Use Their Words

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

- Franz Kafka

Use Your Words: Lag Time

This morning I received some good advice from an old friend who once told me (quite rightly) to "get my shit together."  It seems that time has come again.  I've been a little less motivated at work lately than I could be, I haven't worked out at all since the honeymoon, and a number of Annoying Adult Tasks (dentist appointment, new checking account, ) have been languishing on my mental to-do list.  I haven't been doing nothing, to be fair - yesterday I met up with our photographer (pro pictures coming soon!), baked a cobbler, met friends for a drink, and cleaned the apartment with E - but my emphasis hasn't really been on Serious Personal Responsibility or growth recently so much as Should I Get A Hand Tattoo.  (I submit to you that the two really are quite mutually exclusive.) 

On the one (not-yet-tattooed) hand, I will say that it's quite nice to feel so comfortable in my life and in my skin that I can pursue fun without massive guilt or anxiety.  In some ways this is new for me - I've never been a super confident or terribly spontaneous person, though I might like to think of myself that way.  I think it's also the result of my recently-celebrated partnership with E, which has a distinctly stabilizing effect on my whirring negative-Nancy brain.

On the other hand, 30 is staring me in the face and it's probably time to get some ducks in a row*.  For a while now I've basically just been congratulating myself (and spending a shit-ton of money to have other people congratulate me) on my solid, happy relationship, while other grown-up goals of mine (home ownership, professional development) fell by the wayside.  And I can't help but notice that, from a distance, that aforementioned stabilizing effect can look a little bit like laziness and complaceny.

Tough love says: the relationship is a lot, but it's not everything.  And the best way to undermine it is to shirk other responsibilities. So, action time.  Well, work time**, really, followed by a free screening of Fright Night (What?  I already have the passes and they'll just go to waste otherwise!  I can't do ALL the things in one day, right?)

But seriously.

What do you do when you need to buckle down?




*They're wily!

**Two ironies: 1) Completing this post made me (slightly) late for work - guess who's staying late today? and 2) When I did arrive at work, I was wearing lipstick, a very bland but work-appropriate outfit . . . and these (which did NOT cost me $183).  Hello sensible keep-at-work loafers!  See you at 5:30, shoes of amazingness.

Use Your Ears: Monthly Mix - July

Finally caught up!  July's mix is available on Spotify here.  (Does anyone have Spotify, and if so can you let me know if the link actually works?  It kind of seems too good to be true.)

	Artist	Title	Album	Notes
1	Lady Gaga	Edge of Glory	Born This Way	Apparently inspired by her grandfather on his death bed?  A reminder of a fun night out.
2	Neil Young	Walk With Me	Le Noise	Produced by Daniel Lanois (hence the album title).
3	Cee-Lo Green	(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care	Rave On Buddy Holly	Album of the month.
4	MGMT	Electric Feel	Oracular Spectacular	Saw her in the Amazon / with the voltage running through her skin / Standing there with nothing on / she's gonna teach me how to swim
5	Florence & the Machine	Not Fade Away	Rave On Buddy Holly	Florence + Buddy Holly + Tuba = WIN.
6	The Avett Brothers	Kick Drum Heart	I and Love and You	Truth in song title advertising.
7	Ra Ra Riot	Boy	The Orchard	Cat video?  I don't know what this song is about but I like it.
8	Kid Rock	Well All Right	Rave On Buddy Holly	Annnd my brain is officially melted, because I like a Kid Rock song.*
9	Pogo	Very Good Advice (?)	N/A	Mesmerizing remix of dialogue from Alice in Wonderland.  More.
10	Belle	Chase No Face	Diamonite	Neat video.  Apparently the song is an ode to this cat.  (WARNING: disturbing/sad).
11	TV On the Radio	No Future Shock	Nine Types of Light	Is "menacing dance anthem"  a genre?
12	Amy Winehouse	Back to Black	Back to Black	R.I.P.
13	TV On the Radio	Second Song	Nine Types of Light	Every lover on a mission / shift your known position / into the light.

Chase No Face / BELL from zach lieberman on Vimeo.





New music courtesy of . . .
All Songs Considered
The lovely and talented Carla
Miss Moss
Andrew Sullivan

*In a blind listening session, E confirmed that this song is actually enjoyable.  Apparently the trick with Kid Rock is to take a really good song that someone ELSE wrote, and then add a horn section.

Use Your Words: Spousal Fashion Edition

After several glasses of wine this evening, I charged E with picking out my clothes for our late-night trip to West End Cinema.  In the fashion magazine where I gleaned this idea (okay that's probably the first place I went wrong) the husband in question chose extra sexy clothes for his wife, which she thought were too risque, but then she kept getting lots of compliments so she just went with it.

Counterpoint: E chose my most boring (though very work appropriate and reasonably nice) black dress.  Which is itself an accomplishment, because I have a lot of black dresses.  When I harangued him about it, he went back and picked another (sexier) black dress for me, but I think the whole episode is pretty telling anyway.  E is the type who chooses sensible shoes every time, not just because they're sensible, but because he genuinely likes them*.  Fortunately, he chose a wife who, without hesitation, will buy white ballerina flats with wings on them in a half-size too small, on the internet.  It all evens out in the end, right?

*It should be noted that, once he chose the black dress, he chose all the right accessories, AND that he specifically avoided choosing a dress that was the same color as the t-shirt he was already wearing.  The man's not colorblind.  Just . . . steady.

Use Your . . . Intertubes?: Awesome Things Edition

Climb onboard the appreciation train (woooo woooo!) for an assortment of things I'm jazzed about right now.

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The amazing "skants" worn by enlightened Starfleet dudes in the first few seasons of Star Trek: TNG

Picture c/o GeekSix

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Insurance companies required to provide co-pay free birth control (via Feministing)

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Peanut Butter Creme Newman-Os

I don't know why this picture won't rotate.

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Spraying perfume on my knee-pits (I get to smell good without the perfume headaches!)

Lucky Magazine teaches me how to use products like a lady.

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I haven't explored it much yet but I'm excited about the potential of Spotify

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Can't decide if I want to make it myself or buy this chunky knit sweater from Good Night, Day

found through Miss Moss

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If A Married Lesbian Couple Saves 40 Teens from the Norway Massacre and No One Writes About It, Did It Really Happen?  (Thanks to Jess for the link)

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OMG WHITE WINGED BALLERINA FLATS

Adidas js wings ballerina flats discovered through Nag on the Lake

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Anyone else find anything superawesome recently?

More Music! It is the theme of the week?

If the internet gods cooperate, here are two ways I will keep myself entertained today:

BUST radio

The Library of Congress' new National Jukebox

Image Courtesy of Sound College

Thanks to BUST magazine and my girl Rachel Maddow for directing me to all this awesome new ear-candy.

Use Your Ears: Monthly Mix - June

Here's what I was listening to in June.  Listen on Spotify here (hopefully it works!  You need an invitation to join.)

1	Peter Gabriel	Heroes	Scratch My Back	Song, and album, of the month.
2	Lily Allen	LDN	Single
3	Nicky Minaj & Drake	Moment 4 Life	Pink Friday	I resent how deeply this song has been drilled into my brain and hate Drake's self-aggrandizing, borderline-misogynist rant in the middle of it, but secretly love that Minaj compares herself to a vampire slayer AND King David in the same verse.
4	P!nk	Raise Your Glass	Single	Surely 2011's #1 prom theme.
5	La Roux	Bulletproof (Manhattan Clique Remix Radio)	Bulletproof (Remixes)
6	John Lennon	God	Plastic Ono Band	God is a concept / by which we measure our pain
7	Brian Eno	Third Uncle	Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy
8	Architecture in Helsinki	W.O.W.	Moment Bends	Saw AiH at the Black Cat this month.
9	Architecture in Helsinki	Escapee	Moment Bends	AiH frontman Cameron Bird reminds me of Dr. Janosz Poha in Ghostbusters II.
10	Jonathan Richman	When We Refuse to Suffer	Because Her Beauty is Raw and Wild	Your life becomes a bore, and you're sufferin' even more. Good reminder from Mr. Richman.
11	Architecture in Helsinki	Sleep Talkin'	Moment Bends	Did I mention that I like Architecture in Helsinki?  I’m not sure if I mentioned that.
12	Elvis Presley	Burnin' Love	Elvis 75	Lordy lordy, Elvis lights my morning sky.
13	Peter Gabriel	The  Book of Love	Scratch My Back

Their Words/Your Hands: Blackberry Season

Late August, given heavy rain and sun

For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.

At first, just one, a glossy purple clot

Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.

You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet

Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it

Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for

Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger

Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots

Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.

Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills

We trekked and picked until the cans were full,

Until the tinkling bottom had been covered

With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned

Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered

With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.

But when the bath was filled we found a fur,

A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.

The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush

The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.

I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair

That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.

Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

- Seamus Heaney, Blackberry Picking

Blackberry season comes earlier here in DC than in Ireland; the dregs of our first batch from the farmer’s market just succumbed to rot.  Fortunately, most of them made it into our greedy mouths. Another batch went into the below recipe for Blackberry Pistachio Icebox Cake, which I made yesterday for a work pot-luck.

Blackberry Pistachio Icebox Cake

1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled
1 1/2 teaspoons rose water
1/4 cup sugar
A couple of packets of tea biscuit cookies, or whatever absorbent, not-too-sweet wafer you find lying around (I used the Caramel/Toffee flavor of pizzelle from Whole Foods)
3 cups blackberries, sliced in half
2/3 cup unsalted pistachio nuts, toasted and roughly chopped
1/4 cup pomegranate molasses (or more, to taste)

In a large bowl, combine cream, rose water, and sugar. Use electric mixer to whip mixture on high speed until it holds stiff peaks.

Line the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish (or whatever size you have handy) with wafers. Spread on one quarter of the cream. Sprinkle one quarter of the blackerries and pistachios on top, and finish with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses. Repeat for four layers.

Cover and chill in refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight.


Brazenly stolen and slightly reworded from Max Falkowitz’s recipe on Serious Eats

Use Their Words

"But no matter how justifiable such anger with Congress may be, we'd still like to take the chance to remind [Jeff] Jarvis and everyone else that we here in the city of Washington didn't have any part in electing the group of jokers that's playing chicken with the country's financial future -- and, in fact, they've been toying with us for years. Welcome to the club!"

- Aaron Morrissey at DCist on the trending #F**kYouWashington hashtag

Use Your Ears: Monthly Mix - May

I'm way behind on my monthly mixes.  Here's what I was listening to in May.

	Artist	Title	Album	Notes
1	David Gilliland & Jeffrey Lyman	Sarabande et Cortege pour basson et piano	The Wind Compositions of Henri Dutilleaux	As noted previously, my new favorite bassoon piece
2	Fleetwood Mac	Secondhand News	Rumours	Thanks to a lovely mix from a lovely lady, Ms. Laura
3	Jens Lekman	You Can Call Me Al (live)		Found via Miss Moss's Simon/Garfunkel/Covered mix
4	Auditorium	Sunday	Be Brave	Also found through Miss Moss.  This song has gorgeous layering, and is about a first winter snow. Probably my favorite song of the month.
5	TV On the Radio	Killer Crane	Nine Types of Light	Ethereal.
6	Robyn	Hang With Me	Body Talk	Keep it tight.
7	R.E.M.	At My Most Beautiful	Up	A sweet song that Mariele included on the mix for my bachelorette.
8	Katy Perry	E.T.	Teenage Dream	I have a very minor Katy Perry problem.  This is not the Kanye West version.
9	Ke$ha	Your Love Is My Drug	Animal	I also have a minor Ke$ha problem.
10	Auditorium	All Your Days	Be Brave	Folky and wistful.
11	Sia	Clap Your Hands	We Are Born	From a fab mix of female artists I got in a Design Crush mix swap.
12	La Roux	I'm Not Your Toy	La Roux	Incredibly catchy.  Also from the Design Crush mix.
13	Kate Nash	Do Wah Do	Bridesmaids Soundtrack	The most simultaneously joyful and angry song I've heard lately.  Design Crush mix again.
14	Lykke Li	Breaking It Up	Youth Novels	Great percussion.
15	Jackson Sisters	I Believe In Miracles	Jackson Sisters	Don't you?  Not to be confused with La Toya & co, the Jackson Sisters were a 70s disco family group out of Compton. c/o DC.
16	The Chemical Brothers	Asleep from Day	Surrender	Miss Moss mix.  Good for sleepy afternoons.