Tale as old as time.

Rachel Gilford at RAFW

Source: tuula

Where I assume her inspiration came from:

(all screen captures are sourced from google images)

Personally, I love the collection. I love the colours. I love the story.

wrong side up

Source: Bookshelf Porn, via The New Yorker.

The library of the Sendai Mediatheque after the earthquake in Japan last month. I don't know about you, but this makes me want to cry.

hmm.

source: xkcd

I think Joseph, Eilidh and Annika can all relate.

Patterns of fairytales.

"Where is day 15?" you ask. Rules were made for breaking, after all. I'm a freedom fighter, a rebel against the system. I fight for a just and true cause- and nothing ever said we had to do this thing in order...

Day 16: Favorite book turned movie – Stardust

This book is beautiful. It's fragile and witty and addictive. The main characters are timeless but strangely naive, and that makes them all the more adorable. Gaiman's plot is seamless in its quirky world, tethered by the fringes to ours, yet so unique in it's own right. He spins off artefacts and ideas, all the while making them seem completely normal (e.g. Babylon Candles - how did we not realise they transport you from one place to another).  

The movie is hilarious - it captures Gaiman's unique outlook on life. I personally love how Tristan goes from pretentious, trying terribly hard to impress the local blonde-haired, brainless beauty-

-to this chance meeting. Serendipitous, don't you think?

Speaking of dreams, I finally got the chance to have a peek inside this wonderful little shop on Mt Albert Road. I drive past it pretty much every day when I'm in Auckland, and have done so for the last year. Dad finally relented...

Can you see those beautiful turrents?

Day 16: A Good Song That Does Get A Little Repetitive - 

self-explanatory, really.

tired and wired, we ruin too easy.

Day 14: Book that should be on hs/college required reading list – Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

This probably is on a college required reading list. I have no idea, because we don't waste 4 years on silly undergrad programs that don't necessarily faciliate your entry to the career of your choice. Well, if you really wanted to, you could probably get a Bachelors of Arts or a Bachelors of New Media Arts, because that pretty much equates to the same thing.


If I did... This is something everyone should read, because it's crafted so well and it gets you to think of life in a completely different way without being completely bourgeois and crass.

I know how it feels to be a thirteen year old girl, feeling completely awkward and unaware and confused and this captures it perfectly. I can't imagine the flipside, but Jeffey Eugenides does it for you, and you're completely astounded by his brilliance. 

14. A Song By Your Favourite Singer

This challenge has an inability to discern what is possible for those of us plagued with indecisiveness. Or, you know, the general public, because how many people can honestly pin down one person and say "look, this is my favourite singer of all time". How often do we hear the words "I love this song right now!" or "this band is great at the moment". We fall in love with their words, those nifty chords, only to replace them with something newer, something catchier at a moment's notice. It's the same kind of outlook we have towards life - the constant search for something better, because something better must be out there, right? I guess that's what ambition is all about. Ambition and dreaming aren't exactly one and the same though, because we dreamers realise when the situation gets hopelessly futile. That's why we can continue to wish at 11:11, on stars and comets and planets and candles; it's harmless, it won't - it can't- destroy us.  


</rant on humanity> 


I've been good. I've narrowed it down to two of my favourite singers. Those of you who know me well could probably see this coming from a mile away.

Bon Iver - Skinny Love

I would do whatever Justin Vernon told me to. I've even listened to the Kanye album - hell, I was excited for the release of the Kanye album - which is unheard of in Archee Land. Goddamnit, that stuff is usually poison to my ears. I love him so much that everything else is infinitessimal, their faults nullified, until nothing else exists but the fact that I'm listening to something truly brilliant. 

Looking forward to the new album.

and the National - Mistaken For Strangers

I was originally going to post Apartment Story or Secret Meeting or Mr November or... you see how it goes. It's so difficult to post a song by them because I love them all. This was the first one that I heard and adored, so here you go. 

Seeing them live at Fall's was unbelievable in so many ways - I was front and centre, Matt Berninger was a breath away, he was in a waistcoat and pants in summer, he was rocking a champagne glass with white wine, I was there with my best friends... you get the idea. 

something adorable I came across at the restaurant we went to for dinner last night-

the silvery, silvery city bank lights.

Day 13- Favorite childhood book – Fairies from A to Z by Adreienne Keith

It's just funny because I'm pretty sure this is the first book I bought in Auckland. And I'm here now. I used to put out the fairy box and watch for hours and hours for the fairies to finally appear in our backyard-

 lol jks

 Tamora Pierce’s Lioness Rampant is clearly what I meant to write about in the first place.

This cover is demented. It makes me want to projectile vomit a little. However, as it is Easter Sunday, I am at Home #2 (aka Auckland, NZ) and not Home #1. Thus, completely lack bookshelf to take photos of childhood favourites with. I'll post it when I get home so you can fully appreciate the repulsive, androgynous cover that this is.

Digressing - this book is what inspired me to take up fencing when I was 14. It didn't last for long, but it certainly makes you want to be bigger and better than the average book freak. As patronising as this sounds, it has great messages for teens and kids, and the plot is seriously kick-ass.

13. A Song With A Great Drum Rhythm - Broken Social Scene's KC Accidental.

If they had played this at Splendour, I would have died happy. It's a tempestuous mix: screaming of city lights, yellow cabs streaking past in the hope that they'll make that red light, of alley cats and hip cats and hipsters wearing fake ray bans at midnight. It makes you feel alive. 

Exhilarating. Like this, kind of.

View from Mt Eden, Auckland.

What you can't see: the gigantic crater beneath my feet, as I'm standing on the precipice. It's got nothing on Pompeii (Pompeii hisses and smokes at you, like some irate cat) but is still sizeable in its own right. If anything, it's the best view of Auckland, and $30 cheaper than Sky Tower (The harbour isn't anything much to look at, anyway). I'm pretty sure it's the penultimate spot to snog if you were so inclined, and kind of reminds me of Castle Hill at home. The difference is that this is Auckland, so instead of 70% humidity and 27 degree weather in Winter, every inhalation is marked by crisp, cool, wintery air. The cheek-reddening kind. With bronze, tarnished leaves scattered across the ground and everything. When the fam leaves and I have a bit more licence to escape the house, I'll capture it on my delicious 5mp iPhone Camera.

More, you ask? 

Stolen moments inside a faery circle in Davenport, NZ

Gypsy Carnival at Onewa, beachside. 

In case you haven't realised by now, Easter means family reunions. Specifically, my family, and our friends, uncles, dogs, great aunt's lounge chairs, INCREDIBLE AMOUNTS OF TEA AND FOOD OH MY GOD IF I EAT ANY MORE I WILL PUKE. PROJECTILE. VOMIT. SERIOUSLY I AM SICK OF EATING. Drinking, if you're a guy, because we have ridiculous amounts of Glenfiddich and nothing else, thanks, uncles.

the best $8.79 I have ever spent.

I went in for eggs and bread (feeding 13 people is not fun) hot cross buns and came out with this... love how NZ prolifically produces Cider, and then proceeds to sell it at ridiculously low prices. Took one of these babies (the Bulmers, naturally, despite its Irish Heritage) home, planning on drinking it tonight before my cousin's Anniversary Party thing. Super keen.

didn't anybody tell you how to gracefully disappear in a room?

Day 12- A book so emotionally draining you couldn’t complete it or had to set aside for a bit: Atonement by Ian McEwan

 I did something different with this book - something I regret doing wholeheartedly, but cannot apologise to myself for. I read the first three chapters or so of this before watching the movie. I.e the book was NOT finished at the time of movie watching.

If you haven't seen the movie, I can sum it up in about 2 lines: Keira Knightley is bitchy, sexually frustrated and pompous, James McAvoy is infuriatingly naive and resilient... and there's a whole bunch of beautiful cinematography.

You simply have to look at the before and after shots (stolen from google) to see why it took me 6 months to get back to this.

does he not look all of 18 and adorably untrained in the ways of the world?

add in a bit of heartbreak and you get worry lines... oh noes.

dirt and a beard automatically adds another 10 years. + furrowed brow = his soul has aged.

I knew what was going to happen. Apart from my amazing predictive abilities regarding the plot, I had see it first-hand and cried for an hour despite Keira Knightley's inability to act. Even she couldn't ruin the absolute desolation this inspires. Finished it eventually, and it's completely worth it. 

Day 12 - A Song That Ends Too Quickly: Maps & Compasses by Goodnight Owl

Ernest Ellis, the excessively talented Australian artist, made all the more awesome because he worked at a bottleo on the weekends whilst recording his first album-

(Loveless)

- kindly linked shared these guys on Facebook a while ago. Luckily, all their songs were available on Tripe J unearthed, so I was able to grab a few of them. I don't think I've been back on the site since then, but it's still pretty amazing. It's partially because of them we have such a decent up-and-coming music scene in Australia - they discovered some of our more famous names, such as Art vs. Science, and so on.  I almost think I could survive on Aussie music alone, because we do have so much brilliant talent, and also because they're more likely to tour closer to home. Which is nice. SUPER NICE. 

Oh! Annika and I went shopping the other day in the aftermath of a truly terrible week, so here's a couple of photos to entertain yourselves with. Some of them are vaguely inspired by the '30s and 40's... some of them by our inherent Man-repelling nature.