Cherry On Top
[ 21 March 2010, 06:45 ]
The perfect Sunday… ? Hope yours is delicious either way.
Love letters & feather headdresses,
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Carousel: Week Ending 19th March 2010
[ 19 March 2010, 07:45 ]
La-la-la-la-links!
Attention: MEN! I know there isn’t a lot of good fashion writing around for you. I’m sorry about that. The good news is I have a new friend, his name is Jacob Kamara, & he knows what he’s talking about.
Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ from CNN.
Oh, wow, amazing. Joobili!!! I’m all over it!
Kris has the travel bug, a girl after my own heart. I’ve been to Neuschwanstein Castle, it is absolutely amazing.
Sunday Life: In which I quit the Sunday afternoon email catch-up habit & Sunday Life: In which I try out the new way to travel are both by Sarah Wilson, & as you know, I am a huge (ffffffffhuge!) fan of hers!
Zoetica rocks Sugarpill (again!), this time yellow eyes worn with black lipstick. Sounds kinda hideous? IT AIN’T!
I have never actually read A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (I KNOW! Gasp-o-rama! I actually tried but couldn’t get into it… ?! Feel free to beat me with enormous branches) but based on this email exchange alone I love Dave Eggers. I wish I had read this before my panel on Sunday, it is totally on point.
I address some of this question in the addendum, but I want to address the “sell a lot of magazines by being pretty and ‘authentic’” part here. Honestly, Saadi, what the fuck are you talking about? You’re applying principles of mass-marketing to a money-hemorrhaging literary magazine produced out of my apartment. Please. No one here is trying to sell a lot of magazines. Why would we making a literary magazine in the first place, if sales numbers were our goal? And why would we be printing this thing in Iceland, and printing only 12,000 copies? Jesus, son, you have got to stop tearing apart and doubting the people who are obviously, clearly, doing good work. I mean, who the fuck do you believe in? The Baffler is nice-looking, too, and they print 20,000 copies. Does that put Tom Frank in league with Tony Robbins? I’m exasperated. Saadi, you have to trust me, and you have to trust Tom Frank, because Tom Frank, for example, matters. If Tom Frank, tomorrow, agreed to be in a commercial for the Discover Card – as Kurt Vonnegut did a few years ago, for whatever reason – you would still have to trust Tom Frank and respect him, because he has for a decade been doing work that matters, and you have no idea about his motivations or needs or state of mind when he say okay to the Discover gig. I am giving you really good advice, here, Saadi, and and offer it to other readers of the Advocate, because I wish I had the same advice pounded into my head at your age, when I was a bigger, more smug and suspicious asshole than you – I was the biggest asshole of all. To me, everyone was a sellout. Any band that sold over 30,000 albums was a sellout. Any writer who appeared in any mainstream magazine was a sellout. I was a complete, weaselly little prick, and I had no idea what I was talking about, and goddamn if I don’t wish I could take all that back, because I knew nothing then, just as you know nothing now. You simply cannot judge someone, especially someone whose work you have respected, when they disappoint you, superficially, once or twice. Think of the fuckheads who turned their back on Dylan when he started using electric guitars, for Christ’s sake. What kind of niggardly imbecile would call Dylan Judas when he plugged into an amp? What kind of small-hearted person wants an artist to adhere to a set of rules, to stay forever within a narrow envelope which we’ve created for them?
What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips’s new album is ravishing and I’ve listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.
Vanessa Bauer is a fantastic illustrator.
The Joy of Unfollow & What I Learned At Couples Counseling. (READ THIS!) I also took the unfollowing one to heart. Oh it feels good.
Nonpareil Jo has The Forgotten Negatives Project. She says…
I’ve set up The Forgotten Negatives Project whereby I take film that has been shot but, for whatever reason, not developed (you’d be surprised how many people have film lying around that they never got around to having developed!). The resulting images are then examined in order to find some kind of narrative or common thread amongst these photographs that were ‘forgotten’ by their original owners. It started as a uni project but I will be continuing it long after I leave uni in the summer. So far I have had some amazing images from the films I have been given and I’m beyond excited about the potential of this project!
What is Nowhere magazine? “Offbeat travel articles written by novelists and poets who view travel through their idiosyncratic artistic lens.” Oh, hello!
The Mindfulist, your life considered. Ditto @themindfulist.
The right to bare arms, a radical self love story.
Tina from Violetville Vintage came to our magical tea party & documented it!
Stuck for something to do? Why not dress up your child as an assortment of dictators?
Asked what motivated her to undertake such a project, Kleivan replied, “We all have evil within us. Even small children are evil toward each other.”
Make a wish tree! I love you Yoko!
The comments on the Bikini Kill archive blog are rad.
Yesterday I sat on the ground with my sweet friends & their puppies & watched Dark Dark Dark perform. Click. That. Link. The song-writing is amazing. Listen!!! & like, maybe you should go & see them live. They were magnificent. Okay, look, I’m just going to embed this video & you can thank me later. It is goosebump music.
GRITtv: Kathleen Hanna: Three-Dimensional Role Model
UGH this is SO GOOD, watch ittttttttt!
Okay… happy Friday everyone! xox
Love letters & feather headdresses,
Comment [25] Tags: carousel Add Gala on Twitter!Things I Love Thursday
[ 18 March 2010, 21:28 ]
I have been having such a fantastic time in Austin. It is warm with big blue skies, & the food is fresh & incredible. We have magical tea parties, blow chocolate-scented bubbles, buy bottles of Perrier-Jouet & pretend to play miniature golf in six & a half inch heels.
It is the perfect antidote to New York City, even though I miss it & am looking forward to going back. Being here makes me want to wear Western shirts & cowboy boots, learn to ride motorbikes & drink juices every day.
Bunny coats & invitations from Helena Christensen & magical Mexican talismans. Buying magenta speckled orchids & connecting people together & wearing crystal skulls around my neck. Majorette hats & bird-shaped sugarcubes & sleeping in grey slips.
Eating lots of salads & getting lots of sleep & using hyaluric serum on my face every night. I have dark chocolate rabbits & new hats & lace-covered bunny ears. Wearing an old military shirt which says MAKE LOVE NOT WAR on the back. Long black vintage dresses & suede fringed miniskirts & peppermint bark chocolate.
True conversations & hot pink skeletons. Waffles & Bellinis & poring over treasures. Free boots & offensively embroidered Western shirts, tin Milagros & 3D cards of the Virgin Mary.
Celery sticks & roasted garlic hommus & sitting at home writing on a beautiful clear night. Candlelit tarot card readings from magical friends at Barton Springs. Aloney time to create & Leonard Cohen & The Psychedelic Furs. Feeling everything come together & fresh starts. This charmed life.
Et enfin: Le Dish. El Disho. Das Dishenstein. I loves him. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc., though really for me it is more of a case of absence makes me realise how good we have it. I can’t wait to see him on Saturday! & it is his birthday on Tuesday! Happy early birthday, baby.
More details about this soon!
“I celebrate myself, & sing myself.” — Walt Whitman
Tell me… ¿Qué te trae la alegría? (What brings you joy?)
P.S. Please send your wiggly virtual love waves to Hank Williams, who has sore inner ears! LOOK at that FACE! LOVE! God I can’t wait to smoosh him!
Love letters & feather headdresses,
Comment [44] Tags: things i love thursday Add Gala on Twitter!Books You Should Read: Pronoia Is The Antidote For Paranoia
[ 17 March 2010, 11:05 ]
Books you should read: Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
Why?
Other than the fact that this is one of very few books I have bought twice (my other copy is in New Zealand & I needed to get my fingers all over it again!), this is the opener.
The Experiment
OBJECTIVE: To explore the secrets of becoming a wildly disciplined, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, scrupulously curious, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lyrically logical, lustfully compassionate Master of Rowdy Bliss.
DEFINITION: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It’s the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It’s a mode of training your senses & intellect so you’re able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is your birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.
PROCEDURE: Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement & illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with blessings.
GUIDING QUESTION: “The secret of life,” said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, “is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. & the most important thing is — it must be something you cannot possibly do.” What is that task for you?
UNDIGNIFIED MEDITATIONS TO KEEP YOU HONEST: Brag about what you can’t do & don’t have. Confess profound secrets to people who aren’t particularly interested. Pray for the success of your enemies while you’re making love. Change your name every day for a thousand days.
MYTHIC ROLE MODELS: Prometheus & Pronoia. In Greek mythology, Pronoia was the consort of Prometheus, the divine rebel who pilfered a glowing coal from his fellow gods so that he could slip the gift of fire to humans.
TOP-SECRET ALLIES: Sacred janitors, benevolent pranksters, apathy debunkers, lyrical logicians, ethical outlaws, aspiring masters of curiosity, homeless millionaires, humble megalomaniacs, hedonistic midwives, lunatic saints, sly optimists, mystical scientists, dissident bodhisattvas, macho feminists, & socialist libertarians who possess inside information about the big bang.
DAILY PRACTICE: Push hard to get better, become smarter, grow your devotion to the truth, fuel your commitment to beauty, refine your emotional intelligence, hone your dreams, negotiate with your shadow, cure your ignorance, shed your pettiness, heighten your drive to look for the best in people, & soften your heart — even as you always accept yourself for exactly who you are with all of your so-called imperfections.
POSSIBLE REWARDS: You will be able to claim the rewards promised you at the beginning of time — not just any old beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, freedom, & justice, but rather: exhilarating beauty that incites you to be true to yourself; crazy wisdom that immunizes you against the temptation to believe your ideals are ultimate truths; outrageous goodness that inspires you to experiment with irrepressible empathy; generous freedom that keeps you alert for opportunities to share your wealth; insurrectionary love that endlessly transforms you; & a lust for justice that’s leavened with a knack for comedy, keeping you honest as you work humbly to liberate everyone in the world from ignorance & suffering.
USAGE NOTE: We employ the adjectival form “pronoiac” rather than “pronoid”. That way, it rhymes with “aphrodisiac” & resonates with “paradisiacal” instead of being conditioned by “paranoid”.
DISCLAIMER: Material in this book may be too intense & controversial for some readers. It contains graphic scenes of peace, love, joy, passion, reverence, splendor, & understanding. You will not find any references to harsh, buzzing fluorescent lights in a cheap hotel room where a heroin dealer plots to get revenge against the authorities at his old high school by releasing sarin gas into the teachers’ lounge.
There are no reports of Nazi skinheads obsessed with re-creating the 14th-century Tartars’ war strategy of catapulting plague-ridden corpses into an enemy’s citadel. Completely absent from these pages are any stories about a psychotic CEO of a Fortune 500 company who has intentionally disfigured his face to elude the CIA, which wants to arrest him for the treasonous sale of his company’s nanotech weapons technology to the Chinese.
You should therefore proceed with caution if you are a jaded hipster who is suspicious of feeling healthy & happy. Ask yourself: “Am I ready to stop equating cynicism with insight? Do I dare take the risk that exposing myself to uplifting entertainment might dull my intelligence?” If you doubt your ability to handle relaxing breakthroughs, you should close the book now.
This book needs to be on your bookshelf, beside your bed, on your coffee table & slid under couch cushions for safe-keeping. Other than Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia, you can read (much) more of Rob Brezny’s work at Free Will Astrology.
(I am thinking of doing more regular book recommendations & reviews — let me know if you’re into it!)
Love letters & feather headdresses,
Comment [60] Tags: consumption,
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[ 15 March 2010, 09:55 ]
Last Sunday, Chloe, Krysti & I made our way out to Ozone Park in Queens to celebrate Holi (होली)!
What is Holi? It’s a spring festival celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists & Sikhs. While it’s primarily celebrated in India, Nepal & Sri Lanka, it also goes on in places where there are large communities of Hindus, Buddhists or Sikhs.
Holi is a festival of radiance (Teja) in the universe. During this festival, different waves of radiance traverse the universe, thereby creating various colours that nourish and complement the function of respective elements in the atmosphere. (Wikipedia)
Holi lasts 16 days & is celebrated on the last full moon of winter, usually at the end of February or start of March. It’s a way of marking the beginning of spring. The major part of Holi consists of people throwing coloured powder (Gulal) at one another! Everyone carries brightly coloured powder in pouches & small jars, fill super soakers with purple dye & brandish bottles of baby powder. The bright colours are said to signify life, energy & joy. Traditionally, Āyurvedic medicinal herbs like Neem & Bilva were used to colour the powder, which helped ward off colds & flu!
Primarily, Phagwah is a commemoration of the triumph of good over evil. It is traced back to the tradition of the demon king Hiranyakasyapu who tried to kill his own son, the prince named Prahlad, but Lord Vishnu’s blessings saved the boy each time. Eventually, Hiranyakasyapu’s sister Holika (from whose name the word ‘Holi’ derives) attempted to kill the boy by taking him along into fire. Holika who herself was immune to burning. The fire burned down Holika to ashes and Prahlad came out, safe and sound.
Phagwah is also associated with other religious traditions. For example, it is associated with the opening of god Siva’s third eye and the consequent end of Kamadeva, the god of erotic love. Also related to Phagwah is the story of Dhundhi, the invincible ogress who teased the children in the kingdom of Prithu. She was made to flee the kingdom by the shouts, noise, and pranks of the kingdom’s mischievous kids. In addition, Holi is also associated with the tradition of the eternal love of Krishna and Radha. (The Bustle of Phagwah)
I don’t remember when I first heard about Holi, but I do remember seeing photos of it years ago, & knew it was something I had to do! Experiencing Holi in India is something I definitely have to do before I die, so when I found out that Holi was celebrated in New York, I didn’t have to be told twice! I immediately told Chloe & we made plans to go.
In Queens, New York, a parade — which contains floats & groups of drummers — snakes its way along the street, before ending up at a park where everyone goes crazy slinging coloured powder about! Not content to just stand on the side of the road & watch, we snuck under a barricade to join the revelers!
While traditionally people wear white to Holi, most people were just wearing jeans & hoodies. I wore a full-length white dress from Forever 21, a purple sweater from Gap & a jacket from H&M.
There is no better way to cast off the grey of winter than literally covering yourself in bright colours. It was an incredible experience, almost transcendent — I felt as if I was soaking up beauty & joy & optimism, absorbing it through my skin.
We had such an amazing time. Everyone was so friendly & welcoming & sweet. We got lots of hugs & so many people gave us huge smiles before smearing a stripe of magenta, royal blue, deep purple or lime green across our faces! People were going ballistic throwing baby powder all over one another — it was like a perpetual dust storm in front of us. Families walked around together, their faces stained purple with dye.
I haven’t done something which made me feel so alive in such a long time. Everyone looked so beautiful covered in colour, & I felt beautiful too. When I got back to Manhattan, I walked from the West Village to the East Village, bedaubed with pink, purple, orange, blue, purple & green, beaming at people who didn’t know what to think! I didn’t want to wash it off… My normally white hair still has some pastel staining & I love it.
Have you ever been to a Holi celebration? Would you like to go?
Photos (except for the last one) by (who else?) Chloe Rice.
Extras For Experts:
Angel wrote about her Holi obsession here!
Love letters & feather headdresses,
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