Ticket Stubs

I've been to a lot of concerts.  Last night I went to see one of my faves play, Mount Eerie (for the third time), and I got to thinking about all the ticket stubs I have and how many great memories I have of those shows.  I love being able to look at a ticket stub, and instantly recall a flash of the concert or a snippet of a memory.  Like when Michael Stipe dedicated "Tongue" to Radiohead (their openers for the show), or when I was upgraded to 3rd row seats at Madison Sq. Garden for the New Year's Eve show of Wilco and the Flaming Lips (!), or all the road trips I have taken to Canada to see Radiohead play (and Jonny waving to my friends and I after we called out to him after the show in Barrie, ON), or seeing Rainer Maria at a dive bar in Buffalo, NY and them not getting on the stage until almost 3am.  Ani Difranco was on crutches when I saw her (also in Buffalo) and the memory of her beautiful voice carrying throughout the auditorium,  grabbing the setlist from The Arcade Fire's tiny show at a church in NYC (and my 2-hour wait in the freezing cold without a ticket and ending up inside standing next to David Byrne in the audience!), all the road trips to Bonnaroo and the amazing bands that played, seeing Gwar and really trying hard not to get any of their blood and other fluids that they spew into the audience on me (I made it until the last song, when they shot out some sort of liquid straight out and it reached the very back wall where I was standing), all the warehouse shows of tiny bands that went onto be big bands,  standing in line without a ticket for Beck at the Hiro East Ballroom and slipping the bouncer $20 to let me in (he did), cutting in line and making it into The Boredoms "77 drummers" show on a beautiful summer day in Brooklyn.  PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, Underworld, Sigur Ros, Massive Attack, Liz Phair, Bjork, and I could go on forever.  

I've never really thought of myself as a "collector" of anything, but I guess I do have one real collection in all the ticket stubs I have amassed over the years. My Dad is a really avid concert-goer and I was always in awe of his ticket-stub collection when I was younger (think of just about any classic rock and blues players and he has probably seen them...).  I definitely am my father's daughter in this respect, and he was the inspiration behind me saving every ticket stub I was left with after a show.

Anyways, I was sad last night when there was no ticket stub and it got me thinking back to all the will call or free concerts I have been to (probably quadruple the amount of ticketed shows) and how I don't have that printed stub to trigger a memory of it. Sad!  I wish I had thought to document them in other ways in the past...

Tomorrow night I'm seeing Radiohead for the 12th time!  I'm just really excited to have seen so many of my favorites play in person, ticket stubs or not (but hopefully!)

Chocolate-chip pancakes with Cherry Sauce and the South Street Seaport

Decadent brunch today with some chocolate-chip pancakes and a cherry sauce. That's a plum hiding in the background that I got in my CSA this morning. So pretty and fruity! Pancakes from VWAV and local cherries from my CSA. Lots of cherries! I'm going to make a cherry pie with them sometime this weekend!

Last night, we went to the South Street Seaport to check out Black Moth Super Rainbow. I was pretty impressed with the opener Dan Friel (Blank Dogs were eh), and Black Moth Super Rainbow was fun (although doesn't sound as good live as on album). They had fun video and costumes though. Afterwards, we went to see (500) Days of Summer, which was super-cute, but not as good as the trailer looks. Heading to Candle 79 tonight...mmm.

Italian Ice!

2 more sneak peeks

I'm ALMMMMOOOOST ready to show what the project I'm working on actually is, but for now, here are two more sneak peeks. Obviously, it's holiday themed, which is maybe why I'm a bit reluctant to put it out there quite yet. In this day and age though, I'm probably behind the times in that thinking. There were holiday cards next to the halloween stuff at the paper store I went to today...

I'm going to see Mogwai tonight! yeeeah!

I'm alive!

I am, I swear. I went away for a lovely weekend in PA with Nik, and I played a lot of "catch-up" tonight as a result. Cut a whole slew of recipe cards up and did some laundry, dishes, etc. Tomorrow will be a long, long work day, followed by seeing The Breeders in the evening! Excited, but kinda wish it was next week when I'm not so busy. I bought my ticket a long time ago though, so it's a must-go situation.

I think that I might have discovered my new favorite soy ice cream! soy delicious came out with a new flavor, snickerdoodle! Quite possibly my favorite kind of cookie ever, so you can imagine my excitement that it now exists in ice cream form.



I'll stop being MIA and post more already. Doodles ahoy.

Rock out

I doodled in the darkness last night, while waiting for the band to come on. Extra Life blew me away, and I attempted to buy a cd from them, but they never came back to man their booth. Oh well, guess I'll have to go see them again! It's okay, I only had $8 on me anyways. Their keyboardist was sick and stayed home, so I'm interested to see how he figures into the loop also. They were so intense! And the vocalist's voice was just mesmerizing, especially paired with the violin.

I left before Kyp Malone came on, but stayed long enough to notice that he shaved his 'fro off! whoa!

Two totally different sketches.

Some recent doodles:

Throw them out.


Chicken Pox Mountain. Who gave who what?!



And rest assured, I got my Liz Phair ticket today, after much fretting. It sold out in like, 30 seconds!!! I was so so distraught and upset after not getting them, but I was relentless and kept checking and refreshing. Sure enough, they added a second date about an hour after it had originally gone on sale and I was able to score one. Hoorah!! Tonight I'm going to see Extra Life at The Knitting Factory. Kyp Malone will also be there doing a solo thing. Hoorah again!

Apfel Kuchen

Apples mixed with cinnamon and sugar, baking, has to be one of the great smells of all time. Nik's mom sent us one of his grandmother's apple pie recipes (nik calls it a cake, but it is so not a cake; pie! there is no batter!) and I veganized it. So yum! It came out pretty too. I had bought some Granny Smith apples at the farmer's market a couple weekends ago, and they just, well, weren't very good apples. They weren't very juicy and they were SUPER waxy. I figured baking them would miraculously make them awesome, and I was right! I scrubbed the wax off first though. I really liked the crust on this; not the traditional shortening-laden crust that I am used to. Denser.

I just got back from seeing Parts and Labor play at Studio B. So good! so happy! I picked up their new 51 song (!!!) EP also and am pretty psyched to rock out to it tomorrow at work. Yacht was the headliner, but screw them. P&L are a bajillion times more talented and interesting, yet the kids who sing along to their laptop get to headline? Heck if I understand.

These last two sun-filled days (spent indoors at work) have me extremely hopeful that this coming weekend will be just as sun-filled (yay outside time!). Am I right or am I right?

Update Shmupdate

First off, I'm in love with Joanna Newsom and want to run off into the woods to frolic among magical creatures with her. I went to see her this past friday night at BAM and was feeling rather smitten when I left. She played with a full orchestra for the first half of the show and then with a small band the second half. Her and her harp and her warbles make quite a friday night. She played my favorite song too. And that dress! ah! she had a fancy long black dress for the first half of the show. So pretty!

I've been doing a couple of custom orders this past week:




I had a "derrrr" moment earlier this week, looking for cupcake paper in the stores. I couldn't find any and was starting to get a little sad that I wouldn't be able to fulfill an order, when I realized that I MAKE PRINTS FOR A LIVING. Yeah. Not my most shining moment. So I made a cupcake print and all is right in the world of cupcakes and recipe boxes.

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I'm currently working on a group of paintings. Should have prints of them in the next few days. Also, i'm super-excited about GLOW-IN-THE-DARK sculpey!! Hello ghosts.

happy boop year and CALENDAR

Hi friends. Hope that all your eves were lovely and Garth/Wayne-worthy.

I rang in the new year with The Dresden Dolls. They, and their posse of amazing performance artists, made for a very enjoyable night. I love how you can just feel the love all around at Dresden Dolls shows. It's just absolute adoration from the audience to the bands and vice versa. Perfect for NYE.

They played at the Grand Ballroom in Manhattan, which I've never been to before. Quite beautiful inside, and filled to the brim with the eclectic costumes and makeup of Dresden fans. Gowns, wigs, masks, corsets, fishnet, and hula hoops abound. An amazing man spun and spun around inside a giant metallic hula hoop to our amazement. Seriously, he was amazing and he defied gravity in his dance with the hoop. Meow Meow bared her self and sang in all sorts of accents in her caberet performance. Also, she crowd surfed all the way to the bar for a whiskey and no one even reached out and grabbed her boobs. Such a nice crowd. The Luminescent Orchestrii performed a very middle eastern, jamboree, blues, hip-hop, funk-influenced set complete with Miss Katie Kay's belly dancing skills. I liked the hip-hop food song they did.

The Dresden Dolls opened with a spoof of "In the Flesh," by Pink Floyd. Dressed in fascist military garb, it was quite an attention-grabbing opener, much to my delight. They came on with about 25 minutes until midnight, sounding absolutely tight and amazing. The countdown was preceded by a cover of The Beastie Boy's “Fight for Your Right (To Party).” YES. Quite a countdown indeed. Confetti and streamers everywhere. Kisses and hugs.

A lot of old songs were played, along with newer. Some that never really get played live. Amanda played a song off her forthcoming solo album. Brian rules so so so much. Watching him drum triggers all sorts of "hell yes!" reactions in me. Amanda's voice quickly went downhill though, due to a sickness, and it probably didn't help with all the beer-chugging that she did the whole night. Instrumental parts remained kick-ass the entire night.

I had a ball on the subway ride home, watching and listening to all the idiotic and asinine NYE shenanigans. Today I'm going to clean the apartment a bit and cook a lovely dinner.

But! wait! I have a present! Last friday, I was endlessly searching in B&N and online for a worthy calendar to put on my wall at home and at work. Very few caught my eyes and I mostly just felt frustrated. Lo and behold, Nate saved the day. I got home and excitedly opened a pretty package from one of my favorite people and, he read my mind! Calendar! Cupcakes make people happy calendar! Hooray! So this will joyfully hang up in my office at work, but I still had to come up with something at home. So! I made my own to print out and you can have it too. Since I only thought about this like, 3 days ago, I only have done the month of January so far. I got to thinking that it would be cool to release the next months towards the end of the present month, but quickly vetoed that since I like to write down things several months in advance. Did that sentence make sense? I didn't think so. But anyways. I'm going to work on the remaining months this month and put them up online for download. January is up for now. I like this idea and I'll think ahead next year. I'll add that to my list of resolutions (I really don't have a list, that was a lie.)

love and cinnamon buns,
michelle


Calendar, month of January:

This will fit on an 11x17 sheet of paper. I made a B/W and a color version.

January-Color version for you to print out (right-click, save as on PC. I don't know what you mac peeps do): http://www.myzoetrope.com/images/Doodles/2008%20calendar/January-color.jpg

January-Black and White version: http://www.myzoetrope.com/images/Doodles/2008%20calendar/January-bw.jpg

I like to rock.

I didn't do a top album list, but i did do a list of top concerts.

I don't understand all the love on end-of-year lists on the internets for The National, Beirut, Panda Bear, or Animal Collective at all. Boooooring and highly forgettable. I'd much rather rock out.

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2007 was a great concert year. My favorites from it (not in any type of favoritism order):

*77 Boadrum in the park (perfect in every way possible. )
*PJ Harvey at Beacon (she is the best. the end.)
*Bjork at United Palace Theatre (heart. burst.)
*Marnie Stern at Knitting Factory with Zach Hill (talk about charismatic insanity)
*Mt. Eerie, Woelv at that church in greenpoint (peaceful, quiet, and beautiful)
*Singer/Battles/Noisettes at Studio B (although Battles was much tighter at the Bowery show, I enjoyed this as a whole better. Singer was the highlight.)
*Feist/Kevin Drew's Spirit If at the pool (perfect outside concert.)
*Wilco at Warsaw (breaking into sold-out shows is fun. best setlist.)
*Hella at Europa (face. rocked. off.)
*Explosions in the Sky (no broken tambourines this time around, but still great)
*Arcade Fire at Judson Church (third night. so so so heart-squeezing. David Byrne was 3 feet from me. Acoustic Wake Up in the middle of the audience was fantasmic. I broke into this show too.)
*Parts and Labor/Girl Talk at Studio B (I think my jaw was dropped 3/4 of the time at the pure pandemonium that was taking place. Also, broke in.)
*Scout Niblett at Union Pool (too short, but shivers down my spine.)
*and of course, Bonnaroo (Damien Rice, Lily Allen, Tortoise were my favorite. Girl Talk pandemonium, Tool, and The Flaming Lips soundchecking War Pigs were also pretty damn great.

Mount Eerie

a stake through the heart