Saturday, January 17, 2009

israel/palestine



a short video response to the impossible-to-respond-to horror being loosed on Gaza by Israel right now. entitled "Proportionate Response #2." made by my friend Ariel Federow.

commuting

after one semester of commuting back and forth between the mid-hudson valley and brooklyn, i have exactly two important things to say:

1)podcasts rock

and

2)i still don't know how long soymilk and eggs can stay in a refrigerator before they go bad. but i intend to figure it out, finally, this semester. And how does one STRATEGIZE their refrigerator/food situation when splitting time between two refrigerators?

knowing these two things seem to be crucial to making a commuting academic's life more workable.

my top 4 favorite podcasts, so far/at the moment:

1. Radio Diaries. The other night, I listened to the Radio Diaries piece about the recent efforts to reconstruct what actually happened during the student protests in Mexico City in 1968. I recommend it HIGHLY. its an extremely good piece of oral history, and also has important implications for those of us interested in the political uses and import of both new media and archives.

2. KQED, The Writer's Block Podcast. Features writers reading excerpts from their work. Mostly fiction and playwriting, as far as i can tell. Much of it, stuff i've never heard of before.

3. Radio Without Borders, from WKUT in Austin. Is introducing me to new music. Some of it i absolutely do not like. The Iguanas have such potential, but i JUST don't like them. Then some of it i'm like, ok, nice-- Of Montreal fits into that category. And some of it, deeply important-- such as The Blind Boys of Alabama, doing their version of "Free at Last." WOAH.

4. IndieFeed's Hiphop broadcast. Also introducing me to music i've never heard of. Mostly pretty great, and i'm definitely not going to get any music this good on local radio in the mid-hudson valley. its hard enough to get decent public radio up there; don't even try to get smart hip hop-- or, actually, ANY hip hop. (that reminds me: wtf is up with WAMC radio? why is it so bad? and WHY DID THE PEOPLE LET ALAN CHARTOCK put the kabash on democracy now!? we need democracy now! up there so so so badly.)

4 podcasts i'm super excited to start listening to in the coming weeks:

1. The Yale University Press podcast. interviews with authors. Could suck hard, or could become indispensible. i'll keep you posted.

2. The Moth podcast. Stories; inspired by the no-reading-from-paper-allowed, ongoing, local NYC Moth storytelling events.

3. PRI's World Books podcast. Putting a few little ideas from outside of the U.S. into my brain.

As for the refrigeration situation, i'm not offering ideas yet. i'm SOLICITING ideas. i'll let you know if i hear anything brilliant.