quitecheeky

Good to see you again, love.

2012-01-23T18:46:00.001-08:00

How were your holidays? I hope they were wonderful, and I hope everyone's 2012 brings them success, joy, happiness, and love!

I found this amazing balloon company based out of LA that delivers HUGE, beautiful balloons for special occasions. Here's a little advert for their Valentine's Day special.

If anyone wants to send me one, you can always message me and ask for my address!

Just kidding. (Not really.)

Geronimo Balloons Valentine's Day from hak lonh on Vimeo.

go all the way.

2011-12-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even try. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean mockery—isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”

Charles Bukowski

Carey, Carey Quite Contrary.

2011-12-13T19:20:00.000-08:00

Carey Mulligan in W Magazine clothed oozes more sexual energy than Lindsey Lohan could attempt in a hundred Playboy spreads.

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

2011-12-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

“There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.”
Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Your heart and my heart
are very, very old friends.”
Hafiz

“In life to handle yourself, use your head, but to handle others, use your heart.”
Swami Chinmayananda

“He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about…like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding towards him through the amorphous trees.”
The Great Gatsby

“I thought I understood it, that I could grasp it, but I didn’t - not really. I knew the smudgeness of it. The pink-slippered, all-containered, semi-precious eagerness of it. I didn’t realize it would sometimes be more than whole, that the wholeness was a rather luxurios idea; because it’s the halves that have you in half. Didn’t know, don’t know, about the in between bits. The gory bits of you, and gory bits of me.”
Like Crazy

“Try to overcome your doubt. Believe you are beautiful. Look at yourself through someone else’s green eyes. Believe someone out there will find you and kiss your skin until you feel it blister with heat. Believe in something bigger than your problems and you will be saved.”
Max Bemis

Happy holidays and a joyous 2012 to you and your loved ones.
xo,
Chelsea

Is it by mistake or design that I feel so alone every Friday night?

2011-12-11T16:16:00.000-08:00

Born to Die, live at the Chateau Marmont.

just some snaps.

2011-11-20T17:19:00.000-08:00

via my instagram.

cat eye magic.

2011-11-17T00:45:00.000-08:00

How to Be a Girl: Cat Eyes By Magic! from The Hairpin on Vimeo.

the secret train beneath the waldorf-astoria.

2011-11-14T19:20:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for secrets, buried-treasures, and conspiracy theories of all kinds...so, when I read this via my morning article-perusing, I felt it was too interesting not to share.

Enjoy, explorers.

Over the weekend we had a chance to visit the long-abandoned Waldorf-Astoria train platform, which allowed VIPs to enter the hotel in a more private manner—most famously it was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, possibly to hide the fact that he was in a wheelchair suffering from polio. The mysterious track, known as Track 61, still houses the train car and private elevator, which were both large enough for FDR's armor-plated Pierce Arrow car. Legend has it that the car would drive off the train, onto the platform and straight into the elevator, which would lead to the hotel's garage. Trainjotting has some more history regarding the platform, known as Track 61, and notes that the quest for it "has become a holy grail for many urban explorers."

Some fun facts regarding the timeline of the tracks: It was first used by General Pershing in 1938, and less than 30 years after that, in 1965, it was the venue for a party thrown by Andy Warhol (fittingly called The Underground Party).

This space will likely never be open to the public... unless you're a squatter—"by 1978, the platform was known as one of the many places in Grand Central Terminal where squatters lived." However, current construction on the new LIRR extension has probably taken care of that (though despite the construction, MTA spokesperson Dan Brucker tells us the train car will remain).

Photos & article by The Gothamist.

good radiation.

2011-11-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

The Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) has 2,400 stars in it's huge center, and produces multi-million degree gas and radiation unlike humankind has ever seen.

It's beautiful, and things like this seem to put things into perspective.

Anyway, the Tarantula Nebula is expanding and scientists are trying to figure out what is causing the massive growth. I'm just glad it's pretty, to be honest.

I love you, space.
You and your ever-expanding, infinite body.

Image courtesy of NASA.

the new marilyn. elle uk.

2011-11-14T16:18:00.000-08:00

i hear you like the bad girls honey, is that true?

2011-11-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

Lana del Rey is kind of my new obsession. She's the perfect mix of vintage and contemporary.

bubbles.

2011-11-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

With the stressful holidays approaching, sometimes I just wish that I could take a 48 or 72 hour bath. I wouldn't even mind the pruned fingertips.

mindy wisdom.

2011-10-28T00:27:00.000-07:00

An Excerpt by The Office's Mindy Kaling on Why You Need a Man, Not a Boy.

“Men know what they want. Men own alarm clocks. Men sleep on a mattress that isn’t on the floor. Men buy new shampoo instead of adding water to a nearly empty bottle of shampoo. Men make reservations. Men go in for a kiss without giving you some long preamble about how they’re thinking of kissing you. Men wear clothes that have never been worn by anyone else before.

The Point: Men know what they want and that is scary.

What I was used to was boys.

Boys are adorable. Boys trail off their sentences in an appealing way. Boys get haircuts from their roommate, who “totally knows how to cut hair.” Boys can pack up their whole life and move to Brooklyn for a gig if they need to. Boys have “gigs.” Boys are broke. And when they do have money, they spend it on a trip to Colorado to see a music festival. Boys can talk for hours with you in a diner at three in the morning because they don’t have regular work hours.

But men aren’t afraid of commitment. I’m not talking about commitment to romantic relationships. I’m talking about commitment to things—houses, jobs, neighbourhoods. Paying a mortgage. When men hear women want a commitment, they think it means commitment to a romantic relationship, but that’s not it. It’s a commitment to not floating around anymore. I want a guy who is entrenched in his own life. Entrenched is awesome.

So I’m into men now, even though they can be frightening. I want a schedule-keeping, waking-up-early, wallet-carrying, picture-hanging man.

I’m giving you this bit of wisdom: A fun thing to try is dating men. It’ll be like freshly ground peanut butter, times a million.”

Her new book is out November 1st. I love Miss Kaling.

everybody scream.

2011-10-26T00:07:00.000-07:00

Some fun Halloween links...

Instead of getting mushy carving those pumpkins, why not paint them pretty?

A candy corn milkshake. No, really!

Beautiful vintage (and modern!) Halloween pin-up photos.

pixiwoo, Aria, and Nikki do all of my favorite Halloween makeup tutorials!

Some creepy info about the Amityville Horror house. Always been interesting to me.

Top 13 Horror Movies for Halloween. Glad to see all the classics are there!

The coolest Halloween-themed light show I've ever seen, all of the videos are amazing!

SYNDROMES.

2011-10-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

Dir: Kristoffer Borgli / Norway / 2011

A young girl with mysterious talents finds herself unwillingly entwined in an elite underworld that only the ailing wealthy are ever aware of, in this short film for the release of the new album, Syndromes.

FACBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/thegoldenfilter

TWITTER: http://twitter.com/#!/thegoldenfilter

YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/thegoldenfilter

witchy woman put a spell on you.

2011-10-10T22:38:00.000-07:00

“You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones.”
-The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood.

“Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr. March 22, 1956

“An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t put you down unless you allow it to get inside you.
-Goi Nasu

“I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.”
-Audre Lorde

“The first step to expanding your reality is to discard the tendency to exclude things from possibility.”
-Edward E. Cummings

“Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person’s heart and dissolve it.”
-Haruki Murakami

“Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.”
-Og Mandino

“There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
Henry David Thoreau

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
-Gandhi

A little more about me. Shall we?

2011-10-10T20:04:00.000-07:00

1) Put your iTunes on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up.

Jessie J-Who You Are
Kanye West- Flashing Lights
Florence & the Machine- What the Water Gave Me
Lykke Li- Little Bit
Adele- Take It All
Bloc Party-Signs

2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

I can't pick just one. Sofia Coppola, Larry David, Bill Murray, Betty White.

3) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

"When I divorced, it was because she'd decided he was getting in the way of the book."

4) What do you think about most?

Making an impact while I'm alive. Love and compassion towards others and the fight to attain it for all.

5) What does your latest text message from someone else say?

"I'm coming over after the gym, I'll explain then."

6) Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

With. I get too cold.

7) What's your strangest talent?

I can multitask like crazy. Read, draw, write, watch a movie, listen to music-all at the same time. And I'll remember everything. I also am a very fast reader. I can do a split and some weird dance stretches from when I was a kid.

8) Girls.... (finish the sentence); Boys.... (finish the sentence)

Girls are beautiful.
Boys are less so.

9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?

Yes.

10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?

A few minutes ago, listening to Rage Against the Machine.

11) Do you have any strange phobias?

Yes. I have a huge fear of too-dry surfaces. I can't touch newspaper that's too dry/hate writing with pencils, and can't walk barefoot on the ground unless it's pretty slick. It's weird as hell, I know.

12) Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

Yes. Went to the hospital for it twice when I was little-crayons and Kleenex. I had a runny nose and wanted to stop it from running.

13) What's your religion?

Love.

14) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

In the pool or playing with my dogs.

15) Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind.

16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Lykke Li.

17) What was the last lie you told?

Something to stay home watching movies instead of going out drinking, probably.

18) Do you believe in karma?

Very much so.

19) What does your URL mean?

It was just a name I came up for a blog a few years ago.

20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

Weakness- The beginnings of being motivated.

Strength- Creativity and passion.

21) Who is your celebrity crush?

Ryan Gosling.

22) Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

Yes.

23) How do you vent your anger?

Listening to music, working out, shopping.

24) Do you have a collection of anything?

I collect Japanese kokeshi dolls, and animal/mineral specimens for a curiosities cabinet. Also: expensive handbags.

25) Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

On the phone. Video chatting is fun too, though.

26) Are you happy with the person you've become?

Very much so.

27) What's a sound you hate; sound you love?

Hate-Nails on a chalkboard. Lawn mowers in the wee hours of the morning.

Love- Laughter from my friends and family.

28) What's your biggest "what if"?

If I had gone to different colleges or moved different places. Oh, well.

29) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

Ghosts? Not really sure.
Aliens? Yes. I feel like the universe is way too big to have humans be the only inhabitants.

30) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

Pillow, and then iPhone.

31) Smell the air. What do you smell?

The spearmint and eucalyptus oil that's coming out of my aromatherapy vaporizer.

32) What's the worst place you have ever been to?

I was no happy camper when forced to spend a week with family in a small cabin in Tennessee.

33) Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

I enjoy both.

34) Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

Sufjan Stevens.

35) To you, what is the meaning of life?

A quest to find your purpose.

36) Define: Art.

A concrete splattering of what your soul is made of, leaked by your hands, feet, mouth, etc.

37) Do you believe in luck?

Not really luck. Just happy coincidences.

38) What's the weather like right now?

It's been storming and windy all day. I love it.

39) What time is it?

11:35 PM.

40) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

Yes and thankfully, no.

41) What was the last book you read?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

42) Do you like the smell of gasoline?

If it's not too overwhelming, sure.

43) Do you have any nicknames?

Yes, but they are secrets between me and the people that gave them to me ;)

44) What was the last movie you saw?

The Ides of March.

45) What's the worst injury you've ever had?

I've had seizures for years that cause me to faint unexpectedly. Other than that, several concussions and two broken toes.

46) Have you ever caught a butterfly?

Yes.

47) Do you have any obsessions right now?

Handmade bracelets. Leopard cardigans. My new iPhone 4. Dexter. The holidays.

48) What's your sexual orientation?

I'm straight, but believe that love doesn't have any sexual orientation or preference.

49) Ever had a rumor spread about you?

I have. It sucks.

50) Do you believe in magic?

I believe in Disney magic. And Harry Potter, I believe in Harry Potter.

51) Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

I do. But I've only recently learned to get over them, as life is short and forgiveness is a beautiful thing.

52) What is your astrological sign?

Aquarius.

53) Do you save money or spend it?

Both.

54) What's the last thing you purchased?

Starbucks coffee.

55) Love or lust?

Love.

56) In a relationship?

I am.

57) How many relationships have you had?

A lady never spills her most intimate personal details with the entire world, dear.

58) Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

I just tried to do it for like 5 entire minutes. Almost.

59) Where were you yesterday?

Lazy Sunday at home.

60) Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

Yes. My Macbook Pro laptop case and my nook.

61) Are you wearing socks right now?

No. I hate socks!

62) What's your favorite animal?

Elephants, dogs, cats, penguins. I can't choose just one. I love animals.

63) What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

I don't really have any secret weapons. If you like me you do, if you don't...well, then.

64) Where is your best friend?

His house.

65) Spit or swallow?

Oh dear.

66) What is your heritage?

Scottish, Irish, Polish, German, and a little English.

67) What were you doing last night at 12 AM?

Watching a movie with my significant other.

68) What do you think is Satan's last name?

I don't really believe in Satan, but maybe Luciferous?

69) Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

For the sake of honesty, who hasn't?

70) Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Yes. I am very loyal, and I go out of the way to do things for the people that I care for.

71) You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Save the dog.

72) You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live.
a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

a) I would tell those close to me about whatever disease I have and about the short time I had left, yes.
b) Everything I've ever wanted. Blow all of my money on travel, hug and kiss everyone until they say it hurts.
c) Of course I'm scared, I think everyone is. I have no idea whether there is blackness or another adventure. No one does, no matter what they try and tell you. It's the ultimate journey that you have to go through, all by yourself.

73) You can only have one of these things: trust or love.

Trust. There is no true love without trust.

74) What's a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

Don't Stop Believin' by Journey. Karaoke heaven, that one is.

75) What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

5716.

76) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

Trust, unconditional love, being in a relationship with your best friend.

77) How can I win your heart?

Make me laugh really hard.

78) Can insanity bring on more creativity?

Oh, most definitely.

79) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

To be myself in all aspects of my personality and social life.

80) What size shoes do you wear?

Anywhere from a 6 to a 7. It depends on the shoe.

81) What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

Something tragic, heroic, and completely faux like Royal Tenenbaum. "Chelsea died saving 3,000 tiny limbless kittens from an intense building fire, which surprisingly also housed the vaccine needed for a cure for cancer, which she threw down to firefighters below."

82) What is your favorite word?

Bungalow is fun to say.

83) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word: heart.

Aorta.

84) What is a saying you say a lot?

I say a lot of things. I try and mix it up, never keep it boring or predictable.

85) What's the last song you listened to?

"And Just Like That" Abel Korzeniowski

86) Basic question: what's your favorite color/colors?

Black, seafoam green, royal purple, baby pink, gold.

87) What is your current desktop picture?

A nebula.

88) If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Could I tie a few other people to that one person before I pushed the button, though?

89) What would be a question you'd be afraid to tell the truth on?

I'm not really afraid of telling the truth. I'm a pretty honest and open person.

90) One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren't really doing anything, they're just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Wonder who put them there. And then probably poke them incessantly.

91) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Can I be part of the X-Men? Maybe fly, or read minds? Isn't Michael Fassbender in that last movie? Wait. What were you asking again?

92) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

How it feels to be a nervous wreck full of butterflies and completely in love for the first time.

93) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

A lot of health-related scares and unexpected scenarios.

94) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

That would be awkward. I don't really want to do that. But Jared Leto is very pretty, and never quite ages.

95) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

Tokyo. Or Paris. I'd flip a coin and be happy with either one.

96) Do you have any relatives in jail?

No.

97) Have you ever thrown up in the car?

Hello, in the back of a rental car in Big Sur. That was unfortunate and messy.

98) Ever been on a plane?

Many, many times. I love flying.

99) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

I would probably go on a deeply political rant about equality.

100) Give me your top 5 favorite blogs.

galadarling
nicolette mason
this is glamorous
oh no they didn't
lost in the 60's

connecting the dots.

2011-10-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going to share with you a video that changed my life, and I hope it does the same to you. The entire text of the speech is below if you'd rather read it, but I do urge you to watch him deliver it. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. You were a dreamer and a visionary, giving hope to everyone working out of their garage or dorm room. We will miss you.

"I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

'I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."

"The ordinary girls don't like this one bit."

2011-10-04T20:14:00.000-07:00

"Some girls are quite ordinary.

But some are

not.

Some girls have magic running through their fingertips and electricity pulsing inside lightning bolt hearts. They hold entire multicolored universes and galaxies on the inside of their tiny pink hands, needing nothing (or no one) to be simply "interesting".

Everything about them screams

MAGIC

to all of the more common people.

These are the girls who will never pass into nothingness--

their stories will be remembered forever;

and written

and read

and loved

by all the other extraordinary girls who fly onto earth with their lightning-pulse hearts.

The ordinary girls don't like this one bit."

via With Love From Angelica.

i'm ready.

2011-09-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

are you?

via my instagram

as you sleep.

2011-09-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

The coolest beds I've ever seen.

(source)

Life is only on earth. And not for long.

2011-09-25T21:23:00.000-07:00

I urge you to watch this film when it comes out in a theatre near you...that is, if you're a fan of Lars von Trier (like I am.) It's honestly one of my favorites now, on my all-time top 10. Kirsten Dunst certainly earned her Best Actress award at Cannes this year. Her portrayal as the severely depressed Justine is magnificent. Charlotte Gainsbourg's performance is just as strong as Justine's anxious sister, Claire. A handful of other well-known actors appear in it (Alexander and Stellan Skarsgard, John Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, Udo Kier) but Dunst & Gainsbourg are the ones that really shine.

This is not a mainstream film, as it is extremely slow (to most moviegoers who only enjoy attractive women & explosions, IE any Michael Bay film) and quite bleak. But, that is reality. And I believe that the more a film makes you question or re-evaluate your own life, and the more powerful it's message is...the greater impact that a piece of someone's art has made. It didn't hurt that the music and cinematography was beautiful, either.

I also had the pleasure of seeing Ryan Gosling in Drive, and I've got to say that I haven't seen a film that left me feeling like that in years. You'll know what I mean when you watch it. It's also neo-noir and art house-y, so please don't go if you're expecting a classic action movie. That kind of film it is not. I'm pretty obsessed with the soundtrack, too. Here's a preview to enjoy ;)

what the water gave me.

2011-09-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

My favorite new song by the amazing Florence Welch.
"What the Water Gave Me"

no truer words have ever touched my soul.

2011-09-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

“My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me.”

-Fernando Pessoa

my week with marilyn.

2011-09-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite actresses, playing one of my favorite icons. Perfection.

Concrete jungle.

2011-09-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

All images via my instagram, chelseanico.

all I ever wanted.

2011-09-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be on vacation next Friday for 8 days in NYC.

I have a lot of errands to do in the next week, and so in preparation, I'm going on a hiatus for around 2 weeks!

I hope everyone has a wonderful early September.
xxoo

that girl with the eyes.

2011-09-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

Over the years, I've had girl crush after girl crush. Scarlett Johansson, Gemma Arterton, Anna Torv, Angelina Jolie, Anna Karina, etc. But no girl crush has lasted nor been as strong as Christina Ricci. Fell in love with her as Wednesday Addams, the tortured but very relate-able Elizabeth in Prozac Nation, and Katrina opposite Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow. Her huge eyes, beautifully round face, and amazing skills as an actor made me adore her. I'm so excited to see her every week on my television on the new Pan-Am show, and I'm so glad that she's back in the spotlight.

Wise words. And that's all.

2011-08-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

"You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts.

You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth.

But that’s all."

dear rumpus, source.

beautiful. imperfect. life.

2011-08-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

I was sent these magnificent photos by the too-amazing Harper Smith, who collaborated with Cameron Duddy for the Fall 2011 Rachel Roy campaign. I am especially digging those purple boots and colorful cross body bags. Enjoy the beautiful images, and don't forget to check out the video (the music made my inner hipster-gypsy dance, alright? Alright.)

http://www.harpersmithphotography.com/
rachel roy f/11 campaign
harper smith blog

une surprise.

2011-08-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

I am a Francophile...meaning, that I love all things about the French culture. I'm sure a lot of you reading are. Anyway, while planning my upcoming trip to NYC (where I used to live for a few years while attending college) I figured that I would research any cute, new places to sit down and have a nice cup of coffee and a French macaron. Not so much exciting as research, right?

I certainly did not expect what Google alerted me to.

For years, I have been wanting to visit Paris or Tokyo if only for a taste, a sip, a whiff of Laduree. Yes, you heard me correctly.
Laduree, the most celebrated macaron and tea shop in the world, is coming to New York.

I checked out the official website and lo and behold...an opening on Madison Avenue, expected on the 26th of August. A full two weeks before I even board a plane, it will be open.

I am overjoyed that they have decided to FINALLY put one in the states.

So, in the spirit of the opening and my complete and utter excitement (and hugely wishing that they have a boatload of both edible and inedible merchandise for me to buy like in their other stores) here are pictures of the pretties contained within their pastel-painted walls.

'stagrammin.

2011-08-18T23:41:00.000-07:00

Just some snaps from daily life over the past few weeks. I promise I'll have a really interesting ones soon, as I'm going to be vacationing in NYC in September for a little over a week! ;)

The job of the artist is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.

2011-08-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

“We all question our place in the future. The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence. You have a clear and lively voice. Don’t be such a defeatist.”

"All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing."
-Ernest Hemingway in Midnight in Paris

“The erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one you’re actually living in. It’s a flaw in the romantic imagination for people that find it difficult to cope with the present.”

"All men fear death. It’s a natural fear that consumes us all. We fear death because we feel that we haven’t loved well enough or loved at all, which ultimately are one and the same. However, when you make love with a truly great woman, one that deserves the utmost respect in this world and one that makes you feel truly powerful, that fear of death completely disappears. Because when you are sharing your body and heart with a great woman the world fades away. You two are the only ones in the entire universe. You conquer what most lesser men have never conquered before, you have conquered a great woman’s heart, the most vulnerable thing she can offer to another. Death no longer lingers in the mind. Fear no longer clouds your heart. Only passion for living, and for loving, become your sole reality. This is no easy task for it takes insurmountable courage. But remember this, for that moment when you are making love with a woman of true greatness you will feel immortal.

-Midnight In Paris

a life i'd rather be living.

2011-08-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

Small town girls thinking about the lives they'd rather be living.

Source. via Kourtney Roy Photography

very curious.

2011-08-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

“I design clothes because I don’t want women to look innocent and naive… I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.”

Alexander McQueen

“I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem.”

“From childhood’s hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.”
Poe

“Is it really that bad if someone sees who you are? Why is it humans have a problem with letting someone else see that they are human?”
Joseph Gogler

“Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”
Veronica A. Shoffstall

“He suddenly recalled from Plato’s Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”
Milan Kundera

“A lot of parents will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.”
Banksy

“Oh, when the world is said and done
The stars will become so close
And there will be nowhere that I can’t run”
The Deadly Syndrome

“If you remember me, I don’t care if everybody else forgets.”

2011-07-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

“If you remember me, I don’t care if everybody else forgets.”
Haruki Murakami

“Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.”
Miranda July

“Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.”
emile cloran

“I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
F.Scott Fitzgerald

“Your thoughts create your reality, so pay attention to any limited thinking. Learn to stop listening to those thoughts that tell you that you can’t have what you want. You need to be observant to catch them when they come up, for you do not want them sliding by unnoticed. Is there something you are speaking of or thinking will be a struggle for you? Stop for a moment and imagine it working easily and well. What you picture is what you create, so picture the best outcome you can imagine.”
Orin

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen

“Let’s face it, you’re either serious about what you’re doing or you’re not serious about what you’re doing. And you can’t mix the two. And life is short.”
Bob Dylan on creativity.

“Don’t let go too soon. But don’t hang on too long.”
Mitch Albom

“At some point you will realize that you have done too much for someone, that the only next possible step to do is to stop. Leave them alone. Walk away. It’s not like you’re giving up, and it’s not like you shouldn’t try. It’s just that you have to draw the line of determination from desperation. What is truly yours will eventually be yours, and what is not, no matter how hard you try, will never be.”

"What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness."
Leo Tolstoy

Winehouse.

2011-07-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

Rest in peace.
I hope that you finally found some.

Instagram.

2011-07-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

Just some pictures from mine.
If you have an iPhone, follow me & I'll follow you back!
My name on Instagram is chelseanico.

Date a girl who reads.

2011-07-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

Date A Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

(In Response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date An Illiterate Girl.)

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

"after all this time?" "always."

2011-07-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Did you grow up reading the Harry Potter books?
I certainly did.
I remember making that first fanciful trip to the bookstore with my parents in tow to purchase the first one. I couldn't wait to get home and crack it open...so (in regular Chelsea fashion) I didn't.

I didn't wait.
I couldn't.
I delve right into the first chapter, the second, the third (and so on) blind and head-on. And I didn't stop until I had read every last word of that book, 3 hours later.

Putting it down carefully on my bed, I remember pondering if these stories were true
Is magic real?
Could I have been born half a witch? Sometimes I had stared at the TV for a while and it had surprisingly turned on. Were my psychic powers just not yet within my grasp? Was I the second coming of Magneto? (Young me would not yet get that reference.)

But, by far, the most important question of them all: had I received a letter from Hogwarts, care of an owl, signed by Albus Dumbledore? I was convinced that my parents had hidden some important, cool-looking weathered parcel from me.

(I remained skeptical for many years after.)

To say that Harry Potter and J.K Rowling have influenced my transition from childhood to young adult will have been a gross understatement. I recall smuggling (yes, that's pretty much what it felt like!) the newest books in the series into my severely fundamentalist Baptist junior high/high school. After a few students had started reading the books between class or sneaking a chapter in during lecture, teachers and the administration took notice of the seemingly 'evil' story. It had everything that they had taught against-magic, witches, wizards, potions, evil dark lords, spell books...you name it. So, I had to be stealthy. I had to take a page out of the book of Ron & Harry and make them invisible. Literally every HP book I brought to school was carefully hidden in a school-mascot emblazoned book cover. The teachers were none the wiser, and I could indulge in my favorite pastime: reading.

I had successfully smuggled forbidden lecture into my school by giving the novel it's own little invisibility cloak.

(Go ahead, laugh. I was a particularly quirky child.)

These books didn't quite teach me the meaning of good and evil, but they most certainly reinforced them. Through all of Rowling's multi-dimensional characters, it seemed as if anything could be attained, and anything beaten. But not for the greedy. You had to have the love of your family and friends. You had to have that true love, true connections with other people-that was what life was about. And that's what was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's biggest downfall. Love.

Shit, if Harry, Ron & Hermione could brave all of the things thrown at them (which included huge spiders, Dementors, and literally millions of other obstacles) I could get through whatever was plaguing my life or mind at the moment...right?
Right-o.

We are only a few days away from the release of the last film in the series, and I find myself a tad nervous. Anxious that a huge chunk of my childhood will have been torn from my tight little hands. I swear on the inside that I'm kicking and screaming and throwing the biggest temper tantrum that a 24 year old girl can. It saddens me to see this part of me and millions of other Potter Kids I grew up with ending.

But there's still hope.
If there's one thing these books taught me, is that there is always hope.
And that hope lies within passing down your books and movies to the children growing up now.
I know I'll be keeping all of my original books for my children to read, someday. I can only hope that they will feel the emotion that the first generation of HP lovers felt while reading the series.

“The things we lose, have a way of coming back to us in the end.”
-LL

I love you, Harry Potter...and I always will. The boy who lived.

2011-07-04T19:01:00.001-07:00

Dressed up my little cousin as a hippie today. Enjoy her as a hipster hippie.

summer to me.

2011-07-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

All of these things spell summertime to me.

swimming in the pool everyday, frozen drinks, neon colors in my wardrobe, the smell of freshly cut grass, severe thunderstorms and hurricanes (I'm in Florida!) ice cream trucks, coral nail polish, iced coffee, sweet tea, laying out on the beach with friends, hot summer nights spent outside...and in turn, desperately searching for air conditioning, freckles, my face getting pink, seashells, miami vices, vacations, hotels, soft white swedish towels, huge serena van der woodsen sun hats, arts and crafts with my little cousins, movie date nights, staying up into the wee hours of the morning playing boardgames or reading palms/telling fortunes, substituting cold, fresh fruit for several meals.

what does summer mean to you? ;)

daisy lowe and summertime.

2011-07-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

I wish that you knew when I said two sugars, actually I meant three.

2011-07-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

All I know is that you're so nice
You're the nicest thing I've seen
I wish that we could give it a go
See if we could be something

I wish I was your favorite girl
I wish you thought I was the reason you are in the world
I wish my smile was your favorite kind of smile
I wish the way that I dressed was your favourite kind of style

I wish you couldn't figure me out
But you always wanna know what I was about
I wish you'd hold my hand
When I was upset
I wish you'd never forget
The look on my face when we first met

I wish you had a favorite beauty spot
That you loved secretly
'Cause it was on a hidden bit
That nobody else could see
Basically, I wish that you loved me
I wish that you needed me
I wish that you knew when I said two sugars,
Actually I meant three

I wish that without me your heart would break
I wish that without me you'd be spending the rest of your nights awake
I wish that without me you couldn't eat
I wish I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep

Look, all I know is that you're the nicest thing I've ever seen
And I wish that we could see if we could be something
Yeah I wish that we could see if we could be something

happy birthday, miss 50 states.

2011-07-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone has a wonderful Fourth of July weekend, and for my Canadian friends...Happy Canada Day, darlings! Here are some dreamy (as always!) and holiday-appropriate pictures by Harper Smith.

Photographer: Harper Smith
Stylist: Wild @ Heart
Models: Kelley Ash @ Q and Amanda @ Photogenics
MUH: MaliaThompson
harpersmithphotography.com

“I hadn’t realized how much I’d been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to.”

2011-06-28T11:55:00.000-07:00

“There are certain emotions in your body that not even your best friend can sympathize with, but you will find the right film or the right book, and it will understand you.”
Bjork

“They cripple the bird’s wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they.”
Malcolm X

“Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that’s a real treat.”
Joanne Woodward

“I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness. In reality those who satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my idea of them.”
Anais Nin

“…and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else.”
-Lolita

“I hadn’t realized how much I’d been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to.”
Elizabeth Berg

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
H.Jackson Brown

“If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.”
Sylvia Plath

"You will not remember it but
Let me tell you this
Someone in some
Future time
Will think of us."
Sappho

quiet.

2011-06-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

I know I've posted a million times about Caitlin's art, but I can't help it.
Her work keeps getting better and better.
Her brush strokes have the perfect amount of mess and femininity that I adore.

I literally want all of her paintings to adore the walls of my future home.
I want to put them all into thick, ornate golden frames.

and lastly, my most recent favorite

the other sister.

2011-06-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of infatuated with Elle Fanning. For 13 years old, she is simply stunning and a ridiculously talented actress.

The girl is fierce.

(I wish I was this awesome at 13. Shit, I wish I was this cool now, at 24.)

erin fetherston's apartment.

2011-06-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite designers has one of the most beautiful apartments I've ever seen.

All images via vogue.com

Ride me a southbound all the way to Georgia... till the train, it run out of track.

2011-06-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

“Be humble for you are made of earth.
Be noble for you are made of stars.”
Serbian proverb

“One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.”
Salvador Dali

“I promise I shall never give up, and that I’ll die yelling and laughing.”
Jack Kerouac

“You say that you love rain, but you open your umbrella when it rains. You say that you love the sun, but you find a shady spot when the sun shines. You say that you love the wind, but you close your windows when wind blows. This is why I am afraid, you say that you love me too.”
William Shakespeare

“Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty."
Leonard Cohen

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
Helen Keller

“I’m not interested in being unique or different. Everyone is different. No two persons have the same mouth shape for example, and so without making any effort we’re all different. The problem is not how to become different or unique, but how to share an experience, how to be the same almost, how to communicate.”
Yoko Ono

“I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain dark things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.”
Pable Neruda

“The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”
Charles Bukowski

“I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of.”
Joss Whedon

“Fear, after all, is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. Itʼs how politicians peddle policy. It’s how Madison Avenue sells us things we donʼt need. Think about it. The fear of being attacked. The fear that there are communists lurking around every corner. The fear that some little Caribbean country that doesn’t believe in our way of life poses a threat to us. The fear that black culture may take over the world. The fear of Elvis Presleyʼs hips. Actually, maybe that one is a real fear. Fear that our bad breath might ruin our friendships. Fear of growing old, being alone. Fear that weʼre useless and that no one cares what we have to say.”
A Single Man

“but my dear man, reality is only a rorschach ink-blot, you know.”
Alan Watts

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”
Edgar Allen Poe

“Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.”
James Wright

The Girl Who Loves to Levitate.

2011-05-28T06:33:00.000-07:00

Natsumi Hayashi is a sweet-looking Japanese girl who, one day, decided to take self-portraits..of herself levitating. She can be spotted in and around Tokyo, equipped with her SLR and her self-timer. When she feels the moment strike, she presses the shutter button down and then, quite literally, "jumps" into place.

What I love most about her shots is that they don't feel forced. Natsumi has a way of making us feel as though she naturally levitates throughout life.

"We are all surrounded by social stress as we are bound by the forces of earth's gravity," Natsumi says when asked why she took on the series. "So, I hope that people feel something like an instant release from their stressful days by seeing my levitation photos."

Her website.

{via}

yourself, only better: in cartoon (my little) pony form.

2011-05-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

Go here to make your own.
It's the neatest little program!
(It makes my inner child happy.)

kirsten dunst at the premiere of 'melancholia' at cannes.

2011-05-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

{via}

mk steinmiller/frieda & nellie.

2011-05-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

These would make cute friendship/best friend bracelets. Hmm.

mary kate steinmiller
frieda & nellie

my junior.

2011-05-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

Just a picture one of my little cousins who is pretty much an extension of my heart in human form.

She put my glasses and necklace on. She's Chelsea jr, as evidenced by the hipster frames and ornate costume jewelry.

It was a wonderful day full of those mouth-open giggles and pure childish innocence.
More people should be in touch with their inner child.

“The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” -Lost In Translation

2011-05-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

Happy 40th birthday to the beautiful, intelligent, and always stylish Sofia Carmina Coppola.
You inspire me more than anyone else.

the number 46 rule of being a lady.

2011-05-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

rachel mcadams at cannes "midnight in paris" premiere.

2011-05-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

I just thought these pictures were too beautiful not to make a post about. I literally coo-ed out an audible gasp when I saw her. In these pictures, everything is perfect.

(I'm also jealous of the man she's dating, I am quite fond of Michael Sheen.)

pretty hands

2011-05-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

got some pretty sweet henna done today at art rock 2011. she even put purple glitter on it.
amazing day.

life lessons from the 1968 playboy bunny club manual

2011-05-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a quirky little vintage treat.
I just thought it was a humorous little piece of Playboy history.

{source}

sadness is a blessing, oh sadness i'm your girl

2011-04-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

lykke li is pretty much my favorite solo female artist right now, right next to the lovely sia.
if you've never heard of her, she's swedish, and more of an indie music artist. her voice is one of the most unique yet beautiful things i've ever heard. the melancholy and the sadness that she reflects both on her face and in her singing is amazing.

i know places

a little bit

get some

tonight

sadness is a blessing

ani castillo

2011-04-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

you can see more of her sweet work at her flickr.

flower crown & summer

2011-04-26T20:26:00.001-07:00

Here are a few different tutorials on how to make flower crowns.
I know what I'll be draping my head with this summer ;)

step one: create a circle that fits comfortably around your head, that is easy to take on and off. i tripled the amount of wire and then wrapped a fourth time around to make it extra sturdy.

step two: cut your first bloom and place it in the desired direction on the crown. using a small 4 inch piece of wire, wrap the bloom tightly with wire to the circle with pliers.

continue doing so with more blooms, layering the flowers on top and side by side one another until you start to build a full crown of pretty flowers.

you can continue all the way around the circle and fill the entire crown with flowers or leave about one third of the crown empty as i did with my crown. if you do decide to leave an open space on your crown you will want to wrap the exposed wire with floral tape and i did below.

step three. the floral tape is slightly sticky so tightly wrap the exposed wires together from one end to the other.

by bleubird vintage

by pearls in your hair

michelle williams for interview magazine, 2011.

2011-04-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

ph.: MIKAEL JANSSON
styling.: KARL TEMPLER

living with chronic bitchface.

2011-04-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

by krisatomic.

Like someone in a high fever.

2011-04-13T14:52:00.001-07:00

“She is bizarre, fantastic, nervous, like someone in a high fever. Her beauty drowned me. As I sat before her, I felt I would do anything she asked of me. Henry suddenly faded. She was color and brilliance and strangeness. By the end of the evening I had extricated myself from her power. She killed my admiration by her talk. Her talk. The enormous ego, false, weak, posturing. She lacks the courage of her personality, which is sensual, heavy with experience. Her role alone preoccupies her. She invents dramas in which she always stars. I am sure she creates genuine dramas, genuine chaos and whirlpools of feelings, but I feel that her share in it is a pose. That night, in spite of my response to her, she sought to be whatever she felt I wanted her to be. She is an actress every moment. I cannot grasp the core of June. Everything Henry has said about her is true.I wanted to run out and kiss her fantastic beauty and say: “June, you have killed my sincerity too. I will never know again who I am, what I am, what I love, what I want. Your beauty has drowned me, the core of me. You carry away with you a part of me reflected in you. When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence. You are the woman I want to be. I see in you that part of me which is you. I feel compassion for your childlike pride, for your trembling unsureness, your dramatization of events, your enhancing of the loves given to you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madnesses.”
-Anais Nin

He said that death was his father's road to awe.

2011-04-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

“I’m nobody. I’m a tramp, a bum, a hobo. I’m a boxcar and a jug of wine… and a straight razor—if you get too close to me.”
-Charles Manson

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
-Muhammad Ali

“She’s never where she is,” I said. “She’s only inside her head.”
-White Oleander

“You’re the only girl I’ve seen for a long time that actually did look like something blooming.”
-F.Scott Fitzgerald

“Who gave them the absolute ‘truth’? There is nothing absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”
-Frida Kahlo

“For the earth is only an atom in the universe of worlds.”
-Edgar Cayce

“I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That’s what I want to explore. We’re all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we’re going to die, each of us secretly believing we won’t.”
-Synecdoche, NY

“No, no. Listen, listen. He said that if they dug his father’s body up, it would be gone. They planted a seed over his grave. The seed became a tree. Moses said his father became a part of that tree. He grew into the wood, into the bloom. And when a sparrow ate the tree’s fruit, his father flew with the birds. He said… death was his father’s road to awe.”
-The Fountain

the uncertainty principle.

2011-03-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

“Whenever a limiting thought or belief arises, ask yourself, “What could be the only outcome from believing this?” When it is realized how life only confirms the validity of any thought or belief for as long as it is being believed, you’ll gain the insight to see through every false claim any thought or belief suggests. Soon, you’ll lose interest in assuming any limiting possibility is the only possibility for you.”
-Matt Kahn

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
-e.e. cummings

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: sluts just heal quicker.”
-Sophia Petrillo, The Golden Girls

“The Earth is the cradle of the mind, we cannot live forever in a cradle.”
-Konstantin Tsiokovsky

“Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It’s all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary.”
-Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“I wondered what happened when you offered yourself to someone, and they opened you, only to discover you were not the gift they expected and they had to smile and nod and say thank you all the same.”
-Jodi Picoult

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”
-Bukowski

how about remembering your divinity?

2011-02-22T23:20:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite songs about life and enlightenment.

How about getting off of these antibiotics
How about stopping eating when I'm filled up
How about them transparent dangling carrots
How about that ever elusive kudo

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

How about me not blaming you for everything
How about me enjoying the moment for once
How about how good it feels to finally forgive you
How about grieving it all one at a time

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

The moment I let go of it was
The moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was
The moment I touched down

How about no longer being masochistic
How about remembering your divinity
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How about not equating death with stopping

Thank you India
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence

quotation(s)

2011-02-17T21:21:00.000-08:00

All of these beautiful quotes found at my favorite tumblr, arindelaney.

"The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd; the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are."
— Fernando Pessoa | Bernardo Soares, The Book of Disquiet

"You are in my guts and I am acting because you are alive. And meanwhile you are probably sleeping exhausted and happy in the arms of some brilliant whore, or maybe even the Swiss girl who wants to marry you. I cry out to you. I want to write you, of my love, that absurd faith which keeps me chaste, so chaste, that all I have ever touched or said to others becomes only the rehearsal for you, and preserved only for this. These others now pass the time, and even so little a way over the boundary, to kisses, and touches, I cry mercy and back away, frozen. I am in black, dressed more and more often in black now. I lost one of my red gloves at a cocktail party. I only have black ones left, and they are cold and comfortless."
— Sylvia Plath

“You are beautiful,” he said suddenly.
“How do you know?”
“Because for women moonlight is the hardest light of all.”
“Am I nice in the moonlight?”
“You are the loveliest thing that I have ever known.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Short Stories

"She’s got the whole dark forest living inside of her."
— Tom Waits

"With each new day it becomes more apparent to me that everything and everyone in this world is connected in some beautiful and inexplicable way, and the more I accept that, the more my world seems to come together"

— Andrew McMahon

"Things rot. It was all about decay. I used flowers because they die."
— Alexander McQueen

"And I fear my life will be over and I will have never lived it unfettered."
— Ani DiFranco

"He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived."
— Franz Kafka in a letter to Max Brod, 1922.

"Only absolute nonbeing is absolutely evil. Whatever exists to any degree of perfection has a grade of goodness."

— Mortimer Adler

"Like cubic zirconia, I only look real. I’m an imposter. The fact is, I am not like other people."
— Augusten Burrough

"If everyone isn’t beautiful, then no one is."
— Andy Warhol

"You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger."
— Buddha

"We’ve gone to sleep back to chest,
the way lips rejoin
after sighing."
— Kirmen Uribe, excerpt from The Kiss

"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."
— Douglas Adams

Pleasures of the Flesh: Fernando Vicente.

2011-02-02T16:47:00.000-08:00

Fernando Vicente Website.

"Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise that I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?"-Maya Angelou

2011-01-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

“Make voyages. Attempt them. There’s nothing else.”
-Tennessee Williams

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
-Camus

“Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down, mouthing knowledge as your heart falls out of your mouth.”
-Anne Sexton

"on a day when
we were dark
and not so full of
light
we met
what did we find?
nothing.
everything, when we closed
our eyes
which anyway
had never been open.

once, we thought we
loved each other
who can reverse
time?
we tried.
we stepped out
of space
into some new
step of distance
and fell—
and not in love."

-Carolyn M.Rodgers

“There are two types of people - those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!” and those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are."
-Frederick L. Collins

“I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby dest to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled.”
-Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
-Maya Angelou

“I find beauty in the unconventional and delight in the enigmatic.”

“Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going —
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.”
-Kozan Ichikyo

“A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.”
-Bukowski

20 Untranslatable Words from Around the World.

2011-01-17T22:45:00.001-08:00

1. Toska

Russian – Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

2. Mamihlapinatapei

Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start”

3. Jayus

Indonesian – “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh”

4. Iktsuarpok

Inuit – “To go outside to check if anyone is coming.”

5. Litost

Czech – Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, remarked that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.” The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.

6. Kyoikumama

Japanese – “A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement”

7. Tartle

Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

8. Ilunga

Tshiluba (Southwest Congo) – A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person “who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.”

9. Prozvonit

Czech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”

10. Cafuné

Brazilian Portuguese – “The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.”

11. Schadenfreude

German – Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune. I guess “America’s Funniest Moments of Schadenfreude” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

12. Torschlusspanik

German – Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to “the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.”

13. Wabi-Sabi

Japanese – Much has been written on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.” (Altalang.com)

14. Dépaysement

French – The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.

15. Tingo

Pascuense (Easter Island) – Hopefully this isn’t a word you’d need often: “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.”

16. Hyggelig

Danish – Its “literal” translation into English gives connotations of a warm, friendly, cozy demeanor, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s likely something that must be experienced to be known. I think of good friends, cold beer, and a warm fire.

17. L’appel du vide

French – “The call of the void” is this French expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from high places.

18. Ya’aburnee

Arabic – Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

19. Duende

Spanish – While originally used to describe a mythical, spritelike entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature, its meaning has transitioned into referring to “the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.” There’s actually a nightclub in the town of La Linea de la Concepcion, where I teach, named after this word.

20. Saudade

Portuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word “refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.” Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade.

NEVER LET ME GO.

2011-01-13T23:05:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite books by Kazuo Ishiguro turned into a hauntingly beautiful film, Never Let Me Go.

all screen caps by me.

heads up.

2011-01-10T23:47:00.000-08:00

A few of my favorite Charles Bukowski selections.

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here

---

Time was motionless while existence was a throbbing unbearable thing.

---

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

---

I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
---
all theories
like clichés
shot to hell,
all these small faces
looking up
beautiful and believing;
I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.
we have narrowed it down to
the butcher knife and the
mockingbird.
wish us
luck.
---

if I never see you again
I will always carry you
inside
outside

on my fingertips
and at brain edges

and in centers
centers
of what I am of
what remains.

---

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.

---

On a personal note.

2010-12-30T00:03:00.000-08:00

My life has changed drastically in the last few months.
It's also about to get one last one, on the first day of 2011.
My father, probably my best friend in the entire world, is leaving Saturday for Afghanistan for a job to help with the reconstruction. He'll be an important contractor staying mainly on the base, working closely with military and private sectors.

I can only say now, 2 days before he leaves for his first 90 day shift, that the reality of having to say goodbye is setting in.

I am constantly crying, constantly hugging him, and just spending as much time as possible with him.

I love my family. They are crazy people most of the time...but they are mine, and I'm happy to call them my own.

Chelsea
Be safe take care I'll be home soon Dad
I love you

He got me these dog tags while at the army/navy store, buying all of the different provisions he needed.

I love you, Dad. Best of luck.

2010-12-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and amazing time ringing in 2011! Thank you for always being so very lovely.

-Chelsea.

black swan, part 2.

2010-12-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

what happened to my sweet girl? (act I)

2010-12-19T23:27:00.000-08:00

So, I went to a little 6-screen movie theater the other night (the little independent theaters make me weak at the knees) & saw Black Swan...which I have been waiting forever for since announced. It did not disappoint. Here are screencaps from the movie which I all edited to not look like a fuzzy DVD screener, but be warned-they contain huge plot points & spoilers. I hope everyone will see this-Aronofsky is one of my favorite directors of all time. Natalie Portman played her best role thus far, & I would be profoundly surprised if she doesn't win an award for this psychologically exhausting movie. I especially loved the way they paid attention to the pale hues/colors that ballerinas wear, even down to the tiny idiosyncrasies that current or former dancers will appreciate. On a subconscious level, It makes me want to take up ballet and point again.

And if you're a fan of the composer, Clint Mansell...the Black Swan OST is out now and, as always, hauntingly beautiful. I still can't quite grasp how that man knows how to metamorphosize so many vibrations into actual human emotion.

PART I BLACK SWAN SCREENCAPS. PART 2 COMING A.S.A.P

all good things.

2010-12-13T12:26:00.000-08:00

some various gifs & screencaps from the movie, "all good things"

oh wow, lovely.

2010-12-11T23:24:00.000-08:00

Cassie Ainsworth is my absolute favorite character from skins, s1 & s2.
*Actually, she's one of my favorite characters from any show.

"I'll love you forever, Sid."
"You will?"
"Yes. That's the problem."

"You like me. You like me. Look up, if you like me. Look up, if you like me. "

"It's your choice, Sid. Everything is your choice. Wake up Sid."

"I like the things that I like, but I love everything."

"Oh, wow...lovely! No, but I like that you're funny looking..."

"I like reading really big books with big words. And holding the book up to my face so that no one can see me. And then taking it down again, so that everyone can. "

"My husband will wear his glasses all the time. Even in the shower."

"When you think about it, the world is so huge and people ask 'What are you going to do?', as if you can do that much."

"I collect love heart sweets: you can change the messages if you scratch them, you just need a pin."

all images via weheartit.com

contempt with bardot/une femme est une femme with karina.

2010-12-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

just some screencaps i took of these two movies. enjoy.

oh, the weather outside is frightful.

2010-12-10T17:58:00.000-08:00

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.”
-Carl Sagan

“To me, good talkers are beautiful because good talk is what I love."
-Andy Warhol

“I wish we could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a story.”
-G.K. Chesterton

“Not knowing whether to wait or to forget is the worst kind of suffering.”
-Paulo Coelho

“Living on borrowed experience is not living at all— as if your insatiable hunger could ever be satisfied by a mere description of the banquet. You yourself must attend the festivities and partake of the repast; you must sample and taste the various offerings to appease your belly. This is not to say that you should be heedless of the sometimes sage advice of those older and wiser and make a pig of yourself, only that growing without experiencing your own growing pains is not on the menu.”
-Scott M. Gallagher

“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force… We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.”
-Max Planck

I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
-Bukowski

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul.”
-Carl Jung

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.

I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
-Neil Gaiman

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”
-Henri Louis Bergson

“Cassie: I don’t know why I am the way I am.
Sid: It’s alright.
Cassie: No, it’s not alright. Something makes me hate everything. Everything.”
-skins

“You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.”
-Isadora Duncan

rose mcgowan for contributor magazine.

2010-12-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

scans courtesy of rose-mcgowan.com

the collective act of suffering/personal thoughts.

2010-11-30T14:38:00.000-08:00

I've only recently come to the robust conclusion that life is, in fact, a collective act of suffering. Some earlier, some later. Some constantly, some intermittently. Some deeply, some battling a faux war. Yet, we all feel it. It happens to every single one of us, no matter what medium it takes. Heartbreak, starvation, confusion, jealousy, death, anxiety. It's as though we're almost these poor, jagged creatures being polished and refined for someone else's greater purpose. It hurts like hell, and yet there's nothing greater than pain to let you know that you're still alive and capable of redirecting, of changing that suffering.

jeux d'enfants.

2010-11-29T18:02:00.000-08:00

All screencaps by/edited by me. Please credit flickr.com/quitecheekygirl or this blog. Thanks :)

baby, it's cold outside.

2010-11-28T23:19:00.000-08:00

Be always drunken.
Nothing else matters:
that is the only question.
If you would not feel
the horrible burden of Time
weighing on your shoulders
and crushing you to the earth,
be drunken continually.

Drunken with what?
With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.
But be drunken.

Charles Baudelaire

“Sometimes we can choose the paths we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all.”
-Neil Gaiman

“The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth - the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars- the high mass ones among them- went unstable in their later years- they collapsed and then exploded- scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy- guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems- stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up- many people feel small, cause their small and the universe is big. But I feel big because my atoms came from those stars."
-Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist, there are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges and absorbs the impact.”
-Nicole Krauss

“How does one become a butterfly?” she asked pensively. ”You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
-Trina Paulus

“Existence. It can be doubted very much whether existence is a perfection or degree of reality; for it can be doubted whether existence is one of those things that can be conceived — that is, one of the parts of essence; or whether it is only a certain imaginary concept, such as that of heat and cold, which is a denomination only of our perception, not of the nature of things. Yet if we consider more accurately, [we shall see] that we conceive something more when we think that a thing A exists, than when we think that it is possible. Therefore it seems to be true that existence is a certain degree of reality; or certainly that it is some relation to degrees of reality. Existence is not a degree of reality, however; for of every degree of reality it is possible to understand the existence as well as the possibility. Existence will therefore be the superiority of the degrees of reality of one thing over the degrees of reality of an opposed thing. That is, that which is more perfect than all things mutually incompatibles exists, and conversely what exists is more perfect than the non-existent, but it is not true that existence itself is a perfection, since it is only a certain comparative relation [comparatio] of perfections among themselves.”
-Robert Merrihew Adams

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."
-Albert Einstein

30 minutes with sofia coppola.

2010-11-28T22:51:00.001-08:00

she is my spirit animal.

you're a stone fox.

2010-11-25T17:04:00.000-08:00

lullaby.

2010-11-22T23:03:00.000-08:00

Send a wish upon a star
Do the work and you'll go far
Send a wish upon a star
Make a map and there you are

Send a hope upon a wave
A dying wish before the grave
Send a hope upon a wave
For all this souls you failed to save

And you stood tall
Now you will fall
Don't break the spell
Of a life spent trying to do well
And you stood tall
Now you will fall
Don't break the spell
Of a life spent trying to do well

Send a question in the wind
It's hard to know where to begin
So send the question in the wind
And give an answer to a friend

Place your past into a book
Put in everything you ever took
Place your past into a book
Burn the pages let them cook

And you stood tall
Now you will fall
Don't break the spell
Of a life spent trying to do well
And you stood tall
Now you will fall
Don't break the spell
Of a life spent trying to do well

Send a wish upon a star
Send a wish upon a star

LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF, (asshole.)

2010-11-22T21:40:00.000-08:00

I applaud you.

holiday spirit by audrey malo.

2010-11-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

the wizarding world of harry potter & the magic kingdom.

2010-11-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

All photos taken by me. Please credit this blog or flickr.com/quitecheekygirl. Thank you!

Or a girl who makes potions in a traveling show.

2010-11-15T14:01:00.000-08:00

I'm not one of those that can easily hide.

She is already water.

2010-11-11T23:30:00.000-08:00

“It is not enough to conquer; one must know how to seduce.”
-Voltaire

“But to those who seek to turn their lives into remarkable portraits of brilliant creative expression, safe is a very dangerous place to be. Stop editing yourself. Your heart can’t take it anymore.”
-Scott Ginsberg

“It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes short again and again;
who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
DARING GREATLY
so that his place shall never be
with those timid souls
who know neither victory or defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

“Language is a skin. I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.”
-Roland Barthes

Yellow bird(n): a person’s true love; the one person they are both externally and internally, both consciously and subconsciously attached to with the realization that those feelings will never die; the one person that they know they can’t live without if they find this person, they are the luckiest in the world. if not, they are eternally screwed.

“The wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water.”
-Thich Nacht Hahn

“If you start running after something that’s not you, that you’ll never have, you’re just wasting your time. It’s better to bring out what you do have.”
-Anna Tsuchiya

“I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.”
-Yohji Yamamoto

“To move the world we must first move ourselves.”
-Socrates

“Look, other bands, they want to make it about sex or pain, but you know, The Beatles, they had it all figured out, okay? “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The first single. It’s effing brilliant, right?… That’s what everybody wants, Nicky. They don’t want a twenty-four-hour hump sesh, they don’t want to be married to you for a hundred years. They just want to hold your hand.”
-Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“‎The world fascinates me,” she whispered.
He smiled, “Good. Then we shall explore it all.”
-Short Stories

“Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being, each of us, the center of the universe; of our desires forever outnumbering our means of satisfying them.”
-How To Be Alone

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
-The Secret History

constellations.

2010-11-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

“Many people suffer from the fear
of finding oneself alone,
and so they don’t find themselves
at all.”
-Rollo May

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find the ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.”
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey

“It is interesting what we find scary and what we find beautiful. It’s very close, sometimes.”
Karin Dreijer-Andersson

there is this girl, I’ve never met.
I speak with her everyday, religiously.
she describes her dreams to me in a way I truly understand.
we relate in every way imaginable, although we’ve never made eye contact.
in vast ways, she gives me hope and confidence in every stride I take.
without her, more lightening would be bottled inside me then allowed.
she opens me, devours my emotion with genuine permission by myself.
there is this girl, I’ve never met.

Zac Meier

“I have learned to love that which is meant to harm me, so that I can stand in the way of those who are less strong. I can take the bullets for those who aren’t able to.”
-Margaret Cho

a speckle of my brain/randomness.

2010-11-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

“Here’s to all the places we went. And all the places we’ll go. And here’s to me, whispering again and again and again and again: I love you."
-John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
-Marcel Proust

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
-Ira Glass

“I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.”
-Alice Roosevelt Longworth

“It’s actually a rare and precious thing to discover what it is you love to do, and I encourage you to remain unapologetically consumed by it. Be faithful to your gift and very confident in its value.”
-Jonathan Ive

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”
-Neil Gaiman

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.”
-Alan Bennett

“I can negate everything of that part of me that lives on vague nostalgias, except this desire for unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and cohesion. I can refute everything in this world surrounding me that offends or enraptures me, except this chaos, this sovereign chance and this divine equivalence which springs from anarchy. I don’t know whether this world has meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”
- Albert Camus, 1955, The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays

the indulgence issue.

2010-10-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

The new issue of DUJOUR Magazine is out now, and I have two features in it! Go here to read/preview the issue & don't forget to subscribe to this wonderful publication :)

(My contributions are 'The Neverending Summer' and 'Tastes of Summer' section)

all hallow's eve.

2010-10-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

kanye west makes his directorial debut in 'runaway'

2010-10-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

I love the artistic direction/color palette.