The September Issue

This one goes out to Mizz Mitton because I know how much she liked "The September Issue". Yesterday my family go it on Netflix and even though I'd already seen it--I was bored and watched it again. I think I am kind of in a documentary phase because it was closely followed by another viewing of "New York Doll".

Both great moves, and I was so inspired that I sat down and went through my September 2010 copy of Vogue. For some odd reason, I have started getting a subscription to Vogue that I never signed up for. Since I was off in Provo I'm not even sure when it started, but when I came back in June there was a copy of Vogue with my name on it. I am enjoying it while it lasts, but it certainly is mysterious.

I loved this feature, and after the film I am a decided Grace Coddington fan. This fifties/sixties inspired glamour seems like it's going to be big for fall--I'm excited!

Also, I've decided that it's time for me to give up trying to wear deodorant with any kind of scent in it. Does anyone else have this problem? With scent either :

1. My skin gets incredibly itchy.

or

2. For some reason I smell it really powerfully all day, and it gives me a headache.

I am currently suffering from the latter.

Cabin Fever

The weather here and Portland has been beautiful so far, but due to some unfortunate circumstances I haven't been able to leave the house much lately, and am going a little stir crazy. So if anyone wants to meet me at the cemetery gates, or anywhere else-- I think I am going to take a walk.

Becoming One With the Earth.

This afternoon my mom said, "Will you become one with the earth?"

"?"--I was thinking that maybe she was going to ask me to weed, which I would have declined since it was pouring outside.

"Can you take out the compost?"

So I became one with the earth. It was especially earthy because it was muddy outside (we'll see if Martha ever forgives me for muddying her shoes--since we wear the same size) and when I opened the compost there were worms and things writhing about. It was delightful.

Also, hello from my brand new macbook pro! So excited!

Hopefully this means more blogging. I've been pretty busy back in Portland so far--I really wish I could have an unpacking montage, like in the movies, to speed up the process. But as fast as I try to work--no montage.

I must not be trying hard enough.

The Wilderness Downtown

Has anyone else seen the new Arcade Fire music video yet? I think the best word to describe it would be: insane. But insane in an extremely good way. It's for the song, "We used to wait" from "the Suburbs" which I know I've mentioned here before. Just go to thewildernessdowntown.com and enter in the address of your childhood home-- I think it works best if you just choose the house that you remember the best--and let it load. The site will tell you that it's meant to run on google chrome, but I used firefox and it worked fine for me. Also, when I first watched it I was confused and kept messing with the windows, but once you press play just sit back and watch.

Then tell me about it!

Bee Sting

Today I got stung by a bee. It was weird--but as my dad told me "no one wakes up and expects to stung by a bee that day". I recently purchased some silver shade first flush Polaroid film for my camera from the Impossible Project. This film is very sensitive to heat and has to be shaded from light for the first 90 seconds of development. I had a great idea for a photo, but it was ruined when I turned it over on the hot pavement, so I went back to the spot and was trying to decide where to shade it. I thought maybe I could shade it against my shirt so I put my hand on my stomach to see how warm it was. There was a bee on my shirt, I put my hand right on it and it stung me through my shirt. But there is my segway into putting up some of the Polaroids I've taken so far.

PS. The film is supposed to be black & white, but when it's warm it turns orange, and since it's summer many of them have turned out sepia. I actually think they look a little oranger here than they really are.
(this one is a little hard to read but it says "When life gives you oil spills make molotovs --Dante" I think a couple people should recognize that wall.)

You turn me on, I'm a radio

Last night I was about 10 feet away from Zooey Deschanel, and at points in the night the same distance from M. Ward. Of course this can only mean one thing--That's right. Last night I saw She & Him! I went with my dear friend Heidi, neither of us had gone to any of the previous Twilight concerts and weren't sure how early to go--but the website said to get there early and we are both short--so we went early, got a pizza at Settebello (Have to give a shout-out to my cousin Joel for introducing me, good taste just runs in the fam) and then ended up waiting TWO hours. I think we may have been a little overzealous, but we had a decent view.

I feel like I have a lot to say, but maybe just because I read a terrible review of the show that I completely disagree with. First of all the author spent most of the article comparing this last Twilight show to the first, which was played by Modest Mouse--anyone else thinking apples and oranges here? He also called the performance "lackluster" and said that all it inspired was chatter from the audience, but I would have to say that from where I was standing it was the audience that was lackluster. But a lot of that had to do with the fact that the show was free and a lot of people were there just to get a look at Zooey and didn't care about the auditory experience. like the guys behind us who kept talking about how they were going to marry her despite, as Heidi pointed out to the, the fact that she is already married.
We actually weren't supposed to take pictures--supposedly Matt is shy--so I tried a couple without my flash, but then I saw that they weren't enforcing. But I did end up with this psychedelic picture.

I was really surprised by the songs I enjoyed most since many of them aren't my favorites of the album, but that's one of the things I love about seeing band live. "Sentimental Heart" has never been one of my favorites, but I fell in love with it last night. I favored the slower, more soulful songs where I feel Zooey's beautiful alto really shines. In part, this is also because one of my pet peeved is when people sing along loudly at concerts, and a lot of the peppier songs encouraged that.

I also think that if they did an album of covers, people would eat it up (especially me). They had a bunch of really great ones including: "Wouldn't it be nice", "Fools Rush in", "Roll over Beethoven", and the Joni Mitchell song that inspired the title of this post "You turn me on, I'm a radio". They also did a couple M. Ward song ("Magic Trick" and "Rave on") and it was really great to hear more of the "him".

The show made me love both She & Him even more, but I was especially impressed with Deschanel's musical prowess (She played a mean keyboard on "Roll over Beethoven", had the cutest ukulele, and is an excellent whistler. Along with the whole singing and songwriting thing of course). Despite the crowd I loved the show.

Summer Reading Pt. 3

"...I wondered if I could act any other way again. But I remembered one thing: it wasn't me who started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all."

"Papa says if you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite."

I remember my papa saying something like that too.