i've moved

it's hard enough for me to stay put in the physical world, so what do you expect?

visit me in costa rica, miami, or overtheorchard.wordpress.com

see you soon!

and a happy day to you

they started with eels, and tradition as of late dictates a celebration revolving around turkey.

today, we ate duck.

exit through the gift shop

graffiti + art = potentially amazing public displays of affection.

not saying that the above is fully anything to write home about but i didn't see much street noise in turkey. it was pretty clean. it really makes me wish i knew more people who vandalized things for a good cause, but the only person i know who spray painted a nice orange fish underneath a bridge got arrested. now she's stuck doing community service, sometimes in the form of fund-raising at christian call centers. man alive.

boo

                                                                                                                                                                                prague 2009

a lil' schniblet for you

hagia sophia. aya sofya. sancta sophia. my very talented friend gabrielle uses aya sofia as a muse for her lovely paintings--and p.s. gabby i want one!

once a basilica turned mosque now museum, it is currently undergoing a huge renovation to restore the covered saints of the christian days. the ottomans plastered over everything, but the intersection of the two religions coming together in one place in its current state is striking.

(notice a recently uncovered full face face on the left and a nondescript figure on the right)

excess

tea and kitties.

sounds cute, doesn't it?

except for the fact that a) my bladder control is horrid and b) i can't stand/am mildly allergic to cats.

now, i love a warm cup of tea. i really do. but turkish people drink every chance they get. and it was hard to pass on a humble offer of turkish tea because sometimes i found myself alone in some lady's cave home who was trying to sell me overpriced crafts, and if i was going to give her money for something, she would have to settle for a small "donation" for the drink. or in a rug repair studio where it just wasn't cordial to say no if nobody else was there to buffer it with a yes. so i was really polite and just stayed relatively dehydrated besides the tea. (i know, rachel, i know) but because we were always doing something and who knew when i would be able to find the next bathroom, not to mention taking into account each trip to the squatter cost upwards of fifty cents, i had to do what was best at the time.

and then! i have never seen so many cats loose on the streets as in istanbul. i mean, they were everywhere. and i was always thinking, ugh. disgusting. can't they get these things neutered or something? but i guess they don't believe in making those sorts of life-altering decisions for animals, so they just let them run completely rampant around the city, letting them sleep and crawl where and when they please.

it surely would have been paradise for my cat-obsessed friends, and ironically, it made me really happy to imagine that if you all were there, in the midst of my eyes rolling you would have lovingly been ooohing and aaahhing and thinking they were oh. so. adorable.

blues in istanbul

i've climbed out of my hibernation hole and am starting to post pictures from my trips again. i never did finish prague but i was there for a month and the organization process is going pretty slow. i've landed in the mountains of costa rica now and find there's plenty of time after dusk to catch up.  

so. turkey. i'm referring to the country, not the impending holiday feast. for two weeks at the beginning of october my mom and i romped around turkey with a tour group. ahh yes...a tour.

-noun
1. a large herd of cane-wielding retirees hobbling after a guide toting an umbrella traveling place to place via charter bus.   

no, no, no, we were a cozy crew of 13: a turkish tour guide, two australians, two canadian couples, three americans and one british schizophrenic named william. needless to say, everyone was dynamic and lively and just so wonderful. one night they even paid me 40YTL  to jump into the hotel pool (thanks ron!), so they pretty much had my love right off the bat.

we began in istanbul.

the blue mosque circa 1616. unfortunately my lens wasn't wide enough to capture the full scope of this one but wikipedia has a lovely one here.

more stories and photos to come (i promise this time!), but for now i think i hear a rattlesnake a shakin' outside and it's begging me to leave this room. ciao

i think we've already discussed this

BUT beach house. beach. freaking. house. the new album is unbelievable. thanks to a scalper, i was able to attend their sold-out show at neumos. i was contemplating not spending the money to see them again, but i'm so glad i did. (they've come a long way since last year's showing at chop suey where i walked in at 10pm and was able to buy a ticket at the door.) i'm practically speechless about the performance but, as usual, it was magnificent. strong, steady beats sweetly overlapped victoria's bellowing alto. i must say, it was quite the tinglefest. listen, it's magical.



p.s.- dear boys talking very loudly during the performance: NEVER utter a word during one of their shows again. i will kick you.

ridin' dirty

i heard someone blasting a little bit of chamillionaire's ridin' dirty on their headphones on the bus the other day.

1. motherly note: when other people can hear what you're listening to on your headphones, you are greatly damaging your hearing.

2. i think this should be the king county metro theme song. i mean, have you ever been on the 5 on a full bus during rush hour when the lady across from you is transmitting a top secret memo about the end of the world to the boeing employees union and their spouses? or on a saturday night when the homeless guy behind you is describing his friendship with the greenwood arsonist and how exactly "lil' ol' kevin went wrong"? it just fits. it's truly RIDIN' DIRTY

slam.

one of the folks who got me into spoken word is the genius lyricist matt gano. local/humble/just plain awesome. you should probably spend some time listening to his work. thankfully, a podcast of one of his readings is on his site. do it! imagine! do it! imagine!

also check out iyeoka, another wonderful poet/musician whom i love.

enjoy.

adventures in letterpress.

i recently started an apprenticeship at the iron curtain press, where the awesome master printer rosanna is teaching me to print, set type, mix colors and well, fold, and stuff envelopes cause that's all part of the process too! it's quite great. i love always loved typography and font. now i can tangibly hold 10 point bernhard gothic in my hands. cool.

here are some pics rosanna took during one of my first classes

and, the finished product (photo taken from iron curtain's blog)

now that i'm actually printing more i think maybe the gray is a little too light but i'm just happy to have made something!

speaking of the passat

well, due to multiple circumstances (an effort to go green nearing the middle of the list,  traffic and a very real threat to have my car towed at the top), last year i decided to get rid of my nice yet unnecessarily pricey vw passat. we never really had a connection.

sold.

bought, in a throw of craigslist confidence: a 1980 toyota corona. yes, a corona, like the beer but just before they had to take the name off and turn it into a corolla in fear of lawsuit. i quite enjoyed it's company for the time being. it had comfy seats. radio. and it was a drab beige color that reminded me of old communist cars. it looked a lot like this:

but alas, it never went as far as i needed it to go and i just couldn't keep it. i sold it, not-running, to a hobbyist. yay! so now i've made room for my newest vehicle, recently purchased on a delightful roadtrip to chehalis with my one and only john-robert. (thank you again, john)

my new baby, a yamaha qt50. riding on a moped is so much more fun than being in a car. it's like a daily adventure, even when i'm just going to work. and what's better than adventures?!

i'm thinking a gang involving voluntary bloodshed and crazy antics is most likely in order.

put it to the test

you know, as much as i didn't fully love and appreciate my passat as a vehicle, volkswagen as a company does some good things that i feel like highlighting. namely, the fun theory. basically, they are taking mundane, everyday tasks like walking up stairs and recycling and giving them a facelift.

piano stairs! arcade recycling!

why? 1. to make life more FUN! and 2. to encourage more people to participate. 

so if i knew how to easily embed a video here, i would. but, well, i don't so just click on that link over yonder

boogie nights

late nights spent in the subterranean mazes of the underground clubs in prague:

chapeau rouge, aka "chapeau." the three-floor mecca of low lights, dirty bathrooms, and dj's spinning entrancing house music always turned into random situations at the lowest of levels. (i'm referring to, of course, spending most of our time on the bottom floor.)

lucerna, the 80s club turned party where we would dance ourselves sweaty.

and those late-night food stands offering an array of hanging sausages alongside fried delicacies such as large patties of fried cheese stuffed in buns with a ranch-like sauce. for all it's worth, a cheeseburger, really.

and there was siri, vanessa's swedish flatmate. absolutely one of the most interesting, well-traveled, and utterly intense, people i've ever met.

eyeing the streets

i've been slacking. well, no, i've been working AND slacking. thanks, mom, for the reminder that i haven't posted any pics from prague as of late. here's for you: