sewing clothes from vintage patterns, digging through yard sales/flea markets/thrift stores, having a cocktail or two, rock-n-roll shows, playing dress-up, ridiculously complicated girlie drinks, art shows, car shows, dive bars, social dancing, karaoke, vintage eyewear, Arsenal Football, local theatre, doing ballet/modern dance, swing and lindy hop, watching dance performance, postwar fashion, dining out, old cookbooks/bartending/party books (30s-60s), Morgan D., abandoned furniture, scooter rallies, homes/restaurants/buildings/bars untouched by modernization, mid-20th-century stuff, the sea, lasik eye surgery, old movies, piloting my scooter on the super scary 'frisco streets, tiki, the cult of beatnik, the romance of the bullfight, knitting (but only scarves), keeping my houseplants alive, Moozy the cat, museums, San Francisco Motorcycle Club, VLV, Tank the Bajaj, Almond Joy the 100 Sport, Pasaporte the Passport, my Shady Ladies, shoes and handbags, my rich fantasy life, naps, fashion magazines, physical fitness ha-ha-ha, sfscootergirls, those nice kids from Secret Society, reconciling my champagne taste with my beer budget.
Cool people who know that being too cool isn't cool at all. Hipsters who think other hipsters are boring and pedantic. Misanthropes. Henry Rollins (even though I'd just blush and giggle and shuffle my feet.)
KALX Berkeley, mood music albums from the 50s/60s, standards, gypsy/brazillian/afro-cuban/bebop/le hot jazz, vintage country, ol' school punk, drinkin' songs, truckin' songs, hillbilly, lounge, rockabilly, swing, mid-century top 40, new wave, British invasion, garage, noise, classic metal, indy, 60s Motown, bossanova, 70s funk, northern soul, girl groups, French pop, classic to 80s ska, slender fey boys with guitars, spooky sad songs - For Example: Birthday Party/Nick Cave, Burt Bacharach, Steve & Edie, Big Sandy, The Sonics, Nico, Cole Porter, YeahYeahYeahs, Julie London, Blondie, Count Five, Leonard Coen, Astrud Gilberto, Sonic Youth, Roy Orbison, Black Sabbath, John Coltraine, X, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Spoon, The Who, Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass, Black Ghost, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Wanda Jackson, Luiz Bonfa, The Supremes, Chrome, Apatia, Sarah Vaughn, Tom Waits, Crime, Ike and Tina Turner, The Black Heart Procession, Monochrome Set, Nat "King" Cole, Mary Wells, Ray Connif, Gang of Four, Soul Makossa, The Adoration Machine, Vaudevilles, Teenage Harlets, La Plebe.
pre-code, silent, foreign, romantic comedies, black and white, independent, complicated, unpredictable, MST3K style bad ones, film noir, MGM musicals, rockumentary, documentary, docudrama, Hong Kong, Bollywood, Fellini, French New Wave, spaghetti westerns, just about anything made before 1975 and movies that inspire me to sew more often and dress better. For example: Chinatown (1974), Breathless (1960), The Getaway (1972), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Where the Boys Are (1960), La Dolce Vita (1960), Nights of Cabiria (1957), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Carmen Jones (1954), The Women (1934), Rain (1932).
Three words: Turner Classic Movies
celebrity biographies, travelogue, true crime, fiction, non-fiction, literature, trash. Oh, and crossword puzzle books.
Ferdinand the Bull, Diana Vreeland, Shirley Chisolm, people who think before they speak and say exactly what they mean, and when I'm feeling like kicking stuff over just for fun: http://www.twisted.org.uk/tg/