Posted on 05/03/2013 by alli woods frederick

 

goth spring fashion

 

I BECOME OBSESSED with movies…I mean, like, OCD obsessed.  Example?  I watched Buffalo ‘66 at least once a day, every single day for a year and a half.  I would let it run as I fell asleep.  I would have it on in while I read.  Little temporary rituals like this help me during stressful times.  It’s a comfort.  An emotional balm.  When you know something so well, front to back, inside and out, backwards and forwards, there’s a comfort to it…it becomes a 90 minute mantra, a meditation – the central nervous system is calmed, lulled into a restful state by the familiar repetition of the voices you’ve come to know so well.

And now that I’ve actually written that I recognize just how absolutely crazy it sounds, but there it is, nonetheless.  If you haven’t figured out by now that I’m a little on the weird side (although I prefer to think of myself as adorably eccentric) then you must view the world through the same funhouse mirror that I do.  But I digress…

 

TIM BURTON’S BEETLEJUICE was another such movie for me.  I was beyond obsessed with the film when I was in 8th grade.  I’d have it on when I was getting ready for school and again when I was going to bed.  Day in and day out it was all Beetlejuice all the time.  I can still recite it beginning to end and quote it in my daily life with more frequency than I care to admit.  The set design, the costuming…brilliant.  It’s a visually stunning film from which I still draw a massive amount of my inspiration in both art and life.

 

goth spring fashion

 

SO IT SHOULD come as little surprise that, when facing a fashion conundrum or looking for a new outfit I often find myself asking:

“What would Lydia Deetz do?”

 

goth spring fashion

 

HER QUIRKY, ARTHOUSE GOTH style is still a point of reference for me (and yes, I still own a pair of black and white striped tights and will until the day I die.  Age and trends be damned!), so it’s only natural that, what with spring having sprung, my imaginary BFF and I go shake the cobwebs off our warm weather wear and find some new pieces to breathe life into our spring wardrobe and home.

 

Goth Spring Shopping with Lydia Deetz

*FOR THE BODY*

 

lydia clothes

::  1 – striped hat  ::  2 – dark excess perfume  ::  3 –  hepcat sunglasses  ::  4 –  cross slip dress  ::  5 – prisoner of love purse  ::  6 – big foxy platform  ::  7 – longboard & short of it top  ::  8 – striped leggings  ::

 

*FOR THE HOME*

 

home decor beetlejuice

::  1 – lady of the woods travel mug  ::  2 – fine fables wall art set  ::  3 –  sight for bored eyes print  ::  4 – day of the dead corkscrew  ::  5 – head of the class container  ::  6 – frenchie mannequin head  ::

 
 

Kisses & Chaos,

Alli Woods Frederick

 

*This is not a sponsored post but it does contain affiliate links.  Just wanted to let you know in the interest of full disclosure/transparency, cause I lurve ya like that.

 

images ::  © warner bros.  ::  via pas-de-chat  ::
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Posted on 05/02/2013 by alli woods frederick

 

sideshow

sideshow

frog boy

sideshow

1-sideshow-poster-c1965-granger

coney island

fattest girl

 

 

Kisses & Chaos,

Alli Woods Frederick

 

images ::  via fine art america  ::  library of congress  ::
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Posted on 04/30/2013 by alli woods frederick

 
5 Rules for Traveling Through Time

 

SO YOU WANT to travel through time, eh?  Yeah, don’t we all?  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but much like everything else in life there are rules to time travel.  Yes, rules.  After all, we can’t have people running around all willy nilly destroying time lines and unraveling the fabric of time and space, so do the universe a favor and follow these 5 rules for traveling through time.

 

 

WHETHER YOU TRAVEL by TARDIS, DeLorean or telephone booth you must abide by these rules.  Deviation from them could have dire consequences for our entire way of life.  So unless you’re The Doctor or a TARDIS and can see all of time and space then I suggest you leave time manipulation to the experts, err on the side of safety and follow these 5 basic rules of time travel.

 

1) KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF

 

SO YOU’VE DECIDED to go back to the beginning of it all and check out the birth of life on Earth.  You’re bound and determined to answer the evolution versus creationism debate once and for all.  If it happens that science is right, we’re just some freakishly random cosmic accident and you find vast puddles of primordial ooze dotting the planet do me a favor:

Don’t stick your finger in it.

THE LAST THING we need is you effing up evolution by screwing with the goop that we crawled out of.  That would make you the Genghis Kahn of the single celled organism (the exceptionally horny ruler spread his seed so far and wide that an estimated 16 million people on earth at this very moment are his descendants).  Mess with the ooze and you’re messing with the entire history of life on earth.  Not Cool.

 

2)  TALK THE TALK

 

YOU WOULDN’T travel to Spain without learning a little conversational Spanish and traveling through time is no different.

Know your vernacular.

IF YOU show up in Europe during the 1600’s using slang from the 2000’s you’re going to have a hard time fitting in.  And not fitting in during the 1600’s in Europe was a dangerous thing.  Feel like being the subject of a witch hunt?  I don’t know about you but being burned at the stake isn’t my idea of a good time and I doubt it’s your either.
 

3) SAFETY FIRST

5 Rules for Traveling Through Time

 

I’M SURE it goes without saying that you need to keep your head and arms inside the time machine at all times.  This is safety 101, poeple.  If you want to keep all your parts firmly attached to your body then keep those puppies inside the machine until you’ve come to a complete stop.

 

4) KEEP YOUR PANTS ON

 

I KNOW it’s hard to keep your hands off the handsome (albeit slightly smelly) lord/lady you met in the queen’s court but do you really want to go there?  What if she turns out to be your Great Great Great Great however-many-Greats Aunt?  There’s a chance you may wind up being your own Great Great Great Great however-many-Greats Uncle.  Allow me to illustrate my point with this clip from Futurama where Fry makes this very tragic (and insanely disturbing) mistake.

 

 

 

5) YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN

5 Rules for Traveling Through Time

 

THE OLD ADAGE is true…especially when dealing with time travel.  We’ve all done things we’d do differently if we had the chance.  The temptation to “fix” the bad decisions we’ve made, to prevent the heartbreaks, to change our lives for the better is HUGE, but don’t be fooled.  You never want to tamper with your timeline.  Making even the smallest change can permanently impact your life and the lives of those around you in very profound and possibly negative ways.

THINK I’M KIDDING?  Let’s say there was a day that you were running late for work because your alarm didn’t go off due to a power outage.  You arrive 25 minutes late and are fired on the spot.  This was your dream job and losing it devastated you.  You also got evicted because you fell behind in rent while job hunting.  Clearly not the best day, and it’s one you always wished you could do over…and now you can.

YOU GO BACK to that fateful day and call yourself on the phone.  The phone call wakes you up and, realizing your power was out, thank the fates for sending you that phone call so you wouldn’t be late for work.  You get ready and are out the door…right on time.  As you exit the highway a mile from your work a 16 year old in his ‘86 Buick comes zooming down the access road at 75 mph.  He doesn’t even see you.  You’re killed instantly…and all because you thought losing that job ruined your life.

See what I mean?  No tampering with your own timeline.  You don’t want to find out the hard way that you were better off the first time around.

 
5 Rules for Traveling Through Time

 

SO THERE you have it – five of the most basic rules of time travel.  And remember would be chrononauts, when it doubt, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Kisses & Chaos,

Alli Woods Frederick

 

images ::  via timetank  ::  doctor who meets bill and ted  ::  seascape – ben horne  ::  antique dictionary pages  ::  safety first – carry the banner  ::  diesel.com  ::  grey gardens  ::  via gizmodo.com.au  ::
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Posted on 04/29/2013 by alli woods frederick

 

love & hope

 

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be.

– Pablo Neruda

 

You will.

I will.

We will.

 

Kisses & Chaos,

Alli Woods Frederick

 

image ::  our wedding © Trinity Ridge Photography  ::
Posted in CULTURE, LIFE | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Posted on 04/25/2013 by alli woods frederick

 

 

Ask a woman to name her favorite body parts and many, if not most, will give an often bashful and innocuous response:

 

“I have a nice smile.”

“I have good hair.”

“I think my eyes are pretty.”

 

Ask those same women to name what they would change about their bodies and the answers come rushing at you like a tsunami of self-loathing:

 

“Ugh.  I hate my thighs and that little tummy bulge I can’t get rid of no matter how many crunches I do.  Oh! and my ankles are too big.”

 

“I can’t put on weight to save my life!  My knees are knobby, my neck is too long, I could stand to go up a cup size or two and my butt is flatter than an American Idol reject’s audition.”

 

Rarely do you get a proud:

 

“I love my ass…it can stop traffic” or “You know that ZZ Top song? Legs? It was written about me.  Truth.”

 

The fact is many women are conditioned to hate their bodies through the simple and often subconscious acts of observation and comparison.  We observe other women, often in the media and compare ourselves to the “standard of beauty” the media spoon feeds us day in and day out.

 

THE PROBLEM IS THAT WHAT THE MEDIA SHOWS US AND WHAT IS REAL ARE OFTEN TO VERY DIFFERENT THINGS.

 

We all know that celebrities and models are airbrushed beyond belief (Pimples and cellulite? What pimples and cellulite?) but what other digital manipulation is done?  Just how big is the lie?

I came across these photos of Hayden Panettiere the other day and was genuinely shocked at what I saw.

Here she is on the cover of the latest issue of Glamour Magazine followed by an image from the article:

 

Fashion Magazines Lie

 

 

 

Fashion Magazines Lie

 

 

She looks stunning in these photos.  Blemish?  What’s a blemish?  Her abs are totally enviable and her legs!  Holy crap her legs look like she stole them from a supermodel –  extremely long and lean which is amazing considering she’s roughly 5’2”.  I don’t know about you, but it leaves me wondering what kind of workout she must do to get such gorgeous gams…until…

I see this candid photo of her taken on the beach the last week of March.

 

Fashion Magazines Lie

 

 

NOTICE ANYTHING DIFFERENT?  I KNOW I SURE DO.

 

In the first two photos she appears almost inhuman in her perfection.  I would be tempted to sell my soul for legs like that!  Looking at that photo makes me think “if she can look that good, so can I…”

…if I workout like a lunatic, eat 350 calories a day and consume a steady stream of laxatives.  Hardly a fair tradeoff…

…a life of hell and eventual organ failure for a stellar pair of stems and an uber-flat tummy…but it’s a trade-off some women are willing to make.

 

 

 

Enter the candid photo.  She looks *gasp* normal.  Her legs look like they belong on someone who is a petit 5’2”.  Instead of being supermodel crazy-skinny she looks like she eats…like a normal human being.  She look perfectly normal and cute and drastically different from the photoshopped lies that Glamour is producing.

 

SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL IF THEY PHOTOSHOP?  WE ALL KNOW MAGAZINES DO IT.

 

Of course we know magazines edit their images.  Even I, as a photographer, will edit out pimples and make teeth a little whiter for my clients…but these photos demonstrate how drastic the extent of the manipulation truly is. 

 

MAGAZINES LIE.  PLAIN AND SIMPLE.  SEEING IS BELIEVING.

 

Magazines run images like these with interviews.  Interviews where they ask about diet and exercise.  Interviews where some of the actresses say things like:

 

“Oh, I don’t have a regular workout routine.  I just walk my dog.  I like to go for hikes when I can and I eats lots of vegetables.  My guilty pleasure is eating barbecue.  I eat it whenever I can.  I love it so much!”

 

When you read interviews that talk about minimal amounts of exercise and binges on fatty food and then look at the images of them staring off into the sunset with their godlike physiques it makes people feel like sh*t.  They begin to wonder why, when they eat healthy, count calories and exercise regularly, they don’t look like the actresses & models they see.

 

THE “WHAT’S-WRONG-WITH-ME” MANTRA BEGINS AND LEAVES MANY WOMEN FEELING SO MUCH LESS THAN WHAT THEY REALLY ARE.

 

im not fat

 

 

Maybe the more we talk about the lie, the less power it will have.  Once women truly know that what they see isn’t even close to an accurate representation of reality then we can all stop torturing ourselves for not living up to a standard that is not only unrealistic but is a complete and total lie – a fabrication, a work of fiction created by computers that doesn’t exist in reality.

You often hear actresses say “I wish I looked as good in real life as I look in magazines.”  Not even the actresses can live up to their own image.  Now that’s crazy.

We deserve better than this.  We deserve honesty.  We deserve truth…and so does Hayden Panettiere in all her un-edited glory.

 

 

Kisses & Chaos,

Alli Woods Frederick

 

If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder please contact National Eating Disorders Association for information and support.

 

IMAGES  ::   I LIVE IN MY OWN FAIRYTALE – MEALINA SOUZA  ::  IMAGES OF HAYDEN VIA SKINNVSCURVY  ::  TO EAR OR NOT TO EAT – DANIELLE HELM  ::  I’M NOT FAT – BREE  ::
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