My mum caught this on her phone whilst driving up toward Oamaru.
 The best things in life get the fuck out of hand before you even know it. R got a new fish eye and popped this as a test. It looks worse than it is. Sorry about the lack of postings, peeps: the Idlehouse has been going off over Feb and we now have a house full of nonpaying guests to deal with so we've been flat out. March should be more sedate and regular contributions will resume. Thanks for your patience 🤘🍆💩
The first thing one notices is the texture of the Revolution version. It is stodgy. UD lipsticks are fairly immortal so it's nothing to do with its date of birth. You could argue that there's a lot of colourant in this shade but UD F-Bomb is also heavily-saturated and manages to avoid any gluey edge to its pigment burden. Mrs MW stays unpleasantly present on the lip, and I don't care for the persistent greasy sheen either. This kind of sinister mouthfeel can be reassuring on one level; you know the product will live through drinks and food and 3am, no problem. You might end up with lint and rolling papers stuck to you though, so don't pass out anywhere. 
Is she worth the trouble you might go through to get hold of her in original form? No, to be honest. The aforementioned Red Lizard is superior and offers the same sort of tonal shift. If you're looking for a something atypical and warmish, save the big eBay bickies for MAC Ruffian Red, that peerless paragon of high-functioning LE idiosyncrasy and the most lamentably fleeting offer of all time. That one's worth every blood-soaked penny. Otherwise, set pedantry aside and just be happy with your MAC Dubonnet, VG1, Russian Red, Nars Mascate et al. They get the same big red shit done.
(L2R All MAC unless stated) Russian Red, UD Mrs Mia Wallace, Ruby Woo, Nars Cruella, Mac Red, Tenor Voice, UD F Bomb natural outdoor sunlight Lower your productivity: More RubyHue Lipstick Review Flowering down the road this season. It's been a good one, with Tui and Bellbirds gorging themselves stupid on the abundant nectar. The really big harakeke swamp flaxes like these can put up spikes 4m+ tall. The smell is incredibly peculiar; fermented orange skins, sunwarmed hardwood, nameless terpenes, condensed forest, pencil-ness, dry bull kelp, phantom marigold. See more of our photography here * Port Chalmers, New Zealand The dumb acceptance conferred by sleep relieved little of the disgust Josephine felt for the conscript's ruined and brutalized faces. Rain that had begun as shiftless mist condensed the smell soaking the timbers of the structure around them and it could scarcely have done more to discourage occupation. The forest without had affirmed her worst suspicions as she returned from watch, no wind stirring the branches that dripped so ponderously onto the leaking thatch, the weeping trees destructing the silence of the grove like colluding militants. The binocular elements over her eyes painted Shaw in pointilistic green against the gable wall. He looked up over his shoulder from the crouch he had assumed to plumb the contents of her pack, holding perfectly still for an elastic moment before shifting a hand toward the assault rifle on the floor beside him. She covered the movement with her own weapon and he abandoned it, sitting on his haunches. Pushing back her visor slowly, Josephine stood in the glow of the night light hanging from the rafters while the rain dripped from her fatigues and he awaited the subtle easement of her posture that would allow him to rise. She looked instead at the sleeping figure on the floor nearby and kicked at its legs. “A One...” she muttered. “Get up.” Two hours squatting in a bed of gleaming briar canes had deadened Josephine’s feet to the point where she could barely own their presence. Beside her, hunkered amid their weapons, Shaw and the four conscripts watched the second eidiré through the same barbed tracery, the treeless midst of the surrounding glade guarded by one half of the remaining C corps. Any loyalty they felt toward their isolated compatriot had proved soluble in rain and darkness; the smoke drawn from his cigarette drifted toward them, the slow precipitation blurring his shape and hissing as it struck the solitary ember. Shaw experienced his vulnerability as a constriction of his throat. The sentry opened the fly of his camouflage trousers and released a steaming stream onto the rank, bowed grass. Behind him, the vapour lying stagnant under the trees began to drift, curling around the corners of the longhouse and creeping forth between its stout, drab piles. Josephine sank further and dropped the visor to her eyes as the figures she awaited began to coalesce beneath the eidiré, gathering black materia from the obscuring mist and drawing it into determinate shapes, their stares flashing like coin silver in the darkness. An arrant, dreamlike silence bore them out into the rain and two broke from the incursive party, passing through the grass toward the oblivious sentry as he stood wiping his hand on the leg of his pants. They closed on him from either side, so unhurried that his notice seemed assured until they seized and gagged their victim in a smooth, wordless accord, slicing open the great vessels in his thighs with dripping blades before he could utter a syllable. While he bled out, the remaining the alujha turned back toward the longhouse, Josephine's visor casting them in cold, tarnished relief through the pluvial static until they were lost to observation. That they had somehow ascended into its interior was betrayed by the cries escaping it, then stuttering volleys of automatic fire crashing wildly through the thin plank walls. Two inmates struggled from the doorway, lost their footing and fell in a tangle, Wessner kicking free from his subordinate before they were both snatched up and dispatched like cattle drafted onto a killing floor. The percussive speed and terse perfunction of their deaths worked on the hidden conscripts; they shuffled thickly, altering their grasp upon their weapons and working their jaws so that only the rain preserved their concealment. Familiarity had muted Shaw’s own reaction, the same dull principle warning him of the decapitations that were an inevitable sequel, that they would be performed with no particular efficiencies or flourishes. From doubling over the corpses, the alujha rose in turn with smirks greased red, swallowing down the morsels they hacked out of and sliced from their victims, grunting over their division. They had set down the choice munitions and equipment looted from the eidiré; with their trophies consumed, it was examined and re-packed, then passed amongst their number. Saplings cut from the edge of the forest were replanted in the glade, their denuded crowns replaced with the slack-jawed heads of the slain, their labile fluids oozing thickly down the smooth bark. When they had disappeared into the southward trees the conscripts remained within their crouching silence while Shaw examined the glade through two sets of visors. Declaring it clear, he rose and gave the signal to advance, only to look back to find he had stepped out alone and that the men had lain down and writhed amid the thorns, clutching their heads. He strode toward their tormentor. "What the hell are you doing?" he hissed, snatching at the fob in Josephine's hand. "We are done. We walk out, right now." Her victims climbed back onto their feet, shedding the wet debris gathered from the ground by their clothing, still too impressed by their erstwhile adversaries to audibly deplore their treatment. “Toss their bunks.” she told them. Shaw put out a hand to stay the remaining corps, but they looked to Josephine, and pushed on into the glade. CONTINUED NEXT WEEK © céili o'keefe do not reproduce. Read the Book onsite * Go directly to this ChapterI was walking alone in this sort of infinite Art Deco planate landscape, matte and bone coloured and sort of polished concrete-esque with no visible landmarks. I was uncomfortable about wearing a strange set of silky moss-green pants with a straight, ribbon-like waistband that didn't sit right, and over my shoulders was this wide cloak of white fur that was incredibly light and cloud-like. I knew someone was running behind me and at first this felt hostile, but I turned around to see a man with polar bear feet and it was immediately apparent that he was intent on something else as he ran past me. He was sort of faintly ochre-coloured and looked vaguely metallic, as though he had been rubbed with some micaceous mineral. I noticed he was chasing another figure who had pulled ahead of me, and in a sudden shift of perspective I stood on the opposite side of a long rectangular pool with stepped edges as the polar bear-footed man drove the second figure into an evasive dive. As the latter threw themselves forward, they split into a hundred similar figures in a fanned array that spread out in a neat arc; it was my task to hit as many as possible with a bow and arrow and I managed to do so as they plunged into the water, which incidentally was bright and colourless. This dream was super-unusual for me because of its weirdly coherent Deco aesthetic and holistic symbolism; my dreams as usually much more chaotic. No idea where the whole polar bear motif came from as I haven't been thinking about that stuff; the whole thing had an Arctic feel, as though the entire environment had been condensed down into this abstracted representation, utilising its arid colours as a signifier. The figure that split into a hundred versions of itself and rained down into the pool was a gobsmacking visual; I felt no particular hostility as I shot them, only that crystalline, egoless content that comes from dream achievement. I had another linear dream last night that was much darker, involving an oily-coloured rocky shoreline, talking dogs, nocturnal wharves, amphibious shark-creatures, concealment and a feeling of inevitable discovery and some sort of confinement. As I've gotten older, I've become convinced of the freaky and yet somehow entirely plausible notion that these sorts of dreams result from the entanglement of various animal consciousnesses; that sleep is a porous, low-density medium in which the floating Ursidae, Hominid and Carcharodon consort, the whole suffused by their various experiences and perceptions. It would explain a lot of things.  I have some hard things to say about David Austin roses. While his innovative breeding program has served up some ravishing aesthetics, those visual fruits have withered on the vine of practical reality too often for me to respond with anything more than a slow clap. I know how to grow a damn rose by now and furthermore I garden in New Zealand i.e. premium fantasy rose territory; moderate temps and a low pest burden. And still so many of his creations fail to thrive here. WTF, David?
 This colour isn't one you really expect to find in a natural flower- a rich, custardy tempera gold rather than the cooler dilute lemon of yore. It's like saffron rice or Baltic amber, its richesse upheld by the thickness of the petals and a bloom that is both graceful and pneumatic. GC's gigantic flowers really are a perfect combination of substance and structure, with just the right boop of raunchy informality. They are broad, semi-pirate-ruffled and medium-rise once open. Despite their size and weight they sit proud on the bush and handle rain incredibly well, never balling or rotting out, even in our maritime spring. They are a better picking prospect than most DA roses and you might get three days in the vase before they break. Though she is intensely theatrical in full spate, somehow, rather inexplicably, the total impression is more dignified than the sum of her parts, just in case my description is giving you the willies. You might have noticed by now that Golden Celebration is also endlessly photogenic. If I ever lose R, I usually find him hovering around this rose with a wide angle in some sort of fugue state.
 Here's Graham Thomas (left) compared with Golden Celebration. GT is slightly more entirely self-yellow.
In Zone-9 areas like this, GC will split her pants and blow out into an enormous (thankfully fairly thornless) Cthuloid abnormality in the blink of an unwary eye. In the pic above right she is at about 1.5m after leafing out and is getting ready to explode in all directions after her first flush; at this point, I pounce with the secateurs in an effort to contain her. Then you are confronted with deciding where and when to prune her, which is a nightmare you never wake from. Her bud spacing and general morphology defeat the conventional approach so I tend to take long stems when cutting for the vase, behead the monster-canes as they emerge and then brutally lop the whole plant down to knee height in winter, chainsaw-style. That final step makes for a tragic spectacle, though to be honest, I'm almost grateful there's so little you can do to influence her final expression. Every year she ignores my hapless curtailment and boofs right back out into the big-boned heaux she was before. You should definitely find a spot for her.  * More Rose Reviews * Our Garden * Port Chalmers, New Zealand *  Shopped up a couple of harbour pics. The single cloud one might need to lose some artefacts and detail but these will be cool huge prints I think. Happy New Year feat. Pygmaeocereus akersii KK1124 flowering for the first time motherfuckers2/1/2019
   My delightful nascent colony. Opens in the later afternoon for nocturnal moth pollination. Looks like a maternal bohemian darlek. Smells like boiled-down jungle honey, gingery vodka and alien varnish. A pleasant MMXIX to you all. Yes I had to google the numerals. I am wasted. what do you want from me  With her small torch propped against her pack Susan changed into fresh clothes and tied up her hair, all the while subjected to the vigilance of the piglet standing four-square in the doorway, its narrow head wearing the shadow like an operatic villain. He could not be tempted in with clicking fingers or offerings of dehydrated fruit and regarded her inscrutably, grunting and moving to precede her as she switched off the light and made for the door. Sachiin had furnished, lit, and begun to neglect a fire on her behalf by the time she climbed the steps toward them in darkness, its low coals sprawling and collapsing around its glowing remains. The face of the peak bounding the yard had rebuffed the layer of silvery white that had alighted elsewhere upon the flags and castellations and Kala'amātya and Petrouchka pursued an almost wordless game of bezique beside it at the refectory table. The vampyre's mannequin features and obsessive intent proved less useful than her opponent's barbaric statistical command; Susan paused by his shoulder to look at his cards, then removed herself to the pyre, standing with her pink hands stinging over the ebbing flames. Sachiin sat in a chair before the parapet. Its stout legs had been reduced by their contact with the damp floor of an inner chamber, his own lying propped on the stone as he contemplated the benighted panorama. The snow had settled on him in an eccentric distribution; he made room on his legs for her, using his elastic dimensions to confound her half-hearted attempts at repulsion as she sat down, pressing a kiss to her ear, and she sighed, showing him the thorns still buried in her palms and fingers. On the ground beside his chair a strange collection of dark, egg-sized objects sat on a stripe of bark, from which a peculiar aroma rose with the faint heat of the fire, roseate and linseed-oily. “Cul de chien.” he told her as she reached down for one. “Medlars. Found an old tree down the hill.” “They’re rotten.” Susan observed, curling her lip. “Bletted.” “Rotten.” “Bletted.” he insisted, pressing a finger into the soft heart of the largest fruit and committing it to his mouth. Sampling its yielding flesh doubtfully, she was startled by its fudge-like savour, the creamy tastes of date and cooling caramel paired with strange, sylvan associates, awakening her moribund appetite. She consumed several in untidy succession, addressing the remainder with more consideration, then sitting up suddenly and staring at him. "You're freezing cold..." she complained, pressing a hand to his face upon perceiving his condition through their clothing. "It's snowing." Sachiin reminded her. "Wait a minute..." His face became entirely expressionless as he took her hand in both of his; their temperature climbed slowly until it was indistinguishable from her own, as though flushed through with hot water. "There you go... thirty eight degrees C." Her mouth fell open. "Are you only warm for me?" "I'm hot for you, poupée." he smiled. She exclaimed again to herself, sliding his hand into her jersey and laying back against his shoulder. "God, that feels so dodgy. You do have a superpower, though... I knew it." A dry halo clasped the moon, arrayed in shards of spectral lavender and silver and they considered it together. “More snow coming.” he murmured. Even in the hands of six sweating conscripts the folding spades that had been dropped with the rest of their equipment from an unmarked helicopter made scant impression on the root-bound soil. They toiled in mottled darkness beneath the trees, the drop chute lying flaccid over the bracken while Amis and Wessner dismantled the package it had purveyed. “A Two, Three, get in and assist. I want that chute covered in five.” the latter muttered, directing the two conscripts standing guard; they complied, but soon demurred, climbing back out of the shallow depression. “Sir, we got a great big fuck-off rock under this shit.” A Four declared, scratching at his black-greased neck. Josephine frowned, took up the welter of silky olive folds and rolled it in both arms, dumping it into the depression with the dismantled crate to expedite their concealment. While the conscripts were set to shoveling debris on top of them she found Amis poring over his GPS and stowed her rifle, taking the appliance from his hands. “Something wrong?” she asked, looking up through the grease stick slashes that flattened and dissembled her features as she scrolled through its screens; he made an abortive move to reclaim it and then shook his head, folding his arms. “Some kind of mode issue.” Josephine slid her own device from the side of her pack and pressed it on him, glancing up from beneath her black cap when he began to object. “It’s the same unit.” she assured him. “You don't have the data... I need those coordinates t...” “Get them from Wessner.” she told him over her shoulder. "And get some mud on your boots. I can see them from half a click out." Shrugging her pack onto her shoulders turned her about and brought her face to face with Shaw, who lifted his gaze in a pretended survey of the evening sky, partially visible through the canopy. They waited while the single file arranged itself and moved off, assuming the posterior guard, both glad at least of the waning moon's half-light upon the deer track; the boots preceding them had churned it to a slippery ribbon tracing the contours of a steep rise. They crested it together, pausing to quarter the grassy glade beyond while the advance party shuffled into the trees. A raised hand urged them onward, and they had taken their first step with that intent when a high scream pressed them onto their knees and brought their weapons to bear in its direction. The cry was quickly stifled; Josephine looped around the glade, meeting the tail of the compressed procession as Wessner dispatched a new point past the dark shape of the longhouse. C Two lay on his back, hands pawing at those held tightly to his mouth and nose by grimacing companions. She hissed the overlooking men out of her way and threw off her pack, stooping to search out her emergency appurtenance. The stout brown teeth of a gin trap had met two-thirds of the way toward the conscript's right knee, severing everything in its hunger for bone. His features were shock-white and shiny under his greasepaint; standing with a foot on either side of his leg, she popped a heavy silver syringe from its plastic cell, leant down and stabbed it into his thigh, dispatching its twinned doses. The man sagged, eyes rolling beneath lids already suffused with contused blue, the colour blackening his lips. Josephine looked up into Wessner’s face. It was as tight and slick as the dead man's, and she rose as he nodded slowly, wiping a hand over his nose. “That’s... that's... good job.” he told her. The other conscripts scowled bitterly at the praise as they freed the corpse’s leg and dragged it into the trees. She threw down the syringe in favour of her rifle once more as another cry went up beyond the eidiré, just as quickly extinguished by the small point team. The second victim began struggling at the sight of her, requiring his cadre to restrain each one of his desperately crawling limbs while she shouldered her way into the affray and pressed a boot to the side of his head. He threw his loosed hand against the fresh needle, piercing it through and prompting her to whip it back and slap the dose into the side of his sweating neck. A scout from her own detail returned to Wessner with news of the second longhouse, then doubled back toward them, eyes wide. “He says we gotta bunk in these." he told her, cocking his head toward the black bulk of the eidiré beside them. "We got this one, they got the one up the way.” Glancing in the prescribed direction, she rose and capped the needle. CONTINUED NEXT WEEK © céili o'keefe do not reproduce Read the Book onsite * Go directly to this Chapter They're in finest early breeding feather at the moment. Courtesy of the Lovely R
Fir is a crazy little unit with rolling sanpaku eyes and a joyous love of virtually everything. He's a year old now, which we cannot believe. Like Felix, he's topped out his miniature designation and gone over 35cm at the shoulder but is still small enough to sit comfortably in your lap. He throws up on long car rides. He treasures little pieces of fabric for hours, flipping them around and carrying them in his mouth like the little pica freak he is. Neutering didn't take the edge off his inexhaustible mania so I think we're stuck with all that dragon energy.  
In what seems to something of an emerging pattern, late winter was warm and clement, easing into a nice early spring that then shit itself badly, turning into a month and a half of clammy sunless rain late in the season as Antartica started its seasonal thaw and threw front after front at us. Not fun. But the roses are gigantic. I'll post some pics soon.
See more of our photography * Port Chalmers, New Zealand
The town has since succumbed to an epidemic of steam punk, the faux Victorian sci-fi fetish that has flooded Oamaru with more goggles than a Minions movie - transforming it from an economically depressed sh*t hole, to an economically depressed sh*thole in fancy dress." "The highlight of Oamaru’s social calendar is the Steam Punk Festival, an excuse for people who work in IT to slap on some stupid hats, do some wheelies on their steam-powered penny farthings and engage in group sex." 👍😍
The same universality could be claimed for the bullet version of this shade, simply because it doesn't actually deliver enough visible colour to fuck anyone up. I bought it on a whim because I've always enjoyed the original and was disappointed by its well, abject sheerness. Nars should have just called it Natural Lips instead of Dolce Vita and leading a bitch on like that. That's not to say the sheer version is without merit. If you're new to the whole concept of lipstick, it's a great training shade. If you're in an ultra-conservative environment, it's a way to add polish to one's facial situation without visibly offending. It offers a really beautiful balm-like texture, fairly impressive staying power and an enviable natural sheen that serves up mid-90s Kate Moss at the beach naked under flattering atmospheric conditions-type satin lustre. Sheer bullet DV is just enough of a thing to take the edge off patchy pigmentation and smooth away the dreaded forgot-your-lipstick issue that can sometimes blight a low-key look. Perfect for sucking face across the table on a night out. Or a walk to the shops when you think you might run into someone hot but don't want to look like you were... you know... trying. Do people still do that? I have fond memories. These days I suppose one just stays home chugging anxiety meds and stalking them online.
Joy to the World: More Lipstick Reviews     OMG you look at this shit right now or we are fucking done professionally. see the whole alphabet did like this here |
Independent Creativity
|
RSS Feed
|
|
Selected
Ravings
opinion essays observation private regret public
exaltation semicoherent speculation
exaltation semicoherent speculation
Photoessay
epic undertakings
documented
documented
Hostile Witness FilmReview
Cruel but fair
RubyHue
Lipstick Review
Lipstick: love it
Our Photography
we've seen worse
Port Chalmers
Dunedin, New Zealand
Blackthorn
Rose Review
Garden Hoe Wisdom
Verse
Loss, love, truth, beauty everything, everything
The Lovely R's Blog
Likes photography Knows a bit about it
We Liked This
Amazing things from other people
Cacti, Aloes
& Flora
Our garden & general vegetal splendours
KitchenBitch
Home cooking
& raw ingredients
& raw ingredients
Ethnographic
Strange wonderful things from elsewhere
Jewellery
Tiny Little
Dinosaurs
- a book for children -
Privacy Policy
This is a noncommercial site.
No ads. No shady data jacks.
No interest in your bizniz.
We don't personally view, utilise or sell your data, apart from occasionally checking totally anonymous + super basic site view stats. We don't even know how to monetise that stuff, so don't worry. Everyone's privacy is important to us.
Our platform is probably harvesting your data, though, via their cookies. Look at their privacy page so you can see what they're up to.
Please use Adblock or something similar.
Google et al superimpose ads that we never see a penny from so fuck them.
This is a noncommercial site.
No ads. No shady data jacks.
No interest in your bizniz.
We don't personally view, utilise or sell your data, apart from occasionally checking totally anonymous + super basic site view stats. We don't even know how to monetise that stuff, so don't worry. Everyone's privacy is important to us.
Our platform is probably harvesting your data, though, via their cookies. Look at their privacy page so you can see what they're up to.
Please use Adblock or something similar.
Google et al superimpose ads that we never see a penny from so fuck them.
Archives
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
Categories
All
A Thing Of Beauty
Blackthorn Orphans
Blackthorn Rose Review
Cacti & Aloes
Ethnographica
Flora
Hostile Witness Film Reviews
Jewellery
Kitchen Bitch
Make Up Review
Maximum Respect
Perfume Reviews
Photo Du Jour
Photo Essay
Places & Things: A Blackthorn Review
Port Chalmers
Remembering Dreams
Roses
Selected Ravings
Softcore Rendition
Sweetmeat
Textiles
The Lovely R
Verse
We Liked This
