Serva Me, Servabote

alien and beautiful-safe and deep

2009-03-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

A friend for the little jelly?
Un ami pour la petite meduse?

Also, national geographic.

orange sea glass is so terribly rare

2009-03-20T19:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to translate this.
A girl in my french class was telling us about how her uncle works at a research lab in antartica. He told her that he could get her a job (which are impossible to get) working in the kitchen and making the same in a year as a year or more of college tuition. Not to mention the fact that SHE WOULD BE LIVING IN MOTHERFUCKING ANTARTICA! She nixed the idea and is gonna go to school in california instead. Crazy.
Well, it was this little jelly that got me thinking about college and antartica and all that jazz. He was found in the icy antartic waters. I love jellyfish.
I actualy just got back from college visits in NYC. The tour guide at The New School was a really rad kid, a senior at Eugene Lang. He had spent a semester of sophmore year in the "Semester at Sea" program-where you literaly spend a semester on a boat and go all around the world, 13 countries in all. Hot damn. 68 or 108 days. At sea. Fuck yes. Sign me up.
The whole college thing is scary as hell. Maybe I'll just make cupcakes for the rest of my life. Or, better yet, I'll just turn into an antartic jellyfish and drift away.

national geographic

I love the sea.

2009-03-20T19:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, please.

Oui, si vous plait.

^_^

national geographic

black and white waves

2009-03-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

I love pen and ink drawings of hair.

J'aime beaucoup des dessins a l'encre du cheveux.

found via the wonderful etsy shop, No Side Up.

amazing facet building

2009-03-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

I'm speechless.
Je reste sans voix.

found via something is hiding in here.

the black hills, the bad lands, the calloused east

2009-03-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

I want to go to the badlands.
Je veux aller aux mauvaises terres a traverser.

from nationalgeographic.com

A Lion Among Men.

2009-02-26T21:01:00.000-08:00

"Can those tarnished by infamy escape their sobriquets—cowardly, wicked, brainless, criminally earnest—to claim their own histories, to live honorably within their own skins before they're skinned alive?"

This line (from the author's summary of A Lion Among Men) alone makes me fall in love with the book.

Cette ligne (du resume de l'auteur de Un Lion Parmi les Hommes) seule me fait tomber amoureux avec le livre.

P.S. I have this problem where I read the first few letters of a word or phrase and guess at what the rest is... I kept reading the title again and again to be "Life Among Men." I might like that one more though...

P.P.S. I highly recommend checking out L. Frank Baum on Wikipedia if you are unaware of his famous editorials days after Sitting Bull was killed and then the day after the Wounded Knee Massacre.

"The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at best, is a disgrace to the war department. There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.
The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.
An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that "when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre."

cancerous tasmanian devil proof fence

2009-01-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

"Australian scientists say they want to build a fence on Tasmania to prevent the spread of a cancer that threatens the Tasmanian Devil with extinction. "

What is it about Australians and fences?
Qu'est que c'est des Austrailians et les clotures?

Story from BBC.

about (what is it about)
fence=la cloture

my mom is a washcloth

2009-01-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

This is from a series of photographs of skateparks. The few photos of the skaters themselves showed boys, some as young as eight or nine and none over sixteen or so, wearing tattered shorts and their brothers' shoes.
Ca c'est au une serie des photographs des skateparks. Le peu des photos des skateurs leur-memes montrent les garcons, un peu avaient huit ou neuf ans mais personne n'avais plus de seize ans, portaient les shorts dechire et les chausseurs de ses freres.
(gosh that was a horrible translation)
Photograph from Polar Inertia.
as (some as young as)

trapped in a snowglobe

2009-01-04T19:36:00.000-08:00

Well! This is just wonderful.

Eh bien! Ca c'est juste mervielleux.

Photograph from Foto Decadent (Vogue, 1950's)

the riots.

2009-01-04T18:55:00.000-08:00

The blood drips from a protester's hand.
Le main d'un manifestant sainge.

Mannequins burn in a torched storefront.

Les mannequins brulent dans une devanture flambeau.

Photographs from The Boston Globe

burn (not as "I burned it", but rather "it burned")

protester=manifestant(e)

from MISI-ZIIBI, ojibwe for great river

2009-01-03T20:20:00.000-08:00

This is a map of the flooding of the mississippi over a number of decades. I think it's the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen.
Ca c'est un carte de la inondation de la mississippi avec les temps. Je pense qu'il est le plus belle truc que j'ai jamais vue.

from my new favourite blog, strangemaps.

eugene hutz and my grandma when she was twenty

2009-01-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

I always find it hard to explain how attractive ugliness can be. I work at a daycare in the afternoons and none of the children could understand why I purposely made my crayon drawing of a narwhal so damn ugly. I think that beauty needs to be blemished, tainted. If not, it's just.. boring.
Je toujours trouve-il difficile explique la beaute de la laideur. Je travaille a une garderie dans l'apres-midi et acune des enfants peuvent comprendre pourquoi j'ai fait mon dessine d'un narval cette laide intentionnellement. Je pense que il faut que la beaute est defaut, entachee. Si pas... il est enneuyeux.

'NYU couple" by the sartorialist

how (how attractive it can be)
tainted

like roy g biv on crack

2008-12-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

It's not terribly often that one finds an architect slash furniture designer slash artist slash fashion designer, but Fernando Brizio is one big ass exception. I was perusing (favourite word) the Icon Magazine archives when I came across an artical on Brizio, a portugeese designer whose forte of sorts is this bleeding markers technique. He has peices where the ink bleeds onto the rim of a bowl, dots the exterior of a vase, and my personal favourite, colors the front of a dress. In this one the felt tip markers are inserted into pockets sewn into the dress.. I think that when I rip off this wonderful piece of art I might do it in two pieces.. a slip and a dress, then I'd make the pockets on the inside of the dress, that way they aren't visable. I don't think I'd want them to show. Call me crazy. Wait, no, don't. I'm also thinking sharpies..

Il n'est pas tres souvent qu'on trouve un architect/dessine des meubles/artiste/dessine des vetments, mais Fernando Brizio est un grande exception. Je serchais l'archives du magazine "Icon" quand J'ai trouve un article sur Brizio, un dessine portugeese qui est trop genial avec un couple des stylos, on peut dire qu'il est sa forte. Ma favourite est la robe^^ ou il a inserte des stylos dans la robe et a laisse ils sainge. Je pense que je les inserterais dans l'interior de le robe et pas l'exterior. Je pense que je preferais si les... pouchets? (pockets)... n'est pas visible. M'applez un fool. Attendez, non, ne faites pas. Je pense les sharpies aussi..

slash.
pocket.
marker (as opposed to pen).
bowl, vase.
piece (as in a piece of art).
rim.
to dot.
to color.

gotta love a lysosome

2008-12-02T17:54:00.000-08:00

Don't you just love biology? Like cells and shit? The Golgi apparatus, rough endoplasmic reticulumes? Just wonderful. For AP we had to decide on a subject for our concentrations. I was torn for a while between doing this thing with folk embroidery of just the dots of light that define a city when you're flying overhead at night or something about cells. I decided on cells. I think the peices are going to be squares, all twelve of them, and all really abstract. I like the idea of having an incredible vagueness combined with technical defenition. Anyways. I'm lazy and tired so I'm not translating or anything... I haven't posted in a while because my computer crapped out on me. I'm gonna start again but it's kinda tough only having my mother's work computer. Gosh darn it.

wingtips and bowties

2008-11-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

Oh my I almost forgot! Possibly my favourite book from the blog, Book By It's Cover, was The Artist's Guide to Dressing Fancy. It's a coloring book! Too crazy.

Mon Dieu J'ai oublie! Possiblment ma livre favori au le blog, Book By It's Cover, a ete The Artist's Guide to Dressing Fancy. Il est une livre de coloraige! Trop genial.

Is there no translation for morphing?

2008-11-10T17:44:00.000-08:00

Isn't it wonderful when you stumble upon something beautiful? I was in such a miserable mood but then I came across Book By It's Cover, a blog devoted to books and design and typography. It's not really a blog, now that I think about it, more like a review column... no, more like a book of the month spotlight. My favourite features are from the sketchbook section, just excepts from an artist's... well, their sketchbook!

N'est-ce pas merveilleux quand vous trebuchez sur quelque chose totalement belle? J'ai ete d'une humeur massacrante mais ensuite j'ai trouve Book By It's Cover, un blog devoue aux livres et le design et la typographie. Il n'est pas vraiment un blog, maintenant que je le pense, plus comme une colonne critique.. non, plus comme un article ou un reportage sur les livres. Mes ouevres favori sont au le section de carnet a croquis, juste les extraits au le... le carnet a croquis a l'artist!
I'm really inspired by Mike Lowery's books^^ His one subtitled 'old church in norway' is just wonderful.

Je suis tres inspiree aux livres de Mike Lowery. L'un titre 'vieux eglise dans la norvage' est juste merveilleux.
They really made me remember how much I love moleskin notebooks. Is it too early to make a christmas list? Nahhhh.

Ils vraiment me fait me souviens combien que j'adore les carnets 'moleskin'. Est-il trop tot faire une liste de noel? Nahhhh.
Goldberg's books didn't have as much of an impact^^ but I just adore her sketches of the little morphing bird girl. Too crazy.

Les livres de Goldberg n'ont fait pas beaucoup de l'effet, mais j'adore ses esquisses de le petite oiseau fille. Trop genial.

Top three images, Mike Lowery

Bottom image, Ashley Goldberg

the hyena and other men.

2008-11-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

So. Pieter Hugo's photography is maybe the most disturbing and beautiful thing I've seen in a long time. It makes me sick to my stomach and want to curl up into a ball and die. It's incredible. His series on the Gadawan Kura, the "hyena handlers," of Lagos, Nigeria is just frightening. The monochromatic desert and fur and dust covered flesh is really powerful paired with the little flashes of green or red. Too crazy.

Donc. La photographie de Pieter Hugo est peut-etre le plus perturbante et le plus belle truc j'ai vu depuis longtemps. Il me fait mal au ventre et veux me recroqueviller et mourir. Il est incredible. Sa serie sur les Gadawan Kura, les "dresseurs hyene," de Lagos, Nigeria est juste effrayante. Le desert et le poils et la poussiere, tous monochromatique, ils sont vraiment forte appaire avec les eclats petites de vert ou rouge. Trop genial.

Oh, I found the work via a really great blog, We Made This.

gray and bone and lonely

2008-11-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

I wonder why I'm so drawn to gray and bone and lonely. I mean, depression is endearing, you know? Thrift store boots and hole speckled converse covered in mud, gravel from the road pressing and poking against palms and through pants, tissue thin cotton and black courdoroys and waffle tees.. my god, just beautiful. There's something about their ugliness too, like doodles in your math book from a bad day. Doom and gloom man, that's what it's all about.

Je me demande pourquoi je suis attire au gris et l'os et l'isolee. Je veux dire, la depression est mignon, vous me comprendez? Des bottes au magasin de seconde main et les converse truite avec les trous, barde de la boue, graviers au rue pousse et enfonce contre des paumes et a travers du pantalon, coton mince d'etoffe et des velours cotele noir et des t-shirts gaufre.. mon dieu, puree. Il y a quelque chose au sujet de notre laideur aussi, comme de gribouillage dans votre livre des maths au un mal jour. La perte et la morosite mon potem ca c'est ce dont il s'agit.

Oh, photo from fotodec.

i wonder what the translation is for 'oh gosh'..

2008-11-08T16:37:00.000-08:00

Oh gosh Satu is incredible. I'm in love with this photo; the moss on the roof? Incredible! There's something about abandoned buildings and overgrown forests.

Mon dieu Satu est incredible. J'adore cette photograph; le mousse sur le toit? Incredible! Il y a quelque chose a propos des batiments abandonne et des forets envahle par la vegetation.

Oh yeah.. I've decided to write entries in english and french, maybe it will help me on the road to fluency, or at lease basic comprehension. If anyone understands french and sees that I have something wrong, don't hesitate to say something.

^_^

ring ring ring ring ring ring ring BANANARCHY!!!

2008-11-07T15:21:00.000-08:00

I'm so very depressed that Nothing Nice to Say has been laid to rest. Don't get me wrong, there were duds. There were a ton of duds. But there were also really clever, really funny, bits. They were cruel now and then but more than that they were frank and they were uncensored, unromanticized and unembellished.

A lot of it was jokes about punks and hipsters and goths and scene kids but it was generally centered around two guys, punks I guess, but not mohawk punks.. more like just two random guys. Other than that bit of normality the comic is sorta ridiculous. Their friends are a bear, a lesbian goth, a feminist pretending to be a lesbian to support the cause, a whiny emo kid, a mohawked vegan, and cthulu, an elder god from a story by the great H.P. Lovecraft.

white room, gray clothes, black cats

2008-11-07T15:02:00.000-08:00

from fotodecadent.

oh gosh

2008-11-07T14:47:00.000-08:00

What is, what can it possibly be about chipped nails and cigarettes?

misquote of vonnegut by yours truely

photograph of becci by arvida

yellow leaves and microphones and white trees and sky

2008-11-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

"Speaking in Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demands an end to civilian casualties, saying US warplanes bombed a wedding party, killing 37 people, including 23 children."
-BBC

brightly colored buttons and jaundice flesh

2008-11-05T18:41:00.000-08:00

You know, I'm usually pretty annoyed by the "tag seven people" posts. They just end up sorta... oh gosh, I don't know. I take back any cynicism or resentment I ever held over them though, because one on My Funny Eye just led me to the most beautiful blog.

Mieke Williams is a bit of a hodgepodge of photography, design, lifestyle, and general awesomeness. My favourite bits are the ones about little things, a hand embroidered pillowcase, an old desk drawer sorting buttons, a little watercolor and ink doodle.

There's something beautiful in the small, the secret, the worthless. I think it's the only way to find life beautiful, or even bearable. It's all about finding beauty in the asphalt in the ocean; jaundice flesh is the most beautiful yellow ocher and feet with blackened soles smell like air and soil and grass.

purple mushrooms, brown wingtips, and green wellies

2008-11-05T18:31:00.000-08:00

I can hardy wait.

2008-11-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

oh my god,

President Barack Obama.

oh my god.

Untitled, 2008

2008-10-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

So at the ICA we were only able to see the main, temporary, exhibit by Tara Donovan. We were lucky, however, because the way out was through their smaller, permanent gallery. As we ran through, still wet feet squeaking with each step, I had to stop and look at a piece by a German artist, Kai Althoff.
The painting that I saw hanging^^ really reminded me of the movie Mirror Mask. The girl has this distinct style of doodles.. really stylized but well designed and sorta dark. Anyways. They defiantly don't have a strong technique aspect but his work is really strong and straightforward, which I like. I wish there was an online collection, a complete collection, of his work. Grrr.

I wouldn't mind being a jellyfish...

2008-10-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

So. On that twenty minute walk through Boston in the pouring rain every inch of me got soaked, including my backpack. And what was in the front pocket of that backpack, you may ask? Well, apart from some basic items, a pencil set, some gum, a rubber dinosaur wallet, there was my brand new camera. The first thing I've ever bought myself that was that big. I had had it a week, a week and a half, and now it's kaput. I suppose it'll be okay; I can return it this weekend but still.

Anyways. The aquarium started of a bit depressing but by the end was incredible. Their outside exhibit, the one next to the ticket counter, is a very small and dirty tank with a few seals that swim from one side to the other over and over. They looked very sad, although it might have been largely the miserable weather.

Once we got inside everything perked up. The first thing we saw was the jellyfish exhibit which was SO INSANE! We spend a solid forty five minutes sketching. Then we split up into groups of two or three and wandered over to the penguins. Katie and I fell in love with the baby penguin. Actually no, they weren't babies. They were little blue penguins. Still very cute. Although there was one who was either molting or sick because he had lost nearly all of his feathers. It was pretty sad. Like a little fetus stuck in the penguin cage.

Well anyways. Overall the aquarium was awesome. The jellies were stunning and the birds adorable. We saw a shark and I understood completely what a french family was saying. There was a turtle and afterward I had some pretty fabulous frozen yogurt. Not a bad day, if I do say so myself.

My camera broke before we got the the aquarium so I stole some of Adina's jellyfish photos^^

Even his doodles are brilliant

2008-10-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, I order you to do so immediately. I read it first a few summers ago.. I was probably around twelve and hadn't read much of his work. It proved to be a very adequate Vonnegut 101. It's basically an autobiography, really, so I expected that it would lack the heart that's so unmistakably present in his fiction. Luckily this is not the case. The book is really like a big cluster of brilliance packed in so tight that every word, every sentence is stunningly simple and honest.

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."

-Hemingway

I'm always so pressured to articulate everything I know, or think I know, into my writing. I doubt I'll ever be talented enough to do it in one sentence. But Hemingway is saying that it doesn't have to be everything. It just has to be something. Brilliant.

Every sentence that Vonnegut writes, or types, should I say [he used a typewriter or a pencil and paper for every book he had written], is true. And Man Without a Country piles all those together into something almost all encompassing. True, he didn't get it all, but he only had eighty four years. Had he been given another eighty four, I wouldn't be surprised. But eighty four is long enough for a man to suffer, how could one want to add on time to his sentence?

Tara Donovan

2008-10-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

So Monday we didn't have school and Tuesday we had a field trip which means that today was my first day of school. It sucked so bad. I'm not quite sure why; we got our grades and mine were all A's except an 89 in art. It was that my average was a 91.2. It was so important to me that I got a 93 average, the cutoff between honers and high honers. God I just want to go to sleep.

Anyways, the field trip. Mum [my art teacher] took us all to Boston on the train to see the Tara Donovan show at the ICA and draw at the aquarium. It was raining cats and dogs and we had decided to walk everywhere, twenty minutes from the station to the museum and then another twenty to the aquarium. By the time we reached the ICA we were soaked to the bone.

Anyways, about the art. The show we saw at the ICA [a very small museum] was of sculptures by a thirty something woman who has just won the MacArthur Genius Grant, Tara Donovan. It was insane. Katie was being cynical as usual but it bugged me more than usual because I really loved the work. The entire day I had to hear "It's just not art, it's just not!"

So Donovan's whole thing is using ridiculous amounts of everyday materials to make sculptures are anything but. The picture above is a close up view of this rope/seaanemone/cell form that's made of paper plates. It's one of the only pieces held together by any adhesive.

Oh god, it was so insane.
Then there was this giant hanging piece made of Styrofoam cups, illuminated by florescent lights within.
My god it was insane. There were no cameras allowed in the museum because her work isn't copyrighted yet and I can't find any decent ones other than these three.

Well anyways, the overall feel of her work was of another world created by the manipulating the multitude of mass produced products. My mum once said that, generally, 2D work is holding a mirror to the world and showing the artist's perspective. 3D work, on the other hand, is creating a world. I think I want to make sculptures. Actually, I've already started on some. The show was so inspirational that I think we're gonna go back sometime soon because we didn't get to see the rest of the museum.

Oh god, I almost forgot! The most incredible piece took up the entire floor and was made of Mylar paper [I believe] twisted and bunched and formed into these giant black spheres that popped up from the concrete. Some were huge and some were tiny; the biggest reminded me of a jetson version of an adobe hut like the ones described in this book I'm reading about Albanian gypsies and their overwhelming poverty and forced cultural degradation. There's one passage where she describes an entire city, or maybe a town, of handmade adobe spheres some too small for a man to stand or lie down in, all of which are the sole dwellings of these gypsies ostracized from the culture they were forced to join.

Anyways. I'll make another post later specifically about the aquarium.

jesus candles are available at hannafords

2008-10-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

[Destiny Dawson]

Bedroom.

selfish

2008-10-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

+typewriter

+whitesheets

+duvetcover

+jesuscandle

+moped

+presidentobama

+cameracase

+3.6gpa

+roadtrip

isak

2008-10-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

[ogonfrojd]

MarcLove

2008-10-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

[Geometric Sleep]

Marc Jacobs is the sickest, raddest, nastiest human being on the planet. I want to have like a thousand of his babies. His freakish, genius, gorgeous, kilt wearing babies.

the morning after

2008-10-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

Destiny Dawson's photos are stills from movies that haven't been filmed yet, movies about beauty and ugliness and joy and pain, movies directed by Wes Anderson, movies that are songs of love and death on the border, movies that are hypersaturated versions of life, movies that take place in boats and bars, movies whose protagonists have freckles and scars, movies like a hangover, movies like math class, movies like a birthday party, movies like a funeral.

God I ramble.

land of

2008-10-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

i
c
e

Anthropologie went to iceland.

to shirk

2008-10-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

today i shirked school and responsibility to go home, lie in bed and finish "the brothers karamazov". i don't understand how people can deal with weekday boredom!

[-ogonfrojd]

aujourd'hui j'ai esquive l'ecole et le devoir pour retourner chez moi, m'allonge dans le lit et finis "les freres karamazov". je ne comprend pas comment les gens peuvent se debrouillient le ennui de jour en jour.

I really wish I was fluent in french. I wish I knew the word for boredom or to shirk. I wish my brother hadn't eaten all the macarons. I wish my grandmother hadn't asked if they were dog buiscuts. I wish I diddn't have a soccer game on tuesday and diddn't have to miss tutoring. I wish I had a puppy. I wish I had the balls to shirk school and my responsibilities. I wish I was sweedish.

goodbye summer

2008-10-18T17:21:00.000-07:00

from Julia Pott

my brother thought this was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.

i agree wholeheartedly.

Macarons and Essays II

2008-10-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

I did it! I finaly got around to making batch two [after the disaster of batch one] of macarons. I've decided to keep this blog to photography and started a new one for life and food and such. I think I'll make another later for music or literature..

breaks my heart a bit

2008-10-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

(a softer world)

green and gray and blue and black

2008-10-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

(port2portpress)

sea glass and extinction and plastic and america and italy and sunlight and broken showers and the great unwashed and five euro water and hard cement and melting gelato and we never saw the sea and god i missed the sea and a pool down the gravel path and cold water and skinny dipping and chingale and olive trees and hidden kittens and exposed kittens and exhibitionists and scorpions and tears in the kitchen and tears in the car and tears in the garden and tears on the train and god i missed the sea

monochrome III

2008-10-09T18:19:00.000-07:00

(port2portpress)

maine and gray and black and white and rain and rust and coffee and fog and my mother's sweater and unbrushed hair and cold and kate and andrew and the sea and rocks and jersey cows and broken glass and broken bones and white and gray and black

...

2008-10-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

(port2portpress)

one had a breakdown at seventeen and tried to run away from home and still lives with them and makes sock monkeys and always cries and one has brought her 'roommate' rachel to thanksgiving for as long as i can remember and teaches spanish and seems so sane and always smiles and one married a girl ten years younger and had two kids and lived on and off welfare and commuted an hour and a half through three states to work each day and smoked and drank and loved people too much and maybe the three too li... no... and maybe the three just as much and before it all came to a boil he grew a tumor on his lung and... sigh

grandparents and wall to wall carpeting and aunts and mothballs and front living rooms and opal and amethyst and iron and my mother's metal work and my grandfathers wood work and regifting and obscure perfumes and linen and eggshell and snow and white paint and everything clean and everything quiet and everything in it's place

Lust

2008-10-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

(far fetch)

Rassel Och Pling

2008-10-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

(ogonfrojd)

Macarons and Essays

2008-10-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

I have an English essay due Friday that I haven't started. Rather than starting it, however, I began thinking about the roots of the word 'essay'. It comes directly from the French word 'essayer' which translates into English as to attempt, to try. I don't really take on major endeavors that often. When I do it's purely out of necessity. Overall I like myself; I don't see any major personality flaws. I don't lie, don't cheat. I'm pretty patient, pretty forgiving, pretty open. But the fact that I stay inside my comfort zone so really bothered me. So the point of my ramblings? This weekend I'm making macarons.

::Laduree Flavours::

jasmine mango, chocolate, dark chocolate, vanilla, coffee, rose petal, pistachio, caramel, cherry amaretto, raspberry, orange blossom, liquorice, lemon, praline, mint, coconut, chestnut, grenadine, java pepper, apricot ginger, muscovado, candyfloss, havana, white amber, indian rose, aniseed, orange saffron, lily of the valley, strawberry poppy, gingerbread, rosanis

::Recipes::

Serious Eats

Cannelle-Vanille

La Tartine Gourmande

I think I'm going to start off with LTG's green tea/dark chocolate ^_^

ukraine

2008-10-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

(Satu.)

cities of brick and snow

abandoned or hibernating?

as violence erupts in kenya..

2008-10-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

"I threw stones at the police. Many, many actually.
In return they fired live shots into the air as some started approaching us and then others began gassing us.
Even though there were so many of us the live bullets are still a worry. They should aim up but they don't - they aim right at us.
I was not frightened.
When you are faced with the reality of life, when it comes to this, you can't be afraid, not now.
What frightens me is that I'll die of hunger.
We should be allowed to express our feelings as citizens. We don't need the police to come and invade our lives and our basic needs.
They have arms and are all dressed up in combat gear wearing their red berets. I don't know a lot about guns but I think the ones they have are AK-47s. The ones who don't have guns, have shields. Some of them have batons.

All we have is stones. They have power. No-one even listens to us."

-Gaddafi, 25, unemployed, kibera slum

(BBC)

Cheyenne Sun Dance

2008-10-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

Our People.

Gashed Ones.

Tall People.

a weekend of broken english

2008-10-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

Friday was tears and soccer games and jeep wranglers and cold and guilt and boredom and mass production and paper mache and fajitas and margaritas and old friends and insults and the last supper and bowling and a bra that mum put through the wash and plays and pretty mouth and green my eyes and bitches and jealousy and trainspotting and driving home and swerves and tears and tears and sleep and tears.

Saturday was sleeping in and a farmers market and repair men and broken dryers and the library and cat fights and vets and out of tune guitars and making pizza and PBS and mom and my brother breaking curfew and SNL and sleep.

Sunday was waking up early and taking my meds and trying to talk to Rena and Rena being busy and doing my homework and taking a nap and tuning my guitar and planning my week and making onion soup and figuring out how much a camera costs and wearing my brother's sweatshirt and shoes and breaking up another cat fight and trying to breath and being in a state of blissful reverie and musing on trees and sleep and suicide.

orange mushrooms and candied ginger

2008-10-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

(satu.)

a dark gray quilt with two squares of orange, dear and beloved wet soil and rain

blue and white and steel

2008-10-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

(azulejos)

bathrooms and space invaders and my mother and mexico and greece and new york and chris hammerline and rabbits and cockroaches and grandparents

orange and gold and teal and gray

2008-10-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

(My Funny Eye)

blind contour drawings and ginkgo leaves and sleeping eyelashes and sun on my face and lucy's house and mushrooms and fish scales and hallways

She made this.

2008-10-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

(Angry Chicken)

I love children's art.

Lolz

2008-10-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

(for me for you)

I'm gonna send these out to my estranged loves.

Monochrome II

2008-10-02T16:12:00.000-07:00

There's magic in Tulle.

Ma petite chou

2008-10-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

(Arvida)

I just want to drink hot chocolate and smoke pot and steal nail polish from department stores with her.

cones?

2008-09-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

How we say hello is my new favourite blog.

Everyday(ish) these two photographers post a photo each on a predetermined theme. I'm in love. My one qualm is that they don't tell you the theme.. God damn curiosity!

fopp is right

2008-09-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

Moccasins and Zucchini

2008-09-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

Adie Loves Polly is a website run by a four year old girl. I know it sounds like a gimmick but her photos and captions really are very sweet. Polly is her Polaroid camera. I think that's cute too.

hello indeed

2008-09-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

God I wish I remembered where this is from.

Uber Bento Cuteness

2008-09-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

(top from Shim and Sons, middle and bottom from Lucky Sundae)

My god, I do love bento boxes.

Monochrome

2008-09-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

(from port to port)

Some of the most beautiful photos I've seen in a long time.

190 Bowery

2008-09-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

In 1966 a photographer named Jay Maisel bought an abandoned German bank built in 1898 for 102,000$. It's six stories tall and has 72 rooms, complete with the original copper elevator. Today it's valued at over 30 million. Jay, his wife, and daughter live there today and refuse the countless offers that would turn the gem into another condo.

My favourite room by far^^

(from The New York Times)

Nom Nom Nom

2008-09-26T17:37:00.000-07:00

(from Design Mom)

Reminds me of the Science of Sleep.

dead flowers

2008-09-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

(from bliss)

Skeletons.

Them and Us

2008-09-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

(nationalgeographic.com)

"This is a child beggar on Roxas Boulevard, Manila. I shot this through armored glass on my way to work at the U.S. Embassy. A Filipino friend of mine told me later that the tattoo on the child's right arm indicated ownership by a syndicate. "

Brookford Farms

2008-09-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

(brookfordfarm.com)

We had the afternoon off and so a few of us went to visit a local farm. It's run by a German couple with their two boys under five. We wandered through the woods up to a pasture on a hill. The boys found a turkey feather and could name the red tailed hawk that flew above us. The cows are let loose after their morning milking and left to graze over the three hundred acres of farm, pasture, and wood. I wore my father's industrial work boots. He was six foot four and needless to say I, his fifteen year old daughter, do not wear the same size shoe. Still, it was a good decision considering that twenty cows produce a whole lot of poo.

Anyways, the boy in the pictures is their eldest, Oliver. He and our English teacher, Kasperzak, really hit it off. Half way through the visit we noticed that both had disappeared. We found them again in the chicken coup trying to catch one.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what on earth I'm going to do with my life. So far my list includes librarian, something involving archival photographs, some kind of teacher, and now, farmer.

We may poor, but we get by.

Lavander Sky

2008-09-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

(nationalgeographic.com)

A black silhouette against the orange glow of the oil fields.

Sigh

2008-09-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

(nationalgeographic.com)

If I'm around sixty or seventy years from now, I like to imagine my skin will feel like a dried chille pepper, wrinkled and smooth.

Little Krishna

2008-09-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

(nationalgeographic.com)

Bahuroopi Blue.

Marimekko

2008-09-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

(from reprodepot.com)

I wish I could afford 80 dollars a yard fabric.

Someday.

So there's a Penguin and a Polar Bear

2008-09-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

And the polar bear says to the penguin, "hey man, it looks like you're wearing a tux."

Praise Jesus it's the weekend! Today was hell, total and complete hell. It was the last day of spirit week so everyone at school was in head to toe blue and white, that means socks, finger nails, face paint, you name it. Then after lunch we had the second pep rally in three weeks. Oh god, it was torture. Second graders screaming in my ear, quasianorexic 12 year olds dancing around like little sluts, hockey players running around and barking in time with their entrance music. Then Rose sitting next to be going on and on about how I don't appreciate things and I should learn to respect and love my school because I'm lucky to be here. She was still pissed from the other day when I told one of my friends visitor not to come here because it would make him want to jump off the bell tower of fogg.

So today I had study hall first so I went to the art room. It was just me and Shaun started joking around about the Berwick Academy Community. He went off on Saliba (the dean) and how his head is too big for his body (which is pretty damn big). I sorta spaced out writing the word community. Common Unity if you break it down enough.
I can't even being to comprehend what someone could consider common unity here.
Then during the pep rally I fell asleep on Ollie's shoulder and had a dream I met Quentin Tarentino. He asked me to be in his new movie about a teenage runaway. I asked him what the plot was he described the protagonist to me. She was a hauntingly beautiful and incredibly skinny with black hair and pale porceline skin. Her name was violette and she lived in conetticut to incredibly rich parents. I stopped him there and told him that sucked.
I told him she wasn't really rich, her mom teaches at her school. She's fifteen and she's being going to the same school since she was five. She had the same two best friends till she started high school and then one of them left. She went to a different school, a better school. The other one stayed but wasn't the same. She started talking to boys and having sex. She got boobs and an ass and suddenly all the guys loved her and the girls hated her. She was the school slut and she had all the adoration to give her the selfconfidence she needs to get through the day but no respect. She realized this and now and wants to leave. She needs to leave this cycle of bad boyfriends and find people who really love her.
I tell Quentin that his girl, the runaway, is totaly alone. Her friends have left her behind. Or maybe she drove them away. She's found a new girl to tell her what to do and fill the space they've left. But now she's seeing this girl for who she really is, a selfagrandizing, manipulative, sociopath who only befriended her to get to her guy friends and entertain her.
She realizes this, and now realizes that she has no one to talk to, to comiserate with, to relate to. She needs to find someone who understands her. Someone who can comprehend her misery. She tries to tell her last friend but she can't understand. She love the school and she loves education. She loves the path that has been preordained for her and she accepts her fate. She tries to tell her mom but all she does is try to talk her into seeing a shrink and going on happy pills. She tells her that she wont go on those sedatives, those suppressants, those numbing agents. So feeling alone and regected she runs away looking for a common unity with someone, anyone.
I stopped. He asked me to go on but I couldn't. I don't know what's next. I know where I am but I don't know where I'm going. They announce that our plane is ready to board and I bid him adieu. I'm flying above to ocean with Rena and Rose and Sarah and the in flight movie is 300 and Sarah and Rena are playing checkers and Rena's listining to her I-Pod and I'm looking out the window at the ocean speeding by, indistinguishable from the dark night sky.
And the penguin says to the polar bear, "what makes you think I'm not."

I wrote this on an old blog a year or so ago.

I still don't know what to think.

where's the little bottle labeled "drink me" when you need it

2008-09-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be the size of an ant.

Test Tube Babies

2008-09-20T10:09:00.001-07:00

(from akikomatic.com)

where the wild things are

2008-09-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

Oh no please don't go,

we'll eat you up we love you so.

Yum

2008-09-17T18:07:00.001-07:00

(from a softer world)

My Mum's birthday is a week from today.

I wonder what I'll get her.

Maybe a shiny new cage.

Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee

2008-09-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

Namshim.