the Endless

Inspiration: Synecdoche, New York

2008-11-18T12:08:00.000-08:00

I've tried writing and re-writing my thoughts on Charlie Kaufman's new film, Synecdoche, New York, and I'm failing miserably. It's probably because it is not possible to make linear sense out of something that is beyond linear sense. It's a beautiful film, exploring the deepest questions of the nature of being an artist, and further and what it means to be human. A synecdoche, as described by Wikipedia, is a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing. A simple example would be referring to your car as your "wheels."

In Synecdoche, New York, director Caden Cotard creates a synecdoche of his entire life as a theatre piece, trying to relate life by being scrupulously honest in re-telling it onstage. In this excellent interview, Kaufman relates that film or a work of art itself is in fact a synecdoche. We are trying to relate the macro through the relating of the micro.

This deep search into understanding one's purpose and ability to connect and love hit me at a very deep level, and this was one of those rare and precious film-going experiences where I was so moved that I feel it altered my perception of life on a fundamental level. Those rare moments where you are pulled out of mundanity and see life from a higher, more objective perspective. It is inevitable that we must die, and the living of this life is what is so important, and I am reminded again of how precious and perfect every moment is.

I am so grateful to any work of art that forces that kind of deep introspection. I hope Kaufman continues to direct his own work and bring us these amazing, strange stories. I'll be watching.

Sweet Information!

2008-11-14T09:38:00.000-08:00

We had the pleasure of seeing the wonderful and hilarious John Hodgman perform with Jonathan Coulton last night at the Echoplex. If you don't know Hodgman's work as an author, seek out his books immediately! He is incredibly intelligent, and amazingly funny. To me, he is a modern day Mark Twain. He was there to promote his new book, More Information Than You Require, and it picks up where The Areas Of My Expertise leaves off. If you like smart people making smart references to completely made up facts, these books are for you. I've decided it's my goal in life to get John Hodgman and Paul F. Tompkins in a room together just to watch them blab about dandyism or snuff boxes or crow migration habits or whatever it is such men as these might discuss. Somebody make this happen for me!

THANK THE MAKER

2008-11-12T22:29:00.000-08:00

After a week and a half of mind-breaking combing through files to figure out why the new, as yet unrevealed web store broke all of a sudden, the problem is finally, thank HEAVENS, fixed. David actually threw himself on the ground and wept.

...yeah, we've been a little stressed. But now, JOY! And back to our regularly scheduled preparations for launch.

Stupid Breaky Things

2008-11-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

We were very close to being very close to presenting the music store to you all, but last week had a breakdown that is from what we can tell not our fault but on the server side and is causing all kinds of havoc. The rest of the site is finally coming together, however, and you can now have a look around the new digs and tell us what you think. The music store problem is being tackled by David, who is extremely smart and patient, but it would try anyone's sanity, how much he's had to wrestle with this thing.

We've been making a concerted effort lately to get to theatre as much as possible. There are a lot of opportunities to do so in Los Angeles for very low prices, which is one great advantage of living here. We got to see Spring Awakening at the Ahmanson, The School Of Night at the newly refurbished Mark Taper Forum, and a screening of the 1925 Phantom of the Opera at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Halloween. It was our first time at the WDCH and it was fantastic to hear that organ playing with such force and precision in that space. The sound really is incomparable and I really look forward to hearing a full symphony there.

We're getting ready to order our t-shirts through a company called LifeWork. We picked them because of their green practices. From their site:

Today, we run an entirely green operation using only eco-friendly stuff. Our tee's are fair trade certified organic cotton, printed with water-based or certified phthalate-free plastisol (try saying that quickly) inks, biodegradable cleaners, etcetera.

Sounds good to us. We want to be able to bring you a product we all can know was made in a manner friendly to the environment and in keeping with fair labor practices, and these people have got the goods. Not to mention the fact that the shirts we chose are EXTREMELY COOL and good-looking and not your typical boring shirt. I think you will like them a lot.

Just Joy

2008-11-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

There are no good words for what happened yesterday. We still feel speechless. This was the dream of so many and it will reverberate around the world. I wish my mom could have lived to see this day. She would have been beyond proud. He's got an unbelievably difficult path ahead of him, but for the first time in my life I can look at my country and feel a sense of hope. January can't come fast enough.

Somniloquy - Release Date at Last and Pre-Sale Info

2008-11-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

Friends, our CDs have finally arrived! Somniloquy is finally with us. We have finally worked out a release date and a (hopeful) date for our pre-sale to begin. So, with no further ado, Somniloquy will be released on:

JANUARY 13th, 2009

Can't wait that long? Join us for our pre-sale starting DECEMBER 2nd. We will have a special Somniloquy pre-order pack available that will include:

Immediate download of the album, and in the mail on January 13th:
A signed hard copy of the CD
An Endless Somniloquy poster
A beautiful t-shirt (men's or women's sizes)

The reason it will take a little while to release the album is we are working hard on creating an amazing self-determined pricing download store for you and it is really requiring a lot of time on the back end. BUT if you pre-order with us, you will get the album as a download immediately, so you won't have to wait.

We'll show you the store and how to order the pre-order pack in a week or so.

In the meantime, here's a sneak picture of the album:
In other news, our song Lee Miller is featured in two great podcasts this week. The first is Story Circle Network, which is dedicated to women and writing. The second is the great show Electrical Language hosted by Gabor Kovacs who gives a great discussion and introduction to the life of Lee Miller. Please give them a listen and enjoy the shows!

Happy Halloween from Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett

2008-10-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

We wish you all a wonderful Halloween and a blessed Samhain and Happy New Year! Are you in costume today? Tell us about it. We love hearing costume stories!

Our CDs are Completed!

2008-10-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

Such good news, such calloo callay news! We got the call from Oasis that our CDs are complete and are being shipped. We will have them in our hands very soon. In the meantime we are working to make our website along with our brand new download store ready and complete in time for launch. Look here soon for info on how to pre-order the album. We have a really great package in store for you that I think you will love!

Une Petite Mise à Jour

2008-10-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to take form around here, but there's still a lot of work to do. This is still just the beginning of a working model. The scaffolding is still on the walls, but we hope you like what you see so far.

The CD is now officially in production and we are working on pinning down a release date, which we will announce soon. In the meantime, we wait eagerly for fall, which is only faintly flirting with us here in Southern California. I am blogging about our trip to Europe over on my acting site. Please come over and look at some pretty pics.

Returned But Not Quite Resurfaced

2008-10-09T14:56:00.001-07:00

We are back from what can only be described as a gloriously perfect trip to Europe. We are still glowy and bright, and despite the current economical/political circumstances we face upon returning to our country, we remain optimistic and filled with hope. We twittered a bit of the trip, but I will share some good non-phone photos here when I get a chance to get everything organized and in perspective.

I wanted to check in to say that we got our posters back from Oasis today and they are BEAUTIFUL. I can't wait to show them to you all! We've already signed a few copies for our co-workers and they are hanging proudly in their cubicles. They are so sweet.

Our CD situation is slightly stalled as we are having to do some minor re-design work and have been insanely busy since returning. I am going to stop being a broken record by telling you "soon soon soon!" and instead tell you that these things will unfold in their right time. The readiness is all.

Getting Things Done Right, Not Just Done

2008-09-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

Newsflash, folks: it's not easy to make an album. Things that ought to take weeks can end up taking months, and what began as a Spring release is now starting to look like a Winter '09 release if the snags continue. I say this but I am filled with peace about it because the goal is not to race it to you, it's to get it done right. The packaging has been really important to us on this one, and it just has taken a long time to complete. We sent the album to the printers this week and just got our proofs back. There are some issues that need to be sorted out with the proofs, and because we are leaving for a long trip to Europe tomorrow, these changes can't be made until we get back. That means more time until the album comes out. (insert sigh here)

We are fully aware we are still living in a time when people still would like a physical CD, and we would feel best having the smallest environmental impact possible with the release. With that in mind we decided to go with Oasis, whose six-panel green wallets are an earth-friendly option. From their website:

Oasis Environmental Practices
• All Oasis board and paper packaging is printed on 100% Green Forestry Practices certified stock. Green Forestry Practices certified means we don't promote forest monoculture, clear-cutting of virgin, old-growth timber, nor contribute to other destructive forestry practices.

• Over 99% of the inks we use to create Oasis projects are eco-friendly, vegetable-based inks.

• All the scrap polycarbonate, board, paper, and other industrial waste that can be effectively reused is captured in our plant for recycling.

• All of our manufacturing is domestic and nearly all of it is done under our own auspices, leading to one of the lower carbon footprints in the industry. In other words, Oasis helps reduce excessive strain on the environment by efficiently manufacturing and printing in our own facility, rather than farming out your work all over the country and even all over the globe, a standard practice for the brokers who predominate in the independent disc replication industry.

We feel this is a company who is working hard to have the smallest environmental impact, and we appreciate that. We are also looking at getting our t-shirts printed in a similar vein by another low impact company, which I will expound upon in a later post.

That being said, we are working on a really great album pre-order pack for you that will more than make up for the delay. Hang in there with us.

Au Revoir, Pee Wee!

2008-09-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

We've got some exciting ideas for how to get this new album into your hands, my friends. I'm hoping these dreams can be coded into reality. In the meantime, we are in the final stretches of album design (zzzzzzzzzz - I know that's what you're thinking right now). Everything has to be done by this coming Monday to send to the printers because next week we are leaving our warm Los Angeles digs to explore Europe!

David and I are going to be celebrating our 10 year anniversary of being a band (oh yeah, and being married) by finally going on our long-delayed honeymoon. We'll be going to London, England for 4 days, then driving to Oxford, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Bath, Avebury, Glastonbury, and Stonehenge. Then we will take the chunnel train to Paris and spend a week basking in the glory that is the City of Lights. We have yet to determine whether or not we will be blogging or twittering from the road, but you can rest assured, we will share some of the journey with you. Unfortunately we will not be gigging while we are in Europe, as the logistics of getting the album out just didn't line up with this trip, but you can rest assured that we'd sure like to in the future. If anyone has any great suggestions for restaurants, music clubs, theatre, galleries, etc for these locations, we'd love to hear about them!

The Obamas and The Jonas Brothers (A Weird Day)

2008-09-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

So, some of you might know that David and I have day jobs at a movie studio. Working there is often filled with surprises, and yesterday was no exception. Yesterday we were tipped off that Michelle Obama and her daughters were going to be on the lot, and sure enough, I saw them not once but twice, walking around with the Jonas Brothers, as they were both appearing on a talk show.

Michelle was an absolutely stunning (and tall!) woman and just had a radiating glow about her. My friend with me was freaking out, calling her the "New Jackie O." Another guard said, "She's exactly what we need in the White House, someone who will bring grace and elegance back to the culture." It was really exciting. Her beautiful daughters seemed to be in absolute awe of the (bizarrely clothed and coiffed) Jonas brothers, who performed on a big set on the backlot that was added specifically for the occassion. There were about 1,000 screaming, banshee-wailing, keening pre-teens there with signs and banners and posters, just LOSING THEIR MINDS at the brothers as they performed. As for me and my co-workers? We were geeking out at our possible new First Lady.

I called my cousin's children last night and told them I saw the Jonas Brothers, and I got the grilling from the 9 year old, asking what songs they sang (I had no idea). "Well, what did they sound like?" "They sounded like a ballad and an uptempo." "But...but what were some of the words?" "Uh...something about love and fun and girls? Yeep!" I felt like I'd let her down. I was also told by the 3 year old that she is going to marry all three of the brothers and that apparently the age difference won't matter. It was so adorable and also enlightening, as I realized I generally had no clue what they were talking about. I'm going to have to do a little homework before going home for Christmas!

Just So You Know...

2008-09-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

This is not our final website design. We started messing with stuff this weekend when we weren't working on designing the CD case and got sort of caught up in adding some buttons here. You will see there are some links along the bottom to all the places to find us at the fun sites. Won't you please join us there? You will also see BUTTONS THAT LEAD TO NOWHERE...ooooOOOOOOoooo....

No, this is not the Winchester Mystery Website, we just haven't gotten to those parts yet. This is a long process, folks!

The CD art is coming along (I keep saying that, don't I? But it's really true!). We hope to have it to the printers by the end of next week. In terms of how long until that means you can have a copy in your hands? I'll have to get back to you on that.

Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl

2008-08-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of being given an excellent ticket to Radiohead on Sunday night at the Hollywood Bowl from my friends Beth and Allen. It's...what is today? Wednesday?...and I'm still pretty high from the experience.

This is a band I have loved deeply since The Bends (I later went back for Pablo Honey). I have vivid sense memories of listening to OK Computer for the first time in the deep woods near East Haddam, Connecticut where I was doing regional theatre at the time. Fireflies flitting in front of me in the dark, I remember hearing the first strains of Airbag and feeling sure I had teleported to somewhere otherworldly.

That feeling remains after seeing the Sunday show. The only other time we've seen them live was at Radio City Music Hall during OK Computer. David still claims that as one of the best concerts he has ever seen. Sunday night was a reminder that they still have that power. I feel these guys are our modern day Beethovens and Mozarts. It's the new classical music. Epic, complex, and performed with mastery.

For a minute there I lost myself.

The Making of Somniloquy - Episode 2

2008-08-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

Choosing the Cover, Track Order, and Editing

2008-08-20T12:21:00.000-07:00

We've spent the last couple of nights on the phone with our photographer, Lauren, choosing which shots will go on the packaging for the album. It was difficult as there were many, many lovely shots to choose from. After a fair amount of discussion, we settled on certain shots, not always the expected ones. We had certain ideas about how the cover especially was going to look, but Lauren came in with some nice ideas of her own and what we ended up choosing is a really nice marriage of the two. I think it's going to be a unique and interesting cover that will raise a few eyebrows. You will see it here soon, I promise!

In the meantime, I have been editing the next episodes of The Making of Somniloquy. We hope you liked the first one. Thank you for taking the time to view it. I'm getting the hang of Adobe Premiere now, but I'm also thinking of jumping over to Final Cut. I get the feeling that once you understand one, you understand the other. It's funny that we can know music editing software so well and be so bloody ignorant about adding the video element. It is so much fun, though, and I am chomping at the bit each day to get back to the computer and mess around with these clips. It is making me dream about video ideas for these new songs. I have grand schemes that I need to learn how to turn into affordable and practical reality.

I woke up on Sunday with the distinct feeling we'd gotten the track order wrong for the album. The first and last songs need to be flipped, I think. I'm going to consult with some sages but in the end I think I need to trust my gut on this one.

The Making of Somniloquy - Episode 1

2008-08-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

So here it is, friends, the first in a series (not sure how many yet) of videos talking about the creation of the new album. Shawn Jackson is the interviewer. He is a very dear friend and fan of ours and did an excellent job looking at our body of work as a whole and asking the right questions. You will notice that David is silent during this first one. He does end up speaking later, I promise.

Please note that if you go to the YouTube page directly, you can see the video in much higher quality.

Music Recommendation: KaiserCartel

2008-08-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

Last night we had the pleasure of seeing the band KaiserCartel perform here in LA at the Hotel Cafe. David used to play with Ben when the band was still The Benjamin Cartel, back when we lived in New York. They even did a little touring together. We always love getting to see them play when they're in town. They've become such a lovely, sweet, lilting duo and their songs "Okay" and "The Flood" are especially memorable. They have a new album out called March Forth which I'm listening to as I type this and it's really beautiful.

It's not always easy being a couple who are also a musical duo but these two have magically melded their worlds and music in a way that really works, and I applaud them. Check out their music!

Two Photo Shoots, Both Alike In Dignity

2008-07-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

Let's talk photo shoots. I want to share some pictures from the last couple of weeks. Our big shoot was two weeks ago, as I mentioned, at the wonderful Pasadena Museum of History. It is such a beautiful building and retains a lot of its old charm and intimacy. Here are some snapshots from the shoot:

Lauren and David discussing a shot

Getting the light just right.

Preparing for a seance with some special invited guests.

What could be happening here? You'll soon find out.

This weekend we had an additional shoot in our apartment building, which has a great open space with a lot of light which is great for converting into whatever you might want it to be. It has served us in the past with photo and video shoots. Lauren came by and we did some more work on what might be the cover shot.

During the shoot, I had to be sort of bound and gagged and needed to stay still for long periods of time. I have to say, it sent me to amazing places in my head. Being trussed up in Victorian gear in 92 degree heat and having cheesecloth stuck in my mouth sent me in strange directions. I began to slip outside the room, outside myself, outside the world, and soon I was seeing cells divide and atoms collide and worlds being born and dying in the blink of an eye. My ears were generating Sondheim music that I could literally hear but was not coming from outside stimulus. It. was. strange. And it felt appropriate for what was happening. I doubt you will know from seeing the images, but that's where I was...or wasn't...during the cover shoot.

Lauren also showed us the shots she had taken thus far from the previous shoot, and WOW, we are very impressed. We really can't wait to share them here. They are filled with wonder and beauty and mystery and are vaguely sinister as well. Just how we like it.

As soon as the images are delivered, we are going to get going on the next step in this journey, which is design. We've already done a lot of preliminary work on what the CD is going to look like, but the photos will probably dictate new and exciting possibilities we hadn't imagined before. David is a graphic artist and this task is one of many where his talent gets to really shine. You'll be seeing his lovely handiwork soon.

Pics from Video Shoot

2008-07-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, we've put this temporary site up so we could share this new blog with you and keep you up to date on the making of Somniloquy. We hope you enjoy it and if you're trying to find the link for the RSS feed, until we get it on this page you can click to get it here.

The video shoot last week was with a good friend of ours, Shawn Jackson.
It was pretty simple. We just hung out together and Shawn asked us questions about the album and how it fits into the overall arc of our past work. He's incredibly erudite and smart like that and did a great job interviewing us. We have a lovely new DSLR camera so we thought we'd go try it out on our rooftop overlooking the hills of Hollywood.I've known Shawn for years and he always manages to make me laugh hard.In this shot, Shawn asked us to give him a visual representation of Somniloquy. Looks pretty sullen and sulky to me.
We are lucky. Lucky indeed.
More pics on our Flickr page.

Photo Shoot...At Last!

2008-07-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

Our new album, Somniloquy, has essentially been done on the music side since April. Since then, we've been through three months of bizarre setbacks, delays, and general ennui - not on our parts, mind you, just from the Collective. We decided to take a relaxed attitude about it. There is no point fighting against forces you cannot control. Perhaps there are deeper reasons why the album wasn't ready to come out yet, reasons we cannot see. Or maybe it's just Chaos at work. Regardless, the album that was supposed to be released late Spring/early Summer is now looking at an October release date (exact date TBA).

One of the things that took a great deal of time to get accomplished was the album artwork photo shoot. We have had a very specific idea of how this album should look from the very start of the writing process. The look and feel of the entire album was influenced by this photo exhibit we saw at the Met in New York back in October of 2005. It completely permeates the thematic structure of the whole work, and we had to make sure that the artwork was photographed in a manner befitting that theme.

After a lot of searching and false starts, we found an excellent photographer in Lauren Noble, a recent graduate of Art Center in Pasadena. We knew that we were asking for a very strange shoot and the subject matter was not to everyone's taste. With Lauren, we knew right away when we spoke that we understood each other perfectly and had similar tastes in design and interests both Gothic and Victorian. David had seen her work at her grad show and was very impressed, and we are glad we were able to secure her services.

We've been crazy about the Pasadena Museum of History since we used it in our video shoot for Labyrinth a few years back. It's a big Victorian mansion with rooms full of beautiful original furniture and art. It is large, and dark, and dense. We knew that this was the perfect place for the new album shoot and were adamant about using the space for this shoot. With the wonderful help of our friend Mary, we were able to rent the space, and the big day finally went forward - just yesterday, July 13th.

I had my hair and makeup done by my own personal glam squad - my sister Victoria, before the shoot. She did some beautiful long wavy curls that instantly frizzed and fell in the heat oven that was Pasadena. We arrived to do the garden shots at around 2 PM and already felt we were going pass out from the heat by 2:15. We pushed forward, dodging emerging sprinkler near-catastrophes, and I think got some fabulous shots (which we hope you can see soon).

We then moved into the mansion and were joined by a select group of friends to photograph a good old Victorian seance, complete with ectoplasm. Everyone was incredibly patient as the lights were being set up, and they all looked fabulous in their old-timey outfits. Lauren then spent a lot of time with David and me getting our individual shots, including the one the will hopefully make the album cover. The groundskeeper of the house told us a great story about Vincent Price and a trained wolf that helped me know we were definitely on the right track.

It was an exhilarating day. To finally see such a long project come to its fruition is incredibly rewarding. This is a huge part of the fun of the creation, and we really can't wait to see what the camera captured. There's going to be a lot of post-production work to be done on these images, so it's going to take some time for them to be completed and then designed into the album artwork and the new website.

Next post: The Making of Somniloquy video was shot this weekend as well. See you soon!

Welcome

2008-07-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, this is Adriana. I'm the singer around here. I write things too, and play things, and play on things, and with things, and around things. I'm going to be doing a fair amount of posting, as David (the other half of the Endless) tends to like to stay mysterious. I'm the lips, he's the hands.

I'm not sure how long it's going to take for this blog to go up, nor how long it will take before anyone reads it, but I figured it was a good time to start posting, as we are in the final stages of completing the new album, Somniloquy, and I've been really eager to share the process.

This has been a really interesting process, this album, and very different from the previous one, The Republic of Heaven. We are planning on filming a bit of a retrospective and discussion about all of this on this coming Saturday. We will be using the services of one of our greatest fans and even greater friends, Shawn Jackson, who will interview us and talk about the making of Somniloquy and its place in the greater whole of our work thus far. We really look forward to getting that cut together to share with you here.

We are also getting ready for our big photo shoot on Sunday for the album cover. We've been visualizing this cover since we started working on the album and the concept really drove the writing, so we are thrilled to finally be able to bring it to fruition. We have a fantastic photographer and a really cool location which we will share with you as we go along.

I wanted to announce as well that when the new website goes live, we will have an entirely new web store that we hope you will love. It is based on the Sheeba Spirit Store pioneered by Issa (formerly Jane Siberry) and will include high quality MP3s for download at self-determined pricing. We have gone back and re-mastered our two first EPs, Grumpy Ghost and ...i'm the queen of the moon and they have never sounded better. We hope this new web store makes our music accessible in a way that displays our respect and love for you, the listener and creates a system where trust and respect drives the new music model. We will be unveiling all of this in the next few months.

If you want even more up-to-date info, you can subscribe to our Twitter feed as well. All this and more is coming your way soon. Soon, soon, you're a balloon!