tattoo empek empek

First things first! This little daring rascal is now safe back home after a very worrying yesterday; I woke up and Lulu was nowhere to be found. THe cats sometimes go hide in strange places and stay quiet but mostly Pekka. I searched the whole house like crazy but Lulu was nowhere to be found. The only option I had left was that she had managed to sneak out and climb down or even worse: fall out form the little gap in between our balcony windows on the third floor. (It is common with glass panels on the balconies here that slide open, so that we can enjoy sitting outside for more than those three nights per year - alright, slight exaggeration three months - when it's nice and warm). But I had to go to work and had to leave the search for later, sort of thinking she'd still show up at the door when I returned. And when I got home from work ater midnight I did see a little balck silhouette and staring eyes in the bushes at the end of our building; my little scared cat was sitting there all alone. And she was alright. Oh the relief!


Since I've gained quite the few kilos during last year (age does not come alone as we say over here) and added some bonus squish all around after my trip to the U.S. I'm relaly trying to go super healthy. Breakfast of banana, cottage cheese, strawberries and raspberries with almonds. Well, pretty much what I'd normally have too...I'm just going to drink less milkshake in the evenings now then I guess.


Although most likely downloadable already and available in snippets on youtube, I'm very much looking forward to seeing this film in the cinemas, It'll arrive here next weekend!


And last but not least, but on with the suspense music again, it is time to reveal the winner of the Tyra Therman hair origami fascinator...

...and the lucky winner this time is Kelley from California! An email is on the way to you Kelley!

Inspired by our theme-party theme I finally decided to see one of the films in my must-see list; A Single Man. Which characters also had inspired the outfit's style (yes, Julianne Moore, just like Frollein von Sofa pointed out :)


It is an extremely aesthetically satisfying film with the most delicious details, it is visually perfect with perfectly planned scenes. And also with great acting. I just love the changes of hues and saturation with the small hints and perceptions of life and hope in the his (main character's) otherwise so numb state.

And this scene is shot just like a memory is:

(The film stills are googled.)

I'm watching the Russian movie Stilyagi.

(In present tense yes, as I've been watching it in bits during some days and right now as a matter of fact, while waiting to load the next ship. Some movies suffer from not being watched as a whole but this works well in shorter pieces, kind of like watching a series).

It is a musical and I'm not always all that Wohoo! about those, but in this case it works very well. The movie takes place in Moscow 1955. It is super saturated and stylized in every way!

The movie tells about the stilyagas; a subculture of somthine to be labelled as hipsters or beatniks in Soviet from the late forties until the early sixties. They were sporting an exaggerated fashionable, American influenced style which was of course not considered politically corrector in suitable with socialist values.

I couldn't find it as a DVD anywhere but lucky everyone, it can be seen as a whole on youtube (<-click)! With English subtitles as those may come in handy for most of use. Worth watching!

(You can see a Soviet propaganda clip ridiculizing the stilyagi here.)

Things I did yesterday: booked tattoo time (to May, the boys over at Legacy are popular…), bought a thick interior magazine and enjoyed it alone with sushi, edamame and a beer (sometimes dining seul is just the best thing), went to the ballet with Tinker and Aino, wore black and had before all of this spent a long time wet set waving & drying my hair only to notice the nice waves go rather straight very fast due to the moist air..

Going to the ballet was beautiful - I haven't seen a ballet in years. A long time ago I sang some seasons in the choir at the National Opera for the Nutcracker ballet. We got a personnel discount and I went to see the ballets running at that time. Anyway, tanding on the side of the stage in the choir I was surprised to hear how the weightless appearing dancers actually sound rather heavy when they hit the floor after the jumps and how the male dancers sighed of exhaustion when lifting the ballerinas. And also, how sweaty they got.

This time we went to see Manon. It had some very beautiful scenes and the costumes and setting for some of them were superb, the bordello scene for example. Which I unfortunately don't have any pictures of. But it was a lot of pastel tulle there I tell you.

I suppose one reason for us finally managing to see a ballet was the Black Swan - there has been more talk about ballet lately due to that movie. I've seen the film and wasn't blown away, but started liking it a little more the next day and thought about the film for a while, which I guess is a sign of good cinema in a certain way. What I did like right away however was the set of posters LaBoca made for the film:

(Three of them shown here. I left out the one I didn't like that much. click for a bigger view.)

I like film posters made the old school way, drawn, like Fairey's Walk the Line. I have a look at Polish Posters every now and then. But what annoys me a little bit here (listen to the expert talking here now) is the ballerina in the poster the most to the right... there's something about that silhouette that just bugs my eye but I suppose I can live with that.

Well, back to me. Black always works if having to do stuff during a day that will end up more fancy at, for example, the Opera. Well as you know I think black works pretty much at whatever, whenever. My top is from H&M - I really like the cut - it's rather early fifties. Just as the striped top this one has a big zipper halfway down from the neck that I'm thinking of removing and changing to a button and loop instead. Zippers are apparently trendy now.

(And yes, you saw correctly, trousers!)

I can't really decide weather this is a Halloween- or Christmas film. I usually watch it during the Christmas Holidays though; Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas:

(picture source)

Halloween horror film weekend continues!
THis time with another classic, although perhaps not familiar to all; Polanski's Dance Of Vampires / The Fearless Vampire Killers, from 1967:











More funny than scary, my sisters and I knew this by heart when we were kids and we used to act out the scene at our summerplace with Sarah in the window and Kuckol beneath (out of solidarity to each others we did take turns being the girl or being the hunchback).

Photos from here.

It's Halloween weekend and I am away from home in rather un-halloweeny circumstances. But at least I will be wearing a black dress... (Uuuuh, spooky). So I thought I'd get us all in the Halloween mood with some good ol' horror movies!

I am a big fan of horror movies. In fact, I have most likely watched too many. I can still bear being home a lone as long as I have the safety lock on (although I do freeze for a moment if the cats react to some sounds in the staircase). But I can't drive out to Eddi's farm on the un-lit winding roads trough the dark (we're talking really dark) woods and mist filled fields without being sure I'll catch a zombie in my headlights at some point. (Or then I just think of Twin Peaks and Bob!). And it freaks me out that Eddi does not lock the door there at night. (Of course, he is not aware of all the serial killers running around in the world as he is sure the area is only full on southwest Finnish farmers.) And you can of course imagine what I come up with when I'm on the night shift and the last ones to leave our part of the harbor, with the dark warehouse and long corridors in the building. I have totally mind fucked myself. But I can't stop watching.

Old horror films however brings up a different kind of scary and do not play a part in the fact that I might hurry a little on my last steps out of a dark room. Films from back in the days may not come out as frightening as the horror movies of today are or freak us out in the dame way, the elements of fear are in most cases more subtle and less raw than those of today. But the old films do create an ambience of spookiness and haunting darkness that I love, especially silent films. And the scariest vampire of all time is of course Nosferatu.

Here are some classics to get you in a Halloween mood:

Robert Wiene's Dr.Caligari, 1920

F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, 1922

Tod Browning's Freaks, 1932


At least the two first ones can be sen as a whole on youtube.

Today before burlesque rehearsal I'll go see this movie:

Mamma, Tuo Mies Mua Tuijottaa; the Finnish version of the twenties song 'Ma, He's Making Eyes at Me' as seen in the movie "Suuri Sävelparaati" from 1959.

I do a funny burlesque number to this one together with Tinker Bell.

(Check out the guys in the end of the video, it's just hilarious :)

I found this one via Pekka. It's rather amazing.

Well worth the twelve minutes of watching. Can you believe all that was done by computer?