Winter pet peeve
Umbrellas for little kids. When did they even start making these?
It's stressful enough to walk down a city street crowded with adults carrying umbrellas (especially now that some people think that golf umbrellas are appropriate for city use, which, NO they are NOT.) But in the past couple weeks I've seen a decent number of kids under the age of 6 "carrying" (more like swinging around haphazardly) their own child sized umbrellas downtown. Giving your kid a pointy thing that's exactly at adults' eye level in a crowded city setting = TERRIBLE idea, parents.
Everyone under the age of 12 should just stick with hooded rain slickers and galoshes, which are more fun for kids anyway, amirite? I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't even own an umbrella until college.
"No negative blog viewing"
I just leafed through the latest issue of Complex Magazine (I have no idea how we started getting it in the mail, but a few months ago we did) and the article about the making of Kanye West's new album made me super jealous of the author, Noah Callahan-Bever, for being invited to spend time in Kanye's Hawaii studio this past spring. Whether you like hip-hop or not, talk about an amazing-intense-bananas creative experience.
Two of my favorite bits:
1. The list of "Kanye Commandments" tacked to the wall in the recording studio:
2. Nicki Minaj's hilarious anecdote:
"I don't even remember him ever working with a female rapper, so to be on an album and on a record this monstrous? I couldn't have planned it better in a perfect world.
I remember a conversation I had with Kanye every time I sit down to write now. Every single time I sit down, I remember him asking, 'What is it that you wanna say? It's not about rhyming words, it's about what you really wanna say.' The fact that he wasn't even looking at me when he said it-- he was on the computer looking at naked girls, I think-- it was just a life-changing experience."
Two of my favorite bits:
1. The list of "Kanye Commandments" tacked to the wall in the recording studio:
2. Nicki Minaj's hilarious anecdote:
"I don't even remember him ever working with a female rapper, so to be on an album and on a record this monstrous? I couldn't have planned it better in a perfect world.
I remember a conversation I had with Kanye every time I sit down to write now. Every single time I sit down, I remember him asking, 'What is it that you wanna say? It's not about rhyming words, it's about what you really wanna say.' The fact that he wasn't even looking at me when he said it-- he was on the computer looking at naked girls, I think-- it was just a life-changing experience."
Idle and blessed, wild and precious
...I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention
how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
--from Mary Oliver's 1990 poem, "The Summer Day"
I'm not sure how I got this far in life without becoming obsessed with Mary Oliver's poetry, but rest assured I'm currently making up for lost time.
Cheesy zing of the day
I thought I was shopping on NewEgg.com, not NewAge.com!
Ba-dum-ching.
Ba-dum-ching.
