Music Monday

Twin Shadow—Five Seconds


Today's offering is this video from Twin Shadow. A B-movie and a new Bowie-esque synth-song all rolled into one. You're welcome.

Music Mondays

Leona Naess—Swing Gently


Ignore the fact that this song is from an episode of Private Practice that aired in December 2008 (Worlds Apart). Ignore the fact that I am not discovering "new" music this week. Also, ignore the ugliest video ever posted on the Internet because since 2008, no one has made a respectable video for this beautiful song. I came across this song because I have started watching Private Practice from the beginning again, and it struck a chord with me.

The whole album, Thirteen, is something I wish I had had in high school—maybe even in 2008. It's a little young, but I think that's the point, but this song just sways so melodically, and the title, Swing Gently, is exactly what it does.

I just downloaded this one track, though. I have enough angsty female pop vocalists on my playlist.

Things I Love Thursday

JUBILEE!!!


The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, marking her 60 year reign, happened June 2^nd-5^th. The Jubilee used to mark the 75th year of reign, but Queen Victoria withdrew from public life after Albert's death, and they decided to bump it up fifteen years then, and it's been tradition since.

IKEA decided to celebrate with the above marketing—a corgi dog (CORGI DOG OMFG).

Google did what Google does:

Even though I am in America, I am and have always been an anglophile at heart. I must admit I got sucked into this whole thing. My favorite part was still the corgmonsters.

Music Mondays

Hot Chip's new album, In Our Heads, comes out today, but you could have been streaming the full album this whole time! Only I didn't post this until today! What a bitch! Anyway, the streaming link is here, but seeing as how you should just buy it and all, I don't see how that's useful.

The song I chose to represent this album is If I Was Your Girlfriend—a Prince "cover" if you will. It starts out all Hot Chip, and then gets all Prince on you, but they riff the lyrics in a great, unique way. Pretty Much Amazing describes this song as a "slow burner." True, but if you listen to it fifteen times in a row like I did before I chose this song, it sticks to you like glue.

My House Is Never Cleaner

I have a school assignment due on Tuesday. During a normal semester, class meets once a week, but in the summer, classes meet Tuesday and Thursday. There's not a lot you can get done in 40 hours, so Thursday—Tuesday is when the meat of the work gets done. As a professional procrastinator, this is how a typical day goes during the semester:

"J just left to run errands and get some work of his own done...I should really get to work on this assignment. Let me sit down at my desk and focus."

"Hmmm...I have a lot of old emails. I should play the email game (emailga.me) and try to clear that out before I get started."

"Ah, Inbox Zero nearly achieved. Close the browser. Now I can start working."

"Is that dust on the floor? I need to sweep before I get started."

"Well, the floor is clean, but my desk is a mess. Better clean that up before I dirty up my assignment."

"Okay, my desk is acceptably clear. Just a cup of tea, and then I'll sit down and get to work..."

And so forth, and so on.

My house is never cleaner, and I am never more hydrated than when I have other, more pressing things to do.

Things I Love Thursday

99% Invisible—Guilt Free

I really enjoyed this 99% Invisible podcast about sustainability and design. They talk about the lunar-resonant streetlight project, which utilizes available moonlight instead of overwhelming it, and returning the cityscape to a more natural environment while still providing adequate lighting. The whole podcast is interesting, but what struck me as a designer was this part of the discussion: 

I think a lot of the current design discussion is about how to make design more relevant…how to make it part of these processes that really shape the world: government, all of the sort of processes that we don't think of being designs or having a relationship to design.

Climate change is a design problem, you know, the national debt is a design problem. All of these things are design problems in different ways if you expand the scope of how you think about it a little bit.

Our challenge as designers, really, is to expand that scope and to become part of bigger discussions.

This was a portion of our discourse during a graphic design class I am taking at MassArt this semester, and so the whole episode really struck a chord. The podcast itself is really interesting, too—definitely worth checking out (at 99percentinvisible.org)

This XKCD Comic


Although I rarely if ever think about a certain ex-boyfriend now that I'm happily married, sometimes I remember him—like when I saw this comic, which I had to laugh at because it's so uncannily true, it's almost like it was written about him.

As is usually the case, the mouse over is the best part: "I'll never forget you--at least, the parts of you that were important red flags."

Music Mondays

The West Coast may be the Best Coast, but the East Coast is the Beast Coast. Still, surf rock is pretty cool, I guess.

Project 365 Update: May

I thought May would be even better than April, but it wasn't. There was one week there that I just didn't feel like leaving the house, much less taking pictures. I don't really like any of these photos, but the one I chose this month is from Plumb Island, a 16 mile bike trip J and I took this month to go bird watching.

I like that the bird is the focal point against a neutral and kind of boring backdrop. I thought it was best in square format.