“… and that’s how you know spring is sprung” (swan dive, catherine irwin). the uk was great to us, but it’s nice to be back in new york, and the weather is unbelievable. running around manhattan today, i remember that spring is when new york’s women put on their sandals and show off their collarbones and shoulders with sunglasses perched on carefully messy hair: manhattan doesn’t have much flora, so it’s women bloom instead. back in brooklyn, though, everything is green grass and leaf-shaded breezes. all i could ask for now is a backyard with a grill, some pork marinating in bourbon, and a cooler full of miller high life. maybe after a day at the races, but let’s not get greedy.
Category: Things I Say
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teaser/trailer
so, this isn’t the actual travelogue update that i wanted to post, but i haven’t had time to do anything more than make notes of the days so far to remind me of the details. but, a few details to go on for now: dave’s and my air india flight wasn’t nearly as bad as i had thought it could be, with the exception of dave’s very chatty and slightly anti-semetic new friend in the next seat; we’re touring the set in a very modest van (no faster than 60mph on the highway, unless we’re going downhill, when we sometimes get to the speed limit of 70mph) that we’ve named “her ladyship the duchess julia” with dave, brad and me very cosy in the cab; this island is amazingly green and beautiful (london be damned: the countryside is unforgettably gorgeous); almost everyone on tour is now addicted to playing euchre; and, finally, i just learned to drive stick, with the added curve balls of shifting with my left hand and driving on the left side of the road. i love that every time something crops up on this tour, i find myself saying to everyone “no, this is gonna be good.” and, so far, it has been. more soon. cheers.
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one hundred least played
amongst the many things in my mac lifestyle that i love are things whose names start with “smart.” smart folders, smart searches, smart groups, and, most of all, smart playlists. a while back i had the idea to make a list to play the least-played songs in my iTunes library to try to avoid those embarrassing “i had no idea that was on my iPod” moments. and with the amount of music i acquire in a given month, on top of continually trying to import the most relevant cd’s in my collection, it’s nice to get a little cross-section of what i haven’t been listening to lately. sometimes it’s even a little audio “oblique strategies” when i’m in a sound design rut.
all that aside, i think it’s pretty fantastic to see these artists lined up together, however it happens: kings of leon, calexico, weezer, carol king, beck, el-p, ozomatli, pepe deluxe, joni mitchell, the sea and cake, tin hat trio, rammstein (what?), archer prewitt, ms. dynamite, don caballero, big star, the stills, garbage, tenacious d, the streets, laurie johnson (music for tv dinners), low, grandaddy, shipping news, operation ivy, outkast… this would be a fine time to thank everyone who has turned me on to a band, ever. sometimes i forget how much a part of my life each album can be.
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ny snow globe been good to me
the fluffy, slo-mo snow made up for the sub-zero wind chills. working in the east village again had the perk of constantly running into old friends, working in familiar places, and hanging out in old haunts. being in endless days of tech, working too many shows at once: these things made me feel like i’m back home. now, doing paperwork from home, rehearsing every other day… i’m starting to get a little blue, feeling like i should be back out on the road, or back in tech, or anything, really. although after getting to work on the pod project, almost anything would feel like a let down. fortunately, we load in heartland at ps122 on monday, so i’ll be back into the thick of it all soon enough. i gotta figure out how to enjoy these breathers…
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you're a handsome devil. what's your name?
watching grosse pointe blank and remembering how amazing it is. the sound supervision and editing blows me away (listen to when he walks in the ultimart for the first time). then realizing that i dreamt about dancing some ballet in my dream last night for some production that kevin moriarty was directing. very odd. and also, to round out the randomness, rick was in town between the holidays and got me thinking about how to work drunken four-square into the TEAM’s next fundraiser. damn, the dialog in this movie is good. oh, and i can’t stop listening to saint elsewhere.
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credo
“if i can’t make it understandable, i might as well make it beautiful.” the more i think about what i said to alex the other night, the more true it seems to become. i guess there are worse words to live by as a designer.
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somewhere is where i want to be
sliding up first avenue in the back of a mini-suv cab, rolling through red lights with abandon; but i don’t say a word: i just slink further into my slouch and let the city pour by me as i slowly let go of the fading warmth of catching up with old friends.  it’s nice to be back, if only for a second.
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everything looks perfect from far away
i was just sitting on the fire escape, enjoying a bourbon and trying to spot a star, or venus even, in the tiny slice of sky defined by the backyard space between my building and the building behind us through the haze and city light (you can see a handful really late a night). someone in the building to our left was practicing piano, and the fountain in the yard behind us was, well, burbling, i guess. small moments of humanity and anonymous community make me love this sprawling city even more. after a long day of the hard new york facade on the subway and walking through the streets, we come home to open our windows to the summer evening breezes and let our lives carry gently from one window to the next. nights like this let me think that maybe i’ll be ok here.