A pal of mine (and a smart cookie) once used the phrase "return to glorious nonsense." He used it abstractly, perhaps before flinging his shirt off the rails in ecstasy, but the words stayed close. Lately, I can't help but think of that night on the balcony and of college--that messily constructed clapboard house filled to the gills with beer cans, books, basements, and debasements. College, the all consuming fire, the bullshit mess, the utter bliss of giving into our worst selves.
I know, I know: our futures are burning bright with success, discovery, piety. And college had to end. The luster of youthful splendor, idiocy, and Andre champagne had to come to a close and we're all growing up. And yet, I'd give my firstborn for one more night in a state of "glorious nonsense," for the peculiar paradise I called home.
I miss the shit out of college and I dare any of my college professors to challenge my grammar, the content of my prose.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Made in America
"Sweet baby Jesus, we made it in America." When it smells like piss on the 22 and my shoes won't keep me upright, I think of that. Am I making it? Everyday is a land mine, a discovery of Spanish streets and the realization that life is the time between Caltrains. Am I making it really? I think yes, if only by trying.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The 43
I rode the bus for two hours yesterday, the 28, the 43--jumping on at 19th and Taravale, off at Lombard and Filmore, on at Lombard and Divisadero, off at Masonic and Hayes in the hopes of a mirrored plateau for an upcoming nuptual.
I see everything on the bus, or everything I want anyway: the fog sweeping across the bay, little Chinese women with tasseled loafers and grocery carts, Parisian teenagers, surfers, Berkeley intellectuals, a sweet British couple, homeless men with shaggy hair who hound you for the empty water bottle at your feet.
The 43 is The Great Equalizer--a moment of agitated entropy when vegan and meat eater, rag doll and vagrant brush each other with every twist of the Presidio.
And even if you're afraid for your safety, for your belongings, for the preservation of your personal space, the 43 is throwing you into chaos, begging you to surrender as you roll up the hill. And sometimes, that's just what you need in the afternoon--a native surprise for two dollars flat.
I see everything on the bus, or everything I want anyway: the fog sweeping across the bay, little Chinese women with tasseled loafers and grocery carts, Parisian teenagers, surfers, Berkeley intellectuals, a sweet British couple, homeless men with shaggy hair who hound you for the empty water bottle at your feet.
The 43 is The Great Equalizer--a moment of agitated entropy when vegan and meat eater, rag doll and vagrant brush each other with every twist of the Presidio.
And even if you're afraid for your safety, for your belongings, for the preservation of your personal space, the 43 is throwing you into chaos, begging you to surrender as you roll up the hill. And sometimes, that's just what you need in the afternoon--a native surprise for two dollars flat.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Cloud Diary
"We wanted 24-hour room service. We wanted direct-dial telephones. We wanted to stay on the road forever."
I finished "The White Album" somewhere over America, dusty plains wrinkled like leather 200 feet below, with the curious feeling that Didion had intuited my need for her tale. This cloud diary about California, the mystical West, crab salad, and asparagus vinaigrette--wasn't this the life I would soon be living? Air crackling mysteriously in foreign locals, rotary telephones, dollar store rosaries hung from San Francisco windows?
I tore through my airplane cookies and airplane tea, savoring the American stills below our aircraft, drumming my fingers on the tray table, not sure of anything.
When we touched down in San Francisco, I closed my $2.89 volume and stowed it safely in my bag. "Good luck," the blonde next to me said. "I've never been to California."
I smiled, 24-hour room service waiting on my doorstep.
I finished "The White Album" somewhere over America, dusty plains wrinkled like leather 200 feet below, with the curious feeling that Didion had intuited my need for her tale. This cloud diary about California, the mystical West, crab salad, and asparagus vinaigrette--wasn't this the life I would soon be living? Air crackling mysteriously in foreign locals, rotary telephones, dollar store rosaries hung from San Francisco windows?
I tore through my airplane cookies and airplane tea, savoring the American stills below our aircraft, drumming my fingers on the tray table, not sure of anything.
When we touched down in San Francisco, I closed my $2.89 volume and stowed it safely in my bag. "Good luck," the blonde next to me said. "I've never been to California."
I smiled, 24-hour room service waiting on my doorstep.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Step Ladder
Apologies!
I haven't written on my perfumed pig's sweet, earthy flesh because I've been on a roof. Yes, for a month I've been sitting on a roof, letting the San Francisco air whip right through me, so much so that I fell into protective netting and broke my hip and lay cradled there for more than a hot minute but less than an eternity.
Okay, this isn't exactly true.
But, for five minutes, sitting high among the spirals and California lights, I got the message and the code, the one augured for me by a woman with gold pendants and an office in the Catacombs. Because you see: the roof is the start of Joan Didion and slouching towards my own Bethlehem, engaging a new mysterious existence, eating fruit, swearing like a sailor, reading/knowing/writing all that has been unimaginable.
I was not on the roof for long but I know now that the roof is where it Begins.
I haven't written on my perfumed pig's sweet, earthy flesh because I've been on a roof. Yes, for a month I've been sitting on a roof, letting the San Francisco air whip right through me, so much so that I fell into protective netting and broke my hip and lay cradled there for more than a hot minute but less than an eternity.
Okay, this isn't exactly true.
But, for five minutes, sitting high among the spirals and California lights, I got the message and the code, the one augured for me by a woman with gold pendants and an office in the Catacombs. Because you see: the roof is the start of Joan Didion and slouching towards my own Bethlehem, engaging a new mysterious existence, eating fruit, swearing like a sailor, reading/knowing/writing all that has been unimaginable.
I was not on the roof for long but I know now that the roof is where it Begins.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Lacquered Love
"No, no, no, don't go away, oh you got my heart beat running away.."
While Nicki Minaj was shakin' her badonkadonk on the diamond mountain ranges of Mars (her native planet or so her catsuit would suggest), I was busy dancing to "Super Bass" in my mom's car. Yes, there I was, pounding the steering wheel and working it out like the yuppy cheesehead I am.
What can I say? I love Nicki Minaj. I love everything about her: the Barbie wigs, the thuggy voice, the two mile booty, the glitzy "schtickala" of Wonder Woman Gone Bad.
I'm a pop junkie and I can't get enough of Nicki or her superhero counterparts: Lady GaGa, Rihanna, and Robyn. These artists keep it real (to use the colloquial term) by tweaking the boundaries of the female form and pushing it to its sexiest limits, mp3 included. Their decadence--sartorial and psychological--is contagious, inspiring, a force of nature. GaGa's moods conduct the weather (I'm guessing Irene was an aftermath of her belch) and Rihanna's visage is glued onto the walls of shanty houses and trees in Africa--an icon of of the new revolution.
And let's not forget the music, the root of my obsession: fierce, transcendent, and reckless. The music-- a siren call of sex and lacquered love undercut by hot beats. I just can't get enough. I apologize if I sound like a lesbian/ amateur anthropologist/ or drug addict but the music, the women, the love! It's changed me. As Robyn says, "I keep dancing on my ownnnnnnnnn."
Now where is that leopard pill box hat?
While Nicki Minaj was shakin' her badonkadonk on the diamond mountain ranges of Mars (her native planet or so her catsuit would suggest), I was busy dancing to "Super Bass" in my mom's car. Yes, there I was, pounding the steering wheel and working it out like the yuppy cheesehead I am.
What can I say? I love Nicki Minaj. I love everything about her: the Barbie wigs, the thuggy voice, the two mile booty, the glitzy "schtickala" of Wonder Woman Gone Bad.
I'm a pop junkie and I can't get enough of Nicki or her superhero counterparts: Lady GaGa, Rihanna, and Robyn. These artists keep it real (to use the colloquial term) by tweaking the boundaries of the female form and pushing it to its sexiest limits, mp3 included. Their decadence--sartorial and psychological--is contagious, inspiring, a force of nature. GaGa's moods conduct the weather (I'm guessing Irene was an aftermath of her belch) and Rihanna's visage is glued onto the walls of shanty houses and trees in Africa--an icon of of the new revolution.
And let's not forget the music, the root of my obsession: fierce, transcendent, and reckless. The music-- a siren call of sex and lacquered love undercut by hot beats. I just can't get enough. I apologize if I sound like a lesbian/ amateur anthropologist/ or drug addict but the music, the women, the love! It's changed me. As Robyn says, "I keep dancing on my ownnnnnnnnn."
Now where is that leopard pill box hat?
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Snip Snip
"It's good, it's noble, this whole business of trying to evolve your look. Here's what you do. You wash your hair, nothing too frantic, just work the suds until the grease is gone. Reminds me of washing the dishes sometimes. Okay, now blow dry the roots. Pull from the roots and lift upwards. Your hair is really curly so you've got to get the little fuckers at the roots otherwise you're toast. Use thickening balm, and don't be afraid of that word "thickening." Where was I? Okay, so the hair is damp but the roots are smooth. Take a break, maybe drink a cup of coffee or watch the morning news. Go back to the mirror and don't be afraid of your reflection. You look like shit but it's all uphill. You're a warrior, riding into the battle that is Hair Care. You're prepped and ready with a majestic victory in sight. Finish blow drying your hair. Then reach for your curlers and gently bend your hair around them. Did I mention my mom can do all of this in six minutes? Unbelievable, right? She hates my boyfriend because he rides a motorcycle and gives me leather jackets. He has a Napoleon complex but I kinda like it. He just tattooed my name on his breast. Okay, so take the curlers out and brush hair downward. You should be getting a sort of Botticelli wave. Believe me. You are going to look like the fucking mermaid emerging from the shell if you stick this. Okay! We're all done. How do you feel?"
I promptly threw up and then bought a curling brush. (FYI my hair looked damn good).
#Botticelli, blow drying, battle, feminine incompetence
I promptly threw up and then bought a curling brush. (FYI my hair looked damn good).
#Botticelli, blow drying, battle, feminine incompetence
Friday, August 12, 2011
Topography
Nothing compares/ no worries or cares/ regrets and mistakes/ they're memories made/ who knew how bittersweet this would taste
Adele, if you're reading this, you break my heart. And like a masochist I want it again and again. I want you to take my heart and smash it on the floor when you rush to the piano and feverishly get to playing, never caring that you're waking the neighbors and setting the roof on fire.
Let me explain.
I walk my elderly beagle, Patty, on the all-too-regular in Chicago's West Loop. We stroll through the alleys and freshly planted cabbage patches, through the urban wild flowers, and past the criminals smoking outside of Cook County's Parole office.
To ease the pain, I often listen to Adele and her heavenly piano rifts. When I do this, the urban decay transforms into a surreal opera in which the El tracks, hot breeze, and smell of fertilizer are all necessary and good--components of a life that refuses mediocrity instead of the non-life I fear is mine.
I'm not usually this dour, I promise, but I'm in the arduous process of putting my life together (college graduation!) and I need an inspiration and an idol. I need Adele's drama and heartbreak because otherwise I'm only partially employed, walking the dog, waiting for life to begin.
Adele's voice has its own topography, its own moons, stars, mountains, and I need to travel where it leads. I need the simultaneity of my life lifting and rising with her cadences, and the rocket trip to her universe. I need her adventure.
So thanks, Adele. Thanks for taking me with you. I really appreciate it. You couldn't know how much. And if you need an assistant, call me up. Seriously.
Adele, if you're reading this, you break my heart. And like a masochist I want it again and again. I want you to take my heart and smash it on the floor when you rush to the piano and feverishly get to playing, never caring that you're waking the neighbors and setting the roof on fire.
Let me explain.
I walk my elderly beagle, Patty, on the all-too-regular in Chicago's West Loop. We stroll through the alleys and freshly planted cabbage patches, through the urban wild flowers, and past the criminals smoking outside of Cook County's Parole office.
To ease the pain, I often listen to Adele and her heavenly piano rifts. When I do this, the urban decay transforms into a surreal opera in which the El tracks, hot breeze, and smell of fertilizer are all necessary and good--components of a life that refuses mediocrity instead of the non-life I fear is mine.
I'm not usually this dour, I promise, but I'm in the arduous process of putting my life together (college graduation!) and I need an inspiration and an idol. I need Adele's drama and heartbreak because otherwise I'm only partially employed, walking the dog, waiting for life to begin.
Adele's voice has its own topography, its own moons, stars, mountains, and I need to travel where it leads. I need the simultaneity of my life lifting and rising with her cadences, and the rocket trip to her universe. I need her adventure.
So thanks, Adele. Thanks for taking me with you. I really appreciate it. You couldn't know how much. And if you need an assistant, call me up. Seriously.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Summer Clothes
I'm an unabashed magazine reader and it usually results in tachycardia. My heart beats furiously, anxious to be united with the imagery: mermaids in their summer clothes, wine lips, garlands of peonies in infinite model manes, splendor and grass and striped umbrellas on the beaches of Marseilles. When I cycle through these portraits--immediate and gorgeous--I lust to enter the scene of the crime, to dip my toes into the emerald waters of the virtual beach. I'm perpetually inspired and energized, fizzy after drinking in the carbonated imagery of W, Elle, Bazaar, Vogue. I willingly suffer through the beauty that these magazines provide, just a hopeless supplicant at the altar of Fashion. I went quiet at the sight of this season's Lanvin rose-infused gown. Couldn't that be me in super-stellar dripping blooms with cascading hair and a face full of mystery? Couldn't it? My imagination runs like a race horse around a mud track. I want the photo, the glitz, the dress, the look, the locale, the dream, the mystique, the fantasy, the budget, the beauty, the life. Can I have it, the magical sartorial tutto? I don't know but I'll continue to bow my head in prayer, waiting for Lanvin to carry me to heaven or the golden wheat fields of Elle's location director.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Marrakesh
I'm a relentless optimist and it's a hip point of derision. All too often some drunk dude with cigarette dangling says "oh come on, how can you be so hopeful? How could you be so silly?" It seems I'm the only living girl characterized by a standard state of enchantment. Well sorry dude but I beg to differ from the cynical alley cat. Yes, we've all heard that the economy is parched, the job market blows, the world isn't kind, but are these the only breathing considerations? What about life's unchanging pleasantries?
To escape the alleged realities of my generation, I've turned to a book on gypset culture in which Yves Saint Laurent once said "[I see] a whole generation assembled as if for eternity where the curtain of the past seemed to lift before an extraordinary future."
Finally, someone who sees the futuristic utopia in my head, a dreamer instead of a simple dude. Call me naive but I'd like to jump off the coast, cold water licking my arms, as the curtain rises off the beach.
To escape the alleged realities of my generation, I've turned to a book on gypset culture in which Yves Saint Laurent once said "[I see] a whole generation assembled as if for eternity where the curtain of the past seemed to lift before an extraordinary future."
Finally, someone who sees the futuristic utopia in my head, a dreamer instead of a simple dude. Call me naive but I'd like to jump off the coast, cold water licking my arms, as the curtain rises off the beach.
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Gentle Giant
You can imagine my surprise when I watched RUN RICKY RUN about NFL behomoth Ricky Williams. Ricky Williams, for those of you athletically challenged, was a smokin' football player who had the celerity and dexterity to stake his claim in the NFL draft. Sadly Ricky's enviable talent was coupled with crushing anxiety; he sat through interviews in his football helmet and didn't lift his voice to the microphone.
Ricky battled his anxiety with pot. He smoked bluntsbowlsbongs and failed three drug tests before he was thrown out of the NFL. What was the world to do with this forlorn talent? Here was a player biologically engineered to dominate the game but uninspired to do so. Ricky took his leave to the chagrin and pleasure of broadcasters everywhere and experimented with planes of knowledge. He got into holistic medicine, yoga, and kush. He spent hours upon hours residing in his "dark places" where he felt most at home.
You, dear reader, may be pouring Irish whiskey into your morning coffee, wondering why a style bug like me gives a shit. After all, I prefer J. Crew to jersey and I never watch the Super Bowl. But Ricky was unearthly. While he was baked and demure, his eyes and mouth bespoke intellectual curiosity and unabashed opinions. Ricky was a dreamer, a mythical hybrid America hadn't encountered, "the heart of a yogi, the body of a football player."
I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'd watch football every Sunday if boys like Ricky ran the game.
Ricky battled his anxiety with pot. He smoked bluntsbowlsbongs and failed three drug tests before he was thrown out of the NFL. What was the world to do with this forlorn talent? Here was a player biologically engineered to dominate the game but uninspired to do so. Ricky took his leave to the chagrin and pleasure of broadcasters everywhere and experimented with planes of knowledge. He got into holistic medicine, yoga, and kush. He spent hours upon hours residing in his "dark places" where he felt most at home.
You, dear reader, may be pouring Irish whiskey into your morning coffee, wondering why a style bug like me gives a shit. After all, I prefer J. Crew to jersey and I never watch the Super Bowl. But Ricky was unearthly. While he was baked and demure, his eyes and mouth bespoke intellectual curiosity and unabashed opinions. Ricky was a dreamer, a mythical hybrid America hadn't encountered, "the heart of a yogi, the body of a football player."
I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'd watch football every Sunday if boys like Ricky ran the game.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Pruning
To the untrained eye, let's say those of my surly grandfather (no offense, Mario), fashion has gone down the tubes. Were he to peer over my shoulder at Vogue, he'd scratch his wiry chest hair through his tomato-stained tee and say “Remy, what the hell!”
He'd shuffle off to tend to his garden, cursing the day he ever left the cliffs of Calabria for this universe of misshapen shoes and elongated symmetry. I say this with relish: I happen to adore the bulbous cork platforms, intergalactic heels, and fruity sheaths of our current spring. I believe in fashion as escapism, in women (and men) playing gypsy, rebellious cowboy, and nerdy chemist solely through their artifice. Ours is a culture of impervious elegance. It is brazen constructions that torpedo through show rooms and street style blogs and it's these that please me best.
Miuccia Prada, sartorial superstar of Prada and Miu Miu, in an interview with British Vogue, said her greatest contribution to the fashion world was her “ability to make ugly cool.” At current, Miuccia's passions revolve around the elemental: burlap, wool, cotton, retro sweaters, school girl with a twist of organic color and polyester blend. Mario is poking his head in from the rosemary patch, shears melting into his hands. “Whaddaya care about that, Remy?” he says before spitting into the grass. But I do care.
Prada has cut a slit into the atmosphere, releasing unruly monsters of material delight: four inch multi-layer cork platforms, faux dyed minks, boxy boat dresses stitched messily. What's thrilling is not the clothes themselves (though I'll happily accept a Miu Miu geisha dress) but the abstract and hedonistically glamorous universe that they inhabit. They are seperate from the everyday, burning like constellations in a dark sky.
Prada is not alone in her quest for The Ugly. Spring collections for Valentino favor studded stilettos while Maison Martin Margiela showcase snake skin booties appropriate for the likes of Indiana Jones or Mike Tyson. And let's not forget the Tibi onesie—a body suit/ mature diaper for the fashion savvy and irresolute bathroom goer.
If I may be so bold, it seems that my generation is informed by sleek nihilism, cynicism, and distaste for classical conceptions of beauty. What we are drawn to is the weird, the futuristic, the ethnic, the bizarre. Ours is a world of nuclear sponge baths, pot-smoking celebrities, and cinder block heels and we've come to like it. Call us weird, call us alien—we'll step, ever so lightly, shoes chaining us to the current.
Just look at popular website “The Man Repeller” with a cult following of 4,102 members. The site records the exploits of a fashion-enthusiast with a penchant for self-deprecation and dissuading dudes. The blogger styles looks inspired by all that is hideous and otherworldly, e.g. “the infant gets abducted by a black crow that was bred in a Parisian atelier.”
We just can't help ourselves.
He'd shuffle off to tend to his garden, cursing the day he ever left the cliffs of Calabria for this universe of misshapen shoes and elongated symmetry. I say this with relish: I happen to adore the bulbous cork platforms, intergalactic heels, and fruity sheaths of our current spring. I believe in fashion as escapism, in women (and men) playing gypsy, rebellious cowboy, and nerdy chemist solely through their artifice. Ours is a culture of impervious elegance. It is brazen constructions that torpedo through show rooms and street style blogs and it's these that please me best.
Miuccia Prada, sartorial superstar of Prada and Miu Miu, in an interview with British Vogue, said her greatest contribution to the fashion world was her “ability to make ugly cool.” At current, Miuccia's passions revolve around the elemental: burlap, wool, cotton, retro sweaters, school girl with a twist of organic color and polyester blend. Mario is poking his head in from the rosemary patch, shears melting into his hands. “Whaddaya care about that, Remy?” he says before spitting into the grass. But I do care.
Prada has cut a slit into the atmosphere, releasing unruly monsters of material delight: four inch multi-layer cork platforms, faux dyed minks, boxy boat dresses stitched messily. What's thrilling is not the clothes themselves (though I'll happily accept a Miu Miu geisha dress) but the abstract and hedonistically glamorous universe that they inhabit. They are seperate from the everyday, burning like constellations in a dark sky.
Prada is not alone in her quest for The Ugly. Spring collections for Valentino favor studded stilettos while Maison Martin Margiela showcase snake skin booties appropriate for the likes of Indiana Jones or Mike Tyson. And let's not forget the Tibi onesie—a body suit/ mature diaper for the fashion savvy and irresolute bathroom goer.
If I may be so bold, it seems that my generation is informed by sleek nihilism, cynicism, and distaste for classical conceptions of beauty. What we are drawn to is the weird, the futuristic, the ethnic, the bizarre. Ours is a world of nuclear sponge baths, pot-smoking celebrities, and cinder block heels and we've come to like it. Call us weird, call us alien—we'll step, ever so lightly, shoes chaining us to the current.
Just look at popular website “The Man Repeller” with a cult following of 4,102 members. The site records the exploits of a fashion-enthusiast with a penchant for self-deprecation and dissuading dudes. The blogger styles looks inspired by all that is hideous and otherworldly, e.g. “the infant gets abducted by a black crow that was bred in a Parisian atelier.”
We just can't help ourselves.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Lego Queen
Iris Apfel is a G. That's right: I'm talking about the 90 year old globe-trotting-sherpa-wearing- turquoise-clad-parrot who both embodies and dismantles all that is style and fashion itself. Let me explain.
Iris Apfel was born in Queens in 1921, the granddaughter of a master Russian tailor, and daughter of Samuel and Sadye Barrel. Iris's father worked in the mirror and glass business while her mother owned a small boutique. Admittedly, Iris emerged from the womb to an artistic brood but her fashion sensibility seems God-given. As she recounts it, her first stylistic inspiration occurred at age eight. Sadye had arranged for a formal portrait and Iris was in charge of herself. She and her nanny constructed a gown out of cheese cloth, inspired by Isadora Duncan, thus setting the wheels of improvisation in motion.
As an adult, Iris studied art history at NYU and attended art school at the University of Wisconsin before taking up with Women's Wear Daily, interior designer Elinor Johnson, and illustrator Robert Goodman. Iris developed into her own designer during the Depression. She had a knack for chic ingenuity and maintained affordability even as her clients increased in wealth.
Iris met beau, Carl Apfel, on holiday. It wasn't love at first sight: he declared that she'd be beautiful if only she would have her nose fixed. She scoffed, kissed him, and they've been married happily for 63 years.
Together, the duo started a textile company called Old World Weavers. Due to the nature of her business, Iris and Carl traveled the world, collecting beads, bracelets, silks, and cloth embroidered with mysterious hieroglyphics. Iris and Carl amassed a fortune, with the credibility to restore fabrics at the White House and the luxury of an Upper East Side apartment. Iris remained humble, preferring street style to that of the catwalk. Her friend, designer Duro Olowu, said it best: "Iris is more 'street' than anyone I know...You think of the great dressers – Gloria Guinness or Bab Paley – and there's a certain sense of sadness and sacrifice to them. It's immaculate but cold. Iris dresses how we'd all dress if we had the eye. Fashion is like a big box of Lego to her."
Iris is a child in a toy store where clothes are concerned. She calls herself a “geriatric starlet,” favoring oversize glasses (“the bigger to see you!”), tangles of exotic bracelets, feathers, lace, leather, and otherworldly accessories. Apfel is a maximalist with the opulence of Cleopatra and the pocket of Oliver Twist. Sure, she occupies a gorgeous apartment filled with Velasquez paintings and leopard furniture but she's fiscally conservative. She claims she's never spent more than $15 on a pair of jeans and her signature is her rarefied thrift. She attended dinner at the White House in a monk's robe (the heat was off! she claimed) and gleefully interchanges gypsy capes for Balenciaga cropped pants.
It seems that Apfel's sartorial spontaneity originates in her insistence upon singularity: “if you can't be pretty, you have to learn to make yourself attractive. I found that all the pretty girls I went to high school with came to middle age as frumps, because they just got by with their pretty faces, so they never developed anything. They never learned how to be interesting. But if you are bereft of certain things, you have to make up for them in certain ways. Don't you think?"
With retrospectives at the Met, Peabody Essex Museum, and a recent book entitled Rare Bird of Fashion: Irreverent Iris Apfel, Miss Apfel is commanding Chanel showrooms and African street vendors alike. There's no better time to be yourself. A round of applause for this kooky beauty queen, the rarest bird of all and a sartorial spectacular.
Iris Apfel was born in Queens in 1921, the granddaughter of a master Russian tailor, and daughter of Samuel and Sadye Barrel. Iris's father worked in the mirror and glass business while her mother owned a small boutique. Admittedly, Iris emerged from the womb to an artistic brood but her fashion sensibility seems God-given. As she recounts it, her first stylistic inspiration occurred at age eight. Sadye had arranged for a formal portrait and Iris was in charge of herself. She and her nanny constructed a gown out of cheese cloth, inspired by Isadora Duncan, thus setting the wheels of improvisation in motion.
As an adult, Iris studied art history at NYU and attended art school at the University of Wisconsin before taking up with Women's Wear Daily, interior designer Elinor Johnson, and illustrator Robert Goodman. Iris developed into her own designer during the Depression. She had a knack for chic ingenuity and maintained affordability even as her clients increased in wealth.
Iris met beau, Carl Apfel, on holiday. It wasn't love at first sight: he declared that she'd be beautiful if only she would have her nose fixed. She scoffed, kissed him, and they've been married happily for 63 years.
Together, the duo started a textile company called Old World Weavers. Due to the nature of her business, Iris and Carl traveled the world, collecting beads, bracelets, silks, and cloth embroidered with mysterious hieroglyphics. Iris and Carl amassed a fortune, with the credibility to restore fabrics at the White House and the luxury of an Upper East Side apartment. Iris remained humble, preferring street style to that of the catwalk. Her friend, designer Duro Olowu, said it best: "Iris is more 'street' than anyone I know...You think of the great dressers – Gloria Guinness or Bab Paley – and there's a certain sense of sadness and sacrifice to them. It's immaculate but cold. Iris dresses how we'd all dress if we had the eye. Fashion is like a big box of Lego to her."
Iris is a child in a toy store where clothes are concerned. She calls herself a “geriatric starlet,” favoring oversize glasses (“the bigger to see you!”), tangles of exotic bracelets, feathers, lace, leather, and otherworldly accessories. Apfel is a maximalist with the opulence of Cleopatra and the pocket of Oliver Twist. Sure, she occupies a gorgeous apartment filled with Velasquez paintings and leopard furniture but she's fiscally conservative. She claims she's never spent more than $15 on a pair of jeans and her signature is her rarefied thrift. She attended dinner at the White House in a monk's robe (the heat was off! she claimed) and gleefully interchanges gypsy capes for Balenciaga cropped pants.
It seems that Apfel's sartorial spontaneity originates in her insistence upon singularity: “if you can't be pretty, you have to learn to make yourself attractive. I found that all the pretty girls I went to high school with came to middle age as frumps, because they just got by with their pretty faces, so they never developed anything. They never learned how to be interesting. But if you are bereft of certain things, you have to make up for them in certain ways. Don't you think?"
With retrospectives at the Met, Peabody Essex Museum, and a recent book entitled Rare Bird of Fashion: Irreverent Iris Apfel, Miss Apfel is commanding Chanel showrooms and African street vendors alike. There's no better time to be yourself. A round of applause for this kooky beauty queen, the rarest bird of all and a sartorial spectacular.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
African Girl
There's an adventure inside of me an indoctrinated yearning for asiatic waters and bioluminescence and the taste of candy with eyes closed african chiffon and the patina of his forehead; piping peppermint tea, the charred embers of a mermaid's hair, the promise of smoke on a saturday eve
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Documentary
"Oui, it's an animal," he says, "this river"
"oh, quel chapeaux-"
The long-haired beauty skips the plank
Breaking fruit with calabashes
It's splendiferous-
Canoeing down a 2D river
"oh, quel chapeaux-"
The long-haired beauty skips the plank
Breaking fruit with calabashes
It's splendiferous-
Canoeing down a 2D river
Frida Begins Smoking
On lonely Mondays, Frida smokes cigarettes.
She adds dusty blossoms to her hair of rose and fuchsia,
And dances in the twilight to forgotten guitars,
Her mouth busy with tequila and rumblings of portraiture,
The hours turn orange, plentiful, a crate of clementines.
She adds dusty blossoms to her hair of rose and fuchsia,
And dances in the twilight to forgotten guitars,
Her mouth busy with tequila and rumblings of portraiture,
The hours turn orange, plentiful, a crate of clementines.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Show Time
Angels blow hard into tubas during commercial break
The sky glows clean with peppermint soap and prophecies
The sky glows clean with peppermint soap and prophecies
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Quickie
Poem:
I'm giving up candy for Lent.
Today I ate a chocolate turtle.
I hope Jesus forgives me.
PROJECTS:
rooftop camping, cook italian mafia feast, break into swimming pool somewhere, find a deep fryer/ other weirdo appliances at thrift store, build shelter out of bubbles, find spotted dog and train it into ferocious killer, elope to mehico with only $5 and and banjo, make milkshakes (godiva white chocolate liquer and vanilla ice cream), 3 weeks in bed with no TV, kielbasa, skydiving.
"so we burst into colors and carousels"
I'm giving up candy for Lent.
Today I ate a chocolate turtle.
I hope Jesus forgives me.
PROJECTS:
rooftop camping, cook italian mafia feast, break into swimming pool somewhere, find a deep fryer/ other weirdo appliances at thrift store, build shelter out of bubbles, find spotted dog and train it into ferocious killer, elope to mehico with only $5 and and banjo, make milkshakes (godiva white chocolate liquer and vanilla ice cream), 3 weeks in bed with no TV, kielbasa, skydiving.
"so we burst into colors and carousels"
O Youth and Beauty
Téa Obreht is the new darling of the literary scene and I want to knife her in the chest. She's sinfully young to have published her first novel at 26 years of age, and lauded daily for her maturity, grace, and superlative new book. Téa just published The Tiger's Wife, and the advance praise is nothing short of retardedly amazing: “[a] spectacular debut novel…[Téa] Obreht spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerizing reader wants her never to stop…Obreht will make headlines as one of the most exciting new writers of her generations, a young artist with the maturity and grace that comes of knowing where one is from, and of honoring those who came before." – Entertainment Weekly, Grade: A.
Publishing a novel is one thing, and to be fresh as a daisy is impressive to boot. I'm just jealous as all hell.
At 22 years of age, I fear I'm over the hill. Let's examine the facts. Our nation's current icons are Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, Demi Lovato, and Taylor Swift. Justin Bieber was born in 1994 (gasp! babies were made that recently?) yet he's gone platinum and back for his second album My World. Bieber won Artist of the Year, Favorite Pop/ Rock Male Artist, and Best New Artist. Bieber is killing it—he's now instilling prepubescent lust in the private bits of young girls everywhere with his memoir, yes memoir, entitled Never Say Never. And let's not forget that he posed with Kim Kardashian in the Bahamas in an infamous Vanity Fair spread.
Bieber is in good company. His alleged girlfriend, Demi Lovato, at a tender 19 years of age has partnered with Disney and been to rehab, while cohort Miley Cyrus rides stripper poles, draped in the American flag as she reaps in national accolades and buckets of cash.
The point is that the game is changing. The frontier has expanded, and the cowboys and cowgirls, riding high on horses and frenzied with ambition and reckless thirst for power and fame, can now roam free into the scalding sunset. There are no rules. The wild, youthful, and beautiful are welcome to enter the scene, never too inexperienced. The oldest Jonah bro is 23, Miley Cyrus is 19, and Taylor Swift is 20, yet these young flowers form a heady garland, encircling newspapers, tabloids, and billboards on the regular.
Thanks to democratic technology like youtube and twitter, facebook and myspace, all are artists and exposure comes at no price. Bieber used home-grown means to make a youtube video and the rest is history; he has some of the highest ratings and viewings of any performer in the world. And all he had to do was sit in his living room, strumming a guitar, singing above the din of his abode.
Don't get me wrong: this new credo is kind of amazing. I'm enabled by the world-at-large to do my damn thing, to creatively inspire based on my tenacious, infantile wisdom and off-the-cuff humor.
And who knows: maybe I'll be on The New Yorker's “20 Under 40 Issue” munching on duck fat fries in Brooklyn when the paparazzi storm in.
It could happen.
Publishing a novel is one thing, and to be fresh as a daisy is impressive to boot. I'm just jealous as all hell.
At 22 years of age, I fear I'm over the hill. Let's examine the facts. Our nation's current icons are Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, Demi Lovato, and Taylor Swift. Justin Bieber was born in 1994 (gasp! babies were made that recently?) yet he's gone platinum and back for his second album My World. Bieber won Artist of the Year, Favorite Pop/ Rock Male Artist, and Best New Artist. Bieber is killing it—he's now instilling prepubescent lust in the private bits of young girls everywhere with his memoir, yes memoir, entitled Never Say Never. And let's not forget that he posed with Kim Kardashian in the Bahamas in an infamous Vanity Fair spread.
Bieber is in good company. His alleged girlfriend, Demi Lovato, at a tender 19 years of age has partnered with Disney and been to rehab, while cohort Miley Cyrus rides stripper poles, draped in the American flag as she reaps in national accolades and buckets of cash.
The point is that the game is changing. The frontier has expanded, and the cowboys and cowgirls, riding high on horses and frenzied with ambition and reckless thirst for power and fame, can now roam free into the scalding sunset. There are no rules. The wild, youthful, and beautiful are welcome to enter the scene, never too inexperienced. The oldest Jonah bro is 23, Miley Cyrus is 19, and Taylor Swift is 20, yet these young flowers form a heady garland, encircling newspapers, tabloids, and billboards on the regular.
Thanks to democratic technology like youtube and twitter, facebook and myspace, all are artists and exposure comes at no price. Bieber used home-grown means to make a youtube video and the rest is history; he has some of the highest ratings and viewings of any performer in the world. And all he had to do was sit in his living room, strumming a guitar, singing above the din of his abode.
Don't get me wrong: this new credo is kind of amazing. I'm enabled by the world-at-large to do my damn thing, to creatively inspire based on my tenacious, infantile wisdom and off-the-cuff humor.
And who knows: maybe I'll be on The New Yorker's “20 Under 40 Issue” munching on duck fat fries in Brooklyn when the paparazzi storm in.
It could happen.
Monday, March 14, 2011
3
HOME:
1. too small bubble bath and books books
2. dog's head on my knee
3. neon wise men+ leftover champagne
HELL:
1. small talk only
2. sweat, open pores
3. no pasta
PARADISO:
1. beauty
2. dreamy sleep
3. boom box in the sky
BOREDOM:
1. no parrots
2. no rain
3. no al green
INDIA:
1. bubbling limca soda
2. hair cuts under silken trees, reflected in moon shaped mirrors
3. monkeys wrestling at Gandhi's bronzed feet
THIS NOW:
1. prayer beads
2. Midnight's Children specifically
3. a goldfish named pepe
1. too small bubble bath and books books
2. dog's head on my knee
3. neon wise men+ leftover champagne
HELL:
1. small talk only
2. sweat, open pores
3. no pasta
PARADISO:
1. beauty
2. dreamy sleep
3. boom box in the sky
BOREDOM:
1. no parrots
2. no rain
3. no al green
INDIA:
1. bubbling limca soda
2. hair cuts under silken trees, reflected in moon shaped mirrors
3. monkeys wrestling at Gandhi's bronzed feet
THIS NOW:
1. prayer beads
2. Midnight's Children specifically
3. a goldfish named pepe
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The Painting You Stole From Picasso
I admire you, Lovely, wherever you may be.
You talk like Marlene Dietrich
And you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire
Your clothes are all made by Balmain
And there’s diamonds and pearls in your hair, yes there are.
You live in a fancy apartment
Off the Boulevard of St. Michel
Where you keep your Rolling Stones records
And a friend of Sacha Distel, yes you do.
You go to the embassy parties
Where you talk in Russian and Greek
And the young men who move in your circles
They hang on every word you speak, yes they do.
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes i do.
I've seen all your qualifications
You got from the Sorbonne
And the painting you stole from Picasso
Your loveliness goes on and on, yes it does.
When you go on your summer vacation
You go to Juan-les-Pines
With your carefully designed topless swimsuit
You get an even suntan, on your back and on your legs.
And when the snow falls you're found in St. Moritz
With the others of the jet-set
And you sip your Napoleon Brandy
But you never get your lips wet, no you don't.
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
would you Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes I do.
You're in between 20 and 30
A very desirable age
Your body is firm and inviting
But you live on a glittering stage, yes you do, yes you do.
Your name is heard in high places
You know the Aga Khan
He sent you a racehorse for Christmas
And you keep it just for fun, for a laugh ha-ha-ha
They say that when you get married
It'll be to a millionaire
But they don't realize where you came from
And I wonder if they really care, or give a damn
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes i do.
I remember the back streets of Naples
Two children begging in rags
Both touched with a burning ambition
To shake off their lowly brown tags, they try
So look into my face Marie-Claire
And remember just who you are
Then go and forget me forever
But I know you still bear
the scar, deep inside, yes you do
I know where you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
I know the thoughts that surround you
`Cause I can look inside your head.
"Where Do You Go To My Lovely" Peter Sarstedt
You talk like Marlene Dietrich
And you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire
Your clothes are all made by Balmain
And there’s diamonds and pearls in your hair, yes there are.
You live in a fancy apartment
Off the Boulevard of St. Michel
Where you keep your Rolling Stones records
And a friend of Sacha Distel, yes you do.
You go to the embassy parties
Where you talk in Russian and Greek
And the young men who move in your circles
They hang on every word you speak, yes they do.
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes i do.
I've seen all your qualifications
You got from the Sorbonne
And the painting you stole from Picasso
Your loveliness goes on and on, yes it does.
When you go on your summer vacation
You go to Juan-les-Pines
With your carefully designed topless swimsuit
You get an even suntan, on your back and on your legs.
And when the snow falls you're found in St. Moritz
With the others of the jet-set
And you sip your Napoleon Brandy
But you never get your lips wet, no you don't.
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
would you Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes I do.
You're in between 20 and 30
A very desirable age
Your body is firm and inviting
But you live on a glittering stage, yes you do, yes you do.
Your name is heard in high places
You know the Aga Khan
He sent you a racehorse for Christmas
And you keep it just for fun, for a laugh ha-ha-ha
They say that when you get married
It'll be to a millionaire
But they don't realize where you came from
And I wonder if they really care, or give a damn
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes i do.
I remember the back streets of Naples
Two children begging in rags
Both touched with a burning ambition
To shake off their lowly brown tags, they try
So look into my face Marie-Claire
And remember just who you are
Then go and forget me forever
But I know you still bear
the scar, deep inside, yes you do
I know where you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
I know the thoughts that surround you
`Cause I can look inside your head.
"Where Do You Go To My Lovely" Peter Sarstedt
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Desperate Love
Desperate Housewives is the worst show on TV. The characters are petulant and Botoxed to high heaven, the plot lines are preposterous, the dialogue is weak, and the acting is, well, desperate. Now let me clear the decks and tell you the truth. I'm a bottom-feeder and I love this god-awful soap with all my heart. Undoubtedly, you, dear reader, are scratching your head wondering how the hell you've wandered into the clutches of a writer with such poor taste. You put your coffee cup down and bang your head against the table, rattling the floor beneath. You cringe, you writhe.You simply don't understand.
And you know what, reader? I don't get it myself. I surreptitiously pull up Safari and salivate at the thought of spending an hour with Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Teri Hatcher, and Marcia Cross via hulu.com. I probably sound like a lesbian but I'm not, I can promise you that. My love is chaste though these women are objectively fiiine for all of their middle age.
If you've never tuned in, let me break the characters down. Longoria plays Gabrielle Solis—a smokin' hot Hispanic with a penchant for retail therapy, shaming her family, and swishing her pony tail. Next up is Huffman. She plays Lynette Scavo—obnoxiously moral mother of five (or is it more?) with an idiot husband and loads of laundry to do and dishes to wash, always bemoaning the loss of a nonexistent career while flexing yoga-toned arms. Then there's Teri Hatcher, who plays Susan Delfino. Delfino is a shit-show with a heart of gold. She tries to “do the right thing” but burns down a neighbor's home, acts in yuppie-porn, shamelessly seduces an ex-con turned plumber, and just generally runs around like a chicken with her head cut off. Finally, Marcia Cross plays Bree Van de Kamp—a severely uptight woman with stifled sexual urges and a tendency towards manic baking (pastry and not marijuana).
The four live on Wisteria Lane—a manicured street that hums pleasantly with quiet scandal as the flowers inevitably twist over and under the homes. Wisteria Lane is home to the elderly, the gay, the Puerto Rican, the young, the rich, the Black, the middle-class, the once jailed, the once troubled, and the like. This veritable melange of people and circumstances seems highly improbable. On a fundamental level, how are the lavish and the destitute paying the same mortgage? How are ex-cons living next door to beauty queens and manic bakers? Wisteria Lane pushes the borders of reality until we're taken to a perverse and psychotic suburbia. The shenanigans are never-ending and the plot lines move forward, unconcerned with coherent narrative.
In the first season of Desperate Housewives, eternal narrator and distinguished housewife Mary Alice Young commits suicide and shocks the neighborhood. Mary Alice kills herself for fear of a black secret involving her husband and son coming to light. At her wake, Gabrielle, Lynette, Susan, and Bree meet and greet over cucumber sandwiches and noodle casserole, perturbed by their mutual friend's demise.
In the following seasons, I was both disgusted and delighted by the meandering story lines of the housewives. Gabrielle would seduce the beefy, if overly sensitive, high school gardener before finding that her daughter had been switched at birth; Lynette would give birth to a nation of a children before realizing that her husband had once cheated with the black diva next door; Susan would tryst with her ex-husband, marry her beloved ex-con, give birth to a child, star in domestic porn and burn down her enemy's house; and Bree would get divorced, own up to her alcoholism, seduce her AA life coach, seduce a young repair man, cope with her children's raging hatred, and bake pastry after pastry.
I'm seven seasons in and at no point were these story lines believable, and at no point was I bored.
In the show's opening credits, tinny carnival music plays as an apple falls from the tree—a callback to Eve's sinful foray into the forbidden fruit. I wish I could say that I had the willpower, the absolute lack of hunger, to close my lap top and forget the whole sinful charade once and for all. But somewhere in there, I too was seduced, and now I wait with bated breath and infernal hunger. I wait for my computer to load, and for these stupid women to appear like the snake in the mist, offering evil wisdom and glistening, red delight.
And you know what, reader? I don't get it myself. I surreptitiously pull up Safari and salivate at the thought of spending an hour with Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Teri Hatcher, and Marcia Cross via hulu.com. I probably sound like a lesbian but I'm not, I can promise you that. My love is chaste though these women are objectively fiiine for all of their middle age.
If you've never tuned in, let me break the characters down. Longoria plays Gabrielle Solis—a smokin' hot Hispanic with a penchant for retail therapy, shaming her family, and swishing her pony tail. Next up is Huffman. She plays Lynette Scavo—obnoxiously moral mother of five (or is it more?) with an idiot husband and loads of laundry to do and dishes to wash, always bemoaning the loss of a nonexistent career while flexing yoga-toned arms. Then there's Teri Hatcher, who plays Susan Delfino. Delfino is a shit-show with a heart of gold. She tries to “do the right thing” but burns down a neighbor's home, acts in yuppie-porn, shamelessly seduces an ex-con turned plumber, and just generally runs around like a chicken with her head cut off. Finally, Marcia Cross plays Bree Van de Kamp—a severely uptight woman with stifled sexual urges and a tendency towards manic baking (pastry and not marijuana).
The four live on Wisteria Lane—a manicured street that hums pleasantly with quiet scandal as the flowers inevitably twist over and under the homes. Wisteria Lane is home to the elderly, the gay, the Puerto Rican, the young, the rich, the Black, the middle-class, the once jailed, the once troubled, and the like. This veritable melange of people and circumstances seems highly improbable. On a fundamental level, how are the lavish and the destitute paying the same mortgage? How are ex-cons living next door to beauty queens and manic bakers? Wisteria Lane pushes the borders of reality until we're taken to a perverse and psychotic suburbia. The shenanigans are never-ending and the plot lines move forward, unconcerned with coherent narrative.
In the first season of Desperate Housewives, eternal narrator and distinguished housewife Mary Alice Young commits suicide and shocks the neighborhood. Mary Alice kills herself for fear of a black secret involving her husband and son coming to light. At her wake, Gabrielle, Lynette, Susan, and Bree meet and greet over cucumber sandwiches and noodle casserole, perturbed by their mutual friend's demise.
In the following seasons, I was both disgusted and delighted by the meandering story lines of the housewives. Gabrielle would seduce the beefy, if overly sensitive, high school gardener before finding that her daughter had been switched at birth; Lynette would give birth to a nation of a children before realizing that her husband had once cheated with the black diva next door; Susan would tryst with her ex-husband, marry her beloved ex-con, give birth to a child, star in domestic porn and burn down her enemy's house; and Bree would get divorced, own up to her alcoholism, seduce her AA life coach, seduce a young repair man, cope with her children's raging hatred, and bake pastry after pastry.
I'm seven seasons in and at no point were these story lines believable, and at no point was I bored.
In the show's opening credits, tinny carnival music plays as an apple falls from the tree—a callback to Eve's sinful foray into the forbidden fruit. I wish I could say that I had the willpower, the absolute lack of hunger, to close my lap top and forget the whole sinful charade once and for all. But somewhere in there, I too was seduced, and now I wait with bated breath and infernal hunger. I wait for my computer to load, and for these stupid women to appear like the snake in the mist, offering evil wisdom and glistening, red delight.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Un-plugged
I just deactivated my facebook account and breathed a sincere sigh of relief. I'm sick of insincere affections, blurred connections, pictures upon pictures, smiles and inside jokes. I'm trying to unplug, detach, scissor, split, writhe, pull away from all that is untrue. "Real recognize real" so it's pen to paper, cheek to cheek. India on Friday!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
The Burning Lampshade
During a certain family brunch (see: bagels and lox, pinky rings, and mimosas), our beloved lamp caught fire. We were sitting contentedly around the rickety dining room table when Dad rose up feverishly. "FIRE! FIRE!" he cried. I turned and the lampshade was up in flames, tassels swinging, singed in the New Year's air. Dad sprang into action, dragging the lamp towards the front door, never unplugging it from the wall. The fire was blossoming and blooming, spreading up towards an oil painting, before the flaming lampshade was finally tossed into a nearby snow pile just outside of the front door. Why do I mention this? To cast some ash on my family name? To make a mockery of family traditions? Maybe. The burning lampshade signified fiery portents for 2011. Apparently, this isn't year of the frog, leopard, or mule. Instead, it's year of the singed silk. It's appropriate for me now: college is ending, the future looms, the typewriter needs a new ribbon, the coffee must be refilled. The air is static, electric, buzzing in wait of future thrills. Billie Holiday, in her classic track "Embraceable You" yearns for a "thrill I can press my cheek to." And while it wouldn't be wise to put my smooth cheek to the lampshade's burning skin, I'm also looking for a little heat, some raucous adventures. Sorry, grandma, but I may just take up pyrotechnics to appease my appetites.
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