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When I was in the States a couple of months ago I did my usual dash around a pharmacy to see what swag I could bring back home. I love pharmacies in the US. They’re stacked to the rafters with amazing products we don’t get here and often the prices are way cheaper on familiar products. I went to Duane Reade and spent an hour browsing through the aisles with my sister. I ended up spending $100 but came out with tons of stuff including Maybelline Gel Liner for $6, Essie nail polishes for $7 each (they can cost up to €15 here) and the best cuticle cream ever (and I’m raging I threw away the packaging as now I have no idea who its by!).
By far the best products I bought were by a company called Shea Moisture, who specialise in 100% natural organic skin and hair care. I bought the African Black Soap body wash and body lotion which were less than $10 each. They smell divine and are incredibly moisturising, clearing up flaky elbows and any other bits of problem skin. I am eking out the bottles as I know I won’t be in the US for a while but I have informed The Organic Supermarket in Blackrock about these amazing products and hopefully they might start stocking them. I’ll give you a heads up if they do! For any of you travelling to the US make sure you check out these products and bring me some home if you have room in your suitcase!
Loved this post on The Guardian blog on losing your voice to another writer. It can happen so easily. You find a writer you admire, devour their work and then find that everything you write is tainted with their writing style. The blog’s author quite rightly points out that reading Hemingway can be very dangerous indeed!
Sometimes writers consciously try and copy another writer’s style. Hunter S. Thompson said that in the early stages of his writing career he typed out The Great Gatsby and A Farewell To Arms to examine the styles and become familiar with the rhythms of Fitzgerald and Hemingway respectively.
I have never decided to ape a certain writer’s style as I would be far too scared of losing my own in the process. I reckon one’s writing style should be as individual as one’s fingerprint. It should be the result of all your life experiences, feelings, tastes, preferences and opinions; all the things that make you unique.
Sorry for the late posting today. I’m running a bit slow in general after two nights out to celebrate my birthday.
Came across this trailer recently for Rejoice and Shout, a history of Gospel music. It features interviews with such legends as Smokey Robinson, Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers, Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Andrae Crouch, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and many more. The film is directed by Don McGlynn who has helmed more than a dozen music documentaries on subjects such as jazz saxophonist Art Pepper, Howlin’ Wolf, Glen Miller and songwriter Harold Arlen. The trailer looks brilliant and I hope it gets a release date in Ireland soon.
There will be no Multiverse posts today as per tradition!
OK so it’s the most subtle hint of all time right?! Yes readers, my birthday is tomorrow. I decided to while away fifteen minutes imagining what I would self-gift if I came into an obscene amount of money in the next twenty four hours. The below is what happened.
Starting with the frock and going clockwise, let’s see how much I managed to spend shall we?!
Acne Pink Dance Dress – €300 from my-wardrobe.com
Balenciaga Silver Motorcross Pants – $4275 from Net-A-Porter USA
Alexander Wang Dakota Boots – €670 from colette.fr
Pauric Sweeney Silver Snakeskin Bag – €1009 from farfetch.com (and that’s a bargain at 50% off!)
L.A.M.B. Chloe Shoes -$260 from Zappos.com (again a bargain at 25% off! I am frugality personified.)
Christopher Kane Neon Lace Biker Jacket - €1180 from Net-A-Porter
Hermes Kelly Dog Bracelet – $460 from Hermes USA.
Grand total (not including delivery but counting for exchange rates) = €6643
Some things never change no matter how old I get. Champagne tastes and a beer income my friends.
I was looking through my computer for an old file and I came across some reviews I did for (unfortunately now defunct) online magazine Sigla in 2005. I thought I’d share one of them with you today. Hope you enjoy.
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Magical Thinking – Augusten Burroughs
Published by Atlantic Books
There are not many authors who can write three volumes of memoirs before their mid thirties but Augusten Burroughs has more than enough material to work with. In Running With Scissors he recounted his childhood and teen years, spent living with his mother’s psychiatrist after his mother gave him away, having correctly judged herself incapable of raising him. Unfortunately so too were the psychiatrist and his family. The follow up to this hair raising volume was Dry, which dealt with Burroughs’ move to New York, his successful career in advertising and his alcoholism, which came as no surprise given his chaotic childhood. In an age where rehab memoirs are ten a penny and everyone has had a dysfunctional family, Burroughs stood out due to the fact that his books were savagely funny and self deprecating.
I wondered what he now had to write about. Was this going to be a book about writing books? Surely he had not had time to cram more craziness into his life as it must by now be wholly taken up by writing and promoting his wares. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that Burroughs had once again come up trumps. Magical Thinking is a collection of essays and anecdotes about small occurrences in Burroughs’ day to day life; his minor celebrity, his brief dalliance with steroids, telemarketers, killing a rat that breaks into his apartment, his experiences as a teen model, and towards the end of the book, his happy relationship with his current partner Dennis.
Unlike his other books, the tales related in this book are almost mundane. These are experiences that we’ve all had or can relate to. What takes them out of the realm of the mundane is their author. His take on the world is original, scathingly funny and very self-aware. He says about himself, “I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of flaws stitched together with good intentions.”
There are several incredibly funny moments in the book, my favourites being “Beating Raoul”, which tells the story of Burroughs’ blind date with an arrogant investment banker who has a condition Burroughs christens “micropenis”, and “Debby’s Requirements” , a story about Burroughs’ crazy domineering housekeeper who is so small in stature that she can only clean the lower half of his apartment.
Burroughs acknowledges that he is a flawed human being, that he can be by turns selfish, shallow, insecure, honest, funny. Magical Thinking, like Augusten Burroughs, is free of pretension and is a consistently well written and hilarious collection of essays from a writer who consolidates his reputation with each new book.
Fifty People One Question is a series of films made around the world in cities including New York, London and New Orleans. The project is an ongoing social experiment and film series exploring human connections through people and place. I recently saw the piece that was filmed in Galway, Ireland, where the question they asked was “what is your greatest life regret”. The answers range from the funny to the heartbreaking. Have a look here:
What’s your greatest life regret? I think mine would be not learning how to play the drums when I was much younger. I guess I’m lucky that so far in my life I don’t have any major regrets. Let’s hope I can keep it that way.
Nico is most well known as singer with the Velvet Underground but she was also a Warhol superstar, songwriter, model and actress. Nico Icon tells the story of how this otherworldly beautiful vamp turned into a middle aged broke junkie.
The woman who would become Nico was born Christa Päffgen in Cologne, Germany, in 1938, almost a year before World War Two broke out. With her blonde beauty she looked like the perfect Aryan child. Her aunt, interviewed in the documentary, described her as “a lady at eleven years old…hands like milk and glass…”. Nico started modeling at about fourteen and moved to Paris a couple of years later, working for magazines like Vogue and Elle. (She was also the cover model for Bill Evan’s album Moon Beams, trivia fans!) She was christened Nico by photographer Herbert Tobias as he felt her given name wasn’t glamorous enough for modelling.
In 1959 Nico scored a small role in Fellini’s Dolce Vita as herself and she began to divide her time between Paris and New York, taking acting classes with Lee Strasberg. She met Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones in New York and he in turn introduced her to Andy Warhol who was managing the Velvet Underground at the time. Andy forcibly installed Nico as the band’s lead singer much to the disgust of the other band members who were not fans of her out of tune deep voice. Nico’s time with the Velvets was short and afterwards she went on to record as a solo artist which she did until her death in 1988 aged 49. (Incidentally I have never been a fan of Nico’s singing but her version of The Doors’ “The End” which is included in the documentary is a masterpiece – discordant, unsettling, strident and brilliant.)
Nico became heavily involved with drugs, particularly heroin, and I wonder if this contributed to the perception of her as cold, distant and unknowable. Throughout the documentary people comment on her lack of emotional connection, her lack of passion and the fact that she didn’t seem really interested in anything. I think she came across as uneducated and perhaps slightly vacuous. She certainly was incredibly beautiful but I think the blonde facade was actually a front for nothing and her looks were possibly the most interesting thing about her.
One thing’s for sure, she certainly wouldn’t win any awards for Mother of the Year. She abandoned her son Ari to the care of his paternal grandparents and when he was older she introduced him to heroin, effectively turning her son into a junkie. When Ari was in hospital on life support from a heroin overdose, all Nico wanted to do was to record the sound of the machines for her next record.
Nico Icon contains interviews with her son, Sterling Morrison and John Cage from the Velvet Underground, her aunt, her lovers, and acquaintances from her Factory days including Billy Name and Viva. The musicians in her band tell the story of life on the road with Nico which was chaotic due to heavy heroin use with problems at customs, violence, etc. The documentary to me felt a little light, perhaps that’s because the subject matter wasn’t a particularly deep person, but Nico Icon is worth watching if you’re a counterculture enthusiast or a Nico fan.
My recent hip hop buzz was kicked off by discussions with Hannah about her night Provider and other hip hop nights in town. I’ve always loved hip hop but never played it for a whole gig and I started thinking about tunes that I would like to include in a purely hip hop set. I’ve been obsessing over mixing Missy Elliot’s “We Run This” with Switch’s “A Bit Patchy” as both sample “Apache” and it could be kinda cool. Of course I am the DJ with no decks of her own so I can’t see if it works, I’ll have to just do it on the fly.
Then the wonderful Morgan played the Prodigy’s remix of Jay Z’s “99 Bitches” when he DJed at The Kitchen last Saturday (It’s downloadable free from NME here) and I nearly lost my reason! It’s a killer tune over a big rig. Check it:
Since then I have been trawling for tunes and have found some new favourites. M.I.A.’s XR2 (“Whistle whistle, blow blow, here we, here we go, go”). It’s an old tune and I’ve always loved it but never played it out. Check out this genius video mash up:
And I’ll have to have a track from the new Beastie’s album in there too:
I have a lot of the classics already but am taking recommendations too! What’re your favourite hip hop tunes?
A couple of months ago I asked Whisty if she would be interested in going vintage shopping with me so I could pick up some tips. Both us girls lead chaotic and busy lives so we only just managed to meet up last week. I’m a fairly useless vintage shopper. I hate having to plough through rails of stuff and don’t seem to have any vision when it comes to customising garments. However I’d like to improve my skills in this area as I have seen so many other stylish women in vintage pieces and it’s an untapped market for me.
Whisty is my heroine when it comes to vintage shopping. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen her in some amazing outfit and queried the details only to be told that it’s a vintage bargain. Tailored white Celine trousers and a Chanel suit are two of her best scores of late, but she also picks up 80s dresses, leather handbags, fringed shawls and all manner of gorgeous clothes on a regular basis.
We met in town and decided to focus our search in Temple Bar, first going to Lucy’s Lounge and then onto Golly Gosh Boutique, which has only been open for a couple of months. I watched as Whisty painstakingly went through the rails, patiently sifting through to find gems. As she browsed I asked her for her top tips for vintage shopping:
1. Check the entire garment for stains and see if they are dry-cleanable or not. If not, then don’t buy it. (Whisty has had some success with carpet cleaner for particularly tough stains!)
2. Check the fabric. On the day we went shopping Whisty picked out a red wrap-around dress she liked. The label stated it was pure new wool, so she knew that once the garment was freshened up and ironed it would hang beautifully and last well. Plus it was only a tenner!
3. Check all zips work.
4. Check seams, lining and stitching. Full lining, weights in the hems, and strong stitching (not merely an overlock) are all indicative of a quality garment.
5. Try it on for proper size. Sizing has changed so much over the decades that the only way to be sure if it fits is to try it on.
5. Patience is key! Whisty goes through all rails methodically, keeping aside potential purchases. This is hugely important as vintage stores are not as obviously merchandised as high street shops so you can find beautiful bargains lurking in the oddest corners.
It was, I am pleased to report, a successful day. I found a cream sequinned cowl neck top for €15. Whisty looked at the label and realised it was 100% silk and from a French shop, so she encouraged me to try it on. It fitted me very well and all I had to do to was remove the shoulder pads to make it perfect. As I’m a sucker for white tops in the summer I couldn’t leave it behind.
Thanks to Miss Whisty for an educational and fun day out. Check out her blog for lots of inspiration and style. Some pics from our expedition below.
Whisty
Lovely chandelier in Lucy's Lounge, Temple Bar
Golly Gosh Boutique, Crown Alley
Golly Gosh Boutique
When posing with velvet bunny ears one is obligated to pose like this.
Whisty casting her discerning eye over the wares.
Me in the top I eventually bought.
