Quick hitters 2/23

Things that interested me today


-Started reading the book 'Born to Run' by Christopher McDougall. About halfway through, but already far and away the best book I've read this year. The basis of the story revolves around a mythical Mexican tribe named the Tarahumara who can run upwards of hundreds of miles per day in rubber sandals and robes.

• Apparently their fuel is composed mainly from the chia plant. It's like their version of red-bull but really does give them wings, allowing them to run their greuling miles no problem. GNC sells some version of this that you can sprinkle on your food. I must have it. (photo from GNC)
• They would crush at the olympics; one guy a few decades ago entered them into 100-mile races and they demolished all the records, in consecutive years. Instead of prepping they smoked a few cigarretes and cracked jokes the whole time.
• The story then centers on a man who decided to take the 'Dances with Wolves' route and live amongst them. He is over 50 and could be considered superhuman after spending one year with them.
• I felt like running through a wall after reading the first half, but settled for the usual 1 mile on the treadmill and p90x with gatorade. Next time I'll atempt the 100 miles with chia. (yes the same plant as chia pets)

-Penguins: James Neal. Didn't blow anyone's socks off in his Penguin debut, but looks solid. Matt Niskanen had some ugly turnovers, but those looked like they could be chalked up to the new system he was playing in.

-Gatorade Recover. Could taste better, but since I hate shakes and protein bars, it did the trick.


Nope

-Nope, did not like the fact that it took upwards of 15 minutes to turn on the lights (for the second game in a row!) at Consol Energy Center. It was just dead air while the commentators were scraping off the bottom for topics to talk about.

-When did I suddenly become disgusted with The Dave Matthews Band? Is it some sort late-high-school-underclassman-college sort of phase? Sure, their music is O.K. but hours and hours of 'jamming' and a frontman who mumbles his way through the english language. Nope, give me Counting Crows or 90's Hootie and the Blowfish.

-Might have to see the CD's for pennies...no bites yet. At least someone wants my high-school mountain bike. Craigslist is a decent way to get money for crap I don't want anymore, but if I dont find a job soon I maybe have to start selling myself under the casual encounters.

Quick hitters 2/22

Things That Are Good

-The new Radiohead CD, 'King of Limbs.'
While only running 8 tracks, 2 or 3 of them are spectacular (see: Lotus Flower, Codex). Pay them their $9 guilt free with the knowledge no greedy record label will prosper from it.

-While on the topic, Thom Yorke's dance for the 'Lotus Flower' music video trended worldwide on Twitter for about 3 straight days. Check it out here.

-The Pens acquisitions of James Neal & Matt Niskanen for Alex Goligoski.
Goligoski was decent offensively, but never seemed to exude or execute with the confidence Letang finally grew into. Neal is only 23, and if he can score goals for dallas, he can certainly do it for the Pens. Niskanen seems solid, the jury is still out on him. Stats for Neal here.

-Putting my teenage CD collection up for sale.
I can't remember the last time I paid money for a CD, but it has been at least 2-3 years. I don't think that people of this day and age will hold the same nostalgia for CDs that they did for records, and I gotta get rid of these puppies while I can.
For a good laugh, check out the list of them. Please buy them.

-Pamelas.
Any of the multiple locations around Pittsburgh. No-nonesense, awesome food. Would be Ron Swanson's kind of place.


Things That Are Not Good

-Pittsburgh's idea of snow removal.
Apparently it took over four hours for some people to get home from the Pens game. Was this storm really that sudden?

-The fact that Justin Bieber trends on twitter as often as revolutions in Egypt, The 'Threat Level Midnight Episode of The Office,' and national news. Do jaded pre-teen girls really take it personally that some things might take priority over a canadian she-male pop sensation?

-Borders going out of business.
Catch 22: Quality store being put out by other things I love. See: The Kindle, Amazon.com. Another cause: The public's startling lack of interest in reading.

-No 'Mad Men' anytime soon?

#1 Party School

Sarah Koenig walks outside to her porch with a friend to find a mysterious figure nonchalantly sitting there. This figure turns out to be another drunken student who runs off to join his friends. Following behind is another student dragging a street sign.

For Koenig this is a typical late night, for a majority of her 1.7 million radio listeners, it is a stark reality of the drinking culture that Penn State harbors.
Koenig is a producer for the wildly popular radio show “This American Life,” which aired its piece on Penn State, entitled “#1 Party School,” on December 18, 2009.
Koenig and her children moved to Sate College last year when her husband acquired a teaching job in the English department.

Her husband also gave her the inspiration for the story.
“We had a big meeting in July of last year to come up with ideas. I didn’t have any ideas at first and my husband was like, ‘Hey, Penn State just got voted the No. 1 party school. You should do that for a story,' and I said, 'Hey, that’s a really good idea,'” said Koenig.

Her colleagues liked the idea as well, and soon Koenig was scavenging the campus to set up interviews and research her story. The crew came to tape the weekend of November 14th, the last home football weekend of the season.

Ira Glass, the popular host of the show, was staying at Koenig’s house for the weekend when they decided to record her interview after Glass had gotten back from taping at parties. It is then that they encountered what became the introduction to the show which described the various students wreaking havoc in the streets.

“What was sad to me,” said Koenig, “was that we ended up leaving my house and walking up Prospect Avenue, and a lot of these people were leaving those parties, and I can’t tell you how many girls I saw leaving just crying, crying, crying or boys getting in fights. How badly the evening had ended for some people. Some girl was on the phone saying, ‘He hit me! He hit me!’”

As the story unfolds, various residents talk of such routine things like finding tampons in their yards and then searching for the inevitable condom which follows. Fraternity brothers are interviewed as well as a drunken student at a tailgate who offer up different reasons for Penn State’s skewed drinking culture.

“Kids here aren’t embarrassed by how much they drink. I don’t think they see drinking here as a problem, so they weren’t going to lie or pretend about it when we interviewed them,” said Koenig.

Koenig also interviewed Penn State President Graham Spanier about the problems the university faces when it tries to counter the rampant drinking.

“I was surprised he didn’t use it (the program) as a platform to kind of get in front of it a little more strongly. He seemed pretty honest, but it seemed a little more defeatist than some people I had spoken to in the administration,” said Koenig.

Koenig also was surprised to note that other members of the administration were honest when they admitted that they had tried many options and that no route had worked for them

Senior Rich Coleman, a columnist for The Daily Collegian, wrote an opinion piece soon after the show aired, encouraging students to listen to it and face the mirror that had been put up to them.

“The truth of the matter is that the drinking problem in this town stems from an attitude that lots of kids immediately adopt when they come to this school,” said Coleman, “that attitude just sees this school as a way to party, drink, watch football and then drink later at the frat house. From there, the attitude just worsens and then you get things like State Patty's Day where the whole town just turns into chaos for a day.”

Coleman acknowledged that since freshman Joe Dado’s untimely death at the start of the fall semester, there has been a better effort to curb drinking, but that they are hardly productive.

Christina Harding (senior-supply chain and information systems), the senior vice president of fraternity Delta Sigma Pi, agreed that the culture surrounding drinking at Penn State is something that needs changed.

“The Greek community as whole definitely suffered a black eye for the radio show, and we’ve been working harder to fix that,” said Harding.

Harding cited increased restrictions on their parties and on those who are allowed in. She also said that, in her opinion, the new habit of "pre-gaming" -taking shots in rapid succession before going out- has made it a challenge to keep drinking to a minimum.

“The police have certainly cracked down on drinking at tailgates and in public," said Harding. "But it’s the general attitude that needs changed at Penn State rather than the rules.”

To listen to This American’s Life segment on Penn State, "#1 Party School," visit http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives

A Different Voice

Note: I wrote this article for the relationships magazine in this same class, the article can also be viewed there.

A Different Voice

Everyone knows that relationships are hard to maintain, but imagine one in which you chose to keep secret; one that some might not approve of to the extent that they would go to lengths such as voting against it, or even more extreme measures.

Sophomore Peter Hendrickson, 20, of Carnegie Mellon University recalls the feelings of confusion when he came to the realization that he was gay,

“I started having feelings for other males around 7th grade… and was deathly afraid of actually being gay, but my understanding of it was really naïve. I was absolutely terrified, felt as if I had no outlet and I felt that my past was a lie and that I had no future,” said Hendrickson.

Hendrickson was out to most of his friends by graduation at his all-male high school. His family was another story.

“The hardest thing ever was telling my family, but telling my parents, especially my mother (practicing Catholic) was difficult. I'd heard too many horror stories about kids getting disowned over this, but that wasn’t the case,” said Hendrickson.

Amie Matthews, 23, had trouble coming to terms with her sexual orientation when she read in an article for girls that liking your friends was just a “respect crush.”

“In hindsight, that was one of the stupidest things I'd ever heard. For years I kind of denied my feelings and passed them off as something that everyone went through. It wasn't until high school that I realized it was bullshit,” said Matthews.

Matthews admitted that coming out was something she struggled with as well, and that some of her extended family still does not know.

“I feel much more comfortable with the people who do know,” said Matthews

For Dave Reynolds, 25, coming out in high school wasn’t an option.

“It was definitely scary at my high school,” said Reynolds, “I remember a bunch of football players tackling this gay kid, stripping him naked and duct taping him to a ceiling. Who would come out in that kind of environment?”

It took Reynolds until college to come out to someone, and a slip by a friend at a party to complete the task. Both Hendrickson and Reynolds were vastly relieved once their secret was out.

“It was like something you hide for so long no longer dragging you down,” said Reynolds.

“I was no longer living a lie. People began to know me for what I really was,” said Hendrickson.

All agreed that once they were out, things took a turn for the better in terms of their first relationships. They all were instantly more comfortable with their situations once they were out and around members of their own sex.

“Being in a relationship with a woman was the easiest thing I've ever done. Everything about it felt right. I got to a point in my life very quickly after that first relationship where I knew that this was for me. It was a very satisfying feeling,” said Matthews.

Hendrickson, when he looks back on his first relationship after coming out, admitted the memories are good,

“The time we spent together might have been the happiest of my life. I really enjoyed the two-way relationship of dating in the fact that we genuinely cared for each other more than ourselves. It brought about the best of us, and made us feel like better people,” said Hendrickson.

For Reynolds it was being more comfortable with men than he had ever been around women,

“It felt more natural and came much easier. Less pretending was awesome for me,” said Reynolds.

One might think that gay couples are very different than straight ones, but they would be wrong on most accounts. Whether it is remembering special dates, buying gifts or listening when you don’t want to; the public is starting to accept gay couples.

Are there still different hardships? Plenty.

For the younger Hendrickson,

“Because I was afraid of expanding my horizons socially in the gay community, I developed attraction for my male friends that were straight. It's the worst feeling in the world, you feel like you're taking advantage of them without even doing anything to them.”

For Matthews and her girlfriend,

“I've been called names, and a man sitting on an airplane next to my girlfriend and I even asked to be moved to another row because he didn't feel comfortable with 'those dykes’,” said Matthews.

For Reynolds,

“Gay men can be really flaky, and a lot of gay men in their 20s really don't have their lives together, unfortunately… You have to change the way you look at growing older and maturing. We tend to settle down a little later in our lives as gay men--I hardly know any married or long time partnered gay men in their 20s.”

Hendrickson has a bright future in front of him- he will be moving to Washington, D.C. in the summer to intern for a politician on Capitol Hill. He will be 21 in June.

Matthews will finishing up college at Chatham University over the summer, in Pittsburgh which she says is much more accepting than her hometown of Elmira, N.Y.

Dave Reynolds currently works for The Trevor Foundation in Southern California, the leading national organization focused on crisis and suicide prevention among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. He urges youths who need help to call 24/7 free hotline at 1.866.4.U.TREVOR.

Alice In Wonderland

Tim Burton’s newest creation “Alice in Wonderland,” fails to match the images and thoughtfulness of its original source material, but his love of the fanatical characters keeps the movie afloat.

Burton and his crew took an entirely new script, a sequel stemming from Lewis Carroll’s timeless tales and ran with it. Gone are the riddles and most of the songs of the books, replaced by more CGI animals and creatures for Alice to interact with.

Johnny Depp also continues his marriage to all things Burton as the Mad Hatter. Depp is barely recognizable with his frizzy red hair and extravagant clothing and sometimes barely understandable either when speaking. None of this takes away from his over-the-top performance though, and Disney certainly has profited from them too (Captain Jack Sparrow anyone?).

The question being posed now amongst the older fans of Carroll’s work is “Has Alice become too commercialized?” One quick internet search on Amazon and Google yields nothing related to the books until the second of third pages. Do audiences still care about the books movies are based off anymore? Judging by Alice’s estimated 62 million dollars grossed on its opening week, the answer seems to be a resounding no when it comes productions such as these.

Burton seems to have kept his trademark quirkiness intact within the movie, which should keep fans of his work satisfied. The best way for the movie to be viewed is as it was filmed: in 3-D. The Cheshire Cat slithers across the screen, tea cups are hurled into the audience, and viewers feel as though they are traveling down the hole with Alice.

Newcomer Mia Wasikowska does an admirable job as Alice, even if she forced to do much with her character. In this version, Alice has grown up since her last foray into Wonderland. The characters in the book were written and designed for children; something about a grown up Alice fighting wars with witches seems a tad off.

In the end, Alice may be better served on paper to solve riddles and enjoy wonderland- but those still hoping for an amusing cinematic experience will not be let down. No doubt kids, parents and others will flock to see this movie but when it comes time for bedtime all of them alike should not forget about the novel.

House of Leaves Review

House of Leaves defies the conventions of the modern horror novel.

The novel has gained a cult following after Author Mark Z. Danielewski originally had his book published back in the year 2000. It is chock full of footnotes, appendices and references to books, some real, some not. The story itself is simple: unsuspecting family moves into house, house turns into an evil entity, fear and death ensue. But to leave it at that is a disservice.

The core of the novel revolves around two different stories, which anchor various subplots. The main story is that of the Navidson family, and their Pulitzer prize-winning photographer father Will (referred to as Navy). Their misfortune in the house is all captured on tape by Will and released as a “Blair Witch” type documentary, met with skepticism by those calling it an elaborate hoax.

The family’s story begins and ends with a mysterious hallway that appears in their countryside house after they have moved in. As Will reluctantly explores the hallway, it is found to have no end, and is constantly shifting shape and length. Eventually an exploration team is sent in to the monstrous labyrinth with disastrous results.

The second storyline of the book is that of the troubled young man Johnny Truant, who is compelled to edit and narrate alongside the unfinished work of the recently diseased scholar Zampano. Danielewski’s book is supposed to be fictitiously penned under Zampano’s name within the book and focuses on the literary criticism of Navidson’s movie. Truant’s story is found in lengthy footnotes accompanied to Zampano’s description of “The Navidson Record,” during his editing of the work.

Readers have proclaimed the novel the scariest ever due in part to the style in which it is written. Danielewski often slips into narratives that run off the page, go backwards, or simply have one-sentence pages that better help illustrate the different feelings of the novel. When a character is having the walls close in on him, the text suddenly jams together; and likewise, when someone is falling, the text drops off the page.

This aspect has been explored many times before in horror stories before (House on Haunted Hill, The Haunting); however Danielewski provides a sharp psychological aspect to the story. One of the byproducts of the house includes Navidson’s previously forgotten demons resurfacing. He also explores the toll that spending numerous days in a dark place takes on the human psyche

This book may not appeal to the common reader, but those looking for a more refreshing experience into the realm of horror will be pleased.

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Being A Critic

Avatar seemed doomed for failure-then the reviews started pouring in. By the time it was actually released to the public, it had attained a lofty 82% on the popular critic polling website Rotten Tomatoes. Soon after, the movie became the highest grossing film of all time.

Critics are paid to write their opinion on any topic ranging from books to movies and even video games. But why does anyone value what other people have to say so much?
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette movie editor Barbara Vancheri believes it is trust built up between the reader and critic. “I would like to think that people feel they can trust the Post-Gazette,” says Vancheri, “I try to back up what I say, even when I sometimes think ugh, that was awful or just not funny.”

Along with trust, knowledge of the topic is key for critics-but it is not enough in this day and age. The critic must understand everything about their subject.
Lindsay Cryer, The Daily Collegian’s music editor says that the key to a good music review is in listening to the band’s previous material.

“Do background research as much as you can. Listen to their most popular stuff so that you’ll know why people did or didn’t like them before,” Cryer says.“Being a critic really isn't anything different than being a music fan. If you like music, you obviously have good and bad things to say about it. I'm just lucky enough to have mine published.”

As it is everywhere in today’s society, everyone has an opinion. Just because someone gets paid to voice an opinion does not mean it is the most popular one.
“E-mail has also made it possible for people from anywhere to send you crazy, insulting emails,” says Vancheri, citing ones in which she was called ‘a broad’ and labeled a ‘liberal media douche bag.’

Pittsburgh Tribune Review critic Garrett Conti receives the same type of e-mails, but says the worst part about the job is all of the bad movies out there.

“Even worse, a lot of these terrible movies do well at the box office, and as rentals they’re sought after. Just look at the top rentals from the week of Feb. 14. "Couples Retreat" was No. 1, and that was a lackluster film. During that same weekend, "Valentine's Day" was No. 1 at the box office, and that got really terrible reviews,” says Conti

Both critics agreed though, that the good does indeed far outweigh the bad.
“The best thing is being able to see the very movies I would pay to see on the weekends as part of my job…I sit in the main newsroom and hear stories assigned about fatal crashes involving teenagers for instance and I’m thankful I don’t have to do that,” says Vanchari.

“There are two things that I really enjoy about being a critic,” says Conti, “The first is shedding light on movies that fly below the radar. The second is talking movies with people. People are more inclined to talk to me about films, and I like to hear other people's opinions because they might say something that I never thought of in relation to a flick.”