Yabba Dabba OOOH!

Get ready to go bowling, break out your foot-powered car, and get your Dino on! Today is the 50th anniversary of the 1st episode of the Hanna-Barbera classic, 'The Flintstones'!!! Fun tidbit- for the longest time when I was a kid- I always thought that Hanna Barbera was a person, not the last names of two people. I eventually caught on though... Today's nail art is a tribute to the stone-age smile-inducers- the Flintstones (and the Rubbles). On my left hand, I have Fred, Wilma, and Pebbles Flintstone, with Dino on the ring finger, and a closeup of Fred's garb on the pinky. On the right hand, I painted The Great Gazoo on my thumb, then Barney, Betty, and Bamm-Bamm Rubble, with Bamm-Bamm's club on my pinky.

I used:

Left:

Thumb: Fred Flintstone

Orly Snowcone as a base, with American Apparel Summer Peach for his skin, then mixed with Color Club Best Dressed List for his stubble. For his tongue, I used a combination of American Apparel Palm Springs and Orly Pixy Stix, for his eyes, I used Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud and for the hair and outlines, I used American Apparel Hassid.

Index: Wilma Flintstone

Orly Snowcone as a base, with American Apparel Summer Peach for her skin, as well as as a base for her hair. For her hair, I used CND Electric Orange. For her necklace and teeth, I used Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud, China Glaze Salsa for her lips, then outlined everything in American Apparel Hassid.

Middle: Pebbles Flintstone

Orly Snowcone as a base, with American Apparel Summer Peach for her skin, as well as as a base for her hair. Like Wilma, I also used CND Electric Orange for Pebbles' hair. Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for her eyes and the bone in her hair. For her dress, I used Pure Ice Wild Thing, then outlined everything with American Apparel Hassid.

Ring: Dino

Orly Snowcone as a base, with Color Club Ms. Socialite for the purple, then mixed with American Apparel Palm Springs for his muzzle. I also used this combination in a different strength for his tongue. For his collar, I used Zoya Yummy, with Barielle Aura Angora for his 'dog' tag. I used Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for his eyes, and American Apparel Hassid to outline.

Pinky: Fred's 'suit'

CND Electric Orange as a base, with Zoya Yummy for his tie, with American Apparel Hassid to outline, and for the spots on the orange fabric.


Right Hand

Thumb: The Great Gazoo

Orly Snowcone as a base, with L.A. Girl Army Green for his face, CND Green Scene for his shirt and helmet, a mixture of CND Green Scene and
American Apparel Hassid for his collar, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for his eyes, and American Apparel Hassid to outline everything.

Index: Barney Rubble

Orly Snowcone as a base, with MAC Abalone Shell for his skin, then mixed with Color Club Best Dressed List for his stubble, American Apparel Manila for his hair, OPI Ginger Bells for his 'suit', and American Apparel Hassid to outline everything.

Middle: Betty Rubble

Orly Snowcone as a base, with American Apparel Summer Peach for her skin, China Glaze Salsa for her lips, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for her eyes, and American Apparel Hassid to outline, as well as for her necklace and hair.

Ring: Bamm-Bamm Rubble

Orly Snowcone as a base, with American Apparel Summer Peach for his skin, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for his eyes and hair, CND Electric Orange with American Apparel Hassid to outline and for the spots on the hat.

Pinky: Bamm-Bamm's Club

Orly Snowcone as a base, with L.A. Girl Army Green for the club, outlined with American Apparel Hassid.

Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

It's a living.

People Say I'm Nuts

...but really, I'm just a-corny. :-D (bad joke)

A book came out yesterday from my FAVORITE author, David Sedaris, called 'Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary'. I bought it tonight, and I'm SO excited to read it. Seriously, if you haven't heard of him, or if you have, but haven't read any of his stuff yet, you seriously need to get on it. The man is a genius, and I've laughed more while reading his books or listening to him speak than I have at most comedians. His deadpan delivery and dry, self-deprecating humor will have you rolling, and I highly suggest, at the very least, LISTENING to one of his audiobooks. (My favorite is the Santaland Diaries, which chronicles his experience employed as an elf at Christmastime in a major department store) A while back, reader Shannon L. suggested that I do squirrel nails, and that got me thinking about acorns, and tonight, I joined both ideas together in honor of the new Sedaris book! :) The acorns turned out to be a funky version of a french manicure! (with lots of shading!! :-D)

and my nails with my new book.... :-D

I used American Apparel Palm Springs as a base, with butter LONDON Crumpet over it, then mixed OPI Ginger Bells with American Apparel Palm Springs and MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious for the tips, with a darker version of that mixture for the textured 'scales' on the acorn caps. For the shading on the acorn, I used a mixture of American Apparel Palm SpringsOPI Ginger Bells and MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious to shade, a mix of OPI Ginger Bells and American Apparel Palm Springs for the darker highlight, then pure American Apparel Palm Springs for the main highlight. For the thumb, I used OPI What's With the Cattitude? as a base, with American Apparel Palm Springs as a base for the squirrel, topped with OPI Ginger Bells, then a mixture of OPI Ginger Bells and MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious over that, then a few swipes of American Apparel Palm Springs around the eye, ear, and tail. For the eye, I used American Apparel Hassid, and for the grass I used CND Green Scene , L.A. Girl Army Green, and Pure Ice Wild Thing. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Stand on the magic star, and you can see Cher!!

Friki Tiki

I've always loved the aesthetic of tiki masks, and the funky feel they have. I like the different face shapes and facial expressions that you can see on them, whether silly or scary, tiki culture is awesome!! Today's manicure is my interpretation of the wooden tikis that are often portrayed for parties and shindigs. :-D

I used Color Club Best Dressed List as a base, then mixed with MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious to shade, and mixed with American Apparel Palm Springs to highlight. Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Something I learned last night while making cookies- if you put chunks of caramel in cookies, you have to let them cool to remove them from the cookie sheet, otherwise you get a lot of broken cookies that you have to eat, because naturally, you can't give away broken cookies, now can you? (what, I think I've stumbled on a great idea here...more cookies for me!!)

"Any Zombies Out There?" Undead Film Studies

Image from I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

The zombies in these films are a kind of revolutionary force of predators without a revolutionary program. Their only concern is to satisfy an instinctual drive for predation; a drive which, as is pointed out in Day of the Dead, serves no actual biological purpose. They appear and attack without explanation or reason, violating taken for granted principles of sufficient cause and rationality. Because of this, they are especially threatening to the surviving human beings. Enemies such as Nazis or Communists are comprehensible in terms of their historical backgrounds, economic interests, religious, political or philosophic beliefs. But these zombies are a new breed of enemy in that they do not operate according to the same underlying motivations human beings share in common. They are a nihilistic enemy which, as lifeless, spiritless automatons, exemplify the epitome of passive nihilism. They wander the landscape exhibiting only the bare minimum of power that is required for locomotion and the consumption of living flesh. They must steal life from the strong because they possess such a depressed store of innate energy. They are, literally, the walking dead. [John Marmysz, 'From "Night" to "Day": Nihilism and the Living Dead', First published in Film and Philosophy, vol. 3, 1996] 

In [George Romero's films], antagonism and horror are not pushed out of society (to the monster) but are rather located within society (qua the monster). The issue isn’t the zombies; the real problem lies with the “heroes”—the police, the army, good old boys with their guns and male bonding fantasies. If they win, racism has a future, capitalism has a future, sexism has a future, militarism has a future. Romero also implements this critique structurally. As Steven Shaviro observes, the cultural discomfort is not only located in the films’ graphic cannibalism and zombie genocide: the low-budget aesthetics makes us see “the violent fragmentation of the cinematic process itself." The zombie in such a representation may be uncanny and repulsive, but the imperfect uncleanness of the zombie’s face—the bad make-up, the failure to hide the actor behind the monster’s mask—is what breaks the screen of the spectacle. [Lars Bang Larsen, 'Zombies of Immaterial Labor: the Modern Monster and the Death of Death', E-Flux, No. 15, April 2010] 

The fear of one's own body, of how one controls it and relates to it, and the fear of not being able to control other bodies, those bodies whose exploitation is too fundamental to capitalist economy, are both at the heart of whiteness. Never has this horror been more deliriously evoked than in these films of the Dead [Richard Dyer,  White: Essays in Race and Culture (London: Routledge, 1997)].

Film Studies For Free is quaking in its digital boots as a whole host of freely accessible zombie studies gathers menacingly on the online horizon and shuffles ever nearer.... No, no, no, nooooo...

Yes.

Resistance is futile on this the Night of the Living Links.

(The only comforting thought is that film zombies also grow old and win the undying loyalty of their fans...)

• Lars Bang Larsen, 'Zombies of Immaterial Labor: the Modern Monster and the Death of Death', E-Flux, No. 15, April 2010
• Sean Brayton, 'The Post-White Imaginary in Alex Proyas’s I, Robot', Science Fiction Studies, #104, Volume 35, Part 1, February 2008
• Diane Carr, 'Textual Analysis, Digital Games, Zombies', Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory, Proceedings of DiGRA, 2009
• John Cussans, 'Tracking the Zombie Diaspora: From Subhuman Haiti to Posthuman Tucson', First published in Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil edited by Paul Yoder and Peter Mario Kreuter, May 2004
• John Cussans, 'Voodoo Terror: (Mis)Representations of Vodu and Western Cultural Anxieties', paper presented for Feels Like Voodoo Spirit – Haitian Art, Culture, Religion, The October Gallery, London October 14, 2000
• Scott Darwick, 'Who’s Laughing Now?', Williams Prize, 2005
• Jennifer Whitney Dotson, Considering Blackness in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead: An Historical Exploration, MA Thesis, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 2006
• Robert J. Edmondstone, 'Beyond “Brutality”: Understanding the Italian Filone's Violent Excesses', PhD Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2008
• Darren Elliott, ‘"Death is the New Pornography!" – Gay Zombies in Queer Horror and Bruce LaBruce’s Otto; or, Up With Dead People (CA/GE 2008)', Monsters and the Monstrous, Mansfield College, Oxford University, September 2009
• Phoebe Fletcher, 'Apocalyptic Machines: Terror and Anti-Production in the Post-9/11 Splatter Film', in The Many Forms of Fear, Horror and Terror edited by Leanne Franklin and Ravenel Richardson, InterDisciplinary.net, August 2009 (scroll to p. 81 in pdf)
• Michael Grant, 'Clint Eastwood: Avatar of the Undead', Michael Grant, February 8, 2010
• Joshua Gunn & Shaun Treat, 'Zombie Trouble: A Propaedeutic on Ideological Subjectification and the Unconscious', first published in Quarterly Journal of Speech Vol. 91, No. 2, May 2005, pp. 144/174
• Stephen Harper, 'Zombies, Malls, and the Consumerism Debate: George Romero's Dawn of the Dead', Americana, 1.2, Fall 2002
• Stephen Harper, '"I could kiss you, you bitch": race, gender, and sexuality in Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse', from Jump Cut, No. 49, spring 2007
• Stephen Harper,  “Night of the Living Dead: Reappraising an Undead Classic”, Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 50, November 2005
• Eric Hamako (University of Massachusetts) presents: '“The Yellow Peril rises from the grave…to get your White women!" Orientalist themes in zombie stories', In Media Res, Monday, September 28, 2009
• Philip Horne, 'I shopped with a zombie', Critical Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 4, Winter 1992, 97-110
• Peter Hutchings, 'Uncanny Landscapes in British Film and Television', Visual Culture in Britain Vol. 5, Issue 2, 2004
• Phevos Kallitsis , 'Urban Fears and spatial transformations: the horror movie point of view', CityFutures '09, Madrid 2009
• Benjamin A. Lathrop, Cult Films and Film Cults: From The Evil Dead to Titanic, MA Thesis,Ohio University, June 2004
• Elizabeth MacLean Kent, Zombie as Parody: The Misuses of Science and the Non-Human Condition in Postmodern Society', MA Thesis, Auburn University, May 2009
• Mzilikazi Koné, 'Zombies, Haiti, and (Sex) Workers: On Relating to Modernity/Coloniality and Subalterity', Thinking Gender Papers, UCLA Center for the Study of Women, UC Los Angeles, 2010
• Samantha Lay, ''Audiences Across the Divide: Game to Film Adaptation and the Case of Resident Evil', Particip@tions Volume 4, Issue 2 (November 2007)
• John Marmysz, 'From "Night" to "Day": Nihilism and the Living Dead', First published in Film and Philosophy, vol. 3, 1996
• Elizabeth McAlister (Wesleyan Univ.), '“Obama, Zombies, and Black Male Secular Messiahs"', In Media Res, Thursday, October 1, 2009
• Melanie McDougald, Where I am, There (Sh)it will be: Queer Presence in Post Modern Horror Films, MA Thesis, Georgia State University, August 2009
• Bert Olivier, 'Architecture as consumer space', SAJAH, volume 23, number 1, 2008: 93–106
• Kim Paffenroth, 'Religious Themes of George Romero’s Zombie Movies', Golem: Journal of Religion and Monsters, Spring 2006
• Kim Paffenroth (Iona College), 'Dawn of the Dead (1978): Zombies and Human Nature', In Media Res, Wednesday, September 30, 2009 
• Mark Richardson, 'Where Can The Others Meet? Gender, Race and Film Comedy', Senses of Cinema, Issue 33, 2004 
• Janet G. Sayers, 'Emotional contagion and the infectious service smile: A response using parody', Notework [Museletter of the Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism], May 2007, pp. 20-26
• Steven Shaviro, 'Survival of the Dead', The Pinocchio Theory, September 25, 2010
• Steven Shaviro, 'Diary of the Dead', The Pinocchio Theory, April 26, 2008
• Steven Shaviro, 'Specters of Marx', The Pinocchio Theory, Feburary 8, 2006
• Steven Shaviro, 'Daniel Plainview', The Pinocchio Theory, Feburary 20, 2008
• Cathy Schlund-Vials (Univ. of Connecticut), 'Racism, Postcolonialism, and Neocolonial Zombies: Resident Evil 5', In Media Res, Tuesday, September 29, 2009
• De Villo Sloan, 'Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman as Post-literature', The International Fiction Review, 14, No. 1 (1987)
• Jasie Stokes, Ghouls, Hell and Transcendence: the Zombie in Popular Culture from Night of the Living Dead to Shaun of the Dead, MA Thesis, Brigham Young University, April 2010
• Jesse Stommel, '"Pity Poor Flesh": Terrible Bodies in the Films of Carpenter, Cronenberg, and Romero', Bright Lights Film Journal, No. 56, May 2007
• Margaret Twohy, 'From Voodoo to Viruses: The Evolution of the Zombie in Twentieth Century Popular Culture', MPhil Thesis, Trinity College Dublin, October 2008
• Darrin Verhagen, 'Audiovision, psy-ops and the perfect crime: Zombie Agents and sound design', Scan: Journal of Media Arts Cultures, Vol. 6, Number 2 September 2009
• Mike Wayne, 'Theses on realism and film', International Socialism, Issue 116, October 2007
• Cameron M. Weed, 'The Zombie Manifesto: The Marxist Revolutions in George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead', MA Thesis, Baylor University, May 2009
• Tony Williams, 'White Zombie: Haitian horror', from Jump Cut, no. 28, April 1983, pp. 18-20

Romero's Zombies

View more presentations from Steen Christiansen.

Tarte Cosmetics Sale on ideeli!

There is a Tarte Cosmetics sale on Ideeli today!! it ends at 11:59 PST (so, approx 24 hours from this post). There are check stains, brow kits, foundations, mascara, and other odds n ends. Decent prices, too! :)

Check it out! Tarte Cosmetics Sale on Ideeli

Cross-hatching a Plan

So I broke down and checked out the MAC Venomous Villains collection tonight at the Pro Store. Bad idea. I have far more willpower than I thought, because it's all super pretty!! The mineralized shadows from Maleficent's color story are crazy sparkly and beyond gorgeous. The three polishes are pretty too, though, as I'm sure you know, two are dupes for the Orly Cosmic FX collection. The third, however, is called Bad Fairy, and is a magenta foil duochrome that flashes an orange-red color. Super pretty. While in the Forum Shops, I also came across Inglot, there is a STORE AT THE FORUM SHOPS NOW! (that is my excitement typing) I've never seen any of their products in person until tonight, and let me tell you, everything I saw was crazy awesome, and once I have money again, that place is going to be Dangerous (yes, capital D). Anyway- today's manicure utilizes Bad Fairy (yes, I broke down, I'm not a saint :-P)

I used MAC Bad Fairy as a base, with American Apparel Hassid for the crosshatch design. Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

This pictures don't do this polish justice. It's super shiny, sparkly, foily goodness.

35 Open Access Film and Moving Image Studies Books from Amsterdam University Press

Image from Rhapsody of Steel, a 1959 animated industrial film by John Sutherland, which you can watch online. You can read about industrial films in Vinzenz Hediger and Patrick Vonderau's remarkable collection Films that Work : Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)

What a remarkable start to the week! In one fell swoop, Film Studies For Free has almost doubled its already lengthy listing of openly accessible film and moving image studies e-books.

Yesterday, FSFF heard that Vinzenz Hediger and Patrick Vonderau's marvellous 2009 edited collection Films that Work : Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media had been made freely available online as part of Amsterdam University Press's wonderful commitment to Open Access publishing.

FSFF followed up on that news with its customary, industrial-strength, dogged meticulousness (that is to say, in its totally imitable fashion) to sort through the 640 plus e-books from AUP's collected OA offerings to single out the 35 film and moving image studies-related items you can see linked to below, which include many titles from its excellent "Film Culture in Transition" series.

They've also all been added to FSFF's existing free e-book list, which is now approaching its first one hundred items.

And this blog has learned how to say hartelijk dank!

1. Allen, Richard, Malcolm Turvey (eds), Camera Obscura, Camera Lucida: Essays in Honor of Annette Michelson (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
2. Bay-Cheng, Sarah, Chiel Kattenbelt, Andy Lavender, Robin Nelson (eds), Mapping Intermediality in Performance (Amsterdam University Press, 2010) 
3. Bergfelder, Tim, Sue Harris, Sarah Street (eds), Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema (Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
4. Bijsterveld, K, J. Van Dijck (eds), Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)
5. Blom, Ivo, Jean Desmet and the Early Dutch Film Trade (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
6. Boomen, Marianne van den, Sybille Lammes, Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Joost Raessens, Mirko Tobias Schäfer (eds), Digital Material : Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)
7. Clemens, Justin, Dominic Pettman, Avoiding the Subject: Media, Culture and the Object (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
8. Elsaesser, Thomas, European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood(Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
9. Elsaesser, Thomas (ed), Harun Farocki: Working on the Sight-Lines (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
10. Elsaesser, Thomas, Noel King, Alexander Horwath (eds), The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
11. Elsaesser, Thomas (ed), A Second Life : German Cinema's First Decades (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
12. Elsaesser, Thomas, Fassbinder's Germany: History, Identity, Subject (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
13. Elsaesser, Thomas,  Jan Simons, Lucette Bronk (eds), Writing for the Medium: Television in transition (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
14. Grønstad, Asbjørn, Transfigurations: Violence, Death and Masculinity in American Cinema Amsterdam, 2008)
15. Hagener, Malte, Moving Forward, Looking Back : The European Avant-garde and the Invention of Film Culture, 1919-1939 (Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
16. Hediger, Vinzenz, Patrick Vonderau (eds), Films that Work : Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)
17. Heide, William van der, Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film: Border Crossings and National Culture (Amsterdam University Press, 2002)
18. Kester, Bernadette, Film Front Weimar: Representations of the First World War in German Films from the Weimar Period (1919-1933) (Amsterdam University Press, 2002)
19. Kooijman, Jaap, Patricia Pisters, Wanda Strauven (eds), Mind the Screen: Media Concepts According to Thomas Elsaesser (Amsterdam University Press, 2008)
20. Kooijman, Jaap, Fabricating the Absolute Fake: America in Contemporary Pop Culture (Amsterdam University Press, 2008)
21. Lauwaert, Maaike, The Place of Play: Toys and Digital Cultures (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)
22. Phillips, Alastair, City of Darkness, City of Light: Emigré Filmmakers in Paris 1929-1939(Amsterdam University Press, 2003)
23. Pisters, Patricia, Wim Staat, Shooting the Family: Transnational Media and Intercultural Values (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
24. Schoots, Hans, Living Dangerously: A Biography of Joris Ivens (Amsterdam University Press, 2000)
25. Simons, Jan, Playing the Waves: Lars von Trier's Game Cinema(Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
26. Steene, Birgitt, Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
27. Strauven, Wanda, The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded (Amsterdam University Press, 2006)
28. Thompson, Kristin, Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood: German and American Film after World War I (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
29. Törnqvist, Egi, Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
30. Valck, Marijke de, Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia (Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
31. Valck, Marijke de, Malte Hagener (eds), Cinephilia: Movies, Love and Memory (Amsterdam University Press, 2006)
32. Verhoeff, Nann, The West in Early Cinema: After the Beginning (Amsterdam University Press, 2006 [on the emergence of the  Western]) 
33. Walker, Michael, Hitchcock's Motifs (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
34. Zanger, Anat, Film Remakes as Ritual and Disguise: From Carmen to Ripley (Amsterdam University Press, 2006)
35. Zielinski, Siegfried, Audiovisions: Cinema and Television as Entr'actes in History (Amsterdam University Press, 1999)

He's Got a Way With Murder

We know him as Dexter, loving family man by day, serial killer that takes out the 'trash' by night. He's America's So-Called Favorite Serial Killer, and tonight IS the night... for the season premiere, that is. I'm one of the devoted followers of Dexter. Love the books, love the tv show. I actually SQUEALED when I saw the first commercial for this season on Showtime! Seriously. I re-watched the entire series AGAIN to prepare for tonight. :-D Lame? Perhaps. Awesome? Definitely. Today's manicure is devoted to the man who likes to dismember... Dexter Morgan. :) (I'd considered painting each nail a different color as an homage to the ice truck killer in the first season, but thought it wouldn't really be considered nail art, so I didn't) The cartoon Dexter on the thumb is a mash-up of Dexter Morgan, and the illustration style and some characteristics of Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory, I dug it when I first saw it, and thought it'd be a fun addition to an otherwise gory manicure. :)

and the close-up/right side up picture of Dex on my thumb:

I used Essie Bone Chilling White as a base, with A Beautiful Life Poison for the blood spatter and DEXTER logo. For the thumb, I used American Apparel Summer Peach for his face and neck, OPI Ginger Bells for his hair, Orly Snowcone for his eyes, and American Apparel Hassid to outline everything, with, again, A Beautiful Life Poison for the blood spatter on his face and collar.

Did you watch Dexter tonight? It was a good one, for sure. I freakin' love this show!

I'm Not the Villain Here!

As all you makeup addicts out there know, MAC Cosmetics is releasing a new collection on Sept 30, and if you have Pro Store access, you can even get it NOW. Obviously, I'm talking about the MAC Venomous Villains collection, which is separated into four color stories representing and emblazoned with the images of 4 Disney Villains...The Evil Queen from 'Snow White', Maleficent from 'Sleeping Beauty', Doctor Facilier from 'The Princess and the Frog', and Cruella de Vil from '101 Dalmatians'. I was going to go to the Pro Store today to check it out, so I did today's manicure in honor of it, but got sidetracked, and it's too late to go because I have to be somewhere else- so I'll go tomorrow! I want to buy stuff, but seeing as I JUST started my job, I'm still broke (and will be for a while), so just window shopping for me! :-P

I'm not in love with how these turned out, Cruella looked better when I did her for the 101 Dalmatians manicure a while back, but my hand was super shaky, so I did what I could. I also think that I need to get a new paintbrush! The only one I'm pleased with is the Evil Queen on my ring finger, I think she turned out pretty ok. :-P

I used:

Thumb: MAC logo

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for the logo.

Index: Maleficent

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with Orly Gumdrop for her face, Barielle Grape Escape for her eye shadow, A Beautiful Life Poison for her lips, American Apparel Hassid to outline everything, and Essence Pointbreak to outline her horns. I also used Barielle Grape Escape for her collar.

Middle: Cruella

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with a mix of American Apparel Summer Peach, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud, and Eyeko Punk Polish for Neon Nails for her skin, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for her white hair, Essence Pointbreak to outline her black hair. American Apparel Butter for her fur coat, China Glaze Flyin' High for her earring, A Beautiful Life Poison for her lips, Pure Ice Wild Thing, and American Apparel Hassid to outline everything.

Ring: Evil Queen

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with American Apparel Summer Peach for her face, Barielle Grape Escape for her eye shadow, Barielle Aura Angora for her crown, A Beautiful Life Poison for her lips, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for her collar, and American Apparel Hassid to outline everything.

Pinky: Doctor Facilier

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with Color Club Best Dressed List for his face, then mixed with Barielle Unraveled Rust for his lips, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for his eyes and teeth, Orly Snowcone for his pupils, MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious to outline, American Apparel Hassid for his hat, A Beautiful Life Poison for the sash on the hat.

Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

What are you going to buy from this collection? I'm excited to see it, but I'm praying for lots of dupes to stuff I already have. :-P

Circle, Circle, Dot, Dot

I got my cootie shot.

:-D

I survived day two at the new job- and let me tell ya, I'm outta job-shape, I can't remember ever being this exhausted after a day of work. So far, the job is great though, and the people are really super nice! :) (I hope they think the same about me too!) I'm debating what I can whip up in my oven to fully win them over though. :-9 Today's nails are just a random design. I liked the colors, and wanted to use them together, and this is what I came up with!

I used butter LONDON Artful Dodger as a base, with circles and dots painted over it with MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious, Essie Alligator Purse, and the yet unnamed franken that I showed you yesterday. Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Great, now I have that damn Jamie Kennedy song in my head. Whatever happened to Stu Stone?

A 'Bone to Pick

Herringbone that is. Today's nail art is my interpretation of a herringbone pattern. I actually even frankened the base polish myself- it matches the wall pant of someone I know perfectly! I loved the color so much on the wall (I picked it out, natch) that I had to create a nail polish for my very own. :) I used a mixture of equal parts American Apparel Manila, American Apparel California, and a few drops of L.A. Girl Army Green.

It matched my shirt (unintentionally):

I used my franked polish, which I'm still undecided on calling, with MAC In the Buff to paint the lines to make the pattern. Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

About the job:

I am now working for a real estate marketing company as a graphic designer! :) First day went great, other than freezing. Everyone seems really nice so far, too! :)

Fall-ing for You!

Hey all!! Quick post today- I'm on a desperate hunt for my birth certificate, which has magically disappeared, and which I need TOMORROW. :-/ Not good. Anyway, today's manicure is to celebrate the first day of FALL!! (which, sadly, Las Vegas doesn't really have... it's just slightly less hot.) I used three autumnal colors over Incoco's Oscar Night nail appliques! (which saved my life when I had 1.5 hours to get showered, ready, do my nails, and get to my last minute interview!)

I used Incoco nail appliques in Oscar Night, with Barielle Unraveled Rust, Essie Alligator Purse, and butter LONDON Minger marbled over it. Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Wish me luck with finding the birth certificate!!

Awesome Graphic Designer Seeks Job

UPDATE: I got a job!! Ironically, not from this post, but from a résumé that I sent out at the same time. They called me up right when they got it, and I interviewed this afternoon and GOT THE JOB!! :) YAY! Thank you all for your well wishes!!!

Are you hiring?

As many of my readers now, except possibly the new subscribers, I am, unfortunately, unemployed right now. When I started the project, I was a full-time graphic designer working as a slot machine artist here in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada. About 7 months into my yearlong project , I was let go due to some company restructuring. I've had about ZERO luck finding a job. No one here in Las Vegas is hiring, and most of the ads I read that are hiring, which are for service industry jobs in the casinos (bartenders, cocktail waitresses, hostesses), have a requirement of head shots, and suggest that applicants be models, actors, or dancers. I'm none of these things. I do like to work- and prefer to have too much to do as opposed to not enough. I'm quick and friendly. I like deadlines and challenges, and learning new things. I have knowledge of major design programs AND mixing drinks. I like people, and can talk to anyone, yet I'm still unemployed. Not fun. I've applied for design jobs, for typesetting jobs, for marketing jobs, for bartender jobs, and for server jobs to no avail.

I know that plenty of people are in my same predicament, and trust me, I empathize.

So in closing, I put this message out into the world. Hire me?

NYX Sale at Hautelook!

I know that I've been posting sales every day this week, but it's apparently Beauty Week at Hautelook- so they're doing lots of great cosmetics/beauty sales!!! Today's sale is NYX Cosmetics, they have everything from brush sets and brush belts to chrome pigments, to eyeshadows and mascaras...and everything in between! They also have some KILLLLLER special effects eyelashes (perfect for fun looks AND Halloween!), palettes, huge kits and makeup sets, too!

Check out the sale! NYX Sale on Hautelook!

Gleekin' Out

The minutes tick by as the clock gets closer and closer to 8 o'clock. Finally...the night has come for the latest installment of the GLEE story- Season 2 is upon us, and I, for one, am soooooo excited! I'm writing this post as I watch, and so far, so good- LOVED the rendition of Billionaire! Anyway, I'm a huge GLEE fan, and honestly, though she's not a main character- my favorite character is definitely Brittany, her comments are so awesome.

I used American Apparel Manila as a base for all the nails except the thumb, which I used Eyeko Saucy Polish for Naughty Nails on. I also used Eyeko Saucy Polish for Naughty Nails for the letters, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for the FOX logo, and for the hand, I used American Apparel California Trooper as a base, topped with MAC Abalone Shell, then I mixed MAC Abalone Shell mixed with Barielle Unraveled Rust to shade, and mixed MAC Abalone Shell with Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud to highlight. Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Ok- I gotta get back to GLEE!!! (Next is NCIS!!!)

LORAC Sale on Hautelook!

Wow- this is one of their best beauty sales yet- prices start at $3, and don't go over $10- and that's for palettes! Almost everything is under $5. Lots of lip products (mocktails, lipglosses, lipsticks, lip polish, etc.), a few eye shadows, some palettes, cheek colors, and some foundations. :-D WOOO!

Check out the sale on LORAC sale on Hautelook!

In authenticity: Douglas Sirk and the Sirkian Melodrama

Image from Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)

I first saw Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life in 1959 at The Yeadon, a neighbourhood movie house in a white working-class suburb of Philadelphia. I was 16. Imitation of Life was about four women, two of them black. When we came out afterward, most of us were crying. The theatre owner's wife was standing in the lobby with a box of Kleenex. Many people gratefully took a tissue to dry their eyes. This is what Sirk wanted, I believe. [Tag Gallagher, 'White Melodrama: Douglas Sirk', Senses of Cinema, Issue 36, 2005]

[W]ith the reconsideration of directors like Douglas Sirk and the application of (gasp) irony, “melodrama” isn’t the dirty word it once was. Initially, film studies criticism used the term pejoratively to connote unrealistic, pathos-filled, campy tales of romance or domestic situations with cliché-ridden characters intended to appeal to female audiences. Understandably, these were considered to be lesser films, sentimental pap churned out by the Hollywood tear-jerk machine. And if one couldn’t look beyond these tropes – if the viewer were unable to see through them – they might find themself (like many critics of the 1950s) unjustly unwilling to give credit where credit is due.

     Sirk, for example, a contract director working mostly at Universal, was known for turning out dizzy romantic fiascos; glossy and kitsch, excessive and (sometimes) silly, these dependable studio projects were routinely panned by critics and “sophisticated” audiences. What these viewers missed was the subversive strain running through Sirk’s art. He wasn’t just making a melodrama, he was using it. Even the critic James Harvey admits to “missing” Sirk the first time around, remembering his biggest hits, Written on the Wind (1957) and Imitation of Life (1959), to be “unredeemably bad”. But twenty years after its release, Harvey returned to Imitation of Life and found himself overwhelmed.

     My awareness of even a possible ironic intention seemed to transform the movie for me. As it had, it seemed, for the audience around me, who were responding to it in a way no imaginable 1950s audience could have: being alert and to and amused by every hollow ring in Lana Turner’s multi-costumed, leading-lady performance, for example, just as I was being. We had become an audience for the “Sirkian subtext”, as it was called. And we were no longer (as we had been years before) jeering alone. This time even the director was on our side.

     And so there is the Melodrama and there is the melodramatic. The trick is to figure out which is which. [Sam Wasson, Bigger Than Life: The Picture, The Production, The Press', Senses of Cinema, Issue 38, 2006]

The most important ironies in Sirk are those of so much film melodrama of the 1950s, namely the ironies of the failure of dominant ideology, the vast distance between how social institutions, gender roles, and other fundamental values are supposed to function and how they actually do function. Much of this “ironic” social critique of Sirk’s films is overt and uncomplicated (the country-club values in All That Heaven Allows or Lana Turner’s kitsch glamour in Imitation of Life [USA, 1959]). What the “irony in Sirk” debate is mostly directed to, instead, is the fact that the films often take up an attitude critical of ideological norms without overtly acknowledging that they are conducting such a cri- tique, and that they present characters in the grip of dominant values (therefore “good” characters) whose ideological conformity is objectively destructive but who are never overtly labelled by the film as hollow or destructive (the Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall characters in Written on the Wind are a clear example). The melodrama of Sirk and his contemporaries is quite different in this respect from most earlier forms of cinematic melodrama (Griffith for example), where all the values inherent in the films are plainly depicted as what the films think they are. But although the hollowness of some of Sirk’s “good” characters does indeed interfere with the overt ideological work of the narrative, it hardly disables the melodrama of these characters’ sufferings, or the pathos of their entrapment in ideology. Indeed, the reverse is the case: they are rendered more pathetic by their impossibility, and the film’s distance from their “false consciousness” then functions much like dramatic irony, and not at all like any kind of scornful detachment. [William Beard, 'Maddin and Melodrama', Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 14:2, Autumn 2005, fn 6, pp.15-16]

[T]o understand what Imitation of Life is trying to do audiences have to trust in its distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity, between its evocations of real life and its manifestations of life’s imitations. The evocations of real life rely on emotional manipulation – the emotion of motion pictures. It is only by way of these moments of intense emotional involvement that the moments of authenticity in the film can be distinguished from those of pretence. And it is the moments of pretence, of escaping into falsifying theatres of one form or another, that Sirk is holding up for criticism. Finally, that is what is produced by Sirkian ‘ironic distanciation’: an acknowledgment of the inauthentic imitation of life.[Richard Rushton, 'Douglas Sirk’s Theatres of Imitation', Screening the Past, Issue 21, 2007]

Film Studies For Free today celebrates studies of the work of Douglas Sirk with an almost melodramatically long list of links to online scholarly items on this director's films and some of the films they have influenced. The list builds on Kevin B. Lee's very valuable, existing webliographical work.
 
FSFF knows, of course, that offering up such easy access to these resources means that there won't be a dry eye in the house. But if your tears are due to FSFF having missed a good Sirkian link, do please let us know by commenting below...

• Jeanine Basinger, “The Lure of the Gilded Cage: All I Desire and There's Always Tomorrow”, Bright Lights 6, (1977)

• William Beard, 'Maddin and Melodrama', Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 14:2, Autumn 2005, fn 6, pp.15-16

• Jean-Loup Bourget, 'Sirk and the Critics', Translated by Eithne Bourget,  Bright Lights 6, (1977)

• Jean-Loup Bourget, 'God Is Dead, or, Through a Glass Darkly', Bright Lights 6, (1977)

• Jeremy B. Butler, 'Imitation of Life (John Stahl, 1934. Douglas Sirk, 1959): Style and the domestic melodrama', from Jump Cut, no. 32, April 1987, pp. 25-28

• Fred Camper, 'The Films of Douglas Sirk: The Epistemologist of Despair', Chicago Reader, April 14, 2006

• Susan Courtney, ‘Picturizing race: Hollywood’s censorship of miscegenation and production of racial visibility through Imitation of Life’, Genders, vol. 27, 1998 (mostly on the Stahl film)

• Adrian Danks, “The Far Side of Paradise”: Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow', Senses of Cinema, Issue 37, 2005

• Amelia DeFalco, 'A Double-Edged Longing: Nostalgia, Melodrama, and Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven,' Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, No. 5

• Sybil DelGaudio, 'The mammy in Hollywood film: I'd walk a million miles — for one of her smiles', from Jump Cut, no. 28, April 1983, pp. 23-25

• Lucy Fischer, 'Modernity and Postmaternity: High Heels and Imitation of Life', in Horton, Andrew Horton (ed.), Play it again, Sam: retakes on remakes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)

• Freda Freiberg, Review of Fannie Hurst, Imitation of life. Edited and introduced by Daniel Itzkovitz (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004)', Screening the Past, 20, 2006

• Chris Fujiwara, 'Tears Without Laughter Deciphering audience responses to Douglas Sirk, in the U.S. and Japan', Moving Image Source, August 18, 2008 

• Tag Gallagher, 'White Melodrama: Douglas Sirk', Senses of Cinema, Issue 36, 2005

• Stephen Handzo, 'Intimations of Lifelessness: Sirk's Ironic Tearjerker', Bright Lights 6, (1977)

• Sara Hayat, Dream Houses Gone Wrong: Small Town, Suburbia, and Architectural Narrative in Four Films by Douglas Sirk, Masters Thesis, University of Miami, 2010

• Richard Henke, 'Imitation of Life: Imitation world of vaudeville', from Jump Cut, no. 39, June 1994, pp. 31-39

• Victoria Jaschob, 'Fear of Heaven', Film International, 2007

• Tamar Jeffers McDonald, '“Very Little Wrist Movement”: Rock Hudson Acts Out Sexual Heterodoxy', Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 31 (2006) 843-858

• Lynne Joyrich, 'Written on the Screen: Mediation and Immersion in Far from Heaven', originally published in Camera Obscura, 54, Volume 18, Number, 2003

• Kevin B. Lee, 'Douglas Sirk: An Annotated Webliography', Shooting Down Pictures, December 2009

• André de Alencar Lyon, 'The Afterlife of Melodrama: Roger Michell's Changing Lanes', SURJ., Spring 2004

• James MacDowell, 'Beneath the Surface of Things: Interpretation and Far From Heaven', Offscreen Journal, Volume 10, Issue 5 (May 31, 2006)

• Geoff Mayer, 'Review of Ben Singer. Melodrama and modernity. Early sensational cinema and its contexts. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001', Screening the Past, 16, 2004

• Marsha McCreadie, 'Petra’s Place', Senses of Cinema, Issue 55, 2010

• Gary Morris, 'Introduction to the Douglas Sirk Issue', Bright Lights 6, (1977)

• Gary Morris, 'Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind", Images, Issue 10, February 2004 

• Laura Mulvey, 'All That Heaven Allows', Criterion Collection, June 18, 2001

• Laura Mulvey, 'Written on the Wind', The Criterion Collection, June 18, 2001

• Geoffrey O’Brien, 'Magnificent Obsessions', The Criterion Collection, January 19, 2009

• Ryan Powell, 'Putting on the Red Dress: Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows,' Forum, Issue 4, Spring 2007

• Mark Rappaport, 'The Sirk-Hudson Connection', The Criterion Collection, January 21, 2009

• Mark Rappaport, 'The Secret Life of Objects', Rouge, 13, 2009

• Niall Richardson, 'Poison in the Sirkian System: The Political Agenda of Todd Haynes's Far From Heaven', Scope, Issue 6, October 2006

• Vadim Rizov, 'Stahl vs. Sirk', The Daily Notebook, January 31, 2009

• Monique Rooney, 'What passes in Imitation of Life (1959)?', Humanities Research Vol. XVI. No. 1. 2010: Passing, Imitations, Crossings,edited by Monique Rooney and Carolyn Strange (PDF) 

• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Rediscovering Ali: Fear Eats the Soul', JonathanRosenbaum.com, September 5, 2008

• Richard Rushton, 'Douglas Sirk’s Theatres of Imitation', Screening the Past, Issue 21, 2007

• Tom Ryan, 'Douglas Sirk/Detlef Sierck', Senses of Cinema, November 2003

• Dave Sanjek, 'Summer Storm', Senses of Cinema, Issue 37, 2005

• Andrew Sarris, 'Sarris on Sirk', Bright Lights 6, (1977)

• Christopher Sharrett, 'Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow', Cineaste, Vol.XXXV No. 4 2010

• Robert E. Smith, 'Love Affairs That Always Fade', Bright Lights 6, (1977)

• Jane Stern and Michael Stern, “Two Weeks in Another Town: Interview with Douglas Sirk”, Bright Lights 6, (1977)

• Antonio João Teixeira, '“A False Creation" - Stains in the Glossy World of Imitation of Life', Revista Letras, Curitaba, N. 66, P. 193-206, Maio/Ago. 2005

• Michael Töteberg, 'Ali: Fear Eats the Soul: All That Fassbinder Allows', The Criterion Collection, June 23, 2003

• Suzanna Danuta Walters, Lives Together/Worlds Apart: Mothers and Daughters in Popular Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)

• Sharon Willis, 'Politics of Disappointment: Todd Haynes Rewrites Douglas Sirk', orignally published in Camera Obscura, 54, Volume 18, Number, 2003

• Agustin Zarzosa, 'Signifying Objects, Embodied Ideas, and Melodrama', Scope, Issue 7, february 2007

• George Zuckerman and Albert Zugsmith, 'Zuckerman and Zugsmith on Sirk', Bright Lights 6, (1977)