thirty-eight cents

I finally took in my old bicycle to recycle for scrap metal yesterday. I now know where all those homeless guys with huge shopping carts overflowing with aluminum cans are headed early in the morning. The janky-ness of my bike, which had reasserted itself as I attempted to extricate if from its grave in the closet seemed to fade as I rolled it up onto the scale at Alliance Metals.

The place was like 1000x louder than a rock concert with all the clanging of metal cans being poured onto a conveyor belt to God knows where. I suspect it also stank something awful, but I tried not to notice and was grateful for my lack of a strong sense of smell. I felt a bit silly strolling up there listening to Spanish tapes on my iPod surrounded by gritty-looking (but pleasant enough) people who recycled for a living.

The guy in front of me got something like $11 for a metal lamp stand, but when I brought my bike up to be weighed the woman at the scale tilted her head asked if I was sure I didn't want to keep it. I explained that the pedals and brakes were broken and that the tires were flat, which she accepted reluctantly, but honestly my bike had never looked so new and healthy as it did in that loud loud hall of dirty, used up bits of this and that.

She said she could give me thirty-eight cents for it. Probably because it was steel rather than aluminum and because they'd have to separate out all the non-metal parts before they could turn it into something new. I did feel a little bad for it and wondered if I couldn't have at least Tried leaving it out on the street or posting it on Craigslist for 75¢ as a bicycle, rather than scrap metal. But what's done is done.

In the meantime, I have fallen in love with all the new space in my closet. Just moments ago I was dancing my heart out in there to that riff at the beginning of Day Tripper that's been stuck in my head since Steven taught me how to play it earlier today. I've only stopped to see if I couldn't put on some actual music, and I must now go off in search of whatever Beatles songs I can dig up.

I'm telling you, Europeans have it going on

I swear I did get outside today. I totally went to the farmer's market and biked to Berkeley Bowl. And I played music in the park for hours. In the plural. Till it was too cold to stay any longer (...because i was wearing just my shorts and teeshirt and didn't bring a sweater..).

But! Look what I also stumbled into in my studies:



This is how Europeans learn English. Seriously. They totally hit YouTube and like all the Hollywood classics and tv. I mean, this guy is good:



He can imitate an Arizonan cloud and fake British and American accents. Like, even if I weren't obsédée with Iceland, which, yes, I am, this guy is totally rad. I need to befriend him. I am going to be this good.

On a side note - everyone in Iceland has this sweater. I must also have this sweater.

Að læra íslensku

This girl is totally cute.



How is it that Icelanders speak such good English that they know words like fucktard?

Sometimes I wonder how it is that I find myself listening with rapt attention to kids on YouTube teaching me Icelandic or Scots Gaelic or Irish Gaelic or any of a million languages whose speakers are probably more fluent in English than I'll ever be in those languages. But I think it's fascinating - people holding on to that stuff. And having something small to call your own.

I could learn Chinese and I am listening to my Spanish tapes again, but there's something about these little languages that's absolutely addictive. Maybe it's that I love sounds. I love the butter of French and the zing of Spanish and the lilt of Icelandic and Swedish and the sweetness of Mandarin and the shapes of Irish and Scottish Gaelic. I'm a total player, flirting with all these languages without every really learning them up proper. I'd love to though.

I would like make out with languages. I'd find a quiet corner and stare into their eyes at parties. I'd get drunk and tell them jokes. We'd wake up late and cook breakfast together.

And I love English too. I love how intimate we are. How well we work together. How easy it is to spill English out. To be precise or delicate. And I want more and more and more. More turns of phrase and feeling.

Is there a job where I could work 13 hours a day getting it on with languages (instead of spreadsheets, contact flows and email programs)? And there would be people behind the sounds and shapes and touch of all the new words. Sign me up.

Ok, ok, I'll leave you with just one more.



This will really be the last one, I swear:



Sigh, I need to go to Iceland and make friends with a rabbit.

Folk, part 1

Devendra Banhart


I don't think I've ever seen a beard look so feminine.


If I were a boy, I would grow this beard. And I would wear the vest regardless. I like to think that Devendra Banhart and I are sort of on the same wavelength in terms of getting dressed - which is not to say I pull it off, but that in an ideal world, we are of a similar mind. I think my favorite clothes are things that remind me of other things, like costumes. Take moccasins or cowboy boots, for example.

After seeing pics of Devendra Banhart at OutsideLands from this past weekend, I pulled Cripple Crow out from my stack of cds and have been listening to it on repeat. I was having a discussion with Russ and Ciana a few months ago (back in June) about folk. We were leaving the SFMoma and debating whether Frida Kahlo is a folk artist and what folk art is in the first place.

And there are lyrics that float through this Cripple Crow album that scream folk to me. For example: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are the only Beatles in the world... or I heard somebody say that the war ended today, but everybody knows it's going still. Our motherland and motherseas. Here's what we believe: it's simple - we don't want to kill... And there are the songs about having babies and growing your hair out long. Topical, but still something people will be able to relate to for a long long time. I mean, if having babies isn't of the people, I don't know what is.

I guess what I want to say is that I'm all about folk. And I don't believe folk art means art done by people who don't know what they're doing. Maybe you could say it's about the stuff that brings us together, instead of what alienates us (even if alienation is what brings us together these days..). I think folk art is about drawing on common symbols and a shared understanding to make a connection. And I like that connection. I like the connection with the past because it's so hard to find these days.

Where modernity is about new new new, folk to me is about digging up the old and knowing it like you were there the first time. It's about being human instead of a machine. It's about taking your time. It's about being here now while slipping out of yourself into that collective consciousness. I think there's something to that. And I want to find out first hand.

***

I was playing music in the park yesterday, as has become my ritual. The park was full - not in a Dolores Park way, but such that wherever I sat someone was going to hear me play. I picked a spot at the edge of where the sporty kids' base camp was when they weren't playing ultimate tackle frisbee or football. [They were an interesting group, actually. Six guys and two girls, black and white, nerdy and jock-y]. And then on the other side of me, this other guy sat down with a truck load of baby toys and a tiny tiny girl baby in a little jean jumper.

I sat there contemplating whether the vast expanse of the park would absorb the sound coming from my picnic blanket before it got to the people around me, one of whom was sleeping.

I played Salt Creek about a hundred times and Cripple Creek and Fireball Mail and played chords and my new bit in Sylvia. I strummed through Idea, Frankenstein, Marcher, Picture Yourself, having puzzled out what a major seventh shape might look like on a banjo and which chord structure it might go with Saturday night. Determination: major sevenths - easier to play than normal sevenths.

And I think there's something about musical instruments, right? because on their own they're silent. And you can't make those sounds on your own either, but then you + instrument makes something happen that wouldn't be there otherwise. One of those whole is greater than the sum of its parts things. You know, the kind of relationship you feel you ought to have with everything - where you can just hear and feel how well its going. And it makes you better than yourself.

Anyway, this is all to say that as I was packing up to go, the man with the baby rolled over on his mat to say that I'd done some beautiful playing. I smiled and said thanks, having wondered earlier in the day at what point you move from being someone who plays an instrument to being a musician.

((new coat!!))

The coat I fell in love with and gave myself for my birthday.
I'm in love with the collar. I'm crazy about collars in general, and this foldover collar is one of my favorite things ever. I love the pointy, off-centeredness of it.
I'm always attracted to bright colors and shiny-ness, which doesn't always make for a coherent wardrobe, but I find myself wearing this coat constantly. The pea green-chartreuse color is kind of obscene in a way that it doesn't have to go with anything.

Speaking of sexy

It's just about impossible to find anyone teaching Icelandic, let alone real Icelanders, but I found the mother lode on YouTube. It's a start at least. I really like something about the sound-shape of Icelandic. It makes for a nice accent when Icelanders speak English. I think it's the aspirated sound between voiceless consonants and the way the vowels move. Sexy stuff.

It's the same for all of Scandanavia, really. I want to go to Sweden too. To see if I feel the same kinds of stirrings. Maybe you can feel that stuff. Your genes, I mean. They say I have a bit of Swede in me. And I've been missing Ireland lately. It could have something to do with chatting up Scandinavians living in Dublin, but I think it's more than that.

I was thinking about that Moroccan pub in Galway, and how I used to go to that wine bar with the Germans to hear Maika play jazz piano with the best of them. And I was reminded last night of the first snakebite I had, that night I took the bus back into Dublin when Aer Lingus went on strike for a week.

I miss Europeans. There is something comfortable about them, and I miss that magical old feeling. The feeling of people staying put for a long, long time. Only they don't really stay put. And they seem to be right at the edge, doing their thing, and defining modernity.

Then again, I get wistful about Americana too. In my cowboy boots, playing banjo. Speaking of which, now is a good time for a little banjo.

more glow fun

i think all parties from now on should have glow sticks.

glow in the dark

ok, normally i'm not into google dances, but this year was definitely an exception. firstly, the theme was glow in the dark - which is cool regardless - but it wasn't just the name of the theme - everything glowed in the dark! my staff teeshirt, for example glows in the dark, so that as i'm sitting here writing this blog entry in the dark because it's 1am, the STAFF on the back of my shirt glows. AND not only that, the totally tasteful colored square design on the front also has a glow in the dark design on it - and all the shirts were different!

i signed up to hand out teeshirts, and even though i had to spend most of my time saying no sorry we're out of small shirts sorry all we have is 2xl :( no i can't give you an alcohol wristband without id, i loved it and was totally good at it. even the skater dude who complained for a solid five minutes about how we always run out of smalls too early and how it's ridiculous that we order so many large sizes ran into me again towards the end of the night to say thank you for doing my job. aww it pays to stay cheerful with people!

and the game stuff they had scattered around was cool too - the digital caricaturists were really good and they had this laser graffiti thing and a giant rock band station with stage lights so the people playing looked like proper rockstars and glow in the dark schwag alllll over.

so let me back up. i worked the teeshirt booth then was Starving and waited in the long line for food and some random guy comes up to me saying ..is your name lisa..? ...and did you live in... And it was this guy from my floor freshman year in the dorms who apparently started working here as an engineer about a month ago. i almost didn't recognize him with his short hair, but how crazy is it that he recognized me And Remembered My Name after all these years. i didn't think any of the kids on my floor even knew i existed let alone that they'd remember my name and face like ten years later.

so i get food and chat with this one dude i work with for a couple hours. good fun chatting. and then some other kids we knew from the old days came over to chat with some other people they knew. all totally cool people so it was rad to run into them again. then the one guy i knew left for his shuttle. and then the other guy i barely knew left for the bathroom. and then my coworker left for food. so me and this danish guy from the dublin office went off in search of glow in the dark stuff.

and did we ever deck ourselves out. we had glow in the dark lei headbands, glow in the dark glasses, bracelets, necklaces, and he made glow in the dark bionic arms. and you know any guy who walks around showing off his bionic glow in the dark "better than having biceps" arms is cool. we ran into the girl who organized the whole party and she said we HAD to stop the official photographer if we saw him and make him take our picture since we were so cute. if only we could have actually made a living as the glow in the dark couple. sigh.

so then the rest of the night i hung out with random dudes i'd never met, but mostly this danish kid. if i'm lucky hopefully i can track down some of the pics he took of us glowing.

unfortunately, i didn't get to make it out to any of the emergency calls since the one they asked for extra people for came Right as i had to catch my shuttle, but all in all it was a fabulous night, the best google dance by far. if i don't make it to another, i will have gone out with a bang.

Wise words from the Sartorialist

For me, style is about not being afraid to try something new but being honest enough with yourself that even though "it" might be "fashionable", "it" might not be you.

Wise words from something of a fashion icon. Mostly Mr. Sartorialist just shares photos, but even that has gotten me to thinking about color, style and design so much more. My notebook of clippings is growing so fast I can barely glue them in fast enough. And now they are detailed with commentary!

In any case, I think it's easy to get carried away with how good things look on other people - maybe because you've seen it a million times and now it clicks. Or, maybe because it really flatters their figure. If commercially produced clothing has taught us one thing, it's that we're not actually all the same shape. (Which is not to say we're actually doing anything about that realization). Some people can really work shift dresses, for instance. I cannot. I love the way they look on the lanky, broad-shouldered models in Anthropologie, but I look like I'm - it's just bad.

But, as he says, style is about more than that. It's about more than what's in. I think it's about having some amount of self-awareness. Which could have a lot to do with why French women look amazing in any old thing. I love shopping for ideas at art parties and the like. Or, making mental notes as I window shop about cuts and textures and silhouettes, but I have a hard time conceptualizing what my style is. Or if I even have a coherent style because wearing non-uniform clothes is like dress up for me.

Still, I aim for some kind of cohesion, and I'm getting better at being more aware of what I can and can't wear well. Maybe I was a lot fatter in high school, but I sort of suspect that I didn't ever actually need size large shirts and sweaters. I almost always wear smalls now, but it took just about forever to realize I have narrow shoulders and tiny rib cage.

So, maybe it's about learning your own body too. For all the bad press fashion gets about giving teenage girls a poor self-image, I think, at it's best, fashion can be empowering and a means of self discovery. It doesn't matter what shape you are if you can really understand it, you can flatter it. I don't think it's all superficial either, though that's another conversation unto itself, your outward image can show your strength and confidence through your posture, all that. As if it amplifies your aura. There so much more to style than clothes.

I do like clothes though... :)