‘Dear White People’ is a movie that follows the stories of four black students at an Ivy League college where controversy breaks out over a popular but offensive black-face party thrown by white students. I had seen the trailer for it a fair while ago, but it took a long time for the film to actually be released, and then it wasn’t being shown anywhere near me, so I unfortunately never got to see it until just now.
Funtimes with Friends: Katoomba Visit
After all the clamour of Christmas and New Year a bunch of my friends and I decided to take a long weekend holiday. After some confusion with booking accommodation we all piled into cars and made our way up to Katoomba and stayed at ‘Alta Mira’, or as we liked to refer to it, ‘Casa del Fiesta’ (it means castle of dreams). The house was amazing, with a ridiculous shower that looked like it came out of a steampunk catalogue, so many rooms that I kept worrying I’d get lost, and an impressive garden.
I brought my camera with me, and took photos of… plants, mostly.
(clicking on the photos will bring up bigger versions, by the way)
On the Sunday most of us went for a walk to look at the 3 Sisters, and I took photos of… plants, mostly. I feel like there might be a bit of a theme here. It was a gorgeous area, and interesting to explore the bushland rather than just sitting around the house or looking at shops. It also was really sunny and hot, and I was not the only one who got sunburnt that day.
We also had a frequent visitor named Shinto, who seemed pretty interested in the inside of Alta Mira, and getting pats from us, and generally being completely adorable. The other cat visited occasionally and the two of them had a fluff-off; the other cat was obviously older and had no time for Shinto’s attempts at intimidation.
Everyone agreed that it was an awesome weekend, and that we should do it again. Maybe next time I will take photos of something other than plants and cats?
Late to the Party: Get on Up
James Brown is one of the most influential musicians of this generation, and he has said as much on multiple occasions. I could ask pretty much anyone I know and they would be able to do a James Brown impersonation, or name a song of his, even if they aren’t a fan of funk music in the slightest. When he died in 2006 (on Christmas Day, no less) it was a massive surprise; I feel like most people thought he would live forever.
‘Get on Up’ is a film about James Brown, obviously, with Chadwick Boseman playing the main role. I hadn’t really heard of Chadwick Boseman before he was announced to be playing Black Panther in the Marvel movies, so I thought this might be a good way to see how he acts. I also don’t know much about James Brown or his life, so ‘Get on Up’ would fix that as well. And after the bland white person party that was the previous film I watched, I needed something with more diversity, which ‘Get on Up!’ had in spades.
Upping my Denim Jacket Game
I have owned a denim jacket for a while now and while I quite like it and it is more versatile than I expected, sometimes it feels like something is missing. The best course of action seems to be to get some sweet patches to sew on it and make me even cooler than I already am.
So of course I went onto etsy and had a look at what was there and I found a bunch of patches (and one pin) that I obviously need to buy.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/247622711/feminism-patch-hand-embroidered-patch
https://www.etsy.com/listing/233786507/go-away-handmade-feminist-sew-on-patches
https://www.etsy.com/listing/195105085/black-cat-patch-punk-patch-horror-black
https://www.etsy.com/listing/240328781/mad-max-war-boys-symbol-patch
https://www.etsy.com/listing/180003382/heart-patch-feminist-patch-riot-grrrl
https://www.etsy.com/listing/245079581/little-embroidered-tooth-patch
https://www.etsy.com/listing/220548099/anatomic-cat-skull-patch
https://www.etsy.com/listing/263849286/black-cat-feminist-enamel-pin
https://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=KOD-GGI-PATCH
https://www.etsy.com/listing/172260149/on-sale-30-off-felis-domesticus-hand
https://www.etsy.com/listing/208066125/dont-tell-me-to-smile-hand-embroidered
https://www.etsy.com/listing/185341364/tea-or-death-white-patch
It seems that I have 3 main themes when it comes to choosing accessories: skulls, cats, and feminist messages. At least being predictable when it comes to these things makes it easy to buy presents for?
Now I have problem that I don’t know if all of these would fit on my jacket – and if they do that might be a bit overkill. Time to buy a new jacket?
Late to the Party: The Other Woman
When I first heard about ‘The Other Woman’ I was cautiously optimistic about it: a movie about ladies working together against a cheating partner and supporting each other throughout it all, why wouldn’t I like it?
But as always I wasn’t excited about it enough to spend the $20 to see it in the cinema and then I forgot about it until just recently. So I took this opportunity to check it out and see if it was as good as I had hoped it would be.