smart!

everyone knows the french are hyper-fashionable... duh. but check out some of these mouth watering footwear selections spotted on the streets of paris by ny times photographer bill cunningham.

some of my faves in no particular order:

spooky love

i'm interviewing scout niblett today. can't wait to tell her how much i adore this video with her and will oldham. enjoy! xoxo.

poetry in motion

before there was cousteau, there was deep sea filmographer jean painleve. amazing. found one of his films on youtube called "le vampire." it explores the lives of creatures motivated by sucking or suction (?) like the octopus, the bat, the tick, mosquito, and of course, the vampire. the music is great.

believe it or not, it gave me a nightmare about a bloodsucking hummingbird that also liked orange juice. i don't get it. if you are into dream interpretation and know what this means, let me know... unless it's something bad, then don't tell me.



back in 2001, yo la tengo composed an original score to accompany painleve's underwater films. you can get the collection called "science is fiction" on amazon u.k. it's officially on my wish list.

things i've been into lately

the newest liars album:
filling idle time:
mapping new territory:
missing previously mapped territory:

...a little bit.

in search of vacancy

in honor of my current apartment hunting, here's something i wrote a couple of years ago when i moved into my last place:

apartment

there is a girl across the way with a noisy bird
every day she gently touches its feathered chest with two fingers
it is peaceful, the way she does that
i watch her sometimes from the kitchen
when she goes out, she leaves the cage by the window
so the bird can always see what it’s missing.

there is a russian couple on the other side who drink a lot
they are house painters who always wear white
they are noisy, red-faced drunks
she fights with him after wine
if i leave the window open, they will keep me up at night
she sobs until morning.

there is an old woman underneath
in certain rooms, i smell her cigarettes
i salvaged a picture frame she threw in the trashcan outside
the glass was stained yellow with years of smoke
her coughing is loud, like her television in the morning
sometimes i can feel how lonely she is.

we live together
pretending to live apart
we aren’t nosey
but we know many things about each other
that nobody else does
it is not by choice.