A nice response to the “Art or Hokum?” editorial that ran in the Post-Standard on the eve of Yoko Ono’s initial show at the Everson. The tone of the Post Standard piece is hilarious– the frequency of “mockingly verbatim” quotes from the museum reeks of the hackery that is now only (well, mostly) evidenced in user comments posted to the Post-Standard on stories dealing with politics or race.
Archive for the 'syracuse' Category
Music Review – Gas – Wolfgang Voigt’s Techno-Minimalism Is Paired With Brian Eno’s Serenity
Sadly, we left Montreal a couple of days before his Mutek performance.
Good news is though, Syracuse is one of only a handful of stops on the Alva Noto / Bytone Raster-Noton North American tour this week.
Don’t know how I had missed George Saunders’s website, which pointed me this morning to his American Psyche series for the Guardian, which I had somehow also missed. I was pointed to all of this by a blog post about how his CivilWarLand in Bad Decline had been optioned by Ben Stiller, which first sent me sinking, but on reading further, I saw the author of that post asks the reader to consider what Stiller had done with Tropic Thunder (in a good way). Kelly liked that movie so I suppose I’ll withhold judgment– actually, I’m sure a film version of anything Saunders has written will be super, since his dialogue is always cracking me up. You know, I was re-reading My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable yesterday, as a stalling tactic, and I was reminded that there is something similar about George Saunders and David Rees. Looks like I’m not the only one who has made the connection.
He (George Saunders) had a good recent story in the New Yorker as well.I should mention that it is now my job to know this type of thing. Hat tip to Google Alerts for keeping me informed.
I ran the Tipperary Hill Shamrock Run 4 miler in Syracuse on Saturday. It was my first race since the Buffalo Marathon in May. It was great to be back with a group again, and I’m looking forward to the spring racing season here.
I missed getting my PR for four miles by 1 second! I felt pretty good, but even though I’ve been running a lot in Syracuse, but I was not ready for the hills on this course. My splits were 6:40, 6:54, 7:56(!), and 7:39. This is why I hate short races– my cruise control doesn’t work. Mile 3 featured some of the steepest hills I’ve ever run. My total time was 29:21 (I ran a 29:20 at a race in Central Park a few years back– that race, of course, wasn’t too hilly), average pace was 7:16/mi. I wanted to break 28 minutes, but I guess that’s a goal for next year. The hills in Schiller Park, near our new house, will be a great training ground. I finished 206th, which put me just about in the top 10%, but there were some superfast folks out there.
This was the first run I’ve posted in a while– mostly because my Garmin GPS wasn’t compatible with my Mac until recently, and I’m happily without a PC laptop from work. All my recent runs are up now, including my first couple of 5+ mile runs in months. I’m feeling great, and hope to be back up to some respetable weekly milage in a few weeks (I’m at about 15 now, hope to be up to 25 soon). Once I’ve got my base back, I can start training for NYC again– this time less ambitiously. I received my guaranteed entry email a few days ago, now I just have to shell out again.
It’s as forces are actually conspiring to make me miss that place– The Bell House got like 100x better the second we left. Still, though, no regrets.
What the link doesn’t mention is that Larry Johnson also performed, Sarah Vowell DJ’d, and that Kristen Schaal apparently played theremin while dressed in some kind of foam suit. Pretty awesome night when a GNR cover band is actually the lamest part of the bill.
Luckily, this morning, I was able to buy tickets to see both Sarah Vowell and Bell House regular AC Newman in Syracuse and Ithaca, respectively in the coming weeks.
A need for spittoons in the Hall of Languages is announced by The University Herald, forerunner to the Daily Orange.
One of the oddest statistics in the nation belongs to Syracuse forward/center Arinze Onuaku. He leads the nation in field-goal percentage, but that hasn’t translated to success from the line. Onuaku entered Wednesday’s game with St. John’s shooting twice as well from the floor .706 as he was from the foul line .353.
via Rivals.com College Basketball – Washington’s Thomas emerges to power Huskies.
In keeping with last year’s resolution to begin enjoying olives (which I accomplished!), this year, I’m planning to learn which olives I like, rather than just blindly trying them all. Also, Kelly and I have started that hundred pushups challenge, since we are both upper-body weaklings.
My three other resolutions: prune my RSS feeds down to about 200, collect everyone’s correct contact information, and keep track of all the books I read and movies I watch. As for the last one, here’s the list so far:
The Zenith Angle by Bruce Sterling.
If… (Lindsay Anderson, 1968)
The Luzhin Defence (Marlene Gorris, 2000)
Bobby (Emilio Estevez) Sucked!
Generation Kill (the 2008 Simon/Burns HBO Series)
We found a place last weekend in the Hawley-Green neighborhood of Syracuse. It’s half of an old house– 2 floors, 2 bedrooms. I should be able to easily walk to work, and there are plenty of little restaurants and a coffee shop nearby. The landlord (and the community) seem incredibly nice. Kelly, for some reason, felt it necessary to tell our landlord that I love wearing long underwear. I do, but dang. I thought that was private.
A street view view of our new street (taken in warmer times– we’ve noticed that the google van was in Syracuse on the most beautiful day of all time).
Oh, and I ran three miles on the treadmill the other day– it’s nice have sore quads again. I hope to get at least a few Prospect Park runs in before we leave. But it’s supposed to snow here, so we’ll see.