Motivation and Creativity

Posted on June 22, 2007
Filed Under Blather, art, me and my brain | Leave a Comment

My life tends to go through these phases. Sometimes I feel like nothing is going on, and then other times it’s full speed ahead and it all feels exciting but a bit blurry as it’s zooming by. I think I’m moving into a more zoomy phase.

Work is picking up–not that it was slow before, but I have some big projects that are starting to really happen, and one or two others than I’ve added to the pile. This is a good thing in many ways, one of which is that Ez and I will probably need a little more money coming in to pay the rent on our new studio space. Rainy Planet Press and other Terri and Ezra Show individual and joint creative endeavors will soon have a new home at the Joy Street Studios in Somerville. We just put down a deposit on a studio yesterday, and I for one am very excited. Now we have to figure out the moving of the monster (the 1800 pound Chandler and Price letterpress that is currently residing in our garage).

Last weekend we participated in the Printing Arts Fair at the Museum of Printing in North Andover. It was a lot of fun to be surrounded by fellow printers, and it was a kick in the pants in many ways. We tried very basic bookbinding, and now I’d like to take a workshop. We got to chat with some very nice fellow letterpress printers, and it gave us the get-up-and-go to get the studio space mentioned above. It wasn’t nearly as hot as last year, either.

As some of you may know, I used to spend a lot more time making “art.” I took a lot of classes and spent a lot of my free time drawing, painting, and generally messing around. Somewhere along the line I stopped doing it so much–I can think of a few reasons why, but none of them are good reasons. Finding studio space has me very excited about doing more art again. Today I even got my old box of acrylic paints out and played around with them. I’m so out of practice with drawing and painting that whatever skills I had developed are basically dormant, but it felt fantastic to paint. Now my fingers have happy little black and green splotches on them. Yay splotches!

Good morning

Posted on June 20, 2007
Filed Under Blather, me and my brain | Leave a Comment

A cute guy served me my breakfast.

I had a good workout.

I got back to the car with one minute to spare on the meter.

Semi-secret Interpol show at the Bowery Ballroom

Posted on June 7, 2007
Filed Under Blather, friends, music | Leave a Comment

(Warning: Massive but fun post.)

Last Wednesday afternoon I happened to be online when it was announced that Interpol would be playing a show less than a week later, June 5th, at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. The show was only announced in 2 or 3 places, and a very limited number of tickets were released. This was definitely a case of “you snooze, you lose,” so without working out the details, I bought a ticket. I was very lucky, as the initial release of tickets sold out in less than an hour.

I have a fellow Interpol fan-friend in NY, and she was also able to get a ticket, and invited me to crash at her place after the show. Thus, the stage was set.

Where to begin?

I arrived in New York around 1:00PM and negotiated the subway to get myself to the Bowery Ballroom. It took longer than it should have because a) I accidentally got on an express train and b) one of the lines was out of service, so I had to figure out an alternate route. When I finally arrived, my friends were there, sitting in line. A few of us went to get food and to deposit our bags at a safe location while the others held our spot. We took turns holding the line and taking bathroom breaks, etc. It was quite warm and I ended up changing at one point to get out of my sticky clothes. We were expecting storms to arrive late in the afternoon, but it never did rain.

We saw Carlos arrive around 4:00, I think. He was wearing sort of goofy canvas loafers–I want to call them deck shoes. They made me think of somebody’s grandfather. (You’ll see that I find the various band members’ dorky tendencies very endearing.)

At soundcheck they played both Pioneer to the Falls and Hands Away more than once. They also played two new songs I’d never heard before. I’m fairly certain one was “No I in Threesome.”

After soundcheck we saw Daniel leave (with security escort, into a cab), and then Sam (on his own, sporting rolled up trousers, sunglasses, hat, and a red bowling bag), and then Paul and Farmer Dave together. Sam sort of acknowledged the line as he walked by. He didn’t really say anything or smile or anything, but he was definitely looking at us and kind of nodded. I’ve got to say, that man is mighty cool. Paul looked totally dorky and cute in a short-sleeved red gingham shirt and glasses. His attire reminded me of a certain good friend of ours who studies physics and is beyond delightful.

Doors were supposed to be at 8:00, but we were let into the downstairs bar area around 7:00. We then waited at another set of doors until about 8:15. They were playing a lot of X, which my friends didn’t seem to notice, but which I enjoyed. I remember thinking it was kind of funny that they had a big Heimlich Maneuver poster at the bar right by the doors. (I’m such a dork. If this makes sense to you, you might be one, too.)

We could see the merch table through the doors. There are two new shirts (new to me, anyway). One is a simple gray tank top that says Interpol and the other is a black shirt with the gazelle (or whatever it is) from the album cover and the words Our Love to Admire.

I ended up right up front in front of Daniel and Paul. The Bowery Ballroom is a very intimate venue, and there was no barrier, so I was right up against the stage. There was no opener, just a DJ. Since the DJ played for almost two hours (Wire’s “Dot Dash and Stereolab’s “Super-Electric” are the tracks I remember), I had lots of time to examine the stage and their gear. From what I could see, Daniel had at least 10 pedals. I noticed that two of his plugs were marked “DC BRICK” and “GRAIL.” One pedal was a Comodore, one was a Techsync, and he had at least four Boss pedals. Mind you, I don’t know much about this stuff, so… One of the Boss pedals (white) has a green sticker on it that says EVIL. There’s another of the same kind of pedal with the knobs set differently, presumably for another song.

Clearly, a lot of tickets were reserved for industry and friends. One of the outside doors was marked “Capitol entrance.” There were some reserved spaces upstairs, and I noticed an older couple (I think it was a couple!) at one of the little tables up there–maybe someone’s parents??

The band took the stage around 10:15. They looked really sharp–maybe even a touch moreso than is their norm. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Paul look so stylin’ before at a show. His waistcoat and vintage monogrammed tie were really fab. That goofy person who said “nice tie”? That was me.

Carlos was wearing a red striped shirt, black vest, and cowboy boots. I could see the hem in his trousers (it’s a wonderfully intimate venue). Sam wore his hat for the main set and returned without it for the encore, revealing his spiky hair.


Daniel’s setlist and guitar pick. This is the pick he used during “Leif Erikson” and “The Heinrich Maneuver.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good enough scan to show Daniel’s shoe prints. The sort of shadow in the upper right is one, and there are also some on the bottom.

They followed the setlist exactly. It went by WAY too fast. The sound seemed really good at first; there wasn’t a lot of fuzz or excess noise. But then later on I felt that I couldn’t hear Paul’s voice very well. I’m sure a lot of it was because I was practically on stage. I was hearing a lot from Daniel’s monitor. That was nice in a way, because I could really pick out which parts are his. In some songs, I was never sure before who was playing what part.

At one point after Paul had used his flying V guitar in a song, someone in the audience shouted, “That’s a fucking hot guitar,” and he smiled. At the end he said something really nice, but I didn’t catch all of it. It was something like “Thank you. We love all of our fans and super-fans.” Again, being a dork, I told myself that well, I am a super-fan… that’s me.

I have to say, Daniel really put on an amazing show that night. If you’ve seen them play in the last few years, you know how he comes to the very edge of the stage and plays his heart out and just leans into the music. Well, he must have done that at least 5 or 6 times on Tuesday. I remember distinctly that he did it during PDA and it was just… My mind was already blown by then. As I was RIGHT in front of him, I felt like I had to sort of stand back whenever he came forward. He was so close to me, I swear, if he’d leaned down another inch or two, he would have been on me, or he might have whacked me with his guitar. (I know I’m prone to exaggeration sometimes, but I am not exaggerating.) He gets so into it, crouching down with his eyes closed. And with his eyes closed it’s wonderfully perilous for the couple of people right in front of him. It was kind of sweet… I mean, I know it’s just common sense and common courtesy, but it made me smile when I could see that he was checking to make sure I wasn’t leaning on the stage so that he could step up. He was so close to me at those times that when I tried to take a picture of his shoes (using a friend’s borrowed camera–will have to post those later if any turned out), I couldn’t get far enough away to include more than one of the shoes in the picture. My friend and I saw a little scuff on his shoe and I had to restrain myself from giving it a little spit shine. During one of Daniel’s stage-front visits, Paul looked at me and we exchanged smiles. It was kind of like, “That Daniel…”

Daniel dropped the pick he was using at least three times. I snagged the one he’d used for Leif Erikson (probably my favorite song) and Heinrich Manuever. I love it, because it’s blackened and a little smudged.

At the very end, Sam and Daniel thanked the crowd, waving and shaking a few lucky fans’ hands. (I just managed a hand-brush in both cases). Daniel’s guitar tech gave me his setlist. I also finally got myself one of those girlie shirts with the thistles.

The rest of the night was like another night out. I got two nights out rolled into one! I don’t know what the band did. I’m sure they had a lot of people to see. I was lucky enough to meet up with some fellow moderator/admin types from the Interpol board. We went to the Beauty Bar. I’d heard about the place but had never been there. They were playing mostly fun 80s music in the back and we all danced and drank too much and had far too good a time for a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I was a part of a dancing Interpol-mod sandwich, I was approached by a kind of crazy girl who flashed me this huge grin and said “I’m here by myself! Dance with me!,” and I was drunk enough to ask the DJ to play Blondie when he was PLAYING Blondie at that very second. We were there until about 2:00AM, at which point the dance party in the back shut down.

It became clear that we were all drunk enough to need some food (one of us in particular wasn’t going to get very far without some food, water, loving care, and eventually sleep). We tried to walk to a pizza place, but it was closed. I stayed with the most needy of our party while my other friends went to retrieve their car. One of us was sober enough to drive across town to a 24-hour Chinese place. We went to Wo-Hop. At 3:00AM the street is all dark except for these two brightly lit places on one side. When we got there I wasn’t sure where to go and a Chinese man standing on the street pointed, saying “There’s two.” We went for the bright light emerging from underground… it was like the angel of fluorescence had been banished to the Chinatown underground and was trying to get out. (At least, I think we were in Chinatown.) We helped our needy friend down the stairs, assuring the man at the register that she would be all right once we got her some food. We grabbed a booth to one side of the mirrored room, plastered–as so many New York restaurants are–with headshots and signed photos of celebrities… except that among the hundreds of images we realized that we didn’t recognize anyone except that goofy guy from Everybody Loves Raymond (not Ray Romano–the other one). There were hundreds of headshots and pictures of random people and aspiring actors, maybe some small-time folks. We ordered the sort of Chinese food that is perfect for soaking up drunkenness. I went for veggie lo mein. At a big nearby table, eight or nine Chinese men in blue and white work shirts were sitting eating from big plates of Chinese food and gesticulating. The food was hot and cheap. I think I love Wo-Hop.

It was a little bit of a bonding experience, and I had a great time. After some hugs and kisses with our new friends (and after making sure they’d be OK to get home), we all headed off to our beds. My friend and I had to pick up my bag from it’s safe location and didn’t end up getting to her place until about 5:00AM. I tried to sleep, but it was pretty futile. I got my train from Penn at noon yesterday and napped a tiny bit on the way back here. Last night I was finally able to get some sleep, and that brings me to today! Lots of work in my future…

Mean Tagine

Posted on June 1, 2007
Filed Under Blather, cooking, dining | 1 Comment

It might not look like much, but the Moroccan Tagine Ez and I made last weekend, which made so much that I am still enjoying it for lunch, and which is vegan to boot, ROCKS.

tagine

Song of the Day

Devo-It’s Not Right 

Photos

My Photos on Flickr


The Knitting Turnip

On My Needles

Rhapsody in Tweed cabled pullover for Ezra! using Tahki Donegal Tweed in Forest, from Fall 2004 Interweave Knits. I've just picked this one up again, so it's moving up in the queue!

Sweater with Cable Patterns pullover using Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in Mauve, from Rebecca Magazine Number 28

Heather Pullover using Classic Elite Wings in Larkspur, from Rowan’s A Season’s Tale... This needs the knit doctor. I'm going to have to frog back a little bit and redo the shoulder area. Long story.

Hush Pullover using Jo Sharp DK wool in Wine, from Rowan’s Calmer Collection

Recently Finished Projects

In the Groove boatneck pullover using Manos del Uruguay in Black and Cheek (pale pink), from Fall 2006 issue of knitscene. SWEATER IS DONE!

Stash Stealer Scarf for me, using delicious yarn that darling Amy let me raid from her stash. I made up the pattern--a couple of wide ribs rimmed in moss stitch. It's soft and fuzzy and DONE!

Moss Stitch Jacket with Collar for Hope using Classic Elite Wool Bam Boo in Ivy, from Quick Baby Knits by Debbie Bliss. JACKET IS DONE!

Next in line

Brompton cardigan using Noro Cash Iroha in Jewel Green (my name for shade #100)

Eyelet Yoke Pullover using Debbie Bliss Merino Aran

Under consideration

Loads!

More scoop on my knitting endeavors can be found at my home on Ravelry (clicky here).

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