A week in Eindhoven: Dutch Design Week, ADE and Onder de Leidingstraat

Posted on October 28, 2014 by killerfemme

Famous Dutch light

It already seems like a lifetime ago, but just the other week I bolted to Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, to work at Dutch Design Week, celebrate the opening of a new Shapeways factory and start to understand just what’s so cool about Dutch culture. It had been 10 years since I was first in the Netherlands and the last time it was there it was January. I liked the country then, but it seemed small, quiet, damp and cold, though the architecture was beautiful and I liked how bikeable everything was and the cozy bars and cafes everywhere. This time I felt like I actually got a sense of the dynamism of Dutch culture, as well as the opportunity to live a few days in the life of a resident of Eindhoven.

Ruud, #1 Eindhoven host

Why Eindhoven? Well, Shapeways, the 3D printing service and marketplace where I work, was started there. We were incubated by Phillips and then became our own, independent company. The headquarters of the company moved to NYC in 2010, but there’s still an office and factory in Eindhoven and the company’s Dutch side has kept growing – growing so much we outgrew our factory and moved to a bigger one! I went over not only to celebrate the opening of the new Shapeways factory but to help set up and staff our booth at Dutch Design Week, the annual showcase of all that’s new and innovative in Dutch design that takes over Klokgebouw, a huge former Phillips factory in the Strijp-S area of Eindhoven. You can read more about my time at Dutch Design Week and the opening of the new Shapeways factory in my entries on the Shapeways blog, but here I wanted to share a little more about what I managed to discover about Eindhoven in the few moments I could step away from work.

Onder de Leidingstraat interior

I’d barely stepped off the train when Ruud, my colleague and guide extraordinaire, whisked me away from the station and put me to work setting up our booth for DDW. After he showed me a place that would become my home away from home in Eindhoven: Onder de Leidingstraat. It’s an organic cafe and market that was conveniently located directly under my room in the Strijp-S area. Strijp-S is a former Phillips factory district that’s been remade into a community of loft apartments, design boutiques, start ups, coworking spaces, and cafes. It’s full of history as a location of Phillips’ inventions and innovations and still feels lively and fresh.

More Onder de Leidingstraat

Speaking of fresh, so was all the food at Onder de Leidingstraat, as well as the decor. Salads, soups, sandwiches, juices and pastries all are made fresh (as well as heavenly carrot cake) and they were probably the only reason I managed to eat remotely healthy on my trip. The staff were nice and welcoming and by my third day there they were already telling me, “See you tomorrow!” when I would leave the cafe. Right next to Onder de Leidingstraat is another culinary marvel: Intelligentia Ice, an ice cream parlor with flavors like white chocolate and rose water. I got a cone with peanut butter and cinnamon flavored ice cream and sat in ice cream reverie while I ate it.

Don't mind me, I'm just in ice cream heaven...

Itelligentia raises ice cream to an art in Eindhoven

Other Dutch cuisine treats: bar snacks. Specifically, bitterballen. Bitterballen are deep friend balls of gravy that you dip in a mustard mayonnaise sauce. Seriously, what else would you want to eat while drinking beer?

Sissy Boy – fashion, decor and even a cafe!

Eindhoven itself is an interesting town. Besides a few churches and factory buildings it was leveled in World War II and most of the architecture is quite new, though the layout of the town is traditionally Dutch, arrange around a town center of market squares and pedestrian streets with ring roads extending out. I got a chance to sneak away from the intensity of the Dutch Design Week booth to wander around the town center and check out some of the intriguing shops. Let me just say this: Dutch shoes are amazing. I scored a pair of navy blue, heeled ankle boots. I also found a design and clothing store that offered minimal, dressed up clothes that seemed more mature than its oddly teenybopper name of Sissy Boy, where I procured a perfect grey sack-like dress (my favorite!) and a navy blazer made of out sweatshirt material (structured and comfortable!).

Women’s basics at Sissy Boy. Can I buy them all?

Guys, don't worry! I still was able to add to my wardrobe while working Dutch Design Week!

Dutch fashion treats

Ruud was the ultimate host. He’s also a DJ under the name Rudy Lime and manages to know everyone at every venue in town. We even managed to make a quick trip to Amsterdam (apparently too quick, as Ruud reported he got a speeding ticket on the way there) to catch some Deep House DJs performing as part of ADE, the annual electronic music festival in Amsterdam. I had no idea that DJs are one of the Netherlands biggest exports, but it was great to get a tiny taste of that scene. We also spent time chilling in Eindhoven at Cocktailbar Mundial, where Ruud also DJs regularly. As an aspiring cocktail connoisseur I was really happy with everything I had there.

Eindhoven also boasts great museums and other great places to eat and shop, but I was go, go, go the whole time, but I’m glad I got to experience just a little taste of what the Dutch call “gezellig” or a cozy, welcoming feel. I certainly felt welcomed and, in a sense, even at home, during my week there.
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I also made a little set on Flickr to capture the non-work photos that I managed to take.

Growing DIY

Posted on July 8, 2014 by killerfemme

Sign for my talk in Madison, WI

A year ago today I set off on two-week loop through the Midwest for a major leg of my book tour for Grow. It was a chance to revisit places I’d visited several times and loved, like Minneapolis, Detroit, Kansas City and Chicago, and return to other places that I had not been to since I drove across the country three times in two years between 2001 and 2002, such as Madison, Wisconsin and Indianapolis. It was also my first time in places like Tulsa and Omaha.

The trip was an amazing opportunity to see a part of the United States, which honestly, can get a bit of a underrated wrap by people who don’t live there, and to understand better how the landscape and culture unfolds. Driving gave me a much more direct feeling of distance and geography of what is sometimes deridingly called “fly over country.”

I recapped my learnings from my book tour here and shared pictures of my time in the Midwest here. Now that it’s been exactly a year since I shoved off to hawk Grow in cities I barely knew to a mixture of old friends, new friends and friendly strangers, I started to think about how different my life is since that time. While last year was one of learning and growth that was sometimes painful, today I’ve been thinking about what it has meant for me to have this funny little book full of passion, ideas and bullet points about growing the work and life you want out in the world.

When the book first came out I had this naïve idea that now that I was a “published author” my life would change. While my life has changed a lot, my book did not bring upon those changes. I made changes slowly and gradually, as I implemented the very strategies and lessons I outlined in Grow to strategically define and accomplish a personal, creative vision.

Grow DIY in Minneapolis at Boneshaker Books

As I traveled the country talking to passionate, creative entrepreneurs I saw clearly that I was no longer passionately engaged in my fulltime job of arts administration and fundraising. While that had been evident to me for awhile, traveling the country and talking to those who were taking the leap to follow their passion made it clear I could not come home and keep doing what I had been doing.

Talking to all kinds of different people and taking in new cities and parts of the United States also reminded me about the importance of following my own curiosity. For several years I had been curious about innovative technologies and how they were intersecting with creative entrepreneurship in New York. As I traveled and got to indulge my curiosity about new places I realized I could do the same at home. This lead me to take a “deep dive” into the New York tech scene (if one can call it that) and explore startup companies where creativity, technology, entrepreneurship and innovation came together.

Lauren from Creative Outlet Studios helps with our sign

(OK, this photos is from California… Creative Outlet Studios)

Long story short: I quit my full time arts administration job, went freelance, took a class learning back end web development, got an internship at a startup, went to what felt like 100s of meetups, went on many, many interviews, wrote many cover letters and finally, ended up at the right place: Shapeways, a 3D printing marketplace and community, as the Community Outreach Coordinator.

But this post is not about how publishing a book led me on a meandering path to my next job and a new career. Ironically, since Grow has come out I’ve written far less, though I did manage to put out a personal zine, and I feel like I have to actively re-engage creativity in my life and start working on the next writing project seriously which is most likely… a novel (gasp!).

This post is about expectations for projects. When Grow came out part of me thought, “That’s it! I’ve arrived, I’m a real author now!” When the impact of the actual book’s publication, and continued existence, felt far removed from my actual life I started to feel like the book had had no impact and, in darker moments that I was a “failure” (and not in the chic way failure is thrown around these days). I worried that all the writing, editing, revising, designing, crowd funding, touring, and hustle didn’t matter. A year later I can see it did, but in a way that was subtler than I initially envisioned. Grow wasn’t about becoming an author, but building a life that I wanted and one that feels right for me and who I am now. And that’s the essence of the project. I wrote it into existence and hustled to make my life catch up to my words. A year later, I’m happy that it has.

Fifteen Years of Zine Making and Indulgence 12

Posted on May 20, 2014 by killerfemme

Indulgence numbers 11 & 12 with Grow at Brooklyn Zine Fest

When I was seventeen and ordering records through the mail from Kill Rock Stars and K Records I stumbled upon something amazing: zines, or small, self-published magazines, that were often distributed by their creators or through bedroom-based businesses called “Zine Distros.” I’ve told this story many times, but discovering these earnest publications where people from all backgrounds, but especially women close to my age, shared their stories, interests, passions, fears and experiences was nothing short of life changing. Growing up in a rural area, reading zines and writing to their creators was a lifeline to a world that was bigger than the one immediately around me.

At 17, like most teenagers, I was struggling to figure out who I would become in this world as a feminist, queer person and a writer. Making zines showed me that I could already be who I wanted to become by sharing my writing and freely expressing my identity. I started my personal zine Indulgence, inspired by an English teacher who declared, “Some would argue we are in an age of the pinnacle of self-indulgent, personal writing” (this was during the mid-1990s memoir craze, blogs were not yet in existence).

Me and Meredith, a zinester friend from Portland, at the LA Zine Fest in February

Zines became central to my life and opened me up to a worldwide network of creative people, many of whom I am still in touch with today. Once I began making zines I felt I found my calling. I threw myself into zine publishing and zine culture, meeting zine makers all over the country and helping to start the Portland Zine Symposium in 2001 when I was taking a “gap year” between high school and college in Portland, Oregon.

My zine production has waxed and waned over the past few years, subject to time pressures placed on me by school, work and general life, but even in this world of blogs, Twitter, Instagram and so many other platforms for sharing, zines are still my preferred format for longer form, personal essays. I’ve always used zines as a venue to help navigate changes in my life and this past year has been no exception. I wrote the pieces for Indulgence #12 over the course of the fall of 2013 and polished them up this winter and got this latest issue ready for the Brooklyn Zine Fest, which took place at the end of April.

Workin’ the table at the Brooklyn Zine Fest

Indulgence #12 explores three major themes in my life: work, love and death. Over the past year I quit my job and shifted my career from nonprofit arts administration to working with creative technology companies, walked away from a long term relationship and experienced the death of my grandmother and the shifts that created in my family dynamic. All in all, it was a year of navigating the choppy waters of adulthood, sometimes gracefully and often times with a fair amount of stress and angst. I’m proud of the essays in Indulgence #12 and think that they are some of my most focused personal writing yet. I’d love for you to pick up a copy. Like all of my zines, the cover is handmade and it is hand bound. It’s $4 with shipping for the US and $5 for the rest of the world. You can order through Shoplocket here.

Crackers the cat loves zines!

Out of This World

Posted on February 21, 2014 by killerfemme

I know, it’s been a minute since there’s been any fashion posts on this blog! What happened? Well, in NYC it’s winter and so usually I’m wearing 18 layers just to leave the house, so there’s really nothing to see here in terms of fashion and style. However, I took a weekend trip to LA where it was like a little window into summer. LA is so inspiring in terms of fashion because people really use it as a medium to express themselves and I couldn’t help but get into the spirit and do an impromptu, Sunday morning fashion shoot in front of a parking garage in Downtown LA (or “DTLA”).

I visited the shop Matrushka in Silver Lake and in addition to a fairly practical dress found these amazing leggings. I’ve been coveting space tights for quite some time, but wasn’t quite up to it because I could not quite figure out how to make them workplace appropriate. However, when they were handmade in LA by the shop owner? I couldn’t resist. And don’t worry, I’ll find a way to wear them to work.

What am I wearing? Gals Rock Paris T-shirt, American Apparel shorts (purchased specially for my trip because I forgot what shorts are and didn’t pack any), Matrushka Space Tights, vintage Casio watch (my Valentine’s present to myself) and Doc Martens!

Goodbye to All of You (who want to go)

Posted on February 10, 2014 by killerfemme

I composed this post while I was walking home through the silent, Brooklyn, evening during a mid-winter snowstorm. I love the times when NYC is quiet and feels like it’s taking a rare, much needed pause. I just had drinks at my favorite local bar with K., the kind of place that is dim and mellow, with chatty bar tenders and perfect Manhattans every night of the week except Friday and Saturday evenings, when it seems to be taken over by obnoxious hordes. We were talking about the difficulty and constant hustle of establishing ones self and building a satisfying professional life in New York City. Somedays it feels particularly out of reach. The economy is markedly improved in recent years, because of that, more and more people want to come to live here. I always maintained that creative, smart people had a better chance to find work here than elsewhere because there were simply more opportunities available. However, there’s also a lot more competition.

New York will always draw the young, the not-so-young, the creative and ambitious. That’s part of what makes it an exciting place to be. But now with the “brand” of Brooklyn being synonymous with global cool, silicon alley rivaling silicon valley for tech innovation, and shows like Girls broadcasting an unrealistic version of what it means to be a twenty-something in Brooklyn the NYC cool factor is having a real cultural moment. I feel like it’s really putting a lot of pressure, financial and otherwise, on opportunities like jobs, social events and housing for people in my age range.

Moments like this never fail… by Dzine

Lately I found myself discouraging my peers who casts doubts on living in NYC from moving out. “I spent time in 24 different US cities last year!” I tell them, “I loved them all, they are all interesting places full of creative, smart people doing cool things, but I don’t want to live in any of them! I want to live here!” I say.

“Look at the access you have to culture, public transit, great food, innovative projects, and you don’t have to own a car!” I’ll argue.

“Feel the lack of social pressure!” I’ll implore, “You can be exactly who you want to be here!”

But tonight I had a change of heart. I realized I wasn’t so much trying to convince them to stay as to convince myself that I have made the right decision. It’s as if I’m worried I’ll be left clinging to a relationship that’s run its course out of nostalgia of how things used to be when the object of my affection, and all of my friends, have moved on. What I realized is that I need to feel confident enough about my decision to dig my heels in here and stay and let others go through their own discovery process with what they need in a place to live and what they need in life.

I wrote this past fall about the backlash many artists and writers have felt against the city because they moved here to pursue their artistic dreams and felt that the reality fell short of their romantic notions. I start to wonder why I stayed and stayed devoted to the the idea that one can build a creative life here or anywhere. And then I realized this:

My romantic notions of my New York City life lasted about 3 weeks. I moved here in late August of 2001 to start college. On September 11th, I realized with a sinking feeling how little I knew about world politics, NYC, or what my life would look for feel like after that day. I realized quickly that the city owed me nothing and any attempt I might have to control my experience here would be in vain. It was in that moment I knew I could throw in the towel and go back to the life I had in Portland, Oregon or Portland, Maine or stay and tough it out. I knew if I stayed I was making a long term commitment to the city. I decided to stay.

I’ve stayed in NYC through loneliness, depress, recession, my saturn returns (if you believe in that stuff), and long enough to build up a career and now, begin pursuing a different direction. I’ve earned two degrees, become fluent in a second language, started to learn to code, played in bands, written a book, become a confident NYC cyclist, planned and then abandoned plans to move to Paris or LA, and most of all, eeked out a somewhat stable life for myself working in the arts, culture and education field, while nurturing friendships, hopes, dreams and plans.

NYC rock’n’roll life style to do list at my band practice space

In high school a teacher told me, “You can live however you want in New York City,” when I confessed to her my dream to study and live here. Since then I’ve taken her advice to heart. But living how you want in NYC often means doing so on the city’s terms. And that can be a tough proposition. So, if you find you can’t live how you want here, there’s no harm and no foul. There’s a place out there for you. It’s waiting. Go. there are so many places to be be cultured, innovative and interesting. To launch new businesses and make new art. And no matter what, New York City’s frenetic rhythm continues, whether it’s the current barometer of cultural cool or not, and honestly, whether you or I are here at all. But I plan to be here. You are always welcome to come back to visit.

Letting go of 2013

Posted on December 31, 2013 by killerfemme

At the end of 2013 I set out to set my goals and intentions for the New Year. I’m not one for full on “resolutions” because the beginning of January rarely feels like a rebirth, but rather, simply the beginning of the long haul of the New York winter. I began 2013 with a lot of possibility and a lot of uncertainty and guess what… I’m starting 2014 the same way!

First of all, 2013 was a huge year for me personally. I put out my first book, Grow: How do take your do it yourself project and passion to the next level and quit your job!, and booked a national tour, visiting 24 different cities over the course of 3 months. It was really amazing to make so many new connections and get to spent so much time exploring parts of the country both new and already dear to me. Spending two weeks driving through the Midwest immensely grew my appreciation and understanding for the US as a whole. Though I’d taken my high school indie pop band on an East Coast tour and done several cross country road trips in my early 20s, to have the freedom and opportunity to explore with a focus of connecting and working with creative entrepreneurs was incredible. To connect with so many artists, handmade business owners, creatives and makers who are pursuing their dreams and figuring out how to fold them into their lives was awesome. Every day I was blown away by the honesty, focus and strength of the DIY community.

Coming back from all this traveling also made me realize that while the rest of the US is pretty awesome, I also love New York. I decided to shelve (for now) my plans to move to Los Angeles to focus on making my life what I want in the city where I’ve grown my deepest roots and community outside of my home state of Maine.

I spent a huge portion of the year with views like this

As I reflected on what I really wanted, post-book and book tour, I decided to strike out on my own as a freelancer in order to be able to spend more time working on projects close to my heart, have more flexibility in my work schedule, and learn new skills so I can begin working for creative startups and consulting companies. Something that really surprised me is that one of the skills I started to develop out of sheer curiosity was learning to code. I entered into some weekend workshops at General Assembly thinking I would learn the basics of the web development process to help jumpstart my career shift. I wasn’t expecting to fall deeply in love with backend web development, specifically Ruby on Rails. I feel completely immersed, sometimes to the point of drowning, in this new world and I love every second of it so far. I’ve found the tech community in NYC to be welcoming, enthusiastic and supportive and have especially loved connecting with the New York Tech Women.

Well, this is the start of a new adventure

My love of code was a surprise to me

My newfound love of programming showed me, yet again, that you never know what you will discover about yourself, as trite and cheesy as that might sound. So where does this lead me for 2014?

My friend Tracy asked me three questions that I think sum up my year pretty well: what I learned, what I’m proud of, and what am I looking forward to next year.

In brief:

I learned how to think clearly. I’m better at assessing personal and professional situations clearly and setting realistic expectations. I learned that having goals is not as important as actualizing them or gaining momentum. Goals are key because they set you in motion and community is important because it provides the bridge for you to achieve those goals, but you still have to make your own opportunity.

My first tattoo

I’m proud of gaining the courage to take risks and to push myself emotionally, personally and professionally to move towards and deal with the things that scare me the most. I’ve also gained the courage to be humble and admit what I don’t know.

I’m looking forward to establishing a routine that gives me a space to create and reflect through regular time to meditate, write, and continue to study Ruby and other languages.

2013 was a transformative year for me in that I went through a lot of very painful growth. It was not triumphant transformation, but some acute periods of loss and letting go. Fortunately, with that release can come a new lightness and clarity which I hope will help me take a big leap forward in the new year. With that, what did you learn in 2013? What was your proudest moment? And what are you looking forward to?

One of the best parts of the year was getting to reconnect with my cousins

Writerly love for New York City

Posted on November 29, 2013 by killerfemme

Every New York-based publication I’ve picked up lately has had an article about young people, mostly writers or artists or other privileged creative types, packing up their bags and saying “Good riddance” to New York City. Many of them are inspired by the new anthology edited by Sari Barton, Goodbye to All That: On Loving and Leaving New York. The publisher must have had some great PR work because big articles about this “trend” heavily reference the book and have appeared quite notably in New York Magazine and the New York Times. The articles all mention that Joan Didion’s iconic essay “Goodbye to All That” inspired much of the writing (as well as the title) and Didion’s essay is certainly among my favorites ever written about being young and creative in New York City. However, reading all of these articles I felt a kernel of annoyance welling up in me. Of course I don’t begrudge anyone’s decision to leave the city, but I realized that I’ve been through an opposite thought process this past year, and wanted to give the city a little writerly love.

This time last year I was convinced I needed to get out of New York City. I felt done with it and, further more, done with the high cost of living, terrible weather, and the fact that it smells like garbage most of the time. A year ago I was convinced that at present I would be packing my bags and my cat and heading out to sunny Los Angeles.

Before I tell you about my change of heart about New York, let’s review the facts: The New York City is expensive and only seems to be getting more so. Rents are insane, it’s difficult to find a decent place to live, and daily life often feels like one hassle after another. Everything feels intensely competitive, it really does smell like garbage most of the time, extreme injustice and inequality gets thrown in your face almost every second, and commuting on the over burdened subway system sucks.

When I moved here to go to college I told myself I would leave soon after. I kept giving myself “one more year in New York” until I decamped to Portland, Oregon or Paris. That “one more year” became “three more years” became “I’m not going to leave.” I realized that the community I’d cultivated here couldn’t be picked up and moved to another place and that New York offered the kind of opportunities I wanted to find.

This year I felt like I spent almost as much time out of New York as in it. I traveled all around the Midwest, Texas and the West and East Coasts. I made multiple trip to Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Portland, Oregon. I was charmed by places I’d never been to before, like Omaha, Cincinnati, and Tulsa. I found that with the growth in appreciation for things that are handmade and locally produced wherever I went to I was never too far from cold brew iced coffee, artisanal cocktails, and farm-to-table meals. I met inspiring people who are pursuing creative and entrepreneurial projects and working to help others in their towns and cities do the same. I think on the Grow book tours alone I visited 24 different cities, and visited even more when I factor in other work and family travel. So I feel like I got a pretty good sense of the country in a pretty short period of time. And what all that travel showed me is that while I think it’s crucial to get out of the city and that so many places have wonderful things to offer, New York is the only place I want to come back to. It’s the place I want to call home.

There’s a huge number of smart, talented, driven and creative people living here and those are the types of people who I want to be around. Those are the people I want to meet and learn from and have as my friends. As I work to transition my career from arts nonprofits to creative startups I realized that it’s much easier to do this in a city that is a center of both cultural organizations and a huge, quickly growing number of startup businesses. I also realized that, as much as I complain about it, New York has a great infrastructure in terms of public transportation and is getting progressively more and more bikeable.

Is it hard to “make it” as a writer and creative here? Sure it is, but where is it not? Does one need to live in NYC to write, play music, make art or launch the next cool start up? No, of course not, but I find that is I want to find people who are doing these things, there’s a great concentration of them in NYC. On a typical day here I can write in a bustling coffee shop, ride my bike across a bridge that is an architectural icon, visit a world class museum, browse a farmers market, learn to code, go to a punk rock exercise class, head to band practice and then a dance party that puts an emphasis on fake blood and homemade costumes. This is the way I want to live my life.

Beyond all of this is the feeling that I can be exactly who I am in New York City. The city is vast and diverse and as such, there’s far less pressure to cave into social norms, or to live life according on anyone’s schedule except my own.

I also know that New York City owes me nothing. What I’m able to do here is directly related to what I’m willing to put in. The city does not owe me a living and I fear that those who quit the city with a feeling of “Good riddance!” deep down felt like somehow they were owed something simply because they were young, smart, privileged and wanted to make their way here.

Of course, leaving a city is a highly personal decision. I think New York has something for everyone if you are willing to look for it, but it won’t offer it up without a fight. Whether you stay somewhere depends on your personal goals. For example, I know a suburban or rural lifestyle with a car, dog, yard, house and children is absolutely not for me.

Of course, New York is changing and not always for the better. Is the city better off because of the plethora of glassy luxury condos and Duane Reades that have sprouted up over the past few years? I’d say not really, but I also think that New York has a grittiness that difficult to tame. Does the level of inequality here drive me crazy? Absolutely. But living in New York is messy, complicated, intense and frustrating. It’s also exhilarating, rewarding and completely absorbing. I’m a high energy intense person who loves a good challenge and need a city that matches these qualities in me. So hello to all of this. This is one writer who is happy she’s stayed.

And Still She Dreams of LA…

Posted on November 18, 2013 by killerfemme

A November weekend and a cheap plane ticket seemed like a good enough reason to visit LA, but add in a Torches show and an offer of a personalized tour of East Side neighborhoods I hadn’t yet explored? Sign me up! Here’s a budget tip for those wishing to travel to LA: Bob Hope Airport in Burbank: cheaper flights, less hassle, and that glamorous feeling of walking across the tarmac to your gate, with a beautiful view of the mountains just beyond.

Desert mountains en route over Utah

View from The Hub, downtown LA

After I arrived I jumped right into the LA fun by meeting the wonderful ladies from the Academy for Handmade for lunch at LA son Roy Choi’s fast food rice bowl restaurant in Chinatown Chego! and then talked about their upcoming crowd funding campaign and exciting plans for their awards ceremony next year. They have a great space at The Hub, a really cool co-working and business incubator space in the Arts District in downtown LA (as an aside, my friend Sophia Stuart wrote a lovely piece on The Hub for LA I’m Yours).

Torches play the Echoplex, November 8, 2013

Songs about cat castles and ouji boards... HOTT MT - great band!

HOTT MT at the Echoplex

Next we headed to drinks and dinner at Mohawk Bend, a local and seasonal inspired restaurant serving craft beers in Echo Park, followed by one of the best shows I’ve seen by Torches at the Echoplex. It’s been so amazing to watch this band steadily grow their career over the past year and a half. Their sound has grown bolder, but still anchored by catchy, jangle laden melodies and pensive lyrics. During some of the newer songs I felt my hairs standing on end. I hear they’re working on a new album, so I can’t wait for what is next for these enterprising musicians. HOTT MT opened for them and they were a great discovery – songs about cat castles and ouji boards fronted by a very energetic singer who reminded me a bit of a female David Bowie!

Perfect brunch at Cliff’s Edge

The palms of Silver Lake

Saturday morning I joined my favorite music and fiction writer Liz Barker of the Strawberry Fields Whatever blog for a leisurely brunch in the lush back garden of the Cliff’s Edge, a super cute restaurant in Silver Lake with great “shabby chic” decor – I wish my apartment was decorated like that restaurant. Next I took a wander around the Silver Lake farmers market and picked up some handmade, soy, scented candles to remind me of LA back in cold Brooklyn.

At the “Eagle’s Nest” – Shakeytown Radio HQ

Then I joined my new (but very dear) zine friend Brodie Foster Hubbard for a customized tour of the East Side. We spent the afternoon sipping coffee and chatting about life and career choices before jumping in to recording an episode of his podcast “The Shakeytown Radio Hour.” I’m really happy with the results and invite you to listen in on us talking about pursing and building a DIY life, job and negotiating a creative lifestyle and career in uncertain economic times.

Craziest thing I've ever eaten... DIY doughnut! Thanks @brodiehubbard

Very excited about my DIY Donut at Donut Friend!

Brodie took me on a guided tour of Eastside neighborhoods that I hadn’t gotten a chance to see yet: Eagle Rock, Atwater Village and Highland Park. We stopped into Pop Hop, a great used, new and art book shop, and then headed to Donut Friend, a donut shop among LA donut shops if I’ve ever seen one. It’s owned by Mark Trombino, the drummer from Drive Like Jehu, and features vegan and gluten free options. There’s a variety of pre-made donut delights, all named after bands, and I had to stop myself from picking up a tshirt that says “Rites of Sprinkles” on it… on second though, I might mail order one… but Brodie and I both opted for the “DIY donut” option (of course!) and I ended up concocting one I called the “Northern Soul” – a chocolate cake donut with ricotta cheese and raspberry jam filling, with maple glaze and coconut bacon on top. I also deemed it the “Craziest thing I have ever eaten.” And it was delicious.

Hiking in Solstice Canyon

The next morning Brodie and I headed to the Freeways Collide zine event and picked up some great little zines about Joy Division, witchery and being a gemini from Deirdree, and then took a wander through the Hollywood farmers market. I was happy I got to finally check out this bonanza of fresh produce and street food and after filling up on ice coffee, pupusas and persimmons, I met up with my friend Kabir and headed towards Malibu for an afternoon hike. A Sunday drive to Malibu is practically an LA tradition for me now and I was glad that Kabir and Emily came with me to check out a new (to me) hiking spot: Solstice Canyon (there’s a great site for hikes in and around LA called Modern Hiker that my friend Phoebe pointed me to, very very helpful!). We hiked along the bottom of the canyon to the ruins of a mid-century ranch and then up the hill for sweeping views of the Pacific. It was perfect.

The view of the Pacific from Solstice Canyon

Back in downtown LA I got to try a French dip sandwich at Cole’s, one of the two “original” French dip restaurants, which I loved for its dark wood bar and classic cocktails. Then Kabir and I went to our favorite spot for a Sunday night in LA, Mignon wine bar (just two doors down from Cole’s) for some great hand selected wine and artisanal cheese and the sweetest servers ever. The perfect end to another great LA weekend.

Hazy downtown LA from Griffith Park

I headed home on Monday, but first squeezed in a hike in Griffith Park to gaze dreamily at the downtown city scape and bake in the sun and then a coconut kale smoothie at Naturewell to round off the visit. It’s a good thing I got the sun and my vitamins in too. The next day, back in New York, it snowed. How’s that for some cognitive dissonance?

#TeenagedSelfie

Posted on October 7, 2013 by killerfemme

I lay down in the grass and wonder why you brought me here

In September I spent four days with my extended family traveling to Massachusetts and North Central New York State for a multi-day family gathering. These places played a key role in my childhood and the history of my family, but they also bring up strong associations of a being a young person shuffled through the world of adults without much say in what we were doing or where we were going. I remember as a child I felt that life could be a period of infernal waiting for adults to make a decision of where we would be going or what we would be doing next. I was nervous that this trip would bring those feelings crashing back. The ever creative Marissa Falco suggested that a document them through a series of iPhone self-portraits, which I dubbed #TeenagedSelfies.

Colonial living room waiting

Bored in the car stuck in traffic in the Mass Pike

I jumped into the lake. Then snuck a beer out of the cooler.

The ability to snap and share digital pictures instantly was a long way off when I was a teenager, but I used this series to reach back into the feelings of isolation, boredom, angst and possibility which defined so much of my teenaged years and also drove much of my creativity during that time. It’s also about how the ability to document and share your daily moments can provide a needed sense of escape and connection with a wider world when you feel cut off from it, a feeling I felt acutely as a teenager growing up in a rural area. It was this feeling that drove me to make and share zines and DIY music. You can see the whole series on Flickr.

Let’s talk on the phone!

Mirror in the bathroom, I just can’t see, the door is locked just you and me

I’m free to roam in NYC!

The Great American Road Trip Part 2: West Coast

Posted on August 29, 2013 by killerfemme

The modern travel way, Olympia, Washington

My epic summer travels continued this month up and down the West Coast. After two weeks in the Midwest, the West Coast felt like familiar territory. I used to live in Portland, Oregon on-and-off between 2000 and 2004 and I’d recently visited Seattle and San Francisco. Unlike my Midwest adventures, I for this trip I relied more on public and mass transit to get around, except in Seattle and Olympia where your flexibility is limited by the public transit options and I find that in Seattle, like LA, people obsess over talking about traffic and parking.

The sweet, seductive architecture of SE Portland

My sweet, borrowed PDX ride “Banana Lightening”

While it has a reputation for being a rainy climate, the truth is, summer in the Northwest is glorious. Days are overall sunny with warm days that cool off at night. It’s the perfect temperature to dreamily drink an iced coffee, ride a bike leisurely around the city, meet your friends for a picnic in the park, or sip cocktails on the patio.

Sharing a table with Meredith at the Portland Zine Symposium!

Zinester mail from @nicolejgeorges xoxo!

Zine symposium mail from Nicole Georges!

The Portland Zine Symposium was a big reason why I chose to be in Portland when I did. It’s really amazing to see a project I helped start 13 years ago continue with such vigor and be taken up by a totally new team of people. I feel like that’s the exact legacy I hoped to create with the symposium and I’m so glad to see it worked out. It was also nice to return as a participant and not have the stress of an organizer. However, much of Portland reminded me of that heady time in my early 20s when I lived there. I would be biking along a street on my borrowed, bright yellow, vintage folding bike named “Banana Lightening” aka “Banana Question,” and remember a feeling I had in that same place over ten years ago. I felt amazed that I had grown up, but still half way convinced that I was going to encounter my 22-year-old self around any given corner.

I love Olympia!

I felt a similar feeling in Olympia, where I hadn’t spent too much time since attending the Yo Yo A Go Go music festival in 1999 when I was 18. Then I was a giddy teenager fresh out of my small town. There I saw acts like Elliot Smith, Quasi and the Need play the historic Capitol Theater and spent time blissfully sleeping on a motel floor with four other indie rock fans and meeting up with my zine pen pals from all over the country.

Capitol Theater, Olympia, Washington, where indie rock history was made

Olympia now has a strange, sleepy vibe, though it is still home to a very dedicated creative community. The staples I remember like Dumpster Values thrift store, Rainy Day Records, and K Records homebase, are still there, though they have moved. There’s plenty of new, cool places, like the Northern for all ages shows (and good coffee in the morning from a coffee bar called Bar Francis) and Quality Burrito for delicious tacos and cocktails. One of my favorite places to re-visit was The Reef – greasy spoon diner in front, dive bar in back, where the bar tender played KARP on the jukebox in an evening that felt perfectly fitting for Olympia past and present.

An Olympia classic

Karaoke pandas, Olympia, Washington

My last day in Washington State got a little cloudy, so it was quite a big change when I hopped an Alaska Airlines flight down to hot, sunny and flat Sacramento. It was my fifth time in California in the past year and it felt great to be back in the Golden State. I got to learn about the growing creative community in California’s capitol and present at the sweetest nonprofit, Hello XOXO, a new space dedicated to fostering women’s creativity and entrepreneurship.

: Hello XOXO – a nonprofit fostering women’s creative community in Sacramento, CA

Decor love at Hello XOXO

I wasn’t long in Sacramento though, and after just a quick afternoon and evening I headed to Berkeley to browse the selection at Amoeba records, and meet up with my favorite California boys, Torches, who were touring up the West Coast while I was headed down. It was great to compare road notes over sandwiches and mimosas and think about how much we have all grown creatively since meeting about a year and a bit ago.

Tour highlight: lunch with these rock stars @torches_music

Lunch with Torches, also on tour, in Berkeley

After sending the boys off I took the BART into San Francisco, my last tour stop. I love how San Francisco’s hills rise up over the bay, how the fog blows across it in strange wisps, and how the pastel buildings tile up its impossibly steep slopes. That said, by the time I reached San Francisco I was feeling a little tired. I was ready to go home.

French “Soul Food” brunch in San Francisco!

Fortunately, if you’ve got a friend in San Francisco, they usually know what you need. In this case, Amy took me to Brenda’s, an amazing French Soul Food influenced brunch joint, and then bought a bottle of champagne that we drank out of plastic cups in a park full of palm trees, lavender plants and cute dogs. It was the perfect end to my travels.

Champagne in the park in the 3-D Nickey Hayden glass

Last day of tour and living the San Francisco park life

Seeing new places, returning to places I love and meeting up with people I love in these places, is one of the most life affirming things one can do, in my opinion. At the same time, I’m happy to have a solid home base in Brooklyn, a place where I can nurture my own creativity and reach out to the world from. Being on tour especially means being on almost every waking minute. It means putting your best foot forward always and being open to possibility and risk while getting what you need to do accomplished. My summer was hardly relaxing or carefree, but it was a hugely absorbing journey that’s left me so grateful for the opportunity I was able to create to talk about my passions and projects and remember what’s valuable to me: community, connection, and creativity. And it’s through that kind of risk taking that we learn and grow.

My new motto on the wall of the Makeshift Society

Killerfemme

Thoughts on feminism, fashion, culture, and community from Eleanor C. Whitney