My Life is Complete: Mud in a Mug

My dearest eighth street-ers,

I do feel that there is a despairing lack of posting happening in the past... 4 months. So in true procrastination-during-stuvac fashion, I shall be posting your saviour - the ultimate mud in a mug, lovingly adapted from a recipe send to me by She Wears Skirts.

Unfortunately, I ate it too quickly to satisfy my sweet/chocolate/cake/fudgy/gooey/hot craving and therefore do not have any pictures. But do not despair! I promise to give thorough descriptions of what it should look like and trust me, it's so freaking amazing you will forever be grateful.

So to all you fellow stuck-in-an-unending-hole-of-study friends and those damn-you-free-as-a-bird-but-so-cold-right-now friends, here goes. Note the measurements are in no way exact and you should just go by feel.


Mud in a Mug
Get a mug. One you can microwave, not too big, not too small. This recipe doesn't make too much (the cake turns out to be maybe 3/4 cup size) but it's rich enough.

Put 1 1/2 tbs milk and 3/4 tbs unsalted butter in in. Microwave for about 20 sec on high so it melts a bit. Stir this with 1 1/4 tbs sugar to dissolve the sugar and completely melt the butter.

Add 1 3/4 tbs plain flour, 1 tbs cocoa and 1 pinch bicarb soda. Stir it to incorporate everything, don't worry, it doesn't have to be perfectly smooth. The consistency should be like normal cake batter, not too thick, but a thick kind of runny. Sort of like the picture of pouring batter in this blog: click me! (scroll down a bit ps. how good does this look?)

Stir in 2 tbs chocolate chips. Yes! Do it!

Microwave on high for 30-40 seconds. The cake should be hot and super moist & muddy because it's only partially cooked. The top has a shiny sort of skin/layer. It sort of looks like this but not as high. click me! This is because we only partially cook it so it's super muddy. Oh yeah.

So eat! Enjoy! And much thanks to She Wears Skirts. I do enjoy, perhaps too much.

Good luck with exams, eighth street-ers!

cc

For those of you also studying babies like me or excitedly looking forward to Louis Tiffon's (or is it ala Louie now?) new sibling: here's a token picture to satisfy your cluckiness.

Back to the future

Back to the Future is quite amazing!!!!

~ Hurley Who?

Yang:

The riot of colours in this month's Vogue Australia editorial shot in Mexico never fails as a pick-me-up:

The rest of the editorial (in slightly better quality) can be found here.

Speaking of Mexico, I'm quite enamoured of the two newest additions to my matchbox collection:

a soldier with hearts issuing from his gun & an assortment of masks; both images from Mexico printed onto plain matchboxes (2 for $5 at Glebe markets).


Lastly, these photos of Iceland by hound.design via Lovelorn Unicorn are just spectacular - especially the volcano crater; it seriously looks extra-terrestrial!

c.l.

Yin : bleak times ahead.

A few weeks ago when I was at a friend's house, I heard the song 'Alors on danse' (So we just dance) by Stromae, courtesy of someone having downloaded it onto their phone whilst in Europe (elsewise it would've remained an 'unknown unknown' for me)

It was a pretty massive hit in that part of the world last year, reaching number one in 18 European countries plus Turkey (I bet Turkey were wishing that common music tastes were high on the criteria for joining the European Union). And that standard-bearer for our modern age, Kanye West, has done a remix for the English-speaking world, who apparently can't handle the song in its original form.

The song itself is orright (the vuvuzela sounding trumpet is a bit irritating after a while) and the split screen video clip below, similarly so. The main redeeming feature for me at least, were (was?) the lyrics.




Although I have been informed by my francophone insider, The Free(wo)man, that the lyrics are held in general contempt by young people in France, I actually quite like the flow of the verses - they have a morose, almost poetic quality, and the ideas while a bit trite are still nicely expressed (or maybe I have low expectations; yea I'm looking at you, Katy 'Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?' Perry):

(English translation: I just copied this off lyrics translation and can't vouch for their accuracy):


-
So we just dance
So we just dance
So we just dance

When we say study, it means work,
When we say work, it means money,
When we say money, it means spending
When we say credit, it means debt,
When we say debt, it means bailiff,
We agree to being in deep shit
When we say love, it means kids,
When we say forever, it means divorce.

When we say family, we say grief, because misfortune never comes alone.
When we say crisis, we talk about the wold, famine and then third world.
When we say tiredness, we talk about waking up still deaf from sleepless night
So we just go out to forget all our problems.

So we just dance… (X9)

So you say that it’s over because the only thing worse would be death.
When you finally think you’ll make it, there’s more and more!
Ecstasy means a problem, problems or just music.
It grabs you by the guts, it takes hold of your head and then you pray for it to end.
But your body is no heaven so you block your ears even more.
And then you yell even louder and it goes on…

So we just sing
Lalalalalala, Lalalalalala,
So we just sing
Lalalalalala, Lalalalalala,

So we just sing
So we just sing
And then only when it’s over, then we dance.

So we just dance (x7)

And well, there’s still more (x5)

-

opinions?
And to compound the dismal, existential despair that the lyrics invoke, have a lark at Allen Ginsberg's reading of 'Howl' - his seminal beat generation poem which begins with the famous line 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked'


Apologies for possibly subduing the pleasant mood of a languid, sunny Friday afternoon (the following post shall hopefully restore it)

c.l.

Movie Review: Black Swan

What people are saying about Black Swan is true – the film IS brilliant, and Natalie Portman is very convincing as the highly driven, perfectionist ballerina Nina Sayers. In a nutshell of adjectives, the film is confronting, graphic, sexual, tumultuous and a visceral experience which finishes on a thrilling climax.

There was a constant motif of mirrors - but what is real and what is just a reflection of reality?! Ooooh!

At first, we get the sense that Nina is nothing special notwithstanding her almost painful dedication to the world of ballet. Her mother is one of those pushy, helicopter-Mum types. A former ballerina herself, she is simultaneously supportive, yet she also feeds Nina’s warped view of reality by smothering her. Their relationship is unsettling at first – her mother tucks her into bed every night as if she is five years old, and opens a musical jewellery box which plays the tune to Swan Lake and has a rotating ballerina figurine as Nina sleeps – and gets progressively more disturbing as Nina embodies the persona of the evil Black Swan. A particularly chilling scene comes when there is a close-up of the broken ballerina figurine, rotating slowly to the haunting music of Swan Lake.

Seedy man Leroy 'seducing' Nina

Nina’s quest for perfection is the cause of her ultimate demise. “I just want to be perfect,” she says to the seedy ballet director Thomas Leroy. He chooses her to play the Swan Queen in the production of Swan Lake. Nina is the perfect White Swan – beautiful, controlled, uptight. However, she is a dismal Black Swan, not nearly captivating or sensual enough. Leroy, in an effort to loosen her up, questions Nina about her sex life and even tries to seduce her. It’s really awkward and just reinforces what a massive creep he is.

A major part of the film focuses on Nina’s psychosis. In the beginning, it’s almost suffocating to watch Nina’s daily life. It really does seem like she has no social life, no contact with anyone besides the people at the ballet company and her mother. But her encounters with Lily, another ballerina who is seemingly the perfect Black Swan-type dancer, trigger something dangerous. Nina’s OCD turns into hallucinations, fits of rage and self-harm. Here is where the film gets reeaaallly trippy – there is no telling what is real and what is imagined. This is also where the film gets graphic – blood, broken toe-nails, a rash that won’t go away. Oh, and a yummy scene where Beth (Winona Ryder), a has-been ballerina, stabs herself multiple times in the face with a nail file, though rest assured I think that was all in Nina’s head.

Nina is extremely threatened by Lily despite Lily being ostensibly supportive. Lily becomes her doppelganger, an alter-ego. In fact, in a lot of scenes, there are flashes where Lily turns into Nina in what is ultimately the culmination of one big mind game. Leroy’s words to Nina are true – “the only person standing in your way is you”. The final scenes are quite thrilling: the film goes in and out of Nina’s mind and you have no idea what is real and what is imagined.

Creepy

The other things that I found interesting was the way in which the ballet scenes at the beginning and at the end were shot. The camera moved with the dancers so that the audience had a front view of Nina’s face most of the time which looked cooler than it sounds. It gave a sense of really being there, as if you were on stage with her and experiencing the same things as well.

This film was chillingly good. And Natalie Portman got a Golden Globe for her performance, which is affirmation of the hype surrounding this film. I’m going to shut-up now.

9 out of 10.

~ Hurley Who?

pensioners' music

I think you need to be in a particular mood to enjoy this song.

Movie Review: Love and Other Drugs

Admittedly, the prospect of seeing Jake Gyllenhaal’s naked and artfully covered physique is probably one of the major reasons why women, girls and ladies watched this movie. While not a Gyllanhaal-lover myself, I concede that he does have a cute smile. Oh, and a hawt body. But enough about that. Love and Other Drugs was a conventional drama-rom-com dressed up in a few accessories – early onset Parkinson’s disease, the booming pharmaceutical industry and unconventional characters.

Anne Hathaway plays Maggie, who is in her 20s but has Stage 1 Parkinson’s disease. As a result, her attitude towards life is ‘what the hell – why not?!’ Which is why she decides to get with chronic womaniser and Viagra salesman Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) despite a somewhat turbulent first impression (lets just say Maggie’s handbag makes contact with Jamie’s eye… many times).

At first it’s just casual – they know what they signed up for. But then Jamie realises he loves Maggie in a memorable scene. As a person who has apparently never said those three words to someone before, it’s interesting/funny to see him hyperventilate at the realisation. Then there’s the hurdle of dealing with Maggie’s Parkinson’s. How do you deal with loving someone who you know will need you more than you need them? They break up and make up a number of times before their collective ‘epiphany’ (see below for details).

What surprised me was how effectively the emotional and sentimental scenes tugged on my heartstrings. There are a few very touching (literally, and figuratively… geddit?!) scenes notwithstanding the main ingredient to any rom-com: the ‘epiphany’ – a teary confrontation in rainy or dreary weather, preferably the result of a high-speed pursuit by boy in a car trying to catch up to girl who is ahead of him in a bus/cab/another car, where both boy and girl realise they cannot live without each other. Cue tears/hugging/kissing.

Another quintessential rom-com ingredient included a funny fat guy (we have Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill to thank for this). This time it was in the form of Josh Gad who plays Jamie’s nasty, sexually frustrated, unloved, unshaven younger brother Josh who is unceremoniously dumped by his wife. Some of the funniest lines in the movie came from him.

Cannot believe those two are related. Natural selection sucks.

Also, before seeing this movie I had read a few reviews that warned me that this movie is “sex, sex, sex”. While there are a few scenes of that nature, it was by no means a porno. In fact, I think the sex scenes added another emotional layer to the movie – you get the feeling that Maggie and Jamie truly have an exceptional physical and emotional chemistry.

First date - success?

All in all, it’s a good escapist rom-com. The attractiveness of the lead characters certainly help with marketing this movie. It’s funny, a bit dramatic, set against an interesting backdrop (the invention and boom of Viagra – the miracle little blue pill) and, of course, romantic.

7 out of 10.

~ Hurley Who?