Saturday, July 24, 2010

PS. The Guru Has More!

P.S.  I also stopped by BCBGMaxAzria earlier this week and they are showing a great red with great neutral pieces and devine, buttery bags that are on sale too.  Also long sweater "wraps-with-sleeves" and Missoni-inspired tops - all on sale.

Zara is also showing seersucker jackets (a la Coldwater Creek below) in both grey/white and beige/white combos.  Great 80's inspired Hermes-printy tailored shirts and Repetto-like flats.  LOVE Zara!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

The Good, The Bad and the Really Bad - Guest Blogger The Glam Guru

The Glam Guru is guest-blogging for The Heights Eye this month.  The Eye wants you to know that she is loving summer and agrees with a tequila bar owner's recommendation of Costco's pre-mixed margaritas in a bottle - delicious!

The Glam Guru surveyed the summer goods at many price points at her mega-mall stores and here is the scoop:

  I can personally report that the guys selling the creams made from the Dead Sea in Israel really work - my crow's feet disappear when I use their eye cream.

Forever 21's windows were a sea of pink - the right pink, that pops on everybody and not the wrong pink.

Sears' Lands End department was filled with boring basics.  The Juniors department had some interesting neutrals, but, still that bad peach/pink abounds - stay away!

LUSH always has the best in neck-down skincare and their Flying Fox line is my personal favorite.  I prefer their lotions to Kiehl's, although Kiehl's Creme de la Corps (also available at most Nordstrom's) is a favorite of all New Yorkers and fashionistas from coast to coast.  Both stores are great for gift shopping.

JC Penny buyers continue to surprise as their ana and Worthington lines were on-trend.  Always swing buy their jewelry counters as they have often have great sales on very good costume and silver jewelry.

JCrew disappointed with lots of ruffles and sherbet ice cream colors.   Weird colors, in general.  The tie-dye merchandise was OK and mettalics had their day too.

Ann Taylor was better than JCrew, in the Guru's opinion, but still had slightl 'off' greens and teals.

Note to manufacturers and buyers regarding color:  different isn't always better.

Abercrombie makes my nose itch.

Nordstrom had the best florals and neutrals.  The Guru bought this cashmere scarf during their anniversary sale in a great red-orange (although the link only shows it available online in black?)

Macy's - lots of flowered prints.  More bad, green ruffles (see JCrew).  Juniors was overrun with pink (see Forever 21).  The bridge lines:  DKNY, C Klein, were good.  Their INC line and the Jones NY lines were boring/bad (except INC does have a blue collection that was good).  They are still loving Ralph Lauren and it was a sea of pink too.

Coldwater Creek has a winner in this jacket.  (And it's on sale now!)  Defined waist, great color combo and if you are a style maven, you will love the seersucker fabric (and cut off the rope belt).  In fact most of their jackets give you a waist/define the waist you have.

The Guru asks that you stay strong (ie. stay away from the bad colors/cuts that overrun the racks) and I hope that this store report gives you some ideas of where to shop  (in the malls) if you are adding to your wardrobe this summer!

PS.  Mulberry is the next designer line for Target - comes out in October.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Glamor 'n Judgement and Photoshop Misdirection

There is a substantial reading prerequisite for you, dear readers, in order to fully understand this post.

1 - please read this essay from the NY Times Magazine first.
2 - I think that he's wearing his suit from H&M here (I told you to read the essay first!)
3 - please don't stop reading just because I am admitting that I am not a fan of the movie versions of Sex in the City and yes, I know that there must be something very, very wrong with me because of that fact.
4 - please read the article that I link to in the last line of this post.

When he referenced the ubiquitous-to-all-middle eastern-movie-sets belly dancers, I was reminded of my mom's take on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", which she enjoyed some of....but was concerned that the party scenes reinforced the stereotypes of ouzo drinking, weird-meat-cooking-on-a-spit-in-the-front yard Greeks.  (Mom isn't Greek, but she played one in her marriage to a Greek.)

Personally, the pre-wedding scene with the girls bleaching their moustaches had me internally screaming "Oh my god, that's my mom, me and my sister!!!!"

Moustafa's observation that perhaps his participation in SATC2 had possibly reinforced the stereotypes that he seeks to diminish.

He's right, but he had to control over the director and art director's concept of what is middle eastern....and this isn't 60 Minutes or Charlie Rose.....this is SJP-I-grew-up-listening-to-NPR-my-kids-will-too.....so cultured!

He comes clean and says it was the glamor that drew him in.  Manufactured glamor - photoshopped glamor (have you seen the weird versions of the SATC2 girls on the movie poster??)  I think that the government needs to set some standards on photoshopping because it's out of control in many ways - not just whacking down size 0 models to never-seen-before torso proportions.  I've talked about this before.

It was really the "they go to the grocery store just like us" kind of glamor that US Magazine provides in its front section - yeah I read it in the checkout line.    It's the only way our brain can connect the seemingly fabulous lives the stars live and how we live.

But Adobe Photoshop changed the game.

What you see is not what you get.

This is what Moustafa and all of us are up against.
 

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Elvis Redux

I was only peripherally aware of the neon yellow tshirts that said "Vote For Lee."  When conversing with a true Idol fan I could only say "I don't watch American Idol".  Even when The Girl's soccer team was invited to the "Lee Comes Home" event, and got to sit in the VIP section, I was non-plussed and more concerned about how 2-3 moms were going to chaperone 20 girls in a crowd of 40,000.


I can tell you that I am now plussed.  I am very, very plussed. 



Yes, there was massive pandemonium as we made our way through the crush of people holding their tickets above their heads, trying to get the coveted VIP area wristbands.  The crowd consisted of cougars, cubs and cub-ettes....and chaperones.

The Girl is a cub-ette.  
She did things like this:


The cubs held signs up that said "Lee, make a baby with me!"*

American Idol was filming the crowd with a swinging boom camera, and, of course, they focused on the VIP areas which means some cougars, cubs and cub-ettes  will be on TV tonight.  This chaperone will not....she has bad knees and spent the 3 hour wait mostly sitting down and keeping track of the cub-ettes, who were decorating poster boards, dancing around, writing "heart Lee" on their hands with Sharpies and screaming anytime a) the boom camera swooped down and b) they thought Lee was coming out.

He made his way through the Very VIP section, protected by 6 policemen who made a cocoon for him to walk in.
He was crying as he walked up to the stage.
He tried to compose himself while the Idol producer whispered into his ear and told him where the cameras were.
He was humble.
He was overwhelmed.
40,000 people screaming for him.
The newspaper talked about his troubled past.  How the paint store didn't have a job open when he went there to get one, but they hired him anyway and he was the best at getting stain colors just right and how hard it is to mix 'n match stain.
MTV was filming at the paint store when I went there to get The Girl a VOTE FOR LEE tshirt.
And then he sang.
From the heart.
In between crying and composing.  He sang .
Give him a listen.
Buy his music.
VOTE FOR LEE tonight.
On American Idol.



*FSA  (Future Skanks of America)

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Fino

I watched Broken Embraces yesterday and it, like almost all of Pedro Almodovar's movies, was beautifully acted, art directed and written.  Following up on my "city giddiness" a few weeks ago, I smiled when I got that I-wish-I-was-in-Europe feeling during a scene where a scooter zooms by the characters.

One of my dear friends taught me the phrase "fino" when we were in college.  It means fine, but she and her family used it to mean fine as in cashmere, not mohair.  Sterling, not stainless.

She is Cuban and for those of you who know me and Him, you know of His theory as to his origins etc.  Pretty much everything about our friend is fino and I thought fino when the gravely ill father in the movie shuffles out of the hospital entrance and his suit is topstiched.  That's fino.  The worried mother, outside, waiting for the taxi had on a smart shirt/skirt combo that looked like a dress, with sensible heels, PEARLS (for you, CR).  She is so fino!

Penelope Cruz's character, the daughter, races over to the hospital in a fitted Balanciaga-ish grey suit and sleeps in a Hanro tanktop.  So, so, so, so fino!

The film's palette was the beige, red, black and orange of Joan Miro

I want to go back to Spain...and this movie is in my all-time top 25.

And this movie, The Baader Meinhof Complex, was stunning and it's in my all-time top 10!

OK, now it's time for "church", which, in my family, means CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood.

Happy Mother's Day.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Public Service For My "Lurkers"

I have no idea how many people read this blog....so, since I am a 'lurker' myself, I thought I'd share two articles that I recently emailed to all the women that I have email addresses for.

1 - Latisse
Please read this if you are using or have considered using the lash lengthener Latisse


2 - Estrogen Replacement Therapy

OK ladies....this is a very LONG article, but it is of utmost importance to the women (of a certain age/close to a certain age....like me) that I know.

Estrogen replacement has its pro's and con's (the latter being a concern that it contributes/causes breast/uterine/ovarian cancer)


2 main points:  the article cites that studies are showing that estrogen replacement may be most beneficial to us when were are pre-menopausal/in menopause, but not necessarily beneficial long-term.  Ie. take it for about 10 yrs and then stop.  The greatest benefit to taking it at this time is in maintaining critical tissue connectivity in our brains to stave-off Alzheimer's.

Secondly, lack of estrogen seems to exacerbate depression/cause depression (if you are not already diagnosed).  Even if you are taking anti-depressants, you may need some estrogen replacement as well.

It's worth a conversation with your ob/gyn at your next visit.

(KP:  ob/gyn - not your dentist, podiatrist or other doc that you like to discuss your lady-parts with...an OB/GYN)   ;)


Dear Lurkers:
Please spread the word amongst your girlfriends.

Sincerely,

The Eye

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Of This and Of That

I think my first post touched on the fact that my grandfather was a newspaper man and that he wrote a column for the Decatur (IL) Herald, entitled Of This and Of That.  He was an editor and columnist and when I was the editor of my college newspaper he would send issues back to me marked-up in red pencil. 

I am horrified to find type-o's in my Twitter feeds and I haven't figured out how to delete my tweets (yes, I just typed that god-awful word) when I send them from TweetDeck.  (I can delete the offending tweet and resend a corrected one when I am signed into Twitter, but I'll be covering the topic of signing in shortly.)  And, not only was my grandfather an English major and newspaper editor, my mom is an English major and grammarian on steroids.

I am the weakest link in that chain...


I have ideas for blog posts that roll around in my head and some may not be interesting as an individual post...so I think I'll throw them in an occasional "Of This and Of That" post to get them out of my head.

Topic #1.  Password Rage.

I have it.

It's the anger that I feel when my browser or an application (like Blogger) has saved my login ID and password for me so I never have to type them in.  That's lovely.....most of the time.  It's not so lovely when I'm at another computer and I want to log in.  It's not so great when the application (like Blogger) stops saving it and makes my type it in.

I spent 20+ years working in bank technology.

My password is not my kids' names, my maiden name, my phone number, my house number, His birthday etc.

My passwords kick ass.  They are combinations that Stephen Hawking wouldn't have dreamed up.

BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER THEM WHEN THE 'SAVIORS' FORGET THEM!!!!!!

yeah, yeah, yeah....they are written down.

They are in written form, in a place so secret that I CAN'T REMEMBER WHERE THE HELL IT IS!
And, no, I don't want you to reset my password so I can, yet again, come up with another kick-ass password.

I have Password Rage.

Topic #2  I am a City Girl at heart.

I get giddy when I'm in the city.  I swear that little ditty just flowed out-ta me!!!

I was staying overnight (yippee, overnight in the city!) in the city a few weeks ago and I love staring out of my hotel window and surveying who's doing what or what's what in the buildings across from me.  During this stay I could see lots and lots of sewing rooms, a la Project Runway, with no students but lots of lights on (all night) and machines and dress forms.

I even scoped out where He and I can move or stay when we move away (no retire...) to FL after the kids are gone.  It's going to be the south side of the city.  The new, gentrified south side.  That's the City Girl in me. 

I'm a south side girl at heart.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Show and Tell - Part 2

This post, at Gawker, communicated important thoughts in a most eloquent way:

Is Size Zero Sizing Falling Out of Fashion?
Vanity Sizing vs. PC Sizing



By Maureen O'Connor - Gawker

Instead of casting size 0-2 runway models this fall, Calvin Klein's using comparatively obese size 2-4's. Is this like the time they shifted sizes down so vain average people would feel skinny, and skinny girls would be nothing at all?
Is size zero finally falling out of vogue? And if it is, are we talking about the actual size, in inches (30-22-32 and 33-25-35 inches, Wikipedia tells me) or just the designation of "zero," which is a relatively new concept, anyway (fashion adjudicator of all things mainstream, the Gap, introduced its 0 in the '90s) and coincides with an upward creep in the numbers on the tags of women's clothes in general. (One fashion industry organization estimates that today's size 10 would have worn a 16 in her grandmother's day.)
Calvin Klein was, of course, at the heart of the invention of size zero, which happened some time after their heroin-chic Kate Moss campaigns taught us that the words "lovely" and "bones" go together. If the company's sizing up this week catches on, Calvin Klein will confirm that it's America's most talented inventor of female body trends. If it doesn't, it will just add to the general anxiety over body size. On an individual level, women worry they are too fat. And lately, on a social and industry-wide level, fashion has been worried that its women are too thin. And we all know the easiest way to soothe the anxieties of others: lying.
Besides, maybe size zeros don't want to be zeros. Maybe size zero ladies will stage a revolution of their own? Points out my colleague Brian Moylan, "I always thought 'size 0' was degrading... like these girls are so skinny, they don't even count." Heidi Klum has a similar stance: "A size zero? I've never heard of that. That didn't exist when I was growing up. When did that start? What does it mean? It means a person is not there, no? It makes no sense." [Fashionologie]
(text by Maureen O'Connor - Gawker)
 

By the way, Bill Cunningham's Eggwear images in the April 18, 2010 issue of the NY Times captured the behind of a woman that would look exactly like mine if I wore a midriff shirt with my low-rise jeans.  Major Muffinage!  

Body Image Ahoy!!


Friday, April 16, 2010

Show and Tell

One of the valuable services that gossip blogs provide is to shine a bright light on how Photoshop has affected girls'/women's body image. Real and retouched images side-by-side (so to speak) like this one and this one provide a chance to have an important discussion with The Girl about what is real and what is NOT.

It took me a while to train my brain to remember that the beautiful bodies I see in fashion magazines (not the prepubescent waifs - they border on kiddie-porn IMHO) are not real.  They are retouched way beyond covering up the pimple that even school picture companies can do for you (for a fee).

The September Issue, a docu-movie about producing Vogue's biggest issue in its history, reveals to us that the cover photo of Sienna Miller is constructed out of the head of one shot + the neck from another shot + the teeth from another shot + body from another shot.

Voila!  Woman through collage.

It's not that art =  life.

Life = art.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

My Big Not So Fat Magnolia Tree

We live in a northern climate, and I was surprised that our house had a magnolia tree in the backyard.  I grew up in this same northern climate and had never seen a magnolia tree until we moved south right before I left for college.  Over the years we have observed our tree to get confused by our weather.  It sprouts buds during weird warm spells in November/December and then doesn't have much energy in the spring/summer to blossom properly.

When it does flower

it's very pretty.

But, inevitably, we have a huge thunderstorm, with hail and this is what happens to our blossoms


which is what happened last night and this is the aftermath.


This tree is being set-up to fail.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

V Is For Vitriol

We need a little of this in our water supply.  Some of you have heard me say this when people in my orbit or people that I read about go a little bonkers about an issue.

Unfortunately, the joke's on me because there are drugs in our water supply - just not enough of the right kind to keep us more thoughtful in our discourse.

I am deeply saddened and disgusted that citizens of this planet were spitting on men who risked their lives for the civil rights movement, or are openly gay and serve in the legislature.   I am disgusted by the behavior of these elected officials:


And I couldn't agree more with Maureen Dowd's assessment of Joe Wilson's hateful outburst of "You lie!" (boy) toward President Obama.  A white president would NEVER have had any legislator yell at him.  NEVER.

What the hell is wrong with these people?
Why are they so scared that they use rage to cover their fear?


Why do people scream and shout at libraries and schools to ban books that the screamers have NEVER READ?


Maybe medical marijuana is the answer.

I'm calling the Governator right now.


I'll be back.**

PS.  You know what (you ignorant cowards)?  YOU LIE!


**Extra bonus comment points for knowing that pop culture reference.  I'll even let you scream at me about any issue you're uninformed about.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Unblocking the Blogger's Block

I'm back.
I was unblocked by this.
Now I can't remember what I wanted to say about it.  I do remember wanting to write something about how my local ice cream joint has a Facebook page and I couldn't figure out why....even after looking at the page....I couldn't decide why anyone would really want to visit their page unless there was a coupon/discount code involved.

I am an official Facebook lurker.  I'm on it under an alias thinking that my kids would allow me to link to them without being obviously ID'd as their mom.  The Boy won't have anything to do with me, although I can be a friend to his band's page.  The Girl, 7th grade, cannot be on Face book yet.   It's just another avenue for spineless bullies and the crap texts that she gets periodically from other kids are enough to deal with.  And don't get me started on the 300 (total) students from my high school that are looking for people like me.  I don't want to be found - I'm in touch with the people I care about thank you very much.

Of This and Of That:

 Mrs. O's eyebrows are still bugging me.

And, if you are a RHOC fan, this site is brilliant.  My friend and I were talking about how we'd love to buy a print, but I'm not sure I want to own one forever...but I love the concept and execution.