bill murray, you nailed it.

I recently read this article and it has been giving me so much inspiration. I use the quote from the first sentence on almost a daily basis, to remind myself it’s important to relax, that relaxing isn’t something we do, it’s something we make ourselves do. It’s just as important a chore as the other things that need to get done. No, it’s more important. So I’m gonna start doing it, instead of doing some other things, that didn’t really need to get done after all.

In a great interview with Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times, Murray was running late so he dragged the interviewer with him into the limo and then onto the stage where he was set to speak, completing their talk in front of hundreds of people.

Some nuggets:

 

The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself.

 

You have to hope that (good things) happen to you. That’s Pandora’s box, right? She opens up the box, and all the nightmares fly out. And slams the lid shut, like, “Oops,” and opens it one more time, and hope pops out of the box. That’s the only thing we really, surely have, is hope. You hope that you can be alive, that things will happen to you that you’ll actually witness, that you’ll participate in. Rather than life just rolling over you, and you wake up and it’s Thursday, and what happened to Monday? Whatever the best part of my life has been, has been as a result of that remembering.

 

Who hasn’t woken up thinking, “God, nothing good has come to me in a while,” right? When I feel like I’m stuck, I do something — not like I’m Mother Teresa or anything, but there’s someone that’s forgotten about in your life, all the time. Someone that could use an “Attaboy” or a “How you doin’ out there.” It’s that sort of scene, that remembering that we die alone. We’re born alone. We do need each other. It’s lonely to really effectively live your life, and anyone you can get help from or give help to, that’s part of your obligation.

 

It (improv training) pays off in your life when you’re in an elevator and people are uncomfortable. You can just say, “That’s a beautiful scarf.” It’s just thinking about making someone else feel comfortable. You don’t worry about yourself, because we’re vibrating together. If I can make yours just a little bit groovier, it’ll affect me. It comes back, somehow.

bill murray sings bob dylan’s “shelter from the storm”

I get mesmerized by this video. Maybe it’s the Dylan song I never heard before that kinda makes me want to Commit To Bob Dylan. Or Bill Murray, who continues to be a completely unique person and fascinates me, and also said this amazing quote: “The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything.” Or maybe it’s the photography, the whole video done in one shot that doesn’t move and captures the beauty of an ignored house.

Sia – Chandelier (Official Video)

I am FASCINATED by this girl’s choreography and her commitment. Also, the costume design is really intelligent. And I really like the song and the lyrics. It’s about the singer’s struggle with childhood alcoholism. Which the girl’s dancing illustrates. Also, the photography is impressive (all one take through different rooms of an abandoned-looking house), the apartment looks real and oddly, darkly beautiful. All of it is oddly, darkly beautiful.

Photo shoot idea: a set or runway set that resembles the house on 40th Street.*

*40th Street: The house I grew up in from the age of maybe 6/7 years old to upperclassman in college. Would make an odd backdrop, as by today’s standards it would have been quite ugly. Originally had brown shag carpet wall to wall, orange terra cotta bricks around the fireplace, wood deck that became a slipping hazard every time it rained. My mom and dad (and then later my mom and stepdad) made a lot of changes to that house for the better. Wisteria on the front patio, exterior paint changed from peach/brown trim to stormy blue (a color I have, coincidentally, been fixated on lately for our home). Two cherry trees planted along the back fence, which, I discovered in senior year of HS, was a lovely place to do homework. Creepy back entrance sealed off and turned into a second bathroom (because why would you build a family home that only has one bathroom?).

Tove Lo – Habits (Stay High) Hippie Sabotage Remix

Oh, this is beautiful. She’s vulnerable but strong, at some sort of crossroads, trying to decide something big, chewing on it and coping with it and making the most of it, wringing the situation for all its fun because otherwise it sucks.

Kiesza – Hideaway (Official Video)

The outfit is not my style, but I love the urban backdrop (London? Is it London?), and would love for there to be a runway show (or high fashion advertising concept video) where somebody has their models walking down multiple blocks of a particular neighborhood.