hello, poindexter!

February 4, 2010

Psychedelic fan videos made by goofy French teenagers have just made my day a whole lot brighter.

February 2, 2010

More about homework…
I’ve been ransacking youtube looking for visualizations of some of the concepts I’ve been learning in class (I’m a visual learner! Go figure.) and I’ve been finding some pretty amazing stuff out there. This one is what I would expect Kraftwerk would make if they got into the science video business. It’s so good! I’ve been having fun dancing to it while also trying to figure out what the hell it means. Got a test on Monday.

February 2, 2010

Just imagining getting to work on hydrothermal vents (around 5:30) one day is helping me to drudge through the mountain of homework I have today…

January 28, 2010

After a scheduling fiasco involving my Biology lab, I’ve had to drop Calculus and take Climate Science instead. We spent the first class talking about the sky and the clouds…this video by Philip Bloom is a breathtaking documentary of both.

Sky from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

January 24, 2010

After spending the past 7 months doing little besides constantly promoting and touring for our last album, Still Night Still Light, it’s finally time for me to return to Columbia University and continue to chip away at my second undergraduate degree, and I am absolutely ELATED about this decision.

So many things are different for me than they were the last time I was at Columbia (nearly two years ago!) but the most important things have remained the same. In the time that has passed I’ve gotten the chance to travel all over the world–I’ve seen so many new cities, met countless wonderful people, and have had the privilege of being in Au Revoir Simone everyday. I can’t even believe my own life half the time–waking up in Beijing, going to sleep in Seoul, playing sold out venues in Paris–I’m a really lucky girl. For any of you who came and saw us for the SNSL tour, thank you so much for sharing that time with me, Annie, and Erika. We’ve been committed to making our shows better than ever before, and we’re so proud of the last album and how well it’s done, thanks to all the people who have supported us for nearly 6 years now.

Most people don’t really get it when I say that despite all of this, I long to get back to science–I’ve been longing, for years now, to return to school. As much as I love music, this desire to do research and participate in the world of ideas is so much a greater part of who I am and how I feel I can best contribute to the planet. The greatest thing about my job now is that I get to make people happy. Those times when someone comes up to me after a show just to tell me how much a song has meant to them or gotten them through a difficult time, are the rare moments when I feel I’m not completely wasting my time in a harsh and silly industry. I think I’ve always had a somewhat conflicted relationship with the idea of being an ‘artist’–it takes a certain amount of ego to convince yourself that what you have to say is so important that it trumps doing something more useful with your life. And as good as it feels to write, record, and play music, those things make up only a fraction of what I actually do as a partner in a small business. Being in a band is a job like any other. It has its glamorous moments, but mostly it’s a lot of really hard work, and most of it seems absurd, especially at a time like this, when everyone should be doing their part to actively make the world a better place.

It’s with this thought in mind that I’ve found my initial interest in doing Astrophysics has shifted towards doing something more Biology and Ecology based. I’ve always loved all the sciences pretty equally, so I’m just as excited about getting the chance to study microbial mats as I was about getting to go on observing runs at telescopes. Maybe I’ll even get to do both, who knows.

I have to get back to my homework (Chemistry is kind of brutal!) but I’ll be here more regularly now, expounding on the trials and tribulations of being a 30 year old undergraduate science student. Adventures await.

H

August 15, 2009

I just saw the movie ‘The Cove’ and I cannot tell you how important it is for you to see it, ASAP. It’s in the theaters now; this is that most crucial time that all movie makers face, where the number of people who attend a film in the first week or two is the basis on which theater owners decide whether to pull a movie or keep it in the theater for an extended run. It’s an amazing film, one that exposes a dark and cruel operation which involves the illegal slaughter of innocent dolphins by the thousands, all for the profit of a few. This practice is so very wrong; and it needs to be stopped. The documentary is wonderfully done, the majority of it plays like a suspense spy thriller in the tradition of “Mission Impossible;” while it does contain some disturbing footage, the latter is actually quite a small (but necessary) portion of the movie. Please consider going out to the theater to catch ‘The Cove’, (winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s 2009 Audience Award for best U.S. Documentary!) in the next few days if you can, to help bring those attendance numbers up and keep this film in the theaters. Like ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and other films like it, ‘The Cove’ contains a message that you need to hear. I guarantee you will be moved. Then, tell all your friends, family and acquaintances to see it too! Scroll down to find the link to sign the petition.

GOODNIGHT, HANGER STUDIO…

Goodnight ramps

Goodnight amps

Goodnight group of microphone stands.

Goodnight pedals

and tangled cords…

Goodnight speakers…

and mixing boards.

Goodnight beers

Goodnight fears

Goodnight fits of joyful cheers.

Goodnight drones in good headphones

Goodnight risers…

and synthesizers.

Goodnight switches

Goodnight kitchen

Goodnight late nights of unproductive bitching.

Goodnight stairs

Goodnight snares

Goodnight studios everywhere…

January 17th, 2009

Hi from Sacramento! We’re here mixing our album at remarkable downtown studio called The Hanger:

http://www.tapeop.com/john/

We’ve been having the most perfect mixing experience imaginable: we’re avoiding the hellacious East Coast cold front, we’re cooking beautiful meals in a well-stocked kitchen, and the studio has spacious rooms filled with pianos, vintage synths, vibes and more all for our amusement. It’s like we’ve died and gone to keyboard heaven. And the album is sounding *amazing*–if I dare say so myself. We’re pretty thrilled. I just can’t wait to have the final mixed and mastered record IN MY HANDS so I can play it for friends without talking loudly over it about all the things that need to change. I know I’ve said it a million times now, but Thom is a genius. We couldn’t have asked for a better producer. He completely gets our aesthetic, and is nice and easy to work with. We got pretty lucky.

Besides mixing 24/7, I’m writing to announce my new tumblr site. I was telling my friend, Matthew, about how I wish I blogged more, but I never have the time, and he suggested that I tumble for all my ADD moments of inspiration and save this blog for my more ’serious’ writing. So here it is:

http://hellopoindexter.tumblr.com/

Check there for my random musings and here for the interviews and longer posts. I recently interviewed the very wonderful photographer/documentary filmmaker, David Black, and will be posting that very soon.

Till then, visit my tumblr!

xH

December 23th, 2008

When my friend, Simon Guzylack, asked me to record a lullaby for an exhibition called “Kinder Zoo” that he’s curating with Bianca from CocoRosie, I couldn’t say no because he’s just one of those sweethearts that you can’t say no to. However, up until about two hours ago, I had never tried to record myself before, so it was a rather ambitious/moronic thing for me to agree to at the time. I don’t really know much about the show except that they plan on transforming Mad Vicky’s Tea Gallery in Paris into a room fit for a child, replete with toys and this “kiddy-friendly” soundtrack, so I tried to imagine what song I would sing to my hypothetical baby, and the first thing that popped into my head was The Cure’s “Love Song.” I don’t have ProTools or anything, but I have a sweet little HoneyTone amp and an mp3 recorder accessory for my Ipod, so I did some very lo-fi recording where I played my Rhodes and sang into the recorder, then recorded the recording while it played out of the HoneyTone, and kept repeating that process until I ended up with this very crunchy MP3, which I now fear is too creepy for a child’s sensitive ears. But, not too creepy for you, dear reader.

(BTW, A.R.S fans take heart, this is no indication of what’s to come.)

Here it is:

lullaby-love

Happy Holidays!!

XH

December 17th, 2008

My friend Ken has been working on this. It’s about asking 50 people, 1 question. That’s all. The result is pretty great, and you might recognize the music for the Brooklyn video.

Check out the website here:

http://fiftypeopleonequestion.com/

 
Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Crush & Lovely on Vimeo.

XH