Little black submarine

The black keys have been my best discovery of the last year as a band. Listening their music makes me feeling better. Their music’s bring me energy and positive mind even in sad situations. Their garage rock sound push my emotions like a Jack White’s song and their lyrics stress it even more.

In this video The Black Keys drag us into the black back side of their mind, Pathos is definitely the way how they reach the more their audience. Listening Black Keys music’s it’s to feel something inside of your body, inside of your mind.

The way this video clip is built: going into this old fashion American bar, somewhere out of nowhere and out of time, showing them playing in this small back is a structured and smart way to make the audience diving into the feeling they want to share.

Their very unstructured lyrics look like a man confession and establish Dan Auerbach’s, the singer, credibility. The way he looks passionate singing, sweating from all his body, with is eyes close and moving like a man in trance, the only thing you can think is “whoa this guy suffered a lot”. This builds the ethos of their message.     

The Logos of theirs songs’ is easy because there are telling story that everybody can feel related to. Love pain, disillusion, sadness … they are speaking about human feeling that everybody will feel one day in his life. Their songs’ are just like their own real life story tells to their audience.

 

The jump of adventure

“When I was standing there on the top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about breaking records anymore, you do not think about gaining scientific data. The only thing you want is to come back alive.” Felix Baumgartner 

By this statement the Austrian stratojumper, Felix Baumgartner, describes a paradox of the modern era adventure. His jump is one of the most followed records ever; millions of people were following it. Like it’s said in some newspaper, “Twenty four miles below him millions of people were right here there with him. Watching on the Internet and marveling at the wonder of the moment.” 

By this sentence, Felix Baumgartner answered to newspapers and journalists that even if today an adventure can be followed live; Even if people feels like a part of it by the use of Internet and a heavy marketing campaign around the adventure by sponsors.He is the guy who did that:  he was standing alone at the top of the world. He was the only one playing his life in this jump and that’s the real adventure. Goals, sponsors, and records don't really matter.

On the top of the world it was he and the space; nothing else mattered. 

This is the paradox of the modern era's adventures. Like for sports the most of humanity is “follower” instead of being actor and it puts even more pressure on the adventurer. Marketing campaigns and records breaking goals are creating deadly dangers because like in every show the crowd is always expecting more.  

My podcast author's note

Adapting my personal essay in a podcast was a great challenge for me. Basically, my biggest issue is the language. Speaking English in the everyday life is easy even if it’s not my native language, but writing an essay and speaking over podcast is a challenge.

Picking vivid facts to build a script was very interesting, but I had to change some words or rebuild some sentences to fit better with an audio version of my story. I like to make my essay more vivid on my podcast; it was my main focus while I built my script. I realized that when I wrote my essay I should have been more focused on description and emphasis than on telling my story.

My accent also made me struggle while podcasting my essay. I really tried to make intonations and voice effects, but it was harder than I expected because of my French accent and my use of intonations is really different from English language. In a casual conversation, this is not really a problem, while in a podcast my voice has to be as clear as possible and to share emotions.

I discovered a new tool using Garage Band, and I met some difficulties coordinating my different vocal volume, but it was a great experience because it was the first time that I put into podcast something from my writing; even in French I have never done it before. 

What am I able to speak about . . . Me ?

My first BLACK slope.

This story takes place a long time ago. In fact I don't really remember when it happened . . .

I was almost 10 years old. It was a sunny February day. My dad brought me to Courchevel to see some friends of him. 

Courchevel is a well famous ski resort in France. It's famous because it's where the rich guys go to spend their money.  In fact the resorts is awesome, with luxury shops, expensive restaurants, nightclubs . . . but ski sucks. 

Everything is made to be confortable and easy. So if you are looking for really good ski don’t go there. 

Well, for the young kid I was, the resorts didn’t matter.  At this time a slope was a slope and I wasn’t really taking care about something else. I’ve been enjoying ski since the first time my dad put me on when I was 4. 

But this day had been the first time I didn’t enjoy ski. Everything was perfect. I was skiing on blue and red slopes as fast as I was able to go. In fact, the slope’s ranking had always been a mind barrier. When I was 6, I tried to ski on my first blue slope and then at 8 on my first red one. Each time I was a little bit scared to go to the next level, but each time it was a success and I was just enjoying my progression. 

This time my dad and his friends decided it was time for me to go to the black level. The black level . . . The hardest level ever. I started to be really scared. When I went to the top of the slope all my body was shaking. It was like if the slope just went down vertically in front of me.  I knew that it wouldn't be as successfull as usual. 

I just fell a first time 20 yards after the beginning of the slope, and a second time 15 yards after. Then I had to finish the slope on my butt because my skis token off from my shoes on a third fall, and went down without me . . . 

It really wasn’t a success.