This is Halloween, Nah-nah-nah

(pic from this here tumblr)

Happy Halloween everybody!

Eat all the darn candy you want! I'll just be sitting here jealous with my left cheek puffed up smothering my face in frozen peas and popping pills since I just got my freaking wisdom teeth pulled, but you know what? That's ok. Cause I got the day off work today. And I get to hand out candy to freaking trick or treaters, assuming we get any, but we BETTER cause I actually bought the candy this time! And I'm excited. (I've never handed out candy to trick or treaters before, tee-hee). And they're all gonna be like, "Your face is kinda lopsided, lady" and "Who's this crazy lady giving us Almond Joys, who even likes Almond Joys?" But man, I'm excited. Excited! 

I'm gonna keep it low key this year, just wear a random combination of black clothes and throw on a witch hat and call it good. I'll post pics if I feel brave enough to show you all my lopsided face. ^_^

Hope you all have fun!

Nostalgic 90's

This may be a lesser known fact about me, but I love 90's music.

It's kinda funny because even though I was alive in the 90's, I wasn't old enough to appreciate the music or culture yet, so why, I often ask myself, do I like 90's music so much?

I guess I should clarfiy, when I say 90's music I'm referring to mostly Brit-pop/rock and Japanese rock:, bands like The Cure, The Cranberries, L'Arc en Ciel, Raphael, Penicillin... etc. As I was getting back into the jrock and visual kei scene a few years ago, I noticed that I didn't really like a lot of the newer bands like I did the 90's bands (with the HUGE exception of Versailles). Even though the 90's bands were plagued by pixelly and blurry video footage, poor audio quality recordings, and oftentimes looked like tacky drag queens with 80's style bangs, I just loved the melodic, reverby and dream-like sound of their music.

And the other day as I was the listening to the Cure, I realized that it's not just something specific to Jrock, but that all the 90's rock bands I like have a similar sound. And I can't help but wonder, do you think the 90's will ever be a "thing"? Like right now some 80's trends are coming back, but will we ever see the 90's come back? Or more specifically, the part of the 90's that I loved?

Just some musings on a Thursday morning.

h. Naoto Grand Opening

So I went to the h. Naoto store's grand opening event last weekend in San Francisco. They were having a free gallery exhibit showcasing costumes that h. Naoto had designed for famous Japanese musicians (including Gackt, Hakuei, and X Japan!). At first I wasn't sure if I should go, or how much I would enjoy it - it was just costumes, and not the actual musicians themselves, so would it really be that interesting? But then I made myself imagine, "Would I be excited to see one of Mana's costumes in real life, even if it was just the costume and not Mana himself?" And then I realized I'd be all over that, so that sealed the deal for me. XD;

And I'm so glad I went!

Naturally, you couldn't take pictures of anything inside, but they had these wreaths outside with notes from various celebrities, congratulating h. Naoto for opening his first store in America, which I eagerly took pictures of.

Among them were wreaths from Hyde (L'Arc en Ciel), Gackt, Yoshiki and Sugizo (X Japan), and Amy Lee (Evanescence).

The gallery was quite small, but it was not a disappointment. It was upstars from the boutique, and in a dimly lit room with a projector playing a video of models striking various poses and walking around. The costumes lined two of the walls.

(Hakuei from Penicillin, wearing h. Naoto)

They had a cape that Hakuei from Penicillin had worn for a photoshoot, it was modeled after Dracula and had nails nailed through the collar that were sticking out, and made me think of nails in a coffin. A girl that looked at it and walked by made the comment, "No hugs for him!"

They had 3 outfits that Gackt had worn: that funky white one from a photoshoot where he looks like he's wearing a schoolgirl skirt, a samurai-esque one, and the vampire-like trenchcoat he wore for the Diabolos tour. The schoolgirl outfit actually had pants under the skirt, we realized, but you couldn't tell from the photoshoot because he was kneeling down. Well, I'm glad we have that cleared up now, right?

The samurai one was very Gackt, it fit his personality and strong interest in samurai and was a samurai-punk style, but I wasn't particularly interested in it.

(Gackt, wearing h. Naoto for his Diabolos Tour)

But the Diabolos tour outfit... was... AMAZING. It was a fitted trenchcoat with a hood that was oddly wrinked/scrunched, and same with the collar. The description panel next to it (which were all written in something between English and Engrish, by the way) said the piece was trying to imitate the skin of a vampire, going for an ancient, weathered look. It was amaaaazing! And tiiiiny! I could have fit into it! I was surprised. But that was my favorite, by far.

Sugizo's outfit had these ruffles going down the front, and Yoshiki's shirt was a super tight and stretchy long sleeve white shirt that the description said was made specifically to not impede his piano playing. XD; Yoshiki's shirt was the tiniest of them all.

We looked at the clothes in the boutique for a little bit after the gallery, but I didn't get a chance to try anything on because we had to meet up with my sister's date. Probably a good thing, because I probably would have bought something that would have been bad because I would be poor and we all know I'm saving up my money for Moitie, right? ^_~

But it was so much fun! I probably helped cause I had my sister there because she has experience with clothing design and runway fashion and was able to give some good insights on the costume designs, and also I had fun trying on a skirt at Baby and talking to the salesclerk for ages XD; it was fun! I feel like sometimes I just need to go to these kinds of things, to connect my obsession with Japanese alternative culture with my own real life. With it all being so far away and my not having many friends that are into it as well, sometimes I just need to know it's real.

I remember back in the day buying the Gothic Lolita Bible magazines and flipping through them with my friends, and seeing the h. Naoto dresses, and now it's come full circle and they've opened a store here, and I went to the grand opening - it's exciting.

Well, that's my review!

Sorry if I've thrown out a lot of Gothic Lolita brandnames/terminology for ya! I love you all! <3

Art

I am obsessed with this dress.

It's from the music video for the song "Petal" by the Japanese band Art Cube. That's their singer Z who's wearing it.

This picture is a screencap I took from the video - it captures the essence of the word "art" to me.

It inspires me.

I spend a lot of my afternoons perusing Youtube for things to inspire me - inspire me to do what? I don't even know. I know, it's sad - as much as I'd like to think I'm not one of those people that lives to be entertained, I kind of am sometimes ^_^* I'm trying to get better, though, really!

Recently I've been thinking about how my favorite anime shows exhibit principles of the gospel.

I'll probably write another post on that later, though, for now it's goodnight!