Splash of Greatness

Vaudeville

Let’s have a look at the gloriousity of vaudeville in its heyday, shall we?

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment very much in vogue from the 1880s to the 1930s. The name, vaudeville, is thought to be derived from the expression voix de ville which means voice of the city.

A vaudeville performance is made up with several unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. These acts tend to include musicians, dancers, comedians, trained animals, impersonators, acrobats, illustrated songs, jugglers, scenes from plays, athletes (yuck), lecturing celebrities, minstrels and movies. Something for everyone, then, except for the athletes thing which sounds like a major fail, cause who likes sports, really? Anyway…

Vaudeville developed from many sources, such as the concert salon, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums and burlesque. Well, you can’t go wrong with those ingredients!

Quite a few cool costumes to be inspired from, don’t you think?

Love, Hanna

Agatha Ruiz de la Prada

Meet the marvelously colorful Spanish fashion designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada (1960 – ).

Ruiz de la Prada’s career in fashion started with a bang in 1981, when she launched her first women’s collection in Madrid, which was a total hit.

I don’t really like kids, but for those out there that do – Agatha Ruiz de la Prada also makes insanely pretty children’s clothes. Maybe not too shocking considering the level of crazy fun in her women’s collections.

Love, Hanna

Rescuing Patty Hearst

Nineteen seventy-four was a bad time to go crazy.

Not long ago I read Rescuing Patty Hearst (2004), an interesting memoir written by Virginia Holman (1967 – ) about growing up with a schizophrenic mother in the seventies.

“In 1975, one year after Patty Hearst and her captors robbed Hibernia National Bank, a second kidnapping took place far from the glare of the headlines. Virginia Holman’s mother, in the thrall of psychosis, spirited her two daughters to a cottage on the Virginia Peninsula, painted the windows black, and set up the house as a MASH unit for a secret war. A war that never came. The family — captive to her mother’s schizophrenia and a legal system that refused to intervene — remained there for more than three years.”

Of course, the story Holman tells is absolutely tragic, but due to her sly sarcasm it doesn’t become too painful or tiresome to read. It is quite short, and will probably teach you something about mental illnesses, and since we all know that learning is fun, especially on the weekends, why don’t you get to it?

Enjoy your reading,

Love, Hanna

Tori Amos

Today I present you with one of my all-time favourite musicians, the glorious Tori Amos.

Her solo debut came in 1992 with Little Earthquakes – one of the best albums ever released (biased? Me? No!), and since then, Tori has released eleven more wonderful collections of musical diamonds. Her latest album, Night of Hunters, came out about a month ago.

Tori started playing the piano at the age of two, and at six she became the youngest student ever to be accepted into the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. However, at eleven, she was dismissed from the academy, partly due to her interest in pop and rock music, her own compositions which were not always greeted favourably by the academy, and her refusal to read sheet music. Still, it seems obvious now that she should never be forced to play anything other than her own amazing music and that classical training may not have been perfect for such an individualist.

Here’s a small selection of those beautiful pieces:

Spark (From the Choirgirl Hotel, 1998):

 

Winter (Little Earthquakes, 1992):

 

Hey Jupiter (Boys for Pele, 1996)

 

Cornflake Girl (Under the Pink, 1994)

 

A Sorta Fairytale (Scarlet’s Walk, 2002)

 

Love, Mari

 

The Walkman

Hey guys, remember this?

This wonderful little device that totally revolutionized the way we listened to music, allowing us to bring our mixed tapes with us without any hassle.

So where did this work of genius come from? Let’s ask Wikipedia: “A portable personal stereo audio cassette player, called Stereobelt, was first invented by the German-Brazilian Andreas Pavel in 1972. Pavel filed a patent for his Stereobelt in Italy in 1977, followed by patent applications in the U.S., Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan by the end of 1978.

Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony’s portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones.(…) The device was built in 1978 by audio-division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent trans-Pacific plane trips.

In 1979, Sony began selling the popular Walkman, and in 1980 started legal talks with Pavel regarding a royalty fee. In 1986 Sony finally agreed to pay royalties to Pavel, but only for sales in Germany, and only for a few models, and refused to acknowledge him as the inventor of the device. In 2001, Pavel threatened Sony with legal suits in every country in which he had patented his invention. The corporation agreed to resume talks with Pavel and a settlement was finally reached in 2003. The settlement grants Pavel the recognition from Sony that he was the original inventor of the personal stereo.”

Have a look at some more and feel nostalgic:

Love, Elin

Abigail Lorick

There is a very good reason to watch the TV series Gossip Girl: the abundance of glorious clothes. It was through this show I discovered American designer Abigail Lorick. Turns out that she designs, among other things, the clothes Eleanor Waldorf gets credit for in the series. And they tend to be good.

When she was 18, Lorick moved to Paris and Milan to work as a model, before returning to America to study fashion in 2003.

In spring 2007 she launched her own brand, and was almost immediately cast as a designer for Gossip Girl.

Lorick is all about elegance and timelessness, with glorious colors to go, and a mission to, in the designer’s own words, “electric blues and exposed zippers.” Thank you!

And another word of wisdom from the lady of the hour: “Don’t ever leave the house without a little bit of color.”

Love, Hanna

Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami (1963- ) is a Japanese artist who has gained international fame for his strange and rather terrifying art.

Murakami is considered one of the most thought-provoking contemporary artists in Japan, and it is easy to see why. Looking at his art is a bit like being on acid (or at least how this is being portrayed in films, I have no personal experience with acid). His work range from cartoony paintings to sculptures, giant balloons, performance events and factory produced watches, t-shirts and other products. He also collaborated with Marc Jacobs to create handbags for Louis Vuitton, which is always a good thing. His signature character is called Mr. DOB, a creature vaguely reminiscent of Mickey Mouse, only the nightmare-version.

Murakami is classically trained in the traditional nihon-ga style, something that is recognizable in his art, in between all the references to pop-culture. He himself does not consider his work pop-art however: “If my art looks positive and cheerful, I would doubt my art was accepted in the contemporary art scene. My art is not Pop art. It is a record of the struggle of the discriminated people.”

Please enjoy some more pictures of his work:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I, at least, find his art really, really scary. But still brilliant. What do you think?

Love, Elin

Good Omens

Good Omens: The Nice and Proper Prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990) is the brainchild of the amazing authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, which means that it is probably one of the funniest books ever written.

It is a story about the End Times. The Apocalypse is nigh, which comes as a bit of an inconvenience for the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, who both have grown rather fond of their quiet earth lives and of the human race. They team up to secretly work against their respective bosses and make sure that the apocalypse is postponed. However, the boy thought to be Antichrist, and raised as such, is really just a normal eleven year old boy, due to an infant mix-up at the hospital. The real Antichrist is living peacefully with his parents, completely unaware of all the trouble that is coming his way.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse saddle up and the race is on. Who will find Antichrist first? And will the world survive?

This is a great story filled with wonderful characters, with the very best from both Gaiman’s and Pratchett’s worlds. If you want to have fun, read this novel.

Love, Elin

The King’s Speech

Ah yes, another Friday night with nothing interesting on the telly. Well, fear not, my friends, I have an excellent suggestion for tonight’s entertainment: The King’s Speech (2010).

It is the Second World War, Britain is facing a crisis. The king dies and the successor to the throne abdicates. It is now up to the seemingly unfit second son, George, to take on the role as king and keep his country calm. However, he is held back by an insufferable stammer. Will he, with the help of speech therapist Lionel Logue, be able to overcome his handicap and rule the land?

The King’s Speech won four Oscars for best directing, best motion picture, best leading actor and best original screenplay. It also won 64 other awards, so you know that this is a good film. It stars Colin Firth as King George VI, Helena Bonham Carter as Queen Elizabeth and Jeffrey Rush as Lionel Logue.

This is a must-see, so if you haven’t already, do so tonight!

Love, Elin