Stuff I like Right Now

1. Xray Eyeballs
I'm not all that great is "genre"-atizing music like so many people enjoy doing this days ("Glitch-folk" "Post-grunge" "Septic Metal"; Jesus christ people, how am I supposed to know what that means? Just tell me if it sucks or not?!?!)
Well I am here to say that Xray Eyeballs does not suck. My attempt to describe them is: they are a lo-fi pop band from Brooklyn, with a sort of 80's goth feel. Plus, this music video is awesome. Who doesn't love voodoo dolls, girls with tattoos in bubble baths, and excuses to puke blood?




2. The Cute Show
The Cute Show basically embodies everything that I believe in. It is a product of Vice TV, and the premise of the show is to go around and get footage of cute stuff! Then, adorable quirky music is added on top of the footage, and voila! And episode of The Cute Show!! They have many episodes about cats, of course, but also have baby pot-bellied pigs, baby walruses, puppies, bunnies, cupcakes, ice cream, and best of all, sloths!


This is one of my all time favorites, about a Japanese cat-fashion designer.






 
3. Slutever

  
Slutever, aka Karley Sciortino, is pretty much the coolest girl I stalk on the internet. I started reading her blog when she was squatting in London and have been hooked ever since. She talk about lots of super interesting things like crazy sex fetishes (she's training to be a pro-domme right now, the post about it is hilarious.), dating, gay boyfriends, and her super awesome life running around NY/America/London with artists and bands. You can soak in her words of wisdom here.

4. Mugsy The Cat
All around Bad-Ass. 

5. The Seldom Seem
 The Seldom Seem is a long distance project between photographer's Felix Werbowy and Boy Loyd. What happens is Felix sends a photo to Boy, Boy finds a photo from his collection, then they are posted on their tumblr.

I loved having pen-pals when I was a kid, and I think this is a really cool idea for a modern version of that. The excitement of the pen pal was what you didn't know about them, trying to piece together who they really are through what they wrote to you. With the advent of such joyous things as the internet and social networking sites, very little information is kept form each other these days. 
I don't think that internet friends you have never met are quite the same thing as a pen pal. Although they choose what information to present on the internet, there is inevitably much more information about them presented in front of you at any given moment. Not the same as a pen pal. A pen pal is a person you have never seen, you have never heard their voice, you don't know what high school their sister goes too, or whether or not "Pirate" is a language they speak. 
These two artists are conversing through their snapshots, not through skype or facebook chat. It is so beautiful to me that the internet can provide a pathway for people to communicate in a way that they stay removed from each other, reminiscent of a more "primitive" day and age. 

Irish Soda Bread

So if you logged on today expecting to see pictures of people you don't know holding their cats, well I'm sorry. I don't think I'm going to post those every week, because I realized when I'm not spending all day studying, I tend not to spend any time on facebook, either. 

In other words, I haven't found enough pictures of people with their cats because this past week. I've had more of a life and haven't been lurking the facebook world as much, so you really should be proud of me, not disappointed!! I promise I will post another edition of "People With Cats" again, but maybe not on a weekly basis.

Instead, I'm sure you will enjoy this recipe for Irish Soda Bread, passed down to me from my irish mother (who may or may not have adapted it from the joy of cooking, and not her own irish mother...). 

 Even though this bread is made from scratch, there is no yeast in it. The baking soda is what makes it rise! I recommend eating a slice of it toasted with some butter or cream cheese. And maybe a hot toddy, too, for good measure. yumz.

Irish Soda Bread

ingredients:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon sugar

¼ cup chilled butter

½ to 1 cup raisins or currants

2 teaspoons caraway seeds (1 tsp caraway 1 tsp fennel seeds works well, too)

1 beaten egg

2/3 cup buttermilk

directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Sift together in a large bowl: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar

Add butter and cut into the flour with a pastry blender (fork + elbow grease= perfect substitute), until the mixture has the consistency of course cornmeal, sort of like this:

Stir in: raisins/currant & caraway/fennel seeds (just skip this step if you don't want seeds in your bread)

Mix together: beaten egg & buttermilk

Then, add to dry ingredients and stir well

Knead briefly and place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper

  Cut a bold cross or criss-cross pattern over the top and sides so the bread will not crack in baking (I did not make the incision bold enough, and the bread cracked!) 

Brush the top with milk (I used soy, cow milk would probably have given it a better sheen)

Bake 35 to 40 minutes.

Vegan Substitutions: Substitute just about any kind of vegetable based shortening for butter. Smart Balance makes baking sticks with vegetable oil, and those work quite nicely.  

Soy yogurt or vegan sour cream can substitute for buttermilk.  
The egg can be replaced with a vegan egg substitute. A friend recently introduced me to this.  It's this powder that you mix with a few teaspoons of water to replace eggs in baking, cooking, etc. etc.

You can skip the milk on top, or use soy like I did.  It is only for looks, though, so not really necessary either way. 

People With Cats

Sorry it's a day late, I took a last minute trip to tally last night to see the illustrious Elizabeth Miller and also see The Books play. It will be on Sunday next week, I swear!

Jay Leno and his kitty!!

3/26/11

So, like two weeks ago, I went down to my favorite neighborhood bar, The Laboratory (A cafe of science!) to hear Rachel Goodrich play. She's a singer from Miami who plays a ukelele (although she played a guitar when I saw her. boo.) and kazoo and she's super adorbz. But alas, I have been bogged down in the world of research papers, pop quizzes, and graduation plans. So I am just now getting to writing about the night. My b. While we're on the subject of "my b", I also want to apologize for the quality of camera recording, it has a crack in the lense that has turned into eighteen cracks :(
These are two of the songs Rachel and her band played that night:

The opening acts were really good too! The first lady was named Jacqueline Suskin, and she's touring right now promoting her new book. It's called "The Collected" and it's a book of poetry based on found photographs that she has collected around Florida. Here is an excerpt from the book:

you can watch her read more excerpts here, here, here, and here. You can follow this link to her website, where you can find information on how to purchase her book!
The other performer was this fabulous man by the name of Liam Barnes. He has an adorable giggle and plays an accordian which is pretty impressive. He did cover songs, and happened to include one by one of my favorite singers/Womyn ever, Dolly Parton!! Oh yes, mmhhhmm.

So good, right?

People With Cats

So, you have probably come to the conclusion at this point that I like cats. Another thing I really like to do is aimlessly lurk every far reaching corner of facebook, secretly looking in on everyone's lives who has left their pages on public view. FYI: This does NOT make me a creep, it makes you weird for leaving your fb page open for the world to see. You wanted this to happen.
But I digress. This past week, I had a stroke of genius, and decided to combine my two favorite interests: People and Cats!! From here on out, I will posting pictures of people with their cats every sunday that I found on facebook. I think it's super adorable to see people with their kitties, so in love with each other. I hope you do too! Here it is, the first installation of: People With Cats

Joel Zimmerman (Deadmau5) and his kitty =^.^=

If you see yourself on here, and don't want to be, just e-mail me at cfitzp25@ufl.edu and I'll take your picture off. If you would like to send me a picture of you with your cat, e-mail at the same address.