I know very little about jj but I’m really liking the song “New Work” from their new mixtape album, Kills, which was released as a free gift from Sincerely Yours on Christmas Eve.

In Pitchfork’s new review, they comment that on “New Work,” “the duo takes the piano melody from Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” and makes it the chassis for a song about being young and starry-eyed elsewhere.”  And admittedly, this dreamy, escapist feel riding on a relaxed, pedestrian beat is exactly what draws me in. I’m also a sucker for lines like “When we were seventeen / The sky was always tangerine / We ran through streets at night under the starlight / We ran through streets at night / When we were winning.”

You can check out the “New Work” MP3 and a review of the album at Pitchfork.

I had the great pleasure of seeing a Pixies reunion tour, and was disarmed of any preconceived notions that the show might be a little less than exciting by virtue of being a reunion show with the first song.  They rocked like it was 1989!

First they did a B-sides set, followed by the entire Doolittle album.  As fantastic as these were, the encore, with “Caribou,” “Gigantic,” “Vamos,” and “Where is My Mind,” is what really rocked my socks off!

Here are some shots I got, and considering that I was really far back, I was quite happy with them!

Pixies @ Tulsa's Brady Theater 9-18-10

Pixies @ Tulsa's Brady Theater 9-18-10

Black Francis, David Lovering, Kim Deal

Pixies @ Tulsa's Brady Theater 9-18-10

I Bleed

Pixies @ Tulsa's Brady Theater 9-18-10

Pixies @ Tulsa's Brady Theater 9-18-10

David Lovering

must be a devil between us

Black Francis

Pixies @ Tulsa's Brady Theater 9-18-10

Pixies @ Tulsa's Brady Theater 9-18-10

Black Francis

Joey Santiago

Kim Deal

Encore!!!

From Jason Santa Maria's "The Moon" design.

Outside is a collection of links and/or articles I’ve found interesting recently.

It was a week of sound & vision. 

Vision: three fantastic designers (Naz Hamid, Frank Chimero, and Jason Santa Maria) urged us to do more with fonts and took us to El Dorado, Atlantis, and the moon in Lost World’s Fairs.  And Kitsune Noir showed off some foxy Czech-inspired wallpapers in their Wallpaper Project.

Sound: Asthmatic Ktty announced that Sufjan Stevens will release a full length album on October 12, 2010, called The Age of Adz.  And you can listen to two of the songs off of the album, “I Walked” and “Too Much” RIGHT NOW at Bandcamp.com!

Asthmatic Kitty states:

The Age of Adz (pronounced odds) is Sufjan Stevens’ first full-length collection of original songs since 2005’s civic pop opus Illinois. This new album is probably his most unusual, first, for its lack of conceptual underpinnings, and second, for its preoccupation with Sufjan himself.

Sound & Vision: if you haven’t seen the Arcade Fire interactive video for “We Used to Wait,” written in HTML5, you absolutely MUST!  It’s a splendid surprise.

I also added three new blogs to my blogroll:

• Trent Walton design
• Kitsune Noir international art and design blog
• The very funny Bloggess

Once they did get on stage, they played sans keyboards, sans Matt’s vocals, and très rapide. I can only assume that they played such fast versions of their songs to make up for the lack of keyboards and extra vocals; granted, it is customary to speed up songs during live performaces, but just when you thought Eleanor couldn’t sing/talk and faster, she’d pour out a montage of Blueberry Boat songs faster than an auctioneer selling cattle. And although keyboards are typically a key part of their songs, they still managed to put on a pretty good show without them… considering it a was a 2nd-stage stop on a Sunday night.

They played songs not only from “Blueberry Boat,” but also from “Bitter Tea” and “I’m Going Away,” including the wonderfully ominous “The End is Near” which could be talking about anything from a relationship to apocalypse with “The end is near, the end is near the time has come. There ain’t no way, nobody will save you now… don’t even think that there’s a way out of this. Down the road and up the creek it’s over, it’s such a clear and certain hell of a thing, it’s over.”

And even though we had to be at work the next morning, it was worth it because it was such a small crowd in a relaxed venue, making for an intimate evening with the Friedbergers.

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Christine & Natasha in Grandpa's Jaguar

1. Natasha, Natasha, Natasha, Natasha, Natasha; my sweetest of sweets daughter.  I’ve been ‘in love’ with people and even music and other media/art, but having a child is the best of all.  You miss them terribly when they’re away, you get scared by their fragility, and at the same time you love them like nothing else and they truly are the most charming people you will ever know.

2. A great family including sisters that I can act totally crazy and bizarre around and they think it’s just as hilarious as I do!

3. A thoughtful husband who shares so many common interests with me.

4. Fond memories of people I’ve lost.

5. The ability to focus on what I can learn from tragedies and not on the negative (I was blessed with quite the self-preserving personality!).

M Ward

6. Incessant, uncontrollable… well, passion, for lack of more accurate word – I am constantly amazed by some new song, book, personality, color combination, weather, and it goes on and on – like M Ward sings, “God, it’s great to be alive / takes the skin right off my hide / to think I’ll have to give it all up someday.”

7. The fact that I’ve found a church that I actually like (it’s sometimes hard to be a Christian when you don’t like any of the Christian churches that you’ve been to and find some serious flaws in the members as well (and I’m still trying to figure out how much of that is my own problem)) – I recently started going to a small Methodist church and I think I finally feel like I’ve found a church that I feel I can grow in.  I love the social history and focus of the church, they’ve played an active role in American civil rights issues and to this day they are very socially active.  The church I’ve been going to houses our Meals on Wheels kitchen and is very focused on helping the poor in our community.  The are also spiritual without taking the whole of the Bible literally.  (This could be a very very long item and it’s already past midnight so I’ll leave it at that for now).

8 That I was born in the age of air conditioning, pain medication, movie shows, and teh internets! (Though this one could be a blessing and a curse…)

9 That I’ve found a home-based business that has been successful thus far, and that I enjoy (making sites).

10 That I have a nice, relaxed job that lets me wear jeans every day, and hang numerous plants, music posters, child drawings, and various art/craftwork around my desk until the grey walls are almost completely hidden.

Fuji's IJ Roll & Spicy Tuna Roll

11 Fuji’s sushi, particularly their spicy tuna rolls.

12 Iced coffee.

13 Anh Hung Tran.

14 Woody Allen.

15 Michel Gondry.

16 T.S. Eliot.

17 e e cummings.

18 Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

19 Glenn Gould.

Glenn Gould

20 Sergei Rachmaninoff.

21 Frederic Chopin (so in love)!

22 Claude Debussy.

23 My beautiful black Baldwin upright.

24 The joy of playing piano.

25 The feeling of the air moving against your chest while playing the accordion.

26 The Jersey shore and endless summers I got to spend there while visiting family.

27 Tulsa, with the friendliest people, cool architecture, magnificent thunderstorms, Cain’s, and its thick green-ness.

28 The time I got with a truly amazing piano teacher, Claire Jones.

29 Good friends I’ve kept over the years and friends to come.

30 Sonic Route 44 diet Coke with lots of lime.

31 Being born in an era of countless amazing bands & musicians!  

Rainy Fall

32 Rain.

33 Snow.

34 The magic in the perfect speed of riding a bike.

35 Recording devices.

36 Looking out the window of a moving car.

37 The mystical Tahlequah, OK.

38 The dreamy Peggy Lee tune ‘Where or When’ and the perfect snowy December morning I was awoken by that song on the radio.

Peggy Lee

39 The moment that I first heard Paul McCartney’s ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ (in high school right after a breakup with a boyfriend who I had mentioned this song to and who didn’t find anything special about it) and thought that it was so underrated and awesome that I would marry the guy who told me he intimated the same feelings toward the song without knowing my feelings about it (which is a small part of why I’m married to who I am today and whomever reads this first will be the first to learn this)!

Christian Bale!

40 Red wine.

41 Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

42 M Ward.

43 Christian Bale.

44 Leonard Cohen.

45 New Order and They Might Be Giants (and numerous others) for being major players in getting me through high school in one piece!  …But don’t forget the songs
That made you cry
And the songs that saved your life
Yes, you’re older now
And you’re a clever swine
But they were the only ones who ever stood by you…

46 Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Neutral Milk Hotel, Animal Collective, Wolf Parade, The Fiery Furnaces, and Sufjan Stevens for showing up just when I thought there era of good music of my generation was over.

47 Talking Heads for managing to be so hot and intellectual at the same time.

48 NPR for their ‘driveway moments.’

Carlsbad Caverns + Doll's Theater

49 Caves.

50 National & State Parks.

51 Glorious blank paper and a black pen.

52 Magazine collages.

53 Smalti mosaics.

54 The Golden Number.

55 Hello Kitty.

56 Niagara Falls.

57 Growing up with parents who loved to take road trips.

58 Mojitos.

59 Gardening.

60 The Russian language with which I am enamored but haven’t found the time to get past general greetings.  Strastvitya.

From the Japanese folk tale "The Crane Wife"

61 Folk tales & mythology.

62 Shakespeare (I know, yawn, how quaint) – I like Hamlet and Midsummer’s Night Dream a lot, almost as much as the fact the he varied the spelling of his name.

63 Night swimming and that I was fortunate enough to grow up with a pool with lights and an overview of dreamy, spooky woods.

64 My propensity to daydream.

65 Symbols.

LOST

66 LOST.

67 That I got to major in two subjects that dealt heavily in symbols in mirror opposite ways – Mathematics and English Literature.

68 Dreams (“in dreams, emotions are overwhelming” -Science of Sleep).

69 Gael Garcia Bernal.

Gael Garcia Bernal in The Science of Sleep

70 Motorcycle Diaries (I liked the book and the movie) – even though I don’t agree with everything Che Guevara did in his lifetime, I’ve always admired the humanity of this book and his altruistic spirit – this journey really gives some insight into his life before it the politics (and what led him to that), and his love, respect, and care for the people he met.

71 Dark chocolate with orange.

72 Icicles.

73 Coconut lime verbena body spray from Bath & Body Works which gives me a little extra vigor each and every day.

Arctic Wolf

74 Wolves.

75 Language.

76 Silence.

77 Chinese silk shirts and dresses.

78 A cat who has so much personality that she’s more human than cat.

79 Google Adsense

80 Coffee Shops

Mt Fuji woodblock print by Hiroshige

81 The early Christmas present my husband just gave me – a MacBook – yay!

82 Hobby Lobby so my daughter and I can easily find a new craft project to do any time.

83 Hiroshige.

84 Vladimir Horowitz.

85 Hoodies.

86 Banana Republic.

87 Illuminations Candles.

88 Andrei Tarkovsky.

89 Richard Kelly for making Donnie Darko.

Philbrook's 1st Garden Glow 11-29-08

90 College radio.

91 Starry nights.

92 Connections.

93 Noodle bowls.

94 That I discovered the combination of saltine crackers, plain cream cheese, and green olives.

Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More!

95 The city.

96 The country.

97 Holidays and the events they inspire, like warm lingering meals, The Nutcracker ballet, and Philbrook’s Garden Glow.

98 iTunes Genius.

99 Creepy Cute Crochet for getting me back into crocheting and sparking some ideas.

100 WordPress for being the most awesome CMS and making this easier than it could have been.

101 You!

Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Frog Eyes, Swan Lake, & Fifths of Seven

10 Wolf Parade + You Are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son

09 Wolf Parade + Grounds for Divorce

08 Sunset Rubdown + Us Ones in Between
.:*Spencer Krug gently singing in the lamplight*:.

07 Sunset Rubdown + For the Pier (and Dead Shimmering)
A great glimpse into Spencer Krug’s show intensity!

06 Wolf Parade + This Heart’s on Fire

05 Wolf Parade + Modern World

04 Wolf Parade + Soldier’s Grin

03 Wolf Parade + I’ll Believe In Anything

02 Sunset Rubdown + Shut Up I am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings

01 Wolf Parade + Kissing the Beehive
FIRE IN THE HOLE, FIRE IN THE HOLE, FIRE IN THE HOLE…!

Glenn Gould

I couldn’t sleep this morning – I was wide awake at 4:00 and couldn’t get back.  I tried the usual plane crash daydreams but to no avail… so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to start my new regime.

I’d been planning to make some changes this week anyway and was falling behind, so really, this was perfect.

For one, I want to really get back into piano so I’m getting to know the keys again – I plan on spending each week being intimate with a different key, starting with C of course and going around the circle in the usual fashion.  I hope to get through Hanon (sans the nasty thumb-under excercises

Glenn Gould

which my brilliant piano teacher advises cause carpel-tunnel and of which I was painstakingly reminded after trying them this weekend) once a week in one key, then I’m picking two (or more in the case of C) interesting but not terribly difficult pieces in each key for each week.  Part of being intimate with the songs and keys is going to be listening to different well-done versions of the songs each week as well.

This week (week of C) I’ve been playing Bach’s “Prelude #1 from The Well Tempered Clavier” and have been listening to M Ward’s version (everything Ward touches is golden) as well as Glenn Gould’s (my former teacher studied under the same master teacher that Glenn Gould did!) – he had Bach down:

Glenn Gould was so hot.

And my other piece for this week is Debussy’s “Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum” from “Children’s Corner,” what a dreamy tune – I just get lost… Alfred Cortot playing here:

My other regime involves health – I’m starting by having no more than 1200 calories a day and taking a variety of vitamins. I’m also slowly moving towards becoming fish vegetarian but I’ve got some work there… though I very rarely eat beef so that’s a good start.

I would like to include some sort of exercise, but it just won’t fit in right now because I want to spend as much time with my daughter as possible and I’m already getting up early to do most of my piano playing before she wakes up and putting my internet publishing business on hold (just hiring out some work right now).

Wolf Parade's Dante DeCaro & Spencer Krug

I took a rare week night out with my sis and her husband to go see Wolf Parade at The Marquee in Tulsa tonight – it was the best show I’ve seen in years.

First we stumbled out of the T-storms & tornadoes into “Lola’s,” a dia de los muertos themed tapas bar where we got some fantastic mojitos.

Eric & Christine in front of Lola's

Lola's Decor

Me likes a good mojito

Afterwards we got to The Marquee early enough to get a decent spot and catch the opening band – [insert name here - I'm terribly sorry and mean no disrespect but I forgot] The Listening Party – which had a good blend of native beats and rock (not in a boring hippie way); very Animal Collective-esque.

The Listening Party

Then came Wolf Parade.  I used to listen to them a lot then I kinda forgot about them – I’m sooo glad I was reminded! 

Wolf Parade + Spencer Krug

Wolf Parade + Spencer Krug

Wolf Parade + Spencer Krug

Wolf Parade + Spencer Krug

Wolf Parade + Arlen Thompson & Dan Boeckner

Wolf Parade + Spencer Krug

Wolf Parade + Hadji Bakara

Wolf Parade + Spencer Krug

Wolf Parade + Dan Boeckner

Give me your eyes
I need sunshine
Give me your eyes
I need sunshine
Your blood
Your bones
Your voice
and your ghost…

No one plays this like Horowitz.