you've got me wrapped around your little finger, if this is love, it's everything i hoped it would be

I was long ago seduced by the premise of An Education - the glamorous post-Beatnick, pre-Beatle world of early 1960s England where the rebellion of the decade's later years were just stirrings of restlessness. I finally was able to watch the film the other night, and I must say that I was not disappointed in the slightest.  As I'm sure a lot of other girls have, I identified so much with Jenny that it was almost frightening. There was a scene when Jenny tells her paramour David that when she gets to university, "I'm going to read what I want, and listen to what I want, and I'm going to look at paintings and watch French films, and I'm going to talk to people who know lots about lots." And I swear that I said the exact same thing to my friends almost two years ago.
I'm still much of the same person I was in high school - I still have an intense thirst for knowledge and experience, and a never-ending desire to get more than what I have (I believe it was best described in Vicky Cristina Barcelona as "chronic dissatisfaction"). I read books about famous figures because it offers me a chance to live vicariously through their exploits. Yes, maybe I'm not the one hooking up with Mick Jagger or hanging out in opium dens, but curled up in my own imagination I am almost there.
Like Jenny, I have an obsession with the French. My father is French so I excuse my preoccupation with New Wave cinema, and albums by Greco and Peyroux on that. I listen to French music a lot of the time - most of my friends don't quite understand it, but they've grown to like the kitschy tunes. I'm not to the point where I smoke Gauloises (merely on principle) and speak interchangeably with French and English, but I was known to speak a tad like Holly Golightly and pull out phrases like "quelle surprise" and "tres fou" and whatnot.  I've never been seduced so entirely as Jenny was by an older gentleman like David, but I have been seduced many-a-time by the idea of these men. The ones who know their Brioni from their Zegna, who want to educate you as well as out you up on a pedestal. It's really quite intoxicating to feel so inexperienced, and be loved for it as opposed to condescended by it.
An Education is a film that I will gladly add to my DVD collection - after all, it would be nice to visit a soulmate such as Jenny from time to time.

hills of forest green where the mountains touch the sky, a dream come true, I’ll live there ‘til I die, I’m asking you, to say my last goodbye, the love we knew ain’t worth another try

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau

A young Jane Asher

Francoise Hardy

Jane Asher, in a very David Bailey-esque shot

Sharon Tate

Charlotte Martin in a shot from the 1970s

Charlotte Martin

Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean

Sharon Tate

Sophia Loren

A young Elizabeth Taylor

Debbie Harry

Another shot of Charlotte Martin

Sophie Daumier

A shot from the gorgeously talented photographer Courtney Brooke

Katharine Hepburn

Marianne Faithfull

Paul McCartney and baby Mary

Mick Jagger

John Lennon, in the mid-1970s

Sal Mineo and Jill Haworth in Exodus

girl, you really got me goin’, you got me so i don’t know what i’m doin’

I've recently become obsessed with the films of the late Eric Rohmer. A fascinating filmmaker, Rohmer created an impressive body of work before he passed in January of this year. I am currently working my way through his "Six Moral Tales,"a collection of six films that explore man's struggle to uphold his inner morality when faced with an opportunity (most usually in the form of a beautiful young woman) to diverge from everything he believes in. Rohmer's films are very cerebral and slow-paced, but there is a beauty in his films that makes me come back for more.

My most recent venture into the moral tales was "Le genou de Claire" (or "Claire's Knee"), the fifth - and perhaps most accessible - of Rohmer's moral canon. Jerome, a French diplomat about to be married, goes on holiday to visit an old friend staying on the shore of Lake Annecy. While there, he meets two sisters: the intense and complex Laura, and the delicate and unattainable Claire. Though Laura pursues him aggressively, Jerome is consumed by thoughts of touching Claire's knee. According to him, "Every woman has her most vulnerable point. For some, it's the nape of the neck, the waist, the hands. For Claire, in that position, that light, it was her knee." Yes, it's a strange obsession to have, but he realizes this. His fear that being revealed as a fetishist would destroy his diplomatic designs, he struggles to suppress his obsession.

The scenic Southern France location is the perfect backdrop to the beautiful seventies fashions. Dressed in woven straw hats and shift dresses, Claire and Laura are the picture of French sexy sophistication.

sunshine came softly through my a-window today

Even though my wardrobe is more befitting the fall and winter months, I can't help but adore summer. The lovely warmth of the summer sun gets me every time. Summer makes me think of picnics in the park, flowers in your hair, road trips, amusement parks, shopping sprees, and lazy days at the beach. I am stuck indoors today due to a freak thunderstorm, but these pictures help me keep my summer state of mind.