blogging bloggers
+ titleless
Say hi to my favorite
new blog, which is also my new
favorite blog.
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+ Very Every
My most favorited flickrer has a photoblog
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+ The oldest living things in the world
Rachel's fascinating photography project is taking her all over the globe
Plastics, Sun:
Photographic survey:
Two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US
every five minutes:
Partial zoom:
Article:
+ The Unintended Consequences of Hyperhydration (nytimes)
"This year, Americans will drink more than 30 billion single-serving bottles of water."
Article:
+ Should restaurants ban bottled water? (nytimes)
"Serving our local water in reusable carafes makes more sense for the environment than manufacturing thousands of single-use glass bottles for someone to use once and throw away,"
Research:
+ Study Cites Risk of Compound in Plastic Bottles (mindfully.org)
"You can't open a scientific journal related to sex hormones and not read an article that would just floor you about this chemical... The chemical industry's position that this is a weak chemical has been proven totally false. This is a phenomenally potent chemical as a sex hormone."
Book:
+ The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals By Michael Pollan
"The bottled water we're drinking is bathed in petroleum. That food we're eating is too...
We are indeed what we eat-and what we eat remakes the world. A society of voracious and increasingly confused omnivores, we are just beginning to recognize the profound consequences of the simplest everyday food choices, both for ourselves and for the natural world."
free sells
By my calculations, my song sharing has led to sales of
at least 2
Yo La Tengo albums, 5 Deerhoof concert tickets, a smattering of
Deerfhoof itunes downloads, and who knows how many
Sonic Youth T-shirts (Update: And a
Wilco tote bag).
So, sparingly, here's 2 more more:
Walken mp3
Wilco, from the record
Sky Blue Sky, their new record, out now!
Venus Stop The Train mp3
Wilco (from the record
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Demos?)
~
+ Sky Blue Sky on Amazon
+ Tote your stuff in a cute bird tote bag from Wilco's online store
+ Wilcoworld.net
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Unrelatedly,
meetup vs. google
My friend
Scott Heiferman runs
meetup.com and he just posted this
really funny comparison chart of working at Google vs. working at Meetup.
ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok, listen
A guide to obsessive song listening
Sometimes a song comes along, and I'll listen to it everyday, two or three times back to back, a few times a day, for a few months. Before moving on. Forever. This Winter's obsession was a pair of songs, starting in January when a John Lennon / Beatles song seemed to perfectly suit my winter of some-content. I played it on its own, fearlessly, until I found it's Yoko Ono counterpart song, afterwich I played them back to back, like, a lot.
But that was last Winter. In late April I began to ween off them and now they're necessarily being replaced by a new song duo obession. I'll post the Winter songs next Winter (or later this Summer, or perhaps next week). But now it's Spring, and I'm obsessed with Spring songs.
One is a morning song, listen to it every morning on the way to work, feel ecstatic, ebullient. The second is an evening song. Listen on the way home, at dusk or twilight or whatever, feel contemplative, introspective, what have you. Both are
Yo La Tengo.
morning song:
Mr. Tough mp3
Yo La Tengo, I'm not afraid of you and I will beat your ass
...and if you ask for a nickle, i'm going to hand you a dime...
evening song:
Black Flowers mp3
Yo La Tengo, I'm not afraid of you and I will beat your ass
...you know you can always change your mind, maybe I will too in time...
~
+ I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass, which everyone should buy right now
+ Yo La Tengo
~
Unrelatedly, from
Red:
Amy Stein Photography: Domesticated
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Unrelatedly, I've been looking for paraben-free cosmetics which don't smell like hell (
Dr.Hauschka's), and which don't cost $300, and finally found
Ren Skin Care, a paraben-free product line which smells like heaven. And not only is paraben-free, it's also free of petrochemicals, sulfates, syntehtic fragrances, synthetic colors, and as the label states, "pegs, et al". (Pegs are bad!?).
Parabens, the controversial preservatives, are in almost every American cosmetic product that is fluid or gooey in consistency, including soap, lotion, shampoo, lip balm... Check your cosmetics labels. They're there in the form of
methlyparabens, proplyparabens, ethlparabens, anything with 'paraben' in it.
But why avoid parabens? A hairstylist I met informed me of research indicating that parabens act as an estrogen analog, and can cause breast cancer and birth defects such as small genetalia in male offspring, in direct proportion to the levels of parabens accumulated in a woman's body.
Is it true? Well, there are sources which says that it is, and that there is a lot of research revealing so, but there are sources which also claim it's not true. But the cosmetic lobby is allegedly very active in keeping parabens considered safe and legal because they're cheap preservatives. The
wikipedia entry for parabens doesn't cover much on the controversy. So, maybe it's not true.
But what if it is? Many European cosmetic companies don't allow the use of parabens because of the data suggesting the harmful side effects.
Here are some more links on the topic:
+ Parabens: Some random website on breast cancer and parabens
+ Jason cosmetics are also paraben-free (but don't smell nearly as good as Ren Skincare).
+ Ren Skin Care (available online or at
Sephora.)
get with the times, the times
The Times reports in
this week's Thursday Styles section that antlers are
in:
+ If There's a Buck in It Somewhere. Silly Times.
We, your intrepid stylewatchers at
LT{n}C reported on the Antlers-in-Art and Design phenomenon in... when was it again? Oh yes that's right, 3 years ago (nearly to-date) in 2004:
+ April 23 2004 is Antler day, aka Antler'd Obsession
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~
It's finally turned 80º outside and hopefully you're cutting through Bryant Park on your way to and from the office in the morning and evening.
And at lunchtime. Listening to your soundtrack of last summer, until you know what it will be for this Summer.
The Neutral mp3 Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped
Reena mp3 Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped
~
+ Stop what you're doing and buy Rather Ripped from the band now (in the words of Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto, 'bum rush there'
+ live in my concert video
+ live in sonic youth's full length video
+ Sonic Youth. Whose new 'b-sides and rarities' cd artwork is a Jeff Wall photograph. One of my favorite ones.
~
unrelatedly,
+ The BBC has language lessons online
Good things are good headphones accompaniment:
+81 mp3 Deerhoof, Friend Opportunity
Good things are fuckedup headphones accompaniment:
Believe ESP mp3 Deerhoof,Friend Opportunity
~
+ Deerhoof
You can get your hair cut in the chelsea hotel, if you're lucky by the skilled, soothing
Nackie. Hopefully the Rapture is on the house stereo, not some oldies. You might get a cupcake when you're done. If not, you can get your sweets on by purchasing heavenly-smelling hair products which will never weigh your hair down. If nothing else, you can go out on the balcony and stand in the April snow for a minute before you start to freeze your ass off.
Good haircut. You are keeping in mind this is taken on a Saturday after a Thursday haircut afterwhich no shampooing has been done and a trip to the gym and a workout with
This morning, my birthday morning, at 5 am we were sleeping.
Then the stereo turned on from the living room, on its own or as if by a ghost. Blasting loud.
The song it played was Yo La Tengo's Today Is The Day
i followed you ..foolishly
you were at a smoky bar, you were out til three
sat alone inside my car, it was nearly four
we were gonna wait for you all night
so i locked the door
i was gonna spend the night, coulda been okay
we were gonna talk all night, till i went away
remember how you used to say, can't stay up late
a minute later we're older now, i can't stay awake
i'm driving by your parent's farm, in the Chevrolet
i remember that rusty car, like it was yesterday
another day, come and gone
don't think i can ever sing that song
little secrets we bring along
i'm taking my time, trailing behind, i thought of you
today is the day i think of you
Last night I looked up Synchronicity in the wikipedia, an entry about Carl Jung's theory of "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
I don't know, you know?
I do know that I ordered myself a dozen pair of
mary green underwear, happy birthday to me, and they arrived late last night just in time to wear today. So you know, synchronicity.
Five Years Ago Today: 33 Stills on turning 33
