An Oasis for Writers

Technology finally answered my prayers. FastPencil is a new self-publishing site that allows writers to publish and get immediate feedback for their work. A recent blog in the NY Times discusses the benefits of this new technology.

Publishing has become increasingly easier with the rise of technology. This obviously denotes an increased competition for writers. Yet, I am particularly pleased with the networking aspect of emerging sites for writers. In FastPencil, you can add reviewers and editors to your book project (yes you can upload an entire book) which truly facilitates a writer's career. As soon as I read about this site, I immediately opened myself an account. Of course, one cannot expect to become immediately rich and successful in the writing world, even with the rise of technology, but its significant aid is undeniable!

The Fate of Sudan

This Sunday, Sudan will experience a major historic and political event. For the first time since 1986 the country will undergo multi-party national elections. Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been held responsible for several crimes in the Darfur conflict, has stated that he will respect the results of the election, yet many groups such as Sudan People's Liberation Movement have threatened to boycott the elections due to its corrupt nature. Yet these elections undoubtedly mark a significant step in Sudanese people's involvement in the governing of their country.

Today, I read an article in the New York Times about the more than 300 Darfur immigrants that are now residing in Kensington, Brooklyn. One cannot help immediately relating Sudan to the war in Darfur. To be honest, it is all that comes up to me when I think about this country. It is difficult to not see the country in a political light, especially with the ongoing elections. Yet, I think we should start regarding Sudan as a community, as a culture, as a society that is progressing in protecting and enforcing human rights. Naturally, the country has a long road ahead. Sudan is rich in natural resources such as unproven minerals and oil reserves, yet it is up to its government to promote an equitable progress.

Ignorance Is Bliss?

“If I’m not going to like it, I don’t want to hear it.” I have repeatedly told this phrase to my friend Bianca, also known as “the bearer of bad news”, yet she continues to tell me things I genuinely do not want to know. A few days ago, at one of our weekly get-togethers at her apartment, she casually informed me that my kindergarten boyfriend, the love of my life at that time, kissed half the girls in our class while he was with me. Needless to say, I absolutely did not want to know this. Why would she ruin my perfect childhood romance by revealing that my beloved was a little Casanova? I would have rather lived happily in my ignorance with my false, yet perfect, image of my first love. That brings me to the question, is not-knowing, as a rule of thumb, better than knowing?

Are less intelligent people happier than more intelligent ones? Since intelligence is a fairly subjective matter, for practical reasons, let us refer to it in terms of knowledge.

The General Social Survey asks a certain group of individuals about happiness and tells them to complete a basic vocabulary test as a measure of intelligence. The people are divided into top, middle, and bottom categories according to their levels of intelligence. The survey showed no significant discrepancy in the happiness of the top, middle, and bottom categories. Nevertheless, when it came to unhappiness, only 8% of the top and middle sections claimed to be unhappy, while 14% in the bottom third declared themselves as unhappy.

In our modern era where capitalism rules the world, one would logically assume that intelligent people are happier. Brains get you higher-paying jobs and money brings you happiness; simple as that. The successful corporate lawyer, who graduated from Harvard, surely appears to be more content with his life than the unemployed fellow who was not smart enough to even get into college.

It is not a challenge to conclude that knowledge, when involving one’s degree of intelligence, leads to success and, therefore, happiness. Yet, when it comes to non-intellectual knowledge, can we arrive to the same conclusion? My friend Bianca did me no favor by telling me my kindergarten boyfriend was outrageously unfaithful to me. When I found this out, my life was not positively affected. If anything, it was negatively affected. I was happier not knowing of my lover’s infidelities. My ignorance certainly did not hurt me in any way. Here, I can affirm that my ignorance was, indeed, bliss. Yet I cannot make a generalization based on my trivial situation.

For the most part, in exception to my mild heartbreak, ignorance does not lead to bliss. Think about it this way: success brings happiness and success without knowledge is practically unfeasible. Great things cannot be accomplished by living in the darkness. Of course there will always be instances in which we are better off being ignorant. I myself have agreed to this by posing the example of my adulterous childhood boyfriend. As Anatole France said, “A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.” Evidently it is up to one’s judgment to decide when to opt for ignorance and when to opt for knowledge. Yet, as rational individuals, in most life situations, we are aware of when we are being ignorant- we are aware that there is a reality out there that we have not yet been exposed to. Sooner than later, we are bound to be awakened to such reality and the longer we have lived in a perfect lie, the cruder our awakening will be. A happy fool is only happy for so long.

Little Felons

Have you ever heard such a thing as a jail-themed playground? As a kid and early teenager, who loved playing cops and robbers, I would've been thrilled by such a playground. I remember feeling eager before going to my school's carnival and playing at the jail booth, where you could pay tickets and have your friends be arrested. Who said childish games are not morbid?

An article in the NY Times addressed the recent criticism a playground at the Tompkins Houses development in Bedford-Stuyvesent received jail-themed bars and cell door. Upon Black and Brown News' article criticizing the park's theme, the New York City Housing Authority removed the park's jail sign and bars.

According to Susan Solomon, author of American Playgrounds, believes playground equipment should be more abstract in order to promote children's creativity. " “A jail may be sort of extreme, but it’s really I think representative of the fact that too often, the playground manufacturers and the people who are commissioning them are thinking too literally, and they’re not looking at how much abstraction really benefits kids.” I definitely think she presents a valid point. Though jail, castle, and jungle themed playgrounds may be fun to children, a more beneficial altrenative would be to create less literal playgrounds and let children play with their imagination. This too, would eliminate the hassle of unintentionally creating inappropriate-themed playgrounds.

NYU Village

It is impossible to walk around Greenwich Village and not feel the overpowering presence of NYU. Not only are their buildings everywhere, but NYU is publicized in restaurants, supermarkets, and local stores that offer discounts to all their students. As a New School student, it is difficult not to feel insignificant in comparison, hence their animosity towards NYU.

This week I read an article in the NY Times about NYU's expansion plans for the future. The institution plans to grow 40% in size over the next 20 years, which denotes to an additional 6 million square feet. To compensate for their massive occupation of the village, the university has announced that it will donate one of its future buildings for the opening of an elementary school. Scott Stringer, Manhattan's borough president, perceives this as a genuine contribution to Greenwich Village families.

NYU's expansion plans are quite overwhelming for Greenwich Village residents. I find it understandable for the inhabitants of this residential area to feel bothered by their neighborhood becoming increasingly invaded by college dormitories. Even the report issued by the Manhattan borough president perceived the university's expansion plans as problematic. Nevertheless, their move to give back to the community by enabling the opening of a new school, in an area where schools are overcrowded, was an undoubtedly good move. This proposal earned them Stringer's acclamation and will most likely earn them some points with the Village residents.

2. A Melancholic Movie Ending

One spring morning seven years ago, 25 year old California-native John Bullock was walking around the highly populated and commercial West Village when all of a sudden he had a vision: he was going to open his own video store in this neighborhood. His goal was to combine his passion for movies and his desire to succeed in the city into one new and exciting business.

Two years later Bullock opened Cinema Classics, a small video store on Perry Street and 7th Avenue South, which offers the best classic movies of all times. “There are many movie aficionados in the Village area, so the store was quite a hit during its first couple of years,” Bullock says. Bullock, a movie aficionado himself, would spend hours talking to customers about his favorite directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Franz Capra, and Gus Van Sant.

Yet the current economic crisis, the intense competition with more economical movie services, such as Netflix and On Demand, and the ongoing movie piracy industry, have all taken a toll in Bullock’s industry. After a severe decline in the store’s customer rate that accounted to an approximate 40% drop in its sales, the store can no longer afford its $5000 a month retail space in the West Village. It is programmed to close this upcoming April. “Now a days watching a movie in the Internet is about the easiest thing in the world. It’s impressive how far piracy has gone,” Bullock says.

Victor Lewis, one of Cinema Classic’s old customers says about the store, “The actual selection of movies is solid if not out of this world. The problem with the store I feel is that it'll go out of business because there's too much competition around.”

Not only are the small businesses suffering from the economic crisis. A decline in the economy’s rate of profit taking place since the 1950’s seems to be affecting all businesses. Last year, the closing of the Virgin Megastores marked a significant turning point in the music and movie industries. The store’s revenue declined from $230 million in 2002 to $170 million in 2009.

Free online movie sites have become increasingly popular in the past couple of years. Websites such as Watch-Movies, Project Free TV, and even YouTube provide a vast database of both vintage and contemporary movies that viewers can watch without the need of downloading, spending money, or leaving their homes. According to the Motion Pictures Association of America (MCAA), 18% of online users in the US have illegally watched a full-length movie. When asked if he watches movies on illegal Internet sites, Terrell Smith, movie fan and New School student says, “Yes. I’d rather not spend the money, but also because they’re readily available on the Internet and I don’t think the people who watch the content are at fault, but the ones who upload it are the ones doing the disservices to the movie industry.” When asked the same questions, most students had similar reactions. Many perceived the movie industry as being overly rich and not truly suffering from online movie piracy.

Yet for small executive John Bullock, the illegal competition cost him his business. The average $20 sale price of the DVD’s in Cinema Classics cannot compete with the free illegal movie databases online. Bullock is reluctant about getting into details about his future career plans, yet he does plan to continue to offer the movies he has in stock through the store’s website. “I’ve made a good income doing what I do best for many years. It is now time for Cinema Classics to take a different path,” Bullock says. Above all, the hopeful owner refuses to believe that this will be the end of his esteemed company.

Hurts So Good

Let’s face it! Chivalry is dead, corny romance has passed away, and lust is the new love. Nowadays people are obsessed with sex, blood, danger, sadomasochism, fangs, and the embodiment of them all: vampires.

Lady Gaga arrived at the Heathrow Airport wearing one of her signature leotards and vampire fangs, American Idol finalist Adam Lambert dressed up as a glamorous vampire in an all-black suite this past Halloween, and the Twilight cast seems to be in the cover of almost every magazine. It is not an overstatement to say that blood-sucking characters have invaded the media.

HBO’s True Blood reached a whopping 12 million viewers in 2009. The show’s plot revolves around the coexistence of vampires and humans in the small town of Bon Temps, Louisiana where suspense, crime, and sex reign. According to television critic April MacIntyre, Alan Ball, the show’s creator, has “artfully blended gore, romance, humor and horror into a modern day ‘Dark Shadows,’ with cliffhangers and a dash of camp.”

According to CW’s ratings, Vampire Diaries has twice as many viewers as Gossip Girl. Nylon magazine’s February issue featured the series’ young actors and referred to the show as “Dawson’s Creek with less talk and more action.”

The alleged precursor of the vampire phenomenon is no other than Stephanie Meyers’ book series turned movie saga Twilight. Its most recent movie, New Moon was the biggest opening-day box office hit on record, surpassing last year’s box office hit movie The Dark Night. The series takes a more romantic approach on the portrayal of its characters, yet the blood and danger are still present- two elements that cannot be suppressed from the stories’ plot.

Why are people so obsessed with vampires? What is so captivating about characters that want to suck your blood? For starters, not all vampires are killers. Unlike 90’s show Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, today’s media portrays vampires as friends not foe. Not all vampires are hostile. Some are friendly individuals that can interact with humans despite their temptation to feed on them. Vampires are dangerous, and who doesn’t love playing with danger? Part of this fascination has to do with a sadomasochistic nature. “I think it’s sexy when a guy bites me. I sometimes ask my boyfriend to bite my neck really hard.” Allie P, Parsons student, tells me. Vampires are sexual characters. The idea of them craving one’s blood and inducing pain upon one is thrilling. Moreover, people are always intrigued by the supernatural. “They are immortal, strong, sexy, and mysterious”, Blanca Benavides, another Parsons student, says about her blood-sucking idols.

Of course, not everyone is a fan of vampires. Not only do they have fictional enemies, but also real life ones. “I don’t like the whole blood, biting essence of vampires. I’m not into that,” Vicki Sotiros, 19, says. Groups such as “Vampire Haters” and “Twilight is So Dumb” have recently appeared in the Facebook network. “Honestly this vampire shit is getting on my nerves so much. Edward looked like a crack addict in the movie,” Ahmer Kidwai, creator of the latter group, says. Apparently, he did indeed watch the movie, which brings me to my next point: love them or hate them, one cannot escape the vampire phenomenon.

Vampires are the super heroes, or anti-heroes, of our generation. They scare, they intrigue, they captivate. They personify sex, desire, danger, and power. If Buffy were still in the picture and tried to slay Edward Cullen or Bill Compton, she would have probably been crushed by a mass of raging vampire fans.