Vinyl Sunday 1

by goldengutgirl Posted on 03/18/2012

So I thought I might resurrect a semi-old practice. Although this is still going on on some websites, there was a certain height of its popularity on Tumblr sometime a year or more ago. Back then I didn’t have a record player of my own, but I’ve always wanted to participate. Now that I do, though, and accumulating a decent record collection, I thought why not? So for my first ever post, I figured I should post the first record I bought here in L.A.

They played at Amoeba to promote their new album. I couldn’t resist. The record is signed too!

Posted in Vinyl Sunday | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

In which I am (slightly) superficial

by goldengutgirl Posted on 03/14/2012

No, actually, this post will be about how much I love live music. That tangible intensity when a band plays right in front of your eyes and you can feel each strum of the guitar and drumstick fall on your skin. It’s a high to which the only further extent is when you’re doing the playing. I’m not, but it’s enough.

The past few weeks have been marked by some extra exciting shows I’ve been able to watch and photograph. Wait, if live music is a high to watch then maybe photographing it is like the fornication from which babies (beautiful photographic babies) are made. Yes that sounds quite right. The post title refers to how two of the shows I fornicated with have some very good-looking people in it, which I enjoyed to the point of sleepless nights just reliving the moment.

They are beautiful to look at and even more beautiful to take photos of. Sometimes life just gives you a whole cake instead of a cookie and shoves it into your mouth, “EAT IT! EAT IT I SAY!” and who am I to say no to the universe? So here are some of the babies I’ve made the past few weeks. (The fathers shall remain nameless for the sake of Google search because some of them know English.)

⇒ View the album on Flickr; Taken with a Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 30mm 1.4  / Canon EF-S 55-250mm 4.0-5.6

Posted in Music and Life, 심장의 사진 | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Valentine’s

by goldengutgirl Posted on 02/14/2012

The distance from the bus stop to our house is 0.3 miles. It takes 7 minutes to walk, in which I listened to this piece from Max Lugavere. In which I found myself crying, openly, while walking along the dimly lit street. It was Valentine’s Day, but it didn’t matter all that much to me. I never had much luck on this day of the year. I guess I just wanted to say, if you can, you should listen to this because as much as there was nothing special for my February 14th, Max Lugavere’s “adaptation” of Nick Cox’s Thought Catalog article moved me so much that that moment felt special. So, there. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Posted in Feelings, Music and Life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

We all have heavy boots

by goldengutgirl Posted on 01/29/2012

⇒ View the album on Flickr; Taken with a Canon FT QL and manual 50mm 1.4, Fuji Superia ISO 200

Today I saw the Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close movie–adapted from the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book was very moving, and I tried not to judge the movie before seeing it. I thought the choice of Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock might potentially distract me from enjoying the movie. They were great, and so was Thomas Horn as Oskar, and Max von Sydow as the Renter. I loved their scenes the best.

Anyway, I did not want to write this post as a movie review, because I am a poor reviewer. It seemed many critics didn’t like it though, and as I wasn’t very convinced with their negativity, you can see how I am probably not good as a movie critic. I think many of the reviews pointed to the inevitable melodrama that would come from a 9/11 story of a boy losing it’s father. Most of them even accused the movie of being almost exploitative of the audience’s deeply rooted emotions for the tragedy to make the movie more relevant, and maybe it did but I simply saw (and felt) more than that.

It wasn’t just a story about 9/11, even though that was the reason Oskar’s father died. And, although the events of that Worst Day resonates with everyone in the world, I guess it’s because it seemed so far away from me being in this island in Southeast Asia and 13 years old when it happened, that perhaps the exploitation would not work for me as much. I cried a lot while watching, not because I had my own memories to tug from of that day, but because I know what loss feels like. I know what it feels like to try to make sense of something that just doesn’t make sense at all. I know what it’s like to want to connect with someone you love but it’s so hard and it’s almost easier to walk away. These things are universal and the movie, for me, had that kind of sensitivity that was sometimes subtle and close, and sometimes loud and intense as it needs to be.

When I say, ‘we all have heavy boots’ it’s not because we all suffered pain and loss from the events of September 11. It’s because we all do have heavy boots, one way or another. That was one of the things that I took away and stored forever in my heart from the book. It was summarized very shortly in the movie, which I understand may be due to the lack of time–still, it is a Truth.

Last October, I went to see the 9/11 Monument in New York alone. It was a very serene and beautiful space. So many people visit the place every day and although I’m not one of those who has a significant purpose in going there, it made me feel solemn and sad just as well. The photos above were some that I took during my visit. There are a few more in the album on Flickr.

Posted in Feelings, 심장의 사진 | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

L.A. from the backseat

by goldengutgirl Posted on 01/26/2012

⇒ View the album on Flickr; Taken with a Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 30mm 1.4 

The other day we had errands downtown that had to do with a lot of waiting around in the car. We had to be at Hope St. by 8:30AM and had nothing much to do until maybe 10AM, so my aunt drove around with me and my mom to a good place for breakfast. We crossed the freeway maybe 3 times that morning. My lens was new and shiny and I couldn’t wait to test it out so here are some of its first photos.

I don’t feel like I know Los Angeles completely yet. Until I fall in love with a city, I don’t think I can consider myself as having lived there. Every city has something to fall in love with in it but L.A. and Southern California is so spacious and expansive everywhere, the streets look almost always identical, it might take a while for me to understand the culture enough to try and be part of it. I need to do some more exploring, even if sometimes I have to do it from the backseat of a moving SUV.

Posted in California, 심장의 사진 | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I’ll meet you there someday

by goldengutgirl Posted on 01/23/2012

⇒ View the album on Flickr; Taken with a Canon PowerShot SX 210 IS 

There are some bands that you listened to when you were younger, when music wasn’t so easily available, that would have permanent places in your memory, that when you hear their song after many years, you would still know all the words. It wasn’t that long ago, maybe 3 or 4 years, when I last listened to Augustana, and I realized just how much their songs back then meant to me. When I found myself going to the El Rey theatre to watch them perform, I was strangely calm, compared to the excited girls who sold me their extra ticket $5 less than the door price.

I still knew all their songs, I could sing as the band played. But it was a different experience–Dan, the vocalist, had so much control over his songs, he would sing differently from the record and it still felt right. The band, despite having member changes through the years, played so much like a team. Whenever the next song involved the drummer playing the piano or the guitarist shifting from the piano to one of his two guitars, the change was swift and deliberate, and you knew, you were in good hands when you listened and cried and smiled because they sounded so good, so right. Jared Palomar, one of the former members, came to the show and Dan called him over to play a bit of the bass and sing with him for a song. It was beautiful.

They played some new songs, but that was O.K. Because all the new songs were like continuations of the old songs, without sounding like repetitions. Anyway, my point is, that night at the El Rey was a highlight for me, and it made me feel like maybe this new life isn’t so bad. I’ve been feeling so displaced and lost and tired, even with all the work I’ve been doing, it was hard to feel at home in such a new place. But their music, as always, soothed many sores and closed many open questions but most of all, though, helped me find new hope in many things, and that was everything I needed. Hope, that someday I’ll be in a place where I am content.

 

Posted in Music and Life | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Last Christmas was only a month ago

by goldengutgirl Posted on 01/21/2012

⇒ View the album on Flickr; Taken with a Canon FT QL manual camera, 50mm F/1.4 FD lens and Fuji Superia ISO 400

It was really the first time I saw mistletoe that wasn’t plastic. It was also the first time I experienced buying a real pine christmas tree. In our city there are several lots for holiday requirement shopping. Because this would be our first Christmas in America, we decided to get a real live tree instead of a fake one. Getting a tree is wonderful–especially if you timed it just right at 4PM, when in Southern California during December, it is almost dusk and the light is golden on open lots and pine.

Posted in 심장의 사진 | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

15. Life and Death

by goldengutgirl Posted on 01/11/2012

<We’ve been inside your head and we’ve been inside Ender’s head and we’v been inside our own heads for a thousand generations and these humans make us look like we’re asleep. Even when they’re asleep they’re not asleep. Earthborn animals do this thing, inside their brains–a sort of mad firing-off of synapses, controlled insanity…>

<We know about their dreaming>

…

<What good is it, when it means nothing?>

<That’s just it. They have a hunger we know nothing about. The hunger for answers. The hunger for making sense. The hunger for stories.>

<We have stories.>

<You remember deeds. They make up deeds. They change what their stories mean. They transform things so that the same memory can mean a thousand different things. … And their lives are so short, they die so fast. But in their century or so they come up with ten thousand different meanings to every one we discover.>

<Most of them wrong.>

<Even if the vast majority of them is wrong, even if ninety-nine of every hundred is stupid and wrong, out of ten thousand ideas that still leaves them with a hundred good ones. That’s how they make up for being so stupid and having such short lives and small memories.>

<Dreams and madness.>

- Xenocide, Orson Scott Card

No, this will not be about Xenocide, or Orson Scott Card, though maybe occasionally of the things I take away from his books. This blog will be a record of the things that make up my “dreams and madness”. The quotation I typed manually from Chapter 15 of Xenocide connected with me so strongly that I had to do something about it. Then I realized those words were what I had been looking for all along–in a shallow way, the title for the space I intend to make my own on the internet. On perhaps a more personal and intelligent level than LoveStyleFree.

Lovestylefree.com has been a wonderful exercise for me the past few years and it’s become a melting pot of random things that I liked enough to blog about. Photos, daily agendas, events and culture related things. It became so random that it was hard to be even slightly serious on it–It could have been my Tumblr (though different people use Tumblr differently, I just prefer to… tumble in it). That is why a need for this website is born. So that I can, eventually, distinctly project who I am on the internet without having a zillion categories and incoherent posts.

Basically, a fresh start.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Posted in Definer | Tagged , | Leave a comment