DEAR ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: you are rad

For a more complete exposition of why Archbishop Rowan is climbing the stakes as the coolest man alive, read the full story here. This is a rare 'random act of kindness' at its best, people. Someone who is no doubt 'busy' and would have had myriad valid reasons to not bother responding to a rudimentary letter from a six year old, broke rank and did. If only there were more christians like him in schools and institutions everywhere, religious workers would not have such a bad rap. He makes for a very good case for cloning.

I remember getting stupidly excited when I was seven and my brother and I wrote letters to The Wiggles and they responded (generously including an abundance of free merch, WINNING). Therefore, I can't even imagine how you'd feel at that age (slash, any age) upon receiving a response from the Archbishop of Canterbury on the kind behalf of the creator of the universe. (In saying that, I'm aware that some of you probably would've preferred the musical memorabilia. The mugs in particular were quite useful...) Personally, my disposition lends itself towards a love for engaging with mysteries, which consequently would have rendered me far more excited over a letter like Lulu's than one from four questionably attired dancing men, I think.

*Disclaimer: Before you are overcome with jealousy over The Wiggles Incident, let me be upfront in disclosing from the get-go that their willingness to reply was potentially founded on the basis of our insider connections. On account of, our auntie worked for their tv production company in Australia at the time. (It's not what you know...)

**Trivia: if you've never heard of Archbishop Rowan before, he was the guy in the bizarro hat responsible for marrying Prince William and Kate Middleton.

HYSTERIC

This was the cover of the magazine I work for circa the wedding of Prince Charles and the then Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. Ahh, nostalgia. Wedding mania has reached fever pitch amongst my colleagues today in the lead up to Prince William and commoner(!) 'Catherine' (no, you can't be casual 'Kate' anymore, apparently...) Middleton's pending nuptials this weekend. I'm going to go with, half the population of our floor are currently adorning themselves with positively Brit-esque handmade fascinators fashioned from ribbon and the occasional streamer. Which has consequently rendered any attempts at serious discussion highly distracting. There have been whispers afoot of celebratory parties this eve involving Union Jack bunting, an abundance of themed cupcakes and in one bordering-disturbing case cut out dolls of 'Kate and Wills' atop a custom-made cake. You've gotta admire our patriotism as fellow citizens of the Commonwealth. (I think).

Seriously though people... hats off.

*Or more correctly, on, if my surroundings are anything to go by.

RITUAL

This is an image from last weekend's annual Holy Fire Ceremony in Jerusalem. I found it in this phenomenal collection of pictures documenting the various traditions and rituals surrounding Easter celebrations worldwide. Utterly poignant, utterly beautiful. It got me thinking around the concept of 'ritual'. What is it within us humans that finds strange comfort in the ritualisation of annual events? I know this has been customary for centuries past, but it got me wondering (and subsequently Wikipedia'ing like a crazy person) about how these traditions came about, and why they've been carried on - particularly those pertaining to annual religious celebrations.

Because they're beautiful, and meaningful (they mean something), and in an increasingly postmodernised, minimalised, secularised society, I guess the archaically traditional side of me secretly relishes the idea of hundreds of thousands of people each year, carrying out detailed, symbolic, age-old rituals around events that signify something important to them.

After seeing those pictures, and in light of researching the various rich histories behind those cultures' traditions, I can't say with much feeling that it's something us westerners are super good at.

I hope we don't lose our rituals. I hope we don't become too cool for them. I hope I get creative about the rituals I plan to adopt and carry on, and reinvent them for future generations.

Somebody ask me about that next Easter, will you?

MANHATTAN DREAMING

This is Diane Keaton & Woody Allen in Manhattan, circa Annie Hall.

I suppose you could say this is my dream.

QUICKFIRE QUESTIONS: Juliette Hogan

Recently I got to speed-interview NZ fashion designer Juliette Hogan for 'one of my day jobs'(!); sometime writer for ONCE'IT.

Editorial Assistant by day; online copywriter/painfully pedantic editor by night. It's rough out here on the coalface. (I joke...!)

(You can read the original ONCE'IT article here.)

I found Juliette's answers really inspiring - and particularly concurred with her choice of French design talent Phoebe Philo as an industry stand-out. I remember being mildly devastated when I heard that Philo had resigned from Chloé in the early 'noughties, so was only too pleased to hear she had recently (ish) taken the reins at Céline. But I digress.

The point of the exercise is - it's always interesting gaining an insight into the minds of these insanely creative types and a glimpse at what fuels their inspiration. I'm off to check out Juliette's blog recommendations now in fact... happy reading.

QUESTIONS FOR JULIETTE:

1.In an industry saturated with creativity, which designers (either here or overseas) stand out to you as truly unique?

Phoebe Philo, Hannah McGibbon, Marc Jacobs, Rebecca Taylor.


2.Over the years, who has informed your own design aesthetic?

Loads of people, my family, my friends, my tutors, my peers. Everyone has an impact in some way or another.


3.If the Juliette Hogan label were a song, which song would best describe it?

At the moment? The song would be James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream or My Cloud by Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx

4.What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning and keep designing collection after collection?

Making yet another pretty dress....taking another step towards my end goal.


5. Along your travels, what has been the most impressive retail fit out or window display you’ve encountered?

My favorite store in the world is Liberty's in London. Love, love, love that place.


6. Complete this sentence: “I would be incredibly excited to find a photo of _____________ wearing a Juliette Hogan piece.”

“I would be incredibly excited to find a photo of Clemence Posey wearing a Juliette Hogan piece.”


7.Blog or website that most inspires you:

Liebemarlene Vintage, What Katie Ate, Saipua.

For a looksie at Juliette's latest creations, visit: www.juliettehogan.com.

OLIVES

I’ve a terrible confession.

I’ve been flirting with olives.
To most of you, this will seem a fairly non-eventful utterance, but this is because you are probably into overly salty mediterranean food as a way of life, and therefore it does not require a complete personality transplant for you to find yourself enjoying the odd olive amongst a salad, or on a cheese platter.
Mine is a different story. I loathe olives. I loathe them. I generally lump them into the circuitous category of Foods I Will Never Enjoy Even Under Peril Of Death - currently in the merry company of blue cheese, beetroot and those suspicious little fishy things you sometimes find nestled atop pizza in your worst nightmares. (I believe they are called ‘anchovies’, but such is my disdain for them also that it has developed into a situation whereby anchovies are somewhat akin to the Voldemort of cuisine for me. Anchovies = he who must not be named). I digress. Olives, are what we’re here to talk about.

It all started with the terrifyingly 'trendy' little sandwich bar under my office. They have greek salads there so crisp, so evidently glowing with sprightly, edible foliage that it would clearly be more of a sin not to pay the monstrous $7.50 for categorically the smallest carton of salad you’ve ever seen. The problem with greek salads is they contain olives. The problem with me is I don’t. Contain olives. Ever. Except that recently I accidentally did for a week, when I ordered the Greek salad five days out of five and only on day four did realise that I had been incidentally inhaling the things like it was nobody’s business. I literally paused, fork mid air, spiked onto the next of its bulbous little pitted black victims and had the ghastly realisation that I was eagerly ingesting that which I had sworn to loathe for all time. Inconvenient. This then led to an inevitable crisis of identity: ‘Have I crossed over? Does this mean I am an olive-lover? A lover of olives? What’s next? The fishy things?? I don’t know what to feel!’

I went home and told my flatmate what had happened. ‘I like olives now Renée.’ I proclaimed defiantly. ‘WHAT? You.. You ate an olive? You ate multiple olives?? We can no longer cohabitate!’ (*Renée holds equally strongly to a passionate abhorrence for olives). ‘Look. People change. I’ve changed. People always say you acquire a taste for new things when you grow up. Maybe I’ve taken that step.’ Honestly, I think she felt rejected, as if my newfound penchant for waxing lyrical over the joys of Greek salad were a personal affront. But by this point I was unstoppable. Flying deftly in the face of resistance, I continued on my quest to retain my broadened palate.

Day Five: Secure in life On The Other Side, I sauntered down to aforementioned shiny salad outlet, ordered ‘the usual!’ in a decidedly smug tone to the faint bemusement of the sandwich man, and proudly toted my carton back to work. Opened the carton. Began to eat the salad. Got to an olive. Couldn’t do it. The minute fork met mouth I knew my flirtation was over. The rubbery, circular, salty morsel nearly undid me, and at that point I realised I had not made as much progress as first imagined.

I did the right thing: I went home and retracted my prior profession of mediterranean love to Renée. ‘I humbly concede that I was wrong. About the olives. It’s just not going to work out. Do you think I’d be able to sneak back into the club? The one comprised of those who hate the olives? Take me back, for the love of all things!!’ Being the saint that she is, after having avowed to never again tempt fate by developing a sudden taste for our mutual target of hatred, I was graciously reinstated. Back to my normal self. An avid detester of olives.
Perhaps where certain delicacies are concerned, some of us never grow up.

I’m pretty ok with that.

LIBERTINE LESSONS

And there she is. This is a picture I took in New York City. It is of the Statue of Liberty. It's pretty famous. What struck me at the time from my vantage point on the Staten Island-bound ferry in Manhattan's sub-zero January temperatures, was how bizarrely anticlimactic it felt for such a familiar monument to suddenly materialise right before me without fanfare. No music erupted dramatically the minute 'she' came into view; not a chorus to be heard. A slight letdown almost, if you will. And it led me to wonder... perhaps that's all that life really is. A collection of moments like these, where something you expect to be dramatic... isn't. We voluntarily insert drama into our lives sometimes, because we cling to the idea that one day our lives will resemble those found in the moving pictures we spend hours watching on boxes. And so we attempt to recreate those moments on purpose, hoping it will make us feel more alive. I think life's more fluid and uncontainable than that, though. It will always surprise us, and any attempts of ours to box, control or self-predict our situations will inevitably lead to those situations climbing back out of those boxes.(Blame Murphy, and his law.)

Maybe it's about being ok with less drama, and more reality? Let the record show that in saying all of this, I'm not trying to remove all the magic out of life, either. Or to be 'a realist', who derives sadistic pleasure out of quelling an eight year old's Disney-induced joy. However I fear that our incessant desire to position our lives as more 'dramatic' or 'exciting' or 'intense' than they really are leads to an overwhelming sense of inadequacy, lack of fulfillment and failed expectation. Perhaps looking at life for what it is; no more, no less, is the key to contentment. Or one of them.

"You see fantasy is what people want. But reality is what they need. And I've just retired, from the fantasy part..."

- Lauryn Hill

(Adam Lives In Theory, MTV Unplugged 2.0)