Dipping into 2017

When I first started writing this post, 2 months ago, it was a delightful four degrees outside, which was a major upswing from that morning's negative numbers, and wind chills creeping lower beyond that. So this city does what it does best and looked awful whilst trudging around in nine coats and three pairs of pants (it happens to the best of us, but not me because I took an Uber to work).

If I can recall winter 2015, which I definitely can, I remember it being super mild, like, sitting-in-parks mild because it was fifty freakin' degrees in the heart of December. But 2016 it was when this post was being written, which in every other sense was a total bitch, so it seems on par. I also feel like those who had a "good" 2016 are keeping that slice of information to themselves. It would very much be like claiming your adoration for the Cleveland Indians in the final week of October in Chicago. You just didn't do it. But while the weather was rather miserable, there have been some beautiful flurries that momentarily coat the city in wonder and beauty. Luckily today is not one of those days, as the temperature reads in the mid forties.

Whatever, let's get to the good stuff, which is music. I feel such a large shift lately. I will FOREVER be an XRT girl. That is where my core base of music is and it will never, ever be neglected by my musical soul. I just find that I'm gravitating towards an array of other things I haven't been into in a long time, or have been, just haven't properly shared. I know I briefly touched on this topic in my last post, but music transitions are huge, and perhaps hit me harder than they would most. I typically have about two or three each year; where I listen to particular groupings of certain genre's. I never know what it's going to be, but usually it's something I already love and have completely neglected for at least a year, as if it's a musical Rolodex, and there are somethings that just stay in the background for longer than you intend them to. I guess it's all about the mood, and the mood always has the ability to change.

This particular set of music has come to me at all different times, from numerous sources. Some old, some new. I've been listening to these particular jams and the albums they belong to, quite a bit over the past two months. I have been in such a whirlwind, that it leaves me little time to write, but so much time to listen.

{Heavy in Rotation}

Wolf and I by Oh Land

Legend Has It by Run The Jewels

Okay, sidenote; I've been a RTJ fan for a minute now, and a month or so ago

my cab driver asks me which radio station I would like for him to put on.

Obviously, I chose XRT. It's The Big Beat with Jason Thomas. He plays

'Noise Pollution' by Potrugal. The Man (solid jam), and THEN PLAYS THIS SONG.

I lost my mind in the back of this car. Chicago's Finest Rock bringing my

other finest choice into the mix. HOT DAMN! What a moment. Also, this song solidifies

my final decision in needing a pair of nunchucks. I need to just throw down to this song.

and every other Run The Jewels song.
Demon Days by Gorillaz
Outlier by Bonobo
Say Something Loving by The xx
Obsessed upon first listen.

Adorn by Miguel

Holy. Shit.
Oui by Jeremih
My girls were bumpin' GCI in the back at work one day, MONTHS AGO, I heard this song AND FELL IN LOVE WITH IT. I had no idea who it was by, all I knew was "ah ah yah" and that apparently helped no one. I hadn't heard it again until 5 days ago. I thoroughly flipped out and was finally able to find out who it was by and it's title. THE SATISFACTION WAS REAL. This is an album I've been listening to in full. Another rather sexy jam off Late Nights: PLANEZ (ft. J. Cole). If this guy needs a dancer for any show or tour he ever does, he can contact me.
Hard Liquor by SOHN
Hot Thoughts by Spoon [NEW SPOON! YES!]

Déjà Loin by Yann Tiersen

I put 'Fervier' on my Halloween mix a couple posts ago because it was

extremely appropriate. However, I've been listening to him for years. I even

went to see him live hoping I'd get to hear some of the songs I love most. 

Nope. Anyway... his album, C'était ici, has to be one of my all time favorites.

He's behind the music for Amelie, which hopefully helps familiarize his work.

I listened to this album straight through twice in a row a few weeks ago whilst decorating cookies.

Houdini by Foster The People

Shades of Cool by Lana Del Rey

All in all, 2017 has been an interesting array of emotions compacted into what feels much more than two months in. Overall, things have been going well. There's always room for improvement and progression, and right now I need a lot of both. There have been a lot of great things going on and ways I've been keeping myself plenty busy. Dan and I celebrated the incoming of 2017 at Scofflaw (seriously, GO THERE) - one of our favorite places and had an amazing time. I attended the XRT Listener Poll in the first week of January, The people that I surrounded myself with that evening were exquisite. I had a really lovely time and am so glad it was able to happen. I've been spending plenty of time at Bitter Pops, Dan and I checked out the Art Institute last week and tried Terzo Piano, Tony's latest - verdict is out, it was delicious.

 Roamin' with the Lions outside the Art Institute and  The lovely ladies at Bitter Pops/2nd home

NEW YEAR'S EVE at Scofflaw

I recently made this concept for my shoppe - based on Run The Jewels 3. I was super stoked when I found these yarns and knew right away I needed to utilize them properly. I am in love with the album and wanted to make an inspired, yet wearable piece. LISTEN TO THE FULL ALBUM HERE.

XRT LISTENER POLL!

A groovy group of us that can usually be found sending off righteous tweets pertaining to XRT, gathered, and took over the front table at City Winery. We listened to the finest DJs from the finest station lay down what went down on their station in a year's time.

It's a night where you feel like you're best friends with everyone in the room.

It's always nice to meet with those you interact with on a different platform. An inviting group of people where everyone just seems to "get it".

WXRT Chicago ‏@93XRT  Jan 6

@Tessa_SMASH We are enjoying your treats from @DinkelsBakery this morning and you're a very good dancer.

and the morning after you get some Twitter love. Treats earn tweets. As does dancing well.

And here I am. In the thick of transition, which seems to be my favorite place to reside. All that I care about right at this very moment is getting outside and soaking up some of that sun that will only be here for an hour or so. I've been nothing but productive today, but as always, I've got some extra energy to burn. A Monday afternoon stroll is exactly what I need. TG

Scary Good Music.

Happy Halloween!

This year I was Alice and I was servin' up a wonderland of goodies all weekend at work.
Of course I'll slip into the role once again this evening to celebrate the real deal.

In honor of Halloween, I thought I'd throw together a few songs to keep the monsters mashin' and a few to send you down the rabbit hole.

PLAYLIST:

Fervier by Yann Tiersen
{This is probably the ultimate Halloween song.
I'm a big fan of Yann Tiersen's work, but there's something downright creepy about this one -- in a great way. While this track is ultra long, it's the perfect thing to have going on in the background today, especially around the 6:40 mark}

Ghost Song by Air
Laputa (Taylor McFerrin Remix) by Hiatus Kaiyote
Angel Echos by Four Tet

Diamonds From Sierra Leone by Kanye West

L.A. Woman by The Doors
If I Had A Heart by Fever Ray

Fur Lined by How To Destroy Angels
Courtship Dating by Crystal Castles
Which One of You Jerks Drank My Arnold Palmer by Blockhead

Tsars and Hussars by Daedelus

Parting of The Sensory by Modest Mouse
Strangeness and Charm by Florence + The Machine
Eminence Front by Pete Townshend

All In Forms by Bonobo
The Pills Won't Help You Now by The Chemical Brothers

I really miss the use of 8Tracks for making playlists. I no longer have my 12,000+ songs stored on this particular hard drive, making it rather hard to get the songs I want on most sets I want to make.
This way will have to suffice for now. 

The tales of Oscar & the perfect fall line.

Music with no words gives me more time to think, but allows my thoughts to montage themselves perfectly in that movie preview sort of way. After getting bored of almost all the playlists on my iPod, I ended up opening up my music library and leaving it up to chance. Luckily, something perfect always pops up. Today, it was Yann Tiersen and his song La Noyee. This was the perfect thing for me to contemplate life to for awhile. So I did. Over and over. I thought about thousands of things. The best things come to me while I'm driving along. His music always inspires me. The songs make me want to walk along the streets of France with a baguette in hand, or they make me want to get on the ice and try out straight-line footwork, or they make me want to wear fabulous outfits and do fabulous things. With such great thoughts, I never wanted to stop driving.

Then a thought popped into my head. There should be a fashion line based upon the music of one artist or a group of artists, or a genre. Music drives about 86% of my inspiration, I'm sure many designers have music on while designing. I don't think it has ever been labeled as a piece of clothing being inspired by a song or an album. It gets me thinking... maybe I shall get something in the works.

After poking around vogue.com for awhile, the verdict is in!...

Oscar has got it this season.

I am officially in love with I'd say about 84% of the fall collection.

Oscar de la Renta has always been one of my favourite designers.

I still remember a Vogue from 2004 with Natalie Portman on the cover that featured an Oscar de la Renta dress that I just loved. His clothes are a tad flirty, but always with the times and almost timeless. I LOVE his use of colour. He has always incorporated colours extremely well. His direction with the gem tones mixed with black and white and earth tones makes the line look like optimistic high fashion. Something for everyone. There aren't enough words for me to sum it up. It just makes me giddy. Don't worry, I'll post a few pictures, that would just be cruel if I went without...

The hat is perfect.

I love how elaborate the coat is.

The skirt is just at the right length to go with the rest of the outfit.

People say that models are supposed to just be the clothes hanger, but in this picture, she makes this outfit look damn good.

The coat is too good.

mmm. mmm. mmm.

the colour is perfect!

Looks peacocks instilled the inspiration for these colours!

This coat makes such a good statement. I love it.

I have a feeling it's a 6ft tall kind of coat and not a 5'3 kind of coat. Damn.

You know what, no, I think I could pull that off. heh

Love the colour. Love the cut. I love how the material looks so old and so perfect.

This is my favourite piece of the collection.

I want to wear it every day the week of Halloween.

WOW! (just thought of how awesome that would be!)

Ha, I opened up this blog to post about fur. My thoughts and my favourites. But before actually typing anything, Oscar got to me. That's okay, there are really no regrets.

Oh god. What a tease. Check it all out here.

Speaking of Halloween, I have only slight ideas of a look I could go for this year.

Hopefully that works out...

Halloween puts such tasty things in my mind like Chili Dogs, Apple Cider, miniature size candies, and those little orange and black holiday edition hostess cupcakes! (hopefully they still make those!) I am more excited than I thought! Well, as long as I get all of those things, I will be a happy clam. I dig passing out candy to the little boppers in fun little costumes, but I enjoy eating it more. Hurrah!

And yes, there will be pumpkin carving this year!

Enjoy that collection!

weird fishes.

weird fishes/arpeggi. absolutely beautiful.

Random thought: It has always amused me that when one eats something too spicy, instead of grabbing water to easy the spice, milk would be the better bet. Ick, I wouldn't enjoy the combination and probably opt for the water anyways.

Today was pretty okay. I got up a tad earlier(7:57) than usual (8:33)--which by the way shocks me, I used to be up at 4:45am no problem and hit the gym. Now I have to sleep in atleast till 7:45 to be functioning right. C'est la vie. I went over to Neuqua to give my first talk around 9:30. I wish we were not in the LMC classroom. It totally threw me off. Normally we are in a big forum room and everything is better in there; lighting, the mood, and the setting. It's a great presentation room. Today the room made everyone uneasy it seemed. Presentations went okay. I got some good response/questions from the kids. I enjoy that. I gave four presentations total. Normally I give two or three, but I enjoyed it and didn't mind the additional class. I always know what I really want to focus on by the third time I present. I always make my rounds to see my old teachers/people I know after I present. I bopped in to see Mrs. Harner (Meredith's mom) and Schutz (Mrs. Schutzenhofer). I am so glad I did. I really like her and enjoy talking to her whenever I bop in after my talks. Hopefully we'll grab lunch soon--that would be neat. I came home and took a long walk while conversing with Gina via telephone. Good talk and walk for sure. Portillo's beef sandwiches and frenchy fries for dinner! Yum! What a treat. We hardly ever eat things like that in the house so it's fun when we do. It was a perfect day to do it with the rain.

After dinner I had to make my way over to Trader Joes to pick up some yogurt, fruit, and other tidbits (including chocolate covered bing cherries and black licorice scotty dogs!). But the best buy of the night were my hydrangeas! I love them and have declared them my new favourite flowers. They are a light blue/cream color. They look lovely in my room. Then I took another walk. Like I said, I love instability, so I love to be outside when it's not raining, but favourable for a tornado. How exciting!

Tomorrow is day dos of the new job. I will be fully prepared with a big meal before I skedattle off to work. Starve I will not! ha ha. Hopefully I will just be filing in the cookies like the other day, I'd like to really get that down before moving on. We shall see! The girls I work with are super talented. They are so efficient. I too, will progress and become that good, it just takes time. I'm a perfectionist with these damn cookies though. I always take a lot of time to make sure what others receive looks perfect (scarves I make, baked goods, meals, etc). That's a good thing. YAY! Skating tomororw. I went on Monday, but I can't wait to go again. I just need to regain my composure. No lesson tomorrow. Takes pressure off. I anticipate what tomorrow may bring.

OOOO! HEAVY RAIN! HOW EXCITING! :) :) huge squall lines moving all across the midwest like a belt. The radar is going crazy with red blobs (supercells, a few). One supercell produced 13 tornadoes! I know the storm has weakened a bit since it hit Illinois, but I'm not sure if it has produced any nadoes on this side of the border. There were some gnarly tornadoes earlier in OK and Missouri. I look forward to see what they will rank them. Based on damage I saw briefly on weather channel I'd say EF-2 or EF-3. Probably the latter. But then again, I don't really know anything when it comes to weather. ha ha.

this is beautiful people!

I have to admit though, being in fear of your property all summer is hardly fun. Again, I do not know why people choose to live in "tornado alley". Oh well. To each their own.

Currently, I'm a fan of:

1) This hilarious clip Matthew sent me today. You cannot just watch it once. 

2) Blogging!

3) This is fun for awhile! It will get you groovin.

4) Sudoku. Just breaking that in...

5) Wanting to make this recipe!

6) I LOVE this song. (press play on the top right)

I must be off to bed now. Muy tired. The slumber shall be supurb. I can actually listen to real thunderstorms instead of listening to recorded ones on my ipod. ha ha.

Europe, start steeping your morning tea,

America, time to hit the hay! Get your beauty sleep and drink a lot of water tomorrow!

-Tessaroobop.

I want to watch fireworks!

Song for the moment: Yann Tiersen- Quimper 94.

Band for the moment: Smoke City

I love this man (Yann Tiersen) and his music, but I am still so disappointed with the show that we (being me and Matthew) recieved on April 21. That show was going to be one of my best. His talent is so diverse, his music so mood changing and sharp. I of course should have expected something different than what he normally does. Him and his ..band(?) played this odd avant-garde French rock that no one had ever heard before, for the key fact that it had not been recorded yet. If I were going to the show expecting to get what I got it might be different. A lot of people experienced upset that night; many were leaving. We stuck it out until the end (saying it like it was something awful)...Sometimes I like being caught off guard. Other times..not so much.

Anywho..back to this month. Today was pretty good. Got up, watched Emeril talk about and make different kinds of sandwiches and also made these!--they looked amazing! Then I whipped up breakfast (which reminds me now I'm out of Greek yogurt and won't have any for breakfast tomorrow-RATS!), tried my first sudoku puzzle (ugh), and got ready for skating. Didn't go too bad today, although I'm still so discouraged due to the lack of technical ability that I possess. Spins are easy to get down. Jumps are another story. In my opinion at least. I felt huge on the ice today. Super weighed down. Probably due to the huge intake of cookies I made yesterday. Oopps. They were good though. I suppose they were worth it? I had work at two thirty. This was a pretty fun shift. It really just comes down to liking the people you work with (Joshua&Cayla). As long as you can laugh in between the bull shit, then things will be okay. We got out reasonably early so I cannot be too upset. Matthew came over afterward, we chatted with my parents for awhile and just ended up hangin out. We attempted sudoku together. Ha Ha. We had to be laughing tonight for about 25 minutes straight. We always have a good time just doing nothing. Though, in between the nothing we like to do something.

I have my sociology exam (a big whatever--although I have attemped studying!) tomorrow and I start my new job! I have to admit I am quite nervous. I am expected to decorate cookies with pizazz and beauty. I hope I measure up. It will be a nice change of pace and a good creative release. I am also glad that it is not so upfront with people. Jamba is all face to face interaction with customers, but this job I'll be hangin out in the back doin my thang. It will be all good. I don't work at Jamba until next Monday. That kind of sucks. I don't want my hours cut completely, I just want three days a week, sheesh. School is over tomorrow! Hopefully that means a drink at the Hilton tomorrow night accompanied by mango-brie quesadillas?? hhmm.. I smell a plan! It might have been more fun if everything ended at once. Weather was such a relief when it was over, it would have been nice to have one big final end all day. Oh well, I'm not complaining! :)

Enjoy the night, everyone! Enjoy the morning, Europe!

-Tessa Erin.