Dream in Flashes is old and weary. 

Leave it behind.

Come and see

Someone I Saw Today.

I Would, Coco

Today I went to see Coco Avant Chanel and it's left me with three burning desires: to own a black, quilted bag (Chanel, natch!), to steal a sailor's stripy T-shirt, and to go immediately to Paris. Sadly however all three of these pursuits seem, at present, totally unfeasible. The first due to finances, the second to the law and the physical problems a 5'5" girl may face when trying to capture a burly sailor, and the third due to so many boring factors like time and money that to even think of them depresses me.

However, despite leaving me frustrated and sad as I sit in my little northern room and contemplate the intangibility of such dreams, the film itself is just lovely. In fact, it is almost impossibly chic: the pretty music, the divine clothes, the beautiful locations, Audrey Tautou and her portrayal of Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, all are quintessentially, nearly indescribably French. It even has subtitles which is both refreshing and reminiscent of the French approach to Eurovision in which they invariably (and quite rightly) stick two fingers up to us and the rest of Europe by refusing to sing in any language other than their own.

From the feline gorgeousness and intrinsic charm of the delectable Mademoiselle Tautou, to the clothes (oh! the clothes!), bypassing the aesthetically unremarkable men, and accompanied by the sumptuous soundtrack, Coco Avant Chanel is a delight not only for the ears and eyes, but the very souls of lovely people everywhere.

If you're not remotely bothered about fashion but being dragged along to see it don't worry because Audrey's, like, super hot so you get to be in good books with your nearest and dearest and watch her at the same time. But if you're not remotely interested in fashion, and you don't fancy Audrey even a little bit then maybe don't bother, just stay at home and do something you do like, like playing World of Warcraft or Risk instead.

For the lovely ones:
Alexandre Desplat: Chez Chanel, Coco & Boy
Audrey Tautou et Marie Gillain: Qui Qua Vu Coco?

For the others: An afternoon well spent

The Invisible Bands

So I did a post yesterday and it's gone, vanished into thin air never to be seen again. Alas! But anyway, it was about a band called Land of Talk and a man called Patrick Watson and the fact that they both have delicious voices that are almost multi-layered, as if they're singing one note with another caught and held at the back of their throat like a secret. And though the songs and pictures and things aren't here anymore they're still just as lovely and you should still go find them and love them like I do.

The Lovely Land of Talk

The Perfect Patrick Watson

This Song Is So Perfect...

... Its Dreamlike Status Needs No Explanation.

Duels: The Healing.

The Boy, The Sin, The Jacket

This glimmer of a dream, like the last, is one borne of jealousy. Jealousy is without a shadow of a doubt, unashamedly and even sometimes dramatically, my favourite sin. I mean, it's obviously the sexiest. Think about it. The Seven Deadly Sins are at a party: Sloth's slumped in the corner, all sagging cheeks, pallid face and dull eyes; Gluttony's bent, gross and corpulent, over a feast which he stuffs unthinkingly into his mouth, smearing his face and hands with grease; Greed plays poker, twirling his curly moustache and salivating at the sight of the mound of chips on the table, his sinister, cheshire cat-like grin growing greater with every successful hand; Pride struts, cool and indifferent, amidst the throng, all insinuations of beauty marred by an unbecoming arrogance; Lust (the one you no doubt would expect to be the sexiest) is desperate, leering, almost drooling at the sight of all the lithe, nubile young bodies on display; and Wrath's screaming, red faced, menacing and frothy, at nothing and everything. But Jealousy's smouldering in a dark corner, peering constantly through lustrous, lively eyes and muttering cruel words through scarlet lips. One seriously sexy sin, Jealousy's slinky in a tight, emerald, silk dress with long, dark, glossy hair and killer heels (probably literally!) And if the little sexpot ever wore a jacket, it would be this one:
From All Saints, this leather jacket retains something of the olden days of the brand, before footballers got their grubby little paws on it and the sales assistants stopped being models and started being... erm, sorry, what's a PC term for chav? Combining grunge and rock without so much as dipping a button in the murky waters of indie boy wannabe (so prevalent in today's fashion culture it has its own shop) this jacket is as close to perfection as the British highstreet gets. And sadly once again, as seems to happen so frequently with things I adore but can never afford, someone's beaten me to it. This time, the boy. And so, alas, I must live forevermore in a state of envy. Or for a few weeks at least, until the sacred aura of intangibility that always radiates from new clothes has worn off. Then I can thieve it. And wear it with a little pink frilly tutu-thing like Alexa Chung. Yes!

Adore All Saints here.
Worship the boy here.

The Manic Street Preachers: Miss Europa Disco Dancer (the boy's self-imposed soundtrack for him and the jacket.)
Franz Ferdinand: No You Girls (the soundtrack I imposed on the boy and his jacket, if only for the first two words.)

Girl With A Nice Necklace

This:
is a picture of one of my favourite girls ever. Not least because, through the magic of photoshop, she now looks like a Japanese cartoon character. Or because, when talking of Lady Gaga yesterday, she said 'she's awful, but somehow you always wake up hungover and she's on your iPod having been drunkenly downloaded because, secretly, you like her'. No, she's one of my dreams in flashes because of an item of her jewellery. You can't see it on the photo, mostly because it's a really poor quality one (but still lovely, I hope you'll agree), but she has this amazing Vivienne Westwood necklace.

It's just one of many of her things that I'm hopelessly jealous of, but it may be the one I'd like the most. If only to say I owned something Vivienne Westwood. And to get her back for buying every bag I've ever wanted. Ever.

Buy lots of lovely Vivienne Westwood things here.

Lady Gaga: Beautiful Dirty Rich

Dreams, Moons, Flashes and Swoons

The hopelessness expressed in March transformed first to laziness then to apathy to the result that nothing has since been achieved in the world of Dream in Flashes. However, yesterday I came up with a plan. Rather than just being a sort of vague blog about nothing in particular, Dream in Flashes will henceforth be a series of dreams in flashes, or brief glimpses of things I desire.
The first of these is a person: Joseph Arthur.
I first came across him as a young teenager when his song In the Sun provided the soundtrack for a Davidoff Echo advert which just so happened to feature the most beautiful creature I had ever clapped eyes on.

Arthur appeared for a second time later in my teens via (shamefully) the first soundtrack for The O.C. which featured Honey and the Moon and propelled him to a semi-famous state as girls everywhere swooned to his gently rasped, heartbreakingly tender lyrics and wished that they, like his subject, had someone wanting to run away with them.
Then, last night, I saw Joseph Arthur at Manchester's Deaf Institute where, ensconced in gloriously cool surroundings (which featured everything from chic avian-themed wallpaper, to red velvet and gigantic glitter balls) he provided 30 minutes of cleverly-looped pieces of musical heaven. Sadly this was short lived as he was joined for the majority of the show by his lonely astronauts (G. Wiz, the drummer, a hot totty guitarist and ex-model (no, really!), bra-less wonder, bassist Sibyl Buck) who with a shriek and a shoulder wiggle (both Buck) prodded, pricked, then totally ruined Arthur's carefully woven, beautifully intimate atmosphere.
The prospect of meeting Arthur after the show produced the usual effect that meeting people who write beautiful things (i.e. Ed Harcourt) has on me: hyperventilation. However, after 20 minutes of dithering, trying to think of something nice and clever to say, and after finally being forced to talk to him by an annoying Mancunian who couldn't dance, everything was ok. I'd even go so far as to say we got on rather well. And for this reason, and for the perfection of Can't Exist, the strangely attractive, mysterious Joseph Arthur has become the very first of my dreams in flashes.

Honey and the Moon (live at The Deaf Institute, 21/07/09)
'Can't Exist'