Keep on the Beach

Yesterday, on the sunniest day of the duration of my California trip, I got to spend my time running around on secluded beach in Malibu with some awesome girls and boy. A friend of mine, whom I had shot a film with a few years ago, asked me to participate in a commercial web spot she's directing for SoCal shoe company Keep Shoes.

So, Tati and her boyfriend, photographer Dave Potes picked me up in a car full of rad girls and drove us out to the coast. We each put on a pair of Keeps (these were mine!) and we climbed down rocky cliffs, jumped over rocks, raced in the sand, and laughed a whole lot.



We also poked at sea anemones (eek!), gazed at starfish, and avoided knocking into any of the ubiquitous mussel colonies. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera for this leg of the trip, but the Snail and the Cyclops just posted photos from her seaside trip in Monterey Bay that are replicas of what I saw, so I'll post hers instead!



The most breathtaking part of the day came while we were standing idly in between takes facing the water. I had been noticing the profuse amount of seaweed in the waves for the entire day. All of a sudden, I saw a fin break through the surface about 15 feet away from the shore and I screamed "SHARK!" Seconds later, I saw another fin pop up and then said, "Or... DOLPHINS!" And surely enough, with our eyes glued to the water's surface, we watched a pod of dolphins swim merely feet away from us down the coastline. It was like witnessing nature's miracle. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. I was too stunned, we all were. And if you're a reader here, you know how I feel about dolphins.

All in all, a great day. I'll keep you posted about the spot when it's completed.

P.S. On our ascent through rocky cliffs back up to the car, we heard a rustling in the sage bushes beside us and saw a little bunny rabbit!

Ricky Gervais

This is for my boyfriend. (He loves Elmo.)

Blue Moon

There's going to be a blue moon this New Year's Eve. That only happens on New Year's once every 19 years. Check it and learn why a blue moon ain't really blue:

Cameron

What my dreams are made of:

Cameron's House from Ferris Bueller





On sale for $1.8 mil. Via excavation by spoonfuls

Isis

Was researching this calendar company, The Wild Unknown, after purchasing one of their items as a gift for a friend. This is the entrance image on their website. Right after my own heart. My 2nd favorite Dylan song. This blog is also named after that song.

Get Me Outta Here!

Friends! I present to you an article on Improv School at the Upright Citizen's Brigade from Los Angeles Magazine (paltry beside my beloved New York.)

"An eighth-grade wiseass, now grown up (if that's possible), goes to improv school at the Upright Citizens Brigade and discovers a sobering truth: being funny is not as easy as it looks..."

High School Poetry

photo by Olivia Bee

Oy vey. I let nostalgia get the best of me. I really do. Whenever I come home to L.A., I instinctively dig through my childhood memorabilia, going through videos and photo albums. Today I found some high school yearbooks and I just ate up all the little notes my friends had written me. Apparently, I was everybody's coolest, funniest, and best friend. Leaning on those yearbooks were some old, battered literary journals. And oh man, did I find some old poems. Let's just hope you're lucky enough for me to keep posting these.

"the seaman"

his eyes swollen with memory disbelief
and drink, shadows clouding them from within,
devoured me and he lifted me to dance
pressed his fur against my cheek and gripped me
dangerously,
and laughing into my shy eyes
(who went into hiding as my prophecy grew true,)
he went on a journey,
his nose nuzzling my sacred skin like my cat
searching for a lover
his wife and his mother
his anxious eyes closed
with generations of fury
and desirous palms pressed
most gently against my eager back
his wanton eyes tamed by youth
ensconced and reprieved in this return
through the sweat he lay upon me
in his fingers gripping mine
a harem laced between them

and the captains pulled us apart
his cold eyes stabbing
wounds of memory into mine

and a parallel world grew
between us
where his wet palms prevailed
and found me
and his body sank into mine
to the tune of all men finding their mermaids
lingering in the harbors, singing
ready to take them home
and my fingers crawled along his skull
reeling him into my past
wordlessly
convinced he had taken me with him
back to sea,
together

floating further than his fingers
swimming deeper than his thighs
walking alongside seashells
my hand caught like a jewel in his.

p.s. The title of this post reminded me that I wrote my college admissions essay about bad high school poetry.

Good Day/Bad Day

image via flickr

I'm finally finished with the hellish work weeks that I've been trudging through recently. I spent a few days decompressing by going to the gym, playing video games (I'm addicted!) and Yahtzee, and eating food. Had a fun little slumber party on Friday night and made a Cajun-inspired dinner: Afterburners (shrimp stuffed in jalapenos wrapped in bacon served with queso dip) followed by Eula Mae's Short-Rib Jambalaya.



I've already launched into the madness that is holiday gifting. I spent the bulk of yesterday making Sweet Potato and Ricotta Gnocchi to give away, including a midnight re-rolling session to recover smushed gnocchi with Billy. This afternoon I came home with a large load of presents from Barnes & Noble, plus the makings of a Bolognese ragu, which has been simmering on the stove for the past hour. I still have another batch of fresh pasta to make, plus jarring and packaging the foodstuffs, and then I have to throw myself a little wrapping party for all of my purchases. Fun, but equally exhausting. I have three days of newspaper to catch up on and no time to read.

Dear Paul Simon, you get me through most of these hard days.

She said a good day ain't got no rain
She said a bad day's when I lie in bed and think of things that might have been

Am looking forward to giving all these presents to their respective owners. I'm also looking forward to seeing my adoring family at the end of the week, although I'm sad to leave my ticket-less boyfriend behind. Even more so, I'm looking forward to the start of a new, hopefully prosperous, definitely adventurous, brilliant year.

Once in My Life

Dancing to this jam in my room, tights no pants. Late for work. Love the spasmodic dancers.

Not a teenager

photo by Olivia Bee

I've been bouncing around between work and things and baking and more work and things. Have had no time to give you something nice to read. Instead, I'm going to spend this little time I have tonight perusing a cookbook before I go to sleep. More to come when I'm better rested.

Meanwhile, enjoy the photograph above. It reminds me of how sweet and ephemeral teenage-dom is.

Paul and Art

I found this on the thinking tank. My heart is with these guys. I couldn't not repost.







P.S. This is cool: Art Garfunkel's website has a chronological listing of every book he's read since 1968.

A Million More Reasons to Love Paul Simon

"I don't think I would have worked with anybody but Paul Simon," Walcott says. "Before I met him, I always thought he was a very fine poet. I mean, the first line of 'Graceland' is a great line of verse: 'The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar/ I am following the river down a highway through the cradle of the Civil War.' That's Whitmanesque, or even Hart Crane. What I also like very much is how Jewish his writing is: it's ethnically very provincial, deliberate. In other words, here's someone who has never lost his identity totally. He can go to South Africa, or to the Caribbean, and he remains a Jewish singer." - via

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concerts

Amidst a long, strenuous, and tedious week of work, I found tremendous enjoyment in watching HBO's 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts. Over the course of two days, I sat affixed to the television, mesmerized by gods of modern music, singing along and rewinding to retain the experience over and over again.

#1 - Simon & Garfunkel stun the audience with Bridge Over Troubled Water. This song means the world to me right now. I love these guys.



#2 - Smokey Robinson with Stevie Wonder, The Tracks of My Tears



#3 - Jeff Beck plays A Day in the Life



#4 - All the good vibes brought by Crosby, Stills, & Nash




#5 - The guy I had been waiting for the entire night, my little hero, Paul Simon.




#6 - Bono sings along with Bruce Springsteen & Patti Smith on Because the Night. For the first time while watching this, I remembered all the times I sang along to this song as a 6 or 7-year-old in the backseat of a car, as I was being driven to my gymnastics class by an old Russian man.



#7 - U2 & Mick Jagger perform Stuck in a Moment

Loggerheads

image by jillian tamaki

I tell you, if every issue of the New Yorker had a piece in it written by David Sedaris, the world would be a much better place. And there wouldn't be a stack of back issues haunting my desk. This afternoon, I read the most delightful, insightful, and humorous piece called Loggerheads that appeared in last week's New Yorker. Unfortunately, the magazine doesn't post it's printed content for free on the web, so you'll either have to buy the article here or hunt down the issue. It will be worth your while.

Some words that spoke to me:

"On Maui, on November, Hugh and I went swimming, and turned to find a gigantic sea turtle coming up between us. As gentle as a cow she was, and with a cow's dopey, almost lovesick expression on her face. That, to me, was worth the entire trip, worth my entire life, practically. For to witness majesty, to find yourself literally touched by it--isn't that what we've all been waiting for?"

and

"Looking back, you'd think that someone would have said something--sea turtles, for God's sakes!--but maybe they weren't endangered yet. Animal cruelty hadn't been invented, either. The thought that a non-human being had physical feelings, let along the wherewithal to lose hope, was outlandish and alien, like thinking paper had relatives."

Reminds me of my lovesickness for whales.

Not-So-Shameless Plug

The comedy rap group Snakes, brainchild of funny people Billy & Adam (1/2 of which is my oft-discussed here boyfriend), released their first album today. It dropped. On a Tuesday, too, like records are supposed to. It's an EP prefacing a full-length album that will be released sometime next year. They've been writing and recording music together for less than a year, which you will be surprised to know when you hear the record. It is overwhelmingly funny, energetic, catchy and precise in it's use of the hip hop discipline. It will leave you laughing and wanting more, I promise (I was disappointed it ended at 23 minutes.) Download it for free on their website, billyandadam.com. They're also having a record release blowout this Friday: an 8pm show at UCB and an after-party to follow. SNAKES SNAKES SNAKES SNAKES!

Mystery Team

Last night, while experiencing my first (and hopefully only) bout of this season's winter blues, I headed to meet my boyfriend to see a funny movie and was pleasantly surprised to bump into 10 friends all coming to see the same movie. We laughed, shared popcorn and candy, and they helped give the boot to my moody blues. The movie sure helped, too. We saw a riotous independent comedy from the minds of Derrick Comedy called Mystery Team, an Encyclopedia Brown-type farcical mystery. The film was charming, surprisingly unique, and consistently laugh-out-loud funny. Plus, the team behind the film was present to do a Q&A after the screening and apparently they will be doing this all week long at the Quad Cinema's evening screenings. It will help kick your winter blues, too, I promise.

Winter Chill

The first snow already! Winter is coming. Beware!

I imagine I look like this:


But I feel like this:


But I probably look like this:


Photographs by Olivia Bee

Holiday Wishlist

(clockwise from top)
Whale Chalkboard // Marc by Marc Natasha Crossbody Bag // Wallet
Acoustic Guitar // Huipile Booties // Bracelets
Turkish Kilim Pillow Covers // Vintage Globe // Woolly Pocket Wall Gardens
Food Processor // Kuhn Rikon Non-stick Colored Chef's Knives

Lights

One year, I promise that my winter will look like this:


via apartmenttherapy

Fantastic Mr. Fox

As part of our lovely adventure for Billy's birthday last week, we finally fulfilled our desire to see the much-anticipated Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was picture perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish, more so than I had even expected to upon hearing the buzz about the film earlier in the year. The jokes were consistently funny and cute, the range of voices was a real treat, and the visual elements were stunning. I was blown away in the first few minutes and had to adjust myself to the beauty of the images. There's one particular scene I remember on a bridge with a waterfall behind it that stood out the most. I think my favorite part was seeing Ash covered in grape juice in the supermarket.

Huipile Bootie

Do I want these little booties? Yes, I think I really do.

Lola

image via oncewed

I've picked up Lolita again. Dreamy writing.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Cake Peek

Here's a peek of the Maple Cheesecake with Maple-Cranberry-Cherry Compote I made for Billy's birthday. I've been very caught up this week with preparations for the scavenger hunt I surprised him with! More posts to follow, I promise. P.S. That ugly bit of blue is from the remnants of the Betty Crocker gel icing I used. Blech. Cake was a real treat, though. It's all gone!

Horses

From Horses and their Girls, by Anne Hall. Via cup of jo.

Banners of God

The Grand Canyon encapsulates what American legends are made of--road trips, the Wild West, wanderlust. When I first visited it along with two friends in the summer of 2008, we were at the tail end of a cross-country road trip and we squeezed in a visit to country's most renowned national park before I had to drop off my companions at the Phoenix airport. Little did we know, the attraction of the Grand Canyon was more vast than we had thought. But, we had to make the best of it with what little time we had. I'm eager to go back again, this article--Walking Into the Earth's Heart, has wet my appetite.

Below us, sweeping brown plateaus bulge as if they were soft upholstery. There are cliffs of blue, pink, orange, mauve, and deep purple bands of rock — the banners of God, as an early explorer said. True enough, the stark minerality of the desert always seems to rouse the inner mystic.

The Grand Canyon, September 1st 2008:

la belle personne

I have to see this film, La Belle Personne. Via the thinking tank.

Super Mario

Billy and I played this game for 6 1/2 hours today. I'm not kidding. We played for about 3 or 4 hours last night, went to sleep, woke up, and sat our fat, lazy asses on the couch for six and one half hours playing this freaking game. I got up to pee a few times and to check on something in the kitchen once. Billy peed, too, and made us a quick breakfast and then lunch. Other than that, we finally stopped at an inevitable game over at 5pm in the Chocolate Castle or fortress. Whatever. What a way to spend a day.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I've been away from the computer for three magically rewarding days now, so please excuse my belated post. I spent the holiday in a lovely, relaxing house with my boyfriend's family in Long Island. We had the delicious old-standbys (sausage stuffing!), coupled with some first-time treats (sweet potatoes with marshmallows? a pumpkin eater/bailey's cocktail!), plus leftovers, sleepovers, and lots of rest. Despite the stubborn three pounds I gained over the course of the meals, I remain contented. Since my post was late, here's a round-up of some sweet Thanksgiv* posts:

Fear of Missing Out, follow my bliss, my favorite color is shiny, last night's dinner

Here's another treat, a picture my mom sent me of the family dog, looking pristine:


* the other night, we watched National Lampoon's Family Vacation over at my household, and I nearly died when Chevy Chase referred to the Mississippi River as the "mighty Mississipp". Best abbreviation ever.

Lavender Honey Fig

The last time I was this excited to cook something was when I caught sight of the season's first concord grapes at the Greenmarket. Sunday Suppers, you never cease to amaze me.

It's a Honeyed Lavender and Fig Crostata. Heaven in so few words. The following photo is killer.

Fjällräven

Thanks to a tip, I found out that Fjällräven has just opened up an NYC store. I think I might want one of these nifty backpacks for Christmas. Look at these colors!








The tipper also posted a Paul Simon song, which I will instantly re-post because I am gaga for Paul right now. Yesterday, I devoured three records of his at Earwax all in one fell swoop.

Paul Simon - Hearts and Bones