HBO's Girls

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I haven't even watched it yet, (I checked to make sure the link was for real and then had to blog about it first) but I don't have to tell you that the buzz around this show has been enormous. And if you are reading our blog, then it's also safe to say that this show is being marketed towards you. Wunderkind Lena Dunham's HBO show is going to be difficult to access for most of us (a bit ironic, no?) but just to hook everyone, HBO has made the first episode of the series widely available. Enjoy it, and let us know what you think!

WATCH GIRLS HERE!!!!!

Eclipse

If I've seen you sometime in the past week, I've probably talked your ear off about the new Vietnamese sub-inspired shop I've been to five times in the past two weeks, Banh Mi Boys. What is a banh mi, you ask?

Well, this.
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A crusty baguette topped with sandwich meat, pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber, mayo and cilantro, among other things. Traditionally, they're very cheap, but Banh Mi Boys goes a little more upscale, offering panko tofu, kalbi beef, squid and duck confit options, as well as taco or bao (steamed bun) versions. My favourite is the five spice pork belly, which is slightly crispy on the outside and so, so ridiculously tender inside. Well, that, and a split order of the kimchi fries, which is basically a Vietnamese poutine with kimchi, pulled pork, mayo and fresh green onions over crispy fries. Oh god, just thinking about it has my mouth watering. If you're in the Queen/Spadina area of Toronto, this is must try.

ed note: Oh look! Laura loves this place too! She wrote a review about it here.

Speaking of food, if you've ever asked the question, "Is this still good?" about some jar you've stumbled across in your fridge, your new best friend is a site called Still Tasty.

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Touting itself as the ultimate shelf life guide, it gives you recommendations on how best to store various foods and when to know when to fold 'em and toss away. It seems very based in common sense, offering tips on how to tell if an item's still okay, as best before dates are usually just when a food's quality is at its aesthetic peak, not when it's actually still edible.


The AV Club's been hitting my sweet spot lately and this week, it's with a walkthrough of the stories behind cultural gem Freaks and Geeks with creator Paul Feig.

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It's one of those cancelled-after-one-season, never-given-the-chance-it-deserved, voice-of-a-generation type shows that transcends the hype and feels real in a way so few series are able to articulate: it's equal parts innocent, awkward, miserable and ecstatic. In short, it feels like puberty. And, as the interviews reveal, it's an interesting case of art-imitating-life, as Feig admits much of the show was based on his personal experiences and those of the other writers. It's been a great way to revisit one of my favoruite series, and it's totally got me in the mood to watch it all over again. See interview parts one / two / three / four / five here.

I use my Baggu every day, but I may have to retire my current fave in neon poppy to make way for a few new prints, including this moon one, labelled with all the phases of the lunar cycle. Now I'll never have to guess what a waning gibbous looks like again!

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Some faves 'round these parts have been at it again – Fieldguided has a released a new collection called Light as a Feather, a set of four gorgeous huge silk scarves printed with photos taken in the late 1800s. The dream team of Anja from Clever Nettle and Megan of Summerland photographed and styled them into mystical perfection. I'm trying to convince myself that a $120 silk scarf of an ice cave is a good investment, oui?

To see more beautiful images, check Clever Nettle and the Fieldguided blog, shop and Flickr!

Midweek Pick-Me-Up

Just a few things giving me a bit of reprieve from the daily grind.

This song's been rocking my socks off lately, but you should put headphones before you listen. Everyone will be looking at you all side-eyed, being like, "why's that girl silently wiggling in her chair?" and the answer is, "because it's one of THOSE beats," but it's pretty NSFW so you know, judge your sitch.

You guys are watching the new season of Game of Thrones, right? If not, just tune out for this paragraph (but do yourself a solid and start watching soon!) This season was off to a bang with last week's opener, and seeing as I'm in the thick of the third book in the series, I know we're going to have a good time. The creators have done a great job of adapting the book to a TV show format, keeping the episodes packed with action and giving smaller characters screen time to explore their motivations. I'm also happy to return to my habit of reading The AV Club's excellent reviews after each episode, although now I've graduated to the expert versions, for those who've read the books. (There are newbie versions for those who haven't read along as well.)

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The new spring lookbook from Summerland is so, so, so good. I've made my love of this shop and photographer Anja no secret, but this collection just seems too perfect as spring inspiration. Cute bobs, collared shirts and pretty prints? Sign me up for an afternoon of lounging that looks this good, please.

You can check out more pictures on Clever Nettle and Summerland.

What I've Been Watching Lately

The X-Files

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I know I've talked about my love for this show before, but I won't be happy until everyone I know is watching it and loves it as much as I do. I will watch this show forever and for always, even though it makes me distrust weird-looking people on the street and gives me nightmares. The show is a perfect mix between one-off monster stories and episodes that advance the plot in a mind-blowing way. It also makes me worry that I will never experience love as deeply as Mulder and Scully feel for each other, but that's a whole different story. I'm on the seventh season (of nine) and I plan on starting it from the beginning once I'm done. Or maybe I'll just re-evaluate my life and, y'know, go outside.

Bell Book and Candle

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This romcom stars Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novack and is about witches and the men who love them. Well kind of. It's set in New York in the winter and has a really young Jack Lemon as the cutest damn warlock/jazz musician I've ever seen. They frequent this bar called the Zodiac, which I'm dying to find recreated somewhere, that's underground and dark and secret and filled with music and witches with magical powers. Novack is a witch with a heart of gold, and looks every inch as beautiful as she did in Vertigo.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

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I read about this movie on Fieldguided, and since I take everything she says as the gospel truth—what? I think our tastes are very similar—I watched it, enthralled. This movie is beautiful, dreamy, and mysterious. The story reminds me of my favourite Margaret Atwood short story "Death By Landscape," which is what originally drew me to it—there is something scary and romantic about the wilderness, whether it's Canadian or Australian, and there is an innate fear that the elements are overpowering. It takes place in 1900 on Valentine's Day, and is a perfect girls night pick.The hazy-look of each scene was apparently from a bridal veil cast over the lens, which only adds to the feminine mystique of the film.

Revenge

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Something I copyedited yesterday made reference to this TV show, and I decided to watch the pilot—before I knew it I had finished 6 episodes and I'm dying to see more. I should clarify, though, that I don't necessarily think this show is good. If someone I didn't like was openly watching this show I would judge them. But I have fallen into the story without meaning to—it's so juicy! And since you know from the beginning that main character Emily is out to destroy everyone in her circle of the Hampton's, there really isn't a guessing game to what is going to happen. YOU KNOW. It kind of reminds me of The OC (my only other view into this kind of super-rich life) but all grown up. Totally silly and unrealistic and embarrassing, but I love it.


What have you been watching lately? Any recommendations?

Reality TV Worth Watching in Real Time

My love for the boob tube is well documented. And, seeing as I'm a non-cable subscriber, I have to get my fix by more, ahem, unsavoury means. There are only a couple reality shows I keep up with as they air though – most of the time, I'll just catch a little of whatever's on while I'm near a TV. But these bad boys, no, these I anxiously await the latest episode's airing, then scour torrent sites within a couple hours. I plan date nights with pals so I can watch them on their TVs. And what are they, you ask?

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Project Runway All-Stars
God, I feel conflicted about this one. On the one hand, we have the return of some of the best (and most dramatic) runners-up in Project Runway history – Austin Scarlett's back, Mondo's back, bitchy  Kenley's back, whiny Michael Costello's back – but on the other hand, Lifetime has finally made the changes we've all known was coming since the day the show changed networks. A new host, new judges, new mentor – all seemingly subpar. As my friend Sandy put it, it all feels a little bargain bin now.

Isaac Mizrahi? Really? The new model host is devoid of any sort of personality, and that dishrag Joanna Coles as a mentor (who has yet to say anything but "I'm interested see where this is going") is a poor substitute for Tim Gunn. On the plus side, the prizes seem much more substantial than usual (priced at nearly half a million dollars) and there seems to be a higher calibre of guest judges and appearances than the show's ever had before – Valentino's popped up his leathery little head, and the duo behind Badgley Mischka did a great job on last week's panel.

Lifetime made a smart move in bringing back fan favourites to help ease the switch, and one can only hope that for the next round of newbie designers, we'll be back to Heidi and Co. But guys, I can't help but keep watching until then – not only am I way too curious to see more from some of these designers, but Miss Piggy's the guest judge next week. I CAN'T EVEN.

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The Bachelor
Whoa, whoa, hold your horses. I was once like you. I once thought I was above this show. But nay, I am not, and if you gave it half a chance and a viewing with your snarkiest pals, you wouldn't be either.

The bachelor this season is a nice enough guy named Ben, a typical beta male who makes wine in the Sonoma Valley and has a floppy haircut. He's pretty boring which, paired with a lopsided grin and his oodles of family money, is enough to make the gaggle of women competing over him completely bonkers. Seriously – some of our noble contestants are as follows: a blogger/aspiring Carrie Bradshaw, a Nomi Malone-alike hooker with a heart of gold, a possible lesbian, a girl who rode in on a horse, a germaphobe PhD student who rapped about catching the disease known as love, and a psychopathic model. That's not even the half of it.

Put these women in a house filled with nothing but alcohol, time, and one dude to fall for, and watch the kindling ignite. Best shared with similarly jaded pals, wine and/or Twitter tuned to the hashtag #bachelor.

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Kourtney and Kim Take New York
This season opened with a sampling of the media frenzy that broke out after news of the Humphries/Kardashian split had been dissected to death, and then a fade to black with the words, "Eight Weeks Earlier". The producers on this show were probably thanking their lucky stars that this poorly conceived marriage was dissolving as the cameras rolled.

But in watching it, beyond the sheer voyeurism of the show generally, it's a fascinating look at a relationship falling apart. Ill-designed as the union may have been from the start, with neither party willing to give or take what's necessary to make a true partnership work, I don't think Kim went into it expecting it to fail. Really, I'm not sure what her expectations were at all, since I'm not sure she thought much about what would happen after the "I Do"s had been said (I don't know that Kris Humphries even has that kind of cognitive ability, but that's another story).

It's interesting to see how the tide starts to shift, how the play fights become less flirting and more power struggles, how Kim's relationship with her family and her whole demeanor begins to change. And Scott Disick, lord love him, is by far the best part of the show – the voice of reason and the surprising anchor of the New York group.

Ultimately, although the Kardashians are some of the silliest celebrities we've got, there's something so compellingly raw about this drama, something so achingly familiar about realizing you've made a terrible mistake, and about Kim's unwillingness to recognize it, especially given the high profile life she leads. It's especially interesting to see this example alongside Scott and Kourtney's relationship which, though far from perfect, shows evidence of two people actually trying to make it work. In short, it feels like the Kardashians are sharing some of what feels like the most honest relationship depictions in reality TV by showing what happens AFTER the fairytale wedding.

What shows, reality or otherwise, are you completely addicted to right now?

Anything you think should be on my radar too?

American Horror Story or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

American Horror Story is not a perfect show. Far from it. I don't even think it's a good show. But I'll be damned if I'm not hooked.

I was honestly not expecting it. After all, this is a show from the creators a Glee, a show that was fun for a few weeks until every episode ended in a cliched lesson about acceptance or tolerance, wrapped up in a saccharine musical number. Remember back in the days when we all though it was going to be Freaks & Geeks meets Election with the occasional pop number? Sigh.

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Anyway, the conceit of AHS is that the Harmon family (Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, their teenaged daughter, Taissa Farmiga, and their Mogwai dog) move to LA to start anew after she has a miscarriage and he has an affair. They move into a gorgeous Victorian with a darkly colorful past (don't they all?), and meet a few other characters with histories entangled in the house – the neighbours, Jessica Lange and her daughter with Downs Syndrome, Jamie Brewer; the troubled teenaged boy, Evan Peters; the housekeeper, Frances Conroy; the man with the burned face, Denis O'Hare. Cue mayhem.

AHS suffers from a lot of things. It suffers from terrible writing, with some pretty sexist ideas and a boring, thickskulled couple at its core. It suffers from an over-reliance on referencing the horror movies before it, with all the subtlety of a kid begging for a gold star. It's all over the place and moves too fast. Dylan McDermott sucks.

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But when it gets it, it nails it. The scares are played straight (unlike the campiness of a show like True Blood) and can be genuinely unnerving – the second episode, "Home Invasion", scared the hell out of me with its sense of malice and unease. They don't always go for the easy jump scares either, drawing reference to modern American horrors like Columbine with an unexpected degree of both sympathy and terror. I had a hard time getting to sleep after marathoning the first four episodes, half expecting the black latex gimp to appear in the doorway. Even the grinding sounds of the title sequence are really unsettling.

The most refreshing thing about it is how I can never predict what's going to happen in a given episode. It's so batshit insane, with such a crazy mishmash of horror tropes, that every episode is a crapshoot. Is someone going to get an axe to the gut? Are we going to see that clawed thing in the basement again? Is the gimp going bang Mrs. Coach? Who the fuck knows, but I'm so there.

Plus, there's something really great about how this show loves to skirt the edge of good taste. So many, too many shows feel so sanitized, so whitewashed by network cronies that all the punch is taken out. We are ADULTS, people. This show has already had: someone frankensteining their child; a mother being deeply, unspeakably cruel to her disabled daughter; a woman romancing herself with a little masterbation; a few rapes; an abortion treated without judgement; a woman having her boob eaten off by her kid; lots of babies in jars. And we're only at episode 7! Hurrah!

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And the actors are actually really good, for the most part. Connie Britton's part only works because she's the one playing it – in a lesser actress's hands, she would become the shrill, one-note shrew wife that's written. Jessica Lange is magnificent, all plotting poise and sinister graciousness, and so multi-dimensional and capable of anything, she almost feels part of a different show. The most realistic relationship is actually between the two teenagers, who would normally be the most insufferable, but I think that's mostly due to Taissa Farmiga's believability – she's often given the least motivation for her actions, but somehow, she sells it, and has become the audience's most relatable character to boot. And I LOVE the character of Moira, how her dual appearances lend every scene she's in with a dark charge of instability. (Actually, the strength of its actresses really carries this show – it's too bad the writers seem to want to centre their storylines on being screwed over by men.)

The best comparison I've heard (I think via The AV Club) is that it's a cross between The Amityville Horror and Lost, which is pretty apt, especially considering how the house really is the star (like Lost's Island was). The plot lines dedicated to the house's history are usually where the show starts really clicking along organically, and fans of stories with elaborate mythologies (again, like Lost or even Twin Peaks) will enjoy trying to piece together what's happening.

Really, I can't believe a show like this hasn't been done before – the best horror films are ones where the information is parcelled out slowly, building tension and a prickling sense of the rug being pulled out from under you – a perfect format for TV. Now, granted, this one is moving much quicker than that (they've been trying to sell the house since episode three), but at this point, I don't want them to move any slower. I want them to keep piling on the crazy and light it on fire. I want this to be a twisted funhouse of a haunted house. Sure, it won't last long that way (and it's renewed for a second season), but really, watching it get set to detonate is too much fun.

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Cable TV: How to Target the New Class

Like many of my friends, I do not have cable. I have a TV, but it's mainly used to watch Blu-rays and DVDs of shows that we own, borrow or rent. It takes up valuable real estate in our small apartment. It sits there, silent, most of the time. We care a lot about picture quality in our house, so what we watch online, we usually torrent. And, I'm not going to lie, that happens often.

The cable companies are terrified of people like me. Terrified. It's pretty obvious when the president of Disney/ABC tells her daughter, upon hearing she didn't need a TV to bring to school, “You’re going to have a television if I have to nail it to your wall. You have to have one.” But the truth is, it's a unnecessary expense to digitally inclined folks. A TV with cable is expensive and cumbersome and the opposite of the way we are used to experiencing the programs that entertain us.

As an industry where people pay between $70 and $92 a month, that’s a lot of money to a young person today who is getting their first job when they can go out and watch Hulu for free and Netflix for $7.99. So it’s a threat.
– "The children are our future, and they’re not paying for TV" by Ryan Lawler

So, dear cable companies, I, as a random young person in the tradition of the internet, am going to offer you some free advice. I'm going to tell you what you can do to access the huge population of young people who are no longer bothering to pay for cable.

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The one advantage that cable has over streaming/downloading is to that it airs in realtime. This is really valuable with programs that are popular (my friends routinely have viewing parties for the Oscars or a show like Lost  or The Bachelor at our sole friend with cable's house), but is inconvenient most of the time (unless you also have PVR). And now, watching a show live is supported by realtime online discussion. It's common practice to livetweet your reactions to a show's twists and turns, linked to other watchers by hashtag. It's common to "check-in" to a program using GetGlue. If you've missed a TV event, you avoid Facebook et al. to avoid spoiling it for yourself until the latest Megavideo is uploaded. Live TV is the biggest reason why I or any of my friends would want to get cable. Why aren't cable companies using that to their best advantage?

The biggest takeaway from a recent read of mine, What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis (now woefully out of date in some respects, as evidenced by Google's massive Google+ fail), is that the old model for content distribution is dead. The old model for content disseminators was to attract users to a centralized hub, then feed them content. You were a big ol' honey pot attracting flies, which was great for the companies but not really for users – it was far easier to organize and plan all of your content in one location, and to attract advertisers to you. The best current example of this is a site like Yahoo, which can be helpful for mainstream news at a glance, but is shit for just about everything else.

Now, the model as Google has established best, is to put the honey where the flies already are. People are now used to organizing content as they please – reading their favourite blogs in RSS feeds, downloading or PVRing shows to watch at their leisure, saving articles to Evernote to read even when they're offline. They are used to having content tailored to their interests, when they're interested. Google started doing this well when it snuck ads into your inbox and alongside your searches, with its content based on your viewing habits. Facebook does this too, but isn't nearly as subtle. The main goal of this method is to be where the users already are, and it has been massively successful. It's become the backbone of successful internet marketing, and users (while creeped out when they realize what's happening) find it unobtrusive and very useful.

So cable companies, what should you do? In my humble opinion, in order to remain relevant you need to a) start offering livestreaming via the web and b) offer subscriptions to individual channels.

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If people are already using the internet to watch their shows, then offer it to them legitimately. The reason why black markets exist is because they fulfill a need not being met by the current markets – if that need isn't being met by a legal option, people will be inclined to use the illegal one, like streaming sites and torrents. Apple and iTunes, in response to the huge amount of music being downloaded illegally, cornered the market by offering cheap, easy downloads and went gangbusters. People like having a legal option. Follow their lead.

The most attractive benefit of cable is that it plays in realtime, so offer live TV online. Just a paid subscription and the ability to stream TV live on the web. Bam. It's a more attractive option than the free one, because given the option of legal livestreaming, who would want to wait until the episode has already aired and miss out on the discussion? (Well, some people, but fewer then the current average, I'd wager). This also allows you to reach users who cannot afford/do not want a TV, with content you're already broadcasting.

I know Rogers has been dabbling with web streaming (it offers certain shows, usually a day or two after the original air date) but the first company to adopt the livestream TV model is going to be rolling in scads of money. Bonus points: for the Big Guys who offer both cable and internet services (like Rogers and Bell), if you REALLY want to make young hearts go pitter patter, you'd offer free or discounted bandwidth on livestreamed content. Take THAT, Netflix! (But so unlikely, look who's getting away with herself!)

Secondly, cable companies need to cut the bloat. If I wanted to subscribe to a blog and they told me I also need to subscribe to their five sister sites, I'd flip them the bird and unsubscribe, or Google some web-savvier person's workaround and jailbreak my subscription. Offer individual channels that aren't rolled into a package. If I know I only watch the Food Network and HGTV (sad, but kind of true), why assume that I also want Twist TV and Fashion Television?

Admittedly, these packages are much more pared down than they once were, but offering individual channels would allow you to a) capture users who may not be able to purchase full basic cable plus a premium package and b) charge more per individual channel. To extend the iTunes comparison a little further, think of this as offering the ability to purchase individual tracks rather than the whole album. In addition to that, you can advertise other channels to those users (who otherwise would be completely outside your reach) and potentially gain more business from them down the line.

So, dear cable companies, stop clinging to an old model that is becoming increasingly outdated. I get it – you're really afraid that parcelling out your hard-won content is going to seriously weaken your coffers. But I really don't see how you can lose here. You'd gain a captive audience of new users (young ones with long lives, at that) and diversified income streams on content you're already sharing. Your current model is sputtering and you know it. All it takes is a little thinking outside the cable box.

And readers, I really want to know what you think about this. Am I on the right track? Would you subscribe to livestream web TV or individual channels?

6 Reasons Why I Love the X-files

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1. It's scary, but not too scary.
I am a major wuss. I haven't seen a horror film made past the year 2000 because I just can't handle it (while you can argue that old horror films are scarier anyway, they are least have that cheese factor that distances their modern day audience and makes me feel less like it could be my life). The X-files is just old enough (they have cell phones, but really old clunky cell phones) for me to feel comfortable (that kind of thing would never happen now..... right?!) and relies more on gross-out creepiness, who dun it, and how is that possible, than jump out at you, make you stay up all night with nightmares kind of scariness.

2. Even if you're not super into the UFO/alien thing, there's more for you to see.
Actually, my favourite episodes are the ones that aren't about aliens, aren't about furthering the plot,  but kind of stand alone. Mulder and Scully investigate the murder of a baby and find out that super-duper inbred brothers are raping their mother to create a heir? Check. Two teenage best friends who share a birthday and (long story short) develop magical powers start killing boys at their school? Check. A down-on-his-luck guy gets a woman's face tatooed on his arm and the jealous tattoo (with the voice of Jodie Foster) tells him to kill other women (including Jennie Garth and Scully)? Check. A man who eats cancerous tumours is able to regenerate himself? Okay, I'll stop giving away the story line, but just so you know, that was all from season 4.

3. The sexual tension between Mulder and Scully that exists from the pilot.
This has been driving me crazy. Do they have feeling for each other? Do they not? Either way, they are working together really closely, and getting to know each other really well by sharing lots of intimate secrets. I can't wait to see what happens there. They belong together.

4. Each episode is an hour long.
Which is the perfect time to take a break from whatever you are doing and get your mind off life, and get your heart beating a little faster. Alternately, it means that you can watch about 5 episodes on a Saturday afternoon when your boyfriend is at work and still have time to do other fun weekend stuff.

5. It's nothing if not unexpected.
After getting through the first three seasons I thought I had gotten into a groove and then came an episode called "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" that blew me away, and changed the way I thought about a lot of things that have happened so far. You will consistently be surprised. Nothing is black and white.


6. That feeling you get when you're invested in a TV shows story and characters.
I love watching an entire series in a relatively short period of time, like I've done with countless others—The Golden Girls, The Sopranos, etc. It's so rewarding to have an end in sight and be able to finish the series and close it up like a book, knowing everything you are supposed to know. Except with the X-files, I'm not sure that all the questions are going to be answered, which—in this case—could be just as rewarding.

Creativity and Project Runway

Hey guys, I'm going to wrap up this week by sharing my contribution to Vive Magazine's blog this week. I wrote it sleep-stoned at 1 AM after blitzing episodes of Project Runway to catch up after my week off, and in the cool light of day, I still stand by every word.

Everything I Learned About Creativity, I Learned from Project Runway

Everyone has to start somewhere. 

Currently, Project Runway’s in its ninth season and it is still one of my favourite shows, just as it has been since season one. It’s one of the few shows I actually care enough about to keep up with on a weekly basis, and I credit it entirely with my having any sort of vocabulary for fashion. 

Before Project Runway (BPR?), my world was a dark place, filled with simple phrases like “it’s pretty!” or “I don’t like that colour.” I had some sense of taste, but I had no idea how to articulate any of the particulars of it. Project Runway was the first experience I ever had with a critical vocabulary when it came to fashion. 

I’m truly amazed by the skill of the contestants on the show – to see something in your mind’s eye and execute it under the gun (Tim Gunn, that is, hyuk) is really quite the magic trick. I usually watch the show and feel like I need to be doing something with my hands; knitting, cooking, or even tidying up. It’s inspiring to see creative people work. It’s inspiring to see things being made. 

But more important than the successes are the failures. The looks that had just as much time and care put into them but didn’t quite work. Sure, it makes for great reality TV when Michael and Nina get to spit vitriol at shabbily made clothes, but more importantly, it forces us to confront failure. To develop a vocabulary around WHY something doesn’t work. It helps us figure out what does. 

There’s also something wonderful when you see designers pick themselves up from the bottom three and defend their aesthetic. There’s something so fierce, so brave about that kind of creativity, and I in no way mean in a Tyra sense. There’s something very nourishing about watching that, as a creator of things and as an admirer of created things. 

So Project Runway, a show about clothes, is really a show about much more – just as fashion is. At its best, a great runway show never limited to gut reactions – it’s challenging, exciting, delicious and disappointing. It’s the fruits of human creativity, and it plants seeds in all who care to look a little closer. 

Without Project Runway, I probably would never have known what princess seams were, or how a muslin works, or what pushes something into the realm of haute couture. And I’m so glad that a generous example like Project Runway exists, where I can safely learn the art of critique, construction and creativity – safely, without being Auf’d myself.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and get yourself both into and out of a few satisfying creative tangles.

On the First 8 Minutes of True Blood Season 4

True Blood is batshit bonkers, guys. I know everyone watched it back in season one when it was actually good, but have you kept watching it? Did you stop after the fifth black-eyed orgy in season two? What about when Bill turned his vamp fuck-buddy's head the wrong way around mid-coitus? And then Jason started dating a werepanther and was, at the end of last season, given the mayorship of Meth-Werepantherville? Or when Sookie found out she was a fairy? Have you kept watching just because of Eric's undeniable babeliness?

I simultaneously love and loathe True Blood, because it's one of the more unpredictable shows on TV. You really don't know where the series is going at any given moment, because it's made a sport of shark jumping. Every time you think it's reached a new low, there it goes, making you WTF louder and laugh harder than anything else being made right now. In the beginning, it held promise as holding up a darkly distorted mirror to society—I really liked the parallels drawn between gay rights and vampire rights—but somewhere along the way, Alan Ball done lost his damn mind, and he's embraced the crazy wholeheartedly.

The first eight minutes of season four make that perfectly clear.