Throw this into the bag for possible ways to celebrate/acknowledge/divest from celebrating Indpendence Day: listen to a recording of excerpts from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, arguably the best written account of this country’s past, hosted on Democracy Now’s website. The radio program aired the recording a few years ago to mark our Independence Day, and did so again today. Sections from the book are read by Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, James Earl Jones, Danny Glover, and others. Hopefully you can get around to it before you make it too far down the neck of your tequila bottle. Of course, you can just go onto iTunes and subscribe to Democracy Now’s podcast to get your daily dose of pertinent journalism that is about as bold, courageous, and forthright as is A People’s History. In either case, happy fourth. And just happy Friday.
I just stumbled upon the catering comopany Bamco’s “Eat Low Carbon Diet Calculator” today, an application launched back and April, which provided a lovely 45 minutes of useful procrastination for me. It sets up an interactive menu of meal options (breakfast, soups, salads, entrees, sides, and desserts—and as you would expect from a gourmet company, it throw in slightly exotic options like chicken tikka masala and a falafel sandwich alongside the expected cheeseburger and chocolate chip cookies), individual food options (which can be seasonal/hot-house, grilled/baked, frozen/fresh, local/”far-away”), and sample meals, all of which you drag onto a skillet to represent what foods you consume in a day. A gauge on the right then racks up points for ever gram of CO2 emitted from the food you ate, and the color of the sky in the background dramatically warms or cools accordingly.
Not surprisingly, vegetarians turn out to be the most eco-friendly of us all, with tofu, vegetables, lentils and the like racking up the fewest carbon points. Meanwhile, meat-eaters (especially red meat eaters) are the diabolical adversaries of our ailing earth, literally charring the application’s background sky to an incarnadine red once that slice of prime rib hits the pan. Typically that wouldn’t bother me much as I’m not a huge meat-eater, but I’ve been on this shredded-meat kick lately. Seriously, nearly everything tastes better shredded. It’s weird (but not that weird if you think about why the meat is so tender and ooey and gooey and moist, which I try not to do.)
Cold cereal’s carbon emissions were a bit surprising at first, emitting a whopping 1,250 grams of CO2. But it makes sense. The processing and packaging that goes into delivering that box of Puffins to your local Trader Joe’s is quite damaging to the environment; but it’s the milk that does you in thanks to the methane produced by ruminants (cows, sheep, goats) and the energy that goes into feeding them.
The lessons of the application are obvious: eat less meat and dairy; buy everything locally-grown when possible; opt for seasonal foods; limit your use of the grill and even explore raw-cooking techniques; choose fresh rather than processed foods; and most importantly, WASTE LESS.
So thanks to my bout of playing around with sample meals, when I now scan the aisles of the grocery store or peruse the menu at a restaurant, I can throw another set of numbers into the mix while juggling a food’s price, ingredients, country/state of origin, calories, seasonality, whether it was grown organically, how I could prepare it, and, let’s not forget, whether or not it’ll even taste good by the time it hits my plate. It’s important stuff, and there are many resources out there to help us navigate the waters of a locavore lifestyle. I just feel heavy with it all sometimes, but it’s worth the struggle.
With features on how to make your own wedding cake filling up magazine racks, stories about gay marriage in the papers every day, and Save-The-Dates taking up more space on your fridge than scribbled notes and reminders that vaguely resemble an organized life, it’s tough to escape the fact that summer is the marrying season. And inevitably, even tougher to avoid measuring up your own love life to your family and friends’ bow-tied plans for forever.
The closest I’ve gotten to considering marriage these days was while walking down the aisles of Target with my friend’s bridal shower registry in hand, thinking how fun it would be to compile a wish list of shiny, sharp, and chic things to fill my own apartment. At what types of stores would I register? What type of theme would I choose to decorate my bathroom, and how would that best represent my personality? A lively and colorful nautical pastiche, or a simple and sophisticated exploration of the color blue?
We live in a material world, and I’m really not much of a material girl. I am, on the other hand, all about justice and fairness. So in a very Carrie Bradshaw-esque manner, I was overcome with a feeling of righteous, single-woman indignation that until I participated in the institution of marriage, my only interaction with gift registry would be on the giving end, forgetting that I in fact love my bric-a-brac decoration-scheme exactly as is. Funny how the idea of novelty can sometimes distract us from acquiring things we actually need or want.
But of course, people don’t get married for the stuff. In fact, many people elope and skirt the whole idea of weddings particularly to avoid the heavy, cumbersome storm of figuring out how to physically represent and celebrate an emotional bond. (Kind of like how some of us reject the idea of picking a theme for our bathrooms at all, and let it come together over weeks, months, or years of collecting stuff.) Using material things to express or represent love—an emotion that is completely intangible, invaluable, and sometimes even after decades of matrimony, incomprehensible—is one of many misconceptions we have about marriage. In her LA Times piece yesterday, Swati Pandey questioned if another could be the idea that it must spawn from love at all.
Pandey, who was born and raised in the U.S. as an “essentially American” child, travelled to India recently to attend her cousin’s wedding, one arranged by the couple’s parents. But contrary to what Times readers would probably assume, the bride wasn’t forced into the event; she asked her parents to play match-maker. Throughout the piece, Pandey struggles to understand the prospects of marrying a complete stranger based on practicalities, logistics, and family ties, as is often the case with arranged marriages, or of marrying someone you love perhaps in spite of a lack of practical and logistical alignment.
“Swati,” she [Pandey's cousin] explained to me in her slightly patronizing English, “love grows with time. You don’t just fall into it.”
It didn’t matter that I had been in love before — the kind you fall into, the kind that does grow with time, but breaks, perhaps because no arrangement, no contract, no children held it together. It didn’t count because it was unsanctioned by marriage.
My grandfather made this clear when he sat idly reading my palm one afternoon, a small-time hobby for him, an 84-year-old criminal defense attorney. He observed the two creases between my pinky and heart line.
“And you will have one great love,” he said.
“But there are two lines,” I said.
He paused, raising my hand to his glassy brown eyes, and stared hard at the unmistakable pair of lines.
“I see only one,” he said. “And it is yet to come.”
By my family’s standards, my spinsterhood is imminent. An arranged marriage had always been an appealing Plan B — if I failed at romance or a career, if I got tired of being alone and wanted a family, my parents could simply find me a gainfully employed man, as long as I was still fairly young and decent-looking and virginal, not too tan or too irreligious, not a smoker or a drinker. (I have trouble with some of those; I won’t say which.)
I grew up with an Indian father whose family history includes its fair share of arranged weddings, and with a Minnesotan mother whose family probably feels as comfortable with the prospect of an arranged marriage as they do of singing along to a Bollywood film. So I’ve seen the institution of marriage function and unfold in many different ways, to varying degrees of success. And I am still naïve as to which approach is more promising. Of course successful marriages require a balance of emotional connection and practical compatibility. But which element needs to make up the ballast of the relationship? Is the disturbingly high divorce rate a result of grueling career demands, longer life spans, or the couple wanting different things out of life as most of us argue? Or is it that we’re approaching it all wrong to begin with?
Pandey doesn’t offer a resolute opinion as to which path is better either, for her or for anyone else. But she does take readers into the hectic, convivial, color-clashing realm of Indian weddings, offering several provocative nuggets of insight along the way regarding not just matrimony, but American culture in general. Especially in the face of our nationwide debates over what even constitutes marriage to begin with—gender, faith, economic wellbeing, career ambitions, etc.—it doesn’t seem so absurd to question if love is really necessary as well.
The 3rd Annual Gourmet on Fire—an evening of food and drink tastings from seven of LA’s most famous, midrange restaurants, hosted by Gourmet Magazine—was exactly what you’d expect from an event representing LA:
-An elegant and exclusive—or at least exclusive-feeling—setting: pool-side setup at Loew’s Hotel in Santa Monica settled right next to the beach, providing for an indulgently relaxing backdrop of tan, trendy beachgoers (so depending on your self-esteem, maybe not-so-relaxing) and a molten-peach sunset silhouetting the Pier.
-A crowd of similarly tan, trendy Angelenos confidently masquerading and mingling about in sundresses and button-up shirts, chatting about yoga, the Lakers, and of course, the business we call show.
-A promise tacked on for good measure that a portion of the proceeds would go to a charitable organization (in this case, the Southland Farmers Association, which struck me as a tad unfitting each time I looked around the courtyard at the scattered stacks of used plastic serve-wear and utensils.) (But then again, LA? Hypocritical? It fits the bill.)
-Overcrowded space, which caused several lines of traffic to snake around the pool, and kept 20-25 idle minutes between us and our grub. But if you’re not the type of Angeleno who’s used to getting what you want exactly when you want, then you’re the type of Angeleno who’s used to waiting for just about everything. So I didn’t mind the crowded atmosphere too much, and got a good deal of entertainment from all the nattering from fellow attendees.
-And what about the grub? It was an exemplar of my impressions of LA overall: a level of decency marred its claim that it’s beyond decent—that it’s something unique and unforgettable, sexy and sparkly. In actuality, the food was alright, which for a $100/head event is—well, not alright.
Most of the tables dished out merely satisfactory plates of uninventive, exhausted recipes that have already made their rounds through LA foodie culture. Joe’s Restaurant offered up their version of the most copied burger in LA—the Kobe beef, arugula, gruyere cheese concoction from Chef Sang Yoon at Father’s Office, prepared here with lamb instead of beef—which was tasty and unsurprising. And the halibut from Ocean & Vine was cooked nicely and topped with an aptly-sweet, tomato and caramelized onion sauce, but only accented how oddly-seasoned the lamb that came alongside it was. Meanwhile, Pilsner was pouring out its light, flavorful lager all evening, while bartenders quickly filled plastic-cup after plastic cup of wine from budget producer Cavit. Famous sushi restaurant Katsuya was there, as was Table 8 and Grace. But again, their food was rather uninspiring.
There were, of course, a couple of exceptions. Let’s begin with the end of the meal, as we all love to do from time-to-time: the fresh fruit crostatas and mini fudge friands from Chef Zoe Nathan at Rustic Canyon were a perfect balance of conceptual simplicity and decadent execution of flavors. They pulled off the trick all desserts wish they could by leaving our sweet-tooth satisfied, our taste-buds tickled, and our appetite even a bit refreshed rather than sunken or sickened (unless you took a plate-full of the treats, that is, which I surely would’ve done if the table hadn’t run by the time I returned.) Akasha Richmond, owner and chef of the sustainable-minded, “New American” cuisine at Akasha restaurant in Culver City, poured an exotic and tangy tomato chutney atop perfectly-seasoned curry shrimp, pushing the plate overall to an fervent interplay of flavors. And Indian fusion? Can’t get too much more bold or creative than that. And the freshly-prepared guacamole thrown into the mix by the Loew’s Hotel Restaurant balanced a punchy chili-pepper spice with the mellow, comforting taste and texture of avocados and tomatoes—on-the-vine ones, I was assured. But it’s guacamole. And this is Gourmet magazine. There’s something wrong when such a simple appetizer becomes a standout dish at this kind of event.
So with the exception of Rustic Canyon and Akasha, I’m thinking there’s a lot of other buzz in this town I’d like to weed through before giving those other restaurants another shot. Is that too judgmental of me or brash? Bah, it’s LA. It’s to be expected of me. And doing just what’s expected seems to work wonders here.
To me, jackfruit sounds more like a bouncy cartoon character or an off-label brand of whiskey than it does a type of food. But brushing right over what it means that I mentally mixed together a type of childhood entertainment and a kind of alcohol, jackfruit is in fact a type of tree grown in tropical regions of the world (South Asia, Philippines, East Africa, Australia, etc.) that produces an edible fruit.
Indian, African, and certain Asian cuisines have thrown the fruit into curries, fried it like a potato chip, mashed it up into a pudding, or have just eaten it raw. But at Pure Luck, a vegan restaurant/microbrewery in east Hollywood, jackfruit takes on a whole other role, wardrobe, and patois: shredded pork. Doused in a sweet and sharp barbeque sauce, it sprawls between (and seductively pours out the sides of) a Kaiser roll that’s been swathed with garlic aioli and garnished with pickles, like a tangy pulled pork sandwich. Packed into a tortilla with mildly-spiced pinto beans, rice, avocado, and fresh salsa, it completes a light (or at least light-tasting) carnitas burrito. You can also order it atop a spinach salad or in a pair of tacos. And although you’ll never forget you’re not actually eating meat, you probably won’t care either. It’s messy, moist, meaty–at least in texture, that is.
Unfortunately, jackfruit is a featherweight compared to tofu and other meat substitutes in terms of health, offering only 5% of your recommended protein intake per serving. The fruit consists mainly of carbs which, together with a few beers and the white bread that hosts all the sandwiches at Pure Luck, provides for an Atkinson-diet nightmare. Doesn’t look like the fruit packs enough of a punch to make much headway in vegetarian or vegan diets outside of this little pub (which is quite appropriate, actually: Mexican food + vegan ingredients in a trendy, mellow hole-in-the-wall haven? You can’t get any more LA than that.)
But Pure Luck isn’t your typical uppity, dressing-on-the-side type of vegan joint. It’s the vegan restaurant for the regular ol’ omnivore looking to mix things up—a creative, hipster-homey, “health? smealth” gastropub experience for diners interested in a new take on comfort-food favorites. Their potato pals (lightly fried gnocchi sprinkled with salt and pepper) are rich in texture, simple in flavors; the earthy spices in the curry rice bowls deliver a body-blow to your taste buds; and their sweet potato fries are tasty, though they pale in comparison to the basket I tried at Father’s Office a couple of weeks ago. Though the food is quite good, Pure Luck isn’t the place with the dinner around. But with its friendly service, laid-back bohemian atmosphere, and bike-riding subculture costumers, it does offer one of the most unassuming, affable vibes in Hollywood (they sailed through a Bjork album beginning to end on my most recent visit. Kudos!)
It’s also one of few places where you could work on your laptop or burry yourself in a book for hours as if you were at coffee shop, except instead of slurping down a $5 cup of blended milk, espresso, and chalky mocha powder, you can sip away at a $5 pint of crisp, LA-brewed lager, a concept that unfortunately is much less common LA than in New York.
And let’s brush right over what it means to mix alcohol with work, shall we?
The first time I listened to college a capella was during an episode of Gilmore Girls, one of my guilty pleasures when in high school. On more than one occasion, Lorelei’s dad would jaunt over to a circle of freshly-shaven, polo-shirt-clad Yaleies standing with their arms around each other and tooth-paste-ad-smiles plastered over their faces. They’d pump their chests out proudly, and sway with theatrical conviction to the rhythm of some arcane, school fight song. Dweebs, I thought (and Lorelei’s incredulous face agreed with me.) Every last one of ‘em.
Several months later, while lounging around my friend’s dorm in Berkeley, my friend excitedly ran over to her computer to share with me one of her favorite songs at the moment. Knowing her taste for widely-unknown and eclectic music, I prepared myself for an obscure blues gem, or a zany, 10 minute-long trip-hop number. But instead, a swelling, dramatic harmony unfurled through her laptop speakers, supported by full-bodied, kaleidoscopic currents of melismata and staccatos. The sound of the music was so rich, so textured, so commanding—at moments, it even attainted a lurking, chant-like intensity—that I didn’t even realize what song the group was singing until a minute into the tune. Not some stiff-ridged school anthem, it turned out. No, it was one of Cal’s a capella troups singing Brittany Spear’s “Toxic.” And I loved it.
My friend spent the next half-hour dribbling through stories about the cut-throat arena of collegiate a capella: how groups regularly tour across the country to duke it out in head-to-head singing competitions; how thousands of people fill amphitheatres to see these performances, and to find out which winning group will walk home with 5-figure checks; how fierce—to the point of lawless delinquency and physical brawls—some of the school rivalries get. My friend’s boyfriend at the time sang in his school’s a capella troup, which is how my friend knew all about these groups’ escapades (and how she had gotten hold of more albums by college a capella collectives than I had by Ani Difranco who has released one album almost every year since 1989). Knowing someone in the community was one of the only ways you could get inside information on their intense, kooky subculture. One of the only ways until now, that is.
Two weeks ago, Mickey Rapkin published Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Capella Glory, a behind-the-scenes account of six of the country’s most accomplished college a capella groups. A lot of press for the book name-drops the most prominent figures who make cameos in Rapkin’s book: Ed Helms, John Legend, Jessica Biel, George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden (no joke—he recorded songs a capella with a group of others about jihad, which to him at the time referred to the internal struggle to improve oneself rather than a holy war, and then distributed the tapes to his friends). After all, what would a book written by a senior editor at GQ be without hardy, satisfying portions of quick-witted narratives flavored with pop-culture trivia?
But beyond those stories which center on people who have already acquired some degree of fame (or infamy) are the more tender, more compelling tales of young musicians in the process of grasping for this fame. Or some version of fame, at least. Winning a collegiate a capella tournament is, after all, probably on par winning a speech and debate tournament—except for your teammates, parents, significant other, and a capella alumni, most people don’t really give an a capella hoot about the competitions. Not only is it an activity that few people know about; it’s also decidedly uncool. And neither Rapkin nor the singers he profiles will deny it. That’s part of what makes the subculture so intriguing.
Not long ago, KCRW, a Los Angeles-based radio station known for embracing and popularizing off-mainstream music, featured a tune by UCLA’s Awaken A Capella in their song-of-the-day podcast. It was Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek.” I was still going to UCLA at the time, but despite my growing love for the musical style, I had never seen the group perform or even listened to much of their music. But there they were, ringing out from the airwaves of a nationally-recognized radio station, transforming a mediocre pop song into something that felt more honest, more raw—into a song that could absolutely slay you. Not long after, I found myself cheering alongside thousands of bestirred fans as the group took the stage for a free on-campus performance (one for which I ended up standing in line for near 30 minutes only to nab a couple of rather shoddy seats in the back of the auditorium). Their performance alone floored me–it was an hour of vapid pop music that, through the group’s dramatic arrangements and poised delivery, took on a fresh, fun, and even poignant quality.
Beyond being impressed by their music, a giddy nervousness built up within me when I realized that one of Awaken’s altos actually sat behind me in my Russian Lit class. I had no idea until that night, three-fourths of the way through the term, that the girl who once proofread my paper on Crime & Punishment sang in one of the more accomplished a capella groups in the nation. It was as if I had realized I was sitting in front of Kevin Love all quarter long. At least it was to me, a shameless and devoted fan of collegiate a capella, and really of any unique and noteworthy musical pursuits (read: a music dweeb). And yet neither the singer nor I made any mention of the performance the next time we went to class, or anytime later in the quarter for that matter, not because either of us were embarrassed for our interests in a capella. It was more like we were part of a secretive, members-only activity open only to those who dare take the art form as seriously as these singers do. A capella groups know they’re a bit ridiculous; but you have to fall in love with the lunacy before you’re given access to the fodder to mock it.
Rapkin straddles that loving self-deprecation with empathy and eloquence in his book, detailing a capella’s grueling, demanding, and prestigious (at least in a capella circles) element of the activity which demands complete devotion from its participants, just as college sports do from athletes. There is sacrifice, drama, tears, triumph, and the occasional run-in with the law (after all, what would a book about college students be without a bit of debauchery?) As Adam Baer wrote in his post for HuffPo yesterday, it can be easy to look down on collective singing groups in the realm of musicianship, or to scoff at how intense the singers’ relationship with their craft can become. But by doing so, you’re stifling one of music’s greatest capacities: to bring people together, no matter if it’s just over some goofy rendition of a corny pop song.
The singers in the six groups Rapkin profiles, anonymous except to their fellow a capella cohorts, are the most interesting characters in Pitch Perfect–much more so than the celebrities who’ve participated in a capella groups in the past–and their interactions with each other exemplify this strangely unifying quality of the activity. A movie clip about the book on Current TV, for example, gives you a candid look at how the Divisi ladies from the University of Oregon have worked together to achieve success, from helping one teammate recover from an eating disorder to coaching themselves on their song pre- and post- performance to curling each other’s hair before getting on stage. And not only do the singers in Pitch Perfect face the challenges that come with being a musician. But they also face the challenges that come with being a college-aged kid in America, an experience that can remain riveting, nostalgic, comical, and endearing to all of us no matter how many clichéd TV shows and books hack away at the subject.
What truly separates this book from all the other pop culture tales about some no-name’s quest for stardom or a kid’s struggles to fit in beyond its subject matter is its lack of hackneyed situations and scenes. Preppy uniforms notwithstanding, the characters in this book are not the over-confident dweebs a capella singers are often portrayed as being. They’re nerds, to be sure. But they’re also a representation of our common humanity, regardless of our age, talent, or popularity: we are ambitious, competitive creatures who achieve the greatest, most unique success when we are part of a community that shares our interests. And above all else, we are quirky, artistic-driven individuals just waiting to discover a craft through which to express ourselves. We should all be so lucky to have a passion as deep-rooted as these musicians do. If not, at least we’re now lucky enough to be able to read about it.
A few months ago, someone very close to me claimed that she would not vote in the upcoming presidential election if Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race. “McCain’s going to reinstate the draft and screw who-knows-what-else up over there in Iraq; and Obama—I don’t trust him. I just don’t trust him.”
I understand her concerns, and I suppose they are relevant and justified. But to forfeit your vote? To willingly recede from a responsibility that, at least in theory, defines governmental representation, freedom, and democracy?
We live in a republic, not a democracy. So if this woman were inevitably to surrender her vote, it wouldn’t take a thing directly away from Obama, McCain, or the U.S. overall. But such withdrawal would mute her influence, her voice, her role as a citizen of a nation which is far from the model-government it claims to be, but is still better than many alternatives.
“Philosophers [must] become kings…or those now called kings [must]…genuinely and adequately philosophize,” Plato wrote in Utopia, resigning to the paradox that those individuals who are best suited to lead a polity will never run for office, or if they did, would never be elected. It was a concise, omniscient dictum I learned in college, and one that I righteously believed, like the young and giddy college student I was, tied all of my doubts and frustrations regarding politics together in an understandable albeit cynical truth. Every week, I become more convinced that Tina Fey and the writers of 30 Rock would make better leaders of this country than any politician out there. But my perspective on voting is similar to that of our country as a whole, and come election time, I pick the lesser of the two evils on the ballot.
In this case, my vote is going to Obama. He is not a philosopher, despite the clout that surrounds him. That his face floats above words such as “HOPE,” “CHANGE,” and “BELIEVE” on posters and stickers decorating all of Los Angeles–and I’d imagine all of the U.S., or at least the blue and purple parts of it–is a manifestation of the buzz that surrounds him more than of any tangible or secure promise for change. (Though what is really secure in life in general, let alone in such a dog-eat-dog realm such as politics?) In posses of younger Americans, for instance, saying that you’re going to vote for Obama earns you similar cred as would claiming that you like Flight of the Conchords. Obama hasn’t proven his capacity to steer this country in a new direction; but he’s super hip, and that’s what being a king is all about.
But I worry about the future of this nation in similar ways as most others: how will we handle the litany of problems we’ve created in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan—basically the entire Middle East; how will we respond to the issues of climate change, to the crippling economy, to health care, to poverty, to education, to our treatment of veterans, etc. And in relation to these issues, the differences between Obama and Clinton were often slight and near-negligible, so it makes sense that so much of the country threw their support behind the eloquent, youthful, and clean-slated Illinois senator.
But the concern which rings louder in me than any other is the state of our Supreme Court. As you probably know, the court has enjoyed a conservative slant for the past 25 years, which of course has greatly influenced the types of laws passed and implemented since then.At least two vacancies will open up on the Court during the next four years, meaning whoever we elect as president in November will get to elect officials to fill those seats, and to powerfully affect the examination, definition, and implementation of our human liberties for the next several decades. McCain has already publically announced he would appoint judges who would uphold conservative viewpoints. Although Obama has remained somewhat discrete about his future plans, his voting record promises more liberal appointees. Imagine what it will mean if the already-right-leaning bench goes 6-3 conservative for: abortion rights; immigration rights; environmental legislation; gun control; gay marriages; affirmative action; rights to privacy; etc.
Quite frankly, these issues—even more so than those about Iraq, the economy, etc.—are the ones that absolutely scare the shit out of me. And they are the reasons before any other why I’m voting for Obama in spite of my scruples over what kind of President he will make. If liberal judges were appointed, the court would still sit on a healthy and moderate 5-4 tilt; the only difference is that it would be left-leaning. Clinton may have had a similar impact on the court, but when it comes down to it, Obama is just more electable and, I admit, more inspiring.
Howard Zinn once said that in every election up until 2004, he would vote for a third party because he didn’t support or trust either Republicans or Democrats, and I wholly admire this sense of honesty and conviction. Living by principles before practicalities is something I understand maybe a little too well, and I think this is an acceptable form of participation in politics so long as it’s done with consciousness and rationale (granted, Zinn participates in politics in a much mightier way than by casting a vote every four years.) But it was too important to Zinn to expel Bush from the White House in 2004 to forfeit that one vote, even if it meant supporting a candidate or party he didn’t fully believe in or trust. Look what happened in 2004 and Bush’s second term. Imagine what could happen in the next four years…
Our government, our political parties, our nominees—they’re not ideal. And Obama is not the idle-stargazer we proclaim him to be. But as much as I’d like to write-in Zinn/Fey on my ballot, the stakes are bigger now than ever, and so then is our responsibility.
Here’s some fodder for all you gender theorists out there (or for anyone interested at all in the role gender plays in our society, which seems an especially timely discussion at the moment).
Ironically, according to marine biologists, spot prawns aren’t really prawns, they are shrimp, while ridgeback shrimp, despite their small size, are true prawns. [...]
That is only one of several curious facets of spot prawn biology. Even stranger, the little guys are what scientists call protandric hermaphrodites. That means they all are born males, reaching sexual maturity and going through one spawning cycle that way. Then in their fourth year they turn into females and mate one or two times more.
“Is that them?” a peppy voice squeaked out from behind me.
“I don’t know,” the girl’s friend responded in a long, contemplative breath. I felt the two hovering behind me in excitement, could sense their anxiety as they strained and shuffled around my broad shoulders, trying to make out the identity of the six figures that had scurried onto the stage and had begun picking up their instruments, taking swigs of beer, tuning their strings. “I think so. I see a trumpet. Beirut uses a trumpet.”
Similar interactions repeated themselves in waves throughout the crowd. The attendees in front of me squirmed and stretched as well, trying to secure a decent line of vision between the bobbing heads of the people in front of them. And though I was out of ear shot, their body language spoke loudly enough: one person would whisper into his friend’s ear with a questioning tilt of the neck, to which his friend would respond with a shrug of her shoulders, leaving them all wondering: “Is this the band I paid $35 to see perform?”
No, the band that was setting up on stage wasn’t Beirut. It was the opening act, The Brunettes, who have being touring with Beirut throughout May.
The crowd knew when Beirut would roll through Los Angeles. They knew the lyrics to practically every tune, and sang along—or at least mumbled phonetically-similar phrasings to the melody—to at least half of the band’s set that night. They even knew the de facto dress code for the evening, since about 90% of them were decked out in a similar grungy-sophistication-meets- half-throttle-hipster-nonchalance.
But the crowd didn’t know what the band looked like, wouldn’t have been able to recognize the lead singer if he bumped into them while they were waiting in line to get their $7 Corona Lights.
Beirut is a moniker for the precious, 22-year old multi-instrumentalist Zach Condon. Together with a backing ensemble of horns, violin, ukulele, upright bass, glockenspiel, and accordion, Beirut has released two Middle-Eastern-folk albums which offer warm, masquerading melodies and collective, invigorating instrumentation. The band sounds like it should be featured in Persian circuses before on the airwaves of independent radio stations or on Best Albums of the Year lists. And that’s quite a statement for an indie band in a genre that is teeming with exhausted, uninventive, easily-palatable sounds .
As for the band’s looks, on the other hand— they fit their indie-folk title to the tight-jeaned T.
But even if Beirut did look as unique and mystifying as they sound, I wonder if the situation would be different—if the group’s fans, who probably spent even more money to pay for parking and for the gas it required to drive to the venue than for the ticket itself, would even recognize the musicians when they took to the stage.
I love that it takes only a matter of minutes to get my hands on music from almost any band out there. I love that it takes only the diligence to remember to charge my iPod in order for me to then enjoy this music while walking, bike-riding, driving, or generally cavorting around this city. I even love, or at least am endlessly fascinated by the fact, that amidst this surplus of musical options available, particular personality types still flock to the same assortment of artists or genres of music (or perhaps particular artists and musical genres shape the malleable the personalities of these listeners), bringing individuals together at music shows every night of the week in this city to mingle and to share their views on the world, views which, unsurprisingly, are almost as similar to one another as are the individuals’ wardrobes. Music is a uniting force—always has been. Music as it exists today in the endless expanse of the internet is a rampant juggernaut of interconnectivity, artistry, elitism, and style.
But a full 120GB iPod and a posse of music aficionados does not a music fan make.
You’ve heard it before—how we’re cutting ourselves short by having such infinite access to music, and how we seldom build relationships with the artists we like and the songs they create. And I agree completely. In my attempts to stay abreast of new bands and musical trends that emerge on a daily basis, I often forget to make time to truly get to know the artists that I claim to love; to sit in my bedroom for hours with the TV off and my door shut to the world, and just to listen.
On the other hand, what does it say about music as an art form that it can motivate a bunch of otherwise apathetic twentysomethings to listen to a band, memorize their lyrics, pay money to see them performed live, but to completely forget to see what the band looks like. Are they cute and slim, rugged and disheveled, plump and eccentric? Perhaps they even sport a bit of grungy sophistication and hipness? And what does it say that such a glaring lapse in vanity could occur in Los Angeles, where one has a tough time even walking to the convenience store to buy a Corona for a $1.25 without some billboard or passer-by silently reminding her to powder her nose?
Throughout history, musicians have seldom made a mark on their generations for their music alone. Like most types of artists, they effect change through a series of audaciously radical or radically unremarkable lifestyle choices.
But I’ve got to admit: the fact that a lot of the people who came to Beirut’s show did so because of the band’s music—because of Beirut’s art rather than their appearance or image—was quite refreshing. (Their well-earned reputation for absolutely tearing it up in live performances probably helped as well.)
and we grow fat
on the charms of our idle dreary days
seen the shadows grow
see an ominous display
with no alarm
could we say we’d have expected this way
under stars have died
give incent to play
wroclai
“mount wroclai (idle days)” BEIRUT
Those who don’t own a DVR or TiVo and who have to suffer through the onslaught of commercials interrupting your favorite reality TV shows every 10 minutes (not that all you sophisticated intellectuals actually watch reality TV or anything) might have taken note of a series of ads airing these days for a product that offers, like so many products subliminally do, the answers to all of your problems. It promises happiness, energy, optimism, as well as opportunities for spontaneous make-out sessions and jump-roping escapades.
I’m talking about the ads for SoyJoy, yet another brand finding its niche in America’s exploding protein bar craze. And actually, the company’s claim that eating the bars will result in better moods isn’t subliminal at all. They spell it outright in their tagline—“fortified with optimism.” Soyjoy’s website even introduces their product with the following paragraph:
Welcome, soy-savvy friends.
Can SOYJOY really improve your outlook? Can healthy whole soy give you an inner glow? Can strawberries, mangoes and other delicious fruit up your optimism levels? There’s only one way to find out. Grab a SOYJOY and get ready to move to the sunny side of the street.*
*Irresistible bouts of joy and random acts of goodwill may result. Avoid heavy conversations and contact with humorless individuals while consuming SOYJOY.
All natural Prozac that’s cheaper than your morning cup of jo? Sign me up. Well-done, Soyjoy marketing department.
It’s true that studies have proven—in so far as health-related studies can definitely prove anything, that is—that soy can potentially improve people’s emotional wellbeing. But all the cartoon characters who eat Soyjoy in these ads are female. And as a result of eating the bars, they immediately begin to do things like play with children or pick flowers.
Now I’ve got nothing against grown-up recess time, and I enjoy frisking through fields as much as the next gal (though in LA, this takes the form of driving to a park and walking along the patch of grass lining the street.) But these usually aren’t the first activities I think of acting out during bursts of gleefulness. Jumping rope with a few elementary kids isn’t exactly high on my list either. (Come to think of it, aren’t these the types of activities we should be doing to make ourselves cheer up to begin with instead of as a reaction to being happy? And instead of reaching for some type of priced commodity to find this happiness?)
Yes, studies have shown that too much soy intake—especially consumption of non-fermented forms of the legume—increases estrogen levels, which in men can pose serious hormone imbalance and developmental complications. Is it possible that Soyjoy is marketing its product primarily to women so as to protect men from these potential health risks? Is their marketing department as conscientious as it is clever?
In a word, no. These same studies have linked soy consumption with breast cancer, birth defects, and a variety of other health conditions that could affect both men and women.
Health food companies which use all natural ingredients, like Soyjoy does, and tout environmentally-friendly manufacturing often enjoy reputations as trustworthy, independent-minded alternatives to The Man. But in some cases, this turns into quite a deceiving ploy to secure consumers. Although they’re playing off of studies that link soy with emotional well-being and with harmful effects in men, proffering a guise of candor, Soyjoy is relaying a whole other kind of subliminal message in their ads, and reinforcing an age-old, self-fulfilling prejudice: that women are moody, maudlin, over-sentimental creatures that need food in order to perk up. And so why not get this zap of happiness with a convenient, “tasty” (I tried them—they’re about as scrumptious as a dish sponge), health bar selling for $1.25 in your local grocery store. Sure beats the $125/hr therapy sessions, doesn’t it ladies?
Most recently, I caught this commercial while watching the latest Top Chef episode (admit it, intellectuals: you watch Bravo reality TV at least) in which the quick fire and elimination rounds required contestants to hack away at slabs of meat with the skilled ferocity and finesse we’ve come to expect of our on-air epicureans. Now I don’t eat much meat in general, but watching these chefs scrape, slice, sauté, fry, glaze, and then eat huge hunks of meat for an hour gave me a surprising and inspiring surge of energy that culminated in a stretch of productive reading—no soy protein bar necessary. And my choice of activities makes me no less feminine than if I were to go pick flowers off of street-side shrubs (although it might make me a bit nerdier).
And it brought me even more soy-free happiness at the episode’s end to see that three of the final four contestants were women, especially since previous Top Chef winners have all been male. I wasn’t pleased with the results because the contestants are women; it’s because they’re kickass chefs who just happen to be women as well, female chefs being an uncommon but growing demographic in the cooking arena. Looks like these ladies don’t need any extra soy-inspired optimism in their diets. And even if they did, you can bet they’d whip something up that’s a helluva lot tastier than Soyjoy.
