AND WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU WERE TWENTY? (D37-39)

Cocktail party success, turns out all the dudes loved Poland's number one girly drink, Zubrowka and apple juice. "Wow, where does that awesome cinnamon flavor come from?"

Football madness makes me wish I could be that happy about anything, ever. But I am just so pleased with myself when I at my most cynical and jaded! Perhaps I should have waited until I was out of the impressionable years of my early adolescence to dive into Kafka and Dostoyevski.

I really like these songs right now:

 



Also miss bank's got a new one, and where were you when you were twenty?

TODAY IN CONSUMERISM (D23)

1. I want her chandelier. And her bathtub and all of her clothes.



2. Melville House Books is publishing an adorable series called "The Art of the Novella." As someone who has recently been able to read a shitload of books mostly because they were all novellas, I appreciate this. Can I have all of these even if I don't read them?! Pretty like candy!

3. I hope it is still ok to like deep house because I am in love. This makes me want to be back huddling in that cold little building on that dirty Berlin waterway.

4. Shoes.

AFTERNOON UPDATE, BECAUSE THIS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR ITS OWN POST:


5. THIS BOOK

DAY SEVENTEEN - KIDS IN VIDEO

Three recent music videos starring mostly children.  Some much more talented with others.

"Sixteen Saltines" - Jack White (You'll have to click through to watch this one)

tUnE-yArDs - "My Country"





"Shady Love" - Scissor Sisters and "Krystal Pepsy" [=Azealia Banks]

DAY SIXTEEN

Today I unveil a new segment:


Things I'm embarrassed to admit I first learned about in the New York Times


1. This story about DJ Venus X makes me, among other things, want to live in New York.

Within a year, GHE20GOTH1K was widely recognized as reanimating New York’s underground night life. It was one of the few parties where a wide cross section of the city — gay and straight, black and white, goths, punks, hip-hop heads, artists, music snobs, fashion designers like Mr. Ervell and even the occasional celebrity like Diplo — came to dance under one roof. Ms. Soto said she views D.J.-ing for such a diverse audience as a defiantly political act, and frequently peppers sound clips from the Al Jazeera news network, audio from the riots in Egypt and sound pings from submarines into her sets.
“I’m going to play Al Jazeera in the club, and you’re going to like it,” she said. “And it’s going to be cool, but not weird cool. It’s going to be like Kanye West and Jay-Z cool.”

"It's going to be cool, but not weird cool."

2. Kutluğ Ataman (go to Turkish artist for the NYT?) is using the concept of silsel to piece together a quilt of tiny "letters to Turkey" written on colorful shapes of fabric that will be sewn together during a performance as part of the Istanbul Theatre Festival. The story behind the idea is quite beautiful, although I haven't been able to confirm with a google image search. While Ataman was recently on his way to work on a project in Syria, violence in the area kept him in the Turkish city of Mardin, where he met a woman with an unconventional ceiling.

Once inside the traditional house of a woman known as Nasira Hanim, Mr. Ataman was intrigued by its ceiling.
“It was painted bright turquoise in a zigzag pattern,” he said recently by telephone. “It was very graphic, very contemporary-looking in design.”
“She told me that in the past the Syriani were scared of going outside, fearing for their lives — they were being attacked and killed by others. It doesn’t matter who, but I think she meant in ethnic clashes,” he said. “But because they were trapped inside, they painted a symbolic sky on their ceilings to alleviate their yearning for the real thing.”
That motif was called silsel, a word he did not recognize as being either Turkish or Arabic.
“I researched further and discovered it was Aramaic, the original language of the Bible and what was spoken at the time in that region,” he said. “It seems to have had a double meaning, either the fluttering of wings, or the sky.”

A single word sharing both the sense of "fluttering wings" and "the sky"...a painting on the ceiling to quench one's dangerous desire for freedom.  For anyone in the area, I believe the exhibition opens May 12th at noon in the Galata Rum Primary School (Kemeralti Cad No 25). But don't count on me for anything.

DAYS ELEVEN AND TWELVE - BACKDATED

Hanging out in parks with over-priced baked goods, cafe-hopping with an adorable soon-to-goddaughter and her parents in tow, and too many evenings at Cheers.

I will otherwise remember this weekend with these two videos:






Following the failed bar crawl (maybe next weekend?) a new idea for a themed party:  Dress to be daggered!

DAY SIX

In my first dabble in grad school, I once listened to nothing other than Wye Oaks for almost a month because I didn't have time to make a new "write" playlist and I was starting to go mad from listening to Spain, Bibio and Nouvelle Vague on constant repeat.

Did you know there are many, many people in the world who only make playlists for the purposes of relaxation, dancing, social gatherings and sexual intimacy? There are people who do not only have playlists organized as follows: "productivity", "writing - thinking", "writing - concentrate", "reading - light", "muststayawake". For the next few glorious months, I am one of those lucky many!

Do you know anyone more adorable than Grimes? I thought that perhaps I knew one (Katie M) before I learned that this super-cute Canadian lost both her houseboat and chickens to the Minnesota police. Proof can also be found in this video at 0:41




I like staring at this next video almost as much as I liked staring at Rihanna in All of the Lights before I had seen that video, like, a thousand times.




Let's get bodysuits with cool backs, plz.






And now I want to vomit pearls and have ugly friends dance with me