b.o.b.

About a Girl: New Shoes

on: the girl

“hello new shoes, bye bye blues.”
– paolo nutini, “new shoes”

So many exciting things to write about this week! There’s been a lot going on in my life – though the weather in Evanston is still pretty treacherous (if warm) – and a lot of joy and thrills, but I’m making an actual effort to regularly blog this time around.

Some tidbits on me/life in general:

  • Red Sox sweep their series against the Yankees earlier this week! And the Bravesare holding strong at just above .500, especially after a win tonight against the Phillies. Gotta love that sort of success, even if the Phillies are whooping us in the NL East.

    San Francisco, CA

  • I found out Wednesday I will be placed in beautiful San Francisco, California, for my JR this fall! I’ll be working at San Francisco magazine for three months beginning in mid-September, and I’m truly thrilled to begin. There’s so much to do in SF, and I’m hoping to hit up AT&T Park, the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market (y’know, the one at the Embarcadero), Haight, the sea lions, etc. It’s surely going to be a whirlwind experience, and I’ll be damned if I waste a single second of it.
  • I’ve become a serious fashionista in the last few weeks or so, cleaning my closet a bit (throwing out some still-gross pukey flats and donating some beloved and still fashionable Gap T-shirts) and repopulating it with some pretty exceptional (if secondhand) designer threads. I’ve picked up a little Vera Neumann, some Kate Spade and, of course, Marc Jacobs and Betsey Johnson. I’ve been doing a good bit of clearance rack diving at Anthropologie, Gap, J. Crew and even Macy’s, where I picked up a gorgeous pair of navy Marc Fisher pumps. I’ve given my wallet a brand new policy – I only purchase clothes which I will want to wear to the office in the future. That means no more Threadless tees, no matter how hilarious, and a depleted Converse collection, though I like to believe that I can still wear Chuck Taylors in the real world. All in all, I think I’m really becoming a clothes horse – and I love it.
  • I chopped off all of my hair. Reinvention. It hasn’t been this short since…well, ever.
  • It’s formal season here at Northwestern, and, though I’ve all but removed myself from my chapter to claim allegiance to a particular fraternity, I attended both my sorority formal and my favorite fraternity’s formal this weekend. The latter was at the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower, the 66th floor, and it was a truly gorgeous venue. I had a blast, and the view was absolutely exceptional. I do love college, Asher.
  • Northwestern’s Dillo Day is next weekend. B.O.B. was announced as the night headliner months ago, while both the New Pornographers  and Chiddy Bang were announced last week as the early and late afternoon performers.

    The Mighty Ducks' Charlie Conway

  • And, finally, my brand new (birthday) bicycle is here and built and totally perfect. It’s a smokin’ hot Bianchi hybrid, and I just want to keep it in my bed and cherish it always. It’s got a built-in bike light in the seat and a sweet streamlined style. I’m calling in Charlie Conway after my reignited passion for the Mighty Ducks trilogy. I’m rewatching D2 as I type this, and I’d forgotten how great (slash terrible slash slightly racist slash totally jingoistic) this film is. But I seriously do love this movie. All of ’em. Even 3.

    The Bianchi Milano Citta, my brand new baby

  • I took my bike for a nice ride along the lake tonight. There was a storm a-brewin’, and it was a bit eerie. The waves were lapping, and there were birds flying really low at the shore. It was indescribably beautiful.

Okay, that was a heck of a lot. I’ll be back tomorrow with a new mix (I promise!), and some other fun stuff, so check back then. Happy living!

xoxococo

The Dunce Cap: August 30, 2010

in: heavy rotation

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 22: I guess he’s an X-box and I’m more Atari. (click on link to listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “Fuck You” – Cee-Lo Green
2. “Teenage Dream” – Katy Perry
3. “Walking the Dog” – fun.
4. “All Hail Dracula!” – Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
5. “House of Cards” – Butch Walker
6. “Cold War” – Janelle Monae
7. “I Want To” – Best Coast
8. “Shutterbugg” – Big Boi
9. “Magic” – B.o.B.
10. “Love the Way You Lie” – Eminem

Happy 9/02/10! That’s right: Today is 90210 day! That’s right. It’s September 2, 2010, and it’s time to celebrate those crazy kids in California’s wealthiest zip code. Dylan McKay? Brandon Walsh? Yum-my. I won’t speak too much to the original teen primetime soap, as People does it best. Also, New York Mag. Win.

Regardless, last week I missed a Dunce Cap. I’m sorry, y’all. It was a week without wifi, and it was a week without music. Or, at least, chronicled and playlisted music.

But, alas, I’ve returned! It’s Labor Day weekend and the unofficial end of summer, so The Dunce Cap is back in full force with the ten best tracks of the summer. From Big Boi to B.o.B, these are ten tracks which have truly captivated my attention this summer. There’s the recently released Cee-Lo track, the ’60s girl group sweet sing-along kiss-off “Fuck You,” which is making me unceremoniously giddy. There’s the Someone Still Loves You vampire track from Let It Sway. There’s that infectious and delightfully irritating Katy Perry title track, “Teenage Dream.” There’s Butch Walker! There’s fun.! There’s Best Coast!

Hell, I’m feeling the heat in stereo.

Arguably, the last track on this mix, Eminem’s collaboration with Rihanna, “Love the Way You Lie,” doesn’t quite fit with the rest of this happy-go-lucky (if you can count Cee-Lo’s own “Since U Been Gone” anthem as such), but it’s been quite a force this summer and aligns the mix with my current state of emotion. By bookending this Dunce Cap with the aforementioned Cee-Lo and this Eminem track, it makes for a great summer sayonara to all of the boogie oogie feelings of a breakup.

What are your favorite tracks from summer 2010? Post ’em in the comments.

Happy listening.

P.S. I owe you a fair number of Third Year Thirties. Coming soon, hopefully.

The Dunce Cap: August 2, 2010

in: heavy rotation

Yarmulke Poodle!

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 19: It sounds impossible but, man, it’s true. You are the bad, the bad seed of this town. (listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “All the Pretty Girls Go to the City” – Spoon
2. “The Village Green Preservation Society” – The Kinks
3. “Trouble” – Voxtrot
4. “King of Anything” – Sara Bareilles
5. “Meet Virginia” – Train
6. “Your Boyfriend Sucks” – The Ataris
7. “Amy” – Ryan Adams
8. “Sway” – The Perishers
9. “Wedding Song” – Anais Mitchell ft. Justin Vernon
10. “Tightrope (Wondamix)” – Janelle Monae ft. B.O.B. & Lupe Fiasco

My apologies for this mix coming around so late. It’s been a hectic week of work, car rides, stadium food and ultimate Braves domination. But the Dunce Cap is back with a brand new mix! Let the gasps ensue.

This is a delightfully bouncy soundtrack to the last month of summer. Or last week of summer, for you poor souls not on the magnificent quarter system! It’s full of wondrous songs by artists I adore (yes, even The Ataris!), including Spoon, Voxtrot (who very sadly parted ways in June after a small tour) and Ryan Adams (who released Orion, his first “fully-realized sci-fi metal concept album,” in May). There’s a track from Anais Mitchell‘s Hadestown, a folk-rock opera telling the tale of  poet Orpheus, featuring Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. There’s the Lupe Fiasco/B.O.B. remix of Janelle Monae‘s sing-a-long “Tightrope” (so so excited to see Monae with Of Montreal Sept. 25 in Chicago!). And then there’s Train… Not really much of a fit for this mix, but a fun song that I’ve long adored worthy of a place in a mix of songs to play at maximum volume on car speakers.

Happy listening!

The Dunce Cap: May 3, 2010

in: heavy rotation

Image courtesy of brandonbird.com

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 6: On the carousel so around I spun (spun). (mix via 8tracks)

  1. “Bennie & the Jets” – Elton John
  2. “Elenore” – The Turtles
  3. “Someone I Can Be True With” – Sloan
  4. “Girlfriend” – Phoenix
  5. “House of Cards” – Butch Walker & the Black Widows
  6. “The Beach Song” – Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
  7. “Straw Dog” – Something Corporate
  8. “Nothing on You” – B.o.B.
  9. “Electric Feel” – MGMT
  10. “Lost in Yichang” – Hilotrons

Another Thursday, another mix!
As you all probably know, I’m a sucker for anything that can make my hips swing!, and I think this playlist is full of ’em. Not all of them are intentionally dance-a-billy, but they’ve got a great beat, and, hell, they make me wanna cha cha. The mix kicks off with two of my favorite throwbacks, Elton‘s classic “Bennie and the Jets” and The Turtles‘ “Elenore” (almost as good as “Happy Together*” and surely less sappy), and moves onto a slew of solid tracks from modern artists, including Phoenix, Butch Walker (playing H.O.B. Chicago Sunday!), SSLYBY, B.o.B. (who butchered “Build Me Up Buttercup” when he sampled it for his “Don’t Break My Heart“) and MGMT. And the Butch track, “House of Cards”? Total shades of The Cars. Digging the track and the new album.

“Nothing on You,” B.o.B.’s track which was recently used in an ode to Betty White, is a cheerily sweet dedication to a one n’ only. The video, featured below, is wonderfully simplistic, and I especially love the shout-out to my fair city (and the poor, tornado-maimed Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, where I had my senior prom). In a similar vein, I’ve definitely noticed a rebirth of the music video, an art form I have long appreciated. My family didn’t have cable as a kid, and I distinctly remember attempting to adjust the antenna to get a static-y music video station, and my earliest memories of music television were not of Carson Daly and MTV but of the edited version of Juvenile’s “Back That (Thang) Up.”


“Nothing On You” [The Adventures of Bobby Ray, 2010]

So check it out, and if you’re feeling a bit nostalgic, maybe even revisit “Bye Bye Bye,” one of my favorite music videos from youth. I’m thinking about making next week a “Best Music Videos” playlist, so keep an eye out for that.

As always, happy listening!

(*editor’s note: This video is so trippy. It’s astronauts in jumpsuits, 80s shoulder pads, psychedelia and general weirdness. Very amusing, definitely worth a watch, but bizarre.)