art is the new religion

here's some dogs

The latest edition of Tiny Showcase comes out today, so I clicked over to the site to see if I could catch it right when it went up.  Instead of the new edition, I caught last week's edition which I had somehow missed!  It's by San Francisco's own Jay Howell, it was printed by Providence letterpress artist Dan Wood and it's awesome.  Too bad the limited run is already sold out. 

It's called "Here's Some Dogs":

I'm sad I was unable to purchase one of these.  I need some cheering up:

I'll conclude this post with two inspirational quotes from the artist Jay Howell:

"Take a stand against the jerks from hell. They are out there and they want you to feel bad just because they do. You will not be taken down, YOU are from Tuff Town and they are from the lame village across the river. We launch rocks at them for a reason."

"All I'm saying is that it's so important to be yourself. That's all you have to offer so just be honest. It's really scary to put yourself out there knowing that everybody is going to come down on you because they think they know where you're coming from and what you've been through. That's never, ever true. Personality is art."

this beagle is my hero

via Jessica Hopper's blog

Trip to LA Part 1: Kiss Pez

This past weekend, I flew down to Los Angeles to visit my dear friend Laurie.  She lives in Brooklyn and I haven't seen her in about two years, so when she told me she'd be in LA for business I jumped at the chance to go see her.

We checked in late Friday night to the Farmer's Daughter hotel.  After a late night dinner and survey of the strange scene at Canter's, we called it a night.

On Saturday we woke up early to visit the "Farmers Market" at the Grove, which was right across the street from the hotel.  I put quotes around it because it wasn't the kind of farmers market I was expecting - it was more like an overgrown food court at a county fair (they had funnel cakes!), with a few stalls of produce of unknown origins that appeared to be there year-round.  When I complained to an LA acquaintance about calling it a farmers market when it wasn't really one, he replied, defensively: "Well the Castro isn't really a Castro."  Indeed.

After brunch at the hotel, we drove around a bit and went shopping.  For no good reason at all, I got kind of excited when we passed by High Voltage Tattoo.

Uncle Jer's is one of Laurie's favorite stores.  They sell tiny scooter shirts for the kids:

At Uncle Jer's I finally bought two sets of chopsticks, per the advice of my friend Case, who prefers to eat his salads with them.

One of the coolest stores we visited was Zanzabelle in Silverlake.  They sell toys and food and clever, functional art like punk rock pillows:
 

And custom-crafted Ramones Pez dispensers:

And some amazing Kiss Pez dispensers:

Now, you'd think that the enterprising Gene Simmons would have made Official Kiss Pez dispensers aeons ago, but apparently all this time if you've really wanted Kiss Pez dispensers you've had to make your own.  About a month ago, there was announcement that Kiss was finally releasing their own Pez candies, but the dispensers will only have album art on them, not the likenesses of the band.  Considering the vast array of custom merchandise they've churned out over the decades, it seems like Kiss really missed an opportunity with creating their own Pez dispensers. 

Or, maybe the Pez company is just afraid of rock n' roll?

All this information makes these custom Kiss dispensers at Zanzabelle even more attractive.  I shoulda bought them.

Now that I look closely, Gene appears to be fashioned out of a Pebbles Flintstone dispenser, and Peter is secretly Lucy from Peanuts.  My guess is that Paul and Ace and all the Ramones used to be Wonder Woman. 

Sounds like a fun weekend project!

Antiquing in Alameda

Mena:  "Hey do you want to go with me to the Alameda antique fair on Sunday?"
Me:  "Nope."
Mena:  "Oh, come on, please?"
Me:  "Hmm, well...no."

The thought of going to an antiques fair didn't sound interesting to me in the slightest, especially not to stay for hours on end.  When I think of "antiquing" I picture rich couples driving their SUVs to quaint New England towns and browsing through giant armoirs that all cost at least $7,000.  None for me, thanks.

But reading through a few design magazines and blogs this past week made me change my mind.  I'm interested in getting some small arty and decorative stuff for my apartment, so I decided to give this Alameda market a chance. 

Mena warned me that she spent four hours there the last time she went, so I was a bit scared, but once we arrived I realized quickly how you could lose half a day there.  Rows and rows of booths and sellers stretched as far as the eye could see, and each stall warranted perusal with a careful eye if you wanted to find something interesting. 

Mena:  "So what are you looking for?  What's your thing?"
Me:  "Um, I don't think I have a thing."
Mena:  "We need to find you a thing."

After I saw this little guy, it looked for a while like my thing might be bulls, being a Taurus and a Texan and all.  But he was $30, which seemed excessive to me.

Mena:  "You have to haggle."
Me:  "I don't know how to haggle."
Mena:  (Exasperated) "I'll do it."

Even $25 ended up being too much for him, but I still think he was cute.

Soon enough, I realized I was drawn to natural forms and shapes.  I picked up a few horns and antlers admiring their beauty, but couldn't bring myself to buy them because they seemed too morbid.  I finally settled on some sea life, with this purple starfish and dark red coral.  I didn't realize that seashells were considered antiques, but they were everywhere.

I saw this sign, which is about as tall as I am, and had to have it.  It's a bit of a stretch considering I've only left the country twice this lifetime, but maybe it'll bring me some better traveling luck.  I'm not sure where I'll hang it yet.  Maybe in my kitchen, where my girlfriends and I celebrate the moments of our lives with General Foods International Coffees.

Then I happened upon this beauty.  I came close to buying her, especially after Mena haggled the price way down, and the seller kept sweetening the deal, you know, because he said I was cute and have a great smile and he really wanted me to have it.  What a salesman!  Ultimately, I couldn't go through with it on the spot.  I will own a gramophone some time real soon, though.

When Mena showed me these ladies, I caved.  This is the fourth pair of cowboy boots I've bought in the past year.  Cowboy boots are definitely one of my things.  I may need some sort of intervention.

We ended up spending all day at the market, and we came away with a good haul and a substantial sunburn.  I'd definitely go back.

semantics

As a lifelong lover of language and card-carrying "reader", one of my great pleasures is discovering the meaning of words and understanding the nuances of different definitions.

Which is why, in the past couple of weeks, I've been delighted and amazed to learn that two long-held assumptions of mine were false! 

Assumption #1:  A pony is a baby horse.  (Like a puppy is a baby dog.)

No!  My friend (and superstar intern) Dagmar taught me, just a few weeks ago, that a pony is an entirely different animal from a horse!  She should know, as she has a beautiful pony named Sir Valentine (not pictured at right).  All this time I thought ponies were just the smaller, cuter, younger versions of a plain ol' horse!  How did I never know the difference before now?  As a Texan, I probably had an extra responsibility to understand the difference, even though I didn't grow up around horses.  Thank you, Dagmar, for the education.

Assumption #2:  "Whisky" is just a careless and common misspelling of "whiskey".

Wrong!  There is a difference between the two!  As Alex taught me today at lunch, "whiskey" is bourbon, typically from America.  Kentucky bourbon, for instance.  And "whisky" is Scotch.  Or something.  Actually the differences aren't really that simple, and maybe my explanation is wrong.  But the point is - they are different liquors, both spelled correctly!

Who knew?

One final note on semantics:  What do you call the disgusting and desperate concoction you and/or your high school college classmates made from any stealthily-procured liquor (Everclear, for instance), combined with various amounts of fruit-flavored beverages and/or soda?

This morning my friends referred to this as "jungle juice", a term which I've never heard before.  I always heard it, back in the day, in Texas, called "trashcan punch".  Have we stumbled upon a new colloquialism?

SNORGLLL: BitchBuzz.com

Stop what you're doing and click over to BitchBuzz's Snorgle Alert! Our Favorite Dog Sweaters on Etsy.  The cuteness therein is so intense that it's almost stressful.  I think the little bee-dog is my favorite.  Laurie, Ollie may need one of these hoodies. 

On Etsy: Buzzy Bumble Pure Wool Sweater & Small Hound Hoodie

The Buzzy Bumble Sweater comes from Mr Soft Top's Etsy shop.  I have to commend Mr Soft Top's choices in models.  If I can't fulfill my dream of someday getting a French bulldog, I would gladly take a Brussels Griffon as a second runner-up.

 
Cheers to my girl Cate Sevilla on her recent launch of BitchBuzz.  Please hop on over to check it out for smart, funny posts on everything from lists of snorgly dog sweaters to love advice to tech talk from a female perspective (and not in that "I'm talking about tech to get attention from dudes" kind of way).  My favorite posts are currently coming from the BitchBuzz Style page.  Great work, Cate!!

trying not to lose my aloha

A week ago I was in Oahu, watching two great friends get married.  After the gorgeous ceremony, we hiked down to these tidepools.

I wish we were all were back there right now.

r&b mini mix

Lately one of the highlights of my week has been going to dance classes at Rhythm & Motion.  Dance is an amazing workout, but it's also mentally challenging in a way that's totally different from work or writing.  Picking up nuanced choreography takes a physical intelligence that I'm slowly developing over hours and hours of practice.

There are a few songs we hear a lot in one of my classes, and I was able to track two of them down to share with you.  The first two are songs we often warm up to: MC Magic's "Dancer" and Ne-Yo's "Closer". 

The third track is a bonus because I'd never hear it in dance class.  Chris Cornell, an artist I've been obsessed with since I was a teenager, is releasing a new record this fall and the single "Long Gone" is a crazy R&B-tinged departure from his normal sway from stompy rock to sappy serenades.  You can tell Timbaland produced it, which makes me love it even more.  (Disappointingly, the other single I've heard from the album, "Watch Out", is egregiously bad.)

• Listen to my r&b mini mix on Rhapsody

Watch Ne-Yo's video for "Closer":

Watch Chris Cornell perform "Long Gone" on Leno:

on vacation

I'm on vacation this week.  Which will either mean that I post even more, or don't post at all.  I've already been posting from my phone to my Vox blog.

In the meantime, aloha from Kailua beach.

Pen Pals & "Mental Reservations"

Mena accidentally sent me this clip this morning and I had to share it.  It's about a two classrooms of young students whose teachers originally met as pen pals.  The teachers set up a pen pal program for the students and their reactions are great:

I love the kid who describes what 1991 must have been like.

This is the clip she intended to send: "Are All Babies Really Cute?". 

That's my friend Ben, Mena's husband, and their baby Penelope at about :28 into the clip.  (It's true, Penelope really is that cute.)  At about 1:58 in, Father Kelly says, "there's all the difference between a lie and what they call a mental reservation."  I wish he'd elaborated more on that difference.

Read Mena's post¹ about Penelope's national TV debut. 

¹(This is the first occasion I've had to send a trackback to Mena.  Good times!)