by sara felsenstein
These were taken a few weeks ago in Madison, Wis. on my iPhone. It was about 8:30 at night but it could have been midnight or it could have been five in the morning. The combination of snow and empty streets has a time-stopping effect. And there’s something so magical about the way light hits slow-falling snow– it’s even more beautiful than the twinkling of light on rain, I think.
Cities, I think, are absolutely fascinating.
Especially the idea that the people, culture, architecture and industry of cities across the United States can vary so drastically.
A few weeks ago, I visited Charleston, S.C. during my spring break. It was my first time in Charleston, but also my first time in a true Southern city. I grew up right outside of New York City and attend school a few hours from Chicago, so my conception of a city has always been a place filled with sky-high buildings, honking cars and rushed, unfriendly people.
Charleston was definitely not that kind of place.
Charleston has a true Southern flavor, which I loved. Not only do people wave or smile at you on the street, but doormen pause to help tourists with directions and drug store owners actually let people use their bathrooms.
Southern charm is a real thing.
Crazy.
Of course, the city itself is gorgeous, with its beautiful, pastel-colored Antebellum homes situated right on the water. The historic architecture and city layout gave Charleston a European feel, more so than anywhere else I’ve been on the East Coast.
This vibrant metropolis holds close to its roots — so much of the city’s past remains present. Old stone blocks even sit on street corners, once used to help men mount their horses, now active reminders of a genteel past.
And if I wasn’t already in love with the place, some key scenes in The Notebook were shot in Charleston.
What is it about our generation and being ironic?
We love to point out irony. We love to create irony. We even accessorize with irony.
The phrase “that’s so ironic” is probably misused thousands of times a day, in place of “that’s such a coincidence” or “that’s so cliche,” even “that’s so cool!” But in a way, it doesn’t matter whether it’s used correctly.
No, the irony of irony is that just about anything can be ironic.
Take the iPhone. There’s this trend of hiding one of the most advanced tools of communication of our time in retro cases. (Don’t get me wrong, I think the cases are really cool.) But in stuffing the iPhone inside a replica of a cassette tape, or attaching it to an old school receiver, we’re forcing irony onto a machine that’s inherently unironic. We’re very intentional in doing so, reminding others that we are more than the technology we grew up with. We still have the capacity to think for ourselves — if anything the Internet Age has made us more quick-thinking — and we manifest our wittiness in the way we recognize or create irony in daily situations.
Why? Because irony makes us different. In a way, the iPhone (or comparable smartphone) is one of the great levelers of the world. Each day, the phone becomes more ubiquitous. Apple advertises to people across the world, old and young. Since owning an iPhone no longer corresponds with coolness or technological savviness, we young people need some way to set ourselves apart, to make the phone reflect our identities.
Published in The Observer
If you’re anything like my friends and me, Starbucks downs your flex points just about as fast as you down its tall vanilla lattes.
I don’t even drink coffee just to stay awake. There are so many other great reasons to grab a cup: to fill an awkward break between classes, to catch up with friends, to procrastinate studying and to keep warm when the temperature goes subzero.
We live in a caffeine culture, and the ridiculously long coffee lines between classes prove that. You can even tell a lot about a person based on their caffeine preference.
We have the Waddicks types, who linger at the coveted red booths, reading Chaucer or discussing philosophy, slowly sipping large pumpkin spice coffees.
You know someone’s got a long day when their tumbler is filled to the brim with Grab and Go coffee and secured in the net pocket of a protruding backpack.
And then there are those who are perpetually holding Starbucks — never straight coffee but always with an excess of adjectives like nonfat, extra whip, unsweetened, light ice and no foam.
I may be stereotyping, but at Notre Dame getting coffee is a more social thing for girls than for guys. You are much more likely to see four PW girls in LaFun gossiping over coffee, than to see four Siegfried guys crowded around a Burger King table, chatting and sipping their nonfat lattes.
On the other hand, unlike guys, girls don’t typically purchase energy drinks to have fun with their friends. Let’s take the case of Five-Hour Energy shots. Girls never brag about taking them. In fact, most girls will down them in the privacy of a Subway booth or in their own rooms. But when guys pop open that small bottle, they have to broadcast it to whoever they pass by. It’s always like, “Dude, I’m so ridiculously awake now, I just took a Five-Hour Energy. Love that stuff.”
Addiction? Possibly. Problem? Not really.
But the Five-Hour Energy shot poured into the coffee? Yes, I’ve seen it done. Now that’s a problem.
At Notre Dame, we like to think that while we “play hard” on the weekends, during the weekdays we are studious, diligent and in control. However, our coffee drinking habits are oddly reminiscent of our weekend drinking habits. Why else would we order a double shot of espresso on a Monday morning, or claim that “one more cup” of coffee won’t hurt us? Why else would we suffer through headaches at 11 a.m., just because we didn’t have that morning cup?
Whether you’re a social coffee drinker, a caffeine addict, or, gasp, you “don’t like coffee,” there’s no denying that we live in a caffeine culture.
Of course, there are those out there who claim to survive without any caffeine at all. On good, old-fashioned sleep, they say. I still think there has got to be some method to that madness, but for now, more power to them.
SKETCHING A STORY 