NYTimes

For a college student studying Journalism at school in New York City going to the New York Times and sitting in on a page one meeting is absolutely amazing. After we toured the news room and saw where each section is housed we went and sat in on a meeting with pitches for the front page of tomorrows newspaper. I found it so fascinating that we were sitting there listening to them decide what goes on the cover for the entire world to see. We got to find out before anyone!!! I think my favorite part of the meeting, besides listening to the pitches for the stories, was the pictures. Showing pictures from the front lines at war, the awful weather in Europe, and pictures from Washington D.C. After seeing John Kerry heated over his remarks and then it flashed to John McCain in an elevator with a cup of coffee. He looked confused (as usual) and very out of place. Although i had to control myself so i didnt laugh, it summed up him as a person so perfectly. While other politicians are fighting for what they want, getting upset over debates, and he is just standing there drinking coffee like nothing phases him.

I really think going to the times and seeing how things run and operate in "real life" was really interesting. I am so glad that i got to go and see the process first hand!

also i just went to the times website and the space suit storage picture is on the front page!!!! but i already knew that!!!!

best of...

Because my blog has failed to completely stick to one category or topic over the course of this class i decided to do something cultural...

Every year in December magazines, newspapers, talk show hosts, and just about everyone and everything else, comes out with their "best and worst of 2010" lists. So I only thought it fitting that I do the same. I think over the last 12 months many interesting things have happened. Many amazing books have been published, many movies have been awful, music has continued to breed clones of other artists, and fashion has continued to change although i can't seem to keep up. The world of politics has changed dramatically and the fate of our country is up in the air. But for my list i am going to do something a little different. I am going to combine everything that has been going on and make a jumble of things, the Best and Worst of EVERYTHING 2010. I will do 10 for both best and worst. Obviously it is a bit superficial and there were things much greater and worse then what i put on my lists but....
here i go... they are not in any particular order...

BEST:
1. Food Truck Festival on Governors Island
2. Sir Paul McCartney sings "Hey Jude" with President Obama at the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at the White House.
3. Bristol Palin doesn't win Dancing with the Stars.
4. The Hills finally ends!
5. LA Lakers win..AGAIN!
6. SF Giants win the World Series (thanks to Tim Lincecum)
7. The T-Rex Leech is discovered.
8. Black Holes might be our way into alternate universes, we can finally meet ET.
9. Keith Richards publishes his memoir.
10. Oprah promises to keep up her book club even after her show ends!

WORST:
1. Food truck festival on Governors Island runs out of food before i get there...
2. Bristol Palin is on dancing with the stars, Sarah Palin gets her own show.
3. Willie Nelson gets arrested for marijuana- Snoop Dogg is outraged.
4. Oprah retires!!!!
5. Gay marriage is still not legal.
6. Don't ask don't tell is not repealed.
7. Things are not looking food for Obama in 2012.
8. Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt get married... AGAIN.
9. Full body scans at the airport.
10. Starbucks up's their prices by $.50, Metro Cards go up by $.25.

Well, there are my lists for 2010. Although there are many more things that could easily go up there, i had to limit myself to 10. Let's hope in 2011 people stop worrying about reality stars and begin to pay attention to things that really matter!

MOMA

On December 19, 2010 the MOMA will be opening an exhibit of Andy Warhol’s Silent Films. The experimental black and white films have become just as famous as his iconic works of pop art in color. The films will be showing through the New Year into the end of March. The films are going to be projected onto screens and monitors in a gallery setting to provoke both the subject and the viewer in his manipulation of movie images. The silent films originally were debuted in Berlin in 2004 and have traveled to various museums around Brazil, Buenos Aires, Moscow, and Prague. His most famous silent film Silent Kiss will be one of the films projected, which was said to be one of the most experimental and daring films of the time and of the section.

Another interesting exhibit that is going to be at the MOMA, which relates to Warhol due to the interaction with everyday things, is called Talk to Me. Exploring the communication between people and everyday objects goes above and beyond what people notice regularly. The exhibit explores the dependence on technological items like cell phones, iPods, computers, and even the subway machines in which we purchase our Metro Cards. The exhibit focuses on the objects that we directly interact with like information systems, websites, furniture, and whole environments. This exhibit is going to open next year on July 24 and go until November 7, 2011. Although this project is in the early stages of development the idea sticks with people and makes everyday interactions seem bigger and gives them more significance.

At the MOMA now is an exhibition spanning across five continents. Small Scale, Big Change is made up of eleven architectural projects responding to localized needs in underserved communities. The exhibit, in which I visited, shows many different ideas of how to better communities and to help find practical solutions to known needs.

Tina Fey wins Mark Twain Prize

The last week i have spent in Washington DC helping to prepare for The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

This year it went to Tina Fey. On Tuesday night everyone from Betty White, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Steve Martin, Jane Krakowski, and many more came out to celebrate Tina's work. This is the 13th year for the MTP and Fey is only the 3rd woman to receive the prestigious honor.

The night before the event a dinner took place in the Capital building with speakers like Nancy Pelosi and Lorne Michaels. The dinner was in Statuary Hall which is comprised of 2 statues of significant people from the first 13 colonies, although originally each state had 2 statues but when a museum was opened for the capital building most of the statues were transferred there.

Many people came out to celebrate the many talents of Tina Fey and this turned out to be the highest grossing show yet making 1.3 million. The sold out show will be on PBS on Sunday November 14.

Twigs in the city

The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens have just turned 100! In celebration there is an installation of giant twig sculptures! Patrick Dougherty, from North Carolina creates large scale sculptures with all the materials collected from what he finds on the premises. The sculptures look like giant birds nests connected together creating little, well large, huts almost house like. His work changes with the natural cycle, sticks settling, and eventually returning to the earth where they came from. The work will be up for a year so people can see it changing throughout the seasons and evolving.

Dougherty started making sculptures in 1980 with single pieces in his backyard but since then has created over 200 pieces for institutions and galleries.

Food or Art?

Food and art seem to go side by side.... when art is shown, there is normally food around. When one is eating there is normally some sort of art present. But what seemed to be even more interesting is the idea that food is art and art is food.

Michel Richard, is a very prominent chef and happens to be part of my extended family. He owns many restaurants and has written multiple cook books (one of them with my uncle.)

So what makes Richard different from other french chefs? Not only is his food amazing but the presentation is what really makes him stand apart. The interesting combinations of ingredients that one would not normally pair together create the mouth watering dishes served at Citronelle in Washington D.C.

Richard is most famously known for the pastries he makes. During the Holiday seasons he even has meringue shaped like a snowman, three tiers of sugar and delicious cream tied together with a rosemary branch in his arm. Although that is just naming one of the amazing desserts Richard has come up with his talents never seem to surprise me.

Food and art are closely related although it is never really looked at in this way. Many Chef's have been recently spending more time on presentation. Have you ever noticed that in

cookbooks the food always looks amazing but then when you make it at home it does not turn out looking as good? You have to spend as much effort on the presentation as you do on the meal itself! Food IS art and art IS edible as Michel Richard has proven to us!

Woodstock Film Festival!

Over the weekend i went to Woodstock, in Upstate New York, a place that is known for hippies, drugs, and the famous music festival but is actually nothing like that at all! The Woodstock Film Festival happened to be going on this past week as well so i was lucky to get to see part of that. The small town hosted the festival on Tinker Street, the main street, and showed most of the films at the Bearsville Theatre. The theatre looks out to a beautiful stream and a path that leads to the woods with benches for people to sit. Woodstock Radio is in a building on the same property as is the Bear Cafe, and Little Bear, a Chinese restaurant. Although all of the films were made independently and with very small budgets, the crowds that come out to see the films are anything but small!

http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com/

http://www.bearcafe.com/

http://wdst.com/

THIS NEEDS TO END!

This is shocking, upsetting, disturbing, and needs to stop. The amount of teenagers committing suicide is astonishing but what is more outrageous is the lack of acceptance from fellow peers. In the past 3 weeks there have now been 6 young boys have killed themselves from extreme bullying over their sexuality. This is so disturbing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8038794/Tyler-Clementi-empty-seat-at-suicide-students-orchestra-debut.html

This is a blog post and video that speaks out against the devastation from Ellen DeGeneres
http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/01/celebs-speak-out-on-teen-suicides/

http://business.tds.net/news/read.php?ps=1011&rip_id=%3CD9IJ1E980%40news.ap.org%3E&_LT=HOME_LARSDCCLM_UNEWS

http://perezhilton.com/2010-10-01-5th-and-6th-teen-suicide-this-week-action-must-be-taken

A nod to Hip Hop history

http://www.spreadit.org/jimmy-fallon-history-of-rap-justin-timberlake-video/
-- In under 5 minutes Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake summed up the history of hip hop! This is genius. Timberlake has a new movie coming out "The Social Network" and was on Fallon to promote it. In these short 5 minutes they go through everything from Rappers Delight to Empire State of Mind. I personally think they should do this for the history of all music genres. Fallon and Timberlake singing the tune of Bach, could you imagine?

http://www.mtv.co.uk/artists/justin-timberlake/news/239183-justin-timberlake-quitting-music-for-good
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2010/10/justin-timberlake-jimmy-fallon-and-the-history-of-rap.html
http://www.hiphoprx.com/2010/10/01/justin-timberlake-stars-in-the-social-network-jimmy-fallon-rap-hip-hop-duet/

what the NY Times should've said......

An article that ran in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times yesterday featured people giving advice to all incoming freshman. It was a general "what i wish i knew" or "i wish i took advantage of this" type story that i found to be very interesting and in some ways helpful but mostly i found it to be a very obvious portrayal of the do's and don'ts of college. So now i am going to copy the New York Times and give my two cents on what i wish i knew when i first entered college.

Going to school in a non-traditional setting, a big city with no "real" campus or level designated classes, i wish i knew that it is not so scary to reach out to other people. Walking in on my first day we went around the room doing typical introductions. "I'm Anna, I'm from Los Angeles, i plan to major in Journalism and Literary Studies, and i am taking this class because i am interested in why certain types of music are generalized in a category of "romantic music" and what the classifications are to be in said category." From every ones introductions i thought they everyone would become a group of friends and engage in conversations before the professor arrived each time before class.... but i was wrong. As i learned later in the year almost everyone feels the way I did. Scared, nervous, a little bit uncomfortable, these are all normal reactions to meeting new people and branching out. So my advice would be try your hardest to interact with others around you. It's okay to be scared but try to put your nerves aside and make extra effort, because chances are most of the others feel the same way! Another thing i would take advantage of is to explore where you live. Go see music, go to art openings, go to museums, to movies. Spend the entire day (if the weather permits) walking around neighborhoods you don't live in, going into stores and cafes and just exploring. Sign up for lectures and book signings at school. But my most important piece of advice, for anyone going to school if you are in a big city or on a tiny campus, don't be afraid to go places by yourself. Get to know yourself outside of your friends, your family, and your comfort zone. Push yourself to do things because you will regret it if you don't. I guess ultimately, have fun and enjoy yourself, don't set limitations or boundaries for yourself and the opportunities you are going to encounter and always always be as positive as you can even if situations get tough!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/opinion/26gradstudents.html?_r=1&emc=eta1