English Muse

Opening Ceremony fun

May 18, 2012

Dear readers, Jenny here again. I actually wanted to talk to you about something else this week but I will have to postpone that until next week because I don’t have the time at all and I would like to write a longer post. Anyhow, I wanted to share Opening Ceremony’s Spring Summer 2012 short movies with you because they are very funny and unique. Other than admiring the beautiful clothes, I loved the way OC decided to mirror the Godard -like style but make fun of it at the same time, using dummies instead of stunt doubles and add an unexpected twist to the usual love storyline. Londoners are very excited to be getting their own OC store- the first one in Europe!!! Here are the videos:

P.S I love it when you comment, please keep on doing that, I am always so happy to hear about your thoughts, I just don’t always have time to answer, but I hope this doesn’t put you off. Lots of love x Jenny

Categories: Fashion | 1 Comment »

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CocoRosie

May 18, 2012

I first heard of CocoRosie in relation to Antony Hegarty. Sierra and Bianca Casady, two sisters separated in their childhood, reunited after many years in Paris, formed the band in 2003. Growing up separately it is uncanny that they both were musical and developed and cultivated their talents singing and composing. Their first album La Maison de Mon Rêve (2004) consists of strange, yet not entirely cacophonous sounds: their voices, instruments, sounds everyday objects and toys make. Second album Noah’s Ark (2005) involved cooperation with Hegarty, followed by The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (2007) and Grey Oceans (2010).
CocoRosie will perform in Berlin (July 8 & July 9) and in Wroclaw, and I’m planning to attend one of these concerts.
Have you heard of them? What is your favorite song? Their music resists labels but is often dubbed freak folk. The word “freak” makes me want to make a list of synonyms — weird, bizarre, freakish, curious, eccentric, funky, outlandish, peculiar, strange, anomalous, deviant, exceptional, extraordinary, irregular, off, uncommon, unexpected, unorthodox, unusual, queer, singular…I could go on and on.
Let your ears (& eyes) be surprized! Smiles, Marta.

Photo credit: 1.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: CocoRosie | 6 Comments »

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Rare Perfumes

May 17, 2012

“He walks the flower-edged
paths in the cool spring
dawn and each blossom
gives its own note to a
symphony of scent and yet
his thoughts are on his beloved
and the way her rare
perfumes turn the hollows of
her white wrist and perfect
throat into deep pools of
pleasure and how the richest
of all the scents she wears is
the perfume of her beauty, a
fragrance known only to the
angels of deep heaven, one
part starlight and two culled
from the shimmer of full
moons. It belongs to no other
woman who walks the earth
–the scent of tender love.”

I’m obsessed these days with Byredo’s Pulp, mixed with a touch of Santal Blanc by Serge Lutens. Is it possible to be addicted to perfume?

(Photo by a Swedish Love Affair.)

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Beautiful Composed Nature

May 17, 2012

Hello my friends! Same ol’ Jess here- the only difference being that I am missing a good inch or two of hair since my last post.

I have quite long hair, very straight, fine, brown (possibly boring) which I am trying to grow out for ‘Locks for Love’. My 91-year-old grandmother is going through chemo and lost her hair so we went wig shopping. I tried to convince her to get a pink one, but apparently she doesn’t like the Katy Perry look. She joked that she wanted a few inches of my hair, which is what inspired me. You must donate ten inches and my hair is my security blanket of self-esteem, so I need it to be as long as possible before it’s officially snipped.

"Get away from me with those scissors!' - 'Trash the dress' shoot with Tom Byrne

I recently went to the Paul Mitchell Salon here in St. Louis and when the stylist asked me what I wanted, I told her ‘just a little trim on the ends to keep it even and healthy’. Know what she suggested I do?

Dye it ombre. Add extensions. Then she told me that I needed a spray tan.

Now I am quite aware of my paleness and that I don’t have Sophia Vergara’s thick luscious hair. I am not designed that way, and I don’t feel a huge need to change this. There is nothing wrong if people want to do this stuff, if it makes anyone feel better about themselves, I’m not going to judge. I enjoy makeup too much for that. If I were going to completely embrace nature then I would have to tell my Grandma to walk around bald. Not going to happen! I just don’t like the idea that it’s a necessity to alter so much of ourselves to be considered ‘beautiful’. I shower and brush my hair and I think the natural, clean, healthy version of what I was born with is just fine.

I believe in taking care of nature, and presenting it well. To further demonstrate the art of carefully arranged nature, please enjoy these lovely works from Charleston based artist, Lulie Wallace.

What lovely compositions. I also think the fact that I did not yell, ‘Are you calling me ugly?” at the stylist is a tribute to composure, even if, truth be told, it went totally against my nature. There are some things, like a truculent nature, that are ok to change. “A rose with a different complexion would still look this Grumpy”

Until next time- xo from Jess

Categories: Fashion, illustrations | Tags: locks for love, lulie wallace, natural beauty, trash the dress | 2 Comments »

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Hard Books

May 17, 2012

Some books are hard to write about. I began making my way through my to-read list last week, and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being was the first I checked off. I tried to write about it and realized my mixed feelings made a short response impossible. I loved the story, some of the philosophizing, and the characters, but in a good bit of the philosophical spurts, I was frustrated.

Other books have presented me with a similar quandary: Anna Karenina (loved it, but what can I say that hasn’t been said?), Everything is Illuminated (mixed feelings), Absalom, Absalom (couldn’t stand it, but knew it was brilliant), The History of Love (simply left me speechless), and more.

This sudden impossibility of saying anything about a book that I’ve just read and can’t stop thinking about leaves me wondering why certain books have this effect and not others. Was I simply not ready for the book? Am I not intellectual enough to verbalize my thoughts about these works? Did I miss that something that would bring the work all together and let me write?

As always, I’m curious to hear from fellow bibliophiles: what books, if any, are hard for you to write or talk about after reading?

Have a lovely Thursday, friends, and see you next week!

~Katie (unwritten, untitled)

[image 1 by munir on flickr/image 2 from one cover of The Unbearable Lightness of Being/image 3 by jacQuie.K on flickr]

Categories: Books | 3 Comments »

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As you sow…

May 16, 2012

Hey, you guys. This is Dizzy Lizzie from Whims and Fancies writing to you about something very, very important. So listen up.

This week, my boyfriend (a.k.a. husband) and I made significant progress in our relationship—we bought a living, breathing being into our home and now our family of two is a party with three.

We got a plant.

He is short and lean and resplendent with tiny green leaves that I use for cooking. His name is Stewart and I call him Stew, in remembrance of my favorite stew that I make using his leaves. Every day, after we come back from work, we water him and talk to him. Ok, only I do that. So sue me!

I come from a family of farmers. All my forefathers have owned huge plantations and they grew all kinds of plants, particularly rubber. They are a dying breed now (farmers, that is); everyone has alternate professions and livelihoods. My father too has an estate and he often calls himself a farmer, but truth be told, he is a manager at an international airline company, and that has nothing to do with being a farmer.

I would like to be romantic about my plant and say that it is my soul connection with my ancestors that made the act of bringing a plant home and looking after it for 3 days, so joyous. Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe nurturing plants is the most joy-giving thing anyone could do.

Maybe you could start with a kitchen garden consisting of a single plant growing on the window sill (like me) or maybe you could plant a rose-bush in your backyard and have sweet-smelling roses to tuck behind your ears all year through.

Do you know how easy it is to grow a plant? All it needs is a large enough container with holes that will let the water out, soil, water, sunlight, and some fertilizer, preferably organic. I knew this, but it was easy to forget. But now I am one step closer to saving the world! (Can you feel my power?)

I guess that Cicero was not far off the mark when he said, “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

Won’t you join in with a plant of your own?

HERBS