30 April 2008
Before May
Well, today is the 30th of April - I feel compelled to publish a post before tomorrow, so I can tell myself I still blog regularly, or at least once a month!
I must say it's been hectic in the past weeks - many things to juggle with, including a brand new office hours job, which has been fun so far but that definitely put a strain on my schedule habits.
I have to find the time for doing many things and I must say that at least 2 beloved activities like cooking and blogging are still in need of me adapting to my new life... While another beloved activity that is... shopping does enjoy very well the perspectives of regular income.
--Joëlle.
I must say it's been hectic in the past weeks - many things to juggle with, including a brand new office hours job, which has been fun so far but that definitely put a strain on my schedule habits.
I have to find the time for doing many things and I must say that at least 2 beloved activities like cooking and blogging are still in need of me adapting to my new life... While another beloved activity that is... shopping does enjoy very well the perspectives of regular income.
--Joëlle.
Labels: Adaptation, Job, Life
24 March 2008
Tata - tatatata - ta - tatatata - ta - tatatata
Found in the Top 10 Fan-Made Sweded Films according to Alwayswatching.org.
--Joëlle.
Labels: Funny, Movie, Star Wars, Sueded
17 March 2008
Lost word
Last week, I went to see the new Gondry's masterpiece, Be Kind, Rewind. In all of his works, what strikes me the most is the brightness of his ideas, of his imagination. In that particular movie, I was touched by his reading of the (hi)story of cinema and of popular culture. But moreover, he subtly demonstrates how we need fiction to function, how we create narratives to make sense of reality and how we tell each other stories in order to connect, to live together (as in a polis) and to get a sense of belonging to a community/a family.
While I was watching the movie, I thought on another brilliant inventor, John Cage. I was then reading a book of conversations between Cage and Daniel Charles, called "Pour les Oiseaux" / "For the Birds" (a wordplay around the birdcage). What got me to think of him was a word that came back often in Gondry's movie: "sueded". In Be Kind, Rewind, the owners of a video club are shooting their own versions of movies like Ghostbusters, 2001, A Space Odyssey, Rush Hour 2, Boyz in the Hood and many more. They qualify their "remakes" as "sueded" because, as they explain, the tapes are "imported from Sweden". In an interview for the LA Times, Gondry said he "wanted a name that meant nothing". And from that he created a verb that means re-doing/re-interpreting/re-creating/re-composing just about anything, including webpages (in the movie's official site, you can find samples of Goolge and MyFace).
But the thing is what are the chances of coming across a word that doesn't exist twice in a week in 2 different contexts? In For the Birds, Cage uses that exact same word in its French verb form "suédé". So of course, after the movie, I go back home and start browsing the book in search of the paragraph, to compare the 2 meanings. But I browsed it again and again, 4 or 5 times, but I lost it. I can't find that word again. I thought for a bit that I dreamed it, that it's all a mix in my head, a Cage-Gondry conspiracy. But I'm convinced I did read it, because I remember thinking what the hell is that word "suédé"? what's the concept behind it? Maybe one day, when there's a digital copy of the book, it'll be easier to look into it. For now, I prefer to play around more obvious concepts addressed all over the book: silence, nothing, void, space, ecology, technology, references to Thoreau, Fishinger and Backminster Fueller..
In a last associated thought (who said again that the brain functions with associations?), reading Cage made me think about a wonderful project that Cati blogged about: "OTTO" created by Duncan Wilson and Manolis Kelaidis at the Royal College of Art.
An excerpt of the description: "OTTO (Greek for ‘ear’) is a device that makes hidden sounds audible. (...) Every object and surface in our environment has a whisper; subtle tremors and vibrations that are usually undetectable to the human ear, produced by the activity and movement of daily life. What if these sounds were audible? How would that change our aural awareness, perception of space and attitude towards objects? Would it be possible to ‘compose’ our own soundtrack using our walls and objects as a new form of instruments?"
For me this is more or less achieving as a standalone technology what Cage elaborated in his theories and his compositions: a way for us to hear the silence, the sound of objects, of our environment and make a sense of it: being an audience and a composer at the same time.
-- Joëlle.
While I was watching the movie, I thought on another brilliant inventor, John Cage. I was then reading a book of conversations between Cage and Daniel Charles, called "Pour les Oiseaux" / "For the Birds" (a wordplay around the birdcage). What got me to think of him was a word that came back often in Gondry's movie: "sueded". In Be Kind, Rewind, the owners of a video club are shooting their own versions of movies like Ghostbusters, 2001, A Space Odyssey, Rush Hour 2, Boyz in the Hood and many more. They qualify their "remakes" as "sueded" because, as they explain, the tapes are "imported from Sweden". In an interview for the LA Times, Gondry said he "wanted a name that meant nothing". And from that he created a verb that means re-doing/re-interpreting/re-creating/re-composing just about anything, including webpages (in the movie's official site, you can find samples of Goolge and MyFace).
But the thing is what are the chances of coming across a word that doesn't exist twice in a week in 2 different contexts? In For the Birds, Cage uses that exact same word in its French verb form "suédé". So of course, after the movie, I go back home and start browsing the book in search of the paragraph, to compare the 2 meanings. But I browsed it again and again, 4 or 5 times, but I lost it. I can't find that word again. I thought for a bit that I dreamed it, that it's all a mix in my head, a Cage-Gondry conspiracy. But I'm convinced I did read it, because I remember thinking what the hell is that word "suédé"? what's the concept behind it? Maybe one day, when there's a digital copy of the book, it'll be easier to look into it. For now, I prefer to play around more obvious concepts addressed all over the book: silence, nothing, void, space, ecology, technology, references to Thoreau, Fishinger and Backminster Fueller..
In a last associated thought (who said again that the brain functions with associations?), reading Cage made me think about a wonderful project that Cati blogged about: "OTTO" created by Duncan Wilson and Manolis Kelaidis at the Royal College of Art.
An excerpt of the description: "OTTO (Greek for ‘ear’) is a device that makes hidden sounds audible. (...) Every object and surface in our environment has a whisper; subtle tremors and vibrations that are usually undetectable to the human ear, produced by the activity and movement of daily life. What if these sounds were audible? How would that change our aural awareness, perception of space and attitude towards objects? Would it be possible to ‘compose’ our own soundtrack using our walls and objects as a new form of instruments?"
For me this is more or less achieving as a standalone technology what Cage elaborated in his theories and his compositions: a way for us to hear the silence, the sound of objects, of our environment and make a sense of it: being an audience and a composer at the same time.
-- Joëlle.
Labels: Be Kind, cinema, John Cage, Michel Gondry, Music, OTTO, Rewind, Sueded, Suédé, technology
13 February 2008
Bare Chemicals
Bare Minerals offers a range of foundations, in the form of powders, based only on minerals, free of preservatives, talc, oil and fragrance which is genuinely an achievement, as even organic make-up brands like Sante and Couleur Caramel can't get there - they both contain talc and fragrance in their compact powder range.
The minerals used are the ones you find in most of existing foundations and tinted creams: mostly iron oxydes (like CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), zinc (CI 77947, CI 77950) and mica (CI 77019) except that they make in the case of Bare Minerals the only ingredients in the composition and the core of their marketing communication.
Yet, when you make the step to buy the product, you're strongly advised if not enticed to buy a kit that will contain on top of the powder you're looking to get, a cream base, an extra shade of the foundation, a terracotta, a translucent finishing touch powder, 3 different brushes and a how-to DVD. If you buy only the powder it costs you 22€, add one of the brushes and it's another 22€ but if you buy the kit, it's 65€ - it's difficult to argue. You can use only the foundation of course, but the guide mentions that perfect make-up is achieved when you follow all the steps: the base, the foundation, the terracotta, the final touch (the "Mineral Veil"). Each of the 3 brushes has a purpose in that process, that turns out to be quite fun to go through. I also appreciate that it doesn't feel like the other heavy and sticky foundations that grim your face and that I avoided using, going rather for the lighter sensation of tinted moisturizers.
But out of the kit, I'm leaving out for sure the base, that strangely the company avoids to mention in their chemicals-free discourse, even though it will "smooth your skin's surface prior to the foundation application".
In this base, you'll find PPG-14 Butyl ether (chemical emulsifier bad for the environment), Methyl Gluceth-20, Cetyl Dimethicone (very bad for the environment), Peg-100 Stereate, Diazolidinyl Urea (a highly toxic preservative releasing formaldehyde), Tetrasodium EDTA (toxic and polluting preservative), Propylene Glycol, Methylparaben, Propylparaben (controversial preservatives), Phenoxyethanol (controversial ether glycol). Incidentally, their powder "Mineral Veil" also contains Methylparaben and Propylparaben.
I find it a pity that Bare Minerals spoil their credibility by carrying these products and by avoiding to address their compositions in their perfect marketing plan.
In the current market of cosmetics, it's a perfect example of the confused discourses that surround us . It's not an organic brand but they use "bare minerals", it's "bare minerals" but 2 of their main products bear chemicals. It reminds me of the situation The Body Shop is in, or L'Occitane. And now L'Oréal just bought Sanoflore, so I think we're heading for even more confusion. The more popular organic ingredients will be getting, the more we'll be facing such contradictions. All the better reason to read carefully the notice on the packaging. "La vérité sur les cosmétiques" (the truth about cosmetics) was one of the 1st books to list, explain and range all the ingredients that can come into the composition of cosmetics. It's followed now by "La vérité sur les cosmétiques naturels" (the truth about natural cosmetics), which shows a public concern about being able to make better choices as the organic market expands.
--Joëlle
The minerals used are the ones you find in most of existing foundations and tinted creams: mostly iron oxydes (like CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), zinc (CI 77947, CI 77950) and mica (CI 77019) except that they make in the case of Bare Minerals the only ingredients in the composition and the core of their marketing communication.
Yet, when you make the step to buy the product, you're strongly advised if not enticed to buy a kit that will contain on top of the powder you're looking to get, a cream base, an extra shade of the foundation, a terracotta, a translucent finishing touch powder, 3 different brushes and a how-to DVD. If you buy only the powder it costs you 22€, add one of the brushes and it's another 22€ but if you buy the kit, it's 65€ - it's difficult to argue. You can use only the foundation of course, but the guide mentions that perfect make-up is achieved when you follow all the steps: the base, the foundation, the terracotta, the final touch (the "Mineral Veil"). Each of the 3 brushes has a purpose in that process, that turns out to be quite fun to go through. I also appreciate that it doesn't feel like the other heavy and sticky foundations that grim your face and that I avoided using, going rather for the lighter sensation of tinted moisturizers.
But out of the kit, I'm leaving out for sure the base, that strangely the company avoids to mention in their chemicals-free discourse, even though it will "smooth your skin's surface prior to the foundation application".
In this base, you'll find PPG-14 Butyl ether (chemical emulsifier bad for the environment), Methyl Gluceth-20, Cetyl Dimethicone (very bad for the environment), Peg-100 Stereate, Diazolidinyl Urea (a highly toxic preservative releasing formaldehyde), Tetrasodium EDTA (toxic and polluting preservative), Propylene Glycol, Methylparaben, Propylparaben (controversial preservatives), Phenoxyethanol (controversial ether glycol). Incidentally, their powder "Mineral Veil" also contains Methylparaben and Propylparaben.
I find it a pity that Bare Minerals spoil their credibility by carrying these products and by avoiding to address their compositions in their perfect marketing plan.
In the current market of cosmetics, it's a perfect example of the confused discourses that surround us . It's not an organic brand but they use "bare minerals", it's "bare minerals" but 2 of their main products bear chemicals. It reminds me of the situation The Body Shop is in, or L'Occitane. And now L'Oréal just bought Sanoflore, so I think we're heading for even more confusion. The more popular organic ingredients will be getting, the more we'll be facing such contradictions. All the better reason to read carefully the notice on the packaging. "La vérité sur les cosmétiques" (the truth about cosmetics) was one of the 1st books to list, explain and range all the ingredients that can come into the composition of cosmetics. It's followed now by "La vérité sur les cosmétiques naturels" (the truth about natural cosmetics), which shows a public concern about being able to make better choices as the organic market expands.
--Joëlle
Labels: Chemicals, Cosmetics, Environment, Marketing
