hasta la vista, baby

TGIF!

The best photobooth in Seattle is in Wallingford. It is inside Archie McPhee. It is the best because of its proximity to props.

home economics

A CELEBRATION OF MOTHERS

Annie and I have a great affection for our mothers, a fascination with who they were when they were our age (which Annie explores here), and an admiration for all that they have done for us. My mother, I am convinced, should be hailed as a saint. She is kind, patient, and a strong woman. There are a few things that I find curious about her (like how she administered urine tests as a job after college and how she tried to become Sheriff), but I love the idea that she is more than just a mother - she's a woman of the world! Horrah! I can only hope to have a heart like hers and the courage to love BIG.

Here she is with my father. Cheesy picture, typical Dad

The more I think about it, the more I believe that mothers are the strength of our world. Whether we have good or bad relationships with them, these women shape us to be who we are and introduce us to who we may become. The more that I struggle as a post-grad young adult in this scary world, the more she reveals to me about who she was before her stinky kids came into her life. Heck! Before many people came into her life. Secrets, secrets are no fun. Wait, yes there are! Let me in!

Love my mom's style here with my great-grandmother, aunt, grandma and father

And isn't it really something to see generations side by side? Think of the history! What I wouldn't give to meet my nana in the Nebraska dance halls or my mother when she first moved to California!

Three leading ladies - oh how we have and will change the world

But what's more, let's not forget about the women in our lives who have raised us like their own. They have been our grandmothers, our coaches, our teachers, our friends' mothers, our mothers' friends, our step-mothers, our aunts...and they are our inspiration!

Truly Optimistic,

-L

birthday boots

This month a lot of things went my way and I found my finances in a nice, comfortable spot. Since it was my Michael Jordan birthday, which has precedence for being a pretty important year (see evidence here and here and here)*, I marched straight over to vintage wonderland No Parking on Pike Street and bought myself a pair of heavy-duty grey lace-up ankle boots I'd been eyeing for months.


They're really good.

The shopowner, Ben, has some really amazing stuff and is constantly updating the space's layout and themes. There's always something perfect hiding in the jewelry boxes and under tables and you have to spend some serious time in there to see it all. I want a lot of things in there that I can't afford and Ben is always patient with Lizzie and I when we paw through it and tell him how great his stuff is. We especially like hearing his stories of how and where he tracks down different treasures.

I feel really powerful in these boots. The soles will NEVER wear out, that's the Justin boot promise. It's a brand for farmers, as I understand. Plus, when I wear my glasses at the same time, I AM DARIA.


I'm trying to get Lizzie to buy a pair so she can be Jane Lane!



*Sometimes, you turn 23, and you go on an all-day birthday adventure with Lizzie, and you happen to run into someone you sort of know who works at a diner that you went into looking for a milkshake, and he goes on, out of the goodness of his heart, to make you lots of fruity drinks at 3pm.

Here is part of the adventure:

Sorry, Mom.

A

Canary Sing + DOP

Dude.

Day by day we are reassured that our young lives--hell, all our lives!--should be dedicated to making things with our besties. Here is one such beautiful collaboration: our dear Katie and Ben, over at Department of Projects in Portland, just put together the album art for the latest EP from our dear Hollis and Madeleine of Canary Sing. DOP's design is spot on, and these are indeed beautiful babies!

The release party for the Beautiful Baby EP, presented by Hidmo Entertainment and Members Only 206, is happening Mother's Day, May 9th!, at Chop Suey. We're stoked. Canary Sing has a lot of big awesome stuff planned for the coming months, including a three-week show-tour-crazy-cool-adventure-time in Minnesota, NYC, DC, and Jamaica.

AAAND: here are the boss ladies last night rocking Moe Bar:

Love 'em.

A & L

coming soon

LIZZIE: JETSETTING THE NATION: AN EPISODE IN 2 PARTS: EAST COAST TO BEST COAST

ANNIE: ON OVERDRIVE: LIFE ON PIKE STREET + FINDING A PARKING SPOT ON QUEEN ANNE IS HARD: BUT COLLABORATIVE ART IS REALLY REALLY COOL





and that's a promise.

Ramblin' (Wo)man

Life has been busy for us Samstag gals. We’ve been watching doors open and close during these past few weeks and whew (!), things are really changing. When I was a young (and much tanner) kid back home in San Diego, my dad with all of his fatherly wisdom would talk about life being a giant book, with chapters beginning and ending, characters fazing in and out, and everything eventually coming to a close. I always thought, “Aw man, that’s such an old folk thing to say” but you know what? That guy really has something goin’ there.

I’ve spent the past three months working at Duo Public Relations as an intern for a team of wonderful, intelligent and creative women, but last Thursday was my final day, and sure enough Pops, that chapter has come to an end. Can I just say this? This one thing? Working at Duo was such a great experience and I am one lucky kid to have landed an internship there. We had dogs in the office, wine on Fridays, and lots of fun...and of course I learned lots. So what did I do to celebrate? I went to Disneyland! No, not really, but close! I went to New York City to celebrate a few great things in my life, and of course to just be a tourist!

Talk about spontaneous. I bought my plane ticket on Tuesday (with flyer miles! What, do you think I’m made out of money?) and landed Friday afternoon. I haven’t always been a light packer. My family would probably tell you that I’m a just-in-case-the-world-ends kind of packer, but those days are behind me. Needless to say, I showed up with a pre-schooler’s sized backpack and just went with it! Because no matter how hard I could have tried, nothing compares to the style of New York City women. Seriously. Seriously. I must have looked like a dirty old man lusting after all of the spring jackets and high heels. Somehow, the women seemed to just pull everything off so effortlessly. Maybe I was just excited, but I doubt that my eyes deceived me!

I swear that we spent just as much time window shopping in the Meat Packing District as we did site seeing. Anyway, I’m still dreaming in that Empire State of Mind (See: Jay-Z). Maybe someday, Queens and Brooklyn and everything in between will be so lucky as to have me grace their bubblegum sidewalks again. Yeah, real lucky.

View of the city from the Williamsburg Bridge

Times Square!

A humble view from the Empire State Building

Excited

ALEXANDER MQUEEN

ALEXANDER MQUEEN

I wish I had written down or could remember the names of the rest of these ridiculously awesome shops on 14th Ave, but in the moment I was just racing around like a kid in a candy shop! So please, enjoy these photos.

Until Next Time,

-L

1986

I wasn't born yet, but god, what a year.

Today not one but two of my co-workers compared me to Molly Ringwald, specifically Pretty in Pink Molly Ringwald. Geez, no arguments here. Will you look at the color in this movie?





This sneak preview looks and sounds like it came out in 1986, and it's all about the clothes! I love directors like John Hughes who understood that the clothing makes the world of the film. This story would be half as interesting without these costumes. Besides, teenagers care about what they wear! It just makes sense that they'd give so many hero shots (vocab!) to the wardrobe. And Molly Ringwald always looked good. And totally nuts, and totally 1986. Enjoy!



Anyway, why stop there? I can't! Marilyn Vance* designed all these costumes and she knew what the fuck was up. (She also designed other Hughes classics The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, before going on to Pretty Woman and Die Hard 2!)



Check out the babe from Ferris! I tried to find a jacket like this in Chicago for years, but as the laws of thrifting go, I won't find it until I'm not looking for it anymore. And those shorts with the skinny belt. Those are all over my April 2010 Vogue, and that is no lie.



I love the idea of designing for movies like Ferris and The Breakfast Club because the characters don't change their clothes at all throughout the course of the story. What they're wearing has to say way more about them as a result, and it seems like they really start using their costumes more in the development of the character. Emilio Estevez is always messing with his letterman's jacket, or the ties on his wrestling hoodie. Anthony Michael Hall wears a Bears hat because his mom makes him. Molly has fancy leather gloves. Judd Nelson. God, Judd Nelson owns those boots and the twelve jackets and the denim vest-on-top-of-flannel vest combo. By the end, Ally Sheedy has pared down her bag lady layers and is wearing a feminine white blouse and eyeliner. I mean, Marilyn Vance really nailed it. These looks are lasting. Literally, everyone in this photo represents a style I've seen in my neighborhood. Recently. She was just designing ICONS!

Anyway, 1986. A good year.


A



*LIZZIE? Are you related to Marilyn Vance, too!?

Paradigm Soundsystems

HEY GUYS!



There's this rad new biz in Chicago. They are called Paradigm Soundsystems.

They make stuff like supercozy knit goods that keep your neck really, really warm on your own personal pizza & movie night, or any night, really. They also mask looks of disgust on your face when you are watching Cider House Rules.

Word to the wise: Cider House Does Not Rule. Dark Crystal, on the other hand...

park days

You should have gotten the Sonic bar, Lizzie.

dangerously inspirational

In an attempt to escape all of the should-be-doing's of tonight (like most nights) I've been perusing fashion, vintage, DIY and all around interesting blogs - from people just like us! A few weeks ago I came across Scalpture, a blog all about hair! The inspiration! Maybe even for the scarier, as I've recently cut my bangs at a strange diagonal. What a girl will do when bored/inspired/curious/daring. I can't quit my day job, so I'll just show up looking like what I'd like to be doing.

This photo comes via Scalpture via Hob Salon....I'd like the nerve to turn out something like this.

L

Nothin but net

Samstag Needs to Collage More

family time

Whenever I get home to Chicago, and I'm bouncing all over the place trying to spend equal parts of time with my parents in the suburbs and my brothers all over the city and my best of friends in Wicker Park and some acquaintances that are fun to catch up with and the nice, all-grown-up neighbors I used to babysit and Lake Michigan, no matter what the season, and my favorite breakfast spot (which is a tossup between Victory's Banner, lovingly referred to as Cult Breakfast, and Kopi, and maybe The Handlebar, too) and sometimes also the Village Discount in Andersonville, I always try to set aside a few hours to go through photo albums.

It's sort of strange, really. I've seen them all a million times, and it always feels so new to look at them. It's inspiration, sure, but gives me a distinct feeling in my gut, too. Images just help me get things.

In my parents' basement, in floor to ceiling shelves, my mom has organized the albums chronologically. Some of them are these really rad old leather boxes with gold lettering, some are in fabric-covered super-90s books, and some are just scrapbooks. My mom has dated and commented on almost every photo, which I will thank her for until the end of my days.

My favorites are from the late 1970s, right after my parents were married, to the year 1985, when my oldest brother Tim was a mere 4 years old. Sometimes I pilfer them, especially the old square prints like these, to inspire me for awhile before I return them.

Both of these photos are so indicative of where I came from, I can't even tell you. The suburban lawn chairs, the grass, the act of taking a photo of taking a photo, people everywhere--arms and legs and hands and jewelry and sleeves and knees in frame, my uncle Jimmy triple-fisting Old Styles, my grandmother's hair, her clasped hands, her blouse, those plaid shorts!, the frisbee.



When I am old I am going to sit down, my grey hair flying everywhere, and get comfortable with my kids or the young people I love and remind them to document.


A

ADDENDUM: 48 hours with Lizzie Vance

It was one of those magical, devil-may-care, sky's-the-limit sort of evenings, which incidentally, Lizzie and I have been having pretty often lately. We were feeling like queens of cool, that is for sure.

I just wanted to add that at the meeting, I acted as secretary, keeping track of the minutes and all, while Lizzie really conducted the thing, leading the brainstorming session and fielding questions from the public.

Right from the get-go, it just seemed like people wanted to get in our business conversation, even people who weren't physically inside the restaurant. When that guy was skateboarding (uphill) past us on Pine, I said something like, "Look at this jerk" and almost instantaneously, he looked right at me, and I was sort of pointing at him vaguely with my slice of pizza, and so Lizzie turned around and looked at him too and said "Jeremy!" and then waved, and then he was gone. She explained that the guy looked like her friend Jeremy, but probably wasn't her friend Jeremy.

And then we started jamming on our meeting again, none the wiser. A few minutes later, "Jeremy" was sitting next to us asking "So what are we going to do tonight, girls?" Which was weird, because he had a manic grin and a corduroy suit on and especially because he definitely wasn't Lizzie's friend Jeremy. And then, oddly enough, a couple of friendly round-faced gents on the other side of me chose that moment to ask Lizzie and me if we were having a "Ladies' Night." To which Lizzie immediately responded, "Yes, are you?" and to which I responded, "No. We are having a Business MEETING." Apparently it didn't matter to them or to pseudo-Jeremy, because they hung out for a while, but luckily the dudes just started talking to each other and Lizzie and I got back to keeping minutes.

Incidentally, here is an excerpt of what the Coolest Power Meetings You Could Ever Imagine look like:

BIG BUSINESS
commencing FEBRUARY 18, 2010 8:07PM
HOT MAMA'S PIZZA BY THE SLICE
700 EAST PINE STREET, SEATTLE, WA

we should write an essay. a pamphlet, really. it should be called the new nation. it is an ethos. we are going to pare down to build up. excess is the enemy of the new nation. we just need the classic. you never wear those purple pants, anyway. the new nation exists in a simpler time & place where we start realizing our dreams right after we conceive them. imagine what you could do!

we could live in a loft and hang our clothes from the ceiling like christmas lights. 0 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, $1200.

MEETING ADJOURNED TEMPORARILY
WALKED THE MEAN STREETS
RE-ESTABLISHED (IN TRANSIT)

the coolest people have style uniforms. like mr. rogers. he had it down! different sneaks, different sweater, same unmatchable style. i really believe that, actually. also, french actresses, or david bowie.

concluding FEBRUARY 18, 2010, 11:28PM
MY APARTMENT



The rest of the weekend was pretty epic. We (randomly) got to see South Pacific at the 5th Avenue Theater for free, spent time with a Russian badass, and stayed out waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay past curfew.


A

48 hours with annie murphy

last weekend was so, so much fun. but before the fun could begin, it was important that annie and i held a very important and formal business meeting...with pizza. and fur coats. and strangers on skateboards (who skateboards up a hill, really?)

delicious brain food, courtesy of hot mama's pizza by the slice and our friend, jimmy.

who taught us our manners?

when all is said and done, when the week comes to a close, all a girl really needs is pizza, a best girlfriend and dreeeaaams! and happy hour. hello oddfellows. hello chao. hello unicorn. hello friday night college party (sorry we just walked in).

hello living room. hello wood panel walls and mood lighting.

hello serious american girls.

hello silly american girls.

ah, and hello hot dog mustard (and cream cheese) all over my new blue jeans. good night world.

xoxo,

L