two things for you to visually digest

thing #1. here's a way-close-up photo of a little sump'n-sump'n i whipped up. can you guess what it is?


i have no idea why you would be able to guess what that is, seeing as it was only just invented a few weeks ago. it's part of the new line from over the moon designs--crocheted wire jewelry is our new thing. so much fun. here's what it looks like to the unaided eye:




thing #2 the take-away shows. (known in france as "les concerts à emporter.") just wanted to alert you of the presence of this magnificent endeavor if you'd never heard of it before. it's one of my favorite features of the internet machine, don'tcha-know. video sessions of incredibly wonderful musicians performing mini concerts as they wander the streets of france, and occasionally in elevators or on rooftops (see below.)

this one is obviously my favorite, for two reasons:
a) it's sufjan.
b) he's singing a cover of my number one favorite song on the planet, "the lakes of canada," by the innocence mission. now seriously. what are the odds of that happening? i am still dumbstruck each time i listen to it, ever since i discovered it sometime last summer. i used to daydream about the wondrous magic that could occur if my dearest innocence mission and sufjan suddenly collided, and then that dream came true one day. that just DOESN'T HAPPEN, people. it doesn't happen. and it happened.



here's what sufjan had to say about the song on NPR:

"I'm in awe of big songs, national anthems, rock opera, the Broadway musical. But what I always come back to, after the din and drum roll, is the small song that makes careful observations about everyday life. This is what makes the music by The Innocence Mission so moving and profound. 'Lakes of Canada' creates an environment both terrifying and familiar using sensory language: incandescent bulbs and rowboats are made palpable by careful rhythms, unobtrusive rhyme schemes, and specificity of language. What is so remarkable about Karen Peris' lyrics are the economy of words, concrete nouns-fish, flashlight, laughing man-which come to life with melodies that dance around the scale like sea creatures. Panic and joy, a terrible sense of awe, the dark indentations of memory all come together at once, accompanied by the joyful strum of an acoustic guitar. This is a song in which everyday objects begin to have tremendous meaning."

okay. good grief. thank you for expressing the beauty of this song in a much more rational way than i ever could.

anyway, if you're not into that (pssh!),
you can watch this
other
rather
excellent
one
full of clanking glasses and lovely light and a deep manly baritone.