Jens Lekman Has Swine Flu.

Everyone's favorite crooner/charmer Jens Lekman revealed on his blog that he has contracted the Swine Flu. He recounts the tale in perfectly well-written detail:

"I was crossing the Atlantic when things started getting really bad, the fever was hallucinogenic and shaking me like a leaf and I grabbed the sleeve of the Air France steward. "I'm not feeling well, I should see a doctor" I said and the reply came as a brilliant mix of death anxiety and french rudeness: "Uh, yes... Terminal D... go there maybe... when we land". After that the stewards and stewardesses took long detours. A ring of empty seats formed around me. Peoples eyes were kind but determined, they read "Poor you, I really wish you all the best but if you come near me or my kid I will have to stab you with this plastic fork". I got up and went to the bathroom where I fainted.

Now I'm in quarantine for ten days. I can see the summer through my window and it's just perfect. Summer is always best through a window."

Feel better, Jens! ...And maybe write a song about it?

In An Indie Film

Weekend Recap: The Shores of San Pedro

Saturday was one of those banner lazy days wherein much is done, but not much is accomplished, and the day ends with a good beer and a sunburn.

New Orleans' Best Cocktails with Chris McMillian

Someday it's very likely that I'll go to bartending school, just to learn about mixology. Those who know me (even a little bit) know that while I'm not much for cooking or baking, when it comes to alcohol, I'm an apt pupil. Even this weekend I have a new recipe I want to try (Ramos gin fizz), and a growing list of items to get at BevMo on my way home from work.

Until I become professionally schooled in all things alcohol-related, there's always the good ol' trusty Internet, ready and willing to impart all kinds of knowledge about drink making. I discovered this series of videos today while poking around, and I can't stop watching. Chris McMillian has been a bartender in New Orleans longer than I've been drinking, and quite possibly longer than I've been alive. At NOLA.com's blog, he shares 20 video recipes of some of mixology's most classic beverages, including the Ramos fizz and one of my new favorites, the French 75.

Here he schools us non-southerners on one of New Orleans' most famous drinks: The Mint Julep.

Cheers!

Please Refrain From Any Jokes Pertaining To Anyone Being Struck By A Smooth Criminal.

Yes. Yessss Yessss YESSSSSSSSS!

"None of us want to take three years making a record," Butler explained. "It could be that we'll play live [soon] and maybe we'll end up bashing it [another album] out fast. We're in the middle of writing, things are coming together, it's a great feeling."

Apparently, Arcade Fire's making some progress towards more face-meltingly awesome music. Read about it here.

Family Portrait: Take Two

Last year's attempt.

Last summer when my parents were visiting, we attempted to take a family portrait. "Attempt" is the operative word here as we ultimately failed. Sure, we took portraits, and sure, we are a family, but I'm fairly certain the whole point of a family portrait is to stand together stoically and smile (or some semblance thereof). This is a feat at which we routinely fail because it's enough to get us all to congregate in one area but I'm sorry, it is asking FAR TOO MUCH for us to stand still and smile.

My friend Adam was the latest to try and capture that wonderful Dailey Spirit at Jess and Tyler's wedding. As you can see, the only thing we successfully captured was the four of us (minus Jamie, who is home in Oregon) standing semi-still. But a smile? Sir, you're going to have to pay top dollar to see that anytime soon.

We are family. 2009.

Hey, Hamlet

Natalia Brilli is responsible for designing one of the oddest (but definitely coolest) purses I've seen in awhile. To me, this trumps any evening bag or clutch anyone might carry with them for any occasion. I've got my eye on the black leather skull, personally.

Via Refinery 29

Farewell, Jiggly Puff

Over the weekend, we collectively bid adieu to one of Westwood's finest (and considering that it's Westwood, there really are only a handful of people who even make the cut, but to be amongst the finest is a feat unto itself): Graham Hallen.

Graham joined Charlie as his roommate in August last year and proceeded to terrorize our lives during the intervening months. If you never got the chance to meet the guy, you missed out. But here's a quick rundown:

Things Graham Likes

English breakfast

Jiggly Puff

Playing Settlers of Catan

Dollar taco coups

Hookah

Long Beach

Holé Molé

Climbing (he really loves climbing)

Things Graham Doesn't Like

Not eating breakfast

Singing the Jiggly Puff song in front of people

Playing Settlers of Catan with Charlie

Getting his dollar taco coups swiped

Being called a Midwesterner

Reading my blog, unless there's a post about him

So that's our ginger in a nutshell. He's returning to the welcoming womb of the midwest to pursue his Master's, so it was with tearful goodbye's that we released him from the loving bosom of the Pacific.

Graham, you will be missed.

El Jefe: A Love Story. (That Isn't So Much About Love As It Is Who Will Establish Dominance And Ultimately Be The Boss)

When it comes to new roommates, there are really two ways in which the whole thing goes down: Either you're trawling Craigslist for total strangers whose vernacular is limited to speaking in texting parlance and ellipses (I am lo-key..............u would have ur own room...............i only cry at nite.........), or you're already so close with said roommate that you can finish each other's sentences and collectively loathe people for whom the proper way to address another person is with a scantily clad vowel. (Ur not one of those people, obvs.) But I will present a third type of roommate, and this type is of the feline variety - admittedly, a subspecies of Demon that I've yet to experience because I'd said all my Hail Mary's until this point wherein I apparently missed one, and was smote with a new roommate named El Jefe. 

Pear-shaped and orange, he's not entirely unlike my last roommate, except Jess's eyes weren't nearly so buggy and she didn't stare reproachfully at me every time I entered the room, though I suspect she might now because I indirectly inferred that she is both pear-shaped and orange, two attributes which - I assure you - on her, are both delightful and quite fetching. 

El Jefe became part of our lives recently, not by my own volition but I certainly acquiesced to his presence because his master, Kelsey, is Awesome with a capital A, and the thought of dealing with a cantankerous cat seemed far more doable than living with someone whose requirements included that you be "COOL/NORMAL AND SEXY. OR SINGLE MOTHER, IT'S ALL GOOD. SEND ME A PIC AND TELL ME A LIL BIT MORE ABOUT YOURSELVE [sic]." (hous-gavac-1231665883@craigslist.org if you're interested, ladiez.)

Immediately upon his arrival, El Jefe and I set upon the arduous task of establishing dominance within our relationship, a battle not unlike any in which one country invades the other, storms and pillages the townspeople, foists their culture upon said beleaguered losers, and essentially writes history for the next ten-or-so pages of the proverbial textbook, unless you were one of those types who liked to focus entire chapters or books on the subject of a single battle, in which case I guess I'd liken my relationship with El Jefe to The Romans vs. Everyone, but only because I happen to own quite a few pairs of gladiator sandals.

Hey, it is 2009. (And also? That entire paragraph was ONE SENTENCE. ONE! Just one! Hey, Jefe, watch while I dominate grammar and the internets at the same time. Take note, Cat. It's gonna get crazy up in hurre.)

My attempts to show El Jefe who's the boss (in English, natch. Learn the language, Cat.) consist mainly of my petting his head repeatedly until he tries to swat at my hands with his claws. It is at that time that I pull up a Disciplinary Action stored in the vast and imitable archives of my time owning dogs, a D.A. which includes pointing ferociously whilst growling, "NO! NO, EL JEFE! NO!" Thusfar, it's worked about 20.5% of the time, but I'll be damned if that cat doesn't occasionally cower before trying to nip my finger off at the knuckle. 

What's more disturbing than my attempts at establishing dominance with El Jefe are El Jefe's attempts at establishing dominance with me. It took about .5 seconds upon moving in for the Cat to form a terrifyingly powerful affection for my bedroom - a part of the house he is clearly not allowed. The door that was once always open is now always shut, much to his chagrin. Since I live in what used to be a home office, I don't have a proper door in the homeowners' sense, rather, I have a fairly patrician set of French double doors, paned and stacked with glass, offering a stunning view of the living room. It's not uncommon for anything and everything I do in my bedroom to be common knowledge throughout the rest of the house, so that snoring has got to stop. SRSLY. 

However, while I'm used to living life in a fishbowl, I'm not used to anyone in the house caring, or much less paying any heed. And I'm certainly not used to being stare-stalked while I sleep, a practice I've noticed has become a startling routine with El Jefe, who, on more than three occasions this week was the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning. After a yawn and a stretch, I sat up to the beady, contemptuous glare of a cat plotting my demise (from behind glass, though I've no doubt his claws could dig a hole through that windowpane faster than a bride opening her wedding gifts). I've lobbed the icy staredown right back at him, but El Jefe usually bests my efforts easily by way of sheer creepiness. Seriously? Your way of establishing dominance is to wake up in the morning, walk to my bedroom door, and WATCH ME SLEEP? Well, it's working, Cat. It's working. 

I've no doubt this cat has it in for me, and if I go a few days without publishing a post here you might give me a well-timed phone call and inquire about my whereabouts. There's a good chance I'll be someone's fancy feast for at least a few days. 

To the victor go the spoils, after all. 

The Wedding To End All Weddings: Pt. 3

This post will be showcasing the incredible talents of two of the ladies in my life - Jessica Nelson and my sister Jody. Each had a unique role in creating the various 'looks' of the wedding. Jess designed and created necklaces for each of the bridesmaids (more on that later) and Jody made all the dresses.

I'll go into more detail later about each bridesmaid and their look for the day, but for now, here's mine. Jess (whose look was based on a dove) chose birds for all her bridesmaids based on their ornithological meanings. My bird was, appropriately, a hummingbird, which means joy. Jess then took sketches from Tyler's Moleskine and had them laser cut on wood. She took these pieces and created original necklaces for each bridesmaid, to pair with the dresses that Jody designed based on the colors of each bird. I thought it only fitting to add a delightfully off-kilter flower headdress to the look.

The necklace - a harness-type chain vest.

Photos by Adam Sjoberg (pictured, bottom L)

We were also given wooden fans and red weather balloons to carry down the aisle.

Photo by Emily Weiss

The Wedding To End All Weddings: Pt. 2

My dear friend Adam has finally put up a slideshow of Tyler and Jessica's nuptials, and the results are, as predicted, fantastic.

I suggest watching the popout version of the slideshow so you can see it a bit bigger than it is here on this page (if you watch it here, it will be cropped, which is a shame. So pop it out or pop on over to Adam's site). Or you can head on over to Loose Luggage and see it there.

Upon seeing the images, Byron's only comment was, "Seriously...you guys leave me speechless. I can't come up with the word that would describe you, it's like I'm watching an Animal Collective music video."

Quite apropos, I say.

Tyler & Jess get hitched from Adam Sjoberg on Vimeo.

Carwash Video 10-11-08

Carwash Video 10-11-08 from Laurel Dailey on Vimeo.

Sometimes, all you need is $10 and some good music. 

Wake Up

In the summer after I graduated college, I saw the Arcade Fire perform for the first time. They opened for David Byrne in June at the Hollywood Bowl, playing material from their latest release Funeral, and we had killer seats. I was full of defiant optimism, at once terrified and yet determined to take this thing called Life and turn it on its head, to beat it into submission. I had yet to work three jobs - three corporate jobs that would eventually leave me for lack of any better term, dazed and utterly confused. I had yet to watch social groups fracture and filigree and form messy veins that skittered across a map of the U.S. and beyond. I had yet to experience loss of any real kind, and I'd certainly yet to sacrifice a third of my paycheck to any government I refused to pledge allegiance to at the time. In other words, I was a real asshat, brimming to the gills with youthful insouciance and I certainly had never been told, Hey, kid, simmer down. Your self-righteous can-do spirit is on a rampage and it's headed straight for my patience. 

But that's the joy of it all! That can-do spirit went and did it and that night at the show, I wanted to jump out of my skin and conquer the world right then and there. And the thing about the Arcade Fire is that you get the sense that Winn Butler & the gang are right there with you, all muscular energy and visceral, blistering pronouncements. In solidarity you spit out the lyrics, fists beating the fevered night air. In revolt you get your body moving, get your hips swaying to that insurgent sound and you really feel like you can take on the world. All the media, the marketing, the agency big-wigs, the monolithic corporate structures - all of it! Piecemeal! Easily bested! Now here's the moon, it's all right (lies! lies!), and every time you close your eyes (lies! lies!)

You can thank the intervening years, a small handful of them at that, for dulling that vim and vigor, and in some ways I'm all the better for it. But those ways are infinitesimal and what I really miss the most is that kid who said, "I'm going to do it differently." Ideals and hopes and dreams in tow, I was going to beat the system. I was going to see the hand that fed me and rather than biting it, I was going to take its fruits and make a storehouse and with that storehouse I was going to live, really live, and I was going to do it well. No regrets. 

I don't know what happened exactly. Maybe its my inherent distrust of any sort of organized system. Perhaps it was the fact that I was always on the move, always running, always putting distance between myself and any corporate hegemony that sought to co-opt my optimism and manipulate it into something ugly, something disingenuous, something foreign. Contradictorily, I sought security, comfort. I wanted to rest easy but I didn't want to have to work for it. Eventually that parasitic relationship between rebellion and dependence diffused and in doing so, formed an alchemic cocktail of cultural paranoia and corporate skepticism. My misgivings crystallized. The whole thing had "lab accident" written all over it, and like a ticking time bomb I hurtled myself at age 26 and said, "Let's do this. Self-loathing and all."

Something filled up my heart with nothing / Someone told me not to cry.

A week after celebrating the passing of another year, I gathered with a collective of similarly-minded 20-somethings. Huddled like refugees in the darkened basement of a friend's house, burdened though we were with the fringe ideals of 21st-century anarchism yet still too aware of the benevolent rules of an obedient suburbia. Loudly we whispered and quietly we rebelled, our hearts on fire but burning coolly enough as to not wake the neighbors. We had a song to sing, an anthem to bleat toward the ceiling, a desperate plea we hoped would filter its way through the infrastructure and on up, up to the indifferent and starless sky. What we all hoped, more than anything, was for that anthemic battle cry to find its way through the insulating cloud cover. What we all wanted, more than hoped for, was to be free. 

But now that I'm older, my heart is colder and I can see that it's a lie.

With a loosely organized exuberance we clutched our instruments, clumsily beating on anything providing  remote percussiveness. An accordion wailed in the corner and tambourines shivered uneasily. At the mercy of our collective voices, the messy and flagrantly amateur cacophony formed a graceful, lumbering melody. Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up. 

In the dark we filled the spaces between our bodies, between bedposts and corners and shelves. We filled those spaces with our voices and our collective desire to feel something, and for that something to be true. And who cares if that's clichéd? How many times have I abandoned an opportunity to cling to the vestiges of that youthful optimism? How many times has my inherent distrust eroded my ability to desire something? And to hope for it? In that room surrounded by the children of my generation, for the first time since that night at the Hollywood Bowl, I felt the resonance of a dormant optimism, neglected but no less there - down for the count but not out of the match. 

With my lightning bolts a-glowing / I can see where I am going. 

You'd better look out below. 

Are Sweatpants The New Leggings? I Sure Hope So

Alexander Wang SS09

It started with Alexander Wang sending slouchy drop-crotch sweats down the Spring 2009 runway. While everyone else was still atwitter over harem pants, the venerable sweatpant was having a moment - albeit a quiet one - awaiting its time in the ephemeral trend-driven limelight. Then Garance put her two cents in and the Resort 2010 shows followed suit. And now the anti-suit is officially staging a coup on dressy denizens in fashionable cities the world over. So grab last year's black blazer, throw it over a salt-and-pepper pair of fleecy trou and for Heaven's sake, please do wear heels. The time for irreverence is now.

Alexander Wang SS09

Image by Garance Doré

Garance's DIY

Alexander Wang Resort 2010

Rag and Bone Resort 2010

The Wedding To End All Weddings: Pt. 1

Photo by Adam Sjoberg

Well, it's done, kids. The wedding of the year, Tyler and Jessica Kemp's grand picnic party in the park, the official kickoff of summer. It's done gone, and the newlyweds are enjoying their honeymoon in Portland.

So much could be said about the day, even the weekend as a whole, but I could boil it down into one succinct statement to express my feelings about the whole shebang: it was perfect. Right down to the red weather balloons, the candy bar, the badminton, the weather, the people, the Blue Moon keg - all of it was perfect.

My good friend Adam photographed the nuptials and has put up a few teaser images on his blog. Until he reveals the rest of his fantastic documentation of the day, I've culled a few images from around Facebook that were taken the day of in an attempt to somehow portray the awesomeness of the event. Many thanks to those who took these pictures - I stowed my camera for once and enjoyed everything without trying to document every single second. I will be sure to post more images, especially when Adam gives us the photos he took, which are sure to be exceptional.

Enjoy!

The ceremony

The ceremony

The reception

The reception

The after party

Best Week: A Week Of Style With Mr. Mac Feller

As the most loyal of readers are aware, I spend a good amount of time on this blog talking about fashion with a capital F. Granted, Blinking Against The Brightness is not a Fashion Blog, capitals F and B. I want the freedom to be able to discuss other matters on here such as music, photography, rants, melon, and cockroaches - among many other worthy topics. All important, you understand.

But, try as I might, I can't only discuss politics or rant about fruit because fashion, to me, is undeniable. And who am I to deny a topic so diverse and loaded with exciting possibility? Far be it!

So I've decided to introduce a new feature to the blog, one that will undoubtedly develop as time goes on. It comes as an unintentional (but nevertheless apropos) third part in my trilogy on guy style (see parts one and two). On occasion, I'd like to feature a friend or acquaintance whose style I feel surpasses being merely good and has rocketed into the outer orbits of fantastic. My first subject is a certain Mac Feller, a coworker of mine at QS. Despite working in an environment that accepts bare feet and boardshorts - in utter defiance of the venerable "business casual"- Mac nevertheless turns it out every single day, proving that good style has very little to do with your surroundings. I thought Mac would be a worthy candidate whose personal style is a perfect example of how looking good doesn't require following every harebrained trend or investing countless dollers or time in perfecting a "look."

Since we've been shooting his division this month, I snapped an image of Mac's sartorial choices every day this week and have compiled those images as well as a short interview here for your stylish education.

Enjoy!

1. Do you have any favorite brands / places to shop?
Carolina Herrera – always classic, good quality. Campo Marzio, Rome – for woven shirts. Davide Cenci, Rome – for suits and coats. Hackett in London. All this sounds extremely snobby, but I lived there and travelled to Italy often, so I bought nice clothes there. Even today, I buy very little here, besides Carolina Herrera and J. Crew. Otherwise, I wait for my next trip, then get new clothes. I have clothes I still wear weekly that I have owned now for close to ten years, and I still love them.
2. So who is really responsible for your dashing wardrobe? If you had to assign a percentage to it, how much of it is Mac Feller and how much of it is Mrs. Mac Feller?
Mrs. Mac Feller has the eye, but I have learned from her. I am somewhat colour-blind, so she helps me quite a bit. I could wish I had half her style sense.
3. Name one thing you wish more men would wear.
Clothes that fit properly.
4. Compare/Contrast: Mac Feller’s style today and Mac Feller’s style ten years ago.
I used to do a lot of shopping at thrift stores. I had an eclectic look of poorly fitted clothes. I still liked the classics, 50s and 60s looks, so I haven’t strayed far from classics. After having lived overseas, I just wanted to look classic Italian or English. I am a wannabe.
5. Any style advice for the fellas out there?
Timeless looks never go out of style. But, don’t listen to me, as I sound like an enormously pompous fool.