Everything Before Us

Everything Before Us by Wong Fu Productions is coming out tomorrow and even through my body’s current trials and tribulations I am SO excited!

You can pre-order it, but since it comes out tomorrow I’m personally just going to wait. It’s Vimeo, not a theater, so it’s not as if the theater near me is going to fill up or sell out. Watch the trailer below if you haven’t already seen it!

In case you still don’t really get it, or just like it in writing, the description from the video reads:

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Let’s talk about beauty

The beauty industry was something that, to a tiny, chubby, poor girl with limited artistic talent, seemed rather unapproachable. There seemed to me a certain limit to beauty, and if you go beyond it, it’s simply not beauty anymore, but becomes humdrum or “fucking weird” and while beauty is subjective, even if you openly deny the traditional ideas of beauty in your particular culture, you still know what they are.

Thankfully, even something seemingly as set and unchanging as the ideas of beauty get a facelift, as over the years we’ve seen ethnic faces in the crowd become the norm of any fashion show, and plus-size models take the runway and the covers of magazines. The acknowledgment of the beauty of the transgendered in huge “traditional” places such as Barneys New York.

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Happy Birthday Olivia Giacobetti!

Ms. Giacobetti is 49 years old today. She is my newest woman crush that I should have high-lighted a long, long time ago.

Olivia Giacobetti is an amazing French perfumer who has created fragrances such as Frederic Malle’s En Passant (my favorite Frederic Malle), Diptyque’s Philosykos and Ofresia, a whole host of L’Artisan fragrances including the infamously difficult to get Tea for Two (my favorite L’Artisan!), and fragrances for Hermès, Guerlain, and Penhaligon’s. I love her for her delicate simplicity and the subtle way she crafts her fragrances. I have loved everything she has touched that I have smelled so far, and can’t wait to smell more.

The L’Artisan website claim that she was inspired by the depictions of perfumery in the film le Sauvage which means I need to seek this film out with English subtitles in a hurry (or learn French. I feel I have more of an incentive to learn it than even mandarin.) She trained from the age of 17 at Robertet, a huge French distillery known for developing new ways of obtaining natural raw material from its distillation sources before opening her own firm Iskia, which I unfortunately couldn’t find any information about. And she does all this while staying oh so effervescently lovely.

She is currently working as creative director at one of the oldest perfume houses, Parfum Lubin.

Ancient aromas of Italy’s Santa Maria Novella

Little has changed in the pharmacy over the years. Compare this photograph to the next, taken several decades ago.

When I went on the American Music Abroad tour in Europe, we visited France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland and the beautiful cities I visited still haunt my stagnant legs and beg me to come back. I wouldn’t consider myself a Europhile, as I’m a tad too patriotic for that, but I do love the land and the history and the majesty within the old world and the people who walk on it, and I would like to join those people again one day soon.

Now unfortunately, my group did not get to visit Italy which with its sumptuous intellectual and creative history has had a little pining space inside of me since I started listening and playing Vivaldi and Paganini transposed for the piano. But now with another one of my interests illuminated in the destination (as if music, art, and chocolate weren’t enough), the waiting is going to be maddening.

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Sir Terry Pratchett

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31858156

Sir Terry Pratchett

I’m trying not to cry in the middle of my law class and my brain immediately shouts:

“But I haven’t finished all of your books!”

“I haven’t met you yet!”

“You were working on books despite your Alzheimer’s, you were, I heard! Were they finished? Did you finish your legacy?”

and “Please don’t go.”

Sir Terry Pratchett, you were one of my favorite authors, one of the smartest authors I’ve ever read, and one with such heart besides. Death is glad to walk with you now, while the rest of us mourn.

I Will What I Want – Under Armor

I’m loving those new Under Armour ads. They’re a perfect follow up in the theme set by the Always #LikeaGirl Superbowl ads; crazy excellent women doing crazy excellent at the things they do. Misty Copeland, especially struck me as a a great model for this particular set of ads because I have experience with the dance and performance industry, and the voice-over used in her video really struck a chord. Under Armour especially does a great job expressing an emboldening message, while making their products look fantastic.

Any profession where the body is used as an outward vessel for expression incites criticism of the vessel. Calls for an idealization of the vessel that makes it so that expression through it is exclusive. Modeling is the same way, though Giselle Bundchen’s ad focuses on a slightly different issue. There’s this odd tendency in all visual arts, from videography to photography to writing to watercolor to etching to dance, that dehumanizes the subject, and concentrates them down to that moment. At best, art gives a summary. We can’t forget that there’re always more to the story.

I’m having a pretty good day

I started my new job today. And the hectic craziness that is going to be my life until at least May. And if I have it my way, the rest of my non-retired life will be fairly similar.

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Sleepy train station picture! One transfer, about an hour (more like 40 minutes), all-in-all a decent commute. I don’t start too early, so there isn’t that much of a fight for sitting room which is nice.

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Merry Christmas!

Hope you all had a good Christmas and did something as relaxing as a nature hike with your family…

…risky as eating raw oysters at a Chinese buffet…

And I hope you spent time with friends…

And ate some bangin’ food :3