Vanilla and Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Tales from a Kosher Kitchen:
Take a bag of potatoes and cube them. Don’t bother peeling, because the peels will give it texture and nutrients. Cut up 8-10 cloves of garlic. Boil them together for about 20 minutes. Strain the potatoes and return to pot or mixer. If in Israel and without a mixer, dicer or anything good for mashing potatoes, use a fork. If required by those who keep kosher to make a dairy-free mashed potato, follow these next steps:
Add some parve margarine
Add some garlic mayonaise
Add some vanilla soy milk
Salt and pepper and paprika and chives to taste
Mix until smoothish. Don’t bother with gravy because these potatoes have a complex enough flavor as it is. The vanilla soy is really the secret ingredient. You’ll notice that five seconds after you swallow, this subtle and sweet taste of vanilla will blow your mind.
Strike From the Record. Multimedia installation, Glorya Kaufman Hall. Make Art/Stop Aids. Professor David Gere.
Siren’s Eye. Winter 2008. Professor Drew Schnurr.
To me, getting a “normal” college job and experiencing the anti-corporate banter that occurs in college classes themselves seemed completely contradictory. To represent that contradiction, arpeggiated synthesizers create tension and frustration from the entire stereo spectrum for the entirety of the piece. Soothing strings also go through moments of dissonance, this is metaphoric for the subversiveness of the piece itself and my personal qualms with this “career choice.”
“That we still use the term “tribe” to describe Jews in America implies a near-permanent state of inherent cultural association regarding a perceived heritage. […] On a larger scale, the Jewlicious Festival is part of a long line of radical Jewish cultural opportunities and is part of a recent resurgance of secular Jewish artistic expression.”
— From Spring 2008’s Jewlicious At the Beach: Post-Radicalism at a Jewish Culture Festival in Southern California, Ethnomusicology Department, under Jeff Janeczko
Two Girls, Many Voices. Audio-collage of YouTube reaction videos to the viral video 2Girls1Cup. Logic Pro - Winter, 2008
Piece contains vulgar language…
It was an internet phenomenon that called into question the very moral fiber of our society. It was visceral, primal in every way. And it spread like wildfire between devious friends. Children shocked their parents, wives shocked their husbands - 2girls1cup shocked the nation.
And in true Web 2.0 fashion, YouTube users around the world uploaded their reaction videos - raw, uncut and often vulgar. These are the voices of the web generation in absolute shock and awe.
The first part of the piece is a preparation. All of the viewers have heard SOMETHING about this video and go through a ritual of personal or group coaching. I examine this tentativeness and introduce the characters. There’s a pair of squeamish girls, a Kermit the Frog impersonation, comedian Joe Rogan, a teenage male and a large group of mixed-ethnicity males in their late 20’s. ‘Play’ is selected. Structured lives turn to chaos. People cannot believe their eyes and they question the essence of reality, asking ‘is that real?’ At the end of the piece, we hear the answer, “that’s fucking real”. Yeah, real gross.
