The Weekend Report

Attended: Birthday party at the Bracewell residence. A fire pit crackled. Rock bands played. Then everyone hung out in the kitchen.

Saw: Boyhood, by Richard Linklater (the guy behind the great Dazed And Confused). A meandering assemblage of moments in the life of a family—all strung together in a way that's just very, very REAL.

Drank: Americanos with honey—a more delicious, more manageable, more healthful cocaine of sorts.

Read: This sentence by Heidi Swanson: "There's a lot to be said about doing the work you want to be doing. And chipping away at it, regularly, as a practice, has the potential to help show you the way." Thank god for work. Sometimes. You know?

Favorites 4.21.14

Evening sun breaks after dark, downpoury Saturdays: Right when you were about to turn on the tele and chock the whole day up to sweatpants, a beam of sun spears through the cloudbank. Next thing you know, you're walking across a field scattered with miniature daisies, dog by your side, squinting into the most delicious sideways sunshine.

A pile of fresh herbs: This week, I kept a mass of fresh dill in a water glass on my countertop and sprinkled piles of its chopped fronds into everything I ate. It was the best.

Decaf: Coffee is so much more than a way to wake up. It's a gustatory delight, to be savored at any hour of the day. But! I roll decaffeinated after that first morning full caff. This keeps me from sweating and chewing the insides of my cheeks all day.

Captain Phillips: A classic nail-biter action movie—minus cheesy Hollywood-action-movie acting (you get Oscar-nominated acting, instead). Based on a true story about Somali pirates hijacking a container ship off the coast of Africa. Real-deal edge-of-seat type stuff.

So Cal Twilight Zone

Generally speaking, shit's getting cold around here, but I just spent two days in Palm Springs for the annual Transworld editorial meetings. As you know, I love the desert, and Palm Springs is in the desert. However, this town is very strange, a kinda twilight zone of senior citizens and other odd LA-folk who got caught out there like a pile of wayward tumbleweeds.

It didn't help that we were staying at the Ace Hotel, which is ground zero for vacationing Los Angeles hipsters. Thus, while the other hotel poolsides were packed with polyester leisure suits, ours was awash with deep-V tees (to better display chest tatts)—and everyone in Ray Ban sunglasses.

The Ace Hotel grounds—very retro modern.

The Ace diner serves coffee from a French press, which is great and all, but we were rolling 9 people deep and there was never enough. "Can we get another French press?"

Before flying home, I stopped off to visit the Koerner-Anson's in Huntington Beach. Wouldn't you know, the entire SoCal coast was in the midst of a "winter storm warning." Brrr. No tan for me this time.

Bo-Bo has taken to boxing. Check out his fight stance.