Season 4, Ep. 01

La La Grande. 

(See what I did there?)

It's awards season, yay. Some of you may not care, but this is where my nerdiness has always lied. Every year, whether it's the Golden Globes or the Oscars, I clear my day, I sit on that couch and watch E! live from the red carpet until it's time to switch to Vibe (NZ channel), to watch the actual ceremony. What beauty, what class and what spirit of unison, love and support. It is simply, in my opinion, a beautiful season of celebrating the Motion Pictures, the creators of our form of entertainment, and the talent standing in front of the cameras whom we find ourselves attaching or relating to for a long time. It's the arts. And they make our wold go around. Celebrate it. 

I am a little behind watching all the amazing movies that have been released pre-award season, just in time to earn a nomination, I am dying to watch Moonlight and Lion. But first, I had to start with the SO TALKED about, La La Land. It's been on my list to watch for three reasons: a) it is an original modern musical, b) I've always liked Emma Stone,  c) I rank 'Whiplash' as one of my favourite movies. Creator of Whiplash, Damien Chazelle is the brains behind La La Land.

I had been so desperate to watch a fresh, new musical. Here we are, thinking good musicals don't get produced anymore, it's just an accumulation of the old ones, or remake after remake, but good ol' Damien proves us wrong. Considering he worked on this story in 2010 but was struggling to get the movie picked up by a company, he has done a-okay since then. 

The movie is about an aspiring, struggling actress and a musician who meet under funny circumstances and fall in love in Los Angeles. We get to see their chemistry bloom into the ultimate romance and in the meantime, how they are both dealing with their attempts to rise to success. 

There are incredibly relatable moments in the film. How 'Mia', Emma Stone's character, deals with rejection, which is a situation Emma Stone herself relates to, as for a good three years before she booked her first film, she lived Mia's life. Chazelle reveals a little part of himself in the film when Mia gets encouraged to write her own play, her own story, a one-woman show. This was pretty much his move into showbiz, when he wrote Whiplash. Footnote, Damien Chazelle was a drummer. Emma's performance was simply and purely outstanding. She portrays the disappointment, the embarrassment and the struggle in such a realistic way, anyone can relate to. Especially those who are trying to make their way up into this industry. Her best moment, was when she tells Seb (Ryan Gosling's character), that she doesn't want to keep pursuing this any more and why. And the reasons behind it, are reasons for which many artists who dropped out of the industry, that wasn't making them happy anymore, can relate to, including myself. 

Sebastian's character deals with the struggle of bringing fresh life into a bygone genre of music. He is so passionate about jazz, he has his own dreams but at the same time, gets influenced even by Mia herself that this is a dead genre and he needs to find a way to revolutionise it. Therefore he gets sucked in a job that he doesn't particularly love because 'this is what the people want'. Seb lets his insecurities cause him to make decisions when his heart is not entirely in it, because it makes more sense to the public, or to society. A wonderful lesson to be learnt. We all know people around us who make the same decisions because that's what makes sense to society, but their hearts are not in it. When Mia says to him "people love watching people who do things they're passionate about", in order to encourage him to follow his true dream of opening his own Jazz club, this is a clear message Chazelle wants to convey to us. 
Chazelle himself struggled with success, he dealt with the rejection and the disappointment but found a fresh way to write about his passions. It has been a long journey for Chazelle, just like it is for 90% of today's successful people, but here we are today watching, paying for and awarding this man for writing about his own passions. Hashtag, lesson learnt.

Beautiful music, costumes, performances and an amazing marriage of the old, dapper Hollywood essence with today's modern and technology based era. Overall, totally worth the praise, the awards and the buzz over this awards' season. Go. Watch. 

Toodles,
                                                                           Katerina

Season 2, Ep. 09

Christchurch Art Gallery

Okay. So this post shall be brief and to the point. Nothing deeper than the title which is pretty self explanatory. The posts about the holiday at the South Island are wrapping up today with a post about the Art Gallery I visited while in Canterbury. 

I hadn't visited a proper Art Gallery since forever I feel. So it was much to my disappointment when I heard that the Christchurch Gallery may be shut and under construction since the earthquakes. That was an assumption anyway and that's what it looked like as I was walking up to the building from the side and that side was covered in scaffolding. But no, all good, false alarm, wide open to the public and quite an impressive building may I say. 

I first started at the top floor with my partner who after the first room decided to walk back downstairs, give me my time to view and wait. Lol, hash tag not for everybody. The range of art was just enough I reckon, not too tiny, you know, one room, 10 paintings and you're out, neither was it endless floors of art that you can't even remember the last one you viewed after.

The first room that really impressed me was The Golden Age. It was engravings on wood from the 20th Century. So impressive. The details on each piece were so carefully done that I almost started believing they're fake, no way someone could do this on wood. Indeed my friends, indeed. 

I looked through rooms that focused on New Zealand's history in paintings but the next room that caught my eye was post-modern art. These rooms always catch my eye and not always for the right reasons. Here I am looking through amazingly detailed paintings and engraved pieces of art from the 20th Century and then I walk into a room with a LARGE yellow painting, excuse me, 'painting', and... I'm supposed to read between the lines? I mean, that's just one woman's opinion but I never understood that kind of art. There's the artist that sheds blood, sweat and tears over an oil painting of a meadow for example, with excruciating detail you can almost see the little bird on the tree about to poop, and then there's the lazy 'post-modern' artist who prints a yellow canvas aaaand suddenly it's the hottest thing in the gallery. Come on...

Again, one woman's opinion, everyone is entitled to their own. Happy to hear yours. 

Anyhoos, yellow, shmellow, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire thing and finally I should mention the room named 'Pip & Pop'. It was a massive installation in a small room made from sugar, tiny objects, glitter, paint and portrayed the landscape allude to the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi*. So beautiful, so colourful, so yummy, so happy, it caused all the happy feelings I tell ya. 

Loved it. Hope you can love it as much as I did if you get a chance to travel down here or even through my photos. Now, this week is for art lovers, next week is for lovers. V-day.

www.instagram.com/katerinageorgiou

*Kintsugi

Season 2, Ep. 03

"X"

Ed Sheeran live you say? I say hooray. A simple but genius idea for a mother's day gift that spiralled into one of the finest weekends 'away'. Clearly by mother's day you understand we booked in May. And the concert was 3 days ago. Hashtag girl's gotta be prepared.

Ed. Boy do I love Ed's music. From day 1. I remember when I was under the impression that Rupert Grint, aka Ronald Weasly from Harry Potter had released a single when 'Lego House' came out. Lol. And then I became a fan. So when we heard that this little ginger genius is coming to New Zealand we couldn't resist. 

It was an all girls trip to one of the busiest and most visited cities of New Zealand. And my first time in Auckland. Auckland looks like a combination of 3 known big cities in my humble opinion. Athens, New York and Sydney. Have not visited Sydney yet but I will take up on my girlfriends' opinion about that. The main street, the harbour, the houses, the cafes and the super well dressed Aucklanders, it all left me with an excellent first impression. The weather very much helped, nice and warm, a sweet taste of pure summer. 

And now to the concert. First of all, a big thank you to the city for being so organised about this. Almost 100 free coach rides were available to take us to the venue and back once it was all finished. I mean, wow. Definitely saved us crowded, cramped queues to trains and standing still for an hour until we finally caught one. No. It was a smooth operation. 

When we arrived and sorted ourselves out regarding seats, drinks, quick toilet visit etc, we walked in half way through Passenger's performance as one of the two opening supporting acts. He was beautiful,just what you need when you first arrive at a concert, a calm solo acoustic musician to set the mood and sets us all in the right mind frame for the big Ed moment. Unfortunately as good as he was, I only know 'Let Her Go', which I bashed out singing along when he sang it with everyone else. Soon after he was done, Rudimental took on the stage and boy did they bring it all up a notch. Suddenly we're all in party mood, with their cheerful and catchy tunes, and here I am admitting that I had no idea I know so many songs of theirs. Yeah, I suck like that, I know songs but I never bother figuring out who they are by or titles etc. Anyway, Rudimental featured 4 main vocalists and they were all fab. Funny downside: half way through their set, the stadium had a massive power cut and everything went to silence! We waited until everything restarted and rebooted as fast as they could, but despite the blatant technical difficulty, no-one's mood was ruined or annoyed or whatever. Hashtag not the end of the world, hashtag don't want our money back.

Ed. As cheesy as he is, he is so the right kind of cheesy. First we got to see a footage of his steps in music, and how much he literally struggled to get to this point of singing live in front of 200k people audiences. And then he walked on stage. The first thing we all noticed is his All Blacks jersey. Cute and respectful. He starts singing, OH and by the way, his entire set was JUST him and his collection of guitars. He supported the entire show on his own, no other form of instrument support, no band, just a couple of backing singers, invisible to the naked eye-lol. But the graphics behind him made such a massive impact on the whole thing. Props to the graphic designers. Anyway, I'm losing my trail of thought, as soon as he finished his first song, he turned around to switch guitars and that's when everyone's hearts in the crowd melted. Not only was he wearing an All Blacks jersey but he was wearing no 11, aka Jonah Lomu's jersey. Hashtag footnote: for my non-Kiwi mates, Lomu was a rugby veteran, who changed the course of rugby as we know it as the youngest All Black in history and with a record of scores and tries. Sadly he passed away about a month ago at age 40 from kidney disease. Sadly. So yeah, Ed paid his massive respect and boy did every Kiwi appreciate this. He was on the news and everything. Bless.

This was Ed's final performance after 2.5 years of touring and boy did he follow up his promise to sing his heart out even if he ended up losing his voice the next morning. The entire stadium was lit up to everyone's phone torches and it looked magical. Funny how back in the day people used lighters ae. Torches are prettier. Favourite moment. 'Thinking Out Loud'. Of course. I was waiting for the chick from the video to pop on stage and do their little contemporary dance but I settled to just watching the video being played in the background. Pf, okay.

All in all, a fab experience, with fab people, fab weather and a fab concert. Thank you Ed. Thank you for being successful. Hashtag thinking out loud.

"I see fire"

Season 1, Ep. 11

Mattie Mattie Mattie 

(Ref: Abba's 'Money Money Money')

Mattie. There has to be an entire week's post dedicated to this particular dog. You'll understand.
Cat lovers Vs Dog lovers. It's a never ending debate. Cat lovers will say that dogs are too needy and constantly seeking attention and exercise etc, dog lovers will argue by saying that cats are boring, only good for catching mice and too into themselves. Sure, both opinions are pretty factual, each to their own, we all have an opinion about everything in life (almost) anyway. If everybody on this planet agreed on everything in life we wouldn't have ended up with situations like, I don't know, um, WWI, WWII, Civil wars, all other kinds of wars, terrorism, 9/11 and the list goes on and on and on. Hashtag, I lost the point. Hashtag that escalated quickly. 
ANYWAY, Mattie. As an apparent dog lover, I say, what is wrong with dogs being needy? What is more wonderful than someone being in such need of you and only you. You are the only person that this dog is counting on to feel happy. I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure that half of you here are looking for something like the above in a person, well, a dog could be a good start to make you realise how great it is to feel needed. Love yourselves before you love someone else. Hashtag reminder. 
So I'm working as a dog carer and dealing with heaps and heaps of different dogs, clients, breeds, sizes, colours, personalities, ages, puppies, way too old ones...and then there was Mattie. A toy poodle, apricot colour as she was described at our client's file, with short curly hair and the cutest little nose. She was pretty much everyone's general favourite. She was just an example of a great dog. She listened, she always followed you around, so she was awesome off leash, she was always, ALWAYS in a good mood and if she grew fond of you, boy was she protective. By luck she ended up on my walks quite so often so we did grow fond of each other quickly but it was definitely the car rides home, as I would favour her a bit and have her on my lap, that strengthened the bond. No, I wasn't the driver, that would be risky now wouldn't it. Passenger seat, dogs at the back, Mattie on my lap. Simple.
One day I am given a new puppy with my pack and I am double checking that she behaves well off leash and that it would be safe to let her free in the park. Yes? Yes. Okay, so I did and next thing I know she is sprinting back, towards the exit of the park. Yes, SHMESH. Someone was probably giving me the wrong info about the wrong puppy. I try to entice the puppy back to me with treats, cute calls etc, as sprinting behind it will make it run even faster, unless you are Usain Bolt. Nothing. She kept running and running and as I am ready to let myself panic a bit, Mattie SOMEHOW, sensed what was going on and did the biggest sprint of her life, overtook the puppy and did a massive tackle so the puppy stopped. Puppy freaked out and decided to run back to me who was waiting with arms wide and LOADS of treats. To this day I don't know if it was just a game for her and it was pure luck, or she indeed sensed the tension and what was going on and indeed decided to help out. I like to think the latter. In my experience and I believe in everyone else's who loves and deals with dogs, we can agree on how intuitive they are. 
That was it. Since that day Mattie was my hero and even though she was the legend, I was a hero to her eyes too. On those notorious car rides where we dropped the dogs off home, if I had to be dropped off earlier to do other jobs, before she was dropped off home, I was told that she would cry non stop for 10 minutes about it. One day I received a snapchat of Mattie winging because I had to go. NOW ISN'T THAT ADORABLE?
So that's it. My top dog, whom I have left behind in good hands since I quit that job, and it was without a doubt the suckiest part about quitting, but as we said last week, it was long overdue.
The best part about Mattie. She twirled. Whenever she was happy about seeing me, she would get on her back legs and twirl. Twirly whirly Mattie Marques. 
You can witness this yourself here http://iconosquare.com/viewer.php#/detail/851606307067727547_178144162 (or on my Instagram page www.instagram.com/katerinageorgiou). Ta.