We’re one month into 2023, a feat that feels both impossible and inevitable in the same way that January always feels like it was four seconds and four years long. January has always been a time to get my head together. A time in which I take stock of where I am and what I want and how I’m going to get there. As this is my first January out of college, these things feel evermore prescient. So much of growing up is learning how to use what you have to keep pushing forward. A task so much easier typed than done.
January has been a lot of false starts coupled with random bursts of inspiration. It’s been a lot of long nights out coupled with vegetative recovery days that then bled into more nights out. It’s been a lot of struggling to figure out what the life I want to live looks like and reminding myself of the work that it’s going to take to get there. As the month closes, I feel like I’ve sufficiently charged myself up enough to follow through on some of these false starts I’ve been having.
I was talking to a friend a few months ago about all the stuff I want to achieve and how I wish I were closer to achieving them. He then reminded me that 1) at 23, I am still so very, very young and 2) that I am an artist and that inspiration for these things will come and go and work will happen when that happens. The exchange was a confirmation that timelines don’t matter. That I can create my life on my own timeline.
So—
I’ve been collecting inspiration. (In other words, I’ve been rewatching Girls.)
joan didion’s glasses
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i read that joan didion’s céline glasses sold for $27000 at auction
for sunglasses
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great sunglasses, designer
the glasses of an icon
but still
$27000 sunglasses
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but joan didion was known for her sunglasses
in her writing
in her relationships
in her morning routine (with a coke)
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a tik tok advised me that the key to surviving this crazy world is be somewhat detached
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is that what didion was doing?
using her sunglasses to survive
she lived to be 87
i guess it worked
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are $27000 sunglasses what it costs?
to survive
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we tell ourselves stories in order to survive
annie watch
Miss Annie Hathaway started the month off promoting her new film “Eileen” at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. An adaptation of Ottessa Mosfegh’s 2015 novel of the same name, the film is described by Hathaway as being the next Carol (2015). I’m not a lesbian, but I already know this film is going to be my Joker (2019). I’ve said many times that Annie is long overdue for an official comeback. If Armageddon Time (2022) had been a better movie, the Oscar nomination she would’ve secured for it would have officially tipped her over the edge into full-blown comeback territory. Lucky for her, Annie’s new stylist Erin Walsh made sure that Annie’s turn at Sundance would be noticed.
While reviews for Eileen (2023), Annie’s performance in particular, have been positive, only time will tell whether or not the lesbian drama will find its way into the 2024 awards conversation. Either way, Miss Hathaway appears to have officially made it back into the public’s good graces. Or at least Twitter’s.
idols
I’ve always been one to have idols. It started with Hillary Duff at the age of 5. I’d watch Lizzie McGuire in the mornings before school and the movie as soon as school ended. A Cinderella Story and Raise Your Voice were played daily, my nose practically to the screen of my red Mickey Mouse tv. I was obsessed. Of course, my gemini ass can never stay with one thing for too long. From Hillary Duff I went to Raven Symone and Miley Cyrus and later Audrey Hepburn and Meryl Streep. (In eighth grade I watched every single one of Meryl Streep’s movies for what I called my “Meryl Streep Movie Project.”) By high school I was more interested in the likes of Alexa Chung, Karlie Kloss, and Kate Moss.
Recently I’ve been searching for inspiration through my idols. I’ll watch a documentary on Basquiat or a Wong War Wai film. I’ll read a book on Alexander McQueen, Kate Moss and 90’s fashion. Even updating my Chloe Sevigny Pinterest board has helped provide inspiration. It makes sense that I’d turn to my idols when searching for inspiration. An idol is someone that you want to be. They’re someone in possession of qualities that you want for yourself. At a time when I’m figuring out what it is I want out of life and how I want to live it, using my idols as inspiration has been a great source of clarity and guidance.
Here are some of the things I’ve been consuming from or about my idols:
Champagne Supernovas: Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen and the ‘90s Renegades Who Remade Fashion by Maureen Callahan
Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017) dir. Sara Driver
How to Write an Autobiogrpahical Novel by Alexander Chee
Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles by Mark Rozzo
“Contact” by Kelela (truly cannot stop listening)
catching up
Doja Cat and Kylie Jenner took Paris Couture week by storm. (The Hollywood Reporter).
Ice Spice cemented herself as “New York’s Princess of Rap” with new EP “Like..?” (The Cut).
Julia Fox took us on a tour of her NYC apartment. (NY Post).
Beyoncé performed in Dubai for a whopping 35 million. (Variety).
Andrea Riseborough secured a surprise Oscar nomination after a “grassroots” campaign led by Hollywood heavy hitters (Vulture).
Season two of And Just Like That… is filming and Aidan is back? And he’s SMOKING!? (Vogue) (It’s giving Bennifer 2.0).
Here is a video that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. I can’t stop watching it, on loop, over and over again. It’s camp. It’s horrifying. It’s chic. It’s everything I could ever hope to be. Talk about inspiration.
X, Bryce