Hello from Greencastle!

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I was busy driving from New Hampshire to Indiana and re-establishing myself in my (fabulous) digs at DePauw (the best college in the universe). The trip included a jaunt over to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, which everyone should see at least once for an inspirational experience, and the reassurance that enough people care about good, gritty music that it's considered high art once in a while.



Tyler, my boyfriend and director of the fourth best college radio station in the country, 91.5 WGRE, went book shopping with me before lunch today and obliged me by taking my picture in historic downtown Greencastle.

Star earrings, Topshop
Peace sign neclace, Tiffany & Co.
Vintage tee-shirt
Shorts, Topshop
Flats, Hot Topic
Bag, Betseyville by Betsey Johnson

Recommended listening: The Who-Welcome

bohemian

Gucci

DKNY

I love it. Say what you want. And it's back. So there.

Booknote: A Freewheelin' Time

Hi, kids.

I just finished reading the latest Bob Dylan Book, A Freewheelin' Time, by Suze Rotolo (the girl from the Freewheelin' album cover, to you).

Suze, a visual artist, moved in with Bobby (as she calls him; too cute!) on a Fourth Street apartment when she was seventeen and he was twenty. They stayed together until 1964, when Bobby went to California and cheated on Suze with Joan Baez (sad face!). The artfully disjointed memoir follows Suze's adolescence and early twenties, spent in Greenwich Village with Bobby and in Europe with her family.

The general message of the memoir has definitely seen before in other '60s memoirs: in the midst of the chaos, it was a ultimately a simpler time with a youth culture who actually believed in something and were able to change the world despite their starry-eyed idealism. Yes, it's trite, but anyone even considering picking up this book should realize that it's to be expected (and young artists of later generations should be prepared to feel inferior and chastised). Still, I'm a romantic bohemian and a sucker for anything Dylan, and I must say that A Freewheelin' Time is not bad for its genre. Actually, you can get a lot more out of Rotolo's story, informationally and artistically, than you can get out of Dylan's own cryptic Chronicles, Volume I.

Suze repeats throughout the book that she never wanted to be "a string on Dylan's guitar", a legitimate concern for someone who could be considered up there with Pamela Des Barres in the "chick" hall of fame. She compensates for the purely Dylan-fueled appeal by adding snippets about her life growing up in Queens as a red-diaper baby; her career ventures as a jewelry designer, off-Broadway set designer, artist and East Village Other Slum Goddess; and other important, down-home people important in the early Village folk scene. Fabulous ladies and gents can get some rad home decor tips from Suze, too. Seriously!

The razzle-dazzle provided by Dylan, Edie Sedgwick, and Allen Ginsberg, to name a few, is still definitely pretty sweet. Especially the girlfriend stories, like going shopping with Bobby to pick out a jacket to wear on his first album cover. Come on. You wanna read it. You wanna be it.

It's definitely a good read for Dylan fans, but if you don't care about Bob, you may be a little confused as to why this woman is prattling on about herself so much.

Icon: George Costanza

I want to start doing "daily outfit" posts on the days when my wardrobe is interesting, but right now I'm living out of boxes and suitcases until I head back to DePauw in two days. This leaves me with underwear, a pair of jeans, some tee shirts and odd accessories, since I am too lazy and obsessive-compulsive to pack and re-pack. I'm faced with a dilemma: how do I make this mundane uniform inspired? The answer, of course, is to look to Seinfeld for guidance.

Cosmo Kramer, with his teased coif and vintage duds, generally gets the most fashion credit of all the characters in the cultural apex that is Seinfeld. But the other three coffee-shop confidantes warrant a nod as well. Particularly George Costanza. George has been my favorite character ever since I first started watching the show about nothing (before I could understand it, of course) in the fourth grade. There's just something about neurotics.

I feel we can glean more from George than just zingers like, "The jerk store called, and they're running out of you!" Let's look at some of the clothing items sported by George throughout the show's run: glasses with pointy ladies' frames, Timberland boots, Russian sable hats, Gore-tex puffer jackets, toupees, and even a Henry VIII costume (maybe Alexander McQueen got some tips from George for his Fall collection, shown below). He would drape himself in velvet (if it was socially acceptable), and labels his outfits with titles like "Morning Mist".

The man's an icon. So, today, I give you George Chic: fashion inspired by a short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man.



Cap, MLB Pro Shop (Use a Yankees cap for authenticity; I cheated and used a Cubs hat because I'm in Red Sox country.)
Glasses, Twenty-One (Did you know that Larry David originally intended George to be based on Woody Allen? Pay respect!)
Tee shirt, bustedtees.com (Yes, it says Vandelay Industries! If you want, you can pick up a Kramerica shirt, too.)
Bolero, Forever Twenty-One (I think that this captures the spirit of both the Russian hat and the puffy coat.)
Jeans, American Eagle (Wear them ripped; George was an underachiever, and it was the '90s, after all.)
Sneakers, Converse (Ah, Chuck Taylors: a shame-free option for the infantile sports fan in all of us.)

Genderbending is looking better than ever.

Daughters by Obedient Sons is not looking bad...at all.


Sigh. I'll still always want to be Annie Hall.

On the other hand, I'm a sucker for costumey...

I like how the Alexander McQueen Fall RTW line has power--the models look like they could say anything and their will be done--without any menswear touches.

Sorry/Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Good: Bad:

Good:

I had a nervous breakdown and kind of forgot about this.

I think that from now on I'm going to use this blog as a place to voice my reflections on culture, books, film, music, fashion and art. I will include my own photographs and writing as I see fit.

And what better way to begin this blog anew than by talking about the latest film by my love, Woody Allen?

Yes, he married his adopted Asian almost-stepdaughter. Yes, he has had horrible pit stains on the red carpet. And he's a depressed nebbish. And all of the movies since Match Point were terrible (until now, but we'll get to that).

That said, I love Woody Allen with a deep, unconditional appreciation that stems from being a fellow depressed, sexually frustrated artist who also gets pit stains at inappropriate times, and I tend to go easy on him.

But you need to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona, even though it looks and sounds like an artsy porno (and it's much less racy than it seems, which may be disappointing to some). The plot doesn't look good on paper, so I won't try to go into it, but here are some thoughts:

I'll be very surprised if Penelope Cruz does not get an Oscar nod for her turn as Javier Bardem's homicidal, suicidal, yet somehow still lovable ex-wife.

I don't think Scarlett Johansson is a very good actress, but I really like her for some reason. Plus I relate to her character (Cristina) in this movie a lot.

You can hear Allen's voice in this film clearly. The film has a narrator, which, for some reason, is voiced by some other dude and not by Allen himself, but if you're familiar with Woody Allen movies at all, your brain will just cancel out his voice and stick a Woody recording on the mental turntable. Also, Rebecca Hall, who plays Vicky, really channels Annie Hall-era Allen in her character--she stutters her lines in that way that makes Woody's characters seem insecure, but is actually very sexy on a woman.

Plus, I find the poster to be extremely beautiful and erotic.

On a different note, I watched the film version of Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel, one of my absolute favorite books.

It wasn't good. Christina Ricci is lovely, but she comes off as extremely shrill and bratty. I doubt there is a way to make an accurate film from Wurtzel's book--three quarters of it takes place in the Hell of Wurtzel's own mind. So don't see the movie. Read the book!!

Here is what I think.

Everyone needs a hug.

The radicals are reacting to the reactionaries and the reactionaries overreact.

The Greeks have a stigma and the independents stigmatize themselves to fit in.

It's all ridiculous. Can we stop please?