Every Wednesday at Akbar, nine 'til midnight.

2 drink minimum and a little donation is appreciated ot this group of locals who teach crafts from the kindness of their hearts. They also encourage to BYOS (Bring your own scissors).

Tomorrow night's craft is still TBD but I'm guessing they'll bring their usual supplies for making paper bag puppets.

Make mom happy and make her a pretty frame on May 7th.

All the info on their website and blog.


Akbar
4356 Sunset Blvd.
Silver Lake, 90029
323.665.6810

Labels: bars, DIY, events

My friends Summer School Vampire are playing deep in the valley. Who wants to take the trek with me?

Labels: events, music

My dear buddy Matthew made the Small Cool Apartment Contest this year on Apartmenttherapy.com. Go vote "super cool" for him and he has the chance of winning gift certificates not to mention the accolades of all the design-y people. If you check out Matt's floorplan you may recognize his work from his super great web comic, Isolated Instances of Non-Gravity. He's currently taking commissions, and if the comments on Apartmenttherapy are any indication, Matt's drawings could be quite the hot ticket.

The orange stripe on the wall was a good lesson in what a little painter's tape could do. The shelves were those basic modular kind just painted to match. Matt's vintage finds come from eBay and the Pasadena Rose Bowl.




Pictures of the colorful kitchen and bathroom here.

Labels: design, DIY, www.internet.com

One of my favorite girls is featured on Daily Candy today.

Daily Candy - Sand and Deliver

www.alexandracassaniti.com

Alexandra Cassaniti moved to the neighborhood last year and took over. All the ladies will be trying to dress like her soon and they sort of can since she's launched her own line. It's an online catalog right now so beg all your favorite boutiques to start carrying her summer themed stuff in time for you to hit the beach. She'll even design you a custom surfboard. (That's Alex in the picture showing off a custom lighting bolt pattern on one of our hometown beaches in Encinitas. That's right. I grew up with an up and coming designer, jealous?).




Available in these LA stores:

CURVE
154 N. Robertson
Los Angeles, 90048
310.360.8008

OPENING CEREMONY
451 N. La Cienega
Los Angeles, 90048
310.652.1120

Labels: design, fashion, shopping

PG 2007 Mix CDs are ready!
Wait, you say. Aren't we almost a third into the new year? Please excuse the lateness and send me on your address if you were one of the contributors. 3 full CDs are coming your way.

email: meredith@pudgy-girl.com

Labels: freebies, music

My peeps in the UCLA library sent this on to me today. I think it's one of the best ways to help those affected by the WGA Strike. Anyone who's gone to an industry props & costume sale knows the treasures one might find.


As you may know, a great many people in the film and television industry - especially those "behind the scenes" (grips, techs, designers, etc) - are out of work (and out of an income) due to the ongoing Writer's Strike. To try to counter this effect, the Local 705 Costumer's Guild has set up a "Welfare Fund" to help support it's members who are unable to work during this time.

The 705 is having a HUGE YARD SALE on Saturday, February 9th from 9 a.m. til 2 p.m. The union members will be selling a wide variety of costumes and jewelry (and I'm not talking just the hokey kind of stuff - some awesome, wearable - and often unique - threads & accessories!). Each individual vendor will donate a portion of their sales to the Welfare Fund AND there will be a number of tables full of strictly donated items with 100% of those proceeds going to the Welfare Fund. So do some SHOPPING and help support some of those affected by the WGA strike. Come early to get the grooviest, funkiest and coolest stuff!!


Saturday February 9th, 9 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Local 705 Costumers Union Yard Sale
History for Hire Prop House (a great big parking lot...)
7149 Fair Avenue
North Hollywood, 91605
Just SW of the Sherman Way/Vineland intersection

Labels: local, shopping

Film: Michael Clayton (2007)
Date: 2/1/07
Place: AMC Media Center, Burbank

Advice from me to a film snob: Every once in a while go see a movie at a mall movie theater. It's a much different experience in LA to see an Oscar nominated flick with the Friday night mall crowd than at some other industry hoopla.

Michael Clayton is one damn fine film. It's a fairytale for this modern age. I chalk it up with the other beautifully bleak Oscar contenders from this year (There Will Be Bloood, No Country For Old Men). Tilda Swinton plays a wonderful villain and Tom Wilkinson is consistently stunning. For the first half of the film George Clooney distracted me. His charisma is sometimes too much to take on one screen and fights the smaller character driven moments a film like this demands. But by the end I was hooked. The end title sequence, by the way, is one of the best I've ever seen. There's a silence and lyricism that you don't usually find in Western filmmaking. In fact, it might be a Wong Kar-Wai or Hou Hsiao Hsien rip-off. If not, then filmmakers take note. That is one effective ending.

Michael Clayton comes out on DVD 2/19 for those not lucky enough to have mall movie theaters bring back movies for Oscar season.

Labels: film journal

Only in L.A. would a flea market call their first weekend outing an opening. Indeed, the folks that bring deal-hunters and trend-makers the Fairfax Flea Market will start another flea market downtown. Every Sunday 9am to 4pm, starting this Sunday, a parking lot gets revitalized. Between Olive and Grand, you'll find the entrance on 8th street. DJs and live bands play throughout the day and typical fair food serves the parched. Admission is only $2. Kids and Seniors are free. A Farmer's Market will also be a part of the usual vendors but keep your leashed doggies out of the food section or risk the consequences of a health code violation. There's more info and booth pictures up on the website southparkfleamarket.com. I wonder if they staged a publicity shoot for the booth pics. How L.A.

Sundays - rain or shine
South Park Flea Market
8th & Grand Parking Lot
Downtown, 90014

Labels: events, food, shopping

I have a habit of browsing Craigslist's rentals even when I don't need a new place to live. I like to keep up on what's available in the neighborhood, remind myself how crazy the cost of studio living is, and daydream about the perfect home. But I never knew Craigslist could be a portal to learning about designers, until today. See the ad here.

Labels: design, local

Check out the buzz on CurbedLA and Eater LA.
plus Daily Candy.
plus Thrillist.

The coffee and cigarette drink intrigues me. That's a fine dark roast with tobacco infused whipped cream. Plus the decor is looking awfully sharp. But I dunno if this will be the best place to park a laptop in my yoga sweats and risk the chance of dirty looks. I dare someone to order a venti cafe con panna.


Lamill Coffee
1636 Silver Lake Blvd.
Silver Lake, 90026
323.663.4441

Labels: food, local

Those who know me know I like things - but I am not a material girl - even though my closet says different. I often give in to the fleeting happiness gathered from beautiful clothes, shoes, jewelry and other stuff. These three are on my happy list today:


Atelier Hoodie by Eloise. Available at Anthropologie, just in the stores, not online anymore. Softer than the most expensive terry cloth hoodie and way more flattering. The wide band in the middle hugs the curves in the right spot. The wide bell sleeves and slightly puffed shoulder elevate this to a not-so casual sweatshirt. Plus the crochet details is just right, especially the row on the back, which compliments a lady's lower back just the way we like it. I'm trying out more layering options for this piece because if worn just with jeans the BF thinks I look too much like a Shirley Temple character and calls me good ship lollipop.




Thanks to the eames photostream on flickr I now know the U.S. Post Office will release Eames design stamps later this year. I'm a big fan of commemorative stamps. I'm not a collector, I just really enjoy the trips to the post office when they have a wide selection for you to choose from that doesn't include Christmas imagery or stamps made for weddings. I must plan a Saturday visit to the Eames House in Malibu soon as well as the Eames Office - the gallery/store that's gotta be cooler than the closest DWR.




My inner teenager wants to scribble all over my notebooks I heart Missbehave Magazine. Even though it's New York City centric it's full of sass. Like Jezebel, sometimes the sass needs to be taken like salt in small doses, other days I crave for the foul-mouthed fashionistas in training and say, bring it. I'm indulging in all of their guilty pleasures from ghetto-fab nails to the latest plastic-fantastic accessory. The blog occasionally posts party fliers for the LA area. I'll be checking in often to know which latest trend I'm missing out on.

Labels: design, fashion, shopping

There aren't many times I wish I was one of those concert bootleggers who stashes state-of-the-art recording equipment, like omni-directional tiny mics in a baseball cap, to record concerts. Last night I wish I had one of those set-ups.

As part of this month's series of concerts and films, LA Philharmonic hosted Concrete Frequency: Sounds of The City. This is the third curated concert I've gone to at LA Phil and like the other nights, it was a mellow, beautiful experience. My buddies and I were grateful for uber professional lights and sound and in awe of Disney Hall's hidden intimacy. Each guest artist was assigend the task of playing 2 songs and encouraged to explain why those songs spoke to the evening's themes of exploring urban living. The stage was actually backdropped by each guest artist sitting on stage in a dimly lit living room set. The half-circle shape echoed the little amphitheater and the graceful curve of the Hall itself. With the Gehry organ shooting up into the audience in the round, every performer took the spotlight nervously, looking up at their pretty surroundings. With a collection of folk-rock musicians, everyone would have probably been more comfortable at the Troubadour, well, at least familiar. The curated event took singer/songwriters out of their bands and into the prestigious spotlight. Echoing the young crowd, the Disney Hall was filled with jeans rather than tuxes. Each artist's nervous energy only drew us in, listening to the words of radio hits rather than just plugging into our iPods for a morning bus ride. A city theme seems far too easy. Couldn't every indie-rocker explain why that one tune inspired by their last grueling tour is also an anthem about love lost and found in the urban environment? Isn't every rock song a love song written in some metropolis? Moving beyond this hype I was happy to learn that most songs are about what they are about, literally. I may load a mix tape up with all the moody tunes to make my latest lover an emotional wreck, but it's actually refreshing to learn Money Mark's neo-soul ditty "Black Butterfly" is really just about catching a black butterfly. The man mostly know in underground crowds and by Beastie Boys fanatics sat at the piano last night and told a sweet anecdote of chasing butterflies in the abandoned fields of his LA youth. John Doe from X not only played the obvious choice "Los Angeles" but I also learned he likes to write songs about skyscrapers. Zach Rogue from the Rogue Wave's song "Chicago x 12" is really about playing a shitty bar in Chicago 12 times in one year. Like an emo girl's wet dream, you can up the cutie factor simply by letting a shy shoegazer talk about his music. Rogue was especially easy on the ears and I was toe-tapping along to his song currently on the airwaves "Lake Michigan". In lieu of a recording here's my highlights:

Biirdie - A lovely quintet opened the night with "LA is Mars". The lead singer reminds me of every cool guy in High School who quietly doodled in the back of the class and sported an Amnesty International sticker on his Trapper Keeper. Joined by a harmonious group, each cute line like "take the last train to Griffith Park", makes them the newly crowned most crushable LA indie band.

Annie Stela comes from that group of lovely ladies who can't help but share themselves through song. I picture her sitting in her apartment constantly at the keyboard trying out new poetry. While not the most musically challenging, she fits the niche of the story of a girl coming to LA to make it and then years later actually finding happiness. She's got quite the set of pipes and can rock the piano foot pedals in stilettos especially when she played "Fool". She also played the story of her falling in love with LA thanks to walking the dog during the Jacaranda bloooms, even though the audience had to help her with that one. She just knew them as "those big purple flowers." It seems that's what every new Angeleno calls them.

Marc Bianchi was an awfully cute toothache. With a large bass acoustic guitar around his skinny frame he won us all over rocking back and forth, pointy elbows a-soaring. Known for fronting indie band Her Space Holiday he played "The Boys and Girls" a faithful version of the recording under his side project xoxo, panda. He said it was about three people in love and in different parts of the country. Very sweet, indeed.



Zooey Deshcanel brought the movie industry theme to the LA concert. A quirky actress, as well as an accomplished torch singer, she was accompanied by M. Ward on guitar. Not just bringing the movie star reference by being herself she also sang "Lonesome Town" which I don't think was some happy accident. Most of us know it from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. Zooey and I are roughly the same age so I'm gonna believe we were introduced to the Ricky Nelson hit the same way, although probably not. She's way cooler. She probably knew every word by the time she was ten rocking out on her parents' shag rug with a pair of those oversized headphones. She invoked this little fantasy in my head last night rocking a voluminous white baby doll dress. She then wailed it on a cover of "I Put a Spell On You". Here's a video yanked from myspace:



Sondre Lerche got a loud applause, especially when he acknowledged the crowd behind the stage. It was like his fan club was all sitting there. The Norwegian cutie always puts on a good show. He was especially chatty last night, detailing every bit of his move from Norway to New York City. He played "Wet Ground" from his early album Two Way Monologue and "Minor Detail" from the jazzy 2006 The Duper Sessions.

Inara George from The Bird and the Bee sang for composing legend Van Dyke Parks at the piano. Inara wins best dressed for the night all decked out in a stunning brown floor length gown. They will be releasing an album together later this year and swang a number from it. But it was "Vine Street", the Randy Newman standard favored by Harry Nilsson (they both happen to have been BFFs with Van Dyke Parks) that really had the rest of the artists in a hard act to follow.



Bob Mould rocked his old Husker Du tunes "Thumbtack" and "Surveyors and Cranes". He said he hand't played these in ten years since leaving Austin. They sounded dated and he was underdressed but I felt fortunate to see someone so influential. Plus Mould spoke about dropping out of urban engineering school, which gave validity to the night's theme. Being a current DC native he got a big applause when he claimed, "Don't worry. Things will be better in November". Appealing to the cultured liberal = always a crowd pleaser.

Kyp Malone from TV On The Radio concluded with a long meandering experimental set. I was surprised to see the night take a dark turn full of ambient noise. Malone followed Grizzly Bear's front man and anyone who's gone to a Grizzly Bear concert knows how esoteric those boys can get. Malone's anecdotes were candid and real but I think the majority of the crowd had tuned out after the back to back of more famous faces. People started to take off early, in true urban LA fashion.

Labels: events, music, reviews