The noodles are my favorite Japanese girl band, my musical heroes.  Their sound is noisy, abrasive, full of feedback and distortion, but through all of that it is very decidedly sweetly melodic and girly.  And the chord progressions they use always surprise me the tiniest bit.  They’re not rocker chicks in the style of Avril Lavigne.  Their magic isn’t flashy; neither are they girly superheroines that ride around in pink vespas, defeating evil with soley with their cuteness.  Their magic is the modest kind that masks itself as every day coincidence, the kind that resides in favorite pair of comfy underwear and gives you good luck, or the secret ingredient in fudge topped sundaes that sublimates your worries away.

Even though Yu had never heard of them before, she cheerfully agreed to go with me to their show at a small live house in Shimokitazawa.  She remarked on how cute they spoke.  The lead singer looks a bit like a doll, with honey colored hair and enormous eyelashes; she sings super loudly and charmingly slightly out of tune.  And then in between songs, returns to using a soft whispy voice.  This will be their 10th year– they’ve been singing since 1999.  The Pillows (I sort of think of them as brother and sister band, since they’re under the same record label, tour together, and the Pillows are the more guyish version of the melodic/grungy genre) lead singer was there too, to celebrate the annivesary, and sing 1 song with them.

AHHH it was such a good night.  We finished it off by having spicy fried chicken sandwiches at McDonalds– and it was somehow the absolute perfect ending.

You can catch a video of a San Francisco live-show experience here!

A few weekends ago, I spent the weekend in the mountains with my orchestra.  The air was so clean; there was so much green around.  The days were spent practicing, mostly, in the guesthouse we rented.  We got to hear the opera soloists for the first time (did I mention we are accompanying a production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore?).  It was almost magical, listening to their haunting voices under a high wooden-plank ceiling whilst outside the rain came down in torrents.  The nights were filled with hot spring baths, homemade takoyaki, snacks, birthday cake, and alcohol-induced renditions of Mozart quartets.

I have been sooo busy with orchestra (we’re accompanying an opera in a few months!), work, and random projects– one of the random projects being the doll above. I was going to wait to post about it until it was finished, but, then I thought maybe I could rope a few more people into making dolls if I posted about it beforehand!

My friend Victoria and I used to have craft nights back in Boston, when we’d knit, or make jewelry out of resistors and wires, or draw up invitations for our elaborate theme parties. Recently, to keep in touch, we signed up to make dolls for an orphanage in Nicaragua, and we chat via Skype as we sew (sewing is much more fun with company!) You can read about the project here. The only requirements are that the dolls have black/brown hair and eyes, to match the children in the orphanage. And that they be handsewn/knitted/crocheted. If you have no sewing skills or experience, it doesn’t matter! Your doll will still look like it’s been made with love. Anyway, I’ve been enjoying my weekly chats with her, and our dolls are almost done! I’ll post another picture when the doll has hair and looks less creepy.

If you leave a comment on the original post, you’ll get an email with the mailing address. The dolls need to be received by June 13th. Oh, and there are patterns on the site, but I made mine with a pattern that I drew up and that you can download here. If you use my pattern you’ll need to leave 0.5 cm outside of the lines when you cut.  I’m sorry that I didn’t have time to write up an explanation of how to sew the parts in the pattern, but you can follow the instructions on the sites linked by the original post, cutting out these shapes instead.  And we are using this tutorial to attach hair.  And yay for cute Japanese fabric with hedgehogs and mushrooms (Japanese fabric stores are my favorite!)

xoxo

The regularly scheduled programming has been interrupted by Narcissism.  I was happy with my outfit today, so I took pictures.  I liked it because I was wearing my puffy bloomer-like shorts, that I bought in Singapore.

cropped cardigan, t-shirt: H&M
belt: stolen from striped dress
bloomer shorts: some small side street store in Singapore

Singapore is so multi-cultural.  It’s official languages are English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay.  And delicious food representing each major ethnicity is easy to find and cheap!

Sweet Bean Curd with fried pastries

Chinese BBQ Pork

Indian Roti Prata (stuffed with cheese)

Chicken Laksa (spicy coconuty soup with noodles)

Creme Brulee Cheesecake