Tuesday, July 27, 2004
A kiss may be grand, but it won't pay the rental on your humble flat...
...or help you at the Automat.
...or help you at the Automat.
Monday, July 26, 2004
And now for a review
A nice essay on book reviewing from Library Dust. It's written with librarians in mind, and it gives me a few ideas that make me really, really miss being a public librarian.
(Thanks a lot, Jessamyn)
A nice essay on book reviewing from Library Dust. It's written with librarians in mind, and it gives me a few ideas that make me really, really miss being a public librarian.
(Thanks a lot, Jessamyn)
Friday, July 23, 2004
Patriotism, circa 1942
July 1942: United We Stand
A nifty site from the National Museum of American History about the ingenious magazine cover flag campaign of July 1942. Fascinating stuff and gorgeous magazine cover art.
July 1942: United We Stand
A nifty site from the National Museum of American History about the ingenious magazine cover flag campaign of July 1942. Fascinating stuff and gorgeous magazine cover art.
Friday, July 16, 2004
Faster, pussycat, to the library
I want to read every book on this list, even--maybe especially--the ones I've already read.
BookBytes - Books for Young Adults
I want to read every book on this list, even--maybe especially--the ones I've already read.
BookBytes - Books for Young Adults
Reading: a thing of the past?
Literary reading is in steep decline in the U.S., according to an NEA survey.
Literary reading is in steep decline in the U.S., according to an NEA survey.
James Baldwin
Sol Stein, Baldwin's practically lifelong friend and editor, writes about him in Poets&Writers. I love the image of 1930s New York, when anyone could go to any public school they wanted to. I never knew that, and wonder how we went from a system where a determined kid could get a good education in the public schools to one where a few public schools get a lot of money and the rest are left to wither away, while the kids and their parents have very little choice, and those who can afford to send their kids to private school. At least, that's the way it is in my town. And the last one I lived in. Although oddly, not in the one before that, which had plenty of inexpensive private schools, mostly run by religious wackos, that make the high school in Saved! look like Ridgemont High.
Sol Stein, Baldwin's practically lifelong friend and editor, writes about him in Poets&Writers. I love the image of 1930s New York, when anyone could go to any public school they wanted to. I never knew that, and wonder how we went from a system where a determined kid could get a good education in the public schools to one where a few public schools get a lot of money and the rest are left to wither away, while the kids and their parents have very little choice, and those who can afford to send their kids to private school. At least, that's the way it is in my town. And the last one I lived in. Although oddly, not in the one before that, which had plenty of inexpensive private schools, mostly run by religious wackos, that make the high school in Saved! look like Ridgemont High.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Before there was Harry...
10 Books Better Than Harry Potter, from the Teen Writing Guide at About.com. Note that nearly ALL of these, many of which involve young wizards going off to wizard school, predate the Harry Potter books.
10 Books Better Than Harry Potter, from the Teen Writing Guide at About.com. Note that nearly ALL of these, many of which involve young wizards going off to wizard school, predate the Harry Potter books.
Monday, July 05, 2004
Elegance, indeed.
Finished the Tessaro Elegance the other day. I'm not too disappointed, because I wasn't expecting much. The voice is standard chick lit, although it's got a strange twist: the narrator, like the author, grew up in Pittsburgh but lives in London, so goes back and forth rather jarringly between English and American slang and turns of phrase. The characters are standard chick lit, from the down-at-the-heels narrator who makes herself over to the gay male best friend, from the unbelievably hip female best friend to the husband/boyfriend who's so boring he doesn't even have a name. The plot has all the standard chick lit elements, including glitzy jobs where nobody actually does any work, a disastrous house party in the country, and the heroine's complete inability to keep from embarrassing herself in front of the man or men she's trying to impress.
Trust me, you've read this one before. But judging from the number of hits I get on Mme. Dariaux's name, I'm assuming that the book has sparked an interest in her book by the same title, so I will start blogging her again. [I had stopped until I was able to read the novel, in order to avoid looking like I was using someone else's literary device. Since that's ALL it was in the book, I feel no guilt about blogging Genevieve again.]
So here goes, from a random flipping-through of Elegance, by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux.
FINISHING
"The few remaining fashion fanatics get almost as much satisfaction from the inside of a beautifully made garment as from its outer aspect. I can remember how my mother always used to turn a new dress inside out in order to inspect carefully the way in which it was finished."
If you ever buy vintage clothes, you know how different they look on the inside than new ones. I've got a dress from the 40s or 50s with a Neiman-Marcus tag in it--not exactly haute couture, but probably about as close as you could get in the 50s in Dallas. It's purple lace, with a lavendar taffeta underdress. Every seam is finished beautifully. The bodice of the underdress is boned almost invisibly. The zipper is perfect. The overdress is lined with chiffon that is actually stitched in the pattern of the lace. I've had it for nearly 20 years, and it's at least two sizes too big now, but I have to just take it out and admire the construction every once in a while.
However, even this dress doesn't have some of the details Genevieve talks about:
"Among the finishing touches that help to keep a dress in place are an inside grosgrain belt, even in an unfitted dress (although in this case the grosgrain is attached only to the front of the dress), and tiny snap-fastened shoulder-strap holders made from a narrow bias of the same silk as the lining. A low V neckline is guaranteed to plunge smoothly if a small dressmaker's weight is endcased in a length of ribbon and attached inside the point of the V. Wide, deep trapeze necklines will not budge even when you lean forward over a dinner table if a length of elastic is sewn inside each corner of the décolleté, and these two bands are then joined together at the back by hooks and eyes. Finally, the only tried and true way of maintaining in place an off-the-shoulder necline is to sew a short length of elastic inside the top part of the sleeves--uncomfortable to the wearer, but most effective."
Because you see, this is the foundation of Mme. Dariaux's elegance: it's painful. It's a lot of trouble. Dressmaker's weights? Where would you even get something like that? It's not likely to be found in the sewing display at Target. Maybe not even on the notions aisle at Jo-Ann Fabrics (which seems to be the only place to get any kind of sewing supplies in most middle-to-large cities anymore, but that's another rant). Shoulder-strap holders? Why bother? So somebody sees your bra strap--so what?
But her philosophy also holds that elegance is worth the pain and the trouble. I think the narrator of Ms. Tessaro's Elegance missed the point when she used Mme. Dariaux's Elegance to transform herself into a fashionista. She's not really willing to trade in the fashionable for the timeless, to forfeit comfort for elegance. Because of that, the plot gimmick never becomes a plot element.
In a genre of literature that's overrun with stupid gimmicky hooks, this is actually one of the better ones. Too bad there was so little of the attention to detail, so little of the finishing, that Mme. Dariaux was a stickler for.
Finished the Tessaro Elegance the other day. I'm not too disappointed, because I wasn't expecting much. The voice is standard chick lit, although it's got a strange twist: the narrator, like the author, grew up in Pittsburgh but lives in London, so goes back and forth rather jarringly between English and American slang and turns of phrase. The characters are standard chick lit, from the down-at-the-heels narrator who makes herself over to the gay male best friend, from the unbelievably hip female best friend to the husband/boyfriend who's so boring he doesn't even have a name. The plot has all the standard chick lit elements, including glitzy jobs where nobody actually does any work, a disastrous house party in the country, and the heroine's complete inability to keep from embarrassing herself in front of the man or men she's trying to impress.
Trust me, you've read this one before. But judging from the number of hits I get on Mme. Dariaux's name, I'm assuming that the book has sparked an interest in her book by the same title, so I will start blogging her again. [I had stopped until I was able to read the novel, in order to avoid looking like I was using someone else's literary device. Since that's ALL it was in the book, I feel no guilt about blogging Genevieve again.]
So here goes, from a random flipping-through of Elegance, by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux.
FINISHING
"The few remaining fashion fanatics get almost as much satisfaction from the inside of a beautifully made garment as from its outer aspect. I can remember how my mother always used to turn a new dress inside out in order to inspect carefully the way in which it was finished."
If you ever buy vintage clothes, you know how different they look on the inside than new ones. I've got a dress from the 40s or 50s with a Neiman-Marcus tag in it--not exactly haute couture, but probably about as close as you could get in the 50s in Dallas. It's purple lace, with a lavendar taffeta underdress. Every seam is finished beautifully. The bodice of the underdress is boned almost invisibly. The zipper is perfect. The overdress is lined with chiffon that is actually stitched in the pattern of the lace. I've had it for nearly 20 years, and it's at least two sizes too big now, but I have to just take it out and admire the construction every once in a while.
However, even this dress doesn't have some of the details Genevieve talks about:
"Among the finishing touches that help to keep a dress in place are an inside grosgrain belt, even in an unfitted dress (although in this case the grosgrain is attached only to the front of the dress), and tiny snap-fastened shoulder-strap holders made from a narrow bias of the same silk as the lining. A low V neckline is guaranteed to plunge smoothly if a small dressmaker's weight is endcased in a length of ribbon and attached inside the point of the V. Wide, deep trapeze necklines will not budge even when you lean forward over a dinner table if a length of elastic is sewn inside each corner of the décolleté, and these two bands are then joined together at the back by hooks and eyes. Finally, the only tried and true way of maintaining in place an off-the-shoulder necline is to sew a short length of elastic inside the top part of the sleeves--uncomfortable to the wearer, but most effective."
Because you see, this is the foundation of Mme. Dariaux's elegance: it's painful. It's a lot of trouble. Dressmaker's weights? Where would you even get something like that? It's not likely to be found in the sewing display at Target. Maybe not even on the notions aisle at Jo-Ann Fabrics (which seems to be the only place to get any kind of sewing supplies in most middle-to-large cities anymore, but that's another rant). Shoulder-strap holders? Why bother? So somebody sees your bra strap--so what?
But her philosophy also holds that elegance is worth the pain and the trouble. I think the narrator of Ms. Tessaro's Elegance missed the point when she used Mme. Dariaux's Elegance to transform herself into a fashionista. She's not really willing to trade in the fashionable for the timeless, to forfeit comfort for elegance. Because of that, the plot gimmick never becomes a plot element.
In a genre of literature that's overrun with stupid gimmicky hooks, this is actually one of the better ones. Too bad there was so little of the attention to detail, so little of the finishing, that Mme. Dariaux was a stickler for.
Friday, July 02, 2004
If I can make it there...
If you're looking for books about New York, read this excellent three-part exploration of New York literature by Nick Rennison at Bloomsbury.com.
If you're looking for books about New York, read this excellent three-part exploration of New York literature by Nick Rennison at Bloomsbury.com.
Vintage reading
In the mood for a little historical fiction? Here's a guide from the Madison, WI public library that gives author title, setting, and time period. Very nice.
In the mood for a little historical fiction? Here's a guide from the Madison, WI public library that gives author title, setting, and time period. Very nice.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
So many books...
You know the rest.
More summer reading: The Essential Mystery Library, from January Magazine.
You know the rest.
More summer reading: The Essential Mystery Library, from January Magazine.
Just a little summer reading
Enough books to keep you busy till fall: Constant Reader's 2004 Reading Lists.
(BTW, I am finally reading Ms. Tessaro's Elegance, so that I can actually comment on it if I wish. So far, it's mainly just inspiring me to go back and read my copy of Mme. Dariaux's Elegance, but I'll post something when I'm done. I'd like to be able to blog my favorite guide to style again without feeling like I'm accidentally copying someone's novel.)
Enough books to keep you busy till fall: Constant Reader's 2004 Reading Lists.
(BTW, I am finally reading Ms. Tessaro's Elegance, so that I can actually comment on it if I wish. So far, it's mainly just inspiring me to go back and read my copy of Mme. Dariaux's Elegance, but I'll post something when I'm done. I'd like to be able to blog my favorite guide to style again without feeling like I'm accidentally copying someone's novel.)
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