six words

six words
Originally uploaded by anthony_cudahy

this is funny.

Blue Valentine.

Seeing this movie was both refreshing and thought-provoking. it took 12 years for the director to finally make it. i hope it wins some awards! but... we'll see.

It follows Dean and Cindy's marriage as it appears to be coming to an end. Although we don't really know what happens. There are two things that I love about this movie:

1. that there is no conclusive ending. The director leaves the audience creating their own opinions and hopes about what happens to these two characters. After reading some interviews from the cast and director, the director stated that he hoped that Cindy and Dean would maybe make amends. but, that this wasn't really the point of the story. the hope lies in the fact that there was progress made from the beginning of their story. the first step of  progress is confronting and recognizing the issue. The director said that in the beginning of the movie, neither Cindy nor Dean really talked about any of their problems, as individuals or as a couple. They both had their own fears but they were uncertain of how to express them and unsure if they were willing to change. Basically, they didn't know themselves well enough to make any progress in the relationship. The director took a lot from the marital issues of his own parents when developing the story and scenes of the movie. he also had a type of manifesto with the cast in that he wanted them to share their ideas for the script to make it as real as possible. he said that michele williams was a huge participant in developing the script and scenes as a whole.

This is one of the most raw and real portrayals of a relationship that I have seen in the movies. To show their love for each other but also their failure to come to terms with their own troubled families and to share a sense of growth is so real. They are essentially incompatible because they can't find that one crucial link that allows them to change and grow together as a unit. It shows the reality of love and that as much as there is little culpability in two people falling in love, there can be equal little blame when the love slowly dies between two people.


2. the other thing i love about this movie is that both characters are "good" people. There isn't someone who cheated or someone who abused. yes, both people have their own issues, but they are both good people at the core. Dean is a lovely character and i fell in love with his light-heartedness immediately. he believes that he can realize his potential by being a good husband and father and is truly a wonderful person at heart. Cindy is very smart, ambitious, often stubborn, and becomes quite bitter over the fact that she has all of these dreams and aspirations but feels trapped in a marriage where there is no growth for her to realize her own ambitions. The question for cindy, as i am sure many girls feel today, is "what do I really want?" we grow up being told of what we are supposed to want. that once you find a great guy, who is truly good to you and love you, this is all you need and it is bliss. but what if you want more? what if there is more love to be felt? even if you can't imagine it or describe it. what if that person doesn't want anything else out of life but for you to be the center of it? Ultimately, I feel for them both.

I for one was going to see this movie with my friends, but I am really glad that I decided to see it quietly in the safety of my bed. its hard to take down, hard to see what these two are going through and hard when you relate to their situation. i'm sure everyone can relate somehow to this movie and the raw emotions that are felt by cindy and dean. we can all only hope that we are making the right decisions for ourselves and the ones that we care about. At one point, cindy is talking to her grandmother about falling in love and how her parents never seemed to love each other. she asks her grandmother, "how do you know if you can trust your feelings if they can disappear so soon?" her grandmother responds, "you can only trust those feelings by having them." in other words, we can really only trust our feelings and hope that our intuitions will guide us the right way. maybe they will guide us to another learning experience in which we will be forced to learn how to better listen to ourselves and what is best for ourselves individually.

You also can't help to wonder what would have gone different for Cindy and Dean if there wasn't a child involved. Dean makes such an epic attempt to "save" Cindy but was if for the right reasons? Did they really listen to their hearts and feelings or was it based on a desperate attempt to bandaid a wound that was too big? I don't know. But, as this movie is a stark portrayal of real life, questions like these are almost pointless to ask in real life. you just have to move on and keep finding ways to heal your own wounds. and i believe that this is what the director succeeded in depicting. a real life portrayal in which the characters only have one chance to decide and then it is just a memory. as actors, the director decided to put them in a place as to never really know what is going on, to improvise, like real life. they are at the mercy of life as their characters. we are all at the mercy of life.

arg. my analytical "digging too deep" mind is getting the best of me. maybe i should've watched the king's speech instead ;) oh well, too late! 

I think I'll trade my gym membership for these.

This past week I canceled my gym membership. It's only 30 bucks a month but I made a promise to myself long ago when I joined a gym for the first time that it is only legit for me to have a gym membership in the cold bitter months of winter. I just cannot justify keeping it in the summer.

so i am going to return to running outdoors and keep my 30 bucks a month. But until it gets a little warmer and there isn't so much ice on the ground AND with the goal of trying to diminish risking my life trying to run on ice when it gets dark at 4pm, i purchased these babies from ebay today. Hopefully they will help me stay on my feet!

side note: summer is way too wonderful in MN to spend your days inside on a treadmill staring at a television. there are too many trails to be crossed and too much beautiful outdoor nature to take in and enjoy. most people that stay and live for an extended period of time in MN do this just so they can get through the winter to then have our summer. its true! summer to us is like a precious stone. we can finally climb out of hibernation. Atmosphere made a great song dedicated to the summers in minnesota. whenever i listen to it i think of having all my windows down in my car on a summer afternoon and blasting this tune with a smile.

compliments.

found this shot. i thought this song accompanied it nicely. hope you think the same :)

disclaimer: most things that I put on this blog are stolen from other bloggers that are far more creatively in-tune than I am. but i like it. so i share it. ohhh internets.

m.a.

creations of Gaudi.

Barcelona is a great city with a awesome nightlife and lots of exceptional food. I know this. i know all about this city. I was there for approximately 24 hours. My roommate Caitlin and I had just (barely) made the train from Nice, France to Barcelona after staying in France for two extra days to... umm.. take in all the wonderful educational experiences Nice had to offer us, and had only ONE day to see everything in barcelona. so what did we do? What any girl in their early 20s would do... we drank too much, partied a lot and very last minute woke up late the next morning, drank our weight in coffee, and ran around with a book of "top ten of barcelona."

Of course everything worked out gracefully for us. the most wonderful and truly magical part of barcelona, and really all of europe, was making it to see Gaudi's work splattered around the city. Barcelona tends to remind me of a lot of big cities in Europe... until you stumble across these magnificent creations of architecture. Below is the Sagrada Familia. It was still under construction when we were there but completely breath-taking nonetheless. It was at Gaudi's work that caitlin and I were able to take some serious.silent.pensive moments to admire how magical our world really it. 

walking down a busy street to find casa bastiló just hangin out or coming across park guell to all of a sudden find yourself in a less trippy alice in wonderland made me not only appreciate all the hard work that goes into these masterpieces. but, it also made me think about the mental process an architect like gaudi experiences when imagining places like these. it is obvious that every detail was covered. every corner was carefully crafted. turning the corners of the structures, i saw how this one piece came together on its own, but also how it was part of a bigger picture. art within art within art. and that is the most remarkable kind. 

casa bastiló.

casa milá.

 park guell.

doublemint

these pictures are gorgeous. of gorgeous women. 

with gorgeous strong colors. I want to make art like this. 

I'm not quite sure yet how to post pictures from flicker on to my blog, so this will have to do for now. if you would like to peek at more of this type of art, it was spotted here.

in progress

yadnus!!!

yadnus!!!

i touched it once

i touched it once

MUST SEE MOVIE.

I loveeee recommending movies. and I like recommending documentaries even more because it takes a very distinct and different type of documentary to keep my attention span. there are two that I have seen in the last month that I thoroughly enjoyed.

1. exit through the gift shop.

It follows the development of street art and in particular this sort of "transformation" of a "Mr. Brainwash" into what can only be described as a pompous asshole... or maybe a genius? who knows. I think that is what the documentary is trying to tell us. only the audience can really decide. And sometimes the audience just follows the crowd and decides that shit is gold... $1 million worth of shit. Banksy is the unknown yet famous street artist who directs the film. he is known for art like this

and this

and this

Banksy likes to put these in places such as walls in palestine and busy streets near important governmental buildings in England. Banksy's art is great to look at because it is original and you can tell that he knows what he likes and also what he questions. It's not controversial besides the fact that instead of being placed in an art gallery for a million dollars, his art is in the streets so everyone can enjoy.

anywho, this french immigrant filmmaker, known as "Mr. Brainwash" gets soooo into the idea of street art that he makes a documentary and then slowly turns into a street artist himself. He tries to replicate Banksy and other street artists' sort of... art revolution?... its not really a "revolution" but I do think it has affected lots of people in lots of ways and no one can really replicate it ever again. Needless to say, Mr. Brainwash completely BLOWS IT.

Whether the film is trying to make mr. brainwash look bad or if it just a mockumentary about how superficial the art industry is and how people, especially "hip" people with a lot of money, try to be the coolest with the most expensive "daring" art out there, the "character" of mr. brainwash succeeds in blowing. hard. If Banksy is trying to embody this superficial and follower attitude that plagues the art industry, he does it well with mr. brainwash. I think the film is brilliant and if it should teach any of us anything it is:  don't be a mr. brainwash. find your own creative expressions and do something different, not just for money. don't buy art just because everyone else is buying art. really try and get in tune with what catches your eye and what sparks your fancy.

2. touching the void

I found this sweet docu-drama through my mom's netflix. thanks mom! It's about two British young chaps that decide to do something completely stupid and dangerous and climb to the top of the andes. I can't remember exactly what peak in the andes it is but... does it really matter? They are crazy nonetheless!! I wish i had the balls. 

As the two men are re-telling their very emotional story, two actors are also reenacting the journey. thus you have a docu-drama. i like the word docu-drama. it makes a documentary instantly seem more fun. i want to CREATE a docu-drama.

What I love about this film is that the two actual climbers are so REAL. they talk about it as if they had just lived it a week ago. if you see it, and you should, i'm sure you will be thinking the same thing i was thinking during the whole move, "what would i do in this situation?" "would I do the same?" you can't really blame either of them for anything that happened up in those mountains because you just have no idea what you would do in the same situation. a state of panic can make us act in ways that are completely opposite of our personality. either way, the fact that these two men survived to tell the story makes me think how completely unbelievable our bodies are. and how crazy humanity is in general. we put our bodies through so much. we put each other through so much. at the end of it we are only yearning for more connection. we are only trying to make our bodies last one more day. what a struggle. and you never really know when your body has had enough. maybe your body never really has enough. maybe it is all in your mind. mind over body? chicken or egg? 

STOLEN.

i am having a difficult time being still.
relaxing. not doing anything. resting.
being idle.
i fear that if i stop. pause. breathe too deeply – that i may not start up again.
i know that sounds illogical.
but that is how i’ve been feeling.
so i constantly find something to do.
i am always ‘doing’ something.
work. play. write. read. adventure.
laugh. vent. plan. create.
which is great. but exhausting. to be switched on always.
sometimes i wish i had a tv. just to switch off.
but then i think about the time i would waste.
when i could be ‘doing’ something.
and the cycle continues.

hope you don't mind. :)

Can there ever be too many frames on your walls? I think not.

Stumbling across these walls filled with frames made me feel better. Living in a small place and having a ton of wonderful art that I would love to share with ppl. Some are big and some are small but I always hate deciding what I will put up and what has to sadly sit down in the basement for the year. Maybe in my next place, I will try this approach. just put EVERYTHING up! every nook and cranny of space on the wall could be filled! This would only work for certain walls but it did make me think that I need to frame more pictures of me and my family and friends. Who doesn't love walking into a home, no matter how well you know the person or not, and seeing great photos, some candid some not, hanging in a non-organized bunch on the walls. Especially old photos. mmm.. warms me. 

DIY

Look at these fun DIY bracelets that I found on the becauseimaddicted blog. taking a already blangin gold bracelet and adding your own colorful touch. GOLD+ BRIGHT COLOR= amazingly cheerful. It looks like you can just braid in the bunches of thread... and then add any other little objects too. 

New finds.

 Should I even say where they are from? yay etsy.

but look! maybe its my love for geometric shapes... within shapes. and gold. I love glittery glamory gold. Gold dresses up everything.

And I loved these. they're actually pretty big in size. they would look amazing in the sun in summertime. god am i missing summer right now. 

I think my cat might be trying to kill meh!

Stole/found this website and it is HILARIOUS. and by hilarious I mean TERRIFYING. "How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you"is the name. and Eti got a check on every point.... example: "Staring contests", picture below says it all. She say there for a good oh... 8 minutes.

If Eti wasn't the runt of the litter and I couldn't punt her like a football I would be cautious... but who knows when I'm asleep! ....haha.

that face?.. that face means fuckin business.

OMG. OMG. OMG. most amazing line-up. I. have. ever. seen.

 I haven't even heard of Coachella since my friend Natalie told me... but look at this lineup!!

So many great minneapolis bands, so many amazing bands from all over, crammed into one big weekend in Indio, CA. The small, probably REALLY hip community of Indio is going to have this right in their backyard. I mean come on, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Cee lo, Crystal Castles, A-Trak, Erykah Badu, trampled by turtles, the tallest man on earth, the new pornographers... i could go on and on.


Tickets are pretty expensive. I think around $280... but for those of you living in Cali... hats off to ya... bastards.

I have nothing in the fridge.

So this is my dinner.
Summit EPA and Surdyks Delice de Bourgogne. It has the word Delice in it so you know it's going to be good. Delice de Bourgogne is a triple cream Brie.. key words here being TRIPLE and CREAM. YUM. It is a factory made cheese from France, which probably means the french would pooh-pooh it. but i think it is absolutely wonderful with crackers and a pear. and a BEER. yeah, i did it. While some would have matched this with an expensive sauv blanc or chardonnay.. i'm drinking beer. It's been a longggg day.

And to top it all off... my pretteh kitteh did this almost on command. If you don't think she is adorable than you GOTS ISSUES. 

  

Look at that face! I had to adjust the color so it looks a little antique-y... I'm workin on getting a better camera. So I can take ohhh.. 70,000!!!! more of these. 

Sunday Funday Morning Wake up call!

The youtube video is kind of lame, but I'm still dancing to it in my room!! Can you still fist pump and not be a douchebag? Because this song makes me want to punch fiercely in the air over and over again. NEED to go see Crystal Castles when they come to the cities. yes. please. thank you.

Dessa is a badass.

So cute.

I love floral print dresses. they make me happy. 

And if you have time in your day to watch this full-length film.

Kanye also has a 34 minute film .... with a half-naked bird-woman and a lamb. enjoy!

Kanye and Ballerinas? yes please.

a deep, deep hole of romantic, belly aching, gross love

I can't help but fall in love with this song. its poetic. and i will play it for all my friends so they too can maybe feel that GROSS feeling with me.


also found at this wedding. Which ALSO makes my heart spill all over the floor and I have to mop it up shamelessly. Thanks cozyhunter!

dancing to this.

Originally uploaded by D.L Grimshaw

And I am looking a these. stolen here

I am needy. I hate time.

With all of the ups and downs that make up my current relationship, this indie film was actually kind of nice to watch. It reminds me of us, but better looking, more witty, jewish, and living the "swankyyyyy" nyc life with chanel bags and ralph lauren as your personal designer. 

side note, The mom of the character daryl is hilarious. and the movie is actually pretty funny and quirky. I just enjoyed listening to my relationship problems and hearing the things that we have both said, but coming out of other people's mouths, especially on screen.hah. Many a time during the film, I would think to myself the same sort of things as the two people in the relationship. "I am a mess." "When he is with me I want to shoot him, when he is not with my I miss him." I am mess. I feel so co-dependent. Like I can't live life on my own. Can this be true? I have a the elements of living life alone, a good life at that. I am also not a very easy person to be with... as also said in the film. I am needy. and when you don't want to give me that need I will make you regret it. ugh. that is awful. But, I am needy because I am at times vulnerable and letting you into that. and when I feel that it is shut down or disregarded (on my terms of course), i don't want that need to ever exist again. I am judgmental. I am sensitive. I am needy. 

I felt the closest to Zoe, the main female character in the film, when her mom told her that she had a manic cycle of pushing people away and then needing them. I felt like this quote should be plastered on my forehead. It is an ugly cycle. And to have a significant other try to keep up with such a cycle is even more ugly. But.. Inside my colorful bright happy balloons of independence, there is also an empty fear of independence. 

I suppose what it comes down to is figuring yourself out for yourself first. not who you wish you were. or who anybody else wants you to be. This is a start but this shit is easier said than done. and time is a HUGE bitch that is trying to eat the soles of my feet while I try to live my life. 

To J.D. or not to J.D.... choices SUCK.ASS.

I have slowly been making my way through the many processes and hoops to jump through in order to possibly go to law school. Now, I say "possibly" because I never really was 100% CRAZY committed about going to law school (like "the lawyers" say you should be). I more thought of it as a good idea that had the potential of growing into a position that I would really enjoy. I really enjoy helping people and I enjoy using the Law to get points across and make changes. But, mostly I want to make a difference... yeah you can roll your eyes now. It's fine. I know I sound silly. "You would say that, you don't know shit" right??

That's why I have been so interested lately in being part of the Nonprofit world. Most of the nonprofits I know in Mpls, and nationwide, however bureaucratic they become, ultimately have the goal of helping disadvantaged people.. or underrepresented people. ps. i HATE all of these terms. what the fuck do they mean by "underrepresented" or "disadvantaged" or "disenfranchised". i really think these are all words made up by educated bourgeoisie(and when I say educated, I mean people who have enough money to go through the bullshit of graduating from a higher learning institution, this DOES NOT mean you are necessarily intellectual in any way), people that are working at the top of nonprofits or other institutions supposedly trying to educate and help people, but don't really ever get anything done. phew... TANGENT.

Anywaysss.... I want to do something different than just go to school, blow all my money and end u working for people who don't get a crap about anyone but themselves so I can pay off my loans that will be the size of America's debt. And I don't want to be top dog or use words like "disenfranchised". I don't want to do any of that talking at all. I just want to see people rise in their situations, whether that be mentally, socio-economically, spiritually. The greatest thrill is to see this happen and I don't want to spend anymore time of this planet without being part of this experience. This is the greatest gift humanity has to share with each other.

I have now been accepted into Hamline School of Law, William Mitchell School of Law, and the University of New Hampshire School of Law. Ahhh... yess sooo very brilliant. BARF. They better fucking accept me all the money I have already given them and might spend there. jesus.

I guess I more worried that law school isn't the right place for me at all. I hear that even William Mitchell is filled with a bunch of know-it-alls just trying to prove to everyone else around them how SMART they are. how many SMART things they can say in just one day. I kind of like being in the working world and knowing that when I am spending my time somewhere, I am being able to pay for the things in my life. I just wish that there was a little more options in these here crayon box. I don't like red or blue... i like periwinkle!

There will be more posts to come on this EXTREMELY interesting topic... ugh.

BUTTT... in other news,

My roomie, a roomie with several names... one being T.M.F. (too much fun) to be known here as cait, was a saint to me today. With all the boy problems and drama that we will one day both look back on and think, WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING! were we NUTS?! Cait made me feel today that I am still a human being that needs to take a couple breaths and not be so worried about worrying... about worrying... sometimes, these are the people that really bring you back up even for a just a little bit and realize that you are not the only one alone out there. We are all struggling.

For this reason and really all the reasons spoken of above... we will drink tonight! Bc honestly, with so many decisions, so much and drama, and a temperature of -5 degrees... what the hell else is there to do!

Here's to my ladies!!!

Oh yes, and for anyone out there in the world of the internets, and happens to stumble upon this lonesome little blog, we will be going to this show to see my friend Chris Hooks and his band, the Tribe and Big Cats, play at their CD release show. It will be great. And if you want a glimpse of just how awesome they are.. watch their new video. you will see the following: skinny hipsters attempting to chop wood, U of Stout ladies goin out BIG, and a pretty black man sliding on the floor. awww snap.

TGIF.

new Werner Herzog film in 3D... not sure what to think quite yet but I.cannot.wait.

Want. want. anddddd... want.

Who loves ya etsy?!!
this girl.