lately

Devendra Banhart, At the Hop 

(which is runner up for the award of cutest song ever, second only to "We're Going To Be Friends" by The White Stripes)

It's finally summer! Another year is done and dusted, and I'm equal parts exhausted and excited. I kicked off the holidays by attending The World's Greatest Fashion Sale (gotta love hyperboles), where I bought a super cute gingham dress, and by thrifting for vintage Nat Geos with a friend (shout-out to the lady who runs the second-hand bookstore at 44 Stanley for pricing them so cheaply lol).

On Sunday I watched Free Angela and All Political Prisoners at the Bioscope - a fantastic retrospective doccie on Angela Davis' arrest and her subsequent trail.

Totally recommend it for any Black power movement enthusiasts out there! (And, you know, everyone else!)

This Thursday, I had the pleasure of seeing Dear Reader play a live set at the Play Station Theatre in Parkhurst, as part of her Blue Met Blue tour. She played some of her older work, in addition to songs off her stunning 2013 album Rivonia (though, disappointingly, she didn't play my personal favourite: "Teller of Truths"). As was expected, MacNeil, dressed in a wispy black dress and a pom pom headband, was her charismatic, playful, breathtakingly talented self. The encore of the evening (truly la pièce de résistance) was the phenomenal track "Left the Ground".

What was unexpected was the enchanting supporting act cherry-picked by Dear Reader: Frankie Beagle. I tend to remain pessimistic of supporting acts. In my eyes, they usually appear as some sad afterthought, a last-minute footnote to the main attraction. Frankie Beagle certainly opened my eyes.

Frankie Beagle, Sailor Song

Jo'burg based, the multi-instrumented duo's sound echoed Grouper's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill - their songs having the similar message-in-a-bottle, long-distane-call feeling. Lyrically, they reminded one of Cat Power circa-Moon Pix, but with an underlying playfulness. Combined, these elements created an ethereal, other-worldly effect.

The front woman, Frankie, definitely added to the mysticism of the band. Enchanting in a dazzling sequin top, she makes one envious of women who exude seductiveness (no, too crude of a word - it is an Eartha Kitt-esque sultriness) as easily as everyone else breathes.

it's hard to have peace when you've lost all your heroes

Future of What, Back To The City

hi. currently fangirling about Frances Ha, the work of Pablo Neruda, and the impending Twin Peaks revival. but mostly just stressed from exams and also... tired, of expending so much vulnerability and effort and not getting anything in return. I don't think it's wrong for me to demand some in return. right?

 

Kentridge pin. attended a talk by him not long ago at Love Books, which I still catch myself thinking about / being inspired by.

shot this at dusk. you know when you see things and lyrics kind of float up to your head? "Our heads are just houses / without enough windows."

 (insert obligatory Twin Peaks reference)

Frances Ha (2013) on Vimeo. fuck. this film is my everything right now. after my friend watched it, he came up with the bestest bestest observation: "there's a little bit of Frances Ha in all of us."

love,

Zahra

and not float around this earth like a ghost

"How would you ask someone how his journey was?"

Hi. It's been a long time since we've last talked. A lot of things have happened since then - The Grand Budapest Hotel came out, and Lauren Beukes published a new book, and Beyoncé made everyone freak out that one time. [I say that with the nonchalance of someone who most definitely did freak out.]

I'm someone who will commit to a diary every new year, and abandon it by January 2nd, only to make periodical returns when something is happening in my life that is so overwhelming that I find no other way to deal with it than by writing about it. Thinking it out with words that I can't say aloud. (A lot like Sumire, from Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart. Did I mention that I finally started reading Murakami?)
I think Blogger is a lot like a diary. One shouldn't stick to posting rituals, or entry rituals, because then you're serving it, not yourself. You should be able to return to both, guilt free, when you need to most. And that's what I'm doing.

I re-watched Richard Ayoade's The Double today and it was as perfect as it was the first time. Based upon Dostoevsky's short story of the same name, it is another cinematic masterpiece from Ayoade - featuring this glorious cobalt blue/burnt sienna palette and fantastic performances from Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska.

As with Submarine, it's the deliberate little details of The Double that make you fall in love with it; the minuscule movements that make the characters comfortingly real - from Simon's tell-tale Adam's apple showing him swallowing his words, to Hannah's tucking of her hair behind her ear, to the above screenshot.

Go watch it if you haven't.

Love always,
Zahra