What You Will Miss If… Björk Edition
If you don’t go to a Björk concert any time in the near future, you will miss:
- A tiny, outrageously dressed and impossibly cute Icelandic woman dancing like a little girl playing in her room
- Videos very accurately, yet creatively, displaying different biological and geological ideas (see: the life of a virus, plate tectonics)
- A 20-year old using 4 iPads as his synthpad and making amazing electronic music with a Reactable (which also controls a giant Tesla coil)
- A giant Tesla coil (see: singing Tesla coil)
- Visualizing sound through sparks
- A harpist who can play with an r&b swing
- The best bass you will ever hear
- Having goosebumps as you hear “Possibly Maybe” live for the first time, accompanied by the singing Tesla coil
You might think she’s weird (she is weird), but in all that weirdness, she has an immensely successful, long-lasting career and can sell out shows in less than an hour. And that voice! A voice that reaches into your gut and just reverberates from the inside out. Not bad for a weirdo.
Note to future self: This was, hands down, one of my favorite concert going experiences. It is in the Top 3, for sure. Please don’t ever pass on any future Björk performances. It was one of the most emotionally satisfying shows I have been to in a long time, and I would like to experience that again.
(via pictures for sad children)
Tonight only! Actually maybe tomorrow night, too! Maybe another night in a few days! Pictures for Sad Children: The Webcomic soundtracked by Björk’s Biophilia!
On werk…
To be perfectly clear, this isn’t so much a “full time job” as it is a “life experience”.
I just started a “health” blog. Which is rich coming from someone who just had Subway for lunch AND dinner.
It’s called being pennywise, ok? For $5, you get two meals. It pales in comparison to the wondrous Publix sub, but you do what you gotta do.
And by “health” blog, I don’t mean that I offer health advice to people. By “health” blog, I mean a blog in which I chronicle my weight loss efforts. I don’t know. I think 2012 is the year. There’s something about having health insurance that puts a spring in my step, you know?
It’s a strange thing being the child of immigrant parents, but what makes it a little easier is having a group of friends within the community who you have known since the day you were born. If you look at your relationships with a Dante’s Inferno-ish structure, these people are the ring right after your family. In fact, there are things these people know that your family might not, and you can rest assured that they will take these secrets to the grave; such is the power of the Bengali Kid Code of Silence.
The oldest of our particular group got married over the weekend. She was the first one of us to drive, the first one to go through the IB program during high school, the first one to go to Rated R movies, the first one to drink legally, the first one to stay after a Bush concert in hopes of meeting Gavin Rossdale - and now, the first to get married. It’s hard to believe that we used to repeatedly rewind That Thing You Do on tape just to catch the Romeo + Juliet trailer for a glimpse of Leonardo DiCaprio. Fifteen years later, one of us is married. I know these are just normal things that happen throughout one’s lifespan, but time still blows my mind.
On Coachella…
Coachella is my adulthood equivalent of the dollhouse I always wanted when I was a kid that my parents never bought for me because they thought it was too expensive for something that I would grow out of a year later. Coachella is exactly like that, except in this scenario, I’m not buying Coachella tickets for myself, even though I have wanted to go for years, because I just feel too old for it.
Watch some bands from far away OUTSIDE? With all of these WEIRDOS around me? And mud? Possibly mud? Dehydration? PORT-A-POTTIES? FESTIVAL FASHION? Forget it. VIP tents or go home. And because it will be a long time before I can ever afford VIP tents, I’ll just go home.
I have some difficult adult job decisions to make which would effectively strip me of my vagabond title (although, in my mother’s eyes, I will be a vagabond until I’m a doctor or get married). The lure of health insurance, steady paychecks, overtime, and paid vacation days is so strong. This must be what Yogi Bear always felt when a pic-a-nic basket was nearby.
A Very Scientific Observation That Is So Scientific
It takes two years of living in New York to turn a laid back person into a neurotic go getting ball buster.
The Beyond
Bed, Bath, and Beyond is all at once an extremely comforting and panic inducing place. At least that’s how it felt today, which is not how it usually is for me. With a few dollars currently to my name until my next paycheck, I didn’t go to the store with any purchases in mind. Rather, I went for comfort. I had an interview earlier for a big girl job with benefits and no personal satisfaction. My entry into adulthood. It left a heavy feeling inside me, and I just needed some therapy.
It might seem strange, going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to escape from the day to day, but walking into that store takes me straight back to college dorm shopping. Ah, yes, the summer before college - the anticipation and the hopes of a bright eyed 18 year old girl. Discovering jersey sheets. The smell of plastic drawers that you put under your bed. Realizing that those egg crate foam things are actually really comfortable. And the buzz right before you head out on your own. I associate all of these sensations with Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
Today was different, though. As I walked through the aisles with 15 different types of stand up mixers and about a million storage solutions, my heart clenched up and I started to hyperventilate. Maybe it’s because I’m broke or maybe it’s because I’m not where I want to be professionally at 26 or maybe it’s because I’m even further from where I want to be romantically at 26, but it was probably all of it, all at once, hitting me where it counts, inside a Bed, Bath, and Beyond, right in front of the wall of hangers. There’s some symbolism in there, huh.
GPOM absent-mindedly scrolling through a day’s worth of Tumblr, listening to How To Dress Well and fantasizing about how if Diplo and I had a song, this would sooo be it. And then getting distracted from that distraction when I see a flash of my slammin’ nails. Chanel Graphite over black, so hype. Which brings me to Photo Booth. Which brings me to directing your attention to my nails.
These are the little things that keep me going throughout this relentless heat and menial 9-5s. It’s not much, and it’s far from intellectual, but it’s an escape nonetheless.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
M83 - Strong and Wasted
M83 makes amazing music, sure, but he also happens to be the best at aptly titling his tracks. I heard this particular one for the first time today. You know how it goes - you download the entire discography, but you only end up listening to the few songs you already like. Then, one day, you put your entire library on shuffle, and there it is… this perfectly composed, aptly titled movement.
Within the first few seconds, and without knowing the title, it reminded me of walking home at 6 in the morning, full on my goat cheese and arugula pierogies and still inebriated, the perfect punctuation to mark the end of a night out. After parting ways with my friends at Veselka, I would put my headphones on and start my swaggering walk back home. Early morning air is the best kind; always cool against the skin, always fresh, even in a dirty, polluted city like New York. I always looked forward to those walks. They always left me feeling… happy, I guess.
Or strong, maybe. Single girl from Small Town, Florida, living alone in the big city. Wasted, for sure.
So, note to future self: the track is only two minutes long, but Strong and Wasted musically encapsulates every detail about the ends of your nights out when you lived in the East Village. If you ever find yourself forgetting how wonderful those moments felt, just listen to Strong and Wasted and close your eyes.
55 plays
On not dating…
There are just simply too many men to choose from.
My job requires me to walk around south Bronx with a clipboard that has a dinky plastic cup attached to it. Most people don’t really care, but it does raise a question or two from the drunkards and methheads. Today, a slightly drunk man in his 40s approached me and told me I was pretty. Thanks, I replied, and the man smartly left me alone after that.
An hour later, a seemingly sober man approaches my colleague and me which prompts us to explain our work. The guy mumbles something, and this is when we realize that he is heavily under the influence of something. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but my colleague did (“Do you have a boyfriend” directed at me, apparently). She replied yes for me so he would leave us alone, and we told him to get lost.
So you can see why I don’t date. How am I supposed to choose? It’s tough! Do I go for the men in their 40s and up? Do I go for the creepy alcoholic or methhead? Or maybe the neighborhood homeless man who is all of the above? Or the guy who struck out all night and comes up to me at last call? No, no… you’re right. I should go for the guy who is just not that into me.
I know. They all sound like keepers, but I can’t catch ‘em all. They’re not pokemon.
So I don’t date. And I just objectify men. It’s easier. Besides, I have better things to do than die from the anxiety of dating.
These TV shows aren’t going to watch themselves. And that book isn’t going to finish itself. And those mp3s aren’t going to listen to themselves. And those interesting things out there aren’t going to Instagram themselves. And so on and so forth.
On doing it wrong…
Every other day, I get a LiveJournal notification that someone commented on an old entry of mine. It’s always on the same post. And it’s always spam, sometimes Russian, other times not.
I’m starting to wonder if maybe LiveJournal is doing this themselves? In order to drive traffic back to the site. Because every time I get a new “comment”, I get more and more tempted to look through my archives. Like just a few minutes ago, when Tumblr made me look at the horrible atrocities their servers face on a daily basis, I moseyed on over to my college LiveJournal and started reading through it from the beginning.
That is when I came across this entry from my freshman year of college. Here is an excerpt so you get the gist of it:
Major revelations as of the past, like, DAY but whatever. MAJOR revelations that will probably direct the course of the next four years on the social front. Look at me being all vague and coy about what these MAJOR revelations are. This is just a note to self. So when I’m old, like 25, I can look back and say “Oooh yes! I remember the day I made that decision! Whoa, this is taking me back!”.
I am 25 now, and I haven’t a clue what those “major revelations” were. So, note to future self: if you’re still chronicling your “life” online, don’t ever be coy and vague. Remember to be direct and forthcoming; the whole point of keeping an online log of yourself is to help you remember things. If you’re cryptic, you’re doing it wrong.
Anyway, I don’t feel embarrassing emotions anymore, so I have no need to be coy and vague on Tumblr. Hope that helps, future self. I don’t want you to suffer the same confusion that I have to endure now.
