I heart NY

Why I Love New York City:

There are the usual reasons: the great shopping, the "melting pot" factor, it's the cultural mecca of the U.S., there is always something to do at all hours of the day and night... But the number one reason is that there is art everywhere. Literally, everywhere you look, there is either graffiti, a museum or gallery, a piece of sculpture, etc. etc. I was in NY for some internship interviews Monday through Wednesday and managed to remember to bring my camera for once. Check it out:

This is the view from inside the shops at Columbus Circle. So pretty. Also, they changed color. Here it is in green:

Then outside Columbus Circle, I found an outdoor market where people were selling mostly homemade stuff, like knitwear, jewelry, soaps; and if it wasn't handmade, it was quirky and cool in some other way. Take for instance...

THE WALL OF PUPPETS! These were so cool. They looked like the puppets from the TV show, Crank Yankers. I bought the little boy with blue skin and yellow hair (bottom center, between a black boy in a blue outfit and a white girl in a pink dress) for my young cousin.

When I finally headed back to Grand Central, they were playing xmas music and a kaleidoscope of images of the city was being projected onto the walls and ceiling. I definitely stood there gawking for a good eight minutes. I wish I'd been quicker with my camera because one of the photographs was of lots of taxis, and it looked really cool, but I did manage to capture some of the Chrysler Building:

Oh, how I love this city. Although Syracuse has its charms, and the art scene here is growing by leaps and bounds, I still can't wait to move to New York. No other place in the world can compare to it.

P.S. I went to the Brooklyn Museum Wednesday, and fell absolutely in love with these two paintings: (Of course I was dumb and neglected to write down their titles or artists, though.)

Just look at the expression and body position of the one up top. Though her face is definitely out of proportion, it's still somehow lovely in its fright. And the fabric? The skirt portion is amazing. The talent it requires to paint transparent fabric and with appropriate folds and wrinkles is just mind-boggling.

As for the guy at the bottom, I suppose I would say that I understand how he feels as of late. Something invisible pushing him down, but still struggling to stay up, though mostly in vain. He just looks... broken.

Last paper of the semester

For my magazine editing class, I had to write an extra paper since I was taking it as an independent study, since it was technically an undergrad level class. It's a magazine critique for three consecutive issues of the publication of my choice, and it had to be about eight pages long. I thought I would have trouble filling up that many pages, but I turned out to have more to say than even fit on eight pages. I chose Marie Claire, which has a new editor in chief that I think is doing great things. Pictures of the issues are to the left and here is my (very long) critique:


Marie Claire: September-November 2006

Overview

As a reader of Marie Claire for the past eight or so years of my life, I’ve seen a lot of changes within this magazine. For a while I didn’t really pay that much attention to the publication, though; I just read it when my mother happened to pick up a copy when she bought groceries. That changed in March 2001, when Marie Claire started their V Day campaign to end violence against women. One article in this issue changed my opinion on the magazine and probably my entire perspective on the world.

Sandwiched between “I’m Proud to be overtly sexy/ high maintenance/ materialistic/ ambitious/ selfish” and “Which outfit costs $300 vs. $3000?” is an article about a group of Bosnian women who’d been raped and tortured by soldiers every day for months. They were trying to get rape classified as a war crime so that their torturers could be prosecuted. It was disturbing, shocking, and totally unknown to me before reading this article.

This was the first time I noticed that Marie Claire has articles on more important things than makeup, clothes, and sex; and I have actually kept this issue all the way to now. Since 2001, Marie Claire has waffled between focusing on real issues that affect women and the vapid material we’ve come to expect from most women’s magazines. The September-November issues at hand are a giant leap in the “real issues” direction. The magazine is now wildly different than its 2001 incarnation. It barely resembles its contemporaries anymore. It has far fewer articles on makeup and clothes, but the ones that are left make use of stunning artwork and interesting angles (such as “Morning After Hair” in Oct [about how to tame your tresses after spending the night in someone else’s bed]).

Marie Claire’s new look and features are fantastic in so many ways. The only problem is, I would worry that people who liked all their fashion and beauty content may stop reading it. I suppose it’ll have to be a work in progress.

Design/Art

September’s issue was the first one I noticed as being extremely different. It has actress Maggie Gyllenhaal on the cover. This picture is totally unexpected and unique for a woman’s magazine. First of all, the background is black; it almost blends into her dark brown hair. Then she has heavy black eye makeup and a black dress. It’s almost goth. What a contrast to the perkiness and neon colors of its shelf neighbors. The only bits of color are her lovely light blue eyes (most likely airbrushed to be that color, but it looks fantastic), red lips, and a bright green apple she’s holding up to her face. This photo is leagues ahead of the smiley, cleavage-in-your-face girls that make up more typical cover fodder. It is art; and it would definitely draw the attention of a newsstand shopper, which I gather was the point.

The contents page that follows is located a mere page after the cover, instead of shoving 80 pages of advertisements in between. Plus it looks simple and clean, which makes it much easier to find the page for whatever article you may want to browse. In addition, the rest of the magazine doesn’t stray far from the contents page’s style, giving the entire thing a sense of cohesion and organization. For some reason, September doesn’t appear to have a contributing writers’ page, but October and November do, and it looks great. Each contributor has a different size photo with all of them joined in the center of the page. Then instead of having a third-person description, they each have a mini Q & A session. It’s all very clever.

From there we hit a few snags. The magazine starts out with a “shopping” section that’s rather ugly. You almost miss it at first because there’s no introduction. The first page looks like an ad and the next 10 or so consist of a mish-mash of photos of pieces of clothing. It’s completely stepped away from the organized simple look we started with.

Moving on, the photography that accompanies the “real” articles has turned into something truly incredible. September’s story on designer shopping in Dubai opens with a two-page spread of a woman in black head scarf and robe perusing a rack of Technicolor robes. It’s colorful, visually appetizing, and captures the spirit of the entire story. In the same issue, a story on illegal immigrants opens with another two-page spread, this time of a crosswalk covered in people, shot from above. Small labels point to some of the crossers, describing the person’s immigrant status in just a few words. It’s clever and appropriate to the story.

The fashion shoots have become quite lovely and artistic as well, and the “101 Ideas” section has taken a turn for the much, much better. It used to be just a bunch of squares on a page, each encapsulating an outfit in roughly the same color and style. Now there are fewer outfits with more white space between them. It’s less confusing to look at, and the larger photos allow the reader to actually get a decent look at the clothing. The best art by far, though, is found in the magazine’s photo essays. September has a montage of close-ups of the unusual looking body parts that play a role in a number of women’s careers. A firewoman’s arm, a ballerina’s feet, a violinist’s hands. These photographs tell far more about the women’s lives than the ensuing first-person blurbs.

November also has a photo essay whose pictures are worth innumerable words. “Love is a Battlefield” consists of blurry, grainy, and hazy photographs of women who live on a Marine Corps base, whose husbands (or fathers, brothers, etc.) are currently serving duty overseas. Most of the women aren’t looking at the camera, but their eyes still loudly tell the reader how sad or worried or hopeful they are. This is the kind of feature one would expect to find in Newsweek or Time, but the fact that it focuses on women makes it fit in just right with the new Marie Claire.

Editorial

I personally could not be happier that Marie Claire is focusing so much more on real issues. It appears to be a result of the backlash against the Ashlee Simpson article in which she insisted over and over that girls should be happy with how they look, then got a nose job right around the same time the issue hit the newsstand. I’m also impressed that the magazine kept some of the features they used to have, but improved upon them.

“10 Best to Do,” for example, has always been a really informative little feature; it describes in a few well-chosen words ten upcoming books, movies, and bands or CDs. An addition to the “10 Best” feature is the new “Culture” section, in which the magazine does more in-depth reviews of new books, film, and music. Within the same feature, they also list a few similar companions that have already been available for a while.

Marie Claire has also maintained some of the lighthearted, but slightly less superficial, articles, allowing the magazine to stay safely rooted in the “women’s magazine” category. September’s “The Ex Files” chronicles four women’s ex-boyfriends (and girlfriends). It’s not anything revelatory, but makes for some good vicarious fun. Pitting one lifestyle choice against another has also been a staple for as long as I can remember, and the new version does not disappoint. October has a story in which one woman could only communicate through computers and text messages and one through face-to-face interaction for a week. Whose week will go worse? This type of story is usually funny and allows the reader to compare the lifestyles in the article to her own.

Hands down, the best new part of this magazine is the “What I Love About Me” feature. This includes page after page of close-ups of everyday women who then explain their “beauty statement.” They choose things such as their large nose, weird hairstyle, makeup choices, or facial piercings. It’s so refreshing to see such a variety of non-modelesque smiling women who are happy with themselves and know how beautiful they are.

As for the articles on “real” issues, Marie Claire seems to have always had a knack for finding stories on issues around the world that are pertinent to women, and that no one knows about. I call it the “Who knew?” factor. September’s issue includes “Crime & Beauty,” a story about beauty pageants held in a Siberian prison, in which the winner oftentimes gets early release. October includes a story on female rescue squads in Islamic countries. These squads are necessary in natural disaster-prone countries where women are forbidden to be touched by men outside their families. November has an article on female journalists in the Middle East that is incredibly engrossing. All of these stories are on topics that just aren’t reported on in traditional news outlets, but they’re absolutely fascinating.

One aspect of Marie Claire that is really impressive is their ability to get interviews with seemingly untouchable people. November includes a lengthy article and interview with Lynndie England, the woman in the torture photographs from Abu Ghraib. This was the first interview she gave since being put in prison. The article covers her relationship with her former boyfriend and “ringleader” of the prison scandal, as well as her interactions with her infant son. It humanizes her without placing blame squarely on someone else. It’s very well-written overall, and is missing the annoying “cheerleader” voice that has permeated Marie Claire’s writing in the past.

September featured a wealth of similarly serious articles, including a fashion photo spread in which the model posed amid politicians, joined by snippets about each one. One story is about National Public Radio’s Baghdad bureau chief, Jamie Tarabay. Unfortunately, this one falls prey to the cheerleader intonation mentioned above, as one of its line breaks has the title “Craving a Miniskirt.” I realize that she has to wear certain clothing to avoid standing out too much, but did they really need to focus on something as trivial as a miniskirt? They could have used sunglasses, because Tarabay mentions that Iraqis like to be able to look you in the eye; or perhaps the food she says she misses, since food is a universal tie to home, unlike a miniskirt. It’s just too cutesy for the material at hand.

This “cheerleader” voice should really stay with clothing, makeup, and fluffy feature articles, and nothing else. It almost mocks the seriousness of the bigger issues. The editor’s letter has really unpleasant little catch phrases. In the November letter’s mention of its interview with actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, editor Joanna Coles writes, “Sounds like a script for a happy home life to us!” with regard to Gellar’s marriage. It made me want to gag. I suppose it could be argued that the magazine is just trying to talk to women in their own language, but I think that idea just doesn’t give women enough credit.

Speaking of celebrities, the articles on them could really use some work. The Gellar feature is just a page of questions and answers with no real writing. There isn’t even an introduction. It’s literally just a big letter “Q” and a colon. September’s story on Maggie Gyllenhaal is a bit better since it involves actual writing, but it’s just not that interesting. It doesn’t tell anything new or unusual about her. October’s cover story on Sarah Jessica Parker is far better; it focuses on the success of the launch of her first perfume and the work she’s putting in on her next scent. Although designing perfume may not be the most important decision she ever makes, it’s a side of the actress that you don’t see through television shows and the red carpet. Having a real focus created an actual story; and its length of a page and a half is just right.

Overall Impression

Marie Claire’s new look, simply put, is fantastic. Its articles and even small features are all very clever, sometimes witty, and mostly intelligently written. It has whittled down its fashion and beauty departments to shorter pieces that get to the point quickly and feature absolutely gorgeous photography. I especially love the close-ups of faces and makeup (a 12-inch vibrant red chunk of lipstick looks sparkly and delicious on a stark white background).

The magazine as a whole still seems to be a bit schizophrenic, though. The covers, for example, vary wildly from month to month. September was the goth Gyllenhaal/apple photo, October featured a more traditional laughing toothy-grinned Parker with windblown hair, and November a somewhat dull black and white close-up of a non-smiling Gellar. The Gyllenhaal photography inside is almost too edgy for this publication (she’s wearing crazy pouffy hair and the backdrop consists of a room covered in every inch by greenish-tinged grimy newspaper), while Parker’s is again traditional (just pretty shots of her in the perfume lab).

Then you have November’s article on the fact that women lag behind men when it comes to managing money—it’s immediately followed by “20 Things to Get Before You’re 40.” Not 20 things to do, 20 things to get, i.e. buy. And it includes things like “a big-ass TV” and “a serious ride” (luxury car, that is). These articles should not be in the same issue, much less separated by a mere page of ads. They stand in complete contrast to one another.

Despite the kinks that still need to be ironed out, however, Marie Claire’s changes are a welcome addition. I would still worry that some readers won’t like the fact that there are so many fewer makeup and clothing features, but the occasional special section would make up for that. If you flip over the October issue, in fact, you’ll find 78 pages of just beauty advice and articles. So long as Marie Claire keeps going in this same direction, I think it’ll do nothing but improve. The schizophrenia will probably work itself out as the new editor sinks into her position more.

Suggestions

Cut the cutesy stuff. Save it for superficial topics and purely entertainment articles. When it comes to the editor’s letter, leave the exclamation marks out. This is the very first thing readers will see after the table of contents, and it should speak for the rest of the issue.

Perhaps introduce some new subjects beyond clothes, makeup, and world issues. There’s more to being a woman than appearance and current events. There needs to be more about women’s health. Where is the article on the HPV vaccine? This is exactly the kind of topic Marie Claire should be writing on.

How about food and exercise? Recipes for tasty snacks that cover a gamut of fat and calories would be good. It could be set up like a timeline, with more fat on the left and less on the right. An article on “before bedtime” exercises that you can do on your floor (or even on the bed! That would be different.) would also be useful. These wouldn’t have to be monthly features, but there should definitely be more on these topics.

Lastly, the celebrity features either need to be more interesting, or need to go. Most of the writing in this publication is stellar, but the celebrity stories are dull thus far. If there isn’t anything particularly intriguing or news-worthy about the woman, just make it be a photo essay. The photography has proven to be more telling than some of the articles. So as long as it’s done well with a decent introduction, I don’t think anything would be lost.

winter fun

It was snowing the other day, and it was really pretty, so I took a picture. The photo uploader thingy didn't feel like working that day, so I'm trying to post again now. Here is my street:

Those would be my tire tracks. So pretty. But look how unfestive my street is--there is only one house with xmas lights (on the right).

Here are the pumpkins my parents grew at our cabin. Cute!

Too bad they're frozen now. So much for homemade pumpkin pie...


And here are Jon, Raquel, and Dante doing the Carl dance at the ice skating rink in Clinton Square:


Unfortunately the rink closed at 8 p.m., not 10, so we couldn't actually ice skate (hence our footware of sneakers and boots instead of skates). But I'm really adoring Clinton Square lately. The buildings surrounding it are all made of brick and stone and the rink is all lit up for Christmas. So lovely. I am loving winter this year.

Christmas in November

Last night Bob, Jon, and I went to Clark's Ale House for a couple hours. When we first got there, a guy was playing the accordion in the corner. How very unexpected. Sadly, he only stayed for about half an hour after we three got there, though. Afterwards we walked around Armory Square a bit looking for this church that may or may not actually be located downtown. I was hoping to take a picture of it for part of the cross-platform assignment, but the only reference I had to go on was a purposely blurry photograph of the church, with no address or name listed, by photographer Rik Pinkcombe (that's who my project is on).

We didn't find it, but we did end up wandering over to Clinton Square, and I suggested we check out the Christmas Tree. Such a fantastic idea! It was all lit up, as Friday night was the lighting ceremony. It was also ridiculously warm out, like 50 degrees, which is highly unusual for Syracuse. Normally it's below freezing and there's a foot of snow on the ground by now. So anyways, the tree is right on the edge of the little outdoor ice skating rink, so we played on the ice in our sneakers for a while. It was such great fun! I definitely need to make ice skating in Clinton Square a regular plan this winter.

Playing under the Christmas tree's light definitely put me in the holiday spirit, which up until now I was seriously lacking. I was a regular Scrooge. (Though can you blame me, what with all the Christmas decorations and stupid carols playing at the mall starting a month ago? Yech...)

a new love

I bought the new Be Good Tanyas CD, Hello Love, after listening to NPR feature them on "All Things Considered" the other day, and it is such a good record. The Be Good Tanyas are a Canadian female folk trio who I was introduced to through their song "The littlest birds," which is the theme song to the show "Weeds." They have this pretty, melancholy sound that I can't get enough of. One of my favorite songs off the new CD is "Nobody Cares For Me." It's very self-deprecating (or emo, if you will), but it's just so damn pretty and soothing. I was sitting on the floor of my room listening to it over and over last night. Here are the lyrics:

Lonesome is I, I wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
Lonesome is I, I wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
It was a bright moon light night, the moon shining bright,
when you and I made love
Your heart wasn't true, I'll say unto you,
I moaned like a turtle dove
Lonesome is I, wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
Lonesome is I, wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
I'm coming home, no more to roam,
darling I'm coming home
I'm coming home, no more to roam,
darling I'm coming home
Down in the pasture, where the birds are singing
You can’t hear nothing but what the birds are saying
Down in the pasture, where the birds are singing
You can’t hear nothing but what the birds are saying
It was a bright moon light night, the moon shining bright,
when you and I made love
Your heart wasn't true, I'll say unto you,
I moaned like a turtle dove
Lonesome is I, wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
Lonesome is I, wished I could die
Nobody cares for me

The other song that I looooooove is a cover of Prince's "When Doves Cry." They played it on NPR, and I thought it was really cool and different, but then I missed it the first couple times I listened to the CD because there's a minute of dead air before it starts and I apparently thought the CD was over before the song started. So then last night when I finally waited long enough to hear it, I absolutely fell in love with the song. I don't know which of the girls does the singing on this one, because it doesn't say in the liner notes, but her voice is husky and quiet, sort of like a whisper. She has a subtle vulnerability that works really with these lyrics. Plus the song overall sounds wildly different from the original. The only thing it has in common is the lyrics and the basic tune. I hate when a band covers a song and it ends up sounding exactly like the first version. I mean, what's the point? But this sounds distinctly like The Be Good Tanyas, not like a Prince song sung by a girl.

The point is, go buy this CD. It's fantastic.

new blog

Up until now, I've been using Livejournal as a "blog," but now that I'm starting to apply to internships (and soon it'll be jobs), I've come to accept that I need a more "professional" blog. So here it is. All the entries prior to this one were the ones I did in Livejournal from this past summer up to now.

How very exciting, no?

P.S. I have to note that I saw "Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny" the other day. It was HI-larious. JB and KG are two crazy cats. Then I followed it up with watching "School of Rock" and now I'm severely in the mood for "High Fidelity." It's been a Jack Black week.

neat-O

Found the coolest webcomic today while surfing around my usual haunts. It's called "Biozoic." The site's description says "On the prehistoric planet of Biozoic, life is short, quick, and brutal. At a lightning pace, creatures of all shapes and sizes fight to stay alive. This mostly improvised and wordless comic with a non-traditional story should appeal to fans of dinosaurs, aliens, monsters, and other creatures."

The creatures are really, really unique. Usually when you see people's renditions of aliens, they're humanoid, but these things take inspiration from dinosaurs and insects, with a little mammalian influences thrown in. So cool. Check it out:

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/gerry/biozoic/series.php

pretty...

I saw BalletNY on campus last Thursday night, which was the first ballet I've seen since the Nutcracker in elementary school. There was no set, and the performance was a collection of small dances, not one big story. BalletNY is a company that travels around the whole state, instead of just NYC. Check out www.balletny.org if you're curious.

As for the performances, they started out with the Syracuse-appropriate "Orange." The six dancers all wore orange outfits and the stage lights threw orange (and no other colors) onto them. I don't know if this is a regular performance or Syracuse-specific, but it was a nice little hometown touch regardless. The dancing included a lot of modern elements, which were awkward sometimes (like shimmying--I don't really know what that was about), but overall it was still pretty good. (One other thing--the orange outfits with the orange lights made the men's costumes blend into their skin, and they looked kind of naked. It was weird. If anyone has seen the movie "Dogma," think of the scene where Alan Rickman pulls down his pants for Linda Fiorentino.)

The second dance was "Othello," based on Shakespeare's play. Desdemona, Iago, and Othello were the only characters in this performance, and it only lasted about ten minutes. I thought it was okay, but not up to par with the play itself. Jon thought the dancers really conveyed the emotions, but I disagreed. I don't know if it was the dancers or the choreography, but I didn't see any passion between Desdemona and Othello. They did do a really good job of incorporating her scarf into the performance, though. It was wrapped loosely enough so that it would fall off easily (and then Iago stole it, blah, blah... look it up if you're not familiar with the play), and when it was falling off of her, I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be falling off or not--it looked genuinely accidental. Also, I was seriously impressed with stength of the dancer playing Iago. Othello was much taller and thicker him, but Iago picked Othello up by his hips at one point and was tip-toeing around with him in the air.

My favorite dance was the third, "Two's Company." It seemed the most "classical" of the three. It was two men and a woman, and the woman was obviously trying to choose between them. The story is pretty unoriginal, but the dancing was really beautiful. There were lots of swishes and exaggerated slow movements and their bodies were contorted into crazy angles a lot of the time. So pretty... And the lighting was absolutely phenomenal. The whole stage was really dark, but there was a sliver of white light that hit the dancers most of the time. And if they were standing in the right spot on the stage, massive shadows of theirs would hit the side wall of the auditorium, close to the ceiling. It really set the mood.

The last piece was called "Once before, Twice after." It incorporated a lot more modern elements. The four dancers used chairs for a good portion of it, which was weird. It sort of made me think of a strip club. The lighting was once again amazing, though. There were four circles on the stage, which formed a four-leaf clover shape, and then there was varying color and position changes of other lights. The music was also modern, with some techno influences, but it was (thankfully) not like music you'd hear in a club. I liked it a lot, actually.

Overall, I really enjoyed the whole night. And, really, how can you go wrong with tickets costing $2.50??

oh my goodness

Last night Linda, Bob, and I went to see stand up comedian Michael Ian Black (of I Love the 70s, 80s, 90s fame and Sierra Mist commercials) on campus. He was really funny, and somehow put up with all the embarassingly stupid things people were yelling during the question and answer portion at the end. Somehow Linda had found out ahead of time that there would be a reception afterwards at the Jewish center and that Michael Ian Black would be there. So the three of us went even though Linda was the only Jew among us. She and I were acting like idiotic fangirl stalkers at first, staring at him from across the room and giggling. We each asked him to sign a random magazine we had, which was awkward because everyone else had posters from the show and I had some student activist magazine. We also had Bob take our picture with him with Linda's cell phone camera, which I'm sure came off as equally moronic. Then we got the brilliant idea to ask him to get a drink with us.

We had to wait for all the vapid groupie girls to finish asking him about summer camp (really guys, all Jewish kids go to camp, it's not that special that he did too). And when we asked him, he shockingly said yes, even though he seemed really tired and sick of questions. So the four of us went to the bar at the Sheraton and hung out for two hours. He was really, really mellow and seemed maybe a little depressed, though he was probably just worn out from driving to Syracuse from NYC and dealing with dumb college kids all day. We mostly chatted about our program and just basic things. He only cracked jokes a few times, and of those, it seemed like he was just saying it to entertain us. He seemed like a really normal, mellow guy overall. He's married and said he was planning on taking his kids trick-or-treating for Halloween.

All in all, it was a bit awkward, but it was really nice of him to actually come out with us. In fact, the Hillel woman who was acting as his caretaker-of-sorts seemed quite perturbed when he said he was going with us, and was walking to the Sheraton with us no less (it's only three blocks from the Hillel house). So, yeah, he was pretty cool. Plus when I mentioned that I read comics, he said I can be a "cute comic girl who writes about comics" for a career. (Michael Ian Black thinks I'm cute! Tee-hee.)

I believe Linda said the same thing in her blog, but during his act, he claimed to google himself all the time. So if you come across this, M.I.B., thanks a lot for hanging out with us. You're a swell guy. And Stella is a really funny show.

Oh yeah, and I have to join Linda here as well, and say that he is absolutely adorable and I want to marry him (except for the fact that he's already married).

weekend

This past weekend was one of the best I've had in a while. Friday was the Tully Free Speech symposium, which was actually far more interesting than I had anticipated, so that was good. Afterwards Dave, Jon, and I got Korean food at Secret Garden, then watched "Wayne's World" and "Dodgeball" with Kathleen. Dave and I stayed up for a while more after the others left, just hanging out, which was cool because I used to stay up super late doing nothing with friends in undergrad, so it's been a while since last doing that.

Saturday Dave and I went to Highly Atomic Vintage, a vintage clothing and record store in Syracuse that turned out to be pretty damn cool. Their stuff cost a bit more than I would care to spend on used clothes and records, so I didn't buy anything. The point of going was to check out the fetish-inspired photography on display there by a local artist anyways. I really loved most of his photos, particularly the ones that used a lot of black and white contrasts. Most also had little shocks of bright color, like a model's red lips or auburn hair, or some other small detail. Really lovely stuff, and very sexy for the most part. I wrote a 300-word review about it for tomorrow's AJ class. And 300 words was tough, let me tell you. I could have spent pages describing every detail of the photos I liked best.

The weather was really, really beautiful, so we then went apple-picking in LaFayette. Of course on the way there, the clouds got more and more dark and ominous, and just as we were finishing picking apples, it started to hail like hell. But then ten minutes later, as we came back out of the apple and whatnot store, the sun was back out and the clouds were completely gone. It was crazy! So then we came back to my house, then went to Wegmans to get some stuff for my parents, and then parted ways. Later Dave, Jon, my sister, and I met up and went to the hip-hop show that Steve from high school was going to perform at. About half a dozen people I knew in high school (and actually liked) ended up being there, so that was really great. And the music was pretty damn good too. We eventually left and all went to an after-party for Jon's brother's comedy troupe, which turned out to be quite fun. It was full of nice people, including a bunch that spoke French! It's been a loooooong time since I've been to a decent house party, so I enjoyed that very, very much. Plus it was fun to go out with my sister. We will have to do so more often.

Today I woke up at noon, which was glorious, and my mother and I did a bit of shopping. I got a corduroy military-style cap, a leopard-print cardigan, and most importantly, Halloween costume supplies! I'm making a quasi-geisha outfit. I already have tabi socks and tatami sandals, so I just have to make the kimono, which I'm keeping short, because that's cuter and more fun. Cannot wait to get started, though I'm not entirely sure when I'll have the time. I finished my re-write of my last review and the review of the photography show for AJ class, and it's only 10:45! I can either go to bed now, and end up waking up at a decent hour tomorrow (and probably do more homework before heading off to school), or do more homework now and get up later tomorrow. Hmmmm...? Is there really any doubt as to which I'll choose? Bed now!

WHY???

Bec sent me a most frightening link today: http://store.delias.com/item.do?categoryID=821&itemID=46531&sizeFilter=&colorFilter=&brandFilter=

How the heck are stirrup pants back in style??? These have got to be one of the worst crimes of fashion in history. Since when is it flattering to have your crotch pulled six inches below where it's meant to be? Because that is precisely what stirrup pants do. Plain leggings are bad enough; they're ugly as sin. But leggings with stirrups? How can they be back in style? Everyone ridicules 80s clothing, but there seems to be an 80s element in style every year. Leg warmers? Those were pretty big a couple years ago. Leggings are still rearing their ugly, unfortunate heads, and now stirrup pants are inexplicably making a comeback. How is this possible? Have we learned nothing from our past fashion foibles??

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PANTS, PEOPLE???

oh well

I'm supposed to be treating this "blog" more seriously, posting my opinions on art and whatnot and less on my personal life... and write professionally with no cursing, but...

LOU REED IS A FUCKING GENIUS.

The polite police can stuff it. I finally started listening to the Velvet Underground boxed set tonight (which I received for my birthday almost two months ago). I started with the CD that's a bunch of demos of some of their most popular songs. The songs were basically screwups from when they were recording in the studio. Hearing Lou's unadulterated gravelly, scratchy voice was awsome. And then listening to him curse or laugh when they messed up was really entertaining. And as much as I adore Nico, and love her in "All Tomorrow's Parties," sorry, but Lou just does it better. It was his song, after all. Nico was just put in place by Andy Warhol. Him singing it is so much more genuine. I'm so glad I have these CDs. In fact, I think I'm gonna put one on and do some homework now.

nyc trip

Finally an update about the trip to NY (three days after I got back, of course):

Friday night I flew out of Syracuse. The plane was delayed. Annoying. The guy next to me on the plane was a sophomore from SUNY Oswego, and would not SHUT UP the whole way. Like 15 minutes before we landed, he finally overheard the girls behind us talking about smoking pot, and they turned out to be from the same college, so he started talking to them instead. I got to NY around 9:30ish and it took about an hour to take the Air Train to Jamaica and then the subway to the club where I met Susan, along with her sisters and some other people she knew. Susan and I chatted and such and eventually I ended up talking to her friend Anthony for most of the night. He was okay, but kind of aggravating because he was drunk and kept whining about how he's fat, bald, and old (none of which were actually true) and kept bringing up awkward conversation topics (like body hair) and also kept talking about all these art exhibits I should see. Pretentious drunks are tiring, especially when they bring up obscure modern artists and expect me to know every name they mention. Remind me not to tell artsy NY people what my field of study is anymore. I ended up practically falling asleep around 2 a.m., so I went back to Susan's sister Jackie's apartment and fell asleep, while Sus and Jackie stayed out until something like 5 a.m. even though Susan had class Saturday morning at 9 a.m.

So Saturday I slept really late for the first time in weeks, then went to the International Photography Museum for three hours. The museum is only two big rooms, but there was so much stuff there. It was organized really well, because even though there was a ton of stuff, it was all spread way out, so it didn't feel cramped. I'm really mad at myself for not writing down the name of this one artist... his (or her, I don't even remember that much) piece was these two MASSIVE (I'm talking like seven feet tall by nine feet wide) crystal clear photographs of a forest at night. But there was no flash, so it was really, really dark, and all you could see was the few tree trunks right in front, and even those were dark grey from the lack of light, with complete black emptiness behind them. It was so ghostly and beautiful. And I was really impressed with the quality, considering how big these were. You could see every little wrinkle in the bark. It was incredible.

Saturday night Susan and I went to a sushi restaurant with Sus' friend Erica. The restaurant was actually pretty cheap. My meal was only $15. The place was interesting... there were disco balls and weird stuff painted on the walls, and a DJ. It was set up like a club, basically. Then we went club/bar-hopping on the lower East Side (I think) with Erica's friend Rachel. First we went to some bar where there happened to be a burlesque show. The show itself was kind of lame because one of the dancers really sucked, but the host was hilarious. He was this monstrously tall gay guy in clear plastic stripper heels and a sparkly bright blue spandex suit from head to toe that had bunny ears and a tail. And he kept making fun of the people sitting in front because apparently they were acting prude. We eventually sauntered over to a couple other places. The first one seemed cool, but Erica and Rachel didn't like it, so they insisted on leaving. Then we found some place called "The Annex," which ended up being unexpectedly cool. They played kind of punk music, but stuff you could dance to, and at one point played "Under Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen. Unfortunately it was a tad too dark, so it was hard to tell if people were cute or not, but nobody really paid us any attention there anyways, so it didn't so much matter.

Sunday Susan and I went to Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, and hung out with her friends Jason and Brad. We went to this "artists' show," which turned out to be people selling homemade clothes and buttons, and old records and stuff. Hipster stuff, basically. Then ended up at a park and later got cheap dinner in a Mexican restaurant. I want to move there SO BAD.

Monday I hung out with Jon Hansen, and was going to hang out with Brad again, but didn't so much feel like it later and preferred to hang out with Jon, considering we haven't seen eachother in months. So we walked all over the city for like six hours and talked and talked. It was really cathartic. And we must have walked something like 10 miles. We ended up in Chinatown, South Street Seaport, Union Square, the East Village, walked all the way down Broadway until we reached some sketchy area... it was a lot of walking, needless to say.

Monday night I caught a 9:00 plane back. It was delayed. Again. So I got home late and was totally exhausted. Good times.

The Mix

This past Sunday saw the official release of The Mix, my grad program's zine-ish type publication that came as a special insert in the local newspaper, The Post Standard. Here is my official page, which you should also all take note is page number 4, which makes it the second article in the thing. Oh yeah, baby! Front of the magazine!

wasted weekend

I went to the Inner Harbor today with Jon Ross to see a Dave Matthews cover band and a Sublime cover band to review for the Newtimes. I'm not really much of a Dave Matthews fan, and the Sublime band basically sucked. Here is my review:

Title: Just Plain Bad

Sunday was an ideal day to spend at Syracuse’s Inner Harbor. The sun was shining, the temperature was pleasant, and any native would recognize it as possibly the last nice day of the year. You would think it would be the perfect day to see a couple of bands covering songs by two popular and relatively summery-sounding acts.

You would be wrong.

Well, halfway wrong, that is, as the opening band, “One Sweet World,” a Dave Matthews cover band, actually wasn’t too bad. One Sweet World was extremely faithful to the original songs, and even included a saxophone player (who had four different types of sax to choose from) and a violinist.

Lead singer Anthony Iglesias did an admirable job evoking Dave Matthews’ gentle voice, but couldn’t quite reach the high-pitched plateaus Matthews manages. His voice was also a bit scratchier than Matthews, and the signature syllabic emphasis was a bit off at times, but overall it was a valiant try that mostly succeeded.

The best thing about One Sweet World was undoubtedly its violinist. Though all the musicians were clearly talented, the mere existence of the violin gave this band something extra. Because so many of the Dave Matthews Band’s songs include unique and conspicuous violin parts, it is essential that a cover band have a decent fiddler.

If you are a fan of the Dave Matthews Band, One Sweet World will not disappoint. Their set, though, was nearly two hours long, which is highly unusual for an opener. And after One Sweet World’s last song, a Dave Matthews-esque rape of Jimi Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower, it felt like the show should have simply ended.

The headliner, Sublime cover band “Badfish,” started out with Garden Grove, an appropriate start, as it’s the first track off of Sublime’s self-titled album. There were no turntables, though, so it sounded decidedly different than the original. In addition, unlike Sublime’s Brad Nowell, the vocalist didn’t enunciate enough, making it unnecessarily difficult to understand the lyrics.

The singer continued this near-slurring of words throughout most of the songs, which just worsened the slow speed at which they were played. The short, quick Same in the End wasn’t played nearly as fast and enthusiastically as the original, completely losing the frenetic, fun sound it’s supposed to have.

Perhaps the worst offense was their version of the immensely popular Wrong Way. The original includes a trombone, but Badfish instead incorporated a mediocre alto saxophone. The trombone’s speedy and lively solo was completely lost, being replaced by a sub-par saxophone attempt.

Somehow Badfish has become a nationally known group, and the audience was certainly enjoying themselves, with plenty of people dancing and singing along (though by then, it could have simply been the influence of copious beer). But to this Sublime fan, they were truly nothing special. You’d be better off popping in one of their CDs with the volume turned up.

Project Runway

I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY BROUGHT BACK VINCENT AND ANGELA. Those two couldn't design their way out of a paper bag. And Vincent is clearly psychotic. Everything he makes "gets him off." Ew. Like I really want that image in my head. I don't like the fact that they brought anyone back, but they could have at least brought back Alison. Other than her awful paper dress, her designs were sublime.

In other news, Yom Kippur is coming up in a couple weeks, which means I get another three-day weekend. Which means I can try to go to NYC again to see Mike and Susan, and hopefully it will work out this time. Jetblue has plane tickets for that weekend that cost less than a Greyhound, so I really want to go. And I need to buy the tickets asap because the price goes up the closer you get to the date of travel, but I couldn't get in touch with either of them tonight. Why is it so difficult to reach these two?? I miss New York City! This was the first summer in four years that I didn't go there, and for the past two years, I've been getting myself down there at least twice a year. Well at least I'm guaranteed to be there in January for the arts journalism immersion course. And I'm hoping to additionally go there a few days earlier than the rest of the class to celebrate New Years Eve. I have never celebrated New Years-EVER-even though I want to pretty much every year. So this year had better be the exception, damnit!

hooray for free speech

I just finished writing my first brief for Media Law on the Times v. Sullivan case. As much as I've been whining about this class and how boring it is, that actually wasn't so bad. And I SUPPOSE I like learning about first amendment stuff when you get right down to it. If I intend to be a journalist, then I should probably know the laws that directly affect me anyhow. Hopefully we will get to all the sex and obscenity stuff soon, though, because that should be extra fun. And lord knows I have lots to say regarding "obscenity." Like maybe the fact that it's completely subjective? A couple hundred years ago, showing your ankles was considered obscene. Now 13-year-olds walk around with their thongs hanging out the back of their pants and Abercrombie & Fitch ads are practically soft core porn. Granted, I don't particularly enjoy seeing either of those things, but why is that okay, while a naked breast is DOOM! Shield the littles ones' eyes! Not a breast! Not the thing they ATE FROM FOR A YEAR.

The FCC is full of crap and unconstitutional, if you ask me. It's called a v-chip, people. Or you could always, you know, TURN THE TV OFF!

Yeah...

Anyways! I also voted today. Go me. I love voting. I vote for any little thing I can- school board, comptroller, all that stuff where no one really knows what the position actually entails. It's good stuff.

interesting day

Today I went to a talk given by George Cham, the creator of the webcomic, "Piled Higher and Deeper." He was a grad student earning his PhD (like 10 years ago) in some form of engineering, but ended up drawing this comic about how much grad school sucked and now making the comic, and doing talks and such, is his full-time job. So basically this guy spent years being miserable in grad school, only to end up with a "job" completely unrelated to his field of study. Wow, am I ever happy to be in a one-year masters program on a subject that I completely adore. Although I have to say, he was pretty damn funny. Plus he was kinda cute and there was free food afterwards.

When I walked home from the bus stop later, I was listening to the Talking Heads song, "Don't Worry About the Government," and I definitely danced the entire four blocks to my house. It was great. I seriously couldn't help myself. It's SUCH a good song. I think it's going to have to be my new favorite by them.

I made a very fattening quiche (mmm, creme fraiche) for dinner tonight after eating a couple of those mini-quiches at the George Cham thing. Then on Project Runway, the contestants were in Paris. It was a French-filled evening. I miss France so much. I can't even begin to explain how jealous I am that my parents are there right now and I'm not, especially since they're currently in Veules-les-Roses (it's in Normandy), which is my favorite place to be in the entire world. Even more than New York City. It is the most charming, most French town you could possibly see. There are houses with thatched roofs and cows everywhere. And the ocean is spectacular. The water is pretty cold (though I always go swimming anyways-how could you not??), but low tide is incredible. The beach at high tide is all big rocks, which are not so comfortable to lie or walk on, but at low tide sand stretches for hundreds of feet. The beach is also encapsulated by these incredible white chalk cliffs, so you can hike along the edge of the cliff in one direction and come back along the beach during low tide.

Oh and one more thing before I quit procrastinating and do some real work: When I was walking my dog this afternoon, a middle-aged couple passed by me, and the man had a big red and green parrot perched on his shoulder-like a pirate! It was like, "Well, there's my dose of surrealism for the day."

busy, busy, busy...

I have somehow been keeping myself exceedingly busy during my two free weeks. Who would have thought? I volunteered at the art park's pottery fair last weekend, for one thing. Granted, all I did was cook hot dogs, but they were super tasty, especially since it was chilly and rainy most of the time. I bought a ceramic fish for my parents to put in the cabin and couldn't resist buying myself this really pretty vase. It's about eight inches high, more narrow at the base, and flairs out a bit at the top. It's a light teal color with vaguely Japanese-esque scribbly leaves on it. I'm very pleased with the purchase, I must say.

Then what did I do for the rest of this week? A lot of puttering around, I guess, and preparing for classes. I attempted to buy books online, but the used prices were no cheaper than the bookstore's used prices, so I opted for the store, since I would get them much sooner that way. Alas, the store did not have a single of my books. Some of them they apparently got in the day after I tried to buy, but the store didn't even have a section for Magazine classes, even though I know there are required books for the class. This was very confusing.

I went to Binghamton for the night Wednesday, and hung out there a bit on Thursday. I saw Johanna, Meghan, Coworker Dan, and Teht. I expected to feel all nostalgiac about Bingo since I just graduated, but instead I felt decidedly disconnected. After living in Binghamton for four years, I've developed a newfound respect for Syracuse (there is way more to do here, and there are actual jobs). So my return to Bingo really solidified my opinion that it's a horribly depressing city. There are so few oppurtunities there. Lockheed Martin is getting a bigger presence there as we speak, though, so assuming they don't outsource everything, hopefully it will help. Of course, it may also follow IBM's shitty example, and after helping the economy recover, just up and leave for cheaper labor, etc. elsewhere.

I watched the movie "Scotland, Pa." with Jon and Dave Thursday night. At first we tried to rent this random John Cusack movie, but it was so obscure that Blockbuster didn't actually carry it, which I find rather amusing. The DVD case was on the shelf by mistake. "Scotland" was an interpretation of "Macbeth" set in the 1970s. I have yet to read "Macbeth," but Dave claimed the movie was genius, so apparently it was pretty faithful to the original motifs and such. Then I made them watch the anime movie "Millenium Actress," which is one of my absolute favorite anime films. It's about an aging actress whose films paralleled parts of her life. So you get scenes of her life interspersed with scenes from her movies. Sometimes it's hard to tell the two apart, which I REALLY like. Plus it's by one of my favorite directors, Satoshi Kon. It's a really beautiful film.

Let's see... Yesterday I took my dog to the vet and on the way home he shit on the seat and then sat in it, so I spent the better part of the day cleaning it. Gross. In the evening Bec and I went to Dinosaur BBQ since this is her last week before leaving for grad school at Dartmouth. It was super delicious, as always. I wish they would quit trying to put Dinosaur in other cities, though. The one in Rochester is hardly the same. It's more like a family restaurant. It's supposed to be a dirty biker bar-type place. And Bec said the one in Harlem got bad reviews. Now, how many aging, fat bikers with long beards and ponytails in leather do you see riding around on their Harleys in Harlem? Not too many, I would wager. I just don't think it works.

Today I went to the first annual Clinton art and music festival (in Clinton, N.Y.). It was pretty good, actually. There were tons of bands of all different styles. I watched a sort of folksy rock band for a while that had an upright bass, drums, and a ukelele. Now there's something you don't see every day. Most of the art was pretty amateur other than the potters and this one painter. But even that one painter had really sweet, country style. Why is that the only painting style you ever see at things like this? Don't people have any different tastes? Oh well. I discovered the festival through Mike's band's (Sinister Yu) website, because they were among the bands playing. But then he wasn't even there with the rest of the band. Maybe he quit? At that point I'd been there by myself for almost three hours anyways, so I decided I was bored and came back home.

Tomorrow night there is an opening at the art park, but I don't know if I'm going to go. I want to, but I've been driving so much lately that I don't really feel like going anywhere for a while. Plus the Emmys are tomorrow and I want to see if "Arrested Development" will win again. I certainly hope so.

My parents left for France this morning, so I have the house to myself for the next two weeks. But since classes start Monday, I'm sure schoolwork will keep me pretty occupied and I won't feel lonely in the big house. Plus I have the dog.

Whew. That is enough writing for tonight.

oops

When I was writing in here yesterday, I totally forgot to include the fact that I watched a performance of "The Taming of the Shrew" in Thornden Park last night with Bec. I hadn't read the play, and I have to say, I don't like it very much. I actually prefer the movie version "10 Things I Hate About You." Katarina's speech at the end pisses me off. She turns herself into her husband's slave after he spent the entire play practically raping her. Yeah. Okay.

So last night when I was trying to fall asleep, it occured to me how weird Thornden Park is. There is a huge public pool and there has been football practice for really little kids there for the past few weeks. Then there's a playground and you also get the ice cream truck driving through the park all day long. So it seems like a family-type place. There is also the amphitheatre, where they have Shakespeare being performed. And there is a gorgeous rose garden with little paths going through it. So it has a cultured edge to it as well, I guess. And then you have seriously frightening instances of crime, like the murdered body being found there last year. I would never walk through that park after dark.

So you end up with family-friendliness, culture, and crime all in one place. How does that kind of dynamic even happen? Syracuse is a weird place. It's like a bad neighborhood every few square blocks, and then every other OTHER few square blocks is upscale, relatively crime-free neighborhoods.

it's been a while...

So I really need to update this thing more often. I'm supposed to be writing in an official "blog" because apparently you have to do that if you want to be a journalist these days. So jeez, what have I been doing lately? Last Friday was the last day of "boot camp" and we spent it going to Cooperstown to see the opera at Glimmerglass. We saw "Jenufa," which turned out to be so much better than I was anticipating. We watched this awful dvd of a performance prior to the real opera, and then I was told that the real opera was set in the old west. Turns out it was actually set in what appeared to be depression-era midwest. Plus the singer at the real opera was way better than the dvd girl. The actress in the dvd made this horrific expression throughout the entire thing-even when she was supposed to be happy. It was like she was being tortured or something.

Anyways, then Saturday I watched "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" with some AJ kids. The whole movie made no sense whatsoever. It was 60s psychedelic nonsense. With lots of unneccessary boobies. Though funnily enough, it was written by Roger Ebert.

For the rest of this past week I haven't been doing much of anything. Yesterday was my 22nd birthday, so my family went to dinner at Secret Garden and had yummy Vietnamese and Japanese food. That place has the best shrimp tempura ever.

Tomorrow I'm volunteering at my beloved art park during the pottery/ceramics fair, though all I'll be doing is making and serving hot dogs. But I figure I'll at least get a couple free hot dogs out of it and some fresh air.

i heart art

Yesterday I went to the art park for something like the fifth time in the past two weeks. Jon and Raquel joined me at artist Al Zaruba's discussion. He showed slides of his work and some videos of his dancing in these massive costumes he makes that look like dumpy, mutated Big Birds. It was pretty impressive. A lot of the time when I listen to artists speak, their explanations seem kind of like bs. But Al seemed pretty genuine. Or maybe I'm just getting better at understanding art through this program. I'm going back to the park again tomorrow for music and then a mini film fest. The last film night I attended there was amazing. The films were all fantastic.

The most fun thing about yesterday's trip, though, wasn't actually the artist's talk. When we were leaving, Raquel, Jon and I noticed a cornfield on the side of the driveway. So I go "Do you want to pick some??" And we pulled over and actually tried to pick corn. Then not only was the corn not ripe yet, but there were mosquitoes everywhere. So we pretty much just waved our arms around for a while trying to avoid them and then got back in the car. It was pretty ridiculous.