TED Talks Speech Analysis

After watching several speeches on TED Talks, the one I liked the best was "Try Something New for 30 Days" which was spoken by Matt Cuttis. You can watch the speech Here. "Try Something New for 30 Days" was a successful speech for, I feel, several reasons, the first of which is easily the tone Cuttis used throughout the presentation. Cuttis spoke in a way that was both calm and confident, which goes a long way when one is trying to get a point across. If a speaker is attempting to convince an audience, there is nothing more counterproductive than sounding as though he or she doesn't even believe him or herself. Another thing that Cuttis did well was that he walked around on stage and looked at different parts of the audience. Watching someone stand perfectly still and stare at a fixed location gives the impression that the speaker is scared, which there is nothing wrong with, but fear speaks against any point a speaker is trying to say. Like I said earlier, confidence is very important. Cuttis looked like he felt at ease. He used his hands, he changed his tone to fit what he was saying, he told personal stories that roped the audience in and he made sure to give enough background so that each story made sense. The visuals he chose were relevant and sometimes funny and also helped build towards the greater point Cuttis was trying to make. Overall, Cuttis simply did a lot of things right which is why I felt that his speech was the best of all the speeches I had viewed.
                                                                                                                          -Garrett Garcia

Detroit vs. Everybody Response

The article "Detroit vs. Everybody" was an article that I actually found to be very informative. Detroit is one of those places that has obtained a reputation as being a place of ruin and loss; a sinking ship. I admit that I've personally never given Detroit much thought, I've read a few articles about its financial decay and heard a few people talk about how it's dying, but I've never been there and have never actually put in any thought to what living there would be like. This article did a good job to illustrating that, dying or no, it's still a city like any other. There are people who like and work and go about their normal lives, unfazed by the economical state of their city. Few people visit, understandable given Detroit's reputation, but beyond that it's probably no different than anywhere else. The pictures were particularly effective since words would likely have been ignored. "I doubt this one guy is right where dozens of others are wrong, the city must be dying." we'd likely think to ourselves. The pictures made it impossible for us, as readers, to ignore the fact that there is beauty in Detroit. Despite the beauty though, I still don't think I'd want to go there. The city is in a bad state right now and I feel like, despite this article, there is a lot more that going on in that city than was written in the article. The writer was only in Detroit for three days and only visited the most tourist-oriented locations. I'm not fully convinced that Detroit isn't what I've always heard. That being said however, this article did convince me that Detroit isn't nearly as bad as my passing imaginings liked to pretend it was. I still don't want to visit, but I'm not as opposed to the idea as I would have been before reading the article.
                                                                                                                 - Garrett Garcia

2013 Bodies Response

The article "Bodies of the Year" by Wesley Morris is an article that makes a statement saying that the public desire to see beautiful bodies has diminished in 2013. As a general rule, I personally don't keep up with social medias, I don't have a twitter account, I never use my Facebook account, I don't read magazines, and a rarely go to the movie theater to watch movies. It has always been my opinion that what people do in their free time is their own business and is not something that I have the right to invade or judge, even if that information is freely given via social networking sites. With that being the case, I don't know much about celebrities or what people think of them beyond a few of the most outrageous stunts they do, such as Miley Cyrus's twerking. I don't know whether people are getting tired of seeing beautiful bodies. It makes sense that the movies that become the most popular are ones that have the best story lines and most enthralling plot, and stories like that don't always make concessions for beauty. I heard somewhere once that the only constant in the word is change and while that might not necessarily be the case, I feel like change is what is happening. Beauty is something human beings have always prized and probably always will in one way or another, but how prominent a place we give beauty in our society varies. Perhaps we as a culture are getting tired of seeing nothing but pretty people doing pretty things, perhaps we are simply branching out so that we can experience new themes, different stories. I don't know what will happen in 2014, but I look forward to finding out.
                                                                                                               -Garrett Garcia