in betweens

The Land Between Here and Mountains is a simple, beautiful blog run by two friends (like us, and these two too.) and contributed to by many. Photos are captioned and contextualised with a sentence about the journey they were taken on, the places they were in between and little import is placed on the destination.

I feel like a road trip, a walk in the bush, an adventure with friends. But it was seven degrees outside last night, and that makes me feel more like soup and socks and not going outside.

Han I want the Wellington town belt. With you, the Mein/Hawker crew, lots of layers and hand holding.

All these photos come from the blog and are credited there...

sound advice, the end

Part three of three, here's one and two.

Music Blogs
There are so many music blogs out there! It hurts my brain to try and comprehend them all so I tend to just let HypeM sort through them and tell me what to read. There are just a couple that I check regularly, and they are yet to disappoint. Rose Quartz is one of them, it has an awesome header and is run by four guys who are apparently spread across the globe, and have great taste in music. I don't even like everything they post, but I'll still assert that they will not disappoint, like it or not, I often haven't heard of it and it's usually pretty interesting. And I like the pictures they post with the songs. The other is Gorilla vs Bear. If Gorrilla vs Bear were just one person, they would have very similar music taste to me. I really don't know that much about them (him, her?) because I tend to go straight to the mp3s, but their 'about' page says they were once called 'the New Yorker of music blogs' which is cool for them. And they've started putting up monthly mixes, in addition to their regular posts. I was first introduced by GvB to Summer Camp, Here We Go Magic and Best Coast, among other current most faves. This post is a good place to start!

Photo by Clara Belzary, stolen from No Retrospective.

sound advice, part two

Yesterday I freaked out and thought I had nothing to listen to except sex advice. I asked some people to recommend stuff, and then I kind of remembered how incredible the internet is and how much there is out there to please our ears.

Besides the podcasts, here are some online mixes you may be interested in...
The Oak and Ivy is a pub in Perth, I've never been there so, rather than risk misinforming you, I won't tell you any more about it except that this website, which seems to have a bit to do with them, has some great mixes on it. They haven't updated since last year, but it's worth listening to the older ones. Natalie recommended the File magazine mixtapes to me yesterday, in the height of my listening dillema. I've only got through one so far and it's good! Also I love the whole idea and the fact that now I know about some artists who I didn't know about before. Natalie also, a while back, introduced me to Charm Bag (she's good like that), they're terribly good and random mixes, loved by me particularly for their variety. Episode 4, for instance, includes The Clean, Horrors, Dum Dum Girls, and The Shangri-Las...

I'm not sure who took these pictures of Davendra Banhart at the beach, but I found them at Wild at Heart, and he is a babe.

sound advice

Are you one of those people who will listen to the same songs over and over again when you first discover them, until you're almost sick of them? I am. I'm a terrible repeater, which is part of why I love finding (and being led to) new music so much. A few of my friends are super reliable in this department, just about everything they recommend, 'like' on facebook, link to on twitter, or put on mixes for other friends, eventually makes it onto my over-played list.

I work in an office, at a desk, and have about seven hours of potential headphone listening in a day, not including the more social listening that goes on at home in the company of others. I reached a dillema this morning when I realised that my iPod had died, my work itunes doesn't have enough music on it, and I've already listened to waaaayy too much of the Savage Love podcast this week (seriously; bdsm, ggg, and vanilla in reference to anything besides the flavour should not be coming up in my daily vocab).

Here are some things to listen to should you ever be faced with a similar dillemma:

Podcasts
I'm a sucker for talky podcasts, I've listened to hundred of episodes of This American Life and recommend it to everyone. Their entire archives are available to listen to free online, if you can't wait a week between podcasts. I recently discovered Savage Love, sex and relationship advice from Dan Savage. He also writes a column and a blog and is hillarious and informative. Kris recommended the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent, which is also informative, though less hillarious. NPR music's All Songs Considered is an excellent resource for new music from emerging and well-known artists. They also do specials like the SXSW preview, or episodes hosted by celebrity guests (if you'd call Jonsi a celebrity?), as well as ASC, they do Tiny Desk Concerts (live concerts filmed in their studio), First Listen (exactly what it sounds like, exclusive previews of new albums) and Second Stage (just one song from emerging artists/bands). I also subscribe to a bunch of Radio NZ podcasts which I don't actually listen to so much, Kim Hill! Mostly because I remember listening to her with mum on Saturdays. Their This Way Up is kind of like a little, kiwi version of This American Life and recently had an episode about the history of Ice Cream! Cognac Jay was probably the first podcast I ever subscribed to and is pretty good getting ready to go out listening. I actually forgot about it entirely until I started writing this so have no idea what it's like now, but might be worth re-subscribing to find out. Stone's Throw is another old favourite, they do some pretty awesome specials and are definitely the best regular hip hop mixes I know of...

Do you have any favourite podcasts? There must be some more good music shows out there!

Okay so this post is getting a wee bit too long for my liking, BUT I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY. Installments are the answer. Part two tomorrow, Online Mixetapes!

Update: crap I totally forgot to mention, the photos above are by the incredible Alex de Mora, he takes pictures of lots of lovely things, and punk shows. We Love You So loves him too. And he started Cat Party!!!

edit: cat party link updated oopsy.

decapitados

I like groups of things. Repetitive, matching, colour coded, outnumbered. I'm drawn to displays of merchandise in shops, the work of Andreas Gursky, patterns, stacks of books and big cities. Today I found Public Collectors which I also quite like. Of particular note are the collections of Mexican adult comics and childhood graffiti from antique sources (both pictured above, a lot of the Mexican porn is nsfw).

Other good places to look for this kind of thing are Collection a Day, and Flickr

some lovely photographs

I think my heart skipped a beat when I first saw these photos

Last week after I ordered and subsequently wrote about Troubleshooting, I learnt a few things:

1. Molly Young aka Magic Molly, also contributes to We Love You So. I love WLYS and feel a little bit dumb for not having made the connection sooner. (Molly also writes a food blog, busy girl).

2. Christopher Luxton, who collaborated with Molly on this project, takes the most beautiful photographs! I've printed a couple and stuck them on my wall at home I like them that much. I hope that's okay, I figured it was kind of like cutting something out of a magazine called the internet? I'm not too sure of the etiquette that's involved once it's off the screen and on paper...

And then yesterday I was re-aquainted with Sydney based photographer Pedro Ramos' work, and thought maybe I would post something about them too, because these guys are incredibly talented. How's the serenity.

oh hi

Hello, it's me, I've not been here for a while. I've not been on holiday or anything either, just lazy and busy and with limited internet access. Here are a few of the best things distracting me from work today...

This blog post, it's funny and snarky in an I'mboycrazy kind of a way. But it's someone different. But if you haven't read boy crazy, please do. It's really a very excellent blog.

This John Hughes tribute, and really everything from this website. And I'll just come right out here and say how much I love his films and how sad I am about his death and I won't take your time up with a whole post about it (well, not today anyway) but here are some other good ones if you're in that sort of a mood (the obituary from the NY Times has links to a great slideshow and lots of sweet quotes).

THIS VIDEO



I am not big on the whole youtube videos of random people covering big pop songs phenomena. But this one is great. It's awesome.
We may be a little biased.
The girl in this video is a beautiful and talented friend of Han and myself, and sent the link in an email with the subject 'missing yous'. If you're very clever you'll recognise her from the film Eagle vs Shark, also starring Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame.

So you see, she is awesome.

All pictures from LOLITA