And the obvious soundtrack of choice will be Sigur Rós, because I listen to Bjork all the time already. Sigur Rós is kinda for a certain mood, the kind of sound that complements a certain escapist state of mind, and also one that complements the scenery specific to their hometown. Which is the atmosphere of the documentary Heima (=At Home), filmed at various shows and locations across Iceland. I wanted to post in it's entirety but don't have it on me at the moment (the youtube version I had is "no longer available", dammit, so just buy it) Music aside, my impression of Iceland is of a dreamy land a little behind in capitalism, somewhat outsider, in an earlier stage of that nonsense, very very beautiful and very very peaceful. Also a place where you can try politically incorrect delicacies like the whale sushi mentioned above and dolphin carpaccio. (If I already eat cows, I can eat a flipper, right? And come to think of it, I am obsessed with sharks. I would readily eat one and/or have one as a pet).
Anyway, I am earning extra money right now in London with a gig as a waitress for an event agency. For this I have to dress like a stewardess. I end up dedicating extra time and effort into my lingerie when I have to wear the uniform and sometimes feel like I am in a movie playing a role. This is a childish but effective way to make things less boring. I am also bound by contract and can't disclose any celebrity secrets that I might come across. It's a good thing that doesn't interest me (at least not enough to write about!) because contract or no contract, I am still a sneaky journalist. My first job was at the British Video Awards (BVA). The event was a mystery to everyone working that day. We knew it was an award show. The program had some pretty useless awards like 'Supplier of the year'. Bourne Ultimatum was up for British DVD of the Year and ended up winning. Matt Damon was definitely not there, or else I would have ended up being fired for grabbing the mic and pulling a Sarah Silverman. Later I found out that these awards were just for the common folk. That one went to some random person from Universal Pictures.
When I was on my break having a cigarette with all the other Brazilian imigrants, I heard the name Sigour Rós being announced for something. Then I knew it was for Heima. It won for Best British Authored DVD. So I was at a corporate event that honored Season 6 of the overrated Family Guy, but also a poetic documentary about Sigur Ros. That was a bit of allright. But I wouldn't recognize the band members in suits or even sans eskimo-type cold weather gear, so I have no idea which table they were seated at or even if they showed up at all. That would be the EMI table. They certainly weren't anywhere near me. My table was occupied by drunkorexics who drank endless bottles of wine but let thier food go to waste. Who knows why most of them asked for dessert only for that to go to waste too. Maybe they just didn't like it, but I hate waste. Or maybe I just resented the fact that the dessert was passion fruit tart which made me miss my heim in Brazil and fresh passion fruit juice from the garden and I only had a bite hours later (For the record, it was delish, call me if you need to plan an event with fine food and charming staff, darlings) For once I was sober, but the after party was a drunk fest of broken glass and people trying to dance with me. I'm pretty sure the band would have left the building had they been there.
I hate myself sometimes. I think that rules are meant to be broken except for the ones that can help you get away with breaking more in the long run, like the three basic rules of age prevention. (There are two more: moisturize every day - but that is part of my sacred bath ritual, therefore automatic and not even a rule, and get loads of beauty sleep - not happening) In the past years, I have been a naughty girl and broken these golden rules way too often, hence the new freckles on my face. Despite the decadent party girl rock chic inclinations that have been part of me since birth, when I was in my teens I strangely had the discipline of Pai Mei with my skin, it was actually exaggerated. Maybe it was just because I wanted to be goth and avoided the sun, but I also made sure I drank liters of water and went to bed sans slap. Since then I've "freed" myself from worrying about it. But now that I chain smoke and my clear liquid of choice is vodka, I could benefit from some of that old discipline. People say I have great skin, even facialists (which I have been to only twice my whole life), which is nice to hear (gee, I hope my lungs are as clear as my skin appears to be). But like any good pessimist, I always think it could be better, and if I'm feeling dramatic, I remind myself that I am not getting any younger. In Joy Division the documentary I noticed how Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris look pretty alright for their ages. That reminds me to go out and buy evian and make-up remover.
But then again, I doubt they read the beauty pages in Vogue. And since the new trend in the media from Sunday Style Magazine to the The New York Times is that it's a myth that you need all that extra water, and we all know that anti-aging creams claims are full of shit, so it's just hilarious really, you can't believe in god or science.
***
Speaking of my skin nazi days, you can never really tell who does read the beauty pages in Vogue. I once created a monster. I taught him how to take care of skin, use three-step products and blah blah blah. He enjoyed it all a little too much. He once said he wanted to die fat and bald holding a beer in one hand and clutching my ass with the other. We once planned to try all the junk food joints in New York City. I pretended to be angry as hell about these charming ideas, but it was all good fun. Another one bit the dust. Now he watches his weight, knows who Jil Sander is and is so vain he'll probably think this post is about him.
I vowed never to make this mistake again and try not to impose my high maintenance ways on my lovers. In fact, I've learned that for someone who loves fashion and cosmetics so much I am sexually attracted to the opposite. Metrosexualness is a wonderful quality for friends but not at all for a love interest.
I like men that have great style but don't follow catwalk.
Smudged eyeliner, ok. Fake tan, no no.
For me, men should have all the same care as women do, but with much less bottles of shit. I like to be the one that buys the french hand cream.
And I don't like men that sound like supermodels when they talk about food, which means they should be just naturally and effortlessly skinny, because a Men's Health template is not my cup of tea either.
I like to think of myself as one of those bond girl-esque women that are good luck charms at casinos and stuff. Blowing dice and bringing luck. Even though I am not so sure I believe in luck. But I kinda do because some pretty amazing things have happened to me. Chance is a fascinating thing. But I never ever win prize draws. Just one of the many things I try to win are tickets to the premiere screenings that the timeout newsletter sends every week. Each time I put my name in the mix and receive a message saying something like you didn't win this time, but keep on clicking because you might some day. So I was pleasantly surprised when the first time I ever won anything online, after trying to see just about anything for free, I got tickets for non other than the premier screening of the new documentary about Joy Division, one of my favorite bands of all time.
Even though I love it, I still thought it was overexposure. A film about Joy Division again? But you can never get enough of a good thing. And you can't go wrong with a film that features interviews with everyone still alive from the time and old archive footage. And that's all you really need to know if you like the band. The interviews were really revealing in the sense that the director, Grant Gee, got intimate unrockumentary comments from all of them them. He also did Radioheads' Meeting People is Easy.
Anton Corbijn is also interviewed in this doc. In his fiction Control, Sam Riley had the presence to carry off playing Ian Curtis and even resembles him. But no one has the eyes.
I can't get over Ian Curtis' piercing alabaster eyes
I can't get over how he moved.
Martin Hammet was a genius.
The film ends with Atmosphere in the most melodramatic way possible. And it worked a charm. But I didn't cry until about an hour later when it all sunk in.
I know one that does. I said I may have been contaminated by one-track mindedness, not the healthy kind. My dreams were polluted by units 0 ,1 and even 2. Tireless robot said that happens to him all the time. I think he dreams in codes. I bet he is thinking about them when he is twirling his hair between his fingers with that blank look on his face. And I find it endearing because the system error codes surprise me.
Ophelia By Millais was a redhead. And look what happened to her
Quoting a line from the Portishead song It could be sweet that quotes someone else: "you don't get something for nothing". Ignoring this piece of wisdom, I went to get my hair cut at the Tony & Guy academy for zero quid. Actually, in some cases you can enjoy free stuff, but hair is not worth the risk if you have even the faintest shred of vanity in you. Fuck vanity, if you don't have the patience of Mother Teresa, this situation is not for you, unless you aspire to be someone's science project.
I don't know what possessed me to think that was a good idea. As soon as I arrive, they tell me to wait in a line with the rest of the herd. A stylist comes up to me, says he loves my hair, and asks me if I want to color it as well. I thought to myself - For free? why not? Change is good. So I said ok. I was sick of the blondish bits on the ends anyway. After that I waited in a chair for an hour reading The London Lite about 10 times - no other reading material was available. But no worries, I didn't expect it to be a light speed process. Suddenly I get my "consultation" with a teacher and a student. They go crazy. They want me to go half red half orange. I say I just want to cover the blond tips with my natural color.
-We don't do all over color here. This is an advanced class. That is too simple, says the wrinkly Sonia Rykiel wannabe teacher with over-processed, dried out, fiery red hair and ugly shoes.
-Ok, what are the options?
After discussing this for a further 20 minutes, we decide on a technique that uses 3 different colors. I chose three different brown tones. The approval seeking student looks at her teacher, not me, and says she wanted one of them to be red. Don't get me wrong, I really like red hair. And I've been there, done that. But the thing is red looks better on straight hair. Mine is curly and I am not going for a Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman look. Or an Orphan Annie. Or a frizzy-haired pre-raphaelite Ophelia. At least not for now. And I politely try to tell them so. Ignoring me, they enthusiastically choose a color, while gazing at each other adoringly. I am sure they were lovers. But I had to burst the bubble.
-I'm sorry, but I don't want any red
-You can't choose what you want, that's why you pay only five pounds
Little did she know that I had a cupon from the paper and didn't pay a thing, but I say
-I paid five pounds because I am getting my hair cut by a student, not to be a guinea pig.
(She should pay me, is what I wanted to say)
-You are being difficult
(That was a good one)
- Nevermind. Just do the cut then please
And then the girl refuses to cut my hair! She and her teacher start waving their hands in the air and telling me never to book to get my hair colored there again. I say that I never did in the first place and get up to leave. The girl getting her hair done next to me says -What the hell is wrong with them? Don't give up, you waited for so long...
-And I won't wait any more, and I'm never coming back!
(I was actually quite shocked and didn't know what else to do)
But the supervisor that first approached me wouldn't let me get my coat. I asked him what was wrong with those women. He said he didn't know. He insisted on getting someone else to cut my hair and I reluctantly stayed even though I still had to be in the same room with the mentally unstable redhead. Thankfully he said my shoulder length and assimetrical curls could be a little more 30's and I was convinced. He got a nice italian girl to cut my hair. She understood exactly what I wanted even though her english wasn't that good. She was brunette, after all. And she have me a free blow out too.
Moral of the story: Toni & Guy's graduates are trained to know how to recreate the newest "trends" in hair cut and color (as dictated by their own magazine, which usually means looks that were acceptable in the 90's). If you have your own style and know what you want, don't go there. But since I never learn, and have just quit my day job, I might still try the Vidal Sasson Academy because Crissy said it's allright ;). If I do, I will remember to take a book. Perhaps Christiane F., in case I need to tell anyone that fire engine red hair was trendy in 70's Berlin.
Moral of the story II: The best and most perceptive, not to mention the funnest hair stylists are gay men. Viva Hudson Hush ;)
Millions of people have blogs, but I am new to this hell. I thought that technology had evolved enough to make it possible for me to post my images any where I want. I don't have time to be experimental, I just wanted a few of them side by side for the sake of comparison. Is that too much to ask?
The blogo software for mac has helped me before (checkout drinkbrainjuice.com/blogo), but apparently blogspot's configuration doesn't understand what the button SAVE is for and let's you edit but not post pictures next to each other.
After spending hours of my precious youth dragging pictures and seeing that when you post them they go wherever they want and won't budge, managing to screw up the original font sizes too, I give up. I am forced to put them in a straight line from now on, but I doubt that will give me the symmetry I want. Am I just thick or what? And is there anything better than blogger without an unappealing name like wordpress?
