2010 Favourites - Music

I thought I'd make a sort of countdown or list of my various favourites from the soon to be gone year. First of all, here's my top five in music. They may not be from this year but each performer had a special place in my heart during the year.
First of is Florence & The Machine, she is magnifiscent and the best album I have bought this year. I am particularly in love with this one and My Boy Builds Coffins..

Next is Karen Elson. Ever since I saw this video I have been hooked. I must say I had initial doubts to the whole model-singer thing but I must admit, this is really awesome and just up my style.



Then there's the alltime favourite Swedish pop song bird Robyn who has just ruled the year in terms of music and especially how to make GOOD pop music. Love love love.. Heja Sverige! 



One of my best surprices this year was Danish Agnes Obel. She came out of nowhere with a poetic and melancolic album that just screams beauty and almost brings tears to my eyes. This is her first official video, but check out Beast. Its so beautilful with the harp strings playing.. *sigh*



I cannot make a list of favourites without including Ryan Adams and his Sylvia Plath. It has been my favourite song of all time since I first heard it. It's only competitors are Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones and Tina Dickow's Room With A View. Here's a live performance...



Speeking of which, here's Tina Dickow or Tina Dico as she's called abroad with Room With A View.. Lovely, huh? And she's from Aarhus!!

Dans des Fées

First of all, I wish you the merriest of days and hope you'll see your wishes come true.

I spend last night at my grandparents' like always and this year my sister and her husband joined us. Lovely.. I do love Christmas and almost all that comes along with it, and I love Thaichowski and especially his ballet The Nutcracker. If I'm ever to marry and we don't wanna use the traditional wedding waltz I'm so gonna use The Flower Waltz from The Nutcracker! So beautiful!!

Here's some lovely pictures from the ballet for you to enjoy untill I return to my own place. I'm crashing at my parents' untill tomorrow where we'll go to another family lunch with my father's side of the family. Enjoy...



 



Network problems

Hey there.. Just wanted to let you know that I'm experiening some network and technical problems so there may be a couple of days where I'll be offline. Perhaps a good thing in order to get everything ready for Christmas on Friday. In Denmark we celebrate Christmas Eve as the 'main event' of the season in oposite to the English way with Christmas Day. I'm almost done with my presents, just finishing touches really.

When my Internet stops fuzzing I'll show you what I did for my bonus niece and my immediate family. Home made but I'm actually quite proud of the gifts I came up with.

Untill then, have a lovely snowy December... 

Julie Nord

One of my favourite Danish artist at the moment is Julie Nord. She's an artist who mostly uses ink and acrylics to create her imaginative and twisted images. She is very interested in the surreal of the common, surburbia and how things aren't what they appear to be at first sight. This shows in her classic imagery with a sudden twist that you may not realise on your first encounter with her art.

I really like the surprises she incorporates in her art like the coffee tin with the bird upside down. I have included some pictures from Aros Aarhus Artmuseum's catalogue of her latest exchibition. It was called Xenoglossy (= suddenly spaeking another language fluently that you have never been exposed to before). Here's some of my favourites from the catalogue, and I highly recommend you to check her out on her website.

Santa Lucia - Saint Lucy

Wanted to share a little light and pictures from the Santa Lucia processions in honour of the saint Lucia.

Lucia derives from Lux meaning Light in Latin, henceforth caring candles in darkness. The day is according to the old Julian calendar the longest day with the longest night of the year and marks literally the return of light. This night was called Lussenat, and in the 18th century people in West-Sweden would stay up all night in darkness waiting for the maidens of the farms came with breakfast and light in the morning.

This grew in the 19th C. to include a girl dressed in white with a wreath and candles in her hair carying sweets and present.Today, these two traditions are interrelated to the Lucia who brings "lusseboller" (saphran buns) together with her stary girls and boys while singing the Lucia songs. I read that the Nobel Prize winners are wakened in the morning by this tradition, how cute is that!? 

I also found out that the processions started in Sweden as a beauty pageant! In 1927 the Italiy-born journalist Guido Valentin started it as a regular beauty pageant in Stockholm, and now the grand winner in Sweden gets to go to Syracus (the town of Saint Lucy's). When it had spread to Copenhagen in the 40s during the Occupation the winner was crowned Lucia-bride and it was part of a resistance act to the German Occupation, and light symbolics were widely popular those years.

The song is an old sailor song from 19th century Naeples which salutes the town of Santa Lucia.
You probably best know it performed by Elvis Presley or Dean Martin but here's the grand finale in Stockholm by all the Lucia choirs. So pretty... 

I really like this tradition, even though I'm not that religious in any way, I like the notion of helping the poor and bringing light where darkness reigns. Perhaps its also very sutable for Scandinavia since its so dark most of the time in this season, so we celebrate the returning of light. I read somewhere that this is also the reason why Christmas is celebrated in the Winter in stead of Summer, since the Vikings already had a big celebration in honour of the returning of light at that time, and it was easier to substitute that in stead of moving it. But I'm not sure, but it seems likely to me.  

Today, the tradition has spread throughout Denmark too, and basically every parish and school and whatever has a Santa Lucia procession. I once was the Lucia bride, today they are mostly elected by the choir leader or teacher, and I got to walk around with a pretty white gown and candles in my hair. I suspect I got the job because I didn't ask for it like all the other girls did. However, when I got home I realised I had candle wax in my hair and what do I do? I cut my bangs off! It wasn't pretty I can tell you that, but I had been the Lucia bride and that was all that mattered...

My heart is over flowing with love for..

A list of the things that I am currently swooning over.. So if anyone knows a big-spender who can't find someone to spend his or her money on then direct said person my way.. Here's some examples of what I'd like to get both in THIS world and in my IMAGINATIVE world..



Lace Tunic $98 from Lirola

Cricket $28 by jkldesign

 


Siri Original £40 by Amilka

    



Chanel Lover $24 by emmakisstina

   



Vintage white fur pillbox hat $35 from wroughtironvintage

  



Palais Royal Fur collar coat €4644 at farfetch

  

Casadei ballet flats €245 at Yoox

 

Vionnet short dress €690 at Yoox



Madeleine Vionnet by Pamela Golbin €75 at Yoox

100 Years of fashion illustration by Cally Blackman €42 at Yoox



White Moleskine ruled notebook €20 at Yoox



Books €17 each from Anthropologie




Ladurêe book €35 at Anthropologie

 


Vintage 60s Bergdorf Goodman suit $225 from Couture Allure

  


Vintage 20s Battenberg lace wedding tiara $95 from Couture Allure

 

Vintage Edwardian black coat $6600 from The Frock



Vintage Edwardian reception gown $1600 from The Frock



 As you can see the price range is quite large but my favourite decade of fashion is the Edwardian and I'm dying a little everytime I see the last dress. Maybe its the fact that its in such mint condition considering the age and the style itself is to die for in my opinion. I would be glad to see more designers taking on this era and not just the Poiret hommage. Even illustration and magazines could learn a little from this period about ads and layout. Oh, and by the way, I coloured my hair today. Red! A little lighter than Christina Hendricks if you were wondering, and I love it already..

Nostalgia incarnated

A week ago I went to Den Gamle By (~The Old Town) to get some great pictures from what I consider the best sight or attraction in Aarhus. I had been there on the first Sunday in Advent with my parents and my sister but there were so crowded that it was almost impossible to get some nice pictures from that day. Henceforth, I went again. Not that I would ever mind. I have a small plan of finding the director of the Clothes Collection and beg him or her to hire me! I don't care what I get to do as long as I get to work with old clothes and history.. Den Gamle By is renowned for it's Living Museum where the staff dress up in period clothes and make some characters come to life in order to tell the story of the Danes in these towns and how Denmark developed from a rural and agri-cultural to an industrial country. 

Right now they have a large exhibition of the history of Christmas in Denmark, and they have decorated some of the old houses accordingly to the years they were erected. So you get to see what a carpenter got for dinner on Christms Eve and examples on presents from around 1600 to the 1890s. The exhibition closes on January 2nd 2011, but they show it every year and its so cosy...

I'm very exited about their current ongoing project of erecting a new area with more recent buildings from 1890 to 1974 where Denmark joined the EU, and how that will come into being. Along with that they will also focus on Denmark's development in terms of becoming a more multicultural country and feature an example of a Turkish-born family in Denmark as well as a Greenlandic student. Greenland was until this year a part of Denmark, and we still have very close connections with them both political but also personal because many school children got Greenlandic pen pals including my mother. 

So there's a little tip for one of the best sights in Aarhus, and in Denmark really. And its not just me that thinks so. Den Gamle By is on the Michelin list of World's Best Museums so its definately worth a visit. Its open all the year except for some specific holidays. Please check their website for more details and read more about this amazing place. Den Gamle By

Winter has it's grip on us now...

A couple of days ago, I lunched at café Stiften at the Rail Station Square in Aarhus (Banegårdspladsen). Its an addition to the newspaper Aarhus Stiftidende which inhabits that part of the building next to the bank. It was very nice, I hadn't been there before, so I gave it a go. I had a bagel with serano ham, avocado, and odd salat. It was very tasty and I was quite full and couldn't finish it all even though I did try.

Along with the bagel I had a cup of coffee and a refill later. I had planned my lunch session to be a bit long 'cause I wanted to finish a book upon the history of Western female writers that was due on the library the same day. The café was very nicely decorated too, with dark red sofas and chairs, cherry wood tables and Verner Panton VP-Globe lamps. Very modern but not alienating as I feel some very modern interiors can feel like. So definately recommendable, and I sure will revisit again soon. 

I forgot my camera that day, so here's some winter pics found on Flikr in stead...



Winter Hangs On by Gardinergirl

 


Cardinal with Snowflake by PictureOnTheWall

 


Dreamy Snow-berries by nature55

  


Icicles. by molliesu!