IT'S MURPHYTIME

well, yeah.

2011-02-09T16:18:00.000-08:00

Meet the Biz

2011-01-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

On a recent afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, Kelly and I took our pretty little Lizzie Vance from San Diego to the Toy District and put her in front of the camera. I gave her some eyeliner, a velvet dress, some white oxfords and this orange suitcase, but the rest of all that style and class business you see below is hers alone. Please witness as Lizzie becomes The Biz, discovering this city one alleyway at a time.

a new dream.

2011-01-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

1) to get hired to be an EXHIBITIONS PREPARATOR at the Field Museum in Chicago and:

Assist with fabrication, assembly, installation, dismantling and/or moving of exhibit properties
Clean and repair existing exhibits and displays, mounting and dismounting artifacts, building prototypes
Maintain exhibit interactives and animatronics
Repair broken or improperly working interactives and animatronics
Research and maintain interactive parts and supplies inventories for permanent exhibits
Troubleshoot exhibition, interactive and animatronic problems and works with supervisor, manager, or outside service technician to solve problems and implement solutions
Responsible for low voltage electrical repairs, mechanical repairs, pneumatic repairs, and lighting repairs.
Read architectural drawings, mechanical drawings, and electrical schematics
Perform woodworking, metalworking, and plastic work to build or repair exhibit elements

2) and hang out in the Plants of the World exhibit ALL THE TIME

illustrated history christmas

2011-01-05T12:27:00.000-08:00

This year we exchanged secret santa gifts in LA before jetting off to Chicago for holiday festivities. It was so nice and very magical, and there were stockings and bamboo branches and lights and Vince Guaraldi and wine and laughs and a paper tree on chopsticks.

I got lucky and Jimmy Marble drew my name; he made me hand-drawn reproductions of two of my most precious photos! The first is a photo of me and three of my best friends, just being friends one night. Look!

The second is an eerily similar photo of my mom and three of her best lady friends taken the 80s before I was born. My mom and her friends were at what she later explained to be an evening of live music and outdoor frivolity held under a full moon, "one of our infamous Moondances." (!!!) They rented a boat and took it out on Lake Michigan and had a really great time.

What a cool gift. What a cool Christmas! The drawings made my mama real happy, too. She's the one in the flowers and specs up there!

Anyway they're framed and featured in the Girl Zone. Come and check them out if you can. I can even introduce you to the artist.

SAN FRANCISCO WINS

2010-12-25T22:03:00.000-08:00

Can you tell me what is better than spending some sunny winter days wandering around a cool city with a bunch of awesome people, eating pizza? No, you cannot.

Los Angeles Biweekly Report

2010-12-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

One of the coolest things about living in downtown Los Angeles is that even people who've lived here for years think it's an adventure to explore it. Whenever we're looking for excitement we just go outside and wander through alleys or into lofts for lease pretending to buy or strange, rustic, woodland-themed cafeterias or famous old buildings or movie theaters or Irish basement pubs or drugstores called Million Dollar RX. There's something about a leisurely roam around an old, saturated downtown with your friends that feels pretty spectacular, especially at night.

Photo taken by Kelly on his 26th birthday, a night to remember

Everywhere I go there's something I've never seen before, and it's moving fast. There's really no shortage of new diversions. There are beautiful old cars and buildings everywhere, odd objects left on the sidewalk or in the middle of the street to wonder about, and signs announcing upcoming filming locations that tell you what Hollywood is getting up to these days. There are all kinds of people, all kinds of dogs and cats and hand-painted signs and warehouses and taco trucks. All kinds of colors.

I sleep in a bed that's over 5 feet off the ground and I wear lotion with 55spf every day. I wake up most mornings to the intercom ramblings of a mysteriously productive pallet wood yard that is our neighbor to the south, and trains rolling along the tracks that border our lot to the west. It's hard to stop moving in a place like this.

Some accomplishments:
1) Met and befriended Real Life Guard Dog
2) Was awarded free garlic bread at Toddy G's, famed local pizzeria

Also, we shot a movie in a day last weekend. Martin Morse directed it, it's called Sports Short, and it's super awesome. By 10:31pm we were gathering around the table Jimmy made for a family dinner and homemade gelato, so that was pretty weird and exciting.

Some visual evidence:

Cars on fire, propane fireball.

It has a porthole.

Los Angeles. Home of modern-day inventors that drive spaceships to diners.

Chili the Guard Dog, SAG

Early morning Baby Baby show.

Girl Zone.

siroccoresearchlabs.com

true life: i reside in california

2010-11-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

what having a good time looks like

shaken to my philosophical core

2010-10-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

on the brain

2010-10-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

Just thinkin' about it. Plus, words making shapes! Cool!

roughly speaking

2010-10-05T18:09:00.001-07:00

HERE ARE THINGS TO BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT:

1. breakfast
2. literacy
3. childbirth/rearing
4. paying bills
5. dental care
6. birthdays
7. handshakes
8. hydration
9. insurance plan
10. purchasing perishables
BONUS: beach bod

OK NOT TO BE SO INTENTIONAL ABOUT:

1. Fridays
2. naps
3. joyriding
4. miscellaneous frivolity
5. doodles

The Heartfelts

2010-09-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

I got to style a 1940s photo shoot for Hollis and Amos the other day. I really like hanging out with them, incidentally. And they're making some really cool music. Here are some backstage sneak peeks from my phone.

Le fin du monde

2010-09-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Being in the presence of taxidermied animals sometimes makes me want to quickly reread Hatchet.

But this one...this one I don't mind. This one I like.

heart-to-heart

2010-09-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

Now that I live with a Canadian I have been more concerned with watching Degrassi Junior High and also Degrassi: The Next Generation (starring Drake in his breakout role) than ever before. I realized that, growing up in Illinois, I had unfairly given little thought to the teenage lives being lived concurrently by my northern neighbors. I had no concept of the deeply traumatic social climate Canadian teens faced that the series of Degrassi TV programs explore.

To put it into context, this is no Saved By the Bell. There are no universally charming troublemakers, no bumbling, comedic authority figures, no 6-person high-five freeze frames. These characters are startlingly human. Every episode of Degrassi is like if Jessie took caffeine pills and had a breakdown, Zach delivered Mrs. Belding's baby in the elevator during the earthquake, and Kelly fell in love with that other guy and broke up with Zach at the dance ALL IN A HALF AN HOUR. It has been confirmed. Teen suffering is commonplace (in Canada).

Shoplifting isn't a joke. Canada isn't a figurative place.

from my Portland correspondent

2010-09-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

A package of treasures came in the mail a few weeks ago from Katie. Pictured here is her gift of a customized 1969-1970 Illinois road map. Katie is the best and so is this map, which I tacked immediately to my wall. It now serves as the official coat of arms to the sort of friendship club we belong to exclusively, for which drawing on things and sending them to each other is one of the fundamental tenets.

You Can Really Do Some Dreaming With A Head Like That

2010-09-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

SIROCCO VERNACULAR

2010-09-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

In writing this, I notice it costs me not to use certain words more than I ought to. I am thinking about the word "just." I almost wish I could have written that the sun just shone and the tree just glistened and the water just poured out of it and the girl just laughed--when it's used that way it does indicate a stress on the word that follows it, and also a particular pitch of the voice. People talk that way when they want to call attention to a thing existing in excess to itself, so to speak, a sort of purity or lavishness, at any rate something ordinary in kind but exceptional in degree. There is something real signified by that word "just" that proper language won't acknowledge. I regret that I must deprive myself of it. It takes half the point out of telling the story.

-from Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

my summer fitness dispatch

2010-08-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is quite a physical game. Choose wisely!

Bowling is a fine sport. It is possible to lure yourself into thinking you are perhaps naturally gifted at it. Also, you are permitted to eat, drink, and interact socially with your opponents while you are playing. The shoes, for their part, act as a great equalizer.

Hall-of-famers only, please.

ZOE-ISMS

2010-08-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

He said he wants to rendezvous. Well, he told my coworker that he wants to rendezvous. With me.

Help. Kitten attack dude. Attack of the kittens. Tail to the face.

Did you need some alone time Frida? Too bad I will totally fuck your fort up, and come kick it with you.

I need a tish*. I feel like we're not getting omelettes.

I think I left my toothbrush at my work. Which is a shame for everyone involved.

Are you writing more Zoeisms? Do you want me to text you?

*tissue

anecdotal recommendation

2010-08-17T14:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went swimming in Lake Washington with my clothes on before 10am. The water was perfect and blue and hydroplanes buzzed by with their thrilling rackets. We saw a bald eagle. I ate breakfast right before I dove in (which is called playing by my own rules). I felt like a million bucks, truly. A new acquaintance sporting a yellow tank and round horn-rimmed specs asked us several times if we wanted beers. We declined, feeling pure. "But you're young!" he cried, defeated.

it is what it is

2010-08-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

COUNTRY LIFE: SUPERNAPS

THE REAL OREGON TRAIL

2010-08-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

We finally got some film developed from our road trip! Here is a sampling.

When I look at them I can just hear the the Ella Fitzgerald tape we listened to all through South Dakota, the epic halfway point.

movie magic: seattle

2010-07-31T18:43:00.000-07:00

On set in 1955.

ART, A RUSSIAN, VERBAL JUDO

2010-07-31T17:05:00.000-07:00

When he accepted his Nobel Prize for Literature, a ceremony he almost didn't show up for, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had some rad things to say. For one, he named art as a means of reaching “revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking." Meaning, I think, that there resides a truth in art that withstands all sorts of pervasive rhetoric and/or widely established ideology. What we make is sometimes more important than what we say, or even what we say we're going to make.

Knows what's up

He also made the distinction between this truth in art and the “beauty” of rhetorical arguments. While a speech may appear “elegant and smooth” (ha!), language retains the disadvantage of constantly contradicting itself.

Here is the kicker. Art, he says, “bears its own verification," as “those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force – they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them” (!!!). We make a thing, and then it exists!

Sometimes I just can't believe it.

the real deal

2010-07-26T01:06:00.000-07:00

I'm here to tell you

2010-07-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

press photo by Justin Huertas

summer listserv

2010-07-15T23:56:00.000-07:00

WIDGETS: A VALUABLE & RELEVANT METRIC

The Local

2010-07-10T20:00:00.000-07:00

I've been spending a lot of time at the Seattle Center recently. I love it! It's such a mess! On any given day, there is at least one marching band practicing in the strange, decrepit stadium next to the EMP, hordes of families in the fountain, educational radio programming emitting from outdoor speakers, ballerinas, opera singers, and Shakespeare actors masquerading as regular people, carts and carts of non-native foods, cops on horseback, and lots of shifty teenagers on dates.

And it still sort of looks like this! A beacon of 1962's future!

friends in alleyways: a series

2010-07-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

LIZZIE

friendly wednesday reminder

2010-07-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

I had a fitting yesterday with a charming young actriz and as she was pulling a pair of jeans out of her purse to show them to me, a bunch of goldfish crackers and crumbs spilled out of her bag and scattered the tiled bathroom floor of Theater Puget Sound.

I wanted to hug her. I am no stranger to the goldfish moment. Not embarrassed, necessarily--more, "Really?" and then, "Well, energy snacks matter. Let's go."

RED MOON TEASER

2010-06-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

RED MOON teaser from Sirocco Research Labs on Vimeo.

And while you're at it, check out the new and totally awesome SIROCCO RESEARCH LABS WEBSITE!!!

uncanny

2010-06-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

One thing that happens when you drive more than 500 miles a day is that you realize how much room there is in the United States. So much! You knew this. And yet the bald-faced fact of more cows than people living in some of these vast states still makes you feel strange, even somewhat afflicted.

Another thing that happens is that you start relating the expanses of scenery around you to every science fiction book you have ever read and every science fiction movie you have ever seen. Since you are passing things at a rate of 70-89 mph, you have only a few seconds to make these associations, and then to immediately embellish them into a self-satisfying whole that supports your theory that the shivers chasing each other up your spine are justifiably thrilling.

Yesterday we went from Chicago to Rochester, MN, where our dear friend Hayden is employed by the Mayo Clinic for the summer. At his family's beautiful old estate (the right word for it), we drank beers on the screened-in porch and watched an electrical storm light up the backyard. The Midwest is really good for storms! And how often do you get to watch one recreationally with your friends?!

Today we are in South Dakota, checking things off our bucket lists.

False: Wall, SD is a joke destination.

True: Measuring stretches of interstate on a map with your fingertips in fact does make the distance seem smaller.

caulk the wagon and float

2010-06-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

Chicago sends us off with a sweet rainbow

View Larger Map

"How do you prepare for something you've never done before?" --Jim Murphy

Southern ILLINOISE

2010-06-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

imported

2010-06-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

I always have the vague, inaccurate feeling that I'm surrounded by people I know when I'm in Chicago. I'm not, but my conviction to remain a local in a city I've never really lived in is strangely comforting.

I caught a World Cup match for the first time yesterday. Then we came home and played foosball.

a vacation idea for kids and grownups

2010-06-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

Wall, SD

Wilfred is googling systematically, state by state. I find it difficult to look past South Dakota, or this rabbit with antlers who dwarfs its dinosaur comrade, and also gives rides.

America > the Internet?

boyish insouciance

2010-06-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

South Dakota doesn't even know what's coming.

HAIKU IS NO ACCIDENT

2010-06-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

FROM NEW ORLEANS

A GLASSY-EYED STRANGER TO MY BROTHER BEN:

Hey, I like your look
I'm not gay or anything
Are you a poet?

For real, though

2010-06-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

New skills being mastered in three minutes or less, the dowdy becoming surprisingly attractive, someone in a sad or dire situation deciding, "Hey! This is a battle I can win!" ...Is there anything more instantly gratifying (read: subconsciously reassuring) than watching a well-scored montage?

formative influences

2010-06-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

stud tips from a 5-year-old baby lady

Annie Sarwark, 1992

a trip to the archives

2010-06-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

I'm in Glenview, IL, alone in my parents' house, eating really, really well and looking through old things, and I just came upon some treasures.

During my high school years I worked for the Park District in summer camps and after-school recreation programs. Every summer I had a group of 10 first graders. Every day we would do art, swim, and run around. On the first day of camp I used to ask them how old they thought I was. Usually they thought about it pretty hard before landing somewhere around "Fifty-seven??"

turning point in my rapport with America

2010-06-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

THE CAIRO REPORT

Cairo feels temporary, even though it's so old. Ben and I stayed at a highway motel right inside the city limits. No one was really around except the proprietors and two mangy cats. At one point Ben happened to look out the window and saw seven empty school buses that hadn't been there an hour before. There they were, just lined up in a row along the edge of the lot, less than 100 yards from our room. We also didn't hear anyone, let alone 7 busloads of passengers. The buses were gone when we got up in the morning.

As we pulled onto the main drag in town, we passed under a metal arch that read "Historic Downtown District," past dozens of abandoned homes, the marquee of a defunct, boarded up theater called the Gem, and a bunch of spooky, ivy-covered warehouses, each windowpane broken or missing. We got coffees and a woman asked us, "Is this your first time here?" We said yes. She didn't ask us any more questions. There were two other people behind the counter. They whispered to each other, then left.

Cairo's small but persistent tourism industry is still pushing for people to recall its glory days during the Civil War. Its main attractions include the Custom House Museum, an old post office filled with Civil War era memorabilia and frightening life-size Lewis and Clark mannequins, in which three old white people followed us around asking if we had any questions, and where the only documentation of the intense riots during the 1960s in Cairo's failed attempts at desegregation--to the point where the National Guard was sent there in 1969--were 5 framed photographs of people sitting on their porches, with no written descriptions of who they were (though everything else in the place was surrounded by handwritten blurbs and editorials, random factoids and even little notes that read things like "If you have information about this parasol and the woman it belonged to, please let us know!").

The other attraction is Fort Defiance State Park, where the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers come together, and where Ulysses S. Grant was stationed, which was closed for cleaning the morning we tried to go there. Apparently it floods a lot, since it's situated at the confluence of two gigantic rivers. The entire city is surrounded by levees. One of them is blue.

Cairo made me tired and pensive and full of ideas. I tried for a moment to imagine what it must feel like to be very old, to observe change and to remain totally unconcerned or even completely baffled by it. Small town America used to actually repel me, and now I feel an odd attraction to know more about all the corners of this large, strange country. It doesn't make you feel all warm inside, but I'm pretty sure it makes your brain bigger.

We left at noon for the last 6 hours of road to Chicago and listened to This American Life with the windows down almost the whole way home.

fieldwork

2010-06-08T21:13:00.001-07:00

I've spent the last 5 days in New Orleans and the last 12 hours traversing southern lands, finally landing at the southernmost point of my home state of Illinois--a city called Cairo (pronounced, ahem, KAY-ro), along the mighty Mississippi River belt. For several hazy reasons which I have researched exclusively on Wikipedia, many names of cities along the Mississippi have Greek, Middle Eastern, or Egyptian origins. The whole region is referred to as "Little Egypt" due to its geographic likeness to the Nile River delta, but also because of its rampant and uniformly impassioned loyalty to the Confederacy during the Civil War. The northern regions of Illinois voted with Lincoln, and the southern half of the state sided unanimously with...the South. During a debate in 1858, Douglas threatened Lincoln he would "trot him down to Little Egypt" and challenge Abe to repeat his antislavery stance to see how he fared there. So...Illinois's Little Egypt is so named, in part, because ancient Egypt was unanimously proslavery...and so was the southern half of Illinois in 1858. In which case Stephen Douglas was making what we call a metaphor, a device commonly employed in debates.

Tomorrow we will explore.

and GO

2010-06-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

Today, I wrote several cards, cut shapes out of construction paper, walked (roughly) seven miles, ate three Clementines, and g-chatted a little. Like most days, really.

I also worked my last day of retail, packed my bag for a month and checked in online for my 7:40am flight to New Orleans.

So, not like all days!

12:08

2010-05-25T00:08:00.000-07:00

Got a personal backstage tour of the 5th Avenue Theater this morning. In the area directly under the stage, I was both shown and told about the many sorts of machines they can afford there that facilitate the extraordinarily dramatic entrances and exits of modern theater.

I remain unconvinced. Machinery? No. Magic!

let the games begin

2010-05-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Lately I've found myself emoting, usually sort of in an outdoor voice, something like: "WHAAAT" after a person in my company does or says something A. particularly cool, B. particularly funny, or, C. surprising. That way my companion and everyone else around knows something special is happening, and is in turn more engaged with what is happening.

It also works with people you don't know very well, because it's a grand response strategy to use when you have nothing else to say. "WHAAAT" as in, "PLEASE CONTINUE." I'm not sure when or why I started doing this, but it has worked for me thus far in many varied social situations. Also of note: a smile goes a long way! So why fix what's not broke!?

To break it down: One week from today Samstag will be one week into our first paid design gig. Two weeks from today I'll be flying on a jetplane to New Orleans to meet my family and have some real Murphytime at our friend Joe's wedding. Three weeks from today I will be driving from Louisiana to Chicago (through Memphis!) with my brother Ben. And a little over four weeks from today I will be getting ready to drive my Ford from my parents' house in Glenview, IL back to Seattle with Lizzie and Wilfred.

WHAAAT.

I will literally be all over the United States in June. How enchanting! I have a lot of things I've been daydreaming about, and if they don't happen on this trip I am going to write stories about them. Copied from the journal vault---

NOTES TO SELF:

stay out all night in New Orleans

GRACELAND!?

goodwill. EVERYWHERE. esp. the South

swim in Lake Michigan, alot

go to St. Paul, MN*

pancakes

America's Largest Ball of Yarn

use all Holga and Polaroid film

karaoke bar

karaoke bar**

converse with an official at Yellowstone National Park with and casually reveal that I was inducted into the Rocky Mountain Rookie Rangers in 1997, and see what happens

*My German great-grandparents worked as costume designers there. No joke!
**Not a typo.

it's worth trying

2010-05-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

West in hipstamatics

2010-04-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

West, the show I've been costume design assisting and gabbing about for months, opened at On the Boards last night to a sold-out crowd, dudes. I can't believe it! I am so full of joy for everyone involved. We had a real blast.

Here's the last work of our hands to go into the show--an arrow replenishment for the band to have as backup props for when they take West on the road north to Calgary next week.

And here's a nice review from the Seattle Times, where Michael Upchurch says the show's "insistence on being intuitive rather than explanatory is a strength. This is the West as a state of mind rather than a narrative, even if it touches at moments on a deeply familiar story."

Hey, did you hear that? We're a state of mind!!

As always, I feel like I just won the lottery every time I get to work with costume designer Harmony J.K. Arnold, my mentor and life coach since my sophomore year in college. Geeze, has she got it. Her eye for design is impeccable, and on top of that, she's incredibly open-hearted, adventurous and honest in her art and in the way she sees people and the world. I value learning from her so much. We joke around that she's kept me from going hungry since 2007 but more than that, she's kept me on my toes creatively for just as long. Absolutely everything is enjoyable with Harmony--she's like Mary Poppins. Twelve hours of tech with no time to grab lunch or dinner? No problem. Eight hours in a stuffy car in Eastern Washington? Not an issue. Making 9 identical travelers' cloaks in two days from fabric we had to overnight from Portland? Oh, yeah, we've got it.

That's why she's my life coach. She's constantly making, looking for the next opportunity to make. How could life work any other way?

Here's a costume close-up! This is John looking fly in the hair bits we braided into his long locks. Each of the seven bandmembers had a look that pulled inspiration from a mashup of historical periods and styles. Lots of interesting texture and a really beautiful, tight color palette of black, white, steel greys, light blues and tans.

John and Evan in costume during a slow tech moment. The show has some really rad stage tricks that give movie magic a run for its money. My love for the stage experience was totally reinvigorated by working with this dream team. The band, the director, and the designers...they're all aces. I remembered how wonderfully, all-encompassingly collaborative theater is and can be when it's on like this. The laughs and the ideas that came out of the fusing of Matthew Richter, Jen Zeyl, L.B. Morse, Harmony and the band of rad dudes is something real special. This is the kind of collaborative, impassioned energy that I want to be around. For a really long time. I feel really lucky to have found it here, especially when I was really starting to miss the Labs down in LA.

The gigantic, enigmatic crates that make up the set. Most have magic in 'em. Come see what kind! Buy tickets here! Only three more chances to see it! Last show is April 25th at 8pm. If you don't live in Seattle but you are my friend and you read this blog, I'm sorry you can't see the show, but you can listen to a cool song from the show called Manifest Destiny, right here!

Oh, and there I am. Sleepless, maybe, but stoked.

the Mom Chronicles

2010-04-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

I'm working on an embroidered silhouette of this photo right now, which includes Mar's glasses.

my mom (second from left) and her best gals from high school, sometime in the 80s, stolen from my parents' archives

I've spoken my thoughts on family photo albums and the importance of documentation before. They matter. In fact, I think they are the best. Compositionally, this particular photo is pretty straightforward. It says: They're friends! They enjoy each other's company. They share bright colors and haircuts. They're posing to remember those times!

But, since it's a photo of my mother and the women who took care of me in quiet, important ways while I was growing up, who showed me the beauty of lifelong friendships between women and laughing a whole lot and how you're supposed to wear a floral print, I analyze it a lot more. I want to know everything! Did my dad take the photo? What did he say to make them laugh? What's happening in their lives? Their careers?

Are they like us?

these four, 2010

Probably. That's the coolest.

I got the busies, Part 1

2010-04-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, so much happens.

I promise myself I'm going to write all about it when I have downtime. The analysis is an Important Step. My heart and my English degree tell me this is a good intention to have. Unfortunately, however, things just keep on happening, so I have little time to write about them happening, you know? My brain turns off in little ways when I am consistently this busy. I started the coffeemaker not once but twice last week without putting coffee in it. (VITAL STEP.) Lately the only things I have been writing are emails and notes in my schedule book.

(Sadly: not a schedule note.)

SO. I'm a newly minted intern. I work in the cutting room at a small garment factory on the Hill where I show up three times a week and where, among other tasks, they let me use a hand-held electric fabric-cutter called the Chickadee! I cannot use the glittery Sabre machine (which is actually spelled that way and which plugs into its electrical place of honor straight into the ceiling) but I can see it all go down. I mean, this thing can cut through 50+ layers of fabric AT THE SAME TIME. I'm tracin' patterns and fittin' it all together and having a really great time of it. I am watching and learning and rising before the sun (it feels like that but to be honest, it's April now apparently and it's light out at 7am). At the end of the line, stuff like this gets made.

Then they sell these topnotch vests, jackets, parkas, and sweaters to J.Crew and A.P.C. and a boutique in LA called South Willard and lots of Japanese retailers with rad names.

So that happened. Is happening.

The only rule is make.

only the best

2010-04-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

This was an opening night gift I received from Harmony a few years ago. They're really nice needles, aside from looking rad. I like to carry them around with me. Never know when you might need to repair a button and shank for a friend in need! (This has actually happened to me.)

I wonder, though, why none of the ladies are looking at each other. Are they possibly so lost in the thrill of creativity, imagining what beautiful thing Susan might make, that they're just zoning? Or are they ALL SUSAN??

By the way, here's more Red Moon.

2010-03-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

Here are some of those images of Red Moon Part 3 I promised a while back--all courtesy of the Sirocco Research Lab's flickr, where beautiful things keep happening, for example this and this and apparently, this, among other things.

Good old Ovechkin.

BLOOD! Werewolf maulings hurt.

What? What? You found a tiny sub in your pocket, Oskar?

When mustaches need extra sticking, I am there. I am there to help.

Frankly, it was exhilarating to see those beards and mustaches getting some extra mileage.

I love making movies.

My Week of Roommates

2010-03-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

I had the lightbulb this week that I've never really had a bad roommate. I mean, some of you might disagree about the 2005-6 season, but I think all in all it made for some good stories, some good challenges. The last few days I have just been grateful for the intimate lifestyle times I have shared with some of my best friends, who, frankly, are still my best friends. Case in point, THE PITS.

Had some fun times with these boys in the past few days and I'm very proud of both of them. Chris is going to get a degree in June and spend the summer in Tennessee. He is going to write a lot of cool things, and maintain a national park. The government is going to give him a knife. Wilfred is coming to Chicago to look at graduate programs in creative writing and check out the joke scene. There is probably going to be a Great American Road Trip involved. I liked living with them, above all, because of all the spontaneous dancing.

The Pits had a rotating cast of characters. Luckily they were all pretty heavy into spontaneous dancing and being English majors.

I will always feel love for The Pits. Especially because I don't have to brush my teeth there anymore.

SEMI-INTERESTING NEWSBRIEF

2010-03-16T22:02:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the great wide expanse of THE FUTURE. When all is said and done, I think everybody does a lot of thinking about the future. Wondering if they'll be penniless forever, or whether they'll really get to live the dream. I mean, the future is coming! It's coming all the time! And people besides me think about it. For example, economists. Or palm-readers.

I also know that people besides me think about time and the future because I have been stuck for a few days sleeping very little because of a book called The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1919. I like reading it at night before bed, because it's cool to read about total abstractions when it's dark out, and because I keep dreaming about extreme interplanetary space missions and/or being in charge of a team of cool kids who are all wearing matching suits.

So there's a whole CHAPTER of this book on the early 20th century's ideas about the future. Naturally I went for it. There's a lot of ground to cover when addressing the future incidentally. The war. Philosophy, art, science, science fiction, technology, psychiatry, the Titanic. I lost myself in there for awhile. In the end, though, I came out pretty encouraged by Futurism. Here is part of their manifesto, written in 1909:

We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness...Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed.

I wish I could have seen some guy just standing on top of a car letting the public have that speech. I don't care that they were full of themselves, they were unafraid! They started trying new things! Just to see what would happen!! and for the simple fact that it was new and not like the past! Some really cool art came out of it, too, like chromophony (the color of sounds!) and painting people that look like robots walking up the stairs and exposing film in weird ways.

And then there was this architect called Antonio Sant'Elia who was all for the idea that new construction should respond to the needs of the modern age, using steel and glass and cardboard (submarines...?) and concrete, making every building a dynamic, operational machine. He said THIS:

From an architecture conceived in this way no formal or linear habit can grow, since the fundamental characteristics of Futurist architecture will be its impermanence and transience. Things will endure less than us. Every generation must build its own city.

Every generation must build its own city?! Geeze. Yes! I mean, it isn't about the fact that this architect just told the world that he believed fundamentally in the fact that his buildings not only would, but should, fall apart. It isn't about the buildings, or the art. It's about the manifesto. The fact that someone (or groups of someones!) went on the record saying that each generation should build its own ideas. That rebuilding ourselves is the manifesto. This guy saying that every generation build its own city shows that someone thinks it can.

So that's what we're doing now. Pretty encouraging, right?

And while I'm not so keen on the Futurists' insistence on the categorical removal/destruction of the past and all its decorative trimmings (I mean, let's be real, I love the decorative trimmings part. That could pretty much be my tagline. DECORATIVE TRIMMINGS. Plus, 3/4s of my wardrobe is not from anywhere near this decade and probably has a hole in it), I'm inspired by the reminder that the future is a clean slate, a big stretch of what-ifs! and wouldn't-it-be-rad-ifs! and lets-try-its! for us become better versions of ourselves in. I had a real bounce in my step as I did a (figurative) victory lap around the apartment, because this fact is true no matter how many dollars I have in my pocket! I felt so great, like I could make the funniest joke if anyone had been around to hear it. It was alright with me that no one was, because it was the potential that felt so good! To think how our ideas matter in that way! That our collective manifesto--all the mantras we write over and over in our notebooks and on our walls and at the tops of our blogs, that we might use as sign-offs if we had regular spots on live network television--those are makin' us a city and we can live in it.

Man. So in my city (of the right here, right now) there is a lot of sewing and loud music for dancing in and really great pancakes, and everybody writes, and stretches their muscles in every skill they've got, and makes lists of things they want to learn, and learns them, one by one, and the world is at their fingertips just like the great wide expanse of the future.

If we were a 90s sitcom about the life of American teens

2010-03-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

I assume that some decidedly more neon versions of these photos might compose the our cast portrait.

Class of '95, as captured by Ben

Anyway, there is nothing like being part of the cast, you know?

self-explanatory

2010-03-12T16:46:00.000-08:00

I Wear Clothes, 2009

We Made This With Our OWN HANDS, 2009

pen and paper

2010-03-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

I read this.

2010-03-10T23:50:00.000-08:00

time warp

2010-03-09T16:53:00.000-08:00

If I've learned anything in my 22.86 years of living it's that life is a really, really full thing.

I haven't logged any thoughts on here for a whole week and it seems really daunting, because so much has happened in seven days. GEEZE, but isn't that the best part?

Yesterday was my first full day of being back in Seattle and back to work and back to assisting Harmony with rad projects.

I'm back. But where have I been?! It's hard to say...

I might have been powdering people's faces on the regular, and outfitting a werewolf that wasn't Ben, but was in fact a nice fellow named Eric, and making sure everybody's mustaches were properly sticking to their faces, and creating some more bloody, bloody werewolf gore. I might have gotten to do a little 30s makeup and hair, and I might have realized I love it the most. I might have been eating cheese for just about every meal, which if you didn't know is called the Cheese Diet, and I just might have gotten on a real Hang Zone hair bender, which if you didn't know is when you can touch your hair and it stays in that exact position. I might have enjoyed several complimentary sugary beverages at the Wooden Nickel in North Hollywood, and blasted my muscles carrying some baby stands and KinoFlos, and I might have laughed once every minute, but probably more. I might have felt my heart fill to bursting with love for this project, for knowing it was reaching its close and that it was all of ours and that it was beautiful. I might have gotten in some real, serious dancetime, and I JUST MIGHT have accidentally made an appearance on a reality TV program called (have you heard of it?) Top Chef, and tasted some really spectacular chocolate pudding with mangoes!, and I might have missed my flight out of Long Beach for this pudding, but in fact, I didn't.

And--no jokes or maybes, not even a little bit--all those things I just listed are true and no longer theoretical.

Soon I'll get you some images of it all. For that I just have to rely on Kelly and Hardcore Dave.

Threepeat!

2010-03-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, when I told you that I did a victory lap because I was going to be in Los Angeles in 3 days, I wonder if I left you on the edge(s) of your seat(s) as to why. Well, budding readership? Are you still on the edge? Are you?

One time, a celebrated alumnus of my school came to speak to some students about living on the edge. His name was Jim Whittaker, and according to Wikipedia, he was the first American to summit Mount Everest, in 1963. One thing that was rad about him coming to speak at my school was that there were posters everywhere on campus advertising the event that featured what is apparently his patented catchphrase: "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space." I liked that so much I tried to bring Jim's words to the forefront of my generation's social awareness, even months after his talk, by using them as an informal greeting and sometimes also a farewell. Like, "Hey guys, are you living on the edge? If you're not, you're taking up too much space." Or, "Well, I better head to class. See you! Live on the edge tonight! If you're not...." etc. Mostly I enjoyed that I could do my part to make these words relevant, even to perfect strangers. Lots of people like to be reminded to live on the edge. People in the elevator, for example. Jesuits. Or someone waiting in line behind me for the drinking fountain.

Anyway, if you're still on the edge, good. It's good to be on the edge. Exciting things happen on the edge!

Thursday morning I am flying to LA to shoot the third and final segment of a beautiful short film called Red Moon. Since I have been there once a month for three months, I am in fact threepeating Los Angeles. And I am grateful for it, because I can't wait to get back for the hugs and the high-fives and the best, most productive and exciting creative collaboration I've ever been a part of.

Though the story of Red Moon itself has existed for years, for me, it all started back in August. I was working as an assistant on my first movie when my friend Jimmy asked me if I would consider being a part of the Sirocco Research Lab's newest project--basically, would I build him a werewolf?

Would I!

So then I did. I planned it as wearable, separate pieces that would allow the character to turn into the werewolf underneath his clothing, much like Michael J. Fox could in Teen Wolf. There were high school hoops to play!

For Red Moon, we were also in the 1980s, but we were deep beneath the Atlantic on a Soviet Submarine, so I thought this look would be appropriate:

Katie and Ben, two of my very best friends and Sirocco Research Lab old-timers, found some really rad faux fur at what some might call heaven and others call the Fabric Depot in Portland, OR. Conveniently, Ben was slated to play the Werewolf himself, so they got jamming on designing a supersweet werewolf mask molded perfectly to Ben's face, complete with cozy, cozy hood and ears, while I started on the body.

From the rolls and rolls of fur they delivered, I made one pair of werewolf paws...

One pair of fur feet...

One curvy fur tail...

...and a fur chest/stomach piece and shoulder add-ons. When we got to LA, we also sewed on the sharp felt teeth and gave the mask some scary black eyebrows. Costumed up, the effect is pretty dazzling, no?

(There's a sneak peak at the submarine, here, as well--crafted almost entirely from cardboard, paint, and a staple gun. It's really, really as amazing as it looks. Three rooms, and a light-up control panel. No one was messing around!)

I also made some fake beards and mustaches for the cast of sailors (and sometimes the Red Moon G&E crew) to wear. Here are a few:

Greg=Sailor #2

Doug=Federov

Ben=Captain Ovechkin
the champagne of beards

Lastly, I took care of prettying up everybody's faces for the camera, and also bloodying up anyone unlucky enough to get mauled by a werewolf during a full moon. This part was fun, and sort of mind-boggling. I mean, designing the way someone gets mauled? It was like playing God. And people get paid stupid amounts of money to do this, right? Life is so grand.

A girl has got to practice.

SPOILER ALERT! SAILOR #2 GETS FUCKED UP.

Felt makes bloodbaths pretty.

Geez. That is a lot of words. I hope you are still on the edge, because I'm sure I will have much more to say about Red Moon and the Sirocco Research Labs and LA, Part III, and if you aren't on the edge then you're taking up TOO MUCH SPACE.

Manic Monday

2010-03-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

That's what it was, people!

Manic!

Luckily, it ended with the making of a giant dinner of potatoes in the hash brown style with delicious things in it, like mushrooms and tofu, courtesy of one beautiful being named Hollis, and JUST HANGING.

Dorm Life, 2006

When I got home I paid a visit to my bicycle, which is currently living in the storage room just off the laundry room in my building to tell it I haven't forgotten about it, and that I still think it is the most lovely shade of blue.

Then I listened to Devo. Loud. Because I can.

While I was doing that, I realized I would be in Los Angeles, CA, in 3 days.

And I did a victory lap.

gut feelings

2010-02-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

I got paid today.

Staring down at the numbers, I had the gut feeling that I probably had just enough to pay my rent.

What, No More Cake?, 2010

I was right.

Then, I had the overwhelming gut feeling that, even though I'm still (fiscally) poor, I should "splurge" on bread, cheese, $3 wine, and chocolate from my friend the industrious trader, Joe. Because those are things that taste good.

Right again!

Then I had the gut feeling that I should put on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and make something.

So that's where I'm at.

a moment in time

2010-02-27T14:25:00.000-08:00

Dog and Man, 2009

Hi.

2010-02-26T22:16:00.000-08:00

Pizzaman, 2009

Today at work we danced a little and drew a mural with dry-erase markers on the area formerly known as the Denim Information Board. The drawing mostly featured a bear with a lucha libre mask on, which was inspired by a picture I saw in a magazine. The bear was saying, "I admire the way of the bear."

I got to come home to a lovely, clean, adult apartment that isn't mine and hang out with two small dogs who like to sleep in the crooks of my knees.

I made the vegetarian pizza and popped open the bottle of red wine left just for me and kicked back, thinking about exciting things. Then, right about when Lizzie was supposed to show up, she texted me--Are you hungry??--and I said--Naw, ate too much pizza, come and eat it--and she said--NAW! Picking up Piecora's on my way. This is like if I tried to surprise you on our anniversary but you already got the plane tickets.

These are the days of our lives.

Straight-up.

2010-02-25T17:44:00.000-08:00

Oh, hi, World of Blogging.

I know I am behind the times. I know most of my friends started their personal adventure-filled, career-starting weblogs back in '08, and some really precocious ones all the way back in '07. I even know some people who write blogs who feel like friends even though I have never shaken their hands, and they may have started their blogs coming up on FIVE whole years ago! Did the Internet even exist back then?

Yes, yes it did. Apparently.

what I was doing in 2008
(magical holga photo by dear katie)

Here is what you need to know about me: I can reach almost any top shelf, photos are my most prized possessions, and I want to write things and design things pretty much forever. Most of the time I listen to my favorite songs on repeat, because there are only so many things in this world you can control. I send postcards more often than not, and I really, really like swimming in the Great Lakes, specifically Michigan. I moved to the Northwest in 2005 to try my hand at Manifest Destiny and it's working out pretty great.

This is my new playground. I hope you will like it.