The ‘Lum-Sharon’ cut was so good until that mullety back-shag grew in! I cannot stand heavy neck hair. I will miss being a hornbag, though. Sharon is the strongest babe-magnet in that show!
Snip, snip, HACK HACK CUT SNIP trim trim
Only, without the padawan brain double-feature..
I’m kind of hoping it will grow back in with an entirely different texture. I have heard that that can happen.. haven’t you?
Note: choice of haircut does not necessarily reflect my choice of favoured character! In GITS:SAC It’s Batou (the Major is more of a ‘person who wouldn’t annoy me at all if I knew her in real life’ than a ‘favourite character’?), in Mai Otome (anime) Mashiro IS THE BEST. I really can’t choose a favourite in Kath & Kim.. they are all too funny.
I didn’t really feel like dressing in something new just to sit and puzzle over tailoring my CV for the job I have my eye firmly on (please cross your fingers for me!). But that worked out for the best, because after finishing that up I needed a change of scene so I went and picked flowers. Which I’ve been looking forward to since I first spied this skirt - the pocket are so perfect for meadow-wandering! Don’t you think?
Please, enjoy these flowers as well!
Not a flower! Pshhh.
After that wholesome interlude, I want to share some music with you. Which I don’t do that often, because it usually seems a bit pointless - who doesn’t know about the Misfits being awesome, or Faith No More or Cheap Trick of the Runaways or Elvis Costello or Suzi Quatro or Michael Jackson or the Pixies or Tom Waits or Kana? And when I am listening to things I don’t hear people talking about I kind of.. have nothing to say other than “this is really good, I like it” most of the time. I don’t know how to talk about music! If you read here regularly, you should know that.
But suddenly I have found a reason to talk bands with you guys!
Let’s talk Danish pop, shall we?
Of course, by that I mean “The Cartoons and Aqua were brilliant and I love them”.
I was ten when Barbie Girl came out, and eleven when Witch Doctor came out and they hit me right in the joy buttons. Even then, there was a little bit of ‘must pretend to like ironically in public’, but I asked for their albums for my birthday and christmas and I got them. At this point, my music collection was like so: Eternal; Boyzone; Spice Girls; [repeat].
They both found their way into my farm in the same way that they managed to fool most of the people most of the time (I’ll get back to that) - they wore bright colours! And had super-gimmicky prop-instrument-costumes! And they moved really fast and were exaggerated! Their videos gave me something to look at, instead of fourminutes of a bunch of guys standing on a dark stage kicking up dust and strumming soulfully. I hate boring music videos, I really do. And yeah, I genuinely like the sounds that they make - they’re unserious, and joyful, and sort of shiny-heartfelt. I like the volume and mania they have in their noise.
You may laugh, but the most important thing about these bands (once you get past the image, because I did need that to notice them) were their lyrics. I know, it sounds ridiculous, right? Ooh ee ooh ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang.
But really. They’re both kind of filthy, if you listen. Filthier than ten-eleven year olds are used to, and filthier than you’d assume from the perky-perky toon-music and the perky-silly costumes and videos.
I’ll say right now that I have no idea if they wrote their songs or not - I know that the Cartoons mostly did/do covers. That doesn’t matter, actually.
“Got her, own sweet flavour, when I go down low” - The Cartoons, Yoko
That is enough to make me a life-long convert, to be honest. I remember listening to this song, being eleven, and thinking, “I know I am hearing a song about oral. Nobody is noticing. I know that nobody would want me to listen to a song about oral. This CD didn’t have ‘explicit content’ on it. Nobody knows. They have tricked people by looking silly.”
“Then logic turns me up and rapes me” - The Cartoons, Doo Dah
Again - rape? The word “rape” in a song for me, an eleven year old? It’s allowed because they are a novelty band? Mind: blown.
“I wish that you were my Lollipop -
Sweet things, I will never get enough -
If you show me to the sugar tree,
will you give me a sodapop for free?” &
“I wish that I were a bubblegum, chewin’ on me baby you belong” - Aqua, Candyman
‘They’re talking about fucking, aren’t they”, I thought.
Even as a ten year old, you could hear the satire in “Barbie Girl”. I thought it was aces, I mean come on, it was funny! So daft, so obviously venomous, so true to life. This satire about gender roles was at number one for three weeks, here. Mattel sued, and it was dismissed. That’s fucking landmark stuff! A pop band skewers the shallow, unquestioned ‘perfect life’ dream sold mercilessly by a toy company, gets sued, and wins. Feminist victory, gone unnoticed!
I like these bands because they make me laugh with what they say, and when they aren’t making me laugh they’re making me go “awww, that’s nice!” The way that Aqua crafted most of their songs into stories (and had the videos to back them up) mattered to me, particularly as pre-bedtime listening. Fairytale castles in songs with horse-feet sound effects in. Flippin’, rigging’d airships.
And I like the technobilly echoing depth of shallow that the Cartoons give. “Who put the bomp” is one of my favourite songs. I can’t help it! It just sounds nice, and the lyrics are sweet, and, I like it! They have a double bass disguised as A CARROT, you know? Give them a chance.
First: on theme!
Harsichord-sound. Pirates. Badass princess. Narrative progression. Someone playing their own dad. HURRAY!
They went there. “Giant lizard”!
I am always pro-band who use animation in their videos. Or rather, I am always pro-using animation. That’s a wiser statement.
Click here for the Witch Doctor video. CURSE YOUR DISABLED EMBEDDING!
I’m including this one because it has the official video included; it’s one of the weaker ones, I rekkin.
Maybe all bands, really, are dirty mouthed horrors. Eh. I still love these ones. I don’t know what it is about you, Denmark! But I like it.
Soooo I just watched Iron Liz’s first video review; the Sailor Moon RPG. And I enjoyed it, and it got me a-thinkin’. Watch first, then I’ll tell you.
When I was a young teen and pre-teen, finding my way on to the internet and making it my home, I came across mention of this “Sailor Moon”. Sailor Scouts, Sailor Senshi. I saw the geocities fanpages. I saw the rudimentary and the amazingly fine cosplayers. I saw stickers and plot synopsis-es and fanart and official art. I fell in wow. One of my very first eBay purchases was a vhs tape containing the first two episodes, dubbed into english, for eight pounds. I needed it.
This is actually a different one, with the next two episodes on it, that I bought later. The dub is goshawful. I don’t care.
I’ve always lived in villages and I was always a shy kid - and I didn’t know anyone with ties to Japan or who knew what anime was. So there was no-one to help me, but I had this great big needy desire to know all about anime, in general, and to understand this country where grownups were allowed to watch cartoons omg. I wanted to master this new way of drawing (yeah.. that never happened)! I’d buy any animated vhs I could find, unless it looked too scary (Guyver) and just watch it with this weird coiled-spring feeling. Part of that was just awe at the cultural shift - acceptance of illustration and animation and speculative fiction as everyday necessities! I wanted so badly to be involved in that that. But part of it was just: Sailor Mooooon. *0*!!!
The English version of the song still gives me happy tingles, but I gotta admit - the J-version is better. It was still TOTALLY AWESOME when Osaka Popstar (&tALP) played the english-lyrics liiive for me (yeah, JUST for me! Hah.)
The reason I loved Sailor Moon instinctively, I think, is that looking at a character lineup you can understand that the main characters are completely normally-coded girls. Girlish girls, who are girly, like girls are ’supposed to be’ and like even girls* who don’t want to be pigeonholed as ‘just a girl’ or ‘the girl’ can (perhaps secretly) like to be sometimes, too. But they’re also the heroes of the piece, completely and unapologetically. They are who the show is about, they are the Power Team, they fight the villains. They can be like a girl and a fighting hero at the same time, absolutely.
There doesn’t have to be a girl or two on the team, which is led by boys. There doesn’t have to be The Girl who the boy team visits every now and then to get potions or clues from, or whatever. There doesn’t have to be The Girl who leads the pack of boys (I love you, Marian, but you didn’t set me up so well for taking camaraderie amongst chix seriously) Girls in fighting teams don’t have to take on ‘masculine roles’; they don’t have to wear ‘masculine clothes’; they don’t have to not have girly hair styles and they can still look tough and in control when they do. They don’t have to change personality once they suit up. Curse you, Power Rangers, curse your dishonest remix-happy ways (I don’t mean it, Power Rangers, we are still friends I need you). Being a girlish girl does not mean that you are the team mascot or the team eyeroll.
Gosh, that was a relief to see.
“Femininity can not keep ability from me”.
That’s a beautiful lesson.
*And boys, obv! But I was doing that whole “talk about yourself whilst pretending to talk about people in general so as not to be all guts everywhere” thing. Sorreee.
It may be spring, officially (or it may not? I’m not actually sure), but that does not mean it’s warm and balmy. No, I still need a double-layered underskirt and wool shorts to keep me comfortably warm. And a fine-knit woolen sweater.
I was going to hang around in the garden and draw flowers and bits of wood and such, because illustrating backgrounds (or; anything that isn’t people) is something that I don’t much do. Because I don’t like to, and subsequently when I need to it doesn’t come out very well, which again - makes me like it less. NO NO SHAMEFUL LAZINESS. Draw from life, draw from life!
But! Like I said. Too cold for only one skirt means too cold for bare fingers, so alas I must stay indoors.
I use my house arrest to watch the latest Linkara review and do other kinds of study. Today, I swallow my mad pride and study Tove Jansson’s Moomin* expressions. They are so painfully good. I say “mad pride” because, in my arrogance, I hate to admit that people have skills and knowledge I do not! It is ridiculous!
And so, la! Theme work!
‘Ow do you like my new scarf-pin? “New”; I found it in one of my local-ish antiques centers. How truly antique is it? Who can say! I don’t much mind; it does the job I need it for, and looks like an anemone. It doesn’t have the middle-nub, but I figure everyone’s entitled to modesty. Anemones are my favourite. Plus, it makes me feel a little safer and more practical. You never know when you may need to pin something to something!
Wore it to make my fire, too.
*I know, I know - I had the Little My nightmares too. But that was the cartoon, not the gorgeous gorgeous books or comic strips, and in the books? Her character is wonderful. My very favourite. Referring to her as an “action girl”, which TVTropes does, is a massive injustice. And she doesn’t have THAT VOICE.
Coming later today or tomorrow: Makeover Movie Madness SPOILERS edition 2: Desperately Seeking Susan
Sweater: Jaeger (gift), Skirt: Modelle via NASTYGAL.com, Underskirt: Jane Marple dans le salon, Tights: H&M, Clogs: Fitflop, Scarf: Men’s dress silk via Save the Children, Pin: apparent antique
Some ‘old’ Marples! I pinched this picture from the Telegraph.
News from the Agatha Christie Official Site blog: The Blue Geranium is currently being filmed for tv! Excellent. Marple, as you may have guessed, is in my soul. And I rather like the particular theme of this story - some authors fail and just become snotty or preachy when they and their characters take the “magic seems to be real OH WAIT of course it isn’t, that’s ridiculous! Here’s why” route. But Agatha (Ms Christie, I beg your pardon).. she knew her stuff. She manages to avoid putting the focus of the entire story upon the spooks-or-not reveal like an amazon on a stiletto; it’s what happens that matters, not how.
Midsomer Murders (the TV series) does the same issue with marvelous panache, incidentally. I really dig that show.
In celebration of this news, I want to share this link: The The Blue Geranium episode of Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Marple and Poirot, one of my favourite faaavourite shows. “Great Detectives” is a Japanese show, animated, and believe me I have tried to get DVDs (ones I can watch, even). I’m gonna keep trying! It’s one of the most comfortable shows I know, and I would really, really like to be able to express this to the creators, animators, and all companies involved in its production via monetary exchange. It is such a bane that British Animation is in the dumps, because it means a lot of the shows that make my heart sing aren’t available in Region 2. Venture Bros Season 1 took how long to get here? TOO BLOODY LONG.
Great Detectives has its faults. Miss Lemon is way too young, and Hastings doesn’t bluster quite enough. Poirot is not as irritable as he is in my head (David Suchet, he is perfect) and Miss M doesn’t have quite the bite I feel she should. But I find ‘Maybelle’ perfectly charming: she’s a sixteen or seventeen year old original character, the daughter of Raymond West (mother has no presence; I presume her dead) who takes a job as Poirot’s junior assistant and thereby ties the two detectives’ stories together. They never meet.
I very much enjoy how the opening sequence makes Maybelle’s story. Give it a watch, I think you’ll see what I mean.
And here’s a link I’ll be adding to posts for a while: Craft Hope for Haiti, an etsy store that donates proceeds to Doctors without Borders.
It was always a second-stringer detective show, to my mind. Probably because as a child there was nothing much for me to get excited about; Quincy had a lot of shouting, and Charlie’s Angels was kicky, and so on. But recently I’ve started to really appreciate it. I think the direction is great, I love the sets, the clothes, the.. I’m not sure if it counts as cinematography because I think what I mean is “how it looks like it is from The Olden Days, because it is”. I really like the team dynamic and the character interactions are fun. A police detective calling his squad “children” in a non-Gene Hunt sort of way is nice.
Again, I have a load of stills up on my tumblr; here is a taste.
LET'S BE BUDS, BUB IllustratorClaire: Twenty-three year old Illustrator and Englisher, female feminist, interested in being helpful and denouncing things that aren't. Designed and drew the Britsh Style Bloggers logo; available to hire on just about any illustration project. Currently working as a Dinner Lady. For illustration portfolio, click the "tales from the sketchpages" tag or my logo below! Why do I do this? click here. Thank you!
I am not paid - in money or in gifts or favours - to endorse anything here. If I was, I would be bad at it, because lying is ugly.
If you've commented here and it isn't showing up, it's not because I hate you! It's because either wordpress or 1and1 hate me. Give me a shout on claire [at] illustratorclaire.co.uk, or claire [at] britishstylebloggers.org.uk!
Oh, and by the way - I do tend to post on Sundays, so if you find that day a little net-empty.. check back? Great idea!
