My brain is AWESOME!!!
Awesome Monday! I went to my Neurologist, and he said my BRAIN IS AWESOME! Which is fantastic, because I have been spending a good handful of months convinced they were going to MRI the crap out of it and discover that I had like, a dead twin who’d been growing out of my brain for the past 26 years. So I’m currently giving myself quite the slow clap for the lack of epilepsy related hotness in my life this past year, and crossing my fingers that that continues on for, oh, about the next seventy or so years.
I had my second MRI of life a few months ago and hated it. I think I must have blocked the first. This one was edged with about five hundred pounds more scariness, however, due to a little waterfall accident I had way back in 2005, when I gouged my foot open on a fishing hook THAT IS STILL LODGED UP IN MY FOOT, so they gave me a panic button whilst in the MRI … just in case, you know, that fishing hook ripped through my insides and decided to pop right out of my chest. All was fine, but it certainly didn’t help when I entered into the little tunnel and thought to myself, “Wow. It sure seems a lot like a coffin in here.” AND THEN THE PANIC SET IN.
I am a trooper though, so I sucked it up and tried to think of frolicking, purple-coated unicorns. Trapped in mines. And oh my god, the mines are caving in on them and THEY CAN’T BREATHE AND OH MY GOD NO ONE CAN HEAR THEM SCREAM!!!!111 … Anyways.
Tomorrow I am going to Vancouver in the wee hours of the early morning with Crystal … we’re going to meet up with Ms Macey and figure out the costumes and etcs for the Peter Pan photo shoot coming up on the 18th. I haven’t been to Vancouver in ages (well. Two weeks ago.) But I’ve NEVER been to Gastown, even though it’s kind of been calling my name in a fuzzy-vaseline covered fantasy sequence kind of manner because I’m pretty sure I am going to fall in love with the shops there. And possibly show my love with an impromptu sequin-covered musical number.
Finally, how awesome is this Memoriam Font? Exactly. Pretty awesome.
Firekite’s “Autumn Story” : Animation in Chalk
Firekites AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Yanni Kronenberg on Vimeo.
I love this! I bought a chalkboard at Ikea about a million years ago and still haven’t managed to get it put up anywhere… maybe today is the day. I like the idea of having a chalkboard around for random visitors to write messages on, like temporary collaborative art.
Internets! I made you a cd.
I love making music mixes for people. I like to imagine them unwrapping them, popping them into their stereo and having the music speak like, directly to them, like a note of g minor drilling straight into their soul. Which is why I especially love to pepper my cd mixes with the musical stylings of Power Station and Whitesnake. Because Power Station… “Some Like It Hot” … IT’S LIKE THEY KNOW ME. INSIDE.
I have a real affinity for audio cassette tapes. I haven’t listened to them in quite awhile, but back in Masset I had a little cassette player that was frequently trying to blast out Stevie Nicks’ Bella Donna album, usually followed by 40 of Harry Belafonte’s very greatest hits. I love popping them in and just listening to them as background when the windows are open and the summer breezes are coming in. Of course, in my neighbourhood, that’s also when you hear the teenage hoodlums in the back alley getting up to their preteen shenanigans. When I was a teenager, the most daring thing I ever did was run across a busy street at 11 p.m. to get donuts. DONUTS. And on the way back, I was so convinced my mom was going to come storming out of the hotel parking lot (where I assumed she was keeping her vigil) and scream at Melissa and I that I actually drill-sargeanted Melissa with a, “ARE YOUR LEGS MADE OF RUBBER?” while precariously balancing a boxful of mini donuts. *
Anyways, what I’m getting at here, and this is totally unrelated to the teenage hooligans, is Internet, I made you a mixed cd. The playlist isn’t perfect. There are some definite ones missing. I like to think this is number one of many. But, because it is my very first mixed cd, I decided to throw on my most favourite songs of all. Ever.
001. Africa - Toto. Speaking of Mellers, this is the song her and I like to sing in rush hour traffic, windows rolled down, at the top of our lungs. It’s best to sing the chorus with your eyes closed. Yeah. We sure are great drivers.
002. Origami - Ani DiFranco. Because I am an all powerful Amazon Warrior, not just some sniveling girl.
003. Daniel - Bat for Lashes. This song reminds me of so many things simultaneously it pretty much just blows my mind.
004. The Coo Coo Bird - The Be Good Tanyas. My cousin Melissa and I sung this down many a rainforested back road, trying to get the melody just right for when the time came for us to sing it in front of others. Most of the time people didn’t even ask. Get a few drinks in us and we’ll serenade you whether you want to hear us or not.
005. Skinned - Blind Melon. Just about the most upbeat song you might ever hear about serial killing. Unless you’re listening to the Violent Femmes rip up the banjo on “Country Death Song”. This song makes Jamie nauseous.
006. Raphael - CocoRosie. CocoRosie is the weirdest band ever and I love them.
007. Ya Ya Ya - The Detroit Cobras. “I am a mountain when the sun goes down.” Uhm, awesome. Please also check out “Boss Lady”, which is my cousin Melissa’s anthem.
008. Bluebird - Devendra Banhart. Sometimes I’m torn about whether or not Devendra Banhart is a total douchebag, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter because this song transcends any inkling of douchebaggery. And it has my name in it!
009. Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley. I used to throw on my spandex unitard and a pair of fine roller skates and roller skate around my backyard to my dad’s old Elvis tape. This song was my favourite. I liked to break out the really spectacular moves to this musical treasure, not limited to arm flailing and mid-stride twirling.
010. Red Dirt Girl - Emmylou Harris. Oh I just love this song. So sad though. I am also a huge fan of “Lodestar” by Sarah Harmer. Both are great and infinitely singable.
011. I Feel It All - Feist. I don’t get sick of this song, and I’ve heard it a whole lot. One time I went to see Feist in concert. I had been living kind of on the road for the last three weeks and so had a razor in my purse for … who knows, emergencies in leg stubble, and when I went to go through the security gate, I did a precursory check to see what I had in there and … sliced my finger open. So I go up to the guard, gushing blood, and say, “uuhhhh.. so i have a razor in my purse and i just cut myself on it. careful when you fish around in there.” The blood was freaking him out, so he just waved me on in to First Aid… with my razor. Awesome!
012. Tusk - Fleetwood Mac. Once, Melissa and I went over to a friend’s house in Masset, and he practically forced a bookshelf on us. It was bigger than a truck. There was no way it was getting anywhere close to our living room. We managed to deter his manic insistence by blaring this song over our personal speaker (carried on my shoulder, where bad ass pint-sized, low-quality personal speakers should probably be gingerly carried. I am super cool.) and listened to this song while we went into his basement and “thieved” two fine, dust-covered, mustard-seat-coloured chairs. Tusk is perfect thieving music!
013. Jane Says (Steel Drums) - Jane’s Addiction. The best song ever. Incidentally, I am not a huge fan of the original.
014. The Big Guns - Jenny Lewis. I watched the Wizard last night and just couldn’t stop “wowing” Jamie with my knowledge of Jenny Lewis’ musical career.
015. A Case Of You - Joni Mitchell. Oh Joni.
016. Don’t Stop Believing - Journey. I’m about 80% sure this song has the power needed to inspire a spontaneous, fully choreographed dance number in the middle of a street amidst a crowd of strangers. As long as those choreographed dance moves have a few closed fists and at least one person is wearing spandex leggings.
017. Shanky Panky - Kid Koala. Awwww yeah.
018. Taper Jean Girl - Kings of Leon. I pretty much am in love with their entire A ha Shake Heartbreak Album. If it were a person I’d be high fiving it enthusiastically. And maybe undoing the top button of my blouse. Just in case it was interested.
019. Deceptacon - Le Tigre. This song requires loud blasting and then spastic jumping around. It’s kind of important.
020. Pirate Jenny - Marianne Faithfull. There are a couple of different versions of this out there, and you have to find the right one. Marianne says everything with a passion and intensity that is spectacular… watch for the line when she says, “All of them.” … AWESOME.
So, that’s about it. That’s not nearly all of the songs, but there is more to come … eventually.
*We were staying at a hotel for my birthday. I love hotels. It’s like, why even leave the hotel? Sure there’s a great city outside to explore, but look at how fresh these towels are! And there are mini-soaps for my convenience! And hold the phone everyone, they have PAY PER VIEW WITH MOVIES THAT HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN RELEASED ON DVD YET. NO WAYS.
“At least it has HUMANITY!”
SEEDMAGAZINE.COM : Saved By Science. I love Natural History Museum stuff.. and I thoroughly enjoy just how very scandalous the business of specimen preservation is… I especially enjoy the brief blurb on the fellow who was blackmailed into selling his prized collection of stuffed birds. (Link via Amy Nieto.)
I need to redesign my blog! I’m starting to get some ideas, but it’ll likely take awhile before I really get on anything because I’m never on the Internets anymore. It’s not quite July and things already look delightfully busy! Almost all my weekends are full with either work or random summer events… my next photo shoot adventure involves Peter Pan, and I’m shooting an ad campaign for my favourite bookstore as well. The very end of July features The Summer Movie Festival, wherein I hijack a friend’s backyard, set up a projector and invite all my nearest and dearest over to watch 80s movies outside by the light of tiki lamps, and Jamie has started a writing club. I’m running ideas through my mind right now for writing …. I keep thinking about Aztec warriors and Arthurian legends.
I signed up for my courses for fall as well … I am going to be taking a Poetry class and that just knocks my socks off. I can’t wait. Speaking of school, there is a critique scene from “Art School Confidential” that sums up my occasional experiences in art critiques in school. My Print Media instructor showed it to us last semester, and then had the hardest time critiquing our prints because she felt exactly like John Malkovich. Awesome.
Going to Wonderland …
well. If Wonderland consisted of people dressed in crazy eyelashes and vintage pairs of underwear. Which, really, come on, is totally what Carroll intended!
So last Saturday I had my Alice In Wonderland photo shoot and I couldn’t be happier with the result. Like, ecstatic happy. Like, oh my gosh there is too much awesomeness to shoot in one measly afternoon happy. Everyone looked so amazing! Macey, who took my fuzzy ideas and expanded and beautified them, did a fantastic job, and Amy and Kaila who worked hair into submission and applied makeup with style created looks pulled straight from heart.
The best part was walking around downtown Chilliwack as a merry band of Wonderlanders.. just out for the day. And then receiving a Jesus pamphlet from someone on the street. Awesome. The whole thing was just too fantastic… and as always, I appreciate all the people who came out to model for me! And Crystal, who tapped her watch pointedly to keep us all on schedule, and took in all my stream-of-consciousness pre-shoot planning while we scouted locations.. and I tried not to kill us with my mad driving skillz.
I almost made Emily walk into a field of stinging nettle without realizing it… and she was all, “Is it thorny?” And I checked, and it hurt so bad … I was a huge baby about it. I had Crystal check it like, twice. You can see Emily in front of the field in some of the Mad Hatter pictures.
Next up : Peter Pan! More pictures to be found on flickr… thank you to Amy Nieto for the beautiful flower headpiece, Macey Faulkner for all the clothing awesomeness, and Kaila Alexander and Amy Van Wormer for their hard work in hair and makeup. Thanks as well to Amber Short, Nadine Laidler, Emily Hamel-Walde, Kaila Alexander, Sheri Eyre, Kimma Monique, Jennifer Laureen and Rima Gifford for modeling so fantastically! And to Crystal McHargue, my Girl Friday.
Swatch and Stockings
Can’t wait for the photo shoot next Saturday! Hells yeah!
Incidentally, everyone, it is effing hot here. EFFING.
I BOUGHT A NEW LENS.
This in ALL CAPS because I need my text to properly convey my excitement. It’s a beautiful 55 - 250 mm dreamboat of photographic awesomeness, and allows me to ninja myself far away portraits of perfect strangers … which I love, because sometimes I’m all creepy like that.
Things that are coming up … ALICE IN WONDERLAND PORTRAIT SHOOT, y’all. I am so excited. My friend Macey is going to be whipping up some beautiful costumes for it, and Amy is coming in from Vancouver to work her movie magic skillz into hair and makeup, and McHargs is going to be there, tapping her foot and pointing at her watch to ensure I stay on time — like any good Assistant Director must. It all happens in about two weeks and I really can’t wait to get started. This week I’ll be mapping out all of our locations, including all of us sneaking onto a farmer’s field because… really, if you saw the sun setting behind the trees that line his planting field your brain might completely explode with the awesomeness of it.
Finally, saw my little Peanut this past Sunday — he’s getting so big now, and much more alert. And, everyone, hold the phone, HE IS A REDHEAD. So awesome.
This one is my most favourite. Look how handsome he is!
“So, Bond, you thought you could get away from my sharks wis ze lazers, but you are WRONG. Bwahahahh”
More costumes from le VV Boutique…
First of all, super exciting news! I went out Saturday night and purchased a new 250mm lens, which is just fantastic, and came home to discover a friend of my parents had dropped off a surprise treasure trove of old photography equipment! I did a strange little spasm and almost broke something bringing the box to my room to happily sift through it.
Second of all, I meandered around Value Village today and found a ton of awesome costumes that I might use in the upcoming Alice In Wonderland shoot (in June!).
Mmmm… purple crinoline…
Life as a Cupcake.
So new job and thunderstorms and a new, total disregard for Stacy and Clinton’s fashion advice in lieu of a newfound love of dresses-for-shirts. 1) They are so super comfortable. and 2) My ass doesn’t hang out of them, which is nice, despite the fact that I think half of Canada and some of England has seen a little more of me than intended when I bend down to tie up my shoe.
I find that as I continue on with my 26th year I morph more and more into an adult. This is frightening. I think I must belong to that class of person who stubbornly refuses to accept responsibility passed 12. Well. Maybe I’m not so ridiculous, I’m just really wanting to start something, and branch out on my own, with my own little place, that maybe has driftwood around the outside in lieu of a white picket fence. I’m feeling this funny little cosmic push to just get on with everything already, like I’m running in a dream but every time I try to move I find my legs are mired down in great, heaping gobs of pudding and I’m just not getting anywhere. I think sometimes I mentally psyche myself out before I actually do anything, and I should probably stop doing that. Hopefully by 27.
… Wow. This entry got a lot deeper than I originally intended. I was just going to log in and blog about how I’ve developed an obsession for W.B. Yeats and The Mentalist, but … there you go. Which, incidentally, “Song of the Wandering Aengus” kind of has my heart, and The Mentalist is so quirky and addictive I almost wished I’d watched that on Sunday night instead of the Rivers’ crazed tirade on Celebrity Apprentice.
Joan Rivers kind of seems to talk like she can’t form syllables over the insane amounts of junk injected and extracted from her face.
Coloured TV
Busy day today! I will be finishing up the No More Medea short films, (must needs iron out all my atrocious jump cuts, ahhhh) and then I will be whipping up some mini-cheesecakes! Wooo! My new job is going quite well, AND I get to wear a stylish mini half apron. Fashion thy name is WORK UNIFORM.
Tomorrow is the city wide yard sale and I will be on the look out for anything awesome for under a quarter.
Sarah the Pirate is a 26 year old Photographer, Visual Arts student and occasional landscaper. She likes cookies, jellyfish, well-read books and tshirts that say stuff. Her pirate booty consists of many thrifted owls, costume jewellery from her grandmother and pansies that she presses in between the pages of random books. This is her blog! To learn more about it, please visit here: 
"Tuesdays With Morrie" by Mitch Albom for book club. My pick this month is "I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith... so good.