the subconscious art of grafitti removal

I loved this:

the subconscious art of graffiti removal (excerpt) from matt mccormick on Vimeo.

But not as much as this.

exhaustion

I just finished sending out 9 job applications (with individualized cover letters) and I'm completely spent. I don't know how hunting for jobs manages to be 9285209 times more strenuous then any actual job - maybe it's from the sense of futility in knowing there are probably at least a hundred other people competing for the same crappy position that in all likelihood pays peanuts and doesn't offer benefits (huzzah, Fashion!). I'm now trying to relax by looking at pictures of food on my flickr whilst assembling my weekly FreshDirect order (one of my #1 favorite things to do on the internets).



I ordered these Nutella crepes for dessert at Cafe Henri in the East Village a few weeks ago where I had lunch with a friend. That's right, I ordered a lunch AND a lunch dessert. Is there any better meal? Maybe breakfast dessert - my pal Nora can attest to this.

CAT CAFE!!!

My best buddy Hannah has been living and working in Korea as a journalist for a few years, and she's gotten to experience some pretty great things (almost meeting Obama at the G20 conference, visiting the Korean Poop Museum, getting dol-sot bibimbap delivered whenever she feels like it, etc), but nothing so great as what I am about to share here: her recent excursion to one of Seoul's cat cafes! She graciously allowed me to hack into her flickr so I could post these pictures on the blog.



Hannah has such a magnetic personality that all that cats were drawn to her when she entered. Psych! She and her friend Elaine had heard that the cats at these places can be kind of indifferent/aloof, so they decided to up their ante by stuffing their pockets full of contraband catnip!!!



It worked.



This lil' guy was licking furiously at her pockets full of sweet kitty crack.



There were many scottish folds present.



This lil' guy was sitting this way the whole time. Apparently it's very common for scottish folds to do this, and they call it the "Buddha Pose"!



Funny squarshy Persian face!



The cafe had a munchkin cat too - Hannah enoyed its stumpy-legged gait.





So many more pictures on her photostream!

measured sounds

Gymnopédie no. 1 - for years and years I never knew what this song was called or who wrote it.

A Dance For One. from LOVER® on Vimeo.

Just that I liked it, that it was such a pensive and wistful and slightly terse piece. Of course that speaks much more to how threadbare certain aspects of my musical education have become then any reflection on the song's prominence, because I'd frequently hear bits of it in the soundtrack to films or playing overhead in stores without ever knowing the title or composer (just last month I found myself wandering the aisles of The Strand trying to use the shazaam app on my phone to identify this very song, but the general din and bustle around me made it impossible). And then I just happened across this video the other day on so much to tell you.

From Wikipedia:

These short, atmospheric pieces are written in 3/4 time, with each sharing a common theme and structure. Collectively, the Gymnopédies are regarded as the precursors to modern ambient music - gentle yet somewhat eccentric pieces which, when composed, defied the classical tradition. For instance, the first few bars of Gymnopédie No. 1 consist of an alternating progression of two major seventh chords, the first on the subdominant, G, and the second on the tonic, D. This kind of harmony was almost entirely unknown at this time...

...An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") preferring this designation to that of a "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.

Another favorite movie music moment.

backpacks

Sometimes you will find yourself in situations that make it necessary to schlep your 15 lb laptop and its surprisingly weighty charger long distances across boroughs in flimsy canvas tote bags ill-suited for such purposes. Sometimes your suprascapular nerve will express its displeasure with this by sending extremely sharp shooting pains across your neck and down your arm. Sometimes you just have to tell yourself, "self, i can no longer suffer these extremely sharp shooting pains emanating from my left shoulder and I must remedy this situation immediately."

That's when you know you gotta make like a middle schooler and get a backpack, and I don't mean a Jansport.



The Fjällräven Kånken. This old chestnut has been on so many blogs by this point I almost feel a little embarrassed posting it here. But what can I say, that fox logo hasn't gotten any less cute.



Baggu x Shabd collab backpack. I do love how Shabd has single-handedly elevated tie-dye into an art form (and the idea of nabbing something of hers for less then $150+ is also pretty sweet), but I'm also not sure if this petite bag will be able to accommodate my macbook.



Another Baggu option, a little bigger, also cute, also $30 bucks cheaper then the Shabd version.




Also old news, but pretty amazing. Sorry I dissed you before, Jansport. I take it back. These Heritage reissues are the shit. Now how about you make this available in places other then Amazon UK for ₤149?




Game over, shark backpack wins. Goodnight.

im on yr malm, sheddin on teh sultan hansbo

I know this is old news, but I'm posting it anyway. 100 cats allowed to roam free inside Ikea! How did they ever manage to find them all after the filming was through?





Pay close attention at 0:31 and 0:44 for maximum cuteness.

week-end

Hello pals, hope you had a lovely weekend. I also hope you like clicking on links.

Mine included: many a beer, stand-up comedy, miniature cupcakes, a botched attempt to see this, and vegetarian "chicken" general tsos (my only regret!).

I want this beautiful Ermie dress:


Loved this tour of (one of my favorite) designer Margaret Howell's home, found via even cleveland's twitter

...and I was so excited to see a sneak peek of Lena Corwin's home on Design Sponge. I've been a fan of Lena's blog for a zillion years, and often wondered what the whole place looked like from tantalizing little glimpses in the background of pictures she sometimes posts. And it's even more beautiful then what I imagined.



This week: gonna go see Bill Cunningham New York at the Film Forum, eat a chickwich, and flip through some fancy art books I can't afford.

Link crazy up in this post! I promise more substantive content next time, and til then, I leave you with another ridiculous photobooth snap from tonight's Etsy craft lab (waaaghhh, another link, sorry!) that I attended with my friends Missy and Tameika.



Aaahahahhah. Also: need to get my bangs trimmed stat.

otsu

I'm pleased to share one of the most delicious dishes I've made in a long, long time: Otsu. A cool and refreshing Japanese-inspired salad with soba noodles, pan-fried tofu, cucumber, scallions and cilantro, tossed in a zesty/spicy dressing. Here's the recipe.


gather (some of) your ingredients - the lemon looks anemic because I zested it before I thought to take this silly series of photos.


I used a box grater to zest - if I was fancy, I'd use (and own) a microplane.


Chop up some scallions and cucumber. Make sure to skin the cucumber better then I did - cucumber skin is a vile substance fit only for compost heaps.






neatly wrapped soba bundles, exemplifying their orderly and harmonic Japanese origins




the tofu is sauteed in a dry pan


whisk up the dressing


The finished product! A delicious (and dare i say, healthy) dinner.