THE SKIRTED ROUNDTABLE

I don't know many other interior decorators in real life.  So it's always a pleasure to pull up a virtual chair at The Skirted Roundtable and find out the inside scoop on decorating fees, common designer dilemmas, blog happenings and shelter magazine shake-ups.  Hostesses Megan Arquette, Joni Webb and Linda Merrill's lively podcast interviews with women like top designers Charlotte Moss, successful blogger Anna Spiro of Absolutely Beautiful Things and magical movie set creator Beth Rubino (Someone's Gotta Get Her) manage to simultaneously entertain, educate and distract me from the drudgery of house cleaning.  What could be better?

Elise Daniels & Monique in Schiaparelli Hats at Cafe Flore, Paris, 1948 by Richard Avedon.

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FROM CITY TO SHORE

Perhaps you've noticed:  each month I choose a theme for Style Maniac, around which all the blog posts, most of the Facebook entries and many of the Twitter musings revolve.  Usually the theme pops into my head weeks before and the only challenge is to edit ideas down to a manageable amount.  But this month I found myself stumped.  Should I celebrate the staycation fun of summer in a city?  Or do I escape to the balmy breezes of days at the shore?  And then two unexpected invitations arose in one week that made it click:  why not do both? And so this month on Style Maniac we travel From City to Shore, with stops at some wonderful small towns in between. The car's decorated, The Avett Brothers and Frank croon on the radio ... won't you join us for the ride?
Video discovered on Some Teachers Are Cool.  (Thank you, Christy!) For more of  The Avett Brothers amazing music click here .  VW Bug photo via Kris' Color Stripes. Nantucket Beach House via CountryLiving.com.

LOVE SONGS, LOVE STORIES

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Yippee! It only took a year but I finally figured out how to publish an audio playlist on this blog.  (Not sure how y'all feel but it  makes me happy, at least!) Just discovered this Mixpod format last night. It has some quirky video selections and doesn't list every song I wanted* but that iPod icon's so friggin' cute (and the controls actually work--click on the arrow to play) I had to post it.  Enjoy these (mostly) love songs sung by many artists ... all written by Bob Dylan, master of telling stories in song.

LISTEN: Queen Jane & Friends
Playlist originally compiled from Kevin's CD collection and iTunes. *Wish I could have included Joe Cocker's version of Just Like A Woman; Forest Sun's version of She Belongs to Me; and the trio Mary Chapin Carpenter, Roseanne Cash & Shawn Colvin singing You Aint' Goin' Nowhere. For a graphic version of my original playlist check here.

A VERY PHILLY CHRISTMAS

 

FAVORITE Laughter, food and music--definitely three of my favorite things.
Find out more (and post your own holiday photos and favorites) on Style Maniac's Facebook Page. 

Photo by Doreen Creede

CROON, SWOON, FLY ME TO THE MOON

Ice cubes clinking. Drinks poured. A soft breeze wafting across the bay. Sinatra on the stereo. Talk about timeless summer style.

LISTEN: Nothing But The Best does a pretty good job of compiling my favorite Sinatra tunes. But nothing beats these albums: Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back, Strangers In The Night and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim--all inexplicably out of print according to Amazon.com. If you find 'em somewhere, grab 'em.

GROOVIN'

If you wondered at all about the post titles this month, they came from this mix. I created it last year for The Redecorators' Summer in the Citi event and came upon it again a few weeks ago. I changed the spelling to "city" for Style Maniac but other than that the songs happened to coincide exactly with June's topics.

LISTEN: Summer In The City (Doreen's Mix)

THE LAST WALTZ

Sometimes when you hear raves about a film you wind up disappointed when you finally see it. Particularly a movie billed as "the greatest xxx" of all time. Not so The Last Waltz. When I finally watched Scorsese's chronicle of The Band's last concert it not only captivated me but led me down the rabbit hole into an immersion of 70s rock that I knew existed (after all I live with the ultimate 70s rock music fan) but didn't really know.

I watched the movie five times in one week. I could say it had to do with Muddy Waters tearing up Mannish Boy, or The Staples Singers soaring on The Weight, or Dry Your Eyes by Neil Diamond or I Shall Be Released by everyone. I could say it had to do with the baroque glowing red stage set, borrowed from an opera company. I could say it had to do with how Scorsese put me on that stage with Clapton, Dylan, Danko, Helm, Hudson, Manuel, Wood, Mitchell, Young, Starr, etc. etc. All would be true. But really it had to do with Robbie Robertson. There's a reason girls love rock stars and guys want to be rock stars and if you watch RR in this movie you'll know why.

Sayonara, George Clooney.

My husband may have rolled his eyes but he gave me the cd box set as a gift and the fall continued ... into an iTunes exploration of everything Emmylou Harris ... which reminded me how much I love Linda Ronstadt ... to more live Neil Diamond (Hot August Night) and more Van Morrison ... and then to Bob Dylan. Did I know Kevin had dozens of Dylan cds stashed in the basement? Yes. Had I ever listened to every single one of them, night after night, for months? Ah, no. But I have now.

DIVA DVD: The Last Waltz. For movie-inspired music picks browse my Amazon store.

Photos from The Band's The Last Waltz 25th anniversary cd box set.

TOMORROW, TOMORROW, I LOVE YOU--

Trees finally blooming, temperatures finally rising....Daylight Savings and the official start of Spring have come and gone, but today I can actually believe that winter is over. And not a moment too soon. Cue Annie.

LISTEN: "Tomorrow" (Doreen's Mix)
Some day you will be able to click on the above image and listen to the playlist, but so far the Style Maniac IT department [aka moi] has not figured out how. For now, treat this as an iTunes shopping list, if you like.

SHUT UP & SING

Thanks to my sis-in-law Susan for this suggestion, a look at the aftermath of Natalie Maine's off-hand comment about George Bush and the Iraq war at a 2003 London Dixie Chicks concert. The power of the film comes from the trio's response to the resulting firestorm of protests, censorship and even death threats. Banned from many country radio stations and dropped by sponsors, they could have split up, given up or begged forgiveness. Instead they stood up for each other and their band and recorded a blistering retort that caught the attention of an entire new audience (myself included) who had no idea they rank as the top selling female recording artists of all time.

DIVA DVD: Shut Up and Sing

Image from cover of Taking The Long Way CD.

WALK THE LINE

How Joaquin Phoenix did not win an Oscar for this role defies all logic. For the singing alone he deserved it, but his performance was so much more than that. Ditto Reese Witherspoon, whose portrayal of June Carter elevates this movie from music biopic to timeless love story. (At least she snagged a shiny little bald guy to put on her mantel.) The duo sound good enough to listen to sans visuals--check out the soundtrack CD, particularly the song It Ain't Me Babe, plus an album from the real Johnny and June, both feature picks in my Amazon store this month.

DIVA DVD: Walk the Line

MORE IRISH SOUL

For more soulful Irish music, check out this collection from Van Morrison. His version (with Roger Waters) of Comfortably Numb ranks as one of my all-time favorite tunes. I first heard it in Martin Scorsese's The Departed.

LISTEN: Van Morrison at the Movies: Soundtrack Hits

MY WILD IRISH SOUL

March movie music madness month continues with this pick, in honor of upcoming St. Patrick's day. Share in the tumultuous rise and fall of a soul band in gritty Dublin. As in the movie, the rocking soundtrack features the actual (and amazing) young actors/singers.
DIVA DVD: The Commitments

MAMMA MIA!

Remnants of the snowstorm still cover the streets and temperatures hover in the teens. So tonight I'm taking a vicarious vacation to the Greek Isles and singing Abba tunes along with Meryl & Co. If watching this frothy songfest leaves you wanting more of the fab four, check out Abba Gold: The Greatest Hits CD.
DIVA DVD: Mamma Mia!

TONIGHT

Happy Valentine's Day.
LISTEN: "Tonight" (Doreen's Mix)