Let's Play a Game....

Who are you and where are you going in those sparkles?

  

I'm Rainbow Bright and I'm crying rainbow gem tears because I lost my fuzzy friend.

  

I'm Puck from a Midsummer Night's Dream out to make mischief.

It's harvest time, which means time to party, I've got all my grains sorted on my head.

I'm a shooting star going to the Moon's tea party.

 

I'm playing the Firebird in the ballet production of The Firebird.... I just need to get my feather tutu on.

I'm Athena.  Am I part golden statue?  Or part god?  I'm having an identity crisis, but I need my makeup to match my helmut.

 

I'm the Christmas Queen.  I've got rainbow sparkles that match my tree.

 

I'm playing Ariel in The Tempest, and I'm pissed off I'm stuck on this dumb island when I have all of this awesome glitter to show off.

 

I'm Hade's daughter.  It's awfully dark down here so I need sparkly stars around my eyes to see.

I'm Neptune's daughter.  The sea has made my skin a little transparent from living in the ocean for so long and I've developed some bioluminescence around my eyes.

Twizzlers

My very first wedding cakes I've ever baked are ready for delivery!  

Music Monday: BRANDY

Quintessential summer song.  Smile and get your groove on.

Beau Date Friday: Daniil Simkin

So I saw Daniil in Swan Lake at the American Ballet Theatre and he was fantastic.  And not one of those he's impressive and can dance without making mistakes impressive.  He is one of those dancers that jumps so high and twirls so fast this it looks completely effortless.  I mean yes duh, it's ABT and he's a principal, but he brings it to a whole other level.  He does a solo and as he stops right as the music stops.  PERFECT synchronization, now that is impressive.  

So I checked out the New York Times to see if they wrote an article on that production of Swan Lake and no go.  So I googled him and he has a Twitter account with all of these awesome pictures of behind the scenes at ABT.  So cool.  Then that took me to his website which took me to his essays and all of this information I had no idea dancers did now.  He is out to make the dancer into an tangle sort of brand.  You like what you saw in the show?  Read an essay by him about how he likes Dragonball Z (we're basically going to be best friends now) and how he relates to the super sayians when he dances.  What?  He posted an Instagram picture of himself posing as King Joffery from Game of Thrones in full ballet regalia (ie tights as pants) shooting a group of ballerinas with his Swan Lake bow.  Awesome.

He just got interviewed by the New York Times and I further find he is such an interesting person!  Not that dancers are stereotyped as dumb, but they aren't usually five language fluent anime geek loving essay writers (with quotes and citations to boot) who mention how being short was something he had to overcome as a dancer.  I mean yes he is all about tooting the typical dancer horn on how he is disciplined and has worked hard and practiced hard, but by being so involved with social media, he had made himself something more than that.  He has become a person people will follow to learn more about his dancing and about him and his interests.  Don't like ballet?  He has tons of other things to talk about.

  

Things I Want....

I'll start by saying I'm more of a Marc Jacobs to my sister's Chanel, but I was just looking through the new Chanel Couture line at work and I want this-

 
Let's just take a moment to drool over this jacket.  Those buttons, the interesting collar that makes the neck look nice, the way the front folds over and leaves one button undone, THOSE SLEEVES that fit the arm perfectly, and the shoulders that are stiff but not shoulder pad-y.  
THEN THE HAT.  How cute is that?  The whole outfit is almost vaguely uniform-ish, but so interestingly tailored it is more preppy + upper east side + flight attendant + sophisticate.  

 

AND THOSE BUTTONS.  Cute.  It even gives it a military nod.  This outfit is the best.  Did I mention how wonderful the color is?  Charcoal grey with speckles?  Eeek.  

And I want those boots.  Side note here is you can only really wear those if your legs look like hers, which means not totally there.  And by not totally there I mean toothpicks.  Believe me I've tried on so many boots as such in vain.  It's ok really, there are more winter foot wear in the sea.

EEEEEEEEKKKKKKKK so excited.

Trailer #2 for the Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Don't Knock It Till You Try It Tuesdays: The Classics (Heroines and Romance)

I'm a sucker for romantic books (not the ones with the shirtless men on the covers, but I did try to read one of those once and blushed down to my toes), romantic comedies (preferably ones without Ashton Kutcher- You've Got Mail, Love Actually, Shakespeare In Love, etc.) and fate and destiny and all of that.  Let me also be clear, all of these are better with a strong female character (Bella Swan you are an awful role model).

So while we all love contemporary things like The Hunger Games, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Harry Potter (not necessarily categorized as romance, but there is a nod to it), there is awesome romance and strong female characters in classics!  I'd like you to meet my friends Scarlett, Jane and Elizabeth.  They rock.

Scarlett- Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell.  I'm guessing when one thinks of this book, one of the first things that comes to mind is LONG.  Yes, duh, get over it- the Harry Potter books were each the length of a bible and you don't see people complaining about them.  Now lets start with the fact Rhett and Scarlett are infuriatingly obnoxious characters.  You just want to punch them sometimes (speaking of punching couples, Wuthering Heights is also awesome), but that's what makes the two of them so perfect for each other.  Scarlett is a fussy spoiled brat, but she has the determination every girl of today should admire.  She didn't let being poor bring her down, she used drapes to flounce about town.  Now that's innovative.    

PS I learned a lot about the civil war from this book and it was especially interesting seeing it through a Confederate woman's perspective.  Warning: everyone says the N word a lot, as they did during that time period (that means no excuses for you Paula Deen).

Jane Eyre- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.  This book is one of my favorite books ever.  Her sass and spirit remind me of one of my best friends and I feel her character is really uncommon for books of the period... and arguably for books in general now.  Jane is smart, but also poor and admittedly (by herself and others) ugly.  Katniss, Bella, Hermione and Lisbeth all claim to not be beautiful but they all still have men/women crawling all over them.  An ugly heroine?  How unconventional!  Very Brienne of Tarth (I need to cool it on all of these book references otherwise we will all get confused).  Everyone is rooting for Jane because she takes initiative when her step brother is being a brat, sticks up for herself  when they call her a liar and tells it like it is.  Also, like Scarlett, she makes the best out of her meager circumstances.  Again, when people think classics they also probably think SLOW.  Not true, especially with this book.  Bronte wrote a page turner before the concept even existed. 

PS The most current movie with Michael Fassbender (swoon) is a lovely take on the story.

Elizabeth Bennett- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  I actually saw the movie for this one before I read the book.  As per usual, the book is 800 times better.   I relate to Elizabeth Bennett for a few reasons- my mother is Mrs. Bennett, I have younger sisters and I say mostly what's on my mind even if it gets me in trouble.  I'm also a big J (J for judgmental).  So that said, Austen rocks at dialogue.  These characters don't have much to do all day so the book revolves around social meetings and witty banter and flirting and so on.  All of Austen's heroines are fantastic role models because they stick up for themselves (Scarlett and Jane again) and the ones they love (don't you pick on my family you dumb rich people), but they also speak their mind and admit when they are wrong (eventually).  

PS I also especially enjoyed Emma.  

Music Monday: Janet Jackson = Summertime

This song happened to come on at work and I was rocketed back into a bliss of summertime vacations when I was teenager.  

(the music video is pretty cute if you can find it (it's not on YouTube) but if you Google it, it should come up)

I didn't discover until much later it is actually a total rip off of the guitar riff from the America song "Ventura Highway".  

But I still love both songs and unfortunately "Ventura Highway" doesn't have the teenage high school summer vacation flashbacks usually associated with "Someone To Call My Lover".  

So I think J here is just looking for a semi long term hook up.  Teenage me, on the other hand, probably had no idea- what does a lover entail?  Does that mean like sex?  Does that mean you aren't official?  Or is that just holding hands and boyfriend is a real boyfriend when you kiss?

  

Beau Date Friday: Young Johnny Depp

Unfortunately I've started to toot the Johnny has gone down the sell-out-make-money drain with his recent movies.  I mean but can you blame him?  Everyone wants to make money and he just gets to play the same character over and over again except with different face makeup (see Willy Wonka, the Mad Hatter, the dude from Lone Ranger, and the vampire from Dark Shadows).  But this is Beau Date Friday with young Johnny.  

Benny and Joon <3

Let's face it.  No one can play a babbling awkward mysterious guy like Johnny.  And that will never change.  He has these versions of one character and he's the best at it.  Go Johnny.  

#ThrowbackThursdays: Fruit Roll Ups, Fruit by the Foot and Gushers

Up until I was about sixteen years old I didn't like chocolate.  Gasp you say?  Right?  What pubescent teenager turning into a woman/anybody with a pulse doesn't like chocolate?  Believe me, there are those of us out there.  I guess I was sort of badgered into liking chocolate in high school (everyone was doing it man) and now I'm addicted (I'm sure it has some chemical your body gets addicted to or something so you are bffs for life).  Or something.  

But anyways, BEFORE that time I was (and still am) in love with gummies.  And by gummies I mean my parents wouldn't just go out and buy me CANDY, it had to be prepackaged and labeled as something all little children carry in their lunch boxes as a balanced meal (but still basically candy... corn syrup if you will).

EXHIBIT A

 

OH delicious.  How could anything that color be made with real fruit?  Did they just toss a banana in a giant batch that comes out with 500 Fruit Roll Ups and say "made with real fruit"?  My favorite kind was the pizza one where they had shapes of pizza toppings you could punch out and put on a circle.  Such a flavor confusion!

EXHIBIT B

 

Also.

 

How cute are they?  Fruit by the foot was fun because it came in this compact little roll that you could undo (like said picture) to be a tongue of a snake, dragon, crocodile, or basically any animal/reptile.  One could also reroll it into shapes or compress it all on your tongue to make an awesome (mess) compacted ball of flavor(!).  I liked the tie dye ones (far right side of the front of the box) because they turned my lips and tongue blue.  Who wouldn't like that?  

EXHIBIT C

So these guys are gem-shaped pebbles that explode "juice" goo when you bite into them.  How much better could that get?  This especially goes for when the Gushers people got wise and changed the color of the goo on the inside from shell so you could bite off the tip and squeeze out the goo to see what color it was.  Also, how about when all three of these fruit snacks got wise to "mystery" flavors?  How long did it take to figure that out?  It actually tasted like a mix up of all of the other ones and I'm sure the flavor people were like oooooooh keep those suckers guessin but we actually didn't do any work.  Or something like that.

(.... and yes these said flavor people dress up as devils and rub their hands together when they make up these mystery flavors.)

Once Upon A Time...

I'm a sucker for fairy tale-ish things.  I come up with these "wouldn't it be interesting/funny/awful/awesome" things for the stories I'm reading.  None of these are usually a base to start any writing of my own, but this one is just too silly not to expand on a bit.

What if there was a prince and he acted like THE Prince?

Once upon a time you were like this-

And you are invited to a ball at the castle that a prince is hosting.  You get all gussied up in your sparkly ball gown complete with matching slippers and tiny tiara to meet this prince.  Your hair is perfectly coiffed and you are feelin pretty ritzy.  As you step out of your carriage at the entrance you catch sight of the host-

Not so bad.  A little forward.  And he has all of those ruffles, he MUST be a prince.  You step into the ballroom and your eyes meet across the floor.

.....and you're like hmm.  He wasn't wearing that outfit just a minute ago... but whatever.  You walk over and are introduced under a purple raincloud.  He asks you to dance- the moment you've been waiting for.  You have practiced your waltz with the birds that sing to you in your bedroom for months.  And he looks at you-

Ooops.  Well maybe dancing isn't for him!  You try to start a conversation about the latest novel you have read and how it has really influenced your thinking on the peasants in the area.

Okkkkkk.  You decide to make a last ditch comment about his constant costume change and how it's..... um..... cool.

That seems to get his attention and you sort of like him in the ruffles anyways.  Later on in the evening you discover you have had one too many glasses of champagne and can't seem to find your carriage.  Prince offers to drive you home on his fiery steed.  You accidentally step in a puddle climbing onto it-

And you're like forget this mess.  I'm walking home.  Forget the Prince, I'll just go soak my feet and eat some ice cream.  Who needs this.  

And of course, the both of you live happily ever after.  Separately.