Weekend Recap: A Few From Two Weekends Ago

In the flurry of my poor, poor Mac pitching a hideously ill-timed snit fit, I've lost nearly all momentum in blogging about my last four-day weekend. But I'll try to muster the strength to say a few words, however, and share a few pictures.

On Friday, the weather was dreary (as it is wont to be in the wintertime, even here in LA - try not to die of shock, The Rest Of America, okay?) but Ashley and I were determined not to let that bother us. We bundled up properly (you'd be surprised how many times I find myself caught in the rain in vertiginous heels and a t-shirt - not exactly cold-weather-friendly) and set out to 4th St. for some vintage shopping and wine tasting. Where once there were no places selling alcohol between O'Connells and The Pike, now there are not just one but two wine bars on Retro Row. It's enviously cool have that many places within walking distance to get pleasantly buzzed, right?

I picked up a life-threatening-looking ring from Na La La on 4th and Ashley and I let a couple glasses of pinot warm our chests while the rain fell outside.

At about the time we hit the last few crumbs of our cheese plate, Tyler called begging us to come to Disneyland with he and Jess. So we did. And we bought passes. I was (and continue to be) thrilled to finally have a pass again. I used to go all the time in college and a couple of years after, so it's nice to have an excuse to go run around like a kid again.

On Saturday, Ashley, Jody and I set out to explore somewhere new in LA. Ashley suggested we visit the UCLA campus, so that's exactly what we did (well, after sampling macaróns at Paulette and meeting Graham at Urth). Here are a few shots from our photo safari:

All in all, it was an excellent weekend and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to recap. The coming weekend promises all sorts of adventures, so stay tuned. I know the blogging's been minimal this week, but never fear, my little lambs. I'll be back in the swing of things soon enough.

Quotables

"In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to know that white people like anything that old writers and artists liked: typewriters, journals, suicide, heroin, and trains are just a few examples."

- Stuff White People Like: Moleskin notebooks

MinkPink Summer and Winter 2009

Absolutely gorgeous. I love the way this makes basic black look summery. See more here.

Safari 4

Awhile back, I tried to switch to Firefox. I really did. I gave it a solid tw0-week effort and something about it just didn't stick. So I switched back to Safari and I've never looked back. Especially now that Safari 4 is available for download. How cool is the "top sites" feature?

Answer: SO cool.

If you're a curmudgeonly old coot like me and refuse to switch to Firefox, go download the latest version of Safari. I promise you won't regret it. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN, KIDS!

Topshop Unique - THAT shoe

Gasp! Covet!

Anyone have $200 lying around? 

Knighthood

Sigh.

I know.

Not much blogging this week. Hush, you. I know. But my Mac is still kaput so the progress is slow. I still have a Weekend Recap coming (including but not limited to: Macaróns! Disneyland! The United States of Tara! Funny Games! Heart-stopping chills of the weather-related variety!), but until I'm able to recover files from my idiot Sad Mac, you'll have to settle for some ruminations of a highly scattered variety:

• If you haven't downloaded the fourth issue of The Printed Blog yet, go do it. 
• I have this disclaimer on my Facebook page: "No offense, but I'm not going to join your cause, accept your wizardry invitation, add your application, throw back your snowball, knight your elf, or compare movies. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." And STILL the invitations persist. So perhaps in a more public alternate platform I'll say again: NOT. GOING. TO HAPPEN. So stop asking. No, really. I will un-friend you. Brutal, yes, but necessary sometimes. 
• Does Andrew Bird really need a backing band? Aside from Dosh's contributions, which are vast and varied and much appreciated, I just can't see how having other instrumentalists up there does anything to augment his performance. Your thoughts?
• Buy Dark Was The Night. 

'Tis all, loves. I'll resume normal blogging soon, I promise. 

A Soundtrack for the Daily Drive

My roommate Jess is the one who started this, I think. But basically, in my iTunes I'll compile mixes based on the month and  year - no specific order, no specific theme, just an aural journal entry to what I'm listening to at the moment. It's cool to go back to a certain month because so much of what I listen to becomes evocative of the time when I listened to it. 

For example, in March 2008 I was listening to all the various versions of Grizzly Bear's "Knife" because I was learning it on the guitar at the time. In July I was listening to Fleet Foxes' "Mykonos" and The Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'" because I was convinced I was going to somehow do a mashup of those two songs (despite having very little experience doing anything of the sort). November was a mellow month, due in part, I'm sure, to the onset of Winter (or the closest facsimile thereof here in LA). 

And so on.

So in case you were wondering, here's my February 2009 mix so far. It's a mix of new music, older music, and new-to-me music, and since I'm feeling a bit rowdy this month, the upbeat tempo reflects that fact:

"Kiss With A Fist" - Florence And The Machine

"Young Adult Friction" - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

"I'm Confused" - Handsome Furs

"The Rake's Song" - The Decemberists

"Silver Moon" - Blitzen Trapper

"The Sound" - Human Highway

"People Got a Lot of Nerve" - Neko Case

"Anonanimal" - Andrew Bird

"Everyday" - Vetiver

"My Girls" - Animal Collective

"Needle in the Camel's Eye" - Brian Eno

"Captain Pasty" - Black Francis

"Knotty Pine" - David Byrne & The Dirty Projectors 

"Sleepyhead" - Passion Pit

What are you listening to right now?

Lamenting The Prognosis

My friend Ryan is a Mac guy, too. He feels my pain. 

LD: It's frustrating because they don't explain anything to you along the way. I get that I'm the idiot and he's the expert but I'd really appreciate knowing WHY I'm doing what I'm doing, or what the diagnosis might be along the way, you know?

RG: haha they just don't have a threshold for people that understand if you explain it. Most people just want it fixed, so they cater to that person.

LD: Yeah, so true. And I GET that, but I'm also like, okay, dude? this is my MAC, here. it's the most personal thing I own. you could be more colloquial or at least by contrast, technical. I can take it. I mean you could be more vague if you were talking about my health, sure, but this is my MAC!

It's like he's asking me to reset my brain, and I'm like, wait a minute, what about the MEMORIES?!

RG: That's the worst feeling ever. Resigning yourself to start over. Every time it's happened to me, I can't even get on my computer once it's fixed. I just have to take a moment to cleanse myself of technology. It's like a mourning process. 

The Next Level

When I told Jen I bought a ring on eBay, she commented that she was expecting something huge with either fur or an animal. I told her, "No, better. Or worse, depending on your point of view."

I'll let you decide. 

Suffering Under the Ruthless Tyranny of the Sad Mac

Hey all. Whoosh, back from the long weekend, and boy, are my arms tired. Yuk, yuk, yuk. 

No, but seriously. I have stories and pictures galore from the 4-day extravaganza, but I woke up yesterday morning to a Sad Mac (or rather, evil, sniveling, vindictive Mac), so until I get that issue sorted out (and by "sorted out" I mean, until either Mac decides to shape up or I plant a 4-inch heel in his sad sack monitor face. Whichever comes first), you'll have to imagine what kinds of adventures I found myself in over the weekend. (Which may have included a bloody-knuckles discussion about Grey's Anatomy and Twin Peaks, an altercation I promised I wouldn't blog about, so I won't - I promise, in fact, look at me NOT blogging about it right now. Mum's the word.)

In the meantime, our Color Manager brought in a puppy today and he is currently cute-ing all over the studio and this is the third time today my head has exploded from The Cuteness. 

Expect regular correspondence to resume post haste. 

Shred

Scoped this on Lookbook.nu...loved the Aussie Summer-in-our-Winter vibe and the deconstructed denim this lady dons so well. 

Lou Doillon for Vanessa Bruno

Lovely Birkin spawn Lou Doillon models in the Spring 2009 lookbook for Vanessa Bruno.

Uh, okay...

In the topographical landscape of his life, this will surely go down as one of Joaquin's valleys, no? 

Rebel Chic

This Harpers Bazaar UK editorial from November 2008 (shot by Alexei Hay) is easily one of the better bits of styling I've seen in awhile. I love mix of plaids, stripes, tweeds, and other interesting textures. And the shoes, predictably, are killer. 

Quotables

"The freaky faith thing won, but the science squad got Montand's arm for a door prize. You saw that, right? They ripped off his arm. Again: They. Ripped. Off. His. Arm. I gasped, and my mouth hung open for many minutes afterward. And then, when it could move again, I smiled and said aloud, ''Man, do I f---ing love this show.'' Ripped his arm off! I'm still giggling."

- Doc Jensen's recap of last night's Lost.

Current/Elliott Resort and Spring 2009

They may seem odd, but these Current/Elliott "victorian drawers" from Resort 2009 are the coolest thing I've seen all week.

Who knew denim could be so versatile?