shoes!

Following on from my last post:

omg, I have bought the amazing frock, and I have bought the amazing HAT. I've never owned a proper British HAT before and I feel all grand and grown-up, like yer proper English lady. It has a HAT BOX!!

I've rethought the strappy sandal issue. I just can't walk in those things. Instead, I may get gold bar shoes!

Such as these ones here from Office.

( image of the gold bar shoes )

Oh, and I can't believe that I bought myself some self-tanning lotion for my legs... *facepalms* But I did.

hindi lessons

Oh, and in non-fashion related news: I'm starting Hindi lessons next Thursday with a lovely gentleman from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages whom I had an initial meeting with today. I went and bought myself the requisite book and I am very excited!

Who needs to move across half the world to Stanford if excitement is to be had right here on one's doorstep?

Also (more excitement, this time literally on my doorstep): as we haven't been able to sell our house due to this stupid credit crisis, we are having an interior designer come and stage our house. Yes! Just like they do in America!! She came by today and she was really great and stylish and went through every room and showed me Befores and Afters of her other clients.

Soon, I will be able to understand the un-subtitled lyrics of Hindi films!!! This is a phenomenally cool prospect. I haven't formally learned a new language since 1991 (Czech), and 18 years is just too long to go without. Waste of brain cells!!

I saw Awaara last night, a Hindi film of 1951, made before Bollywood was invented. It was gorgeous and sweet and I love the chemistry of the famous superstars of yesteryear who were also 'real-life' lovers: Nargis / Raj Kapoor. He is like a sexier Clark Gable: smouldering, dark and handsome. (And seeing I find Clark Gable already rather sexy, you can imagine what I mean by 'sexier'.)



( bigger Nargis/Raj Kapoor )

Aren't they stunning? And stunningly photographed. I find it so interesting, given present-day Bollywood's predilection for high-key lighting and a rainbow of colours, that the 1940s and 1950s films had very Expressionist cinematography. They also, given today's tendency towards fantasy and over-the-topness, had quite socialist, class-conscious plot lines. While preserving the most heartmelting melodrama and love.

Indian (movie) men seem much more Romantic than Western ones. In another Raj Kapoor / Nargis film Barsaat (1947) there is a scene that is lit with sparkles and otherworldly lighting and blossom effects, where Nargis has her head in Raj Kapoor's lap, and he is so overwhelmed with melancholic love, that crystal tears from his eyes drip onto her cheek. Whoa!

P.S. In that picture above, btw, they are gazing at the full moon. *sighs*