THE MOVIE WAS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE BOOK IN THAT THERE WAS NOTHING FROM THE BOOK IN THE MOVIE

Today I'm reviewing Lancome's hero serum, which is called Genifique. Basically, it's supposed to give you younger looking skin. How? By supplying your skin with some patented protein formula. Apparently, it makes your skin replicate proteins it made when it was younger, therefore making your skin look younger.

First I'll say that it seems to work. Your skin looks smoother, softer, plumper and younger after using the serum. I'd say I saw results in around 2 weeks.

HOWEVER, it's really expensive and, correct me if I'm wrong but... I don't think the bottle was full. It's hard to say because the packaging is completely opaque, and the bottle is made of glass which is weighted on the bottom to make it seem heavier. Also, the serum is dispensed using a sort of dropper that's attached inside the cap, so you don't really have a good idea of how much product is in there....

But I swear, the bottle was only half to 3/4 full.

WE'RE NOT STUPID LANCOME! I don't think I'll repurchase, even though it works, because I've used other creams/serums that work just as well, where my money is going into my face instead of some spokesmodel's pocket (DHC, take me back I'm sorry). Anyways, 3.5 checks because the serum does get some results.



[Today's title is a quote from Bret Easton Ellis' new novel, Imperial Bedrooms. I'm only on page 17 and already there's been a movie premiere, the brutal murder of a heroin addict, a trip from NYC to LA, and several vacuous entertainment industry parties. It's good to have you back, Bret.]

DON'T STOP TILL YOU GET ENOUGH

I reckon if I ever tried out for American Idol (or X-factor if you're in the UK), I'd sing "I Wanna Be Where You Are" by the Jackson 5. It's the perfect audition song because:

1. It reminds you of adorable little MJ, so everyone feels warm and fuzzy. 
2. It requires musicality - it's got some difficult intervals so you can show off. 
3. His signature style wasn't so formed then, so you can put your own spin on it and make it yours. 
4. Love those throwback dance moves.

Now... could I pull off the 60s fringed leather jacket while belting a classic Jackson 5? Would it be a special moment? I don't mind telling you, I'd like to find out....
  

NB: I don't intend to ever audition for either X-Factor or American Idol.

AN ISOCELES TRIANGLE IN A CUMULUS CLOUD

Louis Roederer Champagne / À la Recherche de l'Œuvre from Maxime Boizel on Vimeo.

IT MAY BE THE COLDEST DAY OF WINTER. WHAT DOES HE THINK OF THAT? I MEAN, WHAT DO I? AND IF I DO, PERHAPS I AM MYSELF AGAIN.

I grew up listening to jazz; my mother would play Billie Holiday on lazy Sunday afternoons as she cleaned the house, and there was always an Ella Fitzgerald tape somewhere. I studied vocal jazz for a couple of years, and even got to travel around performing with an ensemble. I felt like, if this was my music, an indigenous American music, then I should know about it. I still think jazz guitar is some of the most beautiful music in the world and for me, glamour is epitomised by the clean, sharp way people dressed in the height of the Jazz Era - Billie Holiday with red lips and a gardenia in her hair.





[Title comes from a quote from the book Meditations in an Emergency, which was read in the series Mad Men which also knows a thing or two about glamour.]

[Music is jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery (who influenced Jimi Hendrix) playing "Round Midnight" live. It was written by jazz pianist Thelonious Monk] 

THE AFTERNOON OF EXTRAVAGANT DELIGHT

After editing these What I Wore photos, I realised, I am really just giving an impression of what I wore and how I felt that day, rather than an actual representation of what the clothes were, what they cost, and what labels are inside them. I think it's better this way, no? It's more like the editorials which inspired me to write about fashion in the first place.

[This post's title was the title of a painting featured in the Australian film Candy, directed by Neil Armfield starring Heath Ledger, Geoffrey Rush and Abbie Cornish. The most amazing song on the soundtrack was Sugar Man by Rodriguez]

MAD RUSH

[Mad Rush is the title of a Philip Glass piano composition. There's a video of him playing it above. Nice shadows. It makes me think of these images, which I found here , here and here]

IMPERIAL BEDROOMS

My style lately is all black, white, neutrals and and stripes. washed out and ballsy, like I'm a person in a Bret Easton Ellis novel or the warehouse in an 80s Janet Jackson music video.

STANDING AT THE BROAD SLATE SINK CONTEMPLATING THE WINTER-VIEW OF DITCH-TRAVERSED MARSH AND THE BRAMBLED ISLANDS OF HAWTHORN AND ALDER AND THE STEEL-BLUE CHANNEL BEYOND AND THE RIM OF DUNES WHITE AS SALT AND ABOVE THE HORNED EDGE OF THE OCEAN, SHE AT LAST AGREED

First post of 2011, get in! I'm experimenting with different photographic finishes, so this is my latest Photo of the Day. 

I would love it if my images had the same finish as the famous Spitting Scene from Seinfeld. (the a clip below shows what I mean, but if you want to see the whole thing click here). It's basically a spoof on the controversy surrounding the Kennedy assassination. 

Speaking of the Kennedy's, today's title comes from a passage in the book Couples by John Updike, which is set during the early 60s in a little Massachusetts town about an hour south of Boston. I lived just outside Boston when I first started writing this blog, so the book makes me homesick for the salty studio where I lived next to the ocean, and going into the city full of professors, crazed sports fans, geese, crayfish and lobster salads, thousands of students, and women with bobbed hair, cardigans and pearls. I'd fight through 10 inches of January snow to go to work at the university, then volunteer in Cambridge, then bask in the glow of Trader Joe's for dinner. What a gorgeous city. 





(PS: It's my birthday!)