Call Me Absurd

Watching this has given me the best headache of my life. But...

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:22:06 -0700

Watching this has given me the best headache of my life. But hey, apparently it’s the 10-year anniversary of Crazy in Love, so: celebrate!

mydamnblog11: Complex Magazine June/July Issue

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:16:44 -0700

mydamnblog11:

Complex Magazine June/July Issue

Dude, you have got to continue doing screencap recaps through Series 3 of Downton Abbey; the ones you've done for Series 2 are the love of my life. While you're at it, please make some for Series 1. I'll reblog and promote the hell out of them if you do, I promise.

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:13:00 -0700

I will do my best! School is taking over all kinds of my life right now, but summer is nigh :) I will pick some choice episodes to go through AT SOME POINT, I promise.

Ok, this should really be the feel-good R&B-pop song of the...

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:11:09 -0700

Ok, this should really be the feel-good R&B-pop song of the summer. Mariah’s return + Miguel = swoon.

Friends: The Best.

Sun, 05 May 2013 11:14:00 -0700

Friend: HAH. STUDY. YES. OH. Why are we in / going to school again?
Me: Don't know. My entire next test is all neuroanatomy. I die.
Friend: I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS
MAYBE SCIFI?
Sounds super hard.

My weekend study/party playlist, thanks to NPR:

Fri, 03 May 2013 16:56:29 -0700

My weekend study/party playlist, thanks to NPR::

The soundtrack to The Great Gatsby, Baz Luhrmann’s latest high-end refurbishing of a lived-in classic, doesn’t try to re-imagine Jazz Age tunes in a modern context. Instead, it attempts to transplant the sensibility of the 1920s to the hip-hop era, with genre-busting collaborations overseen by Jay-Z.

It’s exactly as Baz Luhrmann-y as you’d expect. And FUN.

OMG ABEL ARNETT. Favorite celebrity toddler.

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:06:39 -0700

OMG ABEL ARNETT. Favorite celebrity toddler.

Best interview ever, or best interview ever?

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:54:00 -0700

Best interview ever, or best interview ever?:

Amy Poehler, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Brad Hall discuss a Prince 2016 presidential campaign:

Though much of Hollywood is excited about the prospect of Hillary Clinton running for president again, at the Time/CNN/People/Fortune White House Correspondents’ Dinner pre-party yesterday in the Washington Hilton, Amy Poehler, Julia-Louis-Dreyfus, and Brad Hall had some other 2016 candidates in mind:

Amy Poehler: Prince.

Brad Hall: That’s a great answer.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus: And Sly and the Family Stone.

Hall: The Family Stone would be the VP.

Louis-Dreyfus: That would be good.

NYM: The Family Stone would be the cabinet, Sly would be the VP.

Poehler: You know, with Prince and Sly and the Family Stone, wouldn’t we get more done around here?

Hall: Man. That is a funky field right there.

Louis-Dreyfus: You would definitely get funky with it. That’s for sure.

Poehler: Whoever runs, that should be their motto. Whoever runs, it should be, “Let’s get funky with it.”

Louis-Dreyfus: Oh my God. Wouldn’t that be so good?

Poehler: That would be so good no matter who it is.

Louis-Dreyfus: You would give all your life savings to that campaign.

Poehler: If a candidate was like, “Come on guys: Let’s get funky with it.”

NYM: Maybe you should do it.

Louis-Dreyfus: All right, should those two candidates decide to run, Amy and I are going to run their campaign, or we’ll be a part of the branding of the campaign.

Poehler: We’ll be like Peaches and uh…

Louis-Dreyfus: Diamond and Pearl.

Hall: Peaches and Herb. Oh no, sorry.

Poehler: Peaches and Cream! The dancers that used to perform with Prince.

Louis-Dreyfus: That’s right. [Ed. note: It was Diamond and Pearl.]

Poehler: Prince always has some beautiful, like, 16-year-old dancers.

Louis-Dreyfus: We’re not 16, but we could totally dance with him, you know, while he campaigns.

Poehler: Well, it’s going to be a different kind of dancing. It has to be serious dancing. Because it’s a political campaign.

Louis-Dreyfus: There are issues and we feel strongly about the issues. So it will be a serious kind of dance.

Poehler: Once again, I know Prince reads your magazine. I know he reads these little interviews. Julia and I are ready to dance behind him when he runs for president in 2016.

Louis-Dreyfus: Please take this seriously.

How did I miss these lovely classic lines from Posh...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:45:39 -0700

How did I miss these lovely classic lines from Posh Spice’s Fall 2013 collection? I am in love.

Kelly Wearstler is the architect of my fantasy slouch-patterned...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:30:55 -0700

Kelly Wearstler is the architect of my fantasy slouch-patterned wardrobe.

My favorite NYMag commentary on The Voice:

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:30:31 -0700

My favorite NYMag commentary on The Voice::

Jeff Lewis vs. Josiah Hawley, “Roxanne”

I have decided that I really love Pharrell. The whole time these two jokers were caterwauling “Roxanne,” Pharrell looked deeply puzzled, as if privately amused by the proceedings. It was the only way to be! To be fair, “Roxanne” is a hard song and Sting is a vocal freak who makes it look easy (it was probably a bad song pick on Usher’s part), but Jeff and Josiah were already singing the song significantly lower than the original key and they still couldn’t do it. Usher actually got mad at them because they sounded so bad, but it didn’t even stop them from sounding bad. They literally could not help it.

QUEEN is right. She’s BACK with some neo-funk and a splash...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:27:05 -0700

QUEEN is right. She’s BACK with some neo-funk and a splash of Erykah Badu. VERY MUCH APPROVE OF THIS COLLAB’ CREATION.

Well, that Rita Ora sure knows how to slay a magazine...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:32:11 -0700

Well, that Rita Ora sure knows how to slay a magazine editorial…

Do not ask me why, but this track is becoming my life right...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 23:56:00 -0700

Do not ask me why, but this track is becoming my life right now.

In other news, Solange wins Coachella on and off the stage.

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:57:13 -0700

In other news, Solange wins Coachella on and off the stage.

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:28:32 -0700

Mad Men Screencap Recap - Season 6 Premiere

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:32:24 -0700

When this popped up on my TV screen, I pretty much turned into the equivalent of Liz Lemon singing “somebody bring me some HAM(M)!”

Hello, Yon Framm. You have been deeply missed.

NOW. I apologize, one, for the quality of my screencaps this time around, because zooming in was not kind to them, and two, for the lack of greater thematic connections drawn from the visuals of this season premiere. Oh sure, there are SOME, as always, but styling and design trends are a lot easier to tease apart when you have more than one episode of a season to work with. Instead, I’m going for a bit of a character-based approach this time. Starting with…

MEGAN

I think I am permanently stuck having a half-and-half attitude towards Megan, which is probably exactly where Matt Weiner wants me to be. Goddammit if she didn’t look gorgeous on the Draper Hawaii Vacation. The thing that was most interesting to me about this scene, however…

…was illustrated here. Megan, having found a secure(-ish?…soap operas are pretty steady work until your character gets killed off, right?) acting position (at least, before she has minor doubts mid-episode), seems fully able to immerse in the joys of vacation and this wonderland of artificial paradise. Her bright purple ensemble stands out, to be sure, but, with the yellow lei, picks up the exact complementary colors from the hosting couple’s outfits in the foreground. So of course, the three of them would form a perfect purple-yellow triad around Brooding Don — who clearly feels, and is, present in another world entirely. His red/blue color scheme is unique to this scene, and to practically all of the visuals relating to the Drapers’ paradise vacation. But good for him for sporting some color. The impending 70’s, y’all!

Back to Megan!

LOL MEGAN. Her ensembles are usually quite covetous, even in this late 60’s hailstorm of a fashion scene, but this is downright hilarious to me. Except I do love those shades.

Damn that glamour.

I liked this strange-ass vest/dress outfit, but mostly because this reminded me of a jazzy version of…

PEGGY, BADASS BITCH.

A great part of this is probably just similarity in late-60’s career-femme style, but ordinarily, we wouldn’t see a hint of Peggy and Megan wearing the same kind of outfit, even to work — this certainly didn’t happen when they both worked at SCDP. Here, their beige/gray/blue ensembles (a sobering combo of tones that popped up elsewhere in the episode, for sure), composed essentially of vest-dresses (is there a better way to describe these? there must be) over long-sleeves serve to unite them as career women. Sure, the unofficial work uniform is tweaked between the two (Peggy is certainly ALL buttoned up, Megan’s gone both boho-looser and glam-tighter), but it’s hard to ignore the overlap.

(Joanie, while she is later shown in a similar vest-dress combo, seems exempt from this particular Career Woman Uniform paradigm, I guess, b/c a) she would never be caught in such drab colors, and b) WHERE WAS SHE IN THIS EPISODE? ONE SCENE DOTH NOT A SUFFICIENT JOANIE QUOTA MAKE.)

Ahem. More of the fabulous Peggy:

Coincidence that the two ladies we see in adorable newsboy-caps-crossed-with-berets in this episode are our two fully-fledged young career gals? METHINKS NOT. I don’t even know if I can say Megan’s cap was more fashionable than Peggy’s here - sure, hers was paired with a fur coat, but Peggy’s is RED and paired with a cute scarf AND knee socks! (Not visible here, obviously, sorry about that.) Note how the red/blue in Peggy’s scarf echoes the red lei/blue shirt combo Don was sporting at the resort - a nice way to foreshadow Peggy’s assumption of at least some of Don’s identity as she positively slays her new position.

1. Just look at that continuation of the red and blue! Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant called this Peggy’s power suit, and I AGREE — and 2. BLESS THIS FACIAL EXPRESSION. I would have killed to have seen her snort with derision in this scene. Instead, she’s giving some very good Seth Meyers/Amy Poehler “Really?” face, which I will accept. You can’t see the emerald-tone buttons on her coat-dress in this shot, which is too bad, because they are awesome and dignified. I suppose she is dressed in quite the aging manner, but she totally busted into this scene with a beautiful, striking green coat. Get it, girl.

Back in her outerwear/workwear outfit, successfully revamping a Superbowl ad campaign on a night’s notice, catching up with her bro Stan, NBD. Can we talk about how that Stan-Peggy chat was the best thing to happen to this episode? Because it was. Love how all of Peggy’s beiges and blues, sad as they are sometimes, integrate completely with the color scheme of her office.

A color scheme that’s repeated in Betty’s adventure to the Land of Urban Grime:

Lovely, desolate shot. Dame Betty’s got herself a silk headscarf instead of a cute beret. I get it, but I am sad. It’s amazing how much they decided to blend her into a scene that is so clearly not one she is meant to own or understand — contrasts starkly with the way they showed Don sticking out like a sore thumb in his own strange, new environment of Hawaii. Betty DOES obviously stick out like a sore thumb in this world, but the tones here seem to indicate at least a superficial attempt to immerse herself in it (for a day) (for Sandy’s sake). The things she’s doing for this kid.

Oh yeah, and SPEAKING OF SANDY…

What the hell? WHO IS THIS GIRL? She is the only thing that has ever inspired me to sing I KNEW you WERE trouble when you wa-alked INNNNNNNNNNN. Any teenager who wears a frilly little pink long-sleeved lace number is up to no good. Sally was right to call her pretentious. And no wonder Betty loves her - the two of them were both wearing shiny little waistbows in this scene, after all.

Still, I guess everyone, including Sally, needs a kooky, faux-rebellious, faux-grown up “friend” like this. And this girl is, technically, less creepy than Glen.

Let’s have a little chat with Sally (Badass Bitch #2)…

HEY GIRL. Your dress is mad cute. I like the SPARSE and JUDICIOUS TOUCH of lace you’ve got going on, and that divine blue looks equally sinister, royal, and precious. Way to be, Sally Draper. Way to refer to your own mom as “Betty.” Way to call out your “friend” Sandy for “act[ing] like she’s 25 just because she uses tampons.” That was a damn good line.

JUST SO YOU ALL KNOW - Henry Francis, DILF the Second, also made an appearance this episode, in a number of curious sweaters.

And thus begins my series of Scene Screencaps, in which I have nothing much to say but simply like to observe how Mad Men presents these characters’ lives as if they live in a dollhouse. I will say that the Francis house looks decidedly less haunted with a) people and b) a Christmas tree all up in it. Also, is that YET ANOTHER NEW BOBBY?

Side note on Pauline: you’re crazy, but I like it. LOCA LOCA LOCA. This recap is turning out to be all kinds of musical.

SCDP Copy Room, how we have missed you! Why are there so many new characters all the time? STAN’S BEARD. These are all thoughts that were going through my head when this crew first popped up on screen. Nice coordination between foreground outfits and office furniture (Ginsberg’s sport coat and the back wall painting; New Lady’s blue suit and the chairs.)

Strike a pose.

VOGUE vogue VOGUE vogue.

Word to that sassy outfit on the photographer’s assistant.

God, the image composition is just so good on this show.

Exquisite Joanie conquering the staircase. I heartily approve of purple as her new power color, and her pattern of dress/suits is unstoppable. BEATING THE BOYS AT THEIR OWN GAME. I suppose this work outfit is essentially a corseted, more vibrant version of what Peggy/Megan were wearing at different points in the episode, if you think about it. Plus, RUFFLES. Can’t touch this.

Oh, you blithe little idiot. I think my red/blue thesis is falling apart by the second, because while it is clearly the Office Theme, and Don’s Theme, and America, it is also apparently This Idiot’s theme. Maybe because he’s trying to be like Don? Oh, I don’t know.

KENNY COSGROVE FACE APPRECIATION.

Ok, time for a mini-funeral recap. This awkward Caroline/Roger hug was the best part of the entire storyline, is what I can tell you right now.

Also, all the ladies of Roger’s past and present life at the funeral seemed to go somewhat of the Audrey Hepburn 60’s route with regards to fashion. I never cared much either way for Jane, but her mourning ensemble was crazy stunning, beautifully classic with a bit of flair.

Margaret’s hair looks so Audrey I want to puke.

Mona wins, though, because she is basically embodying All the Iconic Brunette Dames of the 60’s. I LOVE MONA. O.G. BADASS BITCH.

Sadly, despite her attempts, one lady who is NOT going to embody All the Iconic Brunette Dames of the 60’s:

BETTY

Was Henry referencing Elizabeth Taylor to be…nice? Because, while I applaud Betty’s decision to just change something, anything, in her life, and I sympathize with her due to her character being completely effed with by the writing staff of the show, this look is straight up Grandma Pauline.

Which is probably why Mama’s Boy Henry loves it. WHAT IS UP WITH HIS CHRISTMAS SWEATER? God I love him anyway.

musicfashionandtravel: Solange Flawless as usual.

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:15:00 -0700

musicfashionandtravel:

Solange

Flawless as usual.

This editorial is the SHIT.

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 20:11:52 -0700

This editorial is the SHIT.

archiveofaffinities: PLAN FOR A CIRCLE

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 20:06:30 -0700

archiveofaffinities:

PLAN FOR A CIRCLE