Punxsutawney Phil is on Facebook

First of all: who else, when thinking of the lovely American tradition of Groundhog Day, has a certain Sonny and Cher song immediately pop in their head? All you Bill Murray fans out there better say, "I do! I do!" or I'll make you watch Broken Flowers over and over again until you can't move due to your smothered state of depression. A good Murray film from the 80s or 90s is capable of being remembered for it's iconic moments and infinite string of quotable lines, and today just makes me wish I had Groundhog Day on DVD. But, alas, I will have to resort to looking up key scenes on YouTube. Le sigh...



Anyway, the real reason for this post is to briefly comment on the fact that even HOLIDAYS have begun to appropriate social networking for their own purposes (via the Christian Science Monitor). And whatever a groundhog needs a Facebook page for is totally beyond me, save maybe to alert people that February 2nd is on the horizon and then on February 2nd using the page to announce whether Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow. But that's it. Every other day of the year, this page has no purpose. Although, Phil does have 7,572 fans, more than most Fan pages for famous humans tend to acquire. Oh, and Phil is also mobile-savvy: today, he sent out his prognostication via text message.

I don't know how many more fans he will make after this year, seeing as the "over-sized rodent" saw his fat little shadow, forecasting another 6 weeks of winter. Double le sigh...

"R"

Below is another poem from my Google search series. Enjoy.

R

Ragtime, Ratatat LP3 tracks
RCN, The Red Bull Stop, Road bike
Ritalin
Record player, Records for sale, Records online
Robert Mapplethorpe, Robert Venturi, Ramses
Roddy Macdowell, Rick Warren
Ritalin
Roy Teeluck, Rosie the Riveter
The Rumble Strips, Rhythms of modern art, Rutgers
Ritalin

My First Smartphone

Oh, hey there, 21st Century Mobile Technology. It's me, Katharine.

I know I know, we've met before - granted, never on personalized terms.

I've admired you from afar, trying hard to never let you catch on to my interested stares.

I've passed you on the street when you've been with others, trying not to turn my head, attempting not to be enticed by all you have to offer.

Sure, I've spoken of you to others, admittedly quite often - spoken of your beautiful interface, of your accessible personality, of your potential to start a relationship with me that would never ask me to loose site of those important in my life. In fact, I've been told that you would even encourage it. This, I find, is a factor that is so important in a healthy relationship, and it's so promising to know that you support it.

I'll admit, this is kind of awkward. I know you've seen me with others, others who don't offer the same things you offer. I am hoping that you do not judge me because of my past relationships, and that you can believe that I've moved on. I've come to realize my attachment to these others was based on comfort, on the familiar, on something I didn't want to give up because I was just so used to it.

You've, um, been on my mind a lot lately and, well, I've finally decided to admit this, both to myself and to you. I've come to realize the independence you could possibly grant me, and have decided to tell you how I feel.

I need you.

Even though you are asking me to change several things about my life, these are all changes that I am willing to make - that I am happy to make - for you. I am welcoming you into my life with open arms, 21st Century Mobile Technology, and hope you too are in it for the long haul.

I am so happy I found you.

Okay, so all hyperbole aside, I really do like HTC's new Droid phone. And I don't care that I'm paying a bit more for the data plan. I don't have any major complaints about it yet, except that when I transferred over my contacts from my old phone, it subsequently deleted all of my Gmail contacts, and now keeps telling me via a very tiny icon that I have "too many contacts deletes." Aside from the fact that I don't think that is proper English ("too many contacts deleted" would probably be a less awkward way of saying this) , that constant reminder needs to go away, and I don't know how to make that happen.**

Besides this, I'm very happy with the device, and really happy I stuck with Verizon and didn't cave and get an iPhone. It's touchscreen, it connects to my Gmail, it's open source, most of the apps are free, it was only $100, and, most importantly, there are icons of little green skateboarding 'droids that greet me when I turn on the phone. Boo-ya.

**Update: All I had to do was turn my phone off and then on again, and that recurring "too many contacts deletes" icon was gone. Hallelujah!

An older example of remix

Mostly because of my New Media and Global Affairs class, I have been reading extensively on networks, collective authorship, and copyright issues as they apply to the contemporary digital platforms that encourage and support media output such as videos, music, animation and text, especially when it comes to intellectual property rights and the remixing culture that we see with the musical artist Girl Talk, DJ Dangermouse, and a slue of others (read my comment on the article "Copy and Persist: The Logic of Mash-Up Culture" for more on the issue).

What I didn't know (probably because my knowledge of Woody Allen's extensive body of work is still in a growing period because, really, you need an entire lifetime to familiarize yourself with everything he's done, and I didn't get started until I was maaaybe 20) was that Allen's filmic debut was with what he calls the "very stupid enterprise" What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), which was not even his film to begin with: Allen and his friends took the Japanese film International Secret Police: Key of Keys and dubbed over the actors' original dialogue, making the espionage action film into a comedy. Although in Stig Björkman's book Woody Allen on Woody Allen Allen himself discredits his first attempt at filmmaking as "a sophomoric enterprise", it completely mirrors what kids and adults alike are creating and posting on YouTube and Vimeo today.

I just love it when ideas from the past come to prominent fruition in contemporary times. See below for the trailer for Allen's first film, which interestingly enough is credited on IMDb as having two directors: Allen and the original Japanese director, Senkichi Taniguchi.

Thank you Pajiba: The "Other" 100 Best Movie Quotes of All Time

Stuff like this just makes me so happy.



h/t to my mom, who probably can name every single movie in this video.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

While I'll be watching the fireworks from Hoboken, everyone who's missing out on fireworks this year can enjoy some exploding candy and coins.

Enjoy!

My fotos, now on Flickr

So, again, because of this design class I'm taking over the summer, I have to take photos basically weekly, each week with a new theme. I've already fallen a little behind (mostly because I've been too lazy to buy new batteries after my rechargeable ones totally crapped out on me), but I definitely caught up yesterday after visiting Figment on Governor's Island, a weekend-long collaborative arts and music festival. If you are interested in looking at some of the photos I took -- which include some on the week's theme of "Motion" as well as more straightforward, non-artsy shots -- please visit my new Flickr page. If you have Flickr, be my friend so I can see your photo's, too!

Below I've posted some of my favorites to give you a little taste of what you're in for.

I'm really into the idea of painting with light. I think that the image above does that well.

I stuck the lens of my camera into a prism. Done.

Moving around on my roof at night must be done with great caution...

Whimsical linens on Governor's Island.

What happens when children and hippies try to recreate A Beautiful Mind. I'm telling you, it's all part of The Man's vast conspiracy to take away your finger paints and convince you that peace is not possible, man!

I have a new addiction

Thanks to my design class, I've been working with Photoshop a lot lately. A recent assignment was to bring in examples of good, bad, and neutral Photoshop work. Someone in my class showed all of us PhotoshopDisasters, a site devoted to posting the horrible, the lazy, and the downright hilarious in the realm of Photoshop work. I could seriously spend HOURS on this site. What good fun. This image below terrifies me while simultaneously making me giggle.


And friends, the site is full of em.

Forget the Film, Watch the Titles

I'm taking a design class during summer session, and since we are doing a short unit on typography my professor sent us a link to Forget the Film, Watch the Titles, a site that features movie title sequences that are animated, feature motion graphics, use 3D effects, or incorporate mixed media. This site is a fun way to kill some time. Be sure to check out the animated titles for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, one of my favorite title sequences of all time. And although the film was just okay, the titles for Thank You for Smoking are also pretty cool. Enjoy!

Current MoMA exhibits worth seeing

Since Spring semester has come to a close and I'm pretty much settled in my new apartment on the Upper East Side (still need curtains and more decorations on the walls, but that's another matter), I've had lots of free time on my hands. True, I should probably be looking for a job, but with the 3.94 GPA I've been maintaining I'm convinced a job will just make my grades and my work suffer. However, knowing that I'm starting summer session in less than a week and will probably be working on stuff for my design class at a computer all day instead of enjoying a day in the park has served as a great motivator for me to get out and do things! The Met has a killer Francis Bacon retrospective that's up for quite some time that I've already been awed by, and MoMA has all sorts of exciting exhibits to kick off a summer full of culturally-stimulating events and works. I'm pretty upset that I've almost completely missed the Cruel and Unusual Comedy series that focuses on different socially charged aspects of silent slapstick comedy such as racial issues, violence, and the treatment of children and animals, but my visit today more than made up for what I missed. The MoMA is six floors full of awesome so I didn't get to see all the new exhibits, but one of the (few) perks of being a New School student is free admission to the museum any time of any day, so I'll just have to make another trip some time soon. What I did get to see, however, especially in the photography section, made me completely nerd out with glee.

Polish Posters 1945-89
Hidden in the Architecture and Design Galleries with the product design pieces, 3rd floor
(Up through January 11th, 2010)

I was honestly expecting a lot more in terms of quantity, but the small corner exhibit of 30 or so prints made in Poland (that took the place of George Lois' Esquire covers exhibit) were all quite impressive in their own way. Characteristically expressionist and most of them quite surreal or abstract, the majority of these prints, most of them made by four artists, were made in Cold War-era Poland, a country which the exhibit cites as being the most free of Soviet-imposed power of all the Eastern Bloc countries and therefore the most devoid of artistic censorship. All of these brightly colored images were used on either book jackets or on film, opera or theater posters to announce a performance or showing of a particular piece. The poster above, "Ksiadz Marek (Friar Marek)" was a piece made by Roman Cieslewicz in 1963 for a play to be performed in Poland that same year. Ranging from graphically simplistic in the genre's inception to gruesomely detailed and disturbing in its later works (see Andrzej Pagowski's "Psie Serce (Heart of a dog)", 1982, below), every one of the posters was visually stunning or moving in its own way. I would have liked to see more description of the individual artists, and overall I don't think enough space was devoted to these pieces. Especially after being so impressed by the Met's British Prints (1914-1939) exhibit back in October and know what sort of memorable impact extensive wall literature and descriptions and ample space can bring to a themed exhibit, I was expecting a bit more. But, as I suppose it is with every building, space is a premium in New York City, even at the Museum of Modern Art.

Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West
3rd Floor at the back of the long corridor
(Up through June 8th, 2009)

Featuring photographs ranging from daguerreotypes of gold miners in the 1850s to color prints from as recent as 2007, the focus of this exhibit was on the usual, unusual, commonplace and hidden lifestyles of the American West in all of its glory: beauty, repetition, degradation, suburban banality, and a richness of the rural. Photographers such as the well-known Cindy Sherman (featured above, Untitled Film Still #43, 1979) and Lee Friedlander were sprinkled throughout the exhibit, which danced between black and white, muted sepia and rich, large scale color prints. Some of the photographs products of personal endeavors, others WPA-era government-funded projects, the exhibit was held together quite nicely by the common themes of desert scenes of sparse nature, portraits of working (and unemployed) men and women, stages of progression of the once untouched land (one six-image series shows the steps of development of a planned housing community in Lakewood, CA) and counter- or sub-cultural figures such as Hell's Angels members, native Americans, Las Vegas prostitutes or suburban families.

I mentioned above that some of the things I saw today made me "nerd out". A certain 1872 Albumen silver print of Yosemite by none other than Edweard Muybridge, in particular, was the one image made me squee a little inside. Here was one of the fathers of the moving image, one of the men who aided in the invention of the motion picture camera, one of the geniuses who was fundamental in the art which I have studied so intently and lovingly for the past five years, just casually hung next to other Albumen prints like he was just one of the many who was taking landscape photographs during the 1870s. In effect, he was just one of many, but he was definitely the only one who was hanging on that wall at the MoMA who took a bet that same year as to whether or not a horse in full gallop completely left the ground, leading him to be one of the first to experiment with human and animal locomotion through the medium of photography, eventually causing him to be known as the certifiable "grandfather of the motion picture". As I stood in front of this image, I looked shifty-eyed from side to side, wondering if anyone else in the gallery knew how special this photograph was. Sure, it wasn't of a horse; it wasn't even of anything in motion, just a fairly serene, peaceful landscape with trees and water and mountains. But this photograph had a special celebrity aura to it, a certain draw that none of the other photographs in this exhibit had. Based on your knowledge of film history or the amount that you even give a hoot, this photograph might easily go unnoticed among the dozens of photos throughout the four room exhibit. But if you do find it, please take a minute to look at it and think about the hands, and the eye, who thought of capturing and therefore created that image. Yes, I was starstruck by a mediocre photograph from the 1870s by a dead guy who basically invented the filmic process. Big huge nerdy nerd. Right here.

Tangled Alphabets: Leon Ferrari and Mira Schendel
6th Floor at the top of the escalator
(Up through June 15th, 2009)

Leon Ferrari (Untitled, 1962, is pictured above) and Mira Schendel, both of Latin American heritage, are a bit like Picasso and Braque. I would assign the role of Picasso to Ferrari and Braque to Schendel, mostly because I think that Ferrari was far more evolutionary, experimental, and daring than Schendel, and also broke the mold of his early work, branching out into multimedia territory with far more comfort than his contemporary. Please don't think that I am comparing Ferrari and Schendel's artistic talents to that of the two Cubists; I am simply using them as a comparison of contemporaries with similar incipient visions.

I understand why the two were put in the same exhibit, and it is important that one sees the similarities between their works: both artists integrated language, the cosmos, and religion into their pieces, but the first two categories are really where the most similarities lie. Some of their pieces, much like Picasso and Braque, can be shown side by side and, without wall descriptions, the artist will certainly be completely indiscernible. There are very few works between Ferrari and Schendel that hold that many visual similarities, especially when one moves from their work with letters and blank space to their depictions and statements of religion. Simple graphic elements, letters, and shapes almost always presented with minimal color, Schendel's style remains virtually unchanging and consistent throughout her career, even when she was attempting to make statements on religion. Some might see Ferrari's religious work as heavy handed, but it's just as thought-provoking as Schendel's pieces, most of which as up for differing interpretations.

As with my relationship and feelings about Picasso, I was more impressed with the breadth and visual style of Ferrari than I was with Schendel. Including more color and detail (two visual elements that are consistently compelling for me, no matter what the genre), Ferrari's early work can be described as a series of ink scribbles that experiment with depth and the structural elements of the alphabet and language. Ferrari even went to lengths to construct his own alphabet, complete with icons both language- and image-based.

His series "Rereadings of the Bible" was probably the most imposing yet astounding of the work from his twilight years, taking Catholic figures and placing them in scenes of violence (atomic bombs, missiles, war) and sex (images from the Kama Sutra) to create something that was "not anti-religious art but art that [was] against repression, torture, and power." Creating a collage of sorts, these stood out among the myriad sculptures, paintings, prints, and illustrations to be my favorite of Ferrari's work in the exhibit. I wouldn't mind, however, staring for hours on end at one of his scribbled pieces like the one I've pictured above. So much detail for things only the artist can fully understand...

A fun way to pass the time...

Sleeveface's headline best encapsulates what can be found on the site:

"one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion"

Totally awesome.

Thanks to Jason for tweeting this.

Must Love Robots

So one of my fellow Media Studies MA candidates who is in my Media Industry Perspectives class this semester started a web series called "Must Love Robots" about a young man who is trying to find a date for his roommate who just so happens to be a lonely robot. The two live together in Brooklyn and have created a blog where they are posting all of the webisodes. I found it completely adorable and also quite hilarious. Trust me, it's not one of those inside joke things where one has to know the person for it to be funny. It's genuinely awesome. Be sure to scroll to the bottom and work your way up to watch the videos in the correct order.

In tandem with the blog they have also created a Match.com-esque website called Robot Friend Finder where one can create their own character profile (mine is an android who goes by the same name as her human counterpart). Be sure to watch the introduction video before you actually enter the site below; it's equally as clever as the actual web series. If you find that this web series is something you'd like to continue watching the in future, you can become a fan of them on Facebook or follow the characters on Twitter.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

(PS: I've been tossing and turning all night because I knew I had to wake up at 4:30 to get ready to meet my boyfriend and the airport and I'm both excited and nervous that he is flying. This was definitely a more than welcomed way to spend my sleepless time.)

Happy Birthday, Dear Bloggie...

...Happy Birthday to You!


Today marks exactly one year since I posted my first blog entry as You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet!, and look at the forms it's taken as it's grown up to a walking, talking, free wheelin' space for my thoughts, rants, observations, and musings. What began as a place to document reviews of music shows (my first entry is a reflection on Coachella 2008) and films slowly morphed into a space where nothing I post is not somehow media-related, stretching the boundaries of what I originally intended into a far less restrictive arena of new media, advertising, television, audience studies, etc (the most recent entry is on the evolving nature of YouTube's social networking capabilities). Sure, there are other themes that I've incorporated throughout this weblog's first year, including but not limited to politics, gender issues, a series entitled "Things Grad Students Love" (that I hope to continue as an on-going contribution...ideas for Part 6, anyone?), and reviews of art exhibits, but I try, sometimes in vain, to always dovetail the issues I discuss with media studies and analysis.

While I certainly maintain this space for my personal benefit as a portfolio, as a way for family and friends who don't live in my city to keep up with my life and interests, and as my own contribution to the on-going meta-dialogue on the media, I have also gotten recognition for my work here from professors, administrators within my Masters program, fellow Media Studies students, and non-Media Studies friends, as well as some comments from a few strangers. While this certainly boosts my ego and restores faith in my abilities, this is not why I am writing. I want my writing and ideas to be public to inspire conversation within the Media Studies community and the Internet community at large and hopefully cause someone, even one individual, to think a bit differently about the way they interact with the visual environment surrounding them.

Some may think that my quiet voice in a sea of millions of others may not make an impact, and I don't expect it to. But it does instill a sense of purpose in the work that I am doing, and has even allowed me to chart my growth and decline of interest on certain issues and topics, guiding me in (god, hopefully) the right direction for future areas of study. I started this blog wanting to be a film critic. But because I have been given a space to air out my ideas that is communal and includes much-welcomed comments, questions, and discourse, I have decided that writing solely about film would be selling myself short, as the Internet is quickly replacing film as the most influential visual media in the world. I will never give up my passion for film and what it means to me as an art form, as a social commentary, and as a form of entertainment, escapism and fantasy, and I will continue to write about film when the mood strikes. However, I will also never again pigeonhole myself into such a narrow category.

So, for all of you who have been with me from the beginning and for those of you who have just started participating in the discourse I offer here, thank you. Your readership, comments, participation, kind praise and constructive criticism are more important to me that you may ever know.

Facebook "Word Game" Back Under New Name

That's right, all you ex-Scrabulous players out there! Facebook just sent me an email, along with this press release, letting me know that I could now play "Lexulous", the Facebook-approved, non-copyrighted name for a game exactly the same as Scrabble. I used to spend countless hours at work (Jonathan, I hope you aren't reading this) playing Scrabulous with friends (actually, mostly my sister), and now the obsession can be mine again! So far the program seems almost the same: there are more features, most of them useless like "sort tiles alphabetically" or "shuffle tiles", both of which I can obviously do myself. But a little difference is the number of tiles, 8 instead of the usual 7 that can be found in a game of Scrabble.

Above is a screen shot of my first Lexulous game with my sister. We'll see how much I like it, which will probably depend on whether or not I win.

Things Grad Students Love, Part 4

Fare thee well, Winter Break, for tomorrow, I embark on my first day of my first spring semester as a graduate student. And to ring in the fresh start, I've decided to showcase all the amazing cultural cuisines I've sampled, enjoyed, and fallen in love with since I've moved to this city. Which brings me to Part 4 of Things Grad Students Love:

Eating food beyond one's cooking abilities and usual financial limitations.

Now that I'm back on the East Coast after having my fill of Mexican cuisine and, well, more Mexican cuisine, I've began exploring and experiencing food far beyond what I would eat on a normal basis. Usually my daily food intake looks something like this:

Breakfast:
Tea
Cereal with soy milk, or
Cereal bar
Orange juice if I have it

Lunch:
More tea
Water
Over-easy eggs over a tortilla smothered in Valentina hot sauce with a small green salad, or
Mac and cheese, or
Tuna melt

Dinner:
Pasta with some green vegetable (zucchini, broccoli, etc.), or
Grilled ground turkey with assorted vegetables in taco form with cheese, lettuce, and a whole buncha Valentina, or
Assorted vegetables stir-fried in soy sauce over white rice.

And really, that's about all the selection I allow myself. Anything else requires too much effort, and, for that matter, funds.

If I'm out drinking I'll grab a slice at about 3 in the morning, and occasionally a friend will want to go to a coffee shop to get some tea or a pastry or something. Now that I'm kinda seeing someone I'm sure it will become increasingly difficult to NOT eat out places, especially since this guy never cooks for himself and is also bursting with a wealth of interesting places to check out or visit or eat at. But either way, I've definitely been exploring and trying different food lately that I normally would never think of trying/allow myself to consume.

Case in point: Chicken and waffles.

Now, I've had chicken and waffles before at one of the more famous chicken and waffle joints in California called Roscoe's. But seeing as this dish was invented in Harlem in the fair city of New York, it's no wonder that Roscoe's simply pales in comparison to Amy Ruth's, a two-story mecca of soul food found in the heart of Harlem just off 116th (waaaaay uptown) and Malcolm X Blvd. Myself and 20 other friends (yeah, we were at 3 separate tables) took the trek up to Amy Ruth's this afternoon, and since the god damn unreliable piece of ass L train wasn't running past Union Sq. we had to take a bus across town to the 2 train which only had local service since it was a Sunday and therefore took us to every since stop along the track only to dump us off at 96th to take a shuttle (which, in the city's defense, was free) up along Central Park to 116th and Lenox WHEW!...Sorry, that got a little ranty and ridiculous, but honestly, the trip took about an hour, and as we walked into the cloth- and plastic-lined entrance way to the restaurant I was literally about ready to kill someone over a basket of corn bread.

Suffice it to say that I obviously ordered fried chicken and waffles, I obviously ordered tea and it never came to the table (such is the luck of a lowly, unimportant tea drinker as she bows to the might of the coffee consumer), and our table of seven people obviously finished the entire syrup container in a matter of a half an hour. I, obviously, was in a sugar- and lard-induced coma that lasted the rest of the day, going home immediately after to change into my comfy clothes before heading to my neighbors to watch The Dark Knight, after which I came home to lay on my bed and listen to music for about 3 hours. If one is looking for a time suck, look no further than a meal of fried chicken and syrup-slathered waffles.

Might I add that the texture of these waffles was simply perfection. Some of those crap Eggo waffles get all hard and chewy and unsatisfying, and I almost never order waffles just for that reason, but this place knows how to make a mean waffle. Fluffy, easy to cut into, and just the right thickness to act as a base for a piece of crispy, sticky, glistening chicken, Amy Ruth's waffles are, to put it mildly, the shit.

This soul food adventure was far different from my Ethiopian food venture I embarked on in Midtown a few weeks ago with my neighbor and a friend from out of town, vastly different from the Greenwich Village sushi restaurant with the beautiful and delicious mochi (note to bank account: these were both free! Thanks, out-of-town visitors!), almost as indulgent as the Belgian french fry place with the most amazing poutine I'll probably ever eat, just as bad for me as my favorite lasagna pizza slice, and decidedly less healthy than The Hummus Place on St. Mark's (who knew I could crave chick peas and falafel in my sleep?).

I really have to chalk one up for this break, without which I would currently be violently ill when looking at my depressingly boring slab of turkey meat in my fridge and the same old boring vegetables. Here's to more fantastic food adventures!

I found me a table!

Oh, Stuy Town trash, you never let me down...

Now when I move out next year and no longer have New School-provided furniture, I will have a dining room table! Let's just hope my current roommates don't mind our apartment having two tables for the next 4 months.

Props to Arthur for helping me roll this thing from the basement into the hallway into the elevator and into my apartment while slightly under the influence.

Things Grad Students Love, Part 3...plus an apology.

Ok, so before I launch into this let me just apologize (like any of you really care, like it was really eating away at your soul that I wasn't producing anything for you to read) for my extended silence. I've been home for the past two weeks (which is also the subject of this entry) and have just been way too busy running around actually socializing and doing something with my days other than sitting in front of a computer screen to update. Now that I'm back in the big city and still not started my spring semester, I'm sure I will have much more down time.

Which brings me to Part 3 of Things Grad Students Love:

Being home for the holidays.

Not just the title of a really entertaining Jodie Foster-directed Holly Hunter-starring film, being home for the holidays instills a sense of purpose and directive in a graduate student. Not only was I afforded a chance to see all of my California friends who I've been without for the past four months, but they were actually happy to see me due to my extended absence from the space I used to occupy weekly on their couches. My family was oddly happy to see me as well, showering me with encouragement, affection, and to be honest, lots of money. They must have heard me complaining about my lack of funds from the other side of the Rockies. Actually, it's not weird at all that they were happy to see me; I'm lucky enough to have one of those families that isn't competative with each other's accomplishments and is actually supportive and happy to see someone else succeed.

Another amazing thing about being home for the holidays was the money I was able to not spend. From dinners with my mom to drinks with friends to lunch with old acquaintances, I don't think I spent a single cent until my 4th or 5th day home in California. And believe me, I totally appreciated it. Everyone was incredibly generous and helpful, affording me a chance to have an amazing time while also saving a bit of coin. Also, the price of gas has totally tanked due to our fantastic economy. Filling up a 13 gallon tank used to cost about $60; last week I spent $32 to fill 16 gallons of my mom's Hyundai. In other words: Sweeeet.

There's nothing that I love more than spending time reminiscing with old friends and family, discussing music and remember when?s and telling stories, noticing that even though I may live thousands of miles away I can still relate to these people, these amazingly encouraging, positive, lovely people, like a beat was never missed, like a day was never spent without them, like I've been sleeping on their couches for the past four months, like I've been to all the familial get-togethers, like it wasn't completely refreshing to wake up and hear one friend groaning from his hangover in the other room, to hear another stressing out about losing her phone only to find it minutes later, to my sister in the bed on the other side of our shared room blowing her nose because the heater was on too high, to my step-father passing me in the hallway saying "'ello!", to my friends laughing at my pain from the night before, like it wasn't completely amazing and exciting to hear these sounds without the assistance of a telephone wire. At least I know that these people will always be there, that I have their love and support, and that they are really just a phone call away.

Thanks for the amazing vacation time, everyone. Love you all.

Things Grad Students Love, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of Things Grad Students Love. This installation's title:

Distractions from Finals

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Aaaand I wish I had a fireplace so I could begin to finish that song.

So begins the first few days of intense (to me, that is) snow in New York City. I could say I was ready for it. I could say that I've been holed up in my room, typing away at my last paper on my last weekend on the East Coast for a few weeks. I could say that my feet have stayed dry, that I haven't been cold at all, that of course I've completely acclimated to below-freezing temperatures. But this would all be a lie.

Instead of slaving away on my final paper in my bedroom, I've decided to stage an ambush and throw snowballs at my neighbor's face. I've decided to attempt to "ice skate" on packed-down sidewalk snow (extremely hindered by the red wine in my system) while walking to Hi Fi on Avenue A, throwing snow at friends every two blocks. I've decided to draw obscene images in the snow on every car parked between A and B on 14th Street at 4 AM while threatening Sheng and Arthur with lethal chunks of ice. I've decided to destroy every patch of unadulterated snow with my footprints.

And it's been marvelous.

Despite the cold, COLD temperatures, the fact that I've grown a strict and impassioned aversion to pants lately (preferring, of course, leggings/tights and skirts/dresses) and the reality of the ONE pair of waterproof shoes I own (shoes, mind you, not boots), it's been marvelous.

So even though I don't have a fireplace, I'm making do with the cranked up heater that cannot be adjusted, the heater that causes me to wake up each morning with a sore throat and a bit of dried blood in my nose that somehow reminds me to be distracted and look out the window at a sight I've not yet seen in my adult life, a distraction I really wouldn't mind getting used to.

Things Grad Students Love, Part 1 (edited)

First installation of Things Grad Students Love:

Free shit.

I recently had an old friend from California come to stay with me in the city for five days. This friend is only two years older than myself, but already has a stable job, lives in his own apartment, owns a car, and is somehow able to use all of his free time traveling the world; no kidding, this guy's been almost everywhere one could want to go in Europe including several places in the UK three or four times, been to about three times as many states as myself, and in March is planning a trip to Tokyo with his girlfriend. I, on the other hand, am unemployed, live in an apartment that I by no means can afford that is paid for with money that isn't mine (loans, loans, loans), cook almost every meal at home on a food budget of $50/week, and sometimes can't even afford the $4 round-trip fare to get to Midtown, let alone any where else in this state. Needless to say, his life of comfort is far and beyond anything I experienced this semester.

Back to Jason's visit: By the time day five rolled around, Jason couldn't help but point out my free shit radar that I've keenly developed over the past few months.

At the Parson's Grad Program Open Studio night, to almost everyone I walked past: "So, I heard there was going to be free wine here or something?"

While trying to think of something fun to do: "I know how much you hate galleries but there's a space in Chelsea that's giving out free wine from 6 to 9 tonight."

At the Mixed Messages film show for my department: "Yeah, I know we just ate dinner but in the other room is the reception with free wine and snacks!"

While hyping Crocodile Lounge: "...AND you get a free pizza with every drink you order!"

After stepping inside the 3rd Ward Holiday Craft Sale in Brooklyn: "Ooooohhh, swag in a screen-printed canvas bag! And check out the other room, free coffee! I mean, I don't even like coffee but maybe you want some?"

Now that I lay it out here, grad students really like free consumptive items, usually in the form of
1) food
2) beverage (preferably alcoholic)

Of course, the bag of free stuff was pretty cool too: business cards, gift ideas, a magazine called "Heeb" that I'm sure was catering to the Jewish community ("Featuring the First Ever Jewish Swimsuit Calendar!"). Being a New School student gets me into the MoMA for free. I have several friends in the creative writing MFA program, so there is an abundance of high-quality poetry and fiction readings that also tend to have free booze and snacks; The New School just loves to get their students liquored up.

A good resource for all cheap-living Manhattanites: http://nyc.myopenbar.com, the site where I found out about the Chelsea gallery and where I find oh so much more every week. These locales are usually floundering bars that are looking to ramp up their traffic flow by offering free well drinks or two-for-one specials, artists offering free wine to whoever is willing to visit their space and look at their work, or liquor companies trying to get their names out by offering free scotch/vodka/gin/rum within a one hour window. I subscribe to their email list; you should do the same. There's one for San Fran and LA for all my West Coast pals, too.

Oh goodness! And let's not underestimate the always reliable Stuy Town trash and sidewalks. Myself and other friends have found several treasures there, including but not limited to:
1) About 10 classical vinyls
2) 80 or so VHS tapes, ranging in quality from 2001 to Shark Attack 3.
3) My apartment's current table cloth
4) A combo VCR/DVD player
5) A lamp
6) Four red and white chairs which now reside in our living room
7) A mosaic end table
8) Four Shakespeare plays in varying conditions
9) Several hilarious children's books
10) A totally amazing old lady skirt
11) This blue dress, to which I've added two belts and rolled up the sleeves:

And don't worry, none of this stuff was in a literal trash can; most of these items were found in bags on the ground. And of course, I've washed all the fabrics.

Craigslist is also a good resource: We obtained our couch and our bookshelf for free. Quite finds, these items. I've recently dubbed myself a freetarian. Much more fulfilling than being vegetarian, let me tell you.

And now here it is, your moment of zen.

My friend Josh sent out a message on Facebook about two weeks ago stating that he had three extra tickets to The Daily Show on Wednesday, December 10th, and that whoever wanted them should write back soon to claim them. As it turns out, no one else to whom he sent the message could go, so my immediate and urgent reply of "DIBS! Dibs dibs DIIIIBS!" wasn't really necessary.

Josh and I arrived at the studio right at 3:30 PM after walking about 3 blocks up and 4 avenue blocks over from the N train at 49th, and there was already quite a line formed under the modest navy blue awning of the single story building inside of which the magic of the show unfolds four times weekly. The awning was marked with simple white text stating the name of the show, above which were hung five flags with each of the correspondents and some vertical text next to their bodies (Samantha Bee's flag: "HARD HITTING"; Aasif Mandvi's: "PRO WESTERN"; Jon Stewart's (next to a picture of Stewart looking terrified): AFRAID OF HEIGHTS). Josh's classmates who claimed the other two tickets came just in the nick of time at 4:20; anyone showing up after 4:30 would not be allowed to cut in line with their friends and families who were holding their places.

We were let inside around 5:30, which gave us about two hours of wait time that went by rather quickly - I grabbed a sandwich at a local deli and some chips since I hadn't eaten since breakfast, seeing as I'd come straight from editing a video. Luckily we had better-than-normal weather conditions (see previous post), and we stayed dry through the intermittent rain thanks to aforementioned awning. We were 196-199th in line, and figured we'd be fairly far back in the studio that couldn't possibly house more than 300 people.

After walking through the singular metal detector into the double doors of the studio, we were promptly escorted to the first row in the middle, and proceeded to gloat and dance in our seats for the next few minutes. We weren't allowed to take photos - security threatened to take away our cameras/cellphones and erase all photos taken - but I still snuck one which can be seen above, albeit sans Stewart. I think Josh's classmate Megan and I spent most of the remaining time fixing our hair and smiling like idiots, wondering if there would be a possibility of touching Jon Stewart, hugging him, making eye contact, perhaaaps bum rushing the stage and declaring our love for him and all he does and is? Please, Jon, just sit down and do one crossword with me? We could snuggle on the green room couch and sip hot tea or coffee, really, which ever you prefer, and giggle about the clever theme of this Wednesday's New York Times puzzle cause really, we could finish it in fifteen minutes if we put our heads together, they don't actually get that difficult until Friday, and then as you realize how wonderfully amazing and cute I am you think that yes, you really want to start over in your life over and that a short, green-eyed self-deprecating Jew-by-association grad student is really all you need to make your life whole again....

Eh hem. Sorry.

Anyway, Stewart came out before the show for a brief Q&A session that doubled as audience hype and a brief warm-up for himself. No one really asked him anything interesting; one guy asked if he was going to miss Bush after he was gone, and Megan pointed out after the show that Stewart has answered that question on several other occasions. Another woman asked if he was ever able to change a guest's mind on an issue, and he cited his experience with Mike Huckabee from the previous night (which I watched tonight as soon as I returned from Midtown as a rerun); he responded that he never expects to change any one's mind, and really, if he was able to accomplish that with Huckabee after only 6 minutes then Huckabee wouldn't and shouldn't be in the position of political power in which he finds himself. He seemed a little despondent, tired, and didn't really over exert himself; odds are, he was saving it all for his on-screen moments.

After about 7 minutes of Q&A he sat down to do the show, and all personal audience connection was gone. It's so strange, because sitting at home, watching him on television, he always looks right at you through the camera, almost having a conversation with the viewer as we sit on our couch and he sits in his studio. But being there in the studio, it was like watching a comedy show that wasn't actually being performed for the in-house audience. And really, the studio audience of 300 is nothing compared to the millions of viewers watching at home, so I can understand that Stewart rarely took his eyes from the camera's lens. But even during the commercial breaks (they film the show as if it was recorded and broadcast simultaneously) Stewart spent time talking to his staff or making notes on his note cards, not really looking up or making eye contact with anyone in the audience. Not that this didn't make it hilarious; I still laughed my ass off and didn't stop smiling the entire time. It's so great seeing hilarious material brilliantly executed in the company of an appreciative audience.

I'm not going to ruin the content of the show because it's not airing for most of you for another 3 hours (only 20 more minutes for everyone in the East); there's a hilarious segment with Rob Riggle that was made even more hilarious by watching Stewart's reactions to the material, and Don Rickles was the guest. Not sure how much of the Rickles stuff will get edited out, but suffice it to say there was some audience heckling and a bit of rambling.

All in all, a great experience. If you've never been to a taping of a show before, do it. This was by far my best experience. Jimmy Kimmel was fun only because of Rilo Kiley's performance, and Bill Maher was great too. But I have been on a high for three hours and have definitely fallen more in love with and have even more respect for Jon Stewart's life and work. His show is, I think, one of the most important news commentary shows on cable today.