weekend inspiration #3: ikebana

Posted on March 9, 2013 by theseventhsphinx

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Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, is a great metaphor for personal style, I think. You take natural ingredients and mold them into the desired configuration with the help of scaffolding, highlighting and obscuring different elements as you go, seeking balance and harmony. The end result is a unique, purposeful silhouette, natural yet unnatural, tailored to the flowers themselves as well as the environment.

Also I find them a compelling use of space, when I like them.

reading: Ozick, Shakespeare, Handke, Pelevin…

Posted on February 19, 2013 by theseventhsphinx

Hamlet, Shakespeare* (over and over, have you seen the RSC production with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart? Highly recommended)

The DIN in the HEAD, Cynthia Ozick (essays, had been meaning to get to her for some time)

A Moment of True Feeling, Peter Handke (who has so far done no wrong in my eyes, who makes me wish I read German, whose book [one of] I bought in German in hopes of motivating myself)

French Women Don’t Get Fat, Mireille Guiliano (currently on a French women kick that shows no signs of waning, fascinated by all of the cultural data strewn throughout this kind of book)

A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories, Viktor Pelevin (the kind of stories it is more fun to read than to try to categorize. SF? Postmodern? Speculative fiction? Who cares. I like them)

*’heart-ache’ was coined in the ‘To be or not to be…’ monologue.

Huh, nearly all living writers featured this time, Shax excepted…uncommon for me.

roses are red (sometimes), lipstick is red (sometimes)

Posted on February 14, 2013 by theseventhsphinx

I’m not so interested in Valentine’s Day but I am interested in roses and lipstick. And, more and more recently, the color red. And love, and kisses. And let’s see…and chocolate when it is very good and very dark, elegant lingerie, cookies, champagne, gestures of affection, frosting…

Due to the ubiquity of many of my favorite things, ultimately I am pro V-Day.

NYC lipstick in Retro Red. If you’re going to draw on a mirror with your lipstick, use the 99¢ one. And are you SEEING this lip print? I’m pretty pleased with this lip print. One take!

♪ ♫ Andre 3000 – Happy Valentine’s Day ♫ ♪

Happy Valentine’s.

classic: doc martens (vol i: winter edition)

Posted on February 10, 2013 by theseventhsphinx

When I (not infrequently) acquire something ostentatious, that wouldn’t seem to have many natural friends, I like to behave as if it goes with everything. And invariably, it then does.

I visited the Doc Marten’s site off and on for at least two years before deciding which pair to get, a pleasant, leisurely quest. It was down to a few styles, all quite different, and in the end (about three years ago now) I got these 14-hole boots with pink blossoms (plum, I’d say: a favorite) embroidered down the sides.