Saturday, August 21, 2010

Words of the day!

Crepuscular vs. Vespertine
Crepuscular refers to the night time creatures, (nocturnal ones too!)
Diurnal refers to creatures like humans-awake by day, asleep by night.
Vespertine is a biological term referring to anything natural (flowering, blooming, prowling) in the twilight.

Those are the words of the day.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Surprise! He's back!

Sufjan Stevens is back!  In full force!  With a full-length EP available online as a download or stream.  I don't know if I'll like it, or if it will be as good as everything else, but I'm definitely going to check it out ASAP, and so should you.  We can never have enough swirling overdramatic orchestration with a nice tender acoustic guitar chorus, right? And hey, it has some connections with Simon and Garfunkel, and I was just thinking that I was overdue for some SnG time.

listening to: School of Seven Bells, Department of Eagles, Arcade Fire, and soon, Sufjan!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

On Baking

        I never really baked when I was younger-my mom can be a bit of a control freak, and never deviates from recipes.  I didn't get a chance to truly start cooking and baking until I had my own apartment junior year.  By then, I realized that I wasn't half bad at food preparation, and that I actually enjoyed it.  I used to read recipes every night before I went to bed, and I would think how I could tweak the recipe and make it even better.  My roommates and I made bread almost every week, sometimes more, and I started making a wide array of desserts-cakes, cookies, brownies.  Some things came about better than others, but it was always highly edible and usually pretty tasty.  
       When I became vegan in '07, my philosophy began to shift-I stopped using eggs and butter, and began to think more about what was in the food I was making.  I was baking quite a bit less by then, but I was still cranking out a big cheesecake every now and then, even if I wasn't eating it myself.  I still had roommates, and even better, roommates' boyfriends, who would eat anything and everything I made.  But then I moved into an apartment by myself, and I pretty much stopped baking.  There was no one to feed!  
         I've never really enjoyed baking for myself-I enjoy baking to make others happy, one of my strange altruistic hobbies in life.  I occasionally get a craving for a home baked vegan cookie, but that's a pretty rare occasion.  All the while, I started thinking about baking less, but baking with quality.  I eat mostly organic foods these days, and I try not to eat much, if any refined sugars or nasty flour (bleached and bromated. yuck!)  It's given me a new baking and cooking philosophy-to only make foods that I would actually want to eat.  That means not using weird ass shit to decorate cakes (like that strange Wilton dyed gel) or corn syrup or shortening or whatnot.  I've been following those rules pretty well these past years, and I'm excited to more seriously commit to that practice.  Thus, my baking resolution for organic and chic coverthe coming year is to make (mostly) organic cakes.  I fortunately discovered a fabulous cookbook "Organic and Chic" (from Sarah Magid, a custom cake maker in NYC) which, despite it's cutesy title, is a nice tome addressing cake decorating and desserts, without gross things.  Baked goods can have some weird ass stuff in them, and I don't think it's necessary.  This cookbook reminds me that cakes can be simple, delicious, and healthful (at least for junk food.) and I'm excited to try making some good cakes.  I've always avoided making cakes, since they're a bit finicky, but I've always admired the cake decorating process, especially with fancy shows like Ace of Cakes and other Food Network shows.  I don't necessarily need to make a 3-d bulldog cake or a replica of the Eiffel Tower, but it would be nice to make a lovely lavender cake with rose frosting.  So that's what I'll be doing this year.  Baking and frosting cakes.

There will always be cooks who can bake standard things better than me-traditional cookies, Woman's day styled cakes (graham cracker bears in a gel and gummy swimming pool), etc, but I'd like to commit my niche to using real food, and leave it at that.  

listening to: the new LCD soundsystem album.  (Seeing them in the end of October! Party it up with Sleigh Bells!)

The Strange Overlaps Between Garp and Toy Story 3

Over the weekend, I finally saw Toy Story 3 at the cheapy theater in my neighborhood for a whopping $2.  Everyone had raved at the plot complexity, the cleverness of the toy references, and how it made them cry.  Strangely, my first reaction was a dismay at our trash system, and how things are thrown out that have no place in a landfill.  The infamous trash scene also reminded me of "The brave Little Toaster" and the animated, singing trash dump scene with the cars being smooshed into little boxes of metal.  I definitely enjoyed the movie, and it was absolutely worth my two dollars, but it almost made me sad about how much trash is in the landfill and how much we consume as people.   I guess there's always a little Wall-E residue in a pixar movie, and that was what I got from it at first.  Of course, there's a wonderful point about recycling your toys, even though one might want to keep things forever, there's more value in sharing, recycling, and reusing other's things, which I also like.  But the real clincher for me, was when Andy had packed up his room, and his mother started crying, and said "I just wish I could be with you forever."  Weird, how that got me the most, right?

I've just been rereading John Irving's famous epic 'The World According to Garp,' which is an interesting story about a man, his writing career, and his relationship with his mom and his children.  One of Garp's main paranoia's is towards his children-he runs after cars on the street to tell them to slow down, he rescues one of his sons from a sleepover with a sketchy mom, and he constantly fears for his children's lives.  Sadly, (or ironically) one of his sons dies in a mostly preventable car accident, and the other son loses an eye.  He is so caught up in his fears that he never looks at his own actions as causing danger for the kids, and he instead worries about the unknown, the "under toad" as it is referred to.  I can definitely identify with this fear and anxiety, as I'm often worried that my parents will have an accident or something like that.  As an only child, my parents are my only real family.  I'm not close with aunts or uncles or cousins, which has always slightly worried me, since my parents' eventual death will leave me alone in the world.  Garp's fears as a father are my fears as a child, and are Andy's mother's fears.  We can't control what happens in other's lives; we can't protect them forever, and we can't really tell them what to do.  I'm so happy that my parents have become much more healthy than they used to be-each of them has lost a significant amount of weight, and they eat a heavily raw plant and semi-vegan diet, which excites me, even though they would never call it by that label.  I still worry about them sometimes, but I know I need to let things unfold.  They can't be with me forever, and I can't be with them forever.  It's more about being present in the moments that you do have together, and letting people know you care.  That's the best I can do, at least.
listening to: the new arcade fire album

Hobbied Coincidences

In the last few weeks, I've had a variety of strange coincidences related to people inquiring about the nature of my viola case.  This should not be particularly strange, except for the fact that I've played my instrument for 17 years and only gotten asked about it a few times in life.  To have 4-5 inquiries in the last two weeks is actually pretty strange, if not slightly encouraging.  Yesterday was inquiry no. 5, at a Trader Joe's, in which a clerk told me that his son has just started cello lessons, and loves it. I previously have had a Whole Foods clerk compliment me on pursuing arts as a career, since "the world so desperately needs the creative medium and the history of great creative minds before us."  This was especially encouraging as the man relayed that he was an immigrant from El Salvador, and that he wished that every child could have an education and opportunity to pursue the arts, like in Venezuela.  I had a woman in Sephora ask me slightly dumb but endearing questions about my viola as she reeled off the new Benefit line of products, and the man at Sur La Table helped me with an espresso sample as I explained my vocation.  Maybe Californians are just more curious, or my newish Bam case just draws more attention than it used to.  Maybe it's me-at the beach in Santa Barbara, a mother and her children (from Switzerland) asked me if I played the violin or the viola, since she recognized the trademark instrument induced hickey.  She asked what my particular career goals were and where I had attended university, which I appreciated.  It seems strange to have had so many related experiences in a short amount of time, but it encourages me of the value of art in society.  People are curious about musicians, artistis, creatives, and we have a responsibility to tell these people about what we do and why it's important.  There are so many meaningful careers these days-nursing, medicine, education, but the arts are something else, and I can't always articulate why art is meaningful, but I do, in my innermost being, believe that it has value in the human experience, and that is why I play.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Inception-In which Cillian Murphy has a bag over his head, once again.

So I finally got around to seeing Inception yesterday, and let me say that it truly exceeded my expectations as a thriller and ultimately, a mindfuck.  Within the first 9 minutes, you are thrown into a crazy world in which you have no idea what's going on, and things aren't being explained.  You just have to observe (and drool over Joseph Gordon Levitt) and hope that everything illuminates itself accordingly.  It's basically your traditional heist movie (drugs, robbery, that sort of thing) but much more interesting and complex.  It's thought robbery, or more specifically, thought placement.
More important, there's no bond girls here, which is a major plus, for ladies watching it, and no gratuitous violence.  This is a cerebral action movie.  There's lots of anonymous shooting, but very limited blood and gore, and the deaths are of dream projections, not real people.  
As a side note, I am absolutely fascinated by Leonardo DiCaprio's transformation, as an actor and a person, from a scrawny teen heart throb to a round faced, goatee donning suspense/thriller actor of high quality.  Who knew?  I can never get enough of Joseph Gordon Levitt, so that was a major plus, and I love Ellen Page and her sassy, smart characters, not to mention Cillian Murphy, who seems to always have a bag over his head in Nolan's movies.  WIthout giving much of the plot away, the movie was definitely male dominated, and Page's character wasn't a particularly violent one, but she was the architect of the realities that the characters occupied, and in control of much of the action.  She was an emotional sensor, and was able to understand DiCaprio in ways that his coworkers couldn't, and helped him to deal with the death of his wife (Played by a fierce Marion Cotillard).  
This is an awesome movie when it comes to drama, suspense, and simply not knowing what the heck is happening, and it made me happy to see the leading ladies (Marion Cotillard including) in non-Bond girl style approaches.  While I give props to Angelina Jolie for consistently kicking ass in action movies everywhere (usually scantily clad, as well), I appreciate the depth and contemplativeness of these two female characters, and the lack of dumb sex scenes and excess cleavage.  Both of these actresses are beautiful, in a slightly untraditional way, and this film allowed them to be so without compromising the integrity or intensity of the plot.  I suppose it is the first action movie I've seen in which there is no dumb Romance element to it?  Way to go, Christopher Nolan.
  
Not to mention the perception of reality, and questioning the perception of perception.  That's deep right stuff for an action movie.  Either way, I definitely want to see it again, and not just for Gordon-Levitt.

Satorial Bargain Hunter

As of Late, I have become a snob.  A fashion snob.  A fashion sale snob, to be exact.  I will only buy things if they're cheap, but not shoddily made.  In essence, I have become the urban outfitters sale stalker, scouring stores all over the country for sale items, and often, succeeding.  I bought these three purchases at the UO in Ventura, for a total of 6o odd dollars, with tax.  That comes to, three pairs of shoes and a sweet purse/messenger bag thing.  And now, I have jazzy Janelle Morae shoes, for a cheap, non-leather, price.  (I also bought these sweet neon yellow converse for 20 at an outlet mall a few weeks ago.)  So I'm proud of myself for my shrewd shopping, and now that I'm officially in LA proper, I'm ready to bounty hunt me some deals.


Conversation of the day: (while in Solvang, CA, and Danish settlement which has become very touristy and not particularly authentic)
Father: Name some famous Danes.
Me: Blue Cheese and Hamlet
Father: What about Carl Nielsen?  I don't think Hamlet was real.
Me: Blue cheese is more legitimate than Hamlet?  

Thursday, August 5, 2010

"Prop 8 Wasn't Just Un-Constitutional, but It was Uncalifornian."

I love that quote.  It pretty much summarizes why prop 8 was stupid.  One of my friends from Minnesota was asking me today why Prop 8 was such a big deal, since it was only one state's decision on this matter, and not the whole country's.  I couldn't really tell her why, except that it was stupid to have that many conservatives in California.  Granted, the governator is Republican, but he said today "For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves." Yeah! You tell them, Mr Freeze!
The Mayor of LA said today "Today, the sun is shining is little brighter on the Golden State, because by overturning Prop 8, a federal judge has affirmed what a majority of Californians know to be true: love doesn't discriminate." Boo yah!
The real verdict from the Judge is:
"...because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional."
I know that we Californians love our state, love our liberalism and our granola and our colorful movie star celebrities, and we embrace famous gay and lesbians (mostly).  We are not a perfect state-we definitely have our flaws (education system! public transit in socal!) but damn, when Prop 8 passed in 2008, I wasn't expecting it.  So it's fitting that it has been overturned.  On the flip side, it's most troubling that Obama is not in favor of gay marriage, and it troubles me to think of the decision in the future on the matter.  There's so much to read about this particular issue, and so many facets, but I do hope that we can stay out of other people's business, and let some folks get married and have legal rights.
so we'll see.


on the flip side, today (8/5) is Andy Warhol's birthday! A very fabulous gay man indeed, if ever there was one.

Age, and Realizing That Age is Nothing But a Number

Ok, so lot's of people have said profoundly brilliant things about age and temporal relativity.  We've all heard those sayings...
age is relative
age is for cheese
the best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles
nothing comes automatically with age but wrinkles
age is an issue of mind over matter. if you don't mind it doesn't matter.
do not regret growing older-it is a privilege denied to many.
etc. etc.

But at the end of the day, I have this internal timeline for myself that I probably constructed when I was 17.  I had an idea of what I would achieve by 23 (soon to be 24) and many of those plans haven't quite happened, either because of lack of interest, or just a reevaluation of priorities.  I'm no longer fascinated by orchestra the way I was when I was 18, nor have I attended many orchestral summer festivals.  I haven't really taken a professional orchestra job audition, nor do I really aspire to do so.  Going to this rinky dink festival in California has made me get over myself a little bit, because I feel like such a beach fossil compared to some of these kiddies.
In addition to a master life plan for myself, I judge people by their age.  I know, it's perhaps a little shocking, even for me, to admit, but I sometimes have a difficult time taking 18 and 19 year olds seriously.  I have always erred on the side of being old beyond of my age, which often makes communicating with younger people more difficult, and makes me guarded and uppity at times.  This festival has reminded me that now, as an elder in the field of perpetual education, I can't pull that card.  Six or seven years isn't that much of a difference in the end, and these people will most likely end up being my professional colleagues.  Am I going to look down on someone who wins a job at 30 when I'm  40?  Maybe, but the better approach would be to evaluate based on their personality first, rather than age alone.  I'm quick to dismiss young'uns, and while they are still prone to making stupid mistakes from time to time, it would do me some good to take them a bit more seriously.  Everyone moves at their one pace in maturity, so I may be rejecting a friendship with a young wise person.  (Although I still prefer my friends to be born in the 80's.  It's just less unsettling that way.)  I have to remember that many of my own friends are older than me, and were willing to part with their conceived expectations of age and maturity to befriend me.  Now it's my turn to grow up, and be open to all peoples, regardless of their age.  That's not to say that I'm going to go be everyone's friend, it just means that I want to evaluate people on one less level of bias than I already do.  Judging is inevitable, but peeling off the age-ism card is a good one to toss.

On the bright side, I'm thrilled that California has overturned prop 8 and that I'm in the state just as we speak.  

listening to: a little of everything! Looking forward to a trip to Amoeba records in Hollywood next week-a great chance to get lots of used cd's for cheap.