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Week Enders | 11March17

Well, that happened…
Last week, I wrote about needing to find ways to more deeply connect to my body.  To feel and deal better with frustration and anxiety.  Well, I started somewhere.  Breathed a little heavy.  I looked for workouts on YouTube and started living the Nike+ Training app life.  I took the stairs at work.  Mostly down only, but, still, that is, again, a start.  I’ve been doing the wander, too.  I’ve been thinking about new routes in the hood and I’m working on wander playlists.  Glad I started somewhere.  I just need to keep going.  Is it weird to want to do a push up?

Wait, it was there all along?
I resisted some serious pull last week.  Glossier launched blushes.  Wayne Goss released an updated makeup brush set.  Sephora was even tempting folks with La Mer deluxe samples.  I didn’t buy any of it.  Not saying something GossyGlossi won’t come my way in the future, just not near.  I think my discipline was rewarded.  I randomly used the Tom Ford Cream and Powder Eye Color in Golden Peach from last year’s Soleil Summer Collection that was just sitting in the shadow drawer.  Ummm… Hello, Pretty.  So, so sorry you’ve been ignored.  That won’t happen again.  It’s still available and there are new shadow shades for 2017 that I won’t be getting, because Naked Bronze and Golden Peach are already owned and everything.   https://www.beautylish.com/s/tom-ford-beauty-cream-and-powder-eye-color-golden-peach

Logan.
So damn good.  A tear might have even fallen.  Is it wrong to want to climb the bad guys to kick their friends in the face?  If you’re a Marvel fan or long for a superhero film worthy of all the exclamation points, go see Logan while it’s on the biggest of screens.  See buffed Hugh Jackman in a tee as a Wolverine for the last time.  If you want a film full of action and a well-told story, but can’t make it to the theater, definitely get it on demand.  If catching it on cable is more your speed, it will be worth every minute spent.

This Really Is Us
I don’t understand how you guys do it.  How can you sit down and watch this every week?  I want to call the show emotionally manipulative trash, but This Is Us is just great TV.  It’s messy and life-y, all love and loss. Complicated and so normal.  Well-written and acted.  And I can’t handle it.  I have to watch in mini binges.  It’s easier to cry 2 out of 4 hours, than to know every single week, I could have my heart broken.  I caught up to the Memphis episode last weekend and was a mess.  Well, except for when I said Paper Boi five times after seeing Brian Tyree Henry.  I don’t know why I thought I had recovered enough to watch this week’s episode in real-ish time, breaking from my emotionally-supportive pattern.  Seriously, they had those beautiful little girls put their tiny hands in my chest and rip my heart to shreds.  Even, the mailman had me fucked up.  Ugh.

For the record and later discussion: Susan Kelechi Watson as Beth is the new Claire Huxtable.

All the cool kids are in Austin.
SXSW started. The music kicks off later in the week.  NPR has a preview mix.  Spotify has a SXSW Latino playlist of bands that will be at the festival.  And The Fader will be streaming live from The Fader Fort.

This weekend, I might be:
+ washing my hair.
+ doing an african dance workout.
+ wandering.

What are you up to?

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On The Walk | Paper Lanterns

just stuff i see when i’m on the evening walk…

I stared at two things yesterday.  I was mesmerized by ‘aged’ paper lanterns on the street and a K-Pop video in the grocery store.  Can’t tell you the group or the name of the song, so here are the lanterns.

N♥

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I Could Watch You All Day | Marc Johnson

for a few seconds, i thought* about skating again.

marc johnson (image via chocolate skateboards)

I’m kinda into skateboarding.  I’m intrigued by how so many ideas and passions are interconnected through its culture.

I love a good skate doc.  I love a great story.  I need to know how it all started and I need to know why.  After a friend took me to a screening in NYC of Dogtown years ago, I had to see everything.

Netflix and I hung tight until I’d seen as many docs as I could get my hands on.  The good and the not so good.  I watched a lot of skaters**, but I wouldn’t watch the skate videos.  I wasn’t that into watching the action of it.  For hours.

Here’s one reason why.  I have this thing I might have told you about called secondhand embarrassment.  A component of said condition is the onset of freakish sympathy pains.  The last thing I want to see is some guy repeatedly not landing a trick.  It hurts me to watch folks come down on a handrail wrong or, I don’t know, see heads meeting concrete.

It’s not that I didn’t like the act of skating, I was just particular.  In Dogtown, they were able to capture, in still images and in motion, these moves that made it look like the entire crew had consulted the wind to choreograph this beautiful dance.  I hadn’t really seen that in other videos I, briefly, watched post-vert dominance.

Since moving to LA, I see kids skate all the time.  I guess I started paying more attention to the every day beauty of it.

I don’t remember the exact sequence of events that led Yeah Right! to the top of my Netflix queue, but I’m glad it was there.  The DVD is ancient at this point, but the timing of when I got it was perfect.  Because while watching it, somehow, everything changed.

After it clicked, all the guys were really interesting.  But, there was something about  Marc Johnson.  The way he skated was aggressive and graceful.  Not necessarily elegant, but aware.  Seriously, I could watch him skate all day.

The first two clips below are from Lakai’s 2007 masterpiece Fully Flared.  There’s an effortless precision where balance seems to be a post-trick afterthought.  While his presence is draped in skill and technicality, interestingly, Johnson reminded me of a dancer.  A tap dancer.  If the 70s era Surf/Skate kings (and Queen, Peggy, I see you) were ballet, than Marc and this generation of street skaters are following in Savion’s footsteps. Thumbing their nose at convention, using tradition and technology to forge a new landscape.

The Epicly Later’d below is, also, worthy of multiple viewings.  Because it’s interesting.  He talks about the pressures and challenges of his experience as a pro skater. (♥: Mmmm hmmm. ) Stop it.  There are clips from Wednesdays with Reda on The Berrics, too.

Okay.  I think I need to go look for more Marc Johnson clips.

Nikki♥

*Remind me to tell you about the last time I was actually on a skateboard and why the thought of skating goes out as quickly as it came in.

**I watched a lot of skaters because… they’re hot.  My kinda hot.  See, I said it, again.

MJ Fully Flared – Pt 1

MJ – Fully Flared Pt 2

Epicly Later’d – language, people. be warned.


Savion Glover – 2007 Channel 4 piece – London

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The Walk | In Color, Vibrant

it’s become habit, routine and ritual.

It started out as a walk I took a few days a week.  It was mapped and marked down to the tenth.  Thankfully, it’s turned into something I, just, do.  I go hunting for hills, delightfully out of breath.  Every day is a neighborhood adventure.  Miles are involved, just not counted.

I’ve thought it might be fun to bring the old point and shoot and record some of the things I see along the way.

So, this is just a study in color.

N♥