Happy Weekend!
It’s a long one…climb some trees, get into trouble, dance doubles in the street.
(Source: twelve-jammy-badgers)
Etsy Wishlist: Old Hollywood Glamour
I am dreadfully tired of the decor of my apartment–primarily my bathroom. With one of my 2012 resolutions being “always be a lady,” I am determined to turn it into a proper powder room as soon as possible. My apartment building is 100 years old, and there’s a bit of the bygone era left in nooks and crannies. I am cobbling together a feminine look with a touch of Hollywood Regency style, imagining the dressing tables of Garbo or Tallulah Bankhead as they readied themselves for glamorous nights out.
Some vintage favorites I have found on Etsy include:
1. Silver Wingback Lounge Chairs 2. A Pair of Amethyst & Fire Opal Earrings 3. Brass Vanity Tray 4. Vintage Marquee Letters 5. The Most Brilliant 1930s Sequin Top 6. A Gold Polka Dot Vanity Set 7. Crystal and Lucite Lamps 8. A Lovely Little Art Deco Perfume 9. Velvet Brass Vanity Chair
Swing Time (1936)
More Fred and Ginger spam. I just don’t which one I’m more in love with (but the blonde is probably a safe bet). I’m watching this movie and making things with colored paper between sighs.
A notorious perfectionist, Fred Astaire demonstrates perfect timing in two separate takes.
This is crazy. Nothing will ever capture my heart the way classic Hollywood does. It’s the closest humanity has come to true magic.
Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich.
Pretty sure Marlene never had her swag on anything under a hundred thousand trillion.
(Source: missavagardner)
Greta Garbo in Queen Christina, 1933
Zach bought me the Garbo Signature Collection on DVD for my birthday (!!!). I fell asleep watching this for the thousandth time a few nights ago and I have decided that it is far and away my favorite film of hers. This scene is the best. That voice! There will never be another like you, lonely Viking child.
Cleopatra, 1963: Part Two
Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, 1963
(Source: romini)
Marlene Dietrich in The Devil is a Woman, 1934. (via rosedarling)
Inspiring drag queens throughout eternity.
(Source: rosedarling)
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Angelo Badalamenti- Mulholland Drive
Once upon a time, during a stay in Hollywood/Beverly Hills with my mother and sister, we had a limo with our own chauffer. My mother has these sorts of things given to her, but that’s another story about the magic of the Jones women.* One night, I put this song on and asked the kind man to drive slowly up Mulholland Drive. The headlights illuminated the road ahead in vignettes and film frames I swear, and you could see the twinkling lights of the city unfurl below us.
There is a dark and dirty hum to Los Angeles that I love dearly. It’s warm radio static. Or glitter on the bar floor. A smog that hangs around your heart. Scratchy hotel blankets. Aquamarine swimming pools. The smell of gasoline. There are ghosts and heat mirages, and it is easy to confuse the two. There are stories tucked into the corners of the town, and most of them are for sale. There is a cracked mural past the Pantages (on the way to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles, I believe) with dead film stars bleached by constant sun: they smile down, half ignored and half revered. Marlene has her top hat and tails on.
I asked Jazzi recently if she thought I was nuts, playing this song on repeat on a long and nearly pointless drive into the hills. My family is used to humoring my crazy. But she’s my sister and she lives in a part of my brain. Especially when balmy summer nights meant cult-classic films on repeat. When we had polaroid viewfinders instead of eyes. So she said she loved it too. Mulholland Drive will always be, after all, one of our films. I will always look down alleys for a flickering Silencio sign.
I’m sorry if I’m not making much sense. But there are so many things in my brain and this song, and I promise you that all those pieces fit between the cracks.
