dave eggers. i'm reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and it's pretty cool.

ivan doig. i was crying by page five of This House of Sky.

i know, i know, 2 in one day. but as i graded all these IDs about picasso, i started thinking about art, so here's another theme list (alphabetically, to be fair):

diane arbus. i saw her sfmoma show, which was great. man, i love black and white photography. her work is weird and insightful and sometimes disturbing and really brilliant.

chagall. i love that he uses a lot of red. lovers in a red sky is hanging in my closet. he also did some bitchin windows.

frank lapena. he does all kinds of interesting stuff. including this really beautiful woodblock of mt. shasta. he has a very recent book.

roman loranc. beautiful, haunting, mostly black and white photography. he does a lot of work in the central valley. and let me tell you, when i moved here, the first time i saw tule fog i thought "hot damn, it's like stepping into a roman loranc photo." where i used to work we had a couple of his photos up on the walls, and one was this great shot of a church in lithuania, with beautiful light streaming down.

rondal partridge. completely crazy 80 yr old photographer who lives up in the berkeley hills and is the son of imogene cunningham. he rocks, personally and artistically. check out his book.

picasso. especially the old guitarist (breaks my heart) and guernica (used to be in the kitchen of one of my apartments). i'm also really fond of his inkblots, particularly don quixote.

gerhard richter. brilliant german painter. i saw his show at sfmoma a couple years ago, and it really blew me away.

preston singletary. tlingit glass blower. nice guy, and does phenomenal work. i'm particularly fond of raven steals the moon.

and finally, my boy van gogh. i particularly dig starry night (it gives me happy don mclean thoughts), starlight over rhone (reminds me of the pier at pismo beach), cafe terrace at night (i love the lighting), and the bedroom (because l. frank did this rad coyote version of it).

(oh yeah, this of course does not count my numerous terribly talented artist friends, who are naturally my favorite artists).

and, just to be silly and break theme here, barry white. i love barry white. i also love the heyday fedex man, who always reminded me of a barry white song.

corgies. seriously, have you ever seen anything so adorable? there was one outside the cafe this morning and he was very sweet.

dog shows in general. they're hilarious. watch one sometime, and then watch best in show.

there was one other thing i was going to put here...coffee? well, i do like that. damn, now this is going to bother me.

OH, i remember. the Wyclef Jean remix of Kenny Rogers doing "The Gambler." if you haven't heard it, i highly recommend it.

today has a theme, tattoos. i like tattoos. all kinds, but i'm particularly fond of custom work. i'm also really interested in the history of tattooing, like traditional cultural tattoo and whatnot.

these are my feet, hugin & munin. and this is my back, so far the nameless phoenix. i can't name it jean because that's my artist's name.

and these are the tats that inspired my feet. they are stylized water birds, and were done by a maori guy using the traditional polynesian tapping method.

tattoo: a love story. not the greatest movie, but it was kind of cute.

sarah's (mia kirshner) tattoos in the 2nd crow movie. really the best part of that film.

the boys who work at my favorite cafe. they count because most of them are tattooed. they are also very cute, and very cool. they play KDVS, which was playing merle haggard this morning (and bluegrass yesterday). one looks like willie nelson and is in a band; one looks like mike from slc punk; one looks like a short surfer with a great upper body; one is heavily tattooed and didn't know that the cheese bagels were called asiago (we had a very cute conversation). i'm relatively sure that everyone there smokes. and i have crushes on them all. they are part of the reason i continue going to this cafe.

speaking of silly crushes, m. at the co op was looking particularly hot tonight. he doesn't go with the tattoo theme (at least not that i know of), but whatever.

gayle: maybe we need a blog for all the stupid crushes we have.

st. patrick's day. because i also like the color green, alcohol, and all things irish.

brie. damned good cheese my friends.

diet coke. amazingly enough. i used to hate diet sodas. so far dc is the only one i can drink, and it's keeping me happily caffeinated while i grade papers (which i don't like).

this site. man, it just never gets old. it makes me roll all over the floor every time i read it.

muppets. do i really need to say why? i mean, come on. MUPPETS. the muppet show. over the summer i would get the muppet show from netflix and get high and watch it right before bed, it would make me all warm and fuzzy inside. also, jim henson rocks, and the henson creature shop made all the cool farscape creatures. and farscape is something else i really like.

it's monday night dear reader, do you know what that means? it means it's time for my weekly deadwood proclamations. god. GAWD. i love deadwood. that show is so fucking great. sometimes i think i might even like it more than homicide. seriously. i'm all giddy and basking in the post-deadwood happiness now. man. so good.

today's a music day (since i'm researching/writing, i'm pretty much tied to my desk and winamp). i realize this makes for a crazy long post, and most of you (all 2 of you who read this thing) don't particularly care, but i think it makes for a cool playlist and it's my damned blog anyway, so there. anyway, here's what i'm particularly loving right now:

10,000 Maniacs - Because the Night
Avril Lavigne - Fall to Pieces
Bad Religion - American Jesus
Barry White - Can't Get Enough of Your Love
Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice
Beatles - Across the Universe
Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love
Christina Aguilera & Lil Kim - Can't Hold Us Down
Conway Twitty - Hello Darlin
Counting Crows - Mr. Jones
Cross Canadian Ragweed - My Only Bad Habit
D Generation - Helpless
Dire Straits - Romeo & Juliet
Dr. Hook - You Make My Pants Want To Get Up And Dance
Drive By Truckers - Three Great Alabama Icons
Flaming Lips - Thank You Jack White
Green Day - When I Come Around
Iris Dement - God May Forgive You
Jeff Buckley - The Man That Got Away
John Lennon - We All Shine On
Jolly Rogers - Galway Girls
Led Zeppelin - Thank You
Lesley Gore - You Don't Own Me
Liz Phair - Divorce Song
Loretta Lynn - Miss Being Mrs.
Marlena Shaw - California Soul
Marty Stuart & Merle Haggard - Farmer's Blues
Meatloaf - Paradise by the Dashboard Lights
MST3K - Canada Song
Neil Finn - She Will Have Her Way
Old 97s - Designs on You
Otis Redding - Try A Little Tenderness
Pansy Division - Flower (Liz Phair cover)
Patty Loveless - Cheap Whiskey
Pretenders - I'll Stand By You
Queen - I Want To Break Free
Rancid - She's Automatic
Rolling Stones - Angie
Sam Phillips - Reflecting Light
Sarah McLachlan - Full of Grace
Steve Earle - Ben McCulloch
The Band - The Weight
Tom Waits & Primus - On the Road
Tool - Aenima
Von Bondies - C'mon C'mon
Waylon & Willie - Good Hearted Woman
Ween - (It's Gonna Be) Alright
Weezer - Simple Pages
When In Rome - The Promise
Wilco - Thirteen
Wildbunch - Danger (High Voltage)

tulips. i got some really awesome ballerinas and barcelonas at the farmer's market yesterday. they make my apartment look so lovely. tulips are my 2nd favorite flower (after sunflowers).

the thought of a house. with a yard. and a full sized kitchen. maybe even a WASHER AND DRYER. i'm moving this summer, living with 2 friends. the thought of having a house, where i can have a kitty, just makes me giddy. i keep seeing these houses all around davis with these crazy yards full of blooming buttercups, and they're so lovely and out of control, i want a yard just like that. i really wish i had a digital camera so i could take pictures of all this shit.

speaking of cameras, i love polaroids. i would really like to have my own polaroid.

and that reminds me of other arty things. i've had two calendars now with some absolutely incredible tiffany windows and lamps. here's an example of a window. and here's a lamp.

ducks. something about them makes me very mellow and happy.

olives. i just ate a whole can.

bonnie tyler. yeah, i know.

today's a mostly tv loving day for some reason.

dukes of hazzard. (really showing my white trash roots these past couple of days, eh?)

gilmore girls. i've been so delighted with it lately that i can't even detail it here.

70 degree weather. it has been sheer perfection in davis for the past 3 or 4 days. the only problem is that i know that in another couple of weeks, we'll be approaching 100. i wish it would stay like this forever.

want to know what i don't like? fucking throat infections that make me constantly feel like there's something stuck in my throat.

holy christ, this technically doesn't count because i posted it yesterday, but I LOVE DEADWOOD. the first episode of season 2 is awesome. man. god that show is good.

so, this is hardly a creative idea from the depths of my brain. i stole it. but, i like the idea, so i'm going to run with it. periodically, i'll post things i like here - hence the title. random things. music, movies, books, websites, sunny days, etc.

here's what i'm liking today:

new shoes. i just got these spiffy $7 sandals from rite aid, as well as some swanky shoes from payless (cheap swank is the best kind).

deadwood. my god, this show is so great. i was so instantly obsessed that i blew like $25 renting all of the episodes from blockbuster last weekend.

cold mountain. book and movie. they're both crazily beautiful and haunting.

tea. i decided today to actually use the ceramic tea pot i got for christmas a couple years ago.

peter balakian's black dog of fate. i haven't actually read the whole thing yet, but the part i did read was really good. in that same vein, i really dig war memoirs in general. i'm not sure why this is.

sherman alexie. fabulous writer, very funny, and he likes dolly parton. in short, he's very close to being perfect.

weezer. really, i just love them in general, for many reasons (rivers is hot, they once made a video with the muppets, their music is great). lately, though, i've been particularly fond of the songs "holiday" (they rhyme "bivouac" with "kerouac" - how great is that??), "falling for you," and "simple pages."

smokey and the bandit. man, this was on amc last night while i was working, and i hadn't seen it in so long that i'd almost forgotten how much i loved it as a child. it's still funny. but then, i dig burt reynolds. and i like the song "east bound and down." also, i like fred.