Alt Groove Recap 4.25 - Jahkeem from (S)ecrets Interview!

*Featured track: "All Night All Day" by (S)ecrets*

I had the chance today to interview Jahkeem from the band (S)ecrets, the official "pop ensemble" on campus. They have been together for a couple of semesters and preparing for a show this coming Monday. (S)ecrets recently released an album titled (S)ecrets: On the DL. There are nine people in the band and they all collaborate with all sorts of influences to make this awesome pop/hip hop sound.

Click here for the audio from the interview!

L O C A L :

• Free Yoga for earth day rescheduled for monday 12pm - 2pm
• Keith Haring exhibit of his earlier work at the Brooklyn Museum till July 8th
• You should go to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens!
• (S)ecrets LIVE in the quad @ 1pm, then again @ 7:30 pm at the Garner Recital Hall

TTFN! <3

Reuse Those Glass bottles for Your Tea! - Quick DIY

'Tis the season for cool refreshing drinks! My personal favorite is Iced Tea. It can get expensive really quick buying cans or even gallons of Arizona or Honest Tea, but tea bags? Not so much. When I do buy bottled tea, I try to stick with glass bottles so I can reuse them with my own tea!

You will need....

• Glass bottles (Honest, Tazo, and Snapple use glass instead of plastic in most cases)
• Your favorite tea
• Your favorite tea fixins

1. Drink the tea you bought at your leisure. sip, ahhhhhh. Remove label from the bottle and wash it out. I find a paste made from baking soda helps remove the sticky goo left behind by the label. 
2. Use the bottle to measure out how much water you want to boil for your tea. In this case I had two bottles to fill, so I used the bottle to transfer water from sink to pot (twice). Then add about half a bottle more since some water will evaporate.
3. Use twice as many tea bags as you would for hot tea. I decided to go for pomegranate green tea today.
4. When your tea has steeped for the appropriate amount of time, stir in your fixins while it's still hot  so things like sugar have a chance to melt into the drink rather than sink to the bottom. I used three teaspoons for this batch.
5. You can wait for the tea to cool down if you'd like, but I usually just pour it right in at this point.
6. Chill in the fridge for a few hours, and enjoy whenever you like!

I find this particularly great for getting ready for school. I make a batch of 5 or 6 bottles sunday night and it's ready to grab and go throughout the week since I'm always on the move. Let me know if you try this out! And what are some of your favorite teas?

TTFN!

-Avé Renée

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens | Brooklyn Museum - Field Trip!

Yesterday the SCSU Student Arts League went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and the Brooklyn Museum. For my first time in Brooklyn, this trip was perfect.

The botanical gardens was honestly the most relaxing and inspiring venture I've been on in quite some time. The conservatory included exotic plants from tropical, desert, and warmer climates; where I drew the most inspiration from. The textures and shapes in some of these plants were hard to ignore. I can't wait to incorporate it in my sculptures next semester! My favorite part was the Cherry Walk. There were two rows of the most beautiful cherry blossom trees I've ever seen. The weather was gorgeous--a slight breeze...toes between the grass...sun shining....ahh! So great. 

Between the garden and the Brooklyn Museum, my friend and I wanted to find a bite to eat. We walked a couple of blocks past the library to stumble across a farmer's market. I was NOT leaving the market till I had a cup of fresh apple cider :3. There were also a couple of venders selling tees, jewelry, and hand made totes. I fell in love with a pair of $65 earrings but sadly I couldn't afford to impulse buy, le sighh. 

The Brooklyn Museum was super great from what I saw. I only had enough time to wander on the fourth and fifth floor. I'm not the greatest museum buddy; I tend to wander around without a map and without a mission. However, I'm glad I saw two particular exhibits: The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago and Keith Haring: 1978 - 1982. Haring is one of my most favorite artists, so to see some of his early work was amazing.

The Matrix by Keith Haring in the Brooklyn Museum

Afterwards we had dinner at The Pour and caught the last couple of innings of the Yankee game (I'm not one for baseball, but it was a pretty good game!) I treated myself to a turkey burger complete with avocado slices and tatertots. Yes. Tatertots. Best tatertots I've ever had (Napoleon Dynomite would be proud). We made our final stop at The Strand. Our advisor described it as if "you were to open up your laptop, and walk into the book section of Amazon.com." It was a pretty accurate description. There's four floors, one of which is dedicated to just art books. Used, new, rare, cheap--all awesome. I will definitely make a trip back to The Strand with money and time to spend. It was a perfect ending to well overdue field trip. I've been a college student for four years a while and have yet to go on a field trip; I need to take advantage of what my tuition is going towards!

Alt Groove Recap - 4.18 - Tuna Scrape, what?

P L A Y L I S T :

F A S H I O N :

This has been the week of flowy dresses on campus all week! Larger patterns in style, I can dig it. I'm also diggin' the availability of canvas shoes this season. I plan on dying and designing a pair for myself, so hopefully you'll get a chance to see it. Lastly, a trend I'm seeing on campus for both boys and girls are deconstructed denim vests; it's a great way to express and personalize your style--great for everyone!

T O P I C S :

• The Needle Drop came by and talked about his career as a music critic via his vlog, blog, and radio show. It was awesome! Check out my full review of the event here.
• The media studies club hosted a showing of The Purity Myth. This film showcases the inequality between men and women when it comes to sex and virginity. Lately, government agencies, schools, and the media want to see a return to gender rolls circa 1950 and have been placing a huge importance on women's virginity. It lead to great discussion; I made sure to point out to the men in the room that this view of women adds yet another layer of challenge that women face in everyday life that men never have to worry about. The film also shows people in favor of this movement towards virginity opposing feminists. The most shocking part was the women who were against feminism--REALLY? Feminism is the support of equality between the sexes. When women are still being paid 20 cents less than men across the board, I don't know how any woman could be against it. Other points were made, like not every christian or republican thinks like this and how the crazy few make the rest look bad to the public. I think the most important part of this event was showing how crucial it is to vote so Romney people who think like this aren't elected into office.
• While scrolling through my twitter feed, I came across NPR's tweet that jeopardized my love for spicy tuna rolls. Apparently there's a growing concern about the safety of raw fish because of something they call "tuna scrape," which is the meat closest to the bones. Say it ain't so! Read more about it here. 

Internet's Busiest Music Nerd...On Campus!

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Anthony Fantano of the b/vlog, The Needle Drop. WSIN radio, where he got his start, hosted the event. If you haven't heard of or seen it yet, The Needle Drop reviews music from all sorts of genres focusing on those of the "independent persuasion."

We talked about how he started, how he makes a living, advice for future media entrepreneurs, music stuff, etc etc... It was slightly surreal to meet a youtuber I'm so used to seeing on my computer screen, but it was really awesome! He was super nice and helpful, just what I needed as I'm kicking this hobby into high gear :).

There were two little gems of info that I gained from this Q&A session (three if you include the birth of Cal Chuchesta):

1. Post content consistently, using all social media sites to your advantage. He used a rapper by the name of Little B (Lil' B?) as an example. He's certainly not the greatest rapper (to say the least), but he's constantly uploading mix tapes, music videos, and posting on twitter--so much that it leaves little room to breath and consume it all; but it's effective.
2. As long as you provide an original perspective on a topic you love, people will come back and might even follow. This is especially true if you share content with others that they may not have learned otherwise.  It also helps if it's content that people would want to share.

There were a bunch of other things like how he handles his diverse fan base and requests, where does his income come from with advertisements, and more businessy type things, but I'm not quite there yet :P Still, super cool to meet him and learn behind the scenes things about a young, successful entrepreneur. Hope to see him again sometime!