The Valentine's Day Hangover Playlist

I am not an expert on calendars, but the general consensus I’m getting is that there is some sort of holiday now, and it has to do with love.

It is the worst.

In solidarity with everyone else who's spending the big V-Day embracing packaged food and Netflix rather than the warm touch of another human being, I present to you The Great Valentine’s Day Hangover Playlist. From the hallowed halls of angst to the deepest canyons of devastation, some of the best music is made from the ruins of love. At the very least, take solace in the fact that someone at some point had it as bad as you and managed to make a nice song out of it. Here are a few of my favorites:

Frightened Rabbit - Keep Yourself Warm

Right, so we’re going to start out with a brutal one. Take the disarming falsetto and unrelenting build-up from this Scottish band, add in some heart-shattering lyrics, and try not to be moved.

Final Project

See our exploration of Pittsburgh's street art here!

Last Class

Instructions: write a description of someone in the room not using name hair color outfit

To the rhyme scheme of “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle,” and/or “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” depending on how cultured you’re feeling.

Just sit right back

and you’ll hear the tale

of a loud but lovely girl.

whose laughter rings throughout the room

as bright as shining pearls.

And Batman is

her favorite dude,

she loves the comic arts,

photography, and videos.

She’s really very smart.

A pink backpack

beside her feet,

and pink most everything.

Inquisitive and curious

with two silver nose rings.

Ask her about

D.C. Comic books,

She’ll talk ‘til she turns blue.

She laughs real loud about most things

and makes great cupcakes too.

American Idol

My goal as a nonfiction writer is to have as interesting a life as Ernest Hemingway, but with less animal killing.

I can smell the books from here

The New York Public Library: I want to go there and read forever.

New rights management for a digital world

We talked a few times in class about copyright issues, the need to protect your work, and the need to exercise caution when using the work of others. These last two points are absolutely vital - you can't rip off other people, and you (probably) don't want people ripping you off, either.

The problem our society and creative culture currently faces, however, is a mangled, overly complex mess of copyright law, over which corporations with the most interest have the most influence. In earlier times, creative culture, or intellectual property, passed out of the control of the creator and into the public domain within a matter of years. This meant that there existed a growing, constantly updated pool of content upon which new creators could draw for inspiration. This is especially important when you realize every aspect of our creativity builds upon what came before. Isaac Newton's famous quote about "standing on the shoulders of giants" is absolutely true (and very probably borrowed from somewhere else.) Rap music came from hip-hop which came from jazz, which built upon the synthesis of classical music, ragtime, and the blues.

Unfortunately, this can no longer be the case. Consolidated content publishing companies like Warner Bros. and Disney have used their influence to lock up intellectual property ownership, preventing new ideas from refreshing the Public Domain for huge periods of time. As copyright law now stands, rights to new intellectual properties stay private for a period of 80 years after the creator's death. Technically, if you want to sing "Happy Birthday" to someone in a room full of fifty people, you'd need to pay money to Warner/Chappell Music, the rights holders.

Enter Creative Commons. Established by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, the Creative Commons system acts as an add-on to existing copyright law, allowing content producers to let others know which parts of their work are free and open to public use. This allows content creators to contribute to sustainable, remixable creative culture and clear up confusing questions about permissions and fair use while preserving the rights to their creations. Writing is just as much a part of creative culture as music or film, and I think the principles of Creative Commons apply as much to us as writers as they do to anyone else.

An example of a Creative Commons license:

Lawrence Lessig even looks smarter than me.

Where writing ends and stand-up begins

Recently, I spent some time researching author David Sedaris for a class presentation and because, well, he's pretty damn great. I needed to talk for 15 minutes, so naturally I started trawling the web looking for a video to show in order to eat up some time. This little gem comes from The Late Show with David Letterman:



Short of analyzing Sedaris' unique delivery or the various techniques he utilizes for maximum humor, what interested me most about this video is the blending of genre lines. Shows like The Late Show or The Tonight Show typically feature stand-up comedians, not writers. So what is Sedaris doing here? Where does the distinction between humor writer and humor performer lie? Is there one? If you're a talented enough writer and your delivery is entertaining enough, can you too perform on late-night television, regardless of comedic content?