winter feelings// elliott smith + maurice cullen

Listening to Elliott Smith in the winter can be tricky. If it's a rainy afternoon and you've just put on the 2-disc posthumous album "New Moon" you're bound to be feeling not so happy come song 24. By the end, you could be dissolved in a puddle on the floor singing along to "see you later/ if I see you at all," trying to hold back sobs. BUT as I noticed the other day when the snow kept falling all day, listening to Elliott Smith during snowy weather feels folky and warm. It reminds me of listening to him while cross country skiing up to a wood cabin in the forest. Or driving back from New York State after Christmas. Like the feeling I get when I look at this painting by Maurice Cullen. The late night winter light is so beautiful! I'm pretty sure the painting shows the view of Ottawa from the other side of the river in Quebec.

_{Maurice Cullen "Winter Evening, Quebec" 1934}

top christmas movies that aren't

 Movies that have a longer timeline usually have a cluster of holiday season scenes in them (see Mean Girls) which make me then categorize them as being forever Christmas movies. Kids movies also fall into the vast 'holiday movie' category, just because they feel cozy and nostalgic...when you watch movies you watched as a kid, you feel like a kid. Precious holiday vacation time well spent!

Mean Girls (2004): the scenes from Mean Girls that always come to mind first are the Christmas scenes, like the Glenn Coco candy gram scene and the Jingle Bell Rock scene.

Anastasia (1998): The sparkly animation quality of this movie makes me feel festive. The art design of the Romanov palace is awesome. Rasputin, the evil zombie villain, definitely puts a damper on holiday cheer in Anastasia, but don't worry! It is a kids' movie, so it has a happy ending.

Little Women (1994) has this rustic New England Christmas-y feeling that transcends to the whole movie, not just the Christmas scenes. Anyhow, watch this movie and see Christian Bale look super young and fresh-faced...and not even crazy at all! 

Indian Church// Emily Carr

_{Indian Church 1929, Emily Carr}

DECEMBER MIX

christmastime fun!!! + "Can't Hurry Love"- the Supremes

_{list follows clockwise order starting at bottom left.}

√ Go to museums with friends and/or family! I'm personally excited to go to the Nature museum that has dinosaur exhibitions and thousands of minerals and rocks on display. Going to museums reminds me of being a kid.

√ Put on new or old Hannah Barbara cartoons, like the Jetsons or the Powerpuff Girls. Then commence knitting and/or crocheting and tea consumption.

√ Listen to: Diana Ross and the Supremes, Scott Walker, Jens Lekman, Sigur Ros, and Curtis Mayfield- music that sounds cheery and has a holiday mood, but doesn't mention "mommy kissing santa clause" at all, thank god. Here's my Christmas mix from last year if you're in the mood for actual Xmas songs.

√ Christmas garlands

√ Make your own perfume or mixed teas using loose leaf blends and muslin.

√ Have a horchata party! Horchata is a South American libation that is made of rice, vanilla, and cinnamon that is a great alternative for eggnogg h8ers. When I hear the line in the Vampire Weekend song "In December drinking horchata..." it really makes me want to make and drink horchata in December. Here's a recipe!

√ While you're having your Horchata party, why not make flower crowns as well?!

√ Holiday baking! I want to make these quasi Rice Krispie squares that are made up of Fruit Loops and COCONUT RUM! So festive! 

Get Found// Bass Drum of Death

_{Weekend jam courtesy of Bass Drum of Death}

Girl in a Fur Coat// Lucian Freud

_{Girl in a Fur Coat, Lucian Freud, 1967}

I bet that this painting was an inspiration for Marc Jacobs' Fall 2010 collection; the fur collar, mussed hair, the color palette...look.

Allison Schulnik "Mound" + Scott Walker

Allison Schulnik's "Mound" video was shown during illustration class today. Right when it started I recognized the musical accompaniment to be Scott Walker. It's Raining Todaywas a song that I'd hear at home all the time as a kid. The song reminds me of the blue hour, cold nights before the new year, walking alone...it's a song that would make me feel scared and spooked out. I also seem to associate the mood of this song to Christmastime. 

It made me very excited that Allison Schulnik chose this song to make a video for. Her clay figures that are constantly morphing; growing collections of little holes and smears of rainbows, make for the perfect visual to the haunting sound of It's Raining Today.

Arnaud Maggs//photographer

Arnaud Magg's way of observing the world is very interesting. I saw some of his portaits and journals at the National Art Gallery this past summer when I went there to go see the Van Gogh exhbition, but to be honest, I was much more excited about seeing Magg's work. 

Pages from "Werner's Nomenclature of Colours" were displayed along with his works. The pages show records of environments that corresponded with a color swatch. Details of what it was and where he found it were also written down.

In Arnaud Maggs' photography series, the subjects are shot head on, then with their head turned to the side. What I found very interesting was how different a perspective you get of someone's face when you observe it at different angle. The change in facial features from one shot to the next made the same person look like two different people. It also helped that this was the first time I'd ever seen the faces of the subjects...it brings up the idea of how a 2D image cannot fully represent the character of someone's face...it flattens it. In visual art, the idea of single-perspective observation is interesting, especially when doing a self-portrait. Evan Penny's (at the AGO now!) distored sculptures show exactly how single perspective observation while working with a 3D medium can really flatten the face; creating shallow depth.



Arnaud Maggs passed away this week, which is what made me want to write a bit of a comemmoration.

Curtis Mayfield// Makings of You

Add a little sugar, honeysuckle and a great big expression of happiness...with a dozen roses!

Curtis Mayfield will make you feel happy if you weren't before. I love the weird tube tv graininess of this video. So low quality but Curtis's live performance is flawless.

November Mix

"Make ends meet" is not as in "meat..." Happy Halloween!!

Life in a glass house

Jeremy Miranda "Greenhouse at Night"Jeremy Miranda "A Frame"

Rachel Whiteread "Ghost Ghost" (2008)

Todd Hido photography

∆s are my favourite shape

Triangles are my favourite shape// three points where two lines meet

시간에(의) 직면, Face the whole(Martini) - Daehyun Kim

Go to moonassi.com and look at the rest of Daehyum Kim's other works...they're all equally black & white. The duo-tone drawings are really inspiring. It reminds me of Thom Yorke's solo album covers, or like that one Fever Ray album cover. Woodblock carving, then printing with ink or scratching into clayboard would be a lot of fun to create duo-tone drawings like these. 

Canned Heat!!! //Ashish Spring 2013

Sequin scrunchies, white hot Reboks n socks, 70s dad glasses...this is basically a female version of Napoleon Dynamite. Can't you just hear Canned Heat by Jamiroquai? The answer is yes!

Images thanks to Elle.com (aka the BEST source for runway photos)

PS: I'm experimenting with HTML/CSS page layouts...if we're lucky, things could get weeeird!!

Alberta Ferretti// fall "jewel tones"

Alberta Ferretti print ad from Fall 2008: I love the colour palette of these pictures! I wish that my metro ride would be as peaceful and elegant as this...alternatively, there's the vacant looking singing man and the muted Rihanna from someone's headphones, and the unfortunate fact that the subways are never this empty.

Mark Rothko\ Green Over Blue

"There is no such thing as good painting about nothing." - Mark Rothko

Green Over Blue 1956

Brown suit for thanxsgiving

I've found the most perfect Thanksgiving dinner outfit; a brown tweed suit!! You'd vaguely reference the pilgrims if you pair it with a white ruffled shirt and buckled shoes but otherwise, you'd be full on referencing Napoleon Dynamite which is always a fashion DO. On that note, this holiday season, may your family be blessed with a bounty of gourds.

Napoleon Dynamite | Charles Anastase Fall 2011

j.e.h. macdonald\ radiohead 'hail to the thief'

      Here are some fall scenes by J.E.H. MacDonald. There are some at the AGO and at the National Gallery. These paintings make me want to walk in the woods in the fall on an overcast day. This reminds me of when I was obsessed with Hail to the Thief (click to listen) by Radiohead and thought that it was the perfect soundtrack to walking in a forest in the fall when everything seems slightly creepy, like the sunny golden forest in the Blair Witch project*.

October Shower Gleam 1922

Algoma Swamp 1919

 

*I Find myself referencing this movie more than any other movie lately. I'm wondering why. 

Nick Drake\ Northern Sky

Photos from the lake in the summer. Another apropriate song for this post would be "Back to the Lake" by Guided By Voices, but this Nick Drake song is a lot more wistful, which I think fits the idea of summer getting farther away. The lake will still be beautiful in the fall though; looking like a Group of Seven J.E.H. Macdonald painting.

Fall morning colours, AY Jackson

How the shadows are painted is incredible. This gold light is the light that I see coming through the blinds right now. This painting is on display at the National Art Gallery if you're interested in seeing it, for those of you in Ottawa.

AY Jackson Edge of the Maple Wood (1910)

Nick Haymes x Gabe Nevins

     While reading Nick Haymes' new photo book Gabe, I watched in horrified fascination as doe-eyed 14 year old Gabe Nevins drifted into this scary adulthood that seemed impossible after immortalizing him in my mind after watching Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park. Gabe reads like a downward spiral that documents the fading of Nevins' promise as an actor to the reality of drugs and living on the streets in California.

     Gabe's health seemed to deteriorate with each page which caused me to have a growing sense of dread about reaching the end of the book. In a piece The Fader did with Haymes, they liken Gabe to River Phoenix, the star of Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho and who died tragically at 23 from a drug overdose. Intentional or not, Haymes' photographs are reminiscent of ...Idaho in their dreamlike dirtiness and clear bright colours with warm washes. In the same interview with Fader, Haymes concludes in saying that "...so far (Gabe)'s okay and I hope he’s going figure it out and get on the right path."

All photos by Nick Haymes, can be found in "Gabe"

twins

Seventeen magazine scan, 1999 

Rainbow cake

Make rainbow cake for fall birthdays!

September Mix

Weekend "Hazel"

Camping on the last weekend of real summer.

Peter Doig "Grande Riviere"

This painting is at the National Gallery right now in the Canadian Contemporary section. Its size in person will surprise you. The little lights in the forest seem to glow. If you can, SEE IT! It's incredible.

Peter Doig "Grande Riviere" 2001

brand new DOMAIN NAME

Now that I'm an adult, I have invested in a prime piece of internet property that is Cool But Rude.com. Cries of outrage (not really) about the change in name might make me nostalgic, but trust me on this one...coolbutrude is wayyy more fun to type than that other name.

www.coolbutrude.com

guitars

COOL PEOPLE playing AWESOME guitars.

Jay Reatard's Gibson white axe

C Love's Fender (Jaguar?) with royal cats all over it

Kurt Cobain's left handed Fender Jaguar and Mustang

Bradford Cox's golden Gibson Les Paul Signature

...I'm spendin' money at the mall

Evan Prosofsky's video for "The Mall" by Travis Bretzer set in the West Edmonton Mall. Funnily enough, I know ALL about the Wess Edmonton Mall but have never visited it in real life. My knowlege on this fascinating subject stems from a project I did in Gr. 4 where I enthusiastically listed all the wondrous attractions of the W.E.M., such as dolphin diving, water sliding, and roller coaster riding.

I no longer have any urge whatsoever to make a pilgrimmage to Alberta's capital, but this summer I did pay a visit to the most godawful mall in the city!! I wish that I was able to see every depressing suburban establishment like an Evan P. production. Orange tinted sunglasses help though.

Bettie Serveert "Under the Surface"

This video of Bettie Serveert playing at the Pinkpop festival brings up a surge of 90s nostalgia. I haven't listened to this band since I was four-ish, when my parents were really into them and I thought that it was just one girl who was actually named "Bettie Serveert." Even though I was so young, this music still brings back vivid memories of listening to Lamprey driving around Calgary with my dad. 

This beautiful rainy day in Landgraaf feels so much like the atmosphere of today; rain and dark grey skies. This would have been such a good show.

Also: I love the flowered shirt that the lead guitarist is wearing.

interesting fur

Quirky fur, like fur jackets that are older and worn in a non-upscale Holt Renfrew way...as in with disheveled hair, and dollar store "party section" accessories (sparkle glasses, plastic rings). It's possible to wear something fur and not have it consume your entire being with both its size and ability to make people go "euugh, you're a FREAK." I think the key is to not have toooo much of it..like a fur stole or a shorter chubby jacket. That said, Margot Tenenbaum totally pulled off the long fur coat, buuuut something tells me that the slim blonde fur coat she wears wouldn't be one you'd get for $40 at the thift store. 

Marc Jacobs fall 2010 

Vanessa Jackman street style“Fraülein C”: Christina Kruse photographed by Paulo Sutch for Dazed and Confused, April 2002

Ps. not that I really need to say this but...don't be tempted into buying a new 50 billion $$ fur coat!! Fur industries are effed. Vintage is the way to gooo if you haven't yet inherited that perfect plushy fur jacket yet.