If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in a library?

images via The Sartorialist , Lots of Lovely Tumblrs, Badlands, Cat Party

I want to grow my hair desperately. Look at all these beautiful long locks - tres jealous.

Let's Go Little Kitty Kat

images via random awesome tumblrs

I love cats - not as much as some people - but I do love them. I also love this Beyonce song and her wild cat inspired eyeshadow. Amaze!

“It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything.”

My favourite 90s girl babes.

1. PJ Harvey - She was actually my second introduction to "angry girl rock (TM)" in my early teens (Alanis Morisette was first - I think it was worth a 2nd) which I did and still love. I still am fascinated with her image (from androgynous to feminine), her lyrics and the fact that she played a guitar that was as big as her. Not to mention she did a song with Nick Cave and a movie with Hal Hartley - whats not to love?

2. Liz Phair - First off let me just say that 'Exile in Guyville' is a near-perfect indie pop/rock record (while it really does not have much to do with 'Exile on Main Street') and though I can't really vibe with what Liz is up to these days - she is totally unfairly derided and sidelined for writing some absolute jams about blow jobs and one night stands. The women is a 90s legend (female or otherwise). Plus she also wrote some of my absolute fave break up songs.


3. Kathleen Hanna - She's still one of my absolute idols for too many reasons to list in full but here are some - (1)she was in three of my favourite bands/acts - Bikini Kill, Julie Ruin and Le Tigre, (2) she was one of the first riot grrrls (see above pic and/or read this) and (3) she currently writes a kick ass blog.

4. Kim Gordon - She of Sonic Youth fame needs little introduction or justification but here are some of my favourite things about her - fashion line, fashion sense, Gilmore Girls cameo and this song.



5. Fiona Apple - I love all her songs - seriously, I don't think there is one I don't like - this speaks to me as the hallmarks of a great self critic and editor, something rare and incredibly admirable. She also writes great lyrics, has incredible delivery and an amazing pop sensibility. Oh and she did a film clip with Zach Galifianakis and gave this speech - two things which make me love her all the more.


6. Chan Marshall/Cat Power - OK so it was late in the 90s when she began to break on through but she still counts and this early Cat Power is kinda when I like her best. When she was doing songs/videos like this and this - rather than this. Confession - I based my fashion choices and hair after her style in those first two videos for YEARS. Still love roller skates and yellow nail polish.


7. Courtney Love - Love her or hate her.

Peee Esss Just cause I feel like these two ladies need an honorary mention.

some of my favourite things

Herb and Dorothy


45365


Winnebago Man

These are my three of my favourite "new" indie films I've seen this year so far, that if you have the chance I reccomend you catch (if you haven't already). With SFF just around the corner and MIFF not far off - I imagine this list of new indie reccomendations will get a LOT longer.

Just get through the goddamn day.

"looking at the stills makes me want to watch the film again, even though it crushed my little heart. That scene in the carpark! Oh, all of it, really. So fucking beautiful. And romantic as hell, in the best possible way" - my friend Johanna sent me these images with this - it perfectly describes how so many people felt about this film such a brilliant adaption too. It totally brightened a really bad day for me as well - thanks love!

Best Movies You've Never Seen #8

Citizen Ruth (1996) - Alexander Payne

"Ruth: You wanna send a message? I ain't no fucking telegram, bitch!"

So its pretty much a given that Alexander Payne is a genius (at least pre-2002) 'About Schmidt' and 'Election' were both absolutely brilliant black comedies - same goes for 'Citizen Ruth' - a black comedy about abortion. You'd have to be some sort've comic mastermind to pull this off - I have no idea why someone this smart got sucked into the mishmash of crap that was 'Paris J'taime'.

Also did I mention Laura Dern stars as the loveable/hateable pregnant Citizen Ruth?

Both offensive and insightful, this is one the best films that it really seems nobody has seen.

Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow.

pics from Smitten Kitchen, Cup of Jo, Cooking Books and Fern and Feather (yum)

So I've just started reading some cooking blogs and though I get easily overwhelmed by them all - I am obsessed with one idea - salt! Yes I know this may sound simple but whether it be essential minerals or just a taste sensation I am craving I want to make all these salty sweet treats. Here are some essential links for all you salty/sweet lovers like me out there - choc-salt cookies, choc-oatmeal-salt-cookies, salty krispy treat, sea salt brownies, semolina salty cookies, salty icecream sandwhiches, oh and some more cookies.

TRIVIA - The combination of salt, fat and sugar releases endorphins in the brain which is why we get the happy buzz from peanut butter and jam sandwhiches and all other salty/sweet/fat treats. Also they taste awesome.

AND in other news - 'WHO IS SALT?'

Wuthering Heights

via Wild at Heart

Oh dear lord - this is just genius, couldnt' help myself from sharing. I honestly adore Kate Bush more than any other woman on earth.



I love Kate Bush covers as well this and this, are two of my faves and on a tangental note have you heard THE best Kelis cover ever? I listen to this song 100 times a day AND Kelis may be my second favourite woman on earth.

I feel too young

Been catching up on my NPR and tuning into the Tiny Desks Phoenix concert and got reminded how much I love this song! I love it even more acoustic, restrained and less dance your face off, gives me chills!

Everybody's shaking ooh-yeah!

The Dachsund UN

Just in case you were wondering this is the best and cutest thing happening in Melbourne for the next two Saturdays. Dachsund UN! Its part of the most awesome Next Wave Fest.

I just like how he's always leaning. Against stuff. He leans great.

Pop Culture First Kisses rated here by the most awesome ladies Marisa Meltzer, author of 'Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music' (which has finally come into the library!), and Elizabeth Spiridakis, who runs the most increds blog White Lightning (feelslikewhitelightning.blogspot.com) they included My So Called Life!

Its another of my fave My So-Called Life moments - I have many OK? I still can't believe this was Angela and Jordan's first kiss - I get choked up just thinking about it. How he kisses her at the wrong moment and then kicks her out of the car when she actually WANTS him to kiss her! Blow-by-blow but oh the angsty agony of it all.

I totally rate the Trip and Lux (Virgin Suicides) kiss as well, and LOVE the Little Women inclusion (this was one of my fave movies when I was younger) plus I always wanted Jo and Laurie to get together - hate you Amy.

I've suddenly gone blank on my favourite on-screen kisses - I have this feeling Dans Paris is in there but what else? I'll update when they come to me.

Just Throw it in the Bag

Black Cat Necklace

Best Fucking Friends Necklace

I left my heart in Paris stationary

First Kiss Zine

Fuji Instax Mini


Want it. Need it. Got to have it.

Mixtapes For Johanna

pics from fffound and So Much to Tell You

I made a wordpress called Mixtapes For Johanna. I make a lot of mixtapes for my friend Johanna who lives in another city. Since I’ve run out of tape, CDs and stamps I decided to make her a website for her mixes over the interwebs, um, thats why its called Mixtapes for Johanna. Feel free to download!

Best of the Fest, and all the Rest

Basquiat

This year I'm going to the Sydney Film Festival. First time I've ever travelled to a film festival before - kinda exciting. So....I'm only going for two days and therefore missing a lot of these films but heres my run down on the best of the fest, in no particular order.

1. Exit Through the Gift Shop - There couldn't be more buzz about this film at the moment. Love his "art" or hate it, this is a good film.

2. Life During Wartime - Todd Solondz I've loved him since Welcome to the Dollhouse, one of my favourite films of all time. Even if some of his more recent films are a bit patchy, I'm still hoping for something as good as Welcome to the Dollhouse or Happiness.

3. The Tree - This film is closing out Cannes Festival and director Julie Bertucelli directed the semi-awesome film Since Otar Left.

4. Last Train Home - This doco looks brutal and amazing - make sure your in a good place before seeing this.

5. The Killer Inside of Me - I'm definitely interested in seeing Jessica Alba getting beaten to a bloody pulp. Also I loved director Michael Winterbottom's 24-Hour Party People.

6. Beautiful Darling - I missed this at Melbourne Queer Festival and I'm missing it at SFF too. I love all things Warhol, this films about Candy Darling one of the Factory crew, I've heard really good things about this.

7. Howl - I love Robert Epstein (director of Life and Times of Harvey Milk and Word is Out) and James Franco, oh and Ginsberg who this biopics about.

8. Nobody Knows About Persian Cats - Indie Rock in Iran - this looks adorable and amazing.

9. White Material - Dear Claire Denis, I've been trying to catch your films for the last two years but its harder than you'd think. I'm very excited that I've finally bought tickets and made a date to see White Material and I'm sure I'll love it, 'gards Sam

10. Joan Rivers: A piece of work -This is why the phrase laugh-a-minute was invented.

11. Four Lions - 'Jihadist comedy' is what this film has been referred to as, its about suicide bombers plotting a wave of terror in the UK. Sounds good to me.

12. Teenage Paparazzo - Yeah so Adrien Grenier made a documentary, the premise of the film is pretty interesting to me. It follows a kid named Austin Visschedyk who decided to become a paparazzi at the young age of 13 - Adrien spotted him in the camera throng and was like 'whats up?' and made a film about it.

13. The Runaways - If you've read my blog (or any other for that matter) you'll know why I'll be seeing this. I know it looks bad but I've totally been sucked into this film.

14. I am Love - I love Tilda Swinton whose starring (I've forgiven her for the Benjamin Button fiasco) but this film also has a lot of Sundance buzz and the plot sounds a bit first-world-problems which is a bit ew.

15. Hesher - Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a greasy, tattooed loner and early Sundance buzz is bad, all signs point to WIN.

16. Ghost Writer - The latest from Roman Polanski whether you love him or hate him, think he's genius or a felon, you can't deny the man knows how to make a good movie.

18. Cyrus - I love the Duplass bro's previous mumbly films Puffy Chair and Baghead. Could their first studio film with an awesome cast (John C Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marissa Tomei) be anything but, um, super-awesome?

Robert Bresson's 'Devil Probably' (1977) definitely isn't my favourite of his films (Pickpocket is in case you were wondering). Bresson didn't quite capture disillusioned youth very well at all for me. Most of the characters left me cold and depressing message of the film was unrelenting. At the "climactic" ending of the film I felt like I was Elaine from Seinfeld going to see the 'English Patient'. Paris in the 1970s must have been DARK.

This scene was pretty much the saving grace of the film. That and the characters excellent hairdos and beautiful blank editorial model faces.

How to Survive in an Office

1. Watch this video

WHY SO SERIOUS BUSINESS? - watch more funny videos

2. Read this article or read my favourite part below - love you Elizabeth Sankey

"Be Careful Of Making Friends

Offices are magical, special places. They exist in a weird time warp where it’s always 1974, everyone looks the same, and there are no other people in the world except the ones enclosed within those four walls. That’s why they all care so bloody much about stationery and who’s used their mug – it’s all these people have goddamit. Due to everyone being dressed in the official uniform of depression, there is no way to distinguish what cultural business they’re into. Therefore you relate to everyone on a very basic level.

Imagine a nudist commune where you’re unable to contextualise people by their clothes, so you must simply judge them on their words and actions. In an office it’s exactly the same, except you judge them by the links they email you, and if they talk about good TV in the morning. This can be very beautiful as you start to discover people in a new way – for example you can tell instantly if someone’s a twat from whether or not they laugh at you when you can’t use the photocopier. However, it also means you find yourself forming desperate friendships with the first person who seems vaguely fun. That’s great, friends are great, but if you take them outside the office you will discover they’re COMPLETELY MENTAL. They’ll turn up at the pub in big white trainers, flared cords, and an Oasis T-shirt. Not even a real Oasis T-shirt, but one of the ones you can get in Topman that are made to look “Vintage”, but are in fact “Retro”.

It’s all well and good having an office friend, but never ever take that friendship outside the office."

3. Don't you think its probably time you did some work?

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.


- WB Yeats

I have so many things I want to post about at the moment all filmy (as I saw Devil Probably, My Sex Life - finally - and I'm going to Sydney Film Fest - squeal - film fest one line pre-reviews too come) and all musicy, I'm thinking about starting a separate mixtape wordpress, just so I can have a blog, tumblr and wordpress.

But I have no time or energy at the moment to write any of this (or take on the unknown world of wordpress) as I'm spending every speck of time and energy on staying warm and eating carbs because its so friggin' freezin' in Melbourne at the moment. Times like this Sydney looks mighty fine to me and my blue fingertips.

Anyway consider this post a pre-amble to many posts to come this weekend and to make me feel better about not posting as much as I'd like.

Oh and the poem is pretty awesome - Yeats man, who knew?

Also you should all be listening to this and this at the moment because they are both awesome and watch this if you need some cheering up.

In defence of the slut: Emily Maguire’s 'Your Skirt’s Too Short'

My girl Anna Barnes wrote an amazing review of Emily Maguire's book here. You should all check it ASAP.

I just cleaned out an old PC hard drive used between 2001-05, which took hours by the way, and found about a 100 pictures of Karen O, Chan Marshall, Margot Tenenbaum (not a real person I know) and Patti Smith. Its nice to know that I was looking up to some good women when I was 18 to 22.

Lil' Jon, he always tells the truth

Its been a good week, actually its been a good couple of weeks, the days and weeks have started to blend together. I've been reading a lot, seeing a lot of bands and a lot of movies.

I'm lucky to have a lot of friends who are important enough to get free tickets to things like Vampire Weekend at the Palace Theatre (a relatively big venue) here in Melbourne and are nice enough to take me along. Last time I saw them was years ago at the Prince (a much smaller venue) and from memory it was mid-week and definitely not sold out. This was a completely different experience with moshing crowds, all taking photos on their iPhones and clapping and singing along. I kind of felt like I was at a Coldplay concert. Not that I’m complaining I’m sure Festival Hall (where Kanye played his first Melbourne show to give you an idea) was so much more intense than that. They came on stage to the strains of DJ Kool I'm pretty sure? And they sounded great and watching their drummer made me contemplate taking up the drums again.
Almost every song was met with thunderous applause except my favourite song 'Diplomat’s Son’- oh well.

How cute is this video by the way?

I also managed to squeeze in reading Joshua Ferris’s amazing book ‘Then We Came to an End’ which captures perfectly the general ennui, oddness (and maybe the poetry) of office life – these books of failed dreams a la Revolutionary Road terrify me though – as Foer would say ‘heavy boots’. I also read 'Ablutions: Notes for a Novel' by Patrick DeWitt another book I highly recommend – its written in the second person which works really well strangely enough. I found the style of character sketches incredibly inspiring as well. As someone whose found the novel an incredibly difficult form to tackle I reckon adding ‘Notes for a Novel’ to your title can take the pressure of yourself quite a bit.

This weekend I’m getting my blues on - seeing Tortoise (bluesy? Bluenote? Er…), baking blueberry muffins (I’ll post the recipe if they work) and watching Blue.

Met Gala

I don't usually 'comment' on fashion events such as the Met Gala red carpet - BUT -

Guess who I'd like to hang out with at the Met Gala?....
And all we'd be talking about is how pretty Tina Fey's make-up looked and whether it would be lame to get her autograph and tell her she's our hero.....
...and how everyone's going to hate on this dress but we kinda love it a lot - its glowing for chriss sakes, its MAGIC!

Just some random awesomeness via YouTube

(via Cup of Jo)

The Cupcake Cannon! Delicious, Colourful and Violent - i probably need one.

What you call love was invented by men to sell nylons

I miss Mad Men so much! Come back to me.

Theses are only SOME of my favourite scenes as its so hard to choose. Joan's rape, Betty shooting the pigeons and the paper-bag-over-the-head moment - I think these scenes are some of the most telling about the female characters in this series as loveable and hate-able as they are.

The dream of life is dreamed on a bed that is too hard.

image via so much to tell you

Jean Paul Richter the man who said this also invented the term Doppelgänger and wrote extensively about beds. I first heard about him the other week courtesy of an oldish Sam Lipsyte novel Homeland that I read because The Ask hasn't come into the library yet.

Anyway I'd really like to be face down, fast asleep, dreaming in my bed right now. Rather than in a weird unslouchable chair at work writing this.

today is a bit harder than most mondays

The Only Place by Linda Hasselstrom

The only place a woman can go to be alone
is the bathroom.
A woman would like to be wrapped in strong arms
when she cries, without having to explain,
or huddle on the couch wrapped in a blanket and a cat.
But all over America, women crouch instead
on a white, cold monument to wasting water.
We lean against a chilled tile wall,
stare at ourselves in an icy mirror,
flush the toilet to cover howls and curses,
brush our teeth twice to cover the taste of anger.
We lock the door, fill the tub with hot bubbles,
take a long time shaving our legs and armpits,
study the way waves break over bulging stomachs.
We scour the sink and rearrange the bottles under it,
refold towels, throw away old prescriptions,
count bandaids and bottles of suntan lotion.
We turn out the lights, stare into candle flames,
light incense, try to pretend we’ve taken our troubles
to a glowing temple, placed them in the lap
of a smiling golden Goddess.

Outside, men who wouldn't know what to do
if a woman curled up in bed and cried
can relax before bloodless images on TV
and think, "She's only in the bathroom
doing some woman's thing."
Behind a locked door, a woman
spins the empty toilet paper roll
like a Tibetan prayer wheel,
chanting "Help me, help me, help me."