The Secret Garden

Annie and I decided to watch "The Secret Garden" today. It was one of our favorite films growing up, and I recently found out that Francis Ford Coppola was one of the executive producers for the film, which was a fun fact, realizing that one of my favorite directors was involved with one of my favorite films as a child. I am not sure what it is about "The Secret Garden" that is so appealing to me. It has an aura of mystery and tragedy that is unapologetically woven into the tale. I remember it being the first film I watched that made me cry. I think I was about five or six years old at the time.

The movie, based upon the book by Francis Hodgson Burnett, reflects the lonely lives of abandonment led by two ten year old children living in a gloomy old mansion in the English countryside. One child is abandoned by her parents through their deaths, the other, bedridden and sickly, is rejected by his deeply distressed and
heartbroken father. The story has something very tangible and earnest about it. It is a story of healing through nature, but it takes real loss and tragedy and turns haunted memories into joyful ones. It also not only heals the children, but it also heals the adults in their lives.

The movie is filmed with a lot of simplicity: it is a story originally meant for children, so there aren't any "big" scenes to film. But the cinematography, combined with the truly gorgeous score makes the film very moving. There are also so many subtleties in the film that I noticed watching it this time around that I never noticed before. Fun fact: Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst were both turned down for the roles of the two children in favor of two unknowns, (Heydon Prowse and Kate Maberly) which always makes me happy. 

The Doldrums of Post-Graduation

Well... it has been awhile. And I have to say, despite the amount of homework I have had to complete in order to graduate from college, which I did last weekend, I have been avoiding this blog. I have not felt like writing, and I have not been inspired to write anything lately. And although I have plenty of things to write about now, such as five days in NYC, various fantastic concerts, people thinking that I am racist, and the horrible nagging fear of having my wisdom teeth extracted, I just do not feel like writing about these things as of yet, so instead I will just be writing about not wanting to write.
 
There have been a lot of incidents leading up to this complete lack of inspiration, but I believe the band Keane says it best "everything is changing, and I don't feel the same". That pretty much sums it up right now. Everyone is moving on with life, and I can't stop that from happening. It just feels like I am standing in the middle of a room while everyone I care about is leaving it in slow motion, and I am powerless to stop it from happening. And most of this "leaving" is in the form of things you are supposed to be really happy about, such as graduation or marriage. And while that's really great and exciting, it's also kind of the saddest time I have ever experienced. So I suppose that is why I have pretty much been watching Lena Dunham's show "Girls" on repeat for the last month.

After graduation, I just felt this void. It was not this crazy wonderful experience. I did not feel accomplished, I did not feel relieved. I felt horrified, and scared, and alone. I just stared at that piece of paper declaring me a Bachelor of Arts and all I could think of was the time... the time and money and work that went into that little piece of paper. A paper that did not even have my major on it. I don't know what I had expected, but I thought maybe it would have all the jobs that I had to work in order to get through college listed on there, or maybe all the sleepless nights somehow accounted for, or all the people who had helped me pull through it with their names listed, or all the pain I had gone through transferring and my trouble with the registrar and all of my personal relationships with people all written down there somewhere. But all it said was "Bachelor of Arts".

I guess I am writing this down because I am sure I am not the only person who has felt this way before. So hopefully if you are going through the same thing, you will be able to relate.

And hopefully I will find something real to write about soon.
 

More on Shampoo Bars

Since there was such a big response to our post about using organic shampoo bars to replace normal shampoo, I thought I would post a few videos below that I found helpful when I was trying to find more information on organic shampoo. Both videos were made by "venusinfurs", and the first video discusses her overall experience with organic shampoo bars. In the second video, she compiles a very helpful collection of reviews on various shampoo bars from Chagrin Valley. As she states in her video, just because she might have used a bar that does not work for her, it does not mean that it won't work for you, so keep an open mind whilst watching. My personal favorite bar is the Auburn Henna. I really love the smell, and it adds a lot of shine to my hair, as well as volume. It is specifically designed for people with red hair, however, so it may not be the best for those of you with different hair colors. Also, she says in the first video that she only brushes her hair once a week, and I don't do that. I still brush my hair once a day, but as she says, there is a significant decrease in the amount of time that you have to spend brushing it to keep tangles out. Beneath the videos, I've posted the link for Chagrin Valley, so you can peruse their website at your leisure. I hope this is helpful for all of the people who expressed an interest in these products.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.chagrinvalleysoapandsalve.com/

D IS FOR DEMON AND FOR DERMATOLOG​IST

Today I thought I’d give you all some very handy information.
This information is in regards to the exact identity of the Devil.
So, yeah, pretty important.
The Devil. He is your dermatologist. Not someone else’s. Yours.
Let me clarify. I HAVE ACNE. I HAVE IT ON MY FACE. We’ll stick with that information for now, that feels like enough. I’ve had acne for years now, and there’s no end in sight. So my parents, being the merciful and visually gifted people that they are, saw my plight and started looking into finding a dermatologist for me. Because my face looked like Pompeii on a daily basis, I was more than okay with that.
So this first dermatologist put me on antibiotics and this facial cleanser that smelled and looked like rotten eggs.
Absolutely nothing changed.
We lost hope for a while, I figured out how to use makeup, it was fine.
Then it started getting worse, so my mom sent me to a different doctor, one who very professionally took down my symptoms and plugged them into WebMD to get my exact diagnosis. Not really. Maybe. Took about that long and cost infinitely more. She prescribed antibiotics, cleaner, gel, lotion, and a medicated moisturizer. I put all this crap on my face in the morning, washed it off at night, put more on, washed it off in the morning, put more on, etc. This crap cost an amount of money I was afraid to look at when my mom came back from the drugstore with the receipt.
A few months later, after using these prescriptions religiously and getting absolutely zero results, I went to a music camp for a week and forgot my medicine at home. So I spent a week washing my face zero times a day. At the end of the week, I had next to no acne on my face. At all. This was probably due to my drinking about 10 gallons of water every day as well as not torturing my skin with the medication.
So I stopped using this stuff.
My skin continued to be fine, not particularly good at times, but never really bad. Then I had another appointment a little while ago, after my skin had been AWESOME for like 2 weeks. The dermatologist looked at my skin, said “oh, I can see you’re really starting to have bad breakouts right now” and prescribed about 50 more things for me to apply to my face.
Immediately after starting this new medication, my skin got HORRIFICALLY bad. The cleanser she gave me was chafing my skin and irritating what was already an issue, and the moisturizer (which is about 50% WATER in the first place) did NOTHING.
So I just quit. I got my mom to buy me some coconut oil, because the internet said so. I continued using the cleaner in addition to the oil, and nothing really improved, just stabilized. Then I dropped the dermatologist’s regime entirely, used Burt’s Bees cleaners and the oil, and in about 2 days my skin was back to normal.
I mean, use your common sense, obviously. If the prescription meds work for you, glory hallelujah, you found a dermatologist who has had the demon exorcised from their mortal soul. But most of the time, the deal with skin cleansers is the same as the deal with shampoo. They give you a cleanser that will strip your skin of every bad and every good thing, forcing you to spend more money on an unnecessary moisturizer (any artificial moisturizer will contain water, I guarantee you that, meaning that it WILL do you more harm than good) to repair some, but not all, of the damage. It’s a vicious cycle. If you feel the need to exfoliate, cinnamon is like a miracle, and baking soda will also do the trick. And it’s cheap. This is a win-win situation here.
Instead of giving grotesque before and after photos, I’m just going to show you the beginnings of a Totoro poster I’m making for my baby brother. It’s adorable. Unlike my skin.

You Should Probably Not Use Shampoo Anymore

Alrighty, so most people get real grossed out when I tell them that I haven't used shampoo or conditioner in my hair for over 5 months. I was perusing around the internet sometime last year, when I found an article describing what shampoo really does to your hair. In the article, I read that back in the good old days, people just used soap to clean their hair. Just ordinary, every day soap like you would clean a dish with. But then, around the beginning of the 20th century, detergents came along. Guess what shampoo is? That's right. It's detergent. Like you would use to scrub the scum off of your bathroom floor. Whose brilliant idea was it to wash your hair with that? Shampoo actually strips your hair of all of its natural oils that keep it healthy. So guess what was invented next to counteract the nasty dryness that shampoo was causing? Conditioner. It was invented to cover up the damage that shampoo does to your hair. Of course, it's all presented like it's such a great thing that you should definitely rub through your scalp every morning.

When I read that I was essentially putting in my hair the same stuff that I would put in my dishwasher, I did further research, and found a company in Solon, Ohio  (Chagrin Valley Soap) that makes a bunch of organic, natural soaps, including "shampoo bars", which are used on hair.

I started using these shampoo bars, and let me tell you, it was not pretty. It took about a month for the soap to strip all the gunk out of my hair that the shampoo and conditioner had left behind. It was pretty disheartening.

Now however, I have been using the Auburn Henna shampoo bar for 5 months, and it is brilliant. All it has in it is babassu oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil, organic palm oil, organically grown henna, organic coconut milk, organic hibiscus, indigo, and rosemary extract. Sounds pretty dandy compared to what you would read on the back of a shampoo bottle.

Anyway, I used to have to wash my hair every single day, no exceptions, or it would get oily and dried out and FEEL so dirty. I hated going one single day without washing my hair.

Now...I only have to wash it twice a week. It's ridiculous. And even on the days when it starts to look a little dirty, it still feels clean. It saves me so much time in the morning. Also, it makes my hair naturally soft, so I have not used conditioner since November. I know.

I order one shampoo bar about every two months. They're about $13.00 after shipping and handling. But they arrive pretty quickly, and they smell so good. All you do is just create a lather with it and rub it through your scalp. It's pretty darn easy to use.

I know that some people like doing the baking soda/ apple cider vinegar rinse. I just didn't find that that worked for me. The vinegar started making my hair turn blonde, and I personally like being ginger.

I would definitely recommend this product to anyone. Literally, anyone. Also, they make really great soaps. I've been using their dead sea salt soap and it's done better things for my skin than years of visits to the dermatologist. Mother nature strikes again.

 

 

The Art Assignment

Today I finally got caught up on a new PBS YouTube series called The Art Assignment, and I’m so SO glad that I did. I think The Art Assignment is an extremely wonderful and important thing. Its goal is to teach people how to think more broadly about what art is
and how they, personally, can create art. It also exposes people to a range of contemporary artists, something we are not getting a lot, and in my opinion enough of. I’m going to try to complete all 3 of the assignments set so far, and will absolutely positively put them here for your viewing enjoyment when they are complete.
My favorite Art Assignment so far:
 

 

John’s was not the only mind blown by Sarah’s observation about the significance of the term ‘moving pictures’ for films. A lot of people don’t really understand that movies really are not just magical strings of perpetually moving film. This is why a cinematographer is sometimes called a director of photography; because at it’s most basic state, a movie is simply a string of images, each of which is unique and significant on its own. Because, as Toyin observes with her art, one image could never be enough to truly capture something.

The Wind Rises

This weekend I finally went to see The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu). I can honestly say I’ve never felt my money more well spent than the $12 I spent on that movie ticket. I watch a lot of movies. A lot of people watch a lot of movies. So I know I’m not speaking from a minority standpoint when I say that those times when you stumble upon a movie that seems to live and breathe on its own, you feel rich as Croesus. These movies are vitally important to you. Hayao Miyazaki, the writer, director, and illustrator of the original
comic, has created many of these vitally important films, in my life at least. His films are so complex and magical and fantastic and deceptively human. You’re drawn into this fairy tale that reveals more about the hearts of men than you could learn in most philosophical texts, that I believe for a fact.

The main character of Kaze Tachinu, Horikoshi, once said of his aircraft design that “All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful”. Miyazaki’s portrayal of this man’s struggle to find a way to create the beautiful airplanes of his imaginings, only to see them in the end fly off to battle, never to return, resulted in one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever experienced. I cried (not a lot, my brothers were there, I have street cred to uphold here). say that I am recommending this movie to anyone who can possibly see it is an understatement. I’m kind of saying that you have to.

 Le vent se lève! . . . il faut tenter de vivre!