Nate Reuss

Nate Reuss is the lead singer of the award-winning band Fun .

At first I disliked him for his voice.
It was characteristic to the extent where I could not listen to the music without drawing his face in the air.
Since it distracted me from both appreciating the music and doing whatever task I chose to do at the time, I stopped listening to him after a couple of tries.
But, a few weeks later, I came upon the song Just Give Me a Reason by Pink.
Listening to the song, I found that there was a man's voice floating in and out and I got really curious because the voice colour matched the song so well.
It was Nate Reuss.
That was why I, on August 31st, made up my mind to write something about Nate Reuss.

He was born in Iowa city, Iowa on February, 26th, 1982.
For most of his childhood, he lived in Arizona because of repeated experiences of pneumonia.

In high school he joined the band Nevergonnascore and released an EP, The Byron Sessions.
After graduating from his high-school in 2000 he decided to pursue a career in music.
Meanwhile, he took a job at a law firm to support him.

From 2001 to 2008, he was part of the band Format.
The members were Ruess, Sam Means, Mike Schey, Don Raymond, Marko Buzard, and Sean McCall.
The band released a demo and two EPs.
The demo titled EP was self-released on August, 9th, 2002 and was re-released with national distribution on June, 3rd, 2003.


The first EP titled Interventions+Lullabies was released on October, 21st, 2003 from the Elektra Records.



The second EP titled Dog Problems was released on July, 11th, 2006 from the Vanity Label. 



After the breakup of Format in 2008, he contacted Jack Antonoff of Steel Train and Andrew Dost of Anathallo to create the band Fun.
He has been and still is a part of the band.
On August, 25th, 2009, they released their debut album, Aim and Ignite, from Nettwerk.



On February, 21st, 2012, they released their second album, Some nights, from Fueled by Ramen.


(ps- he looks really drunk and worn in this clip.. maybe his stylist should be changed?)

Paragraph length analysis of the Neck by Roald Dahl- 1st draft

     At first glance, the journalist from the Neck might appear as a mere window for the readers to take a peek inside the story. After all, when he rests on the white bench, chatting with Basil Turton, he makes no attempt to notify Mr. Turton that Mrs. Turton is flirting with Major Haddock. His tendency to not interfere with the issue of the unfaithful couple is also apparent in the scene where Mr. Turton has to free Mrs. Turton from the sculpture. To take a daring step, it might even be suggested that the journalist, like many other narrators in Roald Dahl short stories, has no influence at all in the story and only serves as an observer. Nonetheless, the presence of the journalist plays an essential role in the story. His attempt at not notifying Mr. Turton can be understood as a deliberate action. To be more specific, if Mr. Turton was on a walk with someone with a different personality than the journalist, the guest could have tried to notify Mr. Turton and Mr. Turton might have gone back to the house instead of going to the couple. Moreover, the journalist’s impassiveness plays an even more important role when they meet the unfaithful couple. Had the journalist aided Jelks in tempting Mr. Turton to choose the axe, the result might have been different. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that the journalist is a character with the important task of not attempting to influence Mr. Turton. In this sense, the journalist is more than a simple window. 

"Tales of the Unexpected" and human nature

     Roald Dahl conveys to the readers that human nature is more close to a murky pond after a flood than a clear crystal. His twists of plot often serve to make the readers realize that humans have many sides and that it is erroneous to cage them in a single image. Therefore, Dahl pays special attention to his writing so that he can convey multiple sides of human nature in the limited form of a "short story". To illustrate, Dahl tends to develop his characters not through direct description in the narrator's voice, but rather through dialogues and the relationship between different characters. One of the episodes that clearly demonstrate Roald Dahl’s methods is [Lamb to the Slaughter]. Mary Maloney's description of the way she loves Patrick Maloney is a great example of how Roald Dahl indirectly builds his characters. Roald Dahl narrates that Mary

“luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel……that warm male glow.” 

 

Such a description presents the readers with an image of a love relationship which is, for Mary’s part, beautiful but also frighteningly perverted. As a result, the readers come to suspect that despite the calm demeanor that she shows prior to Patrick's return home, she could possess an eerie twist in her personality. 

     Roald Dahl probably preferred such an indirect way of portraying his characters because he knew that direct portrayal is more useful for conveying one aspect of a character than conveying multiple aspects of a character. In other words, Roald Dahl would have acknowledged that in the few pages that are allowed for a "short story", direct portrayal of a character could result in readers making hasty judgments of characters and eventually hinder readers from grasping an understanding of all sides of the characters. To be specific, in [My Lady Love, My Dove], Dahl does a wonderful job of showing two sides of human beings with Mr. and Mrs. Snape. At first, the Snapes are portrayed as a decent young couple. However, as the plot unfolds, the Snapes are shown to possess a different side as well. In the later half of the story, they are portrayed as money-seeking people with no respect for rules, rather than civilized man and woman with manners. Some might say that actually, the Snapes have only one personality since the decent side of them was only a ruse and therefore does not count. Yet, it must be noted that humans adjust themselves to different situations. By showing how the Snapes express different aspects of themselves in different circumstances, Dahl can convey to the readers that people should not be confined to one aspect that they show in one circumstance.

     

     Taking into account that many of the "short stories" by Dahl are read by young children, Dahl’s intent behind conveying such a message on human nature is understandable. Often, the books young children read not only have unrealistic happy endings but also have characters that do not change during the course of the story’s plot. This often contributes to children’s tendency to believe that a person with one characteristic cannot possess a different characteristic. With the plot twists and the changing characters, Dahl can show the young children that humans are not such simple beings. Perhaps Dahl wished to prepare young children for the real world by showing them that human nature is closer a many-sided fractal than a flat glass cup.   

A paragraph-length analysis on "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

      At first glance, Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" might appear as a book influenced by many stereotypes. Among them, a certain stereotype on artists seem to tempt Oscar Wilde into making fun of the lives that artists living in the Victorian age were assumed to lead. After all, when Dorian Grey discusses Sybil Vane’s death with Basil Hallward, he makes a statement that depends on a stereotype regarding actors. Dorian Gray states that “They are good husbands, or faithful wives, or something tedious”. This statement shows that he has certain expectations of how an actor/actress would lead his/her life. Moreover, he brands the expected life style as “tedious” and goes on to refer to such a lifestyle as “middle-class virtue, and all that kind of thing”. These statements imply that he looks down upon the lifestyle of actors and that he expects other gentlemen—men who are distinguished by birth and upbringing—to share such an attitude. However, Dorian Grey’s opinion on the supposed lifestyle of actors/actresses is not exclusively expressed with regards to Sybil Vane, but is rather applied in general to people other than the aristocrats—the gentlemen and the ladies. In various occasions—especially at dinner meetings—Dorian Grey, Lord Henry, or others invited to the meeting would make negative comments on the middle-class and the working class. To present a different example, Mr. Ashton, one of the few characters who are not from a noble background and yet commands a certain level of respect from aristocrats, is also branded in a similar way as Sybil Vane is. Nonetheless, Lord Henry applies the ‘middle-class stereotype’ on Basil Hallward—a gentleman with an Oxford education—when he states to Dorian Grey, “Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious”. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that Oscar Wilde wished to ridicule people with a certain lifestyle, rather than people with a certain occupation or people from a certain social class. In this sense, the constantly reappearing stereotype of artists does not imply more significance of artists but implies that artists typically fall into the category of people with the lifestyle branded with tediousness.