Word. Great interview.

Paul Rudd is the man

cool stuff

Holy shit.

I've been really into commencement speeches recently. Here's two really good ones:

David Foster Wallace- Kenyon 2005

J.K. Rowling- Harvard 2008

 They're great for these days in college where I'm finding that I need strong external motivation.  Anyways, I'm having difficulty picking a favorite, so I'm not going to. Is there a word for being impressionable, but not because you're intellect or critical thought is lacking? It's like openness to new ideas that leads to capriciousness. Still not there. Fuck it.

Wallace's best points are definitely on how being the center of our own universes influences  us. It actually changes a lot of day to day interactions if that is on the mind. Thinking about discussions with people as discussions with beings who are in the same boat as you: not knowing any other experience but the one out of their own eyes, explains a lot.  I find that I'm much more understanding of things that I don't like about people when I actively think about this idea. If it's the case that I've changed my approach to life for the better, then I think it suffices to say that this is a good speech.

Now about that Rowling lady. I think she's like an author or something. The British avant-garde literary society love her apparently. I guess they like wizards. Anyways, her speech is phenomenal. Now I must admit that I'm down for any rag to riches story, but hers is so insightful and so well woven into the speech that I can't help but like it.  This part in particular really, really made me think:

 "Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared."

Is art, then, a powerful tool for saving humanity? I think that given this quote Rowling would definitely think that it is true. I understand that she isn't necessarily equating imagination and the artistic imagination that made her famous, but I think that the parallels are interesting. Journalism is important for shedding light on the issues around the world, and articles like the one on Dubai that I posted are very important for allowing people removed from a situation to sympathize with those in one. But in addition to journalism, art, especially in literature and films must be aiding empathy worldwide. One movie that I saw in the past six months was Defiance. I can remember one scene in the movie where the people in the forest camp caught a German who was out to get them and the emotional scene ensuing his capture was one that I don't think I'll forget for a long time. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes but (since im a registered badass in 34 states) I didn't let a single one out. I don't know if it was great scoring, acting, or cinematography, but somehow I could feel their pain, anger, and fear. I could just feel how much they wanted to avenge the wrongs done to them and their loved ones. These were actors, and yet in a theatre, I somehow felt closer to people who had suffered over 50 years ago. Films like Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda, Last King of Scotland all make it easier to empathize with people who live a world away and it humanizes them. This has to make some sort of positive impact on the world. It's so easy to dehumanize people, or allow people to be dehumanized when you see them as less than human or not at all, but the ability to see them as such becomes much harder when you can see yourself within them. So yeah, I guess art can save lives. Weird thought.

A song of the day

A song of the day

A song of the day (same song, but in English by the original author/singer

A song of the day

This commercial almost made me choke.

great live performance

[warning]

-this post is going to be rather incoherent-

This is sickkkk

First off, the song of the day is not the song of the day. It's the album of the day. It's called InTheFlowersMyGirlsAlsoFrightenedSummertimeClothesDailyRoutineBluishGuysEyesTasteLionInAComaNoMoreRunninBrothersport. It's also known as the Merriweather Post Pavillion by Animal Collective. I simply do not have the command of enough adjectives, nouns, adverbs, and certainly not nearly enough hyperbolic expressions to describe how amazing this album is. I had a Shakespeare teacher who claimed that King Lear had an infinite relevance to the world in which it was written and that it's words could spread out into the cosmos forever. I knew what he meant, but I always thought that it was sort of a cop-out thing to say because even metaphorically that just couldn't be the case and it therefore was just an easy way of saying it's a deep work. To say that a finite piece of literature has infinite implications is downright ridiculous and if I had the persistence- and with him as a teacher- the downright apathy for my grade, I would have asked many more "why" questions as to why he felt like he could make claim. With MPP, however, I feel like it's place doesn't have to be trivialized to infinity. (I'm in paradox heaven right now) This album is a very deep, which is great, but it also happens to be the most pleasant album to listen to that I've ever encountered. I feel good after listening to it the entire way through. Every time I finish listening to it, I feel as if I have just awoken from an hour nap. What makes this better than a nap though, is that the actual "nap" part was the best part. I was consciously having a good time as opposed to that fake dreaming crap. (I love sleep btw) This album is so refreshing. For example, My Girls is about relationships and not needing all the superfluous stuff that we're programmed to think that we need. That's fucking fantastic. I'd much rather sing that at the top of my lungs than sing about how low my chain hangs or how much I'd like to Superman that ho. They go even deeper too in songs like Taste where they ask "Am I really all things that are inside of me?" That line repeats over and over again; it's a question worth thinking about. There's so much more to this album and it is definitely worth a listen: THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH. This is the 55 minute song of the day.

On a related note of great entertainment, there is an absolute atrocity being committed as we speak. NBC's new show, Kings is hands down the best show on television. If there is a modern day counterpart to Shakespeare, the overall production of this show is just that. There aren't enough good things I can say about this show. Go to hulu.com and watch all of the episodes. Now. The atrocity that I mentioned is that this amazingly brilliant show is not being marketed properly and is therefore getting terrible ratings. First of all, the show was bought by NBC. That brings about so many limitations that it is undoubtedly stifling the genius of this show. My second favorite show would have been awful on any American television network. Imagine if Entourage, Weeds, or Band of Brothers on NBC? Ugh. Another crime was that they made the show air on Sunday nights and that didn't work. They then moved it to Saturday night which is just a bad sign and an awful remedy. This whole situation of genius going to waste just saddens me. And all the while American Idol gets ridiculously high ratings. FML.

I almost died this week, but not really. More on that later.

My roommates watch Gossip Girl. FML. More on that later. 

(exeunt.)

song of the day: Emily by Joanna Newsom

This doesn't seem very fun. I'm not exactly sure how I stumbled upon it, but I can assure whoever is reading this that I wasn't searching for sex journals and that I certainly do not read New York magazine. Now I'm not sure if this was self-dubbing or an editor stamping the label, but the title of the diary is "Self-Obsessed, Emotionally Detached Hedge Funder," which I must say is a very apt description.

This does seem fun. Before I go into another introspective/societal critique/analysis, I want to try to start what I hope to continue on for the rest of this blog's life: happy shit sharing. When I read people's blogs like Kanye's or my new hero, Tim Ferris' I really like how they have cool stuff that they have encountered that week on their site. I saw a commercial for this and it made me happy. People helping people always makes me happy I guess. Anyways, back to the matter at hand- 

As promised, I plan on talking about the first link of this blog through the speech found in the link of the previous post. In Rev. Gomes' short talk about the youth of today, he talked about how we are searching fulfillment. I would argue that in general this search for fulfillment is not as much of a greater purpose search as he would suggest, but more of a hedonistic seeking. Now I don't want to project my sentiments on my whole generation, but I think it would be safe to say that the myspace generation is realizing that seeking of wealth or power is not going to bring about the most long-term pleasure. We want pleasure. We want it to last. I'm used to shopping around for the best deal and that's pretty much what I'm doing for life goals right now. This would be a 20th year well spent if I could get a little closer to understanding what direction I should be heading in. This douchebag hedge fund bro clearly defined success in the "New York/Material" sense and is having a crazy hectic life that he says will probably kill him ten years before his time. Now I'm sure this crazy lifestyle can be good for some people and for some it may work out just fine, but the reason why I'm so critical right now is actually conveniently in the title: the emotional detachedness. I sincerely hope that there is never a point in my life where I would be described as emotionally detached. To me, that word either means that you've become miserable or a dick- probably both. 

hmmm

Wow. This is great and I think I'll spend the next few of my posts talking about what he said.