'Tis The Season To Let Go Of Grudges (Falalalala...)

Yes indeed it is the holiday season once again and what a year has past.
I can't believe that 2008 has ended.. I remember back at the end of 2007 I knew this would be a good year, I was to turn 18 and I'd be in my last year of college. I've met Andy and grown fond of more people and met some sweet people too. Leeds Festival was a dive and I've gained control of my life.

So, Christmas. I'm supposed to feel festive and red cheeked and well dressed like a fabulous Santa but I don't feel it.. But I thought to myself 'what is feeling festive?' Singing carols, being jolly, eating chocolate.. But right now I feel contented to say the least, I'm surrounded by family, my sister being as annoying as usual but I'm enjoying it (and I'm just ignoring her of course!) watching Christmas TV (who doesn't love The Snowman?) and drinking fizzy wine - mince pies baking in the kitchen.
But to tie in with the title, I'm trying to:

• Ignore my sister more often
• Let go of any hate or bad feeling I have towards anyone in college or work etc. for my New Years resolution.

I think that will help me be more... tame and with one less stress on my shoulder I can concentrate on everything else that matters like The Sims 3 out in February ;)
Aah, stop reading my blog and go join your families, it's Christmas, it's Hanukkah, it's everything else.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

K
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I almost forgot it was Twilight

Oh my goodness, I apologise to anyone (no persons so mostly to myself) who read that last post. I watched Priceless recently, and on it Audrey Tautou said she loved being drunk in the afternoon because it felt like she had a secret. And it truly was that liberating. Now, I clearly don't condone it, it was a one-off moment but in a world where expectations are high, it's just nice to deviate and retreat every once in a while..

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Anyway, onto the real reason behind this post. The Stephenie Meyer book-to-film adaptation Twilight arrived in the UK this Friday and I (along with lovely Laura) went to go see it! Unfortunately, like most philistines, I've not read the book but I have read the opening passage on Amazon's genius device 'Search Inside' and I thought it was a glorified vampire fan fiction and kind of... awful (which is sad, because often this is the kind of thing I love to read, bad fan fictions are the fuel to my fire) so I went to see film to see if it was any better.
In a nutshell: it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't spectacular. A lot, perhaps too much, emphasis was placed on how sexy Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) happened to be (personally, he doesn't hit the spot, but indeed he does have something about him) with plenty of shots involving him looking up into Bella's (Kristen Stewart) eyes with a smoulder that'd soften the hardest bitch in the room haha.
Some of the film was nicely put together like this scene in the image, where Bella puts all the evidence together and realises but some I felt were a bit.. over-sentimental eg. when they're sitting in the tree, laying in the grass..
It's the sort of love-y crap that makes your relationship seem a bag of crap. I could feel every heart belonging to a female in the room being filled with immense love and craving for their very own vampire.

I don't know, it's the first film in a while that's really struck a chord in me, like.. I can see it's going to be huge and so it should be, the acting is brilliant (Robert Pattinson is a bit wooden at times, but not bad overall), the readers get to see the story in 3D and they have something to complain about when it doesn't tick all their boxes ;) and finally, Meyer (like JK Rowling before her) can live off the latest cash cow to hit our screens.

Conclusion:
If the movie were an exam and I was to give it a grade, it would be B - not great, but not awful. Keep up the good work.

K

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My First Lula

I figured this would be an appropriate marker of blog change.

Yes, the magazine everyone has heard of and the girl everyone wants to be is finally in my mitts. I've been fascinated by this magazine for a long time - all the girly Coppola-esque connotations it has (lemme simplify, I'm falling asleep as I write this: blurred 70s-style images, generally very beautiful) etc. and from skimming through it, it does appear to be very childlike but has some perverse undertones - for example, the beautiful naivety of the Zac Posen photo shoot featured with leather (Luella-reminiscent) masks, revealed stockings etc. Saucy stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

I don't know if it's just in this specific issue or whatnot (not like I can really draw any comparison), but in some of the interviews, I almost felt uncomfortable from all the excessive whimsy-ness and distant replies:
"When did you first know you wanted to be a designer?
I guess a year ago."
...Expand maybe? No? Fair enough.
I did like that the interview was like a conversation, with the interviewer sharing their favourite flowers rather than just the mechanical 'Q-A-Q-A' we're so used to.

Right, articles.
A fabulous article was on 'outsider girls' and then sweet illustrations of cult 'outsider girl' icons, two featured below:

Now I'm a huge fan of Margot Tenenbaum (that montage of her secret life with 'Judy Is A Punk' playing, ugh, kills me) and I don't remember The Incredibles that well so I lack an opinion on Violet Parr..
Anyway, the article, it's the author's reminiscence of a girl (Mallory Bates) who was the school's outsider then comments on how the outsider character always seems to stick in our minds (clearly not Violet for me though..).
It's one of my favourite articles that I've read thus far and made me consider my own "outsiders". The only ones I can think of were ostracised for their disabilities or shabby uniform but the girl described in the article was dark-haired with a long fringe and pencilling "intricate drawings that suggested a rich inner life". Unfortunately (to my knowledge) this girl didn't exist in my year of school (I wish she did, she sounds amazing) but it did get me thinking - perhaps we were the 'outsider girls'.
I know I certainly am now.

I'm struggling to comment on the photography and layout of the magazine. The photography is (like I vaguely described above) quite dreamy and natural in appearance for most of it - I did love the images of Floria Sigismondi and her daughter.
I love the introduction to each article/photo shoot as well, the font wouldn't look lost on a poster advertising a circus. My one small annoyance with the magazine is the font, where it is very sweet and does capture the ideals of the magazine, the 'w' looks way too much like an obscure 'r' and disrupted my reading on more than 100 occasions. Just kidding, I got used to it soon enough.

Hm, this is short but, like I said, I'm tired and lazy.
K
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