Book - Grace by Grace Coddington
Remember when you watched The September Issue and completely fell in love with the big-haired force-of-nature named Grace Coddington? The Creative Director of Vogue, also known as the only person who could stare Anna Wintour in the eyes and still maintain possession of her soul, released a memoir about her modelling and later editorial work in fashion.
She begins by saying how little she wanted to be involved with the filming of The September Issue, and absolutely hated the intrusive nature of the camera crew. She was in fact horrified that she became the second most featured person in the documentary apart from Anna, but saw how the movie opened people's eyes to the creative process in shooting a spread. She had stories to tell, and boy are they fascinating. Her extraordinary life is like a who's who guide to designers, photographers, models and celebrities, and I loved the way she describes the inspiration for her beautiful photo-shoots.
I found her writing is accessible and descriptive without becoming too alienating, and is often humorous, especially when talking about working with Anna. She presents a softer side to Anna that we don't hear about, or rather, wouldn't want to admit that she has, because we love nothing more than to villianize her. She isn't disillusioned about fashion being anything more than what it is, and wouldn't claim that fashion is anything as lofty as art, but appreciates it as a medium where designers convey their sense of beauty. It was an engrossing read and her life of jet-setting to exotic locations for work was totally escapist for me.
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| Vogue 2009 December Issue, Grace Coddington as creative director and Annie Leibovitz as Photographer |
Movie - Pitch Perfect
I adore movies about underdogs beating the smug popular kids, I'm obsessed with Rebel Wilson, I lactate with excitement for well-arranged acapella music, and I go balls-out crazy for absurd humor. It was as if all the planets had aligned for this movie, if planets were things that I liked and I was the Sun and all the planets did things just to please me and they made this movie to satisfy the needs of the Sun. (I enjoy metaphors with me in the center of everything.)
The movie's about a fallen collegiate acapella girl-group fighting for the championships in acapella (which is apparently a thing), and they need the new surly girl who has all these great ideas about mixing songs but all she wants to do is be a DJ and wants nothing to do with your lame-ass harmonizing. Every line in this movie is laugh-out-loud funny, and when I say laugh-out-loud I really do mean you'll laugh, not just exhale more air out of your nose the way people do when they find something mildly funny. There's this really creative scene where all the acapella groups on campus come together and have a riff-off, where to win your group has to cut in with a song that begins with the last word of the song the previous group was singing.
The music's great, the movie's so adorable and I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm in love with Rebel Wilson.
Album - Night Visions by Imagine Dragons
If I were to compile a list of my favourite albums released in 2012, naturally Celine Dion's Sans attendre would be right there at the top, but that's predictable and gushing about how perfect it is would be too simple.
An album that surprised me was Night Visions. I don't usually listen to many alternative rock bands, but their melody is addictive and their songs are all consistently powerful. It's Time was the first song I heard by them, and I was just instantly hooked. Now I listen to their songs when I want to imagine myself walking through a post-apocalyptic wasteland and striding through the bones of my fallen enemies. It's my go-to album when playing stuff from my iPod for someone else, it's universally loved and makes them think I have good taste in music when in truth I just want to spazz out to some One Direction.
My favourites from the album includes Radioactive and Demons.
Song - Read All About It (Part III) by Emeli Sandé
To explain my love for this song, I have to first explain what an OTP is. In the thrilling and scary world of internet fandoms, you ship characters (fictional or otherwise) that you believe would make a good couple, and the one you believe in the most is your One True Pairing (OTP), and if your shipped characters or celebrities do get together, it becomes canon.
So my OTP is Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles of One Direction, and they are collectively known as Larry Stylinson. I know that both of them currently have 'girlfriends', but just remember that Ricky Martin used to be a womanizer and Lance Bass had 'girlfriends' till he was 22. There are many things I can't do but spotting the gays is something of a specialty of mine. The way those two give each other lingering eye-fuckings in interviews is just begging to be noticed. While I respect their decision to keep things on the down-low as their career is built, after all, on making girls think they'd be able to get hard enough for penetration, it's quite sad that their managing company seems hell bent on suppressing this beautiful love.
Which brings us to the song, which seems just perfect for their situation. Reportedly Louis cried watching her perform this at the closing ceremony for the London Olympics, and just imagining him singing this to Harry makes me want to tear up. (I really should get a hobby.)
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