This is from Wikipedia so I guess most people have seen it but i just saw it and actually said WOW aloud.
I love everything about this picture. The oddly bland studio setting. Her plain, slightly masculine chunky band on her ring finger (possibly a wedding ring? I know it looks like it is her right hand but she could have been Eastern European or the image could have been flipped). The slightly more exciting looking ring that is frustratingly obscured on her other hand. The funny costume flowers on her top and in her hair. The tattoos have an amazing natural history theme - I really wish I could see the designs on her right arm more clearly. The pearl choker is just fab. Her raised eyebrow is so unlike most Victorian portraits I have seen... etc.
Bored of feeling cold. Bored of the dark. Bored of being pale.
Luckily it seems like Classics and Ancient History students are traveling en masse to Greece when we finish our summer exams for a 'Geeks on Tour' holiday.
I said in my very first post that I intend this blog as a sort of online scrapbook. So this is a bit of stuff that I find interesting that I have just grouped together to look back on later!
I am obviously rather fond of Japanese things (I received some very beautiful origami paper as one of my Christmas presents) and so when I saw THIS amazing video, I was pretty excited.
Still from the video of Robert Lang folds way-new origami... watch the video!
Now I cannot actually do origami myself. I managed a few cranes when I was in Japan but I have not managed to make one since. What I found really interesting about this video was the design techniques. I want to have a think about how I can apply this do my own attempts at designing stuff - after I've finished my dissertation on Ovid... eventually...
But this is pretty incredible:
Though of course there is already lots of jewellery literally mimicking origami such as www.origamijewellery.com. The silver swan is probably my favorite.
And it is impossible to mention origami without thinking of the 1000 cranes, so here is a beautiful and eco-friendly example using the Metro as the materials.
Sometimes when I am in my room by myself listening to music I start dancing and imagining that I can actually dance and in my head it goes something like this:
Or probably more like this:
But really if someone looked through the window they would just see this:
Or if I was having a bad day it would probably be more like this:
OK! Back to essay-writing...
xxx
This has prompted a couple of responses.
So is how my Geology student friend imagines himself:
And my boyfriend and his housemate (not really them obviously but it's close):
Not a proper post. Third year is actually a bit full on (/I am a bit lazy) but I just saw this and wanted to post it.
I saw it in a post from VogueUK on Facebook about how to recreate hieroglyphic nails which were designed by Sophy Robson for Topshop Unique's SS/12 catwalk business.
"This has to be my most ambitious fashion week design yet," said Sophy Robson of the Topshop Unique nails. "We hand-painted 450 fingernails with graphic symbols like the pyramid, tribal stripe and the 'all-seeing eye', which really captured the essence of the collection."
I have to say, after listening to BBC Radio4's piece about the Nailympics (listen here) it does not seem like the most complicated designs in the world, but then I have horrible nails.
Anyways there's always the pretty girls to look at:
I really shouldn't be on the computer when I have a lecture in about 7 hours but I am feeling really nostalgic about museums. Yes I do Classics and I like museums. Stereotype fulfilled. (Btw if you are ever in Manchester check out the John Ryland's Library in Deansgate, it is actually quite beautiful - I should do a post on it sometime...). Anyway I miss my volunteering at the Natural History Museum which I did over the summer. So here are some pictures from my time there:
I think this was the Geology library, there's lots of exciting libraries not open to the public!
One of the specimens from the Butterfly Tent in the front lawn of the museum.
"Mnleeh!" (that's meant to be a sticking-out-tongue noise)
Totally want to make jewellery of these...
Ok this is really immature but it made me laugh...
Making pH neutral boxes for specimens.
Part of the Age of the Dinosaur exhibit, scared the hell out of me when it moved.
Part of the 'Sexual nature' exhibition, they died for love... not really but they died for sex...
pH tape! pretty... pH is really important in conservation for obvious reasons.
The Conservationists' (probably not the right name) kit! Cute!
Big beaker, regular beaker, baby beaker! You can tell I paid attention in science GCSE.
Powder paints, used to camouflage repairs done to specimens.
Hundreds of teeny jars!
I wish I could buy these to use as my packaging... maybe I can?!
Fossilized fern.
I wasn't really supposed to take too many pictures in the lab, especially of what I was working on so sorry if this seems like a really odd selection but it was so fun and makes me wish I had mixed a bit of archaeology and conservation in with my literature modules... oh well maybe they will let me work there anyway!
I was largely watching it as a semi-relevant bit of background before I go and see Sleeping Beauty later today since I was so surprised to find out that the gorgeous but 'cute' looking girl from A Series of Unfortunate Events had grown up to become so breathtakingly beautiful.
Ignoring the rather poor script, incredibly rubbish last 10 minutes and the general misogyny throughout, I would seriously recommend seeing this film. But only if you can watch it on a large screen/projector and have some kind of surround sound going on (I put my computer speakers either side of my bed which was good enough!) I 100% agree with all the reviews that I've read saying that it was written by and for someone with the mind of a 13 year old boy but maybe that is what I am.
I agree with this comment by Andrew O'Hehir that I found on the Wiki page: "If you want to understand Snyder's central narrative gambit, it's right there in the title. He gives us what we want (or what we think we want, or what he thinks we think we want): Absurdly fetishized women in teeny little skirts, gloriously repetitious fight sequences loaded with plot coupons, pseudo-feminist fantasies of escape and revenge. Then he yanks it all back and stabs us through the eyeball"
One of the things that I liked most was totally ignored in basically every review: the set design. Even though Snyder clearly relied heavily on stereotypes, other films (without really 'owning it' as Tyra Banks would say) and video games. I didn't really mind because they were the sort of films that I find visually stunning and the kind of video game that actually makes an effort with detail (I imagine Bioshock would have a similar look if it was set in a time about 20 years later than it is.) Someone clearly spent a hell of a lot of time tracking down every little prop for the every set and each room was appealingly cluttered and natural.
Of course there are no good pictures of the set. Everyone just wants to see the sexy girls.
However, I am not going to completely going to ignore the sexism because I am actually just sick to death of the number of rapes you get in films at the moment. Its not even 'edgy' it's just disgusting. And its not 'empowering' even if the rapist gets what he deserves. From the films that have been coming out recently (and even things on the BBC like Luther) you would think that every female can just expect someone to attempt to rape them at some point and unless you have a kick-ass friend with a knife you might as well give up hope. Even if it is integral to the psychological background of a character that they have been raped or assaulted it is not necessary to show if for some pervert to get a buzz. At least these scenes weren't as back as Snyder's other film Watchmen which I walked out of.
Another Wiki-quote: James MacDowell questions the alleged misogyny of the film, arguing that it does not in fact aim to offer female empowerment, but is instead "a deeply pessimistic analysis of female oppression", because it makes clear that, "just as men organize the dances, so do they control the terms of the fight scenes; in neither do the women have true agency, only an illusion of it."
Yeah... that sounds about right. A pretty depressing film if you look at it from a feminist perspective. But I still liked the pretty colours so I am going to revert showing you some pictures now....
The grey sailor suit. IMDB
There was a bit of Nurse Ratched in Dr Vera Gorski and Rocket is a Billy character.
And a bit of Gogo Yubari (Kill Bill) in Babydoll
Tim Burton's Alice
The battle sailor suit.
Tim Burton's Alice in 'beggar' costume.
Possibly inspired by Dodgson's photograph of Alice Liddel as a beggar-girl?
The glitter sailor suit! IMDB
Mary Hilton Badcock, the model for Tenniel's illustrations.
Natalia Vodianova as Alice, Vogue December 2003
The glitter sailor suit again because I love it.
Natalia Vodianova again for the multiple 'Alice' costumes.
End of stream of consciousness.
I hope that series makes as much sense to you as it does to me.
Footnote type thing:
I liked the steampunk Nazis. I was GOING to relate the plot to the Joseph Campbell's journey of the hero concept (check out Hero with 1000 Faces, its a classic, though a wiki search will probably do) but I seem to be devoting a weird amount of time to one, not particularly remarkable, film. I feel that the film may have had a more coherent structure had Snyder followed Campbell more closely (see Star Wars - actually don't, I don't like that series at all but note its success). Though this would have made the film Even More predictable, it doesn't feel as though groundbreaking originality was the aim.
The one interesting break from the normal hero's journey is that there is an advance upon the usual three act sequence of 'ordinary world', 'special world' and return to 'ordinary world'. There is only the weakest sense of the real world where you are presented with so few facts that it is harder to understand than the fantasy, the 'club' fantasy conforms to normal film plots and so hardly even comes across as surreal and then Babydoll's dance-trance reality adds a third layer. It is simply a shame that these are three very shallow layers so you just end up with a mille-feuille of a film.
I cannot wait to see this:
I <3 Emily Browning
Oh! and one last thing, I just realised that it also reminds me of this video. If Sucker Punch was a British Film, I think it would be a bit more like this:
