For All The Bone Mothers

I posted this last year on Halloween, but I love it so much that I'm doing a replay.

You Are All Liars

You know what? Fuck undecided voters. I think you all just like the attention. I think you all want to be interviewed on CNN or NPR or Fox or wherever, because you're lying attention whores.

You are either voting for Skeletor or MessiahWonderkinderUberMan.

NO ONE IS FOR REALZ UNDECIDED.

It is categorically impossible.

Oh. Ma. Gah.

Well not my god, but you know what I mean.

If America Says So

Because I so desperately want this election to be over, I am now obsessing on what I am doing the day after the election: seeing the Decemberists.

In the spirit of trying to enjoy both the band and politics, here's their video for 16 Military Wives.



I heart this a lot -- particularly the nice lettering by Carson Ellis.

Don't Look A Gift Clotheshorse In The French Mouth. What?

There was no title for this post. That's all I got.

When I was younger (9-17ish) I pretty much only wore my older brother's cast off's. I wore a lot of Stussy shirts with big baggy shorts and airwalk sneakers, maybe a beanie here or there, and an assload flannel. I had really long hair, which I did nothing with, until I started dyeing it every color under the sun, and then started shaving parts of it. Essentially, I was a complete tomboy, and really wanted nothing to do with "girl" fashion or clothes.

It wasn't until I really went away to college that I started paying attention to clothes, and how much fun they could be to play with. This, I guess, was because I went to school with a bunch of "hip" people, all vastly hipper than I, who all looked pretty fabulous, even though a large quotient of them were ridiculous and paraded around mispronouncing Foucault. If you don't know how to pronounce it, that's otay! Just, you know, don't pretend you're know all his work, and worse, understand it when you don't even know how to say his name. (Foo-Koh.)

ANY WAY.

This is all to say that I'm totally intrigued by fashion now. I am constantly unable to make a decision about it.

It's art!

But it's art that depends on the labor of those who can't enjoy it!

It's self expression!

That totally depends on underpaid, unseen workers!

Okay, but luxury brands mostly use highly paid, highly skilled workers!

But you hate brands! And isn't a $4,000 purse a complete FUCK YOU to most sane people?

Yes! I have no argument against that!

And so on.

Really my main argument that fashion isn't that bad is Tim Gunn. He's so classy! And so intelligent! To boot, he can explain fashion better than anyone. Are you ready for a meeting of the brain crushes? Here's Tim Gunn AND Jonathan Stewart talking on what fashion is really all about:

"I'm the first to encapsulate this realistically. Nobody needs it. We need clothes, do we need fashion? No. And fashion, when it's good, comes out of a context that's societal and cultural and historic and economic and political -- so it's of a time and a place."

Like any other art. Also: when in doubt, "Resolve the skirt." God, I love Tim.

But yes, fashion is a bizzaro intersection between art and capitalism, especially when it comes to models.

Ah models. If you live in New York, you run into them a lot. You could be walking down the street thinking, "Hey, I feel pretty good about myself today! I found a pair of skinny jeans that don't make me look like an ice cream cone, and my hair is somewhat swinging today! I am, in general, not totally unattractive!" And then, out of no where, there she is, and that thought goes right out of your head. And, of course, the city is chock full of modelizers.

But teenage self-confidence quandries aside, models fascinate me. Are they muses? Blank slates for the advertising fuckfest? Are they artists in their own right? I don't really know what to think of modeling. On the one hand I'm envious of model's lifestyles: they get to travel world, work on their own, meet fascinating people, and are involved in some sort of art every day. But then there's rumors of weigh-ins, 13-year-old slavic girls who are sent over totally alone, are always subject to someone else's vision, and then there's that high quotient of assholes in the business.

Here's a video of the old House of Style from MTV (which I miss), which has an interview with Haute Couture designer Jean Paul Gautier (you know him from Madonna's cone boobs circa (ha!) "Vogue.")He's hilariously French. Like UBER French. Frencher than Jean Reno, and that's saying something. While Cindy Crawford might be the worst tv personality ever, pay attention during the interview. If you didn't know he was a fashion designer, it would sound like he was your regular, every day nutso, artist, especially when she asks him if he's just out to shock people.

Frenchy aside, there's also an interview with Linda Evangelista, who was essentially the first super model. I love this interview for a couple of reasons. Firstly, look at her. NO ONE LOOKS LIKE THAT. Secondly, there's a bit of "a day in the life."



You really get an idea of how busy she is. She is really frickin busy! I didn't really understand how much models work it's constant. If you're at the top of the game, you're busy because of demand. If you're at the bottom of the game, you're busy because you're desperate for work to pay off growing debt to your agency (more on that later).

But I also love that she explains that every season she choses a new designer to walk for -- which must be like like Spielberg agreeing to come see a screening of your movie you just shot on a flip camera. The designer she walks for? Herve Leger! Don't know the name? S'ok. It's not like you're mispronouncing Foucault. Suffice it to say, he's really famous now. Known for his skin tight mini dresses, his work is every where.

Anyway, in this video, Evangelista is 26. My age. Oh. Ma. Ga.

(Side note: how well produced is that "House of Style" clip? With the showing of the old, bizarre French art film? Jesus MTV blows douchey ass now. Hard.)

I've been percolating about this "model" thing ever since I started watching "Model.Live," an online show that's been following around three models who have not made it "big" through the fashion week season: New York, London, Milan, Paris.

I sort of want to be BFF with model Madeline Kragh. She's funny, smart, and hip to how weird this modeling business is and how it can occasionally make your mind all screwy. She also does a really good job of explaining how models and money mix. In this week's episode, she explains how she has to pay her landlord in clothes, as that's all designers will pay her in for walking in their shows. On top of that, there's a whole thing about how models are "independent contractors" who essentially live in debt to their agencies, racking up thousands if not millions of dollars, usually before they're 20.

Nuts, right?

When I sit down with British Vogue, my favorite fashion magazine, I'm totally mesmerized by the beauty of it. It, I guess, being the whole shiny thing. The models, the clothes, the sheen of complexity it has.

"Complexity!" you say. "What's so complex? Vapid women, expensive crap no one needs, bah!"

It's like Tim says: do we need fashion? No, I guess not. But then, do we need art? You could say is sustains a part of the soul and the intellect that would otherwise not be nourished, and I would include fashion in that.

When I see a photo spread I really like, I think about everything that went into it. Because it's my frame of reference, I think about it like a movie. Even this shittiest of movies is the product of hundreds of people's time and energy. Same with the simplest of photographs. From the designers to the sewers, to the textile workers to the make up artists, to the model, to the photographer, to the editors. It's huge. It's simply amazing any of it gets done.

Would that everyone in that process was fairly paid and you know... gets to keep all their fingers at the end of the day.

On that note, I'll leave this brain dump from out favorite photog, Bill Cunningham. You might remember him from the old Cashmere Readings. While he usually runs around New York taking photos of passersby to document the look of the city, this time he's in Paris! Narrating about how this season women are wearing almost exactly the same thing they were wearing the first time he went to the City of Light for fashion week, in 1950 ("Or was in '49?").

See? History.

Culture.

Art.

I Agree!

This IS the best video of all time! (Or is in the running, anyway)




And so apropos! (See Previous Post)

Walk up to me
And say what you said
See how brave you are
When I'm about this far away

You sit in judgment and bitch
Well, baby that's rich
You're nothing but a snitch.


On a nicer note, I miss playing tag in the basement of Vassar's library at 4 in the morning.


via Choire Sicha

Gawker, The HuffPo and The Insider Baseball World Series

Right, so from Domestic Violence to New York Media stuff. At some point this thing should probably get a point, or a niche, but for the time being, I guess it will have to stay "the blog about the shit in my head."

Anyway, the New Yorker has a big piece on Arianna this week, and some -- like Gawker -- feel it went soft. To compensate, Gawker has been doing what it does best: taking insider gossip from current and ex-employees about the company and the boss.

The problem with all the gossip coming in about HuffPo is that it is most certainly coming from the two most clueless, most ineffectual current and former employees.

Case in point is today's post which includes a paragraph on Colin Sterling, the head of the blogroll (that thing to the right of the page, where all the people talking about their really good thoughts -- me included!). Yes, he's my friend, and yes, I'm biased, but I'm also not a complete nitwit.

The post says he has a "nasty temper" and creates a "'Lord of the Flies' atmosphere." It is, in short, a bunch of hooey. Colin shares the conch willingly.

Yes, I can confirm his penchant for occasionally punching his own desk. However, I would not in a million years call his temper, or any other part of his personality "nasty." Given his job, I would be pulling out my hair, dressing in sackcloth and ash, and would probably pick up a nasty meth habit. But Colin keeps his cool, and consistently helps newer, less experiences editors, logging more hours than anyone. Also, he looks like Harry Potter!

There are two people who would describe Colin as having a bad temper, and that's because he had/has to deal with their general inability to get work done and a consistent habit of passive aggressiveness, which left his substantial workload even more substantial.


Really, this whole thing is a bit off target since, as a good friend says, "THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD CRAP OUT THERE AND THEY ARE LISTENING TO THE TWO STUPIDEST PEOPLE!" The "Samanderic," if you will.

Colin doesn't really belong in this whole brouhaha -- he's only getting dragged in because of old grudge harbored by someone who felt beleaguered, when she was actually just bad at her job.

As for the call for people to write in on "the reportedly rough HuffPo experience of Liz Hanks, daughter of famous movie star Tom Hanks," I cannot imagine a greater waste of someone's time.

Other than reading this, of course.

Update: Apparently Gawker now agrees with me, as my name has been taken out of the post. I do not pretend to understand.

Debbie Would Stop Being A Downer If You Stopped Hitting Her

Hey kids, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month! Fun times!

(guh.)

Did you know:

1 out of 4 women experience attempted or completed rape during college?

1 out of 6 American women will experience attempted or completed rape during their lifetime?

Don't think rape is the same thing as domestic violence? Well then here's a fucking shitty surprise: "64% of women who reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked since age 18 were victimized by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, boyfriend, or date."

Horrifying, right? Well, here's some more for you:

The leading cause of injury to women in the United States is domestic violence. Got that? Now, let's just make that a little more clear:

The leading cause of injury to women is men.

Check out the Nation Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Organization for Women, and A Call To Men, an organization geared towards clueing everyone into the fact that domestic violence is the direct result of sexism and patriarchal hegemony.

Here are some tips from their website, which are geared towards men, but you know me -- I think everyone should be down for some breaking down of the ol' gender binaries!

1. Acknowledge and understand how sexism, male dominance and male privilege lay the foundation for all forms of violence against women.

2. Examine and challenge our individual sexism and the role that we play in supporting men who are abusive.

3. Recognize and stop colluding with other men by getting out of our socially defined roles, and take a stance to end violence against women.

4. Remember that our silence is affirming. When we choose not to speak out against men’s violence, we are supporting it.

5. Educate and re-educate our sons and other young men about our responsibility in ending men’s violence against women.

6."Break out of the man box"- Challenge traditional images of manhood that stop us from actively taking a stand to end violence against women.

7. Accept and own our responsibility that violence against women will not end until men become part of the solution to end it. We must take an active role in creating a cultural and social shift that no longer tolerates violence against women.

8. Stop supporting the notion that men’s violence against women is due to mental illness, lack of anger management skills, chemical dependency, stress, etc… Violence against women is rooted in the historic oppression of women and the outgrowth of the socialization of men.

9. Take responsibility for creating appropriate and effective ways to develop systems to educate and hold men accountable.

10. Create systems of accountability to women in your community. Violence against women will end only when we take direction from those who understand it most, women.

Palin Comparison Part I

TODAY IS LIKE CHRISTMAS BUT EVEN BETTER BECAUSE WE MIGHT GET TO TALK ABOUT HOW GIRLS WHO ARE RAPED BY THEIR FATHERS SHOULD TOTES HAVE TO KEEP THE BABY BECAUSE PALIN BELIEVES IN LIFE.

Drama!