THE GAMUT

If you haven't listened to The Gamut yet, please please do.

http://www.breakthruradio.com/index.php?show=9534

It's my new radio show with Sean Patton on Breakthru Radio where we take hot topics and dissect them. Kind of like The View, but with less middle-aged women and more sexual tension (although I am SURE that Whoopi and Elizabeth Hasselback get it on in the green room before every show). Our first guest is Brent Sullivan. Sean and Brent are two of my absolute favorite comics in NY who are both going to be stunningly famous in five years and then you will feel left out for not having been in the loop back when I told you to be. They're both extremely talented and I feel so fortunate to get to do this with them.

There's also a link on the page to download it as a podcast via iTunes, so if you enjoy hearing my raspy voice freaking out while you're on the treadmill on the gym, that is something you can totally do. I won't judge you for it. Although I do hate when people live lives healthier than mine (but that is an easy thing to do, hence me often full of hate).

Comments? Criticism? Ideas for topics? E-mail thegamutradio@gmail.com. I've been checking it like 3 times a day and even though I'm sure my mom is the only one who's going to send anything to it, I have high hopes that one day the volume of e-mail is going to be so overwhelming I am going to have to hire an intern to sift through it for possible secret admirers that I can date.

Also join the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=336920866332&ref=mf

just dance!

this video made me miss dance/choreo. not that it's the best choreo or dancing i've ever seen, but it has a level of theatricality/mixture of styles that reminds me of stuff like citystep/eden/fap/etc.

at what point do you resign yourself to a lack of limelight? i remember thinking in college that even if i couldn't rock the comedy world or the dance world at harvard (and by rock, i mean be better than everyone else since i have impossibly high standards for myself), i at least consistently managed to get a little bit of both into my life and bridge the gap between those two worlds. but out of college, you have to make decisions b/c nobody will pay you to do a little of everything. my job now excites me and has something new to offer every single day, but it's still within one very specific realm. the world is so much bigger than harvard or hunter that it's hard enough just committing to two different types of comedy (improv and stand-up) let alone anything outside of those. i could still take dance classes if i had time EVER and i know a couple of guys who would have no problem with a weekly trip to la caverna, but part of me wonders if i'll ever get the opportunity to dance onstage again.

now that i think about it, isn't our generation the first that was pushed to such extracurricular greatness? might there be a market for this (and didn't i write my thesis about this re: improv)? there's a whole generation of post-collegiate overachievers who are probably working a job they like (or hate) but still want to flex some muscle they no longer get to. what if there's a boom in amateur literary mags, a capella groups, dance recitals, and community theater?

what i watched

ugggghhh i forced myself to take a day off work, improv, and comedy shows for one day b/c i was THESICKEST yesterday. this was not easy for me. but my mommy came by and took care of me and luckily, i had the world tivo-ed and a sick night of live tv, so here is what i watched yesterday:

-2 episodes of the IT crowd (new obsession)
-2 episodes of How I Met Your Mother
-The Lives of Others (SO GOOD! i like how i break up a day of exclusively comedy with the most depressing German independent movie that's not about nazis in the history of movies)
-half of Bachelor Party 2 (this happened when i fell asleep with Comedy Central on and woke up hazily throughout the day to catch this terrible terrible movie)
-an episode of The Soup
-Big Bang Theory from Monday
-Is it still called Must See TV? Regardless, I watched the full lineup at its actual time which never happens. Community, Parks & Rec, and dos 30 Rocks (60 Rock?). Comedy fangirl nerdgasm w/ guest stars aplenty... Jack Black, Will Arnett, Justin Theroux, James Franco, Dominic Dierkes, DC Pierson, Ben Schwartz... Justin Theroux is one of these people like Paul Feig who is tangentially involved in every cool project on TV and film and yet still not super famous. And James Franco falls into the Jon Hamm/Bradley Cooper/pretty much anyone who's done Between Two Ferns mold of people who are too good-looking/suave to be just comedians but really want to be part of the comedy scene anyway... ugh, unfair. And there were SO MANY ucb people on nbc last night, it was outrageous. I've become such an Andy-April 'shipper. Love them. (This entire paragraph is a pretty good indication of exactly the type of nerd I am. #imtheworst)
-Project Runway (so over it already)
-Daily Show
-Conan (TEAM CONAN FTW)

"Admit it, if you're out with a friend and they get up to go to the bathroom, the first thing you do is reach instinctively for your PDA/phone, when you used to just sit idly and people-watch. Because even when it's quiet, it never stops whispering at you from your pocket or your purse: "cheeeeck meeeee. I could be that person who blew you off, finally coming to my senses. I could be that work email you've been waiting for. I could be that invitation to something better than where you are now." It whispers, it calls to us, it is both our social wellspring and the black hole devouring The Now."
-Stinson Carter, The Subtext of Texting, the Huffington Post

what i am thankful for in 2009

-Empire State of Mind
-Lady Gaga
-The Office wedding episode
-that I didn't throw up during Avatar
-Google Reader
-Not getting swine flu
-that there are free shows to go to every night of the week in NYC (much love to whiplash, punch up your life, big terrific, kabin, and assssscat)
-OBAMA (Even if he's not everything he promised us, i'm still grateful for him)
-tina fey (my own personal obama)
-that I am still not sick of Fidelity or Paper Planes
-Caracas, Veniero's, Minka, and Momofuku Milk Bar
-having my own apartment
-that this is still around:

-Where the Wild Things Are
-Modern Family
-rekindling the yowser bond
-that I can still wear a tiara twice a year (AT LEAST)
-my amazing mom, family, and the best friends a girl could have (from harvard, hunter, comedy and beyond)

What a year! Congrats, guys-- We did it!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 2K10!

Reflecting on the '00s

It's weird to me that blogs and magazines are looking back on the last ten years as a decade because for me, the last ten years are pretty much my entire life. I mean, I don't think I was much of a real person until I was 13. But here are my favorite memories from the last ten years:

Best TV of the '00s: Arrested Development, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The OC, The West Wing, 30 Rock

Best movies of the '00s: Wet Hot American Summer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko (Yeah, okay, so I have the movie taste of a college dorm room... Sue me.)

Best books of the '00s: Empire Falls by Richard Russo, The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, Atonement by Ian McEwan, He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo

Worst people of the '00s: George W. Bush, Tyra Banks

Least favorite fashion statements of the '00s: Uggs, Crocs, Croc Uggs, tights as pants, leggings as pants, bare legs as pants

Best songs of the '00s: Fidelity by Regina Spektor, Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars, Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie, Paper Planes by M.I.A

Best inventions of the '00s: Facebook, Google Reader, iPhones

Best online videos of the '00s: cat wall, Brenda Dickson, money money, Old Greg

My personal greatest accomplishments of the '00s: Getting into Hunter, graduating high school, getting into Harvard, writing a thesis, leading CityStep, graduating college, getting employed, going after the things I wanted HARD (foolishly hard most of the time)

My favorite memories of the '00s: birthday lunches with mom, Yura, Starbucks club, my 16th birthday party, discovering the UCB theater, Grease, prom, sweet 16s, sitting on our rock, FemSex, CityStep, Children of Eden, F Unit, DK3 New Years-es, starting Laughterbirth, first kisses, Club Med, springtimes, Brick, Fete, Tasti, iced coffee and bubble tea

Who I was at the beginning of the '00s: a gooey mess of an 8th grader covered in tears and insecurity, who regularly went home to play Neopets, obsess over fake MTV band 2gether and read Buffy fan fiction

Who I am at the end of the '00s: a college graduate, an Associate Manager, still kind of a gooey mess

Holiday movies!

My favorite holiday movies in no particular order:
Elf
Scrooged
A Muppet Christmas Carol
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original one, not the Jim Carrey one)

Anyone want to have a movie snuggle session? I have Elf tivo-ed and all three muppet christmas specials on vhs (courtesy of kara :))