when i'm down and i feel like giving up, i think again, i whip my hair back and forth

It's much more than just a hair flip (that would be too Bieberesque) - it's a hair whip. Apparently it's quite hard to master, because there are instructions how to do it properly. If you don't feel like reading (and really - who ever does these days?), then just take some pointers from the women who have done it right

The supermodel spawn of Keith Richards and Patti Hansen, the uber cool Theodora Richards

I don't know about y'all, but whenever I'm nude from the waist down in the middle of a meadow, I love whipping my hair

Jane Birkin, who possessed the most lusted-after locks of the sixties, put her enviable head of hair to good use

The lovely Lauren Hutton in the pages of Vogue during the sixties

Amanda Seyfried is cleverly masked behind her cascade of blonde curls

Dakota Fanning tries her hand (or head, more precisely) at the whip

Like Theodora Richards, Georgia May Jagger is the daughter of a Rolling Stone (care to guess which one?) and his supermodel spouse (his former wife Jerry Hall)

Kate Moss whips and flips effectively in her Topshop campaign

She's portrayed Brigitte Bardot and been the Marianne of France, but Laetitia Casta faced her most difficult challenge of her career when she was asked to whip back and forth

The fashion house Lanvin certainly knows what the modern day woman wants - ferocious dresses and headbanging good fun - as revealed in their Spring 2011 campaign

A beautiful photograph by Lina Scheynius

Patti Hansen, alongside her then-beau Keith Richards, attending one of Bebe Buell's concerts

A strikingly non-short haired Twiggy, captured by Richard Avedon, in one of my favorite photographs ever

A young Jane Fonda does her best bombshell impression

A Janis Joplin-inspired shoot for Fashion Rocks Magazine

I was on the search for the "unbelievable" (according to a Facebook group dedicated to it) hair flip made by Gaga in the "Video Phone" video. Alas, I could not find an image. But, as you can see, Gaga hair tosses are not an uncommon phenomenon. 

The lovely Jane Birkin, in the book Birds of Britain

Gossip Girl starlet Leighton Meester (with locks like that, is it any surprise she's a spokesmodel for Herbal Essences?) 

Ann-Margret shows off her moves - and catches the eye of all the fellahs - in Bye Bye Birdie

The woman nine-year-old who started it all: Willow 

I love this dreamy video of Lily Donaldson, captured by her father, photographer Matthew Donaldson. A two-second, 360 degree hair spin is slowed down to a hypnotic degree, turning the brief moment into a 1,000-frames-per-second work of art. 

Title: from "Whip My Hair" (Willow Smith)

the exploding plastic inevitable

I can be a little dense at times, a little out of the loop. In this particular case, I was very out of the loop. The wonderful Smashingbird gave me the Plastic Joy Award. Only, she gave it to me in April. The Plastic Joy Award is a fun little thing where a blogger selects five or more characters from film or television who they would most like to bump uglies with. Well, I say better late than never, especially when it comes to things as fun to do as this! Without further ado, here are the five characters I would most love to love: 

Cary Grant as T.R. Devlin in Notorious

Cary Grant was always so smooth, so suave, so unnervingly elegant that it was almost too much to bear at times. There is no choice but to swoon over him. This is why I love him as the hardened, jaded government agent Devlin - he is the hero of the story, but he isn't an obviously likable guy. He falls in love with Ingrid Bergman's character, Alicia Huberman, the alcoholic daughter of a Nazi scientist, but is too hardened to admit his feelings to a woman of such ill-repute. Their kiss - which last for minutes but is broken up into shorter kisses in order to pass through the Hays Code - is absolutely delirious. There is a scene mid-way through the film where the two meet up at the horse races under the watchful eye of Alicia's new husband - when she begins to cry, he stares straight ahead and says emotionlessly "Dry your eyes, baby - it's out of character." I don't know why, but it kills me every time. 

Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire

I read somewhere that you should watch On the Waterfront if you want to fall in love with Brando, and A Streetcar Named Desire if you want to fall in lust. It's easy to see why - he wears skin-tight tee shirts half the time (and the other half of the time, he's shirtless!) While I'm not too fond of the brutish behavior, I love his rare moments of remorse and tenderness. When he screams "Stellaaaaa!" from the bottom of his neighbor's staircase, he begins to cry, thinking he has lost the love of his life, and then drops to the floor in self-disgust when she slowly walks down to him. I remember watching this scene in a high school English class about five times in a row (I guess I wasn't the only one who was done in by Stanley).  

Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I think this reveals something rather unsettling about my personality. I don't know what it is (his fishnet-clad gams, perhaps?) but I just find Dr. Frank-N-Furter to be really attractive. If in some other dimension, we do end up hooking up - at least I can pick his brain afterward about lingerie and makeup tips. 

Ed Westwick as Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl

Why? Because he's Chuck Bass. 

Though my father finds him to be absolutely smarmy, I adore Chuck Bass. He has shattered all different stereotypes (before GG, I think we all could confidently say we didn't know a man could wear so much purple and baby pink and be such a committed womanizer), all the while being the most loveable ass on the planet. He's the only character who can get away with simply uttering his name as an excuse for his behavior (and have it not be followed by "... and I'm an alcoholic / drug addict / bag of douche.") His voice - coupled with the fact that it was patterned after that of Carlton Banks - truly does me in. 

Sean Connery as Mark Rutland in Marnie

Yes, he found the woman who robbed his company to be alluring rather than troubled. Yes, he blackmailed that same woman (Tippi Hedren, as the title character) into marriage with threatening to expose her kleptomaniacal ways. Yes, he also rapes her on their honeymoon. But other than that, I think he's a dream. I don't know, I guess I just have a thing for emotionally-vacant, strange men ... at least when it comes to the fictional ones. 

Ted Neeley as Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar

I can't figure out if wanting to bone Jesus in this movie means that I'm going to hell .... or if it means I'm a really awesome Christian. It's a very fine line. Also, I'll refrain from making the same joke that one of my friends (who was atheist) made about him being 'well-hung on the cross'. Because yeah, that's crossing a line.

Here are the blogstars I award the same plastic joy to (but I encourage everyone to do it - it's quite fun!):

Lost Muse

Glamoretta

Musings & Inspiration

You've Got the Silver

Beatle Girls

Retro Active Critiques

when you see the view from the eiffel tower, the paris skyline at dark, then you'll understand that we've travelled too many miles to stay apart

Nothing says Paris like La Tour Eiffel (The Eiffel Tower, to you who can't speak French as sophisticatedly as I ... I only joke, poorly). In movies or television shows where the character runs off to Paris find his or herself (it's usually a gorgeously petite gamine), the Eiffel Tower is always within eyesight. The tower is always the first thing that the heroine sees - she looks up from behind the window of her taxicab, and with just one look from her big doe eyes, her faith in love is restored. So when I first went to Paris at thirteen, I was disappointed when I look out our hotel window and saw a lovely, but Tower-less, view. Finally, after a few days in Paris, my family and I went for lunch at the tower's restaurant. I couldn't find anything on the menu that was meat-free so the chef made a special vegetarian meal for me. Goodness, I've never had vegetables roasted and whipped that were so delicious. I don't know if it was the meal itself, or if it was the wonderful feeling of being in Paris, speaking my broken middle school-French to my fluent parents and waiters, or the fact that the chef had deigned little old me worthy enough for a special meal - but it was probably one of the best meals I had ever had. 

Over the years there have been many thinkers, writers, architects, and the like who have expressed their dislike of the French monument. William Morris once said that he ate a meal in the Eiffel Tower's restaurant everyday because it was the only place in Paris to eat without seeing "that hideous tower." 

While I appreciate the humor of the anecdote, I disagree with it. I belong to the hopeless Romantic group of believers who find something magical there, regardless of how corny and obvious it is. (But we are also the ones who are in our twenties and would still drop every thing at a moment's notice to go to Disneyland). The girlish excitement I feel when I see the Eiffel Tower hasn't waned since I was thirteen. 

Even the TomKat proposal didn't spoil the place for me - actually that may have been the first and only time I ever approved of anything that couple ever did (except for having Suri - apparently Suri is exactly like I was at four-years-old, according to my mother, so I obviously adore the child). 

What has now become a cliche tourist pose was once so charming in the early 20th century

I've already expressed my love of An Education on this site, but I thought the scene where Jenny and David went to Paris was the ultimate

Audrey Hepburn with Fred Astaire, her costar in Funny Face

Many of Audrey's film alter egos live in or travel to Paris. Here she is with her costar from Paris When I Sizzles, William Holden. The previous movie they were in together, Sabrina, Audrey goes to Paris and comes back a new woman

Here are Audrey and William again 

Brigitte Bardot, posing on an overcast and cloudy day with the tower distantly seen in the background 

The gorgeous Dita Von Teese, already familiar with the lushly decadent and gorgeous, poses in perhaps the most lovely photo I've seen in quite a while 

The Eiffel Tower in the rain

Yes, even Gossip Girl has visited the Eiffel Tower. What would a summer in Paris be without Blair Waldorf contemplating life and love with an array of pastries and a clear view of the tower?

Imagine waking up to that view every morning ...

"Eiffel saw his Tower in the form of a serious object, rational, useful; men return it to him in the form of a great baroque dream which quite naturally touches on the borders of the irrational." - Roland Barthes, The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies

Francoise Hardy poses on an uncharacteristically vacant morning in the park in front of the tower

Another gorgeous photo of Francoise around Paris

"... The Tower must escape reason. The first condition of this victorious flight is that the Tower be an utterly useless monument." - Roland Barthes

Catherine Deneuve poses for a photo in 1976 for photographer Helmut Newton

A very neat photograph of lightning striking the Eiffel Tower in 1908

A shot from Sylvain Chomet's scene of Paris, Je T'aime in front of the tower

One of my favorite actresses, Romy Schneider 

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon costar in The Great Race (1965)

The Beatles in Paris during their three-week engagement at the Olympia Theatre

"Paris has the Arc, Paris has the dome, Paris has a sense of style you'll never find in Rome. Paris has the springtime sun for every flower, but Paris would not be the same without the Eiffel Tower" - Madeleine, Madeleine at the Eiffel Tower

"I haven't seen the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre. I haven't seen anything. I don't really care." - Tyra Banks

Don't be like Tyra!