Swedes! Norwegians!

At the end of last month I got to check out two newer bands from Scandinavia, the ever fertile (if frozen) land of indie pop. Those Dancing Days and I Was a King both played at Union Hall and both were great. Those Dancing Days were a fantastic discovery and will surely be the next girly Swedish pop sensation (with a good amount of young punk attitude thrown in) due to their catchy melodies and high energy live show. You can check out my review for Venus Zine (and photos, though those are nothing to brag about) here. I Was a King sounded so much like American, mid-1990's Chapel Hill-style indie rock that I felt like I was in high school all over again. They probably were too then. Check out my review for Venus Zine here. Thanks!

NYC Popfest on the Brooklyn Vegan

The lovely Dominick Mastrangelo covered the NYC Popfest for the Brooklyn Vegan last weekend and I helped him out by contributing words for night 3 at the Bell House featuring the Eux Autres, The Secret History, and The Radio Dept. among others. It was a good show, but I was so tired my review came off as pretty blase, especially considering I had to get up very early the next morning. I love shows and bands, but I am realizing that I need to go to less of them. I feel a little bit famous getting to contribute some words to NYC's most notorious music blog and have already generated some snarky comments. Awesome! Please check out my review (and Dominick's lovely photos) here.

Tag, You're It!

I like a workplace that's fun as well as intellectually stimulating and it's always nice when I get tapped on the shoulder to participate in one of our ever expanding and innovative online community projects. This one centers on one of my favorite objects in the collection, the space lander bicycle, and demonstrates how one can "tag" objects in our collection online through the "Tag! You're it" game on the Museum's website. Enjoy!

Central Europe Spring 2009!

LJ and I had been talking about a trip to Central Europe since 2003 or thereabouts. Half of her family is from Hungary and we were interested to explore that country and since we were over there, why not the countries around it? Our list expanded and shrank as we planned, but when we finally decided to go for real we settled on visiting Budapest, Vienna, Prague and Berlin.

We just got back last week and it was a truly life changing trip. Not in any grant way, but spending 2 weeks wandering cities filled with so much history and architecture just put me in a completely different mental state. It made me feel more like who I am. I feel more positive and better able to see the bigger picture in the world. While travel is eye opening, it's also very internal. It meant I got to indulge in my favorite things: walking around looking at cities, riding public transit, drinking coffee, observing, and having adventures big and small, and I got to do it all with some of my favorite people in this world. You can see the adventures (and read the descriptions) on flickr here and look at the photos as a set to see them more artfully arranged.

Camera Obscura French Navy Video

Dominick shared this video with me. Not only is it my current favorite pop song, but it's also my life between 2006 and 2008 in pop video version. Enjoy!

Recent Reviews

I've been going to some great shows lately and Dominick has been taking some great photos! Just this week we saw Camera Obscura at the Bell House and they were breath taking. They were much better than the last time I saw them in New York at the South Street Seaport. They've really grown as a band and their new album "My Maudlin Career" illustrates this very nicely. Check out my review and Dominick's photos here.
We also saw the French Kicks not too long ago and you can read that review here.

Article about Aiko on Venuszine.com

Earlier in January I wrote this article profiling the amazing street artist Aiko for Venuszine.com. I really enjoy talking to Aiko about her artistic vision, experiences, and projects. I always emerge from our conversations with new insights about living and working as a visionary and brave artist in a very male-dominated field. Please check out the article and let me know what you think!

Corita's Myspace!

As most of you may know, I'm in a wonderful post-punk, indie rock band called Corita with my friends Nick, Marisha and Aileen. We finally have a Myspace page to show for our efforts with three songs, a video and some photos. So please visit us here: www.myspace.com/coritanyc and while I know Myspace is a bit passe, please do add us as a friend so that you can keep up with us, hear more songs as we record them and come to a show when we finally do play out!

Brooklyn Museum vs. MoMA

Now, I say to each their own and I enjoy visiting the MoMA, though I am not sure how I feel about their invasion of the Atlantic Pacific subway stop. I would say "it's better than advertising," but it IS advertising. However, this article from the Brooklyn Paper made me laugh, because officially even though the Brooklyn Museum is like "Hey, we're cool with it," the journalist and the people interviewed are like "Brooklyn is better! Back of MoMA!" I like the idea of the Brooklyn Museum plastering Times Square with reproductions of their works of art though...

Cheryl "Thanks for Ruining My Prom, Thanks for Ruining My Life"

Oh, I am so excited, another Cheryl and another Cheryl video! See you next Thursday!