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:
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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:
Posted at 10:41 AM in stuff, Television, Videos, work | Permalink | Comments (0)
I was looking through the photo album on my phone and found this one from the night of my birthday party.
I had just moved back to San Francisco about five days prior. I had my birthday get-together at one of my favorite bars here, The Homestead (you can see the "H" stamped on my wrist). I love the jukebox there, so I played songs all night. I'd never had this beer before and was loving it - it had the perfect combination of coffee and chocolate flavors. I held it up to the light of the jukebox so I could take a photo of the label to remember it. You can't see them in this photo, but a bunch of my friends and coworkers - and even some of their dogs! - were there with me. It was a great night, so looking at this photo makes me happy.
Posted at 03:19 PM in Food and Drink, Music, only in san francisco | Permalink | Comments (3)
"Look, I know what people's automatic responses are. And sometimes you work with them, and sometimes you work against them. In almost any scene, you can go with an applause ending or a transitional ending. It's like, sometimes you think, Oh, shit, please don't kiss now, and they don't, and you say, 'Thank God.' At other times, here it comes, here it comes, and -- yay! -- it happens. But you can't bring out the basket of puppies every time."
- Choreographer Mark Morris, in The New Yorker
Posted at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
A few Sundays ago, I sat with a group of friends at a bar before we all headed to the same show. Three of the five of us hadn't heard much from the band we were about to see, so they asked me to describe it.
Me: "Well, they're not going to change your life --"
Friend: "Why do you say that? You said that when you were describing another band, too."
I say that because most of the music I truly love does change my life. The highest calling for my most beloved musicians is that they touch my ears and my heart in a completely new way. They open up new worlds of possibility in my imagination. Their work can make me feel new sensations, emotionally and physically. When I hear, for the first time, an artist whose work will change my life, it's one of the most exhilarating experiences I've ever known.
Accordingly, it's not often that I find an artist that affects me this way. This is not to say that I don't enjoy a lot of music. In fact, I regularly discover new artists and uncover artists from the past whose music I love and who I rave about and recommend. But my life-changers? I only run across one of those artists once every year or two.
A few Fridays ago, I discovered another one*:
How did I find them? I was making a rare visit to Stereogum, paging through post after post about bands I don't care about -- new bands that are covered mostly because they're new and heaven forbid Stereogum not cover the next big [blank] -- when I saw My Brightest Diamond listed in one of the posts. Thinking it would take me to a live performance or news or a video by My Brightest Diamond, I clicked through only to discover it was a post where Shara Worden, aka MBD, talked up "a couple of her recent favorite outside sounds" in a series about bands from Sweden.
(A word of advice: whenever you get a chance to get recommendations from an artist you love, listen to them. It's the best kind of word of mouth.)
Wildbirds & Peacedrums are Mariam Wallentin (vocalist) and Andreas Werliin (drummer), a married couple from Sweden. Much of their music consists of spare arrangements of drumming and singing with only the occasional embellishment from another instrument. There isn't a whole lot written about Wildbirds & Peacedrums yet (at the time of this post, they have less than 3000 MySpace friends), but what's out there includes a whole lot of comparisons. You can drop names like The White Stripes (another two-person band), Joanna Newsom (it's just an occasional similarity in timbre), Karen O (I don't hear this one really) or PJ Harvey or Feist, but I promise you've never heard anything like Wildbirds & Peacedrums before.
"We had no musical ideals to trust or lean on, so we just had to believe in ourselves and each other"
- Werliin
Their album Heartcore is high art: it doesn't follow convention, it finds its own way, makes its own strange sense. It's not easy, but it feels right. It rewards the careful listener, blooming brighter with each successive spin. There are no signposts here; the terrain changes from one song to the next so you must be willing to get lost with them. Wallentin's voice is a universe unto itself, a true original.
After reading Shara's words about them that Friday night, I woke up the following morning and made a rare trip to Amoeba to buy their album. Thank you, Shara, for the tip, and thank you Amoeba for having one copy of Heartcore on vinyl.
I cannot wait to see this band perform live. Until then:
#9.2 Wildbirds & Peacedrums - Doubt Hope from Handheld Shows on Vimeo.
#9.1 Wildbirds & Peacdrums - The Window from Handheld Shows on Vimeo.
*I'm not saying they'll change your life, I'm saying they're changing mine.
Posted at 05:42 PM in best of 2008, Music, records, Videos, vinyl | Permalink | Comments (0)
Here's a live performance of "16 Days" from April 1997 in St. Louis. Doesn't Ryan look happy here? I wish I could have seen Whiskeytown back in '97, but I don't think I'd heard of them yet.
If you enjoy Americana, country, folk, or any of Ryan Adams' later efforts, I highly recommend you get a copy of Strangers Almanac. It's a terrific record from start to finish.
Posted at 10:30 AM in Music, Videos | Permalink | Comments (1)
I don't really understand the fascination with unboxing, but I'm excited enough to get my order from Insound today that I'm going to share photos!
I opened the box to discover some free stuff that had been thrown in. Seven inches from Trail of Dead and Midnight Movies, a RATATAT iron-on, and a Spring/Summer Insound catalog. The other seven inch is one I ordered - Constantines' "Hard Feelings/Easy Money" - in order to reach the free shipping over $x threshold.
My Brightest Diamond A Thousand Shark's Teeth & Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago:
Constantines Kensington Heights & RATATAT LP3:
Posted at 05:27 PM in Music, records, vinyl | Permalink | Comments (1)
I've had this song stuck in my head for days, so the only thing to do now is pass it on to you.
I've known this song for years, but I never knew who sang it until I Googled it. And, I'm not gonna lie: all this time I thought the lead vocal in the verse was sung by a man! I had no idea it was the Pointer Sisters. I'm still wrapping my head around this as I watch the video.
"All I can manage to push from my lips
Is a stream of absurdities"
OK now I'm on to the costumes - how great are they? The lavender pantaloons? The iridescent fabric? Ruffles, ruffles, ruffles! The Pointer Sister in the hot pink on the right, her legs go on for days. The synth sounds in this song are out of this world. And pay attention to the dancers on the wide shots - I love the woman wearing the spandex bodysuit with a belt. What is the belt holding up??
More fun facts:
That is quite possibly the greatest cartoon ever made!
So that's two earworms for ya. Which one is in your head now?
Posted at 05:00 PM in fashion, Music, Television, Videos | Permalink | Comments (2)
David Wain's online comedy series "Wainy Days" is now in its third season over at My Damn Channel, proving once again that time moves faster on The Interweb. The start of the third season maintains the level of absurdity I've come to expect from the show, and the looking-for-love premise remains intact, but I wasn't really bowled over by either episode. Don't get me wrong though, I still love the show so I'm going to keep watching.
While I was catching up on "Wainy Days", a promo for another My Damn Channel series caught my eye. "Horrible People" is a soap opera send-up created by and starring A.D. Miles ("Wainy Days", "Reno 911!", Wet Hot American Summer) as well as Kristen Schaal who you may know as Mel from "Flight of the Conchords". Mather Zickel anchors the show as the character Carter who is ridiculous and sinister in equal parts. I actually think "Mather Zickel" (his real name, I presume) is one of the most soap opera-sounding names I've heard in a long time. It's strangely satisfying to say "Mather Zickel" out loud.
Mather Zickel.
Watch the first episode of "Horrible People":
If you like "Horrible People", you can watch the entire first season on My Damn Channel.
Posted at 04:01 PM in Comedy, Videos | Permalink | Comments (0)
My love for We Are Scientists is pretty well-documented, but they've managed to make me love them a little bit more. I just saw the new video for "Chick Lit" off of Brain Thrust Mastery (thanks to CupCate's post). Combine the humor we're accustomed to from W.A.S. with lots of fluffy pomeranians, and I'm hooked:
Can't wait to see We Are Scientists at The Independent on Sunday.
Posted at 01:24 PM in Comedy, Music, Videos | Permalink | Comments (1)
Continuing on the cassettes theme, I found this site via Randee Dawn:
http://www.cassettefrommyex.com/
The stories on the front page come largely from professional writers, who include a photo of themselves, a photo of the tape and a complete track listing. (They should send me a photo of themselves WITH the tape!)
The coolest aspect of each entry is that there's a neat inline player that lets you listen to the audio of each mixtape. Side A and Side B are separate streams, of course.
I've only read a few of the stories, but my favorite so far is from Katy Finch called "Scarface and 40's":
"I met Robert at a Purple Rain party. It was 1992 and my spring break trip to Santa Cruz, where my friend Crina was going to a much cooler school, was almost over. But I had one last night and a party full of Prince before my departure. While Crina’s roommates rehearsed their band in the garage, beating their way through a Dokken cover then smoothly transitioning into a track from Freaky Styly, we hung lavender vinyl in the windows and baked pot brownies for the party. I was not looking forward to flying back to Poughkeepsie where everyone at my east coast college was trying to convince each other that they had bought Bleach before they had bought Nevermind. Including me."
Cheers to Katy for all those delicious details, and cheers to the team that created the website.
Posted at 06:57 PM in cassettes, Music | Permalink | Comments (0)
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