food miscellaneous movies music people

1. Prince
2. Woody Allen (“OLD Woody Allen.”)
3. Los Angeles
4. 90′s Hip Hop
5. Vintage Painted Signage
6. Dogs
7. Vodka + Sparkling Grapefruit
8. Road trips
9. Dancing
10. Making playlists
11. the beach
12. cheese.

Nikki is the powerful lady behind my most recent aesthetic transformation, and I’ve been hounding her for a list for months! Looking at it now, it feels perfectly Nikki, perfectly Los Angeles, and perfectly American–right on time for the 4th of July weekend.

If you live in Los Angeles, go see Nikki for new hair and bitchen’ company. In the words of my wise friend, Jennifer, “Change your hair, change your life.”

After: Whoa, baby! See what I mean?

Before: blah. My life suuuucks.

1. On The Pulse of Morning
2. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
3. A Brave and Startling Truth
4. Phenomenal Woman
5. Still I Rise
6. The Rock Cries Out to Us Today
7. A Conceit

Maya Angelou was the first “adult” poet to whom I was introduced; we watched Clinton’s inauguration in 8th grade and heard her read On The Pulse of Morning. Our teacher gave us copies of it and I made my whole family listen to me read it that night at dinner.

This list represents my favorite poems by Dr. Angelou, although it might as well be all of them.  I am so grateful to have lived in her time, to have been audience to her work, and be inspired by not only her poems, but her powerful voice as a woman.

1. You Were Always on My Mind, Elvis Presley
2. Koh Gen Do -#001
3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog
4. BIC Crystal Ballpoint Pens
5. Creme Abricot – Christian Dior
6. Veuve Cliquot
7. Tina Turner
8. Eiffel Tower
9. Coco Chanel
10. Bichon/Poodles

1. The Best of The Guess Who
2. Jethro Tull, watching Ian Anderson rock on the flute with one leg
3. Andrea Bocelli, “Time to Say Goodbye“ …goosebumps everytime
4. Night, Eli Wiesel (listening to him makes me want to hop a flight and audit his classes)
5. Ayaan Hirsi Ali^W, it took guts for her to write books about Islam
6. Memento …over and over and over
7. Original Japanese Iron Chef
8. “Take a Little Piece of my Heart,” Janis Joplin^W
9. Creating dishes from food with the people who grew it around the table.
10. When a great chef asks, ”is there anything you don’t like? may I cook for you?”

1. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex * But Were afraid To Ask (Watch it now!)
2. E.E. Cummings^W‘ poem Self-Excoriation 1, 2, and 3.
3. The Revolution of Everyday Life, Raoul Vaneigem (Read it for free; just follow the link!)
4. “Nashville Blues,” Doc Watson
5. Days of Heaven
6. Patti Smith is a new fascination after reading Just Kids
7. Five Easy Pieces
8. Lolita, Vladimir Nobokov
9. The entire album of Graceland by Paul Simon has saved my life more than once. It can make the worst day better.
10. Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer

1. The Jerk
2. The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, Paul Goble
3. “Series of Dreams,” Bob Dylan*
4. The Red Pony, John Steinbeck
5. Odetta^W
6. In Living Color*
7. Rumi^W
8. Mermaids
9. Happy Days, Samuel Beckett
10. Nina Simone – Live at Montreux 1976 (follow the link to watch right now!)

*follow to youtube!

1. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
2. Bob Dylan
3. Shane
4. The Maltese Falcon
5. The Last Waltz
6. Astral Weeks, Van Morrison
7. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
8. The Great Gatsby
9. Flight of the Conchords
10. King Lear,* William Shakespeare
11. James Taylor

*follow that link to read King Lear in its entirety. You know you want to!

1. ferries (the boat kind)
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Poutine^W
4. Brown ale^W
5. disc golf
6. libraries
7. Irish Breakfast tea^W
8. Bill Bryson
9. Ella Fitzgerald
10. bikes

1. Amar Es Combatir, Mana
2. A Night at the Opera, Queen
3. Spanish for 100
4. Jason Reitman^W
5. Edgar Wright
6. Christopher Nolan^W
7. Dressing up as Santa
8. the late Robert Jordan^W
9. Brennan Manning
10. Barack Obama

1. Lucille Ball^W
2. getting haircuts
3. The Black Keys
4. ”Within You Without You,” The Beatles^W
5. ”Do Right Woman,”  Aretha Franklin
6. Julie Taymor^W
7. NPR
8. www.etsy.com
9. Michael Pollan
10. Michel Foucault^W

Hey! Mara is my cousin; read about “Family 1st Friday’s” in The Magpie Blog!

1. “Lucinda/Ain’t Goin’ Down to the Well”- Tom Waits^W
2. Singers
3. Later recordings of Robert Johnson^W
4. Boardwalk Empire on HBO
5. Shuffels
6. Marvin Pontiac (Read this:John Lurie^W!)
7. Shakers
8. Dashiell Hammett^W
9. Pigeon, Patrick Suskind
10. Sinners

1. The Paladium in LA in the 40′s, hosted all the big bands (“I was there on many weekends:  Glen Miller^W, Tommy Dorsey^W, Benny Goodman^W, Artie Shaw^W“)
2. Songs: “I’ll Never Smile Again;”  ”Begin the Beguine;” (“I’m still trying to play my clarinet like A. Shaw! ha!”)
3. I was president of UCLA’s Men’s Glee Club in ’47 – ’48 and we did Shows in Royce Hall – My American Cousin and H.M.S. Pinafore! Great fun!
4. Boy’s Life magazine
5. Building – Tree house and also digging a cave in a vacant lot!
6. Body Surfing in Santa Monica Bay and skating on local sidewalks
7. getting a bicycle at Christmas
8. Travel – we drove to New York and back 1936-37 (Dad’s work took us there and back)

I thought it would be nice to post my grandfather’s  list for Family 1st Fridays in July; a  World War II Veteran, he is  still inspiring in a myriad of ways!  Thanks, Granddad, for supporting the Magpie List!

1. Citizen Kane
2. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare^W
3. Ulysses, James Joyce
4. piano concerto no. 1, Tchaikovsky*
5. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
6. My Parents
7. The courage to be mild
8. Mac Computer
9. German Board Games
10. Richard Burton^W

*follow the link to listen to Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto no. 1 on youtube!

1. Already Dead, Denis Johnson
2. Enter Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Wu-Tang Clan
3. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein
4. Canticle V (The Death of St. Narcissus), T.S. Eliot^W
5. The Celebration
6. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco
7. Oblivion: Stories, David Foster Wallace
8. Lonesome Crowded West, Modest Mouse
9. Marcel Duchamp*
10. Hocus Pocus, Kurt Vonnegut

*follow the link to a cool website about Marcel Duchamp!

1. The Food Network: Giada De Laurentiis , Paula Deen, and Ina Garten
2. “Act a Fool,” Lil John
3. Pretty Woman
4. ”The News,” Jack Johnson*
5. My aunt’s tamale pie recipe
6. Egg in a basket^W
7. 80 year old women in my body pump class
8. The Gipsy Kings
9. “Daughters,” John Mayer
10. “Kill them with kindness” (“Just the expression…it’s what I say to myself when I want to punch people.”)

*follow the link to listen!

1. David Sedaris
2. Transcendental Meditation
3. Frank’s Wild Years, Tom Waits
4. Woody Allen^W
5. Kristen Wiig
6. Maria Bamford
7. Mitch Hedberg
8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
9. Debbie Harry^W
10. Candace Bushnell

Melinda Hill is one funny lady; click on her name, below, to see her website, and read her blog, “Marriage Material!”

1. Mignonette, The Avett Brothers
2. U2
3. Jenny Lewis^W (“whether in Rilo Kiley, Jenny and Johnny, or her solo work, I will take her in any form!”)
4. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare
5. Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh
6. In the Desert, Stephen Crane
7. parenthood (not the movie or tv show, but my experience of)
8. The Long, Hot Summer
9. Six Feet Under
10. Ireland

“I tried to take your advice and not stress over this, but it was a challenge! It’s funny, I feel inspired on a daily basis, but when it came down to it, so many of my choices were from way back in my past. Am I filling my time with mediocre music/books/movies or is it more difficult, the older I get, to fall as hard and feel as deeply for things? I don’t know- but I loved the process.”

1. Sigmund Freud^W
2. Mother Ann Lee^W and The Shakers^W
3. “Sinnerman,” Nina Simone^W
4. Robert Mapplethorpe’s photo of Louise Bourgeois holding her ”Fillette”
5. Sun Ra in Egypt and Italy
6. Duchamp’s Etant Donnes^W
7. Baldassare Forestiere
8. Kinaalda: A Navajo Rite of Passage
9. Yoko Ono CUT
10. Jean-Michel Basquiat^W
    _____

1. Where the Heart Is
2. Justin Bieber^W
3. Jersey Shore
4. Twilight
5. Pretty Woman
6. Rascal Flatts
7. Confetti Cake
8. Natalie Portman^W
9. My Momma (?)
10. The Notebook

1. The Bible^W
2. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch*
3. Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom
4. The Wizard of Oz
5. The Sandlot
6. “What A Wonderful World*,” Louis Armstrong^W
7. “Listen to the Music,*” Doobie Brothers

*follow links to youtube for music and for Randy Pausch’s entire “last lecture!”

D. Lee  ”Uncle Doug”  to me! Read about Family (1st!) Fridays in the Magpie Blog!