what's better than the olympics?

samuel l. jackson's tweets about the olympics. you're welcome.

hello, dear friends!

omg we haven't blogged in 2012 and it's already the end of july. lazy? preoccupied? unable to string together actual sentences and thoughts? all of the above, perhaps. and maybe because it's easy to post something quippy on facebook and receive immediate reactions. those "likes" sure soothe the ego. or something.

anyway, i am going to actively avoid talking about anything that may even touch upon my work. SO...let's talk about the olympics! first, it's so boring to talk about the passage of time, but seriously, didn't beijing happen like last week? how have four years passed? second, i won't be cheering for the US, don't worry. my many, many years living here have not convinced me that i should add to the nativist fervor. finally, does anyone still care about the olympics?

oh yes, this also allows me to talk about one of my favorite subjects in life: how old i feel/am. one of my college internships was for nbc olympics's FIRST website. i think i may have blogged about this before, but every four years, i'm reminded of how novel it was to move this content online. and apparently nbc is streaming the whole thing this year!

 so there you go, folks. opening ceremony in a few days.  relax.

 in the meanwhile, you may want to read this extremely long profile of bruce springsteen. bruuuuuuuuuuce!!!

an education

it's not exactly a state secret for me to reveal that i did not enjoy law school. i was very, VERY lucky to make the incredible friends i did, but the academic experience was, simply, bewildering. the socratic and case law methods made absolutely no sense to me and lacked any relevance, immediacy, or applicability.

now that i have this nerdy/wonky job that requires me to read dozens of law review articles every week (and which i sometimes do for...fun), i almost wish i could go back. the law makes so much more sense now, probably because i see so vividly how it permeates everything and that human beings can affect its course.

why am i bringing this up? not to bore you to tears, but i was listening to a podcast that discussed "music for 18 musicians" by steve reich.

i went to one of those colleges that thought you needed to study certain subjects to be a well-rounded person. i actually welcomed the opportunity to study in a structured environment, though my friends and i derisively told each other that we were learning merely "jeopardy" or "cocktail" knowledge through the core curriculum. as with most things smug 18-year-olds say, it's wildly overblown, but somewhat true.

so i am quite sure that i studied steve reich, except that i remember only his name, nothing more. but maybe i learned some critical listening skills, which may have come in handy, finally! listening to the above piece immediately reminded me of this:



or maybe this even more:


as the podcast said, reich seems almost quaint because that pattern and melody are used in virtually everything, including pharmaceutical commercials. so perhaps it's mere ubiquity, not my overpriced education, that helped me make this connection?

anyway, remember when sufjan stevens said he was going to make an album about each of the 50 states?

squeeeee!!!!

i'm not one for super-overtly cutesy stuff, but this is a relaxing way to ease into the week.

hello again...for now

like occupy wall street, the future of this blog remains somewhat unclear to me. this used to be a mishmash of random thoughts--generally speaking, things i wanted to bring to others' attention but seemed unfit to be shared elsewhere. maybe this forum lacks the instant gratification of a "like" button or an immediate audience that basically is also somewhat captive.

anyway, enjoy the above. deep thoughts by jack handey are my madeleines.