallas, on the one hand, is portrayed as a city full of people who focus the drama and their desperate need for power.
On the other hand, the Southfork Ranch, the home of the Ewings, is shown as wide-spread and in every single episode there are shots of a beautiful landscape and the Ewings riding their horses. Of course, every now and then they work with cattle and sometimes they even get some dirt on their hands when working with the oil which is, as J.R. Ewing used to express it, their birth right. The oil plays a significant role in the series because this is what splits the Ewings and the Barnes in the first place and causes many rivalries and plots among the Ewings themselves.

All in all, one could say, “Dallas” centers around the Ewing´s success in the oil business which the series pictures as very important in this region. Basically, all the plots, the dramas and the power-games are about oil and the related wealth of the Ewings.

You may ask yourself now if the series “Dallas” is completely made up by the producers and its stereotypes about the South. To answer this question we will now compare the real life Dallas and the television drama by Cynthia Cidre.  While in the real Dallas life is rather normal like in every other city of the United States, the “Dallas” series creates pictures of the rancher’s land, making big business in the south by oil drilling, fighting the rivalry and live an extraordinary life there. As we depicted earlier, the real life Dallas is not like that. Today one could visit every bigger city in the United States with the result that Dallas, too, is just another city and people go to work there, enjoy their leisure time and do everyday business.

In fact, the audience of the “Dallas” series is misled in the way that Dallas is a city with an enormous skyline and skyscrapers, modern architecture and modern living while the series rather plays on the Ewing’s farm in the rural outskirts. Additionally, the series pictures a life of cowboys and ranchers but in the nowadays Dallas only the older people wear cowboy boots and hats and that, of course, not all the time but for special events like country music concerts and there only to live up to the heritage and make it persistent in the people’s minds how life was used to be earlier. Indeed, during the cotton and oil decades one could find a lot of ranchers and cowboys but today the people there have adapted over time to a more conventional western dress style.

To conclude, there exist huge gaps between the series “Dallas” and the real life Dallas. While Dallas is significantly different to the series concerning the lifestyle, the name “Dallas” serves beyond doubt as a symbol for the South of the United States, for Texas and its lifestyle and in concordance with that as a symbol for agricultural life and oil business. The name “Dallas” was chosen to set the story of the series into place and to give the viewers an idea of “Look, here is “Dallas”. Expect oil magnates, ranchers and cowboys to see in our television drama”. Thus one could say that the series “Dallas” is a stereotype-driven series which confirms the viewer’s expectations and attitudes toward the real Dallas.

Crater Lake National Park (Oregon)

By Marlene Mathewson, Matthias Phleps and Julius Wolf

Crater Lake portrays the contrast between a romantic image of The United States’ untouched nature and the indigenous people’s perception of a sacred rural area. As one of the most popular and picturesque touristic sites in the US it attracts around 300.000 visitors each year.

The lake, which was formed by the implosion of the volcano Mount Mazama nearly 8000 years ago, is located in Southern Oregon. It is one of the deepest lakes in the US, going as deep as 1,943 feet (592 meters), resulting out of the collapse of a huge gas bubble close to the surface. It has no natural feeding rivers, but consists only of rain water and melting snow, which replenishes the water every 250 years. This also prevents the lake from drying out from evaporation. The lake is famous for its water which has an intense and deep blue color. The color appears so rich, because the water is almost 100% pure, making it the purest in North America.  Today the National Park is equipped with state of the art tourist activities. The Klamath Tribes who run the National Park offer boat rides, helicopter tours and guided hiking trips to explore the environment around the lake. To conserve the purity of the water, boats are only allowed on the lake if they have a closed gasoline circulation, to prevent motor oil from spoiling the water. The tribe employs a number of rangers to keep the park safe and clean. The rangers also guide and inform the tourists. Before its discovery, the lake was unpopulated by animals. In the late 19th century it was artificially stocked and has a self-sustaining fish population ever since.

However there is more to Crater Lake than it being a beautiful natural site. The Klamath Tribe, the native inhabitants of the area, considers the Lake a sacred location. According to their legend Mount Mazama was destroyed in a battle between Skell, the god of the sky, and the underworld god Llao. After Skell defeated Llao, he threw him into the portal to the underworld, collapsed the mountain on top of it and sealed it with water. Other accounts claim that Llao is still alive and merely trapped under the mountain and the water. Wizard Island, one of the two small islands in the lake, is supposed to be the remains of the fallen god Llao’s limbs. Therefore the lake is cursed by their version of the devil. Whichever version one prefers Crater Lake is sacred and special place to them. They can’t touch the water itself, though the Klamath used the area around the lake for vision quests and tests of courage, such as climbing the cliffs surrounding the crater.

Only in 1853 the first European “discovered” the lake. Until then, it was kept secret by the Klamath for over 7.000 years. Throughout the 19th and early 20th century the tribe signed a treaty which allowed the new settlers to start a lumber industry in the area. This resulted in an economic boost which made the tribe relatively wealthy. Contradictory to the wishes of their ancestors the modern Klamath people did not only transform their sacred lake first into an area of large economic importance but also into a tourist magnet later on. The lake remains the main attraction but they also lure tourists in by promoting the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino, which is located close to the National Park. The capitalist and money-making use of the area by the native inhabitants strongly contradicts the Klamath people’s traditional perception of the lake and nature around it.

Crater Lake is the perfect example for the contrast between reality – a touristic area with native roots - and the romanticized vision of it – a landscape untouched where you can still experience nature in its original and wild form.

Link:
http://www.klamathtribes.org/facts.html

What's Going on Here?

Hello and welcome to the ongoing class blog for the course "Across the Map: American Regionalism" at the Universität Potsdam. The goal of this blog is to present the work of my students, who will spend Summer Semester 2013 studying the regional literature and culture of the United States with me. In order to enrich and expand our class discussions, I have assigned my students to look to popular culture for representations of various American regions and to present them here. I have asked them to "curate" these artifacts of popular culture: alongside the item itself -- be it song, film, advertisement, etc. -- they are to explain the ideas of the specific regional culture they see reflected in the artifact and then to discuss how these ideas relate to the larger themes of our course.

I look forward to what is to come in the ensuing weeks and months. One of the great pleasures of teaching for me has always been how much I can also learn from my students, and I have high hopes that this project will offer me new glimpses into the notions of American regions which circulate around the world.

Enjoy!