La Bella y La Bestia

From a back issue of Vogue Italia...reinvented fairy tales. Bellissima!

Still-life with Quaker Oats

(Alternate title: Oatmealgate 2009) In which Olivia attempts to put an ice cube tray back in the freezer and in the process knocks over the Quaker Oats container, and all its contents, onto the kitchen floor. Better to laugh it off than let it ruin my mood.

L'espirit d'escalier

I've been intrigued by the story of artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake ever since I read about them in New York magazine.

Their's is a tragic tale full of exhuberant love and joie de vivre, but also conspiracy theories and loads of unanswered questions. The biggest question of all--why did they both decide to end their lives while in their prime? Theresa killed herself first (pills) and a week later on the way to her funeral, Jeremy took off all his clothes and walked into the sea. His body was never found.

There are tons of articles on their story which detail their artistic endeavors, their migration from the east coast to L.A., their paranoia that Scientologists were sabotaging their careers and their increasing reclusiveness after their ultimate return to New York prior to their deaths.

Theresa kept a really terrific blog entitled "The Wit of the Staircase" or "L'espirit d'escalier" (which is a French idiom that describes the moment you think of the perfect zingy rhetort to an earlier conversation while on your way up to bed). It's a great blog for those who like a little sophistication in their lives (as opposed to inane posts about snuggies and freezy freakies. ahem.) You can find it here: http://theresalduncan.typepad.com/ She inspires me to explore more archane subject matter. (Also, I really like her reviews of perfumes.)

Happy Tuesday (Redux)

This is my sister-in-law and my niece when she was a puppy. It is one of my favorite photos of all time and I look at it at work when I'm feeling blah. Can you feel the love?

Keep the wrong one out

Can't stop thinking of this film that I finally saw after my friend Dylan's urging. A vampire movie from Sweden unlike any you've seen before. Dark and puzzling and full of ambiguity. I have a new theory on it every day...  Go rent it! 

PS It's sort of funny how this post is like the bizarro world opposite of the other post. I guess I am in an interesting place on this fine Tuesday... 

Fish and Kicks

Went to see Quintron and Miss Pussycat from New Orleans, LA last night. Puppet show and rock show for the price of one! It was really fun. Small crowd, but lots of dancing. Quintron is known for his musical inventions including a rotating drum machine that is activated by light--so cool! My friend took photos from the show so I'll post them when I get them.

Also this weekend--shad fest (in which they ran out of shad a few hours in! Boo Hiss!).

Happy? Lucky! Go!

Feeling a little blase these days? Fake spring got you down? Go rent this movie, Happy-Go-Lucky! It is so nice. At first you may feel a little hit over the head by Poppy and her good cheer, but the film, and Sally Hawkin's (Poppy) performance really turns out to be subtle and surprising. True to life and moreover life-affirming...

Another jolie laidey whom I love...

Ah Sofia... (And while we're at it, I like your foxy baby daddy from the band Phoenix, too...)

I love this last photo taken while she was shooting The Virgin Suicides. I remember being very curious about Sofia's directing debut. First of all, poor Sofia had gotten a bum rep from her disastrous acting turn in that uh...rather famous movie her dad directed. And second, The Virgin Suicides was a seminal novel for me growing up. I read it over and over, hanging on every phrase, so the idea of a movie adaptation drew skepticism along with the curiosity. I was actually thinking of the author's (Jeffrey Eugenides) descriptions of the foul, fermenting and decaying house the family holed up in while I was watching the movie Grey Gardens the other night (The Grey Gardens house was a real life version of the Lisbons' house). Ah, but I digress...

It's Friday. I ain't got shit to do.

I know this image and blog title are pretty incongruous. But I was thinking wistfully of New Orleans (where I took photo) and wishing I was traveling somewhere exciting this weekend. It's going to be the first day to break 70 in an awfully long while and I find myself in the unusual position of having NOTHING going on this evening! Nada! None of my frenz are around. I want to go celebrate with drinks outside somewhere, but I fear that will not be happening. So what' s a girl to do. Well, I suppose I will rally and do something solo! After all, these are the zero zeros. Or the oughts. (As in it's 2009. 2-0-ought-9. Yea, while we're on the subject is that what they call the zero zero years? It just doesn't have as much punch as, "After all these are the nineties, or the fifties, etc. Okay, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead/behind.)

Happy Tuesday

The Glow Pt. 2

The Glow Pt. 2 (by The Microphones)

i took my shirt off in the yard
no one saw that the skin on my shoulders was golden
now it's not
my shirt's back on
i forgot my songs
the glow is gone
my gliding body stopped

i could not get through september without a battle
i faced death
i went in with my arms swinging
but i heard my own breath
i had to face that i'm still living

i'm still flesh
i hold on to life with feelings

i'm not dead
there's no end
my face is red
my blood flows harshly

my heart beats loudly

my chest still draws breath
i hold it
i'm boiling
ooh oh oh
there's no end

When you believe in things that you don't understand...

This is so absolutely insanely cool. I guess I was just in the mood for it.

Bartender, make mine a Walt Whit

Had a lovely day of lounging in the park while my friends Jim and Malachy played wiffle ball.

We declared the afternoon was not unlike a Manet painting. 'Cept for we weren't wearing our Sunday whites and I forgot my parosol. And instead of tea we had beer. And instead of a steam train (is that the right time period??) there was...the el. Anyways, by god there was poetry. I read aloud inspirational excerpts from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" from Leaves of Grass. The cajones on this guy!

I'd like to share some passages that are particularly yawp-inducing (re: Dead Poet's Society).

Seriously though, I urge you to imbibe the Walt Whit, reader! Drink up the lines and let them dribble down your chin--this song is for you! Celebrate yourself! Life is fleeting--open up and sound your barbaric yawp to the world!!!

"I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

"I am of old and young, of the foolish as much the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man.
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine"

"Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with doctors
and calculated close,
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my bones."

"In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn
less,
And the good or bad I saw of myself I say of them."

"One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is
myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or in ten million years,

I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait."

NB:

Below is Philly Brewing Company's lovely ode to the old bard. Give me a slice of lemon and send me to summer, please!

Friday Night Lights

Had a nice first friday. First there was a superhuge rainbow. I mean superhuge, full arc. Then went with some pals to see this cool installation(?) of a room with large waves drawn on the surrounding walls. They looked like they were drawn in graphite maybe. A tiny Obama was surfing the enormous tidal wave. I wonder what the underlying message was?? Hmmm.

Below those are some shots of a lit tunnel next to the gallery. Also an installation of sorts. I was playin around with the camera.

Uh uh you can't tell me nothin...

I am having a terrible day and now have conflicting urges to both hibernate in my bed and get wasted. My friend Laura, with deep understanding of this sentiment, came up with a new slogan for me and for my fair city to abide by.

Philadelphia: Get sh*tbricked and nap your troubles away.

Ah. Yes. In the meantime, to cheer myself up and spread joy throughout the land I am posting one of my favorite videos, starring (my love) Zach Galifinakis and Will Oldham and their rendition of a Kanye West song. I want to be a milkmaid on Zach's farm if you get my meaning. HA HA-ew, I'm kidding, I kid!

La petite Amelie-tres tres mignon