the best marketing idea i've ever seen

top 10 reasons to date a unicorn:

1) this shit is awesome

2) it's actually a feeder ad for a dating website -- at the end they're all "still don't want to date a unicorn? how about a real person?" and then a link to this new dating site. any site that makes up a list like this -- along with 9 reasons not to date a t-rex:

gets my vote pretty immediately.

helium hush

from William Lawson's Intervention series. Please watch this video (photo still above) of balloons trying to survive in the harsh wintry face of adversity (the green one above doesn't live through the falling icicle). Not sure why I love this video so much, but i do. and you might, too.

alala

Last nite, CSS (one of my very favorite bands) DJ'd at the debonair social club, one of my favorite little neon electro dance spots in chicago. Apparently, we were sitting at a table right next to the band for the better part of the evening, which I somehow didn't notice until a server kindly informed us we would need to move shortly to make room for their entourage. We debated sending them over some caprihanas but then chickened out (our drinks were weak).

most off-tha-chain tattoo eeeeever. that's right, you are looking at a gnome shooting a laser whilst riding a unicorn. genius. 

the crowd had a lot of fun dancing with these gams. here's me and some dude trying to put them together again.
LOVEFOXXXXXXXXX!!!!!! No zoom necessary. 

why i love the onion

beer.

The internet tells me that Benjamin Franklin once said "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Now, I went through many drinking years without ever touching the stuff. I hated the taste of it in high school (I barely drank then, though), and I managed to get through 4 years of college never having gotten wasted from beer. Yes, there were a smattering of one and a half cans of PBR nights, but I could never really bring myself to drink more than that. The taste of beer never appealed to me, like watered-down bread, what was the point? I had been told it was an acquired taste, but over 5 years of steady social drinking, it just hadn't taken. Plus, I hated the fact that I would have had to ingest so much of it before feeling the effects of what one vodka-tonic could do.

Then I moved to England, where the culture basically consists of daily 5 pm dashes to the nearest pub, and I finally came to truly enjoy the refreshing taste of it. The hoppy bite, the balmy crispness of a cold brew. 

Last nite, the ladies & i went to Map Room, a bar I'd been reading about before I was old enough to get into bars -- apparently, according to our new best friend Hector, the Map Room's doorman, it's the 8th-rated bar in America. Not bad! It certainly had variety down pat -- the bar features over 200 bottles and 26 taps.

We first dived into some New Holland Dragon's Milk, which was totally fucking worth the $12 price tag at its 9% alcohol content, big-ass 20 oz. bottle, and defiantly delicious taste -- a dark stout with a nice caramel flavor, a smooth entry and a spicy bite in the back. If it's ever on the menu, I highly suggest you indulge. From there we moved onto an inferior stout with a superior name: Unibroue -- um, clearly, UNIBROW BEER. Yes, please. Then we shared an outstanding leggy blonde, I think the Hetanker Gouden Carolus Tripel, but let's be honest, after the 30 oz of Dragon's Milk the memories become a little hazy. 

toe upon toe, a snowing flesh

one-woman waterfall, she wears

her slow descent like a long cape

photos by akif celebi (via debauchette) and akif hakan. akif doubling purely incidental.

life-changing fiction

milla of the girl who married a bear wrote a lovely, witty post on life-changing fiction (an apparently copyrighted phrase -- see her post for the absurd reason as to why). anyhow, i thought i'd share some of the books that have changed my life: the way i look at writing & the world around me. i'd love to hear yours, too.

(mommy's book <3 )





this will be a new installment on this here blog: LIFE-CHANGING WEDNESDAYS. I'll share bits & pieces of the world that have changed my participation in it: life-changing art, music, etc. 

keep passing open windows

images that never fail to make my heart flip: birds in flight, windows, (someone's) grandparents.  he's got it all.

i would be so up for this challenge.

Best idea for an antidote to middle-aged ennui that I've seen (courtesy of kirsten): Looking for a nemesis on Craigslist.

"Trip me when i'm running to catch the BART and occasionally whisper in my ear: 'A-ha, we meet again.' That kind of thing. Keep me on my toes. British accent preferred."

Blast! If only I already lived in SF, I'd be all over this "6-month project with possibility to extend." Any takers??

(image of BART station found here)

juice makes me happy, yes.

last nite's Talk Soup on E! (our standard intellectual evening fare 'round these parts when my eyes have glazed over from a day of dissertation reading) introduced my mother to the wonder that is TANISHA. Now I've never seen a full episode of Bad Girls Club, nor do I really want to, but I DO want to see a full episode of Tanisha. Ten bucks says she gets her own tv show next season. Just LOOK AT THIS MADNESS (if only for those first 30 seconds, pure gold):

In London, Mark & I would watch this clip like 7 times in a row, laughing 'til we cried, so after the Talk Soup roundup and showing my mum this clip, she, too, announced her love for Tanisha. Afterwards, I tried flipping to that Bravo show with Jo & Slade, but that was short-lived as mum announced that she wouldn't be watching any reality show with Jo or anyone else unless Tanisha lived in the house with them. 

living means leaving traces

For all you Chicagoan readers, there's a pretty sweet art show going on the 15th of August. OUTDATED: Polaroid Art Show at Country Club Chicago will be celebrating the last hurrah of the Polaroid (since Polaroid Corp. has announced they'll be discontinuing the production of all instant films). I'd say "see you there," but I'll be in lovely los angeles that evening. 

(photos here and here)

more more more, how d'ya like it, how d'ya like it

a few more postcards from hydra:

leonard cohen's house. everyone on the island has their own (usually boring) leonard cohen story. his ex-wife lives there now, and it's the only house on the island with a cctv camera.

this woman caught an octopus in a plastic bag and proceeded to pulverize the shit out of it on a rock. we watched her beat the octopus for literally 20 minutes: the greek workout.



our sunrise swim.

postcards from the edge

some scenes from my greek working holiday on the magical island of hydra, where i played on-camera host to mum's documentary/travel series. here's hoping to many more years of this gig....

you give love a bad name

A New Zealand judge just made a 9-year old girl a ward of court so that she could change her name from TALULA DOES THE HULA FROM HAWAII, which she, uh, understandably hated. 

Holy eff, who are these people??! Makes Brittany and Kaitlin seem not so bad.

this morning was something.

lovely, surreal silence by elkie vanstiphout, or elle qui reve.