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Janelle Monáe: "Dance or Die" / "Faster"

via perpetua.tumblr.com

I saw her at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco a couple of days before this show in Chicago; she was fantastic (though the set was sadly short).

But wow, I still just can't get over how talented she is.

Big Boi's Mixtape for Dummies

This is great! (via Gorilla vs Bear)

On Top of the World

Maciej is on a small island in northern Norway:

Getting groceries means having to cross the 70th parallel, which fills me with an unjustifiable sense of regret. There's something glorious about being out and about in my shirtsleeves at 70˚N that loses all its savor down at 69˚59'. Never mind that I am still north of all of mainland Canada, north of Alaska (except for a tiny sliver of the North Slope) and very much north of you. We draw arbitrary lines on the globe and then behave in ways that give them a ghostly reality. I didn't come all this way to be walking south!

As usual, this is a great read.

Janelle Monáe, performing "Let's Go Crazy"

via www.youtube.com

Incredible.

Sunday dinner

Apricots, originally uploaded by La Grande Farmers' Market

Lovely dinner, tonight:

• lemony halibut skewers with charmoula, with a mint-yogurt sauce
• summer squash gratin (from Lucques)
• apricot crisp with vanilla ice cream

I also made pizza dough and some tomato sauce for tomorrow night's dinner. All together? A very nice day in the kitchen!

Pizza!

Can we call this national make-pizza-at-home week?  That would make me really happy.  Why?  Because pizza at home is so good, so easy, and so so affordable. 

via ruhlman.com

YES. I've been making lots of pizza, lately: a shaved asparagus pizza, a radicchio and gremolota pizza, a roasted fennel and Italian sausage pizza, &c.

Here's what I do: the day before I want to make the pizza, I make the dough [1]. I let it rise for around three hours, then I put it in the refrigerator to sit, overnight. The next night, I make the pizza, and we eat it. The (delicious) end.

Lighter than air

via www.boston.com

I'm such a sucker for photos of balloons! (before)

Robyn, "Dancing On My Own" (live)

Via perpetua.tumblr.com, this is Robyn performing "Dancing On My Own" live. I'm excited about this album.

Kanye West, "Power"

mixtape maestro:

Oh, and as far as being looked as the "abomination of Obama nation"? Yeezy could care less, quickly brushing off any slight tinges of remorse concerning that role with this typically egotistical line: "At the end of the day/ Goddammit, I'm killin’ this shit".

Honestly, as much as one might want to hate Kanye when he’s on one of these power trips, dude is right: "Power", taken in as a whole, is an epic shit-killer.

"Power" is so, so good. Listen here:

Gift Wrapped Kitty Cats

Perpetua posts a Girls Aloud comp:

Taken at face value, you’d be forgiven for being skeptical about Girls Aloud. They’re a girl group created by a UK televised singing competition, and it’s not exactly easy to tell the singers apart on record. The thing that makes Girls Aloud special is that they have exclusively worked with the production team Xenomania since day one, and they’ve basically become a front for that group’s brilliant, hyperactive brand of rock-infused dance pop. At their best, the Xenomania/Girls Aloud team-up results in gleefully campy super-charged pop tunes with lyrics that push the themes of Chick Lit into the realm of nonsensical absurdity and/or biting satire. If you’ve never heard this stuff and you’re looking for some intensely joyful pop, you’re in for a good time.

This is a great introduction to a fantastic pop band.