You know I actually thought of uploading a video of myself rapping to this to impress you foxy internet folk but I thought better.

A couple of things:
1) there is a new criminal minds- wtf?!!
2) i understood this, is that sad?
3) my laptop is broken waaaah.

Imagine what the world and, more importantly, beloved television programmes would be like without the trusty butler. Seriously, I tried and shuddered a little.

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Léon Bakst's Narcisse (1911) on Ballets Russes official program


Michel Fokine and Tamara Karsavina in Stravinsky's The Firebird, ca. 1910




Cast of Polovtsian Dances in act 2 of Prince Igor, with choreography by Michel Fokine, 1923.

click image for source

Ballets Russes was a travelling Russian ballet comapany which operated between 1909 and 1929 under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev. It is regarded as one of the greatest dance companies of the 20th century/eva and has greatly influenced every facet of art. Ballets Russes was a primal yell during the Belle Epoque and an amalgamation of the 1910s artistic creme de la creme, featuring the likes of Stravinsky, Pavlova and Être- just to name a few. Choreographers, dancers, composers and costume designers alike collaborated on a piece together instead of remaining separate entities, lending to the lush and distinct aesthetic of productions. The performances staged by this company shunned orthodoxy as the choreography was expressive and unrestricted by the technicality of classical ballet.  Quite like a Lady Gaga or Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert, I'd imagine the full-blown, avant-garde theatrics of Ballets Russes to evoke every emotion available on the emotional spectrum; from awe to disgust, to joy and sadness. In fact, during one ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps, the audience was clearly overwhelmed with feeling as they rioted over Stravinsky's maaad beatz and the 'MA15+' content (spoiler: there was a knee or two showing and a live sacrifice gasp!).

images via

...Ferdinand Cheval began the building in April 1879. He claimed that he had tripped on a stone and was inspired by its shape. He returned to the same spot the next day and started collecting stones. For the next thirty-three years, Cheval picked up stones during his daily mail round and carried them home to build the Palais idéal. He spent the first twenty years building the outer walls. At first, he carried the stones in his pockets, then switched to a basket. Eventually, he used a wheelbarrow. He often worked at night, by the light of an oil lamp... via

Is it not one of the most magical things you have ever seen?!! Cheval was not an architect nor a mason but a persistent genius. The 'Ideal Palace' is an iconclasm of East and West, drawing upon motifs from Christianity and Hinduism. Cheval's poetry is also chipped into the walls: "In creating this rock, I wanted to prove what the will can do". Oh gosh.

The last school photos I will have taken in the history of highschool are probably being finalised into the year book to immortalise adolescence as we speak. It's something you never really think about it, but could it be at all possible that I'll miss doing up my shirt's top button and choking on my tie, or being totally degraded to the front row because of my diminuative stature, or being told to say bat-shit crazy things like "cheese" and "money" by camera clad heathens? Probably not. I do however, relish the day I can finally tell those "back in my day" stories with expert self-deprication to my twenty-eight or so grandchildren. So yeah, au revoir school photo day. See you never:)

p.s. I just realised that I've had this blog for over a year... hence the obnoxiousness.

TOO

MANY

FEELINGS

Tu Marcellus Eris (1820)

The Dream of Ossian (1813)

Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808)

Baigneuse de Valpicon (1808)

Madame Moitessier (1856)

click image for source

..."a Chinese painter astray in the ruins of Athens"

--Theophile Silvestre on the work of neoclassicist, Jean-Augustine-Dominique Ingres.

There's a paradox in Ingres' work. He perfectly combines the West and East; the uncanny precision of an orientalist with a subdued sensuality and mystery that I quite frankly, find as creepy as I do beautiful- like Macauly Culkin. Right now I'm doing an art 'visual study' component on shadows and light, with my focus being a comparision between the explicity dramatic Carravagio and the cold, dettached Ingres which Ima getting way too excited about. Oh hey, another reason for my wanting to happy-vomit is that it's school holidays! ANYWAY, that's my two cents. How are you my pretties?

Formal was on Saturday night and everyone was so beautiful it made me want to set something on fire, because only true beauty brings out my arsonist tendencies. Oh and because I know you know what happens on formal/prom night, I made you a collection of sexy songs. And if it's any incentive to listen to this mix: ima legga blonde wif big boobz; i luv mudwrestlin and monstrrr trucks and similar shit of the like.

BRB. Art homework.

Irreplacable- Beyonce


Reminds me my all-girls middle-school's hallways. The staff, in an effort to streamline us to the left of the hallway like Australian traffic, would replay the lyrics "to the left, to the left" on the loudspeaker whenever it was lesson changeover. This madness lasted for no longer than a semester and really made me want to strangle an oncoming vehicle. Hmm... why does this only seem really funny now?

Have pretty much come to terms with the fact that I will be crying like mad throughout part 2. Man it's the end of an era an era an ERA. Siriusly.

This was the first of a plethora of 50 People, One Question's I have seen and it is perhaps the most beautiful. Benjamin Reece really captures the honesty of the moment when someone actually puts aside their self-effacing bullshit guard and discloses something personal and real to you. It's like glue.

fig.1 Date With The Distinguished, Year 7. From left to right: Leonardo da-freakin-Vinci (me), Princess Diana (Nina) and Courtney Love (woman with plastic bag).

Lose Yourself- Eminem


Funnily enough, I am instantly reminded of my darling Nina when I hear this song. Throughout the years, Nina and I have become so divulged in something, particularly stereotypes we observe in society/day-time tv, that we basically method act as characters based around these obsessions as a means of exercising identity demons and taking the piss out of everything. One of our biggest obsessions were with rappers and bogans in year nine. At lunch we'd drop some mad beatz at the back of the oval, exchange our th's for ffff's (thongs becomes fffongs), discuss dying our hair with horrendous blonde streaks like bogans do and on weekends we'd wear baggy Dada hoodies with the utmost irony and bliss out to our jam. Seriously, pretending and being brutally un-PC with Nina has produced some of the greatest times of my life.

My pen pal wrote that a private school near her place was having a prom and it got cancelled because there were people taking dumps in the hallway... OMG, to have my formal be this outrageous. Okay, but in all seriousness, I just had to share this- how does anyone get away with pooping in the hallway, let alone a public toilet ewww?!! If anything, I really hope that formal night will turn out being exactly like Laney Boggs' prom- Usher, inexplicable choreographed dancing to Fatboy Slim and all.

On February 7, 1910 the Prince of Abyssinia and his entourage were received with full ceremonial pomp on the deck of the H.M.S. Dreadnought, the British Navy's most powerful battleship. Although the Commander-in-Chief of the Dreadnought had only received a last-minute warning of the Prince's arrival, he had the sailors standing at attention when the Prince arrived. The Abyssinian party acknowledged the greeting with bows as they shuffled onto the ship, dressed in their long, flowing robes, and for the next forty minutes the Commander gave them a guided tour of the vessel. The Abyssinians paused at each new marvel while murmuring the appreciative phrase "Bunga, Bunga!" in their native tongue. Finally the royal visitors departed as "God Save the King!" played in the background.


The next day the Navy was mortified to learn that the party they had escorted around the warship had not been Abyssinian dignitaries at all. Instead it had been a group of young, upper class pranksters who had blackened their faces, donned elaborate theatrical costumes, and then forged an official telegram in order to gain access to the ship. Their ringleader was a man named Horace de Vere Cole, but the entourage also included a young woman called Virginia Stephen who would later be better known as the writer Virginia Woolf...

Text via Museum of Hoaxes. Image via

Man, this is just too cool. Now I'm not sure whether I'm happy that people have stepped up their game so that shit like this hardly happens or whether I'm really, truly, utterly depressed that everyone's too anal to have a laugh like this anymore.

by Julia Galdo. via.


How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?- Al Green




...btw, thanks for all your comments on my last post my strong, independent sisters!

via

elizabeth olsen dressed in 'the row' at cannes film festival 2011. someone get me this dress for formal and i promise to shut up forever, even about research project homework.

via Going North @ Flickr

this song makes me so happy i could die:

jennifer- bikeride


...speaking of death (smooth segue eh?), according to Harold Camping and his relgious gang, May 21st will be the rapture. Cool. So, is there any way I can cash in on the numerous apocalypses I've survived?