Fashion Icon: Janis Joplin

Though unorthodox, one of my recent favorite fashion icons is Janis Joplin--that is to say, early Janis Joplin. I love the 1960s mixture of patterns and colors, as well as the free style of her hair. She clearly hardly did anything to it, which is fantastic for me because I can hardly get my hair to do anything other than what it likes.

I love the look of peasant blouses, even though I can't particularly wear them myself. She really does a fantastic job of layering necklaces and showing off how jewel tones can just make your skin look fantastic. And the pants that she wears!! I'd never wear them in real life (I'm an utter demin kid, personally) but I think they're just phenomenal.






A rather classic photo of her, I believe it's on the cover of her Greatest Hits album. I am in love with this embroidered jacket/shirt thing, I can't really tell from the photo. If I could find that anywhere I'd snap it up in a New York minute, let me tell you.

Everyone seems to remember Janis Joplin at the end--deeply troubled, overly haggard from years of hard drugs and alcohol. She had an incredible voice and seems to just have been one of the most fun people to hang around with before fame and its drawbacks seemed to eat her from the inside out. I prefer to remember her younger, somewhat happier--just kinda living life.

Grace Slick, a rather impressive icon herself, said "Janis knew more than I did about "how it was", but she lacked enough armor for the inevitable hassles. She was open and spontaneous enough to get her heart trampled with a regularity that took me thirty years to experience or understand."

Bright Side--

Rather than groan and moan about all the potential downsides of returning to the USA, I'm going to pep myself up with all of the things I'm looking forward to:

~baking cookies and my lemon pound cake

~watching television/having a television

~Watching all the movies I missed while in England:
-Inkheart
-Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
-Slumdog Millionaire
-Coraline
-Adventureland

-The Brothers Bloom
-Little Ashes (though Dali scares the shit out of me)
-Easy Virtue
-Terminator Salvation


~Movies that I can't wait to see that are coming out soon
-Public Enemies
-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
-500 Days of Summer
-Taking Woodstock
-Inglorious Basterds
-Julie and Julia

~Food that I will eat:
-Pancakes (in Britain they're like crepes, not flapjacks)
-skittles
-fruit salad

~Playing badminton with Dad (I hope I hope I hope)
~helping my sister plan her wedding!!
~hanging out with my friends
~going into D.C to see the new National Museum of American History, et al
~going to see Spring Awakening at the Kennedy Center with my sister and her friends, a treat for my birthday
~going to Screen on the Green 2009!
~taking walks in my neighborhood
~attempting to find my chi at yoga classes
~playing cards with my mom
~my own bed
~moving back into my apartment
~reading

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

I've decided that I'm going to try to do a post, every so often, of blogs and blog writers that inspire me. What I love best about the blogosphere is the crazy level of inspiration and exchange of ideas across the world. It's such a unique outlet for creativity, and it has, honestly, almost totally eclipsed my eternal love for magazines. So!

My first post is for Casey's Musings (http://blog.caseybrowndesigns.com).




She hails from my native Northern Virginia, and just seems like the sweetest girl (woman) to ever cross the blog-world. She hosts an etsy shop for vintage, called Elegant Musings, and while it doesn't have an items up yet, her impeccable taste in her own wardrobe leads me to believe it will be utterly fantastic. If she didn't have enough talent, she's an incredible graphic designer that (if I'm not mistaken) does all of the photo work, graphic-y stuff (I have zero knowledge about graphic design, if you can't tell) on her blog, like the beautiful picture above. But what most impresses me are her vintage-inspired make-up and hair tutorials. I adore, adore vintage hairstyles, particularly the 1940s/50s, which seems to be her specialty. My hair has gotten quite long and textured (it used to be flat out curly, but not quite so much anymore), and I've taken to twirling and bobby pining it off of my face. But when I tried to go any deeper into vintage looks, particularly make-up, I've always fallen flat on my face--despite the many excellent tutorials that exist on youtube.

But there's something about the way Casey explains doing vintage hair and make-up that just clicks with me. It's very simple and she does a great job of explaining and showing why she does things the way she does them. In particular, I love her basic "girl-next-door" make-up tutorial, that takes the basic 1940s pin-up look and warms it up a bit. It makes a remarkable difference for those of us with pale skin--any attempts I made previously made me look like a ghost, but Casey's tutorial made me quite the doll for the RAG Union Ball!


In her honor, here's a clip from Abbott and Costello's 1941 film, "Buck Privates" with the Andrews Sisters singing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"

Operation Overlord

It's been awhile since I've posted anything history related, which is a shame. At any rate, I would especially like to recognize that Saturday, June 6th was the 65th anniversary of D-day, the storming of the Normandy beaches. I've been lucky enough to have been at the beaches of Normandy twice, and I can tell you that I have rarely seen anything more eerie and awe-inspiring than staring out past those gray-brown stretches of sand, those steep rocky climbs and realizing the magnanimity of what all those brave soldiers did.




I remember first looking out across the Cemetery at Normandy when I was sixteen years old, stunned at the sheer number of graves that stretched out before me. They shone, bright white in the bright June sunlight and crisp against the green grass. Music from the chapel swelled over the grounds as people walked peacefully and respectfully about the graves. Peppered throughout the crosses were a handful of Jewish Stars of David--a brief reminder of the atrocities that were occurring across boarders in numbers even more vast. But I didn't fully understand what I was seeing.



At eighteen, I found myself in Normandy yet again and more knowledgeable. I understood the seemingly insurmountable odds faced by this international group of men, all fighting to free France from the terrifying grip of Nazi Germany. As we stood by the Reflecting Pool at Omaha Beach, the graves yet again stretched before me, I realized that I would never fully understand what had happened on the beaches of Normandy when brave men gave their lives for a country not their own, and for a principle that we have managed to uphold to this day.



At sixteen I gave my grandfather, a World War II veteran stationed in France and Belgium, a small film canister. It was filled with sand from Omaha Beach. I had never and have never since seen that particular look on his face. A mixture of great sadness, great thought, and great pride.









historical picture credit to army.mil at Flickr, American Cemetery picture credit to Tricherson at Flickr,