MY LAST SOMETHING

Inspired by Elsa Billgren's list.

My last screenshot of my phone // Accidental screenshot of my lock screen.  It's the romance tarot card art of Dorian from Dragon Age: Inquisition.

My last purchase // When I was at Wegman's on Sunday, I bought a bottle of Aura Cacia almond oil, an Alba Organics acne wash, and a new bottle of Lubriderm body lotion.  On Friday I got Aveda's Intensive Damage Treatment, the Earth Month candle, RMS Beauty's Living Luminizer, and EXO's natural nail polish remover.

My last listened podcast // I go through stages of listening to the RT podcast every week and then taking a break for a couple of weeks.  I'm currently listening as I'm writing this.

My last incoming text message // "Why??" from my friend Lucas, responding to my question if he was busy on Monday.  My work meeting was canceled and it was supposed to go up to 70 degrees.  Amazing!

My last tagged photo on facebook // A selfie I posted a month ago.  I haven't really done much recently.

My last pinned image // Really liked her hair and the hair comb.

My last sent text message // "Busy today?" to my friend Irene that I haven't seen in almost a year.  

My last video game played // Fallout: New Vegas.  Ever since I changed the difficulty back down to very easy it's been way more fun.  I'm all about the story and not about trying a situation over and over again.

My latest find // A couple of weeks ago I got a tube of Weleda's Skin Food and I have been absolutely loving it.  Not much of a find if everyone has already found it, but it is seriously worth the hype.  HG product right there.

My latest television obsession // I caught up with Elementary yesterday, finished Breaking Bad two weeks ago, and now I need to finish Peaky Blinders.  Loving that Peaky Blinders.

My latest favorited photo on instagram // Tanya Burr is pretty cool.

My most recent expensive purchase // I bought three items of clothing from Pin Up Girl clothing last month and I love each thing, but it was definitely way more money I usually spend.  I should post photos of them within the next two months, once I move!

My last film seen in the theatre // There's an indie theatre called The Screening Room in Buffalo and during March they were showing Aliens.  Seriously amazing.  It's a completely different experience seeing that movie in the theatre in comparison to on my laptop, which is how I originally watched it.  I was so tense!!

My last listened song on spotify // Talk to Me by the Pleistocene's.  I saw them opening for Screaming Females on Saturday and they were really great.

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INSPIRATION // A CONCEPT OF THE APOCALYPSE

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A NEW SET OF IDEAS

Something I've been really interested in (for a while, really) is the concept of the apocalypse.  You wouldn't think it, since I was terrified of zombies at a young age due to a neighbor showing me The Night of the Living Dead, but now I love to think about it.  My senior thesis revolved around the idea of a doomsday/end of the world scenario and that seemed to be only the beginning.

For a long time, my only sorts of media input on "the apocalypse" were two concepts: the zombie apocalypse, and some sort of grey end of the world, like The Road.  28 Days Later is my favorite film because it redefined the image of the "zombie" for me.  That movie enabled me to be able to watch a zombie film, as it was a thriller rather than a horror.  I devoured Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide and a few years later, World War Z.  I was no longer afraid of zombies, so I was able to think about them (something I will never be able to achieve with things like ghosts, for example).  Then there was The Walking Dead, which I read and watched (but I'm not caught up too... oops!).

I love the idea of the apocalypse, because it enables the ability to push people to their breaking point.  It allows for humanity to become their "true selves" without the hinderance of law and government and social values.  This then brings up the question of: which of those values need to be upheld, even though the people are now in a lawless situation.  This enables the character of a person to truly come out, and for moral values to be put to the test.

So, that was how I thought of the apocalypse for a long time.  That was how I thought about it all throughout creating my thesis, and those are the values and ideas I wanted to get across in my work.  However, recently I've been playing Fallout 3.  If you've played it, I'm sure you can take a guess at where I'm going with this.

Fallout 3 revolves around The Capital Wasteland, the area around Washington D.C. 200 years after World War III, when China and America bombed each other to hell with nuclear bombs.  The concept of the Cold War and nuclear holocaust was never an apocalypse idea I had considered, even though it had been an actual real fear to people all over the world fifty years ago, including my parents.  The Road seems to play upon this concept in a similar way (nuclear winter), but I had never really considered nuclear fallout as a concept.  I have no idea why.

I then was prompted by my boyfriend (who also loves this stuff) to start devouring Cold War and nuclear holocaust media.  I watched Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, which is satire about Cold War paranoia being the cause of the destruction of humanity, rather than any actual real threat.  I then watched A Boy And His Dog, which is a really weird movie.  That one I didn't really like, because the characters are all awful people with no redeeming qualities.  However, everything else about that movie is amazing!  The design and ideas of the movie are really spot on, which is why Fallout was based largely on that film.

Fallout is even cooler, in a way, as they took it a step further.  The war in Fallout didn't actually happen until 2077, but the key to the design of the game is that the United States was kind of stuck in a strange continuation of 1950s culture.  As soon as you say that, I love it, because I love the 1950s period, but to push it that far makes it even cooler.

There's also the whole concept that the game takes place about 250 years after what we consider "now," which means that the things that people know of life before the war are few and far between.  Setting the game so far in the future as well as essentially in the past is an amazing design choice, and it's extremely effective.  By choosing that timeline, it enables the player to become placed in a future that they feel like they already know, therefore creating a much more immersive game.

I am so hype over all this stuff, I couldn't help but write about it.  I've been struggling with this blog, and I haven't had much I felt like writing about, so I opened this document just to see if I could come up with something.  Seems like I could!

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LOVING RECENTLY

Greetings!  I've had a lovely spring break so far, but I have been lacking on my usual posting scheme, so I thought I'd just let you in on a couple of articles and videos I've been loving recently.  These, of course, have no rhyme and reason, so enjoy the wide range of actives I get up to on the internet!

ARTICLE // "Wes Anderson's Characters Have Lost Their Freedom of Movement"

A super cool article on how Wes Anderson's characters only move on the horizontal or vertical plane, never diagonally.  I'm so hyped to see The Grand Budapest Hotel!

BLOG // "Dear Cutie-pie"

A very sweet and heartfelt letter from a father to his daughter.

TELEVISION // Mad Men

I've bitten the bullet and finally started watching Mad Men again!  I started a while ago and just didn't get hooked, but I started again since I was done catching up with Elementary (also another fantastic show) and now I am totally hooked.  Hopefully I don't get bored like I've heard a lot of people did towards season three. 

 VIDEO // First Kiss by Tatia Pllieva

An amazing look at intimacy between two human beings. 

 BLOG // "10 Sweet Little Moments In The Morning"

A perfect way to reflect on your day and place in the world.

BLOG //  "3 Minute Morning Yoga"

I've just been loving the Free People blog recently!

VIDEO // Grizzly Bear Caught On Camera by KickThePJ

One of my favorite youtubers.  Never fails to cheer me up with his amazing & hilarious video ideas.

BLOG // "How to Build the Perfect Wardrobe"

Absolutely obsessed with Into Mind's wardrobe building posts recently.  I'm planning on doing a post about building my own wardrobe soon.

GENERAL // Wardrobe Planning

After discovering Into Mind's blog, I've been thinking a lot about refining my personal style and creating a definitive wardrobe where I can pull out any item and love it.  It'll definitely take a little while, but now that I've thought about it, I know what I'm looking for.  With the help of pinterest, the journey has been a little easier.

I hoped you liked that little peek in to what I've been enjoying recently!  I think I may just go and watch more Mad Men now....

xxTanya 

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WEEK(ISH) IN REVIEW

Happy Sunday!

This week had a lot of ups and downs.  I had a minor freak out over my thesis and just not being able to actually start it and get working, but I had a little break, relaxed, and then began to think about it and work again.  The trick is to just start doing!  So I did.

The daffodils I bought from Wegman's also have been blooming really beautifully and have been making me happy whenever I look at them.  They went perfectly with the matcha green tea I made for myself on wednesday!  I made it with milk and a little bit of sugar, but from now on I plan on making it without either.  It's better for you that way, especially since I already have my cup of tea (+ milk & sugar) in the mornings.

Monday I played a whole bunch of Dragon Age at the boyf's house and put a turtleneck (specifically dog sized, don't worry) on his dog Hunter.  Look at that guy.  Look at his concerned old man face.  Hunter is great. 

Also speaking of Hunter, we watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on tuesday.  Yes, Hunter is named after Hunter Thompson.  His name is even on the mailbox!  The film was really great, but super hard to understand the first time you watch it, which Brian said was normally how people react.  It was filmed amazingly and I'm sure that if I ever get around to watching it again I'll appreciate it even more.  Brian knows a lot about Hunter Thompson (and his friendship with Johnny Depp) so hearing his commentary and little facts made the film even more interesting.

I also dig Ralph Steadman and have seen his work around, but I never really had a name to the style.  It was really cool to learn that he did the illustrations in the book and helped with the film.  I love when, if people are going to make a film essentially about a person who is alive, they go the extra mile to make it really, really good and artistic.  

On friday I signed my lease for august and submitted my last month's rent check!  So it's really going to happen, I'm going to live on my own for the first time!  I'm actually not too worried, I just need to get a job.  The weird thing is that I can't really worry about that just yet?  I really need to focus on my thesis now, and then start thinking about getting a job, which is tough.  Everyone says not to worry, but I still have that 1% of myself that thinks I won't find anything!  As long as I apply to a whole bunch of places, though, I'm sure I'll be able to find something.

Also on friday myself and SVAO went to the Albright Knox as a little club event.  On the first friday of every month, a lot of galleries and museums around buffalo open for free to the public, so we thought we'd take advantage!  I didn't have a lot of time to be there before I had to get to work so it was a little nerve-wracking, but it ended up okay in the end.

Here's to another great week!  Spring Break is coming up soon, which I can't believe.  I'm just going back home to NYC for the week to spend some time with the fam before crunch time really begins.  It's also one of my best friend's birthdays!  I need to get some presents!

xxTanya

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STOKER CINEMATOGRAPHY

I recently re-watched Stoker and was struck yet again by how amazing the cinematography is.  I have lots of thoughts on the acting, story, and other ideas talked about in the film but the cinematography is my first love.  I think I'll make a post talking about all the other ideas I loved, but I tried to keep this one relatively spoiler free (whereas the other will not).

Blue and Yellow are strikingly important in the tone of this film, something which I didn't realize until I started to look at these screenshots.  For example, when India is fantasizing about Charlie, the colors are extremely yellow, but as she wakes from her dream, the colors transition back to blue.  Charlie's representation also transitions from blue to yellow as well (or yellow to blue, if you look at it that way).  Super interesting!  I love when films pay attention to color pallets (cough Pacific Rim cough).

No post about Stoker on my blog would be complete without a video of my favorite scene, however.  The piano scene with India and Charlie was, by far, one of the most striking out of many striking scenes within the entire film.  I couldn't get it out of my head after, and listened to the piano duet quite a bit for weeks after the first time I saw it.  Make sure to watch in full screen and HD!

I wanted to share some of my favorite moments of cinematography with my lovely blog, along with being able to keep examples of amazing cinematography in one place.  I'll let the images do the talking, though.  Enjoy!

xxTanya

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DRIVE JACKET

Photos by the lovely Erica.

Hey everyone!

It's finally getting a little warmer outside!  I think it's going to dip back down in to the twenties soon enough, so I'm taking full advantage of the forty degree weather to wear my new coat!

The boyf got this jacket for me for christmas and to my dismay I wasn't able to wear it until now since it was so cold out!  So yesterday was my first day wearing it and I absolutely love it, despite the fact that I know many wouldn't dream of wearing something like this.  I love it and I think it matches my style really well.

Bonus to all of you who know where this is from!  The coat is a replica of the one that Ryan Gosling wears in the movie Drive, which I totally recommend.  I love the movie to bits and pieces so having this coat is so awesome (it's just a bonus that it makes me look like i'm in a sick girl gang).

The film is utterly fantastic in terms of the cinematography, which is one of my favorite things about film (probably because I'm a visual artist).  I also love weighty silences in film, also seen in Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, to name one.  A lot of people said that Drive and Taxi Driver were almost the same film, or that Drive copied Taxi Driver, but I don't agree at all.  They may have the same main character who drives for a living, who does things to protect the woman he loves (platonically or romantically) but that is where the similarities end.

I really recommend this film.  I might actually rewatch and post a couple of screenshots, which is something that I've been wanting to do for a while to keep track of some of my favorite film cinematography.  Having a blog is good for that sort of thing.

xxTanya

What I'm Wearing //

Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream in Light

Rimmel Match Perfection Concealer & Highlighter in 125 Fair

Rimmel Scandaleyes mascara in 003 Extreme Black

Max Studio duo eyeshadow in brown, copper

Kate for Rimmel Matte lipstick in 111 Kiss of Life

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