Movies of Myself

The Photo Album - 09.03

During my last 365 project summary post, I fretted over the low, sad state of my interest in photography. So imagine my surprise when my photo love peaked again soon thereafter and i threw myself back into the hobby with gusto. A couple of things happened. The end of spring and the start of summer came and, with them, a whole slew of bright and inspiring colors were all around me. Also, I started to cook more again.

Instead of searching out a bunch of new and unusual subjects or places to capture, I reapplied myself to the things I know best: food photography and vivid still lifes. I've had the most success with these in the past, but you can always learn more and try harder. I focused more on food textures and on focusing with light. I used fewer props, preferring to showcase my chosen items with balanced placement in simpler settings. Restraint is not my strong suit, so these were all very important exercises for me.

What's in line for the next two months? I think I'll try to venture back out for some more photo outings before the weather cools down again. Since this is the first year I actually like summer, I'd love to take some shots that really capture the season for me. I can't wait.

Hello Kitty - Big City Dreams

Rubbish DS game week continues, with the hotly anticipated (at least by me) Hello Kitty - Big City Dreams.

I'm sure you all know how much I love Hello Kitty? A quick summary for new readers: I have an HK sandwich maker and a Kitty humidifier. I've carved a Hello Kitty jack o' lantern the past two Halloweens. We share a birthday, for goodness' sake.

So you can see how lenient, how warmly benevolent i would be when judging this game about Kitty getting her own apartment and making her own way in the big city. She's just so darned adorable, you don't really need much more than to see her walk happily around her new digs.

But even I need a little bit more than that. Big City Dreams is basically a collection of 16 super lame mini games, all of which are either laughably simple or else so difficult to control on the DS touchscreen that they are virtually impossible. A Pac-Man clone in Keroppi's arcade, which you play with some mysterious little mice, is clunky and awkward with the stylus. The other activity in the ardade is a claw game which is even more baffling than any I've tried in real life.

It's too bad, because a lot of the games had cute potential times a thousand. Jumping double dutch with the Little Twin Stars? Helping My Melody run a snazzy clothing boutique? Bawwww. Unfortunately, the graphics are pretty much fourth rate, even for the DS and not a single game is interesting enough to merit more than about three repeat plays. I can't give this more than 2 out of 5 puffy red hair bows but no mouths of excrutiating cuteness.

Since You Already Know It

A picture, a poem and a song for summer:

Silence
by: Hayden Carruth

Sometimes we don't say anything. Sometimes
       we sit on the deck and stare at the masses of
goldenrod where the garden used to be
       and watch the color change from day to day,
the high yellow turning to mustard and at last
       to tarnish. Starlings flitter in the branches
of the dead hornbeam by the fence. And are these
       therefore the procedures of defeat? Why am I
saying all this to you anyway since you already
       know it? But of course we always tell
each other what we already know. What else?
       It's the way love is in a late stage of the world.

Motorcycle Drive By - Third Eye Blind

Summer Eating

Dudes, any barbecues this weekend? If not, please organize one stat. Summer is going by so fast and there is no time like the present to enjoy all sorts of lovely warm weather foodstuffs. Now, normally I'm content only to wrap myself in a blanket made of bacon, but SO many fruits and vegetables are ripe, vibrant and crazy bursting with flavor right now that I just can't resist them. Here's some simple salads I've thrown together lately that you should try. Trust me, I'm not exactly Julia Child, Jr., so they won't be time-consuming enough to interfere with your chiling out, maxing and relaxing. Maybe one of them would do well alongside your burgers, chicken and corn on the 4th?

Avocado and Grapefruit:

This is the most labor-intensive of the bunch but it is well, well worth it. I'd pretty much rather do anything else than peel and slice fruits. It is the epitome of yawnsville, but I did it and I will do it again for this "sashimi" style row of beauty. The dressing is a simple mix of olive oil, grapefruit juice and grainy mustard. Slosh that over your slices, top with sea salt and coarse-ground pepper and you are good as gold. Do you know how good this stuff is? I'm not really an avocado fan. I'm not really a grapefruit fan, either (though I'll take a fresh Ketel greyhound any time, please). And I still think this is the bomb.

Sugar Snap Pea & Radish

This one's good to make with a friend because there's few things more conducive to having a friendly chat than snapping the ends off some crisp sugar snap peas. Plus, each person can tolerate cutting two pea pods in half lengthwise so you'll have enough to garnish the top of the salad and make yourself look good. Trust me, it's so annoying you won't want to halve more than a handful. What's in this baby: the peas, radishes, cheese, lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil and fresh chopped mint. A wee bit of dill or tarragon, if you have it. What type of cheese? Feta is best, but blue or queso fresco will also do. I used queso fresco, because of the deep and abiding love I have for it. The radishes are best as thin as you can get them and a mandolin will serve you well in your effort to get papery slices. It will also chop the end of your finger off if you are an idiot like yours truly. Hint: do not serve severed finger parts in your salad.

Summer Berry Mix

Eat as many berries now as you can, kiddos, because soon they will be woefully bland and depressing. A winter berry craving (and we're lucky we even get berries in the winter in California) will have you paying five dollars or more for a tiny box of what basically amounts to colored water. Take any of your favorite summer berries and fruit, add some fresh mint, drizzle with local honey and spoon this stuff over a few cheese cubes, Greek yogurt, ice cream, pound cake (or ice-cream topped pound cake, uh-huh, that's right) and you'll have the perfect light post-bbq dessert salad. You can't go wrong with the classic blueberries and raspberries here. Other recommended pairings: kiwi + strawberries, peach + blackberries. Simple as can be, but there are few things better, I promise you. Now, grab me another beer--let's play some horseshoes!

Look out, look at, look at me.

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

Discussions about my upcoming 4th of July weekend in L.A.:

b: So I'm flying back on Friday night.

a: I'm so excited!

b: Awwww. :)

a: Yeah, because Mom always lets me skip Saturday guitar lessons when you come back!

----.....---.....---.....---

j: We just got a letter from Costco telling us the cookie dough we bought is poisoned with e. coli. Thought you should know we might die.

b: So does that mean I won't be seeing you this weekend?

j: I'm unclear as to whether e. coli entails a lingering death or not, so we might still see you.

----.....---.....---.....---

b: I'll be back down South this weekend. Rolling on dubs!

m: Crap, really? I'm going out of town.

b: Aw, that's okay. You need a vacation.

m: Actually, we're going to Death Valley to visit my step-grandpa.

b: Oh, wow!

m: Yeah, he lives in a trailer and all weekend we play parcheesi and eat Moon Pies.

b: Oh. Wow. 

----.....---.....---.....---

The first two songs in this week's mix were inspired by a Nightwaves dj mix that Steph turned me onto. Now, this to me is the sign of an amazing mix, when the blended collage of sound highlights the samples so well that you want to look up each and every one of them. That is, if you can stop listening to the mix itself. As of now I believe you can find a download link for the mix on the Nightwaves MySpace site (warning: links to a freaking MySpace page.)

Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix) -  The Whitest Boy Alive - An absolutely brilliant remix of a song from Erlend Øye's most recent band. It lends the perfect touch of cool to his expressive singing. It occurs to me as I write this that I might be a little bit in love with him.

Look At Me - Mirrors - I don't know much about this British band but I know that this song is pure synthey goodness. Listen if you liked M83's last record, or if part of your heart still beats for the late 80's/early 90's.

Audacity Of Huge (Feat. Chris Keating of Yeasayer) - Simian Mobile Disco - I'm terribly excited for SMD's new album because I was so darn crazy over their debut that came out in 2007. This song is fairly straightforward dance beats, though with the delightful Chris Keating lending his vocal talents.

Napoleon Says - Phoenix - I've realized that one of the things I enjoy most about Phoenix is their nonsense lyrics. Everything's just on the verge of making sense, like you're somehow immersed deep in a strange, whimsical dream. I think what Phoenix is always saying is to never mind it all, and just dance. I think this song expresses that better than anything.

Ouches

To Do List For Tomorrow:

1) Buy Neosporin

2) Buy non-stick gauze

3) Fashion a real bandage, and not MacGyver one of out a cotton puff, even if it is a High Quality Puff.

4) Stop exclaiming over how awesome mandolins are and how quickly, easily and perfectly they slice just everything up and stop braying imperiously about how you don't know how anyone lives without a mandolin.

5) Hope that this big chunk of your right index finger (your trigger finger, your mouse clicking finger, your "oh no, you di'n't" finger!) grows back real soon.

Cate West - The Vanishing Files

So it's that time of year again: Bargain Bin DS month. I will play and review one sale-priced Nintendo DS game a week for the next five weeks, culminating in total DS overload and an almost crippling sense of disappointment in humanity. Why I decided to undertake BBDS month when I've got so many jobs to finish, the office is going to hell in a handbasket and my interest in cooking and photography are really peaking again, is beyond me. I guess that's just how I like my cookie to crumble. I sure hope this turns out as well as last year, where I am still getting feedback about how much you all loved my least favorite game. That was boss. Alright, let the games begin!

First up is Cate West- The Vanishing Files, aka spot the difference puzzles masquerading as a sleuth game, aka how to lose your damn eyesight in about three days. This game was actually quite fun, but I was not anticipating the severe eye strain involved.

There are fifteen mysteries for Cate West, semi-failed novelist turned suddenly psychic amateur police investigator, to solve. Each mystery involves a long hidden picture puzzle, a spot the difference section, a shorter hidden picture puzzle, eliminating suspects through a short "logic" game and then a match-two-scenes puzzle. So basically, it's an issue of Highlights magazine in DS cartridge form, except there isn't "Goofus & Gallant" and there's no section where five year olds can submit haikus about giraffes. The game is fairly entertaining if you like that kind of thing.

It's just that the DS is the absolute worst format for sight puzzles. The little screen is just way too small to play Cate West comfortably. Seriously, look at the sample screen in the photo I took at the top of this post. I needed to place the tiny fucking dice at the bottom of the screen into one of the two pictures above so that it matched the placement of the dice in the other picture. All on a background that was white with little black speckles. Oy. And every single stupid puzzle was equally crazy.

And I know that DS games don't always put much emphasis on making any sense at all, but a lot of the storyline and mystery-solving tactics were pretty farfetched. I don't understand why a Roman coin, a cheeseburger and a set of freaking nutcrackers were the clues that Cate needs to figure out who committed murder at a church. And the whole psychic angle was abused pretty heavily. All Cate had to do in order to analyze clues was touch them. As you can see by my other screenshot, she has in-depth knowledge about how blondes handle their maracas.

So aside from the half-assed incorporation of a really shitty Dan Brown-esque religious conspiracy theory and the fact that this game literally makes you cry, I would heartily reccomend Cate West - The Vanishing Files. It's challenging but not to the point where you want to go on a murderous rampage and it's quite satisfying when you clear the levels. I gladly award it three and a half out of five LASIK eye surgeries of doom.

On Salty Snacks and Volley Tennis

Someone brought these little bagged snacks to the office last week. Prince noodles oodles.

They are basically a bag of ramen with the seasoning packet mixed in, crushed all to bits. In the fourth grade, we used to make this ourselves and eat it every day for a snack at recess. It only took about thirty seconds to break up the noodle cake and it was salty, crisp and addicting stuff. It's no wonder we were all so cranky and crazy all the time.

Anyways, we used to especially like eating our ghetto noodles oodles when we played volley tennis. Yep, there was no actual volleyball net at the school, so we just played lazy-ass vertically-challenged v-ball at the tennis court. It was quite the popular recess game for a few weeks, after we'd tired of chinese jump rope and before we discovered the thrills of handball. My friends and I even played on an intramural volley tennis team for a short while. The league was quite poorly organized, so we kept forgetting to show up to games, but at least the practices were fun.

Who knew Prince noodles oodles would bring up so many childhood memories. Perhaps I'm having an msg trip.

Well I have been quietly standing in the shade all of my days.

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

Summer's here. You know, I give summer a lot of flack because I despise hot weather and because each year my nostalgia for childhood summers, i.e. three months of doing absolutely nothing, overwhelms me so. But this year summer makes me happy, makes me feel the sense of rebirth and laughing, blossoming wonder that spring usually gives. Instead of throwing my hands up at our sudden heat wave I think I will make popsicles, dig out all my tank tops and snatch all the lazy lemonade drinking moments I can. Summer always means sweet, soft folksy music to me. Luckily there is great influx of just that kind of sound right now. These songs will be perfect for your picnics under tree shade. They'll let you enjoy long naps in your hammock under the starlight.

Drowning Men - Fanfarlo *

Northern Lights - Bowerbirds

All My Days - Alexi Murdoch (Away We Go OST)

My Friend - Bill Callahan

* Just wanted to mention that Fanfarlo is offering their new album with bonus tracks for only $1 on their website, from now until July 4th. Jen alerted me to this and I'm so glad I took advantage. It's an absolutely fantastic album. Come on, guys--only one measly dollar!

Turtle Jerk

Okay, I'm just gonna come right out and say it. One of my turtles is an asshole.

It's Miles. The smaller, smarter, braver one. The one who snaps to attention every time I walk by, taps on the glass to call hello to me and then follows me around as best as he can in his watery confines. If I so much as glance at the turtle tank he's there, clamoring to get my attention.

Take all that pure turtley emotion, spin it around 180 degrees and you'll understand how Miles feels about his tankmate, Nina. I wouldn't say that he loathes her. But there is mad disrespect, that's for certain. He will straight up swim almost through her, dashing her up against the tank walls, all like "oh, dude, I totally didn't see you there even though you are twice my size and we share a freakishly small amount of space. Somehow you're always in my way, what a drag." He also targets her with random face bashes. Oh dear.

Worst of all, though, is the food situation. Now, let me tell you -- Nina lives to eat. She's a much happier and more adventurous diner than Miles. She even likes raw cabbage for heaven's sake. So, of course, Miles has to stalk her at each and every mealtime, squawking and batting at her until she forlornly gives up whatever she's chewing on. At which point he promptly mad dogs her and swims away from the abandoned food. That's how much of a wanker he is. He doesn't even want to eat the stuff himself. He just can't stand for her to have it. No organic Fuji apple chunks for you, Nina! Oh, they're your favorite? Mass suckage.

It's really very sad to witness Nina floundering around until Miles gets tired of his shenanigans and she can eat in peace. What a monster I've raised!

Roaring Forties or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Cheese

Is it any wonder that I know nothing about cheese?

Cheese was not a big part of my life growing up. As first generation Asian-Americans, my family considered all dairy products except for milk and Vietnamese-style yogurt to be outlandishly alien. It took over two decades of living in California before my grandmother ventured to eat her Filet o' Fish sandwich with the cheese slice on it, and that was only because we bullied her into trying it. For the first twelve years of my life I thought that Kraft singles were the only form that cheese came in.

Then during my second year at Cal I was struck down by a sudden onset of lactose intolerance, which was equal parts shocking and miserable. I was suddenly unable to eat grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza, macaroni and cheese and, worst of all, cereal without wanting to rip all of my intestines out. Overnight, 3/4 of my diet was rendered impossible.

So cheese was shoved even further away on the back burner, until one night about seven years ago when I dropped in to visit my friend J after a long day at work. Since I hadn't eaten yet, he threw a quick, happy dinner together for me: pb&j on wheat, graham crackers and a slice of white stilton cheese with apricots. And it was like the cheese heavens opened and shone a beam of cheese illumination upon me. That cheese was fricking great. I didn't know cheese could be anything beyond "kind of good". It was instant conversion. I became a cheese believer.

They still sell that stilton at Trader Joe's though I rarely buy it now, because I'm more interested in trying new cheeses. Armed with handy packets of Lactaid pills I am learning more and more about what I can eat without suffering and about the fascinating world of cheesemaking. The picture at the top of this post shows a wonderful cheese course we had at Cyrus up in Healdsburg a couple of years ago. The restaurant actually has their own cheese expert who mans a generously laden cart and helps you pick out different types depending on preferred region, flavor and style. She really inspired me to give more local cheeses a try.

 

My favorite new cheese, however, is anything but local. This is Roaring Forties blue, made by King Island Dairy on a small dot of land off the tip of Tasmania. Located on forty degrees lattitude, the island gets winds up to 100km an hour and has seen more than its fair share of fatal shipwrecks over the past two centuries. But for the most part, the weather here is moderate and lovely with plenty of sun and rain, and so the land is especially fertile. Only two thousand people inhabit King Island and there's basically no pollution. It's a perfect place for farming and apparently, for cheesemaking.

Roaring Forties is made in a wax rind which keeps it moist, smooth, creamy and complex. It's a little sweet and a little nutty and while it still has the wild, salty tang of blue cheese, it's much more manageable. It's definitely blue, but not Blue blue, which is a good thing for this Kraft singles girl. Roaring Forties also gets along so well with wine, fruit and with honey. Golly, does it love honey. And that's a great thing for this Kraft singles girl.

I reach out through the border fence, come down, come talk to me.

Woke up early today and talked to my dad on the phone. He was moving things around in the family room, getting ready to set up his big new flatscreen tv. Happy father's day, indeed. Then I went on a short run around the neighborhood, up around a hummingbird garden and I saw a family walking along, picnic basket and pie box in hand.

I thought a lot about my grandpa, who always encouraged the silly and whimsical making of mud pies along with actual meat pies and fruit pies, and who liked nothing more than the slow savoring of any of the aforementioned kinds. He was also the first to insist when you were due to eat humble pie and it didn't bother him to concede if he needed a slice himself.

He was, perhaps, the most graciously accepting person I've ever known. The least likely to be undone by his frustrations, the most likely to swim along with them and incorporate them into his quiet school of thought. I was thinking, too, that these would be good things for me to learn more about.

And I was listening to this, a song that Peter Gabriel wrote for his daughter (one of my very favorite songs ever, actually) and wishing I could talk to my grandpa just one more time:

Come Talk To Me - Peter Gabriel

If you're lost you can look and you will find me.

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

Look how young and sweet and skinny my parents look here! Seriously, aren't they the cutest little rails you've ever seen? I don't have any photos of just my father and me at my place, but I think this does nicely. Today's mix is dedicated to my dad, for Father's Day and for his birthday which falls this week, too. It's only fitting, since every shred of musicality I have is owed to him. Between the two of us, we collected hundreds of vinyl records in the eighties and wore through about three different record players. He loves singing, he loves the radio, he loves everything about music and he always made sure it was a big part of our lives. He taught me that the right song can make a wonderful moment that much more perfect and that it can get you through the hardest times, too. Here's a few of our favorite songs from our vinyl spinning days.

Time After Time - Cindy Lauper

I Can Dream About You - Dan Hartman

Pass The Dutchie - Musical Youth

The Greatest Love of All - Whitney Houston

Walking & Running

I've been a little shoe crazy lately.

Zen Girl + Tokidoki for Hello Kitty from LojaMelissa.com. I'm a huge sucker for anything Tokidoki, especially their HK collaborations. Also, these remind me of the jelly shoes we always use to wear in elementary school.

I always have Frye boot envy, but these soft, buttery Kate flats are really much more my style. The shape and pleating detail is just perfect. I think these would be so versatile for spring, summer and fall here in California.

So, check it. Those chains are shoe jewelry made by Litter SF that you can buy and drape around any of your existing heels whenever you want to add some extra spice to your already fiery hot stilletos. Quite clever, though I've not been doing too well when I wear heels this high the past month.

Alright, walk it out, guys.

Now She Can't See

Grrr. Rrrr. Rawwwr. I feel like I'm not seeing anything straight lately. It's like I have the wrong goggles on, maybe the whale-watching goggles or the ski patrol ones, but not the regular goggle goggles. Wait - what. Goggles???

Love Letter to Los Angeles, Part I

If I say the word "home", what do you think of?

Even though I haven't lived there for four years, I think of Los Angeles.

I can't help it. When I'm deplaning from the rear staircases at Burbank airport, when my car rolls past the Ventura border and the sky becomes the first light grey of a smog-tinged concrete gradient, I think it every time.

I'm home.

This is not to say that I didn't hate L.A. viciously the last couple of years that I lived there. Everything seemed so fake and insincere. You've never seen mean, arrogant greed like it in your life. You've never seen such cruel stupidity. If one more person looks me up and down today to see what brand names I'm wearing, I decided, I am getting the hell out of dodge. That day four people gave me the fashion once-over, didn't even try to hide it.

So you see, there is no place like it. Because on the other side of the coin you've never seen so many astonishingly beautiful people who all just want to live their good lives. You've never seen so many extraordinary hopes and dreams pressed so closely together, floating from the minds of people who absolutely believe that life can and should be gorgeous. Despite the rotten shallows, there is no place so full of light, no place that compares.

It's funny, because it took leaving Los Angeles to make me see the city for what it really is. I had to miss L.A. to learn to see the real stars amongst all the streetlights. A single moment two years ago made me realize what Los Angeles means, to me.

I was driving in my mom's car from Pasadena out to meet my ex in Culver City for some Cuban chicken at Versailles. At that moment I was curving the big round from the delightful crazy twists of the 110, past the Westin Bonaventure, past those enormous weird paintings of the Philharmonic musicians with their instruments, past the Staples Center and the green monster of the Convention Center.

I merged onto the 10 West and pulled up level between two cars. On my right was a drop dead dazzling bleached blonde woman in a huge black Mercedes SUV, talking animatedly on her cell phone with a diamond on her hand that was worth enough money to feed a normal family for about 20 months. On my left was a beige-colored classic American car, a slightly shabby low rider in every sense of the word. Two handsome young Latino men in the front seat sang blithely along to the Mariachi music blaring out of its windows as we rolled past the exit for Inglewood. The juxtaposition was perfect.

Right then it's like I reached out and put my finger on the pulse of Los Angeles. And right then I knew that I would never ever understand a city the way that I understood L.A. Even if its pulse was weak and thready at times and I had to push up its Gucci sleeve and poke around under a stack of bangle bracelets from Kitson, I would always be able to find it. I would always be just a moment away from feeling its glossy and hopeful heart beat in unison with mine.

Here Should Be My Home - No Age

The World Through Your Eyes

Besides working harder on my photos again lately, I am more inspired than ever by the pictures I view. Here's just a few of my flickr favorites from the past week:

1. Paper Doves, 2. P060409PS-0080, 3. 158/365, 4. kawaii stuff inside my bag, 5. Road of no return., 6. Sternotherus minor hatching, 7. so i organized my bookcase, 8. Mobile Suit Gundam, 9. They'll Soon Discover, 10. Hello Kitty wears glasses!, 11. saturday night, 12. hydrangea blooms!!!, 13. 14/365 june gloom, 14. Untitled, 15. (H)overpass 3, 16. The Ride of Your Life, 17. The Pit, 18. The view from up here, 19. The Crash, 20. Parade

I swear photography makes me feel like I am surrounded by geniuses, madmen and saints.

Late Late

Yesterday was the first night in about two weeks that I have gotten anywhere near to a decent amount of sleep. You see, when Conan O' Brien took over the Tonight Show, I thought I'd tune in and see what was up. After the debut episode I accidentally flipped over to the Late Late show and zomg I am now utterly obsessed with Craig Ferguson. It was love at first joke.

Now I've undone all the hard work I put into normalizing my sleep schedule over the past two years, all in order to watch a five minute monologue every night. I can't help it. He is just so unself-consciously hilarious. Thank goodness they archive some of the bits over at CBS or I'd have to go on zombie status indefinitely. Must get myself to one of the show's live studio tapings in L.A. this year.

Always, Sometimes, Easy, Time

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

My favorite words this week: canoodling, filibuster, vol-au-vent, salvation, credence, incredulity and, last but not least, takoyaki.

Lowiza - The Lovely Feathers Oh my goodness I love these guys and their new album. The Feathers appeared like a sudden streak of light in the sky in 2006 and then abruptly disappeared. But they are back and they have stories to tell. Listen if you love the Unicorns and Arcade Fire.

Caterpillar - Ed Harcourt I first discovered Ed Harcourt opening for Neil Finn back in the day. He is my not-as-restrained Rufus Wainwright stand-in and he's got a great new EP out now.

Kicking And Screaming - The Presets What I've been dancing to all week :)

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear When a lower quality version of Grizzly Bear's latest leaked a few months ago I banned myself from giving it anything but the most cursory of listens. There is so much here and I'm glad I waited for the official release in all its full glory. Get this and get ready to spend lots of time for it to sink sweetly in.

Queneau

via Thomas Guest

What is this strange and beautiful book? It's a copy of French poet Raymond Queneau's Cent mille milliards de poèmes (One hundred million million poems). According to the bevrowe.info page on the Sonnets:

Queneau’s Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes is derived from a set of ten basic sonnets. In his book, published in 1961, they are printed on card with each line on a separated strip, like a heads-bodies-and-legs book. All ten sonnets have the same rhyme scheme and employ the same rhyme sounds. As a result, any line from a sonnet can be combined with any from the other nine, giving 1014 (= 100,000,000,000,000) different poems. Working twenty-four hours a day, it would you take some 140,000,000 years to read them all.

How cool is that? The sonnets have been translated into English and the site even has a page where you can view randomized sonnet combinations or make specific medleys of your own. This is the first one I put together. The Sonnets themselves are both fanciful and unusual, so they make for a great creative pool to wade into.

Charming

Oh sweet fricking Jesus, Tord Boontje makes jewelry now?

This is all four sets of the available laser-cut charms worn together. Darlings, I am swooning swoons.

Paulette

Macarons from the San Francisco location of Paulette. This is some good stuff. Not Ladureé or Pierre Hermé quality, perhaps (I wish I could tell you from personal experience), but still markedly delightful and delicious.

Of course, any macron is a good macaron to me lately. In the past few months I've developed an insatiable craving for these little delicacies, these perfect combinations of cookie, candy and cake; of color, structure, beauty and baking.

For years I did not see the draw. They were too syrupy and too fussy. A few years ago I think I managed to choke down maybe one from a beautiful fresh dozen that Jenny bought in Napa. Then one morning at the end of this past February they finally clicked for me. I was having a caramel macaron for breakfast and the light buttercream center, moist sweet cake and crispy paper-thin crust all blended perfectly, I just suddenly got it. There is nothing else quite like these cookies.

Macrons are snooty, of course. The sleek, brassy colors. The porcelain-smooth surfaces. Decorations - painstakingly applied or painted on. And the tricky process of their making, which I'm assured often involves constant unpredictability and hand-wringing. My sister and I were going to make some for Mother's Day but opted to, you know, not stay home experimenting in complete clueless mania for six hours. "They have caramel fleur de sel ones for sale at Europane," I read from a website. "Yeah, let's do that instead," she agreed with alacrity. These pink dragee-flavored Paulettes were a study in the intricacies of almond. The almond flour base of the cookie subtly laced with hints of wedding candy, surrounding a decadent marzipan center.

I think perhaps the greatest thing about macarons is their perfect pairing with a cup of tea. For the most part, I think coffee usually makes an infinitely better beverage match for desserts. Coffee and cake, ristretto and ice cream, caffe corretto and souffle. But macarons were made for tea. My favorite offering from Paulette was the lemon flavor. The cake was so lusciously smooth, wet and full-bodied it was like biting into layers of the very best lemon curd. With a cup of first flush darjeeling it was pure heaven.

Appearances

I've been quite fascinated by photo editing lately. I haven't picked up the skills to do anything too far out there, but I am intrigued by how much even very subtle changes in color and light can alter what a picture is saying. I've started working a bit with textures again as well, and plan to spend the next week seeking out a few more. I know it's all too easy to fall into the trap of extreme overediting and pretty soon, all your pictures have the same tone, the same expression. I like to think the overall variety of my subjects is random enough to save me from that and, sometimes, photoshopping is just very satisfying. Here's some before and afters for pictures I've altered recently:

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Crossing Fingers and Wiping Brows

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

Hugh Everett III was a physicist who formulated the many worlds theory of quantum physics. Put simply, it is the theory of parallel universes. Every decision we make causes us to branch off so that everything that could possibly happen does happen, somewhere, simultaneously. Everything we are and could be, so close but never touching.

In this world, Hugh had a son named Mark Oliver who was to struggle endlessly in school, find his estranged father dead of a heart attack at the age of 51, and then move across the country to Los Angeles to find a new life. In the years that followed Mark would see his schizophrenic sister die at her own hand and he would nurse his mother through the cancer that would end her life, all while working endlessly with only the tiniest bit of hope.

But in this world, that tiniest bit turned into everything. Mark Oliver Everett (E) is the lead singer and songwriter for the Eels and I have loved him for years for so many reasons. His alter ego M.C. Honky. The crazy and glorious beard he's sported as of late. His utter refusal to ever compromise his artistic beliefs. And, of course, his music. That he has this extraordinary of a history both shocks and humbles me. I am amazed at what he has done.

I highly reccomend E's published memoirs, Things The Grandchildren Should Know. He's an amazing storyteller and the book is funny, sweet, heart-wrenchingly sad and incredibly moving. Also noteworthy if you can find it on your public television station is Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, a NOVA special that chronicles E's search to learn more about his father's theory. Eels' new album Hombre Lobo is out this week.

Fresh Blood - Eels

Hey Man (Now You're Really Living) - Eels

Trouble With Dreams - Eels

Ok Computer

Internet Classic:

via chopinkarate (orig. source thisblogrules.com)

via stolenpanties

Yes, I am addicted to tumblr. Quite a lot of it is vomitrociously emo, but the funny bits make it all worthwhile.

Internet Dud:

1) The spam filters on my email account have gone zonkers. Mucho spams are flooding through and it annoys the hell out of me.

2) I have been mistaken for strangers. A Vietnamese person (or maybe a couple?) mysteriously added me to their personal address list of friends a few months ago. I will get the occasional bbq evite from them or an invitation to view holiday photos on Snapfish. Most recently I even got a baby announcement. Yet, despite racking my brain for any memory of these people, despite carefully perusing the pictures of their friends and family, I am certain that we do not know each other. It's simultaneously intriguing and exasperating.

Summer Reading

Okay, alright.

I've decided to read Infinite Jest over the next few months for Infinite Summer.

I've always wanted to read the book and all the articles I went through this past winter about the life and hard times of David Foster Wallace have inspired me even further. The Summer begins officially on June 21st so there's plenty of time to get in gear and join in if you are so inclined.

Of course, I might try to get a jumpstart on my reading over the next couple of weeks, lest this turn out like my grandly disastrous undertaking of Ulysses a while back.

Circle Takes The Square

I've had an exceptionally lovely visit with Sue who was in town from Phoenix over the past few days.

One night we watched the last ten minutes of Wheel of Fortune (which oh my gosh, Sue is really good at) and we started talking game shows. Jeopardy, Family Feud, $20,000 Pyramid.

She asked me what game show I'd pick to be a contestant on if I had my choice of all shows ever. I said it would have to be the Wheel. I think I'd have a chance of doing well, plus it was my favorite game show growing up because of when they were forced to go speed shopping in the gallery of prizes.

But I completely take that back now. My pick would have to be Hollywood Squares, especially if Jim J. Bullock, Martin Mull or that ventriloquist with the scary puppet was on. What an awesomely weird show.

And the days add up to weeks add up to months and add up.

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

How is it almost midnight as I write this and yet I haven't done a quarter of the tasks I'd wanted to finish for tonight? How is it that each day (for the most part) flies by like a bullet train and the days all huddle together and suddenly it is almost June? I just want to run out into the windy street and put my hand up against time and say, "come on now. Slow down a little, for crying out loud."

You Go on Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II) - Sunset Rubdown - This song feels the same way I do, I think. The new Sunset Rubdown is seriously blowing my mind with its deliciousness and this track is my favorite so far.

Wide Awake On The Voyage Home - Liam Finn - It's quite nice to see the son of Neil Finn,my favorite singer/songwriter become a talented artist in his own right. There's hints of Elliott Smith to this song and that's about one of the highest compliments I know how to give.

Parentheses - The Blow - This song is just good poppy fun, but there is a part that is so genuinely sweet it always makes me smile:

If something in the deli aisle makes you cry
Of course I'll put my arm around you
And I'll walk you outside
Through the sliding doors
Why would I mind?

Of course.

Death And All His Friends (live) - Coldplay - This free live set from Coldplay's website made me seriously regret not buying tickets for their current tour. Chris Martin's a capella opening from this song makes me remember what great performers they are.

Evil that just does not exist.

So I'm sure most of you (at least those in the U.S.) have heard by now that the California Supreme Court decided today to uphold Proposition 8, the ban against gay marriage. I read this news at lunchtime and it has frustrated and upset me all day to no end. Though I am not surprised, every time I think of it I get so sad I want to scream and cry at the same time.

I've not written much about political, spiritual or moral beliefs and issues here. It's just never quite fit with the tone I'd like to maintain on this site and besides, I'm okay with people believing what they want. But I just can't let this pass by without a word.

Personally, I find it absurd to even try to label homosexuality as something wrong. I firmly believe that sexual orientation is not something we choose and so I would feel overwhelmingly strange blaming someone for it, finding them somehow guilty or sinful of a quality that they are born with, that fundamentally cannot change.

I just cannot fathom looking my gay friends in the eyes and telling them that I believe I am a morally superior person to them. I can't imagine saying that they do not deserve the same rights as I do, that their love and their relationships aren't as good as mine. Tell them that they aren't equal to myself as humans?? How and why?

I think perhaps Paul Newman puts it best:

I’m a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being… by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.

I Was Married - Tegan & Sara

Higher and Higher and Higher

What a lovely Memorial Day weekend. A Nine Inch Nails show,  clams and burgers, the Lakers game (and what a game it was) out on a patio that had heat lamps and a flat screen tv, caffe freddos, time to catch up on reading and writing, lovely macarons, movies and mayhem and lots of semi-inebriated good times, with a little work thrown in for good measure. Throughout the last few days I've been listening endlessly to one album: Manners by Passion Pit.

They're a Massachusetts band with the indie pop electronica sound that seems so popular nowadays (think Phoenix & Cut Copy), done in a superbly fun, sweet, bold and listenable manner. This is great driving music, great barbecue music, great everything music. These are feel-good songs that will hook you know and keep you listening all the rest of the summer. Hope everyone's having a great weekend :)

Make Light - Passion Pit

Little Secrets - Passion Pit

Sleepyhead - Passion Pit

Sponge On A Stick

Oh, damn it.

I was all excited to make these Sponge Bobs on a stick but now that I am actually taking a minute to investigate further, all the "recipe" really says is basically:

a) make rice krispy treat squares

b) shove a stick in them

c) decorate

Apparently somewhere in step c you magically figure out what kind of chocolate, icing, frosting, candies, sharpie pens, etc. would work best in order to make his square pants, everlasting eyelashes, facial features... basically every detail that would identify him as Sponge Bob.

Well, I don't know how to make a teeny tiny jaunty red necktie for him. I just don't! Sponge Bob on a stick recipe, why must you teeeeeeaaaaaaaase?

Change your heart, it will astound you.

Okay so this week I have put off spring cleaning yet again, eaten way too much popcorn, continued my research into the legends of Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table and designed two invitations in the space of basically two hours (rad). And I've been astonished at the sudden and renewed onslaught of great new music.

So Bored - Wavves This song basically describes every summer I spent from the age of nine through nineteen.

Boy 1904 - Riceboy Sleeps This project is the vocalist from Sigur Ros recording with his boyfriend, ironically with much fewer vocals than typical Sigur Ros songs. It's truly beautiful stuff.

Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime - The Field This album only has six tracks and yet it is enough. I can't quite pinpoint it, can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something just so cool about this Swedish electronic artist's sound.

Star Eyes (I Can Catch It) (feat. James Mercer) - Sparklehorse & Danger Mouse An incredible project. Besides the lovely James Mercer, the vocal contributors include Wayne Coyne, Jason Lytle, Julian Casablancas & Nina Persson. If you can get this, get it (thanks, N!)

Far Along In the Story

I first discovered W.S. Merwin as a translator of Neruda. It wasn't until a couple of years after that I realized he was a breathtaking and powerful poet in his own right. His work, much like Neruda's, speaks with an almost impossible longing and beauty about things great and small. He writes with less surface passion, but the words ring deep and true. It is a slow burn. His latest collection, The Shadow of Sirius, is simply remarkable.

Near Field
W.S. Merwin

This is not something new or kept secret
the tilled ground unsown in late spring
the dead are not separate form the living
each has one foot in the unknown
and cannot speak for the other
the field tells none of its turned story
it lies under its low cloud like a waiting river
the dead made this out of their hunger
out of what they had been told
out of the pains and shadows
and bowels of animals
out of turning and
coming back singing
about another time

Waldo

You guys love Where's Waldo, right? Yep, I thought so. I'm not very good at Where's Waldo but I've got a lot of fond memories of the books from childhood. Two awesome Waldo-related things recently:

(photo via statetheatrenj)

1) The Most Waldos - A Guinness World Record was set this past April for the most people gathered together and  dressed as Waldo. This must have been hilarious. 1,052 Rutgers students made this happen. Bless them.

2) Odlaw. For some reason, I had either completely forgotten, or was never even aware of the existence, of Waldo's arch-nemesis. In the Where's Waldo Wiki (yes, for reals) Odlaw is described as "mean, nasty, loathsome and disgusting. His number of good deeds are few and all he cares about is getting his hands on Waldo's magic walking stick."

Oh my god, I love him. He is dressed like a bumbleebee and he has creepy sunglasses and pervy mustache. Why?? He lives in a swamp populated by numerous Odlaws and other creatures that are yellow and black. And even his mother does not like him. This is tremendously and wonderfully bizarre.

We Went to the Zoo

Last weekend we went to the zoo for Mother's Day. The zoo is always a big mix of fun and heartbreak. We used to have annual passes and went all the time, but we hadn't visited in about 6 or 7 years at least. It was hot, the sun burned like a bastard and we had cherry Icees. Mom had more energy than Audrey + me X 900. Had a blast, took lots of photos:

Oh hi, prairie dogs. You guys are greedy and belligerent. And you are also the funniest animal at the zoo, by far.

This family was very cool and stately.

These two gibbons were so sweet. They were utterly inseparable and stuck this close to each other the whole time we watched them; getting food together, swinging around side by side, peeing together. Yep. But seriously, you see what I mean by heartbreaking, no?

Meerkats are the bomb. G's up.

Forever to search for the flame, for home again.

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

It's been a long dry spell since my last concert (I think the last one was at the end of March) and, after the glut of shows I saw last year, it seems like an especially long stretch of time. There's a bunch of concerts coming up that I'm slotted to attend and I can't wait. I'm feeling the need to get my indie dance on. Here's a few tracks from artists I'm especially looking forward to seeing.

The Next Time You Say Forever - Neko Case

Milk - Kings Of Leon

Daniel - Bat For Lashes

My Hero (Foo Fighters Cover) - Paramore

My Latest Obsession

Dear Red Bull Cola,

Thank you for helping to keep the dream alive. You are smart, bitter, saucy and awesome and I think this might be love. I will be on the lookout for you this week, you hear? For a cold six. Keep on with your bad self.

Love,

--b

Instant Karma

Participating in Polaroid Week was a good idea. I was looking to renew my photography enthusiasm and I do believe it worked. I took time to sort through my big, dumb archive of Polaroids (most of the shots I have are mess-ups or drunk shots) and I took a bunch of shots throughout the week, too, and it was SO much fun. I took some cool Pola shots at the zoo over the weekend and this whole past week has inspired me to keep working on my instant shots through the rest of the year. I was talking with C about how Polaroids really captures the excitement and surprise that photography seems to have lost, now that most people have made the leap to digital photography. We reminisced about picking up a developed roll of 35mm and laughing and gasping over the shots. You get that same feeling when that Polaroid pops out of the camera and everyone leans their head over it, waiting to see what appears like magic.

And take lots of pictures.

I'm going down to L.A. this weekend. I'm excited. How excited? I could probably do the 100 meter dash in World Class Track Meet in about 10 seconds, maybe. Things I have planned so far:

• spa day with Kerry
• a trip to the zoo, where I hope to make at least one of those weird-smelling plastic animals from those Mold-A-Rama machines
• cooking Mother's Day brunch with my sister, who has never cooked anything that involved a stovetop or an oven, seriously, not ever
• maybe take our dad to see Earth the movie
• bountiful Chinese food dinner with Grandma
• try to persuade someone to track down the Kogi taco truck with me
• visit some used bookstores
• hang out with the world's best dog
• go see a drive-thru donut

Word.

Now I know why things aren't as pretty on the inside.

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

This week's mix is rather random, I know. I started perusing a site called Blip.fm over the weekend and I got kind of obsessed with watching the dizzying spiral of songs scroll down the front page. I discovered a lot of fun new tracks but really the best part was listening to a slew of forgotten songs. I spent way too much time clicking on Dire Straits picks and you should've seen how strangely excited I was to rediscover songs like Janet Jackson's "I Get Lonely" (srsly, such a solid song). Let me spread some of the love:

Bittersweet - Big Head Todd and the Monsters - I only know one song by these guys, but one is enough. This rocks and brings back a lot of memories, "more sweet than bitter, bitter than sweet".

Lights Out - Santogold Santigold - b: Check this song out! It has me going back to listen to the Santo gold album all over again. y: Oh, this song. It's from a beer commercial. b: Beer? What the fuuu? y: Yeah, um. I think a Bud Light t.v. commercial. b: Crud. (update, apparently she changed her name to Santigold in February)

Sleeper 1972 - Manchester Orchestra - Confession. I cried the first time I heard this song. And maybe the second time, too.

Only - Nine Inch Nails - And yes, this would be my favorite NIN song ever. xoxox

World Book

marriedtothesea.com

Lolz, reading this comic made me hearken back to the lazy summer after fifth grade. For some reason our school decided to buy ALL NEW EDITIONS of the World Book Enclyclopedia (upgrade!) and, instead of donating the older sets to a library or anything even remotely practical like that, the decision was made to give single books out to students at the end of the school year.

There were just enough books in my class so that each student would get one volume. I ended up with the fairly mediocre "S Part 2". I guess there are so many damn things that start with the letter S that they had to split it up into two separate tomes so what I received was, like, Sj-Sz.

And I ended up reading a lot of this Encyclopedia volume over the summer, even though most of it was dullsville. Whenever I had a free moment, and in those days of no internet there were many of them, I would read of the horrors of Sjögren's syndrome or ponder how lovely it would be to visit St. Tropez. I learned more than I cared too about Squids, Snohomish, Washington and Submarine warfare. I spent an amazing week in the world of Space and looked again and again at the gallery of photos of Statues. There really isn't anything quite like looking at a paper copy of the Encyclopedia. I quite miss it.

The Photo Album - 09.02

I started the second two months of the Picture a Day project with a bang. I was really motivated with my daily photos and envisioned, planned and executed lots of fun shots. I'm still pretty happy looking back at my March and April shots. I think I learned more about scene setting and also about smart editing. But somewhere along the way I got kind of caught up with life and things have really started to dwindle.

I worry about May and June, because my level of enthusiasm for photography has dropped quite dramatically in the last couple of weeks. This is both good and bad. I've still got 2/3rds of this photo year to go so I hate to lose focus so early in the game. On the other hand, I've been listening to tons of great music, reading like a fiend, working on my writing and designing and crafting a lot more lately. I can't be too sad about that.

Today marks the start of Polaroid Week and I plan to pick up some 600 film and get on that. Here's hoping it will brighten up the way I see things and breathe some new life into this project.

First Saturday In May

We're sitting around watching the pre-race coverage for the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby. I have loved horse racing since high school and this day is always a thrill. The huge news this morning is that the morning line favorite, I Want Revenge, has been scratched from the race. He had a slightly swollen ankle, probably not a career-ending situation, but since there was some heat in the ankle his team has made the decision not to run him. Interestingly, this bumps a horse named Friesan Fire into favorite position. Friesan Fire's trainer and jockey were the same duo working with Eight Belles, the filly who tragically broke down in last year's Derby.

Everyone's talking about what a generous decision it is to scratch I Want Revenge, and it really drives home a couple of major horse racing issues for me. First, I find it infinitely fascinating that dozens of humans work ceaselessly to bring things together for an athlete that can't speak a word. Leading up to this race a million decisions have to be made and each one of these participants is doing the best they can, yet it all comes down to a horse who cannot say how much a strained ankle is really bothering him.

Secondly, there's a lot more behind a scratch decision than mere concern about one horse. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that the team surrounding a horse does truly care for them. But business-wise, if you push a horse with a known injury, you risk several years of racing and purse money to come and, if a horse is fatally injured, you also run the far greater risk of losing countless millions in stud/breeding fees after the horse retires. Over the years, speed breeding has produced horses that are faster in short bursts, with less stamina and strength. These are thousand pound animals running at breakneck speed on ankles not much thicker than a human's. It's an alarming and amazing thing.

Despite all of this, it must be brutally disappointing to scratch on race morning. I was excited to see I Want Revenge run. His jockey, Joe Talamo, is a 19 year old kid just beginning what I think will be an outstanding career riding the Southern California circuit. But there are lots of other horses to watch, each with fascinating histories. What drew me to horse racing in the first place is the stories. Each horse's career can involve a slew of owners, trainers, jockeys, excercise riders, grooms and breeders, some of them with decades of racing experience behind them, and all of them somehow with an intense and moving passion for this sport. I can't wait to see what happens.

Gathered in my loose ends, switched off the light.

Last night I had to write something down so I reached for a notebook on my nightstand. A notebook in which, for a few months in the fall of 2007, I used to jot down a few words to describe what I'd done and how I'd felt each day. I flipped through these entries and it made me realize how easy it is to forget everything.

I hadn't thought about 90% of the things that happened during that time since they occurred, but all it took was the few scribbled words, just a handful altogether really, to bring back a world of memories, good and bad. I have made mistakes, yes. But I have also seen beautiful, wonderful things.

Just in the space of a random week and a half plucked from the notebook I: saw Interpol live, ate warm chocolate cupcakes (baked to order), bought a pair of blue heels that I fell in love with, carved a Hello Kitty jack o lantern, made paper flowers and butterflies, walked a corn maze, ate stunning Japanese food, watched a friend cry out of pure happiness, drove by my old college apartment, got a great massage, spread luscious bone marrow on toast and watched Broken Social Scene rock the Fillmore. All of this in just ten days. So much of it forgotten til now.

I can't stop thinking about what we keep with us and why. And what we are meant to let go of and how it will help us forgive (especially ourselves). I think I've been doing things wrong. I've been actively trying to forget most everything, assuming it will lead to healing, when what it's done is to rob me of the richness of my experiences. It throws a veil over all the loveliness I've known, clouds all the important things I've learned. I have the pages of a notebook to thank for showing me this. A list of good things and bad. Memories, words and living.

You or Your Memory (demo) - The Mountain Goats

They’re all lined up to watch that movie “Maid in Manhattan.”

Mid Week Mini Music Mix
 .
There's a lot on my mind this week though, frankly, I don't want to think about any of it. Lately I've felt like I'm squeezed up against a wall, and if I could just climb my way over to the other side, things would be a zillion times better. So I will keep heading in that direction and in the meantime, there's no use in being all mopey. Let's have some fun, some silly ridiculous fun.

Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas - Dedicated to a co-worker of mine who is leaving us to attend school at the end of the week. She will be very much missed.

Dreamgirl - The Lonely Island - The end of this song, when Norah Jones sings about the merits of Chex Mix, makes me die with laughter.

Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back) - Eamon - This song is so incredibly cheezy but I like how straightforward and angry it is and, of course, I love the flagrant usage of the word "hoe".

Hurt Feelings - Flight of the Conchords - Damn straight, Flight of the Conchords.

On Ice

A few random hockey thoughts during Game 6 of the first round playoffs between the Anaheim Ducks and the San Jose Sharks:

• It's fun yet mildly unsatisfying to cheer for both teams in a series. I just really want this to go to Game 7 right now, so tonight - fuck yeah, Sharks! After that, all bets are off.
• My first ever in-person Stanley Cup Playoff game experience was a few years ago, as a Mighty Ducks fan, watching at the Pond. It was a heady experience, one I'll never forget.
• This is how irritating Southern California is: ticket sales have been increasing with each game and tonight's game in Anaheim was close to a sellout. There are just way too many things to do in Orange County and once you add in all the stuff in the L.A. area, I guess hockey still isn't an enormous draw.
• It's a lot more fun to be a hockey fan in the South Bay.
• Knowing that all the players I loved devotedly when I watched the game regularly (Mark Messier, Dominik Hasek, John Leclair, Steve Yzerman) are retired now makes me feel hell of old.
• I often wonder at the friendships and relationships in my life that made me a hockey fan at all. Baseball has always been my first passion and I don't know if I've ever even purchased a single ticket to a hockey game. But the chance to attend games and the opportunity to experience the excitement and verve of this sport have presented themselves again and again. I think that's a good thing.

Close your eyes and use your mouth and tell me about your song.

I've been in a weird mood lately where I always want the utter opposite of what I'm doing. I'll spend hours curled up in a little ball reading in bed, just wishing that I'd accepted an invitation to go out or asked one of my peeps if they wanted to grab a bite. And then as soon as I'm out I am diffident and artless, always happy for the company but a little misplaced inside myself.

I have been trying to work on a personal writing project more lately. It is demanding and thrilling as I try to grab and put down these words inside my head and it is a struggle in many ways. Even here there is the remarkable ambivalence that tugs at me in all directions. I feel the mysterious need to retreat and shut things out so I can hear the words more clearly while, at the same time, I feel the need to act out a hundred huge things, things wild and loud, almost like this:

"Lessons Learned" - Matt & Kim
Matt and Kim - New Music - More Music Videos

Welcome into the new wave. I guess it's been ten years.

Mid Week Mini Music Mix

It's been such a slow, funny and easy week so far. I've been doing a lot of reading and writing, still plugging away at year two of Photo-A-Day and finally starting to just let things take me wherever they may. The warm weather has really put me in a summer mood and all I want is summer things: cold beer, long naps with thin sheets on the bed, sitting around outside shooting the breeze with friends all night and listening to music. Always music. 

Eraser - No Age I'm a bit late posting this since I downloaded this album back in December, but it's been perfect for me lately. It's one of those albums where I can't really make out what they're singing and once in a while that's very good. You just feel the songs out and dance.

I've Got It All(most) - Modest Mouse So loving on this new-esque (it was recorded years ago) Modest Mouse song and it makes me absolutely yearn for a new MM album. It's been far too long.

I Declare A Ceasefire - My Latest Novel I have fallen hard for this Scottish band's sophomore album, especially for this song which has a big, epic building sound and such cool lyrics: "Please put down your guns, lower your weapons. Oh, I declared a change of heart."

Win Park Slope - Gomez Gomez are my homies from a long while back so it is so nice to hear something new and great from them. Their latest album is really creeping under my skin and this song with it's cool instrumentation and slow burn combines the best of Gomez old and new.

Hot, Hot, Hot

What the fuuuuuu???

Really?

This is not right. This is why I left L.A. Temperatures over 85 degrees unsettle me, make me lose my cool (snap!) Especially right now when I have spring allergies that give me strong headaches.

It's a bad combination and that's the whole point of my griping. A day like this is okay in August, maybe even in July. But in April? Sucks.

Give ya some some, some of this in a bun.

Alright, so a while back Tommy and Judy brought me this tremendously fine assortment of buns, rolls etc. from a Japanese place by the girls' Montessori school called Clover Bakery. They have some really interesting items, i.e. hot dog spaghetti sandwiches. There seems to be a running theme of cramming carbs into carbs at this place. Yakisoba-stuffed croquettes? Cream corn croquette pan?! Their savory items, while unique, seemed a little bit off to me.

Take this unagi pan I picked up on a return visit:

I love unagi. I love bread. I love seaweed. But together they were a strange, dry little creature. I also found it highly suspect that this roll, and other seafood items were unrefrigerated, though I am biased because I once got abominable food poisoning from unagi nigiri. A lot of Clover Bakery's items are also 100x better if you take them home and toast them up a bit first, which isn't that convenient.

Their sweets are really, really nice though. Nothing is too heavy or sugary and everything is quite delicate and pretty looking. Their melon pan, which comes in several flavors, is my favorite. If you are in the area, it's definitely worth a visit for that alone.