capuche

found on image spark

Waiting for winter... true winter, I guess. One more day. It's strange how winter seems to begin an entire month before it's "official." The sky is like a sheet of paper - completely blank, it may not be there at all. Everything seems to be a simple cut-out of a photograph. The ground is the same colour as the sky, but the puddles hold an upside-down world, crystal clear and utterly superficial.

a-glow

found on the blue hour

"december glow on film" -- I love the feeling this first photograph from the blue hour, really the entire entry. Warmth. It's strangely contrastive to the cold, cold weather.

I've found myself drawn to these sorts of ornate chandeliers especially since visiting the Catedral de Sta. María in Barcelona, though they are so much colder. They seem harsh by comparison to Brian's photograph. But I love their intricacy - their spindly extensions. As if they are some sort of iron spider-octopus hybrid.

it's things like this...

dénué de quoi?

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known."

- Chuck Palahnuik

(Invisible Monsters)

found on v.

sunday

Again, today is beautiful. And I'm in Ballard. And dying to move here. Outside I can see the Sunday Farmer's Market (honestly, how have I gone 3 years in Seattle and not really ever come here?) and a quirky jug band playing on the corner (is there any other kind?). And I'm sitting here, drinking the most delicious, tea-light-warmed (yes, tea light, apricot, hibiscus, pineapple tea, which sounds a little random, but is incredible. And a crêpe à la Christy: savory, whole-wheat, filled with spinach and topped with crumbled goat cheese, jamón Serrano, and a lightly fried egg. Next to me is a couple reading each other poetry, "ahh, love." Each time the door opens, I can hear the washboard of the jug band, the tin cans, the banjo. I love that North Face jackets and perfect highlights look out of place here. Uncomfortable.

The Poets have been replaced by a young couple playing some sort of a cross between mancala and tiddlie-winks.

I'm studying for a French midterm, going through virtual flashcards, working out the pronunciation in my head, causing flash-backs to reading Eloise's French tutoring session when I was little. It was my favourite part, though all I can remember now is yelling, "ALORS!" and then a lovely little string of words that I no doubt thought meant that I spoke French... intéressant...

little boxes

la verità è noiosa, amico mio

Stills selected from Paolo Sorrentino's Le conseguenze dell'amore
La cosa peggiore che può capitare ad un uomo che trascorre molto tempo da solo è quella di non avere immaginazione. La vita, già di per sè noiosa e ripetitiva, diventa in mancanza di fantasia uno spettacolo mortale.

wishing i could freeze time

Beautiful days. Every single one. Today my parents stopped by to visit me on their way back to Portland. It was perfect. We went to Ballard. I can see myself living in Ballard. Or somewhere like it.

As it turns out, this little studio apartment has the most spectacular view of the sky. It seems there's always some fantastic cloud formation. I can't do the shapes, the colours justice. The deepest periwinkles layered like a cut-out over the most brilliant white, with just a small portion fading between the two. I love the way the airplanes flying over the lake catch the setting sunlight. I love how everything is crystal-clear.

do you want to go to the seaside?

(found) I'm sitting here in the café next to three French bikers, one wearing Chanel. When the bagel with cream cheese arrived, the man poked it and his friend prodded it. They don't exist there. Their voices throw me back. Soon I will speak, but not yet. They don't know it, but I feel almost a sense of solidarity with them. Chanel keeps saying "ba-GEHL?" in an inquisitive voice. As they leave, they leave the silverware in the paper cups, everything somewhat strewn across the table. You don't do that here. You bus your own table.

Out the window a big ball of orange fluff pulls his elderly owner down to the beach. At least the fluff would cushion her fall.

Couples vie for the desirable Nook Table. "Ohh,"they say disappointedly, "someone's already got it. "

It's funny that I'm sitting here, trying to get internet just like always in Spain and my travels. Only now it seems even harder. This café is the only place that offers free wee-fee and the network is down. Go America.

"I've got a peach french toast?"

"Bingo!"

portrait

Arvida . Richard Phillips

ohh my gawwt!

Last week my friends from Spain came to visit me in Portland. Briefly. Our visit involved Indian food at Swagat and Voodoo Donuts (where we experienced the best of the best of "Keep Portland Weird"). Really. Compared to nightlife in Spain it was pretty out there... It reminded me of something I really liked about the gaditanos. Yeah, maybe since "LA CRISIS" things aren't quite the same, but they enjoyed life just the same. In small ways. For example, I remember an old shoe-shiner (he must have been in his 70s) but he could always be seen walking around Cádiz with his box strapped to his back and his bench in his hand, all hunched-over. I remember one day I was walking back home from La Caleta and I saw him sitting outside the Italian ice cream shop where the entire town would gather, dressed to seen on the weekends. He was sitting on his bench eating the biggest ice cream cone you can imagine. He obviously couldn't afford it regularly, but it didn't matter. I loved that.
The other day I was reading Lynn Yaeger's Dressed to Chill...

" ...M., who spent over 20 years as a marketing executive for high-toned fashion companies, confesses that while she frequently spends the afternoon in gym clothes (Nike shorts in a men’s small, for the pockets; racer-back tank) she often pairs this plebeian costume with a pair of Prada heels, explaining that she doesn’t want to lose the calluses built up over a lifetime of professional stiletto wearing. And though she hasn’t stopped shopping completely — a pair of Nine West turquoise sandals recently occupied far too much of her dream life..."

Amazing. Honestly, I don't even know what to say to that. I'll have to get back to you there...

words

How my thoughts they spin me 'round
And how my thoughts they let me down
And how my thoughts they spin me 'round
And how my thoughts they let me down

How my dreams they spin me 'round
And how my dreams they let me down
And how my thoughts they spin me 'round
And how my thoughts they let me down

And then there's you
Then there's you
And then there's you
Then there's you

How my love it spins me 'round
And how my love it's let me down
And how my thoughts they spin me 'round
And how my thoughts they let me down

And then there's you
Then there's you
And then there's you
Then there's you

You know I know who that you love
I've written it on myself, if you can't tell
With a melody that climbs and then falls, then falls, then falls
Without you, without you

How my days they spin me 'round
And how today it sets me down
And how my days they spin me 'round
And how today it sets me down

Alongside you
Alongside you
Alongside you

And Then You (Greg Laswell)

rose

Things seem a little strange lately. I couldn't really say why, it's just a feeling. It feels like Spain all over again, only a little more painful. I miss you. I'm a little lost. Please tell me the soul sounds are still sounding strong.

a bit behind

I feel I'm neglecting you, and I'm so so very sorry. I promise I'll be back soon!

un día normal

è un altro giorno senza te

incapable.

in my large and empty futon. utterly incapable of sleep. i can't understand my own mind. lil cub, i miss you.

light and shadow. or just shadows...

beautifully abandoned houses
I think this is a great idea...

original

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known."
- Chuck Palahnuik (Invisible Monsters)

fortunate son

new absolute favorite cover.

still movement

from some required

.. ...... .. . ... . . .. . . .

I've recently rediscovered my inexplicable obsession with the benday dot. I don't know where this comes from, but I can't get over it! Maybe it's the influence of all the flamenco (that I STILL haven't seen, but am dying to...). Though, the truth is that I think I've always been attracted to dots. What is it that makes them so satisfying? I wonder if it's like me and red shoes. When I was little I loved the Wizard of Oz, and went through many a pair of ruby slippers. I wore them so much, it seems like my mom was always taking me with her to get them repaired. I think we started getting discounts at the shoe repair. I still love red shoes. I don't know how I've managed to resist the little red flamenco heels covered in bold, black polka-dots...

a lost poem in a stranger's coat pocket

thanks, ezvt

"I want to be a lost poem in a stranger's coat pocket, that conveys the importance of you.
To assure you of my desire, to assure you of dreams. I want all the possibilities of you in writing.
I want to give you your reflection, I want your eyes on me, I want to travel to the lightness with you and stay there, and I want everything before you...
...everything before you to follow us like a trail behind me.
I want never to say goodbye to you, even on the street corner or the phone.
I want, I want so much... I'm breathless.
I want to put my power into a poem to burn a hole in your pocket so I can sew it.
I want my words to scream through you. I want the poem not to mean that much.
And I want to contradict myself by accident, and for you to know what I mean.
I want you to be distant and for me to feel you close, I want endless days when it's day and... nighttime never to end when it's night.
I want all the seasons in one day. I want the sun to set before us and come up in front of us.
I want water up to our waists and to be drenched by the rain, up to our ankles with holes in our shoes.
...with holes in our shoes. I want to think your thoughts because they're mine.
I want only what's urgent with you.
I want to get in the way of the barriers and I want you to be a tough guy when you're supposed to,
like you do already.
...when you're supposed to. And I want you to be tender, like you do already.
And I want us to have met for a reason and I want that reason to be important.
And I want it to be bigger than us, I want it to take over us.
I want to forget. I want to remember us.
And when you say you love me I don't want to think you really mean New York City, and all the fun
we have in it.
And I want your smile always, and your grimaces too.
I want your scar on my lips, and I want your disappointments in my heart.
I want your strength in my soul and I want your soul in my eyes.
I want to believe everything you say, and I do.
And I want you to tell me what's best when I don't know.
And when you're lost I want to find you.
And when you're weary I want to give you steeples and cathedral thoughts and coliseum dreams.
I want to drag you from the darkness and kneel with you exhausted with the blinding light blaring on us... and..."
-chelsea walls

Rainy day. Listening to Bon Iver's slide guitar and the fragile voice of Cat Power singing Wild Is the Wind only fills me with an immense desire to be home, in Portland. I love this kind of day, when all I want to do is curl up on my mother's couch, overlooking the grey garden, punctuated only by the ever-brilliant Japanese Maple. I want to sit there and "read." It's not real reading; it's the reading where you don't, except for a sentence here and there. Mostly you just gaze out the window. It's the kind of day where I could sit in an empty café all day long, sipping a warm, sweet coffee, watching the occasional passer-by. Just watching. I don't want to talk to anyone. It's the kind of day that somehow inspires me with its emptiness.

There's a woman here, a sort of Spanish Audrey Hepburn street-walker. She has the most incredible face. I so admire those who have the courage to take a stranger's photograph.

I just can't ask.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

i like the idea here (not the commercial part, the rest of it) and i love audrey tautou. a lot.

today is bizarre.

yesterday it was 90 degrees out.

today is dark. today is rainy.

today is hot (?)

today it feels like the clouds are trying to suffocate me.

we must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
- joseph campbell

you'll never untangle the
circumstances that brought you
to this moment
- leonard cohen

images by david kimm

sad sweet violent

found here

excerpt from truman capote's local color - i love the images...

An abandoned church, a For Rent sign defacing its baroque façade, towers black and broken at the corner of this lost square; sparrows nest among the stone flowers carved above its chalked up door (Kilroy was here, Seymour loves Betty, You Stink!); inside, where sunlight falls on shattered pews, all manner of stray beasts have found a home: one sees misty cats watching from its windows, hears queer animal cries, and neighborhood children, who dare each other to enter there, come forth toting bones they claim as human (yeah, they is so! I'm tellin' yuh; the guy was kilt). Definitive in its ugliness, the church for me symbolizes some elements of Brooklyn: if a similar structure were destroyed, I have the uneasy premonition that another, equally old and monstrous, would swiftly be erected, for Brooklyn, or the chain of cities so-called, has, unlike Manhattan, no interest in architectural change. Nor is it lenient toward the individual: in despair one views the quite endless stretches of look-alike bungalows, gingerbread and brownstones, the inevitable empty, ashy lot where the sad, sweet, violent children, gathering leaves and tenement-wood, make October bonfires, the sad, sweet children chasing down these glassy August streets to Kill the Kike! Kill the Wop! Kill the Dinge! - a custom of this country where the mental architecture, like houses, is changeless.

Manhattan friends, unwilling to cope with the elaborately dismal subway trip (Oh B, do come, I swear to you it takes only forty minutes, and honest you don't have to change trains but three times) say so-sorry to any invitation. For this reason I've often day-dreamed of leasing and renovating the church: who could resist visiting so curious a residence? As matters stand, I have two rooms in a brown-stone duplicated by twenty others on the square; the interior of the house is a grimy jungle of Victoriana: lily-pale, plump-faced ladies garbed in rotting Grecian veils prance tribally on wallpaper; in the hall an empty, tarnished bowl for calling cards, and a hat-tree, gnarled like a spruce glimpsed on the coast of Brittany, are elegant mementos from Brooklyn's less blighted days; the parlor bulges with dusty fringed furniture, a family history in daguerreotype parades across an old untuned piano, everywhere antimacassars are like little crocheted flags declaring a state of Respectability, and when a drought goes through this room beaded lamps tinkle Oriental tunes.

here

more

shirin neshat

My trip to Morocco reminded me of a video installation I saw at a gallery or museum a few years back - I can't even remember where, but I remember the impression it left. I've been searching for this video, but to no avail. However during my search I stumbled upon the work of Shirin Neshat, which I first encountered in my sad attempt at a Research Workbook for my high school art history class. Though many of the portraits seem so strong and there is an unavoidably masculine hardness to them, I love contrasting softness and femininity.