Acquisitions

I LOVE jewellery! Love it! When I was little I used to dress myself up in my mothers necklaces, bracelets and rings and run around the living room singing to Whitney Huston and Madonna (i was pretty cool) then when i got older I took it upon myself to rifle through those treasures again and claim my favourite pieces. In hindsight, not completely ethical but hey, I like shiny things!

Over the years I have built up quite the collection including cheapies from Sportsgirl, things found at op shops, more from my family (ahem) and lots of gifts. The image below is of my latest acquisitions. One is a necklace by Polly Van Der Glas given to me by my lovely boy who just so happens to have the best taste in jewellery, lucky me!

Polly's work is exquisite, this ring on a necklace is a silver cast of a plaited lock of hair, just beautiful! Her work is on display at QV in Melbourne, 25 Jane Bell Lane and runs till April 2nd, get there quick!

The other 'knock someone out' ring was Finders Keepers Market purchase. Now, embarrassingly, I have to admit to not remembering the stall I bought it from so I can't tell you the designers name. I think I had tunnel vision or something, I bought the ring, ripped it out of the bag (throwing it carelessly in the bin) and shoved it on my finger where it has stayed every since. I ADORE it but don't know who made it and have trawled through the market website to try and find them, alas no luck. Any help would be much appreciated but this ring is too cool not to tell everyone about.

Hope you like my shiny things!!

The other Moss

So word on the street/email newsletter is that The Kills are coming to Australia for Splendour in the Grass. I REALLY want to go, it's around the time of my birthday, it's technically a holiday and if the rumours are true, the line up is going to be amazing!

I love The Kills for both their music and front woman. Alison Mosshart is freaking amazing! Her style is outstanding and i'm in love with her bravado! She's like Mick Jagger in a beautiful, cool woman's body!

Here is my ode to her in pictures;

** I have wanted these gold Marc Jacobs boots for an eternity. Are they not just amazing?!

** Mosshart in her side project The Dead Weather

** Ok, looking at this pictures makes me wish I never gave up smoking!

** As does this!

** In all her glory and those MJ boots!

Testing!

Ok so my blog layout is definitely a work in progress right now. I do however adore this background image but Anatoly Zenkov an amazing Russian Interactive designer. He's seriously brilliant.

Anyway, i'll leave it up for a bit and see how it goes!

3

So i'm going to tell you what I think of three things;

1. The new TV on the Radio song.

My first encounter with TV on the Radio was in NYC as an unknown, amazing sounding band i had never heard of. Flash forward to being back in Australia and hearing Wolf like Me on the radio....that was when i fell in love.

This band is truly incredible, not only for having David Bowie singing back up 'Province' (PS TVOTR also covered Heros) but because you can not pigeon hole them into one genre. I love bands that dabble in a range of sounds from electro, to funk, to full on indie to.....Ambulance, a song performed completely acapella, it also happens to be one of my favourites. Their last album was released in 2008 and was called Dear Science. I was lucky enough again to see their very sweaty, 40+ degree performance at the Hi Fi Bar. It was amazing and the band did extremely well under the roasting conditions, I was exhausted but left wanting more! I waited and waited and waited and the last week, scrolling through Twitter I noticed that Pitchfork posted a link to the bands new song. To say the least, i'm so excited! The band is back to form and i can not wait to hear what the rest of the album sounds like. Listen for yourself;

Will Do by Tv on the Radio

2. The Curve of Forgotten Things

I think Elle Fanning is amazing! I've said it in my review of Somewhere and i'll say so again, the girl is exquisite and only 12 years old! The Curve of Forgotten Things, directed by Todd Cole as a collaboration with Rodarte, soundtracked by Deerhunter was created to highlight the designers 2011 Spring collection. I tell you, i have never seen anything more beautiful! Elle looks like one of those California girls from the 70s with just a hint of The Virgin Suicides. With an LA backdrop shot through a vintage lens, the film gives you that warm sense of nostalgia disrupted ever so slightly by the modern touches to Rodartes collection. I could watch this over and over again. It's so calming and glamorous and I imagine myself walking aimlessly through historic houses and down winding roads instead of sitting her at my desk in a stupid white cube.....ok, i need to watch it again but here are some photos to tied me over;

3. The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

I am reading this at the moment and i LOVE it. My friend Charisse read it whilst we were overseas mid year and she raved and raved about it. Finally back in Melbourne i picked it up from The Paperback Book store after trying a couple other places to no avail. It is incredibly well written and a fascinating story of a polygamist called Golden Richards whose life and convictions go through a but of a revolution due to a number of hilarious and often heartbreaking occurrences. I'm not going to go through too much as I'm only about half way through and hate reading reviews of books i haven't read so don't really want to write one! Anyway, if you are looking for something to do now that Melbourne weather has officially decided to give us the finger, this is my pick.

So there, three things, i've told you about them and now i can get back to work!

Pimps Trying to catch a woman that's weak

Image: Bobby Womack in The Black Zorro

So, my mate Coop (who has this awesome blog The Graf with another friend of mine B-Doggg) works with me occasionally came into the office with an awesome play list today.

He called it something like Dancing Soul (not sure bout that, sorry Coop) but it's AMAZING..

Things like Mr Pitiful by Otis Redding and Save Me by Aretha Franklin and Be My Baby by The Ronettes were on it and we were all in such great moods all day just singing along and enjoying ourselves, at work....I know right?? After the past few weeks I had, it was a nice change!

Then Across 1010th Street by Bobby Womack came on. MAN, that song makes me want to be on a balcony somewhere singing my guts out, or driving cross country after some huge disaster like Jackie Brown at the end of the movie.

There is SO much soul in this song full of desperate verses about pimps and hoes but well before rappers were singing about them. I LOVE Hip Hop but there ain't no one who sings about hard times (and pimp) like Bobby in this song.

Well

Happy New Year, slightly late but relevant all the same. Not sure it's just me but it's taken a while for me to get into the swing of 2011, it feels strange but i think it'll be a good year.

Despite my optimism i've had a shitty week and sometimes I need to look at nice things to get me through, most of them have something to do with fashion or food. So, for the sake of my shitty, shitty week, here are some things that make me smile!

Oh how I love Chloe Sevigny, for her style for her work in the best movie ever Last Days of Disco and for her funny friends.

These necklaces by Pamela Love make me want to die. I love them AND my lovely BF bought me the silver tribal spike on the left for Christmas, SO spoilt!!!

New St Kilda eatery The Newmarket Hotel is delicious both for it's food and interior. The amazing Melbourne based studio 6 Degrees designed the space and Chef Paul Wilson creates unbelievable South American style food. The Corn is mental!

Local Natives are an amazing band from Orange Country apparently. They were here for Laneway Festival which I sadly missed but I was lucky enough to go to their sold out show at the Corner. 2011 has just started but this is definitely going to be the gig of the year. Their music, simply, is beautiful. They are amazing musicians with incredible voices that really do give me goos bumps. Check out their album, Gorilla Manor, highlights for me are Wide Eyes, Sun Hands and the lovely Cubism Dream. THIS initially drew my attention to the band, so good!

OK, back to my shitty week......think i can handle it now!

'Somewhere'

All i can say about Somewhere is that Sofia coppola is a genius. This film and indeed all her others represent the world in a beautiful way, no matter how painful it really is.

Somewhere her forth feature seems to be a more personal piece, lacking in any real narrative but allowing the audience to swim in the stunning visuals she gives to them. Coppola has a knack for being able to set up seemingly ordinary, everyday scenes, and turns them into a work of art. She takes a world as heartless and cruel as the Los Angeles celebrity vacuum and depicts it as sort of fairytale wonderland. Often heartwernching, the winner of the 2010 Best Picture award at the Venice Film Festival, is more visual than narrative. The first 10 or more minutes of the film is noticeably without dialogue and you instantly relate to the protagonists isolation from his surroundings and indeed himself. Stephen Dorff has been away from the screen for a few years, not exactly sure where he went but he play's Jonny Marco, an 'It' actor living at the Chateau Marmont a place synonymous with Hollywood debauchery. Jonny is surrounded by everybodys and nobodies and doesn't' really seem to care about anything. The only real depth you see from him is through his daughter Cleo played superbly by Elle Fanning (the girl is ridiculously beautiful at just 11 years old). Even then you see a distance between them due to circumstance and the world they live in. Though their journey throughout the film is playful and heartfelt in some ways, there is huge void between them that Coppola tries to close but which you know will remain open.

Sophia has a way of being able to make any environment look inviting, even LA and though there are shots of endless highways (perhaps a reflection of the main character) the lush green vistas and incredibly decadent lifestyle definitely makes you envious. To say what the film is 'about' would be quite hard as it isn't really about anything, it's more of a reflection of a life which perhaps the film maker herself can relate to. There is slight catharsis at the end of the film however you do leave the cinema with the longing felt throughout.

The film is beautiful and it's nice to be able to sit and appreciate Coppola's aesthetic for a few hours. My favourite scene involves a fun day out between Jonny and Cleo. They swim and eat and shop and in one instance they pat a little puppy to a backing track of Julian Casablancas' 'I'll try anything once". Seriously, there is nothing better than that!