famous tea parties in history (real or fictive).

Mad tea party.

Witches tea party.

Boston tea party.

Vaneska tea party.

Actually, she looks more like Vanessa here.

So deservingly adored.

I would think my teapot's prettiest.

You know it's a rager when the TUMS come out,

yes Carolyn?

It's soo... Gossip Girl! we said,

with the slightest embarrassment.

well, she's all geared up / walkin' down the street

Lately broken news: Danier's not for leather mommies anymore. When did this happen? How? Lucky lucky, I will tell you:


1. Around the time of TIFF, I acquired a pair of reverse mullet leggings: party in the front (i.e. slick, soft leather), business in the back (easy stretch knit). I've worn them once a week since. So have too many other people. Seriously, these freaking leggings are the local fashion mafia's worst-kept secret.

2. Also -- and this is big, since I'm not a bag lady in the least; my last two were bought on U.O. clearance racks -- I found a bag I like. Everyone else likes it too. Even after I'm all, "Whythefuck would I lie about this? It's Danier!"

The other night Paigey texted me and said she saw the bag on a chair at Spoke Club and hoped it meant I was there. Not unfortunately, I wasn't. I'm faintly annoyed that a Spoke Club member has the same widely available black leather handbag as I do, but I'm going to be the bigger girl and get over it.

3. Before fall, I bought a stunning Dynasty-era dress from the Public Butter: black suede, backless, dotted in rhinestones, bold-shouldered and long-sleeved. I shortened it, of course, and wore it once or twice before looking at the label. Then blinking, looking again. DANIER. You can't see this bombshell dress right now -- it's lost to the insatiable gape of my lampless, hellish closet -- so just... believe it.

4. And now, better late than never, Danier's joined the fashion film festival (http://danier.com to watch the winter campaign vid). I won't lie and say I like it -- looks too like an adventure travel commercial for my taste -- but I love how they made Sports Illustrated models (Melissa Baker, Julie Henderson) wear the most possible clothes.

5. Finally! Vote for Eric Tong in the Danier Design Challenge. He is an adorable boy, and his jacket has a buttercream feel & Rick Owens-y appeal.

Alright. Patriotism over. Now I can return to being an unCanadian fashion whore or whatever the local internet is thinking this week.

can i get an age advance?

http://theplaygroundmagazine.com/index.html

The other day, I met a girl who works at a hotel cafe, lived in Arizona, has a huge rip in her wool tights, cuts her own bangs, looks like about five ethnicities, can smile while talking, and in her spare time, paints age-progession portraits of children lost to cancer or other unknowns.

I would think I'd scripted her, but then, I'm not Scott Neustadter.

The girl is real. I want to see her paintings. I asked her if she looks at people and watches their faces morph decades ahead, in moments. She said yes, actually! She sees everyone at age 65. I was scared to ask the next question, but of course I did. She said I would be fine; I don't have a lot of body fat, so not much will sag. But I should exercise, probably, and not smoke. Well. Yeah.

Then I remembered that in Paris, I bought the first issue of Playground Magazine, only because it came out on the day I arrived--or something equally meaningless. And in it, there are two brilliant black-and-whites of this withered, sun-beaten woman. Long long hair, shades, a cigarette. A shrivelling cackle.

Swear to god I looked at these photos and thought, oh my god! Lindsay Lohan? Why didn't they airbrush you?

reality star.

After the fact, what should have been a preface to the Strombo story I did for Weekend Post: I went to j-school with many a girl who had every line of Almost Famous memorized, the complete works of Chuck Klosterman on her bedside table, and a massive, drooling crush on George Stroumboulopoulos.

I wasn't one of them.

Still, I spent almost two hours becoming fascinated, so I'll tell you why.

The alarm on Strombo's cell went off, like I said in the beginning of my little story, and then it went off again, and again. So my voice lowers. I ask fewer questions. I look around more slowly. The producers have markered SLEEP! on his whiteboard. He says it's a joke. But he's seriously fucking tired. He says "people exist in two states: tired and exhausted."

I can only ask, "people?" And he says, "well, professionals." I think, strivers. There are strivers who want to move to New York, and strivers who want to move to LA. Strombo's the latter. He already has an apartment there. Fucking loves it: "All these people on a quest. That's beautiful." I wonder if ambition isn't a bit ugly, though. But he shakes his head. He isn't talking about ambition. Knows nothing of it. Well, of course not.

Because here's a guy, almost 40, always working, never sleeping--and yet I'm not sure he has a job. I mean, yes, he's hosting and playing music and interviewing. (People, even people who don't like him, few as they are, say he's a good interviewer. I'm not sure. He's a good talker -- a really good talker, as those almost two hours would indicate -- and he's a good listener, and it's rare and difficult to be both.)

So Strombo's job is all of those things, but it's none of them, because really it's only this: being himself. Relentlessly, restlessly himself. On air. On the street. On my tape recorder. Dear god. Can you imagine anything harder? A hundred times harder than acting. The person, the personality: one, the same. Strombo is always Strombo. That's what his friends call him, and it's what his fans call him, and strangers, and it's what I'm calling him, and I don't even know why.

I wonder if, when he was drawing pentagrams on his bedroom wall, he imagined this cult of person/ality. I don't wonder it out loud. I know he'd say no, never.

And I know this isn't what George meant me to think, but it's what I left with: this guy never gets tired of himself! How?

what you need, you think will last.

First, I don't remember (or I only think I ever knew) that it's Van Morrison covering Bob Dylan. But then I'm forgiven. He says, "None of the bitches would dance with me when this song came on at high school dances." I say well, one of them will, now. He's always warm. I don't cry. I swear. I don't.

they made me do it.

Don't you ever just get tired of yourself? I forget who asked me this question, which is probably why the answer is: every day. It's fucking exhausting: the making of conversations, of contacts, of (something like) a career? Remembering everyone and everything? Making face, when my inclination's to make faces? Making nice? I can't do it! I snapped and ranted this one time, so now you know. I hardly care who knows it. (Only afraid they'll know I don't care.)

And all the outlets my energy ebbs from. All the feeds I can't properly digest. I don't know if I have taste anymore! I know so much I can't think.

So I needed to make a new face, act a fool, stay up, not think, not have to care. There's no pretension when everyone's in on it. There's no society. I mean: you dress up, and suddenly, strangers recognize you. How amazing is that? How much realer than real? Halloween! I've always loved it, ever since it was withheld from me: my parents thought it pagan, or Satanic, whichever's worse. We went to church instead.

(Carli Mia and me, uh, on the biz)

We descended first into this smokepit of a party. In an old theatre, no one watched the movies. We danced to good rock, bad rock. Same kids, old kids now. After one or two a.m., we had to climb stairs to somewhere lower. It gives you an out-of-body feeling.

"You're not yourself tonight," said more than one. Thank hell. I don't know if I said anything. But no one was pretending to care if I said anything. An easy crowd to feel strange in. And strangely comforted.

Four or something a.m. and I was home alone, scrubbing off my makeup to the bone.

the look for now.

The Felipe-Oliveira Baptista S/S10 lookbook arrived in my inbox today, but it's really only runway images, so I could've blogged this earlier. Ah well. I really like Mr. Baptista's militant sex (better than Balmain) and his loose way with a blazer. Here, it's exaggerated into a long black gown. With heavy ankle boots. A better look for now, I can't imagine.

And the Tippi Hedren headpieces! I want to see them editorialized, shot in a sweeping desert, in bone-rattling wind, the feathered wraith-like models feeding on dead beautiful boy bodies.

Fashion makes one sick. It's true.