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Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Giggles and Love, Actually

If I could be any female actress, I would be Zooey Deschanel. I have no trouble admitting that I have a giant girl-crush on her. I have repeatedly cut my hair like hers (yes, I take her picture with me to the salon). I want to dress like her and therefore swooned over her Cotton ad:


Give me your closet, Zooey! I want to ride a bike with a basket in a cute skirt and cardigan, and go antiquing and shopping for banjos and records, and compose sweet sweet songs in my pajamas (oh wait that's her iPhone ad) that I then sing to a smiling and swaying audience in a dimly-lit intimate venue full of knowledgeable music appreciators who approvingly nod at my indie style reminiscent of a young _________ (June Carter Cash/Nancy Sinatra/Linda Rondstadt/etc etc). I want to sing in an awesome duo like She and Him and make an awesome vinyl album that comes with an mp3 download that I can buy and enjoy. I like to point out that I liked her way before New Girl and watched just about all her movies, especially the small ones like Gigantic where she played a character named "Happy Lolly" or the ones where she played awesome supporting characters like in Almost Famous, and that I knew she was "adorkable" before that word existed. I was thrilled when Jess, her character in New Girl, was just about exactly how I imagined she might be in real life (personality-wise, since in life she is a successful actress and musician and not a broke unemployed teacher), and also before that when I confirmed my suspicion that she was related to another favorite actress with shockingly awesome eye color, Emily Deschanel of Bones. Hello, most awesome sisters in the world! And when Zooey made a guest appearance on Bones as Bones's quirky cousin? Best! Ever!

But, wait... wasn't this post supposed to be about giggles and Love, Actually? Or at least giggles and love - actually? It is it is! So while reading about Zooey in some magazine or web article (lady magazines - if you want me to buy every issue just keep putting her on the cover. I fork over the cash like it's my job), I discovered she had started, with some other ladies, an awesome website called Hello Giggles that I now happily subscribe to. It's pretty much the webpage manifestation of Zooey - and although the different parts are written by many different people, they are all on the lines of what Jess's blog might be like if she had one. There's a Panda Night Cam! Cartoons! Nail polish ! And "Old Lady Movie Night," which is originally what I wrote this post to share. You should read this hilarious and spot-on commentary on one of my FAVORITE movies and probably favorite holiday movie, Love, Actually (high-five, friend Kate!). Talk about "old lady movie night" - one of the shocking moments was reading that the kid who played Sam is in his 20s. What?! Sigh. If you haven't watched the movie yet, WATCH IT NOW and read the commentary after (there are spoilers) so that you can nod in agreement and laugh out loud at the right moments while you read it. Appreciate the calculated "un-calculated" writing style that's actually a speaking style and see why I like it (even if you don't). Then let's sigh, swoon and laugh together ourselves about Love, Actually over a steamy mug of cocoa or chai tea. BFF-style.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Violins, Stop-Motion and Vinyl - What Could Be Better?

In following one of those procrastinator-friendly chains of online browsing, I happened onto several very cool things today, culminating in a music video from a collaboration album between violinist Hilary Hahn and Hauschka, called Silfra, and featuring a fabulous stop-motion animation by Hayley Morris. Let me see if I can trace the degrees of separation and highlight some of the treats along the way.

I started out from my FB homepage, which I hadn't visited in a while. I saw a post by a guitarist friend I haven't seen in years and from there went to browse his page. I noticed violinist Hilary Hahn among his "likes" and, a fan and player of violins myself, followed the chain to her page. I took a side trip from a link there to this article on the website "Vintage Guide to Texas" (those of you who know I'm a transplanted Texan and have a weakness for vintage can see how this was an inescapable trap). The article was there because it mentions that Hahn's album, the forementioned Silfra, was presented for sale ON VINYL during intermission at the  Dallas Symphony (swoon!). The article then goes on to talk about the return of vinyl and its superiority over other formats (word!).

At this point you can see an almost unbelievable series of irresistible crumbs seemingly left for me specifically by some (beneficent or malevolent?) guiding force of the global inter-webs (who clearly is an enemy of my dissertation). From the article I went to the album website, lured by the (a) violinist, (b) the album cover art (love!) and (c) the possibility of a good excuse to buy my one of my favorite things - one of those cool vinyl/mp3 combo albums (the record comes with a code to download a digital copy - what else can a millennial girl ask for from her music?). Once there I went to check out the advertised music video for "Bounce Bounce," was delighted by the animation, jumped to check out the page of the director and animator Hayley Morris, and was even more delighted by the photographic proof of her surely enchanting elven childhood, affinity to things miniature (me too me too!) and the rest of the description of her sources of inspiration.

Has there ever been a more worthy and fruitful internet chain journey? I think not. With that, I leave you with the music video for "Bounce Bounce":