The dresses speak.

This is Fashion Week in New York. You might not know this, but in the Nall-Derringer co-prosperity sphere, with its alarmingly New York-centric newspaper and magazine subscriptions, it’s hard to escape. Maybe you’re feeling lost. I will try to help.

As some of you may know, I once covered fashion. Sort of. Here’s how it happened: My paper’s longtime fashion writer, June Wells Dill, a grandmotherly sort of woman who occasionally wore hats, was retiring. At the staff meeting to discuss her replacement, no one else wanted the job.

“Does it still include a couple trips to New York every year?” I asked. It did, I was told.

“OK, I’ll do it,” I said. And that’s how the big papers handled staffing, once upon a time. At least in the women’s department. And so I packed my suitcase and my portable computer — a primitive device that weighed a ton, generated a printout as you wrote and somehow managed to transmit an electronic copy of your story back to the newsroom — and went off to New York.

An aside: I required training on the computer. Because 90 percent of the newsroom travel at the time was done by the sportswriters, I was taught by our Cincinnati Reds beat writer.

“And this is how you make a quote mark. You’ll need this if the dresses have anything to say,” he said. A real wiseguy. Have you ever heard the sorts of things baseball players say? You could put that shit on a user key, only we didn’t know what a user key was, back then.

Anyway, off to New York I went. I didn’t go for Fashion Week per se, which didn’t exist in the current form. Rather, all the designers showed around the same time of year, and you ran around between their studios or whatever they had booked for their 20-minute shows. But that was for the New York Times, Women’s Wear Daily and the other bigs. Papers from Rubetown went for Eleanor Lambert’s coordinated week of shows, which was actually the forerunner of Fashion Week itself.

In my era, the event was held at the Plaza, and I sat there on the runway and got a self-taught crash course in descriptive writing. The thing about fashion is, after a while it’s just a blur. Dress dress dress suit suit suit dress dress dress wedding gown. (The wedding gown is — was — the traditional finale of every show. Does anyone do that anymore?) So I quickly learned the jargon, tissue faille and gabardine and ruching. And then I learned about the details, bateau collars and swing pleats and bugle beads. And then I learned the high-level vocabulary that everyone uses, almost all of which is meaningless and can be recombined endlessly. It’s based on a few simple adjectives, which I reveal to you now:

1) Modern
2) Sexy
3) Unconstructed / Constructed
4) Edgy
5) Retro

“It’s an unconstructed jacket with retro touches, very modern and sexy.”

“I love that edgy, constructed thing he has going on. It’s modern and retro at the same time. Which is what makes it so edgy.”

See how easy? Watch a few episodes of “The Rachel Zoe Project,” and play along. Rachel is famously inarticulate, so drop unconstructed/constructed and substitute major: “This collection is so major, so sexy and modern, I just love it.”

It’s amusing to me how often “sexy” gets thrown around, given how many clothes are designed by gay men, who have no sexual interest in women, and displayed on walking hangers with no tits or ass to speak of, parading with angry scowls on their faces, perhaps with violent slashes of neon-green eyeshadow or with their hair greased into threatening spikes. Some of these people have strange ideas of sexy.

Here’s a sexy dress, or so I’m told, one of the most famous red-carpet dresses ever, the Versace safety-pin dress worn by Elizabeth Hurley in 1994. I thought she looked like a streetwalker. Any dress you have to be glued into, that has to be minded at every minute lest your boobs pop out or your abdomen reveal a wrinkle, isn’t sexy to me. Halle Berry’s Oscar dress — that’s sexy.

But I’m getting away from my point. Oh, wait: I didn’t have one.

Can I just ask one question about Rachel Zoe, however: What, exactly, does she do for her clients that qualifies her to be called a stylist? A stylist, as I understand the job, puts together looks for you. Every time I see Rachel Zoe, she’s just shopping, swanning around fashion shows and boutiques, loving everything and name-dropping: I love this for Demi. It’s so major. She cadges free dresses, and her clients try them on, and she claps her hands. What’s her business model? How is she paid? Did Cameron Diaz finance those crackbrain shopping trips to Europe? I don’t get it. If you have the means to hire her, you should be spending your money on someone who can really help you look your best — a gay man.

Anyway, I have to go. There was a Tom Ford show yesterday, and I’m on the hunt for photos. Oh, wait — only one photographer was allowed to take pictures (which explains all these point-and-shoot pix of someone’s nostrils, with credit lines to the reporter). A fashion show with no photographers. How modern. How edgy.

Bloggage?

You know all that talk about how we’re going to have to come to grips with retiring later? Have you ever noticed how often it’s written by people with jobs like “economist” and “college professor?” A look at what work, real work, is like for many blue-collar workers, and why they can’t work until they’re 70.

Jon Stewart, last night. It’s worth watching just for his “Community Center of Death” graphic open.

I have two stories to write today. Nothin’ big — just 2,000 words by day’s end. Groan. Better get to it.

Posted at 10:23 am in Current events, Popculch |
 

41 responses to “The dresses speak.”

  1. Sue said on September 14, 2010 at 10:51 am

    I keep reading about people who “get” fashion. Sarah Jessica Parker “gets” fashion; so does what’s her name from Will & Grace.
    I don’t get fashion, which is fortunate because getting fashion seems to require more money than I have, or at least it requires money which is better spent on books or plants and seeds.
    But really, what is this “get” thing? Sarah Jessica has been doing the ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ thing for years and the Will & Grace person seems to be praised for fashion statements that include repeatedly exposing her skeletal chest in low-fitting gowns. Even reading Tom and Lorenzo’s blog doesn’t help me. I am hopeless.

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  2. Peter said on September 14, 2010 at 10:55 am

    Every time I hear someone bad mouthing unions and how their pursuit of obscenely high wages is the sole reason jobs went to China, I think about the people I’ve seen in the construction industry, and the work they have to do, and where they would be without a union.

    I had a renovation project that required repairs to ornamental plaster molding. I spoke with the plasterer one day, and I mentioned how gypsum board must have cut into his work. Quite the contrary, he said, before gypsum board became popular, union rules called for a plasterer to mix and apply ONE TON of plaster per shift. He said he knew of 40 year old guys that couldn’t handle it any longer; he felt that gypsum board added 25 years to his career and life.

    On another note, I can relate how Nancy got her fashion gig: One time, the owner came by and asked if anyone wanted to be the project architect for a job we had in Indonesia. I asked if I could keep the miles, he said yes, and one week later I’m standing in a rice paddy.

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  3. nancy said on September 14, 2010 at 11:04 am

    Sue, I had my head-scratching moment for Gwyneth Paltrow, in this thing, which to me looks like a prom dress. Everyone is all, oh, how perfect for an ingenue, but all I saw was: Flat, bony chest and prim, featureless hairdo. The necklace was nice. Everybody still calls it “princesslike.” She looks like the princess of a country in the midst of a terrible famine.

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  4. alex said on September 14, 2010 at 11:08 am

    Dresses speak, but blue jeans talk.

    I’m someone who “gets” fashion. It’s a conspiracy to make you buy all new stuff and throw away stuff that’s perfectly good.

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  5. Jeff Borden said on September 14, 2010 at 11:13 am

    Well-said, Peter. There’s this ridiculous assumption on the part of so many of the commentariat that everyone works in a nice, climate-controlled office with ergonomic chairs and equipment so lovely they can labor until they are 80. What a crock.

    The disparity in wealth that has grown so wide and deep over the past 30 years –ah, the sweet blossoms of Reaganomics– is beyond appalling. So, too, is watching our political class slavishly service that upper 1% to the exclusion of the rest of us.

    I think the teabagger movement is a sick joke, but I do understand why so many of us are angry. Our nation has so many needs but we become paralyzed by bullshit like the Park51 project. I want to hear how we are going to repair our failing infrastructure, reenergize our economy, fix our schools, invest in new technologies. . .not whether President Obama is influenced by anti-colonialist Kenyan philosophies, which is the latest smear coming from the right-wing slime machine.

    I fear for a future with the GOP controlling Congress. We’re going to be boiling in our own bile.

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  6. LAMary said on September 14, 2010 at 11:14 am

    The giant inch and a half thick Fall Fashion Harpers Bazaar has a feature with Rachel Zoe styling herself. I bet she kept all that stuff.
    Before my make up artist next door neighbor moved in I had a stylist next door neighbor. She found clothes and shoes and stuff for very picky celebrities and had a huge archive of vintage things. Fed ex was at her door constantly. She wasn’t a Rachel Zoe type. While she had her opinions about fashion, she was always doing things like hunting for good looking boots for a vegan singer or finding formal shoes in a size 3 for a country western singer. She worked hard for her money. Not much swanning about.

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  7. Julie Robinson said on September 14, 2010 at 11:22 am

    Personally, I favor the retro look, where retro equals Goodwill and Salvation Army.

    Caring for my MIL, an Alzheimer’s patient still at home, has put out the backs of everyone in the family. Although she’s tiny, it takes two people to move her and my DH often runs over just to help with a bathroom stop. Her primary caregiver works part time with no benefits, so isn’t earning much towards eventual retirement.

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  8. LAMary said on September 14, 2010 at 11:28 am

    Halle Berry’s dress is very sexy, but about 80 percent of that is Halle Berry.
    Here are some gorgeous dresses from Fashion Week:

    http://jezebel.com/5637202/monique-lhulliers-gowns-leave-audience-gasping-in-awe/gallery/

    I just like looking at this stuff. It is as foreign to my life as space travel but I like reading about that too.

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  9. Mark P. said on September 14, 2010 at 11:35 am

    People who do manual labor don’t count for anything. They are a throw-away item, nameless, faceless, worthless. Of course I’m sure the conservative christians will come to their aid; manual laborers are surely the epitome of “the least of these.”

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  10. nancy said on September 14, 2010 at 11:35 am

    Those are great dresses, and you’re right about Halle Berry. As I look at Halle in her see-through top, I think: How in the world does anyone go completely braless anymore? Even for one night? No matter how firm they are, they all have at least some movement to them, and I don’t know how you walk and look elegant with your boobs, no matter what the size, jiggling like a soufflé. And making a habit of it is a one-way ticket to National Geographic-land.

    I had a friend who was slight-breasted, and never wore a bra when we were teenagers. By the age of 20, her boobs looked like puppy ears.

    I should also note that I’ve seen enough theatrical and film costuming in progress to know that a good dresser can work miracles with tape and suchlike. It’s like invisible engineering. Who knows what Halle was rocking under those flowers.

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  11. Dorothy said on September 14, 2010 at 11:41 am

    Oh Mary! Thanks for that link – I want to rob a bank, lose 50 lbs. and wear #4 as my mother-of-the-groom (or bride) dress when the first of my kids gets married! And why oh why do the models have to looks so goddamn morose when they are in those gorgeous gowns?! Who is backstage coaching them and what are they saying?! Maybe they’re saying this: “If you even THINK about smiling I’m going to break into your house in the middle of the night and stab your cat and break all of your make up mirrors!!” Even a hint of a smile would be enough to make me love the dresses even more.

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  12. Jolene said on September 14, 2010 at 11:46 am

    Even for people in white-collar jobs, pushing the retirement age up is not necessarily a great plan–either for the individuals or the organization. While we all hope to be as sharp as we were at 45 when we are 65, we won’t be, and greater experience doesn’t always make up for more recent education, a closer connection to the latest technology, or even to popular culture. Sometimes it’s better to let a new person take over just to have people w/ new ideas and fresh energy aboard. People who can operate more or less independently (e.g., university researchers, professors) or at the very top of their profession can continue to contribute and find satisfaction in their work, but lots of people tend to get pushed aside.

    Ezra Klein has been arguing against raising the retirement age for the reasons Nancy discusses and others. In additions to this column, there are some follow-up posts on the topic in his WaPo blog.

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  13. LAMary said on September 14, 2010 at 11:48 am

    The number four dress looks like it would smell nice. I like number three myself.

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  14. alex said on September 14, 2010 at 11:48 am

    Who knows what Halle was rock­ing under those flow­ers.

    A couple of silicone-gel pillows. She’ll be ninety before they ever look like puppy ears.

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  15. Jolene said on September 14, 2010 at 11:55 am

    Beautiful dresses, indeed, Mary. Among others, I like #12 and #15. But, really, most of them are gorgeous.

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  16. Sue said on September 14, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    Jolene, let’s not forget the coming generational war. Why isn’t everyone shining a great big spotlight on the idea that social security should be protected (sort of) for those currently paying into it while the youngsters can look forward to “vouchers” and privatization schemes? Then those youngsters can watch as the oldsters have to work longer to qualify for S.S., keeping jobs that young people would normally move into.
    The result is fewer jobs for young people and/or a rise in age discrimination as employers become creative in getting rid of people who should have left full-time employment earlier. And, assuming a successful campaign to kill or defund health care reform, younger and older people as a group unable to find work and therefore health insurance.
    I remember hearing my (former) boss talking about his intention to work until he was 70, and (me) starting a job search the next day. No way, no how was I going to stick it out that long. So there’s also the “I can work with him until he retires but not if he’s staying around THAT long” job turnover factor.

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  17. Bob (Not Greene) said on September 14, 2010 at 12:17 pm

    Jiggly souffles? Puppy ears? Definitely going to get more than 28 comments today.

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  18. prospero said on September 14, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    Have you ever heard the sorts of things base­ball play­ers say?

    Nancy, perhaps you’ve heard of Bill Lee, Chief of the Buffalo Heads:

    “I’m mad at Hank (Aaron) for deciding to play one more season. I threw him his last home run and thought I’d be remembered forever. Now, I’ll have to throw him another.”

    “I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won’t matter if I get this guy out.”

    “I would change policy, bring back natural grass and nickel beer. Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world.” Source: Los Angeles Times (February 3, 1977)

    “The other day they asked me about mandatory drug testing. I said I believed in drug testing a long time ago. All through the sixties I tested everything.”

    “You have two hemispheres in your brain – a left and a right side. The left side controls the right side of your body and right controls the left half. It’s a fact. Therefore, left-handers are the only people in their right minds.” Source: Sports Illustrated (April 7, 1980)

    Spaceman advised Bowie Kuhn that yes, in fact he did use marijuana, daily, sprinkled on buckwheat cakes.

    And how ’bout that Jim Bouton:

    “Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?”

    “You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

    Or this one from a favorite of mine, Don Sutton?

    “I am the most loyal player money can buy.”

    And one more, John Kruk telling a writer “Lady, I’m not an athlete, I’m a baseball player.

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  19. brian stouder said on September 14, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    while the young­sters can look for­ward to “vouch­ers” and pri­va­ti­za­tion schemes?

    The very, very, very last thing – before I pitch over an ideological cliff and become a raving old fool on the street corner – will be the day that the striped-suit crowd in the glass towers finally wring the life out of Social Security, and drain it into their off-shore accounts

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  20. Julie Robinson said on September 14, 2010 at 12:53 pm

    So here’s a big surprise, from Bloomberg News–the wealthy tend to save their tax windfalls, not spend them or hire more employees. Trickle this down: http://www.jg.net/article/20100914/NEWS03/309149993/1006/NEWS.

    And I actually have to confess that I love clothes and putting together outfits, especially choosing and often creating the perfect jewelry. I’m just cheap.

    Has anyone watched the BBC series House of Eliott? It’s about a pair of sisters running a design house in the 20’s & 30’s and the dresses are just fabulous, my dearies. Evaluating costumes is half the fun of watching figure skating and theatre. I’m going to be helping costume Meet Me in St. Louis this fall and it’ll be great fun.

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  21. Jeff Borden said on September 14, 2010 at 1:00 pm

    Unfortunately, Brian, that is the plan. Conservatives never forget. They have always hated the New Deal and the changes it wrought in America. They will do anything they can to finally kill off its last vestiges.

    We’ve entered a new era of plutocrats, where we are supposed to fret and worry about the top 1% of American earners while millions lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. We’re collateral damage to the super-wealthy. And while the GOP are the most loyal spear carriers, there are plenty of Blue Dog Democrats who also feel fealty to the rich.

    I guess the genius of conservative economic policies is the ability to continually lead citizens to vote against their own economic self interests.

    Why companies are rewarded for shipping millions of jobs overseas is beyond me. The notion that Halliburton, one of our largest defense contractors, is based in Dubai and doesn’t pay one thin dime of taxes to the nation it allegedly serves, makes me nauseous. Shouldn’t we be passing legislation that would reward firms for investing in American jobs with some sweet tax breaks? And punishing those firms who ship jobs away? There has to be a solution to this dilemma, doesn’t there?

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  22. Rana said on September 14, 2010 at 1:01 pm

    The secret to not jiggling in those see-through and low-cut dresses is simple: boob tape.

    As for Rachel Zoe, I would imagine that at this point the majority of her income stream comes from the reality tv royalties, and whatever spin-off products her name is attached to.

    (I am focusing on these frivolities to avoid thinking about the points Jeff B. raised. Bread and circuses, people, bread and circuses.)

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  23. ROgirl said on September 14, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    Here’s how Rachel Zoe makes her money:

    http://www.qvc.com/cgen/render.aspx?qp=class|9186&rewrite=no&ref=GSA&cm_ven=googlePAID&cm_cat=Accessories+%26+Shoes&cm_pla=Rachel+Zoe&cm_ite=rachel%20zoe%20QVC_mkwid_sm5cmVHDw_pcrid_4584905610

    The show is mesmerizing. Is someone going to stage an intervention for her to get her to eat?

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  24. Julie Robinson said on September 14, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    Ditto Rana.

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  25. brian stouder said on September 14, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    Boobs should never be taped; I think that, like information, boobs just want to be free!

    Regarding the predator class* within our nation, maybe the answer is to adopt the Amy Winehouse** diet, and be done with it.

    *James Galbraith’s book The Predator State is quite good, on this point

    ** Ms Winehouse is 27, today

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  26. nancy said on September 14, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    I liked the episode when she wanted to wear a backless dress to some shindig, but when she turned around, her spine stood out in a row of little knobs. Her staff had to tell her, um, noooo.

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  27. paddyo' said on September 14, 2010 at 1:55 pm

    Rana @ 22, final parenthetical thought: Right-O . . .
    Through the Bush years, a regular saying of mine (not original, I’m sure, but I didn’t steal it, either) was “Rome, baby — we live in Rome.”
    I haven’t said it as much lately, but it’s still true. Recession or no, it’s all bread and circuses and consumerist excess. You got yer food, you got yer entertainment . . . and the rest — like, oh, I dunno, maybe the responsibility of informed citizenship? (and I don’t mean the misinformed, stiff-armed flailing of the FrankensTeaParty monster) — be damned.

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  28. LAMary said on September 14, 2010 at 2:49 pm

    One thing good I can say about Rachel Zoe. I find her a lot less annoying than the Kardashian clan.

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  29. beb said on September 14, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    One thing good I can say about Rachel Zoe. I find her a lot less annoy­ing than the Kar­dashian clan.

    By Mary, that is setting the bar so low…

    I kind of liked the dress Lady Ga-ga wore to the Music awards. It looked like on of those extravagant gowns from a 30s movie.

    A ghood reason for lowering the retirement age for Social Security is that it would get some of the excess unemployed off the market. From 55 to 65 is a desperate race to stay employed.

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  30. Deborah said on September 14, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    I can’t wait to get home to click on some of the links above. I don’t dare click on “boob tape” here at the office.

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  31. Rana said on September 14, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    Deborah, the actual site is SFW. Lots of very unsexy pictures of tape and pads and such. But, yeah, the link itself might send up a flag.

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  32. Deborah said on September 14, 2010 at 7:24 pm

    I see what you mean Rana. But I wonder how you apply them? Not that I would ever need to wear them. I’d never wear anything that skimpy at my age.

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  33. Jolene said on September 14, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    Another Tea Party candidate, wildly unqualified for office, has won the Republican primary in the Delaware senatorial race. May be good for the Dems, but what are people thinking? Christine O’Donnell, now a nominee for a Senate seat, does not seem to have the maturity to manage her own finances, let alone make policy for the nation.

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  34. brian stouder said on September 14, 2010 at 10:03 pm

    So, the young folks and I just got back from IPFW’s first Omnibus Lecture of the year, and – while I’m certainly one of the INcognescenti when it comes to Sean Astin/Lord of the Rings/Goonies, my overwhelming reaction was: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

    Really, truly – the thing began with an 8 minute clip reel from his impressive array of movies and TV roles – and went downhill from there (and fairly steeply)…from my perspective.

    But, Grant (our 15 year old, who immensely enjoyed Lord of the Rings, which I’ve never seen) LOVED it!!

    If I was a newspaper person charged with writing about the event, it would be a tough thing. The event is free and open to the public, and it drew a huge crowd, and it (presumeably) pleased most of them. Who wants to be the spoil-sport who says “Blechh!”?

    All I saw was a fellow determinedly (and quite rapidly) reading his (mostly hackneyed) text, and frequently losing his place amidst his deluge of words (granted – all well pronounced, if very rapidly). About 5 minutes in, I thought “oh boy” – and indeed, people began drifting out of the auditorium.

    But, Grant loved it, and by gosh, this made me happy!

    (and now, I have a card to play when I try and dragoon him into coming to see Ken Auletta with me next month)

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  35. MichaelG said on September 14, 2010 at 10:08 pm

    I read that NYT article on older workers the other day and was thinking of it this AM as I scampered up the ladder to the roof of the Glendale DMV. I might have lost a step.

    Never could stand G. Paltrow. She ruined that otherwise cool Mario Batali romp through Spain that was on NPR the other year.

    Mary, what kind of boots does a vegan wear? Rubber?

    I’ve always figured that the clothes one sees in the fashion stuff and the models and their expressions and the half dead skag whore makeup were all produced by men who hated women. But why do the models all walk down the runway in that horrible hunky, clunky manner?

    I dunno, Jolene. You really think I’m dumber than I was 20 years ago? Who told you I haven’t taken any classes at the U in the last 10 years? Who said I don’t keep abreast of current happenings in the industry and hadn’t taken any recent training? You happy to discount experience? Rather have some rookie at the controls of 1549 than Sullenberger? Really think I should step aside for a younger person who will cost less than me? You gonna pay my bills if I do quit? You really believe I was happier clambering around on the filthy roof of the Glendale DMV this morning than I would be strolling down a leafy Saigon boulevard or browsing fish restaurants for lunch on a Greek isle or even dawdling over the paper and my coffee down at the Cornerstone Cafe? By the way, my contractor – one of the best I’ve ever had is 60 and his terrific electrical sub is 79, Y’all need to take a course in real life. Besides, rookies are no fun to drink with. They got no stories.

    Social Security is not in any kind of emergency mode yet. Removing the $106,000 or whatever it is today contribution limit will go a long way to helping. Let everybody contribute. Notice how SS contributions are heaviest on the lowest wage earners. Raise the take a quarter of a percent maybe, but the system works.

    The problem, however big it may be, will only last for another 20-30 years. When the baby boomers die off the balance of payers and collectors will shift. And by the way, I’ve been paying in along with my employers for over 50 years. I’m not getting any freebies here.

    Jeff B @ 21, that’s the saddest post in this whole string and sadly, I am afraid you are entirely correct.

    Yeah, Brian, but 27 in what kind of years? Her “Love is a Losing Game” absolutely knocks me on my ass.

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  36. brian stouder said on September 14, 2010 at 10:25 pm

    Michael – agreed about Ms Winehouse.

    Let me just add, I cannot remember the last time I was as completely taken by a singer, as by Florence and the Machine’s performance on the VMA’s the other night.

    That was the best thing I’ve seen and heard in a very long time, from her flowy gown and bare feet, and her lovely, commanding, and enchanting voice. I backed up the DVR and watched it twice, in its entirety.

    (as I write this, Christine O’Donnell is busy cribbing President Obama’s “Yes we can” mantra. Now THERE’s a buzz kill, if ever there was one)

    edit: http://www.examiner.com/us-headlines-in-national/slideshow-florence-the-machine-amaze-at-the-mtv-video-music-awards-2010-full-video-photos

    scroll down and see the video, and be amazed

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  37. joodyb said on September 14, 2010 at 10:54 pm

    RZ is most likely on a retainer, bills Cameron Diaz etc etc — even below-the-radar stylists can get $500/$5000 a day/session. + think about it this way: She has established herself as the conduit to all the MVP gays in fashion. People are drawn to her train-wreck potential but i also think she and Rodger come off as somewhat genuine however alien (in the Coast to Coast sense) to those who watch the show. there is something appealing about her. unlike that odd ‘Kell on Earth’ – not likable and so easy to make snap judgments about. Rachel’s world is murkier.

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  38. Denice said on September 15, 2010 at 12:34 am

    Fashion means nothing to me. Anyone bigger than a size 18 is considered too fat for nice clothes by clothing manufacturers. The ones that condescend to make for women my size look ridiculous. So I wear jeans and tees and hope not to be noticed by anyone. Invisible works!

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  39. Julie Robinson said on September 15, 2010 at 9:45 am

    Hey Brian–we also saw Sean Astin last night and I mostly agree, although I have seen Lord of the Rings. His other movies look forgettable. His speech was standard graduation fare but he was very good in the Q&As. I especially liked his response to the inevitable question about Orlando Bloom–“he’s a great kisser”. And I look forward to the movie he is developing based on a favorite book, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.

    We rode our bikes over, figuring there would be traffic and parking problems, which there were, but we didn’t think about biking through the traffic and it was more of a thrill than I was looking for. We spent the summer riding all over campus but it was deserted then. I’m such a bike wimp that riding along with cars, at night, scares me.

    Also, this was really odd: as we entered the auditorium the usher said our reserved tickets were in the middle section, so we climbed the stairs only to be told by another usher that we were in the VIP section down below. Down we went and a third usher said we couldn’t enter the roped-off section except by going outside, climbing up to the second floor and climbing back down to enter on the opposite side. So, off we went again, but they weren’t letting anyone in on the opposite side and we climbed back up where a final usher said, “sit anywhere”. Oh well, between biking and climbing we got our exercise!

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  40. LAMary said on September 15, 2010 at 9:53 am

    MichaelG I think the boots were plastic or something. They were for KD Lang. Brenda Lee is the singer with the itsy bitsy feet.

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  41. Rana said on September 15, 2010 at 12:52 pm

    MichaelG – usually plastic or other synthetic, or cloth, for vegan boots.

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