I find these pictures that I found on designboom fascinating but kind of oddly depressing. The story behind the pics, to quote designboom:
Korean artist Jeongmee Yoon's 'pink and blue project' was inspired by her daughter. She would only wear pink and buy pink toys. She found this to be a common theme in Korea, the US and around the world. When photographing girl's [sic] in their world of pink, she realized that boys shared the same phenomenon except in a different hue: blue. The objects are arranged in the child's room and photographed in a square format. Jeongmee Yoon was born in Seoul and lives in New York.
Wow, first off these kids have a lot of stuff. I find the pink is for girls and blue is for boys thing a bit dispiriting and sad. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, I know all kids like to try and discover gender and sexuality issues by modelling based on stereotypes. But wow, this is like beyond a simple preference for a colour don't you think? It just seems so... rigid. So deeply enmeshed in a societal gender role.
It kind of makes me want to go in and take a few things from the girl's room and a few thing's from the boy's room and play switcheroo. Maybe show that there's fun to be had in accessorising that Superman outfit with a pink tiara and some clip on earrings. Or that Barbie would have lots more fun if she occasionally broke out and wrapped herself up in a superhero cape.
I'm going to tackle a little D.I.Y. job for home tonight. I think I mentioned this before, but a few weeks back I scored a couple of free cork pinup boards from work as part of a big clean out. Last week when I was on holidays I finally got a chance to visit the super cute studio store of Prints Charming, and I bought a couple of co-ordinating fabrics to cover the boards in.
I really wanted to hide the ugly brown corkiness of the boards, and I thought that once I'd covered them in something nice I'd put one of these in my bedroom and one in the kitchen. Over the years I've amassed quite a few postcards and bits of ephemera, and I also wanted somewhere to stick up design ideas and stuff.
So I bought 2 fabrics in a light, fresh green colourway that should go nicely in my house and add a bit of punch. (I'm a bit more in love with the retro star design than the hibiscus inspired one I've decided, but I still like both of them.) I started the satisfying task of staple gunning the fabric over the boards, and tonight I'll finish that off and stick some hanging hardware on the back of them.
Do you have any idea how satisfying weilding a staple gun is? Seriously. Give me a staple gun, and a hot glue gun, and it's like there is nothing I can't achieve.
A couple of weekends ago I went to the cocktail lounge atop the Eastern Hotel in Bondi Junction for Evan's birthday celebration. We had a fabulous long and lazy afternoon sipping beverage items and eating gourmet pizzas. The cocktail bar has been done in a sort of pan-Asian style decor, with lots of deep leather sofas, billowing curtains and vintage chinoiserie. Quite fab.
It was surprisingly quiet the Saturday afternoon that we were there, but it did mean that we had the place almost to ourselves. It was a great afternoon, with lots of laughter and conversation. I had to snap some pics of some of the details of the decor because it was really quite lovely.
Sunday was Fair Day, one of the first events that kicks off the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras festival. I love Fair Day! It's always a great opportunity to see the broad variety of gay & lesbian groups and businesses around Sydney, get sunburned, pet pooches, run into old friends and ex boyfriends (four, I counted), drink in the sun, watch drag shows, boy watch, and generally have a grand old time. Perhaps a gay old time would be more appropos?
I alternately find the Gothick style "Memento Mori" (rough translation "Remember that you are mortal") collection by designer Douglas Little either fabulous or silly. It's one of those things that can go either way, you know? Some of the items in the range, some of the skull items in particular, are a bit naff I think. But other stuff, like the plates and candle votives below I kind of like. It's expensive gear, US$180 for 4 plates in a box set. Not that I would probably buy it anyway, I mean I'm guessing it's kind of hard to make this stuff work with IKEA furniture...
These are only a few of the items in the large range, which you can see over at unica home.
[Updated: Ok, scratch what I said about dinner at Gomez & Morticia's. Because I think Diamanda Galas must have the whole Douglas Little collection! To whit:
I'm right, don't you think?]
Happy Valentine's Day!
I tried kick off this post with a bit of history about the origins of Valentine's Day, but every version seems to be slightly different. One thing that seems to crop up frequently though, and even the Catholics acknowledge is the likely association with the Roman erotic and fertility festival of Lupercalia. Erotic festival has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
Yeah there's stuff about poor Valentine, once saint but now suspended from duty without pay, but I have decided (in the interest of historical accuracy only, of course) that Lupercalia it is. I'm not so keen on the animal sacrifice, the flogging with strips of sacrifical hide etc, but the bits about young men in loincloths I do support. Huzzah for young men in loincloths!
Anyhoo, love and eroticism. So hard to seperate anyway, and sometimes so easy to confuse for each other. So I hope you all get a fair sized helping of both on this day. Or maybe tonight. Or even later in the week. Just get some, ok?
This is also a little love letter to all of you who stop by here. Thanks so much for reading! Really. I never expected this blog to become something that I would enjoy doing almost every day, but it is. Big love and erotic Lupercalian thoughts especially for those of you who comment, to those of you who link back to this little blog of mine, and for those of you who provide me with thought provoking and amusing times on your own blogs.
Big kisses and a squeeze for all! Mwah!
