Do you want to know how much I love Color Collective? To the moon and back. So simple: beautiful images distilled to perfect colour palettes. I love encountering these small bursts of colour, energy and inspiration when I go through my blog feeds in the morning.
In less than a week I will be completely immersed in French. Eep.
The Canadian government has a program through which students can do a five week french (or English, if they are a native French speaker) immersion program. Next Sunday I will be making my way to l’Université Sainte-Anne, a small French language university in Pointe-de-l'Église (Church Point), Nova Scotia.
A few weeks ago I received my "passport", a little blue book filled with information. And rules. Until that point I hadn't really thought about what French immersion actually meant. Sure, I realized I would be speaking French exclusively, but there was a line in the passport that made me realize the broader implications. Under the heading Stereo it says, "Portable stereos are permitted, but use headphones to avoid disturbing others or imposing your musical tastes on others. French music must be played at all times. Professeurs and animateurs may check headphones to ensure that English music is not being played."
So I need something to listen to. In French.
The Internet led me (somehow) to my favourite find, Ô Paon, aka Geneviève Castrée. She formerly made music under the name Woelv, and I love that stuff, too. You'll like it if you like slightly weird, haunting vocals and overlapping sounds that make you feel like you're listening to music while drifting underwater in the shallows of a dark ocean.
My friend J recommended Coeur de Pirate, the Montreal-based darling of the francophone (and otherwise) indie scene. And she is indeed darling. I downloaded her album, and while it's short, it's lovely. I also highly recommend listening to her covers of I Kissed a Girl and Umbrella - her voice is gorgeous and a bit smoky, and I love piano-based covers of pop songs.
My friend A then got me into the 60s French girl pop singers à la Françoise Hardy (LOVE the audience in this one).
And that's where I currently stand. I have a small selection of girl singers to listen to (people have recommended other stuff, but these are the ones I've liked best. I guess that's not surprising given what I listen to most in English). I'm definitely still on the lookout for some more selections, so if anyone has any recommendations, please send them my way.
Oh, I'm guessing the no English rule applies to blogging, too. I'm aiming to possibly, maybe do some updating en français. We'll see how it goes.
Oh! Also, I am going to need to find some French novels to read. Any thoughts?
I came across a quote from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar while reading an article in Vanity Fair about the Barbizon Hotel for Women (where all the brightest young ladies stayed while trying to make their mark on Manhattan, including Ms. Plath when she interned at Mademoiselle in 1953):
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
Now, I swear I'm not depressed, but this passage so perfectly sums up that feeling of overwhelming possibility that comes with being young and jobless (or rather, job-free as I like to call it). I could do anything - but which anything should I try? And what will I be missing out on if I do?
I am such a teenage girl sometimes.
Really, I know what I want. To be a film librarian/screenwriter/novelist/blogger/TV host/epicure/kind person.
The men's faces are covered by masks. The man on the left, the one speaking, wears a satiny costume. His mask is lacquer shiny, pale, with rosy cheeks and a wide mouth. He looks like an overgrown porcelain doll. "We have no trouble with the blacks," he says. "The blacks and the whites get along fine." The old man next to him, his eyes covered by a silver mask tucked under his baseball cap, stares mutely ahead.
This was the moment that I became completely captivated by Margaret Brown's 2007 documentary The Order of Myths.
In 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was even founded, Mobile, Alabama was home to the first Mardi Gras in America. Over 300 years later the celebration is still central to the city's cultural life and identity. Or, perhaps, identities. Mobile's Mardi Gras is racially segregated. Two organizations, one white and one black, mount dazzling, separate events.
Brown's film navigates the jewel laden, liquor soaked phenomenon that is Mardi Gras in Mobile, exploring both sets of traditions. The energy of Mardi Gras suffuses every frame, and a current of tension is never far from the surface. Every moment is significant. Every gesture, and every slip of the tongue, feels weighty. Brown shows us a vibrant, complicated part of American life. I sat rapt, pulled into the narrative, until the film's final moments. And when it ended, I wanted nothing more than for it to keep going. I also felt the intense need to try a moonpie. Apparently this is a completely normal reaction.
I've been craving newness lately. It's in the air: springtime. Possibility. New haircuts, new clothes, new cities (possibly). New music.
I use the word new with some hesitation. Nothing makes me feel more behind the times than the music scene. I'm aware of the fact that the youngest, coolest people will blow their bangs up in the air (apparently my vision of young, cool people was formed in 1988 and will never change) and sigh, "Whatever. I've been into the xx since I saw them at [insert hipster name]'s party in [insert London neighbourhood I've never heard of] ages ago."
I admit it. I'm a little envious of those people. Part of me really wants to be a music nerd, but I've only ever been able to peer in from the outside. I stand at the edge of the circle and rock back and forth on my heels, nodding in fake recognition when the cute girls and boys in glasses and tight pants name check obscure Norwegian pop bands from the 60s that were "so influential." This is why I love the Internet: I can now run home (...I want a smartphone) and look up whatever random band (movie, asian snack food) was being discussed.
I read something (somewhere) recently about bands someone (somewhere) saw at Coachella. They gushed a little bit about the xx, and I was intrigued. Often I'm disappointed when I look up bands other people gush about, but within half a second I was hooked, and I've been listening to nothing else since. (This is the song I started with, and I love this video.) I don't usually love boy-girl back and forth vocals, but I like the way these slightly smoky, subdued voices weave in and out. Minimalist with driving rhythms and good hooks. A little bit moody, but not despairing. Not so much pretty, but gorgeous. Love.
I am a little bit in love with Hillary Webb's art. Hillary is one of the many (many) creative, lovely librarians-to-be I've met during my studies, and I've been wanting to share her work since the first time I saw it. I've always liked embroidery (my past is littered with unfinished cross-stitch kits), but Hillary's work takes it to a different level. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but she hand dyes her materials with dyes made of nature (nature! things like marigold, dahlia, black walnut, cochineal and umbilicaria, according to her website). The idea of her collecting little bits of world fills me with this fleeting storybook feeling that I can't exactly pin down, but it's rich and deep and a bit spangly. She then fashions her materials into these lovely studies of shape and colour. Love, Me Boutique in Halifax has recently started carrying Hillary's work, and I'm sure there are other avenues by which it could be purchased, if that's your deal. I love librarians. And art. And colour. And nature.
I just remembered my dream from last night (boring I know, wait up). One of my favourite things to do when I was a teenager was to sit in bed with a giant stack of magazines I had already read before and go through them. I would do this over and over again, for hours at a time.
Last night, in my dream, this was what I did. I remember dreamthinking, it would be amazing to have a blog all about old teen magazines. Surprisingly, awake me also thinks this would be a great idea. This was probably inspired by Jezebel recent revisiting Sassy's Dopey Fashion Poses, and I am currently very sad that I dumped (hopefully in an eco-friendly way, as I would have learned from this April 1993 issue) my piles and piles and piles of Seventeen (and Sassy, and YM, and... those were the main ones. Mostly Seventeen and Sassy.). Anyway, I would so love to go through them again. That would be a great day.
Maybe rereading blog posts would give me that same feeling. Probably not.
I am thisclose to finished my degree. Yeah, that one that I moved to Halifax for almost two years ago.
What?
So I am almost officially a librarian. I don't have a job lined up, per se, but I think librarian is a title like doctor or artist - now that I am one I will be one forever, no matter what my job title actually is.
Speaking of job titles, I'm looking for a job. And as a part of Job Search 2010 I'm thinking I should develop some kind of official, portfolio-esque web presence. I just want to build a pretty simple space online, a my name here kind of thing, where I can showcase some of my talents (of which there are many, and metadata is just one of them), but I'm lacking in an awareness of how exactly to go about doing that. I understand how to get my own domain name. And I know some html, css, etc. But I don't know how to combine the two to end up with an actual space online. I was looking briefly at just using wordpress.com to build a page, but I quickly got frustrated by the fact that I would have to pay more to make any changes to the css, and I wasn't in love with any of the themes as they stood. Plus I'm actually really picky about design, so I'd like to have a little more control/develop something that's a bit more my own. So, if anyone has tips on how to go about getting started, please send them my way. Thank you. I love you.
Also: the closer I get to being a librarian the more drawn I am to classic nerd glasses. The need is almost physical, at this point.
This is the best thing I've seen in days (edit: weeks). Also, ever since seeing A Single Man I've been wanting to dress like it's 1962 every day. This didn't help.
I think I might be addicted to books. And noodles. I need the ocean. I want to know everything. Almost.
I love love. And loving things. Like love. And like.
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