Holla at a Baby Bat Embryo

Hi everybody! Here are some baby bat embryos I wanted to show you. Last night I woke myself up in the middle of the night to write down that their names are (l-r) "Simon, Esther and Peter," which is cute but kinda bullshit since it's obvious that baby bat embryos have no time for such frivolities as names. Anyway, these three lil guys are my FAVORITE! My friend Amanda recently posted this picture to my Facebook wall saying "i thought you'd be really into these bashful baby bats" which demonstrated a level of insight into my appreciation for the nontraditionally adorable that I found very impressive. And she was dead on: I am, in fact, really into these bashful baby bats. The cutest is a tie between Esther and Peter. Simon is a close second. 

-LJ

Everything I Love About Korea As I Know It

Some things about the Universe, Korea, and me (Laura Jane Faulds):

1) It is VERY important to the Universe that I understand:

“Korea exists.”

2) It is very important to the Universe that I know the maximum amount of information that a person who is not Korean and does not live in Korea could possibly know about Korea. 

3) The Universe has spent the past few years of my life going very far out of its way to ensure that I interact with Korean culture multiple times per day every day 

4) and I get it. 

5) I get it, Universe- 

6) KOREA!

BY LJ (ILLUSTRATION BY JEN)

1. FRIED RICE

I’ve lived in Koreatown for three years and five months, not counting the nine months I didn’t live in Koreatown- a terrible nine months. But the Universe, like I said, is a little bit obsessed with making sure I'm kept as close to Korea as a Canadian can be, and so the Universe brought me back. Pulled me back. To the exact same street I lived on in the first place, my beautiful & beloved Palmerston Boulevard. I swore to myself on the first day I moved back here I'd never stop being grateful for this street and it still blows my mind that I didn't. 

I didn’t care very much about Koreatown the first time I lived in Koreatown. There was one Korean stationary store I used to frequent because Korean stationary is neat and beautiful but I barely ever ate Korean food because I spent most of my first round of living in Koreatown either vegan or vegetarian or anorexic and Korean cuisine isn't one that caters to any of those things. Thank God by the end of Koreatown Round 1 I'd graduated to “pescatarian” or whatever you call it and there was this one night I was wearing all grey. I was wearing pale grey men’s lace-ups with grey cableknit stockings and this grey plaid dress I eventually threw out because it bummed me out too hard to wear something so GREY and a grey men’s overcoat and it was November, the greyest month of the year. It was the greyest weather, rainy, out, and I wanted to eat something I’d never eaten. So I stopped into Ka Chi, the Korean restaurant at the corner of my street, and ordered shrimp fried rice and it was special. There was something very special about that rice.

To Anthony On His 50th Birthday

BY LIZ

This is Anthony. He turns 50-years-old today; he's been on this Earth for half a century now. I started loving him when I was 13, which is definitely one of the best decisions I ever made as a teenager/human being. Here are four things I'm going to do to celebrate Anthony's birthday:

i. NOT GO OUT WITH ANY NUMBSKULLS WHO ARE DUMB ABOUT MY LOVING THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS. Dudes who try to talk me out of loving the Red Hot Chili Peppers are my worst thing. It's crazy but it happens all the time -- the arrogance of that! The last one was a guy I dated over the summer; his main argument against the Red Hot Chili Peppers is Anthony takes his shirt off too much. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU CARE IF ANTHONY TAKES HIS SHIRT OFF????", I should have shouted, and then flipped the table over at stupid Geisha House. That guy was smart and smart men have some idea that I should be too smart for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I'm not. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are so smart and I'm so smart too and we're all so smart together, in that fun chill way where you don't have to go around jerking yourself off on your own cleverness all the time.

But then dumb guys are dumb about my loving the Red Hot Chili Peppers too. There was this one a few years ago and when I told him the Red Hot Chili Peppers were my favorite band he was all, "Oh and you looooooove Anthony," teasing me, like he had me all figured out. I mean, yeah, I love Anthony, but not exactly for the reasons you'd think. I don't love him cuz he's jacked and a "sex god" or whatever, I don't even love him because he's troubled and tragic sometimes. I love him because he's a lover of life and he looks like a princess, or he did when he was younger at least, and he's endearingly vain and has cool/bonkers style and a really great lisp. And he's so fucking funny -- I feel really connected to his sense of humor and think we'd probably be best friends if we knew each other in this lifetime (me + Scorpios = deep, deep pals). Plus you can tell he's a moody motherfucker and that's kinda hot. Tempestuousness is all right by me.

ii. LISTEN TO THE TALKING HEADS. I picked that picture above because I found Anthony's look kind of exciting: a sleeveless Talking Heads shirt is such a good call. Anthony loves the Talking Heads; he inducted them into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and last night I watched his speech for the first time since it aired and it's so sweet. He says how one of the things that made him love the Talking Heads when he was 15 was that they made him feel smart. He also said how they made him want to have sex with a lot of librarians, which got big laughs, but I bet he was super-serious. One thing I treasure about Anthony is he's thoughtful about music and about how music changes you and elevates you. I started being really passionate about loving music when I started loving the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and being really passionate about music has shaped my life in a pretty major and positive way. So hey thanks, Anthony, I love you, you're cool.

iii. GO TO THE FARMERS MARKET/DO WHAT I LOVE FOREVER. Recently I started going to Farmers Market (the "original" Farmers Market, 3rd & Fairfax) about four times a week to work and/or write. Before sitting down to work and/or write I go to the coffee stand across from the donut place and get a big iced coffee; sometimes I also get a big Pink Lady apple from the fruit stand, or an ice cream or a Jam Crumble Bar, or -- if it's lunch time -- a giant bowl of tofu bibimbap. It's so good. Such good vibes at the original Farmers Market. Last week when I was there I saw Flea's ex-wife Frankie and their little daughter Sunny holding hands and that was really adorable. 

Farmers Market is the first place I ever saw Anthony around town, when he and his babymama serendipitously sat beside me and my friends at the community table near the restaurant where Anthony likes to get gumbo. I started going there in the first place because I'd read about eight zillion interviews in which the Red Hot Chili Peppers talk about how it's one of their favorite places in L.A. It's one of my favorite places now too, so it was smart of me to start going there all the time instead of just every few months or so. One of the best things I learned in 2012 is to not "save" good things for the moments when you feel like you've earned them -- you should just do the things that make you feel good all of the time. It's kinda like the part in Rushmore when Max says you have to find something you love and just do it forever. The intersection of Wes Anderson and Anthony is where I exist.

iv. LISTEN TO THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS. I know I'm getting out of balance when I haven't listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in a long time, or even thought about listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That hardly ever happens anymore, though --  I bet I hear at least one Red Hot Chili Peppers song a day, and it keeps me on my toes. Excepting a chunk of years in the mid- to late-'90s when I and they lost our respective ways, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have never made me feel worse about the world. They're my favorite band mainly because most of their songs sound really beautiful to me, they make me happy and sad and stoked about life, about being alive. They're also my favorite band because they think they're so fucking great and I'm way into that. They one thousand percent believe they were put on this Earth to do something wonderful, and they really try to fulfill that, and sometimes they succeed, and that means so much to me. I am so excited by people who try, and fuck up a lot, and keep going and going and going, and sometimes it all just works out so good.

I bet I'll listen to this song at least three times today:

Our Favorite Witches in Rock & Roll, Cinema, Books & Real Life

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! (FROM JEN MAY & ELIZABETH BARKER)

i. MARY TIMONY (LIZ)

One of my favorite Mary Timony songs lately is "I'm a Witch," from the Superball EP by Helium; it contains the line "Did I tell you I'm not your bitch on loan?" which is a lyric that used to mean a lot to me and sometimes still does. After that line Mary sings the words "I'm a witch, an ugly hag, a crone" and part of me's like "LIAR, you're the prettiest girl in the world!", but I'm also into it. Superball/The Dirt of Luck-era Mary Timony is Mary Timony at her witchiest: she sings about skies and moons and dead things and black lakes and Satan and stars, always sounding like she's casting spells. She's neither a good witch nor a bad witch; she's just the dreamiest witch of all.

ii. CHER IN THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (JEN)

I don’t completely love The Witches of Eastwick, but I do love Cher. I wish The Witches of Eastwick could be a different movie without Jack Nicholson. It would be amazing. Still, we must accept the reality of the situation and just appreciate what we have here – a movie where Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon are witches together. Yes, we have to sit through all the repulsive Jack sex stuff (I really can’t stand him), but we also get that scene where the witches are literally standing over a cauldron together and sticking pins into a voodoo doll of Gross Jack. Thank you pre-Christian goddesses for granting me this.  It’s also worth mentioning that for a brief period of time Cher wears my ideal outfit in this movie. If I had these pants I would wear this everyday.

iii. POLLY HARVEY ON IS THIS DESIRE? (LIZ)

Is This Desire? is the witchiest PJ Harvey record, and "Catherine" is the witchiest song on Is This Desire?

My favorite place to listen to it is this road that leads from the woods to the ocean in a town called Avila Beach, on the Central Coast of California. One time I was there early in the morning in late October and the light was creepy-blue and the trees were bare and there were so many spiderwebs spun between the branches. I walked up a big hill and thought of some story Polly Harvey told in a magazine once, about being a girl and wandering through the hillsides in Dorset or wherever and happening upon the remnants of some satanic ritual. I feel like there was a dead goat in her story, but I might be making that up. I hope there was a dead goat.  

iv. THE WITCH ON THE COVER OF BLACK SABBATH (JEN)

The album cover to Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath is hauntingly beautiful. It’s kind of perfect. It is so scary! It is so lovely! OK, so it’s not 100% certain that the figure on the cover is a witch, but…come on. It is. If you play the song “Black Sabbath” from Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath you invoke that witch and she gets you super stoned.

Four Scorpios in Spooky Salem

 (BY JEN, PHOTOS BY JEN MAY & REGINA BOUGUYON)

Earlier this month I spent a weekend in Salem, Massachusetts with 3 other Scorpios. We arrived in town just your average Scorps looking to have an autumnal witchy weekend and left full on Wiccans with A LOT of candles, sage, witchcraft books, hats, pentagrams, bookmarks, pencils, mugs and anything else you can put an image of a witch on.  Here is my "Photo Essay" to help get you in the Halloween mood, despite being trapped inside by the Frankenstorm (if you happen to be on the east coast, of course.)

We stayed in this beautiful purple house.

We made dinner there & drank pumpkin beers.

This is at a sports bar called The Witches Brew. I drank a martini called the Witch's Kettle and couldn't finish it because it was so potent with witch alcohol.

Thing of the Week: Dub From The Roots & The Roots Of Dub, 'Paris, Texas,' Being In Love With Paul Westerberg

LJ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Dub from the Roots and The Roots of Dub by King Tubby

There's no way to tell it any better than how it tells itself. This song, from Dub from the Roots, is called "Double Cross," and I wish I could know how to describe what my own face looked like the first time I heard it but, sadly, you rarely get to see your own face. But I know what I felt, and I know my face did a crazy thing and my heart did a crazy thing and I had to stop walking for a second and stand outside a Starbucks pretending I was contemplating buying a coffee (I bought a coffee) and then the whole bit ended with me grinning wildly at a stranger walking a dog (a skinny beagle-mix in a plaid jacket) like because he was walking a dog and dogs are beautiful and good and I was listening to THIS SONG for the first time we were in on some sort of secret relating to the beauty of the Universe together. 

I guess it must have been a look of "elated surprise/ semi-religious hysteria." 

 

I think that what I love most about is dub is how it is like a story. The songs meander; you never know what's going to happen next. It feels like things are moving forward instead of back inside themselves like pop songs, verse/chorus/verse. I love how every single song on Roots of Dub has the word "dub" in the title, like a Solex or Delia Derbyshire album. This next one's called "Dub You Can Feel" and it's quiet, but he's right- I definitely feel it. I've been brought to tears by music more times this week than I have any other week of my life, possibly. 

My new self-reflective thing I like to think about is "being the dub version of myself"- like I used to be the regular song, but now I'm Laura Jane Dub, The Dub of Me. The words I most closely associate with dub are subtle, weird, and cerebral- I think that exclusively listening to dub is making me a smarter and chiller human on the whole/real, and more than anything I think I'm in so in love with dub because loving dub means that I'm capable of loving dub, that I'm beyond being buoyed by melody and flash, two great loves of my life which I now keep finding myself thinking are "trite," which sounds so lamely judgy of me, but fuck it. I'm not going to lamely judge myself for thinking something I'm naturally thinking is lamely judgy just because it happens to sound like something a person I no longer am would have thought sounded like something it isn't. Oh my God. I'm just so fucking happy to be alive.

JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK: Paris, Texas

I watched Paris, Texas this week for the first time. I loved it. I actually fell asleep during the hugely major confessional scene at the end. You know, just what the entire movie was building up to, no big deal. I was really tired, OK? I re-watched the last half hour the next day and have been thinking about it all week.  Walking onto the subway and just being struck by the heart breaking sadness & beauty of the film. Sitting on a couch thinking about how Nastassja Kinski is my current style ideal in it. I want to get giant cardigans and wear them backwards. Probably Netflix would categorize it as “Visually Striking”, because it’s really striking visually.  The landscape and the colors are gorgeous and super American (though it was made my Europeans, I know!). K, I’m going to go walk in a straight line at a slow pace, drink coffee, and cry thinking about it all.

LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Being In Love With Paul Westerberg 

I stopped being obsessed with the Replacements for like three days and then Wednesday night I went to Verdugo Bar and wore my Replacements shirt with my fake-leopard-fur coat and drank some pumpkin beer and went home and slept and had a great dream. In the dream I lived in a loft that was in the middle of a parking garage, and the Replacements all lived in the actual garage, in the concrete stairwells, like stowaways. I was going home to my loft and ran into Paul Westerberg from 1984 and he asked if I wanted to hang out and I said yeah. So we went to my loft and climbed to the top bunk of my bunk bed and Paul had a guitar and was all, "I wrote a new song, wanna hear?" and then he started playing me "Unsatisfied." I helped him with the lyrics and wrote the lines "Everything goes/Well, anything goes/All of the time" (whoa, so good!) and this magic thing happened where we turned into a movie and real "Unsatisfied" started playing and we fooled around and it was beautiful. Then it was the next morning and we were going to breakfast and Paul put some beer in my bag to sneak at the restaurant. When we got to the restaurant there was a TV above our table and the Jeff Goldblum PayPal ad was on and we watched it and I loved it. Then I woke up and listened to "Treatment Bound" a bunch and now I'm 100 percent still obsessed with the Replacements. I love the Replacements and I'm in love with Paul Westerberg, even though in the dream he had these weirdly small hands.

Paul Simonon, The Skinnier Crayolas, and Dreadnought Volumes 1-3

Here is a picture of Paul Simonon's tape collection. Paul Simonon, if you don't know, is the bass player of The Clash. He is a very beautiful human being, and the last four letters of his last name are a real good time to type. 

Obviously it's really cute to imagine Paul Simonon lazing around his apartment or backstage/ whatevs painstakingly/adorably coloring in the spines of his wonderful homemade tape collection, intuitively understanding why the essence of dub is most clearly represented by the colors blue and purple. But the real unsung hero of making up fake daydreams pertaining to Paul Simonon's tape collection is imagining Paul Simonon BUYING THE MARKERS. 

Can you imagine??? This death-defyingly good-looking punk rock angel-hunk venturing out of his gnarly Clash apartment on a grey London afternoon with the sole intention of purchasing a pack of felt-tip markers so he can color in the spines of his Dreadnought mixes, volumes 1 through 3. Paul Simonon loping up to the cash register at an art supply store grasping a couple packs of the skinnier Crayolas, reeking of cigarette smoke, digging through his back pockets for wads of cash and loose change, Paul Simonon counting change, Paul Simonon OWNING THE MARKERS. Paul Simonon walking home holding two packs of markers. "Whatcha got there, Paul?" "Oh, just some new markers." The markers spilled out all over his coffee table or whatever his Clashy approximation of a coffee table was- stacked up milk crates, or just the floor. Paul Simonon sprawled out on a hardwood floor coloring! And did the tapes have covers, too? Are the spines only the tip of the Paul Simonon-cassette-marker iceberg? I remember being a kid and if you left your markers out for too long the tips would start to bubble out and get kind of a leprosy effect going on. I want to know if that ever happened to Paul Simonon's markers. I want to know everything in the world about Paul Simonon's relationship with his box of markers and I want to hear every song on every reggae mix Paul Simonon ever made.

-LJ