Monday Memos // 96

Listening:

“The Trip” by Still Corners.

“Oom Sha La La” by Haley Heynderickx.

Reading:

Tiny Love Stories: Dog Parades, Rowing-Machine Romance and a Hurricane

The Correct Way to Go See a Movie Is by Yourself

Everyone Loves the Hot Duck

Who is he? (image via James Devaney/WireImage/Getty Images

Craving:

I had a friend feast at Sala Thai. It was a delicious peanutty party. We had Thai crepe dumplings (Minced Chicken, Peanuts, and Sweet Turnips), Pla Muk Tod (Fried Turmeric Coconut Calamari with Roasted Bell Pepper-Peanut Vinaigrette Sauce), Praram (Sautéed batter fried chicken with Peanut Sauce, steamed Baby Bok Choy), and Kao Nar Ped (Crispy Quarter Duck Breast, Chinese Broccoli and Pickled Ginger). And then we were full beyond belief.

I was also given a vegan feast for two (more like feast for 12) from Whole Foods. To celebrate “World Vegan Day,” Whole Foods Market and Chef Jeremy Fox co-created a plant-centered meal, which included: Romanesco Cauliflower Roast with Miso Bagna Cauda, Cremini Mushroom Stuffing with Kimchi, Charred Escarole with Tomatoes and Chickpeas, and Roasted Acorn Squash with Maple and Hazelnut Dukkah. I ate it for days. The squash and the stuffing were the best.

Wearing:

Pink boots and pink bandana. Sweatshirts and Chelsea boots. My favorite jean jacket.

Watching:

Loved and Loving: Wanderlust was superb. The Romanoffs is proving to be highly entertaining.

Want to See: Dogs on Netflix looks great and potentially heart-wrenching. Holmes & Watson looks like a typical Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly comedy treat for lots of laughs.

Treasuring:

November: My calendar is filling up with exciting events. Music and storytelling and dinners and visits. So much family time and friends to see. Plus, the cool air and the changing leaves, I’m feeling great anticipation.

My block is very yellow.

Monday Memos // 92

Listening:

"Beautiful Dress" by Marlon Williams. I’ve probably listened to this song hundreds of times since Thursday.

"Cosoco" by Juana Molina.

"Imagining My Man" by Aldous Harding.

Reading:

Hinge Is the Dating App for Food Lovers - Hilarious and too relatable. UGH.

6 Rising Design Studios From Central and South America to Know - Feeling very proud of my SU Offsite friends!

I really want this new book: Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir by Liana Finck.

Passing for Human #8: Other Worlds by Liana Finck. (via catapult)

Craving:

Last week I consumed a lot of carrots and apples, rice cakes and nut butter, chicken and rice bowls. I also ate some delicious vegan chocolate cake. Unenthused food diary, but here’s an exciting one if you’re mad about it.

Wearing:

It got hot again and then it cooled off again. Sort of. Either way, I was compelled to wear pants I bought back in August. I call them my chic JNCO jeans. I love them.

These coats are unrelated but I love them too. They are by Mansur Gavriel and I will likely never buy them.

Watching:

I watched the entirety of The Sinner (part 1) last week. In the Broadchurch or The Night Of realm. “While at the beach with her husband and son, Cora Tannetti, for reasons unknown, stabs a beachgoer to death, sparking a police investigation.” Jessica Biel, Bill Pullman, lots of disturbance.

I also started Maniac. “Two strangers are drawn to a mysterious pharmaceutical trial that will, they're assured, with no complications or side-effects whatsoever, solve all of their problems, permanently. Things do not go as planned.” I’m trying to take it slow and steady.

It made me think of films like Her and 12 Monkeys. (image via netflix)

Treasuring:

Trying: Also known as getting out of your comfort zone. Going to events when you want to stay on your couch. Meeting new people when it gives you a day of anxiety. Forcing yourself into crowds and intimate settings. Using your words.

Getting into a photobooth with a stranger because you need a better note to end the day.

Monday Memos // 91

Listening:

This musical portion is brought to you by going to a Saintseneca show and having a really great time.

"Pillar of Na" by Saintseneca.

This verse cracks me up: Call in "I Will Always Love You" to the radio / Either version's cool / But I like the original

"Soft Stud" by Black Belt Eagle Scout

"Afraid of Me" by gobbinjr

"Emilia" by Horsebeach. This was just recommended to me on the topic of shoegaze and I dig it.

Reading:

Deleting Instagram, Installing Instagram: The Vicious Circle

Elevate Your Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Mokonuts’ rye-cranberry chocolate-chunk cookies. (photo by Gentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Frances Boswell. Prop stylist: Pamela Duncan Silver.)

Craving:

This week there were some Thanksgiving desserts being made and photographed at work and I couldn't say no. One was a Pumpkin and Cookie-Butter Sheet Cake With Toasted Meringue and the other was a Chocolate-Pecan Sheet Pie With Molasses. I carried them in my purse to a gallery in Brooklyn, to a show in Manhattan, and then home—where they were eventually consumed for breakfast. 

I also devoured a new flavor (coconut cashew) of Purely Elizabeth granola in record speed. 

So good. (image by Chelsea Kyle via epicurious)

Wearing:

IT WAS COLD THIS WEEKEND. I was thrilled, even when it was grey and rainy. On Sunday I wore PANTS AND A SWEATER AND A JACKET AND WOOL SOCKS AND BOOTS. Maybe aggressive but I was never sweaty and uncomfortable. I am looking forward to more layers and scarves and socks. 

Last week I got my aura photographed, so here is what I'm wearing energy-wise. 

Watching:

I finally saw Crazy Rich Asians — most enjoyable rom com.

I'm curious to watch the new Showtime series with Jim Carrey, Catherine Keener and Judy Greer. It's directed by Michel Gondry (where has he been??) and one of the producers is Jason Bateman, so promising. Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles, is an icon of children's television, a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America's impressionable young minds; when his family begins to implode, Jeff finds that no fairy tale, fable or puppet can guide him through the crisis.

(image via showtime)

I was reading an article about celebrity doppelgängers and remembered how someone once told me I looked like Léa Seydoux (flattering). This brought me to find out that she is in a movie called ZOE as a character named Zoe. Wow. Weird. I'm going to have to watch it. "ZOE tells a tale of forbidden love between an engineer and a robot. ZOE (Léa Seydoux) and COLE (Ewan McGregor) are colleagues and veiled lovers at a lab working to perfect romantic relationships. But their relationship is threatened when Zoe discovers the truth about their relationship, sending them into a spiral of confusion, betrayal and the most intense of human emotions, love."

She even has the bangs in the movie. 

Treasuring:

Cheesing: This refers to busting out big grins while wandering aimlessly. This refers to daydreaming while eating a muffin. This refers to laughing out loud in the living room with the windows open. This refers to reading horoscopes and enjoying phrases such as: "you can follow your body as it carries you... you can follow your glittering dreams... slowly, the world might start to change color around you — a quiet shift in the sky’s golden light."

DAVID BENJAMIN SHERRY Monuments

Monday Memos // 47

Last week I was in Los Angeles, this week I'm in Irma... there is so much in the world and my mind swirling about, but the significance of this day does not escape me, either. 

(image by Bill Bragg via nytimes)

Listening:

"Up All Night" by The War On Drugs

"The Price Is Right" theme song. Look out for me on December 7th!

Reading:

PLEASE FORGIVE US AT BLUE APRON FOR THIS WEEK’S MEALS. WE’VE BEEN HAVING A TOUGH TIME LATELY by Lucy Huber

A list of really beautiful places in U.S. I'd be down to visit. Crossed one off the list last week when I experienced the Griffith Observatory.

"Franny and Zooey" by J.D. Salinger. I watched a movie yesterday—not good enough to mention—and this book played a large role. I've been meaning to read it book since... forever. I started it in middle school, because of my name and my fondness for "The Catcher in the Rye," but I think it was beyond me at age 12 or 13. I have it sitting on my shelf, just waiting.

The two works were published together as a book in 1961, having originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1955 and 1957 respectively.(image via newsstand)

Craving:

Last week I ate some incredible things. A cruffin from Mr. Holmes Bakehouse—flakey, buttery croissant muffin hybrid; I think ours was filled with chocolate rye cream (house-made rye bread infused cream finished with 64% chocolate). 

I want to eat all the things. (via latimes)

At Spitz, a mediterranean place, I had the Döner Basket, which is a salad and fries topped with tzatziki, feta, pepperoncinis, crispy garbanzos, a falafel ball, olives, fried pita strips, hummus, tomato, onion, green pepper, cucumber and chicken. I could eat it a thousand more times. 

Salvating. (image via Two Peas & Their Pod

I didn't mind waiting in a long line to try some Salt & Straw ice cream. Experienced a cone while walking to Venice beach. One scoop of Chocolate Gooey Brownie (the house-baked brownies have marshmallow fluff folded in to keep them extra gooey) and one scoop of Apples & Sidecar Doughnuts (chunks of Butter & Salt doughnuts soaked in a homemade glaze, then stirred into ice cream spiced with a touch of cinnamon and nutmeg, finishing with a swirl of homemade apple pie filling). Wow! 

There's so much more, but I cannot stop drooling. (image via latimes)

Wearing:

This past week I put an old pair of shoes to use: my black and grey Saucony Originals Bullets. 

Six years ago, in my brief stint living in San Francisco, I needed a pair of black shoes for a restaurant job. I remember going to store after store after store, with some unknown vision in my mind of what I wanted to find. I didn't have much money and I love shopping for shoes, so it was a great game and source of entertainment. Eventually I found these sneaks, they fit the bill, and have served me well for years. 

I got them at Shoe Biz, on one of my favorite streets: Valencia. It was nice to wear them all over the West Coast again.

Watching:

Things I'm looking forward to:

"Jerry Before Seinfeld." "On September 19, Netflix is airing Jerry Before Seinfeld, a comedy special about how the world’s richest comedian got his start."

"The Deuce." "The first collaboration between David Simon and George Pelecanos since Treme, The Deuce is set in 1970s New York City, when Times Square had more peep shows and porn theaters than Olive Gardens and Elmo impersonators. In the eight-episode series, James Franco plays twin brothers Vincent and Frankie Martino, a bartender and a gambler who get swept up in a mob plan to profit from the burgeoning sex industry. Maggie Gyllenhaal is Candy, a sex worker with bigger ambitions."

"I Love You, America" "Sarah Silverman’s new weekly topical show for Hulu is being billed as an honest attempt for the outspoken comedian to engage with “real” Americans whose opinions and beliefs are at odds with her own. The series’s co-executive producers include Will Ferrell and Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Big Short)."

Plus, "Broad City," "This Is Us" and most likely much, much more. Hi, I love television. (Here's a list of so many Fall shows.)

I don't actually spend all day and night watching tv, surprisingly. (images via HBO / ABC / Netflix / CBS / The Atlantic)

Treasuring:

Visiting Los Angeles for the first time. (The Price Is Right! The Comedy Store! My brother and sister-in-law and their beautiful home! The beaches! The foods! The wanders! The cool breezes! The desert! The views! The change! The city! The excitement! The adventure! The weirdness! The architecture! The friendship!)

Having so many thoughtful people surrounding me during this hurricane scare. I've heard from old friends and relatives. I've been offered places to stay nearby, on higher ground and way up north—for myself, my cat, and all my friends. I've been offered help boarding up windows, I've been offered all the snacks... The world isn't full of monsters, which is a relief.

This is how positive humanity makes me feel. (image via popmyeyes)