Mid-week Links

It seems like every time I’ve been posting recently it’s been prefaced by an apology about my lack of consistency.  I’m here again and again with another excuse- you would think being homebound with a bad ankle would lead to more posting rather than less, but instead I’ve just generally been very off my game for the last week.  Thankfully I’m starting to shape up and am more or less ready to rejoin the land of the living/productive, which is good because we’ve got some family trips lined up which I would never for the life of me be missing.
But that does also mean I’m unlikely to be posting consistently for another week and a half.  The boondocks of PA doesn’t even have phone connection, much less WiFi.
See you on the other side!

In the meantime, I’ve amassed a hideous army of motley links from around the interwebs.

Why so many posts about Instagram?

• Intimidatingly stylish Insta-kids. I do not follow these small people but I do have to say that Jayde Robinson looks like the cutest thing ever.
• Is ‘personal taste’ being replaced by an algorithm?
• The Call Me By Your Name x Monet mashup you didn’t know you needed. Summer vibe.
• Some pretty art photos.

Peace and Acceptance:

• “It’s two years after Pulse and too little has changed.”
• On Polyamorous relationships.
• 7 LGBTQIA stories to celebrate Pride

On Films:

• The trouble with Hollywood’s gender flips: “These reboots require women to relive men’s stories instead of fashioning their own. And they’re subtly expected to fix these old films, to neutralize their sexism and infuse them with feminism, to rebuild them into good movies with good politics, too. They have to do everything the men did, except backwards and with ideals.”
• The Pop Culture Detective strikes again! The topic: Abduction as Romance.
• The Hate U Give. This looks pretty great.
• What is Cinemascore?

Miscellaneous:

• Real men smell like flowers.
• Testing the new Glossier cloud paints on different skin tones. Dawn looks pretty amazing on darker skin, IMO.
• My personal kama sutra.
• There’s a garden on top of Fenway (how did I miss this?!) and the truth about New Haven’s masked boombox man.

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Links 4/07

I hope you had a lovely Saturday. I took a forty minute detour to claim a vegan cinnamon roll, visited the Louvre’s special Delacroix exhibition, and ate a pizza (also vegan).
Keep an eye open for an upcoming ‘best vegan pizzas in Paris’ post. The sequel to the Boston edition- we’ve relocated.

So here’s what’s happening on the interwebs, carefully avoiding the trend for snorting condoms.

• The city of lights from the sky
• I’m fantasizing less about these outfits and more about the swoon worthy descriptions of spring weather
• Body glitter is now the only appropriate use for the Kira Kira filter. I am entranced.
• What happens when you add illustrations to those random snippets of overheard conversations
• I would stay here– books and beds are the only things I need in life
• For it to really be Paris he would have an accordion
• Infernal Affairs and The Departed– for me The Departed wins because Boston, but I have yet to see Infernal Affairs (it’s been on my list SO LONG) so that’s not worth much. It does look excellent, doesn’t it?
• If you’re a Royal Wedding fan, maybe you want to enter this social media contest to suggest its defining ice cream flavor?
• The unstoppable rise of veganism, about which I have mixed feelings (more people want to eat my cinnamon bun but more places sell vegan pizza).
• The benefits of a plant-based diet for health and the environment.
• Congrats to Yale and congrats to Nathan Chen.
• An interview with my favorite makeup artist
• A follow up on the Orientalism inherent in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, and in the broader world of American cinema (with a very interesting segment on 2015’s Met Gala theme).
  “It’s Japan purely as an aesthetic — and another piece of art that treats the East not as a living, breathing half of the planet but as a mirror for the Western imagination.” And perhaps the only thing that will lead to a more fair, just, and equal portrayal of Asians in cinema and pop culture is the spending power of that huge sector of the world population.
• Turkish Rondo in finger snaps
• Molly Ringwald reflects on the problematic legacy of John Hughes movies in the era of #MeToo

Icebreaker Questions and Answers

Icebreakers and I have a tempestuous relationship.
Despite being something of a hot seat devotee and a major fan of random and revealing questions, my first memory of icebreakers is on the traumatic side.

It was the first day of 3rd or 4th grade.  Our teacher (Probably Ms. Ellis in fourth grade, this seems like just her brand of sadism) told us we would be going on an impromptu camping trip, passed around a roll of toilet paper, and told us to take what we thought we would need for an overnight stay.
I was pretty sure something was up. I may have been eight years old but I was no fool.  They needed my parents’ signatures to bus me to the Science Museum for a few hours. But still part of me was completely appalled at the threat of being spirited away for a night. And having to reveal my toilet paper needs? It was the height of humiliation.
You may have played this game before- you have to share a fact about yourself for every sheet that you take. I don’t remember what I did- probably something middle of the road like 5.  Someone took one sheet and another boy (I think it was Pedro) took about half the roll.

So while I have no problem with sharing some level of personal information and even less of a problem listening to other people’s stories (when it doesn’t border on the TMI) I hate the enforced ‘getting-to-know-you’ of icebreakers, which are really only good for uniting a group against the irritating and condescending authority demanding how many bones you’ve broken.

Which is a long way of saying I found 25 fun icebreaker questions and I’m going tonsure some of them.
Please do not be inspired to use these for their purported purpose of ‘team building at work’.

• What was your first job?
  My first paid job was as a barista at a Barnes & Noble Starbucks.
• Have you ever met anyone famous?
  The most starstruck I have ever been was when I met one of the horses who played Shadowfax in Lord of the Rings.
• If you could pick up a new skill in an instant what would it be?
  So many I can’t choose: a language, hunting with falcons, parkour, an instrument…
• Seen any good movies lately you’d recommend?
  Good Time wasn’t my kind of movie but it is being criminally overlooked. It came out in 2017.
• Been pleasantly surprised by anything lately?
  The only things coming directly to mind are both today: Clinique’s eyeliner is in fact easy and liquid, and it sounds like Black Panther is super intersectional and has strong female characters.
• Favorite band ten years ago?
  I was twelve, which was about the time I got my iPod and started listening to music for the first time. Honestly it was probably Aly and AJ or Avril Lavigne. Embarrassing.
• What’s your earliest memory?
  I remember sitting on the rug at preschool and thinking to myself, “I’m three”.
• Been anywhere recently for the first time?
  Grasse and Nice!
• What was the first thing you bought with your own money?
  The first big ticket item I bought with my own money was one of those felted cardboard cat condos. It was two floors. We still have it. It was $80 and I had saved for forever. I think I was in Elementary school. I was a high roller.
• Any phobias you’d like to break?
  Nope, spiders and I are good with where our animosity is, thanks very much.
• What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?
  I’m such an old person, I like raisin bran. But I remember being young and loving the Cap’n Crunch I had at my cousins’ beach house. When I came home and asked my parents if we could buy it they told me it wasn’t sold in our state. Ah, the lies our parents tell us.

Links from the USA

Happy Christmas Eve Eve! I arrived home yesterday afternoon and am super jet lagged and being treated to a very New England ice storm.

It’s excellent.  We’re going to see The Last Jedi tonight and I think my excitement will be such that I will stay awake.  I’ve heard lots of interesting things about it but have so far avoided any spoilers.

I have a healthy (and scented!) collection of links this week!

• Quentin Bisch on “a journey to dreams and emotions” and what it means to be a Givaudan-trained perfumer.
• Why perfume descriptions are never about smell (hint- it involves the close link between fragrance and memory)
• The Cult of Le Labo Santal 33. I think it smells like cucumber.
• Zoologist has some new releases– I think Camel sounds very appealing.

The year-end photo compendiums are coming in, here are two favorites…

• The Most 2017 Photos Ever
• The Most Hilarious Wildlife Photos of 2017

On the fashion front:

• What did happen to jeans in 2017? Honestly, whatever it was, I kind of liked it.
• An Instagram account I’ve started following, which gorgeously marries art and fashion/cosmetics.
• Finding one’s sense of style really is a personal journey. I don’t think I could truly define my style beyond ‘things that make me happy and that I like wearing’.

And the more miscellaneous:

• What did you learn this year? I loved reading the comments.
• The Ocean’s 8 trailer has me excited.
• Pantone’s Spring 2018 color trend forecast.
• Some great gift ideas for francophiles (ahem, me) via My Little Paris.
• Excited to see Swing Time on this list of the world’s coolest playgrounds. It inspired me to search for Imagination Station and discover that it was in fact a thing and not just a figment of my childhood imagination. Now that was a playground.
• This clip of the original Fantasia just blew my mind.
• Keeping the NYC Vogue scene alive.
• How to wrap a cat.

Links not Words

Look at me doing two posts two days in a row like I don’t currently have 134 raw materials to study and an illness to recover from! 😀

No excuses, I have reaped enough links from the inter webs now to share them and I’m missing sharing my thoughts more often, so I’m going to work on making time for this blog/diary/list compendium more of a priority.
For the children, you know.

• Pixar’s released a TEASER TRAILER FOR INCREDIBLES 2! I’ve been waiting so long. And I am so ready for destructive apocalyptic Jack Jack and stay-at-home Mr. Incredible. (And Edna Mode. Please, Edna Mode).
• One of my favorite makeup artists (Violette, check out her youtube channel) has released a trio of lip colors with Estee Lauder. I’m sorely tempted.
• A scholarly discussion of Rankin & Bass Christmas specials; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Finally convinced me to finally watch Jack Frost, which I had somehow missed during all of my childhood ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas. Here are some highlights.
• A program to help you find the word that’s just on the tip of your tongue.
• Guys, there’s a new horse movie coming out, Lean on Pete.
• The American Film Institute has released their list of top 10 films of 2017. It’s a pretty good list. I’ve seen 4/10 so far, time to get cracking.
• Yale’s released a new admissions video, “That’s Why I Toured Yale”, replacing cult icon “That’s Why I Chose Yale”. The weirdest thing? I recognize people in the video. (I see you at 9:26-9:33, ballroom team!)
• NPR’s guide to the best books of 2017. Be right back, adding about 20 to my list. have you read any?
• New York Times film critics on the best movie performances of 2017. So much agreement and so much anticipation for films I haven’t seen yet (like Ladybird, The Shape of Water, and Call Me By Your Name).
• The magic of big cities, an illustration.

Doings in Milan

I’m not going to go into the details of why I’ve been referring to my long weekend in Milan as a #SeriesofUnfortunateEvents, but instead focus on the positive.

Because it was a beautiful city and traveling is hard and once my phone is working again (the bad luck has followed me!) I’ll only (mostly) remember the good and happy parts.

So I set up a Google Map before I went (bluntly titled ‘Milan 2017’) and divided my places into ‘cultural’, ‘walking’, and ‘shopping’ designations/destinations.

Let’s have share time!

Cultural: I was mostly going for a cultural/high-brow/pretentious weekend to myself. The things I loved most are In CoLoR

• The Duomo and the Museum: It’s the one big church that everyone is supposed to go to but honestly (as you can see from my colors) I found some of the smaller ones more worthwhile. It’s a big cathedral, not colorful, not particularly unique. But grand.
• La Scala: The 6,50 euros I spent on la Scala cheap seats (for a philharmonic performance) were some of the best moneys I’ve spent in my life. It’s awe-inspiring. The people watching is as amazing as the performance, which sounds silly but you can very much see that people-watching is what the space was designed for. The boxes are each like a tableau of attendees, all spread out in front of you across the way. like so many paintings or television screens, so many snapshots. Also red velvet.
• La Scala Museum: My phone wasn’t working when I was at La Scala for the performance, so it was very worthwhile for me to go back and take photos. (And check out a box).  They also had some Maria Callas costumes on display, which was cool. Reminded me of how much I like ‘Addio del passato’. Which just autocorrected to Addio del pasta. Oh boy.
• Santa Maria delle Grazie: Not the church itself, but The Last Supper in the building adjoining. It’s set up so well, though you do have to reserve your place for entry. They let you in with the painting with a small group of people for a carefully timed fifteen to twenty minutes. It’s actually a pretty excellent way to view it- very few people, lots of space, uninterrupted views. Mind blowing and so striking.
• Pinacoteca di Brera: All of the Madonnas and Childrens to put my own struggles in perspective. Gorgeous Titians, Veroneses, Botticellis, Bellinis, all that good stuff. The area around it is lovely of a nighttime walk.
• Museo Poldi Pezzoli: Another art museum with an immense and majestic staircase with a fountain and goldfish and a room full of watches.
• Basilica San Lorenzo Maggiore
• Sant’Eustorgio
• San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore: I’m pretty sure the first thing you’re supposed to say when you walk into a church isn’t “Oh fucking fuck”, and yet. This church is so beautiful. It filled my soul. 100% worth seeing.
• Santa Maria Presso San Celso: this was my other big church favorite. Beautiful ceiling moldings and all that. Honestly pick this and the one above over the Duomo. Go to the Duomo piazza to see the church from the outside and feed the pigeons. And to check out Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, not for the shopping but for the architecture.

If I could add anything that i didn’t get the chance to see, it would be Bagetti Valsecchi, an ornate ducal residence with difficult hours.

Walks:

• Sforzescu castle: I lived super close to Sforzescu, and while I didn’t go into the museums, walking through the court and the gardens outside it was lovely.
• Navigli: The Navigli are a set of channels in the South of the city, and something I almost ended up skipping. I was lucky to roll in when there was a huge street market of antiques and vintage clothes happening. Beautiful and lots of fun.
• Piazza Mercanti: A cute little corner that’s seen better days. It’s pretty central, but still a bit hidden. By all means roll through.
• Casa degli Omenoni: This is not a walk so much as a neat building facade that one can walk by. But what a cool facade.

I ended up not sticking to my shopping destinations at all, but ended up doing these:

• L’Erbolario: Where I finally succeeded in getting myself a bottle of Meharees, a spicy musk perfume (reminiscent of Musc Ravageur by Frederic Malle) that I’ve been wanting forever (and regretted not buying when I was in Milan two years ago).
• Kiko Milano: Turns out Kiko Milano is cheaper in Milano. Especially when they have a buy three get three Black Friday sale. Eyeshadow sticks.

Food:

• Granaio: Gelato.
• Farini: A lovely pizza place just by San Lorenzo Maggiore, where they sell different types by the slice. Delicious. I ate three, Two probably would have been better.
• Juice Bar: A cheap eatery in my train station (Milano Cadorna) that had a yummy Vegano sandwich with what was perhaps the most delicious roast pepper I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.
• Centro Botanico: My nearest health food store, because it’s me. I bought hummus and bread and peanut butter and lived on it when I wasn’t going out to eat. And Fuji apples.

Late (Again!) Links

No preamble. Down and dirty style.

• Fortnum & Mason has a superbly beautiful (and fittingly spendy) Rare Tea Wooden Advent Calendar. All I can say is “GIVE ME THAT FUDONG WHITE PEONY KING!!”
• Remember dying of dysentery on the Oregon Trail? Well, now it’s a computer game and you can be a yoga instructor.
• As a seltzer lover, I came to the right place.
• Just some photos of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, the only celebrity couple that has ever mattered.
• Can we move my next raw materials exam to 9 pm?
• This might be my favorite HONY post ever. This man is the person I aspire to be. I’m ready to be illumined.
• I want this book.
• Sephora’s got a cool new campaign featuring its own employees.
• A quick video with Charlotte Olympia, she of the near-masterpiece footwear (plus bonus puppies!).
• Call me crazy, but I like What’s Happening Down There.
• Find someone who spits water on you the way Jon Stewart spits water on Stephen Colbert (and vice versa).
• Do you play that game where you imagine the stories of strangers you see? If so, this is the Instagram account for you.

Friday Links on a Friday

I continue to be in France! That’s it for updates really (for now. stay tuned).

• Has Backstage Beauty Lost its Gloss?
• A new study reveals a correlation between flower color and fragrance, suggesting an evolutionary ‘strategy’ to appeal to pollinators through multiple coordinated channels.
• Why Stinky Socks May Bother Women More Than Men. Now if someone could do a study about people who leave the lights on after leaving a room?
• The art of lighting black actors, courtesy of Insecure.
• The insidious metaphor of the ‘biological clock’.
• A profile of the world’s most dangerous bird. We had one of these at The Stone Zoo and I had no idea it was so… volatile.
• Another essay on ‘you can never go back’, this time about parenthood.
• A makeup commercial that actually reads as action-driven. More please!
• A heartwarming animation about an avocado who desires to feel ‘whole’.
• This trailer looks good. Or is it just because I like Ansel Elgort now?
• Another trailer, this time for a fun-looking animation.
• And a final one, this time with a weird-looking animation.
  It’s Wes Anderson. Go figure (but also so exciting!)

Friday Links 8/11

Firstly, thank you for helping me reach 60 followers! I’m very touched that people enjoy reading this blog enough to submit to a never-ending influx of post notifications.
Also I’m picking up my Visa today. And maybe finishing up my tour of the Greater Boston area vegan pizza scene (i.e., three restaurants).

Also also, I may have broken my toe this morning. This has been a summer full of walking into things and burning myself on heating elements. And cooking, but I guess that goes with the heating element part.

So what else is new?

It’s My Party and I’ll Buy What I Want To

I have such an interesting, ambivalent relationship with my post titles. Like this one sounds hugely consumerist, bitchy, privileged, and entitled.  But it rhymes with a song I heard somewhere that i feel like is a well known, even famous song but that i don’t remember. So now it will be stuck in my head and there is no better way to express that than putting it in everyone else’s heads as well.

The actual purpose of this post is the fact that it’s my birthday and I am 22 for the first time ever! It’s pretty great. I slept well, saw Dunkirk last night (amazing, expect news later), had a Dad-made celebratory peach pie for breakfast, and have finally started watching Django Unchained, which may go down in history as the second Tarantino film I don’t hate (shout out to Inglourious Basterds!)

The past few weeks I’ve been hunting down the things I’ve had on my wish list, and I thought I would share those today.

• Estee Edit Metallishadow in Wild Cosmos
• Nars Gouloue Blush Travel Size
• Nars Schiap Lipstick
• MAC Russian red Lipstick
• MAC Brave Lipstick
• Laura Mercier Caviar Stick in Cocoa
• Golssier Cloud Paint in Puff (I succumbed to the marketing and they sent me free stickers. I feel blissfully basic)

In hindsight, I’ve only bought makeup, which is very interesting. I do still have a bit of money left and I’m feeling very cosmetically satisfied. But I have realized, during the past week’s heatwave, that I could use more light dresses. This realization came about as I spent yet another day dying in a silk camisole and spandex shorts.