Pretty blogs are pretty

You may have noticed how excitingly new and pretty-fied my blog has become of late. This is entirely thanks to my good friend Ana, graphic/web designer extraordinaire. My English-major brains are not suited to photoshop and the like, but Ana is wonderfully talented--and with very little inspiration from me came up with this rocking layout. I'm over the moon about it.

Check out Ana's awesomeness at her blog (also linked on the side): oh ana.

Highlights

Possibly the coolest site I've seen in days:

[Crappy Taxidermy]

Summer longings

 Just realized I had no pictures on my blog from my wonderful summer trip. I spent two weeks driving down the Pacific coast, along Highway 1. We even spent two days in Vegas on the way home! It was a complete blast, with the best friends a girl could ask for. The first is from an ice cream break at some creepy truck stop in Oregon. The second is at the incredible Beatles "Love" Theater (for Cirque du Soleil) in Vegas. We took an awesome fab four picture in commiseration for our not being able to see the show.

Keyboard Daft Punk

Pretty much the coolest thing I've done all day.

Keyboard Punk

Epic Beard

Ok, this is awesome. Also disgusting. Not sure which one is the dominant reaction here.

Money Hats

So cool. Possibly the coolest thing ever to do with money.

When I feel down...

I like to look at nice things when I get stressed. This week has been particularly difficult, so these pictures have helped me chill out a bit. Yay. (The first image is the individuals voted "Prettiest Eyes", Mounds View High School class of 1960.)

Best cover ever?

Introducing...

My new computer! His name is Hazel-Ra, and he's quite the charmer. With 8gb of RAM, a 1TB hard-drive, and a really sweet graphics card, I'm completely taken with him. Isn't he pretty?

Muses or Idols

Two of mine (Joanna Newsom and Shara Worden).

And some pretty music (not by either of them, ironically).

Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions--Sets The Blaze

What I'm Reading (#1)

As always, I'm reading several things. I thought it might be interesting to show them to more people than those I ride the bus with in the afternoons, and the frustrated baristas who try to understand my order while my nose is buried in a book.

Forgive me, ye baristas of the world.

Anyway, this week I've picked up The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne for some wonderfully light reading between Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day and Melville's momentous Moby-Dick.

As ever, I am astounded by how beautiful Milne's books are. Simple, yes. Silly, certainly. And yet, despite the silliness and Disney-fied versions of the stories, I find that Pooh and the other residents of the Hundred Acre Wood can be especially poignant, and perfectly profound some of their statements can be. It reminds me of my childhood, and how everything and everyone was beautiful and good--because really...how could they not be?

And happy...

For my horror films class last summer, we watched both Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. The wedding dress from the film was so elegant and wonderful. I've been thinking about that kind of floaty, ethereal quality of clothing that makes me feel both dainty and delicate, as well as completely old-world. Like a 20s flapper, tired after a long night of dancing, curling up to sleep on a velvet chaise wearing crumpled chiffon. I think I'll wear something gauzy tomorrow.

Neko Case--Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth

Ivana XL--Ex. Oh.

Cosmos

I just want to sit home and watch Cosmos all day. It was Sagan's birthday recently, and I realized then more than I ever have what a great loss it is that he isn't alive today. He was such a brilliant, wonderful man. Every photo I found of him when putting this post together showed him smiling and marveling at our universe. I imagine he was a deeply kind and intellectually piercing individual to interact with.

Chubettes...

Makes me wonder how this would play out today...

#10 Make a flier of your day

The next installment in my ongoing work with Learning to Love You More. For this one, I put together a fairly brief description of my average day (with illustrations) and hung them up all over campus. It was exciting and rewarding to walk by the various bulletin boards for the next few days and see people reading them.

This whole project is making me feel so much more in tune and connected with people. I genuinely want someone to see one of my projects and have their mood lifted, have them laugh, whatever. That's the most important thing to me in all of this.

One of my professors actually saw my flier on campus and asked me in class about it. After telling a bit about my project and how this fit in with it, she asked me for a copy. Now it's hanging on her office door! That really made my day.

Whoa...

Howl's Moving Castle out of legos!

So...so...

Amazingly gorgeous music.

Grizzly Bear and Feist--Service Bell

(image from here)

Kittehs

This is what I want for Christmas. Well, this and the Nook. Bengal kittehs!

Tiny tiny

I thought this was lovely. Wouldn't you like to receive a bee in the mail? It's just what I've always wanted!

Dollies

Another arty post for the day...

Caitlin sent me a link to a blog with weird doll work from various artists. It introduced me to a few new people, and made me recall old loves (the Brothers Quay, Svankmajer's Alice, among others).



"The Moffet Twins" by D.L. Marian (found here)



couldn't find the title for this guy, but it's by Shain Erin (and can be seen here)

I also love, love the Brothers Quay. My favorite has to be their "Street of Crocodiles", but this shorter (and earlier) piece is exemplary of their work.



and finally, a clip from Svankmajer's Alice, too weird for words (but I adore parts of it...just can't get through it in one sitting).



Thanks Caitlin!

Art projects

Caitlin and I shared pancakes and sausage and craft-time yesterday, so I thought I'd post a bit about what we're working on, and then update later with finished pictures!

Basically we want to make one of these out of cardboard:



Only, not quite as large...and without the taxidermy man in the background. Anyway, after an hour of work I had almost successfully finished one antler, and Caitlin had the beginnings of the base and neck. Cardboard is hard to work with...

beauty queens

From an upcoming photobook on child beauty pageant contestants (High Glitz):





I'm pretty sure this will be my next coffee table book. It can sit next to the Vice photobook Caitlin bought me.

(from here)

If you know me...

Then you'll know why this is ironic...