THOUGHT PATTERNS

More women in suits

This time Lovely Louise Brooks...

In "Beggars of Life" 1928 (see part of the movie here)

She had such charm, this girl.

xoxoxo

{via}

Lots of words, then pictures

Terry and I went to a new Vietnamese restaurant last night. It was included in the San Francisco Chronicle special section on 100 best bargain eats in San Francisco, so we thought we'd give it a try.

It was the worst meal we ever had.

I'm not going to name the restaurant. We liked the people, and maybe they had a realy bad night and some lousy substitute cook that kept taking out the rubbish cans through the restaurant while we were eating.

Whatever it was, the meal was simply inedible. I'm a bit of a finicky eater, but usually will do my best not to complain. I could not eat it. The awful smell rising from the steaming plates was just too much for me. And Terry, who will make an effort and usually eat anything, forced a few bites then pushed his plate away. Slimy, watery, rubbery, unbelievably bland and horribly salty. Even the plain rice sucked. And that's saying something.

The funniest thing is that I was a bit embarrassed and felt guilty to leave the plates full. I didn't want to offend the cook. :) I even suggested that we take the rest home (read: throw it in the first rubbish bin on the way.) But, Terry wouldn't hear of it, rightly so. We're not guests in someone's house, being careful not to make them feel bad about their inedible meal by hiding food in our pockets.

We had a slice of pizza on the way home. Plus, I don't think we'll be testing out any more of those "100 best bargain SF restaurants" recommended by SF Chronicle.

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I started reading "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro a while back. I remebered wanting to read it when it came out several years ago, but it somehow got pushed way down on my list. Well, now that the movie is out I wanted to read it before we see the movie. I'm a very slow reader as the only time I actually read is half an hour before bedtime and occasionally at the coffee shop. I was half way through the book (library copy) and was starting to really get into the story and its atmosphere when the time to return it came. I couldn't renew it as there is 71 people on the waiting list. Usualy I would just keep the book until I finish it and pay the fine but I felt so guilty and and sorry for that 71st person on the list that I had to take it back without finishing it. I'm sure that's not the only library copy, but still. Crazy but I can't handle that kind of guilt. :) I could always buy the book, I suppose, but I think I will wait for the movie to become available on Netflix.

Hey, what's with my guilt thing? I feel guilty about the oddest things.

Btw, I just requested Great House by Nicole Krauss, and I'm 180th on the waiting list. There you have it. What good karma?

Here is my library confession (perhaps it'll get me pushed ahead on the list.)

I'm terrible about returning books on time, and have paid so many fines that I could have already had a significant library myself. I also have a couple of books which have never gotten returned (from my teenage years) and somehow libraries have forgotten about it (I suppose when they crossed over to digital cataloguing my records miraculously disappeared.) A while ago I found some old books in my family home from the 1960s with "library copy" stamped on them. I think my father had the same "library illness." :) I'm much better now, I promise.

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We saw the latest Neal Jordan movie "Ondine" a few nights ago. I would deffinitely recommend it, the story is quite lovely and unexpected.  The movie has this magical, ethereal, wonderfully sea-like quality about it. I felt like we were underwater, entwined in seaweed the whole time. I'm not going to tell you much about it accept that Neil Jordan has adapted an old Irish Mermaid myth into this movie and that it stars Colin Farrell as the rugged troubled Irish fisherman. Enough said. {I have some movie stills for you at the end of this post.}

And, Ireland is mighty green!

I liked Farrell in "In Bruges" very much. What a great movie that was! There, another recommendation. Oh, and what about The New World? Now, that was a magical movie. B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l-l-y made and so atmospheric. Also, staring Ferrell. You should see all three, seriously.

A friend of ours works in a pre-school in LA where Farrell's son attends and she is just smitten with how nice he is and says he's very sweet and friendly and calls everyone "darling" with that soft Irish accent. Makes one want to do him favors. Lots of favors.

We also saw "Tetro" by Francis Ford Coppola. This was the worst movie I've ever seen. (It seems like I'm compiling my everything worst list this week.)

Yes, Coppola made "Apocalypse Now," wrote "The Godfather" at the back table of our local Caffe Trieste (the same table my husband wrote the best parts of his amazing book "The Bone Man of Benares" years later.) Yes, he is a great filmmaker and that is exactly why I will not cut him any slack. Tetro sucks. I want to pull all of my hair out and jump through burning hoops into jaws of a mad lion sucks. Sorry, I just had to vent.

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There is this great paragraph in "The Three Weissmanns of Westport" by Cathlen Schine:

"As for Annie, she had never looked youthful, always so serious, her dark eyes taking everything in and giving nothing back. He could see a faint line of gray where her hair parted. She watched him anxiously. What could he do for her, his sad little girl? Decades ago, in his youth, a man in his position might have handed her some bills and told her to buy herself a hat to cheer herself up. He imagined her in a little velvet cocktail hat, inclined rakishly to one side. The incongruity of it made him want to shake her."

I don't know why this touched me. The easiest way I can explain it is by saying: You know what I love about old movies? It's how everything is so uncomplicated. Solved easily. Like, you go out and buy yourself a hat to cheer yourself up. Problem solved. Nobody takes themselves too seriously. Nobody goes to therapy and talks everything to death. No, wait a minute, that's exactly why I love Woody Allen's movies so much. Because they talk everything to death and go to therapy. But, there's humor. Yes, humor is the key.

xoxoxo

And, for your viewing pleasure, some wonderful stills from "Ondine" - do click to expand.

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xoxoxo 

"Deep, deep, and forever, into some ordinary and nameless grave"...

What better to watch on this Halloween weekend than a whole bunch of Edgar Allan Poe movie adaptations. Mostly starring Vincent Price, of course. I haven't watched these movies since I was a kid, but still remember very well the creepy atmosphere and my overwhelming feeling of fear and thrill. The posters are pretty great, too...

The Fall of the House of Usher

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The Pit and the Pendulum

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Tomb of Ligeia

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The Masque of the Red Death

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Tales of Terror

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The Raven

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The Premature Burial

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The Black Cat

With Karloff and Bela Lugosi!

And another version of Black Cat poster, just because...

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And here is a great Edgar Allan Poe sculpture by Middleburg on Etsy...

Isn't it fantastic? I absolutely love it. Find it here.

I think it would be safe to say that Poe might have as well invented Halloween.

But, I think Halloween would be incomplete without watching...

Nosferatu

1922 version, with Max Schreck as Nosferatu.

(Although the 1979 version made by Werner Herzog and staring Klaus Kinski is as scary.)

My goodnes, I actually shivered just thinking about this movie! I think it's going to be sleepless nights with lights on everywhere in the house from now on.

Happy Halloween!

P.S. Halloween blog recommendation: The Obscure Hollow blog - "Haunted and vintage aesthetics in films, photography of home collections and other strange discoveries of old time past." Well worth the visit!

xoxoxo

(images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11}

Meanderings

Watching all these old movies from the 30s and 40s lately while working made me thoroughly miss the old endings....

For some reason seeing that The End sign at the end gave one proper and fulfilling closure.

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I've been drawn very much to WWII nurses lately. Don't ask why, I have no idea.

Maybe it was these contemporary photographs by Billy und Hells that initiated my attention and spoke to me visually. But the attraction is somehow more than that. Who knows why we feel connected to certain things or periods?

If you saw the movie Atonement you will remember the scene when the younger sister, now a young nurse in WWII, is asked to sit at the bedside of the soldier dying from a head wound. And he's delirious and thinks (or pretends) that she is his loved one. And she goes and pretends along. To make his last moments bearable.

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This painting made a huge impact on me when I was a child. It's not something an 8 or 9 year old would usually appreciate, but there you have it. It was on the cover of one of the art books we had in our house...

Metropolis (triptych) by Otto Dix (click to see it much larger.)

I initially only saw the middle part...

Quite something. Grotesque and appealing at the same time.

Here is a little bit about Otto Dix and this paiting which you might find interesting:

"Many of Dix's post war paintings show what Germany looked like in the 1920s, a reality not everyone was comfortable looking at. Dix's grotesque depiction shocked most of German society, following the war. Two subjects he particularly focused on were soldiers crippled, killed, and forgotten in the war and the large number of prostitutes spread all over German cities, with the revelers having optimal fun. His most famous painting is the triptych "Metropolis" (1928), depicting the major elements of the German society post the World War I.

The left-hand panel of "Metropolis" depicts a crippled war soldier entering a poor area of Berlin and welcomed by a line of prostitutes beckoning. A man, probably a soldier is shown lying dead on the street. The central panel of the painting shows the prosperity of the city in the so-called German "Golden Twenties," influenced by American jazz and dance. The right panel of the creation reflects flashy and classy prostitutes searching for clients in the more affluent parts of the city, depicted by the elaborate architecture. Therefore, the two side panels of the painting reflect the contrasts coexisting in German society at the same time." {source}

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And last.. I've never gambled, nor have I a desire to, but seeing these photos of Marilyn throwing the dice made me feel like I would LOVE to throw dice down that table wearing a sexy dress at least once, win a huge amount and leave in a hurry with my beaded purse stuffed full of casino tokens. :)

xoxoxo

{image source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}

Comfort

I've been working non-stop and watching old black and white corny movies on Netflix and Hulu. Well, some of them were darn good. Like "It Happened One Night" - Claudette Colbert was just adorable. These old movies to me are like comfort food. They make me feel cozy, safe and warm inside. And help me go on and on in my studio.

The mood tonight is Autumn, 1940s New York and somehow these neon images elicit just the right feeling...

As does this photo of Ginger Rogers...

Here, she gives out a vibe of a real smart, forward-looking, cheeky writer.

Working hard at the...

Spending her nights in nightclubs in Greenwich Village....

Drinking cocktails and flirting.

xoxoxo

{images via and via}

On housekeepers and domineering

Every good household needs a housekeeper. A domineering one, if possible. One that will keep everything spotless and keep the lazy gardener on his toes. One that will either adore you, or will despise you because you replaced her original mistress. I have Mrs. Danvers in mind. Oh yes, the housekeeper from Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.

With that in mind, I could not resist getting our own housekeeper. So let me introduce our Mrs Denvers to you...

Mrs. Denvers unfortunately had a little accident while traveling to her post. You see, she broke her neck. She was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing and suggested that she'd done it on purpose. In order to fit in well with the ladies from the "Salon of Broken Ladies" (a permanent event hosted at our residence).

Hopefully, Mrs Denvers will not follow Mrs. Danvers' example and will keep good relations with the Broken Ladies.

She will not sneak up behind their backs and will not try to make them go mad. Maybe I should have put that in the contract?

After all, being one of literature's most infamous female villains has it's charms and Mrs Denvers might succumb to it.

  

 No, I don't think she will. She is stern, and probably quite bossy. But there is something kind in her eyes.

Don't you think? Hm, but I do think we've got to do something about that neck.

xoxoxo

My Favorite Juliet

Olivia Hussey, as Juliet, in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968)...

This was one of the first movies to make an incredible impact on me. I don't remember how old I was when I first saw it, maybe 11, but I remember how I wished I looked like her, how I wished I was her. The passionate, tragic heroine.

That delicate pointy chin, those green eyes, that dark long hair. So graceful and sweet and her face so beautiful and somehow haunting. She perfectly depicted innocence, intelligence and determination.

Lovely. I think it's time to see the movie again.

xoxoxo

Happy Birthday MM

It's Marilyn's birthday today (thanks dear Susan of Bricolage fame for the reminder!) She would be 84 years old. It's so hard to imagine her as an old lady. As someone's grandma. I'm sure she would wow everyone even at that age and would make heads turn. It's even harder to imagine that she was only 36 when she died. It seems like she lived a full lifetime. Or several of them.

Here's Marilyn while filming "Some Like it Hot" in 1959...

Doesn't she just glow? I love how her alabaster skin looks against the delicate negligee. And her platinum blonde hair. She looks fragile, like a porcelain doll.

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And here she is again, with Arthur Miller, watching herself in the same movie "Some Like it Hot" on Feb 6, 1959...

Amused, worried if she was good enough, a bit embarrased and annoyed. I hope she realised at the end how good and funny she was.

Happy Birthday, dear Marilyn.

xoxoxo

{photos via}

Vintage movie ads in red tones, just because

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I recently got some movie ads from the 1940s and decided to display them all together in our hall. The hall is quite dark and narrow and not really good for displaying things, but these ads ended up looking really great there and brightened things up. And, they also make me stop and smile every time I walk by. Which is always a good thing. To stop and smile, that is.

Here is the hall (pay no attention to the ghastly looking lamp in the background, it came with the apartment and is bound to be replaced soon)...

And a few more closer shots...

As you will probably notice, the ads are all in red tones. What can I say, I like matching things!

And, if you'll humor me, I'd like to show you some more close-ups of 4 of my favorite ones from this collection...

"Guest Wife"

This one started it all, I'm absolutely crazy about it. I love the pajamas Claudette Colbert is wearing in this poster and the little pom-pom slippers.

And it says...

"It all began with a little kibble,* and then she had a husband in the barroom, a husband in the bedroom and house detectives in her hair in the merriest mix-up since love began!

*Kibbling is romantic hocus-pocus by an experienced peculator."

"The Velvet Touch" Love the graphic of this one.

"So Goes My Love" Pretty.

"Miss Tatlock's Millions" And this one is just adorable!

And it says...

"THE PLOT! John Lund, poor but nervy, meets Wanda Hendrix, rich and curvy. She has $20,000,000 bucks... and he has 20,000,000 angles. In order to turn them into cash, he has to pose as her long lost brother. Well, brother, that's where the fun begins!!!"

:)

xoxoxo 

Vintage movie posters

I love the art, graphics, symbolism, contrast and drama of the vintage movie posters. And underlying humor, too. Recently I got a number of movie ads from the 40s which I framed and displayed nicely on our hall wall. I have a great fondness for 1940s movie ads. So whimsical. I'll take some shots tomorrow to show you the ads and the display.

They don't make movie posters like they used to anymore. Take a look at some of my favorites...

The Flame, 1922

So artistic.

The Bride Wore Black, 1968

Powerful. 

Three Sinners, 1928

Striking. The women in the posters are simply magnetic.

Blonde Venus, 1932

Dangerously sexy.

Pandora's Box, 1929

 I love the description of Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box:

"Louise Brooks stars as Lulu, a young and impulsive vaudeville performer whose raw sexuality and uninhibited nature bring about the downfall of almost everyone she meets."

Here she is...

 Hope, desire, curiosity and tragedy, all defined in one look.

Till tomorrow!

xoxoxo

{photos via here, here, here, here}