Two weeks ago today, we had a beautiful sunny Sunday in Manhattan. It would have been a perfect day to go for a stroll in Central Park, or go to the Union Square greenmarket, or take a trip on the Staten Island Ferry, or walk the High Line… And instead, I sat in my living room eating bagel bites and binge watching Game of Thrones. It was, after all, an international holiday:

I really wanted to catch up with the show in time for the season seven premiere so I could watch it with my roommates that night, but unfortunately as of noon that day, I still had eight episodes of season six to watch. I thought briefly that any dignified, self-respecting person surely would not even consider attempting to watch nine episodes (that’s 8 episodes of season six + the new episode) of any TV show in one day, yet I was unswayed by this conventional wisdom. Instead, I decided to conduct a social experiment asking the important question: what happens when a person watches 9 hours of Game of Thrones in one day.

I spent many years of my life in public school being forced to do science fair experiments so I have at least a vague recollection of the scientific method. I understand that a good experiment must be reproducible. So just in case you’re looking to replicate my experiment, here are the materials you’ll need:

1. A TV or Computer.
2. An HBO Go subscription. Doesn’t have to be your own—mine’s not.
3. A cozy couch or bed. I chose couch.
4. Plenty of snacks. This is crucial.

The next steps are pretty straightforward. Sit (or lie) on your couch (or bed), watch your show, eat your snacks, and record the rich tapestry of psycho-spiritual fluctuations that you will surely experience.

It didn’t take long for some of the results of this experiment to come in. In fact, before I had even begun the marathon I discovered an important principle: If you want to engage in guilt free reprehensible behavior, just call it a “social experiment!” Heck, sometimes you may even be rewarded for your sins. If you don’t believe me, just ask Morgan Spurlock— he was nominated for an academy award for eating McDonald’s for a month.

Armed with this liberating sense of shamelessness, I assembled the snacks and assumed my position on the couch. The first three or four episodes were easy enough. Game of Thrones is obviously a very watchable show, packed with with complex characters, compelling power struggles, gratuitous violence and nudity, and at least one moment per episode designed to make you say “oh shit” out loud. However, around episode five I began to get a little stir crazy. For my own entertainment, I compulsively started singing the plot of the show along with the musical score.

What can I say, I’ve got the creative itch y’all. Many (if not most) people do. I can’t sit and relentlessly consume so much media without having the strong desire to create something of myself. That’s why I was singing those stupid little ditties and also why I’m writing this blog right now. If you haven’t yet discerned this from virtually every single sentence of this blog post, I’m not a scientist. I’m an artist.

I’m well aware that that last statement may have sounded very pretentious, but I’m not claiming to be a great artist or even a good artist, I’m just affirming to myself and you readers that my approach is that of an artist and not of a scientist. I think the distinction is interesting. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for anyone with the discipline, patience, and intelligence that it takes to be a scientist— personally, I don’t think that I have the fortitude for it. The scientist is concerned with discovering truth through a process of objective quantifiable observation of the natural world. She may spend many thankless hours measuring butterfly wingspan or orangutan bone density, but she does so in the name of contributing to the scientific community’s ongoing process of discovering the natural laws of the universe.

This is, in the least, my admittedly limited understanding and impression of the scientific endeavor. Like I said before, I am an artist, and as such I may not always (or even often) report the facts of life in their most objectively true form. Instead, my purpose and driving motivation is to create things that ring out as emotionally or even physically true. Essentially, as a musical artist, I’m doing my job if I have created something that you can feel in your heart or in your butt. And to prove that I at least attempt to accomplish this from time to time, and don’t just sit around watching popular TV shows all day, I’m going to share a couple more tracks from my ongoing Subway music project (see this post for an explanation). Thanks for reading my ramblings and I hope you enjoy the songs.