Cabin Fever – and some link love

It’s been a while. I haven’t posted, because I haven’t had anything to write about it – literally. In the past week and a half I have left the house only to go to the doctor and supermarket. Otherwise, my time has been spent trying to keep warm, laying on the couch under a mountain of blankets and coughing. Violently.

Not exactly fun or wonderful. My mind is still buzzing with all sorts of ideas, but I can’t do anything. I want to see people, but it’s not reasonable to inflict this on someone else. So, it’s horrible, but it is hardly the kind of stuff I want this blog to be about. The show will go on.

In the meantime, here are some of the things I have been amusing myself with from bed:

• I want gradient tights! The Coveted has a very straight forward tutorial on how to do this at home, rather than paying $88+ for a single pair (I’m sure they are lovely, but with the lifespan of my tights, no thanks).
• Cornify is the best invention known to mankind. Rainbows, hearts, unicorns and sparkles make EVERYTHING better. Presenting.. me, cornified. It’s like Blingee for cool people. Or dorks. You decide. 

• Hyperbole and a Half has been amusing me to no end, especially this post on sneaky hate spirals! My favourite part: a man, throwing a stone at a bird, while screaming “stop taunting me with your powers of flight!”
• This Coca-Cola vending machine skirt is a completely ingenious idea by a Japanese designer, to help women ward off attackers. It’s based on the idea of a ninja disguising themselves at night. Designer Aya Tsukioka says, “These ideas might strike foreigners as far-fetched, but in Japan, they can become reality.” I love this – I wish that far-fetched, magical, imaginative innovations were realistic everywhere..

• Cheap Chic Weddings just announced the winners of their annual toilet paper wedding dress competition; I am so amazed. Here is a detail of one of the dresses:I only found out about the competition after it closed, but I would love to enter next year. It could be a really fun excuse to have friends over, make cupcakes and mocktails, and spend a day making dream dresses!
• I have been daydreaming constantly about Rupert; we finally get to meet him tomorrow, and the nervous excitement is almost too much! It is going to be a huge adjustment for everybody, and I’m really scared about the possibility of it not working out.. but I’m hopeful. I mean, look at this gorgeous little guy!
• Finally: Pip from Meet Me at Mikes is running a super cute project/competition – The Envelope Project. The idea is to decorate an envelope, fill it with a couple of pretty paper/crafty things and mail it to her – she will display the envelopes in her storefront and one lucky person will receive the contents of ALL the envelopes at the end. I’m definitely planning on entering.

What interesting things have you came across recently?

xx B

Zombie Holocaust

Introducing, Jennifer Genocide and Bunny Brainhunter:

Melbourne Zombie Shuffle 2010 was awesome! I remember going in 2006 or 2007 and only a few hundred people rocked up, but this time, there were literally thousands. I ran out of time/ideas/wasn’t feeling great, so went as a ‘regular zombie’ but the costumes were amazing (see albums on facebook and flickr) One lady wore a 18th century garb on a headless dummy positioned so she was holding her own head. There were zombie dogs and zombie babies, even zombie Lady Gaga. Fun deluxe – I’ll have to start brainstorming (ha) for what to do next year.

xx Bunny

PS: To anybody who got misinformed by silly television news reporters: it’s an annual event, it’s not raising money for anything, it’s not a Guinness record attempt, it’s not a protest. It’s just fun.. why should we have to be able to justify fun?

Audrey and Serendipitous Party Shenanigans

Audrey had her party on Friday night, despite being worried about it for some time. So many people! Surprisingly, despite the huge number of people running down the street singing at 4am and the thumping ‘doof’ music (once the ravers ousted dj-ing control from the hippies), they didn’t get shut down by the police. It was fun.

Audrey rocked her little French maid look, complete with fairy wings and exposed bra (right: picture of her, climbing out a window). She also drew hearts on her thigh in black and white eyeliner – I put a white star on my cheek.

I don’t think any pictures of me have emerged yet, but I had two costume changes! My final outfit was a black dress with a full skirt, rose pink cardigan, black tights and black 8-inch PVC pole dancing shoes! The party was notoriously full of ridiculously tall people and I am ridiculously short – I think my shoes were of great benefit to the health of their spines, not having to bend down constantly to talk to me.

One of the ridiculously tall people was Ilian, my new friend! It was quite exciting; he and I met randomly and talked all night once before, about 6 or 7 weeks ago. He is very lovely, strange, Swedish and has fantastic taste in music, but he was off to Thailand, and I just assumed I’d never see him again. And there he was at this party! It was fortuitous, as neither of us really knew too many people there and neither my Nathan nor his girlfriend were able to come – without re-meeting each other, we would both have been alone and awkward, but luckily we got to be horribly anti-social together instead and hang out on a couch all night talking. It was nice; I’m not a great party person, as I seem to be better with people in a one-on-one situation. Plus neither of us were drunk and we don’t do anything else, so we were sort of in a different frame of mind to a lot of the other people at the party – I was definitely glad to have a partner in crime for the night! Highlight of the entire night was watching him try to get home from the party – imagine a 2 metre tall, rail-thin goth with white blonde hair, wearing a cowboy hat and way-too-tight jeans, trying to ride a pushbike in the dark. I laughed and laughed and laughed.. and even thinking about it now, I still laugh!

Audrey’s housemates are a really cool blend of ravers and hippies, which definitely made for an interesting crowd. A few of them decided face paint was the way to go (see left). The music alternated from Audrey’s fantastic hippie-soul set (including Jackson 5 and Florence and the Machine) to all sorts of creepy electronic triphop and psytrance later on. A bit past 3am, I was getting a headache and being hit on by a series of increasingly obnoxious guys, so I sauntered home.

And now, I’m really home: Nath picked me and all my junk up from Northcote on Saturday night, and now I’m back. It’s such a comfort to finally feel ‘home’ again – to walk around the house in my underwear, that feeling of being totally clean you can only get from your own shower, getting to water my plants (from all appearances, they have really really missed me). Even waking up to a psychotic puppy jumping all over my face is a very happy thing. However, I will miss living in that street and being so close to Audrey’s house as to facilitate midnight trips to the park to talk about random junk.

Oh well. It’s good to be home. And parties, people and fun are only a train/car ride away.

xx Bunny

Last night, at the Monster Ball..

Aunty Marie, Cat, Jen and I went to Lady Gaga on Friday night. I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly excited initially; she is not exactly my generally preferred sort of music. But hearing certain songs blasted into my consciousness every time I’m in a car/shopping mall/wherever, they sort of grew on me. And in watching the amazing theatricality and artistically breathtaking conceptual designs in everything she does… I am a bit smitten. Yup – enough to make me smile THIS BIG —>

I am fierce.

Jen pried hundreds of little mirrors off a disco ball and glued them to a bra; Catty wore 8 inch PVC fetish thigh high platform boots. I was totally boring in comparison, but fun was had.

Highlights: an incendiary piano and mad improvisation involving a boot, the ‘Glinda’ outfit, her nonsensical but somehow endearing “I love you, be true to yourself, what we have is so pure and true!” spiels, and….. Bad Romance. Wow.

She promised to come back next year. In return, I promise to go all out (possibly even naked) in coming to a show then.

xx Bunny Florentine

Supermodel Documentary Hour!

WE ARE THE COOLEST.

Progressive Rocking

8:15-ishpm – heading out. Am wearing funny contact lenses; paranoid I look silly. Combat this by listening to Satyricon REALLY LOUD on the tram. Nobody sits next to me.

9:00pm – meet Nath and Aaron at Fed Square. Am only person at ACMI not wearing black. Feel out of place; want to take off pink scarf.

9:15-ishpm – waiting. Nervous, excited. Nathan makes fun of hipsters, I cringe because I probably l0ok like one. Aaron and I devise a tumblr-type blog where we photoshop corpse paint onto vapid celebrities.

9:30pm – film starts. Australian premiere of Until the Light Takes Us. Yes, YES. I am only girl there who isn’t a total retro vixen or deluxe goth – I am dressed in my usual, like a whimsical hippy hobogan (yes, I just coined that word).. feeling like a loser, but excited nonetheless.

Some time later:pm  – oh yes. I am in love with: Varg, Dead, Satyr (again), Frost (slightly), Fenriz and Faust.. Passionate idealism is so so so attractive…

Some time in between – we go to Beer Deluxe. I drink Franziskaner Hefferweisse and Fuller’s Organic Honey Dew ale. 2 pints of beer versus 50kg of girl….. tanked. Unfortunately. I was trying so hard to maintain a facade of awesomeness, which failed as I brought out gems like “perhaps black metal arose as an expression of disillusionment, alienation and despair; for these teenagers, exploring the ‘underculture’ of everything they were conditioned to loathe was their only solace when the idyllic society revealed its flaws”. I am so intellectual.

2:00am-ish – in the car listening to Bathory and King Diamond all the way home. Feeeeeel sick. We stop at McDonalds and they won’t let me in because it’s too late. BASTARDS> Yay – petrol station bathroom loves me.

2:something – we’re home. Posie loves me.

2:34am – I spill flour all over my laptop while trying to make waffles . Woah – milk – possibly a bit more dire than flour. Am drurnk. Am also worried – was folllowing waffle recipe that seems to have disappeare3d from my browser. Flying solo now, I guess.

Laterish.am – Waffles eaten. I am tired. I steal Nath’s Mayhem t-shirt and go to   bed.

xx

multitudinous seas incarnadine

… has been floating around my head all day. Such musical words. A snippet of Shakespeare that I came across in my copy of The Little Red Writing Book, but I’m not sure where it is from originally – bets on the Sonnets though.

I really, really, really wish I: a) knew where my camera is, or b) was rich enough to buy the new one I want, so I could show you all what I got up to today. Spectacular sights galore. So, I have raided google image search for some approximations.

ours were not this pretty

Nath and I met up for lunch; Shanghai Dumpling Restaurant! Prawn and chicken, pork and a big plate of Chinese broccoli. I made a huge mess and, of course, ordered at least five times more than I was capable of eating. Nath summed it up as “okay” – I think it’s only fair to interpret that as “I like yours better”.

We went to Mind Games because he simply needed some Warhammer paints, then stood in a bus shelter talking and watching the traffic lights change; again and again and again. He finally went back to work and it was a bit sad..

Uprisings by kozyndan

Next stop: Outre. I wanted to buy everything. EVERYTHING. Especially this piece by kozyndan (see right); very similar to Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa except for one vital detail – the frothy crests of the waves consist of hundreds of white tumbling bunnies. I want it.. there were a few more giclee prints of Japanese inspired bunny-art by kozyndan as well; maybe I need them all.

Other eye candy included prints by Angelique Houtkamp, the beautiful Mark Ryden, the ubiquitous Shag, a print of Royal Disorder Poison Party by Camille Rose Garcia, and then Niagara who I hadn’t encountered before but loved. I had to restrain myself from calling people who didn’t even care just to tell them how brilliant some of these works were…… which I suppose is sort of what I am doing now. Just one more…

Delfina y Maria by Sylvia Ji - I wanted this one too.

Okay. Being an art wanker = over.

I wandered off to Lincraft to get some supplies and walked away totally disappointed – why oh why do they only stock A4 sheets of horrible acrylic felt? It defies logic.

.. someone's cupcake. mine was cuter this time. and chocolate.

Anyway, my disappointment was so great that I needed to do two things: buy some bamboo knitting needles and a ball of pretty wool to entertain myself with, and a chocolate mini cupcake with cream cheese frosting to nibble whilst wandering around Degraves St. Having previously discussed the virtues of ‘mini-food’ on Facebook (conclusion: everything ‘mini’ is cuter therefore tastier), it seemed necessary.

So. Now we can pretend that all I do in life is look at art, knit and eat cupcakes. I did laundry? Hunted through a dusty garage and dangled preciously from a teetering ladder while hunting for super glue? Spent half an hour scrubbing a pair of particularly gross shoes with an old toothbrush and methylated spirits? Swept up a small mountain of dog hair from the hallway alone? Am currently doing another small mountain of homework? NEVER.

xx

Uma? Ummmm..

It amuses me to no end that Uma Thurman’s new film made £88 on its first weekend released in Britain; £9 on Sunday, meaning one person went to see it. Tragic or lol? – you decide!
Personally, I couldn’t really care less about seeing the story of “an ordinary housewife”. Is she actually a spy? Is her house built on a cemetery, about to transform into a portal from hell and swallow her kids? Is Uma going to explore female identity as it relates to her character as well as a wider social consciousness, then have her hand amputated and replaced with a ray gun? … if no, then that’s my answer too.

Tonight I’m going to make Taipei American School-style nachos – that basically involves scooping cheese spread out of a jar, microwaving and eating it, slathered on corn chips with salsa. Oh yeah. Then I shall don hot pink explorer socks and oversized pajamas, listen to the Spice Girls while I cruise interior design/style blogs. It’s okay, I’d be jealous too.

Today’s post is brought to you by:
– Country House by Blur
– All Mine by Portishead, and..
– Expectations by Belle and Sebastian

xx

Omgz, or something

Today, I woke up feeling totally refreshed. I’ve had ridiculous stress acne along my jaw lately for the first time in my life, but this morning it finally seemed to have cleared up. It was warm but overcast, slightly humid and a bit windy; perfection.

So I got up from my huge bed piled high in Egyptian cotton sheets and hot men, pulled on my vintage silk robe and wandered out to my provincial kitchen, full of totally necessary but aesthetically concealed modern gadgets. Awwww… Mummy had stopped by and made blueberry pancakes! Blood orange juice, pour moi? Posie and Xiao-Gui were frolicking outside the French doors, amongst the heirloom roses in my Dan Bifano-designed garden – yes, that’s right, I bought Oprah’s Montecito teahouse. Actually it was more of a gift.. you know, in honour of my incredible contribution to literature, art, music and human rights. And awesomeness, obviously.

The rest of the day was spent reading books specifically written with my tastes in mind, listening to my favourite bands perform live for me in my acoustically perfect living room, checking out the Shih Lin Night Market in Taipei, a gigantic dinner party with people I adore, the perfect gift of a magical ‘delete’ button to banish all noise and rubbish from my life, and finally.. fairy bread.

Okay, so maybe that’s all lies. Ignore me… DISTRACTION – aren’t these guys adorable? The one on the right looks like a fluffy bowling pin:

I think they win at life today. I met two gorgeous silky ferrets going for a walk down Bourke Street yesterday though, so they get the gold medal for yesterday.

Okay, so everything sucked balls today. Crusty, hairy ones with some sort of horrible as-yet unclassified STD and an unsettlingly floral fragrance. No cure, but the treatment involves sharing the mundane junk that amused me today between all the actual junk:

• Dina Goldstein’s Fallen Princesses – photographs of Disney princesses at odds with reality. Snow White with crying babies on her hips, Cinderella drinking alone in a seedy bar, Pocahontas watching TV in the dark surrounded by a million cats.
• China’s aerospace program has set a prerequisite for any prospective female astronauts; they must be married and a mother. Because you know, any other type of woman really isn’t human – it’s probably this assumption, even more than the discrimination, that makes me angry. But… whole ‘nother post. Or ten.
• David Lee Roth’s undeniably unique vocal stylings.
• And I have decided, after much careful consideration and reading a thousand and one reviews – I want this one.

Miz Opheeelia in da house, doggerz!!!!!!!!!1eleven

Or something. xx