Disorientation Week

After a week of hanging out with the Sonic Christian Youth of Ohio, driving through Appalachia to North Carolina, then back East via NYC, I am finally back in Boston for BPS orientations and the start of the school year. Major. reality. check.

No more BBQ for breakfast. No more noon reveilles. No more watching back-to-back episodes of Home Movies. No more boat times with Old Greg. Being an adult is lame, dressing like one is lamer, and waking up at 6am again is the most lamest. I do hope I can remember the boat times of this summer during this school year. I like this new too-blessed-to-be-stressed version of myself that has emerged since graduation.

As for a report-back, so far BPS teachers seem to be a sharper bunch than those one might find at TUSD but I realize no matter where I go there will always be a teacher who does not know their plural noun forms and I need to accept this as a fact of life. Okay, off to bed so I can attend another full day about building and fostering communitys within the classroom.

Ooh! I forgot! Mayor Menino paid all the new BPS teachers a visit this morning and addressed us in his lovably incoherent way. Luckily it was around 7am this morning, a time I am not usually known for being giggly during. However, I did chortle to myself each time he pronounced the word "kindergarden" as "kin-dee-garden." You would have too.

An appeal to the siz-erp-sippin' voters

Obamarama may be approaching a saturation point of American pop culture. I say this not so much because of Obama's spread in US Weekly but mainly because of this:



In Three 6 Mafia's (yes, the group who brought us "Sippin' on Some Syrup," who incidentally just lost a member due to a syrup-sippin' related death) new single, Obama's catch-phrase is repurposed as a request for a change in sexual position. An interesting approach to win the siz-erp sippin' demo, no?

I don't even know your name/
there's a whole lotta room in the front of the Range/
like Barack Obama said it's time for a change/
pullover on the roll on the back seat/
pop that body now you know that ya got me

Also: Dear Hip Hop, Can we move on from lollipops as extended metaphors for male genitalia now that we've had two other singles on the topic in the last six months? Thanks. XOXO.

Graduación 2008

Let's make this report-back quick so we can get to the good stuff, okay?. The ceremony was boring as all hell, as is the nature of graduation ceremonies, except for the only-in-Tucson componant: tiny Mexican childrens playing Mariachi music in ill-fitting sombreros. (Nothing will ever top my undergraduate ceremony, where Steven Effing Tyler came on stage to receive an honorary degree and to sing “Sweet Graduation” using an Altoids box as a tambourine). And, the reception at a professor's house was equally boring and awkward due in large part to having to graciously accept a card with my first name spelled wrong from the program director who taught me and only eight others* for two years. A summary of The Others, for those who are new readers (stalkers):

1. Extremely religious older woman who missed a week of class because she burned her eyelid with a curling iron.
2. 22-year-old Stepford wife who buys baby clothes for a non-existent baby on her weekends.
3. Military mom. Lives on the air force base. Liked to tell me when I have food in my teeth.
4. Soccer mom. I know nothing about this woman except her homepage is Fox News.
5. Good ol’ boy. He likes trucks. Uses the word “butt-hurt” often.
6. Chick (alien?) who does not like listening to music.
   
7. Recovering ultra conservative Christian prone to relapses.
   
8. Me, 25-year-old spinster. Most likely to be an old-hag.

Luckily, the blandness within my cohort was counter-balanced by the colorful personalities I met on a daily basis off-campus and it is these characters (and some relatively sane girl friends) that I will actually miss and forever associate with my graduate school experience. The transgender dude with tattooed eyebrows, who rollerskated around town, and into my heart, wearing a plush frog-shaped backpack and was often seen with a box of 1000 plastic spoons, that guy my friend dated who sold hippie jewelry from a briefcase and wanted to melt down a certain type of crystal so he could ingest it and have it harden in his body and don't even get me started on the meth addicts! God, living in Tucson for just two years has allowed me to meet enough people to write character sketches for the rest of my life! I will leave you with an excerpt from one describing a favorite meet and greet from last summer:

I just met a man outside of Epic who lived in the Fox Theater on Congress Street throughout the '80s. He made a fire every night in the middle of the stage and wrote poetry. One day "some shark" came through town, into the theater, and stole his notebooks. I was tuned out for this half of the conversation (YAWN! Who in Tucson hasn't lived and built fires center stage in some theater?) but my ears perked up when he began to tell me a story involving him hitch-hiking to LA, storming into the Capitol Records building and demanding royalties for a song sung by Kriss Kross. Apparently, this shark stole the lyrics to what would eventually be known as "Jump."

Graduation pix, including ones of the party held for me by the Perez family, can be found here next week.

Chicken, fish or artichokes with tomato mousse?

Recently, while I was home in NY, I came across some beautifully illustrated menus from a Paris to London Air France flight my mom took sometime in the 1970s. I thought it would be fun to share these menu covers at a time where air travel is far from glamorous and when you're lucky to get a pillow, let alone a full meal. One of the appetizers listed is "Fond D'artichaut Mousse de Tomate"/"Bottom of Artichoke with Tomato Mousse."

The Maria Bamford Show Finale

If only I could have written a report on Maria Bamford rather than choosing between Susan B. Anthony, Flo-Jo or my mom (easy A) for my "Who's Your Favorite Female Role Model and Why?" writing assignment in fifth grade. Bamford is a stand-up comedian, who after many years and Comedy Central specials, still seems to be flying under the radar. She also is certifiably nuts, as most comic greats are. Her depression and OCD are working wonders for her though as her style is completely unique and her jokes are consistently well-written and executed.

For the last few months "the Bammer" has been creating one-woman multi-character skits that showcase her voice talents and absurdist humor and posting the video clips on Superdeluxe.com. Much to my dismay, her final clip was posted last week. You should really watch them from the beginning but here's one of her last and a personal favorite.

Spring Cleaning

My list of bookmarks in Mozilla is getting unruly so I'm sharing with you a random assortment of newish linkage collected from the last year. Since my del.icio.us page isn't too popular I'm trying here instead. Mange.

Up next: my collection of saved text messages! And after that: things-to-do lists from sophomore year!

Travel
Top 101 City Lists- random factoids
Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports- exactly what you'd expect
Forgotten NY- forgotten, overlooked, ancient sights in New York City
Elyse Sewell's Journal- American model-chick living in Asia

Music
FLUXBLOG: Wry and Wise, But Also Very Sexual-an mp3 blog
Top 100 Indie Songs of All Time at HearYa - Indie Music Blog
FIRST UP! - SUGA KEEP IT KOOL, UR WITH THE OLD SKOOL
Songerize - Listen Now!

Good to know
RulesofThumb.org - Homepage
Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Dharma Punx NYC
Oh My Apartment | The renters guide to living better, solving problems, and saving money.
School of Arts & Sciences - University of Pennsylvania- 60 second lectures
Muskingum College - Learning Strategies Database

Supplemental Readings
Amazon.com: Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz: Gourmet Food-English majors with too much time on their hands
Doris Lessing - Nobel Lecture- a lovely collection of speeches from past and present Nobel Prize winners
Death of an Innocent- Outside Magazine- basis for "Into the Wild"
best-of-craigslist (it never gets old)

Last day of interning, first day of spring

What a happy coincidence.

I realized this after I finished my last daily cycle of hole punching, dating and filing the duplicated colored-coded grammar sheets (at the behest of my boss, natch). And with that I was officially done being an indentured servant for the next foreseeable future. Next time I whine about something job-related at least I'll be receiving some hush money for my troubles. And I'll have lots of degrees and fancy certificates and shit. And I won't be living anywhere near 128.

It's amazing how easy it is to fall into the behavioral patterns of suburbanites. That's not a judgment at all, it really is damn easy. Within a month after I moved to MetroWest for the internship I had bought a Jeep with a Red Sox flag on the antenna, began bi-weekly Starbucks trips and daily Vh1 viewings. Most of what I ate was frozen and out of a box and for fun I would drive into the city, get drunk, make poor decisions and drive back out. Straight bridge and tunnel (Mass.-style).

But, it wasn't all bad. I got to live out the lyrics to "Roadrunner."

one two three four five six

Roadrunner, roadrunner
Going faster miles an hour
Gonna drive past the Stop 'n' Shop
With the radio on

I'm in love with Massachusetts
And the neon when it's cold outside
And the highway when it's late at night
Got the radio on
I'm like the roadrunner

Alright
I'm in love with modern moonlight
128 when it's dark outside
I'm in love with Massachusetts
I'm in love with the radio on
It helps me from being alone late at night
It helps me from being lonely late at night
I don't feel so bad now in the car
Don't feel so alone, got the radio on
Like the roadrunner
That's right

...

Yep, totally went to that Stop and Shop. And, I really am in love with Massachusetts. I like that the first day of spring is a big deal.

Konichiwa, Bitches.

I'm back East and I've had some signs that moving back here may not have been The Biggest Mistake Ever. Last night I really, truly enjoyed myself in Park Slope. Two days ago a T bus driver smiled at me. (Is that even legal?) Move number 938b shows a small suggestion of promise.

One thing I'm especially looking forward to now is seeing more shows, both conscious and un. (After The Long Blondes and Bonde Do Role both canceled dates in Tucson I sorta forgot that seeing bands is something that can actually be done with relative ease in certain locales). It seems to celebrate my flagrant love of all things pop-sounding at the mo, Robyn is coming to NYC next month. Something tells she wasn't planning on making a stop in the Old Pueblo.

"Tape you up good, put you in the trunk. See you next Tuesday, you is a punk." Happy '08!

It's TP and ATC

One third of all songs on the radio currently involve T-Pain in some way either as a producer, rapper, or featured artist. (Probably not in that order.) However, the bulk of T-Pain's income comes from not from his singles but his ringtones, a market essentially invented from the sweet strains of his vocoded voice. This "All Things Considered" clip (!) discusses why T-Pain's voice sounds particularly good through a cell phone's tiny speaker. No mention of how he managed the impossible: To make "bitch" a three- syllable word. Even at the top of his game, Snoop could only pull off two and a half.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16665656


His new video for "Church," just in time for the holidays.

Soulja Babies

Rarely is the question asked, "Is our childrens learning to pop, lock and drop it?" The answer is, undoubtedly, yes.




This lil shawty is hittin the shoulder lean. This lil shawty is too, at the tender age of one. This lil shawty is getting it for prize money on TV. And these little shawties are Superman-ing that ho all the way home.



To Superman dat ho is defined at Urban Dictionary.com as "when you ejaculate on a girls' back then put a blanket on her so when she stands up the blanket sticks therefore making her look like she has a cape." I wonder what a mash-up of Soulja Boy and Tchaikovsky would sound like. How about Swan Lake feat. T. Pain?