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Meditation on Makeup
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seQweeWvKFw]
“It’s in the heightened gentleness of the silences when she’s concentrating on putting on liquid eyeliner. It’s the low, constant buzz of her pugs snoring in the lap as she applies makeup while sitting on the floor…Now I regularly watch 10 or more of her videos back to back a day. They’ve become my version of mediation.”–Andrea Seigel, writing well for this past Sunday’s NYT Magazine on her mediation-addiction to Lauren Luke’s makeup videos (Luke’s youtube channel).
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Dresscue Me
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/20092004]
My younger sister Joanie is the manager at an enormous vintage store tucked into a warehouse in Los Angeles called Shareen Vintage. I love to call her up and hear about how crazy her day was, but none of her stories will really make sense until the reality show they’ve been filming about the place premiers in April. I can’t wait, if only to see all the beautiful dresses.
It’s going to be called “Dresscue me” and will be on Planet Green (I guess Planet Green is being secretive because I can’t link to them about it. Here’s a NY Times article about Shareen & the show). Until then, I loved this video done by Keith Paugh, commissioned by Launderette.
As you’ll see, Shareen is a fashion philosopher who has a vision for her customers (girls only!), which is why I think the show will be genuinely unique to watch. (You see Joanie a few times in the video, she has long brown hair and is wearing a strapless blue floral dress. Can’t wait to see more of you on the screen, Joan!) You can also visit Shareen Vintage on Facebook, where previous customers literally gush their love for her clothes.
Are you looking to contact Joanie Cusack directly? You can do that right here!
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Multitask, the Game
I was able to play this game long enough to earn the Taste of Ritalin badge. So a pretty sucky multitasker. It’s hard! But I like the nice colors and friendly shapes.
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TV Talk
Happy Monday! I spent last night switching from one illegal Oscar live stream to another. Classy. It felt very 90s—when is technology going to catch up with TV-less audiences? I mostly cringed at Anne Hathaway and James Franco so stilted but somehow it’s always worth it to see the beautiful dresses. Did you watch?
I loved this Aubrey Plaza photo in Sunday’s New York Times Style Magazine. Aubrey plays the indifferent intern on Parks & Recreation. She’s so deadpan it’s post modern. Congrats to Amy Poehler for being the first person to write a bored intern, an office staple, into a sitcom.
On that NBC note, just want to make sure everyone is watching Community. I withheld my laughter suspiciously for the first couple episodes, but now I always look forward to how they will re-invent the typical episode format. They give the characters plenty of room to be strange so it’s never predictable.
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Criterion on Hulu
I can’t believe Hulu Plus now has the entire Criterion Collection. Criterion of elegant dvd covers, thoughtful linear notes, and prestigious $40 price tags? Is no movie devotee’s preciously accumulated, though admittedly dusty, collection safe from the hounds of accessibility? Will your average viewer just blithely switch between an old Family Guy and The Seventh Seal? gasp.
(Though of course none of Wes Anderson’s films which have Criterion editions are on there. Clearly Wes is the last bastion of keeping the pearls behind stiffer paywalls than “Plus.”) {Though many of Wes’s personal favorite Criterions are available.}
I aspire to have watched many more Criterion films than I actually have, and suddenly $8 is not seeming so unreasonable of Hulu after all.
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Holiday Alcohol
The #1 question I get from my non-pregnant/male friends is: do you miss alcohol? For the first 20 weeks, I did not. These days, yes I do. It’s not really the day-to-day, it’s the alcohol associated with occasions. Bloody Marys on plane rides. Margaritas with Mexican. Dinner with friends with a new wine.
Joe and I don’t do gifts for Valentine’s Day. We usually make cards: his a meticulous transformation of what was once just paper. Mine: a wordy, prosy, metaphor-laden 4th grader’s handwriting exercise. Anyway, we usually spend the money on expensive champagne and maybe make scrambled eggs and salmon or something that involves not going into the slushy world outside. Do I plan on having a glass or two? yes.
But for the rest of the non-special times, when the guilt of impeding the development of a single brain cell stops my hand, I thought these drink ideas put together by Alyson at Unruly Little Things where just great. When it’s warmer, I’m looking forward to homemade lemonade being my drink of choice, perhaps embellished with a little rose water.
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Sart. Craft
A great little video in which The Sartorialist talks about his craft, and we get to see how he approaches people on the street, which I’ve always wondered.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5NgG5koPZU&feature]
I’m glad he did this longer feature piece because when this surfaced awhile ago, the haters were all “oh the sartorialist is so annoying and bossy.”
We are such the benefactors of this new “we like what you like” approach to advertising, aren’t we? I hope they never go back to the meaningless ’90s-Super-Bowl-ad style we were all put through in our youth.
seen on Chris Glass, but it’s everywhere now
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For that Queue of Yours
I just added a bunch of movies to my Netflix from Ebert’s list of Best of 2010. We watched I am Love (screenshot above) a few weeks ago, and the clothes are beautiful and Tilda Swinton’s character is complex in the best, quiet, real way. I’m now excited to see Winter’s Bone, The Ghost Writer, and Another Year. Thanks for the tips Ebert!
PS: Not new, but I finally saw Temple Grandin and thought it was inspiring.
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Reasonable Demands
While I was reading submission guidelines from various established journals for nonfiction writing, I found this little demand:
Tin House launches Buy a Book, Save a Bookstore Between September 1 and December 30, 2010, Tin House magazine will require writers submitting unsolicited manuscripts to the magazine to include a receipt for a book purchased from a bookstore. Writers who are not able to produce a receipt for a book are encouraged to explain why in 100 words or fewer. Tin House will consider the purchase of e-books as a substitute only if the writer explains why he or she cannot go to his or her neighborhood bookstore or why he or she prefers digital reads. Writers are invited to videotape, film, paint, photograph, animate, twitter, or memorialize in any way (that is logical and/or decipherable) the process of stepping into a bookstore and buying a book to send along for our possible amusement and/or use on our web site.
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Music Lately
Joie Butter’s mixes from her Anthropologie visits.
A new love themed mix from K.I.D. Collective (the “Remember the Mountain Bed” song is so lovely).
Catching up with CocoRosie (learning the term “freak folk” that applies to Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart and the CocoRosie girls).
Photo by Trickery.