As far as American popular culture goes, you can pretty much count me out. I neither know nor care how much cosmetic surgery Nicki Minaj has undergone or what ridiculous getup Lady Gaga has been spotted wearing. For those who share my sensibilities, here are a few suggestions for alternative living that you may not have considered.
Listen: Looking for something new? Neutral Milk Hotel is an American indie rock band formed by underground superstar Jeff Mangum in the early 1990s. In particular, their album “In the Aeroplane over the Sea,” released in 1998, is absolutely smashing. The lyrics seem to be centered on Holocaust victim Anne Frank and her plights with a song title like “Holland, 1945” and various references to her birth and death. The music itself is a bizarre conglomeration of unorthodox instruments, sounds and vocals that any self-respecting hipster would treasure. You might like Neutral Milk Hotel if you enjoy bands such as REM, Band of Horses, Beck or Modest Mouse. This gem of an album exists on YouTube in its entirety.
Taste: There’s no denying it any longer; the days are getting shorter and winter is just around the corner. My morning commute to physics class is getting especially chilly lately and I’ve found it helpful to brew some hot tea in the mornings. Sure, the coffee at Jack & Ed’s is great, but my dining dollars are long gone and a box of tea is pretty economical in comparison. According to the ever-helpful Web MD, antioxidants in green tea may prevent certain types of cancer, burn fat, lower cholesterol and more. For the caffeine junkies, black tea leaves have the highest caffeine content of any kind of tea and contain the same antioxidants that help fight cancer.
Read: With Halloween and all its wonderful weirdness behind us, I find Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” a perfect read for those of us not quite ready to throw away the pumpkins and start buying Christmas decorations. Dorian Gray is a young man in his early twenties. He has wealth, influence, charm and most of all, the beauty of a Greek god. A young artist, Basil Hallward, is drawn to his beauty and paints a masterpiece of him so utterly beautiful that it breaks his heart. Dorian can’t stand the thought of getting older and losing the charm of youth. In despair over his fleeting aesthetic beauty, he bargains away his soul so that the portrait might instead show the scars of time and vice. Falling prey to Lord Henry Watton, Basil’s intriguingly influential friend, Dorian embarks on a life of hedonism while the portrait decays with each day that passes and each evil he commits. If you must, “Dorian Gray” on Netflix is a decent substitute for those of us without a ton of time for leisure reading.