What a strange and wondrous trip it has been….
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Full disclosure: I saw this movie by myself on a Saturday afternoon at the IFC Center in NYC. What followed was ninety minutes of incredibly inspirational and powerful documentary filmmaking. Chronicling the rise of Weiwei from Chinese activist blogger to international art world icon, the unflinching doc captures a snapshot of the dissident artist at his weakest, plagued by allegations of tax evasion. Weiwei’s large-scale sculpture Circle of Zodiac is now on display in the plaza outside of Roberston Hall on Princeton University campus, which walking past is one of the more blissful parts of my day.
Logging off Facebook
Logging off Facebook proved to not only enhance my productivity but also take away the difficulty of trying to describe my current self through my Favorite Movies / Books / Music, wall posts, and a series of statuses. +1 for stopping the incessant photo-stalking of a middle-school companion who is a chronic over-sharer.
Melatonin
I have almost nightly experienced uncomfortable stress dreams involving spreadsheets, supermarkets (it’s happened), or even WPRB’s internet stream (ah..the glories of being station manager). However, since becoming a adherent to melatonin, the most distressing moments of sleep, including the nightly mid-sleep-pseudo-awake moment at 4 AM that inevitably leads to a bout of tossing and turning, have subsided. Thank you 2012, for bringing me a more restful 8(ish) hours.
I Feel Like Going Home
More than delving into new releases, I found myself finding odd comfort in albums that I’ve listened to on repeat. While this may not be musically adventurous, I found some musical and lyrical nuances in records that I hadn’t, in some instances, heard in years. Records of note include The Radio Dept. – Lesser Matters, The Rosebuds – Make Out, Beach Fossils – What A Pleasure. [Honorable mentions for Record of the Year: Craft Spells - Gallery EP, The Orwells - Remember When, Wild Nothing - Nocturne.]
Why I Left Goldman Sachs
Don’t get me wrong: Greg Smith’s “tell-all” book amounted to little less than the knowledge that Goldman employees like ping-pong tournaments and that the summer analyst program has certain fraternity-esque initiation processes (who knew?). Regardless of the middling and quite frankly, slightly boring, content of the book, beginning with his scathing editorial in the Times earlier in the year, 2012 has been the year that, at least for me, has sprung intelligent discourse about the financial services industry in a more personal, thought-provoking way.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD3gpDwRTpc]