Taking a Moment for The Internet

Good evening, internet!

This evening, I have been updating my LinkedIn profile for professional purposes. The photograph I've chosen is not the best (I am showcasing a giant seahorse in it), but it is my best available photograph at the moment.

My food blog is going swimmingly and even The Beatific Gonzette has fresh content that I'm proud of.


I have also snapped another cat photo:

Leonard on the left, Greg on the right.

 Good night, internet. Good night.

Migrating Swans?

I know it's impossible to tell from this photo, which was snapped through the window of a moving vehicle, but I swear the little white dots on the horizon comprise a flock of migrating swans (geese? swans? geese?) in an agricultural field in Sedro Woolley, Washington.





It was quite pleasant in person, I swear.

Cat Photos, of Course

I'm sick of writing, I'm sick of thinking, I'm sick of being awake... Time for the ancient, time-honored tradition of putting more cat photos on the internet!

Cat photos from my telephone, no less.

Attractive Famous People, Part 1

Okay! It has been ages, but I did intend to write a blog post about attractive famous people. After all, isn't that the sort of thing that people are supposed to write about? I would probably be neglecting the whole "blog" genre if I didn't tackle the subject at least once.

1. Les Claypool

That dude from Primus. Not usually into stoner themes myself, but he's just so damn weird and smart. I'm even attracted to the sound of the bass playing when there is no video to confirm that there is a person responsible for those noises. That's no small achievement on the part of Mister Claypool over here. His voice reminds me of the sound of rubber bands snapping, and my husband can do a good imitation of it, and this makes me smile.

2. Joe "Joey Pants" Pantoliano

Yes, I know. I wanted his character to get killed on The Sopranos, too, because he was almost too upsetting to watch. Brilliant, but horrible, but brilliant, but horrible--just a carousel of uncomfortable for me.

But for a long, long time, since around when Memento and The Matrix first came out, I have had a gut feeling that this actor and I would understand each other extremely well. Well enough to maybe talk for hours on end if we ever met on equal footing, as peers.

There is a bizarre, intelligent, quite sad and self-depricating sense of humor in the body language he uses when acting, like the weight of the world is one big, freakin' joke that never lets up, no matter how much you could use a rest. David Lynch uses a similar sense of humor, but Mr. Pantoliano's work comes across as less emotionally detached than Mr. Lynch's work. I like that. Plus, his acting is fearless. His performances surprise me, and I respect that.

A total "I knew I liked that guy for a reason" bonus is his recent No Kidding, Me Too nonprofit, which stemmed out of a documentary he made to destigmatize mental illness. Destigmatizing mental illness is one of my favorite things in the world! What's better than a hearty mixture of compassion, humility, healing and honesty? I have no idea. But yes, even though he is older than me and not a traditional pretty boy, I find this remarkable, unusual genius to be damn hot. Almost embarrassingly hot, actually. Yes, I think I'm actually a bit timid about officially publishing this post now. But blogs are supposed to be self-confessional, aren't they?

3. Isaiah Mustafa

OK, to get back to safer territory, I'm going to list somebody that everyone finds attractive. Comedic timing? Check. Comedic bravery? Check. Wit? Double check. And bonus points for using a monocle. Plus, he is conveniently gorgeous, and isn't he from Portland? Portland is like Seattle's slightly distant, cool friend. I think we can all agree, Isaiah Mustafa is one of the most attractive famous people in the history of attractive famous people. We do agree? Excellent! Time to move on.

4. Gary Oldman

I have long considered the scene from Leon in which Mr. Oldman's character destroys an apartment and the family living in it to be one of the most aesthetically appealing scenes from any movie, ever. Male beauty, madness, chaos, a bit of vulgarity, a musical gait, I just like all of it. If movies have to be violent, let it be this kind of Luc Besson violence.

Like Mr. Pantoliano, Mr. Oldman's performances tend to radiate an almost subliminal, bleak sense of humor that seems to treat the weight of intense psychological pain like its own punchline. And like Mr. Pantoliano, Mr. Oldman has opted to wear his personal pain on his sleeve with honesty and grace. (My husband has pointed out that I appear to have a type, and I guess that I kind of do. But discussing my real life is not conducive to discussing famous people! I have a theme to keep up!)

Not only has Gary Oldman been open about getting sober, but his directorial debut Nil By Mouth was a vaguely autobiographical punch in the soul so accurate that Eric Clapton approached him and requested to get to do the score. It was like Sherman Alexie poetry if, instead of being from around here, Sherman Alexie was from a bad part of London.

Also, Gary Oldman made a cute Sid Vicious.

5. Sherman Alexie

Author, poet, genius, local hero and dreamboat, Mr. Alexie has the rare distinction of being someone that I've been infatuated with since way BEFORE I knew what he looks like. Looks don't exactly matter when someone can write like he does--it takes a lot of wit, soul, insight and talent to get to me like that, but Sherman Alexie is legitimately that cool.

It should be noted that he once wrote a sports column for Seattle alternative newspaper The Stranger. It was bizarre. What a guy!

6. Chris Barrie

Back in 7th grade, my best friend at the time introduced me to the old 48-hour PBS marathons of Red Dwarf that became a staple of my adolescence. She, in the fashion of territorial middle school girls everywhere, called fan dibs on Craig Charles's character immediately. As a result, being the respectful girl that I always have been, I looked at his character as "my best friend's television boyfriend" and not someone to just ogle.

Still, if you look for it, the Charles Lister approach to cool has thoroughly saturated my unconscious mind. You'll see the influence in my t-shirt collection, my goofy nonchalance, my pride in downing questionable foods, in the subtle cartoonishness of my moment-to-moment gestures. My miscreant youth spent writing bad poetry and sticking cigarettes in my ear. The way that even my moments of genuine, emotional nobility are punctuated by bad slapstick.

But Chris Barrie... While respectfully just modeling myself after my 7th grade best friend's "television boyfriend," there remained Chris Barrie.

I don't know. I like a man who's willing to be the butt of an unflattering joke, especially if he's obviously trying to refrain from laughing at the joke himself. Plus, you can call me simpleminded, but he was in pretty damn good shape, particularly in the first seasons, and there's something strangely sympathetic and appealing about weird monologues that address how unfinished it feels to be dead while still conscious.

7. Rosario Dawson

To switch things up for a moment, I thought it was about time to add a woman to the list. But Rosario Dawson is attractive enough to turn anybody's head.

She personifies the absolutely killer combination of fearless, dorky enthusiasm with a certain "coolest kid on the playground" air. Plus, she is one of the best-looking people in the history of human beings. She's worked with Kevin Smith, so I know she can nerd out. She's worked with Spike Lee, so I know she has a sense of history and importance. She's worked with Robert Rodriguez, so I know she can be playful. She's worked with Quentin Tarrantino, so I know she can be hip. And didn't she geek out about marine biology on the Conan O'Brien show a few weeks ago? In my book, she is THE most attractive, famous person who is also a woman. If I'm to include a woman in my list of attractive famous people, it needs to be Rosario Dawson.

8. Mike Patton

Every girl has a go-to heavy metal band that she can listen to when she needs to block the world out and fantasize about being a telekinetic secret agent or whatever. Mine is Faith No More, particularly the album King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime.

Like just about everybody I find attractive, Mike Patton's performance persona comes across as being painfully overstuffed with bizarre intelligence, and his artwork seems to absolutely always contain a subtle, bitter, almost David Lynch sense of humor, on top of whatever else is going on.

Plus, as if that wasn't enough, I can very easily convince myself that sometimes, some of the songs that he sings are vaguely about whatever TV show happens to be my favorite at the time.

For example, I am currently convinced that the song Your Neighborhood Spaceman, from the self-titled Peeping Tom album is at least vaguely about Doctor Who. Check it:

"I'm your neighborhood spaceman, don't know WHO I am, where I've been."

Eh? Eh?

Now, this album came out in 2006, and Christopher Eccleston's tenure as the Ninth Doctor was first aired in 2005. So the timing is right. And I mean:

"Time's light has reached your eyes, world has lived and died, but we're here."

Maybe that's not written about Rose Tyler's experience in the last episode of the first season of the revamped Doctor Who. But that's all that I, a dorky fangirl of limited imagination, can think of it as being about. And this makes me quite, quite happy.

To jump to another song, I also like to interpret parts of the song What A Day (from King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime) as being about the Twin Peaks protagonist Dale Cooper trying to find the proper connection between bits of evidence while beating himself up for not being more aggressive when he had the chance.

"A piece of hair, a letterhead. A piece of hair on a human head."

Maybe it's a BIT of a stretch of the imagination, as a letterhead is not the same thing as a single cutout letter jammed under the fingernail of a female corpse. But at least the song legitimately quotes one of my favorite books of all time. The line "Kill the body and the head will die," is a nod to Hunter Thompson even if it's not being intentionally used to express regret at not killing Windom Earle years ago.

*************
It is at this point in my blogging process that I realize that I have creatively exhausted myself. I'm now just geeking out about why my favorite songs should be considered homages to my favorite pop culture stories. Which is only one step above sleep-typing, no matter how much entertainment value I get out of the subject.

I should probably make some kind of mention of Robert Downey Jr., however, before I call it a night.

Of course, of course, Robert Downey Jr. is attractive. Not only is he a permanently compelling genius whose work sparkles with the intelligent processing of strange personal demons, but his recent productivity as an actor under the personal attention of his wife, producer Susan Downey, is practically a miniature golden era of reasons to spring for movie theater tickets in spite of the recession. Wow. Run-on sentence right there. But I'll leave it as is, because this is a blog.

And with that, it's time to publish this thing and follow it with more photos of my cats. Good night, internet!

An "Attractive Famous People" Series Coming Soon, So Let's Analyze That!

 Hello!

This is my EIGHTH blog post of the day and I'm feeling fine.

One idea that I've been kicking around in my head for ages, for this I Adore blog, is to do a series about famous people that I have "audience member" crushes on. I mean, this is supposed to be a blog that features girlish gushing about whatever stuff I happen to like, and I really like watching movies and certain television shows.

Besides, fashion magazines TRADITIONALLY write about how hot actors and actresses are, so I thought it would be refreshing and highly appropriate of me to return to this more classically respected subject matter. I should actually earn double points for doing this, considering that the most successful blogs tend to be embarrassingly self-confessional in exactly this sort of way. (Who is attracted to whom, blah blah blah.)

But more than that, I have to confess that I also want an excuse to explore some ideas about how sexual attractiveness relates to feminism. So I'm going to do that right here, right now. Yeah. Let's get stuffy and academic!!! 'Cause you know I'm cool like that.

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There are almost as many approaches to feminism as there are feminists, but I happen to be extremely fond of my own philosophical approach and want to share it with the world.

I passionately want to obliterate all gender-based imbalances of power. In fact, I loathe gender-based imbalances of power like Ahab loathed his whale, like Hunter Thompson loathed his Nixon.

But I’m not one to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I like men. When I imagine a world without sexism, I see a world with stronger camaraderie between people of different sexes and genders. To remove abusive sources of resentment and friction is an excellent way to foster friendship and sociability.

I disagree with the old-school feminists who argue that sexuality itself is intrinsically sexist and degrading. Sexuality still exists in the absence of sexism! In fact, it seems to flourish.

Sexuality itself is only toxic when the people involved have an unhealthy lack of compassion for one-another as people, or when the circumstances are otherwise going to negatively impact one or all of the lives involved. In a healthy context, sexuality can be just as personally enriching as music or laughter. It can be lighthearted and fun! Courtship, infatuation, attraction, partnership, while not the only experiences that give adult life meaning, they certainly do count for something.

Attractiveness, in the absence of sexism and other toxic cultural baggage, simply means that the individual in question looks like a certain kind of social fun. Personality, medical health, personal history, a balanced visual aesthetic... Many variables factor the way that one individual will perceive the attractiveness of another individual.

Given that I do not consider sexuality to be intrinsically degrading and I understand that attractiveness is simply part of sexuality’s social element, I consider it perfectly healthy for most adults to do what they can, within reason, to maximize their own attractiveness. Why not?

This can mean taking one’s facial shape into account when selecting a haircut. This can mean doing what one can to optimize one’s medical health. (Never a bad idea, even outside of social concerns.) This can mean taking current fashion, one's cultural identity and one’s body type into account when selecting what clothing to buy and wear. This can even mean selecting what objects to position oneself next to or adjusting the colors of one's face by using things like makeup, lighting tricks or Photoshop.

These modest little vanities are not intrinsically degrading or intrinsically sexist, because they can and often should take place in the absence of sexism.

And this brings me back to the subject of wanting to blog about attractive people on the television.

That female attractiveness has traditionally been more freely discussed than male attractiveness is sexist. That men have traditionally been discouraged from thinking critically about what increases and decreases their own personal attractiveness is sexist, too.

It’s true that I tend to value eccentricity, thoughtfulness, compassion, creativity, vision and bravery in a man over prettiness, so my personal list of attractive famous people is going to be full of dudes I think I might actually get along with, rather than dudes who just seem to project the greatest medical health. But what-evs. That's just what's going to happen. If I'm to write about what I like, I'm going to write about what I like.

OK, with all of that said, I’m free to start working on this blog series. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps another day. We’ll see where the weekend leads me.

I Belong to the PhotosOfCatsOnTheInternet Generation

After writing six articles for I Adore Presents... The Food Section! and one long essay for The Beatific Gonzette today, I thought I was done blogging.

But not QUITE!

I have to be true to my generation and post some stuff about cats on the internet, dag-nabbit!

CAT PHOTO OVERLOAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!

**Both of these cats are alive and well, and most of these photos were taken this year.**

Greg:
The sweeter and more feminine of my two cats. Greg is an excellent singer who communicates primarily in sweet, infrequent little humanlike grunts, but who sings the word "hello!" as a greeting when he jumps up onto the bed to hang out with me. He does not meow, in the traditional sense, very much. Greg tends to wake me up in the middle of the night by purring and snuggling and licking my face, like he can't even believe that I'm holding still long enough to mess with. I think that Greg has a special regard for me because I frequently save him from his brother. Greg is often clumsier than Leonard, and manages to weigh about two tons when walking across us at night. (Leonard, his brother, walks across us like an acrobat and we scarcely feel him. I wish Greg would adopt Leonard's technique for this.)

 

Greg loves the towel rack! Always has, always will.

 

Greg and I get along especially well.

Leonard:
Of my two cats (twin brothers), Leonard is the worrier. He has a nagging meow that he lets out in sessions at least once a day. He's the cat who makes sure important things get done, like making sure there's food in his dish and fresh litter in the cat box. Leonard is the only one of the two who was born with a tail, a fact that he lets no one forget. (He is very expressive with this tail and waves it about in amusing shapes.) Leonard is also more of a bully than Greg is, and tends to torment his brother about 80% more frequently than his brother torments him. But in spite of this, Leonard is also very nurturing toward his brother. Leonard is also more cautious than his brother, and usually hides in our box spring when company comes to visit. (Greg looks more confident and relaxed than usual when his brother is hiding, and walks right up to guests to introduce himself.)

This is one of my best portraits of Leonard ever!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cat ballet stretches

 

Leonard, as a kitten, hiding in the laundry.

 

Food Blog is Now Open!!!

I Adore Presents... The Food Section!

That's right, this blog (despite having been slightly neglected over the summer) has been given a spin-off publication dedicated entirely to food.

I will post a good handful of peculiar things about food on this new blog ASAP. As a synesthete and oddball, I'm guaranteed to pay lavish attention to curios and my own bad ideas.

But as the keen daughter of a former chef, I'm likely to know a thing or two about food BEYOND the "Guess what I put ketchup on?" game.

See you there!

Food Project Coming Soon?

Last night, my husband reminded me of one of our better grand and wacky schemes, to develop a food blog legitimate enough to get us press passes to otherwise closed candy trade shows.

I need to work harder toward this goal! More soon.

Ben Templesmith's Thirteenth Doctor

OH MY GOODNESS!!!
OH MY GOODNESS!!!
OH MY GOODNESS!!!

GEEK OVERLOAD!!!!!!!!!

Ben Templesmith is tied with the likes of Darrick Robertson and Jamie Hewlett for the title of My Favorite Comic Book Artist.

And... And... And...

Warren Ellis is tied with the likes of Neil Gaiman for the title of My Favorite Comic Book Writer, just barely surpassing the likes of Alan Moore (which is saying something because I am addicted to his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series).

So even the most casual, social, creative interaction between these two is going to cause me to geek out like mad all over the place.

But THIS? This is something special. An Ellis challenge to artists, answered by Templesmith, on the subject of what the 13th Dr.Who should look like. I think it's quite cool.

Shaaaaark Building!!! My new desktop background for the week.

Hello!

While I do adore ALL of Shark Week and could gush for pages and pages on the subject, today's short blog post just serves to shower a little love and attention on the following photograph:

The Discovery Communications building, all dressed up to draw attention to something-or-other on TV. Lovely!!!

This photograph was taken by Kerry Faulkner and is owned by both the photographer and the Discovery Channel. I use it here without permission, which I hope is OK.

I found the picture here, in the Daily Beast's Shark Week! photo gallery.

Soooo cute! I wish I had a shark building, I really do.

Spa: Amy's Skin Care in Kirkland, Washington

It's time for an effeminate fashion post! Hurray!

Right before Memorial Day Weekend I decided to get my eyebrows and eyelashes tinted again. I know that might sound like an oddball, ultra-vanity sort of indulgence--especially during this recession--but I think my reasons are perfectly valid:

1. Mascara stings when it gets in my eyes. Being comically accident-prone, I manage to get mascara in my eyes very frequently when I wear it.
2. Having naturally transparent eyelashes and eyebrows give my face a mildly creepy-cave-fish vibe when I go without makeup, and this bothers me.
3. After eyelash and eyebrow tinting I can skip wearing eye makeup for two whole months without looking unkempt in formal settings!
4. Human beings always do weird things to control their appearance and I am very much a human being. This is a thing that I do to my face and that is OK.

So I went looking for a local, affordable and professional lash/brow tint in the Kirkland area and I found Amy's Skin Care! Her lash/brow tint costs $35 but the commute is almost $0 and takes maybe 8 minutes. My other regular place for lash/brow tinting, The Sweet Spot, charges $32 for the same service but requires a drive that varies from 20 minutes to over an hour, depending on the traffic on the 520 bridge.

Amy's Skin Care salon is a small home business, slightly hidden in a residential area. But the price was right, the commute next to nothing and her esthetician licensing in order, so I decided to give the salon a try.

Amy, the proprietor of this business, is so nice!!! A bit new to the facial tinting side of the business, but she's detail-oriented and obviously interested in providing clients with the best possible service. The eyebrow color I currently have is my favorite post-tinting color so far, thanks to her infinite patience with my color-adjustment suggestions. It was easily the most collaborative, personalized tinting I've ever undergone, and I am immensely grateful. I will definitely return to her salon the next time there's room in my budget for this kind of beauty treatment!

Also, her cat is a TOTAL sweetheart. (I told you this blog post was going to be effeminate!)

The Stranger's Economic Survival Guide

The perfect mixture of lowbrow and highbrow, our beloved local weekly newspaper The Stranger posted an article back in March that I haven't been able to get out of my head. I adore it so much.

Their Economic Survival Guide for 2010.

The article is a hearty jumble of practical advice, bad advice, good advice and potentially lifesaving information.

The bad advice covers such diverse topics as how to make money off of getting hit by a car (mostly just etiquette for the injured cyclist rather than a guide for scam artists) and the half-joking suggestion to build ridiculous bike-like contraptions to generate a little electricity. (I might actually try this one sometime, mostly for the exercise.)

The good advice includes ways to legally get into local art museums for free and the suggestion to read/perform the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at home with four friends. (Brilliant!)

The practical advice includes a recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese, info about a Seattle-specific iPhone app about the local bus service and detailed information about chicken ownership in the city, including info about local coop-building workshops and city municipal code limitations.

But best of all--very, very best of all--is the potentially lifesaving information that The Stranger opted to include in the article.

It explains how to use food banks, how to get low-income assistance on utility payments, how to get dental care when one is horribly poor, it supplies the name and locations of a cheap medical clinic for the uninsured (The Country Doctor) as well as FAQ information about getting extended unemployment.

I LOVE that this humanitarian service is being provided by the same article that lists which Seattle bars have free ping-pong! I wish a similar guide was available for people who live outside of Seattle. (If there is and I haven't heard of it, someone please tell me. A guide that covers the Skagit and/or Whatcom counties would be amazing.)

The truly adorable article ends by gushing about three gorgeous, local public parks.

What a city!

Evelyn Evelyn (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Jason Webley and Amanda Palmer performed as a pair of shy, conjoined twin sisters in Seattle Wednesday night. I STILL have not managed to scrape my jaw off of the floor. It's been two days now. Everything still feels magical.


The show was ethereal, surreal, funny, mournful, perfect. Evelyn Evelyn started with a song about uncertainty and social suffocation that created the same dark blue, sad, expansive sensation in my lungs and liver as Gary Jules's cover of Mad World. It is quite possibly what outer space feels like. But the show didn't stop with sadness. It also floated through horror, tragicomedy, Oingo Boingo-style circus chaos, American Gothic, ragtime vaudeville and lighthearted, deadpan word games a la a two-headed, effeminate Johnny Carson. There was a shadow puppet show about the girls' excessively tragic birth story. There was an upbeat song about a two-headed elephant. The girls played two popular cover songs, too. Essentially, it was a perfect show for someone with my taste in entertainment.

I want to see them again. Evelyn Evelyn feels Hedwig important.

Oh, right. And everybody was very good at singing and playing instruments and the songs were very good songs. Sharing an accordion in that "each person gets only one arm" fashion must be difficult, but they made it seem as natural as typing or driving.

Their opening act AND sideshow manager/handler Sxip Shirley was perfect too. His high-low tech hip hop approach to the one man band reminded my friends and I of Reggie Watts, who I am still infatuated with after seeing him open for Devo last year. Most satisfactory!

After the Evelyn Evelyn show, Jason Webley played a short--but AWESOME!!!--set, full of audience participation and pirate-like energy before performing a duet with Amanda Palmer (in fancy underwear) who took over the stage for the rest of the evening. I had a wicked, stabby-hot-throat head cold situation AND work in the morning, so I opted to leave after the third song into Amanda Palmer's set even though I very much wanted to stay and stay and stay.

The last song I saw was a mash-up of a cheeky song of hers about an abortion and Happy Birthday sung to a specific audience member. It was a good note to end a very good night upon.

***************************

It's worth mentioning that my lifelong friends Erik and Brian saw Jason Webley as a humble, kinetic one man band on the sidewalk at Bumbershoot about ten years ago, when we were teenagers. They were so impressed that they bought CDs for everyone in our social group, even those of us who couldn't make it to Bumbershoot. I still have that CD. Jason Webley is an enthusiastically loved cult hero out here in Washington, in addition to being a new drag performer alongside the soon-to-be-Mrs.-Neil-Gaiman.

I need to see more of his local shows.

The B-52s

Songs almost as old as I am make me want to dance.

"I'll give you fish! I'll give you candy! I'll give you... Everything I have in my hand!"





I could keep reposting songs forever, but you get what I mean.

District 9, mostly for the same reason that I adore Burn After Reading

I originally wrote the following short review as a comment after an Onion article while on my lunch break today, but have decided to post it a second time as a blog entry. Those with sensitive eyes should be cautious, because I swear here about as much as a mid-1990s PG-rated movie. Yes, I really did just post that warning. I'm also going to include another warning: I hope I remembered the movie correctly, but I'm not sure that I did. It's been more than a few months. There. I admit it. It's done.
********************************
Here are my two cents. To me, District 9 and Burn After Reading delivered the same punchline in two very different ways: Human nature just sucks, sometimes.

There were no angelic, doe-eyed, supernaturally sweet victims of injustice. No heart-of-gold chosen ones to avenge and protect them. Absolutely every character in the whole movie was an asshole. Like Burn After Reading before it, District 9 was like an open-faced sandwich of universal, human character flaws--the refreshing opposite of a James Cameron movie.

To include some spoilers:

The human protagonist in the "chosen one" role remained treacherous, prejudiced and jaw-droppingly selfish throughout the movie, even when he did morally OK things.

Most of the aliens stranded on Earth acted exactly as listless and bitchy as I would if I was in that malnourished, PTSD, captive sort of state.

Violence-based human power structures on either side of the South African racial divide (whether mafia or military) were equally willing to dissect a human being to gain better weapons. It was totally classic "I want a bigger gun" human nature, shown to be independent of race.

But my absolute favorite "human nature is only human" moment was at the very end of the film. The gifted, brave engineer from outer space and his plucky, genius child finally manage to get the spaceship working... And they abandon ALL of the remaining refugees and use it to run away as fast as they can!

Not so much as a message of hope, a familiar alien song or a promise of return is broadcast. No nearby friends or strangers are offered a lift. The father and son duo just steal the ship and run.

I love this movie.

When Rolling Stones Songs are Used Well in Movies

After all of that career introspection, I figure it's about time to post a blog entry that's mostly YouTube clips from popular culture.  

Beware, the clips include some creative foul language and a TINY bit of gore, so they're not for kids or for people who dislike that sort of thing.

There are also some spoilers because I'm showing scenes taken from around the end of two of my favorite movies. If you haven't seen The Royal Tenenbaums or Full Metal Jacket and you loathe spoilers, please skip to something else.

OK. With that business out of the way, it's time for some YouTube videos.

For some reason, the way the end credits kick in at the end of Full Metal Jacket is one of my favorite things, ever:



Along similar lines, I like how the Rolling Stones' She Smiled Sweetly helps bouy this tragicomic love scene between adopted siblings:




If I'm ever on trial for a terrible crime that I am actually guilty of, I would like to have a good, older Rolling Stones song played subliminally during the closing statement. I think it might do the trick. Nothing says "please forgive these horrible people, for they are no less human than you" quite like a Rolling Stones song playing in the background.

These two scenes legitimately popped into my head on the commute home and I decided to blog the thought before I forgot about it. Although Goodfellas is my favorite mafia movie, I forgot that the song Gimme Shelter was in it. I had to look that up on Google. When I think about the music in that movie, all I remember is the end of Clapton's Layla wrapping the story up. That long sequence is to chilling for me to link to, even though I love it, because I am a sentimental person who gets easily attached to movie characters.

But you should watch that whole movie if you are so inclined.

An Afterthought About Math! (Jurassic Park)

I can't believe I forgot to mention this in my last blog post!!!

I actually tried to read Michio Kaku's Hyperspace in 7th grade. I didn't get as far as I would have liked, mostly because I had a 7th grade education at the time and the patience of a lazy 12-year-old.

Still, my 7th grade year was spent dreaming of a career as an experimental mathematician of some kind ...And not just because it guarantees a future spent being attacked by dinosaurs and getting shipped to posh, tropical vacation spots. Although I did think about that quite a lot. Like, a LOT. I'd read Jurassic Park something like five times by the end of 6th grade, which helped me learn how to use swear words like Michael Crichton. (Which is to say, awkwardly.)

If I actually become an experimental mathematician of some kind later on, my inner child is going to do a happy dance.

(Bonus points for dressing like Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords, which I will probably still not do.)

<---------- Totally going to do this in real life.

<---------- Just going to watch this one on TV, thanks. It looks like they've got it under control already.

Math! And Writing, to a Lesser Extent. (Exploring Flow, Part 1)

I adore math!!! For the last few months I had pondered one possible future as an event planner. This week I'm giving serious rumination to the idea of going back to school to become a statistician.

I am a nerd. I have nerdy appetites. Two nights ago I got to take a little taste of my husband's physics homework. It was delicious. I did well.

When I focus on moving numbers around on a piece of paper the world simplifies, my little inner demons shut up and the scattered gears floating around in my brain suddenly click into place. There is minimal rote memorization (!!!) but I still get to chew my way through ideas as large as my mind can handle. It's satisfying.

I love writing for most of the same reasons, but math trumps writing by a tiny little bit because all numbers are fit for public consumption.

Writing well for a public audience requires cultural savvy and delicate self-censorship. I can enjoy this process too, but it's stressful. My country is at war. American culture is full of cruelty. The internet is a strange place. American newspapers are falling apart. What's left of the publishing industry is fickle. My political opinions are quite political, occasionally experimental and often controversial. I do plan to churn out a few novels eventually and I am writing right now, but unless Marvel scoops me up Prince Charming-style and pays me to breathe new life into sagging franchises (a girl can dream...) I think writing is more likely to be a side dish than a main course.

I do believe that the Master of Science in Experimental Psychology that I'd been groomed for as an undergrad student would qualify me for work as a statistician. It would also provide me with the increasingly rare opportunity to perform at least two more years of experimental human-subject behavioral research, which is about as fun as eating candy.

I think I'd want to take additional, elective math courses if I enrolled in that program. Maybe minor in math or complete a statistics-related post-graduate certificate.

I wonder what companies would hire me with a stats-heavy MS in Experimental Psychology? I would love to work in the video game industry or for the right market research firm or quite possibly in public health research. I need to think about this some more.

Dating Different Career Concepts After-Hours

I am a receptionist right now. It's a nice job because it pays the rent and bills AND I'm actually permitted to mess about on the internet a little (like this), as long as my work gets done. I intend to be a receptionist for the next two years, if not slightly longer. I am extremely grateful to have this job.

However, being a receptionist is not a good long-term career for me. It's a bit lonely, it doesn't pay enough to support my filmmaking, reproductive or travel ambitions and, internet messing-about aside, it can get pretty boring. Therefore, I'm spending these "working a day job to put my husband through school" years trying to figure out what actual career would suit me best.

To shoplift a term from psychological theory, I want to figure out what career path will provide me with the most flow. To figure this out, I will need to seek out new life experiences and engage in honest self-reflection. I have decided to use this blog to express adoration for things that appeal to me while I undergo this process.

Coming soon... A blog about math. Do I want to be a mathematician now? A statistician, perhaps? Maybe I do. Maybe I really, really do.

Jawesome! A New Shark Shirt is Serious Business

Yes, I know the pictures are backwards. I used a mirror to photograph myself. But who cares! That shark is JUMPING!!!

I also know that gingers lack proper eyebrows, but there's not much that I can do about it right now. Trust me, if I tried to draw them on it would look atrocious. (I lack steady hands.)

Positive Review for Neptune Music Co.

I originally posted this in Google Maps. I know it's a little lazy to put the same piece of writing up in two different spots on the internet, but I'm doing it anyway. So there.

***************************************************
I had a magical, weird little experience shopping there this weekend. I likely didn't see the same clerk that the negative review below was stuck with, and I'm grateful for this.

 

The shop was informally stacked to the ceiling with CDs, records and movies. I had to tiptoe my way through the paths to search the inventory properly. This layout certainly isn't for everyone, but I felt like I'd stepped into an attic in a Michel Gondry video. It could easily have been a scene out of "Science of Sleep."

 

I told the clerk initially that I wanted to see if they had any music recorded by Robert Crumb. Although they did have something(!), what they had my husband already owns. This started a conversation about ragtime and more generally of quirky jazz overall which led me to a listening session that triggered an impulse purchase of a Slim Gaillard album, because the song "Serenade to a Poodle" made me giggle.

 

I will DEFINITELY return and I hope I'm able to work with the same clerk again!

books. Like, a little TOO much.

This was (yes, I know) originally written as a quick response to... the Sears (yes, really) Facebook group asking readers what books they recommend, in order to draw attention to a sale on books that's going on.

It's worth saying that I have kind of a "writing problem," the way other folks might have a "gambling problem." It's gotten especially out of hand now that I'm out of school and don't have any proper homework to keep my typing hands occupied.

Therefore, instead of making the socially appropriate response of listing one book and a quick, one-to-two sentence endorsement of it, I wrote and posted the following.

(Yes, I really, really did. I'm even fidgeting right now, at this exact moment in order to quell the urge to edit and re-edit and edit this some more. I used the word "stun" twice, and want to remove the first one and I want to replace the word "writer" with "author" in some spots. It's worse than cigarettes. I need to just get out of here before I waste the rest of my free time tonight.)

***************************************
I just finished "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak this weekend. It should be required reading for everyone over the age of 15. (Younger tweens too at their parents' discretion? My sister-in-law read it at about age 13, I think, before insisting I read it too.)

I can read and re-read Sarah Vowell's "Assassination Vacation" forever. Everyone I've loaned or given a copy to so far has loved it just as much as I do, and tend to just accumulate Sarah Vowell books once they've been introduced to her. This one's my favorite.

For the college-age audience and above, "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides is AMAZING. One friend and my husband both insisted I read it after it was assigned to them in college English classes, and they were totally right to do so.

Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" was really good and its sequel "Anansi Boys" was maybe even better. My husband and I listened to "Anansi Boys" as a book on tape for our road trip honeymoon last year and even the acting was stunning. Gaiman's "Graveyard Book" is sort of like "The Jungle Book" and is a very good all-ages novel. Someday I will read it to my kids, once I have kids.

For people who are old enough for rated R movies and who happen to like this sort of thing, Max Brooks's "World War Z: The Oral History of the Zombie War" is the best, best, best zombie book ever written. Skip all the others and just get this one.

I think it's worth noting that the author is the son of Mel Brooks, who must be a good father because I love how his kid turned out. Being raised by a witty writer seems like a good way to develop a gift for language, too.

Max Brooks is a celebrity writer in his own right, and was able to draw a HUGE crowd at my university for his zombie survival lecture/book talk, after the campus zombie survival club begged him to come and speak. We were early in the autograph line, waited for about an hour, and he was still completely gracious, friendly and made small talk like he was one of us. He made time for every single fan in that line. I'm still impressed.

Also, anything by Sherman Alexie is good, although some of his stuff is... sophisticated. Like, complicated. Adult themes and the like. Often writes about clever, dorky underdogs and nerds, usually those living in poverty on reservations like where he grew up. He can pull any reaction out of the reader, but tends to either stun me stupid or make me laugh like he's a best friend. Sometimes he's the special guest writer for the local hip weekly paper out here in Seattle, too. He deserves every award he's won.

Inevitably, some adoration for Mike Patton's Italian "Mondo Cane" project

I already talked a little bit about this eccentric singer when lamenting my inability to go to Cochella last weekend, but I'm a girl with a handful of intense likes. My taste in music is particularly... Particular? A lot of my friends say I have bad taste in music, but I like what I like.

To my idiosyncratic little eyes and ears, this YouTube video is one of the most cheering things in existence. It is like a warm afternoon full of baby snakes, baby ducks and baby kitties.

Endorsing Some Friends: LuvCherie on Etsy

Not only is Amy Darigol (Etsy's LuvCherie and the wife of former Daily Geek, Grant Darigol) a wonderful human being and all-around good sport, but she also produces fantastic beaded jewelry. That is the art that I want to draw attention to in this post.

The picture below is the first necklace that I've commissioned through her Etsy shop. It is a stylized version of the logo from the costume of The Phoenix, a comic book character from the X-Men. Because I am a nerd.

Although she uses beads, the finished piece resembles jewel-toned woven chain. A photo can't do this necklace justice, because the sparkle and texture aren't properly communicated in 2D.

I wore it to the Emerald City ComiCon this year with a t-shirt, jeans, khaki-denim fitted jacket and I styled my copper-orange hair as best I could to resemble the shape of the famous hairdo from the movie Amelie. I felt so pretty!!!

I completely adore this necklace.

It's bold, so it takes a little extra effort to pull off (no overdoing or underdoing the hair/clothing/makeup), but with the right outfit I really do look my best while wearing it.

Of course I want more.

I am in the early stages of commissioning a second beaded necklace through Amy's Etsy profile that features the characters Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot from the TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is going to be excellent.

Female nerd pride!!! Wooo!!!

This Kandinsky looks like cross between Jurassic Park and a cell biology diagram

Today I'm going to adore Franz Ferdinand's "You Could Have it So Much Better"

Well, I adore this album constantly, not just today.

The radio hits may be too catchy and repetitive for some, but a lot of the less-famous album songs are absolutely perfect and so damn clever.


Regarding the music:
The actual music is danceable, calculatedly aggressive, arrogant and fashionable. I like it. I can say without exaggeration that the music is everything I want in a "time to stay awake" album. The rhythm and instrumentation (to all but the two slow songs) is like a three-shots-of-espresso caffeine rush during an all-night marathon, just as I finally have the idea needed to finish a huge research paper at 4am. Also, it is easy to dance to. I like dancing. Research papers and dancing. What else am I? I'm content with this.

Regarding the lyrics:
As I've mentioned before, I am a synesthete. Lyrics are particularly important to me. Lyrics can affect the size and shape and colors of a song. (For more information, you can Google synesthesia.) I'm also enough of a language goon that something musically uninteresting can be perked up if the words are important. Being a very picky sort of reader, I've found that the inverse is also true for me: dull lyrics can ruin an otherwise perfect song.

Luckily, the lyrics are where Franz Ferdinand shines the most.

This band might be the contemporary incarnation of Oscar Wilde. The lyrics boast of being cruel, posh and carefree, but flash the smallest hints of concealed humanism. The language is also wonderfully overeducated--even the name is an obscure history reference.

Now that I've shown some love to their music and lyrics, I'm going to provide a quick YouTube sample so you can listen a bit for yourself. I'll even be bold and open with a slow song.

This "video" that I found online features back-to-back album versions of the songs Walk Away, Evil and a Heathen, and the immensely catchy You're the Reason I'm Leaving. This last song features an airy, metallic little guitar solo that I especially love. To my ears, the guitar solo sounds Important. (Capitol I.)




Mascara bleeds a blackened tear...
And I am cold, yes I'm cold, but not as cold as you are.
I love the sound of you walking away.

Why don't you walk away? No buildings will fall down!
Why don't you walk away? No quake will split the ground!
Why don't you walk away? The sun won't swallow the sky.
Why don't you walk away? Statues will not cry.


********************
There is a special, absolutely fearless daring found in some gay individuals who have learned to flourish in a culturally hostile environment. To kiss a boyfriend in conservative public is approximately the same act as laughing in the face of a firing squad. So cool. I don't know if I can say that this album epitomizes this cool, but there are quick flashes of it. Often too quick to catch. It's a bit like an Easter egg hunt, really. The next time you happen to hear the song Do You Want To, keep an ear pricked up. What did the protagonist do with "your famous friend?" How shocking!

The girlfriends who are more blatantly and openly written about on this album feel like sexually lukewarm, unwitting, emotionally-drained beards. I hate these hypothetical girls' hypothetical suffering and the complicated societal problems (and deceit) responsible for the traps that they now waste away in. To wax political for just another moment, in my mind the plight of the tragic, deceived beard is one more reason for the hetero crowd to support gay equality. Without a need for subterfuge--the gay folk can simply be gay, no unwanted wives required to keep up straight appearances--this form of romantic human sacrifice can come to a close.

In contrast to the tragic female beards, the secret gay boyfriends hinted at in this album are legendary, great loves. "I've seen some years, but you're still my Cesar." And so on. It feels emotionally honest and pithy, overflowing and bleeding with the horrible, constant emotional capture that being completely in love for a long, long time can cement. The pain of absolutely requiring ones' partner's physical presence. The inability to sleep when alone. It implies an intense, rich knowledge of almost every detail of the other person. I have to respect this passion and implied commitment, even while I'm resentful over the lost female beards.

*********************
This album gets extra points for what I believe could be the most clever, hidden little Rolling Stones pun that I have ever heard in a contemporary pop song. The first song on the album is sympathy for the devil... Without directly ripping off Sympathy for the Devil. Just winking at it a little bit. Instead of playing the devil and then asking for sympathy the way Mick Jagger did, the protagonist of this song is a slightly timid, slightly fearful temporary human companion of the devil, out for a drink and showing a bit of actual social sympathy. So, sympathy for the devil. For whatever reason, I think this is a total lark. When I "figured it out" or decided upon it or whatever, I think I laughed out loud. I think I was washing dishes at the time. It was a few years ago.


So we stole and drank champagne.
On the seventh seal you said you never feel pain.
"Eh-I never feel pain, won't you hit me again? I need a bit of black and blue to be a rotation!"

In my blood I felt bubbles burst.
There was a flash of fist, an eyebrow burst.
You've a lazy laugh and a red white shirt.
I fall to the floor,
Fainting at the sight of blood!


And WHILE I'm overthinking these songs and reading far too much into them (I do love to have something to chew on), one last wild stab at the jukebox:


In my mind, the song I'm Your Villain (which I completely adore) is a subtly gay Batman song, disguised as a histrionic lovers' spat. There, I said it. I know this isn't likely an original idea, but it's one that came to me and I do like it. They should have used this song in The Dark Knight. If I had been Heath Ledger, I would have listened to it on a loop to help me prepare as an actor. Even when Batman and the Joker are straight, the "we could fall in love and stroll around together if only you weren't so humorless and dull" flirtation in the lyrics could easily function as a sexless, taunting innuendo. I think it's keen.

Here is the song on YouTube, for your convenience. Please don't watch the video, as there's nothing much to see. Just keep it playing in the background while you do something else.




And that's the end of this post.

I also adore this kitten video

Bittersweet: The Coachella Festival Line-Up

Saturday, April 17th in particular.

A good handful of my favorite bands and performers are all lumped together, in a beautiful clump of mind-splitting awesome. Yet I cannot be there. Not only can I not afford the tickets, travel and lodging, but I'm also co-hosting a modest birthday evening for my sister that night.

Oh, the pain.

Here are some highlights:

Devo, who I have seen in concert four times recently. Twice last year.
Faith No More, who I have NEVER seen in concert, but whose albums I know by heart. I even like Annie's Song a whole lot.
John Waters. Really, John Waters will be there.
Les Claypool. Of course. I hope he will make out with Faith No More.
Muse. Yes, I like them too. They've gotten all "Bruce Campbell" lately and I appreciate this.

The following day, which I also cannot attend, features these highlights as well:

The Gorillaz (Oh the heartbreak!!! Jaime Hewlett of Tank Girl, Dan the Automator of EVERYTHING, the cute boy from Blur and so much good, good, good, good rap from so many guest stars.)
De La Soul (I'll bet they'll perform twice, once with The Gorillaz. I love Me, Myself and I.)
Gary Neuman. Once, roboty. Now with Trent Reznor goodness. Oh, what I would give to see Gary Neuman on stage! (I realize that I've already expressed that I wouldn't give up my sister's birthday and a month's rent money, so there you have it. But what WOULD I give? I'm not sure.)
And Thom Yorke, I suppose, as long as he cheers up long enough to play a distorted guitar solo or something.

*****************
I have always wanted to see Faith No More live. They crackle with a strange, beautifully ugly intelligence, like an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. One song is a deadpan parody of the Scientology pamphlet. (Land of Sunshine.) A Hunter S. Thompson quote thrown into another song. (What a Day.) They also perform a completely serious, extremely heavy metal song about a toilet (Cuckoo for Caca) and equally serious cover of the theme song from Midnight Cowboy. Perhaps my favorite is a tragicomic country song about an undereducated, self-defeating, filthy man living in a trailer being bad for every human being in the world. (RV.)



Sometimes there's a straight guy singing a gay song as a sexy joke written by a gay songwriter. (Be Aggressive!) Sometimes they sing a Peaches & Herb duet. (Reunited has been an opening number on their new tour, sung mostly by keyboardist Roddy Bottom.) They also feature Black Sabbath's new drummer rocking out. (The adorable Mike "Puffy" Bordin--this was his high school band.)

A multilingual heavy metal band with a strong, respectable fan base in Latin America. (Mike Patton is rumored to speak over four languages.) A cover of Chariots of Fire. The catchiest Lionel Ritchie cover I've ever heard. (Easy.) Some creative involvement in the second Bill and Ted movie. A silly music video that reenacts Hitchcock's Vertigo, with a few more dudes in drag than the original film had. (Last Cup of Sorrow.)

The song The Gentle Art of Making Enemies may be one of my favorite songs of all-time. (A song that is not for the especially young or sensitive--the language is very much rated R. But it is so good.)

You can feel the love radiating off of me, right? Mistakes and all, this band has too many lovable characteristics for me to ever completely let go of. They're one of my staple bands.

They've reunited to tour, are finally in the US and I can't make it to this show.

Wow.

Squeezing in just a little more love for neuroscience, PubMed, Devo, brain damage and you!

Just using a 30-second PubMed search here to slap together a some research to support my hypothesis that the best treatment for a rough life is a routine application of rigorous dance parties. (A combination of Iggy Pop and Devo is highly recommended, as jumping around is excellent for one's overall health.)

I'd need a few dozen more relevant articles if I was conducting some proper scientific research, but I'm just a blogger taking a quick break at work.

Because PubMed rocks, this article is available for free to anyone:


Lafenêtre P., Leske O., Ma-Högemeie Z., Haghikia A., Bichler Z., Wahle P., Heumann R. (2010). Exercise can rescue recognition memory impairment in a model with reduced adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 3 1-9.

A brief aside:

1. I love how in science, titles are usually run-on sentences.

2. Regarding my APA citation style: I'm not sure if the pagination is just for the article or for the whole issue, but this isn't a school assignment so I'll be a little sloppy and not double-check. If this crossed your mind too, you are a nerd. Welcome, nerd brethren. Let us be friends.


So it's been said, that nasty hippocampal density reduction and its oft correlated memory impairment--brain damage which other research indicates can be caused by having a depressing and painful life--seems to be well-treated through the judicious application of a regular regimen of aerobic exercise.

(Yes, it's also sloppy that I didn't cite studies that support THIS famous hypothesis more thoroughly. It's OK. This is only a fashion blog about shopping. Use PubMed and Google Scholar to look it up yourself.)

My interpretation of this scientific research? DANCE!!! Fortune favors those who shake what they got, particularly those with a history of depression, anxiety and/or PTSD. Who knew house parties and mosh pits could be so therapeutic?

That is all for now.

I adore neuroscience and PubMed

To study psychology without studying neuroscience is like studying dance without studying musculature. The art and the output are still there, even when the biology responsible is not understood, but I find a more comprehensive approach to be richer and more fulfilling.

(Hence waffling between the two disciplines like an academic butterfly during my undergrad degree. ... Butterflies and waffles? That's a mixed metaphor that I can totally get behind, even though Easter was last week!)

Anyhow.

What the science nerds already know, I still want to lavish a little of my breaktime adulation on.

I love with all my dorky heart the magical, lovely, delicious world of the peer-reviewed scientific research. I love the process AND the end results. Peer-reviewed publication is laborious, ugly, biased, cumbersome and flawed, but it's still the best damn thing out there when one wants the "good stuff." Ten times better than even top journalists' ability to report scientific findings.

For those of us tragic sorts who are no longer affiliated with a college or university, it can be hard to get to this "good stuff." Peer-reviewed scientific research journals are expensive, and most will charge through the nose (~$30 per article) for even tidbits of online access. Without a school to foot that bill, what's a science nerd to do?

Google Scholar is great (I love their search engine), but I'm here today to love the old American standby... PubMed!!!
 

The free article database of the National Institute of Health (NIH). Not every article that they cite is available without a subscription (same as Google Scholar) but, they're still tops in my book.

Thank you, PubMed! You have my heart. Now tell me what unwanted chemicals are in it, and what sort of diseases they may bring.

Just messed around with the blog color scheme quite a bit

I'll have to fix this when I get home tonight.

In the meanwhile, please bear with me as we limp through this awkward time of awkward reading material.

I love swear words

That's all. Just wanted to let you know.

I LOVE COFFEE BREAK SPANISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy crap. Like, I can't even tell you.

I love Coffee Break Spanish, courtesy of the Radio Lingua Network, almost more than I can express.

Free online Spanish classes taught by the friendly teacher-student duo of Mark and Cara.

The best part? That the lessons are free, enjoyable and available easily online. This is not a paid endorsement, by the way. I just like them a lot.

But the "best part" that I want to freak out about? They're TOTALLY SCOTTISH!!! It's great. There is this totally thick Scottish brogue overtop of the lessons whenever they're speaking English. It's just unexpected enough to help keep me cheerful when I might otherwise wander off in an ADHD sort of way.

When I'm by myself and I have difficulty repeating a word in Spanish, sometimes I'll make myself feel better by trying to just repeat one of the Scottish-accented words instead. It's helped me get used to rolling my Rs, too. The Scottish rolled Rs are kind of like training wheels.

I very much <3 this program. I've even gotten my father into it.

The One That Got Away (...Shark!)

Yaargh!!!

I'm washing dishes and thinking about stuff when I remember this one regret, this ONE regret that has stuck in the back of my mind for about a year.

The Shark Week t-shirt that I didn't cough up the money to buy for myself. Because I am cheap sometimes.

So I decide to look it up, to see what I can see. Maybe prepare to finally buy the shirt for myself when I get paid tomorrow.


What do I find? The shirt is no longer available!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is a link to a page that USED to sell the shirt:
http://www.cafepress.com/dd/29202863

But even these sellers, let alone the Discovery Channel Store proper, have no copies of this shirt for me.

Oh, the heartbreak.

Endorsing Some Friends: My Awesome Sister!!!

I am seriously lucky. Not only do I get along with my only sibling so well that we could be mistaken for creepy, psychically linked twins (we're not twins) but she also makes me a lot of good stuff.

Case in point, this brilliant handbag:

The pattern will be posted on Ravelry.com soon, I hope.

I will post more about my sister as she starts to publish more of her artwork and writing online. (Coming soon, a funny, ambitious blog about Star Trek, perhaps? Some eBay items? Who knows?)

Endorsing Some Friends: Natasha Lewandrowski

Three blog posts in one day!!! Yes, I know that's a lot. So what of it? I'm having fun.

I think it's time that I endorse some of my friends' artwork, because I can say honestly that I adore my friends.

First up is Natasha Lewandrowski. What can I say about Natasha? She's otherworldly, talented, brilliantly ethical, and so good at being a human that I would be intimidated if she wasn't so damn nice to me. We collaborate on many goofy excursions and I can say with confidence that her friendship has been very good for me. I'm glad to have her around. (Y'awww, affection. It's awkward. But this blog is all about affection! I'm keeping this paragraph.)

Her work can be found both on her professional website and on her Etsy account. At the time of posting, her usual amazing collage jewelry wasn't available on her Etsy page, but I hope she'll post more materials again.

FYI: The shoe is a sculpture made using plastic bags and the silver person is a costume and mask that she's actually wearing in the photograph.

Getting Started...

When searching for blogs named "I Adore" I instead found one called "i adore pretty."

Soooo cute! Most of her posts so far have been about hair and makeup, primarily makeup.

I am especially enamored with the following photo, which she found first and posted first.

This has forever been one of my all-time favorite fashion looks, and one that I am perpetually, appreciatively jealous of. Nothing to my eye pops as gorgeously as opaque, pastel blue eyeshadow accenting naturally, truly dark skin. It is a beautiful and charming fashion statement.

This photo feels like Afro-Centric French Pop. Like perfect weather. Like hearing Lou Reed's Perfect Day while drinking a good bubble tea and holding hands with someone you've loved for years.

More movies should steal the fashion statement made in this photograph.

Welcome to this lovely new experiment!

I am trying my hand at keeping a feminine blog. The main purpose of this project is to express sincere delight. I adore so many things that this should be a pretty easy theme to keep up with.

Should I ever be given free samples (hint hint) or PAID (hint hint) to mention something, I will be upfront about it.

But although I certainly like getting new things, the main purpose of the project isn't greed. I'm doing this to amuse myself.

So now... On with the show!!!