Posts tagged magazines
Pay the Writer: Harlan Ellison’s Rant and Hattie Stewart’s Magazine Illustrations
Feb 6th
Hay friends! Stop drooling over that for a second. We’ll get to Hattie, but first up is HARLAN. Big ups to my office-pal Rob for sharing this gem at work this morning:
RIGHT?
Harlan Ellison is a hugely successful American science fiction writer. He’s brand new to me, but I love him already. That fire, that passion, that refusal to be taken advantage of. I admire that kind of gusto and sincerely hope I have the courage to be more like him one day.
You can read some of Ellison’s short stories here, and I recommend that you DO. Who would you rather take reading recommendations from? Oprah Winfrey or some Canadian chick who irons her cuffs with a hair straightener most of the time?
You know who else I love? Hattie Stewart. Also new to me, but her style is 110 per cent *UMPH*. This is the shick I see in my head when I have sweet dreams:
Hattie is a young and higggghly succesful artist living in London (the real one). Her illustrated magazine covers are blowing up the web today and with good reason. They are, to paraphrase your grandmother, the bomb sheezy.
My entire blog could be about showcasing the talents of other people. Maybe one day it will be.
Here’s Eric Cartman, IRL. Now that is talent, maybe.
via Reddit, obvs
Nizzle, OUT.
Little Burgundy’s Cats and The VICE Photo Show
Jul 15th
“If the Internet had a spirit animal, it would be a cat.” – Little Burgundy Magazine , S/S 2011
What is it about felines that makes we the Interfolk love them so damned much? Better question: Why am I blogging right now instead of actively acquiring more cats?
Perhaps I’m just too lazy to put on a pair of pants at the moment, but more likely it’s because I can get my fur fix online without physically having to hug every cat.
I wonder if crazy cat lady populations have increased or decreased since the dawn of the modern web…
Oh, who am I kidding – I’d put that sweater on my cat in a heartbeat. It’s effing awesome.
The Internet and kitties go together like peanut butter and M&M’s, in my opinion. Not the most conventional of combinations, but it’s charming as hell…
No examples are needed to illustrate this point (I give them to you all the freaking time, greedy sods) but here’s one anyway: All 7 Harry Potter films in just over a minute, as acted out by cats:
“I have boobs now!” Hahaha. SO GOOD.
Anyhoo, Last week I ducked into Little Burgundy for the purpose of lusting over some House of Harlow wedges I do not need and – LO & BEHOLD! – A SALE! A big big sale. I bought too much.
Fortunately, my little spending binge was justified because I got one thing foh free. The best thing of all things, in fact:
C’est Little Burgundy’s Spring/Summer 2011 Magazine: The Cat Issue!
I’m a big fan of these lookbook / hipsterzine hybrids. It takes a lot of creativity to make branded editorial content genuinely palatable. H&M does it well, and Little Burgundy hit out of the park with this. Big ups to their
The articles and interviews were penned (keyed, rather) almost entirely by bloggers – good ones, too – and the “hipster cats” illustrations were done by Toronto’s own Melinda Josie. I’ve never met her but I think I love her.
Please do yourself a favour and visit the Little Burgundy Cat Issue microsite for a good chunk of hot shoes and kitty-related content:
Personally, I rather dig SNP‘s “9 Lives, 8 Factoids”. Thankyou for introducing me to Monsieur Chat!
I also enjoyed the page with photos from their Future Issue party because I was on it, sort of. See that little quarter of a blonde head in the background there? 100% me. I was talking to that dude forever and was the only severely platinum girl there if I do recall.
Last night, I went to a different party at that very same gallery. The only other time I’ve been there, in fact. It was the annual VICE Photo show in Toronto and it was a hot hipsterlicious mess. Literally. Walking into Show & Tell last night, I felt like I was entering a steam room – except the air was not thick with water, it was thick with Pabst Blue Ribbon and sweat.
The photo essays I saw were incredible (Check out Brett Grundlock’s “The Movement” – powerful stuff), but I think most of these kids came for the free PBR. It was cray-cray near the bar.
Those sneaky Vicesters set up a hidden Pizza Cam and posted the results of this project today. Fooking hilar, especially when you know half of these poor hungry guys:
I did some other fun things this week when I wasn’t busy pulling my hair out 10-6. Carly‘s sister Kristin had a launch party for her new boutique Hate & Heartbreak on Monday and Raymi danced. It was sexy and fun and great to see my blogging babes. Casie wrote all about it here.
The Blondetourage be making me happy 
<3
I’ve got to go now. Gunna channel this guy and make like a sick, fearless bastard right now… Going to unload my dishwasher TWO CUPS AT A TIME. I might even start a new book.
Fridays are tired days. It was a really long, hard one today.
Love you!
(For the record: Little Burgundy didn’t pay me to write this or give me free crap or even knows that I’m in love with them probably. I just really like cats.)
wise words from the mustachioed man on my hipster rag…
Jul 23rd
HAY HAY HAY!
Last week I picked up a bunch of free magazines at The Drake. (And by ‘magazines’, I mean promotional rags, pamphlets, postcards, flyers, discarded cocktail napkins… anything remotely cool looking and/or colourful that fit into my purse. Yeah, I’m one of those people – and I’ve got four bulletin boards, a computer desk overflowing with bright wacky schtuff and a perpetually sextuple-booked “zawesome events!” Google calendar to show for it.)
One of said magzors had some really cool stuff in it - like this:
annnnnd THIS:
And also, the greatest horoscopes I’ve ever read ever. I know I exaggerate like, a katrillion times a minute, but I’m being serious. In all my human life years, I have never laughed my way from Capricorn to Sagittarius straight (sans-whipits).
Mine (Scorpio) was pretty much bang-on…
You have a beer gut you didn’t have to pay for and your hearing is permanently shot from blasting illegally downloaded Diplo remixes over shitty dive-bar sound systems. If blogs could give out medals, you’d have a Purple Heart. Go get ‘em, tiger.
k, maybe not BANG on, but it was hilarious so things are gravy.
And speaking of gravy, the icing on my meaty cake of hip-to-be-hip gold was ION’s interview with Ukranian-born moustache man musician Eugene Hu?tz, front guy of uber-acclaimed gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello.
I’d heard the good buzzzz about this band, but never really got around to checking them out as I’m not one for weird music that sounds like crap. Gogol’s music SO does not sound like crap, by the way, I just kind of assumed that it would based on all of the other highly buzzzzed about stuff I blindly download.
Plus, one of my Czech friends has a SUPER hate on for gypsies, and that Steven King book ‘Thinner‘ paints them in a terrible light, and Snatch too… so I was sort of like “ew, gypsies”.
Then I learned that hating on gypsies is like TOTALLY RACIST.
Huh.
Anyways, I’m totally going to marry a gypsy punk-rocker if he will have my hand because holysmokes do I less than three my new homeboy-in-my-head for saying this:
“… fashion is basically one of the lower forms of art. I don’t detest fashion. It’s just that the importance is blown out of proportion. Most fashion has become institutionalized elitism. Personally, I don’t give a fuck about fashion. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate if somebody whips some combination out that I’ve never seen before. Fashion is great when it is spontaneous and upbeat, or from somebody whose aesthetic about fashion is very artistic and solid…”
and also, this…
“the idea of nostalgia is very much a part of the Western condition. It’s also been employed as a big business by capitalists milking people’s weaknesses—a form of mental laziness. People are chasing the wrong things. It seems people are either constantly aiming towards some goal that they think will finally free them, or they are taking comfort in things that have already happened. It’s this doomed way of thinking that the best time in their life has either already happened, or that it never will happen, y’know? So, I’m not really a fan of that. It’s not about arriving anywhere, or dwelling on all the places you’ve been. It’s about the cruising.”
*swoon*
Smart and [would be] sexy [without the creepstache].
And yes, by the way, I understand the irony of me loving those statements – the hypocrisy -as I am both a hardcore clotheswhore and a girl who relies heavily on nostalgia for much of the content she produces. I’m trying to change both of those things, bear with me. We all need a little bit of a kick sometimes.
I am just loving all of this found indie and hipster media strewn around Toronto’s cool bars and java joints. Screw Nylon and Vice - I can be irreverently hip without having to spend a dime. *smug hair toss*
Wait… can I still be hip if I don’t blow my paycheque on stuff that makes me look like I’m not trying to be hip?
Meh. It’s okay… I was never hip to begin with.
<3 Lauren`
PS – I also realize that by hipster-bashing I’m being as unoriginal and douchebaggy as the very scenesters I’m making fun of. The blogoverse has been jokesin‘ on those American Apparel kids since like, 2008 or something. Google “stupid hipsters” – trust.
*sigh* we’re so damn insecure, the whole lot of us, aren’t we?
Magazine Karma and Katy Perry’s Pseudo-Wisdom
Feb 15th
It’s no secret (to anyone who’s seen my basement) that I’m a magazine junkie. I’m talkin’ JUN-KIE. I read magazines almost every single day; especially in the winter when I like to multitask it up on the treadmill. Yup – there’s nothing like sweating it out to a good ol’ couture spread or gadget review or um… the latest developments in Heidi Montag’s life… *cough*. Treadmill time is my “me time”, OKAY? Don’t judge.
I read from a wide variety of genres – Fashion, fitness, tech, science, design, news, entertainment, hipster, current affairs, gossip, craft, froofy-frah-frah, homemakery, indie zines, general awesomeness – I like it all! And I buy it all. Well… sort of.
You see, if I were to buy every single magazine I wanted to buy, I’d be even more broke than I already am (if that’s even possible). So, while I do buy far too many magazines (and subscribe to four), I end up picking up a lot of my treadmill fodder from the piles of magazines I see lying around the gym.
Of course, this doesn’t always work out well. It really depends on what gym I’m at on any given day (I’m a Goodlife gangsta so I have access to any of like, 10 gyms in this city alone – plus the University gym). Most of the time the selection is “meh” – sometimes it’s pretty aight – and sometimes it’s straight BOLLOCKS (I’m talking 2005 issues of Chatelaine, Men’s Health, and that Oprah magazine that’s always got Oprah on the cover. I think it’s called “Oprah” or something. That would make sense.) The new gym near my condo always seems to have recent issues of US Weekly around which is sweeet, but not exactly the most satisfying to read.
ANYWAYS, every once in a while (usually when I’m working out in a nicer part of town), I’ll spot a real gem on the racks. A brand new Shape Magazine with Carrie Underwood on the cover, or a pristine Walrus with an interesting feature article inside or – be still my heart – a super-thick British Vogue!
I kid you not – this has all actually happened to me, and these happy finds are starting to happen more and more often lately. Why? Because I’ve got great magazine karma.
“Why Lauren; What is Magazine Karma?” You ask?
Well, according to Wikipedia (Which I would argue, much to the chagrin of mainstream academic institutions everywhere, is, in fact, a credible source), Karma is “the concept of ‘action’ or ‘deed’, understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies.”
When referenced by plebians like me, it’s usually taken to mean something along the lines of “what goes around comes around“.
Based on this principle, it is my belief that by leaving good magazines behind for others to discover at the gym, I will in turn discover good magazines myself. In the past three weeks alone, I’ve donated a brand new Marie Claire, an InStyle, a People magazine, a VegNews, a Women’s Health and countless Globe and Mails (newspapers aren’t magazines, but they’re good reading too!) to magazine racks at various Goodlife fitness clubs across the city.
In that same time period, I scored a Feb. 2010 Canadian Living, a Feb. 2010 Cosmo, a whole whack of recent tabloids, and this (Feb. 2010) issue of Glamour:
I effing LOVE Glamour, so I was like “SCORE!”.
Magazine Karma, man… I’m tellin’ ya!
Sooo, to segue akwardly into the topic that actually inspired me to start writing this post – it was through acquiring this issue of Glamour (that I only acquired because I left another good magazine behind at some point) that I learned pop star Katy Perry and I have a lot in common when it comes to our attitudes about love, sex and boysboysboys.
I was reading the Perry article on the elliptical trainer downtown and I was literally like “mmmhmm, preach it girl!”. Out loud – not just in my head like a normie. This happens a lot, I must admit. I’m pretty sure the people at Goodlife think I’m crazy or uh… whatever the politically correct word for “retarded” is.
I know that journalists are encouraged to make their subjects seem supercool in these types of magazines (have you ever noticed that almost every celebutard cover story in a fashion magazine starts with the writer talking about how surprised she is that the starlet in question is really “down to earth”, in sneakers and jeans, hair effortlessly swept up in a loose chignon, adopted shelter puppy in tow…) – Katy Perry’s interview could very well have been edited to make her sound like a dope chick that she is not. In fact, I would be surprised if it hadn’t been; but I like the content of this article regardless. Perry, or whoever the fehck is behind these words, is one savvy little cookie imho.
Rrraygahld…
THE BOY-RELATED WISDOM OF MS. KATY PERRY:
On the best thing about men…
“their sense of humour.”
[OBVS]
On dealbreakers…
“Lack of ambition. I can’t deal when someone dillydallies through life. You’ve got to have drive – that’s so sexy… If I feel like I’m being controlled, I get crazy. Because I know I made it this far by following my intuition. I think people like who I am, and I like who I am, and I want to be a better version of myself every single day. So stop controlling me!”
[HOLLAH! Nothing will drive a normal girl away faster than a way-too-clingy or controlling guy. And apathy is just... well, ew. Ambition = hot. Remember this, gentlemen.]
On sucking at casual relationships…
“I love music that moves me and makes the hair on my arms stand up. And I want the same thing in relationships. Either you can keep up or you can’t.”
[So keep up... or get left behind.]
On sack-relations..
“When I was meeting people in L.A., guys always thought that if they paid for dinner, they deserved a blow job. But generally, I’ll say this- and I’ll say it proudly – I can’t sleep with someone if I don’t have a connection with them.”
[yup.]
On Michael Jackson…
[k, I added that one in because I'm hilarious like that.]
On games…
“Games are not really cute to me… although they work on everyone [Laughs]. I like a guy who will call. I don’t care about the three day rule.”
[THANK YOU. Headgames are soooo undergrad. So fun. So painful. So immature.]
On what her man (Russel Brand) has over other guys…
“A vocabulary! He could slay anybody with the things that he says. He doesn’t even need his fists.”
[BLOGITORS NOTE: Here here! Nothing is hotter than a witty boy who can spit out big words and actually make sense. I've always been a sucker for smart boys - and when they're verbally smart... be still my heart.]
On when she’ll settle down…
“When I find a partner who’s my teammate. I’m not going to play by any rules, I’m just going to go with my heart. Why wait? I just wrote a song that goes ‘they say it’s hard to meet your match, gotta find my other half so we can make a perfect shape.”
[Awww.]
Perry also reveals in the article that she’s into dudes AND chicks. She should hook up with Lady Gaga and get the best of both worlds. Wouldn’t that just be like, the hottest pant-hating crazy lesbanim couple EVER? Move over Ellen & Portia – Gaga & K-Perz ftw! <3
I have been writing for entirely too long. I’ve got to get to bed and rest up for a big day tomorrow. Sunday night already… jeesh – these weekends just fly by, don’t they? I had another amazing one. I think that I’ll do a ‘best of February’ photoblog when I get a chance.
I wish I had the time to blog about every single one of my adventures individually, but alas, I am a busy girl and the school work – she is a-callin’…
If only I could land a summer job or something that allowed me to write about my exploits full time! That would be soooooo nice … VOTE LAUREN FOR AXE.
Come ahhhn… come ahhhhhn!
<3 Lauren
PS - HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! It's the year of the Toooiger, did you know? RAWR! MEOW! Tigers are big kittehs, YEY!
Ohsnap – here’s an ‘ethics of blog-a-malism’ debate topic for us. I just googleimaged “chinese new year kitteh” and stumbled upon this image…
So riddle me this, friends – where does a young blogournalist draw the line between funny and offensive? I obviously err on the side of… whatever the opposite of caution is usually, but is this one straight up racist or plain hilarious? I would argue that it’s both, but who am I to argue anything?
Is the mere allusion towards a racial stereotype justified if it’s comedic enough? I’ll let you ponder this while I go into hibernation mode… my mind is on critical low-bat right now.
*for the record, laurenoutloud.com does not condone racism, sexism, speciecism, or kicking eldery women in the face. Unless it’s really really funny.
