Rustic Lil' Retreats

The smuggest little grin on my face because i'm about to blow your minds with something so cool. This week I got news from work I have all of the month of December off. Buaaaah?! I know, total shock. Having this much time off is obscene and unheard of especially in my world so I plan on milking this puppy to the core. 

Anyway, obviously I've been brainstorming what to do. Take that road trip I wanna wander off on, or go to a ghost town, etc etc, I genuinely had no idea. Not to mention funds are scarce because of the Great & Gluttonous Summer Spendathon of 2016 (@bojboz you feel me). Hotels are expensive, and unless I'm going to some backwards town to experience Americana at its finest, I am not staying in a dingy motel. 

CUE AIRBNB. I never really thought about airbnb as an option, the website never enticed me and I never really had an idea how it worked. But I figured, maybe they had some nice cabin options. Boy, did they ever. 

Saw this and had a literal moment of, "are you fucking kidding me". IT'S BEAUTIFUL. As things always go for me when I'm stoked, I got overly excited and it snowballed into me only wanting this and nothing else in my life ever again. Ever again. It reminds me of a little cabin dream, in the middle of nowhere, where I can just nest and curl up and read books and make fires and drink wine and cook cook cook galore. It's cat friendly too so I could even bring young Staniel along. He'd like that.

Ugh. I'm in the process of figuring out when to book this, but I 10000% need to go. I mean, look at the bed! It's elevated! I think a nice getaway away from everything is perfect, especially to be in such a fairy tale environment. I'm already imagining a life here and it's alarming that I get this way. I guess that's what vacation is about though, escaping every day life to the point of living out your own dream world, and getting as carried away in it as you possibly can.

I really think everyone should consider airbnb as an alternative to hotels, the options are endless. With some looking you can definitely find little gems like this cabin. They're usually cheap too, I'm looking at $80 a night here. Not bad for a picturesque getaway! 

If you wanted to creep this lovely pearl in all it's glory, or even book it yourselves (but not in the month of December, I beg and plead) click here

Happy vacationing! 

disclaimer: all images of the cabin belong to Jennifer & Jack at Airbnb.

The Shining: Eradicating the American Dream

It's October! My favourite month. Partly because of my birthday, partly because of Halloween. As you most of you already know, I'm a huge horror movie fanatic. Like, absolutely, totally, entirely. 

Anyway, I was talking to the bestie the other day (speaking of which, she's an artistic maven and everyone should look at her instagram)  and trying to brainstorm some stuff to do for the month of October and she got super excited and suggested I dedicate a month to horror on the blog! It made perfect sense. Soooo anyway I figured, why not ramble on about some horror classics, some contemporary gems, and maybe even throw in a Halloweeny-inspired fashion post here and there too? Sounds like a dream.

Cue The Shining! This was such a good excuse to watch one of my all-time favourite horror classics. Kubrick is a God and does wonders. From creating a sense of isolation in a massive hotel, to his fluid use of a Steadicam, this movie is a complete masterpiece. The music is painstakingly scored to be absolutely menacing, and the set work is beautiful and beyond unsettling.

Moving along, as I'm sure most people know, the movie centers around a writer (Jack Nicholson) and his lil' family who all agree to watch over a hotel in its winter down season while it is empty. The catch? The hotel is probably (definitely) haunted and the last groundskeeper went nutso and axed his whole family. LOVELY. 

Obviously, Jack goes mental, giving way to historic one-liners, but there's so much more to this film. Nothing Kubrick does is by chance, and there are so many theories out there for what it's truly about. Some say it's a metaphor for Danny (the son) being abused by Jack. Others say it's a metaphor for the American treatment of Indians. With so many different theories and contradictions, it's really up to the viewer to interpret it how they will, and honestly, after seeing this movie countless times, there's always a different thing I pick up on as well.

After watching it this time..I thought I noticed something clever, and it really stuck with me. It was a sort of downfall of Americana,and the perfect American dream. So many things about this are anti "white picket fence." From things like Danny's Apollo pullover (after it gets shredded, suggesting a symbol of a torn-apart American icon), to the obvious breakdown of Jack shouting the classic, "Honey, I'm home"-esque line, "here's Johnny!", this movie is riddled with little clues. 

The colour palette throughout the entire movie is the good ol' American red, white, and blue. The frustration with the american dream and family runs so deep, it's nuts. Right off the bat, you can tell Jack isn't happy with his family. Doesn't get on with his wife too much, takes a sneaky peek at the rumps of two lovely ladies as he enters the hotel. Driving to the hotel you notice he's short with his boy. Irked by his questioning, he only lights up when Danny tells him he's learned about cannibalism on TV. TV after all, is the driving force of a structured family life. With his "here's Johhny" breakdown near the end, it's essentially a quote from popular TV culture, and in a way, the breakdown of the nuclear family. 

Jack's run-ins with the ghosts as well are jabs at American culture. Dealing with racism and class, all these elements are quintessentially a part of American history and the slow deterioration of society. When he's talking to the old caretaker of the hotel, and he brings up Jack's son intermingling with a coloured man, this whole scene takes place in a red and white bathroom, with Jack standing in the middle, in his working class blue jeans. Coincidence? 

Even more so, when we see the Grady girls murdered in the hall, it's interesting to see that they're both dressed in blue, doused in blood (red), with the blue and white walls surrounding them. Kubrick, you're a legend.

With all these sprinkled little clues, the most obvious one, is the fact that Jack in fact out to kill his family, just how the groundskeeper did before him. If that's not an attack on the quintessential nuclear family, I don't know what is. 

The Shining is unforgettable. It's beautiful, it's terrifying, and it's spun to such perfection, it shows that horror films don't have to rely on cheap scares to leave its audience transfixed. It's a timeless film, and truly shows Kubrick at his absolute best.