I am back in DC for the summer.

Apologies for the prolonged radio silence, but I’ve been busy studying for exams, packing and unpacking apartments, and working a summer job.

This has been the largest gap between updates on this site. Whoops! Highlights of the past few weeks:

• “Green Building Red-Lighted by Homeowners’ Associations”, my note, was selected for publication in the 2009 edition of the William & Mary Environment Law and Policy Review. Yay! Please contact me if you have any input.
• Responded to a casting call to appear on Emeril Lagasse’s cooking show, filmed out in Fairfax. *Fingers crossed*
• Saw Radiohead in concert in a torrential downpour. Totally worth it. They put on an incredible show, and dedicated “Karma Police” to Capitol Hill.
• Learned a ton of stuff at work, and I’ve even got an office with a window! And a name plate!
• Helped my mommy celebrate mother’s day in Va Beach.

I’ll try and be a bit more diligent with the blog updates… for all 3 of you reading this. And, to fill in the gaps, please check out my Tumblr account for more brief transmissions.

Jonathan Safran Foer wrote one of the best novels of this century at the age of 25, a fact which inspires me to strive for greatness in the remaining 2 months before my 26th birthday. I don’t need to consult a magic 8 ball to know the prognosis (hint: outlook not so good).

Foer, the author of Everything is Illuminated as well as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, visited the campus of William & Mary last evening to discuss the role of comedy in the Jewish experience. Actually, the title of the talk was “When Jews Laugh at Things That Aren’t Funny.” He separated comedy into four distinct categories, a nomenclature that aims to explain the function of semitic humor. I don’t remember what the four categories were because I was too distracted by the hilarious and colorful stories he told to illustrate his thoughts (e.g. he and his brother Franklin busted out laughing at the bima during his brother’s Bar Mitzvah because one of the prayer’s ended with a hebrew word that sounded like ‘”pee.’”)

After his talk, there was a brief question and answer session. Since we were already on the subject of bar mitzvahs, I raised my hand and asked him what his was like. “Not very memorable.” Although Foer did recall that he didn’t really know what the prayers meant, and that he played Nintendo for several hours with his bro after leaving synagogue. Comedically, Foer vividly recounted the details of the band from his bar mitzvah celebration (a group called “Electric Brigade” comprised of Naval officers who practice tunes in their “limited free time.”) Another attendee asked Foer about his literary techniques in constructing his characters, to which he replied, “a bird is not an ornathologist.” A writer just writes. Though, he did explain his writing process, starting from the beginning over and over again, likening it to running a comb through his son’s hair until there are no more knots.

I jumped into a queue with my copy of Everything is Illuminated and waited my turn to tell Foer how much I appreciate his work. My souvenirs from the evening are a signed book and a blurry cameraphone picture (I guess everything isn’t illuminated).

“Headphones Are Stethoscopes” is the name of my weekly show on WCWM 90.9FM, the local college radio station at William & Mary, where I am a law student. We’re located a mere block away from Colonial Williamsburg, and I like to imagine that all the blacksmiths and butter-churners listen to me on their anachronistic boomboxes.

Usually, I play new CDs I find in the studio as well as tunes I’ve discovered via blogs and other random MP3 requests that my friends send my way.

For this past week’s show, I decided to exclusively play tracks off of Muxtape, Tumblr, and the occasional Facebook profile. Essentially, I was broadcasting Web 2.0 via an analog signal, while people were making real-time digital requests. Now, with the captured analog signal, we have transformed it back into a computer-based format ready for your consumption. “An analog boy in a digital world.”

The show was an amazing success, and several hundred people all across the world ended up checking out the archived broadcast via my Tumblr page in the days that followed. It’s exciting to see the way technology is helping us share new things with each other; even a small-time DJ in Virginia!

Download the show (55MB)

Based on my experience driving cross-country on ethanol, I was contacted by Nature.com to have a conversation for their Climate Change Podcast about alternative energy. I played the role of the token “conscientious consumer.” Check out the podcast (mp3), and listen up to hear the dulcet tones of my voice around the 17:45 mark (feel free to fast forward). The expert who speaks immediately after me discounts the currently available biofuels but mentions a second generation, where we will hopefully see great advancements in efficiency. It’s scientifically possible, but the research and development has not been done yet; which, ultimately, is why it’s frustrating to hear people give up on biofuels at such an early stage.

Coincidentally, the Consumers Union was also recently checking out the web archive of the cross-country road trip and invited me up to their offices in Yonkers, NY to discuss my experiences. Their office space is really cool, with lots of old magazines, vintage colors, and sunshine coming in through the ceilings. The walls are adorned with display cases and photographs all over the place where they show off an assortment of old blenders, toasters, cameras, and other products they have tested throughout the years. It’s got a documentary aesthetic, but it also serves a dual purpose of Jeff Koons-esque modern art visualizing products as something that could inspire.

Finally, on a related note, I was recently selected to serve as the Technical Editor for the Environmental Law and Policy Review at William & Mary School of Law. I am looking forward to helping the journal increase its web presence and become a bit more digital. It seems like a legal journal about environmentalism would be the perfect place to explore how the paper medium can give way to the digital frontier.

My favorite NBA blog is, as I’ve explained before, FreeDarko.com.

When a short comedy film that I had not seen in about five years percolated into my Facebook newsfeed, I felt compelled to send along the link to the editors of Free Darko along with the descritpion: ingmar bergman + mike dunleavy = free darko?!!!?

At this point, you’re probably wondering what “Free Darko” means. For the sake of brevity, the namesake of the site is Darko Milicic, a Serbian draft pick in the NBA. “It is a website where style is revered and effective style is canonized.”

With the Duke vs. UNC game coming up this weekend, they allowed me to publish a brief guest lecture where I discuss the intersections of Duke University, viral media, avant garde film, and Michael Dunleavy, Jr.

Here’s some amateur analysis of the Virginia primary that I wrote for the Huffington Post. Turnout in the commonwealth was incredible. 

I never thought I’d see 18,000 people gathered for a Democratic political rally in Virginia Beach.

It happened.

In 2004, I went and saw John Kerry address a gathering in Norfolk that was described as the largest assembled crowd to see a Democratic candidate in Hampton Roads since JFK made a visit. Well, I think that record just got smashed.

I wrote a piece about Obama’s rally for the Huffington Post. Please read it and feel free to leave comments.

As a Virginia Beach native who spent hundreds of weekends at Lynnhaven Mall, I feel qualified to say that cops seizing Abercrombie & Fitch’s advertisements is yet another ridiculous example of local puritans subjecting the rest of the community to their crazy standards.

Check out this link, authored for W&M ACS, for a brief legal history of Virginia Beach’s mission to become a “family-friendly” destination at the expense of the First Amendment. I think it adds a considerable amount of color to this “black-and-white” issue.

Today was the annual W&M Environmental Law and Policy Review symposium. This year’s topic, titled “Emission Not Accomplished: The Future of Carbon Emissions in a Changing World,” featured hours of lectures from experts knowledgeable about global warming.

Unfortunately, not one of them mentioned this recent study that shows that zombie attacks might increase due to global warming. We need to stop pretending this isn’t happening and do something now (I’m talking about zombies, obviously).

The most interesting proposal of the day came from Alan Carlin, an accomplished economist and scientist from the EPA. His solution? Solar Radiation Management. Blocking the sun with particles spewed from manmade volcanoes, seeded clouds from cargo planes, and cannons blasting confetti. A science fiction future might save Denver from becoming beachfront property.

Oh, and Maritime Law might be a growth industry.

“Change” seems to be an early contender for word-of-the-year.

With that in mind, I’d like to share the work of alldaybuffet, a non-profit organization that one of my best buddies from college started up in NYC. Alldaybuffet introduces itself like so:

“Pleased to meet you, we’re alldaybuffet. A social awareness brand for the cool kids. Our purpose is to connect the things we like with the things that matter most. Our concept is open participation. Our network is a family of likeminded people around the world working towards the same ideals.”

Already, alldaybuffet has put together some amazing events and raised money and awareness to help revitalize New Orleans, prevent human trafficking, and much more.

I recently posted on their group blog, and look forward to sharing interesting tidbits over there in the near future. My first post was a quick summary of all the cool graphs and pie-charts people are making these days about things we’re not used to seeing compressed into statistical analysis and how this can help us bring about “change.” Check it out, and sign up for their newsletter while you’re on the site.