French Day!

Changing of the Guards

Everything is changing. For the good. For the bad. I can never tell. It seems the same, but it's different.

Everyday we meet people. And everyday we are never the same because of what we learn from people. It's not drastic, but rather the little things. Things you never mind on a day to day basis. Until one day, after a certain time, a certain accumulation, you realize everything has changed.

It makes me sad, but hopeful at the same time.

I look at my friends and see what kind of people we've become. What different lives we're living. What different perspectives we're seeing.

It amazes me how much little time can do to alter a person. To become the persons we are all now. And in another year or two, we are different persons yet again.

When summer no longer means what it once meant. The carefree joy of loving a youthful life. When summer becomes the realization that everything changes. No matter how hard you try to hold on to it. To keep it, until you realize that it's not the same and the only thing left is for you to accept it and move on and hope...

In chromosome 2, locus 12... there is a gene called LRRTM1 that determines handedness. Left handedness to be exact. It also is correlated to Schizophrenia. Now I wonder, do all left handed artists have this gene? Without it, will creativity exist? If you mute it, can you eradicate art?

Which brings me to the question of genetics. Back in my mother's time and my grandmother's time, Catholic nuns would correct the lefties and force them to be right handed. I heard that it was even considered evil... just like the red heads. Now, there is a medical program more popularly known as designer babies in which parents can pick which genes to pass on to their children. Mutation, to simply put it.

Now how do you handle these two extremes? You've got the Church stating that we are the children of god. And then you've got Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in which genetics eradicates the humanity in humans.

Again, you've got the Church manually correcting the lefties and then you've got these designer babies being artificially corrected.

So my question is... WHATS THE DIFFERENCE?

no! ...No! ...NO! ...NO!! ...NO!!!

Summer Camp

Summer Camp - Ghost Train (viral) from Paddy Power on Vimeo.

I'm Swedish...

This is the last project I worked on for Cool Hunt and it actually got published in Epicure Magazine It has been a great run and I've learned so much from Cat and Dana, the coolest editors you can ever have.

This is the only published article I've written that isn't translated in Chinese, Japanese or Korean. So it's pretty awesome to be able to read it. (ego boosters and all)

And if anyone asks... YES! I've been to Stockholm! I'm actually local... YAH!

Sweets and Bottega

You might not know, but I used to write... properly commercial mind you. I wrote these articles last year and apparently got published just recently in Self China.

Bottega Louie is probably my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles because if you were in town, I would definitely take you there.

Sweets for the Soul is a shop specializing in brownies. Not just any brownies... SUPER BROWNIES!!! Sadly, it's not a sit in shop, but rather more focused on private orders and special events. Lily LaBonge (Yes the same Tom LaBonge set on destroying the Los Angeles food trucks) owns it. But please don't let that fact discourage you from ordering brownies from this lady. I would hate for you to miss out on those HOTTER SHOTS!

Lets take a BATHS

STUPOR from BATHS on Vimeo.

Summer is life without growth

I usually dislike the summer season because...

1. It is hot

2. It is too sunny

3. It is life without growth... according to Eleanor Savage

But Andrea and another blogger made me realize I should be a lot more tolerant.

I went biking yesterday and it made me thankful that I live in Los Angeles (Torrance), despite the fact that I hate a lot of things about it.

Cliff Diving

So yeah... that's what we did last week.

Chikkin Scratch

Handwriting is jewelry fashioned by the hand from the pure gold of intellect.

GO BLACKHAWKS

I have never felt such pure joy in my life (recently) until the Blackhawks won. It was my first Stanley Cup and my team actually won. How much of a hockey fan am I? Well lets just say I sharpied a beard and then ran around in my undies at UCLA with war paint on my face, Blackhawks across my chest, my husband Mr. Sharp number 10 on my belly (NOT ABS!!!) and a tattoo on my arm that reads NIEMI SAYS NO! Oh yes and A BEARD!!!

Just because I'm not in Chicago doesn't mean I can't have my own celebratory Blackhawks parade. And YES! I did walk around LA with this beard. WHAT?! Suck my tit!

in a surrender more violent than her own struggle

"What do you want?"
"You know what I want."
"Yes. But I want to hear you say it. All of it."
"I want to sleep with you. Now. Tonight. And at anytime you may care to call me. I want your naked body, your skin, your mouth, your hands. I want you like this--not hysterical with desire--but coldly and consciously--without dignity and regrets--I want you--I have no self-respect to bargain with me and divide me --I want you like an animal, or a cat on a fence, or a whore.
I hate you for what you are, for wanting you, for having to want you. I'm going to fight you--and I'm going to destroy you--and I tell you this as calmly as I told you that I'm a begging animal. I'm going to pray that you can't be destroyed--I tell you this, too--even though I believe nothing and have nothing to pray to. But I will fight to block every step you take. I will fight to tear every change you want away from you. I will hurt you through the only thing that can hurt you--through your work. I will fight to starve you, to strangle you on the thing you won't be able to reach. I have done it to you today--and that is why I shall sleep with you tonight.
I have hurt you today. I'll do it again. I'll come to you whenever I have beaten you--whenever I know that I have hurt you--and I'll let you own me. I want to be owned, not by a lover, but by an adversary who will destroy my victory over him, not with honorable blows, but the the touch of his body on mine. That is what I want of you. That is what I am. You wanted to hear it all. You've heard it. What do you wish to say now?"
"Take off your clothes."

...

"You worked in that quarry when you had the Enright House in you, and many other Enright Houses, and you were drilling granite like a..."
"You're going to weaken in a moment, Dominique, and then you'll regret it tomorrow."
"Yes."
"You're very lovely, Dominique."
"Don't."
"You're lovely."
"Roark, I... I'll still want to destroy you."
"Do you think I would want you if you didn't"
"Roark..."
"Do you want to hear that again? Part of it? I want you, Dominique. I want you. I want you."
"I..."
"No, not yet. You won't say that yet. Go to sleep."
"Here? With you?"
"Here. With me. I'll fix breakfast for you in the morning. Did you know that I fix my own breakfast. You'll like seeing that. Like the work in the quarry. Then you'll go home and think about destroying me. Good night, Dominique."

2.7.273

D.M. Francon

She did not belong in this room, at this meeting. He could not say why, but the certainty of it was enormous and oppressive. It was not her beauty, it was not her insolent elegance. But something made her an outsider. It was as if they had all been comfortably naked, and a person had entered fully clothed, suddenly making them self-conscious and indecent. Yet she did nothing She sat listening attentively. Once, she leaned back, crossing her legs, and lighted a cigarette. She school the flame off the match with a brusque little jerk of her wrist and she dropped the match into the ash tray; he felt as if that movement of her wrist had tossed the match into all their faces.

2.5.247

ADV < $10

It has been a while since I've been on an adventure. The day started with a little text of boredom in a MAC lab and the rest was history. We hit The Shire with a hike up Los Feliz, found a cafe in the middle of the "forest", walked down Vermont and made fun of hipsters while we ate falafel at El Greco, then hit Silverlake for the workout of the year to finish it off with a railway ride on Bunker Hill.