Tuesday, February 19, 2008

This just in!

Xiu Xiu is coming to Spain! Yes!!! Barcelona AND Madrid.

By the way, I suggest Aubrie and Christian have a playdate and go see the Xiu at Chop Suey on the 8th. I miss Cafe Presse (not on topic, but I would prolly go there before or after seeing XX I imagine). Go get some frites yo!

I had the worst meal of my life today. Seriously. Even after I vowed never to eat pasta in Spain, I did it.

I'm ashamed.

Impressive feat, as I am usually shameless.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Le Tigre vs. Jem

Jem is one of those things that is very specific to my generation I think. A brief phenomenon that simultaneously ripped off Barbie and made punk and new wave seem bubble gum. No small feat. She was sort of like Duran Duran's "Girl[...] on film" brought to life, er, cartoon. As a kid I thought she was rad, though I always much prefered the "bad" band, The Misfits. I liked that they were just a harder and would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.

Nobody remembers Jem unless they were fans. Too bad. This video is killah. I wonder if someone mashed up M.A.S.K and Danzig somewhere.

If you haven't seen the original "Deceptacon" well, it's here too and it is hardcore! I heart youtube:



Saturday, February 16, 2008

Pop Music Experiment (Serial/Vday)



Quiz:
Is love (as it relates to yr. world view) wholesome?


Please select one of each of the following *and keep track batch:

A. A statement:
1. Love is a sickness
2. Love resembles death
3. Love is (ultimately) lonely and distancing
4. Love is an imaginary mirror

B. My ideal:
1. a fork
2. a knife
3. a spoon
4. a plate

C. Love makes another statement:
1. “I was seventeen when I felt the countdown start . . .”
2. “I take a drive in my car. . . I see the sun disappear . . .”
3. “As a child, I knew that the stars could only get brighter, and we would get closer . . .”
4. “Your breath: it rests inside of me.”

D. If it has to end, let it end:
1. with “love and understanding” in the bitter cold
2. with gasping for breath and chanting
3. in a motel room, waiting
4. with rain falling on homeless kitties

E. A position in love:
1. “Cut ‘love me’ into your breast . . . crush an ashtray into your breast . . .”
2. “I hate my body. I hate the desert.”
3. “Turn away from it all.”
4. “You’re unsure if he’s legal”

F. A desperate moment:
1. “Take my VCR. Take the keys to my house.”
2. “A beast that doesn’t quiver anymore . . .”
3. “Why can’t we all just be alone? Why doesn’t everybody just want to be alone?”
4. “Sober: you’re old and ugly; Shit-faced: who needs a mirror?”

G. The end:
1. opiates
2. razor blade/bathtub
3. skyscraper
4. lake/leadboots

H. The best:
1. “On the roof drinking zinfandel . . . I feel awesome, so give me five!”
2. “Extra pork . . . push in the tape . . . turn it up so it bumps!”
3. a “double chocolate cone!”
4. “I just wanna dance!”

I. Revenge:
1. “Your worst enemy gets killed by ninjas.”
2. “stabbing . . . with a stake”
3. “going back to blonde”
4. “don’t bite me in the face”

J. Best place:
1. “close to givin’ in”
2. “in the backseat of yr car”
3. “tied to the headboard”
4. “center stage”

K. A pain:
1. “ . . .you don’t wanna see me no more”
2. “engulfed in flames”
3. “Not believin’”
4. the one “you can’t control”

L. A conflict:
1. “I was thinking we should sleep in separate beds”
2. “pretty, petty thieves”
3. “We don’t know how to love without fear.”
4. “If you hold me close, you’ve got to hold me up.”

M. A food:
1. “a free Tootsie Pop”
2. “Hardee’s”
3. “crumbs from your table”
4. “strawberries, cherries”

N. A group:
1. “[the kids in the park aren’t innocent]”
2. “tan and blonde and seventeen”
3. “The broken-hearted”
4. “Smiling faces; no cares in this world”

O. A regret:
1. “The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.”
2. “I can hear them clawing at the window.”
3. “Whether he heard, I’ll never know.”
4. “So many songs we forgot to play.”

P. In a disco track:
1. Kylie Minogue cooing and breathy / echoey handclaps / honky tonk piano / (Woo!)
2. cold, empty, swooning synthetic strings / “bring my baby back home” / cigarette smoke in a dance club and Italian horror film actress
3. Opening handrums from “Everything She Wants” / Best walking anthem since “Stayin’ Alive” / Alison Moyet gets channeled
4. Janet Pre-Miss Jackson if yr nasty / also exuberant, muscular sonic fantasies about bleeding to death / (Woo!)

Q. A flower:
1. Wood Anemone
2. Poppy
3. White Hyacinth
4. Narcissus

R. An Andy Gibb song:
1. An Everlasting Love
2. (Love is) Thicker Than Water
3. I Just Want to Be Yr. Everything
4. Shadow Dancing


Tally yr. score with amts. of each number and post the results in the comments plz.
(discs in fabrication)

Lurv,
Bambi


Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Flagellation


Today I broke my dryness regarding painting even though I've had paints here and paper and jackets purchased expressely for the purpose for nearly two weeks. This is the back of a jacket. It resembles Mel Gibson era the passion slightly, which wasn't neccessarily intended but like it.




Jordan are you coming to Granada soon? I think we can easily find some deliciousness on par with monkfish eyeball.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Hey Ladies! when yr man wanna get buck wild . . .

I generally hate the Seattle Weekly, but maybe they have some sense after all.








I just realized that Miss Kiana looks a little bit like my Mom.


Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Notes on Food in Spain, Part 1


I've been eating a ton of potato chips lately.


After a terrible lunch the other day at a supposedly fancy (albeit casual, albeit expensive) place (spongy skin and fat on a duck leg; salad dressed by pouring to much dressing over the top in the style of Prego spaghetti sauce commercials) I've been reflecting somewhat on the state of food in Spain, or at least in Granada.


It's pretty common for folks (especially in the food world) in the States to think that everyone in Europe has fabulous bread, fantastic cheese and wonderful, cheap wine all the time. Obviously these are available. I've had amazing ham and chorizo and morcilla. Fantastic raw milk goat and sheep's milk cheeses. That just doesn't seem to be what most people are eating. The culinary world almost seems mired in the 1970s.


I must say that it's nice to see middle class, middle aged women decked out in the fur coats they go shopping in enjoying a beer midafternoon. I like (read: love) corn nuts and they are a pretty popular snack here and I am pleased to be able to eat them with no shame. However . . .


It's very common to see pre-boiled potato or beets or corn vacu-sealed in plastic in the super market, even the ultra-fancy El Corte Inglés, but I have yet to see a fresh beet. Or maybe I saw one bunch, very sad and very old. How much effort does it take to boil a potato? Mayonnaise commands deep devotion, reaching its inexplicable heights in the ubiquitous "ensalada rusa," like american potato salad with three times the mayonnaise and often the addition of canned peas. I have a great fear of this salad, which even at its very best is . . . well, just not very pleasant to eat, IMO. Canned vegetables are very common still, even at nicer restaurants as are bad sauces covering badly cooked fish or coating decently cooked meat. I forgot the last time I ate (or saw) a slowly congealing white sauce with mushrooms. Don't get me started on what passes for Italian food. I've almost never been so revolted as watching a woman feed her child fettucine with graying pesto the other day at a pizzeria.


No one seems to mind bad food going out. The good restaurants are more packed than the bad ones which are still packed, but the nastier schwarma places seem just as busy as the better ones. Maybe it's a lack of knowing those foods? The way Italians feel about their restaurants just seems so different. I think there is still some of the ghost of Franco floating about. Maybe attitudes will change when the generations die off who lived under his rule understood eating as purely a means to feed themselves. You can get used to eating bad food, but it is soul crushing. It makes me very sad, anyway. A restaurant may have access to great products, but why bother when no one seems to know the difference. Or maybe, more correctly, care about the difference.

Cooking in house is going well. I have yet to cook brains.
And the chips are fried in 100% olive oil, at least.