Some random things I am feeling right now.

.
.
Iiiii'm soooo sorry. When I started this blog I pledged (possibly silently inside my head, or during a status conference with my trusty assistant Fang, pictured here) that I was going to post something at least every weekday. But yesterday, I'm sure you noticed, I missed a day. I have a good excuse: my cable modem broke and I had to take it to the Time-Warner service center on 23rd Street. If a tourist ever asks you where they can see "some crazy New Yorkers, you know, how New York people are crazy?" and if you aren't fond of that tourist, tell them to go hang out in the Time-Warner service center. At one point, a woman who looked to be about one-hundred and seven years old was literally screeching at the receptionist/traffic controller, and when that wasn't getting her anywhere, she turned and looked at me, and I could see it in her eyes, her beady little eyes that have seen so much, that she wanted to throw her cable box at my head, hard. I managed a weak smile/eyebrow raise which seemed primarily to confuse her. "I...I hate this place," she muttered, trailing off. I nodded vigorously. She scuttled away.

So anyway, I have a good excuse for missing a day, but now I'm back up and running. Full connectivity restored. Beep beep.

Unfortunately right this second I don't have much to say, so for today's make-up sesh I will write a lot about a little, with another installment of Some Random Things I am Feeling Right Now. First up:

Push-ups. There was an article in the NYT awhile ago talking about how push-ups are pretty much the best exercise you can do, and while I retain roughly the same physical composition as Burl Ives, I have been hitting the push-ups with the fury of something really furious and strong. I have a rule that every time I pass the record room in my apartment, I have to do 20 push-ups and I'm up to about 120 a day.
This exhibition at Howard House in Seattle, by Eli Hansen and Oscar Tuazon. Not that I've seen it in person, but the photos on the website look really cool.

Above: Oscar Tuazon's Poulsbo (folded digital c-print, mounted on aluminum, 19.5" x 29")

This book by Adrian Shaughnessy. A lot of the stuff is pretty obvious but sometimes you need to hear those things so you have some back-up that you're doing stuff right. There's no technical information, it's all just ideas on how to set up a design studio or freelance business effectively. Stefan Sagmeister wrote the foreword and short interviews with Neville Brody, Andy Cruz, and others break up the chapters. It's also a beautifully designed book. Order it online from Powell's.

Café Bustelo. It's not easy to find a good cup of coffee in New York. (Anyone who thinks differently, point me in the right direction. If you're wrong, you will be dead to me, but if you're right, I'll buy you a delicious cup of coffee.) Luckily, the glorious bodegas of this city have an abundance of finely-ground, extremely strong, vacuum-packed Café Bustelo for your home brewing needs. You can always buy beans, but why? They're much more expensive and in general they're not much better, unless someone brings them to you from Seattle. I wasn't going to add this to the list but I just took another sip and realized how much I love the stuff. It also tasted a little bit like weed. Pacific Standard is proud to be powered largely by Café Bustelo.

Seltzer. While we're on the topic of drinks, let's really surround the story and add this to the list. I used to drink a lot of diet Coke. No, I mean a lot. I started having these weird heart palpitations and my doctor (who is the doctor in Super Size Me, thank you Sarah Honda) told me in his barely understandable accent—it's like having Keith Richards for a doctor—that I shouldn't drink so much and I shouldn't drink diet soda at all. I stopped drinking diet soda for good, and the heart thing completely went away very quickly. Thing is, I like to have a beverage by my side at all times, and fizzy beverages are particularly enjoyable. So I drink a ton of seltzer, which is fun and hydrating.

Vince Aletti's column in Interview. Aletti is (as far as I know) the foremost holder of knowledge on magazine photography and art direction and I'm really interested to see what he pulls out of his vault in coming issues. For May he covers Jerry Schatzberg, who photographed stories for Vogue, Esquire, Life, and others in the '60s, and went on to direct films such as The Panic in Needle Park.
Barbed wire stirsticks at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. That's another semi-underrated spot. I'm not a fancy guy, I don't need the hippest place in town. They have a good selection of tequila, the food is good, and I've always had fun there. Among other cool cowgirl and Western memorabilia, they have a big display of different kinds of barbed wire. These are the stirsticks you get if you order a cocktail that requires stirring.

Previously:
Some random things I was feeling on March 24, 2008