The Sacramento News and Review published a story by Alexander Zaitchik called “Why Twitter Sucks: Once harmlessly annoying, Twitter has become an undeniable player in the social-media landscape. Should we really fear the tweet?” I do agree with some of his points: there are a lot of meaningless posts (I’ve posted many myself), it’s completely self indulgent, it’s not the most eloquent form of communication and it feeds our rapidly shrinking attention spans. However, I think Zaitchik completely missed the mark on Twitter because he doesn’t seem to understand the communication potential of Twitter and the potential of “smart Twittering”. He doesn’t even reflect on “thick tweets” or “aeious” (already existing information optimally uploaded).
This is my posted response to Mr. Zaitchik: “I both agree and disagree with your assessment of Twitter. It’s terrifying to imagine a society that settles on communicating in 140 characters. Like you said, it marks the decreased attention span of the 21st century. However, there are smart ways to use Twitter. Like most new technologies, people use Twitter literally – what are you doing? However, the technology should not be limited to answering that question or composing 140 character diary entries. Twitter can be used as a platform to share work with a collection of followers. I write a blog, write and edit for my school paper and write for San Francisco Weekly. When I write a new article I send out a tweet, alerting people I’ve created new media. I wrote real pieces, 500 words or more, but I use Twitter as a platform to expose my work to a wide audience. My school paper uses Twitter to alert followers when we have new stories online and our views drastically increased when we started tweeting. I even found out about your story from someone I follow on Twitter. Don’t accept that a technology is bad from the lowest common denominator of users, there are people using Twitter in great and exciting ways.”
Living on my own has been a great way to force me to learn how to cook. I spent my entire high school life as a vegetarian, so I never learned how to cook meat. Since I moved into my apartment I’ve explored the internet looking for exciting things to cook, thinking of foods to cook that aren’t pasta related. With a student budget in mind and a fondness for produce and meat, I’ve attempted to craft delicious meals out of what I can find on sale or in China Town. My first big success stories were delicious sesame asparagus with perfectly cooked tri tip steak and incredible vegetarian coconut curry made with my boyfriend, Brian. Now that I have a blog I decided I should keep track of recipes and cooking success stories. Here are two more.
Chicken Pot Pie! I got this recipe from my mother who found it in “Real Simple Magazine.” She knew that chicken pot pie was one of my favorite foods, and probably also assumed I’d struggle trying to make it from a complex and time consuming recipe. This pot pie was fairly inexpensive, very easy to make and low in fat and calories. All good things in my book. The recipe is intended to feed six people, so Brian and I ate it for several days. It microwaved very well, always a big bonus. These are the ingredients and directions: 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 onions, chopped, 4 carrots, diced, 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup dry white wine, 2 cups 1 percent milk, 1 10-ounce package frozen peas, 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, kosher salt and black pepper. 1 9-inch store-bought piecrust, thawed if frozen. We also used one potato and instead of using white wine we borrowed some of our roommates red wine. We used the Betty Crocker pie crust. All you need to make it is water.
Directions:
1) Heat oven to 400° F. Cook the chicken in a pot of simmering water until cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes; let cool, then shred.
2) Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and carrots and cook, stir-ring, until they begin to soften, 6 to 8 minutes (do not let them darken).
3) Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the wine and cook until evaporated, about 5 minutes. Add the milk and simmer until the sauce thickens, 2 to 3 minutes.
4) Stir in the chicken, peas, thyme, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Transfer to a shallow 1 1/2- to 2-quart baking dish.
5) Lay the crust on top, pressing to seal. Cut several vents in the crust. Place the pot pie on a baking sheet and bake until bubbling and the crust is golden, 30 to 35 minutes.
I also found a guacamole reciple that I adore. I’ve always made guacamole and I’ve made it as many ways as you can count — with salsa, with hot sauce, without tomatos, with guacamole mix. Usually it’s just not quite right. It just never tastes like it does at the taquerias or restaurants and I can’t ever figure out why. Determined to make the PERFECT guacamole I explored the internet. Then I found avacado.org, the California avacado website. They have an entire section of their website devoted to guacamole recipes called”Guacamole Central.” From there you can find a whole variety of recipes — guacamole autentico, classic guacamole, cajun guacamole, south of the border guacamole. Even a California guacamole with goat cheese and pine nuts. They have a feature that lets you plug in the amount of people you’re cooking for and it adjusts the ingredients to suit your party. To make mine I mix the autentico and the classic.
To make guacamole for two here is my recipe:
1) Slice up one quarter of tomato (I usually use hot house, but in the summer I’ll try with heirloom) and onion (personal preference with onion comes in big time here, but I usually slice up about a handfull).
2) Mash up the avacado meet with a fork in a bowl with lime juice (I squeeze in a quarter of a lime) and a little bit of garlic (you know, to taste).
3) Mix in the tomato and onion. Add in sliced fresh cilantro to taste. Sprinkle in cumin (the secret ingredient!) and salt.
4) Add some hot sauce or peppers if you like it spicy and it’s ready to serve! I like to serve mine with quesadilla. Nice and golden brown.
Keep checking for more recipes in the near future!
Filed under: DMP
I created a map of San Francisco using Google Maps. The points around the city mark locations that either my classmates or I have taken photos of and blogged about. As I continue to blog and photograph this map will become increasingly filled with points. This is my experience of San Francisco!
Filed under: Blogs, DMP, USF | Tags: Blogs, DMP, Future of Blogging, Self Expression, USF, Why I Blog
This is my first personal blog, however this is not my first involvement with the blogosphere. I work one of the many companies that saturate the Internet with content all day every day, “SF Weekly.” I write for their blog, “All Shook Down,” writing music reviews. The Weekly has two blogs in addition to the one I write for, putting out a dozen or so entries on each every few days. A miniscule blog compared to “the New York Times” or “Huffington Post,” but still a lot of content. There’s pressure to post often, a corporate infrastructure that judges a blog not by content, but by page views and click throughs.
From this background, I completely understand why writers like Paul Boutin have abandoned the blogosphere in favor of other technologies. My blog will never get the views of major sites and I’ll inevitably have to deal with the trolls hiding around the internet. However, I’m not ready to give up on blogging. I think aggression towards blogging comes from expectations. Writers expect their page to get millions of views, comments and links. It probably won’t. Is that a bad thing? Is the only purpose of writing for other people to see it? Is there something wrong with blogging for the self? Absolutely not.
I don’t have the time to be a full time blogger. I read blogs every day that update on a regular basis, anywhere from three to ten times a day. Those people are incredible — rich with time, energy, patience and ideas. I subscribe to the slow blogging sect. I think I have something important to say and I want to say it. However, I also believe blogs should be written in reflection. If bloggers think about what they say before they say it, there’s going to be more depth. Blog when you have something to say, not just for the sake of blogging. Let ideas wash over you, let thoughts flow onto the screen. I don’t advocate for the blog as diary approach, but I think everyone has something to say about the news they read, the pictures they see or the movies they watch. Why not give commentary? Criticize? Perhaps even comment ideas expressed in other blogs. Whether people read it or not, there’s always a place for self-expression.
“Taxi to the Dark Side,” Alex Gibney’s Academy Award winning documentary about torture, serves its purpose. It informs people about United States torture policies, especially how they shifted and changed. It clarifies that torture practices like water boarding, forced standing and sleep deprivation were not exclusive to the Abu Ghraib prison, but also at Bagram prison, a prison described by a guard as smelling like the elephant house at the zoo. A narrative twists through the film, the story of a taxi driver named Diliwar from a small farming community in Afghanistan. One day he picked up three men, far from home, and police stopped him. They claimed to have found something in his car and their militia turned him in to the United States. He was taken to Bagram where they tortured him and he died five days later. He was the second man dead in two weeks. The coroner said his legs had been pulpified from brute force. The film combines the documentary styling of talking heads with photographs and features governmental figures such as John Yoo, former member of the Office of Legal Council and current Berkeley professor, with soldiers and lawyers.
For me, the film fell short for one reason — Errol Morris‘ “Standard Operating Procedure.” I first saw “SOP” last May to review it for the USF Foghorn. Throughout the film I felt disturbed and left feeling profoundly upset. Morris focused on the torture at Abu Ghraib and the photographs leaked. He held lengthy interviews with the soldiers, the men on the ground being punished for the behavior encouraged by the government. He explored what circumstances could lead people to act so appallingly. For some it was the military environment — the pressure to attain confessions, the dehumanization of prisoners, and the ambiguous instruction from higher officials. For others it was love — two women eager to please a higher ranking and substantially older man (one is now married to him and I believe they have a baby). The film was organized as a series of talking heads with photos and dramatic recreations of scenes like a close up of a barking dog, a tower of cards falling. The most striking image was photographs running across the screen, matching the times photos were taken to show several angles of the same torture. Eventually the entire screen was filled with photos running across it. A whimsically disconcerting score by Danny Elfman and dark lighting inspired a feeling of dismay. The film was terrifyingly stunning.
I found “Taxi to the Dark Side” less compelling. The interviews with the soldiers reminded me of things I’d seen in Morris’ film. However, the biggest problem is that it felt like it was taking on too much. It traveled from Bagram to Abu Ghraib to GTMO to the US and back again. It briefly touched on war dynamics, the history of torture, torture policy and the humanness behind it all. However, torture policy consumed more time than the history of torture or the story of Diliwar, the narrative behind it all. In Q&A Gibney said the stories have become more important to him than the themes, but I really couldn’t tell. Diliwar’s story felt shallow, like it had been thrown in last instead of having been in mind from the beginning. The film also felt disjointed. It moved from person to person quickly without repeating their name and position. I think “Taxi to the Dark Side” is an important film. It exposes the faults of the government while helping the soldiers to resolve their anger. They had been blamed for a mess caused by ambiguous orders from above. I think understanding their position is infinitely important. Yes, they did some terrible things, but war makes people do terrible things.
Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney visited the USF campus for a Q&A as part of the USF Human Rights Film Festival. Gibney’s career includes several pieces I’ve really enjoyed over the years, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (consulting producer) and “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” (producer). My favorite piece he’s been involved in is “The Blues,” a PBS music feature chronicling the history of blues music. Gibney produced the series with episodes directed by cinematic greats like Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood.
Gibney answered a long series of questions (nearly two hours), many of which were about audience reception of the film and emotions through filming. “It’s a disturbing film…It was a hard film to make because we had to look at very disturbing images for a long period of time,” Gibney explained. Apparently after looking at the images for an extended period of time in the editing room their perception of how upsetting the footage was had changed. With more exposure, they were less profoundly upset than the typical audience would have been. They brought in a group of people to look at the footage and determine what would actually be suitable for the final cut. He claimed the film was profound, simultaneously horrifying in political terms and deeply human. The most interesting concept Gibney addressed was the Times and a proposition from a corporate lawyer. When on a panel for his Enron documentary, a corporate lawyer approached Gibney and asked if he’d make a movie about torture if the lawyer would finance the film. Urged by his father, a WWII interrogator, he agreed. The narrative of “Taxi to the Dark Side” follows the story of an Afghani history of some of the United States torture techniques used post 9/11. He first explained that interrogation is not dependable, but there is a “seductive aspect of reinforcing their own beliefs of what was going on.” The United States took their most severe torture techniques from the Soviet Union and Chinese Communists as well as using historical methods like water boarding. They used torture as a means for acquiring false confessions.
The film was inspired by a story from the New York man falsely arrested and killed. Gibney read the story in the New York Times. Through making the movie he “began to understand how torture mutated and migrated like a virus.” That was the foundation for the film that earned him the 2008 Oscar for best documentary.
Filed under: Arts Reporting, TV Review | Tags: Arts Reporting, Comedy, Satire, Sitcom, Television, The Office
I want to work in “The Office.”
Review by Melissa Baron
5/5 Stars
Before entering the working world, the future seems full of possibility. We’re told that dreams of becoming an astronaut, chef, veterinarian, actress, teacher or scientist can and will be fulfilled with ample effort, schooling and aspiration. Perhaps a lucky few will make it big, but most of us will wind up in the same place: an office. It’s a world of staplers, copy machines, sexual harassment, diversity days and cubicles.
Well into it’s fifth season, “The Office” chronicles the lives of employees at the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. The ignorantly charming, irritating and lovable Michael Scott heads the Scranton branch. His behavior is often inconsiderate, frequently insensitive and always inappropriate, yet endlessly amusing.
In “the Baby Shower,” Michael throws a baby shower for the sperm donor baby of his ex-flame and ex-Vice President for Regional Sales, Jan Levinson – a baby that he insists on considering his very own. Assistant to the Regional Manager Dwight Schrute calls out that the contractions are getting closer and closer together, instead of seeing him on the phone with Jan, we see Dwight holding on to his very full and very fake belly. He lies down on Michael’s desk and births a big, beautiful watermelon, covered in butter to simulate the slippery body of a newborn. Dwight instructs Michael to mark it with a symbol only he can recognize so no baby snatcher will steal it. It immediately slips onto the floor and cracks.
The general question around the office is why they must celebrate the birth of Michael’s ex-girlfriends sperm bank baby, but Michael insists. Saleswoman Phyllis Lapin heads the party planning committee, collecting money for a sheet cake, preparing one bowl of M&M’s for a girl and one for a boy and putting together a display of employee baby photos. Michael informs current love interest Holly Flax that he will act especially cold towards her to respect Jan’s “bloated feelings.” Meanwhile former Dunder Mifflin receptionist turned student Pam Beesley and her fiancé assistant manager Jim Halpert struggle with their long distance relationship.
The shower goes awry when Jan arrives, newborn baby in hand (well, stroller). As Michael laments being uninvolved in the birthing process to Jan, Dwight straps in his watermelon and takes the stroller outside to see if it’s really worth the $1200 price tag. All the employees pile into a conference room for the shower, looking miserable from beginning to end. Their plans to guess the birth date of the baby are a bust and their gift of a stroller a failure compared to the classy stroller she came with. Instead they spend the shower listening to Jan sing to the baby. As she leaves Jan instructs Michael not to date Holly, but he promptly goes inside and gives Holly a hug, expressing that when he held Jan’s baby he didn’t feel much but when he held Holly he did. In the end, love is in the air for Michael and Holly and things resolve between Jim and Pam. A feel good ending for everyone.
In attempting to satire and mock the world of corporate offices, “The Office” actually creates an incredibly appealing environment. Sure, it has its fatal flaws: required diversity day, unreasonable management, sexual harassment, discrimination, mundane tasks and unwavering corporate infrastructure. However, it has something most offices don’t: personality.
Perhaps in real life the characters might make terrible coworkers, but in theory they’re absolutely perfect. Michael channels Larry David in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” an accidental asshole. The kind of man you’d love to hate, but just can’t. Holly becomes Michael’s perfect mate with her flair for unfunny jokes and attempts to entertain her coworkers that usually fail. Jim and Pam’s love story is always slightly predictable and completely heartwarming. Mexican American and gay accountant Oscar Martinez makes the ideal butt of Michael’s jokes, but always handles his oblivious boss with patience and maturity. Snarky accountant and addict (both to gambling and M&Ms) Kevin Malone provides the necessary slapstick and farce. However, it is authoritative science fiction enthusiast Dwight that steals the show with his irrational intensity and his comical antics. Along with a handful of other characters, they create a hysterically awkward and delightfully bizarre office dynamic. It may be office work, but it seems like a lot of fun.
The employees of Dunder Mifflin may not be rocket scientists, models or rockstars, but working in “the Office” is even better
Valentine’s Day is the ideal time of year for a mixtape. Almost every band has at least a few songs devoted to love, heartache or gettin’ intimate. Whether you’ve got someone special or just want to celebrate being single and awesome, here’s my mix for you. It’s a little bit of every possible Valentine’s Day sentiment.
1) “Girl Is On My Mind” by the Black Keys off of “Rubber Factory”
2) “Close to Me” by the Cure off of “Head On The Door”
3) “Still In Love With You” by Thin Lizzy off of “Nightlife”
4) “I Can Get Us Out of Here Tonight” by Lucero off of “Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers”
5) “Girlfriend Is Better” by the Talking Heads off of “Speaking In Tongues”
6) “A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off” by the Magnetic Fields off of “69 Love Songs”
7) “Always Leaving” by Spoonboy off of “I love you, this is a robbery”
*) “La La Love You” by the Pixies off of “Doolittle”
9) “Romance” by R.E.M. off of “Eponymous”
10) “Pretty In Pink” by the Psychedelic Furs off of “All of This and Nothing”
Originally published in the San Francisco Foghorn (2/12/09).
The Woody Allen Letdown of the Century
2/5 Stars
Review by Melissa Baron
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is Woody Allen’s fantasy, the overindulgence of a classic chauvinist craving stunning young women in unrealistic circumstances. The legendary neurotic and romance obsessed director of film staples including “Annie Hall,” “Sleeper” and “Manhattan” reinvents his tired cultural commentary and sexual desires for a new audience. The film masquerades as something new – young cast, foreign location, but at the end of the day it’s just another failed attempt to revive his lost charm.
The film follows two beautiful young women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) on a summer vacation to Barcelona, Spain. The college friends lead conflicting lifestyles, but seemingly more importantly, they seek very different fulfillment from love. Vicky craves seriousness and stability, while Cristina pursues impulsive relations and a bohemian lifestyle. One night in town a charming, exotic and handsome painter named Juan Antionio (Javier Bardem) approaches the girls at dinner and invites them to the town of Oviedo.
Cristina intends to sleep with Juan but instead winds up with an aggravated ulcer, still he manages to charm the pants off of Vicky for one evening of love making that causes aggravated tension and frustration for the rest of the film. Once they head back to Barcelona, Cristina and Juan become close and move in together. Vicky, obviously smitten with Juan, makes plans to marry her seriously boring boyfriend. Juan’s beautiful and insane ex wife Maria Elena (Maria Elena), the artistic genius that once tried to stab him, tries to kill herself and moves in with Cristina and Juan.
Cristina first reacts as any woman should – furiously. However, she quickly realizes that Maria Elena can provide inspiration for photography, her new passion. Maria Elena builds her a dark room, they make out a little bit and bam!, the threesome love affair is born. Cristina becomes the figure that keeps Juan and Maria Elena from breaking each other’s necks. They all love being intimate, artistic and romantic with each other and the girls somehow have no problem sharing one man. Must be quite the man. Drama, broken hearts, promise of a life of discontent and romance ensue and all stories wrap up just in time for the girls to head back to the States at the end of summer.
The contrived story was only worsened by heavy-handed voiceover. It felt like a storybook, a photo-essay at best. Allen indulged every whim, beautiful young starlets locked at the mouth, violent artistic genius, and beautiful scenery. It wasn’t fantastic enough to be imaginative, but wasn’t controlled enough to be believable. Allen transports his tired discourse about the perils of romance, the boredom of stability and the aggravation of love to a new location, but not even Barcelona and beautiful women can breathe fresh life into them. What is the point of watching a movie about Woody Allen’s neurosis if he’s not even in it?
The triangle is an old shape for Allen. Instead of developing one love story well, he incorporates as many as possible, leaving all of them un-relatable. The romance felt completely detached, uninspired and boring. The quirks, charms and humor of the past replaced with a mundane shell of broken relationships devoid of any passion besides sex and anger. The characters, mainly artists by trade, lack the personality and intelligence of the intellectuals Allen chronicled in past films. Allen’s new muse, Johansson, a pitiful inspiration compared to Diane Keaton.
Despite disappointing characters, overbearing voiceover and clichéd storylines, the film looked beautiful and had a lovely soundtrack of Spanish guitar. The camera captured the historic allure and seductiveness of Spain’s cities and countryside. Each shot was filled with vibrant and rich colors, perfectly suiting the rich texture of the instrumental soundtrack.
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” proves that even the best writers and directors can become predictable and trite. Hopefully Allen finds a new muse who can give him a lesson in innovation. It’s time for the second coming of Allen’s
Little Star Pizza – Western Addition Location
846 Divisadero Street
(415) 441-1118
Hours of Operation:
Monday – Closed
Tuesday through Thursday, Sunday – 5pm to 10 pm
Friday and Saturday – 5pm to 11 pm
No Reservations
Take Out Available
Cash Only (ATM Inside the Restaurant)
3/5 Stars
Review by Melissa Baron
Life is full of big decisions. To be or not to be? Victory or death? Fight or flight? Nature or nurture? Thin crust or deep dish? At Little Star Pizza, the answer is both.
After working across the street from Little Star for several weeks and hearing rave reviews from friends and coworkers, I decided to finally try it out. I headed to the restaurant with four friends on a Friday night in November. After a short wait we were seated at a large table in the back. I remember very little about this trip aside from a mind blowingly satisfying meal. More specifically, I remember their pizza special: a thin crust pizza with Gorgonzola cheese, pear and bacon. A pizza I rave about to this day.
My second trip to Little Star was a freezing Saturday night at around 7:30 pm for date night. The front waiting area of the restaurant was packed and diners spilled onto the sidewalk. The hostess continuously informed eager parties that the wait would be 45 minutes as she looked through the pages of names on the list for a limited amount of tables. The small size of the restaurant and the long cooking time for pizza, which on one hand made it seem so hip and crowded, also contributed to a painfully slow turnover for tables. With the bar drowned in patrons and all the waiting seats full, the wait felt like ages. Hoards of people continued plowing through the doors and the noise level maintained a steady roar.
Stomach grumbling I grabbed a menu to plot my meal. The menu boasted a variety of salads, deep-dish pizzas and thin crust pizzas. Each pizza was available in small or large. The cheapest and plainest pizzas start at $11/$15 for thin crust and $12/$16 for deep dish. The most exciting pizzas peak at $17/$21 for thin crust and $18/$23 for deep dish. There’s an assortment of exciting toppings – the meat staples (pepperoni, sausage, chicken), veggies (zucchini, mushrooms, onions, olives, artichoke heart) and cheese (feta, ricotta). The hostess offered to put in deep-dish orders before we were seated to account for a 25-minute bake time. She also read us the special: deep-dish pizza with meatballs, spinach, mushrooms, red bell peppers and ricotta cheese ($18 for a small, $23 for a large). Sold.
After 45 minutes of waiting and salivating over visions of deep dish, we were finally seated at a tall table near the middle of the restaurant. Despite taking our order early, the hostess neglected to take our order to the kitchen so we had to wait over half an hour for our pizza while the thorough waitress came to check on us every few minutes.
When the pizza arrived it smelled and looked sensational. Rich, cherry red tomato sauce topped a thick base of vegetables with golden brown crust an inch thick on the sides and a dollop of ricotta on top. Unfortunately, looks can be deceiving. While the crust and sauce were delicious, the toppings were not up to par. I love meatballs. They have a perfectly unique tenderness and juiciness to them. The idea of meatballs in pizza was thrilling, exhilarating even. For a pizza promising meatballs, there was relatively little to be found. I munched bite after bite waiting for a big savory chunk of meatball, but only found a sprinkling of little meaty pieces. Even worse, the little blob of ricotta made one bite of each piece taste overwhelmingly cheesy and the rest not cheesy enough. My first trip to Little Star was fantastic and my second a total letdown.
Two hours and $25 dollars later I walked back into the bitter cold with leftovers in hand. Next time I want pizza, I’ll opt for the cheap, greasy, meaty stuff instead.
Mel Strikes Back 