Just can’t get enough:

Biking to work, greeting strangers, sunshine & warmth, cold fizzy kombucha with ginger, Josh Homme projects, thoughts, dreams, restlessness.

the song that followed me

Weeks or maybe even months ago, this song began following me around for a little while. I knew I knew it, but I couldn’t figure out who the artist was… until a serendipitous moment when Pandora brought it back to me last night. I never would have guessed it. Here it is:

buffalo stance

This is totally unverifiable and disagrees with wikipedia, but I seem to recall the Pop-Up Video (a far more reliable source in these matters) for Nenah Cherry’s 1989 hit “Buffalo Stance” defining it similarly to the top finding on urbandictionary.com:

To stand with your arms tighly crossed looking over to side at somebody. This comes from the pose struck by Bruce Smith of the Buffalo Bills in the late 1980’s

Run Dmc often posed in a “Buffalo Stance”

What do you think, Bruce? Those arms don’t look too tightly crossed to me.

I’m thinking, no moneyman can win my love. It’s sweetness that I’m thinking of.

new slang

I started a strange list of things to do or make when I get home. It began with food but is now turning into other activities and will soon become vague ideas such as “walk more.”

1. Eat some good rice. 2. Make some good deviled eggs (good as in, sin atún.) 3. Play racquetball. 4. Listen to the Shins.

I just added that last one after hearing “New Slang.” It has been a long time since I’ve heard the Shins. Fall 2004, to be exact.

I uploaded a few more photos from Bilbao and plan to upload a few more in the near future. I took a total of 468 photos on Friday, about 400 in Bilbao and then the rest back in Burgos since it was the first time I was out in the city when it was dark; it is never dark any earlier than 10:30pm. I uploaded a few of those as well and would love to take more night photos if I get a chance to before we leave. Only 5 more days and so much more studying to do!

As for Bilbao, I loved it and should probably just let the photos speak for themselves. I will note, however, that to me, the most appealing aspect was that it was a place that did not seem afraid of creativity, likely because of the revival the city encountered after the addition of the Guggenheim museum. The Guggenheim’s external artworks also feel like a part of the city, not just the museum. (I was the nerd that introduced the group to “Puppy” by Jeff Koons and actually knew to look around and find “Maman” by Louise Bourgeois.) One of the photos I have waiting to be resized and uploaded is of the Zubizuri bridge, a pedestrian bridge down the river from the Guggenheim and one of the examples that I feel is representative of this somewhat avant-garde attitude the city possesses. Something that certainly needs further analysis but is nonetheless interesting. Medieval cities like Burgos are great; Bilbao was unique.

music: other music: art

I wanted to listen to music while getting dressed but I wasn’t really sure what I was in the mood for, so scrolling through I stopped on Belle & Sebastian. Turned out to be a good decision… sometimes certain music just seems so right, if that makes sense. Like listening to Broken Social Scene the other night… not a good band to mix with others on shuffle, but to listen to an entire album of theirs is so amazing. Actually, I listened to two albums. Mike got me the sandisk sansa express, which I’d been wanting for awhile now. I loaded a bunch of Broken Social Scene on there and listened for a few hours before finally falling asleep…

Speaking of musicians starting with “b,” although I don’t listen to her much, I have a better appreciation for Björk after seeing a Nan Goldin slideshow last summer at the Pompidou and hearing her voice to accompany it. I read a review of that particular body of work, “Heart beat,” that didn’t seem to have many good things to say about it but the reviewer was also comparing it to her previous work. Not having seen all of the earlier work, just selected photographs and certainly lacking the slide show effect, I thought it was quite impressive. Reviews are lame. People need to form their own opinions. Isn’t that one of the more remarkable things about art- that someone can’t decide for everyone else whether or not the work is good? There are no objective views because it always has the potential to jog memories and create different meanings for each individual viewer?