I got a Valentine's Day Card!

Duo: It's Almost Valentine's Day

Leighton Meester in Allure Jan 2011

Allure Magazine Jan 2011

Amber Le Bon in A Nr. 1.2 Italy

UGH my transparent raincoat lust with my debilitating Leighton Meester crush TOGETHER is like crossing the streams in my insides. I'm so in love right now.

Glamour Ethics

The Ethics of Glamour
I have been contemplating posting this video for sometime, please watch it before continuing to read this post as much as that might pain some of you.



I saw this music video film in theaters with MChi when it first came out and this song in particular aroused strong feelings in me (and not just the kind of feelings that sparkly tits will arouse in any of us). What it speaks to quite beautifully, i think, is glamour. This scene occurs during the part of the film where the protagonist is dating the rich bad guy and she is receiving expensive gifts from him. Through this relationship, she becomes more independent (spends less time pining over less-rich good guy and actually gets out on the town), more confident (she is more assertive about her career as a dancer and the future of the club) and she adopts this beautiful, sexy new look. Indeed, this musical number opens with "where have I been all my life?" She sings about her alluring, expensive lifestyle and cheekily defends herself against rumours that she is a whore. She persists that she is a good girl. When she persists that she is good, I see myself persisting that a running away to LA to be a burlesque dancer is good. Good as the antithesis to unethical, imperfect, wrong.

Glamour:
hex: cast a spell over someone or something; put a hex on someone or something
glamor: alluring beauty or charm (often with sex-appeal)
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=glamour

The question that I often come to is "how should I live?" (also "Can you tell me how to get the most out of life?") And to a certain extent, I understand the assertion that "desire is not enough."

But I very strongly desire is the spell-binding power and beauty that I perceive in videos like this one. I struggle with the idea that desire is not enough and that there must be some moral-ethical framework outside an endless cycle of wants. I struggle with the fact that one cannot live inside a music video or a lingerie advertisement (although I dream that I will one day move to Disneyland and disprove this notion by living everyday as a Disney princess - the height of a girlhood image of glamour). It torments me that the fantasy, even when lived for a few moments at a time, is not real. And not only is there conflict between fantasy and reality - but between fantasies themselves. How, exactly can I be a virgin and a whore at the same time? A powerful sorceress and a paper doll?

And what about carpe diem and cultivating my own garden? How are those philosophies opposed to a religious devotion to glamour? Why is this preoccupation vapid?

Although, I do recall my earlier aversion to effigies, which in a way, a fantasy is an effigy. An effigy can become a doppelgänger and I feel as though it begins to do violence to the person it is and image and reflection of. So where does this notion of violence fit in?

I fear I am not making much sense.
Anyways, here's to sparkly tits.
xoxo

Broken Promises

YEAH I KNOW
I totally failed at my new year's resolution of daily blogging. Things have been pretty busy. Well, not really. I mostly just hang out at home and watch Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt and various crime dramas. I have so much work to do packing up my apartment, selling my furniture, cleaning up and instead of actually making progress on all this I have been lying in bed lamenting how tough my life is.

WAHH MY BOYFRIEND LIVES IN MONTREAL. WAAAAAHHH I HAVE TO CLEAN UP AFTER MYSELF. WAAAAHHHH I AM SO BROKE AND MY CUSHY RECEPTIONIST JOB IS SO TOUGH! BOO HOO HOO THERE IS SO MUCH WORK TO DO.

Maybe someday I`ll have real problems. So, yesterday I went out for milkshakes with Kim and Joshua  and I managed to embarrass myself by saying incredibly lewd things within the first five minutes of our conversation. Luckily, Joshua topped me shortly after with a story about sexually transmitted blowfly. Kim and Joshua planned what films to see this year at the Victoria Film Fest and I am looking forward to this interview with Romero and screening of Survival of the Dead. Joshua also let me know that Canadian film maker Xavier Dolan, whose film J'ai tué ma mère I saw with Veronica and very much enjoyed, has a new film Les amours imaginaires  which is quite good. I am hoping it is available on dvd, maybe at Pic a Flic.

I think I will get some actual work done now, maybe make an attempt to clean up a little bit.

Chocolate, Butterscotch and Chocolate Milkshakes and Joshua at Pluto's

Neveryon

I just finished "The Tale of Gorgik" last night and I am so pleased that there are four volumes of this. It was sexy, humorous and well written. Maybe I have a soft spot for pulp and for short stories, but this is more than a sword and sorcery romp. I agree with The Quarterly Black Review of Books review on the back cover, "Cultural criticism at its most imaginative and entertaining best."

At dinner last night Orlando and I had a lengthy conversation about the publishing industry with our new friends Jack and Marie. Marie works for a self-publishing firm and she was very adamant about her dislike of e-readers. Orlando said that in the future some people will have ipods and e-readers and other people will have vinyl records and hard cover first editions.

It is my Dad's birthday today and we are watching the hockey game and sitting in front of the fire.

My Favourite Colour is Red (and other facts)

Freja by Patrick Demarchelier in Vogue February 2011

My Favourite Colour
is Red. This Red. Actually, I like a pinker shade also, a Cherry Red and the more orange-reds too. I like to think of a party with many beautiful young sirens dressed in black cocktail dresses and then me standing apart in a red satin number like the top center dress. Those photos above Freja are from Miu Miu's Spring 2011 RTW Collection and I couldn't be more thrilled with the colour choice. 


Miu Miu has been my favourite line ever since I first became interested in fashion. It has all of the sixties sensibilities of Prada, but it seems to be designed for rich school girls who like to look as though they are retro and modern and futuristic all at the same time. There are also some very playful neon accents in this collection, so it is worth looking at the whole thing (click the link above!) What I like best about this editorial shot of Freja is that they flipped the collar of the jacket. The jackets were not worn that way on the runway and I think it shows the wonderful shape of the collar.