Every Friday, I share  the pop culture, fashion, lit and randomness that crossed my radar during the week. Enjoy with some coconut water and circus peanuts!
I know I can’t save the world but I can do my part to make it a better place and that’s why I’m leading off with this:
This is a mistake. There’s a shop online that’s trying to sell this as a look for summer. No, no, no… this is not a look one purchases. This is a look one arrives at after a series of bad choices that initially have nothing to do with clothing.
To my mind, this is a look we left behind in the 90s, emerging as better, stronger, faster people once this was behind us.
I saw an article in a magazine that asked people, “When did you know you were really an adult?” and, had I been asked as a “woman on the street,” I would have said, “The day I knew cut-off denim shorts were no longer an option for me, not because I have heavy thighs but because I have taste.”
[OK, I do kind of hate my thighs. I guess I’m not that evolved.]
[Being a “woman on the street” interview would be on my bucket list if I could stand the term “bucket list.” But I don’t want to be asked something like, “What do you think was the most important outcome of The Second Sino-Japanese War?” I want someone to ask me, “What do you think of jean shorts?” so that I can say, ‘I despise them. Jean shorts are everything that’s wrong with our society today.” ]
Wearing
The Murakami t-shirts arrived!
Internetting
I discovered They Draw and Cook this week and got super excited. They have cool t-shirts with a monkey on them, too. I’m going to make blueberry muffins.
Shopping IRL
The Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul
Zinnia Folk Arts in Mpls
Shopping Online
A MANO
Chiapas Bazaar
Watching
You probably know this but Orange Is the New Black season deuce comes out at 12:01 am on June 6. But you probably knew. You’re all connected and shit.
Listening
Chromeo’s lastest, White Woman, is out.
Reading
Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words (Yeah, I’m on a kick)
The Origin of Satan (we should all know, right?)
Bibliocraft
*Preparing annual Summer Reading List, to be shared on this site and then (probably) promptly disregarded.
Looking At
Some of the best work I saw at last weekend’s Art-a-Whirl in Northeast Mpls was hanging in a hallway at the California Building – the paintings of Ryan Peltier, an artist and illustrator from Minneapolis.
His work, painted on boards and framed in dark wood, has an otherworldly feel, like you’re looking through a porthole at action you can’t quite understand – it could either be an innocent gathering or happening or very sinister. Maybe it’s both – poised right at the moment when something is about to take a dark turn. It’s hard to tell, which is why you want to keep on studying it and forming a narrative.
There’s something about his style that reminds me a little bit of the work of cartoonist Charles Addams.
When I went online to find his site, I also discovered his awesome illustrations of people in addition to his paintings.
Thinking About
Kanashibari (Sleep Paralysis)
Why my dog likes to roll on top of dead animals with liquified organs that get into the scruff of her neck and are sprayed all over my face when she shakes herself off mid-bath.
What to do when I find out that people I like/respect sincerely believe in astronomy.
Why anyone would throw a “90s Dance Party” and not play a single hip hop song? Few people want to dance to Better Than Ezra, many people want to dance to “Daisy Duks” by Duice. Hey, fat man who hasn’t left his basement since 1997, I don’t make the rules. Listen to the people. I’ll even let you wear those jean shorts.
[Warning: only watch this video if you want this song in your head for the next three days.]