Posts from the ‘Friends’ Category

69. READ.LOOK.THINK. | Natalie Smith

I noticed a while ago that beautiful Natalie Smith is the only person I know whose blog has a Sex category. Why is this? Over Viennese chocolates on a warm Sunday evening, she kindly agreed to guest curate 69. READ.LOOK.THINK. on the theme of sex, seduction and love. May I recommend you explore it while listening to Natalie’s sex mix on Spotify?

READ: Sexually liberated and free to love (freely) at age 80. A beautiful article. | Finding out it’s all about love. It’s hard for me to separate love and sex – they’re intricately tied, so bear with me. | “Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy.” ―Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus | On discovering Nin’s words and discovering sex could be mysterious and sensual, but it was to be a dance of equals. Writer Kathy Wilson draws parallels to the lyrics of Stevie Nicks in Nin’s work too. | And as Susan Sontag said, ‘Self respect is the key to good sex’. | Alexi is Boy Crazy, hilarious and a very good source of slightly wayward and always blunt sex advice, as is the rather more salacious Slutever.

LOOK: Irene, Erotic FanZine and S Magazine provide the only vaguely tasteful erotica I’ve ever found. | Beautiful lingerie for Lonely girls, and the campaign around it shows real women of all shapes and sizes and styles.

THINK: Isabella Rosselini’s Green Porno | “The pleasure we derive from sex is also bound up with our recognizing, and giving a distinctive seal of approval to, those ingredients of a good life whose presence we have detected in another person. The more closely we analyze what we consider ‘sexy,’ the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.” Alain De Botton on how to think more about sex. | And his sex tips for Open Culture.

READ.LOOK.THINK. | James Ross-Edwards

READ.LOOK.THINK. is guest curated today by “a regular man,” James Ross-Edwards. He is funny on Twitter @frank_sartor, heartbreaking – somehow – on The Moderation Hotel, good at advertising and really tall in real life.

READ: You are boring. Tell me more about your food blog, please. An essay by Scott Simpson in The Magazine App. | Speaking of buying an iPad app. to read something: Craig Mod wrote about that (thanks Kripy). | Michael Kelly aka Ulrich Haarbürste wrote/writes fan fiction about Roy Orbison being wrapped in clingflim. | The Setup interviews people about the computers and stuff they use to do their work. For some reason, I’m addicted to it. | Austin Kleon’s blog.  | Also: though extremely niche, I find @gradecricketer hilarious.

LOOK: “Craigie” by Mining Boom. | I Was Out Walking’s photos. | “Hey Hey Hey.” – Heaps Decent meets Georgia Perry meets little kids from Wilcannia. | The podcast You Look Nice Today is still my favourite thing on the internet. | A little while back, I read Chris Ware’s Building Stories. It is very good. Here’s a helpful review. | Facebook is silly. | Also: Matt Banham, in general.

THINK: “I feel lucky that… the idea of harming myself has never occurred to me, because I feel like, when it’s my time to go, I’m going to take as many motherfuckers with me as I possibly can. If there isn’t a mushroom cloud, at least, to mark my passage from this world, I really will have failed” — episode 55 of the podcast Roderick on the Line is as good a place to jump in as any. |  Every time I get discouraged about writing or life, I re-read this particular Achewood strip. | Tiga’s six golden rules for producers is applicable to just about anyone. | “Some thoughts and musings on making things for web.”

Photo via I was out walking. More guest READ.LOOK.THINKs.

READ.LOOK.THINK. | Nathania Gilson

READ.LOOK.THINK. is guest curated today by talented young Melbourne-based film maker Nathania Gilson. You will love her tumblr Unicornology.

READ: I would, instead, slowly practice and progress as normal people do until, if lucky, I became good. A good writer. And would I be happy then? | “Don’t do that,” Levinson said. “Don’t act.” “But then it sounds like I’m just a guy sitting and having a cup of coffee,” Reiser said. “That’s what we’re looking for.” How Barry Levinson’s Diner changed cinema, 30 years later. | The beleaguered art of fashion criticism. | “How do you be free? You can’t. All you can do is scream in your room.” Emily Kai Bock discusses the making of Grizzly Bear’s Yet Again. | Susan Sontag on writing. | I feel like there’s something impenetrable about that cool girl and wanting to know her more intimately, but I also think there’s something about that girl where she doesn’t really know herself yet… Director Ry-Russo Young in conversation with Vulture.

LOOK: Natasha Kahn discusses the making of The Haunted Man. | Dhabas: The Roadside Cafes of South India | The world can be as big or as small as you want it to be. Kimberly and Nancy Wu take us inside their new Portland Studio, where parts of the Vin Diesel film XXX was filmed (a major selling point). | Behold, the Heartschallenger Ice Cream Truck. | Anne Hardy’s alternate universe(s). | Is this Heathers or real life? | Dreamy mesh and metal necklaces from The Vamoose. | What happens when you soak flowers in a liquid nitrogen bath for half an hour: broken flowers.

THINK: Leunig drew this 13 years ago. | You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. | France in the year 2000. | I’m so excited about watching The Master next week with Paul Thomas Anderson in attendance. The Huffington Post interviewed him about the hocus pocus of filmmaking. | ‘I’ll dance through the streets when everybody else is walking with their hands in their pockets and their heads down. And I will seem to everybody like I am living.’ Garrett Hedlund in conversation with Little White Lies. | Konrad Smolenski’s The End is an on-going art project started in 2007 comprising of materials such as wood, rags, petrol, explosives, loudspeakers and sound. | Handmade screensavers to quiet your mind: Further Abstracts by Alma Alloro.

READ.LOOK.THINK. | Hila Shachar

The last guest poster in the READ.LOOK.THINK. summer series is Perth writer and academic Hila Shachar from the thoughtful and beautiful blog, le projet d’amour. She’s chosen to focus on a topic that is close to her heart: feminism and women’s rights, which she blogs about regularly at On Feminism. These are Hila’s picks.

READ: So, it’s perfectly okay to attack a female politician’s dress sense, body, appearance and family status, right? Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Top 10 Sexist Insults. | “Bitch, whore, witch. All are gendered and all are designed to demean and silence women in positions of authority.” The ugly precedent. | “As the Michigan incident tells us, those who want to control women’s bodies also want to treat that body as an obscenity. The best answer to people like Mike Callton is simply to say the word: vagina, vagina, vagina.” Right on, Sarah Ditum. | “lo and behold, the plane didn’t fall out of the sky … my cleavage did not interfere with the plane’s ability to function properly”. Southwest Airlines’ classic case of slut-shaming. | The Catholic Church’s archaic and misogynistic stance on rape and abortion. | How to Spot a Misogynist. Best article ever. | Journalists, take heed: Nine Articles ‘for Women’ That Journalists Should Stop Writing. | No Place for a Woman: Female Fiction. | “Funny that when women acknowledge that we haven’t truly achieved gender balance and equality, it is so often dismissed as ‘whingeing’, ‘privileged whining’ or worse as if the problem is not the problem, the problem is noticing the problem.” Tara Moss on why critiquing gender inequality is not ‘whining’.

LOOK: I’ve had enough of the ‘eat a cheeseburger’ gang. | Republicans, Get In My Vagina! | Bad Romance: Women’s Suffrage. | Glamour Magazine deconstructed in words. | A critique of ‘Sex Sells’ in advertising, by artist Yolanda Dominguez. | Derailment Bingo. I’ve heard every single one of these comments. | “So Hollywood writers, let me remind you that women are not here for your inspiration, celebration or to coax you out of your troubles. You might not know this but we’re full and complete human beings with our own troubles, interests and creative endeavors. So how’s about your stop using us as your muse and start writing us as real people.” The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. | The best visual response to slut-shaming ever. | Spot the Illogical Fallacy.

THINK: A man’s explanation of being Pro-Choice. Love him. | It’s 2012 already: why is opinion writing still mostly male? | “I don’t think silence in the face of unfairness leads to greater equality”. Why we can’t ignore sexism in the workplace. | Straight white male privilege explained, by a man. | “The best predictor of a state’s stability is how its women are treated.” What Sex Means for World Peace. | The Girl Effect affects everyone. | “being a sportsMAN in contemporary Australian masculinity requires you to claim women as a commodity.” Emma Pocock explains chauvinist Australian sports culture. | “A woman must be seen to be vigilant as well as be vigilant. If she is deemed insufficiently vigilant, she will be at least partly blamed for any sexual violence that befalls her.” Victim-blaming and rape culture explained. | Why women leave academia and why universities should be worried. | Hey, PETA–Don’t Women Deserve as Much Respect as Animals? | “If it’s so natural, why all the conditioning?” No gender essentialist comments here. | A Thousand Reasons we need feminism. | “She genuinely doesn’t care if she annoys, alienates or threatens men.  Or women.  And in not caring she shows us true liberation.” Why women should be more difficult, and the tyranny of ‘Being Nice’.