“Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.” ― John Donne
Jeff and I dedicate a substantial amount of our time off to going on “wanders” (some people verb nouns, we noun verbs) across the city. Quite often we’ll just pick an area to explore and set off down any street that looks interesting. We wend our way through tourist areas, obscure roads, hidden squares, and vast parks. It’s a lot of fun, but occasionally one of us is surprised.
A couple of weekends ago, as we ambled through Westminster, Jeff casually remarked that he had never really seen Buckingham Palace. I stopped short.
“What do you mean? It’s one of the main sites and you’ve lived here for two years now.”
He shrugged, “Just never got around to it.”
We happened to be crossing a wide, ornate lane at the moment and Jeff glanced up the tree lined road.
“What’s up this way?” he asked.
“Buckingham Palace,” I said dryly.
“How handy,” he replied and tugged me towards the residence.
“There is little chance that meteorologists can solve the mysteries of weather until they gain an understanding of the mutual attraction of rain and weekends.”
~Arnot Sheppard
Another big week. We had our friend Lark in town last weekend and through the start of this week, it was delightful to see her! Beyond that I had meetings, copy writing, and work enough to make me glad for the weekend. Although the weather has turned cold and rainy lately and shows no signs of stopping. The notoriously short British summer might have already come and gone, kittens!
The links this week are quick and dirty, please add anything you’ve read or seen worth sharing in the comments and let me know what you get up to this weekend!
They shall remain nameless at present but I have multiple friends with manuscripts being reviewed by publishers and would just like to refer them to these. When I am so lucky as to join them, I shall certainly take inspiration.
Word changes are interesting to me, not just how their usage shifts around over the centuries, but their pronunciation as well. Grammar Girl has a great list of a few such developments.
This gorgeous handbag line was featured in Liberty a while back and I’ve started seeing it pop up elsewhere, so clearly we need to help get the word across the Pond as well.
There’s a lot in this piece that resonates with me. I grew up a military brat and worked in a police department for five years, and in that time I do feel I caught a glimpse of this militarized cop mentality which concerned me. In this country, soldiers are not cops and cops are not soldiers, and there is a reason for that.
“The internet is just a world passing notes around a classroom.” ― Jon Stewart
YouTube came along in the winter of my freshman year of university and I have fond memories of the stupid. meme-y vids that zipped around our dorm rooms and gave rise to a million inside jokes.
This is, of course not news to anybody but me, but from humble beginnings YouTube has become a powerful force in the media world and one I didn’t start to fully appreciate until about a year ago. Prior to that I used it to share humorous things with friends (maturing past freshman year not a whit in this regard), see trailers for films, occasionally be introduced to new artists, or general time wasting. It’s a great repository of copy and pasted content, but what I’ve really enjoyed discovering is all the original content available on it as a medium.
Again, not news. But a lot of fun for me nonetheless! Over the past couple of years, here are few of the YouTubers who I’ve found, followed, and loved. Share your favorite channels and tell me what I, media plebe, need to know about.
The Needledrop is my most recent find. I have no shame at all in saying that Jeff is the resident music expert and I’m very out of touch with it in a lot of ways. I simply tend to find and listen to things that bear up to my incredibly rigorous standards of “sounding nice,” while he’s much more familiar with history and Persons of Note. Although I did introduce him to The Civil Wars, which doesn’t absolve me from the Ke$ha songs on my workout playlists. The Needledrop is run by Anthony Fantano who is a prolific reviewer and commenter, he posts several times a week to his channel. In addition to just finding things that sound good to me, I tend to enjoy music on a song by song basis and don’t really dive deep into whole albums, which is why I like his reviews. He’s definitely got a quirky style that takes some getting used to (plus a humorous alter ego with terrible music tastes), but I find his posts to be very thoughtful and interesting. I started with some reviews of artists I knew…and then started exploring new music. It’s been fun.
I shouted out to Thug Notes several months ago, but the channel has expanded now to do philosophy as taught by video games, plus other upcoming projects, and now goes by the name Wisecrack. The Thug Notes literary summaries still have my heart, though!
I’ve also discovered the strange and gorgeous world of beauty channels. Where were these when I was a ridiculous semi-tomboy-with-secret-but-frustrated-feminine-aspirations?! The one I want to be best friends with is probably EssieButton, a Canadian-turned-Londoner with gorgeous makeup taste and a wacky sense of humor who just sounds like she’d be fun to hang out with in real life. But I’ve also checked out Vivianna Does Makeup (another Londoner, who I’ve actually exchanged an email with and admire for doing her thing so young!) and That Is All (who often talks about natural makeup, healthy eating, and other things).
Less self-indulgently, CGP Grey does fun, educational vids about somewhat obscure topics that are terribly entertaining!
Glove and Boots. A cast of puppet characters and the internet. Mayhem ensues.
Everyone knows about the vlogbrothers channel, run by YA author John Green and his brother, entrepreneur, musician, and lots of other things besides, Hank Green. I enjoy John Green’s books just fine, although I find a distinct lack of variation in a lot of his books that I hope he gets out of, but I enjoy a lot of his videos and perspectives, even when I don’t entirely agree. Hank, I can’t even keep up with. The man is busy! But I admire the community of, largely, teens and young adults they’ve created and think they manage to encourage a lot of good with their various foundations and charitable pushes. Worth checking out, but I like many more of their spinoff projects more!
I’ve raved about The Lizzie Bennet Diaries before, so I’ll just say go watch it. Two other adaptations have followed, Sanditon and Emma Approved that are also great, Emma Approved is still ongoing. These projects are extremely clever and weave a lot external social media elements into the story telling that can be a lot of fun to follow along with.
The Brain Scoop is another Green brothers project, now taken over by Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. Host Emily Graslie does brilliant episodes ranging on everything from taxidermy to evolution, occasionally bringing in experts or introducing various museum collections to the audience. One of her most notable episodes deals directly with women who make (or as it happens, don’t make, and why) educational STEM content, but one of my recent favorites is about the common misconception that Dimetrodon is a dinosaur – it isn’t.
CrashCourse is the last Green project I’ll pimp, series of educational playlists covering science, psychology, US and world history, and literature. Obviously I’m biased in favor of the last three.
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” ― Winston Churchill
Britain’s in the midst of honoring the first year of WWI this year, but this monument is one of my favorite wartime memorials in London. A little vague, still deeply appreciated.
A handbook was issued to American GIs stationed in Britain during WWII that cautioned them how to behave to British women. It pointed out how most of the women they encountered, whether in uniform or out, had been at war a lot longer than they had and had already sacrificed time, skills, labor, and lives to the cause. They had mobilized to grow food, work in factories, provide medical and military service, run businesses, protect communities, and perform critical work to keep the nation together. As such, the handbook stressed they deserved to be treated respectfully as comrades in arms. So say we all.
“Weekends are a bit like rainbows; they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.”
~John Shirley
A frustrating but largely good week and an insufficiently restful weekend coming on. We’ve got friends in town, I’ve got a check in the mail, and we had another nephew born yesterday! As Jeff is the youngest of five siblings, I married into a pre-exisiting bunch of nieces and nephews where previously (as not only the oldest sibling but the oldest cousin) I had none, and the posse has continued to grow deliciously. The Woodland clan makes cute kids.
There have been a lot of random visits from the neighboring cat as well. More on this later.
This Is Glamorous has some gorgeous shots of the Dolce & Gabbana couture collection, shown in Capri, Part II here. Italian fashion isn’t my personal mainstay, but those gowns are stunning and look like they move beautifully.
In other fashion news, a mom wrote a letter to Lands End about some of the clothing choices offered for her daughters. The company listened. High fives all around! Next stop, more variation for boys too – choices all around! The company is getting some criticism for being “too late,” but I think they should get credit for 1) acknowledging the validity of a criticism and 2) turning around a solution quickly. Another criticism is that they are only responding to stop negative press, to which I kind of say, “So?” They’re a business and someone pointed out that their marketing was costing them. So they amended their marketing and product to both reduce a stereotype and widen their market. That’s not just the right thing to do, it’s good business practice.
Yes. More advertising campaigns like this, thanks.
H/t to Ruth for this hilarious article. When we were at Teri’s for dinner last weekend, we all had a fascinating discussion about social media and perception that was quite fun.
Gigi New York’s released their fall handbag line and colors (it’s summer, retailers, calm down!), and I have to say, I am crushing hard on that kelly green.
Everybody else can go home, THIS is the best Women Against Feminism parody.
I’m currently off sugar and hating it. It is a drug and it is addicting. But in the midst of withdrawals, I find this Buzzfeed post intriguing.
Jeff and I have been doing something slightly out of the ordinary for us this year: going to summer blockbuster movies…and enjoying them! It’s inspired a lot of heated debate over the future of the movie industry vs. other forms of media, specifically streaming video, so this piece caught my eye. Weigh in.
I would not at all mind coming across one of these.
To round off the week, a thought provoking piece from The Federalist. Who guards the guardians when we don’t acknowledge the guardians anymore?
They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace – Christopher Robin went down with Alice. Alice is marrying one of the guard. “A soldier’s life is terrible hard,” Says Alice. – A.A. Milne, Buckingham Palace
“What hath night to do with sleep?” ― John Milton, Paradise Lost
The links post is a text heavy one this week. Why you ask? Because I’ve spent nearly three days on a massive editing project that turned out to be much more labor intensive than anyone anticipated and was up to four in the morning reconciling drafts. I have digested a lot of text this week (including three books, surprisingly), so must you. It good for us.
This weekend I’m doing some volunteering and some napping and am pretty excited about both. Dinner this evening with Ruth and Teri also promises to be a much needed delight, though I might turn into a pumpkin and plead bed at a shockingly early hour. Here are your links, tell me what you’re up to this weekend in the comments!
Goodness, are we already doing this? Live in the moment, entertainment industry! (That being said, I’m fairly intrigued by the next Pixar film…and In Heart of the Sea…and Crimson Peak…okay. Guilty.)
A truly excellent response to the Women Against Feminism tumblr, which I will not link to here. (I initially thought I was reblogging and linking to it on my tumblr, which I use mostly for fun and to track images and stories I think are interesting and beautiful, but I didn’t realize that I had accidentally reblogged it on WordPress. The trial of too many media sites! That happened on Tuesday, and I took the post down, in case you saw it and wondered where it went. I’ve got nothing against reblogging in general, but I’ve never done it here so I thought it best not to start. Plus I want this author to get the clicks and the credit in her own right, because she basically dropped the mic.)
“Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.” ― Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love
One of the great tourist-y pleasurable things you can enjoy in London is exploring the famed shopping area in the West End. Bond Street, Regent Street, and Oxford Street have a bunch of high street shops that are plenty interesting, plus the city of Westminster goes to great lengths to make it accessible, especially during the summer, but the ream gems are the remarkable department stores like Liberty and Selfridges. Not only are they noted for stocking all the luxury brands, but many of the great British department stores are great at forming partnerships with brands (some big, some new) for events and launches. This year the European ice cream company Magnum is celebrating 25 years, and apparently this is a Really Big Deal on this side of the Atlantic. I thought the idea of throwing a celebrity-studded bash over ice cream was a bit much myself…but my grinch-like heart softened eventually. Because, ice cream.
Last Sunday, Regent Street closed to traffic (something they’ve done every Sunday in July) and Magnum set up booths by the dozen to give away thousands of free ice cream bars.
However, Jeff and I didn’t feel like standing in one of these lines. We decided to stand in a much snootier line instead!
Selfridges had a super-fancy exhibit for Magnum in their famous Wonder Room, where participants could create their own ice cream bars with super-fancy dipping chocolate and super-fancy toppings. Alas these were not free, but we figured that VIP ice cream would be a fun weekend treat so we sprung for it anyway.
The decor was, of course, delightful. Selfridges is famous for their displays, primarily in their windows; I love their emphasis on visual design and engagement. But on to the main event!
Toppings were tossed together in cocktail shakers before being lovingly spread over the hand dipped bars. Jeff and I managed a combination of ice cream, dip, and drizzle that included all the chocolate variations, plus toppings that were just wacky enough to be interesting—hazelnuts, brownie bits…and cornflowers!
Too weird for your taste? Trust me, it was delicious.
“If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
The dearth of posts is unfortunate but necessary, minions. I’m up to my neck in one of the heaviest work load weeks in recent memory. Things are good but busy and I’m quite looking forward to the weekend, since I’m pretty sure I have not left the flat in any substantial way since the last one. A writer’s life for me!
Today’s snapshot is more of a PSA or plea than anything. Stop the tyranny of lovelocks! They’re collapsing bridges in Paris, it’s only a short time before their dastardly weight crosses the channel. Plus this is a construction site, probably not the best place to document your undying devotion. Just saying.
Interesting and important piece from the NYT about the financial realities of freelancing and how writers are opening up about it. Finances are a constant presence for me since going freelance full time and in my first year, there have been plenty of months where I didn’t make what I wanted or needed to and our savings has had to come into play. Luckily I’m finally in a place where starvation isn’t a glaring possibility, but it still feels like a constant threat. In spite of recent successes and steady work!
For those interested on a longer view of Mormon Feminism (a history that dates back to the suffragettes) plus some perspective of it in the digital age, Nancy Ross, an acquaintance of mine does an admirable job of laying it out.
A video game idea generator, shared on Seth Godin’s blog and emailed to me from friend and Friend of the Blog Caitlin.
H/t to my sister-in-law Camille for this series on wardrobe building. I edited down everything I owned to two suitcases when we moved to London and it was a great experience that’s really made me rethink clothes and possessions, so the idea of capsule wardrobes really interests me.
Small Dog Syndrome 