Regina Spektor!!!

So, I'm going to see Regina Spektor tomorrow and I went looking for youtube videos of her to get pumped up. I found this...it's amazing.

Does this qualify me for the carpool lane?

I knew there was a spider in my trunk because I kept finding spider webs. I'm not sure how long it's been in there, if it came with the vehicle, or if it found it's way in some other way. I'm also wondering what food the spider has been eating, because if I kill it and suddenly have an insect infestation then I'm only hurting myself; what harm could a trunk spider cause? Especially because my trunk spider is really quite small. I saw the actual specimen yesterday, resting on my CD case, when I opened the trunk to put my groceries inside. The blogger in me said "camera" and then I was too enthralled to kill it. It ran deeper into the trunk as soon as I put down the camera to take action, so I guess it can live in there for awhile longer. The following picture includes my shoe, for scale of course.

Blue Sky!

You may remember what the sky looked like last week.

Well here it is now, and I love that I can breath again.

Pinback @ The Belly Up Tavern

Yesterday Keziah and I got to see Pinback play at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. I'd never been there before, and didn't know the way the venue is set up. We ended up getting seats directly to the side of the stage, so we had an excellent view of the band. We even got some video footage (see above).

Yes...they said "Leprechaun"

Blood Red Trevi Fountain

Last Friday, October 19th, an anarchist group calling themselves "FTM Futurist Action 2007" dyed the Trevi fountain red. The action took place when an unidentified man dumped a box of the red dye at a strategic location. After officials turned off the fountain and restored the flow of clean water a box full of leaflets was found from the group explaining that they aim to wage war on "everything and everyone with a spirit of healthy violence" and to turn this "grey bourgeois society into a triumph of color." The protest was against the Rome Film Festival and the excessive amount of money spent on the event.
The fountain was not damaged in any way, so no official investigation will be brought about to prosecute the group in question. Personally I think the fountain looks pretty good with the bright red water; the contrast of the red and the white marble is an interesting visual effect.

Lunch Time Excursion

Yesterday Keziah heard that the stables where she takes riding lessons had taken on an additional 52 horses. It's already a fairly small stable, so we were excited about the thought of "horse heaven" where we could visit and find horses as far as the eye can see. We had decided to go on our lunch break to visit, but the extra horses had already been sent back home. Instead we stayed and visited with Patron, the horse Keziah is leasing right now. It was a good enough break from work for me.

How's the air quality?

Well, they gave us these at work today.

Fire Map

Here is the ever changing, and highly useful,Google Map of the Fires. If you're curious about where I am, our condo is on Santa Fe Dr., just east of the 5 freeway across from Encinitas.

Theme Song?

As of right now I am among the lucky few in San Diego county who did not have to evacuate. Yesterday at work, I was sent home to pack because our receptionist had received call notifying everyone in our area that we were on voluntary evacuation. So I went home and packed all that is irreplaceable, enough clothes for a few days, and had planned on fleeing to Idyllwild. Currently, however, it's unlikely that flames will actually reach our complex in Cardiff. There are two red cross evacuation points within five miles of our complex, one in Encinitas and one in Del Mar, so we're pretty confident that our area is out of the path of danger. In fact we live in one of the few areas in the county where the evacuation notice has been lifted. So basically we're just waiting it out in the ash and grossness right now to see what will happen next. I did get the day off of work because they only need two people to answer service phones, and yesterday was my day for that. I spent this day off the way we Visels have been known to spend a day off...cleaning; I even organized our Tupperware and then I cooked Thai coconut soup just because I had time. I'm a little sick of being inside right now, but it's either that or inhale all the ash. Basically, I still have the important stuff packed and in my car which has a full tank of gas and has recently been serviced because the nature of these fires in unpredictable and the Girl scout in me shouts "Be Prepared!" However, we are in the clear for now; if anything new happens I'll let you know.

And because I love "The Office".

Here are the pictures.

This is the sky outside of my car this morning.

This is the sky as I got to work this morning.

This is the view from my office window.


This is the parking lot at our condo after I got home this afternoon.

Fire Update

One of the strangest things about the Southern California fire situation is that I'm not in Idyllwild for it. We started smelling fire yesterday when Zack, Keziah, Nathan and I went to Del Mar for a movie. It was the consensus that we Idyllwild kids are too used to fire threats; as we exited the theatre and took a breath I said "It smells like Idyllwild," and the immediate response was a synchronized "Yeah."
The ash began to fall at our condo yesterday evening and today when I left for work the sky was completely dark with smoke. My car is coated with ash, and the entire parking area is littered with branches and debris from the Santa Ana winds that billowed all night long. The freeways are packed with people evacuating from the surrounding neighborhoods, and when I arrived at work today it was clear that the fire has affected almost everyone who works here. The first indication was that it was easy to find parking, and the second was that the sales room was completely deserted when I walked through to my office. A large majority of our mechanics are in the process of evacuating, as are several managers, receptionists, salesmen, and service greeters. The neighboring Lexus dealer has three employees trying to run the whole thing and our collision center has closed for the day. Currently there are two of us answering service phones, our customer service manager has taken on the role of receptionist, there is one saleman, and a skeletal crew of mechanics. However, the dealership is situated under a small patch of blue sky, and in complete honesty I don't mind being here because the air is cleaner than it is at my house. We've basically been told that we will stay open until the air gets so bad that the mechanics can't work. I took some pictures that I will post once I get home and can upload them. I'm praying for everyone who has to evacuate, and hoping that I don't have to be one of them.

Costume Bonanza

The fifth annual Benson Halloween party is coming up, and as a result I've had a ton of people coming to me for costume suggestions. Apparently they think I'm a costumer like my sister, or they just recognize creativity. Either way I've been browsing online and found some amazing costumes that had to be shared.

Blog Action Day

I had not heard about blog action day until yesterday, but in honor of blogging about the environment I would like to introduce you to a photographic movement known as New Topographics. This movement began in the 1970s as a reaction to photographers like Ansel Adams who depicted nature as if it were untouched by humanity; despite the fact that Ansel Adams had been doing the majority of his work during a time when industrialization in the West was really taking off. The New Topographics aimed to include all aspects of civilization in landscape images in order to demonstrate the effect of humanity upon the environment. The first exhibit of such work took place in 1975 and was titled "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape". Here are some examples of works from this movement by an artist named Robert Adams.

Songs About Art

Norah Jones "Painter Song"

Sarah Wilmer

So my life has been fairly uneventful lately, which has left me without a whole lot of discussion topics. I did find this photographer named Sarah Wimer though and thought I'd highlight some of her work because it fits in well with my recent theme of slightly darker works of art for the month of October. Sarah's photographs are full of shadows and extreme angles that set off her subject, preppy teenagers as they explore overgrown forest scenes. The well groomed kids are contrasted by wild bushes and branches. Extreme angles and widely panned views highlight the frailty of humanity and the power of nature to engulf. The images would fit in well as illustrations for a book of Brothers Grimm fairly tales.

Joys and Sorrows in the Art World

Two major events took place in the art world this weekend. As joy and sorrow often come together, it's not surprising to learn that one event is considered tragic while the other is considered a triumph. The tragedy happened on Sunday night at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris during an annual street festival; a group of drunken people broke into the museum Sunday and punched a hole in the painting "Le Pont d'Argenteuil" by Claude Monet. No arrests have been made, and despite the fact that the tear is repairable, French museum authorities are a little shaken by the incident and at how easily the vandals gained access to the museum.

The triumph came in the form of a recovered painting. "Madonna with the Yarnwinder", done in Leonardo da Vinci's workshop between 1501-1507, had been stolen from a private collection about four years ago. The painting was recovered Thursday in a sting operation by police in Glasgow; four arrests were made. The painting will be examined and restored, but the plan is to put it back on display in the family's collection as soon as possible.

Put Away Your Spray Paint!

Knit graffiti instead of spray paint? There's a group of artists called "Knitta" that do just that.

Beautiful Mutants @ CSUF Art Center

Keziah and I had the chance to make it up to Santa Ana for a quick visit to the Artists Village today. While browsing through the galleries I was surprised to find that CSUF had arranged an exhibit of the work of Mark Mothersbaugh. This surprise came because I had thought Mark Mothersbaugh was strictly a composer, I had no clue he was also a visual artist. The fact that his visual subject matter is just as strange as the movies he usually composes soundtracks for did not surprise me; the movie soundtracks he has under his belt are "Rushmore", "The Royal Tenenbaums", and "The Life Aquatic". He is also a former member of the band Devo, famous for the song "Whip It" in the 1980s. His photography is mostly manipulation of older photographs in order to emphasize the strangest qualities. The prominence of abnormalities in all of Mothersbaugh's subjects calls attention to the fact that we all have some strangeness in us. Much in the way that looking back on Victorian era family portraits makes us question our own genetics and personalities, or in the way that Diane Arbus was able to make normal people seem abnormal. The resulting aesthetic is sort of a combination between Diane Arbus and the work of an artist named Travis Louie. Each photograph is uniquely captivating, if you can make it to Santa Ana I highly recommend seeing this exhibit.