Music for a Busy Day

It's been a busy week, in a good way! Seeing friends, family, doing lots of real work... but it has meant that I have had to neglect all my little side projects. But I do have a plan for some fun posts after I battle my way through this pile of grad school work!

I actually got my dragging body out of bed at 6:30 AM today to continue my project this week of organizing an interdisciplinary conference with grad students from all over California. I hope to have the vast majority of emails that need to be sent out of my drafts file and into my outbox by the end of the day. I managed to get to a yoga class in the morning, and then in the afternoon went to a discussion by a bunch of Santa Barbara writers about their perspectives on writing about place, which was nice for a change of pace. I don't go to half the writing- and art-oriented events that I want to in this town. Now I am home, but the day is far from over!

So, my soundtrack for a busy Santa Barbara day:

Recommendations-- funny, fierce, and friendly.

I want to share with you some of the things that have made me happy today, both of which came from friends I don't see a lot of, but who I stay in touch with on facebook -- people might be skeptical about facebook, but for me, it has allowed me to maintain relationships that I most likely would have lost otherwise.

My old friend Mia Antonelli, who I met in high school when we were in Drama together, has become a gorgeous, talented, professional actress. She has an amazingly funny youtube series called "The Glide." Each episode is just a few minutes long and features Mia as Rebecca and Kamen Edwards as Barrett, and they are two DJs in the Delilah tradition. It's super hilarious and they just put a new episode up!  Highly recommended viewing. A link to their first episode is below, and you really should watch several, as their relationship builds in hilarious ways:

This second recommendation comes via my friend Sean...

New Creations, Photography Question, and a Recommendation

A new pin in my etsy shop! 

I built a new photo-taking set-up to help me capture light better and create more neutral backdrops (which I will soon post about in detail), and took some great photos of some of my newest creations. This one is ready to find a new home!

I really like this picture, and I have no idea how I captured the lightness of the layers of the pin. Photography is still kind of magic to me.  Do you all think this is light and bright enough to be attractive to buyers? I lightened the exposure and brightened the colors a little; on my macbook it still looks kind of dim, but I don't want to slam it with everything photoshop offers for fear I might bleach it out entirely or fry it in neon.

The book serving as a prop is a very very awesome issue of McSweeney's Quarterly  that I picked up used on Clement St in San Francisco at Green Apple Books -- aka one of my top ten independent bookstores -- and it has two spines (!) . . . basically, there are two front covers and one back cover, and I love that book design and presentation can be so inventive.

I used to be kind of dismissive of McSweeney's because A) it was started by Dave Eggers, whose memoir title annoyed me, 2) it seemed kind of twee and precious, and iii) because I interned for a different San Francisco publisher and was miffed that Eggers's imprint got what I saw as outsized attention while the publisher I worked for did not (at the time, anyway).  But, McSweeney's Internet Tendency totally changed my attitude, because that shit is funny (especially this one -- warning: a LOT of obscenity deployed hilariously ahead), and mockery such as it dishes out soothed my ruffled feathers. I still am sort of "meh" about Eggers, but his projects have really had staying power and have actually made substantial impacts on his community and on publishing. And McSweeney's Quarterly is a seriously great literary journal, in my opinion.

Fellowship applications are due Friday and my dissertation is begging for attention, so I have had to reduce my time spent on such fun things as blogging and creating. Ah well, so it goes.

Recommended Listening: Telekinesis on NPR's First Listen series

I love podcasts. Especially the ones that give you free music every day (KEXP, KCRW, and MPR, I love you all.). But, what I like even more, being a budding literature critic, is the All Songs Considered podcast, where experts and critics get together to talk about music, make recommendations, and argue good-naturedly about Carrie Brownstein's love for metal, or Bob Boilen's dedication to quiet indie-folk sounds. And, since I started listening to this podcast and learning more about the bands they feature, I've also wandered over to the NPR site for All Songs Considered. On the podcast, Bob Boilen had mentioned the First Listen series NPR started, and since I've gotten kind of bored with my own music lately, I decided to check out the NPR media player and see what new stuff I could listen to. Now, apparently we've entered into a new era of The Single -- after all, with most people buying their music in mp3 form, and the CD dying, many are declaring that The Album is D-E-A-D, Dead. But the great things about the First Listen series is that it totally ignores the nay-sayers and determinedly offers up full, brand-new albums for listening. They stream such fantastic releases as The Decemberists' The King is Dead in full for a limited period of time right before the album goes on sale. It's a fantastic way to get beyond The Single, especially for bands that really do make albums that tell a story or build in a careful way. For me, it's a nice way to balance the podcasts I download that deliver only singles, with no context. And I get to try a new album out without committing financially, which is a huge plus, considering my distinct lack of extra money.

Today I listened to the excellent new Bright Eyes record The People's Key -- it's an odd one, but there's gems in it. Now, Bright Eyes I had heard of before, though I don't think I've ever listened to a whole album of their music, as I am very much one of those who listens to her whole ipod on shuffle about 99% of the time. But after that I listened to another album, which was even more to my taste, and from a band I had never heard of: Telekinesis is the band, and 12 Desperate Straight Lines is their album.

So, if you want to be all retro and actually listen to albums, check it out! Then buy the album on vinyl..... and mp3, so you can mix it in with the other 1000 songs on your ipod.

Our turntable.