My program had a week-long orientation period, and then I was placed with my host family. I met them on a Friday night, the same night everyone else met theirs. I remember being really nervous beforehand but trying to act cool. We were bunked up in the hotel in pairs, and I remember reassuring my roommate that her family would love her, trying to reassure myself at the same time. She collected herself and went downstairs to meet her host parents, and I was left alone to finish packing up my thingsâI brought so many things with me to Brazil, a stupid amount of thingsâand it was impossible, it seemed like it couldnât all possibly fit into two and a half suitcases, and I was sweating buckets and close to hysterics when another friend told me that she was pretty sure my host parents had arrived. I must have come off as overwhelmed, because she offered to help me take my cumbersome luggage downstairs to where all the host parents were waiting.
I lived with AntĂŽnia and Veras, but their two children were around often, which meant I got to spend a lot of time with the two grandkids--Isadora, five years old, and Maracicilia, two months old when I arrived and almost six months by the time I left. About halfway through my stay, AntĂŽnia became Maraciciliaâs full-time caretaker during weekdays so that her mother could return to work, so I got even more quality baby-time whenever I wanted. Small children seemed to be everywhere I went in Fortaleza: several other host families had babies or toddlers, I met more babies at the MST settlement, and during my research period, my informants would sometimes be nursing their children as they talked to me. Stores for baby clothes and toys were everywhere, too. Playing with Isadora and Maracicilia is one of the things I now miss most about my life in Fortaleza.Â
Other people in the program would talk about how hectic and too-exciting life was in their homestays, but mine wasnât like that. AntĂŽnia didnât often take me to do things outside the house, and our evening routine was simple and quietâdinner, sometimes with Veras or sometimes by myself (AntĂŽnia preferred not to eat dinnerâlunch is the biggest and most important meal for most Brazilians), then the two of them would settle in to watch their telenovelas and newscasts. Sometimes I would join them for a while, the three of us watching mostly in silence, but usually I would spend the night reading in my room or in a hammock on the porch. I got used to their accents and over time my conversations with them became longer, easier, and more complex, but they never crowded me or made me feel obligated to talk.
And I loved my neighborhood. At first it scared me, made me feel uncomfortable and hyper-self-aware, the same reaction that most privileged Americans probably have the first time they walk into a run-down neighborhood. My neighborhood was considered part of Greater Pirambu, a favela. Which is why Iâve become deeply skeptical of the usefulness of the word âfavelaâ to describe anything at all, because I didnât live in a City-of-God-style slum, I lived in a pleasant working-class neighborhood with grocery stores and restaurants and lots of kids and a strong sense of community. The house I lived in was an incredibly nice house, with a big TV and tiled floors and houseplants at the entrance; my bedroom was spacious, and it was always a place that I was extremely happy to come back to at the end of the day. But then, later in the program I stayed in neighborhoods that were, objectively speaking, much closer to what we think of as a favela, with drug gangs fighting over territory and precarious semi-legal housing. These neighborhoods also had grocery stores and restaurants and lots of kids and a strong sense of community. So perhaps the problem isnât as much the term âfavelaâ being broadly defined as it is our conception of favelas as places unfit for human life, and thus our conception of favela residents as less than human.
Once AntĂŽnia worriedly asked me if I liked living there, and told me that sheâd hosted previous American students who had complained that they werenât an exciting enough host familyâthat she spent too much time at church and Veras spent all his time asleep in front of the TV (because he worked two jobs and was tired all the time), that they didnât plan activities for their students or leave the house with them often enough. She wanted to know if I was dissatisfied with them.Â
It was one of those situations that made me wish desperately that my language abilities were better, because it was difficult to find the words to express just how dissatsfied I wasnât. AntĂŽnia was meticulous in keeping the house clean and lovely (including my room, despite how many times I told her she didnât have to), and cooked delicious, filling food for me every night. My bed was big and soft and I had privacy. But even beyond my gratitude for all that, they accepted me with open armsâI was at the baptism of their grandchild, and over Easter weekend they took me with them to the town in the interior of the state to meet AntĂŽniaâs extended family. I had the privilege of learning that AntĂŽnia had lived in cities all over Brazil, that her first husband and the father of her kids was dead, and that her dedicated religiosity came from her gratitude over having built a nice house to live in and a comfortable lifestyle after years of struggle. I had the privilege of learning how stressed out and exhausted Veras was by all the work he had to do, and how funny he became when he relaxed and got a little drunk on the weekends. Theyâve lived in the same house for fifteen years, and every time I left the house with AntĂŽnia, at least one person recognized her on the street and stopped to say hello. Â
Who the hell cared if my homestay life wasnât always exciting or filled with adventure? I really love them. Thereâs only so well you can get to know a person when you donât share a native language with them, but when you live with people, you also get to know them in a different way that doesnât require words.Â
I miss them; I miss AntĂŽnia taking care of me, fussing over me. After the academic program ended, Louis and I flew to SĂŁo Paulo for the start of two weeks of independent travel, at the end of which we came back to Fortaleza to spend one more day with AntĂŽnia and Veras and then fly home. Our flight to SĂŁo Paulo left at 6:50am, which of course meant we had to wake up at 4:30; I tried to convince AntĂŽnia that she didnât need to wake up with us, but she indignantly responded that there was no way she was letting me leave without giving me some breakfast first. So she fed us eggs and bread and papaya and made coffee for us and waited for the taxi with us, all before five in the morning. Iâm going to try to remember that act for the rest of my life. Â
Veras and my host-brother-in-law, goofing around over Easter.
AntĂŽnia swinging Isadora in a hammock; below, Isadora all on her own.
Obviously, I bailed completely on writing blog posts about my experience in Brazil. I wanted to. For the past three months, I constantly told myself that I would soon write up a quick post about this experience or that one. But I failed to realize how much easier it is to write about the obsessions that usually appear on this blogâmusic, TV shows, movies, books, the fads that I get into and out ofâthan it is to write about my life. How do I find the words to talk about things that arenât outside of myself? I want to talk about Brazil and how I fell in love with all of it, even the shitty parts, and how I finally feel like the fact that Iâm half-Brazilian actually means something. I want to talk about finding long-lost relatives on another continent, and about the intersection between surfing and community organizing, and about my host family and how I miss them already. There have been a whole lot of relationships and experiences that have changed me over the past few months, and I honestly have no idea how to find the words for any of it. I do want to at least try to articulate myself correctly, even if Iâm the only one who really cares about all this, but right now Iâm stumped. I could just dump a laundry list of events on here, but even if Iâm not entirely clear on what meaning I want to communicate through the telling of my experience, I know that I donât want to come across like I only did any of this for the bragging rights. And maybe thatâs at the root of my problem--maybe deep down I worry that writing about this stuff publicly is nothing more than bragging, is me trying to use the last four months as fodder for being more impressive. This feels very wrong to me, and has felt very wrong to me. During my independent study period, I spent three weeks with an impoverished community called Serviluz (itâs known as a favela, but Iâve grown to feel pretty uncomfortable with that word) on the coast of Fortaleza that uses surfing as a tool for social inclusion, teaching children in the neighborhood how to surf as a way to engage their love of learning and keep them off the streets. Throughout my time there, I was constantly aware of my desire to rush back home to brag to Facebook and post on my blog about how I was learning how to surf in a favela, and didnât that make me so unique and cool? I think that for the most part, I didnât act on this urge, with the exception of excitedly telling my friends in the academic program that I was actually learning to surf as part of an academic research project. But this also meant that I never wrote much about my experiences with the Instituto Povo do Mar (or IPOM), and that feels wrong too, because I want to tell the world who these people are and why theyâre amazing and why there is so much to love and respect and emulate in what theyâre doing and what the rest of Serviluz is doing. And this is the mental debate Iâve had with myself every day, over so many things that Iâve seen or experienced or felt that are worth writing about. Add this to my normal level of perfectionism and a severe lack of both free time and internet access, and you have yourself a dead blog. I just want to be respectful, honest, and articulate, all at the same time, and itâs been surprisingly difficult. But now that I have the time to sit back and breathe and adjust to life in the U.S., I do want to try and write publicly about the past Spring, because itâs been more significant to me than anything else ever has in my life to date. I know that if I donât write about it in a way thatâs more significant and meaningful than private journal entries, Iâll regret it later. So in the spirit of better late than never, I am going to try to write some posts about my months in Brazil. But Iâm also eager to start writing about all the non-Brazil things that Iâm excited about right now. Mostly I just want to get back into writing, periodâfor the majority of my study abroad program, I never had the time to write much for fun, and I miss it like crazy. Here goes.
Iâve just returned from a three-day weekend spent at Jericoacoar, a small town on the coast thatâs rumored to have one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. For three days I was transformed from a sweaty, commuting 9-5 student to a sunbathing, caiprinha-drinking tourist. The beach was indeed beautiful, the drinks tasty, and the tourist experience was about as awkward as Iâd expected, but I donât feel like writing about all that. (Except to say that I agree with David Foster Wallace when he compares being a tourist to being âan insect on a dead thing.â) Instead I feel like writing about something thatâs not particularly exotic or adventurous, yet has nonetheless fascinated me as a metaphor for my experience with Brazilian vs. U.S. society thus far. Last night I went running for the first time since my arrival in Fortaleza. In my homestay neighborhood, they have a distinct running practice that I canât stop boggling at. We live adjacent to one of the main city interstates, a six-lane monolith affectionately known as the Leste Oeste. The median for this street, at its narrowest points, is wide enough to fit four skinny abreast. There are two lanes of sidewalk, and sometimes even gym equipment and mini-playgrounds between the lanes. Instead of using the sidewalks (which are usually occupied by tables from bars, people congregating, trash piles etc), everyone jogs on the median. People use the gym equipment, too, and take their kids to the playgrounds. All this while three lanes of traffic roar by on either side (and Fortaleza traffic is a terrifying and seemingly anarchic waltz on the best of days). Itâs impossible for me to imagine public gyms and playgrounds existing literally in the middle of a six-lane street in the U.S. Forget the safety concerns that would horrify usâwe also have very specific exercise preferences. We prefer air-conditioned gyms or secluded, scenic pathways; running in the city is acceptable, but we discourage anyone but the fit and pretty from doing this through catcalls, jeering, etc. And above all alse, we exercise with our headphones firmly stuck in our ears, enveloping us in a comfy sonic bubble. I myself have a lovingly edited âRunningâ playlist on my iPhone, and back home I run on a sweet little nature trail which allows me to avoid campus traffic, uneven sidewalks, and the sorority sisters running in packs in Chapel Hill. So the medians of Leste Oeste: not my ideal, but it was clear that this was the only part of the neighborhood that people used for jogging. And no headphones on the streetâeven if I felt comfortable taking an .mp3 player with me, most Brazilians seem to jog without them. I must confess that the reason itâs taken me two and a half weeks here to work up the desire to go running was that I hated the idea of going without my music, and was afraid that without a steady beat in my ears, I wouldnât be able to mentally sustain myself for more than a few hundred yards at best. Running on the median was fine, of course. Maybe even better, in terms of my speed and endurance, although thereâs no way for me to know since I lack the handy little GPS trackers that I used back home. But it felt good. There was a lot of ducking under palm fronds and skipping over piles of broken bricks and navigating bicycles and motorcycles and cars, and I guess all this translated to a keener awareness of myself as a physical being in the world, or something. I was very interested in looking around at my unfamiliar surroundings, so maybe that had something to do with my lack of desire for headphones; maybe Iâll miss them more when the neighborhood becomes less new to me. But to return to the larger metaphorical point, it seems to me that running in the middle of traffic transforms the act of running from a solitary act of âinner peaceâ to an embrace of chaos that somehow managed to be just as peaceful as the former. I think I like it. Aside from being an incredibly efficient and impressive use of public space, thereâs something about the phenomenon that seems deeply representative of my own personal, narrow and almost-certainly-ignorant-and-clueless experience of Brazilian society so far. Itâs not that every Brazilian is more extroverted and friendly than Americans, although Iâve already experienced friendliness and kindness from an extraordinary number of strangers here. Itâs hard to describe, but being here makes the U.S. seem delicateâdelicate in our psychological needs (for personal space, for âalone time,â for exactness and timeliness), in our physical needs (orderly traffic, a greater emphasis on personal safety in general), and in our social needs (a desire to be more reserved in public, a need for politeness to supercede truth in most circumstances). There are many things in Fortaleza that seem stressful to me, such as running in the street or never really knowing when my bus is going to come, but somehow it doesnât feel like a stressful place (to me, at least). Unfortunately I have yet to take pictures of my new outdoor gym. I havenât been taking many pictures in general because I left the chord connecting my camera to my computer in Chapel Hill. All I have to share visually so far is an iPhone snap of the parrot that lives in my house, and a picture of my host mother (AntĂŽnia) holding her extremely adorable two-month-old granddaughter (Marcicilha). Neither of these have anything to do with running, but here they are for your perusal.
I may or may not have completely failed to mention that Iâm studying abroad in Fortaleza, Brazil from now till the beginning of July. I arrived on Monday but havenât felt much of an inclination to sit down and record thingsâIâm too busy staring wide-eyed at everything around me. I havenât even seen much of the city so far (this first week has been almost all orientation before the academic program starts in earnest), but I feel like every latent drop of curiosity and childlike excitement has been fired up, leaving very little room for everything else. I will do my best to write more about my experiences, but how do you find words to talk about something youâve been working towards for six years? I remember being eighteen and airily proclaiming to my mother that I was going to save the money to go live in Brasil and find my long-lost relatives; naturally this terrified her and gave me A Death In Brazil by Peter Robb to dissuade me and scare me away. Of course it inspired an obsession instead. I have loved this country for so long and was so scared that when I arrived, I would find that it was nothing like the place Iâve been studying and daydreaming about for years. Instead, so far at least, I find that Iâm in love with it in all sorts of surprising ways that I never could have predicted. Before I left, four months seemed like an eternity to be away from my home, but now that Iâm here all I can think about is how short this time is and what I can do to ensure that Iâm able to come back soon. Tonight I meet my host family and go home to stay with them. Iâm nervous to meet new people who donât share my language, but itâs so exciting to already feel my Portuguese skills improving, and I hope that Iâll soon be cheerfully communicating with my Fortaleza mĂŁe. I never felt confident in my Portuguese classes at my home university, but being here I can understand how people fall in love with learning languages. The occasional breakthroughs are intoxicating, and it makes me want to be outgoing and engage total strangers in the street in conversations. Figuring out how to connect with another human being when the cultural odds are stacked against you is such a special thing. It feels like a small miracle every time I manage it. More to come later.
I Love 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank'
Iâm still learning how to read short story collections. I donât read short stories nearly as often as I read almost everything else (except poetry, all right, Iâm a philistine who almost never thinks to read poetry), but I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of how to read a short story on its ownâI usually give myself time to sit with it, mull it over, and read it all in one sitting. If itâs a literary New Yorker-esque short story in which nothing really happens except contemplation, then I can focus on the language (and if Iâm reading it in the New Yorker, that helps because Iâm already in the mood to be all high-minded and sophisticated and have patience with art thatâs not immediately entertaining/satisfying). But I admit, a whole book of short stories is usually more than you can ask of me. Inevitably, the stories in the collection have all blurred together in my mind by the time Iâve finished all of them, and my brain tries to process them all at once instead of individuallyâbasically I try to read story collections like novels, and so by the time Iâm done with one, I almost always feel like Iâm not âgetting it.â Iâd like to read more short story collections, and Nathan Englanderâs What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is a very good place to start for a novice short story reader such as myself. Not because itâs easy, butâwell, itâs easier to compliment by saying what itâs not: it is not the kind of writing that you can objectively acknowledge to be beautiful while secretly finding it kind of boring. If you have ever read a short story in The New Yorker, you know exactly what I mean. Although many of these stories are quiet and subtle, each one is suspenseful in its own way, and each story in the collection has branded itself upon my reading brain and remains there for good. I find myself remembering the actions of characters at odd times throughout the day, and sentences keep coming back to me. I can assure you that none of these blurred together by the time I was done with the book. Yet as distinct and unique as each story is, thereâs a clear through-line in the collection, and the theme is obvious in the title. Thereâs only one story in What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank that (seemingly at least) is not about Judaism, and most of them explicitly touch on the Holocaust, as well. The titular story features a more-or-less secular Jewish couple in Florida hosting another couple, who are Hasidic Israelis. In the span of one afternoon, the story touches on the meaning of marriage and partnership, the place of tradition, the chilling question of trust, and the weight of history, among other things. The language of âWhat We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frankâ is modern and sardonic, distanced until the gut-punch finale requires closeness; in comparison, âSister Hillsâ reads like a fable, timeless and somber and un-compromising in its harsh interpretation of human choices. âSister Hillsâ and âFree Fruit For Young Widowsâ both take place mostly in Israel, and âPeep Show,â âHow We Avenged the Blums,â and âEverything I Know About My Family on My Motherâs Sideâ all touch on religious traditions and lifestyles transplanted to modern America. The exception to the theme is âThe Reader,â which shows us an old, bitter author long after his halcyon days, interacting with his sole remaining fan. When I think about the plot of this storyâa devoted reader dutifully follows his favorite has-been writer on his book tour, providing a one-man audience in every bookstoreâIâm amazed that it doesnât come off as syrupy, self-indulgent, or just embarrassing. But thereâs a gruesomeness in âThe Reader,â similar to the gruesomeness in the bookâs other, more dark or violent stories. âThe Readerâ doesnât tidy up its characters and their ugly impulses, and neither do any of its counterparts. Nathan Englander seems to have figured out the strangeness at the core of the human species, and his insight permeates all eight stories in the collection. I couldnât put it down because it was so weirdly recognizable, despite the fact that on the surface I have very little in common with any of the people he writes about. I only finished this a few days ago, yet I already want to go back and read each story again. Itâs rare that I find a single short story whose world I can live in as fully as a novelâs, but Nathan Englander has given me eight of them.
I just finished reading The Orphan Masterâs Son by Adam Johnson, which chronicles the life and times of Pak Jun Do, a soldier in North Korea. Kim Jong Ilâs recent death makes Johnsonâs book feel highly relevant before you even start reading, and I freely admit that I first picked it up because I felt like I should be more knowledgeable about the DPRK. And the book is definitely relevant, with thoughtful explorations of authority, society, and the state, and its well-researched memorable portrait of life in a country thatâs hidden from most of us. But Johnson is also an incredible story-teller, and itâs his characters and their fates that really drew me into his book. I finished The Orphan Masterâs Son at around one a.m. My eyes hurt they were so tired, but I was too wrecked to fall asleep right after I finished it. Itâs not that itâs an unrelentingly grim or nihilistic bookâI would categorize the ending more as âbittersweetâ than âstraight-up unhappy and awfulââbut taken as a whole, itâs heartbreaking. Even the uplifting parts are heartbreaking. Louis graciously let me spoil him for the ending, despite the fact that he wants to read it eventually, because I needed to babble to someone about all the parts that got to me. After we stopped talking and hit the lights, scenes were still playing on a loop in front of me. Then I had dreams about North Korea, although thankfully I donât remember any of them. Every North Korean we meet in this story has been traumatized. Some of the trauma is physical and obviousâwe meet prisoners of the state, women whoâve been assigned to abusive husbands, and numerous torture victims. (The torture scenes in Orphan Masterâs Son are so pervasive and almost casual that it wasnât until I reflected after finishing that I realized how numerous they were; in the world that Johnson creates, infliction of pain by the state is as normal a transaction as, say, paying taxes would be in the U.S.) But most of the trauma is subtler stuff: we meet an aging, blind couple whose senility has caused them to be constantly paranoid that the government is listening, so that in every conversation they have, the only emotion theyâre willing to verbally express is patriotism and total support for the Dear Leader. Their son must constantly search their faces for any sign of the people they used to be, because they no longer let any real thoughts or emotions come out in what they say. Not only does authoritarian repression have the power to control your body, but it takes your mind as well, twisting the narrative of your life to suit its own purpose. You are not who you say you are, you are who they say you are. The importance of narrative is a huge theme. Storytelling is a matter of survival: if the government likes the story that you tell them better than the truth of what happened, itâs the difference between life and death. Jun Doâs point-of-view chapters are broken up by transcriptions of propaganda radio broadcasts, which tell our heroâs story through the eyes of the state, as well as the point-of-view of a state interrogator, who tries to record Jun Doâs story for posterity. The concept of the âselfâ is fluid at best, when your story can be changed at any moment. There are some daring escapes and defections in this book, but mostly we witness small rebellions. Although this is a story about authoritarian oppression, itâs even more focused on what the state canât control. Although the way the book ended gave me a bleak and restless night, few stories have made me feel so lucky and alive the next day.
For some reason, Iâve been compelled to watch more movies than TV shows lately. Maybe itâs because Iâve just realized that I probably wonât have netflix access in Fortaleza, so all of those âIâd like to see this somedayâ picks in my queue suddenly seem more urgent. The best movie Iâve seen recently has been Attack the Block, and if I was going to be truly honest, this post would be nothing more than a series of exclamation points, enthusiastic emoticons, and pictures of me making ridiculously excited fluttery motions with my hands and arms. This is one of those movies that locked on to my inner child and didnât let go till the end credits rolled. And by that, I donât mean at all that it was childish, but that it was the kind of movie thatâs enjoyable in such a pure way that you donât even know how to talk about itâyou know, itâs how you probably feel about The Princess Bride. Itâs the kind of movie that entertained me so much that, much like all entertainment did for me when I was a child, it ignited my imagination and made me want to express my enjoyment by shouting and running around in circles like an insane person. The best entertainment is a simple transfer of joy and delight from one person to another, and like any energy transfer it provides fuel for movement and production. But although it acted as a super concentrated shot of straight joy to my heart, Attack the Block does more than entertain. Itâs probably one of the smartest movies Iâve ever seen, and definitely one of the smartest sci-fi movies Iâve ever seen. The tag line for the movieââInner City Meets Outer Spaceââgives you an image of a gimmick that makes this film stand out from your average alien movie: instead of Aliens vs. Intrepid White People Or Will Smith, itâs Aliens vs. The Streets. Refreshingly different, but so far itâs still something we can kind of imagine Hollywood doing. Give it a closer look, and itâs clear that this is no Hollywood film. Written by some of the same people who were behind Shaun of the Dead, Attack the Block takes place in a shitty neighborhood in London, and it opens with a mugging. We see Sam, a young white woman whoâs recently graduated from nursing school, walking home through dark alleys at night. She is surrounded by a gang of teenaged boys (one is white, the rest look black). The leader is a dark-skinned black boy who wields a knife, wears a bandanna covering the lower half of his face, and demands that Sam give him her ring in addition to her wallet. His name is Moses, and he turns out to be the hero of the story. We get to know Moses and his friends quite well as aliens invade their neighborhood and they take it upon themselves to fight back. They are, of course, thrown together with Sam, who lives in the same housing project (âThe Blockâ) that they do. The movie never explains away or forgives their violence against Sam, but it gives them dimension, depth, and a wonderful humor. Theyâve done bad things, but theyâre not bad kids (and they are kids, the movie never lets us forget that). For her part, Sam is no Nice White Lady, graciously forgiving their mugging before showing them the error of their ways and elevating them through the magic of her whiteness. No, she calls them âfucking monsters,â sics the police on them, and after sheâs forced to join them in order to defend their home, Moses tries to apologize to her by saying that if heâd known they lived in The Block with them, they never would have mugged her. Sam sarcastically asks if it would have been just fine to mug her if sheâd been from somewhere else. Thereâs a lot of wonderful insights into class and race and gender in the movie, but I donât want to spoil anything for those of you who havenât seen it. To go back to the entertainment aspect, you should see this movie because itâs hilarious, scary, gory, exciting, poignant, and fun. Itâs got great action scenes, wonderful acting and a killer soundtrack, and the way it utilizes slang is just awesome. The two hours spent watching it were some of the best two hours of my life as a fan, and I have no more coherent words left for this film, so I leave you with this: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love fashion and beauty and I love shopping. I donât talk about these loves very often because Iâm afraid of coming across as shallow, but Iâm trying to own it more, because I donât actually believe that expressing myself through what I wear or enjoying my femininity is shallow, and I donât think anyone else should believe that. But lately, the part of me that adores shopping has been overwhelming the other aspects of my personality, and itâs gotten a little alarming. Iâve been spending so much of my time wanting thingsâso much more time is spent wanting than acquiring; the acquiring only lasts a minute (less if Iâm shopping online), and then itâs back to wanting. More time, maybe, is then spent appreciating, but that amount still pales compared to the wanting. If I were to make a pie chart to document the time spent wanting vs. acquiring vs. appreciating, it would make me very uncomfortable to look at. I can partly blame it on January, as I remember going through an obsessive money-spending phase this time in 2011, too. I get all excited about buying gifts for other people in December, and then naturally I move on to wanting stuff for myself, and of course this coincides with stores evilly putting everything on sale post-Christmas. Add a dash of January S.A.D. which in turn suggests retail therapy, and you have a recipe for spending. But okay, after that dour introduction Iâm feeling the need to defend my habits, because you know what? Iâve actually been having a blast. Because Iâm leaving in March for Brazil (more on that later), Iâm not in classes right now, and I wouldnât say that Iâm swimming in free time exactly, but... maybe wading in the free time kiddie pool. When I got back from my Christmas vacation a few weeks ago, I used all that glorious time to gorge myself on Youtube âbeauty guruâ videos. Beauty gurus are women that film makeup tutorials, makeup reviews, fashion videos, etcâthereâs an endless number of these videos on Youtube, and the most popular videos get watched by hundreds of thousands of people. MissGlamorazzi, Pixi2Woo, and Amarixe are pretty good representations of this whole genre. I never know how to talk about these videos because the weird thing is, I actually find them kind of inspiring. Itâs like getting a window into how other women define their own femininity and personal style, and seeing all these people give virtual tours of their perfectly organized makeup stations and clean bedrooms inspired me to do a major overhaul of my own apartment, vowing that in 2012 I would take as much pride in my home as I did in my personal appearance. But these women also film a lot of âhaulâ videos, in which they document their latest purchases (mostly clothes and makeup) and show them off for the camera. You can, of course, see how it might be dangerous to watch too many of these sorts of videos. After a while, it starts seeming like these ladies must go shopping all the time, which naturally begs the question of why canât I go shopping all the time? And of course I donât know what tax bracket any of these people fall into; I donât know what theyâre up to when theyâre not on camera, I donât know what theyâre buying on credit vs. cash, but try telling that to the part of my brain that just wants and wants and then wants some more. Iâm probably not going to stop watching these videos or reading my fashion blogs, but I am going to try to arm myself with a better sense of perspective whenever I see other people on the internet show off the things theyâve bought. Iâm going to try to redirect that obsessive part of my brain towards other pursuits, and hopefully fall in love with some other, different things that I can write about here.
Since Christmas, I have been getting the urge to write but not the attention span or motivation to stick with an idea for more than a few sentences. Itâs maddening and I am frightened, as always, that a stalled period means Iâve lost all my ability to put words into sentences. So Iâm trying to say fuck the perfectionism, fuck my desire to be as articulate and thorough as possible and get down all my precious thoughts on a subject in one long essay. Right. Iâve seen a lot of good movies in the past week-ish (one of the major upsides of dating a film critic is I end up seeing soooo many more movies than I would on my lonesome), but the best one was Weekend, a 2011 film directed by Andrew Haigh. The plot is simple: one man meets another man at a gay club; their one-night stand turns into a weekend spent together. But yeah, of course thereâs a lot more to it. This is not just the best, most realistic movie about gay people Iâve ever seen, itâs also one of the best, most realistic movies about people Iâve ever seen. Itâs a deeply personal, at times almost mundane film: we see the characters talking with their mouths full, masturbating alone in the bathtub, dithering over which emoticon to choose at the end of a text message. But as we start getting to know the central couple, the story brings in much larger themes without ever losing that intimacy (and of course the wonderful, most intimately realistic dialogue Iâve ever heard). Most of the media about queer people (or at least, most of the stuff that Iâve seen) that touches on the closet treats it as a yes/no question, In or Out with no middle ground. Weekend explores the complicated gradient of oneâs own comfort with their sexuality and selfâyour friends know youâre gay, but you never talk to them about the men you date; you feel just fine when youâre in your own private apartment, but uncomfortable in your own skin when you walk down the street. The double life is not the only possibilityâthere is also the triple life, the quadruple life, sometimes blending into one another, sometimes shattering. Comfort with oneâs sexuality is not the only broader theme that the movie explores, but itâs the one that I identified with most. (I am actually bisexual, but see above re: boyfriendâone of the side effects of this is that people assume Iâm straight every single day, and I donât always have the energy to correct them.) This is not to say that this is an âIssue Movie,â preaching politics with a narrative about people tacked on as an afterthought. Weekend is clever, romantic, sweet without being at all cloying, and so lovingly shot that it comes across as a quiet paean to humanity. (And the dialogue! Have I mentioned the dialogue? I have, but seriously, it felt like watching two friends having a conversation right in front of me, it felt more real than any documentary.) All in all itâs damn near perfect, and itâs streaming on Netflix, so please, go watch this movie right now so that I have more people to flail with about how great it is.
Itâs the time of year again when I start glancing over my shoulder for the first signs of S.A.D. Iâm never sure, actually, if my seasonal funk is due more to the lack of sunlight or to the increase in school stress that hits in late November. When youâve been in school for way too long, the rhythm of academic life seems more like the rhythm of life, periodâif you still feel like the start of a new year comes in September, rather than January, you know what I mean. Iâm fine, better than fine now that my break has started and I can look forward to baking something ambitious and overeating and watching TV in my pajamas for the next several days. Thinking about all the turkey leftovers and football in my future puts me in quite the good mood. But for the past few weeks, itâs been just a bit harder to get up in the morning, and staying in bed all day seems a bit more appealing than maybe it should. If you too have been fighting just a touch of the November blues, may I recommend a healthy dose of The Mental Illness Happy Hour? This perfectly-named podcast consists of comedian Paul Gilmartin interviewing his guests about whatever happens to be wrong with them: depression, anxiety, addiction, PTSD, or garden-variety insecurity. Sometimes itâs darkly funny, and sometimes itâs heartbreaking and disturbing, but itâs always absorbing. We donât have many places to talk publicly about mental health. Sometimes we can admit to others that weâre seeing therapists or taking pills, but there still isnât much public discussion of our personal experiences with mental illness. Marc Maron has carved out a unique niche among comedy podcasts by creating a space where his guests can open up and talk about how fucked up they are, but his podcast usually focuses as much or more on comedy than mental healthâthe personal demons are a side dish to the comedy shop talk. Gilmartin bypasses all other subjects to go straight for the vein. At the beginning of every episode, he explains, âYou give us an hour, we will give you one hot ladle of awkward and icky.â I have tried to listen to this show while doing other things (riding the bus, washing dishes, etc), the same way I listen to most other podcasts, but every time have to stop what Iâm doing and just sit there, giving the whole hour my undivided attention. Regardless of whether Gilmartinâs guests are discussing something as grim as abusive parents or the comparatively lighter topic of embarrassing failures with crushes, these stories suck me in. You know that scene in 30 Rock where Liz Lemon pretends to be an alcoholic so that she can listen to Floyd dish about his personal demons in the AA meeting? Itâs that satisfying, except that you donât have to feel like a terrible person for enjoying it. For your first podcast, I would recommend the Teresa Strasser episode. She is honest, poignant, and often funny throughout the episode, but my favorite part comes at the end. Gilmartin often ends episodes with a âFear Off,â in which he challenges his guests to rattle off their anxieties and pitt them against either his own fears, or listener-submitted fears. Strasser goes up against some listener-submitted fears, and wins handily, her list of fears outlasting those submitted by three different scared submitters. âAnxiety is to me what the 100 meter is to Usain Bolt. I own it,â Strasser boasts. (My personal favorite of her awe-inspiring list of fears: "I'm afraid that being mega-rich is actually super amazing, but I will never find out.") Listening to this is both hilarious, amazingly cathartic, and offers a great sense of perspective on just how ridiculous our fears really are. This might seem like an odd thing to recommend on a gratitude-oriented holiday, but as I mentioned before, itâs a weird time of year. Even if you happen to be surrounded by family right now, and even if your mental state isnât ill at all, Iâm guessing that tuning in to this show will make you feel less alone.
Last week our cat Bubba died. For most of his life he was my boyfriendâs cat; he only became our cat when I moved in a couple years ago. Two years isnât an incredibly long time to know either an animal or a person, but I miss him so terribly. Losing someone that was in your life every single day and could always be counted on to give you comfort is very hard. Iâve lost loved ones before, but Iâve never lost someone who was in my life on a daily basis. Itâs been a rough, rough week in our house, and I canât say that Iâve fallen head over heels in love with anything. My obsessions have taken a back seat. Nevertheless, there are things that have been giving me some joy and distraction. I donât feel up to writing a whole post about any of these items (a book, a TV show, a genre of music), but I thought they deserved some mention. Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett I started reading Unseen Academicals right as Bubbaâs health started decliningâso a week and a half ago, roughly. It was the first book I read on my new Kindle, so it was a kind of test: I wanted something easy, funny, and enjoyable to see how I liked this new medium. When I had to mourn my cat, this funny and heartwarming book was a refuge. While this is ostensibly about the development/gentrification of soccer in Discworld, Pratchett (as usual) uses the fantasy setting to raise issues of class, race, sexism, etc. If youâve never read a Discworld book, you might feel skeptical when I say that some of the sharpest social commentary Iâve read can be found in these books. I donât know that Iâve ever read anything funnier or more poignant about gentrification or the choices we make (and donât make) about becoming upwardly mobile and leaving the old lower class culture behind. Itâs very fun to read about how football works in Prathcettâs world of wizards, dwarves, trolls etc, but I enjoyed the social commentary even more. Revenge New this fall on ABC, Revenge is so delicious that I immediately assumed it couldnât possibly have nutritional valueâbut there is some meat to this show once you get into it. The premise is our heroine, Amanda-cum-Emily, was cast out of Heaven (the Hamptons) as a child when her dadâs business pals double-crossed him. Now sheâs back among the richy-rich and looking to ruin all the lives of those who ruined her dadâs life. (Variations on the phrase âruin livesâ can be heard multiple times an episode. So obviously, itâs all delightfully campy. There are characters pretending to be Ryan Atwood from the O.C. (theyâre from the really rough parts of the Hamptons, I presume), the actors chew the scenery in the best way possible, Emily Van Camp spends a LOT of time brooding and everyone else is always scheming against everyone else. The soapiness is great, but there have also been some genuinely kind of disturbing moments in the past few episodes. The acting is consistently better than I initially expected (the actress who plays Amandaâs chief nemesis is wonderful), and they seem pretty committed to having Amanda be a character who does deeply shady things. The female anti-hero is a rare beast, but I think one might be developing in this show. Oh, and there are bisexual dudes! Dudes, as in more than one! Not that theyâre progressive enough to actually let two guys kiss onscreen (sigh), but stillâbisexual men are like mythical unicorns in mainstream entertainment, so I was pretty excited to see this. Soul Music This really should get its own post, considering itâs been a pretty big fixture in my life for the past several weeks, but I donât feel like I have anything to say about soul music that hasnât been said by roughly a jillion people before me. Iâm really not the slightest bit knowledgable in this areaâitâs just that Iâve been listening to more of it lately. Iâve always felt vaguely guilty about my ignorance regarding almost all music produced by black people between, say, 1960 and 1980. My education about white music from this time period is also filled with shameful holes, but you know how it is with white* people: we will feel guilty about anything. A few weeks ago, I watched Blues Brothers for the first time since childhood, and read chunks of Ben Sidranâs Black Talk for a class at the same time. It made me feel like there was this great wealth of music that Iâd been missing out on, and I set out to educate myself. Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, Marvin Gaye, O.V. Wright, Bettye Lavette, Ann Peebles, etc etc. Itâs all Iâve been listening to recently, and Iâm kicking myself for not checking it out before. Oh well. When thereâs no current releases firing me up (and there havenât been, not for months), itâs good to know that there are mountains of new records here for me to explore.
I Love 'Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis On Rock Music'
Ellen Willis became The New Yorkerâs first pop music critic in 1968, and contributed to the field of music criticism through the 1970s. A radical feminist and a passionate rock nâroll fan, she was one of the only women to break into the male-dominated field of early music criticism. Because she moved on to write about other subjects (mostly political) in the 80s and 90s, she is not remembered as a pioneering music criticic the way Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau are remembered. Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis On Rock Music, a recently-published anthology of most of her pieces on music, seeks to give Willis her rightful place in the canon. The above summary is more or less whatâs on the book jacket. And I have to agree with those who sought to publish this book: Willis' words deserve all of your attention. In this annoying age of dry Pitchfork ratings and glossy magazines that no one ever reads, Willis is more than a breath of fresh airâshe is intoxicating. This might be the only piece of nonfiction that Iâve ever been inspired to read while walking. I wanted to flail my arms and shout âYes, that, exactly!â with almost every sentence, whether she was tracing the history of Dylan as a cultural phenomenon, questioning the myth-making of Woodstock, or articulating why she is both a feminist and a fan of decidedly sexist music. I recognized myself in her (Iâll be your mirror, Ellen Willis). She presents complex ideas, but never forgets that rockâs power comes from its connection to passion and deep feeling, and thus never lets her own passion be absent from her writing. Willis had the gift of combining intellectual analysis and cultural criticism with her own personal reactions to and feelings for the music, without ever coming off as pretentious, uncomfortably self-conscious, or overly sentimental. This gift has become scarce, if in fact itâs not gone completely. When we think about reading or writing a review of the latest album to come up on our radar, we no longer think much about the cultural or sociological implications or what weâre listening to; we barely even think about the personal implicationsâwe categorize the album in question, consider what description will make us sound the smartest on Facebook/Twitter/at that eveningâs cocktail party, and we move on. While I was killing time on campus a couple days ago, I was in the mood to continue reading this book, but I didnât have it with me, so I tried to approximate the need by going back to Pitchforkâs staff lists of the best albums of the 70s. I quit less than halfway through in disgust. Compared to the sharpness and clarity of Willisâ opinions, the quality of Pitchforkâs writing was embarrassing. Most of the contributing writers seemed torn between snotty distance and heartfelt enthusiasm; this resulted in the mis-labeling of the Velvet Underground as âvanilla rockâ and the proclamation that listening to Led Zeppellinâs IV was like âfucking the Grand Canyon.â I donât mean to pick so much on Pitchforkâitâs really not fair to compare their staff compilations to a New Yorker columnist at the top of her game. I only bring them up because theyâve positioned themselves as the preemeninent place on the web for quality music analysis, and so the lifeless quality of their writing is dismaying. They donât even pretend to be relevant to anyone outside their indie echo chamber, and the magazines ostensibly for the masses (Rolling Stone, Vibe, Spin etc) donât pretend to be relevant to anyone thirsting for intellectual criticism. In her introduction to Vinyl Deeps, Nona Willis Aronowitz bemoans that when she went through her motherâs archives, she found herself feeling jealous of Willisâ longform writing, because there isnât the space for such in-depth cultural criticism today. Sheâs right. We have forgotten how to do music criticism the way Willis did. And I do not accept the fracturing of pop music as an excuse for this: just because there are innumerably more genres of rock today than there were in the 70s does not mean that music is no longer a powerful cultural force. It doesnât lessen the need for analysis, interpretation, and joyful expression about what music means to us. I have to end this with a couple of quotes from Willis on the subject of rock music and feminism, since her articulation of that âbloody crossroadsâ (her phrase) was one of the most crucial messages of the book for me. On page 135, she argues that despite all the sexism present in early rock, with its message of revolt it implicitly speaks for womenâs liberation. On page 156, Willis expands on her argument while attempting to unravel her own mixed feelings about the Sex Pistols antiabortion song, âBodies:â And there lay the paradox: music that boldly and aggressively laid out what the singer wanted, loved, hatedâas good rock and roll didâchallenged me to do the same, and so, even when the content was antiwoman, antisexual, in a sense anti-human, the form encouraged my struggle for liberation. Similarly, timid music made me feel timid, whatever its ostensible politics⊠Listening to most rock and roll was like walking down the street at night, automatically checking out the men in my vicinity: this oneâs okay; that one could be trouble, watch out. Listening to most feminist music was like taking a warm bath. Iâve never read anything that so neatly expressed my own feelings about liking, say, Eminem more than Ani Difranco. Willis really Gets It: good music, powerful music, can do things that its creators, with all their human prejudices, may never have intended. Music transcends.
Willis dancing ca. 1980. According to the book's caption of this photo, 'This was often how she tested out albums: dancing by herself in front of a mirror.'
So wow, hi, any cautious optimism I had that this semester wouldnât eat me alive and leave me with no time to write has proven to be completely, laughably unfounded. I havenât updated this blog for two weeks because I havenât had time to fall in love with anything that falls outside the domain of my classes. I could try to write something on my feelings re: turning in an application to spend next semester in Fortaleza, Brasil, except that my feelings re: that possibility can only be expressed in hand motions and freaked-out noises. And Iâve definitely loved a lot of the stuff Iâve been reading for school, but Iâve already had to write essays about a lot of it, so Iâm sort of drained for words on my school subjects. Plus a blog post about Mark Dannerâs book The Massacre at El Mozote would make for a very grim read, and thereâs nothing I can say about the massacre that Banner doesnât say better in his book. (Which you should read, regardless of how much you know about the historical event in question. Danner is a really fantastic journalist, and I get the feeling that this book [and this subject, namely: the shit storm that was the El Salvadoran Civil War and U.S. involvement in such] was probably often discussed and read in the early 90s, but has become obscure in recent years. Which is too bad, because it accomplishes a number of things beautifully: 1) it explains why exactly the 80s were such a fucked up decade, 2) it gives the reader a pretty heart-wrenching sense of what being a civilian in this kind of war was actually like, and 3) it presents the soldiers doing the massacre as actually human and gives insight into the reasoning behind what they did. Itâs this last point that I found to be the most impressive. No one wants to think that theyâre part of the same species as someone who murders children--we always describe these kinds of atrocities as 'inhuman'--but the thing is that the soldiers doing the killing all had hearts and lungs and brains, brains that were just as capable of considering their actions as mine is. And that's a tough reality to wrap one's head around.) What I actually wanted to write about today is school-related, but itâs nothing Iâve been reading. One of my classes this semester is a service-learning course, which means it requires a certain amount of community service hours. In this case, the whole class is working with a specific organization called Farmer Foodshare. Farmer Foodshare brings food from local farmers to food-insecure populations in North Carolina. They collect donations from customers at various farmersâ markets in the state, and then buy the extra produce that farmers have at the end of the market (part of Farmer Foodshareâs ethos is that farmers deserve a fair price for their product; they try hard to buy as much fresh produce as they can, rather than expecting farmers to donate it for free). The food is then distributed to the people who need itâwhich includes those who are malnourished due to living in one of those âfood desertsâ that youâve heard so much about, not simply those who are outright starving. I like working with Farmer Foodshare because they seem to be motivated by a clear idea of how they want their work to fit in with a vision of a global food system that is fairer and less stupid than our current system. Through their actions, this organization points out the inherent bizarreness in a food system that lets people go hungry when local farmers get stuck with rotting produce that they canât sell. Whatâs more, Farmer Foodshare is an answer to a lot of the things that have always kept me from feeling 100% enthusiastic about the whole farmerâs market/locavore/organic/what-have-you ideology: I donât like the idea of food being another symbol of the growing divide between the rich and poor in this country. I think itâs very important to support small farmers, but Iâve always been less enthusiastic about supporting the right of hipsters to get fresh, pretty vegetables. I think everyone deserves fresh, pretty vegetables. As Famer Foodshare points out on their website, âA healthy community food system must include all members of society.â I think a lot of us buy into this idea that anyone who accepts charity from others needs to accept whatever they can getâif housing projects are terrible, then at least weâre giving them somewhere to live; if all they get to eat is canned processed unhealthy food, then at least weâre giving them something to eat. We shouldnât give them too much because then whatâs their incentive to pull themselves up by their boostraps, obviously. But I think that this attitude is, you know, pretty dickish. Thinking that we should give hungry people just enough to keep them from dying of starvation is setting the bar way lower than it has to be set. Last Saturday I dragged myself out to Pittsboro to man one of Farmer Foodshareâs donation stations. (And not to toot my own horn but said dragging occurred at 8am, after a night of working the closing shift at the bagel place, which means I got home at 2am and got roughly 4-ish hours of sleep, so getting out of bed to go volunteer obviously makes me an amazingly good person.) And I had so much more fun than I expected to. It was great to meet all the farmers, great to see Pittsboro for the first time, and a huge blast to be able to buy so much from the farmers at the end of the day. Unfortunately I don't have a visual of the 100-ish lbs of food we bought at the end of the day, but it seemed like a lot, and it all looked very fresh and tasty. I'm really looking forward to doing more work with this organization as the semester wears on.
Let's ignore my terrible handwriting and focus on the clever ingenuity of using a bungee chord in such a way when tape could not be found.
The farmers are displaying those super-hip tote bags because Wilco was sponsoring us to run a special donation challenge in conjunction with their concert in Raleigh. The bags were given away to anyone who made a donation, and I'm kind of bummed that they ended up being so popular that there weren't any leftover bags for me to snag.
Most seasons I have nothing to say about runway fashion. But Iâve been keeping an eye on New York Fashion Week this year, and some of the collections so far (Alexander Wang, Rag and Bone, Prabal Gurung) have really stood out to me. Wang and Rag and Bone have both featured what Iâm going to call a âJust Leaving The Gymâ aesthetic. Wangâs collection, especiallyâI mean look, the models all have wet hair! And smudged black eyeliner that I can easily imagine is whatâs left over after their faces got all sweaty on a treadmill. And look at that mesh and the prominent, plastic-y white zippers. Most of these outfits seem like they would be more at-home paired with Nikes than with heels. The collections are already getting decribed as âsportyâ everywhere, but I say: Post-workout. I mean this in the best of ways. I love it when I see designers playing with mesh sport jackets and neon-lined trousers that look an awful lot like track pants. These clothes are beautiful in a very plain sort of way, but they also send the message that I think fashion should always send: the idea that cool means whatever the hell each of us wants it to mean. That self-definition is something that anyone can pick up and run with, not just models and designers. Somewhere on Tumblr I read a comment on Wangâs wet-hair look, basically saying that that kind of hairstyle looks really cool on models but that she (the commenter) could never pull it off. I disagree. Thereâs nothing inherent in a model that gives them a pass to wear whatever (or do whatever with their hair) and have it be cool. Theyâre cool because we say they are; the clothes in these collections are cool because we say they are. Anyone can rock wet hair with a track jacket and high heels if they have the confidence to say yeah, fuck it, this is what Iâm saying is cool today. You know? Thatâs what makes fashion fun.
The âsportyâ post-workout looks arenât necessarily the most aesthetically-pleasing-to-me looks to come out of NYFW so farâthat would be Prabal Gurungâs purple acid party, my favorite outfit from which Iâve included at the bottom. Purple is like fashion catnip for me, and so these pants are pretty much the best thing my eyes are going to see today.
This would be the podcast that got me into podcasts. I discovered The Nerdist sometime in the middle of Spring, and so the first flush of obsessed ardor has long since passed. However, their last few podcasts have made me kick my feet in so much delight that Iâm experiencing a reunion with my original starry-eyed infatuation. The Nerdist is hosted by three dudes out of LA: Chris Hardwick, Jonah Ray, and Matt Mirah. All three are nerdy stand-up comedians, and most of the guests they interview are affiliated with nerd-dom or the comedy world or both. My nerd cred has waned since I stopped reading comic books and watching the Sci-Fi channel, and I was never much of a comedy buff, either. Yet somehow this podcast is perfect for me. While all three nerdists are hilarious, itâs the kind enthusiasm that they radiate that keeps me coming back. The three of them are just starting to reach milestones in their careers, and they genuinely, earnestly want you to succeed, too. They seem to feel like all nerds everywhere, whether our passion is for sci-fi, comedy, comic books, video games or whatever, are part of one community. Itâs heart-warming, and itâs easy to get invested in. Iâve never met these guys and I probably never will, but I find myself cheering a little bit when they talk about the good things that are happening in their lives. The podcast format creates a sense of intimacy with the audience that Iâve never noticed in other mediums, especially with something like The Nerdist, which is very conversational. Listening to them is like hanging out with three of your funniest friendsâexcept better, because you donât have to put pants on or feel self-conscious about contributing your own funny quips. They also have excellent taste in guests. Some of my favorite interviewees have been Sir Patrick Stewart, Neil Gaiman, Dana Dearmond, and Robert Kirkman. I especially recommend the Robert Kirkman episode if you enjoy laughing until you pee yourself. They also do once-a-week âHostfulâ episodes, which donât feature any guests and usually consist of the three guys riffing off each other and reading questions/comments from their fans. The hostful episodes are often my favorite ones, becauseâand Iâm sure this is going to sound creepy, but I canât help itâI really like hearing about what Chris, Matt, and Jonah have been up to, and I like hearing the affectionate way they shoot the shit with each other. I especially recommend their latest Hostful episode, which I believe is titled âDeath Dedicationâ and is available on iTunes along with the rest of their podcasts. When I first discovered The Nerdist, I loved it so much that it acted as a gateway drug not only to other podcasts, but to stand-up comedy in general. Without The Nerdist, I probably wouldnât have gotten into Louis CK, Marc Maron and others, and I wouldnât think of stand-up DVDs as something to watch in my spare time. I wouldnât be a Doctor Who fan. Hell, without the nerdy self-help nuggets from this podcast floating around my head as I commuted back and forth from campus back in June, Iâm not sure I would have been motivated to start this blog. And I really donât feel like Iâve done a good job of explaining exactly why I love it or why it inspires me so much. Itâs like trying to explain why my friends are my friendsâI donât really know, itâs just that my friends feel like theyâre my people. Chris, Jonah and Matt feel like theyâre my people, too.
