Leandra Medine's Blog, page 655

The Best App for a Lazy Schlepper

I live in a fifth floor walk up.

When I have guests over, the first thing they say to me by the time they reach my door is never “Hello,” but always, “I can’t breathe.”

Then they collapse in a dramatic pile while asking how I walk up five flights of stairs every day.

My answer is always, “It’s easy.” Five flights are not that big a deal. I grew up on top of a giant San Francisco hill — going up a few steps is child’s play. Sometimes I meet the Seamless delivery guy halfway just to prove my own stair-loving fitness.

Perhaps this is why my friends find it utterly perplexing that if I leave a sweater at someone’s apartment on the Upper East Side, I refuse to return uptown to claim it. So long, sweater. You were cool.

Or, if I borrow a friend’s coat who lives in Chelsea, I have to lure her to my den with the promise of wine, cheese and an interpretive dance so that she handles the retrieve.

Come to think of it, I don’t like going to the post office either.

I am also admittedly violently lazy.

But luckily for me, there’s an app for all of that which I cannot bear to schlep. It’s called Shipster, and it is a godsend. It’s helped me reclaim all of my once-abandoned belongings scattered throughout the city and return that which I’ve hoarded.

It’s also great when your roommate forgets his keys and neither of you agrees to budge.

Shipster — currently based out of New York — works much in the same way Uber does. Plug in your address and a messenger arrives to pick up or drop off. Of note: the pricing is always cheaper than if I’d taken a cab to and from the errand (because haha, no subways for this paycheck-shredding sloth).

Here is where Uber differs until they invent black SUVs that can fly: Shipster will deliver your crap anywhere in the world. Immediately. Or as fast as humanly-plus-airplane-ly possible. I find that mind-boggling.

I know there’s been systems in place like this for years (UPS, FedEx, ever heard of them?) but never before have they come to my house at the press of a button and then saved my life just an hour later.

One time, a Shipster messenger completed a really important drop off for me on Halloween while dressed like robot, and he brought me candy.

You guys, that is magic.

Download it here.

Speaking of which: this week’s Writers Prompt is about dream apps. Tell us about your dream creation here. 

Milanese Magpies

It’s a beautiful thing to be a little tacky. Historically, the word causes faces to cringe and chins to drop as eyes survey their body’s choice in wardrobe or interior design or floral arrangements. “Am I tacky?” you may question yourself when the two syllables are dropped nearby like a glittering microphone.

But here’s a better question to ask: are you happy?

If the answer is yes then your wardrobe is blessed, because tacky is an adjective that could save us all.

Milan street style has never shied away from the magpie’s aesthetic. It refutes that famous bossy block quote’s advice to “remove one accessory before you leave the house” and then asks, “Who told you to chime in?”

Attention block quote: that was a rhetorical question.

You see, the industrial backdrop of Italy’s fashion week capital acts as the perfect canvas for seasoned yolo-dressing. Where the cities of New York and London and Paris compete with its designers and street style stars (shamelessly boasting their yellow cabs, red phone booths and sprawling gardens while decked in year-round Christmas lights), Milan relaxes onto a wooden bench and allows its citizens and visitors to command the attention.

If New York was a bold fur coat and London a set of stacked rainbow brogues, then Milan is a neutral suit with hems just short enough that when one leg is crossed over the other’s knee, a pair of bright yellow socks are exposed and shock the system.

If Milan was an age, then it would belong to the kind of person who believes that age is just a number.

And if you were to assign Milan a trend, you’d have to pick a trend that loaned itself to more than one meaning. Like flare — as in the shape and the dangling, bangling excess

Don’t bother pinning a decade to this city either. One woman’s 1970s is another’s whole-hearted take on modern.

You could call it tacky. Tacky or happy. But when the words become synonymous and elicit collective joy from the wearer, the photographer, and the person who clicks through pictures on a screen, no one’s going to argue. Especially not with a magpie.

Images via Tommy Ton for Style.com and Adam Katz Sinding for W and Le 21 ème.

When We Say “Modern,” What Do We Mean?

A common catchword thrown around at fashion week and in the subsequent reviews that command our opinions on the shows: modern.

An uncommon question to counter its exaggerated use in context with which it tends to have little business co-mingling: what exactly do you mean by modern?

It would be one thing if suddenly every designer on the face of the metropolis set out to honestly strike the freshest, newest, most contemporary take on the clothes we wear. However, as evidenced by both an argument expounded upon yesterday in a story on the evolution of the 70s revival and the mere notion that as humans interested in what is used to cloak our bodies, we crave reliable clothes that boast familiar ideas. Most of the interpretations of bygone decades and themes that we’ve witnessed resuscitated in the last month are effectively borrowed and very loosely-edited material.

But there’s a baseline understanding here that of course these clothes will be called modern — they’re present tense depictions of past references, right?

Here’s where I get confused, though — because, really, can a pair of corduroy flare leg pants evince the spirit of “modern”: a word that is defined by its basis on the newest information, methods or technology? Didn’t that sense of modernity already happen the first time corduroy and flares came around?

Transcendental meditation sets out to quell a collective struggle of the human condition — our discomfort with uncertainty. We try to control the future in an attempt to find stability in it and as Amelia points out, that may be precisely why we’re such a generation of nostalgists. It is only inside the corridors of the past where we can safely deposit our respective senses of security, and so perhaps in attempting to blanket our fashion under a term that roots us in the present, we’re able to fake a level of comfort opposite our relationships with the future. But that doesn’t quite rectify our having homogenized a term that has historically (though, yes, literally) pertained to the new.

So what we mean, I think, when we say modern, is simply, “intriguing.” Creatures of the Wind’s Christopher Peters is a bit more cynical. He told me that modern is a filler word we used to add gravity to our descriptions without quite knowing what we mean, while J.Crew’s Tom Mora defines it by considering “clothes that withstand trends and fleeting fashion whims.”

Fresh, isn’t it? But what do you mean?

Milan in a Sequence of Run-on Sentences

The irony in what appears to look like an Italian show deeply rooted in historic American cultural stereotypes set on an acid trip while boasting the kind of hip-galvanizing cargo harem pants you may have thought were dead but are proving to be very much alive and creatively structured jeans capable of fruition only at the hand of DSquared2 is maybe not ironic at all.

All hail the moms! At Dolce and Gabbana, models with fetal balls attached to their stomachs were not the only talking point; some had actual offspring that stood, short and delicate, next to their rose-adorned, frock-covered mothers; others among the 88-look collection wore illustrations of houses and garments and stick figures and sunshine, ostensibly drawn by particularly precocious children, set on silk skirts and dresses in the typical Dolce silhouettes — so think full and pencil skirts alike, party dresses and a little something sheer.

Marni stood as a salient reminder that the 70s run deep through the veins of Italy, too, splashed over a reminder that the 80s came next, displaying flare legs, turtlenecks, power shoulders, the indigenous lush fur accents and nostalgic floral prints, which, frankly, just make you want to shop.

Meanwhile, Jil Sander, with its take on the turtleneck (show them bright or don’t show them at all) and geometric prints to counter its perennial case-making for the quiet uniform, showed respect for its old house tradition without compromising an urge to set the wheel of reinvention in motion; there was a tri-colored white furry ankle-length coat fit for a street-style princess, rendered with the same gusto that a white spaghetti-strap slip dress later commanded.

Pucci did its part to keep you fastened to your seat, showing a set of optical illusions to ease the eye into another look at the 70s with fabric neck-huggers and athletic stripes, shown in various shades of red and blue and then again in green, where a coat ostensibly modeled after The Muppets‘ own Kermit almost shared a moment with a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that bravura set in precious white chiffon dresses and blouses countered by harder details like a black fringe jacket or a soft, thick choker.

What’s the opposite of groundbreaking? Awesome? Prada doesn’t need to reinvent her wheel and this season, she didn’t, with pastel tweed double breasts, interspersed bows that were both coy and unassuming, contrast color collars, cropped flare legs and the kind of sweetheart necklines that remind you why women get women best.

The fur fiend Fendi proved its salt once again but not without first demonstrating sheer dexterity elsewhere, among the leather-smiths, where the lumber jumpers (I know you know what I mean) flow like wine at happy hour and the skirts like snakes in a desert; of course, though, you couldn’t appreciate that without also paying attention the Chihuahuas that engulfed The Feet.

Of note at Alessandro dell’Acqua’s No. 21 were the layers upon layers of story shown in white and blush pink as though human curtains far less interested in concealing than they are in simply being — allowing the sun to shine as it may and then to drape as they’re wont to.

On par with DSquared2’s wild trip through place and time, Stella Jean showed an explosion of tribal prints off set by plaid, stripes and some pom-poms that marveled in the fun of fashion without compromising its ability to do what it must: elicit curiosity, compel you to try and arguably most importantly, escape.

Of course, though, the most prominent collection of Milan’s round of shows burst its own bubble before the season even really started on day one with an opening set of nipples countered by a neck ruffle and a high waist, mid-length red leather skirt shown at the hand of Gucci‘s new creative wunderkind: Alessandro Michele, who spectacularly blurred the kind of gender lines we no longer consider with some pant suits shown with confetti (and pussy) bows and the kind of dresses that make you wonder why you fought against them to start.

Off to Paris we go but first: can you spare a sentence?

Click here for more Fashion Week coverage.

March to the Beat of Your Own Horoscope

Pisces 

Never failing to excite, Astrology Zone’s Susan Thriller Miller begins your horoscope right: “The month starts out with a lovely interplay between Jupiter and Uranus.” Jupiter is the planet of good luck and Uranus is the planet of surprises. I’d assume luck is always an important factor when talking about interplay, surprises and Uranus, don’t you agree?

Today will present an opportunity for you to make a lot of money. Commenters, do tell: do you feel rich yet? By March 5, your focus will be on love. If it’s not love then it’s some sort of important relationship, but with Saturn the planet-not-the-defunct-car-company sending out good vibes to the new moon, this union sets a solid tone for the future.

Neptune, a planet that I don’t think we talk enough about (this changes today!) is working on its tan and hanging close to the sun while remaining in your sign. According to Suz, “Neptune takes 168 years to circle the Sun and the twelve signs of the zodiac, so it’s clear many people never get to experience what you will be experiencing now.” And what are you experiencing? Fame, apparently. Better start waxing your nostrils and whitening your teeth.

Aries 

You have something this month that no else seems to possess: energy. “Boundless energy” are Miller’s exact words, though it exhausts me just to type. You have a golden triangle linking up planets in fire signs which sounds like an illuminati spider bite but is protecting you during what’s sure to be a creative time in both career and the arts.

But take caution: Pluto and Uranus are going to get into a Real Housewives of the Solar System Reunion fight on March 15. It’s their 7th time getting into it, but the last of said brawls during your lifespan. The flying mouth spit surrounding their drama could cause someone in your work environment to block an idea of yours like an ex’s new girlfriend on Instagram. Keep your hoops in and be diplomatic. It pays off in the long run when you’re Andy Cohen’s favorite.

What’s RHOSS without a love interest, though? Today begins a string of days for you “that will bring romance when you least expect it.” What is to expect? An exceptional hair moment on March 16. Coincidence that March 16 is when season 2 of Southern Charm airs? I think not. The bigger the hair, the better the month. #blowout

Taurus 

If you actually read Astrology Zone, either to fact check me or to see who your celebrity astrological match is, then you’ll know that Susan Miller isn’t feeling well (get better Susan!!) and as a result many of her horoscopes were shorter this week. Taurus is the shortest because I believe she has a vendetta against the bull sign, but brevity is good news in the case of this month’s soft serve.

“The tender full moon of March 5 will be magically romantic,” she promises. “With Mercury in fine angle to Uranus, you might feel hit by lightning when you lock eyes with someone intriguing across the room at the full moon.” She cautions us to go slowly with any new relationship this month because that person may be unavailable (read: married). I simply caution us to not enter any rooms with glaring electricity hazards.

Finally, the solar eclipse of March 20 will be what Susan calls a “blessing” to our social life, “for it will generate lots of activity.”  That sounds like an oxymoron/nightmare to me because plans are the worst, but as with all solar eclipses: something ends (Downton Abbey) and something new (Downton Ackee) begins.

Gemini 

Explaining the concept of “friends with benefits” to those who we view in a maternal or grand-maternal light is uncomfortable and ten times out of ten never worth it. Susan Miller, however, is more with it than one might imagine and loudly suggests that he or she who’s been on the video games-and-more track in your life may suddenly add “and much, much more” to their title. You two are likely to DTR this weekend when Mars and Uranus will orbit near Venus.

“Things may happen spontaneously, to the surprise of you AND your partner,” she writes. Now, I’m not saying to not have fun, I’m just saying to be cautious when anyone uses the words “spontaneously” and “surprise” and “Uranus” in the same sentence. (See Pisces, note use of the additional word “luck.”)

Speaking of surprises and Uranus, you’re going to get a sudden golden beam from said planet…today! It’s going to be good news, but “good news” is subjective when you’ve taken the butt sex metaphor for one beat longer than anyone needed.

And because I personally need redemption: for the main part of March, your career will take a successful center stage.

Cancer 

Good things rarely come from hooking up in the workplace, but this month we have Uranus and Jupiter practicing foreplay during the same work shift which means that your career will explode.

Use March 10 to finally ask for a raise, impress your boss with a presentation or to clear the weird crap out from under your desk. Then, Susan and Ellie Goulding want you to mark March 11 as an “anything can happen day.” The former cautions you to look your best just in case while the latter wants you to raise one arm in the air with a glow stick.

“The solar eclipse on March 20 will broaden your horizons in a big, exciting way, doubly so if your birthday falls near July 20,” writes Susan. What does that unclear but hopeful sentiment mean? Travel, look into grad school, take the Bar, go to Bar Method, eat a chocolate bar, drink at a bar. The world is your oyster thanks to the eclipse, and you are Lupito Nyong’o’s dress.

Leo 

Your gumbo had a little bit more spice than the other horoscopes, Leo, and for that I’m going to avoid the Uranus jokes for a moment to talk about Saturn, which will go retrograde on March 14 and stay there until August 2. Hey Mercury, how does it feel to have someone else hogging all of the vacation days? “Any time a planet retrogrades,” Suze writers, “the cosmos urges you to deliberate about how things are going and to think about possible changes you might like to make.” During this time, you may either get back together with an ex or change your mind about the person you’re sharing McNuggets with now.

You’ll also notice the new moon solar eclipse on March 20th. Because the Sun rules your sign, you’re more effected by a solar eclipse as opposed to a lunar one, although none of us are safe from a total eclipse of the heart.

What does this particular sunny side up egg mean? Mad money, yo. It might come from royalties or a bonus or Cash Cab or my favorite kind of financial surprises — hidden, matured stock via the private wealth sector of the Bank of Surprise! You’re a Princess. The latter is totally plausible because according to a very, openly-biased Suz (AND HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN SAYING THIS, ALL NON-LEOS?): “You are the celestial favorite.”

This woman is shameless sometimes, I swear.

Virgo

You’re going to have one of those months where you keep on almost getting arrested on the subway because people assume you’re “playing with yourself” in public but what you’re really doing is trying to cram all of the cash back into your pockets. March 15 is the only day where finances may annoy you. Some bully may try to steal your milk money so just make sure you sneeze visibly and audibly on all dollar bills so that no one wants to touch them once you’re through. This is my personal strategy as of late.

The full moon this month will be in Virgo on March 5, “bringing attention to all your dreams and wishes.” Finally! Your friends will see the value in your favorite bar’s 80s cover band / fanny pack night and will attend alongside you in spandex and leg warmers so that you don’t have to go alone. If that’s not a dream then I don’t know what is.

Around the solar eclipse of March 20, you’ll experience an event of “great importance.” Susan mentioned a relationship of yours becoming more established, and brought up the theme of home improvement. Looks like you and a boyfriend are about to have a make or break Ikea moment. Keep Martha Stewart on speed dial in case you need to phone a friend.

And if you’re single? From March 17 until April 11, make sure you leave the office on time and hit happy hour as though the arm on your watch only points one way.

Libra 

Your celestial map is looking like an old cowboy movie this month as several planets are in the Western part of your chart (in your opposite sign of Aries) and they’re all like bang bang into the room!

So actually, this might be an Ariana Grande song.

What this means, in addition to tiny boots and high pony tails, is that you need to keep your cool when facing adversaries. Also, “sit back and let partners contribute their ideas,” suggests Suz. “You may find them quite agreeable and wish you had thought of them yourself!” Personally I wouldn’t have put an exclamation point there but she was clearly feeling generous and festive.

You may also start to feel run down this month. The “good news,” according to Susan, is that “your health will be assisted by the new moon solar eclipse of March 20.” What does she mean by that, specifically? It’s a great time to begin a fitness routine. (Insert more cheery Susan exclamations here –> !) Like I stated earlier, “good news” is subjective. But you know what my takeaway is? Once anyone besides Jen Selter deems it a “good time” to begin working out, summer is finally, hopefully, semi-officially on the way.

At least more than it was back in February.

Scorpio

You’re going to get a piece of news this month that arrives, completely unexpected, like a lightning bolt, from Uranus. Visualize that, Scorpian King. I comma’d the shit out of the sentence so you’d follow right along with me as though this were a wine and paint by numbers class.

Jupiter in your sign’s career sector is peacing out on August 11 (it’s going to Virgo if you’re in the mood for a fight) and won’t come back for 12 years. This may be because Uranus is throwing around lightning bolts, but it also may just be because that’s the way the solar system works. IDK, you made the diorama for science class, not me. The point is to make the most out of your career until August 11 so that you can reap the benefits once Jupiter’s gone. Work hard play hard, my lethal-tailed friend.

On March 15, Pluto — your ruler — will be “in sharp odds with Uranus.” Fiber should fix that! Or, per Susan’s solution, literally avoid this day. Just stay indoors and do nothing. It’s a Sunday, which means you have full permission to go buck wild on Saturday and nurse your hangover until Monday arrives.

As for love? Venus will be all up in the house of relationships and marriage on March 17 “sending sweet vibrations to Neptune in romantic Pisces.” Just make sure you don’t pack it in your suitcase!

Sagittarius 

You’ll feel the urge to travel this month (especially with your significant other), which is nice considering you’re half horse, half human and can therefore probably get places a lot faster on four hooves than those of us on two feet in this wintry mush. Did you know that in Nantucket, the waves have turned into 7-Eleven Slurpees? Well they have, and 9 out of 10 people still prefer the flavor cherry.

You have some sort of triangle happening thanks to Venus, Mars, and Uranus which will “add sugar and spice to your life.” Maybe you can mix it into your ocean Slurpee to eliminate the overwhelming taste of salt.

Like seemingly every other sign, your career will be on fiya this month (which is confusing, because then aren’t we essentially all competing? or maybe we’re all succeeding). Virgo in particular is blowing up your house of first place ribbons and trophy cases. Today (March 3) your brain will be especially hot.

Finally, “if you are single and not dating, but wish you were, you won’t be alone for long,” writes $uzan the Millionaire Matchmaker. “Wear perfume [or cologne!] and your favorite outfit, and dance the night away. This month you have a powerful magnetism that others will be aware of instantly.” Magnets rule. Don’t forget to use them as an excuse to sit weirdly close to someone!

Capricorn 

Apparently you’ve had Uranus, planet-o-butts (although Susan has recently taken to calling Uranus the “planet of sudden change”) in your house of home and family since March 2011. It does not take an astrologer to determine that when it comes to all things apartment/rent/roommate-related this translates to: pain in the ass. This month will change all that.

…Except on March 11, when Susan wants you to stay home (fake sick? It’s a Wednesday) but she cautions to avoid stepping on sharp plastic toys. Sometimes I think she’s projecting. Keep your cell phone in your hand at all times in case you slip or something.

Your ruling planet, Saturn, will go retrograde on March 14. “Do not start new projects,” Susan bosses. Instead, “assess your progress on ongoing projects, and make detailed tweaks.” Twerks, in other words. Put the words “ass-ess” and “tweaks” in the same sentence after ten horoscopes filled with Uranus innuendos and dare me not to make that twerk connection. You can’t because I just did.

In terms of love, be patient until the 17th. In terms of patience, practice twerking. Maybe you’ll use it to find love in a hopeless place.

Aquarius

Alright you. 

Let’s end this slew of ‘$copes the way they began: with a day (today!) of interplay between Jupiter (luck) and Uranus (surprise and travel). Goin UP on a Tuesday.

What this combination means besides butt stuff is that out of all the various relationships that can form in this world (friendship, partnership, lovership) one will really take hold and soar like an eagle whose mask has been removed by Jennifer Lawrence. Raise your wing if you watched Serena this weekend even though you meant to order Selena On Demand, but your TV robot misheard you.

Anywho, the decisions you make at the beginning of March will last.

“Quick, short travel seems to be written all over this month,” predicts Susan, “giving you plenty of opportunities to spontaneously head for a beautiful, sunny place.” I think I speak on behalf of the entire horoscope-reading community when I ask, “May I come?”

You have no choice but to say yes, because by March 20th you’ll see a “large influx of cash.” It would be kind of rude if you didn’t share the literal wealth. The green has potential to rain down after some sort of sale, so my advice to you? Do your spring cleaning before spring has spring, sell it, take the money, strap on some ice skates, and let’s run.

Want to see if last month’s predictions came true? Click here for past horoscopes.

SNL Wants Us to Say What We Want to Say

Sara Bareilles sings with agency.

The kind of agency that, according to an unscientific statistic I’m more comfortable calling blind generalization, women tend to lack — particularly when it comes to being honest about our feelings. I might say I recycle but frankly, I don’t (all the time). I loved the 50 Shades of Grey movie, okay? I drink smoothies, yes, but only because I chase them with ice cream and yes, your dad is really fucking hot. I would totally go out with him.

In Saturday Night Live’s most recent skit, comedians Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, Leslie Jones and guest star Dakota Johnson stopped sublimating their true feelings and effectively pranced, danced, and threw their hands in the air, liberated by such unapologetic admissions as:

“I’ve known you for a really long time and I still don’t know your name.”

“No [I don’t want to split that cookie with you]. I want you to give me the whole thing.”

“I’m not [coming to your birthday party] and you’ll probably never see me outside of work, unless you come to my house.”

Through their honest proclamations, Sara Bareilles’ “Brave” played in the background — a tongue-in-cheek reminder that although we’re taught to “be polite” and “quiet,” it’s time to make our voices heard.

But is it just women who withhold these kinds of thoughts? Don’t we all tell white lies for the sake of political correctness? Larry David’s character in Curb Your Enthusiasm may very well be the only person I’ve come upon who actually says what’s on his mind and frankly, I feel inspired to admit something: Amelia Diamond, I don’t actually like this video. I laughed out loud because I thought it’d make you feel good if I did. This feels good to say!

Now I turn the table over to you, friends, what do you really want to say?

The 1970s Have Co-Opted 2015

We are no strangers to nostalgia. We crave it, we worship it, we post about it  and, perhaps most pertinently in the recent dawn of Fashion Month, we wear it. The Seventies have been vehemently revived on the runway. As a result, few collections do not present suede, shearling or warm, earthy tones. Seeking a pant without flare is like seeking chocolate with no sugar: vaguely rare and frankly, kind of bitter. But the thing about the runway replicas of seventies hallmarks is precisely that  — they’re replicas.

Maybe this indicates the longevity and attractiveness of seventies fashion, but in the oversimplification of an entire decade of clothes, the devaluing of fashion history presents itself as another overarching trend.

In the use of the concept of minimalism, the decade in question is reduced to little nuance. Surely the more bohemian looks of the early seventies vary from the tailored activewear of mid-decade, which in turn is different from the styles that just preceded the eighties. It was a span of time that is marked by substantial shifts in both style and politics, and yet, this went largely unexplored in New York at Fashion Week. Never mind the mere fact that the city is home to several designers who punctuated the bygone and renewed era: Halston, Ralph Lauren, Diane von Furstenberg et al.

But the disregard for contextual history doesn’t just plague the most recent trend on our hands — altogether collections of the past few seasons have become permutations of what they’d previously been. Rare is a designer who does more than fix his syntax. But it seems like an impossibility that the apparent talent on display is just less creative than it has been, so maybe the democratization of both information and archives have provided an opportunity to play around with a bottomless inventory of looks that make the subsequent fusion and production astonishingly easy.

Worth asking is whether this odd, democracy-derived sense of ownership made modern fashion an abridged version of its own history, much the same way SparkNotes can summarize a Dostoyevsky novel in, say, 5oo words.

But an industry founded on the tenets of pushing boundaries and breaking barriers can’t rely on the crutch of the past forever. Sure, the nature of fashion is cyclical, but replication is detrimental to innovation. And when coupled with the mass dissemination of information, the runway becomes less influential than it ever has been. Where innovation wanes, the consumer rises. Of the clothes and their inspiration, will the girls of 2015 be saying: “I can make that myself”?

We defer to Paris.

Edited by Leandra Medine

Girls: Season 4, Episode 7

On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 10:36 PM, Leandra Medine wrote:

Why was Marnie at Mimi-Rose Howard’s art opening?

On Mar 2, 2015, at 12:10 AM, Mattie Kahn wrote:

Because she’s a backstabbing, disloyal asshole? With no loyalty? And only a bearded loser to call her own?

But really: let’s talk about the undercurrent of this episode that Dezi — of all miscreants! –put his finger on. The fact is women (creative, otherwise) really do undermine each other in subtle ways. All the time. And I thought it was sort of reductive to have that awful and real inclination manifest on Girls in terms of a guy.

MRH makes that explicit when she asks: “Are you mad because you gave up on art or because you gave up on Adam or is it both?”

I guess the question is: Is it both? Are Hannah’s creative aspirations and personal emotions bound up together? Is that the problem with teaching and the normal life that Hannah doesn’t want? The fact that neither allows for those two things to bleed into each other in destructive and cool and terrible ways?

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 7:41 AM, Leandra Medine wrote:

Isn’t the funny thing about one’s pursuit of a creative career the seemingly universal (though obviously not really) truth you can’t divorce “life” from “art”? To think you can or will live life in one vacuum and art in another seems as reductive and low common denominating as a Drake song.

I found it worthy of discussion that Hannah and MRH sat down at the laundromat (watching clothes get cleaned aka mistakes erased, second chances granted) discussing/objectifying Adam as though they actually had the kind of power and control to determine who could “have” him. That seems like something I’d have been capable of doing as a teenager, completely inexperienced and therefore unaware that I don’t control the world and therefore everyone’s feelings in it, too.

And on that note: how do you think Adam feels — because we know he feels some way — about the fact that Jessa set him up with MR not because she thought they’d strike a connection but because she wanted MR out of the way to shimmy or should I say tooth-brush into a relationship with Ace? That she could trick herself into believing Ace is “in love” with her seems to prove she hasn’t evolved at all in these past three episodes of adult awakenings. Hannah, on the other hand, hasn’t disappointed me at all in the last two episodes, and I’m not just saying that because she gave me a new point of dinner table convo with the correlation of Oedipus to the concept of the MILF.

She is actually feeling feelings and not sublimating them and letting them into the world and letting them be what they are, and she’s allowing herself to both marvel and languish in them like a self-aware twenty-something on the quest for better-hood. I almost kind of actually feel like I’m now watching a show that reflects THIS experience.

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Mattie Kahn wrote:

Oh, yes! The symbolism of the laundromat! Lost on me entirely, I must confess. I was too busy thinking about how MRH feigns human connection in the name of some warped artistic endeavor. As far as I could tell, Hannah’s instincts and Ace’s backseat diatribe were spot-on. The real genius of MRH’s work is not that it establishes authentic bonds between people. It’s that it manipulates them into emotional states that are not their own. No surprise: the fact that that is her creative impulse doesn’t make me want to be her friend–no matter what kind of spoken peace offering Hannah offers up to Adam at the end of the episode.

I think a lot of the episode (and that exchange between Jessa and Adam, in particular) is about how

It’s not nice to think that way, of course, but these characters prove it over and over again.

And if it’s true that Hannah is granting herself permission to be authentic in a way that MRH and Jessa seem unable, do you think she’s any closer to figuring out what she wants from life? She seems like the kind of teacher that could have changed my life in high school. Should she keep doing that? Is it true that teaching means giving up on art?

P.S. Unrelated, and yet related: I wish Zachary Quinto would guest star in my life.

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 11:08 AM, Leandra Medine wrote:

Maybe the contrary — doesn’t teaching give a sense of hope to future lives of art? I was thinking while she was in that classroom that so many impressionable minds sat there listening to her wax poetic on Greek mythology in such states of hyper creative fertility. Ironically unwittingly, maybe Hannah really is acting selflessly.

To your point about her manipulated authenticity, worth addressing is what definitely was authentic, right? The deranged decision to bring a pseudo-first date to her ex boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s art show. That seemed like something only the old Hannah is capable of rationalizing as appoprirate and this might mean that I totally missed the point, but I am really curious about whether said date will continue to play a role in future episodes. Didn’t it just seem like they had real potential to hit it off? So much so that you just had to assume a train wreck was on the very imminent horizon?

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 11:16 AM, Mattie Kahn wrote:

When she said she was having “a really nice time,” I knew it was over. In no universe can Hannah Horvath giggle like that, utter such banality, and just have everything work out for the best. It’s impossible.

And, yes, that disastrous first-date move (and with Fran! Who seemed so nice! And totally cool with the evolution of gender norms!) was textbook old Hannah. But the fact that when Adam demanded to know why she was there, she admitted that she had no clue seemed like progress.

It’s feels like too much to ask of our gal that she understand herself perfectly. And yet it looks we can expect her to at least be one degree more aware of herself and her emotions than she used to be.

On the bright side, I think Fran is headed for great things. Maybe he’ll be a city comptroller. Maybe he’ll write a history textbook. Maybe he’ll perfect the use of paper mache as an educational tool. The world is his oyster. He’s going places.

Here’s a quick thought experiment: Does Shosh crave the normalcy that Hannah categorically rejects?

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 11:18 AM, Leandra Medine wrote:

I defer to the commenters.

Completely behind on episodes or just can’t get enough? More GIRLS recaps here.

#Funeralcore

Effective as of two weeks ago, irony in fashion passed away. It’s true that dad jeans and mom sweaters vanished at the turn of Seinfeld’s decade — only to be resurrected fifteen years later — but on February 16th, 2015, Thom Browne was caught with a candlestick in the Billiard Room and at exactly 8:07 PM, Normcore was pronounced dead.

Baseball caps seem to have died too; they must have swallowed the poison. So have white athletic socks and Hawaiian shirts and water park slides and anything with “New York” printed on it. Larry David’s closet had its renaissance but now it’s time to close the book on Reeboks.

Bowery kids, street style stars, ska lovers, are you listening? Severe austerity has succeeded Times Square tourism.

#Funeralcore is in.

Think head-to-toe black ensembles, lace veils, fishnet stockings and patent leather brogues. Suck it, Uber: anyone who is anyone is traveling via stretcher. At the aforementioned Browne show, models somberly traipsed between the pews where viewers sat, stone-faced and fidgeting in their suddenly-antiquated Stan Smiths.

In London, the Giles models — black-lipped and peachy eyed, as though they’d recently recovered from a good, long cry — moped down the runway.

And the drama. If #normcore was all about the understated laugh, #funeralcore lives for the spectacle: Elizabethan collars, ruched Victorian sleeves and satin capes that scream, “WILL SOMEONE BRING ME MY EVIAN, please.”

At Alexander Wang, the models let their hair hang over their foreheads like stringy pieces slicked with enough oil to solve the offshore drilling crisis. Because really, who has the time for dry shampoo these days? Black velvet tuxedos, combat boots and goth anteriors underscored the collection. There was a rare pop of color, most probably worn by a distant cousin of the deceased. Excuse me, athleisure, this seat is reserved for Wednesday Addams.

Back in the bygone era of 2014, The Cut accredited #normcore to artists who used it, “not to describe a particular look but a general attitude: embracing sameness deliberately as a new way of being cool, rather than striving for ‘difference’ or ‘authenticity.'”

To them I say, what’s more innately authentic than death?

Images via Style.com

The Reservation Game

My dilemma always starts innocently: I walk into my favorite restaurant, I’m ready to chow down, but the hostess greets me with insincere apologies of a 40 minute wait to be seated.

40 minutes?

Preposterous!

I have things to do (I don’t), places to be (like what, my bed?), and my time is precious (it really isn’t). This is the first, and crucial mistake. It’s a Friday night and this is a half-decent restaurant downtown – I’d be kidding myself if I wasn’t expecting to wait. But it’s already too late for such logical reason.

“There’s always that place round the corner,” I hear myself say to my friends, and with that one phrase the evening’s bar has been set: we will refuse to eat at any food establishment with a wait longer than 40 minutes. To do so would be to act against principle, to hate on an ideal and then brand myself with it.

Of course, we get to “that place round the corner” and the wait is an hour and a half. We act outraged — What is it with wait times tonight? – deluding ourselves from the truth that we’re in the wrong, not the hospitality industry.

From here it’s a test of group stubbornness. The ensuing search may last 30 minutes to an hour, but it invariably ends up in white-flag defeat with everyone so tired and hungry after trawling the city that standards reach rock bottom.

We’ll end up at some Italian chain with soggy pasta and try to convince ourselves that this is a happy outcome. I’ll laugh when someone mentions that we could have been seated and served at the first restaurant by this point, but the $8 carbonara will sour in my mouth as I wistfully dream of roasted brussel sprouts and artisan bread.

So to future me, I impart this wisdom: stop being so damn greedy. The grass is not greener on the other side. Hope is not your friend. This wont be that one time that all the popular eateries are randomly empty, so either resign yourself to a drink at the bar while you stare down slow-eating patrons, or order in. Otherwise you’ll just face disappointment.

Ha – who am I kidding. Catch you at Nandos next Friday ’round 10.

For past entries from the Man Repeller Writers club, click here.