« August 2006 | Main | October 2006 »
Well, we're on our way to go see mountains, drink coffee, thread the Space Needle, catch up with loved ones, linger in bookshops, get inspired and relax.
Take care of yourselves while I'm gone. Posting should resume on Oct 2. Unless, I get some free computer time on the road.
xoxo
Miss Magpie
Oprah has Gayle. I have Cynde.
I mention Oprah and Gayle because people don't seem to understand their friendship. They look at two women who are close and rely on each other, who choosing to travel together and have create traditions the way some families make them. People are suspicious and say things like 'something must be going on with them.Why are they SO close? They must be lesbians." Oprah even had to write about the rumors and tell people that they are not gay. Well, duh, they are friends.
I don't think people have friends the way they used to. Nowadays if you talk to someone online or on the phone or across the sandbox it's good enough to be friends. There is more to it than that when you have a deep friendship. A BFF kind of friend. Other people, including men, may come and go in your life but your best friend; she stays. Even when you behave badly or get fat or get so sad you don't wash your hair for days. She doesn't skip off with some other gal. She brings you a maraschino cherry on a spoon and tells you it will cheer you up. She sits with you when you need to cry and she makes you laugh all the rest of the time.
That's my Cynde.
Cyndemouse and I have been friends for about 15 years. It's hard for me to sum up succintly what it is about her that makes her such a good friend. Is it that she is thoughtful and kind? Creative and talented? Wise and whimsical? Innovative and ingenius? Thrifty and crafty? She's all these things and more. When I feel adrift, Cynde is the harbor I point my skiff towards. She is the first person I want to share good news with and the one I know who will help me get through when the news is bad.
Last night we went to help our friend Tess celebrate a milestone birthday.( Happy Birthday, Tess!) When Tess introduced people she said, this is Cynde and Rachel. They go everywhere together.
That's exactly how I like it.
Love you, Mouse!
These photos were taken by Brent Hirak on the 4th of July 2004. Sign up for his Swell Milk weekly photo emails.
Explore more from the Self Portrait Challenge tribe.
The first thing I do when I'm planning a vacation is check Pollstar to see what bands will be playing while I'm visiting. We lucked out big time. Ben Kweller is playing the Showbox the last night we'll be in Seattle. He has a new album coming out this week. I happily listened to the stream of the whole album on his Myspace page last week. The track Penny on the Train Track is one of my favorites. The self titled record drops tomorrow.
In the mean time, I poked around Flickr for Ben Kweller photos and came up with almost 800 hits.
Here are some of my favorites:
At a in-store appearance shot by Part Time Lover.
In a white shirt and in the studio and lookin' like a teenage runaway all by e-liz.
Wearing a old man sweater by cryptdang
With fan girls by 4_eyed_girl
The photos by e-liz on Flickr intrigued me so I investigated further. Her access is awesome and compostion is brillz. My suspicion that she is something special was right. Looks like Elizabeth Weinberg spends loads of time with Ben on tour and in the studio. Her photos are featured in his new CD booklet. Check out her site for tour photos of Ben, Le Tigre and much much more.
I can't wait to take some concert photos of my own. It's been too long since I rocked out with my f-stop out.
Allow we to introduce to you 3/4 of the Bad Girl Posse. Our final member, Cyndemouse, wasn't with us in Brooklyn for this picture, so I'll feature her on her own post next week. I just watched the movie "In Her Shoes" again over the weekend. At one point, Rose tells her he fiancee, Simon, that her sister, Maggie will drive him crazy in the future but she'll never give her up. That's true for the BGP, too. Whenever I've dated someone new, I inform them that they should not mess with the Bad Girl Posse. When you've got something this good, you can't mess with it or let anyone else. We're thick as thieves and we like it just fine.
Pictured here, you see girls often referred to here at the Magpie as Talulah and JPo.
Talulah is statuesque, smouldery eyed, creative, self deprecating, wee bit crazy, wickedly funny, cat person, boy chaser, Cancer, impractical shoe wearer, vegetarian, sucker for a sad story, music freak and inarguably one of my best friends.
JPo and I go waaay back. We grew up in the same small town, went to the same elementary and high schools but didn't become friends until college. We were founding members of a poetry club. At one point we even lived together- rather disasterously. She is a twin, cunning linguist, Gemini, Mac snob, perpetually late, text messaging addict, wine afficianado, snorer, dog spoiler, and comforting in exactly the right way when you need a boost.
What I'm trying to say here is we three are not neccessarily similar or perfect. If we were ingredients; a chef would be pleasantly surprised by the results of bringing us together. Blended, we create a hearty serving that is piquant and sweet, It's a satisfying dish that I like to think of as our emotional comfort food.
The Self Portrait Challenge theme for September is relationships. I'll continue introducing you to my important peeps this month. Look here for what the other SPC clan is saying.
I must extend a very humungous thanks to Bekka for featuring me as this week's Sunday Slice. It's quite an honor. Thank you!
A few months ago, I was blogging away, minding my own business, and mentioned that I'd happily spent my birthday shopping around Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts. Learning how to sew has been on my list of things I'd like to do for a very long time. It just seemed so daunting to me. Stores like Jo-Ann's are mysterious. It has all this amazing fabric, ribbons and tassels. I just never knew what to do with them.
The magic of the internet brought me a true birthday surprise when the director of education for the Jo-Ann stores emailed me. Somehow, she'd found my mention of the store and my interest in learning to sew. She offered to set me up with a class to get started. Classes are only held at super store locations. The closest one to me is in Mount Laurel NJ. It's close to Philadelphia and about an hour southwest from my home. With all that is going on at work and planning a wedding it would have been easy to not take up the offer. Considering it, I thought of my Grams. If she were here for me to tell this story to her, she probably would have told me "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" which was one of her classic esoteric lines. So I decided to go for it. Lately, I've been whining that I want to be more creative. Here's a great chance to learn a skill for life.
It took a few months to catch a class that fits around my work schedule. I signed up for a three week beginner's sewing class at the Mount Laurel store. Class started Saturday. We were getting high winds and rain courtesy of Hurricane Ernesto. That didn't deter me from getting my sewing on! Out into the storm I went.
I wasn't sure if I had to bring anything to the class with me so I called ahead. They suggested to bring a sewing machine if I had one. A few years ago, Grams and I chipped in and bought one for her sister, Dodi's, birthday. Dodi was an excellent seamstress in her day. Unfortunately, Alzheimers has robbed her of the skill as well as her memory. She moved from assisted living to a nursing home last summer. The machine has been in my basement ever since. I pulled out the box and Voila! I have a machine that is basically brand new. It's nothing fancy but that's fine for me at this point.
I arrived at the store early and was floored when I walked in. They weren't kidding when they called it a super store. It's huge. The scrapbooking area is bigger than half my house! I had some time to kill, so I browsed around the store for a while before heading to the classroom. There I joined five other women who braved the storm, too, to learn. A few were older than me and had sewing in a school but forgotten their skills. The other girls had little or no experience. Whew. I was worried I was going to be the only one starting from scratch. Our instructor, Jennifer, recently got out of the Air Force and sews custom draperies when she's not working at the store. I liked her immediately. She gave us lots of tips that should prove to be time and money savers for everyone. She announced we'll be making pajama pants for our project. Since, they are my favorite article of clothing, I am psyched. As Jennifer tried to cram years of experience into our brains in mere hours, I started to tense up trying to keep track of all the new terms: selvedge, bobbin, serger, bias. Then there is the mystery of trying to figure out what size pattern to pick let alone how to read it. About three quarters of the way through class, we were ready to go pick out our materials. Jennifer suggested we try Simplicity or McCall's patterns. I picked this McCall's pattern. The top is so-so. I had my eye on another pattern but buttonholes and collars are too advanced right now. I chose this fun robot fabric and red thread for contrast. After measuring and cutting all of our fabric class was just about over. Jennifer asked if I wanted to learn how to thread my bobbin. I was thoroughly amazed. I had no idea how a sewing machine worked at all. Really. She taught me how to thread the needle which reminded me of running film through a projector. Before I left, she gave me some papers with straight and wavy lines so I could practice at home. My first go was all over the place. I'm going to make lots of copies and practice. I really don't want to get too friendly with the seam ripper later on.
I'm not sure if she was being extra nice to me because she knew corporate gave me the class or if she recognized I was really eager to learn. Either way, I couldn't be more pleased so far with the experience.
To top off the opportunity, I was sent a $25 gift card to use towards class supplies. Can you believe that? Really, truly a most excellent birthday surprise.
in class we talked about materials we'll need including: scissors and or rotary cutter, seam ripper, tape measure, sewing gauge, iron, chalk, pins, pincushion. Some things I already had to home stashed away from scores at auctions or thrift shops. I'm terrible at cutting a straight line with scissors. So I decided to try a rotary cutter. I saw Martha Stewart make cashmere scarves with one during the holidays last year and thought it looked so cool and easy. I made a few purchases to get started. I'm sure this is just the beginning. There just happened to be a 50% off sale on cutters and mats, so I bought a Omnigrid 24 x 36 inch self healing mat and a Fiskars 45 mm rotary cutter. The McCalls pattern was a must along with the robot fabric and thread for this project. I couldn't resist the bird fabric in the top photo. There isn't enough of it to make pj's so I'll have to think of something. (I'm open to EASY suggestions. It's 1 and 1/3 yard). I had a ancient tape measure at home so I got the fun purple one above and pretty dressmakers pins. I had the pin cushion already.
I'll post an update after the next two classes to see how I'm getting along with my project. Hopefully, one day in the not too terribly distant future I'll be able to say "I can sew."
This weekend we sat down and drew up a calendar for the next few months. With wedding plans getting underway, trips, home improvement projects and entertainment options those little boxes are filling up fast. On Saturday we ticked off bathroom cleaning, mattress turning, grocery shopping and printer purchase considering. Sunday we headed to NYC to the MoMA to see the DaDa exhibit that is closing on Sept. 11. Modern art is one of Sweets' passions. It's never been my cup of tea. I didn't have high hopes about the show. The only image in my head representing the DaDa movement was Marchel Duchamp's Fountain sculpture. According to the MoMa site, Dasda is "Responding to the disasters of World War I and to an emerging modern media and machine culture..." That sounds rather appropriate for today's times.I was happily surprised to find some pieces I really enjoyed. The collages by Kurt Schwitter like Untitled and The Cherry Picture were particularly inspiring. The whimsical prints like Mustache Hat by Jean Arp made me think of the freezer paper stencils everyone is crazy about now.
As we went through the museum, I realized people were taking photos. Soon, I became more interested in photographing them interacting with the art than the art itself. We ended our trip to MoMA in the gift shop. We split up. I had selected a postcard of a painting, Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth that I responded to upstairs. When I met up with Sweets, he was holding two prints. One was of the same painting I was holding a postcard of and the other was Warhol: Soup Can. I talked him into adding a third print of Chagall's Birthday. I love how lovey the couple is. They are floating on air! It will look sweet in our black and white tiled bathroom. I'm excited to have some new art for the house. I'll pick up some frames this weekend. Maybe I'll post where they end up hanging in the Flickr group Art in Your Home. One thing I would have liked to bring home from the gift shop, too was this wooden briefcase. It felt so light and smooth.
Other artsy things to be excited about this week:
Lisa Congdon of Bird In The Hand fame has a new website. The new site features her art and there will be a shop on Sept.11. Hoorah! Something GOOD to think about in relation to that date. Thanks for that, Lisa. If you're feeling down or stressed on that day, take a tour of her gallery. You'll feel better. I'm promising myself that it will help me through anyway.
This week I stumbled upon Conde Nast Art. Choose from tons of covers, photos and illustrations from the pages of decades of issues of House & Garden, Gourmet, Vogue, Vanity Fair. The prints are on the pricey side $125-250. A box of custom notecards is much more affordable. Some of my favorite images are of Gourmet covers : 1952 featuring a mint julep and a cigarette!, 1942 cover of a quail that would be perfect in my bird themed kitchen, and a 1954 pink wedding cake. This Vogue cover from 1930 is gorgeous, too.
