Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Music #2: She & Him

i removed 'suggestion' from the title, because y'all probably already know them all and they're not going to be particularly 'new' all the time. so, it's just music, probably what it should be anyways.


so this week highlighted is duo She & Him made of actress / musician Zooey Deschanel and musician / producer M. Ward. the main instrumentation pouring from the honey-dripping speakers mainly consists of piano, guitar, banjo, drums, and other various guest strings (also whistling at times, and a pseudo-trumpet solo that reminds one of Keller Williams' mouth-trumpet, in the best sense of course).
Deschanel fills most of the main vocals, with Ward backing or alternating lyrics. The best thing about this album is it's simplicity. nothing is particularly complex or convoluted. instrumentals follow their own rhythms and note patterns without too much surprise. lyrics complete all those 1950's dreams of the 'baby i'm waiting for you only' type of surface skimming love, that in it's own way tells of all the depths of love in just a few easy going phrases.

click here for their website.

click here for their myspace page.

both sites above include much of the songs from their single album "Volume One," which came out in March of this year. all i hope is that a "Volume Two" will be released in the not-too-distant future.


Friday, August 22, 2008

an addition to the family and other stories

friday mornings at work. 8 am. sun newly risen (kind of...). the only reason i know though of course is getting to work, because at work there is only one window. and it looks out into a common area of the building, so it's just an indoor window to more indoors (great idea there y'all!). despite the lack of sunlight and the initial crawl to get out of bed, however, friday mornings continue to be incredible. usually i arrive at work around 8, open the doors, turn on the lights, and work for a little until most people arrive at 8:30ish. fridays though, the office strolls into it's normal routine around 9, leaving me usually a full hour to work and drink coffee from a little thermos in the silence that only the whir of air conditioners and buzz of fluorescent lights can provide. i think it's probably the most peaceful thing besides sleep. and also, if it lasted anymore than an hour, i probably have my head resting beside my computer asleep.

i have come to realize (again thanks office work) how admirable male socks are, specifically the business-ankle-but-a-little-higher-but-not-high-enough-to-be-knee-socks socks. ankle socks just look lazy (in terms of trying to look a little sophistocated (side comment (cause i never go on tangents!): i can only say this word if i slowly speak each syllable, but i have never been able to pronounce it normally), but if it's just a normal day, nothing in this paragraph applies). knee socks only bring to mind thoughts of postal workers, world war II veterans, and kilt wearing scotsmen. with a nice pair of charcoal colored dockers and some real good shoes, business socks are, to quote flight of the conchords, "business socks."

back to the reason for the title, i didn't mention in the previous entry regarding daniel's visit and the times around the town, but when he came he brought a 'birthday / visiting / whatever-whenever-for-who-knows-what' present better known to the world as a banjo. now i know what you are probably thinking:
"oh. my. goodness. what. the?" or
"um?" or
"wow, let's get out the corn and grits and have ourselves a git down for them barn raising ov'r thurr!"
BUT despite all of these very very very potential comments, it is the most wonderful thing ever. open g tuning on a banjo doesn't leave anything to be desired. he isn't named yet (don't even ask. many many items i own have 'names' for no reason what-so-ever (none however can compete with Jasmin's computer dubbed (i'm almost positive this is it's name) "Oswald")), but that will most likely come soon enough. the bike (see some previous entries for the explanation of how it was bought and some pictures), i have decided, is Zooey, after the second to youngest child in J.D. Salinger's literary Glass family (due to my love for Franny and Zooey and in the novella the character keeps black mollies in a tank at his parent's house. so namely (oh the puns...) the color of the fish and my love of the literature are the bases of the name.). banjo photos will more than likely follow in the future.


sincerely,
_______

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Musical Suggestion #1: Blind Pilot

recently, the musical grapevine came my way and from it i found out about this portland based band, Blind Pilot. wonderful album, not just another small one hit single group. honestly, i have been listening for almost two weeks straight (...ok, slight exaggeration, but only slight). acoustic guitars, gorgeous vocals, drums, strings, the occasional xylophones, and lyrics that fit right between the lands of 'simplicity' and 'brilliance.' the main members, israel and ryan, are currently on a tour down the west coast via bicycles, which if anything, only makes Blind Pilot that much more impressive.

click here for their blog page.

click here for their myspace page.


Monday, August 18, 2008

as a homage to you, the reader, i will for your sake and my own, now pour out a summary, if you will, consisting of the contents of this the letter you are reading. all these little entries and excerpts of life are merely letters in transit, a virtually handwritten document addressed to no one and only read by those members (privileged or not) of the human race who know where in transit to find, read, and leave for the next in-transit traveler to do the same as they.
repercussions of nagging ideas for change (web page edition)
additions to my own private gallery of my own mostly-not-so-private work
visitations by the type of person viewed as most elder brotherly and least younger brotherly with absolutely no blood relations between
awaiting ever evasive trains

and before the contents of this the summary, i beg the reader to indulge my whims and thoughts (mainly during the above activity of 'awaiting ever evasive trains') with a piece on sunglasses:
the simple thought of a sunglass is the opposite the simple thought of a magnifying glass. the later item brings things to a better view to be seen in a more favorable light. the former simply to put everything in a darker light and pull the curtain on the world to make night of what is day and dim what is bright. walking however through these gorgeous chicago summer days, i have come to realize the differences between sunglasses and the normal accessory. after aquatinting oneself with another on days such as these, the person ceases to resemble their own face, but that of their sunglasses. round, square, curved, black, calico shaded, and in a similar fashion to the unrecognizablity factor when someone with previously rectangular glasses exchanges them in for some small coke-bottle frames. the person is the same, but at the same time, is entirely different. even as i myself pull out a pair from my purse while walking around the city, the faint smell of coffee always seeming to linger as they most likely rested in the bag near something related to that caffeine heavenly drink, i can't help but wonder if i have the same motivation. not to shield my eyes from the sun, but shield myself from the world the sun lights, even by a few more millimeters.


and now onto the scheduled items listed above the previous paragraph. due to some qualms with my website that have been dragging in the back of my mind (most likely since it has been up), i am now in the process of a re-layout scenario with myself as the not-so frantic main player poking around behind the curtain every once and a while. all this is merely to say, "soon."

not completely wanting to work on any photo within the realm of my own picture-taking, this picture, as obvious, is not mine as it is one of the musician Sufjan Stevens. cardboard had to do since my 'sketch' book (a refurbished textbook-ish material on fossils) mysteriously is not here but at home in Memphis, although i could have sworn seeing it randomly throughout the past several weeks, and i also have no more spare canvas fabric to use up.



the next (and probably remaining) pictures in this letter are of my friend Daniel's visit to the city. we encountered at least five separate weddings on saturday, two of the celebrations which interrupted our visit to the field museum and our almost-visit to the adler planetarium, the rest of which were happening intermittently outside along the lakeshore. we both found it peculiar to have a party saying, "come celebrate the new found happiness of my marriage in front of a replication of the bone structure of a t-rex or the exact dimensions of a martian volcano." the rest of the city remained in it's normal ebb and flow and the weather was the epitome of the 'gorgeous chicago summer day' as mentioned in the sunglasses paragraph.

pseudo mini recording sessions.

millennium park.

the field museum has no lack of items what-so-ever. especially pottery. there were about five extra rooms that only consisted of pottery of all varieties. we thought it must be so disappointing to be an archaeologist and upon finally discovering some object buried in the sand, only to discover that it's just another pot.

the aztecs.

the camera switched hands.


walking along lake michigan.





as with the summary item 'awaiting ever evasive trains,' it merely consists of waiting this morning for the better part of a couple hours for the next train, after i dropped Daniel off at his bus. luckily i had thought to bring a book, Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. i first read this book a few years ago, but it has been one of those few rare but familiar faces on the bookshelf to offer a helping hand of encouragement, not with 'inspirational creativity' or any bullocks like that but merely with the passing of time. i finished Franny, the first section of the book, which is the superiorly shorter section, and nearly got through Zooey, the longer but as it holds the power of a 'conclusion' of sorts, is the superiorly quality section. it made me almost wish i had to stay in transit waiting for more trains on a regular basis, merely for the fact that it would generously improve my vocabulary and the books sitting patiently on my shelf.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

bench reading


new stencil finished much earlier today. size is only 8ish x 11ish but i'm thinking i might redo the stencils to make it on one of the 16 x 20 canvases i have waiting in my room. we'll see. for now it'll stay on this little piece of loose canvas.

the picture, in case i didn't do a very good job, is of a man sitting on a bench midday reading the local paper to catch up on news or to entertain or to distract or to do whatever he might look for the tiny typed words to do. the original photo was taken on the olympus a little over a year ago (2007 in the spring), and is up on my website (www.hannah-wells.com and under 'media,' 'photos,' 'olympus,' then '2007') if you are curious. the above picture is also on the site (under 'media,' 'stencils,' then 'canvas'). hopefully you enjoy.

Monday, August 4, 2008

lollapalooza (sans photographs due to sans camera)

lollapalooza offered no disappointments, subtracting quickly tiring legs and 'lord of the flies' mentality crowds (thousands of people with one goal and no (seeming) sense of morals to prevent them from attempting anything). unfortunately, "no cameras with interchangeable lenses" could be brought to the festival, which rules out primarily every camera i own. i took a couple with the holga, but judging that my last 120 roll from all of this past school year still has not reached my computer hard drive, i wouldn't bring any type of expectations to the table for seeing those any time soon, but you never know. surprises happen every day. i took a couple on my phone with that terrible quality of one point whatever megapixels supposedly contained in that tiny glass dot. the tiny pictures just showed the massive crowd and literal indistinguishable stabs in the dark.

many good photos at http://www.lollapalooza.com/2008_files/photos/day1/default.asp, http://www.villagevoice.com/slideshow/view/111418, http://chicago.metromix.com/music/photogallery/lolla-2008-photos/533597/content?photo=1, and primarily any place on the internet found when searching for 'lollapalooza 2008 photos.'

i only attended the chaos the last day, day three, and witnessed john butler trio, iron & wine, gnarls barkley, and kanye's shows. we chose quality of view over quantity of shows in order to get fairly close crowd placements for iron & wine and kanye, which we did. kanye definitely put on a show, what with his drama and flair for the extreme. he does, however, turn me off a little solely from his ego. at one point he spoke words of how he is destined to be the greatest and how he will be the greatest and everything else that goes along with that kind of talk. the man can entertain though, i will most definitely give him that. iron & wine and john butler trio musically were quite good. john butler performed a few songs with slide guitar, a few with banjo, and the rest with regular acoustic guitar, of which he played a solo instrumental slap guitar style piece (quite better than what i expected of him honestly). sam beam performed with his band as well, which offered a good change from the previous solo show i saw of him (there is a post somewhere below about it...). mostly songs off of their newer album 'the shepard's dog,' but included new arrangements of 'history of lovers' and 'upward over the mountain,' as well as a quite good rendition of 'boy with a coin.' during their show, we were positioned against the side of the fence in the center (not in the front row, however. it followed parallel to the stage and then jutted out for about ten or fifteen feet in the center for the photo press, security, etc). there was this boy across the gap against the other side of the fence wearing blue sunglasses and hoping for every kind of attention and dancing all through the show. i couldn't resist getting his picture (double exposed with one of the beach balls flying up in the sky), so hopefully that can be developed sooner rather than later, along with a double of iron & wine and the chicago skyline and one of kanye.