ATTENTION

MISSING!!!

name: "Winter Holiday" 2008
length: approximately 3-4 weeks
description: time of holiday cheer, rest and relaxation, no worries
aliases: Christmas Break, Yule, Festivus

last seen today around 12.00am when it was realized there's only a week left in the break

if found please return to
KATLYN GRIFFIN

another chance to get it right

with the dawning of a new year brings new resolutions. i don't usually set resolutions for myself, but the last year and a half have been ridiculous and i feel the need to make some changes.

a resolution is the act of resolving. answering. solving.

hot damn, am i ready for some of that.

i'm not going to list everything i plan to resolve this year, but i will note that today marked the beginning of my journey into vegetarianism...not that i really eat a lot of meat anyway. (but lord only knows the cravings i can get for mo joe's) i'm going to try cutting it out all together, and attempt to just eat healthier in general.

we'll see how long this lasts. i think mo joe's is already calling my name.

"yo, katlyn!"

vay cay

as with any griffin family vacation, what can go wrong will go wrong. "hope for the best and expect the worst" is our motto when it comes to traveling.

instead of driving 10 hours to florida we opted to fly. an hour and a half flight is no big deal, right? sure, until it decides to snow everywhere and cause flight delays. on the way to florida our flight was delayed three hours. that sucked, but we survived and went on the have a great time at disney world with no problems.

ultimately, disney world consists of:
-long lines
-screaming children
-expensive souvenirs
-a lot of plastic
-unused recycling bins
-rides that are awesome,
but not worth waiting an hour
-mish mash of foreign languages
-asians with large cameras
-creepy people in costumes
-parades that block traffic
-grown adults with cartoon characters plastered all over them
-parents who think their child and stroller are more important than not running over your foot

essentially everyone who goes to disney world sells their soul to mickey mouse. you pretty much have to with how expensive the tickets are.

but alas, the travel gods weren't done with us yet. on tuesday our flight home was scheduled to leave at 7:50pm. so as most people do, we got there early to get through security, etc.

our plane didn't leave until 1:50am on wednesday. we sat in the airport for about 8 hours.

EUREKA!!!

today has been bizarre.

my final in economics was at 8 this morning. don't ask. then i got home around 10 and took a nap...that lasted until 3. i've spent the rest of the day feeling disoriented and a couple hours behind.

as i've said before, i don't take naps. but last night i only got a few hours of sleep. after lying down around 1 and beginning to drift off...suddenly i had this idea.

the past month or so i've been trying to really narrow down my concept for my art to wear line so i can get started on it over break. i had come up with a lot of random crap, most of which i was pretty ambivalent about.

BUT.

last night whilst lying in bed i had this image pop in my head and then everything was clear. it was like god reached down, popped open my head (like they do on monty python) and just sprinkled it in.

so. instead of being able to get a solid 6 hours of sleep before my major exam, i spent most of the night sketching and ideating and then just laying there and thinking. i can't turn the shit off.

zzzZZZzzz

let's get one thing straight.

i don't take naps. i just don't.

because inevitably i wake up feeling even more like shit than i did before.

but.

the past three days i've taken ridiculously long naps. they've been glorious. and now that classes are over i plan to sleep for the rest of break.

goodnight.

roadkill casserole

on my way from leazar to brooks today, i stopped at the sidewalk to let a car pass when suddenly i see this poor little squirrel jumping and twitching on the ground across the road.

it had been hit by said car.

the squirrel hits the gutter and stops moving. i'm freaking out because this animal is dying right in front of me when all of a sudden this redneck guy yells out "OooooWeee! I'm gonna be eatin' good tonight!" and proceeds to walk over to the squirrel, pick it up by the tail and walk away with it swinging.


you can't make this shit up.

just maybe

i'm not positive.

but.

i'm pretty sure dean malecha wouldn't approve if i said my design process simply included shots of straight bourbon whiskey and a lot of pizazz.

all by myself

it is saturday night...er well technically it's now sunday. i am currently in studio.

alone.

by myself.

there are no other losers working on a saturday night like me. but there are perks to this.

i have my handy ipod with me and i'm keeping myself company by singing loud and singing proud. granted i'm assuming that i'm still alone in here like i was when i first arrived.

maybe i'm just paranoid but i swear i keep hearing a door closing somewhere.

i'd be super embarrased if someone magically appeared during one of my killer solos.

pointless story

since it's thanksgiving break, i'm at home. so tonight my sister was all "hey, katlyn. let's go do sister things like paint pottery...blah blah." okay. we get to this place and there are shelves and shelves of blank ceramics for me to choose from. i start getting all weird like "shit. too much to pick from. too much blankness. too few ideas. too sniffly to care."

amidst the abundance of white pottery, i pick the smallest, flatest, cheapest plate i can find. plates are more useful than a ceramic princess riding a unicorn (don't think that wasn't an option, i seriously considered).

now. what the hell do i paint on this thing? from the random firing of neurons that is my thinking pattern, i get the flash of this image:

this little guy is a drawing by carson ellis (whom i love).

birds. they keep popping up all over the place with me lately. i think they're cute, which apparently merits me putting them on everything. like a plate.

tomorrow i'll eat a bird. because it's thanksgiving and that's what you do. when i went to the grocery store to buy the turkey i asked my mom why they were all "fresh young turkeys." i said if we're going to kill the things, we should kill off the old bastards. my mom thought this was funny. i did not. but.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

too much food!!!

we celebrated thanksgiving early tonight.

hand turkeys.

naps under coffee tables.

dancing kitty cats.

polaroid sneak attacks.


i doubt the real day can surpass.

look at me! i'm writing on my blog for the first time in over three months!

huzzah!!!

three cheers for good advertising

translation: "it doesn't happen here, but it happens now"

kid's stuff

le voyage du ballon rouge

232

in celebration of our country's sticking it to the man we made kabobs and long island iced teas.

long island iced teas...proudly made in the US of A

liquid refreshment

kabobs...as american as all our outsourced merchandise

most awkward picture ever

we also watched the spectacular "return to oz"

the wheeeeelers!

did yoga

doing the crane...until i lost balance and kick nick in the head

had deep philosophical conversations

"the things which we perceive as real are actually just shadows on a wall"

and miraculously beat that level in kingdom hearts that we all had gotten so tired and fed up with

game nerd

unlimited enthusiasm expo 2008

on tuesday my sister and i ventured down to carrboro for the

UNLIMITED ENTHUSIASM EXPO

brought to you by harry and the potters. in other words...nerd fest 2008. there was face painting, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and pin-the-tail on dudley, and blow up animals. lord knows i was kicking myself for not bringing my camera.

we got there late and had missed hearing monsterface. but. we were there just in time to see math the band play. they were a lot of fun to watch, very energetic. geek rock is awesome. nothing better than jamming out to a song about your sister having lice.

and then there was harry and the potters.

harry potter from year four meets harry potter from year seven and they became what is now known as harry and the potters. i know what you're thinking..."that sounds totally lame." well. you're wrong. their songs are really funny and actually good.

highlights included: save ginny weasley, the human hosepipe, voldemort can't stop the rock

another highlight was randomly seeing my high school sophomore english teacher at the show singing and bouncing along to all the songs. yeah...i'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was only there because his daughter wanted to go...right, mr. meacham, right.

good times.

net neutrality

Save the Internet | Rock the Vote

rock and shop market

today toni and i ventured downtown to tir na nog bar for the rock and shop market.

there were a lot of really cool merchants selling shirts, bags, jewelry, journals, pottery, etc...i bought this sweet ring with a huge flower on it. totally obnoxious, but i love it.

one of the coolest tables had all these crazy, awesome posters for bands playing at locals venues like the cats cradle over the years. bands included the decemberists, feist, the twilight singers, cursive, tilly and the wall, and loads more.

i wanted to buy them all so badly!!! because they had great illustrations and i had attended a lot of the shows he made them for. ah, memories.

the market was really inspiring. toni and i saw the fruits of people doing what they love to do and we just looked at each other and said "we could totally do this."

and we are.

the fall

i went to a movie last night on a whim.

i had looked at the galaxy's website to see if they had any interesting films playing and i happened upon this one movie called 'the fall.'

so. i roped toni into accompanying me to the movies. a roommate date if you will.

i wasn't too sure what to expect from 'the fall.' i had a basic idea of the plot and figured what the hell.

it turned out to be the best movie i've seen in awhile.

the story, the acting, the costumes (!!!), the colors, the cinematography, the sets...everything about it was great.

the little girl was so cute, he wasn't bad either ;)

what confuses me more than anything about our culture is how a really artistic (not in a pretentious way), accessible movie like this can only be (hopefully) viewed at small theaters like the galaxy, while every major movie theater around will show a piece of shit like 'the love guru'?!

i think it says a lot about us as a society.

out of context

-"for we are like olives; only when we are crushed do we yield what is best in us."
-reality varies from generation to generation
-my shitty life on paper
-"i'm not addicted to drugs, i'm addicted to glamour"
-oh, the androgyny!
-the engineers of human souls
-corporate assholes
-level of civilization defined by how animals are treated
-okay so this is really supposed to be a guy. a fat guy. but we're going to make him feminine. he's going to sparkle.
-i would tell them i had been brainwashed once too.
-do travel agents still exist?
-great stories, ones worth telling
-bullshit. lies. anger. useless.
-so boring? so blasé?
-fuck. i need a god-damned lightning bolt.
-voice was too high-pitched anyway.
-be brave, clench fists.
-lamborghini makes tractors
-differences in words
-the ink i waste
-incessant attempts to defy gravity and time
-eerie grimace
-she told her pastor that he was a bastard.
-fate thought it would be funny

hello, my name is

midge

-enjoys discussing the ailments, diseases, and bodily fluids of everyone living in her retirement community
-never misses an opportunity to say something inappropriate
-smokes camel turkish golds
-has one style of shoes in twelve colors
-never lets her gas gauge go below a quarter tank. and, she always drives the extra five miles to the full service gas station

because silence is knowledge, and knowledge is power

during class, while i pretend to pay attention to the fascinating world of marketing, i make lists of things to look up on wikipedia. this week's compilation is as follows:

-coca-cola
-nietzsche
-eternal return
-dichotomy
-biba
-hegemonic structures
-kitsch
-internet
-julia butterfly
-"verbal diarrhea"
-roma people
-socialist realism
-jan svankmajer
-2012
-alternative fuel sources
-beer
-ad reinhardt
-caste system
-living goddesses
-carl jung
-agnosticism
-shiva
-black onyx
-typography
-ivan klima
-corporate systems
-eight-fold path
-barnett newman
-marni
-lanolin

questions? yes.

answers? please.

slowly downward

"so i'm in the car with my notebook, and for something to do i'm writing down what all these signs and advertisements have to say. i'm filling pages and pages. And then i realise something else. they're only using a very few colours, and the colours are bold, brash, and used in very visually compelling combinations. about ninety per cent of the messages that flick past my retinas are using seven colours. i start noting these down.

red, green, blue, yellow, orange, black, and white.

all made of plastic, all made from pigments derived from the petrochemical industry, the same hydrocarbon trade that has made the city of los angeles possible, at least in the short term...part of what i'm trying to do is

TREAT THE CANVAS AS 'REAL ESTATE.' "

-stanley donwood

firing neurons

today i spent the entirety of my brand management class writing a list of all the czech words i could remember.

yesterday it was a list of recipes i wanted to try.

tuesday. modern artists with catchy names.

there should be a book full of all the random doodle scrap pages that people make during ridiculously long and mundane classes. it would be like found magazine. i write and draw the most disconnected shit when i get bored (see Figures 1-7). i think everyone does.

Figure 1. tree

Figure 2. some megasaurus action

Figure 3. while learning about medieval fashion

Figure 4. houses upon houses upon houses upon houses...

Figure 5. i copied emily's falling triangle doodle...then she noticed

Figure 6. i seem to like doodling dinosaurs. and making observations.

Figure 7. my croquis expressed a lot of concern for our studio

no really. let's compile a book of them.

may 25th

there are exactly 220 days left in the year.

on this day in history:

• 1787: In Philadelphia our forefathers convene a Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution for the US
• 1925: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.
• 1926: Miles Davis is born
• 1977: Stars Wars is released
• 2001: first annual "Towel Day," a commemoration of the life and work of author Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

see. today wasn't just any other day.

states of transition

decorating an apartment is expensive. but fun.

yes, the paper lantern is ripped. yes, that lamp shade is wonky.

our apartment is too big. we need more furniture.
on margarita night we made plaster casts of our arms and legs:

yes, we're creepy art nerds.

life is slow. and made up of random occurrences and coincidences that don't seem to add up. but somehow do.

side note:
if interested, the bootleg from the radiohead show in charlotte can be had here.

one for yes, two for no

RADIOHEAD
set list

set 1:
-all i need
-there there
-airbag
-15 step
-nude
-sail to the moon
-weird fishes/arpeggi
-myxomatosis
-idioteque
-morning bell
-videotape
-optimistic
-where i end and you begin
-you and whose army?
-everything in its right place
-bangers & mash
-bodysnatchers

encore 1:
-go slowly
-talk show host
-exit music
-planet telex
-house of cards

encore 2:
-paranoid android
-reckoner

highlights include:
you and whose army?
pretty killer live. became one of my favorite songs after hearing them play it at bonnaroo. it was nice that they played it again.

talk show host
another of my favs that doesn't usually get a lot of live play. pleasant surprise.

15 step and nude
two of, what i think, are the best songs off 'in rainbows'

phenomenal show. awesome sound. insane lighting. silly thom dancing. superhero references. eyebrow wiggles. :)

kiss it goodbye

sometimes people act like a douche bag,

even though they aren't a douche bag.

and that's usually worse than if they really are a total douche bag.

because then you don't expect it.

growing up

i felt old today. this is the second time i've felt that way.

the first time occurred on my 20th birthday. i was walking back to the apartment in paris after celebrating my birthday by eating fondue and drinking too much wine. we ran into a group of drunk french kids hanging out in the street. we started talking to them and found out they were only 14. then they had to leave because apparently the police were coming and they were too young to be caught drunk.

the second time occurred today. i had a great lunch with some friends and then we decided to go roller skating. i really didn't expect there to be many, if any, people our age there roller skating. (even though there should be because it's fun) we were getting our roll on when Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time" came on. it was then that we realized half the people in that roller rink hadn't been born when that song first came out.

20. that isn't old at all. that's only a fourth of the average female life span. i suppose it was absurd for me to feel that way.

is there even a point in keeping up with this thing now that the whole reason i started it in the first place is over?

who knows. maybe i'll write random shit on here periodically just for fun. like now.

BREAKING NEWS!!!
it has been brought to my attention, by an undisclosed source, that (apparently) Barack Obama is the antichrist.

who would've guessed it? ;)

reverse culture shock

i'm back.

and it feels weird.

it's the underdog world strike!

be it punk, hip-hop, be it a reggae sound
it is all connected through
the gypsy part of town.
LET'S GO!

eugene hutz: father of the gypsy punk revelution

yes, you do have that shirt

i want your drum...and your makeup

the band in all their glory


he's looking right at me?!

Trip Itinerary:
-four hour bus ride to bratislava
-wandering looking for the venue
-turns out to be the most awesome venue ever
-opening band skindred plays thirty minute set, entering the stage to the darth vader theme
-gogol bordello comes on
-crowd loses its mind
-gogol bordello lose their minds
-i lose my mind
-moshing, thrashing, jumping, shouting, laughing, smiling, sweating
-giant drum
-fight my way to the front
-touch eugene hutz...twice
-'start wearing purple'
-flying bucket of microphone and red wine
-become soaked with wine and sweat
-show ends, die of happiness

probably one of the best shows i've ever seen. so much energy. so much fun.

i have to be honest and say it was actually comparable to seeing radiohead.

yeah. that's how fucking awesome it was.

"deutsch bag"

it's been awhile...
but. let's get to it.

BERLIN
i feel like i say it everytime i get back from a new place...but berlin is definitely one of my favorite places i've gone to.

why? here are a few reasons:
-the modern architecture
-amazing graffiti
-super nice people
-giant metal seesaws...the city was like one huge playground for adults
-the food (so much more to choose from than in prague)
-way cleaner

the wall/checkpoint charlie

potsdamer platz/lewitt cube

some sweet news!
i am so excited because wednesday i am going to bratislava, slovakia to see none other than...

GOGOL BORDELLO

a gypsy punk band playing in eastern europe?! they are ridiculous live back in the states, so i can only imagine how amazing it's going to be here, since most of the members are eastern european and they are a lot more popular here.

!!!

i'll try to take some pictures at the show to post on here later.

slow hands

when i left for spring break at the end of february, old town square looked as it always did, a large expanse of cobble stones and a big statue of jan huss. upon my return from spring break one can imagine the surprise i felt when i saw that old town square had been transformed into an easter wonderland with an egg tree and lots of little souvenir and trdlo stands, and a ridiculous increase in tourists who get in my way.

here in the czech republic we celebrate easter a little differently than in the states. they don't play the easter bunny bullshit game.

on easter monday the boys are supposed to spend the rest of the day hitting the girls with willow rods and then the girls are supposed to give the boys painted eggs to make peace. some guys go as far as dousing the girls in cold water. apparently they're supposed to appreciate all this.

so. it's easter monday and i'm on the metro on my way to the institute, ipod playing, just having some chill time on the way. at one of the stops three boys, who all looked about 12 years old, get on with their willow rods and baskets in hand. they move into the metro car behind me, and i hear them talking and laughing together. next thing i know

WHOP!

popped right in the ass.
no, i didn't give them any eggs.

this weekend i'm going to berlin (!!!) and then i only have three weeks left. it's going to be a total shock when i land in raleigh and it's in the mid 70's. it's been snowing here off and on for the past week.

time is flying by. guh.

visual pleasure

mmm...baby bottle wine and sweet sangria

spring break. paris. barcelona. mind blowingly great. here's a brief run down of events:

paris
-stayed in montmartre (yes, where amelie lived!) which was a really cute section of paris.
-went to a party hosted by Arielle (the really awesome girl we stayed with). people from different parts of europe, all really nice, good night.
-did a lot of the touristy things: eiffel tower, the louvre, arc de triumph, notre dame...

-celebrated my 20th birthday by going to the most amazing fondue restaurant. the place was packed so they would make you climb over the tables to sit down. oh, and they served you wine out of glass baby bottles (i swear there was something more than just wine in those bottles)
-lots of walking around, eating food, enjoying the sights, loving the city

paris definitely became my favorite city visited so far. it had such charm and was so pretty...guh. one day i'm going to open a sweet cake shop there, i swear. ;)


barcelona
-our hostel was right on the beach! so we spent a lot of time out there.
-mmm...sangria. best idea ever.
-went to the aquarium...saw a lot of fish and learned that the male genitals of a shark are called claspers...neat, right?!
-went to a flamenco dance show. i seriously thought this guy's legs were going to fly off from moving them so fast.

-looked at gaudi architecture. i really liked the crazy, colorful buildings gaudi designed; different than any other architecture i had ever seen.

-i also discovered the greatness of donars...yum. donars. so good. thank you molly collins for giving me the gift of delicious donar knowledge. no, this isn't a spanish dish, but it changed my life nonetheless.


my spring break was insanely good, but i'm actually really happy to be back in prague. i'm trying to compile a spring break video to post on here. i don't know when i'll have it up, but hopefully soon.

only six weeks left, so sad :(

love.