Art Of the Day / Coincidence

Monkey has decided to create some sort of art every day, for at LEAST the rest of 2010. He is going to put these pieces of art up on his blog, Politics=Art=Culture, daily for the rest of 2010. He's starting today, so be sure to check it out!

Also, Monkey has to relate two incidents that occurred recently on our trip down to Long Beach/San Diego for our friends' wedding which is strong evidence (yes, we know about the principle of self-proving-ness, or whatever it's called in social psychology) in the idea of the Law of Attraction:

1) Seal is looking for a bagel shop she used to frequent when she lived back in Long Beach. We're driving down the road she thinks it was on, and we turn into a shopping center. I point out a bagel shop, and she knows that it's the wrong one, but she remembers it being in a shopping center with another cafe/bagel place in it. I then see a sign that says "The Bagelry" that's been removed (thus the shop left the plaza). I get on my phone and look up the bagelry, as Eve thinks that might be the place. We find an address, and we drive over.

When we get to our destination, we drive around the lot, and cannot find the listed address. Out of luck, we decide, on a whim, to see what's in the other large shopping center across the street. As we're driving, I sees a place called "Grounds" and I ask her if that's it. She remembers the place being much smaller, but we decide to get out of the car to check the menu anyway - and we've found it!

Grounds actually just expanded a few years back, misleading us as we were looking for a tiny, hole-in-the-wall place, as opposed to the diner-sized restaurant it is now. Eve got her childhood bagel sandwich, and we somehow found the place she was looking for.

The strangest thing is that we would have never found Grounds if we weren't looking for the Bagelry, a place that Eve probably has never eaten at.

2) It turns out that our friend Kevin is also in Long Beach due to a business training event. We try to meet up, but he tells me his phone is dying, so he might not be able to get a hold of us on our one free day down in LB. We decide that Eve and her family might take me to a nearby park for some nice naturetime, and I let Kevin know about our plans to head out over to the park. He says he might not be able to make it, but if he is available, he should call us.

Instead of going to the park, however, because it looks like it's going to rain, we decide to make a trip to the only store that sells Indonesian food in the greater Long Beach area. It's this little tiny shop, which is generally only frequented by people specifically looking for Indonesian food.

As we go in, Eve is showing me around, and I look up to see Kevin walking in. Randomly, he happened to eat lunch nearby (and he charged his phone in the restaurant), and got thirsty so he followed a large group of people into the Indo store, thinking if so many people were going in, they must have some good food/drinks/snacks/whatever.

Of all the places in all of the surrounding Long Beach area, the one guy we're looking for happens to stroll into the one shop we're in thanks to him wanting a soda. Crazy.

Another example that just happened two days ago:
My dad leaves me a message that he found out that my great-grandfather carved a wood block while in the Japanese American internment camps and the relief is now in the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C. On a business trip, my dad was going to go to the Smithsonian and see his grandfather's work in person.

Since I missed his call due to work, and I didn't want to chance waking him up (due to the time difference between California and D.C., I wait until the next day thinking "well, he's probably in a meeting, so I'll just leave a message." Imagine my surprise when he picks up WHILE HE IS STANDING IN FRONT OF THE WOOD BLOCK IN THE SMITHSONIAN. He told me he literally had just found the piece, and walked up to it when he got my call. Crazy, right?

Anyway, although this has definitely helped to sell this little Monkey on the Law of Attraction, I'm not going to bank on just positive thinking to help me reach my goals. Hard work, determination, and action are what's going to do the heavy lifting, but if this Law of Attraction stuff helps out, I'm totally down.

Center for the Book's Holiday Craft Fair today!

Come check out Center for the Book's Holiday Craft Fair later this afternoon starting at 5:30pm-8:30pm at 300 De Haro St. (between 16th St. + 17th St.). Monkey+Seal have a booth showcasing and selling some of their newest prints and ties. Along with Panda Rage and Pandamonium, Monkey has a new limited edition serigraph of Sad Panda, featuring this sad panda in the rain with the text *sniff* It is handpulled on toned paper, and will never be printed again.

Raffle Winners Announced!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our raffle! Fun times all around, and here are our list of big winners!

3rd place: Nico M. wins a copy of the Monkey Zine!
2nd place: Karin from good one karin wins a copy of the Monkey Zine and the Bad Date Zine Issues 1 & 2!
1st place: Alana R., one of our facebook fans gets to choose any one of Seal's digital prints!
Grand prize: Sean from our newsletter list wins his choice of either the "Cryptids At Night" Serigraph or a $45 gift certificate at the Monkey + Seal shop! Grats!

Congrats to everyone for participating, and we appreciate everyone who took the chance on the extra entries. All winners should be notified via email in the next few days (Monkey is still a bit ill) about how to claim your prize. Or, if you read this, just email us (info [at] monkeyandseal.com) with your mailing address and we'll get it shipped out ASAP.

Also, just fyi, we used random.org to do a random number generation after plugging in everyone's name into a numbered spreadsheet. We then took the first four numbers and went from 3rd to the grand prize that way. It's a super cool site for anyone interested in running a raffle, lottery, etc.! Check 'em out!

PS - If you have time, we'd still love to have you fill out our survey! Thanks!

Overworking

Hi all, sorry for the late post...Monkey has been fighting the flu, and Seal has been taking care of him, so the idea of sustainability has definitely come to mind.

Both being workaholics (Monkey by far being the worst), M+S need to constantly remind themselves that the world doesn't end if you have to call in sick to work, or if you only can finish 50% of a project. Yes, there are consequences (you miss a day of pay, you get a lowered grade, etc.) but if you constantly push yourself too hard, too fast, too long, you'll eventually burn out and then you'll be out of it for days.

Monkey has been unable to really do anything for the past three days now, which is not the best timing since he's trying to prepare some new prints for the Book Arts Jam (where he'll be exhibiting at the Academy of Art table) due to his illness. After trying to work his dayjob while sick, he ended up going home early one day, then he slept in the stockroom for an hour the next day, and finally he decided that he couldn't come in.

Life goes on, people may be inconvenienced, but the longer you are sick, the longer the minor inconvenience goes on. It's best just to take a full day off or two, rest (don't do other stuff!) and recover.

This is not to say that there aren't time when going all out 200% isn't necessary, but that shouldn't be the way of life. Monkey thinks you should definitely push your limits as necessary and as much as you can, but know your limits so you just don't push too far. Be sustainable!

Monkey + Seal Giveaway Raffle!

Hey everyone! Monkey + Seal recently saw our first holiday card display (yikes!) and got in the gift-giving mood. Sooo, we have decided to hold our first raffle! Yay for you! Yay for free stuff! What can you win? Good question!

The prizes are:
3rd place - A free copy of The Monkey Zine!
2nd place - A free copy each of The Monkey Zine, The Bad Date Zine Issue 1 & Issue 2!
1st place - Your choice of any single print of Seal/Eve's that's in the shop!
Grand Prize - Either a free "Cryptids at Night" serigraph by Monkey/Ri.S.K. (value of $75) or a $45 gift certificate to the store.

Woo hoo! We're giving away over $100 worth of stuff! If you're as excited as we are, know that the contest is going to end this Sunday at 11:59 PM PST, with winners announced here at the blog on a special Tuesday post!

Here's the scoop as to how to enter:
Fill out our survey for 5 entries!
Any purchases on our Etsy site from Friday til Sunday night (11:59pm PST) gets 5 entries!
You get 2 entries for following our blog!
Fan us on Facebook for 2 entries!
You get 2 entries for signing up for our newsletter (from the sidebar on our main site).
You get 1 entry for posting a link to your favorite item in our shop and telling us why in the comments below!
If you saw our twitter post about our contest, retweet it for 1 entry! (limit 1 RT per 3 hours).

That's 18 potential entries you can have! More if you're a twitter-a-holic! Also, if you're already a fan on FB, or are following are blog, you don't even have to do anything - we'll already count you in!

Soo, good luck everyone, and we hope to see such a flurry of Monkey + Seal activity that we can barely contain ourselves! Have a great weekend!