One Day We Will Die and Our Ashes Will Fly

Yesterday was a day, I think, to be treasured. The kind of day that if it was in a movie would not really be included because it wouldn't have any plot development so instead there'd be a sequence with a condensed version of the day set to a cheerful upbeat song that no one had ever heard of which would consequently spike in popularity as a result of the movie.

So basically went to Jen's house, spent a long time talking to Jen's little sister about Milly Molly Mandy and accompanying awesomeness while Jen practised her flute.

Then headed to Brick Lane, where I spend almost all of the ten quid I had to start with on a oversized denim jacket with a fleece lining, which is lovely, and then after that Jen bought a pair of dark green suede shorts (which are ridiculously Penny Lane from Almost Famous) and a nice blue jacket. And then I bought a crochet top.

And then while having a cigarette/bagel stop we conceived the idea of going to the National Portrait gallery and buying postcards of cool people like Oscar Wilde and Mick Jagger, so we hopped on the tube and headed over to Leicester square, went to the museum, bought said postcards, then got kicked out because it was closing.

And then we went to Trafalgar Square and sat on metal lions for ages as it got dark. And got shouted at by a drunk guy who thought he was the police and told us that we had to come down but haha cos he couldn't get to us because we were high up on a lion. And need I mention that I was wearing corduroy shorts, a crochet top, a denim and fleece jacket, my red doc martins and red lipstick throughout this? I feel so cool. For once in my sad pathetic life.

Ranty Ranty Rant

North London... Oh how easy it is to be sucked in to your bubble. With your plethora of girls who are just that little bit skinnier and richer than you, the history of cool bohemian writers and artists, and the crépe place on hampstead high street, you seem so innocent and enticing. But do not be fooled.

After nearly three years of living here I have come to the realization that all the girls at school, with their rich banker and lawyer parents and their fashionable clothes have nothing expected of them except to go to private school, have a short period of teenage rebelliousness during which they will drink a lot, experiment with drugs and talk about how they hate their parents, then get reasonably good marks at school, go off to university, drink some more, become a banker/lawyer, marry another banker/lawyer, and eventually settle down again in north london and squeeze out some kids... and the process repeats.

Fuck this.

EARTH TO JEN?

ciao; ive long neglected this blog feeling slightly unworthy to pen after the ohso intelligent lola (she diffinately SHOULDNT get used to these compliaments) but i have finally got the guts up (i read an inspireing book the heart is a lonely hunter by Carsen Mcullers for those interested)

however i really came to lament about the loss of a denim jacket , agreed it was on loan from a friend but i had to walk home in the pouring rain severly missing this thing and it wasnt even all that nice ...what i get attached to eh?

SO this weekends excursion to brickle will include a long-winded search for a new signature jacket for myself (along with the customary visit to yummys cafe for a falaffel)

ive also fallen in love with velvet velvet velvet

prime example see above^

under slight stress and could really do with a drink and a ciggie at the mo

the weekend is nigh though ...only one more day to go

those pictures lola posted of models and jhonny dep smoking were just so beutiful why WHY are all the good things bad for you?

im thinking about accuiring a 20s ciggerette holder , yknow the histerially cool long ones

also pictured above :)

time for tea (rooibos ocourse) so ill leave my pondering there

i will return with more interesting wonderings (hopefully...

~JENJENJEN

Born 50 years too late to be a hippy.

Well fuck me.

Now where's that time machine?

I'm Wasted, You Can Taste It

Time and space, gold rocks, fireworks, cool girls with thigh high boots/lolita shades/feathers/epicest leather jacket ever, random girl Sean Connery is being adorable with, Sailor and Lula, blue hair and nice leather jacket.

Yeah, all things I wish I was.

The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!

Howl, by Allen Ginsberg

CLICK THIS LINK!

Thank you. I'm not going to copy and paste the poem, because it's absurdly long, and it's impossible to pick out a best bit. Aaaaah.

Guess who Feels like Grady Tripp?

I do!

Haha. There is no weed, typewriters or dead dogs (:( ) but there is red wine and a new vintage dressing gown. It's silk. And it's dark red. With a paisley pattern. And it was pretty darn cheap. Win.

I seem to be a magnet for books. They accumulate around me. Not that I mind. It's just getting hard to walk across my bedroom floor. And that's nothing to do with the wine. :)

Also, I got concussed last week. Misjudged the height of a ski jump - it was snowing pretty heavily, visibility was crap, anyone could have done it - and got really panicked because I couldn't remember the four noble truths, and hence probably had lasting brain damage. Luckily I've remembered them now.

Maaaaaaan

Obsessing over the sound of 'Blase' by Archie Shepp.

At half past one in the morning.

After getting back finally from France at midnight.

After being delayed in stupid fucking tiny french airport for hours.

And after promising my mother I would not touch my laptop.

I read an article in the FT magazine (or at least I think it was the FT. Some newspaper colour supplement anyway) last weekend, about this photographer guy in like the 50s or something in New York (what is it about 50s New York? The Beat Generation running round in coffee shops - remind me to talk about Howl some time - and all those Salinger characters talking in italicized syllables, which is just darling.) Anyway he lived in this loft and all these incredible people, like writers, and Jazz guys, and artists, and just random junkies and prostitutes and everyone hanging round and he took pictures of them all, and I just googled him to find the pictures because if I can't live without them you can't either. So here you go.

Also dreaming of the day I move out and get my own flat. (In New York... or Paris... or Rome... (mmmm gelato)) And yes, I will confess this is mainly so I can smoke naked in bed and hence complete my image of tortured existentialist/jazz person/beat generation wannabee. While reading Sartre. In French (yes, this is what I have been attempting to do for the past week - pretentious I know but so worth it) And this rather nicely leads me to my other new obsession, which is this passage from 'Nausea" - best book ever. I'm copying and pasting it directly, because I just need to share the beauty. It's so beautiful it makes me cry.

I think about a clean-shaven American, with thick black eyebrows, who is suffocating with the

heat, on the twentieth floor of a New York skyscraper. Over New York, the sky is burning, the

blue of the sky has caught fire, huge yellow flames are licking the roofs; the Brooklyn children

are going to stand in bathing drawers under the jets of hose-pipes. The dark room on the twentieth

floor is baking hot. The American with the black eyebrows sighs, gasps and the sweat rolls down his

cheeks. He is sitting, in shirtsleeves, in front of his piano; he has a taste of smoke in his mouth and,

vaguely, a ghost of a tune in his head. "Some of these days." Tom will come along in an hour with

his hip-flask; then the two of them will flop into leather armchairs and drink great draughts and the

fire in the sky will come and burn their throats, they will feel the weight of an immense, torrid slumber.

But first the tune must be written down. "Some of these days." The moist hand seizes the pencil on the

piano. "Some of these days you'll miss me, honey."

There. Irrelevant, really, to the plot of the book, but one of the most fucking beautiful passages I've read in a long time.

At The Hop

Well weather-wise, today has been a fucker. Anyone else in London will know that it's been flashing between sun and snow every five minutes practically, which is as confusing as hell. For once, I'm actually not hoping the snow will settle, since I'm off on a skiing holiday on Friday, and years of experience with Heathrow airport has taught me that planes WILL NOT leave if there is more than a centimeter of snow. Britain's inability to cope with snow is remarkably confusing, since we do get it pretty regularly every year.

Also, even though it is only Febuary, I feel like this is a good time to start counting down to summer (actually, I lie, I've been counting down since Jan 1st). My family is already planning summer holidays - (10 days in Paris and then the South of France, so I am as happy as an unusually elated clam).

Here's some summer inspiration.

I WANT THOSE SUNGLASSES!

And yes, I am aware that they're chanel. or I think they are.

My hunt for cheap/vintage knockoff begins.

Not really summer, but I love it too much.

When it comes to summer, I always get about twice as exited about clothes then I am normally, and I already have a feeling that this is going to be the summer of white dresses. At the moment I'm on the look out for the perfect white lace mini dress, something kind of 60s mod inspired or something. Actually, I've already seen it. Unfortunately it belongs to a sixth former I don't know at all at my school. Grrrr. She has the best wardrobe I've ever seen, and I have to deal with her cavorting round school all day in MY dream dress! Bitch.

I lied. The one that girl at school's got is not quite my dream dress, my dream dress is this one, pictured above, but mystery stylish blonde at school (MSBS) has one as close to this as possible that is actually wearable in real life for someone with a less than perfect body and a sense of decency.

Her Life Was Saved by Rock n' Roll

Oh the Velvet Underground had it so right there. My personal belief is that music truly does save lives, or souls, or something. It would take a better mind than mine to explain properly, and without being corny (and I am corny far too often), what the right song can do to a mind.

So instead I'm just going to talk about some songs that have been particularly essential to making me what I am today, complete with pictures, because as I'm sure you've spotted by now I am a very visual person, and what would Ziggy Stardust be without the mullet?

Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane.

Jefferson Airplane

I don't know if you've ever seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but I heard this song for the first time in that film (and my GOD it's used well) and honestly it blew me away. Grace Slick's voice is so crazy and wild, in this song it's practically the audible equivalent of a sneer. (By the way - a friend of mine recently overheard someof the most annoying girls in our class talking about this song - they were arguing about whether it was by The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. I'm dying inside.)

Candy Says - The Velvet Underground

Candy Darling

Is it odd to be able to relate enormously to a song about a transvestite? No, seriously. But the themes of enforced physical alienation from what you'd like to be, and longing to be free of your body - that's something universal, or at least I think it is. And who can resist a little doo-doo-wop?

Colleen - Joanna Newsom

Joanna Newsom

I've spoken about my love for this woman before, but jesus christ I love this song. It reminds me of all the fairy stories I used to read when I was a child, especially the Irish ones for some reason (maybe because I used to have an irish friend called Colleen? Who knows?) Suffice to say that the lines 'I hate the sight of that empty air, like stepping for a missing stair and falling forth forever blindly' are marvelously beautiful, as is 'he-who-easily-can-curl-himself-against-the-sky'.

Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie

David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust

Aah Ziggy. The red-haired martian motherfucker of kickarse songs. That guitar riff is iconic. Here's a little story; a few months ago now me and a friend were late for a party, and we got there when all the booze had been drunk and everyone was pissed but us. Harsh, yes, but we managed - we started playing this over and over again on the speakers in the garden and doing a dance, since everyone else was too drunk to laugh. It was fun - but that's not the story. I guess we listened to that song a little too much, because afterwards, at about eleven, we went for a walk and ended up in a park on our own (not clever, but we were lucky). And then... oh jesus I can't describe it. It was a feeling that can only be partially recreated by reading Alan Ginsberg's 'Howl' about five times in a row with music on full blast the whole time and some weed to help you along. But we hadn't smoked anything, and I'd left all my books at home. It was kind of a spiritual experience - and yes, I know that sounds corny as hell, but it was. It was like seeing God, only instead of God there was some weird mash-up of David Bowie, Dean Moriarty and Buddha. All done by the power of music alone, and whatever other factors contributed to it, but we really aren't sure what the hell they were.

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