The Ben Folds and a Piano concert on Friday was awesome, and I have a new crush: his opening act, Zach Williams:
Beard? Check. Flannel? Check. Guitar? Check. Adorable wife and daughter whom he talked about lots? Sigh, check.
Because Mr. Williams is not yet supa-famous, we were able to chat with him after the concert. That gave me the opportunity to say really creepy things like, “There are so many things that are great about you, and one of them is your beard. Never get rid of it.” (Don’t worry, I followed that up by Facebook friending him and sending him a message. Yes, I fully expect him to be celebrating his first Stalker Fan. And yes, I did have too many Dark ‘n’ Stormies at dinner.) Here’s a taste (and I’m not entirely sure why he’s lying on the floor, but hey, art!):
Here’s another one of my favorites. And here’s the one he wrote about his daughter. So effing cute.
Ben Folds, of course, was amazing as well, and ended the show with a phenomenal rendition of “Bitches Ain’t Shit.” But the crowning moment of his set was when he played “Levi Johnston’s Blues.” If you didn’t love ol’ Ben before (ahem, MATT), you will now:
There is so much good music in my life these days, and that makes me absurdly happy. I have Ben Folds and Zach Williams tonight, and Phoenix, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and Jakob Dylan and Neko Case on the agenda in coming weeks. I’m a lucky girl.
I was doing work in the Starbucks on my campus earlier today, and they were playing all sorts of lovely songs. Said songs were being played WAY too loud for a coffee shop — they would have been better off in a bar setting — but that encouraged me to pay even more attention to them. My ears really perked up when a I heard a nice lady voice covering my favorite Beatles song, “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” (And, for full disclosure, I don’t really LOVE the Beatles — I know, sorry — but I tend to love covers of their songs. Which means I Am Sam and Across the Universe were awesome for me.) While I’m all for keeping to the integrity of the song in covers, this nice lady singer had changed the pronouns to the boy ones, which was fun, because hey, I like boys! Unfortunately, I’ve been searching for this particular cover on the Interwebs and can’t find it anywhere, so you’ll have to settle for my original favorite cover of the song, by Tyler Hilton. (I first heard this version on American Dreams, which was inexplicably cancelled mid-season right as Sam and Meg were starting to fall in love. Not that I’m still bitter.):
Interestingly, I haven’t the faintest idea who Nick and Daniele are, but I enjoyed that all the same.
You guys have heard of Chatroulette by now, right? I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been too scared/weirded out to try it, but it’s a fascinating concept. From what I understand, you just video chat with random strangers for as long as you want, and talk to, er, exhibitionists, about every other time. One day, I may be brave enough to try it and report back, but for now, enjoy this little number:
Guys, I’ve had so many thoughts in my head that I’ve wanted to tell you about, but instead of telling them to you, I watch Super Size Me (ten years after the rest of the country) and fall asleep. Sorry about that. The good news is that Google Holidays keep me on track. They taunt me, saying “YOU CAN’T IGNORE ME. YOU MUST BLOG ABOUT ME.” And I oblige, because I’m not one to mess with the Google.
Google Holiday: Happy St. Patrick’s Day. As you might have suspected, Google is honoring America’s favorite excuse to day drink and wear green hats that look like beer steins. (Hypothetically speaking, of course.) Since I celebrated my St. Patty’s Day approximately three years ago up in Hoboken — and since I have “school” and “a job” — I’m taking it easy today, just cold wearing green pants and going about my day as usual.
What I was Googling: tostitos salsa ingredients. I’ve surely mentioned here before that I love salsa. If DC legalizes marriage between a human and a condiment, I’m running down to the city court with a jumbo-sized jar of Tostitos Chunky Salsa Medium. Not that I’m picky. I love almost every salsa I’ve ever tasted, and though I eat it in frightening quanties (like, say, half a jar on a pair of scrambled eggs. Did I just admit that publicly?), I figure there are worst things I could be addicted to. Like heroin, or McDonald’s. (Am I right, Morgan Spurlock?!)
But then I read this article in the NYT, and it made me feel all inauthentic for loving mass-produced American brands just as much as I love the salsa from the amazing hole-in-the-wall taco place around the corner from work (where I’m eating lunch today, HUZZAH!). This opening section, in particular, bothered me:
“Everybody here thinks they know what Mexican food is,” said Nicholas Cox, the chef at La Esquina in NoLIta. “Especially if they’re from Texas or California.” (Ed. note: Ha! So true.)
Salsa, in particular, has emerged as Mexico’s most misunderstood culinary export. In Paris, Mexican restaurants make it with minced cornichon pickles and ketchup; in Japan, with green shishito peppers and Kewpie mayonnaise; in American factories, with corn syrup and red bell peppers.
In the spirit of all things Morgan Spurlock and Food, Inc., does my salsa have CORN SYRUP in it?! If it did, I’m not sure that I would really care and/or change anything about my salsa habits, but I became determined to find out the truth. And damn, Tostitos makes it a challenge to find out what’s in their salsa. I pored over their website, Googled like a mad woman, read a few blogs, and finally discovered that Tostitos Chunky Medium Salsa is nothing but tomato puree, diced tomatoes in tomato juice, jalapeno peppers, onions, vinegar, salt, garlic powder, and natural flavor. (Thanks to Off Her Cork for answering that one for me.) And while natural flavor might be a leetle sketchy, this makes me feel okay about the fact that I ate crackers dipped in salsa for dinner last night. Or, at least, as okay as I could be with that level of pathetic-ness.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY! Pound some Guinnesses and listen to this song on repeat, because it’s the best:
This is perhaps the greatest thing I have ever seen:
It combines about a million things I love, most notably two of the largest celebrity crushes of my life. Representing my awkward tween years, Mr. Josh Hartnett, and for my awkward borderline adult years, John Krasinski. As ex-guest blogger Madeline so wisely put it in her description of this video (in wise words stolen from Ms. Liz Lemon), I want to go to there.
Today’s Google Holiday: Anthony Vivaldi’s birthday. He would have been 332! You know our boy Vivaldi for The Four Seasons (WALSH!) and his striking good looks:
His Wikipedia page has this interesting opening paragraph about his childhood:
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice, the capital of the Republic of Venice in 1678. He was baptized immediately after his birth at his home by the midwife, which led to the belief that his life was somehow in danger. Though not known for certain, the immediate baptism was most likely due either to his poor health or to an earthquake that shook the city that day. In the trauma of the earthquake, Vivaldi’s mother may have dedicated him to the priesthood. Vivaldi’s official church baptism (the rites that remained other than the baptism itself) did not take place until two months later. Cool!!
Cool!! indeed. (Wikipedia’s editors clearly aren’t doing their job.)
What I was Googling: jcrew rose vines romper. And here’s why:
See now, that doesn’t count as clothes. J.Crew tells us to “think poolside parties and chic beach soirees” and to pair “this fashion-forward silhouette with an extra-long cardigan and loads of accessories.” Now, I’m all for wacky fashion, J.Crew, and even rompers, when done well. But this is just a swimsuit that you can’t swim in. I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it, because I can’t imagine a time when you’d be at a “chic beach soiree” (I already have like eight of those on my calendar for the summer) or a pool party and wouldn’t want to be wearing either a swimsuit or some form of clothes. I just had this conversation with my coworker, who happens to work at J.Crew, after I showed her this “romper”:
Her: Cute! That’s a swimsuit, right?
Me: NO! It’s a ROMPER.
Her: Oh god, nevermind. Did you see the other romper, with the pants? We got one in the store…and nuh-uh.
Here it is styled, which is even more mind-boggling:
Can someone please help me understand? Is it just a swimsuit? This website and this website seem to think so. But if it’s a swimsuit, why are they calling it a romper? I’m so confused. Hailp!
This morning on the Metro, I read the word “adolescence” in my book, and for some reason it reminded of a poem that my class read on one of the first days of AP English my senior year of high school. I love this poem, so I thought I’d share it with you:
Liddy’s Orange
The rind lies on the table where Liddy has left it
torn into pieces the size of petals and
curved like petals, rayed out like a
full-blown rose, one touch will make it come apart.
The lining of the rind is wet and chalky as
Devonshire cream, rich as the glaucous
lining of a boiled egg, all that protein
cupped in the rich shell. And the navel,
torn out carefully,
lies there like a fat gold
bouquet, the scar of the stem, picked out
with her nails, and still attached to the white
thorn of the central integument,
lies on the careful heap, a tool laid
down at the end of a ceremony.
All here speaks of ceremony,
the sheen of acrid juice, which is all that is
left of the flesh, the pieces lying in
profound order like natural order,
as if this simply happened, the way her
life at 13 looks like something that’s just
happening, unless you see her
standing over it, delicately clawing it open.
A quick search on the Internets for some background on Sharon Olds led me (obviously) to her Wikipedia page, which included this interesting story:
In 2005, First Lady Laura Bush invited Olds to the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Olds responded, declining the invitation in an open letter published in the October 10th, 2005 issue of The Nation. The letter closes,
“So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.”
six words to change the world. 