And here I go again with the empty promises
of posting at least once a week.
But I will this time.
I promise.
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| You when you heard the news. |
Showing posts with label Message. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Message. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Saturday, December 21, 2013
The Power of Empathy
This powerful short helps us understand the difference between "empathy" and "sympathy". These words often get misused and miscommunicated in our daily lives. The animation encompasses the two words in a simple, clear manner and allows the audience to truly understand (and enjoy) the power of empathy as opposed to sympathy.
"Dr Brené Brown reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities."
Voice: Dr Brené Brown
Animation: Katy Davis (AKA Gobblynne) www.gobblynne.com
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Roméo et Juliette
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
Everyone is buzzing about it, and I guess it's time for me to fly into the conversation. For those of you who know me well, it should not come as a surprise that I am utterly devoted and obsessed with Shakespeare and (some) of his plays. Romeo and Juliet has always been a favorite of mine -- but not in the traditional sense.
"The greatest love story ever told" is not how I would describe the pathetic relationship between Romeo and his infatuated love Juliet. True love? I think not. Yet Shakespeare (the genius that he is) is truly a poet and his writing is utterly breath-taking in this classic. I read this play at least once a year, and don't think I will ever get sick of it. I do not condone the behavior between the two "star-crossed lovers" nor do I believe in the dramatic unfolding of the play, but I cannot get enough of the words pushing out of the paper and into my head, creating these stunning portraits of scenes that can only be painted by a true artist.
That being said, there has been countless adaptations of this play, and below are the trailers for the most famous. With my commentary on them; of course.
First of all we have the classic 1968 adaption by Franco Zeffirelli starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. A truly beautiful film. They kept close to the original writing and cast the two leads flawlessly. It is always hard to remember how young Romeo and Juliet were written as, so by casting a 17 and 15 year old, Zeffirelli succeeded in refreshing all of our minds. Makes the silly love-aspect of the play a little more bearable. Young love *sigh*. The lines are delivered naturally and the story unfolds nicely. Although the film does get a little dry and boring near the end, this will still be one of my favorite adaptations of this play.
Next we have arguably the worst film Leonardo DiCaprio has ever been in, if not the worst film ever made. The horrendous adaptation by Baz Luhrmann starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes (1996). Although many describe this film to be a masterpiece, I find it dreadful and just watching the trailer made me cringe. It was a failed attempt to modernize Shakespeare's work, lacking the right flair it needed to make it a spectacle (a la The Great Gatsby), and also lacking the right translation from the original play to more "understandable English" *shivers*. Let's just say I wasn't too keen on the whole idea of modernizing a vintage play.
But of course I judged too soon, because only two years later in 1998 John Madden along with the phenomenal Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes blew my mind with a (honestly hard to explain) adaption of the play. Not a direct telling of the play, but a very well-written story with two plots woven into one seamlessly. I cannot express my love for this movie through a simple blurb. The way the characters came alive and naturally portrayed the making of Romeo and Juliet as a play just makes me clap my hands together in giddy joy. All of the actors were superb, and the storyline was epic. (The trailer doesn't nearly do it justice.) If you haven't seen this film, I highly recommend it.
And finally, the one we've all been waiting for. The most recent attempt at rekindling the original jewel in it's most basic glory. I have not seen this film yet, so a review will be coming shortly but the trailer looks promising. Although I must admit the gorgeous Ed Westwick may have nudged my opinion in one way over the other... (What can a girl do?) I'm excited (and frightfully nervous) to see how this new piece will unfold.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Something different.
Don't date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.
Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and
uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common
ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon
that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets
stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do
little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let
her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the
fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking
collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.
Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.
Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.
Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl
who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a
life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary
that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a
vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an
accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays
claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and
soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate
desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit,
that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.
Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the
storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the
Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in
the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my
life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the
account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that
her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface
bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am
not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed,
properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the
life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept
nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being
storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train
and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really
hate you.
By Charles Warnke
Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.
Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and
uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common
ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon
that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets
stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do
little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let
her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the
fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking
collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.
Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.
Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl
who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a
life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary
that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a
vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an
accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays
claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and
soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate
desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit,
that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the
storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the
Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in
the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my
life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the
account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that
her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface
bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am
not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed,
properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the
life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept
nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being
storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train
and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really
hate you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although I don't agree with Mr Warnke's ideas, I can't help but love this passage.
Something about the way he writes.
The passion behind it.
How ironic that he writes against girls who love reading, yet girls like myself (as a girl who can't get enough of literature) find the passage intriguing and stimulating, thus attracting me to get to know him.
Monday, September 2, 2013
It's not as it seems.
Awareness campaign created by Duval Guillaume Modem
and produced by monodot in support of STOP THE TRAFFIK.
Visit http://www.stopthetraffik.org/ to get involved.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Before Sunrise, Before Sunset
"Isn't this the best part of breaking up?
Finding someone else you can't get enough of.
Someone who wants to be with you too."
Friday, December 14, 2012
Holiday Films
The Family Stone: An uptight, conservative, businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his
eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds
that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.
Four of my very favorite Christmas-Season movies...
All descriptions from IMDB
Love Actually: Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their
love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a
frantic month before Christmas in London, England.
The Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack Skellington, king of Halloweentown, discovers Christmas Town, but doesn't quite understand the concept.
The Holiday: Two women troubled with guy-problems swap homes in each other's countries, where they each meet a local guy and fall in love.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Fall Break 2012
For this year's fall break the girls and I will finally be hitting up the infamous city of Nevada.
Excited? Yes.
Nervous? Yes.
Sick? Yes..... :(
But I will fight through my cold and make the most of it.
Enjoy "Life of the Party" as a shining example of what will be running through my head as I walk through every bar/casino/club in vegas.
#SwagSwag
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Metallics
THIS COMING AUTUMN....
Liquid Metallics.
Be sparkly and stand out with shine without being too over-the-top.
These slightly muted tones really put a bang to an outfit without over-powering the wearer.
Shimmery but sexy.
Pair it with dark colors or even whites.
Add some shine to the coldness.
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Think outside the box! Tip your shoes, paint your nails, patch your clothes. Do it all.... |
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| Not to be mistaken with sparkly sequins!! |
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Tweeter
Hello all,
I have been so off/on with my posts that I've decided to start a twitter dedicated to my blog.
Follow my twitter and you won't have to keep checking to see if I've uploaded a new post!
I'll also post various links to other interesting sites I see.
Make it easier on the both of us,
Follow.
xoxo
I have been so off/on with my posts that I've decided to start a twitter dedicated to my blog.
Follow my twitter and you won't have to keep checking to see if I've uploaded a new post!
I'll also post various links to other interesting sites I see.
Make it easier on the both of us,
Follow.
xoxo
Elissa Rowe https://twitter.com/AFineMess13
Friday, August 3, 2012
Photo Booth
My very first "product review"
I encourage everyone to get the INCREDIBOOTH app on their iphone/ipods/ipads.
Super fun, my friends and I had a ball taking millions of photos.
It is quite annoying that they don't preview each style, but I guess it's kind of fun to
be surprised with the different effects.
You got the vintage, the black and white, the color.
It's fun.
Trust.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Pop it like it's hot?
NOW INTO: Detachable Collars
(See right: Vintage -- it's a joke)
But there's nothing funny about these classy collars.
Great little accessory for your outfit.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Worlds Away
Things I think are especially Beautiful.
Fireworks
Elephants
Water
Fantasy
The Circus.
"Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D"
Go worlds beyond the show.
Director: Andrew Adamson
Writers: Andrew Adamson
In theaters: December 21st, 2012
Copyright © 2012 Paramount Pictures
Go worlds beyond the show.
Director: Andrew Adamson
Writers: Andrew Adamson
In theaters: December 21st, 2012
Copyright © 2012 Paramount Pictures
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Bits and pieces of Claremont
Street Piano Project
Randomly on the street we found a perfectly working piano. Sponsored by street pianos LA.
Randomly on the street we found a perfectly working piano. Sponsored by street pianos LA.
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The Cheese Cave
The happiest place in Claremont. The scent may be overwhelming but they have the greatest selection of vintage cheeses from all across the world. Their beer/wine selection is also second to none. Amazing cheeses for SUPERB prices.
The happiest place in Claremont. The scent may be overwhelming but they have the greatest selection of vintage cheeses from all across the world. Their beer/wine selection is also second to none. Amazing cheeses for SUPERB prices.
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The Farmers' Market
Every Sunday the farmers' market opens in our village: selling fruits, vegetables, jewelry, candles, really anything you can think of!!
Every Sunday the farmers' market opens in our village: selling fruits, vegetables, jewelry, candles, really anything you can think of!!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Mother's Day 2012
"Being a mom is the hardest job in the world. But it's also the best."
This Procter & Gamble commercial honors everything that all moms do to help their children succeed by showcasing the amazing moms behind Olympic athletes at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The hardest job in the world is truly the best job in the world.
Beautiful Video.
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| I LOVE MY MOMMY. |
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