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Nerd Nite #23 – The Elements of Style: How to be a Great DJ in 5 Simple Steps
In this talk, DEFTMIX uses concepts from Strunk and White’s classic college textbook, The Elements of Style to distill the essence of being a great DJ.
About Rolando Calip, Jr. AKA DEFTMIX:
Rolando Calip, Jr. has been a DJ for 20 years and currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has spent the last 2 years as the Nightlife Director/Saturday DJ Resident for Live Nightclub. Before moving to Ann Arbor in 2011, he lived in New York City for 10 years; DJing, curating music for hospitality groups, and managing DJs. Music has taken him all over the world; most recently to Manila in the Philippines where he performed at Black Market Nightclub on NYE 2015. Follow him on Instagram @deftmix.
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Long Distance Hiking: Tales from the Trail
Long distance hiker Chris "Wolverine" Hillier earned his "Triple Crown" title by completing the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Appalachian Trail, covering a total distance of about 7,900 miles. He was also the first to hike Michigan's 924-mile trail that reaches from Belle Isle to Ironwood. Chris will share his love for hiking through photos and stories, and pass along some of the lessons he has learned firsthand on the trail.
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Words The Podcast - Episode 9: Glyphs the Podcast
Ally Wright is a fiction writer whose short story, As a Widow Throws a Lasso, is a meditation on grief and the grieving process. Ally grew up in a house full of books, and always loved words. Now she’s just been accepted to the Creative Writing sub-concentration at the University of Michigan. In this segment, we talked about making the familiar unfamiliar, an ancient jackal god of death called Wepwawet, Animorphs, and finding inspiration in everyday places, like Snapple caps.
Drew Maron is a writer of short fiction, but we never really got to that part. We talked about “making literature accessible” as a mark of a good professor, free will, and what 50 Shades of Grey and Paradise Lost have in common as fan-fiction.
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Award-Winning Chef Takashi Yagihashi of Ann Arbor’s Slurping Turtle Restaurant
Over his twenty-five year career, internationally-known Chef Takashi Yagihashi has been lauded by consumers and critics alike for his exquisite melding of contemporary French, Asian, and American cuisine.
A native of Mito, Japan, the self-taught Yagihashi was working in a local restaurant when the owner asked him to relocate to the States and work for him there; over the next several years, the young chef worked his way up the culinary ladder throughout Chicago.
In late 2011, Chicago’s Slurping Turtle opened to instantaneous success and received a Michelin Bib Gourmand Award in 2013. Located in Chicago's River North neighborhood, Slurping Turtle offers Japanese comfort food, where delicate balance and respect for natural flavors continues to be a hallmark of his cooking style. In 2012, Yagihashi competed in the fourth season of Top Chef Masters, participating in seven rounds of competition and ultimately winning the coveted "Fan Favorite" award. Slurping Turtle expanded to Ann Arbor in spring 2014.
Takashi published his first cookbook, Takashi’s Noodles, in 2009. When asked what he loves most about cooking, “I love the whole process – from cutting fish to the final plating. The creativity of coming up with a dish combined with the execution of the final product, start to finish, that’s what I like the most.”
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Words The Podcast - Episode 8: It's Vegas, Baby
Juliana Roth is a writer from New York and a senior in the creative writing program. She’s finishing up an Honors Thesis that will be in the form of a collection of short stories. We discuss her story “Appraisal” in terms of topics like the 1.5 year mark in a relationship, Macguffins, and a world of fine china, PF Chang's, and rivers that wind through the desert.
Liz Swaynie is screenwriter and writer of short fiction. She finished up her major in creative last year and is currently working on getting into the world of network TV comedy and drama. We discuss her spec script for Bob’s Burgers, as well as what a spec script actually is, teleplays as a medium, and an idea for a second season of Words the Podcast, set in Las Vegas.
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Nerd Nite #22 - Why We Watch: How Everything From Football to Mario Entrances Us
Why We Watch: How Everything From Football to Mario Entrances Us
Games are a form of storytelling as old, if not older, than language itself, but we rarely stop to think why some games succeed and some fail. What do college athletics–which, despite being non-professional games, earn nearly $1 billion per year–have in common with a fifteen-year-old Pakistani boy playing video games in China for the first time, with 770,000 live viewers and $3 million in prizes on the line?
About Ryan “Gorgon” Jurado:
With professional experience in publishing, music performance, gaming, podcasting, and three majors split across two undergraduate degrees, Ryan “Gorgon” Jurado is what you might call a renaissance nerd. These days, he spends his time studying the burgeoning realm of online spectator games, often called eSports, in which he is a data analyst and live commentator for audiences of tens of thousands. You can find him on Twitter: @gotcowdota
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Words The Podcast - Episode 7: Working Title
Chris Aldridge is a poet and journalist. He’s a reporter with the Huron Daily Tribune by day, and a inquisitive poet by night. He reads seven of his poems. We discuss his creative process, the ephemerality of the moment, and how to properly conduct an ambush in a Nerf gun fight.
Abrar “Raad” Haider is a senior and pre-med student at U-M. He brings in a current project that draws heavily from what he studies. His short story places Dr. Akiesha Palta in the middle of a dire conflict: her pharmaceutical company is the most successful vaccine company in the world, but it’s also producing many of the world’s most potent viruses.
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The Prison Creative Arts Project: Art by Michigan Prisoners
The Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) was founded in 1990 with the mission to collaborate with incarcerated adults, incarcerated youth, urban youth and the formerly incarcerated to strengthen our community through creative expression. This nationally recognized show has grown to be one of the largest exhibitions of prisoner art in the country and features more than 500 works of art by over 250 artists.
Martin Bandyke, morning drive host at Ann Arbor's 107one, discusses the Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners with William (Buzz) Alexander, Janie Paul and Sari Adelson, the exhibit founders and curators.
20th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners will run from March 25 through April 8 at the Duderstadt Gallery on the North Campus of the University of Michigan. For more information about the exhibit, visit The Prison Creative Arts Project's website.
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Words The Podcast - Episode 6: Changing Times
Lucy Zhao reads three poems and discusses salt, liminal spaces, and how to use poetry to land a job.
Andrew Dooley studied poetry, worked as journalist, and then ran the statewide social media accounts for MLive. He brings three articles to the table for discussion: “To all the young journalists asking for advice…,” by Felix Salmon; “Career Advice for Young Journalists: Don’t Take Older Journalists’ Advice,” by Will Oremus; and “Inside Ashton Kutcher’s celebrity-powered viral media empire, which no one knows exists,” by Rob Price.
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Words The Podcast - Episode 5: The Statement
This week The Michigan Daily published its annual literary issue of its weekly insert The Statement. It featured 13 works of short fiction and poetry. We spoke with The Statement editor Ian Dillingham and three of the literary issue contributors (including Words' own Phil Witteveen!)
Kari Simonsen discusses her short story, The Color Blind Knitter
JP Seguin talks Allen Ginsberg and his poem Disrespect
Phil Witteveen elaborates on life, flash fiction, and his short story Course Evaluation
Read all three works, and more, at the The Statement’s literary issue.