Posts

I came back from Sziget last week and then proceeded to be sick, celebrate my birthday in bed, and then celebrate my birthday with my family (which was a weekend full of capital D Drama). My nine-to-five has started and university is about to start, but I’ve told too many people that I would write about my festival experience to not do it[1. I turned 24 and decided it’s time to keep most of my promises]. Sziget #25 Sziget festival happens in Budapest every year since 1993. This was the 25th one and I was expecting it to be huge. Like, I was expecting them to make a surprise headliner announcement, for the Foo Fighters or Libertines to fly in on a helicopter and put on a huge show. None of that happened. What’s more, I recently discovered (like, after I came back home) that the festival owners have changed, and it seems like they have a very different idea of what the festival is going to look like from now on. ...

Whenever you write, there’s always that mean voice in your head that keeps saying that you need to write much, much better. Shut it up by reading some books and making small tweaks to your writing workflow (this is a 2-part blog post). These books are great, obviously. I’ve read them, I’ve learned a lot from them, and they’ve helped me change and improve the way I think about writing. However, as you can see from what you’re reading, they’re not a magic cure that’s going to turn a mediocre blogger into a Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling writer. The Elements of Style by E. B. White and William Strunk Jr. ...

I obsess over things for weeks and then ignore them completely for the rest of my life. Here’s what I’ve been obsessing over for the past couple of weeks: Good Writing and Mary H.K. Choi Mary H.K. Choi After going on my street photography binge, I went back to read some more stuff about Daniel Arnold. That’s how I discovered Mary H.K. Choi and her writing. She (and her podcast) led me into my next rabbit hole. ...

I obsess over things for weeks and then ignore them completely for the rest of my life. Here’s what I’ve been obsessing over for the past four weeks: Street Photography NSFW: There are some boobs about half way into this post. Daniel Arnold This dive into the Rabbit Hole began with a Vogue video about street photographer Daniel Arnold. [embed]vimeo.com/206313230[/embed] I’m a sucker for videos that are edited like this (with little illustrations over the film, choppy but easy to follow editing, and great pacing). So then I was like, “I gotta check this Daniel Arnold guy out! He seems cool!” ...

To say I wasn’t hyped for the release of Damn would be to say nothing at all. I’m not a hardcore fan of Kendrick in the way I’m not a hardcore fan of any artist or band; I love good music, but I don’t go as far as watching every single interview and reading every single thread in their subreddit*. This, though, might have been one of the few exceptions. How could it not be? When an artist comes in with an immaculately produced, lyrically rich, conceptually unique debut album then follows it up with an even deeper/better album you become a fan. It’s that or your taste is nonexistent. ...

Get an Oyster card right away. It’s £5 and you can top it up for any amount you would like (don’t be fooled by the options that are given in increments of 5 in the machine). Take buses EVERYWHERE. You can generally get from any point in the city to another with a single bus + a 10–15 minute walk. It’s like a hop-on/hop-off tour for a fraction of the cost. It’s slower than the tube, yes, but you’re on vacation. You’ve got nowhere to be. The best phone plan to get in London is the Pay-As-You-Go by Three. A sim-card will be .99p and will work with any unlocked phone (sim, micro-sim, nano-sim). An additional £20 will get you 12GB of data; £25 will get you unlimited data. The only drawback is that tethering is not allowed. Book your London Eye tickets online for a specific 30-minute timeslot. This is the best option as it is the cheapest one that will allow you to skip the queue. If being tied down to a specific time-slot isn’t your thing, just get a “Fast-lane” ticket on the spot. Avoid book stores. They are filled with amazing books and awesome souvenirs and everything seems so nice and lovely until you find yourself a day later with 10 books and doubts about whether your suitcase will weigh too much. Feed squirels in the park. It’s fun and they’re hella cute. The Pizza Hut on Lecister Square is way less crouded than the one at Oxford Circus. If you’re stupid and decided to travel with cash instead of a card, the best place to exchange money is Thomas Exchange. There are many of them downtown and in the business area, but be prepared to stand in a line anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes. When packing clothes focus on layered outfits. Shirt + Cardigan > Jumper. £50/Day is a very comfortable spending budget. You can take it down to £25 if you have breakfast at home.

Even though it only applied to several genres, “back in the day” I was the person to go to for music recommendations. Before Spotify Weekly and Apple Music’s “For You” section came about, I was adjusts letterman jacket that guy. That’s changed, and I find myself listening to the same things I was listening to 5 years ago, with just two or three new albums/singles added to the mix. However, whenever I do have the desire to go searching for some new tunes, I adhere to the same process and look in the same places. The Needledrop The all-in-one place. There’s the reviews, the trusted taste in music, and the wide range of genres. If you’re into hip-hop, indie, heavy-metal, or EDM—Anthony “Best Teeth in the Game” Fantano has got you covered. Best Discoveries via The Needledrop: Death Grips, Swans, Wire, Battles, FKA Twigs ...

Kanye West is the best argument both for and against the separation of art and artist. JK Rowling is the best argument both for and against an author’s influence on canon after the original series is officially over. This post was brought to you by this episode of The Last Podcast with Zac Little and this New Yorker cartoon. Let me know what you think in the comment section bellow. Like, comment, and subscribe for more “content”. ...

You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes: Bo Burnham #3 https://overcast.fm/+HGWMiEc It’s a three hour conversation, which is about 6 times longer than the average podcast episode I listen to, but it’s such a great conversation. It’s the type of conversation that seems to cover everything, even though it’s not really focused on anything at all. But it works. It’s great. It covers all the things, all the conversational topics that I would like to talk about with someone, but I’m too self conscious about how pretentious it will all sound if I say it. This just does that unapologetically and it’s great. There are about 12 moments throughout the podcast where I had to stop and write extensive notes to myself because it gave me ideas about things that I would like to write/talk about at some point in the future. ...

I came back from my vacation in London on Saturday, slept, ate, slept again, and then on Sunday I binge watched Stranger Things. We didn’t have WiFi in our AirBNB in London, so watching something, anything at all, was going to be good, but Stranger Things was great. Now Stranger Things has a solid place in my list of “Amazing Netflix Shows” along with Master of None, Gilmore Girls, and BoJack Horseman. There are many reasons I loved the show and one of the most important ones (to me) is that it’s not like other Netflix shows. It’s planned, executed, and presented really well. First of all, it doesn’t have terrible pacing problems (looking at you, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, OITNB post season 2, Love, Flaked, etc.). The aforementioned shows seem like they take an idea, and then try to explore that idea in 25/45-minute episodes. Sometimes that makes for exciting episodes, and sometimes that makes for episodes that meander for a while and then throw in a plot twist to make you move on to the next episode. The pacing, therefore, is all over the place. Stranger Things is very much the opposite of that. It feels like the creators of the show (Matt and Ross Duffer) had a fully formed structure for the show well before the screenplay was developed. Each episode is a self-contained chapter with a clear beginning, middle, and end—a fully developed and well-written story. The same applies to the show/season as a whole. The dialog is slow when it needs to be, fast when it needs to be, and always serves a purpose. This brings me to the next thing I loved about the show—every scene has a purpose. In most Netflix shows I can always find at least 2–3 scenes per episode that I feel could have been completely removed without any detriment to the story, but not in Stranger Things. The show handles exposition really well. They create intricate interpersonal relationships between characters, reveal just the right amount of information about heroes and antiheroes at a time, and makes sure all of this contributes to the overall interest in the story. There are plenty of story elements that create dramatic irony, and knowing something the characters in the show don’t helps create just the right amount of anxiety for the audience. And where other shows abuse this and keep it going for too long, this show manages to reveal/release the tension right when you can’t bear it anymore and right before it would start to get annoying. It’s really good writing. ...