#weird blotter art

[sillyflipping]

Whyd they put Aang on the blotter LMAO 😭

[violetsystems]

#personal

Outside of looking for jobs and hanging out with mutuals here, I lead an extremely boring life. Or so it would seem. I've tried to increase my visibility on social media a bit but it seems like I'm not important enough to bleed through any algorithmic wall. My old job was getting sort of long in the tooth and I had been networking to find another path. But I come from an era where if being too weird on high profile social media would interfere with those kind of career goals. For as under the radar I am, people do single me out and target me often. And the last few weeks, it's been a certain type of person who apparently got my number off my CV. Everybody down here knows I've written at length about bizarre shit in my own cringeworthy way. It's half trauma dump and half police blotter. But how it all shakes out is what I pay attention to. And while people might stalk my Tumblr, I don't really interact too much with people I don't really know. Seeing as how random women from China and Singapore just casually text me like it's the wrong number. I had to put the kibosh on that by impersonating a field agent. It doesn't really register to people when I tell them that my current job is somewhere between private detective and cybersecurity professional. You'd have to be Columbo to find a job in this market at my age. But Tumblr to me always resembled the house parties I used to frequent back in the day when I worked at an art school. People were more focused on a community back then. Although I remember the fateful halloween when I was stuck in a corner at a party by myself scrolling through this app on my phone. The etiquette and culture of Tumblr these days has evolved as we've all aged maybe. I still don't really know who anyone is. And it's in this anonymity that you really connect with people in an honest way. Talking through images rather than beating people over the head with sales pitches and commercial networking is a lot more intimate to me. Like being on a couch at party with friends, leaning over to whisper in someone's ear over all the noise. And then there's Linkedin where it seems only rich Asian women find me interesting enough to text out of nowhere and berate me for being poor. But for all the crazy shit I've written on here, I've only really been hazed and bullied in real life almost every day of it. But I think it has more to do with people's perception of me outside of here. Nobody but my real friends read these. Nobody in my past life really even bothers to check in on me to see if I'm ok. So all I really have is the peace and quiet of this platform. And how dead to the world I am because of it.

I bring up this Hiroshi Fujiwara quote every six months to explain how I feel about this site. He said because of the internet there aren't really any more revivals anymore. The punk way of finding out what you are into via the internet is very close to the house party scene that vanished into clubs. You'd go to a basement show and see some sick ass fucking shit. You'd meet some people and it would be a chaotic mess of noise, art, and free spirit. Now everything needs to be monetized. I keep hearing about all these people dj'ing now that have to sell tickets or promote fake plants who might just be undercover police. How nobody makes music really or it's not important enough to listen to. I had one person I fell out of contact with tell another friend I'm sort of falling out of contact with that I needed to "get back on my social media grind." I was a great producer. But there was something missing. I didn't expose my facial features to the Instagram AI enough to be a real person. Instagram isn't going to pay me. Neither is Tumblr but it's the thought that counts. I spent most of the last two and a half years trying to maintain a professional presence on the professional website where you can get a job. And I hung out in not so much the vip lounge but the smoking section of Denny's comparatively when you think about my time on Tumblr. People aren't afraid to be seen because nobody is watching. And when people come down here to watch, I wonder sometimes if the algorithm just throws weak shit out of orbit. If I wanted to meet new people, they seem to think my resume at this point is a dating service. Pete Davidson can't even get a number at the Met Gala. I have a different problem. But it's something I'm trained professionally to deal with as a cybersecurity contractor nobody seems to want to admit breathes or has fiscal needs beyond my own passive income. I'm everybody's favorite punching bag by proxy for something I'm not even part of anymore. Art School hired me for two decades then shunned me like I wasn't cool anymore. And I ended up down here cash positive while everyone else is worried about resuming their student loans. That's not something I make light of. But I have a hard time feeling sorry for fake ass bullshit when it tries to pretend I died instead of acknowledging the pain I put behind me.

For whatever it's worth I write here week after week because I choose to. If I really believed in fate, then the scientific method has taught me it only nudges you in a general direction. You have to make the choice to focus on what you really want. That bit about evil I was going to write about in Time Bandits is mostly from that catfished WhatsApp storm of messages. Do I believe in fate? Do I believe that the people I've grown close to on Tumblr and off have nothing to do with me making a choice to change my own orbit? No. I could have sat here and been the person everyone out there wants me to be. Weak. Complacent. Never questioning anything. Afraid to speak my mind in fear someone will make fun of what I say. We are way past those red lines. What I walk through every day is nothing more than some ghetto ass catwalk slash commercial for an under appreciative audience of people ready to throw tomatoes at the world stage. The culture has fallen into atrophy. CEO's think they can become social media czars and turn entire platforms into a standing meeting or SCRUM. And that person had the money to buy it out completely. I was on Linkedin the other day and Yahoo had a poll about what other social media were you going to choose like it was the Pepsi Coca Cola wars all over again. Obviously Tumblr wasn't listed. I said the one you let get away. The reality that Tumblr is weird has a lot more to do with being shunned, abandoned and left to grow. Nobody wanted to pay attention to our wants and needs or what we thought was cool. And now what we all thought was cringe is just the unassuming and honest embrace of the underground. There's nothing really to keep weird other than the vision of what we've all become. Ourselves. The book True Names by Vernor Vinge embraced the ethos of what Cyber "Punk" was supposed to be about. You never gave your true name unless you wanted them to find you. And in my case, I've always been on main. That's been my ideological choice to be hardcore. Even if my name isn't my own. Just like the samples I've used in my music has gotten me excommunicated by Pitchfork and Hyperdub as some divine punishment for following the rules of a music called Jungle which sampled the Amen Brother so many fucking times that it's the idea and not the intellectual property. Do I fucking care? No. Everybody knows me in the She-Hulk sense of the word. Violet Fucking Systems. And I run the hazy strategically ambiguous culture that has connected me in bizarre ways to people I love without saying a word. Nobody will ever understand it or get close enough to it if only to throw rocks. And the cringe shield around me is about as thick as the ass I focus on daily. Poetically speaking of course. I don't know how fat your ass is, baby. Though I'm sure it's juicy in the exotic burger sense of the word. But I love you for it just the same. In the gyakusou sense. Which in Japanese means reverse cowgirl or something. I dunno. It's the only one for me. Just like Tumblr. <3 Tim

[weenwyrm]

brother sport

[weirdlandtv]

What do drugs look like anyway?

Ecstasy (or XTC, MDMA, molly) often looks like candy. (I say “often”, because like most of the other drugs mentioned here, it can be sold in other forms of course.) The pills are often imprinted with famous brand logos, cartoon characters, peace symbols and the like.

Image 2: LSD distributed on blotting paper. There’s even acid blotter paper art. You tear off a tab, put it on your tongue, the stuff dissolves.

(This post actually came about because a friend tore off a stamp from a sheet, and I said, jokingly, “Are you going to put it on your tongue?” But she didn’t get it, and we came to talk about various drugs and what they looked like.)

Magic mushrooms (Image 3).

Cocaine (image 4). Or blow, crack, coke, sniff, snow, rocks. You know what it looks like, but just for completion’s sake.

Heroin comes in a white or orange/brown powder, but also black sticky stuff, like liquid liquorice: black tar heroin, seen here in image 5.

Marijuana/cannabis (image 6).

Meth (image 7).

Hash (image 8) is a cannabis concentrate harvested from—I think—its resin glands. I’d describe it as a powdery brownie. You take a bit, mix it with tobacco, and smoke it. Quite common in Amsterdam, where I live. There was a coffee shop around the corner from where I studied, we used to go there for some Ketama to soothe our jittery nerves. The first time I tried it, I felt like I weighed 10,000 pounds. Really weird. I felt like sitting down and not getting up anymore.

[pyraffin-drgo]

All Heavy interactions in Poker Night at the Inventory.

For you to interpret however you wish.

Video Version

(They have [bootleg movies] in your country?) "I like movies, yes." (Yeah, like what? [Lists movies]?) "No. My favorite are The Dirty Dozen and the first twenty minutes of Rocky four."

(We can talk Tetris?) "Hmmph. Tetris is baby game." (Tetris Attack keeps it hood!) "Why does everybody think I love this Tetris? It is just stacking!"

"[To Strongbad] Tiny Heavy." (What is it?) "Do you get the nightmares?" (I get the jibblie nightmares. [Describes silly nightmare, shivers].) "I am talking about the visions of endless suffering. Dead doctors everywhere. Spy can not be found. (No, but that sounds like the Jibblies.) "I do not like these 'jibblies.'"

"Strong and bad. How is boxing career?" (These. Are. My. HANDS!) "I was boxer, once. In school. We have to either box or learn to herd goats." Silence, looking concerned. "I am not good with goats..." (Too much information, man.) "At first, I do not like punching other boys... But then I learn to love it." Punches his palm menacingly.

(Find any rare drops lately?) "I do not understand." (When you get a kill, you get a present?) "When I get kill, I get honor of team." Smile drops. "Sometimes... I also get nightmares. A man does not go home to his wife and children." (So, no loot?) "Oh! You mean hat! Yes, I love hats! Sometimes, I get these. They are the best."

(Hey, Heavy. You know any hot Russian spies?) "I hate spies." (But you gotta have the inside line on some deadly minxes.) "You want hot spy?" (Am I not wrestle man?) "I have friend who gets you a hot spy. (Get em on the two-way, man!) "His name is Pyro." (Tycho, to Strongbad: The spy is hot because it is on fire.) (Oh...)

"[To Tycho] What do you do with life?" (Me?) "Yes. What is possible with tiny, frail body?" (I occupy myself with simulations... of various kinds.) "What is these?" (Struggles to explain.) (Strongbad: He lives in his parent's basement.)

(So, is there a Mrs. Weapons Guy?) "No. Sasha is my only love." (Sasha kills people, I presume?) "No." (Oh?) "WE kill people."

"[To Strongbad] Maybe you and I box?" (I can't risk my beautiful face, it's the franchise.) "We spar. For fun." (I don't think so.)

"Strong and bad. You wrestle? With mask?" (No, I'm a wrestle man, not those hack wrestle-LERS.) "Not like Iron Sheik?" (No, Iron Stake is a LER.) Heavy nods. "Hmm. This is too bad."

(So how long you been with those Team Fortress fellas?) "I do not understand." (The game's been on Steam for like 3 years. I imagine there was some audition process?) "Ohhh! Yes, I understand! I kill many men VERY quickly." (Excuse me?) "I kill record number of soldiers, and I am commissioned to join RED team."

(Mr. Weapons. I am in the market for a new firearm. [Specifications].) "Hmm, for you I do not recommend minigun then. You know, there is this fast baby man that annoys me greatly with shotgun." (Oh! Oh! What are the available options? I'll spring for leather!) "Da, this is good for you. I suggest Force-A-Nature." (I'll tell them [shop owner] Heavy Weapons Guy sent me.) "It is no need. I know guy."

"I will make hat from you, little bunny." No reply from anyone. A reference for the player to the Max hat in TF2.

"You look familiar, bunny." (How closely do you follow the Manhattan Crime Blotter?) Also a reference to the hat, Tycho then takes over conversation.

(If I need someone snuffed out, what's your going rate?) "Five hundred thousand U.S. dollars." (Steep.) "Cash." (You can do it discreetly?) "Sasha... not so discreet." (That's fine.)

(How did you guys hear of the inventory?) "My engineering friend brought me one night."

(This reminds me of the time Artie Flopshark rigged an entire poker tournament to pay off his loan shark.) "I know of this. This is respectable profession in motherland." Conversation is stolen by Tycho.

(This reminds me of [story]!) "I am reminded of time Engineer kill my entire team." (Damn Heavy, that's... heavy. Sorry to hear that.) "I search entire base for him. He tries to kill me with turret and mini turret, but I crush his toys like they are made of paper." (Sounds like crappy toys.) "Then I find him. Hiding by teleporter. I take his gun away from him. He tries to hit me with wrench! Hahohoh! So I take wrench away from him. I take his wrench and shove it down his throat, all the way down to the handle." (Christ!) Heavy laughs. "Then I rip off all his fingers one by one!" He talks while laughing. "Lets see you build toys now!" He breaks out in laughter. "There's blood- everywhere! And- he's crying!" More laughter. "I think he cries out for mother, but- but-" Crumples over laughing. "The wrench is stuck in his throat! And it sounds like-" Makes choking motions and noises then laughs. "Is this not the funniest thing??" (Horrified looks) (Head shakes slowly.) (That's some bleeped up bleep, man!)

(How about you, Heavy weapons? I'm guessing you're a vodka guy?) "Peach Bellini. But bubbles can give me headache."

(Mr. Weapons, how do you like your line of work?) "It is good. There are many benefits." (Oh! Like a free pass to snuff out bad guys or a waffle bar?) "Both. And full dental."

(I wonder if this dump is haunted.) (I hope so! Roughing up who can't die is fun!) "...I do not like ghosts..." (It's okay, Mr. Weapons. I have [extensive experience]. I can handle a few ghosts.) "...You will take care of ghosts for me?" (You bet cha!) Heavy nods at him. "I like you, tiny rabbit."

[Story including a union] "I am union. RED local six fifteen." (You guys unionized?) "Eh. It was necessity for group medical."

"Tycho. This sweater, is special equipment?" (No, standard issue.) "You have no class specific head gear?" (Got a motorcycle helmet that protects from 100% of UV rays.) "This sounds beneficial."

(Why do you keep calling me 'Tiny Heavy'?) "You are Heavy. Tiny. No? You are RED team. You have killing gloves of boxing. You earn these for being great killer! You should try out for RED team." (Hmm. Guess I could join your team of ruthless killers and lame hat wearers and watch you get grenaded by 8 year olds.) "You will take many bullets before dying I think."

(Hey, Heavy. I just finished [Russian fantasy book]. Ever read it?) "No." (Oh. What's your favorite book?) "I prefer war." (Ah, War and Peace. Tasteful.) "No. Just war." (Art of War?) "Nyet." Silence. "I like 'Tsar Hunger' by Leonid Andreyev. You know this?" (...No.) "Is classic."

"You have hands like young girl." (I keep them shits moist.) "...So you are more of sneaky, stabbing type?" (In an extreme circumstance, I guess.) Heavy looks at him suspiciously. "I keep my eyes on you." (No, no no- I wasn't implying that-) Heavy looking at him angierly. (Shit.)

(Ever listen to music while you work?) "Yes! I just buy new walkman." (What gets you in the killing mood? Icelandic death metal?) "I just get Huey Lewis tape. Keeps spirits up on battle field."

"[To Tycho] You have woman?" (Not with me) "She is pretty?" (Yeah, cute, glasses, red hair.) "She has the red hair??" (No, Heavy! She is not on the other team! Don't have to kill her!) "No. But I love the red hair!" (Well, you can't have her, either.) Re-used image of Heavy looking at him angrily. (Well, maybe we can work something out.)

(Hey, Heavyman. You think you can 'take care' of the King of Town for me?) "I can assassinate king, yes. It is expensive, though." (By take care of I meant sneak in and shave off half his mustache.) "I am not best at sneaking." (Confront him in a dark alley then?) "This is better. That way blood wash away in rain."

(You have any interest in moonlighting?) "WHAT? I am not moonlighter!" (Just a little work on the side with Sam and me beating up goons!) "Oh. I can not do this." (C'mon it's fun and free!) "No, I am sure it is." (Then what's the problem?) "I have non compete." (Ah, yeah. Lawyers.)

(All these aces reminds me of [weird dream]. You have any weird dreams, Mr. Weapons?) "I sometimes dream that I am killed. There is blood everywhere. (Tycho gives him a weird look) But then I wake up and I realize this is ridiculous! Nobody can kill Heavy weapons guy! (Riiiight...)

"[To his chips] This is good Solider. This one is good Doktor. You are demolition man."

"Saaaandvich, sandvich, I love you sandvich!" (Would you like someone to order you some food?)

"Blue man." (Tycho.) "Tycho. What college do you go to? You are educated, no?" (Actually, no.) "No?" (I studied at Gygax Polyhedral if you catch my drift.) "I do not. This is good school?" (Uh. The best.) "I went to Soviet College of Mines, Farms, and Science. I have PhD in Russian literature." (Do you.. use that in your work?) "More than you think."

"Tiny Heavy, who is your favorite to kill in war?" (Those discount three-pack green helmets.) "To kill spy is glorious thing! How about you, Max? You are killing type." (My favorite enemy? Like asking me to choose between my children!) Heavy laughs. "You crack me up, little bunny!"

(Hey, Hefty Bag, you ever play video games?) "Just one." (Oh yeah?) "It is called-" (Tycho: WoW?) "Nyet. That is not popular. It is called 'Where's an Egg'." (Strongbad: I love Where's an Egg!) "Where's an Egg is as big as Tetris in homeland."

(Concerning your firearm, whay caliber we talking?) "Big." (What, we talking 300 Weatherby Mag here?) "Bigger." (50 cal, whereabouts?) "Bigger than 50 caliber. They are hand made custom tool cartridges with classified diameter." (Why's that?) "So enemy canmot use ammunition. But Sasha can chew through theirs." (Diabolical!) "I think so." Nods.

(Alright, big pretend killer man. Tell me the most awesome story you have with plenty of senseless violence!) Heavy thinks. "When I was boy, I was at camp, being trained in many ways of combat." (Assassination camp for kids! This is gonna be good!) "There was sparrow sitting on fence. Snow falls quietly around me. Without notice, another boy jumps from behind tree and kills sparrow with throwing knife. The boy runs away." (And then??) "I pick up sparrow, and hear his last breath before digging him tiny grave..." (Tycho crying) (Max silent) (That's not even a little bit funny, man.) Heavy shakes his head solemnly. "No..." Sits back. "It's not."

(So, what do you do for fun?) "Clean Sasha. Use Sasha... Clean Sasha again." (Proper maintience is crucial.) "I also collect old coins." (A fellow numismatist!) "Which I melt down to make custom bullets." (Of course.)

"I am hungry for sandvich." (Then order a sandvich, man.) "Oh, I can not have sandvich! I become unstoppable killing machine!" (Yeah, maybe order a water.) "Is best."

"You wear blue sweater." (All the time.) "What are you?" (Haven't we went over this?) "You are not Scout. Maybe very tricky blue Spy? Maybe... new class?" (I can use a keyboard to sabotage your entire team, steal your intelligence, and have your sister delivered to my doorstep in one afternoon. Yes, I'm a new class.) Heavy, shocked, "This is true??"

(Hey, Heavyman, what's your living situ-aysh?) "I live in RED barraks. Is nice. There is foos table." (How about taking a room in the house of Strong?) "There is vacancy?" (First you'll have to dump the current person in your room.) "This is enemy?" (He won't put up much of a fight.)

Hope you enjoyed, spent most of the day copying all these down. The non-Heavy lines are paraphrased for shortness. Heavy's are full, how they are in game.

[power-chords]

Post-trip round-up, integration, thoughts (cut for length & some Heavy Shit)

WOW I needed that and I am so glad I realized I needed that. It has been well over ten years since I last took LSD, and my reluctance to indulge in psychedelics again was rooted in a long and complicated history that I don't really need to hash out here, but doing a mild dose of mushrooms last weekend gave me the confidence and conviction that I was ready.

Would it have been wiser to take a less bonkers dose for the first time in a decade plus? Probably! Do I regret a single moment of it? Not a whit! It's tough to overstate just how powerful, therapeutic, and restorative a good acid trip is, even an occasionally intense, uncomfortable one. I do not recommend eating multiple tabs of extremely good blotter on your first rodeo, but Adam's even more of a veteran psychonaut than I am, so I was 1000% well cared for, totally safe, and in a comfortable, familiar environment. In that setting, and in a positive frame of mind, acid is not going to throw anything at you that you are not equipped to handle. I would love to make this an annual or biannual thing.

The cool, funny, wacky delightful stuff:

Put it under my tongue at 10 AM-ish. Went to go listen to some music and doodle until it kicked in. I forgot that the come-up is like, do not make any fucking plans involving hand-eye coordination LMAO. I was trying to doodle Bowery Ballroom in an old sketchbook, and that devolved quickly. The markers were old so some of the caps were really stuck on there, and I wound up devolving into fits of laughter from the absurdity of pulling the caps off with my teeth.

Ink stains on my hands started writhing and trailing and were very cool. That was the first thing I noticed. I got very sad that I stopped drawing and making art, which was something I did all my life and almost went to school for but stopped doing as an adult. And then I realized I could start drawing again any time if I wanted to, and I didn't have to be GOOD at it or a proper artist for it to be worthwhile and fun. Felt immediately happy again.

Adam decided to watch Lethal Weapon???? I was like, Don't Like That. Even though he had headphones on and I couldn't hear anything. I am ambivalent about screens at best when I'm tripping, and at worst I don't even want to be in the same room with them. Guns and violence seemed comically, brutally stupid. Turned my back to the TV and continued drawing and writing until I could no longer hold a pen. Eventually Adam got on my wavelength and was like yeah, this is too much! (He took like, twice the dose that I did. I have no idea how he was even able to talk to me, but he managed!)

Felt the need to message Liana while peaking, picked up my phone, and saw that she had already sent me this:

I thought that was HILARIOUS (tbh it actually was, and it was not just the acid talking)

For the first few hours of teeth-grinding, reality-shearing intensity, Adam and I mostly lounged in bed with the shades pulled all the way up and the window open, cuddling and petting Ernie. Fantastic bonding experience for the whole fam.

Looking at every surface in the apartment became like looking at a stained glass ceiling, or an infinite mandala, or the muddied rainbows in oil-slicked puddles. It looked like Ernie's fur was breathing and someone had colored all over the white parts of him with a highlighter. Adam agreed with this assessment. Formica on the kitchen counters was bananas. So were the trees outside, rippling like celluloid and brighter green than I had ever seen them.

The two of us spent a good 15 minutes doubled over with laughter because Adam suggested a contraption for funneling Fancy Feast directly into Ernie's mouth, kind of like shotgunning a beer

Adam: "I can't believe I used to to this and get on the subway and try to do things with people." Me: "What? How did you even figure out how to get from Point A to Point B?" Adam: "I mean, we didn't, really. We usually got lost. It was fine, though." Truly, it's about the friends you make along the way!

The second half of the trip, when things are starting to mellow out a bit, is when you become a real rock star. I went outside for a walk around the neighborhood, and to sit in the park with my headphones on while watching kids play on the playground, and it was ECSTATIC. I was just overjoyed. My face still hurts from smiling.

Forgot that I needed money to realize my goal of obtaining a popsicle, so I had to detour back into the apartment and explain all of this to my husband before resuming the popsicle quest. He thought it was very funny, but sympathized.

Fresh air, popsicles and San Pellegrino on acid. On another level! 100/10.

Bathrooms still universally suck, LOL. -10/10. Not a fan of that bathroom while tripping face! Every time I had to pee it was like WELL here we go again into the Pink Squirming Hell Chamber (I am making this sound like more of a big deal than it actually was)

15 HOURS. 15 HOURS Jesus Christ lmao I did not stop seeing weird shit on screens and surfaces until like 1 AM. And even then, if I stared long enough, funky colors and patterns would re-emerge. It's a commitment. I feel happy and refreshed, but also totally exhausted. Definitely have to budget a full weekend of No Plans for any future trips.

The Heavy Shit:

There is some Cronenberg-level body horror right before the visuals get super rainbow-stained and stereotypically psychedelic, which sounds bad, but I promise it isn't. It's watching the veins pulse under your skin and change into very saturated colors, pores and hair and scars become very defined and wiggly, and as someone who has so much bodily anxiety related to my alopecia/IBS, it was weirdly... freeing? You get to experience all this stuff in an entirely new frame of mind, shedding judgment and old thought ruts. I remember thinking, "I do not need to feel shame about my body," and letting go of so much baggage.

At some point mid-afternoon I decided to retrieve my phone from the drawer again, and saw that I had a missed call and a voicemail from my dad. I decided to play it back, and he was just phoning to tell me that he was listening to a live version of "Sally Simpson" and Keith was doing this thing where he wasn't even touching the cymbals, and had I listened to that specific performance before and noticed the same thing, and wasn't he truly the greatest drummer that ever lived? "Anyway, no need to call me back, just wanted to let you know. I love my bubbie!" (His term of endearment for me.) And I went to go sit in bed and weep for a straight 15 minutes, the most cleansing, purging cry you could possibly imagine, while Adam hugged me and rubbed my back. I was overwhelmed, overcome by this feeling of cosmic Love and Connection with my family and my husband and all of my friends.

I had been sitting on and burying so much fear and distress from the past 18 months, the chronic, low-grade trauma that was worrying if COVID was going to kill my father, my best friend and closest confidante and the one person on earth who I feel truly Gets Me on a spiritual level, and all of that came out. Fully processed and released every ounce of grief. What replaced it was the absolute, unshakable faith that no matter what happens — including my greatest fear, which is inevitable, no matter how far off it may be — he will always be with me, and a part of me, in the music we both love, and I will never, ever lose that.

[outlikethat]

scent: olympic orchids chevalier vert and salamanca

my bottle of aveda pure-formance men (the third one I've bought, which says something) is nearly running dry, and aveda's discontinued it, which has set me on a quest for "something... summerish". my collection in general leans to the heavy, the incense-y, the rich with wood or honey or tobacco, or all of those at once, and quite a bit of it is extremely and suffocatingly unsuited to the kind of hot, humid summers we get round here.

in poking about, and looking at aveda’s supposed note profile and what people thought of it, I found a lot of mentions of "bay rum" (which, actually, really? I like bay rum, and have bought a few bottles of it here and there, but I wouldn't have said, that much...?)

anyhow. "modern bay rum". maybe. so I looked around for "bay rums". I found pho*nix art%san accoutrements and a few fairly enthusiastic reviews on basenotes for their atomic age bay rum — and then found a whole lot of rather thrillingly juicy posts about their founder’s rich history of shady behaviour and emptied my cart. then I found olympic orchids. which I’d run into mention of awhile back because I was talking to someone about zoologist perfumes, and the founder of olympic orchids created their original, apparently-iconic, bat. (which sounds appalling, honestly, and more like the weird blue food we gave our fruitflies in grade 13 biology than anything else, but hey, life’s rich tapestry.)

but I digress. as usual.

I didn’t feel much pull to their bay rum, but they did have a reasonably priced sample pack and a lot of other interestingly-described aromas, so I ordered six and sat back. and here they are!

look at that! nice, generously-sized spray samples, too, not those useless little phials with the reluctant plastic stoppers with sticks.

I sprayed on some paper tags, and started off with the ones I disliked the most on my skin: chevalier vert on the back of my right forearm, salamanca on the left.

the notes of chevalier vert (was that choice influenced by my current fascination with a film I still have not yet seen? perhaps!) are supposedly citrus, rhubarb, tomato leaf, armoise (I wonder what the fuck “armoise” is?), violet leaf, violet, orris, and peony, Sichuan pepper, and soft woods. anyone who’s seen my previous forays into the subject already knows that my relationship with “notes” in perfume is tenuous at best. I will say that on the blotter at first spray, it was something I would describe with the extremely technical language of “gross” — pretty much cat piss on leaves.

I figured it’d be an instant scrubber, and I might as well get that over with. well, it wasn’t; on me, it had an initial atmosphere of “someone is smoking weed out the back door of the hippie shop” — pot, plus that cheap nag champa aroma that absolutely soaks all the tie-dyed clothing on the racks. in, weirdly, what felt like two very distinct streams — like, the pot sat on top of the “nag champa” in a very “we are not friends” sort of way.

well, it’s been an hour-ish, and they’ve made friends now, with a result that’s still faintly hippie shop, but now more makes me think of a cross between white grape juice (you know, the very grape-y kind, welch’s) and elderflower syrup (of which, in fact, I am very fond). it’s fine. a very enthusiastic springtime-fresh girl kind of aroma. I wouldn’t wear it, I don’t think, but I don’t hate it.

now, on the left, salamanca. this one is allegedly an attempt to capture the midsummer aroma of the spanish town, with notes of hay absolute, tonka, mitti (an attar made in India by distilling the scent of clay), vetiver, immortelle absolute, African helichrysum oil, labdanum absolute, opoponax, a leather accord created especially for use in this fragrance, and yellow mimosa absolute. (I looked at that note list after spraying my paper tests and thought “why the fuck did I pick this one??” and then saw “distilled scent of clay” and said, “ohhhh.”)

now, this one went onto paper as a shout of “bitter! green!” with a bizarre but distinct little undernote of “person who ate a lot of salami two hours ago and now has old garlic coming through every pore”. no idea which of those notes is making that happen. the helichrysum maybe?

on skin, the bitter green rapidly took over, in a sharp-cornered way I almost liked, but which seemed to have no... legs? all surface, no base. now, after developing, the garlic-sweat smell (which isn’t quite as horrible as the real thing, somewhat intriguing, though piercing) is starting to come through, and the bitter green is smoothing over. really not sure about this one. don’t hate it, either, but it seems to be teetering on the edge of some decision between “does it turn completely mainstream and boring, or go full acrid-weird?”

they complement each other, in an odd way. the sharp, almost disgusting, plus the greenish. interested to see what, if anything, develops later.

[meta-squash]

This post is kind of long because I’ve been vaguely thinking about Les Mis and the current Seattle protest for a little while now. I’ve been scanning cop blotters and following the Seattle protest tag on twitter the last few days and tonight someone has been posting the lyrics to Do You Hear The People Sing about a verse or so at a time. Not fast enough to disrupt or clog the tag or anything, of course.

But reading these lyrics to something that I love so much and connecting it to all this shit going down is making me really emotional.

Like during the intial BLM protests I had only just moved to the PNW, I was in university, and I didn’t know anybody, so I didn’t feel comfortable going out to protests because I was unfamiliar with the area and had nobody to go with that I felt I could trust. I just donated lots and posted things on social media. Which means this is the first protest of this size that I’m participating in at least in some fashion besides donating and on-campus die-ins. Now my friends are going to Seattle to protest and because I can’t go with them (asthma + covid paranoia), I’m scanning hashtags and police blotters to give them info from outside in real time and it’s very intense out there. My best friend got tear gassed on Monday and was stuck in the city for hours once some strangers opened their doors to her.

And it’s so wild noting the similarity between the real life events of 1832 and now: the plague, the economic uncertainty, the class disparity, all of it. People are harboring protesters in their houses. Most of the people out there are well under 40. So many out there are students. Most of the people out there are working class. And like all leftist movements, including June 1832, include Mai 68, including so many movements, there’s a lot of disagreement and uncertainty on the left regarding details but the major sentiment is still the same. And people are out there for a long time; it’s currently 4am and people in Seattle are still out there.

But DYHTPS is such an emotional song for me. It’s a call to arms, but I think what makes it unique compared to One Day More is that it focuses fully on the people and is truly speaking to them, about them, calling for their voices and their bodies. And being on scanner duty has been an incredible way to see people using whatever resources they can to help people raise their voices. I’ve seen people livestreaming so those of us scanning have multiple eyes and angles to report from and crosscheck with the police blotter, I’ve seen people posting donation links, I’ve seen people asking where to bring supplies, I’ve seen people offer up knowledge about how to deal with sound cannons, pepper spray/tear gas, how to get out of zip ties, etc, I’ve seen people offering up food, first aid, a place to nap, shelter if things go south. There is so much more than just being out there on the street, and it’s amazing to see (and be a part of!) all the other work that people don’t see.

I recently watched (and wrote a post on) the 2014 Dallas Center Les Mis and noticed how their DYHTPS started with people handing out fliers, spreading the word, gathering support. And I’ve always thought that DYHTPS and all the barricade moments are connected with each other energy-wise as well as thematically (while I think like One Day More stands on its own), and I feel like I’m in that right now, that call to arms, but at the same time right now Seattle is definitely in the thick of it.

And I think that’s something that is both similar and different to Barricade Day and it’s real world history. All these people from all these different backgrounds banding together to protest, to fight back against injustice, that’s the same. But we have so much more resources and so many more modes of communication and remote assistance. This is a blessing and a curse: more modes of communication/resources also means more surveillance. But it’s just wild to see similar tactics from cops down to undercovers and pushbacks, and protesters using a combination of both tried and true tactics and new stuff (like umbrellas in Hong Kong and Seattle, like the traffic cone thing, like tennis rackets).

Rebellions and revolutions are connected across history. They’re connected across art of all kinds, from the original Les Miserables to the Situationists to the Les Mis musical to Stonewall to the Miners Strike to the Arab Spring to Ai Weiwei to Occupy to Pussy Riot to the original BLM to this, right now, and everything else in between. All the songs and paintings and books and photographs and collages. They’re connected by ideals and drive and desperation and exhaustion and faith and love and anger.

I know a lot of times people who aren’t musical theater people think musical theater people are annoying and I’ve seen a lot of times when Les Mis is quoted that seems a little off-color but this time really got me. This time it’s like I wasn’t just hearing the song (or reading the lyrics, as it were), I was living it. And living it in a very different and more intense way than back in 2013 when I was at uni and Black Lives Matter first grew into a huge nationwide movement. I’m glad I reread the Brick at the beginning of this year, because the comparison between then and now is fresh in my mind. I’m glad that person posted the lyrics to Do You Hear The People Sing because it helped something click in my brain that helped me understand that it’s okay that I’m not out there on the ground and that just by listening to the scanners and reporting what I hear I’m helping out, and it’s an extra form of communication they didn’t have in 1832. Another layer to add to the history.

(note that I’m writing this at like 4 in the morning and just stopped monitoring blotters like 45 minutes ago, so I’m sorry if it’s a little weird and incoherent)

[femmesfollesnebraska]

Illustration-based collage art: Vice feature artist Joanna Neborsky

Reposted from VICE written by Tanja Laden. 

Informal personality quizzes are nothing new. Long before the proliferation of clickable multiple-choice tests from sketchy sites online, print magazines published all kinds of ersatz exams about everything from makeup to sex, and probably even makeup sex. (Vanity Fair still does, albeit more tastefully.) The truth is that the tradition of supplying intimate answers to bold questions originated as a Victorian parlor game, and in 1890, a teenage Marcel Proust (1871-1922) indulged in the fad. It's his handwritten manuscript, An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc., that inspired artist Joanna Neborsky to try to bring back the erstwhile tradition of providing longhand answers to life's profound questions.

There really isn't a term to describe Joanna Neborsky's artistic style, which is a blend of antique spot illustrations, original drawings, and other collages reassembled into colorful yet mind-boggling pieces of meta clip-art. Maybe that's why she's the ideal artist to illustrate A Proust Questionnaire, a book of questions based on Marcel Proust's own answers in his confession album, as there's also not really a word to describe Proust's own writing except "Proustian."

"I would like for others to tell me what my style is," Neborsky tells The Creators Project. "Unfortunately, this morning, I keep landing on 'wacky.'"

Neborsky's career trajectory as an artist is an interesting one. She earned a degree in English at Yale, followed by an M.F.A. in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts. In a few years, she went from being an untrained artist to having her thesis in illustration published a year later as a book, Illustrated Three-Line Novels (2010). Maybe it's because her advisor was famed illustrator Maira Kalman, but most likely, it was Neborsky's witty take on grisly French crime blotters from the Belle Epoque that landed her the gig.

From there, Neborsky's career has taken off with a poster A Partial Inventory of Gustave Flaubert’s Personal Effects for The Paris Review, as well as caricatures of literary figures such as Colette and James Baldwin for A Reader’s Book of Days: True Tales from the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year by Tom Nissley.

"If I’m going down anywhere, it’ll be as an X-acto- and- paste- and- construction- paper- and- assorted- pens woman," Neborsky quips, referencing the James Joyce quotation: "I am quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors-and-paste man."

Neborsky says she finds old magazines and books for her projects everywhere from the sidewalk to estate sales, library sales, and thrift stores, adding that she never cuts out the pieces of her findings directly, but copies them instead in order to keep the source material intact.

"When a freelance job comes in, I identify the theme or concept of the piece and raid my 100% randomly archived collection of photo cutouts, spanning historical eras, animals, buildings, machinery, textures, words, numbers–for fragments that could suggest, either individually or in concert, the subject at hand," Neborsky explains. "Or, if I know I’m unlikely to have the right cutout because the topic is utterly specific—say, semi-automatic weapons (for The New York Times), or the painter Gustave Caillebotte (for Vanity Fair Italia), to cite two recent examples­, I move on over to the Pasadena library or The Last Bookstore and fire up the copy card. I set the cutouts next to one another in Photoshop to see if a relationship emerges, if a meaningful (versus merely textural) collage is possible. Then I draw or cut and paste the missing incidentals or accents to round out the scene."

When making art, Neborsky's goal is simple. It's "to tell a story; to make a viewer laugh; to make a little bit of beauty; (selfishly) to get lost in making." Less simple for her is listing her wide range of influences, which include Terry Gilliam’s collages and Andy Warhol’s children’s books. In fact, she has so many, she's made a list of them.

[2019 addendum: Neborsky is also inspired by Hannah Hoch, Franciszka Themerson, Maira Kalman and Betty Woodman.]

With such a worldly-looking portfolio, it's also interesting that Neborsky decided to come back to her native Southern California after studying on the East Coast and teaching in France. "I’m proud to be Californian, but nobody has ever mistaken me for one," she says. "My family’s roots are in the east, in Jewish Baltimore. Suburban San Diego, where I was born and raised, with its surf- and- SUV- and- smoothie- and- athleisure-based culture, never quite dug my scene. Whether my pessimism was Russian or adolescent, it didn’t matter; pessimism doesn’t play in sunny, bro-dawg San Diego."

Neborsky says she came back to Southern California partially because she felt she had maybe unfairly dismissed it as a youth. "From afar, Southern California started to gain back its luster that was apparent to everybody but morose teenaged Joanna—in my mid-twenties, living in New York, I began, for the first time, to crave the spaciousness, the Pacific, downtrodden glamour (specifically of Los Angeles), maybe a bit of the hedonism."

Like many of her fellow LA-based artists, Neborsky goes to yoga in order to take a break from her studio practice and realign. "And it’s usually there, in Savasana or some shape I am attempting to form en route to Savasana, that I get an idea or two that I smuggle back to the studio," she says.

"I will also say this: even after a decade flopping around New York, some of it in art school, I did not participate in an art scene until moving to Los Angeles. 'Participate' is probably even a stretch: in my shady Mount Washington home I maintain a solitary practice for faraway (usually New York) clients; at quitting time I visit with the LA art scene, in which most of my friends here are involved. It’s interesting and weirdly pressure-free to follow LA art doins’ as a commercial artist with no skin in the game. People are making so many great things here in weird little DIY art spaces, parking lots-turned-galleries, on mountaintops, the LA River. Even the blue-chip galleries in Culver City or Downtown (newly arrived to the consternation of many, I know!) calm me with their monumental sculptures and reliable air-conditioning. I don’t mean to be a naïve cheerleader, but I think so much of the work is good! Expansive (easier to make expansive things here) and intricate and ceramic and funny and painterly-sloppy and feminist and curious and rough-hewn and large-minded. I don’t know what I’m saying other than that I think I love art in LA, even as I’m an LA artist who doesn’t make LA art."

Visit Joanna Neborsky’s website here.

~

Les Femmes Folles is a volunteer organization founded in 2011 with the mission to support and promote women in all forms, styles and levels of art from around the world with the online journal, print annuals, exhibitions and events; originally inspired by artist Wanda Ewing and her curated exhibit by the name Les Femmes Folles (Wild Women). LFF was created and is curated by Sally Deskins.  LFF Booksis a micro-feminist press that publishes 1-2 books per year by the creators of Les Femmes Folles including the award-winning Intimates & Fools (Laura Madeline Wiseman, 2014) , The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters: Ten Tales (Laura Madeline Wiseman/Lauren Rinaldi, 2015 and Mes Predices (catalog of art/writing by Marie Peter Toltz, 2017).Other titles include Les Femmes Folles: The Women 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 available on blurb.com, including art, poetry and interview excerpts from women artists. A portion of the proceeds from LFF books and products benefit the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Wanda Ewing Scholarship Fund.

Current call for collaborative art-writing: http://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/post/181376606692/lff-2019-artistpoet-collaborations

Current call: What does being a womxn mean to you? http://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/post/183697785757/what-does-being-a-womxn-today-mean-to-youyour

[inkantadora]

In all my notebooks, I tend to carry a number of blotter paper which get used Day in and day out for years. Every so often, people will stop and stare at them as if I were carrying a random piece of art, which feels weird... but I have to admit that of all my blotters, this is my favorite because I’ve been using it for over 4 years and it’s had many loved inks and tea make it what it is today. ❤️🍵✒️ . Do you use blotters? How long do you keep them? Any favorites? . @cansonpaper . . #MyFavoriteBlotter #BlottingPaper #PapierBuvard #Buvard #Encre #Ink #Paper #Papier #Papel #everydayart #PapierCanson #Canson #FountainPenInk #EncrePourStyloPlume #Inkaddict #fountainpengeeks #Stationery #inkswab #nuancier #encre #tinta #atramentis #잉크 #定常 #インク #墨水儿 #墨水 #墨 #inchiosto #Inkantadora (at Paris, France) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0EZfx5CHbm/?igshid=10ul13x1b6thb

[screaming-broccoli]

I planed the perfect day

I took him to an old home that was turned into an art museum. Told him nothing other than we had to go to [residential neighborhood]. We got out of the uber with only homes around us and a park. Wonder what he was thinking. 

“God where is she taking me?” Most likely? 

We stopped by the house and I say nothing as I open the gate to let myself in. He stops, confused.

“We’re going to somebodies.... house?” I wonder if he was nervous?

I say yes and we ring the door bell. He looks worried. An old man answers the door and lets us in, leading to another old man. We shake hands as we find ourselves surrounded by 15 foot walls clad in art. There was no space for the walls. Posters, framed lsd pages, and weird knickknacks sponged away the wall paint.

He was blown away. It was the perfect gift and I knew that this made me the most amazing person in the world. He praised me as I knew he would. Couldn’t even resist agreeing with him in the moment. God yes I know I am amazing, I took you to a secret hole in the wall museum of fucking LSD blotter pages. Nobody knows about this place dude, it’s so niche and you love LSD so much. 

100% chance of him thinking I’m next coming of Jesus for even finding the place.

Fuck, I still mentally jerk my self off to how well I planned that entire visit. I can’t even contain my self just fucking god dude why cant I be that good all the time? ???

24/7 why can’t I just be perfect like that why?? hwy? why is it so hard to maintain it

It’s so hard to maintain perfection but it feels so fucking good when I pull it off. I wanna be successful but I suck. I wanna change myself so I can go back to thinking I’m hot shit.

[disappearingground]

PRODIGAL DAUGHTER Jenny Lewis

Blurt Magazine February 20, 2009

Last year the Rilo Kiley vocalist took a vacation from her band, visited her hometown, and wound up with a solo album.

By A.D. Amorosi

Going back and forth between the past and the present, the inane and the barely passably sensible is pleasing to Jenny Lewis.

That’s her life and that’s her wife, what with having spent the better part of growing up absurdly in one brand of show-bizzy limelight or another; a child of vaudevillians and entertainer-types, a kid actress, a country-tinged pop band chanteuse, a mistress of wordy Saddle Creek-y solo album (Rabbit Fur Coat) éclat.

“And now is my time,” says Jenny Lewis crisply. “My time.”

Not just because she’s away again from that old California gang of hers – the now decade-old Rilo Kiley that she birthed with guitarist/one-time paramour Blake Sennett. Or that she’s simply releasing her second solo effort in two years.

Jenny Lewis has produced Acid Tongue – a damn-near live album that’s got no Pro-Tools, is all analog, is far less wordy than her previous recordings, and whose vocals were tracked as they were happening. Lewis produced it with some old close friends and brought in a few pals to play and sing.

But it’s her.

You can’t help thinking that having her return to her childhood home (the one between Las Vegas and L.A.) of Van Nuys to record Acid Tongue wasn’t just the work of healing old wounds (“Badman’s World”) wounding old heels (“The Next Messiah”) and reconstructing the Oedipal Complex for 2008 (“Jack Killed Mom”), but rather some sassy shout-out of independence and huzzah-huzzah-hoorah-ness.

Besides, there’s got to be some particular self-satisfaction at work; of divinity, silliness and narcissism that would allow her to place her face on the cover of this new album done up as dozens of acid blotter tabs.

“Well, you may as well have a laugh,” says Lewis, about her lysergic cover art. “And if you were to drop a tab, you might very well see as many mes standing before you.”

That doesn’t sound so bad.

From the reaction to 2006’s Rabbit Fur Coat – produced by her bud Conor Oberst’s Bright Eyes stalwart Mike Mogis – a couple-hundred Jennys would be great. She did three tours around that solo effort alone. But it’s always seemed as if Jenny-philes have wanted more of her. No sooner than people liked Rilo’s quirky irked brand of indie-country-pop, Lewis’s soulful squint of a voice and panicky character-driven lyrics (2001s Take Offs and Landings on Barsuk), they wanted the band to go major label and her to go solo. The moment she released something small and the band hit the majors (with 2007s Under the Blacklight for Warners), people wanted more solo stuff from Jenny.

Everybody seems to be waiting for something from her.

“I don’t know why they’re waiting. I’m incredibly stubborn and I probably won’t give them what they want,” she says plainly. She is her own driving force and won’t be cadged into doing more solo projects. She does records with whatever speed and volume because she is not yet satisfied. “I never am and never have been. I want more. I never assume that I’ve done all that I can do. That just happens to be one of my character traits.”

Jenny Lewis dictates the pace. Things have been as such since she decided to become a writer and singer.

Stop.

This is not the question where you ask her about the childhood acting thing. This is the question about the through line that exists between those careers; the one beyond “Show biz.” She goes on to tell me a family history.

Grandmother was a head balancer and dancer with Moscow circus. Grandfather was a small time criminal and singer with vaudevillian Burt Lahr who fell into depression and out of music when Lahr left the act to pursue the role of “Cowardly Lion” in The Wizard of Oz. Both of her parents were musicians who had a lounge act in Las Vegas and were on The Ed Sullivan Show.

“My birth was just a continuation of family business,” she giggles. “But it was also about the continued avoidance – for me – of avoiding the straight life, a regular job. That’s what show biz presents itself as always, a viable option from doing normal 9-to-5 stuff.”

So maybe it’s all one big gesture. But I’m not here interviewing a Jenny Lewis of Facts of Life fame or a Jenny Lewis star of the touring version of The Lion King or a Jenny Lewis known for hosting a reality show and singing for Disney.

Without sounding too lofty, this brand of Lewis found a deeper aesthetic direction, an art form amongst the entertaining bits.

“That’s the only difference I think… I am a writer,” she says. That’s what led her upon meeting Blake Sennett to write their first song together, “Eggs.” “It was before Rilo Kiley. At least before we were called Rilo Kiley. It was on the first day we met.” Sennett had a guitar riff. She had a four track. He laid it down and she wrote stuff over it.

But this is not a Rilo Kiley story.

“Yes,” Lewis says quietly, when I ask if she feels like she and Rilo have grown up together. “In some ways; but I don’t know that we’ll truly grow up.”

Yes. Most of her Rilo Kiley lyrics are less personal than those on her first solo album. But on the new Acid Tongue there’s a darker, deeper mix of the personal and the character-narrative. “There’s so much more Rilo stuff so there’s been more to experiment with and more time for it. But I was comfortable enough here to do both character-driven songs and personal ones.” Does that mean she’ll find a zone in Rilo in which to do both? Or is she better off keeping the personal tunes like “Tryin’ My Best” to herself and for herself?

“To know that there’s someone else you’re singing about can weigh just as heavily as a song you’re singing about yourself,” says Lewis. “Sometimes the personal songs are easier. Sometimes the personal songs bore me.”

She’s tired of hearing of hearing herself complain about stuff. “That is until I write another song about me complaining about stuff.”

Maybe she’s getting better at being solo than Rilo Kiley-ing. She doesn’t know yet. Lewis can say that this Acid Tongue experience – recorded in the same studio where Neil Young did After the Gold Rush and Nirvana did Nevermind – was the most comfortable she’s ever felt in the studio; so comfortable that she was able to sing the songs in their entirety. “The whole record is live, live singing, live playing. I haven’t been able to do that in the past. This may sound a little hippie dippy-ish but I just never felt free enough to do that. I was always self-conscious in the studio.”

Her three weeks spent recording Acid Tongue were planned, but ever so loosely. If they could pull it off the live haste and pace – great.

The title song’s first line – written who-knows-how-many-years-ago when she was living in her Silverlake apartment where she wrote 90 percent of all of her songs – was the start of the record:

I went to a cobbler to fix a hole in my shoe/he took one look at my face/and said “I can fix that hole in you”/“I beg your pardon I’m not looking for a cure/I’ve seen enough of my friends in the depths of the God-sick blues”/you know I’m a liar.

The line didn’t dictate what would happen next. Nor does it sound like anything else on the album. “But there was just something about that first line coming to me; the idea of someone having an answer for you, a solution to something, the sadness of that,” she trails off. “It was a feeling I wanted to go with.”

So Lewis and her co-producer pals Farmer Dave Scher, Jason Lader and songwriter/beau Johnathan Rice, along with musicians/singers Chris Robinson (the Black Crowes), Zooey Deschanel, M. Ward, Benji Hughes and Davey Faragher, all got Acid-ic. So did family members like her vibraphone playing uncle, her singing sisters and – amazingly- Elvis Costello.

“Once we got to the studio it was good and flowed very quickly,” claims Lewis. “We could pull it off. We could play it live. Which is so weird, to have to make a point of that, because that’s what music should be. But I’m a child of the digital revolution.”

I stopped to finish a thought I‘d had earlier: that if she’s having such a good time with people other than Rilo Kiley, is she worried that she might be better at being solo than a Kiley-ite. She’s not. She just wants to make the best music possible with whatever bunch of people she makes it with. She didn’t start playing music to be burdened by her relationships and be miserable. She wants to enjoy myself.

“Now’s the time.” Not just because the moment out there is good. But, not to sound hippie-dippy-ish… “The moment within me is good. I’m just starting to understand what I do.”

And that understanding is? “I’m just learning how to trust myself musically. I’m learning that you don’t have to say as much to make a point.”

True, that. Yes, the inspiration of Laura Nyro’s Gonna Take a Miracle – the spare soul momentum, delirious melody, awestruck joy and the lean accompaniment of the trio of singers that was Labelle – was the backbone for Rabbit Fur Coat. So, too, was a loquaciousness and a series of multi-syllabic phrases that filled every crevice of every song.

Acid Tongue – lyrically – is more economical than that.

“That was a conscious decision. Going back and listening to my older songs I think I was trying to prove something – overstating the obvious.” So she went back over Acid Tongue things and scaled back the syllables. That happened, too, because this album was as much about the total package as it was the worried words and dark passages. The expansive, sometimes-psychedelic harshness is a far cry from Nyro’s stewing Tin-Pan soul and Lewis’ mom’s favorite songwriter.

“Plus the location was more important” says Lewis, discussing Van Nuys’ California’s Sound City Studios. “We were all inspired by the records that’ve been made there. Plus, returning to where I grew up was timely. I needed to address things about my personal life, my past.”

Lewis isn’t so completely revealing as to what she was addressing. You don’t necessarily need her to do so, save for the fact that she expressed pain at having to drive past her childhood home every day as she rode to the studio and then realized that she couldn’t run from things bottled up.

“You cannot run from feelings. You will be unwell. They will affect all that you do. It will ruin your health. In order to do that, I had to make this record there.”

Ask her to focus on the track that best reflects that search for addressing those feelings, for picking at your emotions: she chooses “Badman’s World.”

There’s a certain line that listeners should seek out during that haunted song. Lewis doesn’t know if it’s a necessarily poignant phrase. But it was important enough to stop the recording of another track – “Sing a Song” – as she came up with a twist on “Badman’s World.” Lewis started playing “Badman” on piano only to have the rest of the band join in and the control room ops continue taping.

The line is about scorpions. Originally it was about her and another person being two scorpions in one bottle. Now, it’s about one of those scorpions getting shot by Lewis. Which one gets shot is a mystery worthy of J.R. and Dallas.

“You have to take responsibility,” says Lewis, when asked what the point of the “Badman’s World” is.

Yet the whole album seems to be about her taking responsibility.

She won’t take full credit for the economy of its lyrics not matching the ferocity of its sound. Lewis credits her co-producers and mentions Johnathan Rice. “The four of us together formed one great person.”

That she’s brought up Rice twice and that she’s made music in close proximity with another one-time paramour, Rilo’s Sennett, the questions arise about it being hard or desirable to work with someone you’re having a loving relationship with.

“It is what I do and what I’ve done. It’s just very natural. I’m always thinking about music. Every time, every day, writing words, listening back, criticizing myself. It’s nice to have someone who is up for sharing in that at all times of day at all hours.”

It is a risk, she knows, because you’re chancing personal happiness and the longevity of the relationship. But she knows she has to do it. “You got to do it. And as a woman playing music, it’s nice to have someone by your side… because I am a coward,” she giggles. “Seriously. I’m lucky to have had talented dudes around me.”

Speaking of talented dudes, Elvis Costello worms his way into the conversation in the same fashion he wormed his way onto Acid Tongue. Apparently she first spoke to the British lion when having Christmas with a friend’s father – Costello drummer Pete Thomas. Costello phoned to wish Pete merry-merry, got Lewis on the phone, got her to appear in his “Monkey to Man” video (“I did an awkward walk-by clutching a purse”), then wound up dueting on “Carpetbaggers” when Rice was up for the low singing parts.

“I emailed him. He responded. And in exchange we recorded some of his songs. The vibe was so good there that as soon as we finished mixing, Costello went into make his own record there.”

Like Costello grabbing a lick, all the heavy heady sad moments that fill Lewis’ Acid Tongue are ripe with lightness of being, of funny moments and gentle sessions. The funniest seems the sweetest – the mad-mad-Jim Morrison moment of “Jack Killed Mom.” While the whole song seems to seethe with its death knell promise (“I had to kill off the mother character that was so prominent on Rabbit Fur Coat,” says Lewis), it is her harmonica-blowing dad, jazz-bo Eddie Gordon, on the track.

“I was so tired of talking about my mother from that last record that having my dad play on it was just hilarious. Having him and my family and my friends in the studio felt like an honest record.”

Now let’s back to those acid tabs.

[itsworn]

The Creative Geniuses Behind Cars.

We love cartoons, especially if they’re about cars and racing—you know, the cool stuff we dug as children and eventually as fully matured gearheads. At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the folks from Disney’s Pixar announced a Cars 3 movie will debut in June 2017. We were interested to learn more about the folks behind the wildly successful movie franchise that’s indoctrinating young enthusiasts into our beloved hobby.

The original Cars movie was released more than 10 years ago and was a smash hit with kids and grown-ups. The authenticity and attention to detail that went into creating the automotive characters are phenomenal. Even hardcore enthusiasts who may have reluctantly been pulled into the movie theater by their five-year-olds quickly realized the animators got it right.

While there are a lot of folks behind the scenes who make the Cars franchise what it is, it’s the driving passion of Creative Director Jay Ward and Production Designer Jay Shuster who are largely responsible for the series’ continuing success.

HRM] What influenced you growing up that lead to you becoming a fervent car enthusiast?

Jay Ward] My father was an auto wholesaler. He’d buy them, fix them up, and sell them. He had a shop in Riverside, Missouri, a little suburb of Kansas City. I lived in California, so when I’d come visit him, I’d go to his shop and sit in the front office. He had a blotter pad and I would draw cars. I did this while he was doing things like detailing and laying out striping tape. I’d be drawing cars, drinking Coke, listening to the radio, and looking at the Farrah Fawcett poster he had the wall. I’d also go to auctions with my dad all the time. He always had great balance of loving old cars, new cars, and European sports cars. He even bought a Ferrari Daytona Coupe in Newport Beach, California, and drove it back to Kansas City.

Jay Shuster] I grew up in the Motor City [Detroit] and my father was a designer at GM for 43 years. He designed the 1967 Pontiac Firebird emblem that went on the front fender. The house I grew up in was set up like a museum with everything he appreciated about design. It was a drag living in the house because he didn’t like kids playing with his stuff. However, I did get an appreciation of the line, material, the overall look of things. Toy trains, boats—anything mechanical—I looked at them differently. I went to the Center of Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit for industrial design, but I took a product design path rather than automotive because I wanted something a little different than what I grew up with. By the time I went to college, I felt I had already been through an automotive design curriculum with my dad—one on one.

Pixar’s creative geniuses, Jay Ward (left) and Jay Shuster (right) are true gearheads with impressive backgrounds. They make sure each vehicle’s details are correct in all the characters you see in Disney’s Cars movies.

HRM] How did you get started in the movie business?

JW] I started on Monsters, Inc. in 1999 as an entry-level assistant position in the art department. I then worked my way up as a coordinator. When Cars came along, they asked me to manage the character team process because I understood real cars. The production on the original Cars movie began in late 2000 and early 2001. During this era, it was code named JLP, for the John Lasseter Project. I was the first production person because they knew I was a car guy.

JS] I got my start designing characters and environment. Around 2003 I came to Pixar and began working on Cars. It was the first time I attributed drawing personality into inanimate objects. I met Bob Pauley, the designer of Lighting McQueen and Buzz Lightyear; he’s a super talented guy at Pixar and was basically my mentor in learning how to design character into cars.

HRM] When the first Cars movie came out in 2006, did you know it was going to be a hit?

JW] It was a labor of love for us. Pixar films are held to a very high standard of being emotional, deep-driving stories and so the film was well loved. However, it didn’t win the Academy Award that year (Happy Feet won for Best Animated Feature). What happened was Cars became more popular as time went on. It started out medium-loud and then kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger; toys started taking off, and within two years, we were planning Cars Land (an attraction at the Disney California Adventure Park).

HRM] The details on character vehicles in the movie is impressive. How do you do that?

JW] We first came to the Detroit Auto Show in 2001,and numerous times after that. We met with manufacturers to do research and even went to the Dodge Viper plant. We love Detroit and its car culture. We also believe the smallest details make these car characters authentic. For example, we’d be in a review meeting and John Lasseter would ask me what would a Hudson Hornet have?  I’d reply “Twin H carbs,” and then he’d say “we’ve got to do that.” That’s the thing: John wants to get the details right. His whole thing is authenticity. Everything little thing in that film we studied and vetted, even the paint jobs having a single-stage lacquer paint or a heavy, metallic, chunky clearcoat—we think about all that stuff: what’s chrome, what’s silver, bias-ply or radial tires? We’re nuts and think about that stuff in all the Cars movies.

JS] It’s pen and paper on these things for a year. On Cars 3, we designed the main character, Jackson Storm, with a clean sheet of paper. The premise being, what are the shapes contrary to Lighting McQueen? Lighting being very muscular with flowing lines and Jackson Storm being angular and sharp. Storm had to be a weapon on wheels, everything sharp and pointing to the front, then receding away creating creases and edges. Jay Ward and I worked closely together and we presented these drawings to the directors on a weekly basis while getting feedback through the process. The tedium that goes into dialing in the shading and painting of these characters always changes. We gave Storm’s gloss, yet dark, finish with an iconic “S,” which is the international sign for a hurricane.

The new Cars 3 movie introduces a new character, Jackson Storm. He is the nemesis for Lighting McQueen. Jay Shuster (left) gave Storm’s character a sharp, angular shape and a menacing look, which is a shift from McQueen’s softer-flowing lines.

HRM] Whose idea was it to have Richard Petty’s 1970 Superbird for “The King” character?

JW] The Superbird is the iconic car for him, and it had to be Petty Blue. It had to have his font for the “43” Richard Petty car, and the details Bob Pauley—the designer for Pixar—used are awesome. We actually went to the Walter P. Chrysler Museum and studied that car and realized it was nothing like the street version. We had to get the details right, like the taillight rivets, wheelwell openings, and other design cues that are only found on the actual race car.

HRM] Tell us how you got Richard’s wife, Lynda, into the recording studio to do the voice of “Mrs. King” for Cars?

JW] So Richard comes in to record and Lynda is with him. The way those two talked to each other was so cute and our producer, John Lasseter, noticed it. He asked her if she’d like to record the voice for Mrs. King. We weren’t sure, as she had never done anything like this before. After the recording, John asks her what kind of car she’d like to be, as she could be any car she wanted. Lynda goes, “Station wagon—it’s what I took my kids in to see the races.” John asks what color it should be, and of course, Lynda says, “Petty Blue.” It was her decision to be the station wagon. She was an awesome lady and great to work with on the original movie

Pixar’s imaginative dream team includes Cars director/producer John Lasseter (center). John’s automotive roots and passion started when he was a kid. The fact his dad was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership probably had something to do with that.

HRM] Will we ever see a Cars movie that involves drag racing?

JW] We’ve looked at all genres, including drag racing. The funny thing about drag racing is it’s over so fast, and there’s not a lot of drama to it—you blink and it’s over. We actually had an early sequence in [Cars 3] where McQueen drove out to the El Mirage dry lakebed to get his mojo back. It was cool, but the scene didn’t flow well with the story, so it got cut.

JS] Plus, if you have a car that’s long like a dragster, the animated look and proportion of these cars with the windshield to the mouth doesn’t work. You have to shoot it super-compressed and it looks weird.

HRM] Do both of you own any cool cars that aren’t cartoons?

JW] I’ve always been a car guy, even before I began working at Pixar. I had a ’49 Lincoln Cosmopolitan Coupe and another ’49 Lincoln Coupe that I chopped and hardtopped. I took the big 337 flathead out that weighed about 900 pounds and installed a 351 Cleveland. I also added a ’54 DeSoto grille, and it looked awesome—almost like a gangster car. I also built a 1929 Model A with a Caddy 331. I wanted a prewar custom, a western car, and tail dragger, so I sold one of the Lincolns and bought a ’39 Mercury convertible. I also have a ’57 Pontiac Safari station wagon. That’s what we take the kids to school in, and it’s a family car because there are no back doors for the kids to fall out of!

JS]  I don’t have the cool stuff like Jay, but I have a brand-new Ford F-150 that pulls my 28-foot Airstream trailer, so that’s kind of my speed. But my dad has two Chevy Corvairs: a 1964 and 1969.

HRM] We’re almost at the finish line, anything you want to add?

JW] Both Jay and I are super passionate car guys and love hot rodding. I have every issue of HOT ROD magazine going back to the beginning and still refer to them. I even did a stint as the editor of Hop Up magazine from 2007 to 2009. I live in the Bay Area, so on Sundays I head to the Blackhawk Museum in Danville for Cars and Coffee.

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[outlikethat]

scent: oriza legrand rêve d'ossian

I mean. was I supposed to resist that name along with the picture of the tasselled, art-nouveau-was-sick-on-this-brick bottle? I think not.

this is allegedly an incense fragrance, and I am getting what appears to be a noseful of benzoin (unusual choice) from where I've applied it to the crease of my elbow (learned from yesterday's experience, after needing to take the CdeG headache bait residue off the edge of my work desk with alcohol!).

on the blotter, it was mostly a single, abrasively edged rather chemical sweetness which I know I've nosed on at least one other scent at some point, but thankfully that's not coming up on my skin.

other than that, this is lighter (in tone, not in actual impact) than I was expecting, with a slightly powdery, slightly green sweet-sharp quality. (yeah, alas, I normally don't get any "the evocation of the mists of the irish forests in a rich coumarin tang with complicated woody basenotes" precision. my evaluations are more along the lines of, I like it; I fkng hate it get it off; this is triggering my allergies like whoa; wow! this smell, whatever it is, is exactly something I would like to enjoy as my scentity on at least some occasions).

anyway, on that rather simpleminded level of scent appreciation, this makes my nose itch slightly on close acquaintance, but isn't triggering any immediately violent reactions. I don't hate it, but it is definitely not a "me" scent (too old-fashioned, too upper-register, too generally "pretty"). I strongly suspect it might go rancid on me, so at this point I'm going to let it age on my acidic integument for a bit and see what happens.

update 1: seems to be shifting into mostly a rather aggressive "amber" mode, along with more powdery qualities and a hint of laundry detergent. so far this is a very your-aunt's-ruffled-vanity kind of smell, distinctly old-fashioned, distinctly A Perfume. still don't outright hate it, but am finding nothing to love. still makes me want to sneeze, a bit. probably horridly obnoxious if applied to the body in a full-bore spray; this strikes me as the kind of thing that would precede a person into a room on a cloud of femme.

(note: the other thing my particular skin chemistry does is violently amplify sweet or flowery notes, so there may be a whole layer of basenotes getting drowned out here as the carapace turns the treble up to 100) (my personal taste is very much not sweet or flowery at all; most of my favourites are a deep grumble of resins, vetiver and/or smoke and occasional "is that a perfume??" weirdness like cumin) (this is so not me it feels like a costume)

update 2: we're about half an hour in, and that weird abrasive note from the blotter has come in, though on a whisper. not sure what this is intended to be, but it's giving a sharp edge to the sweetness which isn't doing any of the composition any favours

update 3: closing in on an hour, and the laundry-detergent flurry of Iso-E Super lab-generated trees is really asserting itself, mostly drowning out any initial personality rêve d'ossian displayed, as well as its more old-fashioned stylings. my inner elbow smells fresh and a bit like a dryer vent.

update 4: about three hours after initial application. I don't think this is going anywhere else other than "party in the laundry room! you'll be springtime fresh for weeks!" and I'm pretty tired of it, although on the positive side, it has not in fact decayed into unrecognisability (which if it was going to, it usually would have by now). ultimately undistinguished, at least on my skin, and very much not for me.