tell me what it is to be quiet and yet still breathing
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Free Comic Book Day was last weekend, a truly insane series of hours in which I interact with more people than ideally I’d ever see in person, and so I have spent the days since relearning how to be a human. On Sunday I was but a husk but by Monday I had mastered the English language once again.
Notable Breakfast
Dog Thing
featuring yours truly, because I was trying to get a nice selfie and they though we were having a sitting-on-the-ground party
Mixed Media
I may have dropped out of decorative arts grad school, but I still love the topic enough to dabble. I have stacks and stacks of huge dec arts books (my tv literally is balanced atop two such stacks), and every once in awhile I feel compelled to fish one out. I did that recently with a big book about Art Deco furniture that my friends gave me ages ago. Art Deco is probably my favourite dec arts movement in terms of aesthetics, so I’ve read that book and others like it many times! But for some reason, this time around I found myself captivated by the rugs.
I never paid a great deal of attention to rugs in my scholarship days, but one thing led to another and the next thing I knew I’d been awake 2 hours longer than I intended, googling Ivan da Silva Bruhns and Eileen Gray. Gray was primarily a furniture designer and a lacquer artist (you might have seen her canoe chaise, her adjustable side table–still available from DWR!, or one of her lacquer screens), and apparently she mainly designed rugs for her own use (like in the room in the photo at the top), but I love them.
Ivan da Silva Bruhns was a painter before becoming a designer of rugs, and his works are all signed, big and unmistakable. He didn’t weave them himself, of course, although he innovated a new way of weaving and founded his own workshop to produce them.
I love how bold and geometric both Gray and da Silva Bruhns’ works were, geometric and often assymetrical or abstract, pieces of art in their own rights without pulling attention away from the rooms they were in.
Speaking of dec arts, I read Nature Form & Spirit by Mira Nakashima, about her father, George Nakashima, one of the biggest names in mid-century modern furniture and design. The book covers his whole life and career, and a bit of Mira’s too, and overall I found it fascinating. I read My Brother’s Husband vol 1 by Gengoroh Tagame, about a man whose twin brother dies after having left the family and moved away, and his widower, a gregarious Canadian called Mike, comes to Japan to see where he grew up. It’s a fantastic look at gay culture and attitudes about homosexuality and masculinity in Japan from Tagame, who has been out and making homoerotic manga for decades. I read The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells, a fantasy book about gargoyle-ish shapeshifters that played with sexuality and gender roles in a really refreshing way, and finally I was completely sucked in the Ancient Magus’ Bride series by Kore Yamazaki, which is everything I love about beauty & the beast tropes, basically. Plus, the art is great.
10 years ago, the Brandi Carlile album The Story was released, and was apparently just as important to a lot of people as it was to me, because last week Cover Stories came out, which is The Story covered by a host of artists. The stand-out, I think, is Dolly Parton doing the album’s title song. But mostly the new album made me miss the original, so I spent the week revisiting all of Brandi Carlile’s music, until Monday found me far down a youtube rabbit hole of live covers. I do not regret it.
I watched Bastille Day, a truly bewildering movie starring Idris Ebla as a CIA agent trying to track down a terrorist in France. All of the Americans were played by Brits? And also the movie was released in the US as “The Take,” apparently because anything French is too much for us. It was confusing, but not because of the name. I saw Colossal, which I loved but strenulously disagree with its marketing as a comedy. It’s smart, and sharp, and wildly original, with an end that is viscerally satisfying, but it’s also ROUGH. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but there wasn’t much laughing. It was the most I’ve liked Anne Hathaway since The Princess Diaries 2, however. My friend and I finished our Fast & Furious rewatch and finally saw THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS, a movie I ardently loved.
Anxiety Pyjamas
Fics I Shouted About
An Issue of Consequence by Faith Wood // Harry Potter, Draco/Harry, Hogwarts Eighth Year AU. Draco’s year has been very dull–he’s studied, mostly. And then one day out of the blue, Harry Potter seems to think he’s Draco’s boyfriend.
You Have Witchcraft in Your Lips by RememberingEmbers // Yuri!!! On Ice, Victor/Yuuri, Renaissance Faire AU. Victor’s worked at the RenFaire for years, but he’s never seen anything as beautiful as the new cheesecake on a stick vendor. This was a DELIGHT.
A Convenient Impracticality by firethesound // Harry Potter, Draco/Harry, AU. Harry’s tired of being the only single one in his group, so his friends start setting him up with people. THE HARRY POTTER FAKE DATING AU I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED.
Lastly
ily
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