I am at one with a sea of sensations, glitter, silk, skin, eyes, mouths, desire.

A summary of this week:

1. Dragged work colleague along to the ‘Under the Rainbow’ opening 2. My angels Angela and Fugue! (photo credits: Andy Boreham)  3. Finally watched the New Girl and was surprised that I liked it despite not being super fond of Zooey (sorry guys!) 4. Went to my first burlesque show “Revolver Circus” – it was a such a wide-eyed spectacular (photo credit: Brett Stanley Photography)  5. Baked some more goods from now one of my go to food blogs, like seriously check it out – I mean there’s going to be a recipe for Gin and Tonic ice-cream if it isn’t there already. GIN AND TONIC ICE CREAM! (photo credit: Hungry and Frozen) 6. and I ended the week with a Fellini film (image credit)

other special mentions: pizza and wine on Thurs and Saturday coffee rituals.

Its been wonderful.

How are you all?

I’m turning 33 next month (oh lordy!) and I’ve been realising lately that it hasn’t really been till I hit the big 3-0 that I’ve really started to reflect on my life, the world, and human beings in general. It often bothers me how busy people are these days. It seems like we take so much for granted. Even the simple art of letter-writing has died away, which I find so sad. I believe we are here on earth to be in relationship with one another, but it seems that everything else gets in the way. We miss the simple, special moments.
I remember a saying we were taught in school: K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple Stupid. This phrase has been playing over and over in my head lately. It can be used in so many different situations in our lives – from clutter in our house, files on our computers, to the amount of friends we aim to have. Keeping it simple will in fact allow you to see the beauty in the moment. That’s what I believe anyway!
I found this poem by the late Ella Wilcox, and it really struck a chord with me. Additionally, I came across this ‘Never Alone’ print, which I find both simple and beautiful.
Enjoy!

Image Source: Smitten Kitchen

Crust:
A packet of gingercrunch biscuits (though you might want to add half of another packet since the original recipes mentions crust on the upper edges of the pie dish)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) salted butter, melted or 120grams

Filling:
1 and half packets of chocolate (either Whittakers or Old gold)  bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped ( I used Old Gold, purely because they were on special  but I normally prefer Whittakers)
1 cup cream
2 large egg yolks
1 large egg
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

For crust:

Preheat oven to 170 Celsius . Break up ginger crunch cookies and process in a food processor until fine. Mix in melted butter until all combined. Press crumb mixture into bottom of pan and up the sides.

For filling:
Combine finely chopped bittersweet chocolate and heavy whipping cream in a bowl and place over a medium saucepan (with hot water inside). Whisk over low heat until chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove saucepan from heat. Whisk egg yolks, egg, sugar, flour, ground black pepper, salt and cinnamon in  a separate medium bowl to blend. Very gradually whisk chocolate mixture into egg mixture until smooth and blended. Pour chocolate filling into crust.

Bake chocolate tart until filling puffs slightly at edges and center is softly set, about 30 minutes. Cool tart in pan 20 minutes, remove sides if you have one of those removeable side pans.  Serve at a dinner with friends where they will be impressed with your culinary skills and will love you forever.

#I covered and refrigerated mine and served as morning tea at work. So that is an option too.

Here is what she had to say:

(Rochelle)  Let’s begin with a brief introduction of when the music side of you began!

(Satori)  Oh. I started being played by the piano when I was two, kind of a freakishly immediate ear-musician situation.  I suppose, dating back to when memory actually stuck to my communicative spine, I was always musical.

(Rochelle) Do you remember the first musical piece that stuck with you? Is music  an integral part of your being?

(Satori)   Absolutely integral. Visceral, indispensable, rarely cerebral. Totally intrinsically intuitive and yes, I can still play the piece.

(Rochelle) And that first musical piece – what was it?

(Satori)  Well, it wasn’t really anything worth noting, just a little bass line consisting of two notes, and a melody that began on C above it.  I never named that piece, but I will always remember it.

(Rochelle) I guess we can just name it – ‘the little bass line of two notes and the melody of C above it’ or something similar. You mentioned you play the piano, do you play any other musical instruments?

(Satori)  Absolutely not. laughs Anything that’s keyboard/piano-related, I can really be played by, and on levels exceeding synthesis, but nothing else feels right. I’m totally monogamous to the piano.

(Rochelle) What do you think it is about the piano/keyboard that just feels right? And has there been a time where it hasn’t?

(Satori)  The piano’s always felt right, even when it has felt ‘wrong’ — keyboardists are just frustrated drummers, anyway. There’s a deep, stringed aggression that goes into it. You can play the thing with your whole body, and it, in turn, can play you up from the flesh of your ankles to the crown of your head. It has felt wrong on a few occasions, however that was only predicated on my animosity/frustration level with myself, you know? The pounding just didn’t feel right, the notes weren’t really coming, and I was probably fourteen and pissed off.

(Rochelle) Beyond your own inner self and inner worlds – Who inspires you musically? artistically?, creatively, emotionally etc? Who would be your dream person to work with?

(Satori)  Christopher Corner.

I was very fortunate to tour/follow Alan Wilder around; he’s my musical mentor, but Chris Corner feels very cosmically/musically incestuous to me, an Osiris figure to my suited-up-for-lovely-war Isis. I am a very masculine warrior in female body-bits, and the effeminate male figure fits for me.

It sounds fanatical, just utterly, balls-out-nuts fanatical, but whenever I listen to acoustic piano bits of his, especially the almost-completely-acoustic rendition of  IAMX’s “Think of England” that’s on the official IAMX/Chris Corner website, it pulls on me from the centre of my lost, damaged, longing, empathetic musical pneumatic core, like drawing out the dead into life, like I’m ascending into something. Something that is bigger than myself, something that is bigger than Chris, but we’re tapped in. We have a ‘right-of-way’/”you may pass” token, we have a secret doorway into which we enter, into which we serve.

(image source)

(Satori) I don’t know him personally by any stretch of the imagination, though we’ve definitely, heatedly seen each other, but it very much feels like I do, like I know him from the inside. I was going to see him in London last October when my knee got damaged and I was grounded in the Southern Plains, USA for 2 months aggressively healing. I was determinedly heart-broken, but, it just wasn’t time to see him. We gotta accept what the Universe unfolds for us; everything has a reason, even if the reason is nothing at all. God, I never shut up!

I want to talk to Christopher in hushed, fevered words and frenetic treble clefts …because I already do. When we make music, when we create, our souls are putting out a call, as it were; very few people out there can “answer”.

He answers me. So, I hope one day, he hears my stuff.

(Rochelle) I hope so too

(Satori It’s the least I can do to give something back to him. /End fanaticism. I’m just fierce about what I believe in.

(Rochelle) How would you describe your music? What do you think is the perfect environment, location and space?

(Satori)  Alone on headphones! laughs That’s honestly up to the listener, I cannot control that. Gigs I’ve played have taught me this, but the responses I’ve received rests very dutifully and lovingly upon “alone, drawing/making art/playing video games/on headphones”.

So I suppose “intimate isolation” is the succinct answer, but o LAWZ help me, I don’t understand this…this…SUCCINCT nonsense.

(Rochelle) Haha, and how would you describe your music?

(Satori)  I can’t,  for real, I can’t. I have to tag the bloody howling beasts of my boy-tunes (the songs are boys to me) via SoundCloud and Bandcamp, but I feel so…raped doing that.

I don’t mean to sound Über-Elite/pretentious-like, “o twaddly cunt fiddles, there is just NO WORD TO DESCRIBE THE AWESOME THAT IS ME”; I just stumble on the words for musical self-elucidation…it’s a goddamn war, is what it is.

It’s a bunch of sullen widowed battle cries in the ether of expression; the underbelly of the space needle. Other than that, it’s a real wacky, real loud girl on a Rowland Fantom fucking around like a junior high school student. The voxless suicide sing-along. Ghost soldiers in a war long over…so I guess I just described it.

(Rochelle)  I love all those descriptions. I’ll end soon because I’m aware of your need for sleep

(Satori)  Nah, now I’m wide awake,  it’s cool. “O fiddles, we’re talking about ME? I’M AWAKE NOW!! What’s for dinner?!”

(Rochelle) OK

(Satori)  This is my first interview.  So I’m 8 different kinds of pumped now that we’re into it.

(Rochelle) This is my first music interview too.

(Satori)  So, it works. don’t worry, I’ll not be gentle.

(Rochelle) If you were to make a playlist, any kind of playlist that possibly speaks to you – what would be on it?

(Satori) Oh, that playlist? the soul playlist?

I’ve made thousands of playlists before, from the “I am working out b/c I am very angry” to the “WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME”. But I know off the top of my head Radiohead’s “All I Need” would be on that, IAMX “This Will Make You Love Again”, et al.

(Rochelle) So for the playlist we have Radiohead’s “All I Need” and IAMX “This Will Make You Love Again”

(Satori) So far, yes. Einstürzende Neubauten’s “Sabrina”.  I love me some good angry Rammstein-like rage, I love me some disposable pop, I love me some upcomingly famous chip-tune like Nicolas Wolf  but I traditionally operate on a very smoky, sullen, sexual vibe. 

I love The Church! Particularly the songs “Day of the Dead” and “Loveblind”, but the whole album ‘Sometime Anywhere’ ‘ is fucking delicious.

I could talk for hours about this: The Smoky Slinky I’m Being Interviewed Playlist.

(Satori) Recoil, of course, “Allelujah”, “Intruders”
“Allelujah (Noisy Church Mix)”.
Massive Attack’s “Live With Me”,
DK7′s “Sweetness In Time”, which is a song that still haunts what is the ghost-dream of a fantasy I had in 2009, a real hard-bled, heart-broken-for-the-first-time phantasm. Whoops. Sorry, 2009.
Smashing Pumpkins “Obscured”.
Led Zeppelin’s “Friends”, which is a *wondrous* yet totally-overlooked Zep tune. I love me some Zep.
Sleepy Eyes of Death (a local Seattle band that disbanded at the end of last year) “Data Graves”, “Pierce the Air”, “In Parallel”, very visual stuff, those blokes.

None of this is in any order – when I make a playlist, I go DJ-style, end of note on one song/sentiment must segue into succeeding ditty.

Vast’s “Lost” or “Don’t Take Your Love Away”.

(Rochelle) Yah Yah I’m totally getting this.

(Satori) I could lump the entirety of IAMX’s ‘Kiss+Swallow’ album, it’s my favourite IAMX record…  haha yays!!

The Steven Drozd of Flaming Lips & Maynard James Tool version of “Rocket Man” is fucking heartbreaking. Total brilliance, when I hear it, I just disappear completely.  Thom Yorke got it half-wrong on how to disappear completely, heh.
O! and. Gary Numan “Me I Disconnect From You” & “Ancients”, of all tunes.
Band of Horses “Detlef Schrempf”,  that song hurts.
O GOD YES IT HURTS,  YES PLEASE GOD.

(Rochelle)  Band of Horses?

(Satori) Detlef Schrempf is the name of an old basketball player for the Seattle Supersonics, and I used to both play basketball and watch the NBA finals (from 1995 – 1999). Band of Horses is a local Seattle band that kinda made it big – very “hipster” music – and they predicated a song title to that basketball player. The song has nothing to do with him, just a name-drop.

(Rochelle) Yeah I know the song. I like Band of Horses, but my music taste is pretty hipsterish

(Satori) Roy Orbison “In Dreams”.
(Rochelle) OH YES!
(Satori) And KD Lang singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”.   So far, we’re covering depression, heart-break, and crucifixion of the spheres…hrm   and love.
Bjork’s “Undo” and “It’s Not Up To You”  *purrs* I fucking love Bjork.
(Rochelle) Bjork Homogenic
(Satori)Yeah, that’s a fantastic album….“Unravel” especially, greatest love song of all time.
The Cure’s “Carnage Visors” and “All Cats Are Grey” — and! I’m not a huge Cure fan or really a fan at all, but speaking of the greatest love songs of all time… “This Twilight Garden” by the Cure is just. fucking delicious.
Public Image Limited’s “USLS1″
Depeche Mode, of course, the “Slow Slide” mix of “My Joy”.  I’ve always wanted to make love to that, but it’s just…too sacred. I introduced IAMX to a lover, once, and that was depressing enough, in the sacred realm of things.
MGMT’s  ”Of birds, Moons and Monsters” is great.

Can’t stop, Rochelle.

(Rochelle)  Haha no I love it,  if you want to keep going, go

(Satori) Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Nocturnal Me”.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark “Statues”.
Ultravox “Just For A Moment” is bliss.
Pink Floyd, of course, “High Hopes”.
This is the Epic Playlist.   ”Suit up, we may die”. “Here’s *everything*.”
Nick Cave and Badseeds “Do You Love Me”   but but but but a very particular rendition of that song, basically the last track on that album.

Barry Adamson “Déjà Voodoo”.
The band, College, came out with an album called ‘Secret Diary’ — they’re French. “She Never Came Back” is a wonderful song.
And of course, orchestral snippets from soundtracks, very much into Clint Mansell from Pop Will Eat Itself  however, he scores fantastic movies:   Requiem for a Dream, Pi, The Fountain, M00n, et al.
And David Bowie, oh bless, David fucking Bowie.

“Sunday” is a great David Bowie song.

(Rochelle) Sunday is definitely a great Bowie song

(Satori) But we should end this here. You can’t exceed Bowie.

(Rochelle) Agreed.

(Satori) At least the musical playlist part, heh. Haha, high-five, Rochelle.

(Rochelle) That was a pretty epic list. (high-five) I’ll send you my list one day

(Satori) YAY  I hope so. : )

(Rochelle) Your music collection? If you have one – are there any surprises on it? Stuff that people would NOT think you would listen to, or are dumbstruck by it?

(Satori) I absolutely love Foster the People. For real.

(Satori) Fun disposable sing-along pop with just enough of an amalgamation/edge that it sticks to the dance-y ribcage.  Also all the band members are spindly Nintendo generation boys,  yes, plz. I’ll take the whole band.

I bought both of their albums, and the first is terrible. wicked-bad. ‘Torches’, though, is just goddamn brilliant.  I worry like Mrs. Robinson for those boys once that fifteen and a half minutes of fame have passed.

(Rochelle)  Do you have any music goals? where would you like to see yourself in a year, 5 years?

(Satori) Anxiously, quickly out of Seattle within the coming months; I discovered Kurt Cobain here. I want to be living in New Zealand in a year, and I mean… What goals don’t musicians have? I don’t want fame, I couldn’t handle that, but having sort of an underground cult following who’s extremely loyal and to whom I can give back, who pays my electric bill and keeps my belly full of dried cherries and almonds, for sure.

I don’t want to live a luxurious life, but it would be nice to be touring with myself, or with IAMX, or something akin to that. Then England/Europe. Paris for a wee. However! In five years, I would like to be adopted into Berlin, into a loving, musical commune, very openly liberal, full of talent and mellowed drama, assimilate the culture, be open and musically free, write tunes in the snow. Dance. I love Germany. I feel Germany. I badly speak German. I speak it in my dreams.

Berlin speaks to me — it’s my final stopping ground, unsettling ground, and I wouldn’t mind joining a carnival as the fire-eating piano-player!

I’m more keyboard, now, since I finally upgraded from acoustic, but I am not a technical harlot by any stretch of the imagination. I kinda require an engineer.  I could teach myself, but where’s the fun in being alone?

So, I want people to know who I am, really love my stuff, write me mad flailing e-mails and send me snail-mail letters full of poetry and stories and words telling me what my songs mean to them – cos I will never really talk about what my tunes mean. I only want to hear what they mean to others. That kind of thing.

And I’d like to fall in love,  really, truly fall in love.

(Rochelle) Me too

(Satori) Divorced from the rock-star bullshit, the public eye, addiction and betrayal, lawsuits and trainwrecks, just absolutely naked and pulsing in shades of irrevocable adoration, trust, children, music…
I am still on my quest to find Osiris. I want to stop living in the past — leave that for the ghost hymns and let negativity just wash over me.

So the underground cult dream.

(Rochelle)  I deserve more than what my heart can give overflowing

(Satori) WORD.

Quite tired of the dearth of reciprocation. It’s been many years of hell and carwrecks and accidents and metal and incongruence, either me pining for someone else or someone else pining for me.
Reciprocation in the velvet-fist romantic sheet-ruffle fashion would be lovely,  but in lieu of just lust this time, love. I’ve bled dry that story, the ‘WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME’ story, whether I was the shouter or the one being shouted at. It’s bled. It’s done. I deserve a nice love story. : ) I am extremely liberal, polyamorous to a degree, but unconditionally devoted – and what better way than through music and inspiration. My whole siren snake body is predicated on inspiration.

(Rochelle) Perfectly put. Do you have any parting comments for the readers? and for anyone who is interested – where can one buy your stuff?

(Satori) Bandcamp. Parting words? Live your life the way you wish to live it, free from parental demands and social expectations, shatter the status quo, eliminate all animosity and bitterness, open yourselves to emotion, and swim. Swim, swim, swim.

O, also buy my music if it strikes the tuning fork of your pneumatic-cells. By all means, don’t let me stop that purchase. ;P

Fugue Satori is currently working on her second demo album, which will be released via both Bandcamp & SirenWire Editions this Northern Hemisphere Summer. She is also hiding on SoundCloud, where harsh demos are privately released to the followers/listeners.

Links

Fugue Satori Bandcamp
Fugue Satori Facebook page
Fugue Satori on SoundCloud (again!)
SirenWire/Susan Matthews
Fugue Satori via A Tribute to Soulseekers (French e-zine/blog)

All images except for those that are credited are courtesy of Fugue Satori [Flickr Stream]

And so here is Vanilla buttercake with strawberry filling and cream cheese frosting

Vanilla Buttercake (reciped adapted from Forgiving Martha)
340 grams of  butter, room temperature
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk, room temperature ( I don’t think I did this so no idea what difference it makes)
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 180.  Generously butter and flour pans.  Tap pans to remove excess flour.
2. Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) together.  In a measuring cup, combine milk and vanilla.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, cream butter until fluffy.  Gradually add sugar.  Beat until smooth (3-4 minutes).
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating in between each addition.
5. Reduce speed to low and alternate adding flour and milk mixtures, ending with flour.  When there are only a few streaks of flour remaining in the batter, mix the rest by hand.
6. Pour batter into the prepared pans.  Firmly tap the pans (on counter) to remove air bubbles.
7. Bake until light golden brown (about 60 minutes.)  Cool in pan for half an hour, invert on rack to cool completely before frosting

Strawberry Filling (my own recipe)

1. 250 grams of frozen strawberries or just about – I bought a 500gram bag and used approximately half
2. 1/4 cup Water
3. 6-8 spoons of sugar, I say spoons because I did a lot of taste tests and altered between tablespoons and teaspoons
4. Few squirts of  lemon juice

Simmer strawberries, water and sugar for 5 – 10 minutes. Strain strawberries and place strawberry sauce aside.

Once you have your  two cakes and your strawberries – cut the top layer of one cake, then place strawberries on top and pour a quarter of the strawberry juice onto the strawberries.  Place second cake on top then frost with a simple cream cheese frosting.  I added a little bit of the strawberry juice to the cream cheese frosting which made it peach coloured but not really strawberry hinted. And oh garnish if that’s is even a term used in baking with coconut if you want. 

Voila!

Obsessing over:  lost items, fictional characters and food. Anyone else in love with the entire West Wing? Marry me Sam Seaborn, Marry me Josh Lyman!
Working on: future posts, more specifically an interview, I’m hoping to have it finished by Easter Monday so watch this space and for those who follow me on twitter – I’ll be also be sharing that Vanilla Buttercake with the strawberry filing soon.
Anticipating: the next coming weeks – there are few changes happening at my work which means temporarily a much bigger workload. The colour of my tattoo will also be completed in the first week of May so excited.
Listening to: Mirel Wagner, Florence and the Machine, Yann Tiersen and whatever music plays at the gym. At my gym its mostly Rihanna, that girl from Waverley Place (yes I watch the Disney Channel), 90s pop,and 80 rock ballads. What is popular at your gym?
Eating:  Tomato and chickpea lamb with spinach and potatoes. So good.
Wishing:  I had a bit more money  but don’t we all?

What have you been up to recently? I’d love to know!

Currently guest-posting for Rochelle today (or yesterday here Stateside) and I have to say I’m really excited. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what to post about and I figured why not Williamsburg, NY? With spring in the air here, I find myself outside wandering the streets of Brooklyn in search of nothing more than some aesthetics, a good cup of coffee, and apartment gazing. Here’s a snapshot of my weekend plans in Williamsburg, where I’ll be moving back to come June 1st!I’m confused as to whether this is a walrus or a pig. Either way, in Brooklyn and a lot of areas in NYC, the urban art is fascinating!Spring is in the air here in NYC and you can see by the way all these trees are blooming, even on an overcast day! I believe they’re dogwood, but they’re all over NYC dropping petals in the soft breeze and making everything so lovely again!
Flea markets abound in Brooklyn. This indoor one in Williamsburg held my interest because of the old attic feel to it with things piled high everywhere. Definitely makes that special find even more special! With everything so cheap, it’s hard to not get lost in here and consider coming out with armfuls of goodies!

The bar scene in Williamsburg is really the reason to come (and stay for a while). This bar is called Drink and they sell alcoholic punch by the bowl (and also by the glass if you’re not sharing with a large group). This Jamaican punch was just what we needed with a bit of rum, mint, and probably 10 million other things.

No weekend in New York is complete without brunch. So after a long night out, my friends and I ventured into Manhattan for brunch at an internationally renowned place called Freemans. It looks a little sketchy at the beginning, as it’s down a long dirty alley way. But that’s what really makes the experience worth it. I say internationally renowned because any Aussie or European you ask will mention Freemans as one of the brunch places they have to hit up while in the city.

That’s a wrap up for my weekend in Brooklyn. What did you get up to this weekend? Any rituals you follow or routines that are an absolute must? I now flea markets once it starts to warm up here a bit more will definitely be incorporated into my weekend plans!

I’m a big caffeine addict and I do coffee review posts about the coffee culture that dominates most of NYC. Stop by ConstantsBecomeSurreal sometime and enjoy the relaxing pictures of caffeine and the occasional wine post even. I probably drink more calories that I do eat them, but there are plenty of food posts on the blog too! Thanks so much to Rochelle for this opportunity to guest post! It’s been great and I would love to interact with you all!

Editors Note:  Erin and I have known each since for 6 or possibly nearly 7 years. I really can’t remember – whenever Myspace was still popular but kinda fading out and Facebook was starting. That period of time. We’ve gone through so much together that I’m proud to say she is one of my closest friends even though we have never actually physically met.  I guess we’re the cyber versions of the vintage letter writing pen pal.  If you’re like us and like coffee and food then check out her blog. If you live in New York or visiting sometime soon, GO CHECK IT OUT.  

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul

William Earnest Henley

Artist: Gustav Adolph Mossa (image source)

Eventually we grew out of that phase but never did our love for pets especially dogs fade.   Now I am still likely to glee over kittens and puppies than babies, more likely to raise my hand to petsit than babysit. In fact, the last time I babysat Y2K was the topic on everyone’s lips and I think Dawson Creek was still playing.

Tonight I found a bookmark that I had completely forgotten about.  A photo series by Carli Davidson on pets with disabilities. Enjoy.  My favourite is the blind chinhuahua with his sight seeing pal the pug.