Lady Parts Episode 2.5

So I'm still off gallivanting through the good ol' US of A, but I hope you take the time to check out episode 2.5 of Lady Parts, a podcast I started with my very good friend, Aimee Lindorff on gender constructs in genre cinema. For this episode, we dive right into Pixar.

Check it out here!

Sunday Short: 'Masks' by Gillian Flynn and Dave Gibbons

After reading Gone Girl last year, I pretty much inhaled all of Gillian Flynn's work. She's a remarkable writer with a real tenacity for writing fucked up women doing fucked up things and the socialised things that make them both. Masks isn't my favourite of hers, but man, it's still an excellent concept that makes me want more. Plus we get Dave Gibbons art, and that is great.

You can read 'Masks' over at The Guardian here.

Nice Things SS15

There's something wonderful about discovering a new designer, especially one as straight up awesome as family-run Barcelona label, Nice Things. From the functional silhouettes to the awesome suite of colours, it's a really woman-friendly collection.

You can check out the full collection over on their website.

  

  

    

   

Lily and the Lamplight

I have so much love for this delightful collection from Lily and the Lamplight (and man, how cute is that name too?) It's very An Education-chic with a bit of Mad Men thrown in for good measure, with some lovely colours and really flattering silhouettes. It's leaving me heart-eyeing all over the place.

You can check out the full collection over on their website.

    

  

Sunday Short: 'Poetry: Five' by Carl Adamschick

I picture him

in the plastic lawn chair

at the head of the driveway

a thistle growing

in the crack beside his beer bottle

leaving a wet ring

on the blonde cement

The tenuous frail night

landing like a paper airplane

in a field of high corn

Man, there's something about good poetry that's just, well, good. These five poems by Carl Adamschick beautifully rotate themes of longing and loss, with such compelling imagery to boot. Feel all the things.

You can read 'Poetry: Five' by Carl Adamschick over at Electric Literature.

Friday Finds

- Your week in trailers: Comic Con was this week so we have A MILLION awesome-looking things. The Ash Vs. The Evil Dead series has totally got me hooked. Suicide Squad looks terrific and another total vehicle for Margot Robbie. The new Vixen series also looks terrific. I hate to say it too, but I think I'll be watching the new Heroes series again (despite how bad the original got in the end). On a totally different tone, Brooklyn looks lovely, as does Joy. I'm also ridiculously excited for this documentary on Floyd Norman, the first African American animator at Disney.

- Hayao Miyazaki is making a computer animated short film! I can't wait to see it.

- How cool are these illustrations of the Scooby Doo cast through the ages? I think the 1920s look might be my favourite!

- This infographic of fictional highschools is amazing too!

- I know it'll probably be awful, but I can't help but be excited for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Regency ladies! Monster slaying! It's basically covering my bases.

- Our first look at Princess Leia in The Force Awakens! Be still my beating heart!

- Speaking of first looks, I am getting SO PUMPED for Ghostbusters. 

Sunday Short: 'On the Hierarchies of an Australian Strip Club' by Sam George-Allen

After I slink out of the switched-off auto doors at the end of my shift, I have to pass through the survivors of the night: girls in tight dresses with their shoes in their hands, mascara starting to migrate, sitting in gutters eating McDonalds; men in patterned T-shirts and white chisel-toed shoes with pies in their fists, staggering around blearily as I scuttle up the street to wait for a cab and the sun to come up. The gray light makes every face haggard. People topple out of the nightclub next door, and the security guard nods to me in recognition. Waiting on the corner for my lift, I’m scared of the men sloping past me. Every night the clothes I wear are further from my uniform: jeans and ugly t-shirts, big jackets. I take my makeup off before I go outside. The rules on the corner are not club rules.

It's hard to know what to say about this stirring and compelling memoir on working as a hostess in an Australian strip club by Sam George-Allen. Hard to know what to say other than 'read it' at least. With terrific observations, empathy and lyrical prose, it's a fascinating read.

You can read 'On the Hierarchies of an Australian Strip Club' online at LitHub.

Friday Finds

- 10 LGBT films you might have missed.

- And hey! A new one which looks like the best sort of wonderful garbage romcom.

- Men starting unnecessary conversations in Western art history. This series is honestly my fave.

- Where would you work at in Diagon Alley? I got Flourish and Blotts

- DC's new interactive project for girls, Super Hero Girls looks like it could be awesome fun for little girls interested in superheroes.

- How gorgeous are these literary maps?

- These 25 women on the best advice they've ever received is a lot of food for thought.

- Even more amazing LEGO ladies.

- I continue to be totally obsessed with the Hundred Years of Beauty series on YouTube. The new one is on Russia and is pretty fascinating.

- And for your 'to read' list - check out these Australian YA reads based on your favourite American titles!

Ulyana Sergeenko SS15 Couture

I've been a huge fan of Ulyana Sergeenko since basically forever. She has an uncanny ability to marry retro silhouettes with total modernity. It makes for a stunning and inspired collection of designs, and her Spring 2015 Couture collection's no exception. It's classic. It's beautiful.

You can view the full collection over at Style.com.

   

  

     

  

   

        

Everything comes around

About four hours from me writing this post, I'll be on a plane to America. Not only will I be heading to Tin House's Summer Writing Workshop to learn from the tremendous Jenny Offill, but I'll be generally travelling and exploring the country - Seattle to Portland, then New Orleans, New York, Boston before coming back home to Brisbane.

I've been planning the trip since February, but oddly it hasn't really felt real yet. Not even today, with my travel wallet full, my bags packed, and a touch hungover after a wonderful leaving party/picnic yesterday, has the trip settled in the snow globe of my head. Well, I suppose it'll have to today.

Anywho, a mixtape. Not all the songs are embedding for some reason, so you might need to open it in Spotify to hear them all. Enjoy!

Sunday Short: The Tobacconist by Anna Noyes

He had not yet begun to think of his son’s mind as mediocre, or been kicked in the street for being a fairy, a duplicitous fairy, for misreading the look of the man in the bar, not the tobacconist, another man, with nice hands. He had not yet learned the shame of trying to work one’s way back into fatherhood and husbandhood, after you have shown yourself to be a certain type of despicable character.

There's something wonderfully intimate in Anna Noyes' story, 'The Tobacconist'. There's a charge below it that sets the protagonist alight, and his short interactions with others wonderfully heavy with history. It's a feat, I think, to convey so much in so little.

You can read 'The Tobacconist' by Anna Noyes over at American Short Fiction.