TSTB

TSTB: Too Stressed to Blog

Seriously. So stressed right now. About a bazillion end-of-the-year projects/portfolios/reports and all just vague enough to drive someone crazy are floating around my head right now. Plus work. Plus the somehow still existent personal life. Oh, and finding a real job. Here are some random thoughts that I should really think more about when I have a minute.

New Designers to Investigate (thanks whatever magazine I pulled this out of...)

OBSESSED. So beautiful. Want.

Got a compliment from an old school designer about some of my pieces and an email from a very happy stylist within the last 24 hours. Yay!

One of the black and white pics I'd love to own. Giant and blown up on a wall. On canvas. I love all defenders of big hair.

Two of my favorite things: Gilt Group and Aztec Hot Chocolate at the Chapman Coffee House. Both sinfully delicious. My excuse for the former is Christmas shopping.

Book I should get around to reading. I read How to Win Friends and Influence People over Thanksgiving. SO. GOOD. Thank you cousin's roommate for letting us borrow it :)

I've got some amazing pics of the cabin in Big Bear where my family was for Thanksgiving, but I haven't even had a chance to import them yet. Once I can breathe there will be a post.

xoxo

I love old movies and new books

Two things appeared to me recently that encouraged, motivated, terrified and entranced me.

One of them was a black and white classic starring Anne Baxter and Bette Davis. They other was by Kelly Cutrone.

All About Eve is a brilliant movie about an aging diva and a manipulative rising star. Anne Baxter is frighteningly brilliant and I wasn't sure whether I loved her or hated her - regardless, she is GOOD at what she does. One of my favorite aspects of the film is that there is no clear hero. The audience is never clear who they are supposed to side with; the drama queen who's career is crumbling? the ingenue who looks sweet but is a fearless liar? the best friend who isn't very exciting but does her best to hold everyone together? or the conniving, schemer of a theater critic who in the end proves to be a match for all of the characters? It is a gripping, captivating story that left me reevaluating my own ethics and speculating the inevitable rises and falls of a dramatic career.


If You Have to Cry, Go Outside. This is a brilliant book. No other way to say it. I devoured it in one four hour sitting. Alex Angst wrote a particularly good review on the blog http://goodbooksinbadtimes.wordpress.com/

"The tough-girl’s guide to a kick-a$$ life

It’s on, b*tch.

In If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You, fashion PR tycoon and reality TV boss to Whitney Port of MTV’s The Hills/The City, Kelly Cutrone proves she’s no sweet-talking mother of an author. Her writing rages against the current in that it advocates the unconventional lifestyle of the modern adventurer in Cutrone’s classic, shut-up-and-listen kind of voice. OUT is the A-to-B-to-C type of life that today’s media consumers have been catering to.

It’s Cutrone’s signature tone, coupled with her brutal-but-hilarious honesty, that makes this a refreshingly unique and spicy read. Her anecdotes – from being home- and car- less to establishing her own business to single-handedly raising a daughter (with an average of three different lovers in the house at one time) – will inspire readers to diverge from the glorified path of perfection and to follow their own hearts, minds, and mouths in whichever order suits them best. A literary chili compared to the average, low-cal celery of a book."

I highly recommend these to an up-and-coming young woman who wants to make her mark in the world.