Potential Theme

This weekend I re-formatted my original design for the Save the Date mailers to facilitate easier mailing and provide a more legible point size. Claire addressed and stuffed envelopes while I toiled with an exacto knife and cutting mat. The first batch is in the mail. I am now in the process of designing a simple, informational website (no online engagement videos, you know who you are). And then I get to sink my teeth into the actual invitations which are more likely to take the form of a 12 page travel guide.

Personal Statement

Why do you want to pursue graduate studies?

So that when I'm done, I can get a job where the day's indignities are doled out by a person whom I actually respect.

Crude Sentiment

In the last two years, during the week leading up to Valentine's Day, I'm reminded of these Valentines I made a while back. I really should make new ones. I really should make all manner of cards. But I'm a busy boy. Feel free to use the old ones if you please.

Jenůfa at The Met

Claire and I saw Janáček's Jenůfa at The Met on Saturday evening. It was a welcome return to what has been, with the exception of last year, an annual tradition of ours. The staging was appropriately bleak, but the story and incorporation of Czech folk music into otherwise traditional operatic forms was really intriguing and made up for the absence of visual stimulation (giant rocks used as metaphor for the burden of a character's guilty conscience isn't terribly original). A doff of the cap to the xylophone player in the pit on Saturday night. He was in excellent form. Moravian villages at the end of the 19th century could definitely use a bit of new blood injected into the bachelor pool. Any woman that considers herself lucky for ending up with the man that mutilated her face in a moment of lustful spite could definitely use a mani/pedi and an e-Harmony account for her birthday.

Common Courtesy

Claire and I were waiting at the elevator bank in a hospital lobby the other day when two paramedics wheeled in a guy on a tricked-out gurney. This wasn’t the emergency room, just the good ol’ fashioned, low-priority front entrance. Now, dude wasn’t spewing anything black and bubbly out of any of his major orifices. Nor was he sporting any new holes or perforations care of a dispute settled with hot lead. But nevertheless, he was on a stretcher. And the rest of us were standing.

That said it was pretty crowded in the lobby. And some of us had been waiting there already for 30, maybe as much as 45 seconds. So I guess you can’t hold it against us for not stepping aside and giving him our place in line. In NY, you better be able to show a little uncoiled intestine if you expect to have any chance of jumping the queue.

Heartfelt

Dear Writers of LOST,

Why do you suck my balls?

Sincerely,
Steven

Listen: Podcast, no20

Sweet Christ! I went overboard for the twentieth episode celebration and packed this 'cast with more music than you can shake a cursor at. Be warned, the file is 94mb and will take an eternity to d'load. Enjoy:

“Magick” by Klaxons (video)
“Once and Never Again” by The Long Blondes (video)
“Swallow Tattoo” by The Long Blondes
“Smile” by Lily Allen (video)
“Hunting for Witches” by Bloc Party
“Muscle ‘n Flo” by Menomena
“Underwater (You And Me)” by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
“Monkey & Bear” by Joanna Newsom
“History’s Stranglers” by The Bronx (video)
“What You Know” by T.I. (video)
“Way Down In the Hole” by Five Blind Boys of Alabama
“Wamp Wamp (What It Do) (Feat. Slim Thug)” by Clipse
“How Shall I To Heaven Aspire” by Rock Plaza Central
“Ankle Injuries” by Fujiya & Miyagi
“History Song” by The Good, The Bad & The Queen
“Gravity’s Rainbow” by Klaxons (video)
“Montréal -40°C” by Malajube (video)
“Ruby Tuesday” by Franco Battiato
“The Perfect Me” by Deerhoof
“Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing” by The Minutemen

As usual, the podcast is available through RSS or iTunes. Here are the appropriate links:

* Subscribe to the enhanced podcast. (rss)
* Subscribe to the mp3 podcast. (rss)
* Click here to visit the "Pleasing To Your Ears" page in the iTunes Music Store, where you can pick and choose from available episodes.
* no20 :: Too Long for Two-Oh (mp3)
* no20 :: Too Long for Two-Oh (enhanced)

That's it for episode 20. Please tell your friends. Please tell me what you think. Please post a link on your blogs. Please use the hotline: (206) 202-3142. Please tune in for a new episode next weekend.

Also This

New Portfolio Slide

I'm finishing up a few slides for the apps that are due the first of February. This is an invoice for Nerd Elite Design, to be used in the event of late payment. It's printed on x-ray film of a broken limb, wrapped around a baseball bat. Very mafioso. There were a couple other versions on the same theme involving bricks, broken windows, a severed finger, burlap soaked in kerosene and a ransom note, but they seemed a bit theatrical. No matter. The slides:

Listen: Podcast, no19

I'm back in the podcasting state of mind, for the time being. Most of the apping is done so I should have the necessary time to get these out each week, as was my custom in the past. Without further ado, I give you the tracks:

"The Prayer" by Bloc Party
"Energy" by The Apples in Stereo
"Saint John" by Cold War Kids
"Parentheses" by The Blow
"Suffer for Fashion" by Of Montreal
"Who's Gonna Sing?" by Prototypes
"Cobrastyle (feat. Mad Cobra)" by The Teddybears
"La La Love You" by Pixies
"Wildflowers" by Tom Petty
"Ain't No Other Man" by Christina Aguilera
"Hold Up" by Girl Talk
"Too Deep" by Girl Talk
"Smash Your Head" by Girl Talk
"The Blues Are Still Blue" by Belle & Sebastian

As usual, the podcast is available through RSS or iTunes. Here are the appropriate links:

* Subscribe to the enhanced podcast. (rss)
* Subscribe to the mp3 podcast. (rss)
* Click here to visit the "Pleasing To Your Ears" page in the iTunes Music Store, where you can pick and choose from available episodes.
* no19 :: I Let My Tape Rock (mp3)
* no19 :: I Let My Tape Rock (enhanced)

That's it for episode 19. Please tell your friends. Please tell me what you think. Please post a link on your blogs. Please use the hotline: (206) 202-3142. Please tune in for a new episode next weekend.

Portfolio Slides

As I prep my portfolio slides, I'm sticking them here. Join me as I tinker with the order and try to take in everything in a more distilled form.

Portfolio Package

Portfolio

Portfolio Package

If you'll recall this post, I was talking about the backside of the envelope that will serve as the packaging for my applications. Here's pictures of the real deal. Very cool looking in person. Very tedious to create.

Portfolio

Portfolio

Write More: Notebooks

I'm developing some stationery in an ongoing effort to get people to write more letters, diary entries, grocery lists, ransom notes and requests for Jesus. It's called "Write More" because I exist in a dimension parallel to yours in which everything is obsotively, posilutely, literally literal. "Write More: 'Cuz, y'know, you ought to." We've got our very best admen working on that bullshit slogan. I plan to throw myself into all efforts fancy paper after January. Until then, here are a few prototypes that I whipped up. They're Moleskine Cahier notebooks and they come with ruled or blank pages. "Write More: 'Cuz it's high time you made that Japanese girl on the train next to you insanely jealous." Bit better.

(flickr)

App'velopes

These are the finished envelopes that hold some of the material for my applications. In some cases, my recommendation folks have to mail material in boring old white, pre-addressed, stamped envelopes so some of the presentation is lost. But my favorite schools are getting the whole shebang. For my personal statement letter, I picked a few of the synonyms used by different schools and threw in a few of my own. I will circle the appropriate noun that corresponds to each school's usage. Blurgh.

Nice Ass!

This is the digital mock-up of the rear of my grad school app. pckg. It mixes spray paint, cardboard and screen printing. It'll rule. Pictures next month!