thoroughly digging right now: neutrals edition

After a lot of excitement and truly appreciated face-to-face time with people I love, I'm beyond thrilled to be hunkered down for a bit devoted to semi-solitary pursuits.  This includes finally focusing on my writing for the first time too long and going at it for real this time.  Though I'm currently catching up on a few things I've already promised to people, I will be looking for more more more to do very soon, so if any lovely readers want to point me in the direction of people/publications to pitch to, it would be much appreciated!  FULL SPEED AHEAD ON MY DREAMS

Another cool thing is that I'm also back to liking things again! Honest to god appreciation, y'all.  It's a good feeling, so I thought I'd share.

URSA MINOR

Obviously, Ursa Minor is the best name for anything, and so I'm quite happy that Elizabeth Hudson's clothing and accessories line is so good and full of the other things I'm super into when I'm not too busy loving bears and space.  These shots for Fall/Winter by Francesca Tallone capture the perfect dark-meets-light, dreamy, and unfussy thing that I'm always going for and never achieving quite this well.

 

VIVIAN GIRLS SIDE PROJECTS

Vivian Girls is one of those bands I'll always have a certain affection for, and so it's pretty cool that they all have side projects and that their ex-members (like Frankie Rose!) do cool things too.  Earlier this year, bassist Katy Goodman released her second record as La Sera entitled Sees the Light, which was the perfect happysad break up album.  Cassie Ramone's band with Woods' Kevin Morby, the Babies, will release Our House on the Hill later this year and I'm looking forward to it.  I think the Vivian Girls charm for me, personally, is that they always seem to provide something I need at the time.  Like, right now I'm inching towards the end of summer and it's still too hot and I'm just over it and tired and I don't really want to talk to anyone about anything.  These bands are perfect for indulging my angst without getting too deep into it.  

THE BABIES - "Moonlight Mile"

RENNES & METRODE

Rennes and Metrode are a collaboration made in heaven.  I was impressed by the quality of the Rennes pieces I handled at Myth & Symbol when I visited and have dug Metrode's aesthetic for a while now, so I'm naturally smitten with these beauties. It looks like I've already missed out on the tote, but perhaps there will be a pouch in my future!

AUBREY PLAZA


Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, I find it pretty hard to actually care about celebrities.  Gossip's entertaining and all, but I typically don't feel any sense of personal investment.  Now and again, though, I do get fixated on certain people who I will almost definitely never meet, and right now I have it bad for Aubrey Plaza.

I love her on Parks & Rec and have always thought that she's really, really pretty...but it wasn't until watching an interview with her (and then like a dozen more interviews with her in rapid succession) that I really became obsessed.  Like, I cannot even tell you how much I want to be her. Well, I could, but you would definitely judge me because it's super pathetic.

MAGGIE

My sister got a kitten recently and, though all kittens are wonderful, this one is especially great, I think.  The day I met her, she spent a full hour napping in my lap and, though I was exhausted myself, the thought of closing my eyes and missing a single second of her cuteness didn't quite seem worth it.

goodbye, girls

People who know me well are aware that I'm a big advocate of bands breaking up at a point in their careers when it still hurts to lose them.  And dammit, you've done it to me, Girls.

Frontman Christoper Owens announced this morning that he was leaving Girls, and anyone who's a fan knows that he is Girls, so the band is effectively over.  To me, he's intriguing because of the seemingly opposing qualities he possesses - he's damaged but pure, flamboyant but humble, universally appealing in his isolation.  Earlier this year, he posted sixty pictures from his trip to a cactarium to his Twitter account in rapid succession, which I thought was a very Kanye West thing to do but knew it was not done for Kanye West reasons.  That's what I love about Christopher Owens...his sincerity and passion; I don't think they are something that he should ever compromise, and I hope this decision is one he made to hold onto what's great about him.

I can't be too sad about the breakup, though. After all, I've been lucky enough to see them a few times at various points in their career; as the opening act yet to release their record in a dirty club where I tried (and failed miserably) to explain to those around me why they were special before they took the stage, playing an acoustic set in a record store full of enthusiastic kids, and, most recently, at a festival performing on a flower-filled staged to god knows how many onlookers.  One girl in the front row was trying desperately to get his attention and let out quite the shriek when he finally, sheepishly waved back. At one point, I had to shift positions because the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne was standing in front of me blocking my view with his signature salt and pepper curls. It's nice that I always saw the rise and never the fall, you know?

Anyway, here are some pictures that I really love of the band taken by Sandy Kim in 2008 to remember these two together by.

Best of luck to you, Christopher Owens.  

ladies' man, indeed

I remember seeing this photo of Tom Cruise and his Risky Business co-star Rebecca de Mornay on the excellent Old Love a while back and thinking that I needed to know everything about her, but then I (foolishly) did not pursue the matter further.

Because, really, anyone who makes a Cats t-shirt look that sexy deserves to be more famous than Tom Cruise, right?

Super hot!

But then this morning I was looking at old pictures of Newport Folk Festival, and I came across some pictures of her with Leonard Cohen (not actually related to Newport Folk Festival, but you know how looking at things on the Internet goes...) and found out that they were actually a serious couple in the early 90s.  She even co-produced The Future!  

Christof Graf, 1993

So, um, I guess their relationship wasn't a secret or a scandal seeing as how, you know, she was credited in his liner notes (although for whatever reason, photos of them have only recently surfaced and there are very few)...but I figured the fact that I just found out means there are other people who this information would appeal to who were unaware.  

Obviously, my research into Leonard Cohen's love life had previously (justifiably!) been focused on Joni Mitchell, which is way juicier. 

  

Old gossip is the best gossip, right?

the gardener

I've never been too good at the suburbs (give me as many people squished into a square mile and not interacting with each other as possible, please), but I certainly appreciate good landscaping...especially when I'm trying to finish a roll of film.   

If and when I have a properly green lawn of my own, I imagine it will be full of secrets, reminiscent of "The Gardener", which always fighting with (and sometimes beating) "King of Spain" as my favorite Tallest Man on Earth song. 

 

south by southwest was a lifetime ago, but here is a post about it today

It's not-so-affectionately nicknamed South by South Stress for a reason, but everything has been so crazy in my own life lately that SXSW was easy breezy in comparison this year.  Of course, I don't recommend manufacturing a personal crisis just for the sake of enjoying a music festival, but you know, do what you gotta do...

hey friends hey

I missed seeing every band I actually have an emotional connection to who played shows that week, but SXSW isn't really the greatest place for music you care about, anyway.  What it is great for is sampling a bunch of acts you wouldn't necessarily pay to see, free alcohol, and coaxing out-of-town friends to come for a visit...all of which, god willing, manages to ease the pain of the absolute worst in corporate sponsorship if you dare venture to 6th Street (not recommended, not even for the Free Vodka Trolley.)

 

Bleached

Jennifer and Jessica Clavlin make me hate my sister/BFF for never forming a punk band with me like I begged her to so many times.  Prior to forming Bleached, they were part of the notorious group of rabble-rousers Mika Miko until the band split and Jennifer played with Cold Cave for a bit. I loved their set and very much wanted to be up there with them in matching maroon ankle boots, but I guess I'll wait for the formal invitation to join the band first... 

Best Coast

I'm pretty sure I come across as super sarcastic on the internet (and in person, but to a lesser extent) because people don't understand that I'm genuinely a superfan of hype and enthusiasm. I love seeing people really into something, which was my main objective sticking around to see Best Coast after Bleached and Spectrals, and I was not disappointed!  I mean, I do like Best Coast just fine and I've seen them twice before and had a great time, actually, but I'm not going to pretend there aren't tons of other bands that came out around the same time (or earlier) and did pretty much the same thing as Best Coast (sometimes better) with a fraction of the media coverage. For whatever reason, people are really into this band in particular, though. And I'm not immune - I totally watched Bethany lookin' cute in her Rachel Antonoff romper and hanging out with Wavves' Nathan Williams out of the corner of my eye prior to their set like the creeper I am.  But when Best Coast took the stage (Bethany had changed into her new line for Urban Outfitters, of course), my eyes were mostly focused on the front row, full of well-dressed girls eagerly singing along about boys and the sun and boys.  And you know what? Their happiness made me happy.

I also saw Blouse (dreamy as I imagined!), Dive (favorite SXSW discovery this year), Craft Spells (dude who had drawn flowers on his mint-green guitar was my favorite), and others that I can't remember now.  But like I said, as many bands as you actually see during any music festival (this one in particular), there are gonna be a million more that you miss even if you wanted to see them more. 

Hangin' out with these girls really was the best of the best of South by Southwest, which is why I look so smug here.  Magdalena & Caroline, please come back!

patti & tricia

John Cale, Lou Reed, Patti Smith & David Byrne, NYC (1976) by Bob Gruen. Obviously they were just all born rock stars and had no life previous to that, right? Nope!

It took me a long time to get around to reading Patti Smith’s Just Kids and then a bit more to process it because I saw so much of myself in her story.  


What I liked best about the book was finding out that everything I assumed about Patti Smith was kind of wrong. I always thought of her as the poster girl for effortless cool, and that’s simply not true.  She is a bit of a try-hard, which is great, because so am I!  And you know what? I’m proud.  

Like me, Patti struggled from a young age with the whole “I know I’m an artist but I don’t know how to express myself!” thing.  Admittedly, there are worse problems to have and that I do actually struggle with, which is precisely why many people I love dearly typically don’t (and maybe shouldn’t) indulge such complaints.  

Patti had a real thing for Bob Dylan early on, but resisted music as a creative outlet for years.  Photo by Judy Linn.

I do think artistic existentialism (or whatever you want to call it) is a legitimate crisis to have, though. There’s sort of this weird adoration of people in creative fields that find their particular calling without much struggle, like somehow if the first thing you ever drew was a taco and it was a very great taco that's better than having a hundred ugly tacos drawn on crumpled up paper in your waste basket before you get it right even if the product looks equally delicious. Or maybe you decide that you don't even want to draw tacos, you want to sculpt them or write about them. Whatever, the point I was trying to make is that I'm hungry. Wait, no, I don't think that's right...

Certainly there’s something to be said for the wunderkinds among us and anyone else who takes a relatively straight shot to the top with limited fucking around. The hard work + good luck = success equation is simple and elegant and I think we all need to believe in it, but understand that it’s okay for our creative (or any other type of) self-discovery to be messier than that. Mine has felt like lots of flailing around with precious few moments of clarity and competence that usually end up with me feeling like all my previous efforts were tantamount to me running very fast and very far in the wrong direction.

Patti's companion, Robert Mapplethorpe, took a while to pick up a camera, but when he did, he found a lot of success photographing things like naked people and flowers.

But still, I don’t regret all the hours spent trying to train my tone-deaf ears to be something biology determined they never would long before I picked up my first guitar or wielding a paintbrush countless times just to form clumsy, tired shapes nor do I intend to give up the things I enjoy but have no particular talent for.  There are worse things to be than a dilettante.

Lately, it seems more and more like it’s time to pursue my first love, what I’ve always felt best at - comedy writing. Making people laugh consistently is something I'm actually! pretty! capable! of! and it feels nice, so why not? Though I haven’t yet found the best form form for my particular brand of earnest, politically-correct, whimsical humor to take, it feels right to try everything and take it as far as I can. My minimal-effort joke blog was on Conan, right? (Still not done bragging about that. Sorry.) So who's to say that actually trying won't turn into something real? Because we've established that, right? That trying is cool? K, good.

the blouse at the end of the tunnel

I'm trying my best to stay positive right now, but the truth is that I'm super bummed out.

I can officially report that car wrecks are no fun.  In fact, they're quite terrifying, especially when you're in the modest sedan crushed between two Texas-sized SUVs.  Fortunately, it wasn't my fault (the girl who hit me tearfully confessed that she hadn't been paying any attention to the road), so it won't be a financial burden or take a toll on my extra guilt-prone conscience.  I'm still without a car for now, though, and have plenty more hours to log on the phone with my insurance company before this mess is sorted out.

Initially, I thought I was physically fine save for a few scratches from broken glass, but learned the hard way that it's normal to experience effects of a crash hours, even days, later.  I started feeling sore that evening, but was able to mostly ignore it due to the heavenly nature of the meal: good friends, a Veggie Royale with chipotle pesto, champagne with lavender syrup, and Radiohead sharing an appetizer at the table next to us.  However, the muscular revolt kept on charging, and by the time I woke up in the middle of the night crying because every inch of me hurt, I figured medical attention was overdue.  I've been on prescription pain killers for about 24 hours now and can happily classify my condition as manageable, though I'm still achy all over and anything that requires me to lift my arms too high or move my neck at all is pretty bad news. Baby steps!

So yeah, this whole story of the accident has very little to do with the following pictures except for the fact that I'm excited about South by Southwest rolling into town and bringing in some faces I don't see nearly often enough around these parts.  According to the timeline my doctor gave me, I should be feeling fine by the time best friends, free live music, and day-drinking are in season.

One of the acts playing this year is Blouse, who I've been hoping for the chance to see ever since Caroline introduced me to them sometime last year and the incessant fawning over their supercoolness began.  Blouses are the best clothing item category, so it stands to reason that a band who decided to call themselves Blouse would have other great ideas, too! There happen to be a lot of photos of the band or featuring their lovely singer, Charlie Hilton, that have caught my eye, so I figured I'd share a few here as a reminder of better times to come. 

by Amanda Smith

 

by Miranda Lehman

 by Brianne Willis

Don't you just want to roll around floors and/or beds in your finest thrifted scores right now, smelling flowers and mussing up your hair in the process?  Because I totally do.

It took me a while to come up with a New Year's resolution (probably because I've never made one), but I'm gonna go ahead and mark 2012 down as THE YEAR OF LIVING DREAMILY, and I'm just fashionably late to the party.

don't let our youth go to waste

Spring keeps threatening to come to town in full force and then, sadly, retreating.  Still...I can't complain considering for the first time in four years, I can wear whatever shoes I want in January without the fear of them being destroyed by gray slush. Freedom!

Luckily, though, while I wait for Austin to go into full bloom for two perfect months before sweltering heat takes over, bits of spring can be found indoors.

A mini springtime shrine:  My roommate's copy of one of my very favorite records, a snake plant, a lamp gifted to me by my mother, and Stella by Stella McCartney from my sister.

More on Galaxie 500...because there's always more to say about Galaxie 500!  Despite having a pretty good run this past week of suspiciously good moods, I've been listening almost exclusively to music on the gloomier side.  I keep coming back to these songs, in particular, and getting nostalgic for the magical night I saw Dean Wareham open for Belle & Sebastian and ended up in a P.F. Chang's until close because none of the bars in downtown Boston were letting our underage friend in.

There is also always more room for Stella McCartney! Her Spring 2012 campaign by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott is pretty perfect.  If I weren't already super set in the sunglasses department, I would probably spend a lot of time thinking about this particular pair of shades. 

This chandelier by Pani Jurek has been making the rounds on the internet lately, but I never tire of seeing it and can't help but think I'd be able to make my own mini version for my bedroom.  Now I just have to work a constant supply of fresh flowers into my budget...which really, I should have done ages ago.

My dream blouse by Equipment. 

This tea towel from The House That Lars Built is way too pretty for drying dishes.  I want to snatch one up for myself to hang on my wall. 

marry me, annie

I love these shots of St. Vincent by Tommy Kearns for Under the Radar - they totally confirm my belief that when Annie Clark isn't on stage shredding like nobody's business and singing with the voice of an angel, she controls the universe as some sort of cosmic warrior princess.  Or maybe she just sits around her apartment inhaling full seasons of TV shows like the rest of us. Either way, I think she's super cool and I can't wait to see her live properly for the first time next Monday after the less than satisfying taste I got a few years ago at the Museum of Fine Art Boston's free college night. Fewer backs of heads and loud conversations killing the vibe this time, please?

 

girls girls girls

A few months before Girls released Album, I downloaded a collection of their demos (or maybe live tracks?) and the songs quickly became my 2009 summer soundtrack.  Before I headed back to Boston for the school year, I spent an evening at Emo's (which, sadly, will be gone by the end of this year) closing out the summer in perfect form:  Smith Westerns, Girls, and Los Campesinos!  

Smith Westerns were, at that point, just a baby band (not even old enough to attend the gig they were playing, if my memory serves me correctly!) and I only knew a few songs by Los Campesinos!, but I left the show a fan of both bands.

Girls were still definitely the highlight of the evening for me, though. When Christopher Owens shuffled onstage in a baggy striped tee, cuffed jeans, tube socks, and red heels with his face covered in curls and I knew they would not disappoint, and I was right. I'll be seeing them again next month during Fun Fun Fun Fest (along with legends like the Damned and Public Enemy!), and I can't wait to see the new songs live!   

Newport Folk Festival

I've wanted to go to Newport Folk Festival for years based on its history alone, and I was finally able to make it this summer!

The setting itself was so gorgeous - the festival takes place at Fort Adams State Park right on the ocean, so in between sets, we were able to relax on the dock and enjoy the oceanside. 

 The first day featured a lot more modern music - we caught Gogol Bordello, Tegan & Sara, and the Decemberists. 

 When we got to the festival the second day, we happened to be passing by the kids' tent and I noticed that Pete Seeger was performing children's songs, so I immediately dropped what I was doing and watched the rest of his set.  Pete Seeger is such a legend (and one of the original guys behind the festival!), so I was beyond thrilled to be able to say thank you to him for everything he's done. Plus, watching him act out nursery rhymes was definitely the cutest thing I've seen in a long time. 

After lunch, we watched Wanda Jackson's set.  I've been lucky enough to see her before, and she is just as cute (and talented!) as ever.  Besides, there's no such thing as hearing someone's first-hand account of going steady with Elvis too many times.  

 

Speaking of Elvis, Mr. Costello was next up!  It was my first time seeing him live after being a fan for over a decade, so it was a big deal to me.  He also had, by far, my favorite outfit of the festival.  You can always count on this guy to be impeccably clad!  Maybe I'll give him a "Dressing Like" feature later this week?

Towards the end of his set, he brought out Emmylou Harris for a duet and I died a little.  

Emmylou's solo performance was also incredible as well,  naturally.  Her voice is definitely in my top five!  

Pete Seeger closed the festival by leading everyone in sing-alongs of "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" featuring most of the acts from Sunday, including some whose sets I had to miss like M. Ward and Ramblin' Jack Elliott.  I definitely got emotional, and how could I not? So much peace and love!