Lying sick in bed for the past couple of days, not getting ready for finals as planned. Just the time to continue this challenge:
Day 8: A song you used to like but now hate
Back when we used to go to the only goth club in our area in Israel, I used to listen almost only to aggrotech, ebm and synthpop. As the time passed by I´ve realized that I adore the old school time of goth and dislike the cyber stuff. I´ve felt that especially since we´ve moved to Berlin with Boris, that was when all my emotional connection with the new so called synth goth music was over. I cannot stand anymore Diorama (even though seeing them live was pretty cool), Centhron, Noisuf-X and so on. I still like new wave and other electronic genres, but respectfully they have nothing to do with the whole cyber world. The worst part is to actually understand the "cool" lyrics, and realize how below the belt they are...
Centhron / Cunt
Day 9: A childhood memory T.V. theme tune
When I was a kid, I used to watch this lovely Russian TV show about animals, called "the animal world" (в мире животных). There is basically no Russian kid who hasn´t watched the show, hosted by the sweetest man on television (Николай Дроздов).
The opening theme was especially memorable:
Paul Mauriat / Alouette
You can also enjoy this dance remix of the tune:
Day 10: A song from one of your favorite albums (what is the album?)
Insert drastic change of moon here, as I cannot not include here one of my favorite bands for many years, and one of my favorite albums ever. Seeing this band twice was an amazing experience as well. Not enough words to express how I feel about this album. It was also my first step into more dark music, within the Metal genre as well, back when I was 15.
Opeth / Blackwater Park
Day 11: A song from an artist you are attracted to
Physically or mentally attracted? ;) I don´t think I am in the proper age anymore to be "attracted" to a musician, then again there´s Boris...
It will have to be Bret Anderson then, because he´s androgynous, and I like my men that way. This is one of those bands that I like by songs only, the albums just didn´t excite me as much. So here you go:
Last weekend Boris and I visited one of the best alternative events in Berlin!
Unofficially that is, but it sure felt like one. In honor of the Berlin Fashion Week (aren´t fashion weeks like, at summer?) there was a queer/ alternative event going on, named Style! It! Takes!, featuring art, fashion and live performances!
The music was absolutely awesome, post punk at it´s best played by our favorite DJ ever, Steve Morell. The atmosphere was really nice there, thanks to the various kinds of people walking around looking damn good! Drag queens, high fashion somethings, hipsters, gawths... it felt so special!
As expected, there were prof. photographers around and guess who didn´t miss the chance to pose around:.
Boy, I should have my outfits photographed like this every day! ;)
I just can´t get enough of those pictures of me and Boris, we´ve never had such successful shots together all thanks to the lovely and talented photographers!!
I´ve managed to balance the glamour by burning my winter coat against the oven that warmed the entire venue. There wasn´t any fire going on, yet the right side of the fabric is rugged and hard thanks to me being.... me.
Fun Fact: Boris´ blue jacket was actually his grandfather´s R.I.P, which was altered to Boris´ measurements by his mother a couple of years ago. Boris says that if his memory isn´t mistaken, his grandfather actually brought the jacket from a trip to Berlin he has had. Funny that it came back to the same city, now by his grandson :) several people have complimented Boris on it!
I was also happy to find out that the beautiful organizer of the event has a blog dedicated to it. You can check it out for more photos: Style! It! Takes! Blog.
Closing the event was the insane performance of Näd Mika. I want to see her again so much!!
The uncensored version of the vid was shown at the event! You can watch it on vimeo here!
The arrows show the direction of each line. Some where cut out parallel, some across the entire leg. I didn´t go too low with the lines, however. I also didn´t cut triangles! Just lines. The back of each leg remained untouched like before.
This is the result:
The parallel lines look so good!!! It´s also a nice feel that the cut outs begin relatively high, making the leggings look like shorts. So far they are a blast to wear over colored stockings, and since it´s too cold I cannot wear another pair of ripped stocking underneath like in the first picture.
These leggings didn´t have seams on the outer sides!!! So I had to imagine how far the cut out should go. They are also more lycra leggings than cotton, so the stretchy effect looks better, in my opinion.
Hair color is very light dependent, so I have to edit pictures in order to show you how it really shines :)
Fun Fact: I don´t know if I am the only one like this, but I have problem wearing leggings and stockings that are my size. Whenever I buy stocking I always take them one size bigger, because when wearing them in my size, they tend to slide down my crotch and it´s terribly annoying (that´s the reason why I despised stockings as a kid and hated wearing skirts). With one size bigger however, they gather on my hips and crotch and just stay there XD. Kind of hard to explain, but that´s my secret for happy stocking wearing, I guess.
I had fun doing this little DIY. Mostly I was surprised the it turned out so well!!
Tips on buying and altering leggings:
If you want to wear them as pants, make sure to check that they are NOT see through! We all know how horrific leggings as pants look like, so covering your fuzzy bat with belts or a long tank top can´t hurt.
Leggings have one weak spot- their waist. Make sure to check that there´s a nice tight elastic sewn to the waist. When searching for thermo leggings for winter I´ve had a headache finding normal ones because each time the elastic was shitty. You can always replace the elastic on your own of course, but that´s easy as pie if you have a sewing machine. I don´t.
Cotton leggings and spandex-like leggings look different. Especially when cut out, cotton leggings tend to look more simple (I guess?) so I think that with cotton ones you would want to cut smaller lines. But it really depends on what you´re going for, so maybe it doesn´t matter as much :)
Hope this post was fun to you and filled you with energy to DIY, or make holes in your clothes at least :D
I want to make a "goth winter warm leggings" post soon, so stay tuned!
Day 4: A song you can remember your parents listening to.
This is hard, because my mother and father listened to different kids of music, not to mention my mother was blasting Russian classical music from time to time. But I guess this is where I start with the culturally diverse answers. Here we go, heavy Russian artillery:
Тонкий шрам на любимой попе / Андрей Макаревич + Максим Леонидов
God, where do I even begin to describe this? This song is called "a thin scar on a beloved butt" and is about how a man passionately, and in a somewhat intelligent humor describes his beloved woman´s behind, and it having a tempting little scar on the left cheek.
If this isn´t enough for you, and the fact that I as a little girl was forced to hear this song in the car almost all the time, then maybe the horrific video will make your day.
Funny enough, the two musicians who sing the song are actually well respected in Russia, one of them having a pretty good jazz-like band called The Time Machine, which always were a huge family favorite.
But this is just the tip of the great Russian iceberg, I assure you.
Day 5: A song a friend likes but you don´t.
Try and dig up something that Boris likes and I don´t. There is not a lot of music which we disagree on, except for the occasional unknown post punk bands that I like putting on a loop and Boris can´t determine their significance.
Jaques Brel - Amsterdam
Boris loves French chansons, he adores them! It´s not that I really dislike Brel or his songs, but I really don´t have a lot of patience for them, and sometimes they annoy me. Maybe it´s because this is another genre my mother used to blast in the kitchen, and it gets on my nerves ever since. I do love Brel´s emotional expression to each of his songs, it is really unforgettable.
Day 6: a novelty song.
Time to jump into the multi cultural pool again, and I can´t help but bring another Russian classic here. It was one of my favorite songs as a kid (still is) and probably plays the same role for many Russian people as well. This song was also a huge hit at the time, and has reached a cult height, if I do say so myself:
Ногу Свело - Хару Мамбуру
The band Nogu Svelo (sorry, can´t translate this...) is in its essence a novelty band, and mostly being regarded as one of many Russian "rock" bands that disguise pop music behind rock song arrangements (called Rockopops in Russian). Yet Boris and I´ve always believed otherwise, and although people don´t take the band seriously, we sometimes do.
This song has absolutely no meaning, it is a collection of syllables in Gibberish, which makes it so awesome. In terms of instrumental and (as always made by the incredible singer + bassist Max Pakrovsky) vocal performance I think this song is insane. Dear Nogu Svelo have a lot of good other novelty songs up their sleeve, yet they require knowledge in the Russian language/ culture :)
Day 7: One of your favorite songs.
I´ll just gonna pic one randomly, because I have a feeling I will meet similar questions along the way:
Culture Club - Do You Really Want To Hurt Me
Can listen to this song all the time, and watch the video all the time. I cannot process other Culture Club music, however. Got to love the style and the dub influences in this one, it is also a great chill out and dance song in my opinion!
Fun Fact: Boy George wears a white sweatshirt in this video which says "Human Culture" in Hebrew on it! Whether it is intentional or they´ve tried to translate the band´s name literally, the´ve failed either way.
Hope this was eye opening to you, and I hope to include more diverse and obscure multi culti stuff here. And as always, if you have your own answers to each question, pleas do share!
I saw this on FB not long ago and thought why not give it a try. Gotta keep blogging about music more often!
So this 100 Day Song Challenge is nothing too complicated, let´s see how it will go and if I´ll have the patience to proceed to the 200-400 challenges XD
I hope to include various cultural songs here as well as not only post punk/ goth related songs, as I do prefer some artists by songs and not by albums.
Day 1 - Day 01: A song you know all the lyrics to.
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
I actually covered this one in a small acoustic performance with 2 lovely people, back when I went to a jewish related summer camp in Boston right after finishing high school. That camp was an amazing experience, and singing the song was a blast!
I´ve first heard it as a Cruxshadows cover and disliked it a lot, but then was really satisfied by the original of course :)
Day 02: A song from the first album you ever bought. (what was the album?)
Me? Buying an album?
Just kidding. I really didn´t buy a lot of albums, not to mention that my first ever album was given to me as a birthday present.
Yet my first ever bought album was Green Day´s American Idiot, back when I used to hear classical and baroque music only due to my professional involvement with it, as a recorder player. I was sort of a classical music dork, you can say that. I knew nothing about modern punk rock music at the time (except for Jrock and Visual Kay, I was an anime freak) nor was I alternative, but I´ve really wanted to give it a try. I think I was like 14 or something...
Obviously, I cannot look this album in the eye anymore ;)
Day 03: A song that reminds you of a night out. (when was it and where?)
Back in Israel we had only one goth club where we lived - The Dmusic, which is no more. But when Boris and I went to it´s EBM and Dark Electro parties, which were the only goth parties we knew of, there was one night when the local DJ played a song by request, and the reaction of the crowd really impressed us, and so we liked the song from the first moment we´ve heard it.
And although many songs remind us about going out to the Dmusic, this one in particular stands out, because it had been our party song for a long time.
Grendel - Soilbleed
This sure was fun, I think that you´ll see a lot of this challenge´s posts.
Can you think of a song for the first 3 challenge questions? You are more than welcome to write them in the comments :)
Now I shall start making some delicious waffle, ice cream, whipped cream and melted chocolate desert for Boris and me!
I certainly hope that not only I regard the opinion that most films being categorized as goth and worshiped by goths are total shit. It is pretty common within the subculture to only care for Tim Burton films and heavily rely on other creations like The Crow or Gypsy 83 as the major goth representatives.
Well, I think that the mentioned above are less than good quality films. Sure I am crazy about Interview with The Vampire and Edward Scissorhands, but it is just a pity that quality cinema is always forgotten in ANY list of movies entitled "goth" (The Hunger included here as well, that film sucks balls badly).
I dare not to say that it´s a sin to watch Gypsy 83 or The Crow, I actually really love those movies and they teach a very nice lesson in general. But there is just so much more to it. Let´s put it this way- like a woman´s body, the less you see of it the more you´d want of it. I hope you get my drift now.
I hope to mention here some of such films, and hopefully introduce you to new good movies! The films I am about to include here happen to be my favorites. I am also excluding horror, historical movies and silent film, because I think they have a genre of their own, be it contemporary or not.
Needless to say that I am not writing a review of the following films nor summarizing them up.
Also, the mentioned below being not only my favorites, but also the movies where I most emphasize with goth, where I find what goth means for me personally. So it is of course legitimate that other readers won´t feel the same as I do, as goth means (and visualizes) something a bit different for each.
++++
The Wings Of Desire - Der Himmel Über Berlin
Probably THE film which inspired Boris and me to move to the infamous city in the first place. Seriously, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Crime And The City Solution and clearly goth people shown in clubs as the scene originally was. Plus the movie is almost entirely black and white, and introduces you to the melancholy of Berlin of that time. More things indeed could be said, but you can imagine yourselves the difficulty praising one´s favorite ever film in the best words... The bottom line is: if that´s not goth, I don´t know what is...
Trailer:
Some nice screen shots:
+++
Dead Man
Talk about another film which has inspired me and my photography in particular. I believe this is one of the best parts Johnny Depp has ever had. It´s a very quiet and calm movie, thank god, which lets you marvel at the amazing visual scenes and the simple yet sad story behind it. If an entire film about a man going to die isn´t goth, I don´t know what is...
Trailer:
Screen shots:
+++
Bladerunner
I am not a huge fan of sci-fi, but this movie is awesome because it is so dark, where androids are being portrayed more human than human beings themselves. The things which stand out in particular in this one are the 80´s influenced streets of the future, and the most beautiful female character ever: Pris
I haven´t read the book, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, on which the film was based yet.
Trailer:
+++
The Seventh Seal
I´ve found this movie to be not as dark in it´s plot (as much as a nordic tale could get dark, which it didn´t) but rather the visual portrayal of the characters and, of course, death itself were absolutely unforgettable. This is another film which has inspired my photography a lot. It is also a pool of amazing quotes.
Trailer:
+++
I would say that these are the films that first came to my mind. I am probably missing out an enormous amount of other great ones, so if you´d had an idea during this post, please share! I am always happy to see some quality cinema, especially when it´s not vampire crap/ something modern, too fast and computerized.
Speaking of creativity in motion, here´s something silly that I´ve had Boris to help me to do: a goth vine. I am (unfortunately) crazy about vine videos, I find the medium absolutely hilarious, catchy and simple. But because I don´t use internet on my phone and don´t have the app, I´ve decided to just upload it to youtube :)
Starting this year off with some quality blogging (as if...). I´m still kind of still coming out from last night. Greeting the new year was magical, loud and certainly unforgettable, but it´s now all behind, and who wants to be stuck in the border between both old and new years, right?
So off we go with some DIY that requires nothing but the biggest passion of all people which I am happy not share- chocolate.
So I´ve stumbled upon this Pinterest how-to on using ice cube forms to store earrings. Since I didn´t have any ice cube forms, I´ve decided on a different approach.
We had quite a lot of chocolate in our house due to the visit of Boris´ parents. I´ve fortunately come to the conclusion that I HATE chocolate, all kinds of it (which previously had been only relevant to dark chocolate), so the different kinds of chocolate candy being given to us so kindly were no fun for me.
After Boris ate it all I´ve decided to use one of the forms to store my earrings!
I´ve cleaned it with baby wipers and this is the result:
Kind of reminds you of Gaudi, doesn´t it?
I have a LOT of earrings, most of them are not paired. So the chocolate candy forms are very useful!
This may be helpful to you if you are:
A poor student
Constantly/ eventually will move from one place to another and have no reason to do something fancy like those frame canvas jewelry holders.
Don´t have enough room for those frame canvas jewelry holders/ something that would look more aesthetically pleasing and utterly feminine.
Happy New Year once more, hopefully more practical posts to come!
