1...2...3...4...

epic clouds...

...over a Vancouver skyline, taken through a skytrain window, as treetops and rooftops slip by on an august afternoon...

mundane / marvelous

Ringtones as artistic medium?  Read Max Richter's 24 Postcards manifesto (on ringtones as modes of expression and connection) ...and be convinced! (My favorites: Cascades NW by W and Return to Prague.  What's more, Circles from the Rue Simon is atmostpherically reminiscent of the Amelie soundtrack!  What's not to like?).

oh, jenny

Ever since "The Humans Are Dead" captured my heart (and earned its way onto my favourite summer mix) last year, I've had a soft spot for Brett and Jemaine.  Even though this song has been around a long time, it's still making me laugh!

hang around for one more song

I'm glad that this (new, favourite) band isn't wasting their rad name on bad songs.  This may just be my new summer soundtrack.

{London Bridges, by This is Ivy League}

Further:

This is Ivy League's Myspace page

on the thrill of music

on moms, and newly acquired sisters

{what fun we had this weekend in Seattle!}

brilliant!

Having recently been challenged to see worship and creative expression through an intergenerational lens, I find myself inspired by two places on the web.  Adie Loves Polly is the photoblog of 4-year-old Adie, who takes pictures with her polaroid camera named Polly (she has a good eye and takes some rather charming photographs, in the vein of her very own mother).  I adore that she been given her own camera - and a blog too!  

Further:

The Blog WeeMade is another visual blog that showcases the mini masterpieces of kids from all over.  I've said it before, we are all artists!

things i learned from sesame street:

who knew crayon manufacturing could be so pretty?  or have such a great soundtrack?

This is what you shall do: 

Love the earth and sun and the animals, 

despise riches, 

give alms to every one that asks, 

stand up for the stupid and crazy, 

devote your income and labor to others, 

hate tyrants, 

argue not concerning God, 

have patience and indulgence toward the people, 

go freely with powerful uneducated persons 

and with the young 

and with the mothers of families...

...and your very flesh shall be 

a great poem...

{from Preface to Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman}

new, old

{Thanks, mom and dad, for passing along these lovely and old analogue cameras...  Can't wait to load up some film and explore the city through these lenses}

designed for good.

Silkscreen with a local, social conscience... These guys find a need in their community, document the story, design, screen and sell only enough shirts to meet the need, then give the proceeds to the people who need it, and post a follow-up on their website. I get the goofiest grin every time I check their site!  I have the green one, and I'm already eyeing 2 more...

hello, sunshine

{summer is here!}

33 rpm

Many years ago, after stumbling upon the interweb home of 33rpm designer, Andrio Abero, and finding myself quite enamoured with his screenprinted gig posters, I began to listen to the bands and artists who had been his clients, unwittingly beginning a happy journey into the unique spaces and sounds of indie music.  Thank-you, Mr. Abero!  I am greatly indebted.  

would you go along with someone like me?

{peter bjorn & john's "young folks"

amazing song, amazing video...!}

on new habits and sidelong glances

So I've sort of kicked the “I need coffee to make it through the day” habit and switched to the - only somewhat less ominous - “I drink coffee socially” thing. After an initial four days of withering withdrawal, I can now drive confidently past any Starbucks at 6 AM with nary a sidelonging glance. At $5.04 per grande non-fat no-whip one-pump sugar-free hazelnut white chocolate mocha (you read that right), my burgeoning habit was cramping the live-simply, live-debt-freely, give-generously lifestyle I’ve been (only somewhat successfully) attempting to emulate. So let’s raise our 75% recycled materials cups to fresh starts, and to driving bleary eyed past the ubiquitous green sign that beckons in every early morning mist.

some things cost more than we think

further:

www.thestoryofstuff.com

the 

raindrops 

catch 

light

 like 

so 

many 

stars

throwing 

back 

high beams 

to the 

road 

from 

the cars

curiousity shop

yesterday, i...

...happened upon a little cafe while on a meandering walk through the city, and found myself pleasantly surprised to be sipping organic, ethical coffee, and liking it;  then staying a while to read a good book, by a window overlooking the street, full of thoughts of fair trade and good fortune and never walking into a Starbucks again.  

confession:

I can't stop buying books.

This week:

• Douglas Coupland's Miss Wyoming
  
• Graham Rawle's (brilliant!) Woman's World
• Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men
• E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News
• Thomas Wharton's Icefields

we're all in this together

my new favourite...

...song & artist & soundtrack & film:  "My Hands are Shaking" by Sondre Lerche for his lovely sountrack of the film, Dan in Real Life.  I've been covering this song on my beat-up guitar all week!

Here, live at Amoeba Records, in Hollywood:

{she thought road rage was over rated, 

preferring instead to take photographs of the clouds}

book shelf:

Douglas Coupland's 

Life After God

If you're about to write this one off on account of its title, you're making a big mistake.  This quirky set of interwoven short stories (complete with sweet line drawings) is full of characters grappling with life (apparently) after God, and finding out it's pretty bleak.   The stories culminate in a campy (uh, no pun intended) take on an impromptu night spent camping in the woods, and a so-called "secret" revealed.  Go read it right now. 

cape horn interchange

{art is everywhere}

03/08 {a year of playlists}

Some friends in my group have decided to move on, and to them, I dedicate this mix of travelin' songs.

Safe Travels

_________

1.  Safe Travels - Peter and the Wolf

2. I Miss You Like I Miss You - Chad Van Gaalen

3.  On Your Way - Album Leaf

4.  Orange Sky - Alexi Murdoch

5.  The Littlest Birds - The Be Good Tanyas

6.  Detlef Schrempf - Band of Horses

7.  If You Leave - Nada Surf

8. Liberty Line - Griffin House

9.  Change is Hard - She & Him

10.  I'll Be Ok - Sondre Lerche

11. West Coast - Coconut Records

12. St. Apollonia - Beirut

13. Waiting for a Train - Peter and the Wolf

14. Coming Home - The 88

15. Hello Goodbye - The Beatles

love!

In grade 6, I dabbled in stop animation as part of a cartooning module at my elementary school.  My two partners and I laboured for weeks on a whimsical story of the Easter bunny.  All I remember is being hunched over the camera on a musty pea-green carpet in the sunny school library, and click-click-clicking the camera over painstakingly minute changes to our backdrop made of cardboard and crayon.  The film was lost in the mail on the way to being mastered and I never saw it completed.  That must be why I love this stop animation video by the Terrodactyls so much.  It evokes wistful childhood nostalgia, old-school creativity, and that hopeful optimism of one day being a "cartoonist."  

currently eyeing...

...3D type in the form of a pop-up book!  Of all the combinations that could ever be, this might be the sweetest.

for the widows in paradise...

I love everything about this.  

But especially the banjo.

And the hat.

me and my friend

A few months back, I sent some roughly recorded songs to my friend Mikey, and then proceeded to forget all about them.  What a treat today, then, to be sent the songs back slightly altered, rife with inspired changes.  He added a few tracks, played around, and brought new layers and dimension to my decidedly simple songs.  After years of butchering pretty much every song on my old, beat-up guitar, it's fun to hear things I have written augmented by real musicianship!  Thanks, Mikey!

He is risen!

Again, my most favourite scripture, ripe with meaning on this joyful day:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ,  set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.

{Colossians 3:1-4}

{What a joy it was to stand face to face with God's people today, singing the praises of Jesus, our Saviour!}

without singing

Three days after my doctor put me on vocal rest (to heal my teaching-ravaged singing voice), I found myself at a Sunday morning gathering, feeling admittedly, a little bit off.   All around me people were singing, and I wondered how I could participate in this corporate act of 

(musical) worship.  My first inclination was to shut my eyes tight and pray, and I did.  But once I opened my eyes, I found there were quite a few ways for me to meaningfully engage with the music.  I became very aware of my brothers and sisters around me, and found it was kind of encouraging to listen and watch.  I smiled at some, and noted some newcomers to greet after the service.  I winked at one of the girls I mentor, and was heartened as I watched her close her eyes and sing with feeling.  I prayed for my family around me, and realized that as part of the congregation, their singing was my singing.  Watching and praying was oddly fortifying, and I felt very much that I was worshipping with the body of Christ.  I may have been silent, but we were not.

The next week, I came ready to worship without singing, and was flooded with all sorts of ways to worshipfully engage the music component of the gathering.  Without a voice, my posture became significant.  Simply raising my eyes upwards or bowing my head, lifting my hands or touching my heart, all became ways to demonstrate my love for God.  I focused my attention on the qualities of God we were singing about and found myself ruminating at length on the meaning of the words.  Certain phrases jumped out at me, and spurred me to pray silently, or open my Bible.  (Once in a while I cheated, and sang out a lyric or chorus that I just could not keep in!).  Many times we sung lyrics that spoke of the song of the heart, and I knew that my heart was indeed singing, even though my lips were silent.  

How great is our God, sing with me, How great is our God 

All who sing, how great, how great is our God!

Name above all names, He is worthy of all praise

My heart will sing how great is our God!

{'How Great Is Our God', Chris Tomlin}

the best sort of day

 If I was given one day to live, this is how I would spend it, out in a park, surrounded by friends playing music, and singing, singing, singing at the top of my lungs (preferably to God, y'know?).  

Further:

See all of La Blogotheque's mini-masterpieces

currently eyeing

...peeling, painted wood.  

It seems more and more my eye is drawn to the decayed and the vintage. 

 

I took these photographs on a long walk in Skagway, Alaska, where I happily ran across all sorts of beautiful deterioration.  

There's a certain charm to buldings that have fallen into disrepair... like the deep wrinkles of my granfather's face, the peeling paint indicates a long, and interesting life, and I love to imagine the stories that are held within these walls.  I daresay I might one day live in a little, refurbished cottage myself!

on new, old gems

I love a good cover song.   The best ones are a marriage between the warm and familiar, and the new and inspired.  They bring a smile to our faces, reminding us why we so adore an old favourite, or conversely, bringing new life to a tired song we never really liked before, and revamping it into a new, old gem, filled with unexpected goodness. 

Meet Hero, a Korean 4 year old, who - without training in music or English - covers "Hey Jude" with gusto and panache.  It's quite possibly my most favourite Beatles cover yet!

Further:

The Covers Project

(early) spring reading list

• 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy
• 'Eleanor Rigby' by Douglas Coupland
• 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Isaiah
• 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen
  
• Back issues of 'ReadyMade' magazine

next to the last romantic

He's riding the plains 

living up to his name 

as the next to the last true romantic

So sang a grinning Josh Ritter to a packed crowd at the Commodore Ballroom last night, and live up to his name, he did.  In one of many shining moments, in a room lit purple with moving lights, the crowd lifted its collective voice for the most charming of singalongs.  This is a man whose songs make missile silos sound romantic.  During his rendition of "The Tempation of Adam," Ritter had me absolutely convinced to join him in a cold-war bunker "300 feet under the ground."  But I wasn't actually smitten until "Girl in the War," one of those magical moments when being one of hundreds of strangers crammed unromantically against each other actually feels like the most right thing in the world (Blurry snippet of video below; In the context of the song as a whole, the phrase "go to hell" is actually thoughtful.  Give it a listen):

This was one of the happiest, shiniest, feelgood shows ever.  24 hours later, I'm still grinning!

on long tubes, action plans and egyptian mummies

Today a voice specialist doctor inserted a long tube with a light on the end of it into my nose and down into my throat.  As he moved it around and peered at my vocal chords, all I could think about was how during mummification, the ancient Egyptians would put a long hook in the nose to pull out the brains.  

On a positive note, he pronounced my vocal chords healthy, and free of nodes or lesions, which makes me happy.  I am on vocal rest for the next three weeks (Confession: I've already cheated a little, even though tonight I only played guitar at band practice).  If I rest my voice properly, I should be able to sing again at the end of all of this.  If I don't, that doctor will have to use the tube again, which is incentive enough to change my errant ways.

And so, here is my action plan for the next three weeks:

• Use non-verbal cues in my classroom, and plan out my instructions in advance, so I can say them with the least amount of talking.
• Schedule significant vocal rest into every day.
• Quit singing in the car.  Hide all the Feist & Sufjan Stevens CDs, and listen only to difficult-to-sing-along-to albums, like Radiohead's Kid A, and The Album Leaf.  Listen to talk radio if necessary (ugh).  
• Continue to think of meaningful ways to engage Sunday gatherings, Wednesday night MG and personal worship times without singing.
• Absolutely NO coffee, caffeinated teas or beverages of any kind.  Drink water!

i like these songs

joel battle

he's a friend of a friend who i have never met.  

somehow i ended up on his page,

which is rather fortuitous.

i especially love the songs, 

'daylight saves' and 'slow learner.'  

but seriously, they are all so lovely.

yet to be sung (Am, C, F)

i tilt my head back
look way way up
i have to close close close
my eyes
a little smile escapes
can't keep it straight
all around is bathed
in your bright
how does so much
glory
fit inside my
little story?

franglais

After an incroyable summer living in Quebec, it became apparent that I would likely never learn enough French to become fluent.  What I did come away with, though, was an uncanny knack for speaking Franglais (Frenglish, to the layperson), which is why I aime beaucoup this silly Flight of the Conchords clip:

currently eyeing

vintage shutters, 

paint peeling and 

slightly askew

{photo: decaying elegance}

guerilla beautification

There's this tree that I pass every morning on my commute to work.  It's a small Douglas Fir - probably planted within the last 10 years - and it has made its home on the boulevard between the freeway and the onramp I frequent each early morning.   There's nothing significant about this tree, really, except that every Christmas, someone decorates it.  They must do it in the dead of night, as I'm quite sure decorating trees on the boulevard between the freeway and the onramp would attract some unwanted attention.  And yet, every December, without fail, there is the tree, decorated to the hilt in homemade ornaments of paper and string.  

There is something about this act of guerilla decorating that makes me happy.  It's subversive, and yet it's quite the opposite, as it tends to bring cheery smiles to the faces of the otherwise slack-jawed commuters crammed unromantically into two lanes of bumper-to-bumper gridlock.  

I ran across this work (above) of poster child   (via poppytalk) and think it is rather delightful.

Numerous of these planters were put up around a city, and people were encouraged online to water any they came across.  

A similar idea can be found in the form of one of the assignments on Learning to Love You More.   This one is my favourite, and it's even in Vancouver (click the little arrows to see the project from beginning to end).

While I have been known to do some guerilla beautifying in my day (stay tuned for a post about my guerilla lamp project), it's been decidedly small-scale.   One day I may just plant my own garden of blooms in an unusual spot.  In the meantime, let's all look for ways to bring beauty to unexpected places in unexpected ways.

for you

homemade cookies...

and a song... 

                            

{happy valentine's day}

a good morning (lamentations 3:22-26)

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, 

                        for his compassions never fail.

                                                             They are new every morning; 

       great is your faithfulness.

                       I say to myself, 

"The LORD is my portion, therefore I will wait for him."

  The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, 

                                                                         to the one who seeks him;

  it is good to wait quietly 

                                                                         for the salvation of the LORD.

learning to love you more (assignment no. 53)

Advice to Alissa at age 17:  

1.  You might never again experience the depth of family that you have had at this church you have attended all your life. You will move on to a new spiritual family in 5 years, and it will feel weird at first.  It's not a parting, but an extension.  Good things are ahead.

2.  That boy you like is leading you on.  Just because he acts like he is in love doesn't mean he is.   There are better boys to come, and soon he will be just a "blip" in your story.

3.  Don't lose touch with Jenny.  She is the truest of friends.

4.  Don't fight with Dad about the cereal.  Let him win so he can still feel like he has authority.  Soon you will move out, and you can eat whatever cereal you want.

5.  Rescue all those beautiful relics from the milkhouse on the farm.  One day you will have an eye for vintage items, and daydream about roaming around all those barns full of free antiques.

6.  When Laura finds a new best friend, don't let her go so easily.

7.  Don't let Jeff and Dave make fun of your music.    They think Nickelback is cool!  What do they know?  In ten years, they will just be discovering what you have known all along.

in quietness and trust (isaiah 30:15)

today at church 

i worshipped God without singing

because i have laryngitis and

cannot sing

i closed my eyes

i whispered ragged prayers

i put out my hands

i listened and looked up

vintage mint sheets

As a 12 year-old kid, I went on a brief foray into the world of stamp collecting.  Mainly I would just carefully steam the stamps off the letters my family would receive, and delicately place them into my wax-paper-lined stamp-collecting book.  At the time it all felt very official, and I would often marvel at the little vignettes and old-school typography.  What a find today, to come across a book full of mint sheets from the late 60s. Given to me years ago by my Grandpa Jantzen (and purchased long before I was born),  the collection is entirely middle-eastern in origin, and worth decidely more than my own initial collection of individual stamps.  I really love the vintage illustrations and fonts, and am already dreaming up ways to showcase them properly in my home.

A sheet of stamps from Israel.

Futuristic images of satellites on these stamps from Ras Al Khaima (United Arab Emirates)

I adore these bright brontosaurus stamps from Fujeira (U.A.E.), dated 1968.

These stamps bear the name, "The Mutawakelite Kingdom of Yemen," and are dated 1967.

I love the rich colour of the portraits featured on these stamps from Dubai, 

celebrating Children's Day, 1968.

Two more sets of stamps from Fujeira (U.A.E.) featuring weather balloons (?) and locomotives.

These feature a metallic silver background, dated April 1969.

vincente guerrero [08/05]

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.

                                                        {Mother Theresa}

j'adore

Amelie reminds me how much I love french, and films with subtitles, and accordions, and, most of all,  photobooths.  The first time I saw it, I was huddled into a cavernous, vintage high-school theatre, with my friend Dan, in the dark of night, in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec.  There were no English subtitles that night, as we were learning French and speaking it toujours.  Though I didn't catch all the subtleties of the plot,  I did fall madly for the juicy richness of the colour, the spaces and the silences, the beauty in the mundane, and the hopeful optimism of the titular character (and let's not forget the bestest, chastest kissing scene on film to date!).  Amelie remains my favourite film, and je pense, a subconscious influence on my  own aesthetic.

Note:  There are a couple of shady scenes in this film.  You have been warned!

sky blue sky

God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone

      but also on the trees,

                               and in the flowers,

                                                            and clouds,

                                                                              and stars.

{Martin Luther King, Jr.}

the great salt lake, alaska [08/07]

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities

—his eternal power and divine nature—

have been clearly seen, 

being understood from what has been made, 

so that men [and women] are without excuse.

{Romans 1:20}

small town, alaska

Some of my favourite small towns are in Alaska.  I've travelled there numerous times, as a crew member of the Dawn Princess, and in my travels with friends and family.  From the sweetest used record store I've ever visited, to the candy store (aptly named, Ketchicandies; be sure to get some of the chocolate-dipped Oreos) to the sweet hikes overlooking the salmon ladder and fridgid ocean vistas, I like everything about these towns.