(listen) Completely Not Me from Jenny Lewis in collaboration with Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend. (photo) iPhone + vsco | fog on I-5, Oregon.
weekend song | Completely Not Me
two for | Pacific Northwest Green
(photos) 1. on film with Nikon FM | 2. on film with Leica CL, taken by Tessa
thetas for a lifetime.
One of the very best choices that I made in college was joining a sorority. I know greek life gets a bad-rap, but Theta has made such a difference in my life. Going to college at a private university in Southern California quickly gave me an inferiority complex - seeing as I was neither rich nor blonde. I met my best friends as a Theta and found a network of ladies who helped me find my sparkle again. For that I will always be so grateful.
As I've gotten older, Theta has also had a lasting professional impact on my life. Being part of a sorority taught me how to work with (rather than compete against) other women. It's something I think is so important in a society where we're taught that the opportunities for ladies are limited, making us see other women as rivals rather than allies.
Even though I've been out of undergrad for four years now, 2013 felt like a very "Theta" year for me. First, I was incredibly blessed to be awarded a scholarship from the Theta Foundation for my graduate studies. And secondly, my little sister - who was also a theta at Oregon State - got married. All of her best friends and most of her bridesmaids are also Thetas (the picture above is of all of KATs at her wedding). It made me realize that being a Theta for a lifetime isn't just a tagline, it's a promise. Happy founders day, Kappa Alpha Theta!
(photos) 1. Lily's theta badge on her bridal bouquet | 2. by Olivia Ashton
weekenders | Salinger
Once on a car trip, an ex-boyfriend and I got in a heated argument over my deep dislike of Holden Caulfield. I realize I'm part of a small minority of people who don't (...or didn't) love Catcher in the Rye. But, with all my twenty-year old conviction I started shouting about trust and vulnerability, and a certain kind of privilege that lets a person - or in this case a character - judge and harden to the world. We ended up pulling over somewhere on PCH, and getting out of the car to cool-out.
A few years (and one boyfriend) later, I decided to give ole J.D. another try with Franny and Zooey. And, I've rarely felt more understood by a book. Franny is my Holden - and she made me a Salinger fan. So, I worked my way through everything else I could find. Rumor has it that a posthumous series of Glass family stories will be published in the next few years. I, for one, could not be more excited. Until then...
weekenders | on author J.D Salinger
- watch: Salinger, the new documentary {which is currently instant-streaming on Netflix!}
- read: The Man in the Glass House - a 1997 article in Esquire Magazine. The best thing that came out of the documentary was that it piqued my curiosity enough to seek out out a second opinion. This article is a long read, but more thoughtful and tender than the documentary. so worth the scrolling!!
- think: J.D Salinger is, of course, famously reclusive and it's a big focus of both the doc and the article. Rosenbaum writes
"S.'s silent presence is like an unvoiced koan, a trick question that forces one to question oneself. I meditate upon S.'s silence, upon the absence of it in my life, upon all the other absences in my life. I began to feel very sad; I began to feel S.'s sadness, his sorrow and pity for a world filled with unenlightened souls like mine."
He's referring to the famous and enigmatic epigraph that J.D added to the reprint of Nine Stories about "the sound of one hand clapping." (There's a great reflection on it in Rosebaum's article ... and it ties up to my second favorite Salinger story A Lovely Day for a Banana Fish) It made me think a lot about celebrity and what it means to leave the spotlight in a time when we are obsessed with personal aspects of creative professionals.
Are you a Salinger fan? everyone's read Catcher in the Rye - did you relate to Holden or did you hate him?
sunday drive.
Andy drives an old mercedes and the back seat is big enough for two people, a little black pitbull, and then some. We all climbed in the car for a sunday drive to Hood River to show Mr. Midwest the mountain.
While Tyler and I were staying at my Dad's, we watched a documentary on OPB called The River They Saw. It was focused on early nature photography in the Columbia River gorge. The photographs taken there inspired people to move West because they were so unlike anything they had seen; it's a river cutting through the middle of a mountain range! It makes me understand why someone would write a song like America, The Beautiful or leave their home in search of adventure. Even from the cushy leather backseat of an old mercedes I was filled with a sense of discovery - struck by the enormity of the towering landscapes coming up on either side of the highway.
(photos) on film with Leica CL | Columbia River Gorge
five motivational rap songs for applying to PhD programs {or other big projects.}
The hardest part of applying to PhD programs was that it filled me with an incredible amount of self-doubt. Every time I sat down to write, I compared myself to millions of imaginary ivy league applicants with perfect GRE scores and perfect hair (... not that hair has anything to do with getting into a PhD program. But for some reason the "best and brightest" always manifests looking like something out of a Vidal Sassoon commercial)
Fortunately, one faithful friday night, I discovered that the mix my sister made for running a marathon was still loaded on my iPod. Twenty six miles worth of pump-up jams - songs about overcoming challenges and getting to the top. These songs got me. Maybe I don't know what it feels like to become an international superstar after slingin' rocks on a street corner. But, I do know what it feels like to have big dreams and to be willing to do anything to make them happen.
Sam's Top 5 Motivational Rap Songs About Making It Happen:
- Lupe Fiasco - The Show Goes On
- Drake - The Winner
- Notorious B.I.G. - Juicy
- Kanye West - All of the Lights
- Jay Z - Encore
... use responsibly. The ideal confidence level is somewhere between "Jessica's Daily Affirmation" and Richard Sherman's post game interview.
two for | Winter Chill
"And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million petaled flower of being here, in the world, with other people. Neither as hard as she had thought it might be nor as easy as it appeared."
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
(photos) on film with pentax K1000 | queen annes in Scio, OR and snow in Northampton, MA
a sweet and simple wedding cake.
When we were planning the details for her wedding, one of the traditions Lily wanted to skip was the wedding cake: "I don't even really like cake." she said "I wish it could just be funfetti." So ... funfetti it was! My best friend Tessa volunteered to make Lily and AJ a little layer cake so they could enjoy the tradition without basically baking a skyscraper for their big wedding (... what would a cake for 200 people even look like?) Tessa cut the rosemary and the lavender from her garden that morning and frosted it at the farm while all the bridesmaids were having their hair done. It was her first time baking a wedding cake and it was perfect. Sweet simplicity!
To top it all off, the cake table was steps away from a pen of bunnies. BUNNIES. Farm weddings have their perks, you guys.
(photos) by Olivia Ashton Photography
lily's wedding.
raise your hand if you want to see some pics from my sister's wedding?! well, these are the only ones I took because I was mostly busy painting emergency wooden directional signs after another set of signs appeared on the same country road for farm wedding in the opposite direction. luckily there's never any shortage of cameras at a wedding, so stay tuned for a few more this week!
The big day was full of blessings (no rain! no mosquitos!) but the biggest might have been that I managed not to get neon pink tempra paint on my bridesmaid dress.
(photos) 1 and 3 on film with Pentax K1000, other's are iphone + vsco.
icicles.
The week that I traveled home for winter break, most of the news (and my facebook feed) was focused on the freezing weather in Oregon. This being my second East Coast winter, I couldn't help but feel a little superior ... like Hey everyone in Portland! it's so icy here that I had to bear crawl down a driveway this morning. Come visit me in Massachusetts anytime!! This week we're catching some of the polar vortex with 12 degree afternoons. I'm going to swallow any complaints though since Milwaukee is something like - 47 with windchill. yea, no. no thank you.
(photos) on film with Pentax K1000 | Icicles on Elm St. in Northampton, MA
frosty farm day.
My sister's husband, AJ, is the most energetic person I've ever met. The amount of work this guy gets done in a day is incredible, and in the freezing cold no less! On this particularly frosty morning, he took Lily and I around for "take-your-girlfriend (and her sister) to-work day." We picked up the eggs from the chickens and fed the pigs in our carhartt coats.
Thank god for photography. Sometimes I think the only reason I go out in nature is to take pictures of it.
(photos) on film with Pentax K1000 | Harmony Jack Farms in Scio, OR
(p.s) more from the farm: frosty queen anne's lace and the most beautiful farm eggs.
weekenders | This Is The New Year
there's this moment in the documentary Grey Gardens when the focus of the film, Edie Beale, says: "It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present, you know what I mean?" and oh yes, edie. I definitely know what you mean. Maybe that (usually blurry) boundary is why I feel so excited and a little out-of-sorts this time of year. New Year's Day is a definitive line, demarcating then and now.
weekend reading | For A Fresh Start
- new year, new desktop background!
- how to make resolutions that stick.
- is 'be more like Kate Middleton' a New Years resolution?
- or better yet ... I resolve to be more mindful like Mary Oliver: "It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world —"
happy new year!
all it takes for a great New Years Eve:
- 10 good friends
- nine $1 bills
- less than or equal to 5 negronis
- 4 enormous gold balloons
- 1 glass of champagne
- 90 Totino's pizza rolls.
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