Originally this was going to be the beginning of a basic Halloween playlist, but it became more witchy, and after listening to Marilyn Manson's cover of I Put A Spell On You, I instantly thought of Nancy from The Craft. Such a good movie, definitely watch to get ready for October.
A maneater playlist, loosely based on Judith and Holofernes
1.Kill Of The Night-Gin Wigmore
2.Maneater-Blue Eyed Blondes
3.I Cut Like A Buffalo-The Dead Weather
4.Serial Killer-Lana Del Rey
5.The Hunter-Kaitlyn Ni Donovan
6.Heart Killer-Gossling
7.So Far From Your Weapon-The Dead Weather
8.Biting Down-Lorde
9.Black Milk-Massive Attack
I've been wanting to make a playlist like this for a long time, and after hearing both Heart Killer and Kill of the Night, the rest just fell into place. I'm very happy with the outcome.
August recap! I already covered the first seven days in my last post, but so much has happened since then! You've been warned.
Personal Life
Nemo and I posing with this
guy in a cupcake dress
For one, I celebrated my friend Hubert's birthday by going to OC Pride during the day and then a club called Rage in West Hollywood later that night. OC Pride was did not meet my expectations. As a kid, my dad would let us watch the Pride parade in Long Beach. I grew up watching giant floats partying down Ocean Blvd, the streets lined with thousands of people, all cheering, some covered in glitter and rainbow beads. OC Pride was more like a small street fair, that my friends and I walked through in about an hour. We got lots of free goodies, though. And I even bought an elephant thong for my other friend as an early birthday gift. Rage, however, was pretty awesome! It was Lady Gaga night so someone out came out dressed as her and danced on stage for a bit. But the best part was the music that they were playing. Missy Elliot's Get Ur Freak On, Destiny's Child Bootylicious, Eve's Tambourine, Azealia Banks' 212, and Macklemore's Can't Hold Us. Along with Lil' Kim, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and so much more that I danced and sweated my heart out to.
My friend Ethan with Macklemore
written on his card
Courtney's birthday
Not long after that, my parents left town for a couple days, and I decided to have a small kickback with whoever could make it on a short notice. It wasn't anything too crazy or wild, but I like those kinds of nights. We just sat around my kitchen table and played what we call the Inglorious Bastards Game. We all took the opportunity to humiliate each other. For example, I'm the only feminist in my group of friends, so they thought it'd be funny to have my first card be 'Brothel' (we did people, places, and things to make it harder) which I got pretty easily...but on my next turn I was "Elizabeth Cady Stanton" and I couldn't get that one for the life of me! Everyone shamed me for being a bad feminist. *Hangs my head* No one has let me forget that either. I highly suggest you play it with your friends one night it's a lot of fun.
My friend Stephanie is house-sitting for four months (weird I know) and she has been given the permission by the owners to throw kickbacks and parties there! So it was Courtney's birthday and most of us hadn't seen her since she left for school last summer, so we decided to celebrate before she left to New Jersey that week. I didn't drink this entire month because I am everyone's designated driver, but it's funny to see your drunk friends hit pinatas filled with Twinkies, swishers, and blue Jello, or play dizzy bat (link here to show you how fucking hilarious dizzy bat is) and fall on the ground. Also being the only sober one and swinging a bat through the middle of a serious beer pong game is the funniest thing ever. I eventually took over when it was one cup on the opponent's side and one cup on my side-and guess who scored on her first try! Yeah, be impressed. We also celebrated Nemo's birthday and it's another friend's birthday today, Mike.
Mike making a masterpiece at Corky's Diner
Colet and Stephanie celebrating Nemo's birthday
Are you ready for the best news? Are you? Okay, the best thing that happened this month was Sabrina coming back from Europe! We spent an entire day together, having her show me all the beautiful pictures she took, I showed her the miracle that is Cookie Butter and Nutella sandwiches, and later that week we watched When Harry Met Sally and experimented with make up. We were supposed to see Icona Pop on Tuesday but it got cancelled last second. I'm kind of relieved because it's nice to spend the day in with my Wheezy. It's so weird to have a friend that I can spend hours with, and we don't even do anything significantly special. With everyone else I feel like I have to go out and force ourselves to have fun or else they'll be bummed. With Sabrina, we just go over to each other's houses and just...sort of bask in the company of each other. And it's great. And I missed her. So that was nice.
Lately, since the Fall semester started on the 19th and I'm taking art classes with more interesting people, I decided to play with my style a bit. By this I mean I've been actually trying when it came to dressing for class. I bought a couple of shirt online, one has already come in and I wear it as much as I can. It's my Sailor Moon shirt from Hot Topic. I saw Ceedling wearing it in one of her latest videos about Feminist Masculinity. And the other I just bought yesterday so the internet gods have not sent it through the mail yet. It's a shirt with Jesus saying "Thou shalt not kill my vibe" I'm so into saints, Christianity, religious art, and just anything with mythology, especially when there's a modern twist to it. So this is definitely gonna be a favorite.
I'm going to follow up this post with the Music, and Movies that I've seen in August next! Enjoy!
So...you know how I said that I want to maybe start doing recaps at the end of each month? Well, I'm going to break my own rules and tell you about my first week of August instead cause I DO WHAT I WANT. And also because I have a shit ton of music that I want to share with you. ^.^
Personal Life
I haven't had much of a life because I have a final to study for, and I work when I'm not confined to a windowless classroom, but I did manage to spend time with my family last weekend. I saw Despicable Me 2 (I haven't even seen the first one) and I can't believe how adorable it was. Actually, the minions and the youngest daughter were the most enjoyable part of the movie. I also went to a pet store with my five-year-old niece and watched as she fell in love with cats and birds.
I think I might want a little parakeet
And last night I went to a birthday dinner of my sister's best friend, Devin. The three of us used to make videos together in high school and had so many inside jokes. It was nice to be invited and to be thought of as a 'friend' and not as, like, 'friend's sister.' I went to this Mexican restaurant in San Clemente and met all of my sister's friends. It was a bit intimidating cause they were all in their twenties, but as I got talking to them I found out that the one guy who was drinking the most was eighteen too. The waiters didn't card anyone! So I decided to take a tequila shot with them, and I was really nervous about that for some reason--especially when they poured a bunch of hot sauce in my shot! It was good though, I thought I hated tequila but it went down easy.
Art
If you didn't see the picture above, I made a portrait of Devin as a gangster. Don't ask why, I myself have no idea. A part of my inspiration came from Liz Clements, who you should really check out and buy prints from if you like her art. Another part of my inspiration came from the fact that my sister and I call Devin 'Lil' D' and have an on running joke about how cute and short she is, so I thought that a gangter portrait be ironic and fitting ~at the same time~.
LizClementsIllustration.com
I haven't played around with my watercolors lately like I used to, so I decided to switch it up and paint with tea. It's pretty easy, just take 5-6 black tea bags, a small cup of water (to really concentrate the browns of the tea) and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Then take the back of a spoon and press the tea bags so that the pigment goes into the water. I like to individually squeeze the tea bags after and smear them across water color paper. After that you just replace the 'water' in watercolors with 'tea'. Of course you can have a cup of water to dilute the tea a little bit or to get a better wet-on-wet look when you're painting, but that's pretty much it. I also tried that same method once with green tea but it was a bit more difficult to get the greens on paper, so I'd suggest taking, like, twenty tea bags instead and boiling the water. Another suggestion would be to have a hair dryer. The tea looks much better when it sits on the paper, but it can take a long time for that to dry, so to speed up the process just use a hair dryer on the lowest coolest setting and it'll only take half a minute!
Another artist I found who not has traditional work influenced by tattoos, but is an unbelievable tattoo artist themselves is _eckel. I can only find their work on instagram at the moment, but if I could only ask someone to do one thing today-I WOULD ASK YOU TO CHECK THEM THE FUCK OUT. Their work is so stunning and beautiful I would fly to where this person lives and get a tattoo by them. Let me just give you a taste of the greatness so you can feel me:
So it's only been a week and I have moved on to new song obsessions, and new genre obsessions and just new artists to listen to! Earlier this week I was wanting to improve my female rappers playlist on 8tracks and I coincidentally ran into this article about 10 Queer Rappers You Should Check Out. Seriously. Every. Single. Artist. Was. Perfect. I am in love with all of them. This list is so on point and I just ughhh *flips table*. One of the songs that they suggested has been on repeat on my iPod:
Based on the comments, this song plays in the movie The Heat. Which is a movie that I have been dying to see but have had no time to go, and no one to go with.
Speaking of playlists on 8tracks, I made an 'Elvis Presley' playlist on 8tracks too! I was thinking about Pulp Fiction and that quote from Mia Wallace:
"My theory is that when it comes to important subjects, there are only two ways a person can answer. Which way they chose, tells you who that person is. For instance, there are only two kinds of people in the world, Beatles people and Elvis people. Now Beatles people can like Elvis and Elvis people can like the Beatles, but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice. And that choice, tells you who you are."
Yes, this question does run through my mind a lot. And I've come to the conclusion that I am an Elvis Presley person. Definitely. I won't change my mind again I swear! To congratulate myself I made a playlist filled with Elvis Presley, Wanda Jackson, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and a bunch more! And while I was looking around for a good Otis Redding song to put on this playlist I found this beautiful gem of a cover by Sara Bareilles:
Another obsession of mine has been with something called 'southern gothic' music. Which is basically like the dark blue-sy folk-ish music from the South that reminds me a bit of the film O Brother Where Art Thou? This all started, to be honest, with Sabrina (SHE WILL BE IN EVERY POST I MAKE MY WHEEZY), and her first playlist on 8tracks called Molasses. Its so good and so under appreciated, it makes me want to paint on a rainy day while smoking a cigarette and I don't even smoke. What really sparked my interest in southern music, though was this playlist called It's A Long Way Down. I had to contain myself and not favorite every song that came up. I usually only listen to half of a playlist and go on my merry way, but I have been playing this one non-stop. At work, before class, every time I'm in a car, when I'm doing homework, in the shower, before I go to sleep. Everywhere. My absolute favorite song is Like A Mountain by Timber Timbre. I don't know much about the band, but damn this song is so addicting.
And another song that makes me feel like a misandrist* for liking is called Man Eater by Blue Eyed Blondes. It's so dark and creepy and the ending of the story is brilliant. I also love that this song is a story. I also love everything about this song so please press play.
If you liked any of these two songs please check out the 8tracks playlist you won't regret it.
(*not a real thing or word)
If you don't know me, then you don't know the undying dedication and love that I have for CocoRosie and how much they inspire my art and my life. And I guess you're lucking cause my love for the Casady sisters in a bit overwhelming to witness. But have you heard their latest album Tales of a Grasswidow? Cause it's fucking beautiful and you should. Bianca's art and music have really intertwined lately, and you can see that just by looking at the album cover. I know that she designed all of the other albums, but this picture looks a lot like a piece from her exhibit 'Daisy Chain'.
This album was also the first ever thing that I've bought off of iTunes. I always have ripped my music off of youtube, but I wanted to buy the whole album for when I see them in October.
When they first released this back in February I went apeshit crazy and fell in love with it instantly. And, of course, I made a playlist with other artists like Blackbird Raum.
The link leads to a music video that reminds me of the Lemonade or Gallows videos. I can definitely see Sierra painting the part of her hair and fingertips red like the women did in this video.
This song reminds me of their last album Grey Oceans, not because of the sound (in fact the sound reminds me of Black Rainbow, or K-hole) but because of the theme. The whole apocalyptic feel to it. During their interviews for Grey Oceans they would talk about creatures that created and embodied called 'elementals' that would be like personifications of nature and would inherit back the Earth after the world ended. That's what this song reminds me of.
This song gives me vivid images of Anne Hathaway's version of Fantine in Les Miserables. The part of "Lovely Ladies" when she says "Don't they know that they're making love/To one already dead!" That's what Harmless Monster thinks of. Do I smell a playlist? I have a problem.
Last, but not least, is Blood On The Leaves by Kanye West. The song that he samples from is called Strange Fruit, originally sung by Billie Holiday but he takes the version by Nina Simone (goddess of music). I have noticed that the comments are filled with people being upset with Kanye's "hate of white people in the whole album". I just roll my eyes at the ignorance (like seriously it there a song about lynching white people no! because that shit doesn't happen to white people--I'm gonna stop because I am not in any position to have any say on the matter) and appreciate the music. When the beat drops, no matter what I'm doing I have to bang my head-everytime!
That's about it! Hopefully I'll more time to post on a regular basis after this math class ends. I have a lot of plans this weekend also, so I'll remember to document and post! Have fun listening to all of the music and thanks for reading!
