Sunday, February 23, 2014

I'm Smart Enough To Know Her

Rolling Stone
I've been hesitant to weigh in on "Her." I stopped at the movie theater after work one day a couple of weeks ago to see it the film. I walked out of it thinking: yeah, I'm doing this right.

Doing what right?  Smart phone right. I don't have one. I have a completely outdated slide phone that I use for calls and texts. Oh sure, I'm slightly ridiculed for this, particularly from those who are as attached to their smart phones as they are to anything. I get it ... it's a computer in a phone. It can google, it can email a picture, it can look of fun facts that kills any chance for this Irish story teller to bluff, etc. etc. etc.

What I don't understand about this relationship between people and portable technology is why do they always want to be connected. I don't always want that small device right next to me so that anyone, anything can find me. It becomes a companion to so many. What's the one commercial ... boy, girl and boy has a gift for girl. He has to text to her to get her attention to give it to her, and she is sitting right there. Anymore, whenever I'm out at a restaurant or event, everyone is on their phone. A table of people might surround them and yet, whatever is on that phone is more urgent. I was at a concert last week, Jeff Tweedy, in an intimate setting, and the woman a couple of rows up went to her phone I don't know how many times. What was she doing? Why was she there at the concert? It distracted me. My eye would be triggered by the light of it, and it would move to her ... dumb phone. I supposed that it is our world today. We feel pressed to do so many different things at the same time. Or we have so much offered to us that we can't choose, so have figured out how to do all of the things that we might wanted to have done at any particular moment and accomplish it with the computer that we hold in our hand.

For Theodore, the computer in his hand also becomes the lady of his life. It wasn't hard to imagine it happening while watching the film. The three guys in the article pictured above discuss the idea of artificial intelligence and whether the time has come for this scenario to really play out. But why would we want it to? In the end, Theodore encounters the same relationship problems that he had with living women, and in the end, like some relationships, he's dumped. And he's broken hearted. Through flash backs, we see how Theodore's failed marriage slips and fades away from his grasp. And so I have to wonder, isn't his part in the relationship what in the end breaks his heart?

I went to the mobile phone store last week to buy a new phone. I hadn't realized how old mine was ... and it's time for a new one. Naturally, the phone that I have is no longer made. I will, I imagine, have to succumb to the advancement of technology.  But I won't love it. Or become too attached. I have people for that purpose.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Spring is in my mailbox

Vogue January 2014
I've been behind in magazine reads. And this ad in the first couple of pages of January's Vogue shows what it has been like this winter in the Midwest ... everything has been seen behind frost, ice, cold, and snow. My landscape, except when the sky is clear of clouds and a brilliant blue is reflected off of the snow, has been like this. How could Fendi have known?


Vogue January 2014

But Spring is on the horizon. No, the groundhog did tell me this. My mailbox did! Since the mail has not been d been stuffed full of what March brings .... the Spring collections. Oh, glorious pages of warmth and light. Even the Dolce & Gabbana ladies have taken left mourning black behind to welcome Spring. Of course, they were optimistic and showed themselves early.

I know that another winter advisory is on the radar, and we will see the snow that they calculate. But I will not whither under the weight of it. I see another forecast, and it calls for warm breezes and sunny skies. I will take the weight of what March brings to my mailbox and smash through the frost of winter that Fendi so artistically imagines to get to the other side.

U2 ... Turn On The Light

Oh, I know, I know. I've been absent for over a week, and what do I do? I repeat. But I can't help it. I'm very excited to hear all of the new U2 album, and so I take what little they've given so far as a teaser and really work it.

When I first heard the song "Invisible" and saw the brief clip of the video, I reported that it sounded a lot like "City of Blinding Lights," and I don't think that I'm too far off of that comparison; but more than that, I have realized something else that is true of U2, the band.

On local television, an entertainment reporter and reviewer was asked if a band other than the Beatles has made as much of a contribution to music as them. He said that the Rolling Stones had for one, and then U2. I was sort of surprised by that ... and I love U2! But being the fan that I am, I am ridiculed constantly for the fact that I love them as much as I do. I realize that they are targets. Between their largeness and their philanthropic endeavors, they are in a place that critics, naysayers, unhappiers can attack. I have, for the most part, been, in my estimation, very undercover/undercurrent of my love for U2. It's such a personal relationship ... that of the band and the fan. I don't feel that I should have to explain it to anyone. It's for me to decide who I want to listen to. Hey, I don't hassle you if you love XYZ when I don't particularly care them. Why bother me.

But I digress, and what I realize after watching the full-length video of "Invisible" is that U2 has a light. The video represents it exactly. It is how I see this band when I listen to them or see them in concert. Orbs of light pour out of them and across the arena. I've always said to friends that when I go to a U2 concert, I feel as if Bono has reached out to me and only me in the sea of others to pull out what is right in the world, what is right in me. True, I had a cackle from someone about how the song is like all of the rest, but what I don't think this guy understands is that it is much more of a dimensional experience with any of U2's music if you are plugged in. Something is infused in the energy of it that makes everything all right, no better than that, for its 4 minute duration. I can conquer any dilemma, any conflict, any problem during that time. How they do it, I haven't a clue. But I hope that they keep doing it because it gives me the infusion of hope and faith and conviction that I need to carry on. Oh, that's heady stuff. But we need 'a little help from our friends,' and that is what they do. And maybe that's why they can be named in a 'who has the same effect as the Beatles' q and a report.

Monday, February 3, 2014

U2's Invisible





I've been without for so long that one song is hardly a drop for my thirst. But I am happy. And I'm glad for new music from the boys. I've listened to it for about a hundred times, really. Today, as it started to snow, it made me feel like I was on the space ship floating above the world looking down at the lights of the city. I could hear the muffled sound of snow on the streets. The song reminds me of "City of Blinding Lights" ... and I always feel as if I'm flying above it all when I listen to that song too.

Oh, don't keep me waiting too much longer!

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Grace Kelly

Tatler December 2013
I was cleaning off my desk this afternoon and found this in the pile. I bought the magazine one afternoon while I was Christmas shopping. I haven't ever really followed Grace Kelly ... and I just scanned the article. Princess Di is more my read. But I do love the satin dress that she's wearing here on the cover. It reminds of the color of the satin robe I wore of my grandmother's that I wrote about months ago.

Satin is so luxurious if it is a good one ... silk. The touch of it is so sensuous. And it creates a light like no other fabric. In the magazine, as seen below, they show different looks of gorgeous satin dresses. They are very nostalgic ... reminiscent of old Hollywood glamour.

I watched an old black and white film not too long ago, and I swooned over the gowns. I thought at the time that the dresses were wisely made of satin because it showed up so beautifully without color in the film. One had the sense of luxury from the shine that shimmers off of it. I think that it looks best in a gown ... the drape of the fabric is also what makes it so sensational. I particularly like the pink on the top right. I think that it is Karen Elson wearing the dress, not that makes any difference. But the shell pink plays beautifully as a contrast of innocence to the sultry of the way the fabric falls across her body. The red, one-shouldered gown is also stunning.

On the left is an advertisement for Chanel's resort line it looks to be. And here you can really see how beautiful the satin shows itself in the dress on the right. It's a gorgeous dress ... I'm not sure about the other model's drawn-on mustache! But in the 'I get to pick one thing off of the page' game that I have played before, I'll take the dress.

All of this has me wondering if I have satin lying around the house that I could slip into to spend an afternoon being luxurious. Too bad that I don't have any champagne on hand. I'll have to do with a good beer, and who cares that I haven't washed my hair today. It will be a party for one. Oh, and the spirits who haunt.