Category Archives: Entertainment

Music to cook dinner to

I’m about to sign the lease for my first “big girl” apartment. Hip hip hooray!

Although I’ve yet to move a single piece of furniture into my new place, I can already picture myself coming home from work, turning on some tunes and making a delicious meal. Maybe this. Or this. (OK, probably this.) Fine. It’ll be a Lean Cuisene. Regardless, the music will reflect the cozy nature of the food I long to cook.

Naturally, I’ve already made the playlist, because why pack up all of your belongings when you can browse Spotify for three hours? Priorities, people.

Anyway, I’ve included the playlist here and below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do (and cook better meals while listening to it than I do).

  1. “My Little Corner of the World” – Yo La Tengo
  2. “Sex Tourists” – French Kicks
  3. “There Goes The Fear” – Doves
  4. “My Life” – Best Coast
  5. “She’s Bound to Get Hurt” – Summer Fiction
  6. “Right Moves” – Josh Ritter
  7. “Butchie’s Tune” – The Lovin’ Spoonful
  8. “Magic” – Girls
  9. “King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1″ – Neutral Milk Hotel
  10. “Wind and Walls” – The Tallest Man on Earth
  11. “Cowboy Boots” – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
  12. “Dreams” – Fleetwood Mac
  13. “Back to Front” – Eliza Doolittle
  14. “Hold On” – Alabama Shakes
  15. “Between the Cheats” – Amy Winehouse
  16. “Let’s Do It” – Billie Holiday
  17. “I Thought I Saw Your Face Today” – She & Him
  18. “Night Windows” – The Weakerthans
  19. “World News” – Local Natives
  20. “Worry Dance” – Diet Folk

Halloween 2012: “Fifty Shades of Grey”

In case you’re still in need of a costume for the post-Halloween weekend (uh oh), are already thinking ahead to next year (impressive) or generally find your inbox flooded with costume party invitations (lucky), I thought I’d share my costume from this year’s festivities: “Fifty Shades of Grey,” a literal interpretation.

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I have to admit, I’ve never read the book, but its title was easy enough to interpret. The paint chips were generously donated by Ace Hardware (which is to say I awkwardly walked in, nabbed a bunch and left) then hot glued onto a cheap grey skirt from Target. Add a grey top, plastic handcuffs and the world’s longest fake eyelashes, and you’ve got yourself a “Fifty Shades of Grey” costume. Madisonians seemed to get a kick out of it. Hopefully you do, too .

Special thanks to my main gal, Sarah, for the idea.

“Parks and Rec” is back!

Words cannot describe how excited I am “Parks and Recreation” returns tonight. I saw Amy Poehler speak back in June, and she every so slightly (which is to say not at all) hinted at what was coming this season. I’ve been waiting with bated breath ever since.

In honor of the show’s return, I thought I’d bring this photo out of the vault: Last Halloween my friend, Kevin, and I went as April and Andy. It’ll be hard to trump that costume this year.

Last Halloween, my friend, Kevin, and I went as Andy Dwyer and April Ludgate from “Parks and Recreation.”

 

Enjoy “Parks and Recreation” tonight, but until then, do this. FBI Agent Renee Dawson out!

 

Right reaction, wrong call for action: Ending Penn State football will not end child abuse

I, like many members of the B1G 10 and country at large, have spent the past half year or so following the Sandusky scandal. When the story first broke, I commented on the incident as the spokesperson for PAVE, a student organization dedicated to ending sexual assault on the UW-Madison campus. In both a letter to the editor and guest column in The Daily Cardinal, I invited the Badger student body to use the PSU tragedy as an opportunity to think about violence on our own campus and to reflect on how we should behave when confronted with the topic.

It was a dark time marked by a story that horrified anyone with a good head on their shoulders. When Penn State students rioted, flaunting their love for Joe Paterno, most looked on in disgust – and for good reason. Valuing a sports idol’s legacy over children’s safety is absurd. Eight months later, the Freeh investigation report has made what was already a black-and-white situation even more straightforward, but with its release has come a new cloud of lunacy, one found in the comment sections of online news outlets.

There is well-documented proof that all evil in the world manifests in the comment section. Give a man anonymity and in the amount of time it takes to click “submit,” you’ll find your faith in humanity shaken. For this reason, I tend to avoid comment sections, especially when they regard things so dear to my heart (in this case sexual assault prevention).

But this time around, I couldn’t resist. My cynical self expected to find a boatload of comments on what a “hero” Paterno was, how his memory will not be blemished, blah blah blah. There was a bit of that, but I’m guessing people have come to realize sharing such opinions will lead to endless chastising. As such, comments tended to take on this tone:

Here’s the thing. While I prefer anger toward the cowards who did nothing over favor and blind loyalty, these comments say a lot about how people are reacting to this situation: They don’t want a solution; they want vindication. They’re not concerned with preventing child abuse; they’re concerned with putting people behind bars.

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Going to my happy place: Colbert, old ladies and Barack Obama

I’ve been in New York all of a month, and already I’ve crossed two things off my bucket list: attend tapings of “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show.” I tend to watch Jon Stewart more regularly than I do Colbert, because, well, I’m getting old, and staying up past 11:30 p.m. is proving more and more challenging. Having said that, I admire Colbert as much as I can a complete stranger. Although both shows inform their audiences in a hilarious way, it takes a special kind of intelligence to execute satire in a consistently clever and provocative manner. Colbert clearly possesses that intelligence, and I left the taping of his show feeling as though I had just been in the presence of a genius.

In the episode I saw taped, Colbert discussed the money presidential candidate Mitt Romney would be raking in thanks in part to Citizens United. It was a funny yet frustrating bit, only made more frustrating by the couple I encountered on my walk home.

I was stopped somewhere around 60th Street and Third Avenue along with what must have been at least 100 other people. President Barack Obama’s motorcade was about to drive by, and the appropriate security measures were being taken. I was anxious to get home after a long day, but I figured if I was going to have to wait on a smelly New York sidewalk, this was a legitimate, kind of cool reason. Shortly after stopping, an older couple tried to push past me. I apologized, saying there was nowhere for me to move, that we were all waiting for the president’s motorcade to drive by.

You would have thought I told this woman the Naked Clown Parade was about to pass by from the look of utter disgust on her face. She quickly started ranting to who I assume was her husband about how much campaign money Obama was raising. She was right: He was. According to “The Colbert Report” taping I had just attended, both candidates were. This is exactly what her husband told her. “You have no idea how much money these rich Texans have,” he said.

She responded with, “Sure I do. My brother’s a dentist in Tulsa!”

I had to manually close my jaw. It’s a lot harder to take anyone’s political stances, regardless of what they are, seriously when they lack a basic grasp on American geography. A more jarring comment followed, however, when she shouted, “Why doesn’t he just get out of the car so I can shoot him?”

Although I managed not to voice it, I was horrified. I was in supposedly liberal New York. Was this actually happening?  I never expected to miss my blue bubble of Madison when I moved east, but this had me crying for Lake Mendota. And regardless of the politics at hand, had this woman just made a threat on the president’s life? It was evident this was merely her pathetic attempt at a joke, but you didn’t have to look at her to closely to know she had been alive for the JFK assassination and attempts made on Ronald Reagan’s life. How could she possibly have thought this was an even remotely OK thing to say?

Obviously, this killed my Colbert high. I called a friend to rant about what I’d just witnessed, fell onto my bed as soon as I walked through the door and retreated to a memory I often visit in moments like these: November 4, 2008, the day Barack Obama was elected president, when everything seemed just a little bit simpler through my 18-year-old eyes.

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