Currently Revolving

Through my iPod and into my ears. Can't stop repeating it.

Chair Champs

Just some cool cats in some cool chairs. George Nelson, Edward Wormley, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Charles Eames and Jens Risom Playboy Magazine, July 1961.

via via cup of jo

Only Stone and Steel

I thought it was going to be the case after seeing Morrissey live, but darn it all if "Years of Refusal" isn't an excellent album. I've had to do a bit of driving for work lately, and I can't seem to eject it to make room for listening to a few other newbies (including The Veils, which is saying a lot). This is a great song and possibly the most well-known from the album, yet it doesn't tower over the others in goodness. I just can't quickly find any other vids of good quality. It's one of those rare albums where I don't find myself wanting to skip over a single song.

I've been tres busy lately with work, visitors, canine anxiety attacks (delicate flower foo), fuming over unjust news, and other general life stuff, hence the blabsence. And not sure yet when things will clear and I'll be done taking pause. Time'll tell.

(Sooner or Later)

"...one of us must know.... that I did try to get close to you."

An old favorite from the vaults. love love love love LOVE the piano that come in at the chorus.

Today I feel like I was run over by a train. Or a sofa perhaps. On account of my parents (and their dingo) coming to visit me (and my dingo) in the shoebox for five nights this Thursday, I bit the bullet and bought a couch that one can actually stretch out on hair-to-toe. I made the final decision to get a new one on Friday (pending the sale of my couch), and by last night my old trusty sofa was en route to a new home with a kind craigslister, and the new one sat in its stead. When I get an idea that's not terribly important, there's no stopping me.

After much scouring for something affordable, I settled on one of IKEA's latest offerings, and I'm quite happy with it. Even though it's a well-camouflaged futon, and it's from IKEA, it makes my apartment feel less miniaturized and a little more maTure (said with a "t" not a "ch"), and it's pretty comfy to boot. Damn, though, people are not kidding when they say that IKEA's assembly can be a real humdinger. There was a decent amount of work that went into putting that thing together. Many thanks to D for getting me out there, figuring out how to stuff it in his car (we rode back like fighter pilots, me directly behind him in gunman position), and helping me put the blessed thing together. Who woulda thunk the storage box would actually be more work than the sofa itself? 'twas, 'twas.

Dichotomy

And now for an altogether different kind of lady with an umbrella...


c/o pdn gallery

Somewhere In Time

Somewhere, as in Maramures, Transylvania, bordering southern Ukraine. For more glimpses into this place where time has stood quite still (minus the polka dot umbrella), see Kathleen McLaughlin's images from The Color of Hay.

Mother Love

On the subject of mothers, and in the off-chance I never posted this amazing series by Aline Smithson in the past, I just wanted to cover my bases. This is right up my absurdly choreographed alley, and I'm particularly awed by the fact that this is "A Portrait of The Photographer's Mother Series."

"It Must Be Awful For You, Is It?"

A day late and a dollar short on this one, but thanks to a friend who hooked me up last minute with a ticket to Morrissey at the Aragon Ballroom, I'm now really excited about his newest album, Years of Refusal. Oh how the pompadour and panache were flowing, and I drank it up. He didn't do too many Smiths songs, but that was actually fine by me since most of the new stuff is instantly appealing. He did do Ask, among a couple other oldies, and let me tell you that man's live voice still sounds precisely as it did back in this vid from '87. The devil only knows the lengths to which he's gone, but he sure has taken care of those pipes. To the benefit of all.

It would have been a perfect evening if only the kind fellow who invited me along didn't end the evening by confessing his issues with women c/o growing up with a schizophrenic mother. Apparently we are landmines of sheer terror to him. By "we" I mean all women who walk the earth (and furrow into the ground waiting to explode before unsuspecting men). Then again, the sentiment was perhaps a bit more fitting than I initially realized coming on the tails of a Morrissey concert and all.

The vid here is an entertaining interview of Morrissey by Russel Brand. Then again, it's impossible not to be entertained by an interview with Morrissey. I recently read one where he was asked what was playing on his iPod, and he responded "I don't have an iPod. I have a gramaphone that runs on sand mixed with water." What a lovely man.

I Second That

What a lovely sentiment c/o Mr. Vonnegut c/o Lost.

Red Rum

This picture instantly made me think of The Shining. The part when the blood starts pouring out of the elevator. I wonder if that association is the equivalent of a really unsuccessful go at a Rorscach test. The kind that lands you in a padded cube.

c/o lolita

"Between The Click Of A Light"

"... and the start of a dream."

Despite last night's best laid plans to get started with watching Extras, I stayed up til 1 am instead watching Arcade Fire's live performances on youtube followed by terribly unstimulating interviews with the band. And I was dead tired too. Needless to say, I had some real trouble waking up this morning while thoughts of "why oh why?" danced through my head (to the tune of Arcade Fire). I'm just glad that tomorrow I need to stay home (sleep in) for a bit to protect some insurance folks' knees from the dingo while they "inspect" the place for reasons that don't interest me. I wonder, is it wrong to think about going back to bed from the moment you wake up until... the moment you walk out the office door? Because I know someone's going to find her second wind in about, oh, 30 minutes.

Anyway, I haven't listened to Arcade Fire in awhile, but I was reminded of my like for "No Cars Go" (not lyrically fancy, but instrumentally pretty soaring) by a random text I got from my sister last night. I wasn't expecting to be all that impressed by their live performances in light of the vocal weirdness and all else that goes on in the songs, but generally I was. Particularly impressive was their show at Glastonbury in 2007. Although I'm at the point I'd never want to see a band I actually like at a show of that size (pointless, yeah?), I imagine actually performing for that many people *at dusk, no less* would send up the greatest natural high. And I for one kind of got that distant vicarious vibe of their excitement just watching the videos. Oh, to be a rock star* and not just the one who watches them on youtube while lying prone on her bed.

*term used loosely

"This World Is Big and Wild"

"...and half insane."

This is one first-rate way to start a song if you ask me (though nobody did). It's impossible for me to pick favorite songs, but this would definitely go down as a top 10 song launch. Call me specific, but sometimes I only make it 20 seconds in before I have to start it over again just to hear the perfectly applied hesitations balanced with great gravelly emphasis right there at that first line.