Not only did I haul my ass out of bed to go for a morning run, AND bike 21k along Toronto’s waterfront… I also made this!

Super Salad, featuring:
Chickpeas, green lentils, quinoa, green pepper, carrots, celery, radishes, green beans, flax seed meal, hemp seeds, poppy seeds, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and herbs/spices.

I would have added more vegetables, but that’s all I had in the fridge. Still, a formidably filling salad. To be eaten alone or served over fresh spinach.

I think what really kills me about this video is how the groove is so simple but still somehow slays you. The alternation between the vocal harmony loops (which for me are sort of hypnotizingly beautiful) and the kickass vocal delivery plus laid back lucsious beat+bass brings me back again and again to this track, it creates some kind of suspended reality of song-love for me. That, and I really dig how the video is shot.
The odd thing is that I'm not really familiar with Tune-Yards beyond this track. I sometimes experience songs I love as a one-special-moment instead of a delve-deeper, at least until I get my fix of the one particular song or moment I've discovered an artist, what really catches my eye and snags my heart. I can't get my mind off this song though, so I may be searching for more.

I'm leaving for Sault Ste. Marie tomorrow morning. Thursday night I play in Sault Ste. Marie at Loplops, Friday at Elliot Lake Secondary School (after an afternoon of workshops with the students!), Saturday at Rue Studio in Sheguindah (Manitoulin Island), and Sunday brings me back to Toronto to be part of the SPEAK music series at the Tranzac. ]]> http://www.laurenbest.com/tune-yards-and-northern-tunes/feed 0 http://www.laurenbest.com/outfits-bottleband-bottleorchestra http://www.laurenbest.com/outfits-bottleband-bottleorchestra#comments Sun, 02 Jan 2011 04:12:03 +0000 Lauren http://www.laurenbest.com/outfits-bottleband-bottleorchestra

I love junkyard bands, and I love ridiculous outfits, and I love group arrangements for unconventional instruments.

So what’s not to love?

Happy snappy new year.

I’m having an elf-like day of preparations! Went skating, wrapped wrapped wrapped, and assembled a truffle stash. But shh, it’s a surprise! The photo shows not even half- 121 truffles in total, plus 10 mini truffles for the kids! More wrapping and baking to go…

‘m doing (almost all) DIY gifts for christmas this year (I can’t tell you what they are or I’d give away the surprise, but here’s a hint: delicious), so my hibernating bear got dragged out of bed this morning by my solstice elf, and is now bleary-eyed and grumbling slightly while drinking coffee. Solstice elf knows there’s lots to do to prepare, and that we better keep the rocking and rolling rocking and rolling- hibernating bear will have to compromise because there’s lots to do!

Yawn.

Driving home from Lewiston, full and blue, the moon
over one shoulder of highway. There,
or in your kitchen at midnight, sitting anywhere
in the seeping dark, we bury them again and
again under the same luminous thumbprint.

The dead leave us starving with mouths full of love.

Their stones are salt and mark where we look back.
Your mother’s hand at the end of an empty sleeve,
scratching at your palm, drawing blood.
Your aunt in a Jewish graveyard in Poland,
her face a permanent fist of pain.
Your first friend, Saul, who died faster than
you could say forgive me.
When I was nine and crying from a dream
you said words that hid my fear.
Above us the family slept on,
mouths open, hands scrolled.
Twenty years later your tears burn the back of my throat.
Memory has a hand in the grave up to the wrist.
Earth crumbles from your fist under the sky’s black sieve.
We are orphaned, one by one.

On the beach at Superior, you found me
where I’d been for hours, cut by the lake’s sharp rim.
You stopped a dozen feet from me.
What passed in that quiet said:
I have nothing to give you.

At dusk, birch forest is a shore of bones.
I’ve pulled stones from the earth’s black pockets,
felt the weight of their weariness – worn,
exhausted from their sleep in the earth.
I’ve written on my skin with their black sweat.

The lake’s slight movement is stilled by fading light.
Soon the stars’ tiny mouths, the moon’s blue mouth.

I have nothing to give you, nothing to carry,
some words to make me less afraid, to say
you gave me this.
Memory insists with its sea voice,
muttering from its bone cave.
Memory wraps us
like the shell wraps the sea.
Nothing to carry,
some stones to fill our pockets,
to give weight to what we have.

-Anne Michaels

However, Posterchild did a piece/installation inspired by what I sent him anyhow. I was, and continue to be, thrilled and also quite moved that my music was the inspiration for such beauty. I ended up incorporating what he did into the album art (which is a digital collage and is also very exciting!).

Collaboration between artists of different inclinations and disciplines is important, I believe, not just for the creations that result but also for dialogue, experimentation, and furthering our own artistic pursuits. It touches me deeply when I am able to be a part of this sort of collaboration.

Plus it’s pretty freaking cool.