Thursday, February 11

The Why Question

It's a guilty pleasure of mine that I love "How To" and FYI lists and web pages. On any given lazy day you can likely find me on Instructables or WikiHow looking up completely random things to make my life better, prettier, or just more productive.

Imagine my chagrin when I could not find a single page on how to live, eat, or beautify my world like Weetzie Bat. I searched around and found sites like the FLB Shrine, FLB Experience Page, and the FLB LiveJournal site, but none of it was what I really wanted.


The biggest problem I've seen in "How-To" pages is the way often list-maker's simply pull things (particularly objects) directly from the text/movie/what-have-you and transferring it right over to the list. There's not a lot of thought put into it, just a lot of looking and finding and copy/pasting, instead of really thinking about the characters and putting thought into how they act, live, and love.
The most recent that I can think of that demonstrates this is one I stumbled onto out of curiosity after a trip to the local Classics Theater to see Breakfast at Tiffany's for the ba-zillionth time.

How to Be Like Holly Golightly is a pretty decent (exhaustive) list of the attributes of Holly Golightly. Mostly physical things, but still great and fun to read.

What I dislike, however, is the little ones like these:
"Pink ballet slippers, to be kept in your refrigerator", "A guitar or failing that the soundtrack from Breakfast at Tiffany", or "Old fashioned black telephone- to be kept in a suitcase".
There's aren't the positive attributes and bits of lifestyle of Holly's that I want to imitate. They're charming, yes, and some of the things we love so much about the movie, but not what I'm looking to copy. I want what she's like, what she does, what she enjoys. The way she talks and eats and lives. The things she does and that surround her that make her her.

I like to imitate life, not because I don't have my own personality, but because my life could be so much more than it is, and the right fictional characters can remind you how to make things more beautiful, more loving, more enjoyable. How to be who you actually want to be, instead of wishing every now and then (or even every day in those little ways) that you did more/were more adventurous/knew more/loved more/ate more interesting food/cooked more interesting food/were nicer/had more fun/whatever! So, really, I don't want to copy Holly, I want to know how to be like her in my life.

I'm not sure how I plan to do this- after all, I just decided to make this blog this afternoon- but I know a lot of what it is I want to do. It's like a research paper, here in the form of a blog, mostly for me to have a place where I explore what I'm finding, thinking, adoring.

Whether it's making lists of the foods characters eat, or the places they visit, or the things they own- or giving each important character (or groups of characters) their own posts, describing them in excruciating detail and theorizing about what makes them tick- or even compiling multiple books' quotes to create mini-stories about life and sadness and beauty- or finding pictures, movies, songs, recipes, or projects that reflect what I think a FLB created world would look like, I think I'll find a way.

I hope that I can write in a way that's interesting, maybe even entertaining, and- most of all- helpful. I want to make my life better, looking through the lens of a Weetzie Bat world. Let's do it together.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Cyn! I'm so excited to see what you'll do with this blog. I always wanted to read something along these lines, and you're doing a beautiful job so far!

    I ran/have put on ice a blog called Leaving Shangri-LA, which was a guide to books fans of Francesca Lia Block would enjoy too and whose spirit I will continue in my new blog, Friend of Dorothy Wilde. Hope you don't mind if I add you to the blogroll!

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  2. I don't mind at all, that's awesome!
    Thanks for stopping by (and leaving a comment, I looove comments), I hope you'll come again!
    I checked out your blog and I love it (new & old), but it wouldn't let me comment on your Wilde blog! :(
    I'm not sure if I'll do a blogroll on here quite yet, but if I do you'll definitely be on it ^-^

    Saw the new Holly Black book on your latest post and it got me so excited! I didn't know she had something new out!

    Thanks
    <3
    Cyn

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  3. I know exactly what you mean. I always try to explain why I love FLB's books, and all I can come up with is "It's the way they make me feel...like life is magic..."
    I've been searching for something like this too. Some way to make my real life feel like that, and not just in books. And for me, it's about the way you experience the world, the magic you create in your own life. It's the little things in FLB books that I remember. A dance teacher with cheekbones like wings, a leopard-print chaise lounge, cowboy boot roller skates and a glowing globe lamp-- these are details, objects and accoutremements of a life and not the essence of the life itself. But it's the way you see and experience them, appreciating them for their magic and the magic you make in life. It's about creating a space for yourself where you feel happy and powerful, safe and adventurous, loved and loving and magic. That's my version of FLB's world. I can't wait to read about yours.

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