Carousel: Farewell, February!

Carousel: Farewell, February!

It’s almost March and I’m getting excited! Spring is creeping ever closer and I’m aching to bust out my florals! This has been a particularly brutal Winter, and when you add Winter to a super-rough Mercury retrograde, well, it was not the best season of my life. But I’m thrilled: 2 more days of Mercury retrograde and we’re free!

Ahem. In other news, here are some of my favourite tidbits from the internet this month…

Is there any truth to Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People? Science says yes.

My Avatar, My Self is a great piece about how the public persona we create can overtake who we really are.

Are you a creatrix? Here’s Justine Musk’s take…

A creatrix can look past her own personal drama and understand how her story hooks into the bigger picture, the global system. She understands that when you change yourself, you inspire others to change, and the system has no choice but to change itself around you.

Tim Ferriss on how to get published.

Here’s a post from James Altucher, on how Louis CK and the Hare Krishnas use the same techniques to succeed… And why you should, too.

Has blogging changed? Definitely. Grace’s post on exactly how the blogging world has changed is absolutely on-the-money.

My dear friend Loulou interviewed me for her Be Your Own Magician series.

Magic is about learning to see with new eyes. It’s about flipping your perceptions and seeing the beauty. It’s connecting with the extraordinary in the everyday. And that doesn’t mean you have to do rituals or dance around with a wand in your hand: it was only last year that I realised I have been creating magic with my mind and my thoughts since I was a little girl.

Capitalism.blogspot.com, a little ditty about fashion blogging and cash.

Martha Stewart takes really ugly food photos.

From the New York Times: Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex? What do you think?

Want to know how to communicate more effectively? Here are 6 powerful tips from some of the World’s best interviewers.

It’s all over the internet, but in case you haven’t seen it, Ellen Page’s coming-out speech is definitely worth a watch.

Lindsay Botto’s post on selfie comments.

The authority people feel they have to share their opinion on my appearance is something myself and many other girls online deal with daily.

I love these Do Not Disturb signs from hotels all around the world!

Poverty taxes the brain.

People magazine won’t publish photos of celebrity children anymore. A small step towards sanity.

Soundboardt will fulfill all your Beyonce needs.

This little girl makes incredible dresses from paper.

Here’s an extensive ranking of outfits in Clueless.

Twitter, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down. Some guidelines for living online.

The net doesn’t understand that people change, and doesn’t tolerate it — all growth is seen as hypocrisy.

Emma Watson helps us to find love. This is AWESOME.

It’s what you do every day that really counts. Here’s how to be successful just by improving your routines.

Want to learn how to thrive in an attention economy? You need to read this interview between Clayton Cubitt and Kim Boekbinder.

This is so right: Rebecca Solnit on our distracted existence:

Our lives are a constant swirl of information, of emails that can be checked on phones, and phones that are checked in theatres and bedrooms, for texts and news that stream in constantly. There is so much information that our ability to focus on any piece of it is interrupted by other information, so that we bathe in information but hardly absorb or analyse it. … A restlessness has seized hold of many of us, a sense that we should be doing something else, no matter what we are doing, or doing at least two things at once, or going to check some other medium. It’s an anxiety about keeping up, about not being left out or getting behind.

Growing-up for goths. Punks grow out of it and ravers stop raving. Why do goths just carry on? Good question!

Witches flying on broomsticks? Turns out, they were hallucinating. Fascinating!

It’s official: Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People. Narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic. Well, no surprises there!

The world is an incredible place. Amusing Planet celebrates that fact.

University of Missouri now offers a class on Jay Z and Kanye West’s relationship. Huh!

Restrain Yourself. As fashion fetishizes fetish more than ever, it’s worth considering the power dynamics of our enduring obsession with bondage chic.

The universality of a love triangle. I found this one through Mystic Medusa, and it’s great!

More complex are the triangles which involve non-human companions. One partner may feel a sense of jealousy and betrayal about the other one’s dedication to work or artistic involvement or spiritual development. Such triangles can evoke exactly the same feelings of jealousy as the sexual variety. When one withdraws into a creative space, one has somehow “left” the person one lives with, and it can create enormous jealousy on the part of one’s partner. … The one thing they have in common is the component of one or another variety of love, which, in a triangle, is no longer exclusive. And when we must share someone’s love, whether with another person or with something ineffable like the imagination or the spirit, we may feel betrayed, demeaned, and bereft.

10 Ways To Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, lessons from Austin Kleon’s new book Show Your Work!

The anatomy of a magazine cover, or, why do all those terrible tabloids have yellow headlines? Now we know.

I like The Philosopher’s Mail. You might too.

If you’re hungry in the middle of the night in New York City, here are the ten best all-night restaurants. Empanada Mama, French Roast and Veselka are definitely a few of my favourites.

This diary of a custom love potion is glorious! Sounds like a Los Angeles must-do.

8 Lessons From Jeff Bezos And The Early Days Of Amazon. Awesome stuff.

Can you accelerate serendipity? YES!

Seth Godin on being an elitist:

We write history about people who were brave enough to lead, not those that figured out how to pander to the crowd. Elites aren’t defined by birth or wealth, they are people with a project, individuals who want to do work they believe in, folks seeking to make an impact. Averaging down everything we do so that it becomes cheap and ubiquitous and palatable to all is a hollow goal.

Here’s the frequency of some things in life.

If you’re still waiting to peak, relax. Major creative breakthroughs happen in your late thirties.

In Drag, It Turns Out, There Are Second Acts. I love a good RuPaul piece!

A Haunted House Snaps Photos At The Scariest Moment Of The Tour… Oh, man!

Someone donated $10,000 worth of flowers to a senior citizen home. It makes your heart melt, doesn’t it?

This Father Stood Up To The Entire Fashion Industry After Visiting A Makeup Aisle. This is one of the best things I’ve read in a while.

Choose your dream. But not from a department store shelf. Find the still-quiet place within you. A real dream has been planted there. Discover what you want to do in the world. And when you have chosen, may you faithfully pursue it, with integrity and with hope.

The Amtrak writer’s residency programme is one of the coolest ideas ever.

How dogs rescued me from an eating disorder. This one brought tears to my eyes.

Your husband doesn’t have to earn your respect… And vice versa.

When’s the last time you read Si’s blog? Still one of my favourites.

If you’re in L.A., you should definitely attend LACMA’s live read series, where famous actors do a table reading of a great movie. Most recently, they did Pulp Fiction, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Vincent Vega, Lizzie Caplan as Mia Wallace, Jonah Hill as Butch, and Seth Rogen as drug-dealer Lance. So cool.

Barbies had so much sex, back in the day.

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Mastery and The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Dealing With Haters. Yeeeeeeeees!

For some people hate and anger and bitterness and regret last for years. Sometimes the time it takes to heal a wound lasts longer than a lifetime. This is a waste of a lifetime. That’s ok also. Nobody is requiring you to have a fulfilling life. It’s totally your choice to waste your life.

On the internet’s empathy vacuum.

Things that exist: fruit salad trees!

Here are the four most-desired people in New York (according to OK Cupid).

More RuPaul awesomeness. (I loved the first episode of the new season on Monday!)

“We’re dealing with people who have been shunned by society and have made a life regardless of what anyone else thinks of them have decided,” RuPaul says. “It shows the tenacity of the human spirit, which each of us watching relates to. And we root for them. I think that’s what’s so captivating about it, seeing how these beautiful creatures have managed to prevail.”

Finally, the death of Charlotte Dawson was immensely sad. In contrast to a revolting piece published in the Herald, these are two fitting and loving stories: Little CD In A Prospect Of Flowers and Michele A’Court on Charlotte Dawson.

Love you!

Photo of Hanna Koczewska from Bizuu S/S 2014 Campaign by Lukasz Pukowiec.