Not-So-Friday Links

I’m mid-viewing of There Will Be Blood and mid-studying after a kind of abortive trip to Paris.  Never trust weather.com when it predicts no precipitation. Always bring your umbrella.  Because if you don’t it will rain in the morning and snow in the afternoon.

• The top Welsh names in Wales.  There’s something intriguing about Welsh names- from the enigmatic (to me) spelling and pronunciation to the Lord of the Rings- vibes.  Not to mention names like Angharad and Gwilym- characters from one of my favorite films, How Green Was My Valley.
• Speaking of movies- an enjoyably extra idea for creating memorable movie nights for the family- themed invitations and menus.
• Remembering Hubert de Givenchy, a brilliant couturier and the designer most associated with Audrey Hepburn‘s rise as a sartorial star.
• This movie looks insane-in-a-good-way. Also excited to see Lakeith Stanfield in another role post-Get Out.
• I would watch a Jared Kushner musical.
• A visually beautiful article about the production of roses for Chanel No. 5. Via my Mom. (Also, I’ve been to Pegomas just this year!)
• Am I the only person who’s thought about what I want done with my body when I eventually and inevitably kick the bucket? This natural burial ground in Tennessee is actually closest to what I’ve imagined.  Except god forbid my final resting place be Tennessee.
• Surprise surprise: A huge MIT study finds that fake news stories are much more likely to spread and go ‘viral’ than real news stories on Twitter. Kind of expected but no less scary for that.
• Having never been married and having no children of my own, I can’t realistically vouch for any of this advice- but I do like it.
• The mysteriously adorable allure of maternity overalls.
• Are intimately subtle, barely there perfumes having a renaissance?
• Taking down the single versus spoken for binary. “Does the idea that people have to “love” — or simply feel any specific way about being single — give the concept of romantic attachment too much power?”
• This French food waste law is changing how grocery stores approach excess food.

A Chronology of My Style Crushes

Before we get into the nitty gritty business of fashion icons, I want to relate a very disconcerting story.
I just caught my cat (Mirko, the boy one_ trying to smuggle a dead mouse in from the porch (in his mouth). So I grabbed him and carried him back out- but somehow between getting him from the kitchen to the porch he dropped the mouse. And now neither of us can find it. He’s looking a shard as I am. In fact, as I’m typing this he’s still wandering around somewhat bereft.

I can’t imagine that being a situation Grace Kelly ever had to deal with.
Segue.

Call them my sartorial inspiration, if you like.
The fact is, every period of my life and ‘stage of my style identity’ has had a different mascot connected to it.
Some more embarrassing than others.

Pre-Perfumista Fragrances

(Don’t Laught at Me)

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that one of my passions is for perfume.  To the extent that I hope to follow a career in flavor and fragrance chemistry.  This really got triggered sometime around 8th or 9th grade, when I bought what I think of as my first ‘perfumista’ fragrance- L’Air de Rien, by Miller Harris.  L’Air de Rien isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, as it combines musk, patchouli, vanilla, oaks, and orange blossom to get a scent that ultimately feels very sexy and ‘lived in’ (or like a cupcake in a stable, if you’re my mum).
Apparently in 2006, Jane Birkin commissioned Miller Harris to create a perfume smelling “a little of my brother’s hair, my father’s pipe, floor polish, empty chest of drawers, old forgotten houses.”
I’ve never smelled Jane Birkin’s brother’s hair, but I think MH was pretty much on target.
And then my interest in perfume really kicked into high gear in 10th grade, when I started swapping samples.

So that’s the not very necessary backstory, which was really more just an excuse to reminisce over the start of my long-enduring marriage to L’Air de Rien (sorry!).  But even if that’s really what I think of as the event that initiated me into perfumista-hood, that doesn’t mean I never wore perfume before hand. Because I did. And I’m not too proud to remember.

Friday Links 6/16

It’s Friday! Which means it’s time for another links post, and somehow June just keeps on slipping by.

What are your plans for this weekend?
I have a visit from my aunt and her new guy (new because I haven’t met him, though they’ve been together for I think over a year). I love Aunt Susan- we’re kind of a lot alike, in how we think.  Do you remember when, growing up, you stopped feeling the disconnect between yourself and adults? And how amazing it was relating to them as actual people (as opposed to caregivers or cousin-argument-arbiters)?
And Sunday is Father’s Day- we’re planning a nice family brunch at The Friendly Toast (which looks delicious- except I can’t for the life of me tell what is vegan and what isn’t).

The Best Romantic Comedies of All Time: Me vs Vogue

On May 25th, Vogue published a list of the 51 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time. That’s right- all time.
And of course I take exception to it, to put it mildly.  Maybe I’m holding Vogue to unreasonable standards- it’s not AFI or anything- but the fact remains that of their 51 all time best romantic comedies, I agree with exactly eleven.

Why so few? First, tell me if you think The Graduate is a romantic comedy. (Hint: it’s not). How about Bridesmaids? Is Bridesmaids even romantic (No, seriously, asking- I couldn’t get through the first ten minuets it was so crass).  And those are the two problems. The majority of movies are either 1) not romantic comedies or 2) not good, not to mention not the ‘best of all time’.

But of course this is all just opinion.  If I were to make a list of what I think are the best romantic comedies (of all time), it would be the list that follows. The ones in italics are those I share with Vogue.

15 Summer Movies

In honor of the beginning of the summer solstice, I’m going to be doing a bit of a seasonally themed week.

Summer movies are an interesting category. I think most people are familiar with the idea of the ‘summer blockbuster’, but I’m wondering more about what it is that actually makes a film as classically summery in feel as sandy toes and an iced tea on the porch.

Top Movies of the Month

And today it’s been exactly four weeks since I returned to the home.  I’ve spent most of that time lounging and languishing, as one is wont to do after a fairly brutal confrontation with a semester of higher education.
It’s an important defensive measure- for the preservation of sanity- to do your utmost to expel all of that malignant and intrusive learning from your head so it can be once more empty and happy and light as a balloon.

Yep, summer is a time for the easy pleasures.  Easy pleasures like lovely films; some complicated and thought-provoking, others simple enough that you can let them wash right over you like a summer breeze or murmuring ocean tide.  And of course, for the few days that your remote is out of commission, there will always be the guilty recourse of youtube rendezvous with Say Yes to the Dress, Season 14 (Grow a spine and tell your entourage that they and their opinions can go to hell).
Anyway, these were the happy viewing of a few of my quiet evenings… when I wasn’t rooting for lace over tulle or ballgown over mermaid or whatever.

Familiar Film Faces

For a person of 20-going-on-21, this list is… um…. a bit embarrassing.
I like old movies (classics, please) just as my literature preferences lean more toward the 19th century.

Naturally, my favorite actors and actresses are similarly timeless/currently deceased.  Mostly.
And my favorite actors are not necessarily the ‘best’ actors, but rather the people I am always happy to see on the screen.  Just as when a book is written by my favorite author I try to read it, if a movie has one of these people in it, I try to watch it.

Jimmy Stewart: I date my film obsession back to when my grandmother showed me Rear Window the summer before my freshman year of high school.  In reality, it had probably been seething beneath the surface before then- but the breathtaking combination of Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly (see below), and director Alfred Hitchcock caused a veritable explosion in my conception of what films could be.  I like Jimmy Stewart for his self-effacing, foot-shuffling charm, whether he’s bringing it to a screwball romantic comedy (Philadelphia Story), a Western (Destry Rides Again), or the quintessential Christmas film (It’s A Wonderful Life).