"His music never stops praying."

From Alex Ross's new (New Yorker-sanctioned) blog, a beautiful quote from contemporary Hungarian composer György Kurtág, upon being asked if he was a believer:

I do not know. I toy with the idea. Consciously, I am certainly an atheist, but I do not say it out loud, because if I look at Bach, I cannot be an atheist. Then I have to accept the way he believed. His music never stops praying. And how can I get closer if I look at him from the outside? I do not believe in the Gospels in a literal fashion, but a Bach fugue has the Crucifixion in it—as the nails are being driven in. In music, I am always looking for the hammering of the nails…. That is a dual vision. My brain rejects it all. But my brain isn’t worth much.

...this is going to be the greatest summer of all time. OF ALL TIME.

I may not know what I'm doing next year, but I do know what I'll be doing for the three months immediately following graduation: riding my bike from Providence to Seattle.

For those of you who haven't heard of Bike & Build, it's a phenomenal organization that raises awareness and money for affordable housing projects by organizing cross-country bike trips. On my particular trip, we will start off building at a Habitat for Humanity site in Providence, before heading west for the next two months. Averaging about 75 miles per day, we will also stop at 7 more build sites on our way to Seattle. At each host location, we will give a presentation about the affordable housing crisis, to raise local awareness for this important issue. When more than 5.1 million Americans live in "worst-case" housing conditions, and more than 13 million Americans are forced to pay over 50% of their income on housing, this needs to be a pressing national issue.

Personally, I have been invested in this issue since the beginning of high school. I was a part of a very active youth group that, on the week-long service trips we took each year, would inevitably be told by the organization with which we were working that we were so efficient at building that they had to scramble to keep up. During my first trip, I helped to rehabilitate houses in Appalachia. I had never seen the effects of economic inequality as dramatically as I did in this Virginia coal-mining town, and the experience stuck with me. I loved the hands-on work of building, the feeling that we were tangibly making a difference in the lives of others, with a product we could see by the end of the week.

If I know you personally, you'll definitely be hearing more from me about this, since I have to raise $4,000 for the cause. But if anyone out there is feeling generous, please don't hesitate to visit my profile on B&B's website and donate!

Throughout the trip I'll be updating this blog as regularly as I can. If you'd like a postcard (from any of these states), give me a donation and then email me your address and which state you'd like.

And like I said - don't worry; you'll be hearing about this again. My level of excitement about this summer is essentially off the chart. Biking + Building = a surefire recipe for success.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers

(x-posted to Women@Brown)



One of the things I was working on at NARAL (other than updating pretty much all of their online content) was researching Crisis Pregnancy Centers. During this time, RH Reality Check came out with this great video about the deceptions spread by CPCs.

From NARAL Pro-Choice California's website (i.e. me):

Crisis Pregnancy Centers, also known as CPCs, are fake clinics and counseling centers that often use deception, inaccurate information and intimidation to prevent potentially pregnant women from accessing abortion and/or birth control services. Commonly, their goal is to impose their anti-choice agenda on women especially in so-called “at risk” communities (low income, minority, non-English speaking, etc). Many of these centers also provide sex education services and therefore have received significant funding both at the state and federal levels from abstinence-only education programs. In trying to make an important and constitutionally protected choice, women should have medically accurate information and counseling that is free of political or religious agenda.

It should be a given that women are provided with complete and accurate information before making choices about their bodies and their reproductive health. And yet.

San Francizzle

I am terribly sorry to have abandoned my blog for so long! It's more than a bit ridiculous. There is much to talk about. But for now, I know you've all been waiting for stories from San Francisco...well, I don't want to spend too much time here, so here are a few photos from an amazing summer.

A gayble cable car (but not a real one, shh) decked out for the pride parade.

The lovely Pacific coast.

Posing with my pal Harvey Milk.

Long story short: I had the opportunity to go to an Oscar de la Renta fashion show at Lake Tahoe with the family I was staying with. It was awesome. More importantly, I wore an awesome hat.

Gorgeous Asilomar State Beach, near Monterey.

A sampling of NARAL interns on my last day at the office! (Side note: if you click through that link, you will see how amazingly fantastic the website looks, courtesy of yours truly.)

Alcatraz from the ferry.

Downtown from a distance. And palm trees, which I never did get used to seeing.

Self-explanatory. Unless it's not.

The famous Castro Theatre.

My brother came to visit during my last weekend in San Francisco - definitely one of the highlights of the summer.

The Little Hater

It has been way too long since I last posted. The main reason: my computer pretty much stopped working and had to be rebuilt. No big deal - everything was backed up. But it was a hassle, and meant I didn't always have access to a computer, and most importantly, didn't have access to all the lovely pictures of San Francisco I wanted to post. I've also been meaning to do a post on some of the stuff I'm researching at NARAL, but we'll save that for very soon, I promise.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned that I love Jay Smooth, but I do. He's incredibly smart (and obviously feminist, anti-racist, and anti-homophobic) and provides great critiques of pop culture, but also seems like a friendly and compassionate guy with whom I'd feel comfortable striking up a conversation. In any case, this video here is a perfect description of what it feels like to be a blogger, a writer, a musician, or anyone who puts out a creative product for others to see. Personally, I feel like that "little hater" is always in the back of my mind. When he said the part about procrastination, I instantly gave him snaps (without considering the fact that no one could see/hear me).




The little hater is pretty much always there, telling me that my work just isn't worthy of being shown to anyone. Sometimes I can acknowledge that what I've done is good - in the case of my writing, it's not till after after I get positive feedback; in the case of music, I usually know when something special has happened (see also: most Saxtet performances). I haven't yet figured out a way to beat procrastination and self-doubt (which I think are inherently related), other than putting things off because I "work better under pressure," which means I either don't get stuff done or I don't sleep. Making detailed schedules helps with the procrastination, but not so much the self-doubt. Any sound advice out there?

In any case, go check out more of Jay's stuff while you're waiting with bated breath for me to post again.

Happy Fourth of July!

(Via Feministe)

Greetings from San Francisco!

The view from my window.

It's been a while since I last updated...but I am currently writing from the city on the hill! I just arrived on Monday and I'm here until the end of August, living with a friend's family in the Sunset District (the trees on the left of the picture mark the edge of Golden Gate Park, which is truly lovely).

The real purpose of my being here, however, is interning at NARAL Pro-Choice California. Unfortunately I won't be able to give a whole lot of details about the experience, as we have to be really careful about confidentiality (because there are a lot of anti-choice crazies out there), but suffice it to say that my first day was awesome and I'm excited to be working there. The people are all incredibly friendly and sweet, and I'm going to get a chance to work on a few different projects, which will be great for figuring out what kinds of areas I enjoy (media, communications, outreach, etc.).

As for San Francisco, I'm already a big fan. We've had great weather so far, though I'm told not to expect this in general - certainly, there has been plenty of fog in the mornings and evenings, but the days have been quite sunny and nice. Proof of the mild climate: there is a lemon tree in the backyard!

Highlight of my wandering around the Financial District (which I have dubbed "Baby Manhattan") alone yesterday: riding a cable car! Definitely an experience that is deserving of the hype.

Oh, and Pride is this weekend! Now I just need to find a friend to go to the parade with me...