“Dip your pen into your arteries and write.”

Feeling like a Dinosaur...

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:24:29 -0500

So…I might be a little late with the times, but I just stumbled across Pandora this weekend. You know, Pandora…the free internet radio sans commercials. You just simply type in the band that you want to listen to and it magically leafs through hundreds of bands with music that matches up with your taste. It’s magic and I love it. I feel like I’m having an affair on my iTunes shuffle, which might I mention often misinterprets my music mood.

Right now I have “Animal Collective” in my station info. and I’m happy as a clam. (Who knows if clams are really happy?)

Happy Pandora-ing. In your face, Apple.

Pod this Pod that

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:31:52 -0500

I don’t listen to anything with the word “pod” in it. Every iPod I’ve owned has been stolen by thieves more interested in making a pretty penny than my musical happiness.

Podcasts are foreign to me. Maybe I just don’t understand the point of them, but when I listen to anything on my computer (or iPod if I had one) it’s music. I’m an old-fashioned type of learner who prefers print over other forms of media. On top of that, I have a short attention span and don’t often hunt around for new forms of media.

The closest thing to a podcast I listen to is the radio…which I don’t even know if there is any relation to the two. I despise public radio and all forms of commercials and advertising, however, two exceptions are NPR and 88.1 WYCE - a Grand Rapids, MI based independent radio station.

Chicago’s city streets preceeding Obama’s speech.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:17:23 -0500

Chicago’s city streets preceeding Obama’s speech.

November 4, 2008

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:14:18 -0500

After a friend of mine living in Italy asked me what I was still doing home at 7 p.m. on election day, I quickly grabbed my things and walked to the train to witness history.

Once I heard the eruption of cheers coming from the lakefront it finally felt real. It wasn’t just conversation in the caffeteria at work, or a photo with headlines on the newspaper. It wasn’t just a sign in my neighbor’s lawn or a voice heard over a TV. What happened in our city was something entirely monumental, and I was part of it. Some of my peers used their journalistic instincts and reported that night - I went soley as a civilian.

My heart beat - the crowd was enamoured. Chants rang out, tears were shed. When Obama took the stage his voice filled the city streets - bouncing off the skyscrapers.

We welcome you, President Obama.

White Suit in the White City

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:30:56 -0400

I met Tom Wolfe Thursday at The Chicago Public Library’s One Book, One Chicago event. Check out a blog post I wrote for Fringe Magazine.

Also, something for your peepers below:

"You have to see life to write about it"

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:29:30 -0400

“You have to see life to write about it”

- Tom Wolfe

Photo

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:28:13 -0400

Tom Wolfe

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:18:05 -0400

Tom Wolfe

talking sense to the senseless

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:28:00 -0400

I was part of a heated political “debate” this weekend. Surrounded by conservative republicans in a dingy basement, I played the solo independent who embraces Obama and his policies with open arms. “She’s a Chicagoan!” they yelled. I beamed from the inside…until things got started. Did I mention I was in western Michigan? Enough said.

Trying my damndest to understand the views of the males dominating the sofa, I became provoked with their intellectual lack.

“You want to steal from the rich and give to the poor?” they asked. “Change? What change.”

Be patient, creatures…time will tell.

My face got closer to theirs once I started ranting and my words got louder after each sentence ended. Middle fingers flew and I even got out of my seat at some point. I had to remind myself that not only was I talking to a bunch who vote republican because “my whole family does, and I do too,” but I was talking to an intoxicated bunch who vote republican because “my family does, and I do too,” who don’t get out much, according to their wives, and possess extreme research-negligence.

So this is why I never joined the debate team in high school.

My friend’s husband and I were splitting a small case of beer and ended up splitting the room later that night. Right down the middle - Obama and McCain - making sure none of the bottles touched in the case and making sure to steer clear of each other for the remainder of the night - until of course they had to bring me home when we shook on it. “Agree to disagree.”

November 4, my sofa-sitting-conservative-friends. Let truth prevail.

When all else fails, take a breather

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:52:00 -0400

I hopped a train to my hometown in Michigan last Thursday. I’m a fullest-time student taking an internship, a voluntary blog position and work, so it was against my best interest to dodge town. I was feeling utterly stressed, so I allowed myself.

The minute I sat down my eyes had a moment’s rest. With no internet connection, newspapers, television, interviews, books, or other nagging priorities barking at me, I was napping before I had the time to think - with homework in hand and all.

Autumn in Michigan is a place where I can look at the stars - really look at them. It’s a place where I can breathe in deep - the smell of the beautifully dying trees. The trees in the country have nothing on the planted trees in Humboldt Park near the man-made pond.

Sitting on a cold bench with Dad drinking black coffee in a styrofoam cup watching high school football and talking about fishing and politics beat interviewing a stranger anyday. Taking my two-year-old neice to a pumpkin patch and watching her attempts at pulling the red wagon full of pumpkins beat waiting for the bus or train. The annual Pulaski “DAZE” and meeting up with an old friend beat shuffling off to an eight hour day of work. Catching up with high school girlfriends over a drink beat losing myself in homework. Watching cheesy horror films with my sister until the wee hours beat waking up early for class.

I enjoy learning. In fact, I would stay in school for as long as possible if it didn’t cost so much. But more than anything, I like getting back to my self. I love the fact that I have a home in Chicago and a home in Michigan. I like knowing that if times are tough, my family is a four-hour train ride north. Going back reminds me to breathe.

My neice, Quinn

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:38:49 -0400

My neice, Quinn

Not to belabor the point...

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:34:00 -0400

CBS Evening News. Katie Couric’s exclusive interview with Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Katie Couric - “I’m just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation”

Sarah Palin - “I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to ya.”

Try to find you some. Bring them back to ya?

Oh America…please. Please vote. Vote like you’ve never voted before.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s rendition of Sarah Palin and...

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:32:17 -0400

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s rendition of Sarah Palin and Katie Couric’s one-on-one

Sarah Palin and Katie Couric, First Interview focusing on...

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:31:00 -0400

Sarah Palin and Katie Couric, First Interview focusing on economy.

Sentimental Politics?

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:34:00 -0400

Should our children be reading political ploys? If I reckon correctly, it was about the same time when I was reading illustration books that I personally thought my daddy could be president of the United States. Shame on Meghan McCain for buttering up our nation’s youth (ie our future) and making a pretty penny at the same time.

Photo

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:25:18 -0400

One Book, One Chicago

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:16:00 -0400

“When the final news came, there would be a ring at the front door as if she no longer owns it or controls it - and outside the door would be a man … come to inform her that unfortunately something has happened out there, and her husband’s body now lies incinerated in the swamps or the pines or the palmetto grass, “burned beyond recognition,” which anyone who has been around an air base for very long (fortunately Jane has not) realized was quite an artful euphemism to describe a human body that now looked like an enormous fowl that has been burned up in a stove, burned a blackish brown all over, greasy and blistered, fired, in a word, with not only the entire face and all the hair and the ears burned off, not to mention all the clothing, but also the hands and feet, with what remains of the arms and legs bent at the knees and elbows and burned into absolutely rigid angles, burned a greasy blackish brown like the bursting body itself, so that this husband, father, officer, gentleman, this ornamentum of some mother’s eye, His Majesty the Baby of just twenty-odd years back, has been reduced to a charred hulk with wings and shanks sticking out of it.”

- Ch. 1, “The Angles”
The Right Stuff

See best-selling author and journalist, and one of my personal favorites, Tom Wolfe, at the Harold Washington Public Library on October 16 in conversation with journalist, Carol Marin. Wolfe is known for his works:

The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, The Electrice Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Pump House Gang, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, The New Journalism, The Painted World, Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine, The Right Stuff, In Our Time, From Bauhaus to Our House, The Purple Decades, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Ambush at Fort Bragg, A Man in Full, I am Charlotte Simmons, and Back to Blood.

Acid Tongue-Coming to a Church Near You

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:54:36 -0400

Jenny Lewis will showcase her soon-to-be released sophomore album, Acid Tongue, Sept. 19 at Epiphany Church. Critically acclaimed artist of Rabbit Fur Coat and front woman of Rilo Kiley, Lewis moves in stride with a newly found sense of confidence. She croons her spellbinding lyrics with a combination of folk, bluegrass, and psychedelic rock. Lewis collaborates with Elvis Costello and M. Ward on her new album; so concert-going hopefuls should cross fingers especially tight for surprise guest appearances.

Photo by A Sheckler

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:50:00 -0400

Photo by A Sheckler

Think Fast, Steely Dan Tour '08

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:48:05 -0400

Emerging from the 70s, Steely Dan is still rockin’ original soul, funk, rock, and R&B. Front men Walter Becker and Donald Fagen filled the Chicago Theatre with wry lyrics and funky melodies, giving audience members their money’s worth. With enough hits to play long into the night, Steely Dan and their 10-piece band could only touch on some crowd favorites. “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” “Black Friday,” and “Kid Charlemagne” got the sold out crowd onto their feet. “The Royal Scam” was followed by a long and boisterous standing ovation, leaving all concert-goers with a touch of nostalgia.