peep show

peep dioramas are the most fun ever...check em out here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/
2008/03/21/GA2008032101983.html?sid=ST2008032102694

formalizing the subway busker

one of the subway stations in seoul has a full-out mini stage where performances take place...i've never seen anything like it, having become so accustomed to buskers sitting on the floor in dirty corners
it makes sense that street performance would be injected with a dose of pride in these parts...pride is the cornerstone of life in korea
this dude was singing english songs while an audience member jammed along on his guitar...pretty cool





furthermore, we ate some fast food for a late lunch (lotteria) and i conveniently charged my phone at the counter, complete with a small, floral basket

diamonds are forever

went to sam last night which was so much fun
the cats had snazzy haircuts similar to this little guy only they are grey and were both wearing sweaters (one was argyle)
i picked one up and it peed in my hair
then we drew pictures and i drew the cat peeing in my hair
which the cool dude who works there didnt want to put on the wall
so i put it up on the wall in the bathroom (shhhhhh)
they played remy shand, which was funny, and a lot of shirley bassey, which was amazing...she is wonderful
then i came home drunk, ate udon soup, tried to rewind my first roll of film with my new plastic camera and FUDGED IT
all in all, a good night

quote of the day

"Bros before hoes." Why? Because your bros are always there for you. They have got your back after your ho rips yours heart out for no good reason. And you are nothing but great to your ho, and you told her that she was the only ho for you, and that she was better than all the other hoes in the world... and then... and then suddenly she's not yo' ho' no mo'.

Michael Scott, Dunder Mifflin

now you can see alexander's wang

here are the alexander wang pics. i want to adjust my former conclusion slightly in saying that the show was homeless hoooker chic. it is actually androgynous, post-apocalyptic, late-night, maybe homeless, sometimes hooker chic. yes. i'm satisfied with that. and so very satisfied with the collection.
it's not that he's broken any boundaries or shown us something utterly and completely new...it's just that he continues to produce wonderfully wearable pieces, and this collection is full of them...and it's badass!





this chick's waaaaaay too thin
update: she's an up-and-comer from toronto...represent

love irina

um...hookers

too tired to post pics but alexander wang's fall 08 collection is chock full of pieces i want in my closet NOW. i love it in the sense that i could wear most of it on a daily basis and be comfortable but also create a million looks from so many of these pieces.

is it offensive to say the theme of the show appeared to be homeless, hooker chic?
because that's really the feeling i got

is it even more offensive that i got a homeless hooker feeling and still want every item?

will post pics when i adjust to waking up at 7:30 every freaking morning and no longer rise to suicidal thoughts...

quote of the day

Jack: How was your evening with Thomas?

Liz Lemon: You mean Gretchen Thomas, the brilliant plastics engineer slash lesbian? What made you think I was gay?

Jack: Your shoes.

Liz Lemon: Well I'm straight.

Jack: Those shoes are definitely bi-curious.

at least an 'a' for effort

my first drawing with pastels
never was a strong drawer
how does the water stretch up into the mountains?
not so sure... can i say magic?

you go to do research, you end up with shoes

went to gangnam (apgujeong) to get some final details for some store reviews im writing and end up needlessly buying boots. but could you resist? oh, you could. really? well screw you. practicality's never been a strong suit of mine.

can't help it

must post more from fashion week...sonia rykiel...so wonderful! i will also urge anyone and everyone to check out the fall 08 lanvin collection...alber elbaz REALLY hit the nail on the head with that one...amazing



















note: i think the sequined dress is done like dinner, but the way rykiel grouped all of them was so much fun i had to post

quote of the day

"The most sacred thing I do is care. And provide. For my workers. My family. I give them money. I give them food. Not … directly, but through the money. I … heal them. Today I am in charge of picking a great new health care plan. Right? That’s what this is all about. Does that make me their doctor? Um … yes, in way. Yeah, like a specialist."

Michael Scott, Dunder Mifflin

how very interesting...and long

it is long but i promise, ma cheries, it is worth the effort!
and i quote...

"As I will find out over the next few months, there are actually some good reasons that Italian is the most seductively beautiful language in the world and why I'm not the only person who thinks so. To understand why, you have to first understand that Europe was once a pandemonium of numberless Latin-derived dialects that gradually, over the centuries, morphed into a few separate languages - French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian. What happened in France, Portugal and Spain was an organic evolution: the dialect of the most prominent city gradually became the accepted language of the whole region. Therefore, what we call French is really a version of medieval Parisian. Portuguese is really Lisboan. Spanish is essentially Madrileno. These were Capitalist victories; the strongest city ultimately determined the language of the whole country.

Italy was different. One critical difference was that, for the longest time, Italy wasn't even a country. It didn't get itself unified until quite late in life (1861) and until then was a peninsula of warring city-states dominated by proud local princes or other European powers...

All this internal division meant that Italy never properly coalesced, and Italian didn't either. So it's not surprising that, for centuries, Italians wrote and spoke in local dialects that were mutually unfathomable. A scientist in Florence could barely communicate with a poet in Sicily or a merchant in Venice (except in Latin, of course, which was hardly considered the national language). In the sixteenth century, some Italian intellectuals got together and decided that this was absurd. This Italian peninsula needed an Italian language, at least in the written form, which everyone could agree upon. So this gathering of intellectuals proceeded to do something unprecedented in the history of Europe; they handpicked the most beautiful of all the local dialects and crowned it Italian.

In order to find the most beautiful dialect ever spoken in Italy, they had to reach back in time two hundred years to fourteenth-century Florence. What this congress decided would henceforth be considered proper Italian was the personal language of the great Florentine poet Dante Alighieri. When Dante published his Divine Comedy back in 1321, detailing a visionary progression through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, he'd shocked the literate world by not writing in Latin. He felt that Latin was a corrupted, elitist language, and that the use of it in serious prose had "turned literature into a harlot" by making universal narrative into something that could only be bought with money, through privilege of an aristocratic education. Instead, Dante turned back to the streets, picking up the real Florentine language spoken by the residents of his city...and using that language to tell his tale.

He wrote his masterpiece in what he called 'il dolce stil nuovo', the "sweet new style" of the vernacular, and he shaped that vernacular even as he was writing it, affecting it as personally as Shakespeare would someday affect Elizabethan English. For a group of nationalist intellectuals much later in history to have sat down and decided that Dante's Italian would now be the official language of Italy would be very much as if a group of Oxford dons had sat down one day in the early nineteenth century and decided that - from this point forward - everybody in England was going to speak pure Shakespeare. And it actually worked.

The Italian we speak today, therefore, is not Roman or Venetian (though these were the powerful military and merchant cities) nor even really entirely Florentine. Essentially, it is Dantean. No other European language has such an artistic pedigree."

- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

this is one of the coolest things I've read lately! imagine factoring aesthetics into such a far-reaching decision...and not only factoring it in but making it the basis for your decision. i never knew this fact and i most certainly never knew that dante was unknowingly the architect of modern italian. how very interesting. makes me want to read the divine comedy again...in italian. but first...learn italian. that's where things get tricky.

love today (the oldies edition...almost)

this is a different kind of favorite things because half are new and half are old. i haven't been listening to a lot of new music the past few weeks and i haven't seen any new movies. but i picked up a saucy new show and a semi-new book, so here goes...





movie: annie hall. just as good as ever. diane keaton's wardrobe is one of the best ever, if you ask me, and it's definitely an instance of woody allen's humor at it's finest. diane and woody are so young. so wonderful. paul simon. enough said.



album: anything fleetwood mac. been listening to a lot of the mac. so freaking good. rumours...what an album. been listening to the chain over and over and over again. right on.



book: eat, pray, love. i know it's not new, but it's definitely a hell of a lot newer than annie hall and fleetwood mac. and though i've been prompted by my lovely mother to read it for some time, it isn't until now that i actually discovered it. and i am thoroughly enjoying it. to tell you the truth, i was weary. it was very popular amongst the older, female set. the oprah set. i knew it was, in part, about india and indonesia and that was a huge draw for me, but i expected a fluffy piece of chick lit. having failed at reading the lonely planet story (take one...i may try again) i picked it up and gave it a shot. and i must say her writing style is quite wonderful. in many ways it's a style i would like to achieve one day. i know elizabeth gilbert was a successful journalist prior to publishing this book (and her other books) but i just didn't know what to expect. she successfully mingles casual, stream of consciousness-type writing and ideas with very intelligent and philosophical terminology and concepts. i really admire it. i suppose this is why so many people were able to relate to it. who wants to write for too select a readership...i would want a broad mix of people to enjoy my writing and each find something that appeals to them within. and she has more or less done so (obviously to a point - i'm sure it still namely appeals to women). well played gilbert. well played.






tv show: most exciting of all is my new television obsession, SKINS. yes, it sounds like some kind of porno or a dramedy in which throngs of women bare flesh. however, dramedy is the only thing that rings true. skins is kind of like a modern british degrassi. same kinds of problems (drugs, racism, homosexuality, eating disorders) save for pregnancy, a typical teen drama the likes of which has yet to be explored. anyways, skins are rollies in britain. i wasn't aware - you learn something new every day. i've blown through the first season, which actually ended quite tragically and the second season has taken a turn i never expected in a million years. quite depressing actually. and sometimes downright creepy. and terribly unrealistic. but really so addictive and so good! these kids are popping pills like candy, partying hard, fucking trashing their parents houses and having mad sex (or trying to). apparently things are different in britain? professors often party with them and curse like freaking sailors. cassie's wardrobe is so wonderful, especially her accessories. she is my favorite, although she's not fully a main character. and she's just so very anorexic. it's cheesy at times, but check it out...it can be quite fun



lastly, my all-time favorite thing to do at the moment is not reading, watching tv/movies or even listening to music...it is by far night boarding. corber and i went this weekend and, the trouble we had getting home from gangnam at midnight aside, it was amazing. the hills were half as busy and we got in twice as many runs as we did during the day (if not three times)! we were riding so hard, it was wicked good. can't wait to go back next weekend. so glad i took lessons as a tween...it's really paying off!

wtf

by briton antonio berardi

seriously?

givenchy

i think this was definitely one of the most breathtaking collections of the season... i essentially love every piece...wow

not exactly street legal...

i must report i just had the most eventful between-class walk to the kimbap shop. upon my approach i heard yelling outside a car park and lingered to see what was going on (yes, im one of those sickos who has to see it play out). there were two korean women and two korean men arguing, and one of the women grabbed one of the men's sleeves and was pulling on it and yelling at him. he was trying to push her off but she was getting pretty shrill and hysterical. then she became more aggressive at which point she grabbed his hair, to which he responded by grabbing her hair, and they had a full-out, dramatic, hair-pulling cat fight (save for the fact that one of them was a man). this tug-of-hair went on for a bit and then things escalated even more and he pinned her down on the hood of a car. as the police rolled up in a hurry and one jumped out of the car and ran to the scene of the fight there were a number of onlookers, who probably understood a lot more than i did as all of the shouting was obviously in korean. the police broke it up and at this moment they are likely sorting out the upset

i wonder what they were fighting about? what great crime of passion would necessitate a street fighting style that allows for hair-pulling?
never in my life have i seen such a spectacle amongst adults...

quote of the day

"It appears that the website has become alive. This happens to computers and robots sometimes. Am I scared of a stupid computer? Please. The computer should be scared of me. I have been salesman of the month for 13 of the last 12 months. You heard me right. I did so well last February that Corporate gave me two plaques in lieu of a pay raise."

Dwight K. Schrute, Schrute Farms

and the weirdness peaks

NEVER thought i'd see this...or, rather, hear this
korean tv randomness has officially peaked
i was flipping through the channels, as the rumor of on style's relocation has turned out to be empty, and i came across a dramatic montage of doctors taking blood from a woman's healing wound as she cringes in pain
after a second i realized the music setting this dramatic tone was none other than the late elliott smith, a brilliant (albeit tortured) singer/songwriter who allegedly stabbed himself in the heart
it's funny, because im surprised by how few people in north america know elliot smith, let alone the obscure placement of his song on korean television

on style, off reality

today i lost 'on style', my one english television channel (and the soundtrack or background noise of my days in korea, being that i dont get cnn)
so i put on my music, which was a refreshing change...the blood arm, i really enjoy them right now, kind of like the killers (that being a serious 'kind of')
then i came to school and found out 'on style' had simply been moved to a different channel...which at first excited me (more top design, project runway and america's next top model) but now depresses me...oh to be enslaved

hitchin a ride with a shady character on the superhighway

this age of the information superhighway, or cyberspace, as it's come to be known, is spectacular. to have so much knowledge available at our fingertips is truly remarkable. there is always the risk of misinformation, what with the freedom of anyone with a blog or a domain to digitally publish whatever information they want (whether it be true or not). but when you are well-versed in cyber exploration this is less of an issue.

i spend a lot of time getting lost on the world wide 'interweb' (to quote tracy jordan, 30 rock, obvi). i guess for me it's like being in a new country, wandering aimlessly and finding yourself in the least likely of places. i can end up with a series of 20 tabs open, the first having to do with london streetstyle and the last excitedly detailling the re-release of 30-year-old French erotic films. and how did i get from a to z? i have NO idea...and that's what makes it so fun.

but there is also a dark side, at least for me. because my desire to absorb all of this information is a source of great pressure. yes, it's supposed to make my life so much easier. but sometimes it does just the opposite. i have about 50 bookmarks on my firefox, most of which i would love to check daily. but the prospect of checking 40 blogs and sites a day is incredibly daunting! i fail before i've even begun. so i wait a few days, but the longer i wait the more is written and my task becomes all the more daunting. don't get me wrong, i wouldnt trade the access we all have for anything. i just need to cope with the fact that i want to read/know it all...

in this age of unprecidented access to information, are we making our lives more difficult in making them easier? or am i just ridiculously lazy?