Oscars II

My favorite dress of the evening, Roberto Cavalli, worn by Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Annette Benning in a beautiful neckline.
Penelope, don't ever put a bow on your ass, even if it is lemon yellow. Why beige? Why so much beige, Gwyneth - btw, dress didn't fit - Laura, Regina, Halle - thank god your dress fit this time, and Maggie? Doesn't anyone remember Jennifer Connolly in 2002? Scarlett, if your hair's not frizzy, why would you make it so?



Ladies in red Emmy Rossum and Renee Zellweger looked lovely, although if you're going to be a presenter, Renee, it would be a good idea to be sure you can walk in your dress first. Kudos to Hilary Swank and Helen Mirren as well for beautiful and unique choices, and check out Usher's Glamazon. Tons of additional photos here. Several sightings of the all new, now available in stores inflataboob, especially on one of Sidney Lumet's daughters - yikes!

And finally, if you were struggling to empathize with Ray Charles, Beyonce's necklace in the Phantom of the Opera segment was designed to blind. If we have to listen to Beyonce sing in French, why don't we have to listen to her sing in Spanish? In fact, why do we have to listen to her sing at all? Actually, it was less the singing and more the random attempts at dancing that were distracting. Vanessa Paradis would have been a far better choice, if one could wipe the pout off her face.

I caught my cold from Pierce Brosnan

sssh, don't tell anyone. He's just as good as you think he is, and I'll fight Rene Russo for him ... although I'll give him up for her Thomas Crowne Affair wardrobe.

The good news is that the best film (of the two that were contenders) won, and the award didn't go to Scorsese just because he was there. The Aviator was good, with fine performances, beautiful cinematography and a sweeping scale and vision. But Million Dollar Baby was what a film should be, tight and riveting, with excellent performances and not a word wasted. So kudos to Clint and Co.

Sideways was a lovely little film that wasn't going to win an Oscar this year, But see it for the scene with Miles and Maya on the porch, after a divine meal and too many bottles of wine. It will remind you of one of those late night conversations I hope you've had with a new flame, when the alcohol has worn off and your guard is down, because if not now when, and you're just ready to risk the consequences at three o'clock in the morning.

The Fog of War

Finally got around to this Errol Morris film last night, and found it fascinating. Not exactly Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, but worth seeing, especially in the current climate. Best quote for today's liberals:

" If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merits of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
~ Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under Johnson and Kennedy

Here's a review: http://www.shoestring.org/mmi_revs/fogofwar-cm-127946850.html

And now, for something completely different

(Preamble: Have tackled Cornel West's "Democracy Matters", mostly because the person who lent it to me said they couldn't get through it due to the $10 words, and I took up the challenge on their behalf. Also, he wasn't part of the reading I did at uni, although probably ought to have been.)
Professor West shares with us a truly fabulous quote from Emerson which you're free to use in whatever context seems most fitting:

"...my quarrel with America, of course, was that the geography was sublime, but the men are not."

'Nuff said.

Speaking of quirky

Love tying previous posts together like this. If you're unable to make it to NYC this week to see The Gates before they disappear forever, why not make your own? For inspiration, visit The Somerville Gates - cat not required.

Straight talk

"I hate anything 'quirky,' " Michael Roberts, the fashion editor of The New Yorker, said on his way out of the Burberry show. "It means annoying."

Another Day in Baghdad - see this play

David A. Tucker III, a retired Army Reserve officer and Seattle playwright, spent a year in Baghdad between 2003 and 2004, and has brought that experience to the stage at North Seattle Community College, where he’s currently teaching. Another Day in Baghdad is a series of vignettes following the experiences of a fictionalized group of US soldiers and Iraqis. Quite moving. Also, a solider who was home on leave and saw it that night, and was very impressed with its authenticity. It’s a pay what you can event, and performances this week are Thursday through Saturday nights at 7:30 with a Sunday matinee at 2.

More info here and here.

Meet the Babes

What prompted Tim Russert to schedule four female journalists on a panel on Bush's trip to Europe and international relations on Meet the Press this morning? Perhaps it's in honor of V-Day? Andrea Mitchell, Robin Wright and Dana Priest of the Washington Post and Katty Kay of the BBC all showed up for an extended discusssion this morning. No complaints here, just noting that it's somewhat unnerving to have an all female panel, as it so seldom happens, especially when the topic is international politics. Perhaps they could sneak the women in more gradually. Or perhaps he & George Stephanopolous were collaborating for parity, as GS had Fareed Zakaria, George Will and Richard Clarke.

and now, the intelligentsia approach fashion

en are seen and women are looked at, as Susan Sontag once observed, a truth that applies to nearly all cultures, but to none more starkly than our own.

Thus Guy Trebay begins an excellent article on this season's struggle to contain girl power.

For the next month, women will be looked at constantly, baldly, unashamedly, as they parade around runways wearing the latest fashions - and, in important ways, representing the latest fashions in how women are understood. Few things are less in vogue right now than intellectual dissection of fashion. And that is a shame, since the current runway season has a lot to say about how female emancipation retains the power to stir cultural unease. It is not merely that the First Lady - whose sartorial image seems engineered to quote a placid era before locutions like "lady" were given the boot - descended on Fashion Week to demonstrate her glacial poise and concern with "women's" issues (in this case, high rates of heart disease). It is not just that, when Carleton S. Fiorina, the chief executive of the computer giant Hewlett-Packard, a designer sponsor of Fashion Week, was ousted on Wednesday, criticism of her performance deployed all the clichés of the hysteric at the top. (Apparently her glamour and charisma did Ms. Fiorina in.) It is that designers were once again attracted to ideals of docility that one imagined had gone out with the corset. But hold on a second - corsets are back. So, too, are hourglass shapes (Narciso Rodriguez, Esteban Cortazar), dollhouse clothes (Marc Jacobs) and skirts that fit so tightly (Roland Mouret) they make mincing the only possible gait. It might surprise some people to learn how closely the vocabulary of dressmaking can resemble that of animal husbandry; words like cinch and harness and strap and hobble turn up a lot.

New York Fashion Week

This is fashion, it's not supposed to be for everyone.
~Cathy Horyn, NYT

Does JLo really expect me to wear one of these on my next trans-Atlantic trip? It's like celebrity travel-wear meets granny panties.

Now these are way more me. Thanks Ralph.

That's Miss Goddess to you.

The Philadelphia Story's Tracy Lord is a fascinating character, not just to her on-screen suitors, but in and of herself. Rapidfire (spitfire) speeches, schussing down the fall lines on the fresh powdered slopes of her life on the family compound, righteous, resolute and refractory as hell.

It occurs to me that I don't recall any Tracy Lord/Teresa Heinz comparisons last year, and I wonder why not. Anyone?

I've never been a fan of the Taming of the Shrew-eqsue storyline - too easy for men to fall into the pattern of thinking that women are theirs for the changing and too easy for women to succumb and self-censure themselves "into the mold he made for her". But it's written in Aaron Sorkin-ese, and Katharine is so lovely, I'll overlook the politics for the sake of the art ... just this once.

One less prince to go around

He's a little old for us and not good looking enough to make up for it anyway, unlike, say ... OK, I couldn't come up with any 57 year olds any fab girl would want to be with, but I'm open to suggestions. Salman Rushdie, perhaps?
She could at least have had a manicure to go with the ring.

Glitter on her resume

So it was a surprise to many when Padma Parvati Lakshmi
married Salman Rushdie.

Of course he's brilliant, and wealthy, but she's so far off the babe-o-meter, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton are in full princess pout mode. And this week, she's the toast of fashion week, apparently.
Lovely lovely lovely.

But she still played "Mariah Carey's diva rival, Sylk" (sulk? silk?) in Glitter. And left it on her resume.

And it's not the kind of glitter "that might be champagne and might be snowflakes." That's all mine.

Shoes Shoes Shoes

SUCH a wonderful site for Shoes etc. Love these Cinderella slippers:

Don't we all?

"Like so many high school boys, she just wants to see girls kiss on television."

Today is a day to stay in ... and yet

I found myself weighing the cold and rain against the need for half & half to accompany my coffee. It's about 40 degrees (F) and pouring, so it feels like 30. Decided to settle for warmed milk in my coffee and then discovered that I was also sans coffee beans. So out I went, and had one of my favourite fashion police moments. When it rains, inhabitants of this city fall almost equally into one of two categories; Practical Goretexers and Impervious Fashionistas. The PGs don their Nikwaxed hiking boots, freshly scotchguarded raincoats & pants, and Outdoor Research rain hats and head out to run basic errands garbed for a typhoon. The IFs dress for a typical July day - sandals with heels, short skirts, strappy camisoles with a cardigan thrown over their shoulders and "beach hair". Both look ridiculous. Can't we compromise here? How about stiletto boots, jeans, a fitted coat and an umbrella? Come on ladies, relax a little. You don't have to scream "high-maintenance" all the time.

At last, an honest American

I think our problem with the French has always been jealousy. We have an inferiority complex, at least stylewise. French women can do more with a scarf. We wish we had their innate chic, their effortless discipline, their easy appreciation of all things sensual -- their impossible thinness. When I begged my parents to send me abroad, it was not to, say, Germany that I wished to go. Desperate to be sophisticated, it was French that I wanted to learn, France that I wanted to know. (Now of course, I wish I'd studied the far more useful Spanish.) Despite all our achievements in what used to be the exclusively French provinces of fashion, food and wine, the real milestones for many of us remain our first Chanel suit, our first sip of Petrus or Chateau d'Yquem, our first time at La Grenouille or La Tour d'Argent. And then there is the fact that while close to two-thirds of American adults are either obese or overweight, French women really don't get fat.

beautiful food writing

This is wonderful. Read the entire article, please, but if you're "too busy", savour this:

From that night onward, Sunday dinner at Alex's became our weekly ritual. Between feasts -- and sometimes during -- life-altering decisions were made, hearts broken, songs badly sung. People came and went. For a few uncomfortable months, Josh the TV executive and I shared a girlfriend. Lucy the playwright arrived in the City of Light with an arrogant, pasty-faced, vegan boyfriend none of us liked, but then one Sunday she showed up at dinner on the back of a Frenchman's motorcycle, suffused with an unmistakable glow. Overnight she had become, as it were, a carnivore, and we responded by toasting her liberation and welcoming Yves into the gang. Ditto for Paul, the huge-hearted Russian who stole Deb the photojournalist's heart one night at a party; the following Sunday he became one of us, and is still.

And so it went. Sunday morning would roll around, and each of us would receive a mumbled phone call from a very hungover Alex: You, bring bread! You, haricots verts! You, wine! You, fresh sage! The meal's centerpiece -- the lamb shoulder, the Cornish hens, the poulet de Bresse -- our chef would trust to no one but himself. Dressed like a dandified gangster, he would roam the narrow streets around the Place du Temple and in his highly eccentric French discuss the freshly killed birds with the butcher.

Devil with the blue dress

For my next formal event, thanks Mr. De La Renta, even if you do dress Mrs. Bush.

State of the Onion

So I ducked my responsibility to know mine enemy and opted out of watching the SoTU (don't worry, I was suffering elsewhere), although I'll likely read the text, thus removing the annoying accent and pauses for applause, but found this article and wanted to pass it on. These are the times in which we live. Remember them, or we'll be destined to repeat, and I will abandon ship this time.

Richard Clarke's "Ten Years Later"

Complete text of this chilling article can be found here. The Atlantic Monthly makes it a b*tch to get their stuff. Read it read it read it. I know it's long. Read it on your 23 minute commute. Take it to your local coffee shop. Take it on a plane. Read it under your desk in class. Email the link to your friends & family.

How's that for a dispassionate recommendation?

Because Yogi Berra has so much going for him

Yogi Berra, a former New York Yankees player, is suing cable TV network Turner Broadcasting System Inc. The 79-year-old claims the network sullied his name by using it in a racy advert for its Sex and the City reruns. ... The advert allegedly queried readers about the definition of "yogasm", citing sex with Berra as an option. The possible definitions were (a) a type of yo-yo trick, (b) sex with Yogi Berra and (c) what Samantha has with a guy from yoga class. The answer is (c).

Perhaps Kim Cattrall could take a moment out of her busy schedule to console him?

Does anyone else need the First Amendment, cause we're not using it ...

So apparently high school students don't think the first amendment is important, in that they're OK with government censorship of newspapers, and aren't aware that they're free to burn the red, white & blue. Apparently this is the fault of teachers, who aren't doing their jobs (again) in impressing the importance of the founding principles of the nation which holds itself out as a beacon of liberty and freedom for all. Couldn't possibly be the actions of the government, here and in its burgeoning colonies, the Administration's disdain of the media, and the acquiescence of the fourth estate to the time out room it's been sent to.

Coincidentally (?) there's a furor brewing at Hamilton College over a planned appearance by Professor Ward Churchill, an expert in American Indian activism who'd made offensive remarks about those who died on 9/11. Not surprisingly, Prof. Churchill won't be speaking at the college, as they've been inundated with 6,000 angry emails and at least one person called and threatened to bring a gun to campus. Because people should clearly be shot for expressing their beliefs if they contradict those of the majority, as bombing women's health clinics is an appropriate way to preserving "life." Where does the government and its supporters get the unmitigated gall to visit US hypocrisy and selective values on other countries under an amorphous and heavily edited Bill of Rights? Where? Grr.

Things to do in Albuquerque when you're ...

... I don't really know what comes after that (alive? ailing? alliterative?), but it seemed like a good idea at the time. In the big AQ this weekend, I learned:

• that New Mexico is the second poorest state in the nation;
• that an open bar at every event doesn't make up for bad, recycled food;
• that an open bar at every event makes for most amusing people-watching, although it can also exacerbate carefully controlled tendencies to be bitchy;
• that most people can't pull off turquoise jewelry unless they're indigenous or from Dallas;
• that the tragedy of five days of meetings is when you meet your favourite people of the event on the last night; and,
• that one should pack a humidifier when one spends time in the Southwest, where the air is dry even when it's raining.

That said, I found a fabulous restaurant and at least one decent home and jewelry store, with a darling turbo-urban man to gush over non-turquoise jewelry with. And I worked, bien sur.