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Sunday, January 11, 2009

An essay-like post on a snowy winter night


Don't worry, this text is not going anywhere.

I have excellent night vision, and I'm frowning a lot in daylight. On winter weekends, when I don't work and everybody leaves me alone, I often don't leave the house before sunset. I have to force myself a little bit in order to have a regular day/night rhythm. That's nothing difficult to deal with, but I noticed how quickly I switch into my personal default rhythm as soon as I have the chance. Once I read that it's genetic. That's good to know, but doesn't help about the fact that I'm kicked out of places half of my "day".
Usually I'm first kicked out at work, because the building closes at 10pm, then comes either the library or the gym. Later at night there are opportunities for being kicked out at two Cafes in Princeton. Everything that's open 24/7 excites me and I have never gotten an early-bird special.
Being "kicked out" sounds more harsh than it is. It's usually not more than a friendly "hello we are closing in 10 minutes" kinda thing. My last being-kicked-out experience of the day however is indeed physical. That's when my girlfriend wants me to go to bed and pulls me from the couch. She is tiny compared to me, but over time she figured out this incredible technique that lets me find myself on the carpet after a 180 degree turn. No idea how this works, but once I'm on the floor, I'm pretty much ready to call it a day.

Today I left the house around 10:30 pm, I guess that's okay, it was a Saturday night. As soon as I pulled out of the parking spot, I turned on the radio. Before I came to the east coast, I somehow assumed that New York City would have fantastic Hip Hop stations with cool stuff that you would never get to hear in Germany. Fact is there are two stations. There is "the official number one for Hip Hop and RnB"
and there is "the new number one for Hip Hop and RnB". Another fact is, I can rarely find good music on either of them. What I noticed is, there is a lot of whining going on, which must be the RnB part. Other that that, the radio DJs do a lot of megalomaniac yelling accompanied by much fanfare and razzmatazz. The yelling is however limited to the words "NEW YORK CITY!" and sometimes the names of some apparently sensational people that are "IN THE BUILDING!". Which building they are talking about has however always been a mystery - there are so many in the city. Oh, and the words "LET'S GO!". Go where? To another building? I noticed that they are always leaving the house the same time I do.

Tonight was a bit different though. No one seemed "in the building", instead the radio host yelled several times "TONIGHT IS ONE OF THEM NIGHTS!". This was followed by commercials, "we are paying some bills now" he said. Wow, I guess "one of them nights" is somewhat relative. Maybe I'm just paying my bills too regularly. So what did I do with "one of them nights"? It was "one of them nights" where I took some pictures. Ha! This is a photography blog, what else would you expect? It was quite nice, everything was covered with snow, and the pictures will probably show up here later in "one of them posts".

I told you this is not going anywhere. But maybe I can give a useful advice to someone looking for a unique radio program.
Try WPRB. It's located here in Princeton, but you can tune in over the web via WPRB.com. Oh, and please don't judge on me if you hear something terribly weird on there. Just wait for an hour and you will listen to something totally different, it might be an interesting folk music from a remote region you've never heard of, it might be a Mozart Symphony, or it might simply be the best Hip Hop music you have listened to in years.


2 comments:

Shapemodulator said...

hey nightshooter,

I try the radio programm, its full of music. Very nice, thx for the tip ....

Oliver said...

You are welcome :)
It's unpredictable and full of surprises, as long as you don't study their schedule.

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