AVA GARDNER

This was an assignment for my A.P. Comp class. We all chose an auto/biography to read, then came in posed as our person. Then an interview was conducted and we answered quesitons in first person as our character etc... as a memeber of audience, you chose one of the people to write an article about, guise as a real publication. Thereby aspiring for a specific and established style, proving you'd paid attentin in class, and practisising the art of composition. The end doesn't make sense unless you understand the assignment.. the fact that if the person you were impersonating was dead in real life, you pretended they had temporarily returned in full health.. or as healthy as they ever were... yes. So questions like "how did you die?" could be answered in less absurdity. Final exam... I got an A+. I chose VOGUE


Perhaps no actress in history was as famous for not being an actress than Ava Gardner. Daintily clad in a deep peach, intricate lace, bustier necked farthingale and conspicuous pearl earbobs, Gardner was the personification of exotic beauty. The very embodiment of the glamour of the forties and fifties celebrity, acclaimed by her contemporary counterparts; Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, and others. Gardner was the ideal of her time and relegated to the domain of succesful moody actresses. Known, to extent that she is known by the general audience member(the original interview took place last week on "The Show," show), only as the wife of famed Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra. The interview with the most beautiful woman ever, as put by Elizabeth Taylor, proved there was more to this "love goddess" than meets the eye.

When her interviewer asked why someone would want to write a book about her, her first words were, "Hell if I know." In typical Gardner style it seems the interview progressed, with Gardner riding along with her wits poised for action, ready to be flung from her mouth swifter than than arrow from the Tartar’s bow. Not all of her responses were as brief, amusing as were, however, and the answers provided to other questions were teeming with interesting facts about her life.

Born Ava Lavinia Gardner in Grabstown, North Carolina, on Christmas Eve in 1922, Gardner was raised in a average-to-do household with many siblings, and grew up with few airs and little ambition. The turning point in her life, she recognised, was when she went to visit her older sister in New York in 1941. Her sister’s boyfriend at the time was a photographer and snapped shots of Ava as an amateur model. He then posted these pictures of her in a store window display and deposited them with the New York office of MGM studios. These first photographs brought attention to Ava, and she was subsequently called down to the office for a screen test. Delighted by the unforced manner of her acting, but perturbed by her heavy southern accent, they sent a silent bit to Hollywood. "After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, ‘She can’t talk! She can’t act! She’s sensational!’" There, the decision to call Gardner down to the West Coast office was made in half a mo.

Gardner’s discovery did not catapult her into stardom, however, MGM only used her as a pin- up model and a supernum- erary actress. Sotto voce, Gardner exclaimed that she was never anything more than an ingenue anyway. Between the years 1943 and 1944 she appeared in nine MGM productions uncredited. Other movie-makers seemed to see more than a soubelle, and frequently ‘borrowed’ her from MGM. Some of her most memorable roles, including Venus in One Touch of Venus and Kitty Collins in The Killers were both production of United Artists, not MGM. Gardner supposed in her interview that perhaps after gaining popularity in the boxoffice, to be sure it was not with critics, MGM realised her beauty and talent and began casting her for starring parts. The first of which being in The Hucksters alongside Clark Gable(my personal favourite actor.) Incidentally, Gable, best known for his portrayal of the lovable rogue from the greatest grossing film of all time, Gone With The Wind, Rhett Butler, was one of the only literary characters Gardner was familiar with. She claimed to have read only two books ever, those being said one-hit-wonder by Margaret Mitchell and The Bible.

Gardner maintained her ataraxy even with MGM’s revelation, and her supine attitude toward her work in movies was evident in the interview. "I didn’t like any of them. It was for the money, honey." Her nonchalance was perhaps evidence of a previous run-in with a famous person: "Maybe I just didn’t have the temperament for stardom.I’ll never forget seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton in Madrid. I went up to her and said, ‘Miss Davis, I’m Ava Gardner and I’m a great fan of yours.’ And do you know, she behaved exactly as I wanted her to behave. ‘Of course you are, my dear,’ she said. ‘Of course you are.’ And she swept on. Now that’s a star."

Gardner abhorred what fame had brought her. After the failure of her first and second marraiges, and the cuckoldry that ensued between her and the observed of all observers, pipulistic and hopeless libertine, Frank Sinatra, it seemed that all the limelight had brought her was unwelcome surveillance. The bill-and-cooers met while Sinatra was still married, during a lower point of his career. In any case, the paparazzi still stuck to him like lips on a whistle.© Given the Gardner’s piquant and Sinatra’s magnetism, the dalliance received much media interest, and Catholic interference. Some church members suggested that Sinatra’s records and Ava’s movies be boycotted. This was damaging to Frank, or Francis, as Gardner tenderly referred to him, but did little to impact her career. Of course, gossip continued to flourish alongside and against the relationship.

The mesalliance that occurred between vir et uxor, established in 1951, was to be known as the romance of the century. Gardner said that the marriage did not change the relationship, though, and querulousness of the two was not undone. She later dumped him, though she admitted in her interview that he would call her during intermission and talk and sing to her for hours on the telephone. Also a statue of Gardner was given to Sinatra, and it stayed in his yard and his general vicinity even into his next marriage, before the new wife told him to remove it. Gardner also revealed that after her death in 1990 of bronchial pneumonia Sinatra locked himself in a room for three days lamenting over the loss of her life and his loss of her love.

Before and after Gardner’s move to spain following a messy breakup and unwanted aftereffects yeilded by unimaginable personal interference by the press, Gardner’s craft fait accompli, and at the culmination of her career over five decades she had a fructification of nearly 70 film and television spots, even if in middle-age she had only worked on films intermittently and with third-tier directors. Ava was cast sometimes because of her unforced style of acting and her exquisite lovelyness. While she was seen by some as a genious believable actress- "I have only one rule abour acting- trust the director and give him heart and soul-’’Gardner was often viewed by critics as a slinky glamour girl with no acting talent. In anycase, Gardner was somewhat reflective of her role in the somewhat anachronistic The Barefoot Contessa, in which her character Maria remains unimpressed by the onslaught of stardom.

Posthumously, Ava Gardner is still as jejune and mesmeric as can be remembered, and in her own words is still "deep down, pretty superficial."

I WATCH

not birds.... well, I would if it weren't winter...

anyhow..


GREAT NEWS IN THE REALM OF FILMERY!
word...?

My favourite series; being J.K.Rowlings, Libba Bray, and of Stephenie meyer; all are in movie production points.
Of course, harry Potter is no secret by any means, but Stephenie Meyer's Twilight is in casting phase: with Robert Pattison as the godlike Edward, and Kristen Stewart as Bella. Summit is producing. I am satisfied with the casting list, Robert has even been in Harry Potter as Cedric Diggory- and Kristen Stewart I know from Speak, an interpretation of Speak, a great book in my opinion. I've been awaiting the production of this movie for years. A friend of mine, Sadaf, has been alongside. We read the latest installment of the series, Eclipse, together, page by page. Speaking of, my best friend also kneeled by my side as I puked out my stomach with my first bout of alcohol poisoning. Terrible However, in the worst of ways, it has shrunk my stomach, and I do foresee a loss of weight in the future. This is nearly good, as I've been teetering over 140 pounds lately- while 125 lbs. is my ideal weight at my height. I have steadily been gaining weight over the past two years, due to bouts of gluttony. Argghh.

Well, now I can't stand to eat much more than a dark chocolate kiss when it comes to snacking, and fruit is the only thing on the menu at any other time.

The other in pre-production is A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray, whose livejournal can be found through a link on my page. Witty. There isn't a cast list yet, but I'll be checking iMDB every so often...



So other additions to my christmas wishlist are movies: Factory Girl, Harry Potter Series, The Black Balloon, The Strangers, Pink Pyjamas, Marie Antoinette, Alamorisse(one of his films, that is), Juno( i love Michael! as do many others...), Candy.

<3

TODAY I AM DYING

I feel in a literal sense I am coming apart. Like the trees lost their leaves in autumn, my hair follows suit. For a while, I was reminsicent of a Beatle, now I’ve embraced a look of corporate, less corporeal. (I first encountered the word corporeal whilst reading a Harry Potter book, about summoning a patronus, and of what caliber it was siphoned into Harry’s world.) I remember sitting in a beautician’s chair for the first time in nearly four years, to have someone else cut my hair. Seeing hair fall on my sleeves and then to the floor with a brush of my hand was something surreal. Strangely enough, I have been toying with the idea of dying my hair platinum blonde. Now I feel a little ironic. Will my head next resemble the snows of the season? I am a little behind the times.
Time is a disgustingly elusive idea. I tapped into this in another column, and I’ve begun wondering again. There is a picture, here, in my mind, of how it works. The job now is to translate it.
I’ve consulted my magical thesaurus. This wonder of man has below a single entry, in this, Time, the links to all the possible interperitations of the word you could think of. Or in any case, of that Mr. Roget could think.
Time, as a noun, has several synonyms, my favourite of which are quotes from authors and philosphers. "The author of authors" in accordance of Francis Bacon, "a short parenthesis in a long period" in accordance with Donne, and "the soul of the world" according to Pythagoras.
None really suit my needs. Then again, I’m not entirely sure what these supposed ‘needs’ are. (Oh, I’d like to warn those people who’ve not yet read or listened to any of my literature: Due to a very unfortunate wiring of my brain, I’m prone to using language loosely, I like to manipulate words to the point of incoherency. So, I beg that you churn water for a while and go with the flow.)
I think this may be because time, in concept, surpasses my imagination. Like the concept of a boundless universe, and even Parallel existence, alternative universes, infinity; all of these I can fantasize about, but never really understand. Even the idea of the mind, and memory is quite beyond me. But those are for other columns.
Time is the most profound of human perceptions.
I am really a pretentious creature, and want to sound really impressive in my writing, so I researched some theories of time, and find all of them out of sync with mine. They suggest that time is a tangible property of the universe, "Under such a conception, time is scalar ( scalar = weight ) and quite passive. It only supplements the spatial arena, against which the events of the universe are played out. Owing to one scalarity of time, in the equations of theoretical mechanics the future is not separated from the past;" not because I need layman’s terms is it that I don’t understand this explanation, but the general theory that time can be discovered by geometric devices and differentiated from space intervals, and the suggestion that time can be predicted in units, are both beyond the capacity of my ego.
I cannot comprehend time in units: those being seconds and hours and days. Those are all earthly products of mathematics, which is another of those theories I’ve never come to grasp. Time is self imposed. The passage of human perception can’t be sliced into periods. Right?
To encapsulate the idea that the world is how we view it, I borrow another quote: "Reality, like time, is partial to the observer." Myself, I don’t know if this is a word for word review, or how unconventional it is to quote from a movie(In this case, that movie is Contact. Terribly good and boggling). In this ‘quote’, the main focus is reality, but work with me. If different people view the world in different ways, then it is obvious that time, to one, can be a contradiction to another. If this is, and I’m sure it might, then why do we constrict ourselves to one measure? And such an ignorant measure, at that! The sun is used to measure days and thereby hours. But it can never be equal. Imagine the earth is not the only planet in this universe with conscious beings. I doubt the other planets with life move around a star and turn over at the same rate. Does that mean time moves differently for them? Or am I even going too far to say that all other life forms even find it necessary to measure time? Where does this leave knowledge, or the idea of a definite passage of events? Can we say there is such a thing if everything is relative and a contradiction? Multiple perceptions of the passage of time contradict and exclude each other. Perhaps this is to show that the true existence of time outside the mind is nonexistent.
What exists is a process of life, and of living, and experiences that happen during. A process that reduces things to chaos. Entropy. This is not time. Time is not an entity to be measured, or a container of events. Past, Present, and Future I find to be neither nor. The other is the same. Together they are nothing. The past was once the future, and was at a point the present. What is now thought of as the future will be present and past again and what is the present is nonexistent. And yet…
I once heard or read that the sky of night that we look upon is only an image of the actual sky a million years in the past, as it takes a millino years or so for the ligh to reach the earth, or something. And a million years in the future, anything that looks into the sky will see what is happening now. So, what then takes precidence and is therefor the present?
This is discombobulation to the extreme.
I am perplexed by us, as in the human species including me, that we are perpetually seeking order through time, an illusion, a medium of chaos. As I approach 1,1150 words I observe that time, as we govern it, can be thought of as a sort ribbon without beginning or end, continuously existing as idea, but without encomassing any ability to elicit a response in the material universe. In this way, events should take place outside of time, but, because we insist apon it, with the aide of time. I mean, isn’t an event a perception of an effect of a cause? Time is active in shaping our perception of life, and therfor death, which in some ways, is the essence of our world.
Today I am dying…

ETSY, I LOVE

http://www.etsy.com/
a place to buy and sell all things homemade!!

this is a better than ebay i think. which i recently got: ajafrank. haven't started selling yet. I'm not yet sure how to go about shipping and all that fun stuff.

look at this great dress i found. 75$

I'm not buying it, but maybe you are? about size 6-8. seller: interrobang.

or this great shirt by seller circularaccessories:

or tricoteuse's wonderful wrap:

this is a site to mark.

A STOLEN INTERVIEW...

Name: Aja
Blog name: An Eclectic Left of Center
Finish this sentence: "My Blog is" … about bits of life, fashion, myself. I plan to start doing a ‘what I wore’ thing so I can share my own style. Maybe stop sounding so much like a weird 42yr. Old man.
Finish this sentence: "My own style is" … underdeveloped. I don’t like to wear the same outfit twice, which is hard to do on my budget! I do follow some trends, but there is something always off about me. I like to think I dress unusually with usual items. Must be my demeanor…Also- I can never throw away clothes, so it looks like I have a big wardrobe, but really ahlf the stuff I can’t bring myself to wear. I keep thinking one day I’ll be inspired to rennovate them, or wear them in a new way.
Do you usually change your look (clothes or hairstyle)? I’m forever changing my hair. In fact, I revently cut my hair VERY short, so to make it a little more interesting I’m thinking of doing a bit of old Agyness Deyn with the white-blond cut.
Favourite item in your wardrobe: A scarf from Peru from Father, a scarf from Spain from Mother.
What would you never wear? A waterbra. Oh the horror stories!
Favourite Autumn Winter 2007/2008 Collection: but it is so wearble and most important, versatile.
Favourite Designer: YSL, Dior, and Chanel. Those will remain forever classics. I enjoy watching Betsy Johnson shows though like being on drugs without the drugs.
This season Must-Have Leather: A warm coat!
An accessory you cant live without: A necklace. Most frequently being a plain chain holding my keys. I’m sucha scatterbrain!
A trend to adopt: I personally like to go a day, about once a month, going to school in a very boring, unfashionable outfit. A.K.A. old flare jeans, tshirt that barely hides your midriff, stupid looking hair. Corny as it sounds, it really makes me appreciate people who dress well, including myself!
Do you wear make up everyday? Probably.
What make up product (s) you can't live without? L’Oriel mascara in the gold tube that looks like those children lightsaver swords. I have short eyelashes, and that always works well.
Do you change fragrances regularly? I usually stick to something warm, like vanilla. I love old scents, Lemon Verbosa, grandma-y smells.
Who is your favourite fashion icon? The Olson twins are great. Ava Gardner.
Do you have a favourite Model? Me! Oh yes, I am an aspiring model. I can always appreciate Kate Moss though.
Best Top Model ever: Agyness Deyn probably because I saw picture of her as a younger ‘tween’ and felt hope. She has great style herself..
If you had to choose a year to live, from the last century, what would it be and why? Transition from 50’s to 60’s. I still want to travel to the 20’s and steal a bunch of things from that decade. Brilliant!
Do you have any beauty secrets you want to share? This will sound weird, but cleaning my ears always makes me feel cleaner, fresher, prettier. Looking into someone’s ears and seeing stuff in there is just…. Disgusting.
You never leave home without: forgetting something.
Last fashion purchase: A very very very very soft grey turtle neck.
What music is playing in your Ipod? If I had an Ipod the first thing I would download would be Simon and Garfunkel then everything else.
Favourite restaurant in your city? La Senorita, they have the best salsa for chips, and the atmosphere is authentic.
Favourite foreign city/country? Paris. For the art and the people. Though Dheli /Copenhagen are my first travel destinations.
Hobbies: Mime.
Favourite song: Under The Boardwalk. google the artist, I have dialup internet and I'm tired.

SORRY, I'VE BEEN A BUSY BEE.

Listening to Lily Allen as of the moment.
Who, I’d like to say, I discovered much earlier than all the tabs and mediagoers.
One of the only musicians I’ve found that have actually become international famous. The next I expect to make is Those Dancing Days. Er’body loves a little bit of Sweden.

The recent weekend was spent with twenty members from our school’s theatre programme at the International Thespian Society Festival on the State level. Gov. Granholm has made December 1st Thespian day, which really is exciting. At this festival I discovered my love for mime, what I’ve been calling my modern ballet is actually this- a more ambiguous form. So I’ve booked mime school over the summer. My friend, Skylar, mentioned in a previous post about borrrowing from your grandmother, were in both mim eowrkshops (three hours) and find ourselves still sore today. We were pretty ‘badass’ as she kept whispering while we were moving without ambition mindlessly. Visualizing orbs resting on our shoulders, confronting eachothers, taking them. No eye contact. Creating a sculpture with other persons. Michael Lee from Opus Mime was our instructor. Fascinating person. Maybe he’ll let me be understudy or something in his company. To practice mime in the meantime I’ll be moving to sounds of The Knife- great techno. You really must check out.

More news- Mom lost her job so we’re most likely moving sometime- new state- depending on Friend of the Court. I never ever see my Dad anymore anyway so I don’t know what the big deal will be. I miss him a bit but not anything he says or does. Not haivng a dad really is a bummer. Hopefully a friend will just take me in because moving so close to my graduation might turn into a disaster. Unfortunately a loss of job resulted in loss of holiday presents- and grad. Presents, and a loss of car insurance on my tinker toy. So now I can’t get a job because I haven’t got transportation. And I’ll be riding to school with mom so early in the morning because stubborn me I refuse to ride the school bus. It is so unhygienic. I really prefer to smell human rather than like some organism spawned form a cesspool while at school, thankyou very much! How great. Too bad, because I think it was a notebook, which I was lookin forward too. Wireless internet is faster than the dial-up virus ridden computer at home. Maybe now I can see pictures, imagine!!

Great accomplishment really in school recently- the skeleton key has been made a copy of. So now I have access to anyhtin I’d like. Luckily for the system, I don’t really steal. I just love to explore and have adventures with friends.

And always about fashion, I am. I haven’t been to the local Goodwill lately, unfortunately, which is really like agoldmine here. We get leftovers from Target and it’s really quite easy to slip things into an oversized bag. With student discount I add bogus amounts to a wardrobe for bogus amounts of air supply.

My ocusin’s nineteenth birthday is the ninth, and I’m working on thinking of something special for her/us to do.

Also I’ve got to crank out a fabulous sculpture for my art teacher in two days, for an international show, as my clay at home dried up over the weekend, I think I’ll do something abstrat, maybe my ear. Or baby sister’s.

Songs I’m working on for performance as of the moment: Glitter and Be Gay from Candide, and Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute. Believe it or not, Glitter is mmuch more difficult than the other. I’ve got a range but my control on slurred runs is something to improve on.

More later perhaps. Free hour second hour = blogging.