The Ramen Noodle Experience

     How might we improve the ramen noodle experience? We are both the advertisers and the consumers, in a way, so this should be easy, right? Right?

     My group's first concept when it came to the complete ramen noodle experience was the iphone app. The pinnacle of hip, cool, and functional, the iPhone marketplace seems like a great place to introduce the rebirth of ramen. It is frequented by those pesky college kids (our market audience) and is cheap and easy to use. We chose to model our app off of the handy Michigan App, available at the iTunes store for free. We liked the idea of a multipurpose app, with several features for everyone. Anyone can enjoy this engaging application. For the young and the young at heart, we have the ramen games! Play a variety of digital games including that college favorite, ramen pong! For the appreciators of the delicate and delicious taste of ramen, we have the cookbook option. The cookbook is full of a variety of wonderful ramen recipies, sure to brighten anyone's day. Finally we have the Ramen Truck function. Press a button, and the Ramen Truck begins to head your way. A modern day decendant of the ice cream truck, the Ramen Truck is the snack of choice for the coolest college kids. What's more, use the Ramen Truck function to track the Ramen Truck! Now there is no more waiting outside in the snow for that warm, delectable ramen. With the locator function, you know exactly where that Ramen truck is and can walk outside to greet the Ramen Man with a smile.

     The app is a wonderful idea to spread the good word of ramen noodles, but another marketing technique might be necessary. For this we have the Ramen Superhero movie. This cultural juggernaut of a movie is certainly to be the biggest box office success since the introduction of talkies. The plot focuses upon the quaint driver of the Ramen Truck, Ramen Man. Everyone love Ramen Man for giving them the wonderful gift of ramen, but little do they know that he is secretly the superhero RAMEN MAN! RAMEN MAN is the hero of all heroes, the savior of the world and of all time and space. He goes around helping anyone in need, aiding all that do good and all the while, he spreads the delicious word of ramen. This movie is unclassifiable by human genres. It promises to be a thriller, a romance, a superhero story, a rags-to-riches story, a romantic comedy, an action extravaganza, a pointed social commentary, a broadway musical, a political drama, a prominent work of historical fiction, and a comedy. Explosions are a prominent character in the film, often noted for their subtlety and romantic subtext.

     Our final proposal is perhaps the most useful to our corporate patrons. We plan to revamp contemporary airline food and replace it all with beautiful and steaming hot ramen. We want to associate the ugly art of flying food with the beautiful and fine art of ramen noodles. Soon, the frequent traveler will grow to love the greatest food in the world as much as we do. Let's replace all of that bad stigma associated with airline food! What's up with that?

Flight Artifact

 We were told to create something, anything. An artifact that had to do with flight. OK, great, flight. Kristen had said that she wanted to collaborate on a song, I thought it was a great idea. A straight ahead cheesy flying song, one part hilarity, one part parody, and one part guilty pleasure. Then in my english class, I stumbled upon the poem "The Windhover" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It was a  gorgeous poem that had this enthralling quality about it. It was an ecstasy, an ecstatic declamation, a world of flight in this bird. Then I had the great idea. What if I were to read the poem aloud and have musicians spontaneously respond to me. Jack Kerouac did a similar thing and release three albums of this material. Great idea. Better yet when we got Rachel involved. Now we had saxophone and guitar, a strange pairing, but one that has a beautiful interaction. This recording was the first take. I wanted to make sure the musicians didn't fall into a pattern of regularity. They had the poem read to them once, then it was time to record. Not the best recording technology (garageband all the way!) but certainly good enough to see the intent.

This was a lot of fun to do, and explored some serious ideas that I'd love to delve into more. The idea of a spontaneously responding musician. The idea of ecstasy as it relates to flight. Vertigo. Falling. All these great musical and poetic ideas that can combine to make some of the most moving material. Is our piece the greatest? No, it is a little rough. But does it bring about some seriously intriguing topics? Yes it does.

 

 The Windhover

Voice: Corey Smith

Guitar: Kirsten Carey

Tenor Sax: Rachel Mazer

The Windhover

Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

To Christ our Lord

 To Christ our Lord This epigraph dedicated the poem to Jesus while echoing the Latin phrase, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, the Jesuit motto meaning “To the Greater Glory of God.”

I caught this morning morning's minionminion favorite, darling; also, an underling or servant, king-

    dom of daylight's dauphindauphin prince; a French historical term, along with “chevalier”, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimplingwimpling rippling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

    Buckle!Buckle! to bend, attach; prepare for flight or battle. The verb could be descriptive of the bird’s action, or it could be the speaker’s imperative. AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!chevalier French word for “knight” or “champion”; pronounced Chev-ah-leer, to rhyme with “here” and “dear”

     

   No wonder of it: shéer plódshéer plód slowly, laboriously, and without break; these accent marks, inserted by Hopkins, tell the reader to place more accent or emphasis on those syllables when reading aloud makes plough down sillionsillion Fresh soil upturned by a plow (“plough”)

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dearah my dear Compare with the same phrase in the poem “Love (III)” by George Herbert, a poet Hopkins admired.,

    Fall, gallgall to become sore, crack, or chafe themselves, and gash gold-vermilionvermilion a vibrant scarlet color.