The Kind of Music Listener I am (according to the Sundance Channel)

 

dating terrorist

People at the New York Public Library think I am a social pariah/dating terrorist.
I’m at the library this afternoon, studying for the GRE. After a long section of probabilities, I decided to take a break and write some emails. In trying to make an analogy to a friend about how our freedom from being monitored and statistically labeled is “dissolving like roofies in a daiquiri,” I needed to look up the correct spelling of ‘roofy’. So i Googled it.
A moment later, I turn around, and there’s a guy standing behind me, staring at my screen filled with roofy links. He apparently had a question about connecting his Mac to the library network, and thought I could help him (do I have APPLE NERD labeled on my back?). So now both Google and this NYPL Mac user think I’m planning on drugging and having my way with some woman tonight. If they only knew that I’m so bad at talking to girls at bars, I probably end up roofying my own drink.

 

man on fire

why does Obi Wan leave Darth Vader to be burned alive with no legs and one arm in Episode III, instead of ending his misery by chopping off his head? Vader is clearly suffering, and it has to be against the Jedi code to allow people to be burned alive after losing three of their four extremities.
George Lucas sucks.

 

The Year’s Girl

I imagine argument could be had on this point, but I would say I’m not prone to sentimentality. My parents, while hardly dispassionate, are not sentimental people. I pride in keeping my list of sacred attachments very short. Nevertheless, today was a wonderful day in this city I’ll be forsaking shortly. After spending the afternoon of fresh conversation with a old friend, I spent the evening with my cousin. Dinner at his UES apartment was expectedly delicious, followed by sheesha and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, with commentary. The night ended with a cool walk from 86th St. to 50th St. with This Year’s Model blasting as soundtrack.
Putting aside how lame ‘blasting’ Elvis Costello may sound (I’ve never claimed to have 26-year-old ears), I’m aware of how comfortable New York City has become for me. I feel like I walk through the streets like Mowgli swinging through the jungle. I neither feel cramped on the 6 train at the height of rush hour, nor feel alone walking down an empty Park Ave. at 12:30 am on a Sunday.
Which is why, beyond parks and startups and California wine, I am excited for SF. I know this jungle is mine and I’m craving unfamiliar fruit.

Technorati Tags: New York

 

4th of Dada

With the patriotic orgy of fireworks, barbecue food, and flag waving around the corner, I naturally spent my Sunday afternoon seeing the exhibit at the MoMa on the self-consciously internationalist, anti-nationalist Dada movement.
The show really resonated with me, probably because the movement’s often overtly anti-rationalist political agenda- from pointing out the senselessness of WWI to critiques of the technology that made the war so horrific- were ideas that I could grasp and relate to while still appreciating the aesthetic.
Dada was an urban movement across several European cities and New York. While sharing an overall deconstructionist theme, the movement manifest itself in different ways in each city, and the MoMa successfully leveraged the geographic disparities in the layout of the exhibit. I was particularly struck by the artwork created in Berlin and New York. The Dadaist in Berlin seemed to be especially concerned with the aftermath of the war. Lots of amputees and half-human mechanized figures. One artist sketching in the early 1920’s had already identified and satirized the Nazis as highly problematic.
The New York movement, characterized by Marcel Duchamp’s fountain, was more about simultaneously critiquing American consumerism and the world of high art.
Dada, influenced by the First World War, was hugely influential in shaping the art and ideas well into the 20th century. I wonder what kind of response our expeditions into Iraq and support of occupation in Palestine is creating in the Arab artistic community? Dada grew out of specific geographic crucibles, initially spawned in neutral cities of New York and Zurich, but was deliberately international. I don’t know whether those kind of artistic communities are viable or even available to artists in the Middle East today.