Last Friday/Saturday I spent 18 hours in New York, saw Sonic Youth and Wild Flag at the Williamsburg Waterfront with Laura and Keight and Shirley whom you may remember from Complicated-Women Karaoke back in January. After the show we went to Momofuku Milk Bar and I got that cookie and now I’m so jealous of New York, that you get to have Momofuku Milk Bar and I can’t think of any amazing cookies in Los Angeles. Are there no amazing cookies in Los Angeles?
2. Mary Timony 4-eva
Look how happy she is, basking in our warm and loving presence last Friday. I swiped this beautiful photo from Fucking Nostalgic, which is a website I totally support.
3. Nirvana playing Twister with Smashing Pumpkins
I found this thanks to Tatyana, who writes for Birdsong. Krist Novoselic was hot kind of? Briefs are a good look for him? Kurt doesn’t know how to play Twister?
Listening: A bunch of stuff, including TV on the Radio, some old Die Warzau stuff (I’m kind of on this old Wax Trax jag, it’s a real bummer that I only have most of it on cassette), and the new Lady Gaga. I actually like it! It’s a bit much and I can only listen to one-third at a time till I get that feeling that’s like you’ve been in a nightclub too long and just want to go home. I haven’t really been into the singles much (though that chorus to “Judas” is so perfectly girl-group that I love it) but there are some fun songs on there, and I am fond of any song named after the German word for “shit” and contains a “Justify My Love” ape and a totally awesome disco queen chorus. It’s super Madonna-like, but now that Madonna has been kidnapped by Kabbalah, I think that’s A-OK. Watching: I finally watched Somewhere! I really dug it. I love how Sofia Coppola’s movies get more and more minimal with each one, and I really dig the Antonioni vibe of Somewhere. It’s very pared-down and gentle, and it was fun to hang out in the Chateau Marmont for awhile. I really miss Cali-era Sofia Coppola’s style, but it was nice to revisit it, albeit obliquely, in the movie. Reading: My novel! My latest draft is done! Beautiful werewolf boys! Wearing: I’ve hit this point where I look at my clothes and I’m like “GOD I HATE EVERYTHING I WEAR SO MUCH!!!!!!” even though I have perfectly nice clothes! Such a sartorial malcontent right now. I really need to be forced to wear sweatpants for two weeks so I miss my clothes and can appreciate them in a new light. Wanting: Ordering from the cosmic diner, I am just putting it out there that if I could write fiction full-time and exist and play happily with the characters in my head, I would be a most content woman.
Oh, my industrial-filled early adolescence!
+ Liz
Listening: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Watching: the first half of Rumble Fish & it’s soooo weird! Reading:JEREMY AND BARBARA KINCAID’S HOUSE by Laura Jane Faulds Wearing: my high school track shorts and a Sonic Youth tank top Wanting:KAYA TOAST FOREVER (little white-toast sandwiches filled with coconut jam, and then you dip them into the yolk of an over-easy egg that’s soaking in soy sauce: delightful)
Listening: Ironically enough considering my last Style Icon entry, but Sonic Youth! Watching: I watched Revolutionary Road a few nights ago. Wow, Kate Winslet! I’m really hoping to get to Somewhere, finally, this weekend. Reading: The latest revised draft of my novel is finished, so I’ll probably be reading that. But I am reading lots of Emile Zola, too. I finished The Ladies Paradise and it is such a fantastic book. Who knew that a book about the emergence of the department store in 19th century Paris could be such a great read? Plus, the descriptions of the fabrics are just mouth-watering. Wearing: A linen blouse from Uniqlo, leggings, boots. Wanting: I woke up from such an awesome dream this morning that it was SO DEPRESSING to realize that it was just a dream! I would like that dream to come true. It involves holding hands with someone amazing, a trip to the edge of a volcano that was filled with heaven, and also buying a bracelet made of “moon diamonds” with delirious love.
(Also, I’m going to do 30 Days of Creativity in June. Because I am a monster of love and creativity, and because I love a good challenge, truly. I really want us to do it together! So do it! I will keep track of my noodle-y efforts at my personal blog because I don’t want to pollute nogoodforme with my noodle-y stuff, but I think there are some lovely people here who would be into it.)
When you image-search “volcano filled with heaven,” this is what you get on the first page. In my dream, it was so much more psychedelic than this!
+ Liz
Listening: I saw Prince last Saturday. I listen to “Darling Nikki” and “D.M.S.R.” a lot. Watching: the Parks and Rec episode directed by Nicole Holofcener and guest-starring Parker Posey Reading: I saw Bret Easton Ellis at Skylight Books last night: he read the first page of Less Than Zero, and then put the book down and took questions for an hour. He’s such a great talker and so weirdly warm/open, in his own Bret Easton Ellis-y way, so charismatic and funny as hell. He talked about The Hills, astrology, Joan Didion, being both an introvert and an extrovert, the movie he’s writing about Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan, the day he got the phone call that Less Than Zero was going to be published, how American Psycho is his most autobiographical book, and some other stuff that’s too difficult to recount in a Snapshot blurb. I wish I could just sit in a room and watch him talk for days on end. Wearing: my go-go-dancer-on-her-way-to-Sunday-school dress Wanting: Everything’s cool. I’m going to see Lavender Diamond for the first time in years tonight – here’s a picture I took of Becky Stark last time I saw them, in 2007:
Poor Sonic Youth! Wait, who the fuck feels sorry for Sonic Youth? Well, I do, only in the same that we can give them such a lovingly hard time here. It is easy to make fun of them because they are so professionally cool, and well, if you are professionally cool, being mocked is just another job hazard, much like commuting, lame co-workers and lamer customers can be for other jobs.
However, this post is not meant to be mocking. Because I think Kim Gordon is pretty rad, even though we have given her a hard time for singing like she’s puking and for her bitch-stare. (To add to the annals of bitch-stares with Kim Gordon, Kim and I once had a death stare moment at Angelika Theater in NYC a few years ago; she was wearing leopard print pants and a black leather jacket and she looked great. I texted my boyfriend after and wrote, “KIM GORDON & I JUST STARED AT EACH OTHER. EITHER TONIGHT I DIE W/ THE DEVIL INSIDE OR SHE LIKED MY T-SHIRT.” He texted me back: “Did u steal my Black Flag shirt again?”)
I never truly appreciated Kim’s style until I reached my mid-thirties and everyone was like “You can’t wear miniskirts anymore!” (OK, not everyone: lame fashion magazines, stupid aging frat boys on the train, “arbiters.”) This makes me angry, because I like miniskirts and minidresses and boots with those things, and my WHOLE FASHION IDENTITY (oh, dramz) is based on it. What am I supposed to do? Just suddenly get rid of one-third of my wardrobe? Kim Gordon is incontrovertible proof that you can get older and still wear miniskirts and short dresses, or just jeans and t-shirts, or anything really, and still look great. Being professionally cool in this case inoculates you against banal assumptions about age, physical appearance and dignity, what mothers should look like and other such bullshit. To eschew all that is genuinely cool. I am not professionally cool and am probably more dorkily free-spirited than anything else, but I still am going to wear hemlines above the knee.
So yes, even if Coco is an art project and she’s always kind of bagging on other “women in rock,” I still appreciate Kim Gordon in a party dress with a bass guitar very much. Thank you, Kim, even if your bitch-stare kind of freaked me out!
Listening: James Blake, Nas, and going through my strangely annual phase of being obsessed for a brief period of time with Sonic Youth’s Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. Why, I don’t know, it just happens in the spring often, much like allergies. Watching: I watched Eat, Pray, Love while doing taxes. ‘Twas not good. But I also saw Hanna and I was super-into it, even though the plot kind of stretches that whole suspension of disbelief thing. But I thought Saoirse Ronan was so spookily good, Cate Blanchett’s always fantastic and it has this strange fairytale feel that I adored. People need to support fairytale aesthetic in cinema! Reading: I finished Lonely Werewolf Girl and it was so great! Warring Scottish werewolf clans, fashionista elementals and werewolf sorceresses, werewolf killer guilds, and a heroine who loves the Runaways and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” all add up to the best rollicking romp of a book I’ve read in ages. Imagine if someone like Neil Gaiman decided to write the British sitcom version of “Buffy,” and you have a pretty good approximation of how genius this book is! Read it if you like having a good time! Wearing: Please, someone tell me why I thought getting a tie-dye maxi dress for spring was such a great idea? Yet I love it. Wanting: If you would read the first 15 pages of my 90s zine girl epic screenplay, I’d love you forever. Also tell me what iPhone apps are good. I have an iPod touch now.
+ Liz
Listening:Nine Types of Light by TV On The Radio (espesh “Repetition”) Watching: God I hate the way the actor playing Vic Racine delivers the line “His lips taste my juicy sweetness” on “The Substitute” episode of My So-Called Life. Makes my skin crawl! Reading: I am nearly through with Sweet Valley Confidential. My fave sentence so far is: “One time when we were in high school, this lunatic madman came at her with a sledgehammer.” Wearing: shirts with Mickey Mouse on them Wanting: to look like this picture all springtime long:
When Sonic Youth played this at their Hollywood Bowl show recently, my favorite dude friend of all time called me on his phone and let me listen in because he knows this is my favorite Sonic Youth song ever. I heard the spidery, spooky little guitar bits at the beginning, and I had that rush of affection you feel when you know you’re in someone’s heart and you could practically mainline how much you love them. All of this is so odd to me, because it’s actually rare for me to have deeply emotional connotations to Sonic Youth’s music — they approach music like an artmaking project instead of the usual vehicle for self-expression, which is why everyone makes fun of them because they are TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL. But maybe I need to rethink this a bit more subtly, because after I heard “Shadow of A Doubt” playing over my phone, I dug up Evol and listened to it after a very long time of not hearing it and was surprised at how strangely gorgeous it is. It’s a beautifully damaged-sounding record, really even pretty and ethereal in many parts. Does this mean that I can’t make fun of Sonic Youth as much as I used to? Damn. (Kat)
I was kind of bummed this was not a cover of Lush’s “Desire Lines,” but you know, it’s a bit like a boy version of Lush (crossed with some Stone Roses) with its dreamy, reverb-y guitars and shoegazer-y sound. I think I’ve listened to this song about a thousand times in the past week because I love it so much. I wasn’t even able to progress past this track on Halcyon Digest because it was just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and more repeat. But I forced myself to go beyond, and now I can say with truth that the Deerhunter album is as good as everyone says it is. You know how skeptical I am of such things, but cross my heart. For the reals. Amazeballs. (Kat)
David Lee Roth turned 56 last Sunday and I chose not to acknowledge it on the Internet. But I did acknowledge it elsewhere, like in my car, where I played “Wanna Know” and got really stoked at the lyrics “Peep what O’s sellin’ when I hit ‘em with Van Halen/But it’s just a man from the ghetto rebellin’.” I’m not a man from the ghetto, but I’ll probably never get over feeling like it’s rebellious of me to love Van Halen – because it is! It’s so rebellious of me; I’m such a rebel.
Anyway, maybe this song makes you think of Vinnie Chase snowboarding in Utah and offering $20,000 to whomever makes it down the mountain first, and of Turtle saying “20 Gs?” as he dreamily stares out onto the snow. Maybe it makes me think of that too, and maybe I kinda like that way. But I hate the part about tampons! (Liz)
Listening: The Pop Group, Joanna Newsom, Fredrik, the Bronski Beat, Sade Watching: I saw It’s Kind Of A Funny Story and liked it, even though the end felt odd to me. But I dug Zach Galifianakis’ performance a lot, he’s quite good. I also watched the latest ep of “Gossip Girl,” which seems like such a waste and yet I do it, because that’s how much of a girl-crush I have on Clemence Poesy. Oh, and “Fringe,” because I have a girl-crush on Anna Torv. And “Mad Men”! It’s so great to be kind of caught up, now I know what’s going on! I’m so down, ha ha ha. Reading: I re-read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for the umpteeth time Wearing: I am travelling and it’s strangely hot and humid in NYC at the moment and I’m just completely over this bullshit weather. Wanting: Oh, let’s not go there.
The trailer for “It’s Kind Of A Funny Story”:
+ Liz
Listening: PAVEMENT PAVEMENT PAVEMENT PAVEMENT PAVEMENT PAVEMENT PAVEMENT PAVEMENT. SONIC YOUTH.NO AGE. Watching: Pavement, and Sonic Youth & No Age, at the Hollywood Bowl last night Reading: that New York profile of the sailor who sailed around the world for 1,000 days Wearing: black jeans + black boots + black eyeliner + this blousey dark-blue shortsleeve silk shirt thing with ribbons Wanting: So last at the Bowl we sat next to the worst yuppie douchelord loser jerkface ever. Probably he heard about the show on KCRW, so now I hate KCRW (except for their news/talk programming, which is really quite stellar). Anyway, the dude showed up right before Sonic Youth and talked through their whole set. Mostly he talked of himself, and of his stupid yuppie douchelord loser life. He talked and talked, so very loudly, and it was way hard to hear the Sonic Youth songs (“Candle!” “Hey Joni”! “Death Valley ’69″!). He was so annoying and I was so annoyed. So finally I was all, “Don’t just sit there and pout like a goddamn five-year-old – do something about it,” and I turned to the yuppie douchelord loser jerkface and asked “Hey, could you talk a little more softly?” And guys, really: I said it super-nice! I was so super-duper-polite! But instead of saying “Sorry” like a man, the dude was all “Uhhhhhhh okay,” like someone who is not a man, or a grownup of any sort. Then I contemplated throwing a Scottie Dog at his head, but didn’t. He was with this really cute girl and I wanted to be all, “I feel so sad for you, if you’re having sex with this ‘asshat.’” But I didn’t do that either. I watched the Sonic Youth show and then I watched the Pavement show, during which the yuppie douchelord loser jerkface played much air guitar and also air drums, in between continuing to talk a lot. When Pavement played “Stereo,” he was all “I gotta stand up for this one” and then he stood and did this weird dance that was mostly about rubbing his own thighs. He was so excited about his “Stereo” dance! “You’re the worst,” I decided then. All yuppie douchelord loser jerkfaces ever are just the worst, I also decided, for the zillionth time in my cool nondouchelordy life. So, seriously: FUCK YOU, KCRW, and everyone in the world/Los Angeles who’s built their entire iTunes catalog on whatever shit they’ve heard on “Morning Becomes Eclectic.” Clearly, you all hate music. So don’t go to Pavement/SY/No Age shows. Go to the gym instead, or for a nice walk around the Silverlake Reservoir. You could use some sun, for realz. I just want you all to get some sun.
I LIKE NO AGE
+ Laura Jane
Listening: This man singing improvised lyrics to Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” to his toddler son at work today, which went “My son don’t do the jitterbug/ No son of mine do the jitterbug.” I know! So cool! But also: LAME. Watching: Six consecutive episodes of Breaking Bad on a rainy Monday (“I’m HOOKED!”), Mad Men post-bus ride, visions of myself and Don Draper watching the Beatles at Shea Stadium, why is “Sally Draper Envy” becoming such an overarching theme in my nogoodforme Snapshots Reading:British Vogue and every single tabloid on the market Wearing:Sparkly GapKids leggings with leopard print ballet flats, this insanely sick Betty Davis t-shirt from Barfmerican Barfparrel, a paisley angora cardigan, and a hooded London Fog army jacket that a sexy scuzzbag stole from Value Village and then gave to me, because I’m awesome, and that’s how the world works. Sexy people give things to awesome people. Mark my words. Wanting: The staycation to end all staycations. So that’s what I’m going to do, at some point this month. I am going to book five consecutive days off work, and I will spend those five days eating nothing but egg-cheese-tomato multigrain bagels, Urban Herbivore muffins, Urban Herbivore salads, Thai food, and white wine, and also pink wine. I will wake up every morning at 10:30, go the gym every afternoon at approximately 1, write my face off between the hours of 10:30 and 1, write my face off between the hours of 3:30 and 8, and then I will get drunk and stoned with a different best friend every night, and I will be REAL HAPPY, not to say that I’m not super-stoked on this state of stunning indifference toward all discontent and lack of fulfillment that I have recently taught myself to maintain via concentrating on how great that self-important rush of adrenaline feels as it surges through my heart while I’m listening to Electric Light Orchestra’s “Boy Blue” on headphones, jacked up on Tim Horton’s coffee on my way to work.
Sometimes I get my kicks singing this song in my head and make-believing it’s about Joan Holloway, especially the part about how Joni’s “thinking long and hard about that high wild sound, and wondering will it last.” I like to think of our Joanie thinking long and hard about that high wild sound; I don’t like to think about how it’s true that her life’s such a mess. And then when Lee’s like “It’s 1963. It’s 1964. It’s 1957. It’s 1962,” I’m all “No, Lee! It’s actually 1965, which is why Don and Sally went to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium last week. Duh.” Stupid Lee Ranaldo. (Liz)
I also like to make-believe “Joan” by the Sharp Ease is about Joan Holloway, and change the lyric from “She’s got red hair, works at the lair” to “She’s got red hair, works at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.” There’s a lotta Sharp Ease energy in my life lately, which is a beautiful thing, as the Sharp Ease are my favorite L.A. band ever (excepting all the L.A. bands I’ve loved since I was 12). I feel real sad for you if you never got to see the Sharp Ease before they broke up, and I strenuously urge you (Demi Moore-in-A Few Good Men-stylez) to get your paws on as many Sharp Ease songs as you possibly can (such as by visiting their MySpace and buying their first album). And here, cuz I’m so sweet, I give you an extra mp3 this week:
The Sharp Ease, “Peoplewich”
This one’s from the EP Remain Instant and right now I’m drinking organic vodka + filtered tap water + lemon juice + hot honey + lots & lotsa ice from a white-wine glass and trying to think of what to call this concoction o’ mine and wishing I could name it after a Sharp Ease song. Could it be a “Great White”? An “L.A. Mist”? A “Patio Chair”? A “Poem to Liebnitz”? Those are all dumb drink names, except for maybe “Poem to Liebnitz.” So I guess I’ll just call it a “Poem to Liebnitz.” OK? (Liz)
Joanna Newsom, “Go Long”
I still stand by my opinion that Have One on Me could be edited down to a better album, but it’s not like I’m going to butcher the whole thing! By “edited down” I just mean taking out my two least favorite songs. (Of course, being Joanna Newsom, that’s about 20 minutes worth of music.) This song is not one of those songs. In fact, I stand to say that it is probably my favorite song on the whole thing. Number one — it seems to be a song about Bluebeard, and I LOVE a good retelling of Bluebeard. (My favorite remains Angela Carter’s epic short story, “The Bloody Chamber,” but Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard movie is pretty cool.) Bluebeard was a pretty gnarly dude who liked to collect wives and have them die a gruesome death, but the folk tale is really a parable about feminine curiosity. Do you really want to know someone’s deepest secrets? Do you really want to find out the deep, dark stuff of your dude’s soul? I don’t know. Maybe deep down “Go Long” is a song about Joanna’s former paramour Bill Callahan, because don’t you get the sense that there’s something weird happening in that Smog brain? By the way, have we ever discussed HOW that guy dates such hot women? It confounds me. (Kat)
The Kills, “Sour Cherry”
Right at this moment I feel like really irritated and annoyed and just not a happy stuffed animal about the world. It’s such a drag! This song makes me think unfortunately upon Georgina Sparks on “Gossip Girl,” but if I hit myself on the head enough times, I forget this and just enjoy the “rompiness” of “Sour Cherry.” Rompiness is a really underrated quality in a song. Or in a person, if you think about it. So people, have fun today and be rompy, because I can’t just this minute. (Kat)
NOGOODFORME.COM is Kat and Liz. We write about style, fashion, music, film, art, photography, pop culture, celebrities, and more: all the good stuff of life. Subscribe to our RSS newsfeed and our comments feed to keep up with our latest stuff!
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