Lisztomania

Africa: Where Chris Matthews went on vacation this summer; also where he served when he was in the Peace Corps. See YOUR BOSS'S PERSONAL LIFE, CREEPY KNOWLEDGE OF.

Alex: My partner in crime, fellow indie-rock obsessive, and, among other things, the other half of the esteemed Collegionnaire scavenger-hunt team. See RIDICULOUS NEW YORK ADVENTURES, ENABLERS OF.

Babies, fat: I can has one? See SCAVENGER HUNTS, ITEMS ON.

Banana chips: I ate a pack a week. See SCURVY, WAYS OF AVOIDING.

Blogging: I never do it. See FAILURES, MINOR.

Brighton Beach: Where a.) I was handed Shabbos candles by adorable Jewish men who beamed when I told them I was Catholic b.) everyone speaks Russian to the level where you feel like a foreigner c.) you can purchase an entire fish on a plate for lunch.

Bronx, the: So gritty! So oddly quiet! Granted, I only saw about four blocks.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: what I watch on rainy nights in and when I feel like ogling David Boreanaz. Which is to say, always.

Checking out: I don't want to talk about it. See ERAS, ENDS OF.

Cheri: The worst bad movie you will ever see. See FAILURES, MAJOR.

Cyclone, the: Wooden roller coaster in Coney Island. See DEATH MACHINES, TERRIFYING.

Dancy, Hugh: I engaged in some mild creeping at a movie screening; he is as charming as you would expect. See HUSBANDS, FUTURE.

Earth Room, the: the most pointless modern art installation ever, because it is a.) literally nothing more than a room full of dirt and b.) closed for the summer.

Gramercy Park: Being a scruffy undergraduate/resident of anywhere besides the park itself, I am not allowed in and have to content myself with skulking outside its gates with the other plebeians on the sidewalk. Damn and blast. See DREAMS, CRUSHED.

Governor's Island: Good for a.) pretending you go to a New England liberal arts school b.) pretending you live in a post-apocalyptic nightmare world. c.) riding bikes without having to worry about being run over by taxis and such.

Hannigan, Lisa: Adorable-to-the-point-of-absurdity Irish singer-songwriter who puts on shockingly soporific concerts. See DISAPPOINTMENTS.

Hardball with Chris Matthews: See INTERNSHIPS, BEST EVER.

High Line, the: Take a railroad trestle that runs straight through Manhattan, above the streets. Abandon the railroad trestle. Turn it into a giant park of awesome. Welcome to the High Line.

Kent Avenue: Desolate street by the river in Brooklyn, home to an obscure concert venue, mysterious graffiti, and the scariest building you will ever see.

Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the: Learn about Irish immigrants; feel horrible for complaining about your closet of a dorm room. See GEEKERY, HISTORY-STYLE.

Mahmoun's Falafel: Legendary falafel shop on McDougal Street that sells falafel sandwiches for $2.50; where I, invariably, eat on the weekends. See THE GODS, FOOD OF.

Mooshstock: Because sometimes you end up at random hipster parties on (where else?) Kent Avenue that are inexplicably raising money for dogs who need surgeries. See DECISIONS, QUESTIONABLE.

Nutini, Paolo: He's a Scottish singer-songwriter and he's on CRACK. His concerts are also entirely populated by tools who dance into you as you attempt to decipher his lyrics.

Our Lady of St. Carmel, Feast of: Cause of adorable street festivals in Brooklyn centered around, inexplicably, a giant rotating pillar with an entire Italian band on it, carried by a hundred men. See CATHOLICISM, WHY IT IS AWESOME.

Packing: I am really, really terrible at it. See FAILURES, UNMITIGATED.

PATH train: I hate it and it hates me, by being confusing and slow and taking me to Jersey City when I wanted to go to Manhattan.

Potter, Harry: Still as addictive as ever. Thanks, J.K. See OBSESSIONS, JUVENILE, UNABASHED.

Rain, preventing of: Theory: if I bring my umbrella everywhere, the weather will remain consistently gorgeous, without fail.

Roofs: Parties are better on top of them. Also, the rooftop view in Brooklyn is the best thing you'll ever see.

Room, the: The best bad movie you will ever see. Also, Cameron Diaz is a fan.

Scavenger hunts: When they include items such as "a baby in a hat," you know it's a good one.

Sea Isle City: Adorably touristy Jersey shore town; where I have spent two weeks of every summer since I was seven (with maybe two exceptions). See TRADITIONS.

Summer: This one's almost over. See GOOD TIMES, ALL AROUND.

One By One All Day

I think I've written about five of these sort of apologetic posts since I started this blog, but because I a.) live in New York (well, temporarily) and b.) have a job (albeit unpaid), I am chalking my failure at blogging and life up to sheer busyness (yes, that is a word) and the following factors:

30 Rock. I work here. Bam.

Beaton, Kate. The reason I want to go to Canada as soon as possible/the reason I feel better for obsessing over obscure historical personages. Stalkee at my comics convention this weekend.

Blogging. What I do while I wait for my laundry to dry.

Boats, rowing across gorgeous lakes in upstate New York of. See WHY LIFE IS WORTHWHILE.

Broadcast personalities, the spotting of. So far, six.

Brooklyn, New York. Sometimes shadesville, always classy.

Comic and Cartoon Art, Museum of. Facilitator of the dorkiest thing I have done this summer, which is attend an indie comics convention, stalk down all my favorite webcomics artists, and freak out accordingly. See GEEKERY.

Decemberists, the. Best hyper-literate prog-rock indie-pop folk quintet around and apparently now powerful enough to sell out Radio City Music Hall Wednesday night for a concert of epic proportions. See SPASMODIC DANCING, CAUSES OF.

Goddard Hall. We have an elevator made out of plywood. Seriously. See RESIDENCE, PLACES OF.

Lemon, Liz. I am still secretly hoping to run into her. See IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS.

Manhattan subway system, the. I told a tourist how to get to Times Square the other week. See PRETENDING TO BE A NEW YORKER.

Maps of New York. Mine has disappeared.

Matthews, Chris. Technically, my boss, although I see him about once every few weeks because he films out of Washington and my internship is with Hardball's production team in New York. Drinks black coffee. Knows my name now, which is sweet.

Meconis, Dylan. Indie webcomic goddess and author of the brilliant Family Man. I met her last weekend, and it was fabulous.

MGMT, music videos of. Getting me through the week. See WILLIAMSBURG, THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF.

Mohonk Labyrinth, the. The most frightening thing I have ever done. See MOUNTAINS, CLIMBING OF and TERRIFYING DEATH CREVICES, SQUEEZING ONESELF THROUGH.

Novels, the reading of. Makes you look cooler on the subway.

Philadelphia Phillies, the. Who destroyed the Mets this week? Oh, right. See BASEBALL, THE DOMINATION OF.

Rain, the abundance of. It's June, not April. Come on. See APOCALYPSE, WEATHER OF THE.

Topic banners, the writing of. My job last week at Hardball. I am responsible for such gems as "The Looming Confirmation Battle" and "What's Next for the GOP?"

Village, the. Best place in the world. Besides Brooklyn. And Philly.

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.

A Smattering of Distant Applause

I wanted this introductory post to be all huge and epic, but I'm drawing a blank, so I'm settling with just being obvious. 

I'm Aubrey, I'm a journalism student at Penn State (on my better days, a "student journalist"), and I'm trying out this blogging thing mainly because it's the only thing I haven't tried on the list of self-indulgent social networking devices. I fought joining Twitter for a year, only to become addicted within a week, so I might as well get a head start on the blog. 

I'm a copy editor at our student newspaper here, the Daily Collegian, which consumes my life in a frightening but kind of comforting way. I'm from one of Philadelphia's various interchangeable suburbs, but, like everyone who lives outside the city, I just tell people I'm from Philly. I have a mildly pathetic addiction to twee indie pop, I've read Pride and Prejudice cover to cover at least five times and I own a finicky MacBook named Sev.

I also promise that I don't usually start all of my sentences with "I."