Twitterrati

Or, more aptly, "Twitteratti and why I hate them".
Just when I was coming to terms with living in the the soundbite era, Twitter had to come along. I swear, there is truly no justice in the world.

The egotism of the blog circa 2003 - with the minutia journalism and verbose anecdotes - was unsettling enough for one decade. What about the human condition makes us so eager, if not desperate, to expose ourselves? And, perhaps more perverse, why are we so keen to voyeur?

Twitter takes out whatever dignity was in blogging - at least it was deliberate self-reflection that required sentences and thought and continuity. You now write a few words or perhaps, if you're truly cerebral, a sentence with grammatical structure and [shock!] punctuation from your computer or mobile phone to update the world on what you are doing that very milimoment. Driving, tooth brushing, sleeping, watching tv, chillin -- these are all appropriate and common Twitter posts that, are not only utterly useless but also tremendously boring. If you somehow enjoy spending your life this way, jolly ho, no judgment here.

BUT, on the other hand, if you are part of the growing number of people who follow the Twitter posts of the Twitteratti - people like John Mayer, Giorgio Armani or, hey why not, President Obama - then you should know you are the 2009 version of those idiot kids who paid to be part of Mary Kate and Ashley's fan club in 1993. Too bad you didn't learn anything in 16 years and are still surprised to find out your personally signed membership card wasn't personally signed. Or signed at all. It's called a printer.

So stop feeding into the nonsense that somehow when John Mayer is "eating dinner" it is glamorous or important or worthy of note. And, most importantly, stop feeding yourself some nonsense that just because you know when John Mayer is allegedly "eating dinner" you are glamorous or important or worthy of note. You're not. Now sign back into facebook and forget you ever knew how many reps Marc Jacob's trainer Whats-His-Name is doing at the gym. [MSY]
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I Like to Sit Down When I Eat

Zen Palate - weirdly, Princeton's most direct tie to NYC when you think about it - has locked its doors, eerily turned off the lights and placed an "undergoing management restructuring" sign on the largest window. All signs point to repression-victim, but there's always the slight chance of a weird homicide incident; that would at least explain why the chairs - blood-soaked? - are still out on the floor instead of sold to a guerrilla army deep in Canada to make a little money for the franchise on the side. Nope, no, that really doesn't make sense. So, Zen Palate is closed, and consequently, there seems to be little reason to venture to Princeton Shopping Center out on Harrison Street (about a 7-10 min drive from campus).

That would be correct if Bon Appetit, a few stores down from Zen, wasn't actually a great gourmet food store. True to its overused name, Bon Appetit doesn't fall too far from being exactly like every other gourmet food store in towns across the East coast - their front counter of prepared foods is indistinguishable from Dean and Deluca's, and, of course they cater (I recently heard that their cheese and fruit spread at a Whitman wine tasting was perfect - delicious food, not-too-ostentatious of a presentation, but not as tired as an Olive's platter) - but, this kind of thing makes it exactly what I am looking for. They sell delicious, pure-ingredient - and salty - Tyrrells potato chips, and really great curry chicken salad sandwiches. Their various hummus wraps can be on the dry side, but all of the ingredients are fresh and delicious, and a cup of coffee is just shy of $2. Add in their big, dark chocolate covered pretzels and fresh bagel chips and it's a done deal.

Overall, Bon Appetit is of the same ilk as Olive's, but you can sit down here by floor-to-ceiling windows (looking outside draws your eyes from the Matisse imitation on the wall) and enjoy weekend brunch in a new, slightly strange environment, replete with beautiful French-speaking mothers and daughters - and slightly obnoxious elderly women who have invariably just come from a show at McCarter or the Met, program in hand. These women are always there; consider yourself warned. [LFR]
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Brainsluts

There is a new-ish band on campus, called brainsluts. Rob Madole '10, Russell O'Rourke '11, and Katy Pinke '10 make up the complete band. Featured to the left: lovely Russell, imbibing. Coffee, baby. So hot. 

Brainsluts is rocking in a strange new way. Rob's on the african drums, acoustic guitar, and vocals. Katy mostly does ornamental harmonies and percussion -- the tambourine or a salt-shaker thing. Russell is a mastermind on the accordion, viola, and some three-part harmony jams. And also, he's for sure dreamy. During their performances I'm often torn between being completely emotionally invested in the songs -- bouncing around with the rest of the attention-hungry crowd -- or removing myself to enjoy the irony of the oh-so-silly lyrics. Or of course, there's the name of the band itself. Awesome. Anyway, they've only performed a few times (once in Murray Dodge, twice as openers for bigger names in Terrace) but their "genre," if you can call it that, spans from LSDJ video-game rock-tech-hip-hop-outs to Animal Collectivey drum-beats and twangy, raw harmonies. I love them. Then again, they're also my friends. Anyone else get a chance to catch them in all of their weirdness and glory?

Posted here: their first Terrace performance in November. Only three songs, more folky, the LSDJ sound only came later. Check it out. UEM

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Don't Fear the Disco

Ah, Thursday already. Do you know what that means? It means you're having a party. And you're playing all the sweet jamz on your fancy iPod music-machine. And someone is like "omfg what's this song?" And you're like "It's Justin Faust omfg!"

Anyway, here he is, being all German and shit. Many thanks to Jon Harris for this gem, which I'd describe as electro elevator music (that's a good thing, I swear!)

The Capri Spinoff - Justin Faust 

PS. Yes, disco is back/never left. Quit yer whining and dance! [UEM.]

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The "Death" of Handwriting?

This BBC article today is only one of many I've seen in recent years about the "death" of handwriting. Naturally it's all overhyped: "A century from now, our handwriting may only be legible to experts." On the contrary--we've replaced the more tedious forms of handwriting, like lecture notes and weekly letters home to Mother, but we're still a society whose members in large part need to be physically "literate," and where there's still a place for hand-written text.


Case in point: letter-writing. To be truthful, I actually belong to that old vanguard (or rearguard) of people who send things to each other through the Postal Service. It's partly self-congratulatory ("Look! We're vintage!") but there's an intangible joy in reading a letter that somebody once bent their head over and scratched their pen on. While I write emails I'm also doing ten other tasks, but when I write someone a hand-written letter I devote to them all my attention, if only for ten minutes. And besides, you just can't leave your lover a romantic email. There are rules for such things.

There's also a pleasure in developing a distinctive style of handwriting. ALG once told me my handwriting was beautiful (I don't agree), but in any case it's nice to know that my writing is confidently different from anyone else's. A practical mixture of cursive and shorthand, with g's, y's, and j's connecting and a penchant for illegible r's. It's cute! It's fun to obsess over. But it's also a strong physical intimacy with the medium that we may have lost during the transition to electronic typing.

It's true that schoolchildren today are texting almost before they can write. My county was the first in the nation to provide public school students with free laptops in middle school. (It was a mitigated failure--middle schoolers can't take care of anything, much less electronic equipment they don't own.) And it's simply easier to type most things than to write them out. But for the foreseeable future, there will be a reason for elementary schools to teach handwriting skills and for professors to prefer handwritten exams. Handwriting offers a connection with the written word that we can't easily grasp when our letters are just ones and zeros in disguise.

What do you think? Am I too old-fashioned? Is it better for everyone if elementary schools teach typing skills instead of handwriting? Or is there still a place for the pen?

[JCG]

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When was your first?

There's an affliction that strikes all women, a gift they all receive. An onset, if you will, one that has for centuries remained very private. But one young woman wants to make it very, very public, at least for those women featured in her new book, and one reviewer - Abigail Zuger, M.D. for The New York Times - wants to uphold that book as nothing short of miraculous, a contribution to the canon that is "likely to sell briskly for centuries to come." (find her article here). What might the young editor's subject matter be? Why, a woman's first period, of course!

In her oh-so-cleverly entitled The Little Red Book, young editor Rachel Kauder Nalebuff (an eighteen year old who will enter Yale in the fall, obviously) presents the stories of 92 women's first period. That seems fine, somewhat sappy, and largely unremarkable - like a Chicken Soup for the Menstruating Soul - but Dr. Zuger's review lays the saccharine praise on thick, celebrating this as a remarkable breakthrough in wo-munication. It would seem that being able to read about this evidently verboten subject within the confines of a little red binding will be a rewarding experience for every woman - ever - and will cause in them "the urge to buy it for every female preteen in sight." Really?

Honestly, I can't say I care to know how Cecily von Ziegesar (of Gossip Girl-creating fame) experienced that first visit from Aunt Flo. But that, Dr. Zuger would seem to imply, is merely my irrational fear of menstruation talking. In this assertion, she has a partial point - it doesn't make intuitive sense that something all women experience should have such a gag-order surrounding it. On the other hand, it's gross. Period. (whoops, pun). Besides, in my experience, embarrassed refusal to talk about the p-word isn't so much the case. It may not be something all women - no matter their age - are comfy with discussing, but I don't find that it never makes an appearance, or that everyone around me shudders when it comes up in conversation. And yet, even as I type that word - menstruation - I get a bit of the ick. What is it about periods that makes me regard the attention lavished on them in this book with disdain and boredom on the one hand (oh, puh-leeze. Like you said, ALL women deal with this. Yawn.) and a bit of discomfort and disgust on the other?

So what do you think? Do you suddenly feel the urge to post your own first period story? To then disseminate it to all the pre-adolescent girls you know? To bind it into a little red book? Are you going to rush to Ms. Nalebuff's accompanying website on menstruation (oh, the solidarity!) and join in on the fun? [KFF] Read More......

Pancakes

I love pancakes. But invariably I’m disappointed when I order them at brunch. Restaurants never seem to get the consistency right the way my dad can. I like them fluffy, but not airy—I like there to be some depth to my pancakes. On the other extreme, I don’t like them rubbery. My ideal pancake has some density, mixed with fluff, and a little crispness around the edges.
Clinton Street Baking Co. and the related restaurant Community Food and Juice in New York City serve these dream pancakes. Although other items on the menu such as truffle fried eggs ($16) sound enticing and omelets ($12) on other patrons’ tables look delicious, their pancakes are just so good I can never bring myself to order anything else. I will, however, get a cloud biscuit for the road.
Pancakes come with maple butter, a delicious melted sauce with which to drizzle—or drench—your pancakes. Ordinarily I’m not a huge maple syrup fan. I like butter on my pancakes. But the combination of butter and maple syrup cuts the sickly sweetness of syrup and is the perfect addition to the perfect pancake. It may seem ridiculous to pay $12 for pancakes, but they are more than worth it.
Lines are shorter at Community, 2893 Broadway between 112th and 113th streets. Clinton Street Baking Co., 4 Clinton Street, is smaller and has a more rustic feel, but waits are atrocious on the weekend. [AUM]
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