It's Sunday. The day of rest, and contemplation, and long naps until 2pm. Rifling through Jewlie's collection of wonderful music, a booming voice filled the sky and ordered me to post Sunday songs just for you. Amen.
The tree has colored lights and a sensor, which operates like a lie detector, picking up electrical currents from the tree itself. These are supposedly used to gauge emotion. From PingMag:
The trees really do have feelings! It has been researched actively in the U.S. since 50's. There is actually a case where the police installed a lie-detector to a plant which "saw" a criminal of a murder at the scene - and the detector read the tree's reaction when meeting the suspect again. It uses the same mechanism as the electro-encephalograph that picks up a slight electric current that flows inside of a body. There are several kinds of theories such as trees recognizing the person who waters the tree regularily, or detecting fear from fire.
You can see the article he's referring to, from Manila, here.
Last night I caught Gnarls Barkley in their first ever show at the Roxy in Los Angeles. (Cee-Lo opened the show by saying "Y'all are some lucky motherfuckers!") This is one of the best shows I've ever been to, mostly due to the fact that Cee-Lo is a radiantly happy man. He was having an insanely good time, and it was infectious.
Gnarls Barkley is the first group to reach #1 in the UK charts through download sales alone. Listen to an interview with them at the BBC, and because I love you, here's the happiest song from last night.
While trying to figure out the origins of the song Lilac Wine, I stumbled across Secondhand Songs, a site that is solely dedicated to keeping track of covers. Who started a particular avalanche of songs, and who has followed their footsteps.
I think it's a great idea, but they need more editors. (Which I think amounts to, a user who occasionally updates their wiki with the stuff in their brain.) If you are cover-inclined, you should volunteer!
(FYI, Lilac Wine was originally recorded by Nina Simone in 1966, then covered by Jeff Buckley (*love*) in 1994, and then by Katie Melua in '03.)
Cameras are getting fancier and fancier, so appreciation for less refined methods of photography are becoming a niche specialty, like taking daguerreotypes, or using a pinhole camera. So it's always interesting to me when people take beautiful photographs with such limited means, like Mike Brodie and his rather expressive polaroids.
You have a lot of photos of gypsy sort of people. Who are these people and how did you stumble upon them? Friends of yours?
Most of these folks were once inhabitants of a small beach side community in Bugress, Maine. Most being adopted children and middle class run-aways. But they're shanty little homes were giving the town a bad image and were forced to be leveled to make room for a blanket of high rise condos. So I guess the handfull of polaroids I have of these people would be the only true documentation of the diaspora of this once thriving group of whatever you want to call em.
During the day they look like moonstones scattering the walk. At night they glow like little fairy rocks to light your garden path. Which is all very romantic, until your firefly lights start getting ideas and try to mate with them.
Like the Belle & Sebastian book, I love the idea of art inspiring art. It makes the world seem smaller. You wrote a song? I'll write a book about it. You wrote a book? I'll make a CD! One big happy family.
The forthcoming CD from Dancing Ferret has a bushel of songs inspired by the works of Mr. Neil Gaiman, including tracks from Future Bible Heroes and Rasputina. The album's not out till July 18th, but Patrick from Dancing Ferret has sent us an exclusive advance track for your listening pleasure. Or listening glee. Or listening jubilation. Your pick, but either way go preorder the album, because it's what all the cool kids are doing.
Well, and other jewelry too, but the octupus is my favorite. (Jewlie thought they were great and insisted I buy one, and then became deeply saddened when she realized she didn't want to have a necklace that I had too... ah, girldom.) Made by an outfit called Alex + Chloe, the jewelry is surprisingly cheap for what it is. They have antlers and branches and mixtape pendants... plus, octopi! Can't go wrong with octopi.
I like the idea of flash mob anything, and clever people doing harmless illicit things. Enter MOBileMOVie, the guerilla drive-in theater that happens in secret locations at unknown times. Meet at midnight in an empty lot. Watch The Creature From The Black Lagoon projected on the side of an abandoned warehouse. Sound fun? Go sign up for the MobMov chapter in your town.
Little Odd Forest sells pillows, bags, coasters, dolls, and lots of other fluffy bits. They like felt. I like felt too. Also I like little fluffy clouds. So really, they are like my soulmate.
Two entirely different people have sent me to this artist within the same week, which means it's time I tell you about it. (The first to mention her was Nancy from Brat -- if you haven't found your way over there you really should.)
Elizabeth McGrath specializes in scuplture, of the creepy-sideshow-Punch-and-Judy-puppet-theater variety. Which I love, but the creepy cool doesn't quit there. Go to her store and see that she offers art butcher knives and bloody ear pins for sale. There are cute girl things for sale too, like lunchboxes and tins. (I just bought a Molly Malone tin!) Go. Obsess.
These poor little sad ghosts. Maybe they are depressed because they are salt and pepper shakers. Maybe they had higher aspirations for their tiny ghostie lives. Their mommies probably wanted them to grow up and be ghostie lawyers or doctors, and here they are instead, condemned to dispensing food flavoring.
Dean on 
