{ spanish harlem incident }

One of my favorite Dylan songs to end the week with.

This week has been pretty busy, but somehow I survived all of it. I’m totally ready for Winter break! Hope you’re hanging on there too. Have a great weekend.

{ mindy kaling }

“My relationship with my mom is really the single most profound relationship that I’ve ever had in my life,” she tells me. “By the way, it seems like I’m … I’m just blowing my nose. It’s not because I’m sad.” She has allergies and a cold, she promises. But her voice breaks when she starts talking about how she sat down with a pen and paper and asked her mother to give her all the advice she could possibly give her before she died, and Kaling realized she’d never be able to ask her mother for advice again. “I said to her, ‘Mom, I’m going to be so lonely without you.’” She’s crying now but keeps going. “And she just said, ‘You have to be your own best friend. If you always remember that, you will always have someone there with you.’”

- Mindy Kaling from Vulture Article

{ google chrome in human situations }

Don't you just love the personal touches in Google Chrome commercials? They could make technology blend so seamlessly into normal, everyday life and still find ways to improve the way we communicate with our loved ones -- especially through distance and time.

Watch some of their commercials below (it gets me every time):

{ duquesne whistle }

Today, Bob Dylan unveiled the music video for his first song on his new album. It’s pretty exciting stuff right here for all Dylan fans. Not only is his material brand new, but it’s totally Dylan, even if it doesn’t sound or look like him.

Duquesne Whistle sounds like it was written in the 30’s, rising out of the Depression with its lively beats and full of hope and optimism. But of course, listening to his lyrics, you’ll realize it’s more than about the thrill of life. It’s about moving forward, getting to that unknown destination.

Like the song the music video is full of dichotomy. There is the old time sound with it’s youthful melody; the video has the sweet innocence of love and then contradicting it with pain and anger; old Dylan walking with his entourage at night and the young romantic walking by himself at day looking for his love. Even though Duquesne Whistle sounds outdated upon hearing, it couldn’t be more modern and relevant to our culture today. Perhaps this is about falling in love and falling so hard you’re willing to endure anything – even pain – to be with them. Perhaps this song is about chasing that something and going anywhere to get there.

Or perhaps Bob Dylan believes it’s better to not be foolishly in love and to remain cool and detached from the emotion completely – untouched by anything.

{ celeste and jesse forever }

Celeste and Jesse Forever

You know those couples who seem too perfect for eachother? You know, those couples who finish eachother’s sentences and can be extraordinarily silly together that it freaks their friends out whenever they’re on a double date. That couple is Celeste and Jesse, played by Rashida Jones and Andy Samburg. The movie is about how they are more than a couple… they’re best friends, and that’s the most special thing to have in a relationship.

{ I want a Tuesday kind of love }

“I want a Tuesday kind of love. The sort of thing that involves little dreaming and scheming; the sort of thing that comes paired with too-strong coffee and too-loud songbirds and the drone of the news at 6 a.m. or any time before the sky finds its identity, really. A Tuesday kind of love that isn’t indulgent, one that doesn’t stop the earth from spinning but maybe keeps us grounded in spite of all that uncontrollable movement.

I want to split the bill and pay the bills and not get lost in some unsustainable delusion where the rest of our lives become inconsequential. I want us to be human, I want to argue, I want to take too long in the shower. I want to hear about the horrific lines at the DMV, about a boss who doesn’t get it, about plans to pick up the laundry after work. I want stories of strangers on the bus, of a child who looked lost but turned out not to be, of chance encounters with high school classmates because these seemingly colorless instances are meaningful when filtered through the eyes of someone I care about. A Tuesday kind of love, breathing relevance into otherwise monotonous moments.

A Tuesday kind of love is this: commuting to work knowing that someone cares about what you’re going to have for lunch; understanding that you do not have to be your dynamic, charming, weekend self this time; this time you can butcher sentences and make bad jokes and trip over thin air and it won’t change anything. A Tuesday kind of love is when weekends and weekdays are one and the same, expanses of time where unpredictable, irreplaceable closeness exists, swells, bursts. Tuesday is directionless conversation about things that happened five hours or five years ago; it’s knowing where he keeps his receipts and when he has a doctor appointment; it’s ordering Chinese food or taking his parents out for dinner because they’re in town or forgetting to eat because you’re full of each other’s words and there’s just no room for anything else.

I don’t want to dream through our lives together, don’t want to sleep in, don’t want to put on my sunglasses and pretend that life’s a vacation. The fantasy is that I want to exist in reality; the fantasy is to be there for someone on a Sunday morning but also on a Tuesday night, when the haze and laze of the weekend has worn thin and seems far away as ever. I want a Tuesday kind of love.”

— I Want A Tuesday Kind Of Love

{ make-up inspired by art }

From Into the Gloss, Violette gives us a special treat inspired by paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her technique for contouring and highlighting specific areas on the face matches perfectly with those beautiful Renaissance paintings, with their perfect, matte skin.

Pompeo Batoni, Diana and Cupid, (Italian, Lucca 1708–1787 Rome)

{ i want my hat back }

Don’t you just love the simplicity of picture books? This one is about a bear looking for his misplaced hat. His journey to find the hat is told all in dialogue with other animals. Some are honest, some are not. And he just wants his hat back.

What I love about this book are the illustrations by Jon Klassen (he also worked on Coraline!).

{ like a rolling stone }

 

He could possibly be the coolest song-writer ever.

[source]

Okay, it might be an understatement to say that I am fascinated about the legacy of Bob Dylan. Even though there are only a hand full of songs I really like out of his plethora he’s written, it’s still true that the lyrics in every song is pure poetry, especially those written at the height of the civil rights movement and the 60’s.

But I’m certainly not the only one still obsessed with his music. This year marks his 50th anniversary in the music industry and there have been many films about Dylan and even one in the works about his album ‘Blood on the Tracks’. The world will never be over this song and dance man; even with over hundreds of songs, no one could really understand him, except to only speculate through his music.

[source]

{ the power of introverts }

Susan Cain makes a wonderful case on the power of introverts, and this may even be the singular solution to change the way ideas are born.

“There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”

“Solitude matters, and for some people it is the air that they breathe.”

Everyone is capable of delivering great ideas if given the opportunity to flourish naturally rather than against their own nature.

{ like crazy }

One of my favorite movies recently is Like Crazy, a small film directed by Drake Doremus, with Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones as Jacob and Anna. It’s a simple story of two people falling in love and being pulled apart by distance and time. The amazing thing about this film is how well and accurate it captures the maddening feeling of wanting and missing someone.

It’s set against the backdrop of two countries, America and England, with beautiful images and soundtrack. Personally, I’m in love with all the music, especially the scores done by Dustin O’Halloran. Those pieces, even listening to them alone, are terribly heartbreaking, but at the same time, like the film, they’ incredibly hopeful.

 

P.S. Have an amazing Valentine’s with your loved ones no matter where you are :)

{ birthday at a cafe }

Jeannine’s, downtown Santa Barbara

We celebrated my 21th birthday in downtown Santa Barbara. The place was busy when we got there but the staff was so friendly and nice, they sat us at a table outside in minutes. Plus, my banana french toast was to die for. There’s a reason it was highlighted on the menu!