wedding party

It is now Fall and cool and crisp and for no apparent reason I started thinking about weddings. I am lucky enough to have few married or engaged friends so I never go to weddings. But my few memories of weddings are lovely and severe. Every wedding I have ever been to has been held in Pennsylvania. Most every wedding reception has been held in either a fire company or grange - here is a link to what a grange is for those unfamiliar with this terminology. Many of these weddings have a happy / depressing working class Deer Hunter wedding reception vibe (the real fun starts around 3:13 or so):



These weddings generally feature a fuzzy navel fountain, which is a pretty awe-inspiring sight. I remember being very young and being forbidden from drinking fuzzy navels, listening to like Peter Gabriel or Genesis or Huey Lewis and the News or Exposé.

Just now, I was listening to some Tango in the Night-era Fleetwood Mac / late 80's Stevie Nicks and it got me thinking about weddings. Not sure where this association came from. The mind works in mysterious ways.

"Seven Wonders" (Fleetwood Mac)
"Seven Wonders" (dub remix)

Many weddings involve country line dancing, like my cousin's, two summers ago. My cousin and her husband met each other at a country line dancing bar. Their dance-based romance is inspiring.







When I was 13 or so my great-uncle got married in a gazebo on his farm. Since these family members were bluegrass lovers, the wedding processional was fiddled, and the reception featured a pig-roast. Obviously as a young adolescent I was mortified.

The most recent wedding I attended, over a year and a half ago I think, was a friend-of-friend situation. I was a designated emergency date after my friend Daniel's days-fresh breakup. Obviously my date was less than chipper due to his recent heartbreak, but I tried to make the most of it. Since the guy getting married was in a band, his amazing "wedding band" was a real band and they played super-romantic and excellent wedding songs. Everyone danced. The best was when they did "Sea of Love" I thought I was gonna cry. Also the bride / groom dance was to some Van Morrison song, I think off Tupelo Honey. It was right then that I started believing in marriage, maybe for the first time.

side effects of look book making

Aside from the overwhelming desire to not only shop (I have started RSSing the shopping blog Racked) but also read women's magazines like Elle and Glamour, I have discovered an unexpected side effect while attempting to craft my fall look. Everywhere I go, I look at other girls' style and think, oh that girl looks cute. Oh those shoes are hot. Oh that dress is really flattering, etc. I had a fairly insane revelation since I've started checking out girls everywhere:

Male friends of mine talk about how there are cute girls everywhere, how there are an endless supply of attractive and f_able women in NY and they're right. It is really overwhelming. Somehow while performing the most girlish of activities I have finally started to understand some key part of the male psyche. I guess there are cute boys everywhere too but I'd have to say that their fashions are a lot more consistent. And I think that thing about girls dressing for other girls is definitely true.

Back 2 Basics Look Book #1: Long Hair

This season's brand narrative is developing very very slowly. I will have to work it out in installments. It will come together eventually, but for now it's time to revisit some basics: Fall 09 is about long brown hair. But, like, aggressively long, aggressively straight. The hair is brought into the foreground.



Initially I thought that Blue Lagoon-era Brooke Shields would be the bedrock of my summer style if summer 08 could be re-lived. How could this look — tans, long hair, strong brows, white stuff, minimal clothing — possibly transcend summer? After serious discussion, it was decided that the "look" was really just long hair. Everything else was just an accessory crudely used to cover the body. I started looking for other applications of long brown hair as accessory.



In Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn pulls back part of the hair to maximum effect. The hair represents her girlhood, and when she cuts it she graduates to young woman.



After watching The Science of Sleep on HBO, I decided that super-straight hair is the way to go. Charlotte Gainsbourg's style is pretty understated. She has a fairly boyish figure, and the straight long brown hair provides a feminine counterpoint.




Sloane Peterson, ultimate babe brunette. Also, note Sloane's white fringe jacket. This may be addressed in a forthcoming installment of this brand narrative.



Obviously, forever and forever.

Fall Preview

Seasons change, people change.



I swear to god, this blog will die soon. It will be replaced by newer, realer, better things that are slightly less vacuous. Until that day comes, Fall 2008 looks like this:

1. "jazz"
2. an extensive analysis of the Scientology-esque Susan Miller talk at the Apple Store
3. fall lookbook
4. an introduction to printing out the internet
5. don't make me over playlist

I can't talk about any of this in detail right now (thanks Caliente Cab Company!) but I figured I'd at least show you the TOC.

This week's Gossip Girl highlights
Apparently this episode is called "Darkness Falls" (it's about a blackout, duh.)
- Chuck, on Serena and Dan getting back together: "Congrats on you and Humphry. Water always finds its own level."
- In the same conversation, Serena to Chuck: “You are not using Blair as sexual Draino.”
- Lastly, the young girls assaulting Dan and Serena in the park, sharing their perspective on the relationship based on the Gossip Girl blog. The girl who's "a Serena". I love this show.

what i've learned from gossip girl season two, so far

After a very long summer, Gossip Girl is back, and my innate need for drama now has an outlet outside of my own life. There was an article in the ny times mag this weekend about Twitter and "ambient awareness" which includes a brief mention of "parasocial" relationships people have with television characters:

"If you’re reading daily updates from hundreds of people about whom they’re dating and whether they’re happy, it might, some critics worry, spread your emotional energy too thin, leaving less for true intimate relationships. Psychologists have long known that people can engage in “parasocial” relationships with fictional characters, like those on TV shows or in books, or with remote celebrities we read about in magazines. Parasocial relationships can use up some of the emotional space in our Dunbar number, crowding out real-life people. "

So, real people, here are my observations of the fictional but strangely pertinent social drama that is Gossip Girl thus far:

- Chuck Bass has a little Christian Slater / "Heathers" in him. They share similarities in facial expressions as well as vocal inflections, if not style choices. J.D.? Are you going to blow up the school this season?

- Also, in episode one, Blair — the fictional Miriam perhaps — unleashes a true girl-to-girl, pep-talk pearl on Serena:
"The only thing lamer than dating Dan Humphrey ... is mourning Dan Humphrey."

Since Gossip Girl became OMFG post-writers strike, Chuck and Blair have morphed from the most despicable to the deepest and most realistic characters. Their love / hate relationship is captivating. We shall see what happens as the lord / dutchess / milf love triangle unfolds.

P.S.: The apology from Blair to the Dutchess: "Dutchess, I'm so sorry about the [insulting] Botox [comment she made]. Your work is flawless."