Flavor In Your Ear

It's been too long since I've shared with you some of the sites that I've been obsessing over. Now that my RSS reader is well organized, I can blow through my feeds super fast but these gems below I always take the time to really appreciate and go over. Hope you like'em.

[Caits Meissner]
A poet, a writer, an artist, a teacher, a designer, a musician, a performer, an inspiration, and sort of just, everything. I could try to explain to you who Caitlin Meissner is but I don't have the words. So here's her Tumblr about page with links to her various projects and archives of past blogs. I've spent a good amount of time this summer digging through those links and it's all great stuff. Her main site is here and there's links to all her creations, events, and a video of her talking about her newly released EP, the wolf & me.

"Multi-disciplinary storyteller Caits Meissner uses an exciting blend of poetry, music, performance and visual art to deliver poignant testaments to the complexities of the human spirit. Caits has moved audiences from street corners to Columbia University, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe to Rikers Island. Winner of the OneWorld Poetry Contest, Caits attended the 2008 inaugural Pan-African Literary Forum in Accra, Ghana where she studied under Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa and other luminaries from the literary African diaspora. In addition to her own self-released work, she has been published in various literary journals and has shared sets with musicians such as Immortal Technique, Grandmaster Caz, Boot Camp Clik and many others."

• Website | Tumblr | Bio

[Project Rungay]
Project Rungay was introduced to me by a valued taste maker friend, and after a quick skim, she proved right once again as I immediately elevated this blog to my Reader's A-List. One of the first posts I saw was an in-depth look at Joan Holloway's style. And then one for Peggy. And then they revisit Joan. And then Peggy again. Their love for Mad Men alone was enough to make me love Tom and Lorenzo but their fashion and pop culture commentary is always hilarious. Plus they did an In or Out: Dianna Argon. Seriously, just put their feed on your A-List now, you won't regret it.

"Married for 12 years and foolish enough to leave our jobs to start our own home-based business, we found ourselves sitting at our desks for 15 hours a day, communicating with the outside world only through fax or email. Because our only co-workers were each other, we missed being the bitchy, funny gay guy in the next cubicle and looked for an outlet in order to prevent a double homo-cide. Because this is America, we turned to television to solve all our problems."
-Tom and Lorenzo's About Us-

[This Moi]
I already talked about Kartina Richardson's Mirror: Motion Picture Commentary blog over at Lonely Comma, but I wanted to shine some light on it again. Mirror is a site about film criticism and the posts feature video essays that are lovingly constructed and produced. I actually don't get many of the movie references and haven't seen a lot of the stuff Richardson analyzes, but the point is that she makes me want to -- and she'll make you want to too. I think I found out about Kartina via a Salon piece she wrote but I can't be sure because she contributes to quite a few of my other frequent reads like Bust, Jezebel, and is now one of Roger Ebert's Far Flung Correspondents.

"Kartina Richardson is a writer, filmmaker, and playwright documenting the beverages, movies, grumps, and (few) adventures that shape her life. She is of Asian and African American descent with other bits thrown in. (She mentions this because everyone asks and now you know)."
-Bout Beverages And Blog-

• mirrorfilm.org | this moi | twitter

[Pitchfork Reviews Reviews]
A new favorite blog and it looks like that could be said for a lot of people -- although not this guy. PRR has kind of been everywhere recently. The blog is ostensibly about music but I like it because of the stream of consciousness style and the adventures that David gets into. Plus the site is updated quite frequently and apparently he types it all out on his phone and then his friend throws it up the next day. Something like that. If you have no idea what Pitchfork is, read this NY Times article. Then start your Pitchfork Reviews Reviews journey with the nice primer David's provided.

"because i suspect that what seinfeld is about is highlighting George and Jerry and Elaine’s mental lifestyle: curiosity and endless questioning and the idea that there’s something worth evaluating and discussing going on under EVERYTHING, from relationships to sports and every other aspect of existence. and part of the comedy comes from when the characters’ curiosity makes their discussions seem absurd like when jerry tries to set george up on a blind date and then george asks jerry to describe the woman and jerry describes her, and then george asks him to describe the hue of her cheeks and tell him whether, if you ran your hand through her hair, it would get tangled in the hair or you could move your hand straight through it. in its weird way, with jokes orbiting around this point, Seinfeld is trying to tell us that nothing should be left unexamined and i guess living the way Seinfeld is suggesting includes asking questions about everything, not just dismissing some things as base and holding other things up as inherently meaningful, which is something i shouldn’t have needed to be explained to me i think."
-indie music and sports and seinfeld-

More Than a Feeling

Since I've been home lately, my mom has tasked me with cleaning out our garage. This isn't an one time chore but something that she always reminds me to do -- and I never quite get around to it. Well if I was genius like Raina Lee, I would have shifted through its contents and written an amazing blog about the experience of going through a lifetime's worth of stuff. Asian parents are serious packrats and you never know what can be found in their treasure hoards.

While I'm saddened to hear that Raina inherited The Infinite Garage because her mother passed away recently, it's kind of an amazing project she's doing and probably quite an emotional journey too. As she puts it, "The Infinite Garage is an attempt at examining life through objects however mundane, useless or beautiful. It's a history of my family through things. But mainly it's a personal purging project because I can't move out of this house and on with my life until I get rid of the stuff."

Infinite Garage was started March-ish and Raina's already got 100+ posts on there, as well as an Etsy shop to move a lot of the stuff she's found. Here's a special item: the instruction manual for Super Mario Brothers 2. Or check out this Han Solo fax machine. Yeah, you better just get over to the site and find your own favorites.

Raina, who is actually repped by my same agency, wrote an awesome book on karaoke called Hit Me with Your Best Shot: The Ultimate Guide To Karaoke Domination. As an avid karaoker myself, this book is kind of amazing and you need to pick up a copy. I don't know how I've never had the great fortune to meet Raina since she is obviously one of the coolest people ever. Lilly, we need to plan a karaoke night out with Raina, quick!

• Raina Lee vs The Infinite Garage (video)
• Karaoke Domination (Raina's blog)
• Disgrasian agrees IG is "effing amazing"
• Raina writes about Infinite Garage on Unplggd

Recos recos

Since all I know how to do is tell you how great other things are, I'm here to share with you some exciting recommendations, and must adds for your blogroll. Just like last time, a semi-curated blogroll included these new additions can be found bundled here.

[Tweetage Wasteland]
Dave Pell is an Internet Superhero and his blog talks about how technology affects his life. I need to know how to become an internet superhero myself actually. And so I read on. I see it as a nice companion to Kevin Kelly's Lifestream.

"Back in the early days of the web I was just a dealer. And I followed the advice I got from the movie Scarface: Don’t get high on your own supply. I used the web as a tool to be more efficient at achieving goals I had set for myself in the outside world... Those days are over. Like Tony Montana, I didn’t follow the advice about getting hooked on the product. As the realtime, social web has erupted, so too has my transition from being a dealer to being a dealer and a hardcore user."
-Confession #67: Say Hello to My Little Friend-

[First Person Singular]
Sari Botton is an author, writer, and on the search for the perfect blogging platform. This particular Tumblr is about memoirs and essays and having just taken a class in the former, I find all of her links and commentary super interesting. Plus she's just seems cool.

"When you read someone’s memoir, you learn a little bit about the world and yourself by taking a look through someone else’s lens. Sure, there are poorly written ones that never take the leap from personal to universal. But it goes without saying that in any good memoir there will be an intense focus on the writer’s internal drama, and this is part of what makes readers able to lose themselves in his or her story."
-How About We Stop Calling Memoirists "Narcissists"-

[Bill and Dave's Cocktail Hour]
A recent find, I'm just exploring their writings but the site's tagline is, "Raise a glass to the lost arts of writing, reading, and drinking." Their long blog posts are individually awesome and I'm taking them slow so I don't run out of stuff. They are also quite funny, as this story of Dave taking Jonathan Franzen birdwatching illustrates.

"Perhaps the clearest sign that the literary apocalypse has arrived is the ascendancy of something called Bookscan. For those who might not have heard of it, Bookscan is a robot that determines what you will read. No, not a Kindle, which you will soon read on, or a computer, which is likely where everything we read is heading, but a scanning machine that tallies up the exact sales of an author’s book and so tells editors whether or not they should publish another. Long gone are the days when a writer served a working apprenticeship, hammering out a book or three on their way to mastery"
-The Rise of the Machines: Notes on the Literary Apocalypse-

[Dear Jenny Han]
Fellow young adult author Jenny Han's Tumblr is all sorts of greatness. I mean, aside from vicariously following her along to signings and on tour, you get to to read her diary entries from way long ago. Yeah, like from the Nineties. If I had a friend like her in middle school, well, I would have had one friend.

"My mom’s mad because I forgot to put the rice in the rice cooker. She says I’m lazy! She keeps saying, 'Being smart at school isn’t the most important thing.' Ha! If only she knew. I’m NOT all that smart at school. So now I’m lazy AND dumb."
-me, Aug 1994-

[Writing Your Feelings]
If I could, I'd answer every provoking question that Susana Mai puts up on her writing blog. I really enjoy her Wednesday feature where she recommends things to read. She's put me on a lot of good stories and authors already. I think Mai is an aspiring writer but I'm pretty sure that "aspiring" is just there for humility's sake. I hope she gets published asap so I can read her book. She also must of put a ton of time into this post, "The First Sentence of the New Yorker's Top 20 Under 40."

"People do not give me change. No one asks me why, but I have imagined my answer. They do not give me change because I do not ask for it. I also do not have a cup. I am too embarrassed of my hands. I wash them with track water, and perfume them with Fat Man's bacon, egg and cheese wrapper daily, but still I am self-conscious, and feel like people will not love me."
-Hoyt-Schermerhorn-

[Hyperbole and a Half]
An instant follow based on name alone, Allie Brosh combines illustrations, text, and her mighty observational powers to tell stories that'll make you laugh. And then you forward them to make your friends laugh. And then they forward, and so on and so forth.

"I get sucked into all sorts of unwanted conversations about crazy political conspiracy theories, the annual budget for sports teams I don't care about, advanced scientific debates that I am woefully underprepared for and probing discussions about my breast health. One time, on a Greyhound bus ride to Seattle, I talked to a woman I didn't know for 7 hours about her divorce because I couldn't figure out how to end the conversation. Generally, unwanted conversations happen unexpectedly, so there is very little you can do to avoid them. The Solution: I have no idea; you tell me."
-The Awkward Situation Survival Guide-

Fox Force Five

Listening to: Phoenix, "Girlfriend."

I could go on and on about why I love each of these blogs. But I think if you just go ahead and RSS them and read them you'll love them too. I don't have the words to eloquently explain why I dig these blogs so I'd better let them tell it. Some of them are long time favorites, some of them I've only recently found, but all of them I'm addicted to and wished they posted every second of the day. So this is like my desert island top five of blogs. And they'll serve as introduction to my new and improved blogroll.

Note: I have no idea why these are all blogs written by women. My guess is I tend to favor confessional, personal blogs that are both well written and funny, and for whatever reason it's harder to find guys who blog like that. I'm constantly on the hunt for blogs that fit this criteria. If anyone has suggestions, please pass them along!

[Through the Looking Glass]
"Overall though, I like the patient population in NY better than the patient population in Philadelphia. There’s more diversity, there’s more of an immigrant/working class/trying-to-hustle-and-make-it population, more parents care about their kids. I suppose you could say that there’s less despair in New York. Less resignation to their status in life. These folks are generally busting their asses. And despite all their non-urgent complaints, I recognize that in them and respect that. There’s more pride. You can see it in their appearance. Shabby but clean. In how they tug on their children and tell them to behave appropriately in public. There’s a human-ness in NY that I appreciate."
-New Year's Resolutions-


[Single Spaced]
"As much as I love being a mom, I also need time to just do me. The good news is that I’ve become a lot more confident in this motherhood thing since my daughter was born. One major indicator is that I’ve been able to take myself out of the “mommy wars” context altogether and can say with complete honesty that I’m no longer conflicted about having to work. I’m a lot more comfortable charting my own path as a mom and more confident in my ability to figure things out on my own and with The Huz. There’s a more defined shape to my role as Mommy, and now there’s space to figure out the rest of me and who I am as a woman."
-Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire-


[Relentless Miracles]
"From his new girlfriend, he will not face harassment about attending White Privilege Workshops (“Come on! It’ll be good for you!”). No longer will I make him sit through three hour documentaries about Hurricane Katrina and participate in post-film Q&As with the director. He will not need to attend two hour Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slams; he will not feel guilty about “not wanting to talk about genocide all of the time.” He’ll no longer feel the pressure to vote in primary and midterm elections. His sexual performance will not be graded (“You got a check plus there my friend,” I would say afterwards). He will not receive another postcard from a communist country I have traveled to."
-How Facebook is Ruining My Life-


[Magic Molly]
"Late in the afternoon I sat still and watched the Triops. It had rained all day and the dressing for and braving of weather made me long for a tank of unchanging comfort in which to flutter, like the Triops, without rest. And he doesn’t rest, not that I can tell. A thumb-sized creature in the shape of a horsehoe crab, he is always moving when I turn on the light, subsisting on three pellets per day of Triops Food from a white envelope. This is all. His metabolism must be slow. For a thing in perpetual motion, he keeps the weight on."
-Technical memoranda-


[The Antisocial Ladder]
"When I was 18, I met my first Hmong friend, who upon initial meeting I thought was Chinese. For once, I was getting to confuse someone as Chinese. She was telling a story about how one of the little kids we worked with kept referring to her as Chinese, but that she was in fact Hmong. She laughed and I laughed along with her, pretending to know what the hell she was talking about. Later, I actually went through the dictionary looking for the mystery ethnicity of which she spoke. "Is it spelled Mung? Mong? Like Mongolian? Is that another way of saying your Mongolian?" My thick head never would have guessed that you needed an 'h.'"
-What Ocean?-

Wonder Emporium

Here's an interview with Susie (boygirlparty) over at Pikaland. Susie's already like famous and everywhere but this interview has so many great pictures of her stuff I had to link to it. Plus there's a prominent photo of one of my favorite pieces of hers: the hedgehog playing the piano. I like walking into stores, finding her stuff, and saying (loudly), "Oh I know her! Isn't she great!" Then I kind of strut away.

I've seen Susie paint on her tiny little canvases with the itty-bittiest brushes and strokes. It's kind of amazing, just like all of her stuff. And Susie just had a birthday so go say happy (belated) birthday!

What or who inspires you?
Nature is always inspiring to me: whether it’s a walk in the woods, or watching close-up as a ladybug purposefully climbs around a leaf. i always feel a surge of inspiration after spending time outdoors, especially if it’s a place i’ve never been before where i can tune in surprised at everything i see. i recommend going out on a rowboat on a quiet lake for a few hours and see if you don’t agree!

also: polaroids and analog photography! the colors are always so unexpected. i could look at & enjoy photography (like lomography & cross-processed photos) for hours, days, years. also: vintage children’s books, letters from penpals, old timey cartoons (like ‘flip the frog’),...
-via Pikaland-

Return of the King

Here's how to live "the life." Quit your corporate job, start your own company, work from home, surf in the morning, travel cross-country attending events like the Super Bowl and Gen Con. After spending a few years working for places like the NFL and Upper Deck, James is now his own boss and using his many talents in combination to create a lifestyle that is the envy of all of his friends.

While the distinction of "Alpha Male" is hotly contested among my group of guy friends, it's no question that Jmz is a Renaissance Man among Renaissance Men. Aside from excelling in art, photography, and graphic design, he's also managed to acquire serious cooking skills, (any)boarding skills, Halo skills, guitar, piano, drums, and singing skills, and an enviable collection of movies, music, posters, and designer vinyl toys. Plus he's high up on my list of people to take on a survivor island should I need someone to hunt, build, or change a flat tire.

Of course, no person this talented can be anything less than a perfectionist and in James' case, very OCD. Put it this way, when I used to wake up in the morning and the vacuum cleaner and duster were strategically placed outside my door, there was no question its intent or purpose. It takes two Virgoes to make an apartment clean apparently -- one to bitch and one to supervise.

Anyway, Jmz was responsible for introducing me to the world of blogs many years ago and while he's been an on-and-off blogger [ 1, 2, 3 ], he's back again. This time in moblog format. Plus, his personal site, jameswang.com, is finally updated, and his business site, Okapix, is rounding into shape.

It's about time Jmz came back on the scene because I'm sick of stealing his pictures. Well, actually, I'm not sick of it, but I'm pretty sure he is. Basically any amazing pictures you've seen on my sites the past few years were probably taken by James. I'm not above appropriating other people's works. It's ethically perverse, I know. But I only steal from the rich to show the poor; it doesn't hurt anybody to have James' work out there in the world. Let's hope he sticks around to put his own stuff up this time.

boygirlparty

Everyone knows Susie of boygirlparty fame right? If not, they should because she's an amazing everything. One of her many talents -- and I mean, very many talents -- is being a renowed illustrator and artist. Her online shop is filled with ridiculously amazing things.

Since Susie is yet another of the amazing Ghahremani's I know, I've been fortunate enough to see her workshop and watch her paint with her teeny tiny brushes. It's quite the honor.

She's got a show, entitled "Teacher's Pet," going on at the ultra-cool Giant Robot store in New York until September 12th so if you're anywhere in the area, you should check it out (the pieces are also available for sale online). Susie's stuff is everywhere actually. I'm constantly wandering into stores and finding Susie's signature style and pieces in stores from coast to coast. Susie's like an intergalactic rock star. Seriously.

In N Out

If you thought Pink Berry's (or Red Mango's or Kiwi Berry's) were set to take over the world, get a load of Yogurt World. Fad foods come in cycles and the latest craze -- if you've haven't seen the lines -- is low-fat yogurt. I personally think Pink Berry's and Co. is way overrated. Stand in line to buy overpriced frozen yogurt that tastes like regular yogurt? Pass.

James informed me however, that there was a new self-serve yogurt place in Convoy which was the talk of San Diego. Upon first inspection, the idea of a whole store dedicated to self-serve yogurt is pretty lame. I can get self-serve yogurt with customized toppings any time I want; it's called Souplantation. Or my old college dorm's dining hall. What's the big deal?

There are plenty of stand alone frozen yogurt places (Froglander's and TCBY comes to mind) still around, even if they seem on the verge of financial freefalls every time you neglect to get extra toppings. I almost feel bad for these once crowded yogurt places, who rode high on the wave of frozen yogurt in the early 90's but are now faced with extinction like those tie-dye puffy paint T-shirt places.

It must kill them that the next trend of yogurt domination will be a little corner store that has virtually no staff, low overhead, and has customers serving themselves. We visited Yogurt World on a Tuesday night and the place was jam packed with a line stretching way out the door. The crowd of forty was mostly college students with plenty of time to spare; college students willing to spend twenty minutes in line are the target demographic apparently.

For 38-cents an ounce, you can get as much yogurt as you want (in tart and sweet flavors), dump on as many toppings as your eyes desire (get the mochi balls, it's killer), and then get the faux satisfaction of having had a healthy dessert.

This set-up is a financial gold mine. A staff of three collects and cleans, the yogurt serves itself, and the money just comes pouring in. It's ridiculous. We overheard a few enterprising college students remarking about how easy this idea was and how they should just do it. It's that simple. The crazy thing about it all is that only one out of a thousand people will actually man up and start a self-serve yogurt shop -- getting rich in the process -- while the rest of the world still tries to figure out what we want to do for our "careers."

The worst thing about it all is that I don't even like frozen yogurt -- much less waiting in line for it -- but since two days ago, it's been my number one food craving. It's addictive like boba and that's about the highest praise I can offer any food item.

Welcome

To the new and improved jonyang.org. We've got a lot of exciting things coming up right around the corner, won't you stick around?

For now, you know everyone loves the Oregon Trail right?