Happy Halloween!

Story Of My Life

From here.

It's All About Me

Finalmente uma música com o meu nome e sem a palavra "chupa".

Awww, The Artic Monkeys Wrote A Song About Me, Ain't That Sweet?

Holy sh*t, Alex Turner's been reading my blog!Or perhaps it’s just a coincidence and really it only is the B-side to the Suck It and See single to be released on Halloween and not everything is about me, yadda, yadda…

I still think it’s too eerie to be just a fluke. Move over, Chung! (But do leave your entire wardrobe behind, thank-you very much.)

TGIF!

Home Chic Home

I do love Kate Spade’s cute, girly and candy colour clothing line but I was blown away by these gorgeous pics of her NYC flat: the sophistication, combination of muted and vibrant colours, soft lighting and artwork covering the walls are pretty much an exact replica of what I would love my humble abode to look like.

Pics from here.

Nothing Spreads Like Fear

Little tip for all you germaphobes out there: go equipped with gloves, mouth masks and hand sanitisers because Contagion will scare the living sh*t out of you.

I usually keep a safe distance from excessively star-studded casts (in this case, it’s Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, Laurence Fishburne, Bryan Cranston…). Rarely are they synonymous of quality. In Contagion, however, it works: you focus on all characters equally and let the leading role be played by the invisible, highly contagious, deadly, nameless virus.

It all starts with Paltrow’s character Beth Emhoff who, after a business trip to Hong Kong, seems to have little more than jet-lag and a cold but inexplicably has a seizure, dies within hours as does her son, soon after her. Around the same time a man on a bus in Hong Kong dies with exactly the same symptoms as does another man in China, and yet another in Chicago, and so on and so forth The pandemic spreads with harrowing speed whilst labs struggle try to find a cure and society shatters, with looting and rioting breaking out into war-like grim scenarios, frightfully similar to the unnerving images of New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina. The count-down narration and the very recognizable Soderbergh-style fast-paced editing further increase the tension and idea of haste, which are major features in the film.

The chilling part is that this plot isn’t all that unrealistic. We’ve seen the H1N1 scare, the rate at which HIV takes lives in Africa, how quickly our daily streams of connection and every personal and professional relationship which make our life possible, ironically can become the vehicle the destroys it.

Being a germaphobe myself (you’d be surprised with the techniques I’ve come up with so I won’t (directly) touch anything unsanitised or untrustworthy): I can only reassure myself with Jason Solomons wise words: it’s a disaster movie, not a documentary.

Still, bleach rules!

Goodbye Summer

After a blissfully belated summer, it seems like autumn's definitely on its way. So here's my "homage" to my favourite season, so as to bid farewell to summer.
Is it wrong that I'm already missing sun soaked beach days?...

Pics from here & here.

Dance Your Way Into The Weekend!

We started the week off with a gyrating Beyoncé but we’ll end it on a softer tone, with a few of my recent musical discoveries that will be freshening up my somewhat stale i-tunes this weekend. TGIF!

High Highs
I’m absolutely in love with this Australian-come-Brooklyn trio. They kind of remind me of Other Lives – another of my favourites for this year – with their wistful tunes and sorrowful lyrics which are right up my I-love-wrist-slittingly-depressing-music alley.





Milagres, Kill Rock Stars
These Brooklyn boys initially caught my attention because of their Portuguese band name but they’re obviously much more than that. Although they’ve been (unfairly) compared to Coldplay, don’t be fooled: Kyle Wilson's falsettos are more Wild Beasts-ish and their debut single, Glowing Mouth, is a beautiful gateway to the homonymous brilliant album.





Frankie and The Heartstrings, Hunger

But don't be fooled by the apparently chirpy, eighties influenced melodies: this five-piece from north England know how to write some wicked lyrics that will get you hooked in no time.





Oh Land, Oh Land
This delicate Dane – a former ballerina and Missioni model – is all the rage right now. Classical dance is an obvious influence in her lyrics and composition, which is both good and bad: I do enjoy the sweet fairy like touch but feel it isn’t powerful or memorable enough. A good listen, all the same.





Smith Westerns, Dye It Blonde
This Chicago trio has already featured in The EvilTwin's best list and this year they've yet again produced a very promising record, "Dye It Blonde". Although it sometimes throws you back to the 70s rock vibe, you can really feel Chris Coady's touch (who's produced and mixed for Beach House, TV on the Radio and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Currently enjoying it, for sure, but I’m not sure I'm loving it quite yet.





Gang Gang Dance, Eye Contact
Still trying to figure out whether I love or loathe these New-Yorkers. This is their 5th album but I shamefully admit I've only just heard of them. A sort of crossover between vintage synths and world music on drugs, it certainly makes for interesting listening.

Only A Month Away...

... until the Versace for H&M collection hits the stores. Pics look very promising: I'll definitely be stocking up on those gorgeous dresses! Cannot wait!

Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street from Steven Greenstreet on Vimeo.

A New Take On The Pencil Skirt



Pic by Matthew Brodie.

Dance Off Those Monday Blues

If this doesn't get you in a good mood, I don't know what will.

I need to learn this choreography ASAP... and find out how Beyoncé manages to keep everything inside the cleavage of that last outfit (they get deeper and deeper!): there isn't enough double tape in the world!

Laugh Off Those Monday Blues

From here.

The Evil Twin Supports The Beauty Routine - Part 2

The Evil Twin começa hoje uma participação no imperdível projecto The Beauty Routine da minha querida Maria João, de que já aqui vos falei. Ide ver, aqui!

Submarine

Set in 1980s Swansea, Wales, “Submarine” is a coming of age comedy with both genuinely funny and bitterly sad moments but, most of all, with the ultimate soundtrack, composed exclusively of Alex Turner’s melancholic ballads.

The main character, Oliver Tate, coincidentally played by an Alex Turner uncanny lookalike, Craig Roberts, is struggling between discovering love and sexuality with his dark, pyromaniac love interest Jordana, and trying to save the marriage of his parents, beautifully played by Happy Go Lucky’s Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor, which is jeopardized with the arrival of his mum’s first love, an obnoxious new-age self-help guru.

The IT Crowd and The Mighty Boosh’s Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut has been unavoidably compared to Wes Anderson or Michel Gondry and I believe it’s a good thing: although it may not be deeply original nor flawless, it’s a great, entertaining film. And who doesn’t love a bit of welsh accent once in a while?

 

From Russia, With Love

This is possibly the most beautiful lookbook I've seen this season, from the equally striking Ulyana Sergeenko. To die for, Doctor Jivago style.

Pics from here.

Eargasm

Reminds me of early PJ Harvey.

Good stuff.

Les Nouveaux Pauvres

 

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”

Oscar Wilde.

I tend to avoid socio-political issues on The Evil Twin, mainly because it isn’t the purpose of this blog – it’s meant to be a light-hearted, frivolous outlet – and also because I’m not an expert on the matter: my layman’s point of view tends to turn into this Bill O’Reilly style rant or, worse, a pseudo-manifesto like the ones we all wrote for our pretentious college newspaper when we thought we were avant-garde geniuses that would change the world.

It has become, however, increasingly difficult to ignore this so-called “crisis”, that generic expression that justifies every misery in the world. Put on weight: “Ah, it’s this bloody debt crisis!”; burn your tongue on the scalding coffee and/or lava-hot micro-waved pastry: “Damn you, bailout!” (with a lisp, of course, since you your mouth is scorched); don’t get laid for a year: “Forget Italy, I’m the one who needs a rescue fund!”.

The truth is that over the last 3 or 4 years things have changed dramatically. This year and the next will be even worse. We need to rethink society and the concepts we’ve been brought up to trust: a college degree doesn’t mean you can get a job; a job does not mean you’ve actually got work to do; if you do have work, it doesn’t mean you’ll get paid (a decent amount or at all); and if you do your work efficiently this doesn’t mean that you’ll be rewarded more than a pat on the back and a condescending “well done”.

Aren’t generations supposed to evolve, to be better than the last? Aren’t we supposed to be better off than our parents were? And aren’t our children supposed to outdo us and their children outdo them and so on?

I may be the exception but I’m definitely not better off than my parents, when they were my age. Far from it. I’m nowhere near where my parents were and they weren’t exactly Bill and Melinda Gates. They were the regular middle class stereotype: married with a couple of kids, decent house, wage and car, we even had a golden Labrador, for God’s sake. They travelled, dressed well and had all the hobbies you’re meant to have when you’re young. I, on the other hand, am unmarried, childless, struggle to pay my 50-year mortgage, drive my parents’ car (if I can afford gas). I can’t even keep my geraniums alive, let alone a pet dog. My biggest shopping extravaganza is getting half-priced ASOS and hobbies to me are more like stuff I can do for free when I’m not working, eg. this blog. I earn an insultingly low wage which I quietly accept because I’m at the employers’ mercy (especially because I work in finance, not the best market right now…) and those SOB know it. I basically survive on precarious artifices such as credit cards and overdrafts, which means I spend half of my nights sleepless trying to figure out how I’m going to make it through the week, buy food and pay bills.

It wasn’t meant to be like this.

I’ve prepared my life and expectations convinced I’d succeed and never ever thought I’d have to skip a few meals so I could pay a late bill or pretend I’m ill so I can unashamedly skip outings with friends because I’m so broke I can’t even afford a latte.

I’m poor, genuinely poor. And yet, my appearances would tell you otherwise. I have a seemingly high-power job, I live in a great neighbourhood; my friends look like they’re worth a million dollars; my clothes aren’t shabby (yet)… and yet I’m broke.

I’m a “nouveau pauvre”.

The so called “nouveau riches” are sooo 1980s… they’re practically extinct now. There aren’t that many people starting off poor and making buckets of money right now, it’s pretty much the opposite: everything’s in the red all the time, people are losing money left and right. It’s Shitville wherever you move to.

But the “nouveau pauvres”, on the other hand, are clearly a growing trend. My generation (i.e. between 25 and 35 yo) is, generally speaking, worst off than our parents when clearly it should be the other way round.

I don’t what the key is to turn this situation around. I’m still trying to figure it out. Trust me: I, more than anyone, am anxious to break the circle and move on and up, but I just can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel… not just yet. But I’ll keep looking for it and hope that any of you who feel the same will keep looking as well and give me a heads up if you find out anything helpful.

Wilde, quoted above, also said that “what seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise”. Let’s hope so.

Craving For Some Carven

I'm falling increasingly in love with Carven, it might possibly be my favourite brand right now. The pre-spring collection was to die for (those bow shoes!) and SS12 looks pretty promising too!

Pics from here.