fall TV

Next new blog topic. . . new TV shows for the fall!

Of course, at the top of the list is the new Project Runway and Top Chef. Maybe it's the fact that I've been watching both of these shows for so long, but I feel like it's obvious that there are maybe 4-5 really decent contestants and everyone else is just destined to get kicked off. Top Chef this season especially. I mean, there's the two brothers, the one chick, and the beardy red head guy. . . . who else? It seems like they all kind of don't have it together.

And I'm enjoying Project Runway, but there is not a single person that stands out to me. It always seems to get more interesting once they're down to 6-8 contestants though.

Since LOST isn't on until next winter, I don't have too many other shows I'm really invested in. Biggest Loser started this week, which is my one big mainstream guilty pleasure TV show. And 30 Rock! That quickly became my new favorite sitcom last season. And we get to see what's up with Jim and Pam and little Jim or Pam Jr.

I'm definitely interested in the new show Community, since it features my Friday night clip show host crush Joel McHale. I didn't have a lot of hope for it, but after seeing the first episode tonight, I was pleasantly surprised.

It's Joel! And the guy from the hilarious phone commercials about butt dialing. Hooray.

it's a delicious soup

Today was the last farmer's market of the year, and I'm so glad I went. The chilly weather seemed to turn most people away and it wasn't as crowded as it is normally. Today's goods: "Pumpkin Pecan" granola (yummy!), acorn squash and butternut squash to make this soup, Jonathan and Granny Smith apples for a pie, a few sweet potatoes to bake for side dishes this week, and a baguette from the nun's bakery. I thought it was funny that the lady who sold me all the produce said, "these will all keep for at least three months," I laughed and said it would probably all be eaten within the next four days. Seasonal fall foods are the best.

When I got home from the market I started roasting the squashes for tonight's soup, and listened to a Fresh Air interview with Michael Pollan. I don't know what I would do without Fresh Air podcasts. It's part of my Saturday domestic routine, cleaning or cooking while listening to Terry Gross interview fascinating people. I tend to get a little superstitious about things, either that or I'm just a huge creature of habit. I feel like I can't work in the kitchen without it.

So hey, it's National Blog Posting Month!I believe I have tried and failed to do this every year, and I'm sure this year will be no different. At least it makes me more aware of my sporadic blogging. I do have a lot to share and I also want to keep better track of what is happening in my life right now. . . my last few months before the baby. It would be nice to have a happy record of that.

verstiegenheit

I don't have a way with words and most of the time I can't express my thoughts on things very well. At least not without saying Dude half a dozen times. Anyway, I read books for the way they make me think and feel, for the way they change the way I think and feel. But I'm going to try and get some thoughts out on this one.

So with that, I've jumped into all 1,000 + pages of Infinite Jest for the third time and I'm going to try to keep up with the Infinite Jest Online Summertime Appreciation Society and/or Book Club. It's totally official.

I vaguely recall buying the book the summer after I graduated from college. I can't remember why but I suppose it was partially because I liked the cover, the clouds and the orange, white and black futura type. I started reading it for real, the first time, somewhere in the spring of 2004. I can almost pinpoint the day that cemented my first reading. I even have a little souvenir.


That's right, cook county jury duty. I sat in that room all day and read read read. To be honest, I didn't get a lot out of my first reading. I understood practically nothing about Marathe and Steeply and anything related to Quebec (still some of the rockier parts for me to get through) and overall, i just didn't GET it. I don't remember finding it funny, I don't remember thinking about it when I wasn't reading it.

Then came the second reading, last summer. It became such a joy to me. I laughed out loud. I think I frightened all my friends and coworkers by always bringing up anecdotes from some weird book they'd never read. I thought about the book constantly. I even felt like the characters should have been there when we took our trip to Boston last fall.

It really helped me to keep notes, something I've almost never done with a novel. By the end of my second reading, little index cards were scattered all over - my nightstand, the living room, my purse, my car - all with character notes and vocab words. The vocab words really helped. I wish I would have saved all my vocab cards from last summer since apparently not all those words stuck.

So, there's that. In an attempt to not bore people that don't care about Infinite Jest (most of you, I'd wager), I'm moving my book nerdiness to a tumblr, oltremare.tumblr.com. See you there. It's going to be the best tumblr o.a.t.

oh blueprint

today the office was quiet so I took myself out for a long lunch. I picked up the latest & last copy of Blueprint and had some black bean soup at panera.

So, as I mentioned before, Blueprint is folding and I'm super sad. I did promise back then to scan some of my tearsheets and share them here. As you can see. . . I'm kind of nerdy about magazines. I don't like to save whole issues, since I already have enough things collecting dust in my house, so I go through all my mags a few times a year and tear out the pages I love. Then they go into protector sheets and into a binder. I LOVE my magazine binder. It's like my own personal world of interiors, projects, editorials & photography I love. . . mmm. I highly recommend doing this, it's given me quite a lot of pleasure.

anyway, here are a few of my favorites! all images are from blueprint.

these are from a section about organizing your entryway, i believe. the styling on this is fantastic.



editorial about the home of joelle hoverson, who owns purl soho and purl bee. it just looks so warm and inviting.

I'm kind of obsessed with that stuffed deer head.

a story about organizing a small home. i love the colors here.



I'm such a sucker for art-directed vignettes like this


that was fun! since I finally own a scanner (yay, thanks husband!) there will be a lot more sharing here.

griffle!

So, yes, the Giraffe is my newest animal obsession. Not exactly sure where this one came from. I think because they are interesting to draw.


Some background here: in one of the library books I checked out about giraffes, there was a small appendix containing a LONG list of names the giraffe has been known by. Favorites include: garsantes, giraphus, griffle, hirable, orafflus, siraf, and zirnapha. Needless to say, I have become focused on "griffle" and that's basically what I call giraffes now. Griffle! It just seems to fit.

An unrelated and slightly more serious note. Lately I have realized (or, if you're feeling fruity, "the universe has shown to me") that the best way for me to make art is to do what comes most naturally to me. Big epiphany, huh? I've probably read that in about a thousand blogs and artist-type self-help books. But for some reason in the past few weeks it's just clicked, big time. I can look back and see that whenever I have pursued something with my whole heart and not a lot of brainy anxiety, the results have been succesful and well-received. Alien Robots is a prime example; it's something that just kind of came to me, and I did it because I enjoyed it, and the outcome was way better than I would have expected.

I've spent so much time in the past few years consciously trying to develop a style, or following someone else's style. Well, no wonder I was frustrated with my artwork! It's a classic square peg/round hole-type situation. Now it just feels super FUN and FREEING and I can't wait to come home after work every night and draw griffles or make my collages or whatever.

So, in conclusion, YAY. Also file under: why didn't they teach me this kind of thing in my four years of design school? :)

idea tidal wave

oh man. i feel like there's a sparkler lit up in my creative brain right now. So many things that I am STOKED about.

a few art journal pages from this weekend.

flickr page

flickr page

I'm not exactly sure where this one came from, but in the past two days I have become fascinated by pattern. It's actually kind of driving me crazy (in a good way!) since it's EVERYwhere and I'm so into it! My flickr favorites are filling with patterns, and. . . I'm gung-ho on making my own. Here are some of the first ones I've knocked out, and the list for more to make is rapidly expanding. I dreamt about pattern last night, actually dreamt the color scheme of the arrow pattern below.




I'm so excited about the possibilities for these. I think it would be way cool to turn them into tea towels, or to use as scrapbook paper, or as part of a curtain panel. . . . so many ideas.

art + time

i don't know why it took me 27 years to figure certain things out. maybe that shouldn't surprise me as much as it does. but. music and art and literature have been incredibly meaningful to me lately and I've been feeling a little baffled by it. like, where did this all come from?

last night I watched a documentary I'd recorded on PBS (side note, i have turned into the kind of person that records documentaries on PBS) about art in the twenty first century. it was later in the evening and I've been going to bed so early these days so I was a little zonked. i was drifting off to sleep to the voice of Jenny Holzer talking about horses and her hope for her art to be "lovely and exacting." that dreamy feeling put my mind on this track.

the novel about grace changed the way I think about nature and the world, all the glorious/mundane ways the world works. infinite jest, well, that's enough for another post, but it sparked so much in me. i think about the Ghent Altarpiece almost every sunday when i go to communion. even music makes more sense. after owning blonde on blonde for half a dozen years i think I'm finally starting to "get" it.

ghent altarpiece: adoration of the lamb, jan van eyck + others

so again . . why would it be that NOW, of all times, when I'm not taking classes and learning and seeing new things all the time, that I would finally get hit over the head by all this?

last night i had a little mini revelation about it. right now there is not really a lot to ponder in my life. i make coffee, go to work, make my logos and text changes, come home, read, cook, watch tv. It's stable, comfortable, unchanging. So of course now, when my mind isn't filled up with looking for a new job or boyfriend or neighborhood to live in, there's plenty of room to really let things soak in. It's a nice feeling, especially because I know I will not be young and childless and have plentiful free time forever. I'm enjoying it and feeling really happy.

fashion week: hats

it's spring/summer 08 fashion week and you know what that means! i've wasted at least an hour a day online looking at clothes I'll never be able to afford.

there's a lot of stuff I'm liking, and for some reason, one of the things is: seriously nuts headgear. next spring you can either look really chic, or like a half insane vagrant, depending on how you style yourself. check these out:

"spare some change?"

detail shots from style.com. proenza schouler, marc by marc jacobs, and 3.1 phillip lim.

seriously though, i kind of love it. i mean honestly. you have to be pretty daring to wear hats like these in a non-marching band / community theatre public situation. i give props to anyone who actually pulls it off.

Feist - 1 2 3 4

Feist, 1234, from youtube

i'm obsessed with this video. seriously. everything about it is perfect. I can't remember the last time i loved a music video this much. (I'm assuming it was mo money mo problems back in 1997? ten years man.)

anyway, part of the reason i love it is that the song is tops on my list of Tracks to Listen to on Repeat. Runners up include Roscoe by Midlake and Myriad Harbour by The New Pornographers (fyi, links go to myspace and the songs are there, DO IT, listen). I estimate that about half of my music listening in the past five days have been just these three songs.

oh yeah, and PS: in case you're wondering, the answer is YES, i am already teaching myself the dance to this video.

the latest. . . .

the latest. . . ., originally uploaded by oltremare.

i've always loved flickr, but in the past few weeks i've been crazy obsessed. my favorites are growing by leaps and bounds. i LOVE looking at my favorites; i really love seeing how my tastes and preferences change from week to week. this week it seems like i'm all about the muted/natural/organic.

other positive things
+ going to the white sox/red sox game with my husband yesterday. fun times, good game. it was actually a bit surreal; on the red line down to the game about 75% of the el car passengers were wearing red sox gear. boston fans travel well, apparently.
+ right now i'm listening to midlake on myspace and they're gooood. also, hello. . . . why have i not heard of this band? i think there's a theme developing, i'm about a year behind on new music. oh well. late than never, etc.
+ i ate an awesome peach today.

among other things. it was a good day.

five minutes in my head

things that are making me happy. august 02 07 edition.

about grace by anthony doerr is absolutely killing me. LOVING it unlike any other modern novel i've read in a long while. it's changing the way i observe the world. when i read it i feel like i'm grabbing hold of a thin string that's attached to something momentous and REAL about the world. isn't that what a novel is supposed to do, ultimately?

more obsessions, musical: "boxer" by the national. i can't remember the last time i was this overtaken by an album. i'm getting that sick addicted feeling for it. like everytime i turn on my ipod or get in my car, i think, "i can't listen to this anymore or I'll ruin it." and then i turn it on and find more to love. also, this summer is the first time I've heard of them. where have i been for the past few years? the national is great.

mike and i went to the county fair the other night and I could just watch the goats for hours. we watched a pen full of young males, all careening around and jumping and headbutting each other. i think goats are climbing the ranks of my favorite domesticated animals. watch out, llamas.

i've been feeling lucky/blessed these days. work is slow so i get home by 5:15 or so and actually have time to do some housework and make dinner. is there anything more satisfying than cooking a square meal which features vegetables one has grown from a seed? the answer is no, my friends.

been away.

checking back in, it's been months hasn't it?

more photos + commentary to come, but the past month and a half has been filled by:

- spending the last near two weeks at the national conference for my work. i wore a giant foam star costume every day and it was totally awesome. but it made me feel so removed from everything--my house, husband, dog, email, real food, real life. . . . it was so groundhog day ish. it was fun but i'm also sooper glad it's over with, back to real life now.

-a lovely wedding on lake superior in northern wisconsin. magical friendships that haven't changed in years. raspberries picked and immediately eaten. many beers. fun. and more fun.

-a short trip to northwest iowa and southeast south dakota. back to the tiny tiny town i spent my young youth in, which seems so much smaller now after the years. and my grandpas farm. it felt so natural.

- also. the garden growing. eating food i grew from a seed will never cease to amaze me. spent an hour or so weeding this afternoon, working up a sweat. it's really satisfying.

-other stuff. good books: about grace and four seasons in rome by anthony doerr. the girls by lori lansens, seven sisters by margaret drabble. i've been reading a lot actually. and music: feist, spoon, ryan adams. these words and music have been the steady undercurrent of all the craziness lately. so that's good.

i think that's it. i honestly feel like i've lost myself over the past few weeks, working hard at work and then being so removed at conference. i'm getting back into my life and trying to get every backward thing righted again.

wants and needs

things i have had cravings for recently:
+ v-8
+ perrier*
+ laura veirs "bright glittering gifts" played on repeat ad nauseam**
+ a real simple-style home with either no clutter, or rather-- gorgeous, art-directed clutter.
+ a sunny weekend morning to buy seeds and stick my hands into the earth

obviously some of those are easier to achieve than others. but there's a theme of sorts. i am craving a little sparkling, wholesome, pretty austerity. rome and working a lot put my schedule out of whack and life without a routine makes me a little antsy. hence the need for simple clean things.

* i'm now addicted to sparkling water. it's true. i have a "con gas" problem. and I love it.

** speaking of laura veirs. the new one, it's so good. the lyrics are perfect, the music has that laura veirsyness. i can't put my finger on it. it's like being alone on an ocean liner in the the middle of the night, the middle of the pacific, every star visible in the sky. it has that celestial coolness. so it comes highly recommended from me to you.

laura veirs and saltbreakers

plus, i feel really connected to her since I read something where she said she dreams a lot about whales. swoon!

looking back and forward

i found this in an old diary, written about a week before i left for rome the last time:

"diary, I get scared about this whole Rome thing ... but then I think, adventure! and discovering a whole new world and the whole new person I can become in that new world."

kind of gave me chills to think of how true it ended up being. and, kind of makes me wish I wrote more passionately in an online diary like I used to. the thought of that level of earnesty makes me cringe a bit, but I really shouldn't be ashamed.

i have a lot of feelings right now. we'll leave it at that.

today at work I fueled my romey daydreams with seven more minutes on the ipod and a bottle of archer farms blood orange italian soda. only a few more days until I can get the real thing again.

My Newest Love

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
1. unicorns are real 2. wonder to behold 3. narwhal 4. NARWHAL ! 5. narwhal-decks 6. narwhal doll 7. arctic narwhal 8. a narwhal for wiley 9. narwhal

As you may have heard, I recently became intruiged by / obsessed with narwhals. They're fascinating. Did you know they are the only creatures on earth with a spiral tusk? And that the tusk is actually a sensory organ? I'm really becoming a bubbling fountain of narwhal information. Ask my husband, he's heard it all.

I have also discovered that many educated people have never heard of or don't believe in narwhals! Yeah, they're totally weird and mythical, but they do exist. So I'm making it my mission to educate the world on the glorious narwhal.

A few useful links:
wikipedia entry
fascinating new york times article