museum hours

we saw the film museum hours last night.  it had been a long time since i looked at a bruegel painting and i loved seeing them here as well as all the art in this movie.  the way the camera captured smaller parts of the whole of many paintings, the details without the frame or the museum environment helped me remember how much i love looking at paintings and what it means to look at paintings...what can happen when you do.   i loved the quiet scenes of vienna, all of it and not just the old beautiful parts.  the pace of the movie was languid but it was familiar in that way.  movies sometimes seem foreign to me because their constructions seem so complex my mind can't absorb this and there is a basic unease which mostly is felt but goes unrecognized.  this movie made sense to me ...it was like the passing of real life, not hyped up, not a construction, but what really is.  and this showing of what really is, felt so affirming and refreshing.  the mood was contemplative, melancholy but those things also are familiar.  there is a moment when ann chokes with emotion, briefly, and turns her body and face away from johann, and i found it very moving.  i think i may have been the only person in the theater crying and i wonder why that is.

have you seen it? tell me what you think.

two flowers in one pot

"cutie hates bully?"

"oh, cutie loves bully so much."

(you should go see this- i loved it.)

...

i'm filling the shop back up again!  

i've got scarves i'm excited about...the dye process has been so enjoyable.  i also have a sweet pile of small dyed black doilies,  a whole lot of real affordable art pieces and some dip dyed crocheted market totes.  

i'll be listing new things all evening and in the next few days!

xo

ain't them bodies saints

loved.

weekend

this weekend:

we got 2 feet of snow and when i opened my front door saturday morning i laughed.  and i took a picture.  i baked bread.  i squeezed citrus and mixed all these kinds of fruit together into a big pulpy glass of yummy juice.  and we watched obselidia.

...

today i'm working on upholstering a couple thrifted stools to put in the shop.  i already took a blow torch to the wooden bases of said stools to give them a crispy black surface.  very satisfying!

x

funeral singers

i watched this last night.

ethan put califone on my ipod a couple years ago.

kid really keeps me in the know indie music wise and other wises.

the music is incorporated into the film in an unusual way.

i like califone so that part of the movie was cool.

i lived in a haunted house once.

*i finally added a search box to my blog over on the right there.  i'm an uneven labeler at best but hopefully it's still helpful.
x

carrington

have you seen this film?  

i watched it last night.  i recommend it if only for the interiors, craft, art, clothing and the specifics of the bohemian bloomsbury time period.  these were all a thrill to see.  but i had a hard time relating to emma thompson as carrington.  

there is one pivotal scene where carrington is outdoors at night watching the people in her life inside through a series of windows.  it was a great scene conceptually and visually but ultimately i couldn't identify with carrington and her feelings.  in the scene, she was a lonely observer of her life and i knew intellectually the scene served as a pivotal moment for her but because i didn't feel for her i didn't much care.  her character was supposed to be awkward but she played that awkward in a way that left me unsympathetic.

you know what, her hairdo really distracted me and somehow didn't work!  i know the real carrington wore her hair that way but somehow on thompson it just felt distracting and wrong to me!  oh, what a picky picky i am.  i could sense thompson really trying with great effort to inhabit the character.

you'd think i was some sort of film expert, no?  ha.

emma thompson if you are reading, please forgive.  i go on..

jane eyre

have you seen it?  i was spellbound. 

babette's feast

Babette's Feast is one of my all-time favorite movies. Here's a New York Time's summary with a link to a review. This is a movie I watch over and over.

the spirit of the beehive

1973 Spanish film with subtitles directed by Victor Erice. I wanted to share some of my impressions of this movie and here's what I just did: compose, erase, compose,erase, compose,erase. So I think I'll just say put this on your list of movies to watch if you favor completely beguiling and elfish 6 year olds, period 1940 clothing, slow, barren and beautiful landscape, difficult to grasp but knock you over the head subtlety, dark imagination and isolation.....well, that's MY kind of movie.

the big lebowski

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. ha. ha. heh.

coco

I forgot to report back re. "coco before chanel" so I thought I'd do that while I wait for the chocolate pecan pie with caramel sauce to finish baking. Yep. You heard right. Sounds yummy, no? It's my dessert contribution for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. It will probably be the most sought after dessert and I will feel just a little sad for all the other dessert makers who will have just one slice taken out of their cakes and pies. Ah well.

And I liked the movie pretty well. This is what I came away from it thinking...

-I didn't much care for her love interests. And the only time I felt at all affected by the romance part of the movie was at the very end during the flashback scenes. And this had to do with identifying with her sense of loss and getting older and loneliness, not the particular men she remembered.

-I did not know anything about her prior and I do not know about the history of fashion and it was awe inspiring to see how ahead of her time she was and how much she influenced fashion then and now.

-The clothes I really responded to were the earliest ones she made and her philosophy of simple and sort of rustic and austere. You could see the influence of the orphanage.

-She was portrayed as incredibly confident in her vision. This was the best part of the movie.

hi bye

On my way to hopefully see "coco before chanel". I gotta see it and stop talking about it. And here's my little fashion post...I like clothes. But I haven't done a lot of clothes shopping these past several years. I did, however, go to Marshalls with my 17 yr old daughter recently and now I keep thinking about clothes. Not that I didn't think about it before in the "I like clothes but don't have any and wish I had better stuff" way. I bought this jacket there. The hat is (well, was) my daughter's. She bought it for a dollar at the mall. I generally think I look like a major doofus in hats but whaddya think about this one? Not bad, right? I really hate the mall. But I gotta admit, I'm a wanting to go back to Marshalls. The scarf is from http://www.uniform-studio.com/index.html.
OK, that paragraph was not genius writing, but I gotta get out of here and get to the movies.
See ya!

folk art,memory, movies and suckin up

I have a wicked crush on folk art right now. I 've been buying used picture books on the subject lately and these images are all from one titled "Treasures of American Folk Art". I read these books, too. Raptly. I'm fascinated. But my brain doesn't retain information the way I want it to. I wish I was one of those peeps who has a memory for details. What do you call that? See, I can't remember. It's not even funny so I won't add a little "haha" or smiley face.

What I think I do is store the images and details of images in some non-wordy part of my brain for use later. For instance, with movies or books I remember the feel of the thing, I remember certain scenes, visually speaking, but I entirely forget character names and plot.

Which reminds me, I really want to go see "Coco before Chanel." And then another movie I saw the preview for and for which of course I can't remember the title. It was

"_____ Education." About a young girl and older man having an affair. Do you know it? If so, please tell me.

I did go see "The September Issue" with my fabulous friend Emily. It was her idea. I have to be completely honest here and tell you I am not really Vogue literate. The movie was entertaining. The photographer/Art Director seems really talented. But kind of sad. Stuck making interesting work in what is fundamentally a shallow environment. I mean, I like clothes. I really appreciate the self-expression of getting dressed. But the whole Vogue-y world leaves me feeling a little dirty. And if you saw it, tell me you didn't want to hurl with all the kiss-ups working for the magazine. The guy in the white suit? Sheesh. Totally blew with the wind and whoever he happened to be talking to at the moment.

Ok, I know I will lose you if I keep a-rambling. Thanks for reading.

Fondly,

Liane