Rainbow Nation

In a cold world you need things that twinkle:

I am being good and trying not to be such a rampant kneejerk autosuggestable consumerist ... but this nifty hoody is from La Supre.

Fritz Leiber, master of Shakespearean sci-fi - The Big Time is an enormously silly, but entertaining, tale of space-time travel with copious Elizabethan references

Men like negotiating curves - but of course.

New York socialites ahoy

Beauty bloopers get peeps all afired up

Latest Artkrush looks at Painting in the 21st century

Jeeves and Wooster. Bless.

Stereogum presents Enjoyed: A Tribute to Bjork (thanks to Malcolm for this one)

Homemade version of Tron

Neon Neon's Stainless Style. This one's "I lust you" ...

Then onwards, on to the roller disco ...

Choice selections including Dan Rhodes

If you want to see this charming group, come along to The Physics Room , Christchurch on Thurs 27 March: "Lullatone - they are Shawn Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida. Based in Nagoya, they wrote the official Hello Kitty theme song and have been behind some of the most melodic post-pop electronic sounds to come forth in recent years."


The Guardian's take on the world's most powerful blogs

The Age's Noise pollution blog links to Nick Cave's nutty Victorian seance vids. Beautifully hammy acting.

Headline of the week? Missing penis a cause for Royal Opera blush.

Dan Rhodes - my favourite author, and still one of the most amusing author websites. I just looked at his literary recommendations and spookily he namechecks two of my other favourite books namely Misadventures by Sylvia Smith and The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills. What is the common thread that links these authors? Humour, humanity, a sense of the ridiculous, dryness, ingenuity, idiosyncracy, beauty ...

I am please to see the return of my favourite Public Address blog Radiation from Fiona Rae. A good post to launch in with, and interesting comments as ever. She announces:

In other frakking fantastic news, Battlestar Galactica is back on air April 4. Advance publicity includes this frakking fantastic Last Supper. Six is Jesus!

Yay it is oyster season!!

And on the other side of the Tasman, Archibald Hitler fails to win Archibald Prize.

A nice piece o'spam I recently received, charmingly entitled "Reliable the man":

The kindest wishes to my new friend. I am 32 years. My name Tatiyana, I would like to get acquainted with you and to correspond, I want that all was reliable, that among us was not what secrets, and all we relations were on long. I am tired to be one, and to look only on bad, I wish to find and build relation with decent the man.
2008 has begun, and I wish in this suit to year the life. That the life washing has incorporated to strong spirit the man which always will be line a difficult minute, maintain me. My heart freely also burns with the desire to give all love to the man which deserves this. My letter is sent from agency, from an email of agency, and I ask on him to not answer. And to write only on my email.It for me will be easier. I shall wait for your letter and I hope that in the future we become the relatives each other.

Indeed, my heart freely burns too.

Santogold & Ninjasonik

Ms Tulip put me on to Santgold ... she is fabulous

Santogold "L.E.S. Artistes"
Uploaded by bluntedsoul

The two quasi-military girls at the start reminded me of the lovely beribboned ladies in Sly and Robbie's Boops (here to go) ...

And my other recent musical discovery is Ninjasonik ... funny, sharp as all hell ... D J Teenwold and Reverend McFly aka New Dirty Bastard.

Here's Rev McFly karaoke-ing to Morrissey. Sho nuff.

Music is the food of love.

Match of the day

Word(s) of the week: I thought I coined the phrase "social netwanking" today, but a quick google search shows a couple of other peeps have thought of it too.

Song of the day: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. A rather beautiful song.

Video of the day: Respect the Meat from "My name is Earl". Worth a watch for the image of Earl in 80s sweatband mode, and his brother Randy reclining like Mr Rico Suave.



Media beat up/obsession of the week: Trinny et Susannah. Am I lollipop? An apple? Tearoom discussion had me pegged as a lollipop, with additional comments that I'm like Queen Victoria or a Victorian woman, or some kind of puffer pigeon ...
They've got an online shape calculator that helps you find out your shape (for girlies). The cello makes me think of this famous Man Ray image ...

Top put downs: I vote for:
The Professor - The Mary Whitehouse Experience. "I have here a copy of
your book, Origins of the Crimean War. It smells of poo." "That's
because it's been inside your mum's bra."

Best sentence in an article this week: On The Mission concert - "The 2006 Olivia Newton-John and Chris de Burgh concert was marred by people vomiting and falling down a bank."


Word of the day: Best dress: Heidi Klum at the Oscars in Galliano

Best dance routine: So you think you can dance Australia kills it. Tie between the samba and animated hip hop.
Animated hiphop by Vanessa and Henry (routine starts 2:02)

Demi and Jack do the samba (routine starts 1:50)

Les Liasions dangereuse

Girl Aloud are fricking fantastic!

Vinyl - Sleeveface uber alles

It seems like the world is having a lovein for the old lp sleeveface. Following on from my earlier mention of An ingenious use of your vinyl sleeves, and out in the blogosphere Fraserhead expanded on the theme - Extended album art (31 January 2008) ...

And now, there is Erykah Badu's new song Honey - I saw the video late late last night and spotted many album covers - Diana Ross, De La Soul, Grace Jones. Have fun spotting them ... Soulbounce has done the hard yards in matching the album covers to the video.

T-shirt + Charity + fashion + Howlin' Pelle Almqvist

After reading a very moving story about his sick daughter from Michael Laws in the Sunday Star-Times, here's another plug for the work done by Starship Hospital. From 27 February, The Warehouse will be selling t-shirts to raise money for them (see Runway Reporter):

The uber retail store and New Zealand designer have teamed up for the second time to create a range of children’s T-shirts in support of the Starship Foundation. World has designed six different T-shirts which are available in sizes infant to 16 years. Five dollars from every T-shirt will go towards the Starship Foundation. The proceeds will particularly boost Starship’s air retrieval service, which airlifts more than 200 young patients each year to the children’s hospital.

I got a couple for me from the last lot, designed by world so the bigger sizes certainly fit buxom adults too.


And of course the Breast Cancer t-shirts for 08 are out at Glassons. I got the rather lovely one designed by Ruby with the big pink flouro heart. Cos I am emo.

For more fashion stuff, I recommend Anglomania. It's a weird un ... historical costumes in conjunction with 20th and 21st century fashion - staged in vignettes set in period rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The mannequins who wear the costumes are a bit scary, like the clockwork characters in the Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace. I've got the perfume Anglomania by Vivienne Westwood, and her style is all over this book.

I know Valentine's Day has been and gone, but NME brings you some of music's pretty boys to warm your cockles. Hear hear to Serge of Kasabian who looked delish on Later with Jools Holland last night.And am listenin to Howlin' Pelle Almqvist of The Hives as we speak ... (Throw it on me with Timbaaaaland).


On another music strand, another brilliant ballbuster by Fedde Le Grand with Ida Corr "Let me think about it". "Put your hands up for Detroit" is such a genius song and this has similar boppy robot funkiness. Love the Robert Palmer video with added afro.


On the visual entertainment front, we are fully immersed in So you think you can dance Australia. Unlike the tedium of other talent shows and Idols, these people are quite incredibly talented. It is down to top 20 now, so the standards are ultra high. Breakdancers, poppers, Latin, Ballroom, jazz, it's all in there.

We are watching the series Robot Chicken as recommended by one of the dudes at our local Video Ezy. Stop start animation and fast paced furious humour, and one of the creators is Seth Green of "Family Guy" fame. It massacres all your favourite pop culture stuff from Star Wars to the Muppets. In love in love.

Sperlunking

Nick Cave's new single - Dig Lazarus Dig.

Cool new Blythe stuff - a new little lodge

New Petite Blythe Squiggly Squirrel


Family Guy Blue Harvest. Yes please. Stewie as teeny Darth looks supercute.

There is a light (and it never goes out)

Well the Buskers have gone. Adios. I think juggling is soporific, but big loves to the gymnast and contortionists - you rule pretzel people and elastogirls.

La Carmina, the Gothic Lolita blog, has a posting on Marten Baas's Gothic burned furniture.

SS and I were discussing the merits of the song Ode to Billy Joe by Bobbie Gentry. We were listening to a cover version by Sinead O'Connor. Which led on to trying to remember another sinister song about "down by the river" etc etc. Turns out we were thinking of this classic: "Hazard" by Richard Marx.


I have a theory - BURIAL = ROBBIE WILLIAMS. Possible??

Tuberose might just be the sexiest flower evah evah:

Tuberose signifies death, danger and pleasure. It's slippery and ragged, glamorous and wild beyond measure, with not a skerrick of modesty. It's the Francisco Goya of fragrance, like reading Charles Baudelaire or drinking aged sauternes. Roja Dove, a British perfume specialist, noted in The Independent newspaper that, "Tuberose is the most carnal of the floral notes. It smells like very, very hot flesh after you've had sex - that's the bottom line."

Egads.

Believe the Hype

I tend to play around with new web sites and trickeries, some stick, some don't (bye bye Myspace, sorry Library Thing - too many books, too little time, and too much of a desire to do quality cataloguing). But here is one that is going to STICK. The goddess Tulip Black has hooked me up with The Hype Machine. It "tracks a variety of MP3 blogs. If a post contains MP3 links, it adds those links to its database and displays them on the front page". So you can track new music, artists, etc.

I've added a widget in the right hand navigation so I can see what music is good.

And in the wonderfully web like nature of the web, I ended up on My Old Kentucky Blog, delving into their cover version project. All roads lead to Kate Bush. Specially the ones you run up.

A gathering of stuff

And lo, I checked my email and found all this enjoyable STUFF:

The best Youtube of the year - all managers should be watching:

Happy news for Dux beer lovers: Dux Lager and Ginger Tom are the first of the Dux Beers to hit supermarket shelves - available now at: Fresh Choice Barrington, Fresh Choice Merivale, Fresh Choice Parklands, Fresh Choice Avonhead, New World Halswell and Pak n Save Riccarton. I've already bought some Ginger Tom. mmmMMMMMMmm

The Age reports on the new beauty myth and a related posting on cost of beauty maintenance and a dumbass called Tab Safran who opined that British women are shabby dogs. And then he came up with this rebuttal Oh please, you lard-butt British frumps have got off too lightly. Charmer.

Richard Hammond's hair beats James May's. But of course.

Belle and Sebastian. Just because.

Musical exhibitions to attract you to Melbourne. Including Nicholas Cave.

As usual The Sunday Times Style mag and The Times Online are laden with goodies:

The Dreamcatcher - Tim Walker's evocations of English beauty and quirkiness are sublime. Here's a selection

Behind the scenes of the new Dr Who Christmas special starring Kylie

French Pres Sarkozy is dating Carla Bruni.

Spamalot - all good for New Year:
SizableShlongSheldon. Obtain a huge schlong for a new year! Promote your little soldier of love in a new year!

Beautiful Things

New French cancan saucepot Blythe. Plus there is a newbie for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

Muse at Westpac Trust last Sunday - sublime, Matt Bellamy was sheer energy and genius in motion. Beautiful. Big ups to "Time is running out".

New Trinny and Susannah - body shape stuff again.

Bad Sex Awards - Norman Mailer wins.

Times article on Patrick Wolf -

Patrick Wolf – singer, composer, fashion muse, heart-throb, perhaps pop’s next wunderkind – is so so gaudily beautiful, so sweetly puppyish, all 6ft 4in of him, in his camel-coloured sweater, denim lederhosen with silver braces, over-the-knee socks and locks the colour of a Wham bar, that it seems a shame (not to mention impossible) to ask him to calm down.

Marilyn Monroe
Plus have Blythe Christmas ensemble on order

The Eisteddfod & Gold Guitars - Music ahoy

Threadless - there is always something wonderful to salivate over. And this music snob one is a gem.

We had to write a story for a seminar @ work. Here is mine:

At my high school although sports was important, we also had an annual Eisteddfod which was quite a big deal. An Eisteddfod is a competitive festival, mainly of choral singing, originating from the medieval gatherings of Welsh bards. Many are held in Wales and by Welsh communities abroad. I’m not sure why St Peter’s College, a Catholic school in Gore had one, maybe we had had some Welsh priests in the past.

Most people had a bash at it – And there was a House folk song competition so everyone had to participate.

I have lots of good memories. My sister Barbara and I were keen competitors and both had a go winning “the best in show” in consecutive years. There were prepared speech, solo, duet with my sister, group singing … a gang of us did a doowop rendition of something called “song of the single girl”.

My brother Jon (who can’t sing but is really good at sports) sung Ebony and Ivory with his mate Ryan Tattersfield) and the theme from MASH for solo.

Song choice was usually to the emotional end of the spectrum. I did “you light up my life” debby boone and “evergreen” barbra streisand – that long last note is a kicker. One year I wanted to sing “Give me the night” by George Benson but I was banned because of adult content.

I can remember singing Fernando with my sister. We were quite a duet team and one year even entered the famed Gold Guitars singing (I think)
The Happy Wanderer -
I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.
Chorus:
Val-deri,Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri,Val-dera.
My knapsack on my back.

We wore red sweatshirts and tights, denim minis and white skellerup commandoes.

Guy Fawkes

What's hot & happening a la momenta?

Happy Music news: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds release their 14th studio album DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!! on 3rd March 2008.

Another good discovery on the graphic novel front:
I Killed Adolf Hitler - Between the opening note of perverse sexuality and the touching tribute to the permanence of true love at the end, murder, time travel and alternate futures fill in the second act of this astonishing graphic novel.

Family history info on the Elsmore side

Have rediscovered the delights of flip flop flyin. Was always a minipop fan, but hadn't seen the lollipops. They are cute as buttons. See the lovely Har Mar Superstar as pictured in his smalls, and P J Harvey in her pink jumpsuit. Oh and Duran Duran.

Am feeling flouro at the moment (I've got fetching flouro lime fingernails), check out the no 1 shoe warehouse upcoming delights.

Fabulous Steves I love: Buscemi and Fry. One in the face for those who assumed the suave Mr Fry would be an old fashioned boy, he's a technology geeksta deluxe.

A recent exhibition invAsian!. Reminds me of Pierre et Gilles.

A nice article by John Sutherland on Jasper Fforde
The wit. lit. of Jasper Fforde: John Sutherland delights in a comic writer whose heroine keeps fiction in order and fights the rise of idiocy

Go Home Productions and more mashin it up on the motorway

Dang I am just so entranced by the art of the mash. Yeah there is some average crap, but when it is done well it is something wicked this way coming. A heads up and heartfelt thumbs up to Go home productions and Mark Vidler. It is fabulous stuff, and is all currently available for download.

Some of my favourite tracks are his "Too Busy Thinking About The Angry Mob" and "Pinochiohead On LSD".


Some of my top Mashes of the Moment mostly courtesy of Mashuptown:

• Am I Undone by DJ Clivester. Erasure/Fat boy Slim/Korn. Relentless and funky fresh.
  
• 1,2, Sirens, u - DJ Useo vs Celebrity Murder Circus (from Blame it on the Bootie). Dizzee Rascal on a whole new swing.
  
• When the Pussycat dolls cry. Yes it is Prince and the Dolls, such a logical combo. We know he likes the laydees. Courtesy of Pheugoo.
  
• DJ Zebra - Rude boy in a forest
  
• Rihanna's Primal Scream
  
• Cold War Fiasco - Cold War Kids and Lupe Fiasco - from Team 9
  
• so many nice uses of Peter, Bjorn and John's Young Folks
  
• and for a mellow finale White Clocks - Coldplay, Kraftwerk mindmeld with Duran Duran's version of "White Lines". DJ Clivester.
  

Smock my bitch up

As a riposte to a rather silly debate on the NZ librarians mailing list - CCL smocked back.

Blog idol contestant Mo Mo had this to say Let’s get ready to ruuummmbbbbble!. VOTE FOR MOATA!

On the mashup tip, might I recommend this Sgt Pepper collection at mashuptown and Go Home Productions This was Pop. + teaching indie kids to dance again - Nirvana goes electro.


Lovely advert for Melbourne. Music is apparently by Joanna Newsom.

I loved the wild enthusiasm of this announcement:

Ground Breaking New Cleaning Regime at *****
Monday 3rd September sees a completely new approach to cleaning at the
**** Offices and the **** Building.
Following European Best Practice all our cleaning will be done in the day time. A new team of dedicated cleaners will begin at 0630 (team one) and will be on site until 1800 each working day (team two). ***** is the first organisation in the City to introduce a system that promises marked quality improvements and significant energy savings. You will get to know the *** staff as they will be part of our everyday operations. Please make them welcome and help them find their way about
this warren of a building. Thank you.

Headline of the month Flaming pyjamas, poisoned trousers from China.

Pee yourself over Passive Aggressive Notes ... and pedantic fun at Quotation Marks ... and Bits on the side.

I love The Age (Melbourne) blog Third Best. They are scoping Fashion Week at the mo. ThE gentleman above was modelling at the Leopold show. You know black grundies with white shoes will be the way to go this summer. Keep your fashion footprint light and tight!

Hooray hooray it's a holi holiday

Yes I have the week off and a sunny gay old time it has been thus far ...
Idolator's top 50 boy hotties in music

Interior design - wall graphics are where it's at

I heart Mashuptown - mashin on the motorway

Ultra cute Blythe animation. I am jolly keen to get this new gel too. Called Princess a la Mode. Feeling the red ball gown.

Timbaland loves Nine Inch Nails

Perfume site Base notes

Kath n Kim style

The Cockney/Surrealist alphabet

Animal groups - including a flange of baboons

and I'll end on this delicious und heroic note Corporal Bill (Willie) Apiata - NZ's most handsome man??

Simplify ... share your iTunes

Something I am looking forward to delving into:
Simple and brilliant from Andrew Dubber's New Music Strategies

Simplify Media actually manages to achieve what most music consumers have always wanted: a chance to connect to and enjoy each other’s music without the usual problems associated with that.

Simplify Media is a new plugin for iTunes on PC and Mac platforms (with later releases coming for Windows Media Player and WinAmp). It allows your friends to connect to your music library and listen wherever they are — and you can listen to their music collections too.

Do the D.A.N.C.E.

Dream video for T-shirt lovers and one of the most joyous songs and videos - Justice - D.A.N.C.E (Version Finale)


Lush new dollies - Honey Bunny encore, Save the Animals:


Two more Threadless products on their way:The Scr-Emo by Jesse McCormack pour moi and a hoodie of Sharp is relative for SS.



Watching the German Grand Prix. Aquaplaning, crashing, all the drama. And Kimi Raikkonen's 80 year old granny is in the Ferrari pit watching it all.

Off the interweb:
False braids cost beauty queen her title: The winner of a Bolivian beauty contest for indigenous women was stripped of her title moments after her coronation when judges noticed she was wearing false plaits, organisers said on Saturday.

Melange Melee

OK, another heaving round up of interesting things on the Interweb (including this bullet bra from Rita Sue:

BOOK STUFF

Vivienne Westwood's manifesto on ART - from the Hay on Wye Festival

Bookman Beattie - great New Zealand book blog.

How to write by Philip Matthews - useful advice from The Listener.



MUSIC

Hallelujah - the Leonard Cohen song. I was obsesssing about in on Saturday and look at what this wonderful blogger has prepared. Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright - wonderful boys.

Radio 1 Mash up
Radio Zero

Dark matter - Guardian article on the joy of Nick Cave: "Cave, as a poetic craftsman, provides all the enjambment, ellipsis and onomatopoeia that anyone could wish for. A word on eroticism and the dreadful dolour of knowing not only that all passion is spent - but also that you're overdrawn. If Cave were to be typified as a lyricist of blood, guts and angst, it would be a grave mistake. He stands as one of the great writers on love of our era. Each Cave love song is at once perfumed with yearning, and already stinks of the putrefying loss to come. For Cave, consummation is always exactly that."


FUNNIES

Irony Central - a highly amusing take on parenthood. Thanks to MoMo.

Am a wee bit obsessed by the LOLs:
LOLCats
I can has cheezburger
LOL80s



ASSORTED WHATNOTS


Bettie Page wigs at the wonderful Rita Sue

My Heritage - find out who you look like. Be freaked by the results.

Enter this photography comp The Press Pacific Pathways Photography Competition - Christchurch is our home, Pacific Pathways tells the stories of how each of us came to be here, what we brought and what we created.

The Food Pornographer blog