a perfect song

I love all of Elliott Smith's songs, but Rose Parade may be my favorite. It's a masterful display of alienation. You can feel the loneliness. RIP, Elliott.

Rose Parade
They asked me to come down and watch the parade
And to march down the street like the duracell bunny
With a wink and a wave from the cavalcade
Throwing out candy that looks like money
To people passing by that all seem to be going the other way
Said wont you follow me down to the rose parade?
Tripped over a dog in a choke-chain collar
People were shouting and pushing and saying
And when I traded a smoke for a food stamp dollar
A ridiculous marching band started playing
And got me singing along with some half-hearted victory song
Wont you follow me down to the rose parade?
Wont you follow me down to the rose parade?
Wont you follow me down to the rose parade?
The trumpet has obviously been drinking
Because hes fucking up even the simplest lines
Id say its a sight thats quite worth seeing
Its just that everyones interest is stronger than mine
And when they clean the street Ill be the only shit thats left behind
Wont you follow me down to the rose parade?
Wont you follow me down to the rose parade?
Wont you follow me down to the rose parade?

cuteness

So I should have posted this in the Darjeeling write-up, but forgot. And I'm feeling happy today and this makes me smile.

Great outfit, great hair, great smile, great writer, great actor. Love him.
Edited for the clueless (you know who you are): It's Jason Schwartzman! And I love his eyebrows so shut up.

into the wild

It's a cold grey day and I'm listening to the soundtrack for the movie Into the Wild. I haven't seen the film. I have such an intense relationship with the book that watching the movie seems like an infidel move.

But the soundtrack, which is basically just Eddie Vedder singing, is perfect.
I wonder what Chris McCandless would think.

darjeeling

I saw Wes Anderson's film The Darjeeling Limited last night(I know, it came out ages ago. I'm behind). The Vuitton suitcases pictured above were one of the stars.

It wasn't as funny as Bottlerocket (although Owen Wilson was playing Dignan again, it seemed). And it wasn't as pretty as The Royal Tenenbaums(close, though). But it made me want to take the train in India and it made me love Jason Schwartzman even more. He could have been a great silent movie actor. His face is so expressive and he has such control over his movement. More Keaton-ish than Chaplin. And evidence of my Schwartzman devotion - I bought all the Phantom Planet albums while he was in the band. Although I really didn't like the band. Glad he gave that gig up.

project runway update

My diva Christian made an awesome outfit (well, as awesome as an outfit made entirely of denim can be), so he's still in. Yay for the Fierce One! Win or not, he's still the most talented designer in the entire history of Project Runway. For evidence:

I'd wear it.

yellow

After seeing this

recently, I started obsessing over yellow dresses. Probably because I'm so jealous of people who can wear yellow dresses and look pretty. Yellow hates me. But I love it so. Anyway.

Here is my favorite yellow dress of all time:

Michelle Williams wore this to the Oscars when she was nominated for Brokeback Mountain. She didn't win. But the dress is fashion history.

And we have this beauty:

"Lady in Yellow Dress"
Painted by Max Kurzweil, 1899
Lovely, but where are her feet? I think it would be neat to have some black heels peeking out from the hem of the dress.

And this cute one:

I love the yellow shoes. I might could pull off yellow shoes.

Love the pale:

"Lady in Yellow", painted by Thomas Dewing.
If I wore this I would look like I had jaundice.

And from one of the prettiest movies ever filmed in color:

The always beautiful Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (and I know she's wearing more of a coat-like garment, but we can pretend it's a dress).

And a little vintage advertising:

I totally dig the dress. But not Pepsi with dinner.

so Rami is out

OK, a little Project Runway nonsense. I had previously declared Rami as my Imaginary Project Runway Boyfriend. But, he was annoying last night, and his dress was ugly. So I've decided that I now want Christian as my bf. I like his dresses better anyway. Go Fierce One!

the built world

Some of my favorite feats of architecture:

Thorncrown Chapel
Designed by E. Fay Jones, opened in 1980
Eureka Springs, Arkansas

I visited the chapel as a little kid, and it's the first structure that I remember being amazed by.

Kimball Art Museum
Designed by Louis Kahn, opened in 1972
Fort Worth, Texas


One of my favorite buildings in the world. It perfectly reflects the genius of Louis Kahn. I've spent many lovely days there.

The Eames House
Designed by Charles & Ray Eames, 1949
Pacific Palisades, California

Just because Charles and Ray were amazing. And the house has fantastic bookshelves.

Hungaria Palace Hotel
Architect unknown, 1905
Venice, Italy

I feel kinda silly choosing this (architecturally irrelevant) building when Venice has such amazing structural treasures. But this is where I stayed in my favorite city
and I really got to know it's crumbling old walls. It's very Death in Venice.

mind of winter

One of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets.
It's like a little Zen study in 15 lines.

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

-Wallace Stevens

fun with numbers

I've always been intimidated by math. Numbers seem so mysterious to me. I just started reading Why Beauty is Truth: A History of Symmetry by mathematician Ian Stewart.

And I suddenly wish I understood mathematics a whole lot better than I do. We'll see how I make it through the book. I'm only a few pages in, and so far I've gone off on tangents: Galois theory, abstract algebra, group theory. Focus focus. But I did totally understand the first page which contained these lines:

When old age shall this generation waste
Thous shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thous say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Naturally, with the Keats. And honestly, the reason I pulled the book off the shelf was that I saw the title and thought it was about Keats. Me and my literature-centric brain. Although if I had written a book about symmetry I would have quoted Conor Oberst for my epigraph:

How time can move both fast and slow
Amazes me
And so I raise my glass to symmetry
To the second hand and it's accuracy
To the actual size of everything
The desert is the sand

You can't hold it in your hand
It won't bow to your demands

- "I Believe in Symmetry"

another one

So you have to watch this to the very end. Yeah, he cut his hair, yeah he looks really good. Yeah I am obessed with Bright Eyes. Just watch. It's good.

variations on a theme

So one thing leads to another. I've already made very clear how much I loved the book The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers. I still haven't stopped thinking about it. I decided to listen to Bach's Goldberg Variations since they play such a role in the novel. I bought the 1955 Glenn Gould debut, and I've been listening to it (this is where my rambling on Bach will end because I am woefully uneducated about his music).

But: during the process of acquiring said Bach music, I discovered there is a book by Gabriel Josipovici titled The Goldberg Variations. Which is described as "a brilliant combination of fiction and philosophy - and an exhilarating homage to the genius and invention of J.S. Bach." And it is! Two weeks into 2008 and I may have already read a best of year candidate.

I'm going to read Poe's "The Gold Bug" because I love Edgar Allan.

my imaginary Project Runway boyfriend

Ah, Rami. See, now this would be perfect. Because he could make me dresses.