Søndag = Sunday

My dad was raised in Denmark before meeting my mom in the states and settling in her cozy little home state of Iowa to raise our family. Nearly all of the Sogaards (my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, extended family and friends) live in Denmark speaking Danish. Since journeying there solo for the first time and spending three weeks with them all this past summer, I returned to Chicago with the need to speak more of the Sogaard's native language.

My hope to improve upon my Danish is shared with my sister, Katrina, so we are using Danglish in our writing. We haven't officially agreed on this, but she wrote a facebook comment to our aunt in this combo-ed language the same day I emailed our grandparents in the same manner. It's damn hard, but I changed my browser default language to Danish. Google translate is just a click away. I've realized all of this is the best way to learn when I can't be surrounded by Danish or afford to take a class. 

Next up, speaking Danglish with Katrina so that we, as well as my 3.5 month-old nephew, Axel, can learn even more. And guess what! Our DK/U.S. Sogaard family is growing even more now as my cousin, Lise, and her husband, Emil, are expecting a baby next year. There may be an ocean between us, but we are as close as family gets. 

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A few things: 

• MOVE- watch this and then remember to do that 

• Visit my kick ass cousin Kimi's blog Dip Beneath Lazers

• My friend, Pat, shared this Iowa Public Radio story with me about the Danish word and concept of "hyggelig" (cozy). 

• GO BEARS!

Rye Rye ft. M.I.A. - Sunshine

Howdy! 

Barbara Keith - The Bramble & The Rose

Nico - I'm Not Sayin'

Nico, beer, and some sweet passionate candle light tonight! 

Vincent Cass

Vincent's Painting Class 

via The N.Y. Times

Future Islands - The Great Fire

Angel Olsen - Tiniest Seed

Lykki Li - Melodies & Desires

New album coming in MAY! 

Cutie and the Boxer

I watched this documentary today & enjoyed it to the last drop. Yes!

Alison Krauss & Union Station - The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn

Joanne Woodward & Paul Newman

 

I love looking at pictures of this couple. 

Janelle Monáe - PrimeTime ft. Miguel

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm in a dress and wearing lipstick...  all ready for RoboCop IMAX! xo 

Jack the Fox

The Act of Killing

This documentary... I am speechless after watching it. Incredibly disturbing and eye-opening. You have to see it.  

Watch parts 1-3 of The Daily Show interview with director Joshua Oppenheimer here. 

E. E. Cummings

xvii.

Lady, i will touch you with my mind.
Touch you and touch and touch
until you give
me suddenly a smile, shyly obscene

(lady i will
touch you with my mind.) Touch
you, that is all,

lightly and you utterly will become
with infinite ease

the poem which i do not write.

-E.E. Cummings 

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             OK!

Claire Morgan

Go away streetlight glow, I'm trying to catch the sunset. 

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THIS artist! It's not often I feel wholeheartedly inspired by an artist, like feel it from my head to toes kind of inspired. But THIS artist! Claire's work does this to me.  

London-based. Installation artist. Maker of "Blood Drawings".

"My work is about our relationship with the rest of nature, explored through notions of change, the passing of time, and the transience of everything around us. For me, creating seemingly solid structures or forms from thousands of individually suspended elements has a direct relation with my experience of these forces. There is a sense of fragility and a lack of solidity that carries through all the sculptures. I feel as if they are somewhere between movement and stillness, and thus in possession of a certain energy... 

Animals, birds and insects have been present in my recent sculptures, and I use suspense to create something akin to freeze frames. In some works, animals might appear to rest, fly or fall through other seemingly solid suspended forms. In other works, insects appear to fly in static formations. The evidence of gravity - or lack of it - inherent in these scenarios is what brings them to life, or death."

Fluid /  Strawberries, taxidermied crow, fishing hooks, nylon

Fantastic Mr. Fox / Torn black polythene, a taxidermied fox, rotted rabbit meat, fishing hooks, nylon, lead, acrylic

A Part at the Seam / Taxidermy Jackdaw, thistle seeds, torn black polythene, lead, nylon, acrylic

A Part at the Seam 

The Colossus / Torn polythene, a taxidermy mute swan, nylon, lead, acrylic

Gone To Seed / Thistle seeds, a taxidermy carrion crow, nylon, lead, acrylic

Untitled / 2 weeks after installation, Approx. 2000 strawberries, nylon thread

Love Will Tear Us Apart / Residues of the taxidermy process, pencil, watercolour on paper

Over & Out / Residues of the taxidermy process, pencil, watercolour on paper

Downtime / Residues of the taxidermy process, pencil, watercolour on paper

*** All images come from www.claire-morgan.co.uk/ and Claire's facebook page.

St. Lucia - When the Night

Can't sleep! Can't wait for the fun ahead this weekend! Can't decide on my next nail color! Here we go, wheee! 

Today, Thursday

Feet up, the day's responsibilities are complete and so I treat myself to a little drink I like to call the I Love My Sister. It's one part seltzer water, two parts Christmas schnapps-- a vodka schnapps infused with spices and fruits that my sister and I made in December. 

A few share-worthy posts from around the web:

• A blog post on traveling light from the blog Queues in Haskell

• Motorbike Girl Gangs in Morocco

• My roommate just introduced me to the app "Flappy Bird" on his phone. I can't resist telling you about it. 

"Flappy Bird is a condition of the universe. A condition in the sense of a circumstance, but also in the sense of a blight, a sickness, a stain we cannot scrub out but may in time be willing to accept. A stain like our own miserable, tiny existences as players, which we nevertheless believe are more fundamental than the existence of bird flapping games or machine screws or the cold fog rising against the melting snow in the morning" - CNN

Hehe! 

Broad City

down with everything else... 

UP with BROAD CITY

Not only do they have their own Youtube page found here, but they also have their own show on Comedy Central now. Watch the first episode here.

The Knife - Like a Pen

If you make workout playlists, add this song to your next one. 

It's snowing again. Highlights of today: driving the girls and their friend home from school and listening to their conversation titled How I Like to Flirt. Reading this article. Hugging a buddy goodbye before her departure for a 4-month trip to Taipei. Feeling the day-after soreness from a solid workout (hopped on the  bike in preparation for RAGBRAI!). Remembering to laugh and keeping my calm while instructing multiple classes of 45 kindergarteners-3rd graders (we were down two coaches at the school today).

Please Be Quiet, I'm Very Interesting

Back and forth, bouncing between fiddling around at my desk and crouching at eye-level with Fang as she sleeps so soundly on the couch-- one half of her growing body on my fleece volleyball blanket, the other on a pillow from my grandma's basement couch that resembles a Dorito. Yum! I'm between desk and couch on account of this one fur swirl above her right eye, of the white tipped black hairs that cover her forehead, of her twitching nose and mouth that I just can't stop giggling at.

Finally we have the internet at our apartment after not having a connection for nearly two months. So, tonight is dedicated to catching up on plenty of youtube clips, sipping Manhattans in honor of my Grandma Julie for her 81st birthday, and listening to albums that bring me back to those truly great emotional outbursts. Cold Chicago winds are harsh out my window and MORE SNOW is falling. I was warned about Chicago in the wintertime. I am channeling my inner arctic, vodka chugging husky. What else can I write about? I want to proudly report and show you pieces I've created since checking in last, but I don't have any. It's been a month of having a lot more time on my hands than usual, more time to myself. More time for reading, taking walks, taking too long to write a grocery list, hanging with Katrina and Joel, sweeping up sidewalk salt, encouraging Fang's Parkour hobby, and going out and laughing with my girlfriends. 

Today's been a day of straight love and thought. It's been a day of coming to a greater acceptance of my brother's death. Three years have passed since his accident but I tell you, I haven't remembered his laugh so clearly as I have today.