croissants and more croissants

Now I know why everyone falls in love with France. I tried hard not to, just because there's a word for it.  (Are there any equivalents to francophile? Canadiophile? Americophile? Russiaphile?)

But if you can't beat them join them. France is so beautiful. The cathedrals are on every other corner. The other corners have cafes where you can sip delicious coffee all day and enjoy the perfect breeze off of the Seine. It's ridiculous. And the French people are so hospitable and fun. I had the best time running around the city with Ms. Anne-Marie!

If you haven't been, I hope that you can visit there very soon. My only advice is to learn how to say a few food items in French, so you aren't eating your weight in croissants like me, unless you want to of course.
(I had too much pride to speak English, so I just went to the baguetteries and said un croissant again and again, hahaha!)

 

Drawing Notre Dame, but got kicked out of the garden for closing time.

The ceiling of Saint Sulpice

Sinead O'Connor + Elizaveta UK Tour

I'm back from travels in the UK and France! Rock and Roll! We jammed to nothing but The Clash, Kinks, Beatles, Talkingheads and Bowie! Ah musical soil.

Elizaveta opened for Sinead O'Connor in some of the most amazing cathedrals in the UK. As far as venues go, I think they are better than ampitheaters. There's nothing like bass in a cathedral.

 

Note my map.

Note my Sinead.

Finally, note Elizaveta and me !

Elizaveta rocked the mic, opening for Sinead O'Connor. I never knew much about Sinead; she had her controversy with the church before I was really on to pop culture. After reading back about the pope incident, I'm inclined to say: good for you. She stood up for what she believed: that the Catholic church was (and is) condoning sexual abuse. Speak truth to power. I'm with you!

crossing the atlantic and another dimension

Tea time.. getting ready for the British

I'm heading back across the Atlantic this week. This time our stops include: London, Brighton, Bristol, Manchester, Scotland, and Paris! I'm a lucky lady.

Also meet my new friend, I haven't figured out its name yet.

Can you see him/her on the other side of the window?

Most every day that I am at home working, this same little birdy comes to the window, pecks at it and waits. I peck back, and we go back and forth for a while. It leaves, comes back and does this all through out the day. Sometimes I'll be in the kitchen and hear its sound and have to go say hello. Maybe little bird sees its reflection, or maybe it's trying to talk. It certainly waits around for the sound. I keep thinking that there is some kind of trans-species communication going on here. 

Imagining myself in its place, there is a huge plane of glass with various things flickering through it, when I make a sound it causes a ripple and sometimes comes back to me. But its not the same. Is it another living thing? Is it my echo? Is my brain too small to contemplate such things?

I can't help but think that there must be a parallel for humans, running our heads up against a plane of glass with no idea what is on the other side watching us, communicating with us.

random mansion tour

Last week I worked on a photo shoot at this mansion in the Silverlake hills. I took a bunch of clandestine pictures.

The mansion belonged to a silent movie star who's life was very similar to the main character in The Artist. I won't spoil the movie, in case you haven't seen it. His story also sounds a lot like The Great Gatsby, but maybe that's because his wife was named Daisy. They split and she died tragically on Mulholland Drive. Some people think that there was foul play and speculate that this might be why the house is haunted.

Some famous very bad rock bands have stayed and recorded here and claim to have seen and experienced all sorts of freaky things... being chocked in the night and bathtubs filling with water.

I can say that it was kind of eerie at first. There were some freaky angel and devil paintings and taxidermy everywhere. The souls of all of the poor African animals! Overall though, I've been in places that are much creepier. The only bad vibrations that I felt were coming from the guy who owned/ managed the house. Perhaps all of the bad spirits attached themselves to him. He was so rude that you had to laugh and play along.

The courtyard - also where they filmed a Brittney Spears video where a car goes into the pool??

This room was my favorite. Windows on all sides. (unfortunately some kind of rare taxidermied Toucan on the coffee table... oh and a stuffed peacock on the long table.) Click to see bigger

This is the room that was supposed to be really haunted. No one would use the facilities all day because they were afraid of something happening, like the bathtub mysteriously filling up with water. Creepy shadows...

Just happen to have a triceratops head in the study. Shot and killed that beast myself, that's right.

Melody Lingers On

I've been on a Roaring Twenties book binge this past week. I think this song perfectly fits the atmosphere. Elizaveta made this cover of an Irving Berlin song a few weeks ago. I really love it!

Two weeks in a van.

Here with a quick one two of pictures from the road. I apologize for my mediocre job of documenting. I dont know what got into me, usually I'm so thorough. I have some drawings and things, so I'll try to post those later. Anyway it was a fun run, Elizaveta sold out all of her shows in Boston, New York, DC, and Philly. We got to meet a lot of interesting characters, see some of the cities. I got to catch up with some of my closest friends. All in all it was a great two weeks.

A few highlights for me.

• First morning we ended up on WERS radio, that's Emerson College radio. I was amped, then disappointed, because my cousin who works there is studying abroad this semester. I would've loved to drop in on him unexpectedly. I did meet some of his radio comrades. 
• At the Boston show a woman who has been following Elizaveta's music and my artwork for a long time gave E and me the most beautiful engraved compasses. How did she know I love compasses? Serendipity. 
• The Boston opening act Sarah Rabdau and the Self-Employed Assassins did an amazing cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill. 
• I got to jam at Sheik's apartment. FYI I have carried my red uke on every flight in the past year as a extra extra bag and the TSA has overlooked it every time. Sneaky little thing. Not to mention when people handle it in the overheads they are so insanely careful not to damage it. To see it, touches my heart. 
• It was cold and rainy in New York so we bundled up and grabbed a coffee at one of Brooklyn's throwback cafes. Nothing beats that. Except coming in from the cold to Sheik's super comfy apartment. She's got style and a great view.
• The headdress I made looked fanastic at Joe's Pub with the lighting and backdrops. 
• E appeared on the East Village Radio show Belly of the Beast. The studio is a glass square right on the street with only enough room for a bench and a mixing table. We squeezed in out of the rain. You can listen here. I get .02 seconds of air time too. 
• In DC Rome's family surprised me by coming to the show. I love surprises. We had a great time laughing over very choice sushi. 
• My college roommate and closest thing to a sister came to the Philly show. I wish we lived closer together. 
• In Philly, we had so much fun listening to Jake Snider warm up in the back. He was really talented and friendly. (We talked all about having a shtick.) 
• On the way back to NYC, the bass player/tour manager (Tony Maceli) had us rolling in the floor with tales of his Sicilian parents. 
• In NYC again, E played at a private club that was attempting to set a mood with tons of tea candles. They sound checked and all was good. When they returned for the show, tea candles on a strange shoe sculpture were sitting on top of the piano. Halfway through the first piano-thundering song the candles came flying off the piano. It was a near miss with disaster. The dress could've easily gone up in flames. 
• On the way back to the hotel late one night, I heard the most incredible cellist on the subway. There is something about bass strings. I'm really happy Elizaveta tours with a double bass. It's my favorite instrument. 
• An invitation to a banquet show in Moscow came out of nowhere one afternoon. For the entire afternoon off, we were scrambling to get visas. Mine didn't workout, see you next time Russia. 
• Our plane was delayed on the way back to Los Angeles. As we were sitting on the plane we got a call about a show that night! So we flew back to LA, got off the plane, unpacked, dressed up, and went to another show. This one was in a swank restaurant in Beverly Hills. Incredibly glad to be home after that. I pity the insanely wealthy. They are as handicapped as the impoverished. 

on the road again

Taking to the sky once again and then to the van. We are riding around Boston, New York and Philadelphia this week and next in a white unmarked van, do not be alarmed.

Lhasa

This is the perfect music to brood to on a rainy day or reflect over when the world seems a grisly place. Some people say "listen to happy music to cheer yourself up," but I think it's more cathartic to listen to something somber.

I'm not feeling particularly somber today, just working and enjoying the simple strum of the guitar and Lhasa's soulful voice. (Well, this live performance has an upright bass -  yes!, and a harp!)

Sadly she died last January of breast cancer at only 37.

She embodied the kind of female spirit that I think we all admire: free, loving, creative. Her father was a photographer from Mexico and her mother was an artist. She grew up in gypsy fashion, traveling the US in the back of a converted school bus. She started singing from a young age, moved to Canada to be with her sister, released an album, quit music to join a theater company in France, then returned to recording. A short life, but a life well lived. Viva Lhasa!.

She has the sweetest smile. Doesn't she? Still inspiring from the other side. Viva Lhasa.

"an absolute legend.."

I have never seen an epic battle like this.
Two Chinese women’s volleyball teams duke it out like you won't believe.
from dailywh.at

More on Synesthesia

I read Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet last week. The reviews for it were outstanding so I was expecting something phenomenal that would blow my socks off with insight, but there weren't many. Most of his memoir was a play by play of his life up to the age of twenty-six. It was interesting, but not ground breaking. Many of his experiences, which he described as if they were unique to someone suffering from autism, could apply to any child who had a terrible time in school and didn't make friends easily. Not to take away from his experience, because there were parts that really grabbed my attention, but overall I wanted to learn more about his experience internally.

In 2004, he set a record by recounting the infinite number sequence of pi up to its 22,514 digit. The feat took five hours and nine minutes. Imagine reciting numbers from memory for five hours. Insanity. As I learned earlier from the documentary (and book), he actually doesn't recite from memory, he sees the familiar landscape of the numbers in his mind and recounts them by their visual properties. This is the reason I am so fascinated by his synesthesia. It all comes down to one questions: Are his visuals of the numbers simply his personal experience or is there a larger connection between what he is seeing and the true nature of numbers?

He began sensing these numbers before he had any preconceived notions about superstitions, mathematics, or religion. So when his descriptions align with commonly held beliefs about certain numbers, I have to wonder if this is more than coincidence. For example, he describes 3 as rounded just like pi, 6 as a hole or void as in the Bible, unlucky 13 as ugly, and the divine 333 as beautiful. Coincidence?

Drawings by Daniel Tammet

Here is a more complete list of his numeral descriptions:

• 1 is a blast of light.
• 2 is a movement from left to right.
• 3 is round and green
• 4 is shy and quiet and blue
• 5 is a loud sound like thunder clapping, yellow like lightening
• 6 is so small it seems like a void, a hard number to experience, like tiny black dots, without distinctive shapes or textures, like gaps or holes
• 9 is tall and imposing like a skyscraper, immense, blue
• 11 is friendly
• 25 is energetic and the "kind of number you would invite to a party"
• 37 is lumpy like porridge
• 23, 667, 1179 are big
• 6, 13, 581 are small
• 89 is like falling snow
• 117 is tall and lanky
• 289 is ugly
• 333 is beautiful
• Prime numbers are round like pebbles (2 , 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19,  23,  29, 31...)

Painting by Daniel Tammet of what two numbers look like multiplied. He sees the shape in between and recognizes it by its characteristics. That shape is a number. That number is the answer.