Help find a cure

Today, join Seventh Generation to help save women's lives with the launch of their new initiative, Let's Talk ... Period to benefit the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. For every person that registers, $1 will be donated to the OCRF until they reach the funding goal of $22,000. Each year, 22,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Help make a change in just three clicks. And check out my new Seventh Generation blog!

Save it for a rainy day

It was one of those wet, indoor kinds of weekend, perfect for projects. I sold some clothes to Buffalo Exchange (for a whopping $16.37), painted my nails on the LIRR (last time I do that on a moving vehicle), and made a floral hair wreath for my mom's best friend's wedding.

The wreath was easier than I thought - wire, florist's tape, and a variety of seasonal sprigs (I used mini-orchids, lilacs, pink berries, and a few other white flowers). I wound the wire into a head-sized circle and secured the flowers by wrapping tape around stems, letting the petals overlap for a fuller effect.

The end draws near

Weekend before Labor Day marks the last of summer's free events. Today's highlights:

Grizzly Bear, Beach House and Vega at the Williamsburg Waterfront, 3pm. The finale to this year's JellyNYC Pool Parties is a monster - "Two Weeks" may well have been the anthem of Summer '09, and Beach House, well, let's just say I did my fair share of stalking when I lived in Charles Village, where I'll be returning tomorrow (wonder if Alex and Victoria ride the Bolt Bus...).

If crazy lines aren't your thing and you'd rather sit down under the stars with a margarita in hand, head to Fort Greene's Habana Outpost for their Outdoor Movie Series (every Sunday at 8pm). I was there for Purple Rain last Sunday, post-downpour, no less. It's worth it just for the mexican corn, but the pretty people and eco-friendly ambience don't hurt either. Tonight's flick is See No Evil, Hear No Evil.

Enjoy the sun!

Can't get enough of the Wild Things

My obsession continues: Where the Wild Things Are cupcakes, as seen on Claire_issa's Flickr. Might have to throw a themed opening night party, hmm ...

National Geographic's best of the year

Recently received an email that took my breath away: National Geographic's best photos of 2009 do not stray from the standard of documentary photography that has made the magazine a household name. See them all here.

Read while you ride

You know those free AM NY papers that get handed out in subway stations, only to be tossed to the wayside? What if instead, someone handed you a gratis copy of Lolita, or A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius? Choose What You Read NY is an organization that recycles used books by circulating them back into the community. They collect old books at three locations around the city and distribute them in subway stations on the first Tuesday of the month. For the love of literacy, lend a hand by clicking here.

The last, the very last ... Polaroids

According to PSFK, the last days of disco (disco being production Polaroid camera kits) are close at hand. Urban Outfitters will sell just 700 limited edition kits that will include the last production run of Type 779 instant film and Polaroid ONE600 cameras. So get ye to an Urban, all instant film fanatics. Or get on The Impossible Project bandwagon.

Art of the underground

If you haven't already caught wind of the buzz generated by photographer Ryan McGinley's latest body of work, make sure to check out Moonmilk, a collection of photographs shot underground in caves across America on 35mm film with lots of colored gels, lights and possibly acid-enhanced imagination. A few of my favorites:

Mr. Belding's ballads

Saved by the Bell seems to be experiencing a comeback, or throwback, with talk of a reunion and the resurgence of nineties fashion on the rise. Here to take his piece of the pie is Dennis Haskins (better known to fans as Mr. Belding), an aspiring karaoke singer whose album hits shelves September 1st, just in time for the back-to-school buzz. That dream I have of a principal serenading me with "Brown Eyed Girl" is so close I can almost taste it ...

Tarantino's glorious epic

I hardly know where to begin to praise Quentin Tarantino's latest film, Inglourious Basterds. A project over a decade in the making, this is arguably his best work since Pulp Fiction. Brad Pitt shines as the leader of a team of Jewish American soldiers who take it as their duty to scalp Nazis, Christoph Waltz's performance as linguistic genius and "Jew Hunter" Colonel Hans Landa (which landed him a much-deserved Best Actor award at Cannes) is spot-on, the unspeakably lovely French actress Mélanie Laurent plays a young French-Jewish girl on the run, and Samuel L. Jackson even shows up to narrate in true Tarantino fashion.

At 2 hours and 37 minutes, not a reference is wasted: Basterds is a revenge war film in keeping with the best of them, but it is also an homage to the history of cinema. Drawing inspiration from the French New Wave, Italian spaghetti war films, and in the vein of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (the scene with Mike Myers as a British general who stores his drink and decanters inside a globe bears similarity to Chaplin as Adenoid Hynkel's dance with an inflatable globe), this is truly an epic work of art. The graphic gore that is one of Tarantino's many signatures plays second fiddle to his larger talent for witty, tension-building dialogue. He doesn't ask but rather requires audiences to relish in every aspect of what Eli Roth deemed "kosher porn," and it is about time. In its exorcising irreverence for the centuries of pain inflicted upon the Jewish people and the world, Inglourious Basterds may be just what the doctor ordered.