Now, I’m aware that flowers are the last thing that come to mind when it’s almost the third week into winter in NYC, but we’re making an exception for today’s Gallery Mondays.
I saw “Balloon Flower,” a balloon-shaped, stainless steel sculpture of a flower, while headed to the 9/11 Memorial Museum with a friend in December. Jeff Koons, the same artist behind the blue gazing ball on Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP album cover, created the sculpture.
The sculpture is part of Koons’ collection called Celebration. He has also created the same sculpture in yellow, blue, magenta, and orange. This red one sits in front of BMCC’s Fiterman Hall in the middle of a fountain.
See the blue version of “Balloon Flower” and the rest of the pieces from Celebration over on Jeff Koons’ website.
November 2013 was a pretty exciting month in NYC because Lady Gaga had decided to have an ARTPOP Pop Up Gallery in the Meatpacking District for three days to celebrate the release of her then upcoming album.
I visited the gallery along with a coworker, and we had such a good time taking pictures in the photo booth and playing the new Just Dance featuring “Applause” (I was terrible at it!).
The gallery was filled with Koons balls, photographs from the album, walls covered in lyrics, and some of Lady Gaga’s finest music video costumes.
I love the “Hands Bra.” It’s my second fave costume in the ARTPOP music video (first is the seashells!). I’d never dare wear it myself, though.
February was short, but it most definitely wasn’t short on entertainment and pop culture news. This month had the some amazing TV episodes and music, making me extremely excited about what’s to come in later on this year!
Here are my favorite things in pop culture and entertainment for the month of February:
2. Lady Gaga is engaged! To all the men who feel pressure to buy a ring just as amazing as the one Taylor Kinney got for Lady Gaga, well…I don’t know what to tell you…
3. #TheDress. How did this even become a thing? And, more importantly, how can anyone be seeing white in this dress?!
6. “One Last Night” by Vaults. Another amazing song off the Fifty Shades of Grey Soundtrack. The violins. The emotion. My heart.
7. “What Kind of Man” by Florence + the Machine. What kind of man? A very masochistic one, Florence. Love the song, but the video is too much to handle. The concept was very well thought out, though.
1. Castle,“The Wrong Stuff”. This episode stars Jane By Design‘s Ben (Jane’s older brother, played by David Clayton Rogers) and he’s uber serious on Castle, which was both interesting to see and hard to get adjusted to.
2. New Girl, “Spiderhunt”. I feel you on that spider fear, Schmidt. And Nick with Cece?! No. NO. NO.
3. Pretty Little Liars, “Bloody Hell”. How could Ezra just let Aria run free to kiss other guys? Like, excuse me, she’s yours! Stahp this madness!
4. The Mindy Project, “No More Mr. Noishe Guy”. The water break in the wall foreshadowed this pregnancy and it was a brilliant. Watching this unfold is going to be mind blowing.
The 87th Academy Award show last night was a pleasant reminder of the reasons why art prevails in the eyes of social justice. Host Neil Patrick Harris’ racial jokes aside, the night was filled with individuals in the performing arts sectors that really care about seeing social change in the United States. From Patricia Arquette’s speech on wage equality to the tears streaming down David Oyelowo andChris Pine’s faces after Selma‘s Original Song Oscar win, the award show was definitely one to remember.
We all knew Neil Patrick Harris would be hilarious. Here are some of the night’s best moments:
1. Neil Patrick Harris’ opening. More to follow. 2. Benedict Cumberbatch takes a swing from a flask less than a minute and thirty seconds into the show. He was in for a long night.
4. Neil Patrick Harris pretended Steve Carell was a seat filler. Yeah, right. 5. Oprah, Steve Carell and Channing Tatum get Lego Oscars during Tegan and Sarah’s performance. 6. Neil Patrick Harris made fun of Dana Perry’s dress. And rightfully so.
7. Neil Patrick Harris went out on stage in his underwear. So not fair, man.
8. Anna Kendrick and Kevin Hart are both short. And the Academy’s prompter made them make fun of their own selves as “animated and short.” 9. Neil Patrick Harris takes a moment to note that the subject of Citizen Four (Edward Snowden) “couldn’t be here for some reason.” 10. That awkward moment when Octavia Spencer was replaced by a seat filler. And, therefore, wasn’t looking after Neil Patrick Harris’ predictions briefcase. 11. Neil Patrick Harris assumes that Benedict Cumberbatch is the name you get when you ask John Travolta to pronounce Ben Affleck. Did John Travolta tell you that, NPH? 12. According to Neil Patrick Harris, Gone Girl was originally titled B*tches Be Trippin. 13. Alejandro Inarritu confessed that he was wearing Michael Keaton’s tighty whities during his Best Director acceptance speech. 14. Eddie Redmayne’s acceptance speech. He started flipping out over the Oscar and then promised to look after it. Literally. As if it were a real person with needs… 15. Julianne Moore might live 5 years longer because she won an Oscar. Or at least that’s what an article she read told her. And she’s thanking the Academy because her husband is younger than her. 16. Sean Penn asked who gave Alejandro Inarritu a green card when Birdman won Best Picture. How rude!
Best Performance: Lady Gaga’s Sound of Music tribute. She should definitely be cast in a remake.
Here’s the full winner’s list. Happy Oscar Monday!
Actor in a Supporting Role:
Robert Duvall, “The Judge”
Ethan Hawke, “Boyhood”
Edward Norton, “Birdman”
Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash” WINNER
Costume Design:
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” WINNER
“Inherent Vice”
“Into the Woods”
“Maleficent”
“Mr. Turner”
Makeup and Hairstyling:
“Foxcatcher”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” WINNER
“Guardians of the Galaxy”
Foreign Language Film:
“Ida,” Poland WINNER
“Leviathan,” Russia
“Tangerines,” Estonia
“Timbuktu,” Mauritania
“Wild Tales,” Argentina
Live Action Short Film
“Aya”
“Boogaloo and Graham”
“Butter Lamp”
“Parvaneh”
“The Phone Call” WINNER
Documentary Short Subject
“Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1” WINNER
“Joanna”
“Our Curse”
“The Reaper (La Parka)”
“White Earth”
Sound Mixing
“American Sniper”
“Birdman”
“Interstellar”
“Unbroken”
“Whiplash” WINNER
Sound Editing
“American Sniper” WINNER
“Birdman”
“The Hobbitt: The Battle of the Five Armies”
“Interstellar”
“Unbroken”
Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood” WINNER
Laura Dern, “Wild”
Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”
Emma Stone, “Birdman”
Meryl Streep, “Into the Woods”
Visual Effects
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”
“Guardians of the Galaxy”
“Interstellar” WINNER
“X-Men: Days of Future Past”
Animated Short Film
“The Bigger Picture”
“The Dam Keeper”
“Feast” WINNER
“Me and My Moulton”
“A Single Life”
Animated Feature Film
“Big Hero 6” WINNER
“The Boxtrolls”
“How to Train Your Dragon 2”
“Song of the Sea”
“The Tale of the Princess Kaguya”
Production Design
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” WINNER
“The Imitation Game”
“Interstellar”
“Into the Woods”
“Mr. Turner”
Cinematography
“Birdman” WINNER
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Ida”
“Mr. Turner”
“Unbroken”
Film Editing
“American Sniper”
“Boyhood”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“The Imitation Game”
“Whiplash” WINNER
Documentary Feature
“Citizenfour” WINNER
“Finding Vivian Maier”
“Last Days in Vietnam”
“The Salt of the Earth”
“Virunga”
Original Song
“Everything Is Awesome,” “The Lego Movie”
“Glory,” “Selma” WINNER
“Grateful, “Beyond the Lights”
“I”m Not Gonna Miss You,” “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me”
When it comes to pumpkins, there’s a way to decorate a pumpkin and there’s a way to DECORATE a pumpkin. Jeanette Paras of Paras Pumpkins is known for the latter.
My darlings, this woman has put our pumpkin carving to shame.
Instead of carving a face into a little store bought pumpkin, Paras paints the faces of famous people onto ginormous pumpkins, some weighing over 350 lb.
Yes, you read correctly. Three hundred and fifty pound pumpkins.
The faces of Kim Jong Un, Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs, Kanye West, Miley Cyrus and even Betty White have been marvelously pumpkin-ized by Jeanette Paras.
Fall is here! Time for pumpkin spice, caramel apples and all those great autumn things!
This month was a series of ups and downs. Here are some of my favorites for September.
Favorite News Articles:
1. Joan Rivers’ funeral requests. In her book I Hate Everyone . . . Starting with Me, she stated that she wanted Meryl Streep at her funeral crying in five different accents. We’ll definitely miss you, Joan.
1. Otoño Mix 2014 by Goldroom. Perfect for the fall season. I’m loving “All the Lights Are Low” by LeSonic feat. Lyon (NTEIBINT Remix) coming in at around 27:20 on the mix.
If you haven’t already heard, Lady Gaga released G.U.Y.: An ARTPOP Film last weekend. The film is about 12 minutes long, and I haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet. However, I have seen the trimmed version of the film which is only 33% as long.
G.U.Y. is based on a Lady Gaga song of the same name. The acronym stands for “Girl Under You,” and boy, does she get under that male dancer in the video.
Although the song is struggling at number 18 on the charts, Gaga’s Little Monsters seem to be enjoying the film.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a Lady Gaga creation without some weird happenings, so here is a list of five things I found to be very awkward in the trimmed version of G.U.Y. (Lord only knows what craziness is in the full length film!)
1. Andy Cohen, is that you? Bravo TV host Andy Cohen appears in the film as the Greek god Zeus. I will admit, he definitely fits the part.
2. ARTPOP video game?! I can only imagine how excited the video game nerds are about this.
3. Michael Jackson rose from the dead.We all knew it was a hoax. How’d you manage to keep us clueless for so long, MJ?
4. Lady Lego Gaga. Legos are for kids. Now all we’re going to think about is the sexual innuendo behind it.
5. Jesus and Ghandi’s second coming. So, is G.U.Y. the sexual apocalypse?
And this is just the four minute version. There’s got to be more weird where that came from.
