That's all she is, new ways to wear old clothes.

I finally got the 2 rolls of film developed from my Diana camera. They both have a scratch all the way across the film. Grumble grumble... Heather wants me to do a scratch test to see if it's from my camera or the lab. I really hope the lab just fucked up b/c I don't want to figure out how to fix the camera. I was already annoyed at the lab b/c they "forgot" to charge me for one of the rolls of film so I had to pay more when I went to pick them up & they fucked up the scans. One of my pictures didn't get scanned. And a bunch of my pictures weren't scanned properly so the image is like part of one picture part of another. Super annoying. I also would've just gone to the LA Lomography store to try them out but I had a weird B&W roll I couldn't just get done at Target or wherever, so I brought all the rolls to this pro lab I use. They couldn't adjust their machine to scan my Diana rolls to include the sprocket holes... which sucks, b/c that was half the fun. So I have them scanned like normal pictures & a couple of them came out cute but overall I'm a little disappointed. I can't wait to try out some more & maybe some better rolls of film too (not expired crap film I got for free). Here are some of the fun times...

There was a photo I liked off the B&W roll of film I had laying around. It's from when I went out to Linda Vista Hospital w/ some friends & people from Yelp for a photo day. I forgot it at the time & found it months later.

I also went to the Norton Simon Museum. I really like that place & hadn't been in years. They have a Hiroshige exhibit right now. They also own a ton of Degas, so if you like ballerinas & sculptures, you should go.

The title of the statue on the left is hilarious: Woman Taken Unawares

The Mulberry Tree by Van Gogh. It's really beautiful up close.

Jan van Bijilert - Mars Vigilant (Man in Armor Holding a Pike). He looks pretty awesome.

Pietro Anotonio Rotari - Young Girl Writing a Love Letter. She's giving a most sultry look.

I saw these crows at work one day. They were snuggling w/ each other & at first I didn't think they were real. I took my camera out a bit late, but the one on the left was resting its head on the other one.

I went downtown a few days ago & love how much stuff is reflected in the buildings there.

I was also a good girl & finally used all my birthday gift certificates. Which mostly meant spending time on itunes finding something I wanted to buy. I bought quite a few things actually but a couple bands I got I'm finding I like a lot. No Singles by Japandroids has 'Darkness on the Edge of Gastown' stuck in my head as well as 'Roll Up Your Sleeves' off of These Four Walls by We Were Promised Jetpacks.

http://www.myspace.com/japandroids
http://www.myspace.com/wewerepromisedjetpacks
http://www.nortonsimon.org/

You're waiting for a train.

What a busy busy week I had. I didn't get much sleep, the heat has been atrocious & I am a night owl working morning shifts w/ no a/c. I did get pretty excited when I got called to work the Inception Premiere. Woo hoo! It was not as exciting as I let my crazy imagination lead me to believe. I didn't do any red carpet stuff & didn't see any of the actors or the director. (Damn it.) But I did see Hans Zimmer & I did get to shoot one of the cameras for a live webstream of his performance at the after party. That's pretty exciting still! Hans Zimmer does this nice little added touch by spinning a top on his piano. If you've seen the movie, you understand. The broadcast is streaming at the link below. My camera is the one shooting from the left side front straight onto the stage. Yay me!

http://www.ustream.tv/inceptionpremiere


I got a bunch of friends together today & went out to the Arclight to see the movie. I was very angry at myself for getting a soda - b/c you know what that means! Pee break! I tried very hard to hold it, but with a running time of 2hr 45mins, I knew I was in trouble. Thankfully I apparently picked a really great moment to run to the bathroom - and I ran... and I'm not the only one as I seem to have lead the way for other people to think, okay... I'm going too! So here I'll warn for spoilers? I may or may not say things you don't want to know. The good pee break moment seemed to be in the snowy place w/ the fighting & Leo & Ellen Page going "under" again. There must have been a 2 minute fight sequence. Thank you!

I thought the movie was pretty interesting. It leaves off in a way that you question whether or not things are real (although I believe them to be). There were a lot more fighting scenes than I anticipated. I'd like to see it again b/c I'm not sure how I liked the pacing. I'm left curious about it & want another viewing. The list of actors is amazing - even little bonuses like Pete Postlethwaite & Lukas Haas are in it. The zero gravity scenes w/ Joseph Gordon-Levitt (looking fantastic btw, as did practically everyone - this was an eye candy movie too!) were great as well as the rotating hallway. Really the list of amazing scenes can go on. I don't know if any of the dreaming was anything like how I dream but it brings up interesting points & similarities. I also dreamed recently of walking around & being on a bridge in Paris, which was a weird feeling seeing something similar in the movie. I also like things that are incorporated from dreams I actually have - like staircases, which I am apparently very frightened of falling off of in dreams due to a lack of hand rails... and floating - wow I dream about stepping onto thin air a lot. Yes, stepping... as if the air were stairs... hmm... I wonder what that means.

http://inceptionmovie.warnerbros.com/

Lights

I haven't felt much like writing since I started work back up. I had a birthday, watched some fireworks, took some pictures. I've been snapping away at my new Diana F+ however I haven't gotten anything developed yet. I'm waiting until my current roll is finished. I'm pretty excited to see the results. So many times have I forgotten to correct my settings so it'll be interesting to see the results. I'm also waiting on some photos I took a while back. Sometimes things just don't come together. In the meantime, enjoy these.

Interpol has a new video which I downloaded a couple weeks ago but had just watched the other day. Someone loaded it to YouTube so enjoy this too. I love some of the shots (and the song of course!).




PJ Harvey has guest designed the summer issue of Zoetrope: All-Story, which is a quarterly magazine that Francis Ford Coppola puts out. It contains some of her original drawings & photographs, as well as a collection of short stories by several authors. Wood Allen has one in this issue. It was released a few weeks ago & I had been waiting for it to come out. Of course as soon as I started work I forgot about it. I ordered a copy though so I'm pretty stoked to see it. I'm sure it's available locally somewhere... The magazine also has a short fiction contest open right now - submit people!

www.all-story.com
www.pjharvey.net
www.interpolnyc.com

Listen to my heart slam, it's the hologram jam!

I've been putting off writing this blog for a few days. I started working(yay?) & adjusting to getting up so early hasn't been fun. Here I am, fucking it up again writing at 1am instead of sleeping. I got a lomography camera & have been taking some pictures here & there. I have a ton of things to try out still. Pretty excited about it though & hoping my first roll of film comes out well. Speaking of film... I'm supposed to make a movie or something by August for this college get together screening. Don't know what I'm going to do about that yet.

I was in Venice the other night & took this picture on my point & shoot. Now I'm excited to shoot some stuff on film.

I went to a couple shows last week. I went to see Jaguar Love play at some warehouse space called "The Sex" which wound up being a pretty decent place to have shows despite the desolate shady warehouse part of downtown it resides in. All Leather also played, whom I've been really curious to see live & they were pretty entertaining, even Heather thought so. I was being really lazy when it came to taking pictures that night so here's the best I have.

I haven't seen Jaguar Love live since their latest digital incarnation. They seem to have a drummer again which is nice. When I first heard their new songs online I was really hesitant about it. I didn't much like it at all. But I know they're really good live & I've been following them as musicians for a few years now so I went to the show. They won me over. I bought their new cd. It's kind of ridiculous but kind of awesome. It puts me in a dancing mood so I guess their work is done. Some of the songs are really sticking in my head. I find myself over & over repeating things like "Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah - listen to my heart slam, it's a hologram jam!" & "I was in the back of my car, sleeping in the sunshine, sleeping in the sunshine - polaroids & drinking red wine, sleeping in the sunshine, sleeping in the sunshine". The song 'Sad Parade' cracks me up because the music reminds me of 'A Pac-Man Christmas' crossed with a boy band, at least in the very beginning. Anyone else that had that album as a child might understand what I mean. So I've listened to it a handful of times now & it's really growing on me. I took a couple of pictures of them on my diana camera. It was so dark in there I hope they come out.

I also went to see Hot Hot Heat play a free show in Pasadena. That was fun. I have one of their albums but haven't followed them at all. They were pretty good & quite a few people turned out including some friends & my brother.

http://allleather.org/
http://wearejaguarlove.com/
http://www.hothotheat.com/

June Gloom

I'll be honest. I don't mind June Gloom. Sure I'd rather see those white puffy clouds than the sky full of blah but in a land where the weather doesn't change much, I welcome the variety. I start to wonder on days like these if a bit of that gloom isn't sinking into the brain a little bit. Hell, it's still sunny out even if it's behind a thick layer of crap.

I've been trying to keep myself sane & occupied during my very long stretch of unemployment. Most people would welcome the opportunity but at this point, I never want to go this long without work again. I never want to file unemployment again. When it was a month here or a couple weeks there it was fine, but this long makes you feel like a bum. I'd certainly welcome any high paying full time fun job or lottery winnings but instead I return to the old summer job in a couple weeks. Every time I come back I feel like maybe I've let myself down again. Oh there goes another year where you haven't figured out how to get a more awesome job. So I push myself a little bit to enjoy the time off while I can.

I went to MOCA with my friend Gigi a few weeks ago. We got some walking in & even bothered to take the Metro by her house. I am really interested in art, but wow - even I gave her looks of, are they serious?, when we saw things like a bloody Santa surrounded by fake Christmas trees or a jersey hanging on the wall. We did get to at least see a Warhol, so maybe it evens itself out.

Gigi also hosted our LOST finale viewing party. I could go on & on about that. I really loved that show & I loved how mysterious & weird it was, but to end the show like they did - I feel like they really dropped the ball. I find it hard to believe that they had been working towards that for the last few years. I could care less that at some point in the future they all meet each other again in the afterlife. So What. I'd rather have some of the islands mysteries explained in a fast paced, edge of your seat finale. We could watch Kate & Sawyer & company fly off into the distance. We can even wonder how it is Jack crawled out of that well, alive. I could live w/ Hurley & Ben forever walking around the island. As long as it ended there and some stuff got explained beforehand. Why bother building & building up this show w/ mysteries & then say, eh fuck it, let's take the easy way out & send them to all their respective "heavens". Ugh... Anyway, I made a cake.

I've been trying to be good & do things like read more (I joined a book club) and actually continue to learn the guitar. I'm definitely the kind of person that needs lessons, not as much to learn but to really get someone to push me to practice. It's the practicing that I find sooo difficult. My friend Chris has been good enough to help me out & I'm hoping that I'll push myself to practice more knowing that he'll be asking if I did. I also decided to buy a Diana camera, you know those Lomography throw back toy cameras. I really really want a Digital SLR so I'm not sure why spending a bunch of money on a toy film camera is so appealing. I've been putting it off for months & finally bought a kit that comes w/ all sorts of lenses & toys. So I'll be making the effort to do more photo projects in the future. My friend Harmony is a photographer & I made her this photo collage for her birthday a few weeks ago. She thought the zebra was dead & had a dream about it. Oops. I should have noted that the zebra was rolling around in the dirt having himself a good time. The lady bug pictures were taken with a film camera, the others digital.

My friend Heather has been staying with me while she's looking for a new apartment. It's kind of like a never ending sleepover. We certainly have been watching our fair share of Netflix movies. And it keeps me more motivated to keep the house clean & do projects like stain the baseboard by the backdoor b/c it looked disgusting & now doesn't. Yay for being a little motivated. Now if I could only reorganize that closet to my liking...

A Million Little Pieces

I went to see Thirty Seconds to Mars last weekend. I know I know... what to think of that. A friend of mine had an extra ticket that I bought off of her & joined them for dinner & the concert. It was a pretty fun time & maybe for the first time I thought wow, this must be what it is like to go to a popular rock show or maybe it was more like what I imagined going to one would be like when I was a teenager. I have definitely been to see popular bands before but this had a different feeling to it. Maybe it was all the screaming girls. Maybe not. Their fans straight up remind me of Jimmy Buffett fans. Like Parrotheads are to Jimmy Buffett what The Echelon are to 30 STM. They're all completely dedicated to the cause. The concert was fun to watch even from way in the back. Jared Leto really spent a lot of energy pumping up the crowd & you can really tell he likes being a performer. I think he's a pretty good singer but the first few songs didn't sound as great due to him being sick. One of the only complaints my friend & I seemed to have was that he stopped singing the lyrics a lot, getting the crowd to sing. That worked sometimes but a lot of times it didn't. I wish he would tone that down. I also wish they would have continuously played a few songs in a row. They seemed to stop a lot, which is fine, but with a 11 o'clock curfew at the Greek, we lost out a little bit & I think it really keeps the crowd excited if you keep that energy going.

I have some opinions on the band itself. The whole Echelon thing is a strange phenomenon. It's kind of interesting & kind of, at the heart of it, just one gigantic street team. The band seems to be really concerned with marketing & encouraging kids to get the word out, etc etc... which I don't fully agree with and maybe that's why they seem to get some flack. Are they just pushing too hard? But it's kind of an amazing feat to create such a huge fan base. Of course I can understand marketing your band, and hell I'm sure after all the label troubles this band has had it's quite a crafty way to do it. On the other hand, it's pretty awesome how interactive they are with their fans. Now if only they'll encourage them not to just go out & hang up some posters around town, but to do some charitable work. It seems a few of them have already caught onto that by participating in Habitat for Humanity. Now can you imagine how much influence could be spread if the band pushed as hard for them to do positive things in their communities?

Anyways I taped the song Search and Destroy, during which Jared Leto stops the band & rallies the crowd before going back into the song. It's pretty cute.

movie night!

Well I wound up staying in tonight & renting some movies I hadn't seen in the theater. One of which was Whip It. Cute movie. I will definitely have to re-watch b/c the internet distracts me so... Anyway Kristen Wiig is in it & I've seen her in a few movies lately (read the last year-ish) & think she's pretty funny. Plus she's on SNL which I only watch occasionally these days if at all but that's pretty cool. So I look her up on IMDB & wouldn't you know it - she grew up in Rochester (represent!), which just makes her more awesome. So this post's for you Miss Wiig!

I also just watched Zombieland. I don't know if watching a zombie movie at 1am is a good idea or not, even if it's funny. Will have to watch that one again too. I'm getting distracted too easily tonight! Now onto The Informant!. I think that will make me forget about zombies for a while.