Reading is near and dear to me, so Part II of my Xciting Xmas Gift Guide is dedicated to the book lovers out there.

Out Of Print T-Shirts

This company, maker of t-shirts (and other items) with classic lit covers on them, is fashion heaven for the heavy reader. It is so hard to choose a t-shirt!  Are you in a Lolita mood or a Animal Farm mood?  Maybe Wuthering Heights? I’ve known about their t-shirts for awhile and the only reason I don’t own one is because I was never able to choose (I think I’ve got it narrowed down – Great Gatsby, until they make a Jane Eyre).

Of course, you can buy all their products online but there’s a great local angle here – you can now buy a great selection of these shirts at Magers & Quinn in Uptown in Minneapolis. One advantage, besides supporting a local store, is that you can examine the t-shirts on display and get an idea of what size is correct for you.. uh, I mean, the person you’re shopping for. That’s always the tough thing about buying t-shirts online, right? What cut is it? What’s a medium like? What’s a large like? Problem solved.

Please note that M&Q does not stock every single design, although they do have many, so check the Out Of Print website for all the options. For example, I can tell you right now that if you want the Atlas Shrugged tee, you gotta go online. And some options are for the ladies and not for men. I guess they don’t find any men clamoring to wear a The Bell Jar t-shirt?

Note: If I did see a man wearing a The Bell Jar t-shirt, I would want to say hello to him. Same for a Pride & Prejudice tee.

Magers also sells the tote bags! Snag that bookie [this is the official new, hip name for people who love books and literature] in your life a Moby Dick tote bag!

Public Library Swag

Anyone who is serious about their reading is a card-carrying member of the library. I think libraries are probably one of the greatest inventions of all time – there are so many books I want to look at, skim and read that, unless I want to be the weirdo who sets up shop at the bookstore all afternoon, the library is the way to go.

Recently, the Hennepin County Public Library announced that as of January 1, 2011, it will put a limit on how many items patrons can have in their “Requests” queue, limiting it to 30 items per person. I know my sister was particularly devastated by this news. For book lovers like us, who rush to put something on hold the moment we hear about it, 30 items is rough sledding.

Part of the reason for this is that the library is facing a reduction in the amount it will be able to spend on new books, to the tune of $2 million. That’s a lot of books it won’t be able to buy and circulate to us, the knowledge-hungry public.

You can buy merch to support the library (you can also become a Friend of the Library). The best of it in Hennepin County is located at the Minneapolis Central bookstore in downtown Minneapolis. Head there to check out the gift options: notepads, coffee mugs, flash drives, book bags and t-shirts, in addition to used books and magazines.

Gift idea: Get the reader in your life a Minneapolis Public Library t-shirt for the holidays this year and then each year add another library to the collection – New York Public Library, Chicago, Houston, you get the idea.

There’s a bonus for you, the gift-giver, too. You can make an afternoon of it at Central -hit the bookstore, go to the Dunn Brothers right next door for coffee and a chocolate-covered graham cracker, see the beautiful building, browse library books and read for awhile by the fire place. Go up to the fourth floor for a view of the city.

Are you a hardcore St. Paulite? The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library has their own swag and you can peruse it online here.

Anything From Fantagraphics Books

I have Keith to thank for this suggestion. Fantagraphics has a catalog of comics and graphic novels like few others. They’ve published R. Crumb, Jamie and Gilbert Hernandez, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware and is behind “the most ambitious publishing project in the history of the American comic strip: the complete reprinting of Charles M. Schulz’s classic, Peanuts.” There are going to be 25 books in all when they are finished with the Peanuts collection (as of now I believe there are 17 out). Keith has been collecting these books slowly throughout the years and, when he gets one, it seems as if he devours it in a few hours.

Gift Idea: get your book lover volume 1 of the Peanuts this year and you’ve got 24 gifts in the making. See how easy I’m making this for you?

Even if your old-fashioned prose-lover is wary of dipping a toe into the comic waters, Peanuts is something anyone will love unless they are dead inside.

Also, out within the past month, is the first volume of what will be a 12-volume set of the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly from 1949 to 1973.

You can spend a lot of time on the website looking at all Fantagraphics has to offer (Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010, anyone?) and you can find the books locally in the Twin Cities. My vote, as a mostly non-comic reader who confesses to dabbling now and then, is to head to Big Brain Comics, located at 1027 Washington Avenue South in Minneapolis. Who knows what else you might find?

Thrifted Books

This one is for that someone in your life who appreciates the odd, the wacky and/or will read just about anything. You can customize to their taste or pick a theme (I strongly advise a theme for a more personal touch, or getting them as many books as you can from, say, the Left Behind series), all at little risk, what with paperbacks often starting at 70 cents at a lot of thrifts. My favorites ideas are the Hollywood celebrity memoirs, bad poetry (think Jewel), how-to-enjoy-sex books from the 1970s and Erma Bombeck paperbacks, like The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank.

Note: I think we are overdue for a Erma Bombeck revival in this country. I hear she’s currently big in France.

Some of my favorite books have been secured at thrift stores, estate sales and antique stores. I found Zsa Zsa Gabor’s memoir in hardcover, something that made me supremely happy. Cookbooks are great to look for (hunt for The First Ladies Cookbook or Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book from the 60s) both for the cook and the person with a cultural anthropology bent.

Gift Idea: If you’re attracted to a cover but think the book itself will be crap, buy the book anyway, cut off the cover and frame it – the best would be to find a trio of covers you like and frame them against solid black backgrounds in black frames (which you could get from Michael’s, JoAnn, Dick Blick, etc. if you make it a standard size – no need to get it professionally framed).

Are you going to tell me you couldn’t look at this cover all day?

Best places in the Twin Cities to look for such books? Arc’s Value Village, any Savers location (but I like the one on East Lake in Minneapolis), the Mall of St. Paul, the St. Vincent de Paul store on West 7th in St. Paul… the list goes on and on. Try thrift stores first, where you should pay less than a dollar per paperback in most cases. Sometimes they mark the good ones (read: salacious) up to $1.99.

But what about books, you might say? New books, exciting books, not relics from the thrift bin. Well, there are any number of round-ups online. Check out 101 Books We Can’t Live Without, the New York Times Gift Guide for Books or their “10 Best Books of 2011,” article, just out today, and Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2011.

Looking for a hostess gift? Check out Xciting Xmas Gift Guide 2011 Part I!

Categories: Xciting Xmas Gift Guide 2011
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We’ve reached a milestone on the First Ladies Cook! journey – the presidency of Lincoln and the reign of Mary Todd as First Lady. In Part I, I’m going to explore the Lincoln presidency; in Part II we’ll delve deeper into the controversy of his wife.

But first, another announcement.

A few weeks ago, at the very estate sale where I made a disturbing discovery, I also found this:

I knew there were other editions of The First Ladies Cook Book out there other than the 1980s paperback version I’ve been using (brought to you by Fritos) but to find this sitting there on a table, in it’s full-color glory, was startling.

Here’s the thing about this edition, from 1966: it contains information. And color photos. Whereas in the paperback version there might be two small pages dedicated to a First Lady, even someone like Mary Todd Lincoln, in this edition there are several pages that actually tell a story and make the characters come to life.

[Sweetening the deal, someone left an article in the book from Family Circle, December 1967, called "The White House Chef Cookbook," which is holiday recipes from the chef who worked for the Kennedys. So this holiday season I'll be feasting on Potage Cressoniere (that's Cream of Watercress for all you uncultured masses out there) and Roquefort Roll.]

And now, Abraham Lincoln.

I admit, I’m no Lincoln scholar. I only know the broad outlines. Well, I think I do now. There was the time in grade school when I had to do a report on Lincoln but left writing the entire report until the night before only to have my mom proofread it before I handed it in and point out that I had made up the ending. In my report, Lincoln died peacefully in his sleep, possibly back at home in Illinois in that log cabin where he was born.

My mom strongly urged me to take another look at that ending and revise it.

So for Part I of our examination, I turned to Keith, aka My Boo, who has read books about Lincoln and the Civil War by choice, and asked him questions about one of the greatest Presidents America has ever known.

But first, let’s set the state with a story from the new old version of The First Ladies Cook Book:

“Abraham Lincoln rode up Pennsylvania Avenue to his inauguration in an open carriage, seated beside the outgoing President Buchanan. The air was tense with the fear of violence and the street was protected by guns at street corners and a line of sharpshooters on the roofs of adjacent buildings to protect the carriage as it passed. At the Capitol Mary Todd Lincoln and her family party were waiting to witness the stirring event. The day was sunny and the Capitol Plaza was crowded with a ‘sea of upturned faces representing every shade of feeling, hatred, discontent, anxiety and admiration.’”

And now our guest speaker:

Rebecca: What makes you an authority on Lincoln?

Keith: Read a couple of  books. Read some articles. Read Wikipedia. Yeah, Wikipedia.

Rebecca: So let’s delve in: Was Lincoln the greatest President?

Keith: He’s in the top handful. The only other ones even in the conversation are Washington and FDR…

Rebecca: And Obama? (laughs)

Keith: Well, here’s the thing, Obama is really disappointing in a lot of ways, but to liberals during the Civil War I think Lincoln was disappointing in the same ways.  But the verdict of history ended up being pretty good for Lincoln so you can’t really judge Obama that harshly yet. At that time the Republican liberals during the Civil War were like, “Oh, this bastard, he’s selling us out, he’s such a moderate. Oh, hate him!” and that’s exactly my beef with Obama.

Rebecca: Well, then, what makes Lincoln one of the greatest Presidents?

Keith: At the time he was elected, he really got served up one of the biggest shit sandwiches in history and actually Washington and FDR are sort of the only other ones who had it as bad when they came into office. The country was so divided in 1860 that a lot of the Southern states were like, “If Lincoln’s elected, we’re going to succeed,” so it’s actually Lincoln’s election that sets off the Civil War because right after the election, states started leaving the Union.

So Lincoln stepped into this giant crisis and what makes him great is that he managed to navigate it, he held shit together and won… It took incredible political skill to keep the North functioning because half the country had gone and of the people who remained a bunch of them were like, “Fuck him, let’s go, too,” and some were like, “No, let’s stay.” The border states wanted to go and Washington D.C. was sitting across the river from the Confederacy, so he was surrounded by people who wanted to leave.

Somehow he had enough skill to hold all that together and keep the liberal Republicans on his side. At the same time he made moral choices and actually did the right thing most of the time and that’s really rare. [Side note: It is pretty clear that in the election of 1860, he did a lot of wheeling and dealing - he wasn't the clear choice of the Republican party. There was a lot of back room dealing to get him in play.]

He was also a cool fucking dude as he did it. He was really funny.

Rebecca: How was he funny?

Keith: His letters are really funny and when he talked to people he would always be making jokes.

Rebecca: What’s your favorite Lincoln story?

Keith: When he was young, he and Mary Todd and some friend of theirs started trolling some other guy by writing letters about him to the editor of a newspaper, anonymously picking on him. It was all supposed to be funny but somehow it got back to the guy that they were the ones doing it, so the guy challenged Lincoln to a duel. And Lincoln didn’t want to fight a duel so he tried to make it as ridiculous as possible. He said he would only fight the duel if it could be with broadswords over a pit, standing on a beam that went over the pit.

And the guy was like, “OK, you’re on.” So they showed up for the duel and Lincoln takes his broadsword and just starts hacking at trees and bellowing like an animal to scare the guy. Lincoln was super tall and the guy he was supposed to fight was really short, so if they actually did duel Lincoln would kill the guy pretty easily. So finally the guy backed down.

Rebecca: I thought you couldn’t back down from a duel.

Keith: Well, this guy chose to.

Rebecca: Wasn’t Lincoln also clinically depressed?

Keith: But he soldiered through it.

Rebecca: How do you think that affected his Presidency?

Keith: I think he spent a lot of the time feeling really shitty. But the nature of the office, especially then, was just… You know, his son died while he was in office and he carried on. He had to do what he had to do. Great dude but a really sad dude. And he gets martyred in the end.

Rebecca: Did that help his legacy?

Keith: Well, it helped the myth of Lincoln. I think it would have been better for the country if he hadn’t been killed.

Rebecca: At what point during his Presidency was he killed?

Keith: The beginning of his second term. He barely won the election of 1864. It was looking really bad most of the way through and then at the last minute Sherman takes Atlanta and that basically won the election for him.

Rebecca: Sort of like Obama finding and killing Osama Bin Laden?

Keith: I think Obama… If he had been smart he woudl have waited to kill Osama Bin Laden until next October. But, so Lincoln barely wins the election and then his second inaugural is one of the greatest speeches in American history because he knows the war is over and he basically says let’s forgive the South, we don’t want to punish them, we want to make things good as soon as we can. It’s really beautiful if you read the speech.

Then he dies and the more liberal wing of the Republican party takes over and they just want to stick it to the South, which I sympathy with, but that really wasn’t what was good for the country. Reconstruction sucked a lot more than it had to and really that’s the whole North/South divide that persists. The South being occupied by the Army for 20 years didn’t help.

Rebecca: Why do you think that in the U.S. the liberal Presidents, or anyone who is a great agent for change, gets assassinated?

Keith: I think it’s coincidence. JFK was not that liberal. In terms of civil rights, Johnson did more than he did. JFK sat on his ass. FDR was about as liberal as it got and he wasn’t assassinated.

Rebecca: He was in a wheelchair. No one wanted to assassinate the polio victim.

Keith: And someone tried to get Regan and no one is going to call him a liberal.

Rebecca: Ah, it was only a flesh wound. And that wasn’t even politically motivated. It was, “Jodie Foster is hot.”

Keith: That’s a political statement.

Rebecca: So what do you know about Mary Todd Lincoln?

Keith: Not much. Just from what I read in Gore Vidal’s book. His books are awesome but he usually seems to set out to praise one persona and take one person down. So in the Lincoln book he paints Mary Todd as a buffoon who spends shitloads of money and goes horsing off to New York to buy decorations for the White House, spending all kinds of money they don’t have.

Rebecca: Do you think that’s true?

Keith: I don’t know if she was as bad as he makes her out to be. He makes her out to be someone who almost brings down the Lincoln Presidency. Marriages were different then… even if they had a shitty marriage, we wouldn’t really know about it. The only story I know is that, supposedly, when Lincoln died, she came into the room where all the cabinet members were with the body and Lincoln’s Secretary of War, who was an asshole, said, “Get that woman out of here,” and chased her from the room.

Stay tuned for Part II: Meet Mary Todd

In the meantime, enjoy this tableau from the 1966 First Ladies Cookbook from the President Harrison section.

"See what happened to your friends? Look at them! Do you want that to happen to you? If not, you'd better start talking, duck."

Categories: Cooking, First Ladies Cook, Icons
3 Comments »

Yes, it’s Cyber Monday! Woot. I just bought some throw pillows online that are totally for me.

This is how I feel:

Like a cute but also 1980s-esque bear wearing a Santa hat.

I realized something today. I like to shop for stuff. Not in a Black Friday kind of way. I will never push anyone down or pepper spray them for cheap electronics. [Keith said we should be thankful to the woman who pepper sprayed other shoppers at Walmart on Friday for providing us all with a new standard for what it means to suck - as long as you are behaving better than that woman, you aren't completely failing as a human being.]

No, I like quirky, weird, arty, thrilling stuff. I like antiques. I like musty books. I like things made out of other things. I like to have a comfy home environment. I don’t do a lot of holiday shopping because my family gave up on that whole gifting thing a few years ago. Now we assemble in Florida and spend time together playing shuffle board.

It’s been very liberating.

However, I like the idea of holiday shopping on a small scale. Safe and sane, that’s my holiday shopping motto. So I’ve decided to put that energy into an Xciting Xmas Gift Guide for 2011 that focuses mostly on stuff you can buy in independent stores in the Twin Cities. Because I like stores and I don’t want them to go away. However, a lot of times you can also find the same items online or in stores in your own city/town because this is The World 2.0.

I’m kicking off the Guide today with a few Xciting Hostess Gifts.

Weiner Dog Waxed Cheddar Cheese

At the Mall of America there is a shop called Rybicki Cheese Ltd. and it sells all things Wisconsin cheese and Packer fan-related. Basically, it’s a pocket of Wisconsin goodness at the mall. Recently, I took part in a scavenger hunt at the Mall of America (OK, I made up the scavenger hunt and then also participated in it) and found out about Rybicki. These are nice people. They were very tolerant of our hunt and also helped us figure out how to get to our next destination. Anyway, what we got from Rybicki was the Weiner Dog Waxed Cheddar Cheese, retailing for $4.79 and worth every penny.  Sorry for this rather poor photo in which the dog is encased in plastic.

Here are the winning features of the  Weiner Dog Waxed Cheddar Cheese:

1. Unbelievably cute.
2. Super fun to peel the wax off the cheddar dog.
3. Yummy cheese.

If you are going to a holiday open house or party and the host is a dog-lover, they will appreciate this tribute in cheese. You can also order this cheese gem online.

BTW, if you’re more into weiner dogs and cupcakes, instead of cheese, here is a very cute idea from the blog I Hart Cupcakes.

Soy Vey Candles

Photo by The Vintage Home

Have you ever bought a bottle of wine mainly because you liked its label? And then when you’re done drinking it you want to save the bottle but you think maybe that’s odd, to have bottles lined up on your windowsill like you live in a studio apartment and finish out your liberal arts degree? Well, problem solved with Soy Vey Candles.

I first saw these candles when they were selling at GUILD in St. Louis Park and I should have nabbed one then. The images on the website don’t really do them the full justice they deserve because the photos don’t  show off the variety of wine bottles and even beer bottles  the candles are housed in – some very cool and beautiful bottles. Yes, they are soy, which is all the rage now and they have that little bit of raffia wrapped around them, which I could take or leave, but the main point is that they allow the buyer to choose something customized to the tastes of the receiver. For example, if someone gave me one in the bottle of a good German Riesling, I would be so touched. Knowing someone’s preferred wine says that you care about them.

Of course, the best way to present this would be along with a full bottle of wine.

The candles sell at various stores throughout the country but in the Twin Cities area we have several options because they are made in MN. Find your shopping options here.

Primitive Skeletons With Bouncing Necks

Photo by Zinnia Folk Arts

I think the title here says it all. These are sold by Zinnia Folk Arts, a business that sells Mexican folk art brought here from Mexico by Anne, a dedicated seller with a great eye. I first found Zinnia on a snowy winter day in 2010, when a snowstorm was bearing down on Minneapolis and I got to leave work early. I wasn’t so afraid of the snow that I couldn’t stop off and look at Mexican folk art.

That should give you some level of understanding about my relationship to shopping.

Zinnia used to do pop-up shops in South Minneapolis, then they lost the use of the space they were using and moved to GUILD in St. Louis Park. Zinnia also sells beautiful silver jewelry, if you’re looking for something special for someone in your life who is closer to you than a hostess. You can read the full Zinnia FAQ here.

You can buy these sweet, Day of the Dead skeletons at GUILD (4414 Excelsior Blvd in St Louis Park, MN—between Trader Joe’s and Optiz, on the same side of the block), which I highly encourage because then you can look at all the other stuff at GUILD and what was supposed to be a quick stop will turn into an hour of browsing. You can also buy them online. They are $15.

Not recommended for the boring hostess. Or for someone you really don’t know all that well.

Categories: Xciting Xmas Gift Guide 2011
1 Comment »

First there was “Who stole the Keeshka?”

Then there was “Who moved my cheese?”

And now there’s “Who Put the D**k On The Snowman?”

We received a catalog in the mail from The Lighter Side Co. It’s all joke stuff or stuff you would wear/ display if you lived in a terribly hokey small town or lived anywhere in the world, really, but just had bad taste. Keith and I have both taken turns, since it arrived, in examining it in great detail. I do most of my Lighter Side research while drinking tea in the morning but he topped me by bringing it to bed with him as reading material.

This is when we discovered Who Put The D**k on the Snowman on page 7.

See, the snowman is angry because someone used a thimble to represent his penis. What strikes me as odd about this, just one of the things, really, is that he’s upset because his fake penis is represented by something small. He doesn’t have a penis but, if he did, it would surely be large. So he could satisfy… his… many snow lovers?

I never knew how macho a snowman could be. And I never wanted to give this much thought to snowman dicks.

The ad says this thing plays “Rodney Carrington’s original song ‘Who Put The Dick On the Snowman.’” (No need for asterisks there, for some reason). I’m assuming that The Lighter Side Co’s usual clientele are nodding their heads while saying, “Yes! I love me some Rodney!” but I was perplexed. Even the helpful “He’s the guy who wrote ‘Titties and Beer,” didn’t ring any bells for me. [I do, however, see the theme in Rodney's music.]

If you’re clueless like me, here’s Rodney in action. PLEASE WATCH THIS:

And now:

So, Rodney is Ray Stevens for a new generation?

If you live in a liberal bubble like I do in South Minneapolis, watching these videos may be helpful when trying to understand why Obama might not be re-elected.

Categories: General Weirdness
1 Comment »

Although I’m a big lover of estate sales, this is the best example I’ve seen of Estate Sale Gone Wrong:

Before I saw this box of 1960s feminine napkins (No pins! No belts!) in a basement on Friday, the most baffling personal hygiene item I’d seen for sale at an estate sale was an opened box of Depends pads. But those seem downright logical compared to this box of pads in the cellar.

I’ve talked to a few people about this find and they all claim there are people out there who collect old product boxes. Hmm… I guess people do collect old food containers, tins and boxes. But I have yet to hear of anyone who collects old feminine napkin and tampon boxes.

It’s a collection that would be odd to see in someone’s house. Perhaps on display in glass cabinets or lined up on shelves with track lights trained on them? Imagine going over to a friend’s house for dinner and, before they serve up the lasagne, they want to show you their collection, a Walk Down Menses Lane.

“See this here? This is a handsewn pad from the 1860s. That’s Civil War time! They used to take them down to the river in metal buckets and beat them on the rocks to get them clean. Had to keep a lid on the bucket so bears wouldn’t get wind of them… Then we move forward in time to these pads from the 1930s that actually had belts to  keep them in place. No adhesives yet, that’s why. We can thank World War II for that. And then here’s my latest addition, found this at an estate sale this past weekend. The first pads with no pins or belts required. I only paid 50 cents for this, can you believe it?”

Naturally, the box of pads raised many questions in my mind. Here are but a few:

1. If you are going to sell the box because it’s an old box someone might collect, could you or should you throw away the pads inside? When I moved the box over into a patch of sunlight to get a better photo of it, a pad went flying out. By the way, they didn’t scrimp on the layers of padding back then. It was a cotton brick. [Yes, the box says they are flushable but only if you never want to flush your toilet again.)

2. If something is only going to garner you 50 cents, and it's that strange, should you just toss it out?

3. Is this a failure on the part of the estate sale company to protect the image of the woman who had recently moved out? There were neighbors of hers in the house, looking at her stuff. She had recently moved to a nursing home, so it's not as if she's on vacation and will be back any day - the likelihood of her seeing these people again is slim. But somehow it seems as if the sale clerks were allowing a little secret of hers to be let out that could easily have been obscured by tossing the box in the garbage.  Why she held on to it in the first place is anyone's guess but it's not fair to leave it there for the neighbors to see, possibly sealing her legacy as the The Sanitary Napkin Hoarder.

4. Would anyone buy this who was not a collector but because it's utilitarian? For example, a female friend could be over to watch a movie and say, "Oh, shoot, I just got my period and I don't have a tampon along. Could you...?" And you could say, "I bought a box of extras just for this very scenario," and hand her the cotton brick to place between her legs? [I seriously hadn't seen pads this big since a trip to Italy two years ago and over there I just figured that it had something to do with Catholicism.]

In answer to my own question #4, the answer would probably be, “Yes.” I’ve seen people carting out other products from estate sales. A top seller is laundry detergent. I don’t know if it’s considered a pricey item at the grocery store but there are many old women only too happy to swoop into an estate sale and buy open containers of detergent. Same holds true for wood polish. This doesn’t necessarily strike me as wrong (someone should use it up, I guess), but if we draw conclusions from this fact, I’d say there might be some takers for the pads.

By the way, for what it’s worth, I did wait for everyone else down in the basement with me to leave before I took the photo. I figured that maybe the only thing more strange than being the person who buys the box of old pads is the person who just takes a photo of them. I had to wait quite a while for a couple to decide they were not going to purchase the hand ringer washer (!) and leave the basement. More proof, I guess, that you can sell just about anything.

Categories: General Weirdness
2 Comments »

You got the  J. Crew holiday catalog in the mail yesterday and the cover says “Happy Holidays From The Italian Alps.” How did they know that’s where you’re headed this holiday season? But between now and then you have a lot of holiday-ing to do.

Luckily, you can do it all in J. Crew.

You bundle up in your HEARTHSTONE SNOOD ($49.50) to walk to a cozy cafe to sip cocoa and write gift ideas for  family and friends in your ARCHIE GRAND FOR J.CREW NOTEBOOK ($10). Your cello teacher is getting a MAGIC WALLET in leopard print ($22.50) and your third cousin is getting the CASHMERE-LINED LEATHER GLOVES ($98) but everyone else has you vexed!

There’s no time to dawdle if you’re going to meet your model/graphic designer/drummer/environmentalist fiancé to pick out a Christmas tree at the organic tree farm. He’s wearing his RED WING FOR J. CREW BECKMAN MOC-TOE BOOTS ($320) in order to saw down the tree. You take a picture for Facebook. You know you look cute tossing snow at his head while wearing your TOGGLE COAT IN WOOL-CASHMERE WITH THINSULATE ($325).

When it comes time to decorate the tree and hang the wreath, you change into your NO. 2 PENCIL SKIRT IN MIDNIGHT TWEED ($138) and slide across your shiny wood floors with strings of cranberries and popcorn in your CORGI CASHMERE SOCKS ($88).

Oh, you have to work at the art gallery on Tuesday! You forgot  – you thought you took the entire month of December off. Oh, well. You just have to sit at the desk and pretend to read Ulysses. You do it in your HANDKNIT FAIR ISLE SWEATER ($225) over your JULES DRESS in Fresh Strawberry ($198). Chinese food for lunch, sign for one package, send a fax and you’re done for the day!

Your fiance’s old roommate is protesting down at Occupy! You agree to go visit and share some falafel and pumpkin seed bread while sitting on the curb. You wear your FAIR ISLE SWEATER-LEGGINGS ($98) and PUFFERS coat ($188) to try to blend in at the drum circle. To show the old roomie you’re not the unimaginative bitch he thinks you are, you bring him a gift – who wouldn’t want a pair of DANCING SANTA BOXERS ($18.50)?

Time for caroling! You go with the MAJESTY PEACOAT in Dark Bone ($258), PIXIE PANTS ($88) and your MACALISTER WEDGE BOOTS ($198). You get drunk while waiting for everyone else to be ready to go, then have to pee the entire time. You beg people to let you use their bathrooms and rifle through their medicine cabinets.

Holiday Open House at your boss’s loft! You spend hours preparing a a messy ponytail and wear your dark-rimmed glasses and TALIA TOP IN WILDCAT ($118) with CAFE CAPRIS IN WOOL. Keep an eye on your BROMPTON SATCHEL in Henna ($278), that’s where you keep the cache of drugs you stole while caroling.

You forgot to buy a bauble for Betsy, that annoying, sort-of-friend who happens to have a great summer cabin you love going to every August. You buy her an  ARGYLE, HAND-ENAMELED BANGLE ($28) and a pair of socks from THE GAP.

Your fiancé wants to make a snowman. You watch the action from the safety of the front porch while wearing your GLIMMER LONG SLEEVE TEE ($88), MINNIE PANTS IN BI-STRETCHED WOOL and SPERRY TOP-SIDER SHORT SHEARWATER BOOTS ($138), which are so ugly you want to return them but you already stepped in dog shit so that’s that.

For the cookie exchange with gal pals you’re wearing your WYNTER V-NECK SWEATER in Roasted Cider ($69.50), STRETCH VINTAGE BOOTCUT CORDS ($79.50) and BIELLA METALLIC PENNY LOAFERS ($248) but you’re not eating any cookies – you’re biting into them and slipping the bites into napkins when no one is looking and throwing them away. You can’t believe how much the other ladies are eating. It’s depressing.

Holiday movie time! You put on your SILK CELESTIAL PAJAMA SHIRT IN STARSTRUCK ($118) and SILK CELESTIAL PAJAMA PANT IN STARSTRUCK ($108) and make a big production of making popcorn and queuing up It’s a Wonderful Life but then spend the entire time texting and tweeting.

Big, awesome party filled with hip people. You go quirky-maximus by wearing your TOSCANA SHEARLING TRAPPER HAT ($198) paired with your JULES DRESS IN SEQUIN STRIPE ($495) to show that you don’t care that your fiancé’s ex-fiancé, Bronwyn,  is there. You really don’t care. See? You’re wearing a  hunting hat with a sequined dress! Someone hands you a PBR and you drink it down in one long, continuous gulp.

Quick pre-holiday Job interview for a junior associate assistant position at a PR firm! You think they will take you seriously if you wear your TISSUE TURTLENECK TEE ($29.50), monogrammed ITALIAN CASHMERE V-NECK ($168) and SILK STINGER SKIRT in Grey Slate ($235). Oh, but they don’t.

Holiday shopping at J. Crew in your CASHMERE BOYFRIEND CARDIGAN in Heather Spearmint ($198), NIGHTSHIRT IN SILK FOULARD ($178) and CLASSIC MINI IN FELTED WOOL in Stone ($98). You can’t figure out why the other customers keep asking you if they can get a fitting room.

You are so exhausted. It’s time to go to Italy. You wear your HIGH-WAISTED SKINNY JEANS in Night Owl Wash ($125), ITALIAN BALLETS in Lula Snakeskin ($198) and DREAM DOLMAN SWEATER in Heather Cloud ($98) on the plane and watch Just Go With It starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. You think it’s a good movie.

As soon as you get back from the holidays you’re going to buy your J. Crew ESCALIER GOWN COLLECTION WEDDING GOWN ($2,400).

Categories: Drawings, Fashion!, General Weirdness
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The End of Everything by Megan Abbott

The plot: A mystery (?) thriller about two 13-year-old girls who are best friends until one of them disappears after school one day, changing everything forever.

All I wanted to do was get to the end and find out who “abducted” the girl (I have to use those quotation marks because, although it looks like an abduction we find out that it was not really a true abduction) and why. It’s one of those books where you find yourself skimming, saying, “Yeah, yeah, beautiful older sister… friends forever… that time they were eight and went to the beach… Damn it! Get to the good stuff.”

Then the book got strange in a not-unpleasant The Virgin Suicides kind of way. Then it got ridiculous. And then, yes, it went over the top of Cheese Mountain in a pushcart. I believe the specific peak it climbed before plummeting to the bottom was No Way Can Anyone Be Expected To Suspend Disbelief For This Shit.

Not unlike a thriller movie heavily marketed for the “twist” at the end because the rest of the story stinks, it left me thinking, “So what?”

Also, the narrator describe several dreams throughout the book, each one more implausible (yes, implausible dreams too conveniently placed) than the next. See, dreams are not real in the first place, so they can be boring unless they are hilarious. When an author insists on describing dreams a character had within bad fiction they are only making it worse. It’s double fakery!

In parting, if any teen’s world is this dark and bereft, I feel very sorry but I also recommend they watch some stand-up. You’ll know they need to sit down and watch some Chris Rock if they say things like this:

“Lizzie, he loved me so much in those nineteen days I thought I might die from it.”

or

“He was so calm, like he never was. I had the car door open, and I was looking at him and it was the longest minute. And then he said, No one will ever love you like this again, and I knew he was right.”

When I was thirteen, I was saying stuff like, “21 Jump Street is on!” or “Do you want to get some M&Ms?” or “I like John but he doesn’t like me.”

Categories: Book Review!
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The documentary Bill Cunningham New York came out last spring. It played in the Twin Cities as part of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, which is where I first saw it. It has quickly become one of my favorite documentaries. I watched it again last week (it is now available streaming through Netflix) and was struck all over again at how it accomplishes everything a documentary should.

To me, this  means that it delves into its subject and allows the subject matter to raise the questions (and there must be questions and murky areas or the viewer is left wondering why the documentary was made at all). This is especially true when a documentary is about a person. The person needs to be extraordinary themselves or their story needs to be extraordinary. They can’t be mundane unless they are so mundane it passes into comedy.

I was recently at a film festival and watched a documentary made about a semi-famous person and it was awful. Why? Because everyone interviewed for the film liked or loved that person. And it was all interviews of people talking. The one person who said he didn’t like the subject seemed as if he was a hired actor. I grew very bored.

Bill Cunningham is a street fashion photographer for the New York Times. He also photographs charity events and the big runway shows. He started out in life as a hat designer, went into the Army when he was drafted during WWII, came back and started writing for newspapers and eventually became a fashion photographer. He is now into his 80s and still biking around New York every day, capturing photos of interesting fashion. A more complete bio and links to his work can be found here.

For Bill, it’s not about the people wearing the clothes, although he has great respect for his subjects. It’s also not about his own celebrity (street fashion blogger du jour take note). It is about the clothes and what those clothes say about the times we live in. He’s not thinking up a trend and then going out to find it. He’s patiently waiting for trends to present themselves to him and then he documents them for us.

With that in mind, here are three reasons to watch this film:

1. Bill lives a meager existence compared to many of us. He doesn’t like fancy food. He doesn’t cook (one of my favorite things in the movie is a side note at the end saying that, after Bill moved into a new apartment, he had the landlord take out the kitchen appliances so he would have room for his filing cabinets of photos and negatives). He doesn’t wear fancy clothes. His time is devoted entirely to photography. His singularity of purpose and passion in this modern world are what make him extraordinary and it’s a good reminder for us all about what makes life worth living.

2. You can’t watch this movie and feel not uplifted. That’s not to say that there aren’t sad moments in the film but it’s great to watch someone who seems genuinely happy. If I were having a down day, I’d want to have a chat with Bill.

3. This film is beautifully shot. The lighting is extraordinary. Everyone looks beautiful. Even though this was a first-time effort on a feature-length film for the cinematographers, you can tell they have experience in photography and it’s to the audience’s benefit.If nothing else, enjoy the lighting.

If you’re in the mood for documentaries, here’s a little list that might may you say, “Oh, yeah, that movie. I should see that again.”

Hell House (2001)
Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
Rize (2005)
Crazy Love (2007)
Inside Job (2010)

And here are some that are on my Must Watch Soon list:

The Interrupters (2011)
Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011)
Bobby Fischer Against the World (2010) Out on DVD on December 6th.
Marwencol (2010)
Winnebago Man (2009)

Categories: Film
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Project #7: Embroidered Pet Portrait

Over a year ago, Freja and I were walking through a park and I stopped to take some photos of her. One of them always cracks me up because I’m never sure what to make of the look on her face:

I created a collage on my bedroom wall of thrifted portraits, photos and drawings of dogs but it was missing my own dog. So I traced the photo onto tracing paper with a special pencil, ironed it so that those lines transferred onto fabric and went to work. After many hours embroidering while watching everything from Arrested Development, Project Runway and to the movie The Fly, I finally finished:

It’s definitely not an exact translation but I like the crafty, maybe kid-like quality it has. Perhaps this photo provides a better view, I can’t decide:

Now just have to get around to adding it the wall collection!

Categories: 99 Projects
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Categories: General Weirdness, Super Sad Depressing Story
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