hopefully, you were lucky enough to catch the strange skies over the tri-state area last night.  after heavy downpours, the sky erupted into a flaming sea of colors which cast an unnatural glow over the ground.  my mama and i were celebrating her birthday!  we looked out at the sky, and noticed all the different colors – not unlike a tableau of impressionist paintings.  we were thinking that monet would have gone mad over skies like this, painting several canvases at a time because every time we looked, the sky looked different.  i didn’t get a picture, but my mom also noticed that the clouds were different shapes.  apparently, these were mammatus clouds – specially-shaped clouds that form after heavy rains.  in true technocratic fashion, people have already uploaded dozens of images on flickr…worth a look, especially if you missed out last night.

r and i got to watch away we go at BAM this weekend.  swoon.  were it not for the fusion belly dance concert we chanced upon in the cafe after the film, i would have stayed in awg afterglow for quite sometime.  i’m not sure whether or not to classify this as a chick flick because r actually wanted to see this – and in the movie, verona is not a typical chick.  in fact, i thought burt was a little more sensitive and volatile than verona.

i love that dave eggers and his wife vendela vida wrote this together.  you should read their interview about their writing process.  even though some situations were definitely contrived for the cinema, there was a certain “comfort” evident in the dialogue exchanges between burt and verona.  the premise of the film is that b and v are in their early 30s, and they discover that they are pregnant.  not feeling particularly tied to a place, they decide to search for the right geographic location (proximity to friends included) to raise their baby.

just like garden state touched upon the quarter life crisis, awg touches upon that same crisis revisited.  we’ve gotten older, but we’re still “figuring it out.”  but unlike our quarter life crisis, burt and verona show us that we have matured and can take ourselves a little less seriously than we did before.  there’s a certain subdued calmness even to b&v’s freak out moments.  sam mendes did a great job of not dealing us another heavy handed blow (his leonard lopate interview (6.5.09) is very insightful), but his film is not trivial either.  maya rudolph was amazing.  i’m not sure i’ve ever seen her do anything but comedy, but this role definitely proves that she has the capacity for both levity and gravity.  i loved how her character weighted the film and gave it substance.  this is not to say that john krasinki did slap stick.  he did a great job of playing the quirky, boyish, but ready-to-be-a-father boyfriend.  his character was very believable.

the whole concept of making a life for yourself.  choosing your locale.  choosing your friends.  all of this will definitely resonate with today’s generation of thirty-somethings.  there are also some great laugh outloud moments, too.  the genius of the film is that they never fell at the same time for everyone.  sometimes i snorted by myself, and i heard another guffaw in the midst of silence.  bravo d. eggers and v. vida.  i was definitely taken…

last night was andrew bird’s summer tour kick off at radio city music hall.  it was the first time he played at such a large venue, and even though it wasn’t packed, he managed to “fill” the space.  to be honest, i was a bit skeptical since bird’s style has always been small and intimate, and i was bummed that i missed his carnegie hall concert in the winter.  but despite the size of rcmh, the acoustics were enough to make up for the largeness of the venue.

andrew bird is such an amazing performer.  i love his slightly nerdy techie-ness intertwined with such a commanding stage presence.  there were times where i thought his spindly legs would give way under the sway of such enormous musical talent, but he effortlessly switched from violin to guitar to xylophone to whistling, singing and back.  there were some small glitches here and there, and i was confused at time as to what was being played live and what was prerecorded.  later, i realized that this was because of the looping mechanism he had.  at one point, he started on his own, and then stopped saying, “oops, the drummer is supposed to loop with me,” and restarted.  after pressing a pedal, the live performance began looping instantly…so does that count as live or recorded?

the crowd was relatively chill except for jumpy in front of us, and shouty to the right of us.  someone even managed to yell “freebird” during one of the pauses.  i can’t tell you what the setlist was because honestly, a lot of his songs tend to blend into one another.  i thought he was playing yawny at the apocalypse several times, but then it merged into another song.  he did play a lot more of his older stuff, though he didn’t play lull.

he’s an awesome musician, too.  his one-man band didn’t stand in the way of the simple fact that this dude is kickin’ talented.  i also discovered that he has a great speaking voice.  deep and romantic.  i think there was a little bit of luke wilson love tied in there, too.  i wish r and i weren’t so tired.  thursday night concerts are hard, but still, we both woke up to the fantaisical sounds of whistling, violins and xylophones in our heads, and i’m more convinced than ever that i love andrew bird.

p.s. calexico opened for him.  normally, i like them, but yesterday, i just felt like they were in the way.  at one point, they even came on the stage with bird.  i have to admit, that i did like the fuller sound of scythian empire with all that brass, but mainly, i liked it when they were off the stage.  in fact, my favorite parts were when andrew bird opened and closed (during the encore) the show…solo.  oooooooh.

i didn’t want to let this story go by without posting it because it is very touching.  these are four of the uighurs that were recently relocated to bermuda after a long detainment in guantánamo.  there are other pictures in this slideshow that show the men swimming in the ocean for the first time and enjoying the paradisical delights of their new island home.  their detainment has been long and unwarranted, but the entire time (seven years) they have been patient, and have even managed to remain unbitter about their imprisonment.  they are grown men in their thirties who happened to be the wrong people (muslims) in a wrong time (post 9/11), but i am touched by their amazing boy-like innocence.  i know a picture doesn’t tell the whole story, but in another sense it does.  their compatriots are awaiting relocation to palau, another island paradise, but in the meantime, they seem to be basking in the life they were meant to have.

© smock paper

one day, in addition to a kayak, i would like to own a letterpress.  on that letterpress, i would pump out all sorts of goodness…recipes, cards, and letters to my mom.  i’m not sure what it is about a letterpress, but it probably is because it appeals to my tactile tastes.  i love feeling the bumps and grooves on that soft yet firm card stock.  actually, i think i really love paper.  if you hand me a really fine piece of paper, i will be inspired to write a novel.  if you give me a piece of wide-ruled recycled paper from the dollar store, i will cry if you make me write my name on it.  i’ve recently fallen in love with smock paper.  their prices are reasonable, and they’re based out of upstate new york.  all of their cards are printed on bamboo paper and come with cute envelopes, to boot!  hurrah for the letterpress!

so, the sartorialist likes to take street shots of “regular” people on the streets of big cities.  here’s a shot from Paris…but what gets me is not the person he took, but all the people in the background.  everyone looks like they’re on the catwalk!  of course i was too poor to make observations like this when i lived there, but is everyone this ridiculously well-dressed in Paris?!

Speaking of blogs I read, I found this on 100 Layer Cake today:

jen + dan’s maine wedding from Daniel L’Italien on Vimeo.

It’s a wee bit long, but the soundtrack ees nice…

I put together this list for bf, and decided to pass it along to curious minds…enjoy!

Blogs Mina Reads

• Design*Sponge

o   Lots of DIY projects, homemade crafts, and local artists

• Sweet Fine Day

o  A Korean graphic designer and her American pastry chef husband
and adorable two girls living in Park Slope

o  Recipes, observations about her kids

• For me, For you

o   A 25-year old graphic designer with a lot of links to other
blogs – good jumping off point

• A Cup of Jo

o  A sex and relationships blogger for Glamour magazine who
always links to cute articles

• Oh Joy!

o   A friend of a friend, Joy is a brilliant graphic designer with
an eye for all things beautiful.  Her
stationery is on sale at Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, and
she does customized paper projects, too.

• Ruthi Auda

o   She’s on the visual team for Anthropologie in LA, so she
always posts her creative store displays which are no small tinkerings.  Check out her wisteria tree.

• Once Wed
  

o   Originally made to sell wedding dresses, hence the name “Once-wed,”
it also showcases down-to-earth, yet extremely creative weddings done by real
people.

• 100 Layer Cake

o  Cute wedding ideas done by real couples.

• The Sartorialist

o   Fashion photographer Scott Schuman shoots fashion on the streets
of New York, Paris, Milan, Sydney, and everywhere else he travels to.

• Garance Doré

o   His now girlfriend is also a fashion photographer, but French.  She recently updated her site to be
bilingual…hmm, I wonder why.

• Sugar Rock Catwalk

o   My roommate actually started this blog several months ago about
fashion, sample sales and music. 

• Smosch

o  Sandra is a Swedish photographer who manages to make everything
around her look wonderful.  Or maybe
Sweden is actually a utopia.

So the funny thing is that these blogs all seem
independent and numerous, right?  Well,
they actually all tend to read each other, so it’s not uncommon to see the same
material passed along from blog to blog. 
Like that paper wisteria tree, I like…it’s on two separate blogs to
date.  But it also makes for a nice “community”
type feel.  Enjoy.  There are more blogs, but I’ll update another
time since these are the primary ones I read these days.