OH HEY! it's hil.

hear ye! hear ye! i got the dream job!

2010-08-15T16:59:00.006-04:00

snapped on the roofdeck at fenway park yesterday before the j. geils band/aerosmith concert by the lovely jsutt. (more on last night later.)

HEY FOLKS.

I'M THE NEW ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

OF BOSTON'S WEEKLY DIG.

you can read the official press release here. [disclaimer: olde english abounds. i love this paper so much.]

to say that this is a dream come true is, well, completely accurate. i feel like the luckiest little journo in the world. (not to get all cheesy and everything.)

so, with that said, i'm gonna be maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad busy for the next couple of months. david - who was promoted from a+e editor to editor of the dig - put it pretty perfectly: "you're not gonna hit the ground running. you're gonna hit the ground FLYING." i. cannot. wait. to. get. started.

so yeah. if you guys weren't picking up the weekly dig every wednesday before, you sure as hell better be now ;)

X H

Hil in the Dig this week: Newport Folk, Ladies Rock and more...

2010-08-04T17:40:00.014-04:00

that's l'il ol' me interviewing taylor goldsmith of dawes and mr. john shade at newport folk 2010. photo: jess hodge

today, i ran out, bought a baguette, a hunk of manchego and a chocolate bar, and sat down on my couch with the fan pointed directly at me for a day-long Top Chef marathon. why the laziness/comfort food? after this past weekend, which was filled with the music festival of my dreams, quality time with best friends/partners in crime and some good ol' fashioned late night debauchery, i. am. beat.

it's cool, though, because i spent all day writing yesterday and today. what have i been working on? The Newport Folk Festival Run-Down, Day 1 and Day 2 for the Weekly Dig.

covering newport folk this year was inspiring and enlightening, to say the very least. i saw one of the best live sets of my life courtesy of Dawes. i hung out along the waterfront with Christian Letts of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros after their set that nearly had to be cancelled due to the insane crowd that swarmed the stage. i got to catch up with the Matt the Ice Cream Man and see how his road trippin' series is going.

to single out one moment of the weekend would be tricky. OH WAIT. no, actually, it wouldn't be tricky at all. i got to sit down with my favorite band, the Avett Brothers, and talk about their music and their contribution to the Newport Folk legacy before their set on sunday.

i gush about them in the second day of the Dig's Newport Folk blog writeups, but there's really so much more that could be said for these guys. maybe i'll post the transcript from the interview here eventually. in the meantime, i'll let you look at jess' absolutely phenomenal photographs [PLEASE look at her tumblr, by the way] that she snapped during the interview and the avett brothers set on the fort stage:

scott avett backstage. swoooooon?

seth avett backstage.

this man singing "the ballad of love and hate" brings me to tears, always.

JOE MOTHERLOVIN' KWON ON THE CELLO, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

this dude is a four-stringed wailin' wonder.

bob crawford, aka one of the best bass players in existence.

can we talk about seth's hair here, please?

aaaaaand a banjo-gasm from scott avett.

please and thank you.

in addition to my newport fangirly glee, i also have a piece in print making the rounds this week - a lady rock showdown for an upcoming show at the middle east! if you pick up the dig this week, you'll find my feature on women in boston rock in the arts & entertainment section. this was one of the most fun photoshoots i've ever worked with mikey (mad props for such a stellar photo, mr. basu) and hanging out with the girls of this blue heaven, the downbeat 5, the sun lee sun beam, st. helena, do not forsake me oh my darling and naked on rollerskates was great great great. also, can we talk about this photo?

so, folks, that's what i've been up to :) pick up the dig or check it out online, but either way, you'll be reading some stuff of mine!

now, it's off to family dinner at dalí and hopefully a pimm's cup this evening or something. august, how did you show up so fast?

X H

NEWPORT OR BUST (2k10)

2010-07-30T13:45:00.003-04:00

a'right, kids! jess and i are awaiting the arrival of mr. ryan and then the lot of us are all roadtripping it down to the happiest place on earth (aka newport, rhode island) for the 51st annual Newport Folk Festival.

i am excited for the following reasons:

1) i am officially interviewing my favorite band of all time.

2) i am going to dance like a crazy person to the sounds of my newest favorite band (dawes) and another tried and true favorite that i'm so stoked to see again (sharon jones and the dap kings).

3) i am going to somehow find a bonfire dance party tomorrow night. this will happen.

4) quality time with partner-in-crime jess hodge and cristina (who will be working the festival on behalf of honest tea! yeeeeah!)

5) peach cream cheese muffins; fried clams.

6) REALLY GOOD MUSIC, YOU GUYS.

i'll be blogging the big show all weekend at WeeklyDig.com and Jess' photos will be up there too, so bookmark it and come along with us for the ride, kids.

see you monday.

X H

dream interpretation, anyone?

2010-07-29T10:03:00.003-04:00

image: greenweddingshoes. (this website makes me want to get married. it doesn't necessarily make me want to BE married - it just makes me want to have a beautiful, ridiculous wedding.)

okay. so, this morning, i woke up thoroughly confused/freaked out. see, i rarely dream, and when i do it's usually in black and white, and last night i had a DOOZY. granted, am i overwhelmed a bit at the moment and falling behind on the current piece i'm writing for the dig and trying to pack for newport and therefore stressed? sure. but hey, i'm always stressed by normal people standards, so this shouldn't be affecting my REM cycle, right?

anyways. the dream:

don't remember when the dream kicked off, exactly, but we were in a huge, fancy hotel in what i assume was boston and i was getting married to one of my good guy friends, let's call him bob. (bob and i have no romantic history and i've never had so much as a crush on him - no offense to bob as he's wonderful - but we don't really hang out as much as we used to, so this is also weird. also, i guarantee you that my subconscious doesn't want us to fall in love or anything.) so in the dream, i spend the morning getting ready for this wedding in this huge embarrassingly fancy looking hotel with my mother and the other women in my family. these women, in real life, don't necessarily get along and have a history as such, but they're all working together to get me pretty for the wedding. don't recall much about the dress, besides it's strapless, big, and my veil is huuuuuge.

bob comes in while i'm getting ready and i get upset (the whole "you're not supposed to see the bride before the wedding!" shabang), and then the next thing i know it's wedding time and bob is up front with all his groomsmen (including my brother) and then i get up there and notice that my bridesmaids are only my stepsister and alanna (my cousin) and then i freak out when i realize that my friends are missing. where's marcy and maya and jen and karen and everybody else? and, most importantly, where's los? (common knowledge: los is my best friend and has been since we were kids. obviously, should i ever get married, she'd be my maid of honor.) i get pushed through the wedding, bob looks all excited, and we go to exchange rings and i don't have one, only he does - i just have my engagement ring (which was huge in the dream) and i give him his wedding band. when i ask where mine is, he just says, "oh, you forgot to get it ahead of time, remember?" .... weird?

anyways, reception happens and i'm upset because my friends aren't around and i ask my mom about it and she tells me flat outright that my friends aren't coming and that they weren't invited. this shocks me for multiple reasons. it'd be one thing if my mom didn't like my friends/los, but that's ridiculous - she loves los and she loves my friends - and i get upset and my mom gets visibly angry and walks away. i can't find bob anywhere, and then i woke up.

so,

a) WTF

and b) HALP. what does this mean. someone point me in the direction of a dream interpretation website or something because i don't get it. i'm 100% sure i don't want to get married right now so that can't be it, and i know that this isn't a YOU AND BOB SHOULD BE TOGETHER! dream because that's just absurd. this is just bonkers. anyways, glad i got it off my chest because now i have to go transcribe an hour of tape and whip up a good feature for the next issue of the dig. ah, life.

X H

"do you want me to come over?" the answer is always yes.

2010-07-27T21:04:00.004-04:00

this lady has the right idea. bed, paris, gazillion thread count sheets, bliss.

(photo courtesy of one of my favorite blogs on the planet, so much to tell you. (hey, girls - if you want a pen pal in boston you got one!))

has your body ever just given up on you? lately, i feel like it's absolutely the hardest thing in the entire world to just get out of bed. i just want to sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep. maybe it's the heat, and maybe i'm not getting enough nutrients, and maybe i'm not working out as much as i should be, but whatever it is i'm just tiiiiired, man. the past couple of days have just been about tea and naps and getting work done on upcoming Dig features, so maybe i just needed a little down time in order to recharge my batteries and get centered.

on a high note: THE NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL IS THIS WEEKEND! old school favorite/photographer extraordinaire jess hodge and i will be heading down to newport friday morning for three days of beach, spooning with my aunt's puppies and music music music music. i'm excited for folk festival #51 for the following reasons:

+ saying hey to the festival/fort adams staff. they're all awesome and in such a good mood.

+ seeing edward sharpe and the magnetic zeroes, dawes, the low anthem, the david wax museum, sharon jones and the dap kings and, obviously, the Avett Brothers (duhz all around) right on the waterfront. absolute heaven.

+eating my weight in peach cream cheese muffins from the ocean breeze cafe. these muffins are magical. i kid you not. they are the most delicious breakfast pastries known to man.

+quality time with some favorite people. i'm thrilled that jess and i will be teaming up on this one, but i'm also stoked that ryan, sean, schluter, cristina and a few other friends will be either covering/working/attending newport this year. shenanigans on thames st should be plentiful indeed.

in other news, i've been listening to that black keys album and florence + the machine like crazy. i don't even care that that godawful lookin' eat pray love trailer yoinked the single from flo's debut, that album is glorious. and hey, it's been making me feel better lately. that's something!

back to new york? back to madrid? back to changes.

2010-07-05T20:26:00.006-04:00

(oh, ps, spain totally won the world cup. called it from the beginning. just sayin'.)

serious chat time, guys!

so as many of you know, i was laid off just before memorial day. this also happened about a month into my new lease in an apartment where nothing, and i mean nothing, had gone right since we moved in. (my roommate continues to be awesome. she's pretty much the only good thing about this place.) the long and short of it is this: for the first time since moving back to boston in june of '08, i'm ready to get going again.

i'm applying for jobs in boston like crazy still and i'm absolutely loving where i'm at on the music/lifestyle writing front here in town, so staying put isn't entirely out of the question. i would be lying, however, if i said that i wasn't seriously considering the following plans of action:

1) Move to Madrid, try to score an internship at El País and teach English on the side to pay rent (or try to). i'm one of those weirdos who actually prefers madrid to barcelona - everyone goes gaga for parc guell and las ramblas and the ocean and all that, and don't get me wrong, it's a fucking spectacular city (which i absolutely plan on visiting once my brother moves there in january for his semester abroad), but madrid and i just click. we get along famously and i could see myself living there in 2.5 seconds. with that said, the unemployment rate in spain is something absurd like 21% right now, it's the most expensive spot in the country to live in and i wouldn't necessarily be able to make rent just teaching english. as far as the internship/international journalism thing goes, it's always, always something i've wanted to do and i always said that if i were to get my masters in journalism i'd want to get it in london or madrid and i want to see if i can hack it on the bilingual front as a writer. huge leap of faith (and a costly one), but the payoffs? yeah, the payoffs could be pretty epic.

2) Head back to Granada and open up my restaurant with Andy. andy was one of my first friends in spain, and he's been dating one of my dearest friends for nearly four years now. i worked at andy's tapas bar in granada while i was studying there, and i had a pretty decent idea to open a particular kind of spot in the university town. andy's all about it, too, and can feasibly go in on a restaurant with me. we've only begun talks about it, but this is one of those "this would be a scary, terrifying, expensive and potentially life-changing experience in all the good kind of ways" kind of deals. i could run a restaurant in spain and live there for a year to get it off the ground. could i sink thousands of dollars into it and lose it all? sure. but yeah, currently i'm weighing the pros and cons of doing just that. i figure if there's any point in my life to gamble like this, it should be now. (oh, something to consider: this move would absolutely unequivocally piss off my family more than you could possibly imagine. i don't know if they'd calm down from it. they'd view this as pretty irresponsible, so that's weighing in pretty heavily here.)

3) Return to New York. i'm going to be 25 in january and i've always said that i want to be out of boston and either back in new york, madrid or buenos aires by 26. why not get a head start on it, if i feel like i'm hitting a rut in boston now? oh, the whole "hey let me move to a city full of people who work just as hard if not harder than i do who are smarter than i am and better at what i do than i am" thing? yeeeeah. starting over is tricky no matter how you slice it, but it would prove for a good challenge and i think i'd be able to run with the big dogs eventually. i hope, anyway. [gulp]. also - huge pro - I ALREADY HAVE A LIFE IN NEW YORK. i basically just picked up and left when i graduated, and all of my favorite people, places and things in the city are still very much so there. it's alarming to think how easily i could just fall back into old habits, but there's also comfort in that. moving there seems like the least traumatic/least costly of the options yet.

4) Look for gigs/apartments in Chicago when I'm there this week. i love chi-town, man. i'm going out there for a week to hang out with amy, help her pack up her gold coast apartment, and check out some shows while i'm in town. i get to meet nico's beautiful girlfriend (!) and frequent favorite haunts, and i get to go running along the coast of lake michigan every morning. that's swell. hopefully this trip will offer some perspective, and if anything it gives me a chance to head out of the city for a second and recharge my batteries.

phew. anyways. i feel better. thanks for listening. (or reading.) if you've got insight, dispense it, please.

X H

una memoria del verano porteño.

2010-06-28T23:33:00.003-04:00

[this photo's actually from my friend tony's roof on charcas, which is a few blocks away from where i used to live. same idea.]

on a sticky, steamy night in buenos aires, my host family and i were finishing up with a late dinner when the power went out. as summertime in argentina can reach scalding temperatures (compared with boston, anyway) and the rio de la plata doesn't do much in dragging the humidity out to sea, power outages during heatwaves aren't all too uncommon. i mean, think about it: refrigerators, air conditioners, fans, you flick one switch too many in one of the most densely populated cities in the world and you're bound to exhaust some power lines.

the lot of us - mariano (host dad), ines (host mom), andrés y francisco (host brothers) and i were finishing up the wine and starting to clear the plates when all of a sudden the room went dark. mariano started grumbling, ines went to the kitchen for candles and andrés, francisco and i threw open the door to the balcony and shuffled outside. our apartment was the penthouse in a nine-story building, and though nine flights of stairs doesn't seem that high up compared with the sky scrapers i've previously known, the traffic from below was muffled and far away and an eerie calm settled over our corner of palermo viejo.

andrés and francisco, both lanky and at least a head taller than their father, leaned over the edge of the balcony and were looking out below when someone started banging a pot against a railing a few blocks away. andrés and francisco started laughing and shaking their heads, with francisco pounding his fists half-heartedly against our railing as andrés explained that this happened during el críses when people would lose their power on a regular basis. within minutes, that one resounding CLANG CLANG CLANG-CLANG-CLANG was joined by leaden thuds and aluminum refrains as the neighbors broke out various kitchen utensils and took to their doors and rooftops as we had. everything for the long length of our street, was pitch black - no street lamps, no illuminated locutería signs, just the occasional headlights from cabs creeping onto our side street in the middle of a cut through. mariano and ines joined us on the balcony, mariano chuckling at the ruckus echoing around us, and the five of us stood sweating nine stories up until the streetlights came on street by street and the dining room lights glowed behind us. just as quickly as it had started, the balcony railing clamor subsided and everyone went back to their TVs, their dinners or their bedrooms, and mariano and ines went back to clearing the table.

andrés, francisco and i stayed outside for a minute or two longer than our parents, and i stayed out for a minute or two after andrés and francisco got bored and moseyed back inside. i spent a solid fifteen minutes hanging over the edge of the balcony looking up and down my street to make sure that it wasn't a fluke, and i went to bed that night completely in love with a power outage and everything about my neighbors and my home.

maybe it's the world cup madness and the fact that argentina is kicking SERIOUS ASS right now, but i find myself missing buenos aires and my host family more than i have since i left.

(if we lose power in this crazy humidity, i think we should start bangin' our pots and pans together.)

X H

back on the grid! and back to june.

2010-06-14T10:02:00.005-04:00

¡SHALOM FRIENDS!

i've left oh hey! in the dust this spring and that's just SAD. basically, i've been up to a lot of ridiculous life changes, including another layoff and another move, and both of them have left me picking up the pieces and putting my life back together (in a good way. i think.) here's the basic gist of what's going on:

I MOVED! my last landlord, who essentially kicked me out of my one-bedroom in porter because his brother moved into the apartment underneath me and wanted an upgrade, wasn't the nicest dude ever. unfortunately, this new guy, who lives in the second story of the house alaine and i have moved into, is much worse and the apartment was in such a state of filth and disrepair when we moved in that we freeeeeaked out. six weeks later we're still sorting everything out, but it's a livable space now and the place has definitely benefitted from a woman's (or two women's) touch(es). with that said, alaine is awesome, the neighborhood is fantastic (i can literally throw a rock at dalí and the wine and cheese cask, not that i'd want to) and we're trying to make this place a home. so far, so good. progress is the name of the game here.

I GOT LAID OFF! that's pretty much self-explanatory and my feelings about it are pretty mixed - liked the job, but am always up for new changes and challenges. (and let's be honest, my last commute was absolutely terrible courtesy of the ever-failing MBTA.) i've got a few interviews/prospects lined up for the next couple of weeks, which is encouraging, but in the meantime it's back to Funemployment for your favorite Gonzette. everything at the Dig is going great, though, which brings me to my next point -

I'VE BEEN WRITING TONS AND TONS OF THINGS FOR THE WEEKLY DIG! since SXSW, my editor at the Dig has been super benevolent with the story handouts and i've had the chance to interview and write up tons and tons and tons and tons of fascinating and fiercely talented artists. i wrote my favorite piece ever last week (it's coming out this wednesday so PICK IT UP) and i had the chance to write a Boston Pride profile on MEandJOANCOLLINS and MRS DANVERS, AND i got to do a hefty feature on Nathaniel Rateliff, who's my new obsession. long story short: Weekly Dig, I love you, thank you for reminding me why i love what i do on a daily basis.

I'VE BEEN HANGING OUT WITH ESME! my favorite Brit hopped across the pond about two weeks ago because she's got an internship in Deval Patrick's press office, and she's shacking up with me for the month! SO. MUCH. FUN. i love this girl to pieces. we've had a blast so far, she's met nearly all of my crazy, crazy friends and she fought jet lag like a champ on her first night out at zuzu. i'm a proud american mama.

I'VE BEEN PLOTTING THE REST OF MY ENDLESS SUMMER! the Newport Folk Festival is coming up in 6 weeks (AHHH!) and i have a slew of weekends blocked out at the lake house, so i'm a little too excited about what the rest of the summer has in store.

I'VE BEEN HANGIN' WITH THE GIRLS OF NEW BRAHMIN! so, i'm one of the newest contributors over at New Brahmin and i can't quit with the gushing about 'em. (granted, half of the ladies over there were friends of mine to begin with, but still.) my beat at NB is The Dressing Room, a column i contrived that raids the closets of boston's rock goddesses and discusses the difference between donning a costume for performance and rocking hoodies and jeans on the regular. mikey takes the photos, i do the interviews, and we walk away with some style insight from some of the most inspirational women in town. yesterday we had a shoot over by the train tracks off the mcgrath highway and some uninvited guests showed up (like gigantic mutant raccoons and people who live in bushes) but we came out unscathed. look for the next installment of TDR on thursday!

I'VE BEEN TAKING PHOTOS WITH PHOTOBOOTH! ok. so this last one happened during an unforgivable bout of writer's block at Sherman Cafe the other day. colors are fun, ok?

also, oh hey friends: I NEED NEW MUSIC. lately, my inbox has been jammed with press releases and album downloads, which is AMAZING, but I WANT MOOOOORE. if you've got a record, band or song that you've been blasting nonstop, leave it in the comments. i think i'm going to be making a few mixes in the near future...

X H

hello and goodbye from portland.

2010-04-19T10:46:00.000-04:00

this is what my morning looks like right now (albeit far more calm and less shaky; forgive the impromptu Photobooth shot.) it's calm, cool and bright in portland. i'm packing up the last of my stuff, heading down the street for some breakfast at the bread & ink, and then hopping on a bus and beginning the looooooooong (way longer than i thought) journey back to boston. i'll be back in town tonight around midnight, if anyone wants to fetch a fair damsel from the airport :D

this trip was lovely and full of food and friends and beach and GREEN. this city is LUSH. natalie took some beautiful pictures i'll share with you once she gets 'em up on the ol' flickr. we had three days of the definition of goooooooood.

oh, and we went to the sleepy beach town where they filmed The Goonies.

more later.

X H

spring fever.

2010-04-13T11:20:00.000-04:00

(photo ganked from ringo! have a banana, aka one of the most adorable blogs in existence.

she's got the right idea with these lilacs, here.)

GUYS.

I REALLY CAN'T CONCENTRATE. like, REALLY REALLY can't concentrate. like it's writer's block and daydreaming about spring and portland this weekend and picking out what color i'm going to paint the walls of my new room next week and...... other things. all combined. in mah skull. i'm staring at four open word docs at my desk, i'm caffeinated, i have clients calling me every five seconds and i can't seem to just simmer down and get to work. i would so much rather be in my bed with my laptop and some tea with the windows open doing my work from there, especially if my window had some beautiful flowers in it like the lilacs above. a girl can dream, right? that would fix this crazy creative slump, right? GYAH!

this is for a multitude of reasons, but i think it just wittles down to the fact that it's been rather pretty out, it's finally time to tune up the bike and that my absolute favorite time of year in boston is here. i'm missing my favorite holiday (marathon monday) in favor of exploring one of the best cities on the "best coast" for the first time, but i'll be celebrating the unofficial kickoff of spring with one of my favorite people in a place i'm bound to love, so it's ok.

for those of you with any portland (OR, not ME) advice to impart, out with it. never been, so stoked to be there, and i want to make the most of my weekend!

oh, and while we're on the topic of procrastinating/not concentrating - i have to find a dress to wear to my dear friend erin's wedding, as the one i ordered on sale from anthro is hilariously small. the wedding's in the afternoon and the reception is in the evening at the biltmore in providence at the end of june - how do we feel about this one, or too casual?

ok. need to buckle down and write some stuff, the next installment of defend yourself! that's getting published in the weekly dig next week. did y'all read my feature on freelance whales? if not, go put on "Generator ^ First Floor" and start scrollin'.

X H

a spring weekend to-do list! ps: I'M MOVING!

2010-04-09T17:50:00.000-04:00

here's my ideal (note, ideal) weekend to-do list:

1 - go grocery shopping at wilson's; grab asparagus, spinach, portobellos, apples, brussels sprouts, eggs, milk, tea (namely green, as i'm almost out), berries and other provisions for the week. NO CHEESE. i've been OD-ing on cheese lately. there's some herb chevre in my fridge that cackles at me maniacally every time i open the door. i swear. it's mocking me with each neglected bite.

2 - start. packing. i'm officially moving! as of may 1st, i'll be living around the corner from my absolute favorite spanish restaurant, one of my absolute favorite coffee joints, and down the street from the best farmer's market in greater boston. it's a 17 minute walk to harvard and trina's is literally rock-throwing distance from my new pad. i'm also moving in with the lovely alaine, who's a good friend of los' from UMass and one of the silliest, raddest people i've ever met. we've unofficially dubbed the new place the Flamingo Mapatorium because we've amassed a ton of maps between us and we want to have lawn flamingos in the bathroom. (this is because the bathroom's kind of blah as compared with the rest of the place - lovely light, huge kitchen, HUGE rooms, and we get to paint it! oh, and did i mention there's a weeping willow in our front yard? WEEPING. WILLOW. in our FRONT YARD. heaven.)

3 - make my grandmother a birthday card because her birthday was yesterday and we're celebrating it this weekend. so much family over the past couple of weeks!

4 - clean my apartment, seeing as the landlord already has people coming over to check out my current space ALREADY. inconvenient. whatever. more on this later.

5 - go to the gym. i have been slacking on fitness so hard since the end of SXSW because i threw my back out (sort of?) at the airport picking my luggage up and then i just simply haven't had time between writing/interviewing/dancing/living life over the past couple of weeks. zumba, you and i have a date tomorrow morning at 10am.

6 - sign up for zipcar and then jet over to lexington to pick up BRINT! brint is one of my best friends from spain. his grams lives up here and he's visiting her for the weekend, so we're going to have dinner. he's got no car and i've got no car so zipcar it is. (also, i just signed a lease to live here for another year, i may as well give in and get the damn zip car membership already. have YOU tried parking in somerville lately? it's unavoidable.) also, he and i have some talking to do because we may be plotting a return trip to eastern europe for august. i can't sit still. it's true.

7 - organize all Dig clips to date before moving. there's a few of them. i see a lot of rubber cement/construction paper action happening over the next 48 hours.

8 - start thinking about portland because i'll be there this time next week! EEEP! my first trip ever to the west coast totally snuck up on me!

9 - go see The Runaways at Coolidge Corner on sunday with marcy. she always treks to our side of the river and we rarely visit her there (we're awful friends, we know), so this is an opportune time to relish in one of the best attractions on her side: the coolidge corner theater. yes yes yes yes yes. love love love love love. i can smell the popcorn and twizzlers already. nomz.

10 - sleep. i should probably start doing that again.

here goes, weekend. X H

[ps: have you noticed how everyone's trying to get more comments/more retweets so they end every blog post/tweet with a question ("What do you guys think?" "What're you up to this weekend?" "Who would you rather punch in the face?") etc etc. social media fo' SHAME. i'm not gonna do that. sorry dudes.]

the happy list, "tea and blankets on a sunday morning" edition.

2010-03-28T14:19:00.001-04:00

well, last night was silly. there was whiskey. i'm watching sex and the city reruns from the dependable couch fort and i'm thisclose to ordering new moon ondemand before throwing on rumpled jeans and going to dinner with dan, nick and los before hitting up the beach house show at the paradise tonight. sunday afternoon, it could be love.

anyways, here's a brief update/latest incarnation of the happy list.

- one of my career goals as an aspiring journalist? write a story for The Boston Globe. what happened last tuesday? a feature i wrote ran in the Boston Globe's arts & entertainment section. as i knew i would be in austin covering SXSW for the Dig anyway, i pitched an article to the Globe's A&E editor and he took my story. result: a two page 1,000-odd word feature on notable sets by boston talent at SXSW. the response to the article was so encouraging and overwhelming and to everyone who commented, called, texted, emailed, or simply pressed the thumbs-up "like" button on facebook, thank you. i'm such a lucky person. i'm going to post a bunch of my favorite photos snapped by the insatiable jess hodge and mikey basu, who are two of the most talented and professional photographers i've ever had the pleasure of working with, but in the mean time here are two silly ones of me in austin -

there was a cupcake truck. the girl gave us free cupcakes because we ran across the street and grabbed a red bull for her when she was in need. red velvet elicits this reaction from me, always. (also: the chocolate cupcake to the left, covered in cream cheese frosting, was dubbed "the michael jackson." omg.)

this one was snapped by mikey in between shows. i was sitting down for maybe like 30 seconds throughout our entire time at SXSW and he caught me.

- last night, one of my favorite local bands (and three of my favorite people in general), static of the gods, had a FANTASTIC cd release show at tt's. it's really something special when you get to know a band, and you follow 'em for a bit, and you become friends, and you write about 'em a couple of times, and they put out a CD that's just absolutely amazing and that you can't wait to burn a copy of for everyone you've ever met. knowledge machine is such a great album. if you haven't picked it up yet, do so asap. jen, ben and mike, you guys were so amazing last night! and thanks for the falafel palace pit stop and the ride home :)

- i made quinoa for the first time last night. GREAT SUCCESS. i went grocery shopping at wilson's farm yesterday, as i've been doing for the past month or so, and to say i came home with a bounty of goodness would be fact. the quinoa, fresh spinach, fresh goat cheese, organic baby brussel sprouts, fresh blackberries, farm fresh milk, farm fresh eggs... foooooodgazm.

- los' birthday is next friday! there will be funfetti and togas and kickball and people eating funfetti while wearing togas and schooling each other in kickball. can't friggin' wait.

- i'm so excited about future pieces i'll be working on over the next three months. there are such exciting things in store. it's nice to have something to look forward to :)

soooo there you have it. gotta brew another cup of tea and make some delicious food and watch rpatz be all sparkly and whatnot.

X H

ps: oh hey! i launched my website. sort of. it's in the "coming soon" stage right now. major thanks to the lovely jsutt and her design savvy :) - http://www.hilaryjanehughes.com/

GIVE ME DRY SOCKS OR GIVE ME DEATH.

2010-03-15T13:38:00.000-04:00

(FYI: this is the photo that pops up in Google Image Search when you look up "miserable rain.")

dear rain gods:

STOP.

this is UNBEARABLE. my umbrella is missing. my coat hasn't been dry for three days. my feet haven't been dry for three days. everyone's in a terrible mood, including myself. all i want in life right now is my couch, dry socks, piles upon piles of blankets, a cuddly dude to spoon with and HBO on demand for hours on end. that's it. that's all i require in order to find my sanity again.

so, rain gods, if you could like, take a nap or something, that would be stellarrrrr.

X H

(in other news, i will be landing in Austin and picking up my SXSW badge in approx. 52 hours. TEXAS SUNSHINE HERE I COME.)

Hil in the Dig: The SXSW Preview and 5 Drink Minimum!

2010-03-11T15:49:00.000-05:00

in the most recent issue of the Dig, I have two pieces. yayz.

first: as you all probably know by now, I'm taking off next Wednesday morning for Austin, Texas with the engimatic Jess Hodge by my side. we're going to be running up and down Congress Street like chickens with our heads cut off in order to ensure that we catch each and every single set we wanna see, but we're gonna do it! I swear! if i was able to squeeze 25+ sets into 3 days at CMJ this year, catching every single Boston band showcasing at SXSW will be cake. (i hope. gulp.) my SXSW preview is here, but be sure to check back on the Dig's website next week for showcase play-by-plays and plenty of Lonestar-induced debauchery.

secondly: cara, managing editor extraordinaire over at the Dig, was kind enough to include me in the Dig's semi-annual nightlife guide, Five Drink Minimum. this installment of 5DM was centered on hotel bars, so los, mikey and I slinked our way into the sultry clutches of Noir at the Charles Hotel. Five Drink Minimum, for those who haven't read the guide before, is basically a guide to getting hammered: we, the reporters, must imbibe in five cocktails at the assigned location, and each cocktail is picked out ahead of time (#1 is bartender's choice, #2 reflects the vibe of the surroundings, #3 is stranger's choice, etc. etc...). this isn't horrifically difficult to do at Noir, as all of the drinks are just as pleasing to the palate as they are potent, soooo basically we got a little rowdy and the phrase "cheating-on-my-wife-ish" may have gotten thrown around a bit. read all about it here and check out mikey's sick photo above and in the Dig - his is what they chose for the front of the feature :)

i have so much to do before SXSW it's not even funny. here's hoping i get all my work done, pack, and steer clear of the green beer in southie on sunday afternoon. (yes, i will be heading to south boston for the st. paddy's day parade with my girlfriends on sunday. yes, we're going to a rooftop party and marcy's probably going to wind up doing a backwards and upside-down kegstand this year. yes, i am ashamed to admit that i'm a little excited about it.)

X H

¡headshots! with lara callahan [[elciphotography.com]]

2010-03-03T22:19:00.001-05:00

my favorite incredible photographic impresaria, lara callahan, snapped some new headshots for me for my portfolio/business cards. honestly, people, if you're in boston or new york and you need to get some good lookin' photographs of yourself, this is the girl to do it. lara's super encouraging, incredibly easy to work with, and just an all around sweet girl. that, and she made me look like a badass, and for that i'm forever grateful. [i like posing with shades, ok?!]

anyways, yeah. launching a new site soon. very excited about it. heading to SXSW in two weeks. very excited about THAT. 2010, you're not going to let me sleep very much, are you?

oh hey! it's hil writing about thick as thieves in the weekly dig.

2010-02-23T22:25:00.003-05:00

thick as thieves! from left: kellen, aaron, mike and tyler.

go see them downstairs at the middle east on 2/27.

in the latest edition of the weekly dig [which hits the streets tomorrow, look for the orange boxes and pick one up!], i had the goofy joy of interviewing a dude in a band i've loved for years who's also become a good friend. tyler's the singer in thick as thieves, which is undeniably one of my most favorite boston bands. i've interviewed the guys in thick as thieves once before, and that conversation took place on a particularly sunny saturday afternoon in kellen and tyler's living room over the course of nearly two hours. this time, i had a last minute opportunity to chat the dudes up and plug their upcoming show with the lights out and cure for static, so i leapt on it and got tyler on the phone and the next thing you know he's talking about djembes and bloody guitars. my favorite songs by them are "disasterology" and "weak end with no end", and i'm hoping i'll hear both saturday night.

aaanyways, go read all about it. here's a link to this week's Defend Yourself! with Tyler Littwin of Thick as Thieves.

in other news, my editor totally made my life when he addressed me as "ms. gonzo" in an email. yes, i'm a huge, huuuge nerd for revealing this. no, i don't care in the slightest.

Please Kill Me: An Uncensored Oral History of Punk (aka current "CANNOT PUT THIS DOWN" read.)

2010-02-21T22:22:00.001-05:00

Please Kill Me... is one of those books that people have been telling me to read for pretty much ever. "well, you're a music writer!" "you like rock and roll, don't you?" "you like andy warhol/david bowie/the ramones/iggy pop..." yes, i am an aspiring journalist who writes about music. yes, i can think of no better occupation than chasing around rock stars and musicians hoping to catch a break in boston. and no, i can't think of any good reason why i haven't torn it apart from the sheer voracity of reading it yet.

but i did. and this book reminds me of why i work hard, why i sleep less, why i drink more, why i fight louder and harder and dirtier than i ever have before and why i will do whatever it takes to ensure that local talents receive the attention they deserve in a way that'll touch readers and hopefully convince them to pick up a paper on the regular. i could recite half the quotes in Please Kill Me... because they're all fantastic ["iggy, what're you doing wearing a woman's dress?" "...this is a man's dress", etc], but as cliche as it sounds, i found myself relating to lester bangs more than i'd care to admit by the time i reached the Cast of Characters index on the last pages of the paperback:

"Just for the record, I would like it known by anybody who cares that I don't think life is a perpetual dive. And even though it's genuinely frightening, I don't think Richard Hell's fascination with death is anything but stupid... And all the Richard Hells are chickenshits who trash the precious gift too blithely, and they deserve to be given to credence, but shocked awake in some violent matter. Either that or spanked and put to bed." (Lester Bangs, "You Should Never Have Opened That Door", Please Kill Me... pg. 282)

it's painful to read through most of this - to read through the overdoses and the near brushes with death and the record company screw ups and the brutalized relationships and the untimely demises of the people who dreamed up, conceived and shattered one of the most revolutionary movements in modern music. legs mcneil and gillian mccain did an exceptional job with their edits, because they absolutely document the beginnings of punk in the words of the people who made it happen, and they chronicle the rises and falls of the people who made CBGB's what it was and who were fortunate enough to know what the insides of warhol's factory looked like and who were panicking when pattie smith fell off the stage that night. there's nothing more disheartening than a writer who manipulates the words of an artist to satiate their own needs for attention, or to use someone else's brilliance for their own personal gain. legs mcneil and gillian mccain did more than write an incredible book: they restored my faith in my craft which i had lost and they restored my faith in journalism and artistic collaboration and the value of intellectual integrity in one fell swoop.

i found myself sobbing when people like lester and johnny thunders met their makers and when sid and nancy were reunited in a small jewish cemetery. sure, it's sad reading about people dying and getting murdered and shooting themselves up until their blood runs black, but i had never had characters taken away so abruptly from me in a book before, and then the shock set in that these people lived and are directly responsible for making me love what i do. Please Kill Me... makes me want to be a better writer. Period.

also: this is probably the most emotional book review that's ever existed. kind of embarrassing, but there you have it.

if you make music, if you write, if you make art, if you love music, if you love reading, if there's a creative bone in your body or a creative thought in your pretty little head.... juuuust read Please Kill Me... and go listen to the New York Dolls or Iggy and the Stooges or something, and be thankful.

i am currently daydreaming at my desk about:

2010-02-03T13:45:00.000-05:00

1 - planning a european vacation for may. even if es can't go due to her upcoming trip to the states, i may just book a week in lisbon or granada anyway.

2 - purchasing one of the neon-hued cashmere throws offered today on gilt.

3 - making myself breakfast in bed and reading the current issues of interview, vogue, rolling stone, esquire and vanity fair in one sitting.

4 - going back to flamenco or tango class.

5 - love; lust.

6 - having a snowed-in fellini marathon.

7 - heading up to the maine house with my guitar, some books, lots of tea and firewood.

8 - running off to bangkok to go visit potter with kevin.

9 - trying on cowboy boots and soaking up everything through my ears at SXSW.

10 - the bookshelves at strand.

well, that was an entirely unproductive hour.

X H

hil's the hoarder: random collections.

2010-01-31T17:30:00.001-05:00

confession time: i need to cut up my credit card. BAD. sales have been too good to be true lately and if one more package is delivered to my desk while i'm at work i think my coworkers are going to start judging. after ordering a necklace with a key charm on it [more on that later] and receiving the latest edition to my closet [a pair of kelsi dagger flats that i'm absolutely in love with] i realized that i've got a few collections of some pretty random things. with inglourious basterds on tv in the background, i had a baby photo shoot of said random collections on my living room coffee table. warning: there are lots of photos all up in here. so, without further ado, hil presents I COLLECT THINGS YAYZ:

blue suede shoes

this grouping is definitely an accident, but a happy one [and how can anything remotely related to elvis be a bad thing?!] the first pair on the left, the flats with the ankle strap and bow at the toe, were scored at a sale at the urban outfitters on first avenue sometime during senior year. the other two, the gola skate shoes and the kelsi dagger flats that look like they're wearing necklaces, are two real recent purchases from gilt groupe. i didn't realize that i had not one, but THREE pairs, of blue suede shoes until the daggers arrived and i went to add them to my closet shoe rack. i love my new sneakers and the detail on the dagger flats, but my first blue suede shoes, though a little dingy, will always be my favorites.

floral headpieces

this fascination started when i saw one of ban.do's creations in an issue of nylon, and i was thinking about buying it for myself last year for my birthday when los, best friend extraordinaire, made the gorgeous peach flower headband you see above. that was followed by a poufy turqoise headband and then the gigantic netting/tulle pink flower i snagged at an anthropologie sale this fall. i think that my obsession for floral headgear stems from my flamenco dancin' days. i plan on rocking the pink flower at erin's wedding this june with a strapless, sweetheart cocktail dress [if i can find a navy/peacock blue one that'd be perfect]. i am constantly, constantly on the lookout for pieces like these and am still seriously considering grabbing the ban.do #10 if a special occasion pops up out of the blue.

vintage clutches

this collection is one that started with a few vintage clutches that my mom found in a client's house - basically, her client had an attic full of hand-me-downs, costume jewelry and antiques that were all in fantastic condition and the client just didn't care about them and was going to throw all that glorious stuff aWAY. [shudder.] the silver clutch and mustard clutch with the handle above were picked from the litter; the gold clutch and the black and white beaded clutch were found at poor little rich girl [which is definitely my pick for local vintage.] because i love these bags so much, here's a close up of my two beaded babies:

and the most recent addition to the family: a clutch i picked up at london's absolute vintage, which is supposedly one of the best second-hand/vintage spots in the world. their selection of bags, scarves and riding boots was enough to make me SWOOOOON and esme and i spent a good hour perusing through the goods until i laid my eyes on this little darlin. i'm particularly obsessed with the zipper detail:

seriously. love at first sight. also, it holds a surprising amount of stuff - as someone who's constantly carting around a notebook, a wallet, a phone, a camera and a tape recorder on any given evening, the roomiest of this little bloke doesn't go unappreciated.

postcards

when i unpacked my suitcase upon arriving home after my year in argentina/spain, i had amassed a huge pile of postcards somehow and i have no idea how the hell i managed to grab one from pretty much every museum or random shop i stopped into while abroad. i like pretty pictures, ok?! anyways, when i moved into my apartment last november i knew that i wanted the postcards to play a part in my decorating as i've got two huge maps on the walls and thought the well-traveled theme would work out. this bulletin board pictured rests on top of a bookcase in my living room.

and these postcards are hanging above my bed.

favorites: flamenco singers from granada, hungarian postage stamps picked up at a flea market in budapest [fitting those all into the frame wasn't easy], murakami postcard from the mori art museum in tokyo, promotional postcards for movies and vintage stores in lisbon and a photo from an exhibit at la MALBA [museo de arte latinoamericano de buenos aires] which is one of my favorite museums, ever.

skeleton keys

arguably my most active pursuit when it comes to collecting stuff: i try to pick up an antique skeleton key in every city i visit abroad. this started in vienna at the naschmarkt, where i found the gold, ornate skeleton key [second one from the left on the bottom] and wore it on a long black chord for months. pictured, we've got keys from budapest, istanbul, london, buenos aires, granada, tokyo, berlin, prague and vienna, duh. i friggin' love skeleton keys, how they look, how they feel, how much they weigh... so naturally my key kitsch expanded and now i have two key necklaces, too.

(the lock and key is from urban outfitters; the blue lanyard key necklace is by karin andreasson and was found at broadway market in shoreditch, london.)

vogue international

yeeeeah it's no secret: i love magazines. love them. and i love vogue. and i love british vogue and spanish vogue and italian vogue and vogue paris and russian vogue and... yeah. i started picking up vogue in whatever country i was in, if they had it, and my collection so far includes australian vogue, vogue UK, vogue paris, vogue españa, vogue brasil, vogue portugues, russian vogue [if i knew how to type that in cyrillic i would!], vogue deutsch [german, ja], vogue nippon [aka japanese vogue] and vogue hellas [aka greek vogue]. all i need copies from italy, china, korea and india, so if any of you plan on visiting those countries in the near future, pick one up for me :) favorites: vogue paris and russian vogue. ughhh. the parisian pictorials make me want to do nothing but drink wine and smoke cigarettes and marry a man named jean-luc with a rusty bike.

sooooo yeah. i guess i'm kind of a packrat, huh?

X H

2009: Hil and the Year of Exclamation Points/Expletives

2010-01-18T14:12:00.001-05:00

well! it's been 2010 for two weeks now, and the year has kicked off to an incredible start: my birthday was great, band practices have been great, writing for the dig has been great, my apartment's cleaner than usual and i've thoroughly enjoyed traipsing all over town in my new (WARM!) snowboots. as happy as i am to leave 2009 in the dust, it deserves a look back, even in the form of a silly blog post. i grew more than i thought possible in 2009. i went through a lot of nasty firsts (first heartbreak, first layoff, first time i ever ran myself ragged etc) but the year had its high points, too. found this rundown somewhere and decided i should give it a try. if anything, it helps put the past 12 months in perspective and i feel more confident than ever that this year will be better than the last. and the last year, overall, was a damn good year. if anything, the lows not only justified the highs, they made me appreciate 'em so much more.

also, 2010 is already the year in which i got a song written for me for my birthday, i saw my first fellini film (AND LOVED IT) and it's the year in which i'll venture out to texas with a rowdy crew of rockstars and one of my best friends. that's not a bad start, seeing as we haven't hit the 20th day of the year yet...

X H

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?
flew off to another country completely on a whim; got my heart real broke; got laid off; road a bike on city streets; attended a bunch of big name music festivals as a member of the press; met, interviewed wrote stories on and even befriended some of my favorite musicians of all time (liiiiiiiiike the avett brothers. le sigh.)

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
the only resolution i ever make is to try to eat healthier and work out more. throughout unemployment i was pretty good about getting to the gym every other day and kept that schedule up for a good five months... and then i found a job and my life turned chaotic and i had no more time for fitness. as i'm currently a bit... softer than i'd like to be (i'm trying to avoid "fat" but 'cmon) as a result, i'll be making the same resolution. vanity counts/kills.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
nope. no new babies this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
yes.

5. What countries did you visit?
jolly old england. i had a stopover in reykjavik for a good few hours in between logan and heathrow, so does iceland count?

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
a time machine. there simply aren't enough hours in the day, period.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory?
january 23rd. it's the day i got my nose pierced. i have no idea why i'll remember it other than i distinctly remember writing in my planner "NOSE PIERCIIIIIIIING APT 8PM PINO BROS!!!" on the day of january 23rd.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
making my mom proud throughout a pretty painful, humiliating ordeal. it may seem juvenile or silly, but i always (try to) do the "what would my mother think?" thing before i let loose on someone who's crossed a line. i did this time around. my mom's a resilient person who's been to hell and back so many times that she could draw the map to the route in her sleep, so to aim for her level of calm and class amidst the most tawdry of motives isn't an easy feat. she says i made her proud; that's probably my biggest achievement.

9. What was your biggest failure?
letting my feelings get the best of me, generally speaking.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
i got a naaaaasty case of food poisoning that put me out of commision for a week. other than that, my pride took a brusin'. (haha.) that's it.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
my first cashmere sweater ever; a plane ticket to london

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
my friends are the most hilarious, loving, beautiful and fiercely loyal people i've ever met. their behavior always merits celebration!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
it's really, really not worth getting into. take my word for it.

14. Where did most of your money go?
sadly, to material things. having a full-time gig and money in the bank is dangerous for a girl with a newfound love for cashmere, hand-tooled leather boots and vintage goods. my cashmere sweater count for 2009 is now up to 5, thanks for the sale package i just got from j.crew today. [granted, i got those sweaters at an average of 50% apiece, but still.]

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
spring and summer in the city. i wouldn't take anything back about the bike rides, lake house trips, rooftop barbeques and sweat-soaked dance party adventures that took place in the spring and summer months. and the UNION SQUARE FARMER'S MARKET. OH MY GODDDD.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
2009 will forever be the year of GAGA. [i was hesitant and late to the bandwagon, but i have arrived.]

17. Compared to this time last year, are you
i. happier or sadder? happier. last year around this time i was in an interesting spot. haaa.
ii. thinner or fatter? softer. i'm SOFTER. (in the belly/butt region. ok so i'm fatter.)
iii. richer or poorer? richer. in friends, in life, in wisdom, in cash, whatever, i'm richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
taking care of myself, honestly, be it sleeping more or making sure i've got my own back covered.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
i wish that i'd put WAY less energy into resenting and loathing the existence of people who hurt me, even if they were terrible and even if their transgressions were severe. i absolutely could've handled myself better in those situations and i'm not proud of how i dealt with disappointment, heartbreak and humiliation in that regard. 2010 is the year of turning the other cheek and cutting hurtful people out of my life.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
christmas eve at dad's, christmas eve at mom's. pretty great at both houses.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
noooo no no no. i started 2009 in a bit of a haze falling for someone who had absolutely no business being in a relationship with a girl like me and it was the first time i had ever really opened myself up to the possibility of being a real girlfriend. as awful as it sounds, i was waaaay too busy throughout 2009 to even THINK about love, let alone search for it or allow it to find its way into my life in a romantic sense.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
MAD MEN. Joan Holloway, you're an inspiration to us all. (i've never wanted to be a redhead so badly before in my life.)

24. What was the best book you read?
crime and punishment. yup. dostoevsky and i get along famously.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
i'd go out on a limb and say lake street dive. i love their music so much, and rachael, bridget, mike and mike are great people, to boot.

26. What did you want and get?
a week in london with some of my favorite people on the planet; a year full of fantastic music; the opportunity to work with and chronicle the works of great artists and musicians living in/passing through boston on the regular; absolutely incredible nights dancing and reveling and loving my life with my very, very best friends.

27. What did you want and not get?
looking back on it, i guess i really wanted my relationship with dan to work at the time. that's changed. i also really wanted to salvage some friendships that pretty much self-imploded. that's changed, too. either way, i'm starting 2010 with the attitude that i've left those relationships in 2009 and that's where they'll stay. i feel infinitely better as a result.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
pirate radio. good god that movie was brilliant.

29. What did you do on your birthday?
it was pretty chaotic and frenzied and glorious - ten or so of us went to dali for dinner, and then we went back to my apartment, where boyfriend of the moment had made an AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS red velvet cake from scratch. i blew out my candles surrounded by about 25 of my closest friends, and then we went to the inman bukowski.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
i dont know if it would've made 2009 more satisfying, but i wish that i had invested in a camera and dabbled with photography more. i take decent pictures and spent a good half of the year hanging out with people snapping photos all the time wherever we were, so i regret not using that as a learning experience to gain some insight as an intro to photography. with that said, i do plan on buying a new fancy camera before austin, portland and spain this year so that i can document my trips as i've never been able to do before.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
i think i threw out "urban bohemian" once and it stuck, so that. i also like "that cambridge asshole": too put together/intellectual for allston, too hipster for back bay/beacon hill, a little more formal than your run-of-the-mill davis/union sq attire.

32. What kept you sane?
hours of conversation over dinner, subway rides, movies, albums, packs of cloves and bottles of wine with lianne. afternoons on the couch with indian food, bad tv, cookie dough rolls and introspectives with marcy. grounded, perspective-changing chats with maya. and the occasional "we love you, honey" from mom/dad/stepdad/grampa/broskie.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
this question is silly! i have no idea. not robert pattinson.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii have absolutely no idea.

35. Who did you miss?
everyone i left back in new york. visiting in october was such a painful/lovely reminder that i had a great life there and that i'm eager to return to it sooner rather than later.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
tall order! i was so fortunate in the friendships i made in 2009. that list is miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles long. you're all the best.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
don't let the bastards get you down.

38. Quote a lyric that sums up your year.
"every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." i could've gone with the whole "one door closes/another opens" thing, but semisonic is so much more badass than julie andrews, let's be honest.

39. What are your plans for 2010?
world domination, one snappy interview at a time. i also plan on using my kitchenaid mixer more as that sucker is a culinary dream come true for me.

the irrationally happy list, saturday evening version.

2010-01-16T18:24:00.001-05:00

i love this photo, which was taken by this adorable girl cecilie over at bakerby. her blog is so great, and also on my "this makes me irrationally happy!" list. also, she totally makes me want to book a trip to copenhagen so i can check out all the amazing cafes and streets she talks about. go check her out!

things that make me irrationally happy:

+ terry's chocolate oranges. i just made dinner, and now i'm drinking a glass of malbec and savoring the last "slices" of the last of my chocolate oranges that i brought back from the UK in early december. this is my favorite candy ever. too bad they don't have them readily available all year! (actually, my waistline is very grateful that they're not readily available all year...)

+ impromptu saturday day dates. jen, aka one of my absolute favorite people aka jen of fantastic boston band static of the gods, and i opted to try zumba this morning. we had a BLAST and the class was a fantastic workout and i would absolutely recommend it to any and everyone who likes to shake it in any capacity. after the gym, jen and i hit diesel for a caffeine boost [not that we needed it after zumba, but it was pretty necessary for the taste buds], and then we opted to go on a bit of a domestic adventure. jen's got the band van, see, so we drove up mass ave to arlington to penzey's spices and spent a good while sniffing jars of vietnamese cinnamon and chipotle pepper blends and cardamon and coriander. afterwards, we continued on to wilson's farm in lexington and i was NOOOT ready for the hugeness that's wilson's. i always went t wilson's as a kid in the fall only, for haunted houses and caramel apples and the like, so to go in as a hungry grown-up in need of groceries... yeah it was pretty awesome. i came home with the makings of a proper feast and ate grilled chicken, portobello mushrooms and eggplant either grown on the premises or procured from local farms. delicious and good for the local first movement, woooo!

+ the brattle theatre is showing la dolce vita tonight at 8. james and i are going and i've never seen a fellini film, ever, so i'm pretty stoked for it. we had originally decided on avatar, seeing as we're the only two friggin' people on the planet who haven't seen it yet, but fellini on a saturday night on the big screen? perfect? yes. i think so.

+ iiiiiiiiiiii could not be more excited to go see freelance whales at great scott on tuesday night with jess and amanda. "generator ^ first floor" is my favorite song of 2010 thus far and i'll put money down early that they're gonna be the talk of SXSW.

+ today felt like spring. i know that it isn't even february yet, but we're through the worst of winter! (watch me jinx this by merely typing this and then i'll be dressed like an eskimo from here on out 'til april. ohhh new england.)

yeah. today was such a beautiful, wonderful day. i don't think my happiness is so irrational after all :)

story for a sunday afternoon...

2010-01-10T10:42:00.005-05:00

it's gorgeous out, so of course i woke up from sunbeams to the face at 9am. karen, best friend from a lifetime ago in spain, surprised me with a weekend visit and we spent the past couple of days catching up and celebrating friends birthdays and eating delicious things and drinking cups of tea upon cups of tea upon cups of tea. pretty heavenly. now, marcy and i are making thin mint/oreo brownies and watching clueless. yessss. sunday, it could be love.

i've been leaving this blog in the DUST because i've been so busy, so here's a brief recap of what's been keeping me away...

what hil's been up to lately:

+on a whim, i used up all of my remaining vacation days for 2009 and booked a last minute ticket to london on the cheap to go visit esme, a dear friend who i had worked with at an arts camp in maine a few summers ago. it literally feels like not a single day has passed since the last time we hung out and we're the definition of friends who can pick up where they leave off. esme has a beautiful flat in hackney [east london], so i spent about a week tagging along with her, shopping in shoreditch, making pizza while watching the x factor finale, getting lost/completely overwhelmed in top shop, scoping out the pop life exhibit at the tate and belting out amy winehouse's "valerie" in a rock-e-oke contest in covent garden. [i won said contest, prize being a £100 bartab, much to our friends' delight.] the trip was all i could've asked for and more and delivered exactly what i was looking for: a little jaunt out of boston, a little time away from what's happening in these parts, a lot of time to reevaluate some stuff going on/get my priorities and sanity in check. i'm looking into grad school in london and i can't wait to go back. londontown is officially another city to hit the "we get along famously and i could live here!" list, after buenos aires, chicago and lisbon.

+moved on from my post at TPB and am now an arts & entertainment contributing writer at the weekly dig, which is a move i couldn't be more thrilled about. i've been an avid reader of the dig for quite some time now, so to be a part of that editorial team is all walks of awesome. also, i wrote my first ever big paper feature, and i'll be covering SXSW in march for the dig which is kiiiiiind of a dream come true. (i mean, really. i'm gonna be all gonzo about it and i'm potentially going to be a band van stowaway.) here's a few of the pieces i've done so far -

-my feature on boston carnival rockers Mighty Tiny

-defend yourself! Q+As with Mystery Roar, Sidewalk Driver, the David Wax Museum, and my very own junior prom date Garett Hawe who just happens to be one of the featured ensemble members in the touring production of 101 Dalmatians: The Musical.

-a review on the DVD box set of Dawson's Creek. (guys, WB 90s teen dramas are totally emotional.)

-an exit poll or two, including one with my dad after thanksgiving dinner.

+ i turned 24, and had an absolutely wonderful day dancing, drinking and stuffing my face alongside my favorite people on the planet. look to the previous entry for the rundown.

+ i'm making music again. more on this development later, but it involves guitar and fishnets and 80s hair-dos and a debut at the lizard lounge early this spring.

+SXSW. I AM SO EXCITED. i can't wait to get my butt to texas.

those are the big things anyway. whenever i start writing these "oh hey hi it's met let's catch up lists" i always lose steam halfway through and forget important things. those are the biggies, though. it's nice to be back.

X HIL

i turned 24 and it was lovely.

2010-01-08T10:00:00.007-05:00

(this is the famous key necklace found in shoreditch while i was in london last month, by the way.

it's my new favorite thing.)

this weekend, it's all about blogging/detailing the crazy things i've been up to since the beginning of november. i PROMISE. i will not neglect OH HEY! any longer. i promise i promise i promise.

in the meantime, these are shots from my 24th birthday party, which was an 11-hour marathon of goodness that started with brunch and ended with dinner and manhattans at trina's with a homey dance party/sit indian style on hil's floor and drink narragansett and sing party in between. i wouldn't have had it any other way. it was perfect.

the photos are all by jess, one of my oldest and dearest friends and my partner in crime/photographer for SXSW this coming march. [that's a sneak preview on the "what i've been up to" front.]

in other news: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAYA! you're one of the best friends a girl could ever hope to have. i can't wait to dance my face off with you and los and cristina and a bunch of our other favorite people tonight in honor of you you you!

X HIL

2009-12-25T22:43:00.004-05:00

"anticipation is the purest form of pleasure, and the most reliable." - flaubert

i have been a sad, sad blogger and left OH HEY! in a serious state of neglect, but hot damn do you guys have a doozie of a post coming up. i promise. it'll happen. but in the meantime, i had a ridiculous allergic reaction to my dad's yellow lab last night and have spent all day in a benedryl coma, so now it's back to dawson's creek reruns and down comforter snuggles 'til i pass out.

but yeah. a doozie you will have.

X H

london: you make me happy.

2009-12-05T11:27:00.004-05:00

i haven't uploaded photos yet, but i need to jot down SOMEthing about london because there's no way in hell i can go without documenting this incredible trip in some fashion or the other.

thursday: i arrived at heathrow, esme met me at the terminal with a chocolate orange in hand. we came back to her flat in east london, picked up a cheese plate on the way, made some tea and had proper girl talk/catch up time before going for an AMAZING indian feast on brick lane.

friday: sightseeing party timez. walked up and down the south bank, saw the london eye, st pauls, the millenium bridge, trafalgar sq, shopshopshopppped (absolute vintage on brick lane is MECCA), dined in covent garden, ran out for drinks in bank with esme's friend aj, spent the night dancing our faces off with suits galore until we piled into a black cab at 2am and came back and danced around with es and her dear friend aj to nina simone passing out.

today: slept in, went for breakfast in shoreditch at a gorgeous french spot called la vie en rose, stuffed our faces with eggs and toast and sausages and pan au chocolat, esme's sister sophie happened to be walking by and came in to say hello with her fiance, aj and esme and i got incredible coffee brewed on the street at broadway market and we moseyed through the most cheerful, gorgeous, treasure-filled flea market/food market/flower market for hours. we bought cakes, brought 'em back to es' flat and had tea. we're now watching grey's anatomy reruns [britain's a few seasons behind] and resting before going to sophie's christmas party and then out to dinner with es' friends.

tomorrow: our friend jon, who es and i worked with at an arts summer camp nearly five years ago, is gonna meet up with us and we'll stroll portobello road. and then we're going ice skating by the british museum, and then we're going for high tea at fortnum and mason.

the pictures i'm taking are great. i can't wait to share them with you.

seriously? this is exactly what i needed. thank you, london and esme!

fall's almost done...

2009-11-22T22:25:00.004-05:00

i have a bit of writing to do before bed so i won't say much, but can we just talk about this tree that i saw while out causing a ruckus last night?

in other news, november is one of those months of new beginnings that i'm kind of excited to say goodbye to, if only because december means london, christmas and new year's eve. so many things to look forward toooo....

"because when a door closes in hilary jane hughes' life..."

2009-11-12T10:22:00.002-05:00

a real proper update is coming soon as LOTS has been going on, but in the meantime i'll leave you with this because it's a) true and b) ridiculous, as andrea can literally get me laughing my butt off at the drop of a hat for no reason at all.

[10:19] Hilary: omgggg london cant come soon enough
[10:19] Hilary: and i bet you feel the same way about the bahamas
[10:19] Andrea: i do, girl.
[10:20] Andrea: but i just want to reiterate
[10:20] Andrea: that i am really excited for you
[10:20] Andrea: and THIS
[10:20] Andrea: is why
[10:20] Andrea: i dont worry about you.
[10:20] Andrea: because when a door closes in hilary jane hughes' life
[10:20] Andrea: she smashes open six windows and pulls the fire alarm.
[10:21] Hilary: HAHAHAHAHA.

i'm so, so lucky to have such incredibly wonderful people in my life who don't get going when the going gets tough.

oh, also, i'm going to london in three weeks. prooobably should've mentioned that. as i said earlier, more later, i promise. Xx H

someone cut up my credit card plz.

2009-11-04T22:49:00.003-05:00

soooo while taking a break at work today, i was browsing through etsy.

and i bought this:

i don't NEED a necklace made out of gorgeous, silk, vintage neck ties. i don't NEED to buy said necklace, especially since this would look ideal with vnecks [aka half my wardrobe] and men's undershirts [aka the other half.]

i will need, however, a fantastic accessory or few that packs a punch and will pack easy when i whip out the passport and cross the pond next month.

seriously. just cut up my credit card now. i'll love you forever and so will my savings account.

happy halloween! i was riveting (i hope.)

2009-11-02T14:42:00.003-05:00

so, there you have it: i was rosie the riveter for halloween after i opted to scrap being a flapper for the second year in a row. [i do love my purple fringe-all-over dapper flapper dress, though.] i spent the night dancing around like a maniac with dear friends and the only casualty of the evening was my blackberry which went swimming around 3am but luckily my pal justin fished it out of the NASTY puddle it had landed in and it miraculously survived the submersion. dear blackberry: thank you for making waterproof phones, even if they're supposedly not waterproof. that thing rang COMPLETELY UNDERWATER and it lit up so we could find it. for that, i am grateful.

november's kicking off to a ridiculously busy start: in addition to the piles of transcripts/interviews i have to sift through, my mom's putting the finishing touches on building her dream house up in maine and we just took on a HUMONGOUS account at work so i'll be here 8-6 all week, pretty much. i'm taking a break to post these photos/muse for a bit to give my brain time to energize and look at stuff that isn't drafts/articles/google analytics/research research research. i promise i miss and love all of you and i'm sorry for being so absent lately. october was insanity; november will be better by default, i'm sure, but dressing up as a feminist icon was a nice way to end my month.

so is anyone else counting down to thanksgiving? because stuffing, mashed potatoes and apple pie would make me ridiculously happy right now...

xx h

ps: i've got some major reviews coming up. judy jetson hair, i'm comin' for you.

2009-10-26T18:16:00.001-04:00

"no one wants to hug a firecracker, hilary."

fact.

CMJ // it's cold // new boots!

2009-10-15T08:43:00.003-04:00

what i wouldn't GIVE for a pumpkin muffin and a cappuccino from the biscuit right about now...

anyways, good morning! a few baby updates:

1) along with my cohorts jessie and gab, i'll be heading to new york city next week to cover the tail end of the CMJ Music Marathon. we're going to cover the Boston acts of the festival lineup [The Mieka Canon, Drug Rug, The New Collisions, Aloud, HO-AG to name a few] complete with photo timeline, concert shots, videos [hopefully!] and various critiques/musings. you can find our unscripted indie rock adventure [complete with copious amounts of red velvet cupcakes from buttercup and a run in at the waverley] over at TeaParty Boston.

2) interviews i've done recently for TPB: one with local favorites/Cantab frequenters St. Helena, one with Boston mainstays The Beatings, and one with the latest indie darlings to hit the charts, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. read up on some good listens here, friends.

3) after a particularly stressful day at work yesterday, i took a detour before driving home and stopped at the mall... and walked out with a quarter of my monthly wages gone. yeeeeah i'm gonna eat pasta for two weeks to make up for it. but my new party dress and blouse from anthropologie are gorgeous and these new frye boots are purrrrty:

seriously. i needed them. i keep telling myself this.

anyways. it's 9:02am. that means dayjob work time. tonight: the dodos are playing at the middle east, and i'll be watching from the ramp. if you're going, get there soon as i feel like everyone and their mother wants to snag last minute tickets to this show.

p.s.: dear fall: i thought you were going to stick around for a leeeeeeeeeettle longer to make up for the fact that summer was rainy 99% of the time. do i REALLY have to break out my winter coat two weeks before halloween? seriously? gyahhh. oh well. at least it's hot cider season.

aaaaaaaaand sleep.

2009-10-04T15:10:00.006-04:00

well hey there, somerville.

it's sunday. luckily, my body knew i needed some rest, big time, after a most ridiculous two weeks, and i rolled over when i woke up and realized that it was 1:50. pm. i had slept half the day away, and that was exactly what i needed.

why so tired/why the oversleeping? yesterday, teaparty boston helped out with the throwing of harvest fest over at somerville's center for the arts at the armory. we were the official media partner for the event, but our tweeting/live blogging responsibilities were merely tasks compared to the other feats we accomplished that day! i had volunteered myself to joe, the wonderful man in charge and most adorable of local do-gooders, and i wound up emceeing the majority of the event and throwing together the script for the haphazard fashion show that occurred. the event was packed, everyone was happy, the endless supply of artisan beer kept festival-goers happy and the music on hand was pretty swell. it was exhausting, but it was a lovely day.

i actually made it out to tt's for the sidewalk driver cd release which was epiccccccc and i spent the majority of the evening in the pool room with the tpb/motion sick/aloud/future everybody kids. now, i'm scarfing shalimar, getting some writing done and then heading over to river gods for a video premiere party with aloud. and then it's precinct time, some old same old.

aiiiii ai ai. that's an update, though a lame one at that. tomorrow i'm either going to the advanced screening of "where the wild things are" complete with dave eggers q&a or i'm going to see wild light for a tpb feature. not a bad start to the week, huh?

The Savage Detectives: Current Book Hil Can't/Won't Put Down.

2009-09-22T08:47:00.005-04:00

my time on the commuter rail every morning tends to get soaked up by transcribing interviews for TPB, but i'm going to a hip hop show [big digits at harper's ferry, to be precise] post "real" work tonight and didn't feel like lugging my macbook from back bay to allston and on to cambridge, ugh. on the days where pressing play on the tape recorder makes me want to gauge my eyes out, or on mornings such as this one, i read. it's not that exciting. the books i've been picking up lately have been, though. i finally devoured crime and punishment not too long ago and after that i started roberto bolano's 2666, but i used it as a pillow one especially sleep-deprived morning on the train and sadly left it on my seat :/ i was really heartbroken about the loss of 2666 - it was a hardcover, as the paperback version of bolano's opus came in three volumes prior to its release as a single softcover on september 1st, and the book itself isn't exactly flying off the shelves at barnes & noble given that oprah hasn't put her stamp of approval on it [yet] and bolano rarely tends to be a favorite amongst anyone but latin american lit majors and intellectually masturbating poets/vagabonds.

i love bolano. [i don't consider myself an intellectually masturbating poet, though i did study latin american lit pretty extensively.] i had to read una novelita lumpen in eduardo lago's Orillas Atlanticas ["Atlantic Shores"] my sophomore year at Sarah Lawrence and bolano's simple, poignant prose was easy to meander through at a point where i was conversationally proficient in spanish at best and had a waaaays to go when it came to spanish reading comprehension. i can't remember if it was eduardo or one of my other tutors/professors, in new york, buenos aires or elsewhere, who encouraged 2666, but the recommendation stuck with me and i finally found it on amazon for a decent price back when i was bored and looking for things to keep me busy during my bout of funemployment early this year. i bought it and i kept putting off starting it until i got the new gig, found myself loathing my 1.5 hour commute every morning, and needed an escape from an interview or two every once in awhile.

aaaaaaaaanyways. i love, love the savage detectives so far. i'm going to reread it in spanish when i'm through with it in english, as i fear i'm getting rusty. this particular line really struck me today, but i'm not going to give you the context for it because i feel like the sentiment stands on its own:

"You can woo a girl with a poem, but you can't hold on to her with a poem. Not even with a poetry movement."

given a few recent epiphanies, i just thought this was the right sentence for me to stumble across at the right time, and it made me think. i'm horrifically distracted by just that one sentence even still and i'm strangely okay with it, even if i have a never-ending list of things to do today. if i'm gonna be distracted, it might as well be by a genius piece o' lit that gets me thinking, right?

my friends may keep me out too late on a school night, but they keep me sane.

2009-09-17T09:23:00.005-04:00

chief, smitty and ace at great scott, 9/12

so the lovely and talented ryan rose weaver (who's not only an established, dedicated foodie but now also our Tastes guru over at TeaParty Boston) wrote this on her blog last night and it makes me feel all kinds of wonderful:

What this means is that instead of working on service pieces, guides, features, etc. in a strictly technical sense, my hope is that this fall, me and my people are going to make some art together. We are going to riff. We are going to ad lib. We are going to graffiti our words across the Internet and hope that someone wanders along and likes what they see. We will do it because we are compelled to point out the genius of the people who are creating things in this city in the same way that bees are compelled to make honey, that birds are compelled to sing, that Jessica Simpson is compelled to soldier on doing whatever it is that she does despite all those "mom jeans" comments. We do it because we must create -- not because we must create something we can "monetize."

ryan, you're not in the picture above, which is silly, but you're so great. and everyone involved with TPB is so great. and everything that ryan just wrote is the complete and articulate and better-phrased summary of everything i love about my friends and what i do.

thanks, ryan. you just made a gloomy morning severely lacking in the caffeine department so much better.

KINGS OF LEON: The TeaParty Boston Interview. [aka: lil ol' me, jared of KoL and a tape recorder.]

2009-09-13T21:15:00.004-04:00

i'm on my couch with some vino and a homemade oreo from city feed and i'm watching the VMAs, and i'm actually super stoked about that. the MJ tribute was pretty great, i love russell brand, and the mood seems to be particularly festive. great start, VMAs, great start.

three words on the tips of everyone's tongues tonight, regarding the VMAs? Kings. Of. Leon. the band is unbelievably huge right now. everyone can sing the chorus to "sex on fire", let's be honest. with a few shots of tequila in me i do a STELLARRR impression of caleb followill's "USE SOMEBODAAAY-AH" hook. rolling stone and spin have featured them on the covers of their magazines and nearly every music critic in the country has touted them as the biggest band in the world right now. am i the biggest fan? not necessarily, but i give credit where credit is due and after seeing caleb, jared, nathan and matthew DECIMATE the gloom that had settled in over the rain-soaked comcast center friday night with their absolutely electrifying set, i can say with absolutely no doubt that they're very, very real and worth a listen.

...also i was there because gab, jessie and i were interviewing them for TeaParty Boston. (slight ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG moment of my life.) gab was the only photographer who was granted access to shoot the show friday night. i somehow wound up backstage in a warm up room with jared, the bass player, and we hung out for something like fifteen minutes. the dude is surprisingly down to earth and humble and excited about the amazing things that he's got going for him. anyways, read the interview in full here, but check out some of gab's pics below:

(also, i gotta say, i really do work with some of the most incredibly talented and lovely women on the planet. gab and jessie, i'm so proud of the both of you and i don't think i tell you that enough.)

quick update: TeaParty Boston, Interviewz, Major FreakOuts and Other Adventures.

2009-09-11T13:46:00.002-04:00

HI!

real quick:

1) the weekend preview is up at TeaParty Boston. if you're looking for something to do this weekend in boston, you have EIGHT GAZILLION OPTIONS available including concerts in cambridge, somerville, allston and boston proper, of course. there's also a booze-soaked LEGALIZE CACHACA! march plowing through the south end/back bay and design hive kicks off for the season on sunday. long story short: GET YOUR BUTT OFF THE COUCH AND OUT INTO THE AUTUMN AIR, AMIGOS!

2) i am interviewing the biggest f#%#$%@ band on the planet tonight before their concert at the comcast center. if you've got any pressing questions for the followill brothers, drop me a line and i'll include it in my interview.

3) have i told you lately that i'm lucky? i'm lucky.

long time no see! also: boston phoenix, WTF. regards, hil.

2009-08-30T21:45:00.006-04:00

hey guys.

my my my, i've been a busy girl. between day job work, TPB work, enjoying the brief heat wave here in boston and riding my bike all over this city to catch up with friends new and old, i'm getting very little sleep and i'm spending very little time at home. this past weekend consisted of running around like a crazy person trying to cover Boston Band Crush's ONE NIGHT BAND [which was an incredible success], the McAlister Drive show over at the 'Dise and Jeremy's last night drumming it up with the Sea Monsters on Sunday. I'm back at my desk. I have iced coffee in my system, even if it's getting a little brisk out. life is good.

fast-forward to today, when little miss jessietron sent me the link for the Phoenix's new lifestyle piece: "A Girl's Guide to Boston Boys." this post royally pissed me off on many levels and as much as i've respected the phoenix in the past for its music coverage and photojournalism and other stuff [and hey, i have some friends over at phoenix media, ok?], nina maclaughlin's article in the Welcome Back '09 issue made me want to write to her directly and ask her to never ever write an op/ed ever again. my issues with it:

1) The Boston Phoenix is one of the OLDEST alternative weeklies in the country [second only to the village voice, i believe, or hell, it may even be older], it has an established readership and it still gets picked up even though it's a free paper with midweek circulation. what's the most important part of that last sentence? ALTERNATIVE. WEEKLY. The Boston Phoenix is NOT the Improper Bostonian [aka the glossy which boasts quips on cavity-inducing $15 cocktails and socialite photo spreads to keep the beacon hill set happy] and it's NOT the Boston Herald [aka the daily owned by Rupert Murdoch known for its blue collar/conservative slant.] it's picked up, predominantly, by readers in cambridge, somerville, allston, jamaica plain and charlestown, which host some of the most well-known [and liberal] academic institutions in the metro-Boston area as well as the most creative and innovative nightlife/restaurants/venues/museums/etc etc. i think it's incredibly short-sighted of maclaughlin, and the lifestyles editor at the phoenix who allowed this to even hit the web, to make sarcastic [and, um, entirely unoriginal] cracks at THE PAPER'S KEY DEMOGRAPHIC. Boston Phoenix, these "arrogant, competitive, and highly self-centered" men of cambridge/"members of the famed creative class" of JP who are most likely to be seen at the cemetery [wtf?]/"(aspiring) rock stars" of allston are THE ONES PICKING UP YOUR PAPERS. the yah brahs/frat boys/finance dudes of downtown/beacon hill/kenmore are hardly the gentlemen who'll be picking up the latest issue by the T on a wednesday morning. in fact, it's these assholes who are most likely to use your classified pages to wipe puke off their face after a particularly rowdy night at the liquor store/on lansdowne street. i think that this article had the potential to poke fun and crack jokes in a good-natured way: i mean, come on, we're all capable of making fun of our idiosyncracies as bostonians and we're all very aware of how we tend to distinguish ourselves by neighborhood. with that said, maclaughlin's angle on this puff piece was poorly written [line edits, anyone?] and dripping with disdain from someone clearly suffering from a case of hipster/harvard envy.

2) at the risk of sounding repetitive, this piece was COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY UNORIGINAL. oh my god! hipsters in allston with ...tattoos?! girls wearing lily pulitzer in back bay?! backwards red sox hats in... WAIT DON'T TELL ME... kenmore square?! OHMYGAHDTHATISSOHILARIOUS. you write for The Boston Phoenix. i'm sure you had ample time to pitch an idea and see it through to fruition. that should've given you PUH-LENTY of time to think of a new spin to put on this idea. also: ashmont. dorchester. SOMERVILLE. even southie [which tends to host these frat boys who're just like "the pals of your best friend's older bro."]. how about you do your research, learn how to use the subway beyond the red and green line, and get to know the city you're covering? if you're going to write off half your audience, you may as well include the neighborhoods where yes, the Phoenix is distributed and where you can find exceptions to every single "type" you defined in your piece. maybe it'll even give your story a little color and keep it from looking like the half-assed column of some Carrie Bradshaw wannabe majoring in Communications at BU.

aaaaand i'm spent. rant done. editorial staff of the boston phoenix: i expect more from you as the supposed authorities on arts & entertainment coverage in my fair city, and i never thought an alternative weekly would be so snottily exclusive. and, frankly, a little more uneducated about the city in which it resides than it should be.

in other news, teaparty boston? yeah, we won't tell you who to date based on what neighborhood you're scouring for boyfriends in, but we WILL tell you how arts & entertainment actually is in Boston and with direct quotes from the people who are making exciting things happen here. we won't be poking fun at them. OR their tattoos.

my avett brothers fangirldom knows no bounds.

2009-08-07T14:48:00.003-04:00

seriously, guys. i'm obsessed. since folk festival 50 i can't stop listening to the second gleam and emotionalism by the avett brothers. also, JOHN HUGHES DIED?! :( anyone down for a breakfast club/pretty in pink/sixteen candles/st elmo's fire/ferris bueller/home alone marathon this weekend? preferably sunday?

anyways. here's an adorable video of the avett brothers all up in the back of their tour bus playing my favorite song of theirs, "will you return". enjoy :D

my morning was weird.

2009-08-04T08:47:00.007-04:00

well, i guess it's still going on so "is" weird would be more appropriate, but whatever.

a little update: i am exhausted. i drove up to lake george on thursday afternoon, it took me five hours to get there because i got craaaazy lost, and then i doubled back and drove home in less than 24 hours. made it back to cambridge, picked up jessie, we drove down to rhode island in a torrential downpour and made it to newport in decent time. we got up at 7:30 on saturday and sunday mornings and worked for pretty much 12 straight hours at the newport folk festival [which was an incredible, incredible experience that i'll put into words later] and then we drove back home sunday night and got back here around 9:30. last night, we met up with the love language over at the middle east for their sold out show (!!!) with cursive and i didn't even make it to cursive's set. the love language were amazing, as usual. what a great group of people, too.

anyways, my tuesday night is going to consist of watching "the life aquatic with steve zissou" in bed with a salad [who am i kidding i'll probably order shalimar] and my laptop and i will start plowing through the first half of the newport folk fest transcripts. before i start work for the day, though, i wanted to share with all of you the two notable sights i spotted this morning while walking to work.
first off: shepard fairey. fairey got a slap on the wrist for various installations he's done in the city since his exhibit opened at the ICA and he's supposed to notify BPD of when he'll be in town AND he's not allowed to have "tagging materials - such as stickers or paste" on him when he does come to Boston. so, yeah, imagine my [pleasant] surprise when i woke up, showered, ran out my front door and literally walked into this in the parking lot behind my building:

i like shepard fairey, i'll admit it. i like his style, his collages and the murals he's done. maybe he's a douchebag in real life, maybe not, but i dig his work. i'm just bummed that i missed him painting it, that would've been sick.

secondly: after getting off the train this morning at my office, i walked through the parking lot by the commuter rail station and passed this:

please note the "please do not leave anything outside of the box" memo written across the front of the box. 987213987198273 happy meal toys? for the american red cross? really? what the hell? i literally stopped and stared at this pile of technicolor plastic for ten whole minutes before shuffling off to my cubicle shaking my head the whole way.

haha seriously. and all of this happened before 8:30 am. wow.

TeaParty Boston at Newport Folk Festival 50, Lake George and more! EEEEEEP!!!!

2009-07-29T10:25:00.006-04:00

image via cute overload.

i am happier than this happy bunny becaaaaause

a) on a whim, i took the last two days of this week off, and i'm going to be driving up to lake george tomorrow afternoon for two days of bliss in the wilderness of upstate new york with my absolute favorite new yorkers who have not seen in FOR EV ER. lake? beerz? best friends? SIGN ME UP.

b) on friday night, jessie and i are hopping in the car and leaving cambridge for newport, rhode island because TEAPARTY BOSTON IS COVERING THE NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL. it's the festival's 50th anniversary and anyone who follows american folk/rock/indie music knows that THIS IS A BIG DEAL. our press credentials were approved yesterday so we're going to be seeing some of our ABSOLUTE FAVORITE BANDS [the avett brothers! the low anthem! the decemberists! iron & wine! elvis perkins in dearland! deer tick! ben kweller! EEEEE!!!!!!] and writing about it so that you guys can live vicariously through us for a bit. we'll be live blogging/tweeting the shows, too, so keep a look out.

in other news: works good, apartment's good, and boston fiiiinally decided it was summertime. i have never been so happy to sweat profusely in my LIFE.

hunter s. thompson in the afternoon.

2009-07-17T16:20:00.004-04:00

mr. gonzo himself: hunter s. thompson.

i think one of my favorite memories from my short-lived stint as an office monkey at wenner media was natalie's glam rock party, when cody and adam were drunkenly retelling RS stories from days gone by and the one came up about how hunter s. thompson got a huge load of edits from an irate jann and responded by walking into jann's office with a fire extinguisher and shot the fire safety device off in the face of the editor of rolling stone. hammered cody, in turn, ripped the fire extinguisher off the columbia university dorm room wall and proceeded to pull the pin, which filled the apartment with nasty foam and left the rest of us laughing our asses off as natalie's roommate panicked and screamed at cody while donning a silver leotard and red velvet cape. we're such media dorks, guys.

anyways. long story short: i love hunter s. thompson, and when we talk influences, he may be the one that i credit when it comes to honing my creativity and giving me something to aspire to as a ballsy writer.

i'm deleting this from my profile on facebook so i wanted to put it somewhere. here it goes, my favorite hunter quote.

"...no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. whatever it meant ... history is hard to know, because of all of the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of 'history' it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands all the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened."

-Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

TeaParty Boston Update: Interviews, Photos, Silly Flashy Headshots and more.

2009-07-16T09:54:00.003-04:00

hello friiiiiiiiiiends!

i know i said i wouldn't be updating, but i figured i'd give you the rundown on what's currently posted over at TeaParty Boston for your reading pleasure.

since the end of april, jessie, gab and i have been running around this city like chickens with our heads cut off interviewing, shooting, chatting with and going to see the best bands coming through town and hailing from the bean itself. between the paradise rock club, precinct and every single venue in between we've covered a lot of ground, and you can now find all of these interviews that we've been backlogging since this brainchild came to fruition a few months ago.

interviews currently up on TeaParty Boston:

-Frosty Pines: Steve, Andy and Conan, formerly of Boston indie powerhouse Baker, have reformed as a rock trio and will be playing TT the Bear's Place on July 23rd.

-The Antlers: Jessie and I had the pleasure of chatting up these Brooklynites as they were stopping through town on their way back to the burrough after their whirlwind national tour.

-Magic Magic: Probably one of my favorite Boston acts out there and definitely an act to watch. That, and these guys are hysterical.

-Taxpayer: Another one of my favorite local acts, and definitely one of the most fun interviews/shows we've ever done for TPB. Their album, Don't Steal My Night Vision, is currently playing on repeat on my iTunes.

-Thick as Thieves: Definitely my band crush. I. LOVE. THEIR. MUSIC. SO. MUCH. I stumbled across their last album while writing for Chicks with Guns last summer and I haven't stopped listening to them since.

-Au Revoir Simone: Okay Jessie looooves these keyboard-wielding ladies and it's no wonder why, seeing as they're adorable and their music is just as appealing as their personalities.

-The Luxury: Jessie and I were BLOWN AWAY by these guys at their CD Release party last week. Seriously, people. They're going to explode and you heard it here first.

-The Low Anthem: I'm really pissed that I missed this show, but these guys are amazing and Jessie snapped some sick pictures of their show at the Brattle.

-Thao with the Get Down Stay Down: Our first big interview! I love Thao. Everyone loves Thao. We hope you love our interview with Thao.

-Rock Plaza Central: Chris Eaton is such an upstanding chap and chatting him up about Rock Plaza Central's music, origami caterpillars and punching Scott Speedman was a delight.

soooo yeah. i've been busy, can you tell?

xx hil

the happy list, "i'm choosing bed before precinct on a sunday night for the first time EVER!" edition.

2009-07-12T22:14:00.002-04:00

i have 7.5 hours until i have to be awake on monday morning, so i'll keep this list brief.

+ last night. period. i put on my pretty new dress, jessie put on her pretty new outfit [including her pretty sweet new american apparel leotard, very exciting] and we booked it over to allston to be very important people. we started off at the paradise, which basically looked like a bomb exploded in the equipment closet because four bands were soundchecking at that time, and met up with joey and joe of the click five for a brief talkin' to about how they went from shacking up in allston to speaking out against violence against women in southeast asia for mtv. afterwards, we went over to eastern standard for the most lovely meal i've had in ages - we split the cheese plate, i got the duck, jessie got the burger and we had peach cobbler [with basil icecream FOODGAAAAZM] and strawberry angel food cake for dessert. after THAT, we went back over to the paradise for the luxury's incredible CD release and saw aloud, midatlantic, the click five and the luxury ABSOLUTELY ENTHRALL the packed house. it was such an incredible show and it made me feel really, really good about what we're doing over at teaparty boston because it gives us the chance to celebrate these people and their incredible talents in a forum that caters to them as opposed to making them change for it. it was just a very, very inspiring night, and i think i speak for jessie and i both when i say that it was probably one of the best shows i've seen in boston. ever.

+ cambridge on a sunday. berryline? check. beautiful bike ride? check. lounging by the river? check. look shopping? check. sure, it's kind of a nuisance that there happened to be about 20938402938402 harvard tours passing through harvard square today, but it was a lovely sunday spent with lovely people and i shuffled back into my place around 8 sunkissed and exhausted and perfectly content. lovely.

+ farmer's markets. delicious produce, strawberry rhubarb pies, fresh bread? god, it feels good to actually go food shopping again and to support local farmers/growers/bakers as opposed to relying on the shalimar delivery guy to drop by my house every other day and to judge me when he sees that i'm ordering the same thing, again, four nights a week. i like eating healthier, preparing my own food and saving some cash. so thanks, central square + union square farmer's markets, for existing!

+ feeling very lucky. i feel lucky every single day, but lately i feel lucky moreso than usual for some reason. i have a great job in a chill office with really, really nice people. i have a supportive, nurturing family [especially my mom] that i can always call to make me feel better even on the crappiest of days. i have beautiful, exciting, interesting people in my life who never cease to amaze me with their warmth and humor and all around good vibes. i have an apartment that, though currently disgusting and covered in empty beer bottle STILL courtesy of july 4th, is very much so my nest that i love coming home to in a neighborhood i adore. and i have a burgeoning business with two of my best friends that has us living the dream and making plans for ourselves while having fun and working together to make something pretty amazing. despite blue days and unsavory characters from the past making the occasional reappearance and silly, petty drama that somehow always shows up at the wrong time... i'm truly, truly happy. i'm very much in love with life right now, and i'm going to ride this wave as long as it lasts.

because i would rather be at the beach than sitting in my cube...

2009-07-09T10:28:00.004-04:00

i stumbled across Body Surf today, which is a collection of surfing-inspired photographs taken of waves coming from every sea and ocean on the planet. i know i'm the umpteenth-millionth person to point this out, but this summer in boston? not so warm or beach-friendly as of yet. we've had a couple of nice days, but seriously, mother nature, give us our four months of beauty and sunshine, please. we deserve it after the miserable winter we had. ANYWAY: the photographs of Body Surf are seriously making my morning and i find myself clicking through the site's gallery of surf shots hoping that i'll eventually get to go to gloucester or plum island or falmouth in the near future so that i can splash around for a bit.

favorites from body surf:

The Luxury CD Release at the Paradise Rock Club, Saturday 7/12!

2009-07-08T10:13:00.004-04:00

so, jessie and i were lucky enough to sit down with Boston Brit Pop sensations The Luxury for girly drinks and fried pickles at Cambridge Common a couple of weeks ago. We're going to be attending their CD release for their sophomore album this saturday and we're super stoked for it, so come out to Allston and join us at the Paradise Rock Club and dance your face off.

steve borek and jason dunn of the luxury. photo credit: jessietron.

the interview is hysterical, guys. check it out at TeaParty Boston (it's the headlining article!) or click through here for a direct link to the interview.

in other news: TEAPARTY BOSTON LAUNCHED. well, softly. we've been building up to it for what seems like ages now. but it's UP! and OFFICIAL! yaaaaaaayz. i may go visit my darlings in new york for a smidge in the next couple of weeks which has been a LONG time coming, so that'll be nice. and there may be a weekend at a lakehouse in new hampshire in my future as well. long story short: it's nice to be hil this week :)

oh hey oh man oh no oh wow!

2009-07-01T19:04:00.005-04:00

hey friends.

i've been a really busy bee working on a ton of really interesting amazing stuff for go2, TeaParty Boston and Chicks with Guns, which means that chances are i'll be neglecting this lil' bloggity blog for a bit. it's not that i don't love you; it's that, frankly, i am way too busy to be interesting right now and the TeaParty launch is kind of eating my life in the best way possible. seriously, guys, jessie, gab and i can't wait to share this with you. it's shaping up to be pretty epic.

in other news: drivers in central square, slow the hell down. i got soaaaaked in the most comical way yesterday when i was walking from mass ave to jessie's place. i couldn't even be mad, it was that ridiculous.

also: my half birthday is tomorrow! red velvet cupcakes for everyone! if the rain breaks, i am totally cracking that saved bottle of veuve on the roof and eating cupcakes and anyone who's interested is welcome to join me.

no words, except for "thank you."

2009-06-25T18:48:00.006-04:00

thank you.

something cheery to brighten your rainy tuesday [edit: wednesday. fail.]

2009-06-24T08:57:00.007-04:00

this unrelenting rainy nastiness has GOT TO QUIT. this week has been AWFUL so far [edit: i'm over it, the whole thing. no need to spread the negativity.]

so to make myself feel better and to hopefully spread some joy this morning:
i give you baby kevin in a clown suit.

it toootally worked and made you laugh at your desk, didn't it.

thanks/sorry kev. and plz find those yellow chucks in your size [now.]

in other news: the band formerly known as "baker" is wonderful and TPB had the privilege of catching up with them at shay's last night, so good. the somerville jazz and blues festival is tomorrow at the armory and you should totally go. saturday is going to be FANTASTIC as TPB will be downstairs at the middle east covering taxpayer, thick as thieves, the good north, the information and barnicle. and sunday is lake street dive.

c'mon, wednesday. just make it 5:15 so i can catch my train home, go to dali or punjabi dhaba with preston for a long anticipated lady date, and then passsss out so that thursday can be here already. i heard a rumor that the sun is supposed to come out tomorrow. i'll believe it when i see it.

because i'm totally vain:

2009-06-22T21:46:00.005-04:00

ok so these are the unedited shots of lara callahan. but i lurve them. and i think these are the only photos that actually capture ME that i've seen in awhile. elci, i love you girl! also: the photos of jessie and gab are miiiindblowingly gorgeous.

in other news: life? thanks for letting me know today that i dodged a HUUUUUUUUUGE bullet. i refuse to surrender my grocery store. (jessie gets it.) jessie, you're really great.

photos: the girls of teaparty boston.

2009-06-22T10:13:00.007-04:00

hey friends. we're still working out the kinks over at teaparty boston (and it's taking a lot longer than we'd like belieeeeve me), but we had our very first photo shoot and got to pretend to be models for an evening. here are my favorite shots of gab, jessie and myself. we really can't thank lara callahan enough for making us feel like goddesses and working a camera better than anyone i've ever met. so, lara, we love you! [also, do yourself a favor and check out her site. it's bangin'.]

we're launching this week. i PROMISE I PROMISE I PROMISE. in other news: boston, cut the shit with this rain. i'm not kidding anymore. it's the last week of june. give me some sunshine. love, hil.

stulle-berlin wallets: definitely worth the international shipping fee.

2009-06-20T09:21:00.010-04:00

almost exactly two years ago, los and i were finishing up eurodyssey, the two week trek we took from istanbul to amsterdam after our semester in spain came to a close. we started in istanbul, then moved onto the greek islands for a few days, then hopped on a plane to amsterdam and spent the last leg of the trip in berlin, one of my absolute favorite cities in the whole wide world. my friend konstantin, who i had met in my latin american econ class in granada, is a berliner and he oh so generously offered to play tourguide to los and i during our stay in germany's capital.

konstantin was the best possible friend we could've hoped for in berlin: he knew the city like the back of his hand and made it his personal mission to make sure that we saw all tourist attractions and all local underground spots in every neighborhood in our 3 full days there, which is no easy feat seeing as berlin is MASSIVE. knowing that we're fiends for anything shiny or pretty or beautiful and creative, konstantin took us to Hackescher Markt in West Berlin near Alexanderplatz to mosey through the community of boutiques, galleries and show rooms. i've been shopping in paris, buenos aires, rome, tokyo, all MAJOR fashion capitals of the world, and i haven't seen ANYTHING like the shops of berlin: Each store was literally a design studio where the decor was just as eye-catching as the goods and garb on display. when i say we spent HOURS leafing through hand-pressed comic books and trying on dresses that were silk-screened by the designer who happened to be working the register too i'm not exaggerating. los and i were totally enthralled with the hackescher markt, not gonna lie.

anyways, the point of all this "ICH LIEBE DICH BERLIN" business is to talk about stulle-berlin. my big purchase when we were there was a wallet that i found in this tiny, airy studio in the district that was essentially chock full o' gorgeous billfolds and bags and belts. the 45 EUR pricetag slightly deterred me at first, but nothing was going to stop me from getting that wallet. i had been using some shoddy urban outfitters canvas wallet that was entirely too big, and it was falling apart anyway... so yeah. long story short, i sucked it up and bought this beautiful baby:

two years later and we're still so happy together.

i think it may be love.

but ANYWAYS! i've been meaning to look up stulle for ages just in case, god forbid, my wallet happens to disappear or wind up, gasp, stolen. bored on the train home yesterday, i googled it on my blackberry and found, to my delight, that YES! stulle has a website. [i don't know why i assumed they wouldn't; at the time they seemed like a small operation, but now stulle wallets are being sold in the giftshop at the MoMA and it seems to be the only place where you can purchase them in the states.] i'm browsing through it this morning as i'm sitting here waiting for los to pick me up for our breakfast date [ohhh biscuit, i miss frequenting you on a daily basis!], and i'm dangerously close to picking up a new one. favorites from the site that i've seen so far:

i'm stoked that they now have leather ones instead of vinyl/imitation leather, so that may be my default wallet. i can't bring myself to throw away my blue beauty just yet, but i think it may be time for a replacement soon enough. i'm definitely eyeing the leather one. thoughts?

in other news: McAlister Drive is playing at precinct tonight and jessie and i will definitely be in attendance. if you want to see me [maybe!] sing with peter loring and the good time band around 10, or if you want to see jessie shaking a tambourine like a maniac with christoph and the boys, come by precinct around 10. dance dance pahtee timez for EVERYONE!

The TeaParty Boston Blog is UP!

2009-06-18T11:15:00.003-04:00

HEY GUYS! OUR BLOG IS UP!

[just a heads up: this is in no way indicative of what the site will look like a week from now. it's taken longer than we'd like to put the final touches on our beta version and we don't feel comfortable launching TPB until everything is just the way we want it. as a compromise, we started contributing to our blog in hopes of getting people out to the shows and events we're covering over the next couple of weeks. as soon as teaparty boston is up and running expect a very, very big ol' YAY from me and many links so that you can go and check it out asap.]

Spice Thai, 24 Holyoke Street, Cambridge: DON'T. EAT. HERE.

2009-06-17T09:44:00.004-04:00

warning, friends: this is going to get graphic.

as a veteran of the food service industry, it takes a lot for me to discourage anyone from going to any eatery. shit happens: people have bad days and forget to put order slips into the kitchen, fridges break in the middle of the night spoiling produce and dairy, restaurants become short-staffed and frenzied if someone calls in sick with the flu. restaurants, cafes, bars and coffeehouses are especially susceptible to falling apart at the seams over a minute thing, but there are some standards that need to be set and observed, obviously, and serving ROTTING FOOD to customers? definitely not something you do, regardless of how crazy things get in a kitchen or how stressed you are. so, spice thai of cambridge? i'm officially you calling you out as a disgusting restaurant unfit for serving people.

last saturday, we ordered takeout from spice thai outside of central square while we were in the midst of a TPB production meeting. i was the only one out of the four of us who got anything different: gab, milap and jessie all had pad thai, while i went with tom kha gai (coconut chili soup with chicken) and the "special pad thai" (pad thai with wide egg noodles instead of normal ones.) we ate, we finished the meeting, i went home, blah blah blah.

fast forward to noon the next day: i felt DISGUSTING. i felt bloated, feverish, hung over and gross, and i hadn't been boozing the night before so it made absolutely no sense that i felt this way. i couldn't shake the feeling all day, and on monday i was literally doubled over in my cubicle at work feeling like an alien was going to explode out of my insides sigourney weaver style.

long story short: i spent every single day last week feeling like something was very, very wrong. i was told by my doctor that food poisoning, though violent, unpleasant and instantaneous, should only last up to MAX 48 hours and that me having these symptoms for over 5 days was a major red flag. after two trips to my doctor, a day home sick from work and a solid week of eating nothing but saltines and bananas, i just wanted answers. my friends insisted i go to the hospital, my family insisted i bail on the planned trip to maine we had set for that weekeend, and i was getting delirious and exhausted from oh, NOT EATING. i gave the doc a sample (the least pleasant kind you can think of, blaghhhh) and they did the lab work.

my doctor called me yesterday with the results. the verdict? there were "extremely dangerous levels" of campylobacter in my system, which is the bacteria that causes nasty food poisoning and comes from eating rotten chicken or coming into contact with feces. ROTTEN. CHICKEN. OR SHIT!?

spice thai in cambridge: having one of your customers keeling and puking and doing god knows what else and being unable to eat or function or even keep down fluids for over 5 DAYS is UNBELIEVABLE. is it that difficult to keep track of the groceries you prepare? is it that difficult to mark the soups you serve, the chicken you keep and the stock you use? is it that difficult to make your employees wash their hands, clean the utensils they prepare food with and make sure that they, oh, i don't know, adhere to regulations set for them by the department of health in order to ensure the wellbeing of their customers and employees? this problem is so easily avoidable and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the "restaurants get crazy" clause i mentioned above. my sickness was caused by ignorance, laziness and neglect, not stress, an inadequate number of people on duty or demanding customers.

and oh, it gets better! i called spice thai yesterday to tell them hey, i was sick because of food they prepared, maybe they should check out the chicken/potential transferral of poop problem in their kitchen. the woman on the phone hung up on me the first time, and when i called back to speak to a manager she told me that he wouldn't be in until friday. um, i called on a tuesday. i mentioned to her on the phone that i was filing a complaint because i had contracted severe food poisoning from their cuisine and that it needed to be resolved right away. she insisted i call back on friday.

the verdict: if you value your stomach, your small intestine, your colon, and your sanity, do not under any circumstances order takeout or frequent spice thai restaurant at 24 holyoke street in cambridge, massachusetts. i don't know about you, but i'd feel more comfortable checking out one of the other amazing culinary establishments in the area as opposed to going to a restaurant that serves tainted food and refuses to deal with an urgent problem having to do with their neglect to consider the safety of their patrons. spice thai in cambridge? you suck. and your pad thai is mediocre at best.

if you're looking for GOOD, NON-POISONING THAI FOOD: check out pho n' rice, sugar and spice and spice and rice, all within a stones throw of central, harvard and porter squares. they've all been delicious and affordable in the past and i'd gladly send more traffic their way then to spice thai.

tim burton career retrospective at the MoMA: so far awaaay!

2009-06-16T08:34:00.004-04:00

from The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories, Tim Burton, 2009. Found at the MoMA's exhibition page.

the lovely miss jules brought this my attention via fbook this morning and I CAN'T WAIT FOR NOVEMBER. i love tim burton so much it hurts sometimes and the moma is probably one of my favorite museums in the world [second only to reina sofia in madrid and la MALBA in buenos aires.] i really can't wait to see this. the MoMA's exhibit on tim burton's work will run from November 22, 2009 through August of 2010: for those of you who plan on visiting the MoMA before this trip or feel like checking out the museum anyways (which i strongly encourage you to do should you be in new york anytime soon), keep in mind that the museum is closed each tuesday and that it's free to get in each and every friday night between the hours of 4 and 8pm.

(and in all seriousness, this "i haven't been to new york in aaaages i should come for a visit!" thing really needs to stop and i just need to suck it up, buy a bus ticket and head down to my home away from home for a little bit. my weeks have been filling up SO FAST these days, what with TPB events and concerts and photo shoots and interviews and, uh, work... yeah. i'm not sleeping very much. i'm okay with that in the best of ways.)

where hil can be found this week: coolidge corner tonight, my bed tomorrow, passion pit/harlem shakes thursday at the 'dise, hopefully going to see "the hangover" friday and then up to the homestead for my stepsister's graduation party saturday, all before making it back to the 'ville for mcalister drive's jailhouse residency at precinct on saturday night, and then sunday it's the antlers at the middle east upstairs and then the sea monsters, as usual, on sunday night. WHEW. busy girl she is, this hil.

and ps, new england: quit it with this rain. seriously. i'm wearing a sweater, scarf and beanie to work today. it's halfway through june. knock it off.

"i have a cigarette and a beer. mama needs a break." - marcy, dock at the lakehouse circa 10:45 friday night.

2009-06-15T09:46:00.002-04:00

since friday evening, i've eaten/drunk my weight in burgers/steak/beer/french toast/cinnabuns/more beer/more steak, spooned with my best friends, gotten into noodle fights, gone swimming in the rain in 60 degree weather (and LOVED IT) and survived a weekend of fun in the sun on the lake without a sunburn.

and then i came home and went to three shows (the sweet & lo-down at upstairs on the square, followed by natalie portman's shaved head at tt's, followed by the sea monsters duh) and woke up this morning at 7:35 [aka 6 minutes after my train to work left from south station. oof.] i still have mom's suv [i borrowed it for the drive to maine] and all i gotta say is automobiles are MAGICAL once you've got one in your possession and you're no longer dependent on public transportation during rush hour. i made it to work in 40 minutes, slept in and drove through a drive-thru starbucks before getting to the office.

i could probably be more verbose/articulate about how wonderful the past few days have been, but the long and the short of it is i'm such a lucky, lucky person and i'm loving life so much right now.

"Kelly Kapowski moved to a new zipcode .... "

2009-06-10T21:34:00.001-04:00

OHMAHGAHDOHMAHGAHDOHMAHGAHD.

waaaaaaahhhhh.

2009-06-09T16:13:00.002-04:00

today marks day three of feeling like a pukey nasty mess. i've been curled on my couch in the fetal position for the past 12 hours and called out sick today. saltines, peanut butter and bananas? A GIRL NEEDS REAL FOOD DAMMIT! WHY CAN'T I JUST EAT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!? WHYYYY?! this is pretty bad, but what makes it infinitely worse, you ask?

today is the jimmy fund scooper bowl down at city hall plaza and christoph and the rest of mcalister drive will be there rocking out while scarfing all you can eat ice cream.

WHY CAN'T HIL HAVE ALL YOU CAN EAT ICE CREAM?! BECAUSE HIL HAS FOOD POISONING.

WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

the happy list, "i'm up way too early on a saturday morning and i love it!" edition.

2009-06-06T08:32:00.005-04:00

1) the whole wheat special scones and the cappuccinos over at the biscuit. they change on a daily basis, but today it's a whole wheat brown sugar peach scone and i can think of nothing better for breakfast... especially on an overcast, dreary morning like today. i thought i'd be beating the crowd by getting here around 9 and i was sorely mistaken - there's a line around the block and most of the tables are full. [and, oh hey! i wrote a blurb on this very scone this week over at 3 Buck Bites. you can find the expression of my undying love and affection for this breakfast pastry here.]

2) paychecks... because i'm finally getting one again. after 4 months going without, your darling hil can finally look at her ATM receipts again because she has found a JOB. it's at a great company with great people and the only hang-up is that the commute is a biiiitch.it's kind of funny, because after i got the "real" job offer i was offered a bartending gig at bukowski, which would've kiiiind of been a dream come true... but yeah. i went with the desk job and now have a cubicle. but hey, whatever man, i'm employed. i'd be lying if i said i didn't slightly miss my funemployment a bit, but it's so, so, so so so so nice to be productive and have "real" responsibilities again. and oh yeah. being able to pay rent is pretty sweet, too, especially because this means i can sign my lease again and stay in my lovely little apartment :)

3) jessie's moving to this side of the river this weekend! j-rog is making the move to inman square from allston. this means that all of my best friends now live within a 15 minute drive of my apartment. well, except for marcy. marcy's still over in the land of yuppies, toddlers who wear more expensive shoes than i do and the best kosher brunches known to man [aka: brookline.]

4) in 6 days a bunch of my friends and i are heading up to my aunt's lakehouse and I. AM. SO. EX. CI. TED. a weekend full of barbeques, night swimming, bonfires, nearly forgotten '50s style diners and barnyard antique fairs? sign. me. up. the place is on long lake and is about an hour outside of portland, and i haven't been up there in about three summers or so. to say i'm looking forward to it would be understatement of the year. hopefully we won't burn down the place/get hit by a moose/OD on s'mores, and keep your fingers crossed that we don't have any of this weather while we're up there.

5) i picked up the latest Rolling Stone and nearly squealed when i saw the cover. frankly, i don't care that lady gaga's on there wearing bubbles and looking like herself. (i can't stand gaga, in case you were wondering. if she and katy perry were to be thrown into the boxing ring i would 110% gun for perry and i have no doubt that i'd walk out of that match a rich woman.) i was super excited because david lachappelle shot the cover and i love his work. he's the man responsible for that britney spears cover with the teletubby that everyone freaked about, and he shot pretty much every other fantastical, imaginative image that's graced the cover of the magazine for the past 15 years or so. maybe it's a sign that rolling stone is gonna make a comeback? maybe? c'mahn, jann.

6) talks with mariska hargitay and christopher meloni were successful and law & order: svu will see an 11th season. the fact that i am adding this to a happy list at all makes me hate myself a little bit but i cannot deny my inexplicable obsession with that tv show.

7) things are actually happening with tea party boston. i don't want to say too much too soon, but we're going to be bringing you exclusive, intimate interviews, some of the silliest/coolest photos you've ever seen and quirky features you won't find anywhere else right out of the gate. if you're sick of your arts & entertainment scene in boston going unnoticed, we're going to fix that, so keep an eye on us. [and we have business cards now. i guess that really makes us legit.]

8) i just realized that since i'm at the biscuit i can pick up a fresh loaf of homemade multigrain bread instead of spending $7.99 at shaw's for the iggy's pullman's loaf. one check off the grocery list, sweeeet. [and yes. i get that excited about bread.]

9) this is shaping up to be a summer chock full o' fantastic concerts. in the next two months, i'm going to be seeing passion pit, thick as thieves [edit: i met them. they're adorable. i want to be best friends with this band and you should too because they are great.] the harlem shakes, magic magic, the low anthem, lake street dive, taxpayer, casiotone for the painfully alone, mcalister drive, and obviously, the sea monsters. i live within a stone's throw of the lizard lounge, the middle east, tt the bear's place, precinct, toad, and the paradise rock club: could a pop culture/all-things-music junky be any luckier?

10) i also realized that this summer has the potential to be the best summer yet, i think. i was walking down beacon street to the biscuit this morning and passed a house that has a sprawling rose bush crawling up its front walls and porch banisters. these roses were bright red, vibrant, and unapologetically open, and when this massive grin spread over my sleepy face i took these flowers to be some kind of omen that there's only beauty ahead, however fleeting it may be, and that it's so important to recognize good when you've got it going for you. that rosebush was the best wake up call a person could ever get.

happy saturday, guys. go out and spend the day hanging out with your favorite people and doing what you love. that's exactly what i'll be doing.

hil went to sarah lawrence, hil graduated, and a year later hil is....?

2009-06-04T14:04:00.003-04:00

i just realized that it's been over a year since my commencement from sarah lawrence came and went. the culmination of my undergraduate education was pretty anticlimactic, but the year since then? i guess you could say it's been tumultuous/enthralling/liberating/ecstatic/orgasmic/abusive/satisfying/real.

since graduation, i've accomplished/experienced the following:

-got lost in translation in tokyo (oh my god i'm so witty/facepalm) in soooo many ways

-signed my very first lease on my very first apartment in one of my very favorite cities in the whole wide world

-beefed up my arts & entertainment press portfolio while contributing columns/music/arts pieces to chicks with guns, stuff magazine and go2 media

-applied for 3094850298348 jobs, landed a pretty sick one and got laid off four months later, agh

-loved hard and lost big and, gasp, got over it, even though it took months for it to happen

-learned how to ride my bike in rush hour traffic

-watched the first of my friends get married

-lost touch with old acquaintances; acquired new darling, wonderful friends

-relished in my unemployment and capitalized on the opportunities it gave me to nest, really take care of myself, satisfy countless creative urges and work on my fitness like a madwoman

-saw 93840298304298340283 concerts and met about half of the bands who played them

-watched my parents endure one of the worst tragedies a family can go through and loved them infinitely more than i thought possible when they lived through it

-ate red velvet cake on my 23rd birthday in the company of 25 of my absolute favorite people on the planet

-realized that i will never be the type who just "does it for the money", that i'm meant to do great things, and that i'm the only person who can get in my own way

-oh, yeah. and i cut my hair and got my nose pierced.

so, yeah. a year ago, i was caught up in all things new york: pinching myself over my days at rolling stone, nursing a pretty hefty caffeine addiction courtesy of my most dysfunctional of second families at slave to the grind, getting my ass kicked by the city on a daily basis only to run back to it in order to convince myself that i was alive and making the most of sharing manhattan with an incredible assortment of fascinating people i was lucky enough to call dear friends. today, i'm living in an apartment that finally feels like my home, spending every minute out of the office in the company of lively, lovable people and doing everything i possibly can to make sure that i'll be doing what i love and what i was born to be doing sooner rather than [too] later.

that's not so bad for a year, now, is it?

au revoir simone, you are so adorable.

2009-05-29T01:33:00.003-04:00

tonight was TPB's first double-header and i spent the night bouncing back and forth between downstairs at the middle east and tt the bear's to see kayo dot and au revoir simone. this is also after i danced amongst broken champagne flutes and beautiful people to the lo-fi hedonistic beats of bodega girls. i promise i'll post more on the bands later at tea party boston, but 'til then...

we're taking this shit viral, i'm exhausted, and i feel like a woman on the verge.

hil on 3buckBites, this time with pizza!

2009-05-27T16:43:00.003-04:00

hey friends. check out my weekly bit over at 3 Buck Bites for some cheap, deliciously tempting morsels. this week: the best and undoubtedly cheapest pizza in the city, haymarket pizza.

each one of these massive, topping-heavy slices? $1.75. we go way back, haymarket and me.

click here for the full blurb. who's going to bodega girls at middlesex tonight? it's free, it's at 9pm and it's the best hedonistic dance party you could ever hope to attend. i'm assuming you want in on that, kiddos.

what my memorial day looked like:

2009-05-26T11:54:00.002-04:00

yesterday, ten or so of my favorite people came over and we made margaritas, deviled eggs and a massive, MASSIVE pile of rib eyes and filets. and then we ate and imbibed and vogue-offed with my neighbors and all their lovely friends on my roof until well after the sun went down.

as always, photos provided by the lovely gab.

happy summer, everybody :)

¡coming soon!

2009-05-24T16:59:00.006-04:00

so, we're onto something big, kids.

http://www.teapartyboston.com/

keep it on the refresh for the next couple of weeks, as our official launch is approaching and we want to make sure you get in on the local music exclusives/late night dance floor photo shoots/gilly impressions.

[these photos were snapped by gab at the magic magic/hallelujah the hills show at the middle east friday night. both bands were phenomenal, go check them out immediately.]

i fucking love being 23.

2009-05-24T04:33:00.002-04:00

tonight, jessie and i rode our bikes down hampshire street and into central square and met up with our friends as they were stumbling out of the bank of america atm on mass ave. we went to zuzu's, as it was soullelujah night, and danced like maniacs to motown until 2:30 am. we then threw champ (the bike's name is champ, we've decided) into the back of christoph's car, stopped at the 24-hour shaw's down the street from my house for fixin's, and headed back to my place for grilled cheeses and mojitos on my roof until about 5 minutes ago.

had you asked me five months ago whether or not i could feel this excruciatingly happy i probably would've looked at you like you were a crazy person. that was then, this is now, and excruciatingly, insatiably happy doesn't even begin to cover it.

hil's exclusive interview with the love language at chicks with guns!

2009-05-21T14:18:00.006-04:00

about a month ago, jessie, kevin, christoph, steve and myself ran on over to tt the bear's for a rowdy evening of some good old fashioned garage rock fun. we were lucky enough to chat up some members of the band while we were there, seeing as tt's is one of the smallest venues, um, ever, and jessie was able to snap some gorgeous photos. i wrote it all up in an exclusive q+a with stu mcclamb, the love language's ring leader, and you can find the interview here at chicks with guns magazine.

in the meantime, here are the shots posted in the article of jessie's for your viewing pleasure. i think these pictures came out so well. well done, darling!

the brothers mcclamb: stu mcclamb to the left, jordan mcclamb to the right.

keyboardist/every hipster boy's dream date, missy thangs.

the whole gang onstage at tt the bear's place, 23 April 2009.

so who's going to see holy fuck with kevin and i at tt's? anyone?

hil on 3buckBites!

2009-05-19T16:05:00.005-04:00

hey! guys! i'm a contributor over at 3 buck bites, a site which all of you who love to eat and love to do so cheaply should go check out. my first blurb just got posted and it's on the "dollar" burger over at bukowski, and if you guys have been reading this blog/have been hanging out with me on the regular you know that bukowski is kind of my local haunt.

here's my blurb on the burger and here's the burger itself in all its glory.

enjoy!

(ps: i know i've been slacking horribly in the blogging department, i'm sorryyy! expect a very, very heavy music post in the near future detailling our exploits at recent shows for the sounds, thao with the get down stay down, and potentially holy fuck.)

allergies 1, hil 0.

2009-05-18T16:10:00.001-04:00

if i sneeze one more time i'm pretty sure my nose is going to fall off and my eyes are going to pop out of my head. just ask jessie. this is getting ridiculous.

this definitely cheered me up, though.

happy mother's day :)

2009-05-10T12:28:00.005-04:00

to the mommy person on mother's day:

[hil and mom circa 1987]

you're great. thanks for being you. i love you more than dog brain and pickle pie. also thanks for helping me make the flan for dinner tonight because as much as we'd like to pretend that we're capable of doing stuff without you it's kind of a joke because you wind up fixing everything anyway.

love,

your beanie.

¡cinco de mustache! en fotos.

2009-05-06T01:08:00.004-04:00

though i'm officially typing this in the wee hours of the morning of the 6th of May, i figured i'd share with you snapshots for the crazy mexican feast that just demolished my apartment in celebration of cinco de mayo. aka cinco de mustache. for whatever reason, we decided to have a mustache party for cinco de mayo, and my silly, silly friends under the influence of cuervo especial thought it would be funny to take their adhesive mustaches and smush 'em all up on every surface of my apartment like this:

and this:

and this.

(i promise you that that brazilian carnavale dancer was not sporting sick facial hair before approximately 10pm this evening.)

and they were right. as i was cleaning up the carnage of crusty refried beans and the remnants of a guacamole bowl that may as well have been licked clean, i laughed my ass off as i found mustache after mustache mysteriously stuck to the counters and walls of my place. i love my friends so much.

what?! MAY!?

2009-05-04T23:38:00.003-04:00

agh agh agh i love how it's been like, a couple of days and i feel incredibly lazy and silly for not posting anything at all. it's because i've simply been too busy ---

a) celebrating the birth of marcy, which resulted in a plethora of fresh vanilla bean and strawberry cupcakes prepared by los and myself, a disturbingly delicious meal at the border cafe which was COMPLETELY picked up by one of our incredibly generous friends [how tacky am i for drawing attention to this? so tacky], a midnight showing of "the rocky horror picture show" at the amc harvard cinema and a snuggle fest with three of the silliest people i know until the sun came up. [i do not mean anything dirty by snuggle fest. we literally all piled into my bed and four-way spooned and tickled each other like goofballs.]

b) getting stuff together for a future venture involving miss gab and miss jessie YAY YOUNG ENTREPRENEURSHIP

c) MISSING JESSIE JESSIE I HAVE NO OTHER FRIENDS I'VE REALIZED WHEN YOU ARE AWAY ON VACATION DOING THINGS LIKE GOING TO THE BEACH AND CLIMBING VOLCANOES I AM LONELY PLEASE COME HOME PLEEEEASE

d) riding my bike. seriously. i think i'm in love.

e) picking proverbial scabs. not literal ones. more on this later.

f) debating as to whether or not i'm going to take out my nose ring. with mother's day coming up it seems like the perfect time. suspense ensues.

g) painting!

h) not transcribing the interviews/writing up cd reviews for CWG/applying for more jobs as i should be doing. facepalm.

i promise a real entry will follow at some point tomorrow. in the meantime, i sleep.

love,

H!L

a little rant on rolling stone.

2009-04-27T11:55:00.004-04:00

in the spring of 2008, i was one of the dozen or so interns trying to sneak their foot in the ever-slamming door of the editorial department of rolling stone magazine. i had worked my way up to this since the summer before my sophomore year of college: hopelessly naive, i had sent my resume off to wenner media in a huge manila envelope along with a cover letter that probably read something like "i dig music and i am different hire me please." needless to say, i didn't get the editorial internship then, but i did my time at a theatre trade paper, the [then] poor man's esquire for the bro set which has since morphed into a hip-hop publication with tarantino-esque photo spreads, and the now [sadly] folded men's vogue over at conde nast. i applied for an editorial internship at rolling stone while still making photocopies and transcribing interviews at men's vogue [which i loved], went in for an interview that afternoon and scored the gig sometime in the middle of november. i was ecstatic. i've been reading rolling stone since childhood and "almost famous" solidified my desire to work in any capacity for the publication responsible for defining rock journalism. the gist: i fucking love rolling stone for what it stands for, what it's accomplished as a pop culture force to be reckoned with and for the unapologetic editorial content that's remained consistent since the inception of the magazine.

WITH THAT SAID: i understand and often agree with the sentiments and gripes which seem to dominate any conversation regarding jann wenner's rock n' roll baby. "it's irrelevant. we get it, rolling stone, you got a major hard-on for bob dylan and bruce springsteen. write about someone else who's, uh, releasing SOMEthing this year." "they put the girls from the hills on the cover. THE HILLS. are they fucking serious?" "whatever dude i just read pitchfork." i've piped up in the defense of rolling stone in several of these interactions: i was just as nauseated as the last person when i saw frilly panty-clad heidi montag and lauren conrad posing a pillow fight tableau on the cover of RS, but jason gay's story was a compelling commentary on american consumerism and entertainment and how definitions of fame, fortune, talent and the core of creativity have changed. i don't agree with half of pitchfork's reviews and rarely read it, though i will concede that they trump RS with their incredible online presence and self-imposed authority on live acts and independent music in the united states. you can bitch and moan and complain about how rolling stone has lost touch with its initial mission and how editorial judgement may or may not have determined the death sentence for the iconic magazine, but you can't deny that it's still there. i maintain that jenny eliscu is one of the most talented writers to ever hit the masthead over there and i think that austin scaggs is capable of relating to musicians and fans from all walks of life and that vanessa grigoriadis works like a dog to get an expose out. you can't deny that. rolling stone is rolling fucking stone and that's just it, man.

where's this all going? while i was still at RS the decision had been made that the magazine would shrink from its standard tabloid pages to a smaller more eco-friendly size. kudos, RS, right? i was kind of bummed about the size change, but i got it and applauded them for the change. fast forward to this week, where i picked up the new issue with kings of leon on the cover and noticed this:

i don't know if you can see this from the picture, but it's FUCKING. TINY. the latest issue clocks in at a measly 74 PAGES. it's smaller than current issues of people magazine, for christ's sake. and BOB DYLAN, AGAIN, gets the first headline on the cover. there's good stuff in there, don't get me wrong, but rolling stone, 74 PAGES?! you're a biweekly! is there some huge issue coming up in the near future that's required more editorial attention? i don't get it. this is the magazine that discovered annie liebowitz, revolutionized the interview and transported readers from the couches in their living rooms to the dressing rooms, hotel lobbies and stage doors that were passed through by the most notable musical acts in modern american history. it makes me really sad to think that this magazine that i've loved so much is slowly disintegrating before my very eyes.

the happy list, "i f*cking love my life" edition.

2009-04-26T22:10:00.005-04:00

1) i have a scorching sunburn and look like quite a lobster, but i spent hours lounging on harvard yard lunching on delicious food with a group of my absolute favorite people. avocado bruschetta, mango salsa, red cabbage and raisin cole slaw, pavlovas, brie, sparkling cider and more tortilla chips than we knew what to do with? so. so. so. goooood.

2) i spent the majority of my weekend playing outside with my friends, be it romping around davis square on a tequila buzz or getting blisters on my hands from the monkey bars at the playground up the street. this weekend felt like SUMMER.

3) i cannot stop listening to the shout out louds and the love language. the love language are getting a post of their own because jessie took some amazing, amazing photographs at their show the other night, but in the meantime, i will blast their "lalita" along with the SOL's "very loud" on repeat and dance around my apartment while i clean up the remnants of weekend debauchery.

4) i found my sunglasses, my camera and my missing favorite earring. scoooore.

5) my thao tickets came in the mail, along with the latest issue of paste magazine! so excited. i've been meaning to pick up paste for awhile. this is going to be a pretty heavy week on the ear drums: i'm going to go to tt's tomorrow night for the sounds' show with jessie, the bodega girls are playing harper's ferry on friday, and i'm hopefully going to be writing some new reviews/features for chicks with guns in the near future.

6) the city is in such an incredible mood. the sox have trounced the yankees SO FAR in their three game series, but it's only the start of the seventh inning of the third game and i don't want to jinx it. i love watching baseball on my couch. my daddy would be so proud. haha.

7) it's nice to finally recognize myself in the mirror again. i was heartbroken in january, furious in february, bewildered in march and hopeful in april, and now i finally, FINALLY feel rested and refreshed and able to take control of my life again. i wake up every day EXCITED, man. i'm optimistic and i'm no longer wasting time on wishful thinking and coulda-shoulda-wouldas. i've tried to right my wrongs and it may be too late to salvage friendships and feelings and all that from previous offenses, but i would like to think that the universe'll get me back for that one. it's cathartic, admitting you're wrong, and i swallowed my pride and apologized in the only way i could. i don't know what to expect, but for the first time in four months i'm not dwelling on it and worrying about it. what's done is done, you know? my hurt and my heartbreak are no longer controlling my outlook and my feelings and that's something to be ecstatic about. i feel like me again. it took a little longer than i liked for me to get back here, but that's worth noting all the same.

i am truly happy.

2009-04-25T11:20:00.005-04:00

for the past four years, the first sox vs. yankees game of the season has been the true start of spring for me and i've celebrated it with my best friends in new york who all happen to BLEED pinstripes. with the exception of the spring of '07 when i was still living in spain, i've watched the game go down at a dive bar in yonkers with bren, ryan, billy, larz and a slew of my other ny favorites. i got all nostalgic sitting on my couch with meg and later jessie last night watching the sox take it in an AWESOME game that stretched into the twelfth inning courtesy of jason bay and his 2-run homer in the bottom of the 9th with two outs. i miss my boys down in yonkers and mel and jules very much, though it was kind of wonderful to just crack open a brew and feel the first drafts of summer passing through my open windows last night.

so, this is meg and goofing around during the game. photobooth turns everyone into small children who are easily amused.

oh, and jessie and i got excited when they won. here's the celebratory shot.

this is jessie's anime face. this is just my scary face.

before the sox went all rockstar at fenway park last night, meg and i went for a feast at local indian food favorite punjabi dhaba followed by banana cinnamon/chocolate banana ice cream cones at christina's. there is NO BETTER COMBINATION than a delicious, piping hot meal at p-dhabs followed by the best homemade ice cream in cambridge. we were gonna stop at the thirsty scholar on the way home for a round/some sox action but opted to just drink the beers in my fridge and slouch on my couch for the game. we ran up to the roof last night because meg's never seen it, and i could've done cartwheels when i realized that it's FINALLY that time of year for drinks and hookah on the roofdeck.

meg had to bust early due to her crazy athletic fitness loving ways (she's going hiking today, have fun meggg!), but jessie, christoph, mikey and matt all came bounding into my apartment shortly after her departure and within fifteen minutes we were smoking honey shisha on my roof while matt cat-called and howled at random pedestrians moseying up and down somerville ave. (favorite quotation of the evening: "hey BOZO! you got a calzone? .... yeah ENJOY YA PEPPAHRONI CALZONE BOZO.")

after the hookah started to ash, we opted for an impromptu adventure and decided that heading to the nearest playground was definitely the way to go. the one up the street from my house is an excellent choice for late-night playground debauchery as it's got good swings, monkey bars and a huge basketball court that slants at a pretty sharp angle, ha. we must've been out there for at least an hour. here are the best photos from one of the best nights of early spring.

it's gorgeous out in boston today, you guys. jessie and i are bouncing over to harvard to go find maya in a little bit and i'm wearing the first sundress of the season. GO SPEND TODAY OUTSIDE! :)

gooooood morning somerville.

2009-04-23T09:54:00.003-04:00

the harmonious ear-splitting drilling of jackhammers on somerville ave woke me up about two hours ago but i was able to feign sleep until now. grumpy, i shuffled out of bed, brushed my teeth, got a glass of water and plopped down in front of my computer to look for jobs, check my email and check facebook. my mom sent me this video this morning. grumpiness? gone.

impromptu springy wednesday to-do list.

2009-04-22T10:01:00.006-04:00

SPRIIIIING. these tulips were shot in the naschmarkt of vienna during slovak attak '07. everyone should be looking at flowers in SOME capacity today.

+ eat something? i have absolutely nothing to eat in this house except for fruit, easter candy and greek yogurt, so it looks like i'm going to have to go grocery shopping after the gym today. i would rather be doing breakfast at the biscuit but i've been really lazy regarding my fitness, so strawberries, honey and greek yogurt it is.

+ gym gym gym gym gym. i've been so good for the past month! i don't want to break my every-other-day streak TOO badly, even though it's been three full days since my last workout. whatever. i walked to and from harvard yesterday and that's a full 40 minutes, that's something, right? haaa.

+ get on mah BIKE!!! i bought a u-lock yesterday! i'm in business! i still have to borrow mikey's tire pump because mine are compleeetely flat, but after that i am a biking fiend. (please keep your fingers crossed that i don't meet my demise on somerville ave/elm street/mass ave. pleeease.)

+ clean. seriously. i can't find my camera and i have a feeling that it's hiding in the mound of clothes that's accumulated atop my giant blue chair in my bedroom. i have the charger and the battery, just not the camera. wtf. i'm hoooping that it's not lost because i can't afford to drop a couple hundred bucks on a point-and-shoot right now, and i really can't drop a few hundred bucks on a gorgeous beauty like jessie's new toy, as much as i want a sick ass camera of my very own. so, long story short, today will be the day that i sweep, dust, fold, wipe down, brush up, and vacuum my apartment... until that little canon bastard is found.

+ make some new playlists. i've acquired some new tuneage as of late, including the shout out louds, lake street dive, the love language and a bunch of other bands that i've either seen lately or heard great things about. i'm getting sick of my usual "sunny" and "springy" playlists and i'm getting tired of my longstanding iTunes favorites. any recommendations, music-savvy friends?

+ do something green. it's earth day, people! go do something good for the environment! chances are my green activities for the day will consist of choosing to walk everywhere as opposed to taking public transportation and i'll most likely bring my own bags to the grocery store, but for those of you heading out of town in the near future, check out andrea's list of green travel ideas over at the cheapflights.com blog. give it a click and while you're there check out a few of my old travel guides, haha. (i wrote a particularly riveting one on reykjavik, so check that out if you're still going through with that crazy icelandic weekend adventure, marc.)

+ cook dinner. i've been eating out entirely too much lately. for some reason i feel like experimenting with pork chops or something. we'll see. i should be eating more brown rice instead of french bread. that's just a sidenote.

what're you guys up to today? anyone feel like drinkin' beers and playing guitar on my roof later?

HAHA more wine riot.

2009-04-21T13:06:00.005-04:00

courtesy of the second glass' photobooth at wine riot: jessie, ryan and me.

in other news, my sinuses need to not exist or they need to back the fuck off. stop ruining my life, nose.

NOOOOOOO

2009-04-20T15:28:00.010-04:00

i am a very grumpy hil right now.

it's marathon monday, and instead of wearing my sweet new sweatband and tube socks and slapping runners high-fives along beacon street today, i am home, on my couch, wearing my sweet new sweatband and making tea and sippin' on chicken soup instead of cold brewskis and sulking while watching benson and stabler bust the bad guys on Law & Order: SVU. i have a sunburn, a runny nose and an awful sore throat. long story short? hil is not joining the throngs of revelers and her friends in back bay/brookline today. hil is moping and sniffling and chowing down tylenol and airborne and not enjoying herself.

these pictures from wine riot/mcalister drive/the mcalister drive afterparty extravaganza that jessie snapped with her gorgeous new camera the other night do make me feel better, however:

"wino forever" fake tatz at wine riot. yessss.

these mustachioed glasses will remain prized possessions in my apartment forever. so ludicrous. hahaha.

our friends are like suuuuuuch dreamy rockstars. here's christoph rockin' out.

and here's me and jessie after a round or two of beer pong. if there was a "lolhipsterz" blog, i wouldn't be surprised if this made it with a big ol' "SWOOP BANGZ OM NOM NOM" on it.

so yeah. go drink cheap beer and work on your fitness for me on marathon monday on my behalf, all you lucky bastards out there who don't have awful head colds.

"this one tastes more librarian-y."

2009-04-19T16:40:00.003-04:00

wine riot gave me an adhesive mustache, four hours worth of wine sippage and a godawful hangover. these are mine and jessie's glasses from the event last night which went over swimmingly (congrats to everyone over at the second glass!) i think it's pretty goofy that i now have two stemless goblets rocking sweet facial hair.

i'll write up wine riot/gab's bday festivities/mcalister drive's splendid precinct show in more accurate detail later, as "the departed" is playing on FX for the gazillionth time this week and i have cookies in the oven. what a productive sunday NAHT.

hil's social calendar.

2009-04-18T12:54:00.010-04:00

i'm just a social lil' butterfly this weekend, aren't i?

friday:

+it was too gorgeous out to go to the gym. i met up with los for a lovely lunch at crema cafe in harvard square and i had quite possibly the most delicious grilled chicken/cotija/avocado sandwich of my life. we walked over to utrecht, where i picked up a few canvases and some more paint, because i have presents to make for a couple of boys. we moseyed back to my place and i got my first sunburn of the season in the process, and then we spent the rest of the afternoon drinkin' beers and listening to lykke li with every single window in my apartment open. love. ly.

+my mom came down for a visit to drop off my bike (!!!) and we had a nice dinner at the independent. i just got a cheeseburger, nothin' fancy. and of course the deviled eggs. ohhhh the deviled eggs.

+i met up with james in coolidge corner last night and we went to the brookline booksmith, which is something i've been meaning to do for AGES. a leisurely stroll through the bookshelves made me realize a few things: 1) i have entirely too many books in a stack on my bedside table that i've been meaning to read for ages, including infinite jest [still haven't started gah], crime and punishment, and el coronel no tiene quien le escriba [no one writes to the colonel 2) i have entirely too many books that i want to add to that list, including more stuff by chabon, brautigan and bukowski 3) i cannot be stopped around used books that have anything to do with picasso. while poking through the booksmith's used section, i stumbled upon portrait of picasso as a young man by NORMAN MAILER. i love norman mailer. i love picasso. i had NO IDEA that this book existed until last night. so good. other used books i've procured regarding pablo picasso are picasso's war by russel martin, picasso on art: a selection of views, edited by dore ashton, and life with picasso, which is a memoir written by francoise gilot, one of picasso's companions and the mother of his two youngest children. here's a shot of my growing collection.

anyways, after the brookline booksmith, james and i moseyed up beacon street for beers at the publick house, only to shy away from the place because it was PAAACKED. for a laugh, we continued on a beer at mary ann's, the infamous BC watering hole where my father and his best friend in college got into a massive fight that resulted in 23 paddy wagons hauling up outside the cleveland circle dive. not much has changed: the place was chock full of BC underclassmen who probably got in with their older brother/sister's expired license so we booked it outta there fast. eventually, we wound up meeting up with marcy and we settled for beers at the road house before calling it a night. low key and pretty great evening out, if i do say so myself.

saturday:

+caught up on some reno 911 episodes while scarfing down a delicious breakfast of tomate frito, manchego and french bread.

+going to work on my fitness as soon as i finish this post.

+and, finally, getting all gussied up for the double-header i have in store tonight: wine riot takes place tonight, and after my very first wine tasting, i'm heading back over to my neck of the woods, where mcalister drive is headlining a show at precinct. my smokin' date tonight is the one and only jessie and we've been counting down to this all week. no pressure. haha.

sunday:

+brunch with los, jessie and maya at deep ellum

+BIKE RIIIIDES!

+and, duh, the sea monsters at precinct.

i'm not even gonna touch on what's going down monday because iiiii am too excited.

MARATHON MONDAY: T-7 days. YES.

2009-04-14T18:56:00.006-04:00

hey sports fans, guess what? MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY IS NEXT WEEK! (and no, i'm not talking about it being christmas morning for stoners everywhere, aka 4/20). i'm talking about MARATHON MONDAY! my best friends from new york and i drove up for it last year because one of said best friends had a sister with an apartment on beacon street in brookline. we could literally stumble out her front door with beer in hand and slap high-fives with runners before their last mile. AWESOME.

this year, best friend's sister sadly no longer resides in the same sweet digs, but jessie lives relatively close to the marathon route and we're going to chow down a spaghetti and meatball spread (runners need those carbs, man) and then mosey on over to beacon to cheer those athletically superior marathon runners on.... in STYLE. our marathon monday party will only consist of those donning 80s track star/gym class get-ups inspired by the likes of these icons:

larry bird

bjorn borg

and the woman responsible for the creation of the most awkward music video in history...

olivia newton john.

today i was able to score some sweet tube socks, gym shorts and a sweatband/headband from american apparel on my way back from an afternoon screening of "adventureland". (someone needs to tell jesse eisenberg that he was clearly the runner-up for michael cera's part, as the movie was clearly written for everyone's favorite fictional teenage father/awkward high school heart throb. just sayin'.) i'm wearing this beautiful red baby out to dinner tonight because i haven't been able to take it off since i bought it:

whatever, at least i got the 'fro to go with it. i plan on rockin' this until the last person crosses the finish line (which very well may be a full 24 hours after the whole shebang is "over". see?! such excitement. too bad it's only once a year.)

easter/french toast/wtf.

2009-04-12T12:06:00.004-04:00

so marcy and i had an easter french toast breakfast today, which was delicious and everything, except for one thing: i somehow LOST an ENTIRE loaf of bread in between griddling the toast and putting the dishes away. an ENTIRE LOAF. marcy and i ripped apart my kitchen and it's nowhere to be found. i remember tying the bag shut and putting it back on the counter, and that's it. we literally stood there in my kitchen laughing hysterically, completely bewildered as to why the hell my whole wheat sprouted legs and walked off. i wouldn't care so much if i wasn't still freaked about splinter moving in, though he hasn't made an appearance since his cameo in my kitchen a few sundays ago.... anyways, yeah. WTF BREAD. it's so absurd that it's hysterical. i swear, i'd lose my head if it wasn't attached to my body.

today is all about cadbury eggs (which i have YET to consume this season, weird), dinner with the fam and who knows what else. i may be heading back to the 'ville for the sea monsters tonight; i may stay up at the homestead instead. who knows.

happy easter, everybody :)

CHRISTIAN McNEILL AT TOAD! TONIGHT!

2009-04-11T12:03:00.004-04:00

image courtesy of christian's myspace; photo credit: jon strymish

TONIGHT! TONIGHT! TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT!

don't go to the bar! don't go on a hot date! and if you still feel the need to go to a bar or go on a hot date, bring your hot date to this lovely little music bar in porter square, toad, to see CHRISTIAN McNEILL's acoustic solo set at 7pm!

christian's recording an acoustic album and will be playing a few intimate sets in the area, and i guarantee you want to be there for the first one. plus, i may buy you a beer if i see you there.

Lake Street Dive: ¡LISTEN TO THEM! ¡NOW!

2009-04-10T18:36:00.005-04:00

[first of all: sorry for the grumpy post yesterday. had to get it out. today's perfect springtimeyness made me feel infinitely better.]

ANYWAYS: I'M REALLY EXCITED BECAUSE I FOUND A NEW BAND I LOVE!

the sea monsters brought down the house at lizard lounge thursday night, but before their excellent, intimate performance in the famously carpeted basement of one of cambridge's favorite venues, lake street dive had every jaw in the packed house hitting the floor. due to the sardine can-like seating conditions, my friend james and i were left standing next to one of the pillars and thus could only really see the bass player and the drummer, and as a result this review may be a little biased due to our proximity to lake street dive's rhythm section... but honestly, bridget kearney is one of THE MOST talented musicians i've seen. EVER. it's not just the fact that the woman trounced the art of playing the upright bass, which in no easy feat. kearney made that instrument an extension of her body and her energy was INSATIABLE. the bass lines to each and every one of LSD's (lsd, haha) songs pulsed, swung, and drove the gorgeous, velvet voice of rachael price and the uplifting presence of mike olson, who plays trumpet and guitar. mike calabrese's drumming was absolutely exceptional, and like i said, i'm probably biased towards his performance as well as kearney's due to the fact that we were so close to them and completely enthralled with their playing. together, they're unshakeable, and we surely would have been dancing our asses off had we not been shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of our new favorite strangers.

lake street dive's next show in the area will be at toad in porter square on may 10th. you better believe i'll be there, and you should be, too! just give 'em a listen on itunes, or check out lake street dive's the panhandling song below.

anyways, last night was lovely, and i was lucky enough to spend time with my very best friends in the whole world who i haven't seen in months. brittany and whitey are home for easter, and we beat the rain in my living room with drinks, hookah and candlelight in the company of los, marcy, davis and potter. sometimes you just need to get back to your roots for a little bit to ground yourself, you know?

reasons why i feel as grumpy as this guy:

2009-04-09T20:49:00.005-04:00

actually, i'd be lying if i said i didn't feel grumpier than this guy right about now.

i miss my friends. i miss having a legitimate reason to get up and go in the morning. and i miss feeling like the world is my oyster. it's times like this when living by yourself sucks.

if jake keefe and i were to have a baby this would be our child.

2009-04-09T12:06:00.002-04:00

i think the second one is my ultimate favorite.

it's DINNAH PAHTEE TIIIIMEZ!

2009-04-06T23:39:00.006-04:00

photo courtesy of serious eats.

with roughly eight gazillion gallons of water hitting the streets of boston in the form of relentless rain showers today, i opted to spend the day inside. after running the dishwasher, sending out a few resumes and catching up on a couple of emails, i sat down to read through a few of my favorite blogs. serious eats, the kitchn, we are not martha and apartment therapy are all bookmarked on my browser, and all of these lifestyle/cooking blogs have been tempting me with gorgeous place settings, inspiring, innovative recipes and photos of desserts that make my teeth hurt just by lookin' at 'em. the conclusion i came to after hour 4 of my bout of webpage perusals this afternoon? it's damn near high time for a dinner party.

my logic: each and every single sunday night is spent dancing at precinct to the harmonious sounds of the sea monsters. the boys don't hit the stage until 10pm, making it the perfect event to attend after a massive culinary spread at home with friends. i also happen to be friends with several people well-versed in the ways of the restaurant/food service industry: there's a sous chef or two in my social circle, several bakers, and i'm a former bartender/waitress/barista myself, so it seems like putting together a mouthwatering menu based on my latest blog findings and the tastes of my friends in the know would be mindless. we all seem to be big on hearty dishes with the perfect liquid pairing (read: booze), so here's what i'm thinking of serving up for dinner in a couple of sundays before a sea monsters show.

first course: stuffed mushrooms and deviled eggs. before chowing down on portuguese sweet bread french toast and breakfast club sandwiches at deep ellum last sunday, jessie, marcy and i DEVOURED the deviled eggs as an appetizer and i'm still salivating at the thought of them. (that, and my mom gave me this great vintage deviled egg serving plate that i've been dying to use.) i figured finger food is always a good way to go, and stuffed mushrooms and deviled eggs are SUPER easy to make/can be prepared long before guests arrive.

main course: fettucini all'ubriaco (drunken fettucini, pictured above) and bistec porteño (argentine steak, basically.) pasta stewing in a vat of red wine? tossed in some buttery-olive-oily-garlicy goodness? WORD. i was thinking that the pasta itself, though seemingly scrumptious, needs to be paired with something protein-rich and hefty, and i figured marinating some strip steaks and slicing them up and serving them over the pasta would be a fresh take on it. i would most likely use a malbec or a valpolicella for the wine in the pasta, and both are excellent with a good cut of meat, so why not? i might even mix up some chimichurri and toss it in there. we'll see.

dessert: i figure between shroomies, eggs, steak and pasta that dessert's gotta be light. i feel like chocolate would be an excellent way to round out the evening, but at the same time all the foodgasmic chocolate recipes i know would put you in a food coma after a meal like the one plotted out above. chocolate covered strawberries, maybe? these little babies would be amazing but i feel like it would be overkill... meh.

wine: i'd either go with the exact same red as used for the pasta or i'd refrain from serving wine altogether and maybe go with funky drinks in lieu of dessert. i'd favor vanilla manhattans or old fashioneds, but who's to say everyone will be a fan of whiskey... also something to think about.

anyways. yeah. i just want to be all domestic and fill people's bellies but not TOO too much so that we can go dancing afterwards, is that so much to ask!? haha.

new hair/new shows.

2009-04-04T12:22:00.009-04:00

happy saturday, friends!

first things first: i went to marc harris yesterday and got a new 'do. i kind of freaked at first about the amount of hair that wound up on the floor of the swanky newbury street salon, but i trust rogue with my tresses and every other girl out there with curly hair should, too, because the lady knows what she's doing. anyways, here's me muggin' for you to show off my new mane.

in other news: i went to the middle east last night to meet up with my long-lost favorite former barista from my old starbucks that i used to frequent, justin, and a bunch of his friends to go see bishop allen play. sadly, i didn't stick around for the headlining act as i had promised dance dance party timez to jessie, potter and davis, but i was there for team b's set as well as that of mt. st. helen's vietnam band.

team b: lots of horns, very reminiscent of devotchka/gogol bordello/beirut with the upswings and tuba riffs. the resemblance between the lead singer of team b and david foley of kids in the hall was super distracting. seriously. could be twins. they were fun, anyway.

mt. st. helen's vietnam band: first of all, mshvb, your name is silly. second of all, is your lead singer secretly the lead singer from hot hot heat? because the vocals sound EXACTLY THE SAME. i had fun dancing around during their set and loved their energy... the only head scratchers for me were the gigantic sleighbell sticks that the cute pixie-lookin' girl standing towards the righthand corner of the stage kept smacking the ground with. i know you guys are trying to be indie and eyecatching and unique and all that, but c'mon.

the rest of my evening was that of any other friday: dancing like an idiot at phoenix landing with my best friends, followed by a hearty meal at the most delicious late night local eatery known to man. today, i'm going to diesel to get some legit writing done (read: pen and paper style) and i'm FINALLY going to crack the binding on david foster wallace's infinite jest. later, gym, and later, who knows.

before i head over to davis, however, here's a list of shows i hope to attend in the near future. there's a lot of good stuff coming to town, folks.

4/23: headlights feat. the love language at tt the bear's. (kj is super, super excited about this show. i'm super excited because i -gasp- have never been to tt's.)

5/08: etta james and the roots band with jesse dee at house of blues. granted, i see jesse all the time at precinct, but he's opening for ETTA JAMES?! huge. i also have yet to check out the hob's new digs over on landsdowne. (i hate landsdowne, generally speaking, but for shows? not so bad.)

5/13: thao with the get down stay down at tt the bear's. i've been wanting to catch thao live for awhile. now is my chance. yay.

5/14: animal collective at house of blues. rumor has it this is sold out already? mrowr? jessie and los were very stoked for it when we caught wind of the show a month or two ago. we'll see.

i'm sad because it looks like ozomatli cancelled their upcoming boston show :/ bummer.

anyways, it's nice outside! go play! (edit: it's not that nice outside. i walked to davis and it was blustery. ah well. put on a sweater and a scarf and go play outside and bring an umbrella just in case, haha.)

the night that funfetti devoured my kitchen/we devoured funfetti: Los' 23rd.

2009-04-03T12:34:00.008-04:00

get ready for some surrrrrious cupcake porn.

SO DOMESTIC. jessie is so vogue.

kevin felt the need to document our frosting/sprinkles process because we were kiiind of into it.

to quote marcy: "these cupcakes look like fairies pooped all over 'em."

if los was a cupcake she would look like this.

i missed the "be sexy!" memo. ah well. kj's into it.

sadly, there aren't many photos of the birthday girl - there was a pretty massive turnout and she was bouncing around to say hi to all the party goers, but i was able to snag a quality shot of the four of us before the night ended:

and a shot of me and the newest member of the 23 club.

happy birthday los :)

what's on tabs this weekend: bishop allen tonight at the middle east, brunch at deep ellum at some point, the sea monsters, of course, and a long, bloody, drawn-out battle between me and my frosting-covered kitchen floor. I WILL CLEAN THIS APARTMENT! I WILL!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WIFEY!

2009-04-02T15:40:00.003-04:00

LOS TURNS 23 TODAAAAAAY!

expect a photo-heavy post chronicling the celebrations sometime tomorrow.

¡QUE LOS CUMPLAS FELIZ, MI ESPOSITA! i'm so lucky to have you as a best friend and my #1 partner in crime. i love you!