Talk about 180 degrees from my enraged post on Sunday! These tiny items are more adorable than beautiful, but the human imagination involved in making them is very much so. They’re Tiny Knitted Things, designed and made by Anna Hrachovec, a knitter who lives in New York.
My favorites are the bats; since moving to Austin, I’ve become quite fond of stuffed toy bats.
Ahhh! Kawaii!!!
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
In the midst of such fertile (ha ha) conversation on Crucial Minutiae about babies, books, and the environment, I offer something slightly different.
What’s the deal with the trees? you might think. The deal is that it is overcast, currently 80 degrees outside, in Austin, at 7:30pm, and it might even rain. For the last, oh, two months, the daily high temperature has been over 100 degrees, and we are in the worst drought in 50 years.
I do not complain about the summer heat in Texas very much. I acknowledge that it was fully my choice to move here, and I do hate to expose myself to scorn or chastising from friends more northernly-inclined.
All I will say is that a “cool front” in the middle of August is incredibly welcome. Now please excuse me, I have some sitting outside to do.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
Dear Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber, Marc Webb, Eric Steelberg, the producers, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, and everyone else involved in making the movie (500) Days of Summer,
I’ve been subconsciously writing this letter for four months, since I first saw your movie at SXSW. I wrote on this site about my screening experience, but looking back, my post seems flippant and doesn’t indicate the depth to which your story delighted me. My husband wasn’t with me at the SXSW screening, which was unfortunate, because as soon as the credits rolled, I knew he would see himself on that screen. (As will many, many men my age.) Last night, I took him to see the movie at another screening in town.
I loved the movie again, maybe even more this time. You have created a masterful film that captures countless desperately honest moments. It was a visceral pleasure to watch. And I want to articulate some of the reasons why it has touched me so significantly.
I’ll cut here so I can spill lots of spoilers below. (Crucial Minutiae readers, if you’re going to see this movie, bookmark this post and come back once you’ve seen it. I don’t want to ruin your viewing experience.)
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone
I love when I’m forced to take off my headphones and take in what’s actually happening around me. Sometimes what’s actually happening isn’t that fun. Sometimes it is. In this case, it was, and I was happy to experience and capture the moment.
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
There’s a free party happening on the East River in Manhattan today from 3pm-7pm, and it celebrates the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the U.S.
DJ Dhundee and DJ Tyler Askew will be spinning, there’s free BBQ all day long, and there’s free beer for the 1st hour. It’s at Solar 1, on the East River Waterfront at East 23rd St, NYC.
Go soak up some of the beautiful day in the company of beautiful, happy people and families!
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
I can’t believe it. The 2009 SXSW Film Festival is finished. 25 movies in 9 days. Consider my brain and eyes officially and absolutely full.
I saw three final movies today, all of which involved some elements of fantasy and magic: The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, Monsters From the Id, and 500 Days of Summer.
Though I enjoyed all of them, my favorite was 500 Days of Summer, a surprising and funny not-love story, directed by Marc Webb, written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, and featuring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
I won’t lie; much of my enjoyment of the movie came from the pleasure of his (completely surprising to me) charm and sexy handsomeness. Also, his karaoke version of “Here Comes Your Man” was super-hot. (What can I say? I’m a sucker for the Pixies.) Also, we share the same initials, which I only realized this because the young women behind me in line kept startling me by talking about “JGL” this and “JGL” that, and I kept thinking they were reading my mind somehow. It finally dawned on me that they were talking about the actor in kind-of code.
But I also enjoyed the movie because it was well-told, beautifully shot, honest romantic comedy that tells you right from the start that it isn’t a love story. The filmmakers and lead actors were on hand to answer questions after the screening, and, it being a SXSW audience of filmmakers (aspiring and current), most of the questions were for the director and writers.
The writers both expressed how lucky they felt to have found a director who was on the same wavelength as they were, who took their unusually structured and wacky script and ran with it in the direction they’d wanted. I want exactly that for my movie — I want to stand on a stage in front of an enamored audience, expressing gratitude for my film’s director and standing in awe of how well the movie turned out, even better than my wildest dreams. And I want my movie to star two really hot guys.
A great way to end a film festival, I’d say.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays, with a special daily edition during the SXSW Film Festival.
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
After my six-film mania yesterday, it was inevitable that I’d need to take it easy today. I attended only two movies today, including the “Super Special Screening” this morning at the Paramount. I got in line with no idea what it was, until Janet Pierson, producer of the SXSW film festival, announced that we were about to watch Richard Linklater’s latest film, called “Me and Orson Welles.” It’ll be released in October, so I won’t say much about it, but I will say that one of my favorite moments of the day was watching Claire Danes’ performance in the movie. I know her mostly from her early and mid-1990s movies like R+J or Little Women, in which she played a tremulous ingenue, which was appropriate for her age at the time. In this movie, though, we get to see the actress playing a grown-ass woman, complete with gravitas, wit, and resonant lower-pitched voice. Something shifted between then and now, and she has come into her own presence as a strong actor. It was a pleasure to watch.
My real-life favorite moment of the day was sitting down to a Tex-Mex dinner and margaritas with four friends from out of town, two local pals, and Vu. One of my favorite things to do is gather together people that I adore and find fascinating and introduce them to each other. Good things always follow. My relationships with these folks span from being college roommates to meeting through a mutual friend and hitting it off from there. They’re all cool, talented people who are bringing new creative endeavors into the world, like a cooking site rich with recipes from the world’s best chefs, an online platform where artists connect with audiences, an interactive storytelling and publishing project for girls, innovative video games, creative commercials and short films, and a gal without a website who’s kicking ass as a fiction writer in the prestigious Michener Center at UT.
Yeah, I’m bragging on their behalf. I can’t help it; I’m thrilled and humbled by my friends’ talents.
The two hour dinner break turned into six hours of conversation and laughter, and I was glad I didn’t rush off to cram in another movie. It is a beautiful thing to know your limits, and to follow what feels warm and good. Sometimes that’s six movies, and sometimes that’s a relaxed dinner in the warm light at sunset. Today, it was the latter, and I will go to bed happy and satisfied.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays, with a special daily edition during the SXSW Film Festival.
I’ve been without words lately. This happens; it feels natural. So, instead, here’s a photo of a beautiful bouquet of ranunculus. These might be my favorite flowers. I love how it seems like there are thousands of layers of petals packed into each blossom.
What things of beauty do you take comfort in when you feel quiet?
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
This vlog is kind of a follow-up to Self Soothing and Sick in the Head
This will be most amusing if you are a Nine Inch Nails fan, or if you wish you had edgier Christmas music to listen to this season. (NSFW: Explicit lyrics within.)
As my witty friend Matt put it, “Must go hang tiNINsel now, and drink eggnog from the perfect mug, the perfect mug, the perfect mug.”
Awesome concert photo of Trent Reznor by Mel; ridiculous Christmas lights added by yours truly
song via Deanna
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
Even though I gave your mother sips of wine, even though I rubbed her belly and cooed to you, you weren’t ready to budge. Two days after I set my feet back in the States, you slipped out into the southern hemisphere in New Zealand. Welcome, little one. The same week that you pushed into this world, a former colleague of mine let go of it, and a dear friend entered her 30s. The collision of these common events has kept me awake. After your father sent a beeping text to us at 3am–Ayano, 7.9 lb, am grinning from ear to ear–I could not sleep. I wanted to do jumping jacks, to sing out from the window, or to simply ponder it. I got up. I sat on my small blue couch. I poured a cup of ginger tea. I watched the night turn to hazy day in New York City. I heard birds wake up and chirp wildly in the courtyard. I imagined who else might be awake in this city. I smiled at my friend’s exploratory journey to 30. I thought of my former colleague and the sadness rippling out to her loved ones. I wondered where her soul was in that exact moment. I wondered what you had come here to do. And I allowed myself to be curious and sentimental.
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays