http://blog.ohcarlos.com/

Consuming, Item No. 1: Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, Greatest Hits

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:21:39 -0500

At the Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale this weekend, I bought a Kenny Rogers Best Of record for $1, and Jake bought some classical music, and he plugged in our record player. I still think it’s weird sometimes that this is really my grown-up house and my grown-up life and not just a really fun clubhouse I get to hang out in all the time. And someone else always keeps it clean. I’ll be sad if I really am allergic to that thrift-store smell. I don’t feel as bad buying Best Ofs as I should.

Mir, you always get it so, so right.

Art & Life (via text).

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:56:26 -0500

Me: We have to get drinks this week so you can tell me all about NYC!
Allie: For sure. You would have loved the biennial Aurel [Schmidt] drawing with cock, magnums, and cigarettes galore. I want it.
Me: I want those things in my life in general.

Marilyn Minter, Crystal Swallow (2006). Promised gift of Jeanne...

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:28:00 -0500

Marilyn Minter, Crystal Swallow (2006). Promised gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein to The Blanton Museum at the University of Texas at Austin.

Whenever I was at the Bacigalupi/Feder mansion, I would drink my coffee or tea out of a Blanton Museum mug that boldly proclaimed “Art Is Hot.”

Habitual.

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:15:00 -0500

8AM:

Coffee
Cigarette
Roberto Bolaño
Four-minute egg
So much coffee
So much Bolaño

(And who am I kidding?)

So many cigarettes

"I’m not a pandy bear, I’m grizzla bear."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:50:29 -0500

“I’m not a pandy bear, I’m grizzla bear.”

- This is what happens when I work 15 days in a row and find out my next day off has also been taken from me.

I started feeling panicky (no yoga today and you have no idea...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:03:59 -0500

I started feeling panicky (no yoga today and you have no idea how much it sucks working on your day off, except probably you do!) about my party, and all the things I should have been doing all week to prepare, but didn’t do. At these moments, I imagine Nigella Lawson looking up at me from her cutting board and saying something like, “Darling, it’s just dinner,” and I feel a little bit better. (I’m not sure if that ‘spirit animal’ thing is a widespread meme or just a Tumblrism or just a Gouldism, but if I have a spirit animal, it’s probably second season Nigella Bites Nigella Lawson.)

Anyway, since I knew I’d be slaving over a hot stove tomorrow, I relished the opportunity to go to dinner with friends tonight and be taken care of. It wasn’t a great restaurant, but I think I ordered the best thing on the menu - prosciutto and arugula salad with pears, walnuts, saltanas, and goat cheese. It was drizzled with a lemon vinaigrette as well as balsamic vinegar, which perfectly countered the sweetness of the pears and golden raisins. I love arugula, but I hate that sometimes the stems go up my nose as I’m grazing on way too big a bite.

Everyone shared a starter of calamari (tender and fried to perfection, but I still wasn’t feeling it) and bruschetta (more like one of those frozen french bread pizzas) and three of us had the cream of mushroom soup. I felt the soup was too salty and too rich, but definitely in the way I want every cream soup I eat to be too salty and too rich. I’d have been more impressed if the soup were both light and delicious, rather than stereotypically sodium-loaded, but oh well.

Also, I had two glasses of shiraz in honor of Amanda Finelli, who sent me the first chapter of her book today, which was brilliant and a total cocktease. All I want for Purim is her company. And to not lose hair over my party.

At a very young age I promised myself I would never become one...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:36:02 -0500

At a very young age I promised myself I would never become one of those people who apologizes profusely for the most minor offenses, but I have become exactly that person in regards to Zoe, whose slumber I’m constantly interrupting in order to retrieve a hoodie, laptop or gym bag from my bed.

Bernard Schultze.

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:18:34 -0500

Bernard Schultze.

poppie: my friend Haik Avanian launched a project a few months...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:46:17 -0500

poppie:

my friend Haik Avanian launched a project a few months ago called reknit (i used to think it was pronounced “wreckin’ it” but i was likely projecting). the idea is simple: you send haik’s mom one of your old sweaters, and mrs. avanian will transform it into something new, be it gloves or a scarf.

i knew haik was a force to be reckoned with when he sang Regulators by Warren G from beginning to end without skipping a beat, one late summer night in detroit.

a few days ago, haik was interviewed for reknit on npr’s all things considered! Have a listen.

and give mrs. avanian new business via http://www.rekn.it.

Michelle, we are going to have a lot of fun with this.

Joanna Newsom - “Jackrabbits” I wanted to give this album a few...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:29:00 -0500

Joanna Newsom - “Jackrabbits”

I wanted to give this album a few good listens before I wrote about it, but during that time everyone already showered it with the exact kind of praise I would have bestowed, and better.

Instead I’ll leave some Friday morning catharsis that hints at all the divulgy blog entries I haven’t posted these past two months.

(track via tylercoates)

Tim Burton's White Queen is based on Nigella Lawson.

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:10:28 -0500

Tim Burton's White Queen is based on Nigella Lawson.:

I know this movie is going to be a piece of shit, but Hathaway impersonating Lawson is a dealbreaker. I’m game.

(via elapartamento512) + (via lostandfound)

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:45:28 -0500

(via elapartamento512) + (via lostandfound)

Meal-turity.

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:42:00 -0500

I’m not sure if it’s my advanced age, my transformation into a yoga-addled borderline bodhisattva, or just that I’ve entered a new stage of Epicureanism, but I have reached the point where I don’t mind going about my business staggeringly hungry for a few extra hours, rather than throw together a lesser version of the meal I’ve planned in my head.

Opening Ceremony SS/2010.Directed by Gia Coppola + Tracy...

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:27:52 -0500

Opening Ceremony SS/2010.
Directed by Gia Coppola + Tracy Antonopoulos.
Music by Coconut Records.
Love.

"Art is about making money and getting the people you want to fuck to want to fuck you."

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:04:31 -0500

“Art is about making money and getting the people you want to fuck to want to fuck you.”

- Cole Escola, from his and Jeffery Self’s interview in East Village Boys. Nevermind who conducted said interview. It’s totally irrelevant. Like, totally irrelevant.

via text:

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:06:00 -0500

saladforbreakfast:

“Is dating a Gemini always a bad idea?”

On behalf of my three ex-boyfriends: Yes.

A thing I ate that I loved.

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:47:00 -0500

The sinus pressure in my face was so intense Wednesday, that my teeth hurt. Luckily, I had the day off, and was poised to dedicate my entire being to sprawling, Season 3 of Mad Men, and Mucinex (despite the fact that this would mean not dedicating my entire being to yoga class, laundry, and saying goodbye to my friend who’s on her way to India for three weeks).

Instead, the universe decided I needed to be called into work for nine hours, during which time I would design, print, cut, and bind 1400 booklets for Narcotics Anonymous, only to be screamed at by their media rep (who desperately needed a toke of ANYTHING) that it wasn’t “cheery enough.” For lunch I brought some organic tomato soup I bought from Costco, which wasn’t nearly as good as I remember it being the first time, so I threw it away after a few bites. Insult to injury.

By the time I left work I thought my face was going to explode. However, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t say goodbye to my friend, who was just across the street at the Indian restaurant her family owns. Raj is one of those people who is so brimming with wisdom beyond her years, I wonder how she functions day-to-day in the midst of all her revelations. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she suddenly sprouted a mandorla and flowers blossomed in her footprints á la Ferngully.

I probably looked as shitty as I felt, because Raj immediately brought me a cup of ginger tea, which I cooled with cream, downed in three gulps, and asked for another. Her mother, who I have only seen come out of the kitchen a handful of times, emerged to say hello and give her blessing, as is her custom for family friends. She took my head in her hands, felt my forehead, mumbled something in Punjabi, and retreated back to the kitchen. She emerged ten or fifteen minutes later, and presented me with a bowl of the best lentil soup I have ever eaten in my life. It was dense and golden-green with turmeric, perfectly spiced, and not at all fussy — just a few stray peas and a chunk or two of carrot — exactly what I needed.

Raj’s mother lingered a bit, and after a while told me (in Punjabi, with Raj translating) that she had curly hair like mine. I responded that I would love to see her at home, when she wore it down. Then, she (very boldly) asked if she might touch mine…

I let her. That might be my customary old person blessing someday.

I try to be a less hateful person, but then my hand is forced.

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:51:34 -0500

I try to be a less hateful person, but then my hand is forced.:

saladforbreakfast:

I’m so sick of all these motherfucking hippy backpackers in India.

With their stupid fucking lack of any personal hygiene and their stupid fucking broken English and their stupid fucking hippy life philosophies. (Direct overheard quote: ‘It is change—the only one that is always!’)

I am being hypocritical, of course: I thought I had new birthmarks until I exfoliated and they went away, English is the only language in which I can adeptly use any tense other than the present, and I’m here at this internet cafe to print out my February horoscope from Susan Miller and also the lyrics to ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’ and also to Gchat one of my friends about his ‘energy’.

So there’s that.

Often when someone goes on a trip and asks what I’d like him or her (but let’s be honest him) to bring back to me, I say “Spanish boots of Spanish leather,” and no one ever gets it.

This (and let’s be honest Kate Chopin) are my life right now.

buongiorno: Pitchfork: Animal Collective to Take...

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:56:39 -0500

buongiorno:

Pitchfork: Animal Collective to Take Over Guggenheim Museum

There was only one way I could ever be convinced to get a guggenheim membership…

One of the things that you notice almost immediately in the jungle are the birds; so many different sounds coming from so many different directions. Are they communicating to each other? What are they saying? Does each variation serve a purpose? Why are there repetitions? Is there a pattern or is that just your imagination? If you don’t know the first thing about bird songs, these questions can rack a brain for days. The jungle seems louder than most New York apartments but its symbiosis makes it subtler if not more pleasing to foreign ears. The longer you sit awake in bed listening at night, the more you hear. It brings to mind Jane Goodall hanging out with chimpanzees in Tanzania and how she noticed them reacting to distant or inaudible sounds that at first she couldn’t hear, but as her ears adapted to the environment after months she began to hear them too.

But as the environments around us change quickly, as people encroach more and more on land where only select symbioses occur, we wonder how this will change the sounds around us and how this alters the way we hear things and react to them. As New Yorkers we are all familiar with the everyday noise around us—the car alarms, the subway trains braking, the music in bars—so familiar that sometimes we drown them out. But then do we not realize how these sounds are affecting us? How they make us feel or act? With this in mind we wanted to create an environment where people could take some time to listen to other kinds of sounds and get away from those familiar sounds of the city. Keeping in mind the birds of the jungle, we’ve created an array of sounds with Animal Collective’s music that is seemingly random…or is it? We invite you to come take some time out and sit with us. As time passes it is our hope that you will wonder if you are hearing songs or patterns or maybe simply hearing more. The visual work of Danny Perez has been incorporated to turn the environment of an empty museum into a more mysterious hideaway. The core elements and colors are worked into the piece in order to unite this room of sound with the inside of your brain. We hope you enjoy.

Thanks for joining us.
—Animal Collective, February 8, 2010