today is a day for crack

Best Of CraigsList

Carton of Irregular Cat Hats

Chessboxing

G.K. Chesterton

Grow

The real presidential race

They even come in cashmere!

enjoy.

Penis Hat

the lovely miss alison...

Three Dresses

First, the dress that I will always dream of but didn't buy. Why, you say? Unfortunately the back wouldn't even come close to zipping up all the way. Damn fleshy appendages. Still....I dream of one day amassing a wardrobe of such finery.

Next, a dress I purchased at I believe Buffalo on the Haight...dude, where are the actual thrift stores around here?? All we have here is "vintage," where they can charge you like 15 freaking bucks for a ratty old t-shirt because it's "from the 80s" or something like that. Anyway, I digress. The dress is just actually plain black, I added the belt (that I got in Ireland at AWear a couple of years ago). I figured I needed a "little black dress," and it fit like a dream, so....here we go!

AND last but most certainly not even close to least, I give you: THE EIGHTIES DRESS. Burgundy velvet. Gold embroidery. Made of awesome. Fits like a glove. Need I say more??

Three Coats

This photo doesn't really do the colors justice, but this a cobalt blue trench, originally from Banana Republic and purchased in tip-top condition for cheapy cheap from Buffalo Exchange on Telegraph. It's kind of big, but trés perfect for layering to deal with the schizophrenic Berkeley weather.

All right, excuse me grinning like an idiot - I don't have my model pose/face quite down yet. This is an awesome mod-ish tweed coat, and I love it - I feel like I get more coats than anything else when I'm shopping, when I know I'm really just going to end up wearing my trusty black peacoat if it's even remotely chilly. Oh well, maybe getting stuff like this is incentive to branch out! Also I love tweed.

So I saw this jacket in wasteland on the shopping trip with Alison a few weeks ago, and I bought it because it is such a weird mixture of elements: the yellow canvassy outside, the brown sweatery lapels and brown quilted inside, and the fake leopard print collar. SO EPIC. It's kind of heinous in that way that makes it awesome. 

Three dresses coming up next!

The Purple Man

This man was not only wearing all purple, save for his hat, but he was also wearing a multitude of splendid shades and patterns of royal violet. Notice the gradient from hipster bag to jacket to lilac jeans, and the purple-and-black striped handwarmers contrasted with the purple-and-black checked Vans. A prime specimen of the rare homo purpleous, which is a little-known subspecies of homo hipsterus. A rare breed indeed!

 

Movie: Y Tu Mamá Tambien

Simple, quiet, hilarious, sexy - I think I found my new favorite movie. It was a little bit more explicit (sex-wise) than I thought it would be,  but never dirty or crude - Cuaron is kind of a genius. The whole film is really intimate and tender. I think I may have watched the end about six times! 

So, see it. And you might want to watch it alone...

The Innocent - Ian McEwan

Beautiful prose, a bleak portrait of both post-war and mid-Wall Berlin. McEwan philosophizes in his usual delicate way - both an inspiring and disturbing work. I was slightly disappointed by the ending, and found multiple aspects of it less than believable, but the descriptions of the love affair in its early stages are closer to truth than anything I've read and the characterizations were spot-on. A lovely read.

I've got Atonement on hold at the public library (the joy of free books!!), and considering how I've decided how much I like McEwan's style, I think it's about time I pick that up.

Coolest Watch Of All Time

Check it out:

NOOKA® ZUB38 ZENV PURPLE

Um, coolest watch ever, y/n?

Feb 9th Shopping Spree Part 1

A city trip on Saturday...visiting the long-missed Haight. Of course I spent too much money, need you ask? But look what I got, among other things:

A fabulous eighties jacket at Piedmont's which I had previously thought only sold handmade vinyl hotpants and $2 earrings.

A Forever21 dress at Buffalo - me + bright colors + black = twu lub.

And a close-up of the TURQUOISE PATENT LEATHER SHOES:

I love these shoes, without question. I truly know what unconditional love is now. 

I also got two other dresses and another jacket, which will be posted when I wear them.

Movie: Royal Tenenbaums

I've been meaning to post all week, but something about moving and college and having a social life tend to take up a ridiculous amount of time when they coincide. 

My friend Alison and I have a list of movies that we've decided it is imperative to our cultural education to watch (hey, correct grammar is so five minutes ago). Naturally, Monsieur Wes Anderson, quirky nerd extraordinaire, is at the top of our list. I've actually never seen any Wes Anderson films until now (shameful, I know) besides Hotel Chevalier because it was free on iTunes. But Alison knows me well, and Royal Tenenbaums was everything I wanted out of a dysfunctional family drama/comedy and then some. 

First of all, the general dynamics of the cast and the quality of the actors were absolutely perfect. Anjelica Huston is fantastic as the frazzled mother, Gene Hackman as the conniving father who wants another chance with his family, and (my personal favorite) Gwyneth Paltrow as the depressive writer/daughter, Margot. Although I'm too lazy to link all of the other actors, notable stars include Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller (whom I normally hate but found strangely adorable and thoroughly humanized here), Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, and Danny Glover. My favorite cameo is the kid who is Bill Murray's sidekick, whom you might recognize as the kid who played Harris in the beloved TV show Freaks N Geeks. 

See, look! It's Harris!

But I digress.

I'm still not quite sure how to write a movie review without sounding like I'm writing a book report in fifth grade, but Royal Tenenbaums captured my heart and made me laugh. The colors were incredible, the cinematography crisp and clean, and the denouement pretty much perfect in the most messed-up way possible. I am a relatively unsentimental person, so the fact that this movie had a constant undercurrent of wry humor and deliberately stayed away from most family clichés definitely attracted me to it. 

To sum up and pull myself out of the muck of pretentious film criticism, Royal Tenenbaums is charming without being sappy, insane without being unintelligible, and bittersweet without being maudlin.