Culture Consumed This Weekend June 27, 2011

I love the feature on the Paris Review blog where they ask someone to record all of the culture they consume in a certain period. I had a kind of eclectic weekend, so I thought I would chronicle what I read/listened to/saw.

Books:

I read a series of Young Adult books called If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Foreman. I was skeptical at the beginning, but was completely sucked in by the appealing voices of these characters, especially Adam in Where She Went. He’s a conflicted, emotional character whose suffering has been ignored because of the success he attained.

I also read most of Eight Million Ways to Die by Lawrence Block. In honor of his birthday and him joining Twitter. And because it is really good.

I started LIFE by Keith Richards which is really incredible…I can’t believe I hadn’t started it sooner. I love all the stuff about the band, but it is also a cultural history that has made me go back and listen to some music that I haven’t heard in a long time, or that I’d never heard before.

Music

In addition to a lot of Muddy Waters, The Ronettes, Chuck Berry, Otis Redding, I listened to a band with a silly name, tUnEYards, but an awesome album called Whokill.  I am also into this album by a band called Pepper Rabbitt and I listened to that album a few times. I also listened to some Neon Indian and Toro y Moi.

I also listened to part of Terry Gross’s interview with Keith Olbermann, but I don’t feel compelled to finish it.

Movies

I watched Scarface on DVD. I’ve watched quite a few classic crime films in the past few months (King of New York, Sexy Beast, Deep Cover, Get Carter, Serpico, Seven to name a few) and I must say that Scarface, while very long, is clearly the best of all of them. It’s the most engaging, original and intense. I know people have all sorts of opinions about this movie, but there’s a reason why it is obsessively watched. And that is because it is good.

I also re-watched LA Story. I remember LOVING this movie when I saw it the first time. This time, it was just OK. A little too quirky for me.

I watched part of a TV pilot for a show that is supposed to air this fall, but found it so unbearable that I stopped in the middle.

Most notably: I went to BAM to see Jamel Shabazz: Street Photographer, which is noteworthy mostly for the photographs that capture the style and attitude of 1980′s New York. I highly recommend checking out his work.

Buy Yourself Flowers June 24, 2011

I come from a family of cheap Jews. Many members of my family read this blog and they will not dispute this fact. Y’all are misers. It’s ok. I still like you.

I, somehow, was denied the cheap gene and since I started getting my first paycheck–and I’ve had a job since I was 11…so don’t you start having illusions about me sitting around eating bonbons–I have had the uncanny ability to spend said paycheck. It started with clothes and moved on to handbags, shoes, entire apartments of furniture.

My family MARVELS at this ability. And I am proud of it. (I do not, for anyone who might be worried about this, have any debt and I do actually have a savings account which has more than $3 in it….I’m not an overspender. Just a spender.)

But, occasionally, the cheapness rears its ugly head. For example, my cheap family thinks that subscriptions are dangerous. When I wanted to join Columbia House Records at around the same time that I got my first paycheck, I was forced to do MATH in which we figured out whether or not it was CHEAPER for me to get the music I wanted from Columbia House  rather than buying individual CD’s at a store (taking into account the “free” CD’s they gave you, plus the “retail price” of the CD’s that they required you to order–the bottom line, in case anyone wonders, is that you basically got a deal if you just did the minimum, but if you ever messed up, you were TOTALLY getting screwed). I recently, however, discovered a service called @Rdio. It is a brilliant, brilliant thing where I can basically listen to any music I want, at any time, on my mobile device or on my computer. It costs 9.99 a month. It took me days to talk myself into subscribing to this service, of rationalizing how ONE CD on iTunes costs 9.99 but RENTING all of iTunes also costs 9.99. I finally gave in. And it is the best thing I have ever done. I have listened to so much new music in the past two months—music that has inspired me to run faster, that has lulled me to sleep, that has caused me to attend CONCERTS, that has walked me to work and home and played in the background as I entertained and read books. A few bands that I recommend include The National, The Dodos, Fever Ray, Pepper Rabbit, Toro y Moi, Neon Indian (I actually like this album so much that I own it AND stream it on @Rdio–anathema, I know.) At the end of the day, this service is highly worth it if you want to listen to different music all the time. But, it also falls into the category of things that probably a cheap person wouldn’t enjoy: you don’t GET anything for your money at the end of the day, except for the experience. This is frustrating to the cheap. They want a physical object. They want to have “purchased” something. But this is truly brilliant. I recommend it to all, miser or not.

My main discovery about the trauma of being raised by misers, however, comes down to flowers. Flowers, to a cheap person, are a complete waste of money. They serve no observable purpose other than being beautiful. And they die quickly. I was indoctrinated into this mindset. And I remember having a FURIOUS reaction to the essay in Megan Daum collection My Misspent Youth in which she talks about how she was completely broke and in debt but that she HAD to have flowers for her apartment or else she would die. “You are irresponsible with your money!!! You don’t NEED flowers,” I yelled at the page.

And yet, in the past few months (reiterating the fact that I am no Megan Daum), I have realized the amazing gift you can give yourself of bringing flowers into your home. Beautiful, vibrant flowers. I have had multi-colored tulips, gerber daisies, hyacinths and currently there is a HUGE bouquet of Sweet Williams sitting right in the middle of my table. Most likely nobody else will see them but me, but they are FOR me. And I bought them. For FIVE dollars.

So, I challenge you all, think of the thing that you think is silly, but that might, for a small price, bring you some pure joy. Something that feels frivolous. Something your mother or your husband your best friend might mock you for. And do that thing.  And then do it again next week. You will feel great about it.