Spoon: Girls Can Tell
This is a great, understated album that merits repeated plays. Spoon have made a literate, rocking, breakthrough record that occupies a funny place--the songs are not unconventional, per se, yet they're somehow really special. Girls Can Tell displays the emotional resonance and big rock power of, say, Thin Lizzy and Mott the Hoople; the sonically referential, indie-rock smarts of a band like Versus; and amazing hooks that recall Colin Blunstone of the Zombies. Like Jennyanykind, Moviola, and the Lilys, this Austin, Texas, trio has chosen to work on perfecting their craft without paying much heed to mainstream or trends. In spite of (but mostly because of) wrenching breakup-centered lyrical material delivered in a very real, matter-of-fact way, Girls Can Tell is one of those life-affirming pop albums you know you'll return to in years to come. --Mike McGonigal (*****)
Michael Hardt: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire
Empire (2000)—the surprise hit that made its term for U.S global hegemony stick and presciently set the agenda for post–9/11 political theory on the left—was written by this same somewhat unlikely duo: Hardt, an American political scientist at Duke University, and Negri, a former Italian parliament member and political exile, trained political scientist and sometime inmate of Rome's Rebibbia prison. This book follows up on Empire's promise of imagining a full-blown global democracy. Though the authors admit that they can't provide the final means for bringing that entity about (or the forms for maintaining it), the book is rich in ideas and agitational ends. The "multitude" is Hardt and Negri's term for the earth's six billion increasingly networked citizens, an enormous potential force for "the destruction of sovereignty in favor of democracy." The middle section on the nature of that multitude is bookended by two others. The first describes the situation in which the multitude finds itself: "permanent war." The last grounds demands for and historical precursors of global democracy. Written for activists to provide a solid goal (with digressions into history and theory) toward which protest actions might move, this timely book brings together myriad loose strands of far left thinking with clarity, measured reasoning and humor, major accomplishments in and of themselves. (****)
“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that fits all cases.”
--Carl Gustav Jung
Wit, so very engaged by the world, finds herself utterly disinterested in The Armory Art Show in New York City and the Oscar Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles.
At least, reader, there is this shoe, from Gucci's Fall 2007 collection.
Link: modelcouture: Gucci Fall 2007.
Regular readers will remember that Wit has a mild erotic attachment to chimney sweeps.
But we are sad to report that Germany has a Nazi-era law allowing for chimney sweeping by force. A forced chimney sweeping by someone with a German accent is probably somebody's idea of a good time, though this Conformist like scenario really ruins the romance for we of Wit.
"Thousands of Germans want to sweep away a Nazi-era law that authorizes chimney sweeps do regular chimney checkups by force if necessary.
The 1937 law, introduced by Interior Minister Heinrich Himmler, makes chimney sweeping compulsory, London's Sunday Telegraph reports.
It also gives a sweep, or Schornsteinfeger, the right to enlist police and firefighters to break down people's doors if residents do not let them in.
'They broke in and officers had to handcuff me and press me against the wall as the sweep went about his business,' said Harry Hollmann, 77, part of a network of more than 100,000 people demanding a change in the law. 'It's outrageous. I have had gas heating from the 1990s. I don't need my chimney swept at all.'
Authorities set prices of up to $200 a visit and householders must accept the service up to four times a year.
A chimney sweeps spokesman responds: 'Yes, we can force people to accept our service. Yes, people cannot choose their Schornsteinfeger, but he also cannot choose his clients. Our service is not like any other -- it is a legal obligation in the interest of public safety'."
Link: United Press International--The Washington Times, America's Newspaper.
Italy actually has a Chimney Sweep Festival that looks really fun: Chimney Sweeps festival - Italy.
A card from an antique French chimney sweep game, above. We at Wit resolutely believe in the power to choose one's Schornsteinfeger.
Thank God they're so young and glamorous, it's good for the globe.
Check out the whole slide show at the link.
"....But as ever in London, the real story is the exploding subculture that's fueling all the creativity. The source of the optimistic energy....can chiefly be tracked down to Boombox, run by Richard Mortimer at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen in the East End on Sundays. Here, Central Saint Martins student sybarites, drag queens, and young designers compete in a weekly spectacle of outdress-thy-neighbor, taking shoestring-budget sartorial customization—and incredible feats of makeup—to almost editorial levels of innovation...."
"The couture faithful at Jean Paul Gaultier may not have literally expected a full religious experience, but that’s what they got, complete with a large puff of incense and a visitation by the saints. From first to last, every model wore a halo. Their faces were painted like plaster statues, their garb inspired by the vernacular devotional art found in local churches throughout the Catholic world.
Was it an outrage? Well, not really. Gaultier has treated religion in some very provocative ways, not the least of which was, way back, a tableau of the crucified Christ. But this time, the tone, if not precisely reverential, wasn’t calculated to mock. Instead, his ingenious skews on church iconography seemed gently appreciative of its capacity for shining beauty."
Link: Jean Paul Gaultier Spring 2007 Couture Collection on Style.com: Runway Review.
“And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel; / Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: / His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.”
--King James Version
Spectacular shoes (on spectacular feet) from the Jean Paul Gaultier collection.
Link: Style.com: the online home of Vogue and W; Fashion, Fashion Shows, Shopping & More.
A Rakish History of Men's Wear
From September 8, 2006 through April 7, 2007
Edna Barnes Salomon Room (Third Floor)
New York Public Library Humanities and Social Sciences Library, 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
This exhibition surveys men's dress from antiquity to the present, noting how through the centuries male style has swung from ostentation to restraint and back again. Masculine clothing has changed over time owing to a multitude of social, economic, and attitudinal transformations. At first, individuals chose garments that proclaimed their rank or special status as warriors and leaders. Later, sumptuary laws (restricting what could and could not be worn), chivalric codes, and the rituals of royal courts played a role in the development of masculine garments. By the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, male fashion leaders were admired both overtly and covertly. The growth of a new bourgeoisie in the late 18th century further influenced the outward expression of modern masculinity, as dandies took upon themselves the role of fashion leaders.
Link: NYPL, Exhibitions at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library.
"So it comes as no surprise that Kate won't be designing her collection for Topshop, however what is interesting is the appointment of Katy England (creative director at Alexander McQueen [and wife of Wit favorite musician Bobby Gillespie]) who’ll create the collection on Kate’s behalf. While the prospect of seeing what England has to offer is extremely exciting, it seems such a shame that Kate, a style icon of our times, either lacks the confidence or can’t be bothered to be fully involved in the project."
Link: My Fashion Life - Tag - Kate Moss .
It certainly seems to us that hiring one of your best friends, someone with whom Ms. Moss has already worked so closely in the past, seems like full involvement.
"Some shape-shifters are able to change form only if they have some item, usually an article of clothing. Most of these are innocuous creatures — even if they are werewolves. In Bisclaveret by Marie de France, a werewolf cannot regain human form without his clothing, but in wolf form does no harm to anyone.
Another such creature is the selkie, which needs its sealskin to regain its form. In The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry the (male) selkie seduces a human woman but does no further harm.
The commonest use of this motif, however, is in tales where a man steals the article and forces the shape-shifter, trapped in human form, to become his bride. This lasts until she discovers where he has hidden the article, and she can flee. Selkies feature in these tales. Others include swan maidens and the Japanese Tennin.
Various forms of fairytale fantasy have taken up these creatures and incorporated them into modern day works. Jane Yolen took up the notion of selkie in Greyling and transformed it into a foundling tale..."
Link: Shapeshifting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"The Koh-i-Noor diamond was mined in India in around 1100 and probably originated from Golconda in the southern region of Andhra Pradesh. The shape and size of a small hen's egg, the diamond attained a sinister mystique.
The 186-carat gem, whose name means Mountain of Light in Persian and was described by one Mughal emperor as being 'worth half the daily expense of the whole world', carried with it a curse and a 750-year bloodstained history of murder, megalomania and treachery.
It is probably not entirely coincidental that the Koh-i-Noor is reserved for use in crowns used by a female member of the British Royal Family. A Hindu text from the time of Koh-i-Noor's first authenticated appearance in 1306 states that the stone carries a curse lethal to male owners. It read: 'Only God or a woman can wear it with impunity'."
Link: Independent Online Edition > This Britain.
Via: Professor Hex.
"If I were wearing a tuxedo I'd want to wear it with satin Converse sneakers. I'd want my tuxedo to be shrunken and ill-fitting, so I'd look like one of the John Holmstrom cartoons from Punk magazine."
--Marc Jacobs
"It's a style that sees ebbs and flows in popularity but hasn't really completely fallen out of favor since Yves Saint Laurent introduced Le Smoking in 1966.
Saint Laurent's tuxedo look Le Smoking was an extension of the revolution he'd started a few years earlier by pushing pants for women, says Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.
'YSL helped dress women for the daytime in a much more masculinized style - to confront men as equals at work,' she says.
In the 1970s, it was the Studio 54 glitterati, women such as Bianca Jagger, who would dare wear a tuxedo, observes Avril Graham, executive editor of Harper's Bazaar, but it has become a more acceptable form of cocktail and eveningwear for all women in all parts of the country.
Still, she says, women should make an effort to both feminize their outfit and to make it glamorous."
Link: DenverPost.com - Try a tux for dressing to the nines.
Via: Ghost of a flea.
Kate Moss in top hat, above.
