What's A Girl to Do?

Bat for Lashes from Adam Bracegirdle on Vimeo.

I love this video for Bat for Lashes's single "What's a Girl to Do?" It is creepy and dreamlike, and just about screams "Donnie Darko" from the hoodie-wearing, mask-clad human-creatures that appear out of nowhere to synchronize bike behind Natasha Khan. I love the eerie, deserted road and the Day of the Dead-inspired figures lurking just outside of the woods. Fantastic.

Plastic vs. wood

We spent almost the entire weekend in Williams-Sonoma, ending up with a new Shun citrus knife, three of these amazing Swiss non-stick knives by Kuhn Rikon, a lovely set of sunshine-yellow mixing bowls, a Microplane grater for hard and soft cheeses (which actually makes the cheese taste better!), and a slew of other items...

I spent most of the time oogling over the lovely wood salad bowls (and my new Kuhn Rikon knife, which is sunshine yellow too!). There is just something about wooden kitchenware items for me. Cody, who is completely obsessive about "germs," washes all of our dishes on the "sanitize" setting on our dishwasher. He complains about all of our wood cutting boards and spoons, whereas I just adore them and despise (depise!) silicon.

When I showed him another lovely wooden set, Cody said, "I like wood too, but it's too porous. You can never clean it well." His dad overheard and said, "You know, they actually found that wood retains less bacteria than plastic." I was a little blown away by this statement, because the FDA mandates all non-porous (aka plastic) cutting boards, utensils, etc. in restaurants, and the USDA suggests the use of plastic in the home, a decision which a spokesperson mentioned was simply "common sense." How could this be?, I wondered.

As it turns out, there were several studies in the mid-1990s to see if there was a difference between plastic and wood. Explains one of the researchers, "We began our research comparing plastic and wooden cutting boards after the U.S. Department of Agriculture told us they had no scientific evidence to support their recommendation that plastic, rather than wooden cutting boards, be used in home kitchens" (Dean O. Cliver).

The USDA standards also lacked guidelines for home disinfection of cutting surfaces. So, explains Cliver, he and his fellow researcher Nese O. Ak set out to discover if there was a way to disinfect a wooden cutting surface so that it might be as sanitary as a plastic cutting surface. They thought, as most do, that plastic surfaces were less porous and so must be more sanitary.

They began inoculating a plastic board and a wooden board with the "cultures of common food-poisoning agents--up to 10,000 cells of Salmonella, Listeria, or Escherichia cali" (from here). What they found blew them away. 99.9 percent of the bacteria on the wooden board were unrecoverable and thought to be dead. Under the same conditions, none of the bacteria placed on the plastic died. They were excited and worried. How could the bacteria on the wooden cutting board simply disappear? And what if they resurfaced to infect food later?

They left both of the boards in a high-humidity and temperature room overnight, and found that in the morning, the microbe population on the plastic cutting board grew enormously, while the population on the wooden cutting board remained non-existant.

Furthermore, they tested exactly how long 1,000 Salmonella cells would survive on a wooden cutting board that bore knife scores (1,000 is the high-end estimation of how many of these cells get onto the board from a chicken). Their result was three minutes.

They also found no re-emergence of the harmful cells from the wooden boards.

In contrast, a plastic board with knife scores will not only absorb more of the bacteria, these bacteria will survive a soapy hot-water bath and were seen to re-emerge to contaminate foods. Furthermore, most home dishwashers only reach about 120-140 degrees F, but you need a temperature of at least 190 degrees F to sanitize plastic cutting boards (from here).

There were some discrepancies with wood, however. Wood that had been treated to be less porous ("more like plastic") was found to be much less effective at fighting off harmful bacteria, and this treated wood is commonly sold for household kitchens.

Both plastic and wooden cutting boards can be completely safe if properly sanitized, but plastic cutting boards must be discarded after heavy use, whereas good wooden cutting boards can be used for ages. I think it's an interesting thing to think about, and there's a lot about it to discuss, as well as much more research to be done. However, wood is not any more porous than plastic, and wood is also easier on your cutlery. Furthermore, it has been proven that there is something about wood (commonly thought to be an enzyme) that makes it more able to fight off bacteria. So, I think that's pretty cool research for those of us who couldn't give up wood, even in the face of criticism from our housemates and friends.

For another very interesting study about wood versus plastic, please read this PDF.

(Image found via Google Images/here)

Oh, Hello Friend.

I just thought I'd give everyone a head's-up on this giveaway. Many lovely prizes! Enter by Monday.

Microcosmos.

Have you ever watched the 1996 French film "Microcosmos?" It is intensely awesome. That up-close with the lives of insects and so intimately involved with the state of the Earth, it is a new way of looking at things. And, the way it is filmed makes you feel as though it's all fake--just a little dreamworld. It is quite lovely, between the nearly still, simple images to the downright laughable parts. And, you certainly shouldn't miss the highly dramatic and somewhat awkward snail love scene, set to beautiful operatic music.

This video is made by YouTube user jthelms. It is Radiohead's song "All I Need" set to scenes from "Microcosmos." Very lovely!

2010: The Year of Lewis Carroll

Oh my goodness. I don't think that any movie except for Sophia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" has much influenced fashion and design lately. But, in 2010, this is very likely to change. You see, 2010 is the release year for Tim Burton's mostly-live-actor remake of "Alice in Wonderland" and Marilyn Manson's "Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll." No, read that again. Yes, Marilyn Manson.

It may surprise you that Marilyn Manson is venturing into film, but he has long expressed a desire to explore film and art forms other than just music. "Art?!" you scoff, "Marilyn Manson doesn't make art!" Well, call it what you will, but whatever it is, he has done it unabashedly (but if he ever tries to cover Gary Numan's "Down in the Park" again...).

And, I have incredibly high hopes for his upcoming film, which is a deeper look into the man behind Alice in Wonderland, a man which Manson describes as being of "a split personality--a person who was deaf in his right ear and left-handed. He was a mathematician and an artist, a deacon in a church who believed in evolution."

The story that Manson is choosing to tell in his film follows Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, as he unfolds his novel and is haunted by his creations. Manson relates to Carroll in a way, which is why he has chosen him as the center of his movie. Explains Manson, both he and Carroll are "odd," creating mostly at night, and have changed their names in an attempt to reinvent themselves--or hide from past demons.

Manson's film is an attempt to bring back Alfred Hitchcock-style horror, something I am incredibly grateful for. I cannot stand blood, gore, and the meaninglessness of current horror films. Says Manson, "Sometimes what you don’t see is scarier." He also mentions that he would like to skip the computer-animated effects altogether, instead opting for a magician alone.



The premise of the movie, then, is Lewis Carroll, played by Marilyn Manson himself, haunted by his creations. It also includes someone whom I'm very excited about (and is basically the reason I needed to write this post)--Lily Cole as Alice! I'm not sure why, but ever since I saw her in a Vogue-produced magazine called Fashion Rocks about three years ago, alongside Marilyn Manson, I have been intrigued. In the spread with Marilyn Manson, she rocks a kind of goth/punk vibe, which I enjoy immensely. She has a lovely, doll-like face, but something darker there too. I find it to be kind of a welcome departure from the almost too light and cheerful trend recently. Don't get me wrong--I love ditsy flower prints as much as you, but I enjoy diversity and dark mystery, cozy comfort, too. Oh! It also has another light-and-dark girl, this one a past girlfriend of Manson, Evan Rachel Wood. She plays Alice's alter ego. I'm beginning to think Manson should just go the whole nine yards and stick another of his past muses in his movie--Fiona Apple.



The soundtrack will likely be original music by Manson that was "too theatrical" to be placed on any of his albums, and also probably the song "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" by Roxy Music. Umm. Should be interesting.

Will Manson go completely over-the-top with this? Of course. It may be altogether unpleasant to watch. But at least it will be an attempt at innovation, and hey, it will have Lily Cole in it. It doesn't particularly get better than that.

The other Lewis Carroll movie, for which my excitement pales in comparison to "Phantasmagoria," is Tim Burton's remake of "Alice in Wonderland." Burton has once again cast his crew of regulars, including Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Burton's wife Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen. Also a return from Alan Rickman (as the Caterpillar, how great!), who is just generally an enjoyable actor. Nothing impressive of his casting of Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. I don't think I've ever seen her in an enjoyable movie. But, I am excited about Stephen Fry as the Chesire Cat! Oh my goodness! He was so great in "V for Vendetta." There are several other noteable actors and actresses, but that is what the IMDB page is for.



So who is Alice? It is Mia Wasikowska, whom I've never heard of, but that just makes her all the more interesting. She beat out Lyndsay Lohan and Amanda Seyfried, both of "Mean Girls" fame, for the role. I would kind of have liked to see Lindsay Lohan, but it's just because of my potentially unhealthy love of redheads.

This film is Burton's remake of sorts of Disney's 1951 film. However, this is essentially a new story, more focused on Alice's return to Wonderland several years later. She finds it rather overgrown and perhaps a bit haunted, but very colourful still. She escapes from Victorian society, where she finds she doesn't exactly fit in, to visit Wonderland. It perhaps will be an interesting take.

Really, it's likely that neither movie will be exactly what we want as far as plot goes (much like "Marie Antoinette")...but, they will likely be a lovely montage of decorating ideas, if nothing else. And, I am still unabashedly excited for "Phantasmagoria." For sure.

What are your preliminary thoughts on these films? And who are your favourite light-and-dark girls (and, for goodness sake, suggest a different name for such girls, haha!)?

(Images of Lily Cole and Marilyn Manson from Fashion Rocks magazine; other two are Google images, hooray!)