The Stuck in Traffic Mix, Volume 1-6

While I was commuting to and from campus, my friend Patrick was working as a process server. Both of us subsequently were spending hours in our cars alone every week. It came up one evening over craft beers that Patrick had not much to listen on these longs drives other than aggressive metal and I thought that probably wasn't good for his blood pressure to be fuming at traffic while the constant machine gun report of a double-bass pedal slammed his ear drums. I set about to make a mix cd for us both, one with lively but non-heart-rate-raising tunes that would make sitting back and even relaxing while sitting in traffic a possibility. It turned into a four-month, six-disc project as I whittled down the *mumble*teen-thousand mp3s in my collection to a shining 101 tracks spanning myriad musical genres. It's complete now, and here is the track list, mostly so Patrick can see what the Sam Hill he's listening to! Also this post will be pretty long and take up the majority of my front page, since Blogger still doesn't have cut tags. LOL, oh Blogger.

*Dear Patrick,
Hi. You're reading this to see what the Sam Hill you're listening to. That's fine for Volumes 1-5. For number 6...I got confused and burned you the wrong line-up. I don't remember in what order the tracks are, but they're all the same as the V.6 line-up I'm posting here. The one you got is probably shitty (there's no FLOW)...or you can think of it as your own special mix! Yeah! Anyway, I can help you IRL if you need further info on any of those. YOU'RE WELCOME.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stuck in Traffic

Volume 1
01. Nina Simone - Feeling Good
02. Al Green - Are you Lonely for Me, Baby?
03. Esperanza Spalding - Precious
04. G. Love & Special Sauce - Willow Tree
05. Toro Y Moi - Blessa
06. The Octopus Project - Loud Murmuring
07. The Walkmen - Wake Up
08. Papercuts - Future Primitive
09. Phantogram - Mouthful of Diamonds
10. Glasser - Apply
11. Portishead - Pedestal
12. Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill
13. James Blake - Limit to Your Love
14. Flying Lotus - Tea Leaf Dancers
15. Passion Pit - Swimming in the Flood
16. Zola Jesus - Lightsick
17. J. Tillman - Ribbons of Glass

Volume 2
01. Beach Fossils - Daydream
02. Twin Shadow - At My Heels
03. Amon Tobin - People Like Frank
04. Bjork - Hyperballad
05. Scarlett Johansson - I Don't Want to Grow Up
06. Passion Pit - Cuddle Fuddle
07. Uh Huh Her - Explode
08. Sun Airway - Your Moon
09. Neutral Milk Hotel - Everything Is...
10. The Octopus Project - Queen
11. Electric President - Insomnia
12. Beach Fossils - Golden Age
13. Small Black - Goons
14. Deastro - Tree Frog
15. School of Seven Bells - Windstorm
16. Small Black - Panthers
17. How to Dress Well - Ready for the World

Volume 3
01. Scarling. - Hello London
02. The Strokes - Killing Lies
03. Kid Koala - Fender Bender
04. Blind Melon - Life Ain't So Shitty
05. Tom Waits - Jockey Full of Bourbon
06. John Legend - Stereo
07. Sin Fang - Sing from Dream
08. Emancipator - Soon It Will Be Cold Enough to Build Fires
09. Astronautalis - Some Things Never Change
10. P.O.S. - Savion Glover
11. Q-Tip - Gettin Up
12. Jurassic 5 - What's Golden
13. DANGERDOOM (feat. Cee-Lo) - Bizzy Box
14. Astronautalis - Mr. Blessington's Imperialist Plot
15. Blackalicious - Sky is Falling
16. The Roots - You Got Me (Jill)

Volume 4
01. The Clash - Guns of Brixton
02. Matt Skiba - Good Fucking Bye
03. OK Go - WTF?
04. Bad Religion - Sorrow
05. The Kills - Last Day of Magic
06. The National - Mr. November
07. The Notwist - One with the Freaks
08. Lackthereof - Chest Pass (Your Anchor)
09. Hot Water Music - Bleeder
10. Ramona Falls - I Say Fever
11. Alkaline Trio - Blue in the Face
12. The Raveonettes - Sleepwalking
13. Tapes 'N Tapes - Just Drums
14. Menomena - Gay A
15. The Smashing Pumpkins - Jellybelly
16. Viva Voce - Octavio
17. Menomena - Strongest Man in the World

Volume 5
01. Efterklang - Modern Drift
02. The National - Daughters of the SoHo Riots
03. Bowerbirds - Human Hands
04. Radical Face - Doorways
05. Damien Rice - Delicate
06. Modest Mouse - Talking Shit About A Pretty Sunset
07. New Order - Ceremony
08. Devendra Banhart - This Beard Is for Siobhan
09. Nick Drake - From the Morning
10. Beirut - La Banlieu
11. Woods - Time Fading Lines
12. The Dodos - Men
13. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)
14. Horse Feathers - Albina
15. Sin Fang Bous - Sinker Ship
16. Shearwater - Castaways
17. Zoe Keating - Don't Worry

Volume 6
01. The Unicorns - I Don't Wanna Die
02. The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be
03. The XX - Islands
04. The Ronettes - Be My Baby
05. Toro Y Moi - Master of None
06. TV on the Radio - Modern Romance
07. Cat Stevens - Can't Keep It In
08. Schneider TM - The Light 3000
09. Eels - Fresh Feeling
10. Dion & the Belmonts - Runaround Sue
11. Patsy Cline - Foolin' Around
12. Royksopp - Remind Me
13. Mike Doughty - I Hear the Bells
14. Fats Domino - Ain't That A Shame
15. Weezer - El Scorcho
16. Sean Lennon - Home
17. Space Needle - Never Lonely Alone.

And that's it! Hooray!

Return to the Burn

It has been over a year and a half since I last updated this here ol' blog. I had some things to do: mental housekeeping in more private places, exploring other interests. I finished school, traveled a lot, started seeing someone new, got a real big-girl job, drew new friends in close and old friends in closer. I'm on a regular Monday-Friday schedule now with set hours and everything! I'm working from home and have a lot of downtime as long as I am tethered to my computer. As such, I intend to write more about the music, movies, blogs, books, television, food, and art that I like. Not really a new direction since that's really all I ever did with this blog to begin with, but a new attempt at more regular posts. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE HEARD THAT BEFORE? Let us begin...

Random Inspiration (Ringing in My Ear) by Adem

Though I owe you,
I owe you no allegiance
But I still feel guilty for the things that I have done
These past fifteen days

Oh, it was easy
To just let it happen
I've been with people who sing gorgeous songs
While you're just ringing in my ear

And filling with envy
Who will you turn to now?
It was your decision I won't hear you
with hating and screaming still ringing in my ear

You threw me away
Away to the jackals
But the jackals they showed me a good time
While you're just ringing in my ear

I toasted marshmallows
While you burned our bridges down
And I looked at landscapes that I had forgotten
Lit up by the fire

And filling with envy
Who will you turn to now?
It was your decision I won't hear you
With hating and screaming still ringing in my ear

It's a sunny September
The colours are bright here
And the birds sing of beautiful places
While you are just ringing in my ear

New Weather

Today I had the opportunity to see the current exhibition at the USF CAM, entitled New Weather and featuring works by Diana Al-Hadid, Iva Gueorguieva, and Robyn O'Neil. I really enjoyed this show, particularly the works by Robyn O'Neil. Her works are predominantly large scale graphite on paper drawings and I was really intrigued by her technique of layering and working such a common medium to achieve such unusual effects. Even her small pieces are visually intriguing and emotionally evocative. There is very delicate line and eraser work involved that must be seen in person to fully appreciate.

Diana Al-Hadid's sculptures took me a little longer to respond to. Her sculpture Edge of Critical Density at first looked to me like it was comprised of the sausage casings my father uses during the holidays (if you're unaware, sausage casings are made from pig intestines). Upon further inspection I began to see other forms take shape until it looked more like a swirling ballgown. I liked it much better after that.

Iva Gueorguieva's huge abstract paintings are quite beautiful. I reacted to them less emotionally than the works by the other artists but I think I spent the most time examinging them. Looking at her pieces brought up a question that I've asked myself numberous times before: when I am seeing an object or idea in an abstract piece, does it say more about my own psychology or the artist's? My instructor, Ms. Baron-Robbins, buffered this with an example from her own experience. In an abstract piece, she used what she perceived as fingers. However, many viewers responded to these figures as phallic symbols, to the point of her frustration. She reassured me, though, that much of what I was seeing in Ms. Gueorguieva's work was actually what was intended.

Random Inspiration (Clara Bow)

Pulled out my old costume standby, the 1920's flapper dress. As Tim Gunn would say (WHO IS GOING TO BE SPEAKING AT USF ON THE 4TH, OMG!), "With a dress like this, styling is everything!" So, I looked up some silver screen starlets for makeup tips.

I went with Clara. I just. love. her.

Random Inspiration (Melissa Moss)

While at the Julie West show in Hollywood, FL, I came across a couple prints by Melissa Moss. We were on our way out the door and I didn't get to stop and examine them closely so I wrote her name down to look her up later. I'm so glad I did! Moss is an Asheville, NC based artist who has studied color psychology and utilizes this theory in her awesome work.


too happy
Acrylic on wood


the party's over
Acrylic on wood


ebb
Acrylic and gouache on wood

I ADORE that last one! I want a large print of that and I think it will probably factor heavily into my inspiration for the mural I'm doing on a friend's wall.

1 Song, 3 Pieces (C+P Project 3)

For the 3rd major project, the song I will be using is by my favorite cello-rock band, Rasputina. For the initial song => inspiration part of the project, I decided to use another of their songs to get into the right mindset.



AntiqueHighHeelRedDollShoes is the first and from there I also considered the song Gingerbread Coffin. Both of these songs use imagery relating to dolls. I understand why people often find dolls creepy or unsettling but I think that is what I like about them.

I like the dramatic lighting on this one.

Gift Wrapped Doll #37
James Rosenquist
Oil on canvas
1997

I'm a big fan of buying handmade and I love sites like Etsy and ArtFire. This handmade doll reminds me of drawings of medieval plague doctors which are both frightening and fascinating.

Birdman from woods
Ree Gurova for Lime in Moloko
Polymer clay and fabric
2009

My friend Brigitte is the artist behind a line of custom dolls called Zombuki. I really like her pieces.

Eulalia Dia Zombuki
Brigitte Coovert
2009

Julie West Show

Road tripped with a good friend over to Hollywood, FL, to meet Julie West at her solo show in Pink Ghost's gallery. She does beautiful work. Her colors are well chosen, her shapes and spaces are gentle while remaining definite. It's impressive that a lot of her work which requires a lot of geometrically correct shapes is hand done in acrylic and then mounted on brocade fabrics. It's really quite impressive. And it's all just so creepy-cute! I picked up some cool swag, a signed "chubby" book by the artist and a cool blind box Dunny so I'm happy. Plus I got to spend a lot of time with my friend Brigitte whom I had not seen in ages and who is now making a living as a working artist which is so inspirational I can't even begin to express. I'll post some of Ms. West's stuff later but for now it is goodnight.

Update!
Here are some of West's paintings:

West signed a postcard of this in my chubby book, under the bats with a text bubble coming from the girl. Awesome!

Want

think-make-think
Clifton Burt

I'm not usually into text art but this one has the right elements. The haiku used, by John Maeda, is inspiring but not cheesy, and the road sign font is engaging without being totally abrasive or illegible, which is usually the case with text art.

In any case, I want a print of this in my face at all times. I think that would be good for me.

Random Inspiration (And Keep Smiling)

This song came on my mp3 player as I drove home from school one night. There was tons of heat lightning over the bay and it looked pretty amazing. The song, by Rachel's, is called "And Keep Smiling" (which is a really great title) and I like it quite a bit.

(X-posted to C+P Blog)

C+P Assignment 02

For my first project for Concepts and Practices, I will be creating an object that represents an aspect of my relationship with my family. I have chosen to create a terrarium. Throughout my life, much of my interaction with my family has involved the natural world. We have explored numerous forests and jungles together, and my parents have been avid gardeners for as long as I can remember. I feel that they instilled in me an appreciation for nature that I have carried into my adult life.

The first artist whose work shares a common element with my project is Paula Hayes.




Hayes' terrariums were very inspirational to me when I first started to build terrariums of my own. The organic shapes of her vessels enclosing small, bright plants of numerous varieties from myriad terrains remind us to consider the quieter pieces of the world we may overlook every day. This is part of why I enjoy terrariums as art. While at first glance they may seem like nothing much, on further viewing it is actually quite easy to lose oneself in the intricacies of an ecosystem in miniature.

Another artist that I feel relates to my project is Thomas Doyle.




Doyle makes dioramas, often encased in glass, that are able to evoke strong emotional reaction. While the feelings one gets from Doyle's work are often sinister or foreboding, and my intention is to express nearly the opposite of these emotions, I think it is important for me to explore why Doyle's pieces draw such reactions so that I might better understand how to elicit the desired reaction in my own pieces.

The third artist whose work I found relative to my project is Andrea Zittel.





Much of Zittel's work revolves around compacting large spaces into small spaces, and exploring the ideas of isolation and understanding the physical space one occupies. This is similar to the intention of terrariums, and I find her work conceptually appealing.

(X-posted at C+P Blog)

C+P Assignment 01

This past week I had the opportunity to view some of the artwork of Anthony Grajirena on display in the Green Room gallery of the Dunedin Brewery. Grajirena's strong suit seems to be creating pieces that are visually simple yet emotionally evocative, and he manages through his illustrations to blend playfulness with a more subtle implication of solemn reflection, perhaps a feeling of being out of place or even a feeling of loneliness. Two of Grajirena's pieces in particular stood out to me:







(X-posted at C+P Blog)

Updates

Well, it's been a while. I've finally left Daytona and I am now back in SH. I started at USF last week and so far I'm loving it. The days are long but all of my profs are great and I'm quite inspired by the material. I'm taking Drawing I and Concepts & Practices and two lecture classes, Greek and Roman Art and Northern Renaissance.

I'll be keeping a blog for various assignments as part of the curriculum for C&P but I'm planning on cross-posting those entries over here as well so expect to see at least a few entries! I'll try to get back into a more regular schedule but who knows!

Letter Time

Dear Land O' Lakes dairy product company,

Your supposedly new, easier-to-close zip pouches for sliced cheese are SO easy to close, if by "easy to close" you mean "not at all easy to close and actually quite difficult to close". So, thanks, I guess.

Also? Really past time to update the logo into something not racially insensitive. Come on, people. You can do better.

Keep up the good work on provolone.
Love, Karlen

Happy Birthday, Tiffany!

Today is my friend Tiffany's 24th birthday. Tiffany and I have been friends since we were twelve years old. We met in geography class in seventh grade. I remember her mouthing off to our teacher, which she was prone to doing, and I thought she was funny. We became fast friends and have been since.

I admire Tiffany. She is tough and smart, she is joyful and creative. She inspires me because she is brave and spontaneous. Life is not always kind and Tiffany has taken her share of lumps, but for as long as I've known her she has met adversity with her middle finger raised and a smile on her face because there's no way in hell she'd let anything get in the way of her good time. She is thoughtful and loving, she's a hard worker and a hard laugher, and she cracks me up on a regular basis.

Our friend Tyler once said to me that Tiffany is a prototype for the next evolution of better humans. She has that effect on people. I am so proud to call her my friend.

















Happy birthday, Tiffany.

Happy Belated 4th, Plus 150th Post!

Happy 4th of July several days late! I've always really loved the 4th. Between the awesome picnic food, the swimming, the fireworks, and the fact that it heralds the coming of my birthday, Independence Day is definitely in my top 3 holidays.

This year I was away from Kyle but I got to be with some of my most favorite people ever and I had a really wonderful time. The fireworks show in downtown SH was particularly good this year and the weather was sunny and dry all day (although Florida heat and humidity can be really uncomfortable). Here is a picture of Tiffany, me, and Jason at the fireworks show. Not pictured are Tim and Merissa, but they were an integral part to the enjoyability of the day.



P.S. This is my 150th post on Burnt Pages! Woo!

Quick Link

From NPR: Top 10 Reasons Why the BMI is Bogus

Read it, yo, and don't talk to me about the "obesity epidemic" until you get some real facts.

The Gift of Giving

I finally launched my Artfire store - Celadon Soap & Craft Co. is open for business! Please check it out here.

I was talking to Rachel and she mentioned that she (as a quite good knitter) liked being present when people received things she had made because she liked to see their faces. I totally agree. The expression of excitement or gratitude that someone gets when you give them a gift is always really pleasing, and that pleasure is increased tenfold when they are excited or grateful for something that you created especially for them. I suppose it's a bit selfish, but at the same time it's like feeling happy that you made someone else happy, and there's nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand, there are also times when the face a gift recipient makes is not quite what you had expected, and just as a positive reaction to a handmade gift is way more satisfying, a less-than-positive reaction can make a crafter feel pretty terrible. In the short while that I've been good enough at my crafts to give them as gifts, I've already got "Present Face" more than a couple times.



The first crochet project I ever completed was this truly hideous scarf in a mix of fluffy black mohair and squeaky acrylic maroon worsted weight. It curled. It was uneven. It buckled and had holes from skipped stitches. It was ugly. I didn't even bother to weave in the ends and I presented it to Kyle and told him I made it for him. He ohh'd and ahh'd and said "Cool! Thank you! I'll have to wait for a really cold day to wear it!", to which I responded, "Please don't wear that outside. I was kidding". He was quite relieved. And since I had actually never intended for him to treat it as a special gift, this instance of Present Face was amusing.

But I guess getting an unenthusiastic response to an item is just one of the woes of being a crafter, one of the perils of sharing one's hobby with another. The appreciative reactions are totally worth are worth the risk. That's the gift of giving.


ETA: Also, Rachel sent me this totally awesome Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Twilight mash-up, in which Buffy kicks that lame-o Edward's ass. From the video info:

It's an example of transformative storytelling serving as a pro-feminist visual critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy's eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways.

I don't know about all of that, but I do agree that (what I hear of) Edward's personality is pretty gross. Also, the video is just funny.


As huge BtVS fans, Rachel and I found this quite entertaining and I think we both need to own this shirt:

Troll Bingo

Often, in the comments on blogs or on forums and such, there are people that come along and leave ridiculous, offensive, or ignorant comments. These people are called "trolls". Trolls are not people who are genuinely interested in discourse, who politely disagree and seek to exchange ideas with people whose opinions differ from their own. Trolls are the type of people that go to feminist websites and leave comments demanding that the writers of the website get back in the kitchen and make them a sandwich. They are the people that read LGBT blogs and feel it necessary to point out that they personally find homosexuality yucky and heavens forfend they should just NOT read that particular blog. They have to make sure the people for whom the blog is written know that there are people who disapprove of their lives, just in case they weren't quite sure.

The website Feministe occasionally has a "Next Top Troll" contest in which readers (the real ones) vote on the best (worst?) troll comments. It's sort of a way to make light of the cruel and unenlightened things that people go out of their way to say. A "laugh to keep from crying" exercise. I was talking about a few of these to Kyle and I mentioned the Bingo cards that some of the sites I read have created for troll comments. He was interested so I compiled a list of Troll Bingos from around the blogs and since it took me several minutes, I decided I should post it here, too. Can't let all that hard work go to waste! So, next time you're reading the comments at a blog and some a-hole comes along to screw up the dialogue (or you're reading an email from a Token Conservative Friend/Family Member), just whip out your Bingo cards and have a ball!

Intelligent Design

Libertarians

Evolutionary Psychology

White Privilege Deniers

Trans Issues

Homophobics

Anti Fat Acceptance, Part One

Anti Fat Acceptance, Part Two

Anti-Feminism, Part One

Anti-Feminism, Part Two

Anti-Feminism, Part Three

Anti-Feminism, Part Four

Anti-Feminism, Part FIVE

Anti-Choice

Sexual Assault Deniers

Anti-Breastfeeding

Mommy Wars

General Jerk-waddery

Random Thoughts

1) I hate flossing. Apparently, I'm the only person in the world for whom flossing is not some sort of zen-like experience, or I'm the only one that will admit it, but I really hate flossing. The reason I bring it up is because when I was flossing this morning (hey, just because I hate it doesn't mean I don't DO it) I got caught up in a spot where my teeth are a little crowded and it feels like I nearly yanked out a molar. Yes, ten hours later, my mouth still hurts from flossing. Stupid flossing.

2) Why are people kind of assholes to kids? Birthday spanks, "a pinch to grow an inch", noogies; people are generally kind of nasty to children. I mean, I know WHY people act like that. It's because people have issues accepting the autonomy of children. People consider children more like property or pets and hey, the dog and the coffee maker never mind when you lay on hands without asking. If you don't see a child as a human being unto herself, why would you behave as though she were? This is also why people have such a hard time teaching their kids about healthy sexuality. Kids aren't people! People have needs and desires! Kids don't have needs and desires! That's just icky!

3) However, I will never, under any circumstance, understand people talking to children in third person. Why do we assume that children understand the third person perspective but not first person? And it's weird that when a child is born, people take on special names for that child to relate to them by (mom, dad, grandpa, etc.) and then talk about themselves using those special names as separate from themselves ("Mom, whatcha doin?" "Mommy is making spaghetti for dinner") and then act surprised when children think the world revolves around them [the children] and don't consider the parents as separate people. WTF? YOUR CHILD IS CONFUSED ENOUGH ABOUT THE WORLD! WHY ARE YOU MAKING IT WORSE?

Of course, what the hell do I know, because I don't have a baby.