Oh the Places You'll Go: Montana

I'm in big sky country on a work trip, and I'm told that internet access may be limited over the weekend, so talk amongst yourselves.

I'll give you a topic: Mountain oysters - neither mountain, not oyster. Discuss.

Oh, and enjoy the long weekend, if you're having one.

"You've got great legs."

"Thank you, but these aren't my legs. They're New York's."

- from a conversation last week with The Politician (thankfully back from Iraq intact).

Which leads me to this fantabulous quote:

... he adores her the way short ambitious men adore beautiful women who are taller than they are but tolerate their advances.

In this case, he is Nicolas Sarkozy, and she, bien sur, is his sometimes wife, Cecilia.

[The New Yorker]

Shuesday: Wear them while you can

Because it's almost Labour Day, and you know what that means ...

[Cole Haan]

Agonizingly Alliterative Archetype

I haven't spent enough time with Go Fug Yourself, but it's always worth the visit. Their take on the recently released September Vogue, par example:

I'm not even going to mention(...) the ridiculous fact that EVERY SINGLE HEADLINE is alliterative ("Fashion's Feistiest Icon" and "Perfect Political Partner" and "Fearless Fashion" AND "Magician of Makeup"? Was there no room for "Piles of Positively Peerless Pants" or "Scads of Seriously Sexy Skirts" or "My Mailman Refuses to Deliver This Because It Weighs More Than Some Babies"? Wait, that last one doesn't have any alliteration. My bad).

They also take Anna to task for giving Sienna GP's W magazine brows. Mwahahahaha.

Shuesday: Pretty in pink

And brown. They're calling it chestnut, but that's so J. Crew, with their acorn, graphite, poppy and pine.

This brand is one of the things I miss most without a Nordstrom on The Island.

The (official) end of woman as tent

In a city with a climate that redefines torture as a woman in pants between Memorial Day and Labor Day, I think I bought four skirts, three dresses and umpteen sleeveless tops to add to what I thought was a sufficient summer wardrobe (not that such an animal exists). I'm still sick of my summer clothes with 4 weeks to go, but at least we're done with this animal.

For the last few seasons, women’s clothing has been in flight from women’s bodies. The tent, the trapeze, the bubble, the baby doll—call these dresses what you will, the dominant shape (if that word is justified) has been one that renders a woman shapeless. Such styles deliberately obscure traditionally eroticized parts of the body, the breasts and hips and waist, managing the bizarre (and, let’s face it, somewhat disturbing) feat of making women appear at once infantile and pregnant. In a sea of nightgowns, art-class smocks, maternity blouses, and Mrs. Roper–style muumuus, we are left with only arms and legs and—according to the New York Times “Styles” section, anyway—the very naughty clavicle. Many women, in some desperate but understandable bid to feel sexy, have taken to wearing their dresses alarmingly short.

But those baffled by volume, those bored by it, those heterosexual and male, should take heart. This fall, women’s clothing and the female body once again get intimate. I’m not talking about the return of eighties-era bodysuits, or tight mohair sweaters with plunging décolletage. Still, silhouettes will be longer, slimmer; clothing will be more structured. Suits, jackets, and trousers have ousted the dress. Waists are visible. Breasts, if not exactly showcased, are at least detectable. Shoulders, absent for some time now, are once again important. Gone is the soft and round and globular (and the layers, ruffles, and Empire waists that often played accompaniment) in favor of the hard-edged and angular. At last, women will ditch the diapers of the baby-doll dress in favor of a sharper, slicker aesthetic.

There is something to be said for fabric that stays away from your body (anytime the temperatures are above 85 degrees), which is why I'm softening my earlier stance on all things flowy, but I never liked the baby-doll, Tinsley-esque look. It's like waxing the Full Monty - there's no need to portray ourselves as infants.

Love in the 'Oughts

“The key to any relationship is defeat and acceptance,” Ms. Simpson said from a corner banquette where she was stealing quality time with Mr. Newman (...) and his bandmates (The New Pornographers). Ms. Simpson added: “It’s like, O.K., let’s just watch ‘Top Chef.’ ”

“That’s love,” piped in her husband of mere hours. “Wanting the same person to win on a reality show.”

Say it isn't so ...

A Beautiful Duet [NYT]

Now that I have your attention

Manhattan Mini-Storage has been running a provocative ad campaign this year, featuring slogans such as, "Your closet's so narrow it makes Cheney look liberal," "Your closet's so shallow it makes Paris look deep," (complete with chihuahua), but it took this ad to actually get the attention of New York conservatives:


Gothamist wants to know what you think. I'm just glad someone's using their freedom of speech.

Shuesday: Under cover

Really? Did you have to? I know you are the Maestro of all that is Shoe, but camouflage print?

Icons we mourn: Brooke Astor

From the NYT obit:

At night — almost every night, even into her 90s — she could be found surrounded by crystal and caviar, done up in her designer dresses and magnificent jewels, seated to the right of the host. (She was always seated to the right of the host.)

For her forays around the city, she dressed as she did when she joined the ladies who lunch at East Side bistros: a finely tailored suit or a designer dress, a hat in any weather, a cashmere coat when it was cool and, in her last years, an elegant cane, her one apparent concession to age. She always wore a ring of precious stones, a bracelet, a brooch and earrings.

“If I go up to Harlem or down to Sixth Street, and I’m not dressed up or I’m not wearing my jewelry, then the people feel I’m talking down to them,” she said. “People expect to see Mrs. Astor, not some dowdy old lady, and I don’t intend to disappoint them.”

In her 98th year she was still writing articles for Vanity Fair magazine, noting with regret, for example, that gentlemen no longer wore hats and that women no longer flirted, something she said she herself never failed to do.

A widow for 48 years, Mrs. Astor had a number of suitors in that time but did not want to marry again. “I just don’t want anyone tugging at my sleeve at 10 o’clock telling me it’s time to go home,” she once told her friend Marietta Tree. “I want to go at my own speed, and it’s a lot faster than theirs.”

The Astor Court is one of my favourite places in New York.

A unique feature of the Asian galleries is the Astor Court, modeled on a Ming dynasty (1368–1644) scholar's courtyard in the Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets in Suzhou, a city west of Shanghai famous for its garden architecture. A gift of the Vincent Astor Foundation, the garden court, which opened to the public in 1981, includes an adjoining room for the Museum's collection of Chinese hardwood furniture.

GP: what happened?

I've always loved GP, but what has W magazine done to her? Those eyebrows ... I can hardly stand it.






Go Fug Yourself

Puppy love

So I've long (gently) mocked TK and BS, for the effect puppies have on them, generally.

But then I started reading this chick's blog, daily, and then bought her book (so good), and now I just want one of these.

Although not enough to leave the a/c on in the apartment all day. So probably should remain puppy-free ... for now.

Although there is Doggy Daycare ... (what kind of dancing, do you think?)

Solidarity, or, when it's ok to eat ice cream for dinner

In case you missed it, New York City had a public transit meltdown today. Torrential rains in the early morning combined with a tornado in Brooklyn (yes, really, and incidentally combined with temperatures in the 90's and ridiculous humidity), to cause flooding in the subways, trees across streets in Brooklyn, over-packed buses and snarled traffic. Yes, all the subways (of record).

I awoke to a fantastic thunder and lightning storm at 6 a.m. When I was a summer camp staffer at various levels of responsibility, I loved waking up in my plywood cabin to the crack of thunder and the entire space alight from above. Among the things I missed in my intermezzo on the Worst Coast was weather with chutzpah. And here, we get it in spades. I enjoyed the interplay of light and sound over the Empire State Building for a while, then dozed off until the alarm rang. Then, comme toujours, hit the radio for NPR in my ongoing effort to put my feet on the floor before 8 am. And listened to them off the subway lines, one by one. It was like listening to Dumbledore recount Voldemort's purging of the wizard community - first the R, then the 1, then the 4-5, then the 2-3, then the 6. The W didn't even warrant a mention. My alternate transportation plans kept evaporating, and I am disinclined to experiment with the buses under duress.

I pinged a colleague who's sort of a neighbour (and, despite being a native was one of the blissfully media-in-the-morning-free), who dissuaded me from experimenting with the bus under the circumstances, and we decided to walk.

You heard me.

I donned indestructible clothes, my most comfy flip flops (heels in my handbag), and headed into the heat. Met my friend in Soho, and walked the 4 or so miles down Broadway to Lower Manhattan along with the rest of the people who felt obliged to make a timely effort to get to work today, (and could do so). It was actually fun. We walked and talked and made our way through Tribeca and the Financial District, hitting a Starbucks at a key moment for a/c and a decent breakfast. The walk was hot, although punctuated by surprisingly cool breezes near City Hall, and I wished I'd work shorts and carried work-wear, but we survived.

Regardless of what you may have heard about New Yorkers, on days like today, people made eye contact. They smiled, in spite of the sweat and the heat, and the general discomfort. My partner in crime shouted at one of the stupid double decker tourist buses poking its way along somewhere near Canal Street, "it's not always like this!," to the delight of all. And at work, everyone shared stories of the 1-4 and a half hours it took them to get in. The guy who accidentally ran over my heel at Trader Joe's this evening (I shopped my way home to maximize the air conditioning of others), apologized profusely, and I told him it was ok at least 6 times.

And then I got in, unpacked groceries, turned on a/c, and sat down in the bathtub with only cold water running. Definitely a night for shrimp spring rolls and ice cream for dinner.

Shuesday: One is silver

The weather report is promising me no end to the heat - August is supposed to feature day after day of 90+ temperatures, and I'm already cowering in fear for the next electric bill - the a/c is spendy, natch!

The fashion world is, also natch, well into fall, and I adore the snub toes on these D&G pumps.

Le weekend: le mini-break, part one

Because we all deserve a mini-break when we've not had a real vacation in, oh ...

Hmmm. So presumably a real vacation doesn't include one's parents. I'm not sure whether or not it includes one's relatives of any kind ...

OK, that's just depressing. Let's stipulate that an actual vacation does not include non-nuclear family members, or job interviews. I insist, however, in the interests of you not being forced to watch me open a vein on my delicate white wrist, that one can take a holiday in one's own environs.

Right? Especially when you live in Gotham?

You know what? That's a post in itself. You're going to have to wait for it. (mwahaha!)

(Also, ahem, mwahaha made the Urban Dictionary?)

Holes in the space-time continuum

A friend (real before virtual, and who shall remain nameless until I'm granted permission to link, in this instance) and I agreed this weekend that there are times when one plays with the time line of one's life in the interests of better blogging. Whether there are days we know we'll travel, or days when nothing particularly blog-worthy takes place (the horror, the horror!), it happens.

My sense is that we all know we do it, and that we're all OK with it, I just want you to know.

(And not that I've been fighting to let you go.)

Late to the party

But Sassy nonetheless ...

If you subscribed to or even occasionally read Sassy, the teen-girl magazine that existed from 1989 to 1996, then that makes you, approximately, a pro-choice registered Democrat who came of age listening to alternative rock. You grew up on R.E.M., the Smiths, the Cure, Throwing Muses, Sonic Youth, Liz Phair, Hole, Bikini Kill, PJ Harvey, My So-Called Life, and John Hughes. Your romantic ideals were forged by repeated viewings of Dead Poets Society, Say Anything, and Morrissey riding around on a tractor in the middle of winter for the “Suedehead” video. You published a zine or bought zines, issued seven-inch singles or bought seven-inch singles. You were probably a high-achieving malcontent, a wearer of black in high school who became a thrift-store-haunting feminist theorist in college. If you were going to get married at all, you were going to marry an enlightened, sensitive man who washed dishes, and you'd do it for enlightened, egalitarian love—not money! Or else you were going to, or did, come out proudly as a lesbian, or you took up with members of both sexes and didn't feel guilty. You were under the impression that the girls who came after you would never have to shave their legs.

How Sassy (Should Have) Changed My Life [n+1]

Shuesday: Bonus WSJ edition!

The WSJ thinks it knows why women wear heels, and it's not because most flats look like Mephistos. To wit:

"High heels indicate power," says Stuart Weitzman, designer of many a power heel. "For some reason, it's a natural instinct for human beings."

This is partly a factor of height. At 5'9½ in bare feet, a pair of heels leaves Kristin Bentz, who runs a fashion-investment blog, towering over many men in a room. "I totally use the shoes for the intimidation factor -- for women and for men," she says.

Yet, as much as I'd like to argue that this is all about the added height, I'm afraid it's not. High heels are sexy. They offer an inherent contradiction: They make us more fragile, but conquering them to stride alongside men in their sensible flats creates mystique.

Naturally, the podiatrist they interviewed is a fan of Birkenstocks, calling them, "beautiful."

Heelpolitick: The Power of the Stilleto [WSJ]

Ceci n'est pas une porte

But my new office will have one!

We're moving upstairs a week from Monday.