wish i was there

Unfortunately, this year I'm not going to be anywhere around NY, Chicago or San Francisco this time of the year, but to those of you who are lucky to live in one of those three places, here's my recommendation:


RENEGADE CRAFT FAIR:

Brooklyn: June 14 + 15 from 11am - 7pm at the McCarren Park Pool

San Francisco: July 12 + 13 from 11am - 7pm at Fort Mason's Festival Pavilion

Chicago: September 13 + 14 from 12pm - 10pm along Division St. between Damen & Hermitage in Wicker Park.

whatever, i guess

I can't get enough of this Boondocks episode, with the R. Kelly trial. It's like every time I watch it, it gets funnier - and I've been watching it for a couple of years now. I know the little girl's words by heart, and I must say I impersonate her more often than I should. Sometimes more than once a day.

update

I got a bunch of messages from friends and a few people who read this blog asking for updates on my dog. Thanks to everybody for the concern and the lovely words of support. I'm a sucker when it comes to my little guy and last week was awful. He's still not fully recovered, he definitely can't see from both eyes yet, but he seems to be moving around a little better and improving every day. He's still a little dizzy, but the vet says it that should be temporary.

Again, thanks for the messages, comments, and phone calls. Puppy appreciates it all and says he'll be responding emails as soon as he feels a little better.

i absolutely love her

like porn, but better

I watched "My Blueberry Nights" yesterday. Loved it. Jude Law is freaking OUT OF THIS PLANET, and I don't even like cute men. Natalie Portman is perfect in every sense of the word. Norah Jones does really well for a non-actress. The soundtrack is nice. They play my favorite Otis Redding song at least 3 times. Plus that kiss scene... ah... who needs porn??

insult

by Michael Ryan

Before you went out I asked you
in no uncertain terms to button
the next button up your shirt
that showed your naked breast
from the right angle when you twisted
and bent, an angle admittedly rarely
reproduced in real-world space
and then what would need to be in place
is the mythical irresistible male
whose lust could flare furiously
(like mine) and push you ecstatically
beyond where you sexually go
with me. Obviously I don’t know
what would be possible for you
with another body than mine,
but I love you and yours so dearly
the thought’s too much for me
despite your saying your love for me
makes the idea preposterous
from the get-go. I’m sorry
I spoke harshly. My jealousy
is a jealous companion.
It wants me alone.

latest addictions

Michael Bublé - Everything


Adele - Make you feel my love


Adele - Best for Last

just say it

"Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts."

-- Saramago

brilliant

Transcript:

"Good evening, my fellow Americans. As we all know, this has already been a long, hard-fought campaign for the democratic presidential nomination. But tonight, with my recent victory in Indiana, and senator Obama's in North Carolina, we remain exactly where we were four months ago: hopelessly deadlocked.

Therefore, this nomination is going to be decided as it should be - by the super delegates - based not on primary results or caucuses or delegate counts or popular vote. But on their sober assessment of which candidate will be the strongest against senator McCain in November.

Tonight, I'm here to tell you why I am that candidate.

First, I am a sore loser.

If and when I am the nominee, I know, as do the super delegates, that senator Obama will work his heart out for my election. If, on the other hand, senator Obama is chosen, I will probably refuse to campaign for him. Or if I do so, it will be in a resentful, half-hearted way, thus ensuring his defeat. So that I can run again in 2012.

You see, unlike my opponent, I'm just not going to lose gracefully. It's not a criticism of senator Obama, just a fact.

Second, my supporters are racist.

If and when I am the nominee, senator Obama's african-american supporters will be disappointed, perhaps. But they will still rally to me. If, however, senator Obama is the nominee, my supporters will refuse to vote for him. Partly because I will secretly tell them not to, but mainly because they are racially biased. And would never vote for any african-american candidate. I'm not bragging. That's just the way it is.

Now, to those of you that worry if my opponent is denied the nomination that african-americans might simply stay home, I remind you: a) until senator Obama shockingly and - might I add, rudely and selfishly - won the Iowa caucuses, most african-americans supported me. B) my husband was the first black president. And c) in the days ahead, we expect to receive the endorsement of America's preeminent african-american leader, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Which brings me to my third and final argument. Unlike senator Obama, I have no ethical standards.

Even my critics would agree that once I get the nomination, I will stop at nothing, absolutely nothing, to win. Whereas with senator Obama, there are some things he simply will not do. Take, for example, the race card. Which he has been reluctant to play. As in anyone who doesn't vote for me is a racist. I, on the other hand, will be happy to play the gender card. And claim that anyone who doesn't vote for me is a sexist. In fact, once senator Obama is out of the picture, I look forward to playing the race card myself. As in anyone who doesn't vote for me is both a sexist and a racist.

Now, to those of you who say she'll never do that, it doesn't even make sense! I answer - if you believe that, then you don't know me.

So there you have it - sore loser, racist supporters, no ethical standards - qualities senator Obama simply cannot match. That's not an attack on my opponent, it's just the truth. When you consider that, the choice is obvious."

really sad

I'm so sad today I can't really put it into words. I hadn't cried in a long time, but I think I was probably saving up for something like this. Puppy might be permanently blind. Updates to come.

+++++++++

UPDATE: Just came back from the ophthalmologist vet and he said this might be a case of optic neuritis. We're starting medication tomorrow and we're going back for another check up on Friday, to see if there is any progress. If it is optic neuritis, he should be ok. And that means I will be alright too. Pray for us!

The Kiss

by Stephen Dunn

She pressed her lips to mind.
—a typo

How many years I must have yearned
for someone's lips against mind.
Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air.

She kissed me again, reaching that place
that sends messages to toes and fingertips,
then all the way to something like home.
Some music was playing on its own.

Nothing like a woman who knows
to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things she's missed.
How had I ever settled for less?

I was thinking this is intelligence,
this is the wisest tongue
since the Oracle got into a Greek's ear,
speaking sense. It's the Good,

defining itself. I was out of my mind.
She was in. we married as soon as we could.

middle age

by Pat Schneider

The child you think you don't want
is the one who will make you laugh.
She will break your heart
when she loses the sight in one eye
and tells the doctor she wants to be
an apple tree when she grows up.

It will be this child who forgives you
again and again
for believing you don't want her to be born,
for resisting the rising tide of your body,
for wishing for the red flow of her dismissal.
She will even forgive you for all the breakfasts
you failed to make exceptional.

Someday this child will sit beside you.
When you are old and too tired of war
to want to watch the evening news,
she will tell you stories
like the one about her teenaged brother,
your son, and his friends
taking her out in a canoe when she was
five years old. How they left her alone
on an island in the river
while they jumped off the railroad bridge.

This Kind of Thing Doesn't Happen Often

and When It Does You Should Pay Attention

by John Stone

i thank heaven somebody's crazy
enough to send me a daisy
--e.e. cummings

On Piedmont Road, going north,
before my car there floated forth

a soapy bubble in the traffic,
glistening and holographic.

It drifted down into my path,
this ghostly sphere from someone's bath.

I watched it bob and almost tickle
A Harley-Davidson motorcycle

then rise (as it got quite exhausted)
That's where I left it, fair and frosted.

For this unexpected act
I thank heaven (I think), in fact,

that someone went to all the trouble
to blow me a bubble.

Click HERE to see an insulting animation.

power struggle, relationships, technology

High Maintenance, a brilliant short movie by Philip Van.




[via]

i should be embarrassed, but i think this is hilarious

via YesButNoButYes

PS3, you have failed men and penises from all over the world

I just saw this over at Dear Jane, and I'm still speechless. This just might be the most disturbing, weirdest, worst miscalculated ad EVER in history of mankind. Waaaaaay worse than this.


Now, check this out: IT'S A THUMB! A SMALL, TINY THUMB! LIKE IN FINGER. BUT FOR A PENIS. What the fuck! (click on the image if you're brave enough to see it larger)



Playboy forever?? "Yea not with a thumb for a penis you're not."


Jane says it best: "Seriously what MALE would EVER buy a PS3 after seeing this ad? They only way we could emasculate men more is by showing a Lorena Bobbitt in action. Did these guys even consider their target market when they created this ad? Who thought it would be a good idea to show a man with a small thumb for a penis?"

dude

"This study hasn't been done, I wouldn't think, but it would be very interesting to know the 10 words with this linguistic versatility. Can anything be more versatile than "Dude." Hard to imagine. But what are, for instance, the top ten? I think "wow" would make this list. I find myself using it lots of ways. I am sure there is an intellectual somewhere who takes this to me a measure of our decline as a civilization, but then if you are an intellectual everything, with the possible exception of an outbreak of Mozart festivals, is precisely this. Happily, it is the anthropologists job to observe, not judge."

via This Blog Sits at the
Intersection of Anthropology and Economics, one of my favorite blogs.

uh-oh!

ah, the details...

mine ain't either

wow! via and link.

scapegoat

"Cool service or not, this thing looks like the Pontiac Aztek of e-readers." (link)


Am I the only one who can see that this poor car has had the saddest life and way too many unfair reviews? I actually wish I had one and I think it's pretty nice. SUE. ME.

ahhhhh... i miss my job...

Last year at Glen:


Yesterday, in Indy:


Charles, man! Why didn't you let her hit him???

1. Melt my heart to stone / Adele
2. Wreckless love / Alicia Keys
3. Make you feel my love / Adele
4. Everything / Michael Bublé
5. Nothing even matters / Lauryn Hill
6. Try a little tenderness / Otis Redding
7. Something / Musiq Soulchild
8. Tell him / Lauryn Hill

who needs an oscar...

José Saramago, after watching the movie version of his 1998 novel "Blindness" (alongside director Fernando Meirelles):

Fernando, I'm so happy I watched this movie...
like I was when I finished writing it.

the only gay in the village

A friend of mine who used to live in London told me about the show Little Britain, and he's always talking about the character "The Only Gay in the Village". It's absolutely hilarious.

Proud to be gay, Daffyd flaunts his sexuality in a variety of rubber outfits, to the villagers' complete indifference. He refuses to accept he's not the only 'gayer' in the village, and is outraged when fellow gays trespass on his patch.

this is how I see it: current & ideal

ATUAL (mais sobre a campanha aqui)

IDEAL

(Sorry, people. Not a very international joke!)

she made them for me

Do I have the baddest grandma or what?

OH MY GOD, I want it

Awesome stuff here.

fits like a glove

Talking away
I don't know what I'm to say
I'll say it anyway
today's another day to find you
Shying away
I'll come for you love O.K.

So needless to say I'm odds and ends
But that's me, stumbling away
Finally learning that life is O.K.
Say after me
It's no better to be safe than sorry.

Take on me
Take me on
I'll be gone
in a day or two

shamelessly proud of myself

27

Today is my birthday and I'm turning 27. This is the first time that I feel closer to my thirties than I am of my twenties, and it's bitter-sweet. So I have decided to make a list of a few things to remind myself of how productive my twenties were. This is not intended to be a list of crimes I have committed, even thought some items might lead one to believe so. But let's keep in mind that this is a somewhat parent-proof list, so I might have been a little more productive that it seems.

1. Sold all my CDs to an used-CD store and borrowed the rest of the money to go to Los Angeles spend 4 days with my then boyfriend who had moved away.

2. Stayed at a motel called "Vagabond Inn" with then boyfriend at some ghetto in Long Beach, CA.

3. Spent $700 on a car on Wednesday afternoon and totaled it on Thursday morning.

4. Stopped taking my meds for almost 4 years because I thought I had cured my panic disorder.

5. Fell in love with and bent over backwards for a boy who had "INSANE" tattooed across his back. Literally.

6. Jumped on the road at 3 o'clock in the morning by myself, leaving Chicago at 95mph.

7. Bought a 30 lbs. dog in my first year in the US, and hid it for 6 months because the building where I used to live at the time did not allow pets.

8. Gave a old, ugly, and nasty-looking cop my cell phone number to get out of a ticket.

9. Had gastric bypass surgery.

10. Moved back to Brazil.

11. Went to school drunk. More than once. More than twice.

12. Accumulated almost $700 worth of parking tickets in a 4 year period. Had to pay it all off one snowy afternoon when my car was towed.

13. Almost got arrested on Memorial Day weekend in 2004. Here's the story: the Indianapolis 500 was going on down the street from my apartment. The police blocks 90% of the streets at a certain time so the crowd attending the race can get off on the highway only, and every road that led to my place was a dead end. It was storming badly, the tornado warning sirens were going off, and I could see a tornado from a small distance. So I decided to run over a road block and get home as fast as I could. Couldn't get home fast enough, so I had to hide a an Arby's kitchen.

Some people have no idea of the power they have to make your world stop.

+++++++++++++++++

This may be one of those many instances when I head back to my therapist and say listen, I'm having a hard time, please help me climb this mountain.

[via]

who's momma's pretty boy? WHO IS IT?

"I don't do too many [drugs]. I just smoke weed and drink. But I'll never fuck with no more coke. It's not about the bad high; it's just about the acne: Cocaine makes your face break out. I'm a pretty boy."

- Lil' Wayne

via perez

analogy to live by

Apologies are like monsters:
They’re only real if you believe in them.

via blank is blank.

Rauschenberg

"I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly," he once said, "because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable."

Rauschenberg, October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008

since we're in the subject...

... check out some beautiful photos of a less known side of Russia here and of St. Petersburg here.

old russian lady's house

"This is old Russian lady from Ukraine. You can see her in the middle on the photo above. She had a life full of hardships but overcame all of them, then settled in a small village in Ukraine. Her grown-up son was beating her constantly demanding to sell all her things and furniture and give all the money to him. Eventually he got into a jail and the lady was left all by herself in this house. And once she tried to draw something on the wall when she had nothing to do. She liked so much this that she went on and on and finally all her retirement money she spent on the paint to turn all her house into an art gallery. Just take a look."




[I'm not sure where I found this blog, but it's one of my favorites now. Everything there is worth taking a look at.]

Lots of other things will happen when he wins. here and here.

the possibility of more

I absolutely ADORE everything about this scene.

a girl dancing with her little-girl self

via Mightygirl

remember this?

finally – what sex and the city is really about

"Really great sit-coms, traditionally and broadly speaking, are very often about three stupid men. Sometimes the men think they are clever, like in Frasier. Sometimes, they have been abandoned on a remote island, where their stupidity can be contained, like in Father Ted. Often, their situational pecking order is in inverse to their intelligence, like in The Office. Sometimes, they have women around to keep them straight, like in Friends. But in Sex and the City, one of a few sit-coms that is entirely carried by four women, nobody is stupid, or even properly ditsy, like, say, Bubble in Absolutely Fabulous, in any way.

Maybe that's the joke. [...] Is there still a strain in the culture that struggles with the idea that intelligence isn't just wasted on girls? Why is it that a group of clever, ambitious and successful women, sitting around chatting about their tiny troubles, should be such a comedy goldmine?

It's because, isn't it, they're all bright enough to live life on their own independent terms, but still, despite their occasional protests, can't stop projecting their ideas about themselves and their status on to men? Yes – comedy genius – that's why Sex and the City is really about stupid men."

Read entire article here. Very enlightening, indeed.

i did it again - mixtape

More music I love here.

feeding my obsession with the prison subject

"In the late '90s, pop-culture historian Bill Geerhart had a little too much time on his hands and a surfeit of stamps. So, for his own entertainment, the then-unemployed thirtysomething launched a letter-writing campaign to some of the most powerful and infamous figures in the country, posing as a curious 10-year-old named Billy. (...)

As it turns out, no group hates to disappoint a child more than convicted killers, all of whom responded promptly to Billy's questions about dropping out of school. Their letters range from criminally insane to downright sensible, offering snapshots of the personalities behind some of America's most hideous crimes. Recently, Radar asked Billy to follow up with his mentors as a college student."


Read all the letters here.

[Via]

your clients satified, like they eating on a sneaker

Hell yeah! You're welcome.

Pay Attention and Give a Shit

I'm creative. I should create at least as much as I consume.

It doesn't matter if someone gave me the responsibility or not, I should take it. If I could have made it better and it remains unchanged, I'm responsible for mediocrity.

+++++++++++++++++

Some people have the ability to put into words things I would never be eloquent enough to describe, even if I've felt it for a long time. Minus does that very often, and she makes it look effortless. That's one of the reasons I love her blog. She can talk about anything with so many details that makes it sound fascinating and familiar at the same time. I suck at that. If I didn't, I would actually "write" here as often as I'd like to. It consumes the hell out of me to translate into a post the ideas in my head. And it never quite comes out the way I hoped for.

+++++++++++++++++

I was reading Minus' blog today (which, by the way, has a sweet new design – way to go, Minus!) and I ended up at this post here by Randy Hunt, a designer and writer for Speak Up. It made me feel embarrassed for being such a queen of putting things off , for tapping myself on the back and thinking I'm doing so much when really I'm not doing that much at all. Or maybe not as well as I could. "I need to be effective, not efficient."

Sometimes a metaphorical ass-kick can do wonders for me.

charlie

"The one-on-one interview between Charlie and his guest begins as usual but quickly goes awry, so much so that Charlie is warned that, somewhere, a man named "Steve" is "not happy." Though this seemingly random statement might confuse us, Charlie understands it for what it is -- a threat."

by Samuel Beckett


via Flying Conundrum

represent!

Ok, so this is not new, but it's one of my favorites.



"They're like... what?! east coast, west coast!"

a lesson to be learned

"There is something vertiginously strange about listening as Mr. Roberts, in his sing song voice, as he lectures the members of the US Senate...as if they were restive, not-very-bright, five year olds."

You've made this day a special day by just you being you? This is the song of individualism. And you thought that that was Walt Whitman's job? Nah. Well, it was Walt Whitman's job but then it fell to his perfect opposite: a gentle, caring man in a cardigan, no friend to wilderness, a creature domesticated and domesticating, a surrogate parent to the nation's young."



The subsequent congressional appropriation, for 1971, increased PBS funding from $9 million to $22 million.

via This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics

what separates us from apes

"I saw that he [chimpanzee greybeard] was picking little pieces of grass and using them to fish termites from their underground nest. Not only that, he would sometimes pick a leafy twig and strip the leaves - modifying an object to make it suitable for an specific purpose. The beginning of tool making. The reason this was so exciting and a breakthrough is that at that time it was defined that humans, only humans, would make tools. When I was in school, we were defined as "Men, the Tool Maker". So then, Louis Leavy, my mentor, heard this news, he said 'We must now redefine Men, redefine Tool or accept chimpanzees as Humans.' "

Jane Goodall

a truly whole mind

"Not only does Jill Bolte Taylor use the best stage prop I've ever witnessed in a live speech, but she manages to talk about left brain and right brain in a way that helps us understand the power of living with a truly whole mind."




"Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another."

via metacool.

historical photographs - the lego version

Here.

an odd account of the midwest earthquake

Is Matt really the best they could find?

the figure-ground game

Got this tip from my brother. Click on the image to go play. (Use the arrows for left and right, space to jump, and shift to change contrast. Simple as that. Now go waste some of that precious time.)

my latest purchases

I just bought two amazing items at Etsy from Robyn, the vintage shopper behind Sirkus. Try not to be jealous.

1. This beautiful 1970s Japanese AM FM Radio from Panasonic. It still works.




2. This little guy right here, carved in wood (I guess once owned by Gerd, from Canada).

bottled spices; keybag; helium lamp

More of João Sabino's work here.

pra dri e pro flor - MY FIRST FLICKR VIDEO!!

(flickr videos can only be 90secs long. You can watch the original version I uploaded to Youtube here.)

the gay man in me needs this ASAP

available here

they finally did it

the job

girl's night out

Sad, hilarious and with a hint of truth.

fun. period.

More hotel bed jumping here. (via maggie)

tattoos of appliances

I found this poll of tattoos of appliances on Flickr, and I'm loving it. I love the typewriters, specially the one below. I had no idea so many people had it.

Also love the fan.


See slideshow here.