I Will Rise Now...

In Which We Are Terribly Trendy


This entry has a theme of trends, I fear.
I am not a trend-follower, not really.
But if something comes along that I find fabulous,
I tend not to let the fact that it's
a passing trend deter me.
I like what I like, and dislike what I dislike.
The End.
:D


First off!
Movie!
Plenty of SPOILERS!
But then, it's been out for a bit, so, you know.

I finally got to watch this little gem, and it was delightful. Of course, people like to gush on and on about what an EPIC and IMPORTANT film it is, and that’s just eye-rolly. Happily, the film isn’t as pretentious as all the hype around it, it’s quite lovely and sweet. And very long! But the kind of cozy, good-feeling long film you can curl up and get lost in, not the kind that has you checking your watch, wondering when it will end and knowing exactly what could have been left out (I do this with some of my very favorite movies, even. Like Australia...ooo, still gotta review that, gah!).

On the day hurricane Katrina is to hit New Orleans, an elderly woman named Daisy is on her deathbed, and asks her daughter Caroline to read to her from the diary of one Benjamin Button. Benjamin’s mother, also named Caroline, dies giving birth in 1918, to a shriveled, sickly little baby boy whose bones are twisted with arthritis. Distraught and heartbroken, Thomas Button leaves his infant son on the doorstep of a senior’s home, where he is adopted and raised by Queenie, a black nurse who cannot have children of her own. Benjamin isn’t expected to live very long, but live he does, growing slowly younger as those around him grow older. He meets Daisy, the granddaughter of one of the senior residents, when she is a little girl and he is a little boy in the body of an old man. The two remain close throughout their lives, their relationship shifting as they slowly meet in the middle.

I gotta say, I’ve gotten less impressed with Brad Pitt in recent years. Good actor, sure, but the line between actor and character gets blurred and sometime I wonder who I’m actually seeing on screen. He was AMAZING in this, though, as an old man who is actually a small child, and then as a young man who is really 60, and everywhere in between. His face may look one way, but his demeanor and performance is a completely different age, and totally believable. And the makeup! Aged makeup usually takes me right out of a film, but it’s gotten brilliant as of late. Cate Blanchett is utterly, flawlessly every age she is portrayed, as is Brad. You can convince someone that you are an old woman, but a 17 year old girl also? CRAZY. And of course, it’s a beautiful movie. A feast for the eyes, to use my favorite cliché!

Plot-wise, I liked it as well. It was a simple idea, a man who ages backwards, and it didn’t need much milking either. Watching Benjamin Button’s life play out is powerful enough. Though he leaves Daisy and Little Caroline because he doesn’t want the love of his life to be stuck taking care of him, because he wants Caroline to have a father and not a brother, Daisy is there for Benjamin at the “end” of his life anyway. She is there for him as he forgets how to play the piano, how to walk, how to talk, and eventually as he falls asleep for the last time in her arms. Yes, it may be enviable in the middle of things, to get younger as your peers get older. But at the start of things, and at the end of things, we are exactly the same.

Music!
(Yes it's been out a month.
I never said I was on top of things!)

I love Bat For Lashes. I discovered Natasha Khan and her music early last year, after hearing her gorgeous cover of Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire (one of my favorite songs of ever). I was instantly hooked. Her first album, ‘Fur & Gold’, was a dazzling escape of faerytails and Native American princesses and Halloween scary stories, used to illustrate themes of love, insecurity, abandonment and finding one’s self. What twenty-something female who still plays with My Little Pony wouldn’t relate?

Two Suns is just as dazzling! Lyrically, Natasha hasn’t changed her style or approach, and that pleases me, because she doesn’t have to! She embodies two personas on the album, herself, as well a blonde alter-ego named Pearl (but don’t worry, it’s not the scary, Beyonce-style dual personalities, hehe). Pearl is an optimistic party girl, while Natasha remains introspective. Overall the songs are a bit catchier, a bit dancier, but she’s still telling stories like a gypsy break-dancer. The story she tells is a bit more upbeat, even when she’s love-lorn. Sleep Alone is downright poppy, but still entirely, utterly BFL. Also, it’s a great album to hula hoop to.

Recently we had Friendship Day here on Ikego.
That is when the locals in Zushi are invited onto the base,
for food and music and festival-fun!
It was a good time,
with food on sticks &
traditional drumming &
Japanese people line-dancing.
However, I got a horrible sunburn.
I'm sure you'll be able to see it in the following pics.

Yesterday, I finally bit the bleach-dye-bullet.
Said trend has had me on the fence,
but I've seen some people rock it very well,
without looking like a full-on 80's throw-back.
The results!

While I like the contrast,
I am iffy on how my black tripp jeans came out.
Mostly because the bleach did a number on
their structure, puckering and the like.
But hey, they're fun!

On the other side,
I LOVE how my favorite worn-out henley
responded to the chemical abuse!
It was once black.
You'd never tell now!

Prim!
This denim corset top was a recent
Yokohama purchase, I love it.
So does my husband.

It's a bit awkward over jeans and skirts,
but when I got the brainstorm
to layer it over my favorite white summer dress,
I was ever so pleased.
Am so girly!

I promised neighborhood pics, didn't I?
Oh well, those will come soon!
Right now I have to run to the post office,
buy some milk and more aloe,
clean my messy apartment,
and also email my mommy and husbot.

Am so domestic.
Also, I'll be throwing glitter around.


Til Next We Meet,
♥,
~ Amy