Golden Mask

Sidebar, that bit of white peeking over the left eye has been covered with a golden sticker sliver.

Rain, Red Rock & Roll

18 SEPTEMBER, 2009- After a jumbo buffalo sausage, chili nachos, half a pound of peanut M & M’s and an all-nighter at a Wal-Mart Supercenter, I am back from the Monolith Festival. Luckily, calories were shed climbing several lengthy stairways at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a hill-top arena with a magnificent landscape of naturally formed sandstone monuments. This was rewarding not just for spectators, but also for the artists performing because of the superb sound quality the space offers. Day one of the event was full of plastic ponchos, freezing fingers clutching bowls of warm festival food, and a lot of rained on American Apparel (one particular disappointment on this blustery day was the truck labeled Hot Apple Pie that did not, in fact, sell hot apple pies). Day two decided to grant guests some sunshine and a back-to-back onslaught of amazing acts. Plus, the sight of a random guy uni-cycling down a nearby mountain.

On night one, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ gritty, low-fi sound translated beautifully live. Karen O’s squeals and screeches reverberated from the rocks as she bounced and contorted onstage in Tex Mex inspired, Pendleton prints like a 4 year old throwing a tantrum. The show peaked with a strobed out “Zero” and was followed up by more mellow songs. Although, I wasn’t really feeling the weird eye in the background, and would have preferred the giant rock facade behind the main stage visible. Earlier that day, MF Doom delivered very audible rhymes, strolling the stage to and fro authoritatively with his hype man following a protracted, “make-some-noise” cum “I can’t hear you” intro by his DJ. Afterward, Of Montreal, their bizarre costumes, and kaleidoscopic background psychedelia took over, which I could have done without. Girl Talk rounded out the evening by successfully charging up the arena with his mash-ups act, while dozens of Denverites danced onstage. Think MTV Spring Break: the Cold Version.

The next day seemed the better of the two. Opening up with “Lisztomania”, Pheonix played to a full audience that rivaled the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’, despite initially having been scheduled to play the smaller stage. They sounded amazing, and maintained a steady resonance (particularly during the climax to “If I Ever Feel Better”). However, I was disappointed by their underwhelming stage set up. After bearing witness to Karen O dominating Saturday night, physically and through her powerful vocals, and later hearing/seeing a noisy Cedric Bixler-Zavala humping the floor while he whine-sung away, I was only left with silhouettes of stringy-haired Frenchies. During the afternoon, Method Man and Redman frequently asked the audience about weed and promoted How High 2 at the main stage, before revisiting some of their older sure-shots like "Time 4 Sum Aksion" and the song where Meth spells his name out. Commanding the Southern Comfort Stage, Passion Pit and Chromeo played for claustrophobic crowds, which made for frenetic dance parties. In Passion Pit’s case, this happened onstage as well, as the lead singer bounced around looking a little spacey from time to time. Playing during a 30 minute overlap with the tail end of Pheonix’s performance, people had spilled over for Chromeo, covering up every square inch of ground on the top level. The two stepping, clap-happy audience managed to interact in what seemed like a sing along for most of the show, especially during “Momma’s Boy” and “Bonafied Lovin’”.

Highlights I unfortunately (or fortunately) did not bear witness to include: Health causing a jam-packed-room frenzy, The Thermals’ frontlady changing out of her bothersome bra onstage, Rahzel’s entertaining beat-boxing extravaganza and Monotonix being crazy.

Mask in Progress

So that's the mask I am making out of five leftover, unnecessary stickers I found. Above it, in the page before, is the back of that shoe from the other day... Although, today I got sick of how boring the shoe page looked and decided to put it docking on a beach. I'm calling it a shoener.

A Birthday Toast

Whilst celebrating Karolina and mine's birthdays, prematurely and belatedly (respectively), genius Karolina made us this delicious drink...

... Consisting of St. Germain elderflower liquor, honey liqueur, lemon juice, vodka and seltzer water. In. Credible.

An Enchanted Evening with Gonzales

I saw Gonzales's virtuosic performance Friday night at Joe's Pub, a routine consisting of comedic doses, (tolerable) audience participation and toying around with musical theory. He sweats talent with his furious piano playing, but also with his entertaining public speaking skills, marked by a calculated blend of self-deprecation and braggadocio. He was joined toward the tail end of the show by Jamie Lidell, who I had previously been exposed to exclusively via a You Tube video of his song, "Another Day," which was not exactly my cup of tea. I thought he was either an American Idol graduate or a member of Maroon 5 that branched off for a solo career. However, after Friday's performance, he made a fan of me. My only disappointment that night was that this Joe's Pub didn't have any sort of fish and chips on the menu, a meal I for some reason associate with pubs- but it wasn't much of a pub anyway, so I'm over it.

Testing, testing... One, Shoe, Three...

I worked on this experimentally, to find out what the best way to do a woven texture with paper is (Hint: Not the way I did this). I will play around with it later... I like the feeling of faux sewing with paper.

Quit Bugging Me

I am making this woven shoe collage and a ladybug keeps distracting me.

Steadily along my merry way...



When this mottled nuisance sets itself on my screen.



But, you know... he/she sorta grew on me...



So, I followed her/him around for a second...



... And finally decided I'd had enough. By then I think I scared it away and he/she flew off... Back to my shoe!

Hecho, visto y... oído!

Chromeo's "Night by Night" conjures images of terry cloth headbanded underdogs undergoing victorious triathlon training, sweating up and down the Philly Museum of Art stairs, turned foggy nighttime fast-strutting with a leather clad gang, all pounding their right fists into their left hands in unison. Unless one of them is left-handed. Available for free download at Green Label Sound.

"Finally... some more color in here!" - Notebook of Patterns, 12:40 AM

You heard the notebook... Finally!

Jesufina La Jirafa

Here is a giraffe I collaged today, made from a magazine page of a girl wearing a golden dress with a leopard. I lacked the foresight to include a photo of it, but remembered to take a close up of Jesufina for Natasha (winky face). I also think I will give her a purple background later on if I come across the right paper.

Vegetarians, "x" Out Of the Window!

Tonight I made these crispy chicken drumsticks with a peanut sauce, which tasted a whole lot better than they look in the photo below. I served them with rapini and a butternut squash soup beforehand. A random combo, but I had to work with what I had in the fridge, so...

I was going to make my own peanut sauce, but I got lazy. I bought a basic one and added lime and a little bit of soy sauce to thin it out and crushed red chili peppers. I cooked the chicken in ginger, garlic, lime, some red chili flakes, olive and sesame seed oil for about 25 minutes, removed and turned over and then broiled it for 20 more minutes. Afterwards, the chicken was tossed in the peanut sauce and served with a little bit of fresh lime and chili flakes.

It was pretty good! The best part was the roasted ginger-fresh lime combination. It had the spicy kick of buffalo wings, minus the feeling that I was eating something gross.

Skyscapes - Dos

We're switching it up this time around... The first two of this series are New York based, this one's from Barcelona.
I am longing for Gelateria Caffetteria Italiana right about now.

Blackcurrant Lemonade

I still have the Teisseire blackcurrant syrup, and some lemons that if I didn't use right away would have been goners. I mixed some fresh lemon juice and water, then flavored it with the syrup and "simple syrup" AKA sugar boiled in hot water (just a tiny bit), which I learned is the secret to a perfect lemonade because the sugar is absorbed easier, and some mint. Another quasi-obvious, lemonade making note is that you should add whatever syrup first and guesstimate the sugar to be added with that already in there so that you don't oversweeten.

Skyscapes - Uno

Here's the second of a series of skyline silhouettes I will start painting on wood. I just finished it today. I've been taking a lot of the obligatory, ambiance snapshots on my phone during my weekend outings, and since I have all this long, leftover wood, I thought it'd be perfect for these quasi-panoramas. I'm not happy with them individually, but I like how the different scenes look next to each other.

(The first one I did was of the surrounding area by the Hudson River in Beacon... Maybe this weekend I'll try the Red Rocks region?)