Brazil + the World Cup!

Sitting on the shelves upstairs in my house in Austin are albums after albums filled with photographs of various travels from my childhood. Trips to Bali, Thailand, and the UK have thankfully all been physically manifested into books because my memories wouldn’t do them justice. But towards the late ‘90s, the documentation stops. Photo albums just aren’t a thing anymore. Sure, we still take pictures, but how many are being printed and placed methodically into heavy leather-bounds? Even the culture of picture-taking has changed. Freshmen year of college, I remember having my trusty, little red digital camera glued to my hand for EVERY SINGLE THING I ever did (interesting or not, and let’s be honest, most of them were not) before I gleefully uploaded them all onto Facebook. Today, however, you could be at the most exciting event of your life, but you're only limited to one Instagram. Just the one. Any more than that is seen as over-sharing or annoying and will just "clog up your friends' news feeds". 10 years from now, we will all look back at our major milestones with only one (highly-filtered) image to remember it by. 

What I’m trying to get at is that I can no longer rely on photographs as fulfilling souvenirs, so I have turned to video. Capturing little moments while traveling and putting it all together at the end is so much more satisfying as a means of looking back than your occasional #tbt pic from studying abroad in Shanghai. My only regret is that I didn’t start doing that sooner (imagine the possibilities!), but I now have a (hopefully growing...) collection of videos from trips around the world. The first one I made was for my dissertation on my textile research grant in Southeast Asia, followed by a family trip to Cuba, then the Stans, a Catskills adventure with my friends, and now (drumroll, please): the World Cup in Brazil!

This past summer the six of us spent some quality time in Recife, Brazil during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Watching the games was exciting, to say the least, but there was also plenty of coconut water-sippin, food-eating, and beach-lounging that needed to be done as well. Returning from that country was not easy; once you get used to the lifestyle of fresh fruit on every street corner and spending your days reading and being with family, it’s makes coming back to the concrete jungle that much more painful. But I'm so thankful to have been given the chance to be in the middle of such a global phenomenon, even if it is the only sport-watching I do all year…

Check out the video below and try to forget about the depressingly cold weather outside.



And now I will conclude this post with the exact tendency I mentioned above: singular Instagrams!

That time that Teen Vogue regrammed this picture of Selina, Lorelei, and myself:

Happy Independence Day! 🇺🇸Celebrate the red, white, and blue in style with tips from TeenVogue.com/fashion. #regram from @chantagold.

A photo posted by Teen Vogue (@teenvogue) on Jul 7, 2014 at 6:48am PDT

Re-hydrating:

Mondays, amiright?

A photo posted by chantal strasburger (@chantagold) on Jun 6, 2014 at 1:57pm PDT

The most spectacular sunsets:

Not tryna leave.

A photo posted by chantal strasburger (@chantagold) on Jul 7, 2014 at 5:21pm PDT

What we woke up to every morning *sigh*:

The Last Breakfast #tchau

A photo posted by chantal strasburger (@chantagold) on Jul 7, 2014 at 5:24am PDT

Stay tuned for the next installment—who knows what it will be! Perhaps India, or Bhutan, or maybe even Nepal? One can dream xx

Desert Chic

Fashion inspiration can strike in the most random of places, from subway rides with strangers to street art in the 'hood. I recently watched the short film Lady Lonely, and I can't stop thinking about this cropped shirt/overall combo worn by Sosie Bacon. The boxiness of the collared top protruding out from the sides of the bib creates a wonderfully playful silhouette, and I'm dying to track down substitutes to cop the look. Now, if I was swimming in money (give me time), I'd just buy those exact pieces—the flick is outfitted by Brooklyn-based boutique In God We Trust. When I pass their storefront in Williamsburg, I have to manually restrain my head from checking out their display. History has proven that I WILL want that quirky printed dress in the window and that I WON'T be able to afford it. But so is life.

The short film, written and directed by Janey Feingold, is also worth a watch for it's whimsically abstract characters and though-provoking plot. Beautifully shot, its fashion plates are just a bonus prize. Watch the video below and keep an eye out for a cropped button-down for me, won't you?

Keep On Keepin' On

This past weekend a few friends and I bundled up in a rented Jeep and made our way upstate to the beautiful Catskills. We airbnbd (verb?) a little house smack dab in the woods and did our best to pretend we didn't live in the most populated city in the United States that also happens to have recently come down with a slight touch of Ebola. I decided to take a little footage and make a short film because you're not really truly in nature unless you have a camera strapped around your neck, right? Isn't that what Thoreau said? Also because I think this will be funny to watch in 30 years.

Sidenote: I actually had the surreal experience of interviewing First Aid Kit last week, and I think being in their magical presence was what prompted this little endeavor. So as we stomp through the forest to their sweet sibling harmonies, pretend we're Swedish and everything will be 100x better.

And here are the beautiful ladies behind the soundtrack ("Stay Gold" was a close second but it's a little dark so "My Silver Lining" it was):
      

   A photo posted by chantal strasburger (@chantagold) on Oct 10, 2014 at 11:17am PDT

Oh, and on the way back we made a pitstop to the Vanderbilt mansion because why not?

The Tiny Transforming Apartment

Ariella and I renewed the lease on our amazing apartment last night(!), and signing on to the same space for a whole other year made me think a little decoration-tinkering might be in order—you know, to keep things fresh. So as I was Google-ing "how to transform your average NYC apartment" (because, as always, Pinterest has me wanting more), I stumbled across an interesting solution to the severe lack of space in NYC. "The Tiny Transforming Apartment That Packs Eight Rooms into 420 Square Feet" was designed by LifeEdited and is the brainchild of Graham Hill. Creative? Yes. Liveable? Perhaps, depending on your character and if you are the kind of person willing to pull out your bed every night and unpack your oven tops. I personally am not, but I love the concept of endless storage units. It is a firm belief of mine that one can never have too many places to put things. But the every-surface-is-a-closet situation doesn't leave much opportunity for wall hangings...I guess you can't win 'em all.

Would you live here?

The Good Parts of Being Alive

I wanted to share my friend Anna's Kickstarter with you all. It's an incredible project and she is one of the most talented choreographer/dancers that I know. I'm honored to have her guest post today. Enjoy and please contribute if you can!
...

My name is Anna Reyes, and I’m a professional dancer, choreographer, and teacher based in Boston, MA. I grew up in Austin, Texas, next door to Chantal and her sisters. We spent many hours together, dancing, playing tag, making plays, etc. My favorite memories prove that we were cool and hip beyond our years: we spent many hours dancing to the Eurythmics (Sweet Dreams are made of this...), jumping and shaking our thangs on the living room couch! {Editor's note: This was my favorite part of my childhood no joke)

My moves are just as sweet as a my former six year old self's moves (and hopefully a little more refined after years and years of studying dance). Yet as all artists have experienced, one can start to feel in a rut, no matter HOW cool her art is. About eight months ago, I was nursing a nagging, restless feeling; I knew I needed to make something, but what? Choreographing for the stage seemed like an obvious answer, but for some reason, I couldn’t get excited about it. I knew creating anything without the excitement behind it would be an arduous, unfulfilling task.

            In the interim, I had the opportunity to star in a short film, “Eighteen,” by acclaimed visual artists Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler. (Check them out at hubbardbirchler.net)  Filmed in Austin, Alex and Teresa were generous enough to incorporate my dance improvisation into their film. Starring in the piece was extremely hard work (two of the three shoot days lasted from dinner time until sunrise!), but equally as exhilarating and fulfilling. Upon returning home from Austin, I had an answer to my restlessness – make my own film!

            I’m currently making a dance film entitled “the good parts of being alive.” The film explores the stages of romantic relationships. A relationship is extremely fluid, more like running water than ice, and is easily shifted by the time and space it inhabits. Time - how long you have known one another, how one feels at a specific moment, whether the time you have together is long or short, limited or unlimited. Space - the location of the relationship, if you share a home or are long-distance, whether the space between two bodies is large or small when you're together, how much mental space one has for his/her partner, etc. Around the same time I began to contemplate time and space in within relationships, a friend introduced me to the artwork of Egon Schiele. I fell in love with his portraits and was immediately drawn to the strange, evocative poses he painted. I was surprised that the poses he chose were so contemporary and dance-like. His work inspired me to choreograph, and to incorporate my ideas and experiences to the framework his art provided.

           “the good parts of being alive” is my most exciting project to date, but it’s not finished yet! I’m running a Kickstarter Campaign to raise the funds for finishing film, paying the artists involved, and submitting the film to dance festivals around the world. If it looks like something you want to be a part of, make a pledge! If nothing else, help spread the word! 

Check out the webpage here and the video below: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/483988747/the-good-parts-of-being-alive

If you need a little encouragement to make a contribution, just picture Chantal, her sisters, me and my sister Paulina, all jamming out in the living room. Make that former six year old's (second from the right) future dream come true! 

-Anna Reyes

A Pleasant Surprise

Okay, so I have to admit, it pains me to write about such a mainstream phenomenon as The Hunger Games (even if I do enjoy the movies. And maybe the books whatever it's fine) but I could NOT ignore this epic soundtrack. 

 Am I the only one who didn't know about this?? I haven't seen the second movie yet as I am loyally waiting to watch it with my fam when I go back home for Christmas (Lorelei, IT BETTER STILL BE IN THEATRES) but this soundtrack is incredible. It's doing what the Twilight franchise attempted to do, and gathered an incredible crew of muscians to write original songs for the movie (and a cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Lorde). I must say, they did well. The National, Sanitgold, Lorde, Coldplay, The Weeknd, Sia, Of Monsters and Men, Phantogram, The Lumineers, Ellie Goulding, Imagine Dragons etc etc. Kudos to THG for upping its cool factor. 

My faves? Sia's "Elastic Heart" featuring The Weeknd and Diplo. I think it's incredibly stunning. I also am in love with Matt Berninger so anything by The National is A+ in my book. Oh and the Mikky Ekko piece is quite nice. 

 If you're scoffing to yourself about how lame I am right now then 1) please leave, and 2) before you do, just give it a chance (maybe skip the Christina Aguilara track.. sorry xtina but, like, yawn) and tell me I'm wrong.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, or, That Time Tilda Swinton Wore a Ton of Old Lady Makeup.

Wes Anderson's latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel could not have debuted its trailer at a better time. Anderson is now thrown back into the spotlight and therefore my tentative Halloween costume (a character from one of his previous films) is now less random and lame! Hurrah! (I'm sure I'll do a costume post eventually, please don't die of suspense.)

Wes Anderson is a filmmaker I've come to enjoy and appreciate more and more as time goes on, and if the trailer is any indication, I think this might be one of his best features yet.

Thoughts:

 I don't think I've ever seen Ralph Fiennes play such an airy character, and I think M. Gustave H might possibly be the anti-Voldemort. Also, if you were expecting a less-than-stellar cast, think again (read: Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Jude Law, Bill Murray (obvs), Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson (obvs), Léa Seydoux, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldbum and Jason Schwartzman (obvs).)

 I always forget about Ed Norton, and then his awful, nasally voice pierces the silence and I fall in love with him all over again. Does anyone else find their admiration for him hard to validate? How did he manage to break into the acting world with that voice? I'm trying to picture his very first audition. So many questions.

My only criticism is that the narrator voice of future Zero Mustafa (the Lobby Boy) has such a radically different accent from young Mustafa. But why stop at him? All the character's accents are all so mishmashed, considering it takes place in Hungary, that I guess you just have to give up on that front.

How is Saoirse Ronan so cool? Please stop, you are like ten. 

The lilac/purple theme throughout the trailer? Into it. 

Bringing "darling" back.

Hotel is 100% pure and unadulterated Wes Anderson, so if you're not into his style, don't hold your breath. And as the Times so wonderfuly put it, it has his signature "rose-colored nostalgia for something that never quite existed in the first place." Ha, so true.

Also, just throwing it out there, I will eventually be throwing a Wes Anderson themed party. Whose in?