Naked on 17th Avenue

Don’t worry — I was clothed!

Last night Christopher and I were having dinner at P17 (because it was closed when we tried to go at lunch! The nerve!), when we heard a little ruckus coming eastbound on 17th Avenue. It was a mass of people on bikes — 50 people, maybe? And they were naked on bikes and rollerblades, with police escorts, chanting lovely things like “burn fat, not oil! No more war on foreign soil!” It was completely amusing, and it’s good to see people gathering together in support of something. Most of them were actually only mostly naked, in some kind of underwear to be honest — probably some kind of legal thing.

Anyway, P17 was really good — maybe a little pricey. I prefer the lighter pho I’ve had in Aurora and on Federal, but this was good, if overpriced. The drinks are excellent, and the desserts divine. They even had a delicious clove-lychee sorbet, which was naturally dairy- and gluten-free. Mmm. Wow.

Yesterday was the first day of my vacation, which so far has entailed a lot of eating and drinking locally, as well as getting an eye exam (they’re deteriorating, but only a little!). Monday “vacation” will consist of getting my teeth cleaned and getting new glasses, doing laundry, throwing some pottery, and reading. On Tuesday, in the wee hours, I head out to Philadelphia for a week to hang out with my sister and swelter in heat and humidity. I can hardly wait. I haven’t been away for this long since I started my job, and I think it will be really good. Plus I miss my sister, and I haven’t been out to visit her since she moved east.

I might post a bit here and there while I’m away, and I might not.

The Philadelphia/Multipurpose Mix (not yet travel-tested):

• Page France, “The Ruby Ring Man”
• Forest Fire, “Slow Motion”
• The Dodos, “Jodi”
• Arthur & Yu, “1000 Words”
• Evan Dando, “Hard Drive”
• Damien Jurado, “Like Titanic”
• New Buffalo, “Cheer Me Up Thank You”
• Neva Dinova, “Clouds”
• Thao, “Swimming Pools”
• Little Wings, “So What?” (this has become known as “the two-year song.” And counting. Thanks, Melissa.)
• She & Him, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”
• Ola Podrida, “Photo Booth”
• Martha Wainwright, “Factory”
• Shearwater, “Leviathan, Bound”
• Menomena, “Evil Bee”
• The National, “Fake Empire” (if you only watch one of the videos I’ve posted links to, make it this one.)
  

Blockbusters

So a couple weeks ago I broke down and saw Sex and the City with a friend, even though I haven’t really watched the show (though I have another friend who references it frequently, as in, “that’s just like Season 4, Episode 4, where Carrie…” etc.). Anyway, the movie: fine, I guess. Except for the obsession with things, whether they be shoes or houses or tummies. I was glad to see Carrie reading a library book, even though it was obviously only there to bring in part of the plot. Also: most library books don’t come with the little due-date cards anymore. I know — I wish they did, too. But I’ve encountered many a library book, and they very rarely do. So after that point (and it happened early on), I took everything with a grain of salt. Movies, apparently, only kind of reflect real life. Who knew?

Getting to the point: there was this preview before the movie about a high school documentary (esque?) film…?Does anyone know what it was? It looked mildly gross and awkward and uncomfortable and endearing and sweet and cruel, just like we all did when we were in high school (or at least I was). And I want to see it. Very badly.

Also, I was in total empathy mode when I watched the preview for another movie, which will star Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, and Scarlett Johannson, among others. And then, at the end of the preview, they showed the title: He’s Just Not That Into You. Because the book wasn’t enough. Stupid book. Stupid people. Ugh. I’m boycotting that one. Maybe I should read it, but I kind of despise that book.

Los Limones

Life gave me lemons this week!  But not in a bad way!

I missed the UPS truck on Thursday.  And on Monday.  And on Tuesday.  But on Wednesday I made the trek up to Commerce City and sat around reading my new favorite book while I waited for the UPS “runner” to retrieve my parcel.  The box was marked fragile, but it was extraordinarily light.  And there was a funny rustling when I moved it — lighter, scratchier than styrofoam peanuts.  I got to my car and opened the box with my car key.  At first glance, I thought I had flowers, dead or dying because I had missed so many delivery attempts, with all of their leaves piled in the bottom of the box.  But no!  It is a Meyer lemon tree from my dear Texan friend!  And it’s just going through a little transplant shock, but here’s how it looked (in my bathtub) just after I potted it:

It still pretty much looks the same — a little Charlie Brownish at the moment, but I have high hopes.  I think my lovely dinner guests last night were a little perplexed by this transplant-shocked plant.  Anyway, I’m excited, and hoping for the best.  Any advice from green-thumb types would be appreciated — how do I get leaves on this thing again?

In other news, I have this idea that people I like must like eggplant.  And they don’t all like it.  Which is baffling, I know.  I was concerned about it last night (after I began cooking, and when it was too late to change course), but luckily Eric and Maria liked it, and it was good to catch up.  Anyway, I need to start asking the dreaded eggplant question, or finding something a little more universally liked to cook…  Or force everyone who ever eats over to eat eggplant…  hmm…

Also: NPR on FM sounds really, really super good!  Congratulations on the move, KCFR!

Gigi and the Generation Gap

So a few weeks ago I had a bad day and a little breakdown about how I need to be a better person.  It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling — frantic loneliness, boredom, indecision, being hard on myself for stupid things (like snacks for dinner), etc., etc., etc.  My then-boyfriend, who was at the receiving end of this little breakdown, is really into old musicals, and suggested we watch Singin’ in the Rain.  We did, we laughed, it was nice.

I mistakenly thought that classic musicals might just be the key to happiness.  Maybe I could watch something other than Amelie when I needed a little mood boost.  I should know better than this — of course not every classic musical is going to make me forget a bad mood.

Anyway, I watched Gigi, the 1958 nine-Oscar-winning musical starring Leslie Caron.  There were reasons for liking Gigi.  In fact, I probably would have enjoyed it if I hadn’t had such high expectations for it.  I liked the song “It’s a Bore,” and the way they musically depicted gossip.  But there were many more reasons not to like Gigi (note: there are spoilers here):

1. It opens with the kind of creepy, pedophilic number (really, in the context, even) “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.”
2. One of those Little Girls for whom we should Thank Heaven is, of course, Gigi, who is probably 14 or 15.  Her aunt and grandmother (both spinsters or widows or something) plot to polish her into a worldly young woman by giving her lessons in etiquette.  So that she’ll marry well.  Meaning: into money.
3. The movie’s star male, Gaston, a sugar heir who is bored with everything, is dating Eva Gabor’s character, who cheats on him with her skating coach.  Gaston breaks up with her….
4. And she attempts suicide “the usual way, insufficient poison,” and it’s this big joke in the movie, with the pedophilic uncle so-and-so congratulating Gaston on “his first suicide” and toasting to “many more” (!!!!!)
5. Gaston treats Gigi like a kid sister, until one night they get drunk on champagne, he loses to her at cards because she cheats, and as a result, she goes on vacation with him (and her grandmother).
6. There is romantic interest.
7. Gigi’s etiquette lessons become more intense (and they work! She knows just how to select a cigar for her man!  Oh, the talent, the skill, the breeding!)
8. He takes her out on the town, and hates her polishedness.  So he marches her home, she cries all the way…
9. And then he asks for her hand in marriage?
10. And then she says yes?
11. And then it ends?
12. What?

Anyway.  I won’t give up on musicals altogether.  I’ll just lower my expectations and go from there.

This Sunday Only!

If you haven’t already, you should see the Gee’s Bend exhibit at the Denver Art Museum.  I was late getting to it, though, and unfortunately it closes tomorrow, so you must, must hurry.  The museum is open 12-5 on Sundays.  What I liked about this exhibit:  The quilts, the slight asymmetry of them, the colors, the patterns, the abstraction, the lived-in-ness.  Wow.  Wow, wow, wow.  I’m sorry this is late, but if you can, go tomorrow!  The Amish/Mennonite quilt exhibit was nice, but has nothing on Gee’s Bend. Beauty is in the imperfection, I think.  I sometimes felt like I was looking at a fabric Agnes Martin.  Lovely.  See it.

Things said in the past couple of days:

1.) “How happy are we to not be working at the mall?” (me reminiscing with the friend who once brought home-made minute rice with tomato soup to work in tupperware, which we warmed up at his work and then ate at the mall movie theater as we watched The Hours one winter night, long ago (ohh, winter 2002…).  Oh, the mall jobs…  Oh, the minute-rice…  Oh, the days of actual tight budgets (not that they’re not still tight, but holy shit, how did we even live off of that?).

2.) A dialogue (or a trialogue):

Paul: If you had a superhuman power, what would it be?

Me (not missing a beat): An unbreakable heart.

Paul:  Really?  I would want to be able to make people shit themselves.

Kris (who is a good, good person, better than me and Paul): I would heal people of their physical and mental illnesses.

Yes, a broken heart makes you (well, me) pretty self-centered.  Sorry, world.

Today I’m 27.  27 = 3^3.  You were 1^1, and 2^2, but you’ll probably never be 4^4, so let’s call it a special year, shall we?

Arts Festival Standout

I’m so tempted by this work by Cali Hobgood-Lemme:

It was one of only two or three things that caught my eye at all, and her work is the only thing I can fathom hanging up in my living space. Someday I’ll be rich and sophisticated, and I won’t hang things on my walls using sticky-tack anymore.  Someday.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking of taking portraits of my typewriters (a couple are pictured here, but as you can see, the photography isn’t all that great).

Cherry Creek Art Festival Tips:  Don’t step in gum.  It’s really hot, which makes gum gummier.  It just might get all over your big toe, and people will almost plow over you as you try to deal calmly with the situation.  There is no sympathy at CCAF.  Just a lot of people who walk at strikingly different paces and seem not to take notice of anything beyond their companions.  There’s one street devoted to children — well worth avoiding.  There’s another street devoted to food, which won’t even sound good because it’s so hot.  And there’s a cool lady, Marie Vlasic, who has a painting of the waiting area at Watercourse Foods.  She also has cool Hebrew tattoos, and she was telling someone what they meant while I was checking out her work.  One means something like “will,” or something.  It was interesting, but I can’t remember it exactly.

Nonetheless, it got me thinking about “be” verbs, and the different between being and willing yourself to be (if there’s a difference).  Are we only our actions, what we do?  Or are we only the meaning we give to everything around us?  Probably both, and neither.  It’s probably different for everyone.  I lean more heavily towards meaning, though (the meaning of my actions and experiences is often more important than the actions and experiences themselves).  Sometimes I think that’s the harder way to be, and I should consider just being/doing, with no meaning attached.  If only…

Some Trends Shouldn’t Reappear

How did we not learn our lesson the first time?

(from American Apparel.  If you buy one, I’ll disown you.)

This is How I Feel Today

Click Here.  “There are whole gardens in my chest, whole storms.”

America is cheerful.  We have a day off, a gift from our forefathers.  I’m not feeling it.  The gift, the cheer.  I feel heavy and slow and barely visible.

But:  I keep seeing Northern Flickers around, and they’re so pretty.  And my job is to look at and understand and classify artworks.  That’s a good job.  Today I loved this:

Gabriel Orozco, Maria, Maria, Maria, 1992. Phone book page with erasures, 11 x 9 1/8″.  See it at MOMA.

I like the meaningful nothingness of what isn’t there, the presence of absence.  I decided to classify it as drawing.  It’s like drawing with an eraser, the negation of line and form rather than the creation of it.  I want to find more works that involve erasing.  I want to tackle a big eraser project — pick a name and start working my way through the phone book.  It sounds a little therapeutic.  It’s probably just crazy.

It was not a good time to read Milan Kundera.  He writes beautifully about emptiness.  I finished The Book of Laughter and Forgetting alone on the light rail the other night.  Alone, alone — not a single person in that whole car.  It’s a disjointed work, supposedly comparable to variations in music (whatever those are, I’m not really sure), one theme, one thread running through disjointedness.  Only in a different way every time, so that you look at the theme(s) (laughter, forgetting, humanity, sexuality) from every angle.  Interesting.  But his world is so hopeless.  His best characters are heavy and empty and sad.  This is not what I should be reading now.  Because I believe it too, too much.

Town and Country

I’ve been hanging out with a high school friend a lot this past week, and it’s been really good. Even though we’ve gone in different directions since high school graduation (more than nine years ago!), we always have a common ground. Sometimes you need to remember where you came from. Sometimes people who started in a similar place can remind you of that…

So, picture this: One night I take her “out” for dinner at Whole Foods. It’s too freaking hot in the apartment to even begin to think about cooking anything using heat, and I imagine her a meat-and-potatoes kind of girl, so I don’t attempt my usual (of late) fruit for dinner. (The truth: I don’t know if I can cook a classic “balanced” meal.) So we go to Whole Foods — I entice her by telling her about how you can get anything for $7.99 a pound. Like that’s such a steal…

She, the girl who I think is all meat-and-potatoes, flocks to the salad bar, and I, the city girl with dietary restrictions (and a crappy appetite lately), head to the hot food bar. I serve myself some meat and potatoes, and a little salad for good measure, but still, it’s becoming clear who is the meat-and-potatoes girl in this friendship. We sit outside on the patio (so calm, overlooking First Avenue in Cherry Creek, traffic whizzing by instead of the 5:00 exhaust-inhaling stop-and-go). She’s put some hard-boiled eggs on her salad, and laments that she misses the chickens she left at home (under the care of a friend of course, but nonetheless).

It is a strange contrast, that conservative country girl (one of my best friends in the world, but someone whose life is so different than mine) talking about her chickens, and how she’s left them in the coop so her friend doesn’t have to come over twice a day to let them in and out, and how they usually roam free. And we’re sitting in the dead center of my liberal world, outside the Cherry Creek Whole Foods, where Anyone With A Conscience shops because their food is Organic and Free Range, Natural, Etc. And also Expensive.

My friend says her eggs are so good, so much better than store-bought eggs. I don’t doubt her. Her hens lay more than she and her husband can eat, so they give them to friends (and sell them when the “buyers” insist on paying).

What do we know about where our food comes from? Really? We think we do all of these things (buy free-range, or organic, or natural, or whatever-they’re-calling-it-today). We pay more for this. We claim to have consciousness of our habits. But what, really, is more conscious than worrying about your hens while you’re away? We’re so disconnected from everything we use. Every. Single. Thing. We. Use…. Or eat.

…Anyway, enough of the lecture (which I need as much as anyone). Let’s all think more about where everything we buy comes from; what it would have taken to get those things (fruit, vegetables, eggs, meat, bags, cars, gas, paper, etc., etc., etc.) on our own……. What would we be if everything around us weren’t from someone, somewhere else?

Best Earrings Ever…

I know — someone is making a killing off of earrings made of simple hoops and pebbles.  But I love, love, LOVE them, and here they are:

You can find them on Pearl and Iowa at Five Green Boxes.  I saw them yesterday, and resisted.  But today I just couldn’t.  I bought them when I was out with my down-to-earth friends from small-town Colorado, and I worry that they almost died — city people pay good money for pebbles, don’t they?

Yes, they do.