February 23, 2012
I went to Spuntino at the weekend.

Here are my thoughts:

The waitress was more annoying than helpful, but kind of sweet in her worked-over nonchalence. She was wearing a Penguin book cover t-shirt with The Third Man on the front.

The fried chicken was not that great, even though I really wanted it to be.

Sliders are so small for £5 each.

I could do mac and cheese as good as that, I swear.

I picked up one fry and practially all of them came out in a giant clump, reminiscent of a tumbleweed, perhaps. I’m undecided whether this is a good thing, but probably not.

The plates are those white ones made of tin with a blue edge. The cup our complimentary popcorn came in had a big chip in it that I will wager was done deliberately.

When an establishment such as that presents itself as the ultimate in cool, and gets a load of press as result (and has somewhat hiked-up prices to match the press coverage), they will never, ever attract a clientele that even begins to live up to the image. This theory was upheld by the perfectly nice but very dull couple we were seated next to, who decided to ‘go for a little walk before getting dessert somewhere else’. Those fools! The PB&J sandwich was totally the best thing!

5:12pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOyGuxaF-
June 27, 2011
koolthings: That HAIR.  AGREED.

koolthings:

That HAIR.

 AGREED.

(via koolthings-deactivated20120418)

2:14pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOy6VdFr7
(Notes: 562)
  
June 27, 2011
"during filming it was discovered that Tierney had stolen a butcher knife from the knife block in Jerry’s apartment set. Various cast members remember Seinfeld encountering Tierney and stating “Hey Lawrence, what do you got there in your jacket?”. Tierney, realizing he had been caught, tried to make a joke about how he thought taking the knife would be funny, by re-enacting a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), holding the knife above his head and making threatening motions towards Seinfeld."

— I spent my hungover Saturday re-watching the second season of Seinfeld, and when I googled The Jacket I found this bizarre on-set anecdote. Elaine’s dad was played (once) by Lawrence Tierney, an actor who started working in the 1940s, went out of favour, then had a comeback in the 80s and 90s, including this part in Seinfeld. Unfortunately he was the Scariest Man Ever, and they didn’t bring him back as a recurring role. What makes all this even better is that his character is based on the writer Richard Yates: Larry David had dated his daughter Monica, and had even gone to meet Yates at the same Algonquin Hotel. I’ve not read much about Richard Yates, but considering how emotionally unflinching his stories and novels are, I’m not much surprised that he was an intimidating man. He might also have been a little pissed off that no-one cared about his writing, although I suppose that’s been rectified now by Leo and Kate.

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June 27, 2011
Highlights of watching Bridesmaids in Peckham, home of the most vocal cinema audiences in the world

1. Drinking three bottles of wine between five girls that we’d bought from the off licence and not getting told off for it. Also bringing in classy plastic wine glasses, like that was going to make the cheapo chardonnay taste any better.

2. When the Evil Modern Version of Don Draper drove away leaving Annie stranded in a cloud of dust on the motorway (I am assuming everyone has seen this and read the Awl article*, so I won’t worry about spoilers, or not making sense) and yelling out the car window, ‘You’re no longer my number three!’, the ladies in the row in front of us waited several beats before exclaiming, ‘NUMBER THREEEE!’, like it was the most heinous insult ever. They were also not happy about the dogs being given away as party gifts at the bridal shower (I should add: I do not know what a bridal shower is. I am only familiar with the baby version. Does it mean more presents? I need to get married), again with a mightily delayed reaction of something like, ‘OH MY GOD, THEY’RE GIVING THEM DOGS!’.

3. The aforementioned ladies being really offended on behalf of main character Annie when anything betrayal-related happened to her. I too enjoyed being all ‘OOOHHHH,’ when Helen stole ideas from Annie that were totally based on their lifelong friendship! Because I was with my girlfriends and we would never betray each other like that! And then my friend to the left of me spilt strawberry-scented rosé wine all down my side and I was like, ‘FOR FUCK’S SAKE’ very loudly, which wasn’t particularly nice or sisterhood-y of me. We did make up five minutes later, however.

4. Going to the pub afterwards, having the ‘which Bridesmaid is me’ conversation, and my lovely friend shouting, ‘BYE HELEN!’ when I left. I wouldn’t be offended if she meant that I looked like her, but that’s not what she meant.

*And in response to the Awl article (about a month and a half too late because the film only came out last Friday in the UK), I think I went into the film knowing that it wasn’t going to be as groundbreaking as many had made it out to be, and instead expected something mainstream but funny, which it was. So I have no complaints as a feminist, really. It was nice that one of the girls I went with, who hadn’t read up on it beforehand, said afterwards how pleased she was to see a film with all-female leads, and that’s still a good thing despite the borderline-offensive fat jokes and the need for (the adorable) Chris O’Dowd from the IT Crowd as a love interest for the sad, not-engaged Annie.

12:09pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOy6VWLlg
June 16, 2011

My first post in a series entitled, ‘People with the same first name as me who were or are really awesome’.

Charlotte “Lottie” Dod. Not content with winning the first of five Wimbledon titles in 1887 at the tender age of 15, she also played twice for England at field hockey, won the British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship, and won a silver medal at the 1908 Olympics for archery… She was also partial to cycling, tobogganing, skating and curling.

A delivery man at work today told me he ‘doesn’t meet many Lottes’ and that it’s a ‘good, old-fashioned name’. And then I read this week’s Guardian Fashion Statement and learned that yes, it is indeed an old-fashioned name. This has no relevance to anything; I just enjoy that she had the same first name as me.

4:22pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOy68jK_Z
June 16, 2011
I remember when I tried it. I was nineteen and I put a bowl on and I said, Cut around! Because it was not the fashion at the time when I did that hairdo—and I kept it all my life! At the time of Cléo I grew it a little more, and when Jacques died I grew a bit here. [She pulls out a strand.] I made a braid because Chinese old people, they say that the God will take you by the hair to join you with—but God didn’t take me, so I cut the braid. Now it’s the same hairdo but it has two colors—come on! It’s different! It’s like an ice cream of chocolate and vanilla! Agnes Varda on her hair. I love this woman. I half remember that in The Beaches of Agnes, a film that completely blew me away (and all the more so because when I watched it I was paying particular attention to women artists and writers and filmmakers, and she is an utterly inspiring example of a successful female artist who has developed an inimitable style that appeals to me as a woman as well as a film watcher (however limiting that viewpoint might be), and with all that manages to be extremely funny too), she wore mismatching polka dots on her top and bottom half. I’ve wanted to do that ever since.

I remember when I tried it. I was nineteen and I put a bowl on and I said, Cut around! Because it was not the fashion at the time when I did that hairdo—and I kept it all my life! At the time of Cléo I grew it a little more, and when Jacques died I grew a bit here. [She pulls out a strand.] I made a braid because Chinese old people, they say that the God will take you by the hair to join you with—but God didn’t take me, so I cut the braid. Now it’s the same hairdo but it has two colors—come on! It’s different! It’s like an ice cream of chocolate and vanilla!

Agnes Varda on her hair. I love this woman. I half remember that in The Beaches of Agnes, a film that completely blew me away (and all the more so because when I watched it I was paying particular attention to women artists and writers and filmmakers, and she is an utterly inspiring example of a successful female artist who has developed an inimitable style that appeals to me as a woman as well as a film watcher (however limiting that viewpoint might be), and with all that manages to be extremely funny too), she wore mismatching polka dots on her top and bottom half. I’ve wanted to do that ever since.

4:22pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOy68jHCX
(Notes: 1)
  
June 16, 2011
One night my wife, M. J., said I should prepare to Disney. It wasn’t presented as a question or even as something to waste time thinking about, just to brace for, because it was happening.

I am so excited that I am about to read this.

12:26pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOy68UjQw
June 13, 2011
I started Updike’s Rabbit, Run on the train this morning. You know when you start reading a book and it becomes apparent by the third or fourth page that you’re going to enjoy it more than every other book you’ve read over the last year or so?* I got that feeling. Then again, I am a complete sucker for American suburbia (this is an understatement). Rabbit is 26 in it and I’m now close enough to that age to feel a rising sense of urgency to read every single important book with a main character just older than me before I overtake them in age and it’s too late. Also, it begins with Rabbit getting home from his job as a MagiPeel Peeler salesman in ‘several five-and-dime stores around Brewer’ to find his pregnant chainsmoking wife drinking an old-fashioned and watching the Mickey Mouse Club, which is just… perfect? *It might even beat A Visit from the Goon Squad, even though I encourage everyone I know and love (and everyone else, ever) to read that because it was so consistently enjoyable and structured in a way that made me think, ‘how exactly did Jennifer Egan do this, she is clearly a mega genius’. I appreciate a book that makes you work, and Goon Squad definitely does that, with lots of points of view and a chronology that’s completely out of whack. Or no chronology at all, I should probably say. Egan is also so very charming. This (old) Guernica interview made me love her in writerly ways because she admits to having been terrible at stages during her 20s (and says writing workshops saved her). She also cites Tristram Shandy as ‘formative’ and an important reference point for Goon Squad, and I love anyone who promotes the brilliance of Tristram Shandy. That book is insaaane. This is Updike, by the way. Nice jumper!

I started Updike’s Rabbit, Run on the train this morning. You know when you start reading a book and it becomes apparent by the third or fourth page that you’re going to enjoy it more than every other book you’ve read over the last year or so?* I got that feeling. Then again, I am a complete sucker for American suburbia (this is an understatement). Rabbit is 26 in it and I’m now close enough to that age to feel a rising sense of urgency to read every single important book with a main character just older than me before I overtake them in age and it’s too late. Also, it begins with Rabbit getting home from his job as a MagiPeel Peeler salesman in ‘several five-and-dime stores around Brewer’ to find his pregnant chainsmoking wife drinking an old-fashioned and watching the Mickey Mouse Club, which is just… perfect?

*It might even beat A Visit from the Goon Squad, even though I encourage everyone I know and love (and everyone else, ever) to read that because it was so consistently enjoyable and structured in a way that made me think, ‘how exactly did Jennifer Egan do this, she is clearly a mega genius’. I appreciate a book that makes you work, and Goon Squad definitely does that, with lots of points of view and a chronology that’s completely out of whack. Or no chronology at all, I should probably say. Egan is also so very charming. This (old) Guernica interview made me love her in writerly ways because she admits to having been terrible at stages during her 20s (and says writing workshops saved her). She also cites Tristram Shandy as ‘formative’ and an important reference point for Goon Squad, and I love anyone who promotes the brilliance of Tristram Shandy. That book is insaaane.

This is Updike, by the way. Nice jumper!

4:07pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOy62mqkc
June 9, 2011
"She said she started writing the novel when she was 22 and finished it aged 24."

Oh man. If someone hadn’t just given me a Krispy Kreme I would be finding this a lot harder to take.

11:03am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOy5wTQTa
June 9, 2011
missmossblog: Freestyle Shift 001 I am officially staging an active protest against the annoying and all-too-prevalent trend amongst girls (in the particular area of south London that I live in, but perhaps elsewhere, I don’t know, I don’t travel much) to wear all-black 90s-inspired outfits all the time even though IT’S PRACTICALLY SUMMER. Black is not the only colour, people. And since most of them are art students, I would think they’d realise this. I know there’s been an ongoing 90s renaissance when it comes to fashion over the last, I don’t know, two years maybe, and I also know that it’s tough being a young woman trying to figure out how to dress when you’re part of the most unforgiving social environment ever, but please. This is uninspiring and drab. (Can I also mention the little white socks? Because I left the house the other day to buy some Diet Coke and I counted maybe four different pairs of legs finished off with tiny little white ankle socks and big black shoes. I am all for socks and skirts, but this looks stupid.) I can’t find a picture without raiding facebook and being potentially offensive, but  think lots of black, often long or sheer, always topped off with round sunglasses, very frequently accessorised with a topknot. This is why I designate this the SUMMER OF INSANE COLOURS WORN ALL AT ONCE. Although sometimes I’ll just join them and wear black, too. (And cutoffs!)

missmossblog:

Freestyle Shift 001

I am officially staging an active protest against the annoying and all-too-prevalent trend amongst girls (in the particular area of south London that I live in, but perhaps elsewhere, I don’t know, I don’t travel much) to wear all-black 90s-inspired outfits all the time even though IT’S PRACTICALLY SUMMER. Black is not the only colour, people. And since most of them are art students, I would think they’d realise this. I know there’s been an ongoing 90s renaissance when it comes to fashion over the last, I don’t know, two years maybe, and I also know that it’s tough being a young woman trying to figure out how to dress when you’re part of the most unforgiving social environment ever, but please. This is uninspiring and drab. (Can I also mention the little white socks? Because I left the house the other day to buy some Diet Coke and I counted maybe four different pairs of legs finished off with tiny little white ankle socks and big black shoes. I am all for socks and skirts, but this looks stupid.)

I can’t find a picture without raiding facebook and being potentially offensive, but  think lots of black, often long or sheer, always topped off with round sunglasses, very frequently accessorised with a topknot. This is why I designate this the SUMMER OF INSANE COLOURS WORN ALL AT ONCE. Although sometimes I’ll just join them and wear black, too. (And cutoffs!)

10:42am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEwTOy5wSPKZ
(Notes: 120)
  
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