things move fast around here

The time has come: my friends are starting to get married. I went to my first non-family/family-friend wedding this weekend in Columbus, OH. Despite some travel woes (flight to Chicago delayed 90 minutes! first flight to Columbus canceled!) we barely made it to Ohio for the rehearsal dinner on Saturday night. As we rushed to get dressed and ran downstairs in the hotel, we came around the corner to see the bride- and groom-to-be making their way there, too. We met Elliot for the first time (so sweet!) and reunited with Alissa (gorgeous, as per usual). It was a mini-college reunion of sorts, meeting some newer friends along the way who told their own stories of the progression of Alissa and Elliot's movie-like relationship.

the bride-to-be at the rehearsal dinner! she never stopped smiling all weekend 

 rehearsal dinner outfit shots with my wedding weekend roomies

The wedding was beautiful -- as was their bridal party (talk about good genes in those families!) -- and the reception was a blast. We felt honored to be a part of their celebration and see the beginning of what I'm sure will be a wonderful life together. It felt funny at first to attend a wedding where I had never met the groom, but I was quick to understand and see how well they fit together.

The wedding and reception were at the Franklin Park Conservatory. The space and the decor were perfect! We all loved her berry and sage green color scheme, and the earthy elements they spread throughout: the sticks under the wedding cake, rocks with your name for place cards, and the lantern center pieces.

The signing of the ketubah and the ceremony under the chuppah were full of smiles and meaningful glances. I loved watching her parents during the ceremony - they looked so happy and proud!

circling the groom - the point at which I started to get teary-eyed 

first dance to Stand By Me 

with Alissa! Congrats, again!!

"How now did you see what I did see?"

Seemingly out of nowhere on Monday morning, a tweet/post went up on BrooklynVegan that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah would be performing at Littlefield that same night with tickets going on sale at noon. I dutifully waited with my laptop and pounced, snagging 2 tickets. The show was great, as the crowd wasn't pushy nor the venue overly full (despite being sold out). Everyone seemed so chill, in fact, that Ana and I found ourselves in the front row moments before the opening act took the stage.

I tend to have mixed luck with opening bands that I'm unfamiliar with, but we were really happy with Conversion Party. They switched up vocalists and instruments several times, but the sound remained fairly consistent. I got a Thermals-ish vibe from them at times, which I didn't mind at all.

CYHSY played a mix of their first two albums interspersed with tracks from their upcoming album. All the new tracks sounded great and I'm really excited to hear the whole thing in September. While I was never the biggest fan of Some Loud Thunder, the songs they chose to play translated well to the stage and I may give it a second chance. The crowd was pretty vocal as time went on that they wanted Gimme Some Salt to be played, so their wish was granted in the form of an extra song thrown into the encore. How do we know it was extra? Because our front-row positioning allowed me to hop up onto the edge of the stage and snag Robbie's set list after the show. Win! Photos of the show, including the setlist, below:

(Gimme Some Salt was inserted before Heavy Metal)

the pretty little patter of a seaboard town

Just about one week ago I was heading off to Newport, RI with team T.E.A.M. (tiffany, eve, ana, and [myself]) for the Newport Folk Festival. Our drive was never too traffic-y (thanks, John!) and our hotel was kind of ridiculously oversized for the 4 of us.

On the surface, Newport is a really typical waterside vacation spot. All the buildings have the same look and feel and themes, but what sets Newport apart is its insanely prep-bro visitors. It's like being smacked in the face with a Ralph Lauren catalog. Despite the almost pathetically stupid things that some of the drunk dudes on the street said to us, the town was cute and I'm sorry we couldn't spend more daylight time walking around. Rather, our day on Saturday was spent out at Ft. Adams State Park for the festival, which was a beautiful location and delightfully breezy. We ate and drank and possibly got too much sun exposure. It was fantastic.

Musical highlights of my day included Gogol Bordello, Delta Spirit, and the Decemberists. Colin Meloy (jokingly?) mocked the "party flotillas" out in the water catching the concert for free (or rather, for the price of already having a boat you can sit on all day). We missed Earl Scruggs because we were eating hotdogs (necessary). We also sat in the shade tent during Gillian Welch and I let her gorgeous voice lull me into an almost-sleep.

Sunday we attempted to visit the Breakers before heading back to NYC, but were very sad to find out that it costs $19 a pop to get in. We walked past a lot of the mansions, though, and I have grand dreams (probably to never be realized) of living seaside now.

my life as a Vanderbilt (ha!) #gpoy

tributary

Just a quick post to note the assembly of covers over on Stereogum as they tribute The Strokes' first magical album, Is This It.

You can stream all the covers, or download the whole thing. I'm partial to the Morning Benders' version of "Last Night" which turns an originally semi-frenetic song into a breezier jangly summer jam. Also, Owen Pallet's take on "Hard to Explain" is beautiful.

"New York City Cops" unfortunately gets treated as merely a sample to be rapped over (and really, its inclusion in this track seems really unnecessary). Chelsea Wolfe accomplishes what she intended to do with "The Modern Age", but I find it barely recognizable anymore. I feel similarly about Wise Blood's version of "Someday." Also: where is "When It Started"?? It seems like an odd omission, especially since they already had bands who were unfamiliar with the album doing covers.

Otherwise, I'm just spending some time with my (free version) of Spotify and preparing to head to Newport Folk Festival this weekend! It'll be nice to get out of NYC - and particularly to go somewhere that's a bit cooler. It's a miracle that my ice cream did not melt en route to Bushwick for my friends' housewarming last weekend.

ice cream mania

Summer thus far has been full of lots of great things, but rising to the top of the list is the amount of ice cream I've ingested. And it's all so good. I took an ice cream making class over at Brooklyn Brainery and am on a quest to re-create Homer's fresh peach ice cream (or at least make one that's better than the other peach ice creams parading around NYC which are all far inferior to Homer's). On top of learning a slew of ice cream-related historical factoids, possibly the most important takeaway from the class was a rather intense discussion about everyone's favorite ice cream places in the city. Challenge accepted. I am slowly going through the list I made during class:

- Blue Marble (had black cherry--I think-- which was okay, but I think I'll try something else if I go back. Pro: they do mini-scoops or regular sized scoops!)

- Ample Hills (LIFE CHANGING ICE CREAM. I had Salted Crack Caramel, and there are so many other flavors I want to go back to try. It's a good thing I live over two miles away or I'd be in there every day and gain 20 pounds)

- Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

- il laboratorio del gelato

- plus, my go-to in the East Village: Sundaes and Cones, where I have seriously never had a bad scoop.

- Graeters (to be eaten on my trip to Columbus in August for a wedding! Perfect timing)

My friends are having an ice cream-themed housewarming party this weekend, and I'm planning to make a bourbon-peach cobbler ice cream (and hoping it doesn't melt en route in the almost-100-degree heatwave that's headed our way). My first attempt at making peach wasn't quite peach-y enough, so I have a few ideas about how to change things up this time for better results. It still tastes pretty awesome, though, so I don't mind eating my way through the test rounds:

what it means to be a firework

Happy (belated) Independence Day! No, not the movie, though that potential for alien invasion has come up multiple times over the course of the weekend. For the 2nd year, my friends and I took to Brooklyn Bridge Park for some picnic-ing. While cooler out than last year (pathetic but true), it was still sweltering and by the end of the picnic the icing on my cake had given out to the point where the layers were sliding around freely. Our celebration of America included a discussion of the popularity of the song "Firework" (what does it mean to be a firework? Baby, you're sparkly and only last a few seconds? Baby, you're a huge civic expense? Baby, you played a large role in the movie Mulan?), a few rounds of Bananagrams (difficult to play on a blanket, and when you feel that your brain might be melting), many types of (spiked and regular) lemonade, and at the end: a bucket of fried chicken. It was a hot, sweaty mess, but my sunburned back and I still call it a success.

EDIT: my magical flag cake was taken from this genius blog post. It's not as hard as you'd think!

summer lovin

Happy first day of summer!!

While it has certainly been warm enough already to qualify as summer, today is officially the first day. To celebrate the longest day of the year, I have a pretty long mix prepared for you all. I'm excited for some of the trips and things that I know will be summer highlights already:

• Newport Folk Festival
• the final installment of the Harry Potter movie franchise
• the first wedding I'm going to of a friend/peer (rather than a family member, etc).
• plus, visitors & housewarming parties & whatever free outdoor shows still exist in New York!

[image found via the Glamourai]