In “Living with Music,” Ralph Ellison lives in his New York City apartment and is surrounded by many noises which are provided by his neighbors, associated drunks, and a singer. His apartment is so badly soundproofed that he can’t concentrate on his creation because of the noise around him. Ralph Ellison recalled that his music practice as a child had also caused great pain to his neighbors, and he resonated deeply in a war of decibels against the singer upstairs. Although Ralph Ellison moved out of the apartment away from the noise, he still misses living there because that experience made him realize the importance of music.

At the beginning of the essay, Ralph Ellison wrote “In those days it was either live with music or die with noise”. That sentence shows the influence and importance of music on people. The meaning of this sentence is how we distinguish between sounds. If we think of sound as music, we can enjoy and adapt to it instead of seeing them as noise and live in constant noise.

Ralph Ellison and Krukowski show some methods of reducing noises, and they both believe that noises are everywhere around us. In Ralph Ellison’s experience in a New York apartment, he fights noise with noise. Krukowski shows some New Yorkers use headphones to keep some noisy sounds outside their ear.

The difference between “hearing” and “listening” is that “hearing” is more to do with the physiological act of hearing sounds and that sounds you hear are random. For example, you hear someone talking on the street, but you may not focus on the content of the talk. “Listening” means paying attention to the sound, and you make an understanding of the sound. Moreover, we will make choices about what we listen to. People usually choose to listen to things which they are interested in or are important to them. Sometimes, structural features will inform how we listen. For example, when we hear someone of the same race speaking on the street, we prefer to listen to the sounds we are familiar with over others. There are some other structural elements that can affect our listening experiences like mood, weather, and position.

Schafer and Krukowski believe that there is a close connection between sound and space. In other words, sounds can describe what’s happening in space at that moment. Krukowski says “Listening has a lot to do with how we navigate space” which means when we listen to some sounds, and these sounds are on the space will tell us what’s going on. Krukowski also mentions that people wear headphones to keep some noisy sounds outside their ear, and it is the way to run from ears contact. However, even when people use headphones to isolate themselves from external sounds they are still in their own space. Schafer shows that the sounds may come from the environment around us, but the sources of sounds are varied.

  I agree with Berger’s arguments. In his book, Berger lays out his views on how newspapers and magazine editors to news from the white readers’ point of view. Photography reinforces the image of black people as victims to alleviate white racial anxiety. However, these media reports are very unreasonable. White people use these photographs to shape public opinion about black. Although there are still a few media reports about the positive aspects of black people, it is hard to change social perception because these unfair ways of reporting have been around for a long time. Moreover, to create a rational perspective of reporting, the media should analyze photographs from both black and white sides. 

1. According to Berger, he mentions that publicity stimulates our imagination either by way of memory or anticipation and is the process of manufacturing glamour. We can dream about what we pursue and effort to achieve by the inspiration of publicity. Moreover, publicity incentivizes people to make good money and improve their quality of life by introducing them to a new way of life.

2. Oil painting shows what the owner already has and the possessions were real to him. However, publicity pictures reveal to us the dream about what we aspire to. These differences are important because they offer us a new way of seeing. We look at oil paintings and publicity in different views so that when we see publicity that shows the items or even the life we fantasize about, let us have the motivation to fight for a good life instead of envy the superior in the oil paintings.

3. In the dream of later tonight, Berger created a lifely scene in which we are part of a good life and everyone is pleased. People are surrounded by gourmets and alcohol and are all enjoying the wonderful life. The imagery manipulates consumers by showing them what their dreams are supposed to be. That is an immersive experience for consumers.

    Women cared what men thought of them, and lived with the judgments of men in the Renaissance. Berger says “She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others and particularly how she appears to men is of crucial importance for it is normally thought of as the success” Women appeared as nudeness objects in Renaissance paintings and were not relaxed and natural in these nude paintings. Men controlled the standard of women’s image, making them unable to correctly and objectively understand themselves. Nowadays the image of women has changed a lot. The limitations of what women should be are gone. They can assume any image they want without being stuck in a man’s mind. With the development of education and culture, women learn how to discover and display their beauty so their image is not dominated by men. 

In the article They Say, I Say, by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, they mention that ‘entering the conversation’ is an important model of writing and has lots of advantages. One advantage is that ‘entering the conversation’ can write the voices of others into your text, and makes your words more convincing. Moreover, the writer may take and incorporate other people’s ideas by this model. Arguments are common in conversation because everything has two sides. People who are arguing, try to prove their views so that you can get different sides of opinions on this matter.

I agree with that. Art analysis is very complicated. Artists use a variety of methods to create their works so when we look at the artwork, we don’t understand the meaning of the artwork. Through learning to look at the artwork, our insights get better and learn to capture some small details. For that I think looking at artwork can help us analyze other situations.