Oscars fashion review- only 5 days late!

Day 2 home with a spinning head and nausea- Jack and I are thinking it might be a 72 Hour Existential Crisis.   What a nefarious virus.  I am so bored but I can't start anything without my head pounding and a feeling of worthlessness and despair.  A sure fire cure for taking life too seriously, illness or not, is the E network.  In this case, the prescription is the Fashion Police review of the 2010 Oscars.  Which reminds me, I have something to say about the best and worst of the night.  This was the first year I got to watch with my girls and we all three dished about the clothes, although Ava was mostly appalled at my cattiness. 

Best shoes: Zoe Saldana

I don't care what you have to say about the dress itself, those aubergine velvet shoes are tres yum yum. Of course, this pic is not of Zoe herself, because it was the only picture I could find that really showed the shoes.  Plus I love how this runway wraith makes the perfect Zoe look short and chubby.  And in defense of the dress, it looked really pretty bouncing around her ankles as she came out on stage.












Best hair: tie, Cameron Diaz and Sandra Bullock

It is a tribute to the hairstyle that I am even mentioning these All-American sweethearts on my personal blog page, because generally make me ill.  But this Veronica Lake, healthy, shiny hair cannot be ignored.  This is why people become movie stars.  Regular people do not have hair like that- it simply can't be done in a crowded little bathroom with a Vidal Sassoon hairdryer and some Aussie products.  Damn, and the Fashion Police just gave Sandra Bullock best dressed!  Ava will be so pleased.
The flesh or ivory gowns are a little White Wedding for me, and the way Ms Bullock's just happens to match her Oscar so perfectly is, frankly, annoying as hell.  Oh well.  I haven't seen her movie (full disclosure) but it can't be as horrid as the preview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hn5-pxWM6k)
...can it?  Shall I not mention that the truly out-of-the-Hollywood-mold performance by a woman, Gabrielle Sibide's fat, disenfranchised, miserable, triumphant and utterly unique Precious, was overshadowed by yet another kind white folk help the hopeless black man trope- perfectly executed by a blonde, sassy Southern Bullock belle...well, it's bullocks, frankly.

Best jewels:  Kate Winslet

From the Raw Story blog:

Kate Winslet, presenting this year, chose a structured strapless column dress in silvery tones by Yves St Laurent and the most exquisite jewelry of the night: a pendant style necklace of emerald cut white and yellow diamonds by Tiffany with matching earrings and cuff believed to be worth more than 2.5 million dollars.

Mmm, mmm, mmm.  Again, this is why one becomes a movie star.  And check it out- another impossible Veronica Lake do.

Best detail and best all over look:  Carey Mulligan

 Do you see all the little bits dangling from Carey Mulligan's darling dress?  I am terribly sorry, all you haters, but this is the bravest, cutest, most awesome look of the night.  She is so sweet with her Mia Farrow hair and chandeliers, but the dress really is a marvel.  The cut is formal but that cut out hem so we can see her gorgeous strappy shoes makes it unique and cheeky- I just love it!  Bravo, Miss Mulligan! This bricolage artist salutes you.

And, finally, the dress I would have worn: Diane Kruger

And they would have laughed at me, and called me Little Bo Peep, and lamented my boring black and white choices, and even my svelte self would have looked rounded like a fat hen, but I would care not.  In this black and cream Chanel phenomena, I would have said to them, damn it, I am a movie star, I can wear what I want!
I am always a sucker for black and white, no big shock there.  I think that and the temptation of wearing black boa feathers would have proved too much for me.
So sue me.  I know why she picked this dress.

That about did me in.  Back to the couch.

Mighty Girl

Isn't it weird when you add someone to the ole Twitter feed, and then forget who they are or why you added them, then you stumble across their blog and feel like, hey!  I know that girl!  Good for her, she has an awesome blog!  Maybe its just me.
I feel that way about Mighty Girl, a magazine editor living in San Francisco.  Maybe its just her cute little face that made me want to follow her, but her blog is also quite entertaining.  She is currently doing this Mighty Life List thing, like a bucket list, only sweeter and more girly, in a very very good way.  I wish there was a better term for that.  How about...Mighty Girl!  Sorry.

ANYHOO I want to make a list, too, because I am a joiner and I love lists of all kinds.  Don't even know if I can come up with 100...
In no particular order, even though they are numbered so I can keep track of them.  The idea is to accomplish 3 a month, so they all can't be TOO outrageous.

things to do before I move on...

1. drink absinthe in Paris
2. camp in the snow
3. go on a girls weekend with my best friends
4. get married again- in a fancy dress
5. dye my hair blonde
6. get a tattoo of the Little Prince
7. create a large scale (3'x5'?) collage
8. spend time at a monastery/convent
9. go to St Petersburg
10. find my cousins from my mom's side
11. be in Oaxaca for the Day of the Dead
12. learn some burlesque
13. learn to sing some big band standards
14. write to a couple people I wronged long ago
15. spend time with the Schaefers and my godson
16. make a quilt
17. go rowboating on a spring day 
18. have another Westie 
19. go to natural hot springs somewhere
20. have unlimited time to spend in the British Museum
21. go horseback riding on the beach
22. get some Fluevogs
23. have one month off work to do art
24. take a class at Pratt
25. learn leaded and stained glass
26. take a pilgrimage to Iona
27. try some crazy expensive cheese
28. take all my kids to Disneyland for days and days
29. have a summer place
30. stay in Eureka, CA for some extended period of time
31. meet Jack's nieces and nephews and grandma
32. make turkish delight
33. ride an ATV on sand dunes
34. ride an elephant
35. eat a juicy peach in a meadow in the summer
36. see fireflies
37. vacation in New Orleans and spend lots of money there
38. be a teacher
39. write a book about history
40. go to the big museums in New York
41. have pygmy goats
42. have a clothesline
43. grow herbs on my deck
44. own robin's egg blue velvet curtains
45. get or make huge ceramic angel wings to hang on the wall
46. learn to use photoshop
47. read Carl Jung and understand
48. monogram linens for my girls' weddings
49. make and wear a Victorian dress
50. drive 90 miles an hour- just for a few minutes- not with kids in the car...

Read Your Own Books Challenge 2010

In keeping with my new year's resolution of using up what I already have (big noodle casseroles with those Cash and Carry egg noodles, collaging from current ephemera...) I have decided to Read My Own Books in 2010. (Hit the button at the right to see the challenge.)  I made a list of ones I have that I have been meaning to read- some I have been toting around since college!  In no particular order, and followed by the approximate years they have spent, unread, in my possession:

• The Red Dancer, Richard Skinner (2 yrs)
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell, Susanna Clark (1 year)
• The White Bone, Barbara Gowdy (3 yrs)
• The First World War, John Keegan (5+ years)
• The Crimson Petal and the White, Michael Faber (2 yrs)
• Peter the Great, Robert Massie (7+ years)
• Be Sweet, Roy Blount Jr. (3 yrs)
• Stone's Fall, Iain Pears (1 yr)
• The Meaning of Night, Michael Cox (1 yr)

And those are the books that have made it out of boxes in the last year I have lived in my house!  It'll be a weird year for reading, leaping all over history. 

Jingle Bells

The most insidious ear worm of them all.  Maybe.  Jingle Bells was written by a Boston Sunday School teacher named James Pierpont who just happened to hit on one of those mythic melodies that resonates with everyone.  Never knew the second verse, though.

Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh

Over the fields we go,  laughing all the way

Bells on bobtail ring, making spirits bright

What fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

Jingle all the way 

O what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh

A day or two ago I thought I'd take a ride 

And soon, Miss Fanny Bright was seated by my side, 

The horse was lean and lank misfortune seemed his lot 

He got into a drifted bank and then we got upsot 

A day or two ago the story I must tell 

I went out on the snow, and on my back I fell; 

A gent was riding by in a one-horse open sleigh, 

He laughed as there I sprawling lie, but quickly drove away.

Of more interest to me would be some kind of study about how the alternate version spread from kid to kid until every kid in the country knows it.  Its weird, and so American.

Here's some versions from Rob Weir's blog:

Jingle Bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
The Batmobile lost a wheel
and the Joker got away

Other reported versions include:

Shotgun shells, Santa smells,
Rudolf ran away,
Oh what fun it is to ride
in a beat-up Chevrolet!

or

Jingle bells, shotgun shells,
Santa Claus is dead,
Rudolf got a .22
and shot him in the head.

or

Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells,
BB's in the air.
Oh, what fun it is to ride
in Santa's underwear!"

or

Jingle Bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg,
The Batmobile lost a wheel,
and the Joker joined ballet , Hey!

A Third Peaceful and Nice Song

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
do you see what I see?
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
do you see what I see?

a star, a star, shining in the night
with a tail as big as a kite
with a tail as big as a kite

In October of 1962, an American reconnaisance mission flying over Cuba recognized Soviet nuclear missile bases being installed within launching distance of the US.  President John F Kennedy and his brother Bobby, the Attorney General, spent a frantic and stressful month trying to ensure their safe removal and unruffle the feathers of the Soviet alliance.  It is generally considered the closest the world ever came to full out nuclear war during the Cold War period. 
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, songwriter Noel Regney (who was, with his then wife Gloria Shayne Baker was also responsible for "Rain, Rain Go Away") was walking in New York City, worried, watching all the mothers with their babies in strollers, and thought of the line, "Pray for peace, people everywhere."  Regney himself was a Frenchman drafted by the Nazis during the occupation in World War II.  He deserted the German army and joined the French resistance, and was eventually wounded leading the Nazis into an ambush.  Methinks he may have known a thing or two about war and peace.  
Do You Hear What I Hear  is such a sweet picturesque song (I love the image, "a voice as big as the sea..") and when I used to teach pre-school Sunday School, the kidlets always loved it.  It's full of hope and love.

said the night wind to the little lamb
do you see what I see?
way up in the sky little lamb,
do you see what I see?
a star, a star shining in the night
with a tail as big as a kite

said the little lamb to the shepherd boy
do you hear what I hear?
ringing through the sky shepherd boy
do you hear what I hear?
a song, a song high above the trees
with a voice as big as the sea

said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
do you know what I know?
in your palace warm, mighty king
do you know what I know?
a child, a child shivers in the cold
let us bring him silver and gold

said the mighty king to people everywhere
listen to what I say!
pray for peace people everywhere
listen to what I say!
the child, the child, sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light...

Second of Three Peaceful Christmas Songs

Maybe you have never heard the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914.  It is a true story, sometimes told with an exaggerated sentimentality, but incredibly poignant and miraculous.  I suggest you read it, here.  On Christmas Eve, in 1914, in the trenches of World War I, German and British soldiers spontaneously called a truce and suspended fire to fellowship, gather the dead, exchange gifts, and be human beings instead of cannon fodder for a few days.  The story is just devastating to me, but I tend to dwell overmuch on WWI, perhaps.  I can't watch movies about it because I get too despairingly sad.  So I have never seen the movie Joyeux Noel (2005), because, man, how depressing is that?  I mean nice. It's a nice story.  Nice stories are even harder for me to take sometimes than flat out misery.
Snoopy's Christmas (watch it below!!) is one of a series of novelty songs by the Royal Guardsmen inspired by Snoopy's imaginary adventures fighting the Red Baron in the comic strip Peanuts.   I think I can trace my weird nostalgia about WWI to the Peanuts show about Flanders Fields and these songs, which felt strangely imaginary to me until I discovered they were real as an adult.  I particularly love this song- the chorus is so sweet and catchy:

Christmas bells, those Christmas bells 
Ring throughout the land
Asking peace of all the world
And good will to man


The song parallels the Christmas Truce.  Here's the words:

Was the night before Christmas, 40 below
When Snoopy went up in search of his foe
He spied the Red Baron, fiercely they fought
With ice on his wings Snoopy knew he was caught.

The Baron had Snoopy dead in his sights
He reached for the trigger to pull it up tight
Why he didn't shoot, well, we'll never know
Or was it the bells from the village below. 

Christmas bells, those Christmas bells

Ring throughout the land

Asking peace of all the world

And good will to man

The Baron made Snoopy fly to the Rhine
And forced him to land behind the enemy lines
Snoopy was certain that this was the end
When the Baron cried out, "Merry Christmas, my friend!"

The Baron then offered a holiday toast
And Snoopy, our hero, saluted his host
And then with a roar they were both on their way
Each knowing they'd meet on some other day.

It was in fact the Germans who sent a chocolate cake into the Allied trench that initiated the truce.   It's too much, really.  Like Christmas.

3 for 1 day- Christmas Song Overload!

Been remiss, so enjoy a three-for-one post about Christmas Songs for Peace.

Obviously "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" by John and Yoko comes to mind first when I think of Chirstmas songs written to celebrate or beg for peace.  Featuring the infamous Phil Spector 'wall of sound', it was recorded in October 1971, and the kids singing in the background are the Harlem Community Choir.  Apparently the recording starts with a quiet little whisper from John and Yoko to their children, "merry christmas, Kyoko...merry christmas, Julian" which alone makes me want to cry. 
1971 sucked, despite a dramatic diplomatic breakthrough in China.  The war in Vietnam was a bloodbath.  In April of that year, American deaths in Vietnam passed 45,000.  The Pentagon Papers, the secret archive of the shocking White House administrations' movements towards the war, began to be published in the New York Times.  The captain responsible for the massacre of civilians at My Lai was acqutted of all charges.  What a song to write in the midst of this time in America!  The name of the song comes from John and Yoko's billboard campaign in 1969.  The billboards read, War Is Over (If You Want It)- Happy Christmas from John and Yoko and were installed in eleven cities around the world. 
The song rates on some people's worst Christmas songs ever lists, which is pretty Grinch-like if you ask me.  Yoko's whole schtick annoys me as much as anybody, but come on.  How can you remove a song so completely from its context and find much to gripe about here?  Its a charming melody, even if the words get a little insipid here and there.  My favorite version is by Sarah McLachlan, believe it or not.
By the way, let me inject here a note about the abbreviation "Xmas".  It is not, as some paranoid evangelicals have claimed, "crossing out Christ".  X happens to be a traditional abbreviation for the Saviour, as in the Chi-Rho symbol the emperor Constantine saw in the sky:

representing the first two letters of Christos, Christ, in the Greek, or in the letters inscribed on the cross in the Eastern Orthodox church, the so-called Christogram: 

It stands for, roughly transliterated, without the Greek alphabet, cuz I'm lazy, Iesous Christos.  NIKA, btw, means "conquers".  Jesus Christ Conquers is what this ancient symbol means.
All that to say, the X in Xmas stands for Christ, it doesn't "cross him out".  
Oh dear, I seem to have gone on.