Something's Brewing

More Vinyl Recommendations

Posted on January 3, 2011January 3, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Music

From the comments of my previous post on vinyl, Gabe Francis adds some great recommendations: Here are a few vinyl records I can’t stop listening to: 1. The Best of Nina Simone 2. Remain in Light by Talking Heads 3. Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan by Bob Dylan 4. Post War by M Ward 5. Moon Pix by Cat Power Gabe and I met this past summer in Costa Rica while he was working there as a Kiva Fellow. For those who don’t know about Kiva, it’s a community-based micro finance organization that connects potential lenders around the world, such as you and me, to low income individuals and organizations that need small loans. Unlike donating to a charity, when you give money

The Sweet & Low Down

Posted on January 3, 2011January 3, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Greater Boston, Music

This past weekend I went to the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge to see Girls, Guns, and Glory. But the highlight of the night turned out to be the opening band, The Sweet & Lowdown. Miss Tess, one of the band members who mostly sings and plays the guitar (but also plays the upright bass on occasion), used to have the Sunday night residency at Toad, one of my favorite venues in Cambridge. I’d seen her play there countless times before she moved out to Brooklyn a few years back. If you have the opportunity to see either Miss Tess or The Sweet & Lowdown in Boston or NYC, I highly recommend going. Here’s a clip I recorded from the show

Sunday Spins

Posted on January 2, 2011January 3, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Music

I’ve been listening to a lot of vinyl lately. After years of procrastination, I finally put together a proper stereo system and picked up a new turntable. It’s been great. There’s something extremely satisfying about listening to records. It’s not just the warmer sound of vinyl (although that’s certainly part of it), but I think an even bigger draw is the routine. These days it’s just too easy to toss on Pandora or a playlist with a few hundred songs. And then you can go do something else. The music becomes background noise. Listening to records is different. The couple minutes it takes to pick out an album and put it onto the turntable is an investment. It’s small, but you’re not

West Village Shots

Posted on January 2, 2011January 2, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography

I spent some time in NYC over the holidays, and had a chance to do some shooting in the West Village with my new wide angle lens. Here are a few of the highlights: Thanks to Adam Perlis for the help. Adam also put together a short video with some footage he shot the same day.

Curses, Hexes, and Relativity

Posted on January 1, 2011January 1, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Cartoons

This is too funny. Via xkcd.com: I think my favorite one is using crystal energy to make a killing in “regular energy.”

11 Predictions for 2011

Posted on January 1, 2011January 1, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Lists

A little cliché, but why not: 1. It’s going to be the year of homemade soda. People are raving about it: “You add the soda mix flavor you want, which you measure out in the cap. I use less than a full cap because I prefer my soda not so sweet- that is the best part- YOU control the amount of flavor and carbonation!” I couldn’t make this stuff up. Lots of people are eager to put one of these soda makers on their kitchen counter, right next to the coffee maker. And then eventually they’ll realize it’s just expensive soda that takes a long time to make and requires you to stock CO2 cartridges in your kitchen. 2. We’re going to find out how Ted

An Interesting Look at Last Week’s Blizzard

Posted on December 31, 2010December 31, 2010 by Sam Kornstein in Photography

This makes me want to experiment with some timelapse photography: Thanks Colin.

Polygamy and Alcohol?

Posted on December 31, 2010April 9, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in General

Who said academic papers can’t be off-beat and interesting? Here’s the abstract from a new paper titled “Women or Wine, Monogamy and Alcohol”: “Intriguingly, across the world the main social groups which practice polygyny do not consume alcohol. We investigate whether there is a correlation between alcohol consumption and polygynous/monogamous arrangements, both over time and across cultures. Historically, we find a correlation between the shift from polygyny to monogamy and the growth of alcohol consumption. Cross-culturally we also find that monogamous societies consume more alcohol than polygynous societies in the preindustrial world. We provide a series of possible explanations to explain the positive correlation between monogamy and alcohol consumption over time and across societies.” Via Marginal Revolution. Read the full paper here.

Top 7 Albums of 2010

Posted on December 30, 2010December 30, 2010 by Sam Kornstein in Lists, Music

All of my favorite bloggers are posting their year end lists, so on day three of this site, I figured I’d post my own. I’ll be honest. My original plan was to put together a full top 10 list, but I just couldn’t come up with 10 albums from this past year that I’m actually excited about. But I really enjoyed these seven (in no particular order): 1. Acrade Fire – The Suburbs 2. LCD Sound System – This is Happening 3. The Black Keys – Brothers 4. Broken Bells (Self Titled) 5. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy 6. Monsters of Folk (Self Titled) 7. Ok Go – Of the Blue Colour of the Sky The best music video

Fun with Photoshop…

Posted on December 30, 2010December 30, 2010 by Sam Kornstein in Photography

I had some free time over the past week, and this is what happened: So it goes. Thanks to Scott Sigel for the help with the first one.