top books of 2009

I feel like I should make some sort of year end post, but I don't want to make one for anything other than the fop five books that I read in 2009.


Winner
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

Maybe you already guessed from all of the quotes from this book that I've shared, but this book became one of my top three. I loved trying to piece the two stories together, seeing how they related, differed, and connected. This book is full of lyrical prose, secrets, memories, love, betrayal, truth, pain, and endurance.

A+++ would read again.


2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th places
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

my happiness project

Check it out. Let me know what you think.

happiness project from Becca Foster on Vimeo.

coca-cola hope

These are so good. I'll eat them up I love them so.

Designed by Andrew Bannecker for Ogilvy NY.

This Coke campaign was created for the Hopenhagen movement

in conjunction with the United Nations Climate Change Conference

that took place in Copenhagen earlier this month.

i sometimes like the way accidents turn out

I tried to write a quote from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,

but it came out wrong.

will you keep out all the sadness?

I'm behind the times, but when Carol ran to the boat was the best part.

The film was heavy in the way that it caused all of the feelings I've ever had during difficult or fragile times in important relationships to resurface. Those relationships have either ended or made it through, and I'm grateful for the ones that made it through.

While watching this film I just kept thinking that if the characters didn't give up on each other, if they didn't leave physically or emotionally, then their relationships would make it. I guess that's a good lesson for myself too.


Another good lesson I received on Saturday was how to have a paper airplane flying contest off of the thirteenth story of an office building. :)

photobombing gingerbread houses

This is the first year that Danny took the activity seriously

and didn't just make a candy explosion catastrophe.

He will bring us goodness and light

from spiralling ecstatically this

proud nowhere of earth’s most prodigious night

blossoms a newborn babe: around him, eyes

—gifted with every keener appetite

than mere unmiracle can quite appease—

humbly in their imagined bodies kneel

...

but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall

even prevail a million questionings

against the silence of his mother’s smile

—whose only secret all creation sings

-ee cummings

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!

photo from here

family christmas party part 4 (last!)

A family that dances together stays together. I guess.
That is my cousin playing the piano in the background.

Merry Christmas Eve eve.

christmas dancing from Becca Foster on Vimeo.

I hope you remember that this lady is ninety. NINETY!

Now please let me leave work.

karate kid remake

I will see this movie because:
(1) it's set in Beijing
(2) Will Smith's son is in it

family christmas party part 3

We found a stash of 3D glasses that filtered lights into Christmas shapes.

Even Grandma liked them.

white elephants on parade

On Saturday I had a Christmas party with some of the greatest girls ever.

I still think I got the best white elephant gift.

Is that a creepy policeman nutcracker Molly's holding? Yes, yes it is.

Thanks, Amy, for the photo.

family christmas party part 2

My uncle Ned—former dean, now professor of a beginning finance class at BYU—sang a little song he made up to his students at the end of the semester.

it all comes down to finals week from Becca Foster on Vimeo.

smog fog

This morning was incredibly dreamy. I hope you enjoy my first iMovie endeavor.

smog fog from Becca Foster on Vimeo.

family christmas party part 1

except, do.

After some customer complaints challenging the adhesiveness of a new product,

one of our writers conducts his own test on the window.

sheaths of gold

Please tell me someone else saw this sunrise today.

for d.warn

Something else I love: Biting off corners of square, chocolate-covered mint cookies and using them as straws to sip up milk (not Silk)—or hot chocolate. Even if it burns off all my taste buds.

hallelujah

Oh yeah, I went to this on Sunday with mi madre, Ashley, and Brent. We parked in the exclusive Church Office Building parking lot, and it was so exciting. :/ Also, there was quite the snowstorm on Sunday. Due to unstoppable forces of slush and ice, I threw off the alignment in my car after hitting a curb.

Blurmaster photo that I probably shouldn't post.

ho ho ho

Merry Christmas from Crisp Kringle, aka Julie Shoe.
Hey look! A new notepad.

ano...

All* I want for Christmas are DVDs of Howl's Moving Castle, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, etc.

Preferably in Japanese with English subtitles. *Not entirely true

ever onward

The important thing to remember about life is that you can't lose hope that everything will work out in the end. You can't give up on something you've been working toward, because what good would that do? You have to keep trying without becoming too discouraged or disheartened. This world is in a constant state of change. Things will continue to progress and regress, to build and unravel. Time doesn't stop; time can't stop; time will never stop.

photos from here

some things i love

My good friend, Natalie, recently posed this question:
I like this concept so much: asking one question and getting a variety of answers. I think if I could undertake a similar project, I would ask the question that titles this post: "What do you love?"

Because we love so many things—people, places, feelings, smells, sights, sounds, memories, textures... the list goes on and on.

Wouldn't it be lovely to know what someone else loves—even if that someone were a stranger? I think it would, and I think that knowing what someone else loves would enable one to love that someone even better.

So, what do you love? Please share.

I love a lot of things (as you will see here). One might assume that I love everything, but I do not. I know what I love, and I know what I don't love. I don't love plenty of things, but I'd rather not focus on them.

I love Christmas lights—on the house, on the tree, and in my bedroom. I love Christmas trees, and I love the spirit of Christmas. I love being warm and cozy. During the winter I love sweatpants, sweatshirts, and warm socks. I love hymns, especially Christmas ones. I love Sacrament Christmas programs, pretty voices, boys with sexy tenor voices, piano solos, organ solos, many kinds of solos. I love DVR. I love iTunes. I love the smell of cinnamon and of baking rolls. I love the smell of rain on dry earth. I love my little grandma. I love light eyes and freckles. I love dark hair. I also love reddish-brown hair. I love growing tomatoes in the summer. I love Gchat. I love sitting at my window in the early morning light and coming up with ideas. I love traveling, and I love exploring those traveled places. I love exploring in general. I love food, especially salsa. There, I said it. I love cereal—too much. I love ethnic restaurants, ethnic people, and ethnic holidays. I love Ethiopians, Chinese, and I'm sure I'd love Indians too; someday I'll be able to say that with a surety. I love the energy of cities, but probably mostly of New York—the lights, the people walking the streets, the interesting things that are anytime anywhere. I love mountains and oceans—outdoor beauty. I love road trips with friends. I love creativity. I love being inspired, and I love my desire to create; I love when it's there and wants to burst out of me somehow. I love my creative friends. I love all of the different ways people can be and are creative. I love watching people dance, and how the way dancers move their bodies has the potential to be so emotional. I love playing soccer, even though I'm not super good. I love singing so loudly in my car. I love watching the Olympics and the Winter X Games. I love riding my bike so fast it feels like I'm flying. I love longboarding, because that also makes me feel like I'm flying. I guess I love feeling like I'm flying. I love wakeboarding, because that's flying in a different way. I love airports and all of the different kinds of people there. Sometimes I love crying, because it means I'm feeling, and I love to feel. I love reading. I love reading books that make me feel and/or cry. I love so many books. I also love films that make me cry, TV shows that make me cry, songs that make me cry, but not boys that make me cry. I love addressing inanimate objects, e.g., "Oh, hello tree." I love those uncooked Costco tortillas. I love when my mom buys me things at Costco and splits her package of tortillas with me. I love dogs (not small ones). I love rooftops. I love beautiful clouds, colors, sunrises, and sunsets. I love email conversations with cross-country or cross-continent friends. I love reply-to-alls. I love good films. I love watching films in the theater—solo or with people. I heart txt speak (srsly). I love fog. I love bookstores and libraries; I love all of the knowledge, creativity, and stories that are hidden in them. I love university campuses. I love foreign films. I love foreign languages. I love learning. I love friends I feel comfortable with, friends I can trust, friends that lift me up, friends I can be myself around. I love when people give me nicknames. Sometimes I love being alone. I love when the song I've been waiting for comes on the radio. Lately, I love purple. I love taking pictures, and I love the photography of others. I love a clean house, a clean bedroom. I love hot chocolate with marshmallows. I love spring, but then again I also love fall. I love summer. I love winter (as long as I'm warm doing whatever I'm doing). I love putting my face into falling snowflakes. I love October so, so much. I love decorating for and dressing up for Halloween, and I love when other people love Halloween too. I love getting obsessed with things, like Mandarin, Justin Vernon, animated gifs, or Veronica Mars. I love the interweb! I love calling it the interweb. I love wireless interwebbing. I love remote printing. I love adventures, and I love when being around specific people makes me more adventurous and spontaneous. I love driving on summer nights with the window down, arm out, hair flying. I love summer nights in general, when I can lie on grass and see all the stars, which reminds me that I love stars. I love the constellations, and I love when I can remember what they are. I love falling in love. I love long hugs. I love feeling so close to someone. I love dreams, vivid, and in color. I love dreams of the other kind too—future ones, vaulting ones, short-term, long-term. I love when someone has the courage to look me in the eyes, to look into my eyes. I love when someone knows I'm not OK. I love when someone knows what I'm thinking. I love the electricity that sometimes exists between bodies in close proximity. I love secrets. I love when people are unapologetic for who they are and how they are. I love when people say what they mean. I love honesty. I love listening to a song on repeat for hours. I love playlists, and I love titling playlists. I love my family, and that we are different. I love when I feel like I belong somewhere. I love when someone says the exact thing I needed to hear. I love feeling like I've made a right decision. I love when someone remembers my name. I love when I'm somewhere with someone (or not with someone), and the moment is so perfect that I know I could never recreate it if I tried. I love praying. I love the stillness and peace the Spirit brings. I love my church. I love the temple. I love righteous people, men of God. I love the leaders of my Church, especially the First Presidency. I love their love, their dedication, their words, and their examples. I love God. I love Jesus Christ.

I shared part of this quote the other day from this book, but there's more to the quote, and so I'll share it, because it sums me up. Also, because I love it:

Do you fall in love often?

Yes often. With a view, with a book, with a dog, a cat, with numbers, with friends, with complete strangers, with nothing at all. I love widely, indiscreetly. I forget it is myself I am trying to love back to a better place.

Some people dream in color, I feel in colour, strong tones that I hue down for the comfort of the pastelly inclined. Beige and magnolia and a hint of pink are what the well-decorated heart is wearing; who wants my blood red and vein-blue?
So, my friends, what do you love?

holidine '09

Feast clean-up in the kitchen—crowns, purple leggings and all.

this is sort of epic

Remember when I shared Josh's video? It was chosen to be in a video art show called Eye Candy for Strangers in Williamsburg this weekend. I was perusing the site with some of the other videos being shown, and I came across this one:

this is for the girl that I haven't met from Colin Cabalka on Vimeo.

He says this about the video:
Backstory: This was created for Emily Wilson, who is the sister of Sarah Wilson, a girl I met and became good friends with at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Sarah thought it would be a good idea to set me and her sister up despite the obvious distance in between California (where I live) and Florida (where they live). So I made a video for her sister and got one back, and thus we started talking in June 09, and I am going out to Florida in January 2010... Thus, a good reason to make such a video!

Here's Emily's video response:

In Response from Sarah Wilson on Vimeo.

There are so many things I love about this.

Happy frozen Friday.

this little piggy

I think my pinky is broken from this day, or re-healed in a not-optimal way, which is too bad. It wasn't until I couldn't grip very well or bend the pinky all the way that I realized how important each and every one of my fingers are. It's sort of like when I think I broke my thumb. Twice.

Anyway, I don't even know why I'm talking about this except that I'm currently trying to give my pinky some physical therapy.

On an unrelated note, yesterday was a weird, not-great day for everyone living under the roof of my house. Causes of this: (Roommate 1) One car accident/hitting the median a few times/black ice/$120 ticket/$180 tow/car repairs/sore back/no car/rental car/calling insurance company/etc., (Roommate 2) seven-and-a-half rejections/many tears, (Roommate 3) broken-down car/not calling anyone for a pick-up/walking home in 6º from 3300 South and I-15 (5.8 miles according to Google Maps)/frozen/no car, and (Roommate 4) being in a commercial/sneezing on a guy/not that weird or upsetting, but the weirdness rubbed off/sympathy was appreciated. So we all drank Mrs. Field's hot chocolate and watched An Affair to Remember in our pajamas accompanied by our Christmas tree and lights. It helped.

perfect winter song

Thanks Seung Jung.

Now I need to make a good playlist, hunker down, and get some work done.

yes. often.

from here

No, really. Are you talking about me?

(UPDATE: Found out it's from Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson)

songs on repeat all day

and all this—just to forget a pair of eyes

words from here, photo from here

slaves to the in-n-out craze

Utah loves chain restaurants so much.

perplexing.

It's a bad thing if my Christmas tree hasn't been drinking its water, right? I cut off the bottom and everything, so I feel like it should be more thirsty. This worries me.

I'm also worried about Duke, who I'm currently dog-sitting. Duke's owner wanted me to put him in the backyard during the day while I'm at work (since he has a doghouse), but—windchill excluded—it is FRIGID outside. I've been worried about him all morning.

coney island dream

My friend, Josh Brown, made this. It is a pretty little thing. A lonely, pretty little thing.

Coney Island Dream from Joshua Brown on Vimeo.

there's magic in my house

break off this shell

My dad just left the Dulles airport for Kandahar, and I wasn't expecting to be upset at all, to care at all. But I am. I do.

Perhaps God is trying to tell me something.

if people were rain, i was drizzle and she was a hurricane

I read a quote from this book on a blog that I follow. I probably won't ever read the book, but these words are perfect.

what's your secret

Favorite thing today.



I never knew that PostSecret is the group that makes these. Best part: 3:56-4:11. See the others here if, by chance, you haven't by now.

I'm trying to figure out what I would ask if I made a Fifty People One Question video.

it'll be magical

I purchased a Christmas tree yesterday, and because I was scared that my tree would take a tumble into the road, I bought it from the extremely-nearby Rite Aid. I lifted my carefully-selected and highly-anticipated tree onto the roof of my car, secured it with some rope, and drove uncharacteristically slowly to my house. I then borrowed a hand saw from some neighbors, tried—unsuccessfully for a time—to saw off and/or pry the boards and nails attached to the bottom of the tree (insert mild expletive), and sawed off a bottom layer of the trunk. Right now the bare tree is nestled in its stand, apron draped at its trunk, waiting for my roommates and me to bring it to life with lights, ornaments and magic.

Semi-relating story: I lived in Ventura, California until I was eight, and one California December my family was driving home on the highway with our carefully-selected and highly-anticipated Christmas tree on the roof of our wood-paneled station wagon. At some point the tree escaped its bindings and abandoned ship in the middle of busy California traffic. Chaos erupted from us kids. My dad pulled over, ran into the middle of the highway, and saved the tree and our Christmas from complete and utter destruction. No harm done.

new wallpaper

If I wasn't in the Christmas spirit before (I was), I sure am now.

Where's Mr. Tumnus?

"Neutra Face" a Lady Gaga parody

For you type geeks.



Gaga is insane.

all she wanted was a hug

This article in the Modern Love section of The New York Times makes me feel weird. What is she trying to say anyway? I don't like it.

A missionary wants to obey the rules he has committed to obey, and therefore he chooses not to hug this girl. And this action of inaction somehow validates her disillusionment with the Church? That's her choice, I guess, but I'm positive that this girl isn't the first sister missionary to ever want a hug from an elder and not get one.

yes, i realize he's a man

Hey guys, remember how I said "not rhetorical?" Yeah, I meant that. I need some Leto feedback here.

the nightingale

From her words: you love me too, so quietly, behind your rib cage where you keep your heart like a prize songbird, only singing, only softly, only sometimes. you are so scared to loose the bird for fear it won’t return, for fear that for all your effort, it’s untrainable. and what good is a heartless girl? i understand, so keep the bird, no need to reconcile the wild and the tame just yet. i’ll paint wings on your back when you’re sleeping, i’ll loose out my own bird first to show you i’m unafraid. the nightingale is singing so softly, unafraid.

I've recently realized that I cycle through forms of expression. Back in the day it was painting and drawing; I feel badly that I don't do these things anymore. Sometimes it'll only manifest as collage, photography, poetry (or writing in general), or a larger creative work (e.g., A book I was creating (yes, creating, not necessarily writing, although some writing was involved). I haven't given up on that yet.). Lately it's been coming out as animated gifs, but more often than not I make Photoshop and/or Illustrator pieces like the one in this post.

maybe the eyes

Is it just me, or do Jared Leto and I look somewhat similar? (Not rhetorical.)

first time rushing the field

We had the worst seats, but I had the best time in the world. It was my first time going to a BYU game with family, and it was the most fun football game I've ever been to (many superlatives). I love that our seats were so high that it took us several minutes to actually get down to the field to be able to rush it.