Home :: About :: Contact :: Archives :: Thumbs

Montly archives

A Guest Post from Taylor

It's frustrating to wait for your favorite bloggers to update.

You're maybe sitting at work, bored, looking around local blogsphere for some new content to waste away the workday, and there's nothing. Not a damn thing. No updates. No new posts. Not a single tick on the RSS feeds. Nothing.

What are you supposed to do? Read the news? Comment on boring forums? Get back to work? C'mon, be serious.

Take this blog, for example. These past few weeks have been brutal for Sopheava fans. She's been too busy working on that fancy new STrib calendar page to throw us little people a few new posts. Sure, she's got daily photos, and that helps. But it's not the same.

So to tide over you other dear readers, Margaret let me do this guest post. It's not as good as a regular post, but it's still something to get you through the day -- or night, whenever you're checking the page.

Oh, and what are you doing this weekend? I'm having a party -- you should come and buy me a drink! It's going to be really fun. We'll see you there.

Yours in rotting flesh and brains,
Taylor

Vita.mn

I think it's time to blow the lid off the busyness that has been this summer, the non-postingness that has exploded on this website, and the skinny on what's going dizz-own in the Twin Cities since, well, Taylor almost scooped me on my own website yesterday. Can ya dig it?

First things first, I'm pleased to finally unveil and announce what I've been up to the past few months: say hello to Vita.mn! Any official description I'm going to have of the site will include words and phrases like, "sweeeeet", "bitchin'", and "Tiny Christian Horses" which is why I leave it to my partner in crime, Matt, to do all the talking for us. And Matt says...

Matt's articulateness makes a marked, non-use of the word 'bitchin'. This is why he's the editor. I am resigned to User Number 2, but, ya'know, Number 2 is always the brains behind the operation anyway. So that's basically a whole lot of tiny Christian horses to me.

I will definitely be filling everyone in on what vita.mn is, what's behind it, why you should visit it, and perhaps even a sneak peek in to the COMING-SOON! portions of the site (which, yes, there are many) in the next couple of-ish posts. Cuz, you know, we have a redesign to talk about around here too. And photography. And as many other geeky things as we've shared together in the past. Whatevs. It feels like we should have a celebratory rah-rah drink for this monumentous occasion but I fear all my readers have long since vanished to the photoblog where pictures are pretty and skin runneth over. No worries, I have some exciting news to announce there too. Just remember you heard the news that there will be news here first, sweet sopheava readers. Those Lumiere bitches are the last to get all the info.

Working on an Arts and Entertainment website as both web designer and photographer has its perks. Not only does my camera get to see, um, any number of things it didn't used to... but did you know there's all kinds of interesting things going on in the Twin Cities? Like, for real! I've lived here almost 5 years and had no idea there was more to photograph than just the Mississippi river and that spoon & cherry garbage. Passing along this sensitive information, gentle readers, is my moral duty. Plus I'm also paid for it. So that helps.

+ There's a Zombie Pub Crawl going on this Saturday. That's tomorrow folks! and it's somewhere in Northeast. Many thanks to Taylor for his complimentary posting prowess right here on sopheava.com yesterday... eeeeeeeeven if he was just trying to butter up both me *AND* my 2 remaining readers so we'd go to his pub crawl. Photographing drunk zombies sounds like a hoot which is why I will definitely be there. The only possible road-block is that it's in Northeast. Have I been to Northeast Minneapolis before? (Haha, kidding... sort of) If you see the red crumpler be sure to say hi.

+ The Renaissance Festival is going on this month, and if you can you believe it I am a Ren festival virgin. My camera won't be missing it this year.

+ And while this has nothing at all to do with vita.mn, it does in fact crack my shit up. Head over to hipster erotica for a good time baby. Watching you play old school NES ROMS on your iBook turns me on. HEY WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!

Have a few things up my sleeve for both sopheava.com *AND* vita.mn, a lot of which will be making their first appearances in the next couple of weeks. I'm so gonna be that person, if only for a moment, who says STAY TUNED!

So STAY TUNED!

PS, this post would be so much more fun if I had done it with a lisp.
PPS, I should add that if you're one of the early Saturday morning readers you'll find that vita.mn will be down for scheduled maintenance. But, you know, head on over anyway to check out how well duct tape and worn can play with web 2.0.

Good Fotography Fortune

Late last week the gods of photography smiled down upon me. I don't know what I did to deserve their good fortune, and if my mother had heard rumor of their plans to bestow praises and gifts upon my deserving head I'm sure she would have had a stern word with them about my shocking display of skin on the photoblog and remind them to think twice about how they might be empowering me, but she didn't run interference, they did in fact pass along shiny, black offerings, and I happily accepted with a, "AWhells-fuckingYEAH!" cry.

Working with (EX) photojournalists has its many and varied perks, some of which I'm still uncovering and am determined to unravel. A few weeks ago I headed down to the newsroom to find the art department and Photog-Cave. This was pretty cool A) because their super-mega-awesome high-res megatron lightning scanners finally did some justice to a crappy old photo my lousy canon poo-poo'd, but also B) because I got a sneak peek in to the world of photojournalists and staff photographers. Did you know they have a glass room? Full of glass? And lenses? AN ENTIRE ROOM!?! I haven't actually seen said room yet, but I'm assured it does exist. Trust me, if I can ever get my hands on a 600mm lens nothing is sacred and the neighbors will need to start closing some blinds if ya'know what I'm sayin'.

It was an ex-photojournalist that surprised me, tho. He knew I was "in to" photography but last week go ahold of my photoblog URL. Two days later I'mm sitting in a random meeting when random ex-photojournalist randomly intrudes in the random meeting to randomly selected random friend to ask me if I'm randomly interested in some random Nikon lenses. I picked the drool up off my shirt and blankly nodded his direction.

The next morning I found a 55mm nikon macro and 20mm nikon wide-angle waiting for me on my desk.

Yay good fortune and free gifts. I posted the first pic of my test-series taken this weekend this afternoon. Behold the Flower Porn. Because when you have a macro lens what else are you going to photograph besides stems & pistils?

I'm so cliche. Later this week you can expect photos of half-eaten food and minatures climbing half-eaten food.

I also thought you might enjoy some weekend Zombie action and perhaps maybe some fat kitten. So, ENJOY!!!

Sush-Yi

Last night I had dinner, but more importantly I had DRINKS!, at Anemoni. There was a time Steve and I had sushi once a week, but that was also a time in our lives when we worked for a dot-com complete with big screen tv, pool table, networked x-boxes, and beer Fridays.

Our office was smack-dab in the middle of downtown in the same building as Martini Blu. Oh man, if I had a dollar for every time I had a Martini-Blu martini at Martini Blu I'd still be in the red. So many lunches and happy hours were blown there in the presence of beautiful plasma TVs and avant-garde video art that I can't even tell you what a joy it was. "Sorry, can't finish that report for you right now because I have a meeting next door with Mr. Blu. Will be back in an hour or 2. Or 3. Whatevs."

Martini Blu had the martinis, clearly. Nami was my favorite joint for straight-up yummy japanese food, the most amazing happy hour in town, and a cozy atmosphere, while Origami was my favorite... um, wait. When was it my favorite again? Oh yeah. When I was young and naive and in college and didn't live in the Twin Cities just like everyone else who loves Origami. Sorry Origami, but you just haven't lit this fire.

Anemoni though.... mmmm, sweet Anemoni. I had a religious experience there last night (as did my CREDIT CARD!) with a good friend of mine. She's been there a hundred times, and I quickly learned that Lesson No. 1 at Anemoni is to put yourself in the delicate hands of the sushi Chefs. Who. Are. Ahhhhh. Mazing. They whipped up a little of this, a little of that, surprised us with a couple of oyster shooters, and at the end of the meal showered the most amazing strawberry concoction down upon our very full tummies I've ever set my bulging eyes upon. If I hadn't had so much god-damned-sake I probably would have enjoyed it more. Maybe. The sushi chefs wouldn't have had so much fun though, that I'm sure of.

So when you sushi fans get a chance, check out Anemoni. And check out the Rihaku, Masumi, Kariho, and Nigori sakes. Did you get that? Wait... one more time.

• Rihaku
• Masumi
• Kariho
• Nigori

Mmmm.... sushi.

Double-koopa warp points for hitting up Azia for half-price happy hour sake goodness. Open both 3-6pm and 10pm-close. Has to be, HAS TO BE, my favorite happy hour in all of the Twin Cities.

Triple-bowser topple points if you get that the title of this post refers to 'Yi', the name of my new favorite sushi chef. He's a little bit of awesome. Especially after an oyster shooter or 3.

PROJECTMOTHERFUCKINGRUNWAY

VINCENT! ANGELA!

*pant... pant... pant...*

Now that that's out of the way... Dear Laura,

I love everything you make. Please let me photograph your clothing line with my macro lens. And then make a website for your amazing collection to live on. And then give me all the dresses with a cherry on top.

Love,
Margaret

The gallery scoop

Because I told you guys I would bring you the Badass Motherfucking Lumiere scoops on a Motherfucking Plane first, and because, well, I'm just nice like that it is my pleasure to announce that your evening of September 29th will be spent joining me at SpotArt Gallery for my first ever gallery showing.

What I actually meant to say in that last paragraph was, "HOLY FUCKING SHIT I'm losing my shit here cuz my photographs are in a show!!!!!"

Yes, that's better.

SpotArt is a wonderful gallery in Northeast that features a lot of really great Twin Cities work (um, clearly). I will bring you all sorts of juicy details in all kinds of glory over the next week, both here and on vita.mn. One and all are invited to this show which should run about 2 months... but you really need to come on September 29th so you can, if nothing else, say 'hi' and take some photos of me being all awkward and embarrassed and leaning against the wine bar all flush-like while I attempt to balance my nerves.

Come see some art!

Trying a new angle

Filed under 'too much information' but also 'new favorite story', I found out that my non-appearance at the Triple Rock this weekend to see a friend's show caused all sorts of problems. Particularly when Karen got to the door and found it it was a cash-only venue. She didn't have the cash in-hand and didn't have the pin number to her new cash card in order to fetch some. So she stood there, simply arguing with the bouncer saying, "Margaret Andrews is on the list. Can you check please? But, only, see,I'm not Margaret Andrews. I'm her friend. MARGARET. ANDREWS. Yup, that's her. Now may I please get in?"

Yeah, that didn't work out so well either. Apparently you really do have to be Margaret Andrews to get in.

Finally she resorted to the old, "Look buddy. Margaret Andrews is my friend and she laid up at home with cramps so she couldn't be here. Now may I please just get in to see my friend play in his band?"

No more questions. The guy simply looked for any open skin - wrist, hand, forehead, whatevs - to stamp as quicklky as possible and ushered her right in without a further peep.

It's a new approach, yes, but I think I like it. Huh. Never would have that of that one myself.

Spotitive

Don't forget about tomorrow evening... the opening of Spotitive, a show at SpotArt Gallery including the photography of one Miss Margaret Andrews and the works of several other talented artists. There will be music, there will be art, and there will be a lot of very cool people present.

Do stop in and say hello!

Opening reception is tomorrow evening from 7-11 pm. More info here and here.