Transformative Text is taking over TAMUT with a different staff or faculty member every week bringing forth any form of text that has shaped their own perspective. Dr. Drew Morton, Professor of Mass Communication looked beyond just a book and delivered a new approach and brought in the 1998 film “Out of Sight.” Morton says, “this is one of the first movies where I started thinking less about plot and more about narrative.” He broke down the structural makeup of the film.

            Dr. Morton compared the film layout of “Out of Sight” to other movies he is fascinated by like “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” all written by Quentin Tarantino. He elaborates on how the use of flashbacks delivered a unique understanding about the characters in the film and why the power narration stood out.

First, looking into the narrative side of the film, during the lecture Morton showed a scene where conversation made everything a thousand times better. Picture a beautiful cop (Jennifer Lopez) and charming jailbird (George Clooney) stuck in the trunk of a car together. With tension of discomfort high, there is also a sense of sexual desire on the rise. Morton says, “they kind of have this icy relationship at first where she’s kind of teasing him but then they start to get more warmer.” Their conversations began to sound like they’ve known each other for years and the scene does a great job giving that feeling from cop and criminal to the love connection.

Dr. Morton continued to break down the film’s layout with one of the best scenes! We see a Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney character sitting down enjoying each other’s company over a drink. At this point they know they need each other like a car needs gas. The soft music, snow falling in the background, and abstract lighting all created this mood of sexiness with an old “Hollywood approach.” But it was done to the point of not overdoing it for the audience. As the time come to hit it off the director takes a different turn using subtle flashbacks. Throughout the flashback there are freeze frame moments where “the filmmaker uses that as a marker to constantly tell you this is not in the correct order but at a different moments in time,” Dr. Morton says. The director takes each physical touch and eye contact given as a moment to cut back and forth from the past to present.

So now it has to be understood that the timeline is caught up at this point. Morton explains it as a “Double Indemnity” where the resolution is exposed in the end and everything else is a flashback but in this film half is a flashback and the end is unknown! “Then you kind of care a lot more about these characters coming into that moment,” Dr. Morton said. But since the conversation between the two was so smooth in the scene and the amount of confidence they gave led up to in Dr. Morton words “the sexiest scene I’ve ever seen in a movie,” and yet it doesn’t hardly show anything!

Imagine waking up in the morning smelling the aroma of breakfast being prepared at your grandmothers and as you run downstairs a flood of joy instantly fills you. Drake and 21 Savage has created that very feeling, they have served us a breakfast for champions, and we are them.

Diving right into it, “Rich Flex” had no choice but to be the opening song on the album. Instantly your eyes widen as the tempo of the angel’s harmony rises and just when you start to feel you body lifting…the beat disrupts everything. And now your rocking back and forth viciously for the next three mins. Or “Major Distribution” that enters with a soft piano creating the feeling of love at first site, putting you in a daydream but for only 30 seconds then shakes you out our sleep with a thunderous beat that feel like a kiss from your crush. Even sampling the hit 90s song “Give Me Your Lov’n” by B.G.O.T.I. in “Spin Bout U” gave me the feeling of riding in a 1980 Monte Carlo but after mixing in the wave of their new school music changed that old engine into a V8 inside. If you like albums that provoke different feelings and emotions “Her Loss” is just for you.

Taking it back to 2018 with his “Scorpion” album. If you knew that Drake then with the diversity he had during that time, having not only his normal love flow over a sorrow beat, but his jock charisma as well. Then the Drake now is the 2.0 version of that. His last album “Honestly, Never mind” made me feel as if he held back the icing on a cupcake, his name being the cupcake and the album being the icing. But after this was released, I see why he held back and just brutally dumped the whole tub on one cupcake!

“Her Loss” could have easily been another Drake solo album but adding 21 Savages drill rap style and Atlanta demeanor, they turned a horse in a stallion. The energy they both bring to that table has turned out to be one of the best duos of our time. With 21 Savage wearing the tough lifestyle on his shoulders, Drake not just as an artist but as a producer took 21 words that could possibly seem menacing to others and twisted into something casual and loving. Like in my favorite song on the album “Hours in Silence” he says, “I got a 30 on my waist, cause a lotta broke n***** ‘round the way’ ‘round town and they lookin’ for my face.” Just by reading instant thought he saying he need to keep his gun on him cause people will kill for money but when you listen, you will hear how he effortlessly support the negative content in what he saying by calmly singing the verse over a beat with high enthusiasm.

But the album is not a “no skip,” like his album “Nothing Was The Same” released back in 2013. Each song on that album delivered the homework that was due, not one song could be skipped and not one song gave me the feeling to call my girl and let her know I was coming home. “Her Loss” has a couple hit or miss songs like “Circo Loco” or “Broke Boys.” These songs hang at the bottom of the totem pole simply cause when they first got played I did not get stuck, my head did not tell my finger to wait but 14/16 is still a A!

If you look the title of the album is called “Her Loss” but what I like so much about this album is that it contradicts with some of the songs on it. You would think it would have songs about guys don’t need women, they need us, we all superior! But “Spin Bout U” presses the idea that I’ll do anything for my girl. Same in “Treacherous Twins” the two specifically say “you my treacherous lil’ twin, and you know that we locked in, and I love you.” Interesting right? Going in the album you have that one thought, but it will continue to change, “man is it her loss or…my loss?

Dr. Daniel Mintun is one of the Political Science Professor here at TAMUT who helped students understand the meaning of changes in human nature using the book “A Paradise Built In Hell” by Rebecca Solnit as his guide. Through the lecture he wanted us listeners to understand that “if people are fundamentally good, why would we need government?”

He mentioned Thomas Hobbes, a famous political philosopher who says human beings “are in a state of war which life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”  After, Dr. Mintun brings to our attention that “if there was no one watching over us, we would all be at each other’s throats,” referring back to Hobbes stating, “it’s a war of all against all.” But Mintun uses Solnit book to peel back the idea that society isn’t so bad after all.

 Mintun gave examples from the book or “case studies,” stating that certain disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the fire in San Francisco should raise chaos but instead humanity use these situations as “building blocks.”  Dr. Mintun calls humans “social creatures” or people who look to their neighbors when situations like these come about. He said, “if you have a disruption in society, you actually get to see people’s true reflections.”

            With our society growing day by day, it raises the question, “should we be scared if there is no change in government style?” Dr. Mintun mentions “with gut instinct, yes, but is proven wrong more than we think.” He refers back to the book to help us understand that people come together when things are going downhill. Mintun says, “there’s no shortage of examples when times get scared, but you also see a lot of people coming together in times of need.”

Dr. Mintun says, “everyone should strive to do better,” and left us all with a quote from the book. “A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which humanity is always heading.”

With transformative text being founded in Purdue, Dr. Doug Julian, TAMUT English Professor has brought it here to inform and direct everyone that “transformative text is more than just an old book,” but the understanding that any type of text can be transformed for teaching.

If interested next Thursday on the 10^th Dr. David Yells will be discussing “The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous” by William Wilson and that following Thursday on the 17^th Liz Patterson is breaking down “Greenlights” by Matthew McConaughey. Both held in UC 217 from 12:20-12:50. You do not want to miss it!

            “I’m learning from the library, I’m learning from people in the library, I’m learning from students out here,” Jeanette Mitchell says.

Jeanette is TAMUT Circulation Supervisor in the John F. Moss library. She has been serving here for almost eight years, but before being surrounded by books, she already had an interest. “I like reading about different real lives, if I read about somebody that actually experienced it, then I can get an understanding of what it was really like.” “Reading memoirs of other people interest me, when I can find a book that is pertaining to a historical lifestyle.”

            Serving in the library does not stop there though, “my hobby is just exercise, anything that will condition my heart,” “I may ride my bicycle about 13 to 15 miles, or I will go to the track and run bleachers,” she mentions. Being active is her way of living, “If its active, if it’s fun, if I’m having fun and at the same time exercising, I’m all for it!”

“But, when it comes to life, tread lightly.”

            Whether it’s reading, running or doing whatever she puts her mind too, Jeanette said, “my biggest accomplishment in life is being a mother and being able to teach my sons how to live a meaningful life,” a lesson she is teaching students here. Mitchell says, “we didn’t come here with an instruction book, we got to figure things out.”