Mike's Moon

I finally finished it! Still working away on my gold ring...

Roller Jammin'

We drove to Staten Island for some "Adult Night" roller action.

I'm famous!

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE50J2Z520090120?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=10112

Who Am I?

Out of all my music, this is what I put on my iPhone. What do these record choices say about me? (p.s. the only reason Rod isn't on here is b/c we only have records.)

Aston Familyman Barrett - Familyman in Dub
The Band - Music from the Big Pink, The Band
Beck - Sea Change
Blonde Redhead - 23
Bob Dylan - Desire
Brighblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light
The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
Cat Power - The Covers
Court and Spark - Bless You
Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball
Feist - The Reminder
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Gillian Welch - Time
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - How I long to feel that summer in my heart
Greatful Dead - Working Man's Dead
Hall & Oats - Greatest Hits
J.J. Cale - Troubadour
Kraftwerk - Computer Love
M.I.A. - Arular
Magnolia Electric Company - What comes after the blues
The Meters - Best of
Miles David - Kind of blue
Morrissey - Bona Drag
The National - Sad song for dirty lovers
Neil Young - Tonight's the Night
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Paul McCartney - Ram
Richard & Linda Thompson - I want to see the bright lights tonight
Roxy Music - Avalon
Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
The Smiths - Meat is Murder, Hatful of Hollow, Rank, The Smiths, Strageways
Supertramp - 3 songs from Breakfast in America
Tom Petty - Wildflowers
Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt
Vetiver - Thing of the past
Wiskeytown - Strangers Almanac
Wilco - Sky blue sky
Wolfkings - Freeze - Die - Come to Life

Gondwana

Scott and I went to the NY Philharmonic tonight and heard some amazing music. My favorite was the piece by Tristan Murail called Gondwana. Gondwana is the name given to the southern portion of Pangaea.

I searched online for a performance of Gondwana, but couldn't find anything. The music is really hard to put into words, but here is a review I found that describes it pretty well.

The originality of Murail’s musical approach is everywhere apparent, couched in a sequence of saturated harmonies which sometimes achieve a positively Messiaenic luxuriance. The work’s opening few minutes, in which a single chord is gradually transformed and ultimately dissolved into a flurry of trills is a good example of Murail’s spectral technique, both in the strange initial harmony (a complex, bell-like sonority generated using the studio technique of frequency modulation) and in the way Murail shapes his music in long, seamlessly evolving paragraphs – an apt musical parallel to the massive geological processes which led to the formation of the ancient super-continent of Gondwana evoked by the work’s title.

Spectral music involves the use of the fundamental properties of sound as a basis for harmony, as well as the use of spectral analysis, FM, RM and AM synthesis as a method of deriving polphony.

I'm starting to sound like Scott now, but all those words above = really cool sounds that make you want to lay back, close your eyes and let the waves wash over you.

Oh and on the way home, I didn't notice, but some dude was "apparently" taking photos up my dress with his phone and this other guy walked over and started screaming at him to erase the photos and then told me that he saw the guy taking flash photos up my dress. The photo guy of course denied it and offered to show Scott his cell phone for proof to which Scott said, "nah man, I've already seen up there." I felt bad for the guy if he wasn't taking photos, but just in case, I moved seats. Only in New York...

Rings

Rings have been made. Now I just need to solder the braided part around the flat band, solder the two bands together, create a bezel for the stone and set the stone.

This is what the band will look like once I solder the braid on the flat band. I'm doing two bands like this and the stone will sit between them. Not sure why I did such a complicated design, but it will be cool once it's done.

Thanksgiving

We had our first New York Thanksgiving this year. It was also the first time we hosted it at our house. It all started with an excellent young turkey from Bell & Evans. You might have heard of Bell & Evans as they are the people who provide the turkey for the president every year. Not the one that gets pardoned, the real one. You can't really tell from the picture, but this guy was somewhere between 18 and 20 pounds. I had to bring him home from the butcher in our little shopping cart because he was too heavy to carry.
We brined the turkey in a salt water bath for about 12 hours. It was kind of gross because the water turned all pink and bloody. After we put the turkey in the oven we had this yummy cheese plate.Doesn't this look perfect? It kind of reminded me of that movie Delicatessen though. Here is some of the other great food we had. In the front are samosas that anshuman made by hand. I also see the marshmallow yams Ellie made and the mashed potatoes, roasted carrots and green beans that Jason made at our house. Cranberries on the side. There were cheesy potatoes that Susie made not shown in this pic and gluten-free stuffing that I made. Oh and you can't forget the gluten-free pumpkin pie and berry pie we had after a long walk around the neighborhood.
The next day Scott and I took leftovers to Central Park and had a little picnic and then went to the Whitney to see the William Eggleston exhibit. I love the Whitney. It's the perfect size and never overwhelming. It was super crowded, but it felt like a real New York thing to do, so I mostly enjoyed viewing his amazing photos with a hundred other people.