Author: Scott

I am a brandeis student at Brandeis Yeshiva Day School in Israel. My favorite mountain is jose. My cymabls are in the gymatorium. Funiculi

(Retrospectively) Live Blogging The Hillel Bar Bat Mitzvah

So here I sit with Elly, the YMCA song playing over the loudspeakers, and I feel weird.  Today I had a lot of stuff going on, and then I got to this set up and I started playing music.  It was a good time, I just felt sad for the many people who are trying to study in the building as stereotypical Bar Mitzvah music was playing.  I felt very emotional.  You see there is a lot of vulnerability and tenderness in playing music very loudly.  When you do it, you need to have confidence because it will piss a lot of people off.  So how do you DJ music of the early 2000s next to a library?  Well, you have integrity, you play music and think about the positivity, joy and utility coming from it.

There were many songs played; I was going to write what they were, but I had to go to a QPOCC meeting. But it was real, and there were people and they danced.  You all should come to the next Hillel Party for a guaranteed good time.  Also QPOCC is the Queer People of Color Coalition and it is  club of beauty, love, compassion and empowerment (just like Hillel).  Contact me for more info (soglesby@brandeis.edu)

Haters gonna hate, so be yourself.  Whether it is playing music loudly or making incoherent Innermost Parts posts.

Love, Scott

Flyer Book

Today I was walking in the hallway and I saw all these flyers. Then I went to the bathroom and thought how important information is and how much information there is so much that is, but then it is lost forever. Like there is so much in the world, but then it id lost forever to time. These flyers all over campus are pretty much trash right now, but think about fifty years from now. People will be like, “whoa there used to be a Students For Environmental Action Club? LOLOLOLOL THERE IS NO MORE ENVIRONMENT!!!
What I am saying is basically, reduce reuse recycle.
Also, we should take a unique flyer of every sort off the wall, and instead of throwing it out, put it in a binder and then if Brandeis lasts longer than a ten more years, eleven years from now, people will have some vague idea of who was here eleven years before them. And those kids eleven years from now, living after megacorporations destroy all of the environment, and people need lifesuits breathe air and live will see that there was a club called SEA and say, “Let’s resurrect SEA and then bring back the environment!”

24 hour quiet hours; a lot of noise

Wouldn’t be nice if there were a break in the noise? It sure is 24 quiet hours,  but there is a lot of noise. There is a lot of noise in everything, in the universe and in literature.  Maybe it is quiet, maybe it is not loud, but all I hear is a lot of noise.  There is noise everywhere distracting me and talking and thinking.  It is much too difficult to study to live in this society that creates noise.  It is always trying to talk to me and enslave me.  It is too difficult to continue without trying hard.  That is how we have to do it

Brandeis During Passover

Editor’s Note: We’re clearing out the Innermost Parts vaults, posting several articles that were completed a while ago but got overlooked and were never published.  Here’s another, from Scott, written during Passover break.

Pesach break is only in its nascent stages, but Brandeis is already pretty empty. Don’t be mad but it is. Or perhaps I was just in the wrong place. I walked from the quad called East to the dining hall called Sherman and it was a little eerie. I did not encounter a soul until I arrived in the room for dining. On my way out the whole top floor of the building was abandoned and all the lights were off. It was as dark as a darkroom, even though it was in fact a dark lobby.

Walking through Shapiro: the Campus Center, I encounter a vast emptiness that reminded me of my life. All I could see on the horizon were empty chairs and empty Shapiro Campus Center Libraries and empty Great Lawns. It was quite emblematic of how Brandeis fills me with joy, but when it is gone that filling will leave me wandering and empty.

Brandeis is not a place or professors, it is actually the people, and the students. We Brandeisians of this time period have each other all in one place right now. We can come back and stuff but there will be all these new jacks fucking up all our stuffz. There would be buildings but it would not be the same. One time in the movie Annie Hall, someone mentions Brandeis University. Well now I go there, and I also feel things there too, you know? And it is wild. Sometimes people read about Brandeis in a college catalog, and they read the name and stuff. It is weird that there are thousands of people at this college, but people are don’t understand the vast complexity of relationships and experiences there. There are a lot of us at Brandeis and each one of us is precious.

SAVE KALMAN AND FRIEDLAND

Friedland and Kalman were perfectly viable and beautiful buildings that I love. It is very environmentally intensive to build a building. I don’t know why we did not keep them. So much could have been put into them. They were beautiful and sturdy buildings, and they were destroyed without anyone’s consent. Talk about a Rose Art Museum. Who’s with me?

We could have put so many things in there that are worth while. Now there is nothing, a costly demolition that wastes time. Let’s put in a zine library, and a gender center, and a music venue. STOP THE DEMOLITION NOW. Do you see, all caps.

This Must Be the Place

Must it be the place? It must be. And it is called Brandeis. Gosh I love everyone around me right now.  This place is Brandeis.  It appeals to me, but I am thinking most people do. This same thing would happen if I had gone to my dream school UMass-Lowell. You see all people everywhere are pretty chill/cool. It is not because I go to Brandeis or UMass-Lowell, or to a school in New Jersey or the Congo. People on the whole are pretty nice. Sometimes they are on drugs and stuff, but they are still really nice.

So like I guess that begs the question who is doing all the rape, war genocide, etc? IDK my bff Jill. We are all kind, we are all nice, and we do bad things sometimes, but it is because we are passionate.

However I think that society’s greatest trial is turning that passion to good, not bad.  This is entirely general and therefor not true.  But what is wrong with typing things?  What is the deal with censoring yourself just because it is not interesting?  You are stifling your inner spirit to please others.  It is good to navigate into what is good socially for other people, but always remember your inner spirit.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Brandeis is a school committed to many things, one of which is social justice. A good way to get thinking about social justice is through art and satire.

This evening and tomorrow afternoon the Brandeis Official Readers’ Guild will be presenting a rendition of Douglas Adams’s radio play The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is at 9PM in the Schwartz Auditorium on Saturday and at 2 PM on Sunday. It is free to attend.

This play investigates the environmentally unsustainable practice of blowing up the planet earth with a laser, as well as the long term economic impact of constructing planets in a vast tract of hyperspace. Also it explores at alternate transport and energy ideas, like that of a spaceship that passes through every point in the universe at the same time.

Those paragraphs were a little bit tongue in cheek, and so is the play. However the play is still vastly interesting. It should be checked out just like other campus events such as Relay for Life, Culture X, and the Super Mario Bros. Musical. Now in the interest of journalistic integrity, I would like to say that I am in this play, and this fact contributed widely to my decision to write about it for innermost parts. Also in the interest of self promotion, you could probably sneak in after Culture X if you really want to.

Do you think innermost parts should be a snapshot of student life at Brandeis? Or should it be politically active and advocating things a lot? I think a bit of both, and I think this blog entry shows that people are involved in a lot of things. I love this play, I love my cast mates, I love Brandeis. I want the world to know we do cool things here.

The Music of Sherman

So I have been sitting in Sherman eating for the last three hours, and one thing I have noticed is that it is the most eclectic craziest bunch of music I have ever listened to.

Man, a hipster at WBRS could only hope to come up with this song selection.  Perhaps the people who created this playlist could be recruited for WBRS’s automated programming.

Here are some examples of songs that have been played.

“Ch-check it out” Beasti Boys

“Theme from Fresh Prince of Bell Air” – Will Smith

“Through the Wire” – Kanye West

“Angels” – Robbie Williams

“Elephant Love Medley”  – Moulin Rouge OST

“Over My Had (Cable Car)” – The Fray (may it be noted that this song skipped immensely for its whole length unchecked)

“Everybody (backstreet’s Back)” Backstreet Boys

Hella cool music I have never heard of in Spanish that was really cool.

“Girls Just Want to Have fun” Cyndi Lauper

Good Stuff

Sherman is awesome!

Remember When: Michael Ian Black

Like many fellow Brandeisians I go to Brandeis. I also saw Michael Ian Black and here is my take on it. It was really good. There was funniness abounding about. Especially when there was a really long line that circled the Usdan courtyard and people had to wait in it. Then we went inside and Michael Ian Black, that silly dude made a lot of Brandeis related jokes. What a funny guy! Unlike Ben Folds he seemed to be adapting to his surroundings and curving his humor to fit into it. This really made me feel special. That is how good of a comedian Michael Ian Black is. He made ME feel special. That is great of him.

After the show was over I really wanted him to sign this poster for my friend, so I sort of left. Then all the student events people were like, you should leave now. So I did. But I could see him. Michael Ian Black was in the alumni lounge (or whatever that room on top of Levin is called). Well this was great news to me. He was there in the window posing with all the Student Events kids. My friend and I sang “In Your Eyes”, the come to a window song, but to no avail. He did not come to that window.

Disheartened we began to think about how to meet him. But then everything worked out. He walked out the door of the part of Usdan that is new to selling sandwiches. We mobbed him and said something to the effect of “hey Michael Ian Black how are you.” He replied that he was pretty good. I asked him to sing something, he was like sure. I told him he was not a dick. He told me he was. Then he continued along the way toward the library from the Usdan Courtyard. That was the last time I ever saw Michael Ian Black.  He faded into the distance.  I did not want to follow him because that would not have been nice.

I sort of felt weird about wanting to have his autograph but I did get my friend Sara a good present.  And I mean that is how it goes if you are a celebrity.

Relatedly, I recorded a good thirty minutes of it on analog tape and if the powers don’t be don’t hurt me I will capture it and then post it on here.

Critical Mass

Brandeis is going to Critical Mass.
Hey you know I am awfully critical of somethings. Also I live in Massachusetts. What are you doing this Friday. How about a critical mass bike ride? Critical Mass is an amazing event that happens in many cities throughout the country where people get together and ride their bikes around at such a critical mass that they actually become traffic. It is a beautiful experience to be riding your bike on these streets and be looking around without worrying about other cars (just other bikes). It is liberating to just be free on these street areas.

The Boston Critical Mass is every last Friday of the month and it departs around 5:30 from Copley Square. Feel free to join us as we go on the epic 7 mile journey to the Back Bay from the Great Lawn. Bikers of all abilities are welcome to come and take a stand against critical mass not happening, ut also to bring awareness to the existence of bike riders and biking as a viable solution to fossil fuel based transport.

If you want to go with me soglesby@brandeis.edu is my email. Otherwise see you at Copley Square at 5:30, it should be in the mid 40s.