i have been playing el guincho's 2007 "alegranza" and "folias" for 4 years now because his work is so darn infectious. i can't begin to tell you how many wonderful memories i have had that have been amplified tremendously just because i've had these records playing in the background
here's some available clips!
this one has been played the most. simply joyful.
it's like a block party soundtrack that never gets old. colors and jumping and sangria and dancing and love and smiling and friendships and ending in an eruption of fireworks. at this point i've seen and danced like an idiot in front of him while attempting to confess how his album is like colors and jumping and sangria and dancing and love and smiling and friendships and ending in an eruption of fireworks. at the time he didn't know a lot of english so there was a bit of a barrier in communication... outside of the dancing and shouting loudly about the colors and jumping and sangria and dancing and love and friendships and ending in an eruption of fireworks.
i signed up for a website in early 2008 that tracks how often i listen to songs in my library and since january 2008 i have listened to the 22 available tracks at least 2,469 times.
he has finally put out some new stuff four years later and i am sooooo ready for more colors and jumping and .... you get the picture.
here's an ep he will be releasing before his big full length album coming out in the fall. it's a collection of covers of south american standards.
that's right! my parents came to visit and watch me finish grad school. so naturally i took various photos of the back of my father's head.
these are from a collection called: my dad saw fish at the california academy of sciences.
being the aquarium expert that he is, the usual specimen weren't incredibly impressive.
until he caught a glimpse of these characters
speaking of fish, i was able to bring my parents along to my favorite sushi place, warakubune on church street.
here's a quick clip of what the boats look like -
i don't know who that guy at the end was, but he had my favorite order, the shrimp special roll. i actually am so obsessed with it that i keep an image of it on my phone whenever i feel blue, or hungry.
this is actually pretty cool. some genius was able to sneak a camera onto one of the boats for a ride around the bar. i really can't stop watching the people's varied reactions (and non reactions).
my father, ever the pioneer in experimentation, saw the various colors of my favorite roll and decided it'd be best if he ordered his "cooked" fish instead.
i was, however, "cunning" enough to convince him to try my second favorite roll - the special aspargus.
by "cunning" i of course don't mean "i had two glasses of sapporo light and became abrasive"
and yes, my mother is using a fork. free country.
my father's head at the bay bridge!
my father's head at pier 39 admiring the many sea lions (and hating the many sea lion smells)
and yes, that's the back of my head. it's a father/son thing.
see? it continues all the way to wine tasting over the golden gate in sonoma and napa. don't we look alike?
here's the back of my father's head at the very top of san francisco.
here's the backside of BOTH parents overlooking graffiti alley in the mission district
and of course i had to take them to delores park for an afternoon of wine and cheese, accompanied by this incredible view.
i'm not sure how much rest they got on this vacation, because i also sent them: to the castro so they could see how clean my apartment is to the ferry building for fancy foods and wines to city hall for a political perspective to hayes valley for high end boutique shopping to golden gate park for a planetarium show, a rain-forest walk-through and animal exhibit to the painted ladies for a victorian view to lombard street for a nauseating drive to the mission for some counter culture to cox stadium for my graduation through haight/ashbury for a contact high to north beach (twice) for some seriously good italian food to zeitgeist for hard rock, big benches, grilled everything and backyard beers
and here's a picture i secretly took that brought me back to my parents house. it was at our last stop on the wine tour and only hours before i said a tearful farewell. the reason it means so much is that it reminds me of a particular painting that has been at their house for as long as i can remember. i always thought of it as a very tranquil image and the fact that it came to life was the perfect conclusion to a fantastic trip. their visit was the ultimate highlight of my time in san francisco.
phew. i feel like i just woke up from a dream where i was knee deep in settling into a new apartment and completing my final semester of grad school.
o. wait.
nevermind.
i apologize for my neglect. my website is a wonderful to collect and reflect on my thoughts and actions it appears that in the past month my thoughts were devoted primarily to moving and my thesis.
DONE!
WITH BOTH!!!!
so the thesis is in the printer's and my mother and father are currently in the sky on their way over for an initial s.f. encounter. ... they've already complained about the weather. they haven't landed yet. lucky jerseyites with their humidity and sunshine.
i'll be sure to take many photos and also upload images from the past month of insanity... believe - some weird stuff has happened.
