New Year's Top Movies

For me January 1st is a day when I like to crawl under a warm blanket and watch the New Year's classics and finish the left overs from the New Year's Eve's party. This would be my Top 3:

200 Cigarettes

The Irony of Fate, or "Enjoy Your Bath"/Ironiya sudjbi ili s lyohkim parom!
This is a Soviet time movie which was and still is shown on the TV every New Year's Day. I love it. I'm just not sure if people who haven't lived in a Soviet Union would be able to understand the whole essence of it, but after all good cinema is a good cinema.

Bridget Jone's Diary

What about you?

Ok, time to get ready. I'm off to the New Year's Eve's party! Happy, happy 2011!

May28th

Recently I read an article in Latvian weekly magazine IR - a real dream-come-true success story of one Latvian girl named Agnija Tiļļa who started her own watch design studio May28th after moving to Canada. Her products made it to the New York Magazine and  ELLE September 2010 U.S. edition and I think that is a benchmark for yet not widely known, young designer. Each watch is one-of-a-kind and gets a "serie number" - she started the count-down from midnight and now has gotten to 9 AM. For instance this is how a 08:15AM watch looks like :)

So  this is a tribute to yet another talented compatriot of mine. I wish her a great success in the future and a lot of inspiration! And I believe my friend Vika would be very delighted to find out about this story in more details because one of her passions is wrist-watches ;)

RIGA - my beautiful city

I am home for Christmas. And my heart sings! My hometown is beautifully decorated and Christmas spirit is in the air. This video tells a little bit of history (don't mind the advertising part) and totally corresponds to the ambience these days - it is great! :)

mammalampa

I've always known that there are so many talented people among my compatriots considering the fact that we are rather small nation and here is another proof - mammalampa. I just LOVE this unique moulding of paper braids which makes one beautiful object of the interior - lamp. Inspiring :)

Decoupage encore

For those who are already dreaming of summer and staying at the beach-house :)

Self-made Christmas presents

Yet another thing which I'm enjoying myself so much lately - making earrings. And as Christmas time is almost here making such presents for your friends (well, mostly for females though) saves you from running and pushing through the shops during the pre-Christmas gift shopping craze and as I already mentioned before - gives this warm and special touch to it :)

Snow

I went to Spain last week. And before leaving I read the weather forecast for the coming week that the snow will melt by the time when I'll get back and it's gonna be rainy and gloomy for the rest of the week and it really got me upset. On that morning as I was leaving and was waiting for the bus to take me to the airport it started snowing with those big white puffy snowflakes - in fact it was a bunch of snowflakes stuck together. And once again I realised that I am a total snow fan. It is such a unique creation of the nature that I just can't stop admiring it. Every time it snows I just feel like I see it for the first time and happy cause it simply does. And here comes a quintessence of my emotions regarding this white magic, Douglas Coupland has put it down in a very exact way in his book "Generation X":

"...I'll always remember the first time I saw snow. I was twelve and it was just after the first and biggest divorce. I was in New York visiting my mother and was standing beside a traffic island in the middle of Park Avenue. I'd never been out of L.A. before. I was entranced by the big city. I was looking up at the Pan Am Building and contemplating the essential problem of Manhattan... But right then my brother Allan yanked me at my sleeve because the walk signal light was green. And when I turned my head to walk across, my face went bang, right into my first snowflake ever. It melted in my eye. I didn't even know what it was at first, but then I saw millions of flakes - all white and smelling like ozone, floating downward like the shed skins of angels. Even Allan stopped. Traffic was honking at us, but the time stood still. And so, yes - if I take one memory of earth away with me, that moment will be the one. To this day I consider my right eye charmed."

I got sick in Spain, this is the reason why I am staying in my room staring through the window at the snowstorm outside and not wearing my warmest clothes and going for a walk. The weathermen turned out to be wrong as usual :) It is simply beautiful - this silent white dance under the street lamps. The blanket which covers the ugly parts. The perfect symmetry. The wistful vanishing on my warm palm.