Do what you want to do. That's the important thing.
Um, my past self lived nearly every waking minute by that credo, Gloria. No additional encouragement is really needed on that front.
I'd like my future self to go back and tell my past self, "Try smoking less pot and applying yourself in school so that you don't have to spend two-and-a-half years working in a fucking Kinko's after you graduate."
Such are the perils of offering simple maxims. I have a feeling if I think a lot about what the appropriate advice would be in my case, I'll jump out the window.
My current self would probably say to my past self, "What? Are you nuts? Don't go to Olivet fucking Nazarene University!" But then he'd also say, "But even if you do, you'll probably be fine. Don't worry so much."
My future self will say to my current self, "It's your own damn fault. You should've seen that psychotic break coming a mile away."
My past self would probably be way too arrogant to give even the time of day to my time-travelling present self. I cannot imagine any advice from me would have much of an impact as he certainly was not listening to anybody else around him.
When I was about twenty I imagined meeting my future self all the time. I wanted my future self to be harder, fitter, calmer, so obviously able to take my then self that it wouldn't be worth a trial. I guess it was a dream, a wish for continued growth and development, not to be as broken, or defeated, or completely tamed as I'm afraid I saw my father, and a lot of middle-aged men I knew. I never gave my future self any context in these encounters, no clothes, no profession, no relationship, accomplishments, rank, scars or injuries. Just an older version of myself, on a darkling plain.
So now I am him, pretty much as advertised. I never think about meeting my younger self like that, but this does get me thinking. In my youthful encounters with my future self, I don't remember my future self ever had anything he had to say to me. Just by being, attentive, balanced, vigorous he seemed to be saying that everything would be all right.
Seems that way doesn't it? What I mean is that my criteria then had nothing to do with context, with the actual fabric of lives, then or now. They were about some sort of essence and its physical signs.
As I think about it, it wasn't about growth at all, it was about not decaying. From that point of view, a kind of unfinished and immature middle age would have pleased me more then than it does now.
Okay, furealz I'd tell my past self: Go with the Moroccan to the Eiffel Tower instead of staying in your hostel and reading Harry Potter 5; so you'll have to kiss him, he's actually kind of cute and then you'll have had a real Paris experience. I'd also tell past self to get started on grad school earlier; dicking around is not going to be as clarifying as you think.
15: Yeah, that drug name is on the blacklist, so I posted it with a 1 instead of an i as the second character, then went in and restored it to the brand name.
By the way, everyone reads Glamour, at least sometimes.
This kind of advice is sort of like auto advice when you don't know who's going to get the advice. Carburetors don't exist any more, I'm really old I know, but suppose someone asked "Should I set my carburator leaner or richer?"
Some people should have taken more chances, and some fewer.
I would request that my past self make only mild changes in his routine to see if it radically altered the future. That would be sweet, and then I'd go back and make him do it again and again.
I wish I could tell my past self to do more stupid shit
I've not found that age diminishes one's capacity to do stupid shit, although the stupid shit tends to be less vigorous. But do have your second childhood now, when you're young enough to enjoy it.
I don't. But I do go to the grocery store and from what I can tell, that's a recurring theme in every such magazine. Also, the 10 secret lovemaking tips that will drive my man wild in bed.
It is. Which is why those things are so popular that even ball-busting feminists read them: you can fight the good fight day in and day out, but when you go to get your haircut, you tend to drop your guard. And at some point in everyone's adolescence, we all dealt with the problem of how to succumb to our oppression, until we figured out it was a mug's game.
I have to admit that my own ongiong capitulation to my oppression more often occurs between the covers of Vogue, however, than Glamour.
I've always wondered how the circulation of such magazines as Glamour and Vogue broke down, how many home subscribers as opposed to businesses such as salons. Most of us read them, if at all, in waiting rooms, and I wonder whether that's just us or the way the majority of the readership does.
In my experience, more people tend to subscribe to InStyle. Even though my high school girlfriend was a budding feminist, I got her a subscription to that magazine for her birthday, at her request.
Those magazines all annoy me because they set such unrealistic expectations -- not just about looks, but about money. When I was getting my hair cut this weekend, two women decided to go through one of this month's fashion magazines, mark all of the things they liked and wanted, and then total up the cost for kicks. It came up to something like $40,000. Just the fact that one of the regular features is called "Blow The Rent/Pay The Rent" bothers me. I know it's tongue-in-cheek but considering that women are already at an economic disadvantage compared to their male counterparts, I consider this Not Helpful.
#36: I had that problem too, until Mr. B. pointed out to me that one buys Vogue for the ads. Becks is right; no one spends that kind of money. The point is, it's aspirational. And also, one gets a general "eye" for what works and doesn't, and what's in and out. SUE ME I CARE.
#38: I think in Style is popular b/c it's a slightly more realistic Vogue.
#37: Don't forget grocery-store checkout line purchases, which is where I buy Vogue (truly, maybe twice a year). Oh, and airports.
5/6- I once heard about a guy at Brown partying so hard he fell out a window. That is all I heard, just the one-line description. I didn't really think about it much beyond that. It became a joke among my friends, being the new ending to, "it's all fun and games until..."
Years later, I met a grad student at the U of C, and I was about to say that line in front of him, when a friend, who could tell what I was going to say, signalled me wildly, shaking her head. As if he could read my mind, he mentioned later in the conversation, "I once fell out of a window while I was at Brown. It was really rough. I was in a bodycast for, like, a year..."
Yes, of course. It's revoltingly bourgeois. I'm just saying, it's not like they *really* expect any of their readers to go out and spend $40,000 to put together an outfit. They just want us to wish that we could, and to go out and spend $400 trying to approximate it.
I ain't saying it's defensible. I'm just saying I have a hard-on for clothes, so I don't give a rat's ass that it's obnoxious. (Well, I kind of do, but not really.)
I guess the aspiration stuff wouldn't bother me so much if the magazines weren't wrapping it in "girl power!" language that made it almost seem like attaining a certain level of consumerism was a way of "being successful" and, therefore, making a pseudo-feminist statement that women had power and were in control. When, in actuality, buying that $700 handbag and $500 pair of shoes would likely put women in credit card debt, making it harder for them to attain goals that would actually make them successful, like funding further education or buying a house. It makes me think of that Sex and the City episode where Carrie realizes she can't buy her apartment when her building turns condo because she doesn't have the money but has spent an equivalent amount on Manolo Blahniks over the years. If the message was just "ooh! pretty shoes!", it wouldn't bother me so much.
And, no, I don't fault you for caring, B. I should really care more. Someday I should have you teach me how to be a girl.
They just want us to wish that we could, and to go out and spend $400 trying to approximate it.
Exactly right, which is whence Chanel-logoed T-shirts and Jean-Paul Gautier perfumes come. Very few people can afford the clothes, but they can aspire to the snobbery embodied in the house's cheaper products.
Sex tips: I'm kind of embarassed to admit that I watch Gray's Anatomy, but last night they had a patient who had multiple, spontaneous orgasms. No need to fake it under those circumstances.
Clothing: Has anyone noticed that Ann Taylor has some really nice stuff this year? Their clotthes never fit me before--at least not the jackets--but they had a beautiful semi-girly blue-knit suit with tiny bows in the window as well as some neat blue and white dresses which looked a bit like china bowls (the patterns that is)---only the blue was darker.
I'm of half a mind to try to get a part-time job there to have extra cash to buy some clothes and get the discount. Does anyone know whether those stores will hire people for nights and weekends outside of holiday season? (or even during the holiday season?) Can you hold down a 9-5 job and a part-time retail job? Has anyone here ever worked at Ann Taylor?
The women's magazine's aren't really all the same thing - they've got varying components of at least three major different types of stuff. There's the "Ten sex tips", "Are you sabotaging your career", "What does he really think when you don't wear makeup?" advicey stuff, which is generally awful in practice, but not innately awful. You could write interesting, non-fucked-up stuff in that category. (When I was living in Samoa, I used to see an Australian or New Zealand, can't remember which, women's magazine called Cleo, which was Cosmo as if it were written by the staff of Ms. Not a hugely political magazine, but written from a basically feminist perspective. Very odd to read. And with naked pictures of Keanu Reeves occasionally.) I read this stuff when I come across it, becase it's generally so compellingly ghastly.
Then there's two different categories of fashiony stuff: (1) Spectator fashion: coverage of coture, celebrity clothing, stuff that readers of the magazine really can't possibly afford, and (2) Consumer fashion: coverage of stuff that the advertisers of the magazine are actually trying to sell to readers.
Cosmopolitian, for example, is mostly advicey, with some consumer fashion and little spectator fashion. InStyle (if I remember it correctly from when I was working at Time Inc. and used to read it because it was free) is mostly spectator fashion, celebrity rather than coture oriented, with some consumer fashion. Vogue is almost all spectator fashion.
Car/Hot Rod Magazines and Field-and-Stream type magazines are aspirational in just the same way. And they are out for the people waiting in corresponding places. Gives me an idea of what's in, how certain things are done, basically technique. You feel you learn from it and keep up.
#94: The "girl power" crap is, of course, about capitulation to the patriarchy; it is an unfortunate truth that communicating status through clothing is a way for women to assert power and femininity in tandem. Of course it costs more--what, you thought that being a "successful" woman was something you were gonna get away with? Ha!
Having said that, in real life I'm not nearly as high-femme as I pretend to be online. But I do like clothing. and I recommend Ann Taylor for well-made work stuff that is aware of fashion trends but not trendy. In other words, you can buy their clothes and wear them for years if you can afford the damn dry cleaning. They have sales, btw, twice a year: January and August, which is where much of my work wardrobe comes from.
BostonianGirl: I have a good friend who took a job at Ann Taylor when she dropped out of our PhD program. She's happy that she doesn't have to buy work clothes for another ten years, but I doubt she'd recommend the gig to someone else. She says that it was fine when she was working there in Oregon, but that in Manhattan the customers were all Just. Awful. From what I've heard, her store manager was also unsympathetic about scheduling. Maybe it could be okay in Boston.
#52 actually seems right; B lives about as determinedly "alternative" a life, at least as an internet persona, as you would expect a conventional person's disappointed future self would urge her to live.
vogue plays with the line between art, art-photography, and fashion a lot. it's fun. and they also publish reviews of contemporary art and books that's not always bad. it's certainly way more intelligent than anything in newsweek.
plus you get a healthy dose of the sublimely beautiful and the sublimely ridiculous. of course i read Paris Vogue. :)
mallarme used to secretly write women's fashion magazines, you know.
The friend of your son 1. fell out of a window at Brown, 2. with another guy, 3. who was in a bodycast for a year, 4. and went on to be a U of C grad student?
I only found out about the second person when I googled my son's friend just now. The survivor's initials were E.W. and he graduated in 1997. Sounds like Brown needs a new window policy.
It was really a sad case. The woman who was killed was very lively and promising, and not one of the kids my son know who seemed likely to come to a bad end.
Not a joke. I knew you have nieces, but somehow missed the direct progeny. Of course, I also occasionally have the experience of driving down familiar streets and wondering, "Has that mall always been there?"
That strikes me more as using his penis as a canvas than a paintbrush, but there's that, yes. I've recommended it here previously, but the documentary about Flanagan really is an amazing, beautiful movie, and far less of a freakshow than one might think.
Did he go through the urethra or past it? Past it probably would relatively unproblematic.
Past it, if the movie Sick has it right. It was long believed that another artist, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, removed sections of his penis in successive amputations, but that turns out to have been false.
There were other artists from the same school as Schwarzkogler, the 1960s Actionists (in Vienna), namely Hermann Nitsch and Otto Mühl, who performed (real, verifiable) acts of severe supermasochism. I'm sure those guys cocked up some art. I've read that Pollock added a personal action pigment to a select few of his paintings.
But an artist who used his member to apply pigment to a support, noneuphemistically? No names come to mind.
So if a future self told the past self to avoid certain mistakes, and the past self listened solely on the basis of the future self's authority, would the future self continue to be as wise, or would the future self become more prone to making the same mistake, at a more critical juncture in life, because the past self never learned her lessons from experience?
i knew a guy who fell out of a window at another ivy league school 2 hours by train from brown. from the second floor into the bushes luckily, 100% naked unluckily. i think the ivy leagues need a new mushroom policy not a new window policy...
Through clothing, women can assert their will over men. Glossy magazines sometimes call it "girl power," but I think it's more like succumbing to sexist traditions.
So I was talking to my wife, and I said, "Hey, baby, come put some of girl power on me." And she was all, "I'm not taking off these clothes. I don't want to lose status." So I was like, "Fine, keep the clothes on, but show me some of that girl power. You know what I mean."
another ivy league school 2 hours by train from brown
Why so coy? I'm trying to figure out if I could get to Dartmouth in two hours by train, and I don't think I could, so that pretty much narrows it to one... unless you meant two hours or less...
In fairness to my alma mater, although the unfortunate people who fell out of the window were Brunonians, the party was at the art school down the hill: they're the ones with a window problem.
Do what you want to do. That's the important thing.
Um, my past self lived nearly every waking minute by that credo, Gloria. No additional encouragement is really needed on that front.
I'd like my future self to go back and tell my past self, "Try smoking less pot and applying yourself in school so that you don't have to spend two-and-a-half years working in a fucking Kinko's after you graduate."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 8:01 AM
Future self to past self: "He's a fucking poet, for Christ's sake, of course he's going to be unreliable and self-absorped."
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 8:09 AM
I call bullshit. No way does alameida read Glamour.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 8:17 AM
To past self: "Don't try fucking the farmer's daughter through the hole!"
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 8:18 AM
Such are the perils of offering simple maxims. I have a feeling if I think a lot about what the appropriate advice would be in my case, I'll jump out the window.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 8:19 AM
Don't jump out the window. Two months in a body cast was no fun. And the nurses weren't cute at all.
Posted by alt-Future FL | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 8:23 AM
I'm with Gloria; I'm sure my future self will tell my past self "it's really going to be fine, you're doing well. You don't need to worry so much."
Primarily I think this b/c that's what my present self would tell my past self. That and, "you know, your mom's problems are not your problems."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 8:33 AM
My current self would probably say to my past self, "What? Are you nuts? Don't go to Olivet fucking Nazarene University!" But then he'd also say, "But even if you do, you'll probably be fine. Don't worry so much."
My future self will say to my current self, "It's your own damn fault. You should've seen that psychotic break coming a mile away."
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:03 AM
If my future self could meet my past self, I bet they'd have sex with each other.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:16 AM
My past self would probably be way too arrogant to give even the time of day to my time-travelling present self. I cannot imagine any advice from me would have much of an impact as he certainly was not listening to anybody else around him.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:19 AM
Not only does Alameida read Glamour, she dated Tommy Lee. Wow.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:22 AM
When I was about twenty I imagined meeting my future self all the time. I wanted my future self to be harder, fitter, calmer, so obviously able to take my then self that it wouldn't be worth a trial. I guess it was a dream, a wish for continued growth and development, not to be as broken, or defeated, or completely tamed as I'm afraid I saw my father, and a lot of middle-aged men I knew. I never gave my future self any context in these encounters, no clothes, no profession, no relationship, accomplishments, rank, scars or injuries. Just an older version of myself, on a darkling plain.
So now I am him, pretty much as advertised. I never think about meeting my younger self like that, but this does get me thinking. In my youthful encounters with my future self, I don't remember my future self ever had anything he had to say to me. Just by being, attentive, balanced, vigorous he seemed to be saying that everything would be all right.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:23 AM
I wanted my future self to be harder
Cialis to the rescue!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:25 AM
Just by being attentive, balanced, vigorous
I think Present and Past John Tingley have already attempted the experiment MAE suggested in 9.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:29 AM
Apo, did you make that comment and then go back and edit it? why? (14 me)
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:31 AM
See, I'm kind of the opposite. I wish I could tell my past self to do more stupid shit and worry less about school/my career/the future.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:36 AM
#14
Seems that way doesn't it? What I mean is that my criteria then had nothing to do with context, with the actual fabric of lives, then or now. They were about some sort of essence and its physical signs.
As I think about it, it wasn't about growth at all, it was about not decaying. From that point of view, a kind of unfinished and immature middle age would have pleased me more then than it does now.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:40 AM
Okay, furealz I'd tell my past self: Go with the Moroccan to the Eiffel Tower instead of staying in your hostel and reading Harry Potter 5; so you'll have to kiss him, he's actually kind of cute and then you'll have had a real Paris experience. I'd also tell past self to get started on grad school earlier; dicking around is not going to be as clarifying as you think.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:40 AM
By the way, everyone reads Glamour, at least sometimes. Gotta do something while waiting for the doctor/dentist/hairstylist.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:43 AM
15: Yeah, that drug name is on the blacklist, so I posted it with a 1 instead of an i as the second character, then went in and restored it to the brand name.
By the way, everyone reads Glamour, at least sometimes.
Ahem. Not everyone.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:48 AM
Apostropher, learn to deal with your oppression.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:52 AM
Do they have an article in Glamour about how to do that in seven easy steps?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 9:54 AM
This kind of advice is sort of like auto advice when you don't know who's going to get the advice. Carburetors don't exist any more, I'm really old I know, but suppose someone asked "Should I set my carburator leaner or richer?"
Some people should have taken more chances, and some fewer.
My Mom, more.
Me, fewer.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:00 AM
I thought you didn't read the magazine.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:01 AM
I don't think we all appreciated 9 enough.
I would request that my past self make only mild changes in his routine to see if it radically altered the future. That would be sweet, and then I'd go back and make him do it again and again.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:03 AM
I wish I could tell my past self to do more stupid shit
I've not found that age diminishes one's capacity to do stupid shit, although the stupid shit tends to be less vigorous. But do have your second childhood now, when you're young enough to enjoy it.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:05 AM
I thought you didn't read the magazine.
I don't. But I do go to the grocery store and from what I can tell, that's a recurring theme in every such magazine. Also, the 10 secret lovemaking tips that will drive my man wild in bed.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:05 AM
tip #10: pretend to orgasm.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:07 AM
But do have your second childhood now, when you're young enough to enjoy it.
Fear not. I've done a pretty good job of rededicating myself to making stupid decisions the last few years, and having much fun doing so.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:09 AM
10 secret lovemaking tips
But where to put them all?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:10 AM
they have diagrams. the secret is that they get to take turns.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:12 AM
Fear not. I've done a pretty good job of rededicating myself to making stupid decisions the last few years, and having much fun doing so.
You're my hero. I'd try to follow in your footsteps, but I'd just end up in jail for stalking.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:12 AM
Ten, I mean, as if the element of surprise weren't enough.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:12 AM
that's a recurring theme in every such magazine
It is. Which is why those things are so popular that even ball-busting feminists read them: you can fight the good fight day in and day out, but when you go to get your haircut, you tend to drop your guard. And at some point in everyone's adolescence, we all dealt with the problem of how to succumb to our oppression, until we figured out it was a mug's game.
I have to admit that my own ongiong capitulation to my oppression more often occurs between the covers of Vogue, however, than Glamour.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:13 AM
"my own ongiong capitulation to my oppression more often occurs between the covers of Vogue, however, than Glamour."
mine too, until I turned 13, when I obtained my first victoria's secret catalog. And now there's the internet.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:15 AM
The last time I looked at a copy of Vogue, I kept trying to find the magazine in there among the ads. Eventually, I just gave up.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:17 AM
I've always wondered how the circulation of such magazines as Glamour and Vogue broke down, how many home subscribers as opposed to businesses such as salons. Most of us read them, if at all, in waiting rooms, and I wonder whether that's just us or the way the majority of the readership does.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:22 AM
In my experience, more people tend to subscribe to InStyle. Even though my high school girlfriend was a budding feminist, I got her a subscription to that magazine for her birthday, at her request.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:26 AM
Those magazines all annoy me because they set such unrealistic expectations -- not just about looks, but about money. When I was getting my hair cut this weekend, two women decided to go through one of this month's fashion magazines, mark all of the things they liked and wanted, and then total up the cost for kicks. It came up to something like $40,000. Just the fact that one of the regular features is called "Blow The Rent/Pay The Rent" bothers me. I know it's tongue-in-cheek but considering that women are already at an economic disadvantage compared to their male counterparts, I consider this Not Helpful.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:35 AM
#36: I had that problem too, until Mr. B. pointed out to me that one buys Vogue for the ads. Becks is right; no one spends that kind of money. The point is, it's aspirational. And also, one gets a general "eye" for what works and doesn't, and what's in and out. SUE ME I CARE.
#38: I think in Style is popular b/c it's a slightly more realistic Vogue.
#37: Don't forget grocery-store checkout line purchases, which is where I buy Vogue (truly, maybe twice a year). Oh, and airports.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:42 AM
5/6- I once heard about a guy at Brown partying so hard he fell out a window. That is all I heard, just the one-line description. I didn't really think about it much beyond that. It became a joke among my friends, being the new ending to, "it's all fun and games until..."
Years later, I met a grad student at the U of C, and I was about to say that line in front of him, when a friend, who could tell what I was going to say, signalled me wildly, shaking her head. As if he could read my mind, he mentioned later in the conversation, "I once fell out of a window while I was at Brown. It was really rough. I was in a bodycast for, like, a year..."
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:43 AM
The point is, it's aspirational.
Isn't that exactly the problem people complain about? That it feeds bad aspirations?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:43 AM
Yes, of course. It's revoltingly bourgeois. I'm just saying, it's not like they *really* expect any of their readers to go out and spend $40,000 to put together an outfit. They just want us to wish that we could, and to go out and spend $400 trying to approximate it.
I ain't saying it's defensible. I'm just saying I have a hard-on for clothes, so I don't give a rat's ass that it's obnoxious. (Well, I kind of do, but not really.)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:47 AM
I guess the aspiration stuff wouldn't bother me so much if the magazines weren't wrapping it in "girl power!" language that made it almost seem like attaining a certain level of consumerism was a way of "being successful" and, therefore, making a pseudo-feminist statement that women had power and were in control. When, in actuality, buying that $700 handbag and $500 pair of shoes would likely put women in credit card debt, making it harder for them to attain goals that would actually make them successful, like funding further education or buying a house. It makes me think of that Sex and the City episode where Carrie realizes she can't buy her apartment when her building turns condo because she doesn't have the money but has spent an equivalent amount on Manolo Blahniks over the years. If the message was just "ooh! pretty shoes!", it wouldn't bother me so much.
And, no, I don't fault you for caring, B. I should really care more. Someday I should have you teach me how to be a girl.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:52 AM
They just want us to wish that we could, and to go out and spend $400 trying to approximate it.
Exactly right, which is whence Chanel-logoed T-shirts and Jean-Paul Gautier perfumes come. Very few people can afford the clothes, but they can aspire to the snobbery embodied in the house's cheaper products.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:54 AM
Sex tips: I'm kind of embarassed to admit that I watch Gray's Anatomy, but last night they had a patient who had multiple, spontaneous orgasms. No need to fake it under those circumstances.
Clothing: Has anyone noticed that Ann Taylor has some really nice stuff this year? Their clotthes never fit me before--at least not the jackets--but they had a beautiful semi-girly blue-knit suit with tiny bows in the window as well as some neat blue and white dresses which looked a bit like china bowls (the patterns that is)---only the blue was darker.
I'm of half a mind to try to get a part-time job there to have extra cash to buy some clothes and get the discount. Does anyone know whether those stores will hire people for nights and weekends outside of holiday season? (or even during the holiday season?) Can you hold down a 9-5 job and a part-time retail job? Has anyone here ever worked at Ann Taylor?
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:54 AM
such magazines as Glamour and Vogue broke down
The women's magazine's aren't really all the same thing - they've got varying components of at least three major different types of stuff. There's the "Ten sex tips", "Are you sabotaging your career", "What does he really think when you don't wear makeup?" advicey stuff, which is generally awful in practice, but not innately awful. You could write interesting, non-fucked-up stuff in that category. (When I was living in Samoa, I used to see an Australian or New Zealand, can't remember which, women's magazine called Cleo, which was Cosmo as if it were written by the staff of Ms. Not a hugely political magazine, but written from a basically feminist perspective. Very odd to read. And with naked pictures of Keanu Reeves occasionally.) I read this stuff when I come across it, becase it's generally so compellingly ghastly.
Then there's two different categories of fashiony stuff: (1) Spectator fashion: coverage of coture, celebrity clothing, stuff that readers of the magazine really can't possibly afford, and (2) Consumer fashion: coverage of stuff that the advertisers of the magazine are actually trying to sell to readers.
Cosmopolitian, for example, is mostly advicey, with some consumer fashion and little spectator fashion. InStyle (if I remember it correctly from when I was working at Time Inc. and used to read it because it was free) is mostly spectator fashion, celebrity rather than coture oriented, with some consumer fashion. Vogue is almost all spectator fashion.
I don't think I have a point here.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:55 AM
Car/Hot Rod Magazines and Field-and-Stream type magazines are aspirational in just the same way. And they are out for the people waiting in corresponding places. Gives me an idea of what's in, how certain things are done, basically technique. You feel you learn from it and keep up.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 10:59 AM
#94: The "girl power" crap is, of course, about capitulation to the patriarchy; it is an unfortunate truth that communicating status through clothing is a way for women to assert power and femininity in tandem. Of course it costs more--what, you thought that being a "successful" woman was something you were gonna get away with? Ha!
Having said that, in real life I'm not nearly as high-femme as I pretend to be online. But I do like clothing. and I recommend Ann Taylor for well-made work stuff that is aware of fashion trends but not trendy. In other words, you can buy their clothes and wear them for years if you can afford the damn dry cleaning. They have sales, btw, twice a year: January and August, which is where much of my work wardrobe comes from.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:01 AM
BostonianGirl: I have a good friend who took a job at Ann Taylor when she dropped out of our PhD program. She's happy that she doesn't have to buy work clothes for another ten years, but I doubt she'd recommend the gig to someone else. She says that it was fine when she was working there in Oregon, but that in Manhattan the customers were all Just. Awful. From what I've heard, her store manager was also unsympathetic about scheduling. Maybe it could be okay in Boston.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:02 AM
#94: The "girl power" crap is, of course, about capitulation to the patriarchy;
Ok, whoever leaves comment 94 had better be trim the content to match the response.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:06 AM
51: B has clearly mastered this advice-from-the-future-self thing.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:09 AM
__________________________________________
94
uhh. girl power!
Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:06
_________________________________________
how's that?
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:13 AM
I screwed it up. self-banishment.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:14 AM
#52 actually seems right; B lives about as determinedly "alternative" a life, at least as an internet persona, as you would expect a conventional person's disappointed future self would urge her to live.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:16 AM
I hear a voice from the future
Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:06 AM
__________________________________________
95
text: do not try teh olde "double comment" trick. It is tired, and you will screw it up.
Posted by text from the future | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:16 AM
Ok, 94 was meant to be 44. I haven't had a cigarette today, I'm a little untable.
#55: John, shhh! It's a secret.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:21 AM
unstable. See?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:22 AM
vogue plays with the line between art, art-photography, and fashion a lot. it's fun. and they also publish reviews of contemporary art and books that's not always bad. it's certainly way more intelligent than anything in newsweek.
plus you get a healthy dose of the sublimely beautiful and the sublimely ridiculous. of course i read Paris Vogue. :)
mallarme used to secretly write women's fashion magazines, you know.
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:23 AM
Before I was married, I was very untable. I was even unplate.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:24 AM
although if anyone can explain to me why a lot of the models in this month's paris vogue are wearing bloomers that would be a great help to me. yeesh.
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 11:28 AM
it's to hide their shame.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 12:15 PM
I clicked on this comment, scrolled up to see what it was responding to, and guffawed. Well done, text.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 12:17 PM
41: AC, unless there is more than one guy who fell out of a window while partying at Brown (quite possible), I know that guy! That was scary.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 12:48 PM
AC, MH -- if I'm not mistaken someone else (a friend of my son's) fell out of the window with him and was killed.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 12:54 PM
#65
The friend of your son 1. fell out of a window at Brown, 2. with another guy, 3. who was in a bodycast for a year, 4. and went on to be a U of C grad student?
Or just some of that?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 1:01 PM
The guy I met has initials C.B. and is a sociologist.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 1:03 PM
I only found out about the second person when I googled my son's friend just now. The survivor's initials were E.W. and he graduated in 1997. Sounds like Brown needs a new window policy.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 1:15 PM
Yes, the person I knew was E.W. He and I graduated in the same year.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 1:27 PM
It was really a sad case. The woman who was killed was very lively and promising, and not one of the kids my son know who seemed likely to come to a bad end.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 2:12 PM
John, I've never before picked up on the fact that you have a kid.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 2:42 PM
Joke? I thought I might mention him too much.
He's my only reference point for youth culture since about 1970.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 2:50 PM
Not a joke. I knew you have nieces, but somehow missed the direct progeny. Of course, I also occasionally have the experience of driving down familiar streets and wondering, "Has that mall always been there?"
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:03 PM
I knew you had a son, Emerson. Because, unlike Apo, I care.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:07 PM
You know that I care that you care, Tim.
[Chomsky alert].
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:14 PM
My son played bass on the Decenberists' "Her Majesty". That's my main claim to coolness in the world of today.
He and several Dcemberists and others have formed a POogues cover band for St. Patrick's day. Doug Fir, Portland OR.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:16 PM
Does anyone else write about art for Vogue besides Dodie Kazanjian? I only follow Vogue's covers.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:18 PM
You're clearly hipper than me, Emerson. I don't know what "[Chomsky alert]" means.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:19 PM
Do you care that I care that you care? Because if you do, I care that you care that I care that you care.
Add "Colorless gfreen ideas sleep furiously" and "NP + VP", and you've got Chomsky sacked.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:21 PM
You're making my head hurt, Emerson. Isn't that always the way? You open your heart to a man, and he takes it as an opportunity to hurt you.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:24 PM
Smasher's here! Since you're the resident artguy, do you know of any others?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:28 PM
Add "Colorless gfreen ideas sleep furiously" and "NP + VP", and you've got Chomsky sacked.
No, you don't.
(By which I mean that I don't understand what he's talking about either.)
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:35 PM
I forgot how fragile you were. Story of your life, I'm sure.
My Becks- typing comes from wanting a beer. I have to drive later, so I can't. Up to a point, my drunken typing is fine.
But at least the Demcebrists can't google themselves or the Pooges.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:38 PM
Bob Flanagan nailed his penis to a board. And then—then!—he later repeated the performance.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:40 PM
Did he go through the urethra or past it? Past it probably would relatively unproblematic.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:44 PM
That strikes me more as using his penis as a canvas than a paintbrush, but there's that, yes. I've recommended it here previously, but the documentary about Flanagan really is an amazing, beautiful movie, and far less of a freakshow than one might think.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:46 PM
It's in the movie, John.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:48 PM
Did he go through the urethra or past it? Past it probably would relatively unproblematic.
Past it, if the movie Sick has it right. It was long believed that another artist, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, removed sections of his penis in successive amputations, but that turns out to have been false.
There were other artists from the same school as Schwarzkogler, the 1960s Actionists (in Vienna), namely Hermann Nitsch and Otto Mühl, who performed (real, verifiable) acts of severe supermasochism. I'm sure those guys cocked up some art. I've read that Pollock added a personal action pigment to a select few of his paintings.
But an artist who used his member to apply pigment to a support, noneuphemistically? No names come to mind.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 3:55 PM
Armsmasher, there's a vacuum for someone to fill there. We knew you when.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 4:04 PM
Armsmasher, there's a vacuum for someone to fill there.
Don't go encouraging him, Emerson.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 4:07 PM
I'll show you some happy fucking trees, all right.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-20-06 4:07 PM
So if a future self told the past self to avoid certain mistakes, and the past self listened solely on the basis of the future self's authority, would the future self continue to be as wise, or would the future self become more prone to making the same mistake, at a more critical juncture in life, because the past self never learned her lessons from experience?
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 02-21-06 4:51 AM
64,65,66,67,68...
i knew a guy who fell out of a window at another ivy league school 2 hours by train from brown. from the second floor into the bushes luckily, 100% naked unluckily. i think the ivy leagues need a new mushroom policy not a new window policy...
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 02-21-06 5:26 AM
Through clothing, women can assert their will over men. Glossy magazines sometimes call it "girl power," but I think it's more like succumbing to sexist traditions.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-21-06 6:59 AM
So I was talking to my wife, and I said, "Hey, baby, come put some of girl power on me." And she was all, "I'm not taking off these clothes. I don't want to lose status." So I was like, "Fine, keep the clothes on, but show me some of that girl power. You know what I mean."
(I see in preview I was too slow. Dammit.)
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 02-21-06 7:02 AM
another ivy league school 2 hours by train from brown
Why so coy? I'm trying to figure out if I could get to Dartmouth in two hours by train, and I don't think I could, so that pretty much narrows it to one... unless you meant two hours or less...
In fairness to my alma mater, although the unfortunate people who fell out of the window were Brunonians, the party was at the art school down the hill: they're the ones with a window problem.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 02-21-06 7:16 AM
the party was at the art school down the hill: they're the ones with a window problem
As depicted in Etant donnés: 1. La chute d'eau 2. Le gaz d'éclairage.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-21-06 7:23 AM