As a mark of respect for the blokes who are playing what I hope to be a suitably lounge-y concert this evening, here are the Fun Lovin’ Criminals and one of my favourite songs:
After the corset comes demureness. Modcloth’s Latin Teacher dress looks like a great staple to have in a closet.
I keep hearing how shift dresses never go out of style, blah de blah. For a not-quite-punk / rockabilly / geek like me, they just look old and boring. Where are the shift dresses for the non-corporate people? I admit, I do have a great dress in the Cheap Monday chambray number I nabbed on sale quite recently, but a shift dress like this one is a bit more fitting, looks conservative enough (once I cover up my upper arms), and I could get away with wearing it to this training thing I’m going to that has a dress code.
Smart casual. Considering that I am terminally underdressed (I mean dressed down, of course), I have real issues with what this means. I know what I’m not to wear, but this means almost my entire wardrobe is out of the running (yes mum, I’m still hanging on maniacally to that polo teeshirt dress from Soda that I bought in the early 90s). I suppose plain black will do. I’ve got loads of that (yes mum, that still hasn’t changed). Unless, of course, I miraculously buy this very soon.
I love Joe Pickering for sending me a signed proof of David Vann’s new novel, Caribou Island (literary *squee*). Anyone reading this site last year knows my passionate affection for Legend of a Suicide — I’ve never recommended another book quite as much as I have that one. Seriously.
Caribou Island has a lot to live up to, then. It tells the story of a couple who are trying to build a new life on a remote island — and quite shudderingly, starts with the re-telling of a suicide. We also follow the lives of their daughter and son, and the people they’re involved with.
I actually think my obsession with Legend of a Suicide has done Caribou Island a disservice. The absolute horror of the central event in Legend’s ‘Sukkwan Island’ novella made me expect something equally head-fucking, so I was reading the novel with a sort of morbid anticipation, ready to be thoroughly shocked. I’m not going to say if that does happen (the book isn’t even published till January), but I think I would have enjoyed it much, much more if I hadn’t retained such a clear picture of Legend in my head.
To me, David Vann is one of the best authors working right now. Just as I love Richard Yates’ work for his melancholic take on life in post-war America, David Vann looks to be the king of bleak Alaskan fiction. That’s quite the cheery and uplifting genre, isn’t it?
(I must be very emotionally stable to be a fan of David Vann and Richard Yates and not kill myself, I reckon.)
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I have a political crush on Nick Clegg.
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The Autism Spectrum Quotient test has scored me 30 points. Anyone scoring 32 points or over is considered autistic. Women normally score 15. I don’t believe it will ever cause any problems, but it sure explains a lot.
Neil, doing his best impression of an adolescent getting their photo taken.
Kristen and Mark (and Alexander, Suzanna, and Rosiepup), Neil likes his new teeshirt very much. I read the print to him over the phone and spent a lot of that time guffawing.
(Photo snapped in Marlborough.)
Slinkachu at work:
Taken from the Little People weblog. I love this guy. In a non-loving sort of way.
This is something I think looks amazing but I’d never ever wear it, let alone buy it. But how could I not think that this Jean-Paul Gaultier corset is super hot?
(Jeff will like this entry, I expect.)
There’s fetish and there’s fake fetish. I’m of the fake fetish persuasion, it’s all about the styling in my book. This is why I’ve never really wanted to go to Torture Garden (and have tired of ‘burlesque’ shows) although I’d love to be a fly on the wall (insert joke about an insect fetish).
I’ve seen some pictures of Dita von Teese with and without a corset. It’s truly mental what that piece of underwear does. I don’t think this is one of those proper corsets and while I do now own a waist cincher (thanks, Lip Service), it’s not exactly going to serve any real, er, restrictive purpose. I just like the way it looks.
Yes! I am totally shallow sometimes.
Someone I know says he can’t stand W Somerset Maugham. I’ve only read two short story collections so far, and I must admit that I really like them. Both of them are collections based on the expat experience, and The Trembling of a Leaf is pretty much about expats in places like Samoa (i.e. the South Seas).
There’s something oddly nostalgic* about reading Maugham’s stories of colonialist / imperialist British and Americans in this part of the world. They were bringing ‘progress’ to the natives, but most didn’t seem to understand much beyond their own biases. One of my favourite stories was ‘Red’ (a Swede and a ship’s captain get together for a chat), and ‘Rain’ made me laugh, for all the wrong reasons.
I’m usually not thrilled when I can see the end coming, it’s the mark of a not-very-good author. However, it seems to work with these stories; maybe it’s because they’re mostly about foreigners trying to dominate a land they don’t really get and therefore it confirms some deeply-buried prejudices and instincts? I don’t know.
Of course, if you look on the Books page it says I read an ebook edition. I did, but I had to print it out so I could concentrate (rather than darting off the screen every five minutes to check my email).
* Odd, because I certainly wasn’t alive at the time. Evocative is probably a better adjective.
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This would be a brilliant slogan on a teeshirt: “I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs.“
This book I bought for two or three pounds on Amazon, I think. Given it’s taken me something like three years to get round to reading it, I’m ashamed to say I never noticed it was a PUFFIN book. So I whipped through it, that’s what YA is for.
The story revolves around Josh Swensen: a shy, social outcast who’s also very, very smart. He has an online alter-ego named Larry, who is practically worshipped by his peers for his anti-consumerist stance. This was written in the early days of the mainstream Web, so I remember the scandal of hoaxes and people writing under false identities — I don’t think anyone would even blink these days if this happened (unless, of course, someone died as a result). The anti-consumerist movement was also gaining steam then. I remember having an Adbuster spoof Nike ad pinned up on my cubicle wall right around that time.
I thought the author did tackle issues that would make sense to teenagers and asks them to consider critical questions. Is being famous all it’s cracked up to be? Are we not spending enough time talking openly with the people we’re close to? When does an important issue become a caricature of itself?
A good read for teens, I think.
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I can’t stand Ricky Gervais, but Elmo is fricking hilarious in this video.
This Saturday just gone was spent at a pre-wedding party. I’m socially awkward at the best of times (apparently this equals ignorant in West Central Scotland) but I went prepared to try and make conversation with a mixed group of Scots. And then it dawned on me, five minutes after I arrived — it was an all-female party*.
I have very little ability to discuss things of common interest to most women (that I’ve met here) at the best of times, and with a wedding mood in the air, things really couldn’t get less fascinating. Then when the hair straightening scary pincer things were brought into the room, I thought I’d woken up in the sleepover scene in Grease and we were going to start singing the Sandra Dee song, which frankly would have at least added some entertainment to the evening. Who knew I’d be craving a musical?
Being in a room full of drunk girly girls is pretty much my worst nightmare. My mother put it thus, “You’ve always had more masculine interests.” I do pay some attention to what’s new in fashion and what looks good, so that’s not strictly true; I just don’t think clothing, handbags, shoes, and hairstyles are particularly worthy of any discussion beyond conversational ice-breaking. And I don’t talk about sports. I reckon I actually have fairly genderless interests when it comes to chitter-chatter — books, music, film, politics, current science-y things, stuff like that.
I long for the days when my tender age was good enough reason to tune out of adult conversation and stick my head in a book (that’s probably what’s caused today’s problem). I got carded buying wine the other day, so maybe I can pretend to be an emo kid and sulk in silence. But I might need to learn how to apply eyeliner first. Ahem.
* No, it wasn’t a hen night. That’s still to come. What topics should I brush up on so I have something to say? My hair’s naturally straight, I think fake tan’s tacky, and manicures / pedicures could be a species of spider for all I know, so those are out.
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Oh hello, Stephen Dorff.
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Oh hello, Sam Trammell.