The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/23074
Sam Spokony My Top Five Moments of 2010 5) Giving Boots a New Home A week after we moved into our new apartment on Lawn Avenue, my roommates came home from Walmart with a kitten. He was 8 weeks old and just a little nervous, but he was ready for life outside the trailer park. Now a curious adolescent, Boots loves to climb couches, windowsills and human heads. He sprawls across my keyboard and waves his paws in the air while I’m trying to write. He nestles in the space between the backs of my shins while I’m sleeping facedown. I’m just happy to have him around. 4) The Favor That Never Was There’s no doubt that the SUCO ice hockey club team is having a more cohesive, successful season than in pre- vious years, and that is in part due to the efforts of our new coach, April Harper, who is also a history professor at the college. Even though she has struggled courageously against recent health problems, Dr. Harper has remained steadfast in her commitment to a team that very few other people care about. She is also a U.K. citizen, and when the le- gal status of her American visa was unfairly questioned, I offered to use my column to publicize her plight. Several days later, her attorney solved the crisis, a scary situation disappeared, and my offer ended up not mattering much. But for some reason, I still remember so vividly the way she responded when I first spoke to her about what I could do to help: her realization that, amidst adversity and indifference, support can still come from an unlikely source. 3) The First Annual SUNY Jazz Festival I joined what was formerly the Latin Jazz Ensemble in my very first semester at SUCO. Almost two years later and with around four times as many musicians, the SUCO Jazz Big Band hosted its first festival. It’s really wonder- ful to be a part of this group of students who, 12 O-Town Scene Jan. 13, 2011 on the whole, aren’t planning on becoming professional players; we just love jazz, and we put a whole lot of effort into creating something that will live beyond our time here as students. The best days are yet to come, but the impact of placing real value on the arts has already been felt on campus and on the par- ticipants, both older and younger, in the first festival. As our director, Art Falbush, might say, we’re just trying not to suck. 2) Watching Old Guys Play Music And I’m talking old _ Bucky Pizzarelli, 85. Dave Brubeck, 90. Why were their shows the best ones I saw all year? It’s not just because their ability as players (guitar and piano, respec- tively) is still consid- erable; they’re still performers, in every sense of the word. It’s easy to assume that complacency might set in once one becomes a revered figure in the world of jazz. It just never happened with these two, and they’ve effectively turned their legacies as performers into something more than that which can be set down in notation. You can see it Photo be Scott Schleiff in the way they change tempo, as if it’s the first time; in the way they laugh with the rest of the band over a rough transition; in the energy behind each stroke. There’s so much to learn by watching: it’s about more than music … it’s about showing up, every night. 1) Waking Up On Jan. 1, 2011 I’m still here! After a full year of experi- ences _ some hilarious, some stressful, some perplexing _ is there anything like starting fresh? The spring semester starts next week, and as I get ready to wake up at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, I won’t be thinking so much about all of the great stuff I might do this year. For now, I’d rather just hold on to what I’ve learned. And once I start floating along, like a piano solo laying just behind the beat, the next “top five” will end up finding me. Sam Spokony is a junior majoring in mu- sic industry and English at SUNY Oneonta. He can be reached at spoksm03@suny. oneonta.edu. Jennifer Tighe I would catch a grenade for you Okay, so I originally planned on writing about something serious, or maybe even something that remotely mattered to the world, but, oh my God, “Jersey Shore” just came on and I lost all track of my intelligence. All of the sudden I can’t think about anything except tanning, Ed Hardy and how the hell Pauly D gets his damn hair to look so fresh. I truly can’t decide whether or not I should be embarrassed that they just showed Snooki in her beamer, and low and behold, we have the same Ed Hardy steering wheel cover. I think my parents made a huge mistake; I should have been born and raised in the Jersey Shore. These girls have class for days. From JWow’s water-balloon boobs to Snooki’s trucker hats and bejeweled sunglasses, they bring white trash to a whole new level. And the boys? Oh my God, the boys. Vinny, I’m going to go ahead and pro- fess my love for you right now. There is definitely room for your shower caddy and lufa in my bathroom. And Pauly D, I’ll get over my insecurities about you being prettier than me and having better hair if you’ll just slip a ring on my finger. Oh, and the Snooki look-alike? I haven’t made my mind up about her yet, but any girl who says she’s “like a holiday” (and no, I have next to no clue what that even means) is good in my book. I mean it took her less than a day to take her clothes off in front of the Situa- tion and tell Sammi she wanted to see her next Tuesday _ she more than fits in. Realistically though, I sincerely hope that by the end of this season we see Snooki and Deena duke it out. Nothing, and I mean nothing, would be more entertaining than those two overly-tan hooker-wanna-bes brawl- ing it out. I want to see a gremlin fight. Please MTV, make it happen. And one more thing, if Sammi doesn’t get the boot this season, I might have to give up watching. Let’s face it, she’s a bitch and needs to go. Not to mention Ronnie is only interest- ing when he’s creepin’, so getting rid of Sammi is about to be a necessity in order to continue my “Jersey Shore” entertainment. But you’ll have to excuse me, it’s GTL time. Jennifer Tighe is a senior majoring in English at SUNY Oneonta. She can be reached at tighjj53@suny.oneonta. edu.