"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."

Ricky Fitts - American Beauty

will someone please

fly a kite with me?

bee's hello kitty kite - mia-magic

Norman Parkinson, Traffic, Queen, 1960

owl collection

i have many collections. i collect rosaries from places i've traveled to. stamps. owl necklaces. and now i started the owl figurine collection. the brown one was a gift from khoa who brought it from vietnam. the other one i found this weekend in puerto vallarta. hopefully i can collect a lot more over the years from different places.

“love is the biggest influence in one’s life.”

my trip to puerto vallarta

sunday morning

one of my favorite VU songs. sunday morning.

Sunday morning, praise the dawning
It's just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning, Sunday morning
It's just the wasted years so close behind
Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all
Sunday morning and I'm falling
I've got a feeling I don't want to know
Early dawning, Sunday morning
It's all the streets you crossed, not so long ago
Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all
Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all
Sunday morning
Sunday morning
Sunday morning

dinner and a movie

dinner.

salvador dali bread carving and spumoni

walk to the train station

Life on Mars?

Life on Mars?

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. ~Oscar Wilde

we all have funny faces.

whenever i'm feeling down or i have a day off and can't find anything to do i always watch funny face (musical film) with audrey hepburn, fred astaire, and kay thompson. (breakfast at tiffanys is for when i'm feeling a little holly golightly.)

well this was the case last night. i was at a birthday party and stuffed myself till i could no longer move. i came home full and with nothing to do so i watched funny face until i fell asleep.

this time around though i realized that i don't like when jo stockton (audrey hepburn) sings 'how long has this been going on?' the song is just so boring. for the first time i fast forwarded through the part. i couldn't take it and i felt bad for fast forwarding audrey hepburn but i just couldn't listen to the song. i also realized that i really like the 'think pink' number. the art direction of it is pretty awesome and so retro.

i also made a mental note to look up the actual photographer for the photographs used in the film. i learned that not only is Dick Avery's (Fred Astaire) character based on real life fashion photographer, Richard Avedon (for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue), but he also provided some of the photographs for 'Quality' magazine. including the famous stencil-like face print of jo used in the opening credits and the 'funny face' number.

it's a cute silly musical that should be given a chance. a lot of people get bored with it easily because there's singing and dancing and maybe they don't like that stuff. i think that i also like it because most of it takes place in 'Paris' and i like being reminded of Paris.

Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn) expressing herself at the philosophers cafe.

(Maggie) Kay Thompson and Dick (Fred Astaire) performing 'Clap Yo' Hands'

a picture is worth a thousand words

so i randomly started looking up polaroids. then i found something on Mental Floss that made me feel kinda shitty. sad. happy. and glad that it was a hot day- and i couldn’t draw -or else i wouldn’t have found this post. it's kinda old news but good stuff.


He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died written on May 21 by Chris Higgins.

chris found a website that had polaroid pictures dating March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. there was no contact info or anything on the site. just a bunch of polaroids according to date. he couldn’t figure out who the photographer was, so he did some research and later discovered that the photographer was Jamie Livingston. Jaime took a polaroid a day for 18 years until his birthday October 25, 1997, the day he died of cancer. he photographed his life to the very end.

- Jaime Livinginston born october 25, 1956 - died october 25, 2007
- New York based photographer, filmaker and circus performer.
- started his 'polaroid a day' photodiary while at Bard College.
- he took a polaroid a day in hopes to one day organize a collection.
- some polaroids are missing 6,697 polaroids remain.
- after his death his friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid put together his collection of polaroids. something Jamie would have wanted to do.
- Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid organized an exhibit at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College called "JAMIE LIVINGSTON. PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997", which opened in 2007.
- the exhibit took up a 7 x 120 foot space.
- Jaime's best friend Hugh Crawford put his collection online with the intention of not being found... at least not yet until Chris Higgins found it on May 20.


see Jaime Livingston's polaroid collection at Photo of the Day

read more about the Jaime Livingston project at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn

listen to the Spark episode hosted by Nora Young about Jaime Livingston on CBC Radio.

“For the last seven years I have been taking what has come to be known as the POD, or Photo of the Day. This is my way of keeping a diary. The subject matter varies from portraits, to still life, to landscapes, my big toe, a flag pole, people i meet, those i’m with, anything i might encounter at work or play. Whatever the mood mood it varies. whats important is that it represents an instant in that day which i remember foreever onward. with some photos i can re-live entire days just from a glance, others bring me back only to the moment.”

- Jamie Livingston, a letter written to the Polaroid Corporation in 1986.


i looked at the whole collection and it seems to me like Jaime lived a happy life. he was always with his friends and family and apparently traveled a lot. the last year of his life is especially hard. you see him come in and out of the hospital so you know something is wrong. he has a staples on his head. eventually loses his hair from chemo. the last month of his life is especially sad but i’m pretty sure just as happy. we see that jamie is back at the hospital surrounded by the ones he loves. on october 5, there is a polaroid of an engagment ring, an indication that his time is possibly short. two days later he is married and his wife is in white. on october 24th a friend is playing the guitar for him while jaime lays sleeping. the last polaroid is the last day of his life. i can't even look at it. some polaroids i like:

02-27-80

08-10-80

8-29-80

6-27-82

07-08-82

3-31-84

4-28-85

07-22-85 (day i was born)

4-23-93

10-05-97

10-24-97

what once was a mystery, is now a beautiful story of one man's life for all of us to see.

N U D E

i'm pretty sure everyone knows about Radiohead's Nude remix competition. the first deadline was set to May 1st but then there were a lot of complaints that the contest was unfair. (i agree i think they shold have thought about this some more.) so to fix this 'problem' Radiohead extended the deadline to June 1st.

James Houston missed the deadline. i can't even explain how awesome his video is. even if he would have made it 2 days before the deadline there's no way in hell he'd be at the top. who's going to watch 250+ videos before choosing a favorite? Radiohead should have done things differently. it just doesn't make sense to continue allowing entries till the last day of voting. there should have been a set deadline for video submissions and a different start date and deadline for voting.

check it.




Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

I'm a student graduating from the Glasgow School of Art's visual communication course in a few days. This is my final project.

Radiohead held an online contest to remix "Nude" from their album - "In Rainbows" This was quite a difficult task for everybody that entered, as Nude is in 6/8 timing, and 63bpm. Most music that's played in clubs is around 120bpm and usually 4/4 timing. It's pretty difficult to seamlessly mix a waltz beat into a DJ set.

This resulted in lots of generic entries consisting of a typical 4/4 beat, but with arbitrary clips from "Nude" thrown in so that they qualified for the contest.

Thom Yorke joked at the ridiculousness of it in an interview for NPR radio, hinting that they set the competition to find out how people would approach such a challenging task.

I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit.

Based on the lyric (and alternate title) "Big Ideas: Don't get any" I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they're trying their best to do something that they're not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.

It doesn't sound great, as it's not supposed to.

I missed the contest deadline, so I'm offering it here for you to enjoy.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)

Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums

HP Scanjet 3c - Bass GuitarHard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX

Nude - Radiohead

Nude - Radiohead (James Houston Reworking)

Nude - Radiohead (Holy Fuck Remix)

fashions fade, style is eternal

Yves Saint Laurent ~ August 1, 1936 - June 1, 2008

YSL started working for christian dior at the young age of 17 and took over the house at 21. invented ready to wear fashion. designed the famous "mondrian" day dress which is housed at the metropolitan museum of art. in 1966 created le smoking tuxedo for women which is still a great influence to couteriers today and on the fashion runway.

Yves Saint Laurent empowerd women. loved women. most importantly helped create the modern woman.

he will continue to be one of the greatest figures in French fashion in the 20th century.

'Le Smoking' tuxedo (right) immortalized by Helmut Newton, 1975.



"It is a well-known fact that Chanel gave women their freedom; years later Saint Laurent brought them power," - Pierre Berge

Yves Saint Laurent died on June 1, 2008 of a brain tumor He died at his Paris home. a few days before his death he married Pierre Berge in civil union, his long time lover and business partner. his ashes are scattered in the gardens of his home in Marrakech, Morrocco.



"To be beautiful all that a woman needs is a black jumper, a black skirt and a man that she loves on her arm." - Yves Saint Laurent

with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly

Sigur Ros has done it again. they never fail my ears. they last left us back in October with their film Heima a beautiful film which leaves you feeling warm inside and reminds you why Sigur Ros is such an amazing-AMAZING band.

on May 27th they released Gobbledigook the first single of their fifth lp called “með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust” (with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly). it is Sigur Ros in all their greatness but not yr typical dreamy - life is beautiful - i feel depressed Sigur Ros. think of fast banging drums. loud guitars. combinations of sounds to create one big sound of Sigur Ros genius. so very Animal Collective-like! if you know who Animal Collective is and you listen to Gobbledigook you will know what i’m talking about. there is definitely an influence there. it’s not that Sigur Ros is trying to sound like Animal Collective. i think they’re just taking a more ‘animalistic’ approach in their sound. this is not a bad thing. Animal Collective is an amazing band. i’m diggin’ this track big time.

DOWNLOAD mp3: Gobbledigook - Sigur Ros

their album is set to be released on june 23rd worldwide and june 24th in north america. (why does the rest of the world always get the good stuff first?) the single and video are availabe to download for free on their site Sigur Ros.

The video for Gobbledigook has been done in collaboration with Ryan McGinley. it’s very uh natural... (naked people running around). so very Ryan McGinley.

Ryan McGinley has a current exhibition at Ratio 3 gallery in San Francisco: Spring and by Summer Fall May 9 - June 21, 2008. check it.

Karl-Worship

I wasn’t allowed to play with guns when I was little. My mom was even hesitant to let us invest in squirt guns. And oh, when my brother secretly bought a paintball gun, all hell broke loose. Maybe that’s why these are so enticing.





Karl has teamed up with Chanel to bring us these gems of footwear. Impossible to walk in, I’m sure, but also impossible not to look like a femme fatale. In Chanel boutiques next month. Forever 21, please start working on your knock-offs now.

stormy weather

rainy days always make me feel as gloomy as the sky. whenever i look at gloomy skies all i can think about is Paris.

when i was a little girl i always dreamt of going to Paris. i wanted to drink the green stuff that was in the bottle and be one of toulouse lautrecs models. what i didn't know was that the green stuff in the bottle was absinthe and toulouse lautrec's models were mostly prostitutes. i guess back then i did a lot of dreaming behind couches along with drawing and coloring. i was the creative little one who ruined textbooks and novels by adding illustrations to them. i didn't think much of it. all i know is that i really liked doing it. it was just as good as watching knight rider and much more interesting than sticking rocks in my nose.

in the 3rd grade i realized that art was something i loved and my favorite subject became art. fuck kick-ball and physical education. apparently i was good at this so called art thing. i didn't know. teachers would tell me. i won many of those dumb mommy and me contests. (i think my mom still has the winning pieces)

my dreams about Paris started with the art masters program at school. a lady wearing a beret would come and teach us about a bunch of artists and then we would make our own copy cat pieces. all this fascinated me and i learned that a lot of these artists hung out in Paris. so i made a plan. if they lived in Paris then that's where i would go. too bad back then no one told me that most of these guys were already dead or maybe i just didn't pay attention. i just wanted badly to go a brothel with toulouse lautrec. of course i didn't know it was a brothel. it was the place where they pour you the green stuff to drink right? i guess pictured myself living there as an artist. i just wanted to be like van gogh, henri matisse, renoir and picasso and everyone else and experience the bohemian lifestyle. as the years passed i kept this on my list of things to do before i die. i have accomplished my childhood dream twice already and i am very grateful. the little M inside of me is happy but the grown up little M just misses it all the time.

oh, how i miss walking along la seine. grabbing coffee at a little cafe in the morning. the smell of chocolate croissants as we walked down st. michel. cute old couples holding hands. walking down the rues of montmarte. meeting strangers. drinking too much. falling in love again with great art. i even miss walking up all those stairs to the apartment on rue du pont di lodi.

Paris i miss you and i hope to see you soon.

today's gloomy playlist for gloomy weather

DOWNLOAD mp3 : Le Moulin - Yann Tiersen

DOWNLOAD mp3 : Stay Golden - Au Revoir Simone

DOWNLOAD mp3 : Moon Pulls - Mum

DOWNLOAD mp3 : Wild is the Wind - Cat Power

DOWNLOAD mp3 : Glory to the World - El Perro Del Mar

DOWNLOAD mp3 : Take it Back - She & Him

the beginning of the road

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

- Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) ::: On The Road

DOWNLOAD mp3: On The Road (jazz of the beat generation)
28:40
voice: Jack Kerouac
voice digitally transfered rom original aceate recordings by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound

DOWNLOAD mp3: On The Road - Jack Kerouac 2:16
vocals: Jack Kerouac
original home recording by Jack Kerouac, circa early 1960's
Musicians: Victor Juris--guitar; John Medeski--Hammond organ

DOWNLOAD mp3: On The Road - Performed by Tom Waits with Primus
3:58