WE meet the places we wind up loving much the way we meet the people we fall for: on purpose and accidentally; at precisely the right moment and exactly the wrong time; in the highest of spirits and the lowest of moods.
…
IN Lisbon it occurred to me that maybe our favorite places are simply those in which our expectations are routinely exceeded, happenstance cuts in our favor, and it doesn’t matter which fork in the road we take. It leads somewhere we’re happy to be.
…in that moment I realize what — more than the tiles, trams or water — endears Lisbon to me. It has a humility that is rare on a storied continent with so much reason and readiness to boast.
I wasn’t told to approach it on bended knee. I could instead stumble upon it, tumble into it and let it lift me up.
How I Fell for Lisbon - NYTimes.com
So many memories of Lisbona…
Pretty dope…the discussion of rappers omitted from the map in the comments of the original post is pretty cool too.
This photo instantly grabbed me. Somehow I knew it was taken in Lisbon, but upon seeing the photo again today it reminded me of a restaurant where I ate in Nimes. For some reason memories that were nearly gone from past trips have been popping up these past few days.
@Lisboa, Alfama
When I first saw this GIF the other day I thought “I will have to save this for later”. ..guess who I saw later that day?! :)
The Internet has kept GIFs artificially alive since 1987 just so we could all have this moment.
(Source: ikilledjackjohnson)
Summer picnic series! I am already dying for summer and this makes me die more! 26 days till the beach!
(via AIGA | Steve Frykholm)
I dedicate this post to my favorite cat I’ve never met…Stinky…and my love of roosters (specifically ones speaking Portuguese, who think they are cats).
Street art in São Paulo, Brazil… “Meow?”
“…bad jobs are like degenerative diseases, they slowly, slowly eat away at what makes you unique and ultimately human. A truly bad job strips a person of their dignity, which strips them of their will, which keeps them in said bad job.”
Unfortunately true. I am going to get out of here one day. I hope.
The rocks hurt my feet worse than I thought it would and sent me checking and double checking each step before I put my weight down on my city softened feet. I made it out to the end of the rock and stood watching a fisherman placidly looking for lunch. His back was to me, and the crashing waves made it impossible for him to see me, so I put my heads on my head and enjoyed a moment of exposed voyeurism.
I shook my head a bit, amazed at where the turns of this life have taken me. 5 years ago I was just another kid getting off the 6 train at Wall Street for 10 hours of work as a Futures and Commodities broker. I remember sitting in a bar a few months after I started work with a full glass of Jack Daniels in front of me hoping and hoping that life was more than this.
You see, I believe that bad jobs are like degenerative diseases, they slowly, slowly eat away at what makes you unique and ultimately human. A truly bad job strips a person of their dignity, which strips them of their will, which keeps them in said bad job. So I looked into that glass of whiskey and told myself that I would try and cash the checks that I had written to my future. I quit that job, got a better one, then a better one. I started a blog, got a camera, I got fired from a job I thought I loved, got another one and all along kept pointing that camera at things. I met people like Rich Tong, Erika Bearman, Martha Botts, Jamie Beck, Andrew Schmidt, Justin Chung and more. People who told me to be better or gave me a place to try to be.
I guess what I am trying to say is that while I stood on that rock and squinted my eyes in the sun I realized my life is as much (or more) about those people who hold me up, my “lattice of support” as Dave Eggers would say than it ever has been or will be about me. I am turning 28 in six days and you all have already given me more than I would have had the gusto to ask for.
The old man cast his line out one more time, this time impossibly far into the ocean and as I turned around I imagined him pulling in a fish he would talk about for the rest of his life because we all deserve a brush with greatness to remind us to strive for it.
A few weeks ago Chilly Gonzales posted about giving a small performance in Chelsea for the next 15 people to like and comment on his Facebook post about the show. So I did, then sent it to Charles and Mike. The three of us got in, plus guests so we brought Akman. It was at EMI’s office in Chelsea Market which is totally baller and renewed some age-old upset about not getting jobs I applied for there in the past. We drank on their dime and witnessed a great set from Chilly with maybe twenty people in the room. And Akman got to write a song with him (and hug him…so jealous!).
Afterward we went to La Taza de Oro. So good. Basic Spanish comida. Roasted chicken, rice and beans, platanos, and maduros.
We got to see Chilly again on Saturday because Charles was covering it for Mike’s blog. He was in typical Chilly form (hilarious and musically on point) and the highlight was this rap he wrote about Drake:
Kraftwerk at MoMA, 4/14/12, a set on Flickr.
A couple of weeks ago Kraftwerk performed at MoMA as part of “Kraftwerk – Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8”. After all my friends who attempted to get tickets failed, both Charles and I won pairs of tickets through a contest Volkswagen sponsored (they also sponsored the event). We got to go two of the eight nights - the second night when Kraftwerk performed songs from Autobahn and the fifth night when they performed songs from Computer World. It was awesome to be able to see them twice, especially since the first night I was in a horrible mood right before I arrived which undoubtedly had some effect on my perception of the show. I enjoyed it and thought some parts of the show were great, but was not blown away. I wouldn’t have recommended it as something one MUST experience immediately, but rather something any lover of electronic music should see at least once before they die. That was my view before night five.
Despite playing similar sets which spanned Kraftwerk’s discography in addition to the featured album both nights, Autobahn is much more mellow than Computer World and made for a much tamer evening overall. While both performances began on more upbeat notes (with “Robots” on night one and “Numbers” on night five), night five’s momentum built with tracks from Computer World whereas night one slowed almost immediately as it moved to tracks from Autobahn. Night five’s performance was met with an equally energetic crowd, that had me reminiscing about good times in Montreal (where people actually dance) and awestruck at how a 65 year-old man (Ralf Hütter, the only original member currently in Kraftwerk) was wowing a room full of people in a museum with tracks that were over 30 years old.
It was one of the best nights out I’ve had in a while and were I still blogging, would undoubtedly make it into my “Best Of” for the year. The week following that Saturday I was more excited about music (or anything for that matter) than I had been in a while and was reading and reading about Kraftwerk (check out Talking to Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk). I’m in the midst of a full-on search for Kraftwerk vinyl, just started reading a book about them, and am excited to have a new band to geek out about.
Kraftwerk Setlist (Night 5 - Computer World)
Numbers
Computer World
Pocket Calculator
Taschenrechner
Computer Love
Home Computer
Autobahn
Radioactivity
Trans-Europe Express
The Robots
The Model
The Man-Machine
Spacelab
Tour De France 1983
Tour De France 2003
Aéro Dynamik
Planet Of Visions
Boing Boom Tschak
Techno Pop
Musique Non Stop
Kraftwerk Setlist (Night 1 - Autobahn)
The Robots
Autobahn
Kometenmelodie 1 & 2
Mitternacht / Morgenspaziergang
Radioactivity
Trans-Europe Express
The Model
Man-Machine
Numbers / Computer World
Computer Love (The Mix version)
Home Computer (The Mix version)
Tour de France / Aerodynamik
Expo 2000
Boing Boom Tschak
Techno Pop
Musique Non Stop
Amazing!
If you don’t know this song, google “Volare” and Dean Martin.
The summer before college I went on a trip to Europe and one of the chaperones (Mr. Garcia) would not stop singing this once we got to Italy.
Monday night I went to Cielo to finally see Greg Wilson deejay (after missing him at least the last 2 times he played New York). Sadly, his set wasn’t doing it for me. It was a little on the mellow side and was just missing that last little bit of uumph needed to take it over into what might have been awesome. It picked up a bit toward the end…I wish it had started where it ended. I’m still glad I finally got to see him though and I anticipated possibly not being that into his set since I had been feeling hit or miss about the set’s I’ve listened to on his Soundcloud over the past couple of years. The awesome thing about last night was I met this dude, Bob (yes, that is his actually name…this sounds like a made up story) who I’ve seen at Cielo many of the times I’ve been there (especially at Deep Space). He looks vaguely like Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers before he cut his hair (aka he has long-ish blonde hair). He introduced himself and we talked about Greg Wilson, deejays, music and parties the whole time. It reminded me of what I always imagined clubbing to be like or always wanted it to be like initially.
Vintage Peanuts + the sentiment…
(via Wall Photos)
Yes, it is a clutch. I never carry a purse…but this is so appealing as I am so desperate for summer/the beach/swimming at this point I am willing to give my eyeteeth.
super sneak peek. #divein (Taken with instagram)
This is close enough to Spanish that I know Snoopy wants to create brown cows so that he can have chocolate milk. Why I could understand absolutely NO Portuguese when I was in Portugal…no idea.
