a very serious retrospective
Happy New Year! So. Dear old Scotty has been urging us for some time now to put together a “top ten” list looking back on 2009. I have spent a very serious amount of my break considering what sort of list to write. Some ideas included top ten albums that dropped in 2009 (too cliche and I think we’d all have the same list) and the top ten Christmas gifts we could all do without (I really, really hate Kindles and those new toy fake hamster things for kids are ridiculous; seriously? If my roommates and I can keep a hedgehog alive in a Trinity College dorm I think a suburban mother can handle a real hamster)… but I think I’m going to go with the simple and say here are five (ten is too big and everything I like about 2009 is either already on this blog or super embarrassing) things that got my attention last year.
5. Walt Whitman stars in Levi’s commercials?
I was a little bit creeped out and annoyed when Levi’s first started airing these commercials towards the end of the year, mostly because it resulted in my little sister’s Facebook friends changing their status to Whitman quotes and giving the credit to a denim company… but, oh well, I have decided to deal with that heart-wrenchingly sad cultural reflection and admit that these commercials are, well, kind of genius. Who doesn’t want to be a thin, tan, wide-eyed child making out with multiple people around a campfire and running through the ocean spray in a flickering black and white filter? Levi jeans still are way too long for me but I want them now, I do, I do.
4. Gilt Groupe & Rue La La own my 11 to noon time slot.
I know that I am way behind on this but, really, really?! Betsey Johnson dresses for $24, $600 purses discounted to $100, not to mention the army of up and coming designers (see the instantly sold-out Mara Hoffman sale from two months ago) and tested and true geniuses like Vera Wang, Marchesa, and Valentino… 2009 was the year of me living by the alarm on my cell phone to check the designer presales and sample sales on the swanky Gilt Groupe and Rue La La web sites. Style whores, beware, I’m sure you’re already all members but you have to be invited… just one more addition to the allure of these sites. So ladies, next time you see some leggy blonde on the long walk and hate her not only for her calves but for her Fendi sunglasses… relax, she probably didn’t pay full price.
3. And my high school love endures through another year…
I don’t even remember the first time I heard anything by Bright Eyes; Conor Oberst and his first, most well-known and well-hated band has pretty much been a ubiquitous part of my life ever since I was (barely) old enough to understand his references to sex, drugs, and that hallowed, dark depression… This is something I’ve allowed to slip into the back of my mind as I get older but the love is still there, and was absolutely rekindled with Conor’s second grown-up album, Outer South, which he recorded with his Mystic Valley Band and released in April of last year. It’s the ultimate summer driving record, with fun throwback tracks like “Air Mattress.” Of course we can’t escape Conor’s (yes, we are on a first name basis) introspection but he has grown up a lot and this album really is a winner.
2. Burberry gets more and more delicious!
Yum! Ever since Christopher Bailey took over as creative director of Burberry we are seeing less and less of that over-used Burberry check that seems to overwhelm every single scarf my mother owns. We hardly see any of it in this spring ad campaign, and ooh it just gets better when Emma Watson joins the party looking absolutely stunning and not at all like bushy Miss Granger. I love when labels manage to undergo change while still remaining classic and elegant; that what Burberry’s always been about and even if we see a touch of grunge in these greenhouse campaigns, the label cleans up so nice with Watson as its covergirl and I am drooling over those damn trench coats all over again.
1. Lady Gaga is brilliant.
Move on over, Conor Oberst, because I have a new obsession and her hair isn’t greasy and I don’t think she will cry after we make love. When her first singles hit the frats and my roomies and I blasted “Poker Face” in the car at the beginning of her rise to super-stardom I knew she was fun- but I am absolutely stunned and amazed by how Lady Gaga has transformed from the “cherry cherry boom boom” little blonde of her single “Eh Eh” to a full-fledged monster. I don’t want to hear it: the bitch is hot, and whether or not you love her or hate her she has absolutely grabbed your attention this year. She finally proves that a pop artist can actually be an interesting person (even if interesting means crazy), she does whatever she wants and if you hear her earlier stuff and even “Speechless” on the new album, she can belt it out pretty well too. She’s already headlining her own tour and has modeled for Vogue… and while we are on the subject of fashion, I think Gaga is empowering women and men to wear what they want and to stop being afraid of couture. Some of her looks really are out there but they are also easy to spot on any catwalk during fashion week… should I stop now? Let’s just say that Lady Gaga made 2009 more fun for me and if the old lady in the Cadillac judges me while I sing “Bad Romance” at a stoplight, well, so be it. It ain’t gonna stop in 2010.
My best friend posted this video on her Facebook today with the caption “claymation blows my mind.” Per usual, I agree with her. Check out this music video for Grizzly Bear’s “Able, Ready” directed by Allison Schulnik. Links to more from the band and Schulnik are posted with the video if you’re interested (I always want more Grizzly Bear - even if this video was awful, the song is beautiful).
there are few who’d deny, at what he does he is the best
The extensive exhibition on the work of film mastermind Tim Burton has been open at the MOMA for a couple of weeks now, and it’s giving this Boston girl yet another excuse to head to NYC over winter break. He’s captivated my imagination since the first time I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas as a little girl at my uncle’s house, and just in case you haven’t heard… Burton has (once again) collaborated with the beautiful and eccentric (Bellatrix!) Helena Bonham Carter and (surprise) Johnny Depp, as well as Anne Hathaway, to bring us his version of Alice in Wonderland. You can watch the trailer here. I sense that we should expect a splattering of Big Fish-style, enchanting scenery and Depp’s Willy Wonka-perfected strangeness that makes him all the more delicious (see him as the Mad Hatter below) even when covered in eighteen pounds of stage makeup… Anyway, how about we schedule a Mill field trip for March 5, 2010?
mill book club: frosty winter break reads
Thanks to the talented and beautiful Kristin, the Mill’s Writing Studio is suggesting two books to cuddle up with over the winter break! Read one, read two, and come back ready to eat some goodies (like we won’t get enough at home) and discuss.
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
A smart, unsettling, and meticulously hilarious novel of friendship and real estate among the rich and rent-controlled. Lethem’s story centers around two unlikely friends, Chase Insteadman, a genial nonentity who was once a child sitcom star and is now best known as the loyal fiance of a space-stranded astronaut, and Perkus Tooth, a skinny, moody, underemployed cultural critic. Chase and Perkus are free-floating, dope-dependent bohemians in a borough built on ambition, living on its margins but with surprising access to its center of power.
The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer
The story of J.R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Los Angeles Times who grew up knowing his father only as a voice on the radio. He was raised by a riotously dysfunctional family from Long Island, in Manhasset, NY (a place, that he writes, “believes in booze”). Without a father figure, Moehringer turns to his bartender Uncle Charlie, and subsequently the bar down the street from their home, to provide him with male role models. The bar’s colorful regulars, and the sometimes drunken, sometimes offbeat lessons that they teach him are the driving forces behind this well-written, compelling memoir.
Click above to listen to Alec Ounsworth (yes, of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) all on his own and sounding amazing on this track from August, “Holy, Holy, Holy Moses (Song For New Orleans).” He’s toned it down a lot, in a really beautiful way… reminds me of some sort of Bob Dylan-Bon Iver collaboration. Maybe that sounds too good to be true but I think, if ya haven’t, you should take a look at this guy.
completely shameless 
A million thanks and kudos to Pat on Pop Tarts Suck Toasted for doing what I have wanted to write about but haven’t had the balls to actually post on here for months.
Speaking of treachery in images… Rene Magritte - Empire of Light 1953-54
I know he’s trying to confuse us, but this image is pretty comforting to me.
The perfection that is Sufjan Stevens plus the secret nostalgia of Christmas carols that you know your inner child harbors deep inside. Proven not to taint your indie cred. Yes, it is possible to have your cake and eat it too.
ria brodell may brighten your day
First discovered this whimsical American artist, who works a lot with pencil and watercolor (but also does crazy sculptures!), at the DeCordova Museum in Massachusetts back in 2006, and I’m kind of obsessed with her. For anyone anticipating a week as stressful as mine’s going to be, take a minute to play around on her website. She has an amazingly articulated series called “The Distant Lands” outlining the fate of a world she imagines (the bird men and the whale are my favorite characters), and she is currently showing a new series, “The Handsome and the Holy,” that “is interested between the play between queer desire and the construction of gender identity as seen alongside her religious upbringing.” Her drawings are on the simple side, but that’s why I like ‘em. Not all contemporary art has to be so overstated!
Not to mention, Ria Brodell is ridiculously sweet and when I emailed her website senior year wanting to ask a few questions for an AP Studio project (not really expecting success), she personally answered me that day giving me more information than I could have possibly hoped for — so in my humble opinion, this chick’s awesome.
