Living on Amiestreet (.com)

Laura’s Blog Entry (About Neil’s Stuff)

Just wanted to let you know that if you are looking to entertain yourself whilst awaiting episode 17 of The Smiths’ Occasional Podcast, I have a diversion for you.

Neil recently loaded his music onto amiestreet.com, which is a great place to get new music for cheap. The price for the music begins at FREE. Then, the more often it gets downloaded, the price starts to go up. So if you would like a free copy of Neil’s new album, When All Is Said and Done, head over to this link: http://amiestreet.com/neilsmith

The price was still at free as of this writing.

We recorded the May episode the other day and will have it all ready for you on May 1. Try to hold yourselves together until then, will ya?

Sunrise and Flowers

Laura’s Blog Entry

On my walk the other morning I saw this amazing sunrise. It makes being up that early sort of worth it. Our mornings are sometimes stressful, so going for a walk afterwards is refreshing.

It has rained overnight, so there was the scent of rain, plus all the flowering trees were in full bloom and smelled wonderful.

This is a blooming version of the photo I took here on Day 4 of Thing-a-Day. Ah, nature.

Spring Fever: Take 4

Laura’s Blog Entry

I took a day off blogging yesterday, but not from the spring blitz! I went out and cleared the entire herb garden, and got the herbs planted. It wasn’t as big a mess as it was last year, but it still took a few hours of digging and bending. Ready for another “Before and After”? I know you are!

Before:

While I was outside I also snapped a few photos of the few spring bloomers I have. This is a Bleeding Heart. What a gothy flower; I mean really!

The whole plant looks like this:

Too bad it only blooms for about a month or so. It also needs partial shade, so I don’t see it much because it is around the corner of the front porch.

Here is my only attempt at planting bulbs:

I can’t even remember what it is called. The information is down in the basement somewhere. The star-shaped flowers close at night and reopen each morning. Plants that do that remind me that these are living things. It’s kind of creepy when you think about it. Opening and closing flowers. What’s next? Self-awareness? Uniting against their Cylon overseers for their bad treatment in the garden? Now I’m scaring myself. I shouldn’t have watched two episodes of Battlestar Galactica – one right after the other – yesterday afternoon.

After much work, and getting completely covered in dirt (as well as covering my iPod and my thermal carafe in dirt) it was finally done. Hey, I even sprinked around a bit of fertilizer. Take that, self-aware-plant-rebellion!

After:

I keep looking out my office window to admire my efforts.

Today I am catching up on computer stuff, but there is still more organization to come! Stay tuned for next action-packed blog-isode!

Spring Fever: Take 3

Laura’s Blog Entry

Look, bloglings. Laura is GETTING THINGS DONE. Productivity makes it all peaceful-like inside my head. Enjoying it while it lasts.

We’re taking a quick detour outdoors today. I got some petunias in killer colors this year. I love the multi ones. And I am a freak for purple flowers this year.

I finally pitched the old pots I bought for the porch when we bought this house 14 years ago. They were toast. These have a cool reservoir in the bottom that is supposed to hold 2 weeks of water. I don’t believe that for a second, but maybe I can water every other day when it is 90 degrees here. I also used potting soil that holds extra water.

Here is my sad little window box. It will look great in June. I am very thrifty so I only put in a few plants and let them fill out instead of packing it full at the beginning. Patience is a virtue. Plus I can buy more shoes this way.

Lastly, my new annual herbs are sitting on the porch in herb purgatory at the moment.

I have to clean out the garden to make a place to put them in. But if I wait until the garden is ready before buying them, there will be nothing good left at the nursery. So here they sit. I even covered them with a towel last week when it went down into the low 30’s at night. I am so responsible.

Time for knitting, an old movie, and napping. More home projects coming up.

Spring Fever: Take 2

Laura’s Blog Entry

As promised, the kitchen corner.

Before:

A mess that I’m not a-used to. It was driving me crazy. Probably because of the nearby basket of hats and scarves. Winter coats are currently in the washer, soon to be packed away. Good riddance. Can’t stand seeing that stuff in April.

I also took down Mari’s little magnetic calendar that is really more of a preschool thing. And the calendar from the Chinese place that is four feet long. Who needs a four-foot calendar explaining your birth year animal? Mari does, apparently. It is hearby banished to the basement.

Now, for your viewing pleasure, or at least your lukewarm interest, the after:

When four hooks were good, twelve hooks are better! They look especially nice with nothing hanging on them. That’s the tricky thing about hooks. But since we only have a few tiny closets, we will have to hang things on them.

The day I say, “Goodbye!” to the stenciled walls of this kitchen will be one of the happiest days of my life. There is no point in painting in there – the whole thing needs to be gutted. Any work I do now will just get disturbed by new wiring, etc. that will be happening… someday… in the far, far future.

“Dream on… dream on…”

Spring Fever: Take 1

Laura’s Blog Entry

Spring fever has hit me. Time to work on some house projects. I am poised to start work outside – literally balancing on the edge of my chair at this very moment – but until then, I will put up a few projects happening inside the house.

This display actually went up after the Christmas tree came down, but I am just now getting around to posting a photo. These are a few selections of tour programs and one comic from our combined collection. OK, they are all mine, except for The Cure: The Singles Tour. That’s Neil’s. Notice they are organized by row: Depeche Mode and then The Cure. Don’t intermingle your bands.

Next up: Kitchen Corner Catastrophe Solved! Stay Tuned!

The Bittersweet Mix

Laura’s Blog Entry

Feel uncomfortable being deliriously happy, but don’t have the energy for the slit-your-wrists-type angst? Then bitterweet might be the right mood for you. It’s where I feel most at home. And doesn’t every mood deserve a mix tape?

Using Muxtape, the latest incarnation of the mix tape, you can stream the songs I am blogging about. I love you, internets.

Click the link to listen in as I ramble on. Universe, I give you The Bittersweet Mix.

Highschool Lover
Air
This is from the soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides, that I blogged about way back when. It is so weird how these songs can transport me right back to the 1970’s. I was a little goth girl in the making. My family wasn’t aware that “being intense” was an entire lifestyle choice, as well as a personality trait.

Kiss
Andrew Brennan
We played this on the March podcast and I still love listening to it. Sad with a hint of sweetness. I need this song in my life. (It’s not available commercially, but you can find Andrew on YouTube.)

Saw Something
Dave Gahan
I like the vibe of this song. It’s hopeful, in a doubtful kind of way. Ah, those Mode boys. Nothing like a rock guitar solo in the middle of a totally electronic song. Not everyone can pull that off this successfully. Well done!

Genius
Duncan Sheik
One of my favorite male voices. His recordings always sound like he is sitting next to me and singing. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. There’s nothing more bittersweet than regret. Roll down the windows and sing harmony. You know you want to.

How Lucky We Are
Meiko
Found this song as a “Single of the Week” on iTunes. If you don’t take advantage of this free song feature on iTunes then shame on you. Once a month or so I find a new artist that I really like. This clear, simple arrangement is lovely. If only I could sing like this.

Wild (at Our First) Beasts
Curium
Found this song as another freebie on the web from Dynamophone Records quite a while ago. The spoken word on the track is a poem by E.E. Cummings. This is from a 22-track album called Nowhere. Each song on the album is a different poem by Cummings, mixed into an electronic soundscape. From a very young age my writing has been influenced by Cummings. I learned from him that simple words, artfully chosen and arranged make all the difference.

Candlelight
Imogen Heap
From her first solo album I Megaphone. Someone this young should not be able to write songs like these. Mind blowing. Imogen lives the most creative, interesting life. This is what I want for my chiId – to believe in herself and live life as a creative expression. The piano on this one really reminds me of Tori Amos.

Silent All These Years
Tori Amos
Speaking of Tori Amos… see how I did that? If I had to pick a Tori Amos song that best fits my life, this would be the one. We are getting reacquainted, Tori and I. When Mari was born, she had terrible colic and I remember one of the few things that made her stop screaming was the album Boys for Pele … and anything by Depeche Mode. In Mari’s first year I kind of went into a crazy place called overwhelmed and stopped listening to music for a few years. It was like I could not take in any more input from any source. So I lost touch with Tori. I’ve missed her. Working on Neil’s album I’ve been listening to my favorite vocalists, trying to figure out what kind of voice I have. I hope I have at least a teeny, tiny bit of Tori in me.

1 & 2, Ghosts I-IV
Nine Inch Nails
We’ve been listening to this quite a bit lately as Neil put his video together. It seems fitting to follow Tori with Trent, as she puts Nine Inch Nails references* into her songs and Trent sang on the song “Past the Mission.” I’ll have to go on about Trent’s amazing voice in another blog, because these tracks are instrumental. But there was no skimping on mood for Ghosts. I think every emotion I’ve ever experienced can be found somewhere in those 32 songs.

The Internal Locus
BT
This is from the album This Binary Universe. The song starts off with a thunderstorm. I adore thunderstorms. There is nothing better than sitting with the windows wide open and listening to rain. This album is great when I want to do some writing or journaling. It somehow seeps into that meditative part of my brain. This song in particular is very filmic to me. It gives me that opening credits kind of anticipation I used to get when I went to the movies.

Easy Tiger
Depeche Mode

Not the album version. The long version, thank you very much. This is an underrated track from an underrated album, Exciter. Our boys can kick it with an instrumental. I’ve done a mix of just DM instrumentals that’s pretty darn sweet.

Ok, putting this entry together took about four times as long as I thought it would. See what I do for you, my bloglings? But to me the music is worth it.

*“With their nine-inch nail and little fascist panties tucked inside the heart of every nice girl.” – Precious Things

“Made my own pretty hate machine.” – Caught a Lite Sneeze

Nine Inch Nails Ghosts Film Festival

Neil’s Blog Entry

In a video posted on YouTube a while ago, an interesting proposition was made by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails regarding his latest album, Ghosts. He said, “To expand the idea of the Ghosts project, Nine Inch Nails is inviting anyone and everyone to create visuals to accompany the album’s music. In a few months, we’ll be gathering the entries we feel are particularly exceptional and highlighting them.”

Whaaa? Nine Inch Nails wants me to make a video? Well, Sir, yes Sir!

I picked the first two tracks on the album… originally I had only picked the first track, but upon further listening, I realized that the first track seemlessly went right into the second. There was something about the vibe of those two songs that I really responded to.

I decided that I wasn’t going to tell a story or anything like that. The songs, to me, are all atmosphere and mood, so I wanted to create a film that was of the same stuff. You look at the finished film and you might say, “Who’s that girl supposed to be? Is she a ghost? Is she the physical representation of the director’s angst over the misunderstanding of reality or perhaps his misery over some old unrequited love?” Not a clue. It’s really up to you to decide. Fill in the blanks. Write your own story. I’m just providing the mood.

So anyway, Laura and I shot the video over a four-day period. She dressed up all black and gothy for me and we went over to a nearby park. The shots were very simple, because I knew I was going to do a lot of post-production on them to get the erie, moody look I wanted.

This was done by compositing several layers of the footage in After Effects. I started with the original footage and then added an overall blur effect to it. I then put a matte onto a new layer of footage. This created an area of selective focus… where one part of the image is clear and all around it is all fuzzy. I then layered yet another piece of the footage on top of this. But I altered the timing of the footage so that it made a slight echo of the image over time. This is kind of hard to explain in words, but once you see the final film, you’ll see what I’m saying. Finally, I added several layers of coloring effects over everything. The end result is very colorful and yet at the same time very dark and moody. Exactly what I was seeing in my head. Below are a couple of images to show you the process.

Here’s another example:

I don’t know exactly what will happen to the videos once this thing is over. Mr. Reznor said that he’s not even sure what the final purpose of this will be. Perhaps a DVD of Ghosts with his favorite entries… perhaps as projections in some future live performance of Ghosts. Or maybe they’ll just end up taking space on Mr. Reznor’s laptop from now till the end of time. Who knows? All I know is that we had fun making this film and I hope you all enjoy it.

Still with no pithy catchphrase,
Neil

If you’d like to view other entries in the film festival, they can be found here.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead

Laura’s Blog Entry

OK, this movie looks magnificent! Neil and I have always enjoyed a good vampire movie. And this one has both Shakespeare and vampires. What’s not to love? Plus a supporting cast of Ralph Macchio and Jeremy Sisto.

Official trailer below:

Thanks Night of the Living Podcast for the tip! Plot synopsis from Bloody-disgusting.com:

An out of work lothario, Julian Marsh (Hoffman), scores a break as the director of an off-Broadway play. The play is a bizarre adaptation of Hamlet written by a pale Romanian (Ventimiglia) who is actually a master vampire. A perfect combination of low-brow humor and high-brow aesthetics, this comedy/horror film follows an eccentric cast of characters to explain the connection between Hamlet, the Holy Grail, and some very sexy vampires.

No release date, but it is listed as being in post production according to IMDb. This may just get me back in a movie theater.

This movie is not to be confused with the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman. That is an amazing film that we totally need to watch again. No vampire in that version, though.

Cincinnati Is Indeed Modern

Laura’s Blog Entry

We had one of those unusual weekends with lots and lots to do. So many fun things.

Friday night Tony Miracle did another local show featuring his album Cincinnati Modern. He performed at an art show at Abode, a cool contemporary furniture store across the river in Covington, Kentucky. There is a little German section of Covington called Mainstrasse Village and they were having a gallery walk. Too bad it was pouring rain. We didn’t do the walk, but we enjoyed Tony’s show. It’s interesting how music can fit a setting really well. The modern furniture, funky handmade jewelry, and the mixture of different kinds of art was a good combo with the electronic goodness.

I took a few photos. In this one you can see Neil was doing some filming. Neil also got to serve as roadie.

Tony has some cool video projections to go along with the music, showing local contemporary architecture.

I love the shadow of Tony’s epic hairdo on the projection. Classic.

It was nice to get dressed up a bit and get out.

Saturday we were up early and went to an arts festival at Mari’s school. They had lots of craft tables where the kids could make things. She decorated this mask with lots of jewels.

She really, really wants to be a real princess someday. We are sltill accepting applications from any and all monarchies. All serious offers will be considered. Just be prepared to support her in the manner she imagines she deserves. I’m just sayin’.

Later on Saturday we went to the monthly meeting of the New Media Cincinnati group. Lots of podcasters, internet entrepreneurs and bloggers get together and network. The group has really grown! It’s interesting to hear what other people are doing and how they use the internet. Neil always manages to have some sort of animated discussion about something. This time it was about Creative Commons. Too bad he never shares how he really feels… Ha!

Speaking of Neil, he has put together an incredible video for the Nine Inch Nails Ghosts film festival on YouTube. I can’t wait for him to get it uploaded! I got to work with him on it. We went to the park over three lunch hours and shot it. I am very uncomfortable being on screen. Thank goodness he used tons of filters and effects. I look cool and gothy and nothing like I do in real life. What a relief. I was horrified by the raw footage. I looked awful. He was filming about two inches from my face at times. He promised he wouldn’t make me look bad, and he came through. I think the video fits the music so well. It is seriously one of the most beautiful pieces I think he has ever done.

So Sunday morning we went to see my niece play soccer. She was in town from Cleveland for a match. Those girls play hard! We had a nice brunch and then we came home and I took an incredibly long nap. Like all afternoon. Bliss. I am never as happy as when I am asleep. Sad but true.

So I think this weekend ended up having a theme. Watching people do what they do best – Tony doing music, Neil doing video, Mari making a craft, Sarah playing soccer. Me, I take pictures. Photographic pictures. And I nap. Like a champ.