WE LOVE LACMA

Just another Sunday-Funday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art! We are so happy to be card-carrying members now, and we are putting that membership to great use these days. We’re especially glad to see Ruby has just as much fun there as we do.

Playing inside Chris Burden’s Urban Light

A fun installation of yellow plastic bands to play in!

Ruby + Daddy checking out Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog (Blue)

Our reflection in Jeff Koons’ Cracked Egg

Mommy + Ruby checking out the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Boxes by Andy Warhol

The newest fun exhibit is Metropolis II, an awesome miniature city with cars racing through it! Of course, anything in miniature is a given love for Ed, and Ruby is fascinated by watching the cars go. Here’s part of the piece:

And here’s a short clip of it in motion:

And finally, here’s a cute little clip of Miss Ruby, having fun playing around all the lamp posts in Chris Burden’s Urban Light:

Oh Palm Springs, How we have missed you!

What has always been a yearly tradition, we are headed back to Palm Springs for my birthday and Modernism Week this year! This is a major milestone for us, because we are leaving Ruby with Grandma + Grandpa and heading out for 2 glorious days/nights! Ed + I have been giddy ever since booking the trip this afternoon.

This year, we have decided to stay at Hope Springs Resort. It’s been on our list for while, and we decided to go for it this year. It’s actually in Desert Hot Springs, so outside of Palm Springs proper, but its gorgeous and somewhere different, and a little bit more budget friendly than our past trips, like at The Parker and The Viceroy. :) We figure the 3 hot mineral pools and the amazing mid-century modern grounds will make up for the 20 min. commute into Palm Springs for the day …

 

We’re also going to check out Charles Phoenix’s new Retro Slideshow, “Pools, Patios, and BBQs”. We can NOT wait! We saw his Christmas slideshow a few years ago, and it was too rad for words. This is going to be a great weekend … I’ve never been so excited to turn another year older!

Songs We Liked in 2011, plus download our Top 3 Albums of the Year!

It’s that time of year again, and both Ed + I made compilations with our favorite songs of 2011. There is some artist overlap (hey, we’re married – we like some of the same things), but I assure you, they are two completely different mixes.


>>Click to download Carrie’s “Listen Up, 2011!”

Please excuse the complete lack of any tracks from the new Black Keys album – it’s hard to choose one, and I figured they’d be showing up in all kinds of other top lists anyway. Also, due to extreme negligence, there are no tracks by The Kills either. I concede this is just lame, but somehow the new album was off my radar and I haven’t given myself adequate time with it yet. I’m confident you’ll love these tracks though, and I am very happy to be happy with music in 2011 (as opposed to last year)!

Track list:

01/Marathon – Tennis
02/My Country – Tune-Yards
03/I Stayed Too Late – The Ettes
04/Deadbeat Summer* – Neon Indian
05/Two Against One – Danger Mouse + Daniele Luppi feat. Jack White
06/Solitude is Bliss* – Tame Impala
07/Bumper – Cults
08/Santa Fe – Beirut
09/German Love* – Starfucker
10/Weekend – Class Actress
11/The Suburbs (Arcade Fire cover) – Mr Little Jeans

 

*Track not released in 2011, but 2011 was when I discovered it … so there you have it.

 


>>Click to download “Ed’s Tops in 11”

This was a good year for music.  Carrie still finds it entertaining how my musical tastes have expanded; those who have known me for years remember my trance boy phase and even after that, if it wasn’t electronic in some way, I wasn’t interested.

There were some really solid albums this year, and I think my mix represents a good spectrum of what was awesome.  Make no mistake though, Dance Party Ed is still alive and well as evidenced by the seemingly random inclusion of White Knuckle Ride by Jamiroquai at the end of the comp!

Track list:

01/Michael Jackson – Das Racist
02/Deerhoof – Qui Doem, Només Somia
03/Still Sound – Toro y Moi
04/Eyes Be Closed – Washed Out
05/Season’s Trees – Danger Mouse + Daniele Luppi
06/Abducted – Cults
07/He Gets Me High – Dum Dum Girls
08/Desire Lines – Deerhunter
09/Shell Games – Bright Eyes
10/Lucidity – Tame Impala
11/Green Aisles – Real Estate
12/Money – The Drums
13/Get Away – Yuck
14/White Knuckle Ride – Jamiroquai

If you’re on Spotify, feel free to subscribe to our lists there if you don’t feel like downloading them!

Our Favorite Albums

We both agreed on our Top 3 albums this year … and we’re willing to share!

#1: Cults

This album is a complete play-through and we are both totally into it. Like, listen to it over… and over… and over into it. Yeah – they met in art school and were on Yo Gabba Gabba’s “Awesome Xmas Special” this year, so you know they are especially radical with that kind of hipster street cred.

Click to download

 

 

 

#2: Danger Mouse + Daniele Luppi – Rome 

We are both hard-pressed to think of a Danger Mouse project that isn’t awesome, and with Daniele Luppi, who is an Italian soundtrack composer clearly influenced by Ennio Morricone (who happened to compose the most epic and iconic Spaghetti Western soundtracks ever), Rome hits just the right chords for us. Top it off with multiple tracks featuring Jack White, and this is good as gold.  It even kinda made us Norah Jones converts, too.

Click to download

 

#3: Tune-Yards – Whokill

If our friend Tony hadn’t shown us this video of Merrill Garbus performing “Bizness” live in a studio in Brussels, I’m sure we’d never bother even giving this album a chance.  We’d both heard this song over and over on SiriusXMU and were completely ANNOYED by it until we saw how all of the magic is done. This album is amazing and Carrie hasn’t stopped listening to this album or trying to sing these songs herself for six weeks straight. Enjoy it.

Click to download