Quote of the Week: Saturday, December 29th

"If the good Lord intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates."

-Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Mary

"Sing, Mary, Sing!
Lullaby the King
Born to be our pardon
No longer shall we weep
Come soften what was hardened
Oh, Sing, Mary, Sing!"

-"Sing, Mary, Sing" by Jennifer Knapp

Memoirs of a Geisha

I received a copy of this film for Christmas and was so in awe of it's ethereal beauty that I had to write about it. My parents met in Japan, so I have always had a fascination with the country that allowed me to exist. I also met the woman who designed the hair for the film this summer at film school...she even styled my hair like Sayuri's (cherry blossom combs and all!) Anyway, enough bragging. Rob Marshall, the director of Chicago, creates a gorgeous, lost world that we can never enter, the world of the geisha in the 1930's and 40's. I know this will sound really weird, but this movie has a wonderful "rhythm"-Marshall knows just when to end the scene, just when the actress should tip her head. It's like a dance. Ziyi Zhang is like an Asian Audrey Hepburn, but my favorite actresses in the picture are Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li. Yeoh has such a grace and poise, yet gives her character an inner strength, and Li, with her intense eyes and bold voice, controls the screen every time she enters it. This is a film not to be missed.

Have a holly jolly Christmas (and Kwanzaa, and Chanukkah, and New Year...

I'm going to take a break from blogging until the New Year. Thank you for reading Linden Street, and have a wonderful holiday season! God bless.

Excerpt from Swan Lake by Mark Helprin

"Are you the emporer?" I asked, because at first I thought he might be a dog handler or a groom.
This seemed to amuse him. It was he: I recognized him from postage stamps.
"No wonder you're the emporer," I said. "You can write with your foot."
"Not really. I just keep my pen there sometimes," he answered. "But wait, maybe I can. What an excellant way to send orders to my foot soldiers. Call for a tablet."
"How?"
"Just call."
"Just say teblet?"
"Yes, my voice is tired."
"I'm not used to giving orders."
"I am. Do it."
"Tablet!" I screamed. The door flew open so quickly that I jumped back in surprise, and a liveried servant appeared with a vellum tablet. While I held it, the emporer tried to write with the pen held in his toes. He didn't do very well. Then he had me try it. I didn't do very well either. Now I breathed a little easier, because I knew we had something in common...I could no longer ignore his costume. "Are those pajamas?" I asked.
"Of course not! This is military underwear! Today I inspected a regiment of my hussars."
"In underwear?"
"Yes in underwear, with a uniform over it."

-Passage from Swan Lake by Mark Helprin

Quote of the Week: Saturday, December 2nd

You're in luck: today I'm giving you not one, not two, but three completely quotable and great-to-put-on-those-Christmas-cards-when-you-have-nothing-else-to-say quotes. Well, aren't you the lucky one!

"All progress depends upon the unreasonable man."
-George Bernard Shaw

"The woods would be very quiet if no birds sang there except those who sang best."
-Author Unknown

"That which gives is the heart, the fingers only let go."
-Haya Proverb

World Aids Day

Today is World Aids Day. Wear red. Give back. Support the fight for a cure.

What can you do? There are a lot of companies who will donate a portion of their profits to help fight this disease. My advice, though, is to research where the money goes first before you jump in and buy. Aside from Aids, you can help support artists in third world countries by shopping at Ten Thousand Villages (see my links.) This non-profit organization sells jewelry, home decor and more made by artists in places such as Thailand, Guatemala, Ecuador and Nigeria. Another great organization is Samaritan's Purse...they've done everything from Katrina relief work to Operation Christmas Child. Don't be a bystander to the craziness our world is going through. We will never be able to completely eradicate all the world's probelms. But we can try to get as close as possible.

Music That's Rockin' My World: The Newsboys

I feel like I've been listening to the Newsboys for forever. (They've been around a long time.) In fact, this quirky, Australian band has been the only band that I've consistently loved since I first started caring about music beyond "Old McDonald." Their lyrics are hilarious and witty, and their sound is a cross between U2, Euro-pop. eighties rock and Coldplay (with a dash of urban funk.) Here are some lyrics from one of my favorite songs, "Breakfast."

"Hold the milk, put back the sugar
There are parents to console
We gather here to sprinkle ashes
From your late friend's cereal bowl
Breakfast clubbers sang the motto
That he taught us to repeat
You will lose it in your gym class
If you wait till noon to eat

Back when the chess club said our eggs were soft
Every Monday we'd say grace and hold our juice aloft
Well, none of us knew that his check-out time would come so soon
But before his brain start waving, he composed this tune

When the toast is burned
And all the milk has turned
And Cap'n Crunch is wavin' farewell
When the Big One finds you
May this song remind you
That they don't serve breakfast
In hell"

Have You Seen Me Today?

"Have you seen me today?
I was the girl with the hair astray
My form impressioned in the sand..."

-Excerpt of a poem by Anne Pfeiffer

Knights, Ladies, and Dragon-Slaying

I am a romantic. Not in the Valentine's Day, rose petals and "oooh, a cute boy!" way. I love chivalry, heroes and the Middle Ages, fierce battles, brilliant painters, the Renaissance, damsels (who aren't in distress) and the courage to do whatever it takes to kill the dragon. I've been in a sort of giddy, "I want to kill a dragon and run off with a knight as we fight off the evil king and live in a secret castle underground" mood. I've been blasting my swashbuckling movie soundtracks, dancing to "Lusty Month of May" from Camelot and feeling more important than I should while The Fellowship of the Ring's battle music plays. In short, as my brother says, I've been "swashing some buckles." (And if you don't get that joke you need to read up on your Robin Hood, Treasure Island and Hero and the Crown.)

Under Construction

Sorry about the crazy colors and readjustments my blog is going through right now. I'm "remodeling" and it might look a little odd until I'm done. Thank you.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!-that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night
Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE,

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling-my darling-my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Shoes I Love Unashamedly

I'm not one of those crazy shoe people, but I love JCrew's shoes, especially the Wellies. I don't know why their clothes seem so British to me...maybe it's because for me, an American who's never been to Europe, Virginia is what I suppose England to be like...rolling hills, gigantic oak trees, old book stores with dust covered volumes, and creeks that are lots of fun to wade in as you wear your Wellies. A Thoroughbred horse or two doesn't hurt either.

Quote of the Week, Saturday November 25th

"A smile is a whisper of a laugh."

-Author Unknown

Cleopatra

Cleopatra is deserving of all the attention she has gotten over the centuries. When the world was dominated by power hungry men, she stood firm and stubbornly worked to make her country as wonderful as it could be, despite a tumultuous upbringing which included a forced marriage to her younger brother. She was bold with her requests and didn't mind raising an eyebrow or two. It's not fair that all people think of when they think of Cleopatra is sexy siren. Yes, sometimes she used her body to um, "forge alliances," which I obviously think is wrong, but she deserves more respect than that. The films that have burned her permanently into pop culture beautifully portrayed the opulence of Egypt, a land where rulers were led to believe that they were gods and all they did was just. The film photographs are of Elizabeth Taylor and Vivien Leigh.

The Screwtape Letters

C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors. (Maybe my top favorite.) This book is incredible. It is about two demons, Screwtape and Wormwood, who correspond in letters about the tempting of humans. The book isn't meant so much to be a fantasy novel as a book on theology, a way of looking at our faith in a different way and questioning what we truly believe. You don't have to be a Christian to appreciate this book, nor do you have to be a whiz kid or a minister. It's simple, yet complex, and completely beautiful (as C.S. Lewis' work generally is.) I'm the kind of person who always sees how far I can go before I technically "sin. This book really convicted me. How would your behaviour change if you knew that Satan was luring you over with the little things?

Music That's Rockin' My World

I love early Beatle's music. I love music I can dance to (as you've probably gathered from my previous posts.) They really did change the music scene. My hat's off to those fine blokes across the pond.

I love books. Bookstores are my favorite places in the whole world (next to the woods. I saw a buck right outside my fence today...now that's poetry.) When someone writes a book, they pour a part of their life, their thoughts, their soul, into their work. So when you think about it, a bookstore is filled with pieces of souls. Some of the pieces are confused, some are bits of people's minds I really never wanted to see, but most are wonderful. Thoughts just come out better with some paper and ink. If you leave them bottled up inside too long, they'll get over crowded by other thoughts. And that's why, of course, some people go mad.

Shallow Post of the Week

Heath is gorgeous. The End.

(Technically "Dirty Dancing" should have been the shallow post, but I managed to embarass myself by trying to make it high and lofty.)


The Real End.

Quote of the Week: Saturday, November 18th

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Dirty Dancing

I love dancing. It is so freeing. I love ballet (though I'm not very good at it,) swing, show dancing, modern...making your body look like it's totally loose, while you really have to control every muscle and know how to move each one individually, fluidly. I just watched Dirty Dancing again tonight. I know that morally speaking, it's not that great, but I love dancing...I can't watch it and not want to dance.

Film Flash: Corpse Bride

Tim Burton's visual style is so unique: you know instantly if you are watching a Burton film. I love the fairy-tale quality, stretched out proportions and subtly sarcastic nature of the movie (Danny Elfman's soundtrack doesn't hurt much either.) Stop-motion animation is a dying art form. Hopefully more people will get interested in it from watching this beautiful film.

Mary Cassat

These pictures might look generic to you, but at one time, they were revolutionary, even rebellious. Mary Cassat was a painter when it was considered improper. There were very strict rules for painting: everything had to be painted realistically, and only classical subjects, such as mythology or Bible stories, were considered worthy of any consideration. Instead. Mary chose to use loose brush strokes and paint ordinary people doing ordinary things. You don't always need to run away or dress goth to be rebellious (though these things aren't always bad.) Sometimes you just have to look at the world a little differently.

Film Flash: Marie Antoinette

The new film Marie Antoinette, by Sofia Coppola, has recieved a lot of media attention, both good and bad. Though the acting midght be mediocre and the plot watered down, the costumes, stunning scenery and rock music soundtrack make it a great film to watch: it is almost like a moving painting. This is a film I would love to watch in pieces (all at once is a bit long) any time I feel the aristic side of my films is uninspired. The best scenes are the party scenes: it really humanizes the characters, and takes away some of stuffiness we tend to attribute to royals.

Music That's Rockin' My World

My dad found KT Tunstall's cd at a used record store for $5, and I'm really glad he bought it. Her voice is deep and jazzy, and her songs all have an acoustic folksy rock ballad vibe (what do you think of my new musical category?) You might know her song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" from American Idol, or "Suddenly I See" from The Devil Wears Prada. I promise it only gets better.

Sirens

There have always been certain woman in pop culture who have that extra "oomph." Women who aren't afraid to be curvy (or use a very good corset,) women that every girl wants to be and every man wants to date, women who effortlessly walk the line between classy and trashy and glamorous.
The screen siren style never truly dies. A siren, unlike a bond girl or a tramp, has brains and mystique to match her curves.


Some of these women are: Veronica Lake, Marilyn Monroe, Faye Dunaway, Evylyn Nesbit, Donna Reed, Greta Garbo, Angelina Jolie, and Jessica Lange. Pictured are Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Taylor, Beyonce and Eva Mendes.

A Little Magic Never Hurt Anyone...

If you've read my blog before, you've probably noticed how much fairy tales have influenced my work. So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to find that my returning blog after a long absence is devoted to magic. (Of the fairy tale sort, of course.)

I recently saw the film The Illusionist with my brother and his friend. The movie is made to look old, and has a deliberately slow pacing that makes it compareable to old 1940's films or an old book. Even if you couldn't care less about a film's quality, I think you'll like this film...the story keeps you guessing until the last three minutes, and the magic performed in the film will make you wish that you were an illusionist.

My other note: I found these funny little pixie dolls on a website called www.moolka.com. This website has lots of whimsical, creative toys that makes me wish that I was little again.

The Music That's Rockin' My World

I was introduced to the soundtrack for the musical Ragtime by my friend Charles, a fellow actor. When he told me it was better than Les Miserables, I was skeptical, but all I had to do was hear it, and I was hooked. The story line blends back and forth between historical and fictional, comedic and dramatic, bid show tunes and soaring ballads-it's definitely worth listening to. I could write on and on and on...but just take my word for this one (or Charles'.)

Graphic Design: Flower Fairies

I loved reading Cecily Mary Barker's poems about fairies and pouring over the beautiful illustrations when I was little. I still love these pictures. The larger image is from a website called www.fineantiqueprints.com. (It's from 1920.) There is such a timeless innocence about these images...very much like Beatrix Potter's work.

Fashion Flash: Fingerless Gloves

Fingerless gloves are a great thing for an artsy Southerner such as myself. They give your hands added warmth in the winter, but don't smother them like conventional gloves. Plus, since your fingers are free, you're provided with the added dexterity of movement that those marshmellow finger blobs don't offer. Or, if it happens to get really cold, you can layer your spiffy fingerless gloves under real gloves/mittens.

Fingerless gloves can cost a lot in the store. I bought a book to figure out how to knit them, but that was not a success. Determined, I came up with this alternitive:

Find an old sweater, preferably one that's shrunk a tad. Cut the arms off at the length you wish your gloves to be. (I like mine to end at the wrist. This way you can use the sweater cuff to hold it all on.) Cut a hole in the side where your thumb comes out, and presto! fingerless gloves. Try to felt these in your washer so that nothing wravels.

(The gloves pictured are from www.urbanoutfitters.com.)

Favorite Book: Swan Lake

You might look at the title of this book and think that it is about the ballet Swan Lake. You would be entirely wrong. Swan Lake, by Mark Helprin, combines the classic legend of a prince bound by the structures of society and a mysterious girl who lives by a lake (and just might have an air of the supernatural about her) with a historical context to make a riveting tale filled with alternating humor and deep insights into the human soul.

This version of the story takes place in an Eastern European country and is told by an old man who used to be a secret agent for the emporer. The emporer has died and the nobleman Von Rothbart aspires to take the country from the true heir, the prince. The prince has fallen in love with a girl he met while hunting, Odette, who is really an exhiled princess. But once the prince returns to the palace, Von Rothbart and his misstress, the Empress, successfully seduce the prince with the decadent world of parties, women, and luxury. Odette waits in the woods, pregnant, not realizing that the man she once loved has sold his soul to the world and forgotten her...unless a stubborn old man and an army full of assasins can make him remember the swan lake.

This breathtaking novel is a quick read, so you have no excuse not to read it. If you love a sweeping romantic epic filled with looming mysteries, lush, seductive settings, and heroes who are thouroughly confused as they try to sort out their life, then you need to read this book!

Fashion Flash: Givenchy

I went on the Givenchy website, www.givenchy.com, for the first time today. From what I had seen on "movie stars," I expected it to be more light and ethereal. Instead I found it generally dull and uninspired. The designers don't seem to take a real woman's body into consideration: if it makes a model's hips look huge, why should I wear it? Givency seems to be like many modern artists are: they worry so much about being cutting edge that they lose the humanity and the genuine inspiration. I did, though, like the four dresses pictured above. They are all gowns that, if I had the right ocassion (and enough money,) I would wear. I love the unique neckline on the red dress, and as for the others...let's just say when I was little I wanted to be a fairy.

Ballet

There is something so soft and yet so strong about a ballet dancer. They can move as if they are made of nothing, as if they can float on the air. Then you see how solid and muscular they are, and you know that you are looking at some of the greatest athletes in the world. These are photographs of dancers from the NYC ballet. I love their poses and how the shapes that their bodies create are both fluid and firm. I always wanted to be a dancer. I'm good at most types of dance, but I never had the right turnout to become a professional ballet dancer. Oh well. One of my favorite things to do, now, is draw them. I've made a really cool sculpture of a dancer.

Food, Glorious Food! (Blue Sky Soda Edition)

I have loved Blue Sky all natural sodas since I first tried them, but yesterday I found one that was especially glorious (I'm serious 'bout my food, ya'll!) It's called White Tea Soda Pomegranate. Before all you picky eaters squeal "ewwwww!" and wrinkle your noses at me, let me say that it doesn't taste weird at all: sorta like a 7up Plus without the Splenda aftertaste. Plus, white tea and pomegranates contain natural antioxidants which help to shield your skin from the sun and prevent aging. Sounds like a pretty good anti-wrinkle routine for me!

Added bonus: the can looks pretty.

Film Flash: Rebel Without a Cause

I am completely in love with James Dean (please don't tell Marlon Brando or Johnny Depp.) So many teenagers nowadays think that life was easier growing up in the 1950's. This film brilliantly bridges that generational gap. The cast gives very real, raw performances: all you'd have to do is dress the teens in Old Navy and Hollister and you'd have a thoroughly modern piece. Human beings haven't really changed throughout the ages. We've just bought new outfits.