Pioneers! O Pioneers!

Ok, so I’m actually going to post a TV commercial today.  Levi’s new Go Forth marketing campaign really grabbed my interest.  The commercial using Walt Whitman’s “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” was the first one that I saw and it has been on my mind off and on in the past week.  I have always like this poem, and while only about a third of the poem is quoted it grabs the essence.  Coupled with the frenetic, rough imagery and sporadic gunshot snare drum raps, the commercial almost makes me want to buy some jeans (I’m susceptible to marketing even if I would hope that I’m not).  Of course, if you’ve known me for any length of time you would know that I don’t wear jeans.  I haven’t for over a decade now.  Cindi has tried to change that.  I gave them an honest shot, but I’ve never found comfortable jeans for me.

The beauty and energy of youth to see what there is to be seen is the reason why I’m posting it here.  More than purchase any product this ad makes me want to tramp to the wilderness (both natural and urban), wander far and wide, grab every day while I can.

~J

Headshots

While Cindi and I were in Butte and Helena, Montana to photograph our friends Heather and RJ’s wedding (photos still to come) we had a few other photo diversions.   We have already shown you Amanda’s senior portraits here and here.  Another was headshots for Cindi’s younger sister, Teri, who was moving to Chicago at the end of our stay.  (Pssst…you’re wondering why she needs headshots…she’s a theater arts major…and directors like headshots)  So, I just knocked these out quickly one afternoon.  I hope these help Teri take Chicago’s theater scene by storm.

~J

Amanda in Butte, America (tagalong edition)

I came along on Cindi’s senior photo shoot with her cousin Amanda as an afterthought.  She was on her way out the door and I asked her to hang on while I grabbed my camera.  I knew a photoshoot in Uptown Butte, Montana would be fun.  Dirty alleys and dilapidated buildings are always an easy sell for us.  Amanda was terrific and a lot of fun to work with.  So, here are a few of my shots from the day.

~J

The Launch (into the Twitterverse)

Ok, friends, this was a long time coming, but the Spark that Glows is now flying in the vast universe of Twitter.  It took some convincing and some slow understanding on our part to decide that it could be both useful and fun.  I have  been fascinated by Twitter’s haiku-like format.  (I have also been fascinated with hyphenating words.)  So, here is a formal announcement of our launch.  I hope we can be resourceful and use it regularly.  I already set us up to follow about 50 people.  Most of these people are fellow wedding photographers that are hugely respected in the industry.  So, if that interests you check out who we are following.  I was also happy to find Alton Brown on there (it’s not really Alton…just an Alton new feed, but it led me to this article and a little something for my Amazon wishlist).  Only time will tell on how Twitter works for us.  In the meantime, you can follow us here.  See you in the Twitterverse!  (What a silly, but dumb term…I love and hate…)

~J

Let’s Talk About Music (Go! Edition)

We’ll keep this brief.  It’s just one of those weeks.  A lot to do and it helps having an energetic 70’s-like soundtrack.  Here is another album, like the Avalanches – Since I Left You that I discussed a few weeks ago, that would be terrific for a workout regimen.  It’s also pretty solid for housework too.  This album I speak of is The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike.  With it’s blend of cheerleader samples, 70’s horns, TV soundtrack piano, and a driving guitar it is like a party just waiting to kick off.  Albeit, it’s a very strange party with it’s own cheering section.

Cindi sometimes gives me kind of an eye rolling sort of look when I put on The Go! Team.  The cheerleader samples bother her.  (But I think she’s coming around…)  She’s not wild on cheerleaders, apparently.  However, she is big on those cheerleader contest extravaganzas that sometimes pop up on ESPN.  I can’t figure if she is truly wowed by the skill or hoping someone falls off one of those insane people pyramids they build at those things.  I can see how the cheerleader samples could be a deal breaker, but I love unusual non-musical things in musical composition.  A few examples would be the pots and pan drums in “Packt Like Sardines In a Crushed Tin Box” by Radiohead, the dental tools sampled to make the tracks on Matmos’ A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure, to the chandelier “played” by the Squirrel Nut Zippers for auxiliary percussion on their album Hot.

Thunder, Lightning, Strike is highly addictive.  To me at least.  The biggest problem is that when the album is over I want more, but I have yet to find an album that at all approximates the sound, energy, and that intangible x-factor that really pulls it together for me.  Not even The Go! Team follow up album comes close to this sound.  So, usually when the album is over I end up just putting it on again.  Over and over Thunder, Lightning, Strike is a terrific soundtrack for any high-octane part of your life, whatever that may be.

~J

Amanda in Butte, America

When I was in high school you had about three options for your senior photos:

1. Have that old dude do them and they will look the same as 80% of the other students awkwardly, generic posed photos

2. Convince a friend or family member to take a few snapshots

3. Use the one from last year

I went with number two.  My sister was kind enough to snap some shots of me last minute to appease my mother.  Although the photo I wanted to use, me posed with a giant zucchini like a football star in a letterman jacket, was refused pretty quickly.

Luckily I was back home to shoot a wedding a few weeks ago which coincided perfectly to shoot senior portraits for my cousin Amanda. Butte, my hometown, is also one of my favorite places to photograph.  There is evidence of it’s days as a bustling boom town all over the uptown streets, with history embedded around every corner and down every alleyway.

We got some great shots around uptown Butte, then we moved up north for some woodsy shots.  Sadly a cold snap killed all of the leaves before the dramatic fall color changes could happen, but we still got some awesome photos!  Amanda was so much fun and she’s stunningly beautiful!  She was a natural in front of the camera.  All and all it was a lovely day!

xo ~ C

Let’s Talk About Music (Spooky, Scary Edition)

Earlier today I was thinking what music I wanted to talk about when Don Hinson’s “Riboflavin-Flavored Non-Carbonated Polyunsaturated Blood” popped up on my Pandora station (kinda out of nowhere…I was trying to see what else sounded like the Coasters song “Somewhere Down in Mexico”…I guess that’s one answer).  Then it was settled.  Halloween would be the music!  My mind had already kind of been going that way courtesy of my good friend Tony posting a Screamin Jay Hawkins video earlier this week.  So, this week there will be very little talk and I’m gonna throw out a couple Halloween classics and some of my own favorites.

Monster Mash

This is the obvious standard in Halloween music by Bobby Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers.  When I hear it I picture everyone dancing the way the Peanuts characters dance in any animations you see of them:  shuffling their feet and doing a weird side to side head bob.  Honestly, I tried finding a video hoping that someone had paired the Peanuts animation with Monster Mash…because, come on, I can’t be the only one out there thinking that.

I Put a Spell on You

I have always enjoyed this song and in addition to the awesome Screamin Jay Hawkins original vinyl audio edition you get a kind of hilarious video of Hawkins as well.  I chuckle every time he says the first line and look in his eyes is completely baffling.

Riboflavin-Flavored Non-Carbonated Polyunsaturated Blood

This song by Don Hinson and the Rigamorticians is pretty silly and came out around the time of “Monster Mash”.  I had completely forgotten about this song until Pandora played it today.

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

Now here is total nonsense.  One of the funniest Halloween related things I’ve ever seen on TV.  This one comes courtesy of the show 30 Rock.  The show only showed a snippet of the song they wrote so I had to track down the mp3.  My favorite line might be the following:  The whole premise is sweaty. I don’t even know what that means.

Munsters

This one comes from nostalgia.  Not really so much of the show, but of the band I used to be in with some of my friends in high school.  We played a version of this theme song.  The only recording I have of us playing it is on good ol’ fashioned cassette tape by the simple method of sticking a tape recorder in the middle of the room.  I don’t have the means to transfer it to digital, but maybe some day it will get transferred and maybe I’ll put some tracks up here for fun.  So as not to leave you with nothing, here’s the video of the opening credits to the second season (I tried to embed the original opening credits, but youtube has disabled embedding for it…lame.)

And then here’s a link to something that might be useful if you are aspiring to turn your house into a haunted house this Halloween.  My friend, Russ, who works for Pandora sent me a little tip off to a classical Halloween station.  You can find it HERE.  Or you can always just go with one of my favorites, composer Gyorgy Ligeti.  This track and much of his other work is plenty creepy.

A Happy Halloween folks!

~J

Dear DVR, Thanks for being there.

I just want to take a moment to express my gratitude at a mild piece of modern technology:  the DVR (Digital Video Recorder).  After coming home sick from our excursion to Helena and Butte, Montana laying on my couch here in San Diego this week was made all the better having all the shows we enjoy slowly amassing in our absence.  It’s nice being able to bang out back to back episodes of Flash Forward, Mad Men, Hell’s Kitchen, The Next Iron Chef, The Office, etc…  And the real kicker is the convenience of being able to fast forward past the commercials.  So, just a little shout out for making a not so great week a little bit better.

~J

The Unexpected

A couple months ago a friend of mine told me he was ordering Dave Eggers new book.  Ok.  Then he told me that I was going to read it first.  What?  I had no immediate plans of picking up a copy.  He was going to loan it to me immediately upon arrival from Amazon, unread by him.  He told me there was a caveat to this loan.  I had to finish it by November, because he felt that would be a good month for him to read it.  We got into a discussion of certain books that are good for certain seasons.  (Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was perfect for the unexpected sub-freezing temperatures we found on our recent Montana trip; not to mention the wide empty spaces).

My friend knew when he sat down to order it that he was going to loan it to me, because recently we had discussed my like of Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.  Now, I did like it, but I have not read any of Eggers’ other work.  But he has definitely piqued my interest with his recent collaborations:  a guest appearance on Beck’s The Information with director Spike Jonze who he co-wrote the screenplay for the new film Where the Wild Things Are.  This brings us to Zeitoun.  I was not feeling particularly drawn toward the book and was a little concerned that I would even pick the book up before the November deadline.  I was feeling loathe to languish in the inevitable sadness that a book about Katrina victims would embody.  So, my friend gave me the book and it promptly went on the bookshelf.

Then last week, hot on the heels of reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a simultaneous look at my bookshelf and calendar made it apparent that I should take Zeitoun down and at least give it a try.  (A note about me:  I usually don’t “try” books.  I start and finish books.  There are only two books I have ever put down uncompleted:  Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Kerouac’s Visions of Cody.  I haven’t truly given up on the former.  One day I’ll come back and overcome my frustration with Quixote’s addled mind.  The latter will probably stay unfinished, because a one hundred and fifty page verbatim transcript of an addled conversation between Kerouac and Neal Cassady is silly).  I almost didn’t give Zeitoun a try.  I almost picked up Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food (yes, it’s a cookbook…I’ve talked about this before).

Upon cracking Zeitoun I was sold within thirty pages.  I found the story riveting, unreal, and surreal.  The focus on one family through this incredible ordeal really organizes, while heightening the mayhem and insanity that swirled in post-Katrina New Orleans.  It was also a spotlight on a group of people falling victim to, or rather trying to avoid falling victim to the xenophobia that still holds a grip on America post 9-11.  It was also frightening to see the ineptitude of the government to truly help and the outright contempt it showed for the citizens it was charged to help and protect.  The Zeitoun family’s story is only a drop in the bucket of the untold thousand stories of the Katrina disaster, which makes it all the more disturbing.  A bright spot is that all proceeds from Eggers’ book go to “The Zeitoun Foundation”, a charity which is partnered with “Rebuilding Together”, “The Green Project”, and “The New Orleans Institute” to name a few.

It is a testament to the power of the story that a book I almost had no intention of reading, except almost out of obligation, turned into one of the more powerful books I have read this year.  I was pretty hooked, since I finished the book in less than five days.  This is not an impressive feat, it’s not very long at 350 or so pages, but there is a myriad of other ways my time could be spent and drag the book out for quite some time.  So, that’s my surprise read of the year and finished it ahead of my November deadline.

~J

Let’s Talk About Music (Live @ the Belly Up Edition)

This week I really thought I would be talking about The Flaming Lips new album Embryonic.  Mostly because it was wholly unexpected, given their recent trajectory as a band as well as the fact that I can’t stop listening too it (mostly because at 18 tracks there is a lot of ground to cover).  However, after last night my blog thoughts changed.

Last night, Cindi and I went to the Belly Up Tavern and saw an act that I’ve seen twice previously, Beach House, and an act I’ve been wanting to see for a few years now, Grizzly Bear.  This was their first foray south of Los Angeles.  A quick note about the Belly Up:  great live venue, made all the cooler by many strings of Mason jar lights, which would twinkle and pattern around the stage with the music.  (Cindi and I are a little bit fanatic about lamps…take us to a furniture store/swap meet/thrift store/your house and we’ll probably find a lamp or two that we want…)

First Up:  Beach House.  I’ve seen this duo twice as opening acts for other bands (Do Make Say Think and Fleet Foxes if memory serves…maybe Menomena…hhmmm).  This third time added another three, a third touring member, a drummer.  While Beach House is an exercise in the simple and the delicate, the addition of a drummer to the retro organ and guitar duo added a great depth to the live show.  While they are an act that is easy to overlook, because of said simplicity, they are always dreamy and welcoming.  Plus, they are the only band I can think of that I think really embodies the fleeting feeling that is fall.  They have a particular brand of melancholy that is too dark for summer but too ebullient for winter.  Oh, and the name Victoria Legrand, as I realized last night standing there watching them, is one of the coolest names ever.  It basically boils down to a translation meaning “The Great Victory”.

Intermission

Headline Act:  Grizzly Bear.  I’ve been looking forward to seeing these guys since their sophomore album Yellow House.  While Yellow House is my favorite of their albums their recent album Veckatimest and their creaky, debut album Horn of Plenty are fantastic as well.  It was their Friend EP, however that got me truly excited to see them live.  Interviews with the band revealed that this set of recordings reflected their live sensibilities more so than Yellow House or Horn of Plenty.  Veckatimest was said to continue the trend of leaning toward their live show in the recording process.  My only conundrum was that the delicateness I love about Yellow House would be lost or would not translate to the live show.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Not only were all the small details there (like the bass clarinet), but they infused them with an energy that transcended the studio recordings.  They also made good use of touring with Beach House.  Victoria Legrand came out and backed them on their recent single “Two Weeks” and “Slow Life” which is Grizzly Bear’s contribution to the new Twilight film (that soundtrack is a whole anomaly in itself to possibly be talked about another time or rather just get a quick look here).

In closing, the show was fantastic.  I really, really want to see them again tonight, but alas, that was the end of the tour.  I also wish I had grabbed my camera on the way out the door (so you could see those Mason jars in action), but it was nice to not have the distraction and just immerse myself in the sound.  Below is a smattering of studio versions of songs played last night.

~J

Beach House

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Grizzly Bear