Scent of the Month

This month's scent is Tom Ford's Noir. Although this is technically a men's fragrance, we think all of Ford's scents can be unisex. It 'captures the dual facets of... the refined, urbane sophisticate who the world gets to see, and the intriguingly sensuous, private (wo)man they don’t.' It features notes of Bergamot Oil, Verbena, Violet Flower, Caraway Oil, Baie Rose, Bulgarian Rose, Geranium Oil, Tuscan Iris Resinoid, Styrax Oil, Black Pepper Oil, Nutmeg, Clary Sage, Patchouli Oil, Vetiver, Leather, Benzoin, Vanilla, Opoponax, and Amber Civet.

clockwise from top left: mask, clutch, coat, gloves, earrings, boots, dress, scent

Menu: Last Minute Halloween Cocktail Party

Whether you decide to go out (and have a pre-party) or stay in this Halloween, here are a few menu and decoration ideas.

To Eat/Savory:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Kimchi Deviled Eggs

Roasted Garlic Crostini with Assorted Toppings

 To Eat/Sweet:

Candy Corn and White Chocolate Cookies

Gingerbread Skeletons

Graveyard Pudding with Whipped Cream Ghosts

To Drink:

Witch's Brew Cocktail

Balsamic Bloody Mary

Decor:

Glitter skull, bats and brains in jars (cauliflower)

Last Minute Halloween Costume Ideas

It's just two days until Halloween, and while some of us have had our costumes ready to go for weeks, others are rather unprepared...  However, we have some easy ideas - using some of the latest trends - to create fabulous costumes right out of your closet.

If you have:

  Hat, Plaid Shirt, Western Riding Boots

You can be a cowgirl - leave the make up natural, put your hair in braids, and grab a rope belt or piece of straw to chew on. Any horse, horseshoe, or Western accessories will be great accents.

If you have:

 Dress, Flower Headband

You can be a Dia de los Muertos Skeleton - get to the drugstore for some black and white face paint, pin up your hair, and add a shawl or any other traditional Mexican elements to complete the look.

 

If you have:

 Jumpsuit, Cat Ear Headband

You can be a Cat - this is a super simple costume, just needs some black eyeliner whiskers and nose to be completed.  Some little black or white gloves could be a cute addition.

If you have:

 Trench, Beret, Magnifying Glass

You can be a Spy - this would work well with some pin-up girl make up, a sleek hairdo, and a pair of classic black pumps.

Song of the Week

Journey - Lights
Let's go Giants!!!

#orangeoctober

We Recommend: Favorite Scary Books and Stories

Last year around Halloween we shared our favorite scary movies, and this year we want to share some of the books and story collections that have spooked us and held us in suspense over the years.  Some of them are factual, some are fiction, and others we aren't sure of...

Don't Look Now by Daphne du Maurier - Part of the 1971 collection of short stories Not After Midnight, Don't Look Now deals with a British couple who've lost their young daughter and go to Venice to try to move on.  It was later made into an excellent film starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, be sure to read this first - du Maurier also wrote Rebecca and The Birds, and is a master of suspense!

A Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith - Many people know Highsmith for the Ripley books, but she was a prolific writer who wrote a number of thrillers. This story is perfectly creepy, and keeps the reader wondering the whole way through if this murderous story of a young, Bohemian married couple is all in the disturbed husband's head or not. 

 The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi - This is a true story that follows the authors on their quest to discover who the mysterious Monster of Florence really is.  It's a fascinating book about the Italian justice system, Florentine culture, and the many suspects in the case - made all the more terrifying by the fact that the murderer is still at large.

Spook by Mary Roach - Roach examines death and the afterlife through science, trying to discover if the paranormal actually exists.  Sometimes science can explain things away, sometimes it cannot, but in either case this is a fascinating book.

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton - This is a very elegant selection of Wharton's ghost stories, many of them taking place in Edwardian New England. They aren't too outright terrifying, but just the right amount of spooky to get you into the Halloween spirit.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories for Late at Night by Alfred Hitchcock - This collection of short stories curated by Alfred Hitchcock features writers such as Ray Bradbury, John Collier and C.L. Moore. From ghost stories to science fiction, there's a tale for everyone in this book.

Essential Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe - The master of the macabre, Poe's stories capture one of our favorite horror story elements: dread.  From The Raven to The Telltale Heart to The Cask of Amontillado to the Mask of the Red Death, there's much to send a shiver down your spine.

Halloween Party: Outer Space

Growing up we loved watching outer space invasion movies like Alien, Mars Attacks, Independence Day, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Twilight Zone. 

With Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity last year and Christopher Nolan's upcoming Interstellar, we thought it would be the perfect time to throw a Outer Space themed Halloween party. Choosing a Halloween costume always requires a lot of thought, but if you set a theme it makes it easier for guests, should they choose to partake. Whether you lean towards creepy or camp is up to you.

Clockwise from top left: balloons, bone bowl, alien sculpture, spaceship lamp,

sisters of the black moon ether essential oil,astronaut costume, beer kookie,

floor mat, star projector, space laser mug, astronaut helmet, marble serve board,

indigo bowl, alien hands, pop rocks, cheese knives

twilight zone image from here

James Franco's Gallery Show at Palo Alto High School

We attended the opening of Palo Alto High School's brand new Media Arts Center last weekend, and it featured James Franco's exhibition 'Yearbook Paintings' as well as his band Daddy's album 'Let  Me Get What I Want' played along with music videos created from movie shorts made by his mom's film students.

Franco's teacher, Esther Wojcicki, was there to introduce him, and to describe how the new center will feature video editing rooms, computer labs and recording areas for students to use while working on any of the school's seven publications. We were jealous, our time spent working on our high school's newspaper was decidedly more low tech.

Franco graduated from the school in 1996, and all of the art drew inspiration from the 1993 yearbook. In a flyer accompanying the event he comments, "Yearbooks are odd collections of images that ostensibly represent the collective experience of an entire school. Of course this is impossible, but I like their indexical organization. They are archives of awkwardness and cruelty, as well as memoirs of hopes and dreams. They capture people before they are fully formed, when the future is still somewhat open. But in some ways, as time passes, they show that the future was already solidifying in these early years. 

"For me high school was a time and place of myth and legend. Painting yearbook images twenty years after they were taken is a way to express the otherworldly, odd, fantastic quality that these years encapsulate in my memory."

Franco's mom Betsy spoke about the video component. Originally poems written by her son that were inspired by the band The Smiths, Betsy's students adapted them into ten short films. The poems were also made into songs by James's band, and then the footage from the films was spliced and filtered to fit the songs. While we aren't sure how far the finished videos deviate from the source material, the  music videos were a nice complement to the artwork, featuring a lot of the same bright tones mixed with grayscale, color separation, repetition, and close ups on the actor's faces, similar to the portraits.

All of the paintings were displayed high overhead, almost like playoff banners hung at ceiling height in school gymnasiums. This made it hard to appreciate the detail, but maybe the scale was designed to compensate for this? All of the images were quite large, the smallest probably around 3 feet by 5 feet. Also there is some repetition, a football scene above is also part of the collaged image below, for example.

One of the fellow attendees had done some research on Franco's technique and explained that the paintings were done on a small scale and then blown up oversize for the canvases, which also explains the repetition. Included in the paintings were stickers from the nineties (the blue smiley face definitely pulled some memories out of the ether).

Lastly there were murals painted on some of the building exteriors. In comparing these to the paintings on canvas, the shading is a little softer, which could also be due to these being painted at scale rather than scaled up.

Overall it was interesting to see an exhibit by someone for whom painting is a hobby rather than a career. It inspired us to get back into our drawing and crafting, and the timing couldn't be better as we head into Fall and have time for more cozy activities indoors. 

It also caused us to reflect on our high school experience. While some things haven't turned out quite as we pictured (definitely glad we don't have all those kids we thought we would quite yet), life has been pretty amazing so far. What are your thoughts on the exhibition?

For more information, please visit the show's Tumblr or contact the art studio manager at akooris@gmail.com