Runs With Bull

NYC Visitors & Pittsburgh, PA trip / April-May 2011

2011-05-10T09:50:00.000-04:00

First things first, my red corduroy couch is now white with beautiful black pillows thanks to my mom's visit. She was in NYC for a few weeks in April, and we had a blast just walking around the city and catching up on movies. She also did a fair amount of reorganizing in my apartment, and for that, I am super grateful. It was the kind of stuff that I'd wanted to do forever (like organize my CDs, clean out the pantry, etc.) but never got around to doing because I live in New York and there are far more fun things to do when there's free time.

This pic was taken at the South Street Seaport where we took a harbor cruise on Ma's birthday. It was WAY colder than we had anticipated, and we had to duck into Ann Taylor to buy and put on tank tops underneath our blouses. We went to Union Square Cafe for dinner. It's a Danny Meyer restaurant, which means it was absolutely delicious. Ma had the cod with yukon gold potatoes and mushrooms in a light broth, and I had the lamb chops with sauteed chard and potatoes au gratin. We had the brownie with Kahlua ice cream for dessert, and we were in a massive food coma for the rest of the night. It was her birthday after all. Winning!

Then my pals Brooke and Nick came to visit, and I spent the day walking around the upper east & west side with them, complete with a necessary Pinkberry visit. We ended our exploration with drinks at the Empire hotel. Turns out we all have an unhealthy love of all things Gossip Girl.

Then we went out to Brooklyn. Yes, BROOKLYN. (Nick & Brooke have superpowers which get me to do unlikely things.) It was Cinco de Mayo, and we met our friend Bryan for dinner at a place called Chiles & Chocolate which was delicious, and then we went to Littlefield for a brass band concert.

I went home early, because I hadn't packed yet for Raquel & Dante's wedding which was last weekend in Pittsburgh, PA. This sign is the street where our hotel was located, and well, being word nerds, Carl and I literally smirked every single time we drove onto it.

The wedding weekend was lovely, thanks to our gracious hosts. The wedding itself was beautiful, and of course, the bride looked stunning in her Steve McQueen gown. It was a lot of fun getting together with classmates from grad school, seeing friends of D & R's that I'd met through the years of knowing them, and getting to know new friends and family of theirs.

This is me getting ready for the wedding.

My friend Carl and I took the time to do some sightseeing as well. Pics below are from our walks and drives around town.

This is the view from the top of the Dusquesne incline.

This is me in front of PNC Park, which made me want to skip my flight and take in a ballgame instead. What a beautiful stadium with a perfect view of the city skyline in the outfield!

Austin in October 2010

2011-02-06T12:29:00.000-05:00

I'm terribly behind in posting these pics, but I've got a week off and I intend to catch up! These pics are from my vacation last fall in Austin, TX. The visit with my family was wonderful, and I did everything from biking at Town Lake to buying beautiful pottery to playing golf to hearing some great music at Austin City Limits festival. (Ending with sitting next to the Strokes on the flight back to NYC! They were slumming it in coach with me.)

Annika and Saira after indulging in a huge cupcake on South Congress.

Anirban is helping them indulge.

My brother Anindya took us to a driving range.

It was harder than it looks on TV.

Sonia, my sister-in-law kicked all of our butts with her athletic abilities.

My cousin Sumit is also a pro.

Sumi and I were up very early to go to the temple, so we decided to pose for a few pics while we were at it.

Annika and I are ready for a day of music at ACL.

Saira is delighted with the new tiara her mom bought her at the costume shop on South Congress.

Resurrection

2010-09-20T10:50:00.005-04:00

Hi folks,
After quite a long hiatus, I am going to start writing again. Apologies for going MIA for so long. NYC is quite a busy place, and hopefully I'll be able to write about interesting things that happen here. I didn't plan ahead when I decided to resurrect this blog this morning, so I don't have a lot of pics or terribly interesting topics to share with you guys this time. So I'll just tell you about my weekend, and we'll go from there.

(Lovely Central Park shot from last summer.)

Last weekend was quintessentially New York. I spent Friday night out in Hell's Kitchen with some friends. Saturday, I hung out in Central Park where my fabulous new profile photo was taken, and then I met a friend in the West Village for a delicious Thai dinner. It was a beautiful, cool night, so after dinner, we walked through Washington Square Park all the way over to the Lower East Side where we had dessert at a lovely Italian place.

Sunday, I relaxed a bit before heading over to the Rubin Museum where I volunteer from time to time. Last night, there was an amazing classical music performance by an artist named Hahn-Bin. He is certainly virtuous, but he worked with the museum's production staff to create a multi-faceted performance with mood lighting. He breathed life into the music with his musical talent, facial expressions, physical movements and even with his costumes. Most notable was a bright red puffy shirt adorned with a black silk rose for the piece based on themes from Bizet's Carmen.

Artists that perform at the Rubin are asked to tour the museum, and then choose their performance pieces based on something at the museum that inspires them. Hahn-Bin chose the five poisons as his theme and broke up his performance into three groupings. (I didn't save the program, so I can't remember what the exact breakdown was.) There were pieces from Ravel, John Cage, and even a very morose, modernist version of "Silent Night" which prompted the moderator to comment that he'd be avoiding Christmas at Hahn-Bin's house this year during the short Q&A at the end of the show.

(This photo has no context other than it features me with the amazing Alan Cumming who stopped by at TWC earlier this year. I normally don't bother CNN guests, but I HAD to meet this one. And this post needed some color. So insert out-of-context photo here. Here's a stretch at making it work - last night I watched Masterpiece Mystery! and AC is the host of that program.)

After my duties at the Rubin concluded, I decided to check out the new Trader Joe's that recently opened in Chelsea. Holy cow. I had forgotten what a treasure trove of delightful goodies exist at TJ's! My eyes grew bigger than my stomach, and I stocked up on everything and vowed to do a very anti-New Yorker thing this week - BRING MY LUNCH TO WORK. Now that I've made that vow public, I plan to live up to it. I'm going to post my lunch ideas on this very blog, so fellow friendly foodies out there, please chime in and give me more ideas for healthy, easy lunches (that are not sandwiches). And, as always, thanks for reading!

Spring is here! (Hopefully)

2009-04-23T10:37:00.009-04:00

It's supposed to be 80-something degrees this upcoming weekend, and this morning, there was actually a fair amount of sunlight streaming into my apartment through the windows. My sister-in-law was telling me last night about the amazing garden she's cultivating in Austin, and I felt pangs of desire to start my own. So here's my effort at my own urban garden.

I've planted seeds for rosemary, parsley, oregano, and basil. This weekend, I'll try to get some more pots to start seedlings of okra, cucumbers, and maybe even some flowers. I'd like to grow tomatoes and eggplant again as well - I had a lot of success with those plants last summer. We'll see how the New York summer fares for this stuff.

I have the tiniest little fire escape which will barely house these guys once they germinate, and the weather gets consistently warmer. It's plenty for a single gal like myself, though.

This plant is my lonely little gerber daisy that had beautiful brick-orange colored flowers last week. I think it'll bloom again soon, but for now, it's adding a necessary bit of green in my drywall and brick apartment.

Recap of my parents' visit: It was a lot of fun having them here. My mom took over the kitchen and my dad fixed and/or put together whatever he could in my apartment. The result - a well fed and very organized Manashi. They even bought me a small dining table, which my cousin was good enough to help my father put together. Good stuff. My parents went out to Jackson Heights one day and stocked up on Indian snacks and spices (which, apparently, I did not have enough of.) My cousin was also in town on Easter Sunday, and we all went to the Met and walked through Central Park that day. I sent my parents to see Blithe Spirit, which I raved about in a previous post. They enjoyed the play quite a lot, and I was just relieved that they got the jokes. My mom and I went to see a new Broadway show - 9 to 5 - which we both loved. The funny plot, solid acting, spectacular sets, and catchy songs all came together to make a really fun show.

(Above photo taken from the Roundabout Theater Company's website.)

And finally, last Sunday I went, with some girlfriends, to see The Philanthropist starring Matthew Broderick and Steven Weber. I really enjoyed it, but most people in the audience (my pals included) didn't really get the point of the play. It was one of those heady, absurdist plays that doesn't really have much of a plot, and I liked the subtle nuances of the oddball characters. Moreover, I was quite excited to see Matthew Broderick on stage. Steven Weber was very effective, too - I thought he made a fantastic network head on Studio 60, and it's wonderful to see him playing roles that differ from his carefree, never serious character on Wings.

Hooray for high speed rail!

2009-04-17T09:12:00.003-04:00

I have to post this link which outlines Obama's plan for a high speed rail system. This is something I have longed for since I first went to study in England, many years ago. I loved the idea of just getting on a train and being in another country within a few hours. I went to Paris on the Eurostar so many times when I lived in London, and it was so much easier and more comfortable than dealing with the airport lines and security checks, not to mention the long-distance journeys out to the airport. I have fantasized having an efficient train system in this country - it would be so nice to jump on an overnight train and be in Atlanta the next day. No fuss, just countryside views and a place to plug in my laptop. I am not so naive as to think this plan will pass instantly, but I am thrilled that someone is finally lobbying for this type of system. Here's hoping it comes to fruition someday soon.

Busy, busy, busy

2009-04-03T07:44:00.007-04:00

I haven't been posting much because I haven't really been taking a lot of pictures lately. The weather in New York has been absolute crap, and it hasn't made me want to do a whole lot outside of my apartment. I did go to the Frick Museum with some friends a couple of weekends ago. The Frick is a beautiful mansion on 5th Ave. overlooking Central Park. It was owned by a millionaire who was also an eccentric art collector. The collection contains a large number of Dutch masters, among other paintings and sculptures. My friend Dante and I were more interested in the architecture of the house. There seemed to be little buttons and secret panels all over the place. Unfortunately, we didn't get to peek inside the panels or push any of the buttons, but we enjoyed our visit there.

I have been seeing a lot of shows lately, too. Last month, I saw Guys and Dolls with Lauren Graham and Oliver Platt. Frankly, my Gilmore Girl obsession is what drove me to pay a ridiculous amount of money to see this show. It hasn't been getting very good reviews, and my two theater buff pals said it was "just ok." Yet, I went to see it anyway. I have to agree: it was pretty mediocre. Of course, the music is solid and excellent on it's own, but it wasn't enough to make me love this show and recommend it to my friends.

Graham, of course, is charming and lovely, but Platt was just flat. I didn't care about his character one bit, and if I remember correctly, in the movie, he's kind of the underdog that you ARE supposed to like.

My girl friends and I made a day of it, and we had a good time overall. We started with brunch at the Eatery in Hell's Kitchen, and then we did a little browsing and shopping around Times Square and even had time to grab a drink before the show. So it was a fun day out. Here's a pic of me and Alana at the restaurant. She's getting her groove on with that cool hat.

Last month, I also saw Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit which was delightful. It stars Angela Lansbury and Rupert Everett in a very British comedy of errors involving prankster ghosts. I highly recommend this show to anyone. Also, Lansbury is a theatrical icon, and she is hilarious as spectral specialist Madame Arcati.

This month should be full of more posts... my parents are coming to visit, and the weather is starting to look up. Hopefully that means lots of touristy activities, and more shows to come.

*Photos totally pilfered from the internet - except the one of me and Alana. Our friend Jena took that one.

CNN has a new flip thing?

2009-02-23T18:39:00.002-05:00

I totally missed the replacement of the crawl, but one of my favorite TV blogs is all over it!

I also never understood the point of the crawl - on the financial nets, it was nice to see the stock prices scrolling by, so it made sense there. But why did the news nets decide it was a good idea to distract their viewers instead of just giving them the news? Have we as a culture become so attention-deficient that we can't watch 30 minutes of straight news without video game gimmicks to keep us interested?

NYC Concert week

2008-11-17T11:06:00.008-05:00

Last week was a big week, entertainment-wise, and it was oh-so-much fun! The entertainment-stravaganza started with seeing "Black Watch" at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon. This Scottish production about the Iraq war makes great use of multimedia effects and an usual stage space to tell a very dynamic story about soldiers who find themselves in the midst of "the worst foreign policy disaster in history." (Their words, and my sentiments exactly.) The run of this play was initially supposed to be for six weeks only, but now it's running through Dec. 21, probably due to the amazing reviews the show is receiving. I believe this is the second run for this group and this show in New York. I highly recommend that everyone see this show if they can.

Then, later on Sunday night, I went to see Marc Broussard at the Filmore at Irving Plaza. Broussard played a lively show for an eager crowd. It was a little shorter than I was expecting, and he seemed a little homesick and tired. He commented that it had been a long tour when he teared up while singing a song about his son. Very moving indeed. Seeing as my friends and I all had to get up early the next day, we were pleasantly surprised that the show was over before midnight. It was a good time.

Thursday, I saw Butch Walker at the sister theater to Irving Plaza, the Blender Theater at Gramercy. Walker's show was not only energetic, but the crowd was attentive and surprisingly quiet for a rock concert. They wanted to hear every note, and the rocker gave them a good, long earful. It was a lengthy show, starting out with several slower, introspective songs played solo by Walker. Then the band came out, and the pace picked up. Most of the setlist was made up of songs from the new album "Sycamore Meadows" which came out the week before. Many of the tunes referenced Atlanta, which, of course, made it all that more endearing to me. (The CD is really good, in case anyone is interested.)

Saturday night, I dragged my pal Sam to see Bob Schneider (who is faintly pictured above) at the Bowery Ballroom. This rock show was the most raucous of the shows I saw last week. Sam had taken a quick listen to BS's website and was not immediately impressed, but I promised that it would be a good live show. And Schneider definitely gave us more than that. He had a fantastic band backing him up. I hadn't seen these musicians with him before, but they were tight, as if they'd been playing together for years. They fed off the energetic (and intoxicated) crowd who were loudly singing along to most of the songs. Between us, Sam and I bought several CDs after the show, and we got him to sign some of our swag as well. As always, Schneider is a super nice guy, and it was worth hanging out and waiting for a quick chat. BS is playing a solo acoustic show in Brooklyn next month on Dec. 10.

Between all of the venues, I think the Blender at Gramercy was my favorite. It was intimate, there were seats (yes, I'm old), and the acoustics were premium.

And Sunday, I went to see the new 007, "Quantum of Solace." I don't really think I need to give any additional details on this movie, since there are about 1000 reviews online. I love this kind of spy-action stuff, Daniel Craig is hot, and who doesn't love a British accent? So I liked the movie. 'Nuff said.

This week should be less fun, er... active, as I am working an evening shift. So my mornings will be filled with laundry, grocery shopping, and catching up on bills. I'm heading to Atlanta to see the fam' for some kind of big foodie holiday that's happening a couple of Thursdays from now. Atlanta folks - I'll see y'all soon.

My job is something else

2008-11-03T01:08:00.005-05:00

Since I'm in a new city now, I've been trying out a lot of things lately - I'm constantly going to many different events in an effort to meet new people and make new friends. As a result of that, I've been in full-time explanation mode - what's my name? where did I move from? why did I move? what do I do? etc, etc, etc. I don't mind these questions. I inquire the same things from people, because it's a way to find commonality or obtain familiarity with someone new.

As I was sitting in the control room for hours this afternoon, watching election rehearsals and waiting for the 8pm special to begin, I thought a lot about the "Get to know Manashi" Q&A sessions at which I'm becoming quite adept. I'm feeling a bit drained from all the new introductions and fielding questions. And as I thought more deeply about it, I realized that working in TV news is one of the only professions where people find it acceptable to bombard me with criticism within seconds of discovering what I do.

I can't remember the last time I was at a party where the IT guy and the lawyer were challenged on the performance of their companies. Do firefighters or hairdressers get chastised at parties about their daily grind? Yet as soon as I tell people that I work in cable network news, their ideas for how the network SHOULD operate immediately becomes the topic of conversation.

While I can appreciate most of the commentary that people have to share, my technical geek status doesn't seem to register with anyone. Unfortunately, I don't deal with editorial content, nor do I have the power to change what stories are covered or how they are covered. Of course, I can make suggestions to the powers-that-be if something strikes me as really troubling, but in general, I don't get super bothered about the content on my network. What we do, we do pretty well. Like any company, our output has flaws, but it also has a great deal of merit.

One of the complaints I've heard a lot recently is that most news programs repeat the same stories every hour (or even more frequently.) It was pointed out that certain international networks do not do this... but it occurs to me now that the int'l nets that were used as examples were not 24-hour networks. Obviously those networks cover more world news stories, and I do wish we did that more. But otherwise, we're pretty solid. And that brings me back to the point of repetitive storytelling...

Does anyone outside of the TV news biz really know how hard it is to fill 24 hours of air time with NEW content? Give me a break. Unless you know how to research it, write it and produce it, you have no idea what that entails - cost-wise, resource-wise, or otherwise. What's worse, with sister websites constantly clamoring for updates, the frenzy for new content is even greater. Trying to satiate the ever-increasing appetite of internet savvy news-junkies while news organizations cut costs (and jobs!) is nearly impossible.

News doesn't make much money for the parent broadcasting companies. Think about it - we get our best ratings when there's breaking news. When there's breaking news, we're not running any ads. Ads are our revenue source. No ads = no money. (It's not the best business model, really, but the utopian idea behind a news outlet is to inform the public - to provide a public service.) So you have limited resources, an increasing demand for new content and, well, not much news happening at the pace that people want new information. Hence, the repetitive content.

The bottom line, for me, is that I love the magic of television. As a kid, I'd always wanted to know how they get pictures from one end of the camera into my home, and that's the stuff that still fascinates me. I'm lucky that I'm able to work in an unconventional job, because I like doing something that's unique. And I do love being able to say that I work at a certain reputable cable news outfit, but I don't like having to defend the company every time I meet someone new. It's exhausting. (And as shocking as this may sound, my job is not my life.)

So please, people, if you have something to say about any television network, they all have public information offices that field grievance calls. Call them. Tell THEM your thoughts... someone higher up than me might actually listen and do something about it.

PS - The above photos are the view from my apartment. I actually have trees to look at on one side and a brick courtyard that no one has access to on the other side. I love the color of the yellow tree against the brick building across the way, although I think Sam should come over and take a photo that does it justice.

October update

2008-10-31T09:43:00.012-04:00

This photo is the view from my temporary apartment near Rockefeller Center. I had no idea I was looking at the Empire State Building everyday until Sam came over to help me move my suitcases to my non-temporary apartment. I always wondered why I could see so many light flashes at the top every night. (And yes, you can see my cell phone reflected on the window that I took the picture through.)

Since I haven't made much headway with putting my apartment together, I'm not going to put up pics from home. It's super cluttered right now - I'm trying to put too much stuff (an Atlanta apartment's worth) in too small of a space (my NY apartment.) I'll get it together eventually. My excuse is that there's much more interesting stuff to do in New York on the weekends than unpack and organize. So let's talk about that, shall we?

Speaking of fun, my cousin Anirban came to town last month for work. We managed to meet for dinner one night at a Thai restaurant near Time Warner Center. The food was really good, and we thought the rice cone that accompanied the curries looked a lot like a topor. A topor is a traditional hat that grooms have to wear in Bengali marriage ceremonies. I find it interesting that a topor resembles a dunce cap...

I've managed to keep really busy by seeing lots of plays, a couple of concerts, dinner with friends and even a long day of outlet shopping on Long Island. "A Man for All Seasons" is a play about Sir Thomas More with Frank Langella playing the title role. More was a scholar and trusted adviser to King Henry VIII, and he lost his head (literally) by refusing to sign the Act of Supremacy which gave the King of England sovereign power instead of the church. Langella's deep voice and immense height gave a great presence to the character. The Roundabout Theatre's production runs through Dec. 14.

"The 39 Steps" is not what you'd expect if you've seen the Hitchcock film of the same name. This British spoof is goofy and engaging and anything but a serious mystery. It is a thriller, though. If you love Hitchcock and other films of the same era, this play is worth seeing just to try and catch all of the kooky references. The Brits love their men in dresses and quick-change routines, so "Steps" takes that idea and has three actors and one actress playing all of the roles. My favorite part had to be the North by Northwest scene (I don't want to give away too much - you'll know it when you see it), which was over-the-top but hysterical. After several uncomfortable moments, someone on stage finally mutters the catch phrase, which just added to the ridiculousness of it. It made for a really enjoyable night out. "The 39 Steps" is showing at the Cort Theater until Jan. 11.

Here's a shot of the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Earlier this month, Obama and McCain attended a charity dinner where they both gave well-received humorous speeches. I walked by it last month when a lot of world leaders dignitaries were in town for the UN General Assembly and the Clinton Global Initiative, and I wondered why the Indian flag was displayed outside next to the American flag at the entrance. When I walked around the beautiful hotel, I saw that they had all sorts of international flags displayed all around the building. I suspect a lot of those world leaders must stay there when they're in town.

This photo shows the label from a beer called Satan. It sounds so much cooler in French than in English, and it's delicious. My grad school buddies often go to a restaurant in Tribeca on Monday nights called Le Petit Abeille. It's a Belgian place, complete with waffles, mussels and fries. The food is excellent, but we like the 1/2 price beers on Monday nights. They have a crazy number of European beers available - not limited to Blue Moon and Stella Artois, and since it was the week of Halloween, I ordered a blond beer called Lucifer. They did not have it in stock, but the bartender suggested Satan instead. I liked the label on the beer bottle and matching glass. It has a cute cartooney little devil guy on there, which is hard to see in this picture - so I lifted the logo off their website and posted it below.

Before I sign off, I have to say this: New York in the fall is absolutely stunning. Yesterday, I walked to work, crossing through Central Park, and I couldn't believe how beautiful it was with the leaves changing color. The air is crisp and cool, and it's absolutely inspiring to be here right now. I will try to post some pictures after the weekend - I didn't think to take any yesterday. I was just taking it all in. Happy Halloween, Y'all!

New home

2008-09-30T10:01:00.006-04:00

Kenzi this is for you! The movers brought my stuff from Atlanta yesterday, and I actually felt horrible for them because I now live in a 4th floor walk-up on the upper east side. It's probably the biggest place that I found when I was looking, but to you Atlanta and Texas folk, it's going to seem miniscule. But it has nice, newly finished hardwood floors (which you can't see because of the boxes everywhere right now) and two entire rooms - a bedroom AND a living room. (You have no idea how difficult that is to find on a budget in this town...)

There's not much storage, but the singular closet (hidden behind those boxes) has some nice shelving in it which should help. Now my challenge is going to be where to put the rest of the stuff. I think I'm going to have to do a major mental overhaul of what absolute needed household items are. My goal is to be unpacked by the end of October. We'll see what happens...

This is my new sofabed (which was also uncool for the movers to carry up three flights of stairs, because apparently it's enormously heavy) which is going to double as the guest sleeper. The cable/phone people are coming out on Saturday morning. I still need to get a couple of things furniture-wise, but I figure I should probably unpack a little before I add to the immediate clutter. The good news is that the place was given a complete overhaul between the last tenant and myself. It's freshly painted, the bathroom is recaulked, and I have all new appliances (stove/oven and fridge.) I also mentioned the gorgeous hardwood floors, and the ceilings are high, so it doesn't feel so box-like. Big windows also help on adding airiness to the space, and there is lots of natural light.

That's the scoop on the new digs.

I <3 New York.

2008-09-05T08:01:00.005-04:00

I've finally moved to New York city, and it's been really fun for the past two weeks. I'll try to post interesting or cool things that I see here and there. I've got to make a habit of carrying my camera around because I've missed a few cool things already. (These pics are from my cell phone, which is why they are kind of blurry and not framed well.)

Temporarily, I'm living across the street from Rockefeller Center (home of NBC studios), and over the weekend, there were people camping out (for four days!) in order to catch a glimpse of the New Kids on the Block, who were going to play the Today show plaza (pictured above) on Labor Day. It's a highly touristy area, so everything is kind of expensive, but it's close to everything, including the theater district.

Last weekend, my friends, Sam and Bari, met me at the TKTS booth. We decided to get tickets for whatever was available and make a night of it. Once we settled on Gypsy (which was ridiculously amazing - Patti LuPone completely rocks!) and got our tickets, we walked down to the new New York Times building and did a little shopping. Then they were kind enough to show me Chelsea Market, home to an entire city block of shops dedicated to food and food preparation. Once we got there, I promptly lost my mind from the sheer enormity of options.

Luckily, we got there late enough that most of the shops were closing, limiting my perusing capacity. Now that I know it is there, I will definitely go back soon, and I'll go back often. But for me, what was more exciting about that building is that the Food Network tapes their programming there. Oh, and it used to be an old Nabsico Factory. (Note the memorabilia wall pictured above.)

This photo is a mini-AJ reunion from my birthday outing. (Sidenote: Sam, the most brilliant photographer I know, took this pic with my phone, which is why it's not blurry and framed correctly. Other friends had headed home earlier, so I didn't get a shot of the whole group.) We were heading back to the subway after a night of wine and risotto in the Village. (I've been dying to pretentiously say that I "hung out in the Village last night", and now I can!) I've also been looking for apartments and slowly starting to get to know new areas of the city. There are a surprising number of parks that seem to pop out out of nowhere as you walk around, and it's nice to always find a green spot to sit down or walk through.

As for other random things: In TriBeCa, I saw the firehouse from the Ghostbusters movies on the second night of my arrival, but I didn't have my camera or phone at the time. In Times Square last weekend, we saw a bike rack which Sam said was designed by David Byrne - one of many that are scattered around town. I didn't get a pic of that either. But I did get a shot of the David Letterman studio (above photo) on my walk to work yesterday.

Charleston still rocks.

2008-05-26T08:30:00.007-04:00

I took a quick trip to Charleston last weekend, and I was pleased to see that nothing much had changed. It was comforting to revisit a place that I have lived, where I loved almost every minute of living there.

My friends were putting on their last show for a while, and I wanted to see how far they'd come since I left to go to grad school almost two years ago.

The show was very good. The best I'd seen them do so far. The skits were amusing, the multimedia effects were timed perfectly, and the music was familiar, but were new, jazzed up versions. It was clear that a lot of people had worked very hard on this show, and the result was quite entertaining. Charleston's arts scene is truly going to miss this group of collaborators in the future. (The two main instigators of the Kiki project are moving to Chicago next month.)

A noteworthy artist: The Kiki sets were painted by artist Nathan Durfee. Some of his artwork was also hanging in the lobby of Theater 99, and I really liked what I saw on display there. Check out his website if you wish.

Otherwise, it was a quick, but laid-back visit. I stayed with a good friend out in Mt. Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston. My friend's house is very close to Sullivan's Island, which is incidentally where Edgar Allen Poe spent part of his life. Otherwise, Sullivan's has a charming main street and lush, curvacious beach with a good view of Charleston harbor. We went for a long walk on the beach and enjoyed meals at Sette IV and Mustard Seed, both excellent Mt. Pleasant restaurants. We had a divine coconut cake at Sette and a mouth-watering sweet potato ravioli at Mustard Seed.

When I had some free time, I walked around downtown, and I spent a lot of time looking at plants and produce at the Farmer's Market in Marion Square. The abundance of choices was overwhelming, and I ended up only buying some strawberries and no plants after much deliberation. (I'm now wishing I'd picked up some Black-Eyed Susans while I was there. They would've looked nice in my garden.)

And of course, the night of the show, I caught up with my good friends and former fabulous neighbors. It felt almost as if I'd never left.

Austin: the Alamo Drafthouse and Acupuncture

2008-04-30T11:20:00.003-04:00

Ok, so it's been a while since I've posted anything. Sorry about that... things have been hectic to say the least. I spent almost three weeks out in Austin last month, and it was very relaxing. My nieces were on spring break for part of that time, and my sister-in-law had taken some time off from work. So I got to spend a lot of quality time with the fam, which was really cool.

We went to some cool Austin-ey places like Austin Java and Zilker Park. Austin Java, a funky coffeehouse with various locations around town, (I'd steer away from the airport one, though - the food doesn't seem as fresh there) serves their breakfast and lunch fare with a healthy and organic twist. A Spicy African Peanut soup caught my eye on the menu, so I tried it as a side with my turkey burger. I'm sure the other food there is tasty too, but this soup was really amazing. It was so good, in fact, when I went there to meet a friend the next day, I ordered a large bowl of only that soup. I would eat that every day if I could only figure out how they make it!

I checked out some South by Southwest stuff, and while I couldn't get into the Harold and Kumar 2 screening or the REM show (ok, I didn't really effort this one), it was really cool to be able to walk around and see everything going on. I was so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of music and video offerings that I am sure I didn't do the best job of checking things out. Now I know how navigate it next year.

I must make a special shout-out to the guys at PureVolume for hooking me up at their venue. They had some great bands, and they're doing some super cool things at their website.

Other noteworthy things from the trip include a whole lotta discussions on health, good nutrition, and alternative medicines. My sister-in-law was in the midst of trying acupuncture and Chinese medicinal therapies when I visited, so I went with her on two occasions. I also took the plunge and decided to try acupuncture for some of my minorly annoying chronic ailments (headaches and skin irritations.)

It seemed pretty weird at first... getting needles poked in various stress points on your body as a method of therapy, but I got used to it quickly. It wasn't so bad. You have to remember that once the needles are in, you can't really make a single move or you're going to be in a lot of aching pain until the doctor takes them out 30 minutes later. I learned that the hard way.

The doctor gave me some herbal powder to mix with hot water and drink after a meal. My sister-in-law got a bag of herbs which she had to boil in water and drink the extract. The running joke at the house was that it was time to drink our "foot juice" after meals, because the stuff smelled like smelly gym socks. Somehow I managed to drink most of the noxious powder before the next visit, where it was more of the same needle treatments. This time, I ended up with three bags of smelly herbs to take home with me.

It took me a lot longer than the doctor indicated it should, but after several weeks, I got through the herbal extracts. The results? Well, the headaches are still rampant, but my skin issues seem to be resolved. It was very interesting to try it, and I think I'd do it again. It just makes me wonder what's going on with regular medicine that they can only control chronic skin problems but they can't seem to cure them?

And last, but not least... in the strip mall where the Academy of Oriental Medicine (AOMA) resides, there are two other noteworthy Austin places worth checking out.

One is the Alamo Drafthouse, which fans of Friday Night Lights (gawd. I love this show! it's not about football, really) will recognize. The Drafthouse has several Austin locations, and it's essentially a movie theater where they serve food and drinks. This place shows a lot of interesting films - not just mainstream ones, and the menu, like many things in Austin, is eclectic with some unusual offerings like falafel, red pepper hummus, and Asian chicken salad. Not your typical bar fare, although those things (chicken fingers, French fries, burgers) are on the menu as well. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to see any shows there, but I'm hoping to give a full report on it after my next visit.

And the other place that my sister-in-law and I really liked is the Texpresso coffee shop. With free Internet access and a calm, quiet interior, a lot of people were just hanging around with their laptops, working. They had an amazing mocha coffee drink, which I highly recommend. It was nice to take our drinks and sit outside in the gazebo behind the strip mall, where the AOMA classrooms are situated. I was lucky, other than a whole lot of rain on a couple of days, the weather was really pleasant when I was in town.

So that's the Austin wrap-up... I'll be back soon with more on Jacque's wedding and other Atlanta activities.

A Daily Show returns... without writers

2008-01-08T14:25:00.002-05:00

Jon Stewart says it perfectly in this clip from last night's show.

It's bittersweet to see the late night guys back on the airwaves. Selfishly I'm glad, because I can't take much more serious political punditry from the news networks, but unselfishly, I can't believe the entertainment nets still can't concede that there is in fact money to be made off Internet royalties.

Maybe this Christmas...

2007-12-23T13:35:00.001-05:00

I know it's been a long, LONG time since I've last posted. I started a couple of entries, but didn't have a chance to spruce them up enough to post on here. Anyway, apologies for the delay. I thought it might be nice to end the year with a few of my favorite things, Oprah-style.

Things that I loved, and am so thankful for, this year:
-Ireland
-The Museum of Television and Radio (now known as The Paley Center for Media)
-My lovely friends in New York who took great care of me earlier this year (I miss y'all!)
-The taping of The Daily Show
-Driving back and forth to NY with Kathleen (except for that one time)
-Pot-luck dinner parties at my crappy apartment in Syracuse
-Karaoke and prom (who's "Hot for Teacher"?)
-Guitar Hero III (it's wireless, wooo hooo!)
-Cruisin' to Cozumel with my fabulous family over Thanksgiving
-The European flair of Quebec City
-KT Tunstall's new album, Drastic Fantastic
-Apple, you saved my life (er... my laptop, rather.)
-The Police concert at Philips Arena
-Atlanta, the city that grew up while I was away
-The kind people who took a chance on me at Manning, Selvage and Lee. Thanks for making me feel at home so quickly.
-My old friends. Thanks for welcoming me back so warmly.

Happy holidays, y'all!

Montreal, eh?

2007-07-09T14:47:00.000-04:00

Apologies that I haven't posted in a while. Things were a bit hectic for the last month or so, with the Capstone coming to an end and having to move out of Syracuse at the same time. I'm hanging out in Montreal for a couple of weeks before heading back to Atlanta and really jumping into the job search.

(Photo courtesy of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.)

Here's what I've done so far:

-Walked along Ste. Catherine St., taking care to check out all the cool boutique-like shops while doing so.
-Eaten at Le Taj, and discovered probably the best Indian food I've ever had the pleasure of consuming. (Sorry Ma, it's true.)
-Visited the Musee des Beaux Arts. They have a nice little collection, but what's even cooler is the newish gallery building across the street.
-Spent an hour in Chapters, a bookstore resembling Borders, but somehow a little chic-er.
-Had a drink on the terrace at Sky, a bar near Old Montreal. The view is amazing, and the sangria is delightful.
(Logo courtesy of the Montreal Jazz Festival.)

-Peeked in at the Montreal Jazz Festival while walking around the area.
-Stopped in a delightful cafe in St. Lambert for lunch during an afternoon of window shopping.

It's been fun and very relaxing. I've actually been reading books for pleasure again, and that has been so gratifying. The weather has been pleasant too. It's not been too warm, so it's perfect for walking around outside. The Just For Laughs comedy festival starts this week, and it should be interesting to check out some of those shows.
(Logo courtesy of the Just For Laughs festival.)

(Hopefully I'll be able to put up some of my own pictures soon, but I misplaced my camera cord when I was moving last week. I'll figure something out, though.)

Woodstock sighting

2007-06-12T18:39:00.000-04:00

My Capstone research took me to a little town called Jeffersonville in mid-state New York. It's a quaint little town with the usual high street assortment of town businesses - the post office, a couple of restaurants, a couple of furniture shops, a bookstore, and even a chocolate shop, where everyone apparently hangs out. There is also a health foods store and two coffee shops which boast "Free Trade" coffee on their signage inviting you to come inside. So it's a pretty hip little town. Anyway, the pastor that I had to interview for my paper told me that Jeffersonville was only nine miles away from the site of the Woodstock concert in 1969. I couldn't be that close to the essence of the rock Gods and not check it out!

The town that holds the Yasgur's farm, where the original event took place, is called Bethel Woods, and there is now a big arts and concert venue nearby. (Woodstock, NY is actually on the other side of the Catskills.) Clearly I had to take a picture, and I tried not to look too ridiculous snapping photos (on a really busy road) of what looks like a totally common farm in a remote part of the state. You can't make it out so well from this picture, but the building actually does say "Yasgur" on it, which is what tipped me off. A professional journalist, I am.

My dream has come true!

2007-06-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

Season 1 of CHiPs (the most mocktastic '70s cop show of all time!) comes out on DVD on Tuesday, June 5th. Thought you all would want to know.

An Apple a day...

2007-05-30T23:19:00.000-04:00

This morning, I found that my computer wouldn't connect to the internet via the ethernet cable that connects my cable modem to my laptop. The Airport wireless was working just fine, but I didn't have a wireless router in my apartment. So after spending almost 30 useless anytime minutes with Time Warner's crack support team (who simply kept rebooting the modem remotely and then asking me to reboot my computer to no avail) I marched my precious - yes, I have the same affinity for it as Gollum does to that silly little ring - laptop to the Apple store at Carousel Mall. There, a brilliant, nice man named Martin tested it and determined that yes, my ethernet port was indeed faulty. The remedy? To send my computer off to the Apple Gods someplace in California where they will replace the logic board along with the faulty port. They are usually pretty speedy with this type of service, but I am in the middle of writing my thesis and can't afford to be computerless at the moment. What's worse is that I can't pay a whole fortune for that kind of service because I am a non-income-generating student right now. The wonderful "genius" (that's the Apple name for these guys - I didn't make that up) Martin checked my Apple Care warrantly and saw that it had expired on May 7, 2007. Naturally. Well, he and his manager, Donna, worked their collective magic and authorized the repair under the warranty since it had just been a couple of weeks since it expired. AND, they are letting me wait to send it in for repairs until after my thesis draft is due on June 8. I couldn't have been more delighted or more surprised with the easy, intelligent, and purely excellent service that I encountered.

It's almost as if the Apple company realizes that their customers are valuable. What a concept! (It's sad that we don't have more stories like this about customer service. Everyone's just annoyed with everything everywhere, it seems.)

I did walk out of the store with an Airport Express, which took me all of five minutes to unwrap and install. I love how Apple products are so easy to use. Just plug in and go to town. And now I am happily online again.

As if I needed another reason to rave about my Mac. (By the way, I have NEVER owned a Windows machine. It was love at first Mac.)

Are you living (what?)... Are you living (what?)...

2007-05-28T23:03:00.000-04:00

When did the '90s become a musical genre in itself? In honor of this month's long weekend, a radio station in Syracuse decided to play only "90s" music, which was surprisingly amusing and reminiscent at the same time. When I was a kid, '70s music was meant for ridicule, and when I was in college, all things '80s were similarly considered silly. But when did it become ok to relegate the '90s to such loving mockery as well? I missed the memo completely on that, especially since that decade barely ended seven years ago. It still feels so fresh...

After I saw a couple of episodes of In Living Color over the weekend, I realized there is actually much to mock from the '90s. Just to name a few: Beverly Hills 90210, Kato Kaelin, grunge, Vanilla Ice, the Spice Girls, etc. (I guess VH1 has already figured that out with their I Love the '90s series.) However, those wacky Wayans were rocking the mock in while still living in the decade!

What do Erica Kane and Brit Pop have in common?

2007-05-24T19:56:00.000-04:00

My friends and family who know me well know that my ultimate guilty pleasure is the ABC soap, All My Children. Truthfully, I have been exposed to this show since I was in my mother's womb. (And now, with the advent of my life-altering DVR, every delicious episode is ready and waiting for me when I come home at night.) So today, I almost fell off the couch when the typically mundane reflection scene (in which many of the characters at their individual crossroad situations are shown to be thoughtfully pontificating their next move) at the end of the show featured the new Travis single, "Closer." I mean, talk about two great things that taste great together! It actually provoked me to write a blog post revealing my shameful delight to the world (or rather, to the 15 people that actually read this blog regularly.)

On that note, let me tell you about the new Travis album which came out on May 7.

But first, some background: If you are unfamiliar with this band, they are from Glasgow, Scotland, and they really were the forerunners of the whole Coldplay frenzy, also seen as the "sensitive stadium rock" thing in America and the UK. (This particular phrase was stolen from a Guardian article that talked about a recent Travis show in London, but most rock scholars agree that Travis was doing the Coldplay thang long before Martin and Co. came along. An Independent article says that Travis were able to take Radiohead's moody brooding style and Brit-pop-ify it.) Anyway, Travis have always been huge in the UK, but not so much on this side of the pond. It's a shame, really, because these guys are really poignant, write good melodic pop songs, and are even smartly humorous at the same time. Their biggest US hit was a song called "Why Does it Always Rain on Me?" which, incidentally, John Mayer used to cover when he played at Eddie's Attic in Decatur, GA to crowds of 15 people back in the early '00s. (I don't know why I just threw that tidbit in.)

Travis took a break of about 18 months since they last went on tour. During that time, the band wrote and recorded new songs, and welcomed new members into their families. Their last album, 12 Memories, was more politically charged than their earlier work, and the industry deemed it a mainstream failure. (I thought it was a really good record, myself, but it was definitely deeper and darker than their usual stuff.) So there was a bit of buzz around Travis's latest effort, The Boy With No Name. Would they be able to come back to their early '00s glory?

The album does have a bit of a throwback to earlier musical styles, but the lyrics are more mature and insightful than The Man Who or The Invisible Band and certainly more than 1997's, Good Feeling, which is just a fun album. On the latest record, many of the songs are influenced by singer Fran Healy's newly acquired fatherhood status, and the feeling of despondence which was present on 12 Memories is replaced with the nice feelings of joy and pride.

On a different note, my fabulous friend, Carolee, got tickets to a sold-out industry concert in London back in March. It was one of three shows that Travis were doing before the album came out, and it was at a significantly smaller club than the band usually played. I have followed this band since college (ages ago!), and this was my first time seeing them live. It was a treat like nothing else for me. The band members were in great spirits and played many new songs intertwined with some old favorites. The show was quite well-received, but it was obvious that the audience was full of solid fans. The most interesting thing that I noticed was that everyone seemed to be able to sing along with the single, "Closer" even though the album hadn't come out yet. Ah, the joys of the internet.

I think that The Boy is selling pretty well so far, and I have heard the single on the radio and in the background of a couple of TV shows or commercials. That's a pretty good sign, but nothing says MAINSTREAM more than your song being featured on an American soap opera! (Note to AMC producers: This almost redeems your decision to kill off Dixie.)

(Side note: The Rosebuds' new album Night of the Furies is pretty good also. **Marge, this one's for you. You know how those North Carolina bands just rock.** Check them out if you haven't yet.)

Photos courtesy of ABC, Travis, and The Rosebuds.

Traveler

2007-05-03T13:52:00.000-04:00

Coming to ABC next week... I reviewed the pilot episode for this program during my internship at the Museum of Television and Radio. ABC pretty much gives up the whole story in its promo for the show. It's about a group of guys who are college buddies, and they decide to take one last road trip after graduation before they have to be responsible adults. It all starts off generically frat-party-esque, and then things go terribly awry. The pilot was interesting enough that I would watch a few more episodes to see where it goes. The characters are kind of plain, each guy fitting into a particular stereotype. (That aspect didn't excite me much.) It tries to be more suspenseful than the average twenty-something drama, which makes it kind of The OC-meets-Prison Break. It's an interesting choice for ABC, because I would've expected this show on FOX or The CW. But anyway, I don't want to give up the entire plot right here, so if you're curious, go watch the preview at ABC.com. The show premieres Thursday, May 10 at 10 p.m.

Estrada gets his star.

2007-04-28T16:48:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, April 19, Erik Estrada got his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. CHiPs is the most mocktastic '70s cop show of all time. I am still waiting for the day that the entire series comes out in a deluxe DVD box set.

(I tried to link the theme song and the first TV promo from the series to this blog, but YouTube wouldn't cooperate. You all can do the searches yourselves. The TV promo is definitely worth seeing, so go find it!)

In other, more pertinent TV news, Estrada is starring in a police reality show called "Armed &Famous." It supposedly began on Jan. 10, but I haven't seen one promo for it, nor have I had the pleasure of seeing the show yet. The regular time slot is Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. on CBS. The show follows this cast of characters as they go through police academy in Muncie, Indiana. Other notable stars of this program include LaToya Jackson and Jack Osbourne. I'm so glad that "celebreality" (thanks, VH1, for coining that term) is giving new careers to these formerly famous people.

Photos courtesy of www.erikestrada.com.

Chicken Noodle Soup?

2007-04-12T21:17:00.000-04:00

The cosmos united this week to provide me with not only two lectures on rap and hip-hop music (via my History of Rock class), but also an entire Oprah audience trying to keep up with an Alvin Ailey hip-hop instructor.

It was pretty much the funniest thing I've seen all week (except for Tuesday's episode of the Daily Show and oh yeah, yesterday's Oprah episode on "How to be Happy". WTF was that all about? Seriously, people need a life lesson telling them that they have to find happiness within themselves? Seriously??)

But back to the hip-hop thang. Apparently the hottest moves are steps called "Chicken Noodle Soup" and "The Old Man." Now thanks to Oprah, we can all pretend to be just a little hipper. And people (my friend Nick, specifically) say that I dance like a white boy...

(Photo courtesy of Harpo Productions.)

Gunshots at CNN Center?!

2007-04-03T20:29:00.000-04:00

Wow. CNN was never this exciting when I worked there.

(Oh wait, there was the incident where an armed gunman ran through the CNN parking deck after shooting a bunch of people in federal court, but before stealing a car and taking off to grab a hostage in a nearby suburb. The hostage eventually got the killer to "see" God, and the divine power blessed her with a million-dollar book deal to cover her suffering.)

Seriously, I am so relieved that none of my friends or acquaintances were hurt. I'm sure everyone at CNN must be really shaken up. It's a dreadful thing that happened there this morning. My heart goes out to the victim's family and friends, and I am thinking of you guys in the Atlanta newsroom.

Meeting of minds

2007-03-30T14:45:00.000-04:00

My old place of employment, CNN covered a seminar at my current place of employment (internship), the Museum of Television and Radio. Check out the Whacked Sopranos getting their say.

Wagamama is love

2007-03-29T09:10:00.000-04:00

Photos courtesy of Jacque Brill. This picture pretty much sums up how fabulous the Ireland trip was. I was so happy to be back at Wagamama after a three year hiatus, that I couldn't stop smiling that night. (Look at the ear-to-ear grin!) I finally got my chicken katsu curry fix, and life was good again.

And the most wonderful thing is that just about everyone in our program joined me and Bob Ward (who is demonstrating the menu cover shot) on our quest for noodles in Dublin. It was a really fun night, and it showed "positive eating + positive living" (which is a registered trademark of wagamama ltd.)

I'll write more about the trip sometime soon - I just had to post this for now.

Equus

2007-03-22T04:14:00.000-04:00

There are so many amazing shows in the West End right now, that it was honestly quite difficult to choose which one show to see while in London. There is The Tempest, starring Patrick Stewart. There is The Lady From Dubuque, starring Maggie Smith. There is Wicked, The Sound of Music, History Boys, etc, etc, etc.

But when I saw Daniel Radcliffe on the tube yesterday morning, I decided to try to get a ticket for the matinee of his show, Equus. I had read some rave reviews of it over the weekend, and I vaguely remembered seeing a G-rated version of this surreal play when I was in college.

Everything fell into place very easily. I was walking up Rupert Avenue from Leceister Square, when I saw the gigantic black and white sign featuring a half-naked Harry Potter and four horse heads beneath his waist. I went inside to the box office and managed to get a stage seat for 9.50 GBP. (About $20 US.) I would be able to see everything, the saleslady assured me. And see everything I did.

About 10 minutes before the show began, the stage seat patrons were taken backstage and seated about 10 feet above the stage around the back of the round space in the Gielgud Theatre. The theater went dark, and the spooky music quieted the audience. A chubby, white-haired man with glasses lit up a cigarette and the show began.

The surreal-ness of Equus hadn't changed much since the production I'd seen probably 12 or 13 years ago, but the acting and the staging in this production were far superior. Quickly, I was so absorbed into the story that I didn't mind or even notice the 2 hour 30 minutes running time.

From the stage seats, I had to lean over the rail to see the stage, and it was kind of uncomfortable, making my feet stiff by intermission time. But the ticket woman had been serious, I could see and hear everything as well as if I'd been in the stalls.

The acting was excellent, with Richard Griffiths playing the mild-mannered doctor and Daniel Radcliffe playing the angst-ridden teenager Alan Strang. The staging was simplistic, with four rectangular blocks that the actors moved around the space, creating new sets simply with the new arrangement of the boxes. The movement of boxes and opening of doors were fluidly incorporated into the actions of the actors so that it was hardly distracting from the show.

There were even horses in the show, which were exquisite. Six fit men dressed in brown suede riding pants and tight long-sleeved t-shirts of the same color wore large silver wire masks with giant eyes protuding from them and oversized horseshoes that gave them an off-balance stance and clacked as they walked around the stage. Their mannerisms gave the distinct feeling of being surrounded by these magnificent beasts.

During the curtain call, veteran actor Griffiths led the cast in bows, by quietly telling Radcliffe and the others which way to bow and when to turn. As the cast made their way off-stage, Radcliffe took the elder actor's hand and gently led him down the step of the elevated stage. It was in these small gestures that you could see that Radcliffe and Griffiths have a pupil-teacher relationship, and it was nice to see the younger actor during a moment of humility.

Now, about the infamous "naked" scene...

A woman from Chicago sat next to me, and she had seen the show on the previous night. The first thing she said to me was that you forget that you're seeing Harry Potter as soon as the show starts and when "the scene" happens, you are so engrossed in the story that you are not paying attention to the leacherous idea of seeing adolescent Harry Potter in the nude.

She was right. The character of Alan Strang is so angry and vulnerable and pitiful, and the acting so impeccable and captivating, that you actually do forget that you're in a theater, seeing a play. You're really watching 17-year-old Strang freak out while the old doctor coaxes him to relive a disturbing memory.
Of course, when the show ended, because I was sitting above the stage, I had a remarkable view of activities backstage, where Radcliffe was getting dressed for the curtain call. At that moment, I suddenly felt extremely leacherous, and I started looking elsewhere around the theater, because I felt very uncomfortable being a 31-year-old woman having a clear view of Harry Potter's bare bottom.

The Emerald Isle

2007-03-08T14:53:00.000-05:00

I'm heading off to Ireland for the next 10 days or so. My Arts Journalism program is taking the cohort to Galway and Dublin to learn about the Irish theatre. There's nothing like an immersion program, I have to say. (Our main free day is on St. Patrick's Day in Dublin.)

Then I'll fly to London for four days where I am going to tour the BBC and see some old friends before heading back to Sunny Syracuse to finish up this semester already.

Current TV

2007-03-05T18:00:00.000-05:00

Has anyone out there watched this network? It was launched by Al Gore and his partners back in August 2005. If you have seen it, would you please contact me? I am doing research on this topic.

http://www.current.tv/

Current's description of their venture:

Current TV, which launched August 1, 2005, is the first national network created by, for and with an 18-34 year-old audience. The network shows young adults what’s going on in their world, in their voice. Current is also the first TV network in history whose programming is supplied and selected, in part, by the very audience who watches it. It has developed the television industry’s leading model of “viewer created content” (VC2), which comprises roughly one-third of the network’s schedule, and allows the audience to submit short-form, nonfiction video “pods,” “viewer created ads” (V-CAMs), and mobile video. Its award-winning programming ranges from the hottest trends in technology, fashion, music and videogames, to pressing issues such as the environment, relationships, parenting, finance, politics and spirituality. Current is available in 38 million U.S. homes via Comcast (channel 107 nationwide), Time Warner Cable, DISH Network (channel 196 nationwide), and DirecTV (channel 366 nationwide).

Thanks!

The Namesake

2007-02-25T22:19:00.000-05:00

With the movie version of Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize winning book coming out in just a few weeks, I decided to pick up the copy of The Namesake. The book has been sitting on my bookshelf since my friend Shaona gave it to me in London almost three years ago. She had written in the liner, "Here's a girl that thinks like we do" and presented it to me for my 29th birthday. I wasn't a big fan of Interpreter of Maladies, or really, of any other Indian authors I'd read previously, so I thanked her and added it to my collection of books that I planned to read someday. But later.

(Shaona, I am so sorry I doubted your feeling that I would love this book. And thank you (three years late) for giving it to me.)

This book was moving for many reasons, the first of which is that it immediately felt very familiar. It is a story about a boy, born to Indian parents in America, who is constantly challenged by the demands of one culture at home versus a different culture outside. It is a topic to which many of my friends, family, and I can definitely relate. Lahiri perfectly manages to convey the alienation we sometimes feel/felt having to be "Indian" at home and "American" everywhere else. The story chroncicles the title character's life from its beginning till he is cemented in adulthood.

The story was interesting and engaging, and it made for a very quick and easy read. Something I really appreciated was that Lahiri sprinkled Bengali words and Indian phrases throughout the story without pausing to explain each term. There was no jarring stop and start each time she used a term like pujo or mishti. She just kept right on with the prose, assuming that her audience is smart enough to pick up on it. (FYI, Pujo is a religious ceremony and mishti is a sweet or dessert.)

This novel actually moved me to tears during several of its moments, especially when I read about the parents and how alienated they felt trying to carve out a new and unfamiliar life in a country that was completely foreign to them. For the past day or so, I haven't been able to stop thinking about the characters and what they might be doing now. I can't remember the last book whose characters engaged me so completely and distracted me from my own life.

The film, directed by Mira Nair and starring Kal Penn (a.k.a. my favorite terrorist - see "Jack's Back" post earlier this year), opens in limited release on March 9.

Happiest countries, eh?

2007-02-19T13:23:00.000-05:00

Moving to Canada after the last election would've been a good idea after all. They are number 10 on the list of happiest countries in the world, whereas the U.S. is number 23, according to a new UNESCO study. Denmark is number one. Click here for more detailed info. I'm definitely looking into Brunei and the Bahamas for my next move.

Snow-No's

2007-02-17T16:37:00.000-05:00

Remember the fire lane sign from a couple of days ago? Pictured below was its state on day two.

So I learned a very important lesson from all this snow: when it's very cold, you must start and clean off your car every other day or else you'll regret it.

Anyway, here are some more pics from the post-storm aftermath.

Below is my front door - I had to kick my way out on day two, because the snow had piled up so high that the door wouldn't open at first.

Below is my car on day two. After AAA gave me a jump start, my very kind neighbor helped me dig the car out so I could drive it around to recharge the battery.

The picture below is the view from my bedroom on day two.

CNN Pipeline

2007-02-15T17:56:00.000-05:00

I am doing a beeper for CNN Pipeline at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. Guess what the topic will be?

Bonus points: Can anyone find the bus stop hidden in the snowbank behind me?

Winter in Syracuse

2007-02-14T12:18:00.000-05:00

(On the right) The fire lane in front of my apartment complex. Notice the "No Parking" sign. Usually, there is about 4 feet of sign post.

(Below) Looking outside from my bedroom.

My car (below) is buried in snow. (Sadly, it won't start, so I couldn't go anywhere even if I wanted to. On the other hand, classes were cancelled this afternoon. Oh wait, I don't have any classes on Wednesdays. Where is the justice in that?)

My Internship

On a completely different note, some people have asked about my internship. I am working once a week at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. It's been a nice thing, to get out of the cold of Syracuse once a week. So far, I am enjoying working there - the people are really intelligent and friendly, and they have been giving me a lot of interesting work related to various documentaries and news topics. Last week, I wrote a promotional blurb for the William Paley Television Festival about one of this year's honored shows, Ugly Betty. I am hoping to do more entertainment-related work in the future, but I do love having access to MTR's amazing collection of documentaries.

MTR logo courtesy of the Museum of Television and Radio. Ugly Betty photo courtesy of ABC.com. Other photos were taken by me.

When in Snome...

2007-02-12T13:08:00.000-05:00

(Photos of Oswego - a nearby suburb - courtesy of WSYR.com)

Thanks everyone for your calls, e-mails, etc. about dumptruck of white stuff that the Snow Gods dumped on the 'Cuse area last week. It was very pretty, until I had to go out in it. But I decided to conquer the winter beast, and yesterday (a "warm" day at 24 degrees) I went skiing for the first time in my life. My friend Suzanne was really patient and wonderful about teaching me the basics, and we had a really good time. I only fell three times, which I thought was pretty good. I expected to be really sore today, but it seems like only my neck is really stiff from the activity. (You know, you can take up to 4 Advil at a time, every 8 hours. Wheeeee!) I am actually looking forward to the next time I get to ski again. I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures for you guys - my camera batteries were dead when I tried to take them. I'll put some up from my next attempt, I promise. In the meantime, here's a post I wrote on the train last weekend while coming back from NY:

Riding on the train from Penn Station to Syracuse is such a relaxing experience. First of all, I am going back to my apartment, so the stress of getting to the city on time and doing a capable job at my internship are nil at this point. So I am free to enjoy the scenery and people watch. (Granted, I have a bag full of textbooks that require my attention, but the snowy, picturesque landscape outside is too distracting to really ween any knowledge from them at the moment.)

What really captures my attention are the lakes that surround the train tracks for much of the five hour journey. The banks are lined with barren trees and specks of snow among the brown and uninteresting landscape, with hints of the Adirondacks in the vague distance. But the lakes… oh the lakes are absolutely breathtaking. The waters have frozen in frothy, icy swirls. There are patches of snow that stretch for miles, making it look like someone has placed vast amounts of puffy cotton in different spots all around.

Growing up in Atlanta, I never really got to experience REAL snow or cold weather. In the south, the threat of an ice storm, or even more ominous, freezing rain, drives people to frantically clear the grocery stores of bread and milk. You never know when you’ll get to leave your house again, after all.

Being in Syracuse now, it’s kind of funny to think of my friends back home who are suffering through three or four day stints of 20 degrees. I think the warmest it’s been in ‘Cuse of late has been 22 degrees. And that was a good day. But it is beautiful to see thick layers of fluffy, white snow on the ground and prismical icicles the size of stalagmites (Or is it stalagtites? I always forget) hanging off roofs. All this is lovely. Until you realize that the weather in the north is no excuse to stay at home, drink cocoa, and watch TV because everything is closed. A “snow storm” in Atlanta would make these people laugh.

When I have to dig my car out from under six inches of snow and let the engine heat up before I can go anywhere, I can’t help but wonder why anyone would live in these conditions with any kind of regularity. I had likened it to Southerners in the summer… we can stand the heat, because, well, we don’t really go out in it. We live in our air conditioned houses, drive to our air conditioned offices in our air conditioned cars, and then we go back home to air conditioned bliss.

As I realized in the summer, that there is a lot of fun to be had in the Finger Lakes region, with the cozy lake towns, nearby mountains, and wineries that are everywhere. There is also fun to be had in the winter. (At least I hope there is.) While writing this blog on the train ride home, I saw some people on one of those frozen lakes gliding around on what looked like a giant ice skate with a sail attached. As it is a crisp, sunny day, I have now seen several of these contraptions with bundled people on them, looking like they are actually enjoying the outdoors.

What a concept?! Enjoying this madness that is called winter? My friends and I have been talking about trying snowshoeing and skiing sometime this season. I feel that I owe it to my southern roots to try this stuff while I’m here. Because heaven knows I am not staying in the “Snow Belt” indefinitely. In the meantime, I might actually find that winter can be fun. I’ll keep you guys posted as the activities are planned.

No, it's not 90210...

2007-01-31T18:44:00.000-05:00

Did anyone out there know that '90's pop darlings, the Gin Blossoms, had a new album out? (It actually came out in August 2006, so I am totally behind on this one.) I thought they had gone to the historical abyss that swallowed up rock greats, Flickerstick, Candlebox, and the good version of REM, but it's not so.

The Gins' latest single, "Long Time Gone", sounds just like the upbeat, peppy fluff that they were known for back when I was in college. So for those of us that miss that old, time '90's sound, this alert's for you. If you're dying for a live fix of these guys, they are coming to a racetrack or casino near you in the next few months.

Naturally, once I was reminded of my college music indiscretions, I had to look up 'Stick and 'Box (mentioned above.)

It seems that Flickerstick has been touring regularly, and they have a live album coming out soon called "Live from Atlanta." If you have to pick a place to rock out from, that is really the best choice possible. Here's hoping that VH1 resurrects the Bands on the Run series that made those Dallas boys famous.

And of course, Candlebox has also been busy. They have also been touring heftily, and they have a live DVD coming out that was filmed in Seattle last September. I guess that's an ok music place...

As for the REM guys, I couldn't find anything on them. Ahem. But '70's rockers, America, have a new greatest hits album out called "Here and Now." You know you want it.

Muslim take on 24

2007-01-30T20:44:00.000-05:00

My cousin Anirban sent this link to me today... thought it was worth sharing, in light of my last post.

Or you can cut and paste the following:
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MjlmMTQzN2IxMTFlZTFlNzZiZmEzMjEzY2I2MDkzOWE

Jack's back

2007-01-20T11:00:00.000-05:00

So the new season of 24 started last weekend on Fox. Is anyone else annoyed by the fact that Kal Penn (Pictured below. Movie credits include: Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle) played the seemingly-nice-brown-teenaged-terrorist-next-door? I am thrilled that the guy is getting lots of work, and frankly, I like seeing Injuns represented in American TV and film. But, I am a little worried that brown people on TV are being portrayed mostly as convenience shop owners or terrorists, not so much as the educated professionals that many of us are.

(Sendhil Ramamurthy, pictured above, plays scientist Mohinder Suresh on Heroes.) Kudos to NBC's Heroes for giving the Indian characters prominent parts as educated scientists. (Nevermind that everyone thinks the father was nuts and the son is slowly going down the same road to Fruitcakeville.)

But back to 24, the last few "Muslim-based terrorism" seasons at least had Kiefer Sutherland giving a disclaimer that most Muslims are not like the ones portrayed in the show. So far, this season, there were no disclaimers, and moreover, the violence and characterizations this season are more stereotypical than usual. Are we now supposed to be suspect of all brown people?

On a sidenote, I had anticipated a much more elaborate break-out for Jack from the Chinese prison. The anticlimactic "escape" was kind of a cop-out. Couldn't the writers come up with something a little less lame?
(Someone at Fox, please bring the Allstate President back. Dennis Haysbert, pictured right, played President Palmer for three seasons on 24.)

Photos courtesy of Fox Broadcasting, MGM Studios, Maury Phillips/WireImage.com, and CBS Broadcasting.

2007-01-12T21:42:00.001-05:00

Colbert on Bollywood

This one speaks for itself.

Big Apple Highlight Reel

2007-01-11T11:26:00.000-05:00

Daily Show photos courtesy of Comedy Central.

The last eight days in New York were a whirlwind. We went to museums, art galleries, restaurants, shows, libraries, shops, and theaters. We went to a lot of restaurants and had wonderful three course meals. We met writers and editors from the New York Times, the New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, and Slate just to name a few. We went to jazz at Lincoln Center, checked out their Performing Arts library, watched Zubin Mehta conduct the New York Philharmonic, and saw a rehearsal of the New York City Ballet.

Photo courtesy of The Drowsy Chaperone.

We also went to a couple of shows - A Chorus Line, The Drowsy Chaperone, and Tom Stoppard's The Voyage, starring Ethan Hawke, Billy Crudup, Amy Irving, and Jennifer Ehle. (Tickets to the Stoppard show are apparently the hottest tickets in town right now.)

More highlights included an afternoon in Harlem where we visited the Studio Museum and ate soul food, family style, at Sylvia's. Did I mention the two lunches at the famed Algonquin where literary giants of the 1950s frequently hung out?

On the last night, we went to a taping of the Daily Show. Afterwards, we met Steve Bodow, the show's head writer, and Jon Stewart chatted briefly with us as well. (As if he needs an introduction.)

We walked through Central Park, bought "Gucci" bags in Chinatown, and revelled in the freakish 70 degree weather that the city gods bestowed upon us for most of the trip. We window shopped on 5th Avenue, and we rushed around on the subway. (I'm sure I'm leaving many things out... but I'll post more specific reviews soon.) We did more in one week than most New Yorkers do in a year, and as you might guess, it was an amazing experience.

Fame Becomes Me

2006-12-11T21:39:00.000-05:00

New York, New York. The city that never sleeps. Seriously. But New York at Christmastime is beautiful and wonderful and amazing. First of all, Rockefeller Center looked lovely with its famous tree and ice skaters. It was too cold to stay outside for too long, so skating that weekend was out of the question. The windows at Saks were astounding as usual, with toys and puppets and extravagant decorations. I also saw the new Martin Short musical, which was pretty amusing. Jon Cryer was the guest star, and Short's Jiminy Glick character interviewed him, referring to him many times as "Duckie", the beloved underdog from "Pretty in Pink." He is better known to this generation's television audience as the doofy Alan from"Two and a Half Men." The show chronicles Short's life with caricature sketches of his different accomplishments. It plays on his need to be recognized and adored at all times, and honestly, the songs are catchy and amusing. It's a good night of mindless entertainment, which sometimes is a good thing. (At that time, having just finished most of my final projects for the semester, it was much-needed.)

The Outsiders

2006-12-03T09:38:00.000-05:00

Anyone else remember this show? My friend Margie dug this up on You Tube. Don't you just love the 90s cheese? (Looking back on it, it appears to be a 90210 rip-off, I fear.)

Even though Margie and I met when we were in our 20s, I knew she'd be one of my favorite people because we (and her friend Danette) watched this show when we were in junior high. I think we were the only three people in the country watching it, because it promptly got cancelled at the end of the season. We're still waiting for the DVD box set, though! FOX Productions, hear our plea!

Here's how it all started:

Character lacking in Sorkin show

2006-12-02T16:29:00.000-05:00

I'm writing a paper for my Critical Methods of Television and Film class (one of three) about certain elements of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and I had a few thoughts about it which won't make it into the paper. Since I've been re-watching the entire season this weekend, I thought I would share them.

So far, I really like the show. Apparently NBC likes it too, because despite falling ratings, the network renewed the show for one more season. As usual, the Sorkin show is smarter than the average person, making all kinds of references that you'd need a PhD from Harvard to crack. (That probably explains the decreasing ratings.) But for me, I actually like the characters and their typical Sorkinesque dialogue. The veteran actors nicely round out the ensemble cast, and it all seems to work. In style, it's shot similarly to the West Wing, with long shots following the characters as they walk around in the "office", in this case, a television studio.

My biggest problem with the show is the Harriet Hayes character. I don't know if it's Sarah Paulson's acting or the character itself which rubs me the wrong way. The"moral", right-wing, Christian woman who is working in the "heathen's industry" of television, surrounded by drugs and loose people with no morals is a little hard to swallow. (No pun intended.)

Maybe Sorkin and his writing team can't relate to the character because they don't share the same convictions, nor do they know anyone who falls into that belief system. They really did a much better job of writing for Emily Proctor's Republican character on The West Wing who was much more likable and realistic.

Harriet spends every episode defending something that her character feels compelled to do - sing for some right-wing Christan group's charity event, do a lingerie spread in order to appear more sexy, yell at her bosses for doing sketches called "Crazy Christians" and "Science Shmience." Frankly, when Harriet scenes appear, I find myself groaning and wondering what her beef this week will be. The character is really flat, and that's a shame, considering that Sorkin has made his fame creating well-rounded characters who have both flaws and convictions.

Moreover, I can't get into the "lost love" storyline between Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) and Harriet. It's not believable, and I resent the Studio 60 team cramming it down my throat every week. Sadly, I don't care if they get together or not - really I am hoping for the latter - which is the worst possible building block for a TV romance. If the audience could care less about the characters hooking up, perhaps that storyline should be allowed to fade out?

So this is my plea to the Aaron Sorkin team (who, I'm sure are avidly reading this blog every week...ahem.) - please, meet some Republican Christians and befriend them, so that you can create a less annoying character that represents them acurately.

Ed. Note: I, myself, am not a Republican or a Christian, but I know enough of them to realize that they, generally, are not as irritating as Harriet Hayes. Many of them are much smarter than she is too... I'm sure Sarah Paulson would appreciate it if her character had some depth and didn't have to bitch about something lame in every single episode. I'm sick of watching it, so I can't imagine how she must feel. Of course, she is getting a (presumably) phat paycheck every week, so maybe she doesn't mind being the one flat character on the show that is otherwise full of character.

Ben Folds punking his audience?

2006-11-26T20:41:00.000-05:00

Look here for the story on Ben Folds.

And here's some slightly silly TV news for those of you that like useless trivia as much as I do: VH1 Classic is going to show "Pop-Up Video," two classic episodes at a time starting at 8 p.m. every night this week. Anyone else remember that show? (I was very excited until I flipped it on tonight and found Meatloaf and Mariah Carey doing their 90s thang. That did not please me...)

In other news, we're-not-gonna-take-it rockers Twisted Sister released a Christmas album this year. In case you were pining to check this out in a live rock situation, fret not, their Christmas tour starts on Dec. 1.

I'm not sure if I can take that. Although the AP gave it a good review, heralding: "This is, quite simply, the best hard rock Christmas album ever made, and one of the best rock 'n' roll Christmas albums period since Elvis made his. It's THAT good."

A hard rock Christmas album. Hmm... something I'd never thought was missing from the repertoire of holiday music, but who am I to argue? At this point, I am tempted to actually buy this thing and check it out myself. What's next? A Hanukkah album by Kiss?

Nature's candy

2006-11-14T19:47:00.000-05:00

(Note: Until I tried this variety, my only interaction with apples happened through my cereal, Apple Jacks, which I suspect don't contain any actual fruit. Photo courtesy of Honeycrisp.com.)

Ripening apples are as indicative of autumn as changing leaves are. With the change in weather, comes the fresh harvest. These natural delights come in a variety of sizes, colors and tastes, many of them indigenous to Central New York. This year, the Honeycrisp is one that both apple-lovers and loathers should try.

The Honeycrisp apple is a fairly new variety that is pleasing palettes at apple fests and farmers’ markets this fall. It’s not easy to get your hands on this fruit, though; the Honeycrisp tree is finicky - which farmers say contributes to the superior quality of its fruit - because it does not grow in all climates or soils.

A hybrid between the Macoun and Honeygold, the Honeycrisp was cultivated in a 1960 experiment at the University of Minnesota. In 1991, it was introduced to consumers, and its popularity has grown ever since. Midwest farmers have been growing the apples since the early ‘90s, but the fruit was only recently introduced in New York.

These apples have a delicate balance of sweetness and tang that will easily convert apple-haters into fans. Growers suggest that finicky eaters try this apple, because it combines desirable qualities of other apples. The skin, a muted red with “apple” green patches, is similar in texture to Macintosh or Cortland apples, with a slightly thinner peel, making it easy to bite. The Honeycrisp flesh resembles that of the sour Granny Smith variety but the tartness is undercut by a sweetness that is scrumptious. Another bonus is that this apple is not gritty or mealy like other types can be.

Honeycrisps are enjoyably sweet, tart and juicy. They are also excellent cooking apples. They soften into glazed, golden and translucent morsels suitably perfect for a cobbler or pie, but they don’t melt into a pasty mess. Local autumn harvest festivals celebrate the world’s oldest fruit, in many decadent ways. And they have the right idea: Fritters, doughnuts, pies, cobblers, caramel-candied and ciders are delicious ways to sample the fruit that promises to keep the doctor away, but you may want to try them raw first.

Heathcliff, please throw me off a cliff.

2006-11-06T20:45:00.000-05:00

I am a bit of a PBS nut. Always have been, probably always will be. There's much more to it than just Sesame Street. Although that is a very smart show, PBS has a lot more to offer for all ages.

Austin City Limits, Masterpiece Theatre, Mystery! and Nova are among my favorites; I've been watching them for years. PBS is the predecessor to the specialization that cable channels thrive on today, because they covered everything from cooking and home improvement to travel and documentaries. And they did it on a budget, no less.

PBS used to air some amazing (often BBC and also CBC) productions, many of which made up the Masterpiece and Mystery! repertoire. I remember seeing Fawlty Towers and Monty Python back in the 80s, when cable was just getting started. It was fantastic stuff. And PBS brought it to me, direct to my then cable-less TV set.

So I got used to expecting high quality productions from PBS. And Masterpiece Theatre reminds me of cozy Sundays at home, when my mother and I would watch literary productions of books that we loved or hoped to read someday.

Being in the middle of a difficult semester, feeling overwhelmed and somewhat listless, what better way was there to comfort myself than to watch some PBS? So last night, I watched a DVD of Wuthering Heights, starring Orla Brady and Robert Cavanah, as Catherine and Heathcliff respectively. This BBC production originally aired in 1999 on Masterpiece Theatre, but somehow I had missed it the first time around.

Wuthering Heights is often hailed as one of literature's great love stories. The 19th century plot is a bit convoluded, and the basic story is this: Catherine and Heathcliff grew up together and believed that they were soulmates, but Heathcliff's irascible personality made it difficult for Catherine to understand his love for her. For financial security, she decides to marry a nobleman (played by Crispin Bonham-Carter), which sends Heathcliff away in a rage.

Several years later, a wealthy Heathcliff comes back to visit married Catherine and marries her sister-in-law to incite jealousy. Catherine and Heathcliff spend enough time together to make her husband jealous, and at the pinnacle of the conflict, Catherine dies giving birth to a baby girl. Several years pass, and Heathcliff is tormented because he is separated by death from his true love. He basically continues to torture everyone else until his death.

This movie took the melodrama of the book to a new level entirely. I don't remember wanting to hurl the novel off the roof when I read it in high school. But last night, if there had been a copy of Heights nearby, I certainly would have chucked it at the TV. I'm not panning the acting or the sets. All of that was up to the usual BBC/PBS quality. They had some well-established British theatre actors in the roles, but something didn't work.

At first, I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with this production. My curiosity kept me going into the wee hours of the night, scrutinizing this movie to find the missing link.

That link boils down to melodrama/overacting which stems from a poorly constructed adaptation of the script and unbelieveable character development, but the worst offender was unrealistic make-up.

Even though I expect a certain level of drama in any production of this nature, this one went overboard. Everybody was running off huffing and puffing at the end of every scene. Women were being hit and abused, and there was no logical reason for it. Having read the book, I knew that Heathcliff had been a tortured child. That abuse played into his awful personality, but the movie didn't lead me to draw that same conclusion. I didn't have any sympathy whatsoever for him or for Catherine, nor did I believe their love for each other. Repeating how much they loved each other over and over again was not effective enough.

The first half of the story dragged on far too long. Generally, there needs to be a considerable amount of character development in these types of stories in order to understand the motivations later. But in this case, that development never quite happened. The plot was tied together by a string of events that made the characters even less likeable. (I vainly wanted everyone to take a bath because the greasiness across-the-board was unbearable!)

Unfortunately, I was actually pleased when Catherine finally met her demise. Had I known that it would lead to the most obnoxious wailing of "Cathy! Cathy!" from Heathcliff, I would've held my applause. As the story continues, Heathcliff obligingly progresses into an even bigger creep and tyrant than he originally was, outliving all of the other adults in the story, except the housekeeper.

Also, the second half of the story was rushed, from Catherine's death to her child, nieces and nephews becoming adolescents. It went so quickly that it was impossible to follow the story. I had to pause and review scenes a couple of times, before I gave up. Granted, things take place quickly in the novel, but there is at least a chance to take in the events and understand them. That moment of realization never occurs in any of the scenes following Catherine's death.

The other element that really bothered me was the make-up situation. None of the actors seemed to age, even though five to 15 years passed by in different parts of the movie. None of them had wrinkles, gray hair or had gained weight. Although Bonham-Carter donned a cane in his last scene as the nobleman Linton, he still looked like a 30-something playing dress-up in a 19th century wig.

If you are looking for a 19th century movie fix, I would suggest the 1995 BBC mini-series, Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth version.) It's time-consuming, but whole lot easier to watch. And it's classic, well mid-90's anyway, PBS.

Hard bodies

2006-10-31T17:15:00.000-05:00

I am not sure what possessed me to take a cardio sculpt class last night and then a step aerobics class this morning. (I think I was avoiding the media law brief, textbook readings and magazine article that I should've been working on instead. See: 'The Art of Procrastination' entry.)

My body is revolting right now. I mean that in every context that the word can be taken. But in this case, the usage that is most fitting is a revolution a la Bastille Day.

I knew the gig was up halfway through the step class this morning, when I saw three old ladies pleasantly kicking my uncoordinated butt. They were perfectly coordinated with the super-fit teacher, hopping up and down, kicking their legs gracefully, bouncing off and on their steps that were twice as high as mine. There I was lost and bewildered, desperately trying to count steps and keep up. Other descriptions that come to mind: pathetic, panting and sweating (not to mention praying), trying to get through that class.

I actually cheered when the class finally came to an end. Sike! The madness wasn't actually over just yet. The choreographed hopping up and down part was over. Next, the instructor wanted us to balance ourselves on top of some large,wobbly, plastic balls. I remember bouncing up and down on those things when I was five or six years old, but they had smooth, rubber handles on them. The gym's version had no cute little handles. We were supposed to "use our core strength to balance" on these maddeningly unwieldy spheres. Yeah right.

Ladies and gentlemen, when I thought it could get no worse, I noticed my ball was actually mocking me. Oh yes, my pained and strained face had actually turned the same shade of crimson as that blasted plastic ball. Who knew humans had chameleon-like properties?

I am proud to say that I made it through that class, and then the instructor asked me "Was this your first class?"

What ever gave her that idea?

A delicious assignment

2006-10-24T22:48:00.000-04:00

So I am writing some food blurbs for my internship. And today, I decided to tackle the pumpkin cannoli assignment. So I went to Biscotti's Cafe and Pastry Shop on N. Salina St., in the Little Italy section of Syracuse.

This delightful shop is warm and inviting as soon as you enter. There is a salon type area immediately to the right, with a plush, but gently worn sofa and some Queen Anne style chairs where you can just hang out comfortably for hours. There is also an entire case of gelatto in that room, which is fetching for a whole different reason.

To the left, there are cafe style tables and chairs - 12 settings of two-tops and four-tops spread out around the dining area. The storefront window lets in a great deal of light, and it's nice to be able to see the activity on the street outside, especially if you are working or hanging out with friends inside.

If the ambience of the restaurant isn't enough, the noteworthy sweets greet patrons as soon as they walk in from either the front entrance or the rear one. Nestled in the middle of the shop, there are three enormous glass cases filled top to bottom with tasty sugarey treats. Decadent cakes on the right, fluffy pastries in the middle and colorful cookies on the left.

There is enough mouth-watering action to leave anyone feeling dumbfounded while they try to decide what to choose. I tried the pumpkin cannoli - mainly because that was the object of my assignment for the day. To my delight, the tasty treat was more delicious than I could've predicted.

First of all, the ricotta cheese filling had the perfect consistency. It was light and creamy, and not thick and heavy. It had just the right amount of sweetness to it (and to my delight, it wasn't overly sugary, pumpkin-ey or spicy), and the chocolate chips and powdered sugar dusted on top were the perfect garnish. The pumpkin and spices were nicely subtle, too. Even the crust was flaky and crispy. Nothing about this dessert was overpowering, and therefore each element came together amazingly well.

Speaking with the owners was a treat too - they are graduates of the Culinary Institute of America. They have worked at some of the finest restaurants and hotels in Boston and New York, and they have brought tidbits of culinary expertise from each place to Syracuse. This husband and wife team like to compete with each other by concocting new creations. (The pumpkin cannoli was actually the reaction to a mint-chocolate cannoli, which was created to celebrate St. Patrick's Day three years ago.) As a result, they have plenty of other interesting desserts to offer. There is a Bananas Foster cake and a vegan chocolate mousse. They also have biscotti, but that is to be expected, given the name of the shop.

If dessert is not your thing, Biscotti's also offers homemade soups, salads and sandwiches throughout the day. They also have decent coffee, although it was not quite strong enough to suit my taste. But that divine cannoli easily made up for that minor shortcoming.

If you live in Syracuse and want to check it out, go quickly, because the pumpkin cannolis are seasonal and will only be available till Thanksgiving. Otherwise, they have reasonable hours (open till 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. Fridays and Saturdays, open till 11 p.m., closed Mondays) offer a comfy place to work, study or hang out.

News promos

2006-10-18T17:06:00.000-04:00

Ok I know it must be hard to come up with fresh and creative ideas for local TV news promos, and believe me, I have seen some idiotic ones. (Remember that I lived in Macon, GA and Charleston, SC for some time.) But I believe I saw the absolute DUMBEST promo ever this afternoon. It was for Syracuse station, WTVH, a CBS affiliate. Their take on why we should watch them is that they LIKE HANGING OUT TOGETHER. Their whole ad has absolutely nothing to say about their news coverage. It just shows the news team hanging out and talking about how chummy they are with each other.

What the crap? I don't care that a news team LIKES each other. I want the bloody news, for pete's sake. Maybe they have nothing positive to say about their news coverage? Every local station, in a mediocre or metropolitan market, is always touting their Emmys and other awards. How come this station isn't doing that? Does that mean they have no awards? Or maybe they have no news skills? Who knows? But they REALLY like each other. Isn't that swell?

It's a good enough promo to make me never want to watch that channel at local news time. Although part of me wants to watch it and make my critiques on this blog... stay tuned.

Coupling: Hillary Clinton and Jansport

2006-10-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was very odd. First, I slept through my first class, which is something I haven't done in years. Usually it happens when I am so tired that in my sleep-induced haze I turn off the alarm unwittingly. So I missed the class, but managed to get up in time to do everything else that I had planned for the day. But I knew it was going to be a strange day.

When I arrived at the Post-Standard around 1pm yesterday, there were a lot of suits hanging around outside. They were looking at me strangely as I got closer to the building, but I figured there must be something going on at the courthouse or federal building, which are both nearby.

After walking into the lobby, oddly, there was a crowd of about 10 P-S employees hanging around, and looking slightly nervous, for no apparent reason. I walked right up to my security guard buddy and told him that I'd forgotten my ID. I was kind of stunned when he told me to wait because he couldn't help me right then. I'm not a very patient person, so I was slightly annoyed until I saw Senator Clinton walking into the building surrounded by the suits. That was my Eureka! moment.

She was surprisingly tiny and seemingly gracious, as she shook everyone's hand. When she got to me (because everyone else was doing it and I was completely unprepared for this kind of scene) I stuck mine out and said "It's a pleasure to meet you." She noted that it was her pleasure to meet me too. Ahem. And then she disappeared up the stairs with the secret service guys, and everyone in the lobby relaxed.

So that was that. Strange, but interesting. She seemed really friendly and warm, and she also seemed to genuinely know many of the people in the lobby. Apparently she comes to the P-S for editorial board meetings quite often. What struck me as really odd, is that there wasn't nearly the amount of security that surrounds the President or other dignitaries. She only had about 15 people with her.

Of course, there may have been fewer of them. It was hard to tell because they seemed to be following me aound the building that day. For example, when I went to get lunch, the sandwich-making lady told me that the Secret Service had cleaned her out of bottled water and tomatoes, both of which I wanted. Those bastards!

And now to tie my subjects together.

When I got home, there was a large Priority Mail envelope resting on my door. I couldn't figure out what it could be, because I hadn't ordered anything big and squishy lately. When I opened it, I saw that it was a fancy new Jansport backpack in a strange color (not what I would've chosen, but it's free, so I will deal with it.) I had sent my old forest green colored one back to them last week, because it had developed a tear that pickpockets would love.

Jansport has a policy of repairing or replacing your 'pack, unless the damage was caused by normal wear and tear. In that case, you're on your own. To be honest, I kind of thought my tear fell into the usual wear and tear category, because I've had the thing for 12 years. It had travelled all over the world with me, and it probably was ready for retirement.

Because they couldn't repair my old one, they sent me a fancy new one in a different shade of olive green. They even sent me an APOLOGY for not having my original color in stock! What is even more exciting is that the new pack has the same pocket features that I had gotten to love with the old one. Jansport, you are wonderful. (Feel free to send any high-paying endorsement deals my way.)

Clearly Jansport and Sen. Clinton have nothing in common, other than both surprising me, albeit pleasantly, in the same day.

Sidenote: it's suddenly gotten cold here. And what worries me is that I think THIS WEATHER is cold at 50 degrees, I am going to die in the next few months. A professor told me today that in February, 39 degrees will seem WARM. UGH.

The Art of Procrastination

2006-10-10T20:58:00.000-04:00

So I have midterms tomorrow in two of my more reading-intensive classes, Media Law and Critcal Methods of Film and TV. The latter has easier reading but the instructor's exams are notoriously difficult. The former is just a lot of Constitutional history and case memorization. Both classes have a shit-ton of reading material, and naturally both classes are on the same day, and so, incidentally, are their mid-term exams.

Therefore, I have been buried in coffee shops and book stores for the past five days preparing for these two tests, but I am not finished yet. It's kind of daunting for a procrastinator like myself to work, even that far in advance, but you see, I'm nowhere close to being prepared at this point. (And that's because I haven't really been keeping up with everything weekly, like I should have been doing: Procrastination.)

For some reason, the adrenaline rush of finishing something last-minute allows me to learn faster, think more clearly and even produce better results. Maybe that's why I loved breaking news situations at CNN. I had to think on my feet, and fast.

But anyway, after three hours at Barnes and Noble this afternoon, I had to take a break. So I strolled the aisles, hoping that I would be inspired to return to the books soon. Instead, I spent an entire hour reading a book on Procrastination. And now I'm back at home, preparing dinner while my books taunt me for neglecting them (slightly) all semester. On the other hand, Veronica Mars is about to start...

"Good" Yankee barbeque?

2006-10-05T21:51:00.000-04:00

Oh yes. It exists.

This place has been written up in numerous travel mags - I even saw it in Sky, Delta's in-flight mag, a couple of months ago. But I didn't believe it until tonight. I went with some friends from school, and we dove in for the full experience.

We started with appetizers - cornbread and fried green tomatoes. The cornbread was a little too crumbly and dry for my taste, but it had been baked with honey on top, so it was forgiveable. I don't think they knew to bake it in a skillet with bacon grease, though. That always gives a nice salty crust to the 'bread, which was missing in tonight's concoction. But still, the tomatoes were excellent. Fried with bread crumbs instead of cornmeal, they were served on a bed of lettuce with cayenne buttermilk ranch dressing (YUM!) and some parmesean cheese sprinkled on top. All the Southerners at our table agreed that this was the (how do the kids these days say it?) BOMB.

We all ordered the pulled pork sandwiches with different sides. I got mashed potatoes and cole slaw. The slaw wasn't too sweet, which is something I don't really like about Southern slaw. The mash had a great kick from an abundance of black pepper, so both sides were good. The sandwich itself was delicious, too. The chain's signature bbq sauce is quite tasty, although not nearly as "asskicking" as it promises on the menu. It was spicy (could've had more kick, if you ask me), but not overpowering. The meat was also really tender but flavorless if you got a piece without sauce. I added plenty of sauce to my sandwich, and I really enjoyed the whole meal.

We each tried a different dessert as well - I had some chocolate pie thing, which was basically chocolate pudding on an oreo crust with whipped cream and chocolate chips on top. It was sinfully delectable. The others had equally yummy things - pumpkin cheesecake, vanilla rice pudding and sweet potato pie. Mine was the best, though. (Sorry Jacque, Nancy and Carl, but it's true.) Now I am sitting on the couch, wishing I'd not eaten quite so much while staring at the seemingly starved actors on Grey's Anatomy. I bet they never pig out on barbeque with their friends...

Oh Canada.

2006-10-03T19:33:00.000-04:00

Indeed.

I went to Montreal last weekend, and I chose the perfect weekend to do it. The weather was crisp and cool, but comfortable. The leaves were changing, probably at their peak, and the drive up was stunning as a result. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures because I didn't think that photos would do the scenery justice.

Incidentally, I drove through the Thousand Islands area (which Johanna, the director of my program, tells me is where the awful salad dressing of the same name was created) before driving into Canada. It is really scenic and beautiful. So much so, that I don't really know how to describe it accurately. I can't wait to go back in the spring to really check it out. There is a winery tour around that area, which would be cool to check out too. Any takers?

So back to the Canada trip. I have to say, it reminded me of the road trips that my family took when my brother and I were little. We had a lot of fun (when we weren't fighting or driving my parents batty), and my father would drive us all over the country to see places like Disney World, Washington DC and Niagara Falls. When I started driving, I always felt that same sense of adventure that inherently brought my father to this country over thirty years ago.

In my early twenties, my friend Anne and I drove all over the South, checking out random places for lots of dumb reasons, but mostly to curb our sense of adventure. We had a blast, listening to music, talking, trying new restaurants, talking our way into the Ryman Auditorium and getting to know new places.

As I've gotten older, driving has become more of a chore. Sometimes I really hate having to drive to get anywhere, much less make a road trip. (I really wish we had a better train system in the US, but that's another blog topic.) But this Canada trip somehow gave me a new sense of adventure and purpose. Maybe it was because I was conquering a path I'd not taken before. I certainly have never DRIVEN into Canada before (at least not when I was cogniscent - I think my family did it once when I was still in diapers.) And I had never seen upstate New York in such beauty. It was really exciting - like the first time I landed in Prague by myself.

So while it was really wonderful catching up with my aunt, uncle and cousins in Montreal, it was really exhilarating to drive into Canada. There are a freaking LOT of geese and birds though. My car looks like it was attacked by paintball guns filled with bird shit instead of paint. By the way, Montreal is THE place to go for breads, pastries, cheeses and wines. And yellow watermelon, apparently. Yummmm. Ok, I'd better get to the gym now to work off some of that pate that was immensely delicious...

Settling down with Lewis Black

2006-09-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

(You have to read to the end to get to the Lewis Black part.)

Above: a pint of beer from a pub in Ithaca. Ironic message, no? To be fair, there's an ad for an Ithaca taxi company on the back. Pretty smart advertising. FYI: That glass is now in my dishwasher.

Last week, I was supposed to interview Ravi and Anoushka Shankar for three different projects - two pieces for the Post-Standard and a podcast for SU - and I was as nervous as I was excited. Unfortunately, the Shankars cancelled their show (which was scheduled for tomorrow night) because the elder Shankar has a shoulder injury. The prep time that I had spent on these three projects could've been better used for media law reading, but more than that, I was disappointed to lose the opportunity to talk with a genius like Ravi Shankar.

On the other hand, I did get to see an amazing show (photo above) two weekends ago in Ithaca. Santoor maestro Shiv Kumar Sharma played with his son Rahul and tabla player Aditya Kalyanpur (who has studied with tabla geniuses Alla Rakha and his son, Zakir Hussain.) The santoor is an ancient folk instrument that Pandit Sharma basically raised to the level of sitar on the classical front in India. It is similar to the western hammered dulcimer - the santoor is a sringed instrument that is played by hitting the strings with mallets. The tabla is a set of traditional drums that are played with the hands, not sticks.

The three men, dressed elegantly in traditional Indian kurtas and pajamas, entered the stage, humbly folding their hands together and bowing their heads towards the audience as they sat down to tune their instruments. From the first note, the performance was mesmerizing.

The musicians were having a ball, smiling and laughing as they played off each other, really showcasing their talents. Pandit Sharma seemed to hold back a little, which allowed the younger musicians to really let loose. Indian classical music is all improvised, so the effect was even more astounding when the tabla player copied exactly every fast-paced, complicated taan (a series of notes and beat patterns that are composed during the set) that the younger Sharma played.

Displaying the trademark style of his esteemed teachers, the young tabla player's hands moved skillfully and frenetically over the drums. Rahul Sharma also showed that he has inherited his father's great santoor skills with the intricate tunes that he created. There was a much-deserved standing ovation, but sadly, no encore.

I honestly hope that these guys come back to the states soon. It was such an amazing thing to see in person.

In other news, I also saw the Strokes, whose performance suffered due to a seizure-inducing light show and horrible PA system, which made for a disappointing show. Actually, I suffered more than they did... I had really been looking forward to it, because I love their albums, and I had heard that they were an amazing live band. On the other hand, they made some hilarious jokes about snotty academics, which I think most of the Cornell crowd didn't quite get. (Sorry Sumi, that's how I saw it.)

And last, but not least, I interviewed Lewis Black this afternoon. It was definitely the highlight of my week. Before the big phone call, obviously I had read as much as I could find about him, and I was surprised to learn that he's a very sweet, generous man who is just thrilled to be where he is right now. He's been around for a long time, and he's really earned his current position of fame. If you haven't seen his act, his stage persona is an angry guy who is just fed up with everyday idiocies.

I had a really pleasant conversation with him, and we bonded over both of us being single with parents who just want us to F***ing settle down already! When I told him I was a 31-year-old, single Indian woman, he guessed that my family was surely flying in suitors by the cartful. (Thank goodness, they haven't resorted to that yet.) But if Lewis Black is still being nagged by his parents to find someone to grow old with, then I am in pretty good company!

Who says English food isn't good?

2006-09-21T13:37:00.000-04:00

After several years of trial and error, I have finally re-created the British national dish, Chicken Tikka Masala. When I lived in London, my friend Hope and I ordered the paneer version at least once a week from the local Indian restaurant. We couldn't get enough of the creamy tomato goodness.

Now if only I could find an authentic scone recipe! Something about the water in the UK makes their scones SO MUCH BETTER than the US versions.

Two things to update: 1) Thanks to my wonderful family for providing me with a digital camera. Now I can put pics online with my posts. Which leads me to number 2) I FINALLY have internet at home! So I can post more often and bore everyone to tears on a regular basis.

The Holy Cities

2006-09-08T19:07:00.000-04:00

It's been ages since I've posted, but I did write the following blog over the break. I just never had a chance to post till now... I'll write something more up-to-date over the weekend, but here's something to read in the meantime.

(I should note that the clown that was sitting next to me on the plane was deathly afraid to fly. So afraid that his hands were sweating so much that they were leaving water marks on his pants. Yuck. And he was talking about gravity and how just by being in the plane, we were defying certain natural laws. I don't know how many of you know this about me, but I am slightly afraid to fly as well. Once we're in the air, and I can't see down, there's no problem. But the up and down parts of the ride REALLY BOTHER ME. Anyway, I had to pop open my computer, put on my headphones and pretend to work so he would shut up. And that gave birth to the blog below.)

August 27, 2006
So I'm flying back to Rochester now after two weeks in Atlanta, Austin and Charleston. I'm thinking about my life, and how happy I am to know so many wonderful people. I really had a good time seeing everyone, and I can't believe I was fortunate enough to get everything in that I had wanted to do. I even worked a few days at CNN in the middle of travelling to all those places. My parents got the raw end of the deal, because I didn't get to spend too much time with them. Oh well, Christmas isn't that far away, I guess.

Atlanta is always fun. We celebrated Kara's big promotion and Sidebar's third anniversary. I also helped to host a baby shower for my friend Jody (ed. note: She had the baby on September 3, the best day of the year!) I caught up on celebrity gossip with Stephen, hung out with Margie and Lily and even got to see some of my VJ classmates at Lee's wine tasting party. Good stuff.

Austin is always fun, too. Family fun. But fun. I think I wrote about that and Psycho in my last post, so I'll skip the "my nieces are the most brilliant, funny and beautiful kids on the planet shpeel." (It's only a temporary escape, my friends. I'm sure they'll do something cute, and I'll be forced to tell you all about it.)

Charleston, of course, is wonderful too. I really loved living there, and even though I hated the small-towniness of it when I first arrived, it was very endearing when I left. I was fortunate to catch the last Cabaret Kiki show of the summer. And my friends, these guys were ON FIRE that night. I'd seen several shows before, in rehearsal and from backstage, and it was weird being on the audience-side this time. But it was really fun. I started to write a "review" of the show, but I realized I am far too attached to those people backstage and on-stage. I couldn't write anything other than glowing praise, and that's not really what a "critic" is supposed to do. My opinion: if you're in Charleston, GO SEE THIS SHOW. It's really delightfully entertaining and funny, and the songs are amazingly catchy. Plus Evan Bivins is about the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Carolina St. and Perry St. peeps and Julie, I miss you all so much. But what I miss most is the putanesca, the impromptu barbeques, the late-night stir-fries and the guitar-hero. (Nick, have you gotten to the end of season two YET? Season three starts really soon!)

That's all for now. We're landing soon, and the flight attendant is coming this way to make me put my tray table back up and turn off my electronic devices...

Videoconferencing, the wave of the future.

2006-08-23T22:30:00.000-04:00

I couldn't resist this shoutout to my friend Chris who works at Polycom. He was very excited that this new technology made it onto CNN.com's hallowed pages.

In other news, I spent the weekend in Austin with my beloved nieces who are now eight and five years old. Where does the time go? I swear they were just born yesterday! Anyway, Annika's birthday was Sunday, so we took her to Dave and Busters (her choice) where she won a giant Spongebob Squarepants doll. My brother should be sending me some pictures soon which you all can coo at when you see how darn adorable my nieces are.

The rest of my time "off" has been spent entertaining relatives or working at CNN. It's been nice to see some of my friends back at the Mother Ship, and I found out that our department won Peabody and DuPont Columbia awards for the tsunami and Katrina coverage last year.

Stephanie, satellites business manager extrordinaire, gave me my certificates yesterday. When I left for work today, I left them on my bed because I was in a hurry and didn't want them to get wrinkled in my work bag, and this afternoon my parents saw them and freaked out. They called me at CNN to share their excitement (and to scold me for not telling them about it.) I didn't realize my parents would know what a Peabody was, so I didn't rush to share the news last night. Oh well.

And now I should probably talk about something that might actually interest someone out there in Internet-land... I finally saw Psycho. The Hitchcock version. Everyone knows that I absolutely love Hitchcock movies. (North by Northwest is one of my favorite movies of all time.) His ability to use music and understatement as psychological tools was simply brilliant. No one else did what he did, but everyone still tries to mimic his methods. Film scholars have been saying these things (much more eloquently) for years, so I'll move on to my point.

Backtracking somewhat, when I was growing up, my mother always talked about how scary that film was when she saw it in the 60's. She said she couldn't sleep for weeks afterwards. She still thinks it's the scariest thing she's ever seen. So naturally, I'd always had an aversion to it as well. (In fact, I have never been a huge horror movie fan, although I love a good mystery/suspense/thriller. I just don't like zombies and people jumping out from behind corners with knives and that sort of thing.)

Being in the Arts Journalism program, I decided that I needed to face my fears and see the Hitchcock classic that set the tone for many modern horror films. So I set out to watch it in my brother's fabulous media room, with surround sound and a beautifully projected image on a big screen. Of course, I sat down to watch it alone, but during the day, just in case.

At first, I was confident that it wasn't going to get to me. This silly black and white movie couldn't possibly be as scary as my mother had deemed it to be. There are much scarier things on television these days. (O'Reilly Factor, anyone?) It simply reminded me of the genius that is Hitchcock. I already knew all about the famous "shower scene", so that didn't really scare me. I noticed the startling music in the intense scenes, and the creepy camera angles that were used whenever Norman Bates was in a scene. And oh, the black and white added such a classy touch. I felt very elite and erudite, looking at the piece from a critical perspective.

And then Hitchcock got the better of me. When the investigator was stabbed and thrown down the stairs. I admit, I yelped a little out loud. But when the skeleton in the basement grinned back at me in it's 10-foot-wide toothy glory, I literally freaked out. I turned the lights on and watched the rest of the movie with the media room door wide open, just in case.

Luckily, I was able to forget my fright quickly when I walked downstairs and joined the kids, who were watching harmless Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Terrorist plot no. 653: No hydration or hygene for Westerners!

2006-08-18T23:25:00.000-04:00

I have flown twice since last week. The security in Rochester was a breeze, except that I had to take my trusty tube of Chapstick and bottle of hand lotion in my checked suitcase. It wouldn't have been so annoying if the closed air on planes wasn't so dehydrating. Is anyone else having this problem?

Since I can no longer bring a bottle of water on board with me, hydration is my foremost concern. I hate flying without lotion and lip gloss. It sounds stupid, especially since I don't consider myself a particularly high-maintenance woman, but my lips crave that moisturizing, cherry goo from time to time. And airplane soap is not particularly easy on skin either. Coupled with the dry air, I could scratch the word "dry" on my hands without much effort.

The two-hour trips that I've been taking this month haven't been so hard on me. However, my sister-in-law just left for China and she had to do away with her creams and balms when she checked-in. So she has to fly for 36 hours without being able to touch up her make-up or put cream on her hands until she clears customs and gets to her hotel. That seems a little harsh.

Some lunatics in London make an explosive paste, and the entire western world has to suffer. No lotions, liquids, creams, deodorant, toothpaste or lip gloss on board! I guess that's the terrorists' end game: to make westerners do without basic hygene, so we all offend each other with our dry skin and smelly underarms. Perhaps I am overreacting, but it's mildly annoying that this morning, I had to check-in a small suitcase for a weekend trip because I wanted to have deodorant, make-up and moisturizer on hand when I arrived in Austin. Last week, I would've been able to carry it on and walk off the plane to meet my family, without wasting time at the baggage carousel.

(That area is aptly named, because it does resemble a circus most of the time... that gives me a good idea: the airlines should spend those extra taxes and fee money on clowns and tightrope walkers in the baggage claim area to entertain us while we wait and hope that our luggage made the same journey that we did. The elephant shit might put people off, but we're all going to smell bad anyway since we can't travel with deodorant anymore!)

I began to wonder about those people who travel every week, weekend or even every day. It's just an added inconvenience for an ailing airline industry which is already talking about raising fares to accomodate the latest edict from Homeland Security. Gas prices are super high, air travel is a hassle and the Bill of Rights is breached more with each passing day. It seems like it's time for a change - the terrorists are almost winning here. They have succeeded in making westerners live in fear, and they have increased the prosperity and ease of American life which used to be so dear to each of us. Don't get me wrong. I am happy to accomodate rules that ensure my safety, but I really am having a hard time understanding how lip gloss and deodorant got on the list of dangerous weaponry.

By the way, after my layover in Houston today, the gate agent let me bring my Starbucks mocha on board. I don't think she noticed it, but the flight attendant made a point, at least twice, to tell me how "special" I was. I am failing to understand why an item purchased inside the "secure" zone would cause such a commotion, because shouldn't that merchandise or food or whatever be "safe"? Ok I'm done with this rant now...

The fat lady finally sang.

2006-08-13T00:20:00.000-04:00

Topic #1: Newswriting.
Let me start by saying that this class was one of the most demanding classes that I have ever taken. But I survived it, and on Thursday, "Dump Truck" Smitty informed me that I actually got an A in the class. Ok, it was an A minus, but it’s still on the A side of the spectrum. It’s not a B. Phew.
(I'm supposed to be an overachieving injun, remember? There's no room for B's, unless they are spelling bees. All Indians are good at those, are they not?)

Topic #2: More school stuff.
We had two projects due on Wednesday this week: the last newswriting piece, and the only project for Arts Journalism for this semester. The AJ one will be published in a special supplement in the Post-Standard on September 17. We are having a fancy launch party on the 15th, and it’s pretty exciting to have such buzz surrounding our work.

Sometime in the blur of the past weeks, I volunteered for the editorial board of the Mix (our supplement), and I have been appointed as the “Style Queen.” For those of you who have met me and have seen how I dress, you can stop laughing already. It’s got nothing to do with fashion. I get to memorize the AP stylebook and make sure that each of our 16 pieces has perfect style. (Checking grammar, punctuation, correct spelling of words, etc.) I blurted out that I am good with rules, so there you have it. The rest of the team are stuck editing the pieces this weekend, so I think I got off kind of easily. (Johanna, please forget that you saw that comment, if you read this blog. Thanks!)

Topic #3: The opera and Cooperstown.
And last, but not least, we ended the AJ class with a field trip to Cooperstown yesterday. Most people will recognize the town because the Baseball Hall of Fame is there. We found out that it is also home to one of the world’s premier opera houses, Glimmerglass.

Glimmerglass is beautifully constructed, with “almost-perfect acoustics” as we were told, next to a shimmering finger lake. I couldn’t figure out what the imperfections in the sound could be, because we all thought it was divine. The opera is quite a production, as we saw. There are so many people behind-the-scenes making it all work.

Every year, Glimmerglass has four shows running simultaneously during their summer season. So they have to rehearse, load-in, perform and load-out for every show. That’s a lot of work and coordination, but they manage it seamlessly. The idea is that opera fans who come out to Cooperstown for the weekend can see all four shows in two days. If you’re going to have a tourist business, that’s a good way to run it. Make it worthwhile if people come to upstate NY, and drive 1.5 hours from the nearest major airport to go there and make a weekend out of it.

We met Lola Goldring and Dean David Rubin for breakfast in the morning. Mrs. Goldring is the benefactor that gave life to our AJ program. She’s a lovely, spunky woman who talked about her grandchildren (who are the same ages as most of my classmates) and at the same time discussed the latest movies, fads and culture with us. It was quite amazing to meet her, and I think that we were all very impressed with how down-to-earth and delightful she is.

So we went out to Glimmerglass, toured the opera house and then broke off into separate groups to explore Cooperstown. It’s actually a village, which I found amusing. The Clark and Busch (yes, the beer people) families spent a lot of money preserving the ambience of the area. There are no chain stores – McDonalds, Starbucks, etc. It’s all local businesses, with baseball-themed store names. Doubleday Field is tucked away in the middle of the high street. Although, there was too much Yankee paraphernalia everywhere for my tastes.

During breakfast, the dean mentioned a hotel that had a scenic veranda, where we could sit and enjoy the view of Lake Otswego. After taking a stroll up and down the main street in Cooperstown, we went to the hotel, where most of our classmates were also enjoying the pleasant, but chilly, weather.

We ended the night watching Jenufa, which is a Czech opera that isn’t widely performed. We had learned about it earlier in the week, so it was much more meaningful listening for specific things in the music, and watching for certain things in the plot. The singers were absolutely amazing, and the music was really interesting. There were many aspects that reminded me of modern movie music, which was fascinating since Janacek wrote the opera at the end of the 1800s.

So that is the denouement of semester number one. I’m heading to Atlanta this weekend – hopefully will manage a visit to Charleston and Austin in the next two weeks, and I’ll be at CNN for a couple of days too. It’ll be nice to relax for a change.

A civilized newsroom?

2006-08-05T13:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, my arts journalism class went to visit the local newspaper, the Post-Standard, where many of us will be doing internships during the next year. Kathleen took this picture of the newspapers on a reel, waiting to be distributed.

We sat in on a budget meeting, which is when the editors of each section get together to decide which stories will make the front page. The thing that struck me most about the place is that it was so quiet. Everyone was very polite and accomodating towards each other.

I can't remember a single day in the CNN newsroom that was like that. So during the entire visit, I was questioning whether I was at an actual media outlet or not. It didn't seem normal, but it got me to remember my buddies at CNN.com in London. They are all newspaper guys who got hired to do online work, and they are pretty civilized too. They always look moderately annoyed when some lunatic TV person freaks out in the newsroom. Although I have to say that London's newsroom was much calmer than the Atlanta one.

It's going to be weird to start an internship at an office where people are actually respectful of each other, and there's no shouting or other extraneous noise going on all the time. I have never seen a work environment like that. Every TV station that I have worked at has been over-the-top with noise, at the very least. Screaming and antagonizing people were usually present too. When I start my newspaper internship in the fall, I wonder if I'll be able to concentrate...

Picking blueberries

2006-08-01T21:31:00.000-04:00

One of my friends from AJ, Jaque, mentioned that she and her roommate, Nancy, were going to a blueberry farm over the weekend to pick berries. Growing up in Atlanta doesn't give a girl many opportunities to pick anything but what to put on her pizza, so I jumped at the chance. Despite the heat, Jaque and Nancy and I had a pretty good time. Those girls racked up in blueberry goodness, filling grocery bags and plastic containers. I only filled about half of a plastic container, but I still have a feeling I'm going to be eating blueberry scones, muffins and pancakes for quite some time. Today I learned that they freeze well and have a ridiculous dosage of anti-oxidants which are wrinkle-fighters, so it's a win-win situation. Upstate NY farmland is beautiful, by the way.

Registration tomorrow, headache today

2006-07-26T21:10:00.000-04:00

Well, tomorrow we get to register online for classes. I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about this whole thing. Although I have mastered online banking extremely well, and I can't remember the last time I actually wrote a check. I'm thinking this registration thing should be pretty similar, right?

You see, the last time I was in school, the internet was barely existent. I was taking an HTML class, and about 1% of my friends had e-mail. It's amazing how quickly the technology has taken over our lives. I currently don't have internet at home, and well, I'm about to lose my freaking mind. Every time I think about looking something up or e-mailing someone, I have to drag my butt to the library on campus to do it. (My friends have noticed I haven't been in touch very much lately...)

Even my professors are communicating with us via e-mail, and I am falling behind in classes because I didn't get an e-mail until the next morning.

It was a ridiculous experiment, I realize now. How could I think that I could live without internet in my home? Yes, I am lazy, but who wouldn't prefer to do research at home within reach of the coffeemaker than sitting in an uncomfortable library chair?

Do not fear friends, I have a new neighbor upstairs who a) has a router and b) is happy to let me share his internet connection, once he gets it hooked up. So I should be back online regularly within a month or so.

"CNN... what kind of shop are they running over there anyhow?"

2006-07-24T15:35:00.000-04:00

My friend Hansmeet's company finally made the news after the story was in limbo for a few days. Check
it out.

So Saturday afternoon, I went to see My Super Ex-Girlfriend with a fellow arts journalist, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. Admittedly, we only went because of the Luke Wilson eye candy factor. I totally admit that it's a completely shallow reason to see a movie, but it was a rainy Saturday afternoon and the library was just putting me to sleep. The movie itself was predictable and mildly amusing. However there were a few subtle shout-outs to various superhero movies of the past and watching out for them made the movie mildly entertaining for this geek.

That's it for now. Happy Monday, folks.

Grad school, here I am.

2006-07-22T13:49:00.000-04:00

Ok I am finally starting a blog. Blogger tells me that I've had this account since 2001, but I hadn't paid much attention to the newest internet craze until now. It just seemed kind of weird to talk about my personal life online, for everyone to see. I kind of liked the old-fashioned method of telling people of MY choosing what I've been up to. Many of my younger friends have blogs which are personal, online journals, but I always blew it off as a "Kids these days" kind of thing. I'm not adverse to technology... I have a 3rd gen iPod. I have a cell phone. I even have a Powerbook. I love e-mail. But blogging, well, it just wasn't for me. Until now...

Since I arrived at SU three weeks ago, it has been suggested over and over again that starting a blog would be a good idea. It wasn't until Friday's guest speaker, Michael Barnes from the Austin-American Statesman, showed us how valuable it could be, that I decided to actually put my five-year-old account to use.

So there you have it. I will try not to write mundane things like "I just got a latte at Freedom of Espresso coffee shop" or "I bought a cool skirt at H&M today." I will try to write about things that interest me, excite me or even upset me on a broader level. But sometimes I might be compelled to write about silly things like the fact that I went salsa dancing last night and actually had a blast, and that now I am blowing off my need to do research in order to meet my friend Linda at the mall to watch a movie and do a little shopping. (It's true!)

Welcome to my blog, and happy weekend, everyone!