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April 26 — Chaos & Creation in the Volta Hall Auditorium ( 10:00 - 5:00 )

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A Personal Case Study of “CASE STUDY 01”
By EmmanuelCASE STUDY 01 deals with human connection, religious belief, and inevitability. There’s some link between all three that feels important to me, like in that triad is the answer to life. I’ve always struggled to understand the importance of romantic relationships, especially being someone who’s never been in one. I think they’re almost futile in that they always end in pain or hurt, or deal with it at least. It’s an inevitability of human connection. In this harsh world where nothing ever goes right and everyone’s hearts are filled with pessimism, I already guard myself against others, so to willingly pursue connection beyond a certain degree with these thoughts would almost certainly lead to pain. However, experiencing this album has forced me to change my point of view. Relationships are essentially a buddy system, just with the idea of sexual attraction attached to it (regardless of whether or not actual partners engage in sex). Pain is inevitable, (ironically, the name of another Daniel Caesar song), but it’s up to every individual person to choose whether to be miserable given their circumstances or move forward bearing these human flaws in mind. Maybe that’s why some people believe in their own flavor of God. Some to avoid the existential futility of the living world, and others because the pain is what gives meaning to life, and by believing in something other than themselves, even if not of any specific ethereal entity, they can find meaning in that pain. So how then does love contribute? I think it’s through the conscious effort to connect with another individual more than is cordially expected, despite one’s flaws and existential futility, that leads the buddy system to take on the world bearing down upon them. All of these songs involve romantic feelings directed toward another person. The lyrics are not romantic in the sense that everything will be okay, but rather proclaiming that the futility of even attempting to be with another is reason enough for why love is important. There are no rose-tinted glasses to distract someone who feels existential dread, they just see a dark world. However, attempting to view the pitch-black world with another who sees the same is some kind of twisted hope at the very least. Even despite that hope, humans will be humans, and mistakes and problems will be made, but it doesn’t mean there’s no point in trying. In fact, that is why it’s worth trying. Trying to be in a real relationship, trying to be a morally better person, trying to look at the world in a more positive light.CASE STUDY 01 officially opens with a monologue. The part that sticks out to me the most is when the speaker talks about the prince doing his duty, and, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” I’ve heard that last phrase before, and a quick Google search led me to Oppenheimer, the guy who aided in the creation of the atomic bomb. The phrase is of Hindu origin, and when I hear it, it makes me feel like every human has the innate capability to destroy the world. It especially sounds sad when the speaker says it like it's a regrettable certainty. The first song, “ENTROPY,” is a great opener. I have some familiarity with the idea of entropy, in which an eventual heat death of the entire universe is certain, as a result of constant energy usage. It’s a pretty bleak view of everything inexistence, as if there’s no point in even trying because it’ll all end. But just like some ideas of nihilism, instead, it promotes doing what can be done BECAUSE it’ll all end someday. When Daniel sings about finding peace, I relate to that, because I’m at the point in my life where I feel somewhat stable, and I too hold the fear that whatever this relatively normal feeling is will be lost. Because I know that, I’m trying more than I ever have before to have fun during my days and use my time wisely by doing what I enjoy. The song is pretty hopeful, because since “we’ll all freeze,” we might as well have some fun in the heat while it lasts.“CYANIDE” feels like a song about intoxicating poisons. Hearing the Jamaican in the beginning hits me with a bit of nostalgia, because even though I’m not Jamaican, I am African, and it reminds me of my childhood. There’s some mention of drugs in this song, and it could be said that also alludes to the love of another person. These euphoric feelings could be poisonous, like cyanide, but it’s still intoxicating even to just think about feeling that high. I’ve never really gotten into drugs, and haven’t been in a relationship, so I can’t personally relate to how good they make someone feel. I do have my own vices, that being sugar and self-deprecation, which often make me feel like I’m out of my own body. The sugar makes my brain and body loose and the world seems to move slower, feeling like I have all the time in the world. The self-deprecation is addicting and usually ends with me undergoing euphoric nights of self-actualization once I go through my many, personal, “Dark Nights of the Soul”. Obviously, it feels shitty when I’m in it, but it’s addicting to want that understanding of self when I constantly feel lost in the world and my life. Despite reflecting on that, I’m still going to have these vices, and I might as well indulge them since there’s no point not to. I’ll die one day and so will the world at some point, anyway.The third song, “LOVE AGAIN,” is about two past lovers. Relatively past, at least. Something happened to make these two lovers drift apart, but they both clearly want each other. They aren’t good people, and maybe not good for each other, but they are willing to look through the flaws they have to “find love again.” I can’t relate too much to this one because I still haven’t been in a relationship, but this song is one of the only songs I’ve listened to, that really makes me want one, though. Not to glamorize pain, but it will happen, and there is a willingness to work with it and reconnect. It’s appealing that even after a split, even after someone’s flaws ruined the vibe, reconnecting is possible and wanted. I almost wonder how I would fare in a relationship. I have flaws I beat myself up over, but it’s not like other people don’t, and if I were to be in a romantic relationship, I would see my partner’s flaws just as much as they’d see mine, enough to not be absolutely repulsed by, and maybe even attracted to.The mind holds a lot of power. It can change the world just by having the body verbally express its ideas, but it can also be influenced by the minds of other individuals. “FRONTAL LOBE MUZIK” deals with that power. Much like Daniel, who’s singing, Iwant to use my brain to express my feelings, not only in a possible future relationship, but also in making a mark in the world. It’s hard when other’s thoughts also have just as much limitless potential to influence the world, often making a difference in my mind. I want to persevere despite my misgivings though, and the final lines Pharrell Williams sings: “Never keep it inside, never keep it inside. Let it out so everybody around you knows what it feels like,” is that feeling at its simplest. Everything inside my mind, the hidden power I keep locked up, is meant to be expressed, and I have the potential to change the world because of it. There’s no point in hiding it away when that goes against just how much I want to let it all out.“OPEN UP” is one of my favorites for just how honest and vulnerable it is. The lines: “I don’t feel like talking unless it’s about me, or philosophy. Can we just get down to business?” feel like the crux of the song. Opening up should be the main thing everyone does. It’s exhausting to dance around each other's toes verbally, trying to get a good footing before discussing topics about the truths and values of our lives. It’s quite funny however, despite that belief I share with Daniel, I too am guilty of keeping these feelings and boredom of the mundane locked up, as previously claimed in “FRONT LOBE MUZIK”. That’s the contradiction of connection. Everyone holds their truths so close, even when they want to lay their soul bare, and it just leaves me thinking about why everyone does this. It makes perfect sense why these last two songs are paired within the album, because although they describe two seemingly opposite views on expression, they come from the same place and are all too common, even for one person.This next song opens up with some jovial talk about writing. They say, “If you wanna be a writer, start writing.” They joke and laugh before the song plays, but it really is that simple. More often than not, someone does what they naturally want to do already. For example, I write. It’s just something I do, so there’s no real reason not to. I can’t really understand what the lyrics are trying to say, but when I think of the phrase, “restore the feeling”, I think, “restore the feeling of feeling itself.” I too, like Daniel, write every single miserable thing I feel, whether it be into some introspective and never-to-be-heard song lyrics, or a comedic skit about some borderline disrespectful experience I had earlier in the day. Sometimes I can’t tell whether this skill of mine is therapy or just a stress reliever. Maybe the two aren’t even separate ideas at all, but I want to get back to some kind of normalcy that I haven’t felt since I was a child. My life may be more stable than it was just a couple of years ago, but there’s no way to get back to the blissfully ignorant times of my youth. I just keep pushing on, writing every single thing that comes to my head, considering how much of it I keep locked in there.The word, “superposition” is interesting. According to the internet, it explains how a quantum state can be represented as a sum of two or more states. I’m far from a quantum physicist, but it seems like an idea that can easily be represented in humanity. In“SUPERPOSITION,” Daniel sings about the contradictions that make up life. “Isn’t it an irony? The things that inspire me, they make me bleed, so profusely.” Why is it that the most truthful and life-altering things occur because of pain and hurt? In a way, nothing about life actually makes sense. It’s almost like there’s some cosmic scale of balance where the hard stuff matches the good stuff. The good doesn’t cancel the bad, though, but rather it all just exists as it is. When I think about my life, almost everything memorable to me has been the result of a painful reckoning. For example, every winter around the end of the year, I get the biggest bouts of depression, questioning every relationship I have and my existence, where I hide my truths and blame myself for not expressing myself honestly or creatively. No matter what morally questionable actions I take during that negative period of my life, I come out of it with a new sense of self. It’s almost like an ego death of sorts, only for it to restart by the time the winter of the next year rolls around. Much like I described when discussing “CYANIDE,” it’s addicting, but even if it’s an unavoidable poison of my existence, I don’t regret the fact that it’s my own experience. It makes up who I am in my present and hopefully will continue to in my future.“TOO DEEP TO TURN BACK” is like a lullaby for the sick man. It talks about the obligation one feels to seek the happiness of life, despite the ugly truths one faces. At the point where one pushes past their own mortality in search of the light, be it through religious faith or otherwise hopeful means. Every person has lived an experience that has shaped them, and it’s not hard to believe that one would want to seek the light by any means to counter the pain “generated inside our own brains.” When I think of the ways I try to counter my existential dread, I go from questioning my personal belief that God exists in some form, even though it’s not in a specific manner, like Christianity or Islam, to my sense of self-preservation, where I live my days with my guard up against other’s influences and feelings. I wonder why I hold these thoughts. I was raised as a Christian, and some of my beliefs align with that sect, while others do not. I was raised by an emotionally invested family, yet I practice the power of a lack of human connection. Despite these radical thoughts, I can’t and don’t want to shake them. Much like the title, I’m way too deep in my head to ever turn back to the blissfully ignorant person I believe myself to have been in my past. But I can keep trying my best to find some form of that normalcy in the present.The second-to-last song, “COMPLEXITIES,” feels like it tells the tale of someone who understands how their thoughts have shaped their reality. Like Daniel sings, “Now that I know, what I know. There’s nothing new, under the moon,” when I think about all the thoughts I claim to realize, it almost feels like there’s no point in trying to learn anything new or trying to be a better person. The world is how it is. It doesn’t mean I feel bad or good about it, but almost numb about it all. If the world is so complex, then it simply is. However, Daniel’s singing is in regard to someone, asking them to “get with me, in spite of these, complexities.” The idea of contradiction again, where despite the worldbeing how it is, he wants someone to share these thoughts with. When I look back at my moments of self-actualization, I think about how it would be to experience these ideas with another person. Someone who is introspective and prone to thinking, just the same as me. It would almost feel like heaven, to express not only my nihilistic ideas about the world, along with my embarrassing and childish quirks and flaws. It goes back to the idea that two people can co-exist in spite of the real, human, flaws they have. That’s the point of a relationship, one positive aspect that I’ve willfully ignored due to my own lack of propensity to want to be in one.“ARE YOU OK?” is the final song. Daniel asks someone about how they feel and how their awkward feelings affect them. When I hear it, it almost feels like I’m Daniel in this context, singing to myself about all of my experiences and misgivings. I truly hate myself, more than others ever will. Most of my days consist of self-loathing while I act a certain socially awkward way, yet the people around me still talk and engage with my weirdness. As if they see through me, past the social anxiety and depression, into my mind, where all my hidden wants to emotionally connect with another human being and live without shame for harboring nihilistic worldviews reside. It’s a really poignant song, making it one of my favorites. Its meaning, much like every other song, is highly subjective, but it uplifts the soul to be okay with their position in life. The final part of the song feels like a requiem. Although I can’t relate to the feeling of wanting a romance with a specific person, Daniel’s pleading lyrics for his “sweet Emily, my bride to be,” to stay and struggle with him past the entropy of it all resonate with me. It’s the most honest part of the whole album, where one bares their true feelings about their failures and mistakes. What’s more honest than for someone to admit they not only fucked up, but wish to move forward with the person they messed up with. I can recall many times in my life where I pushed someone away because I was too closed off, or because I showed too much of how I actually feel, repulsing them. Even though not romantically, I hold every human connection I have to be worth as much as the world itself, and losing people will always mess me up. Despite my solitude, I yearn for others to understand me, and me, them, but I have to be honest with the fact that my ego is way too inflated, and acting like it makes me a better person will ruin me in the long run. There’s truth in that fact, though, that I will fight the loss of my relationships and I will spend each day curtailing my bloated brain in order to keep people around. I’m afraid that I’ll hurt others, and they, me, but if I’m honest and keep trying to live, I’ll be okay, and it won’t be the end of the world yet. Relationships come and go, but until the universe freezes over, I’ll survive.

Foot Note by the AuthorMusic is my biggest passion. I had been sleeping on Daniel Caesar's works for a good while, but when I finally took the time to give his entire discography a listen, CASE STUDY 01 really caught my attention. I'm an avid philosopher as well, and this album touches on truly existential ideas that are either unheard of in day-to-day conversation or even within some spaces of music. Hearing it kick-started the belief in me that these two areas- music and philosophy, could be tied together in a cohesive way, all while making me reflect on my own past experiences and how I want to convey that with my art. And so I wrote about it.

An Excerpt
By AlexisFebruary 16th, 2009Charla Nash drove to the Herold house, slightly exhausted and slightly nervous. She and her best friend, Sandra Herold, had just returned from a weekend vacation at a Casino. Her hair was freshly dyed and curled from the trip, and while she loved her friend and appreciated the experience, she wasn’t too sure about coming over to help with Travis.Sandra had told her the details over the phone, apparently, Sandra’s son, Travis had stolen her keys while she was busy cleaning and was refusing to come inside. He was pacing between the cars as if to tell her he wanted to go out. He had been agitated most of the day besides that as well and wasn’t interested in his usual activities like snacking or watching TV. She had asked Charla to come over and help soothe him, and as her best friend, Charla felt like she couldn’t refuse.Jerry had died of cancer a few years prior, and in her grief, Sandra had asked Charla to move closer and help out with Travis and the business. She and her daughter lived rent-free in an apartment Sandra paid for, and in exchange, she practically ran the businesses and checked in on Sandra constantly.Since Jerry’s death, Travis hadn’t been the same, he had been distant and sad, but Charla hoped this agitation was just boredom. Sandra failed to mention the Xanax she had given Travis just hours earlier.On her way to help, Charla had brought an Elmo doll for the chimp. Elmo was his favorite character.Charla got to the house at around 3:40 pm, she opened the gates and drove up to the property. Travis was about 35 ft back, when she got out of the car, holding the Elmo doll over her face to play with him.Travis ran on his knuckles before anyone could even react. He got up on his hind legs, slamming Charla backward into her car.Sandra, now a seventy-year-old woman, screamed, “Travis! Travis! What are you doing? Stop! Travis! It's Charla, Travis!”Travis knocked Charla to the ground and ascended upon her. He went for her hands, ripping at the limbs as he screamed and stomped. Blood immediately pooled around the two as Sandra shrieked for Travis to stop. She staggered towards a shovel that sat on the lawn and then hit Travis as hard as she could. He did not stop.Travis tore into Charla’s face now. He ripped off her nose and slammed his fists into her head. Her hair was yanked from her scalp, and her fingers were scattered along the driveway.Sandra ran to her kitchen and returned with a butcher's knife. She slammed the blade into Travi’s back three times. The third time he glanced back at her, held her eye contact for just a moment, and then continued. He did not stop.Sandra stumbled to her car and locked it behind her. Her hands shook as she dialed 911, Charla lay motionless in the driveway.“Stamford 911, what’s your emergency?"Sandra was hysterically crying as she replied, “Two-forty-one Rock Rimmon Road, send the police!”The operator had to ask several times, “What’s the problem there?”“The - that - the chimp killed my - my friend!”“What’s wrong with your friend?”Sandra was watching the scene before her. Travis slammed his fists into her face. He ripped her eyes out of their sockets and yanked off her eyelids. She sobbed and after minutes of trying to talk to the operator, she said, “He ripped her face off!”“He ripped her face off?” The operator asked disbelief in his voice.“Gun! They got to shoot him! Please! Please! Hurry! Hurry! Please!”The operator tried to calm her down, but Sandra broke down. Travis was sitting on her now, her blood covering him head to toe.“I can’t. I can’t calm down….He’s eating her! He’s eating her!”The operator tried to get more information, but Sandra was too upset. She watched as her baby ate her friend.“Please! God! Please! Where are they? Where are they?”The attack lasted a total of twelve minutes.The police arrived, unsure of what exactly to do. The officers couldn’t mask their surprise, they had known it was a monkey attack, but they didn’t think it was Travis. Travis was cute and cuddly and fun, not violent.Travis sat closer to the porch now. He was covered head to toe in blood, both Charla’s and his own. Her flesh stuck between his teeth, and her blood stained his tongue.Officer Frank Chiafari was even more confused as he stared at the bundle of clothes sitting in the driveway. He stared for a moment, not moving from his car. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was Charla.Travis pursued the cop cars next. He banged on the windows and tried to open the locked doors. He smashed the passenger side mirror before running off, huffing and screeching as he did so.Officer Chiafari unlocked his door but still wasn’t sure what to do next. Travis was huge and dangerous, but he had to get to Charla. He wasn’t even sure she was alive. She couldn’t be, not after that.Travis opened the car door, surprising both of them at once. He looked at the officer and bared his teeth. The officer pulled out his gun, struggling with the holster.He shot four times.

Footnote By the Author
I wish I had deeper thoughts on why I create the art that I do, but honestly, I like monkeys, so I wrote about monkeys. Plus my professor vetoed my cocaine bear idea.

A Short Story by Miranda

Locals tell you that when you are in the Appalachian mountains that if you hear something calling out to, no you didn’t. They say it’s for your own safety, and that there are evil creatures at work. The mountains are old, they have seen many things over the years, housed many different walks of life. The most dangerous creature that people are warned about are so feared that no one says their name. They are said to take the form of something familiar, people you know or hurt fawns laying out in the forest. Whatever they once were is no more, they only care about what’s next.However, there will always be a curious adrenaline junkie looking for their next fix. “Curiosity kills the cat” and the next victims are out on the hunt. A small group of three, wide eyed and bushytailed, excited to capture the famous creature on film. Setting up camp in the high mountains, away from the tiny town they embarked from and adjusting up their cameras around camp. This was going to be their big break, their way into the monster hunter scene. The group had tried with smaller cases, The Jersey Devil, Mothman and a few odd ghost stories. So far, their luck had yet to strike gold but with all that experience, they were ready to try anew.The group had planned to stay for a few days, having enough supplies to last them a week if it came to it. The first night, they were almost too excited to sleep but there was no sign of the legends they had been so pumped about. The second day they had set out a little ways from camp and exploring the surrounding areas. By nightfall, there had been no distant screams or calling of past loved ones. As they settled down, disappointment laid down with them. The third and fourth day showed no sign of change. By the fifth, two of them broke out in a fight.“They are supposed to be here!” one said“They have to be, I was so sure on my research!” another one said.“Well maybe your research was wrong. I’m going to go find them on my own!” the last one exclaimed as they stormed off.The two remaining had waited for their friend to come back. They searched for hours for their missing friend to no avail. It was as if they vanished. Attempting to not let their panic set in, they continued their mission on looking for the Wendigos. Two days had passed since they lost their friend, there was no Wendigo in sight and the weather was becoming achingly cold.“We should head back.” one had clattered through their teeth.“Without our friend?” the other chattered.“I don’t think we have a choice, the weather will kill us!” they exclaimed.It was true, it was unexplainable but snow had started to fall early this year. The temperature had dropped significantly since their friend had left. If they weren’t dead before, they were now. So the duo packed up their things and made their way back to the nearby town. The wind around them blew hard, as if it did not want them returning. They tried to return to the town but the wind was too much so they found cover in a cave. It provided much warmth for them despite the harsh cold outside. There they waited for days, for anything. A sign of their friend, a break from the wind, any sort of food or water source and yet found none. They began to grow hungry, their last supplies running out days beforehand.The events of the next few days of the two friends remains unclear however when their third friend had shown up, to a cave covered in blood and the famed creature being born in front of them, they were never heard from again.