Get away

Sometimes, it's strange, I have an urge to burn loads of money.
Just watch all that meaningless capitalism turn to ash. I've realised it doesn't mean all that much to me, it doesn't make me feel happy like they say it's meant to.

I love this section from Donnie Darko, talking about Graham Greene's book, 'The Destructors' :

Well... they say it right when they are ripping the place to shreds. When they flood the house. That like... destruction is a form of creation. So the fact that they burn the money is... ironic. They just want to see what happens when they tear the world apart. They want to change things.

But then another part of me thinks that it's awfully ignorant and ridicolous of me to burn money. It's rather a disgusting extravagance to be burning money in these times of need.

Young love

Have recently discovered Diane Arbus' hypnotizing photography.

Racquet time

Isn't tennis the most glorious, beautiful sport? I'm so excited about Wimbledon.

Downtown

My summer wardrobe - pretty much all to be found in the fabulous American Apparel

Negative

I wrote these few lines today and I don't fully understand what they mean or if it's lyrics or a poem but it just came to me, sporadically, like so much of the shit that goes round and round my head.

Sometimes even the desert goes cold,

And then what will you do?

Your quiet suffering is devoid of meaning

Now that I've gone.

I burnt all your clothes

Watching the funeral pyre take away

Your smell up to the sky.

I thought after that you would stop haunting me.

But I still feel your cruel words.

Still breathing

There was a daddy long-legs in my shower. Alone. Both of us were vulnerable. But it was trapped alone forever. What a lonely existence it must lead. I wondered how long it had been in my bathroom for....without anyone.

I bought The Big Issue the other day. They're always selling one outside the supermarket. I've recently been listening to Madeleine Peyroux. Inside The Big Issue was an article about her life. She was busking and living on the streets of Paris, aged seventeen. The same age as me. I can't imagine that loneliness. Music saved her. I think music saves me every day. It stops you from feeling alone.

Dreams we had as children fade away...

Nine Lives

So I'm meant to be cat-sitting at the moment.

I don't really like cats. I've tried. But I'm a dog girl at heart.

So I've gotta give this cat called Vienna its food and let it out and stuff. I was meant to go this morning to check up on it. But I didn't bother and lay in my pjs until 12, eating buttered crumpets. And the owner rang me like 20 times yesterday to check it's still OK.

What I don't get about people who love their cats..I mean what do the cats give back? You can't take them for a walk or roll in the mud with them. They don't wag their tails appreciatively. Instead, you're left with scratches up your arms like some potent self-harm and long hairs on your clothing.

Give me Bo, the Obamas new dog for walkies any day.

The Allure of the Japanese

The other day, I was on the bus in Elephant & Castle, listening to a raucous bunch of drunken passengers singing of the joys of Moroccan couscous. Then at the next stop, on jumped a group of Japanese people, one guy with an uncanny resemblance to Steve Aoki with an awesome girlfriend and a cool gay couple. The girl had the those American Apparel Afrika print leggings on with fringy boots and the rest of the guys wore black leather jackets and scuffed boots and hats and generally looked far too amazing for the grubby double decker, stinking of BO and curry. And it got me thinking about how much I love the Japanese. The film Lost in Translation got me especially transfixed. That hotel Scarlet Johansson stays in, lying in the bath with her mega headphones in, watching the bustling city of Tokyo below seemed as perfect as solitude can get. Their lifestyle seems something that us westerners can learn from. They have as a whole, a very healthy lifestyle with barely any dairy consumed. There’s also some sort of allure about the Japanese, something about their diverse culture so different from what I’ve ever experienced. Off to Tokyo, then.

Always embrace things

Season 2 of the brilliant Mad Men set in the Swinging Sixties began last week. It was only when watching it, that I realised how much I had missed it. No other TV show I have seen, seems to encapsulate such daring wit and brooding, mysterious characters. Some dissapprove of its seeming promotion of compulsive chain-smokers immortally glamourised, paired with frequent swigs of whiskey. However, such cynics are missing the point. The haze of cigarette smoke across our screens perfectly resembles the 'fragrant' air of the Nixon era.
What made the premiere episode of the second season so evocative for me, however, was the recital of the great writer Frank O'Hara's poem Mayakovksy, from the collection entitled 'Meditations in an Emergency.' I will let the poem, below, do the talking.

Mayakovsky

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

Warped sense of reality

So, I thought I’d start my blog with a reflection of the times we live in now…I lived through Friday the 13th yesterday relatively unscathed. But there are still troubled times ahead, of course mainly THE RECESSION. Even dear old Barack, normally fairly optimistic, talked of being ‘humbled by the task before us.’ In such desperate times, there are many out there suffering, seriously in debt, overloaded by mortgages and increasingly more unemployed. I’m lucky that my family are not in such a precarious position. But we all have to do a little bit to cut back on our spending. As I flicked through magazines recently, I was shocked at designers still charging thousands for their creations. They seem blissfully unaware of the economic turmoil the world faces.
So I was happy to see a campaign launched by Oxfam with high-profile figures wearing items only from the charity shop chain, like Londoner Jourdan Dunn, above. It goes to show a little money goes a long way. Not only are you buying a piece of someone’s authentic history, your money is going to people who need the money most. I think we forget about the people out there who suffer permanently, credit crunch or no credit crunch. People in the Third World have very limited supplies to clean water and electricity, often living in areas rife with disease, whilst over here we complain about not being able to afford a third holiday of the year. We need to get our priorities in order.
From now on I’m going to be flicking through racks at charity shops, or high street stores which are associated with Fair Trade. There’s my belated New Years’ Resolution.