Guten morgen, all!
First off, Kanye is changing his name. Ohh Kanye, I love you. What would the world do without you? Clearly cry into our beers.
Really, I am still laughing.

Meanwhile, I sorta want to look like this this summer:

Ok, yes, looking like Lily Cole would be nice, but I mean the caftan. For those days when it's 90 and I'm not doing anything? Sounds like a plan. It just so happens that my Gran bought something similar (purple paisley with emboidery on the chest. very hippie-ish.) back in the day, I'm pretty sure as a Halloween costume but who knows?? It is at our house now and I will steal it when I go back home. Yum, summer. I clearly have a bad hankering for it now. I think it's because we don't really get spring here- we've had some gorgeous sun lately, though- or perhaps I am just impatient.

xoxo,
Rosemary

Walking on a Dream

I love this song:



"Walking on a Dream," by Empire of the Sun

- Rosemary

my mother is visiting me and i brought her on a walk along college. i love to walk to little italy on a saturday when everyone is just waking up and people aren't rushing to school or frantically causing traffic incidents by running to catch the streetcar. she loved it, too! i made her love it. by being like, oh! look! i know that person! and oh this is the coffee shop i spend too much time at and this is the bar i meet my friends at and hey they might have good ground beef in here let's get some. walking back home, laden with a heavy assortment of spontaneous shopping, i was saying that there is a nice toronto style of dressing, like this is not brooklyn, this is not the lower east side, this is certainly not the upper east side, but it's quirky, it's relaxed, it's put together in this nice spring weather. and she agreed, (she felt a bit overdressed but i assured her her coat was just like the dressing gown esque coat garance doré just got), and she said "yes, hmm i had forgotten what canadians were like: no one in new york wears a wool toque and shorts like that man pushing his stroller in his plaid shirt." i love my mother.

- Olivia

I don't know what I'm doing this summer. No clue. '09 is not the best graduation year these days. Today I was working on my application for a job at a language immersion camp, though, and got so drawn in by thoughts of camp and pictures of the dressed-down staff.
Hmm, my romantic idea is probably not so advisable, but if I end up there I would strive to look like this:

via Rackk and Ruin-- a cool blog, click the photo to go to it.

- Rosemary

The Boss

Bruce Springsteen is so wonderful. His older pictures are so attractive, and listening to him makes me feel very American.


My parents are big fans of the Boss and therefore transferred their love to me. I like mostly his older stuff, like "Rosalita" (of course!). Sorry I have sort of been drinking a lot of wine and this is probably boring. It was supposed to be interesting! My entire point was that it took me a while to like him, of course I was resistant since my parents are big fans, and now I like him, and I listened to him quite a lot in Berlin. And Berlin is a great place to feel very American ("Ami")(I can expand on this later). I would be standing at a subway stop, listening and wanting to dance to Bruce, it was great. Berlin, for me, was wanting to dance to Springsteen, Kanye, and the Ark. Quite different. All frowned upon since the Germans aren't big fans of public dancing.

-Rosemary

My Awesome Day

I have to tell you about my day today.
First, I slept in quite late and then went to school and handed in my paper.
Then I had a coffee and muffin and talked with a friend.
Then I went shopping.
First, I was chatting with the girls at American Apparel and they gave me their employee discount!! It made a pretty big difference. THEN I got free bread at the bread shop, THEN I got a discount at the cheese shop!
Then I met with Olivia for a catch-up (we haven't seen much of each other lately). THEN we got free scones cause the place was closing for the day!!!!!
I <3 baked goods!
It was a happy day.
This is what I looked like, roughly: - Rosemary

Obama Update: Barack Likes Fashion

Read this.
I love that Barack notices what she's wearing/what's new/etc. etc.!

In other news, I went out on Saturday night instead of working on my paper. That's why I've been so absent...

-Rosemary

Hi, I'm Bunny!

You have to have to have to check out LeSportsac's new Lapin collection. The little story starts "Hi, I'm Fifi Lapin," and she describes how some people call her just a socialite but she thinks there is more to her. OH EM GEE it is just like me. I need the cute lunch date bag like Lance Armstrong needs bikeshorts. 

Love!

- Olivia

doesn't Barack Obama ask us to be humble?

"The only thing one ever has to understand about the Leafs is that

whenever they lose, they actually win, 

because they outplayed the other team, because of bad calls, 

and worse luck. 

When Italy lost the World Cup to Brazil, the Italian fans gathered along

St. Clair yelled adamantly, We are still Number One!

No, I thought. Idly watching Portuguese fans from my window, 

leading livestock down College and blazing with victory. 

No, that would make you Number Two." 

From Lynn Crosbie's LIAR. 

- Olivia

re:re: diaz

hi olivia,
it was nice to run into you last night, i miss you too! i do want to kill my paper. i have such a bad case of senioritis. maybe i will set every book ever written about vietnam on fire and then go to my prof and be like, "sorry! couldn't write a paper! all the material has somehow disappeared..."

meanwhile, in a string of incidents in which crazy crackheads have harassed JB and i, some guy said as i walked by, "i hate redheads."
:(

the junot diaz was indeed entertaining and well-written or whatever your dad said, i told you how i liked his footnotes and the tone. i have not read tolstoy. i once read half of anna karenina and then was like, this is SO BORING and predictable, i will not waste any more of my summer attempting this book.

xoxo,
rosie

re: diaz

Dear Rosemary, 

How's it going today? I hope you aren't considering killing your paper or anything. Oh, I should inform our readers, don't you think, that we started this blog based on the sometimes multiple daily emails between the two of us. I think our convo went something like this : 

me - hahaha I loved your email today it made me laugh so much.

you - I know, we're hilarious. 

me or you or both of us in unison - we should have a blog already! we are fascinating! 

Okay now that that is out of the way, and since I don't feel like signing into my real gmail account, I have something quickly to say to you, other than I miss you of course. 

I received a post card from my dad this morning. First paragraph about a painting that he keeps revisiting (emphasis on RE) at the metropolitan (nerd), second paragraph about how Rufus decided to take a swim in the muddy pond for cute little sailboats by the alice in wonderland statue, third paragraph goes like this : "The Junot Diaz is cleverly written + entertaining, but hardly Tolstoy!" and then he signed. I thought you would like it - it made me laugh and think of you, and then groan because he is annoying like that and has probably read stupid Tolstoy. This is my life, Rosemary, waaaaah. 

Love you!

O

Ville spatiale

Yona Friedman, The Spatial City/ Ville Spatiale, 1958

I am super exhausted but one hundred prozent in love with my architecture prof.

- Rosemary

dangerous pride

I may not show it, but I can be very proud. Marianne Moore explains my haughty and full-of-it little self, like her, I remove myself from conversations. She is tough!!

To be Liked by You Would be a Calamity

"Attack is more piquant than concord," but when

You tell me frankly that you would like to feel 

My flesh beneath your feet, 

I'm all abroad - I can but put my weapon up and 

Bow you out. 

Gesticulation - it is half the language. 

Let unsheathed gesticulation be the steel 

Your courtesy must meet, 

Since in your hearing words are mute, which to my senses

Are a shout. 

- Olivia

olivia's desktop glory

Oh, Andy, you are so wonderful. You're young, full of potential, if only you could just bulk up a bit, you could beat those big guys, I'm telling ya. Don't worry, don't be like Andy Roddick, he never wins, and is wimpy despite his massive muscles and his golden boy looks. You don't have to compete with that slug. No, you run after Nadal, hit past Feddie, get that joker to stop his imitation games, and I know you can swoop to glory. You make the scot in me swell with pride, you make my heart leap when you swing for that ball, you look so good in that brilliant blue, I love you. And thank you, because Henman Hill is such a yawn, we need a good scot to take over. 

With love, cross my heart and hope to die I love you so much, 

Olivia

PS - if you see Serena soon, tell her she's kind of awesome. I will give the Americans that at least. 

more nailpolish

Bought these two colors at Sephora the other day! I love the purpley one and have yet to try out the blue except for this picture.


- Rosemary

I have a bad case of senioritis. I've had it for most of this year. I remember this feeling from my senior year of high school, but there's a lot more at stake this time around, which is just annoying ARRRRGHH.

So when it's nice outside and you're stuck inside attempting to write papers that you don't give a damn about and your fingers just refuse to type "British demands" one more time, it's nice to have things like this to cheer you up. I have even found myself doing her little shoulder shimmy while sitting in this stuffy computer lab.



"Fascination," by Alphabeat

- Rosemary

Warm weather reminiscing.

I miss the people in Berlin who smoke cigarettes while biking.

How great. They do it with such nonchalance, I cannot even aspire to be that cool. If they want to take it up a notch, they can pedal down an empty street without hands while smoking. Staying in between the tram tracks, of course.

Today I sat on a side street curb with a friend and ate pizza. The weather was lovely, sunny and warm. It reminded me of the time I sat on a Berlin curb with a friend and drank cheap white wine out of a carton. We were near a tram stop but I don't think we even paid attention to the traffic around us. Curbs in Berlin are pretty high, though, they make better seats.

- Rosemary

Olivia has old problems.

I have struggled with one problem about literature for a while now. The question I ask is how do two people connect to each other? The impossible task of truly communicating troubles me. Since I took a course on Louis Aragon and Proust, I've been worrying about this. It haunts me. Proust seems to declare one cannot truly reach the other, and Aragon extends it to his theory of the inherent impossibility of the couple. I find literature heightens our focus on this problem and shoves it in our faces. I think literature is limited by the distance between the author and the reader, and this very limitation gives light, perhaps, to our beautifully impossible task to connect.

Perhaps this old poet gives me an answer, for today. Below is an excerpt from a poem titled Ars Poetica?

I have always aspired to a more spacious form

that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose

and would let us understand each other without exposing

the author or reader to sublime agonies.

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:

a thing is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us,

so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out

and stood in the light, lashing his tail.

(...).

And yet the world is different from what it seems to be

and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.

People therefore preserve silent integrity,

thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us

how difficult it is to remain just one person,

for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,

and invisible guests come in and out at will.

(...).

- Czeslaw Milosz, Berkeley 1968.

-- Olivia

olivia's canine obsession.

I love dogs. Here are some I like: 

Milou or Snowy in Tintin. 

Winston Churchill. (many of his family members had animal nicknames, his son was Rabbit, his daughter Mouse and his wife, fittingly, was Cat, -- so my family is not that strange hehe we give everyone animal names it's awful!!). 

Bernese Mountain Dogs. 

Golden Retrievers. 

Idéfix, Astérix's dog. 

Bill, the cocker-spaniel in Boule et Bill comics. 

Hobbes in Calvin and Hobbes, even though he is not exactly canine. 

Rufus. 

my family: 

http://www.cartoonbank.com/item/44813

- Olivia

GG / those crazy swedes!

a crucial list.

Typically Canadian, I am quite British, said "quite British" with all the t's. I have absolutely zero interest in going to a comedy show, that seems like torture to me, but the following list includes the funniest things I have ever seen or read, and I have actually been in tears from laughing. In my family, we can just quote one of these sources out of nowhere and people will fall about laughing. 

The Life of Brian. 

Barney's Version, by Mordecai Richler. 

The Vicar of Dibley. (so inappropriate it's irresistible). 

Dad's Army. (not exactly P.C. anymore with the intro music cheerily bashing Mr. Hitler). 

Seinfeld. 

'Allo 'Allo. (often found very inappropriate, oops). 

As Time Goes By. (maybe it's just me in my family who dies at this and loves them). 

I don't understand people who can't laugh at The Life of Brian, and I have sat through many a painful viewing with people stone-faced as my brother and I roll on the floor in pain from laughing. Perhaps those people are lucky, in fact, maybe their lives are joyous, maybe they have never felt the threat of the Christian church or been disturbed by and secretly jealous of Roman habits. I envy them. 

- Olivia

love.

from the sartorialist, click to see more of his fashion week(s) photos.
- RM

The Institution of Brunch

Sundays in Berlin, ah how wonderful. Every week it was a hungover day full of food and trodding around in my little 19€ sneakers, trying so hard to beat that foggy feeling in my head. Berliners are serious about brunch, honestly, it's an institution. They know where they like to go and how much it costs and how late they serve brunch till-- which is a very important thing, since if you've been out clubbing until 6, you aren't going to be waking up before 1. Unless your pounding headache wakes you up. So we'd meet at Malzkafe (right near the Kulturbrauerei, I never knew the street name cause I didn't need to) or Frieda Kahlo (up on Helmholtzplatz) if we felt like spending a bit more, and I'd quickly start to lament the lack of the bottomless cup of coffee in Europe. We'd charge the buffet and eat lots of cheese and croissants, and be glad that we made it to brunch before 3, when most places stopped serving it. Then we'd slowly make our way to the flohmarkt (fleamarket) and wander around Mauerpark, at times sunny, at times full of puddles, at times both. The Mauerpark flohmarkt was always a mix of nice food stalls & expensive vintage purses (the gentrification of Prenzlberg, our former neighborhood, has certainly made it to the flohmarkt), loud Turks selling 2 shirts for a euro (the true Berlin), and a mishmash of languages (what Berlin is becoming). After a few hours there, I'd probably succumb to the allure of a slice or two from Solopizza (Danzigerstrasse, of course) and throw in a complaint about how nothing was open on Sundays. Or maybe not, because Sundays sort of benefitted from this ritual of nothing else to do except down coffee and wander around in leggings and my cheap little sneakers.

sun & a puddle.

- Rosemary

Olivia / Too Young to Die, by Yoshitomo Nara

une lassitude amusée

I find myself exhausted of colour. I would like to burn all articles of clothing I own that are anything other than black. I manage to tolerate the look of deep brown, deep grey, or what I fondly call "sludge." Sludge is one of my favourite colours. But I have no interest in those shades, I only just managed to put my sludgy tartan wool scarf on this morning, because I figured I needed a slight variation from my black uniform. For those who don't know me well, I own a lot of jewelry. It doesn't happen on purpose, I do not shop for it myself, but many birthdays and christenings and grandmothers and aunts and a lovely mother mean that I have amassed a large collection and I do not part with any of it. I litter my apartment with bangle after bangle and chains and little earrings. Throughout the day I pile more on, like the change of the guard I will switch from golds to pearls and perhaps a plastic white thing. It is good for my soul, I admire my own jewelry on me, for the simple appreciation of the object, it lifts me. I am glad that today, amidst bleak exhaustion, droopy lids, lovely lattes and a little daffodil plant in my apartment being the only colour I can adore, I am relieved to be with my jewelry. At least. 

- Olivia

My Family of Nailpolish

I have a lot of nailpolish, but somehow it doesn't look that impressive here. Maybe this is a reason for me to buy more!!!!! YAY what an exciting thought.
I'll tell you a story: Last April sometime, when I was in Berlin, I dyed my hair (as per always), but without wearing the plastic gloves, so I got dye all over one hand. This was pretty funny, especially since it was a dark auburn color. It came off my hand in about a day and a half, but it was on my nails to stay, probably about until August. This meant that I had to have my nails painted almost perfectly all the time so I didn't look like some sort of insane chain-smoker or something. And ever since then it's hard for me to not have my nails painted.
This also resulted:

Every time I go into a drugstore I look at the nailpolish, without fail.
I just remembered that my lighter purple nailpolish is at a friend's. And I need to replace my pale pink (my fall color).
Sorry I sound like a maniac, it is due to library-induced comatic sickness (I don't think that is a word... it now means a sickness that comes with coma-like feelings)(I am not actually sick don't worry your little heads).

- Rosemary

Hello loves!
Real quick, the War of 1812 calls-- lovely shots from The Sartorialist:

ENVY.
My jaw is still on the floor.

- Rosemary

topic: olivia and rosemary.

Ummmm soooo I was talking to one of my best friends, she is like the big sister I never had, and she said that she's been meaning to tell me that she read my blog and thought it was funny. and then, (as if there is some kind of link), she said "yeah you know and your blog made me realize that all I do is think about myself too and my entire focus is me." 

I have no idea what she's talking about. 

Just look at this, don't you love us? Comments are welcome. I would love to hear. 

- Olivia

Marc!

#1 thing I've been meaning to do: express my love for the recent Marc Jacobs RTW fall '09 show. Though I love fashion and my favorite part of any day is planning what to wear the next, I don't usually pay a lot of attention to what designer show on the runways. These past weeks, though, I did, and the Marc Jacobs show really stood out. Instead of analyzing it or something ("Marc decided to make a perhaps overt commentary on our current economic state by saturating his line in luxe eighties blah blah blah..."), I will share a few thoughts:

COLOR!
wonderfully pink coat! with a great hood!
Kanye-like sunnies!
no, really, that coat is amazing and I would probably kill for it.


more color!
I love hoodie dresses! they're so Berlin!
awesome patterned leggings!



ah, I still love this pink so much!
and scarves! I already own a million, so what's one more?
another cute dress!


Ok, I'm already annoying myself. But now you understand my love. Or at least have been notified of it.

You know what I just thought of? This line, or at least these looks that I've picked out, is somewhat like a clothing version of the designs of that Stockholm architecture studio, Electric Dreams (um scroll back in the blog, can't be bothered to link to it now). If you just threw in some ripped-knee Cheap Mondays and little flat lace-up black boots, it'd be perfect! Ooooh....

- Rosemary

fumes.

so, like, i was thinking about rosemary yesterday and thinking about our blog and wondering what i should write for my next post (this one) and i was like la la la la nailpolish, hm which colour should i paint my nails? i was in my bathroom, running a hot shower just to steam up the place (oops that is bad for the environment) and i was like hmm pearly white like my mummy and her ladies-who-lunch or cherries in the snow revlon colour that features on mad men hmmmm like i don't feel like deep blue satin right now. and then i realized: i only have those three colours, and that is not the realization, no, something far far more exciting: they are the colours of the french flag!! bleu, blanc, rouge. 

i am so thrilled. 

xo, 

- Olivia

Urgent.

I'm worried that another, FAR FAR more important show is being forgotten by my illustrious colleague. And that show, my friends, is, of course, Gossip Girl. I won't hold it against my Partner In Crime since GG is on some sort of awful hiatus and we have gone quite a few weeks now without an episode.

oh my gossip girl indeed.
See, GG is home to the hottest, awesomest, words-can't-describe-it-so-I'm-just-gonna-stop couple EVER, Blair and Chuck. Their drama is what makes the show. They force each other to say "I love you," fight, have steamy limo sex, rescue each other from their high school's admin, set each other up on blind dates, have more illicit sex, pretend to hate each other, then Chuck finally admits he is totally in love but then leaves and runs off to Thailand, leaving Blair almost-crying in front of her mirror in her ruffly blouse and and and... it's just amazing.

Also they have the best wardrobes and Chuck Bass is really hot.
evidence:

GG also makes my horrible Monday seminar tolerable, because I know when it's over I only have two hours left, and then GG!!!

xoxo,
Rosemary

my education.

I love Lexi because of one line "Teach me." I read somewhere that who needs porn for women when you have Grey's Anatomy? 

- Olivia