Happy Hour Friday

In honor of my recent trip to Hawaii, I figured I'd share a recipe for a 'poor man's mai tai'. While the real deal is delish, it can be a lot of work to put it together.

Here's a quick and yummy drink to refresh you on a hot day!

Poor Man's Mai Tai:

Fill a tall glass with ice.
Fill the glass 1/4 to 1/3 of the way with dark rum (depending on how strong you want it!).
Squeeze half a lime over the rum.
Fill the glass to the top with guava juice (orange juice is good, too).
Stir your elixir, garnish with a fresh pineapple slice if you have it.

Of course, if you are in the vicinity of Forbidden Lounge in Alameda, you can always stop by and have someone make one for you!

XO

Loving iTunes Part One: Podcasts

Thank god for podcasts! Here are some of my favorites:

Music:
The Official DJ Sasha Podcast broadcasts somewhat-ethereal house music, each podcast is around an hour of music. While kind of "rave-y" I think the music is hypnotic and I love having it on during work or long road trips.

KCRW's Today's Top Tune = The legendary radio station releases one track each weekday. A great way to discover new music. There are a lot of "song of the day" podcasts. Salon has one, then there is KEXP in Seattle, and for those seeking the more obscure, check out IndieFeed's variety of podcasts.

KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic updates about twice a month and it is a live set from new or indie artists. I don't always like it but sometimes there are some real gems. This is how I came to know and like M. Ward and his quiet, sad self. He's like a "lite" version of Tom Waits.

Tempo of the Down was a short-lived podcast that posted a few 30 to 60-minute mixes of downtempo tunes. Sometimes strange but overall, excellent. I've listened to these sets repeatedly. Awesome for background noise while working.

TV & Film:
Battlestar Galactica = I'm admitting two things here: 1) I'm a geek, but I bet a lot of you watch this and if you don't, you should and 2) sometimes I get confused by the plot and need clarification. The podcasts are like director's commentary you get on a DVD (in fact, the podcasts are put on the DVD and used as the commentary), and the sessions with Ron Moore by himself are great. (When he has someone else with him, I find them annoying.)

KCRW's The Treatment is definitely worth checking out. I know I'm being pretty pro-KCRW with this list, but the station is that good. Elvis Mitchell hosts a discussion with various people in the film or TV industry, mostly discussing the artistic side of things (sometimes they talk abut the business). I always enjoy each show, but I'm kind of a junkie when it comes to film stuff.

Life & Politics:
This American Life started podcasting last fall, which is great for those of us who didn't always catch the radio broadcast. The new TV show is great too, if you have a chance to check that out.

Dave Emory is my favorite conspiracy theorist, and his once-a-week podcasts are long and tedious, but sometimes pretty interesting(!).

The Commonwealth Club is a great way to hear discussions with people in the news, like John Edwards, Carly Fiorina, or Deepak Chopra.

If you are jonesing for some learning but don't want the commitment, check out the podcasts from UC Berkeley. There are a variety of courses (78 podcasts and growing) covering subjects from history to computer science.

Enjoy!

"I am a man of celluloid."

This last Saturday my sister and I saw a double feature of Aguirre, Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo at the Aero. Werner Herzog was present during the intermission for a Q&A. My favorite Herzog film is Little Dieter Needs to Fly, which is heart-breaking and amazing, and Aguirre is now a close second. According to the Internets, Aguirre was a big influence on Apocalypse Now.

If you've ever seen an interview with Herzog you know he has interesting things to say. This is the guy that rescued Joaquin Phoenix from a wrecked car, after all. I highly recommend checking out this clip of his appearance on the Henry Rollins show.

Back to the Q&A: Herzog dropped some verbal gems. I got some of the quotes exact, and some I had to convey the gist because I couldn't get it all down:

Q: What do you think of digital video?
A: "I am a man of celluloid.... I have used digital video but under hostile conditions. When I filmed "Lara & the Laden" (I'm _really_ not sure of the title, this is what I think he said) I was nearly run over twice by angry men.... Digital video entices you to film anything mediocre or below mediocre.... You need to choose the shots and can't waste them and you need to feel like you filmed the best shot you could."

Q: Given the current political climate, do you see parallels between Aguirre and our current political leadership? (I hated this question; we were in hallowed ground being in the room with Herzog, why did this biatch have to bring up Bush?)
A: "I don't think it would be helpful for President Bush or the movie to be connected."

Q: Tell us about the monkeys at the end of Aguirre.
A: "I bought the monkeys from a local person who catches them and sells them. One day, I woke up to find them gone and I realized he had sold them to someone else. So I found out that the monkeys were being flown to America by some American company. So I went to the airport and found where they were loading the monkeys. I told them I was a veterinarian and I needed their vaccination license in order to let the monkeys leave the country. They were intimidated so they left the monkeys and I took them back to the set."

Q: (Something about the extras on the set of Aguirre)
A: There were a lot of fights on the set, the men were causing trouble... Whoever was bad became a body in the film. Kinski would have been first but we needed the pestilence until the ending."

Street Photos, Found Photos, Vernacular Photos

(Thanks to Karen for some of these links!)

I really love documentary or "street" photography, which was made into an artform by photographers like Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus, and Roy DeCarava.

Somewhat related are found photos and vernacular photos (photos by amateurs capturing their everyday life), which are on display on several sites.

Shorpy is a cool, early 20th-century archive; The "In the Booth" collection at Square America is definitely worth checking out; Flickr has an area where users can post their own images, such as the cool one here. And of course, we all know the joys of Found Magazine.

Now, I just have to go to a flea market and find my own found photos... or start taking my own pics!

Gardening in Eden

When I was in Hawaii earlier this month, I helped my aunt plant several plants and trees around her burgeoning yard.

It's important to note that all of the land there is covered in black volcanic rock, and in her yard most of the rocks are between a golf ball and baseball in size. She was able to cover most of these rocks with black cinder, but all cinder is are smaller volcanic rocks.

We mixed soil with the cinder in order to plant five hibiscus trees along her deck:


A closeup of the baby hibiscus.


We meant to plant all red, but we picked an orange one by mistake. Can you find it?


With blossoms this beautiful, how could the orange have been a mistake?

Later in the week, Brendan and Jeffrey (who live down the street with their grandparents (their grandfather, Abner, built my aunt's house)) came down to help my aunt dig in the mulch to help get rid of the frogs living there. I did not volunteer for this job, but Brendan and Jeffrey were more than happy to help.


My aunt Chris, Brendan and Jeffrey.


Jeffrey, more than happy to get a closeup with a frog he found.


A bromeliad we planted in the cinder. Did you know that pineapples are part of the bromeliad family?


The scarecrow my aunt put up to keep birds from eating all of the carpet grass seeds she planted. It didn't keep the birds away, but luckily my aunt planted enough seeds that by the end of my visit there were small sprouts in her yard.

Zodiac

Over the weekend I saw Zodiac, the new film by David Fincher.

This movie is excellent; it was shot (beautifully) on DV and edited completely in Final Cut Pro. The movie was printed to film for distribution, which is usually a good thing. Where I saw the screening, however, the theater's print had a lot of flaws in it which were distracting.

Anyway, this movie is about the Zodiac killer, specifically, Robert Graysmith's theory about who the Zodiac killer was, since he was never caught.

Graysmith, played by Jake Gylanhaal, is a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle who becomes obsessed with the case. Robert Downey, Jr. plays crime reporter (and boozehound) Paul Avery assigned to the story. Mark Ruffalo is the SF detective assigned to the case... all of these lead performances are excellent!

There are also a ton of smaller parts by recognizable faces. For example, John Terry (Jack's father on "Lost") plays the publisher of the SF Chronicle and Chloe Sevigny plays Jake's love interest in the film. It's also great to see 70s-era San Francisco; through visual effects and other techniques they re-created the city skyline (including the freeway that used to run above the Embarcadero).

Early in the film, you see gruesome scenes of the killer and his victims. They are disturbing and one in particular has haunted me for a while. But the majority of the film is spent with Graysmith, Avery and the detectives around the Bay Area who are investigating the crime. It's a long film (over 2 and a half hours) and some people might think of the movie as "slow". But I think it's more methodical and tedious, as you have to patiently wait with the lead characters as they try to get a break in the case.

I would say that this is an "old school" type film, like "All The President's Men", not influenced by the seizure-inducing style of MTV. I highly recommend it!

Who would be your celebrity entourage?

My friend Kristen introduced me to a fun game to pass the time... especially if you are somewhat obsessed with celebrities.

Anyhoo, which celebrity (or celebrities) would be:

Your Dad (mine: Francis Ford Coppola)
Your Mom (mine: Gena Rowlands)
Your BFF (mine: Sofia Coppola)
Your Date (mine: Joaquin Phoenix)
The Celebrity Couple you would hang with:
(mine: Maggie Gylanhaal and Peter Sarsgaard; also: Ben Harper and Laura Dern)

I would add some more categories:

Person you would get trashed with (mine: Kiefer Sutherland)
Person to collaborate on a movie with (mine: Wes Anderson or Steven Soderbergh)

What about you?

Two types of lava

Thanks to Ren, I learned that there are two types of lava:

Pahoehoe (pronounced "pa-hoi-hoi") lava, which is bulbous and low to the ground (and contains beautiful colors):


and A'a lava, which has sharp edges and will easily scratch (if not cut) you. The rocky coastline near Kahena Beach that I wrote about in my last post is full of A'a lava, and a pic of it in action is here.

Exploring Puna

My aunt lives in Puna Beach Palisades, a subdivision in the Puna District of Hawaii. Puna is south of Hilo on the east coast of the island and is usually thought of as "the place where the hippies live." That link to Puna Beach Palisades takes you to a rental property in my aunt's neighborhood... the site has maps and links of the area.

Anyhoo, we visited several places in Puna, but I wasn't able to take pictures of every place we visited. But I do have links!

One place we checked out was Lava Tree State Park, where you can see lava formed in the shape of trees. The site explains:

The Lava Trees in this park were created in a 1790 lava flow, which covered the area. At the time this area was a native 'Ōhi'a Tree forest with trees growing up to 40 feet tall in a dense area. When the pahoehoe lava flow entered the area it filled the forest up to 11 feet deep in 2000° F molten lava. The lava that surrounded the 'Ōhi'a trees started to cool immediately, due to the cool wetness of the trees, while the rest of the lava remained molten. While cooling, the intense heat of the lava also destroyed the trees leaving a perfect impression of where the tree once stood in the cooling lava.

Because of the tall Ohia trees surrounding this park, I was really reminded of Northern California. It was very mossy and moist there, and it was really cool to see these tall lava structures that looked like totem poles in progress. Surreal and cool.

Another day we swam at Ahalanui Park, often referred to as the "Warm Ponds". Ocean water is diverted into the pool, which is then heated by the warmth of the sun above and rocks below (due to the nearby volcano flow). The water is around 90 degrees and really refreshing. While we were there, an older woman in a hawaiian dress sat on the edge and played her ukulele. It was too much! ha.

A really great place to swim is Kahena Beach. You need to walk down a rocky hillside to get to the black sand beach. On Sundays there is a drum circle (I didn't attend) and most days there are lots of people there sunbathing and swimming. Here are some pics from the path leading to the beach (I didn't take pictures of the actual beach, since that day most people there were nude and I figured they would object? But, there are some picks at the link.):


It seemed sunnier when I was there?


The water there is amazing.

The California Deck

My aunt has a lovely lanai, or deck, at her house on the Big Island. She used this material that looks like wood but isn't (not sure what it's called). It's supposed to last longer than regular wood will in the rainy, hot climate of Puna.

She decided to not build an awning over the deck, which is creating a stir in the neighborhood. She is often confronted by people in the neighborhood who tell her she built a "California deck", not a "Hawaii deck" and that she needs to build an awning. They say that the sun and rain will ruin the deck. One day, a woman we had just met spent over 10 minutes telling us how impractical my aunt's deck was. Who knew that a deck could be so controversial?

With patio umbrellas you have enough shade to sit on the deck during the hottest part of the day. And at night, when the sky is so black you can even see the Milky Way, you don't miss having an awning at all.

Here are pictures:


The lanai, in the morning.


The other end of the lanai.


The view from the lanai.


The non-wood was soft on your feet, but not slippery.


After much shopping, we found some patio furniture.


Another view.

David Lynch Dot Com

Have you visited David Lynch's site?
He's selling his own line of coffee, there's a bunch of Inland Empire info, and he says the Daily Weather Report should be back soon.

Visiting the Big Island, Part One

I recently visited the Big Island for the first time. I knew it would be different than Maui (which I visited for a friends' wedding in 2003) but I didn't realize how different. It was great!

I should first say that when I was waiting for my flight out of LAX, I had a lot of time to kill. I begrudgingly decided to buy something from Starbucks. As I waited in the queue none other than Arianna Huffington joined the line! I was about to say something to her when a guy in a suit walks up to say hello. They know each other... I try my best to appear disinterested but can't help overhearing something about how he was on stage at the Oscars and his cellphone was vibrating in his pocket... He looked familiar and it took me a minute to think of what Oscar he would have won... a technical achievement? I would be away from internet access for a week and had only my brain cells to help me figure it out... then I remembered: he was Lawrence Bender, producer of An Inconvenient Truth. The two of them did seem elitist (snobby might be a better word), but I guess that's a celebrity thing and I won't hold it against them. Bender has produced _all_ of Quentin Tarantino's films, and Arianna, well, you probably already know about her.

Moving on!

I took a flight from LAX to Oakland, then a flight from Oakland to Hilo. We left Oakland at 7:30 at night... hoping to sleep, I downed a GT and slept for a few hours. Arriving in Hilo was awesome. The airport is tiny and it was warm and rainy and you could already hear the coqui frogs.

On this map, you can scroll down and find the city of Hilo, which is on the east side of the island. But if you scroll down further (following highway 130) you will find your way to Pahoa (what I like to call the Bolinas of Hawaii) and further down you will get to Puna Beach Palisades where my aunt lives. Near my aunt's house is Kahena Beach, a black sand beach and one of very few swimmable areas. There is also a place we called "The Lookout" It's on the map as "the lookout" but I don't know what its real name is. The Lookout was my favorite place. Here are some pics:


Looking Northeastish, toward California.


Looking Southeastish, toward Central America.


After leaving The Lookout, we walked back to my aunt's house and came across some flowers that lined her neighbor's yard:





Here are some photos of my aunt's house, from the street (Oliana Street, to be specific):


The back of the house, from Oliana Street.


Another shot of the house. The little white thing is a scarecrow my aunt erected. That scarecrow really dropped the ball.

More to come... xo

Morning Becomes... Doable

Each weekday morning, I look forward to tuning my radio dial to KCRW for Nic Harcourt's Morning Becomes Eclectic program. It's a reason to get up, make coffee, and start working. You don't have to be in SoCal to tune in - there are links at the site that let you stream the show via the web.

Speaking of streaming... The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board recently increased the royalty rates for streamed songs. These changes are retroactive(!!) and have significant financial consequences for publicly-funded stations like KCRW. Despite the cost, KCRW plans to continue streaming its shows, but the donations they depend on are now more critical than ever.

Anyway, Morning Becomes Eclectic always provides a great mix of new and old tracks, and many artists have debuted on the program (Beck, Damien Rice, Jurassic 5 to name a few). Nic Harcourt has an excellent ear for music and each day there's a surprise in store. Since I'm mostly out of the loop on new music, KCRW fills the void and I've found new artists like M. Ward, Cold War Kids, Peter Bjorn & John, and Lily Allen to grow my music collection.

As a side note, my friend Cary puts together her own 'downtempo' podcasts using royalty-free tunes she finds on various sites - another way to discover hard to find tracks. Check it out!

Some thoughts on this blog

Who: I'm 31 and female. I have several nicknames... including Bexy.

What: With a blog I can post my ramblings rather than emailing them to my friends. Imagine how much easier it will be to ignore me!

Where: Right now I live in California, but later this year I will be in either Arizona or Iowa (awaiting law school admission letters).

When: My ramblings will jump all over the place. Photos will be old, new, random.

Why: I wanted a way to share my photos from my Hawaii trip (and maybe other trips from years past!). Also, I work for a computer book publisher and it seems absurd that I don't have a blog yet.

Another test... and another pic of Franky

Like all good pet owners...

Franky striking a pose
Originally uploaded by Bextravagant.

Here is my first blog entry and a picture of my cat, Franky. He is a beauty and I will surely be sharing more pics of him. He is about to turn two years next month and he was probably about 1 year old in the photo. He's such a love.