Oh, How the Days Will Rain On You

With all this rolling thunder and desperate rain, I can't help myself.

And it feels like it should today
Falling back on a better place
You wouldn't hide awhile
If you knew it for two more days
I wont shovel through
All the shame that led me too
You wouldn't pass it off

Woods at Kraak Gallery from Sebastian Matthes on Vimeo.
mp3 courtesy of RCRDLBL: Woods- Rain On

I think I may have been adopted

My first halloween with my mother and brother, dressed as a Buddhist monk? or pumpkin?

Shall We, Charlotte?

Charlotte Gainsbourg's "IRM" is fast becoming one of my winter favorites. Here's a wonderful fan-made video of Charlotte Gainsbourg's "IRM" title track.

charlotte gainsbourg IRM stop motion from mimms cross on Vimeo.

well, look on the bright side...

I want to live in Julianna Bright's world. The vivid colors, patterns, oh the fantasy!. This is going on my 2010 inspiration board! Just one look at them and I'm overcome with the desire to sew, write, draw, have chai tea, photograph, listen to Fleet Foxes, Cocteau Twins, Taken by Trees, oh you get the picture...

It's the dream you've always wished you've had

“The pictures I make have became for me a way to circle back to that wonder I felt as a child,” says Julianna, “that time before I was even able to read when I could fashion a whole universe in my mind around an illustration.”
She's a Los Angeles native, studied at Berkeley and now lives in Portland, Oregon. She's also a musician. You can buy her prints etsy , including a 210 calendar for just $15 !
You can check out her website here

Since I'm obsessed with mustaches

So cool, Etsy has a youtube channel that profiles different artists, and has how-to videos. Since I am pretty much obsessed with mustaches, this video stuck out to me. So after your picnic of red wine, cheese and strawberries, you can use the strawberry container to make your own miniature plastic mustache. Put holes in it and make it a necklace, or if you have mustache envy you can wear it loud and proud right under your nose. It's all a part of "upcycling"...it's like a makeover. Basically you take something that maybe you'd only use once and throw away, but you re-work and give it another purpose.
Under the comments on youtube someone wrote that you can also use a microwave to shrink it - put in under low for 15 seconds. What I love about this project is that it seems simple and you don't need any fancy equipment.


here's another project I'd like to try:
Knitting Postcards

Twin Sister

I've been infatuated with this band for the past couple of months and I can't shake them. I can listen to their EP "Vampires with Dreaming Kids" for hours nonstop. And the best news is that you can get it for FREE off their website Their track "Ginger" was the first to reel me in.

They've been working on a new EP and they're almost done. Here's a snippet of their upcoming EP "Color Your Life"

Color Your Life from Twin Sister on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, they're only touring in NY at the moment. What's with all these wonderful bands I'd love to see and them only touring the east coast? Case in point: Small Black and Young Buffalo. Boo, come on over to greener, warmer pastures guys.

The Historian

It's always a sad triumph when you finish a good book. Goodbye "The Historian", thank you for taking me to Istanbul, Bulgaria, France, on train rides, through fire walking, crypts and wondrous libraries. I'll miss those colorful dreams you gave me, even the scary ones.

One of the places that stayed with me the most is Istanbul. The writing was perfectly descriptive, not too much so that it would bore me, but just right that I could picture everything in my mind the way it should be. And now I can't stop thinking about Istanbul and all its treasures.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

"the only thing we could do was to turn our feet toward our one landmark, the Hagia Sophia, orginally the great Byzantine Chruch of Saint Sophia. And once we drew near it, it was impossible for us not to enter. The gates were open and the huge sanctuary pulled us in among the other tourists as if we rode a wave into a cavern. For fourteen hundred years, I reflected, pilgrims had been drawn into it, just as we were now. inside, I walked slowly to the center and craned my head back to see that vast, divine space with its famous whirling shields covered with Arabic calligraphy in the upper corners, mosque overlaying church, church overlaying the ruins of the ancient world. it arched far, far above us, replicating the Byzantine cosmos. I could hardly belive I was there. I was stunned by it.
--Suddenly, in this echoing house of Byzantium - one of the wonders of history- my spirit leaped out of its confines. I knew in that instant that, whatever happened, I could never go back to my old constraints. I wanted to follow life upward, to expand with it outward, the way this enormous interiors swelled upward and outward. My heart swelled with it. "

It's about this teenage girl who starts discovering secrets her father has long tried to keep from her. It's a coming-of-age tale, realizing things aren't quite the way you imagined growing up....seeing the harsh truths of history. The character looming over the characters and the reader is Vlad III Tepes ("the Impaler"), whom Bram Stoker's Dracula was based upon, is more frightful than any blood-sucking vampire. Dracula actually means "son of Dracul", because his father was prominent in the Order of the Dragon. Believe me, google him and you'll earn yourself an unhealthy obsession. He was a scholar, an incredibly intelligent man yet ruthless beyond belief. This man was real, of human flesh, human heart and soul did unbelievable atrocious things such as: roasting people alive, boiling people, skinning the feet of thieves and have goat lick salt off their feet, feeding people flesh from a loved one. His main thing was impalement. Not only would he use it in battle, but he would impale infants to their mother's body. The impalement was not the type you see in movies, the way vampires get staked..... he wanted the victim to be aware of the situation, to feel the pain, the stake would go in through one end of the body and out through the mouth. They might last hours, or days and even dead they'd stay up there for however long Vlad III wanted. Thinking about this man, what he did, not just him, but all the other shameful acts humanity has committed. It's hard to get past it and to know how history has a tendency to repeat itself in one form or another