I started “going vegan” around the holidays in 2007, and then made it official as my New Year’s resolution for 2008. I remember making that resolution, writing about it in my Livejournal, thinking that I was setting myself up for failure. As it turns out, going vegan is not difficult, and all of the positive energy felt as a result of living vegan is addictive. I can’t imagine ever going back to eating animal products for any reason.
Four years ago, I could have never predicted how going vegan would seriously impact my life, ideas about the world, personal politics, etc. Going vegan doesn’t just change your eating habits — it provides this whole new lens through which to view consumption cycles in general. For me, it was this way of stringing together all of these pent-up confusions I’d been feeling as a teenager about consumption, materialism, corporations, social injustice, etc, then acting against those frustrations on a daily basis. Not to mention how much better you feel physically and how much more energy you have. For years before I went vegan I was sort of neurotic about food and health and calories. Going vegan made everything simpler and I think I am a calmer person as a result. After I went vegan, I felt like this huge burden was lifted, physically and mentally.
I try to not be militant and preachy about other people’s eating habits buut once you understand veganism it is hard to watch the people you love continue to partake in unhealthy and unjust consumption cycles. My sister and I bug our parents a lot to stop eating animal products but it is only because we love them. Since I care about mostly all of you, might I make a suggestion for 2k12? If any of y’all are trying to come up with a New Year’s resolution, go vegan, you’ll feel better about everything.
Gonna go celebrate by making dinner with a buncha my favorite veganz in Boston. <3
I’m DJing at O’Brien’s. Earthquake Party, the Fagettes, and the New Highway Hymnal are playing. Details here & here. All of these bands rule so it should be really fun. I’m guessing it will be pretty laid back since the capacity at O’Brien’s is sort of small. I’m also guessing that it will probably sell out since the capacity at O’Brien’s is sort of small, so grabbing a ticket in advance might be a good idea.
This is going to be my first New Year’s Eve spent outside of New York, which feels weird and less exciting, but also way less stressful than NYE in NY. Definitely a little bit jealous of anyone who gets to see that stacked rager at 285kent though. Wish I could be in two places at once, as always. <|3
[Embrace - Do Not Consider Yourself Free] If I can do some good, I want to do it / If I have a choice, I want to make it / It’s my human responsibility. So you can stay cool behind your window / And choose the view you want to see / But as long as there are others held captive, do not consider yourself free.
Jenn gave me a mix CD for Christmas with this song on it. Thank you Jenn. This is so great and relevant. xoxox
“On October 3, I took a 2:40 a.m. train from New York to Boston, listening to Prince Rama’s latest record the entire ride. The train was dark, everyone around me asleep. I spent five hours staring in my illuminant laptop screen, reading Rama’s Now Age manifesto; thinking about time, space, and “trusting the now;” and putting the finishing touches on a piece about the Brooklyn-via-Boston duo. “The sonic landscape of Ghost Modernism is littered with the detritus of past musical movements,” writes Taraka Larson in her manifesto, calling music culture’s ghost-modern present state “an ever-expanding archaeology of reference points and nostalgia.” When the train pulled into South Station, I walked across the street to Dewey Square, saw the Occupy encampment for the first time and went on a march. Three weeks later, I went back to New York for CMJ, feeling disillusioned by the socioeconomic state of the world. I brought handfuls of “Occupy CMJ” flyers, which according to the New York Times, “bemoaned the stranglehold of corporations over various aspects of the music business, from retail outlets to radio to touring.” In the face of Ghost Modernism and One Percent stranglehold of our culture, the artful independent underground is the music world’s only lifeline. If any records this year seem relentlessly relevant in 2011, it is these.”
Last night I went to the SPIN magazine holiday party at the W Hotel in Union Square. It was swanky. It reminded me that I have been meaning to post a zine I made a few years ago about the history of SPIN. I know that cut-and-paste zines lose some of their cool factor when they are made digital, but, oh well. I wrote this paper about the history of SPIN when I was a sophomore in college. It wasn’t an exceptional paper, but I got an A, and I am pretty sure it was the reason the magazine agreed to hire me as an intern in 2009. It was a lot of fun to write and make. I did this paper before SPIN’s archives were available online, so sifting through back issues I’d never seen at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the one at Lincoln Center, felt like discovering sunken treasure. I was living across the street from that library at the time, so I got really into it.
Yesterday’s Music Tapes show at Dreamhaus officially put me in the christmas mood. Apparently a holiday tradition, Julian Koster and a group merry travelers tour east coast living rooms to spread winter cheer with musical saw-centric renditions of traditional carols. There was also a singing snowman, a gingerbread orchestra, and go-nowhere stories that managed to be both surreal (Billie Holiday learning how to sing because of an off-kilter whistling dreidel depicting the moon landing) and touching.
Julian Koster may be best known for his connection to Elephant 6 and Neutral Milk Hotel, which he was visibly relieved to not have to talk about yesterday, but he will forever be remembered by me for his beautiful quote about the role of local music scenes in bringing out the best in all its artists.
I think what Elephant 6 meant for us is very simple: there’s something pure and infinite in you, that wants to come out of you, and can come out of no other person on the planet. That’s what you’ve got to share, and that’s as real and important as the fact that you’re alive. We were able, at a really young age, to somehow protect each other so we could feel that. The world at large, careerism, money, magazines, your parents, the people at the rock club in your town, other kids, nothing is going to give you that message, necessarily. In fact, most things are going to lead you away from it, sadly, because humanity is really confused at the moment. But you wouldn’t exist if the universe didn’t need you. And any time I encounter something beautiful that came out of a human somewhere, that’s them, that’s their own soul. That’s just pure, whatever its physicality is, if the person can play piano, if they can’t play piano, if they’re tone deaf, whatever it is, if it’s pure, it hits you like a sledgehammer. It fills up your own soul, it makes you want to cry. It makes you glad you’re alive, it lets you come out of you, and that’s what we need: we desperately need you.*
As a musician, I’ve had plenty of good shows, bad shows, magical shows, soulless corporate showcases, and all kinds of other situations but his quote really touched me. It showed me the light and cleared up some questions in my head. Seeing him play only furthered the idea of clubs, finicky audiences, hip labels, only being middlemen between you and the art that’s inside of you wanting to come out.
I look forward to seeing The Music Tapes play every time they come through the town I live in from now on.
*quote taken from Kim Cooper’s 33 1/3 book on Neutral Milk Hotel
