Rolling In The Deep

My friend/one-time roommate Megan showed me this a while ago, but I periodically get re-obsessed.   Just wanted to share because I think there is some serious beauty going on in this video.  I also love that she never moves from the chair.  And obviously, lady can sing.

Hey...This is a private residence...man.

Not having your own car when living in Upstate New York (I mean north of Albany, not Westchester) is almost like being in prison.  I find myself spending more and more time in my pajamas, slowly atrophying into a Jack Torrance/The Dude hybrid (minus the sweet jelly sandals and the white russians, and the whole freezing to death in a maze thing).  The winter is killing me.  If it were sunny and warm I'd at least attempt to ride my bike, even though I'm sort of chicken about it and worry about getting hit by a car.  Post-grad life blows.  Ugh.  I hate being in whiney bitch mode.  I need an adventure.  And some sunshine.  My favorite scene from "The Big Lebowski" is below.  If I can't have sunshine, or a puppy, I'm taking Jeff Bridges in a bathtub.

Muses

I was on my favorite gossip site (laineygossip.com) today and Lainey posted about Haute Couture week happening in Paris right now (Here).  Chanel presented today, so of course Uncle Karl's favorite muses turned up.  Among them Vanessa Paradis.  She looked UH-Mazing.  She rarely pops up, but when she does it's like finding a $20 bill in your coat pocket.  Like Lainey's post says, she's a badass.  She wore jeans when everyone else went demure.  Granted, she styled said jeans with a sick blazer and some gnarly ankle boots, but few could get away with it the way she does (click the link to see Vanessa's sartorial awesomeness, guaranteed to make your day better).  Not to mention she has such a lovely face and that adorable gap between her teeth and Johnny Depp is her baby daddy.  She's also tiny.  I'm tiny.  The fact that she is too just makes me feel sort of empowered by it.  Major girl crush.  Anyways, seeing her got me thinking about all of the sexy, beautiful, intelligent, interesting chicks who remind me that I actually love being a girl.

  

The charming Ms. Paradis

Edie Sedgwick

Marianne Faithfull

Sienna Miller (I need those Docs)

Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross in "True Grit".  She's a pistol.

Charlotte Rampling (This could be my mom 30 years ago.  What a fox.)

There are so many more, including my mom and sister who continuously remind me to be a sassy, self-confident pistol of a woman.  Here's to you ladies.

Unnecessary things I've gotten used to

Both of my parents drive Priuses (Prii?).  Both cars are "loaded", but my mom's is newer and has heated seats, which for some strange reason, my dad's doesn't.  I have no idea why Toyota would include every other luxury but leave out (in my opinion) the most important feature!  My brother and I share a ten year old Saab, and even IT has heated seats.  I mean how frivolous and obnoxiously Western are heated seats.  We (when I say "We", I really mean "me") have gotten to a place where we can't even sit on standard, regular, room temperature car seats.  I'm not complaining.  I am ALWAYS cold.  Heated seats make winter a tinge more bearable for me.  Needless to say, today I went with my mom while she ran some errands.  We took my dad's car (it's the more spoiled of the two, getting to live in the garage rather than sitting in the frigid driveway, and therefore takes little time to warm up).  I climbed in and had a micro-wave of panic when I remembered that this Prius is the inadequate (I use that term loosely) of the two.  No heated seats.  I thought to myself, "I really like heated seats.  I don't like that they don't exist here.  My butt is cold.  I want a slice of pizza."  Stream of consciousness.  My mom verbalized my thought by adding, "I really like the heated seats."  I guess what I'm getting at is:  We.  Are.  Spoiled.  Heated seats, DVR, cable television in general, internet, smartphones.  I'm not trying to preach about the frippery (yeah, I just used the word frippery) of Western society, it's just that holy cow do we live life with things we consider absolutely essential that really aren't.  And no, the irony of me writing this on my laptop, for an inconsequential, self-indulgent blog (we have blogs!  see what I'm saying?) while watching Lindsay Lohan's version of "The Parent Trap" on my flat screen at the end of my overly blanketed bed, is not lost on me.  I know it's totally ridiculous.  Good thing I dig irony.  I'm still wondering how to say "Prius", but plural. 

Curiosity Cabinet

I have a running list of things that I'd like to acquire at some point during my lifetime.  It currently includes a greenhouse, Aldous Snow's wardrobe, an in-house library and most recently a curiosity cabinet.  Clearly I want the makings of a Victorian gothic, fictional rock-star version of Clue.  Up until last month a banjo was also on the list, but thanks to my awesome friend Bill, that quota has been met.

Looking at my list I'm surprised the curiosity cabinet wasn't added sooner.  I love all things morbid and weird.  When I was around six years old I begged my mom to take me to the cemetery in our town so that I could read all of the names and dates on the headstones.  The propensity for creepiness hasn't waned as I've gotten older.  If anything it's grown thanks to more awareness, and the internet.  Back in 2008, and into the earliest part of 2009 the museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology, where I went to school) hosted "Gothic: Dark Glamour", an exhibit dedicated to all things fashionably Gothic.  It ranged from Victorian mourning attire, memento mori, the curiosity cabinet, up to Japanese Gothic Lolitas.  It was awesome.  If they had let me I probably would've made my home amongst all of the eerie loveliness, all while swishing around in Winona Ryder's red dress from the movie Dracula (yeah, it was there).  I loooove Winona.  I don't care what Johnny's tattoo says now.  Winona Forever!

Sorry.  Tangent.  Anyways.  Curiosity cabinet.  I am so in love with the idea of having a designated place in your home for interesting things.  Initially, like back in the 15th century, cabinets of curiosities were actual rooms and museum type places, but Victorians started implementing actual cabinets as furniture to showcase their findings.  Findings ranged from taxidermic animals (another morbid obsession), mostly things pertaining to natural history, or just things of beauty.  I think I might actually enjoy opening the doors to a curiosity cabinet more than the doors to my closet.  Blasphemy coming from a fashion school graduate, I know.  Oh well.  I am nothing if not a rebel.

We are so inundated with imagery and information I think most of us take the wonderful things around us for granted.  What a lovely idea to house some of them in a special place, just as a reminder that, yeah maybe you know what a Conch shell or taxidermy squirrel looks like, but aren't they still fucking cool?  Because they are.

That is Bonnier de la Mosson's (18th C. French Aristocrat) Second Cabinet of Natural History.  Trip to Paris:  added to the list.

Moustachioed gentleman= Victorian taxidermist.  I really just wanted to use the word "moustachioed". 

Confession.

When I get sick I secretly like how my voice sounds.  A cold (or picking up a hefty cigarette habit) is as close as I'm ever going to get to the raspy, husky sexiness of Kathleen Turner.  Needless to say I woke up a couple of days ago with a stuffy nose, a sore throat and that disgusting coating that comes from breathing through your mouth.   I consider none of those things sexy.  My sarcastic inner-monologue immediately thought "Awesome!".  It then thought, not so sarcastically, "Lauren Bacall!".  Always looking on the bright side I am.  Unfortunately my sexy voice ambitions have been dashed because when I hear myself talk I sound like I'm inside a diving helmet that's filling with water.  The moral of this story is that I need more vitamin c, I hate winter and it's imperative that I start smoking two packs a day.  Have some Bogie and Bacall for cyphering through my ramblings: