Allie Mandell's Page

I feel bad for not writing back earlier but I was away with my family for a week (with not internet D:)

Yeah heaps of people are into the party thing already and I just don't understand the appeal - isn't it more fun to hang out with a few close friends than to go out, spend money on copious amounts of booze and risk hooking up with someone you don't know/like?! Gah I've another year and a half til I'm done with school. It sucks. I've got a few cool teachers and some choice friends so I'll be right I think.

Cat Stevens will always be great ;) Teagan and Sara are really annoying, I don't understand the appeal either . . . As for music, when it comes to English indie rock you can't go past the Maccabees - try 'Can You Give It' - and I'm actually really enjoying a bunch of the new-folk stuff that's coming outta London. The band whose debut album I'm most looking forward to is Everything Everything, they're sorta art-electro pop but it's like they've disassembled all of the conventions of the genre and put it all back in the wrong order (then vomited rainbows on it :D) As for Aussie stuff, you might rather like Cloud Control, Deep Sea Arcade or the stark raving mad Philadelphia Grand Jury . . . I went to one of their gigs and it was absolute pandemonium <--- that's an understatement.

RANT PART TWO! Mountain Goats are a new thing for me . . . I'm having a listen now and it sounds like classic Crowded House with the bastard love child of the Avett Brothers and the singer from Stornoway or over the top of it. I'm a complete Anglophile when it comes to music normally (with the obvious exceptions of The Pixies, The Strokes, Pavement, Dire Straits, The Ramones, Surfer Blood, Joanna Newsom, Darwin Deez, Vampire Weekend, The Soft Pack, The Drums, OK Go, et all) so I only just go onto Freelance Whales . . . but maybe you can teach me about American music and I'll give you the heads up on some British and even some Aussie stuff XD

oohh mp3s?! Exciting . . . not sure I have a good enough mic for that . . . I'll have a tinker ;)

Agreed with regards to acting skills - DT is phenominal . . . speaking of Shakespeare, have you seen him in Royal Shakespeare's film version of Hamlet??!! BRILLIANT!

Yeah I agree with what you said about R&J but that was my first experience of Shakespeare (a friend had a spare ticket to a production) so it has some sentimental value for me . . . Much Ado and As You Like It are my favourites - I see so much of myself in Rosalind and Beatrice, I also had the pleasure of playing Rosalind for a couple of scenes :P The same goes for Gwendolyn from The Importance - timing is paramount on the delivery of the spade line, it's SO hard to get right consistently. Also, doing Othello's last monologue as a performance piece for drama was rather challenging as I don't have much experience being an angry middle-aged black dude . . .

Gah tell me about it! Emotional and cognitive maturity is very different to feeling an overwhelming urge to put even vaguely concave things on your head. Being stuck in high school means that I'm surrounded by girls who cake their faces in make-up and spend their weekends getting drunk and snogging randoms in the shortest dresses you've ever seen. It's a struggle. I have some awesome older friends and they kinda act as a buffer to all that shit when I remember that school is the only time in your life when you're judged on your age and not on your merits.

WOO yay for Ten!! Eleven's pretty fit too though ;) I haven't watched much classic Who but Tom Baker and Peter Davison (five) are awesome from what I've seen! I'm a terrible Shakespeare nerd - like reciting full sonnets and monologues type nerd - it's pretty tragic. By the time we studied 'Romeo and Juliet' at school I'd read it three or four times for leisure and seen it performed XD I also love Shaw and Wilde, read a bit of Moliere here and there and think Brecht was a genius (went and saw Threepenny Opera two weeks ago, SO good) Yeah, I'm pretty musical - I play piano and guitar (a little over two years now) and am a classical soprano . . . that old jazz stuff is so fun to sing . . . Gershwin show tunes will always be awesome!! I'm not far off finishing high school but don't be put off by that - all of my friends are at least 1.5 years older than me. Charity stuff?! Awesome! I'm really involved with a bunch of charities through school!

Wow . . . we do have a lot in common . . .

Is there a story behind the soft toys btw?

Si seguro, ¿Hace cuanto que practicas?