Great Video

Just discovered this video. It's great. Directed by the fella who brought us Yacht Rock (which definitely deserves a night of your life.) Starring some of the nicest guys to be hitting the clubs playing one of the catchiest songs to be hitting my ears.

Miniature Tigers: Cannibal Queen



They are on tour now, so check their myspace to see if they come your way.

A Few Words on Camera Obscura's My Maudlin Career

It is an important part of any young boy’s life to listen to Camera Obscura. Before they can tie a Windsor knot or carve a ham or put their arm around a young lady at the movie theatre they should go out and pick up a copy of My Maudlin Career. It is a sensible step towards the stout system of manhood. It is rightfully recommended that the young boy first listen to the album in a safe secure environment. At some point during the course of these 11 songs, the resulting emotions may teleport him into the Eisenhower-era where he will want to kiss his mother on the cheek and borrow his father’s Chevy to escort the neighbor’s daughter to the homecoming dance. If this happens, do not jostle the young boy too violently. Only jostle him rhythmically and keep in mind, he is young. This is sound advice. If you are a father or a mother thinking of raising a young boy to become an all-star third baseman- keep this in mind.

As for my first listen of My Maudlin Career, it happened in a van driving north alongside the west coast. This is also a recommended listening environment. The album chirped from the stereo speakers and I inhaled it through my ears like a bumble-bee landing on a daffodil pedal outside my window. We stopped to get gas and the songs still spilled from the not on/not off setting your van ignition can have where the stereo still works. I was so hypnotized I almost entered the gas station’s mens room with no shoes on. If you add Camera Obscura to the west coast to a few days of not showering or shaving you may get a similar result. I think I was also hypnotized into buying a Golden Gate snow globe.

Since that first listen, I have heard the album while jogging in warm weather, while hanging out with girls who danced along reminding me of Uma Thurman, and while reading an article about how The Cleveland Cavaliers will most likely win an NBA championship. In each instance I felt as though, just maybe, Camera Obscura has built a time machine. In efforts to elaborate on that thought, I have had difficulty.

The album, the band, and the effects they cause have left me wishing hitchhiking was still safe. They have left me feeling as though it is better to walk barefoot and towards a swimming pool than any other way. They have left me with a feeling of contentment that the world is so large that, with a little help and handiwork, you can find something enjoyable and that maybe someone somewhere else will never enjoy what you are enjoying, but their enjoyment is out there in the oh so large world too and that is as important to them as Camera Obscura can be to young boys or to Uma Thurman or to me and you.

Check the myspace

The Coolest Coatrack around

I had forgotten about this coat rack. I was filing through some old video footage and felt a worthwhile blog post was abound in Weiki Somers's installment in Rotterdam's Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.

Does anyone else feel as though art is a bit cooler if it has some sort of interactivity?

I love to get involved with someone's creation rather than being separated by a velvet rope. When you walk into Museum Boijmans in Rotterdam it is like a Please Touch Museum for adults.

Does anyone else feel as though art is a bit cooler when it is functional?

Not only is the art interactive, its super useful. I feel as though this carousel of coat hangers in the ceiling rescues some square footage from cloak room status in the museum and frees it up for the fine artwork of a deserving artist.

There is a better video and some more photos (I pasted my favorites below) on Somers's charming website.














Here is a photo of the front courtyard and entrance to the museum which is also pretty great... The photo doesn't quite capture the feel, but I thought it was worth sharing.

it came! it came!

Yesterday was an exciting day for a few reasons. One of those reasons was the arrival of a letter I had sent to Nogeeshik from Berlin a few months ago (March 4th t be exact). Well, I guess it wasn't a letter in the conventional sense as it was a stick that I found on a street and wrote a message on. I superglued the postage stamps to secure them and even placed an extra 1 euro worth of postage in hopes that the postman, or Briefträger, would treat it with care. Despite being courteous and a bit enthused by my abnormal request, they couldn't accept the stick at the post office due to its irregular dimensions, so I addressed it, stamped it, and dropped it in the post box on our way out of town hoping it would find its way across the globe.

Upon returning to the states, other postcards and letters I sent arrived, but no stick. In the past I have mailed sugar cubes and winter gourds through the post and they all arrived safely, so I had told Nogeeshik to keep an eye out for something unique coming in the mail. She could not handle the suspense. Over the past few months she has continually asked me what it was that I sent from Berlin. "It's never going to come... just tell me what it was!" I nearly cracked the other week and told her, but I felt maybe the stick was still on its journey. Sure enough, yesterday the driftwood showed up on our doorstep further inspiring my respect of the postal service.


I was thinking for a future mailing project it may be fun to mail 5 letters all the same shape and weight, but put different amounts of postage on each and perhaps different envelope styles as well. One letter could be really fancy with an extra dollar worth of postage, one letter could be a conventional letter and one letter could be wrapped in newswrap and be a few cents short on the required postage (Perhaps try all sorts of different combinations of postage and fanciness.) Then mail all the letters from the same town, or neighboring towns and then see if they all arrive at the same time, or if some are quicker and others never arrive at all. Next time I am in a faraway town without much to do, I may give this a shot.