2010

Posted on August 23, 2010
Filed Under friends, music, photography, travel | Leave a Comment

We all dragged ourselves out of bed the morning after the Interpol show in Rochester and drove to Buffalo. It’s only about an hour away, and we arrived pretty early in the day.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Buffalo, but it’s a really friendly town. Lots of locals chatted us up around the venue–and gave us tourist literature! It was a little bit rainy, but the cooler temperatures were more than welcome and the rain was sort of refreshing after the warmth of the previous day. Close to show time some of our friends from the previous night arrived in line and we got to chat a bit. A photographer for www.mybuffalo.com took our picture as we were waiting.

JayneMeJimmyMaria Jayne, Me, Jimmy, and Maria outside Town Ballroom in Buffalo. Photo by Eric Syty, www.mybuffalo.com.

Town Ballroom in Buffalo is much nicer than the previous night’s venue, Water Street Music Hall in Rochester. It’s newer, cleaner, and air conditioned! Drinks were cheap. We love Buffalo! Jayne once again had a photo pass. I paid a little more attention to Twin Tigers’ set and found myself really enjoying their tunes. Initially I got a sort of 90s feel from their music… a tiny bit of Sonic Youth, a bit of My Bloody Valentine (Isn’t Anything, maybe), and something else that I couldn’t put my finger on. They’re noisy but melodic, heavy but pretty. In my mess of things from this trip, I have a map of Buffalo on which I’d written during their set, among other things:
m–a bit slack-jawed
the shame
but it’s OK bc he wears good shoes
what to expect from a hawks fan?

AimeeofTwinTigersinBuffalo Aimee Morris of Twin Tigers at Town Ballroom in Buffalo. Photo by Jayne Yong, www.qromag.com.

Interpol’s set was excellent–so much better than the first night in terms of energy and the overall performance. Sam seemed way happier. I think Dave Pajo and Brandon Curtis improve with every show, and it was really apparent to me that they were sounding better already with the guys on this night.

I had my point-and-shoot with me and figured I’d take a stab at snapping a few pictures. They’re not terrible, considering.

PaulDaveBrandoninBuffalo Paul Banks, Dave Pajo, and Brandon Curtis. Photo by Terri Wise (me!).

DanielKesslerinBuffalo Daniel Kessler of Interpol at Town Ballroom in Buffalo. Photo by Terri Wise (me!).

Setlist:
Success
Evil
Say Hello to the Angels
Summer Well
NARC
Lights
NYC
Mammoth
PDA
Take You On a Cruise
Slow Hands
Obstacle 1
—–
Hands Away
Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down
Not Even Jail

I think it was on this night that Jayne and I were really hamming it up during some songs—particularly “Slow Hands.” We crooned and held hands and made Daniel laugh.

After the show everyone spilled out from the ballroom into a large bar area. Jayne ran into The National’s tour manager (Jayne has been to a ton of their shows over the last year or so) and they had a chuckle. We stopped by the Twin Tigers merch table to say hello. Some girl was totally coming on to Matthew—like in his face practically kissing him right there. I could see him writing down his phone number on a piece of paper. What a player! He continued flirting with me after she left and when we were walking off to find Sam and the guys he asked if we were coming back. Later on behind the venue Jayne saw him walk by and shouted “Matthew’s getting laid tonight!” It was pretty funny.

Anyway… We hung out a long time and got a chance to say hello to all of the Interpol guys except Paul. Brandon and Dave were both really nice. Brandon seemed very genuinely interested in our opinions on the performance. Jayne told him she thought Daniel messed up too much! And he looked as though he were going to be sure to tell Daniel that. (For what it’s worth, I thought it was a cleaner performance overall than the one in Rochester.) Dave was incredibly humble and seemed a little more shy than the others. He said he knew he had big shoes to fill. I assured him that he was doing a good job. Then Sam came out. He looked so good and seemed about 1000x happier than he had the previous night. He said the show felt good. We took a bunch of pictures with him. Actually, Brandon took a bunch of them for us.

MeSamJayneBuffalo Me, Sam, and Jayne after the show in Buffalo. We danced our butts off at the show and you can tell we were a little wrecked here (especially me). I love this picture, though. Taken on Jayne’s camera by Brandon Curtis (of Secret Machines and now the touring keyboardist with Interpol).

We got to talk to Daniel briefly as well. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to him like that in a long time. Also got a picture with him, which I think is very funny. His tie kind of matches what I’m wearing and I think the picture looks like we’re coming from a wedding.

DanielandMeinBuffalo Daniel and me coming from a wedding… well, actually, no… Just hanging out after the show in Buffalo. I look pretty terrible. Jayne took this (but is in no way responsible for me looking terrible).

Sarah was there with us after the show, but she kind of hung back. I think she felt a bit weird about approaching the guys as she’s only met them a few times before. After Sam spoke to us, he made a point of walking over to Sarah, introducing himself, shaking her hand, and thanking her for coming out to the show. He’s so great!

We were so hyped after everything that we stayed up and ordered food to be delivered to our room. I had a great time with mah girls! It was a little like a slumber party, and I would do it again right this second if I could. Didn’t get to sleep until probably 4AM.

The next day, Sarah and I continued the girl times in the car on the long ride back to Boston. I was soooo sad to say goodbye to Jayne. I miss her! Maybe maybe maybe I will get to see her in the UK later this year.

My Collections: Vintage Christmas Ornaments–The Stripes

Posted on January 11, 2010
Filed Under christmas, collections, me and my brain, nostalgia, photography | 1 Comment

While taking down our Christmas tree this past weekend, I decided to take pictures of my vintage ornaments before putting them away. Over the next several days (weeks?) I’ll be posting pictures and any info I feel like adding about my collection of vintage Christmas ornaments. I won’t post every single ornament, but I’ll include quite a few of them. I also hope to post more about my much bigger collection of vintage Christmas postcards, and I may get into some of my other collections and treasures as well (socks, books, music). But I’m starting off with what gave me the idea–the ornaments.

In general, I collect what I like. I’m not looking for the most valuable items or necessarily for a particular manufacturer or artist. Instead, I’m looking for what appeals to me–and in the case of vintage ornaments, they have to be genuinely old, not reproductions. I think most of my vintage ornaments are from the 1930s-1950s. Perhaps someone with a lot of knowledge in this area will come upon these posts and tell me more about what I’ve got (and also let me know if I have any misinformation).

Just because, I’ll start with the stripes. Some of these are a bit newer–50s and 60s. I’ll share some older ones in future posts. The clear–or unsilvered–ones may be from the 40s. The story goes that during WWII metals were needed for the war effort, so Christmas ornaments produced during this time were made with unsilvered glass.

This next one seems older. The glass is heavier and sort of frosted and it shows a different sort of wear.

This next one also seems older to me. It’s a bit smaller than many, and something about the glass and the way it’s worn makes me think it’s older.

I love the colors of the one below.

Dolores Del Rio

Posted on January 9, 2010
Filed Under art, films, nostalgia, photography, the telly | 2 Comments

Watching Flying Down to Rio on TCM, I was moved to check out more about the film’s star, Dolores Del Rio. In my search, I came across some strange, wonderful, and sometimes creepy images.

(Photographer for the above two images: Slim Aarons)

A restyled doll by Juan Albuerne

And a beautiful one…

And a fabulous one…

Just a couple things I thought I’d share on a Saturday

Posted on October 10, 2009
Filed Under photography, sports in general, wide world of vacation | 2 Comments

Click on the links.

Amazing:
The Berlin Reunion
Photos
Video

Funny:
I’ve Seen My Share of Bodies (don’t worry–it’s not that inappropriate!)

Why we love Suki, part 3876559

Posted on April 22, 2009
Filed Under Blather, family, photography, the pusses, this old house | Leave a Comment

Suki

There’s nothing like the ways of a cat to make you stop what you’re doing, forget about stress and tasks, and just say “tee hee!” and be happy. I recently went through a lot of papers and files in my office and produced 5+ bags of recycling. In the midst of moving furniture out of the office, we discovered Suki as you see her here. Never to be deterred from perching in the sun’s rays, and as much a fan of little nesting places as the next cat, she found that this particular bag of recycling would do quite nicely, thank you.

A Visual Montage

Posted on April 22, 2009
Filed Under Blather, craft, daytripping, friends, knitting, photography | 3 Comments

I promised a picture of the little hat I knit over the weekend, so here it is!

Knit hat

And while I’m at it, here are a few others to catch you up on the last several months.

Union Square, New York January in New York’s Union Square

doorway, Portsmouth
A Doorway in Portsmouth, NH

And the obligatory picture of a cute baby, Lydia, who we finally met over the weekend.

Lydia and John

sundial

Posted on July 17, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, photography, the 'hood | 2 Comments

This one was taken on my Holga (so it’s 120 film). It’s a double exposure, and it’s from my first crack at developing my own 120 film.

More proof that Amy is among the best EVER

Posted on July 14, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, friends, photography, the interweb | 6 Comments

So dear pal Amy has been tagging some of my flickr photos to Bostonist, which has put them in consideration for photo of the day… and today the first photo in my previous post got the nod! Thanks so much, Amy my star!

I’ll have more for you soon, I promise!

So I owe you…

Posted on July 8, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, family, photography, wide world of vacation | 1 Comment

I owe you all four pictures–I promised one a day!

I mentioned that I had more pictures of the Rose Kennedy Greenway at twilight to share. Here they are.

These are coming to you all in one batch because we were away for the 4th of July weekend. We visited Simon, Frances, and Eva in Saratoga Springs. Simon and Frances teach at a summer dance program there, and as it’s only about four hours from here and as I lived there during college, it’s always a good place for us to get together. They are staying in a nicely fixed-up old house this year with some other dancers who are teaching in the program. We stayed with them and just had a good time relaxing and catching up.

On the way home from Saratoga Springs we made two previously unplanned stops. For lunch we decided to find somewhere to eat in Western Mass. We ended up in Great Barrington where we had very tasty organic-sourdough-wood-fired-gourmet pizza. Yeah, it was good. Then as we neared 495, inspired by the cool way the place we’d stayed in Saratoga Springs had been fixed up, I asked Ez if he wanted to stop at IKEA for some organizational goodies. He agreed, and we hit the joint around 6:30-ish, so it wasn’t too crowded (though it was ridiculously messy–IKEA has such a tidy aesthetic that it just kinda seems completely incongruous that their shoppers would leave potato chip packages and empty soda cans on displays). We found many practical and relatively inexpensive items for our little home improvement project–which is basically a home organization project. It was a successful tangent!

Yesterday the darkroom at MassArt was closed, but today I spent several hours there. The prints from today are still drying, but here’s one from last week.