Check. It. Out.

I'm constantly contemplating where to get my next coffee. Last night Recess was closed and I didn't want to go to Second Story. I'm already boycotting Starbucks, and I figured that Freedom of Espresso was already closed. I tried to go to Sugar Pearl but it appeared closed and some dude was giving me the stink eye from the interior [members only party?] I was about to just go to Dunkin Donuts when I remembered this quaint little coffee shop that I'd been to before.

COFFEE PAVILION.

Seriously- GO HERE. They have apparently undergone some serious renovations, as the space is now shared with the Orange Line Gallery.

It's apparently brand new, and sort of a weird juxtaposition of bright, white walls with framed things all over, next to the Coffee Pavilion we all know and love. The coffee is good, and Hanover Square, I feel, is often overlooked. I always forget about how cool a lot of the buildings in Hanover Square are. GO.

ps- CP has cupcakes.

CALL FOR ENTRIES

This blog has been rather stagnant lately. Let's change that. If you're reading this right now, it's up to YOU to help us provide some fresh and awesome content. Some ideas to follow, or pitch your own:

-Free stuff to do in Syracuse

-New and interesting things to do in Syracuse

-Ways to make this blog better

-Ways to make people want to read this.

comment or email: syracute@gmail.com

[thank you annie for letting me use your likeness to draw in the readers]

xoxo.

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Community Folk Art Center

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this email I received looks awesome:






COMMUNITY FOLK ART CENTER'S ANNUAL CINEMATIC FESTIVAL PRESENTS
"Keepin' It Reel '08: Exploring Hip Hop"
February 14- 17, 2008

In honor of Black History Month, the Community Folk Art Center presents its annual Cinematic Festival. This year we will be exploring Hip Hop culture. Beginning Thursday, February 14 through Sunday, February 17 the festival will showcase independent works from emerging filmmakers. The festival explores such topics as misogyny in the rap world, Hip Hop in Africa, graffiti, as well as increasing popularity of Christian Hip Hop.

Our festival will begin with the screening of Byron Hurt's groundbreaking documentary, "Beyond Beats and Rhymes," which will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker. That night will also be the debut of 16 year-old filmmaker Ziggy who will screen his short film "Hip Hop: My Revolution."

On Saturday, the festival will begin with a graffiti workshop for high school age students and the screening of the graffiti documentary "Rock Fresh." Following the workshop, filmmaker Dante Kaba will screen his film Mixtress X which details the experience of women deejays. The day will conclude with "The Hip Hop Project," a documentary about a group of New York City teens who utilize Hip Hop to transform their lives. We will conclude our festival on Sunday with the screening "Holy Hip Hop." This film provides an opportunity to learn more about Christian Hip Hop.

There is something for everyone! Come out and experience a festival that looks in depth at the worldwide phenomenon that is Hip Hop. The graffiti workshop is free but you must register and the cost per film is $5.00.

Keepin' It Reel 08: Exploring Hip Hop

Thursday, February 14, 2008 Beyond Beats and Rhymes 7pm
Friday, February 15, 2008 Hip Hop Colony 7pm
Saturday, February 16, 2008 Free Graffiti workshop 12 pm
Saturday, February 16, 2008 Rock Fresh 1pm
Saturday, February 16, 2008 Mixtress X 4pm
Saturday, February 16, 2008 The Hip Hop Project 7pm
Sunday, February 17, 2008 Holy Hip Hop 3pm

The Community Folk Art Center is a unit of the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University. For more information, please call (315) 442-2230 or e-mail Dr. Kheli Willetts at krwillet@syr.edu.

The Community Folk Art Center's website: http://www.communityfolkartcenter.org/

Go! I can't believe I've never been here and it's so close.

Go to this

Getting Published

Being a school with such a reputation in communications, I'm surprised that so many of the publications made by students fly so far under the radar. I also feel that a lot of school news stays just out of public reach- like remember how we have an Arts Journalism Graduate Program? I'm sort of curious about what they're up to now. Last fall, however, I noticed a new publication in the entry to Newhouse- The Mix, created and produced by students in this graduate program. It's probably too late to pick up a hard copy of the magazine now, but you can read the fall 2007 issue on the web:

http://artsjournalism.syr.edu/resources/theMix2007.pdf

It some of the same territory that The Daily Orange, 20 Watts and Jerk have trudged through, but I found some legitimately interesting stories. I don't think I knew what this Urban Video Project was all about, or that you could focus on "food & wine" in this program, until I picked up this magazine.

Bird Library Cafe

To say that I was excited about the prospect of Bird Library having a cafe in it, serving Freedom of Espresso coffee, would be an understatement. I began to become less excited, however, once it turned out that the "Opening Fall 2007" sign that hung near the construction site turned out to be a LIE! The cafe is officially open, and well, I am not impressed. The decor is just all wrong. Maybe it's because I attempted to pull an all-nighter in the first floor of the library this past semester, but wow do those bright lights bug me. The furniture is obnoxious in my opinion, and there isn't even that much seating space. Also there was a sign that asked patrons to keep their food in the cafe area? Maybe it was a joke, because I know that I've eaten much more intense food on the first floor before (oh hey Cosmo's delivery).

That brings me to the larger issue at hand- the coffee. As you may recall, I said that I was excited that Freedom of Expresso brand coffee would be served at this new place. I'm not sure why I'd be excited because all my FoE experiences have been less than stellar. That should have been a red flag right there.

Maybe I'm being a little hard on this new cafe, but the coffee was... rough at best. My latte tasted burnt, and the woman that prepared it asked Kalee what she had ordered at least five times.

Also! This new place doesn't even have a name! From a Daily Orange article:

DO: Is there a name for the cafe?

PM: We are going to have a contest, a naming contest. We are still waiting on exactly what the prize will be. We want to run it when everyone is going to be back on campus, and we will be announcing the contest in the next couple of weeks.

A naming contest! How exciting.

I'm positive that I'm going to give this as yet unnamed cafe another chance, but maybe I should just trust the first impression.


(above photo from the Daily Orange. Thanks.)

Hours for Quick Reference:

Mon.-Thurs. 8 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Sunday 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.

syracuse needs more hotdog dogs

i'm just saying...personally...i would really like to see more of them on the street. preferably dressed in hotdog suits or other costumes and on ackerman. let's make this happen.

thank you hotdogblog.com and gushmagazine for the photos.

Random Acts of Kindness

Today I met my guardian angel in Kimmel. I had just went out on a limb to try that weird stir-fry thing in the center of the food area, which I haven't had since first semester freshman year, so don't judge. I sauntered over to the cashier, and he was ringing up the order when the girl behind me said that she had a lot of money on her supercard and offered to buy my food. I protested, but she handed over her ID card anyway, and the cashier said I was all set. I was in a state of amazement. Who does something like that? I'm thinking in the cheesiest terms right now and encouraging the readers of this blog to PAY IT FORWARD just like little Haley Joel Osment would. To that girl, wherever you are, you did a truly great deed. The stir-fry was just okay.

In Defense of Old Man Winter

Now that it's December, it's time we took a good hard look at our surroundings. Looking out windows across campus, we are faced with an inevitable white reality. Today I cleared off 2 feet of snow from my car, just to move it to the other side of the street. The futility was never so staggering. Walking to class is now a 30 minute walk as opposed to a 15 minute walk. And it's cold. There is a new style of Uggs being sold at J. Michael's. Moonboots are still being sold at J. Michael's. These are all things we let get us down year after year, but for the first time today I began to think differently and I encourage you to do the same.

Perhaps my mind has become a nice shade of jade after four years or maybe I am subconsciously subscribing to the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" motto, but rather than seeing all the bad things, I could see the good things. Let's first throw out the obvious literary allusions: the snow is a form of purity, a new landscape everyday to be shaped, digested, urinated on for monogramming purposes, a tabula rasa for everyone. Now, let's go deeper. Snow acts a great equalizer of campus status, socioeconomic differences, and even the great divide of man and woman. Before this goes political, hear me out. When a Theta girl slips on the ice, an interesting thing happens. It is precisely the same thing that happens when a brother of TKE, an Asian graduate student, an African-American athlete, a top 5 ranked Halo 3 player, and an old woman fall. Stereotypes aside, the results are always the same: total loss of control of limbs. Instantaneous playing-it-cool demeanor upon rising. Nervous laughter coupled with a rapid over the shoulder look around. No one is above this: it's a knee jerk reaction to an all too common occurrence here, and we've all experienced it. ¡Adios class divisions!

I'll take this a step further. Snow provides us the means to achieve previously unobtainable common ground between people. What better ice breaker than ice itself! When people arrive at various locations around campus, haggard faces are met with other haggard faces, boots of all kinds, scarfs of all colors, jackets of all shapes, and personal creeds of all kinds. College Democrats unknowingly sharing a word with College Republicans between classes? What is this magic powder? There was always something to be said about the group of people you climbed Mt. Everest with, so why should a trip down a wind swept Ackerman be any different? Your nostril hairs are frozen? I hear you, my brother. Your knee is skinned from slipping down your front steps? Amen, my sister. Who can forget that girl or guy, seemingly completely different from you in every conceivable way, that you added as a Facebook friend Freshman year after a heartfelt discussion regarding how terrible the snow really is? I know I haven't.

Best of all, the snow demands nothing from us. It provides us with thousands of opportunities for humility, cooperation, interpersonal connections, self improvement (I got to the Geology building in under 20 mins yesterday!), and most importantly a functioning environment. The next time you find yourself cursing your professor for not canceling class, I implore you, nay, demand that you reconsider your situation. Firstly because it will never happen again, secondly because maybe this class will finally be the one where you work up the courage to talk to that good looking girl/guy that has ignored you all semester (hint: defog your glasses BEFORE approaching). Or maybe you'll catch a glimpse at the latest insulated fashion as promoted by all those trend setting winter warriors, braving the trek to that last Statistics class before the open book final. In the end of the day, you'll be sleeping soundly in your warm, heated bedroom and you will have forgotten about the trouble snow may have caused you. But lucky for you, just when you think you've forgotten, there's always a friendly reminder just one Lake Effect Emergency Weather Warning away in Syracuse.

SCHINE Student Center

We've all read the extensive articles in the DO over the years that highlight all the things that are wrong with our humble student center. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that there is some good to it:

Bookstore:
Forget even thinking about buying another jersey for a team you don't play for. Head downstairs and straight to the newsstand. The bookstore's selection of magazines is surprisingly sweet- personal favorites of mine include The Fader and New York Magazine (seriously, read this magazine). Also to my surprise was the addition of VenusZine, a longtime favorite of mine. Pretty sure it arrived in the bookstore because a friendly employee overheard me gushing about it and offered to start carrying it! Look at what influence we have, students! Rise up and request your favorite magazine!

Food Court:
Sal's Birdland scares the crap out of me. But luckily the food court has (recently?) expanded their random foods selection with an "organics" or maybe "all-natural" section, which is set apart from all the other food by a fall-foliage garland. Just think about all the granola you will soon get to eat! Also I noticed huge bottles of hot sauce in a (new?) stand close to the check-out line. The sign adjacent to it suggests that these huge hot sauce bottles are "grab and go!" I would really like to get some facts on how many of these grab and go hot sauce bottles have been sold... and why.

[picture from http://emc.syr.edu/tour/new/images/photos/38-1.jpg thanks, dudez!]

The MOST

Big ups to an article published today by The Post-Standard (URL at end of post). I had no idea that the Museum of Science and Technology (MOST to most) was undergoing serious renovations... and I was just in there. It's about time, too. Maybe it's because I'm in college, but the MOST feels mediocre at best. (Seriously, would it kill the staff of the MOST to change the bubble fluid once in a while? I can't even trap myself in a bubble!) Exceptions include the planetarium, IMAX as well as the sweet light thing that takes a "photo" of your shadow. The planned renovations sound seriously sweet- I can't wait to push toddlers out of the way so I can learn about the topography of Central New York. The only thing that bothers me a little about this is the approach- the renovations are sponsored by CNY businesses- okay- but this is because they think they can attract future employees? At age six? Really? As strange as that seems, we should be thankful that explansions are happening.


Support, Support:

http://www.syracuse.com/articles/news/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1196157568313350.xml&coll=1

Syracuse on Myspace

Myspace can be pretty creepy, and I read an article somewhere that says most of its users are more likely to have found a job after high school then go to college- but don't let that influence you! Myspace is increasingly being utilized by Syracuse people, places and things. Also once you visit these pages, you will be linked to many, many more Syracuse-centric myspaces. Think of this special myspace usage as research.. fun research? It's enriching!


"Syracuse": myspace.com/itsallheresyracuse
Alto Cinco: myspace.com/422mexx
Alto Cinco Late Night: myspace.com/alto_cinco
Second Story Book Store: myspace.com/second_story
Recess Coffee: myspace.com/recesscoffee
Halo Tattoos and Piercing: myspace.com/halotattoo
The Bang Project: myspace.com/thebangproject
Syracuse Experimental: myspace.com/syrfilmworks
Spark Art Space: myspace.com/sparkartspace
Roji Tea Lounge: myspace.com/rojitealounge
Syracuse Public Arts: myspace.com/syracusepublicarts
Real Food Co-Op: myspace.com/syracuserealfoodcoop
Razzbarry Boutique: myspace.com/razzbarrysyracuse
Warehouse Gallery: myspace.com/thewarehousegallery

...and coming soon: myspace.com/syracute!



[photo from http://www.combatsportscentre.co.uk/pictures/Myspace_Logo.jpg, thanks dudez!]

buy your bread here

Pasta's Daily Bread
This place may have the best bread we've ever tasted. If you have eaten at Pastabilities, you are probably familiar with this bread and accompanying spicy tomato dipping sauce. We usually skip eating in the restaurant in lieu of buying a loaf and some sauce and sitting in Armory Square and devouring the whole thing.


Here are our favorite ways to use this bread...

Eggs Florentine
Things you'll need:
Bread
Eggs
Spinach
Hollandaise sauce

1. Fry the eggs. We prefer the yolks to be a little more solid than over-medium.
2. Cook the spinach.
3. Make Hollandaise sauce. We buy the packet-form, but go wild and homemade if you want.
4. Cut bread into as many sections as you want. Slice in half. Toast.
5. Assemble in this order: Bread, egg, spinach, sauce, bread.

Bread and Dips and Stuff
Things you'll need:
Dips
Bread
Cheese
Olives
Whatever else you like to eat

1. Go to Wegmans (or any other grocery store) and buy some of the following items: Basil pesto, sundried tomato pesto, any other sauce that looks appetizing, Boursin cheese spread, any sort of cheese (mozzarella, goat, brie, etc).
2. Buy some olives. We like them stuffed with garlic or gorgonzola.
3. Put all of your purchases in pretty bowls or on pretty plates.
4. Cut bread.
5. Eat whatever looks good.

Point is, this bread is great. We just want you to buy a loaf. If you don't feel like going to Armory, you can buy some from the Co-Op.