History of Costume: The textbook is perhaps the second most beautiful book I own, after my 2 volume edition of FASHION. Mary of course is a great teacher and I've already learned a lot, mostly about Mesopotamian and Egyptian costumes, even down to the differences in the Old, Middle and New Egyptian Kingdoms.
Writing about Arts and Humanities: This I think will have a moderate work load w/ a big finish at the end. The class if full of students of the arts and it has progressively shrunk from about 30 to 10 or 12.
GERM 202: taught by a real German! He's super nice and works hard w/ us on pronunciation, but I get the feeling that the kids in my class either a)had GREAT high school teachers or b)have had this professor before because they have REALLY good accents. When I pronounce something wrong as I read aloud (like Bayern) the professor prompts the class and they all say it correctly. My bad.
1st Half Doctrine and Cov't: No homework, no tests, all assignments are done in class and the final is a paper we write in sections, in class.
TMA 360: I'm dressing for The Taffetas, where I am right now. It' great. The girls are faculty and so forth so it's a dream.
I'll be taking a master's textile dying and painting class all next Friday and Saturday. I'm excited!
I met w/ Janet and we discussed my future. It's looking good. We talked grad schools and London and all that. As for Bollywood, there's a film prof. that's been to India, and he's our only remote chance at a Bwood "in". We'll see. A field study is also possible. BYU's program places you w/ something major related. I'm going to look into it, but I don't know if I'll have time before I graduate.
I took my first trip to the BYU Music and Dance Library yesterday (not for lack of trying) and lo and behold all the Hindi films that are perpetually checked out were all there! Om Shanti Om, BOTH Dhooms and Lagaan! I checked out the latter three. I was so jazzed to get Lagaan that I started the nearly 4 hour movie at 10 o'clock last night after rehearsal.
Lagaan, the third Hindi movie ever to be nominated for an Oscar, is about a village in late Victorian India forced to pay double taxes to the British in a drought year. When the village men try to talk the British down, Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) agrees to a bet with the British Captain to alleviate the tax. In three months the villagers must beat the British soldiers in a game of cricket. If they do the entire province doesn't have to pay lagaan for three years. If they lose the entire province must pay triple lagaan that year. Of course there is a beautiful villager, Gauri, and a beautiful British woman, Elizabeth who both fall for Bhuvan. The village bans together and two hours later they play cricket, which last an HOUR! of the movie, not in total. The game takes like 3 days. Oh cricket...
Bottom line, great movie. It combines the realness of my favorite Swades and the ecclectic, rural beauty of Jodhaa Akbar. Amir was magnificent and Gracy Singh as Gauri was superb, as an actress, dancer and character. Her costumes made me die with joy and want to learn Indian dying techniques real bad. And I so want three dots on my chin! The supporting cast was well balanced and I grew v. attached. The British were disgusting, of course. Capt. Russel's Hindi was painful. At times the accent wasn't so bad, but when he wanted to be a jerk his Hindi sounded like the American in the French musical Not on the Lips. Elizabeth, who miraculously learned Hindi over night, was just as bad. UG! The Hindi Hindi however seemed to have an accent. Was it just me or were the "main"s a little different?
Costumes: As far as I could tell, which isn't very yet, the Indian costumes were phenomenal. The palette was amazing and esp. the women's costumes were to dye for. The festival dance for Krishna's birthday pallete made me cry with joy. Oh, just all so good! And Gauri was so pretty!
Alright, now the British costumes....AH! 1893=serpentine skirts, leg-o-mutton sleeves, CORSETS. Oh dear. Just because a costume has a full length skirt with a doily for a top doesn't make it late Victorian. And by the same token a brimmed hat with flowers doesn't a) need to be worn everywhere b) mean it's period. And riding w/ a capelet, in India??? or wearing a felt hat w/ a pheasant feather? I just can't, UG! The ballroom scene was painful, OH OH OH! As was Elizabeth's song in English in some sort of demi-slip negligee, so bad. And she never wore her hair up and the woman's got a short neck but they insisted on poorly constructed dog collars. It was just painful. I'd say they did well w/ the military costumes, which they did, except apparently they couldn't find a supplier for enough fabric for everyone so various and sundry shades of khaki abounded, and not in a "worn and weary" kind of way. As far as I could tell the cricket uniform's worked, except they never got dirty. Which leads me to....
The fact that cricket is ridiculous. Period. That's all. Wickets and bowling and spacey oven mitts. I want to understand its appeal, I really do, and maybe someday I will. I'm not defending any American sports, but seriously, cricket?! I'm more of a ball in a goal type of girl.
And thus begins a new school year.
PS I'm going to try and find a theatre in Salt Lake that plays Hindi movies. Amodini's tipped me off to the Bollywood Twelfth Night/She's the Man (with CRICKET!!) and I really want to see it. Looks like a really colorful Punjabi explosion of ridiculousness. I'm convinced there is one field of yellow flowers in Punjab that is constantly inundated with Bollywood shoots.
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