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Sunday, May 30, 2010

Swoon; Penn Badgely.










"OK, so we're not really best friends, but it looks like "Lonely Boy" Dan Humpfrey is actually more of a Soul Man. Between acts I got a chance to catch up with Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley. The Baltimore native told me that his first love was playing the piano and singing. I don't know if I can handle watching Humpfrey croon, but just so you all can understand how exquisite his musical taste is, here are some excerpts from two recent emails I received from him:
Naeem—

Shit, I was so surprised you knew who I was. I'm still always a little surprised if anyone other than a 20-year-old girl recognizes me.

My favorite musicians:
1. D'Angelo and the whole Soulquarians collective of that time, 1997–2001. I'm pretty sure Anthony Hamilton was singing in D's live band, the Soultronics. Erykah Badu, the Roots (other than Things Fall Apart, I'd rather see them live than listen to an album, as much as I love them all as musicians).

2. Also, a couple of musicians who played with D'Angleo in the studio & live who I've since explored and found as completely separate entities: Pino Palladino, Roy Hargrove, Charlie Hunter (that 8-string guitarist I was telling you about, gotta see him live to believe it).

3. I loved all the soulful hip hop going on then, with Mos, Talib Kweli & Hi-tek, Common. Really, 1999 and 2000 were it as far as I'm concerned. You had Train of Thought, Like Water for Chocolate, Black on Both Sides, Mama's Gun, and The big bad Voodoo. I was absorbing those albums all throughout my teenage years, and I'm still finding things in them.

4. Owusu & Hannibal! One of my favorites, perfect example of where Soul/R&B can go, where it should be taken. Not all this Akon shit. If you're going to use computers in soul music these guys know how to do it. The album is "Living With..."

5. Andrew Bird! This guy blew me away at Carnegie Hall, just this February. You must put this in there, he's doing something amazing. When he plays solo and loops his own violin playing, it is intriguing, intense, emotional and beautiful and tense and sexy and I could watch it for hours. I think he needs to capture more of that energy in his records, because he's doing himself an injustice... and his records are already great.

6. I love Prince, but that's probably not a surprise.

7. You really do have to include Electric Ladyland. Hendrix is like the Beatles in the sense that a lot of his music, if you gave it to some neo-hipsters with a shiny new Brooklyn-indie package, people would be flipping out like they'd never heard it before.

8. Jamie Lidell's great. Sorta retro-soul pop. Great live show. love Lykke Li right now, she is right up my alley.

9. I'm finally warming up to Animal Collective, I really like their vocal harmonies & layering.

10. Oh, Bjork. "Medulla" just kills me. I got the half-speed vinyl remaster. Wow.

There's so much! If you put all this in a blog it would put people to sleep. You have my blessing to put any & all of it in there, though, this email included. I'm headed to Thailand tomorrow, but if I think of anything else between now and then I'll send it your way..."
Interview by Spank Rock (Interview MAGAZINE)
Photos by Terry Richardson

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Cinema; Metropolis by Fritz Lang.

I am so excited for the re-release of the 1927 sci-fi classic, Metropolis. In celebration of the film's 75th Anniversary, Fritz Lang's science fiction masterpiece has been digitally reconstructed to its most complete version ever-over a third longer than the previous "Moroder" version. Possibly the most famous and influential of all silent films, this restoration by the Munich Film Archive brings us as close to the original release print as possible, and features the original score by Gottfried Huppertz (performed by a 60-piece orchestra) and newly translated subtitles. The movie will be featured at the Kensington Cinema in San Diego, from June 4th to June 11th.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

sweet disposition

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Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

What's this hype about look book; Rachel S.





Be sure to check out the lovely 17 year old dreamer from Canada, Rachel S. She has quickly become one of my favorite femmes on look book. Her lovely bohemian look & sophisticated couture is worth checking out!

Picture this and that!




Here are some of the pictures featured on my Flickr. Feel free to check them out.

"People need to be made more aware of the need to work at learning how to live because life is so quick and sometimes it goes away too quickly. "
-Andy Warhol

Style Icon; Lydia Hearst.










American actress, fashion model, columnist, socialite and heiress to the publishing fortune established by her maternal great-grandfather William Randolph Hearst. The 2007 Michael Awards recognized her as their Model of the Year. Lydia was also given the award of the Best International Supermodel in Madrid on the 12th of November 2008.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Swoon; ed westwick.






The very fashionable Ed Westwick also known as Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl! Currently one of my show obsessions.
xoxo

I felt you in my life before I ever thought to...

So I have noted that besides the several days of being absent from the blogging world, I have not really been keeping you guys updated on what is going on in my life! So here I go. I will make a list of important things and events in the life of Juan-Carlos ortega:

1.- The past weeks have been flying past me faster than the blink of an eye and I am yet to know in which direction I am headed towards, in perspective to my future! But when has that ever been news to anybody.

2.- I may perhaps lose the respect of some readers but I recently got into the television series "Gossip Girl". And frankly I think It's quite fabulous. I have only seen the first 12 episodes and I am already falling in love with Dan Humphrey and Blair Waldorf. And as if the characters weren't pleasing to watch enough as it is, the show also has lovely designers and decorators to help make every scene such eye candy! The clothes and the music are both fabulous as well.

3.- I not too recently got my ears pierced and I am thinking of getting them gaged(whoever you spell that).

4.- I got a job! I was hired at authentic naples pizza restaurant. washing dishes and cleaning tables to pay my way through college. :)

5.- I turned 19!!!

6.- I finished reading Catcher in the Rye, The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, Perks of being a wallflower, The Bell Jar, and several poems as well as short stories by Sylvia Plath (I recommend all listed, let me know if you have any questions about the authors or comments towards the novels)


As of now these are all major things going on in my life, not to mention High School graduation! Oh the happy day that will be for me. But for Ciao for now and feel free to share the details of your life!

xx

Sylvia Plath; Daddy.

My friend Evan shared this poem by Sylvia Plath with me a couple of days ago. I very recently finished reading "The Bell Jar" by her and have been unable to move on to anything else (meaning anything else by other authors, since I have been on a reading spree). However disturbing it may be, I find myself very fascinated with her poems and short stories. Here I share one of her most well known and controversial pieces. Feel free to discuss and share your opinions about her or the poem itself, as well as any other stuff by her as I am very new to her work.

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.