(j'suis pas beau...)

My Next Reading

2006-11-20T01:44:47Z

The 4th in a series of evenings celebrating experimentation and innovation in poetics and fiction writing.

The Langoustine est morte series continues with another night of eclectic literature, music and performance with an international, multi-lingual scope. This month features an all female line up with performances by Valeria Melchioretto, Sundra Lawrence, Sascha Akhtar, Sophie Robinson and Lane Ashfeldt. Hosted by Sascha Akhtar.

_maquillage_ @ 2006-09-22T16:37:00

2006-09-22T15:38:34Z

others = me. I'll be on for a few minutes towards the beginning of the evening. Come along if you're around there are some great poets reading.

over the moon!

2006-06-25T18:26:33Z

_maquillage_ @ 2006-03-18T19:14:00

2006-03-18T19:20:08Z

bored bored bored bored bored bored bored.

My life is on hold but for what, when I spend all day every day procrastinating?? I still have 6000 words to write! And a magazine to put together/edit! And poems to rehearse! And a philosophy essay to write! In 12 days! And I'm typing on livejournal! And using so many excalamation marks! And I can't spell! And I'm a soon-to-be English graduate!

Oh well.

poem:

Your gentle toes always
(in my mouth?)

stroke them through your sock once, twice...

dreaming; I miss you.

Someone fetch me
a recipie for
breathing.

message:
someone talk to me! How are all of you f list people? xx

my first ever poetry reading!

2006-03-16T00:14:47Z

GAH! please come if you're around x

_maquillage_ @ 2006-02-24T00:33:00

2006-02-24T00:41:57Z

boring boring boring life!

Reading week is one long essay-writing hell. My dissertation is on Anaïs Nin's erotic short stories and whilst that seemed fun a year ago, after all this research I have got far too much to say and can't even begin writing. Have written 2000 words in a week, which is crap especially seeing as I have the week off work! The plan was to have the first draft finished by the end of the week but seeing as I'm only one fifth of the way there, and tomorrow I'm meeting my Dad in London then going to a poetry reading, and on Sat and Sun am writing my presentation on Kristeva for Monday with Rosheen, the week is pretty much over. The general feeling is 'AAAAHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!'. And that's a technical term.

In positive news, Dell gave me a first for my poetry portfolio and I got a nice ego massage from her, so that boosted my confidence a bit, but the portfolio doesn't count for anything and the thought that I am going to be assessed on poetry I haven't even written yet is a little scary. Plus senate house is the most evil library ever, it's so oppressive and makes me want to cry, and I know I will be spending a LOT of time there over Easter. Founders library (our on-campus arts library) is so cool and gothic and beautiful but unfortunately doesn't have the resources I need.

God, this entry is boring me to death! Apologies for the lack of anything exciting, f list, if any of you still read this at all!

Oh I forgot, one exciting thing! A girl kissed me. But it's not going to go anywhere. I'm such a loser but I can't afford to get distracted at the moment, not for a fling anyway (which this would be, there's no amazing connection there or anything). So now she keeps texting me and I'm avoiding her, how mature of me. Gah.

Tomorrow = lunch with Dad, drinks with Ian and poetry in the evening. Funfunfun.

Au revoir x x x

p l a s t i c s p e c t r e s

2005-11-11T21:46:08Z

A quick plug....I have just finished a series of crossover projects with a friend of mine. I have uploaded the first one here:

http://www.geocities.com/secretsaint1307/plasticspectres/thedeathofcelebrity.html

there will be more coming soon.
please take a look and let me know what you guys think, either here or in the guest book, or by email : s.a.robinson@rhul.ac.uk

enjoy,
sophie x

_maquillage_ @ 2005-11-09T22:52:00

2005-11-09T22:52:46Z

You scored as Rock Garden. You live in the Rock Garden. This is a place of free-wheeling ideals and spontenaity, where nothing requires water or obligation. You can find your eternal youth here. The songs found in the Rock Garden are "Cars and Guitars", "Witness", and "Hoochie Woman".

</td>

Rock Garden

88%

Elixirs and Herbs Garden

79%

Desert Garden

63%

The Orchard

46%

The Greenhouse

38%

Roses and Thorns Garden

33%

Which Beekeeper Garden do you live in?
created with QuizFarm.com

moblog

2005-07-25T00:02:37Z

Just got my own moblog so you can see my world, as captured by my phone!

http://www.moblog.co.uk/blog/maquillage

Imogen!!

2005-07-22T20:59:52Z

I am in love with Imogen Heap. Yummy lady, yummy album.
Check her out at www.imogenheap.co.uk
....NOW!

_maquillage_ @ 2005-06-30T23:05:00

2005-06-30T22:09:17Z

that makes a 66% average. I'm very happy. I fucked up renaissace a little but that was to be expected seeing as I had very little idea of what was going on most of the time. There's still a glimmer of hope for getting an overall 1:1 but I'm happy with a good 2:1 for this year. I can't believe I got 74% for poetry! That was the essay I did after 2 days of no sleep, and was off my face on pro plus.

One final....WOOO!!!!!

_maquillage_ @ 2005-06-12T10:05:00

2005-06-12T09:09:27Z

Gigs I want to go to:

Suzanne Vega
Mon 27th June
QEH, London

Aimee Mann
Sat 16th July
Shepherds Bush Empire

Blondie
Fri 25th November
The Reading Rivermead

Lustful items <3

2005-05-28T18:32:27Z

Freedom at last

2005-05-19T15:38:42Z

Well, I'm free of Uni pressures for the next four months. Here are my plans:

MAY
*Paris next week!!!!
*work part time with Max and enjoy quad life

JUNE
*Tori Amos, 3rd and 4th
*More part time work
*Go and see my Mum?
*20th June onwards - full time work at the library
*24th June - GLASTONBURY!!!

JULY
*Move house on the 1st
*full time work at the library
*birthday on the 13th - cocktail party

AUGUST
*Try and get temp work
*Going to NY at the end of the month with Lizzie! Her friend has a flat there and her dad has lots of airmiles, so it should only be about £200 to get there and then (obviously) spending £££!

SEPTEMBER
*Rekjavik with Aerin.

After that I don't know. I'm very excited now. I really didn't make the most of things last summer and ended up bored and unhappy. New York and Paris are certainly exciting...I know I have been to both places
before but never with friends. Rekjavik will also be cool if we can afford it, it's one of those places I have always wanted to go. Any of you on my flist been?

Also, I want to read every book written by Anais Nin, including her journals, and go to the cinema at least once a week. This is the problem with your nearest cinema being in Ali G country...no good films! The nearest place to see good films is Richmond, which is officially the most expensive place in the WORLD. It costs about £10 for a cinema ticket. I remember the ABC cinema in Tunbridge Wells. 3 screens, usually 2 blockbusters and 1 more arthousy film, and they changed them every week. And it was £3. £3!!!! Then they knocked it down and built the ODEON on an industrial estate which is very inconvenient for the young non-driver, and charge you £8.50!!!! Bastards.

books

2005-05-18T17:44:03Z

the book questions

1) Total number of books owned
I have no idea! At least 300, probably more. I have about 200 here at Uni and the rest are spread out between my Dad's house and my Mum's house. I buy books and sell/give away books all the time though, so it's always changing

2) The last book I bought.
D.H.Lawrence - Women In Love, from a second hand book stall last week. I haven't read it yet though.

3) The last book I read?
The last thing I read was a play called A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney, yesterday before my exam.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me

1.To The Wedding by John Berger. The most beautiful book I have ever read.
2.Sophie's Choice by William Styron
3.A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin
4.Villette by Charlotte Bronte. READ IT! It's always overlooked in favour of Jane Eyre, it is far superior. If you love the Brontes you will adore this book, it's one of the only victorian novels which really charters the inner workings of a woman.
5.Veronica Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho. I hated this book when I first read it, possibly because I didn't want to learn anything from it and had a very pessamistic attidude to things at the time. I rearead it a couple of months later and loved it.

5)Five books I hated

1.Anything by Jane Austen. HATE her. She gives women everywhere a bad name.
2.White Teeth by Zadie Smith...what a waste of a week of my life! A nice concept but it was fluffy and imprecise and far too LONG for the story it was trying to tell.
3.Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding. Same as Jane Austen, gives womankind a bad reputation.
4.Lucky by Alice Sebold. I really loved The Lovely Bones and was expecting to enjoy this. It was a little self-indulgent and reductive though.
5.Pamela by Henfry Fielding. Oh my God. It was one of the first books I had to read at Uni and it almost killed me. It NEVER ends and is just absoloute bollocks.

some poems

2005-05-07T02:45:41Z

Some stuff I have written over the past few weeks. Please, please tell me what you think, bad or good, especially as all this stuff is getting filed to submit to Andrew Motion for the possibility of doing an MA in Creative Writing.

Honey

There's no need to push me away
I never did anything to hurt you.
So you're more of a winter girl.
Never a flushed cheek
Or a smile in the street
From you, but winter ice
Melts with Spring
and sugar, and honey,
I could feed you these sweet things.
So don't pretend you can't love;
I could melt you again and again
Before you could freeze me out.

Fuck Everything Up
You know how we like to
Delve in the dark.
Shout and spill bitter blood,
lick it up and then make love.
Bite me, hurt me, freeze me out,
make me bleed and then I'll know
I'm still alive. And you are
Real. Yes I know
It's a mistake
But it's a good one,
isn't it?

Fifty Years
Would you still be here in fifty years?
I'll be old and tired, full of bitter
Old blood; conservative, even.
I'd probably have a cat and my
flat would smell of jasmine and wine,
But maybe we could kiss, in the dark,
and you could love me like you used to,
paper could be silk and we could be tender
By the light of a small crescent moon.
Of course, we'd have to take it slow
But if you can't love me who will?
You would already have had to help me
In my forties, a bitter alcoholic
Sick of business and babytalk.
I will still smoke twenty a day, or maybe more
Coughing out my lung on a pillow
Or a heart? Or, you will still be there
To make me young again.

((by the way these are to be taken as first drafts and by no means resemble the things I will probably submit as half the bloody lines are heavily Tori/Fiona influenced, but please, comment...))

Films.

2005-04-16T00:03:28Z

Watched 3 fims this week that I have been meaning to watch for AGES:

*Swimming Pool - I enjoyed it. I love Francois Ozon and this film was a bit of a break from the high camp of 8 Women, as great as that film is. Ludive Seigner is fantastic, and (I think) a pretty accurate portrayal of my generation of French women. My sister's generation (much like in England) are less bohemian, more occupied with culture rather than self, but that kind of unselfconsciousness, her unassuming nature, was very well-played and attracive. A fantastic role and a great break for her. Charlotte Rampling...I personally found her performance irritating. This epitomises everything I dislike about the portrayal of the English in foreign cinema. Stuffy, uptight, assuming, semi-intellectual and yet anti-philosophical...grr. Plus I found Sarah's semi-erotic 'perving' on Julie a little sickening, and yet again an unwelcome comment on culture difference. Plus, Charlotte Rampling looks alarmingly like a cross between my Grandma and this bitch of a teacher we had at school, Mrs. Young. As for the end...I a) don't understand and b) don't want to spoil it for anyone reading this who hasn't seen it, but I assume it's some sort of postmodern take upon the role of the writer's imagination within reality? Anyone care to help me out?

*Nathalie - Now this is an amazing, if understated, film. A fantastic, intense and steaming performance from both Emmanuel Beart and Fanny Ardant. Their unconsummated sexual tension put me on the edge of my seat. Whilst I do hate plots that go back on themselves at the end, I really liked this ending as it made explicit the idea that the relationship between Nathalie and Catherine was about just the two of them all along, not Catherine and Bernard, which was implied anyway. Strongly recomment you all see this film!

*The Human StainWhy was this film made? I wanted to like it but...none of the ideas really seemed to go anywhere, there were too many conflicting storylines...the racism, the black history, the book being written, Faunia's past, Coleman's past, his wife, his first love...and they all cultimate in what? Nothing. Not that I'm asking for a Hollywood ending, but it's just all of these plots and themes and none of them really get explored. Why was Lester in the psychiatric ward one minute and then ice fishing the next? It was full of cliches too, and most of Faunia's history, and the dialogue in her scenes, seemed to be made to make Nicole Kidman look good. The only two scenes I actually liked, more for cinematography than content, were the scene when Coleman and the writer are dancing, through the windows, and the scene where Faunia (what a name!) is talking to the crow. All in all, not really very good at all.

Official Glastonbury lineup!!!

2005-04-11T18:08:16Z

Woohoo! Got the official lineup according to G2 today. Stuff I'm VERY excited about:

-Tori Amos
-Rufus Wainwright
-Martha Wainwright (she's playing twice!!)
-Dresden Dolls
-The Killers
-Royksop
-Garbage

Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

icons

2005-04-10T12:39:59Z

made some icons because I was bored and putting off doing some work!

Feel free to take if you want.

_maquillage_ @ 2005-04-10T02:04:00

2005-04-10T01:05:16Z

"The morning I got up to begin this book I coughed. Something was coming out of my throat: it was strangling me. I broke the thread which held it and yanked it out. I went back to bed and said: I have just spat out my heart."

Anaïs Nin

America your government is fucking insane!

2005-04-05T19:02:51Z

http://www.proudparenting.com/page.cfm?Sectionid=65&typeofsite=snippetdetail&ID=1204&snippetset=yes

WTF?? They are passing a law which basically says people within the medical profession can refuse to treat gay, bisexual and transgendered patients on an ethical or religious basis if they so choose. Which f***ing CENTURY is this?

_maquillage_ @ 2005-04-06T19:25:00

2005-04-05T18:32:28Z

and now for a random meme:

Name 4 books on your bookshelf:
1. Conditions of Love: the philosophy of intimacy - John Armstrong
2. Can you forgive her? - Anthony Trollope
3. Delta of Venus - Anais Nin
4. Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes

Name 4 DVDs/Videos (boxsets count as one) in your collection:
1. Secretary
2. Les Voleurs
3. Le Vent de la Nuit
4. Boogie Nights

Name 4 things on your walls:
1. Belle de Jour poster
2. Helmut Newton postcards
3. My warhol-style Deneuve painting
4. Isabelle Huppert pictures

Name 4 things in your closet:
1. my gorgeous new 40s outfit
2. pyjamas
3. my pretty tops (not the ones I stuff in my drawers)
4. floaty skirts

Name 4 CDs in your music collection (playlist or other):
1. Rufus Wainwright - Poses
2. Tori Amos - The Beekeeper
3. Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
4. The Very Best of Serge Gainsbourg

Name 4 real life stores you shop at regularly:
1. Ted Baker
2. Lush
3. Octopus
4. Office (And I wonder why I have no money!!)

Name 4 online groups/communities that you're involved with:
1. _deneuve_
2. alwaystheyears
3. toriamos
4. milkeyed_mender

Name 4 real life groups/communities that you're involved with:
1. RHUL arts society
2. RHUL drama society
3. RHUL socialist society
4. ULU Freedom GBLT society

Name 4 animals that you've come face-to-face with in real life:
1. monkey
2. elephant
3. zebra
4. snake

Name 4 things in your wallet/bag:
1. purse
2. keys
3. compact mirror
4. Book - Rape and Ravishment in Middle English Literature

work for me bitches...i mean mateys...i think i took too much pro plus...

2005-04-05T17:34:24Z

1. What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of me?

2. Run a google image search on that word.

3. Reply to this entry and post the image here.

4. Put this in your journal, so others can do the same.

5. Don't use a word that's already been used!

F*****g Rachel!!!

2005-03-09T15:23:38Z

Rachel just got home...she got a first for her Shakespeare AND her Critical Theories essays. Stupid joint honours people. English department give them special treatment...for starters they are doing first year courses in the second year, they also get to write essays rather than exams for assessment, AND they get told their marks rather than having to wait to have them posted to you in August like the rest of us, AND they have about half the amount of essays we do...and then I wonder why she gets 1sts and I get 2:1s. AHHHHHHHH!

I know I'm just jealous and it's nothing to do with me how much work she does...I should be glad for her...but STILL....plus she doesnt have to work like the rest of us because her parents give her £120 ON TOP of her loan PER WEEK! Plus she owns our house so doesn't pay rent and has a future income of £1000 a month at least just from this house once the mortgage is payed off. She is an only child of two devoted parents, privately educated, and yet STILL she needs councelling and feels the need to be aggressive towards everyone and try to compete with you and steal your life.

This all sounds very immature but I have to vent. I am struggling with this Theory essay (having handed in my Renaissance yesterday), this is my fifth essay of the term, plus I have to do three presentations next week...you know how many essays rachel has done this term? ONE! ONE FUCKING ESSAY! No wonder she got a bloody first for it. It was the same last summer. I had 4 exams in 3 weeks, she had one, and then boasts about getting 70% when I got 62%. No wonder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right, breathe Sophie. Concentrate on collective trauma experiences. Does RACHEL know what that is?? No! Because in her theory course, they spread one of our terms over two, so she is STILL doing what we did last term and last year. And getting firsts for it I'm sure.)

_maquillage_ @ 2005-03-08T11:36:00

2005-03-08T11:39:15Z

I HAVE A TICKET TO SEE TORI AMOS!!!! YAY!!!
Hammersmith Apollo, 3rd June!

I have no idea why my visa even approved this transaction seeing as I have £10 in there and the ticket was almost £40. Concequences shmonsequences.