I was first introduced to this movie in the spring of 2004 by my cousin. I had never heard of the movie prior to his recommendation. He simply said, “I’m going to show you a clip, and if you don’t want to see the movie afterwards, I’ll be confused…” This is the clip that he showed me: Alec Baldwin’s “Motivational” Sales Speech. If you don’t intend to watch the entire scene, please skip to 6:13 to at least get an idea of what I’m talking about. Continue reading
The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis (1973)
Hipster Highway.
This was the fourth novel that I read by Amis (I’ve since read Dead Babies) and the second that I have reviewed. It’s a very quick and satisfying read. The Rachel Papers also, more than any other Amis novel, makes me want to visit London.
Charles Highway is by far the most likable protagonist of the Amis works that I have read. His witty repartee and unmistakably teenaged sexual neuroticism are all too familiar and terribly fun. That being said, Continue reading
Disc golf aka frolfing is just plain fun as hell. For those of you that don’t know what disc golf is, I will try to explain it as simply as I can: golf with frisbees. The discs aren’t your typical frisbees that get tossed around in college quads, but rather thinner, slightly smaller discs that fall into one of three categories: drivers, mid-ranges and putters.
Drivers are the thinnest, most aerodynamic of the three and are as you could probably assume, intended for distance. The discs can be assigned all sorts of ratings that govern how the disc sails. Mid-ranges are slightly thicker and are used almost like a 3 wood is in golf. Putters are the thickest of the three and intended for putts and approaches.
Unlike golf, the “holes” aren’t holes, they’re baskets. You throw a disc into the suspended chains and hope that it drops in the basket. If you’re me, it doesn’t happen as often as you’d like. Typically, courses are 18 holes, but some bigger courses have 27 or more.
The greatest thing about disc golf is its accessibility. Most courses are free or entirely reasonable (I paid $5 for 18 holes in Maine). The discs themselves are also inexpensive. The best discs are only about $16. I was able to get two drivers, a mid-range and a putter for an investment of $60. When you think about it, the average round of golf (18 holes and w/ a cart) is about $30 and some people are willing to drop hundreds of dollars on a single club. Most rounds of disc golf cost me about $9 in gas.
The game itself is just relaxing. Most courses weave in and out of the woods and so you’re pretty much hiking as you play. Disc golfers are some of the most “chill” people (I absolutely hate using that word, but I cannot think of a more accurate term); they are comprised mostly of hippies and stoners, but more importantly, they are nice and respectful of the courses (and I don’t have to talk to them about the jam scene). Disc golf is the type of game where you and a buddy can show up with your discs and a 6-pack.
I also have to say that although it can be frustrating, I never really get angry with disc golf…and I have a particularly childish problem with sportsmanship. I’m the type of person that will double-fault in tennis and reshape a racket on the ground. I am still learning i.e. I suck, but I haven’t lost it yet.
More and more courses are starting to pop up. There are now three courses within an hour of the greater Albany area. Leagues run for singles and doubles in the spring, summer and fall. I’m considering joining a league come springtime.
My friend Steve and I played at Joralemon Park in Coeymans, NY. It’s a nice course to have so close. And it’s free. We mans-gamed it through 18 holes even though it started snowing at around hole 12. By the end, we were soaked, freezing and satisfied. It took about 45 minutes to get feeling back in my fingertips, not to mention the fact that I threw a + 3,000, but I had a great time.
16 years and still going strong. And with a release in 2010, they now have albums released in three different decades.
Aside from their continuing staying power, the Apples in Stereo are to be recognized in particular for their earlier releases.
The Apples in Stereo’s first release in 1995, Fun Trick Noisemaker, is a lo-fi, psych pop treasure and one of my favorite albums of the 90’s. It was also the first major release of the Elephant 6 Collective. Robert Schneider (not to be confused with B-52’s Rob Schneider) effectively channels Brian Wilson in his melodies and adds a fun, poppy twinge with his manboy vocals. I never really tire of this album thanks to tracks like “Green Machine” and “Lucky Charm.”
Tone Sole Evolution in 1997 is a very listenable follow up to Fun Trick Noisemaker though it doesn’t have the same air of start-to-finish greatness; there are some definite peaks, notably “Seems So” and “You Said That Last Night,” but there are also a handful of dips. Most noticeable is the increase in production. All in all, the album is above average and leaves the listener just shy of totally satisfied.
1999’s Her Wallpaper Reverie absolutely glows. Released in the same year as fellow Elephant 6’ers Of Montreal’s The Gay Parade and The Olivia Tremor Control’s Black Foliage, The Apples in Stereo begin to experiment with tracking and trippy instrumentation. The album is sprinkled with a sometimes playful and sometimes terrifying theme loop. Schneider’s songwriting is at its tightest on this record in songs like “The Shiny Sea” and “Benefits of Lying (With Your Friend).” The album’s pinnacle, “Strawberryfire,” would easily find a place in my top 25 singles of the 1990’s.
Though their albums after Her Wallpaper Reverie are all okay and very accessible, they never quite garner the charm that these first three records do. Also to be noted in this induction is front man, Robert Schneider’s, producing prowess. On top of releasing some of the best records of the 90’s with The Apples in Stereo, Schneider also produced some of the best records of the 90’s in The OTC’s Dusk at Cubist Castle (one of the first reviews I wrote for the site), Beulah’s When Your Heartstrings Break and Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
At the rate I’ve decided to do beer reviews, Evan is going to have to change the name of this blog to “the self hating hopster.” (See what I did there?) I’ve been reviewing so much beer I feel there could be a Joanie Loves Chachi-like spin off to this Happy Days of a blog somewhere down the line. For now, I remain your faithful servant in amateur beer reviews.
To that point, I’ve noticed that Continue reading
About three months ago I moved into a new apartment. I was faced with the dilemma of how to arrange my sort-of small room with the massive amounts of shit I own, and work around the fact that I don’t have a closet and that there are two doors to my bedroom. Eventually I figured it out to some degree, and things were working well, but something just didn’t feel right.
I shuffled some things around, stubbed a few toes, got yelled at by the old man downstairs for dropping things too much, and then I gave up. Then I thought, what’s the deal with this feng shui business? Is it real? How do I do it? What makes a room feng shui? So off to Google I went, and here’s what I found. There were about 9 million sites, some intersected, others were the complete opposite of each other, it turned into a bit of a headache, but I settled on what sounded the most reputable and also what I gathered from each site to be the majority consensus on what is proper feng shui technique.
This is a map of a successfully feng shui-ed room. Basically you divide your room, whatever it may be, into nine equal quadrants and each quadrant represents a different aspect, illustrated above. Along with each aspect are coordinating colors that you should try to have in each section. Wherever the door to your room is would be considered the ”front”.
Here’s a list of example items you’d want for each section:
Knowledge: Bookcase, books, tools for self-development.
Career: Mirrors or water-related items. Images to support your career goals.
Helpful People/Travel: Pictures of your helpers.
Family/Health: Family photos, heirlooms, plants.
Creativity/Children: Art supplies, artwork, computer.
Wealth: Money, jewelry, fish, fountains, anything red, purple or gold.
Fame/Reputation: Candles, awards, plants, anything red, orange or purple.
Relationships/Romance: Round or oval mirrors, anything pink, pictures of loved ones, paired objects (like two candlesticks or two crystals).
Now here’s where things get tricky.
One of the biggest rules concerns the bed. The bed should be in direct sight of the door, but not directly in front of the door. The Chinese call this the death position because when you die, you can simply be carried out the door, nice right? So ideally you want your bed to be on the wall opposite the door, and you should be able to see the door without straining yourself to do so. This is so that you are always aware of who is leaving or entering. Along with bed placement, your bed should be against a solid wall and should have space on either side of it so energy can ‘’flow’’ freely. Ideally it’s good to be symmetrical so that your bed is balanced, i.e. a night stand on either side.
Shall we see this implemented?
When I went to try this I realized my room was about half-way there without me even knowing it. So I did some rearranging of the bookcases and night stands, and here we are.
Let’s start at the front left, Knowledge.
As you can clearly see, we’ve got a bookcase, some records, and as for tools for ”self-cultivation”, my singing Michael Jackson Christmas ornament is on my corkboard, along with a nicely illustrated image of beards that my old roommate drew for me. All of the items here just happen to be the appropriate colors, this is also where I stash my obnoxiously large scarf collection.
Onto Career:
I don’t have room for much in this section, but on the wall I have a collection of show cards from past BFA/MFA Thesis shows, so I guess that’s relevant. The walls in my apartment are plaster so every day I get to play this fun game where I see how many times I’ll have to re-stick each card. You’d think they’d make a plaster-friendly sticky tack. Nope.
Helpful People & Travel
It’s a little boring, but I’ve got some pictures of family and friends, and also all of the business cards I’ve collected. That large cat birthday card meows happy birthday when you pull on its chin. Many thanks to my lovely sister for that one…
Health & Family
My closet. Symbolic? Perhaps. But there’s no where else in the room that I could put it.
Now we’d be at the center, which should remain as open as possible. Onto Children/Creativity.
Aside from how stupid it is for me to still have a window fan, we’ve got some artwork, a framed picture of Kevin Arnold, a cat sculpture from Kenya, and this is mostly where my computer lives. Along with my dinner, tonight it was home fries (yum). I like the idea that my creative section is also where my window is. See ya later, didn’t need you anyways.
Wealth!
My dirty laundry. Upon further review, my layout may need some work.
Anyway, the show must go on. Now we’re onto Fame & Reputation.
This may be the most successful quadrant of my room aside from the Knowledge one. Check out all the goods! MJ Bobblehead, peacock feathers I stole from my step-brother’s wedding, mad candles. My bed also sneaks into this section a little it.
Finally, Relationships/Romance.
Also lacking a bit. Fitting. I used to have a fancy rhinestone mirror over there but I kept knocking it down so I decided to forego all romantic prospects to avoid seven years of bad luck. Also notice the plaster issue again, those damn photos will not stay up no matter what I do.
So that’s that, here’s a final shot at the entrance to my sort of feng shui room.
I’d also like to add that I didn’t have to do once ounce of cleaning before taking these photos.
Anyway, was that helpful? Do you care? I don’t know, but I spent like a week figuring this crap out so I figured I might as well share it. And I will say that I do feel very comfortable and peaceful in this room. After a day/night of dealing with morons or being wasted, it’s nice to come back to a cozy little abode and pass out. It’s hard to navigate certain necessities like a dresser or a closet, but I think as long as you’re associating things in your mind with what they should represent, it all works out. Or something.
It’s all about energy, man.
This may have been a bad thing for me to do because I already had a hard enough time getting out of bed in the morning. Now that my room is so nice it’s damn near impossible for me to get up. I’m pretty sure I drive my roommate crazy because I’m a serial snoozer and I deliberately set my alarm at least 30 minutes early so I can have the satisfaction of hitting that button every ten minutes.
Oh well, at least there’s harmony up in here.
It is not often that I consider myself blessed, but every two months or so, our apartment receives a copy of Museum Replicas Limited and I immediately retreat to the bathroom to leaf through it on the can. I got a copy in the mail shortly after my roommate and I moved in and the first thing I thought was I bet these guys made a mint with all the bros the Halloween after 300 came out in theaters…”I NEED a costume that is COOL and can show EVERYBODY how JACKED I am!” This catalog is anything but cool (at least in the traditional sense). Continue reading
I feel even worse posting this after Marena’s 3rd installment of beardophilia, but two days ago, I shaved off my beard for the first time in over a year for Halloween. I feel absolutely naked. Strange breezes are chilling my cheeks when I’m outside. People ask for my identification more often. I can’t save snacks for later in my mustache.
I am also experiencing what I will call “Phantom Beard Syndrome.” PBS is very similar to the phenonmenon of phantom limbs. For example, an amputee sometimes experiences severe pain in the big toe of a foot that was amputated years ago. I on the other hand will go to cup my chin in my hands and slip without the half-inch buffer of beard, or attempt to twist my mustache in deep though only to graze my knuckles on stubble. The pain I’m suffering is not physical pain (aside from the razor burn on my neck). No, my phantom beard is causing mental anguish.
My beard has gone through many different stages over the years.
And…
A few days of growth has done nothing for my spirits. Some people have actually complimented me saying that I look better without the beard. Those people are idiots.
The one consolation is that beards do grow back. If anybody knows of any beard steroids, please drop me a line. Until then, I will just hope and wait; and when my beard does finally return, I will welcome him back with dimpled cheeks.
This is a special Beard of the Week! It’s 2 AM, but as I drunkenly stumbled into my room from the bar I saw a package on my bed which was awesome because it means I got my new computer power adapter three days earlier than expected! So I needed to do SOMETHING moderately relevant with my computer to celebrate.
I’ve decided that the best way to honor beards Continue reading
So with Evan’s post as a catalyst, it was suggested that I, as a female who has never done this, should do an experiment with online dating to see how women are approached/treated/etc.
The first thing I foresaw was some stupid Matthew McConaughey movie situation where the sassy female lead is doing a study to screw with dudes and suddenly she falls in love with one of her victims. Yes I’ve seen How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days more times than I’d like to admit, but Continue reading
the self-hating hipster 