It appears that I have a new girl crush. Although this one is also an art crush, which multiplies things considerably. Molly Crabapple is a New York illustrator, fine artist and total badass. She created the alternative drawing salon Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School, an inspired mash-up of cabaret performances and life drawing which has gone worldwide (including Dublin - I really need to get to one of these nights, quick smart) and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Marvel comics.
She's also a great big ride.
Her style of illustration is like a great big whimsical Victoriana steampunk sandwich filled with French Rococo decadence, intricate curls, smirking lips, creeping tentacles, corseted waists and stripey stockings. It's beautiful, breathtaking, saucy and smart. I want to eat it.
It's just outstandingly gorgeous. All of it. Just when I thought I couldn't love her work any more, I came upon portraits she has done of four of my favourite women of all time, three of which were part of her Saints and Sinners project (where she sketched 66 notorious figures from history).
There are even Molly Crabapple iPhone covers, with these two being my favourites. I think I'd be too terrified to actually use them though (if I ever got my hands on one), for fear that it'd get as scratched and chipped as my current Hello Kitty one. I'd be too afraid to ever get drunk in case I dropped it. The horror!
She's seven kinds of deadly. I've become such a fangirl. New favourite lady.
Last night, the Bear and I finally got around to seeing the much hyped silent film The Artist. Dangerously enough, I was expecting to love it from the get-go and luckily it didn't disappoint. When I wasn't busy stuffing popcorn and Minstrels into my gob as quietly as I could manage, I was enthralled by the music, the amazing dog, leading lady Peppy Miller's dazzling smile, and the tremendous expressions of the monochrome epitome of a dashing matinee idol, George Valentin.
The handsome bastard.
Bérénice Bejo is outrageously endearing as Peppy, the star on the rise in Hollywoodland, as she swiftly adapts to talkies and sparkles her way to the top. Predictably enough, the wardrobe of a vivacious 1920s ingénue is utterly gorgeous.
I loved that the story revolves around the introduction of sound and the impact it had on the careers of various stars, as I've always found that era of Hollywood history particularly fascinating. I would have written a post specifically about it after seeing The Artist, only I already did one last year. So if, like me, you find it all terribly interesting, it can be found here, for (what I hope will be) your reading pleasure.
"20 year-old South African stripteaser Kathy Keeton (1939–1997), performs at London’s Embassy Club… while her mother, who moved to London “to keep an eye on her daughter” sits in the audience, sewing G-strings for her daughter. c. 1960."
While watching (and being deafened by - it was so LOUD, whatever was going on with the speakers) Raiders of the Lost Ark in the IFI at the weekend, I found myself thinking what a great character Marion Ravenwood is. A hard-drinking, no-nonsense bartender in a dodgy Nepalese watering hole, defiant in the face of creepy Nazis and handy with a frying pan.
She's pretty much the exact opposite of the shrill, shrieking, painful waste of a female character that is Willie Scott in Temple of Doom. (Don't even get me started on Shortround. The Scrappy Doo to Indiana's Scooby.)
But back to lovely Marion. During the buildup to the big chase scene in Cairo, I found myself enamoured with yet ANOTHER pair of harem style pants. For someone who decided long ago that they were stupid, here I am writing about them again, mere weeks after I was all agog at Lady Sybil's blue Jasmine outfit. Although to be fair, neither of these have that ridiculous dropped crotch/full nappy effect. So if Sybil was blue Jasmine, that makes Marion red Jasmine, but without the unpleasant Jafar's sex slave part.
I was so entranced by her red pants that I noticed a great bit in one of the fight scenes where Indiana is being all manly and fighty and just a big ride in general, Marion is over to the right of the screen just repeatedly bashing a villain over the head with a tin box. The scene goes on for quite a bit, with all the action focused on Indiana's scrap and all the while Marion is there in the background resolutely whacking this guy over and over for the duration of the whole scene.
Smashy smashy.
Something I also noticed was during the scene where she's being held captive in a tent and Belloq unties her so she can eat. It seems that Pirates of the Caribbean completely rips off that entire sequence when Barbossa eats with Elizabeth Swann. Both women are given new frocks to put on, both women humour their captors by playing along and eating dinner with them, while surreptitiously hiding a knife, which both women then use to threaten the bad guy and attempt escape only to be immediately foiled. HMMM.
I get excited about lots of things. Like the fact that I'm going to see Raiders of the Lost Ark on Sunday in the IFI, or when they have Wispas in stock at the coffee dock in work. But right now I'm REALLY excited that I've been featured in this week's issue of Woman's Way, as they have most kindly decided to include me in their 12 New Faces for 2012 article.
Look! There I am!
In case anyone was wondering, the post about Obama is here and the mermaids one can be found here. I'm happy dancing in my chair right now. Woo!
After eating my way through Christmas at home and drinking my way through New Year's Eve in a windswept cottage in the wilds of Joyce Country, it's back to Dublin, back to work and back to bleary-eyed early mornings where I'm counting down to the soonest time I can sleep in. I have to say though, Christmas was wonderfully good to me this year. By Christmas I mean the Bear and by good to me I mean gave me a present that has since become my most favourite thing ever.
Once I had pulled the wrapping paper off, I was left with this tin box. This gorgeous tin tea box, which had been beautifully decorated with typewritten quotes and cutout images of bears.
Completely puzzled as to what it could possibly contain, I opened it to reveal...
THE MOST AMAZING SILVER RING IN THE WORLD.
A motherfucking BEAR, no less! It transpired that my crafty, brilliant boy had employed the services of our astonishingly talented friend Mirjam, a superhero silversmith who designed and handcrafted this ring as a jaw-dropping custom made piece.
I die! (Inset photo by Mirjam Schiller. The big legend.)
It's huge, it's heavy, it's utterly amazing. I LOVE IT TO PIECES.
Last night we attended a most delightful outdoor screening of Elf in Meeting House Square and as if going to see an amazing Christmas film in a gorgeous outdoor setting wasn't enough, there was free popcorn and hot chocolate being handed out. Free! That never happens! After Irishing up mine and the Bear's tasty hot chocolates thanks to a handy hip flask, we settled into our seats with enough sweets to induce a mild case of diabetes. During the film I was reminded how much I love Dreamgirl Deschanel's pink elf outfit at the end.
Cute!
Anyway, I'm off home to Waterford to stuff my face with Roses and Pringles and anything else within reaching distance, while also drinking far too much Tanora, now that they've thankfully seen sense and restored the flavour to its original awesome Christmassy self after scaring us all half to death with that disaster of a marketing move in June. So thanks everyone for reading and commenting and what have you all year and have a TREMENDOUS Christmas!
Late to the party as ever, I've been catching up with the rest of the world and haring through Downton Abbey recently in an effort to get it all watched before the Christmas special. I've only just started the second series so for GOD'S SAKE don't say anything about anything that happens in series two or I will end you.
Predictably enough, I'm completely enamoured with the show. The dresses, the impeccable hair, the elbow length gloves, the beautiful stately rooms, Thomas being such a BASTARD, Maggie Smith as Violet being so delightfully cutting, I love it all.
The costumes are so sumptuous it must be like wearing a diamond encrusted cake, or possibly something a little less messy. In terms of the characters, the rebellious, burgeoning feminist Lady Sybil was always going to be my favourite and it's to her that I can attribute the so-amazing-I-might-have-clapped-when-I-saw-it fashion moment of the series so far.
The blue outfit that shocks the entire house, as it incorporates PANTS, the feckless hussy. I just think it's supremely gorgeous. I don't even like harem pants but these are effing tremendous, not to mention the bodice and the headband. SMOKIN'. It looks like what would transpire if Princess Jasmine decided to try her hand at a lifestyle as a fledgling flapper girl.
Well played, costume people. Exceedingly well played.
Every so often when a burlesque show came shimmying into town, theatre owners in the more conservative areas of 1940s/50s America were forced to work a little magic on promotional photos for newspaper ads and what have you. The solution to this little conundrum was adding clothes to the bodies of the brazen showgirls in question with pen and ink. This picture shows a performer in a bra and knickers that were added afterwards, with the untouched photo shown in the inset. I don't know about you, but I love the idea that it was someone's actual job to draw clothes on previously more nudey ladies.
As Hollywood is wont to do from time to time, two more than similar films are coming out quite close to each other next summer. We've had Armageddon vs Deep Impact battle for Asteroid Film Of The Year, Friends With Benefits vs No Strings Attached tussle for Friends-Who-Ride-Each-Other Film Of The Year and soon we'll have Mirror Mirror vs Snow White and the Huntsman bate the heads off each other for Snow White Film Of The Year. On one had, Mirror Mirror features Lily Collins (daughter of Phil!) and Julia Roberts as the princess and the evil Queen, while Kristen "I'm delighted to be a highly paid actress, no really I am" Stewart and Charlize Theron are squaring off and throwing dirty looks at them as their respective rivals.
Each film has a very different feel, Mirror Mirror is decidedly lighter, fluffier, funnier and Nathan Lane-ier, whereas Snow White and the Huntsman is an altogether darker, grittier and really rather deadly looking take on the story.
Lily's Snow White probably looks more like what you'd expected from a classic princess story, but Sourpuss Stewart definitely has the look of a girl who's about to do some damage rather than burst into song.
Sorry Julia, your red peacock ballgown loses out to Charlize's pointy black getup. Not least because she looks like she'd stab you in the face just for the craic.
In the Evil Queen category, Julia Roberts is playing her as a neurotic, insecure diva, which is all well and good, but to be fair Charlize Theron wipes the floor with her as a malevolent, properly wicked and scary witchy woman. She's eating someone's soul right out of their FACE in the trailer for flip's sake! No contest!
In the Obligatory Handsome Bastard corner, we have Armie Hammer with the big Disney prince head on him playing...twist!...the prince. The handsome bastard of Snow White and the Huntsman is none other than the Hunstsman himself, played by Kim from Home & Away. Or, y'know, Thor.
I have to say, I really like the look of both of these films. Snow White and the Huntsman looks great because of the big medieval style battles, the armour, the injection of darkness into a previously sweetened fairytale and the fact that Charlize's Evil Queen looks like she's going to be an utter DELIGHT to watch, what with the soul eating and milk bathing and general sultry divilment.
Whereas Mirror Mirror looks great because of the GIANT ASS DRESSES, the Nathan Lane comic relief and the fact that it's all so shiny and fun looking. It's also got Sean Bean in it as the king, which means he's probably going to die at some point, because it's Sean Bean and that's what he does in EVERYTHING. Seriously. Just watch THIS if you don't believe me. You just try to name something that he doesn't die in and I'll call you a damn liar.
There's a certain ad campaign of late that manages to instill a huge amount of annoyance and anger in me. It's not Ivan Answer (this time) and it's not even that awful, insipid "I love shopping.ie" radio jingle, even though that does send me into a panicked lunge for the mute button with a speed that could only be matched by my haste for the remote when the Hollyoaks theme tune starts.
But I digress somewhat. It's the most recent Lyons Tea tv and radio ads. Their whole "Richer Talk" campaign was all fine by me up until the point that they decided to air ads with such a passive-aggressively misogynist undercurrent that every encounter with them results in me thinking "FUCK YOU, LYONS TEA. FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR".
This is one of the tv ads in question. There's another one where the HILARIOUS Dad character makes a crack about his wife having the utter cheek to spend money on her hair. HA HA HA. Sure don't women only care about shoes and hair anyway! And if someone does decide to get her hair done, then OF COURSE she should be undermined in front of her child for doing so. HA HA FUCKING HA.
Fuckface.
Even worse is the radio ad that begins with Hilaro-Dad reading Mary Had A Little Lamb to his daughter, which prompts him to wistfully lament the fact that his white Ireland away jersey is now pink because "your mother" put it in the wash with red socks. Hey Mr. Dad, here's a revolutionary thought: why don't you do your own fucking washing in the first place and maybe then you won't be so traumatised you COCK.
I actually meant to post this video ages ago, but was most likely distracted by something shiny. And/or chocolatey. Shiny chocolate, perhaps. The following video is for The Friend Song by EleventyFour. It was filmed on a drizzly Sunday in Rathmines, where the Bear and I joined an assortment of Eleventy's friends and partook in some frisbee throwing in the rain, eating so many Refresher sweets that our jaws were temporarily glued shut (that might just have been me, actually) and frantically miming our way through a game of charades.
The charades game was particularly fun, as I hadn't played it in years. The Bear and I weren't allowed to be on the same team though, as the others had decided to hold our track record of being really good at Cranium together against us and so we ended up on opposing teams. Those jerks. Each team was then given the task of coming up with the things the other team had to mime. Which means that it was ENTIRELY the Bear's fault when I pulled out a piece of paper for my turn, unfolded it and froze in horror.
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES.
Are you fucking KIDDING ME. As I steeled myself for what was going to be the most embarrassing miming ever, two more friends of Eleventy's arrived, whom I've NEVER MET BEFORE IN MY LIFE. They sat down, joined a team each and looked at me expectantly from the couch.
I had nothing. I was drawing a complete blank as to how I could possibly convey the word "monologues" with my increasingly erratic gesturing. With a resigned sigh, I signalled that I was moving on to the second word.
And pointed at my crotch.
They got it immediately. Thanks a lot Bear, you ASS.
