While summer is still a while away for us down here in the southern hemisphere, we can always use a little outfit inspiration for when the sunny days do hit us.
That’s where Who What Wear comes in, with their latest spread of Mad Men-inspired “retro sundresses“. Ahh, only four more months…
It’s shocking to know there are other blogs out there on the net besides this one! So I urge you, loyal Early Birds, to check out my favourite posts this week (and in the case of some, this year!). I hope you likey:
While I can’t exactly understand this site (it’s written in Dutch!), it’s oh-so-pretty to look at. And I love blogger Nenz’s links to other quirky sites. Below, she lists blogging as one of her fave pastimes (duh!) and THX THX THX blog for its sweet notes. More on this one coming soon!
“In Defence of Taylor Momsen”, over at Jezebel, tells us why we should just leave the 17-year-old the bloody well alone!
Jersey Shore’s Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi is subjected to a scathing profile by The New York Times.
I’ve been humming and hawing over whether to write a blog response to this article, but instead, check out Mark Sarvas’ blog, The Elegant Variation, and this article, “Advice for the Lovelorn… I Mean Writers”.
In other Momsen news, Jezebel reports on “the biggest feud of our time week” with Miley Cyrus.
One of my favourite bloggers, Rachel Hills, struggles to marry who she feels she is with who people perceive her to be. I feel ya, sister!
There’s been a bit of unrest in the Facebook ranks of late, and this Jezebel post—“Why People Really Hate Facebook: It’s Complicated”—asserts why it generates so much hate.
Sex & the City permeated the zeitgeist and defined a television-watching generation. Can Mad Men do the same?
US Vogue worked very hard in 2009 trying to boost its image, what with The September Issue and Fashion’s Night Out. Maybe “Vogue just might be culturally relevant” again?
Sarah Ayoub interviews impending Cleo editor, Gemma Crisp, about where she intends to steer the mag. Exciting!
And everybody’s been raving about Fashematics, which has been around for over a year, but is somehow only just coming to my attention now.
Jailbird Lindsay Lohan may be currently incarcerated, but that didn’t stop her from making the August cover of German GQ.
Smart move by the mag’s bosses, as the current media obsession with Lilo is sure to garner increased sales for the book. The half-naked photos inside probably won’t hurt, either.
When I heard Bret Easton Ellis was coming to Melbourne for the Writers Festival, I was intrigued to hear him speak in person, to say the least.
My first, and only, exposure to Easton Ellis prior to reading American Psycho was his 1998 release, Glamorama. I had high expectations for that book, and I was sorely disappointed. I found it too fast paced and celebrity-obsessed which, granted, was the point of the story. However, the graphic depictions of violence (a plane crash with flying pieces of sheet metal decapitating whole rows of passengers, anyone? Or how about a massive miscarriage followed by internal haemorrhaging and subsequent death of the main character’s, Victor Ward, girlfriend?) and sex were far too much.
So needless to say, I was very apprehensive about entering into a literary relationship with American Psycho, but I wanted to at least have read Easton Ellis’ most famous work before seeing him live. (Alas, this is not meant to be, as tickets to his talk sold out within minutes of going on sale! As he, and Buffy creator Joss Whedon, whose talk also sold out, are the only writers I’m interested in seeing at this years surprisingly uninspiring Melbourne Writers Festival, I guess I’ll be giving it a miss this year.)
This time around, however, I was pleasantly surprised.
Again, American Psycho is hard to get into initially, as it jumps straight into a boys night out with protagonist Patrick Bateman and his equally materialistic and über-boring posse of yuppie acquaintances (Bateman is too narcissistic to have actual “friends”). But after persevering up to the first kill, I liked what I read.
Even squirming along Struggle Street during the gory descriptions of the murders—on public transport, no less!—was still a fairly enjoyable literary journey. To give you a taste of just how well Easton Ellis does horrific homicide in print, here’s a description of Bateman’s first kill:
… I reach out and touch his [the bum’s] face gently once more with compassion and whisper, “Do you know what a fucking loser you are?” He starts nodding helplessly and I pull out a long, thin knife with a serrated edge and , being very careful not to kill him, push maybe half an inch of the blade into his right eye, flicking the handle up, instantly popping the retina.
The bum is too surprised to say anything. He only opens his mouth in shock and moves a grubby, mittened hand slowly up to his face. I yank his pants down and in the passing headlights of a taxi can make out his flabby black thighs, rashed because of his constantly urinating in the pantsuit. The stench of shit rises quickly into my face and breathing through my mouth, down on my haunches, I start stabbing him in the stomach, lightly, above the dense matted patch of pubic hair. This sobers him up somewhat and instinctively he tries to cover himself with his hands and the dog starts yipping, really furiously, but it doesn’t attack, and I keep stabbing at the bum now between his fingers, stabbing the backs of his hands. His eye, burst open, hangs out of its socket and runs down his face and he keeps blinking which causes what’s left of it inside the wound to pour out like red, veiny egg yolk. I grab his head with one hand and push it back and then with my thumb and forefinger hold the other eye open and bring the knife up and push the tip of it into the socket, first breaking its protective film so the socket fills with blood, then slitting the eyeball open sideways, and he finally starts screaming once I slit his nose in two, lightly spraying me and the dog with blood, Gizmo blinking to get the blood out of his eyes. I quickly wipe the blade clean across the bum’s face, breaking open the muscle above his cheek. Still kneeling, I throw a quarter in his face, which is slick and shiny with blood, both sockets hollowed out and filled with gore, what’s left of his eye literally oozing over his screaming lips in thick, webby strands. Calmly, I whisper, “There’s a quarter. Go buy some gum, you crazy fucking nigger.” Then I turn to the barking dog and when I get up, stomp on its front legs while it’s crouched down ready to jump at me, its fangs bared, immediately shattering the bones in both its legs, and it falls on its side squealing in pain, front paws sticking up in the air at an obscene, satisfying angle. I can’t help but start laughing and I linger at the scene, amused by this tableau. When I spot an approaching taxi, I slowly walk away.
Now if that didn’t make you wince and writhe vicariously, there’s also the attacks of several other dogs, the tortures of countless prostitutes, the dissolving of several friends’ bodies in lime, cannibalism, the murder of a child, the capture of a sewer rat to use in later tortures, and in a comical scene that illustrates just how sad and detached Bateman has become in his life of depravity, he feeds his girlfriend (just one of many he has on the go at any given time) a frozen urinal cake coated in chocolate and served in a decadent Godiva chocolate box.
If the reader needs more proof of Bateman’s derangement and obsessive compulsive consumerism, they need only to look at the chapters interspersed throughout the narrative on business cards, sound systems and musical artists of the time (1991), like Genesis, Whitney Houston and Huey Lewis & the News.
Here is another example:
Another choir, on Lexington, sings “Hark the Herald Angels” and I tap-dance, moaning, in front of them before I move like a zombie to Bloomingdale’s, where I rush over to the first tie rack I see and murmur to the young faggot working behind the counter, “Too, too fabulous,” while fondling a silk ascot. He flirts and asks if I’m a model. “I’ll see you in hell,” I tell him, and move on.
… vases and felt fedoras with feather headbands and alligator toiletry cases with gilt-silver bottles and brushes and shoehorns that cost two hundred dollars and candlesticks and pillow covers and gloves and slippers and powder puffs and hand-knitted cotton snowflake sweaters and leather skates and Porsche-design ski goggles and antique apothecary bottles and diamond earrings and silk ties and boots and perfume bottles and diamond earrings and boots and vodka glasses and card cases and cameras and mahogany servers and scarves and aftershaves and photo albums and salt and pepper shakers and ceramic-toaster cookie jars and two-hundred-dollar shoehorns and backpacks and aluminium lunch pails and pillow covers…
Some kind of existential chasm opens up before me while I’m browsing in Bloomingdale’s and causes me to first locate a phone and check my messages, then, near tears, after taking three Halcion (since my body has mutated and adapted to the drug it no longer causes sleep—it just seems to ward off total madness), I head toward the Clinique counter where with my platinum American Express card I buy six tubes of shaving cream…
This kind of stream-of-consciousness and disjointed conflict between the Patrick Bateman that is presented to the outside world—the one that manages to convince a cop investigating the murder of one of Bateman’s lime victims that he has nothing to do with the disappearance—and the inner workings of his own mind, and even again with the superhuman he becomes when killing, continues and only becomes more frequent as the tale continues.
While there is no finite conclusion to the story—one might guess that Bateman was caught during the murder of a taxi driver, when the tone switches from first person to third person, however it is later revealed that he escaped, but is recognised by another cab driver—that only makes it all the more disturbing.
Easton Ellis is a very clever—though slightly disturbed; you would have to be to write as graphically and as convincingly as he does—author, and I would have loved to hear him speak about his most prolific work.
However, while I rate this one highly, I probably won’t return to, nor enjoy, his other novels.
“Book? What book?!” the ladies might be thinking.
When True Blood hottie Alexander Skarsgård is wearing as sheer a shirt as he is here, it’s probably hard to pay attenting to the book he’s carrying in his left hand, but there is a book! Smart and sexy? Me likey.
Famous laments the presence of a “see-through purple pullover” (I would argue that it’s blue), but my reasoning is, when you’re that hot, you can pull it off.
Kate Bosworth is one lucky lady.
I’m a sucker for a Breton stripe, floral skirt and a dog any day. These photos of Gala Darling and her dog Dolly were taken on 18th June in Tomkins Square Park, New York City, for a collaboration with American store JC Penny.
Kate Bosworth is one of those stars who can do no wrong in the fashion department, and this ensemble is no different.
It’s no secret that I love a celebrity dressed-down and hiding from the paps, especially when they’ve accessorised with a man bag, fluffy friend or grocery bag, as Miss Bosworth has done here.
I also love a Liberty print, casually swept-back chignon, and an Alexander Wang studded Coco duffle bag (in black would be preferable, thanks, but purple is fine, too), and Kate pulls it all together perfectly.
This is an edited version of an article originally posted on Girl with a Satchel.
Magazines and media blogger Erica Bartle, of Girl with a Satchel, has recently upped her workload as feature writing and fashion and style journalism tutor at Queensland’s University of Technology. Erica’s first lecture inspired her to write this:
After experiencing some minor audiovisual issues (during which time I had a little jokey internal monologue with Tina Fey in Date Night about the “computer sticky thingy”) and giving my introductory lecture on feature writing on Monday, I opened up the opportunity for questions.
“Are you going to be referencing Sex and the City every lecture?” deadpanned one male student channelling Daria. Touché!
I actually hadn’t intended to make reference to the show (in fact, I genuinely try to curb such things, knowing how tiresome it can sound), but sometimes a pop culture reference comes to mind that fits the occasion aptly enough to illustrate a point and simply must be voiced (cue the scene in Sex and the City when Candice Burgen, playing Carrie’s Vogue editor, returns her piece on shoes dripping with red ink).
Though more “serious journalists” prefer witty literary/historical/political references and high-brow in-jokes, I love a good pop culture reference in a feature; preferably if it’s Gen-Y nostalgic. It says, “you speak my language”. Gillard and Abbott (or, rather, their speech writers) should really think about throwing some random Simpsons/Mad Men quotes into the mix (okay, it didn’t work for Joe Hockey!).
Give me Seinfeld, give me slinkies, give me scrunchies, give me The Goonies and Gilmore Girls and I’m yours. As Elle Woods once said, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy”. So does good pop culture. And puppies.
So who better to inspire the writer’s muse—that voice that sits upon your shoulder like trusty Tinkerbell—than some of the feisty and fabulous gals you pointed to in response to the pop popularity poll? Make like Buffy Summers who “slew all manner of demons and even had breath to spare for puns and quips”.
— Erica Bartle.
Now this really IS a Situation!
This horridly awkward family portrait, replete with “ribbed turtlenecks”, comes courtesy of none other than the Jersey Shore‘s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, with sometimes-Shore star, sister Melissa.
A lot of viewers might have argued that The Hills had passed its prime awhile ago, probably around the time its star, Lauren Conrad, bid farewell midway through season five.
While that may be somewhat true (personally, my favourite seasons were the second half of season three, and season four), The Hills has always been what it was intended to be; a guilty pleasure.
It was also one of the first shows to really catapult the “scripted reality” notion into the mainstream, in the footsteps of which so many others followed: The Real Housewives, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Girls of the Playboy Mansion and pretty much every other MTV show since The Hills’ debut (bar Jersey Shore, which Perez Hilton, in last week’s column for Famous, called “raw [and] real”—the antithesis of The Hills).
But the buzz has been around the show’s final episode, which aired two weeks ago in the US, and which Australia is still waiting for.
After so much criticism of the action on the show being fake vs. real, with scenes being shot several times for the best angles (both camera- and storyline-wise) and “cut up to death”, the producers and writers (?) decided to capitalise on that allure.
SPOILER ALERT: The final scene sees Kristin Cavallari and Stacie Hall packing the rest of Kristin’s things into a waiting car, as she’s moving to Europe (E! television personality Joel McHale of The Soup hilariously noted that Europe is a continent, not a country, and Kristin never once mentioned where in Europe she was going!), to “find myself” and “figure out what I want”. Brody Jenner is waiting by the car to say a final goodbye to Kristin, who told Brody she loved him but was knocked back. He says he would have got together with her if he knew she would move away when he rejected her. Kristin says “that’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear”, but she’s still going. They hug, kiss, cry, and the car drives away with Kristin inside, leaving Brody brooding beneath the Hollywood sign.
As the camera pans out, the Hollywood sing starts moving, and it is revealed that Brody is standing on a film lot. Kristin runs from the car as the director yells “cut!”, embracing Brody as the two are congratulated by the crew for wrapping the last scene. END SPOILER ALERT.
Confusing, much?!
While The Hills season final may not get as much publicity and/or examination as, say, The Sopranos or LOST, it is a clever poke at the media and Hollywood. Brody said:
Oh, how poignant!
There are still a lot of loose ends that fans are left hanging with, though, and I guess that’s the dilemma of having a “reality” show that is based on the real lives of its stars, but it scripted to within an inch of its life, and some of its stars (ie. Speidi) can’t reconcile those difference.
I would like to know what happened with Heidi and Spencer, and if they ever reconciled with Holly, Heidi’s sister, and their mother, Darlene. And if Audrina finds what she’s looking for by moving out of Hollywood. Ditto Kristin in Europe.
But I guess we will find these things out in Heidi’s new reality show with The Hills alum Jen Bunney, and Audrina’s rumoured show, The Audrina Patridge Show.
Until then, there’s always the tabloids.
