fashionably blurry.

super darling, albeit blurry, outfit from neon indian @ the wadsworth.

hear this: where the wild things are.

No film since Harry Potter has spurred as much hype as Where the Wild Things Are. Sure, Spike Jonze directed, Karen O. composed and Urban launched an entire line of wild thing apparel. Yup, this film has all the ingredients of indie sensation and I’ve already seen way too many a hipster rocking the original Maurice Sendak cover art t-shirt. I’m sure I could go on and on about the emotional connection us 20-somethings have with a mischievous but lonely Max but I won’t. Instead, I’ll tell you that I rushed out the door to pick up the soundtrack once it dropped. Of course I couldn’t wait to hear it but most importantly I couldn’t wait for my kids to hear it.

happy halloween.

neon indian…in bullet points.

• Hartford Party Starters book music blog pet, Neon Indian to play famed Wadsworth Antheneum.
• D. Gookin and Body Language warm up the crowd.
• Neon Indian…MIA
• Slightly bored, slightly intoxicated patrons drink up.
• Consequently, Wadsworth Antheneum runs out of booze.
• EVERYBODY takes a smoke break.
• Neon Indian…MIA
• “Whatever, they just signed on to tour Europe. They probably don’t give a fuck about Hartford.”
• Wadsworth Staff is contracted until 11. Time is 10:20.
• Neon Indian pulls up in massive white van, unhauls massive amounts of equipment and after much to do plugs in.
• Neon Indian rocks the house.
• After their contract states they need to be “put up in a four star hotel” Neon Indian graciously decides to crash at an HPSU inhabited homestead.
• Neon Indian wakes up, eats burritos and goes longboarding. Refer here for pictures.
• Neon Indian attempts to “jam” with other musically inclined Hartford-ites.
• Review of Neon’s jamming abilities: “Dude looked like he had never seen a keyboard before.”
• Neon Indian departs for home: Brooklyn, NY. leaving one suitcase behind.
• Contents of suitcase are to remain classified for some ethical reasons.
• A one Ashlee Simpson SNL episode is called to mind.

You fill in the pieces.

drink this: southern tier’s pumking imperial pumpkin ale

 

It’s the halloween weekend, and I know everyone is excited about the costume parties, masquerade balls, bar crawls, haunted penitentiaries, pumpkin patches, and trick-or-treating. I, however, am excited about all the drinks to be consumed in my slutty pigeon costume. It is the perfect weekend to crack open your favorite seasonal ale, or test a new one. I by far prefer southern tier’s pumking imperial pumpkin ale. It tastes like a pumpkin pie, which most cannot resist (and if you can, we probably are not friends). It has the perfect blend  of nutmeg, pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon, barely, and hops of course. Who knew this concoction could be so lethal, for with one sip you will be addicted to southern tier’s pumking imperial pumpkin ale. Enjoy the halloween weekend with your ale in tow. Cheers loves!

see this: life is old there, older than the trees

capslock dc relished the opportunity to leave the district and head to berkeley springs, west virginia for a weekend. there was hiking and apple butter and small town shenanigans, everything we could have hoped for. after a lovely little jaunt through cacapon trail, we headed to earthdog cafe for some live “music” and “dancing”.  the farmers’ market, used bookstore and yarn shop all provided ample entertainment on sunday, before we made our way back to dc. sorry, john denver, wv is beautiful, but we’d rather the country roads take us back home. 

outfit post: tap-dancing uniforms.

…because some of you bitches still don’t have halloween costumes, and vassar says “gymnast/figure-skating chic is making a comeback.”

to capslock/love,morocco.

 courtesy of expat capslock s.sprinkle in morocco.

see this: blurry minneapolis in an american car.

I drove north from Northfield past the Malt-o-Meal factory – through a cloud thick with the aroma of generic cereals.  The Hold Steady blasted from the speakers of my Focus as the imposing gloom of Minneapolis appeared on the horizon.  The thick haze that covered the city made the pillow-top of the Metrodome indistinguishable among the low flying clouds and industrial patina of steel and wet cement.

I checked in to my hotel beneath the shadow of the University of Minnesota’s imposing TCF Bank Stadium, a building so new it’s not on Google maps yet.  I hadn’t eaten since my complementary continental breakfast in Northfield, and the last time I checked, you can’t last all day on one bowl of Malt-o-Meal Raisin Bran. I decided to fire up the Ford and drive to a dive bar that boasts a Minneapolis original.

Matt’s Bar called out to me in a profound and fateful way.

Significantly divey – and the true definition of a neighborhood bar, Matt’s claims to have originated a burger by the name of the Jucy Lucy – a cheeseburger that features melted cheese stuffed inside the beef patty, rather than sliced on top.  It’s a Minneapolis staple, so I order one done the local way, with onions and pickles.  Delicious and dangerous – the cheese inside is napalm – it will burn you if you bite into it right away.

scream it: ode to karen o.

ya, ya, ya, we’ve been whacked over the head with the obvious: the world would be a grittier, better-dressed, and all-together more fluorescent place if we all emulated karen o. So why must I give you one more small bump, dear capslock? 

a. because an ipa-goggled boy with enviable hair gave me drunken band advice at 2 am: “all girls should scream like karen o. If you are in a band, and you are a girl, scream. It is [insert breathlessness] so. hot.”

b. because I like her when she is not screaming, particularly on the newly released acoustic, string-enhanced “maps”

c. where the wild things are. 

d. And because even in a pink collared shirt and a gold falsie, I still get sucked into her vortex of red-lipstick, black-leather, bed-hair cool and want to stalk behind her tour bus (which undoubtedly isn’t a tour bus, but a rusty van that was found on the bottom of a pirate ship and has been redecorated with iranian throw-rugs, lava lamps, and guitars from the raddest underground punk rock band from czechoslovakia) and scream:

they don’t love you like I love you.

damn it.