time wasted may be time well spent



makes me feel better about wasting time. i think a certain amount of time wasting is necessary for proper brain function, really. you just have to find a balance.

bright eyes and gillian welch

etch a sketch, originally uploaded by sarahjoie.

went to see bright eyes/gillian welch at town hall for their 5/29 show.
it was nice to see that conor appeared to be sober and the aesthetics of the set was awesome. they used a standard school projector to project different things up behind the band. the one in this photo is an etch-a-sketch.
wasn't a huge fan that he played so much of his new music, and so little of his old music, but it was awesome anyway.
Anne Drummond, a now-New York based jazz virtuoso from Seattle, who I have quite a few friends in common with, was in the band on flute, which was awesome. I also have 2-degree connections with the trumpet player/orchestration mastermind Nate Walcott.
Two people I see around the LES quite frequently, Miss Norah Jones and Mr. Richard Julian, played a few songs in the middle of Conor's set as the Little Willies.
When Richard came on stage I screamed, "Yeah Richard!" and Conor, perhaps, not remembering Richard's name, said, "Hi Richard!" My only kind-of conversation with Conor Oberst ever, haha.

Gillian Welch was awesome- her cover of "Jackson" was the highlight in my opinion.
Very glad I went, but just sad that Maria Taylor wasn't on drums- but those two girls on drums kicked butt anyway. Girls on drums is hot.
Not the same as Maria though.

p.s. conor, please get a hair cut!

i've had a platonic crush on jennifer garner since I was a sophomore in high school. I even had a nickname for her that I used with my hs boyfriend:
jenny g.
example: "Do you want to go see Jenny G's new movie with me? I know its horrible, but come'n! You gotta!"
over the years I've kept track of the odd things I have in common with her. We have both worked on the same block. (77th between CPW and Columbus-her waitressing at Isabella's, me at the N-YHS)
Our dads worked for the same company at the same time. (union carbide)
We were both raised rather conservatively. Our parents are both from the Midwest.
We both like dogs and think Michael Vartan is hot. Other than that, not so much in common.




here's a photo I found recently of her and her daughter Violet, who is a little over 1 year.
okay, jenny g is so freakin awesome! and her daughter is so adorable.
I hope i'm like her when i'm 35.

this is janie

yum, originally uploaded by sarahjoie.

janie is my dog. she is super cute. she is the cutest thing ever. really. she got a hair cut. its not so good. but she's still adorable.
isn't her nose just the cutest thing ever?
and she has nice whiskers too.

tea with the times

tea
Originally uploaded by sarahjoie

i like tea. tea on sundays is also lovely.

This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It)

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: May 22, 2007

The way people talk about their pasts reveals a lot about how they approach and write the future.

This is a pretty interesting article I just read in the NYTimes
While reading it, I partially analyzed it from a psychotherapy perspective, and then also saw it from another perspective as an artist and storyteller.
Psychologists and social scientists of all kinds have written numerous articles and books on the subject of art and storytelling- why we do it, what benefit we receive from it, what its purpose is-- such inquiries and hypotheses are endless.
Direct quotes from the article are in italics.

In the article, the scientists suggest the therapeutic power of narrative in recovery from trauma, general talk therapy etc:

At some level, talk therapy has always been an exercise in replaying and reinterpreting each person’s unique life story. Yet Mr. Adler found that in fact those former patients who scored highest on measures of well-being — who had recovered, by standard measures — told very similar tales about their experiences....
The findings suggest that psychotherapy, when it is effective, gives people who are feeling helpless a sense of their own power, in effect altering their life story even as they work to disarm their own demons, Mr. Adler said.

However another study, psychologists at OSU interviewed college students about traumatic high school experiences. They had half the students tell the story in a 1st person narration, and had the other half of the students recall the story in 3rd person.
The study showed that the students who recounted their high school embarrassment in the 3rd person were more sociable and able to feel like they had grown and learned from the experience:

Two clear differences emerged. Those who replayed the scene in the third person rated themselves as having changed significantly since high school — much more so than the first-person group did. The third-person perspective allowed people to reflect on the meaning of their social miscues, the authors suggest, and thus to perceive more psychological growth.

And their behavior changed, too. After completing the psychological questionnaires, each study participant spent time in a waiting room with another student, someone the research subject thought was taking part in the study. In fact the person was working for the research team, and secretly recorded the conversation between the pair, if any. This double agent had no idea which study participants had just relived a high school horror, and which had viewed theirs as a movie scene.

The recordings showed that members of the third-person group were much more sociable than the others. “They were more likely to initiate a conversation, after having perceived themselves as more changed,” said Lisa Libby. She added, “We think that feeling you have changed frees you up to behave as if you have; you think, ‘Wow, I’ve really made some progress’ and it gives you some real momentum.”

Of course its been an often noted belief that acting and storytelling allows you to step outside yourself, put yourself in a more objective place, and telling your own story in the 3rd person perhaps allows yourself to have adequate distance in order to see your overall improvement, or maybe to just see the positive in general.
There is something about storytelling which so cathartic and undeniably therapeutic.
I find this study reassuring, because it helps to reinforce the ideas of how helpful self-expression and the narrative process can be in establishing yourself and your identity.

my favorite "overheard" of the day:

Guy #1: Dude, I think I'm finally starting to sober up.
Guy #2: How can you tell?
Guy #1: Because all of a sudden I can do square roots in my head again.

--Dorm elevator, Columbia University

all the time I overhear conversations, especially at my wacky library job, which are so hilarious and I consider submitting them. 99% of them are "you had to have been there" kind of jokes. which, if you weren't there, just aren't funny.
oh well.

been feeling better...

Guy: So I just wrote, 'John Locke was a great guy.'
Girl: That's all you wrote? How many points did you get?
Guy: He gave me eight out of ten! He must have felt sorry for me.
Girl: Wow. I hope the professors at my school are that easy.

--Fordham University, Lincoln Center

no, that wasn't me. my profs aren't that easy.




Comedy club promoter: Hey, you guys want free beers and some laughs?
Teen tourists' chaperone: They're underage.
Comedy club promoter: How about free sodas and a few giggles?




Friendly young clerk: It's terrible news about Vonnegut, isn't it?
Old woman: I think he deserved to be fired! He shouldn't be saying that racist stuff on the radio!

--Thrift Shop, 23rd & 3rd