+ Kat

Listening: I just finished Black Postcards by Dean Wareham, so I’ve been listening to lots of Galaxie 500 and Luna. Also some Horace Andy and Scientist, for old dub’s sake.
Watching: We got in this mood lately to re-watch all the House Party movies. Duuuuuude, watching the first one again: memories. I also re-watched River’s Edge. That movie always inspires me in a crazy way. Also re-watched The Virgin Suicides, which I still love after all these years.
Reading: As I said, I finished Black Postcards, which I thought was really great. I really enjoyed it as this kind of detached, honest look into the shithole of indie rock — kind of like this no-man’s land between rock excess and a boring, horrible realm of bad hotels, lugging your own equipment and getting ripped off by the recording industry left and right. Wareham’s got such a great, dry sense of humor, though, which makes it all very, very funny. The whole infidelity thing was really gut-wrenching, though, even though I wanted to hit him on the head a few times. You could subtitle the book “Commitment Issues.” Then I read Just Kids by Patti Smith, and it was as lovely and wonderful as I expected. And my book, for the millionth time.
Wearing: A Veronique Branquinho shirt and Uniqlo jeans.
Wanting: This weekend is all magic, I can feel it.

This is not Dr. Dre as a kid, but it still cracks me up:

+ Liz

Listening: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Watching: The Pope of Greenwich Village
Reading: Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters
Wearing: grey shorts that used to be jeans, a blue t-shirt
Wanting: Today is the birthday of Laura Jane Faulds, so I want to wish her a very happy birthday, here, in Snapshot. Laura and I are writing a book together, and you probably already knew that. Let It Be Beautiful by Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Faulds was born for the first time on an afternoon two autumns ago, when Laura phoned me up as I was trying on a top in a dressing room on Ventura Blvd. The theme song from The Hills was playing on the dressing room radio, which was cool and lame and prescient – “Today truly is where my book begins!” I might have said to the mirror, after I hung up the phone. And now anytime I hear “Unwritten” I get this nice happy rush that’s weirdly paired with a recurring image of Heidi Montag’s creepy mouth dropping open from the Hills credits, and that’s always fun for me. But anyway, what I’m getting at is: we’ve been at this book thing for some time now; it’s been quite the magical mystery tour. And the longer we work at it, the more charmed and grateful I feel, to have Laura Jane Faulds as my fellow book writer. I am so lucky to be sitting (or, rather, lying) at my computer that’s got dozens and dozens and dozens of stories all authored by Laura Jane Faulds, in the annoying .docx files she sends me from her faraway country. I am so blessed to get to read them first, and to know they’re there when I need something beautiful or brutal or both to read when I’m stuck on one of my own stories. And it’s fortunate for you too, that you’ll get to read those stories sometime not so very far in the future. They’ll wreck and ravish you; you’ll read them over and over again. Laura Jane Faulds is such a fucking great writer. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HER*

(*sung Paul McCartney-ly)