Allow me to be one of the early photoshoppers for the iPad unveil.

The ability to menstruate is definitely a thing of wonder.

Don't think, just shoot

Humble preface: I haven't even been able to blog or write poems lately. Perhaps it's all the traveling this summer, and visitors, and fun things to be done with friends that's taking up my mental space for the past few months. Oh, and work. (Hah!! Nice to know that it takes the back seat to funner exploits.) Better late than never, right?

When we visited New York we happened upon a store in the village that sold only lomography products. (Click pic for yelp reviews and info.)


Aside from the fact that the store was delightfully merchandised, I was tickled to find an HQ for this stuff. What is lomography, you ask? It's an analog way of taking pictures...you know, with that old stuff called, "film"...wherein you can achieve cool effects that one would associate with old cameras with light leaks, and other sorts of "flaws" that produce happy (IMO) accidents such as inadvertent color effects or double exposures. Fortunately or unfortunately the cameras have been re-introduced in the past few years at your friendly neighborhood hipster appropriators, Urban Outfitters. I remember back in school, students used old cameras, pinholes, and polaroids to achieve these kinds of effects to include in work. It's a look, and a look I happen to like. Here's some examples:

(Photo thanks to anarchy)

Cut to, there's a "Diana" camera out there that can not only achieve these effects, but can also take an instant film camera back! (Now that Polaroid instant has become defunct, I learned happily that Fuji is picking up the slack in the instant camera/film department! Oh joy!) Here's the camera that can be purchased at the lomography shop online.

Example result

In the words of Rachel Zoe, I die. I'm buyin' one! Join me! We can have a lomography geek club. I'm happy to add another artistic diversion to my life.

Etsy purchase: Breakfast tea mug

Good lord, I love this mug! Purchased it last week and arrived in perfect, more-wonderful-than-I-imagined condition. Lani and I have fond memories of English breakfasts under the Union Jack. So much meat! So much sodium! So what!! Now we have a green and a red mug to remind of those halcyon mornings.

Mere moments after opening.

Musical Chestnut for the Day

Sleepyhead, by Passion Pit
Samples here.

Jen Corace notebooks

Came across these notebooks again, which I lurve. The thickness of the coverboard gives it an extremely appealing heft, and the screenprints/palettes are gorge. Imagine a nursery mural at the hand of Jen Corace. Yumz!

Notebooks

Illustrations and Fine Art

Gettin' paid.

I'm very pleased with many things about working for myself, not least of which is my new office. It's about 70% done, just gotta put in the Flor tiles, get a new chair, and reorg the peripherals station. Oh, and put up my faux bois bulletin boards and hooks for the clipboards (a la "Ace of Cakes"). One of my fave new office supplies is my Daiso red stamp kit. Bringing the cute back into business, fo' sho'. For example, check out my "PAID" stamp. I have no idea what it says, but I love the bun bun holding the paper (click for detail). Who says paperwork needs to be serious? Can't wait to see what my accountant says.

Freelancing is the bomb.

GLEE!

Would you like to be happy for 3 minutes? To forget that you spilled your coffee on your pants, that the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Then read on, my friends.

So, my friend Dave told me that he watched the pilot episode of "Glee", a new FOX show. Backtrack: the entertainment bible, Entertainment Weekly, put it on their "Must List" and went on about it, so L.'s and my interests were suitably piqued. Unfortunately, I forgot to Tivo it as we had planned. I thought, oh well, I'll get it next time.

But after tonight and what I saw of the pilot, I am an instant diehard fan of this show and will be waiting on pins and needles for the season to start, as well as comb every inch of cyberspace for video scraps to tide me over to the fall!

Earlier, Dave and I watched the debacle that was the final episode of Idol (damn you, America), after which he played me a snippet of the end of the pilot. All I have to say is that after a shitty month, and after feeling particularly nihilistic after seeing "Angels & Demons" last night, this little clip did nothing less than RESTORE MY FAITH IN HUMANITY. To all my karaoke friends, this shit is solid m.f.'ing GOLD! Inspired!! Take note: within this motley teen glee club you'll find gay, African-American, Asian-American, disabled, theater geek, and jock living--nay, SINGING--in utter happiness and harmony. Take special note of the female lead--that gal was born to be on stage. Epic triumph.

You go, kids.



p.s. Watch the pilot here.