Stuff Heather Thinks is Super Great

Chocolate-covered strawberries. Uncharacteristically, my mom has been on a “let’s dip foodstuffs in melted chocolate” kick this week.  As such, I’ve eaten (at last count) sixteen of these fruity delights since I got home.  Why is it that strawberries are more delicious to pair with chocolate than any other fruit?  Even the idea of dipping mangoes in chocolate sounds less appealing to me.  (Pardon me while I salivate all over my chin.)

Delurkers. Jenny, Meghan, Michele: welcome!  We are happy to have you!  (Lurkers who are not Jenny, Meghan, or Michele, hello there and feel free to delurk if/when you feel comfortable.  As someone who usually just lurks herself, I will not pressure you.)

Skins. Around the same time last week, Rachel and I independently came to the idea that we should start watching this British teen drama.  But I began actually doing so a few days earlier than she did, and therefore I’m about ten episodes ahead of her.  I’m trying SO HARD to wait for her to catch up, but you guys, it’s difficult!  Even as an Anglophile, I am embarrassed by how invested I’ve gotten in these fictional Bristol teenagers.

Vitamin String Quartet. Can’t get enough of their instrumental covers of popular songs.  “Bohemian Rhapsody,” anyone?  Or “Smells Like Teen Spirit”?  Or maybe you feel like a little Alanis?  You know what they say: if it’s not baroque, don’t fix it.

Or maybe you feel like a string version of “Bad Romance”? Never fear, it’s right here.

This guy –– “drbilderburger,” to use his YouTube handle –– does string trios of various pop songs, including but not limited to “Paparazzi” and “Poker Face,” both of which translate astonishingly well to the format.  (Though I’d argue that the former works slightly better.)  And yet this guy only has 33,000 views!  What a travesty.  If anything should go viral, it should be this –– not another video of some bro getting kicked in the balls.

On a related (to Gaga, not ball-crushing) note, the be-your-freaky-self idea behind Gaga’s philosophy. This ideology seems to have engendered in her fans a desire to restyle or mark her work (e.g. songs, fashion, choreography, whatevs) as their own; the community that has sprung up around Gaga seems based, at least in part, by this longing.  The desire to reclaim admired works as one’s own is shared by every fandom, obviously –– just look at fanfiction.net –– but I feel like the Gaga fandom marks the pinnacle of an growing trend in pop culture, one that began with Seth Cohen and the concurrent “sexy geek”* archetype –– the idea that to be X [in which X is nerdy, weird, lame, a freak, whatever] and to be cool are not mutually exclusive, that you can be yourself and be rewarded or admired for it.  The concept’s spawned so-called “camera-whoring” and the cast of Jersey Shore, but on the other hand, it’s brought forth our Lady of Bat Skulls and the aforementioned bursts of confidence in thousands of little monsters.  People aren’t afraid to show themselves for who they are, and for that we should (mostly) be grateful.

*Teen People, circa 2004 or so, if I remember correctly.  Yeah, I used to have a pinup of Adam Brody from the magazine that called Seth a “sexy geek,” so what?