the age of wonderment.

There was a dreamcatcher making night over at Jane's. So many! So pretty! And ahem, what an...interesting juxtaposition there is in this picture.

Mine above my bed.


Keeping all the bad ones out and the good ones through. Although I have been having super deep sleeps lately and can't remember any of my dreams.

Apparently dreamcatchers aren't supposed to last forever. Being made out of twigs and yarn, they dry up and fall apart. They're supposed to protect children from nightmares until they grow into "the age of wonderment".

That sounds nice. "The age of wonderment". Dear dreamcatchers above my bed: Please see me through until then! (Which I am guessing is now).

Glorious Pizza Party

So everyone who reads this blog probably already knows about Glorious Pizza Party and how it's a pizza blog that I do with Jane and that it's us having a pizza party every week. BUT! You should go over there again and take a look cauuuuuseeee, the banner Jane made (out of real tomato paste and flash!) is cool and also the background with the pizza and party hats is really cool too and they're both new and probably weren't there the last time you were.

And until you go over there, here's some pizzas we made:



GLORIOUS PIZZA PARTY!

A Most Curious Event

Poster design I did for Curious Oyster Catering Company for their upcoming event, A Most Curious Event at Olla Flowers. It sounds like it's going to be a really nice night, flowers everywhere, and oysters! Gawd, since becoming a vegetarian, I have really singled out the meats that I miss, and oysters is definitely one of them. I could eat dozens in one sitting and not feel disgusting. I'll probably cave at this event and eat a bunch - JOIN ME!

Ahem, the invites:


If you want to go, RSVP at curiousoystercatering@gmail.com!

Speaking of curious things, get a load of this punch that I bought to cut out the circles for the invites:

Whooaaaaa, isn't this thing the funniest/craziest? So massive for doing one task. But I gotta say, this thing, it has a LIFETIME WARRANTY and has the "Ease-of-use Commendation" by the Arthritis Foundation. This thing punches like a dream, I have never had so much satisfaction/fun from making circles out of paper.

!!

Someone give me a project that needs 2 inch circles, I've got just the thing.

Teepee

Jane made a cat teepee for her cat Dig Dug. I helped her paint a bit of it. I really like it! Dig Dug seems to be kind of scared/not into it, but I'm sure he'll come around. I mean...look at it. There's talk of there also being a dream catcher in there. I'd be totally there if I was that cat.

Aw.

a start - a forest.

Jane and I were eating pizza the other day and decided we were going to start our foray into filmmaking by making a small video demonstrating how one of her brother's projects, Nut-apult works. We don't know anything about filmmaking. We both took that class at Emily Carr, something about design and media - where you have to make a video and neither of us remember what programs we used to edit the video. Imovie?! All I remember is my video was about Tobias getting eaten by a duvet and I got a good grade for it. I also remember the teacher commenting how it was very early Peter Jackson. Oh teacher, you are too nice.

I was most excited about hanging out in a bunch of trees and cracking nuts.

So we went to Pacific Spirit Park (ps, whoa that place is so cool! Weird/creepy mushrooms everywhere, so many dogs, and TREES!):



We're also planning to maybe make a little song to go with it. Using this:

STAY TUNED!

Fish Bowl

Ken Tsui and Alex Dadzis are putting on another dinner, a seafood one at Gene Cafe on November 18th and 19th! Go! Even if you don't like seafood, I think they'll convince you otherwise. Contact them at ludzuxiexie@gmail.com to reserve your spot or ask questions about the sea!

Here's the poster and ticket design I did for it:


The sea!

The Game of Kings

Watched this documentary the other night:

Bobby Fischer Against the World.

The story of Bobby Fischer is such an interesting, captivating, and somewhat cautionary tale. A kid from Brooklyn that starts playing chess at the age of 6, clearly a prodigy, studies it obsessively, destroys chess masters from Russia at a young age, wins the world championship at the age of 29, then stops playing chess at the height of his level, disappears for years and becomes a crazy recluse Anti-American and Anti-Semite (seriously crazy) and ends up and dies in Iceland.





The documentary told the story of Fischer really well (although there were some cheesy unnecessary visual effects acting as chapter breaks). It talked about how Fischer really revolutionized the game of chess not just in terms of play, but bringing it to the mainstream and popularizing it. There are such funny people in the chess world with the strangest mannerisms and it just made the documentary even more entertaining to watch. And there were just so many little things in this documentary that made it so great - the interviewees, the incidents, discussion of the chess plays and everyone was just so into it and it's like, man chess is so cool.

I'm so awful at chess. It is in the truest sense of the word, a game. And I get too nervous, too self conscious, too thoughtful in all the wrong ways that I can't think clearly. One time a friend said I could have used these mannerisms of mine to my advantage - as part of my game. But I can't do that either, I can only play in my nervous and transparent way - and man it is so bad.

I'd like to be better at it though, so uh, who wants to play me? I'm going to study youtube videos in the mean time, so watch out!

At the very least.

So here begins my foray into seeing what I can do with my hands.

I took a moccasin making workshop over at Blim last weekend, kind of on a whim, I saw it randomly, thought it was cool and signed up right away. We didn't really get much done in the class, only a 1/4 of one shoe in 4 hours! (When I signed up, I thought 4 hours was way too long, psh). When I got home, I was obsessed and couldn't stop working on them until I was finished. My hands were in pain (pushing a small needle through leather many, many times takes its toll) but I just couldn't stop. Moccasin making is tedious, it's just making sure you poke a bunch of holes your thread can go through and sewing it altogether. But it was enjoyable and I have a new appreciation for shoe making and I totally understand why Daniel Day Lewis went to be an apprentice for a shoemaker in Italy, I would/want to do the same thing.

I am also learning how to sew. I successfully made throw pillows (I CAN SEW A STRAIGHT LINE NOW! I was elated when I did this, because until then, I was hopeless with a sewing machine). I can't tell you enough how nice it is to learn a new skill, even if it's small and almost a given/basic to some people - because at the very least, you know something new, even if it's not immediately useful and beneficial.

Awhile ago I had this urge to go into Loomis and I somehow ended up at the discount bin for wooden beads and was like, oh cool, let's buy these and paint them. And here they are:


Ones I really like:



And my most favorite:

When I was painting these, I was like, man, what am I doing painting beads for. And it felt kind of dumb. But seeing them altogether, it's like, oh Ellen you're so hard on yourself and if painting beads makes you happy, then that's okay.

Because at the very least, they're pretty things to look at.

And I like this whole having whims and pursuing them thing.

DOO WOP.

Man I love this song. I love when he yells "I'm in love" at the end. Oh I believe you.

I think what's also nice about this song is how I found it. I was at work listening to another album and before I had time to change to something else, this came on (the itunes library is full of songs from past people who have worked on my computer). And it was just so good and I was alone in the office and listening to it loud on a Sunday night. If I hadn't been listening to that certain album and hadn't had just let all the music play, I would not have found the song. At least that's what I think. It's nice to know small, nice, unexpected things come and that I can, haha enjoy them when they do.

I'm in love I'm in love I'm in love.

VIFF '11

Another year of the Vancouver International Film Festival. I felt like I saw a lot more duds than goods. My VIFF choosing game is totally off. Before I forget what I watched and what I felt, here are the films I watched:

Intense relationship film that makes you never want to cheat on your boyfriend/significant other, even if the person you're cheating with is hot and besides, why cheat on Seth Rogen. Also reminds you not to confuse lust and the excitement of something new and different with love.

Think of every French art film cliche and put it all in this movie - melancholy, over wrought drama over nothing, blank stares, young spoiled rich people being activists and academics. I couldn't wait to get out of the virtually empty theater.

Fell asleep. This may have had to do with watching this film after work. But it also may have a lot to do with me not knowing at all who the author W.G. Sebald is and as a result, not really being at all interested in what was being said. Why did I buy tickets to this film then? Because the director had done this really great documentary on Joy Divison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2v4UwEiO-g that I thought that regardless of me not knowing who Sebald was, that it would have been interesting enough that it wouldn't have mattered. Bummer, not the case. I had also read that this film was visually beautiful. Lies.

Really engaging documentary about food waste in the western world. It made me want to join a CSA (where you go to farms like say, UBC Farms each week and pick up a box of produce - you don't get to choose the produce, but it's seasonal and cool). And have bees. My only thing is that I felt like the documentary could have gone so much deeper, it did a very surface level explanation of what was going on, but I felt like more connections could have been made. But I can see how complicated and hard that is to convey in a short amount of time because the problem is so vast and intricate. My other complaint would be that a teenage girl pulled out her iPhone during the film and proceeded to play several different games before someone got up and told her to put it away.

I thought this would be one of the better films I'd see at VIFF. The film looks good, but everything else about it was terrible. Having weird overly sexual scenes where it didn't even feel sexual anymore - just awkward and painful to watch.

So stoked on Steve Nash. I like multi-talented people. Two time MVP who made his own documentary, read Naomi Klein's "No Logo", skateboards around, and has a bunch of fitness centers. Steve Nash!

Documentary that follows the tour that had Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Vetiver before they got really popular. Every night they play a final jam altogether at the end of the show (the family jam) and it made me think about how I used to long to go on tour when I was in high school and I imagined it being more or less like this.

EL BULLI. First off, whoa El Bulli employs a lot of good looking chefs. Anyways. Ferran Adria explained that what they are more interested in El Bulli is the emotional aspect of food, and creating something different, innovative, and revelatory in that sense. And it made me realize that that is what I want for myself and what ever I do.

Cat's Cradle

Cat's cradle explorations:

Text from this: http://blog.pictorymag.com/post/10606633545/the-night-was-young-and-so-was-i-the-lights-were

Fly South

Poster I did for Ken Tsui and Alex Dadzis. They are putting on a really nice long table autumn celebration dinner that is fittingly called Fly South (which I kind of would like to do right now, anyone who wants to come is welcome). There will be local oysters, smoked duck, beets, and other nice goods to welcome fall with. Go! I would but James Blake calls. Oh and if you're a vegetarian, they've got some options for you as well, so don't be shy!

Email flysouthsupper@gmail.com to book your seat!

a reminder:

It's always hard to remember that the end of something is the start of an opportunity. And that it's from there where you see what you're made of and that discomfort will make you something more if you try.

Thanks summer, twas swell. Hello fall, hope you're glad to see me.

Hi, Paris:

Been busy and away.

But here I am and here is what I've been doing:

I just got back from a month long trip to Europe. Went to 3 places (or 4 if you want to be really detailed), Sète, Paris, Switzerland, and London.

Sète:



Went to Sète to see a music festival with Tom.

Then we went to Paris.

Saw things in Paris:


This was a strange piece, it was a video of a woman stroking a sleeping black man's face.

Went to the tennis museum and learned that whenever Rafael Nadal comes to the French Open, that he must spend a day in Disneyland Paris. Also learned that tennis museums in Paris (well there's only actually one) are art museums (there was a jazz photography exhibition going on at the same time - huh? It was nice though).

Oh look that guy with the glasses is looking at me. We were in Paris for Bastille day and ate mexican and watched the fireworks by the eiffel tower for like 10 minutes.

Walked around a lot. This is probably us trying to look for Jim Morrison's grave in Père Lachaise and not finding it after walking in the opposite direction a couple of times. When we did find it, it was, haha, a grave that didn't really live up to its hype (like...at all). Although it had a small fence.

A lot of nice window displays in Paris. This is for a store that sells candles. And candles only. The long ones (which, are people really even that into?) It's amazing/nice that these kind of stores can exist in Paris...and that these people can also take a summer vacation.

This kid.

This was across from that really famous falafel place, L'as du Fallafel. I was standing in a big line waiting for falafel (THAT HAS EGGPLANT! Okay, falafels should always have eggplants in it) and even though this place has the most charming sign (but I guess not charming enough because I, haha, went to L'as du Fallafel like 3 more times while I was in Paris and never decided to try this place, even though it was right across the street and the same price), they didn't have nearly as big as a line, or even any line at all sometimes. I'd be so bummed if I was that owner. Or maybe it isn't as bad as I think and they get a lot of business because of L'as du Fallafel. Anyways.

Ate a lot of good things:

Paris consisted of me just basically starting my day by finding a restaurant I heard about and from there, walk around (most likely to a bakery or chocolate store or an insanely over priced clothing store) and walk around some more and then go to a park and sit. ha. It was really nice. Honestly.

Went to Rose Bakery. I hate to say this because I really enjoy the cookbook (although, admittedly, I haven't really even cooked much from the cookbook, I like looking at it more than I do cooking from it), but the place is kind of overrated. I am sure there are a lot of things that make it great, especially if you live in Paris, it's a nice break from all the heavy food and is unpretentious and all that, but I dunno, it was whatever. Although I am sure if I go back to Paris, I'd probably go back there anyways, cause you know, soft spot and all.

This dessert was out of control. An apricot tart with caramel sauce. Two favorite things. Together. On this plate. Yeesh.


I, haha, realize I didn't really eat much french food while in Paris. And that's okay.

What I really loved about Paris and got to do more of this time that I didn't last time I visited, was to just take it more easy and actually sit in a park - for a long period of time (like long enough to take a nap and then some kind of long). And there's so many! And they're all so nice and I wish there were more parks here in Vancouver. Serious lacking of good parks here.

What's missing in this picture? Me in a rowboat on this river. Tom and I had gotten to this park and went there to go hang out and go rowboating (I think Tom only agreed to because we had gone to the Tennis museum before this). When we got to the park, we were at the opposite end of where you rent the rowboats, and we walked for about 45 minutes before finally getting to the spot to find out, oh bummer, we're closed. Oh well.



haha.

Oh Paris I hope I see you soon. It was really nice.

People ask me why I like Paris so much. And I couldn't really say. Other than that I did and it felt good to be there. My answer is a bit more defined now. Paris is what results between the new and old coming together, and I like that result. I also like that it is a place that appreciates leisure, that celebrates it and thinks you're kind of weird if you don't.

Ha hrm I don't think that really explains much either.

Anyways.