A Brief History of Me

Bonjour, folks.

I'll assume you're here to learn some more about me, because sometimes I'm presumptuous like that.

First things first, here's my resumé. Please see the following section "Written Text" for some of my writing samples. If multimedia is your thing, definitely check out my "Less Matter, More Art"section.

In list form, here are some biographical morsels:

• Nonfiction Writing major
• Pending Graduate/Adult
• Music and general pop culture lover
• Writer for The Pitt News and Thought & Bothered webmag
• Marketing Intern at 91.3fm WYEP
• Cat person and dance enthusiast

I enjoy the sound of music (the aural experience, not the film), average-length walks on the beach and also exchanging my time and labor for monetary compensation. I adore writing about general pop culture, and especially about music. Ideally, I'd like to work for a music publication like Stereogum or Paste, or in promotions and marketing for a radio station or record label.

Written Text

Having pursued study in the art and craft of nonfiction writing, I do on occasion enjoy taking the ol' English language out for a spin. Typically I write about music and other pop culture-y things. Aside from term papers and assorted in-class assignments, I've mostly written for two publications:

Thought & Bothered is a web magazine created by my friend Jordan Devries. It's got a writing staff of assorted 20-somethings pondering style, workout plans, local nightlife, and a whole host of things in between. Most of my contributions focus on new or relevant music, with the occasional television or pop-culture philosophy piece thrown in. A sampling of some of my favorite pieces:

• Reviewing The Decemberists' The King is Dead as a refutation of the recent "chillwave" trend
• Reevaluating the relevance and/or importance of the Grammys
• Longing hopefully for the immortality of a beloved (but cancelled) television show
• Justifying (sort of) music piracy as a potentially positive tool in the participatory experience of music creation and consumption

You can find the entire list of my Thought & Bothered detritus here on my author page. Admiral Curtze is my pseudonym - everyone here has one, because we are super hip and trendy and into anonymity.

The Pitt News is the daily student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh. I joined the Magazine/Arts & Entertainment staff at the tail-end of my college career, but I've managed to put in some good work. Read my words on:

• A Pittsburgh bicycle collective's passion for education and DIY work ethic
• Hazy, dreamy atmosphere on Real Estate's latest album Days
• The blasphemous, overstuffed film Anonymous

Less Matter, More Art

When not laboring under the heavy yoke of Microsoft Word, I like to make pretty things. My interests lie principally in music, photography, and assorted digital media.

Over the course of my Composing Digital Media class at Pitt, I've developed an interest in, well, composing digital media. This is a narrative project exploring the relationship between text and images, which I made in Adobe Photoshop. I'm in the process of learning web development using HTML5 and CSS - this is the result so far. It's entirely hand-coded by yours truly, using Adobe Dreamweaver for construction/publication and Photoshop for image editing.

Check out my Flickr page, especially if you like street art, dinosaur graffiti, and self-portraits made especially for one's mother.