COOL MAN 1a

COOL MAN 1a a photo by neonspecs on Flickr.

man out of time

man out of time
Originally uploaded by neonspecs

Ugh. What the hell's up with these "Pre-Fall Collections?" Last time I checked, pre-fall was summer.

I want this, a lot. Buy it for me, please, at The Quiet Life, purveyors of awesome T-shirts.

Banned words, banned books, etc.

Unrelated, but I'm sure Billy Bragg would have something to say about banning words. Billy Bragg & Mavis Staples at Royce tonight. Pretty fab. James Spader and Tom Morello were there. And some other guy that all the ushers were trying to place but couldn't. Perhaps you can help: he's about 5"10 or perhaps a little shorter, very pale skin, dark black hair, sorta greaser-y. Probably plays a villain, but in a not muscular way. That's how far we got in the recognition.

Also, Bragg and Staples TOGETHER doing "The Weight" was definitely awesome. Bragg didn't, however, play "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key," which for sure would have made my week.

Bragg's shirts, also silly-ly known as "Bragg Swag," were of course printed on Union Made or some other brand like that. As way too many patrons pointed out to us, he would have to after playing "There is Power in a Union." BUT, if I am going to spend $25 on a tshirt, it has to be soft. These were shirts were soooo not even close to buyable. Get your act together, unions!

I always joke that a lot of today's fashion is clothing my grandmother would wear. Here, in fact, is a jacket my grandmother actually owns and wears all the time. Strange.

Listomania

Awesome. Louis Armstrong.
Buy me this book please.
I now know what a pot walloper is.
Nancy Pelosi, the Anna Wintour of Congress!
"Bank Failures Strike a Blow to City's Art"
DO clap between movements!
Y'all know how much I love maps. Here's an interesting one. All of USA could fit into New Hampshire!
The Yet-But

If there is an adjective I really hate, it's "directional." What kind of useless word is that? Ummm, it's going in a direction? Yes, I know in fashion it is supposed to mean "pointing toward the future," but it is stupid and silly, and its usage should cease promptly.

I saw Warren Christopher at the mall on Thursday and he was super adorable, although I feel like that may be an inappropriate way to describe a man who was not so long ago the United States Secretary of State. Anyways, he is super adorable and immaculately dressed. A man with much panache.

In other celebrity news (Warren Christopher is a celebrity, right?), Leonard Nimoy went to see Patti Smith at the Hammer and I got really excited about this. Eric McCormack (Will, really, he won't ever be able to be anything else) went to hear Neil Gaiman at Royce, and so did Eric J. Lawrence, your Local Public Radio Music Librarian (KCRW, at which I volunteered this morn, takin' your moneyyyyy) [If you happen to read this and it weirds you out that I am reporting this and increasing your celebrity to my four, maybe five loyal readers, EJL, let me know and I will delete it].

Finally, as also a member of KCET (yeah, look at me, your unemployed friend so liberally donating her time and money [I want to use the word "largesse" but can't figure out how]), I attended a "gala" at the California Science Center and California African American Museum with Tavis Smiley (whom Greg hates for reasons unbeknownst to me). I actually like Smiley a little less after I heard him speak this evening. He just seemed so not happy to be there, plus he complained about a lack of appreciation for culture in Los Angeles, which was just annoying. Eh, but the food was great (Creole, Jamaican, Ethiopian, and something else), and a few of the exhibits were nice. I especially recommend "Harlem of the West: Jazz, Bebop, and Beatnik" at CAAM and the awesome paintings/carvings of musicians that are from the walls of an old jazz club in Texas, of all places (Jake Morrow, you don't read my blog, but you should go check out this exhibition to see the section of Harry Smith. Hurry, it closes soon!). Smiley's America I Am at the Science Center was whatever. It's probably great if it's been a while since you were in high school or if your school was racist. It's never bad to be reminded of the things covered in the exhibition but it wasn't mind-blowing or anything like that.

As a result of this post, I looked up the origin of "panache." Wikipedia says it was once a marker of character worthy of suspect, until Cyrano de Bergerac. Literally, it means plume. FYI.

Dear Crimean War,

Thank you for the cardigan sweater (and apparently also the balaklava, although I don't have much use for that). What other woolen items will you reward civilization?

A hearty thanks,
Laura

J.L.Curtis part II

She thinks I "may have a runway" in my future and should have majored in costume design. She gets this all from a jacket. Excellent.

Also part II of What/Who Ron Jarvis Thinks I Look Like Today (although this is actually in reference to Monday): Coco Chanel. I'll take it.

Harry Shearer was there, too.

Jamie Lee Curtis likes bluegrass and my new hat

and John C. Reilly wanted to know if I was going to play him a mini glockenspiel solo.

Don't worry, I'm not buying either of these.

Dear clothiers,

After doing some research, it seems what I dislike is called sublimation printing. If I am wrong, please correct me. Whatever it may be called, I do not understand why it exists. Why would one want clothing with random white stretches of fabric? Is it supposed to look like the ink just couldn't be absorbed there? It's not like dye just misses portions of a dress. It also usually accompanies a disastrous Ed Hardy-esque pattern. This is confounding.

Please explain,
Laura

Some examples:

Hippies

I don't remember where I read it, so I apologize for the lack of attribution in advance, but I enjoy this sentence:

I hate war, man, just look at the circumference of my pant legs.

hello.

I've been wasting a lot of time on the internet today, which is fitting because I took a four day hiatus from the interweb and it was fabulous. Anyways, following is a variety of things 1) I want, 2) I want to read at a later point (but I'm not on my computer so I can't just bookmark them), 3) that are interesting, 4) or whatever.

Items of clothing/stuff I can't afford to purchase: purple sweater blazer, tank top (by the way, why are these called tank tops?), bow tie necklace ('guess this means I will miss being an usher), clogs, bag (in orange).

Listen: Turkish Psych Funk!

Read: Gas station architecture, sea&space

Look: Wu Tang meets Blue Note, Museum of Online Museums

Go?: Fiesta Shalom (name = eeek), MOTA day(although the name would possibly be worse than Fiesta Shalom, I would totally buy 'Arroyo Fro-yo')

Uncharacteristic fashion post.

I put together this nice little image in Paint last night, because I was procrastinating as usual. I want these items of clothing, which would make all sorts of rad outfits together. I will not, however, buy any of these items, because they are all incredibly overpriced.


Pedro Garcia - Alanis jazz shoes
3.1 Phillip Lim - Leather motorcycle jacket
3.1 Phillip Lim - Lace Bubble Skirt
Oscar de la Renta - Crossover Faille Dress
Fendi - striped crepe dress
Jimmy Choo - heather leather boots

In Memoriam J.A.W.

Dear Jack A. Weil,

For you, I resurrect my letter writing. For you, I spent 85 dollars on a shirt. For you, I made my friend drive twenty minutes out of the way so I could spend those 85 dollars on that shirt. I am glad I did. And I still regret that we didn't stop by earlier in the day so I could meet you. I don't have a picture of you, either, but trusty Charles Phoenix does and a mighty good one, too! You are great. I mean, come on, you invented the western pearl snap button shirt!!! You, and not that hideous Lee Greenwood song my mom loves so much, make me proud to be an American.

Laura

P.S. Your initials are JAW!

Dear Bloomingdales,
This is incredibly unsatisfactory photography.
You have shamed yourself,
Laura

As someone said, Layla Hey Dad!

'honey, what are you wearing?!'

Dear Royce Hall patrons,

Please be advised: Dressing 'thematically' is unacceptable. A 'world' show is not license for absurd dress. We appreciate your enthusiasm, but a push-up bra, a fake coin necklace, and a bindi on your forehead does not make you seem more authentic. You would not wear this anywhere else so why wear it here? Plus, you are totally mixing up your nationalities.

Proceed Cautiously,
Laura

Congressional Checkerboard Bludgeon

Oh, how those spam subject lines get more interesting everyday!

To start off this post how I ended the previous post, following are a few eBay items that I highly recommend. While last time they were not my size, this time they are just above my I-have-no-money-but-I-buy-things-anyways limit of 25 dollars. These Miu Miu pumps are kinda crazy, exactly how I like them. I have had a pair of these in my "My eBay" for a least a year, but every pair I put in there gets too expensive. Perhaps not for you. The Marni ones fail in the size category as well as the price category (although just by one dollar, I am a stickler to my rule or I would be broke). They are really quite fab, however, with that trusty black, gray, and white combination.

Yesterday, I attended the last Indie 103.1-presented "Also I Like to Rock" events at the Hammer Museum featuring Sea Wolf and Midnight Movies. While I've been to MOCA's Nightvision and LACMA's night events (with a title I can't remember) and Getty's Fridays off the 405, even Hammer's own Hammer Bash!es, I had never been to one of these before. Not much difference, except that the overall hipster quota was more than met--to an obnoxious extent, actually. We had all ages represented here, too. The whore-y 13yr-olds in their leggings tucked into cowboy boots with American Apparel lamé (isn't it great how if you type that without the accent it's just lame; really quite a revealing fact, I say) leotards underneath some horrible empire-waisted tunic, the summer-before-college-just-graduated-high-school "I-am-so-awesome" boys with their skinny jeans, the mid20s-mid30s alcoholic folks with posses, and the old men sort-of-dancing and just looking creepy. Going to the events which I do, I have come to expect such ideas of cool. This just had so much of it that I was overwhelmed.

OK, now that I have finished ranting, y'all really should check out Sea Wolf. I started mentioning him to my friends around June of 2006 after I saw him open for Seu Jorge (weird pairing) at the El Rey. While most of the crowd was bored, and I was admittedly a little myself at first (although probably just not in the mood to have anything get in the way of Jorge's Brazilian excitement), I ended up really enjoying their set. Especially the songs "Middle Distance Runner" and "Black Dirt." But when I got home and looked them up, there was barely any info anywhere. Then suddenly a few months later, they were everywhere. Now they are signed to Dangerbird Records and being touted by indie tastemakers everywhere! crazy. And it seems that most of the people at the Hammer last night were there to see Sea Wolf and not the, at-this-point stalwarts, Midnight Movies. Too bad they didn't perform either Middle Distance Runner or Black Dirt. (Correction, he did play Black Dirt.)

Check out the post I wrote about the Alex Church & co. at the UCLAradio.com blog back in August of last year to hear their single, "You're a Wolf." The EP Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low is out now, first full length out in September.

Download: The Garden That You Planted (mp3)