Billy Holiday essays

Billy Holiday essays In the early twentieth century, even though slavery had been abolished years before, racism was rampant in America. There were few brave enough to speak out about what was happening. Black artists could perform in clubs, but were not able to patron those same establishments because they were designated white only. One of those black artists decided to take a stand. Billie Holiday, known as Lady Day, recorded Strange Fruit on April 20, 1939 at Brunswicks World Broadcasting Studios with Frankie Newtons Caf Society Band. Much later, in 1995, Cassandra Wilson recorded a cover of this harrowing song. Billie Holidays ability to propel a listener into a time and place overshadows Cassandra Wilsons weaker version of Strange Fruit. Billie Holiday, upon being approached with Strange Fruit, at first was uneasy about the song. The message was so controversial it could have easily ruined her career. Inspite of the risk Billie performed it anyway. The message was too important. To reinforce the inherent drama of the song the waiters, immediately before her performing, would instruct the patrons to remain absolutely silent during the performance. The house lights were turned down with only a pin-spot lighting her face. When she finished, all the lights were turned out. When the house lights came back up Billie was gone. There were no encores so the stark imagery would be seared into the white audiences mind. Billie Holidays version opens with a very solemn melody from the trumpet, followed by a somber piano solo setting the mood of the piece. She ignores the melody outlined by the introduction. She knows the impact comes from the words rather than any specific feature of the songs melodic or harmonic construction (Nicholson113). She also uses the grit in her voice and fluctuating tones to portray the message of the piece. ` Cassandra Wilsons version lacks the power of...

Disruptive and Disruptor

Disruptive and Disruptor Disruptive and Disruptor Disruptive and Disruptor By Maeve Maddox Until recently, the words disrupt, disruptive, disruption, and disruptor were negative words used to describe actions detrimental to perceived social order. For example: Man in Elbow Room Disruption Fights Police, Damages Cruiser Twelve protesters disrupted a speech by Condoleeza Rice at Norwich University in Vermont. Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi has announced the arrest of several â€Å"election disruptors† in Tehran. Ideally, chronically disruptive students should be placed in high-quality alternative education settings where they can receive long-term, intensive interventions In the realm of science fiction, a disruptor is a weapon that can destroy a human being in a very unpleasant manner by disrupting cellular structure. Now, however, thanks to Clayton Christensen, a consultant and an entrepreneur whose 1992 Harvard DBA dissertation describes an academic theory of â€Å"disruptive innovation,† the nouns disruption and disruptor have taken on a positive connotation, at least for some denizens of Silicon Valley: Nowadays every corporate executive wants to disrupt; the word has become a mark of forward-thinking decisiveness- though it is sometimes attached to strategies that are more about cost-cutting than game-changing. And in Silicon Valley, belief in disruption has taken on a near religious tinge. All that disrupts is good; all that stands in disruption’s way (such as, say, San Francisco taxi companies or metropolitan daily newspapers) deserves to perish. –Justin Fox, â€Å"The Disruption Myth,† The Atlantic, October 2014. In this context, disruption refers to the phenomenon of old technology being upstaged by newer technology. This new disruption names a situation in which a company that was the leader in a certain field finds itself losing money because another company, with newer technology, takes the lead away from them. An example given in the Atlantic article is what happened â€Å"when electronic cash registers went from 10 percent of the market in 1972 to 90 percent just four years later,† causing the National Cash Register Company to experience big losses. Six years before Christensen’s dissertation, Dick Foster described the same phenomenon in conventional language in a book called Innovation: The Attacker’s Advantage. In Business-speak, disruption is a new word for innovation. Innovators have become disruptors. Spelling note: Both OED and M-W show the spelling disruptor as â€Å"an alternative spelling† of disrupter, but the -or ending seems to be more common. A Google search of â€Å"disrupter† returns about 429,000 hits to 1,020,000 for â€Å"disruptor.† The Ngram Viewer shows disrupter ahead until 1995, when disruptor pulls ahead. For those readers looking for a synonym for innovation that doesn’t convey the negativity of disruption, here are some possibilities: change alteration revolution upheaval transformation metamorphosis breakthrough new measures new methods modernization novelty creativity ingenuity innovation inventiveness Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:English Grammar 101: All You Need to Know8 Types of Parenthetical PhrasesComma After Introductory Phrases