the blog around the corner

The Burden of Beauty

2010-08-11T16:51:00.004-04:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education features a piece on the unique challenges facing beautiful people in academia.

I'll Read What She's Reading

2010-08-09T17:00:00.002-04:00

Alas, in our summer busyness of seeking after the perfect salad and attempting to befriend homeless cats, K'barbic and Keastland missed out on a truly golden opportunity: seeking the wisdom of the Biblioracle. When we learned of his existence from this piece at Salon it was already too late, for his page had been closed to comments. According to the page, the way Biblioracle works (or worked when the comments page was open) is that you "simply list the last five books you’ve read. Based on that list, the Biblioracle will tell you what to read next." Seems simple enough to pair your apparent taste in recent reading to a new recommendation. Of course, if you have not enjoyed those five most recent books, there may be a problem. I suppose, regardless of Biblioracle, we will still find an ample supply of books on food history and Greek mythology to satisfy our tastes here at TBATC.

Also, in the spirit of our never-ending literary quest, we would gladly welcome the return of the Penguincubator, a treasure indeed.

Watchwords We've Been Avoiding

2010-08-06T20:15:00.003-04:00

There are many journeys for people to take these days. Life is a journey after all. Even the word journey itself has journeyed a bit, veering off path from the traditional travel sense of the word to take on more spiritual and emotional meanings. Vague, yet profound, use of the word has journeyers sounding like they are reciting a proverb from a fortune cookie: "Life is about the journey you take to get there." Confusing, yes, but unraveling the meaning is part of your journey, depending on the path you choose.

I reached the end of my journey in tolerating the term this summer. I found myself following a reality TV star's journey as chronicled by a major network. Although the viewing experience is part of my personal life's journey I would gladly take back, I comfort myself with the reminder that there is no real wasted time in the self-discovery land of reality TV. At every plot turn, dramatic voice-over, or emotional interview, contestants would discuss the progress and importance of their journey. Each week, as I would listen to vague descriptions of these all-important journeys, I couldn't help but wish that the "stars" would start referring to themselves as "journeyers" or better yet work in the verb form of journey to their dialogue. Something akin to: "It means so much to see how far we have journeyed." Still vague, yes, but shifting from nouns to verbs can demonstrate growth on one's linguistic journey.

Referring to "life growth" as a journey is technically an acceptable use, but the word is not so powerful that it can withstand the exhaustion of overuse. At summer's (near) end, journey is looking run-down. Tattered and worse for wear, journey belongs to another side now, the side where it's harder to put things into words.

So, let us move on to other words and consider synonyms for getting from here to there. Journey is, after all, not the only travel word in the dictionary. In our travels, we can relish the variety of verbs at our disposal: pilgrimage, voyage, trek, etc. At TBATC, many sights and sounds have fascinated us as we have traversed our summer paths, yet we have managed to avoid the bland possibilities that the journey affords--even journeying out of our way, when need be, to avoid them.

What We've Been Missing

2010-08-06T09:19:00.015-04:00

The summer is mostly a blank here at TBATC (as the sad gap in our postings indicates); thus Keastland and K'barbic, in an effort to restore good faith with our loyal TBATC readers, shall spend the month of August endeavoring to catch up--lest you were beginning to despair that we had abandoned our corner, or worse that we were expecting our followers to re-read the favored words of David Foster Wallace indefinitely. We look forward to sharing some of our favorite summer stories with you in our special recurring feature this month: "Things We Didn't Blog About." So join us here at our corner as we look back at all the quirky and whimsical items we've missed.

No Apostrophe Left Behind

2010-08-05T15:53:00.006-04:00

Just when I thought we had heard the last of TEAL, I find the grammar vigilantes' new book was released this week. Actually I had not given much thought to the former "Typo Eradication Advancement League" since reading about their exploits the summer of 2008. The League made news after going a little too far with their grammar zeal by defacing a historic national park sign at the Grand Canyon. TEAL disappeared from the public for the year that followed their misadventure, but now they are back and, according to their website, planning another "adventure." Far be it from TBATC to stand against proper grammar and its adamant supporters, but we will miss the entertainment that comes from quirky and ironic misspellings if TEAL fully accomplishes their goal.

The Online Word-Hoard of David Foster Wallace

2010-04-15T21:53:00.012-04:00

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas-Austin has listed all the words David Foster Wallace circled—apparently, he did not underline—in his American Heritage Dictionary. Slate published the long list yesterday. Since I have not read a lick by DFW, I won't comment on his writing—nor will I make fun of him for wearing bandanas (look to the left) or having hipsterish author photos taken of him in the middle of cornfields.

But back to the list. While I was thrilled that the first word he circled is an alliterative grammatical term—ablative absolute—I was surprised to see that he circled words as basic as "bisque" and "citronella" and "sateen." (That he, a man not fluent in women's shoe speak, circled "espadrille" is not so odd.) His list has some great words, such as "coxcomb"—a fop or dandy; and "lucubrate"—literally, to study by lamplight. Fun fact: Lucubrare, the Latin verb from which "lucubrate" derives, was Cicero's favorite verb.

And how can one forget the splendid word for the small scraps we leave after a meal, our "orts"? The next time my dogs beg and stomp their tiny feet for food from my plate, I'll say, "Be patient, animals, and you shall have a portion of these orts."

Not So High Tea

2010-04-14T15:02:00.006-04:00

Since fashion houses sell us not just style but "lifestyle," it makes sense that even one's tea can now be designer.

As reported at the Editor's Blog at W, Prada sent packages of tea based on its two new scents—Infusion de Tuberose and Infusion de Vetiver—to various beauty editors. The tea boxes are nearly identical to the perfume boxes, and the tea itself is not looseleaf. It is in a bag the size and shape of a ketchup packet (note image to the left). I found this most strange. Should not designer tea be beautiful and exciting and clever? And shouldn't it be looseleaf? What saddened me most is that the folks at W put the tea in ... paper cups. But perhaps they realized this tea was not special enough to put in a porcelain cup.

I do not think the tea can be purchased by the masses/myself, at least for now. The French designer and "perfume icon" Lolita Lempicka, however, has crafted a few teas, which can be purchased at Cambria Cove, at 25 sachets for $68. You might as well buy a tea by Mariage Frères, the oldest tea company in France whose impeccable leaves are far better in quality and cost and come in a lasting, truly iconic container.)

In the meantime, I think I'll order these excellent German tea people. There's nothing like having Angela Merkel, Putin, and Obama—or Humphrey Bogart!—in your cuppa.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

2010-04-05T14:55:00.000-04:00

And all his family and friends.

It's a Boo Bou

2010-03-25T15:13:00.008-04:00

Caribou has a new design, and a live-out-loud cup to go along with it. As Caribou Coffee seeks to "leap" toward the future with their new design, they illustrate the common trend in coffeehouse culture to sell more than just coffee.

Perhaps I'm too traditional in approaching my coffee, but I already miss the old Caribou. There was something whimsical about a coffee shop not only named after a large mammal but unafraid to stamp the leaping mascot all over their packaging, but now our old northern friend looks more like a cross between a coffee bean and an Olympic logo.

To top off the new transition, the new coffee cups "talk" as well. The design is cliche cluttered. With advice like "pour yourself a cup of karma" and "plant lots of trees." Caribou is right about one thing, however: "life is short." So we shouldn't have to waste it reading our coffee cups.

The good news is Caribou still makes a good cup of coffee, and if you adopt one their cliches, you can close your eyes, "savor every sip" and pretend that nothing has changed.

Super-Size My Eucharist

2010-03-24T14:24:00.005-04:00

Food is fleeting, so it's no wonder that here at TBATC we have not thought to ask, "What were portion sizes in Western Europe like 1,000 years ago?"

Maybe it's not a silver-dollar question, but two creative sibling scientists, Brian and Craig Wansink, did ask it, and they came up with an answer by looking at 52 paintings of the most documented meal in history, the Last Supper. Their report is just in time for Passover and Easter. With the help of computers, they compared the size of the food dishes—entrées of eel, fish, pork, and lamb—and the size of the plates those items were on with the head sizes of Jesus and the apostles. Human head size, it is fair to say, has not changed for thousands of years.

The Wansinks' report was published this Tuesday in the International Journal of Obesity, whose apt logo is of an ever-widening oval. The size of the plates, they found, increased by 66%. The size of the plates grew in tandem with the size of the entrees, which also bloomed to 66%. But the size of the loaves increased only by 23%. (Michelle Obama, crusading against obesity while tilling her vegetable garden in designer sneakers, is yet to comment.)

I humbly suggest the next question for the Wansinks to explore: Should an artist looking to shed a few pounds buy himself smaller plates? For, if the artists of the 52 Last Supper paintings put smaller portions on smaller plates and larger portions on larger plates, wouldn't they do the same in life? After all, proportion and beauty must be maintained, and a plate's decorations must be on display. All this, for an artist, it could be sensibly argued, is part of enjoying the meal.

Double Feature!

2010-03-06T19:11:00.011-05:00

Good news, readers: a TBATC first!

In this week's issue of The Weekly Standard, K'Barbic and I each have an article published. K'Barbic dismantles the grande illusion of Starbucks, and I review Seamus Heaney's latest book, The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables.

We hope you enjoy them!

He Who Would Have Friends

2010-03-05T12:31:00.009-05:00

Groundbreaking new research seems to indicate that happy people like to talk and be around other people. Conclusion: happy people "are social and conversationally deep, rather than solitary and superficial." This is particularly shocking since people who keep to themselves sulking in dark corners, avoiding contact and meaningful conversation, give the appearance of real joy.

To the introverted reader out there, do not start panicking and questioning your inner happiness just yet: this research does not declare you unhappy. The happiness correlation was to substantive conversations, not just any idle chitchat; therefore, it is possible to talk "less" and still be happy. But if you do choose to talk less, make your conversation count.

... and just in case you haven't had a meaningful conversation yet today, here's something else to make you smile.

Read Before Eating

2010-03-04T13:26:00.021-05:00

Perhaps, if Alice had had the help of a kind regulatory agency when she was in Wonderland, she would have known the recommended serving and effects of the "Drink Me" elixir. Without the Wonderland FDA's help, however, poor Alice is left to experimentation and its dramatic results.

Does healthy eating begin with active label reading? The FDA thinks so. After all, we can't have foolish customers picking up an ice cream dessert at their local grocery store all the time believing that ice cream is low in fat and therefore good for them. On the other hand, our government wouldn't want us believing a healthy product (like POM Wonderful, as the WSJ report notes) is too good to be true.

Since I was eating my microwaveable lunch while reading the FDA's latest concerns, I turned to the label on my soup. This particular soup is one that claims to be a healthier option, so its packaging was happy to share its many benefits. I found ample explanation of the vegetable content in my soup. Lest I be deceived into thinking that 3/4 of a cup of vegetables is all that I'll need for the day (although it's likely all I'll consume today), I am reminded by the soup company that my lunch only has 30% of the FDA's recommended serving of vegetables (which by the way, no need to do the math since the soup company already did, is 2 and 1/2 cups). The fat content of this veggie-rich lunch? One and a half grams per serving. But wait. This little cup of soup has not one but "about" two servings, so if I indulge and consume all 14 ounces, then I'll be taking in a grand total of about 3 grams (that math I did without the healthy soup company's help).

Of course. this is not my first time reading a food label. I am an avid reader of the labels on my food, partly out of food consciousness and partly out of curiosity. I appreciate the basic nutritional information provided which helps me avoid excessive amounts of fat, sodium, sugar, etc. Additional asterisks and tiny exception clauses placed on packaging to placate the FDA, however, have yet to change my eating or reading habits. Despite clear nutritional labels, there must be a point of consumer commonsense and awareness. Otherwise, consume at your own risk.

Now That's Classy

2010-02-23T16:05:00.007-05:00

Hosting a classy dinner and ashamed to bring out the Tabasco because it lacks elegance? Well, your problems are now solved thanks to the "gift of the day" at the Law Gallery: a hand crafted Tabasco holder. Here at TBATC we're waiting until they start selling the complete Classy Condiment set before we invest our hard-earned cash on this work of art. We also might be persuaded if there were optional engravings of pastoral scenes.

A Movie in the Corner: 'The Edge of the World'

2010-02-10T00:59:00.006-05:00

Slowly, I've been making my way through the films of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, aka The Archers. They are probably most famous for The Red Shoes (1948), which I watched years ago without knowing who the Archers were and sought out simply because I'd seen this beautiful clip, at 00:19, of a Moira Shearer's feet racing down blue spiral stairs. (P.S. New Yorkers, make sure to catch a screening of The Red Shoes at Film Forum starting February 19!)

I'd recommend several of their others—especially A Matter of Life and Death (AMOLAD), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, and the fantastically titled I Know Where I'm Going! (IKWIG), but tonight I watched Powell's first major film, made before he paired up with Pressburger: The Edge of the World (1937). This one features hands-down the best sheep ever on film. Sheep running, sheep being shorn, a lost sheep being hoisted up a Scottish cliff away from the breakers—and even sheeps' wool being knitted into bonny sweaters. There are lambs, too. Of course.

But the movie, in truth, isn't about sheep. If you don't take my word for, watch this TCM clip of Thelma Schoonmaker talking about her late husband Michael Powell's movie, from its genesis in a news item to its filming on the remote island of Foula.

There's also a great joke about long sermons (i.e. those exceeding an hour) and another about John Knox (which is not said tongue-in-cheek!). Also, it's kind of terrific to see leading lady Ruth look down a crag to the distant water below, pine for her departed lover, and wish to jump—much like, to my surprise, Bella Swan in New Moon, except Ruth is in black and white, composed, and her emotions are expressed in far simpler, but stranger and more memorable and more natural, special effects. And, there are no glittering, wan-faced vampires!

Franz Kafka, Occasional Belletrist

2010-02-09T23:55:00.009-05:00

Quick, now. I say Franz Kafka, and the first thing you think of is probably ... a cockroach—and one with a funny name like Gregor. But for a little while perish the thought of creepy, if sensitive, crawlers and consider this: that, as today's Writer's Almanac points out in its first installment of love letters to welcome Valentine's Day, Kafka "wrote a great many love letters—many of the anguished, helpless variety—to a Berlin woman [Felice Bauer] to whom he was engaged for five years. Their relationship was carried out almost entirely by letters." (He was engaged to Ms. Bauer twice, and separated from her twice.)

A few of the rosier stretches in his missives are featured in the WA link above. But there are also more familiar Kafka-esque stretches to recall, such as this:

The life that awaits you is not that of the happy couples you see strolling along before you in Westerland ... no lighthearted chatter arm in arm, but a monastic life at the side of a man who is peevish, miserable, silent, discontented, and sickly; a man who, and this will seem to you akin to madness, is chained to invisible literature by invisible chains and screams when approached because, so he claims, someone is touching those chains.

In his mind, too, Felice has become wrapped up in his writing:

Lately I have found to my amazement how intimately you have now become associated with my writing, although until recently I believe that the only time I did not think about you at all was while I was writing.

At the same time Felice was to him the suggestion of a life he might lead beyond work, of a life inching toward something like normalcy—"happy couples" and "their light-hearted chatter" and so on. But as a NYT review of a 1988 reissue of Kafka's love letters, which you can purchase here, remarked,

[Kafka] returned to the solitude he felt so necessary for his work. He apparently believed Yeats's dictum that ''the intellect of man is forced to choose/ Perfection of the life, or of the work'' and in the end, he embraced the latter.

While we are on the subject of letters, make sure to buy a copy of Yours Ever: People and Their Letters, the latest scrumptious book from the pen of journo-turned-novelist Thomas Mallon.

Happy Birthday, Dubliner: James Joyce (and 'Ulysses') are another year older

2010-02-02T15:00:00.002-05:00

Yes, that is Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses. And no, she is not going to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. Novelist" in a smoky voice on that playground. She's going to sit there and read her meandering book quietly, and we are going to pause to admire her book playing the part of "edifying accessory." The type on that tome—blue and red—nicely complements her tank top of brightly colored stripes. Formidable, Ms. Monroe.

But enough of celebrities reading. On to Joyce. On this day in 1922, at age 40—he considered his birthday a lucky day—Joyce published Ulysses, which he pronounced "Oolissays." (He also considered blue and white to be most auspicious hues. Furthermore, they're in line with the Greek theme he started in naming his book after Homer's wily and sea-buffeted king, whom he first encountered as a schoolboy by way of Charles Lamb's adaptation of the Odyssey.)

At the Barnes & Noble website—home to sound book reviews, short and long, and its Daybook—I learned the genesis of the repeated, breathless use of that already breathy word "yes" in the "famous 45-page, 8-sentence Molly Bloom monologue" that ends Ulysses. Apparently, Joyce had simply heard a friend, an American named Lillian Wallace, saying "yes" repeatedly in conversation. Seven months later, when Ulysses was published, she was in attendance at a special dinner Joyce held to celebrate the birth of his book into print. (And at this dinner he unveiled a copy of Ulysses, with blue covers and white type, a rare copy, as the first run of the novel was quite small.)

Should you crave to read a tad more about Joyce and his quirks, which were legion, even by writers' standards, check out today's Writer's Almanac. A sample here:

Joyce was afraid of thunder and lightning—during electrical storms, he would hide under bedcovers—and he was also afraid of dogs, and walked around town with rocks in his pockets in case he encountered any roaming mutts. He didn't care for the arts other than music and literature, and he especially had no patience for art like painting. Over his desk he kept a photograph of a statue of Penelope (from Greek mythology, the wife of Odysseus/Ulysses) and a photograph of a man from Trieste, whom Joyce wouldn't name but said was the model for Leopold Bloom. On his desk he had a tiny bronze statue of a woman lying back in a chair with a cat draped over her shoulders. All of his friends told him it was ugly, but he kept it on his desk anyway. One of his Parisian friends remarked, "He had not taste, only genius."

Although Joyce might have had scant appreciation for the visual arts, Henri Matisse later illustrated Ulysses with 26 images, which don't illustrate the book proper, but rather key moments from the Odyssey that have been abstracted into faceless, struggling forms. The titles of the six etchings, for instance, include "Calypso," "Cyclops," "Nausicaa," "Circe," and "Ithaca." For starters, here's his take of drunken Polyphemos losing his eye.

SarcMark, Take 2

2010-01-26T16:43:00.001-05:00

Now that we are able to access the SarcMark homepage, oh what joys there are to be found...

A Well-Marked Wit

2010-01-26T08:58:00.010-05:00

Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
--Dorothy Parker

A new punctuation mark is being offered to the world. While I am a firm believer in the purpose and power of punctuation, I greet this news with a shrug. The SarcMark, which was "temporarily" unavailable at the time of this post, seeks to save the world from misunderstanding, much like applause and laugh signs saved the live sitcom and game show from silence.

The SarcMark, which closely resembles a curly fry, is intended to be used at the end of a sarcastic statement in text, IM, email, etc. Thus, you can let your reader know that you were not, of course, being serious but snarky. Now if your reader never appreciates sarcasm even when there is a large signal to commemorate its passing, then you are without luck.

In my non-sarcastic opinion, ironic wit is weakened when you add an elaborate punctuation mark: like a punctuated wink. There is a satisfaction in a successfully conveyed witty remark, and conceding your joke by giving your audience the nudge to "get it" lessens the triumph of irony. Granted having your sarcastic comment met with confusion-induced silence can be socially awkward, yet even in those awkward scenes there is a humor that can be appreciated.

If, however, your sarcasm places you in more socially awkward situations than your sense of humor can tolerate, or if fear of causing offense has kept you from exercising verbal "calisthenics," then the SarcMark should be a welcome sign to you. For the low low price of $1.99, you too can be as ironic as you desire without the worry of confusing or offending your less sarcastically-inclined friends. If only they'd throw in a comma and bonus exclamation point, I might just be sold.

Eighty Candles for Derek Walcott

2010-01-23T20:56:00.006-05:00

Today marks the 80th birthday of the Caribbean poet, playwright, and sometimes watercolorist Derek Walcott. To celebrate his work and years, I'll post a small poem-gift for you this weekend. (And yes, this is from a man who is, as you might have heard during last year's hullabaloo over the Oxford professorship of poetry, not only a man of verse but quite the fanny-pincher.)

The poem below is the first in Midsummer (1984), a copy of which I purchased in the basement of a tiny English-language bookshop in Athens three years ago. As you will notice from the opening line, this is a fine poem to take with you when traveling. Sometimes you can arrange the timing of the poem and of the plane just so, and read the last lines as the rubber wheels meet the landing strip. Without further ado, the promised poem:

The jet bores like a silverfish through volumes of cloud—
clouds that will keep no record of where we have passed,
nor the sea's mirror, nor the coral busy with its own
culture; they aren't doors of dissolving stone,
but pages in a damp culture that come aprt.
So a hole in their parchment opens, and suddenly, in a vast
dereliction of sunlight, there's that island known
to the traveller Trollope, and the fellow traveller Froude
for making nothing. Not even a people. The jet's shadow
ripples over green jungles as steadily as a minnow
through seaweed. Our sunlight is shared by Rome
and your white paper, Joseph. Here, as everywhere else,
it is the same age. In cities, in settlements of mud,
light has never had epochs. Near the rusty harbor
around Port of Spain bright suburbs fade into words—
Maraval, Diego Martin—the highways long as regrets,
and steeples so tiny you couldn't hear the bells,
not the sharp exclamations of whitewashed minarets
from green villages. The lowering window resounds
over pages of earth, the canefields set in stanzas.
Skimming over an ocher swamp like a fast cloud of egrets
are nouns that find their branches as simply as birds.
It comes too fast—this shelving sense of home—
canes rushing the wing, a fence; a world that still stands as
the trundling tires keep shaking and shaking the heart.

Rainy Days and Mondays

2010-01-22T11:00:00.000-05:00

Can you really put a number on a bad day? According to a study cited at the Mental Floss blog, yes, you can. We are all to be congratulated on surviving the "most depressing day of the year": last Monday, January 18. If Monday, really was not that bad on your depression scale, you can always look at the formula yourself and make your own calculations. Who knows, maybe your worst day is yet to come.

Picture Book: André Kertész's 'On Reading'

2010-01-22T08:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight I've picked up my small white edition of André Kertész's sparsely titled On Reading, first published, lushly, in 1971 and reprinted, not so lushly, in 2008. With photographs as beautiful and intimate as his, it seems only proper to share a few of them with you in our corner.

Perhaps you are already familiar with his work, such as this one of a perfectly poised fork or this one, of a patch of street at the Eiffel Tower's feet; either way, his is a pleasant ouevre to view and view again. I have also enjoyed his pictures of bodies distorted in mirrors, such as this one from 1933, Distortion, making limbs look like statuesque taffy or Henri Moore sculptures or, at times, black-and-white snip-its of Dali paintings. As is the case with ruins, there is an unexpected comfort in seeing the human form warped, disfigured—and still harmonious. In fact, of the Parthenon, Moore wrote the following upon his visit to it in 1951: "In fact I would say that the Parthenon now is probably much more impressive than when it was first made. You feel the spaces much more, and the openings, and the fact that it’s not solid throughout and that the light comes in, makes it into a piece of sculpture and not, as it was before, a building with four external sides. It’s completely spatial now—a different object altogether.” Can you imagine a more hopeful way of considering things in ruin? His sentences make one think the Parthenon's time spent as a temple, cathedral, mosque, and then as an ammunition storehouse was not in vain.

But back to the book. It's exclusively of people of all sorts—gondoliers at rest, girls dressed backstage as fairies, boys dressed as men in overcoats, sunbathers, Trappist monks, Japanese metro-riders—found reading. The pictures were taken between 1915 and 1970 in several locales, among them his native Hungary, Paris, and New York. Reading was one of his lifelong subjects, perhaps in part because his father was a bookseller. Collected here are 23 of these pictures.

One of the curious things I noticed this time going through the book is that at no point am I encouraged to wonder which books are being read. The photographs aren't about the books themselves but about reading. When looking at his pictures, you seem to already know the book being read because the photograph echoes the sensation of reading, when you forget the book because you are so caught up in its sentences—or, in the case of a picture, its forms.

Yet it is natural to be inquisitive about books, to be on the metro ride home and peer over to see what Mr. So-and-so is turned to today. I think Kertész, if he means to say this, is correct: that we should take care to relish and appreciate our neightbor's quiet act of reading (which we would not want to disturb, whether with a too curious hello or nosy sidelong glance). In each frame, the book, and the person holding it, forms a sort of island; and the book seems an extension of the body.

With the advent of Kindle and other such reading devices, perhaps it will be easier to look at the act of reading itself as Kertész did instead of the book—or e-book—and, perhaps, to be less of a Book Snob. For in the world of Kindle, there is only one cover, Amazon's, cloaking every book in plain white plastic.

Tome Clothes

2010-01-21T16:11:00.014-05:00

I suppose it is best to have an Augustinian stance about book design and say that at any point in the history of tomes there always have been ugly ones and beautiful ones. I would rather not wail about the loss of a "golden age" of publishing, or think we are progressing toward such a "golden age." It is more level-headed to suppose that gold was, is, and will be mixed in with lesser metals. And yet I keep finding the books made in the pre-Photoshop days to be more charming and attractive than most of today's.

I see a good number of books, partly because I work in a magazine's books & arts section, but also because I have a few prodigiously read friends who tell me about scrumptious tomes that I should, as the angel said to Augustine, "take up and read," and which I probably would not have found without their faithful counsel. The books they recommend tend to be the loveliest ones. Today, the latest—The Spanish Journey by Julius Meier-Grafe (1926)—arrived: a British racing green cloth-bound copy with a wee lion roaring on its hind legs on the center of the front cover.

But another book came today, too. And it is, I am afraid to say, a particularly unlovely tome. It parrots the color-block prints of Warhol, but in miniature and with more black that Warhol liked to use. At least this sort of ugliness stems from laziness and is not (I think) the product of careful planning from the folks at Continuum press.

But what is most discomfiting about this book is that its contents are first rate! This is the book! It is a Roger Scruton reader! Scruton's face has been Warholified 16 times and this means that his intellectual gaze is staring me down 16 times! Perhaps this is a joke? Either way, I am simultaneously intimidated by his gaze and appalled by the design. I think it is time to take off the dust jacket and take comfort in the oatmeal-colored boards.

For those yet unfamiliar with Scruton, you might want to consider taking a look at his new book I Drink Therefore I Am and this article, published in last week's Times Literary Supplement. The article is reviewing this book. Here's a teaser:

For Linzey, followers of foxhounds are “animal abusers”, comparable to those who torture cats and dogs for their amusement and who – according to research that he cites without question – are predisposed to become violent criminals when they turn their attention to their fellow humans. I conclude from this that Linzey may be a humane observer of animals, but he is no charitable observer of people. Maybe he cannot bring himself to attend a meet of foxhounds; but he could at least have consulted the literature, from Plato and Xenophon to Turgenev, Sassoon, Masefield and Ortega y Gasset, devoted to the place of hunting in a virtuous life.

Can you tell he enjoys a good hunt?

All Lined Up for Spring

2010-01-08T21:00:00.003-05:00

In the midst of January and all its dreariness, I find myself longing for brighter seasons. Spring is an easy season to love with its warmer days and vibrant colors, and spring 2010's fashion season is bringing yet another reason to smile; a classic favorite is back in full force. In WSJ's On Style, Christina Binkley recently wrote about the return of nautical stripes, which sent me to both reminiscing classic Hollywood fashion of days past and looking ahead to my favorite spring catalogs.

Stripes, worn in moderation, provide a simple way to achieve the ever-popular Audrey Hepburn look. She was, of course, not the only star to rock stripes, but she is, for good reason, the one we quickly reference when seeking a "classic," stylish look.

So other than attempting to look like Audrey, what is the appeal of the nautical stripe? It's certainly a style you must be careful to wear correctly since stripes tend to accentuate. In spite of their potential for fashion hazard, stripes are a worthy addition for spring. Bright and crisp, they set things evenly and in order. And even if you have never been on a yacht, they can make you feel as though you would be quite comfortable there.

Spring's abundance of stripes will allow you to dress them up for work or brunch, like this new arrival from BCBG Max Azria. Or you can go with the casual and more affordable classic tee look to pair with jeans or shorts. If you're self conscious about stripes on your figure, try accenting your look with a striped accessory such as a scarf, or if you're really feeling bold, we love these rain boots from Urban Outfitters.

To Catch a Princess

2010-01-08T16:24:00.005-05:00

A new biography of Grace Kelly is out; but, as Anthony Lane notes in this week's New Yorker, when it comes to capturing Her Serene Highness's mystery and manners, all that we can be sure of, in the end, is the cup of tea.

The image below is of Hepburn and Kelly backstage at the 28th Annual Academy Awards on March 21, 1956. Don't they look like twin lillies?

Strokes Writ Small: Remembering Nicholas Hilliard

2010-01-07T15:06:00.006-05:00

These days the art of miniature thrives especially in the realm of technology, where cell phones, music players, and computers get increasingly smaller, faster, and (we hope) better. Granted, this is a pretty loose way to think about the “art of miniature”—even when there are exhibitions devoted solely to art made on the iPhone’s paint applications. One show, opening tomorrow, is unsubtly named “iPhone, Therefore I Am.”

That these small gadgets are the products of smaller, myriad connections and bits reminds me of the various other miniatures, including those in art history, such as illuminated letters (from where “miniature” gets its name) and even painted miniature portraits, such as this one by the most famous of English miniaturists, or limnists, Nicholas Hilliard. While yesterday was for welcoming the Nexus One Google phone into the pantheon of tiny technological wonders, today we might remember Hilliard, who died on this day in 1619 after an illustrious career as the goldsmith, limnist, and occasional full-size portraitist of Elizabeth I and James I. He described his craft in The Art of Limning as gentlemanly and civil, and as “a thing apart …which excelleth all other painting.”

Of course, in the pre-Photoshop age, people’s images were still doctored to make them look lovelier. Good Queen Bess, for instance, insisted that when Hilliard rendered her face he should make it shadowless and therefore perpetually youthful like this or this; her countenance would be all pale light instead, with her eyes and lips standing out severely. And around her face he would place various rich, intricate details: the iconic fox-red hair, ruff, long pearls, and mutton-shaped sleeves. It's a delight to behold so much fine work in so small a space.

You can read more about the man and his work here and here, at the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which in 1910 acquired what is arguably his best known miniature, “Young Man among Roses" (pictured left), perhaps a portrait of Robert Deveraux, second Earl of Essex. And just three years ago the same museum re-opened its extensive British miniatures collection, which had been in storage.

The art of miniature portrait painting faded with the advent of photography in the 1850s, but today we can summon up a photograph of a Hilliard painting on a Blackberry or iPhone or any other smart phone and see it, the old miniature, glittering in the pixels of the new (albeit mass-produced) miniature. Who would have guessed?

Door 25: Stars of Wonder

2009-12-25T17:38:00.008-05:00

Here at TBATC we wish you a Most Merry Christmas!

Since the star is the last decoration one puts on the Christmas tree, it follows that the last Advent post we offer you is of a star. Via my earlier post about the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar, here, tucked behind Door 25, is the final, stunning picture of the heavens. It is the "deepest visible-light image of the Universe" and "2.4 arcminutes wide." I don't know really what that means, even after cursory research on Wikipedia, but it seems like a measurement both angels and men might comprehend.

Door 24: Peace in War

2009-12-24T16:50:00.003-05:00

With the ongoing war in Afghanistan and our troops spending the holidays without their families and with sand dunes instead of snowbanks, it's worth remembering the famous, generous "Christmas Truce" of World War I that happened between British and German troops at many places along the Front. For an armistice that lasted for 48 hours, together they buried their dead, played football, opened mail from home, and supped.

As recorded in Barnes & Noble's ever-fascinating Daybook, which quotes the "famous British soldier-cartoonist of trench life, Bruce Bairnsfather"—he drew the picture to the left—within Silent Night by Stanley Weintraub,

Even after the extraordinary Christmas Eve, soldiers were astonished by what they saw at daylight on Christmas Day. "I awoke at dawn," Bruce Bairnsfather recalled, "and on emerging on all fours from my dugout, became aware that the trench was practically empty. I stood upright in the mud and looked over the parapet. No Man's Land was full of clusters ... of khaki and gray ... pleasantly chatting together.

This is a modern image of peace that seems to fit within the catalog of animal rivals at peace within Isaiah 11, starting at verse six:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. ...

Should you wish to read more about the brief Christmas armistice—and in the penciled handwriting of Captain Robert Hamilton, of the 1st battalion Royal Warwickshire regiment—click the following image, which I found via this Daily Mail article. (Image will enlarge once you click it.) His last sentence, including the detail of "some jolly good cigars," is particularly charming.

Doors 22 and 23: Be Hatted

2009-12-23T01:55:00.003-05:00

It's likely you and yours have seen many festive people wearing Santa hats. You've probably seen a few other people, usually those who adore animals (myself included), donning plush antlers. (If you don't want to buy a pair at CVS, you can make your own out of construction paper, as this little boy shows.)

Today a faithful friend of TBATC told us that you can buy antlers for your car this year. Take a peek at this latest wonder in automobile decoration behind Door 22. They sure are more fun that car bows and car wreaths.

In searching the Internet for antler pictures just now, I found what might be my favorite holiday picture of 2009. But really, I expected no less from Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment, looking as lost as a deer behind Door 23.

Door 21: What's in Your Glass?

2009-12-21T22:15:00.000-05:00

On a cold December night, I settled on the perfect drink to go with the little black dress: bourbon on the rocks in a wee cut-crystal glass. That warm amber hue, glinting inside crystal, looks terrific against black. It also goes very well with menswear (which, I know, is often black).

But sometimes, especially in the deep cold of December, we prefer bourbon not on the rocks or neat but with hot water. Try this recipe for a bourbon hot toddy behind Door 21.

A related, lesser known option is the Rock & Rye hot toddy. You can read about the background for this drink here in one of Eric Felten's terrific WSJ articles and find a recipe for the hot toddy version here.

Door 20: Way Up North

2009-12-20T22:13:00.004-05:00

If you haven't visited the North Pole yet, you should. Whether you're still snowed in or just experiencing a slow holiday week in cubicle-dom, this Santa-central website will bring you some entertainment (well, we were amused). It's worth a visit, if only to see what's behind Door 20. And just in case you'd rather visit the North Pole in person this holiday season check out a little bonus door.

Door 19: Make a Path

2009-12-19T22:00:00.002-05:00

Here at TBATC, we've been thinking a lot about the clearing of massive amounts of snow. So, here is a helpful, educational door from us to you.

Door 18: Magic Hat

2009-12-18T23:34:00.005-05:00

As a humdinger of a snowscape is gathering in Washington, DC, K'Barbic and I are thinking about how we'll stay warm when necessity bids us leave our homes. For me, necessity comes in the shape of my dog Daisy, and she will want to go for a few good romps. When we go romping, there is a very good chance that I will wear my beret pulled down to my ears. It will not be a day for wearing the beret as if it is a plate-sized pancake.

The thought of hats in the snow reminds me of Frosty the Snowman, who came to life only when his friend Karen put that "old silk hat" with the daisy on top of his head.

And if that doesn't make you believe in the power of hats, open Door 18! (Opening this door will also help get the lyrics of Frosty the Snowman out of your head.)

Door 17: Happy Feet

2009-12-17T22:23:00.005-05:00

Sometimes Christmas inspires us to buy ridiculous things.

That happened a few days ago when, while standing next to K'Barbic at Filene's Basement, I saw something I (kind of) needed to buy: reindeer slipper socks with grippers, stubby legs, and poofy bellies, as pictured to the left. I never have understood why adults would need socks with grippers, but these didn't come in the non-gripper format. Lucky for this sock company, I find the idea of holiday animals on my feet irresistable.

Door 17 features a four-legged creature wearing very similar adornments.

Door 16: Dashing Through the Snow...

2009-12-16T11:00:00.001-05:00

Not all of our Christmas associations are innately linked to this holiday season. So it is with Door 16. Call it the effects of marketing, but whenever I see those famous Clydesdales, I think of the holidays (probably because of a familiar holiday greetings ad in which they star). These magnificent animals have a rich history, however, extending beyond their current "celebrity spokeshorse" status.

Originally developed as agricultural "beasts of burden" in early 19th century Scotland by farmers along the River Clyde, Clydesdales are now mostly seen in draft horse shows or agricultural exhibitions. And of course, the best-known to the general populace are the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales. (The original team was presented as a gift to August A. Busch Sr., to celebrate the repeal of prohibition.) The horses were quickly promoted to a "celebrity" status and sent out "on tour" representing their company. So now, what beast of burden doesn't dream of being a Clydesdale?

Door 15: 'For Pleasant Occasions'

2009-12-15T20:58:00.009-05:00

I saw a new movie, Invictus, the other day. There's a scene in it where Morgan Freeman, who plays Nelson Mandela, pours some tea for Matt Damon, the head of the rugby team of South Africa. And Freeman says that afternoon tea is the greatest gift the Brits gave us. It's a great line, and the tea he pours for Matt Damon steams in flawless, lanky tendrils in the sunlight. They look great on camera, and you come to think Freeman's line is right-on. You want to rush out of your plush theater seat and get tea, and then you remember that it's not for sale among the enomorous sodas, wide straws, and Milk Duds. It would have been too expensive there anyway. Double the price of a Starbucks custom latte, probably.

But here at TBATC you can open Door 15 and prepare yourself for afternoon Advent tea! I've also found this one to be superb—a red with the round, vowely scent of vanilla rolling throughout its itty bitty rooibos leaves. And ...those leaves happens to come from South Africa! A little pricey, yes, but a tin of this just costs you four lattes. Or five, with shipping.

Door 14: Burgers and Joy

2009-12-14T08:21:00.004-05:00

On this second day of Christmas, TBATC gives to you a special "double" treat. Perhaps, playing off the old German pickle ornament tradition, a new one could be started. The first one to find a cheeseburger in the tree...

Door 13: Santa Paws

2009-12-13T15:00:00.002-05:00

Hooray! Today is the first day of the 12 Days of Christmas, and, no, we are not going to say that the confused partridge to the left is your Door 13. That would be too easy.

Instead, we'd like to highlight a very special, wooferrific offering on the Washington Humane Society's blog. Check it out here.

Door 12: The "Michelangelo of Snow"

2009-12-12T10:03:00.001-05:00

Behind Door 12, we have a work of art and a winter treat all rolled into one.

To see the work of another great snow artist, enjoy the Calvin and Hobbes snowman gallery.

Calvin & Hobbes Snow Art Gallery

View more presentations from hosss.

Door 11: Tinsel in the Sky

2009-12-11T15:28:00.004-05:00

Open Door 11, sit back, and enjoy the sport and spectacle of the heavens, one day at a time.

(Should you wish to sift through the heavens frame by frame on your computer, click here.)

Door 10: Tree Skirt

2009-12-10T11:07:00.004-05:00

Bored with the usual tree trimming? NYT features designer trees from Madison Avenue, and our favorite tree can be found behind Door 10. Of course it's no Charlie Brown tree...

Door 9: Houses of Mirth

2009-12-09T14:05:00.008-05:00

Most gingerbread houses are all about the candy: the Necco wafer roofs, the Zebra gum siding, the gum drop shrubberies, and so on. But here at TBATC we just spied some houses of a different kind.

The Chicago Tribune asked the region's four top architectural firms to create their own sugary edifices. The results are in and waiting for you to ooh! and ahh! and mmm! at behind Door 9. (Our favorite is Sweet Mies.) Should you wish to make your own version of the firms' creations, the blueprints are here.

Doors 7 & 8: "Better Watch Out ..."

2009-12-08T11:21:00.003-05:00

Advent is passing more quickly than we expected this season, and we now rush to open two more doors with Christmas a mere 17 days away. So as you're rushing here and there, from store to store and party to party, we bring you two helpful reminders: Door 7 and Door 8.

Door 6: Cue Snow and Music

2009-12-07T14:21:00.004-05:00

Today, Door 6 is opened a day late. With the weekend snowstorm in DC, we now find ourselves dreaming of a White Christmas. Such Christmases, however, are not "like the ones I used to know" (growing up in California). Still the melancholy classic, with its universal appeal, is one I love to hear come over the radio. To increase your appreciation of the classic Christmas tune, the WSJ features the story behind the song. Read the history and then watch the original with renewed appreciation.

Al Gore, Poet Laureate ...of Climate Change?

2009-12-06T14:28:00.017-05:00

As storm clouds gather and foment in the Climategate crisis (aka "The CRUtape Letters"), there is still one ray of sunshine, and it comes from the pen of Al Gore.

Mark Hertsgaard, author of the forthcoming Living Through the Storm: Our Future Under Global Warming, writes on VF's Power & Politics Blog that

with the publication of his new book, Our Choice, Gore has unveiled a fresh and most unexpected talent: the book’s opening chapter concludes with a poem he wrote—21 lines of verse that are equal parts beautiful, evocative, and disturbing.

Remember those three fawning adjectives. Now read a portion of the poem that makes Hertsgaard eager to crown Gore the "Poet Laureate of Climate Change":

One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun

Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea

Soareagle in the comments section reacts, "Algore, the poetic, literary genius. What a twit." BernardL says, "oh barf!" Indeed, there are better nature poets out there. One gets the sense that Hertsgaard cares simply for what the poem is all too patently about.

What also confounds me is the illustration paired with Hertsgaard's post: Al Gore in a photoshopped black beret. Why? Why are berets here associated with poetry? Is this an instance of the hat being used as a sort of crown-in-disguise, or a wreath of Apollonian laurels? Is Hertsgaard hinting that Gore is an artist, too?

Who knows. But outside my window yesterday's snow is melting, and it still seems appropriate to think of the wavering climate. But I prefer to say goodnight to Gore's verses, pick up a book of Horace's Odes, and read 4.7, Diffugere nives ("the snows have fled"). I would invite you to share a pot of tea with me as I read, but the Internet is not advanced enough to allow that. I can provide the Latin, however, which is here, and William Maxwell reading A.E. Housman's still unmatched translation here. As Housman writes, Feast then, thy heart!

Door 5: Sealed with a Pixel

2009-12-05T14:06:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, TBATC's most stylish friend told me about the next best thing after Evite. And now it is here for you to enjoy as well. Here it is, behind Door 5.

O National Tree

2009-12-04T08:04:00.006-05:00

O National Tree, O National Tree,

How unprecedented are Thy branches,

You are so green, and oh so bright;
Your GE LED bulbs light up the night.
O National Tree, O National Tree,
You are a big blue spru-uce.

Last night we decided to make our first, unprecedented appearance at the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony. Here at TBATC we believe it is important to go see history in the making, whenever we are given the opportunity (in this case courtesy free tickets from a friend).

The crowds were cheery and anxious for their first glimpse of the First Family, and we were excited to learn all sorts of fun facts about the National Tree (thus inspiring my verses above).

If you haven't heard how energy efficient this White House Christmas will be, don't worry, you will. Rather than regurgitate glowing reports of the tree's wonders, we send you to the good people at the National Park Service where you too can learn the history of this holiday treasure and check out the schedule for nightly performances at the Ellipse.

Door 4: LED the Halls

2009-12-04T00:00:00.002-05:00

After checking out what we've got for you behind Door 4, learn all about the technology behind this bright Christmas tradition.

Door 3: A Spot of Joy

2009-12-03T00:00:00.002-05:00

On this third day of Advent season, K'Barbic and I have found for you a holiday treat with a squeak. It's waiting for you behind Door 3.

Door 2: The Gift of Whimsy

2009-12-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

There are 23 days left in the official Christmas countdown which means it's time for Day 2 on our Advent Calendar. Today brings an image that has lit up our faces here at TBATC this holiday season. Presenting the Neiman Marcus Christmas fantasy gift that tops our list this season. If you haven't yet perused the Christmas Book, check it out. Happy shopping!

A Door in the Corner

2009-12-01T00:00:00.002-05:00

Over here at TBATC, K'Barbic and I are going to give you a small door—that is, a little link—to open every day, starting today, December 1. Why? Because we are upon the season of Advent, and we are fond of Advent calendars, whether they're plush or made of colored cardboard or, in our case, of pixels. Let's be festive.

K'Barbic and I will have more holiday specials for you, so stay tuned!

Here's your first December door to open. Enjoy!

(P.S. The image to the left is an illustration of a December hunt, with a starry blue calendar at the top, there in the hemisphere. This artwork illustrates the month of December in the early 15th-century Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry. Read more here! I guess I just gave you two doors to open. Oh well. Choose your own adventure!)

The Little Black Pancake

2009-11-29T20:31:00.008-05:00

St. Thomas Aquinas richly identified Christ's body as a "seamless garment" made by divine hands in a mortal womb. In the Townley passion play called 'The Crucifixion,' Mary, standing by the foot of the cross, watches the body/robe of her son being torn apart:

To deth my dere is dryffen
His robe is all to-ryffen
That of me was him gyffen
And shapen with my sydys

The notion of a seamless garment was once miraculous, but today, in an age of fancy sewing machines, we can go into any department store and find plenty of clothes with tags that say something like, "Touch me! I'm seamless" or "I'm seam-free 'n' carefree!" (Most of them happen to be women's underthings.) But there's another item of clothing, one that predates Christ, that is usually seamless: the beret. Ancient Greeks in military service were the first to wear them, and they've been a part of fashion history, inside and outside the military, ever since. Click here for more about the history of the beret.

I've lately become quite fond of this simple, malleable pancake of hats, and not just because— unlike a pillbox or bowler—you can stuff it into your coat pocket or purse. I bought my first, a little black one, a few months ago for a few bucks, and have been wearing it most days since then because it's my most glamorous and subtle accessory. Every time I don it, I am amazed by how simple it is—a mere poof of fabric!—and still how smart and pleasant. It makes the fedora seem needlessly complicated in comparison.

I'll leave you with two images. Elsa Schiaparelli and Marlene Dietrich in berets. (Be thankful. I could have linked to Ché instead.)

P.S. Image at top is of Greta Garbo.

Holiday Shopping? Click to the Front of the Line.

2009-11-28T12:42:00.006-05:00

Every year, Christmas seems to come sooner, or rather it is thrust upon us sooner. There's hardly time to enjoy the Thanksgiving feast with the Christmas tunes already blaring and Black Friday sales creeping in so early that there's barely time to clear the table before heading to the mall.

As much as I love the holidays, and holiday shopping, I couldn't work myself up to get excited about fighting the crowds and standing in line this year. So I didn't. This year I enjoyed the wonders of Black Friday online. I know holiday shopping online is not a new practice, but this was my first season fully embracing it. After all, it's hard to find a negative about shopping from the comfort of your own home: just you, your computer, a cup of coffee and your credit card. Of course, I'm sure shopping traditionalists will find points of disagreement, but I have a hard time seeing the negative side of a practice that allows me more time for watching my favorite holiday movies.

This year many online retailers made shopping from home even easier by running online Black Friday sales and offering free shipping deals. Amazon.com has been running its Black Friday online sales and "lightning" deals all week, and other major retailers like Target and Walmart have been running special online only sales in addition to their in-store sales. Plus, if you didn't get your fill of holiday deals this weekend, Cyber Monday is right around the corner.

Granted shopping online doesn't allow you the fun of peeking in store windows, or browsing the shelves, and you miss the wonders of the food court. It does, however, save you the frustration of fighting the crowds and racing for a parking space at the mall. And who couldn't use a little spared sanity at the holidays?

Pop with an Image on Top

2009-11-26T17:28:00.015-05:00

She calls herself Lady GaGa. It's a crown of a name that reminds me of other Ladies—among them Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment, Lady Fortune, Lady Philosophy, and ... Lady Fame. Her last album, released three days ago, is titled "The Fame Monster" and the one before that "The Fame." I think there was a wasted opportunity on the latter. Imagine how scrumptiously tautological her CD would have been had she christened it "Lady Fame" instead: four four-letter words on a piece of plastic with four sides. How dizzingly cool is that?

But back to GaGa. I've been thinking about her because one friend asked me the other day, "Why is she mainstream? She's so freakish."

After looking through her videos again, hearing her songs isolated from the videos, and then reading the lyrics isolated from the music, I'm convinced that she is a very tame fame monster, decidedly un-freakish.

First of all, she sings, like everybody else, about love, or some version of it—attraction, lust, etc.—and its attendant complications. Her latest hit is called "Bad Romance." Lyrics here. Part of the refrain: "I want your love and / I want your revenge / You and me could write a bad romance." (It's another take of Catullus's imperishable odi et amo, "I hate and I love.") I don't see anything weirdly alienating about these or other lyrics. There are some strange turns of phrase, like "leather-studded kiss in the sand," but that's not strange enough to be off-putting for most people. The same goes for her music, a usual offering of throbbing, glittery pop.

It is GaGa's image that sets her apart. She is, ultimately, a high fashion performance artist. But her images aren't that strange because they borrow on visual vocabularies we already know. Her videos read like bizarre Vogue fashion spreads in perpetual motion. They are filled with somewhat odd (but never ugly) things. For "Bad Romance" she collaborated with designer Alexander McQueen; his racous, otherwordly heels are everywhere in the video. GaGa even has a sequence wearing a geometric, money-colored outfit by McQueen that's as shiny as coins. The echo here might be Ginger Rogers donning a skimpy coin costume in "Gold Diggers of 1933." Decay, decadence, and desire are all wrapped into one package; it's an aside that meshes in with the video's general mood of conflict and confusion.

Lady GaGa's videos have traces of contemporary artists in them (e.g. Matthew Barney)—and this at least shows that she's a student of this art and wants her pieces to be seen in a somewhat similar light. But her images seem so tame and mousy next to those by the likes of Barney. (Just type in Cremaster Cycle into YouTube, or click this, and you'll understand.) And Lady GaGa has at least once directly riffed off the work of a contemporary artist. Art blogger Paddy Johnson noticed that when GaGa performed "Bad Romance" at the end of a recent Gossip Girl episode, her giant-dress-and-three-ladder stunt was eerily similar to a work of art by Dana Karwas and Karla Karwas, Party Dress, exhibited this fall at the Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival. This amounts to stealing an idea, and it certainly won't get contemporary artists to warm to GaGa.

Note that in GaGa videos, you never see her making music. That's too authentic or earnest or plain; she is a master of fabrication, artifice, show. She doesn't tell a story of heartache plainly. She tells it through strange, polished images. And to tell it she happens to choose a character that's quite in vogue now: the femme fatale. After all, today's hottest prince charming happens to be a vampire named Edward Cullen. And in some worlds, such as that painted by Edvard Munch, the vampire and the femme fatale are one and the same.

But note that Lady GaGa is a femme fatale who starts out as vulnerable and ends up victorious. In "Paparazzi" her lover wrongs her, she sheds some tears, and then she merrily poisons him—and in the process regains her immense fame. In "Bad Romance," for every flash of her as a sexy conquerer, we see her soft, doe-eyed, with a halo of light pink hair. She's half-naked and crying in a tub while two very mean automaton women drag her out of the tub so she might later dance in a diamond collar before a host of creepy men, bidding on her. The bridal dress Lady GaGa wears when walking toward the man who bought her (and toward the marriage bed) is a brilliant symbol of her as a vulnerable femme fatale. Her dress is a bride's, but the train is made of a polar bear's snowy hide, snarling head included at the back. Watch the video for yourself to see how she is ultimately victorious. Hint: It involves a spit-fire bra.

What's most curious about Lady GaGa is that her videos suggest that the video a musician makes is just as important as, if not more important than, the song he or she writes. The word "musician" in this context doesn't fit. It's old hat. "Performer" and "artist" are more apt and more common parlance anyway. Lady Gaga marries the terms as a performance artist—granted, a second-rate one that's pretty tame, but she's pushing music further into the realm of images, and that's a fascinating trajectory to watch, especially when she's wearing whimsical hats. As the Romans said, mirabile visu!

(P.S. For those interested in a terrific history of fame, try 'The Frenzy of Renown" by Leo Braudy.)

(P.P.S. h/t to Paul Champaloux for reminding me about Lady GaGa's hat collection!)

It Takes a Little 'Courage'

2009-11-26T10:14:00.007-05:00

This season marks some of our favorite traditions here at TBATC, chief among them, the pumpkin spice latte of course. But coming in a close second is the pardoning of the National Turkey. After all, it's not often we get to hear such stirring words from the President as: "I hereby pardon ‘Courage’ so that he can live out the rest of his days in peace and tranquility in Disneyland." Obama was following in a tradition we have yet to fully understand but will never cease to be amused by. Every year, for at least the last several administrations, the president formally pardons one lucky turkey and a runner up. These turkeys used to go live at Frying Pan Park, a petting farm in Northern Virginia, but more recent birds have been sent off to live the dream at Disneyland. For more, here's the WSJ's coverage of the White House event. More entertaining than the actual event, of course, is a West Wing rendition.

And finally, what's a holiday without the Peanuts Gang? Today marks Peanuts creator Charles Schulz's birthday. So in honor of Schulz and the gang, we bring you a small holiday treat.

Happy Thanksgiving, from our corner to yours.

Before Bo

2009-11-20T23:06:00.008-05:00

Before there was the Obamas' Bo, there was Jimmy Stewart's Beau.

Below this little paragraph you'll see a clip of Jimmy reciting his poem about Beau on the Johnny Carson Show in 1981. This poem is something oh so pleasant, and I recommend it.

I don't want to read too far into names, but there's something to be said for the different spellings of Bo/Beau. "Bo" is a lighthearted reference to the singer Bo Diddley, related by sound to Michelle's father Diddley. But to those who might not know that, "Bo" sure does resemble President Obama's initials.

Jimmy named his pup Beau, and he was Jimmy's furry dandy, his escort with a tennis ball. It comes from the Latin bellus, -a, -um, meaning handsome, beautiful. I consider this a very good and generous name for a dog, with no tinge of selfishness or pretension in it either real or perceived.

But we already knew Jimmy was good at choosing names for his animals friends, even when he was on film. Just watch him deliver this back alley monologue as Elwood P. Dowd in 'Harvey.' It's even more pleasant than the poem clip. Or so I think.

Little Infinity

2009-10-19T14:21:00.014-04:00

There are so many articles about the Kindle—about how cute it is, or convenient, or horrible. There's even an article lamenting how it's diminished cultural snobbery. And, of course, there's the long Nicholson Baker article from the New Yorker. Having read twentysomething articles about the Little White e-Book, I decided to stop reading about it.

And then I found, late, this brilliant article with this alluring title: "The Book That Contains All Books." The article is sharper than most on the subject of Kindles, talks about codices (most don't), and at the ends says something worth repeating:

Kindle 2 isn't really about what we may or may not want as readers and writers. It's about what the book wants to be. And the book wants to be itself and everything. It wants to be a vast abridgment of the universe that you can hold in your hand. It wants to be the transbook.

Ugly word "transbook" aside and whether a book actually wills to be something, Marche's comments remind me of that shining example of the short story, "The Library of Babel" by Jorge Luis Borges. The eternal librarian shuffles through the book-filled hexagonal rooms, which altogether create the Library (another word for Universe), which may or may not be infinite, and all the while he fritters away the hours looking for a book that contains all books.

The "discovery" of this perfect compendium, writes the weary librarian-narrator, would be "the capital fact in history." In it there would be

Everything, the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels' autobiographies, the faithful catalogue of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books.

There's something strangely elegant in how the imagination coincides, just even in part, with today's technology. I maintain that the librarian, should he get word of the Kindle, would jump off the side of the great honeycomb Library in the sky—or laugh. To expect a precious "silky vade mecum" all this time!—and then find a bit of plastic jammed with sequences of 0's and 1's instead. I wonder what footnote might Borges append to his story now.

(P.S. On a related note, here's an interesting interview of Umberto Eco on lists from an issue of Der Spiegel. In his thinking, even the laundry list is a "cultural achievement." So are grocery lists and menus. I guess I'm on the slow curve in life for not being a list-maker!)

Like Totally Annoying

2009-10-08T11:52:00.006-04:00

It's official: If you want to annoy approximately 45% of the population, just throw "whatever" around more often. According to a recent Marist college poll, this is the word which wins the prize for annoying Americans the most. With so many overused and annoying phrases to choose from, how did "whatever" win out (at least over the top five presented in this poll)? Maybe it was just the tone the pollster used or whatever.

"Whatever" is one of the closest idiomatic equivalents to rolling the eyes, telling the world (well, not like the whole world, maybe just America) that we really couldn't care less. Not just that we couldn't care less about the conversation we throw the word into, but that we do not care enough to better express ourselves: either because we lack the ability or the initiative for the necessary effort.

Granted we all have our diction pet peeves, but at the end of the day, there is not much we can do other than use these cliches a bit less ourselves, you know.

Fancy Pants

2009-10-07T15:06:00.011-04:00

When K'barbic and I went for a constitutional the other day, we strode by Talbot's. Now, I don't have anything against Talbot's. I worked there the summer between by sophomore and junior years, and the people working and shopping there were exceedingly nice. But, as I noticed in the Talbot's store window, and then in the catalog shipped to my home, Talbot's has a new ad campaign ... featuring Katharine Hepburn and Grace Kelly.

Why?

Just because Katharine rocked pants, and Grace did sometimes, too. Talbot's says it has a new “pant fit initiative” featuring “re-invented, re-interpreted and re-inspired” styles. The new catalog opens with a black-and-white spread of the ladies, one angular, one curvy, and both in crisply pleated pants. Here's the one of KH:

Okay, fine. But here are the pants Talbots is selling:

I don't see the connection. Do you? If anything, they look more like Audrey Hepburn's pants, just in stonewashed khaki.

If Talbot's wants to take this strange new ad campaign to the next level, I suggest that sales representatives greet customers not with today's "Hello, how are you?" but an "Ohhh, how do you do?" Say it with that old money Hepburn drawl, too, with hand imperially extended, and you're nearly on the set of Adam's Rib, whose poster features—yes—pants:

Footnote:

2009-10-07T14:45:00.002-04:00

K'barbic broke her little piggy toe on Saturday.

This little piggy had insurance...

2009-10-07T13:45:00.003-04:00

After you have adopted your hypo-allergenic micro pig, take a look at the top insurers for animals. Here at TBATC, although no one can doubt our enthusiasm for our four-legged friends, we were remiss and did not duly celebrate "Pet Health Insurance Month." In a September article, The Smart Set discussed the matter of pet health insurance. Although today we are all about piglets, I'm sure there is ample health coverage for the family capybara as well.

This little piggy ...

2009-10-07T12:18:00.011-04:00

Here's another reason to be an Anglophile: Micro Pigs.

They are Britain's latest craze in the pet world and it's easy to see why: When piglets, they fit in the hollow of a tea cup. When full grown, they're only about a foot tall. Plus, they are great for people with pet allergies. If only the Obamas had gotten a Micro Pig. If only.

The London Telegraph reports on how breeders make the pigs so petite:

The pigs are crosses of Miniature Pot Bellied pigs with Tamworths, Kune Kunes and Gloucester Old Spots to create their tiny, colourful Micro Pigs, which are sold for between £195 and £700.
The size of the piglets get smaller with every litter with Peanut the piglet believed to be one of the tiniest adult pigs in Europe.

And while we're on the subject of piglets, did you see this item?

What We Haven't Been Blogging

2009-10-07T11:33:00.007-04:00

Keastland and I realize there has been a lapse in our recent postings. To assure our readers that our keyboards are still getting exercise, here are our two most recent pieces for TWS. We have each taken looks at our cultural heritage: Keastland's reflection on family and Texas by looking at the work of Buck Schiwetz and K'barbic's love for the California cult classic, In-N-Out Burger.

Sweet Art

2009-09-16T14:55:00.002-04:00

Ice cream. Two words which when they come together easily bring a smile. As summer draws to a close, we'll be less likely to indulge in this frozen treat so Apartment Therapy has provided a collection of ice cream art for us to enjoy. Some New York moms, however, may want no visible reminder of this most glorious of sugary treats.

Pass the Strawberry Yogurt, Please

2009-09-10T17:02:00.008-04:00

In the spirit of K’Barbic’s last post, I would like to share a story. One day on the Internet, I found this picture and tweeted it. What is it of, you ask? A capybara crossing sign. (For those who don’t know, the capybara is a true Rodent Of Unusual Size—in fact, the largest species of rodent in the world.) If you do not know what a ROUS is, then it's time for you to watch The Princess Bride and learn about this most joyous acronym. (But do not worry, capybaras are much cuter and tamer than the bloodthirsty ROUS in The Princess Bride.) They also look wise, like Barack Obama in front of a teleprompter.

A few hours after I tweeted the picture, several people—no one I knew or followed—decided to re-tweet me. One went by the name “CaplinROUS.” I visited this person’s page only to find that it was not a person’s, but a capybara’s—a pet capybara’s. Who would welcome and pamper a massive rodent? A warm family in Austin, Texas, apparently. They keep this blog and tweet for him several times a day, often in response to other rodents. Some examples:

Strawberry yogurt for breakfast then my usual soak in the tub. Big day today. Book reading/capybara encounter at Kyle Library at 3 pm!

@MuffinGuineaPig Yes, I got treats after toenail trimming but it still wasn't worth it. I get treats all the time anyway.

I wonder what Aesop would think of this talking animal. ...

A Penny for Your Tweets

2009-09-10T13:50:00.000-04:00

Texting can be an ill wind that brings no good. If you give some effort to texting in its various forms (IM, Twitter, Gchat, etc.), however, it can become a true art, or at least poetic verse. Several months ago, I opened a Twitter account upon the suggestion of Keastland. I take great enjoyment in crafting my Gchat status messages, and she, therefore, proclaimed it to be the perfect medium for my "stream of consciousness."

I opened an account. Began following and being followed. I tweeted a grand total of six times, and haven't let out a tweet since. You may assume by this pattern that I developed some sense of literary conscience believing tweeting to be somehow beneath me. On the contrary, I liken my response to a kind of stage fright. When placed upon the Twitter stage, I immediately felt a weight upon my creativity. It seemed that every 140-character (or less) post must contain an impressive measure of wit, and I did not possess the perseverance to express my thoughts to the world 140 characters at a time.

Returning to the original question NPR poses in considering new technology as a forum for poetry, "If Shakespeare were alive today, would'st he not Tweet?" Looking for the answer, I turned to Twitter in search of "William Shakespeare". (To revisit Twitter did require the wracking of my brain to remember the password to my neglected account.) While there were two screens-worth of William Shakespeares (fewer though from Stratford-Upon-Avon), I chose to follow the crowd and look at the profiles of the most popular. As you might expect, there were ample re-creations of famous lines from well-known plays, applying Shakespearean wit and wisdom to events and news stories. Perhaps, I did not search enough, but I failed to find any newly inspired creations in the meter of the Bard. With the number of William Shakespeares on Twitter today, the better question might be, If Shakespeare were alive and tweeting, would we be able to tell him apart from his impersonators?

What Chicken and World War II Share

2009-09-05T12:10:00.023-04:00

In the past few months I've been watching a lot of movies from the '40s, several of them pertaining to World War II, whose outbreak occurred precisely 70 years ago this Sept 1. If you haven't already, do read Auden's famous poem on the topic, "September 1, 1939." The pic to the left is of him reciting it on the air waves.

The most recent movie to make its entrance into the WWII fold is Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. I'm yet to see it, but Terry Teachout has a fine WSJ article on it and the enduring appeal of movies set in that war. He writes, "The Second World War is to filmmakers what chicken is to chefs, a canvas on which every imaginable kind of picture can be painted."

More poignantly, he cooks up this idea:

America has become a more contentious country in recent years, and I can't think of any postwar historical event, not even 9/11, about which most of us now share a true consensus view. ... Most Americans, no matter how they feel about waterboarding, gay marriage or health-care reform, pine in their secret hearts for a lost world in which everyone can agree on at least one thing: Nazis are no damn good.

A film he doesn't lace into his article, for the obvious reasons that it really isn't about the nitty gritty of war and it really wasn't all that popular when released in 1946, is A Matter of Life and Death, or as it was known in the U.S. Stairway to Heaven. It's one of the best from The Archers, the British team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who co-wrote, co-produced, and co-directed their films. Granted, AMOLAD isn't everyone's fare, but if you have a soft spot for whimsy and love in the time of war, add it to your Netflix queue. The opening of the movie to tease you is here.

Look at My Book!

2009-09-04T16:43:00.006-04:00

Why not embellish your life by using books as accessories?

Here I am posing with an amusing book (which takes itself a bit too seriously) by James Lipton—yes that Lipton, the one who hosted Inside the Actor’s Studio. It’s titled An Exhaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition, More Than 1,000 Terms. Lipton considers it his “letter to the world.” Read it to learn what to call groups of various things, from aardvarks to yuppies. (There are no entries under “z.”) And yes, some of the collective nouns are real while others are fashioned by Lipton.

Now that I'm in the know, I suppose I'll have to call my mug decorated with a parade of eight identical partridges my “covey of partridges.” Or not.

Super Gunn

2009-09-04T14:27:00.006-04:00

A comic book hero TBATC can get behind. Not only is Project Runway finally back featuring one of our favorite reality show hosts, but now Tim Gunn is being immortalized as a fashion super hero. "With great power comes great responsibility"; therefore, we fully support Tim and his quest to rid the world of Crocs.

Our Lady of the Peafowl

2009-09-03T18:13:00.007-04:00

I haven’t yet made a pilgrimage to Flannery O’Connor’s home Andalusia, but now I’m tempted more than ever to use my frequent flier miles on a plane straight to Savannah. Why? Because the peafowl have returned. Not Flannery’s flock, the last of which died in the late '80s, but three new ones. They even have a posh aviary to keep them safe from predators. Read the whole story here.

O’Connor famously raised her peafowl with swans, chickens, pheasants, quail, turkeys, geese, mallards, and Japanese and Polish bantams at Andalusia starting in 1952. In short, she liked winged things. But, as she wrote in the September 1961 issue of Holiday, she “felt a lack” until bringing peafowl into her fold. She says she has “no short or reasonable answer” for her fascination with them. “My frenzy said: I want so many of them that every time I go out the door I’ll run into one.”

Peafowl turn up in her letters and stories frequently. In one letter she notes a peacock who snatched visitors’ cigarettes and chewed them up. Apparently, it should have lived on a tobacco plantation. And in her story “The Displaced Person,” the priest, looking upon a peacock’s spread tail, utters, “Christ will come like that.” And in “King of the Birds,” she writes:

When it suits him, the peacock will face you. Then you will see in a green-bronze arch around him a galaxy of gazing haloed suns. This is the moment when most people are silent. … I have never known a strutting peacock to budge a fraction of an inch for a truck or tractor or automobile. It is up to the vehicle to get out of the way.

In fact, O’Connor had a peacock named “Limpy.” It had only one foot, the left, for the right had been lobbed off by a mowing machine.

To Helvetica with It All

2009-09-03T16:54:00.003-04:00

The Guardian's Simon Garfield reminds us why font matters, "Used well, type design defines mood, and how we think about everything we see."

"It's the Great Pumpkin"

2009-08-27T15:20:00.018-04:00

Soon the leaves will change color, and the air will turn a little crisper. For as long as I can remember, I have loved the fall, the back-to-school season. Yes, I was one of those children. Even now, I must resist the urge to run to Office Depot to pick up an assortment of spiral notebooks and color code them for class. Of course, I do not miss the tests and pop quizzes, and most definitely not the math homework. One of my favorite things about being a "grown-up" is the ability to thoroughly enjoy the fall homework-free and focus on more enjoyable activities like fall baking, featuring one of my favorite ingredients: the Great Pumpkin.

Already, the Starbucks fall favorite, the Pumpkin Spice Latte which is essentially Thanksgiving in a coffee cup, has made its return to the menu. Surely, all other joys of fall are not far behind. Starbucks is not the only place to enjoy pumpkin goodness, however, nor do you have to wait for dessert at the traditional Thanksgiving feast. From muffins to pancakes, pumpkin is the key to delicious fall baked goods. One of my favorite recipes, and a county fair blue-ribbon winner, is one my mother gave me for pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I believe the recipe originally came from her Taste of Home subscription, but we've copied it on so many 3x5 cards we pretty much consider it our own now. As any good recipe, it's meant to be shared and enjoyed. So whip out your favorites and enjoy the tastes of fall, and if necessary visit your local pumpkin patch to seek out the Great Pumpkin.

K'barbic Favorite: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe

Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 c sugar
1 can (16 oz) pumpkin
1 1/2 c vegetable oil
3 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 c semisweet chocolate chips

Beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil until smooth. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill paper lined muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 16-20 minutes or until the muffins test done (toothpick comes out clean). Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove to wire rack. Yields about 24 standard size muffins.

Sleeves on Steroids

2009-05-15T00:51:00.012-04:00

There’s a lot of talk about Michelle Obama and her general distaste for sleeves. (Hey, if I had her ripping triceps and biceps, I’d want to show them off, too, and would probably hold a small funeral for arm fabric near the White House vegetable patch.) But, alas, I don’t have her guns, so I wear—and fondly think about—sleeves.

The other day I was looking at the red carpet looks of the guests attending the Met’s annual Museum Costume Institute Gala. I came across one look featuring giant, glorified sleeves on a fitted Dolce and Gabbana tuxedo. The look is Rihanna’s, and—perhaps importantly—this was her first public appearance since her ex-boyfriend/scumbag Chris Brown had allegedly beat her in February. You might call it a power tux, a declaration of her self-sufficiency, individuality, etc. It’s like she ditched Chris, raided his closet for his best formal attire, and then made it her own for everyone to see.

We all know that puffy sleeves and shoulder pads (and the power suit) were all the rage in the '80s, and that decade likely inspired Rihanna’s tux; but there’s another time period that Rihanna’s bold look brings to mind: the Elizabethan. Just take a look at these gigot (aka mutton) sleeves on Elizabeth. Or these. Like Rihanna’s, they’re pretty much cloth on steroids. Now, imagine Elizabeth sporting sleeves that fit her arms closely—or, if you can, without sleeves at all. She would loose her imposing look. She’d just seem top- and bottom-heavy, her arms powerless to do anything more than sign a wobbly "ER," her aspect no longer an elegant mountain of rich, structured cloth. Along with the long milky strands of pearls, the starched ruff, the wrinkleless and shadowless face, halo of vibrant red hair, and blooming skirt, these sleeves were a part of how she crafted a public image of herself in paint as a powerful, self-controlled, self-sufficient queen.

But back to Michelle for a moment. When the New Yorker ran a cover in March with three visions of her on a runway, in each vision she was wearing … sleeves. Yet on the inside there was short article by Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan that praised Michelle for her sleevenessless. Givhan writes:

Those arms represent personal time. They are evidence of a forty-five-year-old woman’s refusal to give up every free moment in service to husband, kids, and all the nagging distractions that could have filled her days and left her tuning in to “Oprah,” trying to figure out how she’d lost herself along the way. The arms imply vanity and power: two things that make many women uncomfortable and yet are fundamental to self-confidence.

First of all, encouraging women to be vain because the first lady is vain smacks of bad taste on several levels. But anyway, for those of us who are sweet on sleeves—batwing sleeves, bell sleeves, juliette sleeves, pagoda sleeves, raglan sleeves—just remember Elizabeth I and Rihanna. But please, please forget the tatoos on the latter.

A Refridgerator Tale

2009-05-13T11:05:00.003-04:00

The office fridge: the insulated tomb where unwanted leftovers go to die. It's the testament to many a well-meaning office worker whose best laid plans to save money and brown bag their lunch have sadly gone awry. After reading the sad tale of this San Jose office, I have realized that my greatest fears for my own office fridge could become reality. Have we been wasting our time fretting over threats like swine flu, when an even greater danger looms down the hall in our office kitchen? Perhaps today is the day to be "enterprising" and eliminate the threat. More likely, my coworkers and I will open the fridge door, shake our heads in disgust, and then self-righteously declare: "Why don't people just throw their junk away?"