#they also played harlem roulette....

[thatshitkrejci]

got to hear one of my all-timers this year (steal smoked fish), so I don't mean to be greedy, but I can't look at this set w/o having a meltdown

[skywatch3rs]

top 5 times you've seen tmg

this resulted in me pulling up setlist fm and my travel spreadsheets to double check how many tmg shows i've actually been to and its 11 full shows and one instore so i do actually have to pick and its hard!!!

dublin 2019 - palmcorder yanya, waylon jennings live!, this is about when younger solidifed as one of my all time favourites. john played ash's request for birth of serpents back to back with my request for steal smoked fish in the encore and afterwards we hung out with matt and got hugs and were like, fully solidified as Those Two who were barrier at every show of the tour

dublin 2015 beat the champ tour - my first time! i flew from cardiff to dublin to stay with a pal and went to the gig on my own, got in the second row, and sobbed my way through most of the set next to an older irish woman who grabbed my hand during never quite free. the setlist was insane: cry for judas, ballad of bull ramos, heel turn 2, steal smoked fish, amy aka spent gladiator, and my first time ever hearing this year live. whelan's is a tiny venue, the crowd was rowdy af and joyful, and until this year it was the only full band show i'd been to!

brighton 2017 - last show of the goths tour, i tweeted john from outside the venue asking if i could teach myself how to make an origami unicorn before the show, would he consider playing from tg&y (my fav unreleased song). i successfully made the unicorn and left it on the keyboard, he held it up during high unicorn tolerance and referred to me as "his friend". he did play from tg&y during the solo set and it changed my brain chemistry forever. also this was maybe my favourite version of harlem roulette i've seen live?

leeds night 2 2019. i have loved all the leeds shows, the brudenell club is my favourite venue, the crowd is always incredible, hearing andrew eldritch is moving back to leeds in leeds remains one of the most joyful musical experiences of my life every goddamn time, but this show in particular had autoclave in the solo set and then the double whammy of cry for judas into woke up new. this was 18 months after ash and i lost a friend to suicide and woke up new hits different when you're in grief like that. getting to cry and hug my best friend listening to our favourite band together doesn't get old ever.

dublin 2017 - HEEL TURN 1 BABYYYYY. new chevrolet in flamess!! the young thousands!! you were cool in the encore!!!!! ash and i befriended a very chill dude at barrier who lost his shit when JD played masher in the solo set, extremely good vibes. but really: heel turn one. screaming "i/ i/ i'm not gonna die in here" with a room full of people increasingly loudly was just so much.

honorable mention for berlin 2022, my first and only show of this tour bc i got incredibly sick the day after the gig. but going to germany with ash to see tmg again post-pandemic was just such a joy. matt melted my face off with his guitar solo during dark in here, seeing a full band show for the first time since 2015 rocked, waylon jennings live! full band? incredible. i screamed along so hard to up the wolves that my mask fell off; the catharsis was deeply needed

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Olive Thomas (born Oliva R. Duffy; October 20, 1894 – September 10, 1920) was an American silent-film actress, art model and photo model.

Thomas began her career as an illustrator's model in 1914, and moved on to the Ziegfeld Follies the following year. During her time as a Ziegfeld girl, she also appeared in the more risqué show The Midnight Frolic. In 1916, she began a successful career in silent films and would appear in more than 20 features over the course of her four-year film career. That year she also married actor Jack Pickford, the younger brother of fellow silent-film star Mary Pickford.

On September 10, 1920, Thomas died in Paris five days after ingesting her husband's syphilis medication, mercury bichloride, that brought on acute nephritis. Although her death was ruled accidental, news of her hospitalization and subsequent death were the subject of speculation in the press. Thomas' death has been cited as one of the first heavily publicized Hollywood scandals.

Oliva R. Duffy was born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, but often claimed her birth name was Oliveretta Elaine Duffy. She was the eldest of three children born to James and Rena Duffy, both of whom were of Irish descent. She had two brothers: James (born 1896) and William (born 1899). Thomas later helped both of her brothers to secure work in the film industry; after serving in the Marines in France during World War I, William worked as a cameraman, and James worked as an assistant director. At the time of her death, both brothers were employed by Selznick Productions.

Her father, James Duffy, a steelworker, died in a work-related accident in 1906. After his death, the family moved to McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, a small mill town. Thomas and her brothers often stayed with their grandparents while her mother Rena worked in a local factory. Rena Duffy later married Harry M. Van Kirk, a worker on the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. The two had a daughter, Harriet, who was born in 1914 and died in a car accident in 1931.

Thomas left school at the age 15 to help support her siblings. She got a job selling gingham at Joseph Horne's department store for $2.75 per week (equivalent to $75.46 in 2019). In April 1911, aged 16, she married Bernard Krug Thomas in McKees Rocks. During the two-year marriage, she reportedly worked as a clerk in Kaufmann's, a major department store in Pittsburgh. After their separation in 1913, Thomas moved to New York City and lived with a family member. She later found work in a Harlem department store.

In 1914, Thomas entered and subsequently won the "Most Beautiful Girl in New York City" contest held by Howard Chandler Christy, a commercial artist. Winning the contest helped establish her career as an artists' model, and she would later pose for Harrison Fisher, Raphael Kirchner, Penrhyn Stanlaws, and Haskell Coffin. Thomas was featured on many magazine covers, including that of the Saturday Evening Post.

Fisher wrote a letter of recommendation to Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., resulting in Thomas' being hired for the Ziegfeld Follies. However, Thomas later disputed this, claiming she "walked right up and asked for the job". She made her stage debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 on June 21, 1915. Thomas' popularity in the Follies led to her being cast in Ziegfeld's more risqué Midnight Frolic show. The Frolic was staged after hours in the roof garden of the New Amsterdam Theatre. It was primarily a show for famous male patrons who had plenty of money to bestow on the young and beautiful female performers. Thomas received expensive gifts from her admirers; it was rumored that German Ambassador Albrecht von Bernstorff had given her a $10,000 string of pearls.

During her time in The Follies, Thomas began an affair with Florenz Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld, who was married to actress Billie Burke, had affairs with other Ziegfeld girls, including Lillian Lorraine and Marilyn Miller (who would later marry Thomas' widower Jack Pickford).Thomas ended the affair with Ziegfeld after he refused to leave Burke to marry her.

Thomas continued modeling while appearing in the Follies. She became the first "Vargas Girl" after she posed for a portrait painted by Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas. The portrait, titled Memories of Olive, features Thomas nude from the waist up while clutching a rose. The portrait was reportedly commissioned by Florenz Ziegfeld but Vargas later denied this claim. Ziegfeld purchased and hung the portrait in his office at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Vargas, who called Thomas "one of the most beautiful brunettes that Ziegfeld ever glorified," kept a copy of the painting for his personal collection.

In July 1916, Thomas signed with the International Film Company. She made her on-screen debut in "Episode 10" of Beatrice Fairfax, a film serial. In 1917, she made her full-length feature debut in A Girl Like That for Paramount Pictures.

That same year, she signed with Triangle Pictures. Shortly after, news broke of her engagement to actor Jack Pickford, whom she had married a year prior. Thomas and Pickford, who was the younger brother of Mary Pickford, kept the marriage secret because Thomas did not want people to think her success in film was due to her association with the Pickfords. Her first film for Triangle, Madcap Madge, was released in June 1917. Thomas' popularity at Triangle grew with performances in Indiscreet Corrine (1917) and Limousine Life (1918). In 1919, she portrayed a French girl who poses as a boy in Toton the Apache. Thomas later said that she felt her work in Toton was "the first real thing I've ever done." She made her final film for Triangle, The Follies Girl, that same year.

After leaving Triangle, Thomas signed with Myron Selznick's Selznick Pictures Company in December 1918 for a salary of $2,500 a week. She hoped for more serious roles, believing that with her husband signed to the same company, she would have more influence. Her first film for Selznick, Upstairs and Down (1919), proved successful and established her image as a "baby vamp". She followed with roles in Love's Prisoner and Out Yonder, both in 1919. In 1920, Thomas played a teenage schoolgirl The Flapper, who yearns for excitement beyond her small Florida town. Thomas was the first actress to portray a lead character who was a flapper and the film was the first of its kind to portray the flapper lifestyle. Frances Marion, who wrote the scenario, was responsible for bringing the term into the American vernacular. The Flapper proved to be popular and became one of Thomas' most successful films. On October 4, 1920, Thomas' final film, Everybody's Sweetheart, was released.

Thomas' first marriage was to Bernard Krug Thomas, a man she met at age 15 while living in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. They married on April 1, 1911, and lived with his parents in McKees Rocks for the first six months of their marriage. The couple later moved into their own apartment. Krug Thomas worked as a clerk at the Pressed Steel Car Company while Olive took care of the home. In 1913, the couple separated and Olive moved to New York City to pursue a career as a model. She was granted a divorce on September 25, 1915, on the grounds of desertion and cruelty. In 1931, Bernard Krug Thomas gave an interview to The Pittsburg Press, detailing his marriage to Olive, implying that a cause of the demise of their marriage was her ambition, a desire to obtain a life of "luxury", and "improve her station".

In late 1916, Thomas met actor Jack Pickford, brother of one of the most successful silent stars, Mary Pickford, at a beach cafe on the Santa Monica Pier. Both Thomas and Pickford were known for their partying. Screenwriter Frances Marion remarked, "I had seen her often at the Pickford home, for she was engaged to Mary's brother, Jack. Two innocent-looking children, they were the gayest, wildest brats who ever stirred the stardust on Broadway. Both were talented, but they were much more interested in playing the roulette of life than in concentrating on their careers." Thomas eloped with Pickford on October 25, 1916, in New Jersey. None of their family was present, with only actor Thomas Meighan as their witness. Although the couple never had any children of their own, in 1920, they adopted Thomas' six-year-old nephew, the son of one of her brothers, after his mother died.

By most accounts, Thomas was the love of Pickford's life. However, the marriage was tumultuous and filled with highly charged conflict, followed by lavish making up through the exchange of expensive gifts. Pickford's family did not always approve of Thomas, though most of the family did attend her funeral. In Mary Pickford's 1955 autobiography Sunshine and Shadow, she wrote:

I regret to say that none of us approved of the marriage at that time. Mother Charlotte Hennessey thought Jack was too young, and Lottie and I felt that Olive, being in musical comedy, belonged to an alien world. Ollie had all the rich, eligible men of the social world at her feet. She had been deluged with proposals from her own world of the theater as well. Which was not at all surprising. The beauty of Olive Thomas is legendary. The girl had the loveliest violet-blue eyes I have ever seen. They were fringed with long dark lashes that seemed darker because of the delicate translucent pallor of her skin. I could understand why Florenz Ziegfeld never forgave Jack for taking her away from the Follies. She and Jack were madly in love with one another, but I always thought of them as a couple of children playing together.

For many years, Thomas and Pickford had intended to vacation together. Both were constantly traveling and had little time to spend together. With their marriage on the rocks, the couple decided to take a second honeymoon. In August 1920, the pair headed for Paris, hoping to combine a vacation with some film preparations.

On the night of September 5, 1920, they went out for a night of entertainment and partying at the famous bistros in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris. Returning to their room in the Hotel Ritz around 3 a.m., Pickford either fell asleep or was outside the room. An intoxicated and tired Thomas ingested mercury bichloride liquid solution. It had been prescribed to Pickford to topically treat sores caused by his chronic syphilis.

Thomas had either thought the flask contained drinking water or sleeping pills; accounts vary. The label was in French, which may have added to her confusion. After drinking the liquid she screamed, "Oh, my God!" and Pickford ran to pick her up. She was taken to the American Hospital in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where Pickford and his former brother-in-law Owen Moore remained at her side until she died five days later.

While Thomas lay in the American Hospital dying, the press began reporting on the various rumors that began to arise about the circumstances of the incident. Some papers reported that Thomas had attempted suicide after having a fight with Pickford over his alleged infidelities, while others said she attempted suicide after discovering Pickford had given her syphilis. There were rumors that Thomas was plagued by a drug addiction, that she and Pickford had been involved in "champagne and cocaine orgies," or that Pickford tricked her into drinking poison in an attempt to murder her to collect her insurance money. Owen Moore, who accompanied Pickford and Thomas in Paris, denied the rumors, saying that Thomas was not suicidal and that she and Pickford had not fought that evening.[33] Jack Pickford also denied the rumors, stating, "Olive and I were the greatest pals on Earth. Her death is a ghastly mistake."[31]

On September 13, 1920, Pickford gave his account of that night to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner:

We arrived back at the Ritz hotel at about 3 o'clock in the morning. I had already booked airplane seats for London. We were going Sunday morning. Both of us were tired out. We both had been drinking a little. I insisted that we had better not pack then, but rather get up early before our trip and do it then. I went to bed immediately. She fussed around and wrote a note to her mother. ... She was in the bathroom.

Suddenly she shrieked: 'My God.' I jumped out of bed, rushed toward her and caught her in my arms. She cried to me to find out what was in the bottle. I picked it up and read: 'Poison.' It was a toilet solution and the label was in French. I realized what she had done and sent for the doctor. Meanwhile, I forced her to drink water in order to make her vomit. She screamed, 'O, my God, I'm poisoned.' I forced the whites of eggs down her throat, hoping to offset the poison. The doctor came. He pumped her stomach three times while I held Olive.

Nine o'clock in the morning I got her to the Neuilly Hospital, where Doctors Choate and Wharton took charge of her. They told me she had swallowed bichloride of mercury in an alcoholic solution, which is ten times worse than tablets. She didn't want to die. She took the poison by mistake. We both loved each other since the day we married. The fact that we were separated months at a time made no difference in our affection for each other. She even was conscious enough the day before she died to ask the nurse to come to America with her until she had fully recovered, having no thought she would die.

She kept continually calling for me. I was beside her day and night until her death. The physicians held out hope for her until the last moment, until they found her kidneys paralyzed. Then they lost hope. But the doctors told me she had fought harder than any patient they ever had. She held onto her life as only one case in fifty. She seemed stronger the last two days. She was conscious, and said she would get better and go home to her mother. 'It's all a mistake, darling Jack,' she said. But I knew she was dying.

She was kept alive only by hypodermic injections during the last twelve hours. I was the last one she recognized. I watched her eyes glaze and realized she was dying. I asked her how she was feeling and she answered: 'Pretty weak, but I'll be all right in a little while, don't worry, darling.' Those were her last words. I held her in my arms and she died an hour later. Owen Moore was at her bedside. All stories and rumors of wild parties and cocaine and domestic fights since we left New York are untrue.

After Thomas' death, the police initiated an investigation and an autopsy was performed. Thomas' death was attributed to acute nephritis caused by mercury bichloride absorption. On September 13, 1920, her death was ruled accidental by the Paris physician who conducted her autopsy.

Jack Pickford brought Thomas' body back to the United States. Several accounts state that Pickford tried to commit suicide en route but was talked out of it. In her autobiography, Mary Pickford recalls her brother's disclosure that he had made such an attempt during the return trip:

Jack crossed the ocean with Ollie's body. It wasn't until several years later that he confessed to Mother how one night during the voyage back he put on his trousers and jacket over his pajamas, went up on deck, and was climbing over the rail when something inside him said: "You can't do this to your mother and sisters. It would be a cowardly act. You must live and face the future."

On September 29, 1920, an Episcopal funeral service for Thomas was held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City. According to The New York Times, police escorts were needed at the event, for the entire church was crowded with “hundreds” of fellow actors, other invited attendees, as well as a horde of curious onlookers. Several women are reported to have fainted during the ceremony, and several men had their hats crushed in the rush to view the casket. Thomas is interred in a crypt at the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

Thomas did not leave a will upon her death. Her estate, which was later valued at $27,644, was split between her mother, her two brothers, and husband Jack Pickford. Adjusted for inflation, that amount would be the equivalent to $354,892.92 in 2019. Pickford later relinquished his right to a portion of the money, choosing instead to give his share to Thomas' mother.

On November 22, 1920, the bulk of Thomas' personal property was auctioned off in an estate sale, which netted approximately $30,000. Lewis Selznick bought Thomas' town car for an undisclosed sum. Mabel Normand bought a 20-piece toilet set, a 14 karat gold cigarette case, and three pieces of jewelry, including a sapphire pin.

The press coverage of Olive Thomas' death was one of the first examples of the media sensationalism related to a major Hollywood star. Her death has been cited as one of the first major Hollywood scandals.

Other scandals including the Fatty Arbuckle trial in 1921, the murder of William Desmond Taylor in 1922, and the drug-related death of Wallace Reid caused many religious and morality groups to label Hollywood as "immoral".

[pentanguine]

Songs Asks

1: A song you like with a color in the title                 Blue Dahlia, by The Gaslight Anthem

2: A song you like with a number in the title August 17th, by The Spook School

3: A song that reminds you of summertime Don’t Let It Break Your Heart, by Coldplay

4: A song that reminds you of someone you would rather forget about Stalemate, by TSSF; Mock, by TSSF; Solo, by…TSSF…you know what, the entire self-titled album does it for me

5: A song that needs to be played LOUD House of Wolves, by MCR (or anything by MCR, honestly)

6: A song that makes you want to dance Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya, by The Dropkick Murphys

7: A song to drive to Cliffs of Dover, by Eric Johnson

8: A song about drugs or alcohol It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You, by The 1975, which also happens to be one of my favorite love songs

9: A song that makes you happy Elle me dit, by Mika

10: A song that makes you sad This Hunger Strike cover by Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington

11: A song that you never get tired of Know Your Enemy, by Green Day

12: A song from your preteen years Well…having just used up Know Your Enemy, by Green Day, I suppose I will out myself as a big fan of Rockstar, by Nickelback, which I used to listen to while playing Wizard 101.

13: One of your favorite 80’s songs I think I’m the one person alive who’s not super into the 80s, but I do love Walk of Life, by Dire Straits.

14: A song that you would love played at your wedding I suspect Heterosexuality is a Construct, by Onsind, would be considered a confrontational choice and not go over well with my family, so…Don Quixote, by Coldplay? Because it’s mostly sweet and upbeat, and part of it was used in another unreleased track called Wedding Bells.

15: A song that is a cover by another artist Going to California, by Amy Lee (Led Zeppelin cover)

16: One of your favorite classical songs Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, because I don’t actually listen to classical music but I do love the Trans-Siberian Orchestra

17: A song that would sing a duet with on karaoke Uh…Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart, by Against Me? A Part of Me, by Neck Deep? They’re both breakup songs but I can’t think of anything else.

18: A song from the year that you were born God of Wine, by Third Eye Blind

19: A song that makes you think about life Dear Future Historians, by Enter Shikari

20: A song that has many meanings to you Lisbon, by Wolf Alice. I honestly wasn’t sure what to put for this one, but Lisbon always gives me such a confused tangle of emotions, so I guess that’s having “many meanings”

21: A favorite song with a person’s name in the title Donnie Darko, by Let’s Eat Grandma

22: A song that moves you forward Animal Arithmetic, by Jónsi

23: A song that you think everybody should listen to Harlem Roulette, by The Mountain Goats

24: A song by a band you wish were still together I feel like I’ve already mentioned all the bands I’d usually talk about (MCR, The Gaslight Anthem, The Spook School), so I’ll go with Far Too Young to Die, by Panic! at the Disco with their Brendon/Dallon/Spencer lineup. I know they’re technically “together,” if by together you mean Brendon Urie is still using the name, but it’s just not the same.  

25: A song by an artist no longer living Werewolves of London, by Warren Zevon

26: A song that makes you want to fall in love Home, by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

27: A song that breaks your heart Dasher, by Gerard Way

28: A song by an artist with a voice that you love Sour Breath, by Julien Baker; everything by Julien Baker is incredibly fucking sad, and nowhere is she more anguished than the end of Sour Breath.

29: A song that you remember from your childhood We Will Rock You, by Queen; the first song I ever loved

30: A song that reminds you of yourself Friday Forever, by Trophy Eyes

[patmcgroin1]

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[fadingfartconnoisseur]

AK Monthly Recap: February 2017

After a quiet January, I got back to the road in February with two trips that were out of the norm for me. A trip to Florida and a cruise — two very typical American vacations, but not the usual kind of trip I take. Even so, I had a blast on both trips!

Best of all, these were trips with friends — a road trip through Florida with Cailin and a cruise through the Caribbean with Jeremy.

Punctuated with some fun times at home in New York, it made for a very satisfying month. Here’s everything I got up to in February!

Destinations Visited

New York, New York

Orlando, Islamorada, Key Largo, Tavernier, Marathon, Key West, and Miami, Florida

Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Favorite Destinations

Key West is one of my new favorite places in the United States!

San Juan is a fabulous city and I was happy to return.

And I’m just discovering how awesome Miami Beach can be.

Highlights

Having fun at Universal Orlando. Universal Studios was the main reason for our Florida trip. Cailin is an ambassador for the park, and part of her partnership is that she gets to bring friends with her to experience the park for themselves. She kindly invited me and I was happy to join her. We had a great time!

Some of the highlights: throwing out beads on a Mardi Gras float, going to the actual Moe’s Tavern from The Simpsons, wearing our hot pink BEST FRIENDS shirts, experiencing The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (and doing a hilarious Bertie Botts Roulette video on Facebook live!), having breakfast with the Minions, riding The Mummy over and over (flying around in the dark, fiery explosions, Brendan Fraser demanding a cup of coffee — what’s not to love?), and THE FOOD. Seriously. I did not have high expectations for the food at Universal but the restaurants at CityWalk were excellent, especially Antojitos. They made the best salmon over sweet potatoes…

Road tripping down the Keys. The Florida Keys were amazing and both fulfilled and defied my expectations. They were absolutely beautiful, gritty in all the right ways, and surprisingly a lot like New Hampshire…

Having a little too much fun in Key West. Let’s just say that at age 32, Key West is for me what San Juan del Sur was at 30, Vang Vieng was at 26, Las Vegas was at 23…it’s a fun place. And wild. And incredibly beautiful and historical as well, but still — this is a place where you come for fun. The highlight was our sunset cruise with a bunch of rowdy Boston sports fans and unlimited rosé…

Trying all the key lime pie. This was my major diet fail this month — but I did eat clean otherwise. Cailin and I decided to go on a quest to find the best key lime pie in the Florida Keys and we sampled eight different top recommended pies across the archipelago. Stay tuned for a post on the best slices!

Kicking back in South Beach. We had two nights in Miami at the end of our trip and decided to just chill out — we ate ceviche, relaxed on the beach, and vegged out at the W’s pool.

Enjoying my first cruise ever. Jeremy kindly invited me to join him on a weeklong cruise on the Carnival Vista. The cruise was split between February and March, so it seems a bit weird only writing about the first half of it here. I’m still on it as I write this, and I’m having a blast. It did take some getting used to (it was SO OVERWHELMING at first!) but once I found my zone (balcony, adults-only deck, fitness center, spa, and sushi bar), I was happy as a clam. And my favorite part was getting to know the staff. I’ll be writing more about my introduction to cruising in the future, so stay tuned.

An awesome catamaran ride in Grand Turk. We booked only one official shore excursion and it was a good one — a catamaran ride with snorkeling and a visit to a private beach. The water in Grand Turk is an UNREAL shade of blue and the beaches are fine white sand — Jeremy and I definitely chose the perfect excursion.

Revisiting Old San Juan. Jeremy and I had both been to San Juan previously, so this day was about wandering the town, revisiting some of our favorite places, and taking photos. Puerto Rico is a fantastic place and I’d love to return for a third time and see new spots (Culebrita, yo vengo!).

Meeting up with blogger buds for the first time. This month I met Hannah and Adam from Getting Stamped at Universal Orlando and Gloria from The Blog Abroad came to visit me in Harlem! It’s so nice to meet blogger friends in real life.

I also got some nice plane views over New York en route to Orlando. So pretty!

Challenges

As far as months go, there were no major personal challenges, and for that I am grateful.

From the “learn from my mistakes” files — Cailin and I decided to save money and have me be the sole driver on our Florida road trip, but we really should have paid more and shared the driving. Orlando to Islamorada took six hours and was a slog, especially through traffic around Miami!

Post of the Month

You may have noticed publishing was much lighter than usual this month. I only have one non-recap post, but it’s a good one: Where to Stay in Barcelona: Best Neighborhoods and Accommodation

Most Popular Instagram Photo

This is a bit of a misnomer — my actual most popular Instagram photo was the recipient of roughly 2,000 fake likes from a spammer that has started targeting me and a host of other travel bloggers. (Their method: give 2k bogus likes “as a gift” and then ask us to sign up for their paid service. No thanks. Plenty of travel bloggers use bots to artificially inflate their Instagram numbers, but I refuse to play that game.)

But this is the most popular photo minus the spamming — one of Key West’s legendary sunsets.

For real-time updates from my travels, follow me on Instagram and Snapchat at adventurouskate!

What I Read This Month

Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins (2016). Kathleen Collins was one of the first prominent black female filmmakers, and she died in her 40s in the 1980s. This collection of short stories she wrote was only recently found among her belongings and published last year. Some stories read like poetry, some like prose, some like plays.

More than anything, this book is about how black women love and the sacrifices they make as a result. I loved these stories of women who fell in love, women who stayed by their cheating men, women who attempted to carve out a life of their own. You could call it a companion piece to Beyonce’s Lemonade. It’s a relatively quick read and one that I highly recommend. Category: A book by a person of color.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016). I was afraid to read this book for a long time, despite its stellar reviews. I tend to avoid books about confronting death and grief (the same reason why I haven’t read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking), and I didn’t know how I would handle reading about a brilliant young neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal cancer. This book is about how he evaluates his life prior to diagnosis and his outlook afterward. I shouldn’t have avoided it.

This book is written so beautifully. The best memoirs are fascinating stories that are told well, and this absolutely fits the bill. Dr. Kalanithi wrestled with whether to become a doctor or a writer, and tentatively planned on leaving medicine to focus on writing later in life. But what a way to leave the world — this book is a treasure. I read it in one sitting. I’m grateful that I got to know Dr. Kalanithi, if only posthumously. Category: A book about a difficult topic.

What We Do Now: Standing Your Ground in Trump’s America by various authors (2017). This book, obviously published quickly following the 2016 election, is a collection of essays by liberal leaders talking about what needs to be done in the resistance against Donald Trump. Some of the authors include Elizabeth Warren, Paul Krugman, Bernie Sanders, and the first Somali-American legislator, Ilhan Omar.

I had read a handful of the essays before, including Warren’s and Krugman’s. Everything was organized by topic, from LGBT rights to the environment. And honestly, this is a very preaching-to-the-choir book, especially if you’re a liberal who follows the news, but I enjoyed reading it nonetheless and got some new insights. Category: A book with multiple authors.

Wendy Darling, Volume II: Seas by Colleen Oakes (2016). My cousin Colleen is an incredibly prolific author and the mind behind two young adult series of retold fairy tales. My favorite books of hers so far are the Wendy Darling books — a dark retelling of Peter Pan from Wendy’s point of view. These books are visually lush and much more mature.

In the first book, Wendy realizes that both Neverland and Peter Pan are far more sinister than they appear, and she escapes with her brother Michael. In the second, she joins Captain Hook and his crew as they sail Neverland, trying to stop Peter Pan with the help of bloodthirsty mermaids and deranged fairies. And if Peter Pan was sexy in the first book, CAPTAIN HOOK was sexy in the second! I love Colleen’s view of Neverland! Category: A book involving a mythical creature.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (1934). I’ve actually never read a book by Agatha Christie in my life (!) but I needed a book that’s becoming a movie this year, and I got excited when I saw that not only is Murder on the Orient Express going to be a movie in December, but Leslie Odom Jr. (a.k.a. Aaron Burr from Hamilton) will be in it! It has an awesome cast: directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh with Odom, Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Daisy Ridley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Josh Gad, Willem Dafoe, and DAME JUDI MOTHERFUCKING DENCH.

This iconic mystery takes place on the Orient Express from Istanbul to Calais in the 1930s. A passenger is murdered and the train gets stuck in a snowstorm, which means the murderer is one of the passengers in the car. Good thing detective Hercule Poirot is on board and is able to deduce who the killer is.

One thing I didn’t expect…the surprising amount of casual racism about Italians and Italian-Americans. According to one character, the Italian must be the murderer because Italians love to stab people…That said, it’s a reminder that Italians and Irish were once treated with the prejudice and scorn that Muslims, Latinos, and Africans receive in America today. I’m eager to see how they modernize the film. Category: A book that’s becoming a movie in 2017.

What I Listened To This Month

“Etunnel” by Primary feat. Gaeko. Another one of Spotify’s picks for me (seriously, Spotify knows my tastes inside and out), this is a lovely Korean electronic/hip-hop song with a touch of Burt Bacharach. Give it a listen; I bet you’ll love it!

Fun fact: I didn’t even know it was Korean until I looked it up just now…

What I Watched This Month

I’ve started watching Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix. This comedy stars Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant as boring-yet-happy realtor couple living in the suburbs with a teenage daughter — until one day Barrymore’s character suddenly turns into a zombie and starts eating people.

It’s not the sharpest or most cutting-edge comedy of all time, but it’s wacky and I love it! The cast is great, and it has a very sweet message of doing everything you can to protect your family, even if that means killing people you can’t stand in order to eat them.

What I Cooked This Month

No pics, but I am cooking these turkey spinach burgers all the time. They’re super healthy and a good source of protein, and I love making four at once so I have a few ready to go in the fridge! Plus, they look like Oscar the Grouch.

Four pieces of advice: 1) This recipe calls for a truly insane amount of spinach — just go with it. 2) Be very gentle when mixing the turkey; if you mash it too hard it will be too dense. 3) They will fall apart if you grill them, so bake them in a glass dish. 4) Top them with avocado or guacamole — it’s the best! Avocado is my main substitute for cheese these days, and I find it just as satisfying.

Fitness Update

I’m still working hard on my fitness and I think I’ve been making progress at a much faster rate lately. Something has shifted — I work harder and better and am feeling great!

That said, this was also my first month traveling since starting my fitness regimen, and it was challenging to keep up workouts and eat well on the road. I could have done better with both, but I’m glad neither trip turned into a gluttonous free-for-all, as it would have in the past.

I tried two new classes this month — Pon de Flo with Oneika, and IMAXShift with Beth. Pon de Flo is a Caribbean dance class in SoHo that includes HIIT segments — think Zumba but with more push-ups. IMAXShift is a spin class in front of an IMAX screen located in DUMBO — you ride through space and lasers and the sky.

I only lost a few pounds in February, but I don’t mind — according to my body analysis I’m gaining a ton of muscle, which is heavier and cancels out a lot of fat loss. Weight isn’t as important as you think. More important is that I look and feel different — especially in my face, my upper arms and my thighs. And I’ve lost three inches off my waist since December.

Also a bonus: I went bathing suit shopping and found three suits that I loved and felt great in!

Coming Up in March 2017

I have a few more days on the cruise at the beginning of March, and beyond that, I have no travel plans scheduled in March. Which, once again, is great. I feel like I’m actually starting to live my goal of traveling 25% of the time or less.

I do have a lot I want to do in New York this month, including visiting the new Golden Girls cafe in Washington Heights, so stay tuned for more local coverage!

Plus, Cailin is coming to stay for a few days (amusingly, she’ll already be at my place when I get back from the cruise). I’m also looking forward to hosting my book group at my apartment, which is shockingly the first time I’ve invited more than two people into my apartment simultaneously!

What’s coming up for you in March? Share away!

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