Doting on Quotes

"Ruffletastic" by shoobydoo

I admit it - I am a sucker for quotes. There's something so admirable in their ability to encapsulate an idea in a easy sentence or two. They may dip into cliche, but cliche is powerful because it is often true - and I personally love them as well. Here are a few of my favorite in terms of fashion and style:

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”
- Coco Chanel

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Fashion is as profound and critical a part of the social life of man as sex, and is made up of the same ambivalent mixture of irresistible urges and inevitable taboos.”
- Rene Konig

“"Style" is an expression of individualism mixed with charisma. Fashion is something that comes after style.”
- John Fairchild quotes

“Above all, remember that the most important thing you can take anywhere is not a Gucci bag or French-cut jeans; it's an open mind”
- Gail Rubin Bereny quotes

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common - this is my symphony."
- William Ellery Channing quotes

What are your personal quotes?

Sicky-Poo

Living Hope, 1 Peter 1:3-9 VerseVisions
Originally uploaded by Marketseq

Apologies for the late post today: I am sadly a bit under the weather. However, I will be back tomorrow with all sorts of wonderful for my lovelies.

In the meantime, I leave you with these wonderful quotes by Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Bukowski:

"If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair, we'd never have a friendship, we'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well that's just nonsense! You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build wings on the way down."
- Ray Bradbury

The young poet should stay the hell out of writing classes and find out what's happening around the corner. And bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well.
- Charles Bukowski

Predictions

Victorian Fairy Portrait
Originally uploaded by ex.libris

Over the past week, I find myself continually returning to read this collection of "Predictions of the year 2000" from the Ladies Home Journal of 1900. These predictions, written in that turn-of-the-century style that I could just eat up with a spoon, are as insightful as they are entertaining to read 100 years after they were written. Some are quite remarkably on the money, such as:

Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic.

Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago.

Prediction #25: Fast-flying refrigerators on land and sea will bring delicious fruits from the tropics and southern temperate zone within a few days.

While others show as just how much farther we have to go...

Prediction #13: Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large.

Prediction #17: A university education will be free to every man and woman...Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses...In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.

Read the whole set of predictions here

Andrew Bird in the Studio

photo by Michael Maly

Andrew Bird is a Chicago singer-songwriter, violinist, guitarist, and self-proclaimed professional whistler. If you haven't heard his latest album, Armchair Aprocrypha, I suggest you do, as I consider it a personal favorite from last year. Bird has this warm, holistic sound that I think can only be the result of someone who has a thorough knowledge of every piece going into a song.

Andrew Bird has an article in the New York Times this week on life inside the studio. As someone who has never been inherently musical, and extremely jealous of those who are, I found this a great read. It really shows the amount of care that goes into creating a fine piece of music.

"In the studio, a number of things can conspire to turn the natural act of making music into an awkward dance. First there is no audience, no one to impress. Second is the temptation to be too careful, to isolate every sound and not let it mingle with other sounds. The third deals with the voice, the most personal and vulnerable instrument. Recording vocals can be fraught with aural illusions akin to the weirdness of hearing your own voice on your answering machine. 'That’s not me, is it?'"

Read the article here.

And for those new to Andrew, here's the video to his song, "Imitosis"...

Melville on the Tattoo

"carlatattoo4 butterfly tattoo" by Beautiful wwworld's

I have recently been reading "Moby Dick," and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is not simply a book as an almanac to the mystical moments surrounding every second of our lives.

One of my favorite characters in the book is Queequeg, the heavily tattooed harpooner and close friend of the narrator, Ishmael.

Being a rather tattooed person myself, I was struck by this one passage about Queequeg and his tattoos. To me, it encapsulates what is so wonderful about this timeless artform...

"...this tattooing, had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wonderous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even he himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unresolved to the last. And this thought it must have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg - "Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods!"

Inspiring Words by Zolton

I came across this post from Zolton of Lost at E Minor yesterday, and knew completely where he was coming from. I am quite an A type, and I feel like these words really sum up what it's like to live every day on that level...


Out of the whirlwind, Originally uploaded by mseidman

"On my best days I feel just like a great white shark. Not all-conquering and indestructible — though I have my moments — but rather that if I ever stop moving, if I take a moment to correct myself in the full glare of the light, I’ll probably sink. I think this a sentiment typical of our time: we’re a people of movers, a swarm of busy-ness. We’re motivated not so much by greed as we are by an overriding fear of failure. And as a result, we create, we experience, and we consume far more than anyone else before us. We’re individualists, yet form clusters within. We’re dreamers, wheelers and schemers. We’re movers. Generation text? The baby boomboxers? Whatever. We defy categorisation because we don’t stay in one place — neither physically, mentally nor emotionally - long enough to own it. Our world gets smaller by the second and as it does, the mystery … the joyous excitement of new discovery, becomes less definable. How nice would it be to strip back the fine layers of resilience to leave us all vulnerable for a while. To feel the rawness of each new breath as it surges through our lungs. To be exposed to the realness of it all. At least for a day or two. Or until the next series of Temptation Island hits the screens."

This week has been a particularly rough whirlwind, and I find myself continuing to return to these words, as if they were some sort of spiritual anchor. Thanks Zolton :)