cosmic love

DY. ING.

pretty much describes how i feel about florence + the machine's song "cosmic love". gives me ch-ch-chills. happy friday peoples.

paris

showing some pre-weekend love for all two of you who read this thing on fridays. it cut my heart deeply to have missed my new obsession at wakarusa last weekend (post on that coming next week) because, quite frankly, grace potter and the nocturnals have stolen my heart. and in all honesty, i'm jealous of her. her badass-ness. her raspy, rocker voice. her LEGS FOR DAYS. oh and her bangs are awesome. i tried fake bangs last night and in the wise words of andria, "uh...you look like a total hippie" - and not the good kind. it probably didn't help that my hair is on a 5 day, no wash binge and looks strikingly similar to a lion's mane.

i have to give solid ups to one, forrest j. underwood, for bringing grace into my life. i'm pretty sure he a) wishes grace's name were actually paris and b) truly means it when he sings, "i wish i were in paris" along with the ear snack below. PLEASE, if you do anything good for yourself this weekend or in your life in general, put GP on heavy, heavy rotation. your body, mind and spirit will thank you for it. she's currently making the rounds @ america's greatest music festivals but has a bangin' tour schedule going on right now as well.

if you're interested in hearing more of grace & the nocturnals you can do one or both of the following:

1. email me at kbarnes@spu.edu and i will dropbox you the entire album or,

2. turn on your favorite local country station and hear her sultry croon cover the multitude of sin's kenny chesney's voice creates on their duet, "you and tequila"

happy friday fellow music lovers. happy friday.

p.s. the aforementioned forrest j. underwood just happens to be an extremely eligible bachelor who also happens to bring the party wherever he goes and happens to be a C-130 pilot for the air force...interested?

bhldn's marketing ploy

old news but has anyone seen BHLDN?

it's the latest brainchild of anthropologie, also known in my home as Mecca. while i love anthropologie (and their sales racks within which very nearly had me convinced i needed a $199 gold driftwood lamp last week), bhldn is reaaaaaalllllllly cookin' my grits. first there was the internet BUZZ over it's arrival. many blogs overused the word "swoon" in countless derivatives such as, "swoon-worthy", "positively swooning", "swoonfest", etc. do they realize that swooning is synonymous with fainting, losing consciousness, or "a state of hysterical rapture or ecstasy"?

regardless, now that they have come out with their decor line, i believe i've discovered their marketing strategy which i've outlined in the below faux dialogue.

marketing director (MD): go to the nearest flea market and buy everything you see that is dainty, rustic and looks like it came from your dead grandmother's estate sale. anything that looks dirty, heavily used or older than 1995, we will call "vintage"

buyer: (100 hours later) okay, i scoured the place and found some SWOON-WORTHY finds!

MD: oh, DO show!

buyer: rust-covered vintage forks! handkerchiefs! a dirty old bucket to hold ice and retro bottles of soda pop! and a bunch of vintage plates we can epoxy to these vintage goblets and sell as "vintage treat pedestals" for $78+!

MD: gosh, i'm just swooning over these! great job, buyer. now, how much did all of this cost?

buyer: i got three truckloads of junk, er, stuff for $175.

MD: perfect. let's mark everything up 1,000-fold and slap it on BHLDN's website by early next week. that will give us enough time to generate some internet buzz and get frothing brides-to-be in a preemptive tizzy over our latest line!

i'm no heartless monster. i do find all of their things quite cunning, delightful and their website a veritable explosion of everything today's bride desires - lace, scalloped edges, glitter in abundance, birds, old wood, cork and everything in miniature. i'm not immune to the adorableness of it all, i promise! but i also refuse to pay $328 for a cake server even if it's handmade by an italian artisana and consists of a "soft texture achieved through a repetitive hammering technique". i also will not be purchasing a $224 paper flower bouquet or a $598 cake topper with a Swarovski-encrusted bow, pearls, brass and enameled metal.

thank you, BHLDN for making brides everywhere feel the need to sell their first born to afford your silver dipped leaf placeholders. forget you (or the cee-lo version, whichever you prefer).