My stepdad just gave me this cd randomly. I guess because he knows I like strange obscure music by women. The GTO’s are an all girl groupies group produced by Frank Zappa in the late 1960s. One of the group’s members Pamela Des Barres, wrote the memoir I’m with the Band. Their cd Permanent Damage is a weird mixture of strange theatrical songs and random interviews. It is very rough music but it does precede some later girl bands like Liliput, The Raincoats, Rasputina, CocoRosie, and they even remind me of my friend Dame Darcy’s music.
It is as if you gave the mischievous turn of the century girls from Picnic at Hanging Rock a recording studio in 1968.
One of my favorite films ever:
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Directed by Peter Weir
Picnic at Hanging Rock
A NYTIMES article on Pamela Des Barres
The_GTOs on Wikipedia
This year March 21st is a very special day.
It is not only the Spring Equinox,
it is also Good Friday,
Holi (the Indian festival of Colors – the second most important festival in Hinduism after Diwail)
and also a Full Moon…
Love,
Mommie
I finally finished watching My Fair Lady. So after 3 full hours of endless songs and long conversations that spanned the full spectrum of high and low socio-economic British accents, I am still happy to have finally seen it. Audrey Hepburn is lovely but I found out afterwards that the role was meant for Julie Andrews, who at the time was lesser known. I wish that they had given the role to Julie Andrews. However, the same year Julie Andrews won the Oscar for Mary Poppins, which in my opinion is one of the best movies ever made. The real treat of My Fair Lady was the ascot scene where everyone was wearing the most incredible black and white outfits. Lovely.
Everyone wore black & white at the races, but
Audrey Hepburn’s dress was the show stopper.
Seems like Ralph Lauren was also inspired by Sir Cecil Beaton’s
famous black-and-white Ascot scene from “My Fair Lady” too.
Ralph Lauren’s Spring 2008 Collection
Ralph Lauren’s Spring 2008 Collection
I was lucky enough to see Bridget Riley’s “Reconnaissance” exhibit which ran from September 21 2000 – June 17 2001, in the Dia Center for the Arts (New York City). Seeing her work had a huge impact on my own image making.
Riley with her work in 1964
Paean (1973)
Acrylic on canvas
Fete (1999)
Screenprint
My mom just got back in touch with an old friend of hers Elif Ayiter, who is a web artist working in Turkey. Of all of her amazing sites, this was my favorite one that she made: www.citrinitas.com/face/face.htm
In 2003 I had a solo show in Marsellies, France. Abi, Kim and I bought last minute tickets to France to attend my opening. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. We had an amazing time together and the best part was the few days spent in Paris. One day Kim and I randomly wandered into one of the oldest and most elegant tea salons in the world, Ladurée. I was vegan at the time but there was no way I could resist the rose petal adorned pastries and floral scented teas. ahhhhh…
Marie Antoinette (2006) directed by Sofia Coppola
I recently watched two beautifully similar movies about young girls running away and traveling from home to escape from their problems. Both Morven Caller(2002) directed by Lynne Ramsay, and Somersault(2004) directed by Cate Shortland had luscious soundtracks full of sweet electronic melodies, gorgeous cinematography and excellent scripts.
Morven Callar contemplates her big problem in her kitchen…
Somersault (2004)
Heidi is lonely at the rave and everywhere else…
…and our ears had never before, heard anything this beautiful.
Rocket’s Tail
by Kate Bush
That November night, looking up into the sky,
You said,
“Hey, wish that was me up there–
It’s the biggest rocket I could find,
And it’s holding the night in its arms
If only for a moment.
I can’t see the look in its eyes,
But I’m sure it must be laughing.”
But it seemed to me the saddest thing I’d ever seen,
And I thought you were crazy, wishing such a thing.
I saw only a stick on fire,
Alone on its journey
Home to the quickening ground,
With no one there to catch it.
I put on my pointed hat
And my black and silver suit,
And I check my gunpowder pack
And I strap the stick on my back.
And, dressed as a rocket on Waterloo Bridge–
Nobody seems to see me.
Then, with the fuse in my hand,
And now shooting into the night
And still as a rocket,
I land in the river.
Was it me said you were crazy?
I put on my cloudiest suit,
Size 5 lightning boots, too.
‘Cause I am a rocket
On fire.
Look at me go, with my tail on fire,
With my tail on fire,
On fire.
Hey, look at me go, look at me…
Miller by Man RayLast night I read an amazing article on the incredible complicated life of Lee Miller by one of my favorite authors Judith Thurman in the January 21, 2008 Issue of The New Yorker.
Lee Miller, the playgirl, model, photographer, muse of Man Ray and others, and war correspondent. “She had the gift of finding beauty in a wasteland, and her eye tends to petrify what it looks at,†Thurman writes. “Organic forms and living creatures become abstract in her pictures, but movingly so—the way a nymph fleeing an aggressor is transformed into a star.â€
She was Painted by Picasso and also here.
A solarized portrait of Lee Miller
by Man Ray, circa 1930.
Piano by Broadwood, London, 1940 by Lee Miller
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