These Brooklyn Stars Are Small And Strange

On my "things I enjoy about life" list, getting free crap is pretty high up there. This has generally resulted in my accumulation of a lot of useless items (I have more commemorative lanyards than I know what to do with) and a few good ones (I still wear t-shirts from random high-school volunteer projects).

This sort of thing tends to run in my family; my dad's favorite pastime at baseball games, besides keeping score with me, is to sign up for credit card offers that he immediately cancels, just to get the free t-shirts and tote bags they hand out once you sign up.

So when my friend Alex suggested going to a giant exchange of free stuff in Brooklyn today, the idea was just too good for me to pass up. So I took the F train out to Carroll Street, promptly got lost, wandered around the adorableness that is the Carroll Gardens neighborhood, concluded I will live there forever, and finally ended up where I was supposed to be, at BKLYN Yard's Score, said free crap extravaganza.

As an aspiring hipster, BKLYN Yard is pretty much my natural home. It's essentially a lot right on the Gowanus canal, with corrugated-tin garages and overgrown grass and that whole faded-industrial-glory vibe. Score featured everything from cheap tacos to piles and piles of retro clothing to ancient cassette tapes to broken record players. There was also a book section, which pretty much made my day.

People-watching is also pretty high on my aforementioned list, and BKLYN Yard pulled through on those counts, too. From the standard hipster boys in sweater vests and Chucks to the woman wearing a bumblebee costume (there is photographic evidence of this somewhere, I swear), it was a good day all around.

I made out pretty well in terms of actual free swag, too. I don't like shopping very much unless I have something specific in mind, but I can spend hours going through piles of random free stuff, which proved pretty successful at Score. I am now the proud owner of two new sweaters, some ironically ancient t-shirts, a pair of stripey shorts, a few artsy prints, a pile of books that should last me through the summer, and this piece of utter brilliance:

Yes we can.

Tuesday Newsday: The Start of Something

Remember that shot from the opening credits of 30 Rock, where they zoom up the front of the GE Building in Rockefeller Center while jaunty music plays in the background? At some point, that shot likely goes past my window on the fourth floor, which, predictably, excites me to no end.

I've been making a valiant effort over the last few days to not gush too much about where I'm working this summer, but I am giving up all pretenses now because there's just no point anymore. 30 Rock (yes, they actually call it that) is just too awesome. For starters, it's just nice to be back in a newsroom -- any newsroom -- and the Hardball offices are pretty sweet. I get to swipe into the office with my official MSNBC intern badge (my ID comes complete with the worst picture of me ever taken), I have a computer with two monitors that will never cease to amaze me, and I get to walk past various tourists on the way up pretending I am Very Busy And Important. Score.

I've been a print journalism devotee for as long as I can remember, so trying out broadcast is daunting but really, really interesting. The deadlines are earlier -- instead of going to print at 2 a.m., we're on the air at 5 p.m., which can get harrowing but is kind of exciting. Mostly, though, broadcast is about collaboration -- with producers, anchors, tech people, camerapeople, and so on. A newspaper story goes through a long chain of editors before it goes to print. Getting a broadcast story on the air is not so linear -- it's like a giant web of people, all contributing to the same product at the same time. As evidenced by my terrible attempts at metaphors, I don't understand a lot of it, but I'm getting there.

When I'm not geeking out over the journalism-y goodness of it all, I have been keeping my eyes peeled for the famous ever since I found out that Saturday Night Live films a few floors above us and Brian Williams' office is a floor below me. (Hardball's own Chris Matthews films, unfortunately, from Washington.)

When you spend most of the year in central Pennsylvania, just being in the vicinity of television royalty is pretty damn exciting. And since random awkward encounters with broadcast personalities are kind of my thing (it's how I got this internship, after all), it's about time I started initiating awkward water-cooler conversations with my more famous NBC brethren. Lorne Michaels, you have been warned.

Lost Review: Those You've Known

After this post, this blog will become something more than sporadic Lost rants, I promise (if only because season 5 finished Wednesday night). But the finale was on crack, so indulge me for a bit.

Disclaimer: Spoilers ahead. You know the drill.

In the interest of time and my general sanity, I'm going to break this up into various bullet points, because otherwise it'll be a thousand words of me sobbing about Juliet and Sawyer with a few crackpot theories thrown in. Thus, onward!

Nukes: I admit, I only warmed up to Jack's insane idea of exploding a hydrogen bomb at the Swan to neutralize the electromagnetic field that will eventually cause Flight 815 to crash on the Island because I just wanted him to shut up about it. We also find out that Jack the Selfless has a secret reason for wanting to change the future: he wants another chance with Kate, at which I seriously considered throwing things at my television.

Interestingly enough, Sawyer's admittedly very tiny torch for Kate is also what makes Juliet agree with Jack's plan, which also made me want to vomit. KATE IS NOT THAT SPECIAL, GUYS. SHE IS INDECISIVE AND ANNOYING AND SHE AND JACK DESERVE EACH OTHER. Kate is also not helping matters by throwing Sawyer various patented Soulful Glances every other second. Sigh.

Anyway, like almost every one of Jack's plans, the hydrogen-bomb thing fails pretty spectacularly. Sayid gets shot trying to get it to the Swan station, Jack goes on a muderous rampage through Dharmaville in revenge (fun times!) and then when he finally drops the bomb down the shaft, it doesn't explode. FAIL.

Also, Saywer beats Jack up. FINALLY.

Jacob: After years of waiting to find out who the mysterious Island-god-leader-person is, we were introduced to him in the finale's opening minutes, as he watches a ship on the horizon (the Black Rock?) while sitting on the beach. Jacob is more than a little creepy. In this episode's flashbacks, he manages to meet most of Lost's principal characters at seminal moments during their lives to offer a few cryptic asides and then wander off mysteriously. He is also apparently quasi-responsible for Nadia's death, which is unforgivable. Poor Sayid.

Jacob is also involved in a serious rivalry with another ancient Island creepster, whom Entertainment Weekly's Lost expert, Jeff Jensen, is calling "Loophole McNameless." I like it. Anyway, Loophole tells Jacob within the episode's first few minutes that he wants to kill him, and that he will find some "loophole" to achieve it.

"Good luck with that one, kid," Jacob says (more or less) with a smirk. Burn.

Zombies: I really tried to like Undead Locke for a little bit, especially after Undead Alex voiced her support for him a few episodes back. But, seriously. Undead Locke is a bum. He's smarmy, he's annoying, he baits Ben like it's his job (Ben, to his credit, is usually ready with some dry comeback), and he likes reminding everyone that The Island Tells Him Things. Incessantly.

So I was happy but not terribly surprised to discover that Undead Locke is not actually Locke, but probably Loophole McNameless posing as everyone's favorite emo tool with daddy issues (come to think of it, that's pretty much everyone on the island. Never mind). Real Locke is, interestingly, still a corpse. Well done, Ben.

Deaths, maybe: Sayid has survived the Gulf War, two plane crashes, Horace's grass clippers, and life as Ben's hit man/secret lover, only to be (maybe) killed by tiny Ben's drunk father? COME ON.

Moving on. My journalism ethics professor enjoyed reminding us all last semester that, above all, people need to be included. Clearly, Jacob never got this message, because Ben has some serious exclusion issues with him. In a surprisingly poignant sequence just after he and Undead Locke finally meet up with the erstwhile Island king, Ben asks Jacob why he's never bothered to talk to him despite his years of service to the Island.

In this situation, someone like Jack or Real Locke would have maybe thrown a weak punch and then cried. Instead, Ben stabs Jacob, because, like him or not, he always gets the job done.

Most importantly, let's have a moment of silence for the badassery that is Dr. Juliet Burke.

When the future hatch goes haywire after Jack's bomb plan fails miserably, Juliet gets dragged into the electromagnetic drilling tunnel, only to be grabbed at the last minute by a devastated, desperate Sawyer who lets out some Titanic-worthy "Don't you let go"s. Then: she falls down the shaft, Sawyer absolutely falls apart, I nearly cry, she lands at the bottom of the shaft, nearly dies, and then sees the unexploded hydrogen bomb.

Being the awesome person she is -- and, after all, there's really nothing left to lose at this point -- Juliet whams the thing (which is rigged to explode on impact) with a rock.

The entire screen goes white.

And that's it.

Here's to season six!

Songs on Repeat: Had A Lot of Things to Say

Like many children who grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I have spent most of my life relentlessly pretending that I actually live within the city limits, because trying to explain to people that you live in a town that is too small to possess a zip code is just too depressing.

With anyone who lives outside the Philly area, this usually works. But good luck trying to fake street cred in State College, where at least half the population is also trying to pretend they're from my gleaming metropolis.

Thus, the fact that I will actually be living in a city this summer -- I have an internship with MSNBC in New York -- makes me ridiculously, irrationally excited, to the point where I have accumulated a small playlist of songs that remind me of my impending summer adventures.

This includes:
- Pretty much every song ever written by Bishop Allen, for no apparent reason
- "Song for Myla Goldberg," by the Decemberists, which includes the admittedly blindingly obvious line "I know New York, I need New York, I know I need unique New York"
- "Gates of the Old City," by Looker, which reminds my former roommate Heather of Mary-Kate and Ashley and reminds me of Bishop Allen. Double win.
- "You Can't Hurry Love," by the Concretes, which readers of this blog will remember from a past Songs on Repeat post
- This song:



I have no idea why this particular song ("Wires," by Jason Schwartzman's solo effort Coconut Records) makes me think of dashing around New York, but it does. And yes, the band is another gimmicky project of an actor-turned-musician, which usually frightens me (see: Duff, Hilary), but Coconut Records has proven to be appropriately indie enough for me so far.

And there's no denying that "Wires" is catchy as hell, at least in my book. After all, it features punchy guitar chords and a xylophone, which is pretty much all I require of a song. There's also a great part that involves what I think is a Wurlitzer towards the end where everything just sort of soars upwards, and it's lovely. So: cheers for this song, and for New York, where I will be blogging from the Village in t-minus nine days. Score.

Quick blog note: Next up will likely be a LOST review, which I haven't posted yet because I am still attempting to wrap my head around the season finale, which was mindblowing and brilliant and almost made me cry. Stay tuned.

Tuesday Newsday: Taking In the Sights of Your Empire's Colony

Aaaaaand, we're back!

The blame for my complete and utter lack of blogging for the past month falls squarely on the shoulders of a finals schedule from hell, complete with an astronomy exam that literally gave me a headache and an eight-page research paper that had me trapped in front of a microform machine reading Nazi propaganda -- in French -- for seven straight hours one weekend. Whew.

Needless to say, it's good to be back in the land of the living.

And while emerging (mostly) unscathed from the Pollock Testing Center doesn't really match up to snagging an early release from an Iranian prison, I'm sure Roxana Saberi is feeling similar sentiments of relief today as well.

Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist living in Iran, was sentenced by an Iranian court in April to eight years in prison on charges of espionage. She was released Monday after an appeals court reduced her charges -- perhaps due to a letter from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad encouraging the court to be fair in its decision.

Her release means a lot of things -- a new and hopefully promising development in the U.S.'s dealings with Iran, an insight into Iranian domestic politics, an indication of how the wind is blowing in a country where Ahmadinejad is seeking re-election next month. It's a testament to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's general badassery (she, along with President Obama, has been clamoring for Saberi's release since she was arrested). It's a signal that rational discourse between Tehran and Washington might not be impossible.

But at its core, it's a victory for the free press, especially in Iran, where a journalist can be arrested merely for working without press credentials. In the U.S., we're bemoaning dropping ad revenues and the perils of online reporting. But halfway across the world, Saberi's case shows that getting a byline can get you arrested. It's sobering stuff.

Analysts have cautioned that it's not prudent to read too much into Saberi's release, arguing that her sudden release illustrates the volatility of Iranian politics. And in a country where two other Americans are missing or detained and Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan is still being held on espionage charges, the battle isn't over. But the case of Roxana Saberi is certainly a good start.