Amoeba is a fairly well known music store in Los Angeles, and as a budding record collector it definitely warranted itself a visit. My record collection is growing, but nowhere near rivals Dane's (in either quantity or quality. I'll admit it.). Amoeba is a massively huge warehouse-style store packed with records, cds, tapes, movies, and memorabilia.
I claimed the Bee Gee's "Odessa" in its velvet case as my own (and of course, Dane couldn't leave without a few records as well).
Amoeba is pretty cool place to spend a few hours browsing through records. I'd love to find a smaller record store, though, to frequent. Sometimes smaller places carry some true gems that are either considered worthless by larger stores like Amoeba. I also love the vibe of smaller record stores. If you have any local suggestions, send them my way!
I am feeling extremely inspired these days. I have been working a lot on a collection of movement pieces that I am planning to film, and I feel like I could write for days. What are "movement pieces" you may ask (cause everybody does ask me this)? To put it simply, they are stories I write that use movement instead of dialogue. Kind of a cross between untrained dance and a scene from a play. Most often, they are written to a song that inspires me through its lyrics or musical arrangement.
I started writing and performing movement pieces in college. The song in the above video, "Exactly" by Amy Steinberg, was the first one I performed. My wonderful, creative friend Kathleen created the idea for a directing project and let me run with it. The first one I wrote myself was to the song "Sweet Religion" by Imogen Heap. I loved that the pieces let me fully express a story in a more heightened, stylized manner, and I was hooked.
I am currently writing to "All That You Have Is Your Soul" by Tracey Chapman. I usually prefer to perform my pieces live, but I am thinking of doing little film shorts since producing theatre can be expensive by yourself. My ultimate goal, though, is to do a Night of Movement, performing an entire collection of my pieces.
Movement pieces aren't exactly a real thing--they fall somewhere between theatre, dance, and improvisation. But I kind of like that I have my own little art form. I liked that, in college, I was known for doing movement pieces. I don't know where they quite fit in with some of my other career goals yet. Since I am still inspired to create and perform them, I'll take it as a sign that I should still be writing these pieces without questioning their legitimacy too much.
**please note: these videos are not my own creations. You can find their original pages here and here.
I have a new friend. A Canon Powershot SX10 IS, to be exact. I am so, so excited to work on my photography skills with this excellent camera (but I know that I can't be lazy now and put up sub-par photos, blaming them on my point & shoot camera's limitations).
A lot of the plants in my neighborhood look like they belong in Jurassic Park.
Of course, I had to play with the settings and focus of my new friend.
And I had to get some shots of my favorite tree on the block--this spiny fellow:
Shall I end with a quintessential Southern California picture? I think I shall.
Yep, I'm still posting about that road trip I took in August/September.
You drive right into Grand Teton National Park when exiting Yellowstone. I wish I had a week to hike and camp there. The mountains were un-be-lievable. At one point I actually exclaimed, "I can't believe these peaks!!!"
I felt like I had stepped directly into Middle Earth's Misty Mountains (super nerdy reference).
I first saw these photographs by Pierre Debusschere over at Honestly, WTF and followed their link to and interview over at Bullet Magazine. Elle Fanning is one of my favorite current actors--I am always amazed by how normal she is. It seems popular for young celebrities these days to act moody, angsty, and "over it" as an attempt to seem cool. Based on interviews I've seen and read, Elle retains a genuine enthusiasm for her job which is hard to come by in Hollywood.
