FOOD: rhan bought a box of girl scout thin mints last week. i enjoy thin mints (especially cold) but became less excited about them when i realized that your keebler grasshopper tastes almost identical and is available all year round. that's not the kind of thing i like to say out loud, however, because it brings up too much about life that disappoints me.
RELUCTANT DISCOVERY: that the barnes & noble at the grove (the disneyland of shopping malls) has more extensive art and magazine sections than the smaller independent bookstores i'd rather (and more often do) patronize. my only response to this is to buy things from barnes & noble, take them in my fist, and then shake that fist at the store from the outside. 
WANT: things i have learned in my life so far by stefan sagmeister.
the inside is composed of several smaller booklets, all of which look beautiful. 
CONCERT CALENDAR: beach house on the 13th, boredoms on the 16th, jens lekman and little teeth on the 21st (we have to make a choice!)
skipped: the magnetic fields, which would have been tonight.
WORST RECENT MOVIE SEEN TO COMPLETION (FINALLY): juno, because i've never heard dialogue so lousy with its own preciousness,
and i say this as a staunch and admitted fan of the gilmore girls.
(an important aside to the above being the worst recent movie not seen to completion, which was be kind rewind, which sucked my balls.)
PREVAILING MOOD: these first few days of march have been marked by a tremendous urge to get out of los angeles. we've been speculating on craigslist, looking at different cities, but until our money turns around we're staying put.
there's a place for us, somewhere a place for us...
* sorry this is two days late.
the first of the month: march 2008 *
the first of the month: february 2008
i have an enthusiastic, almost superstitious love for the firsts of all months; to my mind, they are small holidays worth celebrating and remarking upon. thus in honor of today's occasion, i present this list of things that are ushering my february in:
SONG: "japanese candy" by little teeth. i am looking forward to their full-length record and upcoming visit to los angeles.
HEROES: i've joined rhan in his love and admiration for john huston after watching an extras doc on "the treasure of the sierra madre" dvd. oh, to have a john huston-sized life, and with even a fraction of the style and bluster. 
FOOD AND HABITAT: i am reintroducing home-cooked vegetables into my diet and tempering those vegetables with cookies. also, i am taking my coffee in these white ceramic bowls i purchased recently, which have, i am convinced, improved my morning experience by at least twelve percent. finally, i am deciding to always have fresh flowers in the house--one bunch on my desk, one in the bedroom.
RESOLUTIONS (or, "january was a bust"): read at least three books this month. take more photographs. watch at least two movies a week (not including movies in the theatre). return all phone calls and emails promptly. exercise a little at least.
(1) ATTAINABLE GOAL: that, or not letting this happen so much anymore.
oh yes, and one more thing:
today marks nine months of being married to rhan--nine full-to-bursting, sweet and exciting months of being a wife. happy anniversary.
those things that stick
MOVIES: last night my aunt, uncle, rhan and i went to FIRST SIGHT SCENE, an ongoing program of experimental films run by film forum los angeles. it was both my first trip to a film forum event and my first experience at the egyptian theatre, which is lovely and old and exciting. rhan noted that the egyptian was constructed specifically for the release of "ben hur." whoa. not a bad way to spend a rainy sunday night.
the program overall left me a little flat, though i am inspired to see that these events are going on and that there's such an active audience for them. there were a few standouts, however, my favorites being "stare gently" by erik deutschman, "the old noise" by gwenaelle gobe, and, finally, "five more minutes" by dena decola and karin e. wandner.
i need to say something about "five more minutes," because of all the films i saw last night, this one has lodged in my brain the most. in it, two women (dena and karin, the filmmmakers) are acting out some sort of mother/child fantasy, and it is unclear at first whether we are witnessing their psychosexual drama at play or something else enitirely... the result is jarring, intimate and inarguably memorable. and moving, it would seem-- just ask the leggy girl sitting to my left at the screening, whose sniffling and wiping-away-of-tears nearly derailed me from the last five minutes. just let the mascara run, girl.
anyhow, worth seeing out should you ever get the opportunity. the film has received resounding endorsements from both ray carney and miranda july. reason enough?
MUSIC: since seeing them open for the blow & mirah last friday (which was a great, emotional journey of a show) been listening to a lot of HIGH PLACES and their generously downloadable tracks on myspace.
WORDS: i read it first some weeks or months ago, but i am still so moved by THE WRONG KIND OF INSURANCE by john ashbery (and by john ashbery in general). with lines like
All of our lives is a rebus
Of little wooden animals painted shy,
Terrific colors, magnificent and horrible,
Close together.
or
We too are somehow impossible, formed of so many
different things,
Too many to make sense to anybody.
We straggle on as quotients, hard-to-combine
Ingredients, and what continues
Does so with our participation and consent.
"what continues does so with our participation and consent."
listen to john ashbery reading this poem and others in their entirety here.
thank you, john ashbery. much love.
