Archive for July, 2009
Thursday 30 July 2009: Recycle LACMA
In hot hot hot on July 30, 2009 at 11:13 pmI just posted about this over at marquandblog.com, but it’s such a cool project I want to post on Weatherspoon as well. There’s an artist from Los Angeles called Robert Fontenot. After hearing that LACMA was deaccessioning more than 100 costume and textile collection items he bought up about half of them and is wonderfully re-imagining the objects. From Turkish textile to wastebasket, coat to kite, and skirt to dog bed, he’s about half-way through the project. You can follow along on Fontenot’s blog, here.
By the way, I have little desire to live in LA, except that I’m pretty sure that everything LACMA does is brilliant. Their ask a curator series, blog, and Twitter page are all addictive. My company just produced a book for a LACMA show up now called Your Bright Future profiling contemporary Korean artists, and the whole exhibit looks so interactive and interesting that I’m tempted to pop on Virgin Air this weekend and fly to LA just to go to the museum.
Wednesday 29 July 2009: Want to go to a movie?
In hot hot hot, record breaking on July 29, 2009 at 11:50 pmIt’s the hottest 29 July ever recorded in Seattle–reached 102 degrees a while ago. Can’t believe I’m pregnant.
| Sea-Tac | Everett | Olympia | Bremerton | |
| 7 a.m. | 75 | 79 | 68 | 79 |
| 8 a.m. | 82 | 83 | 75 | 81 |
| 9 a.m. | 88 | 86 | 81 | 84 |
| 10 a.m. | 93 | 89 | 83 | 90 |
| 11 a.m. | 90 | 93 | 86 | 91 |
| 12 noon | 93 | 95 | 90 | 93 |
| 1 p.m. | 96 | 96 | 95 | 97 |
| 2 p.m. | 99 | 98 | 98 | 99 |
| 3 p.m. | 101* | 98 | 101 | 100 |
| 4 p.m. | 102 | 98 | 104 | 100 |
| Source: National Weather Service | ||||
| * Sea-Tac recorded 102 degrees between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. | ||||
Tuesday 28 July 2009: We may be in a heatwave, but I’m still hungry
In hot hot hot, muggy on July 29, 2009 at 12:02 amI’m ignoring the heatwave in Seattle, even though I’m pretty sure my swollen feet and snotty nose aren’t. To cope, I’m listening to a lot more radio stories this week.
I’m usually uninspired by Bob Mondello’s film reviews, but I loved today’s piece on All Things Considered called Food On Film: The Famished And The Fabulous. I think I’ve seen all of the movies he mentions at least once. Have a listen.
Monday 27 July 2009: Dining Room
In sunny on July 28, 2009 at 12:16 amI don’t want to be rich, I just want to live in a house with a really big dining room that fits a table like this:
Friday 24 July 2009: Kind of Serendipitously
In sunny on July 24, 2009 at 11:02 pmIf you haven’t, please watch I Like Killing Flies, the 2004 documentary on Shopsin’s, the famous NYC diner beefed up by loud-mouthed, warm-hearted, made-in-Manhattan owner/opinionator Kenny Shopsin.
Here’s the man himself making mac and cheese pancakes for the NYT:
As if Kenny isn’t cool enough, check out his graphic designer daughter’s on-line store, Novitas Aetatem. Can somebody buy me the bacon scarf, please?
Thursday 23 November 2009: Beer me
In cloudy on July 24, 2009 at 5:39 amWarm water and butterscotch cake. My father in law fell asleep on the couch until his daughter told him how much her chiffon wedding cake costs.
Wednesday 22 July 2009: Handshake with Herb
In hot hot hot, sunny on July 22, 2009 at 10:19 pmMy parents were a day away from buying a house on Quail Canyon Drive. This was northern Indiana. No quails or canyons naturally existed for hundreds of miles, mind you. The house is lassoed in blue below.
A few years later, when I was a senior in high school we almost bought this other place on Sweet Blossom Court. My dad had an official handshake with Herb, the subdivision’s builder, as an unwritten expression of the deal. When my parents pulled the offer later, dad got a very tart letter explaining that the arrangement was legally banished. Including the handshake with Herb. This other place is in yellow below.
I found these almost-homes on Google maps, even though I had no good reason to go looking for them and I’m glad we never ended up in either place. My real street had a real name that had to do with trees, which we really had.
Except that it’s still new to me–seeing the tip tops of places I’ve been inside of, known the smell of–whenever I want.
Tuesday 21 July 2009: Waterloo
In Uncategorized on July 21, 2009 at 11:10 pmBad: How Ricki Lake can be the earthy, intervention-free birth advocate we see in The Business of Being Born one minute, and the US Weekly bikini body, host of VHI’s Charm School the next.
Worse: How I justify watching Charm School like once a week on average, because it’s 3 p.m., and I’m at the gym, and the tv’s giving me three options–sports, Wolf Blitzer, or Go Ricki.
Monday 20 July 2009: Face Like a Blessing
In Uncategorized on July 20, 2009 at 11:54 pmI love Jasmine Park from Pike/Pine’s new blog, Face Like a Blessing. It’s such a simple and humanizing idea, photographing interesting, memorable faces.
Thursday 16 July 2009: Baby Makes Three
In sunny on July 17, 2009 at 12:25 amIt’s a boy!
Please tell me you have some good name suggestions, I’m plumb out of ideas.
Wednesday 15 July 2009: Noctilucent Clouds
In cloudy, sunny on July 15, 2009 at 11:35 pmCliff Mass explains that last night, Seattle did dishes and walked dogs under the highest clouds in the world:
These are ice clouds that form on dust, probably produced by meteors. Such clouds often have a silvery or bluish color, and a ragged look. So on the next few clear nights take a look during twilight and see if you can spot them.
I’ll be on the look out for more noctilucent clouds tonight.
Tuesday July 14 2009: Truly Truly Truly
In sunny on July 14, 2009 at 11:58 pmThis Thursday, my dear friend Gala Bent is in a group show at the SAM Gallery. An example of her work–all of which I’m pretty sure is a purple heart perched on a lamp stand, only truer–is featured on the flyer:
Summer Introductions: Seattle Art Museum Gallery
Opening: Thursday, July 16th, 5-7pm / Hours: Tuesday through Friday 10:30 am to 5 pm
Our annual Summer Introductions show features eight artists who are new to SAM Gallery. This summer’s artists are Gala Bent, Mary Margaret Briggs, Andrée B. Carter, Garek J. Druss, Grant Hottle, Jason Larsen, Andrea Schwartz-Feit and Liz Tran.
Located east of the Seattle Art Museum at Third Avenue and University Street in downtown Seattle.
Monday 13 July 2009: Vashon Island
In Uncategorized on July 13, 2009 at 11:56 pmHere’s one way to spend Friday afternoon. Head for the ferry from downtown Seattle at noon, to Vashon by 1. Lunch at the Monkey Tree, beach-combing, coffee, lavender farm. Back in the city by five.
Thursday 9 July 2009: Make it a Double
In sunny on July 9, 2009 at 9:13 pmI can’t go back to the midwestern house I grew up in, but I can go to my parent’s condo for dinner every week in Wallingford. Which is sort-of the same, only without the our-house smell, and without my well-preserved old room, and without a yard.
I’m certain my mother has read more about my pregnancy than I have. Being a mother, she’s also very aware of anything that might not be good for the baby. Like booze, for example. But the thing is, I tell her, when you cook with booze for an hour or so, the alcohol cooks out and the flavor sticks around.
“But you can never be too careful,” mom says.
She went to the store after work recently and bought ingredients to make spinach lasagna for our Tuesday dinner. Everything was assembled and saran-wrapped in time for the 10:00 news. But before she could sit down, the story goes, she gasped.
“I used vodka sauce for the lasagna,” she told me over the phone. She started imaging the baby drowning in a saucy, eye rubbing mess. So it was back to the store, then up until midnight making another lasagna with plain red sauce. She never baked the vodka lasagna.
I can see my dad plopping this perfectly good casserole in a trash bag, then holding the hot plastic at an arm’s reach and grumbling all the way to the trash bin.
Even so, I think my mother has a good shot at being a better mother than I’m ever going to be. Because she thinks of everything, in case. Even if it’s ridiculous.
Wednesday 8 July 2009: Black Swan Green
In chilly, cloudy, windy on July 8, 2009 at 11:16 pmSeems like I was asleep more than awake for the first few months of my pregnancy, so my regular reading pattern slipped. But a very cool thing happened last week, one that hasn’t for a long while. I started reading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) and I couldn’t stop turning the page.
I don’t really want to tell you what the book is about, or why it’s worth you reading, because all you need to know is that this is the sort of book that you don’t have to make time to read. You’ll think about it before going to bed at night (especially if you grew up in the 80s, when dads seemed much more grown up than 2009 dads) and you’ll want to hold off on making dinner to read another chapter.
Whenever I finish a paperback I slam it on the ground really hard. Just to say that what’s done is done. But sometimes, and in the case of Black Swan Green this will certainly be true, it’s because I really loved reading it, being in a certain world for a little while, and now the holiday’s over.
Monday 6 July 2009: Baked Alaska
In chilly, sunny, windy on July 6, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Mount Rainier has been out lately, and seeing it so often has got to be the best by-product of spending summer in Seattle. Driving to the airport last night I waited for the one turn on I-5 when the mountain appears out of nowhere and takes up the whole sky.
The first time I ever saw the mountain was around this turn towards driving towards Sea-Tac, and it was more of a monster than a trusted friend. I screamed. Everybody in the car did. It was a huge baked alaska, oozing toasty marshmallow and runny ice cream towards the car.
I flew over Rainier at night once, and the whole thing was like a glitter ball, silver-spooned and firey. That’s when it turned into something supernatural–the real and honest truth that God’s got to exist. I’m pretty sure the mountain started floating with the plane and turned more Everest than Everest, a petrified forest and a candied anti-Hades all at once.
Friday 3 July 2009: Lux Perpetua
In sunny on July 2, 2009 at 11:26 pmI took this fuzzy photo last night from my phone and wanted to post it, just to show you hard evidence. There’s still light in the sky in Seattle on July 1 at 10:20 p.m.
Wednesday 1 July 2009: Three Dudes Named Carlos Save the Day
In hot hot hot, sunny on July 1, 2009 at 11:42 pmWe just bought a car from a guy named Carlos. He has a son named Nacho and owns a taco truck. His brother Carlos was there, too. He owns a hotdog stand. And their dad Carlos Sr. was in the car. We met to take a test drive of their Toyota yesterday in the parking lot of Dick’s burgers on Broadway.
I hopped in and saw a half-eaten hot dog on top of a newspaper in the back seat. Which I actually found refreshing. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m bone dry from a weekend of haggling with used car dealers in sad white show rooms. So this, this meeting of the Carlos men and Nacho was genius. Real material.
The car must sound horrible when you read about it, so greasy, all of this imaginary carnival food caked inside. But the embarrassing part is that the car is actually a lot cleaner than our old car. I’ve promptly scheduled a full interior soaping of the Carlos car for Friday in case.
By the way, I’ve been listening to Ani DiFranco on a co-worker’s playlist, all nostalgia. I still can’t get over her line, “Some crazy f-er just carved a sculpture out of butter and propped it up in the middle of the bonanza breakfast bar.” Very fitting for tonight, when we’re picking our new car up at Carlos’ place before dinner.
