Is it Monday already?

A couple of people in butt pads threw around a ball last night and it was kind of a BD. As the Giants go into the Superbowl to face the Patriots in almost identical circumstances as the 2007 season, ESPN is calling it déjà blue. Is that similar to browning-out? (ESPN)

Football wasn’t the only show that McBainers missed last night when their cable went out. As Downton Abbey aired, revered history professor Simon Schama pointed out all the historical inaccuracies of the show and why people only watch it for the British accents. (UPI)

For those of us who couldn’t convince our parents to get a TV for our dorm rooms, there’s always the gift of song—too bad Columbia’s college song is considered one of the strangest and saddest out there. (HuffPo)

But if you’re all torn up listening to Sans Souci, you’ll be happy to discover that you’re not alone. Mitt Romney is still trying to find his soul, with a little help from B-school dean, Glenn Hubbard. (The Atlantic)

Déjà blue via Wikimedia Commons

Tara Priya“>

Photo via Tara Priya's Facebook

For those seeking a soulful September jam, Columbia’s latest singing sensation, Tara Priya, CC ’08, offers a nostalgic escape from the autotune avalanche. Her sound is a throwback to the likes of Billie Holiday and Etta James, but never anachronistic. With influences ranging from Tupac to opera, Tara has developed a powerful voice of her own. We’ll be posting a few stories about enterprising alums this week and next. If you know an alum doing something worth writing about, tell us at tips@bwog.com. Carolyn Ruvkun writes.

“I struggle a lot with the genre question,” Priya said, “it’s tough to characterize my style, because I don’t fit into the musical categories of my influences. My contemporary inspirations are retrosoul artists—Amy Winehouse [though Bwog hopes Tara doesn’t share all of Amy’s influences …], Duffy, Nicole Willis—as well as bluesy pop artists, like Gavin Degraw, John Legend, and Adele. I grew up listening to Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, Smokey Robinson, Otis Redding—so folk, pop, jazz, blues, funk.”

Priya is remarkably thoughtful about each of her musical inspirations, acknowledging that some influences aren’t necessarily heard directly in her music. “ I often wish I could write songs that adhered to the styles of any of these artists, but instead, I borrowed certain aspects of each. Dylan made me value lyrics, The Beatles made me value a clean and simple song structure, jazz teaches you melodic richness and diversity, the blues teach you the importance of emotion, and funk taught me to have fun with/in a song. I grew up listening to lots of rap, thanks to my older brother, and I always want to sing slightly percussively.” She lands on the genre of “lyrical retropop” but claims the classification still “may be incorrect.” Read more…

Contessa Gayles woke up very, very early to meditate and hang out with Columbia’s Bhakti Club. After a 7:00 AM mantra meditation session, she sat down to talk with Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, the current—and first ever— Hindu chaplain at Columbia. They spoke about a typical day in the life of a Hare Krishna monk, and what it’s like to be a monk in New York City.

Why did you decide to become a monk?

That question could take about an hour to answer! It definitely wasn’t something like, I woke up and decided; Hey, you know I want to become a monk! I always had spiritual questions growing up. Questions like, what happens to me when I die? Do I come back to this world as something else, or does my existence just come to a halt all together? Since I grew up in the Hindu tradition, I always believed in the idea of reincarnation; that life will continue, and I just accepted that, but it was hard to understand or grasp it really. Also, questions like, what is God? Is it a person? An individual? Can I relate? Is it just an energy? How is it that I’ve been so fortunate in life? I had everything growing up that I wanted, and there are so many people in India that are very impoverished. How is it that I somehow was born to a set of parents that could immigrate over to America? Why wasn’t I born to a set of parents who were just struggling to get a meal every day? Somehow I landed this…how did that take place? And many times when I experienced misfortune in my life, I wondered, what have I done to deserve this? These are questions that anybody can have. It wasn’t until there was a severe financial difficulty that my family faced that I really inquired deeper; I feel like I’m just a piece on a chess board. Who is in control here? To make a long story short, I came across the Bhagavad Gita, which is the main spiritual text of India. As I started reading it, it started giving me the answers to the questions that I was always pondering and I found myself becoming a little bit more peaceful. When you’re uncertain about something, that’s when anxiety comes up and when you’re certain about something, even if you’re not comfortable with the explanation, it is easier to deal with. So for about five years I studied this and other spiritual texts, I started talking to monks and in 1999, I decided to quit my job as a loan officer in a mortgage company and go to India and explore my spirituality. I didn’t even go there with the intention of becoming a monk. I just wanted to take a break from life, because life already took me through a roller coaster.

After a six month monastic stay in Bombay, Pandit returned to New York City and lived in a monastery for a summer, an experience which he describes as the happiest he had been in his entire life. Ten years later, he continues his life at the same NYC monastery.

Read more…