lately...

...I've been working on a few different projects.

Drawing, checking out the non-headlining bands that will be at Pitchfork this summer (foxygen!)(as will I with several of my friends. super. psyched.), learning (er, trying to learn) HTML and CSS, and making my own Brooklyn quilt. Fun fact: quilting is one of the first ways that I learned to sew! Talk about being a cool kid. Also, my friend and her husband just had their first baby out in Seattle, which is somewhere between exciting and terrifying. We all just sent her this onesie to initiate her into our ol' shabbos-wine-drinking gang:



As part of my quilting process, I've recently gone on a binge of movies I meant to see in theaters last year, but never did. Handquilting is mostly busy work so having something to also watch/listen to is useful if I want to work for a few hours. I've mostly been Netflixing the smaller movies that fall into the sort of quirky-indie-romcom category: Ruby Sparks, Safety Not Guaranteed, The Five Year Engagement, Lola Versus, etc. (but there was also a day spent going down the rabbithole of watching old Arrested Development episodes, which is dangerous on Netflix because the next one just queues up right away). I would most strongly recommend Safety Not Guaranteed or The Five Year Engagement. Ruby Sparks was okay, as long as you don't have a viscerally angry reaction to movies with MPDG character types. Lola Versus has Greta Gerwig, who I love, and was written by the same team as Breaking Upwards (enjoyable / streaming on Netflix), but at times made me feel like I was watching an episode of Girls. Since I already have a strange love-hate relationship with Girls, it left me with a similarly ambivalent feeling.

Today is beautiful, though, so I'm going to go outside and not think about how yesterday it snowed all day and today it's 53 degrees. Then hopefully later my mom will actually get on a flight that takes off and brings her here, as opposed to yesterday when she spent all day at O'Hare including boarding two planes, one of which actually left the gate and got in line to take off before they were told to come back and the flight was canceled. Airlines are a confusing shitshow.

you're all right

Happy Valentine's Day! This holiday isn't particularly important, but I love it in a very not-taking-it-seriously way. I've always been a fan of going overboard and wearing a ridiculous amount of red and pink clothing and giving my friends silly cards or cookies (or senior year of high school when I made the craziest heart-shaped pink layer cake surrounded by chocolate-covered strawberries). To be fair though, many days in my life look like a Valentine's Day costume because I have red jeans (which I wore yesterday) and two red coats.

This year I launched a shop on Society6 of drawings/cards (one of which you can see above). And of course, I also made you this mix of things I've been listening to lately. because I love puns, and I love these songs/bands/artists.

resolve to resolve

Oh hey, 2013. 2012 went out like a lion, with 15+ people shoved into my apartment dancing up a storm and drinking a crazy amount of (mainly cheapo) champagne. So far I've made no resolutions, and am not sure that I ever will. My birthday is right before the New Year, and I make candle-blowing wishes which seem as about as effective as declaring that I'm going to completely change my life this year month. With the freedom of living resolution-free this past week I have managed to "accomplish" all sorts of things...like already messing up my sleep schedule, possibly having an ear infection (also haven't managed to drag myself to the doctor), and watching/streaming "Thrift Shop" so.many.times.

Sure, there are things I'd like to do this year, which are basically the same things I wanted to do last year and failed to do (like visiting my friends in DC or writing in this blog like, ever).  Plus, this year is 5 year college reunion -- how did that happen?? errr, maybe I do need resolutions... I'll get back to you on that.

Top 10 of 2012

Oh hey, look at that, the world hasn't ended. Rad. The blog makes its triumphant return to proclaim my favorite albums of the year! I guess I've just been doing a lot of non-bloggy things -- and actually, I also haven't gone to see a show in a while either. But I did make some pretty baller Christmas cards for like 6 people until they got too time-consuming and I had to cut myself off. Chanukah has come and gone, but I'm leaving up the sweet pom-pom and ribbon garland I made. I'm also in the midst of editing what is currently a 7+ hour playlist for New Year's Eve (too much?), begging the eternal question: what is the first song you want to hear as 2013 starts? I have a week at home in Chicago to think about these pressing matters.

Without further ado, my 10 favorite albums of 2012:

10. First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar

Somehow choosing #10 on this list was harder than the first nine. First Aid Kit managed to edge out the rest of my honorable mentions with some charming Swedish folk and a tenderness to their voice and sound. Plus they did a great Tiny Desk Concert.






9. Divine Fits - A Thing Called Divine Fits

This was a shining example of what a super group can produce. With Britt on vocals it ran the risk of sounding overly Spoon-y (not that I would have minded that), but Divine Fits definitely have a sound of their own. I'm particularly fond of their slow-build jam "Shivers."







8. The Walkmen - Heaven

While more subdued than say, Bows + Arrows, this album is similarly full of passionate sentiment if not fervor. It certainly has some of the songs that have stuck in my head this year more than anything else. 

7. Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls

It really feels like these guys came out of nowhere. And thank god. Soulful in a truly genuine way. One of my regrets of the year is that I never saw them live.

6. David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant

Love them individually, love them together. It was a match made in off-beat rocker heaven, and a long time coming. Lots of horn-filled goodness. My only complaint is that I wish there was more of Annie's guitar because she's just so awesome.







5. Hospitality - Hospitality

I listened to this album a lot this year, particularly pre-fall. It's that sort of indie pop where things sound bright and sunny, but their lyrics are actually bleakly realistic when you pay attention. They were pretty charming when I saw them play at the South Street Seaport, too.






4. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange  

One of the most lauded albums of the year, and for good reason. It's hard to separate praise for his album from his personal narrative this year in coming out, which certainly adds some context. However, even without that piece of information, he has still created a beautiful album that has the power to resonate with anyone. His performance of Bad Religion on Jimmy Fallon still haunts me.

3. Japandroids - Celebration Rock

I really slept on getting into this album. It came out when I was in a very female-vocalist / folky phase of the year, so I passed over it initially. But really, it's kind of perfect and amazing. You get exactly what the title promises: celebration rock. Its high energy level reminds me of high school, except it's so much better than most of what I listened to back then.





2. Passion Pit - Gossamer

It felt like Passion Pit toured on their first album f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I was growing skeptical of whether they could avoid the 2nd album slump, but they matured lyrically in a really positive way. And added a little more...shall I say groove to their sound. The interview with Michael Angelakos on Pitchfork (ugh, sigh) was one of the more interesting and candid discussions of an artist's mental health that I've read in a while, and gives a lot of great background on how his being bipolar played a role in the creation of this album.


1. Sharon Van Etten - Tramp

I cannot, will not, get over how great this album is. Seeing her at BAM allowed me to make a strong connection between her and her work - it feels like a perfect reflection of who she is. And yeah, I have a slight bias towards artists who collaborate with the guys in The National, but even without the Dessner-boost, Sharon Van Etten is special. Her voice has that fragile-yet-powerful, haunting quality which gets me every time.





Listen to them all at once (if you have several hours available...):


Honorable mentions: Jack White - Blunderbuss, The Shins - Port of Morrow, Tame Impala - Lonerism, Of Monsters and Men - My Head is an Animal, Father John Misty - Fear Fun, Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself.

hands up and touch the sky

See you next year, summer. I'm a little sad to see you go, but I'll be glad to see 90+ degree days leave us. It's been pretty laid back, but a lot of stuff snuck in there -- the best kind of summer I think.

Summer 2012 tally:
- 2 weddings (with #3 coming up in a few weeks!)
- 4 Lou Malnati's pizza parties
- 5 concerts in Prospect Park (Laura Marling; Ghostface Killah; Childish Gambino/Danny Brown/SchoolboyQ; Wilco; Wild Flag)
- many first times including a trip to LA, hanging out in Jersey City, standing up in a friend's wedding, swimming at a NYC beach (the Rockaways!), and going to a bachelorette party (this is that scary part of our 20's where there's some kind of snowball and everyone gets married, isn't it?)
- a visit from two of my favvvvvorite people ever
- plus, 12 weeks of fresh summer vegetables (CSA!) and subsequent super delicious stuff being made
- this also just might be known as the summer of the frozen zombie fishbowl...we had a few too many.

I have no way to quantify the number of times I actually listened to Starships, but it's way more than what I recorded on last.fm. It definitely wound up being my song of the summer. I tried my hardest to avoid Call Me Maybe, but it was totally inescapable, particularly watching any sort of Olympics swimming coverage. yikes.

bring on it on, fall -- I have a sweater and some new shoes I'd love to wear. thanks. ::cue exit music::

sky blue sky? (not quite)

Better late than never? I wrote this and forgot to post it, so...
I'm playing catch-up and am going to backtrack to a few Mondays ago when Wilco played the first of three NYC shows. This particular show was in Prospect Park, making it the fourth(?) show I've seen there this summer alone. Wilco made the space their own, with their now-standard backdrop/lighting system. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the show was that starting about 4 songs in, a steady rain began to fall. Lightning was in the area, but it never actually stormed over the bandshell. Wilco played for two and a half hours, including two multi-song encores, but no one budged an inch. They sounded great (and possibly worth noting, they were also dry because the stage area is totally covered) and checked in on the audience to make sure we weren't too wet or...chafing. Thanks? Their catalog is so extensive that of course they couldn't possibly play every single song that we wanted to hear, but everything they played was so great that I didn't even realize what was "missing" until well after. It was a lot of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and a good sampling of all the other albums. They closed the regular set with A Shot in the Arm, my all-time sentimental favorite.

 

we made it in America

To wish America a happy 236th birthday, I made it a mix. It's full of newish and oldish songs and everything in between. Tributes to various states and places. Songs celebrating freedom, summer, capitalism, youth, and all those other 'merican sorts of things. I'm just hoping to not melt like I have the last two years.

4th of July from thewarehousedream on 8tracks.

Track Listing:
Hot As Day - Wye Oak
National Anthem - Lana del Ray
Rise To The Sun - Alabama Shakes
Coney Island - Death Cab for Cutie
The Great Salt Lake - Band of Horses
Summer Days - Bob Dylan
Brand New Colony - The Postal Service
Niagra Falls - Harlem Shakes
Young Americans - David Bowie
Blink and You'll Miss a Revolution - Cut Copy
Your English Is Good - Tokyo Police Club
Decatur, or, Round of Applause For Your Stepmother! - Sufjan Stevens
Freedom at 21 - Jack White
The First Single - The Format
Bloodbuzz Ohio - The National
We Almost Lost Detroit - Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
California Waiting - Kings of Leon
1000 Julys - Third Eye Blind
I'm Free (Hot Chip Remix) - The Rolling Stones
Mississippi - The Griswolds
Made in America - Jay Z/Kanye
Bonfire - Childish Gambino
Americano - Lady Gaga
Firework - Katy Perry