stand up. say something nice.

This was a great idea from Improv Everywhere (via cup of jo)

music for your ears: monday mix (& some comedy gold)

I really enjoyed the list that NPR's All Songs Considered put together of "Songs That Make You Feel Good." (A follow up to their list of "Songs That Make You Weep," which frankly would have been too long a list for me.)


There have always been some go-to songs for me when I need a little jump start into feeling good. Though I could have made a larger list than the one below, these are probably my top eight songs that make me feel good... and I hope they do the same for you. Enjoy.


Monday Mix
1. Send Me On My Way - Rusted Root
2. Feeling Good - Nina Simone
3. Good Vibrations (mono version) - The Beach Boys
4. Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
5. Sunlight - Harlem Shakes
6. Punching In A Dream - The Naked and Famous
7. Dog Days Are Over - Florence and the Machine
8. Walking On Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves


you can download the mix here: feel good songs
Please: If you enjoy the music, seek and out and support the artist (ie: buy music).


photo credit


And in the very rare cases when music can't completely get me feeling good, comedy is always my second solution. So check these out too. Bookmark them. Use them when needed.

MITCH HEDBERG


ZACH GALIFIANAKIS  -  (jump to 2:50 for my favorite character)


KATT WILLIAMS

ski lift

I came across Ski Lift from Elsie's blog A Beautiful Mess (specifically from her Red Velvet Shop lookbook video... very cute, I recommend watching).

Elsie recently mentioned them again and shared a link for two free downloads (the rest of their EP is now for sale on Bandcamp). Click here for the downloads and the EP.

Here's a listen of two great tracks available for free:

http://skilift.is/

maps

from my latest etsy wishlist:

clockwise from top-left-corner:

1. Vintage Venice Map decoupaged bangle braclet

2. Vintage world traveler map - necklace

3. 1935 Colliers Vintage Map drawer pulls or handles

4. London map chair

5. Typography USA map

6. Set of eight antique Randy McNally 1903 pull down maps

7. "Actual Temperatures in January" circa 1940s antique school map

8. Embroidered "heart strings" map pillow

9. Silkscreen silhouette world map

10. Chalkboard topographical map of the USA

Beet Cake

this recipe not only looks beautiful, but is already making my tastebuds water...


beet cake from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

another Billie Jean cover

wonderful.

you could

map art by Amy Rice Art

source

nicely done

Tim Keen (triumphantly) dissects Bon Iver's "Perth" 




source

...And while we're on great covers, here's Bon Iver's stunning cover of Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me." So. Good.

bookmarked

food for thought

Bookmarked:

This post from Kate at For Me, For You makes me want to give up my late-night tendencies

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(and she takes such beautiful photos, like this:)

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Love the rewardrobe at Miss Moss. Surely, it's necessary to purchase some new goods for fall?

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Jeff Bridges = a real man.

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These made me laugh:

7 things a twenty-something can't do

&

7 things a twenty-something can do

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54 lessons (via charade)

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sweet

it's (almost) time

The Muppets are baaaaack. Well, in November to be exact. To satisfy any of you Muppet nuts out there one of my favorite bands from high school (ah, 2002...) and one of my favorite crews of my childhood have teamed up for this fun video. With Ok Go's history of clever music videos and the ever expected antics of the Muppets, this is sure to entertain:





source

its the words

"It's the words that sing, they roar and descend...I bow to them...I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down...I love words so much...The unexpected ones...The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop...Vowels I love...They glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew...I run after certain words...They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem...I catch them in midflight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of them of the dish, they have a cristalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives...And then I stir them, I garnish them, I let them go...I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves...Everything exists in the world."

-Pablo Neruda


via this is water (an amazing blog concentrated on poetry and literary awesomeness)


photo credit

love and travel

This excerpt is from a book review written by Jeff Turrentine of 'L'America' (by Martha McPhee) in the New York Times, June, 2006. It has stuck with me ever since:


"Surely by now some clever scientist has studied the similarities between the human brain in the throes of new love and the human brain while vacationing in a picturesque foreign country. Doesn't it seem likely that whatever chemical causing the rapture we feel after that first, fantastic kiss is the same one making us swear we've never tasted an espresso as good as the one in this little Roman cafe? The sequence is the same, whether we've fallen hard for a place or a person: astonishment (I've never felt this way before); followed by euphoria (everything looks, tastes, smells and sounds so much better than it did yesterday); followed, typically, by a kind of naïve determinism (this was simply meant to be, and it would be wrong, cosmically wrong, not to rearrange my life to make this a major part of it)."


photo credit

music for your ears: monday mix

Keeping calm this week with music and shorelines.

Monday Mix

1. Never Heal Myself - Cults

2. Pushing Onlys - Woods

3. Live in Dreams - Wild Nothing

4. Heart to Tell - The Love Language

5. I Don't Want To See You Like This - The Joy Formidable

6. New York City Hotel Blues - Margot and the Nuclear So and So's

7. Rotten Apples - Voxhaul Broadcast

8. Lemon Tree - Vindan & The Zion Band

9. I'll Try Anything Once (You Only Live Once) - The Strokes

10. Hooting & Howling - Wild Beasts

You can download the mix here: MONDAY MIX

Please: If you enjoy the music, seek and out and support the artist (ie: buy music).

photo credit: me

inspiration

pure (maca)skill

This guy (Danny Macaskill) is better on a bike than I am on my feet. Wow.


I especially like watching his process at the end of the film, testing foundations and what-not.





via That Kind of Woman

You Should Date An Illiterate Girl

(This piece speaks to my soul)

You Should Date An Illiterate Girl

by Charles Warnke

(via thoughtcatalog)

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

bookmarked

Bookmarked:

It's all in the vocabulary

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Advertising can be art, too (my favorite is #4)

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I would love to hand these out to asses on public transportation

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Compelling "to the editor" letters on solitary confinement (via yum&yuk)

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you may call me a nerd - but this is funny!

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very, very cool map paintings

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photo credit

it's been agreed...

Why would anyone choose Blane after Duckie's performance here:

7 creative inspirations

clockwise from the left

1. i love lamp!

2. elsie's great lyric art

3. recycle, reuse, hang on wall.

4. i like collecting things. maybe globes are next

5. great for keys... or dishtowels in the kitchen

6. an idea for my currently boring hallway

7. a clever way to display some of my many, many photos.

bookmarked

Bookmarked:

Loved this book title generator!
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Would you watch the movie Julie & Julia everyday for a year? This guy is. 
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Always the big debate Book Vs. Movie - guess these movies won...

...and websites every bookworm should bookmark.

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This made me laugh-out-loud
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An interesting perspective at these two words: "I Am"

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Now I really want to learn to play the ukelele. (disclaimer: links to a video)
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girl-crush
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really amazing tattoos
and ones that are invisible!

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photo credit

music for your ears: monday mix

This week's mix has both old & new favorites... including my latest band crush: Cults. 

Monday Mix

1. Keep The Car Running - Arcade Fire

2. Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes

3. I Don't Want Love - The Antlers

4. Never Quite Free - The Mountain Goats

5. Down By The Water - The Decemberists

6. Walking Far From Home - Iron & Wine

7. You Know What I Mean - Cults

8. Rabbit - Mura Mura

9. Boyfriends - Secret Cities

10. Calgary - Bon Iver

You can download the mix here: MONDAYMIX4

Please: If you enjoy the music, seek and out and support the artist (ie: buy music).

And, because I'm currently obsessed (oh, the irony): 

movie lust

50/50



Like Crazy



Our Idiot Brother



The Ides of March



We Need to Talk About Kevin

sky

Sky from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.


This time laspe, shot two years ago by Philip Bloom, of the sky in Dubai is beautiful. Mesmerizing even. Added plus: the background music is by Clint Mansell, one of my favorite composers.

music for your ears: monday mix

This week's Monday Mix is a little bit longer to make up from my lack of post last week. May be one repeat in there, or two. Enjoy!

Monday Mix

1. Jesus Flag American Fish - Cuckoo Chaos

2. Just a Friend - Booker T Jones (ft. Biz Markie, Matt Berninger, & Sharon Jones)

3. Play - Correatown

4. Waiting Lessons - Air Review

5. Weekend - Smith Westerns

6. Ever Falling in Love - Times New Viking

7. I Like The Way You Walk - The Donkeys

8. When Will I See You Again - Lord Huron

9. Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye - Roberta Flack

10. Money - Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings

11. Good Fortune - Secret Knives

12. Two Against One - Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi (ft. Jack White)

13. Tokyo - California Wives

14. Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People

15. Sleazy (ke$ha cover) - Ben Folds

You Can Download The Mix Here: MONDAY MIX

Please: If you enjoy the music, seek and out and support the artist (ie: buy music).