Did you know?

THE AWKWARD OFF has an online RADIO SHOW on KVRX in AUSTIN,TX.

It takes place every WEDNESDAY 5PM-7PM (CENTRAL).

To celebrate the harvest bounty, yesterday’s show featured music (new and old) for which I am thankful.

Next week’s show will feature CHAD BROCK as a guest-DJ. Join me as Chad educates us about great underground HIP HOP (new and old). We will explore how the genre is shaped both historically and sonically. We invite both the hip hop savvy and clueless to join as we investigate the rich culture of this genre.

The Awkward Off Playlist (11.26.2009):

Carrots–Secret Since ‘99 (Live at KVRX)

The Gerbils–Crayon Box

White Denim–Radio Milk How Can You Stand It

Boredoms–Ant 10

The Mountain Goats–Color in Your Cheeks

Final Fantasy–Lewis Takes Action

A Place to Bury Strangers–In Your Heart

Fuck Buttons–Rough Steez

Del tha Funkee Homosapien–Catch a Bad One

Fela Kuti & Africa ‘70–Zombie

The Radio Dept.–Where the Damage Isn’t Already Done

Metric–Empty

Real Estate–Green River

Espers–Caroline

The Strange Attractors–Between the Lines

My Milky Way Arms–Martin Zindler

YACHT–Psychic City (Voodoo City)

They Might Be Giants–Science is Real

The Unicorns–I Was Born (A Unicorn)

Scout Niblett–Do You Want to Be Buried With My People?

The Magnetic Fields–Born on a Train

Silver Jews–Random Rules

The Dismemberment Plan–A Life of Possibilities

Sebedoh–Skull

Jawbox–Savory

Liars–Mr. You’re On Fire Mr.

To Die For | Gus Van Sant, 1995

Leading lady Nicole Kidman has had many ups and downs in her career. Perhaps the downs outweigh the ups, but I’m sure the lady herself would quite rightly argue that she has kept two feet firmly in the Hollywood spotlight for many years now. Even today at 40 she is still heralded as one of America’s most bankable female performers. All of this tends to distract from the point I’m attempting to make – that Kidman has talent as an actress. It’s only six or seven years since her acclaimed show in The Hours scooped a best actress Oscar, though people seem to have already forgotten this feat. It was a performance that I believe was perhaps eclipsed a year later with her role in Lars Von Trier’s overlooked experimental effort Dogville. In To Die For Kidman easily matches these two renditions; she plays aspiring TV girl Suzanne Stone, a driven and dangerous young woman who will do just about anything to make it in the industry. The character is an extremely colourful one that makes an impact using a confident, almost arrogant attitude , that is offset with some well placed femininity to seduce if not intimidate entirely. Kidman plays this role perfectly, creating a ravishing woman of the world whose naivety is shown with the kind of subtlety I previously thought to be beyond the actress.

Kidman is backed up by the equally impressive and fresh-faced Joaquin Phoenix in one of his earlier roles. He plays Jimmy Emmett, an oppressed adolescent who falls for Ms. Stone and whom she eventually uses thoroughly to get what she wants from life. Namely the killing of her own husband Larry (Matt Dillon) who she believes is standing in the way of her own blossoming career. With To Die For, Gus Van Sant chose the curious and risky process of splitting up the storytelling into direct-to-camera rants from each character: an insightful choice, but one that ultimately falls flat in creating any kind of dramatic suspense whatsoever. Thus, we find it difficult to become embroiled in the plot – something not helped by the largely confused motives exhibited also. Despite the decent performances all round (look out for a young Casey Affleck as Jimmy’s oafish friend), To Die For fails on many levels thanks to a lack of truly involving the audience in the central character’s plight. Yes, she is a diabolically watchable personality, but one whose motive is truly lost thanks to Van Sant’s fumbling. Hence, while entertaining, her position is also rather a shallow one. An interesting overall concept that tries vainly to employ some kind of black comedy to distract from a conceited plot, in the end rendering it quite pointless.

Our Rating:

I so wish I was 21 in the early and mid 90’s…clubbing to this had to be a blast!

Reminds me of my childhood.

Clara, a delightful woman in her nineties, has a series of videos that show you how to cook like many people did during the Great Depression.

She tells wonderful stories while she prepares the meals.

Source:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/19/videos-great-depress.html

Clara, a delightful woman in her nineties, has a series of videos that show you how to cook like many people did during the Great Depression.

She tells wonderful stories while she prepares the meals.

Source:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/19/videos-great-depress.html

My husband and I like to recast classic movies while relaxing on Friday nights with a bottle of wine. We were trying to think of a good 90s flick to recast with today’s actors, and I think Pulp Fiction would be a good one.  Here’s a little inspiration for your own recast:

Well.

I’m beginning to get a little bit concerned that I’m becoming one of “those” music fans. The kind I used to make fun of for being to old, to stubborn and to locked into their own era of music, uninterested in expanding their listening experiences to anything beyond the music they know – the music they grew up with. People who still listen to “the Eagles” or “the Doobie Brothers” even though so much music has come out since then, and neither band was very good to begin with anyways. I was always confidant that this then would never be me. I’m young! I’m hip! I’m in the “know!” I keep up with whatever’s young and hip and in the “know!” Right? RIGHT?

Not quite. And Tuesday night proved that when I shelled out actual money to see Stone Temple Pilots at the Kool Haus in Toronto.

That’s right. Stone Temple Pilots. A band that hasn’t had a hit single, or even an album, in god knows how long. A band who’s lead singer I’m sure we all assumed was either dead or arrested. A band that hit it big over fifteen years ago, and who would recieve a collective “who?” from anybody under the age of sixteen today.

THAT band.

And they absolutely rocked. Seriously.

Vindication!

And, while some people would see the complete lack of any new material as a depressing reminder of just how irrelevant a band might be, all it meant for us was an hour and a half of SINGING ALONG TO EVERY DAMN WORD.

Which is always a good time.

The band kicked it into high gear right off the bat, opening with “Silvergun Superman” and then tore threw fan favorites like “Wicked Garden,” “Vasoline” and “Big Empty.” In fact,

This isn't from this show. But it's the best I could find.

during the show they played songs mostly off of their first two records, “Core” (1992) and “Purple” (1994) – which of course, is exactly what the majority of the audience (mostly males under thirty) wanted to hear (myself included).

The band was tight and professional, which was a little surprising to be honest. It was also the band’s only real weakness. At times they were a little “too tight” and “too professional.” I know that sounds horribly nitpicky (had they been sloppy and falling apart, I’m sure I would have bitched about that too) but the fact is that they were clearly just going through the motions at times – and looked it.

Still, when they launched into such crowd favorites as “Crackerman,” “Interstate Love Song” and their signature tune “Plush,” it was hard not to get caught up in the vibe, and be momentarily transported back to 1994. Which is, apparently, exactly where I want to be.

And I’m totally cool with that.

Here’s the full set list:

Main Set –

1. Silvergun Superman

2. Wicked Garden

3. Vasoline

4. Big Empty

5. Lounge Fly

6. Army Ants

7. Sour Girl

8. Creep

9. Crackerman

10. Plush

11. Interstate Love Song

12. Down

13. Sex Type Thing

14. Sin

15. Unglued

Encore -

16. Dead and Bloated

17. Trippin’ On a Hole in a Paper Heart

Best movie of the nineties Showgirls is. It has dimensions and layers of things hard to understand. I’m really interested in Nomi, she has this big wall built up around her, and it never comes down. That’s what makes her interesting, all we see is the surface. Nomi is sort of a wild girl, hard to read, still she struggles with right and wrong decisions.

First audition for Nomi.

Nomi Malone does her first rehersal.

In the web chatter that surrounded Francisco Costa’s recently debuted Spring 2010 collection for Calvin Klein, several references were made to how Costa had revamped Calvin Klein’s famous t-shirt inspired collection from 1994—the same collection that launched Kate Moss as the designer’s muse.

In one of my recent jaunts on YouTube, I happened to find by chance a segment from Elsa Klensch’s Style featuring the same collection. Watching the clip was a flash back into my youth in the early nineties. This was before the Internet explosion, when we all had to actually read the newspaper or watch television to find out was going on. Klensch’s distinctive accent was overly nostalgic for me. Her voice took me immediately back to being a teenager, sitting in a living room in west O‘ahu and watching flashes of an intriguing, glamorous world, as far away from New York as one could possibly be.

Unbelievably, sixteen years have passed since Calvin Klein debuted the collection back in 1993. As I look at the clip now, the passage of the years, the South Asian-infused runway soundtrack, and Klein’s urbanized accent (he did grow up in the Bronx) makes the whole segment seem like something out of an art installation. Some pieces scream the early nineties, particularly the black and white dress and long sleeve t-shirt combos. Other pieces, on the other hand, show how Klein’s relaxed yet sophisticated minimalist vision has moved into the general population. Of course, there are Klein’s models… a young and fresh Kate Moss sharing the runway with the androgynous Jenny Shimizu.

Klein’s commentary is particularly fantastic, saying a lot without saying that much at the same. “The clothes are tonal…,” he says. “…and very face powdery colors… but with an edge, so there’s a surprise of a shot of black or the shot of white or the black with the white. So that there’s always a strength and a softness that I think is very special.” But how much detail can one add to the simplicity of a t-shirt or tank peaking beneath a dress. In the end, it’s the bare juxtaposition of colors and textures that speaks for itself.

As I move into my thirties, seeing this clip makes me realize how much I am a child of the nineties. I didn’t get experience the Summer of Love, the sexual revolution of the seventies, or the eighties’ over-the-top decadence. Instead, the culture of my youth was the sobriety that followed in the wake of AIDS combined with the hope that marked the beginning of the Clinton years. Though the nineties don’t sizzle as other decades did, the nineties had its own particular edge, a clarity and a chic that one could pull off simply with just a flash of white against black. It’s this kind of minimal allure that one would eventually lead me to New York to experience this for the last few years of the decade. Of course, all of this came to a final end with 9/11 and the Bush years, which produced a cultural shockwave that we’re finally coming out of.

As we move as a culture into a new era, and the nineties are now an almost even ten years behind us, it seems appropriate that the nineties start to makes its influence felt. After the explosion of decadence and excess of the last few years, I would be more than happy to have my aesthetic sense sharpened by an edge of black and white simplicity.

la da dee la doo dow la da dee la doo dow la da dee la doo dow la da dee la doo dow la da dee la doo dow la da dee la doo dow la da dee la doo dow la da dee la doo dow

Ok, I’ve got to order these as a little present for my little girls. Though I suspect I may end up having more fun with the dolls than them. I wonder if it comes with a Courtney Love grunge princess?

http://www.amazon.com/Fashion-Designs-Nineties-History-Costume/dp/0486413314

So, today is my birthday. In honor of such a wonderful day, I thought I’d go back in time and see what was on the charts on my birthday throughout the nineties.

1990: Love Takes Time – Mariah Carey    Hmmm… I was far too punk rock cool to have anything to do with Miss Glitter, so I don’t recall this song. I’m sure it was played heavily in shopping malls across the country, and I was probably subjected to it. I just don’t recognize the title.

1991: Cream – Prince & the New Power Generation    Hello? Does anyone remember this song? I don’t remember this song at all, which is weird, because I love Prince. I guess I wasn’t loving him much in 1991.

1992: End of the Road – Boyz II Men   Wow. I was out of touch with mainstream music in the early nineties. I remember the band, and the hoardes of teenage girls who loved them. But I wasn’t one of them.

1993:  I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) – Meat Loaf   Aha! I remember this one. Being a big Rocky Horror fan, I was on board with the man, plus, it was a great sing-along song at the bars.

1994: I’ll Make Love To You – Boyz II Men   Really? Them again? I can vaguely recall this one, probably because it was #1 from August 27 to December 3.

1995:  Fantasy – Mariah Carey    Was there a butterfly or short-shorts in this video? What? That was all her videos? Ok, I’m at a loss again.

1996: No Diggity – Blackstreet featuring Dr. Dre    Yup. I remember this one. But I was working at the mall, managing an Express store, so I was becoming more mainstream. I’ve always been a Dr. Dre fan though.

1997: Candle In The Wind 1997 – Elton John    Good thing I kind of liked this song, because there was no getting away from it at the end of 1997.

1998: One Week – Barenaked Ladies   The boys from Canada. I love BNL, and in November of 1998 I was a newlywed.  My new husband and I would sing along with this whenever it came on the radio, trying to get all the words right. And we still do that today when we hear it.  Altogether now:  Awwwwwww…..

1999: Smooth – Santana featuring Rob Thomas  I still have this CD in my car. Of course, it is now a Honda minivan, and not my cute Honda coupe. Time goes by, but this is still a great song.

I have finally decided to go the new media route and publish my book, Love Lost on Cloud 9,  in ebook format at Smashwords.com

 Let’s say I’m really green, and wanted to save the trees… Yeah. Let’s say that.

Anyway, the story takes place in the 90s. I wrote it a few years ago while I was pregnant with my third. I was experiencing crazy writer’s block on a different project, and just wanted to try something new. I started with a personal experience (the first day of college), created a character similar to myself (though not the same), and set her free to make different decisions than I made when starting out myself.  It was pretty interesting to mix fact and fiction so tightly, and my character, Greer Bennett, ends up taking a wildly different journey than I ever did.

To read a sample or download the entire novel, please visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/5592

When I was 7, TV was my crystal ball. I really trusted it to tell me what life would be like when I was a teenager. TV was completely wrong, of course, because I never dated a Zach Morris in high school and I never developed a rack of epic proportions that made my older sister jealous. Which brings me unveil to you the most pivotal moments in television during the nineties. The TV moments that changed my life.

When Corey Cheated on Topanga

Remember the ski lodge? Remember that whore named Lauren who leeched off all the bum-legged tourist skiers who innocently spent the day off the slopes at the fireplace? Yea. Lauren, you are the root of all future problems between the most perfect TV couple of all time. Corey and Topanga were untouchable until YOU ruined everything with your ill-hidden perfumed pink letter. I grew up watching Boy Meets World and thinking that one day I would fall in love and it would be as perfect as what Corey had with Topanga. Then your little episode debut of DOOM came along. After 14 minutes I quickly realized that Corey Matthews was just another cheating hormone-induced cluster of XY chromosomes. Your episode taught me that love is FRAUD and the perfect love doesn’t exist.

When Jack Came Out on Dawson’s Creek

In the nineties, TV decided to shed light on a fairly taboo issue by making Capeside’s  ultimate guy’s guy, Jack McPhee, gay. I’ll be honest, the extent of what I knew about being gay was what I heard the boys yelling at each other during recess at school. Jack coming out was my first introduction to a (fictional) gay person. And hey it even allowed critics to casually ignore the absence of black people and other issues not stereotypically white in nature.

When Al Got Boobs on Step by Step

This episode led me to believe that one day in high school I would unexpectedly wake up with huge jugs, which I would at first hate, then in 30 minutes with the aid of my loving stepmother would grow to love. My sister would be jealous of my bodacious body. My brother would creepily ogle me. Life would be good. This turned out to be a false prediction.

When Becca and Tucker FINALLY Kissed

Built entirely around the sexual tension between two 14 year-olds, Disney’s Flash Forward just had to wait until the very last episode to get these two to kiss. Classic story of the goofy, funny “friend” guy who gets the girl, Tucker’s character is the type of guy I developed a soft spot for. I’m glad that I’m not followed around by melancholy music all the time, though.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Saved by the Bell, Full House, Growing Pains, and all those other unmentioned 90s TV shows — but none of those really changed my life.

Back in the day (1993 to be exact) my roommate and I would put some Nirvana or Pearl Jam or any number of flannel-loving Seattle bands in the CD player, and plunk a big ol’ videotape in the VCR to watch Wayne’s World on mute while we donned our Docs and red lipstick for a night out partying.  I was thinking about the movie today, and thought it fitting for a Friday night.

I’m on a nineties alternative kick.

Juliana Hatfield- “Spin The Bottle”

Never, Never, Never!

According to the Daily Mail, John Lewis has reported a surge in sales of conical bras. Read the full article on Dailymail.co.uk by Claire Coleman, 5 November 2009  here

They look hideous. I say leave them to Madonna, back in the 90’s where they belong!

p.s. I seem to remember many maternity bras had a delightfully unattractive conical shape.

Ok, these are in no particular order. I’ve seen most, but coming up with the list, I realized that there are a few that I remember wanting to see, but never got around to it. I’m sure I was studying… (Thank God for short-term memory loss!)

1. Flatliners  (Death, medical students, and Julia and Keifer in their younger, fresher years. Can’t go wrong!)

2. Misery (Had to get one in for my fellow Mainer, Stephen King)

3. Edward Scissorhands  (Johnny Depp can even make scissors sexy.)

4. Avalon (One of the ones I missed back in the day. Putting in my Netflix queue today)

5. Mermaids (A lot of people missed this one, but it is a good story. And a young Christina Ricci is impressive as the younger sister.)

6. Mo Better Blues (A Spike Lee Joint.)

7. The Grifters (Remember Annette Bening?)

8. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Who says you can’t woo the girl of your dreams by tying her up?)

9. Pump Up the Volume  (A personal favorite from 1990. Haven’t seen it in along time, so I don’t know how it holds up. Put that in the Netflix queue and I’ll get back to you.)

10. Cinema Paradiso (Good story-telling is always worth another viewing.)

Just try and not dance when this is on.

READ ISSUE 30 HERE / BUY IT HERE

It’s been a month of parties, Ikea trips and taxis.

Suddenly, from nowhere, invites have come in by the dozen and we might have accepted a few too many for our own good. Either way, the fact that spirits are

lifting, new brands and bars are launching and people are spending a bit of money again can only be good news. All of the above means we are gearing up for a great November and Christmas.

This issue focuses pretty heavily on knitwear, we know, but lets face it, it’s now cold and what better way to take the edge off a chilly wind than a statement knit? Seeing as we couldn’t write a whole issue about wool we also have our choice of bonfire nights, a look at the economy, discussions as to whether it’s time for puffa jackets to come back and tips on how to spend a week without spending. Get to our blog and let us know your thoughts and as always, if you want us to cover something that’s not already in our pages let us know! Finally, don’t forget to check out www.thisisjack.tv, currently showcasing Marco and his friends and their cooking talents along with upcoming programs including James chatting to Stricken City and Leila testing out her puffa jacket theories. Happy November!

Lu  x

6.  Oust Est Le Swiming Pool

11. The Only Way is Up

12. Boys fashion : Winter Warmers

13. Jack Loves

14. Pirate Radio

22. Pick of the Month

25. Top Five Film Deaths

26. Trend obsessed Nation

30. My Two-For-Six Pound Life

31. Baked Beans and Champagne

32. Review one liners

34. Fashion

46. How to make a Pinata

50. Time for Tea

54. Designers in the spotlight

55. Leila Likes

58. Fashion

64. Instore Wars

66. Get That Look

68. Children of the Nineties

70. Theatre and Performance 

72. Top Five

73. Arthur Cadaver

76. Everybody Loves a Good Conspiracy

78. A week for Free

79. Signs of Revolt

80. What’s New

80. Bar Reviews

81. I Love you For Loving Me

82. Scene Stealer

Is it safe to come out yet? Are the stirrup pants gone… again?

Now, don’t get me wrong; I have enjoyed the latest 80s craze along with my fellow Thirty-somethings. The buffalo check hoodies are even cute, though I just can’t bring myself to sport one. And I’ll never tire of quoting John Hughes movies or singing along to Duran Duran. But I was nine in 1980. I was in high school in the late 80s. It was a time of teen angst and bad hair and even worse fashion decisions. I wasn’t cool, I wasn’t popular, and I certainly wasn’t out partying.

But my twenties, now those were some fun years. The angst was charged with sexual tension and laced with legal booze. You could smoke in a restaurant, and CBGB’s was still a destination for late night road trips to NYC.  College was a world in limbo, old enough to be on my own, but not so old that I was expected to act with much responsibility.  If acting your age is an art form, my twenties were an experiment in surrealism.

So as our current decade draws to a close, and we put the cap on the eighties craze that has finally found its way into discount stores,  I for one am looking forward to a 90s revival. Bring on the flannel.