Rupaul's Drag Race

image from logotv

Isn't Rupaul just fantastic...

My friend sent me this video two weeks ago and I immediately began watching season 5. [I usually start watching a TV show from season 1 and finish the whole thing, but because this is a reality competition show I thought it would be fine to start at season 5. I just felt like I had to justify my season choice decision. Because these things are important]. 

I admit, before watching Drag Race, I have had little to no contact with drag culture, except watching Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I absolutely loved that film, it is basically the only Australian film I would actually recommend to anyone [ouch]. I never realised that the reason I loved Priscilla so much is because drag queens are so beautiful and brave and stunning and rhinestones and glitter and ughuhgugh. 

Image from dailymail

Anyway, so I got sucked into Rupaul's Drag Race and finished season 5 in a day. Then I found out that there was Rupaul's Drag Race Untucked which was a 20 minute program showing the queens backstage bitching. The shade of it all.

The reason why I love Drag Race is because it is the ultimate reality TV show. I heart reality TV, I think it's so trashy and superficial and unintentionally campy, which are all great things. But Drag Race takes it to a whole new level. 

Drag Race has elements of all the competition reality shows (mainly ANTM and Project Runway, but also Idol) as the queens are put through series of challenges that test their skills in walking the runway, sewing runway outfits, designing things from floats to magazine covers, singing together, dancing together, basically any sort of obstacle Ru could through at them, he did. And it is so exhilarating.

Also, because the show is about drag queens, the unintentionally campy nature of reality TV just becomes plain camp. Plain, delicious camp. Plus, Ru and the producers are so aware of it, and they take it further by exaggerating and exaggerating the conventions of reality TV to the point where Drag Race doesn't become an escape, as other reality TV does, because it makes you so aware of how scripted it is.

For example, the show follows a very tight script where almost everything Rupaul says is either a catchphrase, drag lingo from Paris Is Burning (which I now have to watch) or a reference to one of his songs. Plus, the product placement in Drag Race is hilarious. Ru is always plugging his music, available on iTunes, or asking the girls to enjoy an Absolut Cocktail in the Interior Illusions Lounge.

So, look, I'm just fangirling right now, but this is seriously a fantastic show. I have learnt so much about drag culture just from this show, and watching families come together in support of their sons is really touching. Many a time have I cried. I have also been shown a way of how reality TV can become more than just reality TV. ahhhh. TV.

Palm Beach

These are some shots from this past autumn when we went on a road trip up to the beautiful Palm Beach. Summer is so long here in Sydney, which is so different from where I grew up. I've been trying to embrace it, but it's not a month into spring and already 30 degrees. Hopefully I can get sweaty old me to the beach sometime soon.

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

Image from dugpa.com

So you may not know, but I love Twin Peaks. I adore it. I worship it. Basically, it's what I believe television should be like. 

My mum introduced me to Twin Peaks when she stumbled across the DVDs in JB Hi Fi and realised that she hadn't watched it since she was in University. I began watching Twin Peaks with her, and soon became tired of her slow watching pace and devoured the two seasons and movie in a week. Since then, I have been rewatching Twin Peaks and sharing it with as many people as I can.

So when I found out that Jennifer Lynch, David Lynch's daughter, had written 'The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer', I had a moment. Like a crazy, body-and-mind-spasm moment. I bought my copy online from The Book Depository and read the little book in a day. 

This book was worse than reading 50 Shades of Grey. It was more erotic and dark and sinister. But the most uncomfortable thing about reading this book is knowing that it is from the perspective of a 12 year old (the book begins at Laura's 12th birthday, and BOB is mentioned in the first entry [ikr] and ends the week before her death). I am used to reading/watching pretty messed up things just from being desensitised, but I don't think I will ever get over child sexual abuse, no matter how much SVU I watch. Some diary entries in the book were really awful, and I was reading the book on the bus, just kind of squirming in the back seat, hoping no one could read my mind. Because I have watched Twin Peaks so many times and because I love it so dearly, Laura Palmer has become a real girl in my mind, as I know she has in the minds of so many fans of the show. My mum told me when it first came out, all people could talk about was 'who killed Laura Palmer?'.

Anyway, I highly recommend this book to fans of the show. I think if you haven't seen Twin Peaks, you should watch the two seasons first, then the movie 'Fire Walk With Me', then read her diary. Twin Peaks and it's secrets are best found out the way that they were intended. I completely and wholeheartedly trust David Lynch and all that he does. Too many feels.

More About Me

My nickname is Mimo, short for Wairimu, and I am a Kenyan born Australian with a Kenyan father and a Filipino mother. I grew up in Canberra, which is a strange place to grow up, so I've become a strange kind of person.

I am studying Media Arts Production, which is basically Film Production, in Sydney, combined with a degree in International Studies. My favourite film is Jodorowsky's 'El Topo' and my favourite TV show is Lynch's 'Twin Peaks'. I obviously love a bit of surreal in my life, and anything a little bit sick and twisted is up my alley.

I love to craft, and I dabble in a lot of different types. I am not particularly great at any of them, but I love them all. Knitting, sewing, scrapbooking, collaging, decoupaging, I try my hand at each. 

I started this blog so that I would be inspired and motivated to craft and create more, so I could share it online, and also so that I could write more, and photograph more, and make more videos. I hope that this blog helps me develop my own personal style in the creative things that I do, so that I can brand myself and build my own legacy when I start on my career.

I welcome any questions, critiques and discussions, and I love checking out other people's blogs, especially if you're looking for a friend in me (because I'm always looking for friends). Also, pen pals are welcome, because the letter-writing is one of my favourite. 

Thanks, and enjoy!