Monday, June 25, 2012

Isabel Marant, Fragments.

We Are.

We Are.

We Are. by tabbybrower on polyvore.com

Your daily dose of cheese. Powered by: Me.
But seriously, don't you just love these women?
(Yes. Yes is the answer, cheres.)

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Junk of the Heart

I'm on Catalina Island, and everything is totally expensive, as usual, and I'm totally burnt, and in all the weirdest places, as usual, and it's totally lovely, as usual, and I'm totally happy, as usual.
I've been on like two books a day here (potent drug indeed)...but it took me four days to finish Perusasion.  Which was bloody good, and I have a secret - come here, and I'll whisper it in your ear - closer - I teared up reading Captain Wentworth's (or Dear Old Fred, as I may or may not think of him) letter to Anne.  I am all girl. But it takes a lot of focus to spend four days on a book. I am not half that dedicated. So to congratulate and/or reward myself I then read a short but lovely and remarkable book called Little Bee. (Jane, my favorite (only famous) Austen, Chris Cleave - momentarily typed Christ, which is appropriate in context-is here to save you.  He is here to teach you that books can be short-ish and still remarkable. It is a shame you are dead and can't try out this little philosophy I coined, yes, it was me.  Probably. It is: "Short and sweet." But I still love you. It's okay.)   Here is the cover of the (short) Little Bee, half the reason I bought it - it's so glossy and bright and marvelous in real life, and I am nothing if not a sucker for a reeeal pretty cover.

And here is the other half of my reasoning, the marvelous reviews and the tantalizing
"We don't want to tell you what happens in this book.
It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.
Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:
...Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it.  When you do, please don't tell them what happens.  The magic is in how the story unfolds."
And you know I can't resist a book that is honest about its grooviness, as I think we should all be fairly honest and accepting of our grooviness, and also a book that acknowledges the magic of stories in general. So there you go. Sold! to the crispy young lady whose knees seem to be the only islands of calm in a sea of general redness.
So Persuasion and Little Bee and also Stephen Funny-Has-Always-Been-The-New-Sexy Colbert's I Am America: And So Can You! are things that make me happy.  Meeting new people and watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding

(John. Corbett.)

with my little brother and finding a lovely private bit of beach with big clear wild waves and huge seashells and seals make me happy.
OH. Buying this Miss Selfridge's black doctor bag from some gal in Ireland on ASOS (pronounced A-Sauce, apparently.  One of the great mysteries of my life.) makes me happy, and on that note, thinking about Ireland makes me think about how I'm going there, and England, and Scotland, and Wales, and France, and the Netherlands, and Belgium, and so basically my life is complete and I can die now and it is five days less than three months now! Happy. (Going to sleep around four last night because I was up making an illustrated packing list for my trip was...happy! (er.)  Because for someone who couldn't focus for all the Adrien Brodys and Benedict Cumberbatch(s?) (es?) and Jake Gyllenhaals in the world, I focus remarkably well around one in the morning. Which is both terrific and terrible for my education.)
Oh here you go.
Turns out I had this saved as "YE-ES", which pretty much sums it up.

(Also I have all the elements necessary for a successful reenactment (redressment?) (rewearment?) of this girl's outfit. How happy is that? (You really shouldn't have to ask by now.)

But my original idea, here, was to write about music that has made me bloody happy this trip.
Happiness + Happiness = Happiness.
I don't know.
Maths has never been my strong point.
Singing Adele's My Same is happy.
Angus Stone's cover of Joni Mitchell's River is happy.
BB Brune's Illuminations is happy, perhaps happier for not really understanding a word of it. In that order, all my French and Spanish music is happiest. Hurray for that!
Diamond Rings' Something Else is happy.
YOU should be happy. I am making a bloody lot of effort to alphabetize this for you.
Well.  Apple did.
But I spent $200 to buy something to carry my music and alphabetize it, so I would qualify that as a bloody lot of effort, wouldn't you?
The Do (o = slashed, a la the...Dutch? Norwegian?)'s On My Shoulders is haaappy.
The Drums make me happy.  Everything Everything make me happy.  Ferraby Lionheart should give me his stage name, and then I would be perfectly happy.
Hospitality's Betty Wang is like, hey, ho, so happy.  And Hurricane Bells' Let's Go is like, shake your head while jumping in a circle around your little island house because, hey, that's how the cool kids dance, eh?, happy.
M83 is happy happy. And ooh la la, Mittens on Strings' La Middle Ages is like, dying of happiness happy. Paper Lions are happy, Peter Bjorn and John are happy, any and all RAC remixes are happy, Red at Dusk is happy, Simon & Garfunkel, Smith Westerns, Slow Club, my Strokes, The Rapture, Vampire Weekend's Walcott, that vaguely eerie song from Bambi about singing you or bringing you a song, possibly carrying a murder weapon whilst at it because the singer sounds like a bit of a psychopath like that, Warpaint's Billie Holiday, these are all VERY HAPPY THINGS.

That is possibly the end of my blah-blah-blah monologue about Happy Things. 
Aha!
Diana Wynne Jones.
and most indubitably, The Catcher in the Rye.  
What a lovely lovely lovely lovely book.
And, dare I say it? Happy.

GO.
Listen to happy music and read happy books that can be sad, that make you tear up, that make you bitter or even furious and may not be happy in the end, but in the end are happy. Capice? Watch happy movies (not Monte Carlo) and do happy things (seashell hunting, seal watching, in-ocean floating) (not eating dinner at a restaurant where you are seated next to a stuffed buffalo's head) and volunteer for crap because you meet happy people and also free shirts are very nice...and when you are all nice and happy and your knees and your bum are the only islands of calm in a 5'7" sea of fire, which is, you know, what does Sinead Lohan or something say, about being the color of pleasure, or something and I DON'T REALLY KNOW then go to sleep and do happy dreaming and happy waking up and also happy-eating-donuts-from-the-corner-shop.

xxx and all that frankly happy jazz,
happily,
Tabby

(and she lived...yes, happily ever after. amen.)

And Instagram, who is this homewrecker who has totally ruined my relationship with my camera, is happy.  You know, in that, my-moral-compass-is-a-bit-irreparibly-damaged-after-cheating-on-my-camera-but-who-can-argue-with-cool-filters-that-make-even-seagull-crap-kinda-beautiful? kind of twisted happiness.
Point: Count on being assaulted with many, many, happy pictures of happy crap on a happy island pendant une vacance tres heureuse. (For understanding on how to rate the previous sentence on a happiness scale, refer above: "...happier for not really understanding a word of it.  In that order...happiest!")
Cheers.