Speakerboxxx

Somehow, this week of low temperatures has coincided with me having to be out every day. Which is both good and bad. The good is that I'm racking up things I attended, the bad is that it's freezing. Like mid-teens freezing. The other day we took a cab 0.6 miles, from BAM Harvey Theater to my apartment. (Also: A new rule for me is that if it's after two o'clock, I cab it back from the city, mainly because $20 seems to be worth avoiding the cold and hooligans.)

For the record, the balcony at BAM is way up high and very steep. Going up the stairs will make you out of breath and looking down from the cheap seats will make you hold your breath. I was afraid to lean forward for fear of falling onto the stage. We saw The Suit, a short play about infidelity, and it had this really fantastic version of "Strange Fruit" that I wish I could have the recording to.

I don't know what it is about plays, but invariably I get tired about two-thirds of the way through. Like can't stop yawning tired. Even if they are really good and I'm enjoying them, something about not being able to move or fidget for a few hours is just draining. This was the case with both The Suit and The Future Is Not What It Was, an off off Broadway play put on by the Kindling Theater Company, whose mission is to provide resources for artists at the beginning of their careers.

TFINWIW featured some hilarious lines, even if it was a bit long. There was this one scene that will be forever burned into Amit and I's memory. It involved masturbating along to Janet's "What Have You Done For Me Lately." (The video features Paula Abdul as the friend, and she did the choreography!) Like wow. For that alone the play deserves high marks. Random references to Janet is always appreciated, especially in "is this really happening" situations.

The play also featured Maya Kazan, who is the younger sister of Zoe Kazan, writer and star of Ruby Sparks, a movie I was lightweight obsessed with last year. I was wondering if Zoe would be at the show, but as it turned out, she was not. However, her Ruby Sparks co-star and real life boyfriend, Paul Dano, was there and he sat a mere two seats to the right of us. I wondered what he thought of the cast and the play, the majority of whom were making their theater debuts. Did he feel like an NBA player watching a high school game?

The other events I braved the cold for was a Dwele / Anthony David concert and a Jose James concert. I'm not overly familiar with two of those three, but when in New York right? We saw Dwele over ten years ago, when he opened for Slum Village in San Diego. It was one of our first outings with Lilly and it marked the start of San Diego's heyday, when Sushi Deli Wednesdays were the thing. In the intervening time, Dwele has released five albums, garnered Grammy nominations and a win, and somehow acquired enough presence to appear on stage in a white jacket, bow tie, and purple shirt. You should have seen/heard the ladies screaming at him -- especially over his track "Obey," which he said was the audio equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey. You can listen and decide for yourself. Of the two, Anthony David was better live. David's one of those artists who sounds much better out of the studio. I quite like his track, "Can't Look Down."

Jose James' concert was packed wall to wall, he does a soul, jazz, and hip hop combo. It's a hard mix to pull off, but James gets it almost perfect, even if I found some of his vocal stuff one note. His voice is smooth as hell though, even if he's not quite as compelling as Maxwell or D'Angelo. And for my hip hop plus jazz money, I still prefer the Jazzmatazz series. But that's probably because I'm biased toward Guru.

During the encore, James brought out Taylor McFerrin, who, to no surprise, is an excellent beatboxer. When your dad is Bobby McFerrin, I guess that is your doom/destiny. Remember when Rahzel was like the hottest shit? Now a whole album featuring beatboxing just seems ridiculous. Taylor's debut album releases soon...

Sunday is a Madonna dance party, Monday is Tegan & Sara, Tuesday is Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, and then I'm back to hibernation.

• Photos from Dwele / Anthony David at B.B. King
• Anthony David, "Can't Look Down"
• Dwele, "Obey"
• Slum Village featuring Dwele, "Tainted" (2002)
• Jose James performing "Trouble" on Conan (2012)
• No Beginning, No End album review
• Jose James covering "Ain't No Sunshine" (2012)
• NY Times The Suit review
• "Strange Fruit": The Story of a Song (2002)
• Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit"
• The Future is Not What it Was review 1 | 2
• Janet Jackson, "What Have You Done For Me Lately" (1986)

It Gets Better (Okay Not Really)

My friend and I have decided to swear off articles about twentysomethings. This is another 2013 declaration, my second of the year. There's been an uptick in the articles about twentysomethings department, nicely rounded up in this one, "The Mysteriously Memorable 20s," and we'd been sending them back and forth.

I told her that I was in the process of trying to think of things that I did/thought in my twenties that should no longer be applicable now that I'm squarely in my thirties. I mean, whenever I used to see a book about twentysomethings, I'd knee jerk buy it. If it was a book of essays or memoirs, even better. This book was my diamond: Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers. I'm going to find it and burn it. Also, I used to be part of this 20 Something Bloggers ring... when I wasn't technically in my twenties. Ugh, the shame. It feels good to come clean.

After reading "The Intellectual Situation," I now suspect all articles of being simply link bait. If it were not for the fact that I'm trying to finally get on the ball with this relationship book, I'd vow to give up all the "you're single and…" articles too. I mean, who needs to know about the high price of being single? Plus the points tend to remain the same. Being single sucks and this is how you should fix it, blah blah blah.

My friend suggested that we turn our attention to the London Review of Books and now we are waiting to talk about the ethics of Minority Report style treatment of pedophiles and famine during the Cultural Revolution in China.

• Semi-Charmed Life
• The It-Sucks-To-Be-Me Generation (2006)
• Why Twentysomethings Love Rookie (2012)
• Emma Koenig's So Called Redacted Life (2012) and her Fuck I'm In My Twenties tumblr/book
• What Is It About 20-Somethings? (2010)
• Marry Him! (2008)
• The End of Courtship (2013)
• A Million First Dates and rebuttal

So I'm back in New York, and it was balmy the first week. As soon as I landed I dropped my stuff off and then headed out for fun. The first weekend, our recently married friends dropped into the city, giving us a chance to gather and hang out. It was just what I needed and the FOMO I suffered from not being to attend Amit's birthday party was slightly mitigated.

Last weekend, I saw this hip hop dance conservatory version of Little Red Riding Hood. We sat in the front row, a few feet away from the performers, and for the most part they were quite good. What I had trouble shaking was the racialized casting and costumes. Literally, all the white characters wore normal clothes while the ethnic characters were either the wolves, dressed in servant's clothing, or in the case of the two Asians, duking it out in chipaos. For a dance company featuring mostly minorities, I wondered if anyone there had taken any Race 101 classes, or maybe they were trying to transcend the stereotypes by stereotyping. I hoped the Q&A would reveal some answers.

Unfortunately, the answers the cast gave for the binary gendering of the roles was less than eloquent. But they can't be faulted, I guess. Okay, maybe they can. In one of the descriptions of the show, there is this sentence: "In this classical piece... explores gender, rape, sexuality, morality, violence, regret, patriarchy and female empowerment through this enigmatic rendition of a classic fairy-tale." I don't even want to talk about the chains and the slavery theme.

"The D is silent."

Also, we went on a day trip to Philadelphia! I got up at five for our seven thirty bus and then stayed awake and peppy throughout the entire day -- much to the chagrin of my travel mates. It's hard to get a feel for a city from just wandering around downtown, but I feel like we got a decent sense of the place. I had wanted to see Benjamin Franklin's birthplace, 1 Milk Street, but discovered that he was actually born in Boston. Fifth grade me would have been so disappointed I messed up that fact.

"Early to bed and early to rise..." I used to try to memorize all of BF's sayings and imagined that one day I would live up to them. Ha, boy I was hopeful. I think Big Ben's most useful aphorism is probably "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But my absolute favorite is, of course: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

I just referred to Poor Richard's Almanack as "Little Richard's Alamanac." Geezes, I'm losing it.

Hey I can be the answer

There was a really stellar end of the year post coming. It contained all the wisdom of 2012, about how I did so much, met so many people, and really stepped outside my comfort zone to break free from the past. Unfortunately the last two weeks of December shot by as I briefly became a so-so morning person, and somehow we crammed a lot into San Diego vacation. (Also, none of those things from 2012 happened.)

On day one of her vacation, George got to go to the boba to end all bobas, Class 302 in Irvine, as her flight got cancelled and she flew into Orange County instead. Every day afterward I said I would start cleaning my life up and get through emails and online things and real obligations. But every day George insisted on eating lunch at lunch time hours and off we'd go and I'd have no time to recover for the rest of the day. I think I passed out before midnight all the way up until Christmas Eve, when we pushed through and went to a late showing of Les Miserables. Generally, there were misadventures all around, as we went to get special toast and it was closed. We tried to do this, we attempted to do that, but the timing was off, etc. New Year's Eve itself was also a redo of 2009.

After the unexpected success of that NYE, we decided to celebrate the following years in high fashion and in different cities. Three New Year Eve's later, we ran out of places to go and ended up back at U31. We made a perfunctory attempt to stick around before leaving for karaoke at approximately fifteen minutes after the countdown. Is the great NYE streak over? Will we never celebrate and have fun on December 31st again? It's all possible. The future is bleak. Unless we make it to Puerta Vallarta next year, then we'll be back on track!

The undisputed highlight of the break was the Celtics versus Clippers game, which involved us dressing up in almost authentic jerseys and wearing appropriate team support-y accessories. As you can imagine, George was beyond excited. Unfortunately the Celtics went down by fourteen points just a few minutes in and the game was pretty much over already. The Celtics played horribly and there was hardly anything to cheer for. Still, the experience was unbeatable and this will likely be the closest George and I will ever get to the Celtics together.

Also, having been to two live sporting events in the past month, I realized that I hate sports fans, even though I love sports. Everything I hate about everything is perfectly encapsulated during a live sporting event. Lines, crowds, drunk people, douchebags, coerced cheering, you name it.

For 2013, I'm starting a noodle diary with my friend. It's going to be the best.

Over the past two days I've been trying to throw together a new fiftyfifty.me site and it's almost ready. It's like 1000% better than last year's and it'll have profiles and all this good stuff so Lilly and I won't have to manage it as much. This should have been done before January but what can you do right? I am sorely backed up on web projects and that needs to get cleared off the decks. Also, I am irresponsibly making our company fail, according to my mom. She could be right. Over the next week I really need to refresh and re-prioritize things. Luckily, there's an app for that, Orchestra. I'm going to be so on top of things now. Just give me a task and I'll do it! Or at least input it and star it for never.

What is 2013 going to be like? I best make some plans before it dribbles away like 2012 did. If I had to give the past twelve months a color, it would be something drab. Like olive, olive green.

In the continuing adventures of the iPhone, I am now a Verizon customer with superior service and six gigs of data to conquer the world. Biting the bullet, I plopped down the many hundred dollars to re-outfit myself with an iPhone 5 -- the muggers won't hold me down. I am now even less available to interact with humans. Unless it involves a check-in. George says one of her resolutions is to be on the phone less, because her attention span is suffering. We'll see how long her resolve lasts. If you were her friend, you'd grab her phone away from her and call her out when she stumbles. If you were her true friend.

Recently I have purchased Gap 1969 super skinny fit jeans, five different pairs of earrings, Hello Kitty salt and pepper shakers, and a Totoro pink and blue (and glittery) iPhone case. I believe my full transformation into a teen girl is finally complete. I have emerged from my chrysalis. If only I had more bangs to flip. In related news, sitting across the court from us at the Clippers game was Justin Bieber and Scooter Braun. Kevin couldn't take his eyes off them.

New York, I'm ready to come back now.

Wits and Wagers

Listening to: Lullatones, "Morning Coffee."

My Facebook fiance had her baby three weeks ago -- it was due Christmas -- and I didn't even find out until a few days ago. I insist on knowing things when they happen, and in this case I was betrayed! Okay, not really, but still. George and I's favorite question post finding out about something is "Who else knows?" Few things are more important to us than establishing the chain of knowledge/gossip.

Another San Diego friend popped out a baby today too. So since I don't have much to offer new parents, and certainly no frankincense or myrrh, I can give only give my usual standby: music. Every parent could benefit from some Kanye Rockabye Baby, the Lullatones, a few atmospheric Air tracks, and most of all, Kenny Loggins' "Return to Pooh Corner" album.

For a lot of my tween years, I was obsessed with the title track, and when I finally found the entire album, I played it non-stop. Freshman year, Greg and I used to sit in his little dorm room, and have this on in the background while we played video games or waited for the fried chicken to warm up in his toaster oven.

Anyway, if you're about to have a child, I'll have a playlist ready for little whatever his/her name is.

I am finally back in San Diego. I took off on Monday, ready to sail back to California but after forty five minutes on a plane and then a ten hour wait in an airport, I found myself on a train headed back to New York. Heavy fog grounded everything in Baltimore and I didn't want to sleep in an airport, so to Brooklyn I went.

Earlier, when we were playing a lot of Pocket Planes, fog would often be a reason a city shut down. If it was a hub city, you were screwed. I would like to think that a few months of playing Pocket Planes gave me some perspective on how hard it was to re-route all those flights, and so I was patient.

However, due to this long-ish ordeal, I have decided that non-stop flights are the way to go. Thus another addition to my list of "things I used to do in my twenties that I will no longer do in my thirties." Before, traveling was about finding the cheapest flights regardless of number of stops. Now, the potential aggravation of waiting, missing connections, etc. are just not worth it. So for that extra $100, I will fly direct. It's a big step, and hopefully part of my growing maturity into a real adult. Adults fly straight to their destination.

The other day, a friend of a friend, who's a flight attendant, was excited to recruit me for their hiring process. (We met up with her at a super fancy CVS on 14th and 8th Ave. The space used to be an old bank and it's basically the Grand Central of CVSes as the interior has vaulted ceilings and marble columns.) While I don't really need a new job, after hearing her talk about the lifestyle, I would seem to be an ideal candidate. Being a flight attendant would allow me to have a super flexible schedule traveling the world for cheap, and think of the people I would meet everywhere.

On my ride home, I studied the flight attendants, to see if I could stomach being fake nice to so many people. I could probably do it for a few flights a month, but as always, there's no way I would want to fly around and travel without a buddy in tow. So there goes the flight attendant dream. Also, I'm supposed to be putting down roots, not trying to find more efficient ways to be nomadic. I am still going to apply though, because the interview process seems interesting, and maybe I could article it up or something.

I just wrapped up Ender in Exile, which is the book in-between Ender at the Battle School and before he finds a place to settle in Xenocide. For most of Ender in Exile, Ender is traveling with the first human colony, speeding away from Earth. Due to near light speed relativity, he only experiences two years aboard the ship, while everyone behind him slugs through forty years or so.

While I'm hardly on an almost time traveling spaceship, I think that sometimes the feeling is comparable. I leave people for a few months or years and when I return, they're aged/changed. Actually anyone who moves around a lot can relate to this, because friends get married, get kids, get houses, whatever. And you feel the same. Or at least I do. Catching up with a friend via email, she said, "you've moved back and forth enough that there might just be a slightly worn down trail of airspace between us now, with all that flying to and fro.

Reading Ender in Exile made me think about the stuff you miss if you don't stick around. And I wondered which of my friends would choose to leave everything behind to journey away while everyone died behind them. I could probably do it, but I'd need someone to come with me. Ender had Valentine, his sister, but I know George so would not do it. Any volunteers? I can barely go do laundry by myself, so I'll need someone.

In contrast to Ender watching his friends physically age, I tend to more experience changes in people as they shift internally. Like maybe my friend will look the same but their insides will be different now. A shift of perspective perhaps, or something momentous in the intervening months happened that are now hard to explain, unless I was there to live through it. Since I hate catch ups, and am terrible about keeping up, we're kind of semi-strangers for a bit again, as I'm still working off a mental model of them from before. That has to be how Ender feels, as he falls further and further behind.

Another thing about Ender traveling far away. Even if he writes an email a day, his recipients would only be getting updates every few weeks, or months, because communication is not instantaneous. Can you imagine the pressure to clean out your inbox? I guess it's not that different from when mail used to travel by pony or boat I guess. But it seems incomprehensible nowadays, how you would keep up if the time between writing and delivery took months.

Who would bother?

What The Water Gave Me

Some things I'd like to share with you. One of the best things about New York, and something that never fails me, is that going out and being social is always rewarded with fun interactions. Even as I've been crammed inside my room for 90% of the time I've been here, I've managed to get out and meet some cool people doing stuffs.

I love insta-connections and rocking out to favorite songs you'd request from the DJ, movies you thought nobody else saw, getting the back story on people you have in common, random Internet addictions shared, or simply being inspired to learn something you didn't know about but now do, because now there's a personal connection. Like my new friend who drove me back to Brooklyn the other night. ManSee's current project is running back and forth between NYC and Fort Bragg, working on a documentary about Danny Chen. I vaguely knew about the Chen case before, but after meeting ManSee, I went right home and read up all about it, and returned with questions. Info loop!

These are not all New York related links, but I'm overdue on sites to share so here we go:

(1) Analog Girl World. I can't tell you what the other blog of Tiffany's I read is, otherwise I'll be booted of it, but Tiffany's camping site is an aspirational blog for me. As in, I aspire to do any of these trips, but I know I'd be left behind to die. Tiffany's off to South America in a few weeks and just like when she went to Thailand last year, I'll be following closely along on Tripping With Tiff.

(2) être the girls. Nothing I like better than personal confessional blogs, they're my favorite addiction. So of course I was sold when I read Jennie's "I like you, but…" piece about non-committal relationships. It made me sad, it made me nostalgic, it made me want to cry -- if I was capable. It also made me bitter that I can't write like her. Jennie's site is nominally a fashion blog, but it's really so much more.

(3) Joshua Nguyen. I've only met Josh once, but I've followed his blog since. He used to work at Tumblr, his wife works at foursquare, and he's always putting up startup/media/travel/food/photography stuff that captures my attention. For example, linking to essays like "Why I Love Twitter and Barely Tolerate Facebook." Plus, Josh reads, like real literature books, which is a rarity among males.

(4) Karmaphilia. Susie, who actually went to high school with George and I, recently quit her lawyer job, jaunted off to Europe, and will soon land in New York slash Paris. Her blog is tracking the journey from office jail to international jet setter. Here's "The Post That Started It All..."

(5) Melinda Mae. I am going to trade Mel books for bag; we've settled on the exchange rate and everything. All of her stuff is lovingly handmade and here's an article about'em. I also spent an afternoon cruising through her music selections, and there's likely some guest dance movie commentary coming from Mel in the future since there was a reference to the Wade Robson Project in our recent conversation.

(6) Moblog of the Universe. The Man of the Universe himself, Daniels is off on an adventure that started in Italy and has now carried him to Korea. Nobody knows when he'll return but his moblog is blowing up with everything a moblog should be. Color me jealous. As always, the DLMOU is my hero.

(7) Rob Don't Stop. I've never even met Rob (yet) but his blog and his Tumblr are constant sources of art, music, social justice, and many other great things. I am hoping to strongarm Rob into doing a hip hop book with me. Insider sources tell me he's a hell of a great guy too. And what wonderful hair he has!

(8) 9-Man. Stef's sister, Ursula, is Kickstarting to finish up her 9-Man documentary. They've hit their funding goal with just over a week to go but you should still donate donate donate! Unfortunately I missed out when Ursula did a panel on The Future of Jeremy Lin last month. Shame on me. The entire Liang family are die-hard Celtics fans and really, that's the only safe barometer to determine good people isn't it? Also, Stef's Alphabet Rockers just dropped an iOS app. I don't even have a child but I got it anyway. You should too.

(9) And at karaoke the other night, Yasmine's friend was wearing the greatest cape jacket. Turned out she's a designer who made it herself. The jacket looked a bit like this, but black and long to the floor. Titania Inglis' line is inspired by medieval armor, Ernst Haeckel's marine life illustrations, and My So Called Life. I don't think fashion can really get much better.