depth

    My Princeton University interviewer asked me a question about what I am planning to do this summer, a question about which I had been thinking but had not formulated a coherent answer to in my mind. I take a strange (or merited, depending on your views) pride in being a future-oriented person, but I really just have had so many different ideas of what I want to do this summer that I haven't been able to choose one particular path. Up until a few days ago I've had some vague daydreams about traveling and last-minute high school bonding experiences, but let's be serious: I'm sort of missing the, oh, twenty-thousand spare dollars I would need to save up to embark on an epic Verne-ian (all hail pseudo-literary terms) journey. I'll probably go on some lame road-trip or something with Eliav*, but I do need to get a job to make money for college. I would get a job in a store, but let's just say I wouldn't exactly thrive in a retail environment.**
    And so I started thinking about getting another internship, since I generally enjoyed mine at the local paper last year. I've been looking around for one and by the looks of it the Village Voice is looking for a photo intern, so I think I'll give that a try. I'm worried that I'll be considered "too young" for most of these internships, which is really a pity because I don't see what (besides age) is different between me and an upperclassman college student. Worth a try though, right? I just need to get organized and I'll be able to explore my options further. Internships probably won't pay much (or anything), though, so I don't know if I'd even be able to substitute that for a job. Maybe I'll try some more freelance photo work? Oh well, there's still time. There will be time, there will be time.****

*Side note: Eliav and I decided to go on an adventure last week after band practice. Since he just turned eighteen, our main goal was to (legally) drive past twelve. Dream big, right? We grabbed his guitar and my tambourine and made our way to the Long Branch beach with his handy-dandy cellphone GPS system. And let me tell you, common sense alerted me that the beach would be colder than Springfield (a decidedly non-beach area), but I most certainly not expect to be transported to the Arctic circle the second we got near the boardwalk. "Near" is sort of a vague term-- let's just say that there was a pointy fence standing in the way of me and sandy happiness, and the fence was winning. We ended up getting home at 11:30 anyway, so Eliav and I just drove around aimlessly until midnight, both letting out an anticlimactic "woo" once the clock struck twelve. You know exciting the whole Cinderella story was when you were like four? Yeah, invert that to understand how fun that "adventure" was.
**This is the scenario:
(CHARLINE stands in the corner, pretending [but failing] to be interested in the "intricacies" of multicolored velor tracksuits. Enter LADY.)
CHARLINE: (frightening grin) Hello! How! MayIHelpYou?!?! Wooooooooould you be interestedinnnnnn anything in particular???
LADY: Um, no, I-I'm good, thank you.
CHARLINE: You're good?? You're just good? Because really, I think you're excellent!!
LADY: (shying away) Um, I'm going to go... elsewhere... (moves to another part of the store to look at overpriced jeans)
CHARLINE: (moves up close to LADY) You're looking at those? No no no, I much prefer these (picks up a pair) for my side job. They keep me warm on the streets and give the customers just the right taste. I mean people say that men don't want to buy the cow if they can get the milk for free, but baby, my milk don't come free! (furious hip-shaking)***
***Keep in mind that this wouldn't be retail-induced insanity but rather a way to keep myself amused.
****That reminds me! I've been keeping in mind that I wanted to re-read some Eliot (The Wasteland &c. is sitting on my end-table buried under The Portrait of Dorian Grey and Science of Sleep [which I have yet to watch]). Someone please add more hours onto the day! At least being a second-semester senior will free up some time.

p.s. I don't care what angry bloggers say, I like Vampire Weekend's CD. I can't really elaborate at the moment as Michel Gondry is calling me to my portable DVD player, but I think that people are focusing too much on the Ivy League background of the band. It's about the music, not the college they went to. They are certainly verbose lyricists at times, but their words match with and complement the music the way good bands should function. Plus, any band that would write a song about Oxford commas is good in my book (for the record, I hate when people don't use them).

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• I just slept for ten hours. I have to do my physics homework (the one time he's going to collect it), but I can barely function. I kind of want to vomit. I would stay home from school tomorrow, but I have used up all of my absences (and then some... oops).
  
• I just wrote part of a story that starts like this: 

            6:43
            Ronald wakes up.

            6:44
            Ronald scratches his left armpit.
 
            6:44:15
            Ronald scratches his right testicle and grunts in an attempt to feel masculine.

            6:44:30
            Seeing no change in masculinity, Ronald decides to continue along his daily plan.

• What was I going to say?
• Now I'm just thinking about testicles and it's really weird.
• Oh, okay. I have to study for midterms but I'm sort of in the middle of a poor man's existential crisis. I'm pretty sure that's just a really bad excuse for senioritis.
• But seriously, if one more of my classmates mentions how "OH MY GOSH IMPORTANT!!!!!!" midterm grades are, I will not hesitate to use a butter knife on his/her ass.
• Kidding; on their neck.
• I really think that I'm either going to go to sleep now and wake up at like three, or just stay up all night. Either way, I'll probably get to watch the Digimon movie, so I can't really complain. That's totally three a.m. viewing. Or it used to be when I was like ten, in any case.
• Here's some good music to listen to so that I can avoid doing (really more like floundering through pathetically) my physics homework:

The Phoenix Foundation - Hitchcock

I discovered these guys a few days ago, and I really like them. I've only really heard what they have on their myspace (and what was in the movie Eagle vs. Shark, which I watched for the first time a couple of days ago and really quite enjoyed). I've been replaying Hitchcock over and over and over. Can't get enough!

Calamus - The Waltz

Calamus opened for Kimya Dawson at Southpaw when I saw her a couple of weeks ago, and I was really impressed. They looked young, but I figured that they were my age at the very least. Nope! Turns out they're 13-14, and boy are they good. They're playing a show at Don Hill's on February 23rd, and I highly recommend going to see them if you're in the area.

Persephone's Bees - Queen's Night Out

I'm slowly getting more tired, so I don't even know what to say about this. It's good! Just listen.


Oh, I remembered what I was going to say. This song was in a film project that my friend Sarah did at the School of Visual arts. Go look!

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juxtapose

    I think today was really the first day that it hit me that my friends and I are going to be separating in less than a year. I've known most of these kids since I was four, and I can't imagine being without them for a few weeks, let alone a few months. I guess that it'll be easier to keep in touch with them with the advent of facebook and instant messaging, but what about those things that the internet cannot replace? I'm sure I'll repeat this lament twenty times over until September (and likely after that as well), so I'll keep the tirade to a minimum.

    To make things a bit happier (sort of), here's an end-of-the-year mix (although it's not so much a mix as it is a "songs I really like now" dump... I'm not really innovative or hip as far as this list goes, so don't poke fun):

Little Green Bag George Baker
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Daft Punk
Queen of the Fishermen Tacks, the Boy Disaster
I Turn My Camera On Spoon
Hustler Simian Mobile Disco
You're a Wolf Sea Wolf
House of Cards Radiohead
Only Shallow My Bloody Valentine
I Am Hated for Loving Morrissey
I Want Wind to Blow The Microphones
Volcanoes Islands
Little Brother Grizzly Bear
Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning Morrissey
Alkoholik Vulgargrad
Starman David Bowie
Where Is My Mind? The Pixies

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I've realized a few things in the past couple weeks that I've been in school:
    -Setting two alarms, no matter how far away they are from my bed, is not going to do anything but make me get up when they ring, turn them off, and go back to sleep. I've been late three times already (although I've technically only been marked down for it once).
    -Having a monotonous physics teacher is not good
    -Said monotonous physics teacher looking and sounding a bit like Edward Norton more than makes up for that
    -I need to purchase a time turner so that I can get everything done on time. We're doing The Laramie Project for the fall drama and I was given four parts, two of which make up an almost four page block in which I am the only person speaking.
    -I'm a mess.

    I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but I'm taking an Italian class at the local community college (You can't spell "success" without UCC!) because I couldn't fit it into my schedule at school. Community college is, really, a whole other world. I'm used to sitting in AP and honors classes with kids my age who could surely out-intellectualize the people in my Italian class in their sleep (I'm not trying to be an elitist bitch or anything-- it's admirable that people want to get an education in any setting, I'm just not used to being the smartest person in a room full of adults). But if anything, the three hours that I have to spend sitting in a cold room re-learning level one Italian in a purportedly "advanced" Italian class are worth it for the people I see when I'm walking along the hallways to class. I counted:

• One girl trying (but failing, luckily for her) to be Amy Winehouse
• Five girls in identical 50% spandex, 50% cotton faux-denim pants
• Three nervous middle-aged men who were older than their professors
• Ten non-professionals trying to come off as professionals
• Two professionals trying to come off as non-professionals
• Fourteen cigarettes in approximately ten hands and four mouths
• One professor being trailed by three students
• Eight thousand pairs of heels that made their wearers visibly uncomfortable
• Zero people who appeared to be my age

    I've been considering getting a domain name and running this blog myself, but I'm not sure how much work that's going to entail. Hmm.

    And just because I really don't want to study math, here's a list of songs I've been really into lately:

• Young Folks - Peter Bjorn and John (I don't care if it's overplayed! I've loved it ever since I caught it on New York Noise)
• The Gold Finch and the Red Oak Tree - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (Ted Leo being ballad-y; it's a nice change from their usual stuff)
• I Will - The Beatles (I can't even describe how much I love the Beatles)
• Hell Yes - Beck
• Anything by Andrew Bird or Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire-- they have beautiful instrumental work and fantastic lyrics
• John Wayne Gacy, Jr. - Sufjan Stevens
• Conquest - The White Stripes (I can't pass up a chance to crank up this song and scream COOONQUEEEEST at the top of my lungs on the drive to school; I used to do this with Dimension by Wolfmother last year and get glares from tired soccer moms. It's priceless.)
• The Noise - Regina Spektor
• Tom Waits' album Rain Dogs (One of, if not the, best albums I've ever heard. As a package, it's impeccable.)
• I'm Set Free - The Velvet Underground

Charline

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    My friends and I are pretty proud of our musical tastes. I listen to a wide variety of things, from classical to classic rock, ska to folk, comedy to experimental, but somehow the New Pornographers, Belle and Sebastian, and OK Go come out on top. And so it's somewhat of a wonder that after seeing these three bands and countless others that fall into the "indie rock" scene, I am most excited at the prospect of seeing something quite different: the Spice Girls reunion. I have the movie, the stickers, the lollipops, the CDs, the magazine clippings, wanted the dolls, the shirts, and, most of all, the concert tickets. I mean, give me a break, I was seven. We had a group of Spice Girls replicates at school (I was always sporty, since I wore my hair in a pony tail) and performed the songs for talent shows decked out in shirts declaring "SPICE UP" (I was, appropriately, C). And I'm sure that all of you who were obsessed with any band in your youth-- be it the Beatles or the New Kids on the Block-- would pee yourselves at the prospect of a reunion. And since I never did get to see the Spice Girls on their world tour when I was in first grade, I would do anything to see them now. Sure, they look different (I don't think anyone can deny that they look better), and it's been a good ten years, but I still enjoy putting on their CDs when no one is home and dancing around in underwear Cameron Diaz-style (Let's all clap for too much information).

    Something about seeing them just fills me with glee (although I have to admit it's kind of weird to be nostalgic about childhood when you haven't even finished it). But, from the article on it I just read in Entertainment Weekly, apparently to get tickets I have to register in a lottery on the group's website for a chance to buy tickets. Here's to hoping for good luck.

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pull

    So, I finally (after a good five years of waiting) saw the New Pornographers. They played the free 4th of July Battery Park show with Midlake this year. I attended the same free concert last year when Martha Wainwright (totally high at the time, no doubt) and Belle and Sebastian played, and it set a really high standard for this year. I like Midlake, but was somewhat nonplussed with their performance. If their epic live concert on Fabchannel is NY cheesecake, the battery park show was a hostess cupcake. The sound was good for most of the songs (not really for their opener, We Gathered in Spring, which is one of my favorites), but the stage presence was bleh.
    Unfortunately, New Porn didn't do a really good job of stepping it up. I obviously enjoyed their performance a lot more than I did Midlake's because I knew (almost) all of the songs, but the band was still a bit boring while performing. I'm partial to bands that move around a lot more (like OK Go, or the spastic Spinto Band [who were quite crap live, but fun to watch]). I mean, I understand that the nature of certain people's instruments (Kathryn Calder's and Kurt Dahle's of course [keyboards and drums respectively]) wouldn't let them move around, but I felt that even Calder was more exciting to watch than Carl Newman and, surprisingly, Neko Case. Don't get me wrong-- I was excited to see Case, for from what I understand, she's not always present with the band-- but I was honestly unimpressed. I also felt that they played too much from the new album (I know almost all of it, so I guess it shouldn't have really bothered me, but the crowd seemed to dull down when they played new stuff).
    But, in any case (har har), I had fun. I think they improved things quite a bit in terms of the way the show was run. I think that they had the same Starbucks-ticket-reserving business as they did last year*, but they gave out free tickets in the beginning of the show anyway, so we all got in (if you got there late, though, you were stuck behind the metal barrier groveling for entry). That undoubtedly made the evening easier, as we had been planning to work on paying off the guards like my friend Rian did last year.
    The only thing that sucked about the evening (besides the weather): I missed town fireworks for the second year in a row. The train ran later than I thought it would, and we didn't make it home in time. We did, however, see fireworks along the NJ coast when we were taking the train home.

    Now, I digress: At Penn Station waiting for the train home we saw a delectably tacky piece of home-bred faux Euro Trash, complete with fluffed-up hair, black button-down shirt, and ripped jeans that declared "I <3 Denim" on the ass. Euro Trash, who was sort of checking out my friends (female, disappointingly) chose a seat on the train right next to us. He then proceeded to (REALLY) relish delicately eating a couple of fig newtons (I can't make this shit up) and a bag of M&Ms (which he popped in his mouth to the beat of his ipod, no doubt). We were laughing our heads off, which was cruel, but I was convinced that he wasn't smart enough to figure out what we were laughing at, let alone do something about it. But instead of any delicious confrontation that I was dreaming up in my mind ("Excuuuuuuse me, what are you laughing at?" How is that any of your business? (aside) Must suck to be so conceited that you think every conversation people have is about you"), Euro Trash simply decided to get up and move his seat. What a party pooper.

*The gist of the idea was that we had to schlep to New York and wait outside a Starbucks for a good 45-minutes to get two free tickets

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isolationist

    (I love this new extra-large photo option!)

    I suggested a QOTD, and figured I'd do it as well to get the ball rolling if it isn't chosen and anyone else wants to do it:

What's are the weirdest song titles in your playlist?

This Piece of Poetry is Meant to do Harm - The Ark
Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey - The Beatles
MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack - Beck
Satan Gave Me a Taco - Beck
Judy is a Dick Slap - Belle and Sebastian
Monkey!!! Knife!!! Fight!!! - Minus the Bear
Downloading Porn with Dave - The Moldy Peaches
You're the One for Me, Fatty - Morrissey
Two-Headed Boy, Part II - Neutral Milk Hotel
Tim, I Wish You Were Born A Girl - Of Montreal
Y the Quale and Vaguely Bird Noisily Enjoying Their Forbidden Tryst - Of Montreal
Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk - Pink Floyd
Lower the Gas Prices, Howard Johnson - Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons - Sufjan Stevens (I'll try to limit myself to just a few Sufjan Stevens songs, since most of them have awesome titles)
They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh! - Sufjan Stevens
A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in which Sufjan Stevens Has an Exisential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze - Sufjan Stevens

And, since we're on the subject of weird songs, here's a keeper by Quit Your Dayjob:

05 - Coconut

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09 - Lord Anthony

Belle and Sebastian

When will you realize it doesn't pay
To be smarter than teachers, smarter than most boys?

[...]It can't get worse than this.
'Cause you'll soon be old enough to leave them
Without a notion of a care
You'll leave two fingers in the air
To linger there.
-Belle and Sebastian, Lord Anthony

    I've been reading Equus in order to get a better grasp on all of this naked Dan Radcliffe hype (and to, you know, up my literature IQ),

Equus

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filmstill

    I won't go as far as to shave my legs (the one good thing about this winter, honestly), but I am coming back from my blogging hibernation. And instead of slapping you guys with one of my potentially annoying moral questions or bitching about how much work I have (yum, junior year), I'll start out with something, shall we say, less mentally stimulating.

My Top 5 Foreign Films

    Last week when one of my Columbia classmate's friends was harassing me through text messaging (it's an unnecessarily long story, trust me), we ended up discussing film adaptations of Romeo and Juliet and how much we preferred Zeffirelli's to the Claire Danes one (as anyone in their right mind would argue). See how much I love film? I even discuss it with my cell phone harassers. Beautiful. And with that:

5. Small Change (L'Argent de Poche)

    After all of the kids in Madame Moskowitz' French class ran around saying "J'ai faim! J'ai faim!" I wanted to be in on the jem that is Francois Truffaut's 1976 film. I was pleasantly surprised at nostalgia that the film stirred up, considering i'm still essentially a "kid" myself.
4. The Diamond Arm (Brilliantovaya Ruka)

    Ignoring some of the hilarious subtitle translations ("Chort podberi" [excuse my crap transliterations], which closely means "Devil, help me!" was translated to "Damn melons!" [which makes sense in context, but c'mon-- damn melons??]), this movie's quite an experience. I saw it a lot of times as a kid and never really understood it fully, but when I saw it recently I enjoyed it more than I thought it would. The song sequences are cute, and the humor is amusing (but I can't be sure if someone without a Russian, or at least European, background would appreciate it-- on a side note, as if there aren't enough already, I was watching The Tale of Time Lost with my mum the other day and realized that a lot of the jokes, being puns, wouldn't make nearly as much sense or be as funny in English). My parents quote it all the time: "Only aristocrats and degenerates drink champagne in the morning!" (Granted, in Russian, not English.)
3. He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (A la folie... pas du tout)

    Holy shit. I don't even want to tell you anything about the film in case you haven't seen it yet, but it had quite the twist. If you don't watch anything else on this list, watch this film. This one definitely tops the list of all of the Audrey Tautou films that I saw during my first bout of Audrey obsession (except for one-- see below): Happenstance, A Very Long Engagement, and The Da Vinci Code (although I guess that doesn't really count).
2. Howl's Moving Castle/Spirited Away

    These two are my favorite Miyazaki films-- they're both beautiful, as are all of his films, and although I found Howl's plot to be more engaging, I couldn't pick between the two. :)
1. Amelie (Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain)

    Amelie is one of my top films of all time. I had to watch it twice-- once to focus on reading the subtitles and absorbing the story, and once to admire the gorgeous cinematography. The two viewings were absolutely necessary, as both components of the movie are, in my mind, nearly perfect. A divine film.

...At least now it's completely evident that I am head over heels in love with Audrey Tautou.

---

    In other news, my friends and I have formed a band. Yeah, I know, I know. Everyone and their mom has a band. We recorded our first song (a cover of Camera Obscura's Lloyd, I'm Ready to be Heartbroken) last week. Here you go (it's Eliav on lead guitar, Eric on backup guitar, and me singing [Amy was celebrating Christmas]): listen here on myspace.

    I should probably go work on the huge pile of homework on my desk. Blah.

   Charline

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The Story

    The concert was really nice; we only stayed for two acts (Pink Spiders, I think they were called, and Cobra Starship). The first band was horrid to no end, and we were only really interested in Cobra anyway.

While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets

Cobra Starship

I would have stayed for 30 Seconds to Mars just to indulge my curiosity, but I wasn't planning on sitting through Head Automatica and another band (Men, Women, and Children or some name to that effect) for a glimpse of (big flashes of lightening and confetti) thy holy leader, Jared Leto. I don't even like him as an actor, let alone a psuedo Mallgoth Rocker.

You_cant_really_blame_me_for_this_one

    In any case, Angel Face or not, we all had a fun time and enjoyed watching the other teenagers make fools of themselves (I was dancing, I won't deny it). After Cobra played, we left Roseland Ballroom in search for a hookah bar, when we were promptly interrupted by the ID Gods, who apparently did not want us to enjoy anything before we had some legal proof of being over eighteen. I have to interject to say that I am a responsible person and tend not to do illegal things, but hookah is almost a teenage rite of passage, if not just a fun social activity. Anyway, we were going to head to the village to continue our search when I decided it'd be a better idea to head over to Hoboken, considering it's closer to home and not as full of, uh, bondage shops.
    So we ended up going to Johnny Rocket's (because I just can't get enough fried this and greasy that-- more trans fats, please!) and ordering some fries as a small dinner. We were going to go to a cafe after wards, but it was raining really hard by the time we came out and it was getting late, so we headed home.
    We had to wait about an hour or so for our PATH trains to come; we actually ended up getting on one and were gently informed by the conductor ("What, are you fuckin' retarted??") that they did not appreciate our presence while they were doing police testing.

To go off on a tangent:
    I hate to rant or anything, but I absolutely cannot stand it when older guys stare at me in subway stations. I tend not to wear revealing clothing or anything and I guess I should be flattered (next to trans fats, I hold subway perverts in the highest regard), but I AM SIXTEEN AND YOU ARE FIFTY TWO, PLEASE GO PURCHASE YOURSELF A PROSTITUTE. I always end up grabbing one of my male companion's arms and making them pretend to be my boyfriend (this has happened twice when we were going to concerts, once this past week and once in April during an Arctic Monkeys show... I was actually groped in Lincoln Center over the summer-- right in front of a couple of cops, actually, who just laughed when I informed them of what happened).
            
    I should really go read this James Baldwin piece for English (Notes of a Native Son). When Mr. Shallcross assigned us the essay, Eliav made the interesting comment of, "Isn't he an actor?" to which I promptly stuck my head in my hands and sighed. I love my generation.

    Also, I'm trying to get into Virginia Woolf, do any of you fans have recommendations?

Charline

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