OP!

Hey everyone, it seems I have neglected to tell everyone that I am now on Wordpress.

You can still read about my misadventures on http://mynameisreb.wordpress.com/

Now that school is finally done, I will have time to add all the updates I have been dreaming about for months. Stay tuned for some exciting new features.

apologies for tardiness

i didn't even get a chance to tell you about my glorious Friday past!!!

During our lunch break, my friends Lise and Laurie (two lovely ladies I intern with at Rubenstein) and I decided to take an adventure into the unknown.

We went to Times Square.

We found an inflatable colon.

The ASGE ( American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy) had a large, inflatable pink colon in Times Square until 3 pm last Friday. It was 8 ft tall and 20 feet in length. We approached with caution. We entered the colon...and was slightly disappointed. I was able to compare moderate colon cancer with severe colon cancer. We received blue rubber bracelets saying "Colorectal Cancer: Preventable. Treatable. Beatable!" I had the English version - Laurie and Lise both had it in Espanol.



We found a naked cowboy.

This was my first experience with the Naked Cowboy of Times Square --- and was surprised about how friendly he was. Did YOU know that he has a website with merch? A kind, artistic looking fellow took pictures for us. Whoever you are artistic lad, thank you for the hilarious photos.


After work, Lise and I headed to the J. Cacciola Gallery on West 27th and were joined by Tiel, Steph, and Nick. An exhibition was opening called drawing/not drawing with works by Danielle Frankenthal, Hollis Heichemer, and Ron Kingswood. Friday nights are great on that stretch of avenue between 11th and 12th with all the exhibit openings you are sure to stumble upon. Some skeeves from LA happened to stumble upon my friend Steph and I, but we prevailed - no worries.

This was my favorite by Hollis Heichemer "Barefoot beachcomber" 22" x 80-1/2", Oil on Mylar on Board













Afterwards we moved to Brooklyn for my dear friend Anna's birthday at Fette Sau, off of North 3rd and Metropolitan in Williamsburg. You walk through the door and are welcomed by a whiff of the most mouth watering barbecue (keep in mind I used to be vegetarian and it is still delicious to me). As cheesy as it sounds, spending a few hours there was the typical night you would hope for on a cold wintry Friday night - many friends (some I haven't seen in months), beer flowing, a place that seems to avoid the pretentiousness that can come from being located in Williamsburg.


twas a glorious Friday night, and the reason I couldn't share it sooner was due to my life as the typical overworked college student. Every week the same; nodding off in classes, waking up early to cram in extra studying, late nights at the laptop...and then we wake up and realize.....oh my god.....it's Friday again.

(saturday I always wake up after only three hours of sleep and work a full day at LICM. reminds me of this song. again, for your listening pleasure: Amy McDonald's "This Is The Life".)

how'd i get here?

my snow day was used productively: discovered two watch worthy shows by way of hulu.com:

Dollhouse - something to quench the thirst i have had since buffy ended (same writer and everything)

Chuck - best soundtrack of any comedy series hands down. hot chip, pop levi, talking heads, cake...all were heard as I spent 3 hours + watching past episodes. also appearances with jenny mccarthy, nicole ritchie, and that boy meets world kid. lame? - i think not






My dear friend Christina shared this with me tonight:

Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

by Richard Siken

Every morning the maple leaves.

Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts

from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big

and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out

You will be alone always and then you will die.

So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog

of non-definitive acts,

something other than the desperation.

Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I couldn't come to your party.

Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I came to your party

and seduced you

and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.

Your want a better story. Who wouldn't?

A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.

Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.

What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.

Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly

flames everywhere.

I can tell already you think I'm the dragon,

that would be so like me, but I'm not. I'm not the dragon.

I'm not the princess either.

Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down.

I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,

I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow

glass, but that comes later.

And the part where I push you

flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,

shut up

I'm getting to it.

For a while I thought I was the dragon.

I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was

the princess,

cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,

young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with

confidence

but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,

while I'm out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,

and getting stabbed to death.

Okay, so I'm the dragon. Bid deal.

You still get to be the hero.

You get the magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!

What more do you want?

I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you're

really there.

Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live?

Let me do it right for once,

for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,

you know the story, simply heaven.

Inside your head you hear a phone ringing

and when you open your eyes

only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.

Inside your head the sound of glass,

a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.

Hello darling, sorry about that.

Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we

lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell

and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.

Especially that, but I should have known.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together

to make a creature that will do what I say

or love me back.

I'm not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not

feeding yourself to a bad man

against a black sky prickled with small lights.

I take it back.

The wooden halls likes caskets. These terms from the lower depths.

I take them back.

Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

Crossed out.

Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something

underneath the floorboards.

Crossed out. And here is the tabernacle

reconstructed.

Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all

forgiven,

even though we didn't deserve it.

Inside your head you hear

a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you're washing up

in a stranger's bathroom,

standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away

from the dirtiest thing you know.

All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly

darkness,

suddenly only darkness.

In the living room, in the broken yard,

in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport

bathroom's gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of

unnatural light,

my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.

And the the airplane, the window seat over the wing with a view

of the wing and a little foil bag of peanuts.

I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,

smiling in a way

that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,

up the stairs of the building

to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,

I looked out the window and said

This doesn't look that much different from home,

because it didn't,

but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.

We walked through the house to the elevated train.

All these buildings, all that glass and the shiny beautiful

mechanical wind.

We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,

smiling and crying in a way that made me

even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I

just couldn't say it out loud.

Actually, you said Love, for you,

is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's

terrifying. No one

will ever want to sleep with you.

Okay, if you're so great, you do it—

here's the pencil, make it work . . .

If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window

is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing

river water.

Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it

Jerusalem.

We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not

what we sought, so do it over, give me another version,

a different room, another hallway, the kitchen painted over

and over,

another bowl of soup.

The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell.

Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time.

Forget the dragon,

leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness.

Let's jump ahead to the moment of epiphany,

in gold light, as the camera pans to where

the action is,

lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see

the blue rings of my eyes as I say

something ugly.

I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way,

and I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way.

But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats.

There were some nice parts, sure,

all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas

and the grains of sugar

on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I'm sorry

it's such a lousy story.

Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently

we have had our difficulties and there are many things

I want to ask you.

I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,

years later, in the chlorinated pool.

I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have

these luxuries.

I have told you where I'm coming from, so put it together.

We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor . . .

When I say this, it should mean laughter,

not poison.

I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.

Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.

Quit milling around the yard and come inside.

"Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out" by Richard Siken. From Crush, �© 2006 by Yale University, published by Yale University Press.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah...

Here's the playlist for tonight's Airwave on WRHU 88.7FM Artist	Song
Gospel Claws	Don't Let It Die
Arctic Monkeys	Leave Before the Lights Come On
Cosmic Starfish	Don't Give Up
Nada Surf	Where Is My Mind?
The Juliana Theory	Musicbox Superhero
Fol Chen	No Wedding Cake
Various Artists	Lovesong
M.I.A.	Paper Planes (DFA Remix)
Shout Out Louds	Hurry Up Let's Go
Charles Spearin	Anna
Myka 9	To The Sky
Dragon Fli Empire	Fast Break
Shy Child	Kick Drum (feat. Spank Rock)
el Goodo	Feel So Fine
The Honorary Title	Stuck at Sea
A.C. Newman	Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer
Interpol	P.D.A.
Talking Heads	Life During Wartime
Vampire Weekend	A-Punk
Pavement	Roll With the Wind
Natalie Portman's Shaved Head	Slow Motion Tag Team
Dan Auerbach	The Prowl
Reel Big Fish	Gigantic
Golden Boots	Knife
Portugal the Man	Shade
Bright Eyes	We Are Nowhere and It's Now
Titus Andronicus	Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ
Spiral Beach	Kind of Beast
Pixies	Hey
Hot Panda	Cold Hands/Chapped Lips

Look at me!

I'm currently in the computer lab in Calkins trying to force this guy who was in one of my drawing classes two years ago to look at me.

Another reason to love my recently created igoogle: the featured video today on Youtube was Fol Chen's "Cable TV". Just last night I added a few tracks from them into the Airwave format. (Listen tonight at 9 pm Eastern @ wrhu.org or 88.7FM in the New York area)


In today's New York Times there is an article about Kindle, another electronic book reading tablet. As a traditionalist and avid book worm, it smarts when new technology replaces what I am used to - a physical old fashioned book in your hand. I can't help but admit how cool the Kindle sounds though. The screen makes the pages appear authentic, and downloading books is cheaper than buying the hard copy (NY Times bestsellers around $10, older books between $3 and 6$). However, Pogue does make the point that traditional books could never be replaced: "you can't pass on or sell an e-book after you've read it." Yet again, as far as technology will take us and threaten the replacement of favorite pasttimes, traditionalists will always stick around - and you can never beat a classic.


oh yeah --- i got a wave and a hi.

A Few of My Favorite Things

It's a Monday night and I'm already flustered from this week.
In times of crisis I make a list of my favorite things. I'm also breaking one of my personal rules about not blogging about things that are not current.

Forgive me?

Last week my friend Sara Knee , an Airwave DJ and digital media extraordinaire, live Twittered while doing her slot for Airwave. It was a success, getting transcontinental requests, more followers for herself, and gaining more listeners for WRHU.org. I wonder if this is the possible answer of how to get people to start listening to Airwave again; bringing the concept of the college radio station together with today's obsession with social media and all things internet.
BTW - my slot for Airwave is tomorrow night. Be sure to listen from 9-11 PM Eastern Time at WRHU.org. Let's do an experiment: feel free to Tweet me with requests. Remember my_name_is_reb

I've come full circle where clothing I bought two years ago belong in the trash. I've come full circle - I am an adult (sort of) and cannot wear Target clothing forever. I have been searching for some new and interesting finds and here it is: Modcloth. They boast to carry "indie" and "vintage" clothing but at prices I could agree with.

Some Favorites:

Who knows who Poster Boy really is. The link is an interview with

Henry Matyjewicz, the man who was arrested for being Poster Boy. He claims he is one man in an movement...but who really knows the truth? Or wants to know? Isn't mystery half the fun?

All I know is that I go for the artistic type and rebels without causes. I haven't seen an actually peice of work in subways but I have seen where he has taken out parts of ads.


And finally, discoverd by myself on thesixtyone, Lady Danville, a Los Angeles based band that is absolutely precious with Michael, a 9th grade math teacher, Dan, a financial analyst and graduate student, and Matt, an actor. The song, Sophie Roux, I fell in love with at first listen.

and you're you

I stopped by WRHU tonight to do my weekly charting and ran into Steve, who is now the sole DJ for "Ska Show" in Studio South. It prompted a conversation about the station itself and the fear of more news programs being included in the format and Airwave and other music shows facing extinction. There has also been much talk about how the "music kids" of the station feel like outcasts. My theory is that the "music kids" have nothing to collaborate on. The staff who work on Morning Show and Newsline work together to research, report, and deliver award-winning newscasts. The Sports Department works tirelessly to bring forth talented announcers. Through these projects, there is a camaraderie between all those staff members which "music kids" are lacking.

My hope is to propose (for a second time) a music news show dedicated to talking about today's music and where the industry is leading. As producer of Airwave, I know it is a show worth being listened to. The difficult question is how you get college students to listen to radio again, period. The music industry is changing and the discussion over it has gotten old. Everyone knows the majority of today's music is downloaded and music is listened to by peers' suggestions and through word of mouth. The "word of mouth" tactic is much more effective than pushing something on audiences on a daily basis (i.e. Top 40). As much of a fan I am of digital media and the boundless opportunities with the Internet, I still want to have my two hours a week, wearing my headphones and playing music.

What is the answer?

Speaking of being thrown for a loop by the boundlessness of the Internet, The role of the librarian is changing for all you bookworms. Instead of simply shelving books, librarians are teaching school children how to do research and find correct information (via the Internet). They also teach children how to create Powerpoints and the like.

If a career such as that of a librarian can adjust to this ever evolving world of Web 2.0, will others?

Other exciting news - Neko Case was interviewed for this week's T Magazine. I was only about a page through when I fell asleep last night, but I was pleased nonetheless for an indie artist to make it to a prominent publication.

Then I thought - is that what I want? To have "best kept secrets" shared with the rest of the world?

I was livid when Kanye West used the bit from Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger".

There is that great feeling of discovery when finding some great new music/art/designer/restaurant/bar/website/athlete that makes one feel hesitant to share with anyone else.

Or should we think more along the lines of "good for you!" when new music/art/designer/restaurant/bar/website/athlete gets more recognition?