yasus yasus kalinikta

Music Review One: Fool's Gold

2009-07-06T20:27:00.017-04:00

The album opens with a cantina scene. SURPRISE! It’s a party. For you. Look, they’re bringing a cake, and this is the song they are singing as they shove too-sweet vanilla cake from the box into your mouth, smearing a rainbow of sprinkle-dyed frosting across your face. You wish: I wish I was in a small island country, with moonshine, dominoes, and donkeys. You think: Actually I am at a bar, there aren’t that many attractive men here. At least the music is good. And you retreat back into yourself and start dancing.

Was that you’re first Fool’s Gold experience? That was my fantasy first Fool’s Gold experience. Actually, the first song on the album is called Surprise Hotel, not surprise party. The repetitive gleeful, sincere, shamanistic melodies of their first, debut album will transport you to your favorite birthday party fantasy. You think you understand: I know what he’s singing. He’s singing to me. He’s singing about how I feel. Then you realize he is singing another language. The familiar serenades that you were making up words to continue. You continue to make up words. You start thinking of intricate dance choreographies that will go with the next song: Nadine. But you thought he was singing “love it to be not so” or “love to peanut so.” You know he sings neither, but you nevertheless connect with the music. You wish you wore your full African outfit, headdress and all.

For a moment you think you are having an authentic afro-pop experience. You think, I am at the 1985 Live Aid Concert. This band went on just after U2. You start clapping. Clapping! Such a basal human urge! People have been clapping since the dawn of time. Now you are clapping. And singing. You can’t help it. You don’t know the lyrics, but you sing anyway, or hum, or both. Sing and hum. Yeah. Sometimes they just hum too. A band of hummers. You continue the fantasy that you are at the 1985 Live Aid Concert.

Later in the album, you begin to think: Wait, am I at a the 1985 Live Aid concert, or is this a coke inspired dance floor fantasy that I have concocted in the last 30 minutes as I have been coked out of my mind and dancing my ass off with that not-so-attractive also coked-up sweaty guy I met in the line for the bathroom?

So you once again turn inwards and chant the with the next song: Poseidon. And you dance like you are in the sea, pretending to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid. And you are one with the tides of the ocean....

****

Today, I was very lucky in the morning to get the new Fool's Gold album straight to my email (I'm such a bad blog writer, I don't even know what it's called- maybe they haven't named it yet?).

Anyways, if you didn't have the pleasure of watching FG for weeks on end at their residency at the Echo in LA last April, please note the greatness of the band called Fool's Gold. Conjuring the spirit of David Byrne impersonating the best of Fela Kuti and other Afro-pop All Stars, this gay group of gentlemen (and one lady) enthuse audiences time after time (I literally think I've seen them play about 14 times and I still enjoy the show in a genuine "I'm having a lot of fun" sense...). They have a few wonderful wonderful songs, perfect for dancing, cleaning, working, driving, partying, flipping pancakes, or any other more elaborate fantasy that you may want to conjure up.

Luke Top sings in Hebrew, which is totally hot– in general, guys singing in other languages is hot– and everyone else who plays in the band emulates the "way-groovy", good vibes. The best thing about this band is that it is so large (oscillating between 8 and 12 people) that it will inevitably remain a party band. Though much of the essence of Fool's Gold is the gimmick (that's why they're called Fool's Gold, right?)– the mysterious Hebrew lyrics – the Talking Heads circa Tom Tom Club super-party vibe – the classic beats of Afro-pop – the appeal of cute hipster boys playing world music in linen suites – the music remains very catchy and a great pick. Fave tracks: Nadine, Poseidon.

Unfortunately, the only song for MP3 download on the web is the previously linked surprise hotel, which I like, but is not my favorite, favorite, but since I don't want to poach sales, I won't post any more. Perhaps they will post more on their myspace. Album set to release September....

Police Lineup by Ben Gallardo

In other news, they are selling real gold from vending machines across Europe. In case you were wondering where you could get some. I yearn for the day when I carry golden nuggets in my pocket. I will have a file, so I can file some off to pay for something.

Back to WORK

2009-07-03T23:53:00.016-04:00

Afternoon, Tokyo, Japan, 2005

Tree Garden, Tokyo, Japan, 2005

Rock Slide, Bolinas, California, 2009

Lagoon, Big Sur, California, 2009

Untitled I, Pan American Flight, 2006

Untitled II (Vessel), Pan American Flight, 2006

Untitled III (Tracks), Pan American Flight, 2006

Untitled IV (Peaks), Pan American Flight, 2006

Untitled (Trees), Pico Canyon, California, 2008

Towsley Canyon, California, 2009

Untitled Still Life, Claremont, California, 2009

Tree Wrappers, Kyoto, Japan, 2005

Untitled Still Life (Grass Lake), Pico Canyon, California, 2009

Untitled V (Dark Canyon), Pan American Flight, 2006

This is my photo portfolio that I aim to translate into new work in other media. I am currently debating how I should progress. I am thinking of making dioramas. I remain obsessed with Kim Keever.

Kim Keever's studio

I like the idea of making something that can be seen and interpreted from different views (I'm all about the PARALLAX VIEW). My goal is to produce a number of projects by the end of this year. I am cultivating my brain studio right now and setting forth with goals and things I need:

studio space
notebooks
music
blog
coffee
wine
beer
tea
critics
cinema
theory

I am amassing these slowly but surely! All I need is more substances of interest and late night privacy. I am going to start staying up very very late.

Now that it is summer, I am having familiar productive/destructive feelings and rhythms. Movie watching, afternoon drinking, bad 80's and 90's pop hits. Oh they go together so so well. And of course the creativity is already writhing and riveting in and through my veins. (I think)

Today, in the midst of my late-night-partying-induced slowness, I had to dig up some of the ugliest, most potent of the 80's/90's pop elixer:

Wicked Games, Oh my.
I don't know what I Got Til It's Gone
And then I also got a hankering for that Extreme song, More than Words.

And it feels so good.

back back back!

2009-04-19T00:23:00.006-04:00

just images for now.

prORASTINATE

2007-05-23T19:38:00.000-04:00

i am procrastinating right now, because i need to do work and i just don't want to. things i did today to procrastinate:
sat in tompkins park
walked to union square
walked around farmers market buying cookies and pretending to buy plants
found new friends on myspace
read about monkeys getting the bubonic plague 3x (3 different articles)
read gossip blog
talked on phone
found annoying upstairs neighbors on myspace because they left a flyer on my door

thats alot of procrastinating!!!!
now, i have also made a procrastination appointment for tomorrow already, by setting up a meeting with a designer who is making her own stuff, rather than making the dress that i am supposed to be designing:

below i can illustrate the problem with the pattern that i need to fix and then apply to the design:

yes, and more of a problem when your client does not live in the same place as you. please don't laugh.

funny things i saw today:
cute squirrel
cute dog
my best friends dad's band's myspace page with this picture!

good bye blues, hello

2007-05-16T18:36:00.000-04:00

i am convinced that my boyfriend spends a good portion of his work day looking up cat humor videos on youtube. i want to compete too. i am researching baby videos. blomb!

i mean, when you hate your job, you kind of have to reach out to the child humor in you and just release. r e l eeeese

The Landlord

oh guess what?!????

2007-05-16T17:54:00.000-04:00

well, since its almost summer again, and i have decided i hate my job, i guess it's time to have a blog again! i need to brush up on my brain skills, such as writing and being creative, and maybe, just maybe, alex is with me?
alot of stuff has happened since we were regular with the blog. i am a little saddened that i wasn't around to comment on the worst 6 months of the bush administration. i also decided that i hate my job because it is a new lame corporate job full of jaded over 28s that have lost all sight of humor/humanity. lame!
up and coming in the next few months are exciting things though. i will be finishing a wedding dress for dear friend denise. i will also be finishing the new line of jewelry i am doing, which is much better and more interesting than the last.
there was exciting things in the news today too!

the news brief:
• a 10 week, oh wait, no, month, sorry, old baby was issued a gun license in illinois, despite "strict" gun laws. cool!
• there was a thunderstorm!
• wolfowish could be wishing his way out of the world bank today!!! sweet. not quite just, but anything to get him out, really.
• a super awesome giant turtle with a soft shell was found in cambodia. they thought it was extinct! it doesn't even have a wikipedia page! so giant, so soft.

new to science animal post:
• they found new animals in antarctica, and of course, they are super awesome. (all animals who live in cold, dark places tend to be similarly awesome.)

2007-02-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

2007: All Secrets Revealed!!

2006-12-17T17:47:00.000-05:00

happy winter!

2006-12-17T17:43:00.000-05:00

2006-12-07T22:31:00.000-05:00

2006-12-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

i found this picture of my mom in a book. it blew my mind.

a new level

2006-11-16T16:53:00.000-05:00

aparently the germans are WAY ahead of us in terms of a woman's right to choose, in this amazing article from the bbc,
"A doctor who carried out a failed contraceptive operation has been ordered by a German court to pay financial support for the child."
that means 600 euros a month for 18 years, in case you are wondering.

new world order

2006-11-16T15:44:00.000-05:00

things are really turning around in this country- first the democrats win the house, next they take the senate, i mean, what more could we ask for? it seems like every day there is something new to celebrate! this morning i read this good news: jack abramoff will spend the next six months performing menial tasks and living in a 6 person dormitory. has he become a male model? no. does anyone else see the potential jack-in-the-box commercial here? i guess they don't really have jack in the box on the east coast, but .... i bet he'd do anything to make a little bling while in the slammer! (please consult these emails in order to properly understand ja's earning potential)

well, OOOCHA!!!!!!!!
the old guard is on its way out and the loving, caring, socialists and populists are standing in the minor shadows, ready to come out and hack the conservative reptillian aliens to pieces.

today, for instance, milton friedman died. aparently, according to this short article, milton says, "there's no such thing as a free lunch." um, it's called "your nice friends invited you over and fed you." or, "you have a nice garden in your backyard." or, "chairity".

nancy pelosi is going to be the 1st woman speaker of the house in HIStory. awesome. she says, "i am a person commited to ending this war." AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE SHE WILL BE SECOND IN THE PRESIDENTIAL LINE OF SUCCESSION AFTER THE VICE PRESIDENT. please god, please.

2006-10-31T10:31:00.000-05:00

lookie here! it looks like alex is coming out of her blog coma and putting out some "quality product". alex, does this mean you are back for good???
i moved this weekend which was very dramatic, considering the massive amounts of questionably valuble worldy posessions i have accumulated. for instance, a giant box of yarn? a giant bag of fabric? there are so many more of those floating around the usa with my name on it, i question the value of such fodder... the best thing that i have collected in the recent move are plants, of which i now have 6. i would like to name all my plants, please feel free to make suggestions.
the move was dramatic because uhaul didn't have any trucks like our reservation said they would, which led to lots of phone calls in vain (we refused to go to east new york). then, the loading and unloading of the van, from that i learned to love my 1 floor walkup. for the most dramatic part of the story: finally, when we had unleaded everything but the tv from the van, the door of the building blew shut, and we were left on the street with no keys a poor prospects of reentry. luckily, emilio was brave and spry, climbing over three buildings to enter through our back window. ta-da!
in more mundane reading-news, they finally put the last part of this horrible story in harpers, so i could finish it even though i wasn't really enjoying it. sometimes i think harpers is a little insular in the ideas from which it is fed content.
i have started drinking liquorice tea with soymilk. it is delicious. it tastes like chai. it was my own innovation, of that i am very proud of. alex, do you want some liquorice tea with soymilk?

farm

2006-10-19T21:29:00.000-04:00

these are pictures from my farm, summer, and the beginning of fall!

rehashing burnt out hash hashup

2006-09-06T12:59:00.000-04:00

last night i got a myspace message from a guy i met on the internet when i was 12 (went something like, "um i think you still have some of my sonic youth cds....."). this made me think about my relationship with the internet, and how i need to put more effort in so that we don't break up. please internet, don't break up with me. i love you. you are so insane.
it has been aproximately 2 months since i have visited my blog. alex has also been away. we have been renovating our lives, so hopefully the new design will be even more appealing.
things i have done recently that i had not done before:
* used a torrent to download information
* admitted fault in a shameful situation
* visited a friend for the first time
* walked aimlessly around ny
* bought an art book in nyc
* looked at an apartment by myself
* registered at community college
very different.
things that happened while i was away:
exciting visit to my sister.
full house shake up.
intense introspection about my professional life.
new clothes.
housesitting in v. v. nice brownstone (close association with animals).
short visits with alex.
intense exploration of downtown brooklyn.
here are some pictures that came from my summer family time fling starring my sister delia, my dad ivan, me as myself and my two nieces, julia and simone:

playing in water

children's museum, pittsburgh, pa

dancing
children's museum, pittsburgh, pa

swinging
park made from tires, pittsburgh, pa

looking Tuff
private residence, murrysville, pa

don't call it a come back,

2006-08-08T17:08:00.000-04:00

SHE'S BEEN HERE FOR YEARS!

so there've been manatee sightings off harlem, westchester, all over the hudson river.
you can read about it from the nyt:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/nyregion/07manatee.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

people used to think manatees were mermaids, when they got peeks at them basking on rocks,
because of their smooth, luminous skin, and two boobs (like dolphins?)
they're even in the order of Sirenia.
they can weigh up to 1000 kg, though.... damn, girl!
they carry their young cradled in their arms, much as a human would carry a baby.

it has even been posited that the traditional image of a mermaid with long flowing hair could be attributed to manatees breaking the ocean surface underneath patches of seaweed, and giving the unfamiliar observer the impression of having long hair.

going back to the aquatic ape theory, before 546 B.C., the Milesian philosopher Anaximander proposed that mankind had sprung from an aquatic species of animal (no doubt influenced by the sailors tales of a humanoid sea creature, beguiling them on voyages with it's feminine allure). he thought that man, with his extended infancy could not have survived, originally, in the manner he does presently.

manatees are slow moving, non-aggressive, and curious creatures, hence their nick name, the 'sea cow.'

look how cute!

elf toddle

2006-08-08T13:27:00.000-04:00

americanelf.com, every day

el comandante: >[]

2006-08-02T10:55:00.000-04:00

my sweet boyfriend shows me cool stuff on the internet all the time. the other day we:
found a new skin for my firefox browser: PIMPZILLA
_and_
played text adventure games like hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
wierdly both of these sites are from the netherlands! i am so happy these nerdy dutch people are so fucking cool.
look how fun!

in other news, time is running out to visit cuba under castro. i NEED to go. i will write more about plans soon.
viva el comandante!

2006-08-01T14:26:00.000-04:00

2006-08-01T10:36:00.000-04:00

olden daze!

2006-07-30T16:19:00.000-04:00

2006-07-29T15:36:00.000-04:00

AMERICA ******

NOT AMERICA ******

the only newsflash i can handle

2006-07-28T15:53:00.000-04:00

tame foxes!!!! did you look at the videos of the foxes being excited to see the lady. i am literally eating my heart out! oh if only i had the foresight to be a russian wildlife biologist, i could have silver foxes scampering and fussing to be picked up and loved!! oh, the abject horror of this existential mistake. seriously, though, those tame foxes are unbelievably cute. thanx, neil, for the heads up. i'm doubtless gonna be fantasizing about it all day... i'd name mine nooshi, czar czar, and sash.... umm, wait. i've watched both the "tame" fox videos a couple times, and i'm beginning to feel more conflicted. kind of queasy about it, you know? those wild hearts have been tamed. is that worth the fox kisses and sweet yelps? i feel kind of shameful watching their debased subjection to the (kind) researcher. i can't help but be reminded of the Scandal hit, 'the Warrior,' and it's message of undomesticated love;

You run, run, run away
It's your heart that you betray
Feeding on your hungry eyes
I bet you're not so civilized

Well isn't love primitive
A wild gift that you wanna give
Break out of captivity
And follow me stereo jungle child

Love is the kill
Your heart's still wild
...............................

You talk, talk, you talk too me
Your eyes touch me physically
Stay with me we'll take the night
As passion takes another bite,

oh Who's the hunter, who's the game
I feel the beat call your name
I hold you close in victory

I don't wanna tame your animal style
You won't be caged in the call of the wild

dannng........ if there's anything i've learned this year, it's not to try to cage something that was born free. i think kate bush said it best:

I found a fox
Caught by dogs.
He let me take him in my hands.

His little heart,
It beats so fast,
And I'm ashamed of running away

From nothing real--
I just can't deal with this,
But I'm still afraid to be there,

Among your hounds of love,

And feel your arms surround me.

I've always been a coward,

And never know what's good for me.

i'll have to figure this out more later.

liz i'm going to even try to describe our day at the ymca after your account. oh, jimmy and ryan say 'wazzup... ohhhhh, SNAP!'

2006-07-28T14:17:00.000-04:00

our pet fox comes with us on our missions